Monthly Archive for May, 2010

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Ravindra Jayanti

Published on May 9, 2010 in Cricket. 60 Comments

It takes a special kind of talent to single-handedly lose one World Cup. It takes talent of a different kind of God-ness to lose two World Cups (India still has a mathematical chance of making it to the semis but let us agree they do not deserve to) through one’s individual brilliance. Ravindra Jadeja is one such legend. If he decimated India’s chances in England with his Mohammed Kaifian batting, this time in West Indies he did it with his bowling and fielding. To be fair, he was not allowed to display his batting prowess, having been sent in at the fag end, even after Harbhajan Singh, else I am sure he would not have left any stone unturned even there.

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Hum Hain Raja Raj Karen

Published on May 9, 2010 in Memories. 48 Comments

Continuing my series [Baba Deewana, Dheere Dheere Haulle Haulle ]on people who inspired me (a spin-off on the chapter in my book “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss” on inspirational movies of the 90s) , I present to you another of my gurus.

A day in the nineties. The sun had set and evening was descending. I was waiting for a friend, sitting on the stairs of a building, not wanting to go upstairs to his place. The building’s guards and their friends were sitting in a circle listening to a song on the battery-operated cassette player. There was darkness all around because of a load-shedding (i.e. no power) and mosquitoes, the size of Shilpa Shirodhkar, were feasting on my neck.

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Dheere Dheere Haulle Haulle

Published on May 4, 2010 in Cricket and Memories. 54 Comments

Continuing my series [Baba Deewana] on people who inspired me (a spin-off on the chapter in my book “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss” on inspirational movies of the 90s) , I present to you yet another of my gurus.

Bhagwan ke liye tujhe chod doon to main kya khayoon—Prasad?

-Shakti Kapoor (Insaniyat Ki Dushman)

Cricket provided role models and life lessons for people who were at their formative stages in the 90s. Vinod Kambli taught us that without self-control, one can keep on flunking Class 11 even when you are the second best boy in class, Azharuddin taught us why you should not spend so much time on the phone talking to friends and Inzamam showed us how you should never ever be provoked even when people called you a potato.

But the man who influenced me most was, without doubt, Venkatesh Prasad.

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Baba Deewana

Published on May 3, 2010 in Memories. 100 Comments

In my book “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss” (first edition sold out in a month–thanks for buying) I had talked about five iconic movies that had defined me as a person. However I forgot to doff my cap to the personalities and artists who have had a similar deeply emotional effect on me. So today, I present you one of those persons. Hopefully in the future, I shall also acknowledge my other inspirations.

When you were called to the senior teacher staff room in South Point High School on the orders of the legendary ADG (Anjan-babu) you knew immediately that a few things might have happened—-that you had been spied upon smoking (which I did not), you had been found out going to private coaching classes (which I did) or you had been discovered to be going out with a girl (which I tried to do but without much success)

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