Bangalore Rocked....

It was something that was long coming...yea i know it sounds weird. But every big city in india had its share of terrorist attack, natural disaster , epidemic breakout or a communal violence. Some had more than its fair share as well. Yea mumbai it is... But bangalore was somehow managing to stay away from the line of sight of the terminators. But though luck didnt side with us on the 25th of july. And thereby serial blasts was added to the CV of bangalore...

But for a city which was not used to these kind of adversaries it coped very well. Yea the mobile networks got jammed, (Rumours has it that the police purposefully initiated this to stop any further detonations to be triggered through mobile.), traffic came to a standstill, people were in panic etc etc. But the authorities managed to restore order by the end of the day and life was again back to normal the next day in the city, though that was not the perception from outside the city.

So what about the blasts... what were they aimed at? What did they want to achieve? Obviously the purpose was not a mass killing act. Other wise they would have used a more powerful source or a better time of the day to do it. May be unlike us IT buffs who are hooked on to the net they wouldn't have known that a chemical RDX is the popular choice now a days.Some one must have felt that bangalore was having a quieter life by the indian standards. They wanted to instill fear in the minds of people. Just to let them know that life isn't as safe as they thought it is. It is good in a way to make people understand that there is much more to life than air conditioned rooms, behemoth malls, multiplexes and pubs in a city where the gulf between the standard of living of the rich and the poor is widening day by day. Everything comes at a price. and with such money pomp and power comes envy, jealousy and hence enemy. So like every other natural or man made disaster this also have achieved its purpose. to bring those directly or indirectly affected ones back to earth. literally.. People will now take time to get a perspective of things. They will think about giving more time and attention to their family, society... Ultimately as it is said in gita. Everything happens for good...

Kimi it is........

A lot has to be said before actually start celebrating the 2007 F1 win by ferrari, provided you support the team from maranello. It was a season which was predicted to be one of the most boring season in recent times. The retirement of the maestro michael schumacher had a lot to do with those perilous predictions. And not even nostradamus fore saw the arrival of a certain young brit who goes by the name of lewis hamilton.

But how different the season turned out to be. If those who keep track of the records thought that they will have off season for a change once schumi retired couldnt have been more wrong. The young rookie didnt put a foot wrong till the last couple of races and broke as much as 7 records during the course of the season. Whatever one might say or accuse him of, Schumi was the media darling as long as he was in the fray. Now media have a new face to put on their front pages. The masala tabloids in UK (stand up SUN) had a field day err i mean season. The guy was a rookie and to go with that he is the first black to grace the formula one. And hence they have a whole new audience to target. They couldnt have scripted it better.

Reg the rest of the drivers alonso was the new prime contender for the title in the absence of schumi and kimi behind the ferrari wheels and on a wage budget rivalling even schumacher was not going to give up an inch. Massa deserves a mention though not really there for anything other than support kimi. And rest of them are there for a purpose ...to make up numbers.

Season got off well for the two mclaren drivers and kimi was doing catch up for the most of the season. In hindsight that proved an advantage in itself. As if the action on track was not enough, we had a spying scandal to add spice to the matters, though it took the glam off the constructors race. Some dumb ferrari engineer passed over some documents to a mclaren counter part and it is said to have gone under quite a lot of eyes. Even the mclaren test driver saw this and boasted about it over a mail to alonso. The missing bit of this puzzle is the identity of the whistle blower. That will be the topic of discussion in the f1 pubs for quite some time. There was also the ongoing altercations between alonso and lewis hamilton who were exchanging words which would have made fergi and wenger (if u dont know who they are, watch EPL) look like friends in comparison. Alonso an avid nitpicker accused mclaren of facouritism, who were quick to deny that. And thus we reached the last race of the season in samba land which was the title decider in the last two seasons as well.

Massa started from the front with kimi behind him and alonso and lewis occupying the next two spots. Mistake by lewis at the start of the race led to him dropping couple of places and some mysterious technical glitch which was gone just as fast as it appeared sent lewis to as low as 18th place. It was not to be mclarens day and it was clear that mclaren was never going to overtake a ferrari who inturn were simply blowing the competition away. Mclaren's only chance was lewis who managed to finish in 7th place. To put it shortly the title was there for the taking and those who wanted it should have shown the mettle when it mattered. And as it is so often the case it is not always the best, but the bold and the brave who wins it. So bravo KIMI.

Day Of Woes

It has been long since i last came and scribbled something over here. Life has been rather uneventful for some time. Not that yesterday was a rollercoaster ride of events. But atleast there was something worth telling.

Day started off pretty well. Ya i woke up at 11. Not a bad start for a particularly bad day for me. My room mate is still asleep after taking almost a full bottle of whiskey previous night. The guy kept telling yday night while having the drink that the stuff is not good as he is not getting much of a kick from it. Hmm whiskey hits you late and hits hard. So i guess he will be still on be the bed for most part of today. Took my lunch + breakfast and started off early to my mock cat centre.

It was my second exam after writing the first one of the series previous weekend. The poor results in the first test was put down to the naiviety of a beginner. I will not be able to find much excuses for another poor show. I wanted to join the group of 90 percentilers first and then move steadily up the percentile tree. Planning is one thing and putting it to action is quite another. Got the test paper in hand. Paper had 75 questions with maximum questions in the quant section. Not one of my strong points. Managed to solve 5 quant questions in 25 minutes :(. I moved on to my favourite DI which was as tough as the earlier section. Damn... Why dont they just make DI section easy and wreck the rest of the paper. Just some wishful thinking. If only reality was half as good as that.

Half way through the section and my head started heating up like a furnace. Before blowing myself out, I decided on moving to the lighter verbal section and to come back to DI later. Verbal was no better and that just compounded my uneasiness. I spent the rest of the time loitering through the rest of the di section and the quant, serious looking forward to getting out of the room. Test was not without its moments. Once the examiner announced that its time, i saw the guy sitting next to me shading the choice D for some 10 questions in a row. I would have understood if he did that for the actual CAT exam. When one writes mocks to see where he stands with the rest, it just didn't make sense. Maybe he was flaunting his roulette skills ... hihi

Ever since i decided on writing CAT i became a regular church goer. And even more so, once i wrote two mock cats. By that time i was quite sure that I alone wont make it ... Call me an opportunist. But i should have been an atheist not to start going even then. 5-10 minutes into the mass my mind was already in the soccer match coming up. God just want your presence in the church. Reached home and switched on the TV set after the service. It was the day of Manchester Derby. Two games into the season and manutd is already 5 points behind chelsea. Some say title is lost and its not even september. As usual manutd had loads of possession and created whole lot of chances. But its the city who scored. United who were strolling through the match unitl then were shell shocked. They changed to top gear and flair gave way to directness and urgency. They hit the post , goalki and virtually everywhere else other than where it mattered. Goal was not to come and united are some 7 points behind citeh for the first time in decades. The season that promised so much is getting shredded. This day cant get much worse. Wait wait.. I checked the answers that i marked in the exams with the key. I have more wrong ones than right. What the hell.. Can i swap the correct ones for the wrong. I got into bed just so that i cant take any more for today.

By the look of things that happened today there should be a nightmare waiting for me.. Huh bring it on. I can take on anything now.

Man utd draws the first blood

Manchester United added another silverware to their already overflowing trophy cabinet and hopefully first of many in the season 07'08. On close introspection one should not be blamed for thinking that the hype surrounding this season opener is a tad too much. Its just a game played for charity. Both the teams are having either injury problems or the players rested. Chelsea had terry, drogba, sheva(1st eleven?) out with injury while man utd had scholes, saha and neville in the medical room while hargie was rested. And the players are yet to hit their peak form or fitness.

In spite of all these there are some positives and negatives (or let me label it as "things that needs attention") that either manager must have taken from this game. Lets take the game as a whole first. Both teams had their own fair share of chances and moments in the game though moaninho believes to the contrary as usual. While giggs, ronaldo had the chances for man united, mikel will feel that he should have shown a bit more alertness in front of goal. Giggs certainly redeemed himself by taking the only other chance that he got. It was a sleek goal constructed by evra and well finished by giggs. At the other end malouda, who impressed in his debut, took full advantage of one of the ferdinand's famed lapse of concentration. It was a good finish considering that he was under considerable pressure from ferdinand.

Ronaldo though not at his imperious best was creative enough to cause problems for the chelsea rear guard. Same can be said about rooney. Silvestre... less said the best. Heard that he threatened to leave man utd if not picked for this game. Dont think that fergi would have fell for that. Must be some other reason. Nani impressed with his corner kicks. And he also seems to have learned from ronaldo's mistakes by releasing the ball early and trying to look up rather than blindly running into defenders.

Coming on to the players noteworthy of mention from chelsea side, the name that springs to the mind first is none other than the absurdly talented and equally wasteful SWP. He constantly turned silvestre, who was crap, inside out and found himself alone and free for putting a cross across the goal only to leave the camera man behind the post searching for cover. Lampard was conspicious by the lack of contribution, only to leave the stamford faithful to wonder whether he is on his way to nou camp. Cech was as usual reliable between the posts making you feel that blues have a point when they say that things would have been different last season had he been not injured.

Anyways it was a good work out for the players and no one seems to be complaining.

Verdict : If these are two sides who are yet to hit their peaks then the teams across england and europe has some thing to worry about.

Reading We are coming....

Wonderla Explored

Last friday we went on a trip to wonderla. The group that set out on this was my office team. It was a nice short trip to the place with our small group of friends cracking all kinds of jokes and pulling our boss's leg from behind his back. We reached the place and and got down to the sight of some nice chicks standing in the queue to get into the place. That got all of us guys into top gear(not the BBC show :) ). None more so than me.
Being excited was one thing. But at the same time, i was perplexed by the mix of that group. There were desi and videsi guys and gals in that group. All looked quite young with some teachers among them. Hmmm which school in india has such a mix of students. Will be quite a class. I would have loved to study in such a school.
Okay. Back to the point now. After a small foto session we got into the place. We wasted no time in changing into the pool dress (of course tshirts and shorts. nothing skimpy). We decided on getting into all the dry rides or the horror rides, which ever way you would like to call it. Both will do justice to the real thing. We first got into a ride which swings you through some 180 degrees. Since i was sitting near to the edge it was real tough for me to keep my cool. The thing stopped its scary swing after some 3 minutes into it. Or was it one hour. Got through that somehow and next was YScream which rotates you 360 deg in air on a seat which itself will rotate on its hinge. I decided on trying it after getting the okay signal from my colleagues who got into it ahead of me. Being in mid air and getting flipped is not the deal you will bargain for. That was the scariest thing i experienced while being wide awake. (I have been through more horrible things in my dreams :( ). I got down from the thing and there were my buddies who did the thing before me, standing there sniggering and asking how was the ride. I barely managed to say 'Not bad' with a cool look on my face. There was one more ride that did pretty much the same thing. But that was a cake walk since we have been thru worst .
So that was the end of our dry rides. We felt we had had enough of the dry rides. So we decided on getting wet..... Real wet .
But that is in the next blog.

So i am also getting into the world of blogging. The mean way of putting your heart out in a webpage so that others can take a peek and laugh at us. But by the look of things i feel i might come to enjoy it. nyways who is stopping me from stop writing. How ever no time today to write anymore. Will come back some other time.