Goodbye, 2008: The Best Ever

20 years from now I will look back at the year 2008 and will say that was one of the best fucking years of my life. The same way I look back at 96-97 as the best period till now.

2008 brought back a lot of things I had lost in previous years. 2008 gave me back my confidence and my arrogant stride. 2008 returned to me the power of being good, it brought back old lost friends, and surprisingly a helluva lot stronger family bonds. It also brought back my self respect that was sometime ago flushed down a gutter. It gave me many new things like playing the role of an elder brother or mentor to some of my friends. I found the leader inside of me, reluctant at first but now in flow. And of course, the capability to love... that I had lost somewhere.

Life aint perfect, 2008 probably had more downs than I care to admit. But I dont count my life in terms of bad moments. Doing that is plain sad and waste of thought. I say this is the best, cuz I enjoyed it the most. I loved busting my ass to complete the project. I loved hanging out with the guys and getting drunk. I even enjoyed watching and handling Khurana-the drunk baby. I loved skipping lectures, getting on teacher's nerves. I loved plotting and strategising on the best course of actions. I loved studying, cuz the last semester was a hell lot interesting than study ever was. I loved how I was able to use, Satan's darkest tool-- manipulation for the good of Q4R.

To add to all that Indian cricket team has finished the year on a real high, winning T-20, getting to second pedastal in Test championship and all that. Liverpool is doing well too, my second favorite sporting team in the world, right now top of the table in BPL, top of the table in champions league group stage. Ferrari, my third favorite is also doing quite alright, winning the constructor's championship and all that. And of course, team India got like 3 medals at the Olympics!! That was the first!! So its been a good year overall, sportswise.

Now you will say 2008 might have been good for sports, but what about business.. recession and all that. But then you cant have all the things in life can you? If you do what will be left to fight for? And if there is nothing to achieve wont life be boring and everything? I say fight for things that are in our control rather than those that are not...

But a good year isnt just the one which gives enjoyable moments, I say this is the best because not onlyI enjoyed it but it also presented challenges and opportunities for the coming year. A lot has been achieved in 2008, the year that was the high waters of a truly entertaining voyage. 2009 is the year we reap the awards, reach the destination.. I hope it is as fun as this year has been...

luv n luck for '09
Void

The Year That Was

Yes, of course you got that right. That is the title of my unpublished abandoned first pathetic attempt at what even I couldnt categorize as a book... but yes it was a start and definitely one of the better titles I have invented over the years. Does that mean today I talk about my failed attempts at writing? definitely not.. thats a story for some other day. Today is the day for nostalgia.. and nostalgia is such an ugly word, the sound is all wrong, the spelling.. it reminds me of nausea and that sure is an ugly word.

So I get nostalgic a lot, big deal. Nostalgia leads to great stories or memoirs or just plain simple blabbering. Which one is on for tonight is but obvious. Today we explore the year in which I found and lost friends, remade them and ended up in serious brotherhood than I expected. The year I went on my first overseas trip, and the year I did something to be proud of, and of course the year I fell in love! lol, kidding about the last part..

So the year (and I dont mean 2008, I mean the academic year meaning somewhere August 2007 to till now) started with an acquaintance falling on his head one fine evening and seriously injuring his head. Out of this trumultous experience bred out the single most dangerous plan I have heard in my entire life. And as the fate would have it, I had a similar accident the next day and the severe trauma of the accident led me to accept what the plan had to offer. Somewhere down the road, we named it Q4R and of course Torque India Racing Club. See the trouble with my group is we are all emotional fools. We deliberately avoid any path that rationality suggests and hence we end up in more than our share of troubles. And as I recall one fine day in the middle of all of this chaos, I was sane enough to consider walking out of this plan but then of course my besty, the evil sorceress, deluded me with talks of pain and blood and right and wrong. Of course, she is sitting somewhere right now laughing uncontrollably at my misery. And then we got our first success, a bright young lad joined our group and he brought smiles for all and also our first cash sponsor. And we all have our fingers crossed that someday he will take leadership burden. He is a good kid, and although he did cry twice in Japan without any reason I believe he is strong enough.

And the year moved on, new year arrived, bringing university exams along. I did well in most of that, passed everything, and then of course febuary came. And everybody knows that I hate febuary, also January but not so much. And as luck would have it, I saw death again and I lost again. But Febuary brought some happy news along, like a car on four wheels, that was Febuary, 14th. But moving on, it wasnt much later that we had our first grand success, we had a running car as on April, 4th and it was a success. It didnt abandon us during the launch on April,5th and ran smooth as a cucumber and we were all relieved. We did fuck up the launch seminar pretty badly as were grossly mismanaged and underprepared, but TI-07 ran smooth and that was all that mattered.

Barely after the euphoria of success settled down, we were faced with the impossible choice, either get the rest of the money or shut the project down. Somebody called 15 days to get the money or quit, we got money in 7. That was somewhere towards the end of April. And that was the start of it all. We planned and schemed and blueprinted what TI-08 would be like, we discussed argued and selected an engine and went on a shopping spree. Nothing did last, barely had we started with our chassis work, the Uni Exams came to haunt us. And this time I might have flunked a couple, I am not sure. The results aint out yet, but maybe I didnt cuz my first impression was I didnt, so well. Once the exams were over, it was sweat and blood and thats all it took really. Countless sleepless nights, countless 16 hour shifts and countless days spent in sun on a roadside pavement completing a dream. And we did, and we did go to Japan.. but

The engine blew up, and I am not the kind of guy who cry at movies or watching tv. I dont cry when people die. But for some reason tears came out. Maybe it was at my stupid fucked up life, or my enormously screwed up luck, or maybe it was just plain disbelief. Cuz I believed we were the good guys, and according to karma we should have got back what we gave. But damn it wasnt meant to be. And perhaps even with the engine, we wouldnt have one that comp but damn it I wanted TI-08 to show what it was truly capable of. And in Fukuroi city, that night I drank my brains out. I was so hammered, I couldnt have differentiated between people and I might have killed someone if the right moment presented. And at that moment I felt like it was the end of my motorsporting dreams.

But Tokyo happened. And I saw life again (there was this great Mexican Sports Bar, called Los Cabos and it was amazing. I had virtually every drink in there and every food! I even ate an Octopus, met with some hookers and other random chicks), and my brothers rallied around me once more, demanding whats their right, another shot at the competition. And yes I was initially very negative, very cynical of chances of survival of Torque India. I am even on a video stating Torque India should disband right now, but I was wrong. TIRC is not one man, its more than that, its heart and blood and sweat of at least seven good men if not more. And well I couldnt just give up, can I? I am in this too deep to quit. And I am glad I made that choice cuz TIRC really deserve another chance.

And as I say again and again, Life is but a matter of choice, this or that, yin or yang.
Hope still drives me...

Crazy Ideas: Vol 3: The Return of The Void

I have been busy.

Does that encompass lack of a post for eight months, is something I can not answer. Q4R occupied most of those eight months, that I can assure you. Q4R is on the verge of a successful end (or is it the beginning?), by the way.

Chalo, I will begin the post.

Terror(?) Attacks!!

And here we go again, a bomb here and a bomb there. Three cities, and all three of them I share a special connection with, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad.

I spent my childhood in Jaipur, formative years in Ahmedabad and Bangalore just for the amazing place it is, and because two of my bestest friends live there.

And I was thinking, as always, watching stuff from a distance you know like I am used to. And two theories strike me, one admittedly because of my mother and the other one for the sheer genius of it.

India has been a terrorist hub for ages, our neighboring countries cant seem to respect our National Integrity, or maybe they cant control their citizens. Maybe they don't appreciate the fact that a country can be secular and progressive at the same time or maybe all religions are equal. (The all religion part is real easy for me, being an atheist and all!) Its a well known fact that our neighbors all around the borders have tried infiltration with one form or the other. This fact has been well documented, put in public view and everything. But this is not the point I am trying to put across. There is something missing, there have been bombs before but not so many, and not in the smaller cities (aside of J&K of course) and definitely not so frequently. And I haven't done any research work but I just flat feel a difference. And what about Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), where are they? Haven't they been the top intelligence agency after maybe CIA? How come they couldn't foil these attacks this time, I am sure they don't publicise it but they do spoil a lot of such attempts every year. How do you spoil a plan? Informants, eavesdropping and a million other techniques that are P2C2E (Process too complicated to explain). And so the failure means RAW or IB didn't have any informants, couldn't eavesdrop-definitely means new agency!!

New don't mean new like old timer organization Lashkar n stuff, the ISLAMIC group. Neither it is Maoists, naxalites or any other and here are the two theories, and what "new" might be.

The Insider Theory

First one is not my theory like I said before, heard from my mommy first and heard it repeated by Ms. Sushma Swaraj (I have always liked her, by the way). The government is doing it? If you haven't heard the UPA has taken a huge hit in the guts by the inflation. Three cities got hit, all BJP ruled states! You can blame it on BJP government, and their incompetence like the "central" government did. You can also ask the question, why the hell? And when did the politics got so dirty as putting the blame on each other for terrorist acts!!

Congress, if I remember correctly have been blamed for massacre, killings, etc. before this. And well after the note wads being waved at the parliament nothing would surprise me.

The Outsider Theory

If somebody else has expressed this theory somewhere before I am not aware of it, it is just something that came to my mind.

If you look closely at the top of Indian Government, we have two brilliant economists in Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram. So why is our finances (inflation) so screwed up? Indian finances were always strong (inflation, gdp) even with the non economist ministers. Why is it going up. It almost makes you wonder. Add to it the instability in the government brought about by the NUCLEAR DEAL, your mind begins to churn. Throw in the bomb blasts, subtract the political corruption of the country (that saved the government), and you get a country with an uncontrollable inflation, no government and bombs exploding every corner. That means maybe you can connect all of them. If you have been reading the newspaper, USA has blamed India for food shortage, inflation in their country and have always been an awful ally. In fact for US, India, which was like an unsquattable bugging fly until a couple of decades ago, is now turning up as a competitor. Competitor who maintains both the GDP and Inflation at 8% steady continuously! And what was with the fall in the dollar, did it really touch 37? What would you do if you had all the resources and CIA! Maybe fuck up the finances, screw with the government and destabilize the country. Easy to do if a neighbor of the country you wanna mess up is your lapdog. After all CIA has a reputation to live up to!!

Not that we can do anything about it but well, nice to have these thoughts out!!

With Love
Void