The Indian Olympic Saga

There exists a time once every four years wherein many in our country try to talk about the apathy of the sporting scenario.  Now what happens during the period between one Olympics and the other is something we fail to comprehend and that is the root level of all the setbacks. Sustainability, endurance and perseverance, they do exist in our athletes, but then again if they had some external backing, which would do a world of good to their mental toughness.

Lets do a quick status quo on the current happenings:

The Men’s team event in the archery pre quarters was in India’s hand all along till that 8 from Tarundeep Rai. India had a lead all along hovering between 2 to 3 points and that is a decent enough lead. So the question arises, why do we tend to falter when it is the time to deliver the most? It was a pretty scene to see the gelling between the three members with Jayantha sporting one of those earlier Dhoni hairdos (or Dhoni had copied him) you never know, but with the high fives after each shot meant they were in good spirits.

Rai was pretty consistent all along with his shots fetching 9s on most of the occasion. The pressure gets to you, but you somehow get the impression it gets to you too much and this is where the Japanese thrived. They took over of the situation with their mental toughness and scored their best when it mattered, during the tie breaker (India and Japan tied at 214 and the tie breaker was used to decide the winner of the eliminator, Japan won it by 29-27 finally).  The venue looked spectacular with the Lord’s pavilion at the backdrop and with an over enthusiastic announcer at the venue had kept the supporters egging along. India after the ranking round debacle where they ended last in the seedings did do justice to their number 3 tag before the round today with quite a few tens. So yes, one of the good medal hopes did die down pretty quick.

Ankita Das, paddler carrying the women’s table tennis hopes on a burden did little justice to her potential. The doordarshan commentator went on to say ‘Indian women are slow starters and there, you could see people anguishing at that remark on the social networks already. But on a second thought, he did have a point and spoke on what he saw; she was down 3 to nothing, gaining a consolation set in the 4^th game after being thrashed in the 5^th by Sara.

Diju and Gutta are pretty formidable when they are at home tournaments.  Gutta’s forehand smash could be given the hulk smash tag when in full flow, but then again, the body language was falling. They couldn't garner up a decent fight in the end, losing in straight sets. The only positive that came out of the day was the first round victory of P.Kashyap, wait till he faces the Chinese though.

So yes, summing it up, I tried to look deep and try figuring out the status quo of where do they falter? When it comes to achievements, they do spring up a surprise with their performances at other major tourneys but somehow India fails to deliver at every Olympic, when I say fail, I don’t really mean a medal, but the fact is many falter at the very first hurdle.

I will never question the talent pool that this country has. It just needs a proper direction. The same India notched up 3 figure medal tally, finishing ahead of Great Britain amongst the many teams there, which announced a slow reformation in the sporting scenario in the country in the last edition of the CWG. So there, the matter should be put to rest.  I was talking about how the interests builds up before every Olympics on India bettering it’s past performance with a friend of mine today, it wasn't all that wrong either especially after DAY 1’s turn out of results, but then again, I understand the plight of the athletes, they would want to do best, having been a state level discus thrower myself during my school days, but I lost the urge to continue over a period of time and it wouldn’t been be a surprise to find the scenario with many of our athletes (ask Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, that girl who won all those gold medals for her golden run, Santhi Soundarajan, who works as a daily wager . It’s again the motivation with incentives which is sufficient to get the best out of you. I’ll be the last person to not leave support of the contingent and probably is too early to state all this, but this has been a trend of quite some time and hence the urge to let it out. Please prove me wrong and I’ll be the happiest.

Narang, Bindra, Sodhi, Saina, Sushil, Vijender, Deepika, Bhupathi-Bopanna, Marykom: These many champions in our line up, we ought to do better this time and as for the rest of the 81 team contingent, surprise me, you’ll have the entire nation’s backing. Getting into the 2 figure medal tally is something I’d always wish for and there are members to deliver it. The mysterious woman incident will also be forgotten then sooner than expected.

Conquest of Everest

Chomolungma, every mountaineer’s pinnacle, is one goddess which any climber would like to scale down once in their lifetime and it would be every adventurer’s dream to call this their ‘Path of Glory’ , a brilliant piece of artefact written by Jeffrey Archer. The Everest expeditions began at the time when India was fighting their first war of independence and it was conquered a century later.

The Britishers known for their enthusiasm of conquering the whole world during that period were quite adventurous too. Delve down into the history pages of the Royal Geographical Society and you would know why!

George Mallory

The story revolves around the life and times of the protagonist, George Mallory, adventurous and him trying to out limit his ability all time would be the most apt way of describing him. Coming from a small town with a not-so-good financial background and ending up climbing the walls of Cambridge to become a lecturer there, from scaling the alps to Mont Blanc to the Eiffel tower (almost till he was brought down by the police) and winning his lady’s heart by climbing up a hotel nimble footed and finally going onto become the talk of the town.. the story has it all. The plethora of the agony and the ecstasy which he and his wife goes through is what sets the motion for this good read and the sacrifice which Ruth Mallory (his wife) makes is one every partner would hope for.

Guy Bullock, Geoffrey Young, Simon Odell, George Finch, Edward Norton, Noel Odell, Sandy Irvine to name a few fit into the characters really well (mind you these names are for real though!)

The final expedition team from the RGS

George Leigh  Mallory began his final expedition with Sandy Irvine being his partner for the final climb on a Sunday morning of June 8^th 1924 and never made  it back and his body was finally discovered in 1999, 75 years since his brave death. 

George and Sandy from Camp VI

Though the book gives itself a fiction tag, there are certain facts which probably fall into place and are for real except for some of the letters which looked similar to ‘Letters from a father to her daughter by Nehru’ except here the 2 sides are taken up by George and Ruth (unless the letters which were written a century ago were all found to be intact). Members from the expedition team mention the last time they had seen Mallory was a mere 600 feet from the summit, now going through his life and times and the way Archer claims his prime character to be (about him disappearing after reaching atop the roof of the world) , it wouldn’t be surprising if the history books are rewritten.

• Will the camera be ever found and turn the history pages all over.
• Did Mallory summit Mt.Everest? Only time would tell as more expeditions set out to discover it.

 And as Nepal sets into another expedition of remeasuring the altitude, Bachendri Pal being shown in a new series of teleads and after having watched a recent bollywood flick, daring seems to be the word for the moment in mind kyunki darr ke aage jeet hai :)

Shimla, You beauty!

                      A tryst with nature…

Ever since my bachelors’ started, at the end of every semester a family trip happens inevitably and for the good. After having toured Nainital, Ooty, Jaipur in the first 3 semesters, it was decided that there was another hill station which had to be given a try mostly accounting for soaring temperatures in the northern part of India currently.. Hence it was decided and booked, we were heading towards Himachal‘s capital.. Shimla.

Factoid 1: Shimla was the summer capital for the whites while it was Delhi during winter.

DAY 0: (I made sure I kept a good track of time)

Early wake up call. Parents were already half way through preparations when I finally left the bed. Within an hour, I managed to be ready with a final touchdown on the necessities required for the trip.

8.00: Reached Himachal Bhavan in Connaught Place, Delhi which was to be our boarding place. The bus arrives..those huge giants of a Volvo, scheduled to leave in half hour. Meanwhile we go inside and have a glimpse of the history of HP in the bhavan one of the many situated in the heart of Delhi.

8.40: The bus leaves with about half of its capacity and a few couple minutes late for the ISBT terminus which they say would be the place where the major chunk of tourists would board from, which was true and then we were off and expecting to reach the summer capital of British India in about 9 hours.

13.15: Lunch. The bus  journey could turn out to be a little boring if you don’t have the right company, but I made sure I did with an adventurous novel of Archer, Paths of Glory (coincidently  it was about a boy and his journey through mountains..might’ve had an impact later) and this sure kept me occupied.

Factoid 2: The train route is a must for those who have time in hand. The only problem would be the half the distance it covers in about 6.5 hours, but surely worth the wait.. It goes through around 100 tunnels and much greater scenic beauty. ‘chaiya chaiya’ directors would’ve surely experienced a tough time filming it here.

scenic beauty can be enjoyed to its fullest on the toy train wheels!

one of the many tunnels..there are a 100 of them on its way

20.30: After a good couple hours of delay primarily caused due to a huge pile up near Chandigarh, we stepped foot on Himachal soil. And then what happened was totally unexpected. We saw a sea of tourists waiting everywhere. We were told by some of our family friends that this should be an off season so we didn’t bother booking hotels. But that was contrary to our expectations and thought like the way we normally do of booking once we reach the place. But this time it was totally different. We gave company to a few fellow families some of them were waiting since the past 4 hours. Reason:  No rooms available.

Factoid 3: There are about 700 hotels in Shimla ranging from few couple of rooms to a hundred. But it still falls short during this period of June-July

    No more space and yet no space for us!!

21.00: I and dad went in opposite directions to find a decent enough place. And then these porters of Shimla, who start following you till eternity, stating they’ve rooms specially reserved at a little higher price (you sense something fishy by now). We avoided them but no luck. We nearly searched around 30 to 35 hotels but to no avail, then finally dad struck gold but not before paying almost 3 times its off season rate, we finally got a  good place.

21.45: slowly settling down and by now experiencing the misty climate there, we finish off dinner quick for a busy day of touring ahead on the morrow. Tired. You bet!                                                                                                             

Factoid 4: Shimla normally doesn’t have diesel/CNG vehicles (especially the tourist ones) due to the ignition problems the vehicles face during winter.

  

DAY 1:

10.25:  We had booked for a tour of Kufri followed by a  hilltop temple called Jakhu. First stop at the Green Valley, scores of pine trees all around draping the mountains and the valleys passing beneath. Firsthand look at the serene beauty of the place. This was followed by a visit to a temple named ‘bal durga ‘ where the deities were outnumbered by the monkeys there. (Name a place where these inmates don’t have their presence? Seldom!)

                                   The Green valley..

11.25: Then came probably the most exciting, interesting, unexpected part of the trip. We were told that vehicles don’t go further and the further mode of transportation would be the horses. This was easily the most crowded place, called ‘The Horse Point’ since the bus terminus with around 2 to 2.5k people in and around that area all searching for horses and again a huge queue to follow it up. Luckily our driver shared a good rapport with one of the owners and we got our tickets pretty quick!

   The ascent..                                                                       And the roads..!

Factoid 5: The govt of Himachal has earmarked 1176 horses meant for these high mountain rides for its tourists.

11.45: There were 2 packages available one to Kufri, another with Kufri to Dushu peak, the highest point in Shimla, we took the latter. Had to wait for a good 20-25 mins before we had our horses. And I was really surprised to see the enthusiasm of my parents with a little help off they sat and were raring to participate in a derby if given the opportunity. I got a stained white one. And by the looks of it, it didn’t really like the load and with a sniff or two it had really got impatient and this caused another delay of 20 mins to find a replacement. A brown one now and at around 12ish we finally began our ascent.

12.10: By now I had got used to the horse with a heavy backpack and a slippery saddle. You could see a train of horses going up and down the treacherous path (it really was) and with those little ‘oos and the aas’ from the ladies it was sure going to be fun. But next what followed was truly scenic as we went up.

Factoid 6: Kufri forms the major destination for all. It is at an altitude of 9000-9500 feet.  Very few go on from here (only about 5%) to scale the 11500 feet peak.

13.05: After an hour of riding and the backs starting to hurt we finally reached Kufri ( kulfi sounded more soothing then ).  What looked like a massive garden with people scattered everywhere. There were a lot of places to visit here. And the Himalayas slowly started showing up their outlines. There was this telescopic point from which the Indo-China border (33.5 kms), the Himalayas, the Indo-Pak Shimla agreement signing quarters, the palace/hotel where the shooting of 3 idiots (last part) took place, the highest point of Shimla which I later went onto climb were visible. Visibility was a problem though especially the distant ones. Then moved onto to the apple garden region but hardly found any L.

14.35: Quickly grabbed a bite for lunch and we were instructed to call up the horseman (don’t know what else to call him!) half hour before being ready to go on further. This was delayed too as it was really difficult to find him out of the hundreds present. And at around 3 we’re off. Now this was becoming a challenge for my parents and they felt a li’l in the uncomforted zone. We went on further totally in awe of nature by now. And then it was decided I would carry on and they’d take some much needed rest. The horses went a little further and then the biggest challenge of the day arrived. The last 1000-1500 feet by walk. Even horses wouldn’t go further. From thousands to hundreds to tens here. Very few went further. And I decided (if you’ve read carefully enough, there was a motivation I’ve mentioned above) to move on. 

 

They ain't going any further from here!   

                                

On foot and the way to the top!

14.50: Dead exhausted after the climb of 800 steps and there I was at 11500 feet on the dushu peak along with a goddess Kali temple. FRUITFUL !!. Never before on such high grounds. On any other clear day the peaks would be clearly visible but nevertheless it was clear enough. I was all by myself during the climb. And saw a few couple of them there.                                                                             

From the top..  

                                                    Dushu Peak achieved!                                                                  

15.15: it was decided not to take the horse ride again and we took the car instead for the descent and then finally went to the Jakhu temple, a huge statue of Hanuman recently built standing tall still looking unfinished with the barricades lying around. The monkeys galored here too and why not? It was their lookalike after all!

17.30: We finally returned from possibly the most adventurous day till date (at least in my senses) and finally into the shopping streets of Shimla called ‘The Mall Road’ and good to be amongst the thousands again.  And after an hour of shopping and me lurking around here and there, we finally called it a day with a fabulous dinner.

So hope this was interesting for you all to read as much as I experienced it firsthand. Shimla, a must visit for any adventure lover. And after having burnt a big hole in our pockets, we returned back to Delhi on DAY 2 in the night with a lot of memorable snaps!!

Factoid 7: Shimla is at an altitude of 7200 feet while its highest point is a good 4000 feet above. You could feel the difference in the oxygen levels and the difficulty in breathing for a commoner and you visibly see daylight even at 7.45 pm and the sun rises at around 5 during this time of the year.

Cheers!

Sanky 

From School to College...

And I begin..             

There used to be a time during our process of growing up during the school days that we used to plan out things in a systematic manner or be on track than what we are now!

We used get everything done in time in any sphere of the schooling itinerary. The assignments, general preparedness for a subject (for the tests) used to be completed well within. Boy, those were the days we used to be disciplined and these values are generally inculcated  given by the two most important people in your life. But things change. The TRANSITIONS.  Transitions are an integral part of a student life as one crosses various phases say from the lower primary to primary and then to the high school as getting matured  at the same time too.You tend to take part in as many socio cultural, curricular extracurricular, sporting activities  and end up having a big fat file of certificates piled up at one side of your wardrobe. These all tend to make up a fabulous schooling career fortunately I ended up sharing this experience too like many of my friends have. While on the other hand many do take a chilled out approach right from the word go. We finish school and enter what I call 

Then slowly comes the great Indian dream of every  parent that his ward doing excellently well at the competitive exams after the 12^th boards and I really believe this is where the biggest transition occurs in a student life(apparently the transition begins when you enter 10^th), you tend to become studious and really lose track of what’s really your interest of focus (mind you this is with regards to an average common student, there are and’ll be exceptions too, students also realize how interesting a C6H6 molecule or d/dx or even a f=ma equation can be and fascinate them and eventually could phase a career out of it). Parenting really is of prime importance here and the way they lead you during this phase is quite worth of  a mention. Now  I'm gonna speak with respect to an engineering student, being one, not that the scenario is completely different in other fields

11th and 12th : That’s where the toiling day in and day out comes into play. Every student is enrolled into a coaching institute no matter how tiring the schedule could turn out to be these days. Sit helplessly with something going into the head while on most occasions you end up thinking about miscellaneous stuffs, in short you get saturated, if I could put in a hdl format  , the behavioral modeling of the character occurs here, if this is your forte no better place but then you can't rule out the other perspective too.(again do remember this is from the average student’s point of view as they form the largest chunk of mass as stressed before.) This has essentially brought about a ‘studial’ revolution in the country. Every student makes a conscious effort at some point of time to study due to the fear of social implication attached to it. Some succeed and some more succeed too. You give the umpteen number of entrances do well in any one of them and there you go.. you are on your way. I couldn’t do justice to my expectations in one of the expected entrances , my father ( now he’s probably the most sensible and optimistic person I’ve known) hinted on going to the epicentre of coaching in India. I resented and I’m doing pretty alright now.

Given the number of colleges you’ve in India nowadays (famous and the not so famous combined), doing a bachelor’s doesn’t seem to that difficult after all. You’ll get into one of them, ain’t to worry. Some may get into the college of their choice while others based on other’s choice and some due to no other choice..i remember going through the various colleges the day before the ‘auctioning’ of seats at a fairly reasonable fixed rate were to be taking place.

Then there comes another phase of transition, and mates this is the transition even I’m and most of you are undergoing currently. You are a wannabe and a gonnabe graduate. The transformation which you go through here is not comparable to anything else ‘you simply change the most’ here.  Few end up being day scholars and most of them become a hostelite and that’s where the fun begins. I caught up with a friend of mine a few days back who was one of my favorite childhood buddies and he exclaimed ‘I sure am surprised to see you in the hostel specially after having knowing your mom’ see, (given that my mom still treats me like a 10 year old though I’m almost the double of it) that’s where the changes begin. You get a sense of maturity and the times you’ll start making decisions for yourself. Hostel life is sure fun and if you sure know to be the Mr.popular, it is the best place to be in. I was not ragged in my first year neither I’ve indulged myself in such acts of immorality do in my sophomore year. Hostel is sure turning out to a fun ride.

The Hostel:

 I joined my hostel a month after the college started coz my mom was here for a month (parents are currently settled in the northern part of india) . Sure gives you a different experience, you starting off to live, handle, take care of oneself. The first few days are probably the most interesting part of this new phase, the friends you make , the new faces you come in touch with, not to forget in the college too are instrumental in adapting to the new environment. Some get adjusted pretty early, some take a li’l bit of time. The fact that there are lots of there to help you out with the different aspects of concern is a huge advantage. The information sharing happens the fastest here and that’s where it is a big plus.

But then again there are its own set of flaws too. Since there isn’t a guarding force to advice there might be occasional deviation (could happen a bit too often too) from the work you intend to do. You plan alright but the execution becomes a matter of concern (personally feel this all the time). In short Hostel makes you go lazy. The more you stay in a hostel,

     a.  The better you learn to take care of yourself and

      b. The more you tend to deviate away from the tasks which are meant to be important. This actually relates to         the initial intro of this article. The 11^th hour more often than not becomes your first hour.

     c.  But the hostel is fun, it’ll make you do things out of the normal traditional way, helps you to be better adapted to any situation.

      d.  Movies, serials, big time adda, get togethers, the occasional catch up regarding academic, specially during  the test. 

     e. If a chap is popular here, the b’days are the last day he would wanna be in a hostel. Never would he’ve got   a public thrashing the way he’d here that too on a day he’s least expected elsewhere.

       f.  The occasion hangouts with friends is what I really used to enjoy though it has become a bit seldom nowadays. And must say I’ve acclimatized to the situation well.

      g.  A big event happen on television, it sure turns out to be more enterprising  due to atmosphere created in the TV room (talk about cricket and that place is yours)

So, this transition forms a part of every person’s life and it is very well accepted by all.  We’ll have moved onto the next stage and some are in the process. But it sure an experience that no one will miss. I enjoyed this transition hope you must’ve too if not more. But yes, it all depends on you how you utilize the scenario.

Make the best out of it. 

Now we all would wanna relive the school days once again wouldn’t we? ;-)

Cheers!

Sankhsarkar

P.S. I’m an Indian and  India did create history on 2^nd april, 2011.