SAMSKARAM '07

The mobile lying in a dark corner of my bed sounded the arrival of a 'good morning' message and put an end to the bliss of my soul! I know it won't be so good on my part to curse the poor soul that cares to remember me every morning and most importantly, wake me up (thro the sms). And just as I open my eyes I see the entire house buzzing with activity and I realize that I was really very late in getting up. Then I suddenly remember why all this has happened. What had made me sleep so late into the morning?? I coolly snuggle in my bed recollecting what all had happened and for all those who want to know, read on!

On a day when the whole of Andhra Pradesh was observing a bandh in protest against the 'stay' ordered by the apex court against the implementation of reservation for OBC in educational institutions, and at a time when the srilankans were firing on all cylinders to overwhelm the Englishmen in the Caribbean islands, the final year students of Electronics and Communications Engineering of GITAM were busy honouring their faculty and the support staff at Hotel Green Park, Visakhapatnam!! The important thing about this get-together was that it was the first time the two sections of the final year ECE had come together to host an event. There were initial speculations, as usual, about whether we'd be able to strike a good rapport with each other and make the event a success. But everything had to begin at some point of time and so did our event.

It all started off one fine afternoon when we heard rumours of our juniors not hosting a farewell for our batch. We felt dejected but we thought that we should not be waiting for such a let down to strike us. We wanted to host a party ourselves and felicitate our teachers. Initially it all appeared like a prank to a few of our classmates but it was only later that they realized we meant serious business. Then we heard some good news. One was that our juniors were hosting a farewell for us. It went on quite well as can be inferred from my previous post. And the other good news was that we were going to carry on with our idea of felicitating our teachers.

In a few days time, after a lot of math and inquiries at the venues, we came up with a figure to be collected from the class. Our section was at an advantage in finance terms in that we had some 'reserve cash' which was the remnant of our previous hostings and tours. I had taken up the job of pooling the money and it was the first time for me. I enjoyed the job, going up to all people and reminding them of getting the money on time, getting onto the stage, announcing events and that sort of things. It was a great feeling holding so much cash, making note of contributions and planning expenses. We had a great time in deciding what gift to be presented to the faculty! Also, the rounds we made to the hotels in town for the right date and food and most importantly, the price, were amazing!

It was time for SAMSKARAM '07 (brainchild of Mr.Bharat Jhurani) to be flagged off! The event was scheduled to start at 6 P.M. Well, the time was decided keeping the 'Indian Punctuality' factor in mind and we were not wrong in doing so - the first guest arrived at 7.30 P.M. Sticking to the 'xtreme casual' dress code that we had mentioned in our invitation, our Head Of the Department arrived. Then others slowly followed. The event started off with a song by one of my classmates. Then there were felicitations as usual and some rocking dance performances by Pavan & Vamsi Murthy from my class and Kiran & Ravikanth from the other class. My classmate Shrikant was the host and Spandana from the other class was the hostess for the evening. I did not really have much to do except when the hotel guy called me in between to decide upon the time for starting the dinner, to check the number of plates and finally to pay the bill!! I had actually wanted to make my presence felt by donning the role of an anchor but because of the lack of enthusiasm or whatever, I couldn't do it. Wait a minute, I did get onto the stage, not for speaking or anything but to present the memento to Mr.G.V.K.Sharma, the youthful faculty member of our department. The event went on and finally it was dinner time. The hotel guy had already called me twice by that time to warn us about the shortage of time as the dinner was to be served only till 11 P.M. I ran back to the hosts and made sure that they'd wind up the event in a short span of time. After the Vote of Thanks was proposed, it was dinner. There were cameras all over the place. The students were so very enthusiastic and ecstatic that they even did not let the faculty have the dinner peacefully. Every time the HOD puts a spoonful of pulao into his mouth, a new batch of students would be ready with a camera. And since I was on the organizing side this time, I had to eat at the end and make sure that the dinner was served properly. I went round asking people about how the food tasted and all. After making sure that everybody had dined or had started to dine, it was my turn to hold the plate and enjoy the delicacies. The food was excellent and I was quite sure we had struck a great deal with the hotel with regards to the price. I was quite happy about this especially because I was involved in finalizing the deal. Then we had some last moment group snaps. I felt I had missed out on the photographs front this time. May be because I was busy ensuring that everyone was eating or because of anything else, I missed out so many photo sessions. That's the only drawback I had felt. After all that, the bill was cleared and the gathering had dispersed for the night.

the cricket mania

Just a few days ago, it was all well. India had landed in the Carribean islands with a positive outlook and a lot of confidence backing them up in the form of their victory against Srilanka at home. It had even done quite well in the warm-up matches. It appeared as though there would be no stopping India this time from grabbing the very much wanted "World Cup"! The cricket carnival was kicked off with the series opener in which the host had won and a team from the sub-continent, Pakistan had lost. The result was not of much bother for the Indians at this stage. Then came our turn. We were on a high and a bit of complacency having crept in. We were facing the minnows of One Day Cricket, Bangladesh. No one would ever have thought in the wildest of their dreams what had occurred on 17th of March 2007!

All Indians were awaiting the series opener for the Indians and were glued to their TV sets and had prepared themselves for a long night-out despite the opponent being a weakling. Needless to say, a match is always interesting as long as India is involved! People always like to see Virender Sehwag throw his bat at every delivery that comes his way and send the ball sailing over the ropes. They take immense pleasure in savoring the extravagant batting display of the little master Sachin Tendulkar. Its a fact that thousands of people stop watching the match once the little master gets out! They feel that the match is almost over and there is no chance of a come-back. These are the levels of expectations our Indian cricketers carry on their backs. Its understandable why Sachin often suffers from a back problem!!

With the expectation levels high as usual given the good form the team had displayed in the warm-ups and considering the low experience of the opposition, one would have thought that the opening match would be a cake walk for the Indians. But, it turned out to be a lot different!! Virender Sehwag continued his poor form and got out in a 'dirty' fashion. The rest of the team too did not seem to show much resolve and the fighting passion. It appeared that the cricketers were a lot relaxed as though the outcome of the match wasn't going to matter at all. The fact was that the result of the match was going to pose serious threats to India's chances of continuing further in the contest! People were left in a deep shock watching the batting collapse of the Indians. One after another followed suit exposing the complacency within each one of them. One was left to wonder whether there was something wrong with the pitch or the Bangladeshis were at their thrashing best! People were waiting for India's turn to bowl so that their questions will be answered. Everybody expected that the Indians would come-back well and would restrict the Bangladesh team to a low total. But things came out differently. The Bangladeshi batsmen looked in excellent touch and were stroking the ball quite confidently. The people had then got the answer for their question. It wasn't the nature of the pitch that led to the Indian collapse. It was solely because of the excellent bowling of the Bangladeshis. People watched in silence as they made the chase look so easy. At no point did India seem to put a block to the Bangladeshi chase. It all went off quite smoothly for them and they finished it off in style. The Indians had got a 'wake-up' call!! They now had to recover from their deep slumber and pull-up their socks for the rest of the games to stay in the competition. They faced criticism from every side. Everyone wanted Sehwag to be sacked and sent back home. Dravid was greatly criticized for including him in the team. Dravid had no answer!

On March 19th, India were playing another minnow of International cricket, Bermuda. This time around, the Indians were very much awake and had their own calculations about the kind of performance they had to put up so as to stay in the tournament. Things started off slowly and tentatively. The batsmen were playing defensively and just as Robin Uthappa got dismissed, one would have thought that may be Bermuda also wanted to upset India, just the way Bangladesh had done two days before. Sehwag came in at one-down and his feet appeared to be moving. He was stroking the ball confidently, right from the word 'GO'. This was the last chance for him to prove himself and to stay in the team. Good God, he delivered at the right time! This was the perfect setting for Sehwag to come back into form and he did. He ended up scoring a century in a blitzkrieg innings. He provided the necessary platform for India to take off and achieve a huge total which was necessary for them to stay in the competition. They needed to win the match by a really huge margin. Thanks to the timely contributions by Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Sachin Tendulkar India went on to make the highest team total by any team in World Cup history, 413/5. There were a total of 18 sixes in the innings which again was another world record. It was a triumph for the Indian batsmen. Now the bowlers had their task cut out. They needed to strike early and dismiss Bermuda for a meagre total to win by a huge margin and accumulate a decent Net Run Rate(NRR). They did, and India won by a mammoth 257 run margin! This again is another world record, the biggest margin of victory!! Thus, the Indians not just came back, but they did it in style!!

All I have to say is that its not good to criticize anybody just for one single poor performance. I agree that its very much this criticism that has helped the Indian team make a come-back but the degree was too high! We need to have patience and confidence in our players and not put too much pressure on them. The death of the Pakistani Coach Bob Woolmer is an indication of the levels of stress the sub-continent coaches face. The passion for the game drives the people crazy once their team fails to put up a good performance. Cricket is a game in which the outcome of any match cannot be predicted before-hand. The game is to be taken in its spirit and not be treated as a means to display a nation's strength or passions! Its high time the people realize their mistakes and stop putting excess pressure on their players!

AU REVOIR

Its farewell time. It still feels as though college had begun just a few days ago, but we're at the tail end of it already! It happened so quickly that we never realized we were about to finish our course and head off into the future. Time flies, doesn't it??
Now, when I start thinking as to what have I achieved in all these four years, I take a pause and wonder. Not that I hadn't done anything but that I hadn't done anything great!! Let me elucidate. The first year was quite dull. It was the first time I was staying in a hostel and so I took time to adjust myself to the conditions and people around me. Initially I felt my hostel mates had some weird ways of behaving themselves, but later on I found myself doing the same things and felt my initial doubts have been addressed. It just went on without much activity and fun. I wasn't in the thick of things. I was sitting with the books most of the time, still hadn't come out of the effects of my 'Inter' study! I had a good roomie to compete with. So, that kept me busy most of the time and I was quite relieved to have got rid of the ragging menace once the first year was over.
Then in the second year, life was a little on the easier side. Now I wasn't stressed by the ragging menace as I now was on the giving side. However I didn't resort to much of ragging but I simply enjoyed the feeling of living my life on my own. Being in a hostel with friends around was fun. But there are advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes, we all felt cut away from the outside world. We used to go to the city on during weekends and that too for a movie or something. Those were the times when I strongly wished I was staying with my parents so that I had more means of timepass(TV etc.). The thing is that the 'computers' hadn't landed in our hostel till then. There was no specific means of timepass except sports and games and a common TV that rarely worked! Then mid way, my roomie left the hostel and went on to stay with his parents and so I got a new roomie. Adjusting with him wasn't very difficult because he too was my classmate. And coming to the point of my studies, like I told you before, had taken a dip. I don't mean to say that I completely stopped studying but because the competitor wasn't by my side, I was a little lazy and almost removed myself out of the competition. There weren't many quotable incidents in this year either. Not many achievements. But I should say it was much better than the first year!
May be because I had had enough taste of hostel life or may be because I wanted to get coached for CAT(Common Admission Test for admission into MBA institutes), I decided to move out of the hostel and stay in a room in the city. Then I started my hunt for a good room and a better roomie. I couldn't get to stay in a place where most of my classmates had been staying but got to stay with another classmate of mine who had a house in the city and was staying alone. So I put up at his house as a paying guest and got going. I had to take a long commute in a bus every morning and repeat the same in the evening. It started appearing quite tiresome but then I got used to it. I used to feel quite bored at the place for my friend rarely used to stay at home and I for lack of a vehicle never went out. Slowly I realized I had to interact with the outside world to be called a human being and then I too started visiting friends leaving the house alone. I started interacting with my classmates and friends in a much better manner than before. I understood that this was the time to bring about the right change in my personality. I had to move out into the public so that I get rid of stage fear and learn to interact with people well. All this was necessary to face the campus interviews that'll be up at the beginning of the final year. So I was all geared up and even gave a few paper presentations and stuff and I regard third year was very eventful and active!
Then at the beginning of the final year, I got placed(you can read the interview experience from my previous post). Then college began and classes went on. We used to have very minimal number of classes. Then we had to do some project. We don't know how we did but we did. Then we had a hardware exhibition in our department. And after all that, we're now at the fag end of the semester. I cannot understand how it all happened so fast. I still have the picture of the day on which I had joined the college. Yesterday we had our farewell party. It was great fun. The whole class gathering in colourful dresses. We partied late into the night!! Now, I am wondering how it all happened and am writing this!!
See you soon.