"Thriller" No More...

"King of Pops" Micheal Jackson, popularly 'MJ' is no more. I still remember when i was a school kid, in DD Metro channel (some 3-4 hrs every week night) they used to telecast sponsered programs. One such program was between 8:30 and 9 called " the king of pops" about MJ. I would stop studying even if the next day we have an exam just to see him. I was a die hard fan of this awesome showman.

His super smooothie moonwalk, the trademark pelvic thrust and the rotation followed by standing on the toes..MJ you're the best!!

Some of my favourite MJ numbers are

The Earth song...
Liberian Girl....
Billie jean...
Bad...
Black or white...
They don't care abt us (inspiration for Maro Maro song from boys)
Remember time...


No matter the how many controversies surround him, he still and ever would be the ultimate "thriller" in pop music.

MJ......MAY YOUR SOUL REST IN PEACE.

Blurred Dream.

"At last, after arguing about it for a long time, they both decided that they would head to Munnar. On the day of their departure, she reminded him to take the new digital camera". Shvetha had no clue how the new digital camera would be or what is it capable of. This did not deter her from going on. "They both had reserved a first class coupe so that they have some privacy". Shvetha thought how does it make a difference i feel all the time as if no one is around. "They both had a very nice time during the journey, a whole lot of sweet nothings, being mushy with each other and having petty fights.

Overall the, journey was the most romantic for them till date. Once they reached the nearby station, the car they'd arranged took them though the winding hill roads".Shvetha couldn't imagine how the roads would be or how beautiful or scary the hill section would be. Shvetha was more interested in their romance. "The hills section was so enchanting, as they went up the altitude, the view of the valley below covered by green all over like a big velvet blanket.By now, she had fallen on his shoulder and was enjoying the ride of her lifetime. Her eyes was more on him than the route they were travelling". Of course, whats all this green blanket, valley view and all - Shvetha thought.

"The car reached and they checked in the resort they'd booked. It was a star rated resort with a posh lawn on one side with flowers all around in all bright colors and shapes". But, it's all the same to me thought Shvetha and she was more excited to think about them. "As they entered their cottage which was more of a penthouse on the edge of the valley, there was a drawing room with TV and a small couch a few steps forward, there was the bedroom couple of foot below the level they're standing and in one corner there was a spiral wooden stairs that led to a balcony overseeing the picturesque valley covered with mist. They could feel the mist all over them when they stood over the balcony on their wooden penthouse. The climate, the chill breeze and the ambiance, She couldn't resist giving him a tight hug and a peck on his cheek". Shvetha was expectedly excited about their romantic mood and the time they spent together than the whole surrounding and ambiance thing. Everything was so unreal for Shvetha as she saw everything like a vague dream.

"Then there was the sight seeing, awesome falls, echo point with a memorable view, Of course there were elephants in the wild", but Shevtha could not relate most of things to her but their love. "After an eventful day they both were back in the cottage and it had become dark by then. They both sat together on the couch and had dinner in one plate with both feeding each other. Finally it was time to retire for the day as both were very tired. They walked towards the bed and he switched off the light. Then there was total darkness."

"Darkness - whats this?" thought Shvetha, now all her thinking was on this one word everything else were out of her mind in a flash. There was no Munnar, no serene atmosphere, no chilly winds, no him. Everyone say to Shevtha that she was in one such everlasting darkness, but to her she was always in one state never mind if it's called darkness or in light forever. The fact of the matter was she doesn't know how to take it. She never knew what light was or darkness was. She was born visually impaired and here she was, sitting on her room and reading a braille story book about a young romantic couple on their trip to Munnar.

Tearful adieu...

Today is one of the most painful day in my career so far. I felt so helpless and pained when i knew about the fate of some of my fellow colleagues for absolutely no fault of theirs. It was a real shame that how few greedy people can screw up(excuse me for my language) the life of many innocent individuals and families. The sheer enormity of this action against these poor folks left me contemplating what should we expect from life.

It brings utmost anger on the system that the people responsible are left free and poor scapegoats end up being in the wrong side and pay the price. Even though i am placed lots better (thankfully) at this juncture, i am still totally shaken up by the events happened around me.

With deep concern, I wish and sincerely pray for each of those friends whom i know and i don't know, for all the best in life. Hope they are able to start a new chapter very soon and back at their best of spirits.

"Every tear drop tells a story....every story has a tear drop"

It's a dull day...

This was my mood today for the whole of the day. Tired after traveling, some escalation mails, politics from top management, appraisal discussion with a team member, poor quality of deliverable from the team to name a few that made sure that i remained that way for the day.



Tried my best to motivate myself, just to end up in a call where my team was bluntly blamed for not showing much progress. I had to justify the work of the team and list out the issues that was stopping the progress. My client manager accepted that i had indicated these issues in the last call saved me from blushes.

Overall things aren't looking rosy in official side for the next month or so, as a team need to pull up the socks and perform much better. Lots of adversities waiting to challenge us, got to overcome them.

Personally as well, not a very exciting day, went very normally without much enthusiasm. Hopefully tomorrow will dawn much better.

I said to myself "Nothing lasts forever, not even your troubles"

The Dream.

Traveling in the train to her relatives place, sitting right opposite to her was this handsome man reading a book. She had quite a few glances of this man, but he never looked at her. She was thinking that he is either arrogant or trying to avoid looking at her when she is seeing and wants to show off as a gentle man. either way she didn't like him, but at the same time she knew something in him that draws her to look at him.He was handsome, tall, average built overall looked a decent man. This was the first impression she had about him.


After few years of knowing each other and liking each other they were at last getting married in a simple function and all her friends were making fun of them by playing pranks. Amidst all laughter and fun, he sees a small droplet of tear on her eyes, which he wipes assuring and put his arms around her shoulders and pulls her towards him. That's when she gave him a look straight in his eyes and realized that he was her life.

The small weekend trip together when they went to the nearby hill station and sat next to each other on the edge of a jungle stream throwing water at each other, the one plate dinner under the blue dark sky with countless eyes twinkling and watching them, where he fed her and she acted as though she tried to avoid it. Those naughty pranks he made when she used to dress up in front of the dressing table and she would act as if she was furious with him, but the heart would yearn for more.

Those bitter arguments and hours of not talking to each other, would follow with his apologies in the form of various gifts, surprises and a lot of pampering. She had known very well that this was coming and she used to continue with her fake anger just to get more of him. On a Sunday morning, when she hinted him that she had conceived, he looked at her completely lost for words or reaction and held her hands tightly as if a kid holds his mom's hands. When she was admitted to the hospital for delivery, she saw at him tensed through the glass doors and felt that he was already carrying her and their baby. The drop of tear that fell in her arms, whilst he took the new born as she handed over to him and the warmth of the hug that followed were truly mesmerizing feeling for her.

Their baby's first smile, first turn, first crawl, first tooth, first standing, first words, first walk, in all of these she saw him only and that made her realize that he was more than a life for her. When he acts to lose those playful fist fights with their kid and get all those blows without showing any pain, all she did was to go by his side and calmly give him a gentle massage while he is busy losing to the kid.

When her father passed away, the way he took the responsibility on his shoulders and consoled her and her old mother made her feel that he is the pillar of support for her in life.

"When i saw you as my world, why you decided to leave this world without me. My palms would go dry without the moisture from your palms, My shoulders would droop without your shoulders hold it up. When i am so tensed and restless, there would be no calm as i cannot have a glance of your calm smiling face in front of me to make me feel better. Everyone thinks that you've lost your life, but then no one realizes that its not your life that's lost, but mine. Where are you, give me one smile, give me one hug, give me one signal that you're there for me when i need you every moment in life...Is everything became a dream.......yeah can't this be a dream......" - her mind was disconsolate, she was heart broken....There was no stop to her tears...it was streaming just like dreams....

"Honeyyyyy..waaaake upppppp! It'sss aaaaaaalreadyyyyyyy laaaaaaaate baaaaabyyyyyy...." - Rishi's voice echoed in her ears and Krupa woke up to a warm peck on her cheeks. She still had tears in her eyes...This time it was not a dream....

Gully T20 - The boys are back...

Cricket - Is this not a religion in India. To us it was...We just like any other Indian kids were born and brought up with cricket. It all starts with a cream color plastic bat and a red color plastic ball. Trust me that red plastic ball to us was our Kookaburra or the SG cherries that the international bowlers like to lay their hands around.Over a period of time we graduate to the next level by getting small Viswas(we go by brand you see :-) ) bat and the multi color striped rubber ball...then to the tennis ball and the light weight tennis bats. Talking of tennis ball cricket, playing in the narrow alleys or the small vacant plots next to your house gives you all the pleasures that you'd yearn...

We had the team of ours, it started with 5 and over a period of time there were exodus in and out of the team but the crux remained.

Thought would put a post on our team and some of our bloopers - oh boy each of us were some characters....

To start with me, a so called all rounder but a decent fielder, was captain for quite some time before others took over in rotation. All of my team still scold me for my famously infamous reverse sweep, which cost us a match which we were sure to win. This was during a match when we were cruising towards victory and just then something happened to me and i tried to reverse sweep a ball for six. I completed the stroke and started running shouting at non striker (guess it was Ramesh) to run as well as he was standing still. As i was running i got to him and shouted "Oduda somberi" ("run you lazy fellow"). He replied in his typical nonchalant way, "Kuchiya vitutu, yenna enga da oda solre???" (Bugger, stumps shattered and where're you asking me to run?). Believe me the whole ground was laughing much to my embarrassment and we lost that match also to add to my woes.

Ramesh - Awesome wicket keeper and a typical test opening batsman. Most of the times i would open the innings with him with a prayer in my lips that i should not be run out by him (50% of the times when we opened together, he takes my wicket). He is our Steve waugh, he gets into the skin of the opponents by sledging them real hard. Once during a match he was casually strolling outside the crease at non striker's end and i played a ball straight to the bowler. The bowler as if he was expecting it, coolly went and ran him out. This bugger Coolly comes to us and says "machi, velila ninaen out panitaan" (Mate, i was standing out, he ran me out). Lucky him he wasnt blasted by all of us.

Sai - He is the most aggressive guy of our team in taunting the opponents and most of time me too. More of a batsman than a bowler but on his day manages to bowl few nice overs hopefully without those waist high full tosses. Once he was captaining the match, and he brought himself to bowl the first over(i used to be totally against that idea, as i used to be worried about the batsman's head) much to the opposition of all of us. He was hit for 3 huge sixes and the opponents got 25% of the score to chase in that over over itself. at the end of the over, he came and says "I think i should not bowl another over". I was like "buddy, you should never bowl one more over in your life".

Sridhar - Our McGrath but once in a while surprises the batsman with his really short pitched deliveries which the batsman had to invariably wait for days to go past him and not to forget his batting skills which even Bradman would be proud of ;-) pun intended. God only knows how he manages to avoid the ball touching the bat or his body, no matter how much hard the bowler tries. Neither he gets out, nor tries to score runs. When he bats u can ask all the fielders to go for a break except the 2 on "straight V" either side of the bowler. Once we were playing gully cricket and the equation for opponents was like 1 ball 6 runs to win. Any hit to any of the house was out, the only place where a batsman can score a 6 was a narrow patch on the offside across the road (not more than 2 feet stretch, with houses on both ends). With this near impossible situation he bowled a magic ball which only he can, the batsman turned, bent and hit for a six just over 3 fielders i had placed on that 2 feet stretch to save that six.

Swami, he is the man of our team, he bats awesomely well some days or he goes of to his shell scoring those binary digit scores 0s and 1s, but he is the man behind the enthusiasm of the players and the confidence booster for the players..err...did i forget something...yes i guess so...when i meant players it was the opposite team players. He comes and bowls the batsman hits him for a massive six and he turns towards the batsman ends up saying "Great shot batsman..Keep going.." without a tinge of remorse much to irritate me n our team mates. He used to come to our place and say "Buddy, i have fixed a bet match for 50Rs" when we go to the ground, he would go put toss with opponents and then come to us and say wait i will get some players to fill the playing 11 and would start searching for the remaining 7-8 players from young kids playing nearby.

Giri, another good keeper and a good bat. We used to call him the Dravid of our team for his decent stroke making and those technically sound way of batting. But, it was a jinx that he always performed excellently in our local matches but in tournaments or matches he could not bring the same magic. May be the pressure put on him by so called front line batsmen :) hehe that's us. But, still he manages to give his best with the pressures to give us a face saving with decent scores.

Harish- We use him more as a commentator than as player. He idolises Sunil Joshi the left arm spinner from Karnataka and would die supporting him. He gives commentaries when our team bats and sometimes even on the fields. He was our Harsha Bhogle, Tony Grieg, Boycott, Benaud and who not....and trust me he is really awesome in that. We tried our best to convince him to take commentary as profession but he never listened. He would always come to play with one condition that he should get batting and bowling :P never he gets hehehe

Vijay - Our team's child prodigy well that's what we say to him to make up the eleven when we run out of players. He started his career with us as ball boy and later becoming a mainstay in the team when we do not have 11(most of the times we wont, hehehe). Nowadays, he calls me for some matches to play for "HIS" team and first thing he says to me is "Anna, I am the captain" just to make sure who takes the call.

All in all what fun we all had, winning bet matches and buying samosa with the winner's money and later fights for missing someone for this samosa party.

[P.S: Not sure how much the readers could relate n enjoy this post, but i am sure the guys in this post if they read, would have a hearty laugh. I was having a hearty laugh when i was posting this. Brought back nice memories. Guys, miss all the fun playing with u all.]

PIZZA Delivery

This is a post purely out of sheer shock and anger on the plight of the so called PIZZA delivery boys. I was driving back home from the office amidst decent traffic, i saw this young boy in his late teens or early twenties driving the by now famous bike with the big red box marked with "PIZZA HOME DELIVERY". I could very clearly see that he neither had any sense of traffic rules nor had any sense of safety for him/fellow people moving along.

Just then my concentration was stuck on the way he was driving in front of me, the unthinkable happened. He went and hit a vehicle in front and fell down heavily on the road. My god, he hit the road with such a force i am sure he must have broken couple of bones at minimum. Some folks who were walking along the way came to his rescue and picked this poor fellow up who was struggling hard to walk. slowly, he dragged himself to the edge of the road, holding his left elbow with his other hand and sat down on a sidewalk. I was stuck right behind him, as his bike was laying on the road and couple of other folks were trying to take it off the road. I doubted if the bike would have been on the boy's mind as i could still see him crying badly holding his elbow. No one was around him and i don't know why suddenly i imagined a old mother and a young sister crying around this boy.

As this is not the first time i see such rash driving from these PIZZA delivery boys, the one question popped in my mind was who/what is to be blamed, is it the poverty that pushes these boys for such a dangerous job, or is it the greedy marketing strategy of delivering pizza's in 30-45 minutes or is it the mentality of the buyer to expect it to be delivered at the shortest time no matter how it's being delivered or is it the apathy in the society that no one bothers about fellow beings. Whatever may be it, this needs to change, someone somewhere has to take a step to avoid such mishaps from happening.

All these thoughts were shattered and i was brought back to reality by a honk from behind. Whilst I started moving slowly couldn't avoid one final look at this boy who was still holding his hand and crying.

The irony was his shirt color was bright red as if to indicate the dangers in his job. Still wondering where he would be now and hoping that he is not seriously injured. God bless him!