World Champions

For 28 years since the last world cup title, we have had faith, lost faith, have had wonderful victories, unbelievable defeats, came so close to the cup, and still remained far behind. There were multiple scandals, format changes.. and an influx of too much money.


But we never lost our passion for the game, and today we get our reward.


To the game that unites the most diverse country in the world, across all walks of life; to the team that won the cup for us; and to Sachin for being the best role model the country could ever ask for, for 20+ years - THANK YOU!!!


Congratulations, India.

30 Questions

Looks like the only way I write for my blog is when I am tagged :(
Well, I do write still, but its for my school's magazine and that stuff really cannot be online.

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER:
The Forbidden Kingdom

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
The House on Mango Street. Would like to read 'Persuasion'

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Used to be Chess. Now, nothing, really.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
Well, the Robber Barons. Thats my school's student publication, and the only one I read regularly.

5. FAVORITE SMELLS?
A newly painted house, the grass after the first rains, the smell of newly cooked food.

6. FAVORITE SOUND?
Laughter. And beats/rhythms in songs that you can dance to.

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
Missing something, anything.

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE?
Usually it is "I am hungy", and goes on to the things I have to do that day. Last week, it was 8.15, and I woke up thinking "Shit, I have an exam at 8.30". I went half hour late, but managed to do just fine.

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?
KFC's Zinger Burger

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
I would like to grow up first.

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D...?
Retire and write.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST?
How fast is fast really?

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
No. But you are welcome to give me one. I left mine at home.

14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?
What? Really, who made these questions? I don't mind storms as long as I am comfortably warm somewhere.

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
I don't have my own 'car' yet. But I do prefer my dad's second car over his first.

16. FAVORITE DRINK?
Mango Lassi. Cold Chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate chips on top. Tough choice.

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD .....
clean my room and do all the things I have been putting off for so long.
Actually I would like to write for my blog too if I had the time!

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
Yes. As long as it is cooked with spices.

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
I have had my hair dyed Burgundy. Any color is so tempting, I would love to say Blue, not that I ever will get that color ;)

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.
Bangalore, Salem, Pittsburgh, Coimbatore

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Tennis. Soccer during the FIFA cup. and Cricket, the last few overs, usually. My classmates will be upset if I don't mention the Steelers and Penguins. (Haven't really watched em tho)

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.
She's the best!

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
Seriously, why do you want to know?

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?
Sure. A thinner nose and straight hair please. :)

25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL?
Night owl, no doubt.

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
Over easy, with salt and pepper sprinkled please.

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?
My bed :) Ideally, it would be any place near the sea!

28. FAVORITE PIE?
Pineapple pie. Apple pie will do just fine. Vegetable pie without the brinjal(eggplant).

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
Butterscotch.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
Can't think of anyone who would.

Ten things I'd like to do before I turn 35 & Ten things I miss about my life right now.

Dodo tagged me.. Btw Dodo, I am confused too, so you are not alone!

Before I turn 35, I want to

1) Make lots of money
2) If 1) then plan to retire immediately
3) Have learnt Ballroom dancing... the foxtrot, the waltz et al
4) Eat in a bistro in Paris, see the inside of a Pyramid
5) Still be dancing
6) Write a book
7) Rung in New Year's at Times Square.. but does anyone really go out in the crowd? ;)
8) Take part in a marathon (not that, you ditty mind).. a biking race or even a protest walk (or maybe not)
9) Have had an extra marital affair. Apparently, its all the rage
10) Grow up. Naah, Not really

So what do I miss?

1) Income
2) My family and friends from back home..
3) A life which did not have schedules penciled into calendars
4) A car
5) Coconut chutney
6) Warm weather (Its snowing here)

That is all I can think of.. Must I tag someone? Ah, Rahul and Anu.

Picture this!

I am sitting in the plush volvo bus, with the AC hitting me full-blast, when the bus is stuck in a jam. I look out the large, clear windows.
What a way to live. I cannot help but feel guilt. Which gets compounded when I remember that I haven't made my monthly payments to my sponsored child through worldvision.

That was because of a technical problem with their website and MasterCard, I tell myself.

The guilt doesn't go away.

Does it, ever? For you?

**

PS: A closer look, BB insisted!

(Original Image Courtesy: Yours Truly. Edited By: BB)

Horrorscope!!

An un-original title, I must admit. Yesterday, my mom and aunt - when I say 'aunt' its almost always Sush's mom - went to a pujari who also reads horoscopes. You guessed it, they were armed with all our horoscopes. Mine, ranju's, sush's, shru's, suri's and our parents'. So I am gonna give you a sneak preview into our future!!

Mom , since we started this story with her. Apparently my mom worries more than events warrant. hehe! She also will have arthritis problems, so she must exercise. Am I clairvoyant or what, I enrolled my mama (mom) in a gym last year itself!!

Aunt, no clue, must check with mom ;)

Suri.. Will have sanna-putta (small) health problems always. Now I know why the little chappie used to have such awful teeth.. and still looks like a skeleton.. well thats a family trait tho!

Speaking of which, my bro's weight is set to zoom.. Upwards!! Apparently he will get really fat and might have health problems coz of that!! Well, in my family (first cousins included) we have very few or no fat people, so thats worrying. But not altogether surprising coz he eats like a pig !

Coming to Sush. Well the darlin should get married next year it seems if she hopes to find a good laddie. And ranju, sush and me share one common characteristic - our moonsign is taurus aka d bull. And we are very difficult to handle when we want something, we just charge through, he said!! hehe But my mom was telling us that ranju and sush are easy to manage, its me and shru who will cause the problems ;)

Okie I gotta talk of myself, shouldnt I? Hmmm, I stand almost a sure-shot chance at higher study (Sigh of relief? I will wait until I get an admit) And I should be married off before I turn 25, or moi will have a love marriage!! Aint that interesting now?? And that has shocked my mom n aunt. Let me put a note here that will tell ya that my aunt RAN away and got married to my uncle (dad's bro). But now they want to try n get me to tie the dreaded knot so I wont bring scandal! Talk about irony!

Enough of this ram-kahani, will let ya know if any of this comes true.. One thing I am worried about, ranju turnin faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!! :D

Not so Funny!

Something interesting happened yesterday. I say interesting for lack of a better word.

The day being Friday, the 'Friday Fun At Work' games were held. Funny thing, Rajiv had told me around the same time last year, that all these HR 'Fun' Initiatives start around the time of the appraisals, and surprise surprise, appraisals are around the corner ;) After all, the HR folks must be getting appraised too!

Anyways, back to my story. One of the games was Virtual volleyball, with four teams, and one had to call out to another person in the other team, and that one would call to someone in the next team, and so on, till a person didn't know someone's name. Well, the team size is big, so that is bound to happen especially with atleast a coupla new folks every month. And the one who was caught without a name to call, would have to do anything the audience asked him/her to. Sounds like a recipe for trouble, aint it. Not there was trouble per se. But people behave more outrageously in groups than they would alone.

I had lots of work, so I tried sneaking up to my desk, after my name was called and I called out someone from the next team. My turn was done. I heard everyone laugh. There was a bakra caught, so I came back to investigate. Apparently the cue from the crowd was to imitate someone I will refer to as X (Not very inventive as far as aliases go, I know ;) )

Now, X is actually one of the PLs around, a good sport I suppose, because he didn't say anything as the bakra(for want of a better name, no offense :-P) even went up to his desk and shook hands with him. The team has a loooooot of people just under a year old, in terms of work ex. I doubt if most of the people stopped to think how they would feel if anyone if someone imitated him and he also happened to be quite senior. After all, any personal attack in front of a laughing crowd amounts to being vindictive, and is insulting.

No one stopped the 'imitation' from taking place. The folks conducting the game forgot to play their role of being an impartial conductor. I wish I could have stopped the thing, but it had started even before I found out what was happening. And maybe, even if I was there right at the very beginning, I still might have been a spectator. Most people in a crowd don't say anything even when they would like to, maybe because they don't want to play spoilsport, they just watch things happen. I maybe talking about riots, I don't know. I just know, that I didn't like what happened, even if X really didn't mind even a little bit, which I doubt.

An Observation...

Hmmm, I haven't much time, so I will make this short.

I was out on Independence day, and was pleasantly surprised to see so many flags displayed. I am used to just wearing the flag, you know, the kind you pin up in school. When I told my dad that, he said, try to see if any car displays the flag. Its always the poor who overtly display their patriotism. I hate to admit he was right, but I could not spot any car that sported the flag. Autos, aplenty, with atleast two flags on each. Vegetable hawkers. Those mini trucks that look like an auto. Vans. Taxis. No cars. A kid on his bicycle. No cars with flags. I don't know how much this has to do with displaying patriotism on your sleeve, and how much to do with the hip 'I don't really care', or with who would rather spend money on the flag, this is what I had started out saying... Its just, an observation!

A Fork in the Road

There are times when you come to a fork in the road. In our roads, especially more so. But I was not talking about the ones we drive, rather try to drive on. When there are two paths you can walk down on, in your life. Neither is rosy, perhaps neither are filled with thorns. Just two very different things that you can do. How do you decide? Tossing a coin to decide which one to take, may seem the easiest thing that you can do. Leaving it up to providence. Leaving it to the hand of God to urge you down any one path.

Sometimes there aren't two roads. Just one. A small change in your personality, in your current circumstance that would result in a different avenue opening up right before you. And you have to decide, whether to take it or not. A different kind of a job that crops up. An old friend who you see in a different light. Just about everything would change, if you do act upon it.

Not acting upon something, wanting status-quo, because you are scared of the 'what-ifs' is what one might want to do. But you would forever live with that question. 'If only I had taken up that offer'. 'If only I had told him/her.' If only's..

When you are at a crossroads the next time, it probably is because you desperately want change in your life. Go down the fork, in any direction. Choose. In the hopes that if it doesn't work out, maybe you would come across the other path somewhere down the road. Or maybe a completely different one.

A Yawn Is Upon Us!

Now this is something you can never claim to have 'not' done, unless you are some kind of freak.

When you are listening intently to a harrowing tale that happened to your friend, damn it, the yawn sneaks up on you! And you try your best to swallow it lest it offend your friend. Futile, isnt it? Not that your friend would get offended, but you feel guilty for showing a sign of boredom in the middle of her/ his interesting tale. 'I think I need some oxygen, you know yawns are a sign of oxygen-deprivation?' you mumble hoping that you will be forgiven. Till you see your friend respond back with a yawn. Of course she will, its contagious!! :) :)

You are in class, listening to a teacher drone off in his sleep-inducing voice, and you are trying your best to make sure he doesn't see you yawn. Or you know what would happen. 'Rush, answer this: blah blah blaaaah blah blah?'

You blink, did he actually ask something? 'Er...'

'Go wash your face!'

You gleefully slip out of the class. Its not a bad thing always, you know, this yawning ;)

Have you ever tried to make the yawn as small as possible? What would happen is a very unseemly stretch of the skin in the lower jaw, which you would have to hide with your palm anyways. So much for that idea.

Imagine a room full of people at an important meeting, and then someone has the temerity to let out a yawn! And don't you just love seeing it spread around the room faster than the speed of thought??

The best place to yawn is definitely at home, with your friends or family around you. You can see yawns in their magnificient glory, accompanied by a nice stretch of the tired muscles, with the comfort of knowing you dont have to cover up!

Yawn!

Being Thin

I have not always relished food. (But I do now)

As my parents love to tell me, I supposedly used to spit out any morsel of food kept in my mouth, placed there with much difficulty, and they had to come up with unique ways to distract my attention every time I had to be fed. All the uncles and aunties who have seen my stuggles against food greet me, even now, with a 'Looks like you still don't eat!'

My mistake, completely, I know. Bound to happen if you are very thin. Olive Oyl, my college mates called me. Not because there was a Popeye and a Bruno fighting over me, you would have guessed the reason by now.

When I was trusted to eat a meal all by myself, it was a painful ordeal that would last an hour. Everyone else would have finished eating and the dishes would have been done by the time I finished. Whatever I could, I mean. Mom would kill me if I didnt finish off the plate, so I discovered a very ingenious way not to eat. For every morsel I put in my mouth, I would put one outside the plate. Not in a lump, mind you, cause that would be very obvious. I would scatter the food around the plate, so it would look like I was a very messy eater. I got away with it for a very long time, although I suspect mom was onto me.

With dance and music classes almost everyday, I had to start eating... enough for sustenance, as always. I think a lot of people looked forward to me putting on weight after I finished learning Bharatnatya. Every one would say knowingly, 'After you leave dance, you will put on weight.'

Needless to say, they were disappointed.

A true love of food started with hostel life, with me looking forward to going home every fortnight. Looking forward to eating mom's chicken fry with great relish!

Atleast then I had an excuse to tell people asking 'oh you are soooo thin'. 'I stay in hostel aunty/ uncle/ stranger who I was supposed to remember from eons ago. '
'Ah, the food is very bad in the hostel?'
'Ya' I shrug hesitantly, knowing that my hostel was comparitively much better than any of my friends'.

It helps that my cousins Sush and Shru are thin/ thinner than me.

'Its in the family' is what I tell people now.

'Oh you are lucky then', comes the envious reply.

Until I got back home sometime back, and Mom who recently started gymming, said,' Sush is going to the gym now, to put on weight...'

'Great!' I say cautiously.

'Why don't you start gymming too?'

Can't say I didn't know that was coming.

Blinded By Eyesight

Ya well, if you have ever been subjected to the ignomy of Refraction Eye Drops, you would know too! I know, that is one of the hesternal methods of finding out the exact vision correction that needs to be provided by external means.(One heck of a long sentence eh ;)). By external means, I meant lens/ spectacles, of course.

I made the mistake of going to get my eyes checked while wearing the lens. And supposedly lens reduces the power(is that rite or just colloquial usage?) in the eyes for sometime after wearing the lens. So I have to go back again, and to be doubly sure they are gonna use the Refractive drops this time, instead of the quick fix, the computer determination. Bah!

Do you know what that means? I will have to be escorted from the hospital to home, cause everything I see will be blurred. Refraction. R-e-f-r-a-c-t-i-o-n. I thought I liked Physics at school. Am not so sure now. ;)

Hmmm. Lemme cross out all the stuff I cant do the following two days, after the drops are administered, that is.
Reading, my first love - Nope!
Shit my dance class - I will go and try to gauge out what the instructor is doing!
Shopping - well, no use buying something you can barely see.
Watch TV - other than listening to the sound, nothing much I can do there.
Messaging(SMS) - Oh Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!! my cell is gonna go beep beep and not be answered :(
Surfing the net - was that a question?
Go to office - surely, you jest!
Nothing I can do except sleep, right? You don't have to answer that, that was rhetorical.

So I await that day, not with bated breath, however. You probably will learn just how bad (or good! ) that was soon.

Ciao till then!

On the Bus - Do I see a silver lining?

Well, I DO spend quite a lot of time on the bus travelling to and from office, so please bear with me while I write another one about my time on the bus. This time, I am determined not to crib! :)

Lets take a look at the advantages of spending about three hours on the bus. Only the advantages, mind you!

Well, for starters, those who don't have time to contemplate on their lives have plenty of it - Time, I mean. We all lead such fast paced lives, and are constantly in a hurry. But on the bus, you have plenty of time to think about yourself, your day, where your life is going, the works. It gives you time to catch up on your life, coz as the cliche goes - Life is what happens when you are busy doing other things.

You get to make phone calls to all the people you dont wanna lose touch with. School friends. College friends. Ones you made in training. Sure, the person snoring next to you on the bus might not appreciate it. But what the heck, someone else is glad that you called him/her.

You can make new friends of the people who travel with you on the same route everyday. Or your friends might be taking the same route as you. It is a lot of fun, trust me, to re-discover the art of conversation that does not involve a mobile phone. Sure, everyone on the bus is gonna get disturbed when you and your friends are in the midst of a giggling fit. They might give you dirty - 'why are you making so much noise' looks. But you dont really care, do you?

When you are not talking on the bus, you get time to catch up on your reading. An avid book enthusiast like me, would love to have all that time where no one is gonna tell ya 'Could you please run to the grocery shop and get me some stuff'. Sure, your eyesight is gonna get worse with the bus driver driving like a maniac, but hey, your eyesight's not getting any better even if don't read!

Speeding on the Outer Ring Road, you look out your window and wonder 'Wow! No Traffic!'. Quickly you thank your lucky stars. Thats when you notice the stars in the sky. Its just past sunset, when you can see stars and there are hues of the bright sunset sky still left. And a lake reflects the city lights and it simply takes your breath away. It makes you wonder if the hassles filled journey is worth just this one moment of breathtaking beauty. You think, Maybe, just maybe, it IS!

Did you like Dumbledore??

While you were watching Goblet of Fire, the movie, did you think at any point during it.. "Thats not how Dumbledore is!!" ? Outside the theatre, I met my cousin's best bud, and this is what she had to say about Dumbledore 'I am not watching the next one if he's still playing Dumbledore!' The first movie had the best Dumbledore ever. But he had to go and die!! (in real life)

When you read the book, Dumbledore, lets call him D for short, shall we? D is supposed to be this awe-inspiring person. In the movie, he's nothing but a clown. Where D in the book can shake up an audience into silence by clearing his throat, D in the movie has to jump up animatedly and scream 'Silence!' to achieve the same. Pretty pathetic, for a headmaster who is the only wizard You-Know-Who feared.

Am sure if you agree with me, you will definitely agree to the part where D puts both his hands on Harry in an exaggerated movement, and says "Harry Potter!" scaring the wits outta poor Daniel Radcliffe. Ah well, if you don't remember, just watch the movie! I met dips, a good friend of mine.. and when we started talkin about the movie, the first thing we did was imitate this scene. We thought of it at the same moment! Coz this is one of the profoundly meaningful scenes tossed into a pitiable mediocrity, thanks to none other than Mr.D!!

Hoping that they have a dignified, awe-inspiring Dumbledore atleast on the next movie,
Rush