Those were the days.....

Tagged by … who else – Fleiger…

The Wonder Years Tag…

1.Write 8-10 things about childhood ( 1-12 years) that you miss.
2.Write 8-10 things that you disliked about childhood.
3.Tag a few people.

Hard to write about age 1 - 12 years..but I guess I have managed pretty well to keep out the memories after around class 8th..

What I miss about my childhood

1. The long summer vacations, when cousins used to come and stay for more than a month... 2 months of masti..think of it now.. 2 free months...hardly possible anytime in future.

2. Cricket on the porch: well, the porch has been the field since class 1...that is what 18 years now...you can't say I miss it, because I still play here.

3. Going to school on Cycle: Guess a cycle is a symbol of freedom in younger days. I enjoyed going to school - under hot sun, or in rain wearing a raincoat or in the fog in winters on the Hero Ranger with straight handles ;)

4. Aluminum foil Ball - I kept it for a long time after school time also. it was such a master piece. made out of aluminum foil of each day's lunch, it took a long time to bring it to the shape it was. Lots of "catch-um-catch" was played with it.

5. Trump Cards- they were a rage - weren't they? Started with 30 cards one and later some 200 cards or something. Bret Hitman Hart(rank 2) was the fav. Hulk Hogan - rank 1. Yokozuna - heaviest. Giant Gonzalves - tallest.

6. Chacha Chaudhary - guess have read most of the comics of the guy whose mind was faster than a computer. (Don’t know if it can compete with today’s Core 2 duo's) and his companion whose anger resulted in a volcano being erupted somewhere.

7. Chuppan-Chupayi - "the boundary is from here to here".. "do a pugan ka pugata" ... "go and give the den" "1.2.3.4.5.....50.. i am coming"... "ayis-pyss.. dhappa".. Nice game.. isn't it??

8. The excitement before bursting crackers on diwali... hurrying through the pooja... and then rushing to light the 'phuljhadi', ‘anaar’, ‘charakhdi’ etc

9. Studying in the car during winters.. it was my fav place to study even in college.. chilly days, bright sunshine with the car trapping all the heat inside.. if you want you can also put on light music... and after lunch can sleep sound on the back seat..

10. Sleeping under the sky in summers.. the thought of it is itself exciting ..isn't it... today, you cant sleep if the AC is not there!!!


What I disliked about childhood

1. The frequent trips to the dentist.. I don’t know how many of my teeth have been uprooted and how many hours I have sat under that small operating light..

2. Sanskrit - I dont know how I got 98 marks in sanskrit...and I dont know how I learnt those 'pathti, pathsi, pathanti'

3. Drawing, Music and Craft classes - never been my forte - in the last SUPW(craft) class I managed a C, I guess..And my fight with colors has been historic...but the drawing did help later..a mechanical engineer has engg drawing almost all 4 years..though we have drafters and all to do it.. but sometimes you had to do those in 5 minutes, sitting in canteen without even a scale.. may be the drawing classes of school did help there.

4. Writing long Hindi essays as HHW - Holiday HomeWork during summer vacations. That was a pain..

Like Fleiger, I am also forced to stop here as can't think of any more dislikes..

Whom I am going to tag

Any one willing to go down memory lane...

The Home Ground..

It happened after more than 2 years.
We were back on the local turf - surrounded by walls who had heard countless 'howzatts'... marked by glass windows, some of whose predecessors had cracked under the pressure, the wooden chair got the best place to view the event. It stood where earlier a plastic chair used to stand - just behind the man with the bat- acting as the wood to be shattered.
The bat.. ahh.. The Bat, which has hit innumerable boundaries and sixes, has felt the sweat of countless hands across many grounds in the city. The poor thing was rotting away in some corner.. until its owner(me) got on to the chair and then on to his friend's (rompy’s) shoulders..and then on to the roof store...to retrieve it from its exile.

Batsman's view
It was then the game began once again.. the neighbors were awakened.. the walls were jumped to retrieve the ball..the ooohs and aaah’s came as the ball missed he wicket or the catches went down..
It was a case of home ground - literally. The rules are tough .. one tip one hand – out...shot hitting the walls directly - out... shots going over the wall - out..
Personally, it is by virtue of playing here - on the porch of my home... that has improved the quality of my defense...of playing with soft hands... of concentrating for long time and sticking to the wicket...of playing late.. etc etc..
so raman phaji.. now you know how I got the confidence of playing against your express bowling in our early morning sessions...
Bowler's view
so this weekend, it was back to the porch for the hard hitting lolly, who made most of his runs in fours....rompy, who chased the highest target and the usual me, who accumulated runs slowly and steadily without giving the opposition many chances of getting me out...(the combination of three of us can be deadly.. hahahaha)
The bodies playing there were those of the ones working in MNC's but the soul was that of normal college going guys..
only Lolly's LML and Rompyz CBZ were missing outside the gate....
An offer for the Indian team - come and practice here before the world cup..
I am sure it will do wonders..

Fielder's view of Bowler

Fielder's view of Batsman

Young and Shining India

25th November, 2006 has been etched in my mind as a day when I experienced something truly different in my life. Today, I was a part of Rural Reach program which has been started by Infosys. In this we had been formed into 10 teams of around 6-7 people each and were assigned 10 different schools in near by rural areas. I was a part of 7 member team which went to Govt High School in Sarangpur. In the morning the taxi was preloaded with a desktop, some refreshments, gifts and mementos to distribute among the students.
The plan was simple - reach the school at 9.00, interact with principal and faculty, start the session at 9.30. Continue till around 1.00 and return back to infy by 1.30. Pretty straightforward. We were also given a CD with PPT’s to show.
As we reached the school, this is how the things unfolded.

• As we identified the school from the main road, it seemed a small school. 3-4 year olds were playing outside. It was like – Are we going to teach kids like these?? The school building was small. And the talks among us brought out the apprehension of not getting enough students as audience. So many times it happens that first impressions are wrong.
  As it turned out later, the team interacted with around 300 students from class 5th to 10th.
  
  
  
• We met the principal and were offered excellently made tea. Discussion carried on, on how to divide the groups and take sessions. But I guess in cases like these, theories are just useless. You have to get into practicalities. Had we kept on sitting, we wouldn’t have come to a conclusion even after hours – happens so many times in meetings. As two ‘practical’ school staff entered the picture, things started to shape up. Within minutes we identified the rooms and they took responsibility to fill in the students. Problems had just started.
  
  
• We got a rude shock as we saw only a packet of some 20 chocolates, few pencils and pens as gifts. Sensing we would be addressing large number of audience, we needed more incentives. Nimesh took the responsibility of bringing in more stuff as we pooled in more money from our side. How much difficulty he had in getting chocolates and toffees in a rural area in the early morning hour – we will never come to know. But rest of us had some problems of our own to handle.
  
  
• Girls – Surabhi, Swati and Vandana took the responsibility of facing classes below 7th and going by the response we saw from those kiddies later when we were leaving, I was sure they had done an excellent job. Moreover, I felt that girls were more adept at handling small children rather than the higher classes who can get rowdy.
  
  
• We had 2 rooms for classes 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th. Infy desktop was installed in say room 1. For the second, I got in touch with the Computer teacher. She was a very young and sweet and soft spoken teacher and as I loaded the PPT from the CD in their machine, I asked her about the status of the computer knowledge of the students there. What I perceived during the talk to follow was a bit of frustration from a teacher who was trying to make a difference. She told:
  
  
  
  • The students were from very poor families as the relatively rich had access to schools of big towns nearby.
    
  • There was a computer fees levied which was a deterrent to students enrolling for computer course. Though they were trying to bring the fees down.
    
  • Students were not interested in joining the course because to them, it was just useless as regards to future job prospects. This point, I decided to concentrate on while addressing the students.
    
  • The subject syllabus involved from basics till HTML to class 10th. Frankly that was a shock for me. I didn’t know what HTML was till college. Moreover, we had been told that some of the school children didn’t even know what a computer is. And here they were learning HTML. We were in for more pleasant shocks later on during the interaction.
    
  
  
  
• The second computer we took to room 2 under the glare of students. There was no power here. The person told that room1 had the power switch. So we moved the extension wire to room 2. But the switch in room1 didn’t work. So I rushed with a school admin person to nearby shops. After a long walk, one of the shopkeeper gave us the extension. During the walk, the admin person made me privy to the politics going on in the school. He had his own problems to rue about – about the biased principal, the arrogant right hand man, the rogue students who had no sense and who created nuisance 24X7. What I felt afterwards about the children was very confident, eager to learn, largely without inhibitions with good learnability. If that is called rogueness, senselessness – well I beg to strongly differ. Yes, there are some naughty ones but what I feel is they can be moulded easily. I mean, I now see some of my naughty school mates – I can’t believe how time has changed them.
  
  
  
  
• Now after most problems sorted out, the sessions began. Anoop and Rajendra were in room 2 with classes 8th and 9th while Nimesh and I took up room 1(classes 7th and 10th). It was 2.5 hours of plain fun and eye opening after that. The PPT’s given by infy were not opened once. We started with paint brush. I wanted to convey the point that learning computers has a great benefit in future as regards to high paying jobs as well as basic jobs. And this Nimesh and I conveyed pretty effectively – going by the responses later. I had not really imagined that we could carry on for 2 -3 hours, but when it started, everything just flowed. To our surprise, they knew stuff which even I didn’t know even till college. They drew in paint, opened word docs, changed the font, color of text. One of them even wrote his name in power point and made it appear in a stylish way in the slide show. I was impressed and guess, so was Nimesh. I thought knowing the full form of HTML was the high point. The chap who told seemed from a poor bihari migrant family but had the air of the studious kinds which we all must have encountered some time or the other in our lives.
  
  
• We gave them info about the internet – the basics of how it worked. What are the uses it has – about email, chatting. What is the use of screen saver, how to change wallpapers etc. To make sure it was drilled down in their soft minds, we got it repeated over and over.
  
  
• In between, to have fun they were asked to perform some songs, dance, jokes etc.
  This was the time to see their confidence. They were literally fighting to come on stage to perform. We had jokes, dances and lots of Punjabi songs. Also, we asked history, geo, maths questions. Not everyone knew the capital of Karnataka ,but everyone knew the local geography – capital of India, Punjab, Haryana. Strangely Trivandrum was quite popular. The 1st answer when asked about capital of a southern state came as Trivandrum.
  I guess only 1 was aware of ‘father of nation’ while most knew Bhagat Singh. Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Kajol, even Manmohan Singh and Abdul Kalam had the reach which Gandhi did not. We had problems of language here, as they sometimes didn't understand what rectangle or geography or trignometry was and we got confused between 'chakor' and 'chauras or whether 'bhoogol' was geography only or something else. Also we were asked to ask questions on Hindi language. Hindi !!.. what do you ask on Hindi subject?? Also we, so used to speaking 'Hinglsih' now, had some difficulty communicating in hindi without the influx of english words in between.
  
  
  
  
• Scores of chocolates, pens, wafers were distributed during the session. We had 3 trophies to give away. The 1st one went to a very confident girl. She had not enrolled in the computer course but the way she summarized what all had been said, left no doubt that she deserved it. The second went to the studious guy. He was soft spoken and a bit shy. But he came out and answered the ‘tough’ questions and in his low pitched voice gave his own interpretations of the world of computers and their uses. For the 3rd we made 3 -4 students to summarize everything. The trophy went to a girl who had actively participated during the whole event.
  I hope that we made those young bright minds a bit more aware, bit more confident, and helped overcome their shyness by recognizing them in front of everyone. This was a small effort on our side. And the experience has enriched me and given strength to my belief that India is indeed shining – not only in software companies of Bangalore or call centers of Gurgaon or number of McDonald’s being opened or sprawling malls but here in small villages at the root level where the future of India is being written. Yes, there are problems which will be always there but those can be overcome if we have the will. And if we spare some of our efforts towards this side – in a hope to strengthen the base to build a strong country tomorrow.
  

The greatest indicator of the zeal of students, the enthusiasm, the will to learn and perform and if I can immodestly say, success of our program came at the end. After we had distributed 3 trophies, one 7th class kid came up to me and said in Punjabi, “Next time when you come, that trophy will be mine”. I was speechless.

The Computer Journey

When I signed up to volunteer for a program to go to some village nearby and spread computer literacy in a school, my thoughts tried to fathom how I gained my computer literacy ?
The thoughts had to travel a lot. It was class 8th or 9th when I had my first tryst with computers. It was in school that I first saw a computer. We were taught about abacus, generations of computers, types of computers, difference between typewriter and computer and many such theoretical stuff which we had to mug up. On the practical side how to operate the floppy drive (the 5.25 inch
one) and some basic DOS commands. Later we were to learn wordstar in class 10th, which ended the official school learning in the field of computers.
At home, it was a 386/486 computer my father had brought home for a few days which brought me real close to the thing, supposed to be invented by Charles Babbage. The horizontal CPU with monitor on top, no mouse, and the 5.25 inch floppy drive(I still have couple of 'those' floppies) gave me the freedom to explore things without time constraints, like in school. I guess I used to try out commands, play some basic DOS games like PC man and bricks on that.
Next in my life was a Pentium I – the latest in town those days. It had an amazing 8MB RAM and a 600 MB Hard Disk. The vertical CPU was a neighbor’s envy and Owner’s pride those days – though not many neighbors had a computer then. The basic OS was DOS and you had to type “WIN” on the prompt to open the windows 3.1. Windows was an entirely new thing. Paint brush and Solitaire was the fav past time. Some games were installed which had better graphics. That resulted in the computer being packed for around 1.5 years as it interfered with the 11th and 12th studies.
It was reinstated in college though by then I was seriously lacking behind in knowledge and the technologies in those times. It was my friend Lalit who helped me bring back to the world of computers. It was with him I had seen the IIT screening result on something called internet. Then under his guidance I opened my first email id – on USA.net. The first year in college was spent exploring the net and writing C programs on my old Pentium I. But by now something called Mp3 had come. And if on that good ol’ machine, winamp was started, everything else used to go down.
By the end of 1st year, it was realized that the 4 year old P-1 had served enough and that gave way to the keyboard, I am typing these words on. Of course the keyboard was accompanied by a 128 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD, 128 MB dedicated (to games) Graphics card, 833 MHZ Pentium 3. It has given me company through the college years from the era of 56K dialups to today’s broadband. The poor thing never had its CPU cover screwed. Its HDD always hung lose – ready to be taken out within seconds. Infinite movies were watched on it and it still has one of the widest ranges of song collection.

In between 2 years were spent outside home during which I worked on the best machine I have had till now – the one I inherited from Fleiger – the 1GB RAM, Pentium 4 with a flat LCD monitor. And now as I expectedly wait for my new laptop to be delivered to me, I think how I have been a part of one of the biggest revolutions – from a bulky, black and white 386 to a 3 kg , true color ‘core 2 duo’.

One Fine Morning..

I wake up early
Many chores to deal
The month is November
And the morning air chill

The sun is rising up
In the far.. over the hill
The rays seep thru the windows
Warming up the room they fill

On the cozy bed they fall
Challenging my will
In this busy life, I think..
How many times, the inner voice we kill
And not enjoy the small moments
Which make life worth while..

I call the office
And feign ill
Then remove the tie and get under the blanket
Letting the sun intoxicate like a sleeping pill

Identity - a Fiction

Some training in Bangalore took me to the city I had left more than a year ago. And it was a bit nostalgic to be back and meet some old friends. I had also decided to go to Mysore on week end to meet friends there.
As I crashed on the bed of the guest house room after an exhausting Thursday, the TV told me that there was a Karnataka Bandh the next day. Some so called Patriotic Kannadigas wanted to protect their language and culture from being westernized and being lost so they had decided to help the state and the country incur loses of crores of rupees the next day.
Just then Ajit called from Mysore.
“Tomorrow has been declared a holiday. Why don’t you come to Mysore tomorrow only”
“Is it?? I didn’t get any mail for this?”
“Oh! May be because you are not in the Bangalore users List”
“Ya! May be. Ok then I will come tomorrow only.”
“But try not to come by Volvo. There may be some trouble”
“Ok. I will catch the train – 11:15 one!”
“Fine then. See you tomorrow. By the way your favourite Sholay is coming on Max”
“Oh.. is it?? Hhahaha… have to see it..”
I put on Sholay where a demanding Gabbar Singh was saying, “yeh Haath mujhko de de Thakur”.
It is a serious scene of the movie and how it is more fun for us now, I amused as Mr. Gabbar brought down the two swords with an evil shriek. Is it so easy to cut off the arms of a person, I thought and moved on to Star Sports where the prolix Navjot Sidhu was into his normal fight with words.
I started a bit early for station next morning with buffer for any bandh induced delay. But there was none. The usual Bustling Bangalore Station looked like a lonely desert, due to the bandh. It took me hardly 10 minutes to get the ticket and reach platform 6. I had come quite early and even the train had not yet docked at the platform. So I sat down on the bench, took out my CD player and got immersed in the mellifluous voice of Hariharan.
I was pulled out of the spell by a rough, bulky man. From his dark face and thick growth of hair on his face, it seemed like he had just come out of jail. He spoke something in Kannad.
“Kannad.. Illa”, I replied.
“Listening.. What??”, he tried his hand at English.
“Damn!! Does he want me to share headphones with him”, I thought uneasily.
“Songs”, I replied.
“Hindi???”, he again asked.
I nodded in affirmation.
Then suddenly he started speaking angrily and quickly in Kannad.
“No understand….”, I tried to explain.
“Only Kannada songs”, he said pointing to the CD player. “No Hindi”
“what the hell!!”, I was frustrated.
Then out of no where he snatched the CD player and threw it. I was trembling with anger. Finding nothing to hit him with, I pushed him hard.
In return, I saw his arm in full swing and a perfectly timed slap landing on my face with a elegant follow through. I felt my face heat up and go red like a cherry.
Then suddenly I woke up. Sun’s rays were falling on my face. The CD had played out and the loudspeakers on the platform were playing some Kannad Song.
“Oh Shit! That was a dream”. I was perspiring.
Some people had arrived at the platform now but the train was still not there.
Then what I saw resulted in my heart missing a beat.
I saw that same bulky, ugly man whom I had seen in my dream walking towards me in slow heavy steps.
“Oh!”, my mind suddenly realized “I must have seen the person when I came here. And the dreaded image stuck”
But the man seemed to be coming straight to me. He indeed was. As he came closer I could smell that he was drunk. He came and said something in Kannad. I was reliving my nightmare.
“No.. kannad”, I replied hesitatingly.
“why.. you here…”, he asked.
“Going to Mysore”
“You from delhi??”
“ya..ya.. delhi..”
Then suddenly he burst out.
“why you northies come here??”
“this is our state… you spoiling our state…”
Then some abuses in Kannad.
“Go back to your state….. you don’t know Kannad… why you here.. Run away.. get lost”, he went on and on.

My shock and fear was being converted to a rage.
“What get lost…. Haan….What state ”, I finally replied simmering.
“Is this not India?? We come here to work far from home… and what get lost…”
“Get Lostttttt!!!”, he shouted with spit falling all around.
“Just shut up.. piyaakad saala… you get lost”. I shouted along with some Punjabi abuses.
He went off walking quickly from where he had come.
“What idiot”, I thought sitting down. “It is due to these kind of foolish people that some demagogues are able to divide people into hindus and muslims… kannad and non kannad.. northies and southies… How can any one even think this way…Who fills this kind of crap in the minds of people… Why is that people are finding their identity as a member of a state rather than a nation.. infact in today’s flat world it is more of member of world rather than nation also.. On one hand we talk of globalization and boundaries between countries dissolving… and then you see such kind of people intent to building back the walls…I will surely write a blog on this.”
As I was going through the turmoil, I heard a loud cry. Some 5 – 6 people armed with chains, rods and swords were running in my direction. The bulky gunda was leading the pack.
“Is this really happening???”, I was dumbfounded and frozen.
By the time I realized, they were on me.
Shouting obscenities in Kannad, they hit me with a chain on the back. A rod landed on my chest leaving me gaping for air. Then the bulky man said something to his fellows. And 2 of them caught my hands, stretched them and held them tightly there.
The bulky moved in with 2 swords in his hands, looking more menacing than even Gabbar Singh. “Oh Shit.. I was thinking about this last night only. And now it is happening to me.”
Bulky was saying. “You work with these hands in my state.. I will cut them off”
Then all of a sudden, my mobile on the bedside rang and I woke up trembling.

Heading Uphill

Back to the Curvy, green roads after a Long time

It was Diwali time and it was a rare occasion that we old friends were at one place at one time. Plans to go uphill were being made for quite some time before actually meeting.


Awesome view

Initially the plan was to go to Shimla and spend more than a day there. But at the last moment the plan was changed to Kasauli – a one day trip.
Lolly was at the wheel with me giving him company in the front and Rompy and Anki at back.


Studs - Lolly, Rompy and Anki

And it felt nice to be on that curvy, green road after a long time. We carried on at a leisure pace - reliving the old days and in between about days to come. The weather couldn’t have been better - on a slightly cooler side with sun shining.


Reached Kasauli

Soon the plains gave way to the hills and then hills to mountains. We reached Kasauli in around 2 hours and instead of going to the town we climbed further ahead. The view was awesome there. I have been to many hilly places, but the difference here was that we could see the plains far below us, which is not the case when you higher up like shimla.


View of the Plains from top

We sat down, clicked some DCH kind photos and many other non DCH photos(around 200), climbed small hills, lay down under the warming sun.


Deja vu - DCH


Will this time come again (as rompy renamed this foto)

At around 2, we moved back and had a heavy lunch with Butter chicken and Tandoori Chicken at Chawla’s at Dharampur on the way.


Having Fun

While Anki and Rompy dozed away in the rear, I tried hard to stay awake in the front failing once for a small-few second nap. Thankfully Lolly didn’t have any such naps. Else we would have been lying in some gorge – right in the nature’s laps.
It was a refreshing sojourn as is the case with any trip to the hills.


Leaving fond memories behind...

Tagged once more...

Rules of this tag:

1. Name the person who tagged you.
2. 8 things about you.
3. Tag 6 people.

1.
The high flying eagle -Fleiger : The person who has tagged me and from whom I have got tagged myself ‘zabardasti’ ;)
When I read his tag, I got 3 -4 points there itself. So Fleiger, if some of these seem to be your copy paste, you can guess that I have ‘reused the code.’ But only because the functionality(characteristics) matched with me..


2.
a)
I love writing… about the things happening in life.. things happening around me...things which enrage me or make me smile, which concern me or just my imagination.
And yes, some day I would love to write a full fledged novel – may be… some day!!

b)
It takes time for me to make ‘good’ friends. Friends I have many but there are just a handful of special ones. Of course they are the ones with whom I have long associations and have spent large chunks of life. And I am sure that these special ones will last the ‘distance’

c)
Courtesy my parents, I have seen almost all parts of India. And as a result I love going to explore new places. Specially the ones with natural beauty associated with it. I like Mountains more than Beaches. Mainly because each turn gives a new view.

d)
I am a great movie buff. There was time when every movie to be released had to be watched. Considering the fact that I have seen Naach in a 9 – 12 show after office should be enough proof that I can watch any movie (I got nightmares is a different thing). The interesting habits me and my friends have gained is remembering the dialogues of movies we enjoy. So in some cases the whole movie have been stored in the movie room of our mind. Of course for that requires watching movies more than one time e.g Border, DCH, Lakshay, hera pheri, andaaz apna apna, Rang De Basanti, Sholay – which range from 25 – 100 views. The latest movie to catch the attention is Khosla ka Ghosla.

e)
Like writing I love reading too. The interest in reading had started with Chacha Chaudhry. It then continued with Hardy Boys. Fictions of Grishams, Sheldons and Archers found favour during college. And of late, it has been non fictions like India Unbound, World is Flat and The Argumentative Indian etc. Fictions also come and go in between to lighten things a bit.

f)
Music has been part of me for long now. I remember my mother’s small cassette player as being the first tryst with music. Then we bought a player – which could handle 2 cassettes and we could record from one to another. The first song recorded on that was I guess baba sehgal’s “thanda thanda paani.” The journey continued and the mp3 boom really helped widen the variety which I listen to. Presently, according to mood, I listen to rock or ghazals or hindi movies – from 1960’s to 2006..or nusrat’s qawalis or hariharan’s soothing voice or Strings or English Soft rock or Hindi pop . and the list goes on and on..….

g)
I like working out and be fit – though it happens in phases. There happens to be a phase when for 3 – 4 months I am regular at gym - pumping iron.. then comes the phase with very less physical activity for 2 -3 months..waiting for infy gym in chandigarh to come up!!!

h)
I love games, specially – what else, Cricket. ‘I think’, I understand the game quite well – the strategies and moves that we see captains adopting in the game. Having some practical experience also helps a lot in understanding. And the 4 years in college gave more practical classes in cricket than any other subject. I think you have passion, you can play any game. The point is to enjoy. After cricket I have enjoyed playing squash. Badminton, football, TT, Volleyball and Bowling are some other outdoor games I have tried my hand at.

3.
Now Time to Tag people..
1. KT (after you finish your swades series)
2. Amrut (not seen him around on blogspot for quite some time)
3. Rompy (dude – ur kasauli blog is pending..)
4. Bharath (sir jee.. some of ur previous tags are also pending)