Fun Filled Evening at Central Hower.....Diwali 2003

Last night we had our Diwali function at the Central hower high school......its just outside the University Campus. It was selected as the venue as its not far for the Indian Students to walk down to the function and also has a very good auditorium....3 of the past 4 diwali functions have been held at the high school.

It was a fun evening.....all of us enjoyed it.....there were a lot of americans and other internationals at the party...more than usual....but the student turnout was not as expected but anyways we had a crowd of abt 350.......the Mayor of Akron attended the function for the first time and the president of the University Dr. Proenza also attended the celebrations.....the first 15-20 minutes of the program were made boring by the countless speeches.....they were supposed to be scheduled such that the speeches will be between programs.....but Dr.Midha had his own ideas....Rajesh and hemant (MC's for the evening) had their script written for good opening remarks and to make a nice platform for the whole show to launch.....but Dr.Midha took over the mike and just wrote his own script.....he should have let the MC's know what he had planned on doing. THere was a good slide show depicting Ramayana and the significance of Diwali.....I think the student President should be given the oppurtunity to start the evening as they work their...xxxx's....off to make the show happen....it happened even last year....I had prepared a speech regarding the significance of Diwali and how it is celebrated in india........Dr.Midha went on stage first and spoke abt diwali...and abt everything else that I wanted to talk ....so when i went on stage I said "Dr.Midha said everything that i wanted to say.....so i have nothing else to say...enjoy ur evening.." and the same thing happened this year with Madhu....poor girl...she didnt have anything to say as Dr.Midha and the other speakers killed the first 20 minutes which included the intro....


anyways....the cultural program started with a Bharatanatyam....it was performed by a cute little girl....she was really good and had nice expressions....I guess thats the key to Bharatanatyam...Bhushan and Co....then performed a skit that was based on the choices we make abt coming to america or to stay back....it was nice play....though some of the situations were exaggerated. Our (Mine and Rajesh's) variety singing was next.....we had just practiced once....the night before....we sang 8 songs....all of them were sung with lyrics of one song in the tune of the other....it was well received by the audience....we were encouraged by the response and that encouraged us to perform better in the rest of the program..... our next performance was the play....the bollywood spoof "teri biwi sirf meri" it also generated a good response from the audience. the play had all the typical bollywood dialogues, characters and situation...so it was well appreciated.....i could hear a lot of people laughing....but Sapna's laughter was above all.....we could hear it distinctly heheheheheheh.......I was scared that Madhu and Adi will have a fit of laughter on the stage....I dont thing we had a single practice in without either of them bursting out of laughter.....but they controlled it on stage so the scenes turned out great. Vikas....Sacheeen....was the star of the evening....at least with our play....his every action and dialogue drew laughs and claps.......Mrityu was also very good in his short but a dynamic role of "Shine master kachra"......Adi was majestic in his kings role "Raja Gajendra Singh".....Madhu and Rajesh "Chandu aur pappu"....were the lead pair for the play.....they have made their identities now....from now on they will be addressed as Chandu and pappu.......but the main attraction of the evening was the dialogue "yeh lijiye boost" by Honey venkatesh (I mean, Hari Venkatesh).......

Our Dance went well too......I was actually tenses before the dance....trying to remember all the steps so that i wouldnt mess up the efforts of the others.....we practised hard for more than a week....with 2 hrs everyday...overall it was a great show and the food at the end of the show was good too....it was catered by "Saffron Patch "..... The arrangements for the food were very well done..it was very organised and there was no usual rush for the food as there were three station serving food....it was very well planned....well done...Madhu, rajesh, Hari and the other ISA committee members.....

Diwali practice.......

For the past week or so I have been very very busy with practices of the dance and play that I am participating at the Akron Diwali function. The prcatices have been very very hectic as we had auditions on Sunday......thanks to Rajesh and Madhu (the main couple of our play) who were also on the auditioning committee....both our performances got selected. Actually, rajesh and I are in 3 programs.....Dance (hollywood bollywood), Play (Teri Biwi Sirf Meri), Twist The Tune (VESIT style).

In Twist the Tune I sang "Jhumma Chumma" in the tune of "Aankhon ki ......gustakiyan" and Rajesh sang "Didi Tera Deevar Deewana" in the tune of "Kahi dhoor jab din dhal jaaye"....... this is basically a common thing to do back home at the college fests....but here in akron most of the people have not been exposed to it. I had performed this a couple of years ago....the peope liked it too.

We have been practicing hard for the dance and the play. Manisa, Ankita, Prachi and Megha are the girls in the dance and Parvath, Prasanna, rajesh and I are the guys. My partner is Ankita. We have been trying to choreograph our dance with a lot of enthu....but we end up with limited success. we have 5 days to go for Diwali and we have only half the song choreographed. But we have solved our main problem....getting the 4th guy...thanx to prasanna.

The same is the story with the play....our cast includes.....Rajesh, Madhu, Hari, mritunjay, Vikas, Adi, hemant and Myself. We have been trying to make the script as funny as possible....its basically a bollywood spoof. It has all the typical bollywood stuff in it...action, drama, emotion, romance.......

we lost in wallyball last week.....we will be seeded 2nd in the playoff's not that it would matter a lot. we will be having a tougher draw. we lost to a team of just two guys.....it was the worst game that we had played so far....we won the first game....15-6, and then started out troubles.....they started playing smart and stopped serving to my end....they started serving such that it would land between Rajesh and Luay....they are usually good in communicating but that day both were trying their best and tried getting to the ball together a lot of times....we got under pressure and made some crucial mistakes.....we were just giving the ball away... and we paid the price for that. Shadi was having an Off-day too.

I got the ball rolling for the cricket club at last....we have been trying to do that for the past 2 yrs.....and we started the process now. its better now than never ..right??? Hopefully we get accepted as a new student organization...this way we will get some funding for the season and probably a new kit ..hehehehh

Diwali Coming Up......

Its diwali time in akron and as usual I have become busy with dancing and acting in a play. Everyyear it has been my routine that I take part in some thing or the other in the Diwali party. I have danced .....though i am not a good dancer....who cares....I dont :):)....

first year we danced on a medley.....we had Kaho na pyaar hai (eee mere dil tu...gaaaye jaaaaa)...yes !!! we did the Hrithik step....then...Hum tho muhabbat karega....Aiyla re ladki mast mast...jindha hai hum tho (josh).....piya piya ooo piya piya.....rangde mujhe rangde (last two by only the girls)...and the finale was "Phir bhi dil hai hindustani". It was fun as we had 10 people dancing for the medley. The practices went till like late in the night and we had all kinds of fun.....it was my first year....I was also the food volunteer at the party....heheheheh...any guesses who had the maximum number of gulab jamuns that night ?????

second year there was a lot of enthu junta that came to the polymer engineering program and wince then we have been doing a play every year....our script architect was Hemant....first year he wrote the whole script by himself....though the scenes are usually performed with everybodies suggestions and inputs the idea behind the whole thing was hemants. I even danced for the song in Lagaan...."Madhu ban mei kabhi kanha kisi gopi se mile"....I didnt listen to that song for the next 2-3 months. I was fed up with the song....the same group that performed the song also performed at another diwali party in Cleveland!!!!!! can u believe that !!!!!.....the guys there liked it sooo much that we were asked to perform the same dance twice in a row!!!!!!!!. we were dead tired after that:):)
At the akron Diwali...we did the dance but our play was a big hit as it involved the life of the students that come to teh US.

third year...there were a lot of things to be taken care of.....I was the president of the association and had to do a lot of running around.....but my committee....rajiv, aanchal and harsh were extremely hard working so we had little trouble in organizing it.....not that everything went smooth.....always there is something that has to go wrong....right ???. We decided to do a medley again on the Khan's and we also did a play. This time I was also a part of the script writing. Hemant and I decided to do a play in which a director comes to akron and tries to get inspiration abt his characters from the students in akron.....it was fun play. I danced in the medley......Sheshe se shesha tak raaaye (devdas), Chak doom doom (DTPH), Apun bola (josh), rukh jaaaa ooo dil diwane (ddlj), bole choodian (k3g).....and we did the finale with lamp dance for Ar Rehman's Vande mataram......it was a good show....we did a great job....I enjoyed it.

This year we are still in the planning stages for the play....Rajesh and i are writing the script....we were up till 4 last night trying to finish the script. Both of us are also in the dance...for the song in Hollywood Bollywood......Sona Sona roop hai.....


The night before we were up till 5 in the morning finishing the homework for Dr.Reddy's class. we were pissed big time when he didnt collect the homeworks......welll but we have finshed it so we are happy......Phani had come down the other day from Connecticut.....it was good to see him but unfortunately we couldnt spend a lot of time.....but we met for a little bit at Sindhu's place for Dosas....Sindhu, Renu and Prathyu made some amazing dosas......I hogged on those dosas and went to see the browns game which the went to win 13-7 against the Oakland Raiders. It was fun watching the game with Kiran, Bhaddu, Anil, Kumar and Amru.

I was very very disappointde to see OSU lose to Wisconsin late saturday night.....I had come home early from teh freshers party to watch the game.....but their loss totally disappointed me and I vented my anger on Sindhu.....poor Sindhu....she got angry and I had to make up for my anger later.....

this weekend is going to be hectic as usual with diwali practices and auditions......and also some homeowrk and studing.....hehehehhehe

Gearing up for the weekend............

With the cricket season coming to an end I have all the time in the world for this weekend. I am getting this much time after a long time. I mean.....we have had some off weeks in the season tooo...but I went out of town or did something that weeekend.....but as of now I have no plans for the weekend. I am done with all the mid-terms and I am done with all the homeworks.....so I mostly have free time....which I think I should utilize in jump-starting my PhD qualifiers preparation. I have been too lazy to do anything in that direction so I guess its time to start it.

I am looking forward to the OSU football gamel....I have been following OSU as we (akron) dont have a great team....they are the defending national champs.....this weekend they play Wisconsin....an old rival.....OSU has a lot of rivalries with the teams in the Big ten. U Mich....Penn State....MSU.....Iowa.....Wisconsin....etc etc. OSU has been the envy of most of the teams this year as they have been on a winning streak.....17 games....which started last year....they went undefeated last year to win the national title and this year they have been undefeated so far.....


This weekend the cleveland browns (the professional football team) plays the Oakland raiders....I have never seen the Browns play the raiders....Raiders came in second last year and the browns 9th. Both the teams have not been doing great this year...so it should be an interesting match.....any guesses which team I would be supporting????.....hehehhehe....ofcourse the browns!!!!!!!!!! Last week tim Couch (Browns quarterback).....the quarterback is the offensive captain who runs the plays and throws the ball....played an amazing game to beat the traditional rivals.....Pittsburgh Steelers....the rivalry is one of the oldest in NFL...browns trashed the steelers.....33-13....it was good game to watch.

I will be playing badminton again tonight ....there is this chinese kid (14 yrs old) who started coming to play at Akron....he is nationally ranked 4th in the US .....i have already lost to him three times....but I am getting back into playing Badi tooo.....so I hope I can give him a better fight tonight.

I worked this morning at a Health Expo......it was like a manufacturers exhibition......i volunteered for a couple of hours and then went around to pick up the freebies..........i got a bouncing ball.....cool key chains...frisbie....water bottle.....There was registration for a marathon....it was a 5km run.....but the entry fee was like $100.....it was for fundraising for the cancer patients....I was thinking of running...but once I found it was $100.....I backed out....may be 10-15 was ok....but $100 was tooo much

Last night in Wallyball......we won against Sigma Nu (a fraternity team).....we won 15-2,15-0.....the best part of the match was that in the first game rajesh served for straight 9 points....from 6-2 to 15-2 !!!!!!!!! Then at the start of the second game......I started serving.....i served for 15 straight points!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is the second time I am doing that in 2 yrs!!!!!!!! It is a fun game....Luay and Shadi (our other team members).....we merely spectators for most part of the game....but they will hold the key in the next game....we are playing another undefeated team.......that match will decide who willl top the league and who will get the top seeding for the playoffs

well.....I am off for a quite and a peaceful weekend (atleast I hope).......

Done with Mid Terms !!!!!!!!!

I have just finished with my mid-terms......I had a test last week and another one today....I didnt do too well on the Advanced Engineering math exam but I guess I did decently in the Finite Element Analysis exam today.....but could have done better (common words after an exam :):) )......The FEA exam was a total bouncer as we were all expecting huge matrices with difficult governing Differential Equations but the whole exam had very few numerical questions.......it was alll theory or theory based to our surprise....I know that i screwed up in a couple of questions but I am hoping for the best. Getting back to classes has not been easy as I have not taken any exam or a class for over an year.....I am taking time to get back into the study mode....for the past one and half years I had beeen in programming and research mode. In the classes that i have enrolled for....I get more homework than I used to in my previous classes...thats getting hectic too....in the math class we have submitted 5 homeworks in 6 weeks and have also written an exam!!!!!!!!!! Well....PhD is not just research and project.....thats what I found out....it even has a lot of coursework which i didnt anticipate......I was hoping that I would done with 36 course credits but now I found out that I have to take 48 course credits that is .....6 courses after this semester !!!!!!!!!!!

I watched Koi Mil Gaya ....i got the cassette from Rajesh. It was a good movie...Hrithik wasnt overacting for a change for most part of the movie....he did a good job of acting as a retard. Zinta was gorgeous as usual.....the special effects....spaceship and the alien look for real....unlike most of the bollywood films.....it was good to see some good shots of the spaceship....they reminded me of Independence Day....welll, I guess thats why they hired the same guy...to replicate the spaceship outlook. It was cool anyway.

Over the weekend we played a six-a-side tournament in Colombus which was a partial success for the team as we came in second...we finsihed second even the previous year.....it was very very frustrating for finish second again but something is better than nothing right ????? we got a trophy and 6 panama hats....those round ones which the cricketers wear (Jadeja, gavaskar etc...). It was a fun weekend....but it was very very cold, our hands were hurting when we caught the ball......usually I dont drop straight forward catches on the boundary but on that chilly day I dropped 3 !!!!!!!!!!!! that was very very unusual but I am not very concerned abt that as i know the reason for dropping the catches (the cold made my hands numb!!!!!!!!). Hari, Baji, Gabroo and Sunny were brilliant in the bowling department.....i had a bad day as I got hammmered for nearly 55 runs of the 3 overs that I bowled in the 3 matches......Bharat from CCC (winnners of the tournament).....Player of the tournament....hit me for 5 sixes in the 12 balls that I bowled to him.....that was impressive batting performance by him....Kiran destroyed the ECC attack in the semifinals when we chased 60 runs in 3 overs !!!!!!!!! (they were all 6 over matches). It was brilliant hitting. One good thing abt the weekend was that we had a close game with Absar CC (last year's winners)....which we managed to win on the last ball !!!!!!! it was a pretty close game and it was a sweet revenge......they were eliminated from the tournament with that loss !!!!!!!!!!

Dont have any great plans for the weekend other than playing badminton on friday.....i am looking forward to that !!!!!!!!!

Eventful week......

I had just written a long blog and the computer crashed!!!!!!!!!!! why does this happen only with me.....

Ok..now I will make it short.......grrrrrrrrr.....

I started playing racquetball with Kiran the past week.....he is a very good player......initially I used to lose to him under-5 but then started learning from him.....now we mostly split games.....he is the only person right now in the University (that i know of)....that can beat me on any given day!!!!!! I lost interest in playing the game over the past 3 months.....but now I started playing again with Kiran...so enjoy the game....the first day itself I could see a marked difference in my game....basically my approach to the game....now I have to win every point....no free points !!!!!

I got my wireless card configured with the University network!!!!!! thats a very nice feature as the whole campus is wirelessly connected...so i can be anywhere on campus and stilll access the net....but there is a problem with that too....hmmmm...ever since I got the wireless card I have been having a lot of problems.....the card I bought works at home but doesnt work in school !!!!!!!! so i had to borrow another card from a friend which works at school but didnt work at home....there was some network compatibilty problem......so in the process of configuring the card at home I worked till 3 in the morning on wednesday......it was a futile effort....my friend also had come to help me but it didnt work....we tried everything possible....including system restore ....but it didnt work...so we gave up and went to bed......the next day my roomie tell me that the network was down on wednesday due to a router problem!!!!!!!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrr.....all night wednesday i was trying to get the wireless card working when the router itself was down !!!!!!

I got a new phone.....nokia 3650...my new number is 330-289-4901.....u can contact me at this number from now on....I gave my old phone and service to a friend so from now on if u call at 330-322-7896 she will be answering the phone!!!!!!