The A-Z of my Pune Years

THE “A TO Z” OF THESE FOUR BEAUTIFUL YEARS!!!




Although I am heading home, the irony is that I am feeling that I am actually leaving home.

I had this post in mind for a long time. Its not about specific friends or specific moments. Its about the entire package, the entire journey and the entire experience. For me, as this almost a personal piece, this is the most special post till date of course. I hope its good.
Spoiler Alert : It’s a long post. But I couldn’t write less. Read in two/three/four/ten installments if you like. 

A for Akurdi
Akurdigaon, despite all the abuse at initial shortcomings, the place comes alive when you have all the friends around. What change it has seen in these years, totally transformed beyond recognition. The next time I come to the place I called home for 4 years though, I shall definitely be looking out if the water level has receded in the tunnel.

B for Bike accidents
I have had many funny falls, which becomes funnier when I am narrating them to my friends. It has been a hell of a ride, bruises all over the place. But thank God, nothing serious enough to stop driving along. Bruises and falls in our legendary college ground shouldn’t go unnoticed too. India will beat Barcelona if they play at that ground because Xavi’s ground passes to Messi would bounce up over his head.

C for Chachu
There can actually be a separate A-Z list of Chachu’s moments. What a time we had in the hostel. I am thinking that he should have got the Rs. 10,000 deposit (that we never got back) as entertainment tax from the rest of us. Classic. Thank You man. He’s been a great sport most occasions, sometimes though he got angry, which unfortunately for him led to more leg pulling.

D for Defaulter
Did I hear the attendance cut-off was 75 percent? Haha. If the teachers, with the exception of a few, were better than a new-born in technical stuff, maybe we would have attended a percentage close to 75. Repeated warnings = Weekly comic relief.

E for E-Cell
Been part of most stuff in college and Rotaract holds a special place because that started it all. But after the mess it became, it was good riddance. Prateek’s revival of the E-Cell was a smashing moment. Was so awesome to work with him and Niyanta again, and throw in awesome new friends in the mix, we had a superhit E-Week and good trip down to Bangalore. Super stuff Phoenix, and congratulations to Prateek Khare.

F for Friends.
Need I say more. My time here has been defined by friends. The experiences, the laughs, the debates, the fights, the late nights, the timepass. Everything. Depresses me no end. Enough Said.

G for Grace Marks
Isbar cut-off kitna jayega ? :P Story of the college years, isn’t it? However hard I study, there is always that one/two paper that scares the shit out of me during the semester vacations. 40 in the mark sheet is prettier than anything in this world.

H for HOSTEL.
I don’t think anybody who stayed in THAT hostel in the first year would disagree. It a shame, we could not carry on. We made the best of friends, we had the best of moments. Football, PL, TV, terrace, the various rooms. Who would believe us when we say that we had the craziest of times in a place that greeted me with broken windows and cupboards, a still fan and a fused light, a place which had water problems all year and no mess. But we had just the medicine that was needed to cure all. Friends.

I for IPL
Hmmm, I’d rather stay quiet on this. There is always a bunch of people who are ready to take my case on this. KKR was pathetic, I guess my Pune years were THE curse. Therefore, we are winning next year, now that I am out of here. (*Takes cover*)

J for Jigar
Like it or hate it. It cant be ignored. It was the savior of all saviours. Whatever I do, wherever I am, I will have the visual of ‘Brilliant Jigar’ by ‘Technical Publications etched on to my mind.

K for Kick-off.
Kick-off here obviously signifies the beautiful game. Kicking off at Ursula’s, college, here and there. Everywhere. Kicking off at 2am in the morning under street lights. Waiting for kick-off to take place far off in England with the TV on. Debating stuff that don’t have a winner or ending around football. Also, cant miss mentioning winning the Pune University championship. That team was like family, awesome seniors.

L for Liverpool.
Cant help it, this letter is blocked for Liverpool forever.

M for Maar
Birthdays, like campuses across the land, are a curse. You get fucked. Badly. If however, Chachu is also present, the birthday boy gets some reprieve. He must have been hit on around 40-45 birthdays in these 4 years, but then again, isn’t that his real age anyway? Great times at 12 o clock midnight. All 4 years. Vikram have you recovered?

N for Niyanta
I have to say this. A gem. She has been the strongest pillar of support there ever can be. She has been in trouble a lot due to me but always ended up being by my side. Unbelievable woman. Wonderful person, lucky to meet you, luckier to be close to you. Leader oh yeah. You know what I think of your work in college. Unprecedented. I think of the list of people I met in Pune whom I am close to I cant stop being grateful.

O for Overwhelming moments.
There are times when you feel so good, that the whole week’s schedule can take a walk. Moments which can keep you cheered up in the not so good times. I have had loads of them, and If I have to mention one, here goes : It was the first semester, and I was terribly homesick. One morning, I came out of the college gate expecting a friend of a friend to come, which was what I was told. Instead, I saw my closest friend since my childhood days step out of hiding and shock me. I remember I sat down for a moment to just take it in. Harsh Sureka had come down from Manipal and oh those 2 days are still wonderful. I dint know Pune well enough to take him to the best of places, but for me, nothing else mattered. I was already in heaven and there’s no better place than that in Pune, is there? Thank you so much.

P for Placement
To be honest, I can neither describe the tension prior to getting placed, not the relief afterwards. I hope Godrej and Boyce works out well.

Q for Quarter
Yeah pints, quarters whatever. Basically signifies drinks. And boy!! what a time we have had. The talks, the stories, the madness, EPIC.

R for Rent
Abhi ATM se nikaal kar aapko rent deta hoon. Was one of the consistent lines I delivered to my landlords over the months and years. Stayed in a flat for 6 months, and a room for 2 and a half years, and both were fun. Sad that I have to leave the place now, but that sadness is multiplied by the thought of me having to CLEAN the damn room before leaving. Not cool.

S for stories
Aaah, some stories. Saurabh Singh always has the craziest stories. Soham Chakraborty’ s stories narrated by Vikram are the kind of stuff which inspired the creation of the abbreviation ROFL. Have some awesome stories myself which I shall remember for life too. If someone does actually sit down and compile all the stories in a book, that would outsell Techmax Publications for sure.

T for Transport Nagar Naka
A friend in need is a friend indeed. :P . When we ran out of ‘you know what’, who came to the rescue? Exactly this place. Good times late at night, passing time, stopping for chai-sutta and just talking. Delight.

U for Ursulas.
The people. The football. Football at the ground or at the basketball courts has been such a time. I remember going to play there in the first year and feeling, yeah now I feel settled here in Pune. And nothing has changed. Its just like home. Even more importantly, the people. I have been lucky enough to have a lot of friends who went to school at St. Ursulas and I have to say, they are awesome.

V for Viki’s flat
Ok Vikram doesn’t own the place, nor does he stay alone there. But that’s how that flat is called by me – Viki’s flat. The dinner times have been filled with such incidents, that I have probably never looked forward to dinner more in my life. Also, staying in a single room in the last 2 years, that was the time of the day I really looked forward to catching up with an awesome group. All of you at LaviKunj and the SB Patil Building : A big thank You.

W for Wake Up
My Pune years have had more nights than day. Honest. I have had so many people trying their best to wake me up in the morning, and thank you for the patience. On the day of my M3 paper in second year, I woke up at 10am. That’s the time the exam was scheduled to start. I reached at 10.15-10.20 and was allowed to sit thankfully. Scary!

X for Xerox
The notes, the sheets, the Jigars, the question papers, the tuition stuff we missed, unending list. Xerox, mini Xerox. The irony is that, however much we Xeroxed, what we utilized from that is dealing in single digit percentages. Copyline doesn’t mind though.

Y for You All.
We if you managed to read this excessively long post till here, you need a pat. Haha. There have been great number of people who I have had a good time with. Some might be reading this, some not. Cannot name all ofcourse. ‘You all’ is for every person that made this Pune experience worthwhile. We might have met once, we might have met daily, we might have had more chats than talks, you might have been a senior giving me advice and guidance, you might have been someone we have worked on something together, just everybody has contributed to this wonderful time. Cannot stress this more. Honest to God.

Z for Zoo.
Like you have seen plain clothes policemen, this special zoo has plain clothes / human skinned animals. They are primarily donkeys with Z for Zero IQ. They include the college administration. And the brains behind the university and marks system. Sorry, but I tried my best, just couldn’t resist this.



Damn tempted to get back a couple of alphabets as wildcard entrants like Roadies etc., and write some more. But I guess I will leave it at that.

A man (or woman, maybe) once said that Every good thing must come to an end. Boy!! Wasn’t he correct!!





BlogAdda

What's the big 'deal' in banning websites ?

A Satire on Pakistan and it's internet madness.

Pakistan is on a spree you see. And we, as good neighbors are keeping a close watch on them.

Disclaimer : None.

Let the images do the talking.


















































PS : Sorry to have used Mr. Orkut, i have good memories of Orkut. Just dint find anything else.

PPS : As most of the internet is banned, this piece sadly wont reach my friends in Pakistan. Not cool!!

To Chelsea, with lots of love... :P

Disclaimer 1 : I have got a lot of good friends who are blue noses. Tumko Chelsea / Champions League ki kasam, please play along and dont get offended. ;) Simple banter this.

Disclaimer 2 : None of the images below are mine, blatantly using Vodafone's, as small time payback for ridiculous billing some time back.

So, Let's kick offf....





























































Ok, this was my first amateur attempt at a comic. Inspired mainly by Sahil Riz' The Vigil Idiot , Fly, you Fools and some more blogs. (and Savita Bhabhi maybe???)

PS : Wikipedia to be blamed for problems, if any. :)

Justification of IPL obsession by a News editor.

* Bit delayed post. Was my first attempt at satire. :) *

AN EXCLUSIVE REPORT




A citizen journalist (CJ) got an opportunity to grill the editor of a popular English news channel on the recent obsession with IPL-gate which led to missing out of other ‘so-called significant stories’ developing simultaneously. Mr. Sumon Roy, Managing Editor of ‘Times Then&Now’, took time away from his busy Twitter schedule to oblige us with this interview.

CJ began by asking him why the Prime Minister’s visit to the West at the same time of the IPL mess did not qualify as substantial news on his 24 hour channel. Discussion of Af-Pak with Obama is news after-all we thought.

He said, ‘Look, IPL is way cooler. Because there is no Pakistan in here.' But in the same breath he added, 'I am not saying we are collectively ignoring Pakistan like the IPL owners. If anybody dares to allege that we are indeed blacking out Pakistan in media, I have got two words for them : Shoaib Sania’.

Visibly delighted at the awesome and spicy byte he just got, the CJ went on to ask him about non-coverage of the PM’s attendance at the Nuclear Summit following the USA visit. Roy said, ‘ We live in times of change. Few years ago, the nuclear bomb was the strategic deterrent for USA, through which it ruled the world. Its not the ‘in thing’ now. 21st century is India’s era. IPL is the new strategic weapon. Don’t tell me you din’t see Shashi Tharoor’s TED talk on India’s soft power. We are merely following that. If you don’t listen to us, India won’t drop a nuke. She would bar your players from IPL and not telecast games to your country. For the resulting loss of revenues there, they will probably take on board some more sponsors. After all, sky is endless and there is space for so many more blimps’. It aint the 4th biggest league in just 3 years for nothing.

The Prime Minister also visited Brazil by the way. A key strategic ally. In response, ‘Well well well, why would you ever want to report anything on Brazil if it is not football, or those wild thong-clad chics at the Rio carnivals? Waste of time and space. Brazil time on news will be later this year from South Africa, subject to end of IPL-gate by then’.

On being quizzed about the lack of news reporting on Pankaj Advani’s successful title defense at the Asian Billiards Championship, he put all the blame on technology. He said, ‘Anyway, we have reported a lot on Advani and the overwhelming response has been that oldie should retire and die in peace. So keeping in mind the public sentiment, our news channel system installed a program which blocks any news featuring the name Advani. So, this young boy’s achievement got filtered. All because of his unfortunate surname. Anyway, since he plays so well, I am sure he will win more and more in the future, and give us more chances to let him down’.

Final question to him was what about Indian football team qualifying for the Asia Cup 2011 after 20 odd years and tournament draw that was held last week. He was surprised and said, ‘Whattttt?????? What is that???? Is this a trick of FakingNews.com ? India qualified for Asia Cup 2011, that too after 26 years, are you sure??? Are you sure this is football and not some other believable sport???

Off the record, he told our correspondent that he is not too worried about important news being missed on private news channels. He said, ‘The truth is everybody is on twitter. Smart-ass bloggers invariably post links from BBC and Wall Street Journal etc. So we are covered in that respect. And prioritizing sleaze and glamour over important news is keeping in mind the new Indian urban attitude. I know this because a lot of my friends are actually following Mallika Sherawat on Twitter ahead of Cricketwallah etc, just because she posts pics every now and then showing a lot of cleavage.’

‘Popular media should mirror the mindset of the nation, isn’t it?’

Who are we to disagree?

My report on FakingNews.com

EDIT : This post was the 8th most read post on FakingNews for the year 2010 out of 418 articles published. :) Delighted. Here is the list.

WHOAAA!!!!! What a day it was yesterday. There was nothing that could cheer me up more.
FakingNews, many many thanks. It felt great to be on such a kickass site. \m/

Here is the link : Do check out.
http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/05/student-misses-exam-after-sachin-tendulkar-tweets-him-luck/

It is basically a spoof on the maddening and crazy reaction to The Man himself : Sachin Tendulkar joining twitter. I was part of the crazy reaction to this development too, and if it's of any use, I must add that I was amongst the first 100 followers of the Master. Achievement for me. :P

Cheers. :) :)


Edit (4th Jan 2011):
Just checked the stats on the FN site and Facebook page. Awesome response. Info from the site is 156Retweets and 601 Likes/shares on the page for Facebook. 164 people have liked it on the facebook page of Faking news. :) :)

Confession of a Twitterholic

Possible Future Scenario :
At a Twitter addiction rehab centre in South Mumbai.

Me : Hi. I am XYZ. And I am a major twitterholic.

Others in the room : Hiiiii XYZ.




There is a group on Facebook which is named : ‘Orkut is dead. Facebook killed it.’ Just like millions of nonsense funny-named groups in there, it couldn’t be truer. I have trodden the path, that same path through which the whole of India has passed. Hi5  Orkut-Facebook Twitter God Knows What!

I have been hooked to all the above mentioned sites at various points of time. This is not a unique story. But never has the addiction been so much. The addiction to Twitter. The fact that this occurs right when my final exams are about to begin probably adds to the intensity of disillusion I have right now, leading all the more to the confession. Mind you, I haven’t confessed worse things and if I want peace, I rather don’t. ;)

I joined Twitter a long time back and for almost a year, I had one tweet which went something like: ‘Hi, trying to understand Twitter’. Character Count: 30 odd. That was the day when I thought, man 140 characters is bit too much! I signed out and forgot about it. It was still the Facebook phase.

Reasons : Demi Moore and Aston Kutcher were the Twitter Gods. Who cares? Shashi Tharoor may have joined, but the public dint know much. Karan Johar hadn’t started his campaign to have every Bollywood person on the site. IPL took place only on the grounds or telly, not on Twitter. The numerous bloggers whom I followed were on it, but I dint know. Probably missed the Twitter widgets on their blogs or maybe was just not interested. And finally, CNN-IBN’s website din’t have stories describing SRK’s mood today based squarely on a couple of tweets many hours back.
Those were the good days. Uncomplicated.

Sometime a few months back, when the site’s popularity was exponentially high from last thought; I decided to jump back in and add to my single tweet.
No sooner had I got the grip of things, I was hooked.

The scope is massive. Unprecedented. In Facebook and orkut, we mostly interact and fool around with our own friends and acquaintances. Though a lot of people send ‘can I be your fraand’ type of scraps etc to nice display-pic girls, more or less, it’s just the people you know. The ones, who are in these sites for business and opportunities make new friends, bounce off ideas etc but from my experience they are in the minority big time. Apart from the respectable chatting and catching up with long lost friends and school/college buddies, social networking is also in the simplest language possible : style maro-ing by putting good pics and updates, bakarchodi and checking out hot looking friends of friends. It is about creating an image which you want people to have of you. Nothing wrong in it. I love it infact.

Twitter is none of that. To a large extent. It is only Twitter where hopeless people can expect to get their 15 characters of fame. Poorly put but I guess the point is made. The major attraction is of course the celebs. All kinds of them. From the real ones, to the silicon ones.

It is real time shit. Info, humour, perspectives - everything. All in real time. The boundaries of our world becomes timelines. Never have we been so fond of scrolling up and down, up and down, all day, all night.

We ping them. The celebs tweets their day schedule. We ping them. The celebs suck upto each other. We still ping them. The celebs let out their philosophical gyan. We again buzz them. The celebs discuss serious stuff.Supposedly serious stuff I mean. And we keep on buzzing them. But whatever goes on, one thing is sure. Everybody is out to prove how intellectually rich they are. Twitter seems like the Calcutta of the online world. :P

And then, one day, we get a tweet back. Which changes our sad twitter life forever.

It could be a small thanks in reply to one of the numerous real or fake sweet messages we sent over the days. It could be a retort to an offensive and non-fake comment (normally comparing him/her to Agarkar) from us. It could be anything. It could be a simple retweet of that message you just sent randomly. It could be anything.

Then we go on overdrive. We begin to follow hi-fi accounts of Wall Street Journal and BBC. So that we can post kick-ass links from them. We follow the #trend-setters. We try to come up with witty comments. We try every trick in the book and this link here captures it better than anybody else.

AND THEN, Sachin Tendulkar comes on board. Just like he has killed various attacks all over the world, he kills various competitors of Twitter. And suddenly, the whole of India has logged in. The history will be now divided into two eras. BS - Before Sachin. and AS - After Sachin.

So if you are a budding entrepreneur, explore the possibilities of Social Networking Addiction Rehab Centres. I tell you what, if you make money on this, please give me some. :P

Tweeps \m/

P.S. Twitter is the truest form of 'social networking' in my book. If you really want a really hilarious, and meaningful time onsite, apart from the usual celebs, please start following and interacting with bloggers. That's the best thing to do on twitter. They are awesome. You wont regret. Not one bit.

Cricket - No More Please

According to me, Sachin Tendulkar unintentionally killed other sports in India. Unconventional, but this is my tribute to the great man. I grew up playing many sports, but in the end, it had to be cricket. One would be a fool to pursue something that wasn’t cricket in those days. Cricket it was, from morning to night, daily. When ESPN-Star used to show that advertisement stating ‘256 (or so) days of live cricket this year’, everything was right for me in the world. Perfect.

But, I am a convert. A die-hard cricket fan, who used to look forward to even see Kenya play at the Eden Gardens now doesn’t give a damn about who is in India’s 20-20 World Cup squad. I normally follow the fortunes of my favorite IPL team, but no more than that. I just happened to realize that cricket is not the beginning and end of the sporting world. And thank God for that.

Traditionally Calcutta is regarded as a football powerhouse of India. Growing up in the city, for 18 years, I have seen nothing that would support that. It is actually a ridiculous tag that has no relation with the present reality. No parent encourages children to be a Bhaichung Bhutia. It has to be a Sourav or Sachin.

For those wondering where this is heading, I will make it clear now that the intention is not to write a cricket bashing article. Cricket is unbeatable, no issues with that. It makes the people happy. It makes me happy too. Sometimes, I may add. This is simply from a personal point of view, a celebration of new trends in the average Indian sports fan. A celebration of a tiny shift to maybe football, or even Formula One, in the hearts of the people. Tiny, but significant. And i came across all this when Pune happened to me.

On 3rd April 2010, I walked into my usual evening hangout here in Pune. A coffee shop with a LCD telly. A double-header was on in the IPL that day and guess what, I see them showing Chelsea v United instead.
During my first year of engineering, I saw a sight that will stay with me for a long long time. I saw a bunch of 8-9 year olds playing full ground football at the local school, complete with jerseys of European clubs. Now, what is so unique one might ask. Well, just the bit that I have never seen such a game in almost 2 decades of living in Calcutta. ‘Supposedly football crazy Calcutta’. Well, that tag can be put to bed now. Thank You.

Amongst non-cricket sports, football is growing, and football following is growing at an exponential rate. It is a big deal for me, because I have spent hours trying to get half a dozen friends to have a kick-about with me without success. Because I have spent hours trying to convince my hostel-mates to watch an Arsenal-Liverpool game instead of a cricket match, where the series has already been decided. Because I have cursed ESPN-Star Sports for hours when they decided to show inconsequential cricket games while not broadcasting important football ones. Well, I think the new Star Cricket channel solves that particular problem. Relief.

The college years of my life here in Pune, as you would expect has been defined by friends. And many of them, infact I have met and bonded because of football. This city is the perfect example of an urban centre that does not begin and end with one sport. The enthusiasm for soccer is awesome. The rivalries amongst friends intense. The build up to big games exciting. Everything is positive here.

One will argue that following the fortunes of the Big 4 in English football doesn’t help Indian football. I buy that actually. I agree with it totally. But here is why there is hope.

I remember the craze that swept many a Puneite when Pune FC was promoted to the national league. It was refreshing. But it wasn’t sustained. So we are stuck on the hope level. The fact that Pune FC has done fabulous in their first year and coupled with some Lalit Modi-esque marketing might just make the interest long lasting. The growing legion of European Club fans in India is shooting up by the day, but we also need to give some support and sing some songs for our compatriot professionals. Quality is sad, even depressing, but so is our interest.

This commentary has major football weight-age, honestly because football forms a major part of my life. But the point I am interested in making is before we continue to have the clichéd late night shows on news channels debating the death of non-cricket sports (where Arnab Goswami asks the panelists over a thousand questions in 10 minutes without any reply), WE must show interest in other sports. Parents must encourage kids to take up something else. Cricket, the infrastructure and money that we have will not be effected one bit, but the same actions will benefit other sports in a big way.

India dominates the cricket world (not necessarily due to results), and it would be great to stay that way. But when advertisements are forced in between balls in an ongoing over, when time-outs are enforced to earn some more, when test cricket schedules are tweaked for 20-20 entertainment, when there is a T20 World Cup every year, my belief that the madness must stop gets stronger. A popular defense of 20-20 cricket is that it will encourage more countries to join in. Well, that is unbelievable. Do we want slam-bang-vanish cricketers or do we want a Sachin Tendulkar who leads the same 20-20 IPL runs chart by hitting 3 sixes all tournament. That is possible because he played 4-day and 5-day cricket at Shivaji Park when he was growing up, not 2 hour jokes.

We applaud Pullela Gopichand, Leander Paes, Vijender Singh etc when their deeds lead to the Indian national anthem being played on foreign land, and then very conveniently forget about them in a matter of weeks. But we still remember cricketing moments that happened ‘ages’ back such as the Tendulkar hundred in a losing cause, that Yuvraj Singh hattrick, and many more as if it happened earlier today.

Well, it did turn out to be cricket bashing, dint it? Despite my best efforts. But I guess, talking about Indian sport without mentioning cricket much (positive or negative) is not possible. Anyway, the points made I think.

In early 2011, India will play in the Asia Cup Football, her first major football meet in over 20 years. At the same time, the Ashes will be on. Which one will India be watching?