Old men with pathetic knowledge about the sport come up with such beautiful phenomena sometimes. This septuagenarian relative of mine with his hair so nearly white, it would stand apart in the dark, once told my dad "This basketball is such a stupid game. I mean, why would you want two teams to go put it in two different baskets when one will do for one ball. They should either reduce the number of baskets or provide another ball. Why, football's worse. When they struggle so hard to bring the ball all the way with their feet, they put the darned goal outside the boundary line!" My poor dad had a tough time explaining the obvious, but coming to think of it. sport sure is demanding. Having dedicated half my life to sport, I seem to realize that, if I had saved all that time and energy I could have completed all my tasks with ease and had spare time go roam the world hunting for golden geese!
S.S.N College of Engineering does not boast of a brilliant basketball team. It doesn't have to. Others know that's the truth. See, we run by modesty! We are a strict no-no to endorsements. But we would appreciate it if you sang ballads in our praise. Maybe come up with witty nicknames like S.S.N.B.A ( You know, its the .. well .. the combo of S.S.N and N.B.A and the like. What's all that gray matter stagnating for? Knock up that top floor and come up with innovative stuff, people!) I mean, all this being voluntarily done by you. We don't ask you to. Practice being at at a fifteen to six in the morning, when the dogs still are asleep with their tails tucked in, waiting to snap at any object that moves, their ears pricking, their noses scanning for fresh ready-to-be-dug-into meat, players jog, jump, roll and sprint with dogged determination. And with sleeveless jerseys that let the cold air seep in and eat out your warmth, bring goosebumps all over your skin and make your fingers go numb, and with shorts so small, had they been any shorter you might not have much of garments on you, basketball players have a grueling, devastating time on the court. To come garnish our woes, it will rain at half past six.
Maybe its all by chance or Mr.Varun and The Madras Meteorological Department had some tie-up I do not know. But at half past six sharp, the showers come down and they sure come down with all the might they can muster. The cold pricks and the water runs down our backs chilling us and we go all 'Brrrr' yet we run. We run not because our college wants us to, not because we were born Olympic Athletes, not remotely because we could outrun the rain, but we run because its in us to run, it takes something to be a sportsman and we have scooped it up, and we shall hold it aloft , be it rain or shine. It does sound more or less like Rocky, I know. Why, with a little of Bill Conti and a backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial, this would be Rocky too. Difference is, we'd be around twelve to thirteen semi-naked 'Rocky's with S.S.N on our chests, signs of sleep in our minds and rabid dogs for security.
Coming to think of it, S.S.N came runners at Hindustan and got third at Crescent and at Rameswaram. Basketball sure does have its share of fun. So what if it means eating masala plastic for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and taking bath under gushing water from crevices in Corporation taps in the wide open, and sleeping in rooms with fans with a blade missing, and lights that work like lightning. Like lightning in the sense, they never stabilize. They just keep flashing like lightning and you eventually land up switching them off and playing 'Who's hitting who' in the dark. That's a fun game actually. You can go hit whomsoever you want and run around aimlessly. Nobody would ever know who has hit who. That is unless they don't catch hold of your hand or your watch or something. If that happens, you can just pray to the holy almighty that the sun never rises again for the rest of human existence. But in the larger perspective we get to play basketball for our college, get to go to class once every four weeks, and roam the world with not a care for all valuable education, and dedicate all that we have to sport, sport and sport alone. All Hail Rocky!
-Supermur.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Foolosophy!
Before proceeding to bestow my disparagement on the very profession of mankind that students have unanimously developed a grudge against, I wish to courteously apologize for my dormancy in the blogging circuit for the past two months. I should attribute the reason to the so-called devoted attachment towards my textbooks that I reluctantly developed for fear of being grounded for eternity, a phenomenon which I strongly believed I would never brand until it started snowing in Chennai. After all, this was a dying attempt at salvaging the dignity I had lost due to my funereal performance during my first year, which was responsible for making me lose my beloved tresses(I'm laboring to restore them back to their lost glory now!) and for awakening the critic in my father. After all if I were an embodiment of cynicism, it should be apparent that it was a hereditary characteristic trait that attained saturation in the genes which were inherited from my dear parents. But what amazes me most is their incredible capability to steer any arbitrary random topic towards my performance and utilize it to wreck my stature. Why, last month I accompanied my dad to the vegetable shop and he tells the vendor 'Oh, How I wish my son's marks were half as appreciable as these carrots!'. I mean, Carrots?? Impervious as your heart maybe, no sane mortal can digest his educational footing being compared to carrots. I could picture myself riding the mule with a garland around my neck, and the music playing in the background. Alas! All I could do was bite my lip and romp back home, cursing my luck. There began the epic journey to improve my scores, and prove my parents wrong, which is why I was in volatile hibernation for the past few months.
I was always under the assumption that a Doctorate in Philosphy would be granted to those who had atleast the barest minimum of English knowledge, but three professors today came to shed some light on my hypothesis. The first class of my fourth semester was enough to help me get a stable idea of what I should be expecting from college in my near future. I promise you, either Satan himself worked at the employment exchange and appointed such highbrows or these losers were the only scapegoats ready to travel a solid forty kilometres outside city limits to teach students as disinterested in education as we were. At 8.10 sharp, the lady walks in, does not so much as bother to even introduce herself, and starts writing things on the board in such miniscule font, my poor classmates had to strain their eyes to even comprehend a fourth of what had been scribbled there. Her reason for the same being 'Children, I write so smallly because I don't want yoo to copy anything down, but imbibe everything into yoour mind'. Bah!. She stressed on the word 'imbibe' because I think she wanted to prove she had her share of professional jargon. The next period was no better because the professor introduced himself as Prakash, with a Ph.D in some imaginary institution, and went on corroborate his theory by lecturing on plain philosophy for the next fifty minutes, during which I had to be awakened twice by my geek-lord neighbour who was taking down notes(For 'precaution' it seems!). He spoke in such hushed tones, ears the size of Jar Jar Binks wouldn't do much good in deciphering his Greek and Latin lecture. When students have a strong notion that college textbooks are the sole reason for the wood-pulp and papyrus deficiency in this part of the Earth, what makes these professors come to this blasphemous conclusion that we would browse through our lessons before sitting for our classes!
The last person in this list of prodigious academicians was a man whose name I refuse to disclose but who I am very sure would have grown to become a fantastic motivational speaker had he been a tad more proficient in the English language. He rambled on for about twenty minutes about his rise to fame, parts of which I could unravel that included his struggle for existence in a remote village somewhere in the middle of nowhere, his passion for teaching and his 'girlfriends' back at school.(He giggled when he said that). But the best part was when he said that his present position should be wholly accredited to his vast English knowledge and communicational skills. Allow me to reproduce the exact statement implemented - 'I have come here to this level, mostly because of my large English skills which you will soonly visualize, and because I never dashed into anything, but took them slowly and steadily'. For the love of God, people with such staggering English knowledge and stunning vocabulary are bound to give budding lexicographers a whole new lease of life! Oh dear Lord, I loyally beg thee not to provide forgiveness by taking a dig at my semester marks, for having taken pot-shots at my lecturers. After all you do know that criticism runs in my very veins. Oh, and if there is any surplus amount of blessings remaining, you still have that I-phone pending! Thank you!
-Supermur.
I was always under the assumption that a Doctorate in Philosphy would be granted to those who had atleast the barest minimum of English knowledge, but three professors today came to shed some light on my hypothesis. The first class of my fourth semester was enough to help me get a stable idea of what I should be expecting from college in my near future. I promise you, either Satan himself worked at the employment exchange and appointed such highbrows or these losers were the only scapegoats ready to travel a solid forty kilometres outside city limits to teach students as disinterested in education as we were. At 8.10 sharp, the lady walks in, does not so much as bother to even introduce herself, and starts writing things on the board in such miniscule font, my poor classmates had to strain their eyes to even comprehend a fourth of what had been scribbled there. Her reason for the same being 'Children, I write so smallly because I don't want yoo to copy anything down, but imbibe everything into yoour mind'. Bah!. She stressed on the word 'imbibe' because I think she wanted to prove she had her share of professional jargon. The next period was no better because the professor introduced himself as Prakash, with a Ph.D in some imaginary institution, and went on corroborate his theory by lecturing on plain philosophy for the next fifty minutes, during which I had to be awakened twice by my geek-lord neighbour who was taking down notes(For 'precaution' it seems!). He spoke in such hushed tones, ears the size of Jar Jar Binks wouldn't do much good in deciphering his Greek and Latin lecture. When students have a strong notion that college textbooks are the sole reason for the wood-pulp and papyrus deficiency in this part of the Earth, what makes these professors come to this blasphemous conclusion that we would browse through our lessons before sitting for our classes!
The last person in this list of prodigious academicians was a man whose name I refuse to disclose but who I am very sure would have grown to become a fantastic motivational speaker had he been a tad more proficient in the English language. He rambled on for about twenty minutes about his rise to fame, parts of which I could unravel that included his struggle for existence in a remote village somewhere in the middle of nowhere, his passion for teaching and his 'girlfriends' back at school.(He giggled when he said that). But the best part was when he said that his present position should be wholly accredited to his vast English knowledge and communicational skills. Allow me to reproduce the exact statement implemented - 'I have come here to this level, mostly because of my large English skills which you will soonly visualize, and because I never dashed into anything, but took them slowly and steadily'. For the love of God, people with such staggering English knowledge and stunning vocabulary are bound to give budding lexicographers a whole new lease of life! Oh dear Lord, I loyally beg thee not to provide forgiveness by taking a dig at my semester marks, for having taken pot-shots at my lecturers. After all you do know that criticism runs in my very veins. Oh, and if there is any surplus amount of blessings remaining, you still have that I-phone pending! Thank you!
-Supermur.
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