Paul Scholes, Michael Schumacher, Kim Clijsters and the Lazy Bugger.

You get hit for a six, and you get a wicket of the next ball. Comeback. You go 3-0 down and then still win the Champions League ( Respect, Liverpool). Comeback. You call someone fat and they say ' Thanks, I havent had  exercise since I stopped doing your girlfriend'. Ooh, some comeback. Your professor asks you to get out of class and you say "Thank you" while running away. Comeback. No, seriously, COME BACK and apologise. Or you'll see your grades crash emphatically - The most cliched, yet most efficient of comebacks .

That's what this post is about. Comebacks. I recently watched United Vs Chelsea and I noticed certain things.To stage a comeback, you need to have certain qualities. One, I guess you need to believe you can make a comeback. Two, you need certain things to go your way. Like a hash penalty decision maybe. And three, you need momentum. Because a comeback can fizz out right before your eyes if you drop the intensity midway. Yeah, I can hear you say Michael Schumacher. That's more of a 'Please Go Back!', really.

I guess we all have faced situations where we need a comeback to keep ourselves in the reckoning. Someone once said " The guy who holds the world record for falling down the most number of times holds it because he kept getting up". Yeah, that someone would be me :P And what matters as much as the comeback is the effort to stay up there. You work that out, and you will be Manchester United FC some day. The Kings of Comeback.

And yeah, I somehow got those three qualities and I made a comeback. That's why I'm in the same headline as Scholes, Schumi and Kim. "Where?", you ask. The lazy bugger - Yeah its me.

The only unfortunate things that are hammered so much, they never make a comeback.

Give bleddy silence a chance. ( Oh yeah, I guess every blogger now needs a cool sign-off line)
Srivathsan,
(King of Comeback if I stay right here)

The Three Knots (Feat. Pebbles Of Words)

Just when my summer vacation was becoming increasingly boring, and I was becoming overly dependent on morning cricket nets to keep me going, my wonderful friend gave me some good news. She invited me to her sister's wedding. I welcomed the break, really. I boarded the bus to a familiar place on the world map, the place from which my Pursuit of Mechanical Engineering is happening. Trichy.
                        As me and my friend landed outside the Wedding hall, we were kinda feeling out of place , not recognising anybody there, and having our blank faces reciprocated. Then came Mr.Auto-Addict and Miss. Cuteness. Little kids. They made me wonder why its so easy to make friends with kids , while its much more difficult to warm up to adults. The next few minutes, I repaired Mr.Auto-addicts broken plastic auto and convinced the girl that Barbie's hair was actually Snake and Noodles. It kinda worked, because she then stopped asking for Barbie dolls the next two days :P After the kids went away with their mom, I felt the full eeriness of being introduced to my best-friend-girl's parents for the first time. It helped that I had company. But her parents were so gracious and welcoming that our apprehensions evaporated. Okay,okay. I need to say something about the wedding, I can hear you say it.
                                  The first few hours were like so uneventful, we were sitting on chairs and watching Vedic nuptial procedures unfold. Then came the "Carom ball". Unexpected, bowls you over most times.Sometimes you wonder what magic these six yards of cloth weave around a woman, so much so that it makes you take instant notice. Especially when the colours are Red-Blue or Green-Yellow.Specificity of colour implies uniqueness of person referred to :P I don't wanna make it obvious that the "Carom Ball" was the centre of our attention the whole day. Then the reception, and grand food. We went on stage to congratulate the couple, and I got introduced as the guy who wrote the blog. Made me want to come back and write, right away, about this. Two other guys became our friends, and since we had the age advantage over them, we got them to stage a mini Eat-O-mania, which I undoubtedly won, by (un)ceremoniously hogging two Channa-Masala cups and One plate of Pav-Bhaji. Food and winning are an intoxicating combination, really.
                            I stayed at my aunt's place for the night, and returned in time , just in time, to see the three knots being tied, and the love culminate in marriage. Must have been a wonderful feeling, but I'm not the feelings writer, so I thought I should take a little help.
Proud to introduce the new feature in my blogs, that i hope to promote, Feature-writing. Pebbles Of Words is one of my favourite blogs, and it helps that Radhika is my friend. Here's how she describes the institution of marriage, in her impeccable style.

The bride stands dressed in her jaw dropping lehenga, delicate studded diamond ring, experiencing a joy tingled nervousness that makes the stomach dance with butterflies. She stands there hidden from the guests awaiting her cue. The groom stands dressed in a sherwani and flashes a sweet smile symbolising happiness as he anticipates the sweeping entry of he woman he loves and sees his future with. 

Little did the young naive bride and groom realise that this day was their beginning thread would weave together the sumptuous tapestry of a beautiful marriage. Adoration in his eyes, intimacy in her voice , his caring touch, her feel of touch on his shoulders as she massages his aches, her morning cup of coffee made just the way she likes it, loss, grief, times of growth, change, disagreements, uncertainties, they stuck strong together to build the picture they wanted. The oak of ripe marriage is planted by two souls who believe in the beauty of sacrifice, the wonder of loyalty, joy of trust, promises, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, forgiveness and believe in forever. 

To me marriage is like a cart where the husband and wife are the two wheels of the cart that/who have to work in synchronisation in order to reach a common destination. For a marriage to be successful it is very important that both the wheels of the cart want to reach the same destination and thus the two people who bond together, should want the same things out of the marriage. With their busy schedules, a night together(after putting their kids to sleep) is rare and cherished now more than when they were dating. Holding hands on a Friday night during a movie and sharing a pop corn and coke fill them with delight. Romance springs out of pure love . A successful marriage requires falling in love many  times and always with the same person. - Pebbles Of Words ~

         

Man, I can never write like that. Thanks, Radhika. The whole afternoon of the wedding day, we spent playing with kids and chatting.A game playing session between the bride and the groom, a part of traditional Tam-Brahm weddings called 'nalangu' made for an interesting watch, despite the unforgivable waste of Appalams due to the smashing-on-the-head game. A girl cousin of my friend actually believed that my name was "Rooney" because of the jersey I was wearing, and she asked me why I didn't go to church on that Sunday :P Finally, my friend congratulated me for having managed to feed Ms. Cuteness a glass of milk without spilling it and tantrumless-ly. Some achievement, I should say. I had to say Cuckoo a thousand times and teach her the Baba symbol to get her to comply.
I had to dedicate a paragraph for this, but the food was mind blowing. Right from the South Indian tiffin breakfast to the Classic marriage lunch and the buffet dinner, everything was picture perfect. And the piece-de-resistance of it all, was the hospitality. I felt so special there, and made quite a lot of friends. PS:I cant mention Mr.Playboy, because of certain contractual dealings I have with him.

Dedicated to the girl who stole my heart ;)

Red may Challenge, But Yellow is the colour of The Kings!

After the Bollywood flavour of my last post, Its time to be back to namma Chennai. The summer is freakishly hot < Very very literally and not at all cross-referentially, for I'm now in Chennai and not Mumbai:P> and time passing seems so difficult. I would say it's not a Golden phase of my life , if it wasn't for the main reason for dark spots according to Priyanka Chopra, the Sun .Yellow sure seems to be the predominant colour of the season.

                 Yellow. You only have to say the six-colourful letters and the next two five letter words that are associated with it literally fly out of your mouth,'Super'bly. Yes, when it comes to their field, they're undoubtedly the Kings. In the last season, they ripened at the exact right moment, making it a more luscious and gratifying experience altogether. Now what makes them Kings of their trade?

                        They have a tough exterior that is brazen from battle against all possible forces that nature throws at them. Rain or shine, they keep growing fine. So much so that their evergreen owner sends more and more resources their way so that they may grow bigger and glossier. The efforts of the owner are undoubtedly fruitful. Now the top part, is well attached to the basics and performs the task of holding the team and supporting it. The core is hardened and well protected and offers a rock solid platform for the softer and tender young parts of the setup to thrive around them. A well seeded team that never fails to make your mouth water. Which is undoubtedly why they keep the hearts of millions of people throbbing for them. People literally crave for the beginning of the next season in which they may be seen in action.

                     It's probably time to reveal the two five letter words that so picturesquely describe the colour yellow. To all fans of that hugely successful team from Chennai,with an unbelievably lucky leader and a strong T20 outfit, and the millions who adore them, the words are not 'Super' and 'Kings' .I'm talking about : Mango. Yummy. 

Time to introduce my first unsymmetrical ambigram on this blog. The top word reads  Mike Hussey, the bottom one reads Mr.Cricket. And they're the same word, read upside down! Well, it's my tribute to The King of classy cricket, also a Yellow Gladiator :)

                                

605,Building No.59,Shubh Sadan, Tilak Nagar, Chembur, Mumbai-18

This time, the titles self explanatory, fellas. I'm in B-Town and its pretty much mind  blowing. A long hiatus this has been, and its equally due to my laziness and lack of inspiration, or even the removal of the little bit that existed.Now one thing that's characterised this visit has been- Heat or to put it in a more understandable form for all the males out there, Hotness.
                                       Dosas. To all those perverted and Half-perverted guys out there, *Gotcha* :D. There's this place called Khao Gully, which literally translates to Food Lane. I'd been there a couple of days back, and its really frigging awesome. To think the max crowd there turns up only at around ten thirty, and to realise theres more XX than XY there, is frigging awesomer. But whats awesomest, is the 36 (Damned, you read it right) different varieties of Dosas they dish out here. I had the time of my life tasting exotic stuff like Jeeni Dosa, Cheese Maggi Dosa, Paneer Chilly Dosa. I ordered some out of expectancy, some just out of curiosity. And the efficiency with which those guys made the dosas, will definitely put Carnot's Engine to shame. In the one hour that I waited there, those guys must have dished out at least 500 dosas. And the labour division, order taking and clearing up were all top notch. Staying with the Foodie side of me, I tasted some brilliant stuff that's called Falooda here. I even succeeded in convincing curious people like Mom that it was really Jellyfish. 
                                                And the four or five sites I've visited here so far are all seaside places. That long strip of tar that hugs the sea, which has in the past, and continues to provide for excellent love-scene shots in Hindi movies, and acts as a convenient refuge for all classes of people in all states of mind: The fat rich guy who wants to walk his dog, the excited young man who wants to convey his success at the job interview to his expectant lover, the little kid that wonders how the crabs get into the water and still don't drown, the guy whose life is in deep misery and wants to seek solace on the soothing blue seafront, the small boy who sells tea to the above classes of people, and hoping against hope that he might one day adorn those magnificent high rise sea view offices that dot the coast. You know the name of this place, its Marine Drive. I seriously felt the overwhelming urge to join that pretty girl who was Para sailing over the seas.

                                           The only disappointing thing (Apart from the fact that beach Pav-Bhaji costs fifty bucks :O), was the state of the beaches. Seriously, you don't want to enter the water. You end up with fifty plastic bags around your feet, and if you're as unlucky as me, three inch long axle grease deposits on your feet that require serious scrubbing to be removed.                                                                                                       Id also been to this park, i forget its name. It was really well maintained and had an awesome view of the adjoining sea. There i got to play with this one year old kid, which apparently didn't want to get off me in the end. After ten minutes, it finally relented, giving up some sound from its mouth indignantly, which my evil cousin sister interpreted as 'Daddy'. Damn her!!!
                                Well, coming to the address that is also the title of this post, its an awesome place. As you've guessed from the door number, its on the sixth floor and makes for an awesome view. The locality is super hi-fi, but still rings with cordiality. No pomp and show from the residents, whatsoever. It has two brilliant grounds, and Gully cricket is in a seriously different level here. And the shops give you everything you want, in their special forms, from Pani Puri and Frankies to Fresh cream Pastries and the evergreen Vada Pav. The evenings are awesome, because the sun sets only at around 7 in these places. My conscience will kill me if i don't say this, but the girls here are super awesome. They're pretty, and you can't see a trace of wrong attitude in them. Which is to say, if you smile at them, they smile back. I'm definitely not complaining while I'm around this heaven of a place :)  

Where you face the sea and see the face (No prizes for guessing which face :P)

                                          





                                                           



 

Tie,Tie,Tie

The past week has definitely been colourful. From the white of sickness, to the green of jealousy,the bright golden of the unforgiving sun,the red of the scraped knee from the successful three-run-saving dive,and just to round it off, the outrageously eye-soreish orange of the Kochi Tuskers, notwithstanding their Silver hearted display against the marauders from Bollywood Town. Searching for Blue? Gotcha.
                                          Just a few weeks back, a friend of mine had narrated a deeply intriguing tale of a school friend of his, who died under extremely suspicious conditions.  He was a very popular guy at school and was a computer genius. History has it that, he wanted to experience the feeling of death while still being alive. And mysteriously, he doesn't turn up at school for a few weeks, while his parents still think hes at school, warming benches. And no one knows where he goes and where he comes all the while, not even his close friends.Mystery. And one fine day, he decides to give Death a missed call and hangs from a ventilator, using his school tie. Unfortunately, Death's reflexes were not to be underestimated, and the call was picked up. Not even his influential dad could persuade the hospital to admit a suicide case, and thus went his life. His friends sense something mischievous afoot, and try to extract information from his laptop. But its all password protected and set to get destroyed if force was used. More mystery.This was no Sherlock Holmes story, no explanations to make things fall in place at the end. All I could manage, as my friend concluded the story with a desperately inconclusive touch, was an open mouth and a permanent image of a Blue school Tie, with ventilator at one end and vented feelings at the other.
                                         As the world celebrated yet another Tamil New year, and as polling booths wound up election operations, "where was the undersigned ?", you wonder! As people who know me have rightly guessed, i was on the cricket field, representing my college in a District league match. Despite health concerns and admonishing from three different women, i chose to play. Things didn't start too well as we lost the toss and were forced to bat first. Yet again I was in a situation of playing with the tail and guiding the team to a decent score, and i just about managed to do that. But my bowling was patchy, and the match was a close one, and though we should have won it hands down, we let it slip and the match was a, wait for it, Tie. Final ball, three to win, last wicket to go, they poked and ran, and I thought we won. But a wayward throw let them steal a second, the perpetrator was someone who was probably playing his last match for the college, and in his life. As he sank to the ground dejected, we went over to him, and his fellow final-years put an arm round him and said, "I've never seen one wrong throw from you till now mate, cheer up, this will be your last :)". He brightened instantly. Power of bonding over a game, power of friends and friendship.
                                                Staying with the field, I realised how hot it is getting. Global warming, and it helped me get a friend. I realised I had  missed my hat, and was gonna get baked on the field if i dint borrow one. A gracious member from the opponent team lent me one with a smile, and i was ever so grateful to him. Another friendly-'tie', away from the limelight. And the heat is driving the whole of me crazy, including my balls. So much so that Ive stopped wearing underwear at times. I guess it Ties me down. Tie and underwear in the same sentence bring to my mind Navjoth Singh Sidhu, who so 'intelligently and brilliantly' quoted "Humility is like your underwear. Wear it but don't show it."

                                     So in the chronological order, there's the the Blue-Tie, the Friend-Tie, the Hat-Tie and the Underwear-Tie. Guess I've 'Tied' it all together,four random words, for The Ensemble. Word-prompts are an awesome idea ;)

We are The Ensemble, We seek change, and not in coins!

                                  
                                  

                                          
                      

Anna, Amma and the apparent Wardrobe

Declaration: The title is not self explanatory, but its just a blogger's way of making sure the whole post is read :P

Well its IPL time, and its a month-and-a-half of total Cricket. The late night action, the glamour and all the nail biting finishes -Like the Promo says, It's Awesome. But look at the other side of it: The Money, those pretty bits of paper printed with Ben Franklin's and Mahatma Gandhi's visages and whats evidently coming when theres money(read as D-U-H!!). After having watched day after day of twists and turns and having always wondered " Why Harbhajan Before Pollard?" and more recently "Why Yusuf before Gambhir?", its just staring in your face: Was that Fixed??
                             It's an ugly feeling, after having enjoyed all the cricket with so much passion, when you collapse into bed and realise its all for those "now-not-so-pretty" bits of paper. And no one was gladder than me when, the IPL got lesser attention than it deserved, and Im not talking about, to say it the Chetan Bhagat way, The *INDIA-Excellent* World cup Win. Enter the phenomenon, Anna Hazare.

                                   I don't know where he was hiding all this while, but he did surface with a bang. Having always undertaken small scale "fasts-unto-death" in childhood to get my dad buy me the new computer game or the Rbk cricket bat,I can realise the power of such a fast.(Well it worked each time for me).And thus came frenzied negotiations, and we can all expect the LokPal Bill in a while. Though its still unclear what exactly the bill professes to do, I have understood that it involves an all-powerful Peoples committee to keep tabs on corrupt officials.Though there are questions about what will happen in case of corruption within the LokPal or if citizen representatives go overboard and interfere with government functioning, its definitely a step forward. I can now actually go to sleep,  trying to reason that Pollard couldn't keep is guns blazing for too many overs, and hence the decision. And i love the Idea! to keep cricket clean. What an idea sirji!
                                        Also, its poll time in TN, and frankly im shocked at the desperateness because just last night i was walking down an empty street and Actor Prashant in a campaign vehicle waved at me. With Kaipulla Vadivel going hammer and tongs, its a new dimension. After Apr 13 , it could well be Dusk and the sprout of the New Green ( I'm desperately cross reference-ing to avoid trouble). The apparent wardrobe? Oh well, like the Election Commission Squads are finding out on a daily basis, wardrobes contain more than pretty clothes.  Like you know, pretty bits of paper ;). I can see you're panicking about the yet-to-come 180.
Its on its way....When cricket is played for passion and not for money, when administrators don't accept bribes,when election winners remember the govt is by the people, for the people and of the people, and when success is more about what you know than who you know (Thank you, CB), that is when

life is beautiful!

Life is Beautiful, indeed :)

                                    

Long time, No Sea! :(

From the title, you will realise, I'm missing Chennai terribly. Especially now that every day of the week I'm baking to death in my room. Heat. So, that will explain the long Gap between my last post and this one, I'm just back in Chennai, and having a wonderful time.
So, there must have been a thousand instances in the past month when i thought "I should blog about this", five hundred when i actually thought it was a good idea, 250 when i reconsidered and rejected, 100 that made me think its gonna be popular, but none that could get me out of laziness induced stupor and get me blogging.This one was worth writing about though.
One of my friends recently faced a "Change-yourself-to-meet-the-situation" Vs "Stick-up-for-yourself-and -throw-it-off". She handled it real well, i thought. But doubts keep creeping into our minds after every important decision that we make. Especially if a lot is at stake.Let me give you a few instances.

Flashback: The first time ever i was On-a-hat-trick in a match. It was an Under-15 match, and i loved the tournament cuz they gave awesome prizes for Man of the match! I was faced with the choosing the right delivery to bowl. It was Traditional Off spinner Vs The quicker one. Considering the pros and cons, and the natural instinct of a young guy to go for the jugular, i bowled the faster one. He well-left it. And i immediately regretted the decision. The man of the match went to a guy in my team who hit six fours off a single over. I was 14, and that decision haunted me for a while. But then in the next match, I got wickets with the quicker one, and my doubts vanished.

On a more life changing scale, very recently  I was faced with a situation, common to all done-with-school- and-ready-to-enter-college people. Do I choose a college that has a prestigious brand name but is yet to prove itself  because its a new branch, or go for a college that is relatively good but definitely more fun? I went for the latter, and I kind of regretted my decision for a while, and was feeling ugly, but then, there came the twist in the tale. Like every life changing moment, it came in a flash.I made it to the cricket team, and got awesome friends. After that i never looked back, and life was absolute bliss. So my point is, whatever decision you take, stick with it till THE END , you are bound to see how right you were, sooner or later.It just takes that little event, or a little change in the way you look at things to show you that you are awesome and you were right all along. Life will throw twists and turns, like in any ODI that England plays, but face it and proudly say it the Reebok way,

I am what I am