Notes

It is 2012- the year that I enter the 23rd year of my existence. 23 years is not a small time, at least for me, and if I see in retrospect, I am decently satisfied by how my life has turned out until now. What worries me today is that I haven’t yet achieved something that I can be substantially proud of. Sure, the one year spent in Kota was great; the four years I spent in DCE will always remain ‘the’ golden time of my life and the same goes for Adobe. The point is that it is nothing what a guy who begins working hard right from when he is in class 11 cannot achieve. I only find comfort in thinking that all these were supposed to be steps in the way of me achieving something higher in life- and that is still true. I have met many people in recent times who are doing exactly what they didn’t see themselves doing some four or six years ago. That may be fine, only if you are consciously trying to change things around. But not trying to change things even when you are not satisfied with them is a sin in my eyes- at least in that case I have stood true to myself. ...

I have been thinking from quite some time about writing about the one year that I spent in Kota, when I was in class 12th. I guess it is about time before I actually start forgetting about it! I had begun dreaming about studying in IIT even when I was in class 9th. That was when a fellow classmate told me about Bansal classes in Kota- he told me about the huge number of students that study there every year and about the tough competition they face to get into both Bansal and later, IIT. Truly speaking, it were the stories of the fierce competition at Bansal that actually made me poke my dad every other day (when I was in Ahmedabad in class 11) to send me to Kota next year. My father supported me completely, as he always does, and I was only 16 when I went there. Two batches were made that year for freshers of class 12th, F1 and F2- I was put in the former. ...

The Yamuna expressway is a promising project- it is supposed to be as good as the one connecting Noida and Greater Noida, only a ‘little’ longer. But on last Saturday, I didn’t know that it was still under construction. Imagine yourself driving along it for the entire distance of 185km: you begin by driving along a decently built service road that runs beside the expressway (you cannot drive on it as entry to it is blocked), but after a while, you realize that the decency of the service lane was only for the first few kms- after that, all you find is a heavily muddy rock-strewn ‘road’. Still you go on and suddenly you find a way to take your bike on the expressway. There are stretches where the road is in mint condition (there was one such stretch where I managed to run 12km at a constant speed of 110kmph!) and there are others where you will actually have to find a path to drive even 100m further (the road is uneven at some places and does not even exist at many others- with mud, tar and gravel lying freely here and there). ...

This happened on Sept. 3 this year- the longest I had driven before in one night was when I, along with a few teammates, had gone to Panipat (which is not more than 120kms or so from Noida). It was a Friday evening on which I and (a rather reluctant) Sardar decided to go somewhere on the Bullet. Ankit also joined us and it was about 11pm when we left for Jaipur. ...

Last Sunday, I successfully completed the Delhi Half Marathon! Anyone who is acquainted with me knows very well that I am not an athlete even by the most lenient standards. It was only natural that this news came as a big surprise to all my friends- even I was shocked to the core when I crossed the finish line! The race track was 21.097 kilometre long and I took 3h20m to finish the marathon (the maximum time allowed was 3 hours). It began at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, went on to a little further than Central Secretariat via India Gate and then returned to the starting point. The race was supposed to start at 7:10am, I reached the starting point at 7:20am and that’s when I first erred. I missed out both on seeing Shah Rukh Khan and Bipasha Basu kick off the race and on seeing the entire participating crowd of more than 30k people (I later read in the papers that this crowd included the likes of Rahul Bose, Gul Panag, Anil Ambani and Siddhartha Mallya!). Moreover, we were given timing chips which were to be fastened to our shoes. Since I reached the venue late, I didn’t get time to tie the chip (I had it in my pocket all the time) and that is how I erred for the second time- it was only in the evening that I found out that the chips are not so sensitive as to get detected from such height as that of your pocket. None of my race day times- split or net-were noted. ...

The day before yesterday, I and Prashant visited DCE. It was the first time I was going there after graduation. Both of us had a small to-do list in mind and surprisingly, we managed to do everything on that list in the four hours or so that we spent there. We met Arya when we reached college- and then we started taking up our to-do things one by one. We went to the admin block to collect our consolidated mark sheet (Arya, who lives on the campus itself, hadn’t even collected his degree yet), went to Nescafe and both the canteens- Mech and Elec, met Rajni Jindal ma’am, visited Auntie’s and Chachi’s shop, sold 2-3 graduation books at Future Point (the guy who runs that shop is still as miserable as ever!) and I also took the other two to the almost filthy-yet-memorable ‘theka’ of Badli Mor! ...

Hawaii. Calgary and the nearby national parks. Long trip to Europe. Other options London. A really long drive in US but probably do that right before leaving the country. Mexico.

Looks beautiful. Short drive away from Bangor airport. On east US, so far and probably expensive flights to Bangor. Weather should be good year round? Stay in Bar Harbor? Has a good downtown. Cadillac Mountain for sunrise- must do. Drive on Park Loop Road. Ferry to the most remote part of the park, Isle au Haut.

Don’t do any accessories for now - focus on getting the program right. Add a very small number of accessories from 2nd or 3rd week - don’t overthink or go crazy. Day 1: Superset: Face pulls. Lat pulldown. Day 2: Ab work. DB side-bends. Planks. DB military press. Superset: DB curls. Day 3: Superset: DB tricep extensions. DB rows.

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