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.. :)

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.

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!

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

yeh hi hai right C.H.O.I.C.E baby !! aha!!

A sudden crave to watch tamil movies, its been so long since I watched one... talking about tamil movies also reminded me of superstar rajnikanth... so I ended up listening to some of his songs... well and this one song of his ... from the movie Padaiyappa...

"Thaiiya therndhu edakum, thandhaiyai therndhu edakum - Urimai unnidathil illai
Nirathai therndhu edakum, mugathai therndhu edakum - Urimai unnidathil illai
Pirapai therndhu edakum, irrapai therndhu edakum - Urimai unnidathil illai
Yenni parkum velayil undan vazhkai mattum undhan kaiyil undu, adhai vendru edu'

which roughly translates to -

We dont have the right to choose who our mother and father are going to be..
We dont have the right to choose our face and our race
We dont have the right to choose the time of our birth or the time of our death
But we do have the choice to live this life of ours the way we want, and to make a success story out of it....

How true......

But the choices that we all make in our life are -

Sometimes cos we are restricted by societal norms
Sometimes thats is the best thing to do cos everyone else thinks its the best thing to do
Sometimes cos we want to make another person happy
Sometimes cos you want to make your dear ones happy
Sometimes cos thats the only thing you know to do
Sometimes cos we dont have any other choice...
But how many times do we do things cos that will make us happy... ??

Whatever we choose to do....
Que Sera Sera ("Whatever Will be, Will be") ......

This is an Experience -

I have lost count of the number of times I've repeated this story, I can still tell it once more.... :)

I dont even know if I can relate to or even come close to expressing what this experience actually meant to me or how it actually felt at that point of time, but I shall still make an attempt.

Background : Discussing sports or taking to any kind of sport does not fit into the "typical girl" thing, ofcourse you can't blame us can you -we have many other interests ( you got to read those girly teen books, spend time in front of the mirror to get ready , discuss chocolates and guys) Well then as things had to happen, I started to watch cricket, courtesy the 1996 world cup.. and since then I have been a regular..(the other incentive is you get to watch some good looking guys) .. I started to like the game, I like the passion the people in India have for this game, I like the atmosphere in the stadium during a live match (what a better place than Chennai's Chidambaram stadium to enjoy a live match), I like the fact that it is family time , when India plays Pakistan the whole family is around cheering and rooting for India, everything else takes a back seat... when there is a cricket match on and if India is playing.. It cant get bigger than this game..
The game has a following more than any religion, so it wont be hard to believe the players are larger than life and treated on par to a royal, ofcourse ridiculed if they dont perform to their expectations, utmost pressure and burden of the entire nation to perform and ofcourse paid for it.You play for India for a while, you can save to live the rest of your life in luxury. When it comes to personal favourites, to each their own, never debate with the good old timers about their personal favourites, dont tell them gavaskar was a selish player, they might hate you for the rest of their life.I had many favourites , Tendulkar for one, he is the darling of the nation, everybody loves Tendulkar in India( atleast once upon a time, if Tendulkar plays well India wins, else India loses).I loved the agression of Ganguly, I still think he is the best Captain for India. But my personal favourite is Rahul Dravid, the consistent, cool, stylish player, he is not flamboyant in his game or in life and he was ofcourse every teenage girls hearthrob, good looking, conservative, stylish ... and the countries most eligible bachelor at one point of time and he was definetely one at the time this article is set in.. girls swooned over him everywhere he went, comfortably won all the polls about who was the most eligible bachelor in India... and me was no exception, a hard core crazy dravid loyal and a fan. While in college, before life's foremost ambitions came into the picture, to meet Rahul Dravid was a dream, was a dream any girl of my age (fourth year in college and remember he still was single and eligible) would want to live...
Fourth year of college, Seventh semester examination, first exam- Mathematics - Date October 17th 2002(Thursday), the same day the test match between India and the touring West Indies was set to begin in Chennai's Chidambaram stadium. I was all set for my examinations, trying to remember some complex formulae, ready to leave home to take my first exam, just glanced thru The Hindu, my day just wudnt go thru, if I did not get a chance to atleast glance thru the news paper in the morning. I spotted something.. a PEPSI advertisement which said, Wanna meet Rahul and Zaheer?? Just call a number and complete a slogan about why you would want to share a Pepsi with Rahul and Zaheer. Well it just registered in my brain and I forgot all about it. Mathematics and checking out the last minute details about how to work different sums, was now my priority as I set out to take my first exam. The exam was over, I did quite ok (it doesnt matter how I did not exam now, does it??).. My next exam was Digital Electronics, had a four day break in between. It was scheduled for the following tuesday. And now what next, went with my friends to a coffee shop to take a break, relive some funny moments in the exam, play a game of ludo... and then as we set back home, I remembered this ad that I saw in the morning, the whole way back home( we travelled a little more than an hour to college), I had all the time in the world to think of how I needed to complete the slogan, so much so that even as I was talking to my friends, this was the only thing that was at the back of my mind and that I get home, did not answer my mom's routine question of how I did my exam, went straight picked up the newspaper and dialled that number and told my slogan. The deal about the meeting was that, about 10 people would be selected among all of the callers and they would get to meet Rahul and Zaheer over dinner. And you would get a call that Sunday morning if you were selected and the event was scheduled sunday night. Remember it was still thursday. I then set out studying for my next exam. Saturday night, a few friends from my neighbourhood came home, I was still with my digital electronics text book. They all dropped by to find out how I was doing, and I just turned to them and said, I was thinking about which dress I should wear if I were to meet Dravid the next day, my mom over heard this and said, stop dreaming and get back to studying. That night before I went to sleep I told myself, tomorrow night this time, I would have either met Rahul or I would not. The D day arrived, it was sunday.. I did not let anybody talk over the phone for more than 2 minutes. The phone did ring, I answered and it was a wrong number ( I did not write this to build any suspense, it actually happened) and then it rang again, this time I picked up the phone and the voice at the other end just ended up saying what I wanted to hear... "We are calling from Pepsi, Could we speak to Lakshmi Prabha"... I just knew at that moment... the moment I was waiting for had arrived :).. I was so elated that I could not believe if it was true. I was actually going to meet Rahul Dravid that evening alongside Zaheer Khan.

I havent been blogging for a while... various reasons... but I did not want this to be just another of those interests which just fade away with time, am all set for the second innings, will probably be more regular this time around..... here is something that I had written a long time ago ... so am starting with that.....

And here my story goes on...................

Aren't we all tired of listening, hearing and watching the same old story where boy meets girl and they lived happily ever after. The art of story telling has always fascinated me for a long time and I wanted to write a story for a long time!!!(I can c many faces frowning on reading this).Our Grand old story tellers have lent me their theme on lease..... ( soo.. its exactly what u fear...Im gonna write a story.... ...).I’m gonna tell u a story with a difference....(they say differences bring people together.... but I say words and lyrics from different songs world over can u bring the story.. my thinking skills have gone to the dumps so I have used the only resourse my ear fones... ure gonna read lyrics from all the songs that im listening to rite now)..A story if u can actually call this one ..... don’t ask me wat it is!!!! All weak hearts(who look for some sense in wat they read) plzzzz this is not for u, u can as well as carry on with ure work!! hmm All u strong hearted (ppl who can take the nonsense ) plzz go ahead and read this tale o'mine

With due apologies to the song writers all around the world ,here begins.... (I give u the priveledge of calling it whatever u feel like calling it after reading it)


Its summer time and the weather is fine,
In the middle of the night
I have been walking in my sleep
thru the desert of dark,
thru the river of dreams
thinking about Absolutely everybody
Absolutely everybody in the whole wide world....

Came across this Pretty woman walking down the streets
whose eyes seem to tell "hey I feel lonely"

It seemed to me that she had lived her entire life like a Candle in the wind
and I was singing to her
I can see in ure eyes,
I can see in ure smiles
ure all that I wanted

She tells me" That dont impress me much"

And Promises I make
Wherever u go, Whatever U do
I'll be rite there for u
And she still did not seem to understand the
Rhythm of my heart

I go down on my knees and say"Love me 4 wat I am"

She walked as if she was tellin "It wasn't me"
I go on and on and on saying
"plz give me one more chance, why shudnt and y cudnt I fall in love"

And told her that" the only thing that looks Good on me is u"
She seemed to say" can't help it if u don't look good in anything else"

Well I still go ........... my hearts set on fire
"baby i wud love u to want me the way that it should be"

She broke my heart with a quiver of arrows. I started singing "Quit playing games with my heart, It’s only words and words all that I have to take ure heart away"

Then I c her walking away with the guy of her dreams(hmmm I was thinkin abt pahla nasha...........)

Lets take the chance of happy ending
The past can stop the heart from mending
Somethings are Better Best Forgotten

Well that ends my story( wonderin y it ended abruptly.... hmm well if u ask me what the point of the whole story was..... I only wish I knew)

Dunno how many of u survived to read thru this ......... kudos to u guys!!!

Disclaimer: All charaters in this ...(watever) are purely fictional and any resemblences to any living or dead character is purely coincidental.... the writer or...( dunno wat to call myself) shall bear no responsiblity to any damage created to anybody's senses!!!!!!!!!!!

Two posts in two successive days, am neverthless thrilled about it (it doesnt take too much for me to get thrilled), my previous post was not entirely original, it was an inspired write up(partly original), It didnt give me too much of a creative satisfaction (well even if its a write up that does not make sense and if its yours, it still feels good), so I actually thought I had to do something about it, and the topic had to be something that I could write about anytime, and every blog that I checked had its take on this, well here's my take .......

Arranged Or Love...

Is the most oft asked question - when you say you are going to attend a wedding, your friend is getting married, your friends sister is getting
married, or some random person whom you once gossiped about is getting married, and then you could be getting married.. and then the never ending debate of which one works better.. there is nothing like an ideal marriage, just like an ideal spouse, its all about making it work, about sacrifices or atleast so have I heard from people..
Well take most instances of people who are in love, ask them how did they decide that the person was the right one, 90 out of 100 will tell you "INSTINCT" , ask people who had to decide over a cup of coffee or over
just a 5 minute conversation in this whole saga of arranged marriage,
most of them would still say "INSTINCT"

( am not talking about forced marriages here, thats a different story altogether).

Sanjay and Zarine Khan decided they were made for each other, the very first day they met over a casual stroll on the beach ( they were 19 and
14 at that time), Anil Ambani and Tina Munim hadnt seen or spoken to each other for over two years after they decided to part ways, before Anil decided to break the silence and they got married, they say things could have gone so many ways in these two years but they are just destined to get together.
Both these marriages have worked or so have many others, Jackie Shroff first saw his wife in a Video library and then decided she was the one for him or is this one better, hrithik saw Susanne khan at his sisters engagement party and told his friend that "that girl" was gonna be his, he even had no clue who she was, what happened after that is well known to the whole world.
( Courtesy: Rendezvous with Simi Garewal and my ever favorite magazine FILMFARE).

And we all know of the countless arranged marriages which have been success stories, for atleast till a little while ago, LOVE marriages were considered a crime in the soceity. Times have changed or atleast have started to change, people have become more receptive to the idea, though they may not entirely approve of it. Just like most of us who are just in love, with the idea of being in love, than being in love, parents are beginning to see reason in the choice of their children. I still know many of our generation who very conciously avoid getting into a relationship for fear of upsetting their parents and the
same holds good for parents who still believe that they know best
when it comes to choosing a life partner for their children. Either ways,
it is the rest of a lifetime that we are talking about,

for holy matrimony is considered a bonding for a lifetime and everyone tries hard to make it work atleast in our Soceity.

There is always a flip side to this, not all arranged marriages are made in heaven, not all love marriages are rosy.. people who have had an
arranged marriage may realise they are just two different people and

cannot be compatible, then in love marriage, most often people

try to change the very basic characteristic in a person that they

fell in love with, then the blame game starts, who was responsible

for getting the match fixed, atleast in case of a love marriage,

you had made your choice, you live and you learn, but in the case of an arranged marriage, its just the case that your parents might be

supportive.. and then not to forget arranged marriages are the only

option for poor souls who got dumped, who were not able to impress

anybody or that they just did not meet the right person, but there is always someone for everyone in an arranged marriage.

They say "All relationships come with an expiry date, just that in most cases, the man or woman will expire... "

"In arranged marriages DESTINY chooses you, In love marriages you choose your DESTINY "....
either ways its destiny...... :):)
( I would like to say that I came up with this quote but recently I heard some one saying the same thing on TV, nobody would now believe if I say it was my
original quote)

"Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are
half chance. So are everybody else's." - Baz Luhrmann (Wear Sunscreen)

"Dining or whining... "

Waiters who keep you waiting
Your hot date who is so cool, but you have to pay for her as well.. (oh yaa, you remember those people who said, a thing of beauty is a joy forever, but only until your credit card bill arrives..)
Your hot date who can talk thru with an empty wallet.. (He is spending all his money to get his muscles toned and of course you fell for that muscles which are bigger than his brains or wallet.. )
Menu cards that have alien, tongue twister names ... (the complexity of the name is directly proportional to the price)

Fine dining in Chennai's stylish restaurants can be rather unnerving, where else do you dress up to get a dressing down... ,
"the probability of meeting some one you know (in these so called stylish cool eat outs) increases when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with" ( I google’d to find out that this was called the Ruby's principle of close encounters")

All this can last only for a while, before there is a day when you are broke, depressed , suicidal , especially when you don’t have enough money to take your "real " date ( you had to pursue her for a year and she finally agreed) out for dinner ( you had spent all your money on those innumerable dates , they were just not worth it)

Dining Culture in this so called conservative Chennai has taken a 360 degree turn from what it was a few years ago, we can take "pride" in the fact that it is the software industry that has caused this revolution ( ok ok we might have just contributed for a 330 degree turn.. ), the multitude of hotels that have sprung up on the ECR is just proof enough, you know they also give you a 10% discount if you are from a software company but I wonder if anybody else (the non-software kind)has even heard of them ... This is for a weekday lunch. If you can manage to get the time to go out for dinner (your project manager is a major deciding factor, the day he has time, everybody else invariably has to be free) , the hospitality of some of Chennai’s best hotels will be judged by your team, even as the top management of these hotels will be holding meetings in some part of the world to discuss how to serve you better( which only means, they are discussing what are the other ways to swindle your money) and the Finance Minister is busy contemplating increasing the tax for food and beverages.

"Those fruit forks, steak knives, dinner tables, starched table linen, table manners" , have you ever thought of moving ahead of all these and try out Chennai's very own "Road side dhabbas" and "Beach Bajji stalls".. This is the real eating “OUTSIDE” experience. But then again remember Eating out will not kill you but it just might, but dont worry in the long run it might just increase your immunity. You dont want to be like those paranoid people who think of the innumerable diseases even as they read the menu, you dont want to be called those overprotected, mineral water spoilt people, dont you??

Whatever is your style, eating out is just another way of spending some “quality time” with people, unwinding, or just chilling out …. and an excuse for people who just dont want to cook at home.... Happy Dining :)

2 Blog oR Not 2 blog

In my attempt to try and explore, I landed up at this astrological site and tried this free reading for me... this is what it had to say..

"You have an extremely active, lively and versatile mind with a multitude of interests and an inexhaustible curiosity about life. You are quick to grasp new concepts and equally quick to lose interest in an idea or project once your curiosity has been satisfied. You like to taste a little bit of everything...”

Considering my different attempts in life:

1. To learn to play the guitar - I’ve always been passionate about music and of course the guitar and to prove that, I had to take guitar lessons, I was of course a nightmare for my guitar instructor, even after 4 months of training, I can’t shift chords fluently. Now that was almost a year ago, now with renewed interest, during one of those random shopping days at landmark, I have now invested a little more than a grand on this "How to play the guitar" book... I hope I survive my attempt this time.. and well play "Hotel California" some day.

2. Dancing: If you want to know what having two left feet means, you got to see me dance, of course that doesn’t stop me from enrolling for a free trial session only to decide formal dancing aint my cup of tea... and moved on.. well dancing is my passion ;);)

3. BOOKS: I absolutely love reading books, that’s one interest that’s probably stayed with me for my entire life and will always be.

4. Theatre: I love watching plays, during one of those days, I of course did have a fleeting interest to perform live on stage, and of course I did not make any further attempt, not that I would have gone beyond an initial orientation session to decide this aint for me.

5. RJ’ing: A big fan of Niladri Bose and radio, I wanted to be a RJ that I even mailed Niladri to find out if there was formal training to be a RJ, he even replied asking me to attend one of his workshops. and then again... of course I dint go to his workshop, need I say more..

6. Journalism: I am sure people will be much relieved that I did not take to this profession, imagine the torture of being subjected to read all that I write ( I am just being a little optimistic that if I did choose to be a journalist someone would recruit me)..

And now coming to the whole purpose of this post, I like writing, after contemplating for one whole year “Should I blog or Should I not”, finally my inexhaustible curiosity in life took the better of me... and voila.. This is my Blog and this is my first post.....

*Disclaimer: For all those people who have been forced to visit my blog... I hold no responsibility for disorienting your gray matter... but then again thanks for visiting this page... :-) & for the people who accidentally stumbled on this page... GOD Bless you!!