FEELING OF STEPPING INTO A NEW LIFE!!!!!

This one’s for all those who join college this year…….

This week’s gonna be special, it’s gonna be different as I enter a new life. I also enter into my seventeenth year this Friday and along with my laptop, mobile and wardrobe changing I move from being that girl in school uniform to a girl who has to find that right dress which I wanna wear in the college next day.

Last two months have been a roll-a- coaster ride for all those who had given board exams this year. Ever since the board results were announced we all who just passed out were facing different situations. Some where elated, some shocked, some crying, some just happy –“thank god physics mein pass ho gaya!!” Then the time came to fill the forms standing in that scorching heat and we struggled getting up early and visiting various colleges. Then the bigger blow the cut offs and the entrance results. Choosing the right college and course seemed to be the most difficult task on earth. Some didn’t understand what to choose, some missed deadlines, some made mistakes in forms and our options got even more restricted. Am sure the last two months people who have never read newspapers in life have also turned pages of TOI and HT for the college campus news. Some aspirants who were expected to be here went from Delhi to other places, some who wanted to do economics ended up picking English, some who wanted English are now going forward with political science.

As all college procedures have finished we now we look towards starting our new life, making new friends interacting with professors and hoping to find cooperative seniors. As the shopping comes to a near close and we have a new wardrobe we wonder how different is college from school?? How will we travel alone so far?? How will we wake up at 6 in the morning every day after these 4 months of sleeping at 3 and getting up in the afternoon?? Will we like the course that we have taken up?? Will we enjoy studying it?? These are questions which every 1st year student has in his/her mind right now…..

We all are taking a step forward in our life and walking into a new world awaiting a whole new experience which hopefully will be memorable and everlasting for all of us………..

FIFA---A MONTH OF PASION AND ZEST!!!!!

It is disappointing to write that FIFA 2010 World cup is reaching its end since past one month has been a roller-coaster ride for all sports enthusiasts. After all it was the biggest sporting extravaganza going on in South Africa-------FIFA. On Sunday evening the world’s most watched and spectacular sports event comes to a close. However as said in Matrix by Oracle "Anything which has a beginning, has an End".

You can love it, hate it but can’t ignore it. I was someone who never followed soccer seriously. But this time I felt “better I start following FIFA or else I am gonna be completely bored for month or so, as FIFA is everywhere news, papers, magazines, billboards, facebook, twitter everywhere”. You just can’t get enough of it. Young, children, old, girls, everyone are glued to their television sets. Its one sport which unites the world like nothing else, like no other sport. This happens once in four years.

Every household brims with talk of the game, with fans screaming for each goal and breaking bottles when their favorite team crashed out. Football evokes such passionate emotions that a teen died because Brazil crashed out. The FIFA World Cup 2010 saw everything from scenes of jubilations amidst moments of absolute anguish. There were individuals, teams, brilliant talent and luminous misses. This time too FIFA had it surprises with the top players Messi, Ronaldo and Kaka underperforming, Argentina and Brazil crashing out in quarters and Spain reaching the finals for the first time ever. And we have got new heroes in the likes of Kloser, Reis Carvalho, Nelson Valdez of the stocky Paraguay, Thomas Muller of germany with five goals in the tournament. These players defied logic and made their country proud with their outstanding performances. And FIFA also presented us with a new star. The psychic octopus emerged as the biggest star of the event by predicting all match winners correctly!!

Amidst all this hype being an Indian in the past month I couldn’t escape a thought. “I fail to understand why India still hasn’t been able to make a mark of its own in world football witnessing the craze regarding FIFA in India”. All our Indian newspapers did have FIFA headlines in the past month. The craze regarding soccer in India is quite visible. But what’s the reason?? God knows!!

As Spain and Netherlands fight it out to be crowned the new world champion’s fans are sad that it’s all over. No more late nights, no more twitter overcapacity, no more the octopus in news, no more Maradano and Pele comments in papers, no more coming early from offices, no more Messi…..

As fans eagerly await FIFA 2014 world cup, action shifts to Brazil. As for Indians we can just hope that in our lifetime we will see India qualify for FIFA at least once. As the rich and powerful reach south Africa and fans across the globe get set to watch the finals, last month surely has been an unforgettable experience for all of us. For now fans look forward to doing ‘waka waka’ one last time with Shakira who is closing the ceremony and the world awaits to congratulate the new world soccer champions………………

BANDH- WAT FOR??

On 5^th July Bharat bandh was the most popular topic on twitter. Very rarely do we see an Indian trending on twitter. This time bharat is trending for probably the most wrong reason possible. With someone from France asking “Bharat Bandh wats dat??” Well in India it’s a holiday where you can sit back home and enjoy a movie. Our politicians give us so many reasons to be proud of…indeed!!

Bandhs are way of protest against some issue or policy. But in India sadly, calling for a bandh has become a status issue for political parties. Though 5^th july bandh was called by an united opposition in protest against the price hike by the government but sadly at the end of the day India suffered a 5000 crore loss. And the hooliganism which we saw on streets across the country was unacceptable. With shops being shut down and stones being pelted by party workers on people on road. Road, rail and air all kind of traffic was affected. The country came to a halt. By evening, political parties claimed complete success. Brinda karat of left, Vasundhra Raje(BJP), Udhav thackery(SS he is seen only on such occasions) proudly claimed the bandh is hugely successful as if India has won an Oscar. How do you measure if a bandh is successful or not?? In India the success of a Bandh is determined by the number of buses vandalized and burnt by the time the Bandh expires. So Shiv Sena, MNS and SP which are in news always for the wrong reason will try and work very hard on these days. Example- 78 buses were damaged by Sena in Mumbai.

Bandhs are declared only in India. There are 365 days in a year and India can afford to have at least 365 political parties who can call for a bandh on each day. When terrorists struck and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, immediately relief measures had started in US. If you go by what is done in India in such a situation, apparently Bush should have called a “US bandh or a New York bandh to express the spontaneous feelings of the citizens.”

I don’t understand how this public display of caring for the common man by the opposition is going to reduce the price of my dal and chawal? Is this one day of disruption of public life going to reduce the price of petrol tomorrow? The opposition argued that this was the only way that they could get the government take notice of the concern of the aam aaadmi? Ok so now let’s see what the government is going to do in the next few days? Nothing is gonna happen. Tomorrow all will be normal. Parties will continue blaming each other and play politics and when after two months government hike’s prices yet again we all will be gifted with yet another holiday. I heard a parent whose kids school was closed due to bandh say “Various kinds of bandh need to be included in the holiday list of school calendar so that we can plan our holidays better”. Ya not a bad idea!!

Lets please use some other productive and fruitful way of protesting. Bringing the country to a standstill, wreckage and vandalism is certainly not a way to protest...........