DON'T PANIC

Coffee, aaraamale.

2012-01-28T15:25:00.000-08:00

I visited one of the Philz Coffee stores in the Bay Area recently. At Philz, the barista grinds the beans only after you select the coffee you want, waits for you to taste it and fixes it if you don't think it's just right. I had one of their dark roast blends, Aromatic Arabic, and it was pretty fantastic. One of my friends wasn't a huge fan of the medium roast she got but didn't feel like going back to the barista to tell her that it tasted a bit off. It's hard not to disappoint though when you name the drink, 'Ambrosia Coffee of God'.

I've wondered for a while about the kind of coffee shop I would like to run. I can't distinguish one kind of coffee from another with the articulation of a coffee conoisseur. But I have been to many coffee shops and absolutely love how the very best ones can be inspirational. The smell of coffee beans, the chaotic rhythm of people chatter, lighting so artful as to tempt a photographer, music that sets the tone and sofas to wind down on. There's a wonderful warmth to that atmosphere.

In my coffee shop, a small library is a must. The bookshelves will be filled by books donated by customers (and me, of course). Anyone can pick up any book and read it in the cofee shop, or if it's not a book that can be finished in a couple of hours can borrow it for free to read at home, the understanding being that they return it in a reasonable amount of time. A community driven library that runs completely on the goodwill of customers.

Filter coffee is definitely on the menu and will be served in a steel tumbler accompanied by a steel dabarah. There will be a make-your-own-coffee section with a press, a small grinder, a selection of different types of beans and a barista to guide through the process. 'To go' cups will be compostable and people are free to draw on the mugs they get their coffee in with permanent markers.

There will be a few seats outside for people-watching on a warm day. A little stage inside, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a glimpse into the city as the backdrop, will host nights of poetry and music, book readings and interviews. Local artwork will occupy the walls of the cafe with one wall devoted to display this quote, my favorite, by Picasso:

I'm reading the paper; sitting around; I'm chatting; going for walks. But all of this is just perception. I'm actually working. Or rather: something is spinning around in my head and I'm just waiting to grab it and form it.

And finally, the cafe will bear the name, 'Aaraamale' (pronounced aa-raa-muh-ley) which in Tamil means 'warm forever'. @lavsmohan tweeted it as a play of words on AR Rahman's 'Aaromale'. Coffee on the house for her if she'll let me steal that name.

Thoughts on Certified Copy (Copie Conforme)

2012-01-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

"I know you hate me. There's nothing I can do about that. But at least try to be a little consistent."

Can you like a movie when you can't fully grasp it? You know the director, Abbas Kiarostami, is trying to tell you something, he's being all too subtle about it, but he's definitely trying to make a point. You've spent a couple of hours watching him use two wonderful actors and the beautiful Italian village of Lucignano to bring to screen his thoughts through conversations that vary a ton between small talk and opionated discourse and that jump up and down an emotional scale.

The first time the characters played by William Shimell and Juliette Binoche meet in Certified Copy, you take it for granted that it really is the first time that they're meeting. But soon you realize, through very well picturized scenes of them interacting while driving through, walking along and sitting in cafe's and restaurants that what you took for granted is defintely up for debate. Are these two characters really meeting for the first time?

Shimell's character, James Miller, is an art historian who's written a book called 'Certified Copy' in which he proposes that there is no such thing as a copy as even the Mona Lisa is a reproduction, a Da Vincian take on Lisa del Giocondo. There is no point in questioning the autenticity of a piece of art if every piece of art is a copy. He then poses the question, why should the question of authenticity detract from the emotional connect between a viewer and the colors that bring to life an empty canvas or the painstakingly chiselled statue that anchors a piazza. The connection between this truth of Miller's and the relationship between the characters is what has got me thinking about the movie long after the credits rolled. Is theirs an authentic relationship? And what determines that authenticity - the perception of the strangers around them or their own point of view of what brings them together and keeps them apart?

To answer the question I raised at the beginning, can you like a movie that you can't fully grasp, yes I think you can. The act of searching for the truth in an open ended story - whether it be in written or visual form - is extremely rewarding. And when you have an actor of Juliette Binoche's caliber, expressing vulnerability with stunning ease and honesty, guiding you through that journey, oh boy it's worth it.

P.S: It's on Netflix Instant.

Play Kohli

2012-01-09T18:06:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy: Royal Challengers Bangalore

I remember a brash shot Virat Kohli played early in his ODI career against Pakistan. He was batting at number 4 with Rahul Dravid holding anchor at the other end. India needed slightly more than 6 runs per over with around 30 overs to go. Kohli hadn't spent too much time at the crease but went for a lofted shot anyway, only to find the long on fielder. It was an unnecessary shot at that stage but one that could be attributed to his inexperience and inability to gauge the right way to play the middle overs of a chase. Over time and with the confidence that constancy in a batting line-up can provide, #3 when Sachin or Sehwag were rested and #4 otherwise, he's become a player you can count on. He looks for the singles early on and a large percentage of his boundaries flow along the carpet. He's got the hang of pacing an ODI innings.

In the past two years, he's scored runs with consistency and class. He's contributed to a world cup victory, his place is assured in the ODI setup, he's confident of his abilities and in the limited amount of first class cricket that he's played runs have come at an average of almost 50.

There is no doubt in my mind that he is a test cricketer in the making. Sure, he failed in the away series against the West Indies and he's struggling right now in Australia. But we absolutely have to play him in the remaining two test matches. Even if he fails to put bat to ball, we have to play him. Slot him above Laxman in the batting order so that he has the cushion of wickets in hand. It'll allow him to spend more time in the middle with Sachin who is in beautiful touch. He will have the luxury of playing out deliveries because Sachin and Laxman will score freely. By the time he has to bat with Dhoni, Ashwin and the tail he would have seen off the early nervousness.

Kohli can potentially be the glue that holds the top and middle order together. He's repaid the Indian cricket team's faith in him in ODI cricket. The team now has to be prepared to let him fall a few times in test cricket before he finds his footing.

Thoughts on 'A Visit from the Goon Squad'

2011-11-22T09:36:00.001-08:00

Orginally published in Nazar.

Picture: Wolf Gang

You chip away and you chip away. You write and you re-write. Keep chipping away. More polish needed. Yeah, it’s just about right now. No wait, chip away, take it out. Yep, good enough. Maybe.

Rinse and repeat for 13 chapters.

Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer winning ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ is a guide to aspiring writers. It’s also quite unconventional. There’s a shift in time, location and point of view as you move from chapter to chapter which makes it hard to name one key character that drives the story. Bennie Salazar, executive at Sow’s Ear Records, seems to be the closest to a traditional protagonist. He forms the central link that binds the rest of the characters to each other and to the world of music that forms the backdrop in most chapters. He takes on different roles in the book – employer, father, husband, band member of punk rock group Flaming Dildos – and moves in and out of the spotlight as characters around him deal with their self-destructive and insecure tendencies.

Egan’s stylistic flourishes vary from chapter to chapter but many of them are so subtle (the anthropological observations in chapter 4 (Safari) being a notable exception) and well-crafted that you don’t notice them until you make an active effort to decipher her genius (or as in my case you take a writing class with really smart people who point them out to you). Each chapter can live on its own (and some do in a few literary magazines) but the Ah moment when you link the ‘fat fuck’ that no one cares about in chapter 7 to the nutcase guitarist in his prime in chapter 10 is a delight.

Egan seems to have an array of literary techniques at her disposal and I can imagine her using them at will, attaining an effect that great composers achieve by carefully inserting new and different sounds a couple of layers beneath, à la A.R. Rahman in Dil Gira Dafatan, that you pick out only if you’re really listening. Personal experience, however, convinces me that it took her numerous re-writes, tons of head bump marks on her desk and caffeine-pumped sessions to make it all ‘just work’. I’m sticking to this image of her – the hard-at-work writer using all that she’s internalized by reading the masters of literary fiction to craft her own magic.

In the book, Egan sometimes indulges herself with in-your-face style sophistications — blatantly using unconventional methods to slow down the reader’s advance to the end of the chapter. In chapter 9 (Forty-Minute Lunch), she uses footnotes to let the point of view character ramble, a technique that I didn’t really warm up to when I read David Foster Wallace’s ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’. It’s a huge risk, asking readers to step back from the action and allow themselves to be taken through an internal monologue only to be dropped back to the story’s present which is on its own mission. I don’t see Forty Minute Lunch working as wonderfully though without the footnotes:

Thought 1 (at the sight of Kitty dipping her finger and sucking it): Can it possible be that this ravishing young girl is coming on to me?
Thought 2: No that’s out of the question.
Thought 3: But why is it out of the question?
Thought 4: Because she’s a famous nineteen-year old movie star and you’re “heavier all of a sudden – or am I just noticing it more?” (– Janet Green, during our last, failed sexual encounter) and have a skin problem and no worldly clout.

It’s my favorite chapter.

In chapter 11 (Good-bye, My Love) she plays around with language beautifully:

Ted became aware of a subterranean patter around him, an interplay of glances, whistles, and signals that seemed to include nearly everyone, from the crone draped in black outside the church to the kid in the green T-shirt who kept buzzing past Ted on his Vespa, grazingly close. Everyone but himself.

And in chapter 13 (Great Rock and Roll Pauses) Egan flaunts convention readily by using a PowerPoint presentation to tell a story. She keeps the reader’s attention by punctuating paragraphs with stellar lines (“He’s usually looking at Alice, so I can watch him as much as I want.”) and is okay with the risk of losing it by favoring a switch in point-of-view every so often. She carefully tweaks the narrative distance — she’s got you looking at the world she’s created from a safe space and all of a sudden inserts you right by the central character, making you watch the action unfold as if you were right there. Zoom out, zoom in.

Jennifer Egan exhibits mastery over language and the courage to experiment throughout a superbly written novel. What you get is an extremely rewarding read.

5K

2011-10-15T22:03:00.001-07:00

On Friday, I paid money to run 5 kilometers around a park. This is a strange condition that we humans have, giving up something of value in order to experience dehydration, blurry vision, foot pain and an insatiable need to spit. The counter-intuitiveness of it all struck me as my feet began to protest this brain-addled exercise at around the 1.5 mile mark. A 7 year old was also whooping my ass at this point, bruising my ego some. My inner voice which was yelling “LET’S DO THIS!’ at the start line had now switched to a sad “why?”. I gave up the slow jogging and joined the rest of the ‘it’s-not-about-winning-it’s-about-finishing’ pack.

At the 2 mile mark, I spotted the 7 year old kid taking a water break. “WATER IS FOR THE WEAK!” my inner voice now suggested and I decided to push for the finish. I began running and a random assortment of Queen songs began playing in my head. One by one I moved past tired, sweaty competitors. “ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!”. People ahead of me now parted to make way as I used my arms to propel me forward. ‘ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!’. At the 2.5 mile mark, the familiar feeling of ‘holy-mother-of-what-the-shit-my-feet’s-on-fire’ returned and my pace slackened. The kid caught up and soon enough was ahead of me, clearly unaware of the ego-killing he was effecting all around him.

Near the finish line I saw a person dressed like a chicken cheering me on. This was weird. I crossed the line just as volunteer photographers captured the pained look on my face. As I collapsed to the ground, unsure if I would ever get up again, I saw the 7 year old chilling next to a person dressed like a chicken.

In retrospect, I realize that I’m not made for long distance running. Even as a kid, I would restrict myself to short sprints around the hallway. A milk break would be necessary soon enough following which the short sprints around the hallway would continue. I also didn’t have friends as a kid.

There are people who would say that a 5K does not constitute a ‘long distance’. And then there are people who take the elevator one floor up and say stuff like “why walk when you don’t have to?”. I am one of those people.

Time for my milk break.

Café Tales V

2011-07-18T22:55:00.001-07:00

He brings his car to a halt as the signal turns red. He looks over at the convertible, a 6-series BMW, parked besides him and sees his wife's hand resting on the driver's crotch. He keeps staring till the convertible drives away. He glances at the worn out briefcase lying next to him, the sheaf of coupons, unpaid bills, parking tickets peeking out from underneath it. The stench of wet shoes left in the trunk overwhelms him. He steps on the accelerator and doesn't let go. His right hand moves towards the volume knob and his left works on cranking down the window. No, he hasn't forgotten to steer. The sound of The New Pornographers is no longer confined to the interiors of his car.

As the thrice owned Mitsubishi Galant climbs on the railing and takes its first and final leap, he closes his eyes and resides in the comfort of knowing that the dark, desolate road is coming to a dead end.

Café Tales IV

2011-04-09T10:51:00.001-07:00

It’s an orange with a straw stuck through it. I’ve never noticed the Tropicana logo before. Or maybe this was a new logo and hence the stopping in my tracks. A bit unnecessary, you might say, stopping in one’s tracks to look closer at the logo on a juice box. I agree, a tad unnecessary, but it happened. Trust me, I speak the truth. I thought about the design process that was responsible for this logo. “We want people to know that Tropicana is fresh and natural!”, I can hear an excited 27 year old marketing wizard yell. And then I wonder why someone would get so passionate about orange juice. A tad unnecessary. “I get the message, though” I tell the marketing wizard. I’m sure she heard me.

I look at the jug of Simply Orange nearby. It’s a dollar cheaper, so I pick it up and walk towards the milk aisle.

Wankhede Dreams

2011-04-04T13:52:00.001-07:00

Not one person in the vicinity is sitting. We can sense the moment coming. Kulasekara runs in, the crowd’s “Dhoni, Dhoni” chant lowers in volume as the Sri Lankan pacer gets closer and closer to the crease. And then madness. Dev and I, amongst 33,000 other fans in the stadium, see the ball sailing in the air. Hugs everywhere. I find myself hugging 4 people at once. I look at the guy who tried to take one of our seats earlier in the day and we laugh together in joy. I look towards the ground and I see Bhajji running on to the field, waving an Indian flag as he meets his crying team-mates mid-pitch. More massive hugs. I turn back towards the ground again and I see Sachin. The big screen captures his jog towards his team-mates, his child-like smile lighting up his face and ours as fireworks light up the sky.

---

Virat Kohli utters the quote of the decade, a quote that easily overshadows his crucial 35. The crowd roars its approval.

Dev mentions that the man is our age. Everything is surreal at this point.

----

We walk out of the stadium at around 1am. The cops and army personnel slowly allow themselves to entertain high five requests from fans. There is an outpouring of gratitude towards the security team, the unsung heroes of the night.

---

The streets outside Wankhede are a sea of blue. I am confused, unsure how to celebrate. Some chant, “Jeet gaya bhai jeet gaya, India jeet gaya!”, others congratulate each other. Some take pictures to show off to their friends, others dance to the honking tune of car horns. I, well, I do all of these. And then I run around waving my Indian flag until I see a guy with “Shekhar” on the back of his jersey. Picture is taken.

---

We’re starving. During the India-Australia quarterfinal, we didn’t eat during the second innings and India won. So.

I see Tamil actress Namitha sitting in Shiv Sagar, lucky enough to get a seat in the packed restaurant. Dev grabs a bottle of water and we continue on our quest for food.

---

A kind restaurant owner helps us get a table faster than expected and we share it with a couple of guys who’ve flown in from Dubai to watch the game. Over food, we discuss the match, our lives outside cricket, the greatness of Sachin, the boldness of Dhoni, joining in for a couple of India chants before bidding each other good bye, congratulating ourselves on the victory.

---

Marine Drive is packed with people. Songs are being belted out from car stereo systems while fire crackers are burst at an amazing frequency. I chat with some fans who couldn’t get tickets to the stadium but had come over to Marine Drive to revel in the post-match celebrations.

I stand facing the sea, taking it all in. I see the Queen’s Necklace shimmering.

Life is beautiful.

---

We take a cab back to Dev’s at 4 in the morning. I fall asleep in the cab, exhausted.

But this time, I don’t have to dream.

The Greatest Gift

2011-04-03T01:20:00.004-07:00

Do you remember that straight drive Sachin hit three years ago, a bewildered Lee looking in awe, the ball smashing into the advertising boards, all the while Sachin retaining that pose of artistic perfection? I watched that shot thousands of miles away at Jester auditorium in Austin, bowing down to the projector screen, asking for more. Yesterday, I saw Sachin hit a straight drive for four at Wankhede. There are many older than me who claim that the birth of their first child is the greatest moment of their lives. They have probably not been 100 meters away from a Sachin Tendulkar straight drive for four.

When Sachin walked back, caught behind off of ferocious, deadly Malinga, I sat quietly for a bit with my face buried in the flag I was waving around just a minute ago. Had I just seen his last one day inning? I slowly rose to my feet and applauded, and so did the rest of Wankhede. He said a couple of words to the incoming Virat Kohli before continuing his walk into the pavilion. Virat Kohli carried Sachin Tendulkar on his shoulders later that night, “well, he’s carried the burden of a nation for 21 years, it’s time we carried him on our shoulders”, he said. Last night was poetry in action.

There are these fleeting images – Yuvraj, Kohli, Raina egging each other on, Harbhajan dismissing Umar Akmal and shaking his head in wild, unbridled joy, Yuvraj roaring into the night after vanquishing Australia, Zaheer yelling, “Come on!” after breaking up a partnership with smarts rather than speed , Dhoni’s calm smile after hitting Kulasekara for a world cup winning six. These images will live with me forever.

This Indian team, these men in blue, looked to the accomplishments of Sachin Tendulkar to motivate them, to see pressure in the eye and use that as a catalyst for greatness. This Indian team has conspired to win the cricket world cup, to provide Sachin a joy that had eluded him for far too long. But when you look past the trophy, you realize that they’ve shown the little master that they can win without him. And that to Sachin should be the greatest gift of them all.

Theater at Its Finest

2011-03-25T06:49:00.003-07:00

Packed into the West Pavilion stand with throngs of people seated on red plastic chairs and tons of others filling up the aisle, I saw theater at its finest. There were 22 characters on the field trying their best to stay alive on a journey that most remember with pain and anguish. But there were way more in the stands, invested deeply in the actions of these men on the field, who brought to life a tremendous game.

The West Pavilion stand at the Sardar Patel stadium in Motera has little going for it on first glance – it is dark, muggy and cramped. The seats are hard to sit on and, as the guy in front of me found out, are incapable of withstanding heavy set men. All this can be forgiven, or rather forgotten, once the drama on the field starts. ODI cricket does itself no favors with inconsequential bouts (as India-Sri Lanka ties have painstakingly proved) but this time, oh boy this time, we finally had a game that mattered.

Clearly, we could not afford to lose. Losing would mean that the greatest one day cricketer would leave without the format’s ultimate prize. We could not lose. This is for Sachin. This is for India. In that order. Imagine 50,000 people in the stadium channeling that energy, imagine all your personal demons popping up simultaneously, imagine a team in yellow that’s been there and done that. Imagine. How did the men in blue not crack?

I would like to think that we in the crowd helped. We sang the national anthem with a pride that made ‘Jaya he!’ reverberate all around Motera’s concrete cauldron of heat. Uncles forced to lead dignified, routine lives on the outside bent their backs and swiveled their hips to the DJ’s tracks, cheering and pumping up the more self-conscious sections. The gyrating uncles did not give up even when smacked with cups and signs by those whose views they were blocking with their moves. Dot balls were cheered like they were wickets and wickets like they were match winning boundaries. The Aussies’ DRS review against Sehwag with the DJ playing pounding heart beat sounds in the background was intense. The consensus from the crowd being “Out! Not out! Edged! It swung! Cheaters!” only to end in hugs of joy when the screen screamed what we wanted to see.

I need you to imagine the pressure once more. This time add a ‘special person’ to the mix, maybe a little master, a cherubic genius who you’re trying to win this game for. Now add a left arm fast bowler who you cannot read, a set southpaw who has run himself out and a captain who has smacked the ball into the hands of the Aussie captain-in-waiting. Imagine the dust and the heat of Motera – the stifling heat. How does a man not crack under that?

It was the 39th over and a close-up of Yuvraj’s face, tortured by fear, was shown on the big screen. He walked over to Raina before the last ball of that over. I don’t know what they said to each other but the next ball he smacked Tait over point for four.

The crowd that had gone in to silent prayer mode found its voice again when the uppish cut from Yuvraj’s blade beat the third man fielder. Chants of “Ganpati Bappa Moriya!” slowly increased in volume, interspersed with shouts of “LOSER!” whenever the Aussies gave lip to the batsmen. The gap between the runs required and the balls left grew and Raina put the minds of the fans and Yuvraj at ease when he welcomed Brett Lee back with a muscled loft over long-on. Lee, the top of his right eye bandaged, watched the ball disappear into the crowd. This was not subtle theater – the symbolism and the clubbed hits drove the message home. The Aussies, prone to being invincible, had been defeated.

A searing cover drive for four. Yuvraj, on his knees, roaring into the night.

Imagine.

b.i. 42

2011-03-09T23:19:00.001-08:00

“I wear nothing white, not one white thing.”

This is a clip from John Krasinski’s film adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. I love his take on this interview, depicting it as a conversation of sorts between dad and son.

The Magic of The Oscars

2011-02-27T13:08:00.001-08:00

When I was studying in Chennai, I could barely watch all of the opening Oscar monologue by the time I had to leave for school. I remember eating breakfast in front of the TV, watching the celebrities walk the red carpet talking down their chances of winning while congratulating their fellow nominees on their “tremendous” performances. Anything to help cushion the blow.

One of the best parts of the show for me is the opening monologue, Billy Crystal being my favorite host - “I first hosted the show 13 years ago (1991). You know how different it was? Bush was president, the economy was tanking and we had just finished a war with Iraq.” Steve Martin wasn’t too shabby either in 2001 – “Hosting the Oscars is like making love to a beautiful woman. It's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.”

Roberto Benigni’s much deserved win for Life is Beautiful and his climb-march-leap towards the stage to collect an award that clearly meant the world to him, foreigners emphasizing the importance of their native tongue by adding to their speeches a dash of the language they are most comfortable in (Penelope Cruz for Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona and AR Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire come to mind), actors understanding how relevant their craft is in times of pain (Tom Cruise’s post 9/11 opening monologue: “Should we celebrate the joy and magic that movies bring? Well, dare I say it, more than ever.”) – all standout Oscar moments for me.

Acting is a profession that many aspire to be acquainted with. It takes considerable skill, sacrifice, luck and hard work for an actor to even get a chance to play a role that interests and challenges him/her. But to get that opportunity to have your name called out, to pick up that envelope and statue and thank the people who got you there in front of your heroes – that’s the magic of the Oscars.

Russell Crowe captured the essence of the Oscars best when he said, “For anybody who is on the downside of advantage and relying purely on courage, it's possible.”

Traveling Troubadour

2011-02-26T15:28:00.001-08:00

An excerpt from a really interesting interview with Jason Mraz from the March issue of National Geographic Traveler:

What style of traveler are you? A spontaneous one, with little preparation. I pack light. I don’t feel a need to rush through all the major landmarks. Like, if I go to Paris, I might just take a walk, with no map or tourist site in mind, and end up in a neighborhood coffee shop. I guess I’m a traveler who likes to think he’s not traveling. That’s how I ended up in San Diego. I traveled there and found this great coffee shop that I love to make music in and I ended up staying. I’ve lived there for 12 years now.

Café Tales III

2011-02-23T21:54:00.001-08:00

It was visible only under the glow of the street lamp. The darkness of the night may have denied it sanctuary, but under the glow of the street lamp, it fell with grace. Ethereal at times, sometimes frantic, it revered the spotlight – almost trying to show off before disappearing into the vast abyss of black. Its appearance demanded that the night be unforgivingly cold, a requirement that demanded its fans be fools.

She saw snow for the first time that night.

Café Tales II

2011-02-20T11:21:00.001-08:00

He was a good listener - he laughed at the punch lines, smiled knowingly when you expressed discontent. He seemed to know just enough about anything you spoke to keep a conversation going. You drove the conversation, yes, but you never felt like you were boring him. He knew when to take a sip of coffee so that a silence never felt awkward. You felt good about yourself because he made you feel like you were the expert, like you made sense.

But then you married him. Shit.

Finding Your Voice

2010-12-29T19:50:00.001-08:00

In the book, ‘Bird by Bird’, Anne Lamott writes in a chapter titled ‘Finding Your Voice’, “But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not to go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home.”

It’s a good book to read if you like to write.

A game of cricket

2010-12-05T18:34:00.001-08:00

Rahul walked in at 2 down, the opener walking past him hardly keeping his opinion on the umpire’s LBW decision to himself. He walked in knowing his team was out of the running if they lost and that the only way to shut his opener up was to win this game. He punched gloves with the non-striker who repeated what he (and every other division B cricketer in the US) had heard a million times – “the bowling is shit, call loudly.”

The bowler ran in and he met the ball with the middle of his bat. It rolled towards the cover fielder who congratulated the bowler on a “fantastic” ball. He muted the noise around him and adjusted his helmet. He had middled his first ball - game on.

---

Three wickets had fallen for 15 runs in 4 overs. He was still timing the ball well though and after picking the cover fielder on the first two balls of the 12th over, he unfurled two cut shots that both rammed the ball into the batting cage that stood right behind the boundary line. He cut the ball in the air but he knew he was going to be ok today. His technical fallibility would be offset by the point fielder’s fear of the moving ball.

---

He saw the throw coming in from the long-off fielder and he dove to make his ground. The umpire had a startled look on his face when he saw Rahul pick himself up – he didn’t get why this kid got so intense about a sport played on a field built for soccer, baseball and cricket (in that order) in a country that couldn’t seem to get past the novelty of people dressed in white.

Rahul patted the dirt off of his forearms and asked the umpire, “Balls to go, please?'”.

---

The run rate had crept to 9 an over, there were 13 overs left and Rahul headed over to the new batsman walking in. “Ravi, the bowling is shit, call loudly.”

“You got it captain,” he replied.

---

Rahul had always been an offside player, sometimes at the cost of ignoring the vast patch of grass greeting him on the leg side. The cover drive was his go-to shot and he cut before he defended. The opposition knew this and Rahul saw a 7-2 field, taunting him to use his weakness to pick up the pace. They needed 96 runs in the last 10 overs and the bowler delivered a short ball, slow on pace but rising towards his helmet. He swiveled and hooked - for the first time he understood what cricket commentators meant when they said, “You know it’s a 6 when you hit it.”

“He hit the ball like a tracer bullet” still failed to make sense to him though.

---

He could hear the shouts from the ‘pavilion’ – “bat up! bat up!”. It was only his second 50 but at that moment it hardly registered in his mind. He played the inside out cover drive and sprinted for 2. He got set for the next ball and played another lofted drive to extra cover and picked up another 2.

“All day, boys, all day”, he muttered under his breath.

---

He sat down next to the stumps, tired and cramping. They were 8 runs and 6 balls away from the end. One of the fielders stopped by, “Get up. You’re almost there” and gave him his hand.

Rahul spoke to the non-striker, “8 runs, 6 balls”.

“2 fours or a six and a two? I would rather you hit a 6,” he replied.

Rahul took his guard again. The bowler delivered a quick off cutter that he missed completely. He walked away from the crease.

“8 off 5, boys, pressure’s on them” the keeper shouted. Rahul couldn’t mute them anymore.

Another off cutter, another swing and a miss.

8 off 4.

In the process of trying to win, he had dismissed any other possibility. But now, 8 runs and 4 balls away, all he could see was him missing the next ball.

He looked around and watched the fielders clapping their hands, egging the bowler on. He noticed, almost as an afterthought, no fielder standing at deep square leg or deep mid wicket.

As soon as the ball was released, he walked across to his off stump and flicked the ball way over the mid wicket boundary. He slammed his gloves against his partner’s who said, “Really? I was just joking earlier.”

He whipped the next ball, a full toss on middle, over square leg and it was game over.

“Good game”, he said shaking hands with the opposing captain who just stared blankly as 10 grown men came running towards Rahul.

People walking their dogs around the boundary line saw 11 men in whites hugging each other.

The umpire, though, had finally seen a game of cricket.

Aaron Sorkin – If He Wrote About Cabbage

2010-11-27T00:43:00.003-08:00

“Do you like cabbage?”

”What?”

“Do you like cabbage?”

”Do I like cabbage?”

“Yes.”

“Cabbage, the vegetable?”

“No, Cabbage, the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Cabbage, the vegetable!”

“Do I like cabbage?”

”Yes, do you like cabbage?”

“Yes.”

“Ok.”

West Wing marathon in progress.

Euphoria

2010-11-14T16:10:00.003-08:00

There was a beautiful moment in last night's Euphoria concert in Seattle that made me forget Palash Sen's below par singing that had preceded it. The crowd had been waiting for Maeri long before the band had even gotten on stage and finally Euphoria relented to the calls and slowly began that famous song of theirs. Palash Sen only had to pause for a second and the crowd took over. He moved away from the microphone and just stared in wonder as the crowd sang the opening stanza of the song in perfect sync with the band.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the moment of his career.

Born Standing Up

2010-11-09T22:56:00.001-08:00

“I came up with several schemes for developing material. “I laugh in life,” I though, “so why not observe what it is that makes me laugh?” And if I did spot something that was funny, I decided not to just describe it as happening to someone else, but to translate it into the first person, so it was happening to me. A guy didn’t walk into a bar, I did. I didn’t want it to appear that others were nuts; I wanted it to appear that I was nuts.” – Steve Martin.

I read Shop Girl a couple of months ago and I’m halfway through Born Standing Up. I’ve become quite the fan of Steve Martin, the writer.

Silver lining (man, it’s cloudy here)

2010-10-24T09:48:00.001-07:00

I woke up at 630 AM on a Sunday, drove to a cricket ground somewhere in Renton, got soaked in the rain, almost got hit by a bat flying towards me at the non-strikers end and headed back home after 12 overs had been bowled. The people in charge noticed that conditions might be slightly unfit for cricket.

Two questions that need to be answered after every game of cricket:

a) Did you win? No.

b) Did you get gaaji? Yes.

Good day of cricket.

Art through Experience

2010-09-07T15:53:00.004-07:00

I was chatting with my sister about framing and putting up the following quote by Picasso in my new apartment: "I'm reading the paper; sitting around; I'm chatting; going for walks. But all of this is just perception. I'm actually working. Or rather: something is spinning around in my head and I'm just waiting to grab it and form it". This was a quote I read on the wall of a cafe in Swarovski Crystal World in Innsbruck. It's a quote that resonated with me as soon as I read it. I love it for how simply Picasso expresses that the sights and sounds of everyday life inspire his art.

My sister, on hearing the quote, was reminded by and pointed me to this monologue from Chekhov's 'The Seagull'. I found it to be absolutely brilliant - my favourite line being, "I see a cloud shaped like a grand piano. I think: I must mention somewhere in a story that a cloud went by, shaped like a grand piano."

Café Tales I

2010-08-29T21:25:00.002-07:00

He knows that they can’t hear the music he is listening to. Or does he? He pulls out his earphones. Yes, no one can hear. He plugs them back in. The moment is gone though. Letting the music drive him, that moment is gone. He feels a compulsion to listen to something different. Something conventional, something that will make them accept him. He scoffs, “Them?” Who are these people who need to accept him? Why does he need validation? He gazes at the world around him, the never ending activity and then stares straight at the loneliness he is engulfed in.

He changes the song.

Into the Wild

2010-08-21T23:42:00.003-07:00

"I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing the blind, deaf stone alone with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head."

I parallel parked a Dodge Nitro on Capitol Hill

2010-08-13T15:10:00.001-07:00

I landed in Seattle on Monday to the sight of gloomy skies and a Dodge Nitro rental car. The former cleared up soon but the latter, well, continues to annoy. I’m temporarily staying in an apartment in Redmond – a city that wakes up to the sound of crying desi babies.

It’s quite painful sitting in an apartment in Redmond alone. So I went over to the nearby Half Price Books and bought ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ for a couple of dollars and headed to a coffee shop nearby called Victor’s Coffee Co. Really good cappuccino and a really cute barista.

Apartment hunting is a pain. That’s why I had stayed in the same dump of an apartment for the past 3 years in Austin. I had lived in Redmond last summer and 3 months was long enough for me to realize that it was not the city for me. So I focused all my energy on finding an apartment in Seattle.

Seattle has tons of neighborhoods and each neighborhood has its own character. And most of these neighborhoods sound very appealing. Living next to Lake Washington vs. living next to Alki Beach vs. living near the night life (Belltown) vs. living on Capitol Hill. Oh and finding an apartment that wouldn’t drive a hole through my wallet. After talking to leasing managers, looking at floor plans and driving through each of these areas, I came to the conclusion that I should just live close to work and drive to each of these awesome neighborhoods when bored.

So I chose this place in Bellevue called Elements that looks pretty cool. One side of the apartment has only floor-to-ceiling windows and so it’s going to be awesome on a sunny day.

Oh and in case you skipped reading the title of this post, I parallel parked a Dodge Nitro in Capitol Hill. If you have not been to Capitol Hill or never driven a Dodge Nitro, you might fail to recognize the magnitude of this achievement. So take my word for it, it was pretty awesome.

Where else would I want to be at this moment?

2010-07-25T11:28:00.007-07:00

I used to tell people, when they asked me what my goal in life was, that I wanted to travel. I would say that the money I would make at work would be used to fund my travels.

I went on a trip across Western Europe last month with a friend who was by the end of the trip my elder brother. We had a ritualistic fist bump that was initiated by him saying 'Love ya, man' and then completed by us saying 'platonic' in unison. We walked around the most beautiful cities in the world, frequently stopping to take pictures, to drink coffee in streetside cafes, to listen to street musicians and to remind ourselves that we were in f***ing Europe. Lying down under the shade of a tree, looking up at the Eiffel Tower, I wondered 'where else would I want to be at this moment?'

I stood under the Staubacch falls (in Lauterbrunnen) and I mean literally under the Staubacch falls. I had to jump a fence and walk up a slippery slope of grass and rock, but I walked up to the bottom of the Staubacch falls, a natural beauty that a mesmerized Goethe wrote about. I looked up to see the source of the falls and at that moment I felt a joy that I've never felt before and I doubt I ever will. It was me, nature and soon my ipod. Aaromale has never sounded better, nor has it ever inspired me more. It was the best shower of my life.

Walking through the dark and narrow alleys of Barcelona, I was stopped in my tracks by a blue football rolling towards me. Soon a kid showed up, a kid who clearly had no time for romanticism. He wanted his blue ball back and I passed it to him. He kicked the ball towards his mates who cheered loudly, looked me at me with a big smile and then ran back to re-join the game.

We were trying to avoid the rain as we were walking through Venice's main square. We took shelter next to a restaurant which had hired a band to entertain its paying guests and by design its non-paying spectators that were increasing in number due to the rain. A group of university students walking by knew the song the band was playing and they started to sing along as they were walking past the restaurant. Soon a man from the crowd pulled out a woman from the group and swung her around to the tune of the music and swung her back into the crowd as the group and the band concluded the song with a wave of energy that brought out smiles, laughter and a burst of applause.

What is my goal in life? I've revised my answer. Actually no, I'm revising the question. What is one of my goals in life? One of them is to travel - to walk around the streets of foreign cities with my camera in hand and absolutely zero expectations in my mind. The rest of my goals, well, I haven't figured them out yet. Maybe it'll come to me when I'm sitting at the edge of Trolltunga in Norway. Maybe it won't.
It won't matter though when I've made it to the top there, listening to Aaromale.

Photo Courtesy

Thoughts on Madrasapattinam

2010-07-15T04:52:00.004-07:00

I wasn’t the only person in the theater who felt that this movie was a cross between Titanic and Lagaan. As my friend commented, Arya looked like a Tamilian Bhuvan. At close to 3 hours long, this movie overstayed its welcome by a good hour. At least Lagaan had Cricket. The movie switches between the present and the 1940s with the present being a big drag mostly due to the wooden acting of the grandmom and her granddaughter.

One aspect that stood out for me right from the opening scene was the director having the courage to not dumb down the movie for his audience. I say this in reference to the free usage of English by the British characters in the movie (there are subtitles in Tamil for the portions with English dialogues). The Tamil that the Britishers speak at times is so realistic that it’s hard to understand what they are even saying.

I find it incredible that the lead actress Amy Jackson, a 19 year old beauty pageant winner from Liverpool, was able to infuse so much confidence into her role. Incredible because it’s her first movie and it’s set in a city, language and time period so alien to her. GV Prakash’s music and the way it’s presented on screen (for the most part) is probably the movie’s biggest strength. Vaama Duraiyamma felt like GV’s and lyricist N. Muthukumar’s 1940s take of the awesome ARR and Vairamuthu collaboration Madrasa Suthi Paaka Poraen.

Director Vijay’s visualization of the Chennai of 60 years ago is why I would recommend this film to any Chennai resident. As a guy sitting behind me announced at the end of the movie, “Dei Chennai appove nalla irundhidu da!”

Au revoir!

2010-06-01T08:58:00.001-07:00

I bought an ‘Afternoon in Paris’ poster two years ago and stuck it above my bed to constantly remind me. Not because I thought I I would forget about it but because I knew I would get lazy.

Well guess what, it worked.

London, Paris, Beaujolis Wine Region, Barcelona, French Riviera, Florence, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Munich, Austrian Tyrol, Swiss Alps, Rhine Valley & Amsterdam.

June 1st – June 29th.

EURO TRIP!!

In my 8th semester, I

2010-05-29T15:11:00.002-07:00

1. took part in a foam sword fight on one of the busiest intersections on campus. It was right before my final class and final midterm, but at that point I didn’t really care.

2. saw Tiesto live in concert. I got to the venue a bit too early though and by the time the opening DJ’s had done their thing and Tiesto came up, my feet were killing me. Hence, not as awesome a concert as I expected it to be.

3. saw John Mayer live in concert with Michael Franti & Spearhead opening for him. It was a Battle Studies tour but he did perform some of his best from other albums – Gravity, Waiting On The World To Change (and Neon, of course). He didn’t cover Free Fallin but he did almost make up for it by covering Don’t Stop Believing.

4. spring break’d in Ft. Lauderdale & Miami. Also got into one of Miami’s premier clubs. I would say it was due to my charm and charisma, but modesty is one of my finer traits.

5. was stalked by the Duck Tour in Austin and Miami. No, really.

6. saw She & Him live in concert. More importantly, that meant I saw Zooey Deschanel live in concert :D

7. completed my 8th and last season for the Longhorn Cricket Club. Personal highlights this season were a 50 and a 5 wicket haul.

8. saw the world’s first ever photograph and the Gutenberg Bible at the Harry Ransom Center.

9. registered for a weight training class and stuck with it. As a result, I went to the gym more times than the previous 7 semesters combined.

10. wrote two short stories – Alliance and 31 Minutes to 1.

11. finally won the 4 on 4 Gully Cricket tournament. It’s a tournament that happens every semester with 4 players per team and 4 overs a side. The 4dulkars (that’s what we call ourselves) have always come close, but this time, finally, after 7 semesters of not playing to potential, we won. It was, as I’m often inclined to say, awesome.

12. ensured that my performances in the 5 on 5 cricket tournament, however, kept with tradition. I scored 0 off 11 balls in a 5 over game last semester. This time I got run out for 0 in both games without facing a single ball. If ever there was a batting fail…

13. went to two Alamo Drafthouse Weird Wednesdays. Every Wednesday, they showcase a really bad film and it’s only a $1 entry. Fardeen Khan should consider screening his movies here, would definitely get a bigger audience.

14. convinced my friend that FailBlog had put up an embarrassing video of him. The attention to detail, if I may so myself, was splendid. I love April Fools Day.

15. graduated :)

Other awesome reads:
In my seventh semester, I
In my sixth semester, I
In my fifth semester, I
In my fourth semester, I
Things I did in my third semester
Things I did in my second semester
Things I did in my first semester

Granada

2010-05-15T10:13:00.002-07:00

Vicky Cristina Barcelona has such a great soundtrack to complement the amazing visuals of Barcelona and Oviedo. This is one of my favourite scenes from the movie:

Wine, followed by beautiful Spanish guitar late in the night. Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) is a genius.

Leg stump, please.

2010-05-01T17:28:00.001-07:00

Waking up to the alarm ringing at 7am.

The Starbucks Mocha Frappucino before the start of the game because in some delusional part of my brain I think that’s good enough to suppress my hunger for 60 overs.

The futile announcement of “Let’s warm-up!” right after we reach the ground. No one ever warms up. I’m an eternal optimist.

The encouraging shouts to the opening bowler. Actually shouts dissing the opening batsmen. Same difference.

The sign from the captain to get ready to bowl. It’s a universally understood sign, that.

The long hop to start the spell off with. A half tracker begging to be smacked into the trees. That’s why I never bowl without a deep mid-wicket.

The right fist punching the left palm. My sign to the keeper to get ready for the quicker one.

The constant reminders to myself to not get distracted by the cover fielder’s horrible sledging (“He couldn’t touch the ball there!” Of course, I couldn’t. It was a wide. Idiot.)

The unnecessary flinging away of the helmet and gloves after giving away my wicket.

The team lunches after we lose a game.

The team lunches after we win a game.

All of these I’m gonna miss. At 3pm tomorrow, when I’m done playing my last game for the Longhorn Cricket Club.

What a birthday gift!

2010-04-10T10:22:00.001-07:00

My dad got to meet Kamal Hassan today for his birthday thanks to my mom. He got to meet, take pictures with and talk to the greatest Indian actor ever! He so deserved this birthday gift (he’s a HUGE Kamal fan) and my mom is beyond awesome for making it happen.

Downside, however, is that a greeting card signed by a non-famous person (e.g. me) won’t cut it in this family anymore.

P.S: My latest short story: 31 Minutes to 1

Addicted

2010-04-05T17:44:00.002-07:00

5 times a day, 7 days a week.

Ey, what is this guy?

2010-03-28T20:59:00.001-07:00

A couple of days ago, I somehow landed on a Walk the Talk interview with Kris Srikkanth while wasting time on Youtube. I’m not a fan of Walk the Talk because of the show’s annoying host, Shekhar Gupta. In an interview with Kajol, he kept talking about how he was in love with her mother and how he found her sexy. Weirdo. Anyway, the fact that I was watching Shekhar Gupta interviewing Kris Srikkanth highlights how much I had exhausted all my online TV watching options. To my surprise, however, watching the interview wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Gupta asks Srikkanth in the interview what his reasoning was behind his aggressive batting style. I guess it’s something a lot of Indian cricket fans would have wondered during Srikkanth’s days as an opener. Like the man himself admits, “They must have though ‘Ey, what is this guy? Who is this guy?’”

In short, this is basically what Srikkanth says about his batting methods: I would defend if the ball was swinging in. If the ball was swinging away from me, I would go for a lofted shot. I had confidence in my ability to at least clear the mid-off fielder and if I did end up edging the ball, the pace of the bowler would be quick enough to take it over the slip cordon.

This made a lot of sense and so I decided to try it out in the league game that I played earlier today. And it worked brilliantly. It’s amazing how he built his career around such a simple concept.

Slings & Arrows

2010-03-26T00:04:00.003-07:00

I watched the first two seasons of Slings & Arrows over my winter break and I fell in love with the show. The clip below, I believe, showcases one of the best pieces of acting television has ever seen.

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya

2010-03-21T22:42:00.001-07:00

It’s been 20 minutes since I finished watching Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya and I’ve been sitting in the same position ever since taking in the brilliance of the movie. And the character of Jessie.

It took guts, sir. Gautam Menon, thank you.

A bicycle for two

2010-03-20T23:08:00.006-07:00

It was way too cold. And windy. There were two acts that I listened to half heartedly. They were good, no doubt, but I wasn’t there for them. VJ and I inched closer and closer to the stage, height not being on our side. The band serving as the final act for the day was taking its own time getting to the stage but we had a good feeling the wait was going to be worth it.

When Zooey Deschanel finally showed up wearing a red hat, we knew were right. The wait was worth it.

My last semester just keeps getting better and better.

P.S: If you haven't heard She & Him before:

Curling, you just got beat.

2010-03-13T17:18:00.001-08:00

The other day I picked up The Daily Texan to read what they had to say about Scott & Muneezeh winning the Student Government elections. I’m on a roll, btw, when it comes to voting in elections – first Obama and now Scott & Muneezeh. Anyway, while I was scanning the article, I noticed a more interesting article right below it. It was about how there was now an official quidditch league at the university called Texas Quidditch.

The first thing that struck me as kinda impossible to recreate was a snitch. How were these students going to get a flying ball? The article says, “most importantly, the seeker is responsible for catching the snitch — a flag attached to the backside of a neutral-party runner.” ROFLMAO. No, really, ROFLMAO.

The article, which really was ‘The Onion’ worthy, then focused on how bludgers and beaters would work in this setting. “Once a player is hit, he or she has to drop the broom and any ball in possession and run around the hoops three times” They then sit on a swivel chair and are then spun around for a minute and pushed back on to the field of play.

Ok, I made that last part up.

I really shouldn’t mock Texas Quidditch, though. They might finally provide the much needed stimulus that the flying broomstick researchers so desperately needed.

Shaken, not stirred

2010-03-06T10:57:00.001-08:00

I’m not known in any circles for being debonair (might have something to do with me not being mallu). Yesterday, there was a charity event to collect donations to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. The event’s Facebook page clearly stated the importance of wearing formal attire and that set off alarm signals in my head for a couple of reasons:

1. I do not possess a suit.

2. I do not know how to tie a tie.

In my 3 and a half years at college, I’ve learnt to survive on Michelina’s Budget Gourmet Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese which I feel is a far greater accomplishment then learning how to tie a tie. So I’m not embarrassed – my troubles might actually inspire the velcro tie industry (if it doesn’t exist already).

I luckily had a blazer to kinda make up for the lack of a suit. Taking care of the tie situation required a little more creativity. I had bought a men’s scarf at Gap last year, much to my friends’ amusement. I knew it would come in use some day, and yesterday was that day. Here is John Krasinksi trying to look like me:

Damn, Emily Blunt just stopped my train of thought.

Ok, I’m back. Getting back to last night, the event was at the Hilton in downtown Austin (that’s right) and it was a stark contrast to how my Friday evenings are usually spent – eating Mirch Masala’s dum aloo with Kawan’s ready made chappathis. Oh, and a glass of Minute Maid orange juice. (Disclaimer: I do not get paid by these companies for including them in my blog post. My blog’s 5 hits/day view count is considered a deal-breaker.) Since this Friday night was unlike most, I probably should have got myself a martini at the bar, just to keep up the appearance that I was going for. I’m sure it would have panned out like this:

Bartender: What can I get you?
Me: A martini, please.
Random hot girl at the bar: I don’t think I’ve met you before. I’m [random hot girl’s name]. You are?
Me: Shekar, Niyantha Shekar.
Bartender: Shaken or stirred, Mr. Shekar?
Me: You tell me.
Bartender: Shaken, it is.
[random hot girl at the bar swoons due to the awesomeness of it all]

What can I say, I dream big.

P.S: My latest article for Nazar –> http://nazaronline.net/arts/2010/03/alliance/. It’s a short story.

Total Damage

2010-02-03T17:35:00.002-08:00

Me: Amma, I can bench-press 55 pounds now.

Mom: Oh, nice. 55 kgs?

Me: No, 55 pounds.

Mom: Oh. So you can lift a fat baby.

In my seventh semester, I

2010-01-28T22:02:00.001-08:00

1) Saw Nazar finally come out on print. Brilliant moment.

2) Scored 0 off 11 balls in a 4 over taped tennis ball tournament as our team lost in the finals. I should have got the man of the match award, really.

3) Was the third wicket in a first over hat-trick in another tennis ball tournament. Clearly, not the most eventful semester with the bat for me.

4) Had class from 930am to 6pm on Tuesdays without a break. Hence, perfected the art of eating while walking, writing and talking.

5) Watched my first Fardeen Khan movie – Life Partner. I had to apologize to my eyes after the movie. Oh, and interesting fact, Fardeen Khan once got his hair cut while I was getting my hair cut in the neighboring chair. He was such a drama queen.

6) Was the sorting hat for Halloween. It was easy, that’s why.

7) Went to ACL for the first time and saw Thievery Corp, John Legend and Kings of Leon perform live! Also spent an hour and a half in a line to get into the bus back to campus after the show. Still, worth it.

8) Finally drew up the courage to finish my science sequence by taking physics 2. It kicked my ass, as expected.

9) Continued my photo walk tradition. This time I took photos of grass and leaves. It was more interesting that it sounds. Really.

10) Realized that studying in my apartment was impossible and so made JP’s Java my makeshift home for finals week. There’s nothing like buying one coffee and then occupying a chair in the cafe for 5 hours.

11) Took the best class I’ve ever taken in college - World Literature taught by Dr. Elizabeth Richmond-Garza. I was forced to read some of the greatest works ever written – Faust, Medea, Hamlet, Les Fleurs du mal, Inferno and many others. It was too cool.

12) Went with a friend to clarify a couple of doubts with a professor before our exam. Had to sit for 45 minutes listening to the professor ramble on about his years in the industry. After a while I gave up the act of listening and pretending to laugh at his ‘jokes’, and started playing with my pen. Blade took on a new meaning that day.

Other awesome reads:
In my sixth semester, I
In my fifth semester, I
In my fourth semester, I
Things I did in my third semester
Things I did in my second semester
Things I did in my first semester

One semester to go!

Good bye Chennai, see ya in May

2010-01-16T06:48:00.001-08:00

My month long winter break in Chennai unfortunately comes to an end tonight. It sucks to head back to college, it’s been my best winter break till date.

I got to celebrate, for the first time, New Year’s eve with my two best friends, drinking pepsi on a terrace watching fireworks and listening to Vijay fans from another terrace playing Vettaikaran songs. There was also some trouble getting off the terrace, but, then compared to listening to Vijay songs, that wasn’t all that bad.

I got to watch the Chennai Open semis and finals. The last time I saw tennis here, it was called the GoldFlake Open and Carlos Moya could still win a game or two. My message for Charu Sharma, ‘Charu, where are you?’, however, did not make it to the big screen TV. Quite unfortunate.

But most importantly, I got to spend time with the parents and sister after what’s been a very long and tiring year.

And I got tickets (and badass 3d glasses) to watch Avatar!

So good bye Chennai, I shall see ya in May. I shall come back a graduate, a young man who can no longer use college as the reason for why he can’t cook anything edible.

Life of the Vetti

2009-12-30T09:29:00.001-08:00

I went on a trip to Rameswaram with the family and it involved wearing a veshti, getting teary eyed due to homam smoke, visiting temples aplenty and having water from 22 different wells dumped on my camera and I (while still wearing the aforementioned veshti). I am not a religious person, and I do not care much for temples. Also, I did not possess enough of a curve in the stomach area to hold up the veshti that I was given. Needless to say, I won’t be hurrying back to Rameswaram on a temple visiting spree. The natural beauty of the place was quite wonderful, though, and Dhanush Kodi was a sight to behold. However, the water at Dhanush Kodi was flowing at a good speed and it uruvified my veshti, but I guess, all’s well that ends well.

The highlight of the trip was the chance to really hang out with my family. Ever since I started college, I meet my parents and sister for only 3ish weeks each year and that’s hardly enough time. Half the time goes in my parents berating me for wearing jeans that perform the extra task of sweeping the floor. In my defense, I assumed I would grow into them. My genes let me down.

When one is vetti, one gets hungry. My biggest problem with college is the horrible food. After months of eating out, I had lost the desire to eat. The situation was so bad that I momentarily even considered cooking as an option. Luckily, the winter holidays happened and I’m making up for the past year by gorging on paruppu saadam and rasam saadam for lunch and dinner and dosas and idlis for breakfast. Batchanam satisfies the brunch and linner (yes, I plan to popularize the linner concept) requirements, especially when aided by filter coffee.

So yes, the last two weeks have been beautiful – I doubt the future will be kind enough to give me this much time to do nothing of use. In celebration of being vetti, my plan for New Years eve is to oor suthify with friends, and hopefully score some tickets for either 3 idiots or Avatar. The latter is going to be close to impossible thanks to a lot of people also being vetti at this time. In times of impending disappointment such as this, I recall the wise words of Appu Soppu, my most illustrious third standard classmate - “What to do, The sky is blue”.

His brilliance lay in his succinct observations of the complex ways of the world.

23 Days of Winter

2009-12-23T21:37:00.001-08:00

I’ve been in Chennai since the 18th of December thanks to my winter break and one of my aims has been to do nothing that could be considered productive. I feel I deserve the opportunity to laze away after a semester of Physics 303L. In order to quickly unlearn all the physics I’ve learned, I watched Vijay’s Vettaikaaran the other day. The only highlight, really, of the experience was when my friend offered me some of his chocolate brownie.

Moving on to current issues, a couple of hours ago, my dad saw me sitting around updating my iTunes library and must have realized that I was being a waste of space. So he asked me to come up with a list of things I intended to accomplish while on break from college. It seems very counter-intuitive, this whole doing stuff while on holiday, but I shall give it a go since I clearly have nothing better to do than to fill out artist names for my music collection.

So this winter break, I intend to:

1. Practice playing the guitar – I used college as an excuse to explain why the repertoire of songs I could play on the guitar was terribly limited. Now that my only physical activity involves moving food from the plate to the mouth, I might as well learn how to play a few more songs on the guitar. From what I hear, the guitar, if played well, can be used to woo the opposite sex. So, really, nothing to lose.

2. Plan my Euro-trip – I want to go on a backpacking trip across Europe in the summer and that involves a certain amount of planning. I wrote down the list of cities I want to visit and clearly 28 cities in 31 days might be a stretch. It’s hard to decide which cities to cut, but one city I want to visit for sure is Barcelona. Sure Vicky Cristina Barcelona was only a movie, but I’m certain that I’m destined to run into Penelope Cruz there. I wouldn’t want to disappoint her by visiting Madrid, instead.

3. Immerse myself in the Madras Music Season – It would be a shame to miss out on the tons of awesome concerts happening this time of the year. There are so many brilliant musicians playing that I can’t decide who I want to see. Last year when I went for a Mandolin Srinivas concert, all the tickets were sold out. To my surprise, you could sit on the stage next to the musician by paying an insanely small amount (I think Rs. 20) and so I got to listen to Mandolin Srinivas and his brother Rajesh from the best seat in the house. It is however essential to note that everyone in the crowd can also see you and so picking your nose is a big no-no.

4. Finish reading at least one book – My parents and my sister finish the books that they read, and they read quite a bit. This has led to quite a collection at home and I’ve started reading 4 different books. History, however, dictates I won’t finish any of them. I made a promising start and was halfway through Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ only to be tempted by Craig Ferguson’s ‘American on Purpose’. Plus there is Dan Brown’s formulaic ‘The Lost Symbol’ that I started reading a couple of days ago over lunch and an anthology of PGW’s Psmith stories that kept me entertained while Lufthansa was trying their best to make sure I had as little leg room as possible.

I’ve got a few hours before Neo Cricket’s pointless game day analysis begins, and I think I’ll try to finish Lahiri’s book by then. Fingers crossed.

What?

2009-12-10T20:34:00.001-08:00

I’m studying right now for my English final tomorrow morning and one of my readings is from Chuang Tzu written by Chuang Chou. In it, there is a quote that goes like this:

“There is a beginning. There is not yet beginning to be a beginning. There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be a beginning. There is being. There is non being.”

And my room-mates are back, done with their finals and done for the semester.

Life can be cruel.

Mafia

2009-12-06T12:46:00.001-08:00

“I heard his shirt moving. He’s the mafia, he was pointing at the person he wanted to kill”.

“Why would I move? I didn’t move”.

“Man, I could sense your shirt moving, man. Mafia.”

“Dude, how can you sense someone’s shirt moving? I’m not the mafia.”

“Any other nominations for Mafia… no, okay, so who votes to remove Niyantha? Alright, majority. Niyantha is out, and he was the mafia”.

“Ok fine, I did move. But it was only because I didn’t want to kill SD and he wanted to. So I moved my hands around to tell him to kill someone else.”

“Wait, tell who?”

“Him.”
----

The laughter that ensued was over the top, IMO.

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-28T02:39:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving has never been the most joyous of occasions for me. Last year I sat at home, in Austin, reading up on network protocols and differential equations in order to tackle the multitude of exams that were to take place the following week. This year I’m sitting at home, in Austin, reading up on optics and probability to tackle the multitude of exams that will be taking place in the following week. A sad pattern, indeed. However, in a departure from last year’s celebration, this time a cheese pizza from 7/11 served as the main course. A pleasant change compared to the frozen tortillas and cheese that my friend and I made use of to appease our hunger this time last year.

The break hasn’t been all that bad though. I was invited over by a friend for dinner that easily made up for the 7/11 cuisine I had indulged in for lunch, I watched Alaipayuthey again only to wonder (again) if this would work in real life, and Texas beat A&M in its march towards the inevitable national championship. The roads are empty which definitely makes driving a lot more fun and the absence of college students means that I can walk through West Campus without the fear of being hit by beer bottles thrown from the roof-tops.

But clearly, the best thing about this break is the fact that the crazy dog that keeps barking at me has left town with its owner for Thanksgiving. Being able to walk out of the apartment without having to fear for my limbs, now that’s something to be thankful for.

National Treasure

2009-11-14T23:15:00.001-08:00

Originally published on Nazar.

I envy Sachin Tendulkar's team-mates; even more so, his fellow batsmen. If there is one thing I desire more than anything else, it is to be on the opposite end of the pitch when Sachin is batting. To see the front foot drives from up close, the measured flicks, the drilled sweeps, and the upper cuts over the slip cordon that would be considered audacious if played by anyone else. To listen to his take on the sport, for he cannot be wrong. To understand how he makes it look all so simple. Oh, the simplicity, isn't that the beauty of his game?

I remember the first cricket match I ever saw. It was the 1996 Cricket World Cup, and as fate would have it, the first cricketer I ever saw was Sachin Tendulkar. India was playing Kenya and this diminutive man, all of 22 years, scored 127 effortless runs. I fell in love with the game that day. Another vivid memory is watching him live at the stadium in Chennai as India took on Pakistan in 1997. Saeed Anwar, Pakistan's prolific opener, tried his best to quieten the crowd by scoring 194, but all that mattered to me and the numerous other Sachin fans that day was that our man took his wicket. We asked a lot from him, and he rarely let us down. And in the cases when he did, we were in unanimous agreement that it was the umpire's fault. How could the blind fool think that Sachin would knick a ball? Blasphemy.

I don't think it's possible to write an apt tribute to Sachin Tendulkar, for words surely can't be enough. He's been the darling of the Indian masses for years now, and that's saying a lot considering how fickle we cricket fans are. I used to learn in school, while growing up in Chennai, about unity in diversity - the need to bring the people of a diverse nation like India together. The solution was simple, really. Sachin Tendulkar only had to hit a straight drive for four and you would give a bear hug to the person next to you - screw his religion, caste, whatever. The cherubic genius let his bat do all the talking and in that, he taught us the most important lesson - shut up and let your actions speak for you.

He may be 36 now (yes, I refuse to accept that fact too) but he's still going strong. I hardly heard a word of what my English professor was saying about Pushkin a week ago, as I furiously refreshed Cricinfo every two seconds to see if Tendulkar could pull off another miracle. His 175 was in a losing effort, but the game was made richer just by his presence.

For twenty years now, he's worn the Indian colors with the greatest pride. For twenty years now, he's taken it up on himself to lead from the front. And even after twenty years of bearing the burden of his nation's hopes, he plays with the same childlike enthusiasm he displayed as a 16 year old prodigy.

That, to me, is his greatest achievement.

A Knock For The Ages

2009-11-05T22:35:00.004-08:00

A nudge here,a nudge there

Would have gotten us nowhere

351 we needed to chase

And only 300 to face

He walked out with the marauder from Najafgarh

And played second fiddle

Singles and doubles would do just fine

While Sehwag was clearing the line

The crowd chanted his name

They wanted 17k, screw the game

A flick off the hips for run #7

God had taken a break from heaven

The wickets soon started to fall

A big target left to overhaul

He picked up the pace

To put the scowl back on Ponting's face

Nathan Hauritz came in and tossed a few

And that was his cue

To dance down the track

And give the ball a royal thwack

Up went the bat and the helmet

Ton #45, against him who would bet?

The master was turning back the clock

Not yet over was this knock

He swept the ball fine

No fielder could shout 'Mine!'

Victory was in sight

The game was ours, right?

In came McKay and bowled a slower one

Hauritz caught it, the genius was outdone

One by one, everyone fell

The clock had been turned back, you could tell

We fell 3 runs short

And the Aussies we couldn't thwart

It turned out to be the matter of one wicket

Of the guy who's the reason we love our Cricket.

Image Courtesy: Cricinfo

In and Out

2009-10-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

Originally published on Nazar.

Rahul Dravid was dropped from India’s One Day International (ODI) cricket team in 2007. He must have always felt that he was good enough to don the Indian blues again, and that’s how champion players think, but even he would not have realistically thought that the selectors would recall him. India won the World T20 Championship in 2008 and the initial successes of Indian cricket’s newer players, such as Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan and Rohit Sharma, suggested that the door was effectively shut on the old-timers like Dravid. Or so we, and probably Dravid too, thought.

Indian cricket’s perennial fallibility against short pitched bowling came to the fore in the 2009 edition of the World T20 Championship, and in the tour to the West Indies following that. Rohit Sharma flopped, Raina looked awkward against a rising ball and the Indian middle order seemed to depend too much on their captain, MS Dhoni, to bail them out. The selectors, headed by Kris Srikkhant, had to address this and quite surprisingly, the person they turned to was Dravid. It was surprising because it went completely against the selectors’ policy of building an Indian team for the future. There was no doubting Dravid’s form - he had stamped his class, amidst the power-hitting players, in the IPL this year. But were the selectors looking at a bigger picture, or was this just a stop gap measure to strengthen a team short on confidence and bereft of an injured Virender Sehwag?

It’s clear now that it was the latter. Rahul Dravid has been dropped from the squad facing Australia later this month, in spite of performing well on his return to the team. He proved to be a calming influence in the batting line-up and did what was expected of him. Now, he finds himself left behind, for no fault of his. Virat Kohli has taken his place. So does this mean that the young brigade of Indian cricketers are now ready to take on world cricket’s best bowlers? What’s changed in the past month? The fact that the selectors aren’t even allowed to explain their reasoning to the public hardly helps. Their thought process comes across as muddled.

Three months ago, Rahul Dravid knew his place in the Indian cricket set-up. His days in the ODI cricket team were behind him and he was focusing on his Test career. Deservedly called back to strengthen the 50 over outfit, he’s now been tossed aside in order to give Kohli a chance. Yes, it is necessary to make tough decisions in sport and building a team for the future involves letting go of the greats who once held the team together. But the selectors have to understand that they are dealing with people here, not just names on a piece of paper. Sportsmen are passionate people and the very best do not give an inch to the opposition. They practice extremely hard to better their game and Dravid is a model of discipline. To toy with a man like that by reviving a dead ODI career and killing it almost immediately for reasons that have little to do with merit is plain wrong - and hurtful.

Rahul Dravid’s not a man of many words. He inspires with his calm and poise, and prefers to let his bat do the talking. He’s not controversial like a Ganguly or worshiped like a Tendulkar. And, unfortunately, that’s why this indignity meted out to Dravid will be forgotten soon.

India, This Past Fortnight (VI)

2009-07-05T20:45:00.001-07:00

Originally published on Nazar on July 5th, 2009.

Mayawati, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, recently unveiled 15 statues in the capital city of Lucknow. The kicker, though, is that two of the statues were of Mayawati. Mayawati provided much-needed rationale for this move, though. She claimed that statues of eminent personalities provide inspiration to societies¹.

On behalf of all other narcissists in the world, we have a winner!

As expected, opposition parties had issues with Mayawati using the state’s money to immortalize herself in stone. According to The Hindu, Akhilesh Yadav, a member of the Samajwadi party, said that he would mourn for the statues of Mayawati since according to Hindu tradition, only statues of dead persons are installed².

Playing the Hindu tradition card is like playing the Joker card in Rummy - it’s whatever you want it to be.

Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh wrote a letter to his party that found its way into the media’s hands. BJP’s general secretary, Vinay Katiyar, questioned Singh about the leakage of his letter to the media. The offended Singh responded that he was not answerable to anybody³.

I agree. Accountability goes against an Indian politician’s moral code.

In 1996, Raj Thackeray, who was then part of the Shiv Sena, had organized a Michael Jackson concert in India. This move received plenty of criticism from political opponents. However, Thackeray did not feel that organizing the concert would be “a political liability”. He explains, “Hitler, for all his faults, did resurrect Germany. Similarly, I look at him (Michael Jackson) as a great dancer, singer and composer who had a social message in his songs^“4.. Thackeray then played down the Holocaust, saying that it helped shape world history.

You believed that last line, didn’t you?

A producer in Bollywood aims to use the alleged rape incident involving actor Shiney Ahuja to publicize his forthcoming movie. The movie is about actors struggling to handle their success in the film industry, and is titled ‘Chamak - The Shyning’⁵.

No, that is not a typo.

In a landmark ruling, the Delhi High Court has legalized gay sex. There are a few Indians, however, who are not overjoyed to hear about this new ruling. Dr. P.V Cherian, from Chennai, said, “I think homosexuality is a sickness affecting men and women^“6.

Brilliant diagnosis there, Doctor.

Rakhi Sawant, the ‘actress’ famous for being loud and annoying, is part of a new reality show where she will find herself a husband from a pool of 16 candidates. When asked about what she expects from a potential husband, she said, “He shouldn’t look at using me as a ladder for his career^“7.

Right, I’m sure it’s your personality that’s attracted these men to the show.

She is, however, confident that she will be able to find the man for her through this show. “Yes. I am sure I will get the right man. I am a self-made individual. I have taken all my decisions myself till now. I have been successful because of my choices in life. Rest, I have left to God”⁸.

When questioned, God said “Hey, leave me out of this”.

To read more ‘India, This Past Fortnight’, click here.

Footnotes:

1 -http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/27/stories/2009062760151600.htm

2 - http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/26/stories/2009062660931200.htm

3 - http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200906200330.htm

4 - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Bollywood/I-was-Jackos-fan-Raj-Thackeray/articleshow/4709158.cms

5 - http://www.samaylive.com/news/soon-a-film-on-ahuja-episode/636867.html

6 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8130737.stm

7 - http://www.screenindia.com/news/the-bride-is-ready/483226/

8 - http://www.samaylive.com/news/i-am-sure-i-will-find-the-right-man/635497.html

Photo Courtesy

RIP MJ

2009-06-25T15:26:00.003-07:00

I was 3 years old when I saw the 'Black or White' music video. It was my first favourite song.

I was 4 years old when I saw his amazing SuperBowl performance. I remember sitting in front of the TV, watching wide eyed as he catapulted on to the stage amidst fireworks.

I was 5 years old when I made my mom buy me an uncomfortable pair of black shoes so that I could imitate his moves.

I was 6 years old when I begged my mom to take me to watch Free Willy. 'Will you be there' was a big reason.

I'm 20 years old, and I'm still a fan.

RIP, Michael Jackson.

In my sixth semester, I

2009-06-15T23:15:00.004-07:00

1) Went for a Jerry Seinfeld stand-up that took place at my college. I bought my ticket late which meant that I had to sit five rows behind my friends in the top most gallery of the auditorium. But it was Seinfeld on stage, and even though I could only see his bald spot from where I was sitting, it was Seinfeld on stage!

2) Drove down the Pacific Coast Highway. Best drive, yet.

3) Scored my first ever 6 in any kind of professional Cricket game. The ball was short, I swiveled and pulled the ball over deep square leg. It's true - you know it's a 6 when you hit it.

4) Went on my first photo walk. One of those rare Friday afternoons when the weather was just perfect and there was no programming to do.

5) Walked 22 blocks at 2 in the morning. That night also involved watching a friend do 'The Stanky Leg' in front of The Texas Capitol. Good fun.

6) Started writing a fortnightly humour column for Nazar called 'India, This Past Fortnight'. Pramod Muthalik and men of his ilk made my job very easy.

7) Sang a song in Spanish in front of my Spanish class. It was set to the tune of 'You Found Me' by The Fray and it was dedicated to my profe, Carlos.

8) Played Carrom after ages and realized soon enough that smack talk works only if you've still got enough game to pocket a few. Blaming the poor quality of the Johnson's Baby Powder, however, is still a good plan B.

9) Finally threw out the futon that I had been using as my bed for the past two years. I found an un-used cell phone, plenty of Crocin and leaves underneath my bed. A good day, overall.

10) Got my very own helium balloon for the first time. I had seen other kids play with helium balloons when I was young, but I finally got my own at the age of 20. It made up for the loss on the Cricket field that day.

11) Spent too much money at Starbucks. Their latte works wonders and the coffee cake is just brilliant. I wonder if my favourite 'Tall Mocha Frappucino - double blended' will one day have the same ring to it as a 'Martini - shaken, not stirred'.

12) Made a Turing award winner wait in line behind me as I washed my hands. There's a sudden thrill when you look up at the mirror and see a Turing award winner standing behind you.

13) Finally had to get glasses. I realized my eye sight was no longer God-like when I was the only person in class who thought that the professor wrote funny.

14) Wrote a song about The Hoa Hoa lady. Hoa Hoa is a restaurant on campus and the pretty lady behind the counter usually never smiles at me or my friend when we order. Yes, we were just as baffled as you are right now. But on one beautiful, wonderful day - a day when birds were chirping and babies were laughing - she smiled at me as I ordered my Green Bean Tofu. And, thus was born 'Oh She Smiled' *

15) Thought it would be a good idea to gift my friend a pair of pink underwear with Muthalik's name on it for her birthday. Standing in line to pay for a pair of pink underwear in the women's section, however, can be a tad awkward. Just a tad.

Other awesome reads:
In my fifth semester, I
In my fourth semester, I
Things I did in my third semester
Things I did in my second semester
Things I did in my first semester

*Might need to be my facebook friend to see the video.

Not too short, please?

2009-06-07T11:58:00.005-07:00

"Hmmm, so I kinda want my hair to look just like it's looking now. But neater, like a trim?"

"So I use number 3?"

"No, use scissors. But you know, keep it long but not as long as it is now. Shorter on the sides but not so much on the top."

"...Eh"

"You know, let it be the same way it is now. Just shorter. But not too much, please."

(after 5 seconds of silence)"Where are your parents?"

"In India..."

"Ohhh... So you're on your own here? "

"Yea."

"How old are you?"

"20"

"Noooo.... You are 20?"

"Yes, I am 20. So, when you cut my hair please make sure it's not short?"

"Noooo, you're not 20.You look like you're 14, haha"

Once again, haircut FAIL.

India, This Past Fortnight (V)

2009-04-21T12:20:00.003-07:00

Originally published on Nazar on April 20, 2009. And here's a link to another article called 'The Great Indian Soap Opera Generator' that I wrote with a friend for Nazar.

I believe that it has now become necessary for Universities around the world to have a ‘Shoe Throwing 101′ class for Journalism majors. Recently, a reporter called Jarnail Singh threw his shoe at Indian Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, only to miss his intended target. While reading an article about this incident on the BBC website¹, I came across this gem: “Correspondents say that the minister is the latest in a prominent line of world leaders who have been subjected to a shoe attack - considered an insult in India.”

Yes, as opposed to England, where throwing a shoe at someone is equivalent to saying “Jolly good!”

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Prime Ministerial Candidate, Mr. L.K. Advani, has challenged the current Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, to a debate ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Dr. Singh had this to say in response, “I am the candidate from the Congress party. Why should I confer the status of an alternative Prime Minister on Advani?”²

So that we can figure out which candidate is bad and which one is worse.

Head of the AIADMK³, Ms. Jayalalitha, when asked about which parties she would align with, said “A good politician never rules out anything”⁴.

And I thought ‘good politician’ was an oxymoron.

Speaking of morons, a self acclaimed ’social worker’ called Anil Nair filed a police complaint against actor Akshay Kumar and his wife Twinkle Khanna following Kumar’s stint at the Lakme Fashion Week. As a part of the act on the ramp, Twinkle Khanna had unbuttoned Kumar’s jeans and Nair felt that this act was obscene and vulgar.⁵

Why are there so many Indian social workers with an inner ‘Muthalik’ in them?

Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi party, while explaining the reason his party had included ‘non-compulsion of English’ in its manifesto, said, “Decades ago, children used to call their mother ‘Amma’, which later changed to just ‘Maa’. However with influence of English increasing in our daily life, today kids prefer calling their mothers as ‘Mum’ or ‘Mom’. What kind of culture we are getting into? It is because of this cultural degeneration that we emphasised not to make English compulsory.”⁶

Thanks for the clarification, Mulayam. Henceforth, I’ll just call you an idiot, in a regional language.

Arjun Singh, a veteran Congress politician, was upset when he found out that his children were denied tickets by the Congress party to contest in the Lok Sabha elections. When he was asked if he was slighted by this move by his party, his response was, “I am not slighted. Slighted is a word that somehow does not appeal to me”⁷.

Slighted doesn’t sound nearly as appealing as nepotism.

Recently, the shooting of a Malayalam movie called ‘Daddy Cool’ was disrupted.⁸

I was disappointed to find out that the movie’s title had nothing to do with it.

To read more ‘India, This Past Fortnight’, click here.

Footnotes:
1 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7987201.stm
2 - http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/14/stories/2009041458040100.htm
3 - AIADMK is a political party in Tamil Nadu
4 - http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/15/stories/2009041556021300.htm
5 - http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainment/view/420384/1/.html
6 - http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/no-ban-on-english-nothing-compulsory-either-mulayam/446713/
7 - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Congress-advises-Arjun-Singh-to-read-Gita/articleshow/4427786.cms
8 - http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/009200904202021.htm

Photo Courtesy: Al Jazeera English, Wikipedia

Mi Familia

2009-04-06T16:06:00.003-07:00

What do you do when you forget to take with you a picture of your family for a Spanish class assignment?

Show off your kindergarten drawing skills.

India, This Past Fortnight (IV)

2009-04-05T17:37:00.003-07:00

Originally published on Nazar (http://NazarOnline.net) on April 5th. Click here to see it on Nazar (it comes with pictures (which I'm too lazy to put here)).

The star of ground-breaking movies such as Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai, Khushi and Chup Chup Ke, Kareena Kapoor, recently said “I’d go on a holiday than do a bad film”¹.

Donations for the ‘Kareena-Please-Go-On-A-Holiday Fund’ are now being collected.

The soon-to-be released economy car, the Tata Nano, has captured the imagination of Indians of all ages. A 96 year old Indian woman, Homi Vyayarwalla, was quoted as saying, “Given my age and weakness, I need a simple vehicle. The car looks easy to drive and comfortable to travel in, which is what people want in my age”².

Well, compared to her first car (pictured below), the Nano must be quite a tempting buy.

The Indian Premier League (IPL), touted to be second in importance only to world peace, has been shifted to South Africa. Indian Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, couldn’t guarantee sufficient security arrangements due to the IPL coinciding with India’s general elections. Arun Jaitley, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has called this development “shameful”³. He also hit out on the Home Minister, saying “Chidambaram has one and half months left in his hand, so he should concentrate more on his job”.

Mr. Jaitley, looking out for the nation’s security is his job.

The general Lok Sabha elections are fast approaching in India, and as a result, this is the season for WTF lines from men and women masquerading as half-baked politicians. Mulayam Singh Yadav, of the Samajwadi Party, was recently incensed when a District Magistrate canceled the gun licenses of many of his party workers. He said in a rally, “I am not saying anything to you Madam DM, because you are a woman. I respect you because you are a woman. Better behave yourself.”⁴

Before you jump to any conclusions, he’s insulting her solely out of the respect he has for her womanhood.

The Election Commission in India, responsible for ensuring fairness in the election process, has disallowed the BJP government in Karnataka from distributing free bicycles to school students. Their reason - “students are not voters”⁵.

Yes, political parties are only allowed to buy the support of those over the age of 18.

It is the time for politicians to bring down their political opponents and BJP senior leader, Venkaiah Naidu, intends to do that in rhyme. He was quoted as saying, “PM presides, madam (Congress President Sonia Gandhi) decides”⁶, and “Congress assurance has no insurance”⁷.

It looks like Navjot Singh Sidhu⁸ has had a lasting impact on the BJP.

There has been a lot of political and public uproar ever since a CD containing a hate speech allegedly made by Varun Gandhi, the BJP candidate from Pilibhit, came to light. Renowned public nuisance and head of the Sri Ram Sena, Pramod Muthalik, has thrown his weight behind Varun Gandhi saying, “He has the guts to speak the truth. Sri Rama Sena would support him. I think every true Hindu would support him”⁹.

Muthalik, shut up.

To read more ‘India, This Past Fortnight’, click here.

Footnotes:
1 - http://movies.indiatimes.com/Features–Events/Features/Quotable-Quotes-of-the-Week/articleshow/msid-4293719,curpg-9.cms
2 - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Vadodara/Nano-enamours-Indias-first-woman-photojournalist/articleshow/4311135.cms
3 - http://cricket.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Shifting-of-IPL-from-India-is-shameful/articleshow/4306638.cms
4 - http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090088612&ch=324200972000PM
5 - http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200903242231.htm
6 - http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090088670
7 - http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/25/stories/2009032561011400.htm
8 - Navjot Singh Sidhu is a former Indian Cricketer and television commentator who ran on a BJP ticket in 2004. He was well known for his word-play, commonly known as ‘Sidhuisms’.
9 - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Varun-had-the-guts-to-speak-the-truth-Muthalik/articleshow/4310204.cms

Test My Research Project

2009-04-01T11:43:00.002-07:00

So, I've got a big research project to present in a couple of days and I want to test it out before I make my presentation. Please click here to and follow the instructions. I would greatly appreciate it!

Observations of a Third Year College Student

2009-03-09T22:51:00.001-07:00

1. The time to do laundry is determined by the number of pairs of underwear you own.

2. Never ask a college student when they last did their laundry (there is no way they have that many pairs of underwear).

3. You know it's time to ask your room-mate to do the dishes when the stench reaches the bed room.

4. It's never your turn to do the dishes.

5. A shower lasting longer than 5 minutes is a momentous occasion.

6. A shower is an occasion.

7. Never call a person when you can see them on Google Talk (having to hear the other person's voice is over-rated).

8. Never ever text a person unless it's an emergency (email is cheaper).

9. If you see a third year student who does not look tired or even mildly pissed with life, you may assume either
a) he is smoking something you've heard makes life seem wonderful
b) he is a Business major

10. If you hear a third year student cribbing, you are allowed to zone out as long as you nod your head in regular intervals.

11. If you see a freshman cribbing, you may knock that kid on the head. Caveat: the kid has to be smaller than you.

12. You are required to act surprised at your 'surprise' birthday party. Even though you knew there was going to be a surprise party. Something's gotta be up when your friends suddenly seem to enjoy your company.

13. You are allowed to be offended if there was no surprise party. Even though you said you didn't want one, multiple times.

14. You can put a :( as your Facebook status message if you did not get any kind of party. Seriously, everyone deserves cake.

15. If you see a FB status message saying 'Person's_name is gay', then that person's got bored friends. And an unattended laptop. Change his computer clock to be one hour slower.

16. A handshake and a smile is the best way to avoid talking to someone.

17. Never stop to talk to someone if all you've got is 'What's up?'.

18. If you hear a Backstreet Boys' song playing from someone's laptop, you can loudly mock them (even though you are singing along in your head).

19. If a Backstreet Boys' song suddenly starts playing from your laptop, you can say 'How did that get in there?' and look around with a bemused smile. It's cool, we all know how it got in there.

20. Saying 'My Bad' absolves you of the bad you did. Really.

India, This Past Fortnight (III)

2009-03-09T20:30:00.001-07:00

Due to lack of anything interesting to write about, and due to the lack of time to do anything interesting (so that I can later write about it), I post yet another edition of India, This Past Fortnight (originally published on Mar 5th). If you like pictures, click here to read the article.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) recently barred¹ two Indian Cricketers, Sachin Tendulkar and Dinesh Karthik, from playing in an exhibition game in New Zealand. The reason given was that they could not play alongside Hamish Marshall, who is part of the un-sanctioned Indian Cricket League (ICL). My sources in New Zealand tell me that the BCCI also forwarded a 4 point document to the Indian Cricket team that they have to strictly follow:

1. Must not eat at the same restaurants as other ICL players.
2. Must not acknowledge the presence of another ICL player.
3. Must not apologize to an ICL player if you accidentally bump into one.
4. Must not accept that Kapil Dev, Chairman of the Executive Board of the ICL, ever played Cricket for India.

The Indian Cricket Team was never known for having a vibrant or even remotely interesting looking team uniform. It used to be light blue, with the team sponsor’s name smacked right across the center of the t-shirt. Now it is dark blue, with the team sponsor’s name smacked right across the center of the t-shirt. It so happened that this change in uniform coincided with India losing both their Twenty20 games against New Zealand. As expected, out-of-work Indian astrologers began to attribute the color of the uniform to India’s falling fortunes. Other Indian fans felt similarly too, with one especially intelligent one saying “Let’s not bring any superstition into this. The dark blue has prevented Indians from thinking clearly.”²

Yes, it’s always nice to hear sound logic.

Recently, musical genius was acknowledged on a world stage when AR Rahman won two Oscars for his work in Slumdog Millionaire. It was, however, clear that Rahman had not spent too much time on his acceptance speech. He started off with a joke that fell flat (”Before coming, I was excited and nervous. The last time I felt like that was during my marriage”) and then quoted a lame dialogue: “Mere paas Maa hai”, from a lame Hindi movie. But then, I will never be able to delight billions of people with astounding music.

So I should probably shut up.

Staying with music and the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, the Congress party in India has acquired the rights to use the song ‘Jai Ho’ in their campaign ahead of the general elections³.

At least their empty promises will sound better to the ear now.

It’s quite clear that the Congress wants to ride the Slumdog wave. They’ve even gone on to take credit for its tremendous Oscar success - “All this has been possible because of the conducive environment and good governance of the UPA.”⁴

Hmmm, have they seen the movie?

A US collector, James Otis, recently decided to auction some of Mahatma Gandhi’s possessions. This led to an uproar in India, and there were requests made to the Indian Government to bid in the auction and make sure that the possessions returned to India. Apparently, the Indian Government made an offer to buy the items off Otis. This was declined by Otis who, when queried about the magnitude of the offer, had this to say, “It was financially so small that I would not like to repeat it.”⁵

Good news is that Russell Peters now has new material for his stand up.

To read more ‘India, This Past Fortnight’, click here.

Footnotes:
1 http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/nzvind2009/content/story/392501.html

2 http://cricket.ndtv.com/cricket/ndtvcricket/storypage/ndtv/id/spoen20090085017/story.html

3 http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/04/stories/2009030460191000.htm

4 http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1233648

5 Economic Times

India, This Past Fortnight (II)

2009-02-20T08:39:00.002-08:00

[This is a new humour column I'm writing for Nazar. This article can be seen there as well.]

The latest national pastime in India seems to be attacking film producers over the names that they choose for their movies. Following the protests against Slumdog Millionaire (the name was thought to insult slum dwellers), the Hairdresser’s Association of Mumbai came out against Billu Barber, a movie where Shah Rukh Khan makes a cameo appearance. In order to appease the huge volume of barbers who form Shah Rukh’s fan base, the title had to be changed in the last minute to ‘Billu’. My guess is that the alliance of barbers felt offended that the name Billu was associated with their profession.

Well, if you’re named Billu, I guess you are used to disappointments.

February 14^th was Valentine’s Day. It was the usual routine for me – wake up, look at the date, cringe, lie in a fetal position for a while, and then look online to see what the stars of Bollywood are saying about their ‘non-existent’ love life. While Celina Jaitley sounded desperate for some loving (“I am in love with the idea of being in love more than falling in love”¹), Asin, of Ghajini fame, commented that her father was the only man in her life. It pains me to see beauty struggle.

Asin, call me.

Recently, a senior Congress leader called Abhishek Manu Singhvi, said that George Bush should be given a Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor, for ending nuclear isolation with India².

Someone should throw a shoe at Singhvi.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is planning to come out with a brand new drink called ‘Gau Jal’³. The primary ingredient of this drink is cow urine. The RSS believe that this drink will give good competition to Pepsi and Coco Cola (even though the latter drinks apparently have a secondary use as toilet disinfectants⁴). I hear that there are going to be efforts made by the RSS to slowly enter other markets as well. There are plans to make pee-nut butter and they are also coming up with a new chain of restaurants, temporarily titled ‘Piss-a Hut’.

Oops, I should not have ‘leaked’ that information to the press.

I was looking up the Indian Supreme Court’s definition of idiot the other day (no, it was not self-doubt that led to that search) and I came upon an article⁵ that enlightened me on that topic. The article said, “To be legally accepted as an ‘idiot’, one has to be so dumb as to be unable to count till 20, list the days of the week, or fail to remember the names of one’s parents”.

The next time you are accused of murder and the judge asks you to count till 20, remember to stop at 19.

Footnotes:

¹ http://movies.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4111939,flstry-1.cms

² http://news.oneindia.in/2009/02/13/bush-deserves-a-bharat-ratna-singhvi.html

³ http://news.oneindia.in/2009/02/13/rss-to-launch-cow-urine-soft-drink-gau-jal.html

⁴ http://stoney.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/09/a-homemaker-s-best-friends/comments.htm

⁵ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3426579.cms

Previously: India, This Past Fortnight(I)

India, This Past Fortnight

2009-01-27T18:05:00.005-08:00

Recently, activists of the Sri Ram Sena attacked women who were at a pub in Mangalore, India. The chief of the Sri Ram Sena, Mr. Muthalik, had this to say, "We condemn the pub culture. In our culture, we respect and salute women and give them the status of mother".1 Muthalik's mother was unavailable for comment since in Muthalik's culture, women can only be seen and not heard.

Slumdog Millionaire is a huge success and so it was only natural that people started suing the producers of the film. The protests center around the title of the movie. 'Slumdog' apparently offends the sentiments of some slum dwellers and so they demand that it be changed. Rumors are abound that by a simple exchange of letters, a reasonable compromise can be achieved. Don't be surprised if you see 'Slumgod Millionaire' plastered about cinema halls in the coming weeks.

Following the success of Sinngh is Kinng and Chandni Chowk to China, Bollywood producers have agreed that they can save money and time by not hiring writers. Akshay Kumar had this to say about the success of his last two films, "When I saw the titles of these movies, I knew I had to act in them. In this industry, you've got to be quick to sign movies with good titles. Shahrukh is working with Karan Johar on 'My Name Is Khan'. If only I was a bit more alert, 'My Name Is Kumar' would be out in theaters now."

On January 26th, Indian President, Pratibha Patil made an appearance before the Indian public as she watched and occasionally saluted at the Republic Day celebrations at the Red Fort. It took a while for the troops marching to realize that the person saluting them was in fact the President of their country. "You see, I spend a lot of my time talking to the dead. So I cannot come out into the sun too often. But the Republic Day celebrations were nice. I was told to occasionally wave my hand in a horizontal manner by Sonia-ji and it was nice to see those young men do the exact same thing in my direction. To be completely honest, I felt bad for those men. To walk around in such poorly designed outfits must be gut-wrenching for them".

There have been a sudden spate of incidents involving young men slapping other young men. Ever since it was announced that Harbhajan Singh was being offered the Padmasri, India's fourth highest civilian honor, the youth of India are starting to follow in Harbhajan's footsteps. Sreesanth, Harbhajan's most famous slap victim, had this to say, "Sniff."

Indian Railway Minister and Parliamentary jester, Lalu Prasad Yadav, recently said, "When I can control buffalos, then managing Railways is not a big deal."2 It's good to know that he came to the job with prior expertise.

1-http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/935A78D81D253F976525754B0051A8F2?OpenDocument
2- http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200901271920.htm

ARR :D

2009-01-11T21:07:00.001-08:00

We always knew he was a genius. Now they know.

Last Rites

2009-01-02T09:10:00.001-08:00

It was a complete contrast to the previous time I was there. There were hardly any people walking about, it was mostly quiet (devotional songs occasionally blasting from stereos) and there was a calm to the place. It had been a long and tiring journey (7 hours on road, following a three hour flight), but my cousin, my sister and I had only one thing on mind. We followed our driver, who was doubling up as our guide, and walked in brisk steps to combat the cold.

I had never seen death before; I was in a coffee shop in Chennai on the 26^th of December when I got the phone call. “Thatha… final moments… hurry”. I was two minutes too late when I reached home. People were crying and I saw my grandfather, my hero, lifeless. I had had that car ride home to understand what was happening and I guess that’s probably why I didn’t cry much. Or maybe it was because I wanted to stay strong for my mother and grandmother. The latter just sounds silly to me now - staying strong for the two strongest women I’ve known.

The water was flowing with a strong current and the cold in the air was making my ears go numb. I was not in the best shape, a fever and a sore throat causing trouble, but I had to step into the water and do what the whole trip was about. I took it out of my bag and struggled to remove the rope holding the cloth on top. My cousin offered to help, but with both feet shivering in the cold water, I was not willing to give up now.

I’ve never seriously thought about whether there is a God, and it’s because I’m happy living my life without wondering if there is a phenomenon that is in fact pulling the strings from above (or wherever). I think people think about a higher being when they feel helpless. I felt helpless when my grandfather passed away, but I wasn’t thinking about God. I wanted to do something, something to show to my grandfather that I loved him (even though he would never get to know of the act).

Four years ago, I had been to Haridwar on a school trip and I got the opportunity to bathe in the Ganges and also witness a puja that had me transfixed. Once again, I am not the religious type and so I was surprised as to why I was so taken by a puja. I had fallen in love with the place – the beautiful Ganges, staying pure despite man’s greatest attempts to pollute it, flowing without burden through a city that was built around it.

The rope eventually came off and so did the cloth on top. I moved closer to the water and my cousin held on to my shoulder, as I felt the strength of the Ganges. I closed my eyes and thought of my grandfather. I turned the pot upside down and the ashes became one with the great river. We had done what we had come for, and for a second all I could hear was the water flowing. Closure had never felt so real.

This and all...

2008-12-24T00:29:00.001-08:00

I've known K for almost 7 years now. We met in the 9th standard when I joined a new school. We were classmates and we were also two amongst a total of 7 people who took Tamil in the 9th. That number dwindled down to 3 in the 11th and 12th standard. Surprisingly, we have never spoken to each other in Tamil.

Yesterday, I met him after a year and a half, and we spoke, as usual, completely in English. A common friend of ours called in the middle and I immediately reverted to Tamil when I was on the phone, and so did K. And once he hung up, it was all English again.

I guess I must have spoken in English for the most part when I joined that new school and I guess that's probably why we've never been able to start off with a 'dei, enna da panra?' ('what you up to?'). Instead of saying 'idhellam over da', we have to use convoluted sentences such as 'this is and all too much', thereby indicating that we are Tamil in our hearts but that we use English solely as a means of conveying the thoughts we have in Tamil.

Maybe since I am so extremely jobless right now, I'll try talking to him only in Tamil. It's always good to fill up time trying to put people at unease, right?

Why I Hate To Fly

2008-12-18T14:21:00.001-08:00

I am not a fan of traveling by air. Wait, let me qualify that statement. I am not a fan of traveling in the economy class. And, since I will never pay for a business class ticket and since the chances of me getting bumped up are as likely as George Bush actually getting hit by a shoe, I'm destined to painful flights where I have to sleep sitting up and make way for neighbours with out-of-control bladders.

I do, however, like the short, domestic flights. You get in, find a seat, shut your eyes and then an hour later you're waiting for the seat belt sign to come off. It's the international flights that really make me feel like smacking someone (not that I ever will, but still).

I believe that there are 4 factors that decide how bearable the flight will turn out to be:

1. The person sitting in front of you

I have always had the misfortune of sitting behind people who like to go to town with their seat recline button. As soon as the air hostess gives the OK sign, the seat in front of me starts its descent and soon enough it's almost touching my nose. A solution that has been offered to me is to also do the same thing. But see, I don't want to cause trouble to the person behind me. I'm nice like that. Oh and I would also like to take this opportunity to quash the theory that I do not know how to operate the recline button.

2. The leg room

This is crucial. I despise Lufthansa flights merely for the reason that the leg room in economy is woeful. I believe that to sit 10 hours with no space to move your feet amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

3. The TV

I find it impossible to sleep sitting up and so I rely on the entertainment that the plane offers to while away the time. I've noticed that a lot of flights now offer TV shows and movies on-demand and those flights are the best. I can see TV shows I've seen before, over and over again. I've seen every episode of The Office and Scrubs more than 5 times each. It's a gift, I know.

4. The person sitting next to you

I usually like talking to people sitting next to me on the plane. But sometimes, conversations can get weird. Especially if the neighbour starts confiding his personal problems with you because you remind him of his son. Or if she starts asking you about how to fix her laptop once she finds out that you are a Computer Science major. And to top it all, if he spills tomato juice on your jeans, calls the air hostess and asks for one more glass of tomato juice.

The flight to Heathrow got delayed by an hour and so I got the time to write out this rant of sorts for your reading pleasure. Yes, I know, one more reason to hate the system.

In my fifth semester, I...

2008-12-17T01:33:00.001-08:00

My fifth semester at UT ended today. It's been my hardest semester, academically and otherwise. There are many things that can almost break a man, and studying for a Computer Architecture final for 5 consecutive days ranks high on that list. But, it's all over now and a much needed trip to Chennai is 2 days away!

Reader(s) of this blog might remember seeing posts about what I really do during my semesters at college and this is another one in what promises to be an 8 part series (I hope).

So, without further adieu, in my fifth semester, I

1. Saw snow in Austin, and I mean proper snow. Like real snow flakes. The white, flake shaped kind.

2. Got smacked on the face by hail. The beautiful snow, sadly, didn't last too long.

3. Went to Seattle. Highlights include playing with the Microsoft Surface and attempting to take pictures of the city without destroying the camera in the rain and wind at the top of the Space Needle.

4. Stayed up till 5am to watch India beat England in a cracker of a match at Chepauk. Studying for my aforementioned final would have been wiser, but missing Sachin score that winning boundary would have been criminal.

5. Found out the hard way that everything is closed on Thanksgiving. Spent 3 hours looking for food all around Austin before finally coming across an open Mexican supermarket. Tortillas with ready made Dal Makhni is not too terrible.

6. Saw a creepy, old Indian guy in the library who came often to the same study lounge and did nothing but stare at the people around him. Quite a few theories were postulated about why he was the way he was, but the opinion that he was creepy was unanimous.

7. Ended up going to my Differential Equations class a total of 9 times. It was not entirely my fault though - 8 am is an unseemly hour to wake up at.

8. Had my worst ever season with the bat and best ever season with the ball in the Central Texas Cricket League.

9. Added more credibility to the claim that I am a klutz. I fell down while climbing up the stairs with a laundry basket, spilt my coffee several times in the microwave oven and banged into a desk while trying to show my room-mate that I could do more than 10 consecutive push-ups.

10. Voted for the first time ever. Yes, he won and is apparently bringing change to America. No more begging for quarters for laundry anymore.

11. Correctly predicted that it would not rain in Austin on a day when every news channel predicted heavy thunder showers. Even the UT football game was postponed. I, however, incorrectly predicted on a November night that it would be warm and had to walk back home in the cold wearing a flimsy t-shirt.

12. Drove around Austin at 2 am looking for Hot Chocolate. Gave up after a luck-less hour and a half and went over to a friend's place and quietly drank his 'hot chocolate'. Also heard about his stimulating Tori Amos experience, but let's not venture into that.

13. Spilt coke in exactly the same way (holding the cup closer to the top) thrice - once at Burger King, once at Wendy's and once at home.

14. Walked to campus on a fine Friday morning with just my camera. Had lunch with a friend and did not do anything even remotely academic. The fact that I had a weekday with nothing to do did not seem to throw me off. And as a result, did not submit the homework that was apparently due that day.

Ignorance, really is bliss.

Other awesome reads:
In my fourth semester, I
Things I did in my third semester
Things I did in my second semester
Things I did in my first semester

When

2008-12-10T16:59:00.001-08:00

Down in the dumps -> Twist and Shout

Sluggish-> City of Blinding Lights

Love sick -> Khuda Jaane

Singing along -> Pichle Saat Dinon Mein

Thinking about the world -> Imagine

Not on the verge of getting a head ache -> Baba O'Riley

Noticing a cute girl on the bus -> Kabhi Kabhi Aditi Zindagi

Home sick -> Maana Madurai

Regretful -> Yesterday

Driving alone -> Free Fallin'

Nostalgic -> Summer of 69

Seeking calm -> Besame Mucho

Ponderous -> Bitter Sweet Symphony

Raining -> Banana Pancakes

Overcast -> All good things come to an end

Heading downtown -> Paper Planes

Showering -> Snow (Hey Oh)

Seeking quiet inspiration -> Lough Erin Shore

Narcissistic -> Neon

No one is in hearing vicinity -> A Thousand Miles

The Key

2008-11-11T23:09:00.003-08:00

It's been more than a year since the last time I was in Chennai. I knew that I would miss home, friends and the city itself. It somehow never struck me that I would miss Tamil.

I had taken Tamil as a second language till my twelfth standard, mostly because everyone else took Sanskrit and French and I had to be the non-conformist. It definitely did not help boost my grades in the board exam and I hated memorizing stupid answers to stupid questions. My mom had to undergo a lot of my incessant ranting about how a lot of what Thiruvalluvar said didn't make any sense.

"How can a man be a tree?"
"No, he is saying that an inconsiderate man might as well be a tree."
"I feel bad for the tree."

Thiruvalluvar used to write sets comprising of 10 couplets each and each set would extol a particular virtue. And more often than not, the last couplet of each set would claim that there was nothing greater than that particular virtue. "Amma, idhulla logic-ae illa!" (“Amma, there is no logic in this!”) I would shout out. And my mom would nod her head and ask me to repeat all ten couplets to make sure that I remembered them all. There were other poems where the female protagonist would constantly complain to her 'thozhi' (girl friend) about how her lover had abandoned her and I always hated the thozhi for not having a life of her own. I also absolutely despised abstract poems and I would deliver a standard dialogue to my mom:

"Idhu English'la translate panna kooda oru mannum puriyadhu, thamizh'la... exam'la pass-aana maadhiri thaan." ("This wouldn't make sense if it was translated in English, I'm definitely failing my exam").

And she would nod understandingly and try to make me understand the incomprehensible poem.

Today, while wasting time on YouTube, I came across this song from the movie Bharathi. It suddenly brought back a flood of memories (I succumb to nostalgia way too easily). Very rarely did I enjoy opening my Tamil textbook, but I do remember those rare moments of joy vividly. I think it was in the 6th standard when we read about 'Veerapandiya Kattaboman' and I remember how I used to say his speech out loud and ask my mom if it was better than Sivaji Ganesan's version. I would read aloud Bharathiar's poems and marvel at his skill of saying so much, and with so much force and vigor, with such few words. I used to see the pictures of the students who had topped the state in Tamil, at the back of the 'Konar Tamil Study Guide' and I would convince myself that my face too would one day adorn that poorly designed back cover. I missed out narrowly on that accomplishment though (was only 40 marks short of the State Topper).

It's not usual for me to start reminiscing about a language while sitting bored out of my mind with my Networks homework. I complained and grumbled throughout my school years about how much I hated studying Tamil and about how it was not going to be useful to me in any way. Today, I read some of Bharathiar's poems for the first time in about 2 years and I got goose bumps.

Alphonse Daudet wrote in his short story, 'The Last Lesson', "When people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language, it is as if they had the key to their prison." While Daudet said that in the context of his story, the line resonates. Being able to read and enjoy Tamil literature, sitting thousands of miles away from where it was born, is a wonderful comfort.

Thanks mom.

5 Things I Learnt From My Seattle Trip

2008-11-08T18:12:00.001-08:00

1. Do not say "you too" when the ticket checker at the airport says "Have a safe flight."

2. Wear pants that don't fall down during the security check. But more importantly, why do they want to scan my belt?

3. If a cab driver asks "Where in India are you from?", say Chennai, not Madras. Otherwise, the cab driver will butcher Tamil just to show that he knows that Madras and Chennai refer to the same place.

4. Mention 'mild spice' when ordering pizza from an Indian pizza store to avoid eyes welling up while watching Seinfeld.

5. Remember to change the time-zone on the phone before setting an alarm to wake up for an important interview.

P.S: Shameless un-related plug - A Man Of His Own Terms (A Tribute to Sourav Ganguly)

Revelation of the day

2008-11-03T12:23:00.003-08:00

Click to view bigger image

For The Memories, For The Love

2008-10-22T07:51:00.008-07:00

I woke up an hour ago. I got an sms informing me that my paternal grandfather had passed away.

I struggle to put together words but I must. The least I can do is to write about him, at least the way he affected me.

My first memory of Nana Thatha is when I was about 2 years old. We were sitting in the living room in our home in San Jose. I was playing and he asked me to come sit next to him.

"Un peyar enna, theriyuma?" (Do you know what your name is?).
"Neeyuntha", I replied without excitement.
"Illa!" (Nope).
"Aaaaa aen? Adhu en peyar." (Why? That is my name).
"Illa, unakku rendu peyar irukku." (No, you have two names).
(I now sit up straight with an excited look).
"Madhuri'kkum rendu peyar irukku, theriyuma?"(Even Madhuri has two names, did you know?).
"En peyar enna??" (What is my name??)
"Un peyar Ranganathan." (Your name is Ranganathan).
"Enakku Neeyanthaaa've pidichirukku." (I'm fine with Niyantha).

Four years ago, my cousins and I were playing Kaun Banega Crorepati with 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?' question cards. I got to be Amitabh Bachchan and on one question the contestant wanted to 'Phone a Friend'. So I picked up my cell and dialed my home number.
Nana Thatha picked up and I bellowed through the phone, "Main Amitabh Bachchan bol raha hoon!".
"Chi phone-a veyyu da" (Chi, keep the phone down).

Nana Thatha was a learned man, and extremely good with words. His book on Iraq and the USA during the tenure of George Bush Sr. got published a few years ago, and I was so glad to see that smile on his face when he got his copy of the book. If you are someone who writes, I bet there is nothing like the sight of the first copy of your book.

He was a wonderful man. He was able to raise, with his wife, 4 children who are all now settled and successful. He cared for his grand children. He loved talking to me, speaking to me in his trademark style. "Boy, come here", he would always say when he saw me walking out to play Cricket. The foolishness of my age made me come up with excuses but I'm glad he persevered. I was lucky to have a grandfather who loved and cared for me and the rest of his grandchildren as much.

Nana Thatha, I will forever miss you. This post was an attempt by me to accept your death. I thought that maybe if I wrote it all down, I would stop crying. But I will stop, and I will accept what's happened.

Thanks for being there for me all these years.

Love,

Niyantha

P.S: Please leave a comment if you have met my grandfather and would like to share your memories of him.

Time wasting tactics to avoid studying Differential Equations:

2008-10-17T14:06:00.002-07:00

1. Doing a vanity search.

2. Trying to take a 5 minute power nap and waking up drowsier.

3. Watching Charlie bite his brother on YouTube.

4. Getting nostalgic and going through Sachin's scores from his first test series (Cricinfo has everything!).

5. Checking my reflection on the laptop screen.

6. Learning how to say the ten most commonly used French phrases via an instructional video on YouTube.

Comment allez-vous?

7. Looking at the sun shining brightly outside and reminiscing about the extremely hot and humid days back home in Madras. Good times.

8. Staring absentmindedly through the window thereby freaking out people passing by.

9. Yawning for a really long time.

10. Making a pointless list.

How I Spend My Sunday Morning

2008-10-12T09:07:00.002-07:00

Wake up one hour after the alarm rings.
Curse loudly and exclaim that I have so much to do with so little time.
Sit with my head on the pillow for 30 minutes wondering what I could have done if I had woken up an hour earlier.
Realize that my room-mate has woken up and so I jump over my bed with alarming athleticism and run into the bathroom.
Brush my teeth with a smile on my face as the water flowing from the tap partially drowns my room-mate's curses.
Come out with a sense of accomplishment (squeezing out toothpaste (correctly) takes skill) and avoid my room-mate's gaze.
The room-mate orders me to play some good morning music and so being the hopeless romantic, I play an assortment of Tamil music where the hero beseeches the heroine to give him the time of day.
Try to ignore the room-mate singing along.
Make myself some Nescafe coffee which is always heated for a minute and 20 seconds in the microwave.
Drink the coffee and catch up on the latest’s news of the day (movies.sify.com is a great resource).
Glance over at the pile of books on the table and then sigh loudly only to hear the room-mate shout "Stop cribbing! You know how much I have to do? I have two midterms, two interviews..............."
While slowly zoning out the room-mate, realize that the imaginary fans of my blog would probably appreciate an update on mendelismental.blogspot.com.
Finally understand that if I do not open up the scary looking textbooks soon, I will draw a blank on my three midterms coming up.
Scared out of my mind, I decide to watch The Office to forget my worries.

It’s time for lunch!

Hmmm

2008-10-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

I was looking at the search keywords leading into Nazar on Google Analytics and I came across this:

Click to enlarge

Proud to be lame

2008-10-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

What did the Java programmer say to the C++ programmer at their 10 year college reunion?

"Long time, no C!"

Conversations - 2

2008-10-03T11:26:00.003-07:00

(We are watching the VP debate on CNN. K and J are room-mates. B, Is and A are my room-mates)

K: Wow, your apartment is clean now.
Me: Yea, I cleaned it up yesterday.
K: You think I'm gonna fall for that. I heard you called a maid.
Me: Yea...
J: You guys called a maid?
Me: Yep, you saw how the kitchen was.
J: I felt so weird when I had to call a maid for the first time.
Me: So, you've called a maid too.
J: Yea, but I had never called one before.
Me: Well, yea. You lived with your parents.
K: It was weird at first but then when we found out that the maid service was booked for a whole week, we felt a lot better. Everyone does this shit!
J: How did your kitchen get so dirty?
Me: Well it started in the summer, when there were 5 people living in a two bedroom apartment...
J: Ah.
B: Me and Is cleaned up the living room and the bedroom. The kitchen was supposed to have been cleaned...
J and K: Ahh....
Me: I mean, yea, I was supposed to clean it, but see I did. I threw away the dirty dishes and A was supposed to get rid of the flies.
J: You guys had flies?!
Me: Yep, and A's solution was to attack flies with the hose of a vacuum cleaner.
J and K: WHAT!
B: Yep, we were watching TV one day and we suddenly hear the vacuum cleaner at work. We thought A was vacuuming the carpet but we turn around and we see him trying to suck the flies into the vacuum hose.
Me: It was hilarious, but completely unfruitful.
J: It kinda makes sense that the flies would get sucked in...
Me: Yea, but when they see a tall guy with a vacuum hose, their natural instinct would be to fly the hell away, right?

We then notice that the debate is going on.

Me: Did Palin just wink at us again?
S: No, she was winking at her dad.
Me: Great, now I don't feel special anymore.

Getting back that lost form

2008-10-02T12:42:00.003-07:00

I've been opening the batting in the last 4 games for my league team and I've made scores of 0, 1, 0 and 0. It's a bit like how Marvan Atapattu used to bat when he first played for Sri Lanka. Only once have I lost my wicket to a good ball. The ball pitched outside off, swung in and sent my middle stump for a walk. There was nothing left to do but nod at the bowler for cleaning me up with a beauty, and then trudge back to the pavilion (two benches separated by a barbecue grill).

I used to relish opening the batting, but now I shudder to even think of facing the new ball. I've struck the ball thrice in the last 18 balls that I've faced (and two of those shots resulted in me getting out caught and bowled) . Venkatesh Prasad would do better than that against Wasim Akram.

I was able to justify picking myself in the 11 in spite of these terrible scores because I was doing really well with the ball. I was getting the ball to land on the right spots and the opposing batsmen were actually playing me out with the hope of trying to go after the other bowlers. But there are only so many failures you can take before anger and disappointment sets in. The previous game I was tonked for 26 runs off two overs and we lost the game in 11 overs.

I guess the only way to get back the lost form is to drop myself down the order and hope for a bit of luck. I know that my confidence with the bat is just a fluent cover drive away.

Harsha Bhogle often says, "When you're out of form, you see the fielders. When you're in form, you see the gaps".

I see the gaps alright. I walk through them, back to the pavilion, everytime I get out.

Update: This is unrelated to the post but this is a link to an absolutely fantastic article by Rohit Brijnath on Cricinfo. He talks about how the fab 5 of the Indian Cricket team have been such an integral part of the life of every Indian who followed Indian Cricket since the 90s. The last sentence of the article gave me goosebumps.

The sky?

2008-09-26T13:36:00.004-07:00

"What's up?"

"Nothing much."

A day does not pass by where I don't hear the above conversation.

Conversations

2008-09-19T13:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday:

A is watching Alexander on TV.

Me: (Smiling proudly) What do you think of my new hairstyle?

A: You look like that Computer Science PhD student who sleeps in the lab.

(5 minutes later)

Me: I'm not sure if I should keep my beard. The career expo is on Monday.

A: (no response)

Me: Should I shave it off?

A: Shave what off?

Me: My beard.

A: You don't have one.

Me: Of course I do. See!

A: I don't see anything!

Me: You're just jealous.

A: (no response)

Today:

Me: Hey.

M: Hey.

Me: Jobless as usual?

M: No, I have a lot to do. I just don't want to... hey, are you trying to grow a goatee or something?

Me: Yes! (broad smile)

M: Okay...

You know you can do better when the high point of your day is someone noticing your facial hair.

Rediscovering the past

2008-09-12T08:28:00.002-07:00

I saw the movie, 'The Butterfly Effect', a few weeks ago and ever since I've started analyzing most of the things I do and wondering if I had done differently, where I would be currently.

If I had not seen that movie, I wouldn't be trying to make choosing to do research in Computer Science into a life altering decision. One of the great joys of life is the mystery of what the future holds. Thinking about how my everyday actions affect the long term is plain annoying.

I was reading some of my archived blog posts yesterday. I want to get back to that kind of writing - light hearted and fun. I'm tired of reviewing movies and talking about the Butterfly effect, silence and what not. I wonder if the lack of time to do stupid things has made me a more serious person. I hope not.

Rock On!! Movie Review

2008-08-30T12:51:00.003-07:00

It is good to see Bollywood movies breaking the norm, because for me a Hindi film that is not run-of-the-mill is worth seeing. Rock On!! starts off with 4 guys tuning their instruments in a 'studio' that could only be called that because the acoustics of the dilapidated room seem to be good enough. We get a glimpse of how they go about making their music - Aditya (Farhan Akhtar) explains the theme of his lyrics which is to ask the most basic of questions (Why is the sky blue? Why is the earth round?), Rob (Luke Kenny) on the keyboard says he will start off with D major as Kedar (Purab Kohli) on the drums jokes that that's the way he always starts and Joe (Arjun Rampal) mentions his contribution to the song on the guitar. It's nice to see how Magik (the somewhat lame name of the band) come up with their music and the scene ends with Aditya claiming that no one 'takes over' in their band. It's immediately evident why Magik ceases to exist as the film jumps to the present day.

With the four band members either still living or trying to escape their past, Rock On!! moves between the past and the present nicely. The present seems to move along a bit too slowly though, but maybe that's because it’s such a stark contrast to the great high of the music that Magik dishes out. One of the highlights of the movie is Magik taking part in a music competition that could give them the break they've been striving for. Aditya brings the crowd into the mix as he makes them go 'na na na na' when he raises his hand and he goes into the zone using the energy from the crowd to elevate what on paper sounds like a pretty ordinary song. Sure, it’s quite unrealistic how the crowd responds to a raised hand but it worked for me and the guys on stage aren't just good musicians, they are good showmen.

Farhan Akhtar likes to make impressive debuts. Dil Chahta Hai was a classy directorial debut and now he takes the lead in a group of exceptionally well cast relative unknowns. The movie is about doing what you love and when you're presented with a chance to follow your passion, go ahead and take it for not everyone gets a second chance. It is a simplistic view and Joe's wife Debbie (Shahana Goswami) beseeches her husband to do what is right for his family rather than follow a dream that derailed his life the first time he chased it. Shahana plays Debbie with the right mix of street smart spunk and the love that she has for her all too innocent husband is apparent when she has a mostly one-sided conversation with Aditya about how not everyone has luck on their side. The rest of the cast do amicably and Purab Kohli getting to play the funny guy, puts a broad smile on your face with his rendition of 'I will survive'.

Rock On!! is, however, longer than it should have been and at times, the director's focus on showcasing the artistic excellence of his shots dilutes the actual emotions that come out from the actors. Some of the scenes between Aditya and his wife, Sakshi (Prachi Desai) seem artificial just because of the above mentioned reason. The ending montage that lets us know what the protagonists go on to become, also seemed a bit unrealistic. But there are more highs than lows in this movie, and with Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy doing a great job with the music, you've got a more than decent offering from Abhishek Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar. I like that some movies from the Bollywood stable are pushing the boundaries as to what Indian filmmakers can do, and that's reason enough for me to recommend this movie.

My rating: 7/10

Full circle at the dumpster

2008-08-26T00:41:00.005-07:00

I'm back from Southern California and the new semester starts in a couple of days. As much as I try to deny it, I'm going to be a junior at college. I've got 4 months left as a teenager and I'm pretty sure 20 is going to be the new 13 - neither here nor there. But to happier thoughts now. Following my trip to LA, I have decided that I am going to live for some time, somewhere in California (Malibu would be ideal, but I'm not picky). Is it just me or does the sun just shine brighter in California?

When I left for Cali, the apartment was, to put it extremely mildly, a mess. There were spoons dipped in Nutella hidden underneath the sofa cushions, stuff overflowing from the trash can, boxes and suitcases lying around and a huge mattress spread across the dining area. I lived through this mess for three months and so I had reached a new level of tolerance for all things insanely smelly and dirty. However my room-mates for the year, who had just moved in, couldn't stand the unique smell of stale food and Febreze and so took the vacuum cleaner and went to town on the carpet. When I came back home last night, the apartment was, as Ravi Shastri would say, 'Clean as a whistle' (whatever that means). My room-mates were quite pleased with their work and I was relieved that I didn't have to unclog a toilet or scoop chocolate paste off the backside of a cushion.

Since my room-mates had gone back to India and Dubai earlier in the Summer, I had three new sub-leasing room-mates and so I took care of the bills and they would pay me back. All the bills that I had paid for the month of July had been carefully tabulated in a notebook and I had kept it on a desk so that the residents could drop off their cheques with the amounts specified on the notebook. As I was surveying the clean apartment yesterday, I noticed that the notebook was not in its usual place. I asked one of room-mates, who shall be known as "IS", whether he had seen a book with a white coloured cover. IS replied, "Oh, I think I threw it away while cleaning up the apartment". After collecting my thoughts, I repeated the question just to receive the same answer, yet in a more concerned 'Oh shit!' tone. Another one of my room-mates, who is widely considered to be the smartest person in a 100 mile radius, said calmly, "I guess, you guys just have to dig through the dumpster and find the book".

"We look like classy hobos", said IS as we looked for our trash bags next to the dumpster. Luckily our trash bags were unique and so we narrowed down our choices to 5 trash bags filled with old food and spoons dipped in Nutella. Since I was the only one who had anything to lose, I took out my trusty w810i and started flashing the torchlight as I rifled through one trash bag after another. The wise room-mate announced that he thought we would never find the book when I triumphantly lifted it out of the fifth trash bag. I don't know what I would have done if the book had been lost (I had no idea what each person owed me exactly) and so I was extremely proud of my terribly hungry self for being able to go through the trash at 10 in the night and find the book with the white coloured cover.

The summer had thus ended for me, in the same way as it had started - in the midst of crap, holding on to the one book that would get me my money back.

We won a gold?? We won a gold!!!

2008-08-10T21:49:00.004-07:00

S: I just got a text. India won a gold...

Me: What?

S: We won a gold!

Me: We won a gold? In what?

T: Hairiest Athlete category probably.

S: I'm serious man, India won a gold... in the 10 meter air rifle. Abinav Bindra won the gold.

Me: Really? 10 meters doesn't seem like much of a distance. Is this a prank?

D: Hey R, check this out online. Maybe someone is trying to play a prank on S.

R: He's right man, Abhinav Bindra won the gold in the 10 meter air rifle.

D: Holy shit, we just won a gold!!!

Abhinav Bindra, I salute you.

Update: Abhinav Bindra receiving the gold medal.

I bold and orange, because I can

2008-08-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

Driving without music: I had to wake up at 7:30 in the morning today to drop a friend off at a Cricket ground. At about 4:30 AM I figured that I could do with some sleep before driving 30 miles back and forth. I also decided that I would burn an awesome mix to entertain me when I make the long drive back home. The CD was going to be a collection of Clapton, Mayer, and Jack Johnson songs, but when I inserted the burnt CD all I saw was 'Error' on the stereo display. It is so not fun driving on your own, with no good music and only concrete and more concrete as the sights to take in.

Last Week of Work: At the end of this week, I would have successfully completed my first internship. At work, I have 6 other colleagues who are interns and all of us work in cubicles in a big room. Three of us go to UT, three go to Oklahoma University, and one goes to Texas A&M. The rivalry amongst these schools is pretty intense, but unfortunately all the jabs that we, the Longhorns, have made have been met with silence. The A&M guy likes UT (he is part of a rare breed), and the OU guys don't really care when we make insanely funny jokes (Why doesn't Texas drown in the Gulf of Mexico? Because Oklahoma sucks).

An Indecisive E-Shopper: I have been scouring the web for a good digital SLR camera for a while now. I am an amateur at photography and I did not want anything too complex or too expensive. I finally settled on the Olympus E-410, a very portable DSLR that was in the lower price range. Whenever I need to make an expensive purchase, I get cold feet. Until I start supporting myself financially, I think this trait of mine is going to persist. As a result, I put off the decision for a few hours and when I came back online, I couldn't decide which merchant to buy it from. So I had to do what I always do when I don't know what to do: call mom. After some forceful "Camera vaangu da!"¹ from her, I finally clicked the purchase button.

I can now put so much vetti scene with the camera!

California Calling: Right after I get done with my internship, I head off to Los Angeles, California. My sister who has to always one-up me in everything is joining USC after a year in LSE and I'm using that as an excuse to go to my favourite state in the US (Ok, I'll be glad to see you too sis). This time I have the license to drive and so hopefully I can drive down the Pacific Highway - I've heard the view is breathtaking. I would also love to go clubbing in LA, but the entry for the clubs is going to be on the steeper side...

And I doubt my mom will be like "Club-ukku po da!"².

¹ "Buy the camera"
² "Go to the club"

In My Fourth Semester, I

2008-08-04T17:09:00.010-07:00

I usually post my end-of-semester post a week after I'm done with my final exams. This time, a week after finals, I was in London and Paris. Not even my imaginary blog fan could have forced me to write anything during my euro trip, and so now I post my long awaited (you are welcome, Angelina) post on what I did in my fourth semester of college.

In my fourth semester, I

1. finished a self-study course 4 weeks before I had to, but missed the early final because I didn't pay close enough attention to the date of the exam.

2. kept wickets, bowled off spin and took two wickets, took two catches (one as keeper and one as bowler) and opened the batting in a game that we won with a bonus point. Personally one of my better days on a Cricket field.

3. had no class on Friday.

4. got a kick ass car. It was my dad's car but he moved back to India and I was the lucky beneficiary. The next thing to do is to get a custom license plate that reads NEON.

5. wrote a piece on Chennai in chaste Hindi and it was published in a book called Sandesh. Ok, everyone in my Hindi class got published but a year ago, I couldn't even frame a sentence in Hindi.

6. discovered the cold, sweet tasting beauty that is Starbuck's Mocha Frappucino - double blended.

7. won the election to become the Vice Captain of the Longhorn Cricket Club. Gave impromptu speech about how the captain or vice captain is not necessarily the best batsman or the best bowler because clearly I wouldn't have had a shot otherwise.

8. played my most successful April Fools prank to date.

9. decided that the 5-5-5 deal (three medium pizzas for $5 each) from Pizza Hut was the best bet when hungry. The food was cheap and it came to me.

10. witnessed my first ever hail storm. The lights went out, our old rickety apartment started to shake and the dashboard of my kick-ass car that was parked facing the sky cracked. The experience could have been better.

11. did not buy a single text book. I consider this a big achievement since I was naive enough to shelve out $150 dollars for a Calculus book in my first semester.

12. took Micro-Economics because it sounded cool. It turned out to be the most boring class I've ever enrolled in with the professor telling us to remember that the supply curve faced upwards because the word 'up' was in s'up'ply. As a result, I ended up honing my crossword and sudoku skills in class.

13. accidentally used inappropriate innuendo with my Hindi professor in class. We had to use two verbs in the future tense and come up with a sentence. Most of the verbs were used up when my turn came and so I said, "Main so-oonga, tum daloge".

Other Awesome Reads:
Things I did in my third semester of college
Things I did in my second semester of college
Things I did in my first semester of college

You sure I'll get something vegetarian?

2008-07-30T20:22:00.008-07:00

The menu at the restaurant I went to today, for an intern lunch:

A True Cricket Story (All reals)

2008-07-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

I left from home at 930 am yesterday and came back at 730 pm as part of the Renaissance Education Foundation Cricket Tournament winning team. The tournament was played by 12 teams over two days. The 8 over games were played with a taped tennis ball, and each team had 8 players. And that's where the simplicity of the rules ended. The first wide in an over cost 1 run but every wide after that in the same over cost 2 runs. The same rule applied to no-balls as well. And to kill the MCC's rule book even more, free hits were awarded for waist high full tosses (and the usual over-stepping).

Our two group games took place on Saturday at the Travis County Cricket Grove (a picturesque ground that we share with another league team). The ground was split into two so that two games could take place simultaneously, and so when I was fielding at deep square leg in our side of the ground, I was also standing at cover point on the other side. Yes, the division of the ground made it a run fest, and we scored 134/2 in 8 overs in our first game. My services were not needed with the bat but I bowled a couple of overs for no wicket. The next group game was against our traditional taped tennis ball rivals (who for some reason changed their name to 'Old Pods'). We had not beaten them in the last 2 games that we played and so we were not a 100% confident that we would win convincingly (but, as a wise man in my team said "win win hai").

We picked up an important wicket early but we weren't consistent in our bowling. In such a small ground, anything slightly short or full was going to be hit for a boundary. The first ball I bowled was a flat off-spinner that was just short of a good length and it was pulled away for six. I then bowled a couple flat yorkers that were played back to me. The next ball was swept away for a four that I felt should have been stopped (I guess the Austin heat did the fielder there). I then took my time for my last ball, and decided to change the pace a bit. I bowled a slow, loopy off spinner, the batsman played early and I got an easy return catch. It felt good, considering I was not required to do anything with the bat. They scored 98 in 8 overs (par score for the size of the ground) and we finished it off in 6.4 overs, for the loss of one wicket. It did turn out to be a convincing victory in the end and we were through to the semifinals.

The semifinal turned out to be more eventful than we would have hoped for. We were playing on the actual matted wicket and against a team that did its bit in pissing us off. They batted first and after about 4 overs, their opening batsman could not run fast anymore because of his lack of fitness. He called for a runner and I told him that he was tired and not injured, and that he could not call for a runner. The umpire over-ruled our Captain's decision and allowed the runner for the batsman. Soon they were running for everything and our bowlers and fielders were getting frustrated. I came into bowl in the 5th over and the first ball I bowled was a full toss on the middle stump that the batsman cheekily paddled away to fine leg for four. He then played a stupid reverse sweep to the point fielder. Following that, I bowled a couple of quicker ones that he confidently picked twos off. I decided to vary the pace again, tossed a loopy off spinner on driving length outside the off stump and he drove it uppishly straight to covers. Their main batsman was out of there.

At the end of the 8 overs, they had reached 79. It was clear that our team was angry and there were talks of sending in a runner with the opening batsman just to spite the opponent. Luckily, better sense prevailed (for the time being) and we started off slowly in what was a much larger field. Soon, the chaos started again. A cameraman from a local news channel had come on to the field to cover the Cricket and both teams were not happy with this. A compromise was finally reached and we played three balls that would not be counted on the score-sheet. Trials, as we call it in street cricket. This seemed to affect the batsmen's concentration and the first legal delivery after that got rid of our opening batsman and we had our captain, PK, and NZ at the crease.

NZ called for a runner almost immediately and we could see that the fielding team were getting incensed. Shouts of 'run, run' from our team seemed to really anger the guy from the opposing team who started all this runner nonsense in the first place, and he showed the finger to one of our guys. My valiant attempts at making my fellow team mates see that Cricket was a gentleman's game failed and now there were quarrels happening almost every other ball. NZ played and missed and was given out because the umpire got intimidated by the appealing bowler. He gave the umpire his two cents before leaving the crease, and PK fell soon after to an accurate yorker.

This meant that I now had a chance to bring my team to safety with the bat. We were 5 down and we needed 23 of 14 balls. I missed the first ball and then took a single off the next. The first ball of the penultimate over was a chest high full toss and I pushed it to covers and started running. I looked over at the square leg umpire for a no-ball call but I saw no signal and so I made the foolish mistake of going for another run to keep up with the required run-rate. The throw was accurate and I was run-out by a distance. The umpire then extended his hand to declare a no-ball. I felt so terrible - I had just put so much pressure on the last batsman.

M walked in and I was to later find out that he said this to our much more accomplished batsman, D, standing at the other end - "When you bat, you do your thing and when I bat, you tell me what to do". The first ball he faced was a free hit and he picked a couple off it, but here's the kicker - it was another waist high full toss and so we got another free hit. The next free hit was a wide and the following ball was another waist high no-ball that was hit for another two. The following free hit was played over square leg for four by M and at the end of the over we needed 4 off 6 balls. 18 runs came off that penultimate over! In the last over, a single and the 2 run wide rule won us the game and we couldn't believe how we pulled off that win.

We then sat for about two hours as another eventful semifinal took place and it had its fair share of disagreements and quarrels. The final began when the afternoon sun was its peak and we batted first after losing the toss. We lost two wickets in the first over and it was clear that we were sluggish after sitting around doing nothing for two hours. It was then damage control time and PK and NZ played off an over cautiously before deciding to tee off. PK smashed a six over square leg and NZ pulled a bouncer over the fine leg fielder. It was great to see two attacking left handers flaying the tired bowling attack. We were cruising at 15 runs/over at a stage but then both PK and NZ got out. We lost some more wickets soon and I went into bat in the last over. I was not in there for long as I played the first ball I faced onto my stumps and thus ended a disappointing tournament for me, personally, as a batsman. We ended up with 106 in 8 overs and we were very confident of pulling off the championship win.

I was asked to take up the wicket-keeping duties since our last keeper had struggled a bit in the previous two games. I took up wicket-keeping in the 8th standard because there was no other way for me to get into the playing 11 of my school team. I love wicket-keeping because you are always in the game and you do get to understand the wicket and the batsmen much better. Oh, and I also like to show off a lot. While the bowler marks his run up, I stand up to the stumps and start practising moving left to right, right to left and act as if I'm stumping the batsman. This act was so successful one time in school Cricket that the batsman thought that I was the Tamil Nadu State Wicket Keeper.

I wasn't required to bowl and I was glad - my head was aching due to the incredible heat and the fact that I hadn't eaten anything but bananas and gatorade did not help my cause. The tiredness did make me drop a catch and then subsequently miss a run-out chance. The batsmen were stranded in the middle of the pitch watching me drop the catch and my shy at the stumps, standing merely five feet away from the stumps, missed the leg stump by a whisker. It didn't prove to be costly as we took the game and the tournament with a convincing 30 run win. And to make it extra sweet, we beat the same team we had defeated to clinch our Twenty20 championship last year.

My Cricket coach in India used to tell me that there is nothing better than to win a tournament with your mates. As usual, he was right.

Remember Shakti: Giriraja Sudha

2008-07-20T12:15:00.005-07:00

My favourite part of the video is at 6:04.

One of my biggest regrets is sleeping through most of one of Remember Shakti's concerts in Chennai. My taste in music was very limited back then. I will, however, never make that mistake again.

The Dark Knight Movie Review

2008-07-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

Spoiler alert: I do talk about a couple of scenes from the movie.

I’ve never reached a theater an hour before the show is supposed to begin. I had bought my tickets online, but the line to retrieve those tickets extended up to the parking lot. I also greatly annoyed those beyond me when it was my turn to get my ticket – fifteen of my friends stuffed their online ticket confirmation receipts in my hand. But see, I didn’t give a hoot – I was going to see Batman!

I’ve never seen a movie which has ever had to bear the burden of so much hype (the trailer was so kick-ass). To overcome the unbelievable expectations of the audience had to be impossible, right? Seriously man, what a movie!

The Joker is introduced in an awesomely masterminded bank robbery and Heath Ledger plays the villain in a way Jack Nicholson never did. The Heath Ledger Joker is a maniacal villain who does what he does because he relishes destruction, enjoys slowing down the agony. He taunts a police officer in the movie, saying that he knew his friends best because he saw what they really were, when he slowly used his knife to take away their lives.

Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Harvey Dent/Two Face were very good in their portrayals as well, but seriously, this is Ledger's movie. The scene with Batman pounding the hell out of the Joker and the Joker responding with his crazy laughter is one of my favourites. He just keeps laughing and taunting Batman ("What are you going to threathen me with?"). He derives insane pleasure from getting under the skin of a man he dearly wants to unmask.

The special effects and stunts in this movie take a backseat amidst the performances of Ledger, Bale, Eckhart and Oldman (as Inspector Gordon). How often do you see the CGI merge seamlessly with the narrative? The effects don’t take precedence over what the actors are trying to convey, and yet build up the riveting tension that Ledger and Bale love to play off.

There is a truck that does a somersault, and Batman bursts out of the Batmobile in a motorbike – this is very much an action movie. Yet, there is much more. There is a marvelously constructed story that has as one of its main underlying themes what Harvey Dent says in the beginning of the movie – “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.

My Verdict: 9.5/10

Sleep...it's coming but not really

2008-07-17T19:27:00.004-07:00

I fell asleep at 7:30PM because studying for my Government class was just too boring. I'm up now, two hours later, and it feels so weird. It feels like it's the morning but the darkness outside is kind of unsettling. So much for catching up on sleep.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na - A Short Review

2008-07-08T18:26:00.002-07:00

When I came out of the theater on Saturday, I was not able to figure out why I was so enamored with Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. I remembered looking at my watch a couple of times during the movie (when there is no intermission, 153 minutes is very long), I found the supporting cast of Rotlu, Bombs, Jignesh and Shaleen to border on the annoying quite a few times and the ending was obvious going into the theater (movie tag line:'When do you know its love?').

The movie had quite a few faults, but there were these moments and performances in the movie that just made all those defects seem inconsequential. In the beginning of the initial credits appears the message 'Special Thanks to Naseeruddin Shah'. The marvellous thespian deserves so much more than just a special thanks -he was hilarious as the fearless and violent Rathore from Ranjhore. The movie came to life whenever his portrait did. All his scenes with Ratna Pathak Shah were just class - the two actors were on form.

There were some truly laugh out loud scenes in the movie - Jai's mother uttering 'Voh mera pati ka beta' as she sees Jai riding on a horse through the streets of Bombay, and of course Jignesh inviting Jai for his 'surprise' birthday party. Imran Khan and Genelia, as Jai and Aditi, turned in impressive performances. They had great chemistry and they rocked that final climax scene in the airport.

I'm pretty sure this movie is going to be my new Dil Chahta Hai. I'm going to end up watching this movie whenever there is nothing to do, and I don't expect to stop humming 'Kabhi Kabhi Aditi Zindagi' any time soon.

Music and Moments

2008-07-06T15:31:00.001-07:00

I reminisce a lot and I blame the music I listen to for this. Somehow, the moments that I truly remember have a song associated with them.

Anjali Anjali, from Duet, is one of AR Rahman’s best tunes, quite possibly just because of the magnificence of SPB’s voice, beautifully set up by Kadri Gopalnath on the saxophone. The song takes me back to those lazy Saturday afternoons in Madras, when Tamil movies from the 90s would be playing on Sun TV, Raj TV and the like. I remember seeing Duet quite a few times – I would sit eating ‘batchanam’ while my dad would fall asleep on the reclining chair.

I have never mentioned any attempts of mine to woo the fairer sex mostly because there have been close to none. UB40’s version of Can’t Help Falling in Love reminds me of my first real crush. It was hardly love but I remember hearing that song lot those days, and I was listening to it out of necessity rather than choice. I shall leave it at that, for I do love to create the intrigue.

Malargale from Love Birds, another Rahman score for the ages. I remember it being my uncle’s favourite song and he told me about how hard it was to sing to this tune because there were no real beats to help the singers. I accepted that without disagreement (possibly because I was 8) and now I don’t care to find out if that is true, for that could possibly ruin the moment, right?

I’m going to move away from my Rahman obsession for a moment and impress you with my taste in Irish music. Lough Erin Shore by The Corrs was the first song I listened to right after my final 12^th standard board exam. I was so tired when I reached home that I just threw my bag away and lay down on the couch, aiming to get some sleep before meeting my classmates later that day. This song was playing on my Ipod and it hit me then that school was over for good, surprisingly something that I had been wishing for the past 13 years.

I don’t remember too much of the first five years of my life, when we were in San Jose, California. Two songs, though, have stuck with me. I was 3, I think, when I first saw Kizhakku Vaasal – too young to understand what was going on but still old enough to enjoy Veetikku Veetikku Vasapadi Vaendum. It was sung and composed by Ilayaraja and I used to watch that movie almost every other day just for that song. I think the video cassette got worn out just because of my repeated viewing. The other song I was jamming to at that age was Kuzhal Oodhum Kannanukku from Mella Thiranda Kanavu. Another Ilayaraja classic and my mom would play it in the car everyday as she picked me up from kindergarten. I think it was mostly on my insistence.

I went to quite a few birthday parties in Madras. My mom’s friends loved to throw these lavish parties for their kids – everyone in sight was invited – and all I really enjoyed was the cake. There was this one party, however, that for some odd reason had Hindi music playing. This was a rare occurrence those days (about 11 years ago), to hear non-Tamil music in a birthday party. It seemed as if they were playing Meri Mehbooba, from Pardes, on loop and that’s when my obsession for Hindi film music began. Yesterday, someone expressed surprise when I guessed what song was playing (Pappu can’t dance) as soon as the singer went ‘this is…’

No near end in sight for this obsession.

Music and Moments

P.S: The Summer issue of Nazar is out, check it out at http://nazaronline.net

Silence

2008-06-29T15:55:00.003-07:00

I find myself seeking silent moments a lot more these days. When I first joined college, I longed for noise because it distracted me from my home sickness. Now, I enjoy 'living the moment', observing the surroundings, in silence.

Yesterday, I was watching that great comedy, Andaaz Apna Apna, with my friends but about half an hour into the movie I went outside and just stood looking at the mess that is my apartment complex. Hardly the best environment, but I enjoyed being on my own for a while.

Silence can be nice.

Cleanliness is so over-rated

2008-06-26T21:35:00.008-07:00

I did not have any homework today and I got off work sooner than usual. So, I decided to head to Wal-Mart with my room-mates in order to do some food shopping and also get supplies to clean our disgusting bath room.

It felt odd trying to buy supplies for the apartment. The responsible room-mate has gone back home for the summer and so I had to unfortunately take up the mantle. We entered Wal-Mart and immediately started quarrelling about what we should buy first. One wanted to buy vegetables because he wanted to start cooking. Not only was that hogwash (he has never cooked in his life), he also claimed that he wanted to make his own sandwich starting tomorrow. The only problem was that he was searching for lettuce in the cabbage section.

I then asked him to get a pack of toilet paper and he asks me if they have the 'baby soft' kind. At this point, I realized how mature these guys made me seem. I somehow managed to maintain an inspiring calm amidst the chaos (the two guys started arguing about the American army, defense, blah, blah). Before we finished our shopping trip, we bought a mop, disinfectant and scrubbing stuff to clean the disgusting bathroom.

I've never cleaned a bathroom before, and so tonight was a harsh wake up call to adulthood. From now on, I've got to clean toilets, bath tubs, sinks... being an adult isn't as awesome as it's made out to be. The situation in the bathroom was so horrible I had to wear gloves and slippers and then attack it with Clorox and bleach. We also threw in some ammonia in there for good measure and all of a sudden, 'baby soft' starts crying out that the pungent smell of ammonia will kill us all. In high school, I dropped a bottle of ammonia in the Chemistry lab and no one died (I did have to stand outside and think about the mistake I made, though). My other room-mate, meanwhile, did not feel like cleaning the dishes because of the 'possibility' of fungus in the sink.

Right now, the smell of Ammonia is partially compensated by the Febreze that I sprayed with zealous vigour. The apartment smells like a wet towel that has been left out for a day and then dipped in a bowl of ammonia and peach. Ah, the price I have to pay for a clean apartment.

Update: I googled 'inhaling clorox' and found out that it is indeed harmful. I also saw this on Yahoo Answers: "dont inhale it again i heard of this lady who died because she accidently mixed 2 wrong things together..better safe than sorry"

I slept in the living room last night.

A Week In England & Paris (Part 2)

2008-06-24T19:41:00.000-07:00

To read Part 1, click here.

Next it was off to Manchester, or so I thought. My sister had made this awesome itinerary for the whole trip but sometimes, things don't always go to plan. We reached the station, which was a 10 minute walk from the dorm, with 10 minutes to spare. Then my sister realized that had she left her id at home and without that we wouldn't be able to take the train. Now, I've always prided my potential to one day run a marathon and so I decided to run to the dorm and back with the id so that we could catch the train. I ran across the street, jumped over a fence, scurried through a park, jumped over another fence and reached the dorm in 3 minutes. I then took a couple of minutes to find the ID and ran back out of the dorm. 4 minutes to go and I was all pumped up.

50 metres down the road and I start to cough. It was 10 degrees celcius, and my legs were fighting a fierce battle with my brain. I slowly climbed the fence, trudged across the park, almost fell off the next fence and then walked towards the station. I now had 1 minute to catch the train and my sister took the ID from me and ran to the platform. I made a final effort to run but I found out that I had lost the will to even walk. The train soon vanished from sight as did my hopes of ever running a marathon of any kind.

Anyway, after I was able to catch my breath, I decided to head to the Lord's Cricket Ground. There are only two sights that have ever given me goose bumps. The first one was when I saw the Taj Mahal at night, and the second one was when I looked out from the dressing room balcony at Lord's, on to the hallowed grass that has meant so much to everyone who has had the privilege of walking on it. It was one of the best moments of the trip and I owe it all to the train that we missed earlier that day.

It was from one sport's spiritual home to another, as I walked about a mile and a half from the metro station to get to the All England Tennis Club. It wasn't as special as the Lord's tour, but still was well worth the walk and the entry fee. They were just setting up for Wimbledon and so most of the courts did not have nets, and the Center Court was closed off due to construction.

There was only one thing left to do in my London Tourist Spot Check List and that was walking across Abbey Road, Beatles' shtyle.

Later that day was the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea, and I really wanted to see Man U kick Chelsea’s ass. So I walked around till I found a pub that wasn’t packed and then parked myself in front of the TV. Something that I hadn’t really thought through before heading to the pub was that Chelsea is a London based team and so there wouldn’t be many Man U fans around. There were two Red Devils supporters that night in the pub – me and another guy who seemed to support Man U just to spite his friends who were Chelsea fans. It was still fun though, to see the Chelsea fans curse out loud when Ronaldo scored the first goal but the best part was when Terry missed the penalty at the end. The pub went completely silent and when Anelka missed the penalty that gave Man U the game, I jumped up in the air in delight. As I began my descent, the world around me suddenly seemed to slow down – I saw the Chelsea fans looking despondent initially but then their looks changed to anger as they saw me descend from my flight of delight. I was out of the pub and back in my sister’s dorm in a flash.

And now, the final destination of my trip - Paris! I reached the City of Lights, with absolutely no knowledge of French. Well, I could say bonjour but I had nothing to follow that with. Luckily my sister knew the most important sentence a tourist can know when in Paris, "parlez vous anglais? (Do you speak English?)".

We stayed in the Aloha Hostel, where we got an Indian room-mate from Manchester who hated Manchester United, and quite surprisingly the cook at the hostel happened to be from Chennai. Our first day there, we had to cancel our trip to Versailles because of a train strike. We, instead, took a tour of the Louvre, following which I was unable to walk.

There were so many brilliant paintings and statues everywhere that looking at the Mona Lisa did not exactly give me the thrill that I expected. The fact that it was facing the biggest painting in the Louvre did not help its cause either.

After recovering from the tour of the Louvre, we went to visit one of Paris’ more popular churches – the Sacre Coeur Basilique. We took a lift to get up to the top of the hill where the church is located, and I was greeted by a breathtaking view of the city of Paris. There was also a dude showing off his freestyle skills. Check out the video below:

The Eiffel Tower was our next destination. I had previously asked my sister what the big deal was about a tall statue made of iron and then I saw it. There were no more stupid questions from me.

The following day was our last day in Paris and the last day of my trip really, since I was heading back to Austin early the following morning. We had seen an advertisement for a four hour long free walking tour around the city, and since it was free we obviously had to do it. We later found out that it was free only if we did not want to tip the guide. Our guide, Narini, was brilliant – full of energy and it would have been criminal to not give her a generous trip. She took us all around the city – starting at the River Seine and ending at Les Invalides. We walked along the Champs-Élysées, almost got knocked down by the motorists while trying to take a picture of the Arc de Triomphe and heard a 500 year long history of Paris in 5 minutes.

As soon as the tour got over, we went over to the Notredame Cathedral, on my sister’s insistence. I had no real desire to check out the church, mostly due to my painfully aching legs. However, I was SO glad that I allowed my sister to drag me there because it was such a special experience. I was taken by the brilliant architecture of the cathedral and the silence, oh my god, the silence was so beautiful. The whole trip came together for me, at that moment. I had at times been grumpy, silent and might have definitely seemed unappreciative of the chance that I had been given to explore London and Paris. It was at that moment that I was thankful for the wonderful times I had had in the trip and also regretful for the times I gave the impression that I was not having fun – because I was.

Early the following day, I took the London metro for the last time as I got off at the airport. On arriving at Austin, I took the university shuttle and reached campus at about 5 pm. The sun was beating down at me, the campus was deserted and I had to walk up the slope that is Dean Keeton Street, with two heavy bags. But for some reason, I had a wry smile on my face.

My parents have moved back to India, my sister is in London and I have no immediate family nearby, but I felt strangely cheerful. I looked up at the awesome university tower, picked up my two bags and started trudging up the slope, happy to be home.

A Week In England & Paris (Part 1)

2008-06-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

'Gracias', said the man standing in front of me at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport, mistaking me for Hispanic, as I returned the quarter that he had dropped on the floor. I let that slide without a reply as I was more involved with the thought of spending a week in London, Oxford, York and Paris. My sister studies in London, and since I had absolutely nothing to do, except for playing Winning 11 on the Playstation, I decided to take a trip to visit her. It was going to be my first ever trip to Europe and needless to say, I was excited.

I reached London, after a 10 hour flight where I got no sleep, and was greeted at the surprisingly underwhelming Heathrow airport by my sister. The thought of breakfast quickly vanished as I checked the price of a ' bagette', and so following my miserly instincts, I bought orange juice and got on to the train that would take me to my sister's dorm. London has a pretty efficient metro system, but the names of some of the lines and stations are quite funny. For example, you could take the 'Piccadilly' line to get to 'Cockfosters'.

Anyway, soon after I dumped my stuff at my sister's alarmingly small but comfy room, we went on an open top bus tour which was made even more special thanks to the cold and wet English weather, well complemented by my jetlag. I did, however, get to see some of the renowned sights of London - the Big Ben, the Buckingham Palace, the 'British Airways' London Eye, and of course the restaurant where the tickets to the Titanic (the ship, not the movie) were sold. The restaurant is surprisingly called 'The Texas Embassy'.

The next day, my sister and I woke up early to stand in line to get tickets for the incredibly popular musical, 'Wicked'. Wicked was, (pardon the lame attempt to act British) simply wicked. Brilliant special effects and a very clever story make it a must see. My jet lag got the better of me again and so I wasn't able to explore London after the show. I had to wake up early the following day because we had to catch a bus to Oxford.

I fell in love with Oxford - the beautiful architecture, the cafes and pubs that were full of life and just the history of the place was enough to captivate me. I went on a walking tour through the town as I learnt about the history behind the different colleges (there are 39 of them) at the university. And my sister's friend who studies there made awesome Indian food for us. I would love to go back to Oxford to do a study abroad, not that I'm not studying abroad right now, but still.
There was more travelling to do the next day as I took a train from King's Cross Station to York. I know what you're thinking and yes, I did try pushing a trolley through Platform 9 ¾… it didn't work. Anyway, I was in York for a day where Manasi gave me a tour of the city with the world's smallest window and the world's narrowest street. It also houses the street with the funniest name (Whip-ma-whop-ma). And I got another awesome home-made Indian dinner. The day ended with a Ghost tour where I was part of a group of little kids who seemed to shout out whenever the guide raised his voice. Kids get scared so easily, I mean I only shouted out like once...or twice.

I reached London in the afternoon the next day, and my sister met me at the station took me to Madam Tusaud’s Wax Museum. I had told my friends back in Austin that I was taller than Aishwarya Rai and below is photographic evidence.

Ash, Me and the Father-in-law

Tusaud’s was over priced, but was a lot of fun. Some of the likenesses were amazing (I mistook a wax photographer to be real and kept waiting for her to take her picture), but some were pretty poor (Jennifer Aniston is way hotter in real life).

See, Aniston looks like she's 50... I mean, I look hotter than her! (no snide comments please, let me have my moment)

So, next it was off to Manchester, or so I thought...

(to be continued)

'BCCI = Communist Party of China'

2008-06-13T05:39:00.005-07:00

BCCI's recent antics have really, really annoyed me and this article by Mukul Kesavan, on Cricinfo, just sums it all up.

There was also an earlier news story on Cricinfo about how ICL players and the English county teams they play for will be disqualified from the Champions League. It's a shame that Modi is allowed to wield so much power. It truly has gone to his head.

It's nice

2008-06-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in Starbucks, listening to the latest AR Rahman movie album, drinking a tall mocha frappucino while making use of the wireless connection that the nice Italian restaurant nearby has forgotten to secure. It's nice, the moment.

And now Sherry, Chika and Arun will take you through to the end of the game...

2008-04-29T20:50:00.005-07:00

Navjot Singh Sidhu (NS), Arun Lal (AL) and Kris Srikkhant (KS) are in the commentary box and the Chennai Super Kings need 12 runs off the last over. The Super Kings are playing Kings XI Punjab and Brett Lee is ready to bowl the last over. M.S. Dhoni is on strike and at the non-striker's end stands Parthiv Patel.

AL: So, one over left and twelve runs to win. Brett Lee to bowl and the skipper of the Super Kings, Dhoni, is on strike. This is going to be close.

NS: Arun, this has the makings of a classic, I tell you. Dhoni has been cool as a cucumber so far and he's just got to see this game through.

AL: Yes indeed, Sherri, yes indeed.

KS: The Super Kings will win this game. You can hear the crowd shouting 'Jeetega Super Kings Jeetega'.

AL: Hmmm, I can't hear that chant, this is Mohali after all.

KS: Errr, still Super Kings will win because they aren't only Kings, they are also Super.

AL: So...Brett Lee is at the start of his run up and Dhoni takes his stance.

(Lee runs in and bowls one wide outside off stump, Dhoni slashes hard and the ball runs off to the third man boundary for four).

NS: Brilliant shot that, from the bat of the Indian Captain. He wields that bat like a mace, this Bheem from Jharkhand.

AL: Yes indeed, Sherri, that was well played. It's still an uphill task for the Super Kings though.

KS: Yaar the Super Kings have this game in the bag. Brett Lee is fast but Dhoni is faster…with the bat.

(Next ball is a fast yorker and Dhoni plays it back to the bowler. Lee stares back at Dhoni and the crowd roars).

AL: On the stumps that ball and Lee staring back at Dhoni. This game isn't over yet. 8 required off 4.

NS: Aggression, my friend, is the lifeblood of modern day Cricket.

KS: I remember when I used to open with Sunny; I would go slam-bam from the start. That was aggression, Sherri.

NS: Haha, yes. You would have been perfect for this, the short and sweet version of the game. By your own admission, you never really did last twenty overs when you played.

KS: Errr....

(Ball number 3 and Lee bowls a low full toss that is driven strongly by Dhoni to long off where Sreesanth stops the ball. He throws the ball back to the bowler with a cry of anguish. The batsmen think of two but the loud noise from Sreesanth distracts them and they settle for one).

AL: That was brilliantly struck but Sreesanth stops it. But wait, is he crying? Tears of joy perhaps, but he just stopped the ball.

KS: Even Sherri would have stopped that... on a good day.

NS: Haha Chika, I shall let that slide. Haha...Haha.

AL: Sreesanth is wired up. Let's talk to him directly. Sree, can you hear me?

Sreesanth: (Sniffs) Yes Arun.

AL: Why are you crying? The Super Kings haven't won yet.

Sreesanth: No it’s not that. When the ball hit my hand hard, it reminded me of the hard slap that my bada bhai, Bhajji, gave me.

NS: Sreesanth, strong men do not cry. You are playing for the Kings of Punjab, son, wipe away those tears and show the Sardar from Jalandhar that his slap was the sign of a coward.

Sreesanth: See, I also had this cold today morning...

KS: Maybe, Preity Zinta should give him a hug...

(3 balls left, 7 runs to win. Lee bowls a short ball and Patel tries to glide it over third man. The ball descends as Powar runs in from third man. He drops it and the Super Kings run two).

AL: Powar drops that one there and gives an easy two to the Super Kings. This is poor fielding; Powar should have caught that one. Catches win matches. This match is getting close now.

NS: Humpty Dumpty would have caught that one!

KS: Haha, humpty dumpty...

AL: Two balls to go and 5 runs needed. Parthiv Patel has a chat with Dhoni now and I bet they are discussing how to score those five runs. Two balls remaining.

NS: You can smell the tension! This is a game for the ages. Ice cool Dhoni sharing sage advice with the baby faced keeper from Gujarat.

KS: Did you know that Parthiv made his debut at the age of 17? That's just one year older than when Sachin made his debut, under me. I was the captain when Sachin made his debut.

NS: Yes we know Chika.

AL: Lee is now ready to bowl the 5th ball of the over, 5 to win.

(Lee bowls one wide and short and Parthiv cuts it hard over point and beats the despairing dive of James Hopes at the boundary).

KS: What a shot!

AL: Yes indeed Chika, that was cut over point splendidly.

NS: He may look like a kid but that shot packed so much punch, Muhammad Ali might have felt the sting.

AL: Yes that was splendidly cut, over the fielder at point.

KS: The cheerleaders are creating a good mood for the last ball now.

NS: Chika, the cheerleaders' skirts are like statistics. What they reveal is suggestive...but what they hide is essential! Haha!

AL: The Super Kings should win this as long as they avoid unnecessary run outs or shots in the air, unless of course the ball goes over the fielder's head.

NS: Arun, you are as redundant as a Congress politician.

AL: Yes indeed, Sherri.

(Last ball of the game. Lee bowls a slower one. Parthiv spots it and nudges the ball to Yuvraj at cover).

NS: Yuvraj runs towards the ball as if his life depends on it. Dhoni and Parthiv cross, Yuvraj ball in hand and shoots. Dhoni dives in as the ball crashes into the stumps.

(Square leg umpire Rudi Koertzen decides the batsman is not out).

NS: For a second I thought that the batsmen were committing Hara Kiri there, but Dhoni ran like a gazelle and made his ground. The dreaded finger of Rudi Koertzen stays down and the Super King juggernaut continues to roll.

AL: Yes indeed, this was a close game.

KS: Super game Arun!