Indian Cricket

Without any doubts I can safely say that the current Indian team has shown the best performance among all Indian team over the ages, and enjoys the best rank , not by any Samsung or CEAT or Wisden rating but just a general gut ranking .

I have been watching cricket religiously over the last 17 years, and I have never seen the national team perform so well and being held in such high regard by opposition teams.

Though the current Indian team has performed well and has world class talent,but I believe that world over, all teams are less strong than they were 5 years back, for example take Australia, 5 years back the Waugh twins, Shane and McGrath were in full cry; for Pak the 2 Ws, Saeed Anwar, Saqlain, Mushtaq, for South Africa, Hansie, Donald, Klusener, Pollock, Jonty for SL, Jayasuriya, Murali, Aravinda and I can go on.

I guess all countries have their crests and troughs of talent , and currently India is riding the crest while others are on the trough or yet to peak, so we should make the most of it. Going by current form and a two-three year forecast we seem to be the best placed to take the 07' WC.

That should be the last hurrah for the Sachin-Ganguly-Dravid generation, though maybe they will continue playing but I dont foresee any of them sticking till the 2011 WC.

The Indian transformation is generally credited to Ganguly, it is correct to a certain extent, but I believe the maturing of Dravid and Sachin has played a major part in it, as well as the young Gen-Xers like Yuvi , Sehwag, Zaheer,Bhajji. I admit Gangs, has shown faith in them given them oppurtunities, but these guys innately also have great motivation and talent that would have surfaced nevertheless, so in a sense Ganguly is also riding the surf. five to eight years ago if Ganguly had worked with guys such as Somasunder, Neil Johnson, Noel david, then come what may he couldnt have brought about the success story of today.

"The Heat Is On"
Both literally and figuratively, the place is slowly bearing a close resemblance to "Hell" as in Dante's Inferno .
Mid term exams coming up next week, and the professors have decided to bombard us with presentations,assignments and quizzes etc, all on a few day's notice. Survival is now on a day to day basis. Following an algorithm of first deadline first. Thankfully till now every day had only one deadline, I shudder to think what will happen if more than one is needed, the time management will require a PARAM supercomputer, as it is juggling time is tough, this is because in all the project groups there are 5-8 members, and each of the groups have different members, with a very small intersection set. So managing group meetings is a nightmare, on top of it people have other commitments, the myriad committee tasks, the Sikander sports etc. The scheduling arrangement is a nightmare.
Though miraculously things always fall in place before the deadline.
Yesterday I had a presentation on Input/output devices for computers, the slides were made by three, with the to and forth exchange of about 5-6 mails. Finally it was uploaded on the class computer. I was the first speaker, and when the slides started rolling behind, voila some of my stuff was missing and slides were in some other order, we exchanged some "oh we are screwed " glances, but as the show must go on, I improvised, started blurting out on a slide to slide basis switching from keyboards to mouse to trackball to joystick and back again, thankfully ordeal was over quickly as some slides were missing. Thankfully for the other two speakers, things were in order.
When we checked later, and gave the handouts to the teacher, the missing slides were there, dunno why PowerPoint played the joke with us. The class also enjoyed it, because it provided them some entertainment in such a drab topic.

Today had a cultural program in the college, called "Parichay" the  first year students organize and take part in it. The standard of the items were pretty good, and the people put up an entertaining show. The seniors tried to ruffle the performers deliberately by loud hooting and jeering, apparently it is a tradition of IIML . Though the performers didnt mind too much but the faculty members were bit miffed. After that had a lavish dinner.
The mess of IIML is truly unique, recently a first page report came on it in the Hindustan Times, it is completely managed by students, the money handled is to the tune of Rs 1Cr per year. The food quality and variety is truly amazing, I have already put up a few unseemly pounds on my sides. The campus though offers ample oppurtunities to lose the tires in the shape of sport facilities, and walking tracks.
 
One of the best things about IIM -L is that it has 24hr water and electricity supply, it was such a relief to know it, as I have stayed in many places where water and electricity couldnt be taken for granted.

Quiz
Quizzes in IIML have a different connotation altogether. They refer to the class tests taken by professors, these quizzes also carry weightage for the final marks. The quizzes are generally surprise ones, and the junta here mostly dread them.
The quiz club here organized a trivia quiz, with a small byline added that, these will be the only quizzes that you will enjoy in your 2 year stay here.
I found a good partner here called Tadatmya(means oneness . origin :Vedanta) , we did pretty well and came second losing out in the last few questions to a senior team.
Such quizzes are held aprroximately every fortnight so looking forward to them.

We have started receiving assignments and presentations in class. One of them is to plan a set-up of the IT infrastructue of a company, budget 50lakhs. Another is to do a presentation on the culture and business scenario of South Korea , profile two of the biggest companies there. In business law we could be getting a presentation anywhere from the Patent Laws to Cyber Porn laws. In economics we may be required to do a market survey of supply, demand by going to the subzi mundis of lucknow. In accounting we have to study and analyze the balance sheets,cash flow statements of top companies like Reliance, Infosys etc. The accounting course is real tough, mostly OHT (Over head transmission), hope to get a hang of it soon.

One Week At 'L'
Has been a complete change in my life in the last one week. From being a regular guy with a settled life in Pune, to being a person in the grind of a MBA institute. The work pressure of this place is legendary, though as of now things are relatively chill, but the prospect of the future is a prolonged heat wave.
Talking of the weather, there has been a perceptible change from the muggy and hot weather, to a pleasant one courtesy monsoon winds and rain, one can see huge clouds floating past the sky, one is reminded of Kalidasa and Meghdoot , as they do look like large FEDEX courier planes "Guppies". Thinking of sending a love letter through them, but my knowledge of geography says that it will have more chance of reaching Nepal than Pune, owing to the direction of the wind.
Today I took a evening walk in the campus , went around the entire periphery, it took about 40 min, the campus is full of verdant foliage, fresh air. Very well planned layout. Reminded me of the army cantonments in my childhood.
Lots of interesting subjects in this term, there's Business Law, Accounting, Statistics,Economics etc. There was a gem by a fellow student in the Business Communication class, a classic case of a verbose MBA. Asked to define communication he rattled off " A bidirectional exchange of ideas, between sender and receiver and vice-versa" . It had the whole class in splits .
On Sunday we had a presentation on "Economic turmoil and currency crisis in Latin America". Except football and Latino sizzlers like Shakira, we had no idea about the region. With extensive help from google and our economics book. We managed to put up a rag-tag show. After that there was a insti party starting at 12.00 , went on till 3, there was dancing and boozing as usual. I just took two pints of beer and rushed off to the TV room to watch the Euro Final. Both the beer (Castle Lager) and the final were disappointing.

"Ragging"
On saturday night there was a formal ragging session in our hostel. Just a one off affair, we had to come in formals with tie at 12.00 in the night. around 30 of us in hostel 10. There were equal no. of seniors. we were made to sit on the ground and were called up one by one to give intro and answer questions before that one had to stand below the building, and was drenched with a couple of buckets of water from the top and then had to run to the centre like zeenat aman or parveen babi. one sardar was told to come doing bhangra, one guy was told to come like allan donald, doing the aeroplane simulation after a wicket.
After that an intro and then seniors asked us to tell jokes or used to make fun of some trait. one was asked to do Dhaava like hrithik, 3 were to do an impromptu skit, one tamil rajnikant fan did the famous rajni sunglass manoeuvre. one chiranjeevi fan did a dance. one told vulgar shayari and if people didnt laugh he got kicks on his backside by a person stationed there specifically for that function. Some 'facchas' were asked to describe their
favorite female in the batch.
All guys were given nicknames some samples : A sardar my AIT junior Inder, was given "PM", one guy was "dhaava", one "butler" ( he studied in some Roy Butler college in kanpur), the rajni fan was "baba", the theatre guy called "bhand". I was "back-fire" . Coz of a joke i told. I got off lightly, by the time my turn came it was 3am , and the guys were somewhat fatigued, moreover as I had a AIT batchmate Sawan among the oppressors.
so wasnt asked much, just to tell something about his capers in college and to describe FC road.
After all this there was lot of booze and drinks kept , of which we all had a fill and dozed off finally around 4am.