Vinod Venkataraman

Outside of school, I have two great passions: football (soccer) and music. Apart from these, I enjoy outdoor games and activities, reading, computer gaming and occasionally, writing - although I don't maintain a blog - yet.

Here's a little bit more about my passions.

Football (Soccer):

It caught hold of me when I was 8, and its going to last till the very end. I love everything to do with football - playing, watching, discussing about, gaming FIFA / PES on the computer - everything! My favourite club is F.C. Internazionale Milano of Italy, usually known simply as Inter.

On a personal level, I have played in just about every position except keeper, and eventually settled into central midfield. I was fortunate enough to play with some wonderful players at NIT Trichy. I was part of the university team that grew over the years from perennial second-fiddles to a dominant force that went head-to-head with some of the best college teams in the state, and won regional and national tournaments. I served as the captain of this fantastic team in my final year, and graduated from NIT Trichy with the knowledge that the players that will fill in are every bit as capable as the ones that graduated with me.

Some photos of the NIT Trichy team (click to enlarge):

Music:

To say music is an important part of my life would be an understatement. I come from a highly musical background, with Indian Carnatic singers, instrumentalists and songwriters on both sides of the family tree. In some ways, though, I am the black sheep of this family, as I stopped learning Carnatic music pretty early on - I fell in love with rock!

My favourite artists are mainly a bunch of Brits - Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, and from this generation - Oasis, Porcupine Tree and Coldplay. Other bands I enjoy listening to include the Barenaked Ladies (love their rhythm, stage presence & sense of humour!), Opeth (only the ballads), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N' Roses, Incubus, Jimi Hendrix and Springsteen.

I play the guitar (rhythm and bass), keyboards, and recently the drums as well, without being particularly good at any of them! I've been involved in two and a half amateur bands so far. The first was way back in high school, where I sang and played rhythm guitar for the aptly named Cacophonists. Click here for a picture of us on stage.

The next band was the half in the number I cited earlier. A large group of us knew throughout our days in NIT Trichy that we had talent, but never really got beyond fun jam sessions in the hostel, until final year. We got a chance to show off our skills at our annual college fest - Festember. So on one fateful day, the 8 members of The Naga B Project (TNBP - the name has an interesting story - ask me sometime!) rotated performers on stage and compiled an hour-long show of covers.
Click here for the last song in the performance - Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall - and here for a picture of us in action.

Most great bands break up due to ego issues - TNBP split because we were too popular! 3 more members joined us, and that's when our master and supreme commander, the Naga B, broke us up into two bands and himself joined the other band. Due to his presence, they retained the name TNBP, while we became - this time not-so-aptly named - Dischord. Due to the extremely short duration of time we had left together in college, Dischord only manage to perform one gig.
A couple of our songs are up on Youtube: Opeth - Windowpane and er, a rock version of Larger than Life.
Disclaimer: The audio quality's horrible on these videos, but take my word for it - we don't sound that bad!

Picture of the bands:

Cacophonists

The Naga B Project (TNBP)

Dischord