Dil-HAAAARA re..

Dihaara Fernando is a superlative fool. Mother Nature's biggest blunder since Djimi Traore(ex-liverpool, and thank goodness its "ex" now). The Queen's language is found wanting when one seeks to describe the idiocy this man embodies. I mean, he's an INTERNATIONAL level player, for crying out loud! Eleven months in a year, he shares the dressing room with players the like of Sanath Jayasuriya and Muthaiah Muralitharan and the last one with Shaun Pollock and Sachin Tendulkar. Mag haa asaa bawlat kasa?

The word "resentment", i think, puts things nicely into perspective. As a fellow who is born in Mumbai, spent 13 formative years there and later enjoyed many more vacations, has supported its Ranji team for 14 years or otherwise basically loved (the better parts) of the city, it is infinitely difficult to accept the fact that Mumbai's team lost 5, that's right, 5 whole games in the last over. I mean, if you want to lose, lose comprehensively i say. What is the point in starting well getting the hopes up only to get 3 run-outs in the last over? :x

And i'd like to direct a fair bit of this acrimony, and a battery of "the-f-word" toward the coach. Lalchand Rajput, i believe his name is. I may, perhaps, be a mere novice here, but let me explain how he has led the team to its grave downfall.

First rule. It is alright to experiment when you are loosing, or when you have won enough games to qualify. If you stick to a loosing combination, you being stupid. You are being similarly stupid if you sorely need to win and you keep tinkering around with your winning combination. Even a man with meager intelligence as Rafa Benitez(Liverpool again) understands that. If Yogesh Takawale 'keeps well, bats well, why on earth would you kick him out? Why would you keep Pollock, on the brink of hitting form out? Why would you replace Rohan Raje, a bowler of reasonable caliber out to accomodate some ridiculous "spinner" who cannot bat? If you want a spinner, why not Tendulkar? Or Jayasuriya? If Abhishek Nayar is bowling well, why not let him continue? Why persist with that Dilhaara Fernando nonsense? Why be so unreasonably keen to bowl poor 19-year-old Raje in the death, when he clearly buckles under pressure, and when you have a player TWICE his age and a million times more experienced and feared as Shaun Pollock? Why play put the in-form Nayar in soupy positions coming in at number 6 when he could CLEARLY do a better job at 3 than Utthapa? And why not have a man of Utthapa's raw power at 6? Why tenaciously continue with Dwayne Smith when he clearly looked hazy, and when you have Dominick Thornely, an outrageous hitter, waiting? Loots Bosman waiting? And the finally, why play Dilhaara Fernando, who is, by a huge stretch of imagination, merely an ordinary bowler and an extraordinarily horrible fielder and batsman when you have Andre Nel? Did you know Nel has a economy rate below 6?!? Its Godly in T20!

On the bright side, after a few initial hiccups, Jayasuriya entertained like never before. He made mincemeat out of Chennai and Akhtar. Shaun Pollock's bowling was immaculate although he didn't get the wickets to prove it. Sad that two of our best performers in a "young-man's-game" are 38 years old. I thought Ashish Nehra was better than most people made of him. He bowled some excellent bowls and got the wickets for it. At the same time he bowled a lot of ghastly ones that were sent packing. Patchy, i thought, but for someone playing after 2 years, quite good.


And I want Rohit Sharma back. He's from Mumbai and should play for Mumbai. Heaven knows what we could have done with an extra Indian in the middle order who was in such phenomenal form. And alongside Tendulkar and Jayasuriya, he'd be fireworks!

Gopal Krishna Gokhale road, anyone?

Ata he kaay navin? Some rather nationalist spirited coves are demanding that the city of Puna be no longer addressed by the aforementioned label slapped at it, by the pronounciation impaired British, but by its sanct original name "Pune". Its only fair. If Bombay is called Mumbai, Calcutta now becomes Kolkata and even Bangalore has no qualms of being addressed as an absurdly difficult name, Bengalooru, why should this name-correction spirit not enter into the hearts of us Punekars? So that is the way things are gonna be. And people blasphemous to this new rule are threatened with "dire consequences". And Dire, the consequences will be, given the profile of these name-correction protagonists, for they are our feared nationalist brigades. Yes, look out of your windows, and if you happen to see a car, mostly a Sumo or a Scorpio, buzz past at an absolutely manical speed, driven by such a maniac, with an overlarge saffron flag sprightly atop their bosoms, that is who they are. To sum it up, its an ugly car, driven by an ugly man, at an ugly speed, with ugly intentions, and furthermore, if you fail to pay heed to his command, he will make you look like him even if you look like Brad Pitt originally. Also he will use his rather poor knowledge of sciences and rearrange your bones the way he likes them. Well, that is neither here nor there. But the message is clear. One would not, under any given circumstance, want to cross their, or for that matter, their cars' paths.


So at the receiving end of their rather ill-tempers will be those establishments, who have successfully so established their enterprises, bearing the name "Poona". And thus the dire-consequence threat was hurled rather strongly in the dashed faces of the bakers and the hospital owners with such names. "You know how we drive our cars. If you don't change.. well.. we'll be driving them right through your damned establishments."


And no more "JM" road by the way. No acronyms that seemingly diminish the importance of Mr. Jangli Maharaj. No "FC" road either. Well, actually its not Ferguson Road at all. Thanks to a shocking discovery unveiled in one of the papers we subscribe to, we found the real names of some roads. It made quite a point of it recently of how the cultural atheists go about naming the city's roads and what not as if they were unke baap ke. Its actually Gopal Krishna Gokhale road, that ends in Gopal Krishna Gokhale Chowk, not Goodluck Chowk. Not G-K-G Chowk either. Should we not show a modicum of respect to our freedom fighters? What is this nonsense of "MG" road? Dost lagte hai kyaa tumhare?


Quite frankly, I'm very much opposed to naming our roads after freedom fighters in general and then referring to them in full form too. It would create a bit of embarrasment if an occasion were to arise, where one would have to say, "I'm going to so-and-so-bar on Mahatma Gandhi road" or maybe "get 2kg mutton from the butcher on Mahatma Gandhi Road". Imagine! Going to a road named after one who made a rather emphatic point against alcohol drinking for sport, to drink alcohol for sport! Leaves some scope for guilt and rethink doesn't it? I say either not call them that or stop having the bars there. Or maybe have a road, named after some disloyal, treacherous traitor and throw all our bars there! It'd feel much better to say, "I'm going to Chandni Bar on Lord Curzon road" :D


Well with that, I'm going to Apache lounge on Ferguson.. i mean er.. Gopal Krishna Gokhale Road. :-/

Racy!

I'm not a person of Suspense thrillers. Frankly, I find it rather taxing to sit in one place, without being allowed the luxury of letting my mind wander from time to time. While the Hollywood ones are quite out of question, I do find it rather difficult to even get hold of the plots of our domestic Bollywood ones, let alone the delicate intricacies that seem to make all the difference. And while watching the movie "Race" my concentration was, yet again, found wanting.


Scientists call it "Attention Deficit Disorder" and promptly suggest larger gallops of iron, but whatever the reason the above movie passed me by almost as fast as its name suggests. I was not aided by the fact that the names of the characters were rather similar sounding. (Although Ranvir and Rajiv were less so compared to Sophia and Sonia). It made the head swim a bit, trying assiduously to assimilate their names and while i did so, allowing myself a solemn second of thought, a few defining twists-in-the-plot would pass me by. Thankfully, i saw this film on a cd, which allowed me a the rewind and replay option, for had i seen it in the theaters, I'd be quite lost!


But after considerable effort, I managed to grip the plot. And one finds it impossible to comprehend how our story-teller manages to fit in that many number of fake marriages, fake signatures, betrayals, affairs and other things within 2-and-a-half something hours. Basically Saif's girlfriend runs off with Akshaye & Akshaye runs off with Saif's secretary, while in the meantime Saif sleeps with his ex-girlfriend, who is now married to Akshaye, while Akshaye pretends to kill Saif's secretary but sleeps with her instead, and the secretary has already slept with Saif, and Akshaye now plans to kill Saif's girlfriend, to whom the former is married, but the marriage is fake and then has a fake marriage with Saif's secretary. In the meantime Saif dies(killing him, for his large insurance claim, is the protagonist of all the above events) but comes back all-righto, for he faked his own death to find out the cause of his brother's, Akshaye's, rather devious plan. And I must admit, had the writers had a lower ethical standard, they'd also throw in an affair between the secretary and the girlfriend! Anil Kapoor had a cool role of a cop who keeps eating fruits wherever he goes and passes intermittent fruit-based poetry, comprehension of which throws me of the plot for another several valuable seconds


But the film, after a number of rewinds and replays is a hit for me. But then again any film that casts Katrina Kaif is a hit for me! She's probably the most adorable villain i'll ever come across!