A for Anna, B for Baba, C for Corruption

Over the last couple of months or so, it seems like everyone has developed a taste for the fight against corruption or thats what its been portrayed as. Suddenly, put-on accent, tattoos, piercings, smoking Rajini style, guzzling ten beers and still saying "I'm stable" and even going vegan aren't the cool things to do. While the fight for environment still seems to be the ever green trend, Google trends and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are quick to mirror that fact that everyone seems to be trying to act cool, by saying no to corruption.

Anna Hazare started it right after India won the WorldCup and planned it right in the gap before the start of IPL 4. Well I'm not going to talk about the credibility of his motives or actions as he looked like a nice guy who didn't look for any funding and had a clear set agenda. Fair enough. While his efforts were commendable, there were lots of others who were looking to use that incident as a springboard. One of them was Baba Ramdev. 

With the IPL 4 also ending, and with a confirmed fact that nobody is going to watch the Ind WI series, there was no doubt that it was the perfect time for Ramdev's to do a Poonam Pandey i.e grab attention.  Before I actually dwell into his recent attention seeking acts, let me just shed some light on what everyone knew about him till then. He was a dude who taught Yoga and as a result of which influenced a lot of people. As a result of this I was forced by my parents to to Kapalbhati and his other asanas which MS Word doesn't recognize. While it didn't last long enough, I still give him some brownie points for promoting the brand Yoga in India.

I had seen one of his shows where some people pick up the mikes and start talking about how Ramdev's Yoga changed their lives and all that crap. OK, that was his way of promoting the classes and shows and is still fair enough. For a guy who didn't want to get laid, this was probably his way of finding a release point. Next he went on the record, saying his yoga will cure cancer and AIDS and said that sex education should be replaced by yoga. As long as he taught Kama Sutra, I really didn't have any problem with that!!! Recently, he even said that homosexuals are sick people and should be sent to the hospitals for treatment. Somewhere in this statement I felt that he was trying to come out of the closet indirectly. For a guy who has hair which would cause envy to any woman, wore a sleeveless saree all the time and who openly said that he didn't want to sleep with a woman, that statement sure looked like an expression of jubilation while still hiding behind the hypocrite mask. I even got to know that he owns an island in Scotland. I so want to visit that place to see if there is any leather shop selling ahem..,ahem.., toys in his name!!!

He started off his fast by saying its going to last for about 14 hours. My granny still goes on day long fasts on some days to impress the god and the media hyped Ramdev so much for a 14 hour fast. Guess you can go on for more than that without any media attention if you have a bad hangover. The news channels like always were providing Ramdev's pulse rate as breaking news every minute. With due respect, who is really bothered about all of this? It was crystal clear that Ramdev's fast was more of a political charade and TRP for media than the fight against corruption. So his demand was to bring all the black money from swizz bank to India. OK, what next? I'm sure he would have wanted a piece of that cake as well with his current assets legally valued more than 1,100 crores.

With everything said and done he broke his fast day before yesterday and I'm sure will be ready to hog like a pig today. The moral of the story is don't bite off more than you can chew. I really don't think general public backed his movement and had any faith in him and his motives. Guess that was the difference between Anna and Baba. The former's thoughts were put into action by the public and the latter's put into action only by the political parties. On an objective level, guess it was a move by BJP to get back into power next time around just like Osama's fake killing to help Obama run for another term. Its high time people stopped believing all these babas and so called godmen.

P.S - Doesn't a fast till death, count as an attempt to commit suicide? In that case shouldn't that person be arrested immediately?

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The Highs and Lows of IPL

Its been 10 days since the 4th installment of the highly popular yet controversial IPL got underway. While there are a lot of cynics out there who claim that the IPL has everything but cricket, I beg to differ. The simple fact being, if it wasn't for cricket and the juicy T20 format, a concept like IPL would have never kicked off in the first place. While there is always a possibility of the side dishes overshadowing the flavors of the main course, it is impossible for anyone to savor only the sides and totally exclude the main course.

I have been wanting to write about this man for a long time. Hats off to Lalit Modi for the inception and execution of such a great idea. Frankly speaking, I was a bit doubtful about his ability to single handedly make it a success. But I developed great respect for Mr.Modi when he yet again single handedly shifted the IPL from India to South Africa under a month. Modi had his duly wise men to advise him but I guess a lot of other crabs in the BCCI couldn't stand him raising the bat with each edition of the IPL.

Of course there is a lot of commercialization and that is obviously expected as at the end of the day, its a business. Franchises have invested a lot of moolah and they intend to make profits out of it and if cricket is the way, then let be it. Lots of MNCs are doing the same with software professionals but nobody is complaining. Right!!! I'm a hardcore RCBian and I watch it only for the cricket and once in a way wouldn't mind seeing hot "talented"(yes, it takes a lot of hardwork and talent) girls shaking their booty but never the other way around. I honestly don't believe that anyone for that matter watches the IPL only for the cheerleaders. If people are so desperate to see some skin, I guess there are lots of other ways which yield more skin and bodily fluids per viewing minutes.

While the 3rd edition of IPL ended on a very controversial note, let us have a look whether there is any drastic improvement in the quality the event. For starters, the opening ceremony actually looked like one of those acts that you would probably have in your wedding. Hardly any known names or classy and memorable acts albeit SRK(who would have done it for free anyways). So there is something literally "cheap" about it. Moving on, Max has stuck to two dudes and an on field bimbo (cheap). The forte of studio guests include Sidhu, ArunLOL, Gavaskar (Jr) and Jayasuriya(pity). So there is the "cheap" factor once again. There are only 3 commentators per match(logistics and "cheap" factor). The TV channels are doing a wonderful job in not showing the empty stands and zooming in on handful of the artificially enthusiastic fans.

The BCCI actually did another "cheap" act by assuming that the WorldCup win would automatically fill up the stands and thus spent a meager amount on promoting the IPL. Not even once have I seen any of the team anthems or videos this time and I'm sure the hoardings and other outdoor advertising also has been limited. Chirayu Amin's dressing and attitude was like a humdinger for the quality of IPL. At the end of the day the only thing I can say is that Mr.Lalit Modi you are being missed dearly. We miss the class and style that you brought to the IPL. While I so want you to come back and take control, I know its not going to happen and I can only see the start of the IPL downfall.

P.S - Dear Vettori, please stop sending tailenders up the order as pinch hitters. Gone are those days during 1990s when Srinath was the trump card. Please get the batting order right. 

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Working Out and Gaining Weight Inside

Just a few months ago, I had reached a point in my life when even the belts were not enough to keep my pants from slipping. Surprisingly I had lost a lot of weight and felt very fit. Guess I have to owe everything to all the cricket that I used to play during that time. Coming to current form, I'm nearing the nervous nineties and frankly speaking, I have no intentions of scoring a century when it comes to weight. Guess all the good news in the recent times has accelerated my binging and indulgence in calorie rich food and drink.

The end result of all of this is that I'm running out of holes in my belts and have managed to just hold onto the last hole. So I finally made up my mind yesterday to do something about it. After two boring IPL matches on a Sunday and on a rare day when it was sunny and warm in Glasgow, I decided to go for a run with my two bodyguards. Yes yes, I was worried that I would either run out of breath or body fat to burn. There was a 99.9% probability that it would be the former one.

I was pleasantly surprised with my stamina as I ran without taking a break for way more distance than I expected. The great thing about this weather is that you really need to break your bones to break a sweat. While I was on my way back home, there were a couple of weird looking little kids just playing the fool as usual. One of them had a huge stick in his hand and it seemed like the Starwars ghost had got into him and he was totally unaware of his movements. As I tentatively neared him, he poked me with his long stick where it hurts the most. Well in all respects, my stick was no match to the real wooden counterpart and it really hurt!!!!!. Damn those kids!!

With the worse out of the way, I came back home only to be craving for more to eat. After munching on some yummy fried homemade stuff like ಕೊಡ್ಬಲೆ and ಚಕ್ಕಲಿ and some chicken donner late in the night after dinner, guess all the sweat and a possible 0.001gm of fat that I had burnt went in vain. These incidents have just made me realize that a physical activity like this is not only going to not help you in reducing weight but will you also help you a great deal in putting on some extra pounds. And unfortunately these are the pounds that accumulate around your waist and not in your wallet.

P.S - Any magic health tips deeply appreciated.

P.P.S - Forrest Gump was a bit overrated!!

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"We Are The Champions" - India #CWC2011

Yesss!!! Yesssssssssssss!!!Wooooohooooooooooooo!!! These were the words that came out of my mouth when Dhoni scripted the most stylish finish to a world cup. The adrenalin was pumping and everyone was so high on energy at Walkabout on Saturday that it mimicked a stadium atmosphere, which even included a dhol. I had held onto my beer mug till the end and composed stone cold's entrance music to commemorate the victory thus sacrificing the mug. The Indo-Pak fever had literally got to me and I was down with fever earlier in the week. Even though I missed watching that match in similar atmosphere, I have to confess that watching India winning the WorldCup was the best feeling of my lifetime.

All thanks to a wonderful team in whom I always believed, I can now tell the story of how India won the worldcup to my kids and possible grand kids. There have been some absolutely stunning individual performances over the worldcup but there is no doubt that this victory was a perfect team effort dedicated to the great man himself, Sachin Tendulkar. Kohli's statement was perfect when he said that Sachin had carried the burden of a nation for 21 years and its time we carried him on our shoulders.

Yuvraj Singh was one of the start performers of the tournament. There was a time I remember when he couldn't field at point and had upgraded his looks with a double chin and a paunch. But it was definitely a treat to see him flying on the field along with murdering the bowling attack and chipping in with a few wickets as well. Zaheer Khan has become such a mature cricketer that its a treat to watch him when he is on song. I still remember the first over he bowled in the 2003 worldcup finals when he had a lot of Sreesanth like temperament. But to become the leading wicket taker in the tournament and most importantly taking those vital wickets has to be one of his career highs.

Its really hard to put yourself in Dhoni's shoes. I can't even imagine the pressure of a billion fans on your shoulders. No doubt he had taken a few calls which backfired and some almost did, but at the end of the day, he had the guns and balls to pull things back and put up a show when it really mattered. Hats off to this gem of a cricketer and the greatest Indian captain. It just makes my rendezvous with Dhoni 6 months back even more memorable.

This win has given me one of those "I was there" moments. There were a lot of people at Walkabout who had come to be a part of history and there were some who had come just for the heck of it. The latter group of people mainly consisted of self proclaimed eye candies who couldn't even tell the difference between powerplay and innings break. These were the people who had come to say "I too was there". At the end of the day it was great to see a lot of divided people united by a common cause. The hashtag of #CWC2011 has finally seen its happy ending and we will probably see a birth of #IPL4 soon.

Congrats India once again for the winning the WorldCup and hopefully we can retain it 4 years from now. The stage was perfectly set for Sachin to retire, but then again I guess the kid in him is urging to push till the next WorldCup.

P.S - I also felt one of the legends of the game Muralitharan deserved a better send off.

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All the Action from the Auction

This mid week post comes as a result of a special request and an unlikely number of 'Like's, which is always a pleasant surprise. I'll cut to the chase so that I have enough ink to write this sequel to Lights Camera Auction.

KKR's strategy just blew open the numerous controversies that engulfed them over the past 3 years. People who had any doubts in the fake IPL player's memoirs can now be as sure as the relationship between SRK and Karan Johar. The team looks good with some costly buys but for the kind of squirmish kid Gambhir is, he is sure to say, "These are my stumps, bat and ball. I'll not play if I'm not made the captain". One can surely see a Ganguly in him and KKR's troubles have only found version 2.0 with still no proper exception handling done on the Team_Owner(). 

RCB's strategy has always been to find the most trending chick of Bollywood, dress her up in red and make her walk the ramp. Ooops....wait...think thats only for the IPL nights after party. Even though I would have preferred to see the likes of Dravid, Kallis and Rossy once again, I'm happy that there is no more Vinay Kumar. I'm sure Kaif will do his best to make matters worse for the team, but Kaif only bats and fields(getting drinks doesn't count). So Kaif : 2, VK :3. Kaif wins the dual with a vital ability of not having the ability to bowl.

KXIP's only strategy was to remove all the man boobs from the team. VRV Singh was the catalyst and he successfully induced the same into their already double chinned captain. By the time the management realized this, the cancer had reached its final stage and any number of hugs from Preity could not cure the losing streak disease. Their selection looks decent but spending nearly $1 million on Piyush Chawla can only be attributed to Preity's fetish to cuddle up against someone of her own height.

DC was highly influenced by its Hyderabadi cuisine and decided they really need to have some meat in their line up. Thus they opted for Lumb Biriyani. But it was surprising to see them going for something Rusty when they already had a Gony bag with a White Steyn on it. One can only hope that there is Ishant in the team if at all Telangana becomes a new state.

MI looks like a team with a Blizzard like destruction in them. They made some very intelligent buys and Davy Jacobs seems to be the best buy. With Bhajji and Symo in the same team, either Bhajji has to stop saying "Maa-ki" or Symo has to stop hearing it as "Monkey". They have god on their side and he seems to be in a good form as well. Would definitely love to see Nita Ambani coming out of the closet, that is with a new pair of clothes.

CSK is one team that reminded me of the classic romantic Hindi movies. Their motto was to not let go of any of their old players even if they have to cross seven seas or run out of budget or even if the cement company goes bankrupt. But as of now, the bond looks as strong as India Cements and if at all they had included The Wall, that would have been the perfect icing.

RR is one team that is surely going to attract a lot of attention. Not because of the players picked and not even because of its owners. Who said Share Warne was a former player? Once a player, always a player and he continues to score a lot off field. Very soon RR will receive royalty  from an iPhone game called "Warne's Flip-Her". The game will keep popping random household things and you have to answer whether Warne has already humped that object in his real life or not. The objects can be as simple as a bowling ball to a HB pencil. The highest scorer gets access to a random video of Warne flipping someone.

PW has been maintaining a rather low profile ever since its conception. The team looks rather inexperienced but they have one weapon which no other team has. The ever so destructive Nehra. Many batsmen have reportedly crapped in their pants after seeing Nehra's insanely wide, protruding and yellow teeth in his delivery stride. Some, in order to avoid public humiliation, give away their wicket to him. As a result of these, Lionsgate has requested Nehra's permission to use his face in Saw's next edition. 

Kochi has already started entertaining their fans even before the start of IPL. By opening with a joke, or should I say a flurry of jokes, one thing is guaranteed and that is entertainment. By picking all the unwanted players from other teams, there is no doubt that the ones performing will be Shakeela, Reshma or Devika. After all, the new coconut pickers have their work cut out and only after they get their daily wages, will they be allowed to go onto the field. The shine on the ball is bound to stay on for the full 20 overs, all thanks to the coconut oil applied to the hair.

P.S - This post was not intended to hurt the feelings of any Mallu, whether in Kerala, Dubai or UK and was solely targeted at the iconic Mallu, Sreesanth.

P.P.S - I have great respect for Shakeela as a comedian. 

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Lights Camera Auction

After being riddled with numerous controversies ever since its last edition, the IPL players' auction finally took place in Bengaluru over the weekend. I was more eager to listen to Arun Lal's stupid comments than to actually watch the auction. The weekend sprung a lot of surprises with the media cashing in on the event more than anyone. Probably the auction got more coverage than any of the election results. A William Hill in India would have probably made millions over the weekend with an substantial number of farmer suicides.

To start off, the Bollywood bimbos were back showing off more booty than brains. One cant help but wonder if they even know the names of all the players in their team. Preity Zinta who has finally shelved her flab really needed to read the book "Auction rules for dummies". Somebody had to tell her that once a player has been bought, the bidding ends there and raising money and even her top after this wouldn't help her.

It was great to see Chennai retaining around 8 players from their original team thus emphasizing the fact that its a real team. RCB has a totally new look but then again to go through the phases of forming, storming, norming and performing will probably take atleast 1 edition of IPL. The funny thing is that all the teams have managed to find atleast one self destructor or suicide bomber for themselves. KKR has Brett Lee, RCB has Mohammad Kaif, KXIP has Piyush Chawla, DD has the stallion Ajit Agarkar, DC has Ishant Sharma, MI has Munaf Patel, CSK has S.Badrinath,  RR has Shaun Tait, PW has Ashish Nehra and Kochi has a brigade of suicide bombers with the likes of Jadeja, Sreesanth, R.P Singh,VVS and Vinay Kumar. These are the kind of players who can single handedly win the match for the opponents.

On the other hand there have been some great picks for the money paid for Davy Jacobs, V.D Merwe, KP, N.McCullum and Randiv. Most of these players will turn out to be the dark horses and it was nice to see that many uncapped international players were also in demand. The teams had done their research and were trying to form their teams based on some strategy. CSK for example, wanted to retain the old team as much as they could and RCB wanted to build a solid fielding unit and Kochi for that matter, looked like they wanted a team full of coconut pickers.

The best part about the auction was that the true quality of players came out. People have always been hypocritical and scared to play down the veterans even though deep down they also knew the hard reality. There was a time when Ganguly was a great player and ever since his weakness to the short ball was exposed, his decline started. For the kind of stubborn person he is, he refused to work on his weakness and was confident that his reputation was more than enough to continue his career. He probably wouldn't have been picked by any teams even in the first IPL if he hadn't been an icon player. Its high time that he put his pads down for good and grace us all with the good news of not becoming a commentator. I also felt that Lara should have opted out of the IPL. At his age, none of the teams would be interested in making an investment. It just reminded me of Schumacher making a return and failing terribly. 

I guess time will bring out the true colors of the teams and with the World Cup just around the corner, it promises to be a cricket feast for 3 months starting in mid February. Bring on the good stuff. As Mallya would say, "a small quarter for cricket, a great kick of mankind".

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Spot the fix contest

When cricket first started in the earlier part of the 1900s in England, it was one of the sports played with the sole intention of entertaining the royal family and especially the queen. I was listening to one of the talks by Harsha Bhogle where he mentioned that one such test match lasted for 14 days which ultimately ended in a draw. The only reason the match was stopped was because one of the teams had to board a ship back to their country and they couldn't afford to miss it as the next ship was almost a month later. The captain of this team was also heard saying that if they had got just 1 more day, they could have won the match.

Even though the 5 day test matches tested the players, the crowds needed something that was more entertaining and this gave birth to the ODIs which were initially played with 60 overs a side. When the world was trying to figure out a solution to the Y2K problem, some people saw a solution to their financial woes and to make some money through cricket. The cricketing fraternity was introduced to the term match fixing when one of the most respected cricketers of that time, Hansie Cronje confessed to succumbing to it. This incident not only exposed the true colors of some of our idols at that time, but also set the cat among the pigeons. I was impressed with the way the movie "99" was shot and it touches on topic mentioned.

With more and more people getting interested in spicy steamed up quickies, the pleasure of ODIs started to fade away and this gave birth to a high on energy and orgasmic format called as T20s. Lalit Modi and his merry men saw a way to combine this and Bollywood in order to make it even more glamorous and named it the IPL. After all, in India its only sex and SRK that sell (I feel that SRK here doesn't refer to Shiv Raj Kumar. Just cant imagine him on the street corners waiting to be picked up even though I can easily imagine the KKKKhan. I'm sure to have plucked some nerves here :P).  

Coming back to 2010, the world was exposed to the little known brother of match fixing i.e spot fixing. People figured out that match fixing not only leaves a lot of loose ends but also makes it look obvious. I recently read that the finals of the IPL this year too was fixed and the bookies stopped accepting bets for a Chennai win even when they were 4 wickets down before the 10th over with hardly a decent score on board. Sending Pollard down the order too makes  one speculate if it was true. I have been following the success of the rejuvenated England cricket team and this team looks like their best in a long time. Lord's has been a Mecca for cricket and it threatened to mask the purple patch of the England team towards the end of the summer. To be frank, even though Pakistan has produced some legends over the years, I have never been a fan of their team. The incessant appealing, numerous doping and match fixing controversies, the internal politics, the inability of the former cricketers turned commentators' to impress a point sitting in the commentary box and the blinding green color are some of the factors that have made me detest their cricketing spirit. Till recently, I had started to admire Mohammad Aamir's bowling and I really believed that a youngster of that age could really take Pakistan cricket to the next level. 

Even though I believe that the recent spot fixing scandal involving the Lord's test was just the tip of the ice berg and that it is wrong to assume that only Pakistan cricketers are corrupt, the fact is that they were caught red handed. The excuses used by them to get out of this mess will make even a kid who finds armpit farts funny to laugh at them. 

" I had kept the money to shop for my sister's wedding". 

"This is a set up". 

"The Indian bookies are to be blamed for this".

It really amuses me to see that they took almost 3 days to cook up such dumb excuses. If at all you wanted money to shop, why would you do it in the middle of a test match and why wouldn't you use something called as the ATM? How can you call it a set up when there is enough proof shown in the videos regarding every step leading to the fix? I have to commend Asif here as he made the no ball look like a genuine mistake and Aamir on the other hand showed his inexperience by bowling a foot long no ball. Guess the kid was too nervous about doing it or just wanted to be on a safer side. Asif not only looks like a seasoned fixing campaigner but looks like a man confident about getting away with it. I wouldn't deny that Indian bookies probably had a hand in all of this but its the bookie's job to feed you shit and it all depends whether you throw it out, or eat it, or put a cream topping on it and lick the plate inside out just the Pakistan trio did.

Just like Bob Woolmer's death during the world cup, I'm sure this controversy too is going to be brushed under the carpet. I'm really interested to know if there is any proof of fixing umpires which I believe is the safest and easiest thing to do. If any of you bookies are reading this, give me a call and lets discuss it in detail :). This raises doubts with the credibility of people running ICC and their inability to implement the Umpire Decision Review System(UDRS). Implementing that system will probably take the fixing of umpires out of the equation and probably the committee members will loose out on the cut they are getting out of all the fixing portfolios.

CLT20 started last week and I'm so glad not to hear any DLF maximums or Karbonn kamaal katches or Maxx mobile timeouts. It is understood that a lot of money is riding on these events but one has to draw a line when it comes to commercialization. If the same trend continues, we might even get to see the "spot the fix" contest in which contestants not only have to guess which ball might be a no ball but also the exact number of times Deepika Padukone and Siddarth Mallya are shown on the big screen with a "oops we got caught doing it" expression. The problem with anything related to management or administration in India is that people are like crabs in a box trying to pull each other down all the time, unable to stand the success of a colleague or a fellowman. It wouldn't be surprising to see the IPL fade out like fizz in a soda bottle as a result of too much of commercialization. With the ousting of Lalit Modi and a highly confusing format for the next IPL just to make every team play 14 matches, I feel biting the dust is imminent. The organizers of CLT20 have done a fabulous job on the number of advertisements and sponsors even though they have made a horrendous mistake in choosing commentators like Ganguly, Manjrekar and co. But guess one has to compromise on something and I hope at least this tournament runs without any glitches and I get to see RCB lifting the cup on 26th :). Jai RCB.

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