Independence Day

India is celebrating it's 64th Independence Day. Good. Congratulations. But to whom should my wishes be addressed to? Surely, I can't address all the Indians. It's not that I can't, it's because I shouldn't. While browsing casually, I came upon this wonderful pictorial which depicted how different India is for each of its citizens.

Before we plan to celebrate this so-called auspicious day, give it a moment to think about what have we achieved as citizens in this largest democratic country of the world.

• Even after these many years, no female can dare to walk alone on the streets of our capital(even during day time!).
• An old man fighting for a change in the constitution cannot fast for more than three days at a particular place. Ridiculous!!! What's more funny is that he's given permission to take only 5000 supporters into his protest.
• People from a part of a state(mine, sadly) want the other people from other part of the same state to move their asses out of their place. Confusing, right? This is what is called Telangana issue. Imagine, they even started a movement called "Quit Telangana" on the same day this year, when our freedom fighters started "Quit India" movement.
• While Hockey is considered as our national game, no one knows who's the captain of the team. I wonder if at least 10% of the people know how many players are there in a hockey team.
• Aha, how can I miss this? Indian Cricket Team lost their recent test series to England and subsequently the Numero Uno ranking. We lost the No. 1 rank and the media is making a frenzy as if we lost our Independence yet again!!! Come on guys, it's just matter of a few months.
• Now, this one I read somewhere. You can buy and finish off a liquor bottle in broad daylight, but you have to think twice before buying a Valentine's Day greeting card. You don't know which Sena might be waiting for you round the corner.
• US has faced some issues with its economy and the whole world went into turmoil. Because of this, the Indian Rupee went weak!!!! Took a good while for me to analyze and understand this. Are we economically independent?

It is of no surprise that thinking of Independence Day, even though I'm proud of my country and I love my country, all that I remember is those sweet laddoos they used to distribute on this day in my school.

Why did I?

Why did I miss watching "Delhi Belly" in theater?
Why did I hate my career these days?
Why did I stop playing games on my Play Station?
Why did I never think of investing in Gold earlier?
Why did I resort to calling my dearest friends very rarely?
Why did I skip eating breakfast all these days?
Why did I try earlier for my driving license?


And Finally,
Why did I leave this wonderful place called "Bloggerville" for the past few months?

Some questions are better left unanswered than coming up with lame answers.

THOR - just what the audience needed

When I nervously waited for the end credits of the movie "Iron Man 2" to finish, I don't even have a clue of what they are going to show on the screen(as a spoiler for the future MARVEL movies). Even after they showed a desert and a hammer and some plain-clothed policemen(!), I didn't understand what's all this about.

Then I googled "hammer" and "marvel" and found that the hammer is in fact the power source or something of that sort of Thor, the God of Thunder. To hell with it, was my instant reaction as I never heard of him.

But what unfolded on the big 3D screen in front of me last week, blew a few things out of my brain. This guy(character) Thor earned himself a place next to Spiderman, Ironman and Superman in my all-time favorite list of superheroes.

Thor is a simple movie, enough for a movie buff like me to be amused. Thor and Loki are the sons of the Odin, the king of Asgard(a far-away Galaxy, for me it felt like heaven after watching on screen). Odin defeats the Frost Giants long long back and brings with him the power source of the Frost Giants, the Casket of Ancient Winters. Now, both the sons grow up and Thor is supposed to be crowned the king of Asgard when the Frost Giants sneak into the palace for the power source. An enraged Thor wants to finish off the Frost Giant race and travels to Jotunheim(the world of Frost Giants) along with a few friends, against his father's instructions.

Odin gets to know about this and brings the bunch of Asgardian warriors back to their world and banishes Thor to earth after stripping off his Godly powers. Thor's hammer, Mjolnir(courtesy Wikipedia), is also sent to Earth, but protected with a spell that allows only a worthy person to wield it.

Thor is crash-lands in Mexico where he is hit by the vehicle of a scientist, Jane Foster, who is studying the mysterious lightning patterns in the sky. The story moves on how Thor gets mingled with the earthly humans, while back in Asgard, Odin falls ill and a tale of double-cross takes place.

The rest of the story is about how Thor finds love, responsibilities and brings back peace to the world.

The plot is well supported by all the actors. Chris Hemsworth(this is the first movie I saw of this hunk), was awesome. The way he showed various emotions was worth lot of applause - be it when he says "Can I come back home?" to Loki when the latter visits him in jail or how he flashes the mischievous grin while trying to retrieve his hammer from S.H.E.I.L.D. Tom Hiddleston as Loki was absolutely fantastic. Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins lived up-to the expectations.

To be frank, it is the way Asgard is shown that draws immediate attention of an casual movie-goer. After AVATAR, I loved this alternate world. The visual effects were awesome and will enough to make the audience believe in the existence of such world.

There might be minor drawbacks here and there, like it would have been much nicer if Thor gets to show off a few of his elite skills on Earth(before Jane), but the movie, as a whole is an enjoyable one and is a decent family flick. My rating for this latest flick from Marvel stable will be 3.75 out of 5.

Same old title, I'm back

It's been more than a month since I dropped by. Main reason - blogging's blocked in office. Other Reasons - Been busy, Watching World Cup cricket, blah blah.

Just popped in yesterday to see what other Blogger pals are doing and found that most of the places are same like mine - seldom updated. Felt bad and thought of coming back with full fledged blog posts(as usual).

Anyways, since my last post, a lot of things happened. Let us give a small look at a few of them.

1. India won the cricket world cup! Was shouting with joy when Dhoni hit the winning sixer. That day was my first wedding anniversary too. It would have been more good if Sachin too made a few runs.
2. Anna Hazaare went on fasting for the approval of Jan Lokpal bill and he succeeded in it(almost, as of now). What was more joyful was the way how the common people of India showed their support for this cause. Long live, democracy.
3. Sachin Tendulkar scored a century in the 20-20 format! That too with the agility of a person half his age. Till date, in this season of IPL, he was not out on all the occasions that he played.
4. Bahrain was declared to be under military rule for an indefinite period as of now. Felt bad to see the peaceful little island engulfed in riots. Let's hope that everything will be back to normal soon. I know many expats who sent their families back and who are planning to shift somewhere else soon.
5. Wifey saw an English movie for the first time in a theater. She was excited and I'm happy.
6. At last the big thing(at least for me). My bestest friend, who was struggling to get his parents' approval for his love affair for quite a few years, decided to call it a day and married his sweetheart in a filmi fashion. Didn't meet the couple yet, but looking forward to it.

Well, will b back very very soon. Till then, adeos n take care.

A thriller

Well well well, if you are a cricket buff and if you missed last night's World Cup match between India and England, you missed something really spectacular. So far, most of the matches in the tourney are one-sided (almost every match was predictable) and people were losing interest in the complete event itself. Even I was satisfied with seeing the live scores on the Internet rather than watching the match on TV. I read somewhere that ICC gave a press release saying something like "this tourney is an acid test for the One Day International (ODI) cricket". And then, yesterday happened. This match provided the necessary kick to the tournament and to ODI format.

For those of you who missed the match, let me tell you what exactly happened. India scored a mammoth total of 338 thanks to the masterful century by the Little Master, Sachin Tendulkar, himself. The innings of the master was masterful because of the way he paced his innings. When Sehwag was around, he just played on without much authority. Once Sehwag was out and Gambhir was settled, the master unleashed a fierce attack on the English bowlers. Greame Swann, considered as the best among the current spinners on the world, was hit for two successive sixers.

Indians would've scored more if it was not for the mad tumble of 5 wickets in the last couple of overs. However, 338 on Indian tracks is considered to be a tough score to chase and thanks to the recent form of English batsmen in ODI, everyone thought that this will be a cakewalk for the Indian bowlers. But the English captain had some other thoughts.

Strauss and Pietersen started things off very well in a classy way, fetching easy runs off the harmless Indian bowling. It needed a special bit of fielding from Munaf Patel to break this partnership. Then one more wicket fell and things looked OK for a few minutes. Then the pair of Strauss and Bell played calmly and the tide shifted slowly but gradually towards the English side. Strauss deserved an huge applause for his first century in World Cup and his career best score of 158.

With just a few runs to score that too with 8 wickets in hand, the English win seemed inevitable. Then Zaheer struck with two wickets in two balls to change the course of events and now the scales pointed towards India. Even though few more wickets fell and the bowling and fielding departments of India increased their momentum, the lower-order batsmen of England held their nerve and hit a few lusty blows in the end. After two sixes in the penultimate over and one more in the last over, the English team were left to score with 5 runs in 3 balls. A bye came in the first ball and couple in the second.

The match got tied after the batsmen had to settle for a single off the final ball.

After all, it was ODI cricket which won the last night's encounter. An epic match to bring the focus back on ODIs. I hope we get to see many more thrillers like this in the tourney.

Nirvana

Another set of wonderful moments passed by, as I finished my short trip to India last month and returned to Bahrain. As this was my first trip after marriage, most of my time was spent by visiting the relatives with my wifey. Counted the number of times I boarded a train, and the result came as 6 times in 20 days. Interesting. But hey, please don't ask about the number of buses I've boarded!!!

Coming back to reality, this vacation was sort of an eye-opener for me. Let's say I attained NIRVANA during this trip. Felt like I was missing out something in life by staying in Bahrain. I desperately felt the need for a change of a job, or even career. I just looked at the past few years of my career and found that I seem a bit back dated in this competent world. Even though I've enough workload to keep myself busy and the pay packet is OK, I feel that I'm doing the same routine work and there's nothing new to learn and develop myself. Seems like I've to clean the dust off my MBA dreams and seriously consider this option.

Taking such a decision might be a gamble now, as I am married recently and have to look after someone who looks after me. But I am sure that this gamble might be worth it.

Well, other than this, life is all OK. During my 3 week trip to India, I had the privilege of spending max time with my new-born niece who's now almost 2 months old. She's such a darling that I couldn't give her to anyone else from my arms.

As promised earlier, I look forward for posting lots and lots of quality posts this year and revive my blog. Last month, I couldn't do much as I was too busy in India. With the Cricket World Cup just a couple of weeks ahead, expect some decent cricketing posts too.

Et cetera

The year is coming to an end and it has been a very busy year indeed. First of all, I got married and started experiencing new roles and responsibilities.

Also, my sister gave birth to a cute little girl very recently and made me an uncle, officially. Earlier, I used to bribe a few kids to stop them from calling me "uncle". But now, I can't do that anymore. So one more new role. I'm desperately longing to see my niece ASAP.

Office has been more n more tiring with a lot of stress these days. People are squeezing me like a lemon there. But no matter whatever they do, they surely can't get more juice out of me than what I've in me.

One big surprise for most of my oldest friends out here is that I stopped drinking(not permanently, at least). After WD came to live with me, I never even thought of having that glass of nectar... ;)

Life has been going smooth as of now. WD is visiting India this week and this will be the first time in six months that I'll stay without her.

I'll be back to my usual posting about politics, sports and movies from my next post. BTW, talking about sports, GOD has just scored a 50th century in Test Cricket. And soon after that the other GODS cried with joy and it rained. What a coincidence!!!!