The final showdown

This was typed out after I watched the final of Euro cup 2012. 

More than three weeks of football extravaganza came to a conclusion with Sunday’s final, after which, Spain had the last laugh. They became the first team to retain the European champions title, and to win three major titles, consecutively. The final between Italy and Spain was not the best of games of Euro 2012, and it was one sided, but still, it was worth watching. And I had to watch it. How was the question.

Living in a rented house, without television, in Chennai, is very hard. Especially during the time of such sporting events. This is the place where televisions get given away for free, by politicians. When you think of that, you feel worse. So, I put a status message in facebook, hoping that someone with a huge LCD TV would invite me over to their room. The status message was as follows.

I am so desperate to watch the Euro cup final and I don’t have a television in my room. Anybody from Chennai OMR region, with a TV, ready to accommodate me for Sunday night? I am not as scary and ugly as the profile picture looks, I don’t make much noise, but I do utter very insightful coments during the match.

And it worked. One of my friends asked me to come over. There were a dozen of us, watching the match, there, which consisted of people with various degrees of football knowledge. So, we had lots of interesting comments pouring in, during the match. Someone suggested that Pirlo should have kicked the ball with ball with less power and more swing, someone else, commented on the technical errors in Spain’s strategy, and somebody, even wondered whether David Villa was named after the apartment that his parents were living in, while he was born.

The match started evenly, and in the first half, both teams had their chances. While Casillas stood like a rock in front of the Italians, Spain, netted the ball twice, to announce their supremacy. Second half started with both the teams unleashing a flurry of attacks, but soon enough, Italy got reduced to ten men, and the rest was just a formality. Spain’s game was not in their mellifluous best, but still, their deft passing was a treat to watch.

Certain degree of success can come with the help of luck, but to climb the mountain of success, and to be a there for a while, takes a lot of talent and effort. That’s what the Spaniards are doing, at the moment. Congratulations to the Spain football team, and all those who supported them. Especially to Gerard Pique’s girlfriend, whose hip never lies.

If you know what I mean.  

Resolution revolution

More than five decades of freedom, and the future of our country looks bright. India is all set to become the next superpower. There are worrying concerns too, but when you look close enough, everything augurs well for us. For example, recently, there was a hype over the insane amount of public money that our president had spent on foreign tours, during her reign for the last four and a half years. But, I am sure she was trying to convey the precious message, ‘Use your opportunities to the fullest’ to the underachieving common citizens of our country, by doing so. That is what inspiring leadership is.

But more than that, the biggest asset that we have, is the vibrant and ubiquitous youth, which, unlike before, is highly aware, concerned and involved in the intricate matters which help us to build a better India. In the current times, as you can see, the whole of our youth, is focused on a matter of utmost national importance, that is, Indian premier league, with special attention paid towards the cheerleaders, along with a couple of team owners. I am sure, something good, will turn out, from this.

When we refer to youth, as a whole, each and every individual, including me, is a part of it. When we make a remark on the youth, ultimately, it boils down, to each and every individual. The evolution of youth, or even the society as a whole, starts with the evolution of each of us.

How does an individual evolve? Sometimes, we evolve unconsciously. Some other times, it’s our deliberate decisions which change ourselves. The persistence of an individual, to such decisions, is what makes the difference. After my first semester in college, I decided to change myself, and study properly, from the next. As a result of my exemplary persistence, I ended up making the same decision at the end of each semester, till there were no semesters left. When do people, most commonly, take such decisions?

Yes!

New year resolutions. More than a quarter into this year, let us give it some thought. What came out of those over promising things? Did they actually revolutionize our lives as we had expected? Do you even remember yours?

According to Wikipedia, a study suggests that 80% of the New year resolutions fail and we have seen it happening also. But what if we were all able to stick to our resolutions? Our lives would have changed, at least in small magnitudes. This is where some expert advice comes in handy. Let me explain to you, how I managed an amazing success rate of 100%, in my resolutions. The most important thing is not to be stubborn, and to take pragmatic workarounds, when the going gets tough.

My first and most important resolution was to start saving some money for the future, rather than spending it all on movies and hanging out with friends. And I did save some money in the first month. It surely was an achievement, and I had to celebrate my achievements, with my friends. I did, and eventually ended up spending more money than what I had saved. In our country, we get to know the fiscal planning through a budget, but do we have a clue how it all gets spent, or to which all pockets a share goes? So, I set apart some money as savings, which was good enough, and didn’t really have to care where it went after that.    

My second resolution was not to drink and smoke anymore. That was a tough one, but I found a way around. When we say ‘Don’t drink and drive’, does that mean you should never drink and you should never drive? No. It just means you should not do both at the same time. So, now, I don’t drink and smoke together, I just do them separately, at separate times. So, I don’t drink and smoke, anymore. That is somewhat the 

deceptive way a political rhetoric works, but it serves the purpose.

As you can see, a successful New year resolution is something, as rare as our prime minister opening his mouth. But when you have the right approach, and well thought our strategies, it doesn’t look as difficult as it is. Hope you all have learned the piece of wisdom that I shared. Now, I should get back to work, so that I can contribute in my own way, for the nation’s future.

What is the IPL score, man? Did I miss anything? 

Review the reviews

Recently, two of my movie reviews got published in Hindu NXG. So the purpose of this post is, to share the links of those reviews, and also, to bore you to death, by praising myself, and by describing the appreciations  that I received from a large number of people. These people, even include, Aravind Adiga’s watchman’s uncle and one guy who has seen, Jaideep Sahni , once, from a distance of hundred meters. But besides all that, I also received an overwhelming lack of response from the mass readers, which was very encouraging. 

Find the links below.

Puss in Boots

Sherlock Homes : A Game of shadows

Moneyball

Due to the huge volume of appreciations, I am not able to share all of those here. Will just share two, in the form of conversations.  

Conversation #1

The following exchange of words took place between myself and my Dad. I would refuse to disclose what percentage of the following is truth, and what all things, I made up. 

D : What is that paper that you were showing to your Mom?

Me : Er.. I got a movie review published in ‘The Hindu’

D : Oh really? Good. Which movie did you review?

Me : ‘Puss in Boots’ and, um,..

D :  What? ‘Puss in Boots’? Is that the movie name?

Me :  Yea, It’s an animation movie, actually. A prequel to the ‘Shrek’ series.

D : You wrote the review for a cartoon movie? You still watch cartoon movies?

Me : Er.. not exactly a cartoon movie. This movie isn’t for kids.

I tried to explain how good a movie series Shrek was, how Puss accompanied Shrek in all the adventures, how Shrek could kill fishes with his fart and all that. But he didn’t seem very impressed.

D : Okay. Whatever. Did you get paid for it?

Me : Um, not exactly. But yea, I got this coupon to go to this Spa and salon.

D : Spa? Wow. Doesn’t that sound awesome! Don’t talk about this to anyone and embarrass yourself.

Me : Ugh. Umm.

Conversation #2

I decided get the response from one of my friends, and mailed him the link. I was sure that he wouldn’t have seen it, because him, reading a newspaper, was as rare as a sensible ShahRukh Khan movie.

Me : Dude, did you check that link?

Him : The one you had mailed? Yea, I did.

Me : yea, exactly. What do you say?

I held my breath and prepared myself to bask in the incessant flow of appreciations.

Him : The Chick isn’t so good, man. Why did you send that link?

Me : What? What the #@*% are you talking about?

In the Puss in Boots review page, there was an advertisement (which has changed now) which featured a good looking female model. And he thought that I sent the link for that. 

 I replied, in a calm voice. My reply, mostly, involved his ancestors.

There are some other, exciting reader responses as well. Can’t post them here, since blogger 
hasn’t got an option to upload physical objects, hurled with fairly good power.

That’s all, for now. Ciao!

Life lessons

I have been away from this space for quite some time now. Different reasons. I hate to be. 

The regular readers of this blog (me, myself, and my cousin’s pet dog) are eagerly waiting for the second part of the previous post. I know. But as the title suggests, this is something different.

Here, I am going to share a couple of highly informative and insightful conversations with you. I won’t be explaining the underlying message of each conversation, because of three reasons.

1.   I am yet to find it, will update the post, once I do. 
2.    Losers! Why do you want me to explain everything to you?
3.    Same as first reason.

 

But before that, I want to clarify a few things. 

1. The following post is not meant to offend any group of people. It is meant to offend a couple of people in particular. 
2. Not all girls are technically incompetent. I have one friend, who is a champion techie. Let’s say her name is Rachel McAdams (Not the real name). She goes on talking about the hardware configurations of electronic gadgets, and I just sit there, with my jaw dropped, and my mouth wide open, as much as the French open.
3. All the names used are fake.

Conversation #1

This took place between myself and a colleague, Yasoda Harishankar. 

Me : Wow, isn’t that a third generation iPod shuffle?

YH : Yes. (Smiles)

Me : Can I have a look at it?

YH : Oh yea, sure.

Me : What size, is this?

YH : It must be the small size, you know. As you can see, it is around three centimeters long and, um,..

Me : No, no. I mean, the storage space. 2 Gb?

Here, I was asking if it was 2 Gb, while, YH took it as I was telling her that it’s 2 Gb. She was very much impressed with my ability to assess the storage space, just by looking at it.

YH : Can you tell me how to do that?

Me : Do what?

YH : How you found out that it’s 2Gb?

Me : I was asking if it was 2 Gb. There are no ways to find out by looking at it, unless it’s written on it.

YH : Oh okay. I don’t know the size, then.

Me : What is your computer Hard disk size?

YH :  Now that I don’t know this, you assumed that I wouldn’t know that also. How mean!

Conversation #2

Ambuja Balaraman is a close friend of mine. And Bindya is her best friend, whom, I don’t know personally.

AB : Bindya’s uncle gave her an iPad.

Me : WTH! iPad? Uncle! Awesome! (My uncles. Big time losers, you all are.)

AB : Yea

Me : (Thinks for a while) Um, is she, like, committed?

AB : What!!? None of your business.

Me : No, I mean, I could marry her, if she has an iPad.

AB : What the hell? You would marry someone for a thing?

Me : No, I would never marry someone for a thing.

AB : But you just said you would marry someone for an iPad.

Me : Yea I did. But.. What? You just referred to the iPad as a thing? IS IT A THING?? IS IT??! HOW DARE YOU REFER TO IT AS A THING?? 

AB : What is it then? It is a thing. And you should never marry someone for a thing.

Me : Then what should I marry someone for?

AB : You should marry someone for the heart.

Me : Sigh. Okay. Heart. But isn’t an iPad as good as the heart?

AB : Go hang yourself, okay? Go hang.

The conversation concludes with that highly pragmatic suggestion from her. But I did brood over it for some time, and started off from where we left, the next day.

Me : I thought about whatever you said yesterday. You were right.

AB : See, so you are not as dumb as I thought.

Me : I can never marry someone for an iPad. Not really worth it.

AB : Ah! There you are!

Me : I can marry someone only if they offer me a BMW or something. Then, it will be really worth the struggle.

AB : *^@#!@*&(!@%&)(#&

Conversation #3

I am regarded as a person with no dressing sense and ridiculously bad sense of beauty, among all of my female friends. The following conversation took place between me and a colleague Archana Gunasekhar, when we met for a function. I was very keen to change the above impression by giving away compliments about dressing and makeup, and was trying the same with her.

Me : Hey! Nice dress.

AG : Thanks.

Me : And also, the make up. Especially the whitewash that you have done on your face.

AG : That’s not a whitewash, you Idiot. How dare you be so rude?

Me : Err.. I mean.. I was trying to say, the white paint that you have applied on your face looks so good 

and also, it suits you so well.

AG : ^&$!#@%^$

Converstaion #4

Between myself and Ajay (real name), who is my room mate, and also whom, I know, for the last six years. 

Time is 11 ‘o’ clock at night.

A : Dey machaa, movie? There's one show at 11.30

Me : Yea. 

Bike starts in less than a minute. 

Me : By the way,we are going for which movie?

I hope you all get the life lessons, hiding in each of these.

P.S :-

I haven’t ever met Rachel McAdams in my life. I hope I meet her very soon. If  you know what I mean. *wink* *runs*

The ultimate weekend bash

 Stop that. Don’t tell me. I have least interest in knowing how you spent your weekend. The movies that you watched, the delicious food that you had, the pubs where you spent your nights at, whatever it may be. I spent the whole weekend in my room, sulky and disheveled. I cooked, ate, and slept the rest of the time. I know you had a better time than me, but still, that wouldn’t give me the slightest temptation to go out, on weekends. All because of the one weekend celebration that me and my roomies had, couple of months back. 

It was during March, I think. Our training was still on. I stayed near to the training centre, with two roomies, S and V. A close friend of mine, A, who has already been mentioned in this blog before, would drop in, on all weekends. It was a time when all of us felt enticed with the mischievous and fun filled weekends that our friends used to have. So we too, planned one. We made a ‘to do’ list first, in which we listed out the different activities that we wanted to do during the coming weekend.

The list was very intelligently designed. We had plans A, B and C. And the first entry in the list was ‘Please remember that there is a ‘to-do’ list in place’ and that it is being kept between the 36^th  and 37^th pages of the playboy frontline magazine’. More entries resulted from our brain storming sessions together, and each entry was assigned a priority level.

And it was Friday. I went to office very early, so that I could finish my work and leave early, in a mood to enjoy the weekend. It was part of the plan.

I started my computer, and dug into work. Very few people were there on the floor, scattered here and there. After a few minutes, I heard an alarm sort of a sound. A beep sound, in high volume. I kept working, and just didn’t take my eyes off the monitor. After a while, when I looked around, nobody was there on the floor. Suddenly I started to panic and think that any hot female colleague in some other  floor might have come to office wearing a mini skirt. I got up and rushed to the elevator, and then, a watchman came running in, and started scolding me in Tamil. ‘Fire alarm’ was the only thing that I understood. 

Fire. God damn it. 

A thousand questions started to flood my mind. Why did I come to office early? Why the hell did I ignore the alarm? Will India ever win a cricket match against England? 

The last one being a deja vu for me now. 

What if I die now? I haven’t even married. Both are practically the same, but still I could have a life till that.

 

He pointed towards the fire exit and screamed something.  I galloped downstairs, in Usain Bolt-ish speed. And then, everything started to be in slow motion. Past moments of my life started to flash in my mind. In ultra slow motion. Perfect camera angles. Just like the scenes from Guy Ritchie movies. 

Hah! Not really. I ran and came out of the ground floor. A huge crowd was there. I stopped just when I was near to the compound wall, and looked back, at the building. I had already commenced to fantasize about the whole building collapsing under fire and the office being closed for an indefinite number of days, during which, all the employees get paid, as usual, and the Sodexho vouchers get couriered to the respective house addresses. 

I waited impatiently. But nothing happened. Couldn’t even see a wee bit of smoke.  Besides, none of the people gathered looked happy worried. All were relaxed, and talking to each other, as if nothing happened. Just then I overheard someone saying, fire exercise.

THIS WAS A DAMN FIRE EXERCISE!

And everybody except me seemed to know about it. And it happened right on that day when I went early to office. I walked back, with a depressed mind. 

A usual day at office passed by. I reached room late. And we had our weekend plans, waiting to be executed, the next day. 

Hopefully, this will continue in the next post.