Like the name suggests its a place in Dubai dominated by Indian shops ...
Today we had a somewhat free day @ college , had a quiz in the morning and couple of lectures and a simple group assignment and by 2 in the noon we were free ! They say its difficult to get free time in this course and wanted to get most out of it , so hit the sack immediately to make up for lost sleep ... woke up @ 6 and then suddenly had an idea of going to city . friend of mine wanted to buy watches .. he has a small collection now .. anyways he also jumped at the proposal and got a third aimless, bored soul also and then booked an unofficial (and illegal ! ) 'Mallu' cab (which is an interesting concept and i will dedicate a separate post for that ) to go to Bur Dubai ...
Roads in Dubai are amazing , you can easily run up 100kmph + speeds ... i believe 120 is the limit , but ppl drive around /above that usually ... once u reach the city proper , many areas have nasty traffic snarls and u never miss good ol Bangalore or for that matter any big city in India :)
Went to this place called 'Al-Ain Centre' which is a mall full of electronic goods shops ... was hunting for a pen drive , found the prices dropping as we moved from store to store. After grabbing some food from a Mexican fast food joint there , stepped out into a hot n sweltering Dubai evening...
It was close to 8 pm still it was extremely humid, but by the time we walked a couple blocks all of us were drenched !
Checked out a few watch shops on the way and reached 'Meena Bazaar'. If you are blind folded and dropped suddenly into this place you would think you are in some city in India. for ppl from, B'lore the place resembles Commerical street ! all the streets in that area had Indian shops ... all the people we saw on the streets were Indians / South Asians ...
after futile attempts at watch shopping , we moved around aimlessly (apparently we had missed the street where u get the best deals !)...
This is the place where the average Indian , the ones who come to Dubai to earn a living and tranfers bulk of the money back home , shops - u find shops of all sizes n shapes selling virtually evrything ...
there were a few Indian restaurants / fast food places too ...
Then there was a supermarket where u get all ur 'desi' packaged food stuff , replenished our depleting stocks and jumped back into business of exploring the place , there is a 'temple' also somewhere there , didnt find it when we went around ... there was a lot more to explore , but since there was hungry guy n knowledge thirsty guy (wanted to prepare for nxt day's quiz at college) ... i was forced to return back and again got a 'mallu' cab and was back in the hostel by 10 ...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Sivaji @ sharjah !
there are some movies which cannot or should not be reviewed ,Rajni movies definitely fall in that category.Don't get me wrong here , the reason why we cant review it is , reviews dont matter , the story or ensemble cast doesnt matter , a Rajni movie is above all these things , its a phenomenon in itself. A lot of ppl who are not from south may not understand , but Ranjni is not an áctor' in Tamil Nadu (actually entire south ) he is THE 'Superstar'. He appears in only 1 movie in a couple of years and fans eagerly wait for his darshan. By fans its not just rural folk/lower class , but city folks too and a huge crowd of techies/software engineers who are spread all over the world.Blogosphere is full of blogs about how eagerly they are waiting for superstar's movie !
Though im not a big Rajni fan , i feel you just deny the fact the man has the charisma n appeal and is a phenomenon , movies with Rajni needs just Rajni , fans just want a darshan with typical style n mannerisms.So when i set out to watch the movie 'Sivaji' on a hot sultry evening in Dubai , i had my expectations (-> superstar + lots of style , action , some comedy and a cute girl with values as heroine) in the right place , which i believe is important while watching movie of any genre. it was a monday evening in Dubai and the movie hall we were going to had 300 seats , like in India , here also Rajni sells and we could not get tickets at all in Dubai ! So we headed out to nearby city of Sharjah in a cab from dubai ! When the movie had released , i was earlier amused when i heard tales of ppl from Chennai going to other cities to watch the movie and suprisingly here i was doing the same.getting there was in itself an interesting , movie like experience , getting cabbies and arranging the trip to shrajah for 8 of us and seeing a new city was memorable.
We saw lot of southindians out there and saw a shop called madras grocery , where some us bought pickles n such typical tam stuff and then we followed it up with an early dinner @ Saravana bhavan ! it never felt like we were in middle east , we sitting in a huge table and talkin in tamil and the whole place was full of south indians that really set the mood for the evening.
So lemme get straight to the movie , the recipe ( perfected for Rajni movies over years) was there , the ingredients were definetly there , ppl handling it were the best lot of tamil cinema ( shankar n his crew is the best u can think of ) but the final effect was not what i was really looking forward to ! it simply was not what i wanted , something was missing considering the hype , the potential of ppl involved the final effort was def not justified , but who cares , its a Rajni movie they say and he is there and i guess thats all counts for most !for ppl like me who were looking for a 'movie' along with superstar, there's bound to be some dissapointments.Having said that it was not all that bad i definetly though it was worth my dirhams !
Rajni was usual self and was in top form , supporting cast was adequate , Shriya was nice eye-candy and fitted the role , 'item-girl' Nayantara was wow ! Vivek was in top from with his one-liners n his terrific comic timing with Rajni had everyone in splits. The first half was just not what i had in mind , it was a let-down for me personally , a view shared by most ppl in my group. the story was typical Shankar stuff , one man taking on the system for the benefit of masses , it was fight against money laundering /black money in this particular case. But dialogues and pacing of songs ( though masterpieces by themselves ) was really bad !but i guess overall the movie must have addressed Ranji's fan base , it was for the masses, it had all the fantasies of tamil male viewer , there were references to MGR , sivaji and even Rajni's prev films , i liked the bit "enna koduma saravana"and ref to vadivelu during comedy scenes , all in all a movie for the fans ...but still felt that it as a movie lacked the punch we wud have expected ...
i read this one the movie reviews and when i saw the movie , i realised how true it was , there was scene were rajni while trying to woo shriya gets stuck on a track & is about to be run over by the train. the same was true for movie til then , it was bout to be run over by the expectations and if it proceed at that pace would have been smashed to bits n pieces. But shriya comes along waving here duppata n saves the hero and funnily after that point film also gets saved. The pace picks up , Rajni starts to kick ass and get into the role we are familiar with the trademark style satements , superhero stunts and dialogues all fall into place and it is an amzing journey after that. Most of our movies begin well and lose the fizz subsequently and endings are weak points in most of Indian movies , but here was a glorious exception , i absolutely loved the last 15 min , where Rajni transforms himself into MGR from Sivaji , his appearance n screen presence was terrific and the last 15 min made the movie for me ! The movie is supposed to have one of the highest budgets in Tamil Cinema , agreed the sets were grand n all , but still was wondering where all that money went , the final 5-10 min gave me an idea of how so much money was spent ;-)
Though im not a big Rajni fan , i feel you just deny the fact the man has the charisma n appeal and is a phenomenon , movies with Rajni needs just Rajni , fans just want a darshan with typical style n mannerisms.So when i set out to watch the movie 'Sivaji' on a hot sultry evening in Dubai , i had my expectations (-> superstar + lots of style , action , some comedy and a cute girl with values as heroine) in the right place , which i believe is important while watching movie of any genre. it was a monday evening in Dubai and the movie hall we were going to had 300 seats , like in India , here also Rajni sells and we could not get tickets at all in Dubai ! So we headed out to nearby city of Sharjah in a cab from dubai ! When the movie had released , i was earlier amused when i heard tales of ppl from Chennai going to other cities to watch the movie and suprisingly here i was doing the same.getting there was in itself an interesting , movie like experience , getting cabbies and arranging the trip to shrajah for 8 of us and seeing a new city was memorable.
We saw lot of southindians out there and saw a shop called madras grocery , where some us bought pickles n such typical tam stuff and then we followed it up with an early dinner @ Saravana bhavan ! it never felt like we were in middle east , we sitting in a huge table and talkin in tamil and the whole place was full of south indians that really set the mood for the evening.
So lemme get straight to the movie , the recipe ( perfected for Rajni movies over years) was there , the ingredients were definetly there , ppl handling it were the best lot of tamil cinema ( shankar n his crew is the best u can think of ) but the final effect was not what i was really looking forward to ! it simply was not what i wanted , something was missing considering the hype , the potential of ppl involved the final effort was def not justified , but who cares , its a Rajni movie they say and he is there and i guess thats all counts for most !for ppl like me who were looking for a 'movie' along with superstar, there's bound to be some dissapointments.Having said that it was not all that bad i definetly though it was worth my dirhams !
Rajni was usual self and was in top form , supporting cast was adequate , Shriya was nice eye-candy and fitted the role , 'item-girl' Nayantara was wow ! Vivek was in top from with his one-liners n his terrific comic timing with Rajni had everyone in splits. The first half was just not what i had in mind , it was a let-down for me personally , a view shared by most ppl in my group. the story was typical Shankar stuff , one man taking on the system for the benefit of masses , it was fight against money laundering /black money in this particular case. But dialogues and pacing of songs ( though masterpieces by themselves ) was really bad !but i guess overall the movie must have addressed Ranji's fan base , it was for the masses, it had all the fantasies of tamil male viewer , there were references to MGR , sivaji and even Rajni's prev films , i liked the bit "enna koduma saravana"and ref to vadivelu during comedy scenes , all in all a movie for the fans ...but still felt that it as a movie lacked the punch we wud have expected ...
i read this one the movie reviews and when i saw the movie , i realised how true it was , there was scene were rajni while trying to woo shriya gets stuck on a track & is about to be run over by the train. the same was true for movie til then , it was bout to be run over by the expectations and if it proceed at that pace would have been smashed to bits n pieces. But shriya comes along waving here duppata n saves the hero and funnily after that point film also gets saved. The pace picks up , Rajni starts to kick ass and get into the role we are familiar with the trademark style satements , superhero stunts and dialogues all fall into place and it is an amzing journey after that. Most of our movies begin well and lose the fizz subsequently and endings are weak points in most of Indian movies , but here was a glorious exception , i absolutely loved the last 15 min , where Rajni transforms himself into MGR from Sivaji , his appearance n screen presence was terrific and the last 15 min made the movie for me ! The movie is supposed to have one of the highest budgets in Tamil Cinema , agreed the sets were grand n all , but still was wondering where all that money went , the final 5-10 min gave me an idea of how so much money was spent ;-)
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
A cat n mouse game !
Writing had always been first in the list of things i 'wanted' to do .. though i did make attempts at writing fiction, i never completed anything ; also sad part of bout my attempts was that none my stories packed the punch. As with most stories these days mine also had its moments but when it came to finishing i realised that i was pathetic. Though i kind of fixed that urge to write by coming up with this blog where i keep ranting bout lotsa usual stuff . Since i found myself outta work for some time , thought of makin another shot at fiction , starting another story
(disclaimer: it could b loong boring and may or may not make sense as i still havent figured out an ending )
i was sitting in my bus and was reading a book which i had picked up purely on whim one day from a bookstore , the name somehow appealed to me . im always good at pickin books which are gr8 reads . the book in Q was called "My name is red" written by a turkish author and it did turn out to a real good one , but thats not the point here. i was reading this particular book while i was travelling to my office as i was telling you , i happened to read a chapter which was bout a guy returning to a city where the person he loved lived after a gap of 12 yrs. She had married , but her husband was missing on warfront ... by fotuitous circumstance he happens to catch a glimpse of her one day . I closed the book and was thinkin that it had been 12 months since i last spoke to my ex-girl friend . Not that i was sad or anything , infact i was amazed at how i din feel bad at all considering that previously after break-ups i used to be such an emotional mess and would invariably jump into a realtionship witin a few months , but this time i hadnt wavered , and also for the first time i broke it off ( nothin to b proud of , but a first all the same ! )Now that i have set the tone , let me get back to my story , after closing the book , started walking to my office from the busstop , the whole campus is really huge and swarming with ppl , as i walking to my building i saw a familiar face , i saw her from distance , infact it was not my eyes that noticed her , i knew even before my eyes saw her that it was 'her' - 'she who must not be named'.we were still a sufficient distance apart and i was suddenly flustered as my eyes confirmed that i was indeed 'her and the red line of sindoor drawn on her forehead was clear "RED" signal for me. it wasnt the old her and only one word flashed before me 'Avoid' , i just wanted to get away , i quickly changed directions and moved into a buliding nearby , i realised that i cud hear my hearbeating and that i was feelin a little hot under collar !!!i still couldnt beleive my rotten luck for she used to work elsewhere in another part of the country !moreover i had resigned my job as i was takin up a new assigment and would be speding most of the time abroad.i just had a little more than a week left and i badlywanted leave that part of my past which involved her among many other things behind.I quicly went to my desk and realised i was early , i grabbed a cup of cofee and stood near the window watching the entrance to my building and to my relief foumdout that she wasnt in my bulding and hence not in my department. So there was hope yet , i just had to watch my step. with thousands of ppl around i was sure i could move around for another 10 days unnoticed !It was evening and a colleague asks my why im working so hard daily even though i have quit the job ! I quickly close the chat windows and mails/articles that i was reading and lean across my desk and shout back saying "i get so immersed in this that i never realise it!" ( boy i can shoot crap !). But anyways since most of frens r offline , i think its time to shut shop , so leave with her. we walk till the busstand , then i move to the terminus where buses heading to my directions come and i find that there are 3 buses which are about to start. There were around 50 odd buses starting in that 20 min period from that terminus and 3 to my place. I choose one ( thinkin bout the how narrow the odds were for another encounter with 'you know who' ) and i get in and i get this strange feelin again and there 'she' was sitting in the front row near door , she was talkin on phone but i was sure she saw me , i quicly moved in and took a seat in the back row, By now i kinda figued that she mite living in same area as me ( had to be !) Since the place i lived was at almost in the heart of the city , the we were always caught in traffic jams , so i thought of gettin down 1 stop before mine and i was sure that if i walked i will reach at the same time as the bus reached the stop. I crossed the road and walked to stop near my home and headed into a store nearby from there i watched the bus coming slowly past the traffic and people started disembarking and just as i thought she got down at the same stop ! To my relief she lived a few blocks away from my house and i slowly walked back to my house aware of the cat n mouse game that awaited me daily at my office.
(to be continued ...)
Ps: Thanks for all the comments , unfortunately had to hide the comments as you ppl commented before reading the full story , i do plan to complete it pretty soon , got held up lots of stuff after moving to Dubai , hence the delay !
(disclaimer: it could b loong boring and may or may not make sense as i still havent figured out an ending )
i was sitting in my bus and was reading a book which i had picked up purely on whim one day from a bookstore , the name somehow appealed to me . im always good at pickin books which are gr8 reads . the book in Q was called "My name is red" written by a turkish author and it did turn out to a real good one , but thats not the point here. i was reading this particular book while i was travelling to my office as i was telling you , i happened to read a chapter which was bout a guy returning to a city where the person he loved lived after a gap of 12 yrs. She had married , but her husband was missing on warfront ... by fotuitous circumstance he happens to catch a glimpse of her one day . I closed the book and was thinkin that it had been 12 months since i last spoke to my ex-girl friend . Not that i was sad or anything , infact i was amazed at how i din feel bad at all considering that previously after break-ups i used to be such an emotional mess and would invariably jump into a realtionship witin a few months , but this time i hadnt wavered , and also for the first time i broke it off ( nothin to b proud of , but a first all the same ! )Now that i have set the tone , let me get back to my story , after closing the book , started walking to my office from the busstop , the whole campus is really huge and swarming with ppl , as i walking to my building i saw a familiar face , i saw her from distance , infact it was not my eyes that noticed her , i knew even before my eyes saw her that it was 'her' - 'she who must not be named'.we were still a sufficient distance apart and i was suddenly flustered as my eyes confirmed that i was indeed 'her and the red line of sindoor drawn on her forehead was clear "RED" signal for me. it wasnt the old her and only one word flashed before me 'Avoid' , i just wanted to get away , i quickly changed directions and moved into a buliding nearby , i realised that i cud hear my hearbeating and that i was feelin a little hot under collar !!!i still couldnt beleive my rotten luck for she used to work elsewhere in another part of the country !moreover i had resigned my job as i was takin up a new assigment and would be speding most of the time abroad.i just had a little more than a week left and i badlywanted leave that part of my past which involved her among many other things behind.I quicly went to my desk and realised i was early , i grabbed a cup of cofee and stood near the window watching the entrance to my building and to my relief foumdout that she wasnt in my bulding and hence not in my department. So there was hope yet , i just had to watch my step. with thousands of ppl around i was sure i could move around for another 10 days unnoticed !It was evening and a colleague asks my why im working so hard daily even though i have quit the job ! I quickly close the chat windows and mails/articles that i was reading and lean across my desk and shout back saying "i get so immersed in this that i never realise it!" ( boy i can shoot crap !). But anyways since most of frens r offline , i think its time to shut shop , so leave with her. we walk till the busstand , then i move to the terminus where buses heading to my directions come and i find that there are 3 buses which are about to start. There were around 50 odd buses starting in that 20 min period from that terminus and 3 to my place. I choose one ( thinkin bout the how narrow the odds were for another encounter with 'you know who' ) and i get in and i get this strange feelin again and there 'she' was sitting in the front row near door , she was talkin on phone but i was sure she saw me , i quicly moved in and took a seat in the back row, By now i kinda figued that she mite living in same area as me ( had to be !) Since the place i lived was at almost in the heart of the city , the we were always caught in traffic jams , so i thought of gettin down 1 stop before mine and i was sure that if i walked i will reach at the same time as the bus reached the stop. I crossed the road and walked to stop near my home and headed into a store nearby from there i watched the bus coming slowly past the traffic and people started disembarking and just as i thought she got down at the same stop ! To my relief she lived a few blocks away from my house and i slowly walked back to my house aware of the cat n mouse game that awaited me daily at my office.
(to be continued ...)
Ps: Thanks for all the comments , unfortunately had to hide the comments as you ppl commented before reading the full story , i do plan to complete it pretty soon , got held up lots of stuff after moving to Dubai , hence the delay !
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Million Dollar Babies !
what do you think of it ? asked my friend while we were watching TV. Tv channels all of them were into "Team India" bashing mode then , the very media who projected them as heroes were now after them show after show , funnily in between these debates the ads featured had cricketers endorsing products ( initially !)... on tv we were flooded with images of fans going berserk ... majority demanding that the team come back right now and stop 'disgracing' us !
( where were these ppl n those who interviewed em when hockey team was playin or when any other intl sports meet where we took part was happenin .. i wonder ;-) )
well it was that time of the World Cup when a extremely cautious India was shocked by a carefree Bangaldesh. I had hopes of the team bouncing back then as i beleived (and continue to beleive that we are a good team) but it was not be. Ex-cricketers , who had given 'expert' opinions bout the greatness of current team and had rubbished Bangaldeshis before the match , suddenly discovered that the team was not good and were able to come up with a lot of flaws. More hilariously TV channels went around asking common men and funnily filmstars for advice on what was wrong with Indian cricket... comments were really hilarious ( some sick) to say the least. here are some i recollect ...universal conclusion was that it was ads which was responsoble for the 'spineless' capitulation ..."stop them from doing all these ads , then they will be better cricketers" they all quipped . They should stop doing all these ads and practise harder instead they all chimed . How easy is the life of an arm chair critic ! we are a nation of under achievers yet we expect our cricketers to do magical feats. Ads i thot meant safe n secure income and optimistic way of lookin at it wud mean that a cricketer who has a 5 yr contract wud not be very worried about getting out and can be free of pressure and hence can perform better which cud lead to more ads and more money .. translating to more motivation for ground breaking performances ! But whole country acc to media polls thinks otherwise ... Another enterprising gentleman had this formula , there some 10 point agenda to reform Indian cricket ! Another KPS Gill in making i guess :-) if they dont perform , dont pay them they thundered. ..
some ( inc TOI newspaper !) were of the view that cricketers should be given targets like sales executives ... " they should be set a target of say 40 runs ave .. to be maintained over a period of 10-15 ODIs , if u dont match it u r dropped, same for bowlers , they should have x economy rate and ave over a period of time or they r dropped".
Gosh .. how idiotic can ppl get ! now they want ppl to conc on the personal records instead of helping the team win. now if these ppl/media have their way u will have ATP style ranking system wherein the top 11 wud make it to the team and others wud work hard to earn points to make it to top 11 and enter the team ;-) one politician was quick to poune on this and demanded bannin cricket as solution to all our problems ... i guess a better solution wud be to ban all these politicians, who discuss cricket in Lok sabha instead on concentrating on graver issues n problems botherin the nation.
my answer to 'it' would be that we are a nation which is evolving fast yet some things like mindset dont change so fast. im sure we will in due course realise that our Cricketers are no heroes they are also humans like each one of us and are prone to failures like most of us !
Our society has changed/evolved a lot in last 25-30 yrs when watching sports / playing was considered criminal waste of time by most parents ... to healthy appreciation of both .. to current trend of coaching camps , tennis academies where 6-8 yr olds are dropped for coaching by ever eager parents... The cricket economy has grown at a much faster pace then the game itself in our country and hopefully sooner or later this gulf wud get bridged , this defeat i guess wud in that sense go a long way in correcting the perspectives of most and would actually do us a lot of good in the longer run ... Soon we will come terms with defeat and will realise as late Bob Woolmer said "it is after all a game" !
( where were these ppl n those who interviewed em when hockey team was playin or when any other intl sports meet where we took part was happenin .. i wonder ;-) )
well it was that time of the World Cup when a extremely cautious India was shocked by a carefree Bangaldesh. I had hopes of the team bouncing back then as i beleived (and continue to beleive that we are a good team) but it was not be. Ex-cricketers , who had given 'expert' opinions bout the greatness of current team and had rubbished Bangaldeshis before the match , suddenly discovered that the team was not good and were able to come up with a lot of flaws. More hilariously TV channels went around asking common men and funnily filmstars for advice on what was wrong with Indian cricket... comments were really hilarious ( some sick) to say the least. here are some i recollect ...universal conclusion was that it was ads which was responsoble for the 'spineless' capitulation ..."stop them from doing all these ads , then they will be better cricketers" they all quipped . They should stop doing all these ads and practise harder instead they all chimed . How easy is the life of an arm chair critic ! we are a nation of under achievers yet we expect our cricketers to do magical feats. Ads i thot meant safe n secure income and optimistic way of lookin at it wud mean that a cricketer who has a 5 yr contract wud not be very worried about getting out and can be free of pressure and hence can perform better which cud lead to more ads and more money .. translating to more motivation for ground breaking performances ! But whole country acc to media polls thinks otherwise ... Another enterprising gentleman had this formula , there some 10 point agenda to reform Indian cricket ! Another KPS Gill in making i guess :-) if they dont perform , dont pay them they thundered. ..
some ( inc TOI newspaper !) were of the view that cricketers should be given targets like sales executives ... " they should be set a target of say 40 runs ave .. to be maintained over a period of 10-15 ODIs , if u dont match it u r dropped, same for bowlers , they should have x economy rate and ave over a period of time or they r dropped".
Gosh .. how idiotic can ppl get ! now they want ppl to conc on the personal records instead of helping the team win. now if these ppl/media have their way u will have ATP style ranking system wherein the top 11 wud make it to the team and others wud work hard to earn points to make it to top 11 and enter the team ;-) one politician was quick to poune on this and demanded bannin cricket as solution to all our problems ... i guess a better solution wud be to ban all these politicians, who discuss cricket in Lok sabha instead on concentrating on graver issues n problems botherin the nation.
my answer to 'it' would be that we are a nation which is evolving fast yet some things like mindset dont change so fast. im sure we will in due course realise that our Cricketers are no heroes they are also humans like each one of us and are prone to failures like most of us !
Our society has changed/evolved a lot in last 25-30 yrs when watching sports / playing was considered criminal waste of time by most parents ... to healthy appreciation of both .. to current trend of coaching camps , tennis academies where 6-8 yr olds are dropped for coaching by ever eager parents... The cricket economy has grown at a much faster pace then the game itself in our country and hopefully sooner or later this gulf wud get bridged , this defeat i guess wud in that sense go a long way in correcting the perspectives of most and would actually do us a lot of good in the longer run ... Soon we will come terms with defeat and will realise as late Bob Woolmer said "it is after all a game" !
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Bang on Target !
They have done it ... it is yet to sink in for the 2 heavyweights from subcontinent.
It was supposed to be a walk in the park for both , but suddenly both India and Pakistan find that the park has turned into a maze and they have totally lost their way. Pak has been booted out , but India still has a chance to make it . If they come out of the mental maze they have created for themselves . As expected newspapers and news channels are full of criticism for the players , which rite now is waste of time . When one team played like tigers and other team was bleating around like lost lambs it was an uneven contest ( i was initially tempted to call this post "Silence of lambs" and lambast Ind :-) ) . yes we all do feel bad that our team remained as tigers only in the pepsi commercial ! But simply shouting @ them / attacking thier houses is not the way out ... we need to back them to come back ... on the same note , while everyone were fretting about team's chance of bouncing back we are missing a huge phenomeon ... Cricket is slowly coming of age , liberated from clutches of the elitist club of 7 top nations and others can now swing their weight equally at world stage . Now isn't that something ...
Who would have expected all this a few days back !
This was the first time we had a World Cup with so many teams and there was this talk of 2 different WC contests , round one was to be fun with minnows and then the big ones get together to fight the real world cup in a round billed as super8 !
but i guess yesterday changed it all ! WC has seen its share of upsets and tales of underdogs pulling it off like that of Kenyans last time. But politics and hence teams forfeiting matches played a role then , which is the reason why the matches yesterday are so different.
Now cricket WC has started resembling Soccer WC a bit , we are not yet there , but looks like this could be a beginning for more exciting contests . Honestly i never believed it when ppl called this group D as 'group of death' , such things happen in Soccer maybe but not in cricket is what i believed , but Bangladesh has shown the spirit and has acheieved the impossible. But what Ireland has achieved is totally unbelievable esp for a team playing its first Cup , I cant beleive it is yet to be beaten in WC !!!
And to think of it most of the ppl were looking forward to "April 15 " ( when India was supposed to meet Pak in Super 8 !!! ) , guess we need to wait another 4 yrs for that !
It was supposed to be a walk in the park for both , but suddenly both India and Pakistan find that the park has turned into a maze and they have totally lost their way. Pak has been booted out , but India still has a chance to make it . If they come out of the mental maze they have created for themselves . As expected newspapers and news channels are full of criticism for the players , which rite now is waste of time . When one team played like tigers and other team was bleating around like lost lambs it was an uneven contest ( i was initially tempted to call this post "Silence of lambs" and lambast Ind :-) ) . yes we all do feel bad that our team remained as tigers only in the pepsi commercial ! But simply shouting @ them / attacking thier houses is not the way out ... we need to back them to come back ... on the same note , while everyone were fretting about team's chance of bouncing back we are missing a huge phenomeon ... Cricket is slowly coming of age , liberated from clutches of the elitist club of 7 top nations and others can now swing their weight equally at world stage . Now isn't that something ...
Who would have expected all this a few days back !
This was the first time we had a World Cup with so many teams and there was this talk of 2 different WC contests , round one was to be fun with minnows and then the big ones get together to fight the real world cup in a round billed as super8 !
but i guess yesterday changed it all ! WC has seen its share of upsets and tales of underdogs pulling it off like that of Kenyans last time. But politics and hence teams forfeiting matches played a role then , which is the reason why the matches yesterday are so different.
Now cricket WC has started resembling Soccer WC a bit , we are not yet there , but looks like this could be a beginning for more exciting contests . Honestly i never believed it when ppl called this group D as 'group of death' , such things happen in Soccer maybe but not in cricket is what i believed , but Bangladesh has shown the spirit and has acheieved the impossible. But what Ireland has achieved is totally unbelievable esp for a team playing its first Cup , I cant beleive it is yet to be beaten in WC !!!
And to think of it most of the ppl were looking forward to "April 15 " ( when India was supposed to meet Pak in Super 8 !!! ) , guess we need to wait another 4 yrs for that !
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The Sixth Sense
I do have this tendency to name my blogposts after movie titles/TV shows (!) but in most these cases its simply because they happen to be the most apt title. Sixth sense i something i totally believe in and every now and then I can see some proof of this phenomenal power of human mind.
I normally see this phenomenon coming handy when im leaving for office ( its actually rushing to catch the last bus) in the morning. I usually have a huge paraphrenalia which i carry to office with various assorted items like gym clothes , id card , cellphone , tie , wallet et all ..
I have noticed that whenever i miss something , there will be some voice inside me telling me "u have missed something" and during the frantic process of getting ready most often than not it manages to remind me the object i have missed also !
Yesterday i saw this mind thing happening again and boy Im really thankful for all those senses !
We had gone out yesterday on a team outing to Mysore Infy Campus and got back to Bangalore @ 10 at night , some of us had dinner and a couple of ladies had to be dropped at their homes , so after dropping the last person , i was walking to my place.
The street i live which incidentally is good representation of urban India , with big posh houeses and flats at one end of the street and small shops and cluster of shabby houses/huts at the other end. Typical 'two Indias' street . Importantly for this tale it also has a butcher's shop at one end so there are lots of stray dogs in the area. Banglore these days is famous for its street dog menace with growing no:of attacks on human population. In my area i had earlier seen packs roaming around at nights and occassionaly just for the kicks , giving a few bikers a chase! Enough has been said and written about what should be done to 'tackle' this problem and who is to blame for this , since i dont have anything significant to contribute on that note , i limit my comments on another interesting 'phenomenon' i observed during a brief encounter with the canines.
Coming back to my tale ,I was walking from the 'other' end of street and before i turned into my street , i remembered last time i had come through the area so late @ night . It was a month back with my cousin and we were coming back after watching a late night movie , he had suggested picking up a couple of stones with us so that if any dogs chase us, we have some ammo to reply back ! I had scoffed at his idea then , but then while i was walking i thought of that incident and picked up a couple stones without giving it much thought.
As i was walking and reached the 'dreaded' end of my street i got a call on my cellphone and was engrossed in it and didnt notice the fact that right in front of my were 4 stray dogs. After ending the call ( which was for some issues at office , requiring me to work on weekend) and ruing my bad luck and a weekend gone waste , i moved past a pack of dogs and suddenly i was greeted by a series of barks and couple of dogs came running towards me . Though reason dictated that i should not panic and should keep still , I found that reason and logic could not hold against 5 dogs who were very close to my legs.Suddenly in a split second i had thrown the couple of decent sized stones i had collected earlier at my attackers and which kept them at bay and then at the next instant before i knew it i had started running , though something told me it was wrong to run when there are dogs around , i ran for a few seconds at the max speed i could conjure up. Fear gives you wings they say and it was true within no time i was pretty near my house and i realised that there were a few ppl walking in the streets in front of me who were now watching this spectacle ! I slowed down and noticed that dogs were no longer chasing me , i seemed to have moved out of their territory , there were some dogs much further ahead , so concluded that i must moved to no-man's land ... oops no-dog's land ! Then a guy who was walking in opp dir came up to me and told me that you should never run when dogs bark and best thing to do is to move away slowly! But when 4 dogs come towards you barking , i guess logic takes a second seat to panic!!!
Anways i think if not for those stones which repulsed them for a second or two and helped me make my getaway ... i wud have been easy target for those dogs, given that i had comminted the blunder of running when they were barking at me ...
I for sure believe it was some kind of sixth sense which made me pickup those stones given the fact that i have travelled thorough that area a number of times before this late in the night and had never been chased by dogs .
I normally see this phenomenon coming handy when im leaving for office ( its actually rushing to catch the last bus) in the morning. I usually have a huge paraphrenalia which i carry to office with various assorted items like gym clothes , id card , cellphone , tie , wallet et all ..
I have noticed that whenever i miss something , there will be some voice inside me telling me "u have missed something" and during the frantic process of getting ready most often than not it manages to remind me the object i have missed also !
Yesterday i saw this mind thing happening again and boy Im really thankful for all those senses !
We had gone out yesterday on a team outing to Mysore Infy Campus and got back to Bangalore @ 10 at night , some of us had dinner and a couple of ladies had to be dropped at their homes , so after dropping the last person , i was walking to my place.
The street i live which incidentally is good representation of urban India , with big posh houeses and flats at one end of the street and small shops and cluster of shabby houses/huts at the other end. Typical 'two Indias' street . Importantly for this tale it also has a butcher's shop at one end so there are lots of stray dogs in the area. Banglore these days is famous for its street dog menace with growing no:of attacks on human population. In my area i had earlier seen packs roaming around at nights and occassionaly just for the kicks , giving a few bikers a chase! Enough has been said and written about what should be done to 'tackle' this problem and who is to blame for this , since i dont have anything significant to contribute on that note , i limit my comments on another interesting 'phenomenon' i observed during a brief encounter with the canines.
Coming back to my tale ,I was walking from the 'other' end of street and before i turned into my street , i remembered last time i had come through the area so late @ night . It was a month back with my cousin and we were coming back after watching a late night movie , he had suggested picking up a couple of stones with us so that if any dogs chase us, we have some ammo to reply back ! I had scoffed at his idea then , but then while i was walking i thought of that incident and picked up a couple stones without giving it much thought.
As i was walking and reached the 'dreaded' end of my street i got a call on my cellphone and was engrossed in it and didnt notice the fact that right in front of my were 4 stray dogs. After ending the call ( which was for some issues at office , requiring me to work on weekend) and ruing my bad luck and a weekend gone waste , i moved past a pack of dogs and suddenly i was greeted by a series of barks and couple of dogs came running towards me . Though reason dictated that i should not panic and should keep still , I found that reason and logic could not hold against 5 dogs who were very close to my legs.Suddenly in a split second i had thrown the couple of decent sized stones i had collected earlier at my attackers and which kept them at bay and then at the next instant before i knew it i had started running , though something told me it was wrong to run when there are dogs around , i ran for a few seconds at the max speed i could conjure up. Fear gives you wings they say and it was true within no time i was pretty near my house and i realised that there were a few ppl walking in the streets in front of me who were now watching this spectacle ! I slowed down and noticed that dogs were no longer chasing me , i seemed to have moved out of their territory , there were some dogs much further ahead , so concluded that i must moved to no-man's land ... oops no-dog's land ! Then a guy who was walking in opp dir came up to me and told me that you should never run when dogs bark and best thing to do is to move away slowly! But when 4 dogs come towards you barking , i guess logic takes a second seat to panic!!!
Anways i think if not for those stones which repulsed them for a second or two and helped me make my getaway ... i wud have been easy target for those dogs, given that i had comminted the blunder of running when they were barking at me ...
I for sure believe it was some kind of sixth sense which made me pickup those stones given the fact that i have travelled thorough that area a number of times before this late in the night and had never been chased by dogs .
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
A River Runs through it ...
Its a 100 yr old debate and just like other tussles over sharing of natural resources between states/nations this one also will never get solved. But on monday 5th Feb when Cauvery tribunal was abou to to give its verdict , a lot of people where waiting for the verdict with bated breath ... Among this lot were a lot of my colleagues at office ... now how does water sharing formula of a river which runs through 2 states and primarily affects the farmers would interest the crowd of techies was kinda puzzling to me initially. But then this is city of
Along with water tussle there is another big fight in the offing a similar yet diff kind of problem ... While flowing through two states the river also seems to dividing ppl from these two states , instead of finding means to solve their problems , ppl seem content to bicker from either side of the river. Everyone has their own share of problems and actions like violence against ppl from the other state will never help in bring a solution. River seems to run through 2 set of people and dividing ppl living in the city , the war has begun with cable operators firing the first salvo; all tamil TV channels have been blocked since the day the verdict came out ! Most of the bus services have been suspended between the states since then ...Stage seems to set for anti-Tamil movement .Though most people know such measures are hardly ever going to help .. things just happen . During such times voices of reason are seldom heard, it is these moments when reason fails that as an individual you feel totally helpless ...
Last time things came to this level was in '91 when after the verdict came things changed and people changed . .. it was a totally harrowing time for the sizeable tamil population in the cosmopolitan city fo B'lore .
Ofcourse I was not there , but knew a lot of close friends and family members who were here @ Bangalore ( city they call their home) . "...it was really a situation of riots brought to
u won't understand...no one who wasn't there will understand...
being tamils was a huge thing...u could get killed for that... " was what i got when i asked one of them why is there such a huge buildup to the Cauvery tribunal verdict which came out today ...
Now suddenly a lot of us have this slight feeling of insecurity which is suffered by majority of the minority groups all over the world ...
As usual politicians and small time leaders as is their wont , have begun fishing in troubled waters and if last week's riots in some parts after rally to protest execution of Suddam Hussein ( 1 month after the execution) was any indication , there is a huge danger of this issue escalating into another widespread riots. Now the latest news is that Bandh call which was made for Thursday earlier is now postponed to monday so that they can do adequate 'preparations' !
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