Thursday, April 13, 2006

Itz a jungle out there

this is the new delhi sky at dusk ... while we were coming back from our tiring trip from Sariska Tiger Reserve,Rajasthan.The place is close to 37 KM from Alwar which is infact 140 KM from Delhi.The reserve should be renamed as a peacock reserve as even the goverment servants in 'Tiger Den' shamelessly declare to the tourists that there is not even a single tiger left in the jungle ... all poached down by the famous Sansar Chand.Though the place is pretty retro, we enjoyed a few drinks at the bar which reminded me of the era when Naseeruddin Shah and Saeed Jafri sang "huzoor is qadar bhi na itraa ke chaliye .." Posted by Picasa

Sunday, April 02, 2006

The Great Wall of India

This weekend I have been watching television in marathon sessions interspersed with the inevitable breaks for lunch and drinks.There has been an overwhelming coverage of Indian Cricket these days on Television.There were at least 2-3 interviews of Dravid accross different channels and he appeared to be extremely learned in terms of leadership or team work fundas, avoided the volleys of Greg-Ganguly contorversy and other such questions as if they were well read Bouncers from inexperienced pacers.Rajdeep Sardesai correctly pointed out that Dravid was sounding so knowlegeable that he should take up profession of taking leaderhip seminars or lectures once he is retired.

Cricket is everywhere, in discussions on News Channels where Sidhuisms continue unabated ( inspite of the fact that these days he is getting lots of airtime elsewhere also e.g on Laughter Challenge ), people are SMSing to make Raina, Dhoni, Powar upcoming heroes, the reporters are invading houses of these new age heroes asking the most cliched questions "Aap Kaisa mehsoos ker rahe hain ?" ( at least the smaller towns of UP are in news for some good reasons and not for operation Majnu etc ), Kumble is there on the Sunday Times of TOI, one private airliner promoting Delhi-Goa flight allowing common men to get shoulder to shoulder with the men in blue.

In all this hoopla at times one feels do we have any other sports in India. Alas ! very recently the commonwealth games were finished and we were able to perform decently i guess.Shamsher Jung was adjudged the most outstanding athelete of the games winning 7 medals , I would love to see how his family ( his wife too is winner of gold at the same games ) is celebrating his success, most of us don't even know to which city he belongs.There were so many other winners who have won laurels but they are not at all being put in limelight.What makes heroes ? I think these days it is the media which makes rules as to what hogs the limelight and who bites the dust of anonymity or is it the other way round ?


p.s. : the title of this post is credited to the CNN IBN interview of Dravid.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Chasing away boredom on this weekend, lazy afternoon !!

A friend dictated his visit to Amsterdam / Europe as scary and full of revelations which made him like his motherland more and more .It is just the conversion factor ( $ to Rs ) which is driving people crazy.According to him the whole of europe seems full of perverts , ppl *ing everywhere in and arnd Eiffel tower, on subways and where not, it is so risky travelling alone or even in a small group, there have been horror stories of people getting robbed and all.Am sure this is not the full picture but at least some corners of the picture are dark. I guess it is just the alien effect, aliens in any place are equally precarious.They are so much out of context in the host country that things are bound to have a different shade.US folks coming to India find things eually chaotic, they feel that on roads here traffic is coming from all direction and in all forms ( from local made bullock carts to the Mercs ) on the same two lane road.

All this thing came to the mind my this week's marathon TV viewing session watching 'Chasing Liberty'( a la 'Dil hai ki manta nahi' girl leaving home in search of answers and falling in love etc etc ) , remember one more movie 'Euro Trip'( Tagline: No actual Europeans were harmed in the making of this film). I guess even the americans have a mysticism,romanticism about Europe, may be 'cause they trace their roots to Europe.

p.s. : all the above statements are purely a result of the concoction of my tidbits of knowledge.No harm intended to any nation/race/spcies/genus/kingdom.