The last day of my life??? Thankfully not

Cant seem to avoid drama, can i? However for once, this could have been true. Let me start from the very beginning.

It was Saturday, the 25^th of august, 2007. Had a decent day in class tho cant remember much about it. Sadly or not so sadly that has become the way I look at class now. Something that has to be attended and endured. The real life starts only post class. And I cant seem to recollect what happened two days ago in class. One reason for that is also that I sleep a lot in lectures. Virtually every lecture. Tho only lecture where it is not allowed is in the maths class which is taken by a prof popularly called BABA. He it seems gives F grade to anyone found sleeping or talking in class. His terror is so great that u can hear a pin drop in his lectures. Unfortunately he teaches us like we r school kids. Saying things like “2 into x equals 2x. any doubt? Have u understood?”

Anyways this is not about my classes. At 4 that evening we had an event called Finrush. It was a treasure hunt organized by Special Interest Group in Finance(SIGFI)(one of 22 committees). U had to solve accounting and economics questions and the reasons would be numbers that would lead you to certain rooms where there were even more questions. So on and so forth till u got to the treasure. Now the reason why I am going into such detail about the event is because I WON THE EVENT. Yes. Actually came first. Finished it before anyone else. And then there was a huge ruckus because some of the questions to other teams(did I mention that I was a part of a team of 3 ppl) were wrongly printed and led them to rooms where there were no questions. But still we did finish it really quickly and I think we would have won the event anyways.

So later that night we decided to celebrate by going for a movie which I have been desperately wanting to watch. The only movie I have watched in a theatre since I have been here is Simpsons and we really wanted to watch any movie and none of us had watched Chak De India. So Chak De India it was to be. We were also feeling a lil rebellious so decided to go for the 10 30 pm show even tho everyone has to be back at the campus by 11pm. That rule is not really enforced so it would not have been a problem anyways. So we started towards the city at 9. 4 of us on 2 bikes. The hopeless thing about roads leading to the city are that there are absolutely no street lights on the road for a large part of the way. I mean they are there but for some reason they are never on.

A little bit of background to help u appreciate the gravity of the situation. We were on 2 bikes. Sandeep was riding an old Pulsar 150cc and I was sitting behind him. Raghu was riding a new Pulsar 200cc and Naveen was sitting behind him. Raghu’s bike being new could not cross 60kmph speed and he did not know the way also. So Sandeep who knows the way and usually goes at a speed of around 80kmph had to go slowly. And the headlights of his bike were barely enough to allow us to see a few feet ahead of us. So we were going all the more slowly, at somewhere arnd 40 kmph. Sandeep was ahead and raghu was behind(as it obviously should have been coz he knew the way). A few kms from the campus, we were going comfortably on the main road(very decent road), when suddenly I saw a huge thing lying in the middle on the road. Because of the darkness and the not so great headlights, we saw it just when it was only a few feet away from us. The “it” was a huge bull lying dead smack in the middle of the road. There was absolutely no time and distance to break, so Sandeep (being an old hat at biking) managed to slow down and turn just enough so that we went over one of its legs. And its hoofs came off as if it was a stick being broken. However, raghu and naveen were very close to us and they could not see why we had turned so suddenly so they just slowed a lil. But not enough to enable them to avoid the bull. Now another strange thing was that someone had placed bricks just before the bull. When we went over the bull, the first thing I did was look behind. And I saw the other bike hitting the bricks and skidding off the road. It did not leave me time to feel sick over having gone over a dead bull. Raghu and naveen fell off the bike and the bike went on ahead and landed on the body of the bull.

We immediately stopped and rushed to them. Thankfully they were not hurt too badly at least from what they said and whatg we could see. The right side of both of them was badly scratched and they bleeding profusely. Now both me and naveen cant ride bikes so Sandeep took raghu on his bike to the nearest hospital which thankfully was only a hundred meters away(a pretty shabby one but who cares). In the meantime I called Bharat and Puneet to come with both their bikes. I also called up Vami or I think she called then. Any which way I wanted to hear her voice which I did. But I am afraid I could not give her a lot of details then which led to her being very tensed for an hour. I know she cursed me a lot for that. Sorry. Bharat and puneet turned up very quickly and we all went to the hospital. Naveen just had superficial cuts but raghu had to take three stitiches on his knee cap to stem the bleeding. And to our surprise there was already one second year student there who had fallen over the same dead bull half an hour ago and was all bandaged. And he had an exam the next day. We were furious over three students getting hurt over one bull and called up the media cell of our institute. They told us to

get pics which I did on my cell but dint use it then.

By then raghu told us that he dropped his gold ring there so I and bharat went back to look for it. And wonde of wonders, street lights had turned on in just that 50 metres stretch of the road where the bull was. We felt so angry at the local body. A few locals then dragged the bull to one side of the road. We could not find the ring so went back after searching for 15 min.

Now, 3 days after the incident, everything is back to normal for me. Naveen nd raghu are still limping. It could have easily been the last day of my life had we been going at Sandeep’s usual speed. But luckily I am safe with not a scratch on me. Unfortunately my friends were not so lucky. Maybe I still am the luckiest person on earth.

P.S. The bull in the photo was lying on the middle of the road. this is the position after it was moved.

LIFE AT L

Life works in mysterious ways. Its been more than a month now that I have been at IIM Lucknow and even though I have wanted to blog or write something almost every night, i haven’t been able to muster the will to do so. Everytime I look at the comp all my desktop shortcuts stare at me invitingly. Important among those are Caesar IV, Quake III, Warcraft III and of course dc++.

The temptation to play these is so huge that it takes all of my will power to just stop playing and start studying, making presentations, writing assignments, doing tasks, blah blah blah. But the biggest irony is that I am writing this at 5 20 in the evening just a day before the final submission of my law project(which btw is on mergers and acquisitions) waiting for my group mates in the computer centre.

Many times since I have been here and especially at night, questions pop into my head which I know have no answers. Like y am I here? What am I achieving out of life? Am I making the best use of this supposedly wonderful opportunity that has been granted to me? Coz since the time I have arrived, two things have been hammered into my head by everyone who has any experience of this place. 1)identify ur focus area. And work on it. 2)don’t rely on curriculum. Go beyond the curriculum. Use the library. Blah blah blah again.

My problem is that I don’t have a focus area coz I don’t know wht is it tht I want to do. Finance, marketing, systems, operations, IT. Absolutely no idea about any of these. I just want to take life as it comes. And secondly me and the library are as compatible as chalk and cheese (never knew how these two are different and still don’t).

Tho I come out of these deep psychoanalytical sessions pretty quickly, it leaves an effect. And there is no escape. I know that. Coz this has been happening to me since a long time. There have been similar thoughts loads of times during engineering but all turned out well. Hoping for the same here.

Now on to better things. Knowing that this is the first time I am posting from here, let me make it cheerful. This place is truly fantastic. A campus that I have always wanted, all the freedom in the world(not that I lacked it at home) and all the facilities that one can reasonably expect. In fact a few are beyond expectations….cooler in the rooms, pretty decent food, cleaning and washing services, my own room, a gym which is well equipped, a great sharing network , etc. I am loving every minute here expect for those above mentioned periods and few brief periods of home sickness and more than a few brief periods where I miss vami. Still that is not so bad coz we stay in touch quite a lot but nothing can beat the actual meeting and roaming arnd. This does not even come close to it. But the fact that it is atleast this much is smoething that I shkd be happy about.

I have found a few good friends. Know quite a lot of ppl in my hostel and my section. Am still pathetic with names and there are 281 students in my batch. Worst is when I forget the name of the person who is going to speak after me in our group presentations and I have to address him as my friend. Already happened twice to me.

The parties here are great if u r an alcoholic, good if u r not. I have had a drink in the first party and since then nothing. In fact I have already built a reputation as a non alcoholic. I usually hang out with 4 other ppl from my hostel all of whom are die hard non vegetarians and one is a non alcoholic. It is good for me as I get to order a special veg pizza all for myslf whenever we order from dominoes(25% discount for IIM students). Haven’t been to the city yet coz of transport issues but now three of those five (the three alcoholics) have got bikes and there r plans to go out after our mid term exams. And the best part is that both me and naveen(the other non alcoholic….IIT Roorkee…pulp and paper engineering….fresher) do not know how to ride a bike. We r going to learn soon so that we both can drive when the others are drunk.

Other than that life is pretty smooth here with all the regular submissions and other things going on. Its definitely more hectic than engineering (anything on this earth would be) but not a problem either. I miss being in Bombay tho. Nothing beats that. I have realized that now (happy vami) and more than that I miss all my friends and the mandir and other sessions that we had. Tho slowly everyone is disappearing and moving on with their lives.

One thing I do know is that wherever we r now, we shall always be friends and very good friends at that. Nothing can now break the bond that we share. Whether we r in us pune bhubaneshwar mysore wherever.

Boy am I going mad. I think it is because I haven’t had a bath since Saturday morning(today is Sunday btw ) and I need to freshen up. One thing I forgot….there r an awful number of insects here of all shapes and sizes but they do not bother me at all. I must have killed more insects in one month than I have in my whole life.

Anyways bye for now. Will write sometime later. Cant promise when but I will.

And I like hearing from all of u guys out there (the only ones who might probably read this blog) so keep writing. And have fun guys. bye

TEAM INDIA – The Enigma

I am one of those millions who ruined a good night’s sleep in anticipation of a good match, a contest closely fought and ultimately a win for India. Alas!!! None of my wishes were fulfilled. Never have I seen such a spineless show by the men in blue. Ummmmmmm on second thoughts I have. In fact I have seen it a few times too many for my liking. Which brings me to what I am trying to answer thru this blog.

No, it is not abt y India lost the match or who played badly or who is at fault or what should be done next. In fact it is not abt cricket at all. It is abt me and my relationship with Indian cricket.

The two most enigmatic teams in the world today are India and Pakistan. For two entirely different reasons. Pakistan because it is the most unpredictable bunch of cricketers ever to have walked the earth. Brilliant one day terrible the next. But amazing and fun to watch.

India because of me. Because I fail to understand myself. Why is it that I am disappointed every time they play to their abilities…….and hence lose( I think I am being too cynical here but what the heck we r out of the world cup. A little bit of cynicism never hurt anybody). And more importantly why do I always hope that the next time around they will put up a better show. I really do believe in the saying “never repeat the same mistake twice”. But still when it comes to cricket I start watching every match with the hope of seeing our team win. Guess it is natural to feel so but after soooooo many failures I still hope of their winning the next match(god alone knows when that will be now)

I guess one possible reason is that being very interested in sports both as a player and a spectator, I really want to see India do well in sports. And given the condition in other fields I believe and everyone wud agree that our best chance of doing well in international sport still lies in cricket. And so every time the Indian team steps on the field I find myself cheering for India and hoping for a win. Coz it is a lil more than a lil embarrassing to see a country of countless millions being beaten time and again by countries with only a few hundreds of ppl.

Coming back to cricket……and my relationship with it…….i want to do something to lessen the effect that it has on me. Coz it does have a lot. I find myself happy after a win and sad after a defeat so much so that it mars all desire to do anything else but sit and brood as if I have flunked some exam. At least I am better than other ppl who go around burning those poor players’ homes. Coz I do agree with most ppl when they say that however bad they play, burning homes is not a punishment for incompetence. There is a very distinct difference between incompetence and breach of trust.

Anyways incompetent or not is not the point of this post. And I still haven’t found answers to my questions. One good thing I have decided to do this time around is to not read any sports pages or news channels for a few days. No more angry fans or technical stuff abt what they did wrong or where their left shoulder didn’t align with third man and so on. I know all of that and they know all of that and it is not going to make an iota of difference to anyone. So spare me all those after effects and let me get on with life as if it was just another game. After all it is just another game. Only problem it is much more than just a game. And I am constantly striving and hoping that it becomes just another game for me and for the rest of India and the world. And when that happens it might be surprising how team India suddenly starts performing better. Just wishing of course. Bye

Siddharth

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Hi all of u…..the very statement brings a smile to my face. Coz I know there is no one there and still I am going to write it. Do that every time. Don’t know y. again brings a smile to my face. Coz the faithful reader(apart from me) will realize that there r a lot of don’t know y’s in all of my posts. There really is a lot I don’t know abt. But that is where I get confused. Is it really important to know a lot? Or have an opinion on every single thing on earth???? I know some ppl who do. I know I don’t. Does it matter???? Again I don’t know. And again I am trying to find out. Amazingly vicious circle isn’t it?

Anyways as always I am drifting from the target. Which is to write something. Coz its been so long since I last wrote that I have even forgotten how my blog looks. So my target is to write something. Which I am doing. So that means I am not drifting from the topic. Wow……I sure am one hell of a confusing writer.

So let me try and find something to write about. Ill start with good things coz its good to start with good things. So ill put in my CAT scorecard. Coz I like the way it reads.

NAME OF THE CANDIDATE		SHAH SIDHDHARTH BHARAT
14,MAHAVIR KIRAN 25,GARODIA NAGAR,GHATKOPAR MUMBAI 400077				TEST REGISTRATION NO.		DATE OF TEST
				4610673		November 19, 2006
(SECTION-1) LOGIC & DATA INTERPRETATION		(SECTION-2) VERBAL		(SECTION-3) QUANTITATIVE		TOTAL
% SCORE	PERCENTILE	% SCORE	PERCENTILE	% SCORE	PERCENTILE	% SCORE	PERCENTILE
54.00	98.80	22.00	92.96	79.35	99.86	51.78	99.83

There u go. Feels good to read na. but there is a but here also. Good as it may seem it is not enough to get me into the top 3 IIM’s. now whether that is good or not only time will tell. But in accordance with my two strongest beliefs which are a)nothing can ever go wrong with me. So everything that happens is for good and b)I am the luckiest person on earth, I have stopped thinking abt this and am waiting for life to take its own turn. Wish me luck all of u.

Now let me think of any other good things……..yeah my goa trip. An amazing trip. Finally I went to goa and did what everyone does when they go to goa. Lots of sun and sand and a little bit of drinking(if u ask ppl with me they will say it was a little too much but I still say that I was not drunk). This is not to say that I dint have fun the last time I was there. That was also a huge lot of fun but of a different kind. Missed vami a lot there. But I have plans to go back when I have a little more money.

And of course before that comes my darling’s bday. How can I forget that!!!! Lots of firsts in there. I dint get to stay over at her place. So desperately wanted to. Dint gift her anything. Had my first ever drink(though dint taste any different from sprite coz of the excess quantity of sprite). Met her coll friends properly for the first time including a rumored competitor. See I told u there were a lot of firsts. So a very memorable bday.

One more thing. Dance. Unbelievable but true……I am dancing…..for my sis wedding. And dancing well according to my choreographer. And enjoying it too. All those who don’t believe me should ask for a copy of the cd which will be out in feb.

Enough of reporting. Now on to more deeper and profound topics (meaning more nonsense). Like my project for instance. Nothing can be deeper and more profound than that. It is such an ambitious project that I can’t even dream of completing it. It is only at the design stage and every instinct in me is shouting out loud that that is where it is going to remain. For ever and ever and ever. Suits me just fine. Hope it suits my guide as well.

As is the case with everyone even I will look back at 2006. And as I do that I realize that I can’t. There are no memories. Or I don’t want any. Or my brain refuses to acknowledge their presence. Oh there are lots of them and they will come tumbling out in some reunion if we have them. But I am not able to reflect on them and decide whether what I did in 2006 is good or bad……whether it needs changes or not. I am just not that kind of person. I don’t know what kind of person I am. Again I don’t know.

There r lots of things that I want to write abt. Only if I cud think of them. I had them all in mind before I started writing but now they have been driven out. I wanted to write a review on the latest book on VHDL to hit the market. Not hit the market. Theres still time before that happens. But there is a new book in the making. And the author is…………………..hold ur breath……………………….. Mr. Anush Moorthy.

Now before I write the review I want to know y the hell he started writing a book on VHDL, y VHDL of all things on earth. He should have asked me. I wud have given him lots of other topics. Mainly fiction. He should have asked Ronnie. He wud have given him even more topics to write on. Mainly sex. But VHDL?????? Beats me. Maybe there is a hidden thing here if only I can find it. Anyways the review. And I am qualified to review it coz I have read all that he has written. ALL that he has written. And it is good. Nice style of writing. But then I always liked his style. So maybe this is biased. Make ur own judgement. Go to www.anushn.blogspot.com. U will find a link to his book. C anush I have already made u famous. Nicely written book unlike any other book u will ever see. With more than just a touch of humor which MU engineers will find in most techmax books. Infect what I liked abt it was that it was fun to read. Though I can’t comment on how easy it is to learn VHDL from there coz I already know it and so it is fun for me. But a very commendable effort and will only get better as the book progresses. Good going anush

Anyways that’s all for now. Coz I am having difficulty raking up topics to write on. Next time onwards I am going to start writing in a book whenever I feel like and then copy paste them on to this blog. That way it will be much more natural. Bye for now.