Glory Glory!!

They say, Its just a game. Winning and losing is a part of it. But for me, its a passion. Probably, second only to music. I dont care how, but I just want them to win. If they lose, I get pissed. If they win, I sing praises about them. They are the Best in football like what millions of my fellow Red Devils think. They are Manchester United. I started following the English Premier League when I was in 10th standard(2001-02 season). The game was Manchester United vs Tottenham Hotspurs. At halftime United were trailing 3-0 and I wondered, " WHy the hell o
these guys have so many fans? They have sucked bigtime in the first half." My answer was the second half. Manchester United scored 5 goals and obviously won the match, 5-3. ANd that day, a new Red Devil was born and he is yours truly.

And later, I found out that they were the same team who were trailing 1-0 in the injury time of the UEFA Champions' League final and went on to win the game 2-1 in injury time itself. Which other team has shown this much belief in such a bg match, at such a time? I dont think I can find any. This is the only team, whom after being 12 points behind in the title race with 4 matches to go will still have the belief that they can win the league. When everything seems lost, they pick up the pieces and pull off a miracle.

How many teams have been so successful in recent memory? How many teams can boast of home grown legends as this team can? All those teams bought superstars from other clubs after they attained stardom. We said, "F*ck buying stars, Lets make our own!" When many teams bought players to BUY them trophies, we just sat back, relaxed, took it easy and still won trophies!

This is a team, I ll support to the very end. It doesnt matter if their quality deteriorates. It doesnt matter if they dont win any trophies. Because I m sure somewhere down the line, they ll prove their greatness once again. I dont want to be like a lot of football fans who started supporting some team just because a lotta money and the so called SUPERSTARS came pouring in faster than Oil coming out of an oil well. Because I m sure that Manchester United will provide me with quality football. A brand of football which is attractive and is surely worth watching even if they are trailing 4-0. A brand of football which can make even such a heavy deficit seem conquerable with 10 minutes to go!

To wind up, here is some praise for the Red Devils :

Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
As the reds go marching on on on!

Just like the busby babes in days gone by,
We’ll keep the red flags flying high,
Your gonna see us all from far and wide,
Your gonna hear the masses sing with pride.

United, Man united,
We’re the boys in red and we're on our way to Wembley!

Wembley, Wembley,
We're the famous Man united and we're going to Wembley,
Wembley, Wembley,
We're the famous Man united and we're going to Wembley

In Seventy-Seven it was Docherty
Atkinson will make it Eighty-Three
And everyone will no just who we are,
They'll be singing que sera sera

United, Man united,
We’re the boys in red and we're on our way to Wembley!

Wembley, Wembley,
We're the famous Man united and we're going to Wembley,
Wembley, Wembley,
We're the famous Man united and we're going to Wembley

Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
As the reds go marching on on on!

Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
As the reds go marching on on on!

Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
Glory glory Man united,
As the reds go marching on on on!

Far Vision

Finally, an olympic Gold for India!! And the cliched " Expectations of a Billion Fulfilled " was flashed across almost all news channels. Some channels even cancelled there scheduled programmes and features about the ne Shooting Champion aired instead.

We all saw how calm and composed the champ was even though he had done something no other Indian Sportsperson had done in an individual event. When the whole nation was basking in the euphoria, only one place was as calm and cold as if nothing had happened. The place or rather the channel was Doordarshan Sports. With my little knowledge of hindi, I think Door means Far or Long and Darshan means Seeing or sight.

This is especially true for the channel. They showed the award ceremony and also, the Finals of that event, which thankfully happened when the air time was scheduled for that very event. Had it been delayed by a few minutes, we would ve seen Fencing or Judo or even a game of Handball happening between Country X and Country Y, whose locations wouldnt be known to even a small fraction of the viewers. But when it was expected to air something related to the Guy or atleast, more of some live action from the Olympics, especially with DD being the sole channel to broadcast the event across India, the good Old Doordarshan came to the fore. The Highlights of the previous day were aired at that time. It certainly would not have been a sin to take a break from the Scheduled programme and air another programme, especially since an event of such magnitude had taken place.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Whenever a Live event is being shown, they would suddenly cut short the broadcast to bring us an UPDATE, only that the update would be about the medal tally and positions of a day before! In case they didnt know, there's something called a Ticker which even a Music channel like MTV uses these days to bring in latest gossips in the film industry. Its all about talk, talk and more talk in the supposed LIVE AND EXCLUSIVE coverage of the Games. Of course, such non sensical talk is exclusive to DD. THey distort factsand are most of the time ignorant even about the country from which a particular sportsperson may hail. Thus, Michael Phelps may suddenly find himself to be an Australian citizen while Lionel Messi will become Brazilian, atleast for a fraction of a second!

I believe that the DD guys are still in the past. And they ve named it aptly, Door Darshan, The "Door" as in distance is the DISTANT past. The sets look ordinary, there is no modern technology to provide uninterrupted coverage of any event.

I think DD should be included in the UNESCO World Heritage list. Because the technology is so old that within the next 5-10 years, these guys would be the only ones using it and should be preserved for the future generations to see how they aired TV programmes in the 20th century.

F00t Ball

Playing FIFA on PC is one of my favorite pastimes. There have been numerous improvements from FIFA 97 to FIFA 08. The latest one being in the Manager Mode. From 07 onwards, the Manager Mode, meant 15 seasons as Manager of any football club, where one needed to grow up through the ranks to become a Top manager or in this game's case, a 10 rating. We can start with any team of our choice. But If we decide to switch clubs in between, then only one among those which suits the manager's current rating may be taken. Its an interesting mode to take up. Especially because we need to plan the future of the club as well as our own. The players, who are young grow and develop new skills, while the old guard need to work hard to keep their fitness levels up and their form also declines as time moves on. While I was playing, Rooney started with a 92 rating, went on till 9 and then his stats receded to 93 when he finally hung up his boots!

Also, there is a youth academy associated with the club from where we can include prodigious talent into the squad. They grow quickly and can become superstars as well.

As I was playing, I thought about the fate of Indian football and on the whole, Indian Sports. Is it that we lack in talent. I know, so much has been said and written about it. But, this is something that I ve been wanting to write for a long time now. Indian Football.

Have you ever tried switching between channels, one showing, say, Birm,ingham City vs Derby County and anotehr showing East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan. The difference is there to see. The first match is between two teams battling for relegation in the English Premier League, while the latter is between two teams enjoying positions at the top of the table. I m sounding too much like the commentator on FIFA...lolz...Seriously, the contrast is there to be seen. We see TOP quality football in the first case while all we can see is DULL football being played on a Duller looking pitch in the second case. Most of us would ve seen how the Europeans and Brazilians and of course, the top Asian teams play their football. Lets analyse how football is played in India.

It looks like a 'clear the ball from the back', 'shoot if 20 m away from goal' kinda game. No coordination. No creativity. In one of very few matches I saw because of being totally jobless, the same pattern was followed and the goal came off a goalkeeping error or shall we blame the uneven bounce on the pitch for it? The way the ball is cleared is also funny. There would be absolutely no trace of an opponent trying to latch onto to a lapse of concentration from the defender. Still, the defender would jump, and shoot the ball after "Running in the Air" and more often than not, the ball would end up within his own half though he would ve cleared the ball from outside the shooting zone of the oppisition.

I envy the goalkeeper though. He gets paid for just standing there, collect the ball if it goes inside the goal and give it back to the strikers for restart. During corners and free kicks, all he does is walk from one end of the goal post to the other. Once in a while, he may just stick out his hand and the ball will be deflected from the path it was taking towards the striker. Even if it went to the striker, there would ve been no harm to the scoreline. THe strikers have been trained to shoot for the moon. I wonder, whether the goalkeeper have ever used their 'Foot' to move the ball. The goal kicks are taken by one of the defenders and once, believe it or not, a striker came running all the way from the otehr half to take the goal kick!

And finally, the part of the team considered most important for a team's style of play ( did I mention STYLE? ), the midfield. If by any chance, the ball comes to them, they would try a few passes and the ball may go to their counterparts, if it doesnt, they take it to the wings and then try to do tricks and get the first touch itself so heavy that, the ball goes out for a goal kick. If they do get the trick right by luck, they will pass it to the opposition defense and the 'clear and shoot' game will continue.

And this is not a school team or a bunch of kids playing together for the first time on the streets. This is the way professional soccer is played in India.

Such is the sad state of Indian Football! Its not about the talent, Its about the way the game is run in the country. There is no money in the game. And to top it off, Corrupt Officials who care only about their pockets. What is a guy who may not have even kicked a ball at school doing as the AIFF President? Why is such a hue and cry raised when the current Indian coach asked the international players to be excluded from local tourneys? He was just trying to protect the players from fatigue before an international fixture. And finally, when they do lose by a huge margin, they sack the coach. Drop a few players and the pattern repeats all over.

I havent done anything for the sport in the country. I dont think its fair to blame each other for the present scenario. I hope that by 2050, India would ve moved into the top 100 in FIFA world Rankings. Till then, I ll live my life as a Virtual Manager during those free times on FIFA and build my team and play the beautiful game, the way I always liked.

Hang on, I think, PCs installed with FIFA should be supplied to players and coaches in Indian football. Let them learn a few tactics from the AI and maybe, that ll change the way teams approach a game, instead of the 'clear and shoot' game!

State Festival

A festival that has been celebrated 25 times in a month? Not some person's birthdate gotten all wrong. Its the HARTAL. Yes 25 of them held at various places in the state for a variety of reasons.

Earlier, the term as used in the state only for such happenings as a closure of shops in some area as a mark of respect for somebody's demise. But, the word got a new meaning when the High Court decided to put an end to the so called Bandhs which were happening in the state more frequently than cases piling up for disposal in the court. THey happen for a variety of reasons. Ranging from somebody's death to national issue like crude oil prises and believe it or not, to protest the visit of the US presidents and other international leaders. What is wrong if someone visits the country?

And all this is supposed to be to protest against the atrocities being committed by the govt towards the people. Well, to make life difficult for people by preventing them from leading normal lives by the so called Hartal Suporters is an atrocity in itself. People here expect hartals to be declared anytime. So much so that they stock up commodities like milk, grocery and other essentials for a couple of days in advance.

Forget Hartals. The marches in the city are even worse. Every day, some association or the otehr would hold a march. The result? Traffic is diverted through roads narrower than those footpaths. ANd from where do these marchers gather enough people? They dont have to look beyond the Govt schools. Kids clad in uniform are there for the marches, no matter which party or union is holding it. As the great men say, "our future is really in their hands". Seriously, if they go mad, we ll be at the receiving end of their stone pelting and in extreme cases, country bombs.

The offices can certainly do one thing. Ask people to work from their homes and pay their internet bills. And make the helicopters chepaer. Is Tata Listening? Oh wait a minute, the way the no. of hartals are increasing, we may see the protestors blocking the aeroplanes as well!

End of an Era

It was a long time back that yours truly wrote a NEGATIVE FLASHBACK of the college life. That was just a different point of view to the conventional one taken when someone looks back at one of his/her most memorable days. I have my nostalgic moments too. The last few days have been real tough.
The very thought of leaving this place makes me feel sad. Its almost similar to leaving your HOME. FOREVER.
"I'll always remember". A topic with a similar name was created by a friend of mine in our Orkut community.
I guess this is an ideal place to list all the things that I would never want to forget. Well, it sounds quite contradictory right?? I m telling that " I'll ALWAYS REMEMBER " and yet, I m writing it down here. I would like to let others know too about the wonderful times I had here.
Each day was a new experience. First and foremost, I ll always remember the day when I stepped into the campus. A million expectations from the campus. Though some of them ( read many :P ) were not fulfilled, so many others were.
The very first working day had a blooper. I stepped into a classroom where a lecture for the senior batch was supposed to take place. I d missed taking down the timings of class! The same day, the walk back to the hostel during the lunch break was made tough by the seniors ho watched each step and wanted us to greet them! At that time, it was quite difficult, but soon, e learnt to get over it.
The second thing I ll always rememebr is the RAGGING. Though very mild, I definitely enjoyed the sessions. Being made to dance, sing, act and what not!
The first train journey back home, the ragging sessions during that journey, the body building contest in the train. ( yours truly won that event for posing like a tr00 bodybuilder...lolz ). And of course, each trip back to college and the countdowns for each vacation. All of them seems to have gone past in a blur.
I ll always remember the good times in the hostel. It was amazing to spend time with all the guys. The kind of fun we had. There have been times when I was the butt of the joke, but then, there were other times when I had the chance to take revenge as well :D.

Its been a very amazing ride. I ve missed a lot of stuff which probably deserved a better mention here. I would love to make use of this post to thank all the people who were instrumental in giving me a memorable time in here. To all the people ho changed me from a shy, good for nothing guy to a loud mouth, good for nothing guy :D I m not going into a long list of Thank You and I dont want to miss amy particular person.

THANK YOU ALL FOR MAKING ME FEEL AT HOME!

A -ve Flashback

Its the final semester in college. Just  a little under 90 days to go for the course to get completed and the Bachelor of Engg tag to be bestowed upon half a thousand of qualified ( are they really?? ) engineers who have completed their courses. Its that time of the year hen everyone in the above mentioned category take a look at the things that have happened all through their 4 years or more in their college life and try to take back with them, the fond memories. Everyone getting filled with nostalgia.

But, hold on a second, was it that great? I think it as pretty great with all the friends and the amazing times we had after classes and in the hostels. The parties we had, the picnics we undertook, the events we organised, the events we participated.....all had its share of fun. Not to mention getting that one thing that evaded millions of Indians, Jobs. But that's were it all ends. I would like to take a look at all the bad things, if not all, atleast some of them that happened and are the bane of this institute, which quite incredibly, was voted 9th best tech institute in the country by a poll. So, here goes my -ve flashback.

It all started 3 n a half years back, July 12-13, 2004 when yours truly went for the counselling an took admission in this college, based on its reputation as one of India's finest technical educational institutions. How excited was I at the prospect of being among the best in the country. To be frank, I still wonder, how all these guys' brains work so efficiently. Let me get back to the point.  So, it was decided. BIT MESRA it shall be.  The train journey itself gave me nightmares and still gives me a few. I ve written a seperate post on the train. Finally, we landed in Ranchi. 
The city was nowhere close to the ones I d been to. This place sucked, 
so to speak.
I thought, that only the city sucked. The campus could still be awesome. That proved wrong. The registration got over. My parents left. Homesickness was at its peak on the first few days. Slowly, that moved away.

The first of those experiences were during the registration itself. Never knew that people coul be so insincere to their work. All the staff were taking an extended lunch break. One and a half hours to eat lunch? Did they include the time for afternoon nap too in that? Then the rudeness of the staff. They were barking at even the slightest mistakes, like a small swap in the arrangement of the documents. How could these people have been recruited? Well, this was a small does of things to come. Sample vedikkettu ( fireworks display ) as they say back in my place.

Then came the unenviable task of opening a bank account in UCO bank. I havent seen a worser staff in a bank. My dad always goes about criticising the way Canara Bank, where my mom works. But this stood way above the rest. Unpolite staff with an even more unnpolite manager! The account opening took a lot of time. Thankfully, they didnt say that they cannot
 handle more than 20 acocunt openings in a day as it would mean eating up into their leisure time (read working hours).
This was not the end of the story with the bank. I ve had to wait for 2 n a half hours before my transaction was completed. This, on  day when there was very little rush.
But, the way all good things come to an end, so do the bad things. I d managed to top Comp Sci in school and the award was Rs 500 and an account in SBI. So I got my ATM card and thus, it was the end of the story with the bank. Well, not exactly, coz my account still exists ( or does it ) with a minimum balance. I ll close it someday and just like my friend did, write a letter to the manager and throw it in his face.

The faculty was nothing to boast about as we, atleast I, were to soon find out. 
No prof ( even the junior lecturers add that tag to their name!),
could speak English properly, except for a few young gentlemen who had the fortune of having quality English medium education. As for their academic abilities. I wonder how any instituion could bestow these degrees upon some of them. There are of course exceptions. A few brilliant teachers strewn here and there. But the overall quality was pretty poor. Some of them have the brains to prove that the Dimensions of current = that of voltage, and that too, at a national seminar! Some of them defied the laws of physics with their derivations. Others, were too busy finishing the course that they didnt even care whether the students were understanding anything. There were teachers ho would just turn up to take attendance and leave. 
Well, I wont blame that lot. They are atleast indirectly
admitting that they dont know much. Atleast, they were not boring us. Then , there was this unique class of teachers. Ask them doubts and they ll leave you even more confused!

The administrators were the worst. Worse than those politicians. All corrupt and didnt give a heck about the student's welfare. The Dean student welfare was held by 3 different persons in these 3 n half years.  Different, only in appearance. All of them had only one agenda in their minds : "How to put the students through torture". They did that in every possible way. 
Imposing exorbitant fines for least of students faults.
Not providing us with adequate freedom, it is worse than a prison. During the cultural fest, a "Professor" abused a final year guy badly, 
abusing him by his mother. 
Even though, the students were in protest at midnight, nothing was done. That guy went unpunished. An apology was the least he should have done. Even that didnt happen. What are we? Some kind of inferior creatures?

Now, no writing about this institution can be complete without a mention of MESS FOOD. When the food gets slightly better, the standard of service deteriorates and when the standard of service finally does get better, the mess management changes. This continues till date. The new hostels which were constructed have 
private caterers taking care of the mess.
Our Juniors are a trifle luckier than we are/were. And finally, when all these issues were settled, the system of No extras came into effect.
Previously, we could opt for some of the extra dished served, and the amount would be added to the mess. Now, there was a system of general bill. THe mess menu was standardised and a guy, no matter he ate the "delicacy" for the day or not, he had to pay for it. Thus, for a guy, whose mess bill used to be around Rs800 now shelled out Rs1500-1700 per month on stuff he disliked. Also, for demand dinner days where meat or paneer would be served, coupons had to be taken for the same,
atleast by afternoon of that day. This meant that we have to foresee our future and predict whether we will be fit to eat those. These coupons could be used only on that particualr day. It could not be carried forward to another day. I have been a victim of this on a couple of occasions. I take the coupon in the afternoon, but the very food from the mess
puts me off for the night. That in my opinion was the worst that could happen. Helplessly watching 20-30 bucks disappearing into thin air, for no fault of yours. Actually, theres a fault that we did. 
Eat from the mess!

Enough has been written for now. There are a few more issues like Powa, or getting things done through contacts at the apex, the sad net connection, pathetic cultural fests and you name it, we got a problem there! If I Go on writing about all this, I can write a book on it and as my friend jokingly remarked, it can give Chetan Bhagat, a run for his money :P This is a BITian's true viewpoint of the institute. He may say that the institution rocks and all the stuff. 
This is REALITY and reality is always very very BITTER.

A Day to Remember

It was a Wednesday like all other Wednesdays so far this semester. Classes from 8 am till 12.10 pm and then the rest of the day, no classes. I decided to take my guitar, which was beginning to hurt my fingers while playing because of the strings going too high, for repair to town. For company, I called one of my friends. I met another friend of mine on the bus and we decided to go togetehr and complete our tasks and return. The bus took a little longer than usual to reach town, caused mainly by a rally or party meeting which was called by a locl political party. This being our college, the buses wouldn't have plied, if the issue was a little serious. So, the bus took us finally to town. I showed my guitar at one place, where they gave it back to me saying that there was absolutely no fault with it! I definitely knew that something was wrong, as it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to hold the strings when playing and here is this guy who gave it back to me telling that there was no fault!.
I gave it in an adjacent shop and its gonna take them a week probably to get it back in shape. The bridge ( the long portion of the guitar for the uninitiated ) was slightly bent and they would have to do a lot of stuff it seems. It remains to be seen how much work was needed for this.

We decided to have lunch and went to a chinese restaurant. We had food and then, this friend of mine wanted to get a new pair of shoes. We went to all the footwear showrooms in that part of the town and finally, he decided to get a pair.

We had some more time before the scheduled time for the bus and so, we decided to have a cuppa at Cafe Coffee Day. Finally, it was time to move on. The shopping didnt end there. We did a bit of window shopping before heading for the place from where we needed to catch the bus.

We waited n waited n waited for the 6 pm bus to come, which never did. A guy from our batch brought this great news that all the buses after 4 pm had been cancelled due to a traffic jam on the highway.

We then took an autorickshaw. That took us around the city through a lot of bylanes before they also started getting jammed.  Add to this the Rickshaw Driver's blabbering about his vehicle running out of fuel. The trip was totally irritating.

Finally, we decided to walk all the way till the road was cleared. But that was a herculean task. We needed to walk atleast 3 km before such a situation could happen, atleast in the best case. We started walking. We walked n walked n walked. The place where we had supposed that the road would  get a little clear came. We asked a few guys in a jeep whether they ca give us a lift till the main junction near our college. They agreed and we boarded it. That was to be shortlived as the jeep gtot stuck in another jam. We got down from the jeep and started walking again.

The Murphy's Law cannot have a better proof! As soon as we got down from the jeep and started walking, the jam got cleared and the vehicles strted moving smoothly. Then, it was another long walk till the junction.

There was one auto rickshaw parked out there. We hired that and reached the college gate at 9 55pm, 5 mins before the gate closes.

As soon as we reached, we went straight to a shop and got a packet of potato wafers and a soft drink. That was the dinner for the night.

Some bad news was in store however. 2 of my friends had fallen ill that day.

There couldnt have been a worser day. Of all days, the supposedly " Cool Wednesday "