We are the champions!!!

After missing out by a whisker in 2008 and failing in the semis in 2009, naama team Chennai has brought home the IPL trophy, after a wonderful season of ups and downs, just like the rising of a phoenix bird from the ashes. As one of the most consistent and under-rated teams in the IPL (without the useless glamour of Bollywood celebrities and those stuff), Chennai really deserved to lift the trophy.

Well known as a cool, fun loving team, Chennai held on to their nerves and performed brilliantly in the semis and the final (but felt sorry for the God for losing :(). The two sixes by namma thala Dhoni off Irfan in the last over of the do-or-die match vs Punjab gave a glimpse of what Chennai is capable of doing. As Dhoni told, if Chennai played with full potential, not many teams can stand their power.

The matches which I watched fully on TV were the matches which Chennai lost. So I decided to take a ‘tough’ decision of not watching any match on TV. The Punjab-Chennai match was the one which proved my ‘theory’ correct. I was watching the scores in Cricinfo and the asking rate for Chennai was increasing like anything. I closed the page and returned to it after 15 mins to see that Dhoni had murdered 2 balls out of the stadium. That made be believe that the semi-finals and finals were won only because I didn’t watch those matches as I was travelling from Hyderabad to Chennai and vice-versa :). I (and many more Indians like me) have been following this ‘tradition’ of doing some routine actions(which would have proved to be effective in some match) for every match, hoping that the luck will continue. I still remember sitting in the same posture till Sachin gets out, so that my movement does not trigger a bad moment for him. Sounds stupid, but I love cricket more than I love myself :).

I switched off my mobile after the first two wickets fell for Chennai in the semifinal. I woke up after midnight to see that Chennai had won. Same procedure against Mumbai, same result :).

I don’t know what are the steps I need to follow to make sure that India brings back the T20 world cup. Hope India beats the s**t out of Pakistan to bring back the cup home.

Goodbye MiG – 21

At last, a news which will make the pilots of the Indian Air Force sigh with relief. The 200+ fleet of MiG–21s, better known as the “Flying Coffins” are going to be retired from service in phases. 121 of the 206 planes were upgraded recently and are fit for service for another 7 years. The remaining 85 are to be retired over the next two years.

The MiG-21s have a dubious distinction of having more losses attributed to accidents rather than in combat. Almost half of the 600+ MiG-21s which India produced during the 1960s have been lost in accidents. Defence analysts’ views are that the Russian design was faulty but the Russians stand their claim that the quality of components manufactured in India are sub-par and not in accordance with the recommended specifications.

And, the MiG-21s were the planes which young pilots were given after they complete their training with trainer planes. This resulted in the loss of many young pilots, which surely is not a great result for the air force. Instead of spending millions on keeping the planes in operational readiness, the Air Force finally took the right decision to say goodbye to our old friend.

Also, with our ‘friendly’ neighbour Pakistan getting free dollies from Big Uncle USA, it’s time our administrators look beyond Russian defence technologies. So lets say goodbye to the MiG-21s and hope for a more deadly Air Force, with the MMRCA deal around the corner.

Last but not the least, lets hope that our home-built LCA Tejas performs well, so that we can induct our own planes in our Air Force rather than depending on foreign deals or even worse, begging for military equipment like Pakistan. A couple of examples of Pakistani military ‘acquisitions’ (read as ‘aid’): Example1 Example2.

After 4 yrs of hard work, finally got my degree certificate.

I had been to my college on the 25th this month, to attend our batch’s convocation day. It was a nostalgic experience looking at the class rooms, labs, lunch halls and every other place where we used to talk and eat during our college days. It was a great feeling to be among the same people with whom I spent 4 important years of my life.

We had a lot of fun talking about our college days and the events which occurred during that time. Four people from our class got university ranks and made our department (E.E.E) proud. And our beloved Chairman talking in his usual funny Tamil was the only thing which didn’t change over the period of 4 years.

I met almost all my friends after a long time. After a lot of mokkai talk by the chief guest and the other managerial level people (about the ‘uninterrupted power supply’ in our college, as usual), we got our degree certificates in a beautiful file but the beauty of the certificate was killed by a very horrible photo of me 😦 . Nevertheless, I got my degree (Aathaa naan pass aayittaen 🙂 ).

It was a great day and am looking forward to the next special day, the Alumni meet.

About me :)

Hi, this is Karthik and this is my first blog. So look out for some stupid mistakes :). Keep checking for more posts in the future.

My Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/gkarthikeyan

My email id: karthik.ars14@gmail.com