The tale of the two

It is 2.30 AM here and I am glued to this random website streaming the game. I can actually see how individual pixels are drawn on this site. Sachin just came in after Pujara was caught. Wankhede was all loud and cheery, they were happy to see off Pujara. They showed the replays of Sachin's dismissal in the first innings and I saw them for the first time. He was squared up by the fast turner from Panesar that bowled him. Sachin did the fumble and fall thing. And now Panesar is producing lots of bounce and spin. Sachin looks tentative and is not really comfortable. He didn't last long. Panesar got the better of him again with an arm ball.  After everything he did to Warne and others, it is odd to see him struggle against Panesar. It was painful to see him leave the way he did.

I was never someone who sided with the favorites. Anywhere. Any time. It was always the underdogs.

Karthik liked Sampras. He was winning three grandslams year after year consistently. At some point they should have decided to have him play just the finals to save everyone's time and money. I was a fan of Agassi, Ivanisevic, Rafter, Becker and even Kafelnikov - who won just one Grandslam in his entire career, a French open of course. Federer was different - realized that someone was here to defeat Sampras finally when I saw him the first time with that weird hairstyle. 

Karthik will stick with Brazil, I will switch between France, Germany, Portugal and Greece as the Football World Cups progress. And he will go with Arsenal but the reds were my favorites - I knew well that they were in such a mess - forget winning even being in the top half of the table was  a struggle. 

When we started watching F1 in the early 2000s, Hakkinen was an obvious choice for me. He had won a few in the past and was struggling against the raise of the Ferrari. It was an easy choice for Karthik as well. Schumacher was just phenomenal. I hated rains during F1 as much as I hated them during cricket - for a different reason though. Schumacher would come from nowhere to win the races. I hated every other weekend for 5 long years. He ruled the circuits. 

With cricket, I spent hours practicing Rahul Dravid's cover drive in local kothu matches and talked in length about his only six off Donald over mid on when everyone wanted him off the one day team. 

Ashish Nehra's six wicket spell against England turned me on and I still believe it was not fair to shut down his recent comeback for no reason.

Waved my t-shirt and ran around when we ruled the Lords in 2003, and cried foul when Ganguly was kicked out of the team. Was I happy when he made that extraordinary comeback?

And long arguments with Sachin fanatics like Jaichu, Gireesh and Ganesen was an every day deal.

It is 2012 - And my facebook newsfeed is filled with marriages and kids photos. Jammy has left cricket! Ganguly retired and retired for good from IPL finally. Kumble, Srinath and Robin Singh are fading away thick and fast from memory. I see myself googling up Debasish Mohanty to find him coaching Orissa. I am eating  bunch of leaves and uncooked vegetables for my lunch. Google ads offer me free consultation with Jenna, the fortune teller. Things have changed indeed! May be, I am growing old for real.

The underdog syndrome remains though - and so have Sachin and Schumacher.

From : http://www.indiancarsbikes.in/motorsports/

In 2010, Schumacher made the much anticipated comeback. He didn't start well and he never did well. Every race I expected something extraordinary to come from Schumacher but nothing happened. It was terrible to see his team mate Rosberg score more than him at the end of the year.

And then we have Sachin who is letting the Manjrekars and Chopras blog on how to bat and what his retirement and post-retirement policies should be.

I get a kind of mixed feeling when I look at them. We had this really long conversation on what the purpose of life is on our way back from the trip today. Piyu and Sudharsan had the answer apparently - "Happiness at a given moment". I wasn't sure. I wasn't convinced. I think of The Wrestler and he gives me jitters. I vaguely subscribe to the cliched idea of finding that single thing that defines your life as the real purpose. I am still looking for that single thing that makes my wheel spin everyday. If I don't find that, I am as good as a vegetable. And to realize that it comes with a whole lot of pains is not really comforting. 

Very few people dedicate their entire life for what they like. And not all are lucky to do that forever. Steve Jobs did what he liked till his last breath. And he was really lucky. It is unfortunate that the likes of Sachin and Schumacher cannot. The whole age thing having a say on what you can do for a good chunk of your life is aweful. Whoever planned it that way, he is a real jerk! 

I may not have been their ardent fan when Sachin and Schumi were at their best. And I will never be. But then it was never hard to see why they were the best. Whatever they are going through doesn't change who they were. And they deserve to choose when they should leave.

And Schumacher has chosen already. Now I wish it rains in Brazil tomorrow. For one last time, let the rain master rule!

PS : If you have windows phone, do try my app. It will get much better for next season.

The dream merchant

The stairway circled the mall
Like a haunted house ,

Far away sounds , cradled like echoes

Like they were lost in time . . .

LOST ! It hit me just then - I was lost ! Lost in a mall - searching for a wedding gift . Finding an "appropriate" gift was herculean .Finding the EXIT seemed just as impossible . . . .Hot-blooded Indian men do not ask for directions . My ego wished I remain lost ;and to my ego I always listen.

Far away from prospective customers radar was a shop,sharing a wall with the generator room. Its name board read "D" on a plain white background . "Last try", I told myself and pushed the teak door open.

"Welcome Sir , how may I help you? " , Morgan Freeman stood behind a counter top .An Indian Freeman with a cheshire grin on his face . I was glad he dint wear a white suit . You see , I was tired and worn out , not quite the right mood to have a chat with "GOD" . And Morgan Freeman with a white suit was GOD .

The room itself was dimly lit . Cobwebs clung to posters of beaches with bikini clad women, treasure chests , gadgets and fancy cars . There were a billion posters ; one over another hanging loosely to a tiny patch of wall . The rest of the shop was empty except for a creaky old chair in the corner of the room .

"Do you sell anything here ?? "

"Of course ", Duh !! yes , u idiot , "We sell dreams !! "

"Eh?"

He put his hands up in exasperation. Muttering under his breath , he bent beneath his table and turned a few switches . . . . click,click,click........ brightness and hue changed with every turn . Soon the shop turned into a scene out of a driveway , tall palm trees on either side . Mr.Freeman wore a Hawaiian shirt and beside him materialized a race car .

"Bugatti - turboprop under its hood , don't you recognize it??" , he said faking a seductive voice

I walked towards it as if in a trance and touched the shiny red metal . Heat from its engine sent tingles down my veins . I got behind her wheels , and whirred her into ignition . Soon Mr. Freeman was nothing but a dot in the endless road of reality behind me .

Palm trees turned into beaches , beaches into buildings , buildings into temples . It was a pleasant drive , no suicide squad on the street, no motor bikes swerving their way in. It was just me and the road . I was the king of the world , I was God .

*****************************************************

I was in a palatial chamber . Red curtains with golden embroidery adorned the walls . Girls in silken sari's held sweets in their hands and smiled. Bipasha and deepika padukone (albeit , a bit out of place) were dancing to "muni badnaam hui" in front of my throne . A few others were there too in a deep and serious discussion with me . I was smiling , my legs stretched over a cushioned footrest , juggling a golden coin between my fingers . I stood up pocketing the coin into the depths of my pockets . Expectant eyes laid on me , some even bowed their heads down . I cleared my throat . . .

"That would be 5000Rs , sir " . . . . . . The dancers popped out of existence , the chamber maids left too , my palace and the throne followed . . . Freeman was grinning again .

My friend got no wedding gift , but later that night when I checked my pocket there was a gold coin with my face minted on it . . . . .

Don’t you know me by now?

First time I am writing something that's not my own!
But I wanted this to be here.. for i love it for them! :)

Daydream delusion, limousine eyelash
Oh baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet-cakes and milkshakes
I am a delusion angel
I am a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don’t want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we’re going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I carry you
You’ll carry me
That’s how it could be
Don’t you know me?
Don’t you know me by now?

my.Random(5);

Five random “arithmetically decreasing random collections”!

5. Five random tweets

5. Wrestler - Very good movie. 4 *s! Gave me jitters, boy am aging :( #movieRating

4. Status messages are the best metric for one's stupidity!

3. Watching gajini! Going down the memory lane, this was the only movie for which I bunked classes!Back to movie now:Back to ogling at hasin ;)

2. Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive - Andy Grove (former CEO Intel).

1. iTouch tweet: my fingers are big :(

4. Four random revelations:

4. I became a food buff and decided that I should learn cooking after watching Ratatouille :)

3. I am bad at talking! I think I never had a phone call in which I spoke for more than 10 mins. I do all the hearing and let the rest talk.

2. I love to play badminton more than cricket.

1. I have plans to do short films prolly 2 to 3 years from now I will try.

3. Three random pics taken by me:

 

 

2. The last two songs i heard:

 

1. My recent favourite:

 

Cheers!

Samurai Code Jack

The early years of the 21st century was marked by the rise of the legendary hero who was destined to change the history of the world, for its better – the Samurai Code Jack.

When he was born, he was visited by a prophet who after spelling some mantras, raised up, looked stunned and said “He is the ONE”. Code Jack turned around and said “No sir, I am zero, and the world is binary”.

The prophet was diagnosed with a severe heart attack later.

When kids of his age learnt holding cricket bats, Jack was wielding code. He spewed code, more code and went on coding for hours, days and months together. He captured the worms, killed the bugs, raised new viruses only to slay the rest.

As his prowess spread across the towns, the master coder Mi Chi Shu visited him.

“Son, what will you do if you want me to my cookies?”

“I will send a cross-site scripted html message”, Jack answered without taking his eye away from the monitor and continued typing.

Mi Chi Shu smiled.

“Impressed. You are almost there my son. You need to learn to send it like a Google Ad, people will click blindly no matter what it says”

Jack turned around and tears rolled out of his eye.

“How did I miss that?”

“My son, mortals need more than just a plain message. You need more training”

Jack immediately joined Mi Chi Shu, for he knew this was what he was always looking for. Together they travelled all over the world. Redmond, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, San Franciso and finally came to Bangalore.

By then they had exploited PC, routed Macs, hacked twitters, brought down googles, and turned the web upside down. They stood over an artificial cliff of some unknown campus that had sprouted from nowhere.

“My son, what have you learnt after all this”

“It’s easier to hack than write code that cannot be hacked”

“You are enlightened! The time has just come. Go ahead and complete the mission of your life.The evil forces shalt try to thwart you from your mission, but that shouldn’t stop you. ”

Mi Chi Shu, picked a netbook from his Jolna and gave him.

“Jack, this is small, cheap yet very powerful. Believe me, this will rule the world. This is my gift to you”

Jack Code, it was then, did he become the Samurai. He raised the netbook, and felt his intellectual power flood the whole place.

“It’s time for me to leave my son!”

“But..”

Mi Chi Shu smiled, raised up and was transforming himself into 0’s and 1’s before he eventually disappeared completely. Jack realized all the time Mi Chi Shu was using tele-presence.He realized how unappealing the experience was, returned home and started coding again.

He coded for days together. So intense it was that every time he compiled the entire city would go without electricity. He went on coding for months and eventually he hit code complete, ZRB and ZBB!

And then….. he pressed F5!

It ran, and it ran like a magic, like a bird that would just fly away in the morning without making any noise, so peaceful was it!

It was running on Silverlight and the CPU made no noise. It was all just too smooth for the world to believe.

He had just created an actual second life, tele-presence made actual presence.

And all this time, he was pinged almost every day but he had little time to look into it. Now he was pinged again.

“Hiii!!!”

“Hi”

“How are you? :)”

“Whoever you are, you are still conversing the old non-sense way, try this!”

They went into the Third Life, and they went around the world, galaxies, universe and beyond without meeting each other. And finally just when they had nothing new to see, they saw each other, at the top of the most beautiful of the mountains. The sound of the falling water was the only thing they heard.

She looked like a most beautiful music one would ever hear. She was just fabulous and neither Jack nor the author had no better words to describe her. Any word that they could think of is clichéd and would falter badly in describing her.

“Hiii!!!”

“Hi”

“So…”, she smiled.

“I love you!”

“I know!”, she pulled him by his side and kissed him!

So immersive was the experience that at that moment, realized Jack, that very moment was what he was waiting for, the moment of moksha, salvation and realization. He knew his Third Life had done it’s job to perfection :P

The End - II

It’s Tendulkar all the way

Dumbfontain, 21, 2028: When the giant indoor arena’s top closed with a little less than a 100 million people – or should I say creatures – a lot of cloud loomed over the Earth’s future in the first edition of this Intergalactic Cricket Cup. Having played the game for nearly 150 years now it would be nothing short of a shame to be kicked out of the tournament in the very first round.

The team needed someone to rise and produce a performance exhibiting the heritage of the cricket in earth. And who else can do this better than our very own Sachin Romesh Tendulkar, the senior most statesman of the game.

The toss was won by the earth and they let the opposition - Octopert bat first. Considering the bowling and fielding strength of the Octopertians, the earth’s decision was a rather defensive move. The eight legged, ten foot creatures have proved to be extremely agile in the field and lightning quick with the ball. The team might have decided to take the upper hand in the game by bowling well.

The team worked to its plans. The initial spell of Arjun Tendulkar proved vital. His initial couple of bursts forced the Octopertians to the backfoot. He was provided adequate support by William Pollock, who bowls at an extraordinary pace for someone from the earth.

The Octopertians managed to recover in the middle overs with some clean hitting by {5F012453-B612-4d6e-A3A9-3036A453A8E1}. The partnership between him and {F1093674-5D42-4f52-8A2B-98E8B9B65C27} was turning out to be lethal. It required the man with the golden hands – Sachin to break this partnership. His reputation of breaking the partnerships remains intact. His slow leg-spinners proved effective. He tightened the screws with another couple of wickets in the death overs and returned with the figures of 3/10, his best in this format of the game. The Octopertians managed a descent if not formidable score of 112/6 from 19.4 overs before they were all out.

The earth’s innings started with {2FA45310-D45A-4b0e-9008-F092071F853A} picking up the important wicket of Stephen Marsh. Marsh was dealt with an ultra fast yorker, for which he had no answer. He was soon followed by Kataragedera(Yes, with Srilankan’s you just have to roll your lips and make a noise to get a name) and _____ (Cant think of a name yaar.. :( ). Just when it looked like Octopertians were taking the game away from the earth, Arjun Tendulkar came in and provided the much needed support for his father. Together they put on a 64 run partnership in which Arjun displayed a lot of grit and character. A little lapse in concentration saw him give him an easy catch to the fielder at the covers.

From then on it was master blaster who ruled the game. He pelted the bowling all over the park with an array of shots. His flick on the back foot off {2FA45310-D45A-4b0e-9008-F092071F853A} stood out of all and a six down the track off {XFA17U80-Q4YA-4b0e-UYS8-F09O1ER473D} reminded one of his knock at Sharjah in 1996 against Shane Warne, where even the sand storms had to make way for Sachin to resume the innings.

He made it a no contest and earth romped home with 6 wickets to spare in 15.2 overs with Sachin scoring an unbeaten 83.

In the post match conference, Octopertian’s captain {F1093674-5D42-4f52-8A2B-98E8B9B65C27} said that he had just witnessed the best knock of his lifetime, or even the entire Universe’ lifetime. He had words of praise for the young talents of the earth.

Sachin said there was no pressure at any point of the game and he always thought if there was one good partnership, earth could romp home easily. He said he preferred the longer version of the game (20 overs) and has no intentions of being part of the limited overs team (5 overs). When asked about his fitness, he accepted that tennis elbow has been niggling him for a while and he would undergo another surgery after the tournament.

For a question on his retirement he said he will think about it when he fails to deliver what he is capable of. If God were here this day, he would have been proud of what the master blaster had produced. No wonder, the entire world went celebrating this much needed victory.

Edit: Prompted by a dumb reporter's stupid to question to Sachin on when he is going to retire. x(