Rawte Days,Mumbai, Part 3: The Pune escapades

Mumbai had never been a place which i loved very much baring a few things here and there... so every few months that frustration and homesickness did follow me.. and that times i remembered my extended family, my school friends in Pune...

So everytime i felt i needed to escape the grinds of Mumbai, catch a Volvo and off to Pune... To meet Riya, Shreya, Antara, Rahul, Jaggu and Mayur.. To people who dont know this but i had got my admission in Symbiosis but due to a well thought of decision i decided to stay in Mumbai completing my graduation from HR college...

Since i never managed to find a very great group in Mumbai, i would look forward to these trips. The blast that i use to have during those times used to be fantastic... Those bike trips, those dinners on the highway, the all night talks just loved it...

Today will share a few of my memories all the way from Pune...

This particular trip was highly emotional for me because of its unexpected ending... but lets start from the beginning...
It was 28th February, 07... I had just finished my BCom 2nd yr exams and my Diploma exams were on the 10th and 11th of March... Another very close friend and my chaddi buddy, sandeep was in Pune those days so my friends called me saying, why dont u come over, the whole group again and then we could celebrate Holi together on the 4th.. So 1st evening i zoomed away to Pune... One of the best memories of this trip was all of us going to the dhaba on the highway. i dont remember the name, maybe one of them could make me recollect.. But it was after 2 years that all of us, had such a gala time.. we hogged on chicken like we had been hungry for ages... 8 of us on 4 bikes on the highway....man it was fun... then after that we rode through the streets of Pune late in the night enjoying the desertness and we being the rulers... We also managed to ride through the haunted street, Pashaan, i think they called it

I am not sure but i think it was this very trip that we very roaming around one day in one of the many haunted places in Pune when suddenly we turned a corner and saw this mysterious female sitting in the middle of the street. She had a dirty dog sitting by her and as we crossed her i managed to stare at the plate she was holding in her hand.. it contained all sorts of strange things that i didnt recognise and as we went ahead i did take the courage to look back and saw her staring at us, a bad stare i would say. We zoomed away from there, not brave enough to check upon her...

It was the next day when we had dinner in one the city restaurants and the guys were supposed to visit Singhad Fort that night but somehow the girls convinced us that it wasnt safe...It was the night of 3rd march 2007. Thank god we didnt go that day because if we had i would have never made it to the airport by 2 am.. Ya i had to run back, a phone call at 10.30pm almost shook my world.... Dad had passed away.... this was the only glitch that Pune had in the 3 yrs that i frequented it but with time i accepted this as well...

On my next trip we did manage to go to Singhad Fort. This was one of the most beautiful places i have seen. We left home at 3am for the hour long drive. The winding roads, the jungles all around, the scary darkness all built the atmosphere up. What i witnessed up there was the most beautiful dawn i had seen. With my camera loaded i did what i love most, click. By 8 am we were back, tired enough to sleep through the day.

Pune also shares loads of other memories. Those bike rides up the NDA road to sit on the parapet and watch cars racing past on the highway below. The cold coffee at Durga Coffee House was the best i have had till date and that also at a paltry price of Rs10.

I still remember the day when Mayur was coming back from Patna to Mumbai and then he was supposed to take a bus to Pune.. The flight landed at 10pm. I was waiting outside to take him to the bus stop. On our way there God knows what got into us that both of us boarded the bus. The 11pm bus to Pune just for the fun of it. We reached Pune at 3.30am. After ensuring Mayur had reached safely, i caught the 6am bus back to Mumbai... By 10am i was back in town.

Pune's greatest memories go back to before my graduation, much before Rawte days came into picture. That was, June 2005 when all of us had landed seeking admissions. The 3 weeks that we spent there filling forms, having fun, checking out girls.... That was just great... The places we ate at on JM Road, FC Road.

All those wonderful memories from BMCC to MMCC to Garware to Hanuman Nagar to Apte Road to Sambhaji Park to Kothrud to...... Miss those days guys....Thanx for the memories....

Rawte days,Mumbai, Part 2: Waves of the ocean

Once long ago i had read a book by Robin Sharma "Who will cry when u die". One of the chapters that really loved about that book was "Find your place of peace", somewhere where you are just yourself, without any stress of the outside world or any such tension....
Luckily i have managed finding it everywhere i have gone after that. For IMT its those moments when i can stand near the AEC and gaze at the stars, be it Place Wilson in France where i spent long hours writing some of my best blogs.... So when we go back to Mumbai it also had such a place..

IMT had the sky, France had land so with this trend Mumbai had its sea, The Arabian Sea...
i still remember those times when i used to feel low i used to walk to Chowpatty, half a kilometre away from Rawte and just sit there on the sand... During my CAT preparation days i used to sit back in college till late in the night. My college used to be at one end of the Marine Drive and Rawte at the other. So everynight used to walk back on the parapet of Marine Drive enjoying the sights and sounds of the sea. The third and final place where i loved spending time with the sea was Amarsons Park. Evening when i was free i used to walk to this place around a kilometre and half away. In addition to the breeze and the sound of the waves, one would get to hear the rustling of the leaves of the palm trees on the edge... Used to be a wonderful feeling...

In any of these places i would just sit there, feel the breeze on ur face and the sound of the waves to and fro non stop... There in the distance you could see a light or two of the ships anchored in the deep seas.. I loved these moments because the time that i sat there one disappeared into a world of trance... away from the rigors of life.... Something like Marine Drive, even though a 1000 cars sped past you, i would never even hear them once i got lost in those waves..

I had a grand time observing waves and how they work... The sea gulls who would swoop down on the surface and catch their prey, the crabs who would scamper about looking for their means of survival... A 100 thoughts, away from your life, would take ur breath and mind away...

Still remember the beauty of those days when the full moon used to be above the water and the surface use to shimmer like silver... a scene straight out of paintings and pictures and at times in the darkness and this shimmering, a late evening fisherman used to cross trying his hand at a last minute catch....

Those walks on Marine Drive would be great, plug ur ear phones in and go along singing away to "Yeh hai Mumbai meri Jaan..." The sea had a completely different look during those monsoon days when we used to go to chowpatty and marine drive just to get drenched in the downpour... and when the waves used to hit the parapet and splash up...those were divine moments....

If i do miss something about my Mumbai days its the sea and the moments i spent by it... be it Chowpatty or Marine Drive or Amarson's Park... It was just fabulous.... Just hope i could carry some of it to everywhere i go but sadly... It had to be left behind.... Someday......

Why are guys the way they are ???

Hey everyone,
Girls always ask why are guys so, why are they so immature and childish. Why is it that in reality they are so practical and stuff and when it comes to maintaining a relationship and a girlfriend do they become so impractical and childish...

The answer lies in one scene of the movie HUM TUM. There you see Abhishek Bachchan explaining this very same funda to Saif Ali Khan. He tells him that even though physically girls may not be as strong as men but emotionally (pointing to his heart) they are much stronger than us. He continues by saying that men may look very strong from outside but inside all of them is a kid who fears to grow up.

Ya guys and gals its true, we know the moment when we grow up we are expected to take responsibility and expected to be strong to face the hardships for life but internally we want to continue living that tension free life, where we are ones cared for.

Thats why when we come across someone who loves us, this childish side of us jumps to the situation of showing itself. Thats why, girls, at times you find your boyfriends childish, immature and impractical. They care for you all the time, at times they want to be cared for. They pamper you all the time, at times they want to be pampered.

And at these moments, the girlfriends lose their cool. "You werent so earlier, whats happened to you now." "I dont expect my boyfriend to be such a kiddo" Its just that guys get tired of putting that macho mask on themselves and they feel they can reveal their true selves to you. So next time you face something like this, remember my post, and just that stroke of your hand on their head or that sweet word or two would make their day. Its nothing more that we demand...

Rawte days,Mumbai, Part 1: 1st Impression

Hey guys, this is gonna be my first post on a period of life which i didnt enjoy professionally but ya personally have had great number of experiences. And i feel its gonna be damn long so i am gonna divide it into parts. So presenting to you

Rawte days,Mumbai, 2006-08 Part 1

January, 2007
i used to stay with my brother in Goregaon and travelling to Churchgate daily used to be a pain the a**. So half a year of my stay into Mumbai i started looking for hostels and PGs. Thats when, through a college friend, Rishabh i got to this place somewhere in the lanes of Gamdevi. A huge house owned by Mr Rawte so the name Rawte PG/ Hostel so 17th january 2007 started Rawte Days...

A place haunted by dangerous looking creatures, one would actually feel that there is something wrong with the place. You enter the gate and first person you meet is none other than... Subhash... you want me to describe it...Dont worry i will make you picturise it...

SUBHASH: 4ft 11inches tall with a huge ponch comes walking towards you as if a dead body is walking. Not even God would remember when he last had a bath. Filthy, dirty, disgusting you could smell him approaching from miles away. His hair is short but stiff due to not being washed ever, and i mean ever. He walked slowly and with that stare that if a ghost saw him in the dark even he would run away. Wait till you hear him speak. He had this hushed and grizzly sound, something like when you whisper but a little louder and all he included in his statements were "M*****C*** and B****C***" His clothes would not be changed for days, leave alone a bath.

Now one would ask, why such a gatekeeper... Do you think that with him at the gates, anyone dare enter. Even we use to dread entering, leave alone somebody else. He was an actual speciman.


Now moving on to the next speciman... Ya, dont worry Subhash was not the only one. There was more to come and you will surely say after reading both these," Sampark, where the hell did u stay." So presenting to you, the washerman, all the way from Nepal, Gopal.

GOPAL: 5.11 tall, slim but great muscles was our washerman. But then you would says whats great about him. He was blind by one eye. So this eye was silver in colour. So as he would walk in this eye, combined by the wicked grin that he carried along with him could scare the shit out of anyone new. I still remember Arjun's (hostelmate, great friend, would be introduced later) statement of when he first saw Gopal. He claimed he was damn scared.
And mix it with the days he was drunk. You mess with him and he would even get a 3inch broad stick to attack you (it did happen). So the better you maintain your relationship with him, the safer and the faster your clothes got washed.

So with the great welcome you get at Rawte with Subhash and Gopal, one thing is for damn sure, this place is not for the weal hearted..

So with this the Part1 comes to an end. In further Parts we would read about our eating joints, our hangout places, the friends, the specimans, the events and experiences etc... Keep waiting and keep reading....

Dijon, France.... The dream is still on..

Its been 4 months since i have got back but it seems like mentally i am still there, where it all began... 1000s of away in a small town in central France, Dijon...

It seems like its been ages, somewhere in my last lifetime....or more so like a dream... or more so like its just my imagination but then i see my screensaver on my laptop and i know it was true....
It feels that those 4 months never existed but those months were the turning point of my life...

Just an hour back i was sitting with friends downstairs and what was i talking about, France... Eshan, Mayank, Sunil or Ashok whomever i catch up with what do i talk about... France... Someday people here at IMT may get mad at me for talking only and only about one thing in life... Please guys never mistake it as arrogance or so...its just that i havent been able to cut away from those 4 months...
Met my international relations professor that day and he commented on me, " Sampark still hasnt come out of that mode." Yes guys i havent.... i still live those moments over and over again, every minute.

Some of you may ask me....Sampark why are u so mad over this whole thing... I have only one answer to you.... Kuch kuch hota hai, tum nahi samjhoge (its something, you will never understand)

In another few days, 2 french students are coming to campus... and in another few days my junior batch will know whose gonna go to the experience the world. Today given an opportunity i would pay double the amount, i am ready to put my placements at stake, i would do anything... Just if someone could get those days back for me...

As far as juniors who are going.... Just one thing will sum it up for you,

"GO.... LIVE A LIFETIME"

Sunrise..... Beautiful

I have 2 exams today (strategic management and services marketing) and I am not a least bit prepared.... And thats y i am up at 6am....
I woke up tensed knowing very well that passing today is gonna be a great task.... Somehow i struggle out of bed and switch on the laptop.... and i walk out of my room to the balcony outside and bang into an unexpected early riser....Sun

It was undoubtedly the most beautiful sunrise that i have ever seen... And thats why here i am writing about it within 2 min of seeing it.... Much more beautiful than the ones that i have spoken about in a previous post.... The perfect colours, the perfect blend, the perfect stance of the ever majestic sun.....there is a pic which i have taken but it could never capture the calmness and serenity i witnessed....

A wonderful beginning to what seemed to be going to be an horrid day but now seeing the beauty of God the first thing in the morning i know its not gonna be so bad.... So with that positivity that i just gained i better run back to my books or else a disaster awaits.... Wish me luck guys

Munnabhai MBBS: Lessons for life

Ever since i have seen this movie a few years back, a lot of concepts and fundas used have greatly influenced me. Everytime people talk to me about something related i dont mind using these instances. So here are my lessons from one of my favourite movies.

Thank you to the Sweeper
The scene begins with an elderly sweeper mopping the floor. The floor is all wet and Sanjay Dutt accidently walks over leaving stains. The sweeper in an irritated mood cribs that now he will have to clean the whole thing all over again. Sanjay Dutt stops and hugs him. On seeing the confused look on the guys face, Dutt explains to him that if he wasnt there the hospital would have never been clean enough to cure the patients. Its him who cleans every thing without a word from vomit to shit. Dutt says Thank you and moves on much to the delight of the sweeper

Later in the movie when Munna is being thrown out of college this sweeper stops the way of the dean. The dean in his anger shouts," who are you?" The sweeper replies." I have been working here for 20 years and you dont even know my name. Look at Munna, he ackowledged my contribution and said Thank you."

Lesson 1
No work is to be considered bad or demeaning. Every job has its benefits without which the equilibrium will be disturbed. There is this concept of dignity of labour. Respect each ones job

Lesson 2
There is no loss in saying Thank You to someone whom you feel deserves it. It doesnt cost you anything and it barely takes a second but these 2 words may mean the world to someone.

The song in the hospital
Jimmy Shergill has been detected with cancer and he is soon gonna succumb to it. He is depressed and upset that having not lived life fully, how will he fulfil all his dreams and aspirations. That night Munna sends dancers who change the environment of the hospital and in the song they sing are the lessons to be learnt

Lesson 3
There is one solution to all pain. What is past is past. Whats left live to the fullest.
Always remember life is only a 4 day journey which should not be wasted. Enjoy each moment as if your last. Go through each day as if its the end. Because on your deathbed you dont regret what you do, you regret what you didn't do.


Sunil Dutt and the pickpocket
Sunil Dutt has just arrived at Mumbai station when he gets pickpocketed. Somehow the crowd gets hold of the pickpocket and start thrashing him. Sunil Dutt stops them and says since he was the victim , he will decide the punishment. He turns to the pickpocket and says, " you see the eyes of these people. see the frustration, see the anger. Someone has had a fight with their wife, someone is angry at their kids for not studying well, some are angry at the Indian cricket team for not playing well, somebody is upset at the government because the roads are not good enough, someone is angry at their boss. See the accumulated frustration which these guys are looking for a vent for. If i hand you over to them imagine how much you would be beaten up"

Lesson 4
Todays world is indeed full of stress and frustration. Agreed the times are so but even in this competititve environment we need to keep ourselves cool. And accumulating of stress in harmful in the long run so beware. And dont you take out that anger/ frustration/ tension on someone who doesnt deserve it

Jaadu ki Jhappi
One of the greatest concepts of this movie was the Jaadu ki Jhappi (the magic hug). The solution to every problem. It indeed works. No matter how tensed you are, no matter how bad the situation is, no matter what the sorrow....a hug always makes you feel better. Be it your mom, your friend, your girlfriend or even a complete stranger... it works..

Lesson 5
Go out and spread the magic....The magic of Jaadu ki Jhappi

The love of Formula1 : From Schumi to Force India

I still remember the times when my love for Formula 1 began. I used to watch these races on the Tv with my grandfather. Having no knowledge of Ferraris or Mercedez, all that mattered for me was the colour. So if the top 2 racers are red and yellow, i would take the one leading and my grandpa would take the one coming second. Supposedly after some laps if my racer was overtaken i would abruptly change my driver to his. He would taunt me that i was cheating and then readily change over, always ready to come 2nd to see me come 1st.... Love u Nanaji.... (More on this on another post of mine)


Then came the time when every 2nd Sunday i would wait for the race to begin. And it was to see one man, Michael Schumacher, the legend. Many of them came and many of them left... Damon Hill, Mika Hakkinan, Juan pablo Montoya, David Coulthard. His rivalry with Mika Hakkinan, those last lap engine blow ups, the last lap overtaking....The McLaren vs Ferrari rivalry was great. Montoya was the most aggressive F1 driver i have ever seen... His overtaking manouvres were just fabulous. His teaming up with Ralf Schumacher took BMW Williams to its greatest days.

Slowly Hakkinan left, Montoya went back to Nascar, Ralf lost that zing in him, Coulthard lost the top places to new drivers. Schumi continued his great run winning 7 driver titles.... 5 of them on the trot. There was this season where he seemed to break all the records winning 9 races on the run and reaching the podium on, i think, all occasions.

The last year of Schumi's career was a disappointment by his standards. That was when a completely new brigade came up. Alonso and Raikkonen were ready to take over the mantle. Schumi left and Ferrari was with a new driver line up of Massa and Raikkonen. Alonso had gone on to become the youngest drivers champion in F1's history.



Around the time Schumi left my love for F1 moved from the front row of the grid to the last rows. The fastest and first Indian on the F1 calender had arrived, Narain Karthikeyan...
After a year of struggle with his yellow Jordon he too disappeared from the scene. A year later Schumi also left. Formula1 for me took a back seat.

In the mean time Hamilton arrived with a storm and with it came another man who would change the scene of F1 in India, Vijay Mallya. The previous Jordon went from Jordon to Spykar to Midland to our very own Force India. The car that Karthekiyan once drove was finally Indian.

The car that we see below was the original Force India. Then 30 races later came the turnaround.
Brawn GP had shaken the F1 world. They in their first season are on the course to win both driver and constructor titles. Then in the Belgium GP, Giancarlo Fisichella drove the Force India to its first pole position and subsequantly to its first podium. He immediately jumped to Ferrari but Force India continued its great run in the Italian Grand Prix with Sutil coming 4th. Next week is the Singapore night race and see who can beat the Force India this time around.


In this mean time F1 is going through its worst crisis, with allegations of Renault having fixed last year's Singapore Gp. The man who created Schumi and Alonso, Briatore is now gone. Lets see how this crisis ends.

My love for F1 runs beyond the race track. The only game i love playing on my laptop is the F12002 i have. Even though the drivers and cars are old and outdated i prefer it to Counter Strike and Need for Speed any day. Crashes, Pit stops, cutting tracks, jumping starts are all the things that thrill me... Almost know all the tracks by heart now... The favourite...undoubtedly Monaco....

I am not be a tech freak, dont have too much knowledge about the technical details of the cars and may be bad at records and stuff but the best compliment i got about my craze for F1 was from my bro a few years ago.... In the movie Iqbal there is the song about fulfilling your dreams and everything is achievable with the protagonist doing anything to make it to the Indian Cricket Team. My brother one day out of the blue commented, " whenever i hear this song, all i can picturize is my younger brother zooming lap after lap in that red ferrari" It was never on a serious note but a great way to make me feel great... Me and my ferrari...

Formula 1 is planning to enter India soon and the love for F1 will surely take me to the tracks and hope so someday, my dream of watching a Grand Prix will come true... Who knows Schumi might just be back and on the podium that day.....
1

Reason, Season or a Lifetime.....

Guys,
This was a mail i received today but it matched my thinking cent by cent so i thought y not share it with u guys....
Waise if u read few of my earlier blogs on LIFE you may notice the things that i am talking about...
So for you, not written by me, but believed by me...

Reason, Season or a Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person..
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support,
To aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
This person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on..



Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons,
Things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson,
Love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.



Thank you for being a part of my life,
Whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime.

The Suns, Moons and Clouds of IMT

hey guys,
this is gonna be a small post so i suppose wont bore you too much

Since the day i joined IMT one thing has really fascinated me about this place.....the nature

The sunsets that you see here beat even those days when the sun sank into the Arabian Sea off Marine Drive and those that i saw in France. The beauty of nature seems like it gets enhanced. The orangish glow seems to put the whole sky on fire... I mean it....it does...


And just after the sun sets as you look onto the western sky is just terrific... Somewhere in the distance you see the tiny lights of some far off village and just above that on the black canvas of the nights some brownish orangish paint has rubbed off from someones brush.

Just a few hours later, someone else is here.... The moon... Just love those moments when u sit in the basketball court, tennis court and just look up... Its like you get transferred to those Star Wars location. Even Neil Armstrong wouldnt have seen a better view....
The sexy moon with all its bodyguards, the stars are here. At those times i just wish that all the lights of IMT go off... The times that it does, within 2 minutes the generators are on but those 2 min are the most cherished by people like me.. I just wish someday i get to spend the complete night in complete darkness.... Just me and, hopefully, her....under the sky and the only things that give us company is The moon, The stars, The breeze and The romantic atmosphere......



Another few hours... and its time for the sun again... thats a normal part of IMT life again.... Slowly the eastern sky gets the lightish blueish glow and then slowly out of nowhere its there...the sun and so on...day in and day out...

If you ever see the cloud formations you can actually trying figuring out the various scenes it creates..Its just out of the world... Sometimes its the clouds taunting the sun, sometime it just pulling the moons leg and sometimes its the clouds by themselves who create a scene enough to make memories last a life time....The spread of the clouds, the blend, the flow, Bhai bahut mazaa aata hai

Someday, even if you arent a student of IMT you should come here and enjoy the scenes...
Enjoy life and nature at its purest... Once you get out of here, be it to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata or Bangalore, do you ever take out the time to stop, look up and see God's creation....



You dont na... But guys do stop and look and you will see that even with all the mess that life is in, its still a beautiful world to live in.... It is.......

P.S. All the pictures above are true and unedited pictures of IMT... So u see i was not writing fictional stuff... It is as beautiful as i say it is....

9/11.... 8 years on.... The Untold Story

11th Sept 2001.... Osama Bin Laden and his planes shook the world.... And altered the history of United States and the World......
You reading this expecting something on the similar lines, arent you? If you are, you would be highly disappointed....

Because 8 years ago....one more world got altered.....my world.... The day which changed me, which made me what i am....

Rewind.... 9/11/2001..... 2.45pm.... Tuesday
Venue.... Little Flower School, Jamshedpur.... corridor in front of Principals office
Protagonists.... V (Name changed to maintain anonymity) and Sampark....Two normal 9th graders

Situational Analysis.....
We were just back from our chemistry practical test... we were standing in line waiting for the dismissal prayer to happen and run home.... i was standing in line behind V.... And suddenly a buzzzz happened that the prinicipal was approaching from the back.....

(Principal: Sister Helena, Irish Nun, Aged 65-70, White robe, Dreaded by many and the principal for the last 25 years, does not understand hindi )

And me, dont know why, was in a different mood that day.... I leaned forward and kept whispering in V's ear "Budhiya aa rahi hai, budhiya aa rahi hai" (Old lady is coming, old lady is coming) and before i noticed the old lady was standing beside me. "What are you 2 upto. Come out of the line"

We stood outside the line till the prayer got over and were then directed to Sister's office. V was called in..

(V. Kumar... One of my best friends... fantastic student... went on to become the captain of the Yellow house)

Sister: "What were you two talking about"
V:" Nothing sister, we are sorry"
.
.
.
Sister:" Tell me or i would suspend u"
V:" Sister, he was cracking jokes"
Sister: "What jokes"
.
.
.
V:" Sister he was cracking jokes on you"
Sister: " Tell me what jokes or both of you get suspened"
.
.
.
V: " Sister he said, " Old lady is coming"

Boom, Baam, Dhishum and on and on and on

For the 1st time in my educational career, i messed with someone and that also with the prinicipal....

I was called in and given the dose of my life (22years). I was shouted at and screamed at and told not to come to the school next day.
I walked out crying and sobbing not knowing what to do.

At this point, would like to share another story which i came to know only later on
One of my male teachers was walking home when he saw me coming out of the office crying. he caught hold of one of my classmates and asked him what had happened... when this friend of mine narrated the whole OLD LADY episode my teacher gave him this odd look and replied, " What wrong did he say" He was one of the coolest teachers in school and this statement proves it. After all she indeed was an old lady

So off i went home that way... Those days i was staying at my uncles place... I ran up the stairs and out of sheer fear, went off to sleep... Mom came home from office at around 5.30-6 and came and woke me.... She was in a very good mood and as i got up...i just fell into her arms and started crying....explained all that had happened...Got a firing but wasnt beaten (Love my mom, she never raised a hand on me)...

She went off and i sat their crying for the next one hour... Mom did not tell any of this to my uncle....

7.30 pm... Uncle calls out aloud and i slowly go downstairs.... the Twin Towers were on fire.... Who cared...my world was on fire....
Sometime later...The towers crashed.... Who cared.... My Schooling career was crashing....

Next day the class teacher came to the class and asked who got into trouble last evening and when i raised my hand i got the most painful comment i could ever get " Sampark i didnt expect this from a student like you"
I was summoned to the principals office again and another dose.... i was outside class for over 2-3 lectures.... She almost suspended me....But i was let off, this being my 1st major goof up

AFTER EFFECTS
My class teacher never spoke to me straight faced after that. I would have surely been in the race for captaincy of red house next year which i sure shot lost that day....

But for me, since that day, life changed.... i realised that i was going wrong.... My friend circle was slowly going bad... I was ignoring my studies.... I was going in the wrong direction.... But as a kid, this incident freaked me out so much that i actually mended my ways....

If i had not pulled it back, i would not have never managed a 88% in my 12th boards, let alone reaching the best college of Mumbai and then to IMT and finally to France and back. People claim that there is one point in their lives when it changed forever and for me it was 9/11, the day the world changed.

When i passed out in March 2o05 wanted to go back to Sister and Thank her but somehow i lost that chance

Next i came to know that she had left for Ireland, never to return again... A few years back I tried looking for someway to contact her on the Internet but wasnt successful

So dear readers, LFS friends and ex-students, if anybody can somehow help me get in touch with the person who made me what i am, i would be really grateful...

All i will say 8 years down the line is " Thank you Old lady"