Without Me... ?!

Guess who's back 
Back again 
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Tell a friend

Guess who's back, guess who's back.....

Its the season for comebacks.. or so it may seem. First it was Kim Clijsters who, having given up tennis a few years back, suddenly decided that she had the fire in her to have another go at the existing bunch and came storming back to win a US Open and complete a fairytale comeback. And lets not forget that legend of a man, Lance Armstrong. His legacy aside, coming back from retirement and finishing 3rd in the Tour de France is no mean feat, even if you are Lance Armstrong. Then you have the lesser known Dara Torres. Who ? Yes, Dara Torres. A 41-year old mother, she returned to the pool after EIGHT YEARS away to win a silver in the 50m freestyle event in the Olympics. These are not just isolated cases. Remember Michael Jordan and his numerous comebacks ? Then you had George Foreman, Nikki Lauda, Henrik Larsson... the list goes on. 

And so, coming back to where I started.. Guess who's back ?? JUSTINE HENIN... yes you read that right, Justine Henin is BACK !!! After months in the wilderness, my favourite player has decided to stage a comeback a la her compatriot Clijsters. Finally in an era of power-dominated tennis, there will be that elegance and grace of Henin. I'd said it once and I'll say it again... Justine Henin's single handed topspin backhand is absolute poetry... right up there with Federer's passing shot and Zidane's double drag-back. Now the question remains, will she be successful ? I really hope she is ;) .

That brings the question, why do all the champions try to comeback ? What is it that makes all these people want to go at it all over again ? I think its the competition. All champions relish competition. When you've retired from a sport, suddenly you no longer have to work hard, push yourself that extra bit to be better. Come to think of it, ordinary life is rather mundane and you don't really need to sweat it out a lot. You miss that adrenaline rush, that rush of blood that makes you perform out of your skin. You even miss the crowds. But all comebacks do not have a fairytale ending. Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson...there are atleast 10 failed comeback attempts for every successful one.

So heres to Justine Henin. May her comeback be successful...since as Eminem put it in his song

No matter how many fish in the sea 

It'll be so empty, without me ....  

India's heroes

So the other day I have this wallpaper on my desktop, a pic of Bhaichung Bhutia and Sunil Chettri with the Indian tricolour after the Nehru Cup victory, when a friend of mine comes along and asks.. "Which team is this ?". After berating him for the next 20 minutes, I realised that its not just him but a lot of people who don't know most of the country's sportsmen. People know totally arbitrary players in the EPL but they don't know more than a couple of players from our own national team! Now that, in my opinion, is a disgrace. Which brings us to this post...

So maybe you don't know the country's sportsmen (/women).. but there are a few people about whom you SHOULD know. People who are making the country proud on a regular basis in the international arena... The following is a list of people who, in my opinion, have excelled for India in the past few years.

1.  Vijender Singh - Boxing

2.  Saina Nehwal - Badminton

3.  M.C. Mary Kom - Boxing

4.  Pankaj Advani - Billiards and Snooker

5.  Narain Karthikeyan - F1, now A1GP

6.  Abhinav Bindra - shooting

7.  Sushil Kumar - Wrestling

8.  Saurav Ghosal - Squash

9.  Leander Paes - Tennis

10. Mahesh Bhupathi - Tennis 

11. Vishwanathan Anand - Chess

12. Bhaichung Bhutia (actually the entire team) - Football

The amazing thing about the list above is that, if you notice, the last four names would have been on the list even if it were made 10 years ago ! Now that is consistency and and if that does not warrant attention and praise then I do not know what does. The list is not exhaustive and I may have left out a few people by mistake.. comments on the list are welcome. If you notice, a certain sport (played by *9* countries in the world) has not been included.

The House of Wine - MADHUSHALA

एक बरस में, एक बार ही जगती होली की ज्वाला,

एक बार ही लगती बाज़ी, जलती दीपों की माला,

दुनियावालों, किन्तु, किसी दिन आ मदिरालय में देखो,

दिन को होली, रात दिवाली, रोज़ मनाती मधुशाला।।२६।

So before any of you start to wonder why I'm starting off on such a "high" note, let me clarify that the four lines above are an excerpt from the much acclaimed poem, MADHUSHALA by Harivansh Rai Bachchan. The first thing most people asked me when they saw me reading Madhushala was "Dude, are you all right ?"... which if you notice says a lot about how today's generation looks upon reading in Hindi, our national language. When I say generation... I mean the 'educated' people from towns and cities. What a shame !! 

Ok enough of that crap... seriously. Even I have a lot, and I mean A LOT, of trouble reading in Hindi and the only reason I started to read Madhushala was because a friend of mine said it was quite entertaining... and fresh off from reading two back to back comics of Nagraaj (with Super Commando Dhruv), I was feeling quite adventurous and good about myself. 

So back to Madhushala... As I started reading, I found myself totally immersed in the poem and the reading in Hindi ceased to remain a problem. Now on face value anyone can see why it is so entertaining to college students and others.. but if you re read the stanzas, you realise that the poet is not actually promoting alcoholism (though its quite easy to imagine why people would think so) , but the Madhushala (tavern/ house of wine) is used as a metaphor for this world and the poet is actually writing about life using wine as an allegory. 

Madhushala is one of those rare works that achieved both critical acclaim and popularity.. no raised eyebrows there !!! Funnily enough, a lot of people originally frowned upon the poem since it was perceived to be a celebration of liquor. 

Bachchan uses the goblet, the wine, the bar-maid and the tavern regularly in almost each quatrain, each more beautiful than the previous one. Such is the beauty of his composition that today, even after nearly more than three quarters of a century, Madhushala has lost none of its charm and meaningfulness.  The beauty of Madhushala in part lies in the fact that you can interpret the lines whichever way you want... If you look at the bare surface and read it as a tribute to alcoholism, well you'll still find it to be a magnificent and entertaining journey... either way its a beautiful and amazing composition that will leave you spellbound.

If you have heard Madhushala or read it before, you have been as lucky as I have been. And if you have not, please do get hold of a copy of the album. Listening to the composition in the voice of Manna De creates an unbelievable atmosphere. The level of Hindi is slightly higher than Std X levels as you would have guessed by now. But do give yourself up to the joys of this work, the meaning will follow itself!

Go ahead, enjoy this vigorous- and loving- tribute to the goodness of life! (or to alcohol..as you would have it) ;)

P.S.

Harivansh Rai Bachchan mentions in his autobiography that he gained so much notoriety as someone who promotes drinking that he was once summoned to give his side of the explanation to Mahatma Gandhi. Incidentally, he was a teetotaller. 

Wimbledon 2009 - The emotions

What is it about Wimbledon that produces such classics year after year after year ? If last year was about breath taking rallies and ground strokes, this year it was all about the power of the serve. Another epic match which kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Before the match, I almost expected Federer to cruise through... after all, the record suggested that. Roddick has won only 2 of their 20 meetings and none of them ever went to five sets, but sport usually has this way of making a complete mockery of any statistics. Well it was one of those affairs which make you so nervous that you just want to switch over to a different channel just for some relief from the tension but you just can't get your hands to operate the remote control. So you are just sitting there, on the edge of your seat, watching as these two men.. no, more like gladiators... slug it out on that battleground, the cauldron that is the Centre Court in front of Messrs Sampras, Rod Laver, Illi Nastase ..people who have been there, done that.. and you can't help but wonder what drives these two guys on. More than an hour into the fifth set and they still chase down the balls as if their lives depended on it.

In hindsight, there has to be a winner and there has to be a loser. So, ok the Swiss maestro, that artist with the racket, Roger Federer finally won.. his 15th Grand Slam, finally (?) cementing his place as the greatest to grace the sport. But you have to stand back and think... was it fair ? Well, sport, like life is usually unfair.. and thats the bottomline. You have to feel for Andy Roddick, you really do. There is this guy... the massive underdog who comes out and plays the best tennis of his life, whose hard work, detemination and passion put in throughout the past year really shows in the overall improvement in his game. So this guy comes out all guns blazing and takes the first set and has 3 set points in the second which, due credit to Federer, he doesn't take advantage of. You think he is down and out as Federer takes the 3rd set in a tiebreak again but he stands up. Just like all the other times he's been defeated and he has come back, stronger than before. He bounces back again and breaks the Federer serve to take the 4th !! So the better player on the day breaks his opponent twice and outplays his opponent thoughout the majority of the match. You would expect that he'd win... but hey.. life is just not fair is it ? I came across this quotation a few days back :: "Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

Like it or not, Andy Roddick personifies this statement. You cannot help but admire Roddick's guts, his courage. Lesser people would have given up much earlier and many still do give up without much of a fight but here is a man who has always come back stronger than before, has always strived to better himself everytime he comes on to court. So here's to Andy Roddick. Hopefully he'll come back stronger next year and finally add a Wimbledon crown to his cabinet.

Congratulations to Roger Federer on his 15th... but Roger, you've been lucky. Nadal got injured and then you were outplayed in the finals... but you won. Maybe thats what champions do, they win no matter what. But the heart belongs to Roddick, for his grit, his tenacity... Andy, you were the better player on the day, you outplayed Roger Federer of all people !! But hey, sometimes thats life... you end up on the short end.

Another epic, another final to be remembered through the ages. I cried today when Roddick lost... but I'm not ashamed of it. It seemed ironical... is there a lesson to be learnt here ? Does luck always triumph ? Maybe sometimes it does... but when you sacrifice a lot to get to something and you fall just short even when you've given your best, you start to question.. is your best not good enough ? We all face this question sometime in our lives. I've had a lot of tough times, i've felt a lot of pain... but hardly ever have I been moved to tears, but there was something about that moment when I saw the look on Andy Roddick's face when I could not hold back. I've laughed at people crying at the movies, but today it all seemed so desolate.

Anyway... a great match. Hats off to both of the players, tennis is richer because of the epic that they carved into history today.

Another shitty day

• Getting up at 5am
  
• Catching the 6 am train to college
• Running from door to door, department to department in the sweltering sun
• Taking the evening train back home
  

Why you ask ? Well if you are pretty sure that you've done well in a certain subject and you expect a good enough grade, then its quite a shock when the grades come out and you realize that every other guy who can hold a damn pen has got a better grade than you have. So off I go to Kgp in the hope that the man who taught me will be good enough to let me see my endsemester marks. I figure that since I'd got 32 in my midsemesters and ended up with a grade B while guys who got 15, 17, 20 etc ended up two grades better than me, then the only way they could have done so was by getting atleast 25-30 marks more than me, which means they got atleast 50-60 marks more in the endsemesters. Assuming they got 100, I must have got atmot 40 for this travesty to take place, right? But I was expecting 80+ !! 

So there I am, on the train to Kgp... confident that my plight will be heard, and after a consolatory pat on the back, I'd be shown my endsem marks after which hopefully, all will be fine. Everything is fine with the world when I reach the damn place...and to give a better wrap of what took place, here's an excerpt of the conversation that took place between me and the guy entrusted with teaching us basic electronics (yes I got a B in Basic Ec...) ::

me :: Sir can I please see my endsem marks ?

Man :: NO.

me :: But why ?

Man :: Because there are 300 of you students in this course and I won't search for each and every person's paper.

Me :: Not everyone, sir, only mine...Sir I'll search myself.

Man :: NO.

Me :: But Sir its important. I got 32 in my midsem !!

Man :: SO ?

Me :: Sir people who got 15, 17 have got EX, how could I have...

Man :: JUST ACCEPT YOUR GRADE AND GET LOST.

Me :: But...

Man :: What do you want to say?

Me :: Sir...

Man :: NO. You just see your grade and go.

Me :: ...

Man :: GET OUT.

So what I realize is that I'm not going to get to see my marks either because

1. The idiot doesn't want to search for my paper.. (That doesn't sound right, does it? Not the sort of thing you would expect from a teacher, esp one at a premier institution like IIT)
2. Or there is some other reason that he won't tell me about. (Which again sounds too wierd)

Anyway,  so there I am, standing without a clue as to what to do next, and I think to myself," as long as I'm here, why don't I check out my marks in Materials Processing. afterall that grade will be good, I got 47/60 in my midems !!" Off I prance to my department to know my grade, which shall, I hope, give me a lift.... the Prof checks an excel sheet, and he announces my grade..its a ..wait for it...a C !!!! Awesome... just awesome.... went with the flow of the day. Apparently I did so badly in my endsems that I got a C. Now, I'm stuck with a cg just below 8.. and I feel like I've been robbed. 

As a friend of mine said, "abey iit mein aake kya hua hai abhi tak achcha ?? hamesha luck kharab hi hua hai...exam hum achcha dete ahin, grade koi aur le aata hai.. " Now I realize what he meant.. poor guy.

Anyway, well thats the way things are... and heres to the great institution that is IIT and its even greater teachers... CHEERS !!!

Either about grahic novels or about sitcoms or another totally arbitrary post

When almost all of your friends have taken up blogging and are now quite regular at it whereas you, the person who started before them all, have for most part almost abandoned it all, there seems an innate desire to go out there and post something or the other... just for the heck of it... just to show the world that you are still there... Well that's just what brought me to this post.
I look around and think what can I write about ? One guy's already written about girls.. one's written about life in kgp... one's written about all his crushes/flings... one guy has also written about graphic novels !! I ask you, what does that leave me to write about ?
Ok, so am I the only person who get's this psuedo writer's block with more regularity than air strikes in Afghanistan ?? I say pseudo because... well we all know that if I qualify to be called a writer then India qualifies as a football superpower... but then keeping that aside, I mean, whats with me and these totally random topics ?? Why the hell can't I get atleast one, just one decent topic to write about...??
Anyway have you ever wondered how many TV series are just different spin offs from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. ..? Presently watching Scrubs, I can't seem to overlook the similarity between JD and Elliot 's on again off again relationship and Ross and Rachael. And I admit that JD and Turk make a great pair.. so did Jeff and Steve in Coupling... ditto for Ted Barney Marshall from How I Met Your Mother.... but none of them, and I repeat, none of them are even a scratch on Joey and Chandler. I mean these two had AMAZING chemistry.. and even though Jeff and Barney make their shows much better than the rest.. Chandler with his ready sarcasm and Joey with his endearing stupidity are a notch and some more above the rest.
But I digress. Where was I ? Oh thats right.. I was searching for a good topic. Coming to the graphic novels, I must admit that it was the hype surrounding the realease of the movie Watchmen that led me to read the graphic novel.. and let me tell you I never expected it to be half as good as it was. Maybe because I thought it was a comic and didn't expect much but it BLEW ME AWAY. Then I read another, then another and before you know it I was deep into the world of graphic novels and let me tell you, if you think that graphic novels are just mere comics and for kids only, then you cannot be more wrong. I personally found most of the graphic novels that I read to be deep, and many layered... unlike the tripe in paperbacks nowadays served as bestsellers. No disrespect to Messrs Tom Clancy, Jackie Collins and other bestsellers and total disrespect to absolute rubbish like Mills and Boon... I would read graphic novels anyday given the opinion that I formed by reading a select few. It is with a new found respect that I now consider Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman to be amongst my favourite authors right up alongside the likes of PG Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, JRR Tolkien, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie etc. Yes that's the amount of respect I have and I bet you will too if you read the graphic novels that I have read (and really liked) and present below ::

1. V for Vendetta (possibly my favourite, way way way better than the movie)
2. Watchmen (people claim its overhyped.. NO ITS NOT. The movie ending is more plausible than the one in the graphic novel though)
3. Sandman (Some episodes are better than the others but overall awesome)
4. Sin City
   
5. From Hell
6. Batman : The Dark Knight (Sooo dark and Sooo awesome)
7. The Dark Knight Returns (once you've read the dark knight)
8. Persepolis (just beacuse I saw the film first and maybe that's why I liked it more)

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Iron Man, 300 are a few others which inspired movies, but the 8 listed above are my choices for anyone... and I guarantee that anyone who reads the 8 listed above will see graphic novels in a whole new light.. unless ofcourse that person has never read anything beyond Tinkle, in which case, this probably wasn't for you... :D.

The One After the Previous Random One (Not necessarily less random though)

Have you ever felt that annoying feeling when you know that there is something absolutely necessary and important that you just have to do... but just cannot for the life of you remember what it is ?? If you have then you know what I'm talking about. That's the exact same feeling I've been experiencing for the past three to four days. The only problem is that I know exactly what all i have to do... :(

There's the term paper i have to write by next week on a topic that I have no idea about. Come on, Molecular Modelling in Slag Design !! What do you think I am ?? Anywho, then there's the two lab reports and the extreeemely important class test on a subject that I am in danger of not passing because i have no clue what the guy teaches in class... Why can't they dumb it down for us a little ?? So thats a lot of work.. and here I am not doing anything about it. You know, its like a evil circle that you can't get out of. I feel so bad and gutted about the fact that I've done nothing yet that I go ahead and sulk for some more time and hence end up doing... guess what ..NOTHING !!! And now that I've rambled on for some time, I realize I have no idea what I want to write anyway...

Anyways, I've always wondered what possesses people to keep blogs ?? If you need to write and express yourself through it, then why not keep a diary ? If you just want to tell people your views on certain stuff, why not tell the guy next to you or a friend or someone.. why write it online?? Why do I keep posting sh!te sporadically ?? Theres this friend of mine who started to blog after I did but is now head and shouldrs above me in terms of frequency of posting and general advertising his blog... which I give him credit for but still makes me feel almost compelled to post something or the other. Guys help me out on this one.. why blog at all ??

By the way... today our mess was closed so we had to have dinner outside. Now why do I bring this up, you may ask... well a friend and I went to have dinner at a small restaurant called MidTown.  When we returned with our wallets considerably empty, we came across two guys.. one of whom had dinner at our hostel's canteen and another who had dinner in MS canteen... and guess how much it cost them ?? Rs 60 something in our canteen and Rs 100 something in MS !!!! My friend and I had BETTER food at a BETTER place and it cost us only Rs 55 per head !!! HAHA.. Dan, prusty, and others who had food there... IN YOUR FACE !!! IN YOUR FACE !!!

Totally random thoughts... or maybe not

Well, its been 4 months since i last posted anything so this one is probably more out of guilt than anything else. You know, a lot can happen in 4 months... A lot...

Anyway i was wondering what pain actually is... is it the knee you bruised or the hand you broke or is it something totally different ?? I've broken various bones in my body and even had to have an operation once just to set the bones correctly... and I can vividly recall the numbing pain that I experienced when the doctor removed the clamp from my bones without even giving anaesthesia (I've still not forgiven him, x( ... ). But no pain.. no physical pain, in my opinion, can compare to the wierd heavy feeling that persists inside of you when you feel, let's just say, betrayed by someone you trust. 

You know, its funny how a single incident or event can totally change a person and his/her behaviour. How a person can change almost overnight from being friendly and open to all to being cautious about who he considers to be a friend and whom he does not. Supposedly a friend will stand by you through thick and thin... through all the rough stuff, when you need support... 

And when that person fails to be there, thats when you feel betrayed. But then Time, the great healer, is the best medicine and slowly you forget and possibly forgive... actually you dont forget or forgive... you remember... :) and you feel angry...not at that person but at yourself for presuming too much... for letting that person close... for depending on that person... 

Thats when you start to evaluate... who is a good friend ? who is a TRUE friend ?  who is the person you can depend on to be there for you ? And suddenly you realize that you can't be sure of anyone or anything anymore... You re-evaluate your attitude and become more wary of people that you let in to your inner circle...

Maybe, in hindsight, such a setback (if i may call it that) is sometimes required... that sometimes you need to put a blade in fire to make it stronger... but hey whatever... 

I need to see the next episode of scrubs... two and a half men is the best comedy series thats going on now... blah blah blah... I don't really know what to write anymore... blah blah blah more pseudo intellectual crap....