Peace out !

With the much hyped Ind Vs Pak semifinal match tomorrow, it is going to be a record breaking TRP event for sure. Students are planning give the classes a miss, working pros are planning to bunk the offices, in fact our company is organizing a live screening of the complete match ! little to do with the associate's interest though (more to make associates come to office!! win-win situation u know :P)...

All most all TV channels have made any news/info related to this match a headline! How many of you watch 'Headlines Today'? well for starters let me tell you, this is the English version of 'Aaj Tak' (on a serious note, both these channels belong to 'India Today' group! & hence those similar 'malasa' characteristics). I have been desperately watching Headlines Today over the past 4days just to see if there is any other important news than Ind Vs Pak semifinal ! Believe me... there was none!(at least to Headlines Today's knowledge :P) Cricket is & was the only headline.. all their shows are filled with news, views & debates on cricket... shockingly they have started showing highlights of all four previous Ind-Pak world cup encounters! something which Star Cricket does!! Headlines Today for sure has become everything else except a news channel... huh...

Anyway.... with Manmohan Singh inviting his Pak counter-part for the match & Mr. Gilani gleefully accepting the invitation, the game is not just a game anymore. In the sense, we are again going to start the 'Peace talks', 'Cross border terrorism' etc., These two bitter rivals, who used to celebrate when something bad happens in the other region are showing signs of friendship again! Relations have deteriorated from bad to worse over the past 4 years or so, with a series of bomb blasts and the infamous Mumbai hostility event. But it looks like cricket is going to reignite the talks between both nations, which is actually good. Lets just hope things progress +vely from hereon. But deep within still every one has a pinch of hatred for the other nation! & it cannot be wiped off with just game called cricket.

I read an interesting article in the morning. All hotels are running full in Mohali and cross borders visitors(call them spectators) have no accommodation. So, people of Punjab have shown amazing courtesy & offered accommodation in their very own houses !! I was awestruck when I read this ! When it comes to patriotism (call it hatred for Pak), two Indian states stand well ahead of the rest - Punjab & West Bengal !! But this time around people in Mohali are really acting as wonderful hosts - Hats off, take a bow Mohali !!

Media termed this match as the mother of all battles... Yes, it is against Pakistan but the truth is that it is just another match & it cannot be deemed bigger than final. There will be only one winner tomorrow - Cricket !

M for Marriage !

Over the past 6 months, one thought is drooling in my mind & it is about marriage. No, not mine... But people around me, colleagues I look at every day, friends who give me company on weekends.. every one, literally every one is getting married or at least thinking about it !!

Oh c'mon, I am hardly 26 and so are most of my friends.. few are a few months younger than me !! There are quite a few things that I did not understand so far in my two and a half decades of life. Marriage is one of them! What seemed fine till y'day changed drastically in less than 6months. 6 of my close friends got married in the last 4 months) and few more are in Pipeline. I'm struggling to find some proper company to hangout in free time. People who are married are busy setting up a new home... and people who are about to get married are busy going around their fiancees :P The only past time left for me now is to watch movies at home. Have to quickly find a way out to kill this boredom before it kills me...

Don't know what's happening, but whatever is happening not at all excites me ;-) am I weird or is it just the world around me? huh... what am I talking .. Good Night and Good Luck !

Bang Bang Begining

Cricket world cup 2011 has just begun and the men in Blue have started in style. After the 2007 world cup debacle, this was like the 'revenge of the fallen' ! and the revenge indeed is sweet !

Sehwag did exactly what he said before the tournament begun.. he said that he wants to spend all 50 overs at the crease and he almost did so. Good for the team.

Anyway.. the purpose of writing this is to post something very interesting that happened a week back. A day before I returned to Hyderabad (approx 10days back), I was chatting with Nikhil, a good friend of mine, over the office communicator. His predictions are mostly fluke but they sometimes turn out to be bang on ! The topic slowly moved to world cup and I asked him to predict the score in the inaugural match between Ind and Ban ... below are his predictions...

India - 378/4 (50 overs)
Sehwag - 176

and today I wish I had copied that conversation ! damn.. he is again so close ...!! I watched the India innings at his place today afternoon and we both burst into laughter on many occasions thinking of the chat and predictions we made. He is like the Emraan Hashmi in Jannat !

Next match is against Eng and there is more than a week gap. Will ask him to predict that match... u all readers can 'bet' with his help. Good Luck !

FZ Vs A320

The air fare from Bhubaneshwar to Hyderabad on Indigo airlines is close to Rs.2200 and the road distance is just over 1100 Kms, that's Rs. 2/km.

Now, in Hyd, I ride Yamaha FZ. It gives a mileage between 32 & 35. Ever since the petrol prices have been deregulated by the Indian govt., prices have sky-rocketed touching new highs every month. I have learnt that Rs. 11 is the total increase in Hyd in the past 4-5 months. Now, it costs Rs.65 /lt. That's approx. Rs. 2/km !!

This literally means, I am spending equal amounts to ride my bike and travel by air ! Mind boggling !!

Crazy 31st night !

New year is something most of them look forward to. I am a person who believes that we do not need a particular day to celebrate and hence birthday's and anniversaries do not excite me much. I thought Dec 31st will be just another day for me and I was right till 10pm. That's when my room mates told me about the Puri trip ! On any other day I would have written it off calling them weirdos & insane. But, I sensed the thrill the trip has to offer and immediately said YES.

We are 7 now and they have already booked an SUV (Scorpio it is ! Muscular and Powerful and more than anything it is manufactured by our parent company - Mahindra ! so loyal my friends are !!) We started at 11.40pm, that's 20mins away from 2011 ! Bhubaneswar to Puri is close to 70Kms. We had to wish new year at a petrol pump!! stop wherever we see a light to check if coke is available (found one after half a dozen stops!), ate tandoori chicken in the car, made pegs behind the wagon ! & the FOG ... my goodness! it was so sooo dense, we had zero visibility at times even with the fog lights on! There was a moment where the fog reminded me of movies like 'The Mist' & 'Silent Hill', so scary it was at the same time excitement made us scream. The driver brought the car to a standstill !! This was the most intriguing part of the trip.

We finally reached Puri around 1.30 am only to see the barricades and police on the beach road ! THE BEACH is closed tonight ! But there is a twist in the tale here... the driver took us to the beach from another road. When we stepped out and saw huge sand art exhibition on the shore... which was closed as well. But we managed to creep in without waking up the artists. We saw the giant Santa Claus from inches away... in fact touched it!! it was monstrous... after examining it we made our way to the beach.

The beach was completely vacant.. like a private beach, absolutely deserted... and guess what.. first thing we saw over there is a abandoned boat!! may be the one used by fishermen... we jumped in joy and the into the boat. Then the scotch flowed out... we talked, gossiped, sang, discussed movies, people, cities, work and what not.

What if we could not celebrate the new year in GOA, we did the same at the beach but a private one :P Spent a good 3hrs at the beach and between 4.30 - 5am moved ahead to Konark, to watch the sun rise. The sun rise point was totally crowded at 5.30am. We did wait for half an hour to capture the sun rise, but our driver was in a hurry and continuously honking. So we had to leave the place much before sun came out. Again on our way back, the fog haunted us! similar scenes... in fact better since it was the dawn... zero visibility. Never saw such dense fog when I was in Hyderabad.

In all it was a time very well spent. Was the most memorable time in Bhubaneshwar....