A few moments that just passed by......

Cricket has been my favourite sport ever since childhood when i used to see Mark GreatBatch and Allan Border (a few of my childhood heroes) smash the red cherry round the park. Well the basics of cricket was instilled in me by god i guess..Cos seriously i don’t remember who taught how to hold a bat....During my nursery days the best cricket i used to play u was with my brother inside the house using those fancy plastic cricket bats...Ever since I joined Loyola school cricket just became such a big passion for me. I dun remember if I ever played cricket during my 1'st 2'nd and third classes...But yes i do remember when i was in the fourth standard me Manu Shankar and Arnab Mukhergee playing the now-famous tree cricket during our games period .and yes there was quite a funny incident when i walked to Elaine job madam to complaint about Manu Pattar not sharing the cricket bat....Also we used to have the card board cricket which was quite prominent during exam days when a bunch of used to gather and play cricket using the card boards we use to bring for the exams and paper balls. During those times Jojo Job a.k.a Vasu was quite a hero amongst us cos he could hit sixes when playing with paper ball when the boundary was some 10 metres away from the batting spot...Well fifth standard saw qutie a high rise in the number of cricket enthusiast...with the addition of names like Thasseem,anoop roy,Hari G,Ravisankar.. and quite a few more people joining us....Also we used to get the middle wicket (the middle portion of the football ground) to play during our games periods...And i believe it was in sixth when we were allowed to play cricket even during the After noon breaks.....Well the cricket during the afternoon breaks was quite an expensive affair as most of us would lose our lunch boxes,as they were used to be kept as wickets at the runner's end. Time passed by...And the occasional A vs. B matches were played with much vigour..Then came the split of our group into the ICSE batch and SSLC batch..Ya while we were in seventh we had this new boy SOju who was also quite a cricket enthusiast...Even after the split we used to play togethre during the afternoon breaks...Between the Icse batch and SSLc batch .But that was quite short lived as spate of poor umpriing decisions forcing me to lead a walkout wiht our team...Hehe...Well all this things sounds quite funny now...There was one traitor in our team who was MANU.R.C who stuck with playing with ICSE batch till end(All those guys were our good mates and are even now).While all these was going on there was a group of cricket enthusiast playing under the able leadership of Subin and GOPI at a different venue. To be fair initially we had the option of playing with them but we thought it would be more competetitive to play against our B batch mates....The SUBIN's cricket as it was famously known was quite a tense rivalry between two teams lead my GOPI and SUBIN George. We used to hear of Neil Stephen being a prolific batsman and Kiran Prince the leading Wicket takers but we just couldn’t cut down our ego to play with them..Well if u are wondering about the WE. The self proclaimed senior team of A division lead by the able leadership of your's truly .Well if u are wondering why i wa smade the Captain of the team. Very frankly even i am not sure. But still maybe it was due to the fact that whenever i used to write the team sheet i made it a point to include the heavy weights (both literally and physically)like KIRAN MENON,SABARi,RAHUL ALBERT,SANJU in the team...and also my best mates like rakesh,jatti, ravi,jojo ,Ajay.s(a good wicky and had a great reverse sweep shot which he nevre succefuly played )and a couple more...The division of the class was such that during one time there a 8 A "B" team led by neil .The strangest thing was that the strength of our class was just nice to have three cricket teams.....Well if i am not wrong it was in the ninth when the self proclaimed egoistic players returned to play SUBIN's county cricket. To be fair to them they didn’t even show a bit of reluctance to accept us...And to be fair we did enjoy a bit of high profile status there cos we were always like the first names on the team sheets. But the status didn’t really transform into performances as most of us were big flops while playing there.....The biggest scandal which i have ben involved took place that year. The INTER CLASS INTER HOUSE TOURNEY..Well it involved cricket matches between the houses involving teams conisting of players from both the divisions .It did have a grand launch by the organising comitte that had me also..But the biggest fraud was the treasurer who collected money from players of both the teams citing the reason of buying trophies fir the winning team...Well he did manage to collect a good sum but the trophies...Maybe the presentation ceremony will come in a few years.....that tournament had it its fair share of controversies but eventually AP house led by Sharath(obviously i was also there as the Vice) won the tourney. Well AP house did have it's share of good player like the author. the captian..vinod ,Gopi(he was the top scorer in a few matches),soju to name a few...Well for the three years since the 8 A and 8B teams had been formed we the A team idd enjoy a stranglehold over the B team which continues even till now...The culmination of all the cricket i played in Loyol aSchool was the inter house cricket final played in front of the whole school when i manged to pick up five crucial wickets to help our House life the trophy.....And in the end picking up the Best Bowler of the tournament recognition. Well I have heard great people relish great stages......Well shifting to BVB the only possible chance to play cricket was the INTER HOUSE matched played in the very little place that was available ther.The reputation of the "BEST BOWLER" was there but to be true i failed big time to live upto it. Even though i did manage to end up on the winning side once and reach the Final the other time a high amount of wides in the first final i played did harm my reputation and confidence big time....Even though i made it to the school team i had to sit out of the solitary match the school cricket team played in the whole 2 years i spend there......Coming to Singapore i had a fear that i would have to forget my cricketing dreams..But to my surprise i found out that our poly had a cricket team also that there were a few cricket clubs here playing league cricket...well getting into the team wasn't a tough ask as there just one left armer around....So getting and playing for the team wasn't a tough ask. So even now i continue to play my cricket for one club playin in the Division three league here......Cricket has been quite a big part of my life and still remain to me as the my number one sport...Hope it remains so.....

An Indian Supporter Speaks

Well hadnt taken to blogging for quite some long as my work and tight scheduleds didnt just give that bit amount of free time to type down a few words.But now after the edn of the India_england series i guess it is the perfect time to vent my frustrations...
At the end of of a one all series i just cant take it all the praises goes to Flintoff and co.. I admit that the england side was deplted But come on the matters in the indian team wasnt worse..We didnt have the Bets Batsman in Form(Sachin Tnedulkar as i am forced to say)..VVS Laxman was warming the benches for most part of the 3 match series...Harbhajan Singh was nowhere near his best ..And to spearhed the bowling we had two debutants..Give prasie where and when it is due..I have been an ardent Saurav fan to the extent that i would argue him to be the best batsman in the world..BUt now Dada has to retire graciously as just like evrey other indian can guess he is very much past his colours...As for VVS Laxman...Indian public and the indian Cricket team has everything other than grattitude..This Guy was the sole reason that India was counted to be the FINAL FRONTIER by Stephen Waugh..This Guy stood up on hiw own agianst the Aussies....Well his last few innings might have been a bit off colour but a few deliveries for which he got out were indeed real gems which given any time no other batsman in the world would have been sfae with....All this hype and hoolah about Flintoff is really getting onto my nerves..I admit he is a very good cricketer...But is he worth all the praises he is been showered upon..He led a team of relative new comers to a well dreserved draw but how many cenutries did he score how many five wicket hauls did he get....The english are no where near to be world beaters..Remember that the last series in Englad also had ended up in a draw and the Indians werent credited as much as the English has been now....Well about the crowd behaviour and the so called cricket experts being unhappy at that...Big time hypocrites is never a light word to describe these senior players.They go all the way to australlia get abused by the crowd ,cow down l,ose the games and come back doing nothing..The crowd behaviour around other places are not exemplary either...Well autrallia is getting abused by the South African crowd like anything as a return of the kind welcome the proteas were given by the Aussie crowd....We indians have always been light on the filed ..Refusing to sledge refusing to abuse the umpires...And what do we gain...Nothing to be precise.This has to change the home crowd besides getting behind the home team has to be hard to the Away team as this is just what all other crowds around the world do..
As for my feeling about this indian team...A young outfit got a draw agaisn the Ashes champions are no pushovers.Admit Dhoni shoudln have played that rash shot but come on we are the same people who have cheered him when he has hit his way out of pressure situations...If Sachin cant score,Dravid cant hold the team together..Shewag cant get a single run ...Please give me a break..Dhoni is no super human.Indian team is on a chnage.Give this team the time and it will surely impress.And from a personal view i would replace Jaffer with Aakash Chopra who for me was the most cruicial player of the team Down under when Indai tamed the world Champs at their den..GO INDIA GO.......

2005-MOVIES

Well one year has flown past in a whisker and 2006 is here....Well in this blog i would like to comment on a few movies based on a couple of catagories.
A.Less expectations but high satisfaction

1.BLUFF MASTER- Evnt thought the promos gave an impression as to the film would be slick con movie somehow i had my own reservations about an ABHISHEK BACHAN solo starrer.Boy how fool was i made to look.At the end of the movie i had a feeling that i had really watched somethign that i had be looking for so ong in hindi movies.Rap Hip-Hop songs....Perfomances of the highest order.....Mind Blowing camera work....And last but not the least the Climax of the movie...This was the true crossover movie as opposed to other hinglish movies that are being churned out.

2.Ghajini- Yet another Tamil potboiler..But again i was proved wrong.Even though the story was inspired from a hollywood flick this movie was the only tamil movie worth spending a few dollars to watch.The onscreen chemistry between the lead pair ASIN- SURYA was something that wasnt witnessed in indian movies since SRK-KAJOL.The music was quite ok and the picturisation of the songs were quite brilliant.Altogether 3 hours of entertainment.

3.D- Well a relatively fresh face as the hero.But this movie certainly did have the RGV imprint on it.A well made movie on the mumbai underworld .Even though a lot of movies had been made on this genre time and time agian this one was very differen from the lot mainly due to the casting.Radeep Hooda was amazing in the potrayal of the underworld gangster.

4.Salaam Namaste- To be frank i am not a big fan of the aditya chopra school of movie maving.For me VEER-ZARA was crap.So when i read the preview of this movie i really thought that this would be just like any other chopra movie heavily laced with sentiments.But i was proven wrong ..Evn though the climax was abig let-down.The rest of the movie was worth watchin again and again.This movie really proved that indian cinema has changed big time....Kudos to siddhart anand and team.

5.Chocolate-Many might not have liked this movie.But as far i was concerned this movie was one of the better made movies of 2005.The suspense in the movies had you at the edge of your seats all the time.And the perfomance of IRFAN KHAN playing the suspect does indeed desrve a few awards.The climax of the movie was the highest point of this movie even though it was a copy of the hollywood flick USUAL SUSPECTS.

High expectations and complete disatisfaction.
1.MANGAL PANDEY - This had to be the biggest dissapoinment of 2005 for most of the movie buffs.An aamir khan movie after 4 years ..All the hype just evaporated once the curatins were raised .This movie was a complete bore barring the perfomance of TOBY STEPHENS.Amisha patel and Rani mukherjee wer mere props while the music from AR.RAHMAN(my favoutite personality) was pathetic.Aamir Khan was completed wasted in the role of MANGAL PANDEY who has a you blink you miss place in the history books of tenth standard.Hopes are high for RANG DE BASNATI.Touch wood this might be a comebcak for aamir.
2.ANNIYAN-Stupid movie making from one the most highly rated directors of indian cinema.An insipid audio track.Less said is better about this movie.But the perfomance of VIKRAM and Prakash Raj was a highlight of an otherwise drab affair.

3.ELAAN- What a bore.Touted to bethe modern SHOLAY.....there was just no fire.An illogical script coupled with some of the worst perfomances evre to be seen on indian screen(amisha patel leads the pack)made this movie a torchure of anyone who
dared to venture to watch this movie.

4.CHANDROLSAVAM-I had to include this .Didn I.Why not...A mega star movie with a maverick director of mallu world.But no movie could have been more boring than this
(Kochi rajavu will give a tight competition) .Oh god SAVE MOHAN LAL.

5.JAMES- A movie from the RGV factory can be so badly made...???yes it can be..this movie proved it.The perfect repentance for any major sin you would have done last year would be watchin this moving without moving from your seat.Mohit Alawat is sheer waste of reel space.Hope Rgv comes up with something better.


There has been more good movies and more worse movies.But these were a few that i felt i had to write about.