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

2009- A Round Up

That's another fabulous year coming to an end. It has been a roller coaster ride for most of us with the world-wide recession, job turmoils, RIP MJ, Obamotopia, Tendulkar's 20, Woodsaga and a lot more. Some good and some bad. My year wasn't too different. The "one last time" visit to Pilani as a student was a wholesome experience. 15 days of ecstasy filled with assorted "highs". One last shot at The Age of Empires and Fifa, Movies, Sitcoms, Series and more. January and February went by looking forward to and reminiscing from the trip to Pilani respectively.

2009 was the year of Journalism with Digital media coming to the fore with all the might and power. One of those things what we could have done without was the hype that media created for Kareena's saree act or the Woods' bedroom act. Social networking took a new shape with the prominence of Facebook and Twitter. 09 was the year of linking and networking of course. Blogging became popular all the more and personally i was part of that Blogger revolution. The months of March and April indicated some respite after a dull ending to 2008 on the economic front.

I became a graduate in June and the eventual melancholy for missing college days ruled over me for about a month since then. First Job, Heavy work, Coding miseries, Corporate tamasha, Late nights, Team outings and other common buzzwords did buzz past me in the months of July and August. 2009 has been a 'year of reading' for me and I managed to cover a wide variety from Wodehouse, Orwell, Mohammed Hanif, Khaled Hosseini, Forsyth, Ken Follett to Gurcharan Das, Tharoor, Jhumpa and Naipaul. Later parts of the year witnessed a first order ruckus revolving around CAT and the mouse. A 'colossal failure' would more or less capture the essence of the CAT 09 saga. So after calling it 'RIP CAT09' after November, the footballing world caused surprises with the Big Four in England taking a beating. Now, the stage is set for a competitive season overall. An obsession for writing and journalism began to evolve and i started devoting a lot of time on political, economic and social writing in the month of December.

Overall, Not a great year. It did have the good's like the first job, great football, good movies and awesome books. The bad's were there too with RIP MJ, Religion and Politics, Dirty Media, Swayamvars, Hype on Climate change, Costly movies, Costly food, CAT meltdown and more......

Looking forward to a better year in 2010 with better health, better wealth and better knowledge. A Very Happy New Year to all !!

Interview Special

It is the era of "starting-up" and young, first generation entrepreneurs are a celebrated lot these days. As part of an interview contribution to The Viewspaper, I barged into the office of a young entrepreneur from Hyderabad. I felt like one of those modern-day journalists who hold the mic as if it were a scabbard and speak about all and sundry as critically as possible. They call it blade under the tongue approach. I mean, one feels empowered at such an opportunity(of being the journalist). The plight of Tiger Woods, I bet, would give an idea of what journalists can do

So that is that. Coming back to the interview under discussion, it was by and large a smooth affair. However, the parley did stand to offer an episode fraught with surprises. When asked, how he mustered the courage to quit a well paying job to start up on his own, the entrepreneur said it was slightly complicated.
He said: 'the motivation to start' came from the last discussion he had with his ex boss when the latter said "You're Fired". So the advice basically was,

• Begin the groundwork for the start-up when you still hold the high paying job. But make sure you work well enough to avoid the pink slip.
  
• Exploit the famous "Work From Home" option that most employers provide these days. It is a wise idea to "Work For Home" on such occasions.

I smiled at that, thinking it to be a nice gesture at such revelations. He didn't acknowledge though. From then on, he used the interview as an opportunity to lecture a juvenile sitting in front of him. I did ask a few witty questions to highlight the journalist at work but to no great avail. During that awfully long story, I kept doing the 'ucch ucch' and 'ummm' 'umm' regularly and said "it was tough to convince venture capitalists these days", trying to notch an opinion as a display of wit. He grabbed that chance to tell me they were looking for donations and bravely asked me if I could help him by "donating" whatever I could. To say I was shocked at this would be to cheat the reader grossly. I was flabbergasted would be a better way of describing the state of affairs. I was breathing hard (understandably) after the recent turn of events when his wife timed the "filter coffee" perfectly. I thought the wisest thing to do at that point was to cut loose and run. He tried delaying tactics on me by passing on the coffee mug to me and I acted smart by asking the wife if it was filter coffee to change topic and she replied saying it was not filter coffee but Bru. Then, I said it was really nice meeting him to close things down. I could have said I am not affluent enough to contribute by way of any donation at that moment or some such thing to that effect. But like the 'Wooster's pride' that Wodehouse talks of, there is this Sekhars' pride that emerge victorious on these occasions.

At the end of the day, I did manage to hold my purse intact by thoughtfully shooting questions like 'how much would the town bus cost me for my return journey' and 'how costly was the Hyderabad lifestyle in general' and all that sort of a thing, to prove my penury.

To say I had a tough time overall and that it was one of the weirdest conversations in life would be to grossly understate the affair. God Save these People.!

Googly!

It is on the match-day of some Ireland vs ******** qualifier and here is how the conversation builds between two friends.

"Any score yet?"
(obviously being told Ireland the country had scored)
"Oh cool, who scored?"
(obviously being told the name)
"Yeah, but who scored?"
(friend repeats)
"Yeah I get it. Who scored the goal?"
(etc. etc.)
"Yeah. I get we scored. But who scored the fcuking goal??!"
(at this point his friend obviously takes a different approach, explaining that Ireland had scored the goal for Ireland)
"Oh. Right."

Now what's wrong with these westerners who keep such grotesque names for their children? Can't people have less controversial names considering the welfare of the poor human race?

Oriental names are no better anyway. I don't remember if i have shared this incident on blogosphere earlier. But it's worth a repeat. I know an acquaintance from China whose name is 'Ye Hi'. All's fine till now. But how will one compose a mail in English to this revered gentleman if situation need be?

Hi Hi,

Thanks for the blah blah.. It's been a pleasure to have worked with you blah blah...
P.S: I have fallen in love with your name.
Pradeep

or?

Hi Ye,

How's it going at your end?
Thanks,
Pradeep


Draws me blank. Hi Hi? Hi Ye?

God save humanity.

P.S: The above piece of information does not intend to hurt the feelings of any reader. The intent is solely to highlight the variety and diversity in various cultures around the globe. It is nothing but a praiseworthy vignette that finds space in the field of cultural studies by and large.

Amen!

Journalism-Philosophy-Cricket-Life, My Stochastic Journey

How often has an article from the 'Times of India daily' been motivating or mentally stimulating? The question should be lauded for the humor content in itself :-P. The answer to it is 'Most often not'. Today, journalism is a field with high levels of cash flow in its arena and as is rightly said, in today's environment, 'Media means Business'. Having celebrated the luxury of being India's largest daily for ages together, the newspaper has created a new dimension in the field of advertising and media. Sex, Fun, Youth, Masala, Movies, Paparazzi news, Celebrity talk and a few more on the same lines can be termed as suitable labels for most of the articles that are covered these days. Nevertheless, Economics, Strategies, Terrorism and Politics do take center-stage in the Editorial section with contributions from stalwarts from the above mentioned domains. So I have in no way taken up an evaluation of the celebrated daily.

Having said that, what I wanted to write in this post was something completeley different. The first paragraph is more of a digression and the basic intent was to write about a full page article on a recent edition of the Times.

No points for guessing the topic chosen for discussion as terms like 'Master Laster', 'T-20' and twenty-"Ten" are ubiquitous in recent-day print and media. Yes, it was an article on 'The great Man'. A lot has been spoken and debated about his closeness to 'Divinity' in the religion of cricket and of late, even in a newer religion called 'Sport'. I am not going to grind that grain once again. What caught my eye was how motivating that article turned out to be.

I have heard of an incident in North India, which is not the sort that makes the headlines but yeah, interests a few amongst us. - "On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train "waited" for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!!". Now how does the process of 'deifying' happen? What are the ingredients that enable one to become a candidate running for that post? Trying to figure out answers to these 'almost always' rhetoric questions, I realized the answer lies in removing the abstraction in them. Take the example of the same game and the gentlemen who've evolved in the last decade. I can think of England captain Kevin Pieterson's debut about three or four years back. In a period of six to eight months of international cricket, the 'modern media' that we were referring to at the beginning of this discussion, elevated him to a status of being compared with the master. Terms like 'Next Tendulkar' and 'English Master' did the rounds owing to his aggression and technique. 4 years into the arena and take a look at where he is now? He is undoubtedly one of the most important players of the English cricket team today. No denying that fact. But why isn't he tipped to be the next sensation any more? Genius is made out of perseverance, determination and a host of other virtues. But to me, the most important ingredient to it is 'feet on ground' and that is in coherence with the answer to the 'KP question'.

Achievement is something that every one of us encounter and come across in various stages of life. But the way we treat those encounters with 'achievement' is all that matters. The answer to that intriguing question on ingredients was in one quote from the Master himself - "Let the world think of our past. We should think of the future". An adage comes to my mind at this juncture. "You are very unique, just like everyone else". So, celebration should be a fleeting phenomenon when it comes to a bigger picture of life and its obstacles. Having said that success has to do with a combination of a variety of virtues, some more important than the others, one should stay motivated to reach the pinnacle of glory and be smart enough to keep that place until another touchstone is spotted high up the same ladder of life.

Anjali Tendulkar revealed in an interview that Sachin has sleep-walking tendencies and surprisingly, she said "Now we know what it takes to make a genius". I mused for a while after reading those two lines for i am an astute 'sleep-walker' too. But jokes apart, what was meant by usage of 'sleep-walking' is important. The determination and obsession that leads one to think of his duties day in and day out is what makes the genius. Sleep walking in most instances is associated with toiling minds and continuous thought flows during sleep as a result of the obsessive nature of the mind.

Masters come and masters go and we, for our part incessantly speak of them. But the paradigm shift from the connoisseur's role to the artist's role is what should be mulling in our minds and food for that kind of a thought comes from such great personalities and their lives.

Now, as a vindication of the levels of confidence and fearlessness involved in such instance of genius, watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oez4TSdZvJI

The Forum that is worthwhile

From now on, I have decided I would bring the most hilarious set of comments on The Football365 Forum after every match week to this space for the benefit of 'Football Freaky' readers of this blog.

Here is the latest one after the highly anticipated ManU - Chelsea clash



"- A Man Utd team that is meant to be out of form and grinding out results played the better football than Chelsea. This is a Chelsea team that is meant to be cutting through every team that stands in their path. Man Utd will hold no worries about the rest of the season. Undoubtedly as the season gets to Christmas, Utd will hit their stride. 5 point gap or not, Fergie will still fancy his team's chances.

- John Terry must be wearing Jamie Carragher's lucky pants because he can now haul Valencia down in the box. The rest of the world calls that a penalty. A referee at Stamford Bridge doesn't call it anything!

- Deco is crap. Playing good against Bolton is not an achievement. When John O'Shea is playing better than you, it's time to consider retirement or playing in Italy.

- Jamie Redknapp needs to sack his tailor. He is wearing the tightest trousers on Earth every time Sky do coverage and if he eats anything with a single calorie in it, they will split open on live TV.

- Obertan looks like a much better buy than Nani. I know that is like saying "Sleeping with Megan Fox is better than sleeping with Vanessa Feltz" but Obertan could still be a flop. But he came on, linked up intelligently, showed a few tricks that were productive and not show pony-esque. It might be too much to hope but Utd might finally have a genuine successor to Giggs on the left wing.

- Carrick must be dreading the return of Hargreaves. Fletcher and Anderson are clearly ahead of him and rightly so. They both offer more energy, arguably better passing and more power. Hargreaves fully fit and Carrick may find himself reduced to Carling Cup & FA Cup games.

- And finally...Johnny Evans should be knighted. Any man who wins a header against Drogba whilst drop kicking him in the chest deserves the nation's respect. Especially when he gets away with it!"