Archive for March, 2007

World Cup 2007

{ March 14, 2007 @ 6:24 am } · { world cup 2007 }
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The world cup shall have its first of a painstakingly long list of 47 odd matches,today.A tournament bloated and showcased as a bigger spectacle than what it act is.This world cup brings back the memories of 96,99 and the 03 editions.Each having a different tale to tell .I have not seen the previous editions to these.This one is a constant reminder of the fact that the next time around it may not feature tendulkar,kumble,dravid,ganguly,lara,mcgrath,gilchrist,hayden,pollock,fleming and the list is big. Thats what thiscup is so symbolic about-a passing of a great generation of cricketers and each of them hoping and striving for a fairy tale ending to an illustious career.For some like McGrath it will be glory beckoning an incredible third time if he wins,for others like Tendular it will be a spectacular cumulation to one of the greatest careers the sporting world has seen.One of them will have a swansong on the 28th of april and it would be a glorious sunset then.Maybe,its time now to recollect the incredible achievements accomplished by some of the greats on the biggest cricketing arena.

Recently I read an article on the greatest knocks of the world cup.Incidentally except ranatunga’s in the 1996 final none of them belonged to the world cups I have seen.I felt a bit let down.I cannot relate to the greatness of Kapil or Gavaskar having never watched them in their prime.Infact I sometimes wonder how gavaskar managed 30 odd runs in 50 odd overs!Very rarely are time limes brlurred.A Maradona goal in the 1988 cup  against england still looks breathtakingor for that matter the Warne delivery in the 1992 edition.The fact that some of us are not able to comprehend the kind of cricketing game played not less than 15 years back is a testimony to the sea of change the sport has seen.Yet unlike its counterpart football has manged sadly, not to spread.

the ten most striking moments over the three editions.(in no particular order). 

1.Sachin Tendulkar vs Shoaib Akthar & pak:his square cut six off akthar was chosen as the most defining moment of 2003 on a nation wide poll.not without reason.might not be the greatest of knocks but definitely the most cherished.akthar admittedly trembled,wasim akram lost his cool,younis gave up and incredibly razzaq dropped sachin!two days before the tenth board exams this match remains one of the happiest moments of 2003.

2.Arjuna Ranatunga,captain great:for me,he is the most astute captain i have seen till now.steve waugh,fleming and our own dada not withstanding ranatunga redefined captaincy and his team -one day cricket in 1996.he called warne a media myth before the lahore finals and went on to take him apart.the finals saw incredible knocks from the captain and de silva and uncommonly two catches dropped by the aussies in the final of the world cup!

3.South Africa vs Australia1999:two matches were played both are a part of world cup lore.the first of them in the super six stage, a hopeless australian batting was once again rescued by the lion hearted steve waugh.gibbs dropped him and reportedly waugh went up to him and said”kid,you just dropped the match!”.some say he said cup but he has denied it.if waugh turned out to be right about the match the misquoting media prophesied the outcome of the south african campaign that edition.

semifinal:the only tie i have seen and that too in a high volte match in a world cup semifinal.south africa were cruising along till the great magician warne decided to step in. a delivery to gibbs had him bold,many accept that was very reminiscent of his delivery to gatting in 1992.allan donald could not complete the last run,the match was tied and the south africans were once again eliminated in unconventional circumstances .the tag of chokers remained.warne had produced a magical spell.it was a comedy of errors for the africans.

4.Team Sri Lanka 1996:champions.

5.Brian Lara 1996 vs South Africa:a masterful innings crafted in the way only lara can.

6.Jonty Rhodes:flyin and crashin unto inzy’s stumps ,unforgettable.

7.Australia vs West Indies,1996:needing to chase hardly 220 odd runs the west indies were cruising at 183/3  till warne came.the rest is history.

8.Kambli in tears.India vs Srilanka,1996:unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.still feel india’s best chance was at the 1996 world cup and not 2003 edition.

9.Team India 2003:a great performance but not enough.was the high point while labouring through board exams.

10.Australia 2003:wished they had not won.a great and ugly performance.

Through The Lens.

{ March 6, 2007 @ 10:17 am } · { Uncategorized }
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NITK Beachseasun setNITK beachGokharna Beachfoam and sunThe OM BeachGolden RaysTranquilitycanvassblack&light)

21st of july,2007.

{ March 6, 2007 @ 9:26 am } · { Harry Potter }
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The last and final instalment of the Harry Potter series shall be released this year.That for me is more exciting than the cricket world cup to be held in the WestIndies,which would commence later this month.Not that i am not a cricket fan ,its just that i have always found Potter and his mates more promising than the Men In Blue over the years. Then again a certain Messi and the promise of the Premier League and the beauty of the Latin American football has sort of diminished the cricket maniac in me.I have shifted gears and in a sense loyalty too.That would not stop me from following the world cup with an ardent fervour thats typical of this part of the world,though.Back to Potter,I can’t wait for the last and final book,ominously titled Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows to release.Irrespective of whether harry potter lives or not what for me would be the big loss is the loss of the series itself.

J.K Rowling steered clear a generation of readers from possible decadence of not reading.She is no genius and acceptedly not a revolutuonary.Yet her characters are so realistic in an unrealistic world and the stories told and publicised in such a clever way that you invariably get hooked to the books.the long wait between each of the books has only served to increase the joy of reading the book .Sometimes i wonder how it will be for future generations who will get to read the books at a stretch unlike us who have grown up with harry.maybe it wont be all that nice .After all, the greatest fans of Sherlock Holmes or Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan belong to the era when the series were first written and published.

Some consider the Potter series childish compared to Tolkien.Each is entitled to his or her own view,but for me harry has provided so much joy in going through sheets of printed material that Tolkien or Paolini or in recent times no one else has managed to conjure.Over the years i have learnt that the books grow on you,each time better than the last time you read them.Maybe as some people claim i will grow out of the world of Potter and immerse myself in the mundanity of the muggle world,but till then the books indeed are a magic beyond anything…

dip,dip n dip.

{ March 4, 2007 @ 5:47 pm } · { ramblings }
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How complicated life can get if u dont have help with cleaning.Especially if you are in the hostel and happen to be a girl. i mean peope always assume that a girl must maintain her room more clean and keep her things tidy than a boy would.A wrong biased preconceived notion if you ask me.Now that aside the fact remains tidying the room up and most of all washing your clothes is as tedious as a job you can ever find.Get up in the morning,set your clumsy bed right,fold the clothes and pile up the laundry bag with more dirty clothes.Thats the part i dread,the more you pile the more you wash.Once upon a time when the washing machine worked it was bliss.Now it isnt.So everyweekend i gear up lock stock and barrel to attack the piled up ones.So dip dip and dip.then scrub and then risnse and rinse.if its a tirkey towel then you are done!the soap just wont go whatever you do.Finally you rinse,squeeze and dry.An hour of sheer labour.Worse is cleanin the room.Goodness knows from where all the things pile up. Otherwise too i see some aesthetic beauty in leavin the room unclean and the workin table all cluttered up!if everything is in its place as must be i find it clautrophobic.There is a joy in pullin the deospray from under the bed,the wallet from between the cluttered papers and most importantly search everyday for five minuts to find the keys.its the same feelin of not takin a bath on a warm afternoon,lying on thebed in the hostel ,reading a novel and munchin  and drinkin something.Rooms are afterall an indication of your personal space,why have it like a museum?all things in their respective places.but then its always a gregarian society,cleanliness is next to godliness and there is a limit to take on clumsines.so you need to dip,dip and clean it is!

AIIMS strike on reservations- a retro.

{ March 4, 2007 @ 1:15 pm } · { the dividing line }
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The other day we were discussing student unions and strikes. Someone said probably there was no point in such strikes because nothing happens at the end of it all. the example given was the AIIMS’ strike which he said had led us nowhere and that the entire episode was a big failure,in a way.That set me thinking for after all the person was right in one way . Arjun Singh and the Government refused to relent.if seen in the perspective of the bill being revoked or not the entire affair was a futile exercise perhaps.But then i would not want to define success in terms of that.The success lay in the fact that the nation woke up to those guys , irrespective of whether they supported them or not.While a section of the students protested and held hunger strikes and candle rallies,the government decided to have its year end feast .How shameless do they get?reservations are understabdably one sided in politics but the blatant way in which Manmohan Singh and his cronies went about it ,is saddening.

The media dubbed the strike the Rang De effect after the movie but whatever effect it was the strike was symbolic of the youth who protested.They used sms campaigns,blogging,chain mails,orkutting ,candle rallies as effective a medium as striles on the roads.The strike did not sustain but then we all knew it would not.Neither a vote bank motivated government nor a HRD minister who does not even know the break up of his population can be expected to come up with a sensible reaction.For me, the strike struck a very poignant note.Whether you call them the elite or not they are some of the brightest minds of this nation.When such a population gets disillusioned it does not argur well for the country. Maybe, Dr.Abdul Kalam does not believe in brain drain but so many others do and heres another incentive for young people to leave this nation. A Rajeev Goswami immolated himself long ago, probably he knew where this nation with its politics on reservations was heading.

I am not against reservations.For,after all a democracy does not exist to care only for the best ,if it did it would be a failure.6o years of reservations have taken us nowhere maybe we need to rethink the model.The very fact that the government insists on including the creamy layer shows its vested interests.But then again after supporting reservations we need to ask ourselves a question:’how feasible and safe is it to have a nation of doctors and engineers built on quota?when you and me want the best of the facilities should’nt your nation be getting the same?’ perhaps reservations in higher education is a wrong way to go about the quota issue.

In a few month’s time the obc reservations will come into place and we shall see colleges stretched to their limits .we can only watch as the tamasha goes on…

The List

{ March 2, 2007 @ 5:04 pm } · { musings }
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Everyone always seems to make these lists and truth be told i always like to go through them.So,here’s my list of most loved ,read and re-read books and the ones that i did not enjoy so much.

1.The Mahabharath :The best piece ever written.Pity, Indians turn to western philosophy when the greatest treatise on human nature,psyche and irony of life belongs to this nation.

2.Yagnyaseni by Prathiba Ray: An Oriya novel, this one once again is related to the Mahabharath, it portrays the heroine of the epic,Draupadi with such ferocity and humanity that you at once feel pity for her and yet admire her.

3. The Harry Potter series by J.K.Rowling:july 21st,can’t wait.

4.A tiger for Malgudi by R.K.Narayan:as brilliant as narayan is.

5.The catcher in the rye by J.D.Salinger: dark,moody and witty.makes us realise ,this world is big bad and phoney!

6.I Meet Rajaji by Monica Felton:a simple book on the most astute political brain the nation has ever produced.the great man’s brilliance stuns you and leaves you awed.

7.The Godfather by Mario Puzo: an offer we can’t refuse!

8.The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar: a story told rather than an author’s writing.

9.Five past midnight at Bhopal by Lamiere:the greatest modern day industrial tragedy took place in this nation.a heart wrenching tale told..

10.The Partner by John Grisham:vintage grisham, this one

11.Gone With The Wind by Anne .M.Mitchell:’Frankly.my dear i no longer give a damn!’we love you Rhett and Scarlet.

12.The eye of the needle by Ken Folett:neat precise and striking.

The ten big diappointments

1.The God of small things by Arundhathi Roy:found the book pointless ,perverted and needlessly depressing.

2.English August by Upamanyu Chaterjee:Agastya Sen is a masturbating loser whose philosohy in life is basically wasting towards being idle.

3.The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand:her philosophy is neither path breaking nor revolutionary.In parts it makes no sense in others its old wine in new bottle.

4.LOTR: dont know why but did not like it.maybe,it is too descriptive for my liking.

5.The pillars of the Earth by Ken Folett:a nice story but somehow felt something to be missing.

6.Agatha Christie:have always found her writing too dry to follow.The Murder Of doctor Roger Ackroyd is extremely good though.

7.Shalimar The Clown By Salman Rushdie:another midnight’s children does’nt seem possible.does it?

8.Yuganta by Irawati Karve:grossly and needlessly misinterpreted.

9.Ignited Minds by Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam:a great man yes,but a very boring style of narration.

10.Jeffrey Archer:find his writing too shallow to like.

hale and healthy,pink and nice!

{ March 2, 2007 @ 3:56 pm } · { ramblings }
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Ah! The most revolting color for many people happens to be pink doesn't it?I have seen people giving me weird looks when i tell them i would love to own a pink Haier laptop or the Motogp cell.The problem with pink is that it has long been associated with young girls who play with frilly dolls,blondes who cootchiecoo miniscule pet dogs and of course anything overtly feminine.That makes me wonder , how is it that a color came to be stereotyped so much?You hardly find a parallel with any other color excepting may be with red and blood!I have always loved the color and still love it. Strawberry,powder pink,a girl's blush ,the tender complexion of a baby are some among the many things i associate the color with admittedly though i have never found the color good on the m gender. They often end up screamin'gay,gay..'when they wear it.But when a guy carries it well you know you have a real good one.Even my young nephew of 7 years hates pink.he once told me,'chi! its so girly!' but then its sometimes amusing when girls of nineteen and twenty repeat the same dialogue. one girl actually called it the color of dementation!I don't blame her for the problem lies in the society's perception of the color.Take for example,Legally Blonde,the protagonist is shown carrying a pink color bag to the court,maybe the blondes have come to the point that they claim the color to be theirs. For me though pink is nice and bright,come on guys that's the reason why you say rose tinged glasses,maybe.

With The Fungus Gone

{ March 1, 2007 @ 3:08 pm } · { on and off }
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You smelt so good and saw me fed.
Day after day and night after night
For your very sight I rushed.
oh!the pleasure of you entering my mouth,
on the tongue in and out.
With a twang here and a bit of spice there,
You were as perfect as they come.
Alas you were not to last
thence not to break my fast.
Two fellows in a melancholy song
Such pain is a great wrong.
gone.gone,gone..
Gone with the fungus!
Tomato cum garlic..
And now ,not a bit of it.
Gone ,gone ,gone,
my pickle with the fungus gone