Images from Chepauk-Future Cup- Part 2

Thats where I sit- right below the NEO SPORTS commentary box. Every time I look at it, images of ESPN-STAR's Dream Job comes to mind. Just hoping some day, I get called for guest commentary :-)

Thats the place behind the D stand, where the TNCA generally conducts its selection trials. Remember bowling in 1995 here. I knocked a guy's off stump, with an express delivery, but the selector was busy sipping his quota of free coke and obliging some celebrity cricketer. Wish I had gone further.. but it wasnt meant to be.


The view from the D stand

Arun Lal and Wessels get ready for their post match gibberish

Images from Chepauk-MAC Stadium-Future Cup

The Chepauk MRTS Railway station, right ouside the Anna Pavillion

At the Wallajah road end ticket counter, quite a few sales pitches are done for Bugles, and other noisy instruments

He's got his colours right..!! Orange white and Green... Tricolor at a price!

Life's Good!

Had been to Women's Christian College for their business fest. Happened to win prizes in Biz quiz, Adzap,Best Manager and Debate. Our team from Great Lakes happened to sweep the awards winning it in every event. We are also awarded the best overall team, and won a trophy for that. The trophy was given to us by Radhika Sarathkumar, who happened to be the chief guest for their event at WCC. Finally the WCC girls were really accomadative and made sure that we were able to participate across events. They have a very good and down to earth event management team, and this is what you expect when you get to a fest. I remember so many colleges displaying a cocky attitude and feigning self importance, but the WCC hospitality was really good. The team from Great Lakes was Myself and my usual quiz partner Sunil Krishna Prasad and we also had Shriram Bharathan, another avid quizzer joining us. 2 group events victories and 2 individual event victories made our day :-)





Brough me back memories to the good old days of engineering when I spent most of my semesters in other engineering colleges, whiling away my time at symposiums and fests. Felt young all over again... :-)





Here are some picures from WCC

The Overall Winners Trophy

Three of us recieving the award from Radhika Sarathkumar at Women's Christian College.

2 days to go for the Chennai-Test Match

Cricket matches that I have watched in Chennai over the last decade




How does the Ground look 3 days before the match?









Pictures Taken at Chepauk, last evening


Thats the view from the B stand. It has seats now instead of squatting on the cement flooring

The side on view is good when you want to watch the cut and the pull, but somehow I've always preferred a mid on or straight view,as side on, you would hardly have any indication of the swing or a catch in the slips

Ticket prices for the various stands. If you are not familaiar with Chennai, and would want to know where to buy tickets. I suggest you take the MRTS( Parakkum Rail in Tamil) train from Velachery/ Tidel Park and get a ticket to Chepauk station and the ticket counter is right outside the ground floor entrance of the Chepauk MRTS Station.

Should be a new beginning for Chennai B stand folks, as they would now not jostle for cement space inside the stadium.

I had gone with my friend Madhan to the stadium. He was going for a wedding at triplicane, and I went with him from the Velachery station to Chepauk station in the MRTS.

Holi Hain- Images from Great Lakes Campus!

Pooran has just returned after being sprayed with colours and slushy water

I look like an alien with my vest and shirt ripped apart in Holi madness. Thats the first time I celebrated Holi

It makes quite a difference when a corpulent guy like Neeraj is made to remove his shirt. Neeraj seemed to give quite a complex to some of the girls with his build :-)

We could have easily been mistaken for colourful beggars, but standing outside a business school with a Strategic Profitability Management book and talks on Financial Statement probably gave it away that we were B schoolers

Its the last month at B school, and its these moments that make life lighter. Here I am at 4 am, sitting and typing my term paper case on Strategic profitability Management, even as 2 other cases stare at me. Its actually fun, when you slog on a case and you have presented your points well at the end. Felt it with so many presentations over the year.

When did some one say Sunday's were resting? Whoever said it did not have a B schoolers life on his mind at all.

Whats Cooking at Great Lakes?

Sessions of Carrom, in between classes


Last doses of Assignment tension and Tensionless sleeping

Desperate measures to copy all important files-presentations done over the year


Fin Guys ruminating over the absolutely bad health of the financial sector.
The page talks about nothing, but JOB CUTS...
Hat Tip( Thanks to Koushik Barua for pointing this out)

Staring at Life!

These days I seem to be quite absorbed in thought, eating into the time I study. In a month, the student life would be over. No more sleepy classes, no more fun trips on the move just like that with friends, no more late night assignments, late night cake cutting parties. Where is it in life that I am heading? I am starting to feel it that the lovely night is ending and the sun would come out any moment now. Its back to employment in some time. Its more so like the dream you were in has ended, and the alaram would anyway ring in a minute to let you know that Monday has arrived.The time I had in Great Lakes for 1 year, apart from the crazy schedule of assigments and classes, would be something I would treasure. I would love to make 1 big trip to some exotic, peaceful location before the current batch passes out. Tommorow would be one such party filled day where we would celebrate holi on Campus. I should be having my mobile as a spycam, lest some one unleashes the pichkari at my mobile.

I guess, I would be in a better frame of mind, if i make my next trip somewhere...probably a longer one... right now, just vegetating in college with the assignments and term papers. 30 days to go... before the next batch invades campus.

Tirupati Pictures

Too Lazy to Write a Travellogue
Pictures embedded instead

Govinda Govinda!

The Tirupati trip was a lovely walk through the hills. I had been wanting to do a long trek and Tirupati turned out to be the unlikely victim. I started off at 8 50 pm last friday, from college, straight after a class, and reached the Koyambedu bus stand at 10. To go to Tirupati from Chennai, there are the APSRTC buses, for which one needs to reserve tickets and the 911 series of buses, where you can hop on and get a ticket. I got a bus at 11 15 pm and despite being amidst 2 corpulent guys in a three seater, I managed to catch a few winks in the three hour journey.

We reached Tirupati at 2 30 in the morning, and decided to get a room near the railway station. My friend's worry was to catch some more sleep, and mine was to complete my incomplete assignment and send it across. We got a smallish room for 300 rs, and I started my assignment and completed it by 4 15 am, and sent it across to the concerned submission email address. I woke up my friend, and asked him to hurry to the bus stand....

At the bus stand at 5, we saw a mini Sri Lanka there... if we had waited there, it would have taken us three hours or more just to get the digital darshan ticket. So....we spoke to a few locals and found out that the darshan counter near Balaji Bus stand, has lesser crowd, and took a rikshaw and reached there at 5 40 am.

More follows after I have Lunch............ Now going for a break.................lotsa pictures coming up. Stay Glued!

In Tirupati

Right now, I am doing the most craziest thing that I have evr done in my life. I am typing my final touches to my emperical research study near the Tirupati bus stand, on my Laptop, and keeping a keen eye on when the counter will open for the hand bands to be tied. I started from College at about 9 pm, a trip again planned in 10 minutes. Reached Koyambedu at 10 30 pm, only to miss out on the APSRTC buses. Then boarded one of those unreserved buses from Tamil Nadu transport at 11 15 pm, to reach here at 2 30 am.

Should start the trek up the hill in a few minutes from now

Life's good with an N81

The Mobile Store- Thats where I purchased my latest mobile. Nokia N 81. I am back to that child like enthusiasm of basking in the brand,the feel good factor of the phone. I remember the days since I had my first mobile, way back in 2002, called Bosch.. I was over the moon, and over concious that I was the only guy in college carrying a mobile phone in my pocket.

The whole feeling of "new" comes up because each brand has its own menus. I found the Sony erricsson w 550 i the best phone to handle, but after a point, every phone becomes manageable

2002- Bosch, lost in 2003, when some one in a bus, flicked it from my pocket
2003- Got a 500 rs Reliance mobile and clung on till 2006, when the 3 year lock in period got over. Since it was a CDMA mobile, didnt use it after that.
2004- Got myself a Motorola C 650, had it till Feb 2006, when I lost it during travelling to Bangalore
2006- Got a NOKIA 1100...used it till April 2006( Have it even now as my back up phone)
2006- In April, bought myself a Sony erricsson w550 i, and had it till Nov 2007, until the waves in Anjuna beach, goa did my phone in.
2007- My dad gave me a Nokia basic 6330 model, and I had it till feb 2008, when it fell from my pocket, while I was on a bike(shorts, u see!)
2008- March -N 81 and I shall be careful with this mobile...and such a post shall not be repeated on my blog.



First picture, shakily taken a few minutes before rushing to class

The day after I bought my camera, I had to sit down and drown myself in a test for Strategic Profitability Management, which meant no active meddling with the phone.

Problems of Being a Celebrity

The Media is constantly hounding you, and poor Robin and Dinesh, seemed to have found their object of interest captured in print on the TIMES OF INDIA( Forwarded by Jason)

I guess it must be all the more embarassing for Dinesh Karthik, as he has just been married, and it must be a quite an explanation to his wife,especially when his hungry face is all over the country.

Moral of the Story- BOYS WILL BE BOYS!

ICL- Hardly any visibility!

The ICL 20-20 league has started, and Cricinfo doesnt seem to be devoting any web space to the league. I see news about IPL Franchisee auctions but no news about the ICL. I myself havent seen the 3 day old new league of ICL, Partly because of immersing myself in studying and being in college. My Grandmother just called me to say that she was watching the ICL, and thats when I realised that the season is on..

The ICL seems to have a decent site, as opposed to IPL
Kapil Dev, Incase you need a marketing guy, You know whom to call right? I am still waiting..... (as the song goes).

Slog Overs!

I am starting to feel done and dusted with the MBA. I feel its dragging now. There seems lesser interest after placements in the course, but with a month and a half left for the course to end, I feel I must put an end to this feeling of misery within me. I have decided to revise all the subjects that I have learnt atleast briefly, to feel complete in all aspects. The slog overs and countdown starts now. The feeling of frustration is more exemplified by the fact that money worth 60k is still pending from two companies that I have been assosiated with (One former employer in Chennai, and other the company where I interned in November). I do some consulting work for them and havent recieved my payments due to some red tapsim. As a student, you realise the pinch of money more than any other time! add that to some pending assigments and term papers that involves quite an effort to complete. Its like climbing everest with eyes blinded! Any way enough of cribbing, I shall get back to work.

The Goa PhotoBlog-Part 10

Thats our room, as basic as it gets for 500 bucks between three guys. Actually We found it largely satisfying, as our criteria for a room was
a) shack on the beach
b) Decent food
c) Basic rooms with a properly working toilet and a bed that you could rest your back on for a few hours.
d) Room that had decent locks, especially when you have Laptops and Digicams inside
e) Room with a plug point to charge the mobiles and Laptops. Nothing More Nothing less..

This worked like a dream. The food is pretty good here(I am a vegetarian, so options are anyway limited) This is called 21 coconuts inn, nearing the end of Arambol Market and on the beach, near where all the Honda Activa's are parked.

Room with a View! Thats the view outside our grilled windows. A great place to see Goan sunsets!

The place below the restaurant where he had food. Even though it was warm in the afternoon, thanks to some trees in the vicinity, the chill breeze was good enough to bask lazily in the afternoon.

Here I am working hard at my core competency! with music in the ears on a sleepy afternoon in Arambol Beach.

The Goaphotoblog Part 9

Me posing after arrival on Clear sand Arambol Beach. One part of the beach had white sand, while the other part was well watered by the tides and looked like a flat batting wicket.

Its a pity, whenever I come to Goa, I come with a near full bag, or a near empty purse, so I generally never buy any souveneir like a Goa shirt, or a Hare Rama Orange loin cloth, or those typical Goa wear clothes. Its a good place to bargain, and having a Hard core Baniya like Vipul Singhal, I guess I wasted an oppurtunity.

Vipul and Varun posing in the route between Arambol Main beach and the Sweet water lake beach. Its a lovely walk as the sun sets in this part. The road to sweet water lake beach is now better, as some rocks have been cleared and that means a person need not run back to Arambol main beach before sunset. Its great to get a place to stay in this route. Most of the huts are owned by a certain Ganesh, but suprisingly all the rooms seem booked.

Memories of 21 Coconuts inn... Great CANDLE LIT DINNER at night.

The GoaPhotoBlog Part 8

When we arrived at Arambol, it was a lovely sight seeing a clean beach and all one wanted to do was just go deep inside the water and let the waves push your body while you stay relaxed inside the water.

A portion of the beach was pretty flat and wet due to the low tides and so I shot this picture of a few kids playing football.

Vipul seems to be sighting something exciting even in the face of sunlight, beaming right in front of him.

There are some great rock formations on Arambol Beach, and its a lovely place to sit there and spend the time listening to music and watch the sunset.

The Goa PhotoBlog- Part 7

This was the SIOLIM bridge over the chapora river when we had to drive from Anjuna to Arambol. Great roads to drive!

Some natural canyons are present in the route to Arambol, which makes it a great drive especially at night, with the breeze hitting you in the face.

This is the Mandrem-Aswem-Morjim stretch before you reach Arambol Beach. This features in the Movie Lage Raho Munnabhai in the song "aaane Chaar Aanne".

There is this big church in Arambol, which has a playground, that ws featured in Munnabhai-2 as the ground where Sanjay dutt plays football and wins a match for the "second innings" team in the song "aane chaar aaane", which was shot in Goa. Felt Great to see a location in a movie and to relate it in real life. Arambol is one of the most peaceful beaches in Goa that I have seen.