Saturday, May 28, 2011

Top 10 IPL 4 moments

IPL 4 is drawing toward the end. As CSK and RCB is preparing for the last match of this IPL, I thought of 10 interesting aspects (Not in any order) of this edition.

1) Aa gayle mujhe maar
Chis Gayle remained unsold at the auction. Though speculation was KKR would retain him- he had no takers. Calypso King must have taken huge offence on that. When he was ultimately called in as a replacement for RCB, he did not see cricket balls… he saw SRK's butt and hit that the hardest. In no time- he snatched the orange cap. Resurgence of Gayle and his super hitting was the main highlight of IPL4.    

2) Khe Khe Aar… Khe Khe Aar
IPL matches in Eden gardens and only 20k people watching it!!! Yes- SRK made it happen. With Dada out of the equation and only Manoj Tiwari being the sole representative of local cricketing community- Kolkatans gave IPL a royal miss. Sensing the mood SRK started bring in expensive cheerleaders. There was Hritik- who till the other year was dancing for Mumbai Indians. Then there were Sanjay Kapoor, Karan Johar. But the real entertainer was Piggy Chops. Though she did not know name of any single cricketers, we loved her heavily accented chanting (khe khe aar … khe khe aar [video]).
 

3) Paul Valthaty
Who? Paul what? That was the first response to Paul Valthaty's cyclonic century. He appeared from nowhere- made some big runs, took wickets and then went hiding again. Discovery of Valthaty (and to some extent Raidyu) would not have been possible without IPL. Hope to see more of him in future in a real blue shirt.

4) Never say Never
His 30 ball 30 might not have set the stage on fire, but it showed if you want something badly- it happens. Yes- talking about the eternal comeback man Saurav Ganguly. He was dumped and humiliated in the auction. Even his most optimistic supporters wrote his obituary. Kochi tried to take him on board afterwards and was stopped by RCB, MI and RR. (some say on behest of SRK). We saw him in stands with common supporters watching matches. But that was another shrewd move which was followed by his donning cap for Pune warriors. Yes- at the end, he managed to paint tar on the face of his distracters (read SRK)… Yes- bande mein hai dum…

5) Blank fire
We waited and waited for them to perform. To set the stage on fire. At the end that did not happen at all. Big disappointments of the year: Irfan Pathan, Kieron Pollard, Bret Lee, Eoin Morgan, Mark Boucher, Brendon McCullum, Sreesath, Tilakratne Dilshan, Murli, Graeme Smith, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuff Pathan, Jesse Ryder….

6) Gambhir question
He played 15 matches with his shoulder injury just to earn his 11 crores. Yes that is a lot of money- but is it more than leading the Indian cricket team? Well… I don't see him as Dhoni's successor any more. And his mouthful to younger players of the team during the matches pointed how inferior he is compared to captain cool dude as a leader. To add more spice, the allegation of using banned substances would haunt him for a while I suspect.  

7) Bharatiya cheerleading
Cheerleading in Indian style? Yes- Pune showcased it. All their cheerleaders were in traditional and classical Indian attire and danced to classical tunes. Apparently Tanusree Shankar choreographed them. Though some youngsters would have preferred run of the mill foreign stuff- to me it was one of the highlights.


   
8) Lolaylty never dies
KKR had to defend 21 runs in their last over against MI to qualify as no 2 team. It would have also meant fast lane to the final and qualification for champions league. But Lakshmipathy Balaji did the unthinkable, conceding 23 runs including a huge six of the last ball. Chennai all of a sudden were no 2 team. Yes- their investment on Balaji for last three years has ultimately resulted in some dividend.

9) Sidhu aur Dipu ki amar kahani
Vijay Malya replaced Katrina Kaif with Deepika Padukone as team's glam girl… Guess it was a right move. A picture is worth a thousand words J


10) Shane Warne
He apparently played his last cricket match. And ended in a winning note. No doubt he was the most colourful cricketer ever. Not only a master strategist on field but he was equally great off the field too. His calling names of Rajastan cricket board secretary might have costed him some money- but was entertaining no doubt. And watching Liz Hurley getting bedazzled was a treat beyond question.  

 

Friday, May 20, 2011

Manipulation, Paying heavy price and mass suicide

If someone lacks ability, success comes at a cost. However, it does not mean that the individual has to bear it on his/ her own. At times relatives take care of it, at time friends and at times it is shouldered by unsuspecting unknown people known as mass. In the later case the feeling is the sweetest. Today, when Mamata Banerjee takes her oath as chief minister of west Bengal, she must be feeling the same sweet sensation.

Do any one still remembers Swapan Chakraborty? An ordiney man- who got stuck between stone and crude bomb pelting crusaders and demonic state police in 1992. Mamata quickly played a few popular tricks to politicise the killing. Swapan's wife got a job in Manjusha and slowly went out of public attention and memory.
Same goes with 13 nameless youth, who were sacrificed to get anti govt sentiment rolling on July 21 1993. Yes that was the day Mamata had called for a march into Writers building to get power by force in French revolution style.

Time and again she played the same politics of killing and trying to gather momentary public support. However, soon she realised that this trick would not give her the mileage she is looking for. She needed something big. Something so huge that lakhs of people pay price for her rise to the zenith. Nandigram and Singur gave the same opportunity to her. She was very good in realising that Bengalies had a super inertia. They would do anything to resist the change. That was precisely the reason of CPM clinging to power, despite not delivering anything significant from 1977-2001.

She was quick to understand that CM Buddhadeb's attempts to change to work culture, his attempts to bring in Industry would only make the Bengalis feel uneasy. She fanned air to that sentiment. Thousands of people in Nandigram and Singur paid the price. What could have been a prosperous industrial hub was turned into a land of lost opportunity. Bengalis took a sigh of relief. They were not robbed off the opportunity to moan and complain… to discuss in length that how all other states conspire against us… So status quo continued… Intelligently Mamata very quickly named the status quo as "Paribartan" (Change). Top notch comedy indeed. Bengalis thought- whoa… what an idea!!! If I need not actually change but get the claim of a change- that is like getting a free lunch. Or what the corporate try to do- get "new" claim from the same old product.

Very soon people started talking about punishing CPM for doing nothing- when actually they had started doing something meaningful. It is like Keshto kaku beating up Bhombol  for a mischief he had done 10 years ago. Though Bhombol is a changed and refined person now, doing meaningful work- Kesto kaku would still punish him- because he failed to do that 10 years ago.
By now Mamata had started seeing her dream come true. The whole state of Bengal was ready to pay the price for Mamata's hunger for power. And they did the same in two phases in 2009 and 2011.

May be years from now, this moment would not be rejoiced and pages of analysis would be done on how Bengalis committed another suicide. May be it would be too late then. May be our roots of inertia would be so deep that even if we want- we would not be able to move at all. May be I am wrong- May be Mamata would do a fantastic job. But at this moment all I see is another 7-8 years of stagnation and slide backwards. Pray to god that I am wrong in my prediction…

The price has been paid – for one lady's ambition by a suicide prone community.