INTERNAL AFFAIRS!!!

It's that time of the day when your vision becomes hazy and you begin to see 2 objects instead of 1... Naaaah, it aint 11pm, it's 2.30 pm on a dull afternoon with my damager, oops, manager keeping a constant watch on me... Aaaaaaaaa b@llz to him... Let me continue with my post!!!
Here goes ...

Today, after lunch, Karthik and myself were chattering away to glory(as usual) much to the dispair of Chubby and Sibin who had to listen to us patiently.. (Raghavendra - Chubby's tech lead was snoring away to glory under the coconut tree)... And as usual we come up with some topic that would leave me nostalgic. Oh yes, today we spoke about the days in college we were at our notorious best... I'm talking about the days in college when we had internals...

Cut to Semester 1, somewhere in 2001, when Deepak and Hari struck a deal with chemistry lab budda (translated as "old man" for those who are unfamiliar with these jargon)... The chemistry internal paper cost us a hefty sum of Rs 50.. (oh i almost forgot, we made quite a bit of profit out of this. Half the class parted with Rs 5 each for the paper and we ended up with the question paper plus a profit of 100 bucks and I'm sure NR Bhat and Suraj would want their money back on hearing this)...

Cost of Question Paper: Rs 50
Cost of Xerox: Rs 20
The look on the lecturer's face when he sees me scoring 25/25 without attending a single class: PRICELESS!!!!

And the fact that we did it again for our second internals just proved that the first one was no accident!

This was just the beginning of our 4 year course which saw us face about 100 internals. And at the end of it all coming out unscathed, if you can call it that.
By the end of the first semester copying was almost a unwritten rule. And it wasn't that we were looking down upon people who actually studied. We needed such people. We needed a source as well!!!

Second semester saw most of us reaching college an hour or two before the internals. (something that was conspicuously absent during regular classes). The fear of losing a seat next to the topper (or someone who had studied for that subject) got our asses going early in the morning. Oh yes, the 3 hour gap between internals were very well utilized. We saw many emerging soccer stars from our class, your's truly included. (I had to mention this :) )

In the third semester there was a new revelation in the form of Harikrishnan S. I vaguely remember Deepak whispering "resistance b/w tracks" or "electromagnetic induction" or some such thing during the ECET (One screw#d up subject) and till date God knows what Hari saw in those two phrases. He went on to write a novel in the given 1 hour span that would have made Sidney Sheldon or Jeffrey Archer proud. (God save the evaluator if he ever evaluated that paper).

We met Sriram aka Kunta (a third class rascal from Info Science dept) somewhere in the middle of the fourth semester and he was one step ahead of all of us. A true engineer that he was he made use of the existing technology, Solar energy, Lunar energy etc etc and all the other non-descript energies in the world and came out with a path breaking innovation... "DATA IMPRESSION"... Sounds Hi-Fi, but the ground reality was that it was just a simple and effective way of using pressure of the ball point pen (supposed to be another great invention..but this time not by any one of us) and writing the answers without actual ink.
At this point of time, I must mention that there were some loud shouts of protest from Archana, Nisha and Shilpa (Angels (of charlie's angels fame) - we call them, though they are not what we call them, rather the opposite). Oh yes, ethics and values were their key points!! Despite the vociferous protests, we actually implemented it and it worked out very much to our favour. To anyone who said "Honesty pays" our question was simple "By cash or kind".

From the fifth sem onwards it was a radically new approach taken. Most often there used to be a contest as to who would come out of the hall first. We saw people coming out in 3 min (a record held by me and which I thought should be mentioned... I'm bragging about myself, but hell, this is my blog, so I gotta do it). Football sessions were an integral part of the 3 hour break I mentioned earlier.

Copying became an "Art" in the truest sense. Some were gifted with it by birth. Others developed it after sheer hard work. Fudging from the text books was done only when the football sessions were absent.

Right thoughout this post there hasn't been a single of instance where I've said that I studied for the internals. I haven't mentioned it coz I dont lie and dont want to write about things I didn't do.

Enough bragging...
Some highlights of my 4 years stint:
- Sampath getting caught by KGS (goddamit, he was dumb enough not to cook up an story and instead admitted to copying..well no prizes for guessing what happened after that...KGS didn't take no pity)
- Rohit Ganguly copying word to word from Suraj...Bugger did not even leave the spelling mistakes..(Oh yes, BKV figured that out).
- Hari filling up a 40 page blue book with an input of 2 phrases from Deepak.
- Kunta running from first bench to last bench under the eyes of the so-called invigilator.
- Karthik and Purtod getting caught by MLS - our HOD (MLS conveniently neglected that coz Purtod and Karthik were kinda the most studious guys..had it been anyone else ...) for fudging right from the book.
- Me (the great) submitting an empty blue book to MLS (to think of it, I had the nerve to do it then) and walking out with a nonchalant shrug (DBMS internals) after 3 min (God knows how I survived that one).

All of us waiting for the invigilator to show up and then choosing the appropriate class room (it so happened that we used to end up 4 in a bench).
-Many more which I'm not able to recollect. If anyone remembers any other significant incident or if you so happen to just read this post and associate yourself with it and have a similar experience please feel free to post an arbit (arbitrary) comment. (Am doing some shameless advertisement :D :D )

I'd stop it here... Oo..I'M SO GONNA GET MY ASS KICKED FROM MY MANAGER!!!

One parting shot!!! HIMESH still can't sing!!!! (@Akshay - up yours!!!!! :) )

OOH AAH INDIA, AARGH YUCK INDIA!!!!!

Annihilate , Decimate etc etc... These terms are still too mild to describe what the mighty Aussies did to India yesterday (29th of October 2006)...

I've been reading a lot of posts that analyze, chastise India's performance on the field. Most of them are ardent Ganguly fans who seem to think that sacking Chappel, Dravid and bringing Ganguly back into the Indian team is the solution to all woes. Aaaaargh BULLSH*T!!!!!!!!!

For starters, Ganguly WAS a good player. Not anymore. And to get into the team you need to look at the PRESENT performance not PAST records. If people want Ganguly back into the team looking at his previous records, then Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar should also play... Let's face it, Ganguly's days as a player are over. All he can do is appear in a Pepsi commercial hoping that the selectors look at his acting performance now.

Secondly, I feel it is unfair to just blame Dravid and Chappel for this pathetic performance. A coach and captain influence the outcome of a match only to a certain extent. However, the final performance is individual. If a batsman like Sehwag does not show any remorse after being dismissed for an atrocious shot which he calls "playing his natural game", the captain can atmost rebuke him. But it is upto the player to rectify his mistake and not commit the same blunder.

What needs to be improved in the current Indian cricket team:
1. USE YOUR HEAD: I presume everyone has sufficient amount of stuff in the "upper chamber" of the body. If that is filled with vaccum, then God save the team.

2. BODY LANGUAGE: The most lacking aspect in the current team.One boundary from the batsman, or some chin music from the bowler and you end up seeing drooping shoulders. Half the match is played in the mind/attitude and once that is lost, there is a slim chance of winning a match unless the opposition is West Indies who have an uncanny knack of goofing up the simplest of things. Expect no quarter and give no quarter to the opposition. Learn from the Aussies in this department. At no stage in the match do their shoulders drop. They are intimidating at every instant and pounce on the slightest of fear shown by the opposition.

3. PREPARE: Use the technology, identify your mistakes and rectify them. Learn from the champions what they do differently. Practice makes a man perfect sounds cliched but it still holds good.

4. STICK to CRICKET ONLY: For Christ's sake we have specialized actors who can perform on Television. We want our cricketers to bat, bowl and field well, not show their emotions well in commercials. No one cares if Dhoni's complexion turns fair after his usage of Mysore Sandal soap, as long as he is good behind the wicket and with the bat.

The team has talent but no grit and determination to perform. Added to it, there are some players who are on borrowed time.

A note for those who think cricket can be made more entertaining by wearing revealing clothes while anchoring or by using jargon that are 5000 feet above sea level. Cricket is a sport; spelt as S-P-O-R-T and not TV S-O-A-P.

Ms Mandira and Mr.Sidhu, I hope you are listening.

Also, HIMESH RESHAMMIYA can't sing for nuts!!!!!