Earth hour

Aamir Khan's poster said 8.30-9.30 PM, and I had it all set well in my mind, reach home and just do it. But by 8.35PM when I reached, I was feeling sapped with all the physical activities I indulged in for the day. Anyways, the earth hour had just begun and I wanted to see if my folks were interested in anything like this.

I called out to my dad, and said "Appa, computer kaaryu aacha, Aayindaale Auki, ippo earth hour start aayikarna". 

Meaning ... dad if your work on the computer is done, you could shut it off as the earth hour has already begun.

To my suprise, within the next 5 minutes dad came out of the room after having turned everything off and promptly came and switched off the TV. At this point of time, my mind was still wavering on whether to observe the event or not. And then Mom said, let's take the dinner on the terrace and have it over there. Buoyed by their sheer interest, I made up my mind. 

Rest was just a beautiful dinner on the terrace, with no lights, but for ones on the street and a lot of empty sky gazing after we finished eating. 

To switch off the lights for 60 minutes, contribute towards conserving energy and directly get involved with the fight against global warming, is of course the larger purpose, but I am glad to say that it drove all the three(mom, dad and me) to have dinner together, which seldom happens due to time constraints or other factors.

~Sanj

Romancing the Spartan, Re-living the Nivia

It was interest-->beating-->love-->fascination and obsession (in the same order) for me when I talk about the beautiful game of Volleyball and my formative years with it. Having started way back in 5th or 6th standard, this is one game I would love to play even when woken up from a slumber. I had my first thud of volleyball on my hands, someday between 1994-95. I still remeber the last bell of the day that rang, and we rushed out of our VI-C classroom to meet the newly appointed PT instructor, Seetharam Sir.

While making us warm up a bit, the moment I waited for came. The ball i wanted to touch and hit on the court, but had always ended up passing it back to the seniors, donning the role of a self ordained ball-boy , hit me plonk on my face threatening to squash my nose.

Seetharam sir reminded, "court is far-away for you even to dream". 

He tossed back the ball to me after signalling me to get both my hands closer and meet the ball. I did see how it was done, but when the ball met, it was as if my hands were polio affected or something. I never seemed to get it on the center of my hands.

This drove my instructor rather wild, I guess. He walked up to me with the ball gripped in his palm as if he were holding a tennis ball, and asked me to bring my hands into position where ball is met. No sooner I did that, he literally beat my hands up making sure I knew where it was, that he wanted me to meet the ball. He did it with such gusto, that made tears swell up my eyes. I don't remember what made it not roll down my cheeks, but it sure did make Seetharam sir notice it. All of a sudden, he turned from this monstrous being to a tender giant and kissed me on my cheek tending solace.

Do you think this made any difference to me? If you thought it did, you are damn right. Made a hell of a difference, and miraculously the ball never again missed my other hand. Thus my first lessons on volleyball lead me further to the competitive mold of enthralling volleyball.

[Btw, this is going to be a long post I realise as i write.... ]

As time progressed, things moved on and i realised the passion in the game. The more i played it on a competitive level, the more i started getting obsessed with it. Had the fortune of playing with some amazing boys and girls. Crusaders during 8th to 10th were people like Gowda Sir, Bashya, Anil and others.

Time further moved on and we were back in bangalore. During my 11th and 12th i realised how much power a sport has. It just takes minutes, to break the strongest of the teams when a position of power and leadership is open for grabs. At this kind of age, it is truly to show one's supremacy in the game I guess that makes individual act the way they do. I did start experiencing such things right from 10th when I made a break away league in the crave for cricket captaincy. 

Coming back to 11th and 12th, those were days when we juniors played against seniors and beat them at that many a times. Classes were just an excuse, an excuse to spend some of the most memorable moments of the day between lunch-break and post class hours. Our college used to be a quadrangular structure with classrooms running upto 3 floors and the volleyball court right in the middle of it all. So whenever there was a game on, there would definitely be more than a few non-playing eye balls on us, giving us more reasons to strut it out there. 

Some great buddies at this phase were Deepu, Abhilash, Arun, Sridhar[What serve you had boss], Sathya, Sandy, Vikas, Pavan and of course MKS Sir[Apart from his sudden drops on the court, I always wanted to learn using the blackboard like he does, bloody brilliant !!!]

During graduation the game, took a backseat, as other priorites in life became exciting. The other gender suddenly became an exciting topic for us all. But of course, when the sports day came, all the old experience just comes back, and you play for the joy of it. We had a pretty competent team in our class of 20 or so people in Baby, Vikram, Samarth, Babu, Ady, Vinay(so-so :P) and a few others. Though we dint win the tournament we sure did everything in(volleyball) and out(cricket) of the spirit of sports .

I think the best years of volleyball for any non/semi-professional would be from 8th Standard to end of Graduation unless you have good infrastructure at your disposal.

Thus amidst all these oblivious pleasures of student life, never realised when the corporate saga began. Of course, the love of the game ensured that I took some initiatives at workplace, but it seemed limited until MS-Outlook.  Such is my love for the game, that I also went to give my sister's school team some practice hits before their match. 

Now, why so much nostalgia you might think?

Of late, I got my chance to play volleyball at my friends apartment complex and also there is this huge wish of mine, of wanting to pull away from traffic near a playground where volleyball is being played, and just go play not caring about who, whether, why etc.... 

Yesterday I did just that...   Well that's because some things never change.

Shoot... Ido... Rakh

~Sanju

[Post Dedication: To all those who spent time on the court with me and etched some everlasting memories]

दोस्तोन के दर्मियान हसाती हुई जिन्दगी

Some days are just meant to be special. You don't know how time just flies and the whole day is over in a jiffy. Like yesterday, when we friends were together for sweets a friend brought from home, and a dinner that followed in an ergonomically discomforting restaurant for tall blokes like me. It is the company that makes any sort of discomfort fade away with bouts of laughter, leg-pulling and an overall warmth. I am blessed to be in company of such friends.

Drinking is one such topic which has a lot of hues associated to it. While talking about whether the booze or the talk of it gives a high, I came up with the first line of this Shayari... and asked my trusted friend from Delhi, Shweta(who gets an equal credit of this post) to complete it.

Might seem as if i am boasting, this one time i won't deny it. I am proud of my Hindi abilities, which I think i proved throughout the day.

Anyways Aadaab Arz hai...

बातों से जो चद्ती ... तो कमभख्त कौन पीता
बातों से जो चद्ती ... तो कमभख्त कौन पीता
आप हमारे साथ होते; तो मरने से कौन डरता!

Hope you guys have something to tell me about this post.

Cheers
~Sanju

Of runs, recession and daddu... 

The week current and past has been full of runs for Team India, be it the costly ones in the 20-20 matches, or precious ones in the ODI's.

If sachin gave an early gift to his fans celbrating ID on Sunday 8th Mar, Sehwag failed to dissapoint by gifting a timely HOLI present by scoring the fastest ton by an Indian and in the process sealed the NZ ODI series in India's favour.

Now whats recession got to do with it? Well a poster got all my attention in the match's highlights.

'No Recession, No runs'

And now who is Daddu, it's one of the brilliant new ad from 'Mentos' mint, that's aired these days on TV. I just love its theme. Though at the risk of being accused for unwarranted promotion of the ad, I feel like embedding the same here.

Sometimes, its only the little things that bring joy. Well here's mine

Cheers

Sanju

Such a show … Guys

On the Augustus occasion of the 75^th anniversary celebrations of Kannada film industry, I have this feeling of pride and joy to come to terms with the rich history and tradition that the Kannada film industry has carved for self. In some ways I guess this is the sole reason why I decided to stay put at home in front of the idiot box. I eagerly woke up from the lazy Sunday afternoon slumber to watch the 3 day event get inaugurated.

Though I know it's easy to sit and comment about the show, frankly speaking the initial parts of the show was annoying really. Speaking with some experience of organizing events, I know how easily the 100^th unnoticed event can occur washing away all the other 99 items that would have been meticulously taken care of. Taking the scale of the event being and the caliber of the list of invitees into account, sitting on my couch I so hoped that the event turned out to be a superb one.

Some glaring short comings that make me write this:

• I really cannot decipher the logic of how 75 look-alikes of Dr. Rajkumar can share the same stage with personalities like Chief Minister of the state, Guest of Honor Kamal Hassan, other major stars, politicians who themselves formed a formidable 20-30 number of people on stage.
  
• Atleast basic things like having the garlands, ready for these dignitaries should have been done.
  
• The scene of huge number of unwanted people literally being warded off by our CM was deplorable.
  

The list can go on… but I know what to stop where. Did I forget to mention that this event was held in front of crowds numbering to lakhs of people? I guess the MBA mindset sometimes makes me critique a bit too much. The post got worded in my mind as I was watching the event unfold. But it all stopped when Kamal Sir started speaking in Kannada and the rest of the event went on as if there was never a glitch.

In all after having grown up on these classic matinee entertainers, to see an occasion like this celebrated is delightful. With wishes galore for a super 'Amrita Mahotsava', here is me signing out!!!