AHAK's Weekend Sojourn

Finally, an end to the three-month long suspense. Now that it’s all over, I wonder what the hell was going on for the last 100 odd days. I was under the impression that the finance guys were calculating the figures using their fingers. But going by the content of my appraisal letter, things looked a little different. After all, how long does it take to add 100 to a number? Never mind that.

Weekend arrived and I took the first bus to Mumbai. A visit had been pending since a long time, and also the fact that I needed a break from this place added to the list of reasons.

Alright! I get into the bus and find that I’m the only one. The bus leaves, takes a little less than an hour to reach the next pick up point. It was relieving to see 10 odd people get into the bus. All this while I was thinking about the Infy guy who was hijacked on his way to Mumbai and never returned. That’s an old story anyways. The radio was on and who else but Himesh on it. That guy doesn’t seem to tire at all. Put my headphones on and started head banging to Eyes of a stranger by Queensryche (Amazing vocals, drumming and some great bass guitaring), just not thinking about what I was getting into.

Done with the song, I open my eyes to find ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ (If anyone’s not heard of it, It’s a Hindi flick about three guys who are good for nothing) being screened. Why cant these guys spare the passengers? And god knows who selects the flicks that are to be played…. even the ticks are any day better. Tom, Dick and Harry according to me, is an institute of pathetic film making. It can probably be used as an alternative to scarecrows or make Osama Bin Laden watch this movie and he shall surrender. Hope a particular Bush is listening! Man, no point digging the whole world to find your friend.

Coming back to Tom, Dick and Harry. The script of the film…there’s none…so no point talking about it. Wonder if the director wanted to prove his mental illness with this movie. The film has some good looking leading ladies but then leading what…. probably leading a bunch of constipated jokers. And as an icing on top of the cake…Mr. Reshammiya’s music. God, can anything get better than this! Mr. Reshammiya is here to prove to the world that he composes music only when he is getting banged by a bison that looks exactly like him. The strange noises and scratch effects makes one wonder if theres something wrong with the speakers or probably something wrong with the ears. Enough of Himesh now. Lets talk about Gulshan Grover. What was he doing in the movie? He looks as desperate as the chick who sits in the cubicle next to mine. Btw, shes on the phone right now giving everyone around her the looks that can scare one to death. Back to Mr. Grover, he’s made to look like a despo pimp who keeps begging God for girls every now and then. Pathetic. Tried my best to avoid the movie, but just couldn’t. It just kept getting on my nerves and I could do nothing but just admire the insanity.

Inspite of all the non-sense that I had to go through, the trip was pretty alright. Mumbai rocks and its unarguably the most amazing city in this world. Theres something about it that attracts you and the fact that people go through so much in a day but still prefer the place explains it all. I’ve had the privilege of living in four different places till date and undoubtedly Mumbai stands tall among the rest.
Sunday evening, I headed back, filled with reluctance and the fact that the Canadian Grand Prix was about to start just served as a consolation. A hardcore McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen fan, I hoped his bad phase would end but it was just not destined. Inspite of a great start, he failed to hold on to his position. Im not a major Schumi fan, but I must admit that no one other than him handles pressure with such ease. He’s never been an aggressive driver but the way he compels others to make a mistake is phenomenal. No wonder he is the greatest. Have to mention this, though I don’t want to.

AHAK


Footnote by Antya:
Having said all this AHAK is now back at office and as his luck would have it he’s just had a die hard HIMESH fan moving next to him in his cubicle. With me out of the team this weekend, here’s wishing AHAK all the best in his quest to steer clear of further torture (read: Himesh).

The Fifa World Cup 2006- Week 2 (16-25th June)

With the first week out of the way it was time for more fun in the world cup.
16th june saw the argentines in full form when they destroyed Serbia and Montenegro 6-0. Now this was a match to watch even though the former Yugoslavs are definitely not the tops. The Argentines enjoyed themselves against a rather weak opposition.
The Dutch beat the Elephants (guys from the ivory coast) as expected and this killed ivory coast’s chances of making it to round 2 in the world cup having lost both their matches.
Angola held mexico to a dull 0 – 0 draw. There was nothing special about this match except that Angola now needed to beat Iran if they were to go to the second round.
Portugal beat Iran 2-0 in another encounter with second half goals from Deco and Christiano Ronaldo thus qualifying for the second round.
The Italians were held to a 1-1 draw by the US now histrionics by the Azzuri here.
In a rather major upset Ghana beat the Czechs 2-0. This was a major upset in that group which meant that the Czechs had to win the last one against Italy to qualify.
Brazil still not having found their form were quite unimpressive in their performance against Australia. The Brazilians however won 2-0.
The croats drew with Japan 0-0. There was nothing worthwhile in that match.
France with the likes of Zidane controlling their midfield and with strikers like Theirry Henry could only draw with South Korea , the final scoreline 1-1. France still look unimpressive, a far cry from what they are actually capable of.
The Swiss defeated Togo 2-0. And spain looking as threatening as ever defeated Tunisia 3-1 winning 2 in a row and thus making sure of a place in the last 16.
Ukraine looked rather good against a insipid Saudi team and won 4-0 with andrei shevchenko getting into the scorebooks.
After 2 matches each, germany ,Ecuador, brazil, argentina, spain , italy and Portugal looked set to enter the last 16.
In their final matches in the league stage Germany again proved their might against Ecuador winning 3 – 0 with Klose netting and getting to become the contendor for the golden boot.
Ecuador however looked good when they were attempting long distance shots. But the sheer size of the germans seemd to intimidate the Ecuador players.
Poland beat costa Rica 2-1 but in that case none of the teams did qualify for the round of 16 as Germany and Ecuador had already qualified. Germany with 3 wins and Ecuador with 2.
The final round matches in group B saw Sweden holding the Englishmen for a 2 –2 draw thus setting up a showdown with germany in the last 16. This meant that the Englishmen now face Ecuador in the last 16. The bad news however being that Michel Owen was injured which ruled him out from the rest of the matches.
Paraguay won their first match in group B defeating Trinidad and Tobago but this didn’t mean anything as both were ousted from the world cup. T & T did manage to showcase some real talent to the world.
The final match in group C saw argentina holding Netherlands to a 0 – 0 draw with nothing spectacular that we’ve come to see from both teams. Maybe this might be because both teams had already qualified for the round of 16. Ivory coast came from 2 goals down to beat a 10 man Serbia and Montenegro 3-2 however failing to make it to the next round. But Ivory Coast did manage to win many fans in their first ever outing at the world cup.
Group D saw Portugal beating Mexico 2 –1 and thus qualifying with all 3 straight wins.
Iran being held to a 1 – 1 draw by Angola meant that Mexico went through to the next round thereby setting up an encounter with Argentina. And another mouth watering perspective being a next round encounter between Portugal and Holland.

Group E now deemed as the group of death saw Italy beating the Czech 2-0 to eliminate them from the world cup. Ghana beating the US by 2 –1 thereby qualified for the second round setting up an interesting encounter with Brazil from Group F who looked their best so far in the world cup with a 4 - 1 win against Japan. In this match ronaldo came back to life with 2 goals thereby equaling Gerd Mullers record of 14 world cup goals, 1 more against Ghana and he goes on to become the highest scorer in world cup history. This match was vintage brazil even though it was against a weak opposition like Japan.
Another match in group F saw Australia drawing 2-2 with croatia thereby knocking the croats out of competition and setting up an encounter with Italy.

Group G finally saw France beating Togo 2-1 and the swiss beating south korea 2-1.
Group F saw an overconfident spain managing a 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia. The star of the match definitely the Saudi goalkeeper Zaid who was kept busy for most of the match. It was the Spanish overconfidence which saw spain win with a 1-0 margin a match where the result could and should have been a bigger margin. The Spaniards meet France in the round of 16. And with Ukraine winning 2 –0 over Tunisia they meet the swiss in the next round.

The first round did see the germans comfortable at home. The English insipid as ever but lucky. The argentines and Spaniards in good form and the brazillians coming into form.


Round 2.

This round has been interesting till now.
In the first match. Germany won courtesy of 2 early goals by Podolski. The Swedes did try but couldn’t get past the german midfield.
The second match in Round 2 had Argentina beating Mexico 2-1. The first goal was scored by Rafael Marquez who was virtually unmarked by the Argentine defense.
Argentina counter attacked and hernan crespo scored just 6 minutes later. This actually looked like a Jared Borgetti own goal but finally hernan crespo claimed the goal. The match looked evenly balanced and went into extra time when Maxi Rodriguez scored a beauty and sealed the match for Argentina.
England have qualified for the quarter finals with a Beckham free kick finding the Ecuador goal. This match was highlighted by the virtually absent much hyped English midfield.
Lampard, the star of the english premier league has had the maximum chances in this world cup but has failed to score yet.

The most interesting match in round 2 yet has been Portugal Vs Netherlands which was marked by 4 red cards 2 each to Portugal and Holland.
Maniche returned to haunt the dutch scoring the only goal of the match and the dutch were rather unlucky not to score any more. Also later the match witnessed a lot of fist fights 4 read cards and yellow cards going into double digits.
With most of the Portugese players carrying a yellow card into the quarter finals England may be having some feeling of relief.
Germany have set up a mouth watering prospect with Argentina in the quarters. Its really sad as I personally would have liked to see these 2 teams in the semis. But then such is life. England against Portugal would also be something to watch out for but again out of sheer bias against the English midfield I would like to see Portugal go through.

With Australia and to take on Italy later this evening and Spain to take on france later this week this world cup seems poised for much more thrills than those that have been provided yet. It has definitely been a pretty high scoring world cup and real good action in the middle.

p.s. Joke on the Football pitch (while relaxing after a real hard practice session)
England vs Brazil played at Old Trafford. The English complain about Brazilians having too many stars… So the Brazilians decide to get drunk in a pub and let Ronaldinho play alone.
The drunk Brazilians hear on the radio about Ronalidinho scoring the first goal in the 7th minute with the commentators complaining about an unfair onside decision (with only one player)
The Brazilian team (minus the great man) has a real good party and on their return, sees Steven Gerrard being presented the man of the match for scoring an equalizer at the 88th minute. The match ended in a 1-1 stalemate.
The Brazilians go ahead and console a rather forlorn looking Ronaldinho and praise him for having held the opposition for so long.

He replies, “The bloody biased ref red carded me in the 11th minute!!”

More on the controversy

Again, some info before I start. I do not belong to any OBC or any other such which would get me reservations of any sort. I’m where I am on merit and am damn proud of the fact. Also there’s nobody who I’d want to help who gets to use the reservations.

So that out of the way.

Now, for the entire reservation deal. Everybody has an opinion about it. Here’s mine.

Firstly, we have to agree that the current software boom bringing in all the money to the country is not necessarily a good thing. The middle class (economically) is slowly fading out and the difference between the higher and the lower classes is quite large.

Now it’s easy to say we don’t care about it and that it’s survival of the fittest and they ought to work their way up like we did. But honestly, if the gap keeps growing, the obvious jealousy and contempt of the one class toward the other also going to increase.

The recent Rajkumar incident in Bangalore being a good example. The people fighting there were not the original fans, they were just the lower classes giving vent to their frustrations and also making good use of the opportunity to loot a few people.
This has been happening over the years. Same deal with the Kaveri water issue. I remember seeing folks from Kammana Halli standing on the ring road and stopping cars. Now, if the people in the car spoke Kannada, they spoke Tamil and vice versa. (They were fluent in both languages). Only the local familiar faces were spared.
Same deal with religions and Pakistan. As long as Pak stays poor, there are going to be people who are driven by the religious cause to do something drastic, and there are going to be people taking advantage of it. All the communal fighting that’s happening in India is also generally in the lower classes (economically) with a few opportunistic leaders and the upper classes are just probably getting into discussions about it and doing nothing.

Now poverty is definitely lack of opportunity. And without opportunity, the gap is only going to grow and the existing problems aren’t going to leave.

Is anybody doing anything to bridge the gap? Screw the government and taxes, everybody knows about that.

It’s easy to say nice things about merit when you know that’s good enough for you to qualify. Let’s face it; there are people with a handicap with education. Not all families give priority to education. That makes a huge difference. If you have people behind you pushing you, you tend to do better (especially at a young age). This wouldn’t be the case if your folks at home were always hinting at you taking up a manual job somewhere.

(Considering most people reading this being from educated backgrounds) you might have noticed somebody who didn’t do well enough in his studies and yet got placed somewhere by some relative or friend or somebody else. Now is there a possibility of this happening in say, the slums?

So there should be some assistance provided to people of the lower classes. Not caste based, just economically backward. But then if this becomes official, there would be plenty of misuse, going by the pressure for education here. This is not going to help the people it was intended to help.

I’m not sure if reservation is the right way forward, but suggest an alternative way out.

Let me also remind you, the midday meal scheme was a flop and did nothing for anybody, it continues doing nothing for anybody to this day.

Financing some kid’s education is not enough for the family; they want the kid to be a source of income, not an extra mouth to feed.
You can’t pay the family extra to probably cover for the child’s prospective income. This would only increase the bloody demand in the methyl-alcohol market and local village brothels.

So again, reservations are probably not the right ay forward, but bridging the gap is necessary for our sakes and if not reservations, suggest a better way. Don’t just protest, suggest as well.
Nobody is suggesting yet.

BTW, I didn’t vote for the party that's currently in power, don’t think I’ll be doing so next time either, but that’s for other reasons.
And I hated Rang De Basanti, pathetic movie.
I hate moral science class as well… this is more about our comfort than anybody else’s life or whatever. Them staying backward isn’t good for us.

Komodo Dragon

p.s. Definite fall side of reservation: Till my 10th STD, I had no idea who in my class was SC or ST or OBC… it’s during and after the boards that I got to know, and I did have a feeling of contempt towards them. It didn’t seem fair.

Mr. Dragon: the (forced) eligible bachelor

Firstly lemme tell you a few things about my family, it’s quite a huge family, resembles the Greek family in “My big fat Greek wedding” as one of the cousins puts it. I don’t know, I haven’t seen that movie. Anyways, huge family and the whole crowd get together on some occasion like a marriage or an anniversary or something of the sort. The frequency of such occasions is quite high courtesy the numbers.
By family, I meant parents, their siblings, cousins, siblings’ kids, cousins’ kids, and their kids and so on… There always is somebody meeting somebody else for the first time in his or her respective lives.

There was one such function recently and I was a part of it. This time around, I tried my hand at looking at things in the clichéd corny way that most aunts seem to possess by nature. I was forced into it actually.
Like they say, join the system to beat the system.

It all started off with an aunt trying to set me up with a sweet, blushing college chick. That can easily be the most annoying thing to happen to you (the entire process, not the chick), believe me. They introduce you and then hide behind doors or sofas or tables in some cases and see how the two of you are getting along.

Don’t you dare saying something funny then. The girl’s generally either shy and taking in all this nonsense much worse as compared to you or big time annoyed with having to go through this again. Now when somebody’s all strung up because of something, it isn’t wise to go about your wisecracks. They generally wouldn’t understand the humor there and (if you’re sarcastic enough) might take offence or start wondering about your mental stability.

It’s even worse if the girl’s neither shy nor annoyed, she might laugh at your joke. Now that’s a killer. There’d be a lot of rejoicing and other such stuff going on behind doors, sofa sets, tables, vases, bushes and other such.

So, to cut things short, no jokes, in fact, nothing funny. Try something drab, like the relationship between OBCs, Led Zep and the Bombay locals. Keep it serious though. The deal with the bizarre topic is she’ll figure out that you’re nervous too, that helps some people who seem to get intimidated at the drop of a hat.

Anyways, getting back to the topic at hand, the girl I was introduced to, was neither the shy nor the annoyed kinds. She wasn’t intimidated either.
Worse, she laughed.

And yeah all the advising is courtesy the wisdom I acquired POST the damn intro. I walked in all naïve to the house after the conversation (we got introduced in an apartment balcony of all the places in the world), and out popped aunt charming from under the TV set (honest). She goes… “So how’s she? How did you two get along? How do you like her? even she’s tall no? She’s very intelligent, and very nice.”

Now, I could answer the fourth question quite easily. She definitely was tall (we wouldn’t have been introduced if she wasn’t… cheap but true).

How did you 2 get along? Well, nothing out of the ordinary, it was quite the usual. It was the first time we met for God’s sake. And if it wasn’t the usual, I wouldn’t have said so either.

How do I like her? Same answer.

The last part was said and not asked (thankfully). In all fairness, she seemed fairly intelligent as well, and had the skin tone and figure that’d turn my head anywhere any day (c’mon, I’m a man). But, how you gauge somebody’s intelligence in about 15 mins of uncomfortable conversation is beyond me.

As for the first question, how do you answer when somebody asks you that? An aunt of all people.

I was tempted to come out with a detailed description in hostel or soccer pitch lingo, but sanity prevailed and I refrained.
I came out with, “She’s quite nice actually, nice kid ”
She goes, “You and your rotten humor, she’s doing her engg, remember how you were in college, all grown and tall”
Me: “I love the way you avoided the ‘thin’ word in your description auntie, I’m touched. But what’s with height and age thing anyways?”
Aunt: “Oh don’t pretend, you’re blushing, I can see”

Now I wasn’t known as stone face in college for nothing!! I wasn’t blushing I know it.

To continue,

Me: “Oh auntie, you don’t miss a thing, but honestly, when I was in college, I kinda kept away from people in jobs, people my current age to be precise.”
Aunt: “What? You’re talking like you’re real old or something. Anyways, the boy always has to be elder than the girl. It always works out that way.”

So there, I got it from the horse’s mouth (she didn’t speak the words, but it was quite blatant). I’d known this girl for 20 minutes and they were planning on me spending the rest of my life with her. What’s more, even my parents didn’t know about it. Cool eh?

Continuing,

Me: “Auntie, there was a survey conducted a few years ago which says the average age of a man is 80 and that of a woman is 84… remember it?” (Might have been 78 for men and 84 for women, but Aunt wouldn’t have spotted it in 86 years)
Aunt: “Yeah I read… So?”
Me: “Marriage is generally about living your entire lives together right?”
Aunt (suspiciously): “Yeah, so” (most people who know me get suspicious when I ask two questions with obvious answers, in a row)
Me: “So, if the husband is elder and going by statistics, he’s bound to die earlier, that would leave the wife alone for a few years right?”
Aunt: “Oh God! You started your odd talk again. How can you talk about something holy like marriage and death at the same time” (cheap getaway when cornered)
Me: “No auntie, I was just being practical and concerned about the ladies in general, yeah the sentence was a bit off heh heh”
Aunt: “Oh you kids are all the same… weird concepts you carry, think you know everything”
Me: “Kids don’t marry…”
Aunt: “Shut up, I have to talk to (*mum’s name*) about this (giggle)”
Me: “true true” (mum doesn’t venture within a mile’s radius of me on such days)

At this point in time, an equally heckled cousin sis of mine turns up with a smile broad enough to accommodate a dolphin. Aunt, recognizing the signs of danger decided to scoot and on her way to the door met a cousin (brother this time, who was laughing at me all this while) and dragged him along to meet somebody else she knows.

Some people are relentless. Long live their tribe.

The Fifa World Cup 2006- Week 1 (9-15th June)

The world cup, kicked off on 9th June 2006 with a colorful ceremony in Berlin, It was great to see the members of the world cup winning teams Klinsman, Mattheus, Sir Bobby Charlton and the legendary Pele . a sole personality missing was the Argentine great and the architect of the 1986 win Maradona.

By far the first round of matches have finished with each team in each group having played at least one match.

Germany hardly looked impressive in their first match against Costa Rica. The 4-2 scoreline in the end was showed a gaping void in the German defense (almost non existent) and the 4 goals scored didn’t boast of a good German attack but definitely another non-existent Costa Rican defense. Barring one goal from Frings from a distance the match did not have anything spectacular to offer.

Ecuador, one of the minnows did have a fantastic attack against a rather stoic polish defense. Poland, the favorites to win the match eventually ended up on the losing side with a scoreline of 2-0 in favor of Ecuador.

Then we had the much-hyped English team playing Paraguay. Now, England playing the FIFA world cup is always like India playing the cricket world cup, always tipped to win but the performances suggest otherwise. A Beckham free kick getting deflected into the goal by the Paraguay captain Carlos Gamarra himself ensured a 1-0 win for England but in particular England had nothing to be proud of in this match.
The English team minus the commentary and the hype is pretty useless. They’ve got 3 good midfielders in Lampard, Gerrard and Cole. Somebody replace Beckham, he doesn’t know what the left foot is, doesn’t head the ball, doesn’t hold play, doesn’t fall back. Anything else that’s needed of a midfielder?

The Swedes were held to a 0-0 draw with 10 man Trinidad & Tobago, and yeah both the teams looked good, particularly the Swedes.

Argentina, one of the least talked about sides in this world cup defeated the Ivory Coast 2-0, the Argentines showed an overall good game both in attack and defense.

The Netherlands won by a solitary goal courtesy Chelsea’s Arjen Robben over lowly rated Serbia & Montenegro (formerly Yugoslavia), which did boast of names like Mateja Ketzman and Dejan Stankovic. Nothing worth notice in that team as well.The Dutch, however , in form can be deadly dangerous.

Mexico came in late to defeat Iran 3-1 with 2 goals in the dying minutes of the game against Iran. But again, the Asian teams barring South Korea are weak as compared to the European and South American teams.

Portugal played their former colony Angola and defeated them1-0, now here the commentators were predicting a goal fest when Pauleta netted in the 4th minute or so. But a stubborn Angolan defense prevented anything of that sort.

Italy as clinical as ever, were brilliant in defeating Ghana 2-0. The legacy of Italian defense still lives on even after Maldini and Co.
The scudetto kinda confirms it, these dudes are just brilliant. Cannavaro and Nesta are by far the best international central defensive pairing you can get. They’ve been so for years now (since Maldini Baresi). All that hype about Terry and Ferdinand is just a load of Brit commentary…

The Czechs led by Pavel Nedved decimated the USA 3-0. The Czechs were always in command of the game and showed a lot of grit
Was wondering why the commentators were going gaga about Rosicky being the star of the team. Agreed he had a good game and scored 2 goals as well, but he’s not quite as good as Nedved (injury or no injury), it then struck me that Rosicky is one of Arsenal’s latest signings. Brit commentary…
Fall side for the Czech, their defending especially in the later parts looked more like just clearing the ball. There weren’t many buildups from the defense, they all seemed to happen from the mid.

Brazil with all its big names looked, to say the least, listless in their 1-0 win over Croatia. Ronaldo was seen walking (literally) all over the park, the only spark in that match appeared after Robinho substituted him in somewhat around the 69th minute.
Brazil, watch them for the joy of it… Don’t bet on them.

The French again choked against Switzerland, with a goalless draw, Zidane and Theirry Henry had no ideas against the likes of Phillepe Senderos in the Swiss defense.
The French got to get their act together else the world will miss out on a lot. This is a team with real talent and major ego

South Korea, the only Asian team worthy of a mention came from behind to beat Togo 2-1. Again nothing worth a mention here. This was a known result.

The best match in the tournament so far came when Spain decimated first timers Ukraine 4-0. Andrei Shevchenko from Ukraine (the AC Milan star) hardly got a touch.
Schevchenko has moved to Chelsea, one of the worst things to have happened to Football in general. He’s going to realize soon that Lampard and Ballack are not quite as good as Kaka is, it’s again hype and the same Brit commentary factor

Germans having gone thru the non existent Costa Rican defence in the opening match ran out of ideas but still managed to beat a strong Polish Defense 1-0
The Germans, So far… Rubbish. No ploy at all

From all the matches played so far it’s the Spaniards that are looking dangerous, the Argentines, Italians and Czechs have been playing good football and could definitely make it to the last 8 at least. Brazil with all its big names might not have got the start they wanted but it would be unwise rule them out yet.

Of the African countries making their debut’s Angola and the Caribbean team Trinidad & Tobago look to be decent and maybe , some players from these teams, will rouse the interest of some of the managers in the English Premier League for the next season.

This world cup has definitely been interesting with quite decent scorelines and high scoring matches. We for one would like to keep a watch on the Argentines and Italians.

The Argentines look damn efficient, Spaniards, Czechs and Italians look awesome and quite intimidating. Watch out for the Dutch and don’t let the Brit commentary sway your judgment.

As the 2nd week kicks off with the 2nd round of matches for each of the teams we shall keep you updated of the happenings as the week passes. Till then. Enjoy your football.

Authored by Antagonist and Komodo Dragon.

PS: If you find any of this on the wrong side of anything Brit, this is because Komodo (the harcore AC Milan Fan that he is) and Antagonist (A Juventus fan) both dislike the English team as the englishmen play real uninspiring football. Also even during the world cup, the commentary is pro brit , to put it in simple words , it is biased. Simply put the English Premier league is sluggish and drab as compared to the Italian or Spanish leagues.

SHEEP

An odd chain of thought that happened (chains of thought happen, right?) on the journey from Bombay to Poona. The return journey didn’t quite have the charms about itself that the Poona-Bombay journey had. For one, there was a lot to look forward to while going Bombay-wards (there always is). Then the co passenger in this case was an annoying moron (the kinds I’m allergic to) and not a pretty, interesting and chatty chick like the one I’d met the day before (on the Poona-Bombay journey again).

The movie not being played was an irritation of sorts, as this dude would want to talk to me cause he had nothing to do. Not that I like movies in the bus, especially on the expressway journey, but with co passengers like this you’d rather have a movie on.

I decided to get on to my second line of defense. Out came the headphones and the cell with a few mp3s stored. Started playing the tracks and looking out of the window deliberately avoiding eye contact with the moron even. Things were rather peaceful until the moron in a fit of stupidity asked the bus crew to play the radio. The music from the radio kinda distorted the stuff I was listening to and I was forced into full concentration mode.
Gave up after a brief struggle.

I was then forced into listening to the appalling stuff they play on radio in a program called top 20 hits. (If they are top 20, they ought to be hits… whatever). Real bad stuff with Himesh in roughly 2 out of every 3 songs.

Set me thinking. Down the memory lane of sorts. When I’d started listening to music big time, there were the backstreet boys on one side and a few bhangda clowns on the other (Daler Mehndi headed the list there). There were the few wise ones who generally went hammer and tongs at these characters, but they were the minority. “Why listen to 'The Doors', they are over 30 years old?” was the retort the wise ones had to face. Music is timeless and Floyd and U2 are relatively deeper than all boybands and Mr. Mehndi put together… whatever.

Then came Britney Spears, man she’s horrible. And as if all that was not bad enough there was Aqua with ‘Barbie girl’ and some cheap band singing something about Tarzan and Jane and bananas and elephants et al. Cant remember the name, they were terrible I tell you.
Same story all along, the wise ones stuck to hitting out at the music coming out and listening to their own stuff and the majority crowd went about worshipping the nonsense being dished out.

Like a whole lot of sheep. With the marketing dudes being the shepherds. Advertise a track/band/movie/item number well enough and all them sheep will come flocking to it and get you your moolah.

Now it’s hip hop there and Khajooor here. The whole crowd goes gaga over them because the marketing dudes told them to. And I’ve been told “he’s not so bad, everybody likes him, he’s famous” and other such, quite a few times.

Being famous has nothing to do with being good at something. And how many of them sheep even remember the super hit tracks of last year?
The album “More” came out in the year 1969 that’s quite a while ago, and every genuine Floyd fan would know “Cymbaline” and “The Nile song” inside out.

Why blame the elders for hypocrisy, are we much better? Do we even know what we like? Are we sure we’re not being fooled into liking something somebody else wants us to like? Aren’t we just walking with the flow and assuming we like it? Aren’t we just a flock of sheep?

“It’s alright we told you what to dream…”
(Floyd – Welcome to the machine (Wish you were here))



p.s. AHAK and me had gone to check out the company rock band practice. They were playing U2 – Where the streets have no name. The vocalist in one of the initial attempts missed the line, “I want to tear down these walls that hold me inside”. We were talking about that line alone having more to it than all the hindi tracks (Euphoria, Kailash Kher included) in the year 2006. That just our opinion btw.

Komodo Dragon.



The Addition :
The name of the post reminds me of two things. One, the evergreen Pink Floyd anthem and the other, the Indian mentality or rather call it the Herd mentality. It was precisely during my pre-university days when I realized what music is, though music had always been there in our family. Those were the days when I moved from the bollywood numbers to Floyd. Phew..what a change ! Its only when you listen to Floyd that you realize that music is for the mind, not for ears (As mentioned by Komodo in one of our earlier articles).

Coming back to where I left, the Herd mentality. Over the years, I have met a lot of people who listen to a particular kind of music because that’s supposed to be classy. I sometimes wonder how many Floydians actually take the pains of getting into the lyrics and analyzing what they meant. Do people know that Floyd numbers are supposed to be heard in a particular order? Lets keep Floyd aside and talk about the bollywood numbers most people listen to these days. One Mr. Himesh comes up with songs that make no sense and its all over the UK charts. I thought music comes from the instruments. How many music composers today prefer keyboards or drums to DJ consoles. Their count might not even be in double digits.

AHAK.


p.s. Octopads have almost completely replaced drums in bollywood, now it’s DJ consoles and scratch effects doing their rounds.

Gentlemen

That’s what they call themselves, right? And the game’s called the gentleman’s game, right?

Then what’s with the annoying behavior? Why jump up and down like retards every time the ball so much as touches the Pads?

Let’s face it; the Indian team is really annoying with all the appealing and genuine lack of any bowling talent whatsoever. We generally play a real irritating brand of cricket. Terrible pitches with nothing for the bowler, teams loaded with batsmen, bowlers whose only motive is to get through 10 overs conceding less than 50 runs. The batsmen will handle it from thereon. (Real glad Mick Lewis got hammered for 115 that day… he’s an Aussie version of an Indian seamer).

Chappel seems to be a sensible one here, with the 5-bowler policy. Getting some sense into the game and the entire crowd starts yelping about wrong strategy etc. Grow up guys.

Anyways, we can easily stake claim to be the second most annoying team around.
Sri Lanka with their Chandanas, Dilshans and Lokuhettiges are by far the most annoying species ever. They don’t deserve a place in this planet.
Add to their players, they have KT Francis and Asoka DeSilva… Lesser said about the whole bunch of them, the better.

Back to the topic, yeah Sehwag deserves what he got. Watch one match and you’ll know how much these dudes get on your nerves with their appealing. It’s like he’s a Parthiv Patel wannabe or something.

Yeah Sehwag got what he deserved and Lara didn’t. How could anybody get away with something like that?

Cricket is run by bloody racists.

Look at it this way.
1) Wasn’t Lara also appealing excessively (an appeal that went on for 15 mins is kinda excessive)? So why punish Sehwag and spare Lara?
2) India was temporarily relieved of the ex captain and fantastic player of short pitched stuff courtesy his taking too long to finish up the overs (six match suspension). Fine that was a favor of sorts, but it wasn’t intended. Now Mr. Lara wasted a whole 15 minutes with his ranting and probably that time, if added on in the end would’ve meant a different result.
3) Slater on a previous occasion and now Lara have both been in heated discussions with the umpires and have both been spared and 6 Indians were once suspended at the end of a SA tour by an English match referee.

Apart from point 2, in all places the Indian team has been made a victim hasn’t it?
(Suspension of ex captain helped the team almost as much as his eventual firing. Thank god for small favors)

The one positive point to note here was the way Dravid handled the whole situation.
Brilliant.
He stayed to innocent onlooker when Lara went about his nonsense. He didn’t bother sending any word across all the while. He just watched on as Lara seemed hell bent on being a disgrace, and when Lara finally decided to let play continue and Dhoni got all emotional and decided to leave (man!! This doesn’t happen in street cricket nowadays, ask Mohammad Yousuf (erstwhile Youhana)), Dravid decided to declare. So he didn’t stop Lara from digging his grave of sorts with an earlier declaration.

Just too bad politics is streets ahead of natural intelligence.

Speaking of Politics, Has Salman returned from Dubai? Nevermind that…

Sticking with Politics, Has Mr. Ex captain been selected for the next Lanka tour? (whenever that is). Or is he still scared of having to face Dilahara Fernando and Lasith Malinga?

Question:
How does Chandana bowl when the ball is bigger than his entire palm and fingers of both hands put together?
And the commentator once said, “he has to learn to bowl the googly…”

May Fever

“Theh heh heh.. heee heeee heee.. hyuk hyuk” these were some of the sounds missing in my cubicle for the last week or so.. the reason.. the exponent of the “orgasmic laughter” a former moron..(Read our previous post Newsies.. newbies …)… now somewhat less of it since he began working…

The month of may thus ended peacefully for me… the very heights of ecstasy having gone home.. All that remained was on my left side a gaping depression (for those who came in late.. the depression has a name… this one’s called Rajwada or Tall Palace the second moron from our previous post (newsies .. newbies…) .. still the same moron… in fact evidently more from last time).. getting deeper and deeper by the passing day… now this guy has very tall claims as Komodo and AHAK would agree.. He’s an exponent of transparency in personal life to an extent that would make Fidel Castro in Cuba and the socialists in modern day West Bengal and erstwhile USSR proud. Every one in the team now knows whatever is to be known about him.. and a few of us .. handpicked for torture happen to know all that is not to be known as well…

All in all the month of May did turn out to be quite sensational..

The Atlantic remained peaceful.. and a certain meteor that was supposed to have crashed into it .. didn’t keep its date with a certain channel (which in fact was the only channel that aired that news) .. the most probable and plausible reason would have been that the channel didn’t offer it enough money…”Money” they say “makes the world go round” so why not comets… no money… so the comet went round the earth instead of directly thru it..

Other than this.. there was a sensation that spilled over from last month.. when finally a boisterous and vociferous politico happened to run out of words and luck… he was a good man they said.. who spoke up his mind.. all due respect to the departed soul.. but all news value (or maybe nuisance value) was lost the day he died and they showed him being cremated by his son.. who himself now happens to be in hospital. With the media junkies all over the place trying to decide among themselves whether he did or did not take substances that would have caused him to be stripped of a gold medal in the Olympics..

We simply could not , not mention a damsel who “showed” that she had “the balls” (literally) to evoke interest from local moral groups somewhere in southern maharashtra.. this got the media going ga ga over her and yeah for a day or 2 even she got her place in the sun.. what happened after that is anybody’s guess.. any guesses??? Thinshark will definitely give you an inside story on this controversy if you fail to come up with any guesses.

Then there were a bunch of eleven models along with an aussie with a white cricket hat that went partying to the carribean and played a game which involves throwing a round object mentioned previously in this write up (leather this time)… at another guy holding a stick in hand and trying to stop 5 sticks from licking the dirt (3 vertical and 2 horizontal balanced finely on them). Needless to say the money been given to them for endorsing Caribbean beer and beaches for the expat Indian community there ensured that they ended up with a score of 1-4. However the aussie did say that they did get a lot of positives from the games they played (money to be precise)..

Finally we had a certain actor who’s gone beyond 40 and also been married twice.. but still insists on playing a yuppie and saying that he thought he was right when half a million people did not get water and another few thousand acres of land went fallow because of lack of water… because he wanted his day in the sun… all said and done.. this he did in front of another million people all the while sipping water .. and then it’s a spate of tv interviews on every possible channel justifying his stand and asking people whether they wanted to see his films.. Now how watching a movie is related to people dying of thirst is definitely what we'll investigate and let you know soon...

All the time while this was happening.. back at the workplace the orgasmic laughter continued that finally stopped at the month end which brings us back to where we started from…

With only 2 more days before my wife turns into what they call the “Football widow” theres lot of talk going on about Rooney’s injured leg and Zidane’s second retirement… (remember he came back from retirement coz he wanted himself to see france lift the world cup)…
Thinshark will surely give you all the latest takes on the world cup matches week by week (courtesy to komodo being a winger for his company , me an ex player now turned critic, and AHAK still to play)…

Keep watching this space for more…

Antagonist
(with footnote by AHAK)...