Sachin- My Man

Sachin as never been my great cricketer of all times.All these years,I some how felt he is the most selffish cricketer on this earth. I admired his style and technic. But whenever a debate popped up , "Is Sachin the Greatest Cricketer"... I was against it, and supported the Lara and the Ponting as the best. But I argued with just one point ..is he a match winner ?? even though he was.. but every time we(India) had to chase a big target , he would fail and that made me so upset...was just against Sachin.

When Manjrekar criticized sachin for his selfishness... I supported Manjerakar with his comments.It possibly hurts you a lot , when you have big expectations on a player and then they fail.He has been around for 17 long years and there have been five world cups during his time and we have not won any of them.

Is it right to expect to win a world cup .. just because we have the greatest player ?? No..Cricket is a team game and you expect a team to excel when everybody performs and not just one.In all this world cups , he has been one of the leading scorers for India.

But , what really impressed me , was his (most likely) last series in Australia and winning the VB series and he being the reason for winning. The kind of innings he produced in the finals is just amazing. It was not a typical master blaster innings .. but really mature innings from a great cricketer.I would rate this innings better than the one in Sharjah in 1998 against the same opponents, just because it had all the class.

During this australian series , people were keen to know the performance of Yuvi,Dhoni and Sehwag.But , all these players are good but definetly cannot match Sachin in technic. There consistency will no were be closer to sachin. Take Yuvi career as an example.. he has been for around 6 years , he has been a great match winner .. but has had frequent failures too.. and in Test cricket . he would take years to get established.

It makes u feel for him... being the best ..but still being doubted by few(like me) for his creditability.I am really happy that he proved me wrong with his majestic innings in the first finals.That too chasing against Aussies and being unbeaten...really marvelous.....

Not just is his cricket so great .. but he is the most humble and calm person in the Indian cricket team.It is great to have a player like him in our country and hope he produces few more innings like the final(typical Indian attitude-- never satisfied) before he retires !!!!

Indians I met in NZ

The first week was just browsing at home and talking to people at home .
so did not get to meet or go out and see the new place.

In office , interestingly I met a Indian... Vijay , who happens to be my project mate and what else he was also from banaglore.So he was very helpful to me in finding my accomodation and the things that I must know in a foreign country.
Another surprise , the client place which is at Ministry of Social development, which is a government organisation and I could find lot of Indian faces in my floor where I work.Something that I had not expected when I left home.Still have not met all of them , but have known few like Dhiraj , Darill , Satya , Neela who happen to be working in my project.
Others in my project are mostly Kiwis , who are helpful and are more serious about their work.Something that I have not seen in India.People tend to do more of their personal work than for what they are paid for..
It is not that all of them are like that .. but many are.

Work wise , it was difficult to understand their process , the project back ground , as everybody was busy with their work. After a month , looks like I have the hang of most of them.The process is very methodical , heavily documented and follow the standard software cycle.
Nobody interferes with others work, and hence it is a calm environment with 8 hours of work.

The second week was interesting , met few
Indians(Jaya,Shiva,Saravanan,Shankar,Mahendra,tarun) from EDS company in my apartment who had just arrived . All of them were from chennai or Bangalore and hence it was easy for me to communicate in tamil or kannada.Some thing that I am known for .. behave like a Kannadiga in a Kannada group and as a tamilian in a tamil group.

The second weekend was fun , met my room mate vijay..guy form chennai ...who was moving to wellington , whom I had not seen before but had contacted thrugh email... thankfully .. he is a nice and calm guy and hence it was no problem in getting along with him.
The weekend ended with all of us visiting a Murugan temple in wellington, the pooja took almost an hour and it was nice to pray for some time in a foreign soil..

Suddenly it was feeling at home , talking in Tamil , Kannada , Hindi.....never felt I was in wellington.Thanks to the friends I have made here .. and all have been good to me ....

First day in NZ

Its almost Fifty days since I left my home and have been working in a new environment with lot of new people. It has been a tough and a good learning experience.

Day 1 will be remembered for just one reason - I arrived at wellington on jan6th ...sunday evening around 730 pm. I never knew a city would sleep that early , the roads were empty and bright as it was summer in NZ.

I arrive at the appartment and realise that the glass door(entrance) is locked and there is no one at the reception, so had no clue how to get in to touch with people as I had no mobile nor any local SIM to call people. With 30 kgs in hand .. was just thinking have I made the big mistake in life ???..thank god, the taxi driver realised I was in trouble and offered to help me call the manager of the hotel and then could get in touch with the Manager and I got my room key from the security lock in front of the door.

It was bit of a drama on day one , but it ended well as I met an Indian Shivi leaving in the same apartment who took me to the nearby shop to buy some thing for the dinner.

The next day was at the HP office , where I met my manager and then got some HR papers to fill and then came back home.
The first week was not that great , firstly my manager did not agree for my relocation expenses and then I had to run around to get my bank account and IRD number sorted out. All this had to be done , with no help .. which was a pain .. but understood everything cannot be done by help .. few things you need to sort out yourself.A real good learning experience!!

Which One is better ??

It has been good time pass watching the following programs "Indian Idol"in Sony"Sa Re Ga Ma" in Zee and "Voice of India" in Star over the last few months.

All these shows are based on "finding the Singer/Performer". Sony started this concept with the First Indian Idol few years back. The show was a big hit and the singers were stars in few months.

But today, with 3 shows in 3 different channels doing the same thing with different judges, makes it difficult to judge which singer is best.

Indian Idol is all about performing than singing . And the singers are really of not great quality. Nobody sings a complete song. But in terms of performance Indian Idol stands first. Few performers who definitely be seen in a TV serial soon rather than their name appearing behind a audio cassette/VCD. The Judges are not that impressive to me. Anu Malik is my favourite, but most people hate him as he criticizes too much. I think he is talented guy(Need talent to copy music too) . This version of Indian Idol has missed his shahayari. Alisha, just adds beauty to the show. Udit is just there as a singer, some how cannot see him in the class of Sonu Nigam. Javed Akthar, senior in the industry is there for his experience with music.

Voice Of India, they really don't know what they are doing!!!! They started of well , with good singing. Lost their track on the way with competition from Indian Idol on performance. Some singers are good. They have a mix of people who sing really well and few who really cant sing.
Judges behave like jokers in this show. Abhijeet ,Alka ,Jatin,Lalit,Aadesh , their views are dont match at all.Abhijeet tries to add some humour to the show. Over all , the show is really poor.

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa , This show has real good talent. In terms of singing , this show is way ahead than the other two. In terms of performance it is the last. Judges Himesh, Ismail Darbard, Vishal-Shekar,Bappi Lahiri are good and they seem to teach their students(the singers of the show) really well. The performance(in terms of singing) of each participant has increased drastically. One bad thing about this show , they are creating a love triangle between Aneek,Sumedha, Amanat, Which i think is not required. The judgement has always been like "Mind Blowing" "Superb" "True Play Back Singer" and so on. It would be nice to give a true feed back rather than just praising each participant every time.

Anchoring of all these shows , is very important and I think Hussian and Mini Mathur of Indian Idol do a real good job. Shaan in Star and Aditya Narayan(Udit Narayan son) in Zee do a good job but not marvelous.

In one sentence to summarizes these shows
Sony is good at presenting, Zee is true talent and Star is not twinkling.

what is important !!!

I follow all the news channel closely and have realised how all the channels give importance to news that are really not important. The one that I am particluarly talking about is the arrest of Sanjay Dutt in the Bombay(now mumbai) blast case.

Frequent news of the whereabouts of Sanjay really puts me off , what has he done to the country , other than frequently being in the news for all the wrong reasons . I agree that in the last few years he has done good movies and has acted well. Just because he entertained us does not mean that he is a nice guy. This is the problem with us, we tend to forgive people of their mistakes . When people debated on "was judgement right to sanjay dutt", nobody considered the loss of life in the mumbai blast. All were just talking about how good Sanju has been with the police and court. People can make mistakes but not at the cost of life. I still feel sanju deserves the punishment. And let us not make this as a headlines in our daily news. There are lot more things that can be said as a Head line.

Was Zaheer tired??

Indian cricket team after a long poor performance ,specially in World cup, have managed to win a series against england. It was a 1-0 series win. It could have been a convincing 2-0 win if our wall , I mean Dravid would have enforced the follow-on.

But Dravid's reasoning of him finding his bowlers tired at the end of first innings was reasonable. How many captain in today's cricket would have enforced follow -on ? I dont think any body including our punter . I totally agree that he should have not enforced follow -on, but what put me off is his batting , 11 runs of 96 balls. What was he doing ??? trying to draw the match( In fact that was the result).

His reason of him finding his bowlers tired have started another controversy , The media had interviewed the man of the series Zaheer Khan , and he said "he was fit and not tired at the end of second innings". How to make a news of this story, well we will have to ask our media on how to do it? . They were reporting this news as though there were misunderstandings in the team . Like the captain had not consulted his bowlers before enforcing the follow-on.I am sure Dravid being a senior would have taken a decision consulting the whole team.Zaheer is not the only bowler for team India. I agree he was the main force , but only his fitness could not have been considered before choosing to bat.Why does the media , have to spread rumours , is it just to be rated as the "Number One channel".

Lot of controversies in cricket over th last year has been because of media including the famous chappel - ganguly . Somes times media in the name of information , looks in to the minute details of interviews to spring controversies and surprises. It is sad , specially when the team is doing well to have such controversies. All cricketers have to be thought how to talk diplomatically to the media. Hope the cricketers learn from their mistakes every time they talk to media. I am sure zaheer would be tired answering to the question "Were you tired".

A R Rehman

We all know who A R R is ?? a well known music director.For me he is a better singer. All his songs , I mean the one he sings are really good .
I did not hear to Vande Mataram..till he sang it in his album. To me what I like most about him , is the ability to sing patriotic songs. It is diffcult to sing such songs, Unless you have a feel for the country.All his songs are so good that you tend to hear it many times. Some of my favourites are "Vande Mataram" "Lukka Chuppi" "Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera". Yeh Jo Des Hai from Swades is my favourite. He has the ability to sing in the high pitch, which is required in patriotic songs. In all his movies that he has given music , the patriotic songs are my favourite. The first time that I heard a patriotic song from his music is from the film Roja "Tamila Tamila" .
His music goes on well with movies that have patriotic themes, be it Bombay , Rang De Basanti, Roja, Swades or Lagaan. One more feature of ARR music is, He has introduced lot of new talented singers.Hariharan,Vasundhara, Naresh Iyer,Chinmayi,Sadhana Sargam,Mahalakshmi Iyer, Shankar Mahadevan,Srinivas.The list is really big. People criticize him ,as he takes too long to compose the songs.But how does that matter when the song is a hit.

Hats of to ARR for all the music he has given us :-)