The horrors of a midsem....

The two day break in the midsems was very eventful for me since i spent the whole of tuesday at pune with jhatu, dosi and bajju.. and most of wednesday, i was busy sleeping and dreaming.. in the evening i came to terms with the grave situation at hand.. there were two midsems today and i had no clue of either subject..

the most instinctive reaction in such a scenario is to seek help from the best student in class... daga in this case.. so i went to him in the evening and lo.. he cleared all fundaes within an hour and a half... and i was all elated that i understand advanced process synthesis very well... i came back to hostel and spent time lukkhaing around.. i also tried my hand at problems and found them routine stuff.. but it was not to be...

and when i realised that, i was in the examination hall in the morning.. finding myself clueless on each and every question in the paper.. but then, there i was struggling to get some clue and i was unable to remember even the basic steps.. i finally ended up expecting a pure zero on hundred and was all depressed... it was one of the totally hopeless days of my life and certainly the most forgettable one.. unless there is some miracle in the remaining 10 hours..:-)

well, the bit of advice that i would like to give here is that if u take an elective out of the so-called interest, then do study it well.. else u will end up screwing it like i did today..

A day's life at Pune!

There is a two day break in the midsems... so what do we do? well, we packed up and left for pune!
Now what is one doing going to Pune in the midst of the midsems? even pune junta dont do that.. but then, we had a reason.. ChEA Symposium Publicity!!!

well, for those ignorant souls, we have the ChEA Symposium at IIT Bombay on 11th march 2006.. here is the link for u.. http://www.che.iitb.ac.in/chea/symposium2k6 do have a look..

it doesn't help when u discover that u are almost an hour late in getting up and mayank is standing at the door breathing fire at u... but that was how the day began...

the day was very eventful and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.. we could achieve almost everything we had planned to... but it was dosi and bajju who made the day for us.. without them, we could not have possibly got so much work done and enjoyed so much...

we not only went to our sponsors Praj industries but also set foot on the MIT of India! yes, the Maharashtra Institute of Technology in Pune.. its a nice place and as far as IIT standards are concerned, MIT has a much better and more diverse crowd.........

we also went to NCL.. jhalak dikhalaaaaaaaa ja, ek baar aja aja aja aja aaaaaja! (more details from dosi).

finally on the way back, on bajju's demand we got down at vashi and went to BTC (Bhagat Tara Chand) for a very filling dinner.. BTC mein dinner karne ke baad to waise hi neend aane lagti hai... but look how resilient i am! i kept sleep away for more than 4 hrs!

but now its getting too late and i am feeling damn sleepy.. so good night!

MSD power...

The final match at Karachi sealed the fate of the Paki team at the Hutch Cup... the Indian team has become the most ferocious chasers.. it has been proven beyond doubt that the Indian team is far far better than Pakistan...

how come this sudden change in India? is it the change in leadership or is it the coaching of Greg Chappell?? what is it that has made the single most significant difference in the Indian side today and the one about 6 months back?

The answer would be MSD! It is the MSD phenomenon that has changed the fortunes of the team.. I had always felt that Austrailia's greatest strength was Gilchrist who was much more than a wicket keeper to them.. In india, it was a traditional belief that it is not necessary for the wicket keeper to be a good batsman... but MSD has changed it all now... he is more of an asset than a liability in the batting department... the manner in which MSD bludgeoned the Pakis at Karachi was simply outstanding... it was one of the best finishes by India in all times.. now even a score of close to 300 seems reachable thanks to the power of Yuvi and MSD... and when there is Pathan in as well, it makes the side even more formidable.. never before has the Indian side looked so much promising.. never before have we chased down 280 with 3 overs to spare without Sehwag, Sachin and Saurav... never before has the Indian side done so well in batting, bowling and fielding consistently...

With the MSD power on our side, I now feel.. "Bring on the Aussies, it time to decide the new world champions!"

Random variates

Nostalgia rules all around.. the last midsems of my stay at iit.. well, i have always loved the week of exams at iit.. there are many reasons for that..
1. there are no moronic classes to attend
2. there is night tea available in the mess
3. there is an air of liveliness and hours can be spent at the canteen place
4. and finally, its the only time that i am involved in acads...

today was the first paper of the lot.. stochastic processes.. a course taken out of enthu.. well thats what it was supposed to be.. fight maarke yeh course float karwaya gaya tha and so it was natural for our instructor (jhumpa adhikari) to expect some sort of enthu from the 9 ppl who took the course... but then, she was grossly disappointed. she had to see our blank faces for most of the time (the remaining time we never made it to the lecture..) she had to finally give her notes to us to prevent all the ppl from ending up with zeroes..

s0 now comes the day of the exam.. rishi and shastry in immense nbd.. and me as usual trying to chill them out... kisi tarah thoda bahut course chamka liya.. bahut hi random course tha.. apne naam pe khara utara..

but then the midsem was not that difficult, what with most of the questions being replicated from the lone assignment that we had got... aaj ehsaas hua ki do ghante midsem mein baithna kitna fight hai last sem mein.. waise hi aadhe ghante mein pakk gaya aur neend aa rahi thi.. thodi der ke liye to rest bhi kar liya, when i thought jhumpa was getting the feeling i was trying to copy from shastry...:D

so now that one midsem has gone by, there are three more to come my way.. but none for the next two days.. there seems lots of commotion outside.. time for wing cricket!

A victory to remember....

I was very disappointed after India lost the Karachi test even with Pathan taking a hat-trick in the first over of the game... suddenly the strong Indian team looked feeble.. people started calling the Indian attack toothless (when in the same test, we had Pakistan at 39/6) and declared that the Indian batsmen were strong only on paper... well, thats the way things go as far as cricket is concerned in India.. one defeat and the entire team gets criticized like hell...

But this Indian team has the mettle to bear it all and come out strong... even after losing the ODI at Peshawar, the team bounced back to win the Hutch Cup in three straight encounters at Rawalpindi, Lahore and Multan.. the Indian team has shredded its chase-fear and now has become one of the most successful chasers of recent times..

the young heroes Raina and RP Singh have performed very well and deserve a round of applause.. but the one youngster who has also given a splendid performance is Sreesanth (though he has not many wickets to show on paper, he is a wonderful talent to be nurtured)

As Dravid said after the match, India has raised its level of performance in all departments and has emerged successful through a truly team effort...

Hope India continues the good work into the final ODI at Karachi...