June 26, 2003

Chalte Chalte....



Does the name ring a bell???? Well, I guess it rings big bells...Dong!!!!!! Dong!!!!!! in the minds of all the cricket players from Akron atleast. Yes, u have guessed it right....its the new SRK, Rani starrer.

After our epic victory against CSU Vikings some of us took to adventure....we decided to go to the new movie. We thought that we deserved the movie as we played our hearts out and now we need to relax and enjoy the Bollywood Magic. So Gadi Chala Chala ke we went to see...CHALTE CHALTE....we did not know that we will be in for a rude shock and get to see the WOOOOORRSSSSTTT movie of all time. I had read an interview with SRK in which he mentioned that in some cities the audience came out teary eyed......I thought it was a sentimental movie...but when I walked out of the movie I knew what he meant.....I just spent $7.50 = Rs. 375 and 3 hrs of precious time on a torture of a movie.....at the end of the movie we thought..."arree, hum tho match jeeta na ...tho hum kyoun itna torture hue??? it was supposed to be watched by VCC".

I had listened to the songs from the movie on the and my sweet little sister had also sent a cassette from India of that movie...to be honest ...the songs arent that bad and in no way are an indication to what was in store for us on the silver screen.

I had expected to see a decent movie if not a great one.... we missed the first few minutes of the movie as we were hungry and went to the nearby SUBWAY....to grab a sandwich.....now, i wish I should have taken some more time in the loo there.

when I walked in I saw lot of people in the theater and thought..."wow!! thats a lot of people, may be the movie is really good". Then i saw the screen .....Rani was looking different...she had this weird make-up ...with lots of glitter or whatever u call on her eyelids. She wasnt looking her usual self. SRK was his usual ...."eeeeh eee eh KKKKiiiiirrraan"... style. He tries to be too smart in the movie......if u observe in most of his movies he is a super confident....LADKI CHOR he always wants other's girls. The girl is initially either in love with somebody else ...or in the process of being engaged to other (salman, jas..) ......or worse already engaged and abt to be wedded. Man!!!!!!!! he sure has some choice of movies!!!!!!!


This movie was no different...he falls in love with Rani in their first meeting.....well thats understandable....she is good looking and all stuff. Then there is this unwanted Traffic Police scene which was stupid. THen he loses Rani's number...he has to find her...he only knows her name??????? and he goes abt singing....GUMMMMSHUAA...weird. He causes a traffic jam and ultimately finds her....he should have been imprisoned for public nuisance.

He then learns that she is abt tp get engaged.....oh great!!!!!....one more SRK classic story lines....SRK should for once start choosing better roles and be more adventuress....to be frank he looks to old in the movie ...huh....he is old !!!!!!!! He should stop such mushy..mushy teeny bopper roles. Rani will be leaving for greece that night and guess what!!!!!!! he spends his life time savings to go to greece just to tell her "I didnt want to be one of the people who say KAAASH mei ussse yeh keh patha". He travels in bussiness class!!!!!!.... I am doing my Master's but stilll i travel by economy and i guess so do you. But our man!!!!! has a couple of trucks and he travels by business class!!!!!!!! Then the flight gets delayed by 8hrs!!!!!!!!!! they have nice time in some strange place.....then she suddenly realises that she likes him......... Man......aisa koun si ladki hai jo apne mangni ke 5-6 gante pehle kisi aur sey pyaar karegi???????? well...I guess thats SRK's charm!!!!!

He drives her home and she is asleep...so he just watches her...she gets up and asks "Jagaya kyoun nahi???" he replied "Agar jaga tha tho tum jag jaathi naaa" ..... NAHHHHHIIIIIIII........ofcourse Jage gi na???? aisa kounsa ladki (infact anybody) hogi jo jaga ne sey jagthi nahi hai?????? That was the best dialogue of the movie. SUNOH na SUNOH na SUNLO naaaaaaa.

She falls for him and its ok with her dad and they get married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! then on it was a pick off from "SAATHiya" ....remind u...a very very bad pick offf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from then every scene is a fight between SRK and Rani ....they fight for everything ....then eventually they get separated and he tries to bring her back in a classic bollywood style.....Drunkard scene...
then Rani makes the best decision of her life...to leave SRK and India to settle in Greece. But our man is persistent ( as u all know) and goes to the airport.....there he cries....yes....I dont think there is an SRK movie without his crying. but she leaves. I was like ...."atleast there is some sense in the director that he gave a diff ending"....ooopps I said it too soon.....she comes back from the airport before SRK reaches his apartment!!!!!!!!! yeah.....then she reminds him of his taveez and they get senti and hug.....sniff..sniff. end of a crappy movie.....the best part was the nacho and cheese that we ate and the comments passed.
my ending would have been.....Rani comes back from the airport to SRK.....shows him the Taveez....he is all excited and happy....and she says..."yeh wapas karne aayi thi, BYE!!!!!!!"



I think I have wasted one more hour due to the movie.......writing this blog!!!!!!!!!


June 24, 2003

Our Innings.....



We have been having a long and extended nets for batting...the top order got to bat atleast 3 times during the past week and so I hoped to see a better performance of the batsman than against the Youngstown cricket club. Despite some criticism I went ahead with Puneet and Brijesh as the opening pair.....and Man!!!!!!!! they proved my faith right....I went out as the main umpire and Raj (one of the players that was rested for the game) came in as the leg umpire. Sirish gave me special instructions that I was not supposed to give any LBW's and reminded me that I wasnt Satya Harishchandra or his descendent:):) and I hope I showed my obedience to Sirish's instructions.

Their opening bowler was Rama!!!!!! The same guy who batted brilliantly towards the end of their innings. He was bowling a nice line and length and the other bowler Pavan was also bowling well and was getting a lot of movement off the seam. Puneet and Brijesh survived a lot of LBW appeals in the first few overs. Though I wasnt inclined in giving either of them out the appeals werent genuine so they survived and built the partnership on their merit and not becoz I didnt give them out. It was good to see Puneet playing a mature and subdued innings but he was due to perform so it was good that he curbed all his flashy shots till later in the innings. On the other end Brijesh was brilliant he has been growing in Confidence as the tournament progresses...6 Not out, 16 and today 65!!!!!!!!! That was surely a brilliant and a match winning innings. The partnership was buliding at a steady pace and they were scoring mostly in singles and twos due to the terrible outfield. Some of their shots deserved to reach the boundary but the heavy outfield slowed down the shots and sometimes even killed the shots. In the 4th over Brijesh hit a stuuning straight six and from then on played a sedate knock and concetrated on building the partnership and running between the wickets. We progressed slowly but steadily...that was the key. Both the openers were playing sensibly which set the tone and the big opening stand we got of 55 or 57 runs set an ideal platform for the batsmen coming in as they were not under pressure. I had asked Puneet not to play his coffin ....pull shot...till the tenth over and he religiously obeyed me and to my surprise he pulled the first ball of the tenth over!!!!!!!!!!! But then, he was all set so the ball hit the middle of the bat ...hope Puneet understood why I asked him to do that. Puneet was dropped by the keeper when they just got 50 run partnership. They tried to take as many singles as possible and we could see that both the players were visibly tired. Puneet got out for a good length ball for which he had commited on the front foot and was caught behind.....that was my chance to give him not out but he walked so I had no hand in his dismissal !!!!!!!

In walked Phani...he has been having a horrible time in the middle and it was ideal situation for him to play and get back into form as he had Brijesh at the other end who was playing with immense confidence. His first shot was thru the covers..a brilliant shot...I thought welcome back to form buddy!!!!! But to my surprise and to Phani's shock VCC introduced a leg spinner....i know Phani...he doesnt like playing spinners...neither do I...he fell for the first ball he faced of the spinner!!!!!!! He went for a sweep shot which I have never seen him play and got a top edge which flew to the slip. The fielder took a good tumbling catch and that brough a end to Phani's hopes of coming into form and scoring some runs. Now that Puneet and Brijesh have clicked its Phani's turn in the next match to score some runs.

I asked Hari to come in next and motioned for Kiran and Adi to pad up. Hari looked good in the nets so I hoped he would continue his form in the nets to the game. He started off confidently against the spinner though he had a couple of close calls...a leading edge that fell short of the fielder. Brijesh on the other end was playing spinner with caution. The spinner had a faster ball which he bowled as off-spin. I felt that he was "chucking" the ball....throwing the ball....and I asked Raj who was the leg-umpire to check his action...he agreed with me and I asked the spinner to not to bowl that ball...else we will have to call u for a no-ball. He was upset and started arguing with me but then decided that it was getting nowhere so he chose not to bowl that ball. He was bowling really well and wasnt giving any bad balls to punish. Hari and Brijesh are among the fastest on the team in running between the wickets so they started to pick easy singles and twos and that put a lot of pressure on the fielders. The slowly brought up the hundred for the team......which in itself is an achievement as we had not crossed that mark the previous three times we had batted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we needed more than run-a-ball so Hari asked me if I wanted them to hit out.....to his surprise I said no!!!!!!! But he respected my decision and played with his head down. The reason why I was against them hitting out is that they were well set and were playing with confidence so they can continue with this tempo for 3-4 overs more and then we had couple of good hitters down the order who I thought can do the job. Brijesh called Hari for a sucidal single which Hari promptly refused but the fielder misfielded so they decided to go ahead with the run and bowler ran to the ball and threw the stumps down when he had only one stump to aim for. Hari played really well for 27(29). I think they too had a 50 run partnership and probably at run-a-ball. I asked Kiran to come inand I went back to Pad up and Puneet took over the umpiring. Kiran has not been performing up to his potential and he had been getting out to shots which can be avoided if he wanted to. I dont know why he has been trying to hit everything this season last season and the year before he used to play himslef in for an over or two and then start smashing the ball all over the place. All of us know how hard he can hit the ball and how fast he can score but the point is.....he is not apllying himself to stay in and finsh the game. Today I thought he would be more relaxed as he went in when 3 of the 4 previous batsmen clicked and sored more than 20. the bowling was nothing extraordinary. Brijesh in the mean time got to his Fifty that was a brilliant innings. He proved me wrong when I had asked him to go one down when he wanted to open. He has been playing with great composure and confidence at the top of the order and has been the mainstay of our batting this season (including the practice games). Kiran scored his first runs with an effortless flick to the boundary and that raised false hopes in my mind that he will stay till the end and finish the game. the very next over he went for a big heave and got the ball high on the bat and gave a simple catch to the long-off fielder. I dont know what to say......I told him "keep ur head down" but now I guess I need to come up with some catchy line for him to heed my advice...(I am not an accomplished batsman nor I have the technique or power but I can say that when the team is in a precarious situtatiion i try my best not to throw my wicket away).

I sent in Adi who was the star of the last game....he is comfortable with brijesh as both of them like running between the wickets. But that running brought the fall of the next wicket....brijesh was RUN OUT with 46 or 47 runs to get from 7.3 overs. Thats still not bad. I walked in....my strength is running between the wickets as I am a nudger of the ball and i like flicking the ball on the leg-side and run a single and may be two if the fielder is slow. I told Adi "we dont have to hit out as we have a lot of balls to play and we can do it in singles". I didnthave towait for an answer from Adi as i knew what he would say. we were ticking along when Adi got an inside edge and played on to his stumps. That disapointed me as I thought from now it can be anyones game (till then i was confident it was our match)....but I underestimated the potential of the lower order. Manpreet walked in and I told him "behind the wicket non-strickers call and in-front of the wicket batsmans call" thats my standard first line to a new batsman. I asked him to play with soft hands and run the singles. We did that sucessfully. Till in one over I wasted a couple of balls and Manpreet a couple...I was getting restless when Manpreet hit a HUGE SIX over the deep-midwicket boundary. That brough the equation to 26 off 24 balls. From then on we ran some sucidal singles but I asked manpreet to play with soft hands so the fielder has to run to the ball and pick it up and throw it under handed...that gave us a lot of time. the equation was 13 off 13. when manpreet played a defensive shot which I misjudged and ran for a single and realised my mistake half the way thru I turned and ran back but the fielder was very close and got a direct hit and I was Run out once again for being a bad-judge of a single. I need to work on this thing. But my out came as a blessing in disguise to the team as Sunny walked in and did exactly what I was hoping for him to do. He got 4 twos in 5 balls!!!!!!!!! thats it. He made room everytime and wacked the ball as hard as he could...every single time there was only one but Manpreet and Sunny took on the fielder and completed two runs!!!!!!!!! That was amazing running.It cahnged the complexion of the game. we could see it on the faces of VCC players. But Last over was being bowled by RAMA their best bowler...he got two dots and Manpreet got a single and it was 3 off 3 and Sunny got a single it was 2 off 2. we were all very tensed and were cheering very run and shouting out hearts out. The next ball....it was a full toss!!!!!!!! over waist level and Manpreet dispatched it for a Six on the legside and the game was done!!!!!!!!!!! We won!!!! That was the closest game of cricket I was ever invloved with. we won due to the brilliance of Puneet, Brijesh and HAri at the start and Manpreet and Sunny were outstanding towards the end. All in all it was a team effort and even Raj and Guru contirbuted to it raj by umpiring and Guru by taking the field as a substitute!!!!!!! That feels good

I need to get back to work as my advisor has come back from a break......


June 23, 2003

In the Midwest Cricket Tournament (MCT) Akron CC (our team) has always done well and atleast made it to the post-season or the playoffs. This year we have had a bad start our first two games got washed out and we lost the only complete match we played. So it was important and necessary for us to win the game on the 22nd of June which was a Sunday. This game was a grudge match for us we had lost to the same team VCC in the practice match...but we werent full strength then as Hari, Puneet and I werent there (not that we are the stars of the team or something but we form a important part of the team thats why I said we werent at full strength but not weak)

Sunday Morning.....



i was tired from attending a friends marriage on Saturday in Pittsburgh as I got back pretty late and went to bed late. I was fortunate to get all the sleep I wanted ....undisturbed !!!!!! ....none of my team mates called me till I was completely awake and that felt sooooooo good. We met at adi's place as usual at 9:20 AM and like usual we had the late comers...we were suppposed to leave Akron by 9:30 and we left according to IST 10:00 Am. I was supposed to go and watch CHALTE CHALTE later in the evening after the game and so was ADi. When some o fthe players learned abt that they wanted to come along too so we took an extra car. we had our oldest fan and supporter....MELISSA .... back but we lost the audience we had in the previous game due to some reason. Oh well thats ok we have played all our matches without audience so we were all set to go. Sunny, Guru, Melissa and Kiran drove the team to the field. Sindhu came along to cheer our team..so we have one more supporter...Man!! our fan base is increasing by the day:):)

Kiran, Sindhu and I were in Kiran's car....Guru was following us as he didnt know the location of the ground...all along the way guru was frustrating Kiran with his slow but steady driving...in short Kiran was well under the speed limit :):) thanx to Guru. we got to the ground at around 10:45 and we saw that the other team ....Cleveland State University Vikings...VCC...were already there. They were all in cricketing whites and were practising ...they had the stumps and the boundary markers in place and looked all set to go. One of the cars came late as it has become a ritual to take a pit-stop (rest room break) before the game:)

I went for the toss....I was on a streak of winning tosses so I went in confidently with Manoj (the opposition captain). I called Tail and it was head so I was very disappointed but Manoj's decision to bat almost made me jump with joy........what a toss to lose!!!!!!!!!!.....we would have fielded anyway so it didnt matter. all of us did some stretching and warm up excersies when Kiran padded up to stand behind the wickets. I had my usual field which by now most of u know abt. I gave the new ball to Sunny and Manpreet (one of the stars of the day)...Sunny started with 4 wides!!!!!!!!! that was a bad start and we didnt want that. But worse was in store for us....he got hit for two sixes in the same over and bowled 2 more wides....20 runs were scored of the first over!!!!!!!!!!!!! that was a disastrous start. there was something wrong abt the field....then some of the players pointed out that the boundaries were really short!!!! After some contmeplation I decided to go ahead with the shorter boundaries as they would be the same for both the teams. manpreet started the second over....the first ball bounced outside the pitch..hit the edge of the concrete pitch and came straight to the me in the slips!!!!!!!! I was caught off-guard and had a bad bounce. the ball hit me on the left forearm.....which is still sore and is still hurting.....I was thinking what a start.....20 runs of the first over and I got hit in the 2nd over........what next??????..

Some of you must be thinking as to why I write such long and detailed match reports....there are 2 reasons...one is that I enjoy writing them and the second is my friend George back home in india...he loves to read such detailed reports and he also gives me similarly detailed instances from his matches.....

Back to the game....

Manpreet regained his composure after 2 wides and bowled really well....I was happy that my move to let Manpreet bowl with the new ball worked!!!!!! But now the question was to either persist with Sunny or to bring in Hari???? I decided to stick with Sunny and hooped that he would get his revenge.....which he did!!!!!! The very next over I sent Hari back onto the Long on boundary which he thought was unnecessary ....the guy who hit Sunny for 2 sixes then tried to do the same but didnt get much bat on it this time around so he skied a catch to Hari who was standing exactly where I had asked him to stand. Sunny was delighted and his confidence was back and I was happy that my move to persist with Sunny didnt back fire:):) After 3 overs they were 24/1. Manpreet was bowling excellent line and length and troubled the batsmen continuously. He is developing into a very good bowler and in him and Hari we have a very dangerous fast bowling pair. Sunny relies on swing, Kiran and the rest of us rely on line and length. Some of the decisions were very close and the umpire (as expected) ruled them in favor of the batsman...one was an LBW and the other was a caught behind.. both seemed clearly out but we respected the umpires decision...this pissed Brijesh offf and he blew the top. I sent him to the long on boundary hoping for his temper to come down...he became unusally quite. Hey Brijesh sorry for that but I had to do it. I took of Manpreet and brought Hari on but persisted with Sunny which surprised a lot of people as he started to tire and was erring in his line....I take the blame for that as I wanted to finish him off so that I can have 7 overs out of my way..we were playing with a bowler short than usual...we usually have 7 bowlers but today we had only 6. I took Sunny off on Hari and Phani's advice and I brought Adi on.

The pitch was completely rought as it was a concrete one with no mat and the surface was not smooth either. it reminded of the floor of a concrete Badminton court on which I grew up learning the sport. The ball was severely damaged and there was nothing left in the ball to shine after the 7th or the 8th over. Hari was having trouble gripping the ball as the seam got damaged as well. he started of with a series of full tosses. he took his time to settle down but Adi was right on the spot from ball one....in his first over he bowled only one bad ball which was dispatched for a four. During this time Hari got an LBW!!!!!!! yes.....the umpire gave a decision in our favor....that was a miracle. The new man in was their in-form batsman who was just coming off scoring a 57 in his previous knock. He looked compact and was a perfect judge of singles. Adi came back with a maiden and that was the turning point of the game!!!!!!! In his next over .....which was the last over before the break...Adi got the man in form brilliantly caught by sirish in the squareleg position....so at the break they were 78/3 in 16.3 overs. Only a couple of overs prior to the break I had shouted in encouragemnt of my team saying "Come on guys lets go into the break with 3 wickets" when only 1 wicket was down.... and I was happy that we did what we wanted to do:):). Some of the guys joked..."arre yaar theen hi kyoun bola paanh-cheh bol diya hota :):)"

After the break Adi and Sirish kept the VCC batsman under control with impeccable line and length for whcih they were rewarded with wickets. Adi got a bowled and an LBW!!!!!!!! wait a minute ....another LBW decision????? whats going on...were we dreaming or was it another miracle??? but we didnt care. Sirish got a wicket for his persistence ...the batsman tried lofting him and Vikas took a one handed (it was supposed to be taken with both the hands but the ball stuck in one hand) and they were reduced to 90/6 or smething like that. Adi was on a roll as his 4 consecutive overs were ....a maiden, wicket, wicket and wicket. he was absolutely brilliant with the ball.Now we had then down and almost out...Thats the most dreaded situation for us as we have been there many times and have successfully blown away all the hard work...and this time was no different....I need to take partial blame for that as I bowled below par and that let them off the hook. But no credit should be taken away from RAMA their 5 down batsman who played brilliantly and scored 45 (41) with 3 sixes!!!!!!!. At 90/6 sirish injured his finger..at that point his figures were.. 3-1-4-1 ..absolutely brilliant figures. I brought myself on to stem the run flow but it went the other way round and I proved very expensive....I wasnt finding my run-up and I bowled 4-5 full tosses and 2 wides. In between all this I managed to get a wicket with a slower ball........yes I think i am the only one that uses the slower ball in the team....I cant disguise it well but I have beaten the batsman many times and i have even got wickets with that ball. I foxed the batsman with a slower ball and he popped a simple catch (which was made to look difficult) to phani. he missed the first attempt and the ball rebounded from his chest and he caught it!!!!!!!!!!! That was infact the only jittery moment for Phani on the field (other than the times when he winced in pain on landing on the injured knee)....he was really good at the Silly mid-pn position. Uncharacteristically he dived for the ball many times and must have saved 8-10 singles on the field (which proved decisive at the end).

I brought Manpreet back in anticipation of stopping the run flow and also getting some wickets...but RAMA was in full flow and they were running for everything and our fielding started to wild under pressure. Except for a few moments here and there...our fielding has been excellent in all the matches so far (touch wood for that)...I am glad that the extensive fielding practices we have are showing results. Then I brought on Hari hoping that he will provide the much needed breakthrough..but he had his worst 3 overs of bowling for Akron. he got hit for some runs and some sloppy fielding didnt help. During one of the plays...the ball was hit to vikas on the squareleg boundary..he twisted his ankle in pursuit of the ball.. and fell right next to the ball after stopping it but he was in soo much pain that he couldnt throw the ball.....the batsman showed no mercy and ran a third run inspite of the fact that Vikas was in great pain...soo much for the sports man spirit. Alll in all they ended up with 171/7 in 35 overs. Not a bad total to chase i thought.ADi finished with 7-1-25-3 manpreet finished with similar figures but was unlucky not to get a wicket 7-1-25-0. Hari and I were expensive with 7-0-44-1 and 5-0-29-1 figures respectively.

we again had sub-way sandwiches for lunch!!!!!!!! we are getting tired of eating only sub-way and desperately want a change in the menu for lunch!!!!!!!! may be a Pizza or taco bell:):)

I have already spent lo of time writing this blog....I will finish the remaining part of the game tommorow till then.....
We had a great match yesterday...probably the best Game of Cricket I was ever involved with ....to know more abt the game please revisit my blog over the next couple of days as I have a lot to write and it will take me some time to compile the whole story:)

Nirvana Contd......



Some of my friends have asked me how nirvana could be related to Moksha...read on....


In Hindu tradition, nirvana (more commonly called moksha) is the reuniting with Brahman, the universal God or universal soul. In traditional Hinduism, a soul reaches this state after living many lives in which it climbs up through the varna, or caste system.


Humans accumulate good karma by performing the duties of the caste they were born in. If a person is born in a lower caste, his only hope is to behave properly in that caste so he will move up to a higher caste in the next life.

When a soul has reached the upper castes, it may escape the cycle of reincarnation by eliminating bad karma. This includes setting the scales right through good deeds (possibly over several lifetimes) and also removing oneself from all earthly distractions. When a soul finally escapes the karmic cycle, it becomes one with Brahman when the last bodily incarnation dies. This is a higher plane of existence that transcends the suffering of earthly life. Essentially, the soul rejoins the intangible energy that created the universe.

Buddhism arose out of Siddhartha's alternate understanding of samsara and transcendence of earthly life. In the Buddhist philosophy, the best path to enlightenment is somewhere in between the luxury of many in the upper castes and the poverty of the most devout Hindu holy men.

Siddhartha was also a social reformer of sorts. He taught that anybody might achieve higher enlightenment and escape from samsara if he followed the right path, completely rejecting the caste structure that defined traditional Hinduism. This is arguably the most important difference between the two religions, at least when Buddhism was born.

The worlds of Hinduism and Buddhism, and the concept of nirvana, are rich and multi-faceted.


He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is ignorant - leave him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is simple - teach him
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep - wake him.
He who knows and knows that he knows is wise- listen to him.

June 20, 2003

Nirvana.....



I have always heard people using the word nirvana.....in daily life...in ads and in books...but I actually never knew the meaning behind it. I knew that it was something related to after-life but exactly didnt know what it meant...I was browsing through a site How Stuff works and found a section written about Nirvana....thought it might interest some of you...


The term nirvana is associated with both Hinduism, the oldest religion in the world, and Buddhism, its best known off-shoot. In both Hinduism and Buddhism, the word refers to a higher state of being, but the two religions view this state very differently. As it turns out, examining the distinction between the concepts of nirvana is an excellent way of understanding some of the major differences between the two religions.

Nirvana is mainly associated with Buddhism, which was born out of Hinduism back in the 5th century B.C. It began as a movement within Hinduism, based on the philosophy and life of a man named Siddhartha Gautama, and eventually diverged to form its own path.

Siddhartha Gautama, who later became the Buddha ("the awakened one"), was born to a rich, ruling family around 563 B.C. in what is now modern Nepal. According to Buddhist legend, he led a sheltered, pampered life for all of his childhood and well into his twenties.

As a young man, he began to question the spiritual worth of this luxurious life and decided to give up all his possessions and emotional attachments, including his wife and young son. He wanted to understand the true nature of life and saw all his attachments as distractions, in keeping with Hindu thought.

He became a shramana, a wandering, homeless ascetic dedicated to meditation. He hoped to find enlightenment by completely detaching himself from the world, swinging to the polar opposite of his earlier life. Over time, he removed himself farther and farther from the earthly world, to the point that he was close to starvation. But he still hadn't achieved enlightenment.


He decided that if he continued on that path, he would die without reaching any understanding, so he gave up the ascetic life and accepted a meal from a stranger. He decided to take the middle road, the life between the luxury he had known and the poverty he had known.

According to legend, soon after Siddhartha took this path, he finally achieved enlightenment. As he meditated under a tree, he saw all of his past lives, and then the past lives of others. Eventually he gained a perfect, omniscient knowledge of this world and the world beyond it.

In Buddhism, this state, which the Buddha couldn't relate in language, is called nirvana. The word is Sanskrit for "to extinguish." In this case, it means to extinguish ignorance, hatred and earthly suffering. The term is most closely associated with Buddhism, though it's applied to a similar concept in Hinduism (as we'll see later on).

By achieving nirvana, you can escape samsara, the cycle of reincarnation that characterizes both Hinduism and Buddhism. In each life, a soul is punished or rewarded based on its past actions, or karma, from the current life as well as earlier lives (which also include lives as animals). It's important to note that the law of karma isn't due to a god's judgment over a person's behavior; it's closer to Newtons law of motion -- every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It happens automatically, of its own accord.

When you achieve nirvana, you stop accumulating bad karma because you've transcended it. You spend the rest of your life and sometimes future lives "working off" the bad karma you've already accumulated.

Once you have fully escaped the karmic cycle, you achieve parinirvana -- final nirvana -- in the afterlife. As with Hindu nirvana, souls that have achieved parinirvana are free of the cycle of reincarnation. The Buddha never specified what parinirvana was like. In Buddhist thought, it is beyond normal human comprehension.

The Buddha couldn't fully relate his new understanding of the universe, but he could spread the essential message of his enlightenment and guide people toward achieving the same understanding. He traveled from place to place teaching the four noble truths:

Life is suffering.
This suffering is caused by ignorance of the true nature of the universe.
You can only end this suffering by overcoming ignorance and attachment to earthly things.
You can overcome ignorance and attachment by following the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Noble Eightfold Path is a list of eight ideals that guide a person toward greater understanding of the universe. The eight ideals are:

Right views
Right intention
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Rightmindedness
Right contemplation




June 18, 2003

I havent had anything exciting to write over the past couple of days....same old stuff. The only exciting thing (partly) is that I got a new assignment/project in my lab which I have no clue how to do. It about designing a fixation pin and methods to crimp it to the header flush with the bone wow!!!! doesnt that sound exciting....well...what ever its I will get paid for that so no complaints.


I came across this article which had George Bush's political resume...its actually really cool and it gives a lot of facts abt the crappy decisions he had made during his tenure...read and enjoy!!!!

aaahhh...i just burnt my tongue sipping HOT CHOCHOLATE.....now stop reading blogs and get back to work:):)

June 16, 2003

I am back at my lab after a disappointing weekend of cricket....well for all those people who werent at the game.....we lost..lost prettyy bad...the only good part of the whole thing is that I am not sore today...unlike the previous match...but if we win everyday I am sore then I would rather have it that way:):)

The morning started with a phone call from phani waking me up at 8:15Am!!!! can u believe that people dont even let you sleep even on a saturday...he asked me abt the ground conditions in Youngstown!!!!!!!!! where the match was going to be held...I called the captain of YCC (Youngstown Cricket Club)..he said it was in good shape it doesnt rain that day....I told that to phani and I thought I will be able to get some more sleep...zzzzzzzzzzz.....but then my team had decided (i guess)...not to let me sleep peacefully....in less than 5 mins Manpreet calls up..."Is there a match today?"....I was irritated....but still replied.."Haan re..come to adi's house at 9:15". I pulled myslef out of the bed and got to adi's place at 9:20am. As usual I saw only 4 people there and then the people started trickling in....the most encouraging part of the morning was that the 4 players who werent in the playing 11 showed up and came to the game with us.....Hemant,Guru,Vikas and Sirish.....thanx a lot guys...we need to keep that team spirit going...thats what I call team work.

we left the place after making sure all the drivers had directions for the ground....I had hemya,vikas and Manpreet in my car...we listened to some remixed music and we got to the ground first!!!!!!! I thought we would be the last to get to the ground as we made a couple of stops....soorry hemant had I known that I would have stopped at McD's for ur breakfast. Anyways, we got to the ground and were suprised..amazed ....what not looking at the beautiful outfield and most of all a.........CRICKET PITCH!!!!!!!!!!...........we had never played on a proper pitch....our pitches are usually concrete with a mat on it...so we were all excited..the outfield was soggy at the long-on and long-off boundaries...but other than that it was an excellent ground...the skipper of YCC and I decided to wait for 30mins before the start of the match for the field to dry.......that triggered a multi-sport show by Akron CC....yes all the guys started playing soccer,football,frisbie....and what not....i guess the YCC guys must have thought do these guys play cricket???

I won the toss!!!!!!!!!! I am on a winning streak...I have won 2 in a row probably for the first time:):) I had no doubt in choosing to field....I padded up to take the position of the keeper as both keeper and stand-in werent completely fit to keep. I placed my field as usual....slip,point,cover,short mid-off,wide mid off,wide mid on,short mid-on,square-leg and thirman/fineleg. I asked Adi to field at the thirdman position....the most dreaded position as it involves a lot of running and basically...its boring..I make sure that I change the player fielding in the thirdman position so that he is not bored to death....it was brijesh in the later half of the match....till last year I used to place one of the weaker fielders there..but this year it has suddenly developed into a specialist postion...u need to have a good arm and u should be able to cover a lot of ground.

Kiran started with the new ball as usual..he started off with good line and length....he made the batsman play the ball and suddenly pitched one short of good length...that did the trick!!!!!....the batsman reached for the ball and popped a simple catch to Phani at Short mid-off. we had them 0/1.....we had the perfect start once again.....now we had a challenging task at hand...a lefty and a righty in the middle....its challenging becoz the field has to keep on changing every time the batsman on strike changes....thats very irritating to the fielding side...but our team did a great job of switching the field very very fast....we actuallly practiced doing that once during the nets and that has helped in letting the fielders know which way to move and whre to stand for a righty and a lefty.

Come second over...Sunny...our swing boy...started...today he wasnt able to swing the ball at all...being the keeper I could see it alll....one more thing that I noticed and Kiran pointed out later...was that Sunny was unusually slowing down at the point of delivery...he literally stops and then delivers the ball!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he never does that in the nets....so probably thats an area of improvement....he was hit for a straight six and later for a four...hmmmmmm...he was annoyed with himself. Hey, but that happens in a match...somebody is bound to hit so somebody has to be hit and it was Sunny that day....

I made my first bowling change by replacing Sunny with Hari in the 10th Over....he is our fastest bowler...but the batsman had already played themselves in and were comfortable with him too....Kiran was bowling with good control and pace from the other end.....I was contemplating whether to persist with him and finish him off or to bring Manpreet/Raj in....I decided to keep him on as he said that he was comfortable and wasnt tired....so he went on to finish his spell and I was glad that he said that he could bowl his last over....he got the crucial break through for us....he uprooted the middle stump of the well set batsman....the batsman for some weird reason all of a sudden played across the line got out....well...no complaints abt that. The team was alll excited and there was lot of shouting......Between all this somewhere in the 8-9th overs ....our cheering squad arrived!!!!!!!! yes, for probably the first time we had 8 people (4 players and 4 girls who had just arrived) cheering us from the pavilion. Sapna,Madhu,Priya and Raasi came all the way from Akron to watch us play and to cheer us.....thanx a lot ....we appreciate ur coming. Kiran almost got the lefty out when he slashed straight to point i thought it went over manpreet but he leaped and made a brilliant effort in getting his hand to the ball...unfortunately the rebound was a bit far so he couldnt latch on to the catch else it would have been a brilliant catch. During this perios Avinash got hurt and left the field and Hemant came on as a substitute fielder.....in my three yrs at Akron I dont remember having a Substitute fielder....we always had only 11 people travleing....and now we have quality players as reserves for the match...that feels good....I mean Hemant and Guru were brilliant on the field against ECC and to have them as our reserve fielders gave a big boost to the team!!!!!!!!!!


Raj came into the attack..he was a debutante....he got a wicket in his first over!!!!!!!! whats with Akron CC and debutants???? they always do well:):). he got the well set lefty who was playing well. He asked Adi (Man of the Day) to move back and stand at Deep Sqaureleg and pitched the ball short and the batsman fell for it. He pulled the ball which most of us thought was a six or a 4 but Adi had other thoughts....he ran along the boundary and took an outstanding catch just inches away from the boundary.......he stood there like a statue for the umpire to come and verify his postion....when then umpire was satisfied with the catch everyone was jubiliant and ran to Adi and hugged him. Raj was all excited...ofcourse he woule be...it was his first wicket. Then in the last over before break....the batsman played a shot over long on in Raj's bowling...which we thought went past hari but leaped high and backwards and caught a brilliant catch.....raj got his second wicket!!!!!!! we took drinks. During all this Hari was bowling impeccable line and length and was simply unplayable....I would say that he was very unlucky not to get any wickets.....at the break I took off the keeping pads and asked Kiran to take over...I didnt have a bad day behind the wickets..i feel I am getting better as I am anticipating the ball and was collecting the balls down the legside...I didnt give away any byes so the bowlers were happy tooo...alll in all...I had a good day (though my clothes got dirty). Couple of times i ran down to the thirdman boundary from the keepers position and that felt good...I always saw that on TV and wondered how they did it...now I can say I did it.


After the break I introduced Manpreet and Adi into the attack and that paid off immepdiately as Manpreet had 6-0-11-3 and ADi 2-0-4-1. those were tremendous figures and they brought was back into the match. manpreet started off with 3 wides and i thought two more and he would be out of the attack.....but then he found his runup and bowled brilliantly....we had then 93/8...we thought of getting them out for under 100....so brought Hari and myself on......the lefty they had was playing very well and the other guy was very very irritating...he was unbelievable lucky...he played and missed and popped up catches in no-man's land.....finallly i had him caught at short cover....he popped up a catch of a short ball and Raj took an excellent one handed diving catch....then I got the lefty bowled when he shuffled across his stumps.....we got them for 118!!!!! thats no bad at all considering the batting line up we have...now that Phani and Puneet were also at the top of the line-up..............oops...i spoke too soon..I finished with 4.3-0-11-2...not bad !!!!!!!! and Hari 7-0-22-0...identical to the last match ...

At the break we were fooling around with the impression that we had the match in our hand.........we had sub's for lunch....I think...subway should be approached to be one of the sponsors for tournament:):). the cheering squad was all hyper and they were saying good things abt us on the field. It felt good.


Brijesh and Puneet went out to the middle and in the first over we got 4 wides and Brijesh hit an excellent pull for a SIX...we had 10 from the first over..I thought....its going to be a cake walk with...phani,Hari,Kiran,Avinash and the rest of us to come in. But what happened in the next over set the tone for the reminder of the match....Puneet took strike the next over....first ball was a no-ball and he middled it and I thought he is back. The next ball he tried his coffin shot...I say coffin....becoz he always gets out to that shot...he tried to pull the ball got a top edge and was caught bythe bowler himself!!!!!!!!! How many times have we seen this happen????? And now its just the second over and puneet was back in the pavillion. In came Phani and started off well... brijesh on the other end was playing with supreme confidence.....then phani played forward for a goodlength ball and was beaten all end up...it even beat the bat...but the ball brushed the pad on its way to the keeper and all of us thought it was a snick....phani walked away from the stumps....umpire thought that the batsman was walking back and gave him out....phani turns around and sees that the umpire has given him out!!!!!!!!!!! he was shocked!!.....wait a minute...u thought he walked so why is he shocked.....he was walking towards the squareleg to get his composure back!!!!!!!! well, i favor the umpire for the decision and blame the batsman for the dismissal. in came hari....our new find of the season....he was playing well and brijesh was brilliant in the middle...the score was ticking along....YCC started questioning a lot of calls from the Umpire and the situation was getting heated in the middle so I asked Raj to come back and sent Puneet into the middle to umpire....the very next ball Hari was bowled reaching for a ball ......hmmm that was trouble.....then I sent in Adi on advice from kiran and that proved to be a master stroke as he stayed there almost till the end and battled it out when the other batsman threw their wickets. He made batting look so easy that most of us wondered why the other batsman got out. brijesh who was batting well till then got a close call on a LBW decision and we considred him to be lucky but in the very next over he was found in front of the stumps again....he was out for 16.....he was playing well but the fall of wickets put a lot of pressure on him. Avinash had played well in the off season games last year and is yet to find his form this year so I thought with such a low total and lots of overs to play its an Ideal situtation for him to go in.

Adi was comfortable playing in the middle...he showed application which was lacking in the rest of us.....knowing Adi I could easily tell that he was controlling his natural instincts of hitting the ball on the legside. He was leaving the balls outside the off stump and played a really matured innings. Avinash on the other hand was having a miserable time in the middle. He was trying to reach the ball and he was lucky that one of his shots landed in a NO MAN'S LAND. But he was living by the edge and it was just a matter of time before he go out. He has this tendency of trying to play the ball on the legside even if the ball is outside off stump.....he popped one of those shots and had a soft dismissal.......In came Kiran...our big hitter....i consider him to be one of those guys who can turn the match in a matter of few overs....but the key was for him to stay in the middle for those few overs. He heaved and missed one of the balls and our hearts pounded very loud for that instant. In the same over he lofted a ball to the mid-on and to our relief the catch was dropped. I was highly irritated that considering the precarious situation an experience batsman like Kiran should be making a better shot selection. The very next over kiran played a flick in the air and the fielder on the squareleg boundary made no mistake in gobbling the catch. There went our last recognised batsman I thought...all the people who i thought would play sensibly could not curb their natural instincts and played extranagant shots and let the team down. The batsman reading this draft may get angry with my descriptions but I am just putting my thoughts as a Captain into words and there wont be a happier person than me if their performances in the next matched make me eat my words.....prove me wrong...!!!!!!!!!

I walked in with 6 wickets already down and we were in the 16th over and the score read 45!!!!!!!! I never thought that it would come down to that. Well, now that I went in the first thing Adi tells me "saala, yeah batting bahut boring hai yaar I want to hit". But i knew what he meant by that. We decided to cut down on all the aerial shots and run ones and twos. Our partnership brought hope to the team and we were running hard and fast. we put on 25 in 8 overs....not bad considering the situation. Adi was playing really well and I was middlling the ball and seeing it well. I was feeling confident abt my batting after a long time. Then i got out the only possible way ....RUNOUT..........Adi flicked the ball on the legside and I ran as hard as I could expecting the throw to be wide but to my disappointment the throw was right on the stumps and I was found short of the crease by a foot...............I was sooooooooooooooooooooooo angry with myself......for being such a poor judge of the run. I had made only 11 but probably the most confident 11 runs i had made in a long time. Manpreet walked in and immediately ADi was caught behind and he was out at last for 21.....yes he was there for a long time but scored only 21 becoz he got most of his runs in singles.....u must be thinking whats the big deal abt making 21 and 11....in international cricket people make 100's ...but u will realize the effort it takes and the skill only when u pad up and go into the middle. Sunny walked in and i hoped that he would hit some lusty blows...but he got RUNOUT too....Manpreet on the other end was taking 1's and 2's. Raj ...our last man and debutant...walked in and hit the first ball he faced over the long off for a couple...but in the same over Manpreet popped a catch and we were all out for 89!!!!!!!!!! yes only 89!!!!!!!!!! the result we LOST by 29 runs!!!!!

I think I have spent a lot of time...3hrs writing this draft so I will stop here....







June 13, 2003

A day in my life...



Over the years my life has changed a lot...so has the manner in which my day goes by..I was thinking the other day abt my school and college days and how different they were. So I thunk and thunk ....abt those days and bahut senti hogaya.....


when I was 2yrs old....


my day would begin at 8 am or whenever I felt like waking up....wish that could happen now...my mom would take me to the loo and I would get a free lecture abt holding the brush but she would brush my teeth....I used to enjoy being special...but unfortunately I have a younger sister who is only one year younger than me....so she would get more importance when I was two..then I got to drink milk...I used to (and still) hate milk..plain milk..so my mom used to put in some thing..horlicks, bournvita or something else...she would only put in a little amount but that she would do in front of me...I used to think that I was getting what I wanted but never realised that I was actually being fooled into drinking Milk with 3-4 grains of bournvita......then I used have fun by looking out of the window and waving to the bypassers.....my mom would make me eat lunch at around noon and while I was at that my sister would cry....still an attention monger she was.....aise tp karthe karthe evening ho jatha tha and Dad used to come home...he would get a chocholate or something for me and so i used to get excited. he would take me out for a walk and then back home have dinner and in bed at 8pm after a long and tiring day phew!!!!!

when I was 7yrs old....

my day would being at 7:15 AM....when my mom pulled me out of bed and push me into the bathroom...with my eyes closed I would brush my teeth and get out as fast as i could...then it was coffeee time..........I used to enjoy coffee...yes I started drinking coffee at the age of 3 or 4.....I would get dressed and goto the bus stop and on the way join some friends.....there were a lot of students to be picked up by the bus so we were made to sit on somebody's lap...me and my buddy used to take turns sitting on the lap and we would count the number of scooters and trucks..it was interesting that we would count atleast 100-150 on our way to the school...we used to have the same boring lectures (.....also called period)...I used to wait for the lunch break and we would finish lunch in the first 5mins so that we could go out and play during the rest of the break.....then back at home at 4pm I would drink one more cup of coffee and then go to play. I and my sister have had the same group of friends...which unfortunately is partly true even now.......so we used to play the popular (or should I say common) games...running and catching....hopping (langdi)...poison medicine (lock and key)...cutting the cake and all kinds of fun stuff. Come home at 6 or 6:30 and then finish homeworks and then pack the bag for the next day according to the timetable (wish I was that organised even now) have dinner and go to bed...........

when I was 12yrs old....

my day would begin at 6:30AM as I had to get to school early...my school had different timing for primary and secondary....I had to be at the bus stop by 7:05AM so I had to hurry up with my daily ablusions. we were still made to sit on one anothers lap in the bus and it was getting more challenging by the day as we were getting heavier:):) I school I had girl as my bench partner...her name was Sirisha Vani...i still remember as we were bench mates for 4 years....there are pros and cons when U have a girl bench mate....u get to know all the girls in the class:):)....but at the same time u cant do all the kidas that u would have done with a guy. But all in all..I had lots of fun with her:):)....she left Vizag (thats were I was till my 9th standard)....when I was in 7th...sniff..sniff and from then on boys were made to sit with boys and girls with girls.....I guess they didnt trust us or something...well back to my life....I used to come home at 2:15 and run to swimming coaching at 3:15 and take along the stuff for badminton at 5:30. I had a lot of fun swimming...I got good at it pretty fast so my coach used to use me as an asst coach to teach the kids and uncles....he would never let me teach girls and aunties....i used to wonder why...now....I know why..back at home mom used to be ready to make us sit and do our home works.....mom had a lot of patience to deal with two little rascals always trying to avoid doing homework....we used to watch TV for sometime...I could not understand Hindi then...but I still used to watch TV:):)

when I was 17yrs old....

I had just graduated from high school (12th std) and was in my First Year Engineering in Mumbai......I learnt hindi and was getting fluent with it. My day started at 7:15 Am when Mom used to wake me up.....I used live 10 mins from college so I was considered to be lucky by all my friends some of whom had to travel 1 1/2 hrs to get to college. In that sense I considered my self lucky too...I would goto college and religiously attend all the lectures...thats one thing which I did throughout engineering...I almost had 92-95% attendance over the 4yrs which most of my friends would make fun of.....after college we would sit in the canteen talk and sing songs with accompanyied impromptu music ...tabla on the tables, spoon and glass and of course the whistles.....eat wada/samosa pav and some of the brave people also experimented with Chole...bubble gum.....batura (as it could strech endlessly and had to be chewed like a bubble gum)....come home grab something to eat and go out to play....badminton/cricket/swimming/tennis/football.....if not all this I would atleast go out to gossip with my friends...come home at 9 or 9:30 Mom and sis would be waiting at the dinner table for me....thats one thing...over the years....mom had always waited for me at the dinner table..whether it was 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or sometimes even 11. Thats why I cultivated a habit of calling home promptly if wasnt coming for dinner...then talk to my dad and watch TV with him till midnight and then he would go to bed. i knew that my parents and my sis go to bed by midnight so I would have the TV from then on...so I didnt take part in the channel war at home.....mom wants to see telugu channel....sister soemthing else and DAd enjoyed just browsing through all the channels every 5 mins...god knows what would change in 5mins....

when I was 22yrs old....

I was in Akron....away from home...Mom wasnt there to wake me up..I was on my own...I pulled my self out of bed at around 9 or 9:30 make some coffee and look in the refrigerator for something to eat.....read newspaper...goto school/Lab....talk to friends...check email...do some work...check email...go to chuckery for lunch.....check email.......laze around..browse the net...check email...come evening go to the ONAT to play Racquetball and then go home and cook (if its my cooking turn) and then eat with my roomies....thats one thing I still need company when I eat....and my roomies would always be there at dinner time (even now Bhaddu waits for me or vice-versa) and we would eat together.....I used to Live in Fir Hill...that was on the other side of campus so it was too boring to come all the way to summner or wheeler where most of my friends stayed....


I guess after writing abt my life over the years I can clearly see that family is the most important part of my life and I miss them a lot......

June 11, 2003

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day...I did a couple of things which drained me emotionally:(:(.......first of all I got up at 9AM without alarm....yes I did it..its been a long time since I did that....I cant remember the last time I woke up before my alarm went off..yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh....three cheers to me. Then I did the most unlikely thing which will take a lot of courage and determination to repeat.....I made breakfast for myself.....yes....I made an Omlette...I was tired of eating either cereal or bagel everyday so made an Omlette for myself and brewed some fresh coffee....MAN!!!!! I was proud of myself.

The next thing I did totally drained emotionally......I went to the Ambassadors office to turn my jacket in....I had been a University Ambassador for the past 2 yrs and i enjoyed being one. I made a lot of friends and got to attend and work at many University events where I met a lot of people who I would not have met in my normal course of life. All and all I had a ball of a time being an Ambassador and will always have good memories of being one(especially becoz ...I got the outstanding Ambassador award in my first year:):)....Rajiv got it this year)

ok ok, enough of the emotional stuff...when I got back to my lab I opened my blogspot and casually looked at the hits counter........it read 240 !!!!!!!!!!!. I was shocked........I got 70 hits in one night!!!!!!!! that was largely due to the match report but that doesnt matter to me, I was all excited and by the end of the day I had 269...thats more than hundred in one day!!!!! I wanted to celebrate that joyous moment by taking a break from writing a new post on my blog thats why I just copy-pasted that article abt Mithun da and Rajni.

After a long day in the lab I went home...it wasnt a very exciting day at the lab as I was alone for most of the day. At the cricket practice we had a good turnout.....we did some fielding and catching practice in a small protion of the field as we were sharing the ground with the Football (American) and soccer teams. So at the same time there was Cricket, Football and Soccer (for all my loyal blog readers in India....Football and Soccer are different...Football is a game similar to rugby and Soccer is what we call football in India and rest of the world)...funny isnt it in Football (American) the ball is always passed with hands and kicked only a handful of times but still its called Football.....one more of the strange things abt America.

There were no special moments at the practice to write abt, the only special thing was that the lower order batted and the top order is yet to bat. At the end of the practice session both Phani and I made a dash to the laundromat as the last load was at 9PM. I made it 5 minutes before time and I guess Phani barely made it...

The evening was pretty interesting....its Aaaarrtheee's birthday today....ech yeh pee yet yanother pee yand why ......man I cant write Birthday as to how a mallu will spell it, its too tiring spelling it out ...what i meant was Happy Birthday. She invited me and Sindhu for her party...I thought that I had to be there at Midnight as usual... but then as I was driving by I saw people at her place at 10:30......thats when i figured that she had invited us for dinner (duh).....Sindhu wasnt well so she couldnt make it.I got there at around 11ish.....met a couple of people whom I had not seen in a while.....that felt good...other than that it was the normal junta....me,hemant,phani,adi,pankaj,nihir,raghav,nishant,dhawal(nihir's friend),rajiv and the others (I mean the girls....hehehhhehehe).....aise hi tp kar raha hoon....sapna,disha,arrtheee(ofcourse..it was her happy b'day), priya, madhu, aanchal, rohini, shyamala, shradha, shalini....I can remember only these..if I missed anyone please let me know and I will add their name....sorry for that.

we had arrthhee cooked Burmese food.....I was not sure if I should eat it or not......just kidding....it was good stuff...some noodles and other spices etc....then can the moment of reckoning.......Midnight.....disha had chocholate cake and a big candle ready for aaarrthee. She cut the cake and to everyones surprise....she ate the first piece of the cake herself....hum ne tho pehle kabhi nahi dekha...then Rohini (who is getting married sometime this year took alll her frustrations)....she put cake all over aaarthee to start the dreaded B'day ritual of akron...........then came Coke....ginger ale...Canada dry....more cake.....eggs...some more cake...I phodoed an egg on aarthee's head....after that she went beserk....she started hugging people with stuff all over her......eeeeeeee.....Phani was the first to get the dose.....he has this uncanny knack of being the first person in every B'day party to get cake all over him (other than the B'day boy/girl). aarthee ran after everyone....she has been running for the past month or so...that helped....she was like a bulll coming in head first...she smeared the egg jelly on her head on my shirt and on many others....cheee cheeee...I had just done my laundry:(:(....she chased people down....hemant,nihir and nishant played the spoil sports (from artheee's point of view) and ran towards their house...she gave up on them...other than them everyone was physically abused by aarthee...by hugging them. Then she took shower (thank god...it was high time) and they had another cake ready for her to cut...it was Tiramasu...a nice cake. Then everyone started leaving...Madhu said "Bye everyone" probably 100 times but was still the last one to leave...at least she was still there when I left...I guess thats it for now........


June 10, 2003

Today I am too bored to write.....after that marathon blog writing yesterday I think I need a well deserved break!!!!!!So i have dedicated today's post to Akron's favorite hero....any guesses?????...some of u got it .....its the one and only...theeeeee...Mithun Da!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read on and enjoy the memorable (kodak) moments from the legendary career...................

Recently the father of physics made a visit to earth to
watch a movie.
He watched a few Indian movies and had his head spinning. He was >convinced that all his logics and laws in physics were just a >huge pile of junk and apologised for everything he had done.
In the movie of Mithun chakravarthy Newton dada was confused to
such an extent that he went paranoid. Here are a few scenes:


1) Mithunda has a Brain Tumor which, according to the doctors can't be cured and his death is imminent. In one of the fights, Our greatMithunda is shot in the head. To everybody's surprise, the bullet passes through his ears taking away the tumor along with it and he is cured. Long Live Mithunda .

2) In one of the movies, Mithunda is confronted with 2 gangsters.Mithunda has a Gun but unfortunately only one bullet. Guess, what he does......He holds a knife in his hand and shoots the bullet towards the knife. The knife cuts the bullet into 2 pieces and kills both the gangsters. Then, Mithunda utters the following dialogue "Apun ka naam hai HIRA, Apun ne sabko Chiraa".

3) Mithunda is chased by a gangster. Mithunda has a revolvver but he got no bullets in it. Guess, what he does. Nah not even in your remotest imaginations. He waits for the gangster to shoot. As soon as the gangster shoots, Mithunda opens the bullet compartment of his revolver and catches the bullet. Then, he closes the bulletc ompartment and fires his gun. Bang... And the gangster dies....

4) The heroine is tied to an electric chair and the remote is in the
hands of the villain about 100 km away. As usual, the villain confronts the
hero saying "Hathiyar phek do warna main yeh remote ka button dabake tumhari mehbooba ko mar doonga". The usual fight occurs and just as the hero makes the final blow, the villain dies but not before he presses
than damn button. Now what to do? Sure enough, there is a horse and the hero jumps on it. Now there is a race: The current in the cable connected to the electric chair is moving fast but our hero and his horse are desparately trying tocatch up.... goes on for a few km and just as the current would hit the chair, the hero jumps from the horse and picks the girl away from the chain and husssshhhh. She is saved. The poor electric current only goes to an empty chair. Climax, taaalian. Hero! Hero!! Hero!!!

This was too much for our Newton to take and he was completely pissed and he wanted to go hell and never to heaven again. But he happened to see a Rajnikanth movie for one last time and thought that atleast one movie will follow his theory of physics. The whole movies goes fine and newton is happy that all in the world hasnt changed. Oops not so fast. The climax finally arrives. Rajni gets to know that the villian is on the the other side of a very high wall. So high that Rajni can't jump even if he tries like one of those superman techniques that our heroes normally use. Rajni has to desparalety kill the villian because its the climax (newton dada is smiling since it is virtually impossible)...Rajni suddenly pulls two guns from his pocket (Probably a backup). He throws one gun in the air and when the gun has reached the height of the wall , he shoots at the trigger of the first gun in air, with his second gun. Now the first gun fires off and the villian is dead.

Newton is gonna repent all his life in hell



June 09, 2003

I just typed my name on google search....Suneel Battula...I got 32 hits and that doesnt include this site!!!!!!! When i tried " Suneel battula" I got 27 hits. I was surprised to find that many sites with my name. when i was looking thru the links I found the Kent State University site which has a picture of mine (I look like a criminal posing for the picture records) that was taken after I won their tournament.


aaahhhh......I am feeling soooo soar today...I have had a busy weekend. I was soo busy for the past three days that i couldnt even check my mail and got only 6 -7hrs sleep. I mean thats a good nights sleep for a normal day but for a weekend...it has to be 8-9hrs:):)

Well, on friday and saturday I drove Golf-carts at a conference. It was "Acoholics Anonymous" its basically a conference for people who have recovered or are recovering from alcohol drinking habits. I drove the golf-carts for 19 hours over two days. They made my legs and my rear...soar. It was fun driving people around especially the senior citizens and the physically handicapped. There were around 13,000 people attending the conference. They were all really nice and polite. i got to see around 700-800 harley davidsons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!these bikes are awesome, and when I saw the people on them I wondered....will I ever ride on one of these????..I mean its just an awesome bike....the best part about driving the golf carts was that I could use my DESI driving skills..hahah..I enjoyed it honking the horn and weaving through a group of people. But the worst experience was the I had on Saturday night...I was given a cart which had no lights and horn!!!!!!! Imagine driving that through a crowd of 5000-6000. I could barely see and I had to use my mouth as a horn..bee beep...beeeeeeeepp.....coming thru.....move to ur right.......man!!!!that was crazy dude....but anyway I got home pretty late and had to hit the sack as I had a cricket match the next morning in Columbus.

Well, we were supposed to leave Akron at 8:00 am but as usual some of the players came at IST and we left at around 8:30. We were scheduled to play Everest Cricket Club (ECC) who are two time finalists and 2001 champions. But...we have a good record against them...in the only match played between the two teams...that was last year... we won!!!!!!!!!yes Akron CC has a 100% record against probably the best team in the league:):) Well we got there at 10:45 but one of the cars got late so the start of the match was delayed. Its strange but.....I dont know why but everyone wants to use the restroom just before thematch starts!!!!!!!! so the match got further delayed!!!!!!!!!

At last.....it was time for the most important thing of the match..the TOSS!!!!!!!!I dread the toss as I always lose the toss. For my and my teammates surprise........I WON the toss for the change!!!!!!!! We had no hesitation in chosing to field....we consider ourselves a better bowling side:):) Our regular keeper/opener Puneet and our stand-in keeper/opener Phani were injured and were out of the game. So...I took up the responsibility of doning the gloves!!!!!Yes me a keeper!!!!!! I was all excited (which I regret now due to the soarness in my legs). We took the field...I placed my field like I usually do. We have a typical field set...keeper,slip,thirdman,point,cover,mid-off,long-off,long on,mid-on, square-leg. I mean most of the times we have these as the standard field positions. Consider me being unimaginative or defensive but I figured that it was best possible setting for our team..we change it as and when needed though....Kiran and Sunny our new-ball bowlers started the match. Kiran was a bit rusty in the first over but then eventually got going and was generating good pace and was bowling with nice line and length. He kept troubling the batsmen constantly and squared them up a number of times, in the first over I was glad that I didnt get a single edge....I would have dropped it for sure...then I got comfortable. Sunny started with a couple of wides...he is very slow but was swinging the ball like hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He has this natural outswing which I could see for the first time as I was the keeper. Last year he had a bream debut of getting the opening batsman of the same team....ECC....bowled of the first ball of the match and of his career!!!!!!! I was hoping that he repeats that feat. He didnt disappoint us.........yes....he got 2 wickets in the first over with last two balls!!!!! he bowled two wides in a row then I asked him to pitch the ball in the line of the stumps....and with his outswing...he had a perfect ball...pitching on the off stump and moving out...a night-mare for any right handed batsman...the batsman made the fatal mistake of poking outside off and edged it...my heart started pounding louder though only for a split second ...I moved to the right and opened my gloves.....then..I caught the ball !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My first catch as a keeper!!!!!!!!!!!The whole team was delighted, Sunny was flocked from all sides and he was jumping like a.... little kid who just got his new toy..........The next ball was a repeat performance......same ball...same swing....same edge (of a different bat)...same heart pounding...same movement and same catch .....a different batsman....yes!!!!!!!! He got the next man out......and I caught the ball!!!!!!! Sunny was unstoppable this time around....he was running like a kid in a new toy store!!!!!!!!The team was all excited and enjoyed this double strike....I could see it in their enthu to encourage the bowler and each other. there was a lot of shouting...from all sides!!!!!Sunny was on a hat-trick......the next over kiran bowled well and was unlucky not to get an LBW decision. Sunny started his next over..his first ball was a hat-trick ball...i pulled the thirdman up for the slash...he bowled a wide...it was still a hattrick ball....everyone was shouting...the batsman played the ball in the air towards the long-on but I had pulled him up so the ball fell short of Manpreet and the batsman was relieved...but Sunny got his man...the same guy played on to his stumps later in the same over. We got the start we were hoping 15-3 after 5 overs.


From there the next two batsman played sensibly and took singles and occasional boundaries. they played really well, I made the bowling change which I thought was reasonable as the batsman were reading the bowlers well so I stopped Sunny and told kiran that he would be bowling only one more....that visibly upset him....he is the sort of the guy who likes to bowl out his quota of the overs...he was bowling well but I had to make the choice as I could continue with and finish his spell or try and get a break through with a bowling change bringing on Hari and Manpreet ...our fastest bowlers. Hari...was one of the debutants...but he had played at league level in Karnataka..so he was experienced..he bowled well and with his speed the batsmen found it difficult to score. Manpreet bowled well in his first over but then started bowling short. All the bowlers were having WIDE trouble...and the fact that the Umpires were strict was no helping...they judged the wide based on the markers next to the wiicket...which I felt were really close to the stumps. But they would be the same for both the teams so it was acceptable. The wides down the legside went for extra runs as me being a rookie keeper could not collect even one of the balls down the legside. I feel I let the bowlers down in that aspect as I was giving them a little bit of margin of error. I myself get made when the keeper lets the ball go for extra runs when I bowl so I knew that all my bowlers were upset with me but were not showing it may be for 2 reasons...one that I was the Captain and the other was that I was a first timer behind the wicket so they didnt want to make me more tense....thanx guys for that.

I brought on Sunil Advani (Adi) into bowling....he is a strange left hander...he only bowls left arm around and never bowls left-arm-over....that cuts down his natural angle. He is a good line and length bowler who bowls wicket to wicket line. When you ask him why he doesnt bowl over the wicket he will say"I always considered myself to be a righty so I bowl from the same side as the righties do" !!!!!!!!!....anyways he started off well and we were abt to got the drinks break. So i thought Hari might het a break through in the last over before drinks....he indeed got an edge...but I dropped it...the whole team was disappointed and I felt as if I let the team down. the partnership was shaping up and we had the perfect chance to break it and I grassed an simple catch....thats the price one pays for not concentrating on the game even for a second...when u are on the field u can probably get away slacking for a ball or two but when u are a keeper u cant.....I learnt the hard way and I was angry that the team had to pay for it. That ball was fast and straight and I was not concentrating on the ball but was thinking who should I bring on after the drinks break...that split second lapse in concentration cost the team a wicket. well at the drinks break we had a mixed response as to whether I should continue keeping or should I bring myself on???? I decided that we were having a pretty decent day for the bowlers and we have 7 bowlers so I continued keepping.

The post drinks session was a debacle......I dont know what happened to the team and what hit the bowlers.....nobody was encouraging the bowlers..the fielders were quite and the bowlers were bowling short and were getting hit for 4's and 6's suddenly the slow and steady pair started accelerating and in no time they went past the hundered. Our star in the previous two matches Avinash was hit for 13 runs in his first over and was not able to get his length. Adi and Manpreet also paid for not keeping the ball up and on the off-stump. I was getting frustrated and was running out of ideas...on Hari's suggestion I brought on Sirish (left arm)...another debutant...the change worked as he broke the partnership. Salman...opposition skipper..who was playing brlliantly at 64 went for a cross batted heave across the line and ended up giving a skier to Avinash at long on...he took an great catch tumbling forward. The whole team was relieved and I was glad that we caught a skier....its not easy to judge a high catch in a match...there is lot of pressure and lot of shouting on the field..its hard to concentrate...Baji took a great catch. Sirish then strayed on both sides of the wicket and went for 6-7 wides in the same over. Then the other batsman started opening up and we went for some more runs...thats when I talked to Kiran and decided to bring myself and Hari on.....I started of with a maiden...WOW!!!!!!!!!! where did that come from..i missed practice 2 times last week and the day I made it I was keeping..so I had not bowled in a long time and I started off with a maiden..what else can u ask for than a maiden in the 27th over!!!!! I felt that was the boost the team needed and I felt that as a Captain I was trying to lead the team by example. All did was to pitch the ball up and out-side off stump. In the past i bowled some good overs but I used mess it up with one bad ball or a couple of wides...so I kept telling to myself "Keep it straight...keep it straight". Then Hari got a wicket in the next over...he induced an edge from the new-man and Kiran got his first victim (I am not sure if he had caught any catches as a keeper before yesterday ). In came Prashant....feared biig hitter!!!!!!!! He started off with a straight drive of HAri which uprooted the middle stump at the non-strikers end. Hari must have been glad that he didnt try to stop it...he would have broken a finger.

My next over went for 10 runs of which 2 were wides down the leg-side and 2 runs of the outside edge on the off-side, Prashant smashed a 4 from outside off-stump to the leg-side boundary...it was raw power!!!!!!!!! Hari bowled a great over allowing only 2-3 runs. First ball of my next over was smashed for a SIX by Prashant but I got my revenge the next ball, I pitched ball slightly shorter (not intentionally) than the previous one and Prashant tried to hit another Six but Avinash took a great catch on the Long-on boundary. I think the extensive high catch pratice sesssions we have been having has helped our fielders. In the next over Hari got hit for a straight Six but came by allowing ony 2 more runs in the over. He finshed with his spell, he bowled really well. Two overs to go.....I was thinking whether I should bowl that one or the last over???? I decided to bowl and I asked Avinash to bowl the last over....My first ball was again hit for a Six........I thought.."ABd decision to bowl":(:(. But the next ball Rahul (who hit me for a six) fell for the slower ball. he tried wacking it on the legside and ball went miles high in the air....Sunny was getting under it and the way he was getting under the ball I was 90% sure he would drop it.....but the other 10% was strong I guess...........he caught the ball!!!!!!!!!!! Lawrence the guy who had been there from the 4th over then got deceived by a slower ball and completely missed it. He anticipated it again I guess but the ball was faster and he was a little on the shot which ended up being a regulation catch for Adi (which would have been a tough one for the rest of us). i finished my spell 4-1-23-3. Not bad I thought considering the fact that I started bowling in the death. The ended with a score of 186/8 in 35 overs.

we had done a decent job of containin them with good bowling for most of the match but the key for containing them was the fielding....the stars of the day in fielding were Hemant, Guru, Brijesh and Avinash. Hemant was almost entirely in the squareleg and fineleg positions for the match and was brilliant with his diving stops and was showing off his newly found arm by throwing accurate throws from the fineleg boundary. Guru was at the point position for most of the match and was excellent in cutting of single. He was always on his toes and pounced on the ball not allowing the batsmen any chance of a cheeky single. Brijesh was our work horse....he was made to run all over the field...he fielded in point, cover, fineleg, deepsqureleg and the squareleg positions. He was doing a wonderful job wherevere he was asked to field. Avinash took those awesome catches and was great on the field.

I was dead tired.....we had subs from subway and I took a short nap in the break. I was fresh and ready to go when we started to bat. I filled in as an opener for the regular openers (Puneet and Phani, both injured). Brijesh and I opened in overcast conditions. Salman...oppposition skipper....is a duplicate copy of Wasim Akram in his action and to an extent in swinging the ball. Both of us, Brijesh and I decided all we have to do is to play him off. So we didnt offer any kind of shots to ball outside off stump. I was troubled endlessly by the other opening bowler who had a gentle pace and brillaint control on swing. I played and missed 10-15 times. at 18/0 in 6.2 overs the skies opened up and the rain played the spoil sport once again. we had to split the points. Now we have had both of our games rained out.Thats too bad.

I didnt mention abt the result of the game earlier as that would have killed ur enthu to read on. I am sorry for that. But its taken me 2hrs to write this blog so I wanted you guys to spend atleast 15 mins reading it.Thats it for now..........

June 05, 2003

I am feeling sleepy today....I overslept as I forgot to set my alarm...yes, i set my alarm to even get up at 9 or 10 AM. i woke up this morning at 10:15 and I was shocked!!!!! Not that I had a great deal of work to do but becoz of the fact that I will be sleepy for the rest of the day. I switched on the TV to see whats going on in the French open...man i got to see a great match Serena Vs Justin Henin. It was good to see Serena being made to run around the court for a change. Henin was just awesome, she has a Sampras like backhand so was great to watch, you dont see women hitting single handed backhand very often:):) well, I wanted Henin to win and she won 6-2,4-6,7-5. She now faces her friend Kim Clijsters who is also from Belgium.


Cricket practice was again affected by rain...we could do our customary 4 rounds of the field and we had a healthy attendance with some visitors..sapna, mallu (aaraathee) and pankaj...all of us ran and did some stretching excercises. we had just finished with fielding practice and were abt to begin batting and bowling the skies opened up and it poured for the rest of the evening playing a spoil sport. Sorry..Hemant...may be u will actually get to bat today:):)

It was my cooking turn so I was happy to get home early and start cooking my dinner. I made kadi and beans curry. Bhaddu had gone out for dinner so i was home alone and ate my dinner in solitude:) wow.....where did that word come from????? Hey, that reminds me..does anybody remember the poem...Solitary reaper....from 9th or 10th standard english syllabus???

Chal re I dont have any thing exciting for today, my only excitemet so far has been the hot chocholate!!! I just finished...........


Only in America.....

.....do banks leave both doors to the vault open and then chain the pens to the counters.

.....do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

.....do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

June 04, 2003

Its wednesday morning and I thought it will be boring as usual but I have had a sucessfull and interesting day so far. I got a call from the University Public relations department asking me if I could stop by at their office this morning. They said that it was regading my recent success in the National Racquetball Championships. So..I walk into their office and I realize that it was actually an interview which they are planning to release it to the press....cool (I wanted to do a back flip but didnt...becoz.........I dont know how to do it.....hahahah)....I had never give an interview before so I was all excited. The lady had a dictophone and was jotting every little detail I mentioned. She asked me a variety of questions ranging from my educational background in India to my performnaces here at various championships over the past 15 months. I told her that I have in all won 4 Golds and 3 bronzes at State, regional and National levels....for a second I felt proud of myself. Well, she dropped a bomb at the end of the interview.........that they will try to get it printed in the Akron Beacon Journal (Local Newspaper) but she said that the article may very between 3 to 20 lines. Man!!!!!!!!!! I was shocked......I was just interviewed for an Hour and she says that there is a possiblity that only 3 lines may appear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!anyways I was happy that I did something worthwhile to put it in the newspapers...the only other time my name had ever been mentioned in a newspaper was when I was 12 years old and I lost in the 2nd round of the district badminton championships so atleast now I will have a success story rather than a loss:):) when i was 12 and I saw my name in the paper I went crazy I showed it to my parents, neighbours, grandparents and all my friends.....i was very very proud.Now I am 23 so guess what I will do if my interview actually gets published....................

Now, I am back to my normal life and these days I have started learning HTML thanx to this site. I have been trying different stuff, but nothing online so you will have to wait .....for a while before you can see one of my creations online:):)

Yesterday was no different for Cricket practice...attendance was more than season average----7 people .....5 healthy players, 1 injured langda player (any guesses who that was???), 1 visitor (sapna...the stud). all of us except the ....u know who...ran 4 rounds of the cricket field and we did some fielding and catching but got bored so some of us played frisbee and three people had a lengthy philosophical discussion that continued into the evening. The discussion was abt destiny ....or ...choice. I better leave the topic here before someone picks up a debate with me.

I guess thats it for now, but I have started a new section to my blog....my ending will have something different everyday (based on my free time and the availability of the thinking cap:):)....)


Only in America......

...can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

...are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.

...do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

...do people order double cheese burgers, large fries, and a diet Coke.

June 03, 2003

Its tuesday morning and boring as usual and to top it off its raining. Only yesterday we were thinking of having an extended practice session for cricket and as if the Rain God had some spies amongst us it started raining:(:(

I have been watching French Open lately and got inspired by the awesome players.I played Tennis with Adi yesterday. I havent played a lot of tennis in the past 7-8 years so my game has become really patchy and the tennis elbow doesnt help. But anyway I decided that my name will not lose....funny sentence...confused?? well, Sunil and Suneel were playing so how can my name lose?? hahahahha...PJ..PJ. I played really bad tennis but I still ended up winning 6-4,6-2,6-2 relying on my main weapon......ADI...yes all I had to do was to give the ball to him and I guess he was having an off-day so he was hitting 7/10 shots wide of the court and ofcourse the 3-4 double faults a game also helped. So much for the inspiration from Agassi and the likes:):)Now..now.. I am not even that bad but yesterday was my first day so probably I will win on my merit pretty soon.

I watched "Finding Nemo" an Animation film by Pixar..it was a great movie. It was funny, had a nice storyline and most of all spectacular animation and special effects. Its hard to belive how advanced the computer graphics have become. Being a person with little image processing background I can see the amount of hard work and skill needed to put such a film together. I could have written abt the movie but that would have killed all the excitement from you so go and watch it for yourself.... (in short, I paid for it why should I tell you the story for free!!!!!!!!!!!!!)....if u are watching at AMC on Howe Ave dont forget ur student ID its only $5.50 with ID.

I guess thats it for now....man... I thought its easy to write these blogs but it takes a lot of thinking and time:):) But, now that I have graduated I can afford both hahahahhahahah.....................................

June 02, 2003

The season opener got rained out and we hope to make it up later during the bye week. All us were soo excited abt the first match but I guess Mother Nature had other plans!!!!

Yesterday was not the most exciting of days as I got up early in the morning at 9:15am (considering that it was a Sunday it was very very early in the morning for me). I was all set to get ready for the game when the Captain of CCC2 called with the bad news... there were pools (not puddles) of water on the ground so it was practically impossible to play. I tried reasoning that it was a nice day and sunny but he said that there was too much water....alas.... we had to cancel the game with the hope that we can make it up later in the season.

So I contemplated going to bed after informing my teammates abt the cancellation, but I was wide awake and my roomie offered to make coffee...yeaaaaaa!!!.... that was too good an offer to keep me awake after the first sip I felt like I was in paradise...back home in India when my mom used to make filter coffee for me early in the morning...man I miss those days..

The only good news for me was that Sindhu had got back from her Detroit trip, any guesses who the happiest person was to know that the game had been cancelled????? think..... well, u got it!!!!!!!!! SINDHU. She came over and we (me, her and Bhaddu) were pondering as to what to eat for lunch.... we thunk and thunk and then we thought that pizza was the best option. Then started the frustrating hunt for the coupons....man!!!! usually when you dont want them you find them everywhere but when you need them U can never find one..... we couldnt find any...but the Papa John's attendant was a angel in disguise as he gave us a student discount!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! poor fellow he didnt know that both Bhaddu and I have graduated, hahahahah..chod, bahut boring ho gaya, mereliye bhi.

Just made some awesome hot chocholate!!!! Hmmm..... we played soccer yesterday and I have decided not to play anymore soccer (atleast regularly) as its very very injury prone. I have a swelling on my shin and i guess Hemya tooo. Our opener and stand in keeper Phani got injured and I hope that its not too bad. we have already lost our regular keeper for the first two matches due to injury. I guess I will start swimming or playing tennis when I dont play cricket.

I think I have written much more than I wanted to soo.. tilll the next post......