Heartbreak...

It was something that I had never anticipated, England losing out to Portugal in the quarters when I was so sure that the English team is going to go all the way and lift the trophy.I like all the hooligans sweared a hundred times for the Argentine referee and Christiano Ronaldo alike... Man I wish he gets a treatment when he goes back to United, the fans are sure going to butcher him if not Rooney.

I think England were surely the better side until the penalty shootouts, they could have done better but they didn't have their two best penalty takers in Beckham and Rooney, ofcourse I expected Lampard and Gerrard to score but the monster in Ricardo broke so many hearts with those monstrous saves.

The World Cup seems now a dead thing for me with England out, but France beating Brazil was a shocker as well.Football can be atrocious sometimes and I learnt this last night.

Mission: Driving License

So this was my first peek-a-boo into the lives of our sarkari offices- the R.T.O (most probably the Regional Transport Office) to be precise. I turned 18 soon (see if you read my blog carefully I’ll divulge some information here and there…), so my papa finally realized that he could get me a driving license (am not so enthusiastic to go there myself). It’s not like you have to wait till you get 18 to get yourself a driving license at least in this part of India, but then my pa just like me is very laid-back in certain things.

Okay coming back to the R.T.O rendezvous, I was escorted by one Yadav dude (a 50 year dude albeit ;)), who is probably in this business for quite sometime but still seems nervous like an amateur. Well he’s kinda middleman who makes it easy to get a license out of the clutches of the R.T.O people, one of my friend tried to get it on his own but was failed thrice in the driving test, lol.

It was an area office, so the building isn’t so big, but man it stinks! Not that I expected a government office to be any good, but I had visited our friendly post-office quite a few times and I never thought anything could be worse than this. Plaster falling of the blue and red walls (which were supposed to be half blue half red, but red probably gave up the struggle for survival sometime back and gave way to more blue), glorious red marks of humara UP ka paan made by veterans of beetle leaves, the maze on the doors had been shredded mercilessly. There were windows but no glass in them, perhaps to avoid the pain of opening the windows to let the breezes in.

But the most distinct feature were the innumerous files, light brown files stacked up in piles, ten or twenty piles and not files in each small room, I’m sure no one would ever dare to search for a record in these files. White pages had turned yellow and even the wood pulp used in them must have started decomposing. Looking at them the only idea you’ll get is “do these people even know that computers exist?”

Anyway Mr. Yadav got me a couple of forms that had an indefinite amount of questions but he asked me to fill minimal. Next up we went to get the documents verified and then he went to deposit the bucks (he wouldn’t dare to take me there- of course he won’t want me to know what was the actual amount used). And then the real fun took place… there was supposed to be a written test…

Clever shit… they had special question papers with answers already marked on them for people like me who applied through middlemen. Looks like the R.T.O doesn’t want to issue licenses without accommodating the middlemen in their ranks. So I finished the paper, I gathered that only 50% marks were required, so I didn’t care to recheck…

Well the experience was really cool… one always sees these things in films, but actually seeing the conditions of official files, officials and the working system in government offices does make you laugh a lot.

The SWADES Effect

This is a thought that has lingered in my mind for a long long time now... and I think most of us have their preferences set in regard to this- do you yearn to get a foreign package so that you can leave your country and follow a seemingly luxurious and higher paying job outside your own country, or do you wish to strive hard right here and contribute your bit towards the nation that bore you...?

I call it the SWADES effect, paying due homage to the film that changed my life, I am hundred percent sure that I will not go abroad to work even if I get an offer, let the offer be bigger than what I can dream of getting here. Well sometime back I read a very interesting thought-

A Japanese child studies and dreams of developing a robot to contribute towards his nation's growth.
A German child studies and dreams of developing a car engine to contribute towards his nation's growth.
... (a few more examples, gasp)
But an Indian child studies and dreams of going to USA for a fat pay-package.

Isn't it pathetic? Certainly I feel so... the top tier of our intellectual youth works abroad, builds a fortune for themselves, but in the process sends ten times the amount in the coffers of already developed bullies of the world.Now anti-Swades-ians (yes I'll call you like that!) protest and say that these people return so much back to India which contributes to the GDP of your poor country.

Hell!- if you stayed here and worked in a low-paying ISRO than NASA, Indian space research would have been booming like anything.And in the long-run that is what India requires.We have a huge share of world's brightest brains (take a look at those dumb Brits or Americans!), and we still are counted amongst the developing nations of the world, only because of the fact that our bright brains didn't care to develop their homes and preferred to stay as paying guests abroad!

Huh, too serious this time!Well blogging isn't just about telling strangers which joint you ate at and how you gifted the most weird gift to your girlfriend.I have already highlighted the most witty line in this preachy post, in a hope that you'll read the entire post (good marketing skills in the offing? ;) ).

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna...

The film looks promising... and since I'm such a big SRK fan I'm gonna watch it for sure... here's a trailer for all those people who like to spoon-fed... lol kidding, enjoy the video.

Acknowledgements---wanna thank (for once! ;)) rishabh who has the blog "whatever things"... got the idea of placing a video on my blog from him.

Football- the best narcotic

India might not have qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2006 but that doesn't stop most of us to be crazy about the Rooney's, the Ronaldinho's and the Messi's. Right? Agreed it's a different high to cheer for your own country, but since that's not going to happen any time soon- I'll settle for England!

Football is sure a very big game and the competition is extremely enjoyable and worth following, but that's not something you don't know so lets just move on--- there's still at least a month before we can place our asses to be slaughtered in our colleges, so what to do in the meantime... follow the world cup, it's great!Watching England beat Trinidad & Tobago 2-0 was such a sweet moment, you would surely forget all your sorrows, including your *beep* performance in the examinations.

I suppose I have been absent from my blog for quite sometime and it is intolerable to keep my fans awaiting for bits from me... okay save your applauds for the comment section.

By the way I tried my hands at two films- Fanaa and Phir Herapheri... both sucked, PHP leading all the way to be an irritating, annoying and the most pathetic form of cinema.God when you don't know how to make a film, don't spoil the name of a cult film.

So I'm going to stay loyal to football, and I wish England move all along inspite of that lame striker of their's Peter Crouch.

Blame It On India... OR Read Ahead

Well most people would have encountered this thought- this is because we are in this country.Here competition is cut-throat, there's hardly any environment for the growth of an individual, people hardly care for potential here.Blame it on India, blame it on the damn politicians!Okay no preaching here... we have heard dialogues in Swades (2004) and more recently Rang de Basanti (2006),"no country is perfect..." and more crap.Well the crap is quite true.Ok admitted, we have less than 4000 seats in IIT, and after discounting the reservation bull-shit, the figure cuts an even more sorry figure.But hang-on, getting or not getting into IIT, is not the end of it.We, guys, are currently the hot-spot of the world, everybody wants to invest in India, every company wants to come to India- result: 50,000 jobs in IT sector, and atleast half as many jobs in other sectors each.


So, the moral of the story is... even if you didn't make it to IIT or even NIT, then too you have a great future ahead, and I'm not talking about starting preparing for CAT straightaway (IIM in my opinion is a tougher nut to crack!).Okay the exams are over now, maybe you didn't incorporate your full strength, but thinking about it now is going to be of no use.You can either drop a year (a very sensible move if you appeared for your 12th this year...though it's kind of a risk considering the reservation sword hanging on our heads).Or you can join the best college you can get with your capabilities, believe me guys its not bad as people around you may tell you.

And btw (thats by-the-way..), engineering isn't the only option either, there are so many other avenues, business management, hotel management, journalism, media, fashion designing... agreed many of these can be pursued only at the post-graduation level, but you can surely save a lot of time and energy by choosing bachelor's in a lighter stream that will give you the resources to concentrate on your special talent (yes everybody has some, which is what's required in the fields I was talking about).

Umm... I guess I got much to motivating and preachy today... hell!Well I had expected a better response at the comments section though....I guess too many blogs out there these days, more writers than readers, well what can I do... except to say "Screw All Those Stupid Blogs!"

IIT-JEE, AIEEE, SEE, BITSAT- screw all!

Alright lets get this straight.... just like Chetan Bhagat said in the beginning of Five Point Someone (dude read it if you haven't read it yet) this blog is not going to help you in getting a good engineering college (but becus i'm such a benevolent person I'll give you a link... http://www.dcetech.com/ go here if you want help from other guys like you).

Ok if you have done well and you think you're going to get a good college then congratulations (don't even dare to brag about it in the comments section)... and if you haven't done particularly well then you might find some itzy-bitzy pieces of motivation here...

I got a 90+ % score in my intermediate examination (ISC board... I know it sucks), my parents had great expectations, I dropped a year and gave examinations, dint make into the JEE selections, dint do particularly well in AIEEE either so am left with just BITS Pilani-Goa Campus (heck I'm preferring it to Pilani, even though everybody is suggesting me not to go there...).Fortunately my dad behaved with a great level of maturity here and dint blast me off with "you have let us down" kind of preachings.

Now I am left with one full month of boredom, not many friends here and so lets just make more people join in my boredom.I am looking at a target victims- obese dull students who have good-for-nothing internet connection at home and have nothing better to do than read this S-H-i-T blog.By the way did any of you watch the Appy-Fizz commercial?I think its quite cool....

Ok when you have a bad result... what do you do?Immediately start thinking about how you're going to present it to your parents, or how are you going to avoid your bastard friends who have scored better than you in the exam?You might have figured out that I'm trying to immitate Chetan Bhagat very shamelessly...but no man,that's not case,unlike his' my writings have a deep meaning (alright that was a P.J. first one on this blog, or the second...? )

There are these two types of guys in school- one who are totally into Hindi films and music... whom some call retards, ok am one of them.I prefer our song and dance films (ok not the Govinda ones... we have better Hindi films today) to the sci-fi over the top expensive animation films, most of all are totally nuisance according to me (I love The Matrix and its sequels though).You might have guessed the second type, and if you're one of that type then don't worry am not going to mock at you...

Now what am I talking about... alright this is my first personal blog (I have another one on which I write short stories, err... serious ones that enlightens readers on various aspects of life... go check it out if you still have spare time after reading this blog- http://ordinary_life.rediffblogs.com)... so because this is my first foray into true-blogging (that is people write about their lives and anonymous geeks abuse them from the weirdiest corner of earth).

Umm... okay this is enough for today... well I tried to be funny. If you dint find it so funny then shame on your sense fo humour.Ok sorry... please please bookmark this page... and keep watching it twice a day for atleast a month and tell your friends about it.Err... okay that was quite melodramatic.Chao for now... and yeah if you were looking for motivation then sorry come back tomorrow I'll try and accomodate some motivation in the garbage that I'm publishing.