The Ultimate Motivational Clip - Rise & Shine!

We all need motivation once in a while. Ofcourse, I dont expect you to see this before you crucify your breakfast but you know what I mean.

I love great motivational videos. Especially before I set up to do something really important.

I just found this on youtube and just HAD to share it,

Bottom line : Keep going. No matter how far, how tough or painful. You will be where you want to be only if you try hard enough.

-Yogesh Babu

(www.fb.com/yogesh87)

Jaipur Calling when we were supposed to bestudying at The Great Lakes Institite of Management, Gurgaon

B-E-A-UTIFUL would be an understatement to my experience to the whole trip.

It was really hard to resist. Especially when Abhinav Mayaram's folks called us to the place Abhinav spent his whole childhood. I'm glad that I didn't say NO. I would've regretted one of the most amazing trips in my life.

Neither was the trip about sightseeing nor was it was about palaces. What it was about was the people. A whole Rajasthani/Himachali (if that is a word)/American family come together and welcoming Rithvik and I as family. It was a touching moment indeed.

It all began at 6am when we left Lodi Garden in Dilli. We thought we hit the traffic jam of the century. We reached jaipur at 3pm. You read it right. 3pm.

We went to Jaipur for an important occasion. We were there for the 9th Memorial of Anirudh Mayaram (Abhinav's brother)

In his memory, the Mayarams organise a basketball tournament in his school called "The Anirudh Mayaram Cup". Gaining popularity over the years, the competition has gained interest among many schools in and around Jaipur.

Friends, family and others. All came as one that one day. Cheered together and showed their support. The day ended well for the home team because they kicked ass. I mean, those guys were all over the place. Abhinav asked me “Do you remember when we could do all that?”. I said “No.”

Clockwise - L-R - Rithvik Reddy, Karishma Kashyap, Caroline Lobo, Abhinav Mayaram and Yogesh Babu

Later that evening we went to their farm house. Wow! What a beautiful place. It’s the first plot of land after past the border of the natural reserve. A lot more of people joined us and we (Rithvik and I) were told to be prepared for a feast. Trust me! They weren’t joking. It was a feast alright. Unlimited alcohol and meat, rich cultural foods… That kinda stuff.

We ate, we sand, we some more and we sand some more under the stars. Did’nt remember the last time I did that. To come to think of it, it was when I was at my cousin’s place in Kanchipuram when I was 10 years old. All went well and the evening ended in the wee hours of the morning.

We were all set to come back to Gurgaon (and college) the day after. Again, we hit the second traffic jam of the century. It took us ten hours to come from Jaipur to Gurgaon. It was another long night. Only difference was, we wanted this one to end.

Do I want to do it again? HELL YEAH! \m/

Cheers!
-Yogesh Babu
(www.fb.com/yogesh87)

Sachin retires at Eternity !!

For those who don't know yet, India is a country where men don’t age well. And we have one too many examples of them- starting with Rajinikanth ofcourse. Another true observation in that breed of people is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, a man who is, at 40 years and some 200 days, the oldest and most favored member of India’s cricket team.

Mr. Tendulkar a.k.a Sachin is the most celebrated cricketer India has ever seen; in fact, it would be entirely accurate to describe him as the most celebrated Indian, or even, with only a pinch of exaggeration, the most celebrated Indian since Mahatma Gandhi.

Sachin dominates India’s imagination even more than usual: Today, in his native Mumbai, he is begin playing his 200th "test match" (look up what a "test match is.) against West Indies, a once-mighty team now fallen on hard times. This is also be his last test match, for he will retire. 

"With the end near", the country is in the fevered throes of one last, mammoth celebration, but also  of mourning. India will say on the day Sachin hangs up his white cricket flannels: “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere.” (Quote- Nehru)

Taking whatever I have said into consideration, there is a remarkable unsentimental view of Sachin, which is that he should have retired two years ago (or earlier), that he has been pushing it far too long. 

But hey! We're Indian, The inherent human vanity of an authority reluctant to cede the public stage is reinforced by a culture of adulation, of shrieking, ululating crowds, of an uncritical elevation of heroes to godlike status by devotees who will not let go. In politics, in cinema, even in corporate business houses, old Indian men do not fade into the sunset. They totter on and on. And when they die (figure of speech. Before you stone me), they are “kept alive” by heirs who succeed them: sons, daughters, wives. Sport, by its very nature, is different, or so they say because imposed it laws of retirement have been defied by fans in the case of Sachin. After all, idolatry is an Indian art form. 

Sachin was remorselessly efficient in a team that was once chronically inefficiency; he was the best in the world when the world said India was "globally inferiority"; he was the picture of humility when all public figures want is a Page-3 photograph.

In purely sporting terms, however, he is second to only his old self, in which he shone as one of the finest players cricket has ever produced.

There is more: For a man who built his reputation not just on supreme batsmanship but also on his unwavering modesty, impeccable manners and an evident pleasure in being part of (and never greater than) the team on which he played, he has been relentless in pursuit of milestones. No cricketer has ever played 200 test matched before. And guess what? No other cricketer will. 

For all this a more, we are proud to have been alive to see this happen.

Sachin batted on for 24 years. And still counting. 

Dedicated to Prashanth Kumar. The biggest Sachin fan I have ever known. RIP.

-Yogesh Babu

(www.fb.com/yogesh87)