Sachin Tendulkar

When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.
When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to "open" the Nehruvian economy.
It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had a Sachin Tendulkar and we never will.
- Time Magazine


Happy Birthday Sachin Tendulkar

The Return - Yet Again

Yes! The return to Mixed Bag for yet another post. More than 2 weeks since I last spewed something here. During which, half formed ideas have spun through my head with Usain Bolt-esque speed without really forming anything concrete. Not that I have managed to come up with anything concrete at last, but it is my space and my drivel! The comments section is open for you.
So, they say 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scornd'. And what fury! A volcano erupted in Iceland throwing up enough ash to turn Europe topsy turvy. Flights cancelled, people on Easter holidays unable to get back, work coming to a standstill, it sure has been some eruption. Oh but wait! Where is the 'woman scornd'? That is an easy one now! Ayesha Siddique of course, the other Mrs. Shoaib Malik. Thought you could fly off easily into the sunset with Sania, eh Shoaib? Never that easy now, is it! In the meantime, I have a statutory warning for my tweet happy friends reading this. 'TWEETING WILL LOSE YOU YOUR JOB'. Don't believe me? Ask some of the most prolific tweeters. Shashi Tharoor. Or Lalit Modi(in a few days now). Or the mysterious Sunanda Pushkar. The woman's 'sweat equity' has now got Rahul Dravid thinking whether he can encash all those drenched shirts of his. Would be a billionaire if he did that, for sure.
In a parallel universe though, the slam bang continues. And so does Danny Morrison and his perversion. This time, displaying an intimate knowledge of fellow bleater L. Siva's anatomy. 'Gee Siva!!! That bat's got to be thicker than both your thighs put together'!!!! Right Mr. Morrison. If you are done with that and taking gratuitous upskirt views of the cheerleaders, can we have some punditry on the cricket please? Robin Jackman seems to have perfected that art though. So now, just by standing near a team dugout and looking conspirationally at the camera, you can make out what a team is thinking. 'They need more wickets'. Wink Wink!! Nice one Jackers!
Notwithstanding the advertisements though, this IPL has certainly given us some never seen before memorable sights. Sourav Ganguly diving, MS Dhoni punching himself in the face like a prize boxer, Sourav Ganguly stopping a ball while diving WITHOUT injuring himself in the bargain, Virender Sehwag having a strike rate of less than 100 in an innings in any form of cricket, Sourav Ganguly actually pulling off a blinder of a catch intentionally and many more. Bring on the semis now!
And lastly moving on to the highly depressing Gunners. Flattened by Lionel Messi, a first league defeat to hated rivals in 11 years and a defeat to a team which had last beaten them when Elvis Presley was still the 'King of Rock and Roll'. The last one, coming after throwing away a 2-0 lead in the last 10 mins, nearly made me go into hibernation. As the inevitable talks of 'next season being The Season' are rolled out yet again, the cash happy thug, Emmanuel Adebayor returns during the weekend. Can the Gunners wipe that self satisfied smirk off his face? I think Vivek Oberoi has a higher chance of starring in a movie, which would remotely classify as a 'hit'. Please Arsene! Do something. Show him who is the boss!
So then, till the next time I take a laxative to cure my writer's block again! Adios!

Confused and nauseated

Apologies. I have been so busy following the IPL, that updating the blog never came to my mind. More on the IPL and its surprisingly insightful commentators later though.
For all the people who regularly read this piece of literary finesse (some liken it to verbal diarrhoea, but every one is entitled to their own opinion, hmph!), you would know that picking on the Shiv Sena is one of my pet hobbies. Not surprising that, considering they serve up morsels of hare-brained schemes as regularly as Shashi Tharoor tweets. Things were getting pretty serious and grown up in the world of politics. The health care bill was passed in Yankeeland, the right to education bill was passed in India, the SIT grilled Narendra Modi for 9 straight hours on his role in the 2002 riots. Heck, we needed some juvenile frivolity. And right on cue, our Sainiks stepped up to the plate. Sania Mirza cannot be a true Indian if she is marrying a Pakistani. If she had India's best interests at heart, she would have married an Indian. Supreme logic sir. One tiny little question though. I have heard Ajmal Kasab speaks Marathi these days and asks for Indian newspapers. So I assume that makes him a dyed in the wool Mumbaikar. So by your logic, is Ajmal Kasab more of an Indian than Sania Mirza? Oops! I nearly used Shiv Sena and logic in the same sentence. My bad.
Staying on with Pakistan. One of their finest cricketers announced his retirement after having a life ban slapped on him. But Mohammad Yousuf says he might appeal against his ban. For what purpose exactly Yousuf? To stay retired? Meanwhile closer home, the IPL is on in full swing and the commentators are slowly getting into their groove. Danny Morrison though, is so well into his groove that the groove is threatening to become a canyon. The man goes ballistic when he sees the Double Ds and Pandee (Manish Pandey). And then just to calm himself down, he has a look at Virat 'Cool as a cucumber' Coolie. Perverted and racist, Mr. Morrison. You should be hit for a DLFer. Two commentators really working hard to impress their boss are our own L. Siva and ICL returnee Russel Arnold. So while Russel laments 'Shame he is 25. He is such a good player but cannot be considered for the Citi Under-23 Success of the tournament', Siva takes it further with 'That should have been a Karbonn Kamaal catch, but it has gone for a DLF Maximum and it is a Citi Moment of Success for the batting side. Time now, for a Max Mobile Strategic Time Out for the bowling side.' He needs a pay raise Mr. Modi, are you listening? And of course, the sight of the MRF Blimp makes all our commentators go wild with delight as each takes pains to outdo the other in describing how it is the eighth wonder of the world.
In football, I am still recovering from the effects of the Arsenal-Barcelona match. With the match poised at 2-2, next Tuesday will have them squaring off at the Camp Nou. Considering the way the first leg was played, I am hoping for collective amnesia to strike the entire Barca team and they forget how to kick a ball for 90 minutes. Will that give us victory? Wait and watch.
Till next week then (hopefully). Ciao!

Show me the money!!

Hello to all the bored and jobless people who are at this moment reading this blog. You know you should be doing something better!
The past week has undoubtedly been the 'moolah' week. While the world looked enviously at Lalit Modi's and BCCI's moolah, Mulayam Singh Yadav looked at Mayawati's moolah. Carlos Slim's moolah crossed Bill Gates' moolah. And for good measure, David Beckham had a good look at his lost moolah, when England's favourite cheerleader lost out on a World Cup berth in true Trojan hero style(and that's the last time I use the word moolah. Promise).
So to begin with Her Highness, the leader of the Dalits and the supreme champion of the causes of the poor and down-trodden. The lady has done her subjects huge favours by erecting a statue of hers in every nook and cranny on the streets of Lucknow. And how the people love her for that!. The people's 'love' manifested in her being presented a monstrous multi-crore garland made entirely of 1000 rupee notes. Move over Romeo, that's spontaneous love for you! What? Poor and down-trodden did you say? What a load of old tosh! Its love! Now wait for her birthday bash.
One person though, would be wistfully eyeing all that wealth. David Beckham snapped his Achilles tendon while having a light jog during a football match. Now somehow by some co-incidence, I suddenly managed to get a sneak peek into the minds of the Beckhams during that moment of pain. Here is the sequence of thoughts of both Victoria and David Beckham.

VB: Why did he suddenly pull up?
DB: Ouch! What was that? Oh my Achilles!!
VB: Oh no! There goes my chance to promote the Victoria Beckham dress range!
DB: Aaaaaah!!! That hurts!
VB: Nooooo!!!That puts an end to my over sized Chanel sunglasses deal. And my Louis Vuitton handbags deal, my Christian Louboutin high heels deal!
DB: Aaaaaah!!! My Armani suits deal! My Hush Puppies shoes deal' My promotion for Jim's tattoo parlour!
VB: Sniff!! Those photographers will now make Toni Poole the queen bee.
DB: Oh hold it! I won't be able to play for 7 months. Damn! That's a lot of good deals gone.

So much for the football then.
Anyway, moving on to the IPL. Mandira Bedi with her 40 haircuts in 50 days routine has been banished to ITV in the UK. In her place, the King of Hyperbole is back. 'That ball has gone so high, its going to kiss the air hostess before it comes down', '2 wickets in 3overs. They are falling over faster than cycles in a cycle stand!'. Yes, Navjot Singh Sidhu is well and truly back. And as if ads after overs were not bad enough, we now have to accept the fact that Akshay Kumar's demented laughter can disrupt us between overs as well. Guess it will not be long before we are unable to realise whether Saurabh Tiwary's pull is a part of the match, or Akshay Kumar virtual forehand smash is. Personally however, the best comment of the IPL came from Harsha Bhogle. 'Lata Mangeshkar should not be singing rock and roll', claimed Mr. Bhogle, when VVS Laxman got out after another horrendously ugly looking swipe.
And across the border in Pakistan the mayhem continues. First they had players without a coach. Now they have a coach without any players. Knowing Pakistan though, this is enough to ensure that they will retain their status as T20 champions. Maybe a couple of more bans will well and truly seal the deal. That would be a Citi Moment of Success for sure.
Have a nice weekend then. Bye-bye!!

IPL, protests and a rib-tickler

Its back! Its that time of the year again when sixes stop being sixes and become DLF Maximums. When in a 3 hour cricket match, there are 150 minutes of advertisements, 22 minutes of Lalit Modi on his Blackberry, 6 minutes of dancing celebrity team owners and 2 minutes of cricket. It is the time when Ravi Shastri considers it his personal mission to be heard over 100000 fans at the Eden Gardens (not when Sachin's had his stumps uprooted, but preferably when Dada has lifted one onto the top tier). Its IPL time again! And as we kick off today between the Knight Riders and the Chargers, I cannot help noticing the sea change in attitude of KKR as promised by King Khan. For starters, to make sure that his knights will be up there at the end celebrating, SRK has cunningly collected all the confetti from the past 2 editions and stitched them up as purple and gold uniforms for his team. Presumably this will also ensure protection against their floodlight failure issues. Meanwhile just to whet people's appetites, the ICC scheduled 3 series to wean people off normal cricket and make them crave for the IPL. So we have West Indies playing Zimbabwe, England playing Bangladesh and Australia playing New Zealand. The last mentioned of which might have been more interesting had the Kiwis managed to put 11 Daniel Vettoris on the field. But nevertheless, the English ensured that there would be quality even in the most meaningless of matches. So we witnessed pie chucking of the highest order when Alistair Cook went for 111 runs in 5 overs and Michael Carberry went for 78 in 4. Now that's class (more so when you consider it was Bangladesh A doing the hitting)!
In events far removed from cricket though, the Women's Reservation Bill was finally passed in the Upper House. Amidst claims of a few more quotas, I am now pitching for my own quota- 'the quota for people with no quota'. As a sole crusader for the cause, I shall uproot railway tracks, shout slogans against nobody in particular while smiling at TV cameras and appear in a chat show alongside Barkha Dutt. Maybe that will make me a reality TV star at the least!
And in football, the Porto defence showed how bad they actually are. I mean if Nicklas Bendtner (who has difficulty putting the ball into an empty net from 2 yards out), scores a hat-trick against you, you know you can sink no lower. The vindictive person in me, though frankly enjoyed the sight of Cristiano Ronaldo leaving the Santiago Bernabeau in tears on Wednesday night. After spending money like it was going out of fashion on the triumvirate of Ronaldo, Kaka and Benzema, the Madrid Madmen failed to reach the quarters of the Champions League yet again.Oh what joy!
And finally AIESEC in MU's predilection for rib tickling names continued. And after a longish wait, along came the first TN raise. From Mr. Bhola Surender Kamath. You can snicker, you can laugh, but I can bet my Turkish kebab you cannot beat it. Congrats fellas!
So on that note, dim the lights, do not turn up the sound (unless you are in the mood for permanent hearing damage courtesy Ravi Shastri), lie back and let it rain DLF Maximums!

Amen!

A return to the madness

It is difficult to keep a blog running. Especially when you are an illegal immigrant with limited internet access. But we Indians are known to never care a fig about the law and I happen to be no different.
Well it has certainly been an agony missing Holi back home. While looking like a fading pink superhero for a week is something I might detest, the sheer joy of moving around like a Frankensteinien wastrel for a day is truly uplifting!
And as the Indians merrily celebrated Holi, the world serenely moved towards Apocalypse 2012. The latest in the line, after Haiti, being Chile. A few more of these joltings and I am pretty sure those sheikhs at Manchester City will be pulling out all their cash to book themselves a joyride on 'Made in China' boats. On a positive note though, that might force City to kick out that cad, Emmanuel Adebayor, which would be no more than what he deserves. Meanwhile, politicians in India are busy trying to give women 'the perfect Women's Day present'. The Women's Reservation Bill, which will once and for all stamp women as being unequal to men and needing a reservation to make their mark on the world. At a time when women are fighting to be considered as equal to men, this is as much as a present as Sachin Tendulkar's double ton was for the South Africans.
Which, of course, brings us to the Mumbai Maestro alias Little Master alias Tendlya alias 'Sachiiiiin Sachin'. Paeans have been sung in the great man's honour. But as the man himself said, 'Records are meant to be broken'. And why not? Pitches are getting more and more batsmen friendly by the day. To the extent that the 22 yards from Rajkot was caught propositioning batsmen outside an illegal pub in Modiland (Narendrabhai's land this one, not Lalit's), where Andrew Symonds has been known to nick off for a quiet beer or 30 when in India. At this rate, my personal favourite for the next batsman breaking the record is Ashish Nehra. Lets see. Meanwhile in neighbouring Bangladesh, England's South Africans and Irishmen huffed and puffed their way to victories over the hosts. Well if someone was looking for positives of outsourcing, they just need to contact the England and Wales Cricket Board. Maybe West Indies can outsource their cricket to a few more Indians. Clearly the Chanderpauls, Rampauls and Ramdins aren't good enough to beat the 11th string Zimbabwean side.
And finally in football, Arsenal climbed back into the thick of the title race. Albeit with a horror injury to Aaron Ramsey. But Arsenal and injuries go more hand in hand than a newly married couple. The previous weekend also saw the footballing world's biggest fuss over a handshake which never happened. Would Wayne Bridge break John Terry's fingers with an iron clasp or would there be an 'all is forgotten' handshake? The culmination of all that was an icy stare from Bridge, W. to Terry, J. which was supposed to send shivers down the latter's spine. Considering the abysmal game Terry had, 'the stare' probably did have an effect. Probably Ejaz Butt can use that on Shahid Afridi, the next time he tries his hand at ballet dancing on a pitch or gorging on a few red cherries.
And on that note, this illegal alien bids goodbye! Have a nice weekend. Chow!

Brand barrage and a return to normalcy

Hello everyone! After constant entreaties I have decided to hand over the reins of the blog to Lalit Modi for this week. So presenting Mr. Modi.
Hello, I am Lalit Modi, IPL Commissioner. I Dare to Dream like the Bank of Rajasthan and I am Fearless like Symantec. I have moved on from my Citi Moments of Success and am now McDowell's Signature New Sign of Success. And I promise not to promote any more brands but like TESCO, Every Little Helps.
Well, I was tired of announcing everything on Twitter, so today I shall use this blog to air my business propositions. My first proposal is to the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. I feel that you are my Standard Chartered Right Partner after your extraordinary announcement that illegal immigrants were not welcome to Italy but beautiful women definitely were. Well Mr. B, how about my sending a few of my team cheerleaders to your country. You have your beautiful women and I can proclaim to my literally tens of followers, that my IPL has now branched into Italy as well. Do let me know, I will certainly get back to you from one of my 27 Blackberrys.
Oh get out Lalit Modi! Sorry folks, a bad egg, that Mr. Modi. But just latching on to that point about Silvio Berlusconi, I can't help wondering if that man happens to be a mechanical engineer from MIT. Only people like us can make such statements!
Meanwhile, notwithstanding my obnoxious, brand -spewing guest editor, we have managed to cling on to the No.1 ranking in test cricket by our collective 1 billion fingernails. Well actually 1 billion minus 1. Sourav Ganguly bit his fingernails into oblivion as he sat watching the match. I am pretty sure his fingernails were not holding on.
But despite being No.1, I am still as confused about my country as those detectives Thomson and Thompson. I was going through a map of India, or Hindistan as it is known here and I could spot every city from Mangalore to Gorakhpur to Darbhanga. But no Mumbai. No Bangalore. And a curiously named 'Deli'. Strange!
Also during this week, one of cricket's most inspiring stories came from a country where the President is confused between a LBW and a BMW. Afghanistan has made it to the T20 World Cup in the Carribean and have landed up in the same group as India and South Africa. Coach Kabir Khan (Chak de India, anyone?) wryly commented on his luck, 'Dale Steyn? No problem.' Well if that Dale Steyn from Nagpur turns up, this band of merry Afghans is going to be obliterated faster than those Bamiyan Buddhas.
And finally Arsenal continued to frustrate its most ardent supporters. I fear this is not even news anymore as the latest setback was a defeat to F.C. Porto. Well this is what the current injury list at Arsenal looks like. Manuel Almunia, William Gallas, Johann Djourou, Eduardo, Robin van Persie, Aaron Ramsey, Kieran Gibbs, Alex Song, Andrey Arshavin and Abou Diaby. And Mr. Wenger wants us to believe, with an injury list as long as this, we can still win something. I would be less surprised if Rakhi Sawant announced tomorrow that she would not show any more skin in the future. Sigh!

Till next week then. Chop chop!!