Hrishikesh Pallod

                'God of Cricket', ‘The Wall’, ‘God of the offside’, ‘God of the second innings'.. these titles are testimony to their unforgettable and ineradicable contribution to the game . Anil Kumble and Saurav Ganguly retired in 2008, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman retired this year. These four members along with Sachin Tendulkar have been the pillars of the team for a long time. Pillars that stood tall and compelling when the ‘invincible’ Aussies ruled the world but India. Back then, having nightmares in India was a common thing for legends like Warne, Akhtar, Lee, Mcgrath, and others.                           Ganguly and Dravid, after a not-so-successful ODI debut, got a chance to play in a test match after a couple of senior players got injured. Little did the world know, that the match they were ab...

                This is one little game which every idle person on this planet likes to play. When we’ve got nothing to do, the first thing we do is – Go into the past -> Create a hypothetical situation -> And trace the events leading to the present. This is the ‘what if’ situation. When things don’t exactly go the way you want to, they end with you debugging the past.  A Bigger Picture.. Certain situations which could’ve changed the present completely :        Adam and Eve discover they’re gay.   The British never enter India.   The British leave India after India’s is fully developed.   Hitler wins the World War II.   The Soviets remain united.   Gandhi supports Subhash Chandra Bose’s methods.   Pandavas do not lose Draupadi to Kauravas.   The apple falls after Newton leaves.     Flintoff does nothing to...

Every time a major tournament starts, all the good memories start coming back to me : Dhoni’s winning six in WC 2011, Sreesanth’s catch in WC 2007, Bhajji’s magical delivery to get rid of Umar Akmal in the semi-final, Yuvraj’s six sixes..  Like all other tournaments, India start as one of the more powerful contenders for the title, and anything less than the trophy would be disappointing for the fans. Considering how erratic this format is, and especially in this tournament, it’s impossible to pick the strongest team. India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and West Indies look very good. A not-so-convincing win against Afghanistan, caused some frustration, but that’s okay. Sehwag and Gambhir  haven’t  really played the kind of cricket we are used to see them play. Hope they come good in the next few matches. The big thing to look forward to is of course, Yuvraj Singh. Being the star of India’s world cup win in 2011 and 2007, the expectations are no less. It’s been mor...

    Time:- 12 a.m.     Venue:- An empty street, India.     Scene:- A young girl and a less-than-innocent looking stranger(a man), walking down the road. In what  way is the girl expected to act in such a situation? She has no idea who the person is, whether he’s drunk, depressed, pissed with the world or just some random guy with no bad intension. Something really unfortunate and disturbing happened in Guwahati last week, which was nothing less than a catastrophe. This made me think, “What is India for a girl?” or “What a girl should expect from a stranger constantly staring at her?” These questions do have answers. And these answers will put India in the dark shadow of hypocrisy yet again. A certain part of an Indian will still say, “It was the girl’s mistake.. She shouldn’t have been there at that time”, while overlooking the 30 odd people who molested her. Why is that, people first talk about ‘the way she was dressed’ or...

         Ancient Romans believed in a superstition that an infertile woman touched by a man in some kind of race could make her fertile. Like every married man, Julius Caesar too wanted to be a father. Caesar was too egoistic to accept anything which put a question on him being a man .   Festival of Lupercal (44 BC) ..                   This feast was to honor godess Pan, who was considered to be the godess of fertility. This was celebrated in the middle of february and some believe that the Valentine's day has its origin here. It was the day he came back to Rome, when Caesar asked Antony to participate in the race and touch Calpurnia. He, like all the Romans believed that this would shake off her sterile curse. But that did no good.  Later that night when Caesar returned home .. Calpurnia : Hey Caese, waddup? Caesar : It has alway...

        In one of my previous posts, I had written about adapting to changes in life and accepting life in its unadulterated form. Does that mean we’ve surrendered before our inner demons? Is it that we are too obsequious to challenge our destiny? Is it always about what we DESERVE? The bad guy in me says, “ NO, it’s about what you WANT ”.  Another question, “What exactly is the difference between ‘desire’ and ‘deserve’?”          Bad guy – “It’s getting too senti bro, I’m leaving”.         A couple of years ago, I came across some article in a magazine. It was about a 16 year old girl from Bangalore who got up on a Monday morning to find her father dead in the balcony. I know, Mondays are not supposed to be good, but such a nightmarish start was not called for. A week later she discovered, the place she lived her entire childhood was mortgaged. She couldn’t bel...

Venue: 4 th floor of a building(no elevator). Yeah, you read that right. Prerequisites: Java basics and familiarity with the OOP concept. What do you expect from an 'Android App Development Workshop'? Well, I thought I would make atleast a couple of decent apps. Instead I copy pasted the code for a couple of below par and ‘so-called’ apps. Now, let me describe the guy who conducted this workshop.   His name is.. umm.. lets assume it to be Bachhan Pandey. He has the ability to talk through his nose.   Takes this ‘e’ thing a bit too seriously. When he says ‘school’, we hear ‘eschool’. Or when he says ‘stores the state’, we hear ‘estores the estate’.   Always looks for an opportunity to promote his institution. Damn confident and straight forward. Yes, that’s true, ask him anything , he has his answer fixed- “You try changing the names of the variable, if it doesn’t work, I don’t know” He has a laptop with a processor, which probably was the fastes...

        I believe this should be the most hated word of the century. And that’s because it never lives up to its dictionary meaning. Its dictionary meaning - “1. Forming an essential foundation, 2. Consisting of the minimum required”. It's always associated with something complicated. Almost all students and teachers in this world use the word ‘basically’ probably every time they start talking about something. For instance, when a teacher asks a student to explain a certain thing, the student will always start like this- “Basically its blah blah.. aa.. blah.. aa.. blah. So basically its blah and aaa.. ummm.. blah”. Its time, we should think about some new way to start with, while saying something. But why do I hate this word so much? Is it because I’ve heard it a million times or is it because it’s a part of a subject’s name called ‘ Basic Electronics Engineering ’. Oh, and ‘Basic Mechanical Engineering’ too.       ...

     Being in an engineering college, I have regular assignments, vivas & tests apart from fever and headache. My new assignment is to write a ‘Book Review’ on something inspirational. Someone recommended me a book called ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ by Spencer Johnson, and I need to thank him for that. I’ve never been much into reading, so reading a book and writing a review didn’t really excite me. Books like ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ and ‘You can Win’ occupy some part of my book shelf, but I’ve always preferred to read a ‘Five Point Someone’.      But this book was an exception. ‘Cheese’ in this story is like a metaphor for something which we possess, or something which we desire for. It’s a story about Sniff and Scurry, the two mice, and two little men, Hem and Haw. Finding cheese is their only goal in life. But nothing is permanent. Life puts before us a number of twists, and it depends on us, whether to consider these twists to be ...

         Well, India has just lost an ODI vs Australia. Err.. I shouldn't have started my first blog like this.          Looking through the window, on a Sunday evening, what I'm seeing is a bright yellow thing fading with time but getting ready for the arrival of spring. This is the best part of a day. Ummm, I don't think I can write about anything but cricket right now, so here I go..          Its been a while since India won something worthwhile in cricket. But for me INDIA=CRICKET. On the 2nd day of April last year India won the World Cup, and Dhoni, after a rough patch was the man again. Social networking sites, newspapers and everyone hailed him has the greatest captain ever. But this did not last long. Some days ago when India lost to England and Australia in consecutive test series(away), all Indians had just one man to blame. On facebook and twitter, pict...