We know, but still don't know...

We are so anisometric that we don’t know how longer our other limb is

I am, would be and have been a self confessed fan of Nirvana, I remember having cried the day Kurt Cobain died, rather shot himself down. I till date follow Francisca’s life. I love the man and his music and I think he is god or rather one of them.

Smells like teen spirit is one of my favorite albums, I still have the magnetic tape (cassette) which might or might not play

And I know all the songs there by heart, at least the titles

I am sure every other Cobain fan would do so

Did we ever realize that there is a song titled “Aneurysm” in Smells like teen spirit ??

If at all we did…

Did we ever care to know what Aneurysm is ??

At least I didn’t at least till he called me and she spoke to me a while later

This is what Aneurysm is… Let’s spread the word

It is exactly 5 years as of today…

I still remember…

How you apologized for being 10 minutes late to Coffee Day, the place where we first met in Madras

I do remember how badly I was hung over and how best I tried dissuading you, not to fall into the trap

I would never forget that 5.32p call I made the same day, confessing how I’d fallen for you

That sincere “Will you marry me” from my side

And that playful “That is a serious question. I might have to speak to my parents” and of course the “Let our families meet formally" decision you made

The number of F words I uttered during our marriage, facing up to the customs, friends, relatives and others. Whom I had never faced in my life in such fearsome frenzy

The way you tried freshening the air inside our (first nights) bedroom when your mother knocked for coffee, post that smoke I’d just had

How you cried on my lap when that month and a half disappointment happened before Anirudhha happened

The smile when you saw me gate crash in to your ward at 6.15a the day after Aniruddha was born

Your eyes when I smelled Aniruddha’s forehead for the first time, the day after he was born

That “Leaving on the Jet plane” of Janis Joplin (which I love) you played when you, with Anirudhha in your arms sent me off to Dubai

The hug, the day when you and Anirudhha landed in Dubai after three months of his birth

And the good life you have made possible thereafter

It’s five years and I don’t think it is. Feels like we just left that Rs 3 tips for that coffee at Coffee Day, I can smell that Lavender room freshener that camouflaged the smoke, our wedding video, the stupid look I had on my face just after I had uttered that “N^th” F word, our faces when we met for the first time with Anirudhha on your lap. And all those difficult things I can never write about, the way you made me see them through.

I love you Roopa K

A three and a half's mind tonight

Anirudhha amuses me...

That is my three and a half year old son.

His music sense puzzles me...

I was in my 9th class when I heard my first non Indian music album, which was then classified as POP. Yes, in CAPS.

Jacko it was and "Beat it" was the tune.

It was a solo listen and dance, for if my parents knew I was listening to this alien music I would probably not be blogging now. It might have been my epitaph tune, that.

But I still listened, underground. Can we imagine a Michael Jackson underground today ?? Okay folks... he is underground most of the times... but I meant his music, the records (CDs)

Today a three and a half sings "Fat bottomed girls" along...

Does he know what FAT is ??

Or what BOTTOM is...

I am sure he knows neither

But he knows his Freddie uncle and his music...

Let it play on !!

It is a warm-up they say...

Is it ??

Can you call an India - Pakistan encounter a warm-up game ??

Would you ??

This debate of "Is it ? Is it not ?" would go on for hours.

For this and more on the match, as it progresses Bored Cricket Crazy Indians have a fantastic plan or should I say platform ?

Yes, it is bigger and better than that mundane score card you see online.

Why only Online ? It's even bigger than watching the match on TV.

Imagine a comment you made about that stupid shot Sehwag or Afridi played being heard by a huge bunch of cricket lovers from all around the world ?

Imagine your small comment triggering a cracker of a discussion ?

Now tell me... Do you want this match to be just another warm-up ?

Or, would you want to join us in our virtual stadia and play along live ??

Do join the Twelfth man and the other "able" men from BCC! this evening !!

Anirudhha's response to facebook quizzes

The Facebook quizzes facinate me, especially the identify the brand ones.

I always thought they were pretty basic and even my three and a half year old son, Anirudhha would score 95%+ in those. So I put together some 33 logos to test how he fared.

So here's how he scores when showed him logos of cars.

He answered 32/33 which is 96.96%. The Tambram parent I am, I am a bit concerned about the score.

I am worried about the 3% that was not, more than the 97% that was !!

What would be your reaction ??

"I'm not very good at Twenty20 cricket, am I?"

Kevin Pietersen makes a frank admission on the eve of the tournament

May 29, 2009

Saw this on the Quote Unquote section of cricinfo.

The first question that came up in my mind was "To whom could he have made this admission ??"

His banker ??

May be, he thought he could have milked a couple of (hundred) thousands more from Mallya ??

Or may be he made this admission to Mallya himself !!

Let's say this question was directed to you...

What would be your answer to Kevin ??

Would you say...

Oh Kevin !! Don't be so humble and modest ??

Face of the Indian youth

Firstly, this is post is not about cricket.

The twelfth man is extremely disappointed about what happened in IPL today. No, not that he is a Delhi supporter and Deccan won today. It was because his wife and son wouldn't let him watch the match, the whole match... Damn it!!

He missed the match okay. But he also missed three other things because of that which is not okay.

1) That gem of an innings from Gilly

2) How astutely Jatman handled his bowlers

3) His regular IPL feature "B the moment of the match"

Okay, now that we have done our days lip service to cricket let us move on.

Move on to another important thing that happened in Delhi today. The new Indian cabinet was sworn in today, all the Indian media is filled with stories. Some stories about the swearing in and many about the first family of Indian politics, the Nehru -(Feroz) Gandhi parivar.

This is one such story that I found in one of those Padmashree infested Indian news TV channels.

Now, the "She" here is Sonia Gandhi...

"On one occasion she even poked fun at Rahul, when someone asked her whether there was a future roadmap for the Congress. "Ask him," pointing to her 38-year-old son, "He should be knowing." Pat came the reply. "Why are you passing questions to me? That's not fair," said Rahul Gandhi"

Brilliant, the question that comes to The twelfth man's mind is, "Why is heirloom written in capital letters on the face of every Indian youth in politics ??. Where are the other youth, someone non family, in a supposedly young country ?? A country full of youth ??"

Think of a name irrespective of the party, it is all full of dynasties and families.

Congress, BJP, DMK, NCP, Akali Dal, Indian Lok Dal it's there everywhere.

We know it, we all know it, but still we vote for them. The worst yet, we take sides accuse someone a Hitler and we fight among ourselves, while we all know that there has been a Hitleress (feminine gender!!) & her Hitler Junior before.

We love when the aspiration of bright young kids are killed, plastered on to the roads like those carcasses of small animals on a highway because of what our politicians call "Affirmative action".

Why?? Because the politician wants to affirm his love to the downtrodden??

No, it is because those are the people who are a good majority when it comes to his / her constituency, the people who provide them that winning edge.

Let me ask you something, only to those of us who go to temples. Have you ever thought about how wealthy or prosperous the Pujari / priest of the temple is?? What his progeny do?? I know a couple, whose dreams have been squashed on the highway.

Why?

Because the "caste" column in their birth certificate said BRAHMIN.

This guy earns all of Rs.600 plus those ones and twos we drop in his aarti plate (offerings to the man who serves god). With his salaries he can't even have three square meals, two glasses of coffee (himself) and a daily newspaper. Still he has managed to educate his kids, and they have managed to do well till, the dear politicians we support decided to squash their dreams. I am sure we will forget all these.

Come next elections we might even vote for that party who we think are the outcasts of today. For, they might touch our emotional chords deep, a bit deeper than the others.

We would still not vote for those independent candidates with impeccable credentials. Ala Meera Sanyal, Capt. Gopinath or a Saratbabu.

Why, because they have no chance if winning. WTF, if you and me don't vote for them then HTF would they win??

The quintessential Indian mentality, we don't do or even attempt something but blame when something happens. We have seen those who lead candlelight vigils, post the Mumbai happenings sleeping soundly after a particularly heavy night before voting and there are some among us who had signed in or those of us who toasted "Cheers" to a Pink Chaddi but defeated the Prima Donna who stitched the Pink Chaddi first place (in the elections).

So what are we ??

Are we puppies who follow some dynasty and make them THE chosen ones ??

Till when do we want to live up to the tag of Indians being emotional idiots??

Being someone who stands erect and gets goose bumps every time "Jana Gana Mana..." plays (not withstanding the fact that it was written in praise of King George) because it my dear national anthem, I am ashamed.

I would rather remix that "song" to a club hit mix and get a couple of hundreds jiving to it than simply getting goose bumps and getting scratched all over bloodily by those useless politicians.

And long live the youth of India. Excuse me !! It is not you & me but some chosen one from those select few families.

Jai Hind !!

Re-integration

Thanks to "The Twelfth man" cricinfo have decided to return Nainital back to its original state of Uttarakhand.

I hope Karnataka doesn't object !!

That was when Nainital was part of Karnataka**

** As per cricinfo

And this post the reintegration

It's okay even if you decide to call the state by its old name, Uttaranchal. At least you got the geography right this time, leave alone the history !!

Cricinfo's geography

It seems Manish Pandey, the guy who became the first Indian to score an IPL hundred was born in Nainital, Karnataka.

I know Karnataka have a border dispute with Maharashtra, famously called the Belgaum dispute. The good guys of cricinfo are adding another dispute to the list, Nainital ?? Tall claim !

Get your geographies right guys !!

Nainital is in Uttarakhand, which is one of the northern states of India.

The odd Spalding...

As I kid I was inquisitive...

And I had this odd hobby of collecting balls, I mean those used in mainstream sports and games !!

Sometimes it was odd when a Madurai kid had in his collection a rugby or a golf ball. For, those are something, games unheard of when it came to his peers. So there was no point WOWing them with an exhibition of this sort of a collection. In all probability they might end up saying, "What unshape cricket balls you have !!" and to add to the insult they would say "I would always flush off those unshape ones"

So to divert their attention I always invented a new form of cricket that would fit my ball for the day.

This particular day it was a Spalding, a Spalding golf ball.

The only association a Tamil would have to this game would be from that famous Rajinikant movie "Mr. Bharat". In a particular song sequencce Rajini plays golf.

So when I got this Spalding and I wanted to show off, I told my select few in my class... "Thalaivar played with a lean stick on grass, why don't we play cricket with this in the class"

It was my seventh class and we decided to use the golf ball to play cricket during our 5 minute class break.

The physics / chemistry record note would become our bat and we would hammer our way till the next class commenced. This used to be our routine till the Spalding arrived, the only change... The ball till then, used to be the crushed pages of our notebook. Tactfully removed from the center.

And this was the one bounce catch out varient of cricket.

So, came the Spalding and without even thinking about its bounce we started playing cricket. That was the break between our Maths class and we were expecting our Hindi master to come in anytime.

The bowler at that time pitched in a short one, "S" who was batting tried to prove a point to the girl from the second row he was eyeing those days "R". He did that wild slog and unluckly for us he connected right on the logo of his physics record book, the middle. The ball just missed "D" on the fourth row and flew on to hit the stained glass sliding window.

I heard "A" my crush crying a "Arghh". It was already broken and the Hindi master would get in any time. So what do we do??

The answer was to put "S" bag on the window wedge to hide the hole-some view.

Thanks to "S" and her bag we diverted things effectively till 4.30p when the school would disperse.

And then came football to get the window pane open from outside and save us.

Finally we had to marry cricket with football to have our soul saved

We have changed...

RajaB's have given way for "The twelfth man"

For he has been a non player for a while. So he has decided that he would take centerstage and start driving a couple straight down.

There also has been some small changes in terms of the design. As usual we have decided to borrow a preset template from the good guys at www.blogger.com.

Let's hope "The twelfth man" talks more frequently than RajaB used to those days.

Okay it's time, let me pad-up...

The long shot...

Two teams have booked their place in the semifinals of IPL 2 as of now, Delhi Daredevils & Chennai Superkings.

It seems like there are three teams fighting it out for the other two spots. But the reality as we know is that there are only two teams that stand a real good chance. They are the ones who play this evening, Bangalore Royal Challengers & Deccan Chargers.

The other, Kings Eleven Punjab would be praying hard. The first thing they would do is to sing a nursery rhyme loud, so loud that the gods hear it.

"Rain, rain go away... Come again another day"

For, if the match is rained out today their dreams, however miniscule in percentage would also get washed out. (if it happens the two teams get 1 point each and both get to 15, while Kings would be left behind at 14)

The next thing Kings would be praying for would be a big loss for any one of these two teams.

Here is a sample of how big a loss Kings would be praying for.

Let us first look at Bangalore, currently in the fourth position

In this case Deccan bat first and score 130 in their 20 overs. And Bangalore chasing it, true to its name plays like a test team and scores 60 in reply in their full 20 overs.

Then Punjab and Deccan go to the semis.

Not possible, right ?

Now option 2: Bangalore bat first and score 50 in 15 overs, chasing this Deccan score 51 within 6 overs.

This also seems a distant possibility, so Bangalore are more or less through. Unless some miracle happens and they get plastered by Deccan so badly.

Now let's look at Deccan's chances

Now let us say, Bangalore bat first.

They have to score 253 in their 20 overs and get Deccan out for 50 (in the 20th over)

Then Deccan are eliminated, Punjab advance with Bangalore.

I know what you are saying, IMPOSSIBLE. Right?

Now the other option, Deccan bat first.

They score 40 in 12 overs and Bangalore in return score those runs off in 4 overs.

This is another way of eliminating Deccan.

No way again !!

So effectively, there is no chance other than statistically for Punjab to advance to the semis.

Unless I have missed out on any other combination... Do let me know and I shall stand corrected...

An interesting stroke

Chennai Superkings playing Kings Eleven Punjab

With 56 runs required of 24 balls, it was Brett Lee's turn to face Suresh Raina.

The first ball of the 16th was plonked for a boundary, the second ball. Did he try a pull or did he try to cut the ball over point?

Whatever it was he missed the ball completely only to do some last minute adjustments to reach the ball back straight to the bowler.

Now, one could see an interesting expression on Lee's face. Gesticulating with his left hand like he was hitting the ball while his mouth saying "Tonk".

That reminded me of one of my childhood friends. I have never seen him connect bat to ball, but would promply replay the shot he had tried to and do that well connected in the middle of the bat sort of "Tonk".

Commentators on cricinfo...

The commentators on cricinfo have a weird sense of humour.

Sample this...

"At the time out, Kolkata look lost and dazed. They are still in with a chance but Rajasthan have the edge. They never cease to amaze. They still have a very capable batsman in Agarkar, who's faced similar situations before."

A day after that painful loss…

When Rio Ferdinand won the toss and handed the ball to Cesc Fabregas I was very happy. I was thinking the UEFA title had just been handed over. The famous Steven Waugh line was running in my mind, “You just dropped the (world) cup mate!”

I saw Rio as the Gibbs (the SA cricketer) who had just dropped the cup according to Waugh, in this case he had the ball handed over. But things weren’t looking as good as that thought once the ball was set rolling.

While my TV screen read 63:37 for ManU on ball possession, I thought it was 89:11 in favour of ManU. Arsenal played like they were playing the “injury time” out, kicking the ball out of their half as if they were defending the 3 goals they had already scored.

It was ironic that the game had just started.

Except for the 19 year old Gibbs (the right back for Arsenal) no one in the whole Arsenal line-up played any serious football. The goalkeeper, Manuel Almunia effected two fantastic saves before allowing the next from O’Shea clip the top of his hands into the goal. And ManU were 1-0 up. For the brand of football Arsenal played yesterday, I am sure Arsene Wenger would have been very happy with the score line.

It was disappointing to see Arsenal lose. But it was comforting when I think that they got away with a 1-0 score at the whistle after they played such pathetic football.

I was also there...

Thanks Bhaskar for ensuring I didn't miss out...

Introspection – Deewar ishtyle!!

Long after he had disappeared last, I managed to sight him yet again. GAWD had last appeared on November the 28th and that was 2007, the last year. He was back yesterday, by himself. This was post my prolonged, fanatic search to get him answer a couple of very important questions had failed. This time he was on a Deewar mode, may be some retro movie festival running somewhere in the world had caught his fancy.

Entering in like the typical angry young (I told you he's a great actor) man himself, he started off…

“Your classmates are all well settled, they have cars, bungalows, jewelry, bank balance and ESOP…. Tere paas kya hai?”

That was enough to wake the Shashi in me up, for I have been party to this man’s partisan politics for more than 30 years now.

The deep and resolute me replied in a firm tone…

Mere paas… VSOP hai

Cheers GAWD!!

The shark of a story…

Sammy, the whale shark.

That is the most familiar name across newspapers, radio and internet in the UAE for the last couple of weeks. Sammy has pushed Subprime, Henry Paulson, Barack Obama, John McCain & Sarah Palin to one column by ten centimeter spaces. We see pages dedicated to Sammy, we have seen Save Sammy stickers going on sale and amusingly we have had a leading Pinoy singer strumming for Sammy. We have also heard RJ’s speaking passionately about Sammy and his rights cutting across radio channels, sometimes conveniently forgetting that they love their seafood platter.

Although I am not an active or professing member of PETA or likes, I come from a family that loves animals. Importantly we respect their rights and their habitat. That said I cannot quite understand the euphoria and this, “I give a column or second airtime more than you” attitude of the media here. After all Sammy is safe in an aquarium and I am sure as at least some of the saner souls would agree, didn’t up as a biryani in somebody’s plate.

Pardon me if I sound gross or uncouth, but that is a fact. While millions of tons of habitats of the sea are trawled out as seafood, we must be happy that Sammy didn’t end up that way or being thrown out of a speeding car, as many cats are in town. He’s part of an aquarium that might, of all things serve to educate kids, the next generation who otherwise might never get to see a whale shark other than in a book or when they google it out.

I repeat, I don’t support or oppose Sammy being held captive. As long as Sammy is being taken proper care of, let him be wherever it might be. Those who claim Sammy might lose touch with reality, the independence of his habitat should also think about those thousands of lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, and giraffes etc. who are part of the various zoos around the world. Think, have we ever printed a sticker of say, Simba the lion? And asked the zoo authorities to release him in his native habitat?

I loathe this frenzy, the senseless hysteria of save Sammy. Can we ask ourselves

1. How many column centimeters or seconds do we devote for those labourers who toil in the hot sun sans proper food, shelter or remuneration? Forget those occasional sensational stories filed...
2. Was there any follow-up to see if the school transportation system and safety has improved after sensationalizing the death of a kindergarten toddler in Abu Dhabi for one week? Did we ever care about it?
3. Have we guys ever worried or cared about those numerous cats that lie dead on our roads?
4. Have we ever seen stories in the newspapers or cared to talk about people who chain monkeys or other animals to their steering wheels, making them sit on it and drive their cars with an open window just to show the world how macho they are?
5. And finally a simple question, how many times in your life have you ever used a zebra crossing or a designated facility to cross the road in the last 3 months?

Please, for heavens sake let’s dust our own back before pointing out a peck of dust at our neighbour’s. Let’s be responsible. I agree sensationalism sells in media, but please understand that we don’t need to either sell or buy stories at this obscenely suffocating sensation levels.

I would also ask the Pinoy musician to first strum for those hundreds and thousands of her Kabayan brothers and sisters who live a life of agony and suffering. I would ask her to do something for them before she grabs her next column centimeter at the expense of a Sammy.

Guys have some sense, let’s show at least 10 – 15 % of the concern we show on a Sammy on the fellow human beings we deal with day to day. The poor taxi drivers, the labourer, the guy who serves us at a hotel and thousands of others we encounter in our daily life. If we are able to do this first, I am sure we would end up feeling prouder and satisfied, than cutting a save the Sammy motif from a newspaper, pinning it on our kids and clicking a photo. Hoping we would see it in the next morning’s newspaper.

Let me reiterate, I am not saying don’t care for Sammy. Please do. But before that think, think how many times we ever care for our fellow human beings and their rights. At least now let us resolve, to care for our fellow humans.

Long live Sammy, the whale shark!!

Subprime Mortgages and Cricket

As I was flipping on my bed trying to catch some sleep after a "full" sake dinner, I could hear my inner voice. The fact that I had one glass too many of sake made me hear my inner voice loud and clear.

It was unhappy, unhappy because I am the one blogger left in this world who hasn’t spoken / written about something called the "Subprime crisis", too bad. I have been hearing people at the golf course, pubs, office coffee machine, lunches, dinners, malls and so on. People who were speaking about Subprime, Lehman Brothers, Merrill lynch etc.

I remember one very economics & finance savvy gentleman talking about how his favorite Mac has gone bankrupt and how it was lucky to be bankrolled by the Fed Authority because they didn’t want the Mac's to be dead!!, little did he know the difference between the Mac as in burgers and the Mac as in mortgages. With all this action happening around, I didn’t want to be left out.

And here is my two bit about subprime.

I think post the real estate & financial markets the phenomenon of subprime is going to hit cricket, precisely the IPL. One might wonder how?!!

It is pretty simple, to understand this one should understand the basics of what subprime crisis means.

It started with giving a loan / mortgage to a person who doesn’t deserve it and then the lending agencies inability to recollect the money. In other words, a mortgage or loan given to a person whose credit rating is not good enough which doesn't repay the lender. Now what connection does this have with cricket?

Recently 13 players from Bangladesh have gone and joined ICL, a huge exodus of talent for a small country like Bangladesh. Big Brother, oops!! BCCI announced that they would take care of this by getting more Bangladeshi players in the next IPL auction.

We all know where Bangladesh's cricket credit rating stood before the exodus, more precisely the T20 rating. Now with talent gone, let us close our eyes for a minute and try and think where and how their cricket credit rating would stand now. And now a Freddie Mac or a Fannie May (the BCCI / ICL) is trying to finance them (by taking more of them in the auction).

I was thinking what might happen.

There are two scenarios,

1. As usual it might just be a BCCI / IPL rhetoric and nothing might happen
2. They might go ahead and take more of the Bangladesh players to the auction

If they indeed take more players from Bangladesh, then there is a potential opportunity for us to see a cricket subprime. If you remember the definition of subprime, undeserving or uninteresting people getting money is what caused the subprime.

With Srilankan cricket allowing ICL cricketers to play domestic cricket there, if a couple of more boards follow suit then there is a good enough probability of talent (read people with good credit rating) drifting the other side. If this happens, then going by the financial precedent, gone would be the IPL & BCCI.

I am not sure if there is any federal setup equivalent in cricket, even if we (mistakenly) consider that ICC is one then I am not sure if they would want to bail the Big Brother out.

A match I would never forget...

It was the US Open...

The men's doubles final...

And it was one of my favorites, Leander Paes pairing with Lukas Dlouhy

Against the Brian twins, Bob and Mike.

It was one of the most memorable, interesting, action packed doubles match I'd ever seen. There was a twist / suspense on every point played. Lee, as in any other match he has ever played till date, had his heart in his sleeve... The man was brilliant as ever. 

Would have been fulfilling (for me his dear fan..) had he won, to add to that mixed doubles crown he won the previous day... But destiny decided that the deserving would win the crown...

And it happened to be the Bryan bro's...

Whatta match... I was blessed watching the finals !!