Battle of the Rivals – India v Australia

I'd wanted to write an article about Sachin Tendulkar when the master blaster scored the first ever ODI 200 in history, last year; but then, an exam kept me from doing that. I'd also wanted to write an article on the eve 1st match of this World Cup; but then a bad fever and infected throat had me rest in the hospital instead. Now on the day of the what is called the business end of the tournament, the first quarter finals, nothing will and nothing can stop me from coming up with this piece of writing on a sport that i love, that flows through my veins, that flows through the veins of over a billion people, Cricket!

Ever since that historical test match at Kolkata against Australia in 2001, the outlook of Indian cricket team had taken a U-turn around the world. Under the inspired captaincy of Sourav Ganguly and magical performances by Laxman, Dravid & Harbhajan India thrashed the then "Invincible" Australian side from almost impossible scenarios and even went on to win the series. The 2003 Indian tour to Down Under saw India winning a test match in Australia after ages, once again choreographed by Dravid & Laxman. A final resistance from Steve Waugh in his final international innings saved the test for Aussies and the series was drawn at 1-1. Since then, huge waves of anticipation followed every single India-Australia fixture and also produced some of the most finest & exciting performances of the last decade.

Today we are one day to go for yet another India-Australia contest and probably the most important one since the 2003 finals at Johannesburg. The core of Indian team remains the same even today, but Australia is no longer the might they used to be.

• Zaheer Khan will be daring to go against the Australian openers again, wanting to make up for his ill-fated opening over 8 years ago.
• Sachin Tendulkar will want to make his 100th international ton against his favorite opposition in a match that will take him closer to his only remaining dream, the World Cup.
• Sehwag will be looking forward to relish the big stage yet again, wanting to bat for the length of the innings and thus single-handedly take the match away with his blade.
• Yuvraj will want to continue his excellent showings with both bat & ball in his rebirth, a couple more of good performances and the Player of Series trophy could be in his showcase!
• Harbhajan will want to lead the spin trio from front, hunting the kangaroos down just like the way they did over a month ago at the warm-ups!

The above five couldn't stop an Australian team when it mattered 8 years ago, and they wouldn't want to repeat those mistakes again.

Enough said, Australia have always been my favorite team outside India and Ponting the captain is placed shoulder-to-shoulder with my icon Ganguly. I know its funny, but I often compared his autocracy in the field to the then President of USA, George W Bush. Its a shame that this game ain't happening at Mumbai with the World Cup all but up for the grabs. On any other day, against any other opposition Ponting, Lee & Clarke would've been the players I would've loved to see smiling, but not tomorrow. Come tomorrow evening, the Kangaroos will enter into the bulls ring surrounded by over 50,000 cheering fans, taking on the mighty tigers of India. Over a billion viewers will want to see the raised willow of a smiling Sachin & joyous celebration of Zaheer & Co in the field. Go India, Go!!!

~A Spring Evening~

An evening with cloudless skies, a setting sun and a pretty breeze oozing around; the place looked at its amazing best! These are some of the photos I captured in a warm spring evening at XuanWu Lake Park, Nanjing after some months of  ruthless winter.

 

  

…this is the Nanjing Greenland Financial Center, tallest building in city & 7th tallest in the world…

 

 

… The Nanjing Skyline…

I hope you have enjoyed these photographs of mine, and leave comments to let me know how you felt.

My Story of a Cinema Going.

How many times have you gone to a theatre to watch a movie? I've gone plenty of times, and probably the list may well have been destroyed beyond recollection. But every now and then one of those movie-going-experience becomes different, memorable. Don't ask how they become memorable, it could be the rush-hush and adventures of getting the ticket, it could be the face of one beautiful girl you came across and it could also be for some disgusting incidents that took place. Here's my little story of going to a cinema some days back.

In this land where names sound more like that of a breaking of plates, getting to talk in English is rare. Even rarer is to watch an English movie in theatres and the rarest of incidents took place this December 1st. The movie My Name is Khan released in China.

Traditionally only 20 foreign language movies are permitted a release in China and this year My Name is Khan was one of those top 20 movies which makes it to the cinema halls in China, and stunningly, 10 months after its real release. The news of the release came out in the first week of November and we happened to know that Shahrukh Khan & Karan Johar would be there in Beijing for the premier of the movie in China. So our initial plans were to fly to Beijing to meet them. Fly to a city 1200 KM away, to meet an actor, and almost during our exam time. Plan dropped!

Then we came to know that the movie is releasing in two malls in Nanjing and we were again excited. Days passed by as exams came and swept us away. Someone had kept a remainder for the 30th of November, reminding the release of My Name is Khan and things were back in minds and plans were to be made again. Anxiousness was the ask of the day even though the movie had been watched a few days after its release in some cheap camera prints and later in crystal clear DVD's.

We will whistle when the titles roll. We will throw paper pieces when SRK makes the intro. We will shout; we will clap; we will create havocs.

Every Indian had a reason to be proud of because no movie of any other friends of ours had come here; none of those Pakistani/Nepali/Srilankan/Indonesian/African movies. God knows if all of them have even a film industry. So this positive energy continued from the classroom to the lunch hall and several friends from other campuses joined us too. The energy followed us through the metro trip to the place, and racing against time, we reached the hall at 2.45 PM and the show was supposed to start at 2.40.

Having reached the ticket counter, there was not many people enquiring or picking up tickets even though the mall had 9 theatres or so. We asked tickets for "My Name is Khan" which they didn't understand in the first go. So the geek among us who ate-drank-and-slept on Chinese language asked the lady in that language and she replied with a mouth full of flourish. "Wo de ming jiao ke an?" and the smile continued. That was incidentally the name of the movie in Chinese which translates to My Name is Khan literaly. So we shouted back "Yeah!!".

Suddenly her smile kind of disappeared and she asked the lady in the next counter, who seemed to know better English and the lady informed us. " Wo de ming jiao ke an mei you yinwen, shi zhong wen"

All our plans were broken down to pieces!! The damn movie was in Chinese and not Hindi/English. All the excitement and preparations only to see a Chinese poster of My Name is Khan.

~A Random Thought about Life~

I seriously used to think, wonder how my life would have been, if i was born to a different family? belonged to a different religion? raised in a different native place, a different state and a different country? belonging to a different age/time, the 60’s or the 70’s or even before?

How magical is life, for each of this simple and silly things have made you the person you are now, completely!

A random thought which could open out to a vast ocean of questions, answers and even more thoughts.

His Excellency, The President of India.

…memories are vague, no beginning and no definite end. The finer the knots are tied, the clearer the image becomes, and the better…

...thunderous applauds break the silence in a huge hall in London…

The man clears his throat,

“That was a very inspiring piece of oratory from the Chief of World Bank. Now i take this occasion to welcome the Man of the evening, His Excellency, The President of India…”

…another round of thunderous applause. The man stood up waving his hands and moved to the podium…

“Those were very kind words. Good Evening respected guests, dear brothers & sisters of London and the rest of the world. It is indeed a very privileged feeling to be speaking in front of this grand audience on such a grand occasion.

I am honored to be the chief guest of this session of the world economic forum, which is celebrating the platinum jubilee anniversary, completing 75 victorious years. I am also very glad at the fact that my nation has given me reasons to be immensely proud standing in front of all of you. This march, Indian economy, along with Chinese has become the biggest economies in the world, and if the predictions are anything to go by, we will become the biggest economy in another 12 years.”

…the audience interrupts to present another round of applause…

It indeed is a very proud feeling to be the head of state, which has returned to the very zenith of it all. I am sure if the founding fathers of our nation lived now, they would’ve proudly felt jealous, for we live in an India, which they couldn’t have even seen in their dreams. India now has completed a full circle. For years, for centuries and millennia, we used to be the land of gold; the land of power; the land of prosperity; the land of cultures; the land of wealth and the land of ultimate intelligence. But then as a cycle don’t speed forward if the tires stay fixed and hence the darker periods of our history began. The might, wealth & intelligence attracted ambitious foreigners who along with time changed roles from anxious visitors to obnoxious rulers. Great selfless people fought them, not with guns and fire, but with words and principles and brought the light of freedom once again to our great nation. Those 90 years of selfless revolutionaries followed by a century of rebuilding takes us to where we are now, once again the biggest economy in the world.

Decades ago in a visit to India, an American President had pronounced that India had emerged, and was no longer an emerging nation. Back then, I had felt good, and proud. But everyone knew then that those words were just meant to sooth your emotions and that it was far from the truth. Then, it was far from the destiny of us being an emerged nation, which indeed was in all kinds of mess, the corruption, poverty and terrorism issues. But now, right now in 2045, a couple of years from hundredth year of our Independence, I can repeat those words and say, we have really evolved, emerged as a supreme power in the planet.

……”

The thing about dreams is that, we have no sense of belonging, no beginning and no end. The same dream might recur over a course of time, night after night, may be. Being in and under the spot-light in a dream every night is fun, but the real challenge begins when we try to find a way, our way to the beginning of the dream. That’s the challenge ahead for me, to find a way to the beginning of my dream, to  find a way to that very podium.

(Recollections from a dream that’s been soothing me during my sleep, of me standing in front of the world as the President of India. Certain facts from Wikipedia added in the speech, & a thought from the movie Inception.)

Google Vs Facebook. Strength’s Vs Weaknesses.

To start of with, this one ain’t a technical post. This is a post explaining the thoughts that crossed my mind during my first 5 minutes in Facebook Mail. The bolded text is the happening in the I-World (Internet-World) and the text below are my thoughts.

So there was this big buzz in the I-World when Mark Zuckerberg announced a thing or two about Facebook Mail, a couple of weeks back I guess.

Another newbie in the I-World and lots of waves created. The success of Facebook means high expectations on the yet to materialize Facebook Mail. So I send in a request to get an invitation for the new Facebook Mail.

I got the Facebook Mail today. I was asked to upgrade the normal messages to the new Facebook Mail & I was given my new Facebook E-mail ID.

My first expressions were in a “Glad” note. Glad, as in I got hold of the Facebook mail before many of my friends. On the first look, it looked plainly similar to the old Facebook Messages, except that may be it covers the width of the page now.

So just to check the working of it, I sent a mail from my Gmail to the new Facebook ID. Back in Facebook when I tried to access the mail I had sent in from Gmail, they said there was a temporary glitch. A problem which did disappear by a refresh, but that was enough for me to come out with a Moral message. The following was my next post in FB.

Facebook Mail Sucks!! Zuckerberg can't beat Larry Page in the mailing front! (FB vs. Google: P)

What’s the Message from all this?

Google has the most successful search engine in the world, and one of the better mail services in Gmail, and another super success in Blogger. But none of those helped a bit when they ventured into Google Buzz, an application similar to Twitter. Google Wave is another, yet similar story of tragedy.

Facebook has the most successful social networking site in the world, but their next big thing; the Facebook Mail looks all set to be a crash & burn.

Everyone has got their own domains, Facebook the Social Networking & Google their own ones. Then why do they have to cross borders into another one’s territories ambitiously? Just as a nation enters into another one’s territory eyeing to reap benefits, but ends up in wars, destruction & famine. If those efforts were spent in their own territory, surely they would’ve been a brighter nation. Alike, instead of transcending into others domain, I wish Facebook expand and improve the glitches in their own services and the same  goes on with Google.

Facebook, Google, Twitter and all similar applications were all results of some brilliant ideas and dreams. Why are they now diluting their dreams by carving out pieces from others dreams?

Work on your Weaknesses rather than another one’s Strengths! ~ Naveen.

Ashok Chakra. A Tribute to Mumbai 26/11.

Today, 26/11/2010 marks the 2^nd anniversary of one of the most horrifying incidents of Post-Independence India. Let us salute the brave souls who lost their lives fighting selflessly on the 3 black letter days in Mumbai and also pray for all of the deceased souls.

 

Click here for the full list of the deceased during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Everyone will have a story to tell about this day, the date. My story of the Mumbai attacks goes on like this. On the night of 26^th Nov, 2008, I was chatting with a friend of mine from Mumbai. So while we were chatting, the news of a terrorist strike broke out and this friend was the one who told me about it. She rushed on to make a couple of phone calls to ensure the safety of her friends. I glanced across several websites to get to know the details and was incidentally relieved to find out it was not a bomb blast, which could really take away lots of lives instantly. Only after a while did I notice that the attack was even more dangerous and serious than a bomb blast. Live terrorists were shooting down innocent lives with machine guns in many crowded and landmark places of one of the most populous cities in the world. While this friend was chatting with me late in the night, she got a call and a moment or two later, returned to say her friend was also shot at the Taj Mahal Palace and went offline before I could offer a word of console.

I’ve always had this belief that the best of anyone comes out when in troubled times. I have fond memories how people unite in face of troubled times. Back in Sainik School while in the 9^th class, we used to be the junior-most in the house, inferior to the 10^th, 11^th & the 12^th guys. So facing the rigorous punishments on a day to day basis, what really happens is that it unites each one of the sufferers into one, one big nutshell. Mumbaikars found the same strength in the troubled times and they showed their courage and determination by going to their respective works from the very next day. By doing so, they had given out a clear message to the perpetuators of the attack that nothing can hinder the spirits of the people of Mumbai and the citizens of India.

Two years have gone and the lone captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab is still alive. Several leads have been found, but no real action has been taken against the real organizers of the crime. Heaven knows what, ‘Dossiers’ have been exchanged between the Indian & Pakistani governments and even the Media doesn’t have a count of it. The country has been spending crores of money to keep Ajmal Kasab alive, on his safety and security, but honestly, does that man deserve all these?

I can’t help myself not to criticize the judicial system of our nation. A person who killed 166 innocent people with machine guns; who as per the court waged war against the country, why in the hell is he alive still? I don’t know if many are aware of this, but SI Tukaram Omble sacrificed his own life while trying to arrest Kasab alive. This is an excerpt from Wikipedia.

Baudankar says that Assistant Sub Inspector Tukaram Omble was hit by the bullets as he was the first to charge towards Kasab and his associate armed with just a stick. "All those who were with Omble survived as he stood like a shield," adds Kadam. "When we saw that Omble was not letting go of the terrorist's gun, we knew we could not let his sacrifice go in vain. He held on and we completed his unfinished task," his colleague Sanjay Govilkar said.

It’s nothing like the news of a death sentence for Kasab makes any change in my life or gives me a high, but it’s that the life and sacrifice of brave men like SI Omble goes down the lane worthless in the present situation. The loop-holes in our Judiciary that keeps him alive even today are almost making fun of the sacrifices of those valiant officers. Lets hope the perpetuators of the attack gets caught, and soon the whole of terrorism gets wiped away from the face of our planet.

26/11 is now a part of history and bullet holes on the walls and the scars in the hearts of Mumbaikars shall remain forever. The least we can do is to be better citizens of this vibrant nation. For a nation which has had to face many unfortunate challenges like the terrorist attacks, cross-border insurgency and interior Naxalism, it’s a shame that our politicians are adding on to the woes by stupid scams and scandals, which becomes bigger & filthier every next time.

The Ashok Chakra is an Indian military decoration awarded for valor, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield, during peace time. 15 Police men and 2 NSG commandos lost their lives encountering terrorists. Officers Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte and Tukaram Ombale and 2 NSG commando’s Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan & Havildar Gajendar Singh were awarded Ashok Chakra for their sacrifices. We salute one and all of them.

Image Courtesy - Flickr