Ways to figure out if tomorrows match is fixed?

HYPE is the buzz word since India won their Quarter final match of the Cricket World Cup 2011 and set up the Semis clash with Pakistan. Everything from the past records to the Pak PM attending the game to match fixing has been discussed. Offices across India(and Pakistan too, I am assuming) will shut down after lunch and match zones a.k.a your TV room which will double up as your own expert commentary plus watching area will experience a high decibel level. The rivalry does take a totally new turn now.

So while Arnab (Times Now) gets a panel of experts(???) ready to figure out if the much talked about match is fixed or no, I have figured out some of my own methods of checking the credibility. Watch out for the below mentioned things:

1.  At the start of the match, a certain pseudo Man in control of India, Mr. Singh asks for peace between the two nations and says, "We all know that Sri Lanka is supposed to win the cup but let's come out fighting and defeat them today".
2. Sharad Pawar arrives at the stadium wearing a Sri Lanka T-shirt thinking he has come to watch the Finals.
3.  Afridi wins the toss and says " Were we supposed to bat or ball?".
4.  Sachin Tendulkar discovers his pants have been stolen. After wearing a borrowed pair, he finds his bat is broken. After borrowing the same, he cannot find his elbow guard. After borrowing the guard, he finally reaches the ground, to be timed out by the umpire.
5.  Kamran Akmal dives all the over the place and makes the most impressive catches possible.
6.. Virat Kohli stretches to take a catch but the ball hits him on his hickey. Which one? You ask?
7.  Shoaib Akhtar comes out balling but decides to stop mid way. When asked why he did so, " the Rawalpindi express derailed this morning". Didn't you hear?
8.  Umar Akmal appeals after a sensational catch off the bowling of Munaf Patel. The problem: Mohammad Hafeez is on the batting end.
9.  Misbah Ul Haq and Saeed Ajmal go for an 'up in the air' catch and both say, "Its yours" and run the other way.
10. Umar Gul comes running full steam to bowl his sixth ball of the over and delivers a perfectly legitimate delivery. He apologises to Afridi for 'overstepping' and goes to ball a seventh one.
11. Yuvraj Singh heaves the ball high in the air and the umpire catches the ball. The batsman starts walking back.
12.  Dhoni wins the toss. (How many does he win these days?)

Sorry but no offence to any of the esteemed cricketers. Just a few funny ones i thought of.
of course the match isn't fixed and both teams will come out firing.
Pray for the betterment of the game and peace between the countries...

Look who's talking?

There is nothing more hilarious(sometimes frustrating) than watching a boring cricket match with Hindi commentary on. From the ballebaaj dor rahe hai to the fielder ne lapak liya to ball hawa mein uchal di hai, it all is a lot of laughs...

Today was one of the days when I was forced to watch the match with only two hindi commentators for company. I decided to take advatnage of the scene and noted the following jewels. Read on and decide what was more interesting, the match or the commentary:

1. Aur wicketkeeper ab batsman se bilkul chipak kar khade hain.
2. aur ye michael clarke reng kar ball par lapke.
3. aur ye acha shot aur nischint hi chaar run. Par ye out. kahi se ek fielder udta hua aayan aur hawa mein se ball ko kheech nikala.
4. After five overs: Aaj balleebaajo mein kuch taalmel nazar nahi aa raha.
After six overs: Kaushik, kya aap dekh rahe hain ki aaj dono batsman bahut achi running between the wickets ka pradarshan kar rahe hain.
5. Aur drinks break mein humne dekha ki gambhir ne khub gap gap karke kele khaye. Shaayad ab unme Shaktimaan wali taakat aa gayi hogi.
6. Australia ek aisi team hain jise aap ek ungli yaani ek wicket pakdayo to woh pura haath yaani puri team ki wickets ko le jaati hain.
7. agar aap kaptaan ke chehre ko dhyaan se dekho to aap samjhege ki woh mathe ki stress lines fatafat gayab ho rahi hain.
8. Aur Brett lee ball par aisa kude ki khoonam khoon ho gaye.
9. Brett Lee wapis maidan mein aa gaya hain aur khooni sher jo ghayal ho gaya ho, bowling ke liye daud rahe hain.

Funny...But very irritating when India seemed to lose track of the match.
All panned out well in the end, India won the match. Or should I say it in the same way the Hindi commentator said it in 'matri bhasha'

"Aur iss tabad tod shot ke saath, Punjab ke sher ne bharat ko apne sheher Mohali ki ticket dila di hain."

Ufff...He must have completely written this down as part of a script earlier. No one is that funny(read dumb) to come up with this one...

The Vizag Diary!!

It is always fun to go on a trip. And going out with family to meet family is all the more fun. And when it is your first holiday in 16 months then it is the most awaited event of recent times. So Vizag bound we all were. Packed to the tilt. Rather, very heavily packed. The luggage weighed more than Navya and me combined so you can imagine...;)

Now, amongst the four travelers, Vishakapatnam was new only for me. Of course, for Navya everything is new. And travelling with her by air was giving me goose bumps. A full check list of medicines and advice later, we managed to land safely, leaving aside the gaping strange man at the feeding mother.

A sea port, I expected Vizag to be extremely cool and breezy. Cool it wasn't, rather the opposite, breezy it was but only at night. We landed to a great welcome by our hosts, Mohit's sisters family. And soon we were at the Naval Park colony. The colony living I always loved and when it was packed by smart Navy families greeting each other in style it was the cherry on the cake.

The one week holiday was extremely exciting with some great hospitality and some good bonding with my nephew and niece. Laughs between the family was something we all needed. Each day I had learnt something new about the Navy style of living and realised how small the civilian looked in comparison. How very distinguished the Navy kids looked when they straightened up and wished an officer in the lift or how a Navy officer bowed to let the ladies go first or how they let the guard down to celebrate Holi. Rain dance, loud music, beer and full of silver, black, yellow and red and all the other colors possible. I saw all shades of a lifestyle that I had never known was so cultured and enjoyable.

I am not the kinds to make fun of a language but I couldn't help but make my judgement about Telugu. The written text surely resembled all sorts of tomatoes put together. So it became a common joke amongst me and the kids to talk in katta tamatar, paka tamatar, aadha tamatar, sada tamatar dialect...

Take a look at the picture and you will understand...It means 'Telugu' in Telugu(???) but this is how we deciphered it...sada tamatar, do tamatar, ulta kata, kata tamatar... Funny but apologies to the Tomato language. ;)

From the long walks in the breezy evenings to the long drive along the beach road to the trip to the submarine to the great Andhra food and Dosas to the loving warmth of Didi and Jiyaji, Vizag was surely a landmark trip.

Is it 2012 already?

Last year when I saw the movie 2012, I shuddered. Woke up at night with a nightmare that there was a massive earthquake in Delhi and everything and everyone was destroyed and killed. The following morning was nice and sunny and all was forgotten. But come 2011 and it seems the reel life is turning to the real life.

Catastrophes after catastrophes are the order of the day. If the man killing man wasn't enough, natural disasters  like Earthquake, Tsunamis, Volcanoes gather the frontal of newspapers these days. While earlier pictures of a certain bearded man grabbed centrefold's, now it is the faces of tearful people rendered homeless.

Is it simply too much of media coverage and man taking attention or suddenly there are too many natural calamities happening? To me at first, it seemed like a little extra awareness and exposure to media from humans that led to them knowing of each and everything happening in each and every speck of the world. But on second thought, a careful study of year on year earthquakes revealed that there was far too much destruction now than in any years earlier.

It was in 2004 when I heard the word Tsunami for the first time but now it is a regular one in the daily news. Are we tampering with Mother Nature too much and this is her way of retaliating? Is 2012 staring at us too soon? Will we wake up to the nightmare and see a rosy morning or simply not get up at all?

View these stats and do some thinking:


Earthquakes in 2011: There have been 6 major quakes in the 65 days that have passed in this year, the Japan quake on March 11th 2011 being the biggest.


Earthquakes in 2010: There were 20 major earthquakes in 2010 that measured more than 7.0 on the Richter scale. Out of these, the Chilean as well as Haitian Quakes were the most devastating. 


Floods in 2011: The Queensland Floods in the beginning of the year were the worst leading to damage of almost $38 billion. They were the biggest in a list of seven fatal floods this year.


Floods in 2010: The Pakistan floods led to a loss of life and damages amounting to $43 Billion. there were around 30 other smaller flooding.


Other big natural disaster of 2010 and 2011: 
Russian Heat Wave killing 56,000 in 2010
Volcanic Eruption in Iceland in April 2010
Earthquake in Tibet in 2010 killing more than 2000 people.

Pray all stays well.

Consider-REconsider!

A chance conversation with a relative over tea last sunday brought me to the 'Re' factor. I can go on writing pages explaining what I mean but I assume the following words will tell all.


Relook. Reduce. Recall. Restyle. Remember. Review. Restructure. Rethink. Refresh. Recharge. Rejuvenate. Revive. Relive. Refuse.


Strike a thought on the 'Re' and life will be better I guess....


REJOICE!!


R

Did I lose the 'Me' in 'Her'?

When I was single, I would always make fun of all the mothers who completely engrossed themselves in their kids and did everything for them. From bathing to feeding to taking them to the park to putting them to bed at night, all by themselves leaving them no time on their own. I would always think it was funny how women immersed their life totally in their kids with no escape route to their own life. How they lost their self while looking after their child?

And here I am losing myself completely in my child. It seems everything about me has somehow become everything about her. To quote an example, the last time I shopped for myself was in my seventh month of pregnancy and now Navya is five months. So it was seven months back that I found the time to indulge in myself. Ever since, shopping has been only about her. This is just one instance which made me realise how I had transformed from a carefree girl to a responsible mother, doing a tad bit more rather. Pushing it to the limit of completely losing track of my life and letting it evolve into hers.

Don't know how or why I let that happen, but I did. Maybe that is the case for most of us, we let life drift off towards our new-born so much that the 'self' is forgottten. I had heard about husbands feeling neglected as wives devoted all their time and energy towards their kids. But maybe I am the one off case where 'my own self' is being neglected 'by my own self'. Strange, but true!

Confessions of a spiritual mind

It is Maha Shivratri today. For an average Shiv bhakt like me, it is 'THE' day to worship thy Lord and ask forgiveness. Though Wiki defines it as something complicated, Indian mythological tales inform me that the 13th or 14th day of month of the month Maagha is his favorite day and that is why 'Maha Shivratri' is celebrated today. For me, it meant waking up on early(uhmm...I mean around 8:30) and showering to get blessings from The God.

I left early(why do I keep using that word when actually I went at 10) only to find a hundred more people had turned up at the same time. Now the temple(behind my house) is divided into three small structures. There is the complex dedicated to Shiva and his family, then there is another one for Sai Baba and the third biggest structure houses all the other main deities. It took me 10 minutes to buy Pooja samagri and finally enter the Shiv Mandir complex. Only to find another 100 people.