Formula One 2006

A new season is all set to begin of the FIA Formula One world championships. Renault and Mc Laren have been topping the time sheets followed closely by Ferrari and Honda in the winter testing. With a lot of changes to the regulations this season- the most prominent being changing the engines from V10 to V8 and allowing tyre changes- its difficult to predict who will be on top at the beginning of the season. Once again I will be rooting for Alonso and Renault this season. But I think the going will be much tougher for them this season. One might question Alonso’s motivation level after having announced his plans to shift to McLaren next season. Also, tyre supplier Michelin will be in its final year in the sport. So their commitment can also be questioned. The inclusion of Super Aguri will mean that there will be record number of lappings done by the race leader over the last placed driver this season. I cannot imagine the competitive level of Aguri who will be racing with an Arrows chassis which is atleast 4 years old ! I expect Ferrari to be more competitive this season with the V8s. I am sure Felipe Massa will be a worthy successor to Reubens Barrichello. He will play second fiddle to Schumacher perfectly. This will most likely be Schumacher’s last season. I think Raikkonen will be the most obvious target for Ferrari to replace him next season. Massa will then continue to play second fiddle to him. I hope my old favourite Williams team gets back to competitive form this season although there are little indications that this will be the case. So the competitive teams this season are likely to be Renault, mclaren, Ferrari and Honda. Lets fasten our seat belts and get set for another season for high speed action. Go Alonso !

Goa trip and an eventful start to the year

After a long hiatus I return to blogging. My exams got over on 4th jan and I left for Goa along with my roomies as planned. We spent 4 days there, had a nice time. Goa is a very relaxing place and we sure did relax there. We got to know a few things that we did not know earlier:
• Almost 100% of Goans speak English.
• Goa must be the state which has the largest population of Indians speaking Russian language.
• Infact we were amused to see that some shops had billboards in Russian and even the names of the shops were written only in Russian.
{The above points are of course due to the huge inflow of foreign tourists, especially central Europeans whom the locals try to woo for their livelihood.}
• A plain egg omelette at a small restaurant with thatched roof and plastic tables and chairs can sometimes cost you 30 rupees (and on other times even more).
• Its easier to get beer than to get water in Goa. People are amused (some may even get offended) when we say no to beer and ask for water instead.
• There’s probably no traffic signal (atleast we did not see any) in entire Goa.
• When a European rides a Bajaj Pulsar, his size will make the bike look like a TVS Champ.
• Goa is probably one of the few places in India where you may get an unofficial discount from shopkeepers, restaurant owners and hawkers just because you are an Indian.

Having chilled out to our heart’s content and our wallets’ lack of content, we returned to Mumbai on 9th. I left for Chennai the next day on a trip that was planned to last one week. But my stay in Chennai lasted more than a month as I was down with Leptospirosis (rat fever) and subsequently with Jaundice. My doc says that I must have most likely got infected 1-2 weeks before the symptoms surfaced. That would mean that the most likely place where I got the infection from is GR Jani hostel (yeah, that’s the name of my hostel). For those of you who are wondering what rat fever is, well don’t worry. It is not such a common infection and you are not likely to get it- Provided you are not a resident of GR Jani hostel. Ours is a great hostel, incubator of all the dirtiest diseases in the country. But anyway, I guess it doesn’t make sense to ramble about it now.
Three fevers (malaria, rat fever and jaundice) in three months, but none during the trimester exam. Guess I must be one lucky chap!

So, after about a month’s rest I returned to Mumbai. Got the results for the 2nd trim. A much better GPA of 3.11 this time helped move my CGPA towards more decent levels after a disastrous 1st trim when I got a pathetic 2.75. Lots more hard work to be done if I want to push my final CGPA to 3.0 and beyond. And this trim I already have my work cut out having missed 1 month of classes. Anyway, hoping for the best…