College days....

College life is drawing to an end. It is very hard not to look back at college with nostalgia even though I have cursed it to no end and continue to do so. It just feels like yesterday that I stepped into the mysterious grounds of SRM as a fresher forever looking behind my back in the fear of being confronted by rowdy seniors and being forced to part with even a fraction of my very limited monthly allowance. I was fed with horror stories about ragging by my school friends whose elder siblings were studying in medical colleges and Delhi University.

The first thing I learned was that the seniors were bunch of cowards who kept their ragging activities off campus for the fear of heavy fines by the management. Mostly seniors just wanted to know the names of the so called "hot" girls in our batch. I made up most of the names, which satisfied the dimwits who walked away with their faces beaming with pride as if their sole purpose in life had been fulfilled due to that useless piece of information.

College was mostly a pleasant surprise. It was much better than I had expected it to be. It was by a stroke of luck that I missed getting admission in the architectural course at Sathyabama University because of the seats getting filled at the last minute. Someone up there sure likes me. God knows how I would have put up with that modern day Nazi concentration camp filled with Idi Amin clones where living is worse than being gassed to death. Till date, I thank my stars for landing in SRM where freedom was not a scarce commodity, and making my college life worth remembering.

The college was good, granted. But obviously the worst was saved for the last. These were the dreaded corridors of K.R.S hostel. Where, four students were cramped into a room so small where you couldn't even turn without bumping into someone else. To spare you of the discomfort of throwing up all over your computer screen, I shall restrain myself from describing the horrendous common bathrooms and toilets at K.R.S.

I had always wondered why a dining hall was called a mess? It was after seeing the K.R.S dining hall that I discovered the reason. I can safely state that, if Oliver Twist ever had the misfortune of eating in the KRS mess instead of the london dining hall, he would have never asked for more. Even if he did, he wouldn't have lived to tell his story.

The breakfast was the sign of what to expect later in the day. Served Idlis were so hard that you could break windows with them. Idiyappam was quite colorful but not at all digestible. The Upma tasted like mud. And, I have never seen water added to jam except in my mess. Merely looking at it rid me of whatever appetite I would have had left. One of the biggest mistakes I committed in my first week was to drink the coffee that was served with breakfast. And It didn't take long for me to realize that, at most 5 minutes. The speed at which I ran out of the mess, there could be no prizes for no guessing where I was headed....

Disclaimer: The pics posted of the dishes are purely of an indicative nature. They have absolutely no connection with the stuff served in the hostel mess.

TO BE CONTINUED......

Lets Pray for Bermuda

India is the most consistent team in the world cup. We are the only ones who can regularly fail to deliver whenever the situation demands. There is no use criticizing last night's match. We obviously don't learn from past mistakes.

Team India could do well to start packing their bags. We are almost out of the tournament. The only outside hope for us to make it through to the next round is that Bermuda should beat Bangladesh. But the way the Bangladeshis are playing, that seems impossible.

India or no India, the current world cup will remind everyone of one thing above all. The murder of Pakistan's coach. It has been confirmed that he was strangulated to death. And now the Dubai underworld is being linked to his death saying that Dawood ordered the hit. I don't know how much this is true, but I can say for sure that the Pakistani players were involved. He was obviously going to blow the whistle on something criminal going on in the team. Most probably a match fixing syndicate.

The Jamaican police should not allow the Pakistan team to fly back home. The Pakistani government has a habit of pardoning the crimes committed by its citizens. Look at A.Q.Khan who was pardoned for smuggling nuclear bomb technology. Or the recent incident of a clean chit to Akhtar and Asif. Even if the involvement of players is proved, they would probably be let off with a two match suspension.

Let us hope that the murderers are caught and the punishment fits the crime.

Brilliant in parts...

At last, a victory for India. The Bermuda team was never in a position to beat us at any point of the match. Our batting was near perfect with every batsmen clicking except Uthappa and that can be excused when the rest of the team played so well.

Our victory looked great on paper. We completely outplayed Bermuda. What concerns me is our bowling. The team was never aggressive enough. Now, mistakes may go unpunished against minnows like Bermuda, but no way against the top notch teams. Agarkar was deeply off colour and even Zaheer and Munaf were not up to the mark. It was like the bowlers and the fielders were waiting for the wickets to fall down instead of trying to force mistakes. Crucial attacking bowling changes were either made very late in the game or not made at all. It took Dravid 43 overs to decide to bring Sachin on to bowl who is a renowned partnership breaker. Overall, the team members were not looking inspired at all. They played as separate players and not as a team.


Ganguly who played a solid innings earlier in the day could have been asked to bowl. Though overall, his performance was good, one mistake was glaring. He didn't even try to catch a lofted ball off Ajit Agarkar which could have broken the 9'th wicket partnership earlier. This showed an extreme lethargy and a vacuum of the fighting spirit and the killer instinct in him.

The Bermuda team were not up to the standard of an international team in any department of the game. The only flash of brilliance was Hemp's classy innings against a lacklustre bowling attack. Their catching though was quite good with the big man Leverock picking up a beautiful one handed catch to dismiss Uthappa.


Team India must look to regroup in their next match. I wonder why Sreesanth is being kept out. He can be brought in and Kumble must be retained. One change could be to bring in Karthik in place of Uthappa. The players would do well to spend the next three days in introspection and give a stellar performance on the important day.

Bob Woolmer Dead

I was shocked to hear that Bob Woolmer died yesterday after being found unconscious in his hotel room. The timing of the death certainly raises some suspicions. Also, the failure of the authorities to declare the cause of the death is questionable. Speculations range from heart attack to stress. We might get a clearer picture following the autopsy.

Bob Woolmer was a great coach. He was the one who catapulted South Africa to the number one spot. He used technology very effectively and this earned him the moniker "Computer coach".

Regardless of the circumstances of his death, he will be missed equally by cricket lovers all over the world. May his soul rest in peace

Nothing left to say...

The most pathetic performance by India in the world cup leaves very little to say. We were outplayed by Bangladesh in all the three departments of the game. India looked like the minnows while Bangladesh played like professionals. Wrong decisions began right from the toss, where Dravid elected to bat in a moisture covered pitch and outfield where getting through the first 15 overs is hell. Then the decision to leave Kumble out in a spinning pitch proved equally disastrous.

I agree, none of these decisions would have been criticized if India had managed to win emphatically, but the point of the matter is that we lost. And going to the next stage seems a daunting task. We have to win the next two matches and both with big margins to get a better net run rate to advance.

But we were not the only ones who gave a shocking performance. Ireland upset Pakistan in a shocking way. Their exit from the first round now seems certain. Complacency seems to be a serious problem plaguing both the sides which have won the world cup once.

Leaving cricket aside, Both football and F1 provided some solace to my damaged pride. Chelsea won and the gap between it and ManU remains 6 points. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they manage to close down the gap and win the premiership league. In F1 Raikkonen and Ferrari won the grand prix which finished before some time. Step Aside alonso.....your time is over.

Bears are hunting down the Bulls

The bears are roaring again and the bulls are making a tactical retreat. Bad news is on the horizon.It could be just a temporary phase, or worse a slowdown. Worst Case Scenario : It could even be a recession.

The spiralling oil prices couldn't stop the dream run of the bulls for the last two runs. India and China are still growing at near double digit percentages even with oil stabilizing after reaching 70$ a barrell. But this time around, the problem seems more severe. China had been overheated for the last one year with money flowing in like water. But the government has been planning to sell its shares in small lots and this was what triggered the first batch of stock sales by the large shareholders. This had a domino effect and the end result of 9% decrease of the Shanghai Stock exchange in a single day.

The Chinese fiasco led to a fall in stock prices all over the world. Our very own BSE has lost more than 2000 points from its high boom time. The big question on the back of every one's minds is whether this fall is merely a temporary correction or a more permanent pattern. The brokers are bullish for now and predict BSE's year end close at 15000-16000, but they may not be so enthu if this fall continues. Globally, investors are pulling their money out saying that the stocks are overvalued.

All over the world, people are now fearing a slowdown in the US economy. Though Bob Bernanke's recent comments on the outlook of the economy aren't pessimistic. Still people aren't expecting a increase in interest rates by the Federal reserve in at least the first three quarters. This means the dollar value could go down even lower. Which has a direct implication for export driven economies like China and in some part, India. A weaker dollar could mean less money from the IT field. For China, it could be disastrous. 80% of their GDP is export driven. They hold more than 1 trillion dollars in foreign exchange which could buy Microsoft, Google, Citibank and General Motors. The Chinese bank buys dollars to keep the renminbi (yuan) at an artificially low level. Though they have promised to let the yuan appreciate a little bit, I think it is more due to increasing internal pressure to divert some of the foreign exchange funds into education and health care. Unlike India, whose foreign exchange is a complete asset, China's huge inflated foreign exchange is because the Central bank has to keep buying dollars to maintain the value of the Yuan. Thus their foreign exchange is a partial liability.

India has to start looking at other markets other than the US. The European Union and Japan for instance. Japan's economy has been on a virtual standstill for the last few years. Fears of deflation had pushed down interest rates to rock bottom. Money was said to be free in Japan. People paid virtually nil interest in borrowing and consequently didn't earn any interest on deposits either. This was the easiest way to make money in the global market. Borrow money from Japan at virtually zero interest and invest in emerging markets where even three digit growth has been seen in the last one year. But the party had to get over sometime, and when it did, it did with a crash. Both the Bank of Japan and the ECB have increased the interest rates leading to a flight of capital. Though good for the export sector, an increase in the US Fed interest rates could also see a further withdrawal of money from emerging markets like India and China. What is to be feared is panic selling where everyone loses.

India could do well to go all out in encourage industrial growth and decrease capital gains tax. Also totally unheeded taxes like Fringe benefits tax should be abolished. Especially on Employee stock options (ESOPs) which motivate employees to work harder and taking that extra bit of effort. No one is sure where the economy is heading. Lets all hope that this is just a temporary blip in the face of long term growth. We don't want a repeat of what happened when the dotcom bubble burst in 2000.

A New Nursery Rhyme

Sonia had a little lamb, little lamb,

Its beard was white as snow;

And everywhere that Sonia went, Sonia went

The lamb was sure to go....

Will be back soon....

Sorry Guys, really missed reading all your blogs for the last 2-3 weeks. I am Busy with my final year project. Will be back soon...