Irfan Pathan weds Sania Mirza (?!!)

Atleast two people want it badly (you need orkut login for that)!

Kifayat: hwz it ,f irfan khan pathan marries sania mirza ,i think it vil b ideal,plz comment
Tapabrata: You Are correct. That will be a great match.

And check out this second thread -

Sana: hey guyz in dis comm u ppl hav3 to pridict that in which age will irfan gonna marry n to which type of girl..will he do arrange marraige or lov3 marraige??..i hope u ppl gonna lyk this topic so enjoy!!
anonymous: Irfans will BE arranGed Marriage.
HE WONt marry any stupid, UGly girl like you Sana so Forget Thinking AbOUT Him.
anonymous : i think he loved Her very Much so he will Marry with Heeeeeer
Sana:hey anon chilll ur tokin ass!! ur tokin lyk if he'll cum rite at my place if i'll jus offer him up:P....ahhaha ugly statement u've got!:P peace out ppl this topic is for nice ppl not for nerds...anyways resto'z haff nice tym!!:)

Hats off to Orkut - The noble source of ceaseless laughter!

Helen : The woman who could not care

Friday Poora Filmi Hai

Last week I was on a book buying spree. Fortunately, I stumbled upon First Proof. Its a compilation of writings of various upcoming Indian authors. Jerry Pinto has contributed perhaps the most interesting piece in the book - The woman who could not care. It talks about Helen and early days of bollywood in general. I enjoyed reading it thoroughly and I recommend it very strongly. Following are some of my favorite parts from the essay.

The nation state was not very old when Helen began her first rehearsals. The memsahibs were not yet a distant memory to be retrieved by Raj enthusiasts and professional nostalgists. They had left only a short while previously. And while they were not precisely white goddesses to whom all Indian men aspired, there was that old colonial hangover of the woman who you could not touch because she belonged to the ruling class.
...
If the heroine was the ethereally unavailable Hindu woman, objects of male lust would also need to be devised.
...
For a nation not old enough to ogle its own women, Helen must have seemed the ideal vamp. What better way of exacting revenge for all those years of frustration than to cast the available white women as objects of lust?
...
It would be very many years before a Hindu vamp would be accepted in the form of Bindu in the late 1960s. Until then outsiders to the Hindu mainstream would be called in to be lusted after, either as Anglo-Indians, Christians, Jews and one or two Muslims.
...
It is also interesting to note that in Helen's breakthrough number, the lyrics emphasize her alienness. 'Mera naam Chin-Chin-Choo', she tell us in Howrah Bridge, and later in the song informs us, ' Babuji mein Cheen se aayi/Cheeni jaisa dil laayi/Singapore ka yowvan mera/Shanghai ki angdaai'. Thus everything in her physicality has been imported from elsewhere.

I understand Pinto is writing a book on Helen. What amazing read that would be! It never caught my attention, but now it looks so obvious - the vamp was always necessarily a westernized lady! Even if it was a Hindu lady, like Bindu, she would be dressed in western outfits (figure hugging stretching pants and glittery tops, etc.).

But Pinto seemingly missed a different kind of vamps altogether, namely the witch in the family or the evil mother-in-law/daughter-in-law. The mere sight of Lalita Pawar must have frozen the blood of many newly wed ladies in those times. And then there were evil sister-in-laws. Although, family dramas picked up bit late in early 80's, I believe such characters were present even in earlier movies. I can't recall the names, but I have watched some black-n-white movies with such characters. Perhaps Pinto's idea of a vamp is a bit particular. The vamps in family dramas were not meant to be the "objects of lust" for sure.

Pinto's essay brought back to me one observation - early hindi movies had a very clear demarcation about the role of the characters. They will be either pitch black or rin white. The hero will be the ideal of every viewer in every possible aspect - be it academics, be it sports, be it music or even high speed car race. The villian will be a pucca son-of-devil, without even a trace of humanity in him. He'll have no regard for relations or sentiments. Thankfully, movies have gone much more sensible nowadays.

Recordbreaking Feat!

Nothing personal Jha! Muhahahahaha :)

Update: This is the score in a bowling match between Vyas and me. In our group, Jha saab had the previous record with 167. My previous highest was 163.
Jha, I dare you to break this record! Pushtein nikal jayengi teri!

Letter to Greg Chappell

Middle of the week, we talk about cricket!

Dear Mr.Chappell,

I still remember the day you arrived at Bangalore. Next day all the newspapers had this magnificent picture of yours - uttareeya in the neck, south-Indian turban on the head, hands folded in Namaskar pose. You indeed made an excellent start towards understanding & adapting India, but afterwards you haven't done quite justice to that start.

Ya-ya we know you are an Aussie, a tough egg - striving hard to win and all. But India works on the principle of Santosh - it doesn't translate well into English, but it's meaning varies between complacency and contentment. I don't understand the screwed up logic Australia follows to just keep on winning world cups. We won one for ourselves way back in '82 and are content with that, what if more than one third of present population is born after that win? What did you think? We - the nephews & nieces of great socialist Chacha Nehru - will fall for your evil capitalist plans? We will compete for another world cup only after every other cricketing nation has one. We are doing our best to boost chances for teams like Zimbabwe & Bangladesh.

And what was that blubbering about Indian players not giving 100% in the field & training sessions? Finally, the Indians have deviced a method to perform totally out of sync, so that even if the team keeps on losing matches, personal records keep on bloating. Very rarely all of them perform together, it's something like the 'V' formation birds form while flying - collective laziness. Do you think it doesn't take any effort to perform such a sleek tight rope walk? Ask Bhajji! Ask Dhoni! Ask Yuvraj! It's the delicate art of coloring all the sheeps grey so that no one can be pinpointed as a black sheep. And you say team is divided! Duh! You wish we'll fall for it - dream on mate!

Seriously buddy, you gotta answer this - What wrong has Ganguly done to you?! Agreed, he took you advice in Australia, but did that give you the impression that you can advice him even as a coach?! In India, coaches are meant to just nod along with the captain - understand this! And what did you whimper about Ganguly feigning injury to avoid new ball - here is a captain who knows his weaknesses and tackles them while remaining within the boundaries of the rules - and you are busy with nitpicking?! Shame! Shame! Poppy Shame! You should have been the first to congratulate Ganguly on this sleek strategy.

If India teaches you one thing, it's the lesson of tolerance & ignorance. Ask John Wright, towards the end he had to tolerate so much, he ignored all the offers made to him to continue. He tolerated all the indiscipline, all the wimpy efforts. He even tolerated it when team members roughed him up - allegedly Sehwag help him up with his shirt's collar, and he tolerated! You've got a lot to learn pal!

Wishing you a pleasant stay (if you decide to stick around, i.e.),
- Varun

(Really) Short Story

Alien: I am just here on vacation.
Me: Why would you come here on vacation?
Alien: Because you live life backwards.
Me: Really, how?
Alien: Well, you see, on our planet we have a retirement party first, work about 25 years, go to University, then school and then die in a big orgasmic blast.
Me: So, do you know everything beforehand?

A matter of few words.

Another fad is picking up in the blogger community - 55 words' story! Noticed this phenomena at Anurag's blog first. Neat idea, tough execution! Didn't stop me from trying though :). Here goes,

He felt alone; wet and cold, out in the streets. He had stories to tell, jokes to crack, thoughts to share, but he had no one to listen to him. He was left stranded amidst the fellow humans, still far from humanity. He was wretched. Oh, how badly he missed his mobile!

I'm passing the baton to some definitely better equipped story tellers. Reshma, Vivek, Pankaj - Please to follow up with a similar post on your blog.

Shame on Indian Media.

Middle of the week, we talk about cricket!

Nope this isn't about Ganguly. There is already so much said and written about Dada that even mentioning the URLs will eat up as much space as this post. This is about the Indian media, a bunch of swines who can twist and turn words and change the entire context and message behind the celebrity words. And balls to Indian cricket crazy junta, feeding on the daily saas-bahu drama, hoping for the same from the Indian cricket team!

What actually happened - I don't know what happened between the coach and the captain, but as it came out recently, apparently it was just a "frank discussion about Indian cricket's present and future". Ganguly, bloated after a century (let's not get into the favorable batting conditions and weak bowling attack), told Harsha Bhogale (about one-sixth of humanity glued to the TV set) - "I can tell you that before this match I was asked to step down as captain. So it was an extra determination that I found today (source)". And within 10-20 minutes of this revelation, the news channels were buzzing - "Chappell-Ganguly aamne-saamne","Ganguly Chappell se naaraaz"! Next day the newspapers had Chappell-Ganguly "feud" on the main page. Various retired/present cricketers were consulted for what they think about this. Lines were drawn deciding the authority with a captain and that with a coach. Jumping to conclusions, aren't we? Now, have a look at what Jayasuriya said -

To the disbelief of some, he had admitted that what kept him going for so long was the fear of being dropped from the team. He said that whenever he had a string of failures, the fear of the chop made him work harder at his game. "You've got to have that kind of fear in you if you want to succeed at this level," he said. "Otherwise you cannot come this far." (source)

I never heard any hue and cry raised over that!

Next, it seems Ganguly and few teammates left to some wildlife resort while Chappell and some team members decided to stay back/leave for next venue. The media exaggerated this too, portraying it as a clear rift between the captain and the coach. The team is declared to be divided. Newspapers and websites are poured with speculations and opinions, clearly we Indians have loads of free time! And when finally Chappell decided to put a fullstop to all the horse-shit and released a written clarification, then again the media published it as "Chappell Bowled","Chappell lost to Ganguly". Get a life, suckers!

It's not as if it was all out of nothing, but it's the blowing things out of proportions that ticks me off. Of course, not all media channels are as pathetic. The websites and the 24-hours news channels screw it up most of the times, perhaps since they don't have the luxury of time, that the newspapers enjoy. Still, how fair is it to spice it up just to sell your news? Up yours, buggers!

Trivia.

The Ashes originated in 1882 when the Aussies won a Test series against England for the first time in the ‘motherland’. The series was won after a thrilling match at the Oval, Australia dismissing England for only 77 and narrowly winning by 7 runs. The win was marked by the famous obituary to English cricket. The ‘body’ of English cricket was cremated and the ashes were taken back to Australia. Or, to be more precise, it was the bails from the stumps that were burned. The Sporting Times published a mock RIP memorial ‘in affectionate remembrance of English cricket’. Each test series from then on became known as the Ashes, and both teams would compete to retain the tiny urn that contained them.

Those were the days!

Winds of Change.

Friday Poora Filmi Hai

Salaam Namaste, the latest offering of the Yash Raj Films, is path breaking in more than one senses. Though I personally didn't like it much, the script must be acknowledged for daring to treat a sensitive topic with a distinct freshness. The issue of unwed mothers is not new to Bollywood or India, but the treatment in the movie is different. Everyone from Kunti in Mahabharat to Sharmila Tagore in Aaradhana had to abandon the child conceived out of wedlock. Not in Salaam Namaste. Amber (PJ: They should've named her HumpHer ;-)) decides to have the baby. Even this isn't pathbreaking -- Kya Kehna, interestingly, with the same cast, had almost the same setup. Saif chickened out of the relationship when he learnt that Zinta is pregnent and she decided to have the baby anyway. There, her father forced her to leave the home and severed all ties with her. Cut to 2005, no family rona-dhona, just a girl with a strong decision. But the pathbreaking character in the movie is the one played by Saif - Nick. He decides he doesn't want the baby and thus is ready to give up the relationship altogether. Last time when he did that to Zinta in Kya Kehna, he became a qualified villian. To make the character soot black from gray, they even gave him some lines like - "Jaane kiska paap mere sir daal rahi ho, etc". Not in 2005! Here we are cool with the metrosexual Nick getting out of the relationship since he doesn't want the unnecessary burden, but his chick wants it. If we roll back to Prem Chopra times; then he, and other pitch black characters, were mainly responsible for getting side heroines pregnent and abandoning them. It wasn't unimaginable to get the girl killed to mitaofy sab saboot. If this unfortunate thing had to happen with the leading lady, the hero had to die after making all the promises to marry her (Aaradhana, Humraaz). A whole lot of water has flown down the bridge since then (and of course, various preventive methods are available now ;-)).

New JEE Pattern.

The recent decision of the Human Resource Development Ministry regarding the IIT JEE has stirred the hornet's nest. Few IIT aspirants protested in front of IITD main gate against the new ceiling on the number of attempts to seek admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology. This is just plain unfortunate as the IIT officials are yet to discuss this with the ministry and put their stamp of approval on the decision. The ministry seems quite adament on accepting the recommendations of an expert committee headed by eminent scientist C N R Rao, which had recommended simplification of the Joint Entrance Examination by not only restricting it to the syllabus of Class XII level, but also introducing a single test system instead of the two examinations (screening and main) being held at present. According to the new norms the students will get only two attempts and if they get admission in the first attempt they cannot write the test again to change the IIT. Moreover, candidates securing 60 per cent in the XII standard exams could be allowed to sit for the JEE. The entrance exam could include a short write-up on a topic in physics, chemistry or mathematics, followed by objective questions based on the write-up.

Inspite of all the halla, I feel the is not all that bad. However, their rationale behind this doesn't make much sense to me. Arjun Singh, the HRD Minister, has spoken time and again about new system reducing the stress on the aspirants, but as I understand it, the stress originates from the competition and not the toughness of the exam. The role of the exam is plainly to select the most suitable candidates from all who take the exam. Now, in a grossly over-populated nation like India and very small number of seats, it's only natural that many deserving candidates can't make it through. The current IIT JEE might not allow every deserving candidate through, but very seldom does it let in a student who shouldn't be there. Now, if we change the pattern to have just objective kind of paper, it would just increase the amount of noise. The IIMs have a similar kind of procedure; they have CAT, which is objective type paper, and then based on the background plus the CAT score they invite candidates for another round of interview and group discussion. In the new JEE pattern, the students will be selected only on the basis of an objective style paper. As for the stress, it can't go down unless we increase the number of seats. The HRD ministry has made good progress in that direction too. The Union ministry of human development resources has called seven select engineering colleges for discussions for a third time in less than four months (read this).

Another claim made by the ministry says that this rule would cut down or totally eliminate the influence of coaching classes on the entrance. Currently, about 30-40% of successful candidates come from the town of Kota in Rajasthan, made famous by numerous coaching institutes. I attended Bansal Classes, Kota for two years during the last two years of my schooling and at the end of it I cleared JEE. From my personal experience, if these coaching institutes can give you anything, its just a hectic but effective study schedule. The students are picked after a rigorous round of entrance exam for the coaching institutes, thus ensuring that they get the best of the lots. Capability is already there, they just have to give them some tough practice and confidence. They do so by weekly quizzes, daily problem solving sessions and putting the students in competitive, yet stimulating environment. If such is the case, how can this be "curbed" by changing the pattern? The problem with these coaching institutes is that they introduce a bias towards students whose families can bear the burden of their fees. Very seldom would you see a student in IIT who has not attended *any* coaching institute. The arrival of coaching institutes, with their hefty fees, has made it virtually impossible for the students from modest backgrounds to compete with their well coached competitors from affluent backgrounds. Some coaching institutes provide scholarships to talented students from humble backgrounds, but that really doesn't cut deep. (An inspiring tale here).

The decision to put a cieling on the number of attempts makes good sense to me, but the ministry should consider the case of numerous students who might have refused seats in IITs and NITs or other institutes to take another shot at the JEE '06. It would be preposterous to deny them, especially after the academic session in already midway.

The Ashes Recovery.

Middle of the week, we talk about cricket!

"I think I was saying 3-0 or 4-0 about 12 months ago, thinking there might be a bit of rain around. But with the weather as it is at the moment, I have to say 5-0."

-Glenn McGrath

A whole bunch of feet got into a whole bunch of big mouths with the result of recently finished Ashes series. The fact is that even the staunchiest of English supporters didn't expect them to win so emphatically. Before the series there were many talks about the possibility of English team putting up a decent fight this time. It was considered blasphemy to even talk of an Australian defeat. The truth, has indeed came out to be stranger than fiction.

(It's been a long wait: Jubilant English team. Vaughan is holding the Ashes urn.)

Dubbed as the clash of the titans, this Ashes indeed came out to be the best in the recent times. It has not only attracted people once again towards Test cricket, but has also replaced Football as the most watched sport in UK. After the humiliating defeat in the first test, where McGrath ruthlessly ripped the English batting line up apart, it seemed as if it's gonna be the same story all over for England. But the lady luck finally smiled for England and McGrath injured himself just before the second test. It looked as if the Brits were waiting for just this, a small chink in the Aussie armour. They made the most out of the horrible decision of Ponting to field first and amassed 407 on the very first day. The Aussie bowling's resistence didn't look more than that of a lamb being taken to slaughter house; in the end it was butchered. Australia was given the target of 282 in the last inning, with ample time. But at the end of 4th day, it was reduced to a meek total of 175/8 and defeat was staring Ponting right in the eyes. But hat's off to the defiant display from Warne, Lee and Kasprowicz. They took the aggression back to English bowling and almost made them lose. But this fairy-tale ended, quite ironically, with a harsh decision from the umpire. Australia lost the test, but not their pride. Still, if they would've won this test match from the situation they were put into, it would've turned the series in their favor.

The third test was the same story. Pommies played first and piled up 444 in the first inning. They got Australia to 214/7 at the stumps on day two but major part of day three was washed away by rain and the Australian inning came to an end only on day four, not before gathering 302. England put up 280 in 61.5 overs and asked Australia to chase 423 in about 110 overs. The kangaroos made a cautious start and finished the day on 24/0 but the next morning they were shrank to 201/7 with more than 50 overs to be bowled. In the end, it took some imperviable batting from the lower order and a top class century from the skipper to save the test. The fourth test saw Australia following on after 18 years. Their batting order did better in second inning and forced England to bat again, to chase 129. The task looked easier on paper, but the Aussies were in no mood to let it go. If only they could manage some 20-30 runs more, it would've been so much more difficult for English. But as Siddhu would say - "If ifs and buts were pots and pans, there would be no tinkers". Australia showed the spirit to fight back in the last test, but stiff resistence from England and bad weather did not let them get away with the match and the match ended as a lame draw. I feel, Vaughan should have had a crack at the Australian batting when 30-35 overs were left in the day's play. The lead was enough to avert any danger of losing and it would have made it all the more interesting. Anyway, England was more interested in keeping it safe and claiming the Ashes back, and quite rightly so.

Test	Countries	Date	Ground	Result
1st Test	AUS v ENG	14/11/1986	Brisbane Cricket Gr	England Won by 7 Wickets
2nd Test	AUS v ENG	28/11/1986	W.A.C.A. Ground	Match Drawn
3rd Test	AUS v ENG	12/12/1986	Adelaide Oval	Match Drawn
4th Test	AUS v ENG	26/12/1986	Melbourne Cricket Gr	England Won by an Innings and 14 Runs
5th Test	AUS v ENG	10/01/1987	Sydney Cricket Grnd	Australia Won by 55 Runs

(The last time England won the Ashes)

England played amazingly well to reclaim the Ashes, but Australia did have it rough from the luck. First of all, McGrath was not fit for the last four tests of the series and it made them pay. The decision, which turned the second test in England's favor, was unfair to Australia as the replays later proved. Not to mention the horrible form which eclipsed their top tier players for most of the series. But if Australia lost it, England has won it by playing top notch cricket consistently through out the series. "Freddie" Flintoff will get a special mention everytime this series will be discussed. Coming back to international scene after an injury, he played out of his skin and made Australia kneel before his accurate bowling and devastating batting. Perhaps, it was his superb form which made the difference in the end. He has been an important part of the current England team, which has been performing increasingly well in last two seasons.

It would be too early to discard Australia though. Sadly, that's exactly what many have done. This loss is getting names like "The start of the end for Australia". It's true that the start of this season has been very uncharacteristic for the champs; they lost to Bangladesh and lost Ashes after 18 years. But the loss in Ashes was not an act of submission to English superiority. The scorecards don't do justice with Australian performances, they went down fighting, their nails firmly dug into the wall. No one should have any doubt in their minds about the capabilities of this team, the only thing they were found wanting is momentum. It was disheartening to see many "fans" of the great game, wanting them to lose by hook or by crook. Some cheered to the news of injury to McGrath & rain in the last test. All in the name of rooting out their dominance! I just want to say, Australia got there after years of hard work and consistent delivering - it will be pointless to see them lose lamely. In the end, it happened in the way it should've happened - England had to play better to take Ashes back. Now they have to keep proving themselves time and again to retain this new found stature. I have a hunch that Australia will bounce back strongly from this and it won't be easy for Brits to replace them from number one position.

Horror Films in Bollywood.

Friday Poora Filmi Hai

A well made horror movie can induce fear in the bravest of hearts and poorly made horror movies can tickle the funny bones. So, it's a win-win situation watching a horror movie. I personally like them very much since childhood. Hollywood has been making some excellent horror movies since the days of Hitchcock, but the situation wasn't very jolly in Bollywood until RGV company made some plausible attempts at the toughest of all cinematic genres. Films like Bhoot, Darna Mana Hai, Vaastu Shastra, Kaal, etc. are the flag bearers of Indian horror movies.

Perhaps horror movies have started getting hit very recently, this doesn't mean horror movies are new to Bollywood. Way back in 1979, Sanjeev Kumar in an well fitting mane and blood curdling howls, appeared in Jaani Dushman. The surprisingly multistarred cast gave the film enough mileage to do decent business. But even this success couldn't lure cinema makers into investing into horror movies. Still, the genre was established and small producers were making decent profit from low-budget, 3rd grade horror movies. It seems, while urban areas and big centers were going ga-ga over mushy romance & dog-blood-sucking Dharamandra action, small centers were enticed by the icchadaari naags, gory looking walking corpses & ghost infested havelis.

When I was in college, Zee Cinema used to air a hindi horror movie every Thursday evening. We never used to miss the laugh riot! The story used to be more or less same. All of them used to have an old, abandoned haveli or some khazana or pyaasi aatma. Inadvertently, our hero and his hip looking girlfriend will land into the ground zero along with few just-to-die-after-two-reels friends. However deserted the haveli might be, a chaukidaar, enshrouded in a blanket (even in summers, anyway, it's always night in the bhoot-land), with a lantern will be there. And the shower will be working, so that our chick can bathe and the crowd can vasoolofy some money. The presence of one tantric baba is essential. When all the good-for-nothing friends are spent and the aatma now endangers the life of the leading couple, it's baba's responsibility to put the silver trishool through the bhoot's breast.

Even some of the actors were regulars, Puneet Issar always played to fighter friend, only to be killed by the aatma after putting up a fighting show. Archana Puran Singh played the bathing beauty - the damned shower always started to throw blood after a while! Most of them ended up to be plain cheap sleaze show, to satisfy the front benchers. The acting standards used to be really ludicrous and the make up and all was plain pathetic. These movies certainly had the virtue of being cheap, so to extract cost should have been very easy. Ramsey brothers made a fortune out of howling creatures and booties under shower (They later went ahead to make Zee Horror Show! That was just class apart! :))!

So, Ramu must be giving a new identity to horror movies in India, but the forget about all the horror films made in 80s and 90s would be to ignore a treasure. Zee Cinema shows some of them even today, but at very late hours. Watch them if you can, just can't miss the laugh riot.

The Videocon Cup: Final

Middle of the week, we talk about cricket!

Right before the start of this tournament a small controversy was born out of the comment of Greg Chappel. He said, "Ratings don't lie". Some of the players, reportedly, felt insulted as the Indian cricket team is rated above only the minnows in ODIs. Now, as the dust settles at the Harare Sports Club, in the hindsight the comment looks dead right. India, with all the heroes on paper, once again buckled under the pressure of a final. The professional approach of the New Zealanders took the match away from India as if it was as easy as snatching candy from a kid. Indians did nothing if not helped them achieve the target; they dropped catches, misfielded, and made a mess with the bowling options.

With the kind of pitch, known for supporting batsmen, it was natural for winning captain to bat first. So did Ganguly, but what beats me is the choice of super sub. The team decided to keep Harbhajan Singh as super sub when they could've kept him in the batting 11 and kept Nehra out. Nehra, who after aeons in international cricket, still refuses to understand the basics of holding a bat straight, made a big fool of himself in the end. Harbhajan Singh, though is not highly skilled with the wood, can swing the willow for a few. This might not have mattered much in the end, but it shows how poorly the think tank of the team did.

Ganguly, who is nowadays just a caricature of his glorious past, played some reckless shots, only after surviving many scares on Bond's bowling. But we must applaud the positive approach in his game, he doesn't hold back from pulling or hooking even in these times of horrible form, what if those shots take his wicket most of the times. Perhaps, it can help Dada to step down the batting order. He is, atleast used to be (lately we haven't had him stay that long), very good against the slower bowlers and it can do his confidence a lot of good to spend some time at the crease. I can't understand why he must stay as captain though. For me, it's uber important to get a place in the team first. With his horrendous run with the bat, I doubt if he'll be picked even for the Bengal Ranji Team. Moreover, replacing Dravid abruptly from the captain's post, seems to have done a lot of harm to his confidence. "The Wall" has shown all kinds of cracks oflate. He is getting out in most unusual manners for a player with his kind of technique and skills. The problem is clearly with his mindset. It's not very tough to get demoralized in such a course of events. The bottomline: Dravid's out of form and India payed for it.

As long as Sehwag was at the crease, the runs were flowing thick and fast. But after he departed, the slower bowlers dried up the runs. In the middle overs, when the singles are most important to keep it ticking, runs were hard to find. This pressure led to the dismissal of Yuvraj & Venugopal. It was the loss of momentum in this crucial period that left India about 20-30 runs short. Again, the incapability of Kaif to hit the big ones in the dying moments pinched India. Unfortunately, the big hitters couldn't do much. Special kudos to NZ since they fielded exceptionally well and held fast to some cruicial catches. Even after all the failures, 276 was a big total.

New Zealanders were off to a boombastic start. It's tough to contain the batsmen once they gain this kind of torrential momentum. But I think the Indian captain missed a trick or two by not introducing the slower bowlers early. A lesson was there to be learnt from the Indian inning, where Yuvraj and Kaif faltered against some quality slow bowling in 30's. The gound fielding and catching standards were abysmal! Even when NZ needed something in the order of 70, the Indian fielding was in the defensive mode. No one can save a match by stopping runs when the opponents need just run a ball! The initiative was to be taken and an aggressive field must have been introduced. Nothing but some quick wickets could have saved the match. Eventually, the better team took the bow as winners.

If we compare the players one on one, I'm sure Indian team will come on top of New Zealanders. But the matches are not won by individuals, they are to be won by a team. New Zealand has perhaps the most balanced side in present ODI scene. They might not have the Dravids and Yuvrajs but they make up for this by combined effort. India on the other hand, fails to provide any sense of dependability & consistency to the fans. Even when they win, it takes extraordinary efforts from an individual, never does the team play well as a unit. If this slacky attitude is going to stay, no power in heaven or in hell can raise India from the 7th position in ODI ratings. And they better accept this damned thing soon!

Anchoring.

This blog was aimless, just as me, till now. Not anymore! Vivek suggested I should write some sort of a humor column on my blog, just like this & this one, regularly (every Monday or so). Nice suggestion, I said. And then I thought, getting regular is neat. So, I've decided to have three regular weekly features on this blog, namely Monday Mania, The Middle Stump & Filmi Friday. Monday Mania would be a humor post, as per the noble suggestion from a noble man. Middle Stump would deal with cricket. I plan to publish it on Wednesdays, i.e. in the middle of a week. So, it's kind of pun in there! Filmi Friday, as suggested by the name, will get published on Fridays and would cover my comments on films.

These three cover up almost three quarters of what interests me. Anyway, this blog is not going to be restrained to just these theme posts. Right now I'm excited about this stuff, but I'm not sure if I can post these column every week. That's perhaps too much to expect, I'm gonna try though.

This thing should get kicked off this Wednesday with The Middle Stump. Someone's gonna watch tomorrow's match closely ;-).

Interesting Questions!

Questions aren't interesting, their answers are, rather, a question is only as interesting as it's answer. It's in my habit to keep tossing some interesting questions (by which I mean that I expect interesting answers). I don't get interesting answers all the time though. No worries, I shall keep trying. Here I go,

Q. Choose between ticket to U.S.Open final or ticket to 5th Test of Ashes.
Nilesh & Jha chose U.S.Open. I want to go to the Ashes test. I'll get 5 days time to spend in that electrifying atmosphere! I pray to God that Aussies thrash some Pommie @ss this time!

Q. If you *have* to drop three players out of current Aussie team, who would they be?
Jha deemed the question invalid as it doesn't have the names of replacements.

Q. Out of 4 Grand Slams, i.e. French Open, Wimbledon, U.S.Open & Australian Open, which one would you attend, if given a choice?
Jha would attend Wimbledon. He further added he can't bear the heat in Australia during Australian Open (!!).

Q. Play TT for career or Tennis?
Jha put his finger on Tennis. It needs more athleticism. I chose TT for the same reason :).

Q. If given a chance to watch a tennis match, choose between 1) Federer-Roddick, 2) Federer-Nadal & 3) Roddick-Nadal.
Jha wants Federer-Roddick. I want Federer-Nadal.