My Experience with Dreams

Dreams are known to be manifestations of the suppressed thoughts and ideas which are lying in the sub conscious mind. If you dream more does it mean that you are an introvert who does not speak out the thoughts? Well I cannot answer this but my gut feel says that it has nothing to do with whether it is an introvert or an extrovert as introvert might complete the thought process but just does not express them. Wait!!! This is not something I want you guys to read ... let us talk about the dreams.

My experience with dreams is that when ever a dream is good or happens to be something of my liking the sleep gets disturbed or alarm blows off or something else happens to make sure that the dream is not completed and even if I get back to the bed immediately within a few seconds - stopping the alarm - the dream does not continue and in a very short while I even forget what it was. Where as when a dream is bad or happens to be something which I don't like even if I forcibly break out of the sleep and try to sleep after a short break of a couple of minutes the dream tends to continue.

One such thing happened to me last night and I cannot recollect what it was? But I can recollect a couple of dreams where I could sense what was coming my way- one such instance that I can quote is - 10 days prior to CAT 2004 - I saw a paper in my dream with 123 questions with different marks for different questions. I told my friend about it - we laughed over the fact that CAT was taking a large toll out of us. And come the exam - we see exactly 123 questions in the paper with variable marking although not as random as I had seen in my dream but the number was a stunner and I was amazed for a couple of minutes during which I recollected Joseph Murphy's words that says - if you want something to happen let your subconscious mind know about it and it will make sure that you go through a path to achieve the goal. The stronger you think the greater the chances of occurring - I cannot tell you how much water can this argument hold but surely at that moment I wanted to read the book that had this argument - The power of Subconscious mind - which happens to be one of the my favorite books. It says a lot of things on how you could use your subconscious mind and Oops wait again is this what I want you guys to read ... Not at all... I think ... Let me take a break...

Over dosage?

Today was India Pakistan final in a Tri-series and at least from the campus I found that there were very few who were following it and definitely there has been a notable drop in the passion of the viewers. There is a view point saying that there is an over dosage of cricket between these two nations. Lets see how much weight can be given to this view point.

The nations have restored their sporting ties in 2003 after a 3 year break. Since then the nations played 30 ODIs each winning exactly half of them. The following table gives data of number of matches played by India against various oppositions in the last five years.

Team	Played	Won
Pakistan	30	15
Australia	29	7
Srilanka	24	12
England	18	11
South Africa	14	5
West Indies	14	7
New Zealand	12	5
Small Nations	26	24
Total	167	86

No doubt we have played more cricket against them but its just 6 matches per year and if we look back we have played each other 44 times in the last 5 years of the previous decade. Each and every ball was savored by the spectators. So why is the case different today?

Is it the lack of big names - Sachin, Saurav, Rahul, Inzamam, Akthar? Common they cannot play for ever.

One could argue that there is a generation gap between the viewers of 90s to that of todays - the interests and passions are different and may be for this generation the number of matches is over dosage and if that is the case the fact that we have about 7 - 8 matches lined up against each other this year is not a good sign. Wait but then ... less than an year back the whole nation celebrated the success of the India over the arch rivals in the T20 world cup. So is it the beginning of slide down of interest in 50 over cricket after the huge success of the latest 20 -20 format? Time can only tell us that.

It is also important to note that India - Australia encounters are evoking more interest in the nation. Has the Indian team graduated to a new level leaving Pakistan behind and have a clash with the world champions? Not really I guess - we just won one series against Aussies - Thanks to Sachin Tendulkar and the young bowlers.

Any ways it is sad to see one of the greatest encounters of the game losing its charm.

How I met my friend?

Disclaimer: If you do not have an idea of Delhi this post might not make much sense still a good leisure read

I was on a short break at Delhi and hence wanted to meet one of my old colleague from Wilco who happened to be working at Noida. I left my uncle's place at around 10AM in the morning and gave him a call and it so happened that he was on a city tour with his relatives and that point of time he was at Rajghat. I thought I can catch up with them somewhere on their tour and I asked him for his itenary. He told me that they were going to ISCKON temple - I had asked a couple of dozen people on where ISCKON temple was and none of them knew about it and hence I told my friend that I cannot meet him at ISCKON but can meet him at the next destination - he told me that it would be Laxmi Narayan temple - some how it got registered in me as Swami Narayan Temple. Took a metro from Uttam Nagar to Indraprastha and got down at Pragathi Maidan - took an auto and reached Swami Narayan temple at around 11:30 AM - gave a call to my friend just to find out the blunder I made while listening and told him that I would meet up with him before the end of the day - but this was a good mistake to make - I was glad to visit one of the architectural marvels - Akshardham in Delhi - my second one to a Swami Narayan Temple - the first one being at London four years ago. Visited the huge temple and had my lunch at the food court and moved on to meet my friend again - they were planning to reach the Laxmi Narayan temple in an hour from then may be after their lunch. On my way back I thought I will visit India Gate - a recommended place by one of my friends - on the way I found that Raj ghat was pretty close to Pragathi Maidan and could have met my friend at Rajghat well in the morning- reached India gate and had a long walk from India Gate to Central Secretariat and gave a call to my friend just to realise that they finished their lunch and were moving out of AP Bhavan which happened to be pretty close to where I was standing then and I was just kicking myself for not having asked him where they were having lunch then instead I was loitering on the roads of Delhi around the India Gate. Then I took a metro to Rajiv Chowk while my friend and finally at around 3:30PM I met him at the Laxmi Narayan Temple. I just managed to reach the temple while they were getting out of the temple. Visited the temple and got to spend some time with him and later in the day moved back home with a sense of accomplishment - Met my friend and saw a good number of places in Delhi and more importantly used public transport for most of my travel.

Delhi Metro - Second to None

End of Summers - Planned to stay a couple of days in Delhi before going back to campus. Completed the last day presentations and other formalities at Feedback and had to go to my uncles place at Janakpuri. Had a cab drop from Gurgaon office to Dwarka and from there to Janakpuri had an option of either taking an auto or try Delhi Metro. Went for the second option ... Metro is not an unfamiliar concept to me ... had seen London Metro and Tokyo Metro before ... but was curious to see how the Desi version of it looks like. My first metro from Dwarka to Uttam Nagar.

The stations were clean and marvelous. Thanks to the prohibition of food and beverages in the station area and the train. I think this was a good and bold step towards maintaining the cleanliness of the facility. The revenues from selling food and beverages are foregone for the sake of cleanliness and also may be the maintenance costs justify the decision - not aware of the economics involved. The security measures taken were adequate.

The ticketing system is fool proof very much like that in Tokyo Metro with very minor changes. Firstly tickets were reusable coins - no paper wastage as in other metro tickets. The charge correction facility at the destination exists which is a desired feature. However the ticket vending and charge correction activities are manual, it would be good to explore the possibility of having a vending machine - again having a look at the costs.

The station has route maps painted beside the counter so that the person can make a decision on which lines to take and where to change. However it would have been good to mark 3-4 popular places to visit at each station or in other words nearest station for each popular place. Example - For India Gate get down near Central Secretariat ... some thing on those lines would have been beneficial.

The platforms display the train time and the trains are prompt. On the platform you can see people standing everywhere and this was the case in London also here I would mention about one thing I liked in Tokyo - there are marks drawn on the platform where the doors are expected to open and passengers used to stand in a line there waiting for the train. This is easily implementable and would help avoid the last minute anxiety among the passengers. The stopping time is decent and speed or smoothness of travel is excellent. The coaches are clean and spacious. The distance between stations is adequate again.

The connectivity to the stations is ensured by feeder bus same as those at MMTS stations in Hyderabad - I read about the concept however have not seen them as I had not travelled by MMTS. The stations have parking lots similar as to MMTS stations again.

Overall the experience has been fantastic and with many cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai going for a mass public transport in metro - it would not only save cities from traffic and ensure a fast, smooth and pollution free commutation but also would encourage the sale of ipods, ishuffles or mp3 playes and books/magazines improving the reading habits of the nation in the long run.

Free Time bole to Free cell

Its been close to seven years that the winning streak of 1628 games was broken. It used to be one of my favorite pass times along with NFS, Cricket, Pinball and Minesweeper during my engineering days at MS Ramaiah and from then I might have hardly played about a dozen games of Freecell all these years. Now I think its time to rediscover the game-definitely not to emulate the winning streak but lets see how far it goes.

Ab sey free time bole to Free cell

Life after IPL

Today it feels like a calm after a storm. The storm called IPL which has become a part of my routine for the last two months. Today when I switched on TV at 8PM as I do every day, some dreadful movie is being screened at the same channel which telecasted the first edition of this mega event for the last fifty odd days. Even in the wildest of his dreams Mr. Lalit Modi - the man behind the concept would not have thought that it would become such a huge hit. Some thought it was an overdose of cricket but it was definitely not for me. Almost daily you have a cliffhanger- Close to 50 percent of the matches were close finishes what else would I want as a spectator? But Yes - it might have got way too hectic for the players and support staff.

Irrespective of who won the tournament we have seen a good number of emerging players like Niraj Patel, Abhishek Nayyar, Sidharth Trivedi, Manpreet Gony, Yousuf Pathan, Wridhiman Saha, Swapnil Asnodkar, Ashok Dinda, Shikar Dhawan, Amit Mishra, Vijay kumar Yo Mahesh and Virat Kohli.

It was good to see young guns like Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Piyush Chawla along with the current Indian players like Mahendra Dhoni , Irfan Pathan, Sreeshanth and Virender Sehwag shoulder responsibility for their respective leagues.

It would be incomplete if I don't mention that Saurav Ganguly played with as much zeal as "an youngster performing to find a place in the national team". Another big gun Rahul Dravid seemed to have discovered his lost strokes and shots - it was a heartening effort from him to adjust to a format of game which many thought would least suit his style.

Then we saw some great performances from foreign youngsters and current players like Shaun Marsh, Luke Pommersbach, David Hussey, Shane Watson, Sohail Tanvir and Dale Steyn along with veterans Shane Warne, Sanath Jayasuriya , Muthaiah Muralitharan and Adam Gilchrist.

More importantly we have a good option for a future coach in Shane Warne.

The last few lines might have seemed like a vote of thanks ... but then I think it was a good tournament and the players deserved to be listed by name in this post ... such was the entertainment provided by them during this summer.