Idhar Udhar Ki Baatein

Hello fellow bloggers and readers (if I have any that is. That's the downside of no *poke* available on Blogger unlike Facebook - I don't know if someone's really reading it or if I'v visited my blog too many times for the visitor number to go up. For the record, I dislike the whole notion of *poke* - it's weird! So I wouldn't know but I'll assume my parents are reading this at some point),

Over the last few months, there'v been numerous occasions that'v inspired me to post a blog. Evidence would suggest that I wasn't inspired enough. The inspiration for the lack of being inspired can possibly be attributed to this funny not-so-little transitive/intransitive verb known as 'procrastination'. 'To put off intentionally or habitually' is how it is defined in Merriam Webster's dictionary. I think 'to put off habitually' sums up my case. And I think I'v mentioned this in a previous blog post too :| Also, my favorite video-blogger, Charlie McDonnell v-logged about this.

One thing I learnt early on but never applied to my life was : News doesn't wait. You need good timing. [Back in October 2005, an earthquake hit North India, the epicenter was in Pakistan. We felt it and I wrote a huge email to my family about the experience. My uncle said that had it reached earlier, it could'v been published in a National Daily!]. And since the events mentioned below [except the last one] were um, news-centric events - writing about them now would possibly bore you and I probably won't have the same flow as I would have, writing about it before. There's always a difference and one can usually point it out - specially when things aren't as fresh in your memory. People often talk of events (specially famous/great ones) and say that they're fresh in their memory, as if it'd happened yesterday. Excellent for them! Somehow, my memory about events has been very blurry, specially over the last six months. And even if I try to reconstruct them and write about them - justice, my friends, it would be not. So I thought I'd leave a summary of each of them. Making it a cumulative post.

Some of the stuff I wanted to talk about but couldn't :

The Epic Semi-Final : India Vs Pakistan And How We Kicked Their Ass.

This match possibly trumped the Final that India played to win the World Cup 2011. The energy of this match reminded me of India Vs Pakistan, Final T20 World Cup. I can't even begin to talk about the importance this particular match was given. The media focus. The political angle. How Team India came out to play and won the match is beyond me. They don't call him Captain Cool for nothing. It really doesn't put the pressure off you when the Prime Minister of your country invites the rival team's Prime Minister. Also, when you see that people are buying tickets for Lakhs of rupees. And the fact that the match was played at the PCA Stadium, Mohali added to the hysteria. Mohali is in Punjab. When you talk of the state of Punjab, it has delicate history, probably nowhere close to as delicate as Kashmir when it comes to Indo-Pak relations. Punjab, on both sides of the border, has a rich culture, tradition etc. and faced the bloodiest end of the partition. There is a lot of shared history of the people of the Punjab.

Oh also, this was the first and only match (till now) where I tweeted through the match. It was actually fun. Possibly the first time I spent more than 10 minutes on Twitter. I got the hang of this micro-blogging website. But, 140 characters is 'rhomba* too much' self-control for me.

The Epic Final : India Vs Sri Lanka And How We Kicked Their Ass Too.

Team India, The Men In Blue, whatever you choose to call them, won the ICC World Cup 2011. A nation of a billion bled blue. The after party, my friends, was the biggest one. The nation felt a hangover the next morning. In Delhi, India Gate was the place to be at. I was told by some friends that Delhi looked like the safest place that night(mid-night/morning). If not for the billion hearts, I felt happy for one person. It's God. He also goes by Sachin (Ramesh Tendulkar). :) Cynics and Cricket-Haters may have found it ridiculous (and maybe I did too, after 2 days of being super-happy!) but like I said in my previous post, Cricket is a religion here. Btw, the other God also happened to be at Wankhede for the match. Rajni saar :)

Anna Hazare, The Lokpal Bill, A Movement Of The Masses?

Anna Hazare is a social activist, recognized for his contribution to the development of a village in Maharashtra and establishing it as a model village. He started a 'fast-unto-death' on 5th April, 2011 so as to exert pressure on the government to enact a strong anti-corruption act. Since he staged this 'fast-unto-death' at the Jantar Mantar, New Delhi - my parents and I decided to go show our solidarity. I will admit that I do not know the finer elements of the proposed Bill. If you ask me why I think this may bring an end to corruption, I'll say no. I think all of us know that an assumption such as the above is too idyllic. But it sure could get a system in place and I support that. Apart from all of that, from a point of view of 'social movements', it intrigued me. Now, I'm no expert on how social movements work, what constitutes one, whether it is completely media-driven or if it would even bring some change. I am still learning. But being there, made me feel awesome because I haven't seen these many Indians showing their support (there were meetings across the nation) and coming together for something apart from Cricket! I do not intend to belittle our janta but I think when we look back, at least, in my eighteen years of existence, I haven't seen such solidarity on an issue which isn't Cricket! Sure, we have candle-light marches asking for justice, but does the whole of India participate? Maybe not literally.

Oba-whoops!-Osama Died :O

Osama bin Laden, the most famous terror mastermind, the man behind the 9/11 action died on May 2nd, 2011. After years of rumors, you had to believe it when Obama, the President of the United States of America, was going to address the world the aforementioned news. May 2nd, 2011 is also possibly the one day where the same blooper occurred through the day and it was no minor one. It's no secret that the name of the President of the United States of America sounds similar to the terror mastermind's name. Obama and Osama. On May 2nd, 2011 - almost every news channel committed this blooper : The news breaking in at this hour is that Oba ... I mean, Osama bin Laden has been killed really, by US forces at Abbottabad, near Islamabad. [That was just an attempt at imitating our news anchors, who over emphasize on all the wrong words; they also add a 'really' every here and there.] Anyway, this news reminded me of the time, during a vacation at my grandparents' place in Madras, my grandma woke me up to say the Veerappan had been killed! It was equally hard to believe. Of course, Osama's death does not by any means imply that terrorism is on the decline or any such thing. There might be tons of others like him out there. I can only appeal to them to not kill innocent people in the name of god. Another issue that it does or has brought up into the international spotlight is that there's something fishy going on in Pakistan! Since my knowledge of politics and international relations is limited, I will avoid commenting on this. Oh also, I do feel that Osama's death avenged the barbaric killing of the people who died on 9/11 due to the terror strike as well the many other innocent people who were convicted because their Asian origin was just plain suspicious.

How I Still Abso-freakin-lutely Love DDLJ.

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. I'm not ashamed to admit that this movie shall forevermore, remain an all-time favorite. Since this has nothing to do with news, current or otherwise, I shall devote my next blog post to it.

Lamba ho gaya kya? If you made it till this line (and I mean, by reading all of the above too), I thank you!

*'Rhomba' means 'too much' in Tamil. And now, you may wonder why I wrote 'Rhomba too much' when 'Rhomba' equals 'too much' anyway, I just made this all sound like 'x' equals 'rhomba' and 'rhomba too much' equals 'x squared'. But it's just the way we say it in Madras :)