My tète-à-tète about astrology! ;)

Disclaimer:

I would like to point out initially that the scientific community considers astrology a pseudoscience or superstition. The following are purely intended to provide facts from my life, and the inference part is left open for all the readers to arrive at. :)

The Google SMSChannels service is one of the lesser known free services provided by google. This is part of the google labs, which serves as a testing ground for new services being developed. I had come across this while browsing randomly a few months ago. I subscribed for certain channels like Cricket updates, Soccer news, and most important of all, the Astroyogi, to which this blog post is dedicated to. ;)

I've never had great belief in the concept of astrology, and I consider this sun-moon-star game as plain jabber and nothing more. This belief of mine might take roots in the fact that I don't know much philosophy, and also that I don't intend to. I would now like to share a few very recent instances, where I made much more fuss about astrology, than I've ever done in my life. :)

#1:

To everyone's astonishment (including that of mine), I had cleared the programming round and made it to the technical interview, in the campus placements of athenahealth Inc. I was running a very high temperature for the previous few days and could barely sit, let alone speak. I was made to wait for about 4 hours in the sweltering heat of the sun outside the CUIC, hence I never had any real hope with the physical trauma I was undergoing then.

My anxious wait for the interview was intercepted twice by our protagonist, the Astroyogi of course! ;) First of the 2 messages came at about 11.30. It read, "You will face problems in communication today because of the moon." Then at about 1.00 pm, I got the same message once again, with an added line. "Your actions will bear fruit only if you finish it by 12 noon today" :-| It seemed to me like, someone was keeping a watch over me, and sending me messages in accordance to what is occuring there. But it seemed funny to me in hindsight, that I was unsuccessful that day, in accordance with the message. :(

#2:

The next incident was at the CSE department symposium of B.S.Abdur Rahman University, Vandalur when I was about to take part in the puzzle championship. I teamed up with Arthu, and we didn't expect to be in the finals, because I felt our prelims performance was way below my own par. We were filling our tummy, and were thinking about leaving. Our hero entered the scene just at the right moment! :)

The message read, "Lady luck will bestow her smile upon you, and you will walk away with all the honours in your activities." The very next minute, I got a message from the event organizers that we were selected for the finals. Later in the day, we actually won the event, to my huge surprise. We both were totally bowled over by the coincidence which happened that day. :)

#3:

Being a CAT aspirant, it is really difficult to keep my mind off what happened during one of the mock CATs of T.I.M.E. I was way too low on the confidence levels, having already secured a double hat-trick [cricketing terminology..4 in 4..LOL ;)] of unseen failures. I was having a fever this time too, and I went to the test in absolute nonchalance, and I could also say that I wrote it just for a formality.

When I started to write the test, I sensed that it was a comparatively easier paper than the others and hence, I began to grow in confidence with each minute. Just then, I got the message from our lead guy, which read, "Today is your day. Nothing you get involved today will go wrong. Your confidence will get a huge boost." The message did prove to be true, though out of coincidence, as I secured a place among the toppers in the test for the first time. :)

Everyone in my friends is laughing these days whenever I get a message, as whatever significant happening to me, lies in accordance with the Astroyogi messages. When I think of the randomness of the various incidents listed here, smile creeps up inevitably. People are even telling me to hope for a similar message on the day of the actual CAT! :)

P.S.:- By the way, I forgot to add the FYP Zeroth review part.. Almost everyone in our department knows how scopeless our situation was on the day of the review, but with all due credit to our hero, we scraped through!! ASTROYOGIVIRGO rocks! :D

Later,

Vijay.

Randomly running amok!

It is the time of the year when everyone who is aspiring to apply for higher studies, begins to dust up their GRE or CAT materials and starts to brush up the concepts so that they acquire a stranglehold on their confidence levels before the actual exams with their improved performance in the mock tests. Instead, as specified in the earlier post of mine, my performance, which steeply goes down everyday leaving my life meaningless, is a very good indicator of how I'm going about this business of mock tests n stuffs.

People don't know what to call me, insane, freak, nuts and what not! People close to me already feel that I'm the best example of the waste of prodigy wherein casualness breeds casuality. My friends have called for atleast some amount of practice being necessary towards the CAT inorder to stand a chance to even dream about the test, but those barks have fallen on deaf ears till now, as always.

I do not know why I possess such a nonchalant attitude towards life, but it is simply the drive which I lack to an extent, to survive and succeed in my career. Prabhu, my close friend, has started shouting at me that it's high time I start working hard for CAT, or be prepared to face the worst. And I've been deferring the start of serious preparations as much as I can, coz of my laziness. And I am a person to complain of life being full of boredom with nothing to be done! :(

Two weeks back, myself and my friend Vivek, struck upon a random thought that we would run the Chennai International half-marathon (21.1 kms). We never know how we could come up with such queer thoughts, as we both have nothing to go in common with athletes. But still, we took it up randomly as an endurance test and decided to give it a try. Some 5 days before the event, we started to practise running, so that we would not have a nightmare on the race day.

For about three days, we both would run for about half an hour in the evening and for this sake, we would stay put at the hostel for over five hours, doing absolutely nothing but sleeping n chatting. And thus went the whole week, doing nothing but wasting time in the name of practice.

THE RACE DAY:

On the 27th of last month, the day on which everyone would have woke to worship the goddess of knowledge, I woke up early at 4 o clock and left for college. Halt there guys! not to study, but to accompany Vivek from there to the venue of the marathon. We started from college by 5, as we had to be there at the War memorial by 5.30. We went in Vivek's bike and parked the bike at the Island Grounds parking lot and went to the War memorial.

We reached there on time, and waited for the race to begin. It was announced that the International runners would be present at the start of the grid, then the national level runners, and then the state runners. So we were at the very back of the grid and waited for the race to begin. By the way, the guy who announced talked that much badly that none in the crowd could have understood his so-called English language. The race was finally flagged off at 6.05 by MP Kanimozhi, who is the mind behind this charity event.

The route map is shown in the figure given by the side. We both had this map in our pocket and started the race together. We had to start from the war memorial, and run through the marina, santhome and till besant nagar via adyar. and take a U-turn and return back to the war memorial. The very thought of the huge distance sweated the whole body of mine, as I had not run a distance greater than 8.5 kilometres in my entire life.

As expected, Vivek lagged behind and I started trotting along at a decent pace. I know that I'm not a good runner, but the thought of finishing the race spurred me on without halt. But when I crossed the 8 kilometre mark in about 35-40 minutes, the eventual winner of the event, John Wambus from Kenya was on his return way (i.e) he crossed the 13 km mark! From then on, my motivation and pace slowly waned off. I was simply jogging slowly as I knew I could finish the race within the deadline of 3 hours anyways. What's more, the women leaders, who started the race 20-25 minutes after us, overtook me when I was at the 9 km mark! :(

I reached the halfway mark and on my return at the 11.5 km mark, saw Vivek who was slowly jogging at the 10 km mark on the opposite side. Then it was a painful run back to the war memorial, as I had developed a serious sprain in my knees, as a result of which I could not move my legs properly for the whole of next week. The rains in the morning didn't help our cause any further, as the feet in the shoes went heavy and running became very difficult on the waterlogged roads.

Then finally, I completed my race in about 2 hours and 20 minutes, almost twice the time taken by the topper. :( And I waited on and on expecting Vivek to reach there. He finally made it in the exact duration of three hours viz, at 9 o clock. Then, we both came to college, took our bikes and drove home. I've never experienced that much physical pain in my life as that day, but the cause of charity for which we ran made us forget everything. But how the very thought of participating in the marathon sprang up suddenly in our minds, is still puzzling even to myself.

Later,

Vijay.

That was a date of mine! ;)

It was the 29th of last month, a saturday. I heard from Mass the previous day at the Workshop written about in the forementioned post that there was going to be a technical symposium of the IT department the following day at Velammal Engineering college, titled Lumieres '09. (Gawd! Is there such a word?? I never knew!! :( ) He asked me to attend the symposium as he felt I might be able to participate in something, and might even win some prizes in technical events. [Guys, don't laugh! He claims that I'm a techie! :D ] I told him that I'll try to come there the next day. He had asked me to reach Chromepet by 7 in the morning, so that we could go together, and that Kicha, his quiz-partner, would come straight from hostel.

I was sleeping till 8 as usual, and when I woke up, I found none in the house. Mom was out of station, and my brother had left for office. I was locked up from inside, without my knowledge. The bitter thought of having to cook a meal for myself and do the household chores drove me crazy. Just then mass called me, and shouted at me like anything for not coming there. And then, on hearing a single word from his mouth, I jumped up and got ready to go to Velammal. Guess what!? ;)

He told me that the events start only by 10.30, and hence I informed him that I'll join him in coll. Then after a gruesome journey of about 90 minutes in bus, I reached the place, which was near Puzhal. The registrations were closed by that time, and I was the last guy to be allowed to register for the events in that symposium. I decided that I would try out my hand at quizzing and more importantly, Web Designing! When I made up my mind that I would take part in these, Kicha n mass fought amongst themselves so that who stand a better chance of winning the latter event in the event of they teaming up with me ;) A consensus was finally arrived upon, and it was confirmed Kicha would be my teammate in Web Designing as his Photoshop skills won him a place alongside me, and Mass would dare to go in as a Lone-Wolf! :D

Before the Web-designing event, I went to attend the quiz prelims in an online test as a lone-wolf. When they asked me where my pair was, I told them that I'm SINGLE. [No pun intended! :)] They ran their eyes through me as if I'm a big quizzer. :D I went inside, occupied a machine and started reading the questions. Out of the 25 questions, I think I would have got about 9 right on my own. That's not the story tho! I had to hint about the prelims qns to these 2 Quizzers who had been to the EEE dept. prelims then! :( Without being noticed, I did the ugly job, and reconstructed almost all the questions, and handed it to them. Luckily, they knew most of the questions as it appeared. They went in, finished their prelims and as expected, made it to the finals as the toppers in prelims!

Then came the moment of the day! We three were already 30 minutes late into the web designing event. Until that time, I had a decent opinion about Kicha's technical skills. But what happened thereafter clearly showed that Kicha was surely a cut above the rest :) Kicha and myself were asked to create a website for I-pods, and mass [He was a lone-wolf mind you! :) ], was asked to create a website for laptops. We three took our seats, and got down to business! Mass opened MSHearts game in that Web designing contest (!), and started playing. Unable to bear this, the system shutdown almost immediately and refused to switch on. And then, what Kicha did was even more hilarious! He opened an image in the site created by some earlier team in photoshop, and being a techie, he redefined the 3-fingered-salute there! viz, Left mouse button+Ctrl+Z! [I guess you could guess what I'm arriving at :D ] I too lost the mood, and started chattering away with Mass there. After another half-an-hour of the same 3-fingered salute, Kicha could recreate the magic of the original image on screen! :P Then, fed up of this routine, we saved the already existing folder of someone else and left the arena, in the name Vijay_Kishore, as the sole reason of my visit to the college, the LUNCH time, was elapsing! :)

And there ends my tryst with a technical symposium, and none in the earth could imagine doing such a thing as to go to a college symposium, being lazy to cook a meal for himself!

Later,

Vijay.

Sparks flew everywhere! :)

It was last week's friday, the day after my birthday. I was sleeping in my bed till 7.30 in the morning. Suddenly, it struck upon my mind that my good friend, Deepak had instructed me the previous day not to miss the workshop which would be conducted by WIPRO's Mr.Pavan Soni, the next day morning in our department seminar hall. He had attended the same workshop few days earlier at the adjacent campus of ours (IIT-M), and told me that it was really wonderful, and worthy of attending surely. I assured him that I would come to college and attend it even though we didn't have classes that day.

Never in my life before, have I attended any sort of seminars or workshops, even those which are conducted by TIME institute in connection to CAT, as I had a sense of feeling that seminars are a thing to be attended by serious n sincere guys, most of whom would be nerds. And, I don't belong to that category anytime in my life! But since Deepak, whom I really admire a lot, along with Mass, told me to attend it, I decided to give it a try. Many people from my gang told that they would come the next day, so we decided to attend it. I had not got even a hint about what the seminar was all about, and I was really hoping that it is nothing of a technical one, as I felt that I could not stand the day, if it happens to be so.

It was scheduled that the seminar would start @ 9 a.m. on friday. But, I was travelling with Mass in his bike at 9.25, nearing college! [You guys know about my punctuality in everything rite?! :)] It's wrong to be regular and punctual anywhere! At last, I reached the place by 9.40, by which time, the handful of poor guys n girls who were present already and were on time, were at the receiving end of the wrath of a CUIC official saying really stupid words like,

This is an student centered initiative.. You are so irresponsible.. Blah.. Blah..

I call that stupid coz these days, I have started to wonder if the CUIC atleast thinks about the majority of students of the University, let alone care about them later [Guys in my academic range would understand what I'm trying to arrive at! Ah free.. Don't wanna deviate from the main topic :( ]. Another stupidity I witnessed here was that, he was scowling at the punctual guys and girls, and not at us. And this happens everywhere! So that doesn't bother us. :)

Then, the guy flared up on seeing us late, but a little later, true to the age-old saying Better Late than Never, he let us into the hall. We were comfortably seated there in the chairs, but there were no signs of how the day did turn out to be later. There were about 6-7 girls and about 10 guys at that time. Then, to gather crowd and please the Wipro guys, many juniors were thrown in after being apparently threatened about the attendance by the staffs. Then, in a mean gesture, there came Mr.Selvamani, a staff liked by one and all (!) who threatened the students right in front of everyone, about their attendance.

SESSION #1:

It was then, by about 10 a.m, almost an hour late, that Mr.Pavan took centrestage. After introducing himself and the name of the workshop as "Let Sparks Fly", he told us as his first words, that a clear opinion has been etched in his mind that CEG is totally irregular, irresponsible, and what not! No one in the world dares to start his lecture as robustly as he did, and all of us were taken aback, even though he was true. The guy had been to numerous institutions like the BITS and the IITs, and it was obviously impossible for him to take it in his stride, the unpromising reception he got over here. But he was really smart, and he radiated extreme confidence and serenity when he started the talk. I soon realized that everyone is bound to be captivated by his speech, and I was proved right.

The guy was not serious in his talk and didn't expect us to be serious, but he wanted us to be sincere. [He explained the difference between the two :) ] He spoke on the various stages of a product development, and on various other marketing ideas. His entrepreneurship came to the forefront, and I could sense that I was gradually getting involved in the workshop, and was following him closely. He stressed on the need of the Insight (Knowledge), the Idea, which is the base for all innovations and discoveries earlier in this world, and then, after all the processing of the ideas involved to come up with the product, there arises the need to package the product suitably to meet the demands in the market, inorder to determine the success of any product. By the end of the first session before the Bio-break (a term introduced by him again :D), with our show of sincerity, there was a marked change in his attitude towards us, with him saying that we had almost brought about a mood swing in him, and he thought that this was going to be one of the better workshops he had ever held.

SESSION #2:

From the second session onwards, the workshop was centered on teamwork activities. There was the mortality rate to be encountered, as a result of which only about 40-45 people returned to the seminar, after the bio-break. It started by 10.40. Each team had to have atleast two girls in it. Our team comprised of many people from my gang, so there was no marked uneasiness in the air. The team comprised of : Kicha, Mass, Cisc, Vasanth, Pandan, myself, Vijitha and Nithya (H batch girl). There were 7 teams in all. Arthu was sent off from our team to another team which had Deepak in it, to maintain the balance of the teams.

The concept of the session was to jot down all the problems faced by the present-day world, and solutions on how to rectify them. We were asked to create a mind-mapping of the problems and their solutions, and were given about half an hour's time. Vijitha was designated as the scribbler of our team, and we all made notable contributions with our own ideas. But, one guy who stole the show was obviously Cisc, given his unparalleled imaginative power. Kicha came closely second though. :P Most of their whimsical ideas were written as the hypothetical solutions to various problems plaguing the world. We had a whale of a time with everyone being in a flippant mood, and contributing with ideas of their own degree of weirdness. :D

SESSION #3:

The final session of the day, after the lunch break, was the implementation phase. :) Each of the 7 teams was given an important problem, and was asked to create a model city where that problem is solved either through technology or other means. We were assigned the task of creating a city with 100% literacy rate. We got down to planning our implementation, and once again, Cisc being the frontrunner in terms of the eccentricity of the ideas offered. After creating another mind-map for this specific problem, we got down to the implementation.

Some of the weirdest ideas which were fabricated by us were, Literacy Tablets [Courtesy : Cisc], Literacy implanted Genes [Courtesy : Kicha], Literacy Monuments [Courtesy : Vijitha I guess..not sure ;) ], Lessons on sarees, Literacy Vending Machines [ROFL!! You Rock da, Kicha :D], Robotic Arm [Courtesy : Mass]. I was one of those very few guys in the hall, who happened to think of highly rational ideas, which were also feasible, unlike the random thoughts of others...LOL!!

After the design part was over, Kicha and Mass remained inside to present to the panel of jury, our city, which was called the LIT CITY, as it was a city enlightened coz of cent percent literacy, and devoid of ignorance. This title was an extempore imagination of mass. :) Our team was adjudged the second. More so, this workshop was rated as probably the Best one by Mr.Pavan of all he had conducted. That is why, I have titled the post like this. :)

Later,
Vijay.

P.S:- Check out Pavan's blogspace about the workshop experience in CEG HERE. And BTW, for the group which developed the Singara Chennai, Arthu and a girl named Preethi represented them. They had an excellent chemistry with each other even though they were not adjudged in the top 2 teams. :P

Oh my Teens! I'm left in the lurch now! :(

The whole world is full of mysteries, which are waiting to be unravelled! And the most non-understandable mystery is the nature of time. Everyone is said to undergo a transition phase when each decade of his lifetime passes by, which is actually just another day of his life, and makes him a decade older. This is no puzzle, i.e. in a matter of one day, you call a teenager, a youth in his early twenties! This happened to me a few days back. Yes, I turned Twenty last Thursday, and thus in my life, came the end of the road for what everyone call as the happiest period of one's life viz, Teenage period!

People usually lay down their claim that the teenage period is the most blithe and enjoyable period in one's life, as this is the stage before they have to step into the real world which is full of responsibilities, burdens and so forth. There are different perspectives from which you can view this phase of life - it can be to enjoy life to the fullest as it is free of high responsibilities, or it can be made to inure oneself to one's own surroundings, which one is bound to encounter on crossing what they call as the college-age.

When you cross the teenage barrier, People look up to you for results, and not merely potential. There is no word called potential which can survive beyond a certain span of time, without leading to the appropriate results, in this present-day materialistic world. That's the fact about the world which is really hard to digest. If you fail to achieve something significant in your life even with your first attempt, you are bound to be excoriated. So there is a certain need to tread the path of your life more warily and meticulously than ever, so that you end up with the desired success in your endeavours.

I have enjoyed my college life extremely well, even if I'm not a success quotient in my college. Enjoyment and success doesn't need to go hand-in-hand, this can be best illustrated by my life. And what's more, my school life, was far, far better than the present scenario. Now that I have stepped into the hard world of reality, it hurts thinking that I'm not a teenager anymore. I'm not saying that those who have crossed the age of twenty are not happy anymore. But in the general perspective of the world, none can be as carefree as the youth and be free of highly onerous responsibilities as the modern day youths are, and I go along with the world's thinking at present.

Later,

Vijay.

The Bizarre Sathyam Adventure!! ;)

I've never been to a cinema with my gang of college friends till a couple of days ago, which may be felt by many as absurd for a guy like me who knocks around in perpetuum with friends. This grotesque experience of mine happened on Tuesday, the 18th of this month.

It was the eve of the red-letter day of the most popular figure in our gang, Dinesh, better known by everyone as the MASS! ;) Classes ended for most of the guys with the third hour and for some, with the 4th hour. We all decided to spend the afternoon at the Sathyam Cinemas and have a ball. It was decided that we would go to an English movie titled Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, unanimously (though I was not involved in the decision-making process). Everyone was furious with Mass for not bringing his car to take us to theatre, and also, for not offering us a birthday-eve treat. :D

This was actually my first ever English movie in a theatre ever since I came to high school, so I was pretty apprehensive about going with them initially. Only after they told that I could easily follow and enjoy the movie, I decided to proceed. Eleven Usual Suspects decided to go to the movie at last and the list comprised of Mass, Arthu, Cisc, Vasanth, Pandu, Santhu, Shyam, Ram, Vicky, Deepak and myself.

We all reached the theatre by 1.50 for the 3.45 show. Halt there Guys! Don't ponder why. It's necessary to reach the theatre 2 hours in advance for a theoretical possibility of getting the 10 rupee tickets! [We're perfect local lads] ;) We were impersonating Rajni and Koundamani (thalaivaaaa!!) while we were in the queue. [Does Mannan strike a note??!! :P] We were the cynosure of all eyes at the cinema, but we're not ones to be bothered by all those! :D

When we reached the ticket counter, Cisc was the one with the money hence he was left the job of buying the tickets. But Lo! There were only 6 tickets for the movie for which we had come! :( Then, in a moment of madness, mass and myself shouted that we would instead go for Kaminey, a Hindi movie starring Shahid Kapoor in a dual role and Piggy Chops. Though this was induced by the highly positive opinions about the movie, We both didn't listen to anyone's animosity and told Cisc to go ahead and buy eleven tickets for Kaminey. The others were extremely annoyed as I was the only one there who could understand Hindi a little better than the others. And, what's more, I am almost an abecedarian in the language. :)

Then, after buying the tickets, without paying heed to all the brouhaha around, we reached Shyam's house which is within a stone's throw from the cineplex. [I wish I own a house there, Lucky fellow Shyam! :(] All the other guys were locked up in a room and doing something, God alone knows what! And being an ardent cricket fan, I started to watch the drab 5th ODI between B'desh and Zimbabwe at Bulawayo. When I switched on the tv, the Zimbabweans were tottering at 80 odd for the loss of 6 wickets. After about another hour of humdrum cricket at its best, everyone left for the show as it was about to commence shortly.

We reached the cinema, and were near the entrance, when a couple of guys took a detour to have a glimpse of someone in a niggardly attire. As if this wasn't enough, when we were about to enter the cinema hall, some were waiting like guards letting others to pass in for this sole purpose! ;) The guards glowered at our guys like we were causing a pain in their neck. But, anyone who knows us would certainly understand that this is nothing new. :D

When the movie began, everyone who was fighting for a seat near me so that I could be their interpreter, started to feel bad as I was not listening to the movie at all, and was totally engrossed in the chatter with Mass. Even those who started to feel that they should see the movie, lost their interest fully, courtesy Mass and myself. :) I just understood the gist of the first half of the movie with the few scenes I watched, and explained to some others what I could make out, during the interval.

Then, came the anti-climax at the end of the intermission. We thought that we could occupy a seat in the more luxurious 90 rupee ticket arena, as we felt that we won't be caught. When I went there, mass called me over to his next seat where Santhu had just sat down. I was engaged in a brawl with him, and as he refused to let me sit there, I sat (lay :D) on top of him and refused to get up. The security guards felt this to be too much of a nuisance, and they charged towards us intending to throw us out.

When we noticed this, Ram, Vicky and myself quietly ran away and placed ourselves among the 10 rupee ticket seats. The others didn't listen to us and stayed put at the same place. The guards came and almost whacked the others out of the theatre. [Those people won't accept this particular statement. :D] We three saw the second half completely without any sort of disturbance, and infact liked the movie and its narration, true to the reviews I had heard earlier.

But, that day, the story of the movie didn't linger in my mind. Instead, the thought of oneself being thrown out of a cinema theater, which seemed highly hypothetical till then, happening right in front of my eyes, had me in splits the entire day! :)

Later,
Vijay.

[P.S:- The characters and the incidents mentioned above are truly factual and nothing fictional. You can feel free to ask any of them what happened that day at Sathyam :D]

The Three Mistakes of My Life!

On seeing the title of the post, don't think that this is an article or a review of the book titled the same, written by Chetan Bhagat. This is my emotional outcry about my own personal mistakes, which had made a lasting imprint during the course of my life. (This post might even contain some things in common with the forementioned book, but that's no fault of mine :) )

Mistake #1:

The greatest mistake of mine, as everyone who knows me would certainly know, is the choice of my Career or one could say, my choice of a course in Computers. I've never been fascinated or attracted to the intelligent box right from my childhood, as a matter of fact, I was certainly more attracted towards the Idiot box. :) Exactly four years ago, everyone whom I met kept pointing out to me that if I work hard then, that would be the last year of my suffering, as a heaven named CEG would be in the beckoning, from where life is a bed of roses and nothing would be impossible to achieve. I made it a point to realize the potential which they visualized in me, by trying to work a bit harder at that point of time. As expected, I finished my schooling in flying colours. Then, on the fateful day of my counselling, to everyone's surprise, I chose to opt for a course in the prestigious Computer Science and Engineering course, in one of the most reputed technical institutions in the country. The reason for everyone's surprise was not because of the choice of the course, as it was everyone's dream at that time; but because of the fact that it was I who took the brave decision to start a career in the field of computers.

When I entered college, I remembered all the people saying that college life is absolute fun. I tried to enjoy life to the fullest in college, but I couldn't get back the bliss of my wonderful school life. I couldn't fathom why it was, but perhaps it was one fragment of a person's growing up process. Taking up responsibilities, which I felt as an important aspect of college, is not entirely my forte during my school days, though people would say that I do that involuntarily quite well. College life looked like one hell of a burden for me, and I felt I was not upto it. I started feeling a sense of insecurity among other people who I felt, were born to study in this college. I slowly started feeling that I do not belong here and gradually went into my shell. My self-confidence and hope, both of which were instrumental in making me what I was four years back, went into oblivion and I was a pale shadow of my earlier self. I still could not understand why the main weapon in my arsenal, hope, deserted me in the last three years, but that's perhaps the only reason for me standing now in front of others with my head hung low, more so as a loser in my life. :-(

Mistake #2:

The second most important mistake of my life, I would say is my addiction to Cricket. Being born in India, it is extremely difficult for any person, or atleast boy, to be not interested in it. India is a country of more than a billion people, and more than half the population would certainly be the ardent followers of the game. That's the sheer stupidity of a country, which boasts of only one individual gold medal in the Olympics, that too coming 61 years since its independence from the British rule. Every parent in the country says to the child, "Cricket is ruining all your routines. Do not let the game ruin your exams." But as it is imbibed in the minds of the young ones, they let their heart rule their mind and get obsessed with cricket, just as I did. I would readily bunk my classes in school or college just for the sake of playing or even watching cricket. Cricket ruined me to such an extent that I went to the final exam of my Class XI Chemistry exam, some fifteen minutes late into the hall, and immediately told the status of the match to my friend who was writing the exam. Even now, this addiction of mine, refuses to wane and part of the mistake lies with me too that I don't intend to rectify it, as I'm just one caught among a billion fools.

Mistake #3:

The third mistake which I committed in my life, is my decision to pursue CAT. Most of the people, who would agree with the earlier two mistakes as a reason of my downfall, would certainly not agree with this one, as there is still room for rectifying this mistake of mine. Even I agree that there is some time before this situation too gets out of hand. But as of now, this is a certain mistake, and possibly, a show of foolishness on my part. I've never been a hardworker in my entire college life as everyone knows, but still I am taking a plunge into the CAT. People might say that I would surely make it, but I'm infact, suffering from the fear of failure. This fear is the most depressing thought that one could ever get, and none who doesn't overcome this devil, would be able to end up successfully in life. The mistake on my part is to be afraid of the aftermaths, but as everyone says, I am beginning to realize that "Fortune favours the brave". So hopefully, I would be able to rectify this mistake and make a conscientious attempt towards achieving my dreams.

Later,
Vijay.

[P.S :- As you could see, the mistakes are actually Lack of self-belief, Obsession and the Fear of Failure. As these don't share the starting letter, they have been veiled :) ]

I, Me, Myself

Loves everything which are created by mother nature in this beautiful world. Extremely obsessed with sports, especially cricket. I honestly don't know why I have this special attachment to the so-called-stupid-game of cricket, but I guess it might be from my previous birth, as I was born on the same date as the legendary Don Bradman. :) :)

Extremely loves the music of ARR and of course, Ilayaraja too. Would even die in return for a small chat with my god in the game of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar. In music, no english songs please!! Loves to listen to Tamil and Hindi music all the time. An avid singer too. A good follower of Indian cinema, not much English movies here too.. Likes SRK, Rajni and Vijay among the actors.

Completely new to blogging, I don't even have a hands-on experience in maintaining a diary for myself. Started this blog with a gentle push and confidence from one of my good friends, and more importantly, out of the curiosity of ownin a blog for myself.

Later,

Vijay.