A Cricket Fan Story

As a child I never had much interest in cricket since there was no one at home watching it. With dad living in gulf and mom watching mostly her regional serials, we brothers grew up watching cartoons, WWE, the occasional Hindi movies, even the AXN shows like 'Reply's believe it or not' but never cricket. So it was in 2002, when we shifted our home to new locality with lots of neighbors watching cricket, Talking cricket and playing cricket, that it finally sparked a curiosity.

The Utimate fan favourite, needed no Introduction

Before 2002, Sachin was easily the most recognizable name and face for me, Dravid and Ganguly were only heard about, while a lots of other cricketers name was not even known to me. It was the Netwest series of 2002 that changed everything, the excitement in the room full of neighboring uncles and kids during the match and the extraordinary run chase led by the two youngsters started a new Interest in my life: Cricket.

The aggressive captain

The unexpected success in the 2003 world cup gave rise to numerous cricketing dreams, shots that I enacted at homes although not a good cricketer on the field, I was always the best in my dreams, with the finals of 2003 being played numerous times in my head, of course ending the other way around. With the rise of Indian cricket team with this new aggressive approaches, I became a fan of Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj and slowly became to relish the success of the team as my success. I would become sad if a match day comes on weekdays and I would have to miss the game, sometimes During the day games, I would run to home after the my afternoon school just so that I could see the last few overs or balls and enjoy the winning moments. One of the reasons why I started reading newspaper is because of crickets. i would read up all the articles about the game, matches, articles of other teams matches, etc, even collect the cut outs of my favorite player just like the every other die hard fan. When their is no telecasts on Doordarshan, I would switch on to the radio to make sure I remained updated with the game.

Emerging youngsters of 2000

From 2005 the Indian teams downward graph begin with the Ganguly-Chappel controversy dragging along till the early exit of 2007 50 over world cup. This was the period where I had to choose more often than not between studies and cricket, Because of board exams. The Early exit and the controversy around the teams poor performances and the board gave rise to a new rebel league ICL and with the advent of T20 matches around the cricketing world, the focus slowly began to shift towards the quick paced game of cricket, where the result would be declared within 3-4 hours. The T20 world cup win of 2007 gave rise to a lot of new young promising players. And soon they began to replace the our seniors in ODI's . This was beginning a little uncomfortable for me, as Although I wanted the team to win, I also wanted to see the Dravids and ganguly in the game. Thankfully, the lack of application from the young players and the experienced and good performances of seniors in the Test matches kept them in the game.

The End of an ERA

Within the couple of years the seniors started to retire from the cricket, starting from Ganguly, followed by Kumble, Laxman, and Dravid and with them I started to lose interest in cricket part by part. The 2011 world cup brought back the the excitement in me, the performance of our cricket team was spot on and we went on to win the world cup and my cricketing interest was back on track. while we would win the occasional ODI's, we were terrible in the test after the Worldcup, going on to lose the string of matches. And so did my fluctuating Interest, Earlier I would watch a whole cricket match if given a opportunity, then it became only for Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer and Dhoni's finishing off the game.

I used to always blame that too much of T20 cricket, lack of Test victories or the good performances away from home as the reason for my declining interest in cricket. But it was far from true, I realized that there will never be the team I grew up with, the youngsters are new but are performing at the same level we did back in 2001-02, Its not their failure that caused me to lose interest, but it was life, the growing responsibilities and the pressures of education and job, had made me neglect the game.

As T20 Word cup 2016 begins, the Interest seems to be back in me. Virat's exceptional Batting performances, Old guns Yuvi's magical sixes, Nehra's swing and Dhoni finishing the game seems to be back. Even the new age bowlers like Bumrah , Shami look promising, while it would be unfair to leave out turbonator as he could still change the game. It would be Interesting and exciting to see this team go up against the world and although they seem to be favorites to lift the cup, It wouldn't be easy but that's just what I wanted to get the cricket fan inside me back.

Frustrated People, Frustrated life and their Frustrated Fights

You will always find watchmens guarding the door when their is no one inside

Patience and Understanding is an important aspect of our life that I realized recently. So this is an incident that I witnessed in a local Train while returning from my job few days ago. It was around 10 PM when I boarded the Ambernath local from Ghatkopar, Over the last 8 years of my local train travelling, from my junior college classes to engineering and now job, I have realized that no matter how empty or crowded a train is some people always want to stand at the door. I boarded the train, pushing aside the people at the door and stood beside the grilled wall, the train was full enough to occupy all the seats but not crowded as their was enough spaces to stand.

Night time is not always the crowd time

    As the train reached Bhandup station their was a sudden rush of people trying to get in, the people at the door weren't expecting it I guess, as some got pushed inside by the door. As a result there was a small grapple between two 40 year old's or maybe not but that's what they looked to me, one standing at the door got angry because of the push while other got furious at him for blocking the door. This was resulting in to a beginning of a big argument, the following is a conversation during the incident,

Commuter 1: Abey darwaze se hut na. (Get aside from the door) (while boarding the train)

Commuter 2: Terko kya problem hai tu chadda na upar (What's your problem you boarded the train alright)

Commuter 1: B@#$@%, merko kya problem hai matlab, mujhe lagana chadte waqt, Andar khada rehne ka na itna jagah hai({A cuss word} What do you mean what's my problem ,I got hurt while boarding Stand inside there is so much space)

This is Mumbai local there is always 'some space'

Commuter 2: Abey gaali kisko deta hai (who did you give that cuss word?)

As the anger between them was coming out in terms of words now, It wouldn't have taken long for them to get physical or at the very least use even more degrading bad words. People around never get in the middle of such fights because after such a tiring day, they don't care who is right or wrong, plus its an entertainment they could enjoy for a moment. That's when a 20 year old something who was standing at the door too, behind the commuter 2 shouted,
"Sorry Sorry, Meri galti thi me bhi door pe khada tha isiliye jagah block ho raha tha. (Getting aside from the door and turning to the commuter 2) Aap idhar aa jao, door khade the tho station ate waqt side hut jana chaiye. (Sorry Sorry, Its my fault I was standing at the door eventually blocking it, {turning to the commuter 2} You come this side, we should get aside when stations come so that people can board the train.)"

Nobody said anything after that, Commuter 1 didn't wanted to argue with a guy who took the blame while commuter 2 was too ashamed to say anything. And the fight that was just getting started, boiled down without much fuss.


As the train crossed the Mulund station, most of the crowd had cleared out and so did commuter 1. The 20 year old guy was still there, So out of curiosity, I asked him why did he take the blame, for which he said, "My friend was once involved in almost similar incident which resulted in fist fights between them ending in my friend being pushed off the train, luckily the train was nearing to halt at the station and my friend escaped with just bruises. The man with whom the fight started got down the train and helped him to the hospital and was apologetic at the incident, he said he was sorry and since he was frustrated with his own personal problem that he got angry with us which he didn't mean. It was an unnecessary fight for an petty incident which could have turned into a life changing accident for all the people involved. That's the day I realized that, Life is a struggle for everyone, all of us have our own problems, so we must keep patience and have understanding for such people. they are just frustrated people with their frustrated life and frustrated fights. look around you, these people, they travel these routes daily and its not a joy ride. So someone has to understand it, I don't go along taking blames for everyone but for such silly things, I see no problem and plus it makes me feel better."

It's definitely not a Joy ride

As he finished, the train neared thane station, getting off the train I realized that he was right in almost every sense. All these years of travelling myself, I never really got bored because I always had friends as it was our college days with no pressure of outside world. but now things has changed while I am in my job I don't enjoy my daily travelling any more. Life becomes a struggle once we are out of our comfort zone and start getting responsibilities on our shoulder, It is up to us to find ways enjoying it and not become one of those Frustrated People with their Frustrated life and Frustrated Fights.

How about these cartoons getting a live action movie??

 As 2016 gets ready with number of Marvels Superheroes and other comic book movies starting with this weeks Deadpool, the excitement for these movies has made me wonder how and when will some of the other best action cartoons gets a look in. Hollywood going live-action to some of the best anime's is not new. While a lot has failed to live up to expectation with live action films like Garfield, The last Air bender or the Dragon Ball evolution failing miserably, there are still lots of others anime that fans would love to see.

  There was a time in Indian television when after 9 PM your cartoon network channel would change into this other English channel called TNT and the cartoons would switch to some English series or movies. I still remember how the channel would change with Tom chasing Jerry into its hole and then placing bomb all over the place named TNT, which would blow up to a new channel or the one in which every letter doses off to sleep. But then Toonami happened and we had all the action animations like Dragon Ball Z and superhero shows like Batman Superman running all night.

Growing up to these cartoon is one of the reason I became a fan of DC or Marvel universe. So with all the Spiderman, Superman, Ironman or Batman movie franchises going live for the big screen, It was no wonder I became a big fan of these movies too. And with Hollywood turning to all other fairy tales stories for movies like Alice in wonderland, Snow White or the Maleficent, I just wish they look into some other anime's too.

   Here is list of some that I would love to see in live action.

1. The Lion King

Real life Mufasa and Simba

  With movies like Tarzan and The jungle book set to release later this year, It wouldn't be hard for Hollywood to bring this cartoon animals to life. People would love to see Simba, Timon or Pumba in Blood. And looking at the trailer of Jungle book, It seems to me that it would be a spectacle.

2. Aladdin

  One of the best underdog rags to riches stories, that almost everyone has heard and knows about, the fact that its 1992 animation movie was a huge hit, a live action should have been on the cards by now. who wouldn't love to see genie do crazy stuff in real.

  Also a with its Asian setting, Someone like Dev Patel or Suraj Sharma from life of PI would easily fit into the roll, although Robin Williams iconic voice over for genie would be missed. The film should entertain people if made right.

3. Pokemon

This Fan made Blastoise makes you wish a live action movie on them

  After watching this Fan made poster and trailer in YouTube, I feel like Hollywood should try it too and with films like jurassic park and avatar it proves CGI can bring any creature to life then why not Pokemon. It would cool to witness Pokemon Battle in a Live action movie.

Imagine how great a charizard or pikachu would look in these films.

4. Dragon Ball Z (With a better Script)

   Last time they messed up very bad and which was not what the film deserved. So considering that it is still a very popular series and having learned from the last version, they should have a fair idea of what is expected from them

Goku's duels would be epic to watch

  Well that's my opinion and I really wish they could come up with these movies too. What do you think about it and what are your favorite anime's that you would want to see as a live action movies ?Comment below.

How about a competent skill India?

     Recently our Prime minister launched a ‘Skill India’ initiative that aimed at developing people’s skill which means providing men with required knowledge to help in production of a favourable result. There is no doubt about India having large number of people unemployed and developing their skill will definitely help them but will they be able to compete? Will there be desire to the job?

     A Skill is something learned in order to carry out required job functions But Competency not just incorporates skill but also include abilities, behavior and Knowledge that is fundamental to the use of a skill. In today’s world these qualities are necessary to succeed and most of the industries all over the world are looking for such competent people with skill.

  

   It is the competency attitude that has to be developed by the people themselves. The Skill initiatives is like the holding hand for a handshake before meeting the interviewer which requires a competence attitude for a confident handshake

 “Competencies are characteristics and strengths that are valued by a company for its employees to be able to perform and excel.”

       India already has many skill full people (although a lot are still left behind), this is the reason that Indians are all over the world from Gulf countries to Europe and America. So developing of a competency attitude will definitely bring advantage to not just us but to the whole world. 

       As our prime minister has offered one hand of developing a skilled India, its time the people complete a perfect handshake in developing a competence attitude. If both these qualities is developed it won’t take long for India to be the capital of both ‘Manufacturing units and Human Resource’ of the world.

Leaders not only have the Skill which is ability, but also competence that is ability along with willingness and desire to do the job

-Shiv Khera (Author of self help books and Motivational speaker)

My Take- Fake Internet Posts

It’s not necessary, what we see has to be true.

Well, I am talking about social media and how people tend to believe the post or Photos posted on internet is real and start sharing it forward. It may be generated by some mischievous kid, just for fun or some people with vested interest but the fact is they fail to check long term or mass affect it has on people.

Every day, there has been so many posts or pictures posted on the internet as so called news or facts, that nowadays  it’s getting much harder to separate the fake from the real ones. It’s like every day is an April Fools' Day

Few days back I came across a photo in which a man dressed as an Indian army officer is shown crying for receiving a court marshal

Description: “…this Indian soldier was court marshaled for entering the territory of Pakistan without the permission of his seniors and killing some of their soldier as a response to Pakistan’s attack on India…”

Reality:   “It is a scene from a path breaking play “Court Martial” written in 1991 by Swadesh Deepak a popular Indian play writer, novelist and short story writer.”(link for more detail)

As I looked at the comment section of the post, I saw people fighting between themselves about whether he did the right thing or not, based on their respective opinions. The post blamed the Indian government and the higher army personnel for such incident and so did the people who read the post and didn’t mind checking its reality. People didn’t even realize the facts that how can a photograph allowed to be taken inside an army court.

People who blindly follow such stuff take out their emotions about the government or any respected person or organization through such sites. This encourages the persons who start such stories to use people’s feelings to make unwanted issues or create a fear or opinion about others and sometimes this even include our leaders.

One such example of creating a misleading hatred about great leaders is Mahatma Gandhi. In recent past there has been lot of incident where Gandhi’s image tarnished using some of his pictures, but what we fail to realize is in this generation of easy Photoshop software anything can be changed.

The Fake One:

One such picture is the above one where Gandhi is shown getting intimate with a foreign lady, but the reality is the picture is edited from the one with Nehru below.

The original one:

Look at the hand, paper and the face of Gandhi in both pictures and you will see the reality

Another such instance is the one below, where it was reported that mahatma is dancing with the foreigners while his country struggled for independence.

Reality:  He is an Australian actor dressed as Gandhi in Sydney.

Some of the fake pictures include glorification of personal heroes, one such pictures is assassination of Gandhi by Nathuram godse, 

Description: The post described that this is the original picture of how Gandhi died in reality that he was begging for mercy for his mistakes.

Reality: It is just a brilliant editing and distortion of facts. A movie snapshot blurred to give original 1940’s effect.

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         Godse had his reasons and to some extent I agree with his opinion of Gandhi’s role in partition (although I don’t agree the with the extreme step he took and again it’s just my opinion) but you don't need to glorify him using fake pictures and caption

         I am not a big supporter of Gandhi; he is not the ideal person to be followed. I have read or heard lot of stories that describe his negative side, some of which may be true. But over the years I have seen a lot of such post that turned out to be a fake. Sometimes I feel it is the result of all the corruptions, scam and the ignorance of UPA government towards the people that caused them to question our leaders of over sixty years -the origin of government. Maybe sixty years from now if the present government fails to deliver there would be images describing their notoriety.

Right now there are some fake images which are going around the country praising the present government like the one where even Barack Obama is listening to Narendra Modi

But the fact is it won’t take long before this praising fake pictures turn into blaming ones and people would start believing it such is the tender nature of emotions of some people.

P.S. The last image of Abraham Lincoln with a quote is fake one

My Take-A sensationalized documentary.

Few days back BBC released a documentary titled 'India's Daughter' and got banned by the officials. Well this just my opinion about it.

The documentary was made to create sensation. Because it showed interviews of rapists and their lawyers,  but does not talk about safeguarding women and their rights or means to tackle the problem. All it did was pick on an incident and dwell on how bad the incident was.

The western media apparently termed India as 'land of rapists' after the government of India banned the BBC documentary which showed the incidents of the December 16 nightmare.

With reports like student having his visa rejected for being an Indian. or the rapist getting paid for interviews (Rape convict gets paid 40,000 for interview)suggest that the documentary had a biased agenda because the people speaking in the video are sharing their opinions and not facts about India or Indian men. They are not representing the entire Indian population. Because not everyone behave like them check this link out Indians response to gender Bias and I guess you will understand better.

The following video was made by an Indian about rapes in UK aptly named as 'UK's daughter'.

Well rape is a global phenomenon and instead of fighting over documentaries, and stereotyping the country and its society. The world must come together in fighting such violent cases. Because no matter what country be it South Africa(ranked 1), USA(ranked 14) or India(ranked 94) in Rape rates it is an issue that needs to be solved.

PS- Being Ranked 94th in rape rates is not something to be proud of because Rape is still a unforgivable crime.

My Take-Knocked Out!!

The AIB knockout video has created a huge uproar among various sections of society all over the country with contrasting views from public. While roasting is regular event in america, it was first of its kind in India. With about 4000 people watching the live event and millions more online event looked a success until the moral issues came popping up.

When I watched the video for the first time I was surprised myself, about the way actors talked. The AIB people created their name by making spoofs, troll videos on internet video sharing platform. So it wouldn't have been surprising for them to do it again in a live event with more abusive or filthy words added to it, after all it is a roast you are supposed to be trolled that way. But when the celebrities started it was unimaginable. I don't know if it was wrong, afterall they are humans too and the words they used weren't something new to public, it was the everyday slang that we hear among people nowadays.

But still some thought they crossed the line. When kapil Sharma started his new show comedy night's, a lot of people including myself felt that he makes the fun of audience and actors in front of them. But he would do that without using any f-words or the c-words. And he still managed to be funny and entertaining. if you look at it now he is one kind of a roaster too.

If the AIB had done it like comedy nights i.e without foul language, I don't think there would have been any controversy. While I still think the AIB knockout was entertaining I don't think it could sustain this new experiment in this sensitive country.

My Take-Beautiful Sikkim

Last week i came from a 10 day long trip of Kolkata-Gangtok-Darjeeling. It was a tiring trip as I live in Mumbai and travelling 2 days in a train is by no means enjoyable. even if you are with your friends you are bound to get tired. But the trip was worth a visit. Although Kolkata and Darjeeling are world famous cities for various reasons I was quite surprised to see Sikkim to be such a beautiful place.

The Beautiful Rumtek monasteries, Hanuman tok, Ganesh tok, Rock Garden, Changu lake etc. The views are not only breathtaking but also mind freshening. Looking at the culture, people, environment, It Just made me realize, how big this world is and how single minded we think. Sometimes, we need to take a break and spend some time exploring such places.

Located in the Himalayan mountains, It is surrounded by 3 countries -Nepal, China, Bhutan. Until this trip I had thought the official language of Sikkim would be Sikkimese but I was surprised to see people here speak Nepali and another local language called Lepcha which I had never heard of but all people over here understand Hindi and are ever ready to communicate in it.

The people here are quite friendly too so if anyone is offering you a trip to Sikkim, My recommendation: Don't Hesitate. Small State, Small cities but Beautiful nonetheless.

My Take-Word Crimes

Recently while chatting with a friend I was confused when he asked me something like "BTW wer r u now?".
I understood that he was asking me where I was staying , and the letters r & u stand for are & you but the word BTW got me in confusion. What does it stand for? Is it 'but' misspelt or 'between'? Later I understood that the word meant 'by the way'.

Such as been the jump in the English language that words like are, you , see, take care, by the way as been replaced by letters like r, u, c, tc, btw. Not just these words but many more beautiful English words has been replaced by shortcut word in these world of digital technologies.

Even numbers that were traditionally used for mathematical expression are now frequently been used in everyday sentences like b4 replacing before, f9 in place of fine and many more. First it was cheap sms services and then came the social medias like Facebook, whats app, Hike which has now replaced even the shortcut words into mere smileys or stickers.

This reminds me of "Word Crimes" song by American musician "Weird Al" Yankovic from his fourteenth studio album, Mandatory Fun (2014). The song spoofs misuse of proper English grammar, in everyday life.

The song shows common usage of words like 'less' instead of 'fewer', and the use of "to whom" as opposed to "to who" or the wrong use of "x" in the word espresso (n.b. expresso). Also mentioned in the song is the idiom "I couldn't care less" being commonly corrupted as "I could care less".

Watch & listen it here

The video consists of the song lyrics explaining the song and beautifully made so that people would listen and read simultaneous. A must watch video song of 2014 for this generation public. Even the tune is catchy and would definitely make you humming it for some time.

My Take-Goodbye 'NOKIA'

There was a time when most of the Indian mobile market was covered with only one brand 'NOKIA'. The phones had everything from common calling options to various applications supports. Samsung, Sony and Motorolo were just a bystanders in front of the Nokia traffic. The only competitions Nokia had would have been I phones and that to as a status symbol.

Then came the Android platform and Nokia all of a sudden had, not one but many competitors in Samsung, Sony along with new companies like Micromax, Karbonn. The mere fact that Nokia was not willing to embrace Android may have been the reason for the decline of its market.

Nokia has always managed to make a low-cost handset with its Symbian platform for its low-end markets and when google's Android came they shifted to windows platform. Together they came up with Lumia series, but it was not made for low-end markets that was once ruled by Nokia itself. With the world shifting from feature phones to smartphone and with Micromax, Samsung, Karbonn and Moto E bringing out low-cost Android phones, Windows Phone growth was very slow for Nokia.

Before being completely taken over by Microsoft, Nokia launched the X handset with Android platform for low-end markets. putting Microsoft into a tricky situation of whether keeping it or abandoning it. And that would be the last of the Nokia's many models of phones made for the low-end markets.Like a goodbye gifts for us.