Chargers on the Storm !!

Prologue

As I take out time to blog after more than a month’s grueling cricketing action, not just for the players but also diehard fans like me who had to juggle between Late Night Cliffhangers and Early morning office meetings.

India; a cricket frenzy nation where it doesn’t take more than couple of seconds for a completely random strangers to bond over a game of cricket by merely asking “boss score kya huva”. A billion heartbeats thriving on the success and failure of the National Cricket Team which binds this nation together. The IPL however managed to bring in a completely new dimension to cricket by drawing battle lines alongside a regional franchisee based system. No longer can you safely tap the shoulder of the stranger next to you and “assume” that both of you are cheering for the same team.

The stage was set for the Delhi-Daredevil vs Deccan Chargers Semifinal last weekend, After hopping by at a couple of places hoping to catch the Live Screening, we settled for IndiJoe’s; As we were hooting screaming and clapping; trying to match Gilly’s scintillating strokeplay; we realized that somewhere between all of that we managed to entangle ourselves in a verbal battle with the guys on the next table who were Delhi-Daredevils supporters. Not sure if it was Gilly’s batting or the couple of budwisers that gave me the high; but I was in no mood to relent inspite of being aware of the violent & unpredictable behavior of jaats.

As Gilly continued to plunder the Delhi attack, our banter was getting louder & confident and we managed to corner the jaats and send them packing; not before they expressed their frustration by fighting among themselves. Helpless and Outnumbered by Hyderabadi’s and Outplayed by Gilly.

I had got my revenge, after being taunted and ridiculed by my friends from Delhi during the whole of last season when Deccan Chargers were subjected to humiliating defeats & finished last on the league table.

When the IPL-2009 season had began the time had come for the Deccan Chargers; he players were eagerly waiting for an opportunity to make a statement; As a fan I was more than eager to make statements of my own. I got myself a Team Jersey (pic below) 2 weeks before the beginning of the IPL and much before the actual Team got one. As people continued to mock me and my fanatic support for the Chargers calling me “The only Deccan Chargers fan”; also claiming that the only way the owners would make profits was from the team jerseys I had bought (3 jerseys in all). I was subjected to mockery even before the season had began.

I have nothing to say except for the few lines I decided to plagiarize and pen down

(no points for guessing the original song)

Chargers on the storm
Chargers on the storm

Like a wooden spoon we were thrown

A team without a spine
it’s the zeal that got us crowned

With the warriors on a Song
and the Chargers on the storm

There’s Gilly on the road
His brain is running like a code
The rivals can take a holiday
while the underdogs continue to play
If ya give this man a ride

He will rise against the tide

And push you down the slide

Killer on the road, yeah

It’s time for everyone to move on especially the sore losers; As we all need to unite and cheer for TEAM INDIA in the World T20 Championship starting June 5^th.

All the sore losers see you in Champions T20 League in Oct-2009; May be we Indians will have another reason to fight.

As I conclude this post; My take on the IPL Controversies.

1) Increasing the 4 International Players/Team Limit – Unfortunately the hypocrite Indians want to see more local cricketers playing; however none of them would be taking this tournament seriously if it was a pure domestic affair

2) Lalit Modi calling for 2 IPL seasons/year – He is on a high after the success in South Africa. Let him come out of the hangover

3) Indian Captain lifting up the Trophy – Either Ban All foreign players from captaining IPL teams. No matter what; there is some foreign hand involved in the success/failure of each of the 8 teams or become more broadminded.

4) Deccan Chargers win was a fluke – Get a Life

5) Lack of talented local players in Deccan Chargers – We lost most of them to the Rebel ICL League, the rebel franchisee called “Hyderabad Heros” won the 2008 tournament. Most of the players from the rebel league are going to join the Deccan Chargers for the 2010 season.

P.S.: Special thanks to my parents for putting up with the late night loud volumes; Thanks to TataSky+ for allowing me to record and rewind matches; Thanks to all my Deccan Chargers Supporter friends for staying with the team and tolerating my occasional pessimism and for spreading the belief that this team is going to win.

The world sneezes when the Americans catch cold !!

Prologue

As I make yet another attempt to revive my blog, I am clearly falling short of ideas, As I have given up on begging, borrowing & stealing thoughts, I am trying to get provoked (last time) and inspired (this time)

The title of my post could bring in way too many analogies starting from economy, governance, Military, fashion trends, movies, music, and how even a minuscule and unintentional American issue can create a furor in the rest of the world. But for once let me not pretend to be intelligent and purely stick to the literal title of the post.

AH...AH....ACHOOOO…..ACHOOOO (23…24…..as my younger brother gives me a stern look as he keeps track of the number of times I sneezed in the last hour or so rather the number of times he got disturbed from his serious semester exam preparation)

As I surf the Television, the news channels continued to flash “Breaking News”, which ironically and obviously is about the SWINE FLU that broke out in the US, 3 days ago, and since then has only been threatening to enter India (only thanks to the news channels), as they continue to wait desperately for the symptoms to be tested positive, so that they can go on and increase their TRPs, and later claim that they were “Subse Teez”

ACHOOOO…..ACHO (as I tried to hold my 2nd sneeze back only to avoid the unsympathetic looks from my family members)

Its been 3 long days since I tried to hide myself from the scorching sun and the horrendous heat, for reasons that have nothing to do with me getting a sun-burn or TANned (if at all there is a difference between those two), as I continue to sip the 5th glass of fresh lemonade + Aam Panna mocktail, which pretty much has been a lifesaver for me for 25 years, thanks to my aversion to yoghurt, buttermilk and all the byproducts of milk.

ACHOOOO (as I speak to my friend on the phone to discuss the weekend plans which later failed and if that was not enough the Deccan Chargers loss to Rajasthan Royals further ruining the already disastrous weekend)

I continued to surf the channels, completely ignoring my mom’s demanding looks to give up on the remote, meanwhile one of the news channels in a bid to become the number 1, almost confirmed the first “Positive” case of the Swine flu, as the others tried to demystify the dangerous disease; I decided not to leave it to them.

“Swine flu also known as pigfluenza or hog flu or pig flu”,

Couple more google results and I came across a news which was far more interesting than the actual disease itself, It is to believed that the Indian Health Ministry was facing a serious dilemma on what this outbreak would be called “Mexican Flu” or “Pig flu” ? I thanked god for leaving them only with 2 options.

If that was not enough, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) & World Health Organization (for human health) are also battling it out to figure out if this “swine flu” is a threat to mankind or animal-kind. (Later they concluded it as cocktail disease, as I gave my mocktail a dubious look)

I couldn’t stop myself from appreciating the concern of the Health Ministry and the WHO; asking people (read pork lovers) to get rid of the misconception that they could be infected by consuming pork, which has already brought about the downfall of the sales (ultimately resulting in the downfall of the national GDP ? I seriously hope not)

Indeed the world sneezes when the Americans catch cold.

Meanwhile they finally decided to name it as the H1N1 (Influenza A virus subtype H1N1) I almost began to wonder if “H1” has to anything with “H1-B” as I try to rake in a new controversy but decided against it as i do not hold any stakes in any of the news channels.

ACHOOOO ACHOOOO (as I try to sneeze softly for the fear of being overheard (over-sneezed) by my neighbours who might panic and call up 108/102, and leave me to the aftermath of the Indian media who would prowl on a pray like me only for their TRPs

“aaap India ke sabse pehle H1N1 mareez hain, bataiye kaisa lag raha hain aapko ?”

If swine doesn’t get you, the Indian Media will……

ACHOOOO...........

"God Bless Me"

P.S. Clearly Inspired, Nothing Intended !!

Semi-Inspiration, Semi-Co-incidence, Semi-Fiction, Semi-Facts

Tip of the Day....errr Lifetime.....

Having taken a vow not to write anything controversial on my blog after the verbal bashing I received after on one of my earlier posts. Since statements made and vows taken under the alcoholic influence are not legally recognized even by the Indian law I decided to make an exception for myself.

The reason for getting drunk this time (as if I care for one) as I sit alongside my best-friend-forlife Vinay and together mourning the demise of ONE MORE his youthful years as he turned 62 err 26 (oh tht was a copied joke with no copyrights)

Intoxicated and indulging ourselves with alcohol shot-after-shot we ended up going back a decade ago (well almost) and picked up the most sought-after dreadful mystery that has kept the 'MAN'kind guessing for decades & centuries together and still shows no sign of unraveling itself; well it came back to haunt us on that unfortunate evening.

“What goes on inside a women’s brains ?”

If not for the influence of the alcohol I would have yelled out loud

“NO !! NOT Again !! I need to rush home! I got to water my dog & feed the plants”

However I was helpless as i felt someone pulling me down holding back me on the chair (by the time I realized that the culprit was my new Deccan Chargers jersey that manged to knit itself into one of the rusty nails of the cosy chair it was too late)

If any of you are expecting a intriguing debate or discussion; well I am afraid I will have to end up disappointing you readers (if at all there are any) especially the female ones(I know some of you liked to be addressed as women or girls, excuse me but I am drunk), the fact that bitching was never on our agenda; Also let me clarify to my audience that I am no Chauvinist (atleast I think so) and my friend next to me respects women more than he respects himself; which unfortunately is a problem with his girlfriend (as I say this he whacks me on my head and asks me to focus on what I am supposed to say, I didn’t retaliate because he was drunk)

As he continued to live up to his reputation of being a ladies-man, a charmer, a sweet-talker (failing to realize all of that works only with women) I began losing losing my patience (whatever little I had); as he continued "There is nothing mysterious about women they are most simple human beings on this planet but are unfortunately perceived as the most complex ones thanks to dumb men like me" (mind u he was drunk); I wanted to instantly agree to his thoughts hoping that the topic would come to an abrupt end; not before my bloated ego had announced its arrival in grand style and didnt let me give into his stupid theories; for the next half-an-hour we ended up quoting numerous examples, stories, quotes, real-life incidents, authored books and tried to outsmart each other, Eventually resulting into a dud discussion which had to happen thanks to two oversmart men.

Meanwhile the alcohol levels started to supersede the water levels in the glasses as well as the blood levels inside, I began regaining the lost-confidence from the morning hangover, after yesterdays alcohol-fest.

It is a common sight to see two drunkards challenge each other and end up just blabbering trying to verbally outsmart each other; we made a conscious decision to leave all of them behind and spring into some action; my friend had decided to provoke (rather I decided its high time to get provoked or else it wouldn’t do any justice to the alcohol we gulped down) as he continued to demonstrate how simple & approachable women are…as he signaled me to turn 3 O’ Clock (meaning 45 degrees right in a ciphered the code language guys devised themselves to spot eye-candies (oh gosh how cheap of us to even address women in such derogatory terms, OMG I just gave out century-old secret of the astronomical clock men have been using to sight pretty women)

He pointed out towards a women sitting next to the table in a pink sweater branded “C K”; as i concentrated really hard to pay attention to the faint voices in the background, I figured out the ladies discussing about the 200USD sweater and the special wool used out of which the sweater was knitted.

As we signaled for the cheque oops bill err cheque; we realized that very much unlike the visa commercial we were contemplating on who would foot the bill even after working for MNCs and earning 5 figure salaries (big deal everybody does); we decided to resolve the issue as he threw a challenge asking me to strike up a conversation with a stranger female; which was in contrary to the opinion I had voiced moments ago. I would have never ever dared to even accept a challenge of that sort, but the fear of CreditCard wallas chasing me has engulfed me and I gathered courage held up my breath and walked up to the female and said.........

“Hi, Do you think Lok Sabha 2009 will be a coalition government?”

Poor girl was absolutely dumbstruck and regained her calm only to say “Try one more time” (how nice of her)

I turned back to my chair and stood up almost as if I had to give a retake; stood up walked past the table and ended up blurting out.....

“Do you think Obama’s economic stimulus bill will help the global economic crisis ?”

(and raised a eyebrow & almost as if to ask her if that was that intelligent enough ?)

C.K. answered "As if I care, right now I am bothered about someone bailing me out of my personal economic crisis"

By this time, clueless little miss CK was speculating if i was News Reporter or a VJ of some stupid show playing pranks on hapless people

Meanwhile I could figure out that my friend was having a laughter of a lifetime at my expense; but never ran out of tips; and this time suggested me to find “common or similar things” to strike up a conversation; it took me a couple of seconds to figured out that except for the time on our watches we had nothing in common.

I was in no mood to relent; and drew inspiration from those hundreds of bollywood movies and decide to pen down some pick up lines on the tissue paper; I wish I had access to google and ended up recollecting a few pick up lines (obviously not my own)

For someone so adorable, how can you be single? (fingers crossed I hope are you really single ?)

You are the kind of person people have to work up the guts to talk to (yeah I did I mean the alcohol did)

I know of a foolproof way for you to turn me into a prince... (well errr yeah….i guesss)

No Points for guessing the reactions i received (very obvious ones) I would refrain from publishing the responses to each of these pick up lines as my blogs are strictly against Non-Violence & use of language unacceptable to certain section of the audiences :D

It was only later I figured out that I was set up for this whole episode by my best friend and his long time colleague (no points for guessing); I really wanted to thank my friend for motivating me and thank Miss C.K (Calvin Klein) for being so approachable however I couldn’t really get in touch with her again thanks to the Orkut Privacy Settings and locked scrapbooks.

Meanwhile I still continue to draw attention to my Orkut Profile by clicking pictures with my neighbors red Ferrari and friends red karizma…hoping either I turn intelligent and smart one day…or hope that i come across someone who belongs to 20% category...

P.S: The content of this blog is definitely inspired and provoked and is purely fictional; Although intentional, it is not intended to hurt the feelings of people whom it is intended at; My Sincere apologies if I have gone overboard with the post as I tend to do sometimes.