Oh leader where art thou?

December 25. We have always held this day as pretty important. Yes, Jesus Christ was born this day. But for us, there was a different reason. There was one person who has been one of our role models. A great statesman who, as far as we are concerned, was the greatest PM India has ever had. 1924 December 25. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born. We have been a huge fan ever since we started following politics. Sure India had lot of leaders with big following. But no one had that charisma, that charm or the oration skills like Atalji. He, for us, was the ideal politician. He did not have any equals. The direction Indian politics is taking, we are not sure if he ever will.

We were not there when he started his life as a politician. We were yet to be born when he made that speech in UN. We hardly could understand what is happening when Babri happened. But we were able to understand things when he became PM and the opposition brought him down only after 13 days. We, although were only 12 at that time, were very upset. Why would opposition want to bring down such a good man we thought. (We were wrong. He was not a good man. He was a great man. ) But they did succeed and behold, we had Mr. Devegowda as PM. Yes. The same politicians who did not want someone like Atalji as PM, voted for HDD. That’s politics for you. As expected, this did not last long.

Atalji did not get outright majority during next election. But he did become PM. For 13 months. As usual, nobody wants a decent man to be at the helm. Opposition brought him down again. This was the time when madam was starting to come out as a ’politician’. An effort which is still ongoing. And will go on till she retires. She is still pretty far away from the “good politician” she thinks she is. Anyway, these were eventful 13 months. This was the period of nuclear tests and Kargil. We were thrilled when we heard that we were nuclear powered nation. We had read so much about only strongest nations having this etc etc. Sure there were scientists who worked on it. But for us, it was Atalji who made it possible.

There were economic sanctions and the country did not suffer a bit. AN able leader was there to take care of the country. But there was one glitch. Lahore bus service. We deem that as the one of the two black spots in his tenure. Vying for peace is a great gesture. But somehow it did not work out. The enemy soldiers were found to have come inside our country and occupied some border posts. Operation Vijay started and ended with heavy losses to the infiltrates. But the biggest threat to the Government was Amma. She did not get the attention she was craving for and started throwing tantrums. She eventually withdrew support and elections loomed again.  

This time Indian people understood better. People voted for Atalji rather than the local contestant. There was a clear majority for Atalji led coalition and it lasted five full years. Only non-Congress Govt to do so. This was the period when we had the Flight 814 hijack. The second black spot. The External affairs minister went till the hijacked plane to escort the terrorists. Even with RSS and VHP pressing him to follow a religion based agenda, he did his best not to cave in. We did have lot of development programs and economic reforms. When the term ended, we expected Atalji to be PM again.

But sadly, people wanted to talk about ideologies and religion more than basic needs and reforms. Nobody saw the shining India. The India shining advertisement bombed big time. Madam became the puppet-master (puppet-mistress? Doesn’t sound right…) again. The party apparently blamed Atalji for the debacle as he preferred bread and butter over religion. He resigned as the leader and Mr. Advani took over. He declared in December 2005 that he will retire from politics after the term. We will stop the history lesson here. Looks like the Indian politics has never recovered from it and continues to reach new nadir everytime we think “This is it. They cannot better it”.

Atalji led the country to best of his ability. And amidst the busy life he still found time to right amazing poems. He never let the poet inside him go away. That is something we respect a lot. Lot of people comment about his drinking or his pro-Hindutva attitude. Such people never bother to look at the reforms by him as a PM or poems by him as a poet or speeches by him as an orator. Nobody is perfect. Atalji was/is not perfect. We agree. But when someone says the country is in trouble or country is going to dogs, there is only one person we would look up to. Given the scenario and politicians we have, one person can guide us. That is him. Whatever issues you want to see in him as a person, we do not care. The country misses him and needs him. It well and truly does.

PS: We normally don’t plug videos and songs in our blogs. And we are not a huge fan of channels like India TV/Aaj Tak etc. But we just could not resist this. This is a 30 min show by Live India about Atalji.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE5S2ZiEJ9k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_jk_YQsO_c&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHVT_kVsFAQ&feature=related

A dirty picture and a neat match..

Ever seen a fat lady wearing a tank top and still considered sexy in a movie? Welcome to the world of south Indian cinema. We just saw a movie called “The Dirty Picture” and we were disappointed with it. No not because of plump Vidya Balan wearing such clothes. It was a disappointing movie. Our lady wanted to watch the movie. We were not much interested in watching this. Tusshar Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi in a same movie? That’s like having Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty in a same movie.. Eesh.. Oh Wait.. That has happened twice already…

The movie is about rise of a village girl to stardom, her struggles in the industry and then personal relationships and how her arrogance leads her to her downfall and finally death. But sadly this does not cover anything in details. It covers all but the film still lacks something that can hold you on to it. To quote Silk ‘ Touch karta hai magar choo tha nahi.” This movie should have been a great biography because Silk’s life was pretty interesting. But instead it just ends up as a skin show by Vidya Balan. 

We do not want to take anything away from Vidya Balan. She has done a pretty significant job. We were really impressed by her acting. But somebody should have told her that being bold and taking risk does not mean skin show. There is something missing which separates this being remembered as a class apart role. We feel so much of skin show was unnecessary. We are not saying we did not like it (Oh yes we did J). Coming to another heroine of the movie, Tusshar Kapoor. We feel Ekat Kapoor gave that role only because family ties. We actually thought Tusshar would be playing Silk. Vidya Balan has pulled it off pretty well we guess.

Naseeruddin Shah is excellent as usual. As typical south Indian hero, he is wonderful. Emraan Hashmi is surprisingly adequate for the role. In fact, those moments in the movie where Abraham (Haashmi) and Silk, are the best moments of the movie. The romantic undertones are heartening to watch. We liked the chemistry between the two. And one thing not to miss is the song Ooh La La. This is like OST of the movie and Bappi da is a delight. It gives you the 80’s feel. We actually think that is the catchy song of this year. Not Kolaveri.

In other news, as we have told you earlier we are a huge FC Barcelona fan, we watched El Clasico live after a long time. And as expected we won. 3-1. It would have been a close one if Christiano Ronaldo had not missed two of the easiest chances. For someone who earns so many millions, he should have scored. We were very happy that he missed. (P.S : We hate him. A lot.) When Barca conceded a goal inside a minute, we were so shocked. That stupid pass was not expected from a keeper like Valdes. But anyway. We won and that’s what matters.

Crazy man, crazy idea and a crazily popular song

OK.. we are reaching uncharted territory here.. This is the first time ever that our blog will deal with the topic crazy and will not have anything referred to Diggy Raja. We cannot fathom this. What is this blog coming to?

First thing, being a avid social network person, we will cover/talk about Kapil Sibal. The man comes up with some crazy ideas. He came with one couple of days back. He wants to screen the user contents posted in social network sites. Yes, democracy and free speech.. You can go f*** yourselves.  We want to post this before Kapil Sibal reads this and attacks our house. During his display of blatant sycophancy to madam, showed the real reason why he was upset. Somebody had mad fun of madam. How can someone stand it? Someone like Madam being made fun of. Come on now. Such people should be shot.. So he wants to ban everything and everyone that makes fun of the Government. Sure, the performance has been poor. Sure, there have been more scandals than money in Reddys' account. But that does not mean you make fun.  

We thought we already had a law where people will be tried if they post/spread anything that hurts religious sentiments and/or is obscene. Wasn’t that enough? Why would you want to stop people from expressing their feelings? There will be some people who behave like black sheep of the family. But they can be tried with the existing laws we have. Why would you act like an idiot and do what Kapil Sibal just did? To gain madam’s favour? Isn’t that pathetic? But looks like that’s how Madamji and baba want. Lick the boots and climb the ladder. Sheesh. They have a topic trending in twitter. #idiotkapilsibal. We request you to trend it even more. Thanks.

Now we will come to another sycophant. Another crazy person. Well Crazy is an understatement. We will just give you two words. No not Diggy Raja. This time it is, Janardhana Poojary.  If you know all the hoopla around Kukke Subramanya and made snana, you will love to hear what he said about it. Look, personally we are not a big fan of rolling on plantain leaves which have remains of somebody else’s meal. But if people feel good by thinking that it might help them with their luck, fortune, go ahead. Roll all you want. Its your choice. Nobody is forcing it on you. Why make a big fuss if its one’s own choice? We do not get it. To top it, in a move to make people stop, Mr Poojary went ahead and showed a gallant middle finger to Science and medicine. He declared “you can get AIDS because of made snana ”. We end the topic here. We are afraid we might wet ourselves by laughing hard.

Now coming to the third crazy. The song. Why this Kolaveri di? We liked this song when it started making the rounds. Then it became tad irritating with the repeats and retweets  around. Then different versions started making the rounds. Now even some kid has sung it. We don’t like the way people try to cash in. Sure the original version was catchy. But that is enough. We cannot stand it anymore. It is like that annoying song by James Blunt again. Good song ruined by too much publicity.

And here is the sad story of the week. Saddest story from the day we started this blog. The evergreen hero of Bollywood, someone who we thought will forever be there and be young, passed away. Dev Anand is no more. The word evergreen can now be retired with Shammi Kapoor and Dev sahib gone. He was a huge part of our hostel life. We always heard so many songs and hummed so many of them along witwe felt he was a part of us. But look how lucky Rafi is. When Shammi ji passed away, people were listening to Rafi. Now when Dev Sahib are no more, people are listening to Rafi again.

This year seem to be horrible for good celebrities. Shammi Kapoor, Bhimsen Joshi, Jagjit Singh, Bhupen Hazarika and now Dev Anand. Its like God has forgotten that we have many politicians around. Come on big guy… Takes some for the nation. It will do us a world of good.

Functions, Idli Manchurians and a great writer…

We know. We know. We have been quite irregular for past few months. We are currently on vacation in India. We traveled to US two years ago and this is our first trip back to India since. We were obviously pretty excited to come home. After a long flight, we finally reached Bangalore via Paris. Our lady had already traveled to India sometime back to be with her mother. We thought many changes would have happened here in two years. We were right. Except Bangalore traffic that is. Still, home sweet home. Two years away would mean catching up about what has happened in two years and delightful homemade food as well. As you would agree, It’s a wonderful time.

The reason we came to India was that our brother, of whom we had written sometime back, finally jumped into the well. Yes. He got married. How can we miss it? The function and all the poojas that came with it went fine. There was the Naandi at tenth and marriage on 14^th. It was fun. Its always fun to see another guy jump to the same well. Since we were family, we had the front row seat as well. We took three weeks of to be here. Now that marriage is over and the newlyweds have traveled to Kashmir for their first trip together, we are spending some quality time with family. Our home town has not changed much in past two years. It’s pretty much the same buildings and same environment.

Since we had quite a bit of free time we went around the little city and watched lot of TV as well. The stupid TV shows have become even more stupid. And lot of reality shows to add. One delight we want to mention is Chintu TV. It shows various animated shows dubbed in Kannada. Sure we can laugh at the voice overs and the accents they use. But we strongly feel that it is a great development to entertain the kids in regional language. We hope it stays and grows and rivals the best in business.

Also, on TV we saw a live interview of SL Bhyrappa. We have been endorsing him for quite some time. We feel he is greatest writer in India currently and one of the greatest ever in India. Sure there are some people criticizing him due to their limited thought process. Some people who have not achieved much in literary world as they actually think they have, tend to make a hoopla to get some publicity. Add some famous names to support these voices, and you see why SLB has been missing on Jnanapeetha till now. He has been the best selling author for decades and yet, he keeps missing it. If URA, Karnad and Kambara can get it,  why not SLB? We hope it changes soon. Saraswati Samman is a good start.

We will end this on a lighter note. We, with our lady, had gone out for dinner with the newlyweds. We knew Indians are good at adapting. But we saw what we can call a new level of adaptation. We all know Gobi Manchurian is a very popular food item. We also know Idli is considered world’s best breakfast item by South Indians. What if you want to eat Manchurian but don’t want to miss the goodness of Idli. Fear not. Hotel Hariprasad in Puttur has an anwer. Idli Manchurian. We had our mind blown when we read it. What ingenious mind came up with this? To top it, next item was Chinese bhel. Talk about Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai. We also want to mention the items were not as bad as we thought it would be. We were left to wonder what will be the next big thing. Dimsum vada pavs? Pooris with Kung Pao veggies? Masala Dosa with duck sauce? We eagerly await…

We are back....

Aah yes.. We are back.. After a month long hiatus. We were little busy with our family and work. We will try to be more regular. Gosh.. how long has it been since we wrote? India were number one team,  Yeddi was still the CM, Reddys were ruling, Anna was on hunger strike, Amar Singh was a free man, Diggy Raja was the craziest politician.. Whew boy. World has changed hasn’t it? India were made to drop their pants and given sound thrashing by Pommies. Except Rahul that is. Yeddi and Reddy are both are going down fast. Reddy’s are already inside. Amar Singh supposedly has mental issues, Anna is hero for few not so much for some others.. Everything has changed. Except Diggy. He rules doesn’t he? With a crazy heart pumping crazy blood and crazy brain with crazy thoughts and a crazier iron fist. He rules.

What did we do last month? So many walks, won the Charlotte cricket cup (we were MOM in finals. Ahem.) Went for a long drive to Miami and Key West, got the house cleared of bedbugs, cooked some delicacies, watched some movies, and worked our ass off, watched loads of TV etc. We did think of writing but then decided not to. Don’t think we are apologizing.

We read about this Tomatina festival being arranged in Bangalore. We were so astounded and pissed off at the same time. How much can you try to emulate other cultures? Did some people lose their commonsense somewhere in MG road while marching and shouting slogans for Anna? A huge waste of money we feel. Is this organized by some morons who were “inspired” by what they saw in ZNMD? Why waste so much money on an event like this? Why can’t they ask people to donate the whole amount?  Why throw tomatoes at each other? What do they mean when they say “we make sure tomatoes are not edible but not rotten”? What kind of tomatoes are they? One of my friends made a wonderful statement. “I want to see coconutina. No wastage only cleanup”. True. We would pay to see that.

There was also this news about Kannada movie star Darshan. We read and thought WTF. Challenging star has become mentally challenged star. And his fans have truly behaved like how a mentally challenged fans should. I’m sorry but in what world is he innocent? Why would throw stones are vehicles and protest against arresting a guy who abused his wife and kid?  And Kannada movie Industry heads were even more thoughtful. He had an alleged affair with another actress and tortured his wife and kid. What’s the most reasonable thing to do? If you answered ban the “other” girl from movie industry. Way to go. You can be next president of kannada movie industry’s association. They had to take it back because of the doyenne of Sandalwood, Mrs Parvathamma Rajkumar (Not to be confused with Hindi Daayan).

The last news we have for today is about our all time favourite cricketer. Rahul Dravid is playing his last international limited over match. We are sad that he is retiring. We wanted him to go on and on. But we are going to console ourself with the fact that he can now concentrate on the best cricketing arena, tests. He has not been the greatest ODI player. Agreed. But is truly one of the game’s greatest because how much he has contributed to the success of Indian team. We are going to forgive him on 2007 world cup . One request to Dhoni. You people won a world cup for Sachin. Just win one friggin’ match. It’s his last game and Indian cricket owes it to him.

Alas, the lucky bastard is still alive..

Finally the last movie of Harry Potter franchise released after much hoopla. Everyone raved about it and wherever we read we found good reviews about the movie. We, being a fan of the HP universe, had to watch this movie. We just had to. We were not expecting much from the movie after reading the book. We were disappointed about how the story ended. How is it that a boy who can get beaten up in every Chloromint commercial beat the greatest wizard of all time? How much luck does a nerdy pasty looking teenager need to beat the person who was supposed to be the lord of the entire universe? Yes. We are Dark Lord’s followers. We hate the potter kid. We were a huge follower of Severus Snape when he was mean to Potter.  He was number one in our favorite list. Once we realized that he tried to save the boy, we had to move him out to second position. We still like Snape for the six and a half books were he was mean to him. 

Everyone starts their review or blog talking about Harry or Voldemort. We will not. We will start with one person who made it possible for us to watch all the movies. One person who we admire. It’s Alan Rickman. We hereby acknowledge Alan Rickman’s contribution to make Snape look so evil as the best part of Harry Potter series. Ever since we heard the line “Clearly Fame isn’t everything” we had sworn our allegiance to Snape. No one else could have portrayed the role better. It has to be one of the most marvelous roles we have seen. Role of a life time even. He made us like Snape more than the Dark lord himself.  Also, don’t forget that Snape gave Potter the ultimate bitch slap even when he was dying. His last words to potter were about “mother’s eyes”. If you know Hindi, you know what he actually meant.

OK now we will get back to the movie. What can you notice from Harry Potter movies? Apart from the fact that the Harry Potter is more nerdy looking than JK Rowling wanted him to be. Everyone can agree that there is only one point to note. Emma Watson is hot. She is. And she does not disappoint in this movie either. It was sad that she got that ginger haired whiny one as a boyfriend. You will also notice that the story/movie becomes increasingly adult oriented as the story progresses. It still has the fun fantasy parts for the kids but it’s very hard to ignore the backdrops of mature/adult themes. No We are not talking about shakeela type adults. You know, normal adult types. Love and feelings etc whatever ruins a normal teenager’s life.

The movie as any normal part two would, starts where the first one ends. Voldemort gets the elder wand. The movie shows you how three horcruxes are destroyed (The cup, the diadem(What the hell is a diadem), the snake) and how Harry being one horcrux sacrifices himself. But sadly he comes back and in what is one of the most shittiest endings in movie history, defeats the Dark Lord. We were so pissed with the ending. We will not tell you how it happens. Don’t beam that you have read the book. You would be upset too. The director tried to save few minutes and some million dollars worth of effects we guess. But it’s sad. Even sadder than the fact that the Potter boy survives.

We don’t like Potter. But that is not why we would say Daniel Radcliffe is not that good an actor. He just doesn’t cut it for us. The fact that he has to share screen with likes of Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes  definitely does not help him. Rupert Grint even though twice as annoying, turns out to be the best of the trio. Emma Watson is hot. We will not say anything more. Neville is heroic which is refreshing to see after being the comic relief for most part of the series. But show stealer as we mentioned earlier is Alan Rickman. That guy looks like he was born to portray this role. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort is wonderful as usual. It’s hardly surprising actually. He played Amon Goth in Schindler’s list after all. The scenes where he faces Harry, he outshines the boy pretty easily.  

The movie for most part was pretty impressive. We are not telling this because we are a fan. Except for third and fourth movie, we liked all others a lot. Now we have another reason to hate the fourth movie. It has that vampire Edward in it. Although he dies, we still don’t like it very much. OK what we were talking about was the graphics and the adventurous mode of all the movies. Aided by excellent supporting cast, the movie is a visual delight to watch. Even this movie doesn’t disappoint. The dialogues make you chuckle at times and  there’s Emma Watson. The movie cannot disappoint. Till the end comes that is. Voldemort’s last moments are pretty poorly covered. No thrill. Nothing. He just disappears like how originality does in Pritham’s presence.

We would rate it 4 stars out of 5. Somehow the ending ruined it from becoming one of our favourites. We seriously wish that there is one more horcrux which Rowling has not revealed yet. We are fine if there are more.

One English movie and some Kannada songs.

Right. Let’s start this with a paragraph movie review.  We saw Cars 2 this weekend. We have to say. We liked it a lot. The detailed analysis of the world from a car’s eyes is truly awesome. Here Lightning McQueen plays a supporting role. The movie revolves around Mater, the bumbling tow truck best friend. How some old cars play villains and how Mater is mistook for a spy and in the end how he saves  the world is the story. Without discussing about story line much, we will tell you this. Very rarely a sequel is better than the first movie. Here is one such movie. Larry the Cable guy is totally delightful as Mater. We give this movie two thumbs up and a 9 out of 10. This is like your childhood dream come true. All your Hotwheel cars and all your yeeeeoooowwww’s.  Watch this movie.

We came back and we were not feeling sleepy. So we thought we will listen to songs. Kannada ones.  One song was from Hudugaru.  It was an item song called Pankaja. Somewhere between “Akka nim maneyalli naayigu Dancu barutta” and “Nim ooralli thamaTena hodyakke chancu sigutta” , we started thinking about how Kannada songs have gotten back their mojo. There was a phase where Kannada songs were qualitatively poor. Once Ravichandran and Hamsalekha kinda broke up, the Music became more to the mass than class. Apart from some movie exceptions, most songs did not catch our fancy much. But then suddenly it seemed like all is well again. What happened?

If you think about it, this seems to have begun from Mungaru Male. Everyone tends to agree that Mungaru Male really started this upward trend. It increased the listener count by many folds. Many of our friends who were not really fans of Sandalwood music started listening from then. And then the quality started improving. Not just the lyrics. If lyrics are outrageous, tunes became catchier. It was like the music industry picked itself up and decided, “Right, We need to show others what we are about.” We like this new trend.  We do not mind listening to nothing but Kannada songs.

After that almost every movie that has been released, has had at least one beautiful or catchy track. Even movies which were pretty horrible had one nice track. We don’t want to start listing the songs we like. Because there are plenty. Our phone has hundreds of new Kannada songs. And every day we get to add some song or the other from a new movie. We, being a Kannada movie fan, absolutely love it. Kannada Industry has always had people who make some really good musical movies. But in late 90’s it was limited to Ravichandran. He had his way with the leading ladies and always had flowers and fruits and honey around and on them. But it was not just about visually pleasing his male audience. He made sure that the songs were melodious. He was immensely talented when it comes to picking songs.

But now the number has increased. Every other director, every other producer, every other actor seems to crave for quality. There is some flip side to it as well.  The local talents seem to have been neglected. Sonu Nigams and Kunal Ganjawalas started hogging the space and have replaced Rajesh and Hemanth. Shreya Ghoshals have replaced Pallavis and Nandithas. Sure the Bollywood singers are talented. But shouldn’t these songs go to the local talents? We are pretty sure any good Kannada singer can sing the same songs just as well. Why do we have to go to Bollywood and pay more money? Pallavi Arun is the best and most versatile singer in Kannada industry. Give more chances to her than Shreya. If the songs are as good as they have been for past few years, audience will listen no matter what.

It’s all about love in the family...

We have news for you.  No. Not about Aishwarya Rai telling Abhishek “Main tumhari Bacchan ki maa bannewaali hoon”^[1]. Although there have been pretty curious reactions to the news. We have seen more people congratulate BigB on being a Grandpa than Abhishek on delivering his first successful solo hit ^[2]. Also, Kiran Rao supposedly asked Aamir, “Kab tak Perfectionist bante rahoge?” ^[3]. OK we are not going to say anything more as we do not bother about Ash. We personally feel she is more plastic than the Barbie she tried to endorse. 

It’s also not about Arindam Choudhary trying to sue the search engine Google for being a.. search engine. He said that it is promoting slander by showing bad stuff written about him. So if websites do not like him, so he will sue the company which.. just searches for the information? What kind of dick does such a thing? Arindam that’s who. Google searches for the popular pages. People like reading about him. How is it Google's fault? We are not sure why he did not sue internet itself or people in general. By trying to be a smart ass, he just became fodder for little more news. And he is promoting his anti-slander compaign via youtube which is by, you guessed it, Google.

OK topic. What is the greatest gift that can be given to a man? We all know it’s a tape of Scarlett. But if you ignore that and say love of a lady, we will grin and agree. No. Correct it. We will agree but after laughing at you. No, one more correction. We will agree after sometime because we will be busy rolling on the floor laughing and calling you a wuss. But yes. We will agree. Because our lady would be damn pissed with us otherwise. KJO, you know that misspelt coffee show man person with a lie-o-meter, once said it's all about loving your family. We just modified it a bit. Another quote we want to use is by Dr Seuss, that weird love one which you might have heard about. It’s just that we got the news that our elder brother is in same situation as we were few years ago. You know. Love and stuff. We are a victim of love marriage you see. Our lady doesn't like it when we say stuff like that. Now our brother has fallen into the net as well. By making fun of love, we start the blog with the mental preparation to sleep on the sofa for a week.

We at the risk of sounding sentimental, will admit that we are very happy for our brother. He has been having some tough time personally and professionally. We are glad he has found happiness. But any sensible, not just married, man would say, marriage is not the solution for tough times. It may be beginning for some. But definitely not the end (Warning one). Actually, we wanted to give a sarcastic lecture starting with “love anthe love. It’s aal stupidity my baay. Thatsall means thatsall”^[4]. But we would have a very unhappy lady to calm down and calming down an unhappy lady is a very difficult task, as any married man knows (Warning two). When our brother told us that he and our future Bhabhiji have agreed to leap the leap, we were excited. Not because a love is being consummated to marriage. As they say, all marriages are made in heaven like thunder and lightning (Warning three).

We were one off love marriages in the family. Now it seems like we have set a precedent. When we propositioned our marriage situation to our family, everyone had lot of fun discussing about it. We did not have all the Telugu film drama, which we regret. We were sad that we cannot make speeches about undying love and eternal flame in our heart etc. Instead everyone agreed without fuss and we and our lady ended up being butt of many jokes as we were the youngest in the family and were not really considered what you can call responsible. Everyone thought we may not be able to handle the responsibilities we felt (Responsibilities. Warning Four). And now that there is another couple being readied to be institutionalized (marriage is an institution, right?), people look at us as mature experienced couple. It’s very interesting how tables turn. Now we are going to attend the marriage with big smile with our heart and mind going BMwuhahaha. Unless you are in our position you will never truly understand the joy of sadism.

We wanted to tell few things to our Bhabhiji. So, if you are not our Bhabhiji, skip this and move to next paragraph. We and our brother have never been the similar ones except for our interest in current affairs and GK. We have been fighting almost always. We still have the memory of him chasing us with a wicket when we had some argument in cricket. No, no need to worry. We also want to assure that he has sobered down (We still have our fingers crossed). He may chow down on his colleagues but he is not the one who can yell at you. At least, for now. Also, He means good. We may fight a lot, but first time we were away, he had to seek medical attention. No not the wrong kind. He had fever etc because he missed us. (It always made us happy to know that we controlled his health. Sadly as we grew up the grip vanished). The point to be noted is not that he gets angry easily. It’s that even though he acts all angry, he still will care for you a lot. We do not want to repeat the sobered down bit. Anyway, what we actually wanted to tell was, we are happy that he found you and you found him. You make a good pair. We have one more thing to tell. Sorry, we are making this paragraph long but we had decided to dedicate only one paragraph. That was not the thing. This is. We also heard from our lady that you were silent in front of parents. We hope you are not the silent type of person. When we make fun of Aishwarya (Yes. We sneaked into your Facebook profile.), we want a proper response. Else it won’t be fun. If you notice, there are some references in the beginning of the blog.

Non-Bhabhi readers, let me guess. You read the previous paragraph even after we told you not to read right? Bleddy… As a punishment, we are going to bore you now. We want to write some philosophical things. As per some lady from some website, there are four kinds of love needed to make a marriage work. You need unconditional love, human love, tenderly love and physical love. When all four types of love operate in a marriage, the marriage is complete. We did find it on the net. We can't make such things up if if we wanted to. Although we felt it was too boring to read through all that we understand the gist. It’s just that you should love each other. Also we feel that whatever institution they say marriage is, can be successful only if the people constituting the institution work on it. (Word play. We are becoming smart). Also, let us tell you another thing. This is again our train of thought on why we prefer love marriages. We do not think people can fall in love after marriage. Yes. Occasionally we do hear stuff like that. But normally, it’s just mere adjustment to the other person which can be misunderstood as love. 

Edward Carpenter says that behind every marriage stands the life-long environment of the two sexes; an environment so different from each other that man and woman must remain strangers. Separated by an insurmountable wall of superstition, custom, and habit, marriage has not the potentiality of developing knowledge of, and respect for, each other, without which every union is doomed to failure. We did not the heck of it. But we decided to copy paste it nonetheless just to show that we search for some serious stuff too on the net. Also we read somewhere that a girl who loves makes a man from a selfish idiot. But if she leaves he will become even bigger selfish bastard. That brings another question to our mind. Do all love marriages happen because of luck? Sometimes it is destiny too, right? Some love cases end well. Others result in marriage. 

We are in a practical age. A new age. But still the time when Romeo and Juliet risked the wrath of their elders for love has not disappeared. If young people allow themselves the luxury of romance they are taken in care by the elders and advised till they become sensible. It’s not very often that parents happily agree for a love marriage. At least in many parts if India. We and our lady are very much aware of the fact that we are one such couple who got very lucky to have sensible parents who agreed without worrying about anything else. We are glad trend has remained same and they have happily agreed for or brother too. Good luck for them and God bless. 

But what made us even more happy was the fact that Rahul Dravid scored a gritty classy century and deserved the MoM award. When most others failed and could not grasp the pitch, Dravid stood for more than six hours to build an innings worth its weight in gold. That was a mature innings played by one of the greatest batsmen of all time. This innings reminded us of his second innings heroics five years ago one the same pitch. Which had reminded us of his first innings heroics in the same test. Words cannot describe.. OK you know what, sometime we totally get why our family considers us second best.

P.S : Personally we still think Scarlett’s tape is a better gift. But we are expected to support being in love, we will not discuss the matter further. For now.

Note to God: Thanks for the blessings, big guy. You are not always an a**hole. Now, coming from us, that would be a compliment for you. Cheers! 

[1],[2], [3] – Citation needed. But we don’t have it.

[4] – There is a sher for this. Babbar sher actually

Jaldbaazi mein shaadi karega toh zindagi bigaad lega

Soch samajh ke shaadi karega toh bhi kya ukhaad lega.

The Wall, The Fortress and The Gentleman.....

Fifteen years ago, this day at Lord's, India had lost early wickets and a left hander made his debut. A left hander who was hugely talented but just as arrogant. People had lot of expectations from him. He hit a century. People were happy. He hit another hundred in the next test in Edgebaston. People were ecstatic. They claimed that the future has arrived. It had. At Lord's another lanky 23 year old was playing as well. He was known to be a steady bat. He played his part very well. But missed out his hundred and an opportunity to create history by just 5 runs. Next test where the left hander scored another hundred, he scored 84 and missed yet another hundred. People pitied him. We did too. But more than pity we liked the way he played. He was wristy, elegant and watchful. We were 12 then but we devoted ourselves to be his fan. As people said, future of Indian cricket had arrived but it was that right hander who would carry the country's hope for more than a decade. 

Little did we know the luck, which eluded the 150th Indian test cricketer in his first two matches, would play hide and seek with him throughout his career. Luck made him spend entire cricketing career as a second fiddle to him. People never seemed to be really happy. He is slow they said, he is not fit for limited overs they said. He took every criticsim in his elegant stride. He showed them why he is one of the greatest ever players in the modern era. He showed why India needs him at number three. For us he is the greatest Indian player and stands just behind Lara as the greatest player we have seen. We have sworn our devotion to the greatest supporting act in the history of Indian cricket, perhaps world cricket even. Yes. You know whom we are talking about. Rahul Sharad Dravid.

We think rather than telling why he is a great player, we will just give you some high level overview of the stats. 10000+ runs in both formats of the game (Only 3 others have done it), 200 catches in tests, 200+ dismissals (including keeping) in ODIs, 90 50+ scores in tests and 94 in ODIs, only player till date to score hundreds in all test nations, 80+ century partnerships in tests. 50+ in ODIs, two 300+ partnerships in ODIs, one of only three batsmen to hit Test centuries in four consecutive test innings, to add to this the countless number of times where he rescued the team and lifted it to safety or at least a par score.

Life was never been fair to him. His whole career he has been marked as a second fiddle for other players. Whenever he scored a hundred, there would b someone else as well and snatch the deserved MoM award. He has spent his career as a shadow to him and we feel sad. Indian fans never did treat him right. There have been quite a few moments where people simply ignored the fact that RD reached a milestone. We always gets pissed off when that happens. How is it that the entire country is grateful to only one person. Sure he has done whole lot more than anyone else. But shouldn’t the real cricket fans be fair?

We being a test match fan, do not prefer T20s or ODIs as much. So we will list the five best test knocks by the Wall. This is our personal opinion. We do know that listing five is not the proper justice. The list where he played an important knock would go on and on. So we will stick to five best according to us.

148 vs SA in 1996, Jo'burg : First century by Dravid. Playing against powerful SA attack lead by Allan Donald, this was a masterpiece.

180 vs Aus in 2001, Kolkata : For us it’s the greatest test match of all time. VVS scored 281 and everyone went nuts. The fact that nobody else could have lent a better helping hand escaped many minds. We are naming this the greatest supporting knock in history.

177 vs Srl in 2009, Ahmedabad: We feel this was his most fluent innings. He kept finding boundaries and we absolutely loved watching him in this innings.

233 vs Aus in 2003, Adelaide : This test belonged to Dravid. That's all we can say.

81 & 68 vs WI in 2006, Kingston : The greatest knock for us was not a century or a double century. When the entire batting of both the teams struggled, the wall weaved magic. He led the defense and made sure that India is in a commanding position. These two innings' are why India needs Dravid.

People have been trumpeting his achievements so much that we feel kind of disappointed. We are not against him. No. We just wanted al to know that there are some other players who have given their everything for the game as well. It has been 15 years. You have provided us inspiration, entertainment and hope so many times. Thank you Rahul Dravid and God Bless.