Life on the reverse gear!

If you like reading, you should definitely travel across Goodreads. Here's one of the gems I picked up to share with the world.

“In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!” 

Written by four-time Academy Award winner Woody Allen. :) 

Sher Singh Leo

A short nimbly 19-year old receives the ball just behind the half-line. Then, he softly places the ball away from a wide-leg incoming tackle, takes a touch to stabilize the ball, and with another sends it skimping between another defender's legs past the half-line. Next, He accelerates. Outrunning the beaten ones, He darts for the penalty area. He dodges one, skips through another's wide tackle and crosses the penalty line. The goalie runs towards Him having crossed the 6-yard line, but of course misses, as He deviates away from the Goal to avoid an ambush. Meanwhile, Eto'o had already reached inside the 6-yard and takes his position in the open as the ball continues to race towards the line. And then, He kind of shoots mildly just a few feet from the ground to avoid a def sliding by the post. Eto'o stood aghast in disbelief as the ball kissed the net and the world cheered the arrival of Leo Messi.

Change is inevitable. And growing in its stride is the real challenge. Facing a growth hormone problem when a kid, Leo often found himself playing against heftier boys. He was too small to shoot the ball, so he professed in dribbling and speeding up quickly to leave his opponents behind. Even when he started playing international club football, Messi had that magic in his touches. He just knew how the guy in front's gonna move, which way will he go, how far will his legs spread... phew! I think he treats the ball more majestically than his wife. But how far is this gonna take you? Just being a midfielder with good dribbling skills is not what makes you a legend. It was not long before Messi started taking kicks and was sent ahead and designated the official scorer. The boy just got more dangerous :D

One thing that has always been a delight to watch... There's absolutely no giving up! Numerous times he has been tackled or roughened down. Instead of lying around and appealing (or worse, create a furore about it) he regains himself and goes for the ball again. His childhood coach quoted, "At the club tournaments, Leo used to play against much bigger boys. Nevertheless, he scored 5-6 goals in every match. Messi used to just take the ball from the goalie and start dribbling and passing across the pitch..." All this fame and wealth sometimes gets to your head. But not in His case. Till the extent that I follow Messi, I've never seen any incident that comes even close to rival his genuine and loving being.

If you play football and if you love Messi, you can relate to the feeling when just by watching his videos, you feel inspired to Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.


A humble plea
Stop fighting over Ronaldo vs Messi. Both are extremely gifted players of this generation.
The only difference is.. I admire CR, but I love Leo.
CR's shooting, speed and dribbling skills are in a totally different dimension. Nobody can match him, and he has worked really hard for it. That's a lesson for all of us, in fact.
But Messi plays pure football. At first, it seems like he's one of us. Passing to his players, trying to go into the open, trying to build the game forward... but keep watching him. Stay fixated. It's like the calm before the storm. The show starts when Messi is just strolling around with the ball far outside the box, sees a flock of defenders trying to resist the advances of his brothers alongside, and then probably thinks to himself, "This is boring. Let's change the score. ;)"
  

MisfIITs?

"I'm an IITian!"
Sound good? Nope. Not even a little. Sigh!

Gone are those days when being an IITian was as respected a position as that of an IAS officer. IITs were conceived by Nehruji to be the one pillar India needed alongside Administration to become a superpower. Maayayo desh ki land area toh badhi nai, IIT ke seats badh gaye.

I wonder why we have been labelled rather carelessly. Here are a few of them...

1) Highly testosterone-charged. There have been many stories floating around. The most famous of 'em all is the one of DU and IIT Delhi. Apparently, some jerks at IITD have behaved real cheap around DU girls often. Coupled with that, the free and unconstrained lifestyle of those girls have been mistaken as 'easy-to-get' slash 'easy-to-screw'. I can go ahead and say pakka kisi lucche Jat ya Haryanvi ka kaam hoga but am I not doing the same... building stereotypes out of a few coincidences. True, some friends I've met look quite disgustingly towards ladies. But there's another side to every coin. Many of my friends are quite the gentlemen. They totally respect women and don't look for side-benefits out of every conversation with them. But if you argue that porn accounts for some bytes in our hard drives, I'll say porn features naked men too. Sex is perfectly natural. Getting caught red-handed may give your parents a shocker, but aren't they the same people who will later ask you to sleep with a stranger and make babies?

2) Geeky nerdy people with no taste in fun. I've never heard of fun being defined only as drinking, smoking, partying, hanging out with the opposite sex, etc. On some Sundays, I go out, play football, watch movies, or simply hang out hostel ke bandon ke saath. For me, fun is having company. And at IITs that feature is quite abundant. People from all parts of India mingling with each other, getting to know various cultures, lifestyles, stories, etc. I say that's the stuff that makes men. Never will you see an IITian involving in communal strife. We have seen any particular situation through many possible angles. IITians are the most broad-minded and accepting people you'll ever meet. You want experience, wisdom, smartness, etc.? With all the fests, inter-hostel tourneys and academic loads, we learn by the time we graduate what an average man learns maybe by the time he nears the end of his twenties.

3) Proud arrogant fucks who think they're extraordinary. Really? Ever tried participating in one of their fests? The whole Team works towards just one goal: make it memorable for you as well as the Team. Am not sure about others, but in IIT Guwahati we live our undergrad life in the same hostel right from first year. I'll talk about ragging some other day, it's not as bad as you think. The next three years, we try our best to make the incoming freshers feel at home and open them up to the big family and hostel values. We know that to win trophies, its quintessential to come together as a team, not just a bunch of few supertalents. Anyone and everyone is valuable, the trick is in figuring out what they're good at.

Quoting Jackie Shroff, "Izzat de. Izzat le. Baaki maze le." :D



I almost forgot... now that I quoted IITG hostels, I just couldn't resist myself from shouting Jai Umiam !! \m/