October 30, 2003
 

Cricket

New Zealand 97 all out. You dont expect to see that kind of score in a onedayer in India. You'd think it was one of those green carpets rolled out by the Kiwis to the Indians when we toured them last year. But no, this was at Faridabad, not Hamilton. So much so for the taunts from the Kiwis that India didnt adjust to their conditions as well as they did to Indian conditions. Ok fair enough, you did well to draw the Test series. But what about playing in conditions similar to yours? Why did Fleming, widely acclaimed as being the best captain around, choose to bat first in the kind of conditions he'd have seen day in-day out in sheepland? I'm sure the decision will worry Fleming for a while, at least until the end of this tournament. It resulted in Australia running away with the game, a bonus point and a hugely positive netrunrate, which could prove crucial for New Zealand, given they've not won a game yet (well they've not won a single game on tour yet, but then again, the spindoctors dont give you the impression from the way the Kiwis have been patronized throughout this tour).

Technology

YAOSL from Microsoft - Yet Another Operating System Launch. This one is LongHorn. While bleating out its features, Microsoft executives (including Bill Gates) have been repeatedly mentioning security, easier search etc. and also talking of a release in mid-late 2004. From Microsoft's past history, better security and scheduled launches are two promises never kept. The surprising aspect of the launch is that a lot of the trade press have been talking of this launch as being the biggest OS launch of the decade. Uhmm, the decade where there're still 7 years to go?

Posted @ 12:26 PM

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October 17, 2003
 

Politics

Ayodhya is simmering again, and the PM wants the UP government to trust the VHP. Vajpayee certainly does have a lot of gall to make that statement, coming as it does after Pravin Togadia threatened communal riots if the Sangh Parivar's attempts to enter Ayodhya were thwarted. Anyone who makes a brazen threat of that nature deserves to be in jail. People've been jailed under POTA for talking allegiance to terrorist groups. On paper, the likes of the VHP, RSS & Bajrang Dal aren't terrorists, but for the amount of destruction they can cause when angry, they do qualify as terrorists. Then again, the centre is left in a Catch-22 situation. If they (and thats a BIG if) arrest Togadia, they do risk the nation going up in flames, particularly the cow-belt. If they let the likes of Togadia, Giriraj Kishore, Ashok Singhal, Vinay Katiyar etc. get away scot-free with their venom, then they risk communal riots anyway. As it is, there're a few idiotic Muslim leaders who're saying they'd approach the UN to carve out a "safe haven" for Muslims in India on the lines of the Kurdish area in Iraq. There're idiots and rabid fanatics on both sides. At a time when the government talks of India being a developed nation by 2020 (AD, that is), these morons are threatening to wage revenge battles for 16th century happenings.

Jayalalitha and Mani Shankar Aiyer have got into an absolutely adorable spat, which culminated in Aiyar being thrashed up by AIADMK goondas. Mani had gone to a place near Karaikal to participate in a state government function at which the CM was the chief guest. The real story will perhaps never be told, but word is that Jayalalitha asked Mani to repeat his famous quote which he'd offered to scribes after Jayalalitha donated an elephant calf to the Guruvayoor temple. Mani is reported to have said that if he became CM, he'd donate Jayalalitha to the temple! Jaya questioned Mani's guts and asked him to repeat himself at the venue (an AIADMK stronghold, evidently). Mani retorted asking Jayalalitha to repeat her comments on Sonia Gandhi not being Indian (and by extension, not qualifying to be PM) in Delhi (a Congress stronghold). He then left the meeting in a huff after some sarcastic words were exchanged. On the way back, his car was attacked by people who he claims were AIADMK cadre. Tamil Nadu is never short of entertainment. Aside from Kahleefohrnia, TN ranks among the great examples of movie stars becoming successful politicians. That brings me to this - created in cahoots with Nitin, based on our experiences there and some deep thinking.

Top 20 reasons why the US and India are alike

1. They have Texas, we have UP.
   
2. The immigration queues are as long in both places.
   
3. Domestic airlines have fat aunty airhostesses/stewardesses/staff.
   
4. For their KFC, we have our Saravana Bhavans
   
5. You find hoardings all over the place (admittedly India does have an advantage here).
   
6. Movie star turned politicians in the US and India.
   
7. Dynastic politics in the US and India (for Nehru/Gandhi, read Kennedy/Bush).
   
8. They have the Tennessee River Valley disputes, we have our Kaveri annual ritual.
   
9. For native Americans, read Adivasis/SC/ST.
   
10. For affirmative action, read reservations.
    
11. For their Marlboro cigarettes, we have Malabar beedis.
    
12. India : Goa :: USA : Alaska.
    
13. The Brits ruled us both. We moved our capital from Calcutta to Delhi, they moved from Philadelphia to Washington DC.
    
14. The US has class action lawsuits, India has public interest litigations.
    
15. The best doctors and engineers in USA studied in India, so did the ones in India.
    
16. For their Starbucks, we have the NAESEY kiosk bars of TN and the Nair kadais.
    
17. Hawkers on NY street corners sell cheap watches made in China, ditto in India.
    
18. They have a hawkish Rumsfeld, we have Advani.
    
19. They have a Colin Powell, we have Jaswant (retired military).
    
20. They have George Washington, we have AB Vajpayee (approx. same age!).
    

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Cricket

So its been two days for India on the field and New Zealand dont seem like declaring. I cant see this match having a result. I suppose the great attacking, innovative captained named Fleming either isnt sure 550 is enough for his bowlers to bowl India out before 350 (or to win a Test for that matter!) or he prefers to let his "last frontier" pass for now so he can come back 3-4 years later for another shot. The Mohali pitch has been better than Ahmedabad, there's more bounce for the bowlers. But I tend to think the curator thought it was a ODI pitch. There doesnt seem to be any deterioration in the wicket. The bounce and pace are quite even. Poor Dravid, he must be cursing Ganguly for opting out, much as Vaughan would have had choice abuse for Nasser a couple of months ago.

I think the Indian media should start portraying the Kiwis as a bunch of boring cricketers, not interested in winning at all. They should snap out of any column syndication deals with them. The Kiwis have been totally unable to get past the Indian top-order, taking 5 and 6 wickets in each innings at Ahmedabad. They've bored the pants off the spectators, for sure. They came here, claiming to try to make history, but evidently making history implies not losing the series rather than winning. That is about as negative an approach as you can get. Coming as it does from a team whose captain is acknowledged to be among the finest and most innovative in the modern era, it sums them up. For all the talents they have - Richardson's grit, Fleming-Astle-McMillan's flair & Vettori's guile, they've proved themselves to be undeserving of any plaudits. They're absolutely unwatchable.

Posted @ 6:58 PM

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October 14, 2003
 

Cricket

So it turned out to be yet another boring draw after all. There was a brief hint of a chance of India wresting the game when New Zealand were 170/6 and still an entire session to play for. Unfortunately, a combination of bizarre captaincy, placid pitch and good batting resulted in a draw.

First, the captaincy. India had a session (turns out it was a minimum of 27 overs) to bowl New Zealand out and win the game, since New Zealand never seemed to be interested in the target. Since it was a minimum 27 overs to be bowled in 2 hours, India could have chosen to bowl even say 32. How does a bowling side do that? By making the seamers bowl 4-5 overs at each end? Of course not. You get the spinners on from the first over or at least the third. Ganguly erred bigtime in this regard. Perhaps his groin injury was affecting his thinking process? Why was he on the field then? Surely with Yuvraj being 12th man, the fielding would have at least improved by leaps and bounds. We also batted quite slowly on day 1. In an era when the benchmark set by Australia is to score at least 300 runs in a day (they frequently make 350!), scoring 250/3 is quite unpardonable. Yes, the pitch was on the slower side. But arent the Indian batsmen supposed to be comfortable playing on these pitches? After all these were the types on which they learnt all their cricket! On the 2nd day, we ended up scoring at ~ 3.5 per over. If only we'd scored at 3/over on day 1 and a little faster on day 2 (say 3.7/ov), we could have made those 500 runs in 150 overs. Assuming the rest of the Test went identically, that means an extra 10 overs to bowl NZ out on day 5. Its baffling to see a lineup of Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly score at just over 3/over in the 1st innings on a flat wicket. Hayden scored 380 at 5.2/over, all by himself!

Then the pitch. For all the talk of how the wickets in India are changing for the better, I really do differ. The wickets have actually become worse. In an attempt to break the stereotype of Indian wickets being absolute dustbowls, we're ending up placating visiting teams. This pitch saw an avg of 49 runs/wicket and 2.9 runs/over. While the runs/over seems ok, the runs/wicket seems quite high. In fact even the average runrate is highly affected by India's hurried performance while batting second. Stephen Fleming is right now absolutely delighted that NZ got away with a draw. According to him, the draw is a victory. When India went to New Zealand 10 months ago, the pitches were horrible. There may have been weather related reasons, but the fact is that the pitches were underprepared. Why did the GCA authorities and the pitches committee roll out the "red" carpet to the visitors? I wonder what sort of pitch is in store at Mohali. The last time we played New Zealand there, we were rolled over by Nash for 83 in the first innings. The batsmen then woke up and NZ managed to get away with a draw.

Posted @ 12:44 PM

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October 10, 2003
 

Food

My dear friend Nitin writes in his 'Foodi' blog that there could be more to the history of the humble dosa than what we think. Could the continental drift have something to do with it? Could the similarities between the tortilla and the chapaati also be due to it?

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Cricket

History created today. Matthew Hayden becomes the latest member of the elite club to make the highest individual Test score. Over the last three years he's pretty much been the leading batsman in world cricket. In 2001 he scored nearly 1400 runs and in 2002, it was 1200 and while this year had been quiet so far (450 runs), the record and the next few tests will possibly push him upto 2002 levels, if not 2001. All this from a man who played 12 Tests between 1994 and 2000. While it is totally great watching him bat, sometimes you really do feel kind of unreal. The power he imparts to his shots is amazing, as is his timing etc. I'ven't seen too much Gordon Greenidge in his prime on live television (except in the nostalgia stuff you see sometimes) but from whatever I've read, he was a bloody murderous hitter of the ball. Hayden seems to be in that league. He scored 380 in 437 deliveries with 38 fours and 11 sixes (I think that's joint 2nd with Astle). I sincerely hope these 380 runs (and whatever he scores in the next test against Zimbabwe) are all that he'll score till the end of the season.

What is it about southpaws and triple centuries? In fact the last two holders of the batting record were also lefties (Lara & Sobers). Out of the 16 triple centurions (17 triples in all, Bradman scored 2!), 7 were lefthanders. The numbers get skewed when you consider only post 1990. Out of the 6 triple centurions, only Gooch and Inzamam were righthanders. Taylor and Jayasuriya make up the other two triples (aside from Lara & Hayden). Surely over 40% of triple centurions being lefthanders is an odd thing. 66% since 1990 is plain bizarre. There must be something fishy happening.

Another achievement today, completely overshadowed by Hayden. Kumble took his 350th test wicket. He's now 14th on the list of wicket-takers and is 4th among those currently playing tests behind Warne, Murali and McGrath. Waqar, despite his claims to the contrary, is pretty much finished. I think 400 isnt an impossible goal for him, although getting past Kapil could be tough. Perhaps one way to do that would be to stop playing one-day cricket? While Kumble's record is quite stunning overall, it is difficult to oversee his poor record overseas. Then again, nobody's perfect, eh?

Ignoring off-field antics, Warne's record against India (and in India in particular) will always be held against him. Even if Murali takes 1000 Test wickets, there'll always be divided opinion on whether his balls are clean or not. Its difficult to find something imperfect with McGrath, so I'll just say something stupid like he's such a boring bowler to watch (unlike the 3 spinners) and his batting really does suck. His on-field antics are something which go against him for sure.

The Ahmedabad Test is nicely poised for an India win. New Zealand need 18 runs to avoid the followon and India need two wickets to think about making the Kiwis bat again. I do expect New Zealand to fall short of 200. But even if they do get past, I think India'd still have the upper hand in attempting to win. They'd have nearly 2 days to get New Zealand out. The pitch is bound to get worse [relatively speaking, for I've not seen anything misbehave!]. A followon would be a nice way to start off the revenge process. I wonder why captains are nowadays so politically correct. I'm not saying the captain should do a Richie Richardson and claim that the visiting Aussies have been the worst side to play West Indies in the last 20 years after losing the series. Tony Greig's attempt to make WI "grovel" backfired spectacularly. But why does Steve Waugh not say Australia is going to crush Bangladesh or Zimbabwe? Why dont Ganguly and Fleming accept the fact that in the eyes of the public, this series is all about badla? Speaking of which, I wonder why none of the rhetorical captions like badla, qayamat etc. have been used for this series?

Posted @ 1:29 PM

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October 07, 2003
 

Movies

Once again, a long delay in updating the blog. This one is about some movies we've seen over the last few weeks.

Boyz - Its the kind of movie where you leave your brain behind outside the theatre and just enjoy the movie and timepass the ~ 3 hours. There're a few risque dialogues/references, but if the censors thought it fit to go past [for an idea how the censors work, see Thiruda Thiruda below], then obviously it isnt worth worrying about! The movie is about a group of 5 friends, just out of school and possibly in 1st/2nd year of college. The movie shows them do basically nothing but dream and sing of girls, about wanting girlfriends etc. I'm not going to write a review here. Essentially the movie seems inspired by "That Thing You Do!" and the girl-band Viva which broke up in less time than it took for Channel [V] to find them. The movie even features the hero running nude on Mount Road to prove his love. (Ed: Indian cinema has truly come a long way. I remember the times in the late 80s when you were banned from singing 'Ek do teen' and 'Jumma chumma de de' on the roads on the grounds that they encouraged eve-teasing. As an aside, I wonder why none of the hit movies nowadays rely on those fabulous gimmickry of the 80s/90s like the songs with jhankaar beats in the 2nd version of audio tapes as well as including a new song after the movie became a hit [Aaj na chodoonga tujhe from Dil]). Anyway, back to Boyz. Hero and heroine wed when they're still in college [at most 1st or 2nd year!] and walk out on their families. All da boyz get thrown out of their houses, they decide to use their musical talents for food, clothing & shelter and come up with a religious songs album which sells like hot bajjis. Then they get arrested [not past night, silly! Thats only for ministers!] under POTA for writing seditious lyrics in their next album which is for what turns out to be a naxalite group. Then they're released but find they're thrown out of college. They try to impress the Sony Music head honcho with an impromptu recital at a cricket match. They get signed up but in the celebration thanni party, hero and heroine break up. Sony guy says "No female voice, give me advance money back". Guhrl's parents strike a deal. Daughter will sing if she is divorced. Hero agrees for the sake of his friends [one of them had died in a bus accident while trying to locate a call-girl who would attest to hero's virginity] and they end up winning dozens of MTv awards and all in the well that ends in the well. The plus points of the movie are the great songs, picturisation. The minus points are the total lack of a plot and logic.

Thiruda Thiridi - Its the kind of movie you should never ever bother to see. Total lack of a plot, storyline. Hopeless music [except the major hit "Manmatha raasa" number], non-existent acting, comedy etc. The only reasons you may want to see this movie are if you're totally jobless or if there're no other movies in town or if you're following Dhanush's career. This is a totally different role from the one in Kaadhal Konden. This is a proper masala hero. I wonder how the "Vandarkuzhali" number got past the censors when the female voice says 'Idhukku munaadi irundha idam Sonagachi da'

Kaakka Kaakka - The best movie we've seen in the last few months. We couldn't catch this on the big screen, so relied on a pirated VCD version. So we had to make do with a substandard print, poor audio quality, read errors on the CD and the pirate playing censor by snipping off a song 'Thoodhu varuma' and a few scenes before burning the CD. There've not been too many good cop movies in Tamil as far as I can remember. Kurudhipunal was certainly a cut above the rest. I tend to not like 'loud' cop movies, I prefer the understated ones. While movies like 'Walter Vetrivel' and 'Moondru Mugam' were no doubt enjoyable, they bordered on being deafeningly 'loud' [you know what I mean!]. Kaakka Kaakka is about the story of the crime branch of Tamil Nadu police, where there're four friends who've basically been together throughout their cop careers. They're portrayed as trigger-happy "encounter" specialists and mainly deal with the drug mafia. Hero Surya (Anbuselvan) meets heroine Jyothika (Maya) and they slowly fall in love. Anbuselvan is a restrained kind of chap while Maya is vibrant and outgoing. The way they're shown to fall in love is very nice and dignified (they dont run around trees ... well actually they do, but its nothing compared to what you see in other movies). Then the main drug mafiosi in Madras is eliminated in an encounter by the foursome and his brother swears revenge. There're shades of Kurudhipunal in the way the vulnerability of cops to pressure when the family is concerned is shown in the case of Anbuselvan's friend who replaces a loaded revolver with a blank one before Anbuselvan leaves for his wedding, in order to ensure that his captive wife isnt harmed by the villains. Most of the story is narrated as a flashback, as the close-to-death Anbuselvan lies on the banks of the lake a day after his marriage, after the villain & his men attack him and kidnap Maya. The end is pretty predictable, even Maya's death in captivity. But overall it is quite a good picture, worth a dekko or two. The songs are good, the picturisation is also good. Harris Jayaraj could however have been a little more original instead of shamelessly copying his own composition 'Dilko tumse pyaar hai' from the Hindi remake of "Minnale", Rehnaa Hai Tere Dil Mein as "Ondra renda aasaigal". Incidentally, all the movies (Minnale, RHTDM & KK) having the same director-music director combo. Good connect question eh?

Labels: movies, review

Posted @ 5:57 PM

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