Bits and Pieces : 31-Oct-08

Hmm..What to write ??!!

Yes, here they go in a systematic manner :

• Congrats to Gauti and VVS for the wonderful double centuries!! Man, were they brilliant.I couldn't catch any live action but cricinfo did convey the msg that Aussies were torn apart.Way to go guys!! This series has been great so far.Dada started it,Sachin took it over from him and now VVS.Critics are shaving their head and going for plastic surgery, thats the last thing I heard.

• Vishy does it again.Hes the world Champion.Gets 10-15% of the appreciation he deserves.For sure one of most neglected sports personalities in the history of India along with people like P.Gopichand and Dhanraj.Pillai.

• Yuvraj songs are too good.A.R.Rahman the genius does it again. "Tu meri dost", "Mastam Mastam" and "Dil ka Rishta" are brilliant strokes. "Shano Shano" and "Tu Muskura" that did not excite me in first few rounds are sounding better now.Typical ARR ishtyle.I wanted to do a detailed Music review but then dropped the plan as I would have written 1000s and 1000s of words about ARR's music and would have still left the review incomplete.I hope the movie does justice to this music.Ghai has Karz,Taal on one side and Yaadein,Kisna on the other .One unpredictable guy he is.All the best to him anyways.

• Chandrayaan has been a great success so far.Thumbs up to this mission. Amazing job by the ISRO.

• Manchester United did a good job against West ham utd yesterday.Wonderful display of skill by Berba and Yes, Ronnie is back!!I can't stop myself thanking heavens for making Fletcher and Rooney perform so good so far in the season.I pray that their golden run continues.Glory Glory Man Utd!!

• Romania has treated me well for last 2 weeks.Nice place, friendly people and loads of work.Did not get a chance to go around the place but hoping to do it in future visits, if any.

Ok, done with this for today.Gotta get my bag ready as my flight is in few hours from now.

Bye Bye Romania.Hope to see you again.:-)

Happy Birthday LogBlogs!!!

Something great happened on Oct-17 last year.I dont rememeber what it was!!

I also started blogging on that auspicious day.Yes, I did.Its been an year since I embarked on this journey into blogosphere!! Makes me feel that I'm too old :-D

The journey has been interesting, literally from India to South Africa to Iran and now to Romania.Topics varying from movie reveiws to travelogue of sorts to current affairs and to random crap.

I couldn't make many people read this crap though I tried out many kinds of topics.:-) Never mind, I did not step out and start this blogging activity to get high hits and inspire people and create a revolution!!

Enough of cynicism.Let me try to make some sense now! I thought I'll start blogging bits and pieces of events going around me rather than penning(keying) my thoughts on one particular topic as I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep myself awake during the bloggathon. :-)

Will present a trailor right away.Once again, Happy birthday LogBlogs, belated wishes though!!

JOKER mania!!!

The Dark Knight wasn’t just another random Hollywood movie. There was more to it than other “superhero” movies.

Reason??? Was it due to one of his kind Superhero who doesn’t possess any super powers like most of his colleagues but still manages to finght against crime?? I don’t think so. It was JOKER who captivated people’s attention. By far, the best ever villain I’ve witnessed in any movie. Saying that Joker was brilliant in the movie would be an under-statement. He simply rocked the party. His look, expressions, dialogues every bloody thing related to him was just perfect. Of course, Heath “The legend” Ledger was outstanding in his rendition. I had watched bits n pieces of Jack Nicholson’s version and it wasn’t all that bad. But Heath took this character to another level altogether.

Each and every dialogue of his ,stamps his class over and over . This wasn’t a case of having a villain just for the heck of it. Just because Hero has to save his heroine from the clutches of villain and then end up smooching her with credits rolling. It was serious business in this movie. He wasn’t a stereotyped, conventional 2 murders, 3 kidnaps,10-15 smuggling deal expert!!!

I came out of theatre and for 2-3 hours was still trying to find my way out of Joker hysteria. Needless to say I was unsuccessful, pathetic at that! Of course the Batman was supposed to be the show-stealer but look at what Joker has done. He is all over the internet, media, people’s mind!!! This post dedicated to him shows he has been able to impress me also. What this means is that even a just ordinary English movie fan who doesn’t watch every single English movie on the cards is mightily impressed. Simply astounding!!!

Just to add, my favourite pastime activity for last few weeks has been to discuss and say out in “Joker’s ishtyle” all his dialogues from the movie.Santu lola and Ashwin Menon have been vibrating on the same wavelength as mine and are more than proud to be in the “Joker fanatics” club.

It’s a shame that Heath Ledger isn’t with us today to savor the success of his portrayal. This success is sweet. All hail Chris Nolan, Bale and other team members for such a masterpiece. They have just raised the standards by quite a decent level. Lets see how other cliched film makers reach to that level, if at all possible.

Least that people of English cinema can do towards honoring Heath is by posthumously giving him with an Oscar. Not that this award is the ultimate reward but just that people around the world think so!!

Weeks,months,years may pass by but Heath ledger and his legendary depiction of Joker will stay forever in the history of world cinema.Hail the Legend!

To end this with a Joker class act dialogue,” If you are good at something, never do it for free”[Now there are not many chances of me using it in my next appraisal discussion but will try to get inspired from this :-)]

Another day!!

Its been about a month since I came to Johannesburg .Have been at work place all the while. Exploiting my latop to the core and making it wonder as to who the bigger idiot is, the one who has the keypad or the one who taps it continuously. Had not dared to take a break for a single day. I’m occupied with lot of work would be an under statement. But, as an anonymous (I don’t know the level of brilliance this guy has. I have seen many quotes by this guy) fella said and I quote :

“The day you realize that you are working day in, day out then just understand that you are on the right track. Keep moving!!”

Just a foolish way of consoling myself that I’ve not become a workaholic!!

Finally, got a chance to breathe some fresh air when one of my colleagues here invited me for lunch at his place. The plan wasn’t final till yesterday thanks to the busy schedule. But, I had to oblige when he said, “You can’t give a miss to the lunch plan, I’ve asked my wife to get all the vegetables and prepares some nice vegetarian dishes!!!”Trust me, people here consider eating vegetarian as a punishment and food without meat is an event of rarity for them!

It was really nice of my colleague to arrange for the lunch at his place and stupid of me to have made him and his family to eat vegetarian food!!!

It was a pleasant surprise that he had planned to take me out for a movie with his family. I got to know about the plan only few hours before. I had mentioned quite a few times about this movie which was a big hit back home and was being liked by most of its audience. The movie was “Jaane tu and something”, as my colleague prefers to call it.

We went to this place called Monte casino that has cinema halls which usually screen all the latest hindi movies that get released worldwide. He and his family planned to go for a animated movie, so that their kid can be kept entertained. So, here we were at the ticket counter and lo, I started hearing words being spoken in a familiar language,” Are yaar, theatre toh almost khaali hai”,”Corner seat lete hain jee”,”Beta jaldi toilet jaake aaja”,”Mummy,I’ll buy a fanta and a coke for didi”.I just couldn’t help but look at them and smile and get a smile in return!!Though spotting Indians,Pakistanis anywhere in the city is not that tough.But, So many familiar looking people being around at a time, made me feel I was at home!!

The start of the movie was 15 mins away and here I was seated comfortably and listening to the conversations of people around me.Most common topics were related to Visa, Diwali, Marriage.Their talks slowed down as the lights were being dimmed down.

The movie was nice. Not really a breath of fresh air but of stale air with some freshener sprayed!! Story wasn’t new but the narration and treatment was. So, were the faces. Movie worth a watch.

After my friend dropped me back to the hotel post movie, here I’m staring at my laptop again. This small black case should be relieved that I gave it some time off to relax during the day!!

One month into my visit and still at least 2-3 weeks left before I can get back to base. Its going to be an eventful period of time. Loads and loads of work to do and also a bleak chance of my dreams of few years coming true!!(keep an eye on this space for coming few weeks to know more about what I meant here)

I go to sleep with mixed feelings tonight. No, nothing about the movie!! Fletcher denying his links with Evertoons made me feel good but Selectors continuing to be Rejecters for RD and Dada has left a bad taste. This is definitely not the way the treat the legends. We should be more than thankful for the sheer contribution they have done to world of Cricket. Never mind, they have a very good chance to prove that they are still the best and no better way to do it than with their bats!!

Hmmm..Too sleepy to write anything that make sense (as if I’ve done it in the past) right now. But as they say, All is well that ends well.Lets hope a happy ending to all the turmoil surrounding my idols!![I know I’m trying to be selfish here but I don’t give a damn!!!!]

I’ll try to come up with something more interesting in the future and not to make writing itself boring for me ;-)

Look, what have we done!!

I heard Vengsarkar's term as the Chairman of Selectors will be ending sometime soon.He is planning for a mega bash where he'll be releasing his semi-pseudo-autobiography, "How to turn Hindustan into Kabristan in the name of Youngistan"

Great job Colonel.Mission accomplished.[people may say that it was his team that won us T20 WC and the CB series in australia.After IPL, we all know how methodic T20 is and the win in CB series was due to classy Sachin and few sparks of briliiance from others]

Vegsarkar has one final chance to restore his pride(tending to zero) as he'll be selecting a 30-men probables list for ICC champions trophy ,sometime soon.Lets see what he does before stepping down, correcting his past mistakes or continuing them.

Its been long time since I posted anything.Blame it on work,hectic schedule or whatever!!I just couldn't hold myself back from posting this, India losing 2 consecutive finals under MSD and he shamelessly says in the post match interview, I quote,"We atleast reached those 22 finals" on being asked about the shabby form of India losing 18 of the last 22 finals since 1999.
[It was a treat to watch King Fed vs Rafa in wimbeldon final and hearing their post-match comments.Sportsmen to the core!!]

Great job done MSD.Ordinary performance,Pathetic attitude,Irritating behaviour and on top of it as a cherry comes his shameless public comments.He might have tried to be funny as he can't be too critical at that time.But, come on, more than 1 billion people back this team and spend their days and nights watching them,praying for them,discussing about them.As a captain, I would have expected a mature response.But as Vengsarkar says, its a young team and they will take some time to settle down.All the best MSD!!

We have lost two finals in succession.These were the matches that we should have won.But we still managed to get defeated.

What does retrospection shed light on ??What is it that we could have done differently in this match that to have made us end on winning side ??

We should have batted well!!

No doubt that Gambhir, Viru,Yuvi and others are all highly skilled and are match-winners, the records speak for themselves but they faultered at the wrong time.And this is not first time that we have seen this .

I know that this debate has been sparked every now and then and seems to be the favourite of every cricket follower in this nation and outside...But, what we needed today was someone like Sachin,Sourav,Rahul to have been on the batting line-up..

The time is running out.Bring back Sourav and Rahul into ODIs.Its now or never, this is the last chance we can give to Dada and RD to help resurrect their and Team INDIA's fortunes...These guys are legends already and they have nothing else to prove to anybody.But I feel, more than themselves its the TEAM which needs them.

We can have them in the team and play 2 out of big 3(Sachin,Sourav,Rahul) on a rotation basis and get some stability in the team..THe highly skilled youngsters can gain more experience with them and get ready to hold the mantle of the team in big matches.

I'm not saying that this would have guaranteed a win(in ASIA cup finals or Kitply cup)but definitely the probability would have been higher..We needed somone with enough experience to handle the big match situation and face challenges like facing the mystery bowling of Mendis,other veterans like Vaas and Murali and to pace the chase well.

May what happen,my undying support to Team India will continue.But it hurts when we lose like this because of some Mohd.Tughlaq strategy :-)

What is life without retrospection and correction??Just a boring family drama!!

Lets hope things change and we rule the world of cricket again(actual sport, no the money world ruling it)

ALL the BEST to Team INDIA!!

Touchal

We had enquired at the office for potential tourist spots for the weekend. First one on the list was “Touchal”.It was the same mountain range that I could see from the hotel.Myself, Salman and Deepak(colleague) were pretty excited about this spot.As advised, we got all the jackets on to our body that hid 2-3 layers of shirts.
The date was 28-Feb-2008.We were all set to explore this mountain range.All geared up, we got into a taxi.It took some effort from our side to guide the taxi driver to the place though we kept on saying the place’s name and pointing at it and also trying to make a shape of mountain with hand. We somehow managed to reach the place.Next, we started searching for the “cable car” counter.We asked few people and they just pointed towards the peak.We thought its just few steps away and then started walking.We walked for about 10 mins and then we finally saw this huge mountain that had a roadway cut into it.It looked like about 2-3kms to reach the next visible junction.We started walking towards our goal.There was a slight steep on the road that made the distance seem longer.

10-15 mins into the walk and Deepak said that he’d had enough!!!It was really funny to see him getting tired and give up the mission midway.He started looking out for buses that were zipping past us.But all his efforts were in vain. None of them actually stopped.He was trying his level best to attract attention of driver so that he would stop the bus.But , none of the buses stopped. Juice went in,chips went in, still Deepak was trying very hard to cope up with the long walk!!!! Finally a bus driver looked at Deepak’s diameter, showed mercy on him and stopped the bus. Deepak was overjoyed and got into the bus. I could see the smile on his face. The smile marked an achievement. Myself and Salman just waved at him and bid goodbye, hoping to meet him at the junction. But guess wat, things were still not great for Deepak.The bus stopped after covering 40-50 metres from that point and everybody in the bus got down , as it had reached its last stop!!! We were all cracked up. Kya scene tha!!!! Had a great laugh looking at his situation.

We had reached the “cable car” counter finally. People had told that we should go to the 7th station to get maximum fun at that place. We were disappointed to know only the Skiers were allowed to go to the 7th station and rest cannot go beyond the 5th one.We took the tickets anyway.We got into these not so strong looking cars.The start was amazing.The car suddenly came out of the station and got onto the cables at great speed.Just the right beginning that we could have asked for.
Just 2-3 mins into the mountains and we were awestruck by the visual treat that was lying in front of us.SIMPLY AMAZING!!!We looked all around and for a long long distance all we could see was just snow!!!It was a truly a great scene. As none of us had experienced snow before, it was gonna be a great experience.
It was getting cooler as and when were getting closer to the peak.The 5th station arrived and we had to get down. We got down, came out of the station and saw a spectacular scene.The snow lying all around us that looked unreal.We were still trying come on terms with what were going through for the last 30-40 mins. Just superb!!We ran, threw snowballs at each other,captured snaps like there would be no tomorrow. Everything still seemed like a dream.
Someone told us that we were at about 3200metres above the sea level and the temperature was round about -10 to -12 degree centigrades.We were feeling the chill now. The cold wave sending a chill through the spine. Woohoo!!! Wat an experience!!!
A thought came by, was this trip to touchal on my mind when I had planned to come to Iran??None of the major travel sites gave me a clue on this.Was this unintentional or is there something more to this.Intentional or unintentional, it’s a blessing in disguise to the local people.No heavy traffic jams to get to this place. They don’t have to stand in long queues to enter. They enjoy this anonymity.

I just looked at people around me.Elderly people, Couples, Families, teenagers,everyone was enjoying themselves. The place wasn’t crowded at all. One could select different spots to treat themselves looking at the gift of mother nature.I selected one such lovely spot and sat on the snow.Still lotta thoughts running in my mind.Why isn’t this place known to the whole world when it genuinely deserves to be.why deny this people of so many jobs that tourism would generate.Hotel industry,transport,Skii resorts etc etc.There can be no end to this list.I just thought that these were bigger issues that have to be sorted out at an international level and I just need to concentrate on smallest possible issue like my jeans getting wet all this while when I was sitting on the snow!!!!!I jumped from the ground.But, it was tooo late.The damage had been done!!I ran around and tried to get it dry.Then realized that it would be tough thing to do at that temperature.
Then we got into this restaurant which was standing tall and was a silent witness to all the buffoonery that were doing there. Sat on one of the chairs and started looking around to see some board that would have English on it and would read “Vegetarian”.I knew it too much to ask for. But, what do I lose in hoping?!!! Gained some courage and went to a counter and started throwing the regular set of words, “vegetarian” , ”No ghosth(meaning no meat)”,”No murgkh(meaning no chicken)”,only sabzee(only vegetables).Luck smiled at us.There were 3 types of soups and all 3 were vegetarian. We were overjoyed. The soups were really hot,fuming. It relieved our cold nerves.We were feeling better now.Had a cup of tea and here we were all set for round-2 with the snow,afresh.

The sight still seemed unbelievable.It looked like a large painting with white paint all over and some cotton being thrown on it.The sight was makin me go crazy.Here and there, you could see the mountaineers and skiers in groups walking up the peak. It just startled me when I tried to imagine what distance they must have covered by foot to reach that place. Simply great!At that height and low temperature its not easy to walk for such distances. It was astounding.
Then we realized that we had already spent more than an hour and it was time to get back to base. The cabin-car facility closes down by afternoon. It would have been scary thing to have ourselves stranded up there and to be asked to go back by walk!!!!
We rushed back to the station and got into the car.Continued to enjoy the large ice-pizza that was under us.The car moved swiftly and we reached the base.
WOW!!What an experience we’d had!!Something to cherish for rest of the lifetime.Simply amazing!!
There were still some thoughts running through my mind.What if this place was given prominence like all the other “high-profile” tourist spots.Are we missing out on something??Keeping the whole world away from discovering this hidden gem!!!May what the actual thing be, it had to get its due prominence.I just wished that it gets the name and fame it genuinely deserves.
With a heavy heart, we bid goodbye to TOUCHAL. It was not mere mountain for us,It was an experience.

Congratulations to you, for reaching the end of this post.If you haven't got bored yet and want to see more pics related to the above blog, then try this :

http://picasaweb.google.com/sandeep.naganur/TripToTOUCHALTehran?authkey=4s4L95C_3cM

Iran - An unexplored territory

Lights , Camera, Action!!!

It was one of those dull Monday mornings when my manager summoned me for a quick chat on "something”. I had no clue what it would be on! It actually was a "quick" one and only lasted for about 7-8 mins.I came back to my workplace and opened an IE session and connected to the site "lonelyplanet".I searched for "Iran" because my manager had told me few mins back that I had to travel to Iran for a project in near future.

The search on lonelyplanet returned with 90+ results with "Iran and different fields related to it".I clicked on one of them. It took me to pages that slowly uncovered the face of this place.Few things that were known and lots of other things that never have been on the horizon of my mind.Now, I thought,the place doesn’t seem as dangerous as what everyone(most of us) thinks.There was still a sound from some corner in my ear drum saying that I can revisit my decision and confess to my manger that everyone says that the place is supposed to be dangerous and I wouldn’t want to spoil the peace of mind by going there.The opposite corner said “All through my life, have I always listened to what others have said?Have I followed blindly what others have done?Then why now????”

It took me less than a minute to reconfirm my decision to myself.So, here I was, deciding to travel to Iran – an unexplored territory.All the procedures started and took irritatingly and surprisingly long for me to get the Visa.There were lots of people around me who asked me to get arms n ammunitions for them If I come back.I was never hellbent to analyse if they were serious or sarcastic or joking!!!I just said “yes” to all of them thought that I can speak to them once I’m back.

My tavel desk gave me a route that loudly shouted “How not to travel to Iran”.The route was irritatingly long for such a shorter distance.But, I had no option but to accept it.

After my final round of consoling my mom by saying that the place was going to be really safe, I embarked upon my journey towards Iran.I was accompanied by Salman bhai.A big shot in the field that I’m trying be an expert in.This could only add to my confidence which otherwise was pretty hollow when this all started.

I flew from bengalooru on the late evening of 23rd Feb 2008.The travel plan had already made sure that I would be wasting lotta time in Mumbai and then in Kuwait in my attempt to reach Iran.The transit in Mumbai was irritatingly long and 6 hrs seemed like more than a day.Things had not improved since my last visit to Mumbai.The renovation work at the airport had been on for quite a few months now and there were lot of temporary adjustments been made all over the airport.For a moment I thought, I have seen that kinda place somewhere in Bengalooru.It flashed immediately, Majestic, that was the name of the place which I thought was strikingly similar.

Had to take all the crap and finally got onto flight to Kuwait.The airport in Kuwait was pretty crowded.It seemed to built on the same lines as that of Dubai(as shown in the pic on the right).Spent the transit time somehow and got onto the flight to Tehran – the capital city of Iran.There weren’t many co-passengers.The business class had no takers.

The butterflies in my stomach started getting life and made their presence felt.I knew , I was on the last leg of my travel to Iran.Excitement was reaching its peak.thought of relaxing by reading the news paper.Guess what, the news paper served the best that I could expect at time.Man utd had humiliated Newcastle in their own backyard by 5-1.what a start!!!!Better things followed, Arsenal had dropped 2 points when they were held for a draw!!hurray!If these were the signals to go by, I thought this is just a beginning and the day and week was gonna be as good as that.

Amidst all my calculations on “what would happen next in the league”, I heard the announcement by the pilot that the plane was getting into its descent.I glanced through the window to see brownish patch of land everywhere.wanted to open the window, but couldn’t!!!Finally the plane landed and after finishing the formalities, I was on my way to the exit point.All the while I was wondering if there was “Curfew” in the airport.(as shown in the pic on the right).The ones that I could see around me were my co-passengers or the Airport staff.Things got slighlty better when I was at the exit point.There were about 5-6 people waiting in the lounge.My eyes were curiously looking around to identify the person who was supposed to pick us up and drop to the hotel.My eyes flashed in few secs.There was this man who held 2 placards in his hand, that read “Salman Siddiqui” and “Sandeep Naganur”.It made me feel really good and for a second, I thought it was a friend of mine who had come to meet me!!!

Tehran

In few mins , I could make out that that he had taken Farsi as his major language in the school and had bunked English classes(if there were any).It was really funny to speak to him as I would try and use words from English, Hindi, Arabic(thanks to announcements that I’ve heard in the airports of Bahrain,Muscat,Dubai,Kuwait).Even Salman was trying to communicate with him and used best of his knowledge that he had gained in Turkey.We could finally strike a chord in sometime and were laughing at what we thought were jokes!!!His reference to Shahrukh khan,Taj Mahal,Mumbai made me realized what the outside world thinks of India.

The drive to the hotel was supposed to take about 60-70 mins.The drive started off with great landscapes around.It was simply beautiful. I thought ,If only the airport road in Bengalooru was this beautiful.After 20-25 mins, we hit the city.The archietecture seemed not so modern but still catchy.As and when we started getting deeper into the city, the skyscrapers unearthed.There were lots of these tall monsters.I was noticing that the traffic mainly consisted of 4 wheelers.The traffic system seemed good and well maintained.People were sticking to lane rules.Then, something happened that made me feel I was at home,back in bengalooru.TRAFFIC JAM.The vehicles started honking their horns like crazy,Trying to squeeze in between other vehicles.I just sat back, closed my eyes for a while.When it looked like things calmed down, I opened my eyes.We reached the hotel in next few mins.First thing that caught my eyes was the mountain range that seemed not so far from that place.To add to it, it had snow all over it.
There was a strange feeling inside.A mixture of unsecure, happy, homesick, excited.Had bath and hit the office within 2 hrs of our checking into the hotel!!! Tough thing on us, but had no choice.

The only consolation all the while was that the weekend was just 3 days away.The next 3 days were pretty ordinary.Lots of meetings through the day and struggle for vegetarian food. But, I was mentally ready for it as it totally called for.