bEAST!!!!

Many people that I have met over the internet through blogging have time and again asked me as to why I address myself as the bEAST. Many times I wanted t oanswer their query but somehow never got around to doing it. The name doesn't stand for my looks, my personality or anything as such. Neither am I a psychopath or sadistic. And I definitely don't believe in the existence of a trapped wild thing inside me. But the name means a lot to me for there is so much attached to it.

During my bachelors, I stayed in the hostel provided by the college. We had an impressive (shuks!) LAN system in there. LAN? It stands for Local Area Network. Wats that? Well in simpler terms, it is just like the internet you use. Hooking up our computer to the LAN required us to name our computer. A distinct name, which would identify our computers. I got my computer a bit too late than others. My roommate at the time, didn't have a computer of his own. So my computer would be the gateway into our world so I had to come up with a name that would somehow stand for the both of us. Now if it stood for me, it had to be something Macho! Rite? So I decided to use the name Beastieboyz, which was a popular rock band at sometime.

Now the LAN is a wonderful thing. It is like this one big society, a wonderland where you could do many things. Sharing movies, songs, chatting with people in other rooms, talking to girls all night long :). It takes computer gaming to a whole new level where many people play the same game at the same time against each other. One such game was CounterStrike better known as CS. It is a shooting game where we get to fight posing as either policemen or terrorist. So a bunch of us can pretend to be policemen while the other have to be terrorist. Can't explain the whole concept here and it is not relevant here. So people had already been playing this game for a long time now, and I was a total newbie since I was one of the last to bring in my computer.

The game further required us to come up with names that were unique to ourselves. Now I didn't really want to go through the whole thing again, screening names and choosing one etc. So I just picked up the beast part of Beastieboyz. People already knew my computers name and thus beast would make perfect sense. Also since the game was a bit violent, thus beast was just perfect. But I don't do simple things. Something about it had to be different. Thus I wrote it in a different manner. bEAST with a small B and capital everything :)

I had hardly played the game for a week and was now facing the Inter College CounterStrike Championship. Oh I so very much wanted to participate but my lack of experience and amateur skills would not get me into a good team. Luckily I was picked up by a team which had average rated players in it. The tournament was to start at 9 on this Sunday morning and I was absolutely excited. I got up early in morning, practiced my hand on the game and got dressed up after a bath. I walked up into my team members room where different shooting techniques were being discussed. However it was supposed to be a team of 5 players and we were 6 people in the room. I asked him ...

"What is going on? Have you.... changed team?"

to which he coldly replied

"You are not in our team"

Oh, I was furious and hurt. This was no gentlemanly behavior. How could he do this? Pathetic! I retreated back to my room. All the adrenalin which I had built up since morning was wasted away in the punches that I delivered to my desk and the wall. Ahh, I put on some music and tried to relax, thinking about all the fun that I would have had, all the stories that would be narrated to me by my friends who will participate. Trying to sooth myself, I closed my eyes and sat with my head back on my chair. I knew I wasn't good, I knew I wouldn't have won it. But, but this was no way to let go of me. I should have been informed before hand so that I could at least try secure a position elsewhere.

God does whatever he does, for the best! Ya! A while later I heard an announcement. It was one of my close friends. None other than Mr. Jack Sparrow. He has put up a team, and they were short of one guy. Till last night he wasn't planing on playing but Something in the morning changed his mind. Oh I ran upto him...

"Oye! stop announcing, I'm available, I will play"

How could he say no to me, he was my friend, he had to say yes. But I think he did it willingly :). The team he ad pt up had two very good players and I was surprised as to why they had been unable to find another player and settled in for me.

I now had the chance to play, and I just wanted revenge. No matter what, I'll defeat the team that kicked me out so disgracefully. CounterStrike was still in its premature form at my college. Where people played without any plans. Just before the game I had a crazy idea in mind. We would have a decoy. As a terrorist the game requires us to plant a bomb. We have the option of two sites to plant the bomb at. The other team has to defuse the bomb in 45 seconds. For which they need to know where the bomb has been planted. I decided to send out a decoy. One of us would go to the first site and starting firing bullets in the air and make noise, everything to create a diversion. The other team would rush to the first site while we would successfully plant the bomb at the second site and take up defensive positions. Thus was born the first strategy for playing counterstrike at JIIT. The concept was new to other players. Ah we blew the competition away. By the end of the game, the competition didn't know what struck them. That day I played like a bEAST. The performance was amazing, and mind blowing. We all performed equally well. We won the first game then the second then the third, the semi finals, and the finals. No one could believe that a bunch of amateurs had won the competition. The so called Gods of CounterStrike were delivered a disgraceful defeat by us. We couldn't believe that we had won it.

Soon the names bEAST, Osama, J, Blade and Prateek were on everyones lips. The game meant life to everyone in campus. We were soon looked up to. The new Lords! Since then people referred to me as the bEAST instead of Jiwa. I liked it :). People there still know me as bEAST! I am the bEAST. However I'm no longer that good with the game. It only lasted for an year, and soon other people started developing strategies. They worked hard and harder than me. I was never ready to give so much for a game to be working hard on new strats. So I just gave it up. But people still remember me and my team mates, for we were the stuff taht legends are made of. Oh I guess I'm aging too fast :)