List of Lists

it's been a while since my last post and i really don't know if it's the lack of inspiration or just the fact that i've become even more lazy that i really haven't bothered blogging more often. i'm sure my one reader missed me. but hey i'm back (for now)

so i was looking online for some topics this time around not using some random topic generator coz the last time around that worked REALLY well. so i found that the most popular topic was lists. people like lists, top 20's, thing to do etc. so i think i'm duty bound to post a list (i have done this unwittingly earlier). the question than comes as to what list to really put down. i think everybody needs a list of things that they want to do in their lifetime, not really a bucket list but still a list of goals. so here's mine:

1. Watch a formula 1 race at Monza
2. Start a restaurant that serves good simple food and plays as equally importantly good music (my definition of good music)
3. See as much of the world as possible but top 3 would be
1. Rome
2. Paris
3. Sydney
4. Own a luxury automobile 
5. See Bob Dylan perform Live (better get on this first)

the list seems quite short, but i think these are things that seem most important to me at this moment in time. but i guess these things will change in order or priority, but i'm sure that i wouldn't want to change any of this.

i think ever person should really have a top 5, david letterman does a top 10 every night, i don't think it's too difficult for everyone of us to do a top 5. 

Dear Sachin Tendulkar

I'll probably get killed for this...but here goes.

this is an open letter to statistically the best batsman in the modern game.

HI Sachin

i guess i can call you that, the whole world seems to. after the world cup everybody thought finally the average age of the indian cricket team would drop coz the grandfather in the dressing room would retire. but you being your selfish self did not. it did not really take me by surprise really coz you being you wanted to score that 100th 100. statistically important for you, but insignificant for the team. so lets see what you've done since the world cup.

india went to england as favorites after a successful tour of west indies (for which you were too tired after the IPL). and then disaster struck, everyone waited for that god damn century of yours to happen. a lot of people like me did not want to you get the century coz that would mean we would loose the match. but then again majority wins so people waited, you team waited and still nothing, i don't know if you just weren't in the mood or if you were just really out of form. what ever the case we lost 4-0 in the tests. the lone indian who saved face Rahul Dravid, long time team mate and in my opinion a much better player than you. Lets not look at one day cricket right now. lets do tests. i came across this very interesting article on the bleecher report and i'm just copy pasting it.

1. In 286 Test innings, Dravid played 31,258 balls. More than anyone else, ever. 
2. He scored runs in tough batting conditions and in overseas Tests that led to wins abroad, a phenomenon that till then had been pretty rare in Indian cricket. 
3. India won 15 Tests abroad during Dravid's career (excluding matches in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe). In those games he scored 1,577 runs at 65.70—both aggregate and average is higher than Tendulkar's.
4. In all, eight of his 11 Man-of-the-Match awards came in overseas Tests, and five in overseas wins, including unforgettable performances at Headingley (2002), Adelaide (2003), Rawalpindi (2004) and Kingston (2006). Tendulkar won only five of his 14 Man-of-the-Match awards overseas, and only one in a win (excluding Bangladesh). In fact, no Indian has won as many match awards overseas as Dravid has.
5.  Dravid also scored mountains of runs in drawn tests overseas, averaging more than 75 in those matches, with 10 centuries in 32 Tests.
6. Two times he scored a century in each inning of a Test. In fact, he is one of only three Indians to achieve this feat—Sunil Gavaskar and Vijay Hazare are the others.
7. He is the only batsman at the moment to have scored more than 10,000 runs at No. 3
8. On an average, he played 123 balls per dismissal, with only Kallis higher at 125 balls for players who have played min 10,000 balls
9. When Dravid was at the crease, the team scored 32,039 runs. Given that the entire Indian team scored 89,668 runs, it means 35.6 percent of the total runs that India made in Tests involving Dravid were scored with him at the crease. The corresponding percentage for Tendulkar is 29.9, and 32.6 for Kallis. It is also the highest partnership runs scored by any batsman ever.
10. Dravid is also the only batsman to be involved in more than 700 partnerships. No other batsman has even touched 650 so far.
11. Dravid has also been involved in more century stands than any other batsman—88.
12. Dravid is also the only batsman to have 10 or more century stands with four others; no one else has even managed three. 
13. He has the most Test Match catches—210—a world record, and was a great fielder at first short leg, and then slip.
14. Saurav Ganguly’s is regarded as India’s best captain with 21 Test wins. In these 21 matches, Dravid has piled up an astonishing 2,571 runs at a record average of 102.84. These 21 matches had nine hundreds (including three double-hundreds).
15. Dravid was at the other end when Laxman became the highest Indian scorer in 2001 when he scored 280 (a 376 run-partnership) in Kolkata, was at the other end when Sehwag and Dravid were involved in a 410 run-partnership in Lahore in 2006, was at the other end when Sehwag bettered his own record and scored 319 runs against South Africa (268 run-partnership), and he was also at the other end when Sehwag scored 293 runs against SL in 2009 (a 237 run-partnership). It is not a mere coincidence that the top four of five scores by Indian batsmen have come when Rahul Dravid was at the other end.

P.S. He also scored 10,000-plus runs in ODIs. But let's not go there. so why are you still playing the game?? get out

from not a fan

rohit

things everyone should try and do in mumbai

I"ve seen atleast 3 posts on facebook, twitter etc etc about 10 things not to do in bombay written by people who probably wrote it coz they heard about it. well i'm no authority on bombay but i did live there for sufficiently long (in my opinion at least) to come up with a list of things that you have to do in bombay, it doesn't matter if u'r a college student living on whatever scraps your parents are giving you as 'pocket money' or if you work and are earning big bucks.

1. Sit on marine drive in pouring rain- you could get washeed away by a wave but hey thats a risk that you should be willing to take.
2. Go on a horse carriage ride from gateway of india all the way down marine drive and back in the night, it's gud fun esp if your a lil drunk
3. Drive a taxi even if it is just for a few meters beg the cabbie he'll let you drive it
4. Eat a meal from bagdadi: this place redefines value for money, anyone who's gone there will know what i'm talking about. also try and spit at the people eating in bade miya's coz they think they are better than you coz they are paying more for crap. (read burrp.com reviews for both places)
5. At any street dosa shop have something called a mysore masala - brilliant, i don't know what goes into it but it's really something.
6. Have green chilli ice cream at bachelors, while you're there try out the strawberries n cream and the mango's n cream during season. 
7. Get into a train form VT or Churchgate going to the last stop on the line and sit in it all the way to the end and back. it's actually nice to see the whole world rushing by you when u'r probably just doing this coz your hostel just got fumigated by the pest control people and you can't stand the smell
8. Score from babulnath- scariest shite i've seen
9. Eat the caramel custard at cafe metro
10. Shout 'tsunami' at the couples making out in bandstand (i hear ppl get swept away by waves, not tsunami's just regular good ol fashioned tides)
11. Go to powai just to see how far it is from the actual bombay :P
12. Argue with a person living in thane or navi mumbai about how they are not actually from mumbai
13. Go second hand book shopping at churchgate
14. Go to chor bazzar even if it's not to buy anything just go there to see how junk can look organized
15. Eat iftaar food at mohammed ali road
16. Drive past salman khan's house and give his fans the finger
17. Go on the bandra worli sea link
18. Eat chaat at Elco's on hill road
19. spend every saturday night at Hawain shack (only ground floor)
20. eat goan fish curry and rice at soul fry
21. go to totos - and say hi to rithika and sitanshu :-)
22. sit on the first row in Regal and watch a movie

Also here's a list of things NOT to do in mumbai

1. ask the cab driver for one rupee change (lolu, that one's for you)
2. get into a bus early in the morning and hand the conductor a 500 rupee note for a 7 rupee ticket
3. try getting out of VT at 5 pm
4. try getting into VT at 9 am
5. leave a bag in the middle of the junction in VT or Fountain and start running
6. abuse people in malayam assuming that they don't speak the language (mallu's are everywhere man)
7. go to pheonix mills on a sunday evening
8. get out at dadar station to switch trains
9. go to mumbai central in the rain's (there's shit floating around)
10. call the bean bag numbers ;-)

World Cup Preview

So the cricket world cup is underway. it seems more like a media event than a sporting one but who can blame them, in these days of scams and revolutions nothing is better than watching a sport where the results are almost unpredictable (there are exceptions). i know i'm a week too late to write this preview but hey you'll probably be reading this post the world cup so it makes no difference. so what are each teams chances in this world cup? well after no research and thanks to the 48 hour bandh in hyderabad (JAI TELENGANA) i have a lot of free time to come up with this crap.

1. Australia: three time defending champions and a team seemingly on a mission (so is everybody). you can never write them off but trust me this time they are not winning the world cup. i don't care what the pundits say but australia will NOT win the cup this time around. and after this ricky poiting will be dropped as captain and he'll probably never play again.
2. South Africa: well the tag 'chokers' is not a mistake really. it's happened always and this time around it's bound to happen again. it's a question of when they are going to choke. i think they'll sail through the group stages and beat India as well and top the group. however they are going to end up facing australia or pakistan in the next round and then they will implode handing them an exit in the quarters or semi's
3. England: if they manage to get though to round 2, KP will fire esp if they play the aussies and then they will lose in the semi's. they have to be one of the most overrated teams in the world at the moment. and their performance against the netherlands proves this point.
4. Sri Lanka: the only real team i think thats superbly balanced and you would be an idiot to think that they wouldn't win the whole thing. sanga and mahela will be the men to watch out for.
5. Pakistan: your guess is as gud as anybody else's. the most talented team in the world but they are just so confused and troubled at all times it's like if the pakistan team has no problems you'll know that there is an imbalance in the world.
6. India: well objectively speaking, we won't win this cup. it's as gud a chance as we'll ever have but still we might end up losing in the semi's or finals. dhoni is a coolest captain around but with sreeshant in the team he's going to screw it up like zaheer screwed it up in 2003.   

so what can we look forward to from the meda?

1. Crappy songs meant to motivate the team. every noticed how badly we do in WC's when anybody makes a song for India? i'm sure they didn't do it in 1983 and we won. they didn't do it when we won the T20 world cup coz no one really thought we would win, but guess what we won. so DO NOT COMPOSE A SONG YOU IDIOTS!!!
2. Rajdeep sardesai screaming on TV about cricket. Arnab interviewing someone about how india won/lost a match and then just talk till you want to throw something at him.
3. A new 'special program' named something like 'field of dreams' launched buy CNN-IBN during the knockout stages of the competition.
4. A stupid 'sting' operation by some news channel exposing how players went drinking the night before a match.
5. offers for tv's, video players and any possible thing you can think of.
6. new zoo zoo adverts thats going to annoy the crap out of you. (move on vodafone, we are fed up of it)
7. advertising between the overs will be so gud that you'll miss the first ball of the next over
8. horrible commentary from sanjay manjarekar, ravi shastri and the likes with incessent talking about useless things.
9. interview with kapil dev on all channels if india reaches the final
10. tarrot cards, fortune tellers and all the other voodoo you can think of where ppl are paid to say that india and sachin will do well before evey match.

well this is going to be a fantastic extravaganza can't wait for it to end the IPL to begin. GO INDI COMMANDOS :P

Disguised Employment

Most people will know what disguised employment is. when u travel around in india you see the most retarded jobs. here are a few of them that i've noticed

1. Guy to push the button of an 'AUTOMATIC PARKING TICKET' dispenser machine: I mean how difficult is it for a person to drive up close enough to one of these machines put their glass down and push a button. we don't need someone to do this for us. trust me..
2. Lift Guy: unless you'r in a building with more than 50 floors i don't think anyone needs another person to press the button of the lift for them. if there are more than 50 floors then yeah maybe incase you are a visitor and don't know which floor what office is. Actually you ought to have read that information before you got on the lift. so no guy pushing the lift button
3. Guy sitting outside lift pushing the button: I've only seen this job in a couple of places, they have a guy who looks at people approaching the lift and pushes a button so that the lift is on the way by the time people arrive near it. it sounds convenient but i don't think it's needed
4. 'Cleaner" travelling in the bus: i've seen this only in kerala, they have a person who is supposed to clean the bus, travel in it and just ring the bell so that the bus driver can start moving just before you've gotten on or gotten off the bus.
5. Security Guard at ATM Machine: Why do we need this guy? have a place that's got a CCTV, a card open-able door that works and you don't need a security guard. they sleep through the night anyway.
6. The guy to Stamps your bill as you leave a supermarket: i mean you've paid for the things, they put it in a bag and now you need someone to stamp the bill? for what joy?
7. Person handing over tissues in the bathroom in 5 star hotels:  again why do you need these things?? people don't need anyone handing them tissues!!!

These are a few jobs i remember that make no sense to me. these are jobs that people who probably have no qualifications end up doing. i have a whole list of useless jobs being done by well educated highly paid people. i think i'll save that for later

God's soon going to leave this country

I was in cochin, kerala a few days back and I must say I was really looking forward to it. It had been a while since I had been home and I was waiting to go see my family. When I reached cochin I was shocked at how little the place has changed. Some might say that it’s a good thing but sadly I don’t think a single person in cochin will agree with me.

The roads:

The roads in kerala were never known to be the best in the country but none the less the roads were decent and motor able. The national highway 47 after they widened it was the pride and joy of the people. The roads were wide and pothole free. Now sadly 15 years since the roads have remained the same width, you have signals that either work and cause a traffic jam, or fail and cause a traffic jam. The number of cars, bikes and the horrible buses have increased 3-4 fold and this means there is always traffic on the road. There are ‘U’ turns provided at every point a house/shop owner paid the PWD so the divider is pointless. And the latest safety device that they have introduced near there turns is something of a gate that blocks one lane of traffic so that the whole national highway is brought down to single file at intervals. And of course the cops have sold advertising space on these gates, and this is largely jewellery or saree shops. And all this is the national highway. The city roads have not become any wider in my memory and they are as horrible as ever with each street getting narrower and more and more unruly buses on the road.

The Airport

The old cochin airport was just one notch above being a glorified shack. And the new airport when it started was a path-breaker of sorts in India. It was one of the first public private partnership airports in the country. Kerala seemed to be headed in the right direction. It was a greenfield airport outside the heart of the city and all these were strange concepts in those days. The infrastructure of the airport was state-of-art for the time but has remained the same. Confusion and chaos regin supreame as passengers and clueless ground and airport staff try and cram the correct people into the correct planes. The security personnel don’t know a single word of Malayalam or English and a large majority of passengers don’t know to speak hindi. This results in a situation where you end up standing in the security area for 10-20 mins.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure of the city and the state is in shambles, a 1 km flyover will take a minimum of 5 years to build. The biggest single problem in the state is the labour unions. It’s a curse on the state that needs to be wiped out. It’s unfortunate to see that the youth wings of these unions are still strong and against progress.

Whilst the whole country moved forward kerala remained still, while the country continues to move forward, kerala unfortunately seems to be moving backward. I don’t think I will be wrong in saying that the state is worse of today than what it was 5 years ago. Looking forward to a change soon. Elections are coming up in a few months. Please vote for progress and not for protests/strikes and bandhs.  

Taste your Food

What is it with some people and ketchup?

I hate it when i go to a restaurant with people, there is always this one guy/girl who has to put in all the sauces into their bowl of soup. i mean the least you can do is taste the damn thing first. most indians irrespective of how much they have studied or traveled can only taste one thing in their food, their palette consists of one flavor and  that is SPICY!!! every complaint about european cuisine by an indian is that 'the food is not spicy' i have one question. do u idiots know about any other flavor? there is so much more complexity/simplicity to food.

Here is a list of simple food that tastes really really gud. DO NOT ADD ANYTHING TO THESE

• A good steak tenderloin with just salt and pepper
• Boiled pasta with olive oil, tuna, oregano, thyme and a lil Parmesan cheese. 
• a simple sweet corn chicken soup. (try it without the chilli vinegar please)

the next time you go to a restaurant or even if you eat anything. please taste the food first before you add anything not needed to it.