It takes all sorts!

About a couple of weeks back , with the hope of reviving my cricket career , I reported for selections for my ‘office’ team. Bowled a few deliveries till my body start acting up. But the coup de grace to my plans was the fear I encountered when I was about to pad up.

“What if I get hit on the fingers ? Who does the flying then ? I don’t even have a helmet , what if a beamer comes my way ? An abdomen guard is nowhere in sight , can’t risk my family jewels .. Can i ?”

And so I chickened out , got back into the car and got back home. That incident again got me thinking about all those years at TSEC spent living cricket.

What follows next is an abridged version of the memories , the people , their idiosyncracies and contributions to the team. An effort to tell a Gautam Burye why Vivek Hadkar was one of the best we had. My endeavour to join different generations of the team together.

Ravi Manshramani : ‘’Mere jaisa pull shot koi aisa waisa batsman nahi khel sakta’’ were his oft repeated immortal lines. Mansha claimed to be the best when it came to pulling short balls (no pun intended). He was the second captain I played under , someone who would start discussing about match strategies and team composition on the midnight before the match. No amount of chopping and changing or innovative team selection would be of any use cause we would always end up losing rather pathetically.

Our man Mansha was a supremely confident player , very excitable and dedicated to the team’s cause. He also had exceptional control of the new ball , bowling delivery after delivery on the same good length spot. No wonder he was probably the most economical pacer I played with. He had very good skills with the bat too (as is known by his hooking and pulling ability) , but was seldom able to make use of it during important matches.

Vivek Hadkar : ‘Angaar’ .. His favourite word .. A word that would describe his batting and his persona the best. If raw talent were ever the measure of ones greatness , then Babboo would be the the greatest ever. Scored some of the best 20s and 30s we saw. His attack against an angry, super sonic SBMJC pace battery is a part of TSEC folklore (even though nothing like that exists). Also etched forever in our memories is the way he charged towards their dressing room threatening to kill everyone with the bat , on being given out wrongly. The best innings he played was in his last match for the college , in the finals of the event at Nair , guiding the team to our first ever tournament victory. He had a very different , almost ‘Mike Procter’ish bowling action which helped him produce those useful spells. Though it could get quite exasperating to see him waste all the promising starts and not amass the runs he could have.

Sachin Rathod : Thanks to all the year drops he had , he must’ve played with the most number of people in the team. His West Indian looks were accentuated by his big backlift , and his devil-may-care cross batted slogging. Never saw him score too many runs for the college team , but am told he was the cornerstone of three consecutive Intra wins for the Chem-Biomed team, before my batch came in. While he was an excellent keeper , the greatest entertainment he provided was in BITS-Pilani , where he had carried 24 bottles of mineral water assuming that Pilani being in parched Rajasthan wouldn’t have enough supply of water !! He even took part in the power lifting event at BITS , and mistakingly asked for 80kgs of weight to be added to the bar , confusing it with pounds. (1 pound = 2.2kgs by the way ) . The sequence that followed was one of the funniest any of us had ever witnessed.

Avin Ramani : Being the typical TSEC cricketer that Avin was , he too had to waste all the all round talent at his disposal. At first we used to identify Avin as the guy from the Comps-IT team who could at will keep bowling one lethal yorker after another. Now when I think back , he even had a Wasim Akramish look about him. He made his imposing presence felt in our first match at BITS , where he smashed a fifty of a mere 20 balls. Ours was a 60 run partnership , off which he scored 54 runs !!

His pre match speeches would never fail to stir us up , often giving us goose bumps. Though under him , our performances could never follow the big talking before the match. Avin scored heavily in his final year especially after he got promoted to the opening spot. Bhai lead Comps-IT to two consecutive intra finals , winning one of the events. He can also lay claim to having pataoed , the prettiest girl to visit BITS Pilani (read Michelle from JaiHind).

Ashish Pawar : This guy could bowl fast. Genuinely fast ... He could hit far .. Very far .. And he could crib and whine , more than any girl ever has. Nothing could be more entertaining than standing at point , watching Redya bowl six continuous bouncers at those LTCOE batsmen , injuring and terrorising them. My favourite player in the team. Though he always had to be prodded to bowl at those speeds , often starting off his spells with slow over pitched hit-me deliveries. Ashish took two hattricks while playing for the college , but we still ended up losing both those matches. The fatso was the superstar of my FE team , winning us the league matches and then alongwith Saif decimating the opposition in the finals at Khar Gymkhana, with the two of them scoring 246 runs between them in the last 15 overs of our innings !! His last few matches were a sad story of repeated overstepping of the bowling crease , loss of confidence and with it , his pace and effectiveness.

Abhishek Mankar: After Ashish was done with his spell , the opposing batsmen would face an even dangerous bowler. Sheik – Abhi – Shakey ... If not faster , Abhishek was just as fast as Ashish. Even though very erratic with his line of attack , Abhishek on his day could clean up the best of the batting line ups , like he did in our FE intra finals , getting seven wickets for twenty something runs. He even got those MCA batsmen at Khar Gym quivering.

The tussle between him and Mohnish , the best batsman in the DJ Sanghvi team used to be something that I would relish viewing. Albeit on most occasions Mohnish proved to be his nemesis. Sheik was the absolute badshah of tennis ball cricket , winning several man of the series prizes in the local tournaments held in and around Azad Maidan. Our slinger deservedly captained the Comps team to Intra glory in his final year , with he himself producing a superlative batting performance in the finals.

Pranav Gandhi : If they call Bishen Singh Bedi ‘Poetry in Action‘ , Pranav was the pace version of the same. And the resemblance with the sardar didn’t end with just the beautiful bowling action. Like Bedi , Pranav had an opinion on everything , often outrageous.

Every team needs a Pranav Gandhi .. Every successful team has a Pranav Gandhi.. The guy who with his wit would lighten up tense moments during the course of the match , and come up with some unbelievably imaginative Hindi abuses. A skiddy , stump to stump bowler , Pranav was a very dependable yet unheralded member of the team. Never approved of my cautious approach to batting , and always wanted me to plant my leg across the line of the ball and swat it to the mid wicket boundary , irrespective of where the ball was pitched. Another one who saw the worst of times with the cricket team , dirtied his hands and helped mould a winning team.

Chirag Tandon : His classmates named him ‘Iqbal’ after that favourite movie character. To me Chika was the backbone of our batting line up , with a consistency to match that of Rahul Dravid’s. Made a late entry into the college team after a score of 70 something in the intra finals in the second year. Thereafter , he never looked back , shoring up the innings innumerable number of times. Chirag was an excellent fielder and a blatant chucker when it came to bowling, a fact that he would never agree to.

Chika always dreamt of captaining the college side , something that he never told anyone and something that thanks to me , never happened.

Mayur Sharma : Confused. Hard working. Extremely keen. Always unlucky. Sharma used to be a steady medium pacer for the college team , who would always have catches dropped off his bowling. Had to make way for faster and more exciting talent in the later stages. Bowled especially well with the new ball during our FE days. His best moment was the unexpected and breath taking 48 in next to nothing balls that he scored against Chem-EXTC to almost take us to an unlikely win. Started sobbing uncontrollably on not being able to hit the six off the last ball that would have seen us through to the finals.

Nishank Gopalkrishnan : My best friend in TSEC and the college team. Nishank would either get out on the second ball that he faced , or would play the most pleasing of innings one would witness. He was Hadkar’s partner in that blistering counter attack against SBMJC. Thoughts of that leaning on one knee cover drive of his still keep flashing every now and then. His best performance was a 40 ball 66 at the KEM ground. For some absurd reasons , preferred working for the IEEE instead of playing cricket for the college. A fact that I absolutely hated. Nishank was also the worst in the business , when it came to running between the wickets. Was very VVS Laxman like in his cricket..

Darryl Lowe : The fact that he played just two matches for TSEC and is still being mentioned here speaks volumes about the man. An idol for guys like me and Nishank. Scored a 40 on his debut and a match winning 96 in his second match. It was this innings of his which laid the platform for the reversal in fortunes of the team , made us realise that scoring big runs didn’t mean getting a 30 or a 40 only. He was a heavy scorer in intra competitions, a very good keeper and thinker too. Clearly remember him asking , requesting , urging me to bowl the offspinner in the sixth over of the match. Glad I paid heed to his advice , what with Chander (the said offie) getting the dangerman off his first ball itself. Unfortunately , cricket could never become his favourite sport , and we could never convince him to score runs instead of scoring goals.

Deepak Tolani : Ten on ten for dedication. Eleven on ten for his efforts. And one on ten for his running between the wickets. Deepak was my opponent in the innumerable cricketing debates we’ve had, ranging from arguments about the team composition , the bowling changes and his (lack of) ability while bowling. In spite of being out of the side for major part of his early days , Deepak would always be ready to help the team in any which way. His fielding came by leaps and bounds in the last couple of years ala Navjot ‘Jonty Singh’ Sidhu. All the effort and thinking about the game finally paid dividends when he amassed all those runs in my final Intra tournament (2005). But the sad part is , for all the good things Deepak did , I remember him most for playing that lofted drive straight into the deep cover’s hands. The shot that lost us the match against Jai Hind B team (yes .. B team) by a mere 3 runs !

Narendra Gyanchandani : Nari shot to fame with a hard hitting performance in his first intra tournament. Almost killed me with a bullet straight drive off my bowling. He has the distinction of scoring the first century for TSEC. A maddening one at that ... Throwing his bat at every ball , hitting the ball to all corners of the Cross Maidan , with the hapless DJ Sanghvi bowlers and the shopping crowd at Fashion Street copping his fury. Sadly he couldn’t recreate that magic on a regular basis. A fact for which he blames me , for having not given him enough opportunities to bat higher in the order.

Distinctly remember a particular intra match where he charged down the track to me , seeing which I bowled a bouncer ( u read it right.. A BOUNCER..better believe that ) . He ended up so far ahead that the keeper ran him out. Throughly enjoyed the send off I gave him for having attempted to come down the track to me... Nari had his back though , in the same match, using the very same gaaaliyan that I’d given him once I returned back to the pavilion.

He also had a super strong arm which was responsible for him gifting us two critical run outs , with him throwing the ball right into the wicket keepers gloves from the deep cover boundary.

Ronak Shah : He hated his name being printed as ‘Raunak’ on the sports certificates. Minimal run up , quick arm action.. and some really menacingly fast bowling. Preferred playing in his ‘Gujju-kuttchi samaj’ leagues instead of playing for the college. Was mortally afraid of taking high catches. Came into his own after the likes of Ashish-Pranav-Sheik passed out.

Hardik Thakkar : Banana inswingers at an uncomfortable chest height were his forte. Formed a very effective opening bowling partnership with Ronak. Like Pranav was a hard hitting batsman , who never got to bat above no. 8 , thanks to my non ability to recognise talent. Would endlessly ( and often pointlessly ) argue about any and everything. To him Ganguly was the worst thing that had happened to Indian cricket..

Sahil Bhatia : Every now and then you come across people who excel at everything they do .. Bhatia was one such guy. Even if it were carrying the drinks bottle or retrieving the ball from outside the boundary , Bhatia had a class about him. Two time sportsman of the year award winner .. Sahil was a champion swimmer , a decent tt player and a batsman who could play the best backfoot punch you would ever see. Though never in the limelight when playing for the cricket team , Bhatia always came up with handy contributions , almost single handedly winning us that emotional semi-finals against SPCE.

Ameya Waigankar : Waingi .. Was the heir apparent from day one itself. While he scored a classy 46 on his debut , everyone who was present at Oval Maidan that day would remember the match for his bowling. An eight ball over in which the ball mustve bounced atleast 48 times before reaching the batsman. 6 times on each of the occasions.. Claimed ( and still claims) to have played for India Under-14.. Something that I’ve never believed.. Was that typical hard nosed , well trained , knowledgeable Mumbai cricketer. Had an understanding of the game and the match situation like no one else. Captaincy brought the best out of him while he managed to get the best from the team , a fact highlighted by the number of tournament victories under him. Scoring multitude of runs and spinning a web with that Vettori like orthodox left armers. An aspect often forgotten about him was his fielding. He had the safest pair of hands in the slip , and also effected some amazing run outs. No one could play the on drive against the turn like he could.

Siddesh Nadkarni : The best opener that TSEC ever saw. Period !

Alongwith Gautam he was THE reason for the turn around called TSEC Cricket. Scored more runs in one season than I did in my four yrs. I had the privilege of witnessing most of his innings from the non strikers end. We would always claim to be the best when it came to running between the wickets. One fine day after passing out , I’d decided to watch the TSEC vs RAIT match at VJTI.. And was treated to an innings of 188 by this 5 footer.

Spunk and arrogance defined his batting.. And street smart intelligence was the hallmark of his seam bowling. A major reason for the success of our opening partnerships would be the fun we used to have in the middle together. Picking up fights with opposition fielders (Milind et al ) , ridiculing the bowlers and challenging each other with our run aggregates.

Harshraj Madan : The offspinner turned wicketkeeper turned no. 3 batsman is what one calls an asset. One with a never say die spirit , extreme aggression and the drive for success. Always ready to volunteer for any responsibility Harshraj would wear his heart on his sleeve, and give his all everytime , always. Though he suffered a minor slump in form midway with his bowling, his wicket keeping and batting helped him contribute to the team. Again someone who blossomed under Ameya’s captaincy getting those big scores and wickets too.

Atharva Samant : Someone who wouldn’t catch your eye with his cricketing skills or his looks. But Atharva always had a bevy of girls around him , and me as a fan of his selfless efforts and readiness to learn. A handy lower order batsman and a skilful wicketkeeper. He could yell out the most hilarious of one liners from the pavilion taking a gibe at the opposition, sending the batsmen in the middle into splits and leaving the bowling team red faced. One from the Kiran More school of cricket.. Atharva often got into tussles with the opposition batsmen because of his excitable nature and inability to stay quiet. Almost slapped the SPCE wicket keeper on getting stumped by him after he had challenged Samant to advance down the track.

Gautam Burye : By far the best thing to have happened to our cricket team. He was a captain’s dream. Whenever you needed a wicket , you turned to Gautam. Whenever the run scoring had to be put a lid on , you turned to Gautam. Whenever you needed important runs down the order , you looked at him. And never did he disappoint.. I guess the only time he did disappoint was when he dint turn up for the match at KEM against DJ , and we got bashed by Mohnish and Co. Captained the FE side which nearly managed to pull off the unthinkable. An Intra victory for a FE side. Something that only MY FE team has managed (yeah.. I am proud of them ).

I’d lost count of the number of times he got those match winning five wicket hauls.. Especially remember a mesmerising spell of spin bowling by him and Harsh where they conceded twelve runs off eight overs to a batting line up that had in the previous eight overs scored 70 for none. Add his batting performances to the stingy wicket taking bowling , Gautam was the ‘Darryl Lowe’ of TSEC cricket. Infact at the cost of sounding blasphemous , someone even better than Darryl !!

( For the uninitiated Lowe was the most prolific goal scorer TSEC has and probably will see )

Gautam took over the captaincy from Waingi and had a reasonably fruitful tenure, though he could not replicate the unprecedented success that Ameya had.

The TSEC cricket experience was enriched even more by guys like :

Ashwin Araokar – who was the best full toss bowler in the world.

Sanket Thorat – who made me realise what a mediocre job I was doing at the top of the order , by replacing me in that position , matching Siddhesh’s audacious shot making and on occasions out scoring him.

Kaivan Sanghvi – the guy with a big appetite for runs and a bigger appetite for talking on the cell phone.

Mitesh Bhavsar – my first captain , who angrily threw the ball on my chest when I criticised his lack of run scoring.

Sunil Naryani – the guy who had to several times bear the brunt of my frustration on getting dismissed for a low score yet again.

Chander Shivdasani – whom I had laid so much faith on , but could never get the best out of.

Neil Shivdasani – Our funny FE wicketkeeper. He never stopped cribbing about broken fingers and keeping wickets in the Pilani heat.

Final Words :

While a majority of them were exceptional performers in a lot of other fields too the piece above talks about the men mostly through the cricketing perspective only.

Thanks to their efforts and passion all of us have something to look back at with fond memories and moist eyes.

Recommended....

Disclaimer : This post could get pretty long ... Either spare enough time to read through the whole of it . Or .... Hmm .. Well ... JUST SIT HERE and READ IT !!

First and foremost ... My heartfelt thanks to all my friends,lovers,followers , chaatus ( Sagar .. U fall into that category) , relatives & foes for the overwhelming support throughout the 'testing' period I went through.
" Tumharay pyaar aur aashirwad ke bina ..... "

That my cellphone bill would be reaching astronomical heights should also be credited to you all. Nevertheless.. I loved every bit of the attention.

So ... If you would've had the super excess time , and were utterly bored and disgusted , am sure you have gone through my earlier post. Before leaving for the Air Force Selection exams , I was brought to believe by everyone that the SSB exams are the best experience one can ever have in his lifetime. A must for every individual.
While I do subscribe to the second view , I still maintain that the three sports trips to BITS - Pilani gave me the best moments of my life.
(Thanks Darryl and Nunni and Nishank and Bhatia and Jollu and JD and Rajesh and Divji and Pondi and my cricket and football teams ).


Okay .. cutting the crap and getting to the point .. Here goes ..

Day 1 : As soon as me and Dhawal reached Mysore station we met this large group of diffident yet cheerful hopefuls , all dreaming of flying a Su-30, discussing about the Light Combat Aircraft - Tejas and the reasons for its delay , the Cheetah and Chetak ( fellow ignorant bhais ... We are talking about helicopters here ... not apna Hamara Bajaj wala Chetak !! ). Almost everyone had a military background and they couldn't help but discuss about their parents' experiences at the defence forces , while I was desperately looking for someone whom with I could discuss India and Pakistan's losses the night earlier.
So we reached the AFSB and had the introductory session where all my efforts to hide the floaters that I was wearing went in vain. Everyone around me had their shoes on. The initial barracking that the entire group got from the DSO ( commanding officer ) got me quivering in my boots.. floaters rather.
" What the hell am I doing here !! "
" Run away Puneet .. You'll end up embarassing yourself "
" Why don't you just go back to Mumbai and report to work ?? "
Some of the questions that I found myself staring at.
A late night round of table tennis with my new found buddies helped settle the nerves.

Day 2 : Waking up at 5am wasn't as big an issue as I'd thought it would be. A two hour lecture greeted us. Me , Dhawal and Jude almost dozed through the last half hour. The tests while a little tricky , weren't a major concern , with us having to read instruments and guess the state of the aircraft,its direction , the speed and altitude gained etc. Following it were the PABT tests , where we were made to sit in simulated cockpits and asked to play a few games. No .. It wasn't Doom 3 or War of the Worlds that was being played .. but games of the Tetris sort. But were terrified or what !! Managed to sail through the two of them though.

Day 3 : A few psychometric tests to begin the day. We were shown a slide for about half a minute and expected to write a story within 4 minutes.... the four minutes though seemed to have got over in 20 seconds. A GD on the same topic followed. My raagpatti talent saw me through this elimination round as well. 26 out of the 56 who had come for the SSB exams were made to pack their bags and leave the academy after this stage. The rest of the day was spent indulging in chess , TT , volleyball and some sleep.

Day 4 : 15 seconds to see the word and coompile a sentence. The same thing getting repeated 60 times over. And with words like death , greed , curse , bully , thrown in , the test was everything but a cakewalk. To keep coming up with positive emotions in each of the sentences was getting tougher with each passing word. Prior to that we were shown 12 different slides and were required to write 12 different stories in 48 minutes. A few paplu intelligence tests were rendered early in the morning. The sort that a nursery kid would consider childs play. That they are called 'Intelligence' tests is an irony in itself.
A hilarious round of running table tennis followed. The night was spent watching the hapless Bermudan's concede the 414 runs. So what if I kept making the silliest of errors while playing chess , atleast I got to witness Yuvraj slog the hell out of Leverock and Co.

Day 5 : "Your group is only good at talking ... You can't make a single idea work. You are worse than standard twelve boys. I really doubt if you are BEs and BSC graduates. Do you even know what Physics is ? " , rambled our Group Testing Officer(GTO). These were progressive group tasks... and we kept on stumbling from one failure to another while performing those. Provided with a bamboo log , a wooden plank , a rope and a dead weight (ridiculously heavy) , we were supposed to build bridges to cross over hurdles without touching the ground or the obstacles in between. As was evident from the GTOs words , we fared quite pathetically. The super work done during the 2 Group Discussions and the Military Planning earlier wentdown the drain. The frustration , rueing and introspection helped us pass the evening.

Day 6 : A one and half hour interview in the morning set the tone for the rest of the day. The interviewers made me feel at home and got details about things,people and places that I didn't know ever existed. Questions ranging from family to friends to work to college , to career decisions , to extra curricular activities to current affairs to love interests to sports to quizzing (a rapid fire quiz round at the end of it ) being asked . The only thing I wasn't asked was the colour of my undergarments.

Picture this :

Interviewer : Puneet .. Tell us about your school friends .
Me : jdfsdjfuisdfmdsf .......

Interviewer : Your college friends.
Me : wawr90jkjfdfdfdld ....

Interviewer : Your engineering and neighbourhood friends...
Me : ;l';,dsd9==ijjfdsf ....

Interviewer : And your other friends ?
Me : ( WTF !!! Aur kitnon ko paida karoo ? ) Are we talking about friends or pupae ?

The answers to most questions were delivered with utmost conviction and truthfully. And right then .. I knew I'd sealed it.Then and there itself... The confidence gained after that interview persists with me till date...
Learning : 'Honesty can on certain occasions be the best policy '
Atleast on that day it was ..
The momentum was carried on to the succeeding activities. Was asked to deliver a lecture on plastic money .. Back of the hand stuff , considering the fact that I have been working on Debit Card related projects for the last 7 months.lol ..
The command task had each candidate being made commanders and ordering two guys to work for him. The same obstacles that we screwed up in as a group were to be overcome now by being the leader.
" Very well done commander. Extremely good performance ." was the GTOs review of my work. If I hadn't sealed it during the interview itself , then I'd surely done it this time around.
The individual obstacle course followed where I could score a mere 27 out of a possible 55 points. Stumbled from one obstacle to another barely conquering a few.The jump off the 20 feet ladder onto the hanging rope and then sliding downwards got everyone's palms burnt. Took about 0.02ms for the blisters to make their appearance.

As we were making our way back towards the dorm from the course , someone yelled out " Medical centre mei lady doctor hai. 25 - 26 years ki. Aur bohot beautiful bhi " ( well .. beautiful wasnt exactly the word used .. you can figure out for yourself kya bola hoga )
Just that one announcement had nearly all of us rushing to the medical centre with our new found wounds , blisters , headache and other issues. By the end of it they knew what we were upto , and almost shooed us outta there.

Day 7 : The Day Of Reckoning. Saara doodh ka doodh .. aur paani ka paani .. They asked each one of us to pack our bags and keep them ready in our respective rooms. A conference session followed .. With the President of the Board grilling you in a few areas. The room had about 12 Air Force personnel , in their full uniforms , with the medals and the caps on. Plus a battery of psychologists too were present in the same room. Quite an intimidating scenario. The President fired questions like Why Air Force , Why Engineering , Job Profile , Why don't you go back to Kashmir , What if you are travelling with your friend and the police pull you over and tell you your friend is a terrorist. Guess I managed myself well through it.
After an hour long wait for the final results , we were asked to go back to our rooms , carry our luggage and load it into the trucks. Once we came back the DSO announced the results .. " Chest No. 12 has been recommended for the Air Force "
And there I went on the dias .. Amidst smiles and applause to collect my cap from the DSO.

I always wanted to be a part of a reality show .... And I finally got to be in one. Though it wasn't a show. But the wait for the results , and then the anti climax where we were made to go back and load our luggage into the trucks. And then on getting recommended had to go back and get the luggage back , while the rest were asked to get into the trucks and buses and leave the premises immediately was nothing short of Reality Show stuff. The only thing missing was the cribbing and back biting session which happens once a contestant gets eliminated.

A 5 hour relentless form filling session followed. And that is where it all ended.

The medical tests follow .. Would be from the 16th of April. Till then .. Fingers crossed.


Staind : So Far Away


Now that we're here , it's so far away
All the struggle we thought was in vain
All the mistakes,one life contained
They all finally start to go away

Now that we're here its so far away
And i feel like i can face the day i can forgive
And i'm not ashamed to be the person that i am today

These are my words
That i've never said before
I think i'm doing okay
And this is the smile
That i've never shown before

Past imperfect .. Future tense..

The World Cup is on .. And surprisingly I havent put any of my views on it till now.( Compiled a couple for a mag .. But the dumb ***** REJECTED MY ARTICLES !! )

About to embark on a World Cup of my own .. 13 days that promise to turn my life upside down.
In another 12 hours from now Id be making my way towards the SSB interviews in Mysore. SSB = Services Selection Board exams .. For the Air Force Academy.

Yes. .. This aspiring sportsman turned below par Biomed engineer turned banker (he's been a loser throughout all those ' turneds ' ) plans to be a part of the defense forces , as a fighter pilot. ( Stop giggling you ... Warna tere ghar pe hi missile drop kardoonga ).
The pilot aptitude battery test would be followed by the physical tests and the military planning and the group discussions and the personal interviews and the psychometric analysis and the ...... Aagay jo daalna hai daal do , sab kuch honewala hai. Preparations ?? They've been on a war footing .. After 6 months of absolute lethargy and considerable weight gain , I can still manage to run a whopping 15 minutes at a stretch.. (had told u so .. Have always been a sportsman ). My push-ups count has finally reached the hallowed double figures , and I resemble Aamir Khan in 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander' while doing those stomach crunches. Bas Pooja Bedi aur Ayesha Jhulka dilado koi !!
So why do you wanna join the Air Force would go the first question ? Still trying to come up with an ingenius answer for that .. If any of my devout readers can think of a 'phekable' answer , then ek ring maar dena.


After I am done showing off my wares at the SSB , the jamboree would move northwards. To the 'Jat' land .. Gurgaon , Haryana. ( I said JAT .. the JAT YAMLA PAGLA wala JAT .. not anything else .. U ghaati PERVERTS ) Haan Bhai .. CAT bhi toh diya tha.. Call aagaya MBA institute se toh meri kya galti hai. Interview , Group Discussion attend toh karni padegi naa ? Afterall everyone wants to have a piece of me. Thanks to all the preparation for the GD-PI session , I finally know what Capital Account Convertability is .. I know that Thrilla In Manila hadn't taken place n Manila , but the neighbouring Quezon city. Inflation is something more than what parents do to the birthday balloons .. Reading the entire budget newspaper takes 7 whole hours .. and at the end you are still left wondering what MAT is ? Minimum Applicable / Appropriate Tax .. Jo bhi ho .. Doesn't spell too well for the IT industries.


" Terese zyada badtameez aur koi nahi ho sakta hai .. Itni baar bolneke baad bhi kapday pack nahi karega ... " But I did try Mummy ... All I could find were the torn socks .. The 'istriwalla' still hasn't got the clothes pressed. And I can't zero in on a tie that would match the shirt I'd be wearing during the interviews.
So what if I'll miss watching Namibia and Scotland and Canada and Bermuda in action due to these impending exams .. I'll atleast be jumping over pits , climbing ropes , passing through tyres , monkey crawling and running 2 miles in 15 minutes.


" Samay Samaapti Ki Aghoshna Hogayi Hai " Dads just yelled after seeing the bags still unpacked. Do get back to the blog to know whether I could match up to those studs from the Sainik schools.


PS : Please let Steve Tikolo and his men reach the Super Eight stages. I love the Kenyan cricket team.