Cricket, Work, Problems, Friends, Fun, Goodbyes - LIFE

Even though the lazy Jayant has dominated Blogger Jayant for the past few months (or rather years) but thankfully, once in a blue moon, on occasions like this, the Blogger Jayant comes up trumps and hence, this blog gets updated. There was a time when I used to refer to my earlier post while writing a new one (because I never forgot what I blogged about previously, like I have now! ). Anyways, my last update was somewhere in December 2009, which would be roughly within a month from attending Vishal's marriage and then taking the CAT exam. It's not that I've won The Nobel Prize or something in the time between then and now but yes, there have been a few good updates.
There was the long-planned Goa Trip with my college friends which was truly amazing and a nice time to get together for friends. Really hope that everyone takes out 3-4 days like these for each other, out of an otherwise packed 365 days of the year. About ten days after the trip ended, I was in for a surprise. After a casual preparation, scoring a percentile of 96.98 in CAT made me feel that after all, I can fight for the top 1 percentile next year around, which, I believe, is what you should target if you start off with something, be it exam, sports, anything. Hence, I would like to believe that this year I will actually go at it real hard and get something more than a "decent" score out of it. However, the things to follow in this post would heavily bet against it.
February is normally considered the spring season and my bhaiya-bhabhi were blessed with a baby boy, who's growing cuter and naughtier by the day, which is making my stay away from home all the more difficult. It has been the happiest news on family front for quite some time, especially after we lost Nanaji and Dadima in the past two years. He's gone a long way in helping Mummy and Papa cope up with the losses.
Sagar conquering his dream by getting into IIM-A has been the biggest news of the year outside my family and we all were so happy for him. He thoroughly earned his place and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. APS came to Hyderabad for a weekend to join in the fun and we surely had a good time, but we still missed Jaat.

The glue that kept me in Infy Hyd for so long

Then came the much awaited annual Cricket Tournament of Infosys Hyderabad, which was this year named as P3L, i.e. Pearl and Prakriti Premier League. (Pearl and Prakriti are the name of the 2 development centres Infy has here in Hyderabad). Thanks to my one-hit wonder performance from last year's tournament, I was promoted to "Tier 1" in the auctions. I got picked up by a team called The Aryans and incidentally, its the same team against which we lost our game last year and ultimately it cost us a place in the next round. A few players were still there from the last year but mostly it was a fresh squad. I was made to sit out of the first game itself. I was in no way thrilled about it and that confirmed my suspicion that since it was a team chosen by guys from Andhra, regionalism will prevail. However, I got my chance in the next game and  played every game thereafter. We finished 3rd in a 20-team tourney which was a good achievement. The highlight for me was bowling the last over in the quarter finals when the opponents, Gangstars, needed only 7 to win and containing them for 5 runs, which secured a win by 1 run for us! More than the game, it was the friends that I made during P3L which I am thankful to and really hope it continues.
Looking ahead, there's a lot on my platter right now. For a start, I'll be travelling with the Infosys Hyderabad Cricket Team to Mysore for a tournament and I'm really looking forward to it. A trip to Mysore, 18 months after completing the training will really be nostalgic and when I go with a group like this, it surely will be fun. It's about time I tightened up with my MBA preparation and of late, I've been bitten by the GMAT bug as well, so really hope to put in the tough miles during the next 6 months.