A New Beginning !

Hello folks ,

Its been a long time since i last blogged and its nice to be back . First things first , Congratulations to all my fellow Engineers , I know its been hard , those four years and all of you deserve the much needed break though most of you would have started work in India or flown to different parts of the world for the same or for your masters .So a new beginning awaits and i bet most of you are eagerly awaiting that new beginning.ALL THE VERY BEST TO ALL OF YOU !!

Like a few of you , I am going for my masters too . I will be pursuing masters in Mobile and Satellite Communications at the University Of Surrey , Guildford , United Kingdom.Guildford is a city 29 kilometers away from London.And yes I am looking forward to the next one year .

Anyways thats all for now and i hope to get back to blogging sometime soon .

Take Care Guys !!

Of Kings and Presidents...

“India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters”, the very first line of the Indian pledge. Yes I am an Indian , by birth ,by origin but at heart i never was. Born in Kerala ,in the southern part of India , I was brought up in arguably one of the finest countries in the middle east ,Oman. For people who have not heard of Oman, it is a small and peaceful country in the Arabian gulf (its diminutively small when compared to India, in fact its smaller than Tamil Nadu),l geographically it shares borders with the UAE and is four hours away from Dubai by road. All said and done, it is one of the most beautiful places on planet earth. Twenty five years ago , Oman was only sand, it was a desert but now it has an infrastructure better than India. Most of you would argue saying that governing such a country would be like taking candy from a baby as compared to governing India. But does size really matter or is it just an excuse for not developing????Another question that would arise here would be “is monarchy better than democracy or vice versa”??The answers to the above two questions would help us to analyze one very important factor that governs a country’s progress – DEVELOPMENT.

DOES SIZE MATTER?? Well up to an extent it does. Governing India and governing Oman are two different propositions. India is larger both in size and populations. But consider this , Oman , twenty five years ago was barren desert .In a span of twenty five years , the changes Oman have undergone are tremendous. Again people may say things like “India has a space programme which has improved vastly over the last 10 years or so and that since Oman does not have one and , India is more developed “ and so on and so forth. But then is development only about the space research or development of infrastructure? According to me development is about upbringing the poor and creating a society where the there is an equal distribution of the economy. Once again here the populations of the two countries can be questioned , yes India has a far bigger population .But the fact is if our leaders had given a thought to developing India region by region , I guess India would be far more developed and there would have been fewer people beneath that dreaded poverty line today. Another factor that has hindered India’s path to development is the amount of Corruption that takes place here. It is a fact that Oman is lesser corrupted when compared to India. Hence according to me India- corruption would be a fantastic place to live in. But when will that be the case only time will tell.

Is Democracy better than Monarchy? Yes democracy gives you the freedom to do whatever you like. But at the end of the day I think things happen faster and quicker when it comes to a monarchy. Yes its the king who takes all the decisions ,in a way i guess its good. For example , take the case of Ampa Skywalk , it took them 4 years to complete that project and in those four years more than two new malls was up and running in Muscat .Same is the case with the flyover near the airport.

At the end of the day , I am an Indian by origin but I would any day prefer to live in my country of domicile for the past 18 years , the Sultanate Of Oman.

ORION 2010...THE BEST EVER (PART 2)

Day 2 began from where day 1 ended.WIth events like tamil debate , Just a Minute and Entertainment Quiz hogging most of the limelight during the morning.

While the Ent quiz was all about the quizzing accumen , Just a Minute was all about spontaneity and quick thinking.

The afternoon of day 2 was eagerly awaited by every crescentian. It started with the variety events which were absolutely brilliant.But then came the moment the audience had been waiting for ,the entry of rapper BLAAZE .It was planned to pin point precision , the lights dimmed and whe the curtains opened there he was ready to rock.He rapped to various hit numbers like hosanna and BABA RAP.WE were honoured to have him with us for the rest of the evening.

Then came the pro show from the final years.The Crescent variety team which have been winning on a consistent basis at various inter college events performed at their very best.Their show payed a tribute to all the final years and ended up being an emotional affair.Next , we had some hit numbers being sung by the college music team and this brought the crowd to their feet.

Like every other good thing ,ORION 10 also had to come to an end.After felicitating the chief guest , we also felicitated one man who has been the pillar of ISTD for the past so many years,Mr M.Abdul Kader.We bid him an emotional farewell (since he is leaving Crescent) at ORION 2010.The end of Orion 10 was an emotional one.Many of the final years ended up in tears and this made us final years realize how much we are gonna miss Crescent.

To sum up the emotions at Orion 10, Id like to quote a few lines from a poem which one of my "bestsest" friend wrote recently.

These days of spending good times,

ending with melancholic chimes.

These days started with instances of fears,

ended up with moments of tears…..

ORION 2010...THE BEST EVER (PART 1)

There's this thing , sometimes while one thinks about writing on a topic there can be instances when he does not know where to start . This is one such instant.I am at a loss for words.

March 5th and 6th of the year 2010 shall be remembered for long long time.

Orion 2010, kicked off in grand fashion on the morning of March 5th , 2010 at B.S.Abdur Rahman University.Being a part of the core team , the days prior to the start of this cultural extravaganza had been extremely busy and hectic.As the day dawned , we hoped that this would be the beginning of something special.

DAY 1

"Lights, Camera, Action", the show Crescent had been waiting for was set to begin and begin it did with a bang.Prior to Orion , we the ISTD had promised the junta of Crescent that we would get celebs to judge the events at this Orion.And thats one of the many promises we at the ISTD kept at ORION 2010.Day 1 kicked off with veteran blogger and founder Director of F5ive technologies , Mr Kiruba Shankar .His talk at the beginning at the even was awe inspiring and the audience were stunned into silence .As they say " Well begun is half done". With Kiruba giving it the perfect start , the stage was set for the stars of Crescent to take over.It started with the opening dance in which the guys from the final year put on a fantabulous performance. They moved and grooved in flawless coordination and their free styling skills would have probably given the "Step Up" dancers a run for their money.We then had the Quiz finals were the best brains in Crescent went head to head to be known as the university's quiz wizards. Adaptune was the next on stage and the dancers of Crescent showed their extempore dancing skills.Apart from onstage events the , the offstage events also proved to be a grand success.Events such as Paper modelling , Collage , Rangoli , Hair stying and Mehendi too had many participants.Scavenger Hunt proved to be the best outdoor event of the day and had maximum participants .Literary events too had gotten underway in the seminar halls with popular video jockey ,VJ Craig judging shipwreck .Gaming was another event that saw maximum participation with gamers competing for supremacy in games like NFS, FIFA and CS.

The morning of the 1st of the two days of Orion had gone according to plan.Being a friday , Orion was halted for sometime during the afternoon to account for the special friday prayers.The afternoon session would see the budding dancers and musicians of crescent in action.

First event of the afternoon , was the group dance finals which saw some awesome dancing.The finalists danced to the latest tamil songs and brought the crowd to its feet.Next up we had the solo instrumental finals.Judged by popular tamil singer Haricharan and Mr Suresh Chakravarthy , there were some magical performances.We saw instruments such as piano , flute and tabla played with ease and precision by the participants while the junta of crescent cheered on.The solo singing finals followed and the musicians of crescent had the audience spellbound with absolute magic.

The day ended with the pro show from the college dance team with the final celeb of the day being 'Nadodigal' director Samuthrakani. Apart from this , we also had special messages from tamil actor Shiva and director Venkat Prabhu.Kudos to the PR team for the getting those for us.

On the whole day 1 was pure unadulterated entertainment and this ofcourse had set the tone for day 2 .It was a near perfect day for us and this was summed up by the statement which our beloved student president of the ISTD gave the Registrar of our college when he said " Sorry sir, for ending the show 2 minutes late".

Yet Another Sleepless Night..

As the title suggests , its been yet another sleepless night so far .I know 4 am is not the time to actually blog or do anything for that matter ,yet i seem to be awake at this time on a regular basis . Some of u may think "4 am , What is it that this knucklehead( I could not think of any other word to describe myself , anyways the ones that almost made it include 'moron' , 'jackass' and 'nincompoop')have to post at this time of the night or rather this time at dawn ??"

Well , as usual Ive been thinking a lot lately.As my friends say thats particular line ("Ive been thinking a lot) means only one thing . TROUBLE. Well , yes generally that line is said just before I go into this perennial state of depression which may last from a day to a week and sometimes even a month.But this time , things are different .

Just when I was happy thinking," Yaay two more months and am out of Chennai " (was literally counting down seconds) , Damn...."Damn" because I suddenly want more time here.You see , Life .my friends is pretty complicated.Just when you think life is getting back to normal , it takes an unexpected turn.Well If you know me well and have just read the previous line which in effect says " I want more time in Chennai" , You are bound to be surprised . Lets just say I have some unfinished business to be taken care of.

As my undergraduate studies draws to a close , theres another thing I am worried about ie. my future.Higher studies in the UK is what awaits me next and the thing is I don't know if I'll fit in there . There's a lot of doubt inside of me and I am finding it extremely difficult to find answers to a lot of questions.

There goes my roomie's alarm clock meaning it's time for me to sleep and him to wake up(We both live in two different time zones).As said by Ted(HIMYM), "Nothing good ever happens after 2 am".

Good Morning !!

Finale...

As another week draws to a close , my countdown has begun , the countdown to finally graduate.This week was a very memorable one considering the fact that , I played my last game in the Crescent jersey against Hindustan University.Although we lost , it was an enthralling game and it was won with only three balls to spare.There's this thing about the Crescent College Cricket team , whichever tournament we play , we tend to get knocked out in the second round . It is sad considering the fact that our team has so much talent.

On a more personal note, the tournament , though it was not all that great for me (scores of 40* and 3 in the two games) , I cherished each and every moment and it was great to see the way the guys fought even when things were'nt going our way.

It was wonderful these four years playing for the college team and I hope this team moves from strength to strength. There's a hell a lot of talent in there and am sure a tournament victory is just around the corner.

I'd like to conclude this post by wishing my juniors all the very best in all their future tournaments.Eagerly waiting to play my last table tennis tournament for Crescent at JETS 2010 in the first week of March.

Birthday ....

Its been a while since i updated my blog.Been busy with a lot of things. Cresonance , project , inter year matches , the list is endless.

In between all this , I had a truly amazing 21st birthday.The surprise party and awesome dinner afterward made my last birthday in Chennai a truly memorable.The fact that I've never before got a surprise party on my birthday before made it all the more special.The cake a choclate truffle from cakes and bakes (I guess) was brilliant.Later that night , the dinner at Wang's kitchen was awesome too.

Thank you to all my friends who made this Birthday a memorable one.

Another thing is I realized , later that night was the fact that even though I hate this place for various reasons, somewhere deep down I think I am definitely going to miss the place.I have made some fantastic friends here , some of them have been there with me throughout the four years and others who are equally wonderful people who I did not know existed till a few months back.I cherish each and every moment Ive spent with them and I hope to stay in touch with them in the years to come.

Coming to my resolutions , well I have decided to try and stay out of controversies as much as possible ( this is like the most important one!!!!). Other than that I guess its the usual.

Well so here I am 21 ( feel kinda old!!) , and looking forward to being 22 in a years time !!!

Cheers...

As The Days Go By.....

Last night while going to bed , I was just going through the calendar on my cell phone and i realized that i would be turning 21 in a fortnight ."Twenty One", errr assuming i live for a hundred years(which I dont want to),mathematically it means that I have just lived out a little more than one fifth of my entire life.

So coming back to last night ,I decided to do a sort of self introspection.Questions such as

1. "What have i achieved in the 21 years I have spent on this planet?"

2. "What have I learned over the years ?"

3. "Where is my life headed?"

(these were the first three that came to my mind) etc etc popped up in my head.Answer to the question 1 was the simplest of the lot and the most irrelevant of the three as far as my future goes.Coming to question 2 , I guess my experiences have taught me a lot .As someone mentioned recently "You could write an autobiography ".Question 2 check.Question 3 was, at that time unanswerable.I had no idea , my head went blank .Then came the conditional offer from the University Of Leeds, that my friends was like breath of fresh air.

The answer to question two could have been an essay in itself .But since it contains some gruesome facts , I chose to conveniently ignore the elaboration.

Either ways , as days go by , life is getting complicated and difficult and I as a person am finding it exceedingly hard to keep up !!

A mixed bag

Today's been kind of a mixed bag actually .India's dismal batting performance against Bangladesh made me wonder if we are actually the number one test side in the world.Virendar Sehwag who is leading the side in Dhoni's absence will be wondering what went wrong.He had earlier called the Bangladeshi team "ordinary" and incapable of beating India in test matches at the pre match press conference.The Bangladeshis however proved him wrong by rattling the Indian top order.Had it not been for Sachin's patient knock India would probably have been all out within the first day.However I still feel India is on top , if they can add another 50-60 runs tomorrow we have a game on our hands.In the U19 World Cup , it was pretty easy for all the major nations except Zimbabwe who suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Canada.It was also heartening to see the kind of fight Hong Kong gave England hence proving that as days go by cricket is definitely developing and improving outside the test world.

Apart from that the much awaited Australian Open kick starts tomorrow at the Rod Laver arena down under.With Roger Federer not in the best of his form and Rafa Nadal just making a come back , the first grand slam of 2010 has many contenders.Defending Champion Novak Djokovic , British number 1 Andy Murray and Juan Martin Del Potro are the other major stars competing for the grand slam.The Indian dream , that of Somdev Devvarman came to an end in the Qualifiers losing to Slovenian Blaz Kavic in straight sets.In the womens section , its the usual story with the Williams sisters among the favourites to win the title apart from Dinara Safina , Svetlana Kuznetsova and Caroline Wozniaki .Sania Mirza meanwhile has a difficult draw playing Arvane Rezai of France in the first round.If she does manage to move past the first two rounds, she runs into third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova .In doubles ,Indian hopes as always rests on the shoulders of veterans Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.

Coming to football , Chelsea thrashing Sunderland did nothing to help Fergie's man who beat Burnley at home but now face the prospect of going down to third place for the first time this year.Arsenal are level on with Manchester United with 2 games in hand.With United playing rivals Manchester City next week , Fergies has his work cut out.

Moving away from sports , my heart goes out to all the victims of the Haiti earthquake and I hope such a disaster never happens again.Also the death of veteran CPIM leader Jyoti Basu was another disheartening incident.A great leader and a great visionary , he shall be missed.

Its been an eventful sunday and a lazy one too.Until next time adieu !!!!

The beginning

Saturday,16 January 2010

6:30 am-

Here it goes , my first blog.I know it's a kind of weird time to actually start your blogging career but nevertheless I guess there is a time for everything. Its been a really ordinary night so far , had dinner with one of my best friends , got back home , a bit of chit chat with my roomies , the usual browsing and of course most importantly the "bedtime" movie.

The movie that was screened on my laptop last nite (well technically this morning beacuse it was 3 am when i started watching the movie) was Rajkumar Hirani's "3 idiots", on screen adaptation of the Chetan Bhagat novel "five point someone".This is the first time ever that i have liked both the book and the on screen adaptation of it.So as you can guess my blog is named after a very common phrase from the movie -" aaal izz welll"(all is well).

Now , about me, I am a final year engineering student studying in one of Anna University's 200 odd affiliate colleges.Like most of the other engineering students , I too have my share of success stories and frustrations.I enjoy all kinds of sport especially cricket and I absolutely love the game.Coming from the "gem of the middle east"-Oman , I hate both Chennai and my college from the bottom of my heart and the my experiences in the years ive spent here have done nothing to change that.

Thats basically about me.To conclude, as i like to put it , I am an INDIAN by origin but an OMANI at heart.

Good Morning !!