dramatic victories and dream final :)

Having watched India play in the last 3 matches, it’s been really a brilliant show by them. The inaugural T20 world cup as a whole has been really exciting with nail biting finish in almost all matches.

Things could not have been better for the tournament with India and Pakistan setting up a clash for the final. With the Indian team at its best in recent years and going by the world cup track record against Pak, India is sure gonna win this one.

It’s been great atmosphere in the TV room in the hostel here. Nearly 150 people watch the match in a room that can accommodate may be 50. The chants and the shouts when India play makes one feels as though you are watching the match in the stadium. With the semester exams having started today I didn’t expect much crowd in the room for the match against the Aussies, but to my surprise the hall had more number of turn out today. So has been the excitement and fun in the room that I guess no one wanted to miss it. People don’t mind sacrificing few hours of sleep to watch the match. The picture below can be easily mistaken for some riot, but that’s a sample of what our TV room looks like, with everyone trying to find some place to catch a piece of the action.

With the new found attitude in the team, “don’t take the S*** give it back to them” one hopes it’s good for the game of cricket in India. The way Yuvi responded after the exchange of words with Flintoff was simply great. Even today Indians were not afraid to exchange words with the Aussies, a classic example of the doctor being treated with his own medicine. Indians have shown great ATTITUDE and fighting spirit in this tournament and the match today against the mighty Aus was simply brilliant.

Hope Pak doesn’t break the jinx against India in the world cup and the silverware travels to India. c

RJ

Are our EPICS mere stories or history?

Over the last one week the fate of Lord Rama has been hanging in the balance. People were arguing in the court that Rama is just another character in a story and Ramayana is one of the greatest stories ever told in the history of man kind. It’s been nearly a decade now since Rama took center stage in politics. Now he is back with a bang, this time people questioning his very own existence in the earth.

There was too much of confusion in the court room as well as in the streets whether the story of Ramayana is true. Government had initially stated that Ramayana was just another story presented in a nice manner so as to conquer the hearts of billions of people in the years to come. Thanks to some protest to this statement by groups like VHP, Government within couple of days started playing the blame game and the great Sonia was quoted on paper saying that Rama existed. What an irony, it took someone who doesn’t trace her roots to India to clarify the existence of Rama.

“Ram is a myth - it was an Aryan God imposed upon the Dravidians. They (UPA Government) have said Ram was an imaginary person and now they've backtracked on that claim” this was how Tamil Nadu C.M Mr.M.Karunanidhi had to react to the statement given by the government. Its common knowledge that Mr.M.Karunanidhi was one of the pillars of the Dravidian movement in the state, what’s also known is that he doesn’t ever miss a chance to hurt the sentiments of millions of Hindus time and again. One must say that he is good at that and probably there is no one to match him in that. But it’s the true mind of a politician that shines in this statement. Trying to capitalize on every moment to establish him with the masses. This statement would have gone pretty well with most of the population in Tamil Nadu and that would have guaranteed him plenty of votes in the elections to come. The saddest part of the whole thing is, he is one of the most respected politicians of the state and in recent times he has also enjoyed tremendous power at the center.

Mr.M.Karunanidhi has been hell- bent on getting this project underway for quite sometime now and it was even one of his election pledge. Looking at it one would guess that there is MORE at STAKE than a mere election promise that needs to be kept.

Anyways let’s pray that Ramayana doesn’t turn out to be greatest story ever told and that the heritage is maintained and preserved.

RJ.

also enjoy reading:

http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/07/01/a-blunder-called-sethusamudram/

http://www.newindpress.com/column/News.asp?Topic=-97&Title=S%2EGurumurthy&ID=IE620070914124012&nDate=&Sub=&Cat=&

Twenty20 here to stay?

Having watched the twenty 20 format for the first time on the India Pakistan match I should say it was real fun and excitement. It provided all the uncertainties that cricket holds with the match swinging in favor of both the teams and that too in half as much time as we would watch an ODI.

There were people alongside me telling this was more exciting than an ODI and that this might be the next thing in cricket with ODIs eventually fading out. But I guess that wouldn’t be the case as there will be too much of a difference between this format and the test matches if ODIs are scrapped. This would only harm the game.

I think this is an effort to bring all those who have stopped watching cricket due to the time factor back to the ground or in front of the TV. Since it’s just over 3 hours this is more like football with all the excitement right through the match. But the hardest of the games followers will not like this format as this is pure power hitting and less of the traditional technique as Boycott may put it. The match being decided by shoot outs, that’s really funny as it sounds more like a football match.

But the broadcasters will really love this as its about lesser time..more excitement..more promos and MORE MONEY.

RJ

Great Lunch, Good Dinner and a bad dessert

Like most of the Indians following cricket I was of the hope that the Team India would pull of another victory to return home with the trophy today. In that hope I had thought of naming a great English summer, but it didn’t turn out that way, never the less it was a good one.

After the disastrous world cup campaign no one would have placed their bet on India to win the test series. Even in the one day after being down 3-1 no one would have thought the series would run down to the last match. But anyways this series was a good team effort and atleast India has the silverware from the tests.

Two things that stand out from the both the series are one the victory whenever it came by was due to the team effort and the other is the contribution of the youngsters & new comers in the team. Karthick, Zaheer and R.P.Singh did very well in the tests and Piyush, Gambhir, Robin (match saving knock) were good in one dayers. Probably India can still have a decent enough team once the big guns decide to hang their boots.

The big four of India also had a great outing in the series. Kumble was among wickets, Dravid, Ganguly and Sachin all contributed to the cause. But one should say Sachin was rather unlucky not to get even a single ton in probably what will be his last outing in the English soil. Being out in the 90s five times in the series is rather unlucky. Couple of times (once while on 99) he got a bad decision and that denied him the much deserved ton. Ganguly was also unlucky to get couple of rough decisions in the tests when he was going great. It’s probably both the best and the worst time for the LITTLE MATSER of late, good for the amount of scoring that he has done in the series after much of debate whether its time for him to retire and bad for not been able to convert his scores to a century. Anyways both Dada and Sachin played beautifully in both versions and their partnerships were real beauty to watch. It was delight to watch Sachin play at his best, his innings in the one dayers reminded everyone of the terror he used to be in the late nineties. Probably “old warriors never die”.

This would have been a perfect English summer if India had pulled it of today, but the way they surrendered to England today spoiled the mood a bit. After having a great lunch (tests) good dinner (previous 6 ODI) the party was spoiled by a rather bad dessert. Anyways let’s cheer India and hope they do better against Australia and Pakistan in months to come.

RJ

Has Google stopped inventing

Few days back I set up my browser for iGoogle. I had been thinking of doing this for a long time but kept away from this for a simple reason that I will write about later. For people who don’t know what iGoogle is, it’s a customizable web page that helps you to add a whole range of updates like weather, news, stock quotes, jokes etc..

I have used a similar kind of utility provided by Yahoo long time back. Though I didn’t use the yahoo service for that long when I started using iGoogle it reminded me of the yahoo page. It seems like iGoogle was programmed with the Yahoo page in mind.

As I was telling this to my friend he said Google nowadays launches a lot of services that are lifted from other sites. Being a loyal Google user for a longtime now I denied that and did a small search on this (using Google). To my surprise the search threw up a lot articles that supported his argument.

I know many would be surprised as I was reading this, but go ahead and search on this and you will know what I said is right.

Of late Yahoo is coming up with some great services that are better than Google. For example take the case of Yahoo Alpha – the customizable search engine page. This yahoo offering is far better than the google custom search. Unlike google’s custom search which is closely linked to its web search this gives you a better result. Know what this Yahoo offering was launched much before the Google custom search.

Coming back to iGoogle, Google is always known for its faster homepage. The very reason it clicked when it was for its simplicity. It was refreshing to see a search page with almost nothing in its homepage, when Yahoo which was the number one then had close to 200 links filled in its home page. Now with the iGoogle in your browser it slows down the page and it takes ages for it to open. So I don’t think it makes a good business sense for Google to come up with iGoogle.

What ever said and done I don’t think many will move away from Google in near future, but with Yahoo coming up with many new services I think it will over take it in sometime to come.

RJ