Being a Sport

I have never been involved to a large extent in sports owing to my limited stamina. In spite of this, I loved playing basketball in school. I was drawn to kabaddi for a while but it turned out to be too violent for my senses because at the end of the sports session in school, we were left with tore skirts, shirts or ties not to mention the innumerable bruises and layers of dirt on our body. Badminton is something I play for fun; I don’t know the rules and I convienently forgot to mention this to my doubles partner during our college sports fest and we lost because I gave away a lot of points due to sheer ignorance of rules. But what is appalling is that sports have never been endorsed as a profession in school and we always were made to think of it as something to freshen up our minds after too much of studies. Not many schools are keen to invest in good grounds and playing equipments to encourage budding sportpersons. I remember my school was the only one in my area to have a basketball court- the other schools were content with their dusty, unkempt grounds which was often rented for hosting marriages and other events.

So it is not surprising that the national level hockey players refused to attend practice sessions since they weren’t given their dues. The callousness of I.H.A. towards the up-keeping of hockey is disturbing. Instead of pacifying the striking players, they have threatened to terminate contracts and get them removed for the World Cup team. Does anyone even remember that our national game is hockey? The level of ignorance amongst the masses regarding this sport is not surprising. How many schools have a field for hockey? I don’t remember holding a hockey stick ever and if I wanted to be a hockey player, I would have to shell out a hefty membership fee of the nearby club. That’s what all aspiring hockey players have to do- break into their savings so that they can play hockey for a few hours. With that kind of investment in their training, it amkes buisness sense to recover the money else they would be left with bad debts. Sadly, the higher authorities are more concerned with hobnobbing with high profile Page Three celebrities to care about the player’s fees. Clearly, they are not concerned about how they will manage their next meal with a paltry sum in their hands.

The prejudice we have for sports will become much stronger if such incidents come to the fore. I am leaving out woman sportspersons here because the opposition faced by them is of a different kind. By the time they battle gender biases, most of them have lost steam to pursue their love for the game. But the recent incident will give a budding hockey player’s parents all the more reasons to wean their child away from his addiction to the national game. He will be shown news reports by his parents saying, “Hockey mein gaya to aise hi hoga.” (Though I believe the resistance would be much less if their son was a bat-wielding, window smashing and Sachin-worshipping cricket playing lad). The fear of a lost livelihood is enough to suppress any ambition.

Being Inquisitive

I have always been a very curious person and in my quest for curiosity, I have often treaded lines drawn for privacy purpose but thankfully never been reprimanded for it. For example, I saw a beautiful crystal globe at my friend’s place yesterday similar to the one seen in Om Shanti Om and in no time I was shaking it vigorously to watch the sparkles get agitated and settle down in slow motion. Till I realized that my other seven friends were staring and wondering what I was doing. Of course, the owner didn’t mind, I would have killed her if she would have said anything because she is that close to me. But it did make me determined to curb my inquisitive ways and limit my questions related to academics only because that’s when your questions don’t sound silly or rude. What brought about this change? Even I have been plagued with questions and I couldn’t satisfactorily answer many of them. So in this blog I am going to answer a few questions and even you can ask me questions related to my strange ways, if any. Here it goes-

Q. Why do I wear a watch even while going to sleep?
A. I am obsessed with time and sometimes I tend to get over punctual. I wake up at odd hours and I don’t know if it’s too early or too late. When I check out my cell phone, the light blinds my eyes and they start watering in no time. So I think checking out your watch is a much less stressful option and when it is strapped on to my wrist, I don’t have to scramble and look around for time. I only remove the watch while bathing and I wouldn’t have even done that if my watch was water-resistant. (Do you know Abhishek Bachchan has a shark-resistant watch? It means that even if a shark eats you up, the watch would still be ticking away happily in the shark’s belly, though I don’t think anyone stayed alive to verify this. )

Q. Why is everything owned by me predominantly red?
A. Let me tell you it has got nothing to do with lucky colour logic. I believe red is a colour which stands out amongst the rest and its quite energizing. While my classmates always opted for drab blue and black bags, I always had an eye out for red because not everyone would like to have such a bright colour for their bag. Right now my possessions in red include my bag, hanky and a wardrobe predominantly red. I even tried bullying my parents to paint one wall in my house red but I didn’t succeed and had to be content with a lavender shade.

Q. Why do I shop so much?
A. I get bored very easily and I don’t like to repeat my clothes too often in a week. I never go out with the intention of shopping, it more impulsive wherein I like something on display and pick it up. Owing to my ever-fluctuating weight due to which I oscillate between thin and very thin, I need to change my clothes often because after a few months they turn out to be too loose or too fit.

Q. Why do I blog so infrequently?
A. I was stuck with a dialup connection which was activated on my brother’s cell phone. I had to wait for my brother to be back home from his tuitions so that I could log on. Then there were times when my brother simply refused to hand me the cell because he thought blogging was time pass and unimportant which made me go grrrrr. Anyway, the good news is that I got a cable net connection at a speed of 100kbps which is a blessing. Another reason for few blog posts was that I strictly guard the privacy of people I write about. Not many people are keen to see their names mentioned on the blog and as a result I lose out on interesting posts.

Q. Why do I get so emotional?
A. My moon sign is Pisces. No actually, that’s a very lame excuse but I guess I am full of empathy. It’s like this- Even if my whole house is charred, I would feel really bad for the child crying for her lost doll. I sometimes tend to ignore my own heath while worrying for someone else’s misery. When you can’t do much to help them, I do feel like crying because I am helpless. And of course when a dear one backstabs me, the tears do pour out. The worst part? I don’t cry in front of everyone. I just pull over the sheets at night and weep silent tears. Yeah, I am hyper-emotional!
More questions to come……….

What's Wrong With Us?

The country is abuzz with the Ruchika Girhotra case. A budding tennis player, Ruchika was allegedly molested by a high profile police officer who went to great lengths to mess up the girl’s life. His follow-up acts include arresting and harassing her brother Ashu Girhotra and striking Ruchika’s name off the school rolls. The trauma of molestation coupled with the harassment eventually pushed the girl to end her life. Finally the case has gained momentum with the guilty on the way to get booked for abetment for suicide, something that was long overdue.

Molestation victims are often ostracized socially at the very behest. People waste no time in raising doubts about the girl’s character and humiliating her. I don’t know why the way a girl dresses should be an open invitation for ruffians to molest her or pass lewd comments. That’s a much inverted sense of thinking because even Punjabi suit clad girls happen to be victims. So what was their fault then?

I believe we need stricter laws against molestation. The Romeos have a very good sense of law and are assured that even if a girl musters enough courage and reports to the police, they will be left off lightly. These cheapos consider their birthright to scan every girl in the neighborhood but will waste no time in thrashing the guy who checks out his sister. By making molestation a non-bailable offence, we can expect the number of such incidents to come down. This is being vouched by lawyers across the country but it will be a few years before we see the law getting passed.

I happened to read this article in HT where a criminal lawyer Shrikant Bhatt was of the opinion that molestation need not be a non-bailable offence since no interrogations are required while detaining the accused. According to him, the girls who wear skimpy clothes and make provocative gestures should also be brought to book. My advice to Mr. Bhatt- get a life dude. No one asked you to look at skimpy clothes or get provoked by their gestures. It all boils down to the perverted bent of mind which reads harmless gestures as being sexually provocative. This guy seems to be a misogynist who maybe was slapped by a girl wearing skimpy clothes just because he approached her thinking she was ‘available’. This kind of immaturity exhibited by a lawyer is appalling to say the least and I hope he receives appropriate criticism for his cheap comments.

Spirituality Unlimited

I have to admit I am a bit spiritually inclined. A bit, that is. This has got nothing to do with my religion though. Most people are of the opinion that pious people are hardcore extremists and religious fanatics. Whether that is true or otherwise is something I don’t know, but I certainly don’t belong to this category because I visit shrines of all faiths. I visited St. Michael’s Church at Mahim today and it was a great experience, to say the least. The road leading to the church is full of people selling knick-knacks ranging from candles to combs to dresses. It’s a sensory overload as your eyes browse through the various enticing things on display. My mom had to drag me away from the bangle seller who had bangles of colours which, I am sure, does not figure on the standard colour list.

The church was beautiful and clean. It is difficult to maintain decorum and discipline along with a certain level of cleanliness without affecting the sanctity of the shrine. I attended the prayers in Marathi and was pleasantly surprised to see majority Non- Christians around me. It is believed that if you pledge to visit the temple on nine Wednesdays, your wishes are granted. It is this belief that draws so many people to this beautiful and ancient church.

It was a refreshing change for me and the prayers created a resonance which continues to fill my soul with positive thoughts. Hope this is an everlasting effect because I have a gut feeling that dark and difficult times lie ahead.

2010 Kick-started.

Well, it has been a rather eventful week. My exams ended (finally) on the 31st and I realized that this is the first New Year’s Eve in the last three years which I have been able to celebrate wholeheartedly without that niggling fear of pending exams at the back of my mind. It was a small but definitely noisy terrace party with a couple of building friends. Technically speaking, my building doesn’t have a terrace because it does not have side walls on which you can lean upon. Keeping in mind the obvious danger, we decided to keep the booze out of this party (Don’t you get shocked, I was just kidding. I hate the smell of alcohol and equally hate stinky alcoholics). The terrace was swept clean after decades and I am sure they might have discovered something of archaeological importance by cleaning off the ancient dust. Hehe.

We danced like hell without giving a damn to the Peeping Tom in neighbouring building who was seemingly enjoying the ‘live’ telecast. We could have danced more but we got hungry because we had fasted the whole day so that we can stuff ourselves later at night. The food arrived almost two hours late and this goes without saying that we pounced on it. I was so full and sleepy that I didn’t wait for the game of dumb charades to end and returned home. It is a miracle that I didn’t doze off on the terrace staircase while coming down.

Next day I travelled for two hours to watch Three Idiots with college friends. Don’t ask me what made me do that, even I don’t know. But eventually, the movie made the travel worthwhile and my mind was brimming with ideas and thoughts on how to make my last term in college revolutionary. Of course such thoughts have a shelf life of one day. The shelf life of the thrill associated with the end of exams was even less. Soon, I was busy solving puzzles and brain teasers and what not to prepare for the aptitude test of a high profile company. It turned out to be a disappointment not because I was not able to crack the test but because some people cleared the test with unfair means. It is definitely not the case of sour grapes because the fact that I didn’t get selected doesn’t hurt that much; what hurts is to see people much deserving than me get rejected. The reason being a few cheaters divided the paper solving task amongst themselves and then exchanged answers.

This cheating thing is not something unheard of; I have seen it during every exam. I know so many people who never moved a muscle but still cleared their exams thanks to the chits flying in from the window straight onto their desks. But these people never got too far by resorting to these methods. They have been doing the same course since the last four years and still have not learned their lesson. This ultimately strengthened my belief that all these unfair practices can help you to a certain level, but you cannot go further. Until this aptitude test happened.

I am done with all the cribbing but I am genuinely feeling happy for Yuga. She was the top scorer in the aptitude test and we never had an inkling of doubt about her getting selected after the interview. What followed after that was a feast of chicken lollipop, chicken crispy, chicken schezwan rice and biryani. I did feel a bit guilty about eating non vegetarian food on a Tuesday but what the hell! I had so much fun along with friends that my failure now remains a distant memory. As of now, staying true to my hopelessly optimistic attitude, I am hoping that a much better company is in store for me :)

Creative Engineering ;)

I have always been inclined towards the creative side. In school I used to look forward to the arts and crafts lecture so that I would bring out my scissors, papers and what not out of my bag and watch in awe as the teacher would transform a roll of paper into a lovely coconut tree. Not many were as eager as me and since there was no concept of bunking in school, I would be surrounded by a disgruntled crowd who were waiting for the bell to ring. This goes without saying that I was the art teacher’s pet student because I pooled in my own ideas and improvise on the technique and the next week I was showing off a better version of my previous work.

Even in the drawing and painting lecture, I used to bug the teacher asking her for new techniques for painting and whether there is any new art-and-crafts related product in the market. This interest reached a new level and I advanced to making new and much beautiful work of art. I made flowers out of brightly coloured flower stockings and solawood paper. I even tried making it out of grated soap like I had seen it on television but it didn’t turn out that well. I love ceramic painting and glass painting but they were a costly affair so I had to somehow restrict myself. I then moved on to making gel candles which was the best thing that happened to me. It doesn’t cost a bomb and plus they make great gifting options. It is fun trying to mix and match the decorative stuff to fill inside the glass so that the colorful beads stand out in the clear gel.

I enjoy writing and blogging too. I believe if you have to be a good writer, you should have a strong opinion on everything. I sort of fit well into this criteria. I have to thank my English teachers at school for bringing out the dormant talent in me. I never realised I write well until the teacher made it a habit to read my essays in the class. My ideas were a bit feminist with the topics veering mostly to female liberation and equality and I had an ally in my teacher. She was more than happy to share the views of an eighth grader who surprisingly shared her opinion.

Alias always tells me that I should have been into writing or into a profession that exploits my writing abilities and not into a technical field like engineering. I somehow don’t feel that way because I don’t want to kill my interest by making it my profession. When I write a blog post, it is with the comfort factor that I don’t have a deadline to meet. If I was asked to write an article within x days I won’t be able to produce the expected result. That is why I took up blogging because I post when I feel I have a strong topic and not just for increasing the number of my blog post. Engineering on the other hand is a challenge. It’s so huge and endless that I have something to keep me busy for years on end. With new technological advents I will be having something new to discover every single day. The best part is that I can share my views on this via writing. I believe when you have a creative edge, you tend to have a better understanding of the people and situation around you. After all engineering is not just about having technical expertise; it’s also about how you work for the greater benefit with a group of likeminded individuals.

I can draw parallels between engineering and candle making. Isn’t engineering also about finding the right gems of people and combining them to make a candle which not only looks beautiful but also illuminates your surroundings with a warm glow?

Wild Goose Chase

There have been very rare occasions when exams have frustrated me to such an extent. Now many may find it abnormal, but exams have rarely intimidated me. Not because I was well versed with every subject but I because I had faith in my management skills. With my college running on nine-to -five schedules, it becomes really difficult to manage studies and at the same time handle your social life. So I made up for the lost time by studying really hard on holidays and the much awaited preparatory leave.

But this time I made an extra effort to study during the college schedule. Whenever I find some subject interesting, I go for the reference books. I did that with Electronics where I devoured Boylestead which was a book equal to my own weight. Then in Microcontrollers I studied Mazidi with such interest that my mom thought I was reading a Harry Potter book hidden within it. The good thing about these books is the use of simple, lucid language. The flow is absolutely wonderful and every single term was presented in an uncomplicated way so as not to scare off the reader. That’s the way I believe is right way to study and even in this semester I stuck to it.

But the problem with this method is that it doesn’t prepare you well for your written exams. Getting conceptual knowledge is one thing but presenting it on paper where the examiner is looking for specific words to assess your knowledge is completely different story. I did a lot of hard work for this semester. I don’t remember studying for almost eight hours every single day in any of my previous semesters. But the papers turned out to be a big disappointment and that’s when frustration sets in. I realized while I was busy getting my concepts cleared, I had left out quite a few vital topics which are repeatedly asked in exams. I realized this during the first exams so I went into damage control mode. For the following exams I tried to cover up every single chapter (with the obvious risk of losing out on the concepts) and was feeling a bit confident. But this time I got all muddled up in the end and plus the paper was completely conceptual so I realized I had screwed up my papers.

I managed to write two papers really well but the remaining two have got me all worked up. After three years into engineering, I had become quite a pro in cracking the exams but I am now shrouded in self doubt. As of now I am searching for some pattern in these papers so that I can ensure a smooth ride for myself in my last semester. Or am I on a wild goose chase?