Monday, June 26, 2006

Is it fair?

Few days back I was watching a show on NDTV and I came to know about this issue. Let me share it with you.

Garima Devi, a girl from poor family, has scored 97.6% in board exams (10th Standard, CBSC). Just like other students she also had a dream of getting admission in DPS (Delhi Public School), a top notch school of India. But she was simply rejected, reason: “lack of fluency in English”. The point to be noted here is, the interview was in English only. I too agree that her English is not up to the mark, but is it fair? Rejecting the admission request just because of this reason!!!!

I agree that English is must for in this competitive world. I am not denying the fact that India has earned the global image because of her 3rd largest English speaking population, after USA and UK. But does it mean that we should consider only English speaking people for better opportunities? Shouldn’t we give a chance of improvement to others? Shouldn’t we create a good learning environment for such people? Have you ever thought; if we will keep on giving a special treatment to English speaking people what will happen to majority of the Indian students (yes we have hardly 33% English Medium schools in India)?

This is not about only one Garima or only about DPS. Thousands of people are not getting deserved opportunities just because of their “not so good” English. You can observe that if you want. Go to any of the Café coffee day counter, or Barista, or any pizza counter, or leading restaurant or any multiplex, you will find people talking in English only. Because “it is in”. If you don’t know English you are considered as a backward guy. Non-English speaking people are considered as “Desi” at such places. The question I want to ask here is “Why is so?”, “Do English-speaking-people have some extra brain?”, “If a person is good at analytic skills and managing tings but (s)he is not good at English, does it mean that (s)he is not intelligent and (s)he has no rights to dream about good school/college/job? ”

Coming back to Garima, she already has got her admission in some other school. She is not happy with DPS and wants to achieve betters marks in 12th Standard than any of the DPS students and show them that she has the real caliber and English is not everything. During the show itself principal of IPS (Indian Public School), Dehradun called in NDTV stidio and he was offered admission in two years residential course with full scholarship, but she couldn’t accept it as she has already taken admission in some other school. I think DPS must think over their decision.

Any way Garima, let me congratulate you for your mind blowing result and all the best for your future. May god bless you!!!

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Naryans

This post is dedicated to “Naryans”.
You must be wondering what the hell this Naryans is. Right?

Well well well… That’s my college group. One day we decided to give some name to our group. Some one came up with “ARYANS” but as you know Bollywood has used it a million times (seriously guys bollywood has got very limited database… Raj, Pooja, Prem, Kkkiran, Aryans), so we decided to come up with some fundu name… but we all are zero at creativity… it was like asking some Haryanvi Jaat to write an essay of 100 words in English without any errors. We simply added “N” (for Nirma, my college) before ARYANS and we came up with a group name “NARYANS”. Like people use to register a name for their company we got our group name registered in yahoo groups and done… we got our identity… But this was in 6th semester.

Let me tell you the story of the great group.

Squad:

00IT002 - Nirmal Bharadia
AKA – Bapu
Currently at – (SE) TCS, Ahmedabad

00IT007-Abhishek Dalal
AKA – Abhi
Currently at – (SE) TCS, Ahmedabad

00IT008-Hiral Desai
AKA – Kalu
Currently at – Sydney, Australia, Pursuing Master degree and part time job

00IT013-Mahesh Donga
AKA – Donga
Currently at – (SE) TCS, Ahmedabad

00IT023-Vishal Khanama
AKA - Japke
Currently at – Baroda, Gujarat, Managing the study pressure at MS University for MBA

00IT027-Palak Limbachiya
AKA - PC
Currently at – (SE) Infosys, Pune (Working as a SAP consultant)

00IT038-Don Hiral Modi
AKA Dallo
Currently at – (SE) LnT Infotech, Mumbai (Going to US for an onsite assignment tomorrow)

00IT040-Don Naman Modi
AKA – Modi, Tondu
Currently at – California, USA, part time M.Tech full time Job – Thanks to Green Card ;)

00IT052-Jigar Parmar
AKA – Dahod, Fendo
Currently at – (SE) Satyam, Hyderabad

00IT054-Denish Patel
AKA – DJ, Doho
Currently at – Maryland, USA, Full time job

00IT055-Dhaval Patel
AKA – Patel, Dhems, Google
Currently at – (SE) Infosys, Mysore

00IT056-Dipesh Patel
AKA - Surti
Currently at – United Kingdom, Pursuing Doctorate Degree (Man now I doubt about the credibility of HPD degree)

00IT061-Kartik Patel
AKA – Andho (The Blind man)
Currently at – (SE) LehMan Brother, Mumbai

Pahchan Kon???

The way we all met:

This is the most interesting part of the story. In the first year we all were strangers. I knew only PC and DJ cuz there were my schoolmates. In some initial days Naman Modi and Hiral Modi (AKA Modi Brothers) became very famous because of their notorious nature and their pranks. They grabbed my attention (physics is proved wrong here, electron is not attracted by proton, it’s proton that attracts proton, in college you always look for your kind for guys/gals right?). One fine day I was caught by my teacher n she asked me to leave the class. As usual being happy to get such a wonderful opportunity (yeah spending one hour in canteen or Nirma’s lawn is much better than listening to some faculty in class) I moved out of the class without thinking anything. I met Naman outside the class and we both started blaming education system, Nirma rules n what not. So this was our first step towards the friendship. Naturally along with him I came to know about Hiral Modi and also PC n DJ got introduced with those guys. Dahod also became notorious and he also came in to our group. I, DJ, Surti n Andho were in same lab group so we also got to know about each other. In every class we used to go late and from every lab we used to move out early (In a lab of 2 hours we used to come before 1 hour). As every illegal work needs some support, we started going around together. Kalu, Japke, Bapu, Donga and Abhi got introduced by PC n Modi brothers cuz where were in their lab group so they also joined the group. Aakhir masti kisi achhi nahi lagti…
Meanwhile we got result of our first internal exam. We all got unbelievable marks, yah more than 85%. (For the first and the last time in college). We became very popular in our batch. Most wanted, Black list, whatever you call it… In 3rd semester we crossed all the limits. We literally started dadagiri against lecturers. Throwing arrows and sleeping in the lecture was very common we started playing cards also. And that reflected in our results also… After getting around 90% in first internal n around 80% in 1st year university we got just around 65% in 3rd sem. But we recovered it anyhow and finally got a decent average of 4 year marks.

Bombay & Diu Trip:

In the 3rd semester we went to IIT Mumbai. It was supposed to be an academic tour but it turned out to be one of the most memorable trips in my life. It served a purpose of a power buster in our Friendship. We hardly spent 3 hours in IIT out of 3 days academic trip; instead we went to “Essel World”, “Juhu Beach”, “Chopati” n “some dance bars”. It was a great time. Somebody gave alcohol mixed cold drink to DJ and he got all angry but it was a good prank. Usko laga ki uska dharam bhrasht ho gaya. One funny incident I would like to quote here, while traveling by local trains in Mumbai, by mistake some of us board on the 1st class coach and the TT asked for the tickets. I happily gave tickets to him and then he asked me to look at the coach once again. It was 1st class coach. He took us to his cabin and started demanding for the fine. Somehow we managed a small under-the-table treat and left his cabin. We did a hell lot of the things in Mumbai some of which I can’t write here. ;);)

But happiness doesn’t come alone, Right? On one side we were in a process of making a great group, something went wrong in a card game and a question mark was raised on the Modi Brothers’ strong one year friendship, which was finally settled down in the 7th semester (uff such a long time). Nothing but a wall of ego was there in between them which was finally destroyed and the following picture is the proof their compromise. As they say “Friendship gets much stronger after one breakup” once again they became good friends.

We had another great trip, which was to Diu (one of the most beautiful beaches in India). Let me quote some of the funny incidents of that trip.

  • Naman Modi got full drunk and felt off from the auto
  • Once again cuz of Nama Modi’s drunken state he started blasting a foreigner child on a private resort beach
  • Kalu was out of control and started blabbering. “Since I was” [He still denies the fact that he was drunk that time]
  • Because of sleepless overnight journey (ya this was the only reason) I was feeling so sleepy on the first day of diu trip and I still don’t remember when did I open door of my hotel room for DJ. I am not even sure where I did that but DJ only told me that I am the one who opened that door for him after knocking for 15 minutes so I have to believe it.
  • The foreigner–one guy–n police incident at the beach
  • The Beach Volley Ball n many more…

Midnight Chillouts:

Some of us are from Ahmedabad so didn’t have full independence in our college time but rest of us used to stay in apartments. We have enjoyed many night outs at Bapu’s place, Kalu’s place and at Surti’s place.
Ghar se bol ke jate the “MOM project ka bahut kaam hai aaj to puri raat beth ke khatam karna padega… ya fir MOM group study karni hai”.
N then full time masti… I can’t forget those late night movies, full night comp games (We used to break n set new records of the computer games), indoor cricket… Let me tell you this. Surti’s flat was on the 10th floor and luckily 2 beautiful chicks were staying on the 9th floor in front of his balcony. So obviously Balcony became the best place in his house, we literally used to fight for standing there. Guys remember those balcony scandals? Hahaaha it was real fun. I am really missing those midnight Bun-Butter, Tea, Soda and all time pass stuff. Dahod remember that night, we were all hungry and at 3 in the morning we went to “Bombay pav bhaji” and requested those guys to give some food they were having….

The Punch Game:

We use to play this funny game. Whenever we find somebody sitting quietly, showing the back, we used to punch him like anything… Modi, Bapu, Kalu, PC and Surti were the all time hit players of the game.
(In da pic… Bapu and Kalu hitting Surti)

Weird!!! Isn’t it?

Placement & Farewell Time:

Final year of engineering, campus recruitment was started in the college and we came to know that we will have to depart after some time…

But we really missed our farewell party… if any of our juniors is reading this post then let me tell you “You are the worst juniors in the world”. Can’t throw a farewell party!!!!! Huh

Anyway coming back to placement scenario, some of us got job in the initial phase itself and some of us couldn’t make it till the end. The tension was in the air. We all were worried. We also had the same question in our mind.
“What will happen to us?”, “Who will go to where”, “Will we keep in touch?” etcBut as everybody in the world faces that phase of time, so we also faced it. Today we all are so scattered, we are a thousand mile away but still it’s just a mail away. Thanks to Outlook (yeah I can’t pass a single day in office without it), Yahoo, Orkut (my all time favorite Google), n internet… we still exchange lots of mails everyday…

Here come the Gentlemen

I would like to end this post (yeah this time it’s not crap for a change) by this sher…

Vishwas ki ek dori hai dosti,
Betab dil ki majburi hai dosti.
Na mano to
kuch bhi nahi,Aur mano to KHUDA ki bhi kamzori hai dost.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Pine walo ko pine ka bahana chahiye…

If you are looking for some real good stuff then let me tell you friend, this is not the place for it. Click on the X (top right corner) and read some good blogs or articles or rather watch TV. Don’t blame me afterwards, remember you have been warned!!!!

Okay let me start my crap now….

As usual last weekend also we had a party (no need to tell it was a “daru party”). [Daru means Alcohol]. A picture can speak a thousand words… right?

It is strange that being only a coke drinker some how I enjoy daru parties, just because of the kind of discussion we have. We started our party somewhere around 8.30 pm and this time around we were discussing liquors, dope, hukka and stuff. We discussed about Vodka, Rum, Tequila, Dragon Shot, Submarine Shot, Chocolate with Cigarette, Sweets with drinks and some weird combos. Moving on to Charas, Ganja, Afeem, LSD, etc… but suddenly our discussion took a serious turn and we started discussing about friends, life, relations, and more serious topics. By the time we finished the discussion it was already 3.15 am. You should watch people discussing after 5 pegs down.

But bottom line is, “Pine walo ko pine ka bahana chahiye…” [They need some reason to drink]

I have a list of reasons given by my friends

  • Not in the mood today
  • I am in the party mood today
  • People around are enjoying in party
  • Feeling lonely today
  • Have got some friends today
  • Today is the Friday / Saturday / Sunday (or any other day)
  • She spoke to me today
  • She didn’t speak to me today
  • I am happy today
  • I am sad today
  • I am missing my BF / GF / Friends / Bro / Sis / who-so-ever
  • My wife has gone to her place
  • My wife is coming next week
  • My friend is going somewhere
  • My friend has arrived
  • I am not drinking, it’s just a beer.
  • I have to improve my capacity so let me drink
  • I am feeling tired today
  • We won the match today
  • We lost it
  • I am going through the tension these days
  • I have been drinking for last 10 days, now let me continue and make a new record
  • I am getting it for free
  • I got a promotion
  • I didn’t get a promotion
  • And the most frequently used reason, I am drinking for nothing “I mean just like that”

By the way I would like to thank Tau (aka Anuj Mahajan) for enhancing my knowledge about different types of drinks. Also I would like to thank him for giving valuable inputs and making my post more readable. You know guys my English sucks big time…

Look at this guy, my winamp has got artificial intelligence. It is playing
“Nasha sharab mai hota to naachti bottle.”

Let me cut my crap by great quote

“Reality is an illusion caused due to lack of alcohol - Johnny Walker”