Facing up to a Cricket Addiction Patient (C.R.A.P)

In July 2012, on the occasion of the 14^th anniversary of India’s famous victory in the Singer Akai Nidahas Trophy at Colombo in 1997-98, Indian scientists began conducting a series of experiments on people who watch every single match of Team India and remember every fine detail of it. We are not referring to those who remember all of Saurav Ganguly's centuries against non-Test playing nations. We are talking of those who even remember every single occasion when Ajit Agarkar conceded less than 5 runs an over in a match in which he bowled at least 7 out of a maximum of 10 overs.

Scientists have revealed that those who have been largely untouched by the gentleman’s game, majority of whom are women, do indeed live in the real world. And they have been the biggest victims of Cricket Addiction Patients (C.R.A.P).

Says Purvi Ranganathan, who recently helped her partner come out of the closet and admit to his C.R.A.P problems, “I take complete responsibility for Sundar’s C.R.A.P. condition. I went wrong in many ways as a wife – worked hard, day in and day out, nights even and sometimes over weekends too. I cared too much for my young family. Took my feelings out and left it at home so that when Sundar was not busy hurting them, at least he could play with them and entertain himself. I’m guilty of all that and more. But what I did overlook was his obsession for the Bowling action of his state-hero, Sreeshanth. Seriously, I never saw it coming.”

According to Purvi, Sundar spent the day memorizing the bowling figures of Kerala’s legendary fast bowler ever since the great man bowled out Sachin Tendulkar in a NPK Salve Challenger game between India Red vs India Green at Indore.

Scientists suggest that these non-Cricket watching population, a dying breed thanks to the popularity of IPL, are known to be very hard working, trying to understand the complexities of the life they live, and also of Cricket, which has affected several male members of their family.

It appears the C.R.A.P. victims also tend to compare arbitrary statistics of famous cricketers across generations and indulge in a time warping exercise of putting together fantasy teams and then arguing for countless hours over their individual choices. Sample this –

“Macha, I think the Sri Lanka All Time XI has to feature Roy Dias and Arjuna Ranatunga. (turning teary eyed)Watching them stealing singles off Indian outfielders was very reminiscent of Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn stealing a kiss after that dip in the pool in Roman Holiday. Aha! Whattey style I tell you.(Sips Leo filter coffee and says) Compared to them, Sangakkara and Jayawardane playing their reverse sweeps and inside-out shots to long off is more like listening to Justin Beiber lyrics. Very repetitive, I tell you.”

According to Dr Abhijit Singh Paswan, programmes are being set up all over the country to help these addicts to realise the fact that Cricket is not just a game, but also something else, like an irritating insect for instance. “If you make a metal association of cricket with something uncomfortable, a C.R.A.P. victim will respond to it by zoning out of his cricket world immediately and getting back to life. For instance, if Chanderpaul’s batting reminds Sitaram Punj of the crab on his dinner plate that was still alive when he attempted to eat it, he’d immediately turn off the television and brush his teeth. Or if Rahul Sanghvi’s bowling reminds him of the time he was forced to endure an 8-hour drive holding a full bladder, he’ll just close the Cricinfo tab at work and go take a meeting with that pissed off client.  

However, if you do want to help victims out of their misery, you’ll have to join him and watch a match, wait for a reaction of extreme disgust from him, and then remind him of an incident that was far from memorable for the victim. For instance, if Umpire Aleem Dar turns down an appeal from Harbhajan Singh, remind the victim of the time when he was rejected by every single girl in his first year of Mechanical Engineering at B.A.I.T.S. (Short for Bokissam Ananthapadmanathan Institute of Technology and Science). If you see Zaheer Khan dropping a dolly, remind the victim of a time when he dropped the hot Sambar on his sports uniform of Striped T shirt, White half-pants and Carona canvas shoes. When you see Ashish Nehra going down with an injury to his….you get the drift.

It’s not going to be easy, but it’s worth the effort. Until then, you’ll have to hear him rattle out the ODI scores of Dinesh Mongia in the ODI series against Zimbabwe in 2001-02. Be patient.

Mocking CAT

Students these days are too busy to take up this prehistoric hobby called reading, which is quite understandable. After spending the day watching Virat Kohli scoring a match winning 32 of 18 balls against Pune Warriors India, commenting about it on Facebook, memorizing the lyrics of Gangnam Style and sharing 10 memes that mock Psy, and then heading for their daily game of Tennis on Nintendo Wii, where's the time to read? Sadly for them, they still have to read. Especially if they have to crack the Common Entrance Test (CAT) for pursuing Business studies in India. Not to worry! Just get them to read the following passage once-a-day for a month, and they’ll be driven to read something better for the rest of their lives.   

READING COMPREHENSION PASSAGE

If you found your way to this post and do not know the author, chances are you are a male student in his final year of Engineering, who is reluctantly toying with the idea of giving the CAT exam. The Author's research suggests that you may also have missed out on a campus placement and may have spent four years acquiring lifestyle skills that aren't exactly marketable in the corporate world. For instance, your strategic skills that helped you master warcraft, your marketing abilities that gets you LIKES for your WHY YOU NO memes, your financial management that helped you acquire hectares of agricultural land on Farmville, your creative spark that won you the 3rd prize in the Inter-course Mad Ads contest in University, or even your dashing personality that got as far as the finals of the Master B.A.I.T.S. (Short for Bokissam Ananthapadmanathan Institute of Technology and Science) pageant, will amount to nothing more than the occasional Rs 100 Gift Vouchers you’ll get from the newly opened Air-conditioned canteen that sells 58-Rupee Espressos (Service Tax + Service Charge not included). It certainly won’t impress the 36-year old HR Manager who still can’t beat his 5-year-old in Angry Birds. 

Soon you’ll he heading home while your student loan interest helps your dad’s banker’s kid get an admission in a prestigious institute like B.A.I.T.S. Soon your dad will say, ‘When I was your age, the biggest concern my parents had was why I didn’t get married? All I’m asking you is why don’t you get a job?’ Soon you’ll have to start looking for one when you realize that your monthly allowance is not good enough to pay the monthly bill of your 3G connection.

Don’t look for a job just to pay your 3G phone bill. Write CAT. Join a B School. Enjoy two more years of college. And then get a job that can help you buy the iPhone 7S

Question 1

What is the essence of the above passage?

a)      The Author never cleared the CAT himself, which is why he knows what happens if you don’t clear CAT yourself.

b)      The Author understands nothing about Smartphones. For all that you know, he’s never even used 3G

c)      Joining B School is a great idea according to the Author. He perhaps works in the marketing department of the MBA department of B.A.I.T.S.

d)      None of the above

Question 2

Which of the following is grammatically incorrect?
a) It’s ‘Warcraft’, not warcraft.

b) It’s intercourse, not inter-course,

c) It’s not WHY YOU NO, it’s Y U NO. Lolz!

d) What Grammar?? You mean gamer?

Question 3

Which of the following can be a title of this passage?
a) Zen and the Art of Belling the CAT (pun intended)

b) To B.A.I.T.S fish withal. If it feed nothing else, it is feed my lolCATs.

c) CAT crack fever?
d) Any geeky cultural reference, with the words CAT being in the correct order and written in upper case, e.g. CATharsis. 

Resume Enclosed

I used to have a thriving business during the placement season at the Bokissam Ananthapadmanathan Institute of Technology and Science (B.A.I.T.S). And there were two reasons for that. I never considered myself eligible for placements, owing to my innate desire to devote myself to a detailed study of subjects from my earlier semesters (technically known as ordinances), like Electronic Power Instrumentation Circuits(E.P.I.C), Digital Electronic Signal Processing (D.E.S.P.O), Computer User Network Theory (C.U.N.T.) and some other crucial subjects on personality development like The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and The Argumentative Indian by my debating pal from Cal.

The other reason was since I was far above the competition, my batchmates were more inclined to share some confidential information with me, like “Extra-curricular kya hota hai, be******d??” and “Career Objective kya likhoon, bo***i kay!”

So good was I at churning out resumes, that I’d earned the moniker ‘CV’ RAMAN. And the money was so good that I haven’t had to write a CV for myself till now, nearly seven years (okay five in my case) after college, when my old clients (a.k.a my batchmates) started sharing my trade secrets with their cousins, bhanjaas and their frnds from Gudgaon, yaar! So I’m now faced with the challenge of writing one for myself. But a bigger challenge loomed. How do I present my CV writing skills in my own CV? That’s a bit like asking a modest Hrishikesh Kanitkar to write about his skills of disappearing from the international scene after being the blue-eyed boy who hit a four in the third last over of the seventh final between India vs Pakistan at the third edition of the Coca Cola cup, celebrating Bangladesh’s second independence (first from India, and then from …wait for it….Pakistan). So before we digress and speak about the irony of the finalists of the Coca Cola Cup in Bangladesh, let’s resume (Nudge! Wink !) the discussion of my resume.

But before I begin, let me elucidate that this is my resume, so press Ctrl C + Ctrl V at your own peril, because it takes a lot of panache to carry off a resume like the one you’ll see below.

Name : C.V.S.R.N.D. RAMAN

About Me: I’m a Go-getter. And that does not limit to going and getting you your cup of filter coffee.

Academic Accomplishments: Engineering. With honour.

Institutes of learning:

BE from B.A.I.T.S, Dharmavaram
State Board from RK Public School, Dispur (not the one of MMS fame)


Objective: Yes, indeed. I’m mostly objective, unless of course Sachin is given out LBW despite an obvious inside edge.

Work Experience: 7 years of consulting bright engineers about their job prospects. It is said that their future was in my hands. In fact, I could give it to them in writing.


Extra-curricular Activities:

1. Represented School and College across several age categories at Kho-Kho with distinction.

2. Represented College across South India in Twenty Questions( also known as Tom, Dick and Harry at Bangalore and Engineering colleges at South Canara)

3. Roped in several Fortune 500 companies like McDonalds, Indian Oil, Tata Motors and Waag-Bakri Chai as sponsors for college events.

4. Won several Story Telling competitions since childhood.

Referrals

Enclosed in this mail is a document that collates all the Thank You mails for all successful conversions of Resumes into Jobs, and sometimes careers.

For interview calls, please write to CV_Raman@sachinroxmailbox.com

Homecoming of an Engineer

Dear Parent,

On behalf of the Bokissam Ananthapadmanathan Institute of Technology and Science (B.A.I.T.S), we congratulate you on the acquisition of your very own in-house Engineer. We know it’s a labour of a few years’ sacrifice on your part, and a few lakhs of rupees which were duly invested during the maturing phase of your Engineer, which included buying everything from Study books, Macbooks, and Smartphones with Facebook. But now, after the graduation ceremony, you can take home your very own Engineer for a few months of happy returns – a privilege enjoyed only by parents of a bonafide Engineering Graduate.

You’ll notice the New & Improved bits the minute he steps in. When he deftly slips out of those priceless sneakers without even removing the laces. We know it’ll shock you, and send you into fits of rage, but then we must implore you to take a deep breath and remind yourself that while you may be done paying for your kid’s education, you are still left to pay up for your banker’s kid’s college. And you’ll also admit to the fact that you cannot just ignore that act of nonchalance from your Engineer. It’s a skill they pick up at college, and a skill that’ll hold them in good stead when they start working for the IT Company, which will send them the employment offer letters precisely 8 months and 17 days from today.

In another two days, you may notice that your Engineer is hardly noticed. He is fast asleep when you leave for work. He is never at home when you return. After dinner is served, he quietly heads to the study, to catch the latest episode of the documentary called the ‘Big Bang Theory’. And he quietly polishes off the leftover food in the refrigerator every night. You may find it odd, but it’s a habit that's been inculcated during the four relentless years in a hostel.

A week later, you may find that your Engineer is also given to mood swings. After studying the trends among the three batches of graduates from B.A.I.T.S, we can attribute such behavioural patterns to the following reasons:
Being asked about his MBA preparation
Being asked about when he’ll start earning
Being asked about what he studies online every night
Being asked to help around the house
Facing rejection for a friend request he sent to a girl on Facebook

A month later, you may find that he’s even more moody than ever before. Again, there are some new considerations:
Does your Engineer get enough of pocket money to catch a new movie at IMAX every Friday?
Does your Engineer get enough pocket money to go out drinking with his buddies every Saturday?
Does your Engineer get enough pocket money to pay his previous month’s phonebill?
Does your Engineer get enough pocket money?

Finally, nine months later, when he does get posted to a new city for his job, he may probably indulge in tantrums every time you call him. But are you surprised? Your Engineer is setting foot on the real world for the first time in his life. He can’t meet his needs by sulking alone. Imagine having to spend your own money for four to five bottles of beer every night, barely a month after you’ve started earning? And besides, that would eventually solve the problem of over-consumption, which may have been one of your earlier concerns.

It’s surprising isn’t it? After having endured him for those 259 days from the time he was done with college till the time he got a job, you may still be surprised how he figured it all out within a month at the work place. Well, that’s how your Graduate has been engineered. His life falls in place, normally at the very last minute for your Engineer.

My Statement of Purpose.

I’ve written many of these. In fact I write one every day. They have been written on purpose and with purpose, and I’m guessing of purpose too. But most importantly, they are not any longer than one sentence. But then, I’ve had difficulty in writing a statement of purpose for my own admission into a world-class university in Arkansas. And it’s not only because that statement ought to have at least 673 words. It’s because I’m a simple, honest man, who finds it increasingly difficult to wax eloquent about my increasingly modest academic achievements. It’s almost like being a doctor, a perpetual back-bencher from his medical college days, who is asked to perform a vasectomy on his own being. But being brave of the mind, I venture to write my own statements of purpose. And here it is:

“Ignorance is bliss.” – Thomas Gray

There cannot be three other words that can describe me better. Let me put things in perspective. After having taken some 13,642 hours of study over 22 years of kindergarten, school, high school and undergraduate programmes, I still seem to know little of significance. But little it may be, significant it certainly is. Let me elucidate.

All through my school years, I was consistently placed at 45 in a class of 50. One year, I even went down to 47 out of 48(two students faced suspension that year). But with sheer hard work, I managed to rise to an all-time high of Rank 36 in grade 7. This experience of mine will surely hold me in good stead in your college, which is ranked 19 out of the 23 in the state of Arkansas. I’m sure my peers at college will appreciate and learn from my own struggles at education, which I’ll carry with me to Arkansas.

I’ve learnt that everything in life can be learnt on a need-to-know basis. And for everything else, there is Google, Microsoft Office and of course, my dad’s Mastercard. All my life, I’ve been a personification of this minimalist school of application. What it therefore leaves me with is a lot of time. Which only gave me an opportunity to hone another great skill of mine – learning by observation. I’ve observed that I’m mostly a liability in any activity that is remotely curricular or co-curricular, and I’ve therefore learned to look in the opposite direction whenever I encounter any activity of the sort. You may be rest assured that I will hardly do anything to jeopardize any research activity or other such academic processes that have been instituted at your great institution.

Participating in new challenges that go beyond the confines of a Google search or MS Office is an enlightening experience. The growth I've experienced intellectually and academically through the opportunities I've been given and accepted cannot be described in words. Being able to say that I've not only "learned" but "applied" is something that most students in my kind of disposition are not able to make. Not only was I the captain of our Dumb Charades team in college, I was also deeply engrossed in the skill of tuning guitar stings for all the rock bands in college. So much so that in my final year of college, I was even felicitated by the Music Club in recognition of my contributions to all the Battle of the Bands competitions during my years in college.

Having identified, and then acquired all these unique skills, I was ready to take it to the next level. I assumed the responsibility of becoming the manager of a rock band in college. At that stage, in addition to my responsibilities in maintaining guitars, I also added the skills drum kit maintenance and audio check to my repertoire. The fact that the band could focus on all other PR activities, like attending dorm parties and sleeping during college hours while I was managing the responsibilities of helping them fulfill their academic requirements (running around for attendance, maintaining Lab sheets, submitting assignments and projects etc.) is a testimony to my managerial skills. Now, I look forward to become a liaison officer for promising rock bands at Arkansas.

I believe I would be a good candidate for many more reasons. I have a deep appreciation for the opportunities given to me, and put my best foot forward with every step. I plan to be employed at one of the Fortune 500 companies like McDonald’s or Walmart, which employ students like me, while I continue my lifelong pursuit of knowledge at your great institution. I've been working for the past 5 years, and have reached that stage in my life when I think can afford to enjoy a healthy work-life balance. And that is precisely the reason I feel the skills I've demonstrated and developed can still be improved further. And it goes without saying your college gives me that wonderful opportunity of achieving all my aforementioned ambitions.