Praveen’s Magic Quill

I seem to be having a knack of falling and getting hurt just before the final hurdle! I wonder whether I have been jinxed… Just a few weeks before my 12^th Standard Board Exam Practicals, I fell off the ladder and severely fractured my left elbow. It healed only 80%, that too only after more than 3 months which included 2 complex operations to put the bits and pieces of my elbow together using a metal plate and no less than 12 bolts! Thankfully, my right hand was alright and I gave my best to both practical and theory exams.

Yesterday, barely a month away from my final semester exam, I fell again, this time tripped by a sharp stone poking out from the so-called road inside my college campus while running, fell down to the same kind of stony ground and skidded to a halt nearly ten feet from the place I actually fell! At the end, I managed to bruise eight spots in my hands and knees , the outer layer of the skin neatly got worn off, broke the glass of the watch (thankfully nothing seems to be wrong with the mobile as of now, symptoms maybe known only later). The doctor says that it will take nearly a week for them to heal! Damn!

I wonder why these stuffs happen to me just before major occasions!

Every time I watched Virender Sehwag hit a boundary every single over on March 28^th, I cursed myself for not having gone to the Chepauk Stadium to watch those shots eye-to-ball instead of sitting in front of the idiot box. At the end of the 3^rd day of the ongoing India vs South Africa Cricket Test Match at Chennai, I made up my mind to definitely go to the match at all cost for the 4^th day’s play so as to possibly witness Sehwag crossing the 400 run mark set by Cricket Legend, Brian Lara. I made a few calls to friends to know the various prices for various stands. That’s when I found that Navneeth had an extra ticket for the IOB Stand and so I decided to buy it from him and go along with him the next day.

This morning, I had my breakfast at 9AM and left, hoping that I would reach the stadium before the start of play, but alas, by the time I picked up Navneeth and reached the outside of the stadium, it was already 10AM. It was damn difficult to find a parking place for my vehicle, and in the end, without any choice, left it in front of a shop, despite the security’s constant scolding. We silently left for Gate no:10, and as we were going in, one thing was going over our minds – the match shouldn’t have started yet (even though it was 10:15AM already) because the crowd seemed to be absolutely silent.

At the first sight of the ground once inside, the first thing that occurred to me from the IOB Balcony was that how small the ground was (doesn’t look as big as depicted on TV) even though this is my 3^rd visit to the stadium in the past one year. At the second sight, I was disappointed to see that play had already started and was even more disappointed to see the reason for the silent nature of the crowd - Ganguly and Dravid were at the crease, meaning Sehwag was OUT!!! After getting seated in one of the seats, I took out my binocular and zoomed to the scoreboard to see whether Sehwag crossed his previous best of 309 and was delighted that he had made it. But the pleasure was short-lived when I noticed a ZERO against Tendulkar’s name! Damn! Two wickets in just half hour! Phew, it had us crest-fallen!

Fifteen minutes later, Rahul Dravid scored his slow and steadily earned 10,000^th Test Run. He started celebrating this milestone even before he crossed half the pitch! And that flying kiss he gave to his Wife and Daughter will be remembered for a long time. It took Jammy nearly an hour to reach his 25^th Test Century. At the other end, Ganguly was playing reasonable well, until he nicked one behind. Even as the match had taken a boring turnaround, the Chennai crowd was cheerful as always. The wave games, drumming with empty water bottles, blowing horns, waving the Indian Flag high were all good fun! The Chennai crowd even kept up with the Sportiveness we always show, buy applauding Opponent Team’s fielding. I, especially, applauded Amla’s awesome fielding within the circle.

Soon, it was lunch time, and I went down to the “canteen” to see what’s there to eat. Yesterday, Sathya had cautioned me that the meals served in my college are 10 times better than that sold here. So, I decided to take his advice and bought a cup of fruit salad for Navneeth and me. As we were eating, Hari came with one of his friends and sat with us. He said that this was his first visit to the stadium and that he was disappointed that the Camera Crew was busy focusing only the hot babes but did not take any notice of us guys. It wasn’t much of a pleasure watching Cricket as our players were playing defensive cricket after lunch. Even Dhoni let us down with only a couple of boundaries before nicking a comical shot to the wicketkeeper. Just a few boundaries here and there. Believe it or not, not even a single shot was played in the air! Soon though, Dale Steyn fulfilled my wish by making stumps to fly in the air by getting Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and R.P.Singh getting out in quick succession. Laxman was the last one to get out with a plum catch back to bowler Paul Harris. I was quite surprised to see the usually naughty Hari sitting silent, even though I was frantically blowing horns, cheering along with the crowd by waving the Indian flag vigorously.

I went back down to the canteen to buy some Bread Omlett this time while South African batsmen got ready. As soon as I came back and sat, Hari pointed to a girl and said that she is his Tuition mate. As I turned to see, I was quite surprised to notice that the girl he was talking about was none other than Raja’s beloved GF wearing a sleeveless White T-Shirt and Jeans sitting with her cousin a few yards behind!!! A quick SMS from Navneeth’s mobile reached Raja on this update, and he replied that he din’t believe us, and for him to believe, he needed a photograph as evidence! Damn him! I managed to take a single photo of her drinking coke and showed him later in the evening after which he finally believed…

Soon, the South Africans came in to bat, and with that, Saurav Ganguly came to field near us! My camera started clicking photo after photo, and every time he faced the crowd (around 6 times per over), our part of the stadium went mad with noise! On the other hand, it was quite disappointing to see Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie hitting boundaries. Even after Smith fell for Bhajji, the boundaries continued to flow in the form of Amla. As the match started to get boring, we started to pack up. I just turned back once more and noticed that Raja’s GF had left before us!

Just as we were about to leave, Sachin was placed close to us, at the boundary line, and I restarted clicking my camera till the Memory got over! Finally we called it a day when they were about 82 for One and left the stadium. We then went directly to Raja’s house and had a petite chat with with Raja, Sundararajan and Rajaganapathy. After that I left Navneeth at his place and drove back home. Even though its only 8PM as I am typing this post, I can feel that my stomach is growling. Just now, I remembered that my lunch was only a cup of fruit salad and a couple of slices of Bread Omlette. So, I am off to have dinner now! Ciao!

All of us would like to relax after a day of hard work. We would love to pounce on an opportunity to de-stress ourselves. So, what better way than to play a few multiplayer online games (thanks to the Internet) thereby escaping from reality into a totally different world of fun and excitement with a group of friends or anyone connect to the World Wide Web? It not only helps in relaxation, but also aids in Mental Simulation and develops various skills like Team Work, Concentration etc…

Various types of Multiplayer Online Games have become popular in the past few years. I got introduced to this world pretty late, only in my 12^th Standard, when Chetan took me to Adyar’s Zap. I was quite surprised to see most of the 50 odd computers occupied with school students my age or lesser, playing a ‘kind of shooting game’ through LAN. My curiosity took the better of me as I registered my name in the waiting list to get a computer and the started playing the game – Counter Strike (which is a team-based, tactical first-person shooter PC game. It pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won by either completing the mission objective or eliminating the opposing force).

That was my first experience in playing a multiplayer game. At first, I dint like it much, coz, as soon as I came out of the den, someone one or the other used to kill me within a few shots. But, after a few more visit to places like Zap, Bliss and Couch Potato, I started having a grip of the game and started to get addicted to it. Soon, the ten test exams and the board exams followed, and there was a LONG gap of no gaming.

After about 6 months of zero gaming, I was introduced to another new Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) called Ragnarok (This time by Raghav) that had made its entry to India just then. I found it to be a lovely game and soon got addicted to it as well and thus made frequent trips to the Adyar Gamedrome. I made a lot of friends in the process, had a lot of fun partying in-game, hunting in groups, being a guildmaster and chatting with other strangers spread throughout the country. All went well, when I suddenly had terrible results in my second semester at college.

Again, I had to forget about computers and gaming for a year (though had touch with all those Online Friends I’d had from Ragnarok). Since last December, from the day after I upgraded my computer to a reasonable latest configuration, I have restarted playing Online Games. Although, I don’t feel like going back to Ragnarok, I have restarted playing Counter Strike after a gap of nearly 3 years! It’s been nice playing through Virtual Private Networks (VPN) like Hamachi. Nowadays, I play Counter Strike around 3 days a week with pros like Vikram, Marc, Karthik Shankar, Govind, Arjun, Dhana etc…

It’s been loads of fun playing these games within friends. I have always searched for interesting smaller multiplayer online games (those that doesn’t require installation) which can be played with girls and relatives but haven’t been able to find one. I feel too bored playing Yahoo Pool and Chess. A few days back, my friend Aniz, introduced me to a BrainTeaser game called Last Man Standing (it requires the player to be registered – which is easy and free). Finally, a lovely game to play with just about anyone. Games like these can get your mind in motion and also be a lot of fun. They are a perfect source to keep you busy and challenged.

Do let me know if you know of any other interesting Multiplayer Online Games.

My department’s Technical Symposium, Swivel is back with a bang as SWIVEL ‘08.

The last edition which was held a couple of years back was enthusiastically lapped up by students all over Tamil Nadu especially by the Radio Control techies.

The event RC Cars which was the most successful event of the previous edition, is being reincarnated into a tougher event involving both on and off-road track, thus testing the skills of the makers in not only the Electronics and Steering, but also the Mechanical Design.

There are a few new events like Airborne - Gliders which will test the aerodynamic skills of the students in the form of constructing gliders and an AutoCAD Design contest.

The other events include Paper Presentation, Technical Quiz, Adzap, Technical Extempore, Crosswords and Brain Teasers.

All budding mechanical engineers and others with an eye for everything mechanical are invited.

Do come and help us let you discover the Spirit of Mechanical…

For Further Details, Kindly Visit: http://swivel08.in

I hope you know where MNM Jain Engineering College is. If not ask me…

I have been watching Cricket and other sports for the past 15 years or more. I have noticed that in most International Sports, the National Anthem of the sportspersons playing is being always sung. During competitions such as the Olympic Games, Winter Games, Commonwealth Games etc, the National Anthem of the Gold Medal winner is played at the end of the presentation ceremony. And for many team sports such as Football and Hockey, the National Anthem of both the participating teams is sung one after the other.

But I have noticed that this ritual is not followed compulsorily in Cricket! They seem to sing it only when the match falls on special occasions like Republic Day or Independence Day. Otherwise, they sing at the finals of major tournaments like they did before the start of play in the Finals of the T20 World Cup.

But why don’t they make it compulsory to sing the National Anthem of the team that won after every match? Do they fear that when the matches are played in series, the song will get a little too repetitive and boring? I feel that the habit should come from within the sportsman to spare a minute to sing their National Anthem after every Victorious Cricket Match. What is your opinion about the subject?