Now Playing ....

Am on a bit of a retro trip right now, so there's ....

INXS
KLF
Nazia Hassan
Laura Branigan
Madonna
East 17
Warren G

.... but there's some of the new stuff too ...

3 Doors Down
Benny Cassette
The Rasmus

India are out of the ICC Champions Trophy & this article by my favourite Cricket writer in The Telegraph perhaps sums up the situation best ....

Greg lashes, India crashes
- Nothing to do with luck: Dravid wins toss but...
LOKENDRA PRATAP SAHI

Chandigarh, Oct. 29: Rahul Dravid believes the media “eavesdropped”, but it’s not a healthy sign when the coach chooses to tongue-lash his wards publicly. Greg Chappell did so in Motera last week, but couldn't avert two defeats in a row and an exit from the Champions Trophy.

Needing to beat Australia in Mohali today in order to make the semi-finals of the biggest tournament after the World Cup, the Indians found themselves outplayed. Requiring 250, the world champions won by six wickets with overs in hand.

The year began with Team India thrashing Pakistan 4-1 and whipping England 5-1. Subsequently, though, Dravid’s men have been stumbling: hammered 1-4 by the West Indies, failing to make the tri-series final in Kuala Lumpur and not making even the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy.

The hunger has gone and the plot lost big time.

Unusually, Asia will go unrepresented — it’s Australia versus New Zealand and South Africa against the West Indies — in the closing stages of a showpiece competition. However, that can’t be our biggest worry, which really is the slump less than five months before the mega event — the 2007 World Cup.

The buck stops with the captain, but Dravid has been appointed till next April. Chappell, too, is contracted till then. Not that a change in leadership may work wonders, but the present-day selectors and those of the future should learn from the unprecedented (captaincy-specific) step taken by the previous selection committee chairman, Kiran More.

It’s easy to call for an introspection, but nothing is going to come of it unless the lessons from a string of failures are learnt. While flexibility is important, the batting order can’t keep changing in a manner which encourages insecurity. Once that sets in, more trouble isn’t far away.

The captain and coach, for example, had little business repeatedly sending Irfan Pathan at No. 3 (till this afternoon, that is). Then, they ought to have had the courage to drop vice-captain Virender Sehwag. He’d been made to cool his heels earlier in the year and the time for a repeat dose had come.

Sehwag did get 65 today, but it was a struggle. Even he wouldn’t be proud of his effort. Not too long ago, Dravid had said Sehwag could help “win the World Cup”. The captain seemed to have given the tournament which runs till next Sunday a complete go-by.

As for the Suresh Rainas, success has come early and, probably, gone to the head.

“Our hands are tied... cricket is growing, but where’s the talent? We want the best out on the park, but nobody is really getting pushed,” one of the five senior selectors told The Telegraph as Ricky Ponting’s men neared victory.

That, perhaps, is the biggest tragedy.

Had the dubious distinction of being the 1st in office on a Monday morning .... just look at the time this has been posted.

Arni made me watch it .... nice movie.

PS3

.... launches in Japan on Nov 7th & US on Nov 11th. India on ???

F1 season 2006 is over

From rediff.com

Massa wins Brazilian GP; Alonso world champ

Renault's Fernando Alonso won his second successive Formula One title on Sunday, finishing second in a Brazilian Grand Prix, which was won by Ferrari's local favourite Felipe Massa.

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, in the final race of his career, showed all his grit and determination to go from last to fourth after a ninth-lap puncture crippled his challenge for victory.

Renault retained the constructors' championship they won last year.

It was Brazilian Massa's second career win. Briton Jenson Button was third for Honda.

Schumacher, 10 points behind Alonso but with seven wins each, had needed one last victory to have any hope of an unprecedented eighth title while the Spaniard required only a single point from his last race with Renault before joining McLaren.

"Thank you, thank you. Thank you for all these years, it has been a pleasure to work with you," gasped Alonso on his car's radio after crossing the finish line.

Whatever the odds against him, Schumacher wanted to go out with his head held high and he achieved that with a stirring and memorable performance.

Starting 10th on the starting grid, he carved through to sixth and had just overtaken Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella for fifth, without the cars apparently touching, when the Ferrari stepped out of line with a puncture.

The 37-year-old German limped back to the pits for a new rear left tyre but the most successful driver in Formula One history was not done yet.

Rejoining in 17th place, and with a heavy fuel load, he proceeded to reel off a series of fastest laps to tear back up through the ranks to where he had been before.

With 16 laps to go, he was back behind Fisichella in sixth place and pushing hard.

The pressure paid off eight laps from the end when Fisichella ran wide across the grass at turn one and Schumacher sped through to take fifth place with McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, his successor at Ferrari in 2007, next in his sights.

He got him three laps from the end with a totally uncompromising passing move at the end of the uphill pit straight, refusing to back off as they ran wheel to wheel with the wall to his left.

The safety car was deployed on the second lap for five laps after Williams' Nico Rosberg, who had collided with Australian team mate Mark Webber, crashed heavily and left debris across the track.

Diwali 2006

Friday was a holiday on account of Diwali & Neeral finally managed to come over from Chennai with his friend & colleague Sudipto. Dude has grown his hair long & the gelled, spiked look of the college days is gone. Besides, he's got himself a girlfriend, so that's not all that changed in his life, if ya know what I mean.

Anyway, his pesence opened up a pandora's box of questions & enquiries from the rest of us & hours were spent in yakking & catching up on old times. G8 would've been together after more than a year & a half, but for the presence of Div, who's away, living it up in China, again .... if ya know what I mean.

Evening time was party time with 3 big Smirnoffs, mountains of chips & Breezers for Anupam. Boozing & bakar-c with friends is one of the best means of spending quality time with friends & these are the memories that are gonna remain with you long after everybody's gone their separate ways. I'm glad I'll have plenty of them.

Saturday was Diwali & a big pile of crackers had been readied. Evening saw Soumya, Avik & Sayan join us at #77 for 2 long hours of cracker bursting. I was handling crackers after 2-3 years (the last few Diwalis had been extremely dull), & I must say that the thrill remains the same as ever. Thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Soumya's apartment was empty & all of us then trooped over to his place for the night. The inevitable booze & bakar session followed & it was topped off by an excellent chicken/raayta/pulao meal cooked to perfection by Praveen & Soumya.

Soumya also chose to add to the celebrations by shooting blanks from his rifle! Managed to get one shot off myself .... must say, the feeling you get when you hold a firearm in your hands is awesome. I'm definitely gonna get myself a gun once I can afford it, my favourite Glock 9 mm.

It's Sunday today. Neeral leaves for Chennai at 9 pm. 5 days of office comin up. Hutch has barred outgoing from my cell since there was some goof up from their end! Damn, I hate working days. As Arni said, "yaar, bas aise hi party chalte rehta aur mahina-mahina bank mein paisa aate rehta ....". Yeah bro, I wish things were that easy.

The Music is out but isn't as happening as one would expect from a Yash Raj film.

But Aishwarya is definitely looking hotter than ever. And where's Rimi? Don't tell me she's not part of this part!

Big Deal!

Tata Steel is taking over Corus, an Anglo-Dutch company that is 3-4 times it's size in a 4.3 billion Pound deal.



This deal sets a number of records ....

- It'll catapult Tata Steel from it's current 56th largest steel maker's position to the 5th largest.

- It'll be the 1st time that FDI outflows from India will exceed FDI inflows into the country.

This is what the BBC had to say about it .... "The Tata deal is a further sign that India's economy is a force to reckoned with. Analysts expect a wave of takeovers by Indian firms to ensue around the world.".

There are apprehensions though that a downturn in the world economy could cause problems for Tata in repaying the 1 bn pounds it's taking on as debt for this deal. But, having been born & brought up at the place that Tata Steel calls home, I've known & observed this company & it's style of work a lot closer than others. I think if there's one company that can think of & pull off such a deal .... it's Tata Steel.

Go Tata! Go India!

Looking good ....

The Champions Trophy is throwing up some really good contests & unexpected results. So far, apart from the qualifying stage (involving Bangladesh & Zimbabwe), and 2 league stage matches (SL vs Windies & India vs England), all the other matches have been really competitive & gone down to the wire.


New Zealand beat South Africa in a low scoring game & a severely depleted Pakistan held their nerve to put it across Sri Lanka the day before yesterday. But yesterday's match up between the Windies & Aussies was something else.

Chasing 235 odd, the Aussies were cruising with a required RR of less than 6, 6 wickets in hand & Gilchrist & Clarke doing duty at the crease. Just about at this stage, something happened (I missed it) between Clarke & Gayle & from then on, you could have cut the tension with a knife. Ian Chappell was commentating & he made the point when he said that he'd never seen Chris Gayle & the Windies as animated & excited as they were today. During one particular over Gayle was ribbing Gilchrist like nobody's business, even wagging fingers. And the Aussies were remarkably subdued throughout.

Personally, I don't like slanging & needle during cricket matches, cause I feel it takes away from what the guys are supposed to be doing out there in the middle, but there's no denying that incidents like these spice up proceedings a great deal. And it was good to see the Aussies at the receiving end for a change. In the end, Jerome Taylor got a deferred hatrick (spread over 2 overs) & the Windies won by 10 runs. It was a great match.

Throughout this tournament, it has been the batsmen who have struggled while the bowlers have managed to control proceedings. Very unlike matches in the subcontinent, but then again, high scoring ODIs were getting all too common, so it's okay once in a while. The pitches have been getting some flak too, and I hope they're sorted out soon.

All in all, things have been shaping up nicely.

N 72

Arni is on to his 3rd cell in 6 months .... & all of them have been Nokias.

Cricket & stuff ....

The Champions Trophy has finally started in earnest. India took on England yesterday. In a clinical bowling performance they bundled out England for 125, their lowest ever against the Indians. But just when one thought that the batting would come up with a superfast run chase, they chose to make things difficult for themselves with the loss of 6 wickets before finally crossing the finish line after an excruciatingly slow final 10 overs. Nonetheless, a win is a win. It's been a good start.

Sunday night, 8:15 p.m. & Salil gets a brainwave for a weekend party. Headed out with him to buy chicken & managed to get some. Cooking & prepration took another couple of hours, with me being in charge of making the Vodka pegs. Pritish also joined in & the 4 of us Loyoleans (including Soumya) finally sat down to dinner at around half past 11. Returned home around 1 in the morning with Pritish. It's Monday morning, there was a meeting with Rajesh first up, but I still think I'm in an alcohol & Codeine fuelled stupor. I hate Mondays.

Have to get the tickets for the December trip home. Can't believe I'll finally be heading East.

Meanwhile, news is just breaking of Shoaib Akhtar & Mohammad Asif having tested positive for drugs in an 'internal' test carried out by the PCB. They've been recalled at once. I think if this is really as big as it sounds, Shoaib's career is at great risk of getting over. And by recalling them, I think the PCB's just trying to put a lid on things before the shit really hits the ceiling. Let's see.

Goings on ....

Neeral's gonna be in Channai for a month or so in connection with his project. He'll probably come here to Bangalore on the Diwali weekend. There's talk of getting Div over from Bombay too. Let's see.

Things are moving slow in the new project. Should pick up speed this week. The transfer to the 3rd floor again doesn't enthuse me one bit.

Watched this today ....
.... disaster movies can be good timepass.

The new CBZ

One word .... letdown .... or make that 2 words .... BIG letdown. What's wrong with HH?

Met Salil for the 1st time in 10 years on Saturday. Soumya's moved in with him & Pritish joined in for an overnight at their place. Pretty nice apartment.

Am on training on Monday & Tuesday at M1. That means 2 days of avoiding Hosur Road .... yessss!

Prav has returned from Vellore with a new toy .... his brand new Dell Inspiron flown in straight from the U.S.

North Korea finally joins the Club.

Oh well, I guess being an Indian, I can't say much .... we did the same back in 1998 amidst the same kind of opposition that we see right now against the Koreans .... but hell, that was one day I felt proud of this country.

Maybe the Norks are feeling the same now.

Silence .... & the lack of it

Arni went East-side on Thursday & Praveen went to Vellore on Saturday. Since then, #77 seems to have acquired the silence levels of a morgue. I hope the guys return soon.

Talking of silence levels, there were these 2 females sitting on the the seat behind mine on the bus this morning. And man, were they yakking! One of them had this supremely irritating nasal twang to her voice & made sure that everybody on the bus was aware of it as long as we didn't reach office. Wonder what it is that girls can talk about for so long .... I know why they do this, but that's another topic altogether. To top it all, they were communicating in some Dravidian language. Now, I don't have anything against languages spoken South of the Vindhyas, but imagine Himesh singing at his nasal best, for a continuous 40 minutes, at 2 pitches above normal & in a language incomprehensible to the listener .... you get the picture?

Okay, I guess I was wrong about this. Maybe there is Someone in the air up there after all.

And Sid, you were right :-)

There was a Karnataka Bandh yesterday & all of us got the day off .... which will have to be made up by working on a Saturday.

Spent the whole day formatting one of the partitions & then installing XP & bringing it up to speed. Some stuff like Skype; LimeWire & BitTorrent remain to be setup .... should be through with them by the end of the week hopefully.

Lage Raho ....

I've finally seen it .... & I've got nothing but praise .... what a heart warming story! The performances, the storyline & the connect with the audience .... it's total.

This should definitely have been India's official entry for the Oscars .... o what the hell, to hell with the Oscars, it's already the best film of the year for me & goes somewhere near the top of my list of my favourites.

Take a bow, Vidhu Vinod Chopra; Rajkumar HIrani; Sanjay Dutt & Arshad Warsi .... M.G. himself would've been proud. Kya picture banaayela hai maamu!

O Bruth-dur!

MS has finally launched the XBOX 360 in India & I just love the ad ....

.... and on and on ....

As Sittu says, one more gets added to the list.

The Americans seriously need to do something about those guns. An otherwise supremely practical country being unable to resolve such a major issue since such a long time baffles me! Besides, it's bloody pathetic that so many innocents have to lose their lives in such a violent manner.

Tharoor pulls out

Shashi Tharoor (India's nominee for the top job at the U.N.) has pulled out of the race just before the actual elections were to take place. I'd seen an interview of his on CNN-IBN & been impressed with his clarity of thought & vision. Sad that he came so close but couldn't quite make it (he had consistently emerged as the runner up in the preliminaries).

Still, I don't think it's such a bad thing .... it might help India's cause in getting the much coveted permanent seat on the Security Council .... although I don't know what purpose that would serve, apart from being an ego massage.

That's Audi's latest .... the R8 .... damn thing looks as if Dilip Chhabaria had a go at the external styling!

The new Pulsar 180 DTSi

Bajaj has finally launched the reworked 180 DTSi .... that was unveiled at the Auto Expo in March. Quite a few changes .... according to BSMotoring.com, "The new head lamp is flanked by very obvious narrow-eye pilot lamps. And the pilots are separated from the big one by matte-ish black plastic, which gives it the effect of Walker’s mask. The headlamp is in a fairing that is mounted lower than the older one, making the bike look lower and sleeker. Tank aside, all the panels are brand new. The SV1000-ish tail piece looks very sleek and has twin vertical LED tail lamps. The new side panel has a new vent and more angular lines."

"Apart from the panels and the name, the 180 also gets DTS-Fi goodies. This includes the LCD speedo/analog tacho dash. You get an accurate, easy to read digital speedo, overrev/low fuel light, bright idiot lights, two trips and a digital fuel gauge. It also gets clear, self-cancelling indicators. Plus there are contact-less backlit switches and in a Pulsar first, an engine kill switch as well."

But, the best part is, "All this goodness comes wrapped in the old price tag, which means the new 180 is going to be excellent value for your money." .... you gotta hand it to Bajaj, these guys constantly out-do themselves. Just when you thought that the others were catching up, they go & raise the game so high, that the others will go back to playing catch up once again. To see an Indian company taking on all those with their fancy Jap collaborations & beating them at it, is fantastic!

But let's not count Hero Honda & Honda out of it as yet, just saw the teasers for the new CBZ on TV today. HH deciding to resurrect the brand that gave birth to the segment that the Pulsar now owns can only be a good thing, although I wish HH had been a bit more pro active in this regard. I mean, just look at their launches over the last 2 years .... Super Splendor, Glamour & the Achiever .... the names are as asinine as the appeal in the products. As for Honda .... well, the maker of the Rune & the CBR is still content with selling the Activa, Unicorn & Shine in India .... c'mon guys, a fundoo new 150/250 would do wonders for the company here.

But, for the moment, it's Hamara Bajaj that's top of the pops .... & with the DTS-Fi launching at Diwali, things can only get better.