The Zoozoos are Here

The Zoozoos are here, there and everywhere. The white creepy and cute figures with egg shaped heads, huge tummy and ultra-thin arms and legs are everywhere. They are on television and the internet. They are promoting Vodafone products during the ad breaks in IPL and now they have started giving interviews in innings breaks as well. Today, they arrived on the office computer screen. Apart from the ads themselves, I have seen them as facebook application, zoozoo smileys, zoozoo quizzes and what not. (By the Way, I am a cool Zoozoo, as are apparently all my friends). They can be downloaded as wallpapers, ads and even the making of ads themselves are available everywhere on the net, they can also be used as emoticons. And it seems there is no stopping them as Vodafone are planning to release 30 such ads. I guess, soon they will start appearing in dreams also jumping around and talking gibberish in their funny tones. Maybe by this time they will have a team of their own in all the major sporting leagues. Just imagine a team of zoozoos playing cricket or football :P.

But it has to be said it has been a brilliant and highly successful ad campaign.

The Curious Case of IPL2

Its been a week since the second edition of the Indian Premier League began across the Indian Ocean in South Africa. The first edition was a thriller. And there were doubts whether the second edition would retain the same attention. So far, this edition has proven to be a curious case to say the least.

The tournament was moved to South Africa because of general elections taking place in India. But South Africa also had its elections. And more interestingly there were two games held on election day (both proved to be thrillers).

T20 was supposedly a young man's game. But going by this year's results so far, it seems to be a battle of supremacy amongst the golden oldies. Matthew Hayden and Rahul Dravid are leading the race for the orange cap while Anil Kumble is the joint highest wicket taker so far. And there have been good performances from most of the other senior players too. Seems that the South African conditions are truly separating the men from the boys.

Unlike last year there has been hardly any memorable performances from the younger lot. Of couse with the honorable exception of Kamran Khan.

Strategic Breaks: Disrupt the momentum of the game. But are raking in the money for the broadcasters while I utilise it to surf random channels :)

Apart from the games themselves there is a lot happening on and off the field also.

The Cheerleaders: They are back and entertaining the public. After the hue and cry raised against them last year, there have been no comments this time around. So watching them on TV seems to be OK with our moral police.

The Dog: Bruno halted play for 10 minutes in the opening match while nobody knew how to shoo it off the pitch.

The Blog: The Fake IPL Player. Whoever you are Sir, you rock. If what you write is true, then well no comments :P. Anyway the frequency of posts has reduced. But the content is intersting to say the least. Rumours have been floating around the identity of the blogger. There have been reports of him having been caught but the posts still continue to roll in. (And he has developed a huge fan following with over 2200 followers and thousands of comments in his week old blog)

The Hovering Camera: Is causing more trouble than its worth. Provides a top view of the pitch which is useless. All you get to see is the batsman's helmet. And its causing as much trouble as the sight screen for the batsmen as it zooms in.

The Commentory: Well am sick of this DLF maximum and Citi - Moment of Success business. But the roaming commentators are a good idea. Although Mandira Bedi should be thrown out.

And for my view of things

The Hello Tune: On the opening day the entire office had its hello tune changed to the Mumbai Indians theme song. Call anyone up and you get AALA RE blasting from the other side.

The Ad: I like the Vodafone ads witht the cute little cartoon figures. Hate the one with the Hello Hellos shouting on and on.

The Fantasy League: Rain abandoned the one game in which 5 of my fantasy XI were playing :(. Jesse Ryder scored runs after I dropped him from my team while Dravid went the other way :(. Of course I did make a brilliant decision to bring on AB de Villiers. Current rank is in 13000s. Hoping to improve as the tournament progresses.

So this is as far as the first week of the tournament was concerned. Hoping the case gets more curiouser as the IPL progresses.

P.S. Happy 36th birthday to the LEGEND

Fairytales do still take place

The times are bad. Switch on the television to any news channel or just pick up a newspaper. All one can find is bad news coming from everywhere, whether its the global economic crisis or the terrorist strikes happening across the world. The atmosphere is filled with gloom. And it is at times like these that the sports world can provide events which lift up the spirits. The sports arena supplies stories like no other. Stories that touch the heart. Case in point: Afghanistan achieving ODI status in cricket.

Not long ago, the country was ruled by Taliban and had been for all practical purposes cut off from the rest of the world. Then 9/11 happened. And Afghanistan came back into global conciousness after the Taliban was overthrown. Sports play a major role in this (Just look at post-apartheid South Africa after years of international isolation).

About a year and half back a ragtag bunch of Afghans started playing in the World Cricket Leagues. The team slowly worked its way to the World Cup Qualifiers going from Division 5 to Division 2 after winning every single stage. At stake in the tournament was a place in the 2011 cricket world cup and ODI status for the next 4 years. Though they failed to qualify for the World Cup, they did get ODI status. On the way they beat the powerful Associate teams like Ireland, Scotland & Bermuda. The story of Hamid Hassan and his team from the war-torn country provided the romance of the cup. In fact they were the main attraction of the tournament. The whole world loves the underdog and the underdog who performs is even more loved than anything else.

The journey of the Afghanistan team over the last 15 months does prove one thing:

Fairytales do come true

Awesomely Pathetic Lives: PHEW

And after a slightly serious post, I am back with another episode of the Awesomely Pathetic Post. So here goes another footnote in the pathetic lives of our awesome trio i.e. Niku, Deyus & Funkaz.

The Company-which-must-not-be-named decided to move along with the times. Funkaz who has the force with him provided the spark to Niku & Deyus. So now for their regular communication, besides the text messaging they now had Instant messaging option also. The Instant Messaging became a popular tool to carry on their conversations while working. Here they called up each other for lunch meetings, to quickly convey the latest happenings around their awesomely pathetic world or even make an attempt to conduct a survey. The other two were so impressed with the tool that they wanted to spread the spark like a wildfire across the Company-which-must-not-be-named. But Niku's pathetic attemepts at this led Funkaz to add the first acronym in their awesomely pathetic lives

PHEW - "Pathetic Hain Every Where"

Words

Its only words....

and so goes the lyrics of one of the most beautiful songs.

But words are not just words. Words convey thoughts, feelings, emotions. Words also provide finality to any feeling. They are like the proverbial last nail to the coffins of those feelings. Words sting more than a slap on the face.

And Words HURT... like nothing else can.

Awesomely Pathetic Lives: The Texting

Some readers have been wondering whatever happened to our awesomely pathetic trio of heroes. Well, they (i.e. Niku, Funkaz & Deyus) are still carrying on with their pathetic lives in their respective awesome ways (or as it can also be said carrying out their awesome lives in their respective pathetic ways). But lack of time and laziness had prevented their awesome adventures from being told to the world.

Over the last few months they discovered the world of text messaging. Their work life was getting busier and busier. So the daily communication was established through the official phone connection (bills paid by the-company-which-must-not-be-named). It all started when Niku was dragged deep inside the earth's crust. During his entrapment, he underwent some severe EA (emotional attyachar, for the uninitiated). It was then that he discovered the power of the SMS. His flatmates Funkaz and Deyus responded in the times of trouble and the EA was made more bearable with the constant exchange of messages. However, after a while, the period of EA got over, but the texts went back and forth. It covered a whole gamut of topics, from their own awesomely pathetic lives to affairs of the world and the people around them. Going into the entire list would be pretty long (and it would go on and on) but here is a little sample of the awesomely pathetic SMSs which they exchanged.

• Badhai Ho... Salary aa gayi :) {a regular month end feature}
• Coming for dinner? {regular one}
• You guys go ahead... situation same as yesterday {another regular one}
• Lunch? {another regular one}
• Bangladesh are fighting
• Mosquito went to gym
• I broke the six digit barrier
• Tried and failed again {and another regular one}
• The airhostess is looking like Natalie Portman {Reply: Ask her out for dinner}

And so on and so forth. Now its better for everybody's sake that I do not reveal which message was sent by whom to whom :P

Till next time for more awesomely pathetic adventures

The Elections are Here

Its that time again. Time for the biggest festival in India. The General elections. We might have the Olympics and the World Cups in different sports but nothing, absolutely nothing gets bigger or better than this. This time we will be having a 5 phase voting spread over a month. The official notification has been released and the fun has begun. But the political games had started long time time back. The big 2, Congress and BJP are in deep negotiations with the allies. Both camps making new alliances and losing out on old ones (Losing mostly). And we have the bunch of power hungry opportunists who call themselves the Third Front (Left parties, BSP, Telugu Desam etc), who have no common ideology except a shared hunger for power. And this is just the beginning. Post results (with a hung Parliament, the most likely result) will be the time when the power brokers come into action. New back room king makers will emerge. Lets just wait and watch and enjoy the political power games.

Some snippets of the games going on

• Advani calls Manmohan Singh a puppet and has his track record as home minister laid out in open by the PM (which was a bit surprising)
• BJP bombards the internet with links to Advani's blog (Sorry, but no links here)
• Varun Gandhi gets into trouble from EC
• Congress & BJP are ditched by their allies
• Third front starts dreaming again (Personal opinion - Dont care if its UPA or NDA in power, but Congress/BJP should be the one forming the government, not this bunch of oppotunistic jokers)
• IPL becomes non-resident (South Africa is the confirmed venue) and political mudslinging starts on that too (hardly surprising, given that most BCCI units are headed by politicians)

So the fun has begun (though the nation's future is at stake). Lets just sit back and enjoy while it lasts. But more importantly go out and vote on the electon day. (I can't because I will not be in my home constituency at the time of voting)

The Non Resident Indian Premier League

Been a while since my last post here. Well work life has become a bit more busy. Although if I really wanted to I could have still written down a few posts in the interim. And its been a longer time since I wrote about my favourite topic, Cricket. So here goes.

Our biggest festival, the General elections are here. Now, unlike other parts of the world where national elections take place on one day with the results available by the next day, ours is a spread out process. this time the elections are in 5 phases spread over a period of over a month. Nothing wrong with that, specially with the security issues and the logistics involved in conducting this mammoth exercise. But unfortunately for cricket buffs like me, the general elections coincided pretty much with the second season of the IPL. This is how the drama unfolded.

• IPL announces the fixtures for the second season.
• The Election Commission announce the dates for the general elections.
• Sri Lankan team bus is attacked in Pakistan by terrorists injuring many players (which is one of the most disgusting things to have happened).
• The Home minister P.Chidamabaram says providing security to IPL would be difficult during the elections.
• Many of the state governments state thier inability to provide security.
• IPL modifies schedule which is again rejected by some states
• The schedule is modified again and again but always met with unwillingness from some state governments (Seemed like becoming a OR problem with each state providing their time constraints)
• End result. BCCI announces that the IPL will be held outside India.

So the Indian Premier League becomes the Non Resident Indian Premeir League with South Africa & England becoming the front runners to host it. But it does seem ironical that our dometic tournament is being hosted outside India. With the current security situation following the Mumbai attacks on 26/11 and Lahore attacks on the Sri lankan team, there can be no guarantees for anybody's safety. And with the elections going on (which is much more imprtant than cricket) providing extra security would not have been possible.

But as usual we have the political gamesmanship on. Some allege that the Congress governments were the ones refusing to procide security. Others allege that Congress was trying to arm twist NCP's Sharad Pawar (who happens to be ex-BCCI president) for a better alliance deal. Then the political mud slinging has also begun. But it all has become a farce.

Now if the touranment is held in South Africa, who would the people in the stadium (assuming some go to watch) support. TV viewership in India would likely remain same. But will the matches have the seem feel as last year. After all how many people would come to pay and watch the Non Resident Indian Premier League.

Main Aur Meri Tanhai

Since I joined my new job, quite a few times I have been asked this question about what I do with my free time. Now during the MBA life it as assumed that post-MBA life would only get worse. The work life would be pretty hectic and finding time for myself would be a rarity. But then they said the same about IIM life too. Its been more than eight months in the job and yes, I do get a lot of free time for myself post office hours, in spite of a six day week. So now comes the question of what I do with "my time".

Well, here is a random list of activities that I came up with

• Surfing the net, chatting, social networking (orkutting, dont know the corresponding term for facebook), news, etc
• Cricinfo for following all sorts of cricket (Tests, ODIs, T20s, Indian domestic). Also has great anlayses and columns. Personal favorite - Andy Zaltzman' s Confectionary Stall
• Watch foreign TV series, some ongoing some old episodes
• Watch movies
• Blog, when I am getting really bored, like now. Also like reading the blogs
• Youtube videos
• And lots of downloads, movies, music , e-books

All the above activities involve the laptop. Now for the other activities

• Cleaning up the room, (occasionally)
• Washing & ironing (hate doing the second part)
• Reading Books
• Occasional cooking (limited resources hamper this)
• Malling (a term coined for roaming about aimlessly in the mall of Navi Mumbai)
• Thinking (now this covers a whole range of issues, the big ones (where to go for dinner, how to reduce the tummy etc) and the small ones (Indo-Pak relations, IPL team configurations etc))
• And, of course, wasting time in sheer laziness

And for social life

• Flatmates
• Some old college friends

So basically this is what I am upto during my own time.

Or else there is always this immortal line for the loners

मैं और मेरी तन्हाई, अक्सर ये बातें करते हें....

We Indians...

Exhibit 1
Slumdog Millionaire wins a few Golden Globe awards. This includes A.R.Rehman for the soundtrack of the film (which is great, no doubt about it). Slumdog Millionaire is a film made by a British director although it is based in India. A good story and a well-made film. But it still is essentially is a British film. But just look at the speed at which it has been adopted by us Indians, as if this was our own film. Some people have gone overboard in praising it while there are others who have been outraged by the depiction of India as country of slums and poverty (well, thats not entirely untrue). But both sides do have one thing in common. They are taking pride in India. The first set of people are proud that India has been noticed on the world stage. Indian actors and music is being appreciated by the world. While the other set is outraged that only negatives are being depicted.

Exhibit 2
Matthew Hayden announces retirement. ICC ratings show that he is amongst the ten greatest batsmen of all time. But Indians are outraged. Our legend (sorry, GOD) Sachin is not even in the Top-25. Media starts carpet-bombing (cant think of any other word to describe how our media "breaks" news) the news. Renowned experts come in and start barking for all their worth that this is a travesty of the mightiest proportions. A rating system without Sachin as the top batsmen is not worth even looking at. But then media does tend to misguide. Firstly the current ratings system has been in place for quite some time now. And the ratings depicted are the peak that any player might have achieved at any point in his career. The peak can be simply due to an outstanding run over a small period of time but not necessarily over the entire career. But nobody bothered going into such detail. Only one point was clear. Our GOD has been insulted. And our collective pride had been deeply hurt.

The above examples may seem unconnected. But they have a lot in common. Both show the sense of pride that is embedded in our collective conscience with regards to our country. The collective pride we take in even trivial achievements (e.g. Somdev Devvarman's reaching Chennai Open finals) shows that whatever our faults we still feel Indian. And any slight to our heroes is like a personal insult to us. Whatever our other faults (and there are many), WE INDIANS do have a sense of collective pride.

P.S. After reading Robin's comment to this post, got down to some thinking. Well, I am not too sure about the common people but our media (specially the news channels) does suffer from collective hysteria and sensationalization.