The ends The means

of little miss sunshine ..

2009-03-08T03:57:00.009+05:30

My mind has literally been pulp of late and I guess another round of 'little miss sunshine' was exactly what I needed to get up and running again. It has all the makings of a classic entwined in to the plot. A dysfunctional family that sticks together; loud mouthed, disgruntled old age; genius struggling in personal life; budding youth coming to terms with the reality that dreams might never come true; a never say die personality driven by sheer belief and conviction; and to top it all a kick ass, unconventional performance in the 'little miss sunshine' beauty pageant offending all the lesser mortals around and all this put in perspective of a zany, imperfect world with weird cops, dead people in the trunk of the car and clutch wires and horns going out of order.

The whole craziness of the movie culminates in to the entire family dancing on the stage to the song 'super freak' with everyone watching in complete shock and surprise. This song, sung by Rick James, is one of my favorites and peps up the mood every time I hear it.

She's a very kinky girl
The kind you don't take home to mother
.
.
That girl is pretty wild now
The girl's a super freak
The kind of girl you read about
In new-wave magazine
I really love to taste her
Every time we meet
She's all right, she's all right
That girl's all right with me, yeah
She's a super freak, super freak

A must watch for everyone.

5 reasons why people at office will miss me ..

2008-02-08T16:00:00.000+05:30

Today is my last working day at my current workplace and I would be moving to Hyderabad on sunday. Though i leave people over here infinite reasons to miss me .. the following 5 reasons top the list.

loud sneezes
they made many people shake off the afternoon laziness and get back to work .. reassured of my comforting presence around.

my penchant for playing around with my hairstyle
trust me .. one can manage to have a hairstyle even with the meager bunch that one is left with. the frequent changes brought a sense of dynamism in the lives of everyone around.

shayari and the PJs
would tickle the funny bone of everyone around mimicking the popular figures in office. the jokes and the quips would often make sidhuisms seem rather mundane and boring.

a ready reference when it came to food
be it the alphabetical list of offerings at haldiram , the special indian menu at pizza hut, the list of kebabs at the kebab factory or the offerings at the food court of a local mall .. i would handle quite a few queries on a daily basis.

an epitome of courage and motivation
single, dysfunctional personal life and yet a smiling face .. i wonder if there would ever be an alternate role-model for everyone around to draw inspiration from.

of poets and bloggers ..

2008-01-18T21:00:00.000+05:30

poet1 : आप तो कटाक्ष करते हैं समाज कि बुराइयों पर ओर जिस व्यंग्य के साथ वाकयी में सराहनीय है ..... मेरी नई कविता .....

poet2 : (abrupting him in the middle) : आपके बारे में भी बहुत सुना है, जिस तरह आप इन नेतायों की पोल खोलते हैं, आपके हास्य का जो अंदाज़ है ... काबिले तारीफ है ... लीजिये चार पंक्तियां मेरी ओर से (goes on for the next 15 minutes) ..

poet1 : बहुत बढ़िया चार पंक्तियाँ .... वाकयी में बहुत ही उम्दा .... लीजिये आठ पंक्तियाँ मेरी ओर से ... (goes on for the next .. you know how many minutes) ..

blogger 1: Hey you got a cool blog there .. read my extremely humorous post here .. leave a comment and subscribe to it if you like it and pls link to it from your blog ..
blogger 2: I liked your post .. you write really well .. pls join my community on mybloglog ...
blogger 1: Great that you liked my post .. digg it or vote for it on stumble-upon and ask all your community members to do it if you can ..

Be it a poet, hungry for appreciation or a professional blogger trying to increase his page view per month, everyone likes to be taken notice of.

Well, I just like to be read, but I guess my means to popularise my blog are far too subtle (putting it on orkut, sending the url to some of my friends, pointing my gtalk status to my latest post for a couple of days) to register themselves with anyone. Being bullishly conspicuous kills the whole fun of it.

Google can't come to the rescue for i hardly write about current affairs. The Google Analytics report tells me that the only case where the search engine has been of any help is the query for kerala+sexy+beauty, that points to one of my posts about my kerala trip where infact the sexy refers to the boat I took in the kerala backwaters.
(..stifled laughter..)

But then again i have been infrequent and irregular with my posts, cardinal sins for a blogger. Spent the latter half of the last year in US (a post coming) entangled in work and of late was in a job hunt and moving to Hyderabad next month (another post coming).

Let's just hope for now that I would manage to post more frequently and save this blog from obscurity and oblivion.

12 signs you are single and not so loving it

2007-10-30T01:38:00.001+05:30

1) "Har kisi ko nahin milta yahan pyaar zindagi main" figures among your top five favourite songs.
2) "Yeh dil na hota bechara .. kadam na hote awara" figures among your top ten favourite songs.
3) You watch couples coo-chi-cooing; give a long, broad smile and then an even longer sigh.
4) You sit sulking while you flat-mate prattles non-stop with his girlfriend on the phone.
5) You chuckle (wanting to holler hip-hip-hurray) when your flat-mate tells the tale of his recent break-up.
6) When a friend invites you on his marriage/engagement .. after an animated congrats .. you reply "might be difficult .. work you know .." even if all you are doing at work is expanding you social network on orkut, myspace, friendster, facebook, linkedin, 360, hi5, tagged, twitter, ning and mybloglog.
7) "Obsessed with career"|"Freedom is the mantra" are the answers you have memorized in case someone queries about your status.
8) You keep a confident "can't-find-my-type" as back-up, in case the earlier two answers fail.
9) In case even that fails .. you let out a painful "better be single than heart-broken" using all your acting prowess.. suggesting not to be reminded of the break-up that never happened!!
10) You have an email alias named *potential-list*, containing the ids of all your (seemingly single) acquaintances of the superior sex, that you send all the funny forwards to.
11) You had already planned a trip to home when your team comes up with a you-and-your-better-halves outing plan on the weekend.
12) You had already planned a trip to home when your team comes up with a you-and-your-better-halves outing plan on the weekend again .. and you laugh off the situation as height-of-coincidence.

the charming girl ..

2007-09-21T03:45:00.000+05:30

She threw a furtive look towards this guy and wondered what was keeping him glued to his seat. Repeatedly brushing her fingers through her hair and turning her wrist to confirm the time she eagerly waited for him to make the move.

Acting like a coffee addict this guy got up and moved to the coffee room. She followed after a span of time that they had so atomically mastered in maintaining, as both of them went on realizing yet another meeting masqueraded as a co-incidence.

This had been happening for few months now but still this moment was far from being treated as routine and whispers were exchanged each time, for she was such a celebrity. What often boggled people was as to why would she choose this guy. "Love indeed is blind. It has to be for this to happen", some would say.
Her twinkling eyes, her perennial smile, her special-effect hi and her special-effects bye never ceased to charm people. And this guy, crude, artificial, with his vain attempts of sounding sugary, was so repulsive.

She indeed was classy. Simple yet dashing. Humble yet dominating. Her mind a precious bundle of beautiful thoughts and yet skilled in the art of handling people. Letting a guy, smitten by her charms, know his limit with conscious and repeated use of the word friend in phrases like Cheers for friends like you.

But was she naive or even foolish enough in assuming that her secret is unknown to anyone around ? Perhaps she knew that this protocol of unbroken silence would never be breached by a confronting question. She so resembled the subject of Billy Joel's classic she is always a woman to me

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me
...
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
And she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me

kerala and the temple carnival ..

2007-09-10T01:05:00.000+05:30

Earlier posts in this series :
kerala-and-the-romantic-rains,
kerala-and-the-mystical-mists,
kerala-and-the-sexy-beauty

I suddenly woke up with the noise of someone approaching me and found that the train had been at Trivandrum for the last half hour with both of us fast asleep. We sighted some funny looking posters of malyali movies as we started yet another hunt for some place to sleep. Our two stops here, the Padmanabhaswamy temple and the Trivandrum zoo were very near to the station as the sign boards told us. Most of the hotels were full and we took up a rather cheap place and slept. We had to start early tomorrow as we had plans to pack Trivandrum, Kovalam and Kanyakumari within one day itself.

Trivandrum is a beautiful city and boasts of some real nice architecture . Traffic policemen in nice crisp white uniforms can be found at each intersection. It seems that the city has a fetish for Ambassadors cars .. they are everywhere .. and no surprise we ended up hiring up one for the day. To enter the Padmanabhaswamy temple you have to wear the traditional Mundu, it was fun prancing around the temple premises in the Mundu. After a small trip to the Trivandrum zoo we headed towards Kovalam, some 16 Km away from Trivandrum.

Kovalam's beaches are one of the most popular in Kerala. The three beaches named LightHouse, Hawa and Samudra attract lot of foreign tourists every year. Met this cute little girl , the miss universe to be, at the LightHouse beach. We tried to be in time for a visit to the Padmanabhapuram wooden palace en route to Kanyakumari, but we were a bit late and the palace was closed for lunch hours.

Kanyakumari was fun. Took a ferry ride to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Tiruvalluvar(a celebrated Tamil poet) statue. At the Triveni Point (here you can see the three colours of the three oceans merging) we had mirchi ka pakora, the kela pakora and several cups of tea. They have a rather unique way of preparing tea, a cup at a time, and the whole process is very interesting to watch. This was the most picturesque place in Kanyakumari .. the rocky beach with the violent sea and the two monuments in sight on the left.

The 7'o clock bus to Rameshwaram was late and we set out to catch the night view of the monuments and we sighted this Vivekananda museum just next to the bus stand. The beautiful red building with "the wandering monk" etched out in white just next to the entrance. We rushed inside to see that it was full of insights in to various phases of his life. We rushed back, gave the STD guy next to the bus station our number, asked him to call us up when the bus arrives and rushed back in to the museum. We saw this rare photograph of the two rocks in the sea prior to the setting up of the memorial and the statue. It had just been 10 minutes when the phone rang and we had to leave unfinished.

The overnight journey to Rameshwaram was bumpy. Yes that would be right word to describe it. Every now and then, we jumped, not with joy, but courtesy the puddles in the road. As we saw village after village we could visualise the bus on the map crawling along the east coast. We reached Rameshwaram at 5 am and got to the Ramanathaswamy temple at 6am.

Its huge huge temple and one of the chaar dhaams (Badrinath, Dwarka and Puri being the other three). Legend says that Sri Ram built a bridge from here across the sea to rescue Sita. After the pooja we went to Danukshodi, 8Km from Rameshwaram .. walked along the bare sea bed and swam a little. It was the the west coast at Kovalam the previous day and now the east coast at Dhanukshodi.

We had booked our train tickets from Madurai to Chennai from where i was to catch a flight back to Delhi. We made our way to Madurai in a bus from Rameshwaram and managed to visit the Meenakshi temple at Madurai in the little time we had there. Meenakshi temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva and Paarvati, is the hub of religious and cultural life of the city.
We were completely tapped out of cash by this time and didn't have much time to locate an ATM. Somehow convinced the pooja thaali walah to give the thaali for 10 rupees we had. Inside also urged the pundit to give the coconut prasad to offer for free.
I was trying to capture the night view of the temple when this handicraft shopkeeper told me i could go to the rooftop from their shop and click some photos from there. We literally ran our way upstairs .. train departure was less than an hour away.

Got to the railway station in time only to know that the train was a little late. It gave us enough time to devour some idlis and dosas at a nearby shop. Aditya came to know during the day that he would have to go to Delhi himself for some official work(he was to get off at Pondicherry earlier). Later he knew that he would be going by the same flight that i was to catch. It was a nice thing to happen .. a nice co-incidence. We got to Chennai at 7 am in the morning and the flight was at 10.30 am. We caught an auto for the Marina beach. Marina beach is a real long beach and stretches for some 12 Km. A stroll along the beach and we started looking for a bus or an auto to the airport. We were having a hard time knowing nothing about the route and no autos in sight when this elderly couple sitting nearby in their jogging shoes called us .. they tried to tell us which bus to catch .. but realizing that we were short of time .. offered us a ride .. called for their driver who came along in their mercedes. The couple shared the story of their success and offered us some tea on the way .. another of the nice experiences that made this trip unforgettable in every sense of the word ...

kerala and the sexy beauty..

2007-04-08T03:01:00.000+05:30

Earlier posts in this series :
kerala-and-the-romantic-rains,
kerala-and-the-mystical-mists

The bus I boarded from Munnar reached Kottayam at 1 am and I took up a room in a hotel near the railway station. Aditya's train, that he boarded from Palakkad, got there at about 4 in the morning. We had a long chat, i showed him all the photos and videos from the previous two days as we got ready to sleep. I had not really slept for some 40 hours now and the extensive travelling had left me exhausted. At 10 we started for Kumarakoam in an auto and got off to a speed boat ride from there to Alleppey, called the Venice Of The East. On our way were some amazing sights of backwaters in Kerala, the lush green paddy fields at R block. Its the only place in the world where cultivation is done below sea level. We sighted a lot of locals on our way engaged in their daily chores.

Just on the entrance to the Vembanad lake we stopped at a point as our boatman sighted rains coming from some distance. His was a trained eye. About 10 minutes later we could indeed see that rains were approaching us from Alleppey side and it would not be safe to continue. The locals sold Todi here. Some kind of alcoholic drink made from coconut. I simply avoided it and opted for simple coconut water instead. This Todi is big time popular among the locals as we saw lot of people buying it in big bottles. There were other boats approaching at this point, house boats, kevalluyams, ferries with lots of people but i kinda liked the fact that we took a separate boat for ourselves.

On getting to Alleppey(also known as Allapuzzha) we were roaming around the market and saw this really beautiful boat, newly made .. unlike all the other ones in sight nearby.. standing out .. a sexy beauty. We gave in to temptation and hired the boat for two hours and went boating around Allepey. I tried to negotiate with a foreigner to share the boat with us for the ride ... but even the shared price seemed too much to him and we took that boat all to ourselves and i would say for the better as we would not have enjoyed that much if he and his family would have been on board too.

We played around the boat a lot, leaving no angle for taking pictures unexplored. And even Aditya, with his fear of water, turned out to be quite a sport at this. After starting from Alleppey our boat stopped at a place near Alleppy Lake Resort to take some petrol and some Dhanoj joined our boatman Vinod. He knew a bit of Hindi and English and it was a big relief. As it turned out this ride was real fun. We went through narrow canals around Alleppey and even got down from the boat, forcing our boatman to stop, when we sighted a Vinji (a real narrow boat meant for only 2 people) and with the help of a local started rowing and filmed it much to the dislike of our boatman as he had to take the boat back in time. It was awesome. Seeing all this sporty stuff, running in and around the boat exploring camera angles, the boat man smiled and remarked something that Dhanoj translated as "Pagal hai kya yeh dono" and we all burst in to laughter. We got back at around 6 and then clicked this photo with Dhanoj(to my left) and Vinod. Dhanoj infact tried to give us his address to post the photo to but it was so damn complex .. you know how South Indian names are...

Me and Aditya in the Vinji. Well to help you with the conversation .. in the first one he is marvelling at my gut because i insisted on this and he was in constant fear that the Vinji would capsize .. and in the second one he is boasting that even he can be daring.. and its not just me who is adventurous ..

We went to this Royal Park Hotel for dinner and it turned out be a real treat with amazing amazing food and that too at pretty cheap prices. We struck up a conversation about common friends as we started savouring the delicacies. After some 200 photos and 10 videos , Aditya's Sony had run out of memory and we transferred all the photos and videos to his laptop that he had brought along while were dining there. We had already enquired about the 8.15 pm train to Trivandrum and left for the railway station nearby after finishing our dinner. The train was rather empty and we perched ourselves comfortable in the sleeper compartment .. both of us dozed soon after .. ending a crazy crazy day of fun and laughter ..

kerala and the mystical mists..

2007-04-04T22:05:00.000+05:30

Earlier post in this series :
kerala-and-the-romantic-rains

Munnar
After the bus that i took from Calicut stranded me in a dark spooky crossway in the middle of the night amidst heavy rains... i had almost given up on the thought that i will get to roam around Munnar and enjoy its beauty, but luckily i got a bus from Perambavoor to Kothamangalam and then a connecting one to Munnar soon after, and i got there around 8 am in the morning. If it was the romantic rains that accompanied in Waynad, it seemed like mystical mists would be my companion here.

The Tea Plantations
The tea planted hills were simply amazing to watch. All these patterns on them seemed like a decoration to greet tourists like me. Tea harvesting is the main occupation with a large chunk of the Munnar's population.

The Lakes
On my way to Top Station, a high scenic point near the Tamil Nadu border, i had some great time at Madupatty Lake and Kundale Lake, two of the best tourist spots in Munnar.

Madupatty Lake : Had a speed-boat ride in the Madupatty Lake and it was so much fun. The mists were finally clearing up and the slight drizzle was also dying away. The whole look of abounding greenery and the whole make up of the entire surroundings was so fresh and so amazing.
Kundale Lake : Kundale Lake is a popular tourist spot among the locals as one gets to pedal-boat here. I strolled around the lake for quite long and went quite far from the rest of the people at the lake and came at a point where the lake bifurcated. A perfect view for a panorama.

The Flowers

Sighted some real beautiful flowers on my way to Top Station. My Kodak was doing great in capturing those. I had charged it fully before starting from Calicut the previous day, in a shop that i entered under the pretense of trying to buy the famous Kozhikode Halwa. I would have to say, Keralites are real friendly.

We, me and my driver, Anoop, returned from Top Station to Munnar where i had my lunch and we started for the Eravikulam National Park. The mists had reappeared again and the view of the Anaimudi Peak(highest in South India) just next to the Park, was elusive. Occasionally when the mist cleared, it gave an amazing view of the valley deep down. We also managed to go to the famous Aththukal falls later in the evening. Couldn't capture them though, as i had already discharged my camera.

After getting back to Munnar, I roamed around, bought some green tea, thanked Anoop for all his efforts of trying to make me understand all those Malyali songs that he played throughout the day and waived goodbye to him. He made some real good company. After having my dinner at Munnar Inn I called up Aditya to enquire about when would his train arrive at Kottayam. I was excited that Aditya was joining me and that it would be the two of us now from here on as I boarded the last bus from Munnar to Kottayam near Alleppey.

kerala and the romantic rains ..

2007-03-26T11:40:00.000+05:30

This is the first post in a four post series on my photo diary of my trip to kerala last summer.

Bombay
The way to Calicut was via Bombay and i had to catch a connecting flight from there to Calicut later in the afternoon. I had about 4 hours to myself in Bombay. Bought a Kodak V603 from a Vijay Sales Price outlet in GoreGaon and then went to Juhu Chaupati where i met these toddlers on their all-class tour to the sea. Continuing with my old habit of trying to fit in everything, i reached the airport with just 20 minutes to the scheduled departure .. pleaded with the people (including some burqa clad women) ahead of me in the luggage clearance line to let me go through .. heaved a sigh of relief when the IA person told me that flight would leave about an hour late, owing to the beefed up security checks due the the terrorist threat at Heathrow airport a day earlier.

Vythiri
I could not find a compatible socket in the entire hotel at Tushargiri(near Calicut) where i could plug the adapter in and charge the camera ..bad ..bad ..bad. Started from the hotel with a bad mood but turned cheerful as i went up the hill, enjoying the view of the valley that the romantic rains were showering their love upon, in a jeep, maneuvering the hair-pin bends. Met these guys on their way to Calicut at Lakkidi,Vythiri and explained the camera-situation. They took some pics and this guy, Satish, on my right, later emailed me those including this one.

Pookot Lake
My eyes were on the lookout for a person who was carrying a digicam and looked like he knew english.. patience paid and i met this guy from some software company in Bangalore .. plugged in my memory card in his Kodak and took this pic. I took out my umbrella as the romantic rains started again, made a call to home strolling around the pathway that encircles the lake .. and lied that i was with Aditya already and that yes he received me at the Calicut airport yesterday.

Suchipaara Falls
Got third time lucky when i met some Infosys guys at the Suchipaara falls and plugged in my memory card in their Canon for this pic. The path to the falls was a slippery trek and i was wearing floaters .. lucky i managed to get there and back without hurting myself. Earlier the romantic rains had given me company again .. on my way to Suchipaara from Vythiri.. and i enjoyed some great views of the tea gardens of that area and occasionally the elusive view of the Chembra Peak(highest peak in Wayanad) whenever the mist cleared. Bought this necklace with wooden beads from the Eruvu Handicraft Shop near Suchipaara falls and haven't taken it off since.

The remaining three parts coming soon ...

a world cup like never before .. II

2007-03-24T19:17:00.000+05:30

India helped Bangladesh's struggle for independence and fought a full fledged war with Pakistani troops to liberate them. India was the first nation to give international recognition to the state of Bangladesh. Half of Bangladeshis are working in the north eastern states as illegal immigrants to earn a living.

Its payback time guys. Lose the match against Bermuda and let us sail through.

Because i don't want to remember Tendulkar as someone who got out for a naught in one of the most important encounters at the fag end of his career.
Because i don't want to remember Ganguly as someone who fought all odds to make a comeback in the team just to get out on an irresponsible shot in what became his last world cup match.
Because i don't want to remember Dravid as a helpless captain who could not make things happen in the world cup.

I hope Dhoni and Yuvraj would make amends in the coming years for their failure. Perhaps these pampered youngsters will realize that cricket is not about battering Bermuda but standing up and applying yourself to the game when the moment requires it the most. But for these three, the moment might never come again.

The reason why i cast serious doubt over the fact that any of these three would still be around by the next world cup is that they have already got enough runs and records under their belt (All three of them have scored in excess of 10,000 runs in ODIs). And haven't they had enough of endorsements and media attention? Perhaps, all they could have achieved at this stage was a last serious attempt at world-cup success, the immortal glory. Having miserably failed at that, i wonder what would keep them going. Do they want to have another go when they are nearing their forties? I don't think so.

Or we could come back to the earlier proposition, letting the Indians have another chance. I am sure the advertising world that stands to lose millions in case of Indians bowing out, can make sure each Bangladeshi player gets more than what he would perhaps earn in his entire career. But that is not the protocol of sports. But then again, are betting, fixing, corruption, doping and murder the protocol ? We have been living with those .. then why not this ..

Ya, you are right, all this sounds like the desperate means of a optimistic fan who still is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. Indian cricketers have disappointed. Time and again they have. Just that the way things are shaping up for these three is saddening. Theirs is a trio that saved indian cricket from fading in the obscurity, provided immense entertainment to the nation and very nearly won the world-cup for us in the last version of the tournament.

But then again, in the current state of affairs, the helplessness and with the kind of post match statements(1,2) coming, it seems the men in blue just want to end the nightmare and come back home. It is for the best perhaps.

Chappel.. like hell i blame you for this.. the vacuous promises you made to get yourself chosen ahead of Tom Moody and Mohinder Amarnath, have all bitten the dust.

a world cup like never before ..

2007-03-19T00:31:00.000+05:30

News just came in, Bob Woolmer is dead¹. The Pakistan coach was facing ruthless verbal attacks from the irate Pakistani media, former Pakistan players¹ and the Pakistani people¹ after Pakistan crashed out of the world-cup after their 3 wicket loss¹ to the minnows Ireland. Earlier in the post match conference, after they lost to Ireland, he was heard saying that perhaps it was one of the worst days of his life¹. Whatever might be the cause of death .. a heart attack, a doping session to relieve senses(with signs of vomiting found) that went wrong, it speaks of the toll it takes to coach the cricket crazy nations like India and Pakistan, trying to live up to the expectations of the millions of cricket fans back home.

All this adds to the drama that has been abounding in the world cup so far. India's defeat at the hands of Bangladesh was much more comprehensive and all the more shameful, just that they are still not out of the world cup. I wonder whats going on in the mind of Indian counterpart of the now dead Bob Woolmer. Greg Chappel has never been popular with the indian media and the indian cricket fans. He has been widely accused for denting the confidence of the likes of Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan .. not to forget his spat with Ganguly that led to Ganguly's ouster from the team. Last year, even the members of parliament were baying for his blood after India's dismal show in South Africa¹. Just a few months back, Chappel was slapped ¹ by an angry fan at Bhubaneshwar airport after landing.
If the Indians fail to make it in the last eight, hell will break loose for him. No doubt the Indian players themselves, the likes of Sehwag, will have a tough time but for Chappel, its going to be a guillotine for him. I suggest he resigns there and then and leave for Australia because even if he manages his own senses, the angry mob back home will leave no stone unturned in making sure that he meets similar fate to that of Bob Woolmer.
Inspite of the paranoia that has set in, i still think India will beat Bermuda comfortably, its the tie with Sri-Lanka on 23rd that's so important. No one in the Indian camp will breathe easy till that match, for that matter even after the match if they lose it.

Talking about the drama going in the world cup, the English have also contributed their bit. Andrew Flintoff has been sacked of his vice captaincy and has been made to sit out of the currently ongoing match against Canada after he was rescued, having capsized ¹ at the sea, heavily drunk, at 4 am in the morning. Four other players have also been fined for breach of discipline for their late night drinking session. Like India, England are also facing a must win situation for both of their remaining league matches after they lost to New-Zealand in their opening match.

All this drama and we are just 5 days in to the world-cup. It has indeed been unprecedented series of events in the carribean so far. The other day Herschelle Gibbs hit 6 sixes in an over and South Africa scored 353 in 40 overs. God knows what they would have done had they played full 50 overs. The proteas sure seem determined to get rid of the choker's tag that has been attributed to them. The proteas together with the aussies are running favourites to win the cup and both these teams are showing their grit and determination as they are piling those huge scores against their opponents.

This world cup also brought much more international attention to the game of cricket, unlike its previous versions. Internet biggies like Google and MSN¹ saw lot of opportunities to cash in on and promoted the event in their own ways. Various media services came forward with offers¹ to let the cricket fans outside the subcontinent watch the matches live on TV or stream them online. Google posted on their official blog¹ about the google cricket campaign in india and promoted Krish Srikkanth's orkut¹ and blogger¹ profiles to that effect. They even created a doodle¹ for cricket. Various cricket blog have been announced in the blogging world(1,2,3). The blogosphere has geared up to the cricket's mega event .. and i am also doing my bit here ..

of comics and childhood

2007-03-16T10:40:00.000+05:30

I had no concept of pocket money when i was a child, leave alone the concept of pocket money as something children could demand from their parents. In fact I never had to ask for money, not that my pockets we always stuffed with money .. just that the leftover money that remained after buying the stationary was enough for the luxuries of my life back then. They were comics, i mean the luxury. I would rent them from a guy who was in to bicycle repairing and did comics as a side business. He was very hardworking. We were sort of friends and i often would drop by to check if anything suiting my taste had come. I still remember his face so vividly, but like many other acquaintances and friends, he too is just a face in memory now.

Those were the blissful childhood days. I didn't have a single hint about the ends, just that the means were being 1st in class. I did great at following the means, was always 1st in class for 10 straight academic years uptil 10th. In 11th and 12th however .. i was in a bigger school, and occasionally one of my classmates would pip me to be number one and it didn't hurt. Perhaps the ends that i had in mind had taken over the means set by others.

Coming back to comics, I had read Billoo & Pinki and Chacha Chaudhri & Saabu & Rocket earlier , all of them being the creation of Pran Kumar Sharma of Diamond Comics, but the comics guy was the one who introduced me to the world of Dhruva and Nagraj. It was a glamorised and surreal world indeed. Reading those made me feel so powerful, for i would vicariously imagine myself doing all those rescue acts of Nagraj and Dhruva. People at Raj Comics knew how to take one on a ride to the fantasy world.

Dhruva, i liked everything about him, his duals with Mahamanav, his romantic interest Natasha and the secret identity of his sister as Chandika that he is ignorant of. He always used his mind to get the better of his enemies. You can't help but love a superhero who has vowed not to kill.

Nagraj was also a flagship character of Raj Comics but i think he could never achieve the popularity that Dhruva enjoyed. Snakes, Saudangi, Visarpi, Nagmani .. his world was a bit difficult to relate to.

I also tried Doga, the superhero with a dog mask, and somehow managed to complete that particular comics. Like Dhruva, he also adopted this alter-ego to avenge a personal tragedy that befell him but unlike him he carries tonnes of guns around him and kills without thinking twice. I thought he was repulsive and never read him again.

And then there was Bankelaal, who always made you laugh. The whole set up of his world is so funny. He knows that he is cursed that he can't do bad things to others, but he still makes plans and eventually fails. He serves a moronic king with a funny moustache and often plans to dethrone him but everything done by him with the ill will to the king turns to the advantage of the king, he gets annoyed but enjoys when the kings praises him for his doings. He was a hit with my mom and my sister.

However, my favourite comics character is neither any of these superheroes nor Bankelaal. He is the Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes. A comparison perhaps might not be valid because Calvin & Hobbes, created by Bill Watterson, is a newspaper comics strip. It was a year back that i got immersed in to his world and over the next month went through each and every strip that Watterson created over the decade 85-95.

Calvin is funny, humorous, naughty, annoying, imaginative, troublesome, carefree and complacent six year old. In his various alter-egos he imagines himself and acts as stupendous-man, the one with stupendous powers; tracer bullet, the detective that can give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money; spaceman spiff, the one who keeps traveling to far off planets in his spaceship and fights aliens. He is a child who tries his parents' patience and often brings them to tears, but tries to cook to help his mother when she is sick. A child whose imagination and creativity knows no bounds when it comes to making snow men. A child whom you can only hear, agape in wonder, when he talks about society and philosophy. A child who creates a pirate group g.r.o.s.s(get rid of slimy girls), but likes his classmate Susie and hates admitting it. A child who has to make a call to his father to know what exactly is 11+7.

He reminds me of my own childhood. Though i was an ideal student, unlike him, but I always troubled my mom because i just won't change my uniform after coming from school. He makes me feel what joy friendship is, he and Hobbes are the best friends ever(Hobbes is a toy tiger that comes to life when only Calvin is around). Calvin makes me long for his carefree nature where he is chasing no ends. There are many other characters in Calvin's life : a baby-sitter whom he actually fears; his class teacher whom he hates; his neighbour and classmate, Susie Derkins; Moe, the one who bullies Calvin at school; the principal whom Calvin ends up meeting almost everyday. And most of them remind me of someone or the other from my own school days..

You have been missing a lot if you are still alien to the world of Calvin & Hobbes .. i would say download(1,2,3) and get started right away ..

reshammiya .. naam hai tera tera ..

2007-03-08T16:06:00.000+05:30

With meteoric rise to fame Reshammiya captured the indian music industry and has been topping the charts for over a year now. The TV remotes have been rendered useless because its his music, his emotionless face and his cap all over .. each and every channel.

Aashiqs all over the nation are celebrating the reshammiya cult of music(he was the music director of the all time favourite movie of aashiqs .. Tere Naam) .. they sing reshammiya when they are confessing their first sight love ..
diya dil dil diya .. dekha tujhe to bepanah ishq tujhe se kar liya ...

when they are longing for the love of their life ...
mera jahaan .. dard kaaa .. sailaab .. tere bina ..

reshammiya teaches them how to express confidence in their love for their beloved ..
dil lagayoge kisi aur se .. to hoga wo pyaar be asar

A marriage is not deemed complete without the shehnaayi song from reshammiya ..
jhalak dikhla ja.... ek baar aaja aaja aaja aaja aaaaja
Bravo .. reshammiya has even entered the sacred rituals of every indian family.

Just have a deeper look at the lines
teri yaadon main kat jaaye din .. duya main saari raat guzre
He gives such a spiritual and divine touch to them. He follows it up with the line
kaise tum se kahen jaanejaan kaise kaise halaaat guzre
The cry of a broken heart .. the helplessness of unreciprocated love and even with all the pain in the narration he makes you dance. The art of making you cry on something sad is eons old (likes of SRK are encashing millions having mastered that art and not to forget the infinite female fans ..).. but i can't stop admiring this unique blend of sad and dance that only reshammiya can make possible.

And he experiments with various noises in his songs .. and that too to pretty good effect ..
turru tutu turrur tutu turrruuurruu tutu tutu tu ... (sing it .. its pretty good .. trust me)
oouuuuoooooooh oooooouuuuuh (this is good too .. try singing in a way so that u o and h are pretty much indistinguishable .. i mean the way he does it .. you will enjoy it all the more)

He gives you no nonsense music in desi style .. not the Altaf Raja (of tum to thehre pardesi .. saath kya nibhayoge fame) kind of desi .. but the one that has no crap of sophistication attached to it. He appeals to the masses and his power is that he makes you dance .. he is every dj's favourite .. a reshammiya song .. just play it .. everyone wants to be on the dance floor when reshammiya is on.

Damn you all who call his music to be nasal cacophony. He won the best music director award for Tere Naam and dominated the year 2006 winning the best playback at almost every awards function¹. Music is in his veins, his father himself was a veteran music director¹.

He will also be a bollywood hero¹ soon, in addition to being a music director and a singer. He is already an actor of some sort because he ends up playing the male lead in many of his music videos(remember that stone face .. angry with the world kinda look ?). Actor, singer, music director .. quite a bit of talent there .. not many people in the industry can boast of such a record.

Oh my fellas, rise above your prejudices and predilections .. its high time you recognise the talent called himesh reshammiya.

the joy of johansson

2007-02-23T14:27:00.000+05:30

Yes, I am talking about Scarlett Johansson. All my life we have never been this close to each other (read .. she is currently visiting Delhi and only 20 miles away). Our intimacy grew with In Good Company, Good Woman, The Prestige and Lost In Translation but this moment would sure count as a real high for both of us.

In these times when the word celebrity is becoming synonymous to anorexic, Scarlett comes as a puff of fresh air with her comments on weight-obsession in hollywood where she advises the starlets to eat healthily. She is always at ease with herself and seems miles away from insecurities of any kind. She comes across as a genuine person, untouched by the pretensions and prejudices of the world. A laughing, cheerful woman with such an affable manner.

She has been voted the sexiest woman and the one having the best assets on the planet but she is no bimbette. She proves her acting prowess with the nominations and awards that she has won over the years.

The desire to rush to the Park Hotel, where she is staying, and play paparazzi for a day to have a glimpse and bless my Kodak with her looks and smile, is immense. But then good people like her should never be bugged.

Man... watch her laughing and you for yourself will fall in love with her.

How apt are the lyrics of the song playing in the background.

Like a thunderstorm on a summer day
She came out of nowhere and I can say
She´s a supernova shinin´ through the night
A never sleeping satellite
She´s a damn good reason for the sun to rise
When you see her smile in the morning light
When she cries, she cries a wishing well
Plays hide and seek with the hounds of hell
She throws you down to take you high
Into her private sky
She´s so Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
Magical, mystical, irresistible, cosmical
A wonderful overkill and most of all beautiful
Ooooh ooh ooh I have her, her, her
She´s so oooh ooh ooh I love her, her, her
Beautiful mmh so beautiful

the underarm way

2007-02-21T17:25:00.000+05:30

The news is that the Australians are down and out with an unforeseen drubbing at the hand of Kiwis.

Just curious about how they treat cricket in that part of the world, I checked out the websites of the national papers of New Zealand and Australia and found the Kiwi media chuckling over how the Aussie media is roasting the national cricket team and how the Australian Prime Minister is stepping in to restore the nation's morale after two humiliating series defeats. Seems like the subcontinent is not the only place where cricket has been adopted as a religion.

In the cricket circles, the Australia-New Zealand rivalry has always been rated next if not equal to the India-Pakistan's. The reasons for the latter are pretty obvious, at least to me as an Indian. But I could never really understand the Kiwi-Aussie bitterness. Kiwis always seemed to be looking down upon the Aussies with contempt and disgust. They outperform themselves whenever they are playing the Aussies and the Aussies never seemed to possess the same confidence against the Kiwis even when they were at their prime.

Well .. I found out the reason and the reason for this bitterness is the notorious act of a man called Greg Chappel, yes the same man who is coaching apna men-in-blue and conning the billion in to thinking that India can win the world cup. The incident dates back to 1981, with the Kiwis requiring 7 runs of the last ball to win the match, when Greg Chappel, the then Aussie captain, asked the bowler Trevor Chappel, his brother, to bowl the final delivery underarm and deny Kiwis any chance of a tie. The incident was criticised world over for Chappel's cowardice and his poor sportsmanship and it sowed the seeds of enmity between the two nations. The Chappel brothers' repeated apologies(1,2) could not heal the wound it had left in the hearts of Kiwi fans. Such has been its impact that it affects their trade relations till date. Below is the video footage of the incident.

Greg Chappel is a mean man for sure. Hope his tactics work for the Indians in the world cup.