Shastri Tuitions - Part 1

“Bloody, road nalli hogo rowdy galigintha kade aagodhrallo neevu!, 15 minutes late agli, 30 minutes late aagli bloody thale bagsi odhtha irbeku, gottaitha”, screamed the voice,  burning red eyes, a plastic scale wrenched 120 degrees on either side of its axis, by strong forearms.  We students, standing still, silently applauding our ability to perfectly predict what the next sentence would be, waiting for the tormentor to walk out. Frankly there was no reason to feel happy about the ability, because these monologues  regularly purified our ears, day in day out for almost a year during our 2nd PU days.

Almost every engineer ( who by now would have become software engineer), who has studied in Bangalore since school days, lived in and around Rajajinagar, Vijayanagar, Malleshwaram would have had first-hand experience about the dialogue, rather monologue mentioned in the first line of this post. Yes, I am talking about Shastri Tuitions!!!

The roadmap for school kids coming from middle class families in these localities was pretty much written in stone, those days. Secure a rank or at least 85% in the SSLC exams (You would be a worthless carrot if you couldn’t score 90% in the SSLC exams), join the PCMB stream in either MES College, MES Kishore Kendra or KLE ( J Section, specifically!!), enroll for Shastri tuitions after the 1^st PU exams.  Get very very good scores in both PU and CET, to become either a doctor or engineer. So much was the importance laid to joining tuition that it was a belief that you would be left lurking in the dark, if dint join one. For a jackass like me, things weren’t much different even after joining one!!

Generally the highly motivated, wannabe engineers, with eye bobbling scores in 10^th, formed the majority of people who religiously attended and noted down each and every problem solved in Maths. The white apron aspirants memorized every word uttered in the botany and zoology class, almost instantly. PHYSICS and CHEMISTRY was of equal measure to both the clans, the aprons, because of the ability to remember everything, memorized CHEMISTRY with equal ease ( Sodium + Chlorine would only give Sodium Chloride, and nothing else, any amount of logic you put, the end result would still be same, hence easy to memorize) PHYSICS, a bit tough to memorize though, however wasn’t impossible. After all, even problems could be memorized!!!  The wannabe engineers weren’t  all that bad in memorizing things, either. And logic was second nature to them, hence PHYSICS too was a cake walk.  A few confused cabbages, like me who neither had the FLASH memory to store all that was uttered in BIOLOGY and CHEMISTRY, nor had the whiz kid logic to solve the problems in MATHS and PHYSICS, were left blinking in the conflict between the decision to join tuition in the first place and day/night dream about all the good things we were missing during the tuition hours!!

The ordeal started right after we finished the 1^st PU exams. Since, those were summer holidays, and we still had some time for the actual college to start for 2^nd PU, the tuition classes were conducted in full flow, in fact overflow. There were two batches, one for the morning and one for the evening. I dint have any particular liking for the timings of the batch. To some waking up early in the morning, going with fresh mind to the tuition would  deliver all the lectures directly to their FLASH memories, while for others evening batch would provide the convenience of studying right through the night up to the morning hours, so that they could dump everything in to their memories, during the silence of the night.

I was neither a morning person, nor had I the power of concentration or determination to sit through the night. Since my friends had opted for the evening batch, I also did the same. The batch timings sent my mind get into a whirlpool of depression!! 2pm to 930pm all seven days of the week!

The initial days, during the holidays in the tuition were a drag…The hot sun, the monotonous lectures, the barrage of tuition notes that were supposed to be written down….how much I cursed my lame decision to join the tuition. The monotony surprisingly was carried to Maths classes as well!!, miss 2 hours of maths class, and you would fall behind the class, by at least 150 maths problems. Amidst that marathon 7 and half hours of tuition, we also had a 15 minute break to attend nature’s call, which was our only access to outside world!

We got used to this routine, and meanwhile our college started, and I was very much happy with the change, for we got a chance to meet the civilization. The classes in the college were generally never paid much attention, as it is we wanted so much for a break from the monotony, of “listening” to the lecture.  So much was the disinterest that a 100 pages book, used to hold up two notes of different lectures. Flip the biology notes, and lo you would find the organic chemistry notes starting from the last pages. I dint even bother to maintain notes for language subjects; after all we were 1 year seniors in college, yeah!!!

Holding a book in hand, walking to the class, you look so cool!!, dumb age, dumb philosophy!!

Coming back to our tuition, we had 4 stalwarts one each for Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Biology. 

More about our stalwarts and their mannerism…in future posts!!!

A[V]I

Tata Power days...

Time : Apr 2002 

Location : Tata Power, Electronics City, Bangalore

So finally I was an E&C engineer, passed out of PESIT!! Phew I was out of the engineering school. I dint want to become a software engineer (this was more to do with the fact that I dint get any job in software companies :)), I was more of a MOSFET, micro controller, assembly language, oscilloscope man, than a JAVA or C++ geek. The fact that I wasn’t good at programming added to the aversion towards software in general. More so electronics engineers were looked down upon by the software giants, probably the perception being that we E&C engineers can’t think “Software”.  Most of it was true; because in the 4 years of engineering we hardly “touched” computers until the final year. 

All this mutual repugnance between me and software, led me to join Tata power.  The interview itself was a welcome change, where I was asked about MOSFETs, h- parameters, sinking and sourcing currents and micro controllers in general.  Prior to this Tata Power interview, all my other interviews in software companies, gave me a belief that I was suffering from “software dyslexia”.. the labyrinth of terminologies…Constructors, destructors, abstraction, static functions, operator overloading sent my head spinning into orbit!!! (Even today, I hate C++ from the bottom of my heart :))

“Design a temperature controller circuit, the cut off should happen at 70 degree Centigrade, also make sure the heater is turned on once the temperature goes below -20 degrees and don’t leave the control loop open!”

This was my discussion with my manager after I completed 15 days in Tata Power. There was no discussion there, as such. I just said, OK sir, and came out, wiping the beads of sweat that had formed on my forehead.  Grey haired electronics Casanovas were spread like algae in Tata Power. They talked, breathed and probably even ate electronics.  Each one was a land mine ready to explode at the smallest hint of disturbance. With such an elite group of colleagues (basically I dint have colleagues there, they were all seniors), I huffed and puffed my way to design my first temperature controller circuit. The design did not even go beyond the schematics.  One grey haired nerd, scrapped the design, scribbled the circuit on a piece of paper, gave the PCB designer the details, all within a couple of hours. 

This too hot to handle technical stuff was, I guess a part of the run in needed for all the freshly minted coins from the engineering schools. I was no different, I felt the time 8 am to 430 pm was most horrible part of the day, each minute bringing in unforeseen dangers (read design discussions, hardware problems) from unexpected corners of the department.  The clock striking 4:30 infused new energy to my sapping mind and heart and like kids running out of school, at the stroke of 4:30 I used to run to our bus that would take me to my home sweet home. 

Sharp at 6, I would reach home, and the first thing I would do, is call Pachi.. “Lo baaro hogona” (Come lets go). “Hmm sari bandhe, 10 mins” (Ok fine, I will be there in 10 mins) That was the only dialogue between us over the phone, because that was our routine :). Pachi’s Kinetic Honda was one heck of a work horse, however we had kept a feminine name to her :). She would soar smoothly through the suffocating by lanes of Rajajinagar, and reach our destination, Malleshwaram.  Pachi and me sync well together in most of the matters, the first one, FOOD :). The destination was fixed, Janatha Hotel in 8^th cross. Most of the times, our snack was also fixed. Eradu single vada, followed by eradu masala dose. The taste was so divine that we had fallen in love with masala dosas and vadas. The uniform golden brown texture, that was both soft and crispy, served with coconut chutney, almost melted in the mouth. The not so pocket heavy combo was simply lick smacking, and of course satiated the two gluttony foodies. 

After the heavy snack, we used to stroll towards Sampige road, and automatically as a ritual, we were drawn towards Amruth Ice Creams. (It’s a small shop, serving homemade vegetarian ice creams) We either had butter scotch/fig n honey and one rum n raisin. Stuffed enough in our tummies, we used to walk towards the Malleshwaram railway station!! Sitting on the stone benches there, we two gluttons used to talk about everything. “Everything” in a young bachelors life is largely restricted to only three things.. Girls, job, money.. in that order!!, Okay, okay, the order may change for some serious career oriented geeks, but girls would always be a topic of discussion!

The hurtling rani chennamma at around 930pm or 945pm tearing through the silence of Malleshwaram, indicated the end of day for both of us, time to head back home, have dinner (yeah, come what may I never skipped dinner, despite my stomach crying… enough I cant take it more!!) and snore away to glory to fight another day at Tata Power!!

So there it was, my days in Tata Power. The more I think of Tata Power, the more I remember the days I spent after office hours J. Its been 11 years since those days, and always when I think of it... a smile finds it way on my lips!! 

Jaane kahan gaye woh din!!! (No, this is not the melancholy tune!! But yes, I miss those days...)

A[V]I

Glutton Feast at Hotel Sowmya

Time: April/May 2000
Location : Hotel Sowmya, Race Course Road, Bangalore.

Like all final year engineering students, we were supposed to our academic projects in some institutions outside our college. Since my dad was working in National Aerospace Laboratories, it was easy for me and our group to secure a project there. Every Friday, we were supposed to go to NAL to update the guide with regard to the progress in the project, get our doubts clarified, and generally do some work related to the project.  This was the supposed agenda. The agenda was thrown out of the window, as soon as we reached NAL.  Religiously we used to go all the way to NAL; Wait and wait and wait till we get access to the only computer that we were allowed to access to compile and run our code :).  During this wait, the general banter about everything around us, including other 400 odd college students who were doing their projects at NAL gave us a sense of disgust about the “wait”.

So the conversation used to be like this

Myself : Lo inna est hotthu wait madodhu; nadiro hogona next week nodkondre aithu.. (how long to wait, we will go now and we will see next week)

Pachi : Correct kano.. hange maadona.. (correct we will do like that..)

Sridhar : Every week hinge aadre hengo.. project enu progress agthane illa.. (Every week its happening like this only, there is no progress in the project..)

Anup : …. (The muted member, generally wanted the best of both the worlds, so couldn’t take sides..)

So before he could open his mouth, his vote was already counted as “mounam sammathi lakshanam” and before long we were zipping on the then airport road, towards more homely and affordable locales of Malleshwaram, Majestic etc…

On One of such many Fridays, Hotel Sowmya fell prey to our barbaric gluttony. “Kallu thindu jeernisikolluva vayassu” (Literally means, the age at which the appetite so strong and huge that we could digest even stones) so any vegetarian restaurant was okay for us, as long as it was affordable.
The main gluttons:

Pachi and Myself : Both capable of devouring full meals fully J and still ask for some extra servings :)

The support roles:

Sridhar and Anup : They were moderate to poor eaters, who, I guess were feeling a bit awkward to share the dining table with us!!!

Full Meals(Unlimited) Rs 35 was what we saw on the menu card, and as with all college students,  unlimited food for limited money, was an invitation none of us (rather only Pachi and myself) could resist. “Naalk full meals” (4 full meals) was what I said, and when the plates arrived, the further proceedings were jaw dropping for more sane eaters.

After serving second round of 4 pooris the waiter brought rice.. the two mortals quickly had their bites of rice with rasam, and curd and washed off their hands.

The two gluttons weren’t finished though. When the waiter brought rice, I looked at him, smiled and said “poori”.. the same dialogues were repeated by pachi :).  With a slight twitch in the eyebrow, the waiter served 4 more pooris to me and my fellow glutton. Having devoured those 4, when he came back with rice, I asked “poori kooda unlimited alwa?”. (Poori is also served as much as I eat?) So fuming with anger, he went back, literally threw 4 more pooris in our plates :).  So 16 pooris each were stuffed by the two gluttons in the first course of that meal. We dint take the risk of asking for another serving of pooris, we turned our attention to rice.

Two more servings of rice with rasam and sambar, both the times the bowl in which rice was brought was emptied into our plates with the loudest of noise. The sole intention of the waiter serving us, to draw the attention of the owner, so that he could take our photographs and tag it on the wall near the bill counter!!

In between The two mortals who were watching all this ruthless batting (local lingo) from the other end of the table, exclaimed : “Lo saaku banro..est thinthira J” (Enough guys, how much you will eat??)

One final go at curd rice and we were ready to eat the desert (fruit salad with ice cream). When the waiter brought that to our table, he immediately exclaimed “Idhu limited sir!!” (This is not unlimited!!)

The effect our barbaric gluttony had on his psyche, Unimaginable!

Aaaahhhh finally the full meal was fully complete. The waiter who served was left high and dry for all his wrong guessing of what would we order next,  and for his “generous” serving we tipped him generously.

So that is the episode about our tryst with (Hotel) Sowmya!!!  This hotel is closed for good and demolished now, the reasons.. My take is that they went out of business, after a barrage of gluttons like us, savaged its resources (read food).  I guess even if he opens a new hotel, the menu card would surely miss one item………….. FULL MEALS(UNLIMITED)!!!

In the Rare tranquil of K Gudi

 Time: Sept 2007

Location : KGudi, Karnataka

Trekking has been a shared passion amongst our boys since college days. Things haven't changed much even years after leaving it. We still try to muster up enough enthusiasm and try to look for destinations in the vicinity of Bangalore to quench our urging thirst to climb up mountains, play in the crystal clear waters and yes, of course swing around in the low lying branches of the age old trees.

It was tough at the outset to think about a trek. Firstly most of us, I must confess were far too uncomfortable to sleep under an open sky and secondly it was too big an ask to trek for say around 20-25 kms in a day, carry all the ammunition to cook for the night and the next day, and then return drop dead tired to office on a Monday!!!!

The second best option was to stay at "Jungle resorts" that would provide all the necessary facilities of a hotel and that too in the middle of the forest. What more, it didn't take us much time to decide the place, it was Kyathadevarayana Gudi or more famously called K.Gudi. We had very narrowly missed visiting the place when we had last been to BiligiriRangana Betta in Nov 2005 thanks to the torrential rains and the only connecting road that had sunk in the overflowing stream( seems to be an irony, but believe me the flow of water was so rapid that it failed to create an impression of a stream)

It was a very well planned activity and a very typical manager that he is, Pradeep got prashanth and myself accompany him to book the lodging available. Prashanth booked all the 3 available "Loghuts" for our stay on Sept 1st and 2nd.

Loghuts require a special mention here. Loghuts are huts builts on logs!!!! They are built out of logs which act as something similar to a nailbed on which a platform is placed. It is on top of this platform that the actual hut is built. The interiors look pretty simple with beds neatly arranged. The restroom is pretty neat and tidy.... a 10 on 10 for the support staff.

The fateful day finally came and we were supposed to leave Bangalore by around 5:30 am so that we could reach K.Gudi before 11 am. But as destiny would have it and as it has always had, we were late right from the outset. The driver could not locate sathyas place and his non acquaintance of our ace cricketers locales made the situation even worse. The beautiful sunrise that i had dreamt of seeing on the way to K. Gudi was well, not all the beautiful because i had to see it from the top of my terrace. We were late and it was getting on pradeeps nerves.

Well coming back to our journey.....myself and sathya headed straight to prashanth's house, picked him up and headed to pradeep's house after picking up one monster of a camera from one of sathya's friend. Fortunately...we had a tea break (break would sound inappropriate here.....because we had just begun our journey.....) and no one would refuse hot cup of tea on a rather cold september morning.....

Our schedule was following Murphy's law and as luck would have it, the rear tyre of the Qualis we had hired was getting pretty flat..... another 20 -25 minutes added to the delay.... Soon after this was fixed, we headed straight towards kanakapura road.....picking up pramod on the way. The last to be picked was Madhukar and as soon as he was picked we had to complete the "formality" of taking breakfast. Formality would be an understatement, we had liberal serving of the breakfast and without much delay we headed straight towards kanakapura from where we would go through malavalli, Kollegaala and finally our destination for the day...... KGUDI!!!

The journey was fun filled with guys getting nostalgic...as we generally do on any trip. At around 1 pm we reached K GUDI....finally.... a generous delay of say 2 hours.... But all was forgotten as soon as we had a quick look at the camp surroundings.... This place was located on one of the slopes of a mountain with the backdrop of tall trees..... right in front of us there was this range of mountains laden with green vegetation. The peaks of the mountains in this range were covered by clouds and was a pleasing sight!! The camp had a reception and gathering hall wherein they would show up some kind of program on wild life, a library where in books and magazines about wild life were kept...... and yes they also had the most important place..... the dining hall!!!! The Loghuts and the tents were placed a various levels along the slope and they had walk paths to reach them. On either side of the walk path up to the various loghuts and tents, holders for the oil lamps were placed. On inquiring the support staff, we were informed that the since electricity was a novelty.....they would use it very frugally. So instead of using light bulbs along the walk path, they had resorted to these oil lamps. They used to lit these oil lamps at dusk, a makeshift arrangement to guide us through these walk paths through to our loghuts/tents. They used to switch off the power supply by around 10pm and switch it on back at around 6 am in the morning. We were scheduled for a jeep safari in the forest at around 4:30pm , so all of us freshened up and then sat down for lunch!!! The lunch was rather lavish with servings of both vegetarian and non vegetarian type. I have a fetish for this ladiesfinger curry with chapathi. Since these chapatis were served hot, i had devoured atleast 6-8 of them.

With our stomachs full, we set our sight to do something adventurous in the time available till our departure for jeep safari. There a big enough net that was tied to the different branches of the surrounding trees and made into some sort of a crude spring board. Within no time 4 from our group were rolling around like infants in that net. Their frantic attempts to stand maintaining balance in that net proved to be in vain. Before they could continue their antics, we got a call for the jeep safari. The jeep driver "Thapa" was a friendly guide who was keen on showing the animals that were rarely sighted during the jeep safaris. Personally, i would have preferred a walk in the jungle just like the one we had from Bandipur to Gopalaswamy betta in Aug 2004. Generally such ideas from me are brushed aside from our boys...simply because of the danger involved. So we started in our endeavor to "sight" at least a tiger or a cheetah!!! As it is said if at all we dream, why don't we dream big?? and if at all we sight any animal why to settle for a herbivore??

They had scheduled the timings for the jeep safaris at dawn and dusk since it was just about the time, that the animals would come near lakes to drink water.
As expected it was a serpentine route through the forest and only a 4 wheel drive like a WILLYS jeep could pull it off through the tough terrain. The drivers are also very well connected so that any kind of sighting done is immediately informed to the other drivers in the same safari.

We were just past some distance through the jungle that we sighted a barking deer. These are lonely creatures and are not found in groups unlike the normal deer or the stag. Compared to the deer, the barking deer is small in stature. Our driver had this exceptional talent of sighting these animals while driving on these rough terrain. These routes are carefully planned so that they crisscross the path traversed by the animals. The rich flora in these jungles really refreshed us and just when we were getting bored trying to look for "rarely sighted species", prashanth sighted an elephant!!! Frankly, the joy of having sighted any animal is so immense that a sense of accomplishment engulfs us. Having taken a few snaps of the tusker we moved ahead in search of the master catch, the tiger. Thapa took us through a dangerously poised route that would take us to a lake located almost in remotest inaccessible regions of the jungle and halfway through the descent we had sighted "a tiger pug mark"!!!! At least some consolation for having searched for approximately 2-3 hours. With enthusiasm we went up to the lake where these carnivores were supposed to show up to drink water. Again no luck....we could not sight any animal near the lake.

On the way back to the camp we couldn't sight much as it was getting dark...and it was already time for them to close the entrance to the jungle route. We headed back to the base camp with hope that at least the next day we would be able to sight the carnivore.

Soon as we went back to the camp, tea was served at the gathering hall......which was gleefully accepted by all of us..... They had some kind of TV program about wildlife. The program failed to capture our attention for long so we headed back to our loghuts. At around 9 pm dinner was served at the dining hall. We had to walk up to the dining hall that was some distance away from our loghuts. A camp fire was lit up pretty close to the dining hall but somehow it did not seem to interest us. We finished our dinner and hit our beds as we were tired with the days journey. With the lullaby of air gushing through the branches of the trees, it dint take much time to fall asleep, and snore away to glory!!!

The next day morning i got up pretty early, at around 5:30 am and ventured out, fighting the chill winds. I could not go beyond the conforms of the camp. The fresh air brought in some enthusiasm and I got to the task of waking up everyone because we had one more dash at our attempt to sight the "tiger"!!!

We set out at 7am which was pretty late to sight the wild animals. We looked through the jungles for the ever eluding carnivore. We sighted a few bisons, a commoner in dense jungles. Enroute to one of the spots where these carnivores would be found, we stopped at "Sebina kere". A few snaps there, we proceeded further and to our misfortune we had a tree trunk fall prey to the ferocity of a tusker. On his way he had thrown this trunk right in the middle of our route. Thapa, with the handy sickle that he had brought along with himself managed to cut through the small branches of that tree and made way for our endeavor. Unfortunately, not many animals in that "sighted" list of ours.

When we came back to the camp, we sighted one shelter that was made with strong branches of tree and covered on top with grass that served as a shelter. What's so great about it?? this entire shelter was on top of a tree!!!! The location of that shelter was enough invitation to start climbing the tree. To facilitate the climbers some sort of ladder had been made so that they could use to reach the treetop. With great care we climbed atop the tree. Before we could think of doing anything, we were reminded that we had to come back and hurry for breakfast.

So we got down and helped ourselves with a heavy serving of the breakfast and bid adieu to KGUDI with a sense of happiness of having spent a day in the cradle of nature. The facilities provided at the camp, the friendly forest department staff and the support staff, the silence of the forest and the enormity of those huge mountains makes this place a must visit for the weekend. And yes, if anybody who reads this blog has ever sighted the "master catch" in K GUDI.......please do let us know so that we get an excuse to visit this wilderness camp just one more time!!!!

Lords of PESIT!!!

Time : Dec 1996

Location :PESIT, Bangalore

My first impressions of PESIT was that it was an Engineering school(literally), which imposes students to put their heads down, study, maintain a healthy distinction aggregate by the time you reach 6th semester, and get selected in some IT company, and join the bandwagon of software puppies!! Well most of this was true, and most of the most which was true, was demonstrated in the first 15 days after the college started!! Seniors not even dared to speak to we freshers, the canteen was empty during class hours, and an empty cricket ground, which was deserted during class hours!! My heart sank at the thought of spending 4 years in this place, when a pleasant surprise announcement made my heart pump with enthusiasm. What else could it be, there was an announcement made that a cricket tournament would be organized, with an opportunity for each department in each semester to send out teams for the event! Two such tournaments were organized every year, one during the odd semesters and the other during the even semesters. Since this was the only huge sporting event organized, this tournament drew lot of attention from the entire college.

For some strange reason, I had an impression that there would be a "professional selection" procedure that would be followed to make the team for 1st Sem E&C team. Although I was a decent left arm seamer, with a flair for flamboyant batting, i never fancied my chances to make it to the team, with all the macho looking, muscle flexing north indians in the class. I was way too skinny at that time, and any claim of mine that i was a good enough all rounder, would have been brushed aside.  (coming to think of it now, i feel so naive of me!!). Since none of us in the class knew each other (we had joined the college just 15 days back!!), the selection procedure was simple. The guys who thought could fight out the might of the college cricket divas, would give in their names, as either bowler, batsmen or both. Our then chief selector for the class, Vinay K would judge the batsmen and bowlers, and those who get his approval would land up in the final 11. My apprehension about making it to the team, vanished within minutes after the guy would had supposedly played for his high school cricket team in Delhi, as a opening batsman, took guard. 6 balls were bowled at him, 4 hit him in his box and other two whizzed past his bat, which appeared as if he was using it to swat flies. The bowler wasn't express fast, but both the batsman and the bowler were selected. The batsman based on his reputation and the bowler based on the fact that he could be beat a "reputed" batsman, 6 times out of 6.  No, that bowler wasn't me. I was selected based on the fact that i was a left hand bat and bowl!!! So much for the variety!!


With the army of 11 (add the words supposed to the following two words) reputed, talented , rusty and totally chaotic team, the 1st Sem E&C team entered the tournament. The first match was a cake walk for this team, which completed the formality of beating the 1st Sem CS with ease. It was only after this match that the actual team began to take shape. The supposed reputed openers were politely frisked out of the team. We weren't expected to perform and that's what worked out in favor of the team I guess. I had started performing decently in this team, and the time we reached the semis I was one of the pace quartet!!! Vinay K - The Curtly Ambrose of our team. Lanky fast bowler and because of his height, was able to generate very ackward bounce.
Shanshank (Chaini)- The Ox of the team. Such a bull forced bowler with searing pace.
Sumanth(Koli) - The steve waugh of the team. Gentle medium pacer with accurate line and length.
 Finally, 
Yours Truly - The Wasim Akram of the team (nobody called me that, i am huge fan of that man!!). Left arm super fast, over the wicket!!!

The progress in the tournament was nothing exponential, but a steady performance leading upto the semis. The semis and finals were scheduled on the same day and since the bunch of 1st timers were in the semis, there was an obvious curiosity in the whole college, about the 1st timers who had made it to the semis!!! We were just loving all the attention.

The Semis - 5th Sem E&C a team that boasted of most of the team members from the college cricket team. They were the champs till then and obviously had an air of arrogance about them. A riveting battle was on the cards, and to everybody's surprise David had slayed the demon!!! They could not chase down the target set by us, and by the end of the match, we were pinching ourselves to make us believe that we were in the finals of the tournament!!! Took sometime for the feeling to sink in!!


The final - 7th Sem E&C They were not much of a hyped team, but were the most experienced amongst the lot to have played the tournament! Till then I had performed pretty well in the tournament, and was raring to go. Blast runs, take wickets and what more the victory would be ours!! The opponents were seasoned campaigners though. Batting first, we set out a decent target, and i had a sizable contribution to the team score!!! The bowling fell in place and towards the end of the match we started to get the feel that, yes we will be winning the match and the tournament!! Finally, it happened, the last ball bowled and the formalities completed. We had won the tournament!!!


For the performance in that match, yours truly got a Man of the Match as well!!!


Coming to think of it, the entire tournament seemed to be a dream!! There was no expectations from us and we just enjoyed participating in the tournament, and we went on to win the title!!!


Probably there's a lesson in it for all of us.


How can i miss the champion eleven list, Here it goes: (This is the list that is there in my mind, sorry cannot recollect the 11th player)


1. Vinay (C)
2. Shashank
3. Sumanth
4. Arjun Swaminathan
5. Sandeep Das
6. Unni Krishnan
7. Tejasvi Das
8. Ankush Agarwal
9. Santosh Muniswamappa
10. Avinash

Outside this 11, there was a huge pool of talented cricketers, who made their own team B from the 1st Sem E&C stream, because they were not selected in the first choice 11 (I still wonder how could we leave out such a bunch of blockbuster cricketers) . Few among them were so hugely talented, they could not be left out of the first choice team in future semesters. I remember a few. (Sridhar Kumar, Pramod, Kiran Kumar Gururaj)

More about our restructured team and our future triumphs, in future posts!!!

A[V]I