My views

I have always been interested in tennis from a young age. My father is a huge tennis fan and loves to watch matches and analyse the different strategies the players use and how they play. Seeing my father's love for the game, my interest grew gradually as well. Luckily, when  I resettled in Tokyo, I found to my joy that there were multiple tennis courts and a lot of top-class tennis coaching centres. I immediately asked my parents to join me in a coaching centre and I had my first class before the first two weeks of my arrival itself!  As my tennis journey continued, I too started watching the matches of all time legends such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Pete Sampras to name a few. Although all these players are exceptional, one player whose game and especially his return of the serve I truly admired was Andre Agassi . At the same time, I was really interested in the autobiography genre and was eagerly searching for good quality autobiographies from which I could l...

Snow as white as milk was piling up all over the Hakuba valley as I woke up on the fourth and last day of the Hakuba trip. While I was getting ready for the day, I was feeling happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because I could meet my parents and get back to the usual school routine but sad, because this was going to be my last day of skiing for an entire year. Nevertheless, I firmly told myself to enjoy each and every moment to the fullest and headed downstairs to grab some breakfast along with my roommates and friends. After breakfast, which to my consternation, had been declining in quality for the past few days, we awaited our teachers to brief us on the day's events. We learnt that because our school was a six hour drive from the valley, we were to go upto our rooms straightaway and pack our suitcases. Following that, we were going to ski for two hours and then head back to the hotel; after which we would clamber onto the buses and return home.  As all of us starte...

I woke up on day three of my Hakuba trip as a teenager. It was my 13th birthday and I was feeling on top of the world!! As I was marvelling at my natural promotion from childhood to adolescense, my birthday wishes started pouring in. My room mates joyfully wished me and I thanked them with the same emotion. I then called my parents and seeked their blessings. After getting ready for the day, we headed down for breakfast. On joining the rest of my class, I recieved wishes from a lot more of my classmates. I was surprised that many of them knew it was my birthday, as I had only mentioned it to a few people. We were briefed on the day's schedule and I felt buoyant when I learnt that along with skiing, we were also going to experience avalanche training, take a maths test and experience sledding!! Knowing that a smorgasbord of fun events were going to take place, I happily trotted over to the storage room and donned my heavy boots and picked up my skis and poles. I cautiously wa...

The door was knocked on thrice as I lazily rose from my slumber. It was seven thirty in the morning and I had managed to sleep the previous night after a good deal of tossing and turning about. My friends woke up as well; and upon opening it, found one of our teachers standing outside. He wished us good morning and told us to quickly get ready as breakfast was in an hour's time. Thanking the teacher, we went back into the room and set about performing our usual morning routine. Around eight thirty, we headed down to the hotel lobby, where I greeted the rest of my classmates.   After tucking into a sumptuous breakfast, we were given a briefing of the day's events by our teachers. I was jubilant when my teachers announced that we were going to ski today!! After all, this was going to be my first experience trying the sport. Following breakfast, we headed back to our rooms where I proudly donned my ski jacket, pant, helmet, gloves and goggles. We then went down to the stor...

In this series of four posts, I am going to be writing on my amazing school trip to Hakuba , where I tried my hand at skiing for the first time. The trip commenced on 4th February and concluded on 7th February 2020. As a part of my school curriculum, every year we go for two four day trips, one each in the summer and winter. As I had a fantastic trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan in the summer, I was eagerly looking forward to my sojourn in the winter. When I got to know that we were going to go to Hakuba, a village in the Nagano prefecture in Japan, I was on cloud 9!! Nagano is situated north west from Tokyo. Not only was I going to stay with my friends for three nights, I was also going to try skiing for the first time ever.  As the Northern Alps(one of the best mountain ranges for skiing) is situated in the Hakuba village, it is Japan's largest ski resort. We could choose between skiing and snowboarding and the reason I chose skiing was because I was thrilled b...

In this blog, I will be writing on one of my favourite books ever : Goal, Butterfingers! This book was published in 2010. Written superbly by Khyrunnisa A, the book is centered around thirteen year old Amar Kishen, who studies in Green Park Higher Secondary School. Amar is a very clumsy person, who tends to mostly drop whatever he holds, hence leading his friends to call him as butterfingers. In the wake of the 2010 FIFA World cup, Amar and his friends have a brilliant plan - a school "World Cup" tournament, where each class plays as a different country. But while being executed, they run into many obstacles, including a semi finals match ban for skipping school and taking part in a protest rally against pesticide factories. After having to send a weak team to play the semifinals, they fear for the worst, when they get the news that the team had won the semi-finals!! Just before the finals, the team's goalkeeper got his hand injured. As there was no reserve goal...

In this blog, I am going to be writing on one of my favourite autobiographies, 281 and Beyond .  This book is the autobiography of one of India's best test players ever, VVS Laxman . One of the foremost Indian cricketers during the 2000's along with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, he has often lifted India from the jaws of defeat into the lap of victory. His most memorable and cherished innings was the 281 against Australia in Calcutta. This eventually led to a series win against Australia after a long time. His career stretched from 1997 to 2012. I had first read about this book in The Hindu newspaper. There were one or two reviews and an interview with Laxman as well. The reviews were positive and were saying that this book was good. As I had not read much about Laxman, I thought that I would find this book interesting and wanted to buy it but as I was busy in other activities, it slipped out of my mind. A week ago, I was in Thiruvananthapuram. I was...

The Vivo Indian Premier League (IPL) 11 has culminated with a lot of memories. A lot of close and thrilling encounters. As an icing on the cake, my home team Chennai Super Kings(CSK)  clinched   the IPL title for the third time . As I do a recap, I would like to pen down my best five moments in this season. Moment #5: Unaccustomed tactics by the team captains This season has seen a change in the way Captains lead their team. Unlike the previous editions, new tactics executed effectively by the Captains have turned into game changers. For instance, in the Qualifier II game between Sunrisers Hyderabad(SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR), Kane Williamson, the captain for SRH kept a forward short leg in order to get KKR batsman Andre Russell back to the pavilion. This move by Williamson instilled a seed of doubt into Russell's mind as he tried to run down the ball from the "mystery spinner"Rashid Khan through the slip cordon, only to watch it go straight to Shikhar Dh...

In this post, I will be blogging on my favourite sport, "Basketball". I like the game of basketball for the simple reason of being a fast moving sport and as a team excel in the stipulated short time. This has always kept me  enthralled  and on the edge of my seat. Inspired by watching NBA games, I started playing Basketball. Since last year, I play as the " Power Forward" for my school basketball team by name " HLC Explorers". Under the tutelage of our school coach, Ganesh sir, it is being an exciting journey with loads of learning. Over the last two years, we have won 5 inter - school tournaments in Chennai. Every game gave me lot of takeaways both from the physical and mental aspects. In a different post, I will  write on my continuous learning through this great game of Basketball. Basketball is a limited-contact sport played on a rectangular court, with 2 teams, each having 5 members. The main objective of the game is to shoot the basketbal...