Ticking Heartbeats

Suddenly, my student life is about to end. Every passing day reminds me that am getting closer to the expiry date. The school, the staff, my friends, the hostel, everything which I had taken for granted for the past two years are suddenly turning out into an irreplenishable resource. Those faces, which were part and parcel of my everyday life will suddenly turn into something that can be cherished only in the photos. And suddenly, I feel I should have spent more time with my friends and these two years weren’t certainly enough.For some reason, I couldnt get along close to many people and I realise maybe I should have done more. The student life at ASB is certainly one of the happiest moments in my life, esp the life @ our boy’s hostel. I certainly feel pity for the girls for having to endure a “dictatorship” rule in their hostel but here, life is heaven. Come on, where else can you put an arm around the warden’s shoulder and talk with him?? Where else can you make fun of the warden ...

The next morning started like any other usual day...tight sleep with laziness embracing you with all its love...!!! The most pleasurable moments in life are those when you get up, see your watch and realise that you can still sleep for some more time...but that sunday I couldnt get any such pleasure as I found out we had overslept by one hour and woke up others with haste. A brief view outside our hotel window was not very encouraging with decent rain and heavy fog limiting the view to nothing more than a few metres. Hoping that it would clear soon, we started our bikes and searched for a roadside shop to quench our hunger. A small shop called "Kalaivani Coffee house" served us with delicious Idlies and Pongals and Aapams and the spicy chutneys were in perfect sync with the numbing climate. After the heavy breakfast, we started towards Avalanche, some 30 kms from Ooty and the route was terrific. The majestic mountains, draped in white sheet of mist, ocassionally revealed them...

Sometimes, the destination is not important....how you reach it is...the weekend of November 27 and 28 was one such moment in my life. A hectic college life practically drains all the juice out of you and my college was no exception. I was longing to do a road trip to redeem myself and this weekend seemed perfect . With exams just getting over, I had some breathing space and decided for some adventurous ride. I remembered the unconventional road to Ooty from Coimbatore via Kerala which H.V.Kumar sir had told me a few months back and decided to take that on this time. A few hours in the Internet and with some valuable inputs from him, I arrived at a route plan.So, me and three of my other friends Jose, Vignesh and Punith Bhaiya joined hands in two very capable bikes Apache RTR and Pulsar 220. The original plan was to start early on saturday morning, visit Silent Valley in Kerala, then ride to Ooty via Manjoor. But as always,things never go according to plan. I had given my bike for serv...

  The perpetual debate that is waged about the inadequacies of a vegetarian diet versus the hazards of a non-vegetarian diet is both accurate and wrong on a number of levels and if one really looks at both groups of people and their eating habits, there is room for healthy living in both. Confused? As human beings, we are creatures of comfort, habit and stubbornness. People take ill from time to time by consuming an inadequate diet, overeating or from leading sedentary lives. Did you notice the missing key words in the sentence above? There is no mention of the 'vegetarian' or 'non-vegetarian' -- it is a rule that applies to both categories. It's not the cultural or religious beliefs we hold, but the actual diet and the food we consume that is pulling the rug out from under our feet. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that death from diabetes and heart disease alone costs India about $210 billion every year, and it is expected to increase to ...

Rahul Gandhi appears to have been economical with the truth on his affidavit while filing his election nomination papers in Amethi this weekend. In the affidavit, he states that he obtained an MPhil from Trinity College of the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1995, in Developmental Economics. A certificate from the University shows that not only has he got dates wrong, he has even got the name of the course he took incorrect. Worse, the man touted as a future prime minister failed one of his four papers. Rahul got 58 per cent in “National Economic Planning and Policy” (according to the grading scale given in the certificate, 60 per cent is the minimum for a pass). The certificate, shown alongside, was issued a year ago by Diana Kazemi, the secretary of the department of Development Studies (and not Developmental Economics) in which Rahul Gandhi studied. He enrolled under the name ‘Raul Vinci’, a pseudonym given by the British authorities in a common practice as there are a g...

Internet Explorer 8 is moving out of beta: The final version will be available today at noon ET. The new browser is packed with new features and improved security features, and early reviews and impressions have been largely positive. I am sure many of you will want to get your hands on the new browser and maybe some of you are hoping to switch over to IE8 as your browser of choice. Whatever your motivations, here are 5 things you need to know about IE8's release today. Manual Download Only: You can get IE8 only by going to www.microsoft.com/ie8 or Microsoft's Download Center . Microsoft has not specified when it will push IE8 through the Windows Update service, although IE8 beta users will see an IE8 Windows Update before the general public does. No Windows 7 version yet: If you're using the Windows 7 Beta you'll have to stick with IE8 Release Candidate 1 for now. Microsoft won't confirm when the final version of IE8 will be available for Windows 7, but it...

  INDIA’S SELF DENIAL Prologue Why is it that Indians, particularly its elite - the intelligentsia, the journalists, the writers, the top bureaucrats, the diplomats - hold an image of themselves which is often negative, and have a tendency to run down their own country ? The self-perception that Indians have of themselves, is frequently detrimental to their self-confidence. This is particularly striking amongst Indian journalists, who always seem to look at India through a western prism and constantly appear to worry how the foreign press views India , how the foreign countries - particularly the United States of America - perceive India , what the Human Right agencies say about India ... Thus, when one reads certain Indian magazines, one has the impression that they could be written by foreign journalists, because not only do they tend to look at India in a very critical manner, but often, there is nothing genuinely Indian in their contents, no references to India’s past g...