India will be back with a bang

India started its final frontier with an innings defeat. Some stupid Indian medias started to question about our team’s ability once again. Our media’s reaction is not an unexpected one and I will be surprised only if they speak some good stuffs about us.

 SA skipper and even Paul Harris mock India by giving comments like ‘We expected a better fight from India’. Don’t worry guys the second test will not be the same. At the same time don’t forget that this is not completely your victory but the toss and more importantly the weather played the major roles.

SA would have suffered the same loss if they had played in India. And then I didn’t understand why the media never criticizes Australia or SA or NZ if they laid bouncy fast tracks but they strongly criticize the sub continent teams if they prepare a spinning track by calling it as a negative tactics.

I still believe in our players’ ability whether it is a fast, spinning or seaming track. I’m sure that our players will win the next match in Durban. I just want to tell one thing to SA ‘Hey SA please come out of your ecstasy.You are still No 2 and try to compete with with us.’

To Kill A Mocking Bird - An Exaggeration

I decided to write this post before four months. But I dropped the idea because my post will contradict with nearly 70 percent of the people who reads this. At the same time I cannot sugarcoat . If I do so it is an injustice done to my Blog Title. Just today, ‘This is your blog. You can write whatever you think’, the thought clicked in my mind. This thought finally made me to post this.

This book celebrated its 50th anniversary recently. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner. British Librarians ranked this book ahead of the Bible as one “every adult should read this before they die”. Almost all the bloggers had given very good rating for this book.

Everyone praised this book. This made me to read this book. But after reading, the praise for this book seems to be an exaggeration. Everyone had overrated this book. Harper Lee wrote this book 50 years ago. It is not possible for me to know the influence this book made in those years. This book might have been the first of its type to deal with American racism. This book have lots and lots of moral values. So its moral content might had earned a very good review for this book. But the story was not presented in an interesting way.

The real success of a writer lies in his/her ability to eliminate the events. Yes, when we decide to write about something, the first confusion we will have is what are all the events we should include. Lee had included all the events happened in her life. Some of them are not necessary for this theme. She had failed in this area. ‘The God of small things’ is also a book with this theme and Arundathi Roy had proved her skill in crafting that novel.

Most of the people rate the books by its moral values and not by how it is said. I accept this as a good book but not a great book

She, I and Rain

My friend and I came out of the office at 5.50pm. It was raining. I gave my rain coat to him and decided to leave the office in shuttle. I borrowed his umbrella. Our shuttle reached another campus.

I got down from the shuttle and started to walk. I watched another associate. She is speaking to a security with our company’s umbrella in her hand. I could figure out what she is speaking. We can carry our umbrella only till the parking. Probably she is arguing about carrying it to gate. Finally she failed in her effort and gave the umbrella to the security.

She came running to the platform. With her right hand she took the shawl and covered her head. She had a novel in her left hand, close to her body to prevent it from getting wet.

 She came to me and said, ‘If you don’t mind..’

‘Yes, you can come’, I said, even before she complete her sentence.

She thanked me and came under my umbrella. I smiled at her and she smiled back. It is just a smile for formality. The novel which she had with her is ‘Nights in Rodanthe’. She must be an ELT like me or else how could she be free to read novel during office hours.

This is completely new to me. Walking with a pretty girl, that too a stranger, under an umbrella, close to each other. I walked much slower than usual. I wanted to make it a long journey. But how long can I take to cover this 50 metres distance? We came out of the campus. 

‘Will you be crossing the road? I just want to take a call taxi’, she said.

‘Yes, I will’.

We crossed the road.

‘Thank you so much’, she thanked me.

‘Its OK’, I replied and started to walk in the opposite direction.

Moral: Naan romba nallavan.

Why only old should always be gold?

We are in 21st century. The world has changed a lot in these years and we are so generous and open-minded to accept all changes. Initially people communicated with others through letters but when telephone was invented, everybody started to use it. People switched from Altavista to Google, from Orkut to Facebook and from conventional computer to laptop. People welcomed all the changes with great enthusiasm. But there is a thing which didn’t change in these years. Its nothing but our mindset.

Sachin is a great player. But even after watching his game they still tell he is nowhere near Don Bradman. Kamal Hasan is a good actor. But everyone consider Sivaji as the best actor. Shreya Ghoshal’s voice is mesmerizing but still everyone gives Asha Bhonsle a little higher position.

Even if Sachin scored another 30000 runs, he will still be given the second position. It is good to respect the seniors. But please give the youngsters, the credits, which they deserve. I accept that old is gold. But if you say that old alone is gold then it is unacceptable.

Fantastic Sporting Week

I planned to post about my favourite Roger Federer’s win against current World No 1 Rafael Nadal. But now, how can I stop with it? How can I do it after Barca’s superb win against Mourinho’s team.

The whole week has been a fantastic one for me (considering sport results). First Indian Cricket team won the ODI against New Zealand despite the absence of its senior players. Then came the most joyful moment for which I have been waiting so long. The legend Roger outplayed Nadal in the Barclay’s World Tour final and clinched the title. I expected this to happen in the US open but unfortunately Roger lost in the SF. This time he played wonderfully to make his lead 3-0 in the indoor stadium. After a long time I was impressed with Federer’s back hand winners. Now Federer is entering the new year with psychological advantage over Nadal and I hope that RF will continue his winning streak.

Even before this happiness fades, El Clasico result came as a big surprise. I know that Barca will win but I didn’t expect it in this fashion. FCB made its revenge for the loss against Inter. None of Barcelona fans would have forgotten how Mourinho ran in Camp Nou after his win against the home team last season. But now they didn’t give him a chance to move from his seat. Real Madrid player’s frustration and aggression could earn only bookings but no goals. With this famous win FCB replaced RM from the top of table.

Loneliness Kills

Another boring weekend…….a weekend without non-veg……..a weekend without anyone to chat…….a weekend closed inside a room is about to get over. Thank God! It went faster than I expected.

In one of Anton Chekhov short stories two people had a great debate regarding imprisonment. One said that he can stay imprisoned for twenty years. Another said that it is not possible. So they had a bet. If the first fellow stayed inside a guarded room for twenty years then second fellow will give a large amount(I don’t remember how much) to him. The second fellow said to others, ’It is possible to stay in prison when you are forced but the liberty he has to come out at any time will help me to win the bet’.

I’m in a situation like that. It is easy to stay, without talking to anybody, doing our work when people are around. But the real difficulty is when we don’t have anyone to speak. This is why I blog so often recently. When I want to share something I have none other than my laptop. My laptop gives its ear to everything I say. So if you think that I’m blogging some unwanted non sense then please bear with me. I have no other go and it will continue.

The day has come

I went to office at 9.20am. 20 minutes late. A colleague said to me that Mr.S was looking for me. Mr.S is one of our Sr. Associate and he looks like my Control System professor to some extent. ‘Why should he look for me?’ and I realised it was about project. I went to him and repeated the same information ‘I’m blah blah blah’ like a KG student to school teacher.

‘Go and meet Mrs.A. She is your APM’, said Mr.S.

‘Who? The one who is standing.’

‘Yes’, he replied without seeing.

Mrs.A was in Module-C and Mr.S was in Module-B. Both were separated by glass partition.

I went to her and said ‘I’m Selva. Sr. Associate asked me to meet you.’

‘To meet meeeee!!!’, she said with surprise.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Hema’ , she said with hesitation.

Bulb.

‘Oh sorry. Who is Mrs.A?’.

She pointed out her.

I introduced myself to Mrs.A and she said about my project and introduced my team members.

‘I will mail you some documents. You go through it and we will have KT later’.

‘OK Mam.’

After a week finally I’m assigned to a project.

 

My New Indi Rank -55

Before two weeks I got this month’s Indian Blogger’s rank. This time my score is 55 out of 100. Another E grade. It is OK to get E grade in Academics but it continues in blogging too….OMG.

But the good thing is, last time my score was even worse 25…lol. So relatively 55 is good. I don’t know how they rank the blog. Can anyone help me to improve my blog score?

My new room

From the previous post you all know that I’m in Coimbatore for a week. Till today 5.47 pm I stayed in our company’s guest house. But at 5.48 pm I left the guest house in an auto to the new place, ‘Sanjay Mansion – For Quality and Comfort’, where I will be staying atleast for the next five to six months.

I came to my mansion at 6.10 pm, paid the advance to the lady who is in charge of the mansion and got my room key and the mansion’s address card. Room no 210. The other side of the address card lists the facilities in the mansion as seven bullet points. Two persons in each room and I’m the first one (210/1) to occupy and only God knows when the second fellow will come (I will write a separate post about him after his arrival).

There is an ultraslim Samsung TV. I switched on the TV and I could see only the black and white pixels. It has a high tech cupboard with safety lock(shown in the picture). Two beds and pillows with yellow coloured covers. Wi-Fi facility, which my laptop couldn’t detect. And finally an attached bathroom.

I kept my baggages in the room and went to buy a torch light. I walked through a small path between bushes to the Saravanapatti road and then from there I walked nearly two kilometres to buy a torch light. While coming back I got lost between the bushes. In that dark I’m not sure where the mansion is. At last with the help of some boys I came to the mansion.

This is all about my new room.

These 7 days

I came to coimbatore last Thursday and a week has been over by now. Last Tuesday I got the mail about my posting in Cbe. I tried to postpone my joining date to Monday by giving all reasonable false excuses. But it is of no use and now I’m writing this post about my week stay in Cbe.

On seeing the urgency of my superior I thought that I will have a hard time here. But I’m loving the work which I do here. I come to office at 9am and browse till 5.45pm. Each and everyday is same as the one before. After a week’s time I’m even bored of browsing.

I’m not a hard working or a work loving person but it is such a pain to sit in a seat simply for a whole week. I expect them to map me to some team atleast tomorrow.

CB's books are just trashes!!!!!!

I recently joined a Reader’s Forum. I started a discussion ‘What do you think about Chetan Bhagat’s novels?. To my surprise I got 45 to 50 replies within two days and it’s the highest among all discussions. But most of the replies said that his books are utter waste….trashes……only people with cheap taste likes his book and a lot more like this.

Unfortunately I like his books. Am I a person with cheap taste????? Not sure what to tell. I’m not able to figure out what these people are expecting from a novel. CB’s novels are very good page turners. It is entertaining enough to hook the readers with it. I’m sure that a lot of people started to read novels because of him(novels that are better than CB’s novel).

Ok it is a normal to criticize people when they gain popularity. I decided to include CB’s case also under this category.  What do you think?

Best 5 Ads

I was watching TV and the sentence ‘After the break….Stay tuned’ came on the screen. Few years back on seeing these words my hand automatically switched channels to watch some other programs. But now the situation is entirely different and sometimes I even switch channels to watch Ads. Today’s Ad film makers are thinking a lot to make the ad as attractive as possible in a minute or two they have got. So here I’m sharing the Ads which I like a lot.

The first position goes to Vodafone Ads.

The successful ad campaign of Vodafone started a long back when it was Hutch. Yes, the pug and the girl – Happy to Help Ads. Then Zoo-Zoo ads and now the Vodafone delight ads. All the ads are equally interesting and I had never dared to change the channel during these ads.

The second position goes to Tata Docomo

All their ads are creative as well as interesting. ‘When life changes in seconds why should you pay for minutes’ – these funny Ads made me to smile whenever I watch it.

The Third position…….again goes to another Telecommunication ad and this time it is Airtel

When I think of Airtel Ad, suddenly the thing which comes to my mind is the Airtel Theme composed by A.R.Rahman. This was the first Ad music which had such a reach. Their ads always have a sentimental touch with it. Even now the new ad showing a couple who always stay connected in Airtel’s world is really nice to see.

I found it easy to give the first three positions but I had a great difficulty in giving fourth and fifth position.

I give the fourth position to Cadbury Diary Milk ad – Nazhathor kaariyam inithey thodangattum (Let the good deed starts with the sweet).

And finally the fifth position goes to CEAT tyres ad. A husband and a pregnant wife were travelling in a bike. And unexpectedly a high speeding car comes across their path and this is followed by a dead silence. The wife presses her husband’s shoulder with a great relief that they were saved. This ad has a lot of delicate things within it which is inexpressible by words.

Hi friends these are the ads which I like and if you feel that I have missed some of the interesting ads then you please mention it in your comments.

Wrong Calculation

I got posted in Coimbatore. I decided to take some cost cutting measures and the first among this is to go by Government bus (GB) and not by our company shuttle. Coimbatore is not as big as Chennai so travelling by bus is not a hard task. To implement the plan I was waiting for GB in the stop just opposite to our campus. After ten minutes I was bored and I decided to call some of my friends (thru phone). I made six calls and spoke for nearly 35 minutes. But there was no sign of GB. I went to the nearby shop and had a mini slice with micro sips to kill the waiting time. But again it’s of no use. After wasting an hour in the bus stop I took an auto to my place. My plan was to save 500 bucks a month by going by GB. But I think I will lose 855.5 rupees / month because of my brilliant wrong calculation.

Phone calls = 35 x 0.75

Slice = 9

Auto = 40

For 22 days = 1655.5

Is MSD better than DADA????!!!!!

Indian cricket team is in its victorious path. We are No 1 in test ranking for the first time. This post has nothing to tell about our journey to No 1 position. But I’m trying to figure out ‘Who is the best captain? MSD or DADA’. Yes, I had a great fight with some of my friends regarding this. But I’m the only one who supported MSD.

While discussing …. no debating…… sorry sorry….. while fighting on this topic I heard a lot of rubbish things against MSD like ‘He is winning because of luck’ , ‘He is coming as a lower order batsman’ , ‘He is not a good wicket keeper’ , ‘He has changed his game’ , ‘He is not performing but only others in the team are performing’ and finally ‘His team is very much stronger than DADA’s team’. Are this all valid reasons against his captaincy?. I could only laugh after hearing all these non-sense.

Name	Matches	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win %
Ganguly	49	21			42.8
MS Dhoni	18	12	2	4	66.67

42.8 might look like a very good winning percentage. But in this 21 wins 6 were against minnows(Bangladesh –3 and Zimbabwe- 3). Now the winning percentage goes down to 37.5. If we do the same thing for MSD , his winning % will go down to 64.7. To my knowledge 37.5 is much lower than 64.7 (How about you?).

The next thing they say about Ganguly is that he is the one who made India to win test in overseas. Yes he won 4 overseas test series. But the interesting truth is that 2 against Bangladesh and 1 against Zimbabwe. The win against Pakistan is really a good win. In the mean while he lost 4 overseas test series. Even Dhoni have 2 overseas victories in this short duration(NZ-1,Ban-1).

Now comes the most important thing they (supporters) tell about Ganguly – his win against Australia in 2003(Series drawn). Is this the reason why they call him the best captain? Then we should include the new contender into the list ‘Sunil Gavaskar’ who had done the same thing in 1980. The supporters who raise their collars for this achievement should know that Ganguly lost the home test series(1-2) against Australia in the very next year.

The final thing – ‘MSD’s team is better than Ganguly’s team’ . But is it true?. Let us take a look at the team

Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Srinath, Kumble, Nehra and Zaheer were in the Ganguly’s team.

The new team have Ohja for Kumble , Ghambir for Ganguly, Ishant for Srinath and Dhoni for Patel.
Now can you tell which is the stronger team?

Now let me deal with the negatives against MSD. ‘Luck favours Dhoni’. Yes luck favoured Dhoni in 50 ODI wins, 20 T20 wins and 12 test wins. He is the fastest Indian captain to reach 50 wins.

‘He is not a very good batsman’. Yes, he is a worst batsman who tops ICC ranking list for past 3 or 4 months with an average of 50.28.

As a wicket keeper he have 387 dismissals in his record.

‘He is coming as a lower order batsman’. This is the thing which I like about Dhoni. He is not playing for him but for his team. Is it a wiser decision to send Raina or Yuvraj to his position. But Dada did a blunder while dealing with such a situation. He came as opener even when is in very bad form instead of sending Sehwag. If you mistake that Dhoni cannot perform as higher order batsman then take a look at this

Position	Avg	50s	100s
2	49	1	0
3	82.75	6	2
4	81.55	8	1
5	52.96	6	3
6	38.75	9	0
7	39.26	4	1

I gave a lot of information about Ganguly and Dhoni but only now an important doubt raises in my mind – ‘How will they select a good captain?’ - By their performance during captaincy period or by their team winning records or by some other criteria.

If it is by his individual performance during his captaincy then MSD(avg 71) is in first position followed by Sachin, Gavaskar and Dravid. If it is by his teams performance then again Dhoni tops the list with 66.6% of winning record. Then how some idiots are supporting  Ganguly.

My Personal Blog

I joined my job this Monday and five days of my training are over by now. The training in Academy is better than I expected and I’m really having a good time so far. I’m in Mainframe domain along with 23 other Engineers.

My training is from 9.30AM to 6PM and so I had no time to update my blog last week. But I will try to find some time for my blog in coming days. I have planned to write the reviews of ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ and ‘Nights in Rodanthe’ for next week. I’m not sure to what extent I will stick to this plan but i will try my best.

I have also started a new blog ‘A Corporate Guy’s Memoir’. Yes, this is my personal blog. It is easy to scribble something that is happening in my life than to write a book blog. So I started this blog. I request you all to have a look at my new blog and give your valuable comments.

Artemis Fowl

First Line : HO Chi Minh City in the summer.

Artemis Fowl is the first book of Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. This is a die-hard fantasy(as said by its author).

The protagonist Artemis Fowl, 12 years old boy, after whom the novel is named is a geeky, cunning, self centred and criminally minded guy. He believes in the existence of fairies. After putting some hardwork he gets his first lead about fairies’ book. With the help of this book and latest technology he abducts a dwarf(LEPrecon). Artemis asks a tonne of gold for ransom. But the dwarfs would do anything to protect what is theirs. A normal child in this situation would have abandoned the mission but not Artemis.

Eoin Colfer had showed the rough nature of Artemis even in his first meeting with Nguyen. He is ‘stop-at-nothing’ guy. His attribute created a hatred in me. I had never hated a novel character like this before(not a hatred because of boring). Artemis way of decrypting the fairies’ book was really interesting. Yes, Artemis is a talented guy. But at the same time most of the fairies are equally talented like Artemis. So there is no need to tell about the clash between two equally poised opponents. Both the groups were devising their own plan to get the better of the other.

This work of Eoin is interesting with rich fantasy stuff backed by science. He has successfully characterized the personalities of each character. The strength of this novel is its suspense and thrill so this is not a stuff which we can read over and over.

On the whole this novel is worth a read. I’m sure that the fantasy lovers will have a great time with this novel. I give a little above three and a half but a little below four stars to this novel.

My First Award - 'The Versatile Blogger'

I just received my first blog award ‘The Versatile Blogger’. I should thank Zee of Wordly Obsessions for considering my blog as worth to receive this award.

Now that I’ve received this award, the rules are I have to pass it on to 15  other fabulous blogs that I have just discovered. I also have to link back to the person who gave me the award (as done above) and say 7 things about myself that you wouldn’t otherwise know… ok, so here goes!


7 truths about me
1)I just now received my joining order from my company. Coming Monday is the first day of my job. So I’m little nervous.
2)I like to mosey with my friends after 10PM to enjoy the serene and beautiful night. Nothing in this world is more pleasing than a night walk.
3)I’m a tea addict. I will do anything just for a cup of tasty tea.
4)I love to travel in bus for a whole night. I will sleep better in bus than in my bed.
5)I’m an insomniac. Normally I will be awake till 3AM.
6)I love to read Bible. The best book I have ever read.
7)Then about pets….I don’t love pets. That doesn’t mean I hate pets but I didn’t get a chance to spend time with them. I have no special affection towards them.

My 15 Bloggers:

                                                                                                                                                                  

Lovely Little Nisha

Edgy Inspirational Romance

Ravin Rants

Alisha’s World

My World…..in words and pages

The Perpetual Page Turner

Sam’s Book Blog

Stiletto Storytime

The Fiction Enthusiast

Writing is a Blessing

Read Sam, Read!

Tahleen’s Mixed Up Files

You’re Killing Me

The Tower of Stories

The Eager Readers

 

Thank God!

Yesterday evening I started from my home town to Chennai. Thirteen hours travel that too by train. I hate train travels but my mom  and dad are accompanying me so I had no other option but train. We were sound asleep. It was midnight. While sleeping I felt some movements and suddenly woke up. I was surprised to see a dark man standing in our cabin with his right hand in my bag.

I rubbed my eyes with my hands to make my vision clear and asked him ‘What are you doing?’.

‘I’m searching for seat twenty-five’, he lied.

 “Why are you searching for seat twenty five in the first cabin?’, I raised my voice.

Without replying he left the compartment in haste. The bag had my laptop, my U.G mark-sheets, my job offer letter, debit card, passport and some cash. Thank God! My bag was saved.

After Dark

First Line : Eyes mark the shape of the city

The idea of reading Murakami’s book came out in my mind after reading some reviews of his work in Zee’s Wordly Obsessions. ‘After Dark’ by Haruki Murakami depicts the events taking place in the course of night in a city.

After Dark just connects both the dream and real world. Mari, a nineteen years old girl, is sitting in a restaurant and reading a book. She is awake even at this wee hour but her sister Eri is asleep most of the times in her room. Murakami tells us how the life of Mari, her acquaintances, Eri and the software guy are interlaced.

The story is narrated by a third person, most likely an entity. The entity is something like a camera which can show the events taking place there but it has no power to intervene the events. Yes, a camera with some emotions. This gave me the feeling of watching a movie.

The narration switches between Eri, Mari and the software guy. Murakami ends a chapter with suspense and then he switches the narration to some other place. Thus my curiosity to break the suspense made me to read the next chapter with great speed and interest. Murakami also had given the choice to the readers to speculate the reason for Eri’s sleep.

This thin book just sucked me into the story by its suspense and excellent narration. Murakami had done a great work and surely I will look out for his books. I give four and a half stars to this book.

Book Blogger Hop!

Once again I welcome you all to the Book Blogger Hop organized by Crazy For Books. This hop is open from July 23-26. The Book Blogger Hop is a place just for Book Bloggers and readers to connect and find out new book related blogs. Please feel free to leave some comments and also your blog URL(if you have one).

This week's question:

Tell us about the book you are currently reading.

Now I'm reading 'Darkly Dreaming Dexter' by Jeff Lindsay. I had finished just 40 pages and the book is very interesting. This is about a monstrous guy Dexter who is obsessed with killing but also following Harry's Codes to channel this practice in a constructive way.