Thanks Orkut!!!

Unlike several people I know, I am not really crazy about Orkut. I do not use it for "making" new friends, however I find it pretty useful for locating old friends. I have located several friends from my school days. Today, I had another hit as I managed to locate my best pal from class 5th!!! It has been around 18 years since we last met and I had never imagined that I will ever be able to find him. I am really happy today.

For heaven's sake someone stop the "unstoppables" from losing

I am back to writing about cricket. With IPL going on, no one can escape the excitement and above all .....the discussions and analysis. Unlike most people, I do not have a favorite team in IPL. All the Indian cricket stars whom I like are scattered in different teams. I want Sachin to do well but have no attachment with the Mumbai team. I want Viru to do well but do not care about the Delhi team. But there is one team.....with whom I am bound to be a little attached. And that team is Hyderabad, aka Deccan Chargers!!!

When this team was picked, everyone (including yours truly) was of the opinion that it is one of the strongest teams. It has some great strokemakers, essential for the 20-20 format of the game. Deccan Chronicle spent crores for creating the team and a quick glance upon the squad suggested that we have a winner!!! And then the tournament started. Deccan Chargers have played three games till now and......hayeeelaaaa.....they have lost all three!!!!

The owners of the team probably did not realise that there is a cap on the number of foreign players playing in a game. There cannot be more than 4 foreign players in the playing eleven. That makes it very crucial that the remaining 7 Indian players are pretty good or atleast...up to the mark. That is where the Deccan Chargers are struggling. They have big names like Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs, Chaminda Vaas, Scott Styris, Nowan Zoysa and Chamara Silva but they can play only four of them. Apart from these big guns, Chargers have players like Venugopal Rao, VVS Laxman....and some legendary unknown fellas!!! I like Laxman's batting but in test matches. He should not even step on a cricket ground in colored uniform. 20-20 is a game about power-hitting, slogging, keeping the momentum going.....there is no place for "class". I could not even believe my eyes when in the first encounter Venugopal Rao opened with Gilchrist and then Laxman came on number 3!!!! The game was lost there itself!!!! The strategy was wrong and thankfully they tweaked it in the third game by dropping Rao. But it was not sufficient as Laxman promoted himself to the opening slot. Chargers will do their campaign a world of good by promoting Shahid Afridi to the opening slot. Look at the Delhi team. In the two matches that they have played so far, the number four batsman has not batted. In a 20-20 game, you have got to start with your best players and there should not be a need for your number 5 or 6 batsman to come to the crease.

Apart from making errors in the selection of the playing eleven, Laxman has also been far from impressive as a captain. In the first game against Kolkata, Laxman did not try to stop the singles. In a low scoring match, Laxman should have attacked the opposition. In the end, Kolkata trotted home quite easily. Then in the third match against Jaipur, Laxman made a blunder by giving the last over to Symonds. The opposition requires 19 runs off the last over and you hand over the ball to a bowler who had been taken for 28 runs off 2 overs. Moreover, Symonds's bowling had contributed to it's loss against Kolkata and he gave 30 runs in an over (Viru Zindabad) against Delhi!!!! Such historical events will make anyone apprehensive but not Laxman. Laxman was riding on complacency and that gave the Chargers the third loss in a row.

There is still a lot of cricket to be played in the tournament but if the Chargers have to do something worthwhile, they will have to sort out several things. Hopefully, they will be able to turn things around in time.

Night stay at Rangamati

Last week I visited my friend Ajit's village (Rangamati, Jharkhand). I was very excited about the trip as this was going to be my first visit to a village. The village is around 55 kms from Ranchi. The road to the village is mostly good. It was a nice ride to the village.

Everything about the place is so fresh. Fresh air, fresh water, fresh vegetable, fresh milk....everything. Moreover, the life is so simple (at least it appears that way). I had a great time over there and I didn't want to come back from the place at all.

Sarhul Festival at Ranchi

My trip to Ranchi coincided with the festival, Sarhul. It is a tribal festival in which tribals worship the Sal tree to seek the blessings of their spirits. The festival is marked by extensive dance and music programs. In Ranchi, groups from all parts of the city assemble at the Main Road area and from there the procession starts.

I was there and my friend suggested that we should take pictures of the procession. Now, I am always game for taking pictures but this time around I was a little apprehensive. I had heard several stories of people getting drunk and creating nuisance. During the festival, drinking heavy duty "haria", which is a local brew made of rice, is a common custom. I wanted to avoid any damage to myself and above all my camera. We decided to give the procession a miss. Just when we were about to leave, we saw the procession approaching. I got really excited and starting clicking. I was changing places to get good shots. Soon I realized that I was right in the middle of the procession and was drawing a lot of attention. There was this heavily drunk group which was staring at me and my camera. I started looking for a way to get out of trouble. Just then, one of them shouted "press wallah hai!!!" (He is from press!!!). Afterwards, the group posed for pictures and even made room for me to get into desired places to take shots. Having a big camera has its positives.

One interesting fact is that during the festival, women wear male cloths and gears and hunt for animals. The hunting process continues for entire day and they can kill any animal....wild or pet!!!

Finally....the numbers matched!!!

If you have ever bought a lottery ticket then you know the anxious moments one goes through while checking the winning number against the number on his/her lottery ticket. I have gone through such anxious moments quite a few times as my grandma used to buy lottery tickets for us. Needless to say that I never won as in that case, right now I would have been sitting on the Miami beach…watching babes get tanned. I would not have been here writing this stupid blog.

Hmmmph….anyways…the point is that the number on my ticket never matched with the winning number!!! I used to pray for the number to match but my prayers always went unheard….all that changed last Saturday!!!

I was anxiously looking above at the large digital board when it flashed the message. There was the number. I looked down at my ticket….and….it…MATCHED!!!

The ticket in my hand was my train reservation ticket and the message on the large display board said that my train had been postponed from 10:20 pm to 2:15 am!!!! I reconfirmed and the train numbers did match. Mr. God…I meant the lottery number and not just any number!!! But ya, that was a good one that you played on me. No hard feelings.

When two people have differences of opinion, it is not necessary that one of them is wrong. Both can be right. Do you agree?