Puntering around at Sydney

I swear by God. The volatile Indian media has (even given its old record) blown the unfortunate events in Sydney out of all sense of proportion.
Bucknor got sacked, and yes, the old menace had the bird coming for a while now. With all due respect to his umpiring career, today he's as blind as a bat and as deaf as any other such deficient animal and has otherwise done nothing to enhance my opinion of those who have traversed over 60 summers.
Harbhajan Singh who (apparently) expressed his frank opinion on about how Andrew Symonds resembles an ape(which is true!) was handed a severe ban, (where i'm sure what Harbhajan said was a jovial and friendly "tere maa ki.." which unfortunately Symonds chose to interpret as "monkey") :)
Facts taken. But as sad and eye-popping as all of this is, it doesn't quite sadden or pop the eye-balls as does the ridiculousness that surrounds the Aussie skipper, Ricky Ponting.

For those unintroduced, Ricky Ponting is a man with a distinguished career behind him. A man of some 20+ centuries, and many a half-centuries in both the forms of the game and a strong 40+ average in a career spanning over 200 matches! He's successfully masterminded two World Cup campaigns and further won one more as a mere player.
On the other hand one could enumerate the lows he's had, the most glaring ones being the loss of the Ashes, Chris Cairns remark about his mother's ability to lead the multi-talented Aussie side and of course the incessant and innumerable quips about his "arrogant" and "unsporting" showing in many a games.


So, back to the last and undiscussed controversy, Ponting has been accused, yet again, of "unsporting conduct" & the heads of many a cricketing nation are calling for his head led most ferociously by the BCCI, whose team found the shorter straw at Sydney. Of course the Indian media has made no effort to bite back or mince their words in their rather acrimonious stand on this entire affair surrounding Ponting & has called and has called for his "cap". All of this, without giving so much as a second thought to the drops of sweat that have long discoloured, but yet somehow enriched the flair and esteem of the very baggy green that is being called for.

I guess "over-exultation of happiness" is what it all comes down to. My bitch is, that if a game has been won, at the death,(although, not, as they say, "fair-and-square") one does reserve the right to be happy and pump the fist around a bit, even if it is indeed a Gentleman's game. If you are not allowed to be happy when you are absolutely on the brink of popping the champagne, then when does one express happiness? But the cricketing bodies and the media remain resolute. In cricket, there is no room for this "blatant" show of happiness. What is allowed and expected is the good old English spirit of warmth and fraternity. If you win some 16 hard fought test matches, on the trot, shattering a few well set records on the way,(and the most mentionable would be the one set by Ponting's more "noble" predecessor Steve Waugh) what you're supposed to do, is look all calm and gentlemanly and, shake the hand of the loosing party(who were quivering with anger in the wake of the most appalling umpiring decisions) & walk off without a modicum of joy.

The concept of a "Gentleman's game" fails to find reason with me. Its really stupid. There is no such nonsense, to my knowledge in any other game. And such a game that prioritizes good healthy conduct over the aggressive killer instinct fails to interest me whatsoever(which possibly explains why England have failed to win a World Cup in the game they have created). Its just NOT Cricket!

Oh Barber!

"Oh Barber, My barber,
what evil grippeth thy mighty heart, when i entereth thy store?"

OK, admittedly that was quite a sad attempt at the Shakespearan, but seriously, i need to raise this question to The Barbers of The World.. "what is your bitch with me man? Why do you arduously contrive, at every given opportunity to give me a haircut that would remind one of the beleaguered Third World? Have i offended the lot of you in some way? Well if not, here you go fuckers!"

Yes, the Iron has indeed entered my soul. So let me get down to the details of this funereal charade.

Usually, when my hair is looking(and feeling) absolutely top-notch, inviting praise and jealousy from Friends and Foe for its resplendence, or otherwise reminding people how hair has evolved from being just a "Growth-on-the-Head" to a sublime beauty tool, my parents order me to put it under the cleaver. There is the customary argument & taunting in the home for 3-something weeks & when domestic dissonance reaches its climax, father whoops out the scissor and threatens to do something with the hair, should I not hand over a sizeable amount of it to the barber within 10 hours.

Alone,sad and desolate, I begin my tedious and melancholic trudge toward the devil's workshop. Inconsolable, the Hair looks as beautiful as never before, as if it were its Swan-Song. As i arrive at the barber's lair, it starts to itch, not unlike a sacrificial goat just before Prosecution. And when my turn comes, the Hellion has a cannibal look in his eye much like the butcher on the aforementioned sacrifice. Speciously, he calms me down. Flatteringly, he asks me if i have a certain haircut in mind and Deviously gets down to business.

I am quite a considerate human being. I study the psychology of the individual & find it in my heart to search for a shred of good in the most Hitlerean of men. "He might have a domestic sadness", i say. And i let him butcher my hair thinking, "well atleast HE's happy!" and let the savagery continue.

When i get up and look at the funereal individual staring out of the mirror, my immediate thought is to drop all the mercenary niceties and lacerate him with the same hell-condemned scissor. And yet again, my inability to be rude intervenes. The barber never deserves the hard-earned money of my father's, but a dislocated jaw for what he did! My father's aforementioned threat seems so seductive now! Was i a dictator, i'd give the barber the Chair or some similar contrivance of torture for his rapacious act. But can I? NOO! That damned "good Heart" cuts my path and speaks sermons of ethical behavior, philanthropy and "taking the "High Road". Bleeeaaaaahh

I look in the mirror again ar my "Buddhist-Monk-Hair-do" and think that taking the "High Road" would be something that someone i look like right now would most certainly do!(the buddhist monk, you retards!)

confessions of a RocKINg DYuuDe

i really dunno what it is that has taken over the mind the average indian teen. what is this ridiculous obsession that we have to proclaim to the world that we are full of some "attitude" :o?

First of all the word "attitude" in itself is quite vague and non-commital when it comes to gauging its value. in a normal world, a qualifying value would be added to the word "attitude" so that it becomes more precise in meaning. The most common values being "good attitude" or "bad attitude" or "generous attitude" and so on.. most people are quite unaware of this and seem to think that the word "attitude" itself means something out of this world! maybe it does, but as far as my humble knowledge of english goes, i am still quite unaware..

Then there is another sorrily overused word. how many times have you heard the word "rocking" and felt like sloshing the neck of the one who said it? perhaps it is only I who has little patience with these "rocking dudes" but it gets really irritating when people address themselves(or other people for that matter) as "rocking". "ROCKING"???? What the hell does that mean?? Is it that when you want to compliment someone for their excellent personalities you equate them with stones? STONES?? forgive me for bringing my marathi background and upbringing into all this, but usually the word "stone" or "rock" in marathi would be use to address the most intellectually incapable. Should the word be used to address you in marathi, you would quiver under the coarse insult! yet, on using the hallowed word "rocking", you would swell out your chest in pride and bark about it for days!

and for the outro. its never "kewl" ok??? Never. If you ever want to make a referral to an object or person whose defining attribute seems to be "slightly less warm than its usual species" why refer to a Liverpudlian winger originally from Australia? (ref: harry kewell) :)

Return to Hangar

arite.. so the new semester in college has started and we are already going through the "teacher turnover" stage(ref: the class had become notorious for driving out 3 teachers in the last semester)..

but the first week!? i must say that that is a bit thick..

its sad, because we actually didn't drive him out.. the person in question, Prof. S.V. Khambete was one of the most excitable teachers i've ever seen.. Deathly passionate about the otherwise boring subject of "entrepreneurship".. unfortunately, he had to go because the TYs need a "manufacturing management" teacher(big fuck, yeah) and nobody else is willing to teach them..

meanwhile the new professor, is just about as boring as the subject of entrepreneurship should invite.

otherwise, it looks to be a promising semester.. i must admit that this time our class has got the best teachers in their respective subjects..

take for instance our Financial Management teacher.. Dr. Bhama Venkataramani.. the head of our institute and arguably the most proficient teacher of a finance-based subject our college has..

Also V.Parimala for business laws.. damn.. these people actually make the subjects interesting.. i remember coming home a few days ago and telling my mother that its becoming really hard to bunk lectures these days.. i mean WHO's lecture am i gonna bunk? they're all really, really good teachers.. :(

but i guess at the end of the day, economics would again be the achilles' heel.. yup, even this time around we haven't quite got a teacher who would manage to make the mundane intricacies of indian economics interesting or remotely bearable for that matter :(