Missing the 64 Characters...

It’s been long since I blogged and people are happy about it I guess..!! It’s been almost 4 months that I left college life. Things have fallen, pretty well, in places for me and my friends. But there is something that is troubling me. I feel lonely, I can’t sleep at nights. Though staying in home, I feel aloof. It took me some while to understand what I am missing. Few days back I realized that I am missing the 64 characters of my MSIT –IIIT batch. Each individual is special and unique in his/her own way. Leaving the college, where all these characters dwelled few months back, has created a big void in my life. So this blog is dedicated to all those wonderful 64 characters with whom I have had some unforgettable moments. Wondering why I say 64, and not 63? The 64th is me. I am missing myself as well. I am finding it tough to pass the time on weekends. I don’t have anyone to talk to, in the evenings, about the daily chore on the weekdays.
So following is a small collection of the features/attributes of these 64 characters and what all I MISS!!
Prefix each of the following lines with “I MISS”

The hostel

The labs

The small ISB room

The ambience of IIIT

The JOJ

Taking the inputs from seniors

Giving inputs to juniors

The Spontaneity and dare to take a dig at anyone attitude (and that too very smartly) of Sricharan

The commitment of Dayanand

The photography of Srimanth, Budihal and Dayanand

The irritating attempts of Sai n Sandy to be in every photo…!!

We all going through the enormous number of photos almost every day in some room or the other and laughing at/commenting on them

The silence of Harishwar, Budihal, RaviKanth, Tarun and few other girls like Prithvi, Hiranmai, Divya (for gals, it’s like whenever they are not in their group)

The calmness and patience of Gyan,Pavan Kishore, Srimanth and Muthi bhai

The impatience and aggressiveness of Jay, Sreedhar, Bhanu and Paul(though only sometimes)

The voice of Rajender anna and Muthi Bhai

The noise of Thadaka and Kiran Pothina..!!

The singing of Shirish and Dany

The WALK and the TALK of Sreedhar anna and Matham..!!

The way Vallala runs..!!

The never moving Gyan kiran, Vamshi and pavan kishore while they were in their room, on the bed and watching movies or doing something or the other

Vamshi’s love for participating in online programming contests

The 4-6 abs of Narsa, Sitaram,Paddu, Raghu

The 3-tier architecture (read as bellies) of Yasaswi, Dutt, Sreedhar, Katakam, Ravikanth and ofcourse me..!!

The consistency of Sitaram at Gym

The consistency of others at just PLANNING to go to GYM…”mama Gym ki vellali repatnunchi”…but that t’row never came..!!

The way Nikki and Preneeth take their tongues out

Preneeth pushing his specs upwards almost twice a minute..!!

The smile of Sowmya

The anger of Mahathi and Vasavi

The creativity of Lavanya and Vasavi

The silence of Prithvi aka Monica

The gestures of Sandhya

The 10s of chat (IM) boxes open on the laptop screen of Lavanya ...!!

Divya’s orkutting…

The Gandhian specs of Professor Adi Bava..!!

The big gang of Vizag

The small gang of Vijaywada

The rivalry of Chiru v/s BalaKrishna groups

The very effective one liners of Gyan, Sitaram, Muthi Bhai, Budihal and Tarun as they speak less but speak right.

The sollu of Sanuks, Rahul, Unnati, Yashu and me

The MORE frequent bath taking( seen in the bathrooms most of the times) guys like Dutt, Yashu,Tarun, Sitaram and few others

The NEVER take a bath guys like Sandeep, Sairam, Sai Kranthi, and ofcourse me..!!

Our never ending discussions on the issues like “MSIT v/s IIIT”, “what would we want to change in MSIT” and “the management of MSIT” and we all taking a dig, on a regular basis, on the “MSIT management”, especially by Matham

The very impressive English of Sitaram, Raghavendra, Gyan and Rahul

The English lingo of Matham and Sreedhar

The true telugu tones of Yashu, Dutt, Kiran and Dany, Vamshi and few others.

The funny telugu lingo of Unnati, Adi and me

The funny hindi lingo of almost everyone except Sohail, Muthi bhai and me

The clean and tidy rooms of Deepak VSKS, Preneeth, Sricharan

The unclean and untidy rooms of Kranthis, Sharma, Rajender, Narsa and mine being the worst

Naveen and Kiran Pothina taking a dig at Chaitu..

Chaitu’s retaliations…

The sutta gang

The love for biryanis of both d Kranthis, Sreedhar and many others

The love for boozing parties of Sairam, Nikki, Preneeth, Bhanu, Jay and Deo

Our parties in the lab after each placement

Our weekly parties in the hostel rooms

The parcel in the hands of Kaka alias Vinod

The excellent problem solving skills of Rajender, Yashu & Vamshi

The persuasiveness and leadership qualities of Sharma, Raghu, SriCharan, Rajender, Bhanu and Lavanya

Yashu’s legside strokes and running between the wickets…!!

My few good offside strokes

The marvelous fielding of Vamshi

The all-round performance of Deepak VSKS, Raghu Prashanth and Pavan Prashanth

The lethal bowling of Sandeep

The throw bowling of Paddu, Sohail and Harishwar…!!(Sorry Harish, but fact is a fact..!!)

The "always bowling wides" guys like Sandeep and Thadaka

The “never bowl a wide” guys like Deepak, Raghu and me

The spin of Sreedhar, yashu and Raghu(Whenever Raghu wished to change from pace to spin..!!)

The deceiving slower ones of Pavan Kishore and me

The comeback of Pavan Prashanth (Hats off to u ra)

The optimistic attitude of Sricharan, Raghu, Sharma and Paul

The pessimistic attitude of many

The “Never say no” attitude of Paddu and Thadaka

The “never say yes” attitude of Rahul..!!

The namakaran(giving funny names) to almost everyone by Raghu Prashanth

Deepak Deo’s love for collecting HD movies and shouting from the top of the world, saying… “mama ee movie HD print vachindiiiii..!!”

The love for watching HD movies by Gyan, Pavan Kishore, Sitaram and many others

The love for some different online games by Kranthis, Charan sai…

The commenting of Raghavendra and Sanuks on almost everything in the world..!!

The preachings of Dany

The encouragement, “u can do it” and supportive attitude of Raghu, Paul, Sharma, Rajender and SriCharan and Muthi bhai towards everyone and everything

The punctual timings of Charan Sai and Srikanth(10 AM to 4 PM..!!)

The impuntual timings of Vamshi, Rajender, Mahesh, Sitaram and Rahul

Narayan Chaitu and Mahesh’s love for watching music videos

The offspin of Chaitu in CCL(Corridor Cricket League)

The way Murali says “Bongu” and “Bongem kaadu”

The “never come INTO the hostel rooms” guys like Paul, Pavan Prashanth, Muthi, Srikanth

The “never come OUT of the hostel rooms” guys like Mahesh, Vamshi, Prashanth Budihal and Suresh

The blogs of Raghu Prashanth, Sricharan, Raghavendra

The sober dance of Sandeep, Mahathi, Tarun, Lavanya,and Pavan Kishore

The mass dance of Yashu, Chaitu alias Sanuks, Sharma, Kranthi, Murali, Sohail and me..!!

Gyan’s “always in formal dress code”

Sandy’s “never in formal dress code”

Sandeep and Narsa’s dress code in the hostel…!!

Sharma’s mimicry acts

The water bottle in the hands of Dutt and Chaitu

The never ending discussions in the hostel rooms

The nicknames of everyone in the different games we played and the shouting ofcourse…!!

The analysis power and the enormous data storage capacity in the mind of Mahesh

The non-stop nonsense of Yashu and Chaitu aka Sanuks in the Group Discussions

The never-understandable inputs of Rehman in the discussions…!!

The “never-talk” attitude of Narsa, Murali, Vamshi, Shekhar, RaviKanth, Charan Sai and Srikanth in the Group Discussions

The infectious smile of Sri charan and Katakam

The unbearable laugh of Raghu Prashanth, Yashu and Nikhil and the 90 degree backward bending laugh of Jayvardhan..!!

The snoring of Pavan Kishore, Nikhil and Sharma in (D 309)

The patience of Mahesh (the sufferer of the snorings…!)

Jitu’s excellence in games…

Bhanu bringing in the business angle during discussions

The sollu “jokes of Jay” known as Jay Jokes..!!

Sohail’s,Tarun’s, Yashu’s and Budhihal’s love for bikes

My love for ibnlive and rediff

Mahesh’s love for Cricinfo

Sricharan’s love for google, cuil and then bing

Downloaders love for their respective downloading websites

Murali's love for CCL

Dayanand, Sitaram, Vamshi and Raghu’s love for books

Muthi and Sohail’s love for shayaris

Dutt’s love for Chaitu..!!

Sai’s love for Sandy..!!

The corridors of MSIT block in the hostel…

The cake cuttings…

The Birthday bumps…

The view of Gachibowli Stadium on one side and our very own cricket ground on the other

The food of Yuktahaar…

Watching the gals in the NBH mess…

The food items everyone used to bring from home to the hostel

And to end it all, the only one thing I DO NOT miss is the missiles of Sandeep..!!(I know Sandeep would not take this to heart, but there was not any other fitting last line better than this..!!! )

Before coming to MSIT, most of us had a rough patch in the life…either B.Tech was not in a good college, or friends were not good, or B.Tech percentage was down, or many other personal reasons. But I feel, and I guess many of you as well do feel, that we have been lucky to be a part of these 64 characters. God has been kind to us, as we met some very unique, normal, abnormal, intelligent, passionate, admirable, understandable, not understandable,ITEMS, lovable, affectionate and caring personalities ( and probably every adjective that defines a character). Its getting tough, we all are staying apart. I don’t want to write anymore emotional and touchy lines about it. Good that we have technology and our very own Xtremos to connect through. Luv u all… and of course “Miss you all”

P.S.1.: Do not take this to heart, if I have written anything wrong or embarrassing about you. Don’t worry it will stay only among these 64 characters, unless otherwise your BF/GF ( or spouse later) visit this blog and discover some really funny things written about you here..!!

P.S.2: I am sure that I have missed so many things that you all think should have been written here in the MISSING list, but the above are the ones that I could recollect over a period of 1-2 weeks..!! If you feel anything more can be added here, tell me and I will append it here, so that we have a large collection of these MISSINGS..!!

Voting: My First Experience

Casting the vote, it was my first time. In my hometown, some said: “Bachha bada ho gaya..!!” , was nice to hear that. But at d same time I felt that I too am now more responsible for the events that happen in my country.

It all began on d day the election schedule was announced, I decided to take a leave on the 16^th April. My hometown,Bhainsa, is around 200KMs from Hyderabad. My brother booked bus tickets for us. I always have had d interest in the political matters of my hometown as my father involves himself in making sure that d right candidate gets elected every time.

Believe me or not, elections in the rural areas are a different ball game. To start with, I boarded the bus in d night at Hyderabad, and was at my hometown’s bus station at 3:00AM..!! Searched for an auto, but in vain, and was surprised to not find one. My brother n I decided to take a walk to our home. It took 30 odd minutes for us to reach home. On d way, I found many political posters on d walls, on d poles of the street lights, on d ground n where not. I reached home and d first question I asked was ‘every time I could manage to find an auto for myself whenever I got down, but why wasn’t there a single auto today…?’ And I got d reply that police had banned all autos as on d earlier night they found some autos carrying liquor for illegal distribution.(for novice readers, liquor is banned 1-2 days prior to d date of polling). During d discussions throughout d day, I realized that people in d rural areas vote for d candidate and not d political party…something which is not always followed in d cities. Primary reason could be the that the candidate, his/her life and work is more visible to all d people directly in a rural area, which is not d case in the cities as many have a hectic schedule and also that there is lack of communication among people. The next thing I heard was that one of the candidates was distributing money to no limit. To my surprise, the figure reached Rs.250 per vote. Thinking of how they DO it?, Its damn simple, the money is distributed much earlier to the local supporters and during d last two days, these supporters go house to house, generally targeting the people below poverty, and distribute it. U can just replace the money with d word ‘liquor’ and read d above sentence again. I always had heard, but now I realize that money and liquor are d most powerful weapons d politicians use to increase the vote bank.

I also realized how much efforts the Government and Social groups put in just to teach the people of the rural places , most of them being illiterate, about how to use d Electrionic Voting Machine(EVM). What to press, when to press and how to press the correct button.

On d personal front, I cannot stop myself from comparing Polling and a Festival. I felt that polling is a festival that every religion celebrates keeping aside d caste and the God who u pray. For a festival, it’s a public holiday and people go to their home-place to celebrate it. So is d case with polling, it’s also a public holiday, though forcefully implemented onto the private companies by the Government of India(possibly the least best thing that a Government can do for its citizens' right: 'the right to vote') and of course many go to their home-places to cast their vote. On a festival, people get up early and go to d religious place and pray. Parallely, on a polling day, people get up as early as 6:30AM and march towards d polling booth, so as to reach there by 7AM(time at which polling begins) and be d first person to cast d vote. Some even cast their vote on their way back from the early morning walk. On a festival day, people celebrate it by going to the homes of d elderly people and wishing them. On a polling day, people celebrate it by meeting others and settling down for discussions as who will win and how. Wondering how this thought of analogy between a festival day and a polling day pinged in my mind. Its simple. The last time I was at my home was on d Ugadi day(an Indian festival), and d next time I am in my home relaxing is d polling day. And then ‘mere dimaag ki batti jali’ and I thought of d analogy. But d best thing of this analogy is that polling is a festival that is celebrated by every citizen of a nation no matter which religion they belong to.

One of My Favourite Days@IIIT

March 20^th, the day we REDISCOVERED the good cricketing skills in all d three departments – bowling, batting and fielding. Very few must have noticed that there were 3 batches of MSIT playing together.

The pretext to this match was an exhaustive CNK session at JNTU. We planned to play a match at JNTU after d session but could not due to d unavailability of the ground. Summer has started, but d day was cloudy. We returned to IIIT. We could not wait to get on d sporting shoes and tracks. Deepak, the most successful captain of MSIT!!, called up juniors. Both, juniors and also 2 seniors were on d ground in no time. Raghu was reluctant but Sandy n I did some gambling by exchanging some words and using the emotional atyachaar! trick on him and thus forced him to be there on the ground.

That’s it, no more drama, just pure action thereafter. It was a COMEBACK match for the injured player Pavan, and the ever busy Thadaka and Dayanand. Deepak n Sandy, the captains, divided d teams for a 10 over per side match. Deepak won d toss and elected to bat. Thadaka, who mesmerized everyone wid his excellent talk earlier in d day, showed some good bowling form during the practice and so we decided to give him d NEW ball. But he did not live upto the team’s expectation and gave away 11 runs and also injured a batsman, Surya. Next over was mine, did some pretty good job, just 6 runs of it.

The pitch was a true bouncing track and with a new ball it was very exciting. I just loved the pitch for what it offered to the bowlers. Thadaka, a stubborn by nature!, returned for d 3^rd over and gave away 11 more runs again !!. 3 overs up and Deepak’s team was 28/0. I bowled the 4^th over and the very first bowl Deepak hit a boundary of a bouncer, it was an awesome shot. But the next 5 balls I did not let him take a single run. It’s my personal best against d best batsman of MSIT, 5 dot balls against him, yuppie..!!. That’s it, Sandy’s team made a comeback and gave away just 20 runs in d last 7.5 overs, thanks to the economic bowling by him, Raghu n RamReddy. setting d target to 53.

Sandy’s team chased it down wid few hiccups. It was a storm that stopped Raghu and me hit the winning runs. All ran to hostel for shelter except Raghu, Deepak n I. We let ourselves get drenched by the rain in d ground. For a moment I thought it isn’t March but July or August. But then the thought of leaving the IIIT campus after two months made me realize that it is March indeed. This place has given me everything that I desired in my life – from sports to studies to friends to resources to freedom. It is upto individuals to make use of it. For me, I played my three best shots – the cover drive, the straight drive and the square cut(probably the only shots that I play!). Raghu, the only admirer of my off-side strokes, on the non-striker’s end must have enjoyed it to the fullest.

Coming back to this day’s never ending tale, we had an exhaustive photo session in the hostel wid d wet clothes on, and thank God Sairam wasn’t there! The pics speak more than what I can write, courtesy Prashant Budihal’s creativity and Deepak’s cam. Thereafter, I worked on the ISB project for thereafter. Last but not d least, we had an intense tennis practice under the aegis of Raghu and Vamshi after the dinner. We missed Sharma, who went home last night, but Sairam - the emerging player - filled the void. What more does one asks for in a single day? It had everything – studies, sports and good memories wid friends. In fact, I was raring to have a day like this as I couldn’t be a part of it in d recent past. I fear many of my batch mates or at least I will get into some sort of depression (not in its true sense) once we leave IIIT and if we do not keep ourselves busy wid something or d other then.

Finally, many of u must be wondering why I started off blogging wid this post. I already have some generalized blog topics in my mind, but sometimes life is all about what u enjoy the most and u just want to have a written script of it so that everyone involved cherish those moments later.