We will "Roo" that in Janurary. All in "Wayne"

I was tossing and turning in my sleep last night as I was trying to figure out the inexplicable reason behind Rooney's decision to leave the club. Given the fact that Rooney made his intentions clear on August 14th (Just as the Premier League started), it all goes back to two major events of the past.
1. The big English flop in South Africa (especially after the Algeria game).
2. The Bayern Munich quarter final clash back in April.

Come to point two as it seems to have a lot of significance. Consider that Rooney was rushed back almost immediately for the 2nd leg and he ended up getting kicked by Demichelis so many times. He got taken off in the 2nd half and from then, he failed to recapture his form and couldn't score goals. Now continuing on the same lines to point one, That form was brought over to South Africa and he couldn't produce. I am not able to conjure up a better line of reasoning for this shocking announcement doing the rounds in the tabloids everywhere. If Rooney is leaving on this inexplicable reason, he is a disrespectful disgrace. All Fergie did was at his best interests at heart.If resting the fella too many times is the cause for all this s**t, God save that angry sweet potato, son'uva b***h.


Moving on to the next important thing that's everywhere, I don't see United getting £50m for him. not when he has 18 months of his contract left and has already stated that he won't sign another contract.And that leads us to the next million dollar question. Where next? Manchester City?Chelsea?or the usual suspect Real? Wherever he goes, I am pretty sure of one thing. Life will not be easy for him elsewhere.


 To cut a long story short, I dont see any major problem between United and him (apart from the two minor ones I discussed at the beginning. They shouldn't matter though.). Opening a completely new line of reasoning, I think he is mixing his personal life with football. And...........If he is so foolish to be doing THAT, He should go. And see what other clubs will do when he hits a bad patch. This club has respected him, nurtured him, supported him, believed in him. No other club will give so much space and exhibit so much tolerance like United did to that very talented, short tempered ASS.

And now folks, Does this mean we have to truly, madly, deeply love Berbatov now?

Dimiflop Berbaflop..said who?????

I know the count runs into double digits, when one tries to figure out how many times I've said "It's been disastrously long since I wrote in this space" or something of that description, but here I am saying something of that sort once again. Yes, It's been a long hiatus but no points for guessing what the topic is..this time around..coz it's obviously 'football'. Yea, you got it right. This one is not as obvious as the beating that Chelsea gave Blackpool this weekend. But it is obvious nevertheless. What are the bets that they would score something less than 4 in any game this season? It's been a really great start for Chelsea fans around here. They've high five'd- and said cheers almost each time the ref's whistle blew for full time this season.

Coming to the point after some digression as is my wont one too many times on this blog, Dimitar Berbatov is a legend. I have been one of those people who've always said "Dimi can't head the ball" and Dimi would be a better bet at the Chennai marathon each year than inside the 6 yard box. I remember reading in one of the post match reviews last weekend or so that Dimitar's Fleet Street name was soon to become 'Dimiflop Berbaflop'. Yea, you got it right. I read it at F365. Where else?

Back to the betting odds about Chelsea scoring fewer than 4 goals, when shall we see a difficult game for Chelsea this season? anytime before November? This has been an incredible fixture list for the blues and that is adding to the woes of the under-performing Uniteds and Arsenals. To include the fourth of the celebrated "Big 4" -  for Loserfools as well. Though they surely look destined for a UEFA Cup qualification fixture once again, they still are a part of the celebrated Big 4 bandwagon and Chelsea are making life difficult for them too.

Cutting short on the tangent once again and coming to the main matter, a second scissor kick in as many matches. What's happened to that guy? For virtually the first time in his career as a Red Devil, Berbatov got a standing ovation when he walked off at the 84th minute after that brilliant hat trick. United fans have been waiting for this day patiently and as sages have pointed out time and again, patience is a virtue and sometime or the other, it is sure to bear fruit. I had goose bumps when the crowd roared as he walked out of the theater of dreams after accomplishing a feat that goes straight into the record books. 64 years after Stan Pearson did it, DimiTAR BerbaTOV scored a hat trick against United's biggest rivals.

It may have taken two years,

But Welcome to Manchester Mr Dimitar Berbatov!

Paul Scholes for Player of the Year!!

I rolled through the pages in this blog and was trying to find out how I have been gibbering around over the 2 years of writing. I noticed I have written very few posts about football, though about 5 hours of my day in general go by reading through football columns/watching football/discussing football with colleagues and friends. That came as a surprise to me. What was even more surprising was the fact that I haven't written about my love for Manchester United much either. For people who don't understand the seriousness of that thing, the depth to which my love for that Football Club goes can be understood by the fact that I am devising a strong plan to convince my future life partner to think of Manchester as a honeymoon destination. A trip to Old Trafford on the itinerary of course!

Manchester United became one real obsession for me because of this guy from school, who is coincidentally rubbing his shoulders against co-Man United fans at Old Trafford right now. Paul Scholes was the star of the then United team that he was vouching for. He showed videos and gave boring lectures about his genius and other such things.(the choice of the word boring is not a surprise because for a 'not-yet-a-football-fan', these lengthy sessions are sure act as sedatives.) But yea, I became a fan soon enough and went around shouting: my favorite player was Paul Scholes.

I know it is not any occasion to talk about Scholes right now since the time is not too right viz. he has not just hung his boots or won the ballon d'or or something of that sort recently. But his masterclass is the main talking point after the curtains went down for the all exciting Premier League season 2010-11. Ferguson selected the same front six - Valencia, Fletcher, Scholes, Nani, Berbatov and Rooney - for the opening-weekend clash with Birmingham last August. But Scholes yesterday didn't look like the Scholes then. A lot of media love-in is being bestowed on our 35 year old master. Paul Scholes for Player of the year? is a question that doesn't become too irrelevant. More so after having witnessed how Ryan Giggs won it last April after just 12 league appearances. In my opinion Scholes looks the best player in the league when he plays. But the thing to worry about is the fact that he starts only half the league games in any season. 38 in the last two combined - statistically. He hasn't featured in the tried and tested 4 man midfield games against top opposition. That's a fact I have to agree, but he is definitely a "pass master" like SAF put it after Monday's match. No doubting his vision and skills.

Scholes was an unused substitute in United's first loss last season against Burnley. He then returned to the starting line up for the ensuing weekend's match at Wigan. Which United won. 5-0. Go figure. Ok, after I have hyped up so much, I know what you are driving at. He cannot tackle and he has seemingly never realized that he cannot. Those are the two bad things about him. But which other English player in the last twenty years has controlled and decided games form the midfield better than Scholes?

Paul Scholes for Player of the Year!!! Anyone???

P.S : My blog clearly demanded some space for my favorite footballer and here I go. This one is for posterity. I'd definitely look back at this one after his career at United.

Ipdi than irukkanum nu sollala...Ipdi irundha nalla irukkum nu solren....

Continued from part 1......

Ila, Anbu, Shri, Arul....All wazz well....It was a really joyful experience for all the four in each other's company. Hyderabad was turning out to be a nice outing for the four till Arul and Shrikanth had a nasty blow with their job taking a sudden twist. Life became tough. They had a top level management change suddenly. The change was for no good and Arul, Shri were not able to be their own self. Police vela avangaluku torture aga aramichiduchi (Their policeman job started taking a toll on them). They could not be the ilankandru's (young saplings) they used to be. They started looking for a change.

They wanted to move out of Nizam's city which was no longer peaceful with them. Anbu and Ila were trying to clear government examinations for their promotions at the same time. The four tigers started looking out for missions elsewhere. By this time Shri had taken an important decision in his life. He decided to put a full stop to his endless extravagances with Swathi. This figure (the case in point) started showing her true colors. Tea kadai chaais got promoted to coffee day outings. "Leaning on bike under a dysfunctional lamp post and chatting to glory" affairs improved into long bike rides. With petrol fares raised every full moon day in this country, these developments were not easy to bear with. Shri chose to run a long distance gilfosica so as to cut down on expenses.

Arul and Shri started going out on the roads with the IVVTP (Ilam valibargalin Velai thedum padalam) motto...Ila followed suit. He was bored of the same assignment day in and day out (mosquito smashing and seat warming). Ila found a new assignment which looked promising in the 'filling of purse' matters. Anbuchelvan was tired of those promotion exams in which he could not get even half of the pass mark. So, Anbu followed Ila and jumped into the FoJHB(Fraternity of Job Hunting Bachelors).

Nothing drastic till here. The thing that has been hyped up to such a level in these two posts came when "Late a vandhalum latest aa vandha" Anbu got his new assignment outside Hyderabad. There came a point in time when the Tamil Tigers Eelam had to disintegrate. Alas, Anbu was moving out of the team. He was moving out of the team that made him look formidable. He was moving out of Hyderabad. Yes, now we have the climax.

Climax started like this : Anbu treating all and sundry in Hyderabad who were friends/friends' friends/mere acquaintances. As is the case with treats given by bachelors, the OH content started increasing. An interesting thing about these treats which are replete with OH content is that 'emosanal disucusans' start becoming a common feature. The team started feeling the after effects of Anbu's loss already. In general, a widely accepted opinion is that a team that looks like "Ila, Anbu, Arul and Shri" is formidable. But come to a team with Ila, Arul, Shri sans Anbu..Fail...It is no good whatsoever. The young saplings started getting weaker. But all was not over. The climax had a twist. When the rest of the team had just learnt to digest the fact that they would be one man less, they were struck by another massive blow. Politics played by Shri's immediate boss resulted in Shri being transferred to "thanni illa kaadu" (waterless forest). Shri was moved to another department. He was on his way to Chennai.

A team with a high potential had disintegrated. Now they were not just one tiger less but two tigers less. Anbu and Shri are in Waterless Forest (luckily the same waterless forest viz. Chennai). But that was not any respite. As I had told earlier, a team that looks like "Ila and Arul only" is not even close to formidable. In fact, grapevine suggests that Arul could also be on his way to some waterless forest very soon. That would make our lone fighting tiger Ila battle it single handedly.

Now, coming to why I chose that title.... I ain't saying the team should be separated. It would have been good if they had not disintegrated.

                                                               THE END....

How Ila will manage to survive, does not fall into the scope of this story. And the script for that one is in progress.

The Cast: (As Promised)

Pradeep Sekhar C as Anbuchelvan
Praveen Kumar D as Ilamaran
Manigandan Parthasarathi as Arul
Thiagarajan Ravishankar as Shrikanth.

Story, Screenplay, Direction : Pradeep Sekhar C
Stunts: Manigandan Parthasarathi
Visual Effects: Pradeep Sekhar C
Comedy Tracks : Thiagarajan Ravishankar and Praveen Kumar D


A "I am Kannan, Bachelor, Monthly 20 thousand salary" production.........

Naanga 4 Paeru..Engaluku Bayame Therila.

Disclaimer: Characters in this story are completely real and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely intentional.

Department la engala ilankandru nu sonnanga (We were known as the young saplings in our department). We were the untouchables.

This post is dedicated to four bachelors referred to as Anbuchelvan, Srikanth, Arul and Ilamaran hereinafter. 

It was the year 2008. Anbuchelvan was still in college and was full of young blood. Hyderabad reckoned and he was on deputation in the notorious city for one year to go. Srikanth and Arul were also about to join him very soon. Anbuchelvan had found a lonely place in Madinaguda near Chanda Nagar for their hideout during the period. It was a very awaited beginning. It was not more than one week that Anbu had spent alone before his team joined him. Ilamaran was not a part of the team then.

Life progressed for the young tigers and everything was smooth till one night when the unexpected happened. Shrikanth and Arul wanted to move out of Madinaguda. Their work was demanding and they had to stay close to their workplace. It was a risky job. They needed to be cautious. Once again Anbuchelvan was left to deal with his enemies alone. The team disintegrated. But only for a short while. Anbu could not bear solitude and he decided to move in with Shri and Arul about a month later.

Shri was a notorious young officer. His character was like Kamal Hasan in Panchathanthiram. In short, he was the "dude" among the three. Swathi came into his life very soon. She was from Orissa. Shrikanth being the dude, had no problems in maintaining figures from various states in the country. He was the "language no bar guy". But there was a downside to their love story. Like most modern jinglis (beautiful girls) of India, Swathi never took her purse out whenever they went out. This was a big blow to Shrikanth. He could not manage that big a hole in his purse and was put into a "Finance Problem Machi" at the end of each month.

Arul was known to be the diligent officer of the three. He was duty conscious to an unexplainable extent. But this was how people thought about him. His true colors came out when he was sent to Bangalore for an encounter. He showed his skills by "line putting" for 3 kulavilakkus (South Indian sirens). Anbuchelvan who was with him for the mission soon found out about Arul's leelaigal (naughty behavior). But the encounter was not a failure and Arul was undoubtedly the most ardent of the three.

Then came Ila into their lives. Ilamaran was the most intelligent of the four. He was the kingmaker. He devised sketches for encounters. He was an encounter specialist. He was the one who laid out sketches for all weekends throughout the team's stay in Hyderabad. His plans showed variety. They ranged from Anjappar tactics to Chutney tactics to Taste(y) the cyanide to Idly kadai warfare. Though he was so brilliant at work, Ilamaran had one weakness. He was fond of eating. He used to eat 16 palm-sized idlis for breakfast. When Anbuchelvan noticed this weakness and warned him of his pot belly which would disrupt his challenging missions, he did not yield. He lied to the team that he ate only 4 palm sized idlis. God Promise.

Readers should not think of Anbuchelvan as the "Good Man" in the team. The above paragraphs definitely portray him as one. But he was a "thiruttu bemani" (notorious rascal). He was more experienced than Shrikanth in figure matters. He was the headmaster in the school that Shri went to. He used to have false encounter cases in Bangalore for obvious reasons. He had a harley davidson 125 cc bike that he used for fishing in hyderabad waters. He tried his hands on many "kazhuvara meens"(fish that are being washed) with his HD 125. But all of the "meens" were "nazhuvura meens" (Fish that slip from hands).

Ila, Anbu, Shri, Arul....They were the untouchables. Though they have been portrayed with many weaknesses in their character sketch, they were a strong team. They were a formidable force. Arul, Anbu and Ila played football sometimes. Anbu thought (still believes) he is a right winger and likens himself to Cristiano Ronaldo. Ila is a strong defender. He was good at "break-leg-take-ball" tactics and hence defended very strongly. Arul was made of a very weak physique. He had a few skills to add to his kitty. But they were no good against Ila's break-leg...tactics. Shri was into football too. But he did not take his expertise to the field. He was content with pressing 'W' to give through balls and pressing 'D' to shoot (FIFA '07). Nevertheless, he was a prolific goal scorer (on the computer).

It was a really joyful experience for all the four in each other's company. Hyderabad was turning out to be a nice outing for the four till something really sad happened.....

To be Continued................. Part 2 here

P.S: Cast of the "Police Story" would be detailed after part ii of the series.

P.P.S: If the story did not make sense to a reader due to the high suspense quotient in the content, our team offers an apology. We shall try to make things clear in part ii of the series.

Pakistan's antisocial networking

As I draft this post, the number of common websites on the internet that have been forced to shutdown in Pakistan has touched double digit figures. Insanity on the part of bureaucrats in Pakistan has rocketed to such a level that "In the name of Allah", they've decided to ban these websites : Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, Youtube, Google, Amazon, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, In the name of Allah and Islam Exposed. Some of the above websites do have derogatory content and are sure to hurt muslim sentiments undoubtedly. But Google, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon.....I cannot convince myself as to how they would have conjured up reasons for blocking them.

In general, human IQ is not even comparable with that of many other varieties of fauna on earth. It is quintessential for any brain to tell a cat from a dog or a hen from a donkey or some such obvious thing to qualify for human standards. Going by that argument, I can't find human brains in the failed  state of Pakistan. These things utterly make the issue insane. What these guys fail to understand is the fact that by banning these websites, they just make people more curious. It is like adding fuel to the fire. That observation is well supported from the fact that Pakistan tops the list in the number of porn or porn-related searches on the internet everyday. For people who haven't come to realize that porn is a contraband thingy, please be aware: Porn as such is banned in many countries around and yea, in Pakistan too.

There cannot be an internet session where one does not use Google search or one of Google's other numerous products. Google is so synonymous to the internet that the phrase "banning Google" can be equated to the phrase "banning Internet". Such policing-of-the-internet stuff has already been proved as a failure in countries with like-(no)-brains such as Saudi Arabia. On a philosophical note and in a generalized sense, "Any idea will have takers and naysayers". So from that point of view, Internet, being such a huge place, it is truly blasphemous to block a search engine on the grounds that it returns search results on derogatory content. Before we come to debate about the derogatory content, lets think about what Google could have done about this thing. A search engine will function as it should. If you don't like it, don't search. Simple. Banning the site?Blasphemous. And back to the content part, what could Bush do when the internet was replete with videos and articles like this, this and this? Answer: Nothing!.

I am not any expert on Islamic studies or anything of a religious sort, but for basics, I know one of the tenets of Islam is about tolerance and patience. These guys do not understand their own religion even as much as I do. What's more intriguing is: I noticed one chap who supports the decision saying:

"Good news, Google is just an Spy agency who work in favor of the CIA. as well as Yahoo and other shit american websites who trying to damage Islam image.

Down with America"

It gets even better, another guy says banning search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo per se - is a very good decision but he wants the legislators to give him "an alternate way" to search the internet. Lol! I wonder if entrepreneurs will sense an opportunity here. Anyone up for a start up in the search engine domain?? ROTFLMAO.


I am not able to comprehend that. Some one help me here. I think Pakistan is caught in some time warp and are yet to be welcomed into the 21st century.

P.S: I could not resist the temptation of putting the picture of THIS hairstyle here as pointed out by Vijay.

Calling for an extradition: Joel Stein

Joel Stein of TIME Magazine is who I am referring to in the title. For people who are caught unawares at this point, News channels are full of him at this moment. So switch on and check that out. For more accessibility, one can also click on this link and see what Joel Stein had to say about Indians at New Jersey in his latest column for TIME.

Firstly, Stein's attempt at a "hilarious" column has not been taken very peacefully by many Indians in America and outside. Coincidentally since his article revolves around 'Edison' in New Jersey, Kal Penn, an Indian-American actor decided to call his article as 'unique and groundbreaking' as Alva Edison himself. Now that observation was a one in a hundred (Noothla oru vartha in Tamil). Stein talks about Multiple Gods with multiple arms and elephant faces and says he did not have any racist intention. Multiple laughs and Multiple applauses please. Sigh!. Indian brains/heads were laughably characterized as "dot heads" and Stein, in his apology (that followed an outburst in the media) says he didn't mean to deride Indians. Now I really wonder if Stein had all of his sense in working condition when he wrote those shameful lines on that column and I wonder if he was in his senses at all when he tried to defend himself in the apology. I would advise Mr. Stein to visit downtown San Francisco and see the white drug addicts on the roads (his fellow American citizens) before calling immigrants 'dumb cousins'.  Half of America is dumb and that argument holds good for any nation. Not everybody can be 'not-dumb'.Infact, most of the Indian Americans in the current context are clearly part of a creamy layer from the country. This opinion is well supported by a recent surge in the positions of power that Indians hold in and outside the government of the United States.

The attempt as it has been labeled is definitely an attempt at humour and I would expect we guys take it in its hilarious sense rather than calling names at him. But targetting one immigrant occupied town and its people is a little bizarre for such a faous national magazine. I get reminded of a TIME magazine cover way back in 2006 with a gorgeous girl in dotted bindi. The cover page title was " Why the world's biggest democracy is the next great economic superpower." Anyway, there isn't much to talk about it sitting few thousands of miles away. Let us officially declare Stein as a "White" and deal the rest with him in person. Extradite him to India. We'll show you what the real, democratic and soon-to-be economic superpower India looks like.

Hyderabad ke chichore potte aur khubsoorath pottiyaa ..khuda hafiz !

For the den-(no)-zens of Hyderabad, the title means"Good bye to all the naughty boys and beautiful gals of Hyderabad"

It is difficult to love the city that you live in, a city that you roamed about for two years. But it is even more difficult to leave it. With just one week left for me in this beautiful city that introduced me into the professional world, the feelings are of a mixed kind. Though I haven't converted myself into a "Pukka Hyderavaadi laundey" (A perfect Hyderabaadi youngster) in the two years, to part ways is indeed becoming an emotional affair. I am on my way to Chennai for a new job and the feeling is good to be back at home full-fledged, after 6 long years. The downside of it is bidding goodbye to the best years of my bachelorhood. The two years after graduation have introduced me into a truly cosmopolitan lifestyle in this city which is indigenous in its own sense.

This week would be my last one in Hyderabad and I have a bucket list of things to do before I leave. I will miss all the 'maal' that the city provided me with as I am going to barren terrain on the "masth maal hai re" front. To mark my last weekend here, I did a few things from my to-do list, like the Cafe Nandini coffee and meetha paan. The icing on the cake was my best friend's visit on this last weekend. This guy made my day. I had the perfectly lazy agenda for his visit and we managed to do nothing but eat, sleep, drink and football.

I would definitely miss the Madhapur jalsas, New year highs, paradise biriyanis, chutneys lip-smackers, mana ammayilus (eligible Hyderabadi spinsters), late night masala chai, the completely useless traffic police (who have managed to milk only 230 rs. for my TN registration bike over one and half years of its usage. With TN police the number would have touched 4 digits long back.), north indian jinglis, telangana maniacs, rayalaseema warriors, colorful telugu movies, bramhanandam comedy tracks, rockview apartments, neela residency, babulal (owner sahib), Hyderabadi language, a concept called winter (Chennai does not have a season called winter), the number of audis, mercedes', BMW's, volkswagens that flood jubilee and banjara hills, a high sex ratio on the company roster (I am moving to a highly testosterone driven workplace at Chennai), Karachi bakery biscuits, road side chat bhandaars, double ka meetha (a speciality Hyderabadi dessert), tastey foods kothu barota, mutta veechu parotta, hot rotis home food, front seats on the share autos and a lot more. But the icing on the Hyderabad piece of my cake has been and will always be my wonderful time with him, him and him, my dearest room mates.

It is tough to bid khuda hafiz to the numerous friends that I have made here-at work and outside. My friends at work place who have shaped me into a professional and people outside who have given me company for all the typical bachelor matters.

But I am looking forward to many other new things in Chennai for I am going back after quite a long time. First day first shows for all tamil padams, Besant Nagar beach, ECR drives, paruppu, vatha kozhambu (Sambar variety made out of tamarind), melagu rasam, thair saadam, mom's love, radio mirchi, tamil kulavilakkus,Satyam cinemas, murugan idli shop, saravanaa bhawan, isaiaruvi (tamil music channel), sun music, adithya(tamil comedy channel), sirippoli(-do-), relatives, car driving, t nagar shopping, various kalyana sapadu menu items in brahmin marriages etc.

Nevertheless, It is time to say adios to a really beautiful city that I will never forget.

Aiderawaadi Bhai jaan, Milthao Yaaro!!!

A Plot, Long lost !!!

It is time I took back my words after having written off Germany in my last post after they inflicted that big defeat on the Socceroos. A sparkling performance that was...to pack off the Three Lions. Before the world cup, Fleet Street and the rest of the media worldwide had fancied England's chances this time around after they came unscathed in the world cup qualification campaign. But though it is too late to comment on that hype, it would be to state the facts plainly to remark that they got it all wrong. The world cup is always about a good team chemistry with a perfect blend of young blood and worthy experience. This aspect was completely defeated after Capello announced his 23 man squad for the world cup.

There were a number of questions about Dunga dropping Ronaldinho and Maradona choosing a weird squad. Germans were not with great odds on betting platforms with a squad that was labeled "too young". But in my opinion, those teams had their selections spot on to say the least. This world cup had two new surprises. The high altitude football and the all new Jabulani ball. Teams had to keep in mind how players would be prone to fatigue at high altitudes. Each match is a 90 minute test for a team's fitness levels and stamina. England lacked both these essentials. A half fit Rooney, Just-about-fit Barry, A dying Ledley King, An already-extinct-Emile Heskey... Epic fail. The world cup dreams were shattered right there.

Coming to a different but related observation, the fact that Germany spends a lot more money on its academy than what England spends was quite visible in the way young talent like Meuller and Oezil ran riot over the aging Terry and Barry. Speaking of that match, I would not hide my feelings for that bad decision given by the linesman minutes before half time. I would not go as far as saying England would have won it had that goal been given. Agreed... Germany played the better football and their passing was spectacular. But if the players had gone in at half time with a 2-2 on the score sheet, it would have been interesting to find out how England would have played their second half. A defensive strategy is the thing they would have resorted to, in all probability. But anyway, that is done and dusted and Germany have rightly got their revenge that took an awful 44-year long wait. They got their redemption for the infamous goal in the 1966 world cup finals.

So, coming to the long lost plot that Capello planned, it was lost right at the beginning when the likes of Adam Johnson, Agbonlahor, Muamba 'the beast', Walcott and similar young guns were left out of the world cup squad. England is not a nation void of good talent when it comes to football. What went wrong was the strategy and Capello didn't do anything different from Eriksson's failed tactics during the 2006 world cup. He paired the much-talked-about L-G midfield duo without any hesitation. Banked on Barry who I think is just too over-rated and came with a no-replacement for Rooney in case he misfired. All the wrong things that could have happened, happened. And the team was packed off at the right stage in the right manner. It is time to go back and take a look at how other successful coaches (at least till now in the world cup) played their cards. The way Joachim low used players like Ozil, Neuer etc from less known teams in Germany, the way Dunga banked on players like Ramires who weren't part of the "big" teams before the world cup. A lot to learn from these things. England's coaching staff should learn to use talent from all over England and leave the Big - 4 obsession behind when they sit down for team selection.

P.S: Sad times for England fans. Nevertheless. I wouldn't sign off as a defiant England fan trying to defend their performance in this world cup. But the question of a bad decision will linger in the minds forever and the hope for any silverware at the world stage will not die down.

An England fan now, An England fan forever!!!

P.P.S: This post is a set of observations in a generic sense, but has answers to the numerous  attended/unattended phone calls that flooded me right after the Sunday big-game.

Worst start to the world cup days?????

I have been watching almost all the matches in these 4 days since the start of the African fever. For one thing, I am not at all a satisfied football fan. To hell with these ridiculous vuvuzelas. One just can't concentrate and enjoy the football. Leave alone the french team complaining about vuvuzelas in action from 6:00 am waking them up from their slumber. I just can't concentrate on watching it. Sickening sound I say. Why are they still contemplating if that infernal thing should be banned or not? I thought Africa was all about dancing, singing etc and what did I get? a monotonous drone that does no good to mankind.

Being an England fan myself, I know it feels sick to say this. But there is a better chance for England to win the world cup than for the atmosphere to get any better during matches. Yes, first of all, By jove, I missed live action from the England vs USA starter. Blame on the overdose of chemicals and scientific advancements in the field of alcohol research. Sleep got the better of me. But I did watch the highlights to find out how my team fared. Fail, they were toothless. Fat Frank disappointed with an almost nil presence. Rooney was everywhere except inside the box and Heskey should better try his hands at Indianized games like Kabbadi instead of playing football at the international level. Peter Crouch should be banned from being called a striker. Period. Jamie Carragher should be asked to run a 100m sprint alongside Don Bosco kids from Chennai. My money on the kids. Disappointment. Agreed that USA are not a bad team at all and England had a far better display compared to their previous world cup. USA also defeated a full strength Spanish team in the confederations cup. But we are talking of a team's chances of winning the world cup and on that front, England doesn't look any good.

Few observations:

1. Germany look impressive, but one should wait and watch when they play a decent enough team that is aware of a few tactics like "pressing", "man-marking" etc. in the game of football. Their midfield had all the space in the world to create chances. But they were good enough. Klose scores after a dull league season. Mueller looks great.

2. England look mediocre. Why is Gerrard made to play a defensive role? Why didn't you take Agbonlahor Mr.Capello????

3. There have been very very few goals so far in this world cup.

4. England fans made some noise and most importantly managed to outperform the vuvuzelas decibel wise. There was some sound from them. But certainly nothing from the rest of the supporters. The other supporters just can't beat the sound of the vuvuzelas???

5. Green is not a bad keeper after all. But why don't we trust in experience to deliver? Give the gloves to the dying James. Please. No more goal keeping blushes for England!! We've had them in plenty already.

6. When Miroslav Klose is so close to being the all time top goal scorer in world cups (4 more to get past Ronaldo), why are we talking about Rooney, Messi, Torres and not him???

Overall, the start to the world cup has not been the best, especially if you are an English fan. But hope never dies. Bring on Algeria. Rooney, please get back to form. Wait. Before that, please get back into the box. And somebody please prove Germany is not all that strong. That was Australia being a pot of shit. Not German brilliance.

Kannalam (Marriage) Matters!!

Yes, I am talking about those crazy Indian Weddings. More specifically the ones from the south.(No favoritism, I've not been to any North Indian ones till now. So i don't know. Promise.) How can one not love these weddings? For one thing, they bring a lot of life to the air which is filled with smoke from the sacrificial fire. For others, the Mama shouting mantras from the top of his voice, complete strangers saying Hi and asking you to identify them. But every good thing has its downside. It is not a tough thing after all. It is all probabilities, NpR's and NcR's. Shoot some names that come to your mind. These south indian names aren't myriad. You are sure to hit the right one.

Talking of these marriages, I witnessed one yesterday. The first one of its kind. It happened on the ROAD!!!. Me and my room mates were wondering since friday night as to what the preparations that kept happening in our neighbor's out-house(out of the house to be precise) were for. I mean, the sea of people setting up pandals and dealing with coconut leaves. We got our answer at 4:00 AM on Sunday morning. Yes 4:00 AM. As most of you would have expected i was sleeping and i was in the middle of a dream. But our Mama(Purohit) decided to show his expertise and chose to shout all his Mamo Parthaa's and Mangalyam Thanthunanetha's using a MIKE. I woke up and went to check out what was happening and to my surprise, I saw a marriage ceremony underway. It wasn't long before my roomies woke up to their horror and realized what was happening. The first thing we did after we were awoken by this was to walk down from our second floor apartment and find out how many were there for the function. Obviously a thing to do on such occasions on the road. The marriage party had set up huge pandals and blocked the road from all directions. There were about a hundred people to bless the bride and groom who were seated on a dais in the middle of the road.
Suddenly my friend who is a voracious non vegetarian asked me.

"Machan(A multifaceted word that in the literal sense means Wife's brother), Andha Aadu Koottam enga da? Nethi oru kootam pathome?" (Where is that herd of goats we saw last night?)

We were searching frantically for those distinguished guests amidst the sea of people when i heard one of them call out to me. I looked around. I couldn't spot the voice. I looked down. Yes there they were. In the cauldron of Mutton Kozhambu for breakfast. The bride and groom on the road. Four goats pleading for mercy from inside the large vessel. Four eligible bachelors wondering what the hell is wrong with these people. An awesome sight for any onlooker at 4 am on a sunday morning.

In this already weird scene, there was a weirder proposition. As i had reported earlier, Mama was loud and clear using his mike. But there was a cross talk coming from somewhere. Equally loud that one. That one came from the giant Bose speakers next to my ears. Mama and the Music player had struck a deal to alternate their performances.

For the first time in my life I saw Telugu music interpose Mama's commentary in a marriage ceremony. It was like.

Mamo Paartha samstha duridakshayadwara.......

Akalesthe annam pedtha,alisosthe oile pedthaaaa......

Sree Parameshwara Preedhyartham.......

Mood osthe mudhulu pedtha chinnodaaaaaaaaa.....

Good God!!! This is what i heard. Promise. With a completely confused mind, i went back to my room and tried to catch up with some lost sleep. But Mama wouldn't allow me to. I took my toothbrush out and got hold of the morning paper for time pass while i keep enjoying the festivities.!!!

Now, the marriage is over and the bride and groom have had their nuptials(the consummation of their marriage).But it's better late than never.. So, please join me in wishing them a happy married life!!

Tiffin Saptela Mama?? (Uncle, Did you have tiffin?)

After a hiatus, I decided I should fill this space with something from the crap-pacura bore-o-database of mine. The last weekend was spent at Chennai as I had gone to grace the occasion of my cousin's Upanayanam (for the uninitiated, this is a very important part of a Tambram (Hip term for Tamil Brahmin) boy's career.) with my presence. It is better known as the Sacred Thread Ceremony. In even more simpler terms, it is the juncture where Tambram IT employees( a majority of the tambram population under the age group of 22-35 can be categorized here) get to meet slightly aged Mamas(Maternal/Paternal Uncles) and Mamis(Maternal/Paternal Aunties) from the family, (near, far and very far) and discuss important subjects such as the weather, democracy, politics, US Mapillais (Bridegrooms), Carnatic music etc.

It is traditionally believed that the ceremony is performed to mark the point at which boys begin their formal education. So, in IT terms, one can say this get together is prone to involve a number of Knowledge Transfer sessions from the aged to the youth. Talking of KT sessions, one such Mama asked me one such question as to why I am working in a very less known company like CA Inc after graduating from BITS Pilani, while many other cousins from colleges in Chennai have made it to big software giants like TCS, CTS,Wipro, Infosys etc. It was a googly. I knew it would be futile to explain that the company is a big one in the US  and not so in India etc. So i let it go. Like in most crime thrillers and detective stories where one thing leads to the other etc and then the criminal is brought to light by a series of incidents, my conversation with Mamas took dangerous leaps. After having enquired about my inability to land a job in a company whose name is well known in the Tambram circles of South India, the aged relative decided to take a stab at my eating habits. This demands an explanation.
Scene: Dining hall, second floor.
Situation: Lunch.
Menu: Paruppu Usili(Beans with Lentils), Moar Kozhambu(Curd based Sambar), Urlakazhangu masiyal(Potato Smash), Paruppu(Lentils), Sambar, Rasam, Payasam, Vada, Appalam etc.

Immediately after the Samayal Mama(Chief Cook) served nei(ghee), i put my fingers on the vazha elai (Banana Leaf) and started licking the ghee. That act of mine is considered as 'Abacharam'(Wrong Doings) in South Indian Tambram circles and the act is punishable in the court of Tambram laws of Madi(Cleanliness) and Acharam(Neatness). Out of the many mamas and mamis sitting around me in the dining hall, atleast 23 of them noticed that criminal act of mine and exchanged disgusting looks. Their representative in the closest proximity to me called for an investigation into the disastrous habits (such as the one detailed above) which I have inculcated since leaving home post 12th standard. One thing lead to another and that sort of a thing ensued and the consortium decided that colleges these days are lacking in inculcating good habits to young fellas. As a result of which abyssmal young ch(e)aps like me are growing like weeds in the otherwise impeccable society.

Apart from the few of these untoward incidents that are very common for youths at Tambram functions, other routines were less intimidating. Four course meals, Enna da Ambi Sowkiyama?(What's up you eligible bachelor,How are you?) conversations,Iyer aathu jinglees(Spinsters from Tamil Iyer families), Hey-Long-Time-How-Have-You-Been's........ It was a wonderful get together and after a long time i met a few of my distant relatives who i thought were in Antarctica or Scandinavia. Contrastingly, they were right there in Chennai and this function gave me a good summary of the who-is-where-and-doing-what syllabus (a mandatory course in most south indian families). Besides these revelries, the usual seettu kacheri (Rummy) was in the agenda and the usual fun games like Identify that Mama in White, Name that Mami in Blue Madisaar etc were also played. A lively get together after a long long time.

Mix Yourself some Whiskey with Soda

Disclaimer: The text that follows is not worth reading if any of the following holds good:
1. Have some work at office for which your manager is right behind your back.
2. Your wife has given you a list of things to buy and you have just lost it. In which case you will have the uphill task of remembering what was there on the list lest you will be massacred.
3. You have planned to read something worthwhile for today and have summarily rejected any content that has no substance.
4. Your day looks so busy that you have planned only a few hours of sleep.

Then please refrain from continuing as i would categorize the following paragraphs as "Something of no essence"

It would not be news to any of the regular visitors of this space as the first few posts on this blog revolved around Wodehouse and his books. I have taken a long enough hiatus from that obsession and effectively refrained from writing on that topic for a while now. The reasons for the hiatus never stand to mean that i released myself from that Utopian, ethereal world of Wodehouse. After a few of my readers reprimanded me for being so obsessed that the blog was filled with praise for Wodehouse and other related posts, I decided to take a break from those topics.

But now, i have garnered the resolve to touch upon that topic once again. No! Do not Panic. This is not yet another book review. This time it is slightly different. As I had nothing worthwhile to do at office on a nice Thursday morning, I did a strange thing. I took my notepad and started penning down a few of Wodehouse's witty ones that came to mind just then. And then I realized I had a nice list: A few good ones from the best of Wodehouse! So here they go.

"The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun"

"Marriage isn't a process of prolonging the life of love, but of mummifying the corpse"

"A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of someone who had searched for the leak in life's gas pipe with a lighted candle"

"He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more"

"I explain this to Jeeves and he said the same thing had bothered Hamlet"

"Her face was shining like the seat of a bus-driver's trousers"


"There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine"

"I always advise people never to give advice"

"You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out of you. I mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower."

"Mere abuse is no criticism."

"It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Aged woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required."

Now, I request readers who were erstwhile criticizing my obsession towards Wodehouse to hold off from scathing attacks by way of comments. The post is basically like a mix of whiskey and soda. One needs it at regular intervals. Hence i pictured the 57th post on my blog as an "interval" and thus filled it with this restorative combination.

Dear Mr Joseph Vijay! Sure-Ah???? Fail

In the year 1992, Joseph Vijay...aka Ilayathalapathi(Youth Commander) Vijay, debuted as a lead actor in the movie Naalaya Theerpu(Tomorrow's Judgement). Rightly so, because the verdict was decided by then. Flop! Utter Flop! After giving a load of poor grossers to his millions of fans, he rose to fame in an anomalous Ghilli. But, slowly afterward, populace from most parts of Tamil Nadu have started wondering if he has anything at all in the place that is by and large occupied by something called the Human Brain.

I took one of the worst decisions of my life insofar while I was at Mysore last weekend. No points for guessing. The decision was to watch the movie Sura, his 5oth movie. Any normal Homo Sapien with a steadyhead would not have taken such a decision after having witnessed a few other gems like Kuruvi, Villu etc. But my wiser insticts did not prevail and unfortunately I ended up sitting in the theatre amidst a few kaili (lungi) clad, inebriated youth of Mysore. To say that those 3 hours were worse compared to my grandma's stories about Mr Yamadharmaraja deep-frying sinners in his oil container, would be to grossly understate the affairs.

The movie in layman terms was a very "different" one. Now, that would come as a shocker to people who know of Vijay quite a bit. Here goes the explanation.

Things that were different in the movie: Director, Producer, Heroine, Cinematographer, Cameraman, Editor, Light Boy etc...

Things that were NOT different in the movie: Hero, Story, Screenplay, Plot.

The movie, in simple terms can be explained thus:

for (int i=0;i=3;i++)
{
songSequenceWithDance.display();
comedyScene.play();
matrixFight.execute();
}

I am banging my head on the wall next to me as i type this and wonder what couuld have been a better choice instead of those 3 hours. A few ideas that come to my mind are as follows:
1. Search Google for 5 easy ways to commit suicide.
2.Watch this video with the repeat mode on my media player-turned on.
3. Have 10 crows caw-ing in my ears for 6 hours together and try to pen down that melody in musical notes.
4. Watch Rakhi ka Swayamvar on TV
5. Even better, watch runaway hit soaps like Kolangal, Arasi, Selvi etc.
6.Keep trying the cliche "My Name is Khan and I am not a terrorist" till i master the Kkkhhaan from my epiglottus.

Any of the above mentioned activities would have been a better choice by any standards.

Verdict: Mr Joseph Vijay can be suspended for implementing a failing formula for about a decade now. He can also me remanded to 15 days of rigorous police custody on murder charges. Ivan padangala paathu paathu, 2 maadu sethu poirukku, naalu paeruku kannu nollaya poyirukku (After having watched his latest movies, 2 cows have died and 4 people have lost their eyesight).

Fail!! Colossal Flop!! Somebody please shoot him!!

Mysore-eh, Nanu Nale Bartha Idini

Firstly, to the Kannada challenged, Bartha means "Coming" and is not to be confused with "Barqha" (that is causing controversies elsewhere in Europe). I find such incidentally confusing words very interesting. I happened to read a blog where the writer was offering an explanation to his usage of the Telugu word "Repu". He quelled any suspicions of foul language in that context by saying "Repu" meant "Tomorrow", in case anybody thought otherwise. Tangential digress full stop. Coming to the Matter!

I will be in Mysore for two days. No, wait. Technically only about 32 hours as opposed to the 24-hour-day that our astronomers have devised based on earth's rotation (I think earth is always high on alcohol. My god. It keeps rotating all the time). I have always wanted to do the traditional "Wildlife Viewing", "Bird Watching" and the "Explore Heritage-ing" that tourists usually do at Mysore. It is also exciting to see the swords that Tipu Sultan wielded (and the artillery/small arms that Hyder Ali umm..safe guarded in the scabbards) while the mighty English were being taken on time and time again.

I have a short list of things to do. But I am not completely satisfied. If there's anything else that is worthwhile doing at Mysore, please let me know.

1. Extensive Bird watching (in the literal sense and otherwise)
2. Take the sword of Tipu Sultan a have a swipe at guides who cheat firangi tourists by weaving lengthy stories about how Tipu used to be called a "thappu"(mistake) by mistake or how in the puritan sense Hyder Ali was not an "ali" (hermaphrodite) per se or some such thing.
3. Watch animals at you-know-where (For the uninitiated, Mysore has a famous zoo)and try to spot 6 differences between this:



and this:



4. Learn a bit of Mysore Kannada (2 parts Tamil, 1 part Kannada, 1 part Telugu).

5. Explore Mysore's varied heritage by inspecting monument walls beneath a magnifying glass and its striking architectural beauty by using altimeters and levelling instruments.

And Yeah, As I am NOT going with any women squadron on this trip,the sales men at the Mysore Silk Emporiums are saved from a flurry of attackers like the one in the Jackdaws who attacked the Nazis. So they can happily do away with

1. Tough Day at Work
2. Challenging and/or non-understanding female customers
3. Lengthy conversations, but no business
4. All of the Above

P.S: Due credit is being given to Krish Ashok for an inspiration in the style of writing.

Do I really know what I need in life?

This is a thought that has been spinning my head for quite some time now. Me and my close circle of friends (read: my girl friend) discuss a lot over this topic and have been cribbing over how we want to change the typical IT lifestyle that we currently have. We have clearly realized that our goals in life are quite far from what we are doing right now. As in most cases of human predicaments, we talk a lot about it but haven't been able to get a concrete step taken in the right direction.

Let's consider my daily schedule. My Monday starts like a scene from the movie rush hour, where i realize that I have a stupid meeting to attend at 10 AM (wee hours of Monday I would call that) and this aforementioned realization usually happens around the time frame of 9:25 AM or so. After making it to the meeting at least 10 minutes late, I extend my nap in the conference room only to be awakened by periodic gurgles from the organizer sitting next to me. After a lot of deliberation and almost nil participation, I get out of the room for a cup of tea to stimulate my grey matter. The day goes by with a couple of fights with the disastrously slow computer which is my lone companion for the day. After a few hours of #including and ClassA-extends-ClassB-ing, I get out of the shit hole like a tired pugilist who has fought 5 rounds only to lose it all during the final stages. It would be like deceiving my readers if I said the time of the day when my exit from office happens marks the end of the day. To put facts straight i should rephrase that sentence to read "End of the Night".

If weekdays are so boring and pass me like a turbulent storm, weekends are worse. I get up fairly early in the morning(read: 11 am) and spend a substantial amount of time thinking what I should do over the weekend. With that thought doing all the calculations in my mind, the clock decides to tick something like 1 pm or 2 pm and there's a call from my gastro-intestinal tract to save it from dying of hunger. After dealing with things and managing to call off that hunger strike, English Premier League/Indian Premier League or some such league demands an attendance and I sit glued to my TV set for what I think is close to 2 or 3 hours. But in fact, the time I would have spent on that ordeal is much more.... which in turn means that it is time for the next meal so as to avoid another turbulent attack from my digestive faculties. With a ditto repeat of the same itinerary on Sunday, I face the rocket-speed-weekend-that's-close-to-an-end phenomenon. With nothing much that can be done about it, I go back to bed ruing my 2 wasteful days only to wake up for a repeat telecast in the next week.

I am not any soothsayer or fortune predictor. But I am pretty confident that most IT folks are stuck with the same/similar kind of schedule in their daily life.

On one such Sunday, that has been well described above, I happened to read a book by Paulo Coelho where he talks about what one does in life and how a winner is determined by the essence of his presence (excuse me for the rhyme) in this universe. I wake up the next morning to welcome another dreadful Monday and I realize that one thing has changed. I wake up a completely new man and realize i have a drastic change in attitude and outlook. That situation demands some explanation. I agree. Here it goes. The change that has been mentioned above is that I start to think "If I really know what I need in life". I know that is not a change per se. But as our experienced ancestors have repeatedly said, thoughts lead to actions and all that sort of a thing, It is always a good sign in the right direction if we start thinking about challenging the status quo that rules over us. But that thought took me nowhere which is an unfortunate thing and I ended up understanding the fact that I just simply exist in this world and occupy a corner of it like other stones, rocks and trees do.Period. I am sure a good number of IT folks who have managed to make it to this point of the long and boring passage will resonate on the same plane apropos the thoughts I have shared.

But the sad part is I am looking for someone to show me the way to correct this awfully boring lifestyle and I have not met anyone who can show some light at the end of the tunnel in that respect. Any thoughts?

P.S: Ok I have been tortured by an abysmal young blot who wants a mention in this post. Where I said: "I have not met anyone who can show some light at the end of the tunnel", I should have said "I have met someone(This Idiot) who could not show any light at the end of any tunnel even after hours and hours of gyan and free advice he gave me."

Long time no see...but what a sad result that is supposed to be

After a long hiatus due to unavoidable reasons like disinterest, laziness, IPL, Football etc.. I am unable to control myself from penning down a few thoughts after Man United's shabby exit from the Champions League'10.

1. The risk that was involved in choosing to start Rafael backfired disastrously. Inexperience from him. The Neviller would have kept it 11 vs 11. But I am convinced the Germans enacted a stage play to influence the referee into the booking. It was 35 yards from goal and not many referees would have decided to hand the red.

2. Franck Ribery is not worth 45 million by any standards. He looked like a pot of shit.

3. Sir Alex would rue the miss in the signing of Arjen Robben when he was unsettled at Chelsea.

4. Carrick took a huge role in both the goals that the Germans scored and was instrumental in assisting them. He did that in great fashion. He has repeatedly shown he is not the United class in any sense. Pack him off please and where the hell is that man Hargreaves?

5. Could Nani be the next sensation at Manchester? He looks to be emulating Ronaldo in the build up to a bright United career.

6. Starting Rooney as a surprise was a tactically bold move and surely inflicted a moral defeat to the germans even before the game. But after 3 - 0 up at 40'' and while the lad is limping heavily and the rest are not passing to him, where the hell is the doubt? It was clearly time to remove him. United were rest assured at that point and were playing some good football only to lose the chances because their forward was limping.

7. Having criticized Rafael for his imbecile act, it should not be forgotten that he scared the shit out of Ribery and gave him no space whatsoever. His excellence in having achieved that in the 50 minutes that he played was one major reason the germans surrounded the referee.

8. So Sans Ronaldo what we can win is the Carling Cup only?

9. England is out of the Champions league with that result and what does it explain? Sir Alex, Wenger, Benitez..can you please stop selling the best players from the league? Ronaldo, Alonso, Flamini.....

10. How good will it feel to be a Barcelona fan right now? The only possible threat to their successive triumphs has been brushed aside. Now what?The catalans can go and party. It is in the bag already!

11. Olic has the kind of face that you feel like punching till it gets out of shape. He is such a sore in the eyes of a United fan. Sigh!!

12. This result is a lesson to Fleet Street because that explains to them..There are really good teams outside England and specifically out of London.

13. And finally, let's not try to hide facts...Messi is the best player in the world by a mile and if any english team wants to contend that fact, I don't see any ray of hope. It is plain on paper. English football is on the decline.

Having said that, I wouldn't stop supporting England for the World Cup this year, I am hopeful...Fabio Capello can turn it around...

Tweet, Buzz and Scrap

It is the era of social networking. I have fallen prey to the evil of facebook,twitter, google buzz, linked in et.al. And as a ritual, i do the following like many others.

Logging on to facebook and checking out others' status messages
Entering google buzz and reading all shit that appears
Opening Linkedin and look for jobs and forums
Reading Gtalk status messages of all and sundry on my chat list
Open an email forward that floods my mailbox every morning

And as a result of these regular exercises...here are a few things from these spaces that caught my attention over the last few days.


Nothing's fair...except in love and war...because in love and war there are no reservations!!

If fire fighters fight fires and crime fighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight?

Internet Explorer Six, resident of the interwebs for over 8 years, died the morning of March 1, 2010 in Mountain View, California, as a result of a workplace injury sustained at the headquarters of Google, Inc.

Life was much simpler when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

Live it or lie it

My name is Nithyananda and I am not a saint!

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why they recommend it daily

Every man dies; Not every man truly lives.

There are three sides to any argument. Your side, My side and the Right side.

These eye catching flicks come and go in our lives and i have realized that it is thought provoking and fascinating to revisit them time and again.

P.S: Having started this thread, i would make it a point to bring more of these timely and famous brickbats that catch one's attention from the social networks like a summary, once every month on this blog..

P.P.S: Only the first on that list is my own composition. The authorship of the rest should be rightly attributed to those who created them. I do not take credit for the rest on the list.

My half century on the double century

Bat Up! Half century of posts on my blog. There wouldn't be a better time to talk about the "double century".

If you are

a) A Cricket Lover (or)
b) A Sachin Fan (or)
c) A sane human being (or)
d) All of the above

You will get goose bumps on reading the following few lines. If not....Sue me!!!

"When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to "open" the Nehruvian economy.It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will."

P.S: The above paragraph is a TIME magazine quote on Sachin Tendulkar after he scored a double ton for the first time in One Day International Cricket.

P.P.S: The buzz word in blogosphere these days is about saving our tigers. Hence, my two pence on that front:

"Save our Tigers. Only 1412 (1411 from the cat family + 1 (me) ) left.

Fun/Fact/Fiction: God did make a mistake

Email forwards taken in their entirety are mostly annoying for a person as they bombard the mailbox early in the morning. The explanation here goes that the forwards in most/all cases make no sense or are slap-sticks that cannot be handled so early in the day.

But sun does smile upon one on other occasions and rightly so there are a few which are worth the time in the morning. The argument becomes rock solid when the content vindicates the worth like in this case wherein the content talks about God's only mistake-Women. Read and enjoy

"
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together.

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.

The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, 'What does a woman want?

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.

'Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.'

'There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage.'

'I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't.'

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once....

You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.

My wife and I were happy for twenty years Then we met.

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: 'Wife wanted'. Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: 'You can have mine.'

First Guy (proudly): 'My wife's an angel!'
Second Guy: 'You're lucky, mine's still alive.'

"

Bored??? Google it!!

I got awfully bored of getting bored too often and this time i decided what i would do the next time i get bored. Now, that in no way means that my IT job does not wear me out. It does and it does a royal rape show. But as a routine, man does come back home from work and ends up doing something outside work. So in the two hours that i get every night after getting back from work, I haven't really figured out what i can do with my laptop. I log in to gmail and check out times of india before peeping into facebook and see if anybody did anything worthwhile at all. But as life progresses,these three things get boring and so it did for me. Hence, last night i decided i should find an innovative way of killing this boredom. I did 'Google Search'!!!

Here are a few weird searches that i ended up doing:

I searched for "search" and was shocked to find Bing and search.com among the top few results. Google did not appear in the first page. What would one call this? Modesty? Imbecility? Ignorance? But somebody said there is no "google" in the search results because you've already found google!!! Shocking but true!

And then i got innovative and tried "Donkey Fart". I was shocked by the second result from Urban Dictionary. "Donkey a Fart Eater"?????? It beats me completely!!!! Urrrgghhh

Then i typed "buffalo buffalo" and i hit one of the funniest results : This

I got pissed off with that totally complex wiki page and reacted to it with "poda panni" on the search box. The result?

poda panni Chennai/Madras/சென்னை

Instantaneously i typed "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" as a reaction to that gross disrespect to the beautiful city of chennai. And you know what? google bombarded me with a string of 'nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo's




Now intentionally, the "noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" was the last of those search strings. Guess why? Any pissed off reader can now comment with a 'no' containing any number of o's to vent their frustration. :-)

Cosmological Insanity

The Universe was 'designed' and the most reasonable of the three major theories of the universe (viz.. Big Bang, Big Crunch and Steady State) is the Big Crunch Theory.

In physical cosmology, the Big Crunch is one possible scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe re-collapses, ultimately ending as a black hole singularity. (Link: here)

Now, with the first line of this post as a theory, what follows is a systematic opinion proof of the same.

1. Darwinian evolution is based on the theory of mutation.
2. The causes of mutations that have led to the theory of evolution is the biggest concept of debate for decades now. Atheists argue that the evolution of mankind was by the process of random mutations.
3. Snow flakes, Stalactites, Hurricanes etc(Natural Phenomena) can be classified as 'Processes' which happen on their own without any prior planning. For example,

Water + Cold Air + Gravity + Wind + Time = Snow Flakes

On the other hand, Music, Microsoft Windows, Languages, Information etc are 'Designs', which need some thought and planning. They have representations (notes for music, binary numbers for windows, alphabets for languages). Similarly the basis of life i.e DNA is a design and not a process. DNA contains a sequence of codes that represent a human being and the codes are 'designs' per se. A DNA molecule is a symbolic representation of something other than itself.

Is it possible that an antelope which has a short neck, gradually evolved into a Giraffe which has a long neck? One group of scientists argue that the evolution of a smaller being into a bigger being happened by something called Random Mutations (Check it out here). But random processes do not create codes. Any code that man has discovered till date has been designed by someone. Hence DNA was designed and it was designed by some power (henceforth referred to as God).

Disclaimer: For a more detailed insight into point number 3, watch This - A one hour video.(Point no.3 was derived from/inspired by that video).

4. Now having said that God 'designed' DNA , I would like to move on to the second part of my argument: The Big Crunch Theory
5. Man is a discoverer. If Columbus did not discover America, oriental men would not have known the existence of the west.
6. The DOS operating system evolved into Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows XP and so on because of the efforts of a few thousand engineers who worked on the betterment of the DOS 'code'. The series of 1s and 0s in the DOS code could not have corrected itself and evolved into the 98' version by some natural random mutation. Hence, with technological developments over time, Man is increasing his ability to create something better than something that was less complex: Now if we draw analogies like : (dos- homo habilis, windows 95 - neanderthals, windows 98 - homo erectus, windows xp - homo sapiens etc)? Strikes a chord doesn't it?
7. Hence if we agree that a super-brilliant God created the complex DNA and man is trying to understand the creation now, a few million years later, Man would be able to design and develop something as complex as that.Look at what man could discover in the 1200 AD and see what man can do in 2020 AD.

With those 7 points in that order, aren't we saying that Mankind would increase his dexterity and powerfulness and will become an all powerful individual (God)?

Now compare that line above to what Big Crunch is all about. It says, the universe expands and one fine day it would compress back into a singularity.

The expansion is the development and evolution of mankind. The compression is the process of man becoming God Himself (by having increased his powers and capabilities). All men converge into one individual with all the abilities.(Imagine if you knew medicine, mechanics,software,biology,literature,music,dance,art etc. etc. etc.-All in one person).

Now isn't that singularity mentioned in Big Crunch so similar to the all powerful Individual person that we talked about? The quest of man if to become God (That is what is preached in Advaita) and the quest of the Universe is to converge into one singular black hole. Aren't they drastically similar?

P.S: The video cited in point number 3 is an amazing video and if one has an hour's time at his disposal, I recommend that one should definitely try watching it completely.

January Round Up

Uneventful Month.Loads of work.The urge to quit becomes stronger.Work for money or work for satisfaction?Had an almost forgettable trip to Sabarimala.No new year celebrations for the first time in 4 or 5 years.Realized how important 'networking' is to our lives.Joined LinkedIn.Improved facebook appearances.Brother enters corporate world.Got new phone.Entered the touch phone arena.Mom n Dad's anniversary.Couldn't make it to chennai on the day because of shitloads of work at my shithole place of work.Went to a pub and watched a full Football match for the first time.Loads of fun.Man United were awesome.Went through millions of ideas to start a business.Nothing took off.First poem on the blog.Got the internship completion cert from the Viewspaper.Got a columnist post offered along with it.Lost money in Kerala.Hence ended month broke.Work sucked big-time.Sad that many more around me feel so too.Got a new Nike shoe.Reading wasn't worthwhile.Didn't manage to do any good at all.Couple of more exams flunked,Like always.Another month void of a trip to Bangalore.Makes it 3 in a row now.Got in touch with few old folks from school and my school time cricket coach.It feels good to get back in touch with people.Improved connections with folks at chennai.watched movies after ages.Avatar and 3 Idiots.Started working out.Though I am sure it wouldn't last for long enough.Enrolled to all job sites in the world and realized none of them are any good whatsoever.February doesn't look promising either.Work.Work.Work.Work.Work.Weekend(alias for work).Overall, when i look back, January was anything but eventful.February isn't any promising either.Will rant about the February failures in the corresponding roundup.

If Only

If only we knew
That we are sent here only to view

If only we understood
That the world here is contrived

If only we realized
That love was the only thing real and unfeigned

If only we learnt
That nothing was ours when sent

If only we recognized
That nothing comes with us when we are cauterized

If only we were not men
And were sent down not to make any sin

If only we didn't create
Those that backfired and made us prostrate

If only we stopped
Hoarding money that is after all man-made

If only we thought
Life was more than what we have got

If only we were loved
If only we were to love
If only we were surreal
If only we were to live a dream
If only we were to exist and do nothing more
If one we didn't create the world we live in

We would not have been part of Mankind
We would not be part of the rat race

We would have realized that what cometh goeth the way it is destined
And we are mere actors who perform on stage
And we were no better than any other beast
And we are not the creators
Nor the destroyers

Life would have been a lot better

Freakonomics: A Review

After a really really long time, I have tried my hands on yet another book review. Though I was slightly late in embarking upon this classic, now is not the bad time because the sequel: Super Freakonomics' is topping the charts at book stores.

Steven Levitt (a famous economist and a Harvard graduate) and Stephen Dubner (a New York journalist) have produced an impeccable work in Freakonomics. Using statistical data to reveal grotesque connections and heterodox behaviors is the basic concept behind the book by and large. Having said that, it is important to note that the book does not have any unifying theme. The authors have chosen to call this approach a treasure-hunt approach to the art of explaining the oblivious.

Is there an incentive for real estate agents to sell their own homes for more than they sell their clients' homes? How would parents react if child care centers started charging fees when they pick up their children after closing time after it had been previously free? Who is most likely to cheat when bagels are paid for on an honor system? Why do drug-dealers tend to live with their moms? What is common between school teachers and Sumo wrestlers? How did the police break into the Ku-Klux clan in 'reality'?Answers to all of these and much more is what is contained in the book. Those answers are simple but surprising. Behavioral economics is the name of the genre that includes this type of number based behavioral reasoning.

Though the book proclaims no unifying theme, to me personally, the unifying theme behind the book is obviously to make the reader find ways to asking questions. The revised edition of the book contains additional texts which are excerpts from the Freakonomics blog and columns. What I got out of the book is a new dimension to my thinking - an economic way of thinking. The Abhorring conventional wisdom was clearly an intention of the authors. Causes of problems that seem obvious usually, might not be the real causes more often than not. Hence, questioning everything is the right starting point to decode any conundrum.

Malcolm Gladwell's thoughts are very very closely aligned to the thought process behind this book. Super Freakonomics is slightly different from the prelude. The authors have taken a counter-intuitive approach to peep into the future.

Verdict: An excellent read. Should be read at one go. Will most likely entice the reader to buy the sequel and in some cases entice the reader to buy all of Malcolm Gladwell's in wholesale. (Last point was true in my case)

Happy Reading!!

Season 3 Preview

With the auctions just behind us, it is time again for Season Three of the money-rich Indian Premier League. Unlike last year's transfer market, this year didn't bring in too many big names for bidding. Kieron Pollard was the pick of the lot. With his masterful performance in the recent KFC Big Bash and his heroics in the Champions League Twenty-20 last year, he is pipped to be a massive hit in the coming season. As expected ( with two players worth $1.5m in the aquad already), Chennai Super Kings were one of the bidders for the 22 year old West Indian All Rounder. Other bidders were Mumbai Indians, 'unsurprisingly' (because they had an all rounder void in the line up) and Deccan Chargers, 'surprisingly' (because three of their overseas player are all rounders). But at last, after a tie on the $750000 ceiling, an impressive $2.3m bagged the coveted prize of IPL3 for the Ambani's.

With the teams and players availability almost confirmed, there seems to be no surprises for most of the teams. Mumbai Indians is the team I want be backing this time around. Albeit not just because of the new arrival. The team has appealed to me over the last two years. The only weak link being some sporadic sub-standard captaincy. The team is a well shaped bunch of promising faces. A Jayasuriya-Harbhajan-Duminy-Tendulkar-Zaheer force (Pollard not included) is unquestionably formidable. Having been a staunch Super Kings fan for the last two years simply due to nativity reasons, this time I have decided to back India's cricketing God for once in his last few years at cricket's helm. I reckon he will lead the team better and overcome those minor hassles that they've come across in the last two seasons.

I bet nobody predicted a Hyderabad-Bangalore final in season 2. And going by the same logic, I am sure one can not write off any team (including KKR :-) ). On the viewership front, though season two was an extradited affair, viewership showed a 10% increase from its first season numbers. Given that it is back to India once again, i am sure it is going to be a massive hit for the advertisers. Personally, I am not looking forward with much excitement or some such thing to this IPL 3. But all around me, there has been an overflow of chitchat in the past two days about the auction and the event as such. Hence the post.

Nevertheless, what's in store this time?
Mumbai Indians for the trophy!
Loads of money for the already rich bureaucrats and advertisers!
Some fun for us viewers!
And if one wants to witness the event from the stands, a small hole in the purse.

Om Criketaya Namaha!!!

Sunny Day at the Portmants

For the first time in twenty three years, I have tried my hands on writing a short story with little (or no) substance and still make it a story like the way P.G Wodehouse does with his impeccable fiction writings. So in short, i tried to imitate his style and thus goes the result:

Disclaimer: Below goes a slightly long short story which is totally open to critique and suggestions. One can choose to skip the story if there is any better job or urgency at the moment. Hence i declare the next few minutes of yours a waste of time. But if one wants to read and comment.

Sunny Day at the Portmants

It was a brilliant day and the Sun shone brightly into the drawing-room on Lord Gregory Christensen, the Third Earl of Peterburg who was reading The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald and extended into the dining room to illuminate my Aunt Merilina who was busy making tea for the party. With a lot more warmth, the Sun peeped into the bedroom through the balcony door to wake up from slumber, the youngest soul of the Portmant Castle, Freddie Christensen. The day was a remarkable one with cute clouds moving gradually over the head and birds chirping to glory on tree-tops. I had come down to the Portmant Castle on a weekend errand at the behest of my Aunt Merilina to attend to the family get together meeting that has been an annual event for the Peterburgers since long. The inception of this AGBM (Annual General Body Meeting) could be tracked back to the period of Lord Montegry Thewsaid, my great-grandfather. I was in great mood after an energizing morning ride on my two-seater from London and my mind was chirpy to say the least. I was hobnobbing with a couple of other cousins from the female fraternity in the family when I heard a loud shriek behind my back. It would be grossly understating to the reader if I said the noise shrilled my ears and caused me to jerk a little bit. On deep examination, it was found that the devilish shriek came from the loudest cousin present at the castle for the AGBM. It was this thing about the gentler sex that I have disliked since I was a boy. The prejudice was well founded by way of a handful of experiences with their overly articulated social behavior at clubs and outings. Having been engaged to about seven or eight beautiful girls from London and its suburbs, marriage should have been a thing of the past in my life but it had held its nerve and conducted itself fairly by not coming in the way of my happiness till date. Touch Wood. The reason for such a hide-and-seek with the devil of marriage can be solely attributed to the Gwendon habit of detesting cries and shrieks at public places proceeding from the fairer sex by and large.

The sound that had thus emanated from the eligible spinster in the surroundings had caused a roar around the dining room at Portmant and had succeeded in attracting the attention of all and sundry at the castle irrespective of how far they had been from the source of the noise. “What the hell? Was that Amelia?”, I said, shocked and stunned. “I say, Tommy is a sweetheart”, she riposted. That, in general didn’t explain much to any of the onlookers at the dining hall. Everybody was understandably perplexed still and was waiting for a better explanation. “Ooooooohhh! What a beautiful necklace, this one”, she continued. It takes one ounce more than the average human brain to understand such situations completely and I, being at my best on a fine morning, saw it all. Amelia, for whose engagement, this gathering had come together had just opened her birthday gift from Tommy Fretwood, her school time pal and distant cousin. To a person whose IQ is at least 30 points more than the average IQ levels of an engineer at Harvard or Stanford this would ring a bell and it rightly did to me. As these bells and thoughts were going through my mind, I looked inadvertently at one of the other two testosterone loaded figures present at the hall, the Hon’ble Dingo Kittle who was supposed to be affianced to Amelia shortly. As he saw the reactions from Amelia with that necklace from Tommy at her behest, his eyes began to turn a darkish red and I didn’t miss that paradigm shift in the emotions of a man who has had a gala time in his stay at the Portmants till now. It was clear that jealousy was making the better of this otherwise composed gentleman in his late twenties.

It has to be noted that this is the third time that Dingo and Amelia were about to get engaged and on the two occasions earlier when such an event occurred, something had come in the way of the peacefully affianced couple. The first time, if I remember correctly, doom arose when Dingo spotted Amelia hugging Harold the vicar, among the rhododendrons at the garden behind the castle two hours post the engagement. To a newcomer to the castle, it would not be a well-known fact that Harold was Amelia’s school headmaster and that they both shared an intimate father-daughter relationship ever since the death of Amelia’s father in a shipwreck two years back. Dingo was not aware of such a thing when he spotted them mollycoddling together. He called off the engagement and rushed out of the Portmants without giving any chance to anyone for an explanation. The second time, the engagement was called off by Amelia when she got to know that Dingo had a phobia for rats since his childhood and was not able to display his manly spirit when there was a rat in his bathroom.

After two bumpy rides for these two made-for-each-others, this time luck had smiled upon them and they started addressing each other as darling, sweetheart, pimpoo and that sort of overtures after both had realised their mistakes last week. Amelia said she loved him endlessly and he had lived up to that remark by calling her the only girl of his life. Dingo’s suspicions that Tommy had been secretly wooing his wife to be and that she had just fallen for him on seeing his expensive birthday present for her was the only grave threat to the serenity between the two. But actually, Tommy had given two jewel cases to Gregory Christensen last night and told him to give the first one to Amelia and wire the second one to his neighbor Finky. He had insisted that the pendant go to Amelia as her birthday present and the necklace to Finky who had told him to get it polished before the weekend reverie at the Portmant castle.

To say that the engagement was about to be broken for a record third time would be as good as saying that doom was looking upon Gwendon. Such was the situation because it was not a secret that Amelia looked upon me as her second darling and it would be inevitable that she would ask me to buy her the diamond ring if Dingo called it quits once again. It was a sad thing to digest all of a sudden and the situation called for some witty thinking to find a way to stitch back the engagement as before. The only other person in the dining hall who understood all these complications was my best friend Hermett who had come along with me to the Portmants so as to take a look at the vintage coin collection of Lord Gregory Christensen. He was a man of action and needless to say that he wanted to come to his friend’s rescue in the predicament at all costs. The only leverage he had in this affair was the fact that he was a mutual friend of both myself and Dingo. Thus, he resolved that he was the only possibility when the person who should appease Dingo at the moment was concerned.

The fact that Lord Gregory was such an absentminded dumb head was well-known around Market Portmants and it was this that convinced Hermett to attempt the appeasement by revealing the gross mistake done by Gregory Christensen. In this world, men can be broadly classified into two varieties overall, those who understand what the other person says and those who don’t. Unfortunately Dingo belonged to the second group and he was in no position to listen to what Hermett was trying to say. He was chewing his tongue and clicking his teeth and proceeded to give a burrrppping sound to show his anger and indignation towards Amelia at the moment. Gwendons are optimists per se and usually look for a sliver lining each time the clouds darken around them. It was with this attitude that I was witness to the developments at the dining room when all of a sudden, Gregory barged into the dining room saying “Tommy, Tommy..I’ve made a blunder”.Not realizing that Tommy was at present unavailable among the gathering at the dining hall, he said “Where is Tommy?” about seventeen times as a result of his disturbed emotions before I came to his rescue. I said, “Tommy is at the moment taking a quick shower and would be back for tea and burger anytime now”.To this Gregory said “Oh alright” and stood there waiting for the man’s arrival. With the circumstances being as they were, it was as if everybody at the hall was waiting for Tommy to come and solve a couple of problems. Tommy is a man of quick wit and by means of telepathy or some other “pathy” realized the void he should fill ASAP at the dining room. He entered with a “I say, Hi Dingo, How have you been?” and it would have been a better thing to do if he had chosen any other member from the group for his greetings. Dingo was in no mood to say “Dashed good, how are you doing, Tommy old man” or some such thing. In the meanwhile Gregory who could not wait for his chance interjected by saying “Tommy, I’ve made a blunder”. To this, Tommy asked “Oh What Gregory?”, which was anyway the logical thing to ask. Gregory explained that he had confused the boxes and given the pendant to Amelia and had wired the necklace to Finky. This beat Tommy completely, for as per his instructions to Gregory, this was the right thing to do. He could not see what blunder could have been committed in this. The weaker sex are a disadvantaged fraternity when it comes to the grey mater and as expected, Amelia did not read between the lines and make out the flaws in Gregory’s articulations. As a result, she did not come forward to show the necklace and prove the absence of the pendant at the scene. But as said earlier, Gwendons are quick-witted and understood the situation well. Hence, I grabbed the necklace from Amelia’s hands and held it up in the air for everyone to see. I said, "It is a fact that Gregory has mixed the jewel boxes but after the mix up, the expensive necklace has wrongly come to Amelia as her birthday present." At this, there were two faces that became pictures. One was Amelia’s of course, as she started to realize that Tommy had not gifted her the necklace after all. The second picture was in the form of Dingo’s face to whom the last 10 minutes had sprung a pleasant surprise as he understood that Tommy had not been wooing Amelia after all. My eyes were oscillating between the two pictures with contrasting emotions when I noticed one picture move swiftly towards the other. In a split second, the dining hall was witness to a passionate lip-lock and such a wise act on the part of Hermett should be credited for having brought relief to many a soul at the dining hall. I heaved a heavy sigh of relief and proceeded to have my morning tea that was waiting and continue in my jocular mood from the morning drive into the bed room to wake Freddie Christensen from his early morning slumber for a game of Poker.

The End