Howzzat!

So finally the moment has arrived. The widely criticized (rather than anticipated) XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 is about to start. Everyone has had their say. Ministers of various commonwealth nations, CWG officials, the Olympic Games Committee folks, most importantly ‘The Media’ and even this 16 year old who has never come close to anything known as ‘Sports’ (if only ‘hide-and-seek’ belonged to this category!) I’m not going to write about all that has been much said and hyped about by the Media. I’m not going to point out the “unpreparedness” of the games nor would I say anything about the foot bridge collapse, the sanity of the CWG village, the incident at the weight-lifting arena, pulling out of (over the) top athletes, the dumb reasons given by our sincere officials ( not to mention the dog’s dump on the athletes’ bed!!). “Seeing is Believing” they say, which is just another way of saying “Hearing is not believing” But we saw the pictures of filthy village in the p...

  All smiles! Chennai Super Kings are on a roll! They were runners-up in the first edition of the IPL (2008), were in the semi-finals in 2009 and won the tournament in 2010. And now just five months after lifting the IPL trophy, they've lived it up once more, in the second edition of CLT20 as CSK drowned Warriors by 8 wickets! Last night, CSK thrashed the Warriors in what seemed to be a match set right by the bowlers.  M.S.Dhoni is one-big-lucky guy (thanks to Mrs.Dhoni!) The venue was Johannesburg - the same venue where the lad led India to its 2007 World T20 title. Spinners Muttiah Muralitharan (3/16) and R. Ashwin (2/16) took five wickets as Chennai restricted Warriors to 128 for seven after the South African team elected to bat at the New Wanderers Stadium. With the most runs (294 off 6 matches) of the tournament, Murali Vijay took home his "golden bat" and R. Ashwin was awarded the Golden ball (the guy deserves it for his most timely wicket of the dang...

    The greatest thing about festivals is the food ; and the love and warmth that is served with it. The Biriyani served during Ramzan (that’s today), the ‘kozhukattais’ made during Ganesh Chathurthi (that’s tomorrow), the sweet pongal prepared during the festival of pongal and all the jalebis , ladoos and home made murukku   on Diwali….wah!  the list goes on.. Meet the Masal dosa hola Rasgulla! Early this year, Outlook proclaimed Masala Dosa as India’s national dish and Rasgula (Rosgulla, Rasagola or whatever it is called) as nation’s favourite sweet. But that sounds so weird. There can be never be anything as such. Every time a magazine conducts a poll on food- which state’s favourite dish is which, I really get annoyed. Every sweet, every dish that has been ever made is so special and wonderful with a distinct flavour of its own and picking something as India’s national dish is incredibly unfair. ...

Drops of pearl and drops of dew, The downpour lasting hours a few. Cotton so white, casting droplets so pure, Manna sent from Heaven for sure. Sparkling little beads lay scattered throughout, Filling my heart brim with doubt Can they all be strung to form a lace, To adorn a neck and fill it with grace? Drizzle! Sploosh! Splat! Plop! Thence goes the rhythm when you drop Pitter! Patter! Pitter! Patter! The moment seems wondrous as you splatter. Wash away the sadness, Oh rain! Cast away our madness. Upon us, you shall rein And upon us, you shall rain.

The Bee in my Bonnet….  Here are some really cool “BUZZ-ES” I came across, ~There is a city called Rome on every continent. ~Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. ~Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th." (August begins on a Sunday. Hehehe!) ~Coca-Cola would be green if coloring weren’t added to it. (Will the Greenpeace folks be happy if it were?) ~The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra. ~Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam. ( Pay back time!) ~Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader . (Tere Bin Laden) ~The deadliest spider on earth is called the BANANA spider. (I am dead serious) ~And fi...

Before I wrote it all in the Laptop: Believe it or not, I’m writing this post under the well seated bus stop at Vadavalli, the place where all the ‘1c’s in the town queue up. I don’t mind being stared at by some nearby school girls who, I guess, aren’t used to seeing a girl in her uniform, scribbling away in her notepad, staring blankly ( I mean, thinking hard). It’s been a hard week. I post an average of 3 posts each month. But July’s been real tough - tests, exams and I wrote the last exam (maths) this morning. And I’m sitting here, writing this while fretting over my lost marks in that exam. I always miss my marks in the objective type questions but never mind, Que sera, sera…. I had to stop by a friend’s house with my gang (at mid day, after school). It was the last day of our first mid-term tests and we really had to make up for the lost fun (sigh!) somewhere. What better way to travel, than in a town bus? There’s no dearth of amusement, once you get to know where your feet...

The Sheer Pleasure of The Old World... The innumerable books written in English… Biographies, Memoirs, Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Novels… And a ‘novel’ has much more – mysteries, romances, war tales, sci-fi, horror, chick-lit..the list is endless.. And the unadulterated old world ones make my bookshelf. Bookworms who’ve read every other book keep themselves away from classics and I hope the number is few. An ideal bookworm must undergo the ordeal (or pleasure, it depends) of reading classics, obviously, Brit ones. When it comes to music, each one has a liking for different genres. If I like pop in music, I like classics in English Literature. One might think, “What’s so cool in those big boring books full of words that can’t be spelled or pronounced, even?!” It’s like a jigsaw; one who spends time putting it together, sees the picture. The reason I like Brit classics is that I was introduced to those uncool books at the very start (right after those t...

The whole of Coimbatore wears a festive look. “Ulaga Thamizh Semozhi Manaadu” (World Classical Tamil Conference) seems to be the reason. So much money has been pumped into it and lots of landmarks like the railway station, bus stop etc.., have been renovated. The Codissia hall at Peelamedu has been extensively refurbished to accommodate more than 16,000 people for the event which takes place between 23-27 th of June. So all schools, colleges and government institutions have been declared holiday, for a week. Ah, how proud I feel now as a Tamil girl! (never mind I took up French in the higher stream, my love for Tamil remains intact) So today is the first week day of my short vacation and I spent it writing my tuition homework (Maths) and yes, I watched Prince of Persia- Sands Of Time this evening (don’t ask me how). Astounding effects, nice screenplay… I’m not writing its review since I hardly concentrated on the facts. I didn’t even notice which kingdom the Persians were invadi...

Around the world in a few seconds…. It won’t take that much time to think and imagine, will it? If I were to grow up and earn enough money to spend on a vacation, where would I go? Taj Mahal, Agra … A trip to the north of the Vindhyas seems like a distant dream to me right now. I wonder when I’ll step onto the northern states and feel that part of India the the world knows better. And if I go there one day, my first desire will be to see the most famous epitome of love made by a ruler who was both lovelorn and ruthless (he is said to have cut off the hands of all the artisans, craftsman and architects who painstakingly built the monument so that they wouldn’t build another one that is more beautiful). The backwaters of Kerala… I’ve got to see what’s so famous in the boathouses of God’s own country. I’d love to go to any place that is flush with greenery and Kerala, I heard is one.  Kashmir … A lovely land torn between violence and disput...