The Biggies are here!

Reportedly, Ferrari, Lamborghini & Maserati have set up official dealerships in India. Yup, you can now walk into a shop & drive out your new exotic .... right here in apna India. With Aston Martin about to launch soon & Bentley, Porsche, Maybach & Rolls Royce already present, I think India's got almost all premium marques vying for the Indian consumer's moolah right now.

That leaves the 2 wheeler biggies to set up shop here. The Jap 4 (Suzuki, Honda, Kawasaki & Yamaha for the uninitiated) have had a healthy presence in the country for long, now could we have the Harley Davidsons, Ducatis & Triumphs please?

Weekend parties

Friday: It was the birthday of the 'partymaster' & what better day for it to fall on than on Friday. Dev & his gang along with Harsh dropped in with a lethal set of cigars which had heads reeling after just a few puffs. That, & the effect of all the alcohol (Smirnoff Citrus Twist for me as usual) was telling in a few hours. I barely managed to down the fantastic dinner (from Mirch Masala, no less), something which 'seasoned' drinkers like Arnab couldn't get themselves to accomplish. Great fiends, great food, great drinks .... if only all Fridays were like this.

Sunday: My company completed 2 years with the client whose account I'm working on & celebrations took the shape of this office outing to Shakthi Hill Resort on Mysore Road. Some great team events, professional entertainers, an M.C.-cum-rapper called Avinash (who said he'd rapped for Bombay Vikings), some social service & a rocking dance free-for-all in the end which allowed everybody to really let their hair down. One thing that stood out .... the girls in my account are the best in the whole of Wipro .... chalo, at least something's right. A fun Sunday it was, then. With unlimited ice-cream & free beer, it couldn't have been anything else.

Changes for the better

Laloo presents the Rail Budget today. AC fares are likely to go down (thank God for low cost airlines), with an increase in spending on passenger amenities & passenger safety. Plus, dedicated freight corridors are likely to be implemented. Liberalisation is finally forcing the Railways to change. Good.

STD & ISD charges are set to head further south after changes in the ADC by TRAI. India already has the world's lowest call rates. But as long as they keep getting lower, I'm not complaining.

The selectors have finally decided to show the door to Sourav Ganguly for the matches against England. The change for the better here is that there won't be any confusion among the team ranks from now on. It's a pity that a player who injected so much of aggression & pride into the team has had to face such an inglorious exit. Such are the ways of life, .... one day you are on top of the world, the next day you've got no one to call your friend.

And finally, today is Sid's b'day. It's been a year since Sittu & me gifted him the 'Cigar'. Like I keep saying, .... time just flies.

Word Life vs The Game

It'll be Cena vs Triple H for the Heavyweight title at WrestleMania 22! This will be one of THE most awaited matches ever.

Chicken's OUT!

The Bird Flu scare is really catching on now. Almost all the cafeterias in Bangalore & almost the whole of India have removed chicken from the menu. It's also forced me off my favourite bread omelette during breakfast. Wonder how long this will continue. Thankfully, there are no confirmed cases of humans infected with the virus in India at present.

4-1

India wrapped up the 5 match ODI series vs Pakistan by winning the last ODi by 8 wickets. Some facts ....

1) India played without Sachin & Pathan, their batting & bowling spearheads respectively.
2) It was their 13th victory while chasing out of their last 14 victories.
3) The asking rate had gone up to 8.2 rpo at one stage but in the end when India won, there were 3.1 overs still to go.

Needless to say, it was a command performance. As Sumit remarked at the cafeteria during today's breakfast, "aajkal India ki batting dekh kar darr lagne laga hai, kahaan gai wo purani Indian team".

A sign of things to come, or another false dawn .... only time will tell. For now, let's enjoy the good times while they last.

Bird Flu!

There's a confirmed outbreak in Maharashtra. And I chose this very day to visit KFC!

Rang De Basanti

Finally got to see the much hyped Aamir Khan starrer today.

First, the positives ....

1) Aamir Khan. Period.
2) Siddharth, a wonderfully restrained role .... SRK should learn from him about how to keep it simple & yet leave an impact.
3) The role play & characterization in general, .... Soha Ali Khan, Alice Patten, Sharman Joshi, Madhavan (in the guest role of a life time), Waheeda Rehman, Kiron Kher, Atul Kulkarni & the guy who plays Aslam (I think his name is Kunal, but I'm not sure), even Om Puri .... everything fit perfectly.
4) A. R. Rehman's music & the background score are excellent, especially when heard on Dolby Surround Sound.
5) The juxtaposition of Bhagat Singh's story with what's happening at present & the starkness of the contradictions therein.

Now, the stuff I couldn't quite get a hang of ....

1) The Defence Minister claiming that the reason for the MIG's crash was the inexperience of the pilot .... not pilot error, not a technical glitch,but pilots flying in josh, not hosh. C'mon, which MoD commits a cardinal sin like that, considering that the Air force & it's affairs come under his department?
2) Police brutally lathicharging a peaceful candle-light protest at India Gate.
3) A politician giving orders for the same in situ.
4) Siddharth, killing his own father .... that's almost laughable. Which lucky, born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth, rolling-in-cash rich kid worth his salt is gonna kill his own unlimited-credit-limit cash flow system.
5) These people taking over New Delhi's AIR station, New Delhi's mind you, that's the freakin' National Capital we're talking about here. OK provided thay managed to do that .... how could they have managed to stay on air right through till the time they got shot. Couldn't somebody have simply switched off the building's power supply (given the fact that the alarm had already been raised)?
6) And this one takes the cake, .... commandos storming the building & getting orders to shoot & blow up everything in front of them .... which hare-brained commander barks those kind of orders even before the action has begun?

At the end of it, the film left me confused .... it's got some heavy emotional content too & you get out of the theatre thinking of what to think. Yup, that's kind of the feeling I got. Dunno why everybody's praising it to the skies. It's OK, but just about.

It had hurt when India lost the ODI series (in 2005) against Pakistan 2-4 after being 2-0 up. So, when the Indians beat the Pakis yesterday (making it 3-1) to clinch the Hutch Cup, with a match still to go, it couldn't have been better. And to have done it in Inzamam's own backyard made it all the more sweet. Incidentally, India have now won 12 of their last 13 victories chasing .... & to think that this side was known as weak chasers not so long ago. How things change!

(S)tagged!

Sid was quite chuffed because Harsh & him had been denied entry into Tuscan Verve on the 14th since they were 'stags'. He says, "saala stag ka chhaap lag gaya hai" .... I think he was speaking for most of us there. Anyway, he had the last laugh since they did manage to make it in .... even though the dance floor was off limits to stags like him.

V-Day-2

It's the 14th of Feb & since I'm still single, I let Hemant do the post for the occassion (he gets married in October this year).

V-Day

Hi all ,

Wishing you all a happy and adventurous valentine day .


Hemant

The Bombay Bomber & The D-Bomb

India are 2-1 up in the ODI series vs Pakistan & the 3rd match was fantastic. Chasing down 288 against Pakistan is not easy & the Indians did it in style.

In the last 3 ODIs. Sachin has scored a century, an almost 50 & 95. Is he back? Most of the commentators seem to think so, & he can be seen getting back to playing some of the booming boundaries he used to get so often in the mid 90s. If he's back, it couldn't be better for India.

As for the Ranchiite, I can't write anything other than what I've written previously about him. A mature thinking cricketer, die-hard fighting spirit & awesome attitude .... that's Dhoni for you.

1 more win & the series will be in the bag.

:-(

No net connection at the new place .... & I dunno when I'll get it.

10,000 & beyond ....

.... the Sensex has done it.

Yup, India did lose yesterday, although it took M/S Duckworth & Lewis to help Pakistan win. Pakistan won the match by 7 runs while chasing! Seems to be a case of bad light+bad luck for India. And oh, Sachin got a century & so has secured his place in the team for the next 20 ODIs, regardless of the fact that he'll be averaging ~20 during those matches.

Predicting ....

The 1st ODI between India & Pak is on now in Peshawar. India put up a score of 328. I think they've fallen 25 runs short of what could have been a winning total. So my prediction is .... the Pakis are going 1 up in the series after this match.

MAXIM-ized!

Maxim launched it's India edition last month & with the February issue ....

.... it got itself a new fan ;-). Finally, the guys have an answer to the the girls' mags (Cosmopolitan, Femina & their ilk). Gooooooood.

Joint Strike !

Something you don't get to see too often .... American F-15C fighters (foreground) and Indian Sukhoi-30 fighters fly in close formation during a joint exercise over Gwalior in February 2004. 2 of the deadliest frontline fighters in the world today .... side by side.

Deal!

Wipro bagged a $300 mn contract from GM yesterday. When Accenture, IBM & TCS had bagged the 'big' ABN-Amro deal last year, I had felt left out, especially since at least 1 of my room mates is in each of these 3 companies. Now, I think the record's been set straight. Especially since Wipro's deal size is bigger than those of the ABN-Amro ones. Sweet!

And Arni's off ....

Arnab left for JSR today. Right now he must be in the air somewhere over the Karnataka-AP border. When do I get to take my 1st flight?

The 1st Anniversary!

It was an anniversary & as usual I forgot. Jan 31st was when yours truly completed 1 year of being a part of the Blogosphere!

It's been a while & I've been fairly regular at posting. I've also made acquaintances whom I've never seen in person .... like Biswajit. Pretty cool, what? Feels nice.

'My prediction' was off the mark slightly (the winning target for India was ~600 & India folded up for ~260), but in the end, they did lose the match & the series with it. Sad .... very sad. And the Pakis, well, they were fantastic (after being 39-6 at one stage!).

This was one chance that 'greats' like Sachin & Saurav had to shut the mouths of critics like me, but .... they simply wilted under the not-so-great pressure (the pitch was assisting batsmen, how'd the Pakis declare at 599?).

I can already sense what's gonna happen during the ODIs.