Waterfall Rappelling at Bhivpuri

It all started with the wish to go to Dudhsagar waterfall. That is the famous waterfall shown in Chennai express. There is a page on facebook called Places Around Pune, they had an event in July, I thought of registering as one of my friend of Amdocs was also going. I went to enroll, and to my surprise the event was sold out. I checked other upcoming events, there was this event of waterfall rappelling coming on August 9^th.

I go to few places every year in monsoon, I love travelling, have been to trekking several times and enjoy that too. I love being in the midst of mountains and greenery, I savor nature. To make sure this event does not go sold out, I registered for it right away. It was on a Sunday when I always have an off, and it was a one day event so it fit my bill with regards to office. Cost was around 1200 bucks for one day which included food, travel, and rappelling. Place of rapelling was Dikshal Waterfall in Bhivpuri.

I have never done rappelling before. However, I have done parasailing, sky-diving, jet skiing, so in short I had done adventure sports and I registered for this one. I was thinking will see if I would be able to do this, else will enjoy the trek. Finally the day came, I had hectic office days before, so din’t get much time to think about that, went to Magarpatta at friend’s place as pickup was from there. We started on Sunday morning around 6AM and reached at base village around 10’o clock. We had breakfast in the bus, wonderful thepla with lal marchu powder, frooti, muffin. I had also taken a couple of my gym protein bars.

We had good fun while going, there were close to 50 of us in the bus, and all IT employees like me. Same age group, same profession, same interests, it was fun.Event was managed by IT employees as well, it was very well planned and executed with everything being taken care of. They are doing this since 2.5 years, and their motto is to take people to unexplored places, and they are definetly succedding, who would have thought one could do waterfall rappelling around Pune.

Anyways, we did some warm-up before starting the trek, which was fun too. We did trekking for around 45mins and reached to the waterfall. This was a kinda jungle trek, different from the fort treks I have done before. When we reached top, we were given instructions on how to do rappelling. They were professionals, and even the equipment they provided were top quality. Imported with tensile strength to bear 2500 kg weight, both the hooks as well as the ropes.

Waterfall rappelling may seem tough if you see it, but if you have proper guidance and equipments it is not that difficult. You have to careful though. Tips given to us were to put all our weight on the harness around our waist, and to rappel down in a L shape with the waterfall. There are 2 ropes tied to us, and there is good safety with regards to holding on to the rope. However, there are some dangers, and there were few injuries, you need to be careful and remember the instructions.

 

The starting part of the rappelling is important, especially if it is slippery like it was for us, even in the waterfall there are various crevices and gaps, you need to make sure you have good grip and if you slip take control back soon. One of our colleague got stuck midway and the instructor had to go rappel down to help her out. Remember the basics of being in L shape, having gap between your feet and keep your knees straight. When my turn came I did do all that, and was going well till midway, I even moved sideways when I encountered gaps in the mountain. You need to be focused if it’s you first time. Thankfully I was able to rappel down safely; it was around 90 feet waterfall. I slipped twice, but enjoyed it as it was getting a bit boring going perfectly. Feeling of water hitting your face is wonderful!

We even had lunch near the waterfall. After everyone finished, we trekked back to the base village. Changed our clothes and came back. Return journey was also fun, we had a friend who had good music and we hit the floor shaking our legs, and partying all the way back home! Wonderful enjoyable and adventurous trips, will surely go to more trips with this group, great fun!!

Cricket, Tennis and Kabaddi!

To start with cricket, major news is India Supreme court banning owners of IPL franchises RR and CSK. A major setback for the BCCI, it’s high time it cleans up all the politics. In other proceedings, Bangladesh beat India to win in an ODI series first time. They already white washed Pakistan before us. Surprisingly, they even beat South Africa after India. This team is on a roll now!!

After Bangladesh, India toured Zimbabwe. All senior players like Dhoni, Kohli, Rohit Sharma rested. Rahane lead the side with new faces. Thankfully team did well; white washing opponents 3-0 in ODIs and also leveling T20 series 1-1. Losing to Zimbabwe would have been a big debacle!! The Ashes are going on in England. Australia trying to win there after 14 years. They lost the first test, but won the second one comprehensively!

Kabaddi season 2 is going on now. I remember season one was a big hit; I watched quite a lot of matches whenever I went to Mumbai. I didn’t have TV in Pune then, now I would be able to watch whenever I can! Wonderful sport with lot of speed and presence of mind, am sure this season would be a hit too!!

Wimbeldon 2015 got over this month. Djoker won it, and it was his 4^thWimbeldon title if I recollect right. Beat FedEx in finals. Federer was in wonderful form, and favorite, I couldn’t watch the match, but was hoping for a Federer win. Djoker won in 4 sets, and is just getting stronger and stronger. It seems Federer may retire in a couple of years now, he had a great career. He took over from Sampras, remember beating him in Wimbeldon long time ago, and there was literally an era of Federer, before Nadal and Djokovic appeared!!

BAHUBALI!!!

This is the must watch, much talked about movie released recently!! Movie is shattering all records day by day, it is a massive movie, most expensive movie ever, it earned 100 crores in 2 day, 35 hours to be precise!!  It is a humongous and massive and epic proportion movie, I would say it has surpassed anything Bollywood could ever dream, and Hollywood has ever made!!!

The graphics, the action, the music, the effects are all just astonishing. I saw it on a Monday, and surprisingly on a Monday morning 10:30AM show, it was housefull! I saw a housefull first time after Infy Mysore training, speaks volumes of the popularity and anticipation in the people for the movie!

Movie is actually shot in Telegu, and dubbed in Tamil and Hindi. The high frenzy was mainly because the director has made wonderful films before, and the star cast is also legend in industry down under in India. I want to watch it again. This is the first part, second part is going to come next year, which will conclude the story. It was a mind blowing experience watching this movie, and I want to experience it again!! This movie should bring India an Oscar for sure!!

Below link gives some astonishing facts of Bahubali:

http://www.scoopwhoop.com/entertainment/baahubali-facts/

The question will remain in everyone’s mind for a year: Why did Katappa kill Bahubali?

Trek to Purandar!!

So I am working in shifts, and as I said before am facing a bit of problem in shift transitioning. Last week I had my second week of night shift of this rotation. Last day of night shift was on Saturday night, and had afternoon shift from Monday. I had to make sure my transition is smooth and quick. Instead of sleeping on Sunday, I decided to go for trek, so that it would be a much needed break as well and also will be able to sleep in night, fresh for day shift hence. It was a horrid week; I was on incident calls throughout shift, 2 days in a row.

So anyways, I called up my dear buddy Rajesh Sir, and asked him wassup! Proposed him to go for trek, and he agreed. Purandar fort was in my mind since long time. I remember my good old friend Kedya telling me you need a vehicle to go there and the trek is also not tough. We looked up the map and started. It comes on the Mumbai Bangalore highway, towards Bangalore from Pune. The weather was nice, not rainy but a bit cloudy. The fort is 65 kms from my place.

We were riding on Activa, and for good part of 65kms while going I rode. It was wonderful experience. There is a big tunnel also which comes in between. The road is good, nonstop and well maintained. There was not much traffic as well, riding was a pleasure. There is a Balaji temple also which comes on the way; we decided to do darshan there on the way. It was a first time visit to South Indian temple; it was very colorful, well maintained and well administered. Also it was first time; I rode so much on a highway too!

We moved forward to the fort after darshan, there was a ghat we climbed. Yes, I rode there too right till up there. It was first time experience riding up a ghat, Rajesh was giving me useful tips too for driving up, it helped and we reached up to the entry point of trekking. Purandar fort is now under Indian army, they are building training camp there, so no camera or camera phones allowed. We put our mobiles in the activa dunk.

We started trekking; it took us around 2 hours to go till the top. Yes, we went right up to the temple. There is very less left of the fort, but the temple is still impact. It was my 4^th Fort trek, already completed Singhad Fort, Lohgard Fort and Murud Zanjeera Fort. Completed all treks, like others even this was a bit tough, but I dint give up, took breaks and kept going and did manage to conquer Fort Purandar!!!

Google I\O 2015 Keynote

It’s 4:45AM in the morning. I am still in night shift mode in my long weekend. I had ordered July month Digit and got it yesterday. It has the 2 hour key note of Google I\O 2015 in its DVD, one of the major reasons I ordered the July issue.

I have massive respect from Google since long time. If you read my ‘Technology’ label posts here, you could easily infer the same. I have read The Google Story, and got really impressed by their ideology and values. I\O 2015 keynote started by a note from the VP of Sales, who unsurprisingly is an NRI, key takeaways were there are currently 4000 different Android mobile models in the world, 8 out of 10 mobile phones shipped last year were Android, and another very impressive thing which we take for granted is Google is same for everyone. A student in rural India and a professor in MIT USA can both search google search engine and get the same results. Another highlight was there are 1 billion plus users each of 6 top Google products currently, really impressive all this!

Second note was on the Android M Developer Preview. M is the next major Android version (after the current L implying lollypop). There are not going to be major UI changes this time around, they have rather focused on removing maximum bugs and making it as clean as possible. There are 6 main areas of focus in M. First is App Permissions. Now permissions won’t’ be asked while installing, but after install when you try to access a feature like voice, permissions would be asked one time. You can also revoke or grant any permissions for the app from app settings. This is really nice feature from security point which was missing from Android. One of the experts in my hackathon prep session had highlighted this last year.

Second was Web Experience. They have introduced a feature called the ‘Chrome Custom Tab’. What it does is when you click on any links inside you app, it opens the link in chrome maintaining the theme of the link’s original app. The loading is very fast as the app is able to pass the information to Chrome ahead of time. The dev version of this is currently available; commercial release is Q3 this year.

Third was ‘App links’. It mainly involves linking multiple apps. This is essentially a security feature of sort, when you click on a link in one app, the android platform will verify from the server the authenticity of the link and open the link in the respective app providing security and convenience. 

Fourth feature is ‘Android Pay’. Using Android pay you can make payments using your mobiles at stores. A good step in convergence I believe. No more need to carry wallets!  Android pay is simple, secure and has choices for users. To make payment all you need to do is just unlock you phone and expose to NFC reader, simple indeed! When you add your credit card to Android pay and new account number is created, and your credit card number is not shared with the store, thus secure.  You can register for this via Google, via banks or via you carrier, so secure in that regards. Android pay will work in 700 stores to start with in US. Android pay will also be integrated for in-app purchases.

Fifth new feature is fingerprint support. Devices have been providing this since 2011 but with their own application. With M, this will be standardized across all devices, as it will be integrated in the OS. Fingerprint supports will be useful for 3 main purposes: Device Unlock, Play Store purchases and Open Authentication APIs. The last one is mainly for developers, where they can easily integrate the feature in their apps. 

Last but not the least was Power and charging. There is a new smart feature for managing power called ‘Doze’. What it will do is if there is no activity for long period of times, like say when we are sleeping, the device would go in a deeper sleep state. This will enable longer battery life, however all features like alarms and incoming messages over the net would still be active. Compared to L, M devices were tested to last 2 times longer in standby mode. For charging they have developed a new USB Type C standard. Charging would be 3 to 5 times faster, the chargers would be flippable, so you could insert it in your device socket either ways. Small, but very insightful and important change.

There are loads of other new useful features like easy word selection, floating keyboard toolbar, direct share,  Flex storage, App standby, etc.. Official release of M is in Q3 2015. And guess who would get it first? Hell yeah.. the Nexus users!!!

Next note was by David Singelton, Director of Android wear on Android wear, obvio maan! Currently there are 1500 watch faces. As of May 2015, the latest watch LG Watch Urbane also comes with new features like Wifi. Features like GPS and offline music are already there. Seems eventually this will replace mobile phone in few years’ time for basic computing, entertainment and communication.  The latest release of Android wear will have always-on feature. No need to shake wrist or push button to check time. This feature is extended to apps to integrate on home screen. Examples include a grocery list or a map will stay on the screen till you want.

Next feature is wrist gestures. This one I like especially. Flip your wrist to go through notifications. Their moto is wearable app should be glanceable, actionable and effortless. Awesome indeed. He also showed the hordes of features available in wearable devices now, those include microphone, haptic motor, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, barometer, heart rate monitor, and GPS. Whao!! Dint imagine all this in a watch!! You can virtually do anything with the watch now, if you can dream it, you can build it is the message for the developers. All the code would run independently inside the watch, another big add on. Currently there are already over 4000 apps specifically for Android wear.

Next was announcement of ‘Brillo’, the operating system for IoT. Next ‘WEAVE’ a communication channel using which devices could talk to each other. Brillo would be available from Q3 2015, and WEAVE from Q4 2015. Another great feature in M is ‘Now on Tap’. This is google now going epic in NLP and smart use of 30 level neural network of Google! Just tap on the Home button anywhere, and see Google Now unlock the magic!

Next was introduction of brand new product ‘Google Photos’ by Anil, another Indian, we were in majority, hell yeah!! Lot of kool new features of sharing, searching and editing in there! Awesome indeed. Great feature is backup and store unlimited fotos and videos for free. Up to 16 Mpx for fotos and 1080p HD for videos!!Google Photos is already available.

After this there were announcements specifically for developers community on new products, and new features in existing products for developers. It was a wonderful event, I felt really inspired. The major takeaway was domination of Android in world market, and use of Android in Brillo stack, something of a major takeaway for me indeed!!

Working in shifts 101

It is a wonderful Monday morning. Its 6:30AM in the morning, I am sitting in my balcony of flat 302. There are some clouds moving around, there is a lot of chirping of the birds, a pleasant breeze is moving around and the temperature is wonderful 22 degrees. I got up at 4AM fresh midway of my 4 day long weekend. I had night shift last week and have same next week. It has been almost 6 years in IT industry ,I have worked in shift majority of the time, wanted to write this down since long, finally doing it.

When I joined Infosys as a fresher I had around 6 months training in Mysore campus, and then I got allocated to the unit: IMS. It stands for Infrastructure Management Services; it involves mainly supporting client infrastructure and more importantly working in shifts. I started working ,initially found  it tough working through the night as it was something new, also had some back problems, but I went along my merry way.

The first thing about working in support domain and consequently in shifts is accepting it. I never thought or asked why am I working in shifts, I accepted the fact that I have to and found peace within. I see a lot of freshers these days who don’t want to work in shifts, sometimes you have no other option and to be happy you need to accept that you have to do it, only then you would be able to do it happily.

Working in shift has a lot of advantages as well, we get home pick and drop in cab free of cost, we get shift allowances and we also get wonderful long weekends like the one I am currently enjoying. There are some cons as well, like it leads to obesity if you don’t have proper diet and exercises. Also your body cycle changes frequently and I would not recommend working in shift all your life, I am planning to stop it once I get married towards end of this year. However initial phase of the carrier, when you are young and energetic you should do it if you do not have any other option.

I want to give some tips about working in night shifts especially based on personal experience. First thing is don’t sleep in office during shift, because if you have some sleep then you will not be able to sleep properly when you go home, and consequently feel tired the next night. All this affects your performance at work. So be awake all night, and make sure you eat at least twice in the night. Make sure you eat something before you sleep, as it is hard to sleep on empty stomach. Make sure you have curtains in your room, no noise disturbances, and also if you want, wear an eye mask. Sleep for at least 8 hours and make sure you are fresh when you get up. Drink a lot of water throughout day and night.

Working in night has never been a problem for me. I like it in fact as there is comparatively less workload and we also got night shift allowance, however I am experiencing some difficulty in changing of sleep times after night shift to other shift currently. I was not doing night shift in Amdocs since couple of years and doing it now so perhaps not used to this. Hopefully I will adjust soon. Well its 6:45AM now and I have also booked a 9AM show of the movie Terminator, one of the perks of working in shift, you get to watch a movie on Monday morning, when majority of people drag themselves to work!!!

Time for some social work.

First of all I am thankful to my dharam fiancé who reminded me, that I had not blogged since long time, and I should write a post soon. I have been busy in office, and also had some minor health problems: cough and cold due to weather change. However, I have a long weekend now, almost 4 days and here I am with my new post.

I have always believed that you must give back to your society in some form. Last year I did some monetary donations for various causes. However, I always wanted to do something non-monetary too, devote my time for some social cause.

‘Outreach’, is Cognizant’s social work entity. They send us regular emails of activities performed by them, and asking for volunteers. I had registered last weekend to go and teach in a school, however I got placed in shift and could not go. This weekend too they sent mail, I had night shift the day before but I was determined to go as I had 3 days off after.

Another factor was that this time it was in my locality, so transportation would not be an issue. We had to go and teach English in nearby government school as written in email. I registered for the event, and got the reminder for the same. I went to the school and met other volunteers, there was a bit of change in plan. We had to actually do survey in the local village.

We were given some forms for the survey. The aim was to encourage villagers to send their kids to school. We were targeting kids between 6 to 14 years. We went to each and every home, an asked them if there are any kids at home in that age and if they are going to school. If not we would encourage them to send to school and take their details for admissions purpose. Surprisingly majority of the homes where kids were there did go to school, it was good to know!!

Couple more questions we asked in the survey. First being if there is toilet in their home or not. Second being do they have water supply. Everyone had water supply, and few did not have personal in-home toilets and used common toilets.

We were split in two teams, each team having 4 volunteers. We roamed for couple of hours in the sun. I had just finished night shift, which was hectic. When I came home I was feeling very exhausted, however I was happy that finally I started what I wanted to do apart from my daily work. Something for the social cause. It made me realize how lucky I am to have a good home, good education and good job. It made me happy that I did some work at ground level, and worked with colleagues to make a difference in the society. As I have said once, ‘There are a lot of talkers’ and takers in this world; we need more of givers and doers!!’

A new chapter in the Table Tennis Diary

This is in continuation to my previous post on my passion and love for table tennis. I am in Cognizant now since 2 months. Initial one month was a bit hectic, I was in EUR shift and that is the shift where workload is maximum. Today is my last day of night shift which spanned over 2 weeks, it was less workload comparatively. I utilized my time in doing some project related learning.

There was a break in my gym’ing too due to change in shift and some back problem. I am good now, and gym is also back on track. I go to gym before office, and then I feel fresh and work through the night. Today was a very good day, not only did I have good stint at the gym, but also got to play table tennis first time in Cognizant.

It has been couple of months since I left Amdocs, and did not get a chance to play table tennis. I played today after the break. It was good, the table here is different compared to Amdocs. Also there are 2 tables here in the room compared to one in Amdocs. This table is slower as compared to Amdocs one, and I had to adjust my game a bit.

Surprisingly I did well today, 100% wins. Not bloating about it, my friend had a thin bat, and I found form soon. We also did some practice before the first game. I am trying to be humble here, because this is something very close to me, I really love playing table tennis. Winning or losing is not important, it is more important to play and enjoy! Looking forward to many more stints with the blue table…

Downfalls of Digital and the Internet Age

So it is 5AM in the morning. I am in night shift. Today is my second day of night shift in the new company. No this is not the downfall I will talk about; I am fine working in night. I accept it, what I want to talk about is the disconnect among ourselves, and among our friends and family which has come along with the addiction to social networking.

I am an avid facebook user since long time. I won’t say I am addicted to it, but I use it often. Technology like any other Science can be a boon as well as a blessing, depends on how you use it. Like you can use Nuclear power to generate electricity to power cities, you can also use the same nuclear energy to destroy cities. Same is with facebook, I use it for constructive purpose, to stay up to date with the latest in technology and also the happenings around the world. Also getting an update on friends, but one must remember to be in touch with friends on other mediums apart from facebook, and I imply digital mediums on a bigger scale.

I did not have WhatsApp till last year. I had a Bada OS mobile of samasung, and they did not have WhatsApp for it. I switched to Google Nexus 5, and started using WhatsApp, first couple months were those characterized by novelty of something new, I confess I used to ping a lot of friends and waste lot of time. Then I started using it only to stay in touch with close friends and family. Important thing is how much time you can afford to give to such things, and how much time you actually give. I do not spend more than half hour a day on WhatsApp.

Few more things I am proud of are living without a TV for over 3 years, and that too happily, living without a mobile for more than a month. I am in the business of IT, and I have passion for IT. However I am not addicted to it, I can live without it. I like the real world more, I enjoy the sunrise, I used to do that first thing in the morning in Magarpatta City apartment. I enjoy travelling, I enjoy partying with friends in real life. Yes there are a lot of downfalls of the digital age, but it is up to you on how much you can control yourself, and how much you can utilize the technology, rather than technology utilizing you!!!

IPL Knockouts & the Mumbaikar spirit

IPL has reached knockout stages now. Chennai, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Bangalore have made it to the last 4. Mumbai has done so against all odds. They had a very bad start to the season, and were placed at the bottom 2 of the table. There came a time when they were ruled out of the tournament, and they had to win last 7 or so matches and still have some luck to go with it to make it to top 4.

What eventually happened was they ended up at number two in the table, a tremendous achievement. Being a proud Mumbaikar, that is something I can easily relate it. My own life has been a bit like that, many times when no one was considering me, I came out shining. I have blogged about such examples before. Also, the saying that ‘When the going gets tough, the tough gets going’ implies to MI in this IPL season and to me too.

This has been the most competitive of all the 8 seasons. Top 4 were not decided till last day of group stages. Every team gave good performances, and fought hard in every match. Another highlight has been that the fielding standards are just getting better a better, this IPL we saw some outstanding and jaw dropping catches being taken, simply superb!

One more trend I noticed was captains winning the toss and electing to bowl first in majority of the matches, and also ending up wining majority of those matches. They have the confidence of chasing any total, 180 is easily gettable now compared to 5 years back, when it was a winning total for sure.

So the question is: who will win the most coveted crown in Twenty 20 cricket? It would sound boring if Chennai wins it; all the 4 teams are very strong. Bangalore have most match winners compared to all, Rajasthan is in excellent form, and of course Mumbai has the Mumbaikar spirit, I cannot predict who will win, but it is gonna be one hell of a fight!!!

Memory Improvement Techniques

Dear Sparshu,

Let me be frank with you, I never had good short term memory. I could never remember dates and events of history books, and also neither good in remembering places river, etc from geography books in school. I was good in Maths and Science as that did not require remembering things, it was more of analytic ability, however as I see now having a good memory is important, not only in school but also in daily life and work life.

Nowadays I rely on technology to remember things, but I saw this wonderful program today on National Geographic about how to improve our memory, and I thought of sharing it with you. I hope this helps you in school days and also in your life. I am too gonna try these techniques from now, and I am pretty positive it would work.

First technique is breaking up things into chunks. For example if you want to remember a 12 digit number like 304832146043 it would be difficult ,as there is a limitation of how much data we can remember in short term memory. Try breaking this into chunks like 3048-3214-6043. Now it would be much easier to remember these 12 digits, as effectively your brain is counting this as 3 chunks or 3 numbers rather than 12. You can try this technique to remember phone numbers, social security numbers, bank account numbers, etc

Second technique is imagination. Let’s say if you want to remember few things in order, let’s say a list of continents in alphabetical order.  So what you want to remember is:  Africa , Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Close your eyes and imagine your home, there is an African Lion sitting on the couch in the hall, there is ice cream from Antarctica in the kitchen fridge, there is hot Indian food on the platform, there is a Kagaroo in your playing room, Statue of Liberty in the office room, Rockefeller tower in the guest bedroom and Brazil soccer t-shirt inside the closet of the guest bed room. You can have your own imagination too or use this if you like. Keep your eyes and sink it in, then open your eyes and you would be able to easily recall the list of continents in alphabetical order. It’s about imagination and relating it to daily life.

 Third technique is the first alphabet technique. Let’s say you want to remember a list of items to get from Walmart or any other list but not in any particular order, this technique would be very useful. Let’s say for eg you want to remember the list for shopping: Milk, Curd, Cupcakes, Burritos, Nachos, Pink Lemonade, Pretzels, Chipotle, Burger, Salad, Juice and French fries. Seems difficult doesn’t it.  These are 12 items, what you can do it pick first letter of each item: mccbnppcbsjf. Now make any random meaningful or meaningless story with one word for each of these letter. For eg. ‘Mom can cook (in)butter (but)not proper paneer. Can be successful January February.’ It is easier to remember these 2 sentences, it need not be meaningful and then you would be able to recall the list of items easily.

Finally it happens a lot of times when we enter a room to get something, and we forget what we had come for. This happens as the door of the room acts as a kinda reset of short term memory. To avoid this talk to yourself what you are coming in the room to get or to find while you are entering. For eg, say keys keys keys while entering, in that way you would remember what you came in the room for.

As you grow up, you would also have access to technology, use them as well to remember things and make to do lists. It is very important to have a to-do list, you do not forget anything and it is a very important aspect for being successful. However also make sure you keep your brain sharp and memory strong, it would help you a lot in school, work and life. Practice above techniques and you will get better at them and more smart and effective….Love you Bhanju!!!

Yours Lovingly,

Mamu

UEFA Champions League 2014-15

I had a complete disconnect from football while in Amdocs. I stayed 3 years without a TV and as I have said before it was intentional so that I could focus on some studies. Now I am living lavishly, independent room in a fully furnished spacious flat. Really enjoying it.

We had not subscribed to sports channel before.  However thanks to Tata Sky upgrade we got one month access to all channels including HD. Coincidently the UEFA Champions League semi-finals are going on. I got a chance to watch the same in HD. Off course I did not watch it Live due to office timings, I saw recap the next day.

The first semi-final was between Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich have had injury problems recently and missing their key players. Barcelona had won the first leg at home 3-0, and that is a big advantage of 3 goals. In the second leg Bayern won at home but also conceded 2 goals. Barcelona going to finals on 5-3 aggregate. One thing to highlight about Barca in second leg was a lot of unselfish play. Players playing for each other, one of the many such instance being Neymar a goal away from hatrick passed a ball when he had a good chance to go for goal in second half.  Bayern had lost their away leg in quarters too against Porto, but thrashed Porto 6-1 at home to reach semis.

The second semis between Juventus and Real Madrid. A very high chance for an El-Classico Champions League finals. Juventus won the first leg at home 2-1. Everyone expecting a thrashing by Ronaldo and company in the second leg at Madrid. However Juventus put on an inspiring performance to hold Madrid 1-1 at home to knock out the defending champions. Juventus have a good team with a mix of experience and youth, and they work well together in defense and have good strikers too. Not to the scale of Messi and CR7, but good enough to give Barcelona a good fight in Berlin….looking forward!!!