Memories : The window

Those were the days when I was in Ranchi and stayed at the famous(or infamous) "Badshah Lodge". Badshah Lodge is one one of the oldest and biggest student lodge in Ranchi. It was nothing lessthan a fort where everyone had to report by 7.00 pm. Those who failed to report were punished like prisoners. Sometimes when the warden's mood was good the late comers were made to stand outside for hours.

Under these circumstances I managed to stay there for two years without a single punishment like that. It is not that i always followed the rules and was one of the ideal students. But somehow i always managed to escape.

Badshah Lodge had four main blocks namely -- Main Building, White House, Madhuvan and the New Block. My room was in Main Building but most of my friends were in White House. One such room was White House - 3. This room was like our "Adda". We always gathered there despite it was very near to the office. We were very unsatisfied and angry because of the 7.00 pm rule. There was window in this room which was one of its kind in the entire hostel. It directly opened outside the premises of the lodge. I am not sure whose idea was it but it was nevertheless a brilliant one.

We planned to remove each rod in that window just like many Bollywood jail scenes. Since the wood on the sides were already rotten it did not take much effort to remove them. Then it became a new opening for us to the outside world. We hardly knew how Ranchi looked after 7 so this came as a greatest gift to us. There are many memories of this window and the one that comes first to my mind is the night match that we played. It was a six overs Tournament that was being organized at a nearby ground(Gudri Maidan) under lights. One of the funny rule in the tournament was a batsman was given out for hitting a SIX. Though we lost the match on the last ball of the inning it was memorable since it was the 1st time that we played a match under lights and this all became possible due to that window.

And There Were None

"And There Were None" is another thriller by Agastha Christie...
A short novel about a series of masterclass murders based on the nursery rhyme of the ten little Indians who went on an island..
The rhyme goes like this...



Ten little Soldier boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Soldier boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Soldier boys traveling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Soldier boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Soldier boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Soldier boys going in for law;
One got into Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Soldier boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Soldier boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two Little Soldier boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Soldier boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

All the murders resemble to the rhyme.. The novel is very fast paced except for the first few chapters. The end is spectaculraly unexpected.
The novel has also been published and filmed under the title Ten Little Indians. It is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery and the seventh most popular book in all time.
Read more about the book here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_then_there_were_none

Unexpected, unpredicted, unprecedented, unbelievable...

Unexpected, unpredicted, unprecedented, unbelievable... all these words were repeated millions of times on 16th May'09 when the results of the Lok sabha elections started to unfold.

Today in India there are more than two hundred 24x7 news channels and all these channels conducted their own Exit polls and there was not a single channel which did NOT predict a hung parliament. After the results they all remained silent about their failure to predict people choice.

I have made an observation about these exit polls. Before the EVMs were introduced in India the exit polls more or less correctly reflected the actual result. But since 2004 Parliament polls when the EVM was first used nation wide all the exit polls failed miserably and this time it was no different. There can be many reasons for this but i dont know why but i always get silly feeling about the EVMs.

It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Recently i read this book "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life"
by Lance Armstrong, Sally Jenkins.

This book is Lance Armstrong's story, how he conquered all the adveseries in life including cancer to win the Tour de France. After reading the book i have no doubt about why he is considered the best athelete ever.

The greatest thing i learned from the book was that "Every adversity brings even bigger opportunity".

Somewhere in the book Lance's mother says:
"If you are going to get anywhere, you're going to have to do it yourself, because no one is going to do it for you. If you can’t give 110 percent, you won't make it."

MESS AND PRIVATIZATION

Today was another day of HIGH for the mess...!!

Few days back a new menu has been put up for us, the menu which is supposed to be a guidline for the minimum variety of food that has to be served to the students, is being followed so strictly that if the people who drew the menu forgot to mention even the smallest of thing like sugar in it the mess people are refusing to give it. This is exactly what happemed in mess today. They say its not mentioned in the menu so we will not give. Then why are you giving salt or even water which is not mentioned in the menu. The curd is so soury that it is almost impossible to take it without sugar.

By the way menu as a whole sucks, at lunch if they are providing salad they will not give any sidedish, we are supposed to eat chapati with “daal”. Dog rice is a common term that everyone refers to “Veg biryaani”. There are many more examples but i dont want people reading this to get bored.

This is my seventh year on the trot away from home and i had never felt so frustrated from mess food. Three years in Ranchi where i stayed at the Badshah Lodge, the mess there was so cheap that we had to pay just Rs.7 for each meal. The food there too was horrible but i have to accept that it was far better then what is served here. In Jamshedpur too, the food was cheaper and better then what we are eating here. Even the food that silly Sardar's mess gave was better, i am not exaggerating yaar it is all true.

If you think PRIVATISATION is the answer for all the govt miseries THINK AGAIN. Till last year we were eating in govt mess where the quality was better and we never had to worry for the quantity now in the name of privatisation we are eating what is even worse then what prisoners eat ....!!!

Add two numbers without arithmatic operators

/*
Below is one more way to add two numbers without the arithmetic operators.
This method makes use of the asterisk(*) field width specifier in the printf function and use the returned value from printf.
Here the printf statement is given with field width operator in format, and the two numbers are given as argument for field widths,
hence we are printing a total width of two given integer arguments.
The printf function returns the number of characters printed, and here the total number of characters printed will be sum of a and b.
The third and fifth arguments are zero length strings because it only needs to print the total width of two integers.
Note that this method only works for unsigned integers.
*/
unsigned add1(unsigned a, unsigned b){
return printf("%*s%*s", a, "", b,"");
}

THE MIDDLE FINGERED ASSASIN

Yes i'm talking about Mendis, the man who destroyed the famous Indian batting line up like no one had ever done. Not even Mcgrath, Warne or Ambrose or even Donald at their peaks were able to torment the “fab four” for an entire series. Yes they have also troubled them but one or the other always rose to the occasion to resque. Not this time, there was no relief for them with Murali operating at the other end with equal precision.

“The middle fingered assasin” as he is better known these days made his debut in the series took 26 wickets a record and was rightly awarded the man of the series. He single-handedly turned the tide in Sri Lanka's favour. In the end he proved to be the difference between the sides. He never allowed the batsmen to feel at home this was evident from the way he broke the dangerous looking Laxman-Dravid partnership in the 3^rd test.

Even though India lost the series I am happy for one reason that after a long time a bowler has come who atleast for now looks that he will rule the next decade after a decade dominated by batters only. His carrom ball has given a new dimension to spin bowling. I hope he continues performing in the same way but i know all the batters all over the world might have already started to watch the recordings they would be equally eager to demolish him.