Sunday, December 20, 2009

DEAD TIRED ?

I've read about a lot of activities which people and organisations generally initiate & coordinate to raise funds for charities, which help a lota homeless/needy/orphaned kids. Common ones that we generally come across are - Marathons, Motoring tours around the world, star studded events, rallies and other promotions through web, print media, Television so on so forth. However this particular act, which was recently done by people in Essex, UK for raising funds for the homeless sounded a bit scary !!! The brave hair-raising act was - Sleeping in the graveyard !!! Check out for yourselves

DEAD TIRED? You would be if you had to sleep in a graveyard every night.
WHEN? The night of 27-28 November.
WHERE? St John's Church in Moulsham Street, Chelmsford.
And finally the picture - The deadliest i've ever seen for a charity event like this. Have a look !@#$%

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

'Kutram - Nadandhadhu Enna'




Venue 1: A small Town's center market place.
Time: Broad Daylight

Four mates (all desis) were walking inside the mall at town center. They were returning after their shopping spree at one of the big supermarkets nearby. On approaching the exit, a native roughian deliberately walks in the their way and collides with one amonsgt them. Now our guy who was the victim of the deliberate push, lost his cool and chided the culprit. Upon hearing that, the 'well mannered' localite came rushing in and punches our desi on the face. Our desi hero stood there frozen. All these happening with so much crowd moving along and acting in a manner which can best be described as - 'Inga oru ratha kalariye nadakkudhu , neenga enna da na onnume aagadha maari poite irukeengale da'. The best part is yet to come. One of the local cop standing nearby and enjoying this incident,comes after things are settled and advises - 'Be careful fellas. Take care of yourselves. Take him to a hospital and get him treated. Don indulge in violent activities !!!!!!'


Venue 2: A dimly lit road. Supposed to be a main road through which buses traverse
Time: 5.15 pm and its already dark and overcast

Two people (desis again, who else can tolerate all this) are walking back home from work. After crossing a bus stop, they sight a gang of small kids, around 4-5 maybe and a teenage girl. After they walk past a few hundred metres away from them, one of them is hit by a small stone on the head. Thank god he was wearing a monkey cap and the stone size turning out to be fairly smaller as well. Upon turning he could witness one amongst those 'upcoming rogues' holding a catapult in hand, The girl in the gang giggles as if she had just witnessed a slapstick !


Venue 3: A Famous park in the town
Time : Some time in the afternoon.

Three heroes, deciding to save some quids, start walking to a shopping mall, which is 3-4 miles away. On the way, near a park, a car passes by and a few 'samaritans' hurl abuses at them - 'You M****** F****** A** H****' and it goes on. Heroes have a blank look on their faces, muse about it for sometime and continue their walk.

Naan mela sonna anaithum meyyandri veru ondrum illai ! Idhu sathiyam.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Ilaiyudhir Kalam

Was walking with my friend to the ASDA yesterday morning. Since i hadn carried my digi cam on the past few walks , this time around i made sure i took it with me so that i can time freeze some natural scenes en route. After a few hundred metres of our journey, i stopped at a place, exactly where i took a pic of the yellow leaves on the trees and the ones scattered below, a month back. Took a picture of this spot again now and went back home to compare the two. Stark contrast is the word that came to my mind immedly. Click on the pic below for a better look !






Sunday, October 25, 2009

Epdi Irundha Naan ipdi Ayiten !

Was seeing google maps to find out some routes from my current place of stay. Was surprised to see that my current home was a portion of a football ground a few years back :-).. See for yourself.

Before :
Now :








Sunday, July 12, 2009

Colonization - An amazing Pic !

Just finished watching the movie blood diamond. Got intrigued by the term 'conflict diamonds' and went on to look it up on my most favourite information source- The wikipedia. Found a lota related links in the blood diamond wiki and while reading some of them , i came across this term 'post colonoization' which got me hooked on to the underlying basic word - colonization. Guess this would be old news to a lot of the netizens, but then this 'GIF' image attracted me a lot. It gave me wonderful historical information in a matter of few seconds.

Here you go. Click on the link to see the changing eras and nations that involved in colonization.


(Source: Wikipedia)


Starting with USSR, France and turkey, its amazing to see even small countries like belgium joining the colonization bandwagon. No prices for guessing who were the sole proprietors of India (almost in its entirety) - The brits. The major difference i guess is between 1822 and 1855 (appealed more prominent to to the naked eye). A plethora of colours in African region (1914 & 1938) - clearly indicates the fact that almost every country was keen on cashing in on africa's natural wealth and resources. Even in 2008, the colours continued to exist. Wonder how it would be 50 years from now !

A truly wonderful pic. Hats of to the creator !

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Whadddaaaa Team ...!

Therez  this  fantasy league type competition thats going on at our workplace for IPL season 2. Ahead of every match every member who has registered, can select a team that comprises of  3 batsmen, 3 bowlers, 4 allrounders and a keeper.  Take a look below at the team , that a colleague of mine came up with for the first of the double headers , Punjab vs deccan.  She obviously din have a clue of the playing XI's and  dragged & dropped players at random. Gosh u gotta take a look at the awesome  DREAM (NIGHTMARE ?)  TEAM. I couldn suppress my laughter, Not even one figured in the playing XI !! Herez the team for you (Click on the image for a better view)





Saturday, May 16, 2009

Goat Mowers !

Am sure for most of us, even entering the google campus is a dream come true. The chances of that becoming possible is gonna be real easy. No algorithmns, No data structures, No programming .. nothing at all.  All you have to do is hurry up, rush to a nearest farm and get a coupla goats. yes GOATS !! With everyone trying to do their bit for reducing the carbon footprints they are leaving behind, the googlers have decided to use GOAT MOWERS instead of the traditional lawn mowers.  



Though it costs them the same  as the lawn movers , "goats are definitely cuter to watch" , says an entry in the official google blog !  Interestingly yahoo has been a harbinger in this approach as the goad to use goats for mowing has come to them pretty early! 


Saturday, May 02, 2009

Thats a Ripppperrrrrr !!

Whoa.. wat a contest it was today. Absolute cracker of a match on a superb pitch that  was a heaven for batsmen and had a bit in it for the disciplined bowlers as well. 

It all happened for CSK today. Runs from Mighty matty's blade, raina's consolidation in the middle overs,  amazing hits from badhri, unexpected contribution from the dark horse - JAKATI at death. Though the flurry of wickets in the middle overs , was a terrible set back, CSK wrapped up the innings with a pretty defendable 163, given the bounce in the wicket.

 The daredevils  certainly pulled things back  after the strategic break and wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals.  Got a feeling that the CSK batsmen went for shots, one too many. One disadvantage in batting first on belters like this is, you never know what is a competitive total.  In the process of finding out  that , team chennai was in too much of a hurry. Thanks to the lusty blows from the top order  failing which chennai would have only managed to fetch a below par score.

If there is onething that kick started the momentum in the second half for the csk,  it could be none other than the absolute blinder of a catch from the superman raina. "you are not gonna see a catch better than this in the IPL this time" screamed danny from the commentary box.  Next came a peach of a delivery from tyagi for which ABDV din have a clue. Pitched in line , moved  away a lil and left him flummoxed.  Dilshan threatened for a while before he was  beaten by a corker from jakati. This time it was i who shouted "Thats a ripperrrr.." having robin jackman in mind.  Amidst all this warner was waging a lone battle on the other end before he found a able partner in DK. Gosh, you gotta give credit to DK (wat a shame- this chennaite almost knocked CSK outta the match), who took the pressure of warner's shoulders so quickly and gave a mild heart attack to  millions of chennaites.  DK played a gem of a knock, getting the boundaries early in the over and running well between the wickets.  When warner reached fifty, a placard in the crowd read "Don u dare. It's delhi". 

It was jakati again, who gave us the break through. Warner went down the pitch to hit jakati out of the park and it took dhoni's street smart work to see warner's  back.  The much unexposed daredevil's lower order couldn handle murali who was too hot for them.  In the process of  keeping up with the RRR, DK too perished after a magnificient innings, held in the deep by murali. Wow, murali went cock a hoop after taking the crucial catch. Guess it was danny again in the commentary who said "Look at that.Can you imagine Hayden hugging murali and saying You little beauty. IPL, Take a bow".  

At last CSK moves to the top  4.  In the other match, the rajasthan royals have beaten the deccan chargers and the royal challengers have had 2 wins on the trot as well, akin chennai. Season 2 of the IPL is gonna be a cracker of a competition. The gates are wide open now and lets wait and watch whoz gonna make it to the semis. But beware folks, as ravi shastri said towards the closing moments of the match today  "The Super kings are back in business. Make no mistake on that !!".





Friday, May 01, 2009

Are we Back ?

At last CSK has registered  a win, its first ever against the defending champion royals.  This should definitely be a morale booster for team chennai.  The man with the midas touch, dhoni, finally got  what he wanted from his bowlers and fieldsmen yesterday. To put it simply, CSK clicked as a unit 

Though matty and li'l parthiv din trouble the scorers much ,  raina certainly did. What  a match he had. You could never miss him in action yest - Be it the mighty hits while batting or  with the wily spinners and catches during fielding. It was absoutely his day (and mine too - I added raina as the last player, in my fantasy league and i needn say that my points soared). Dhoni and badhrinath too chipped in with useful contributions. 

Bala gave us the breakthroughs at regular interval, ably supported by morkel and oram.  Grame smith failed again at the top and that opened the flood gates.  After their match winner - yousuf pathan departed, it was virtually curtains for the royals. They sorely miss the services of tanvir and watson. One can see the heavy reliance on pathan. He just has too much to do and you can't expect him to win them match after match. Shane - Law of averages ain't spare neone mayte ;)

So that gives us 5 points from 6 matches and the 5th position in the table.  We meet the daredevils tomorrow and its a more of  must-win match for us.  The momentum is defintely with us but then lets hope that gauti,viru and ABDV dont  break it.


Thursday, April 23, 2009

Freddie's Flop Show

Well, well.  IPL season 2 is for sure gonna be a absolute humdinger.Previous year's  super stars are now facing the heat.  Deccan seems to  have got the rhythm going this time around and the daredevil's are some serious contenders for the golden trophy.  The royal challengers have gotten onto their old habbit of loosing whereas mumbai indians are definitely a better outfit.   The defending champ Royals are  hampered by the absence of tanvir, watson and   Grame smith's loss of form hasnt helped them either. The  'Reloaded' Knight riders - lost a close game with yusuf  pathan  delivering a severe blow to their victory chances in a sensational super over. Punjab - Let the rain gods  spare them. I think all punjab matches could be shifted to chennai, to make sure we have a complete 20-20 game.

So that leaves us with chennai. Well at this juncture i've got mixed opinions about them. They seem to be strong on paper, websites and other possible media whereas, they are definitely lacking the firepower towards the death, as i had mentioned in my previous writeup. The unit clicked against the lacklustre  bangalore but then freddie was really benevolent as he  opened the flood gate for the daredevils, towards the end overs.  These crucial runs  really hurt  csk, and  next time around Dhoni should give a serious thought before tossing the ball upto Freddie towards the end.  He's not yet learnt the trick of the IPL trade.  Fielding also wasn't up to the mark. Albie's drop of his team mate de villiers proved too costly.  And one can't hide the feeling that therez the absence of a buzz in the unit, in the field, compared to the other teams.

During the chase aginst the daredevils, Hayden gave us the perfect start. However he could have  gone on a lil fiurther.Freddie again played a real useless  shot  and god only knows what dhoni was trying to do with that  vettori delivery. Raina's heroics weren't enough and  the fact that vettori still had an over at death , made things worse. He conceded only 8 runs and there were few mindless run outs as well. Albie is a mere shadow of his his past year performances. Just not his day perhaps and CSK's as well.

So that leaves us with just 2 points with  3 matches  and the 5 th position in the table, at the time of writing. But then lets not forget that csk was in a pretty much similar situation, last time around, when the foreigners left for their national duty after the initial matches.  Even though they lost to the daredevil's today, they can take heart from the fact that they almost made a match of it, by notching up 180.  They are facing the desperate  kinght riders tomorrow. Should be a cracker of a contest this. Last season, it was the CSK that halted the kolkata juggernaut, but this time around they just have to rub salt on KKR's wounds. 

Sunday, April 19, 2009

IPL Season 2 - Did we miss the wily fox ?

Been a long time since the last post.  Now IPL season 2 has given me a lota things to ponder about and scribble as well.  Being an ardent fan of the CSK , the first thing i would sorely miss out is the buzz around the chepauk stadium. Had the IPL been staged in india it would have been a different story altogether. Hmm.. neways no point in talking about suppositions.  

Well, the very first match, your home team playing, a saturday evening , who could have ever asked for more. First 10 overs, having had the  mumbaikars  at 65/1, i fancied my chances. Not so after the next 10 overs but, where that tea kada nair really came in and spoiled  every single dream of mine.  Neither did the piece of commentary "How many ever millions worth, u might be, but if you are gonna bowl half volleys like that at death, you are gonna be taken to the cleaners" , from ravi, when freddie offered those dollies to nair,  did any iota of good to my sombre  mood.

The second half was virtually over after hayden departed,  falling victim to a wonderfully anticipated grab from zak.  Mighty matty meant business right from ball one (well, except while handling the 'same old 'obnoxious weed' bhajji).  This giant's ferocious shots continued to amaze me and the immediate thought that flashed my mind was the kangaroos are definitely gonna miss his services in the upcoming ashes. But then the  life  he gave to sachin , earlier in the day,  was the "citi moment of failure" for me. 

I don really understand y the csk unit is clinging on to joginder sharma. He cant be a hero every day and he has nothing special  at all to  grab attention. The veteran murali should have taken his place instead. His absence was so palpable  when bhajji  made things so diffcult  for csk, freddie in particular.  Though freddie made 20 odd runs, he never really looked settled. He was constantly swishing his bat at everything and had a coupla awkward boundaries, for which even he himself couldn suppress a chuckle.

The difference between the two units was cleary bhajji and his parsimonious spell.  Its pretty blatant that the spinners  have held the aces in almost every contest till now(wat a coincidence, as i write this , vettori has been decided as the mom in contest 3).  Hope CSK learn from their mistake and  let joginder carry drinks and other cricketing paraphernalia alone. Time indeed for the wily fox to spin a web.

Monday, January 26, 2009

End of an OZ Era ?

Phew...The long wait is over and for a change am seeing aussies in a position where they put all teams of world in , almost for a entire decade and more. They have been well and truly beaten by the proteas. Throughout the  test and one day series , the proteas portrayed amazing team spirit and surprisingly it was the fledglings that took them to nadir. Indeed, SA rided on the shoulders of some young guns like Duminy, Botha, Steyn, Morkel(Albie)  and Villiers. Not to discount the effort put in by the senior blokes, as this victory wouldn have been possible without those experienced campaigners as well.

Well, gone are the times when i remember, i switched on ESPN , hoping to see a bad aussie batting scorecard, instead would end up witnessing a score of 335/1 (Hayden 111* and ponting 45*, langer departed after inflicting enough damage). Gone are the dreaded times when we hoped the poor pair of kumble and srinath facing mcgrath & co, build a partnership and take india to victory, with the sccore being 112/8  and another 125 runs needed for victory. Gone are the times when strauss watched agape a scorcher from warnie, rattling the timber and finally the aussie unit's victory laps are becoming bygones.

So ruthless they were ,that any cricket fan (except the aussies,of course)  would be cursing them under every breath of theirs and praying for a heavy aussie loss. To be frank i had even wondered,  if in future the  oz would turn world cup finals into a mere formality. There were even forwards going on, after 2007 WC, which said, hence forward the aussie team would  only play the finals, to avoid time wastage. Every aussie loss was celebrated ( i still remember the match were bangladesh beat them in england). But even before one finishes saying the phrase - 'That's it, this is the end of the aussie domination.' , the aussies would just give a faint shrug and win the series with amazing ease.  True that they have given nightmares to one and every cricketing team.

However, one can easily feel the lack of momentum and absence of 'going in for the kill' attitude in the current aussie unit. The absence of the senior pros are heavily felt. Infact there was a call for warne some time back , after the indian tour loss, but it sounds very absurd. They need to try and build up a young team for the future rather than banking on the old champs forever. Its blatant that the aussies are undergoing a transition phase and it always takes some time and experience, before they can gel together as the same old marauding gang. However the problem is the heavy expectations that these young inexperienced baggy greens carry on their shoulder. OZ have always been a juggernaut and defeat for such a unit is perceived unusual and 'OOO'  in the cricketing world. 

Punter's leadership will come under heavy scrutiny and am sure his team would be lambasted by the aussie media. Its gonna be hard time for that champion cricketer (well, am a fan of his batting and nothing else) who is coping to come to terms with the raw fellas, he has been provided with. It will be really interesting to see how  punter grooms the newbies and gets the aussie team back on track

It is a real unusual situation for the OZ to be in, who now have been well and truly been ambushed by the Indians last year end and now the Proteas.  They bet a lacklustre kiwi side, before the SA tour, but then the kiwis are coming back for one dayers this week.  It should be a pretty interesting contest, this. The kiwis would definitely be  influenced by the SA series victory and would be believing that they can do it too.Hope it peters out to be a even contest rather than the same 'OLD' aussie show :).

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Eezhathu Tamizhargazh (Lankan Tamils) !

Place :  A Forest camp in Srilanka (Eezhathu kaatu pagudhi)
Inhabitants: A Tamil Eezham Family
The Family: Father , Mother and 3 little children
Family's survival -  Occasaional food items and other supplies,  from the relief materials that reach them via various helping organisations in Tamilnadu and other places. 

One fine afternoon. Surprisingly no bombings and fights in their area. More important they have some rice in hand for their lunch. The mother goes into the forest, gets some wood for fire and comes back. She starts preparing rice by making a fire out of the wood that has been just bought.  She  is extremely happy that her hunger struck family is gonna have something to cheer about today. A FEAST indeed, given their circumstanes. 

Cooking's done. All 5 in the family  gather around for a meal,  something that has become a rare occasion for them. Happiness gleam in their faces.  By the time they would have had  coupla mouthfulls, they hear the roaring of fighter jets in they sky.  'They've come here too. Not even a single day we can think about peace', says  the dad, as he moves out of the hiding to see  what's actually happening.

As soon as he comes outta the house, he is able to witness destructive bombs being dropped a little far ahead, from their place. Realising the fact that  jeopardy is just a few metres away, he rushes into their hiding,  takes his children with him, runs  and shouts at his wife to follow him to the safety trenches, that have already been prepared, having in mind such sudden attacks.   Realising that their mom's not following behind, the little ones shout out on top of their voice, asking her to follow suit immediately. Poor mom, stores the the just cooked in a safe place , in order to safeguard it from stray animals & crows and then starts running towards the trench. Half way through, a powerful bomb strikes her and  she falls down to the ground. The  hepless father and the littles ones witness their mom suffering a  horrible death, in front of their own eyes.

This isnt some cooked up fiction , but a true story that happened very recently in the forest areas of srilanka. In lieu of the recent fightings there between the tigers and military, millions of tamilians are subjected to such horrifying incidents. Families ruined, women raped, children killed, the srilankan tamils are  living in hideouts in their own land and therez very little being done from out govt, which is aware of the  fatalities that are happening there almost on a daily basis. With the Military forces in lanka, planning for a complete wipeout for Tigers within febraury 2009, only god knows what is gonna be the state  of the tamilians there. Let us sincerely pray  and hope that this attrocity comes to an end soon. 



Thursday, January 01, 2009

'Koyambatu'

Was waiting in Tiruvanmiyur-ECR junction, for catching a share auto to office. A guy, appearing to be a north-indian, was arguing with a auto wala near by. Strained my ears li'l bit to hear what was happening. This northi was telling the driver that he wanted to go to 'Koyamaptu'. Auto wala was trying to explain the northi in his own version of english, "Coimbatore ellam poga mudiadhunga,no go, romba dhooram, very long..go train.not coming". This northi was however flustered and was still pestering the auto wala to take him to 'koyambatu' and told him that was ready to shell any amount, as he was in a hurry. This was going on for 5 minutes as even i was scratching my head as to understand what the northi really wanted.Thank god he finally mentioned the word "Bus", once to the autowala. I immedly understood that the place that he was referring to was "Koyambedu" . Intervened and explained that to the auto wala who finally burst into laughter (well the northi had a nervous laughter as he was still looking at his watch) and agreed to drop the northi there :).