Cheer-Haran

It was expected. So it happened. Nobody is surprised.

The cheerleaders in IPL were seen by one and all. Some wanted to see them again. Some said it was enough. They wanted newer cheerleaders. Mumbai Moral Sena raised a pertinent question "With Mumbai males not performing when it matters most (on the cricket field, I mean), who needs cheerleaders anyways?"

They got support from unexpected quarters. Shaheed Afridi and Shotgun Sinha. Though Afridi loves to play with the ball, of cricket obviously, he feels that he is distracted by the other balls...oops..balle balle dance of the cheerleaders. He comes early and then gets off..err..gets out sooner.

Sinha with neither age nor power and not even Pawar on his side has been reduced from Shotgun to firing blanks. He claimed that T20 and cheerleaders will eventually reduce the game to "Toss Toss". Regretfully, he did not mention what is being tossed around. The prospects do look inviting, if he spoke about his own fantasy and of other guys.

All this outbursts took place in the middle of bowling change when the zealous Set MAX instead of showing cheerleaders switched to Vodafone ka kutta running after the bus. What an anti-climax, yaar, causing utmost pain and trauma to many. No hard feelings there, buddy and yeah, it's a dog's life at the end of it.

Yeh IPL ka cricket hain bhidu

Crowds booing "Sreesanth Hai Hai". This could have happened anywhere but in India. Till last Monday.

Then it happened in Jaipur. The reason: Sreesanth gave that stare to a batsman and tried to sledge. The batsmen was Kamran Akmal! See in another context, the Jaipur crowd jeering an Indian bowler cos he took panga with a Pakistani batsman. What would have been unimaginable, just occurred. Akmal plays for Rajasthan Royals in IPL and Sreesanth for Kings XI Punjab.

It has happened before too.
The Eden crowd erupts in joy when Laxman, who made magnificent 281 on the same ground years ago, gets out.
Ponting rushing to Ishant Sharma, when the latter is walking back to his run-up, to advise how to bowl against Symonds.

As Dravid said "It's really unusual to come to Bombay, hit a four and see nobody clapping for you." The Mumbai spectators went "Sanath, Sanath" ala "Sachin, Sachin" style.

So barriers are breaking at international level and new divisions are being made at regional level. As long as those divisions confine to cricket, no harm in celebrating the sixes of Hussey off Pathan or the fall of Dravid.

I am hoping that we start taking pride in our local teams as much as we take "pride" in our national team. IPL may just be that catalyst.

Nayar say Nehra Again

On Wednesday 23rd April in Chennai, Abhishek Nayar came into bat when 99 runs were required of 42 balls. He came, he saw, he played. He brought the score to 8 runs in 2 balls with able support from Harbhajan.
Still Mumbai Indians lost to Chennai Superkings with 6 runs. A great nail-biting finish (though I personally did not indulge in that activity). Such fun.

Joginder Sharma gets all the accolades but I say, he is one helluva lucky chap. In T20 final, Misbah played that audacious shot off Sharma and gave a simple catch to Aakashwani-listening-Sreesanth. Last night, Nayar took a single run on a no-ball and gave strike to Nehra. Nehra who? Aashish Nehra whose claim to fame is that six wicket haul against England in 2003 World Cup and series of injuries later on. That strike ruined all the chances Mumbai Indians had of winning the match.

McCullumed!

Long after your hi-tech jobs got Banglored, Bangalore Royal Challengers got McCullumed in the first league match against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Brendon McCullum scored 158 runs in 73 balls laced with 10 fours and 13 sixes. He is already famous in India with his heroics and another such innings from him will make him a superstar in India. Otherwise, he may end up just one innings wonder (as far as India & IPL is concerned).

There is always a difference between a Kumar Gaurav and Hrithik Roshan.

SRK vs SRK

This is not a remake of Kramer vs Kramer. SRK's new game "Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez hain ?" show begins in the middle of the successful IPL.

The show is an Indianized version of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? I have seen few episodes on YouTube of the Fox Show and it does seem very very interesting. I think the success of the show depends a lot on the contestant. I don't know if the Indian contestant will open so easily in front of the camera.

With IPL hogging all the TRPs and especially the Kolkata Knight Riders matches leading from the front, will SRK's new show give fight to IPL?

The quiz show begins on Friday 25th April 8 PM Star Plus.
Catch the teaser below

Making of the stars

Ashoke Dindha, Wriddhiman Saha, Karan Goel, Salunkhe, Jadeja, Shikhar Dhawan etc
I am not talking about my friend list on Orkut. Neither it is the reunion list of my college.

These are the performers of IPL who were unknown till last week and budding stars this week. Who says IPL is about only money and razzle dazzle, the cheer leaders and Bollywood?

Its exciting to watch the keeper Saha take a dive for a catch on his wrong side or Virat Kohli pouncing on the ball with an eye of a tiger. Ravindra Jadeja hitting boundaries to Brett Lee in a cliff hanger of a match.

Imagine the exposure the young promising talent will get just by being in the same dressing room with the likes of Lee, Symonds, McCullum, Warne and vice versa. May be next time, Symmo will know exactly what Bhajji said! Ek bandar, IPL ke andar. Alrite, this monkey business is no more p(h)unny. So I will stop right here.

The Maa and The Baap

So it has begun. Its almost a week since it started. Its huge if the reports and feedback has to be believed.

Yeah, I am talking about the Manoranjan ka Baap and the Mother of all Reality TV in India.
Indian Premier League.

So far the matches have been exciting barring one or two of them. Expect lot many posts on IPL in the coming weeks.

I am leaving you with few videos for promotion of IPL.
The first one is "inspired" from NBA promotional video but I like the lyrics of the former so its cool with me.



The second one is Bollywood-ish promo which is howlarious !!!!

A curious incident of the dog in the night time

A dog is man's best friend but not when he is in an aircraft ready for take-off.

According to CNN-IBN, an aircraft came to halt because of a dog.
With a "spiritual" co-incidence, the Kingfisher plan hit a Black Dog.

It seems the dog took fancy to the aircraft and wanted to relieve himself.
Why nobody mentions about the fate of the dog. Where is Maneka Gandhi?

Train the pilots for Indian conditions, will you ? They should take a cue from US Air force which is devising a Flight Simulator using traffic data from Indian roads. Alrite, I made this one up. But think about it.

As Forrest Grrrrump would say life is a dog! You never know which aircraft will come and hit you.
That's all I have to say about that.

Treadmill

Life feels like a treadmill.
I keep running faster and faster to stay where I am.
I need to find the stop button to slow down, step back and re-assess.

Have you felt like that ever? Do you know where your stop button is?

Amar Akbar Anthony

Manmohan Desai will be proud of Friday the 21st.
Its Idd, Good Friday and Holi on the same day.

School and college students will be cussing. They lost out on 2 holidays.

Idd Mubarak and Happy Holi !!!!!!!
Amen.

A Letter

He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just and are not true.

But teach him if you can, the wonder of books.. but also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hillside.

In school, teach him it is far more honorable to fall than to cheat.....

Teach to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him he is wrong.

Teach him to be gentle with gentlepeople and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone getting on the bandwagon...

Teach him to listen to all men; but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad...

Teach him there is no shame in tears.

Teach him to scoff at cynics and to be beware of too much sweetness..

Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to highest bidders, but never to put a price on his heart and soul.

Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob.. and stand and fight if thinks he is right.

Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel.

Let him have the courage to be impatient..

Let him have the patience to be brave.

Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will have faith in humankind.

This is a big order, but see what you can do. . He is such a fine little fellow my son!

- Abe Lincoln in a letter to his son's teacher

Rules of Innovation

No surprise that innovation rules coming from Google.
What surprises me that I found this on Rediff !

My favourite bit:

After September 11, one of our researchers, Krishna Bharat, would go to 10 or 15 news sites each day looking for information about the case. And he thought, Why don't I write a program to do this? So Krishna, who's an expert in artificial intelligence, used a Web crawler to cluster articles." "He later emailed it around the company. My office mate and I got it, and we were like, 'This isn't just a cool little tool for Krishna. We could add more sources and build this into a great product.' That's how Google News came about.

India Calling

Why nobody in India is really listening....

The first 50 posts

Yipee, this is my 50th post on this blog. I never doubted that I will reach here one day.

And what better way than this delicious correspondence between a customer and Amazon customer service to rejoice !

(Link via Seth Godin's blog)

Half Life

The day I was born, the night sang four songs.
Of life, of love, of joy and mourn,
In two I slept and two I remember
Life was about sorrow, pain and anger

The cup half filled with grief and misery
The other half, I never knew the mystery
Years turned into wrinkles on the face
I wishfully inching towards my grave
Hollow promises that I could not keep
A ray of hope is all I seek

Then came the night in my slumber,
I heard about love and its wonder,
Soon life found its unshackled mirth,
Its a new half-life for all its worth.

Alchemist Revisited

My current favorite these days:

Badi shiddaat se maine jisko paane ki koshish ki,

Har zarre ne mujhe usse milane ki saazish ki,

- Om Shanti Om (2007)