Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Wow.. !!

Its time to exclaim, if you are an Indian cricket fan, its time to rejoice for we don't know how often we will get to see this.. especially when its an overseas tour..

"Stumps - Day 4 - India require another 63 runs with 10 wickets remaining "

Hopefully tomorrow this time, we should be celebrating an Indian victory.. except ofcourse for the 'if' factor and the weather gods decide to break even, by bringing in the rains this time to help England, like they did to help India in the last test match from a sure shot defeat, or even better its not over until its really over, when the task at hand is to be completed by our famed batting line up..
And Enjoy this as well while it lasts, I don't even remember the last time I saw every single batman in our famed batting top order reach a double digit score.. surely a treat to the sore eye:


India 1st innings R M B 4s 6s SR

KD Karthik c Cook b Panesar 77 188 136 11 0 56.61
W Jaffer c Prior b Tremlett 62 175 123 7 0 50.40
R Dravid c Bell b Panesar 37 136 94 5 0 39.36
Tendulkar lbw b Collingwood 91 259 197 12 0 46.19
Ganguly c Prior b Anderson 79 233 156 10 1 50.64
VVS Laxman c Prior b Tremlett 54 183 152 7 0 35.52

Fingers crossed!

Update: India actually won the match.. :)



Saturday, July 28, 2007

Watz On uR mInD ?

What’s on prime time news these days? What is the nation debating about? World over, people are debating over the right age to impart "sex education", In India (a country of rich heritage, culture and all that, oh yaa its also the land of Kamasutra), talking about "birds and the bees" is still controversial, Its quite startling to see how this debate is taking moral and culture turns instead of actually debating how and when this knowledge has to be imparted. After all it wasn’t the storks who brought us to our moms. Well, this is just the start of double standards which Indians maintain. And if you are a woman, you are subjected to the societal double standards too, you cant really blame an Indian woman when she states that she has never held hands with a man, she is conditionally stating that she doesn’t have loose morals and values. Well I am not a feminist by any chance, but I do think there is a lot in this society in favor of men, maybe it is just the reflection of an age old tradition where the man was the only bread winner for the family and everything revolved around him, I know things are changing and that India as a nation itself is in a transition, so is its culture, and everything. We only hope, that as we move forward we take in the best of both worlds and not just ape the west. One of the major ways in which traditional societies control behavior of the young is by taboos. This is just a continuation of that mind set. Isn’t it a universal truth that when are asked to not do something, your curiosity levels are on the rise. It is high time that we realize, understanding human body and talking about human body parts is not a sin at all. The more you know, the more mature you will be and its definitely essential in a country like ours where diseases like HIV are on a rise in exponential variations, at least people will know how to be safe. If not in school, with the exposure that kids get these days, they are going to find the information from elsewhere which could be so misleading. Simply put, everybody has a right of information, and why should one be ashamed of learning about your own body and natural instincts. Without getting 'emotional' and 'subjective', do we get 'upset' when we read about how the world wars happened or when we read about the twin bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's part of the subject (history) but why not this. Well I agree, its a little touchy or a sensitive thing to handle or teach about, but teachers are professionals too, they are qualified to teach. If only a medical professor was embarrassed to talk about human body to his students or if you gynecologist starts blushing every time you go for a check up. Well not many parents may be forthcoming, it can at least be made an optional subject with only those students having parental consent. Well if you are wondering what is the connection between the subject and the whole write up, absolutely nothing :). These are just some random muses and that’s just my two cents.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Life after Harry Potter...

"All good things do come to an end",so has the harry potter series, with the final part - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows releasing the past weekend across 200 countries and 60 languages. The past 10 years has been quite a magical journey for JK Rowling, so has it been for all of us readers. Her personal life is what we can call the typical rags to riches story, but the difference being, in her case, she has taken a few million readers world wide on a journey, quite magical, simply fascinating and most of all an out of the world experience. I did manage to read book 5 and 6 in like straight 10 hours, but with the last part,I was taking my time, read it over two days, but nothing changed, as always I was living in a different world as I set out to read this book, the world of Hogwarts, the dashing Wizard, known to the world as Harry Potter, spells and curses, plots so amazingly intertwined and set, this is one hell of a magical story. I could never make up my mind whether Snape was good or bad, whether Dumbledore was actually helping Harry.. but being confused is normal, and it did lay a perfect setting and curiousity levels for me to read this book and well boy o boy, was I thrilled for I think this book is simply brilliant, everything falls into place, and yes its the last of the Harry Potter series. I knew the magical journey was going to end as I read thru every single page.To all the people who will dismiss this as another children's fantasy story, I would beg to differ, it's one of those books that has all the ingredients to capture the minds of all ages alike. To all the LOTR fans, there is definetly no argueing with JRR tolkeins master creation, he is the father of fantasy literature,Period. I will definetly not compare Harry Potter, cos for me Harry Potter is really of a different genre, its just pure magic and we are not trying to get into an argument here. But I simply love Potter, I have enjoyed reading each of the books, the boxed edition of the entire series will find place in my home library (whenever I manage to set up one) alongside the calvin and hobbes complete edition that I already own :). The magical journey that Rowling takes all her readers thru is simply enchanting will leave the readers asking for more. Its not a simple story with some fantasy thrown in at random intervals, nor is it an intellectual story with great knowledge being thrust upon you. Its a great story, a fantabulous one at that. The one that will leave you "spell" bound (literally). Whether its buying the book on the day of the release,trying to read it at one stretch, ignoring everything else till you are done with the book, trying to watch a potter movie on the first day, being a part of a harry potter club at work, celebrating a release of the book by printing tshirts (yes it happened in Infosys Chennai when book 6 released), I would cherish every moment of it. I don't know how many times I will re-read this series but I surely will. When JK Rowling went around creating this character -Harry Potter atttending the Hogwarts school, little would see have realized the character she created was going to be a phenomenon. For all those people out there who still havent gotten around reading this one,you should read. Period. You don't know what you are missing in life :). With a heavy heart I will have to say that, as much as I was looking forward to reading the final part, I will really miss the "looking forward to" part of it now.It's hard to believe and come to terms that there will be no more of Harry Potter, but then.. Amen!

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Unconditional Love...

Can be quite an oxymoron.. check this out, Nikil Chinnapa's take on it... :)

http://content.msn.co.in/Lifestyle/Moreonlifestyle/LifestyleIS_1116.htm#top