Tendulkar has scored just 84 runs in his last five Tests (eight innings) at an average of 10.5.
And Dravid (!) is trying to defend him!

If this guy's name was say, praveen amre or yuvraj singh, he would not have played the last few tests.

I am not a Sachin fan. It is interestingly 'boring' when his fans, as a means of defending him, bring up time and again Sharjah(they get some kick saying 'DESERT STORM' btw), and the chennai innings of 136 ad 98 vs Pak..
Good for you guys, Keep living in the Past.

Happy Thanksgiving guys..
Shopping is not really my 'thing' but had to do some today, atleast for the sake of discounts..Had a ball at JC Penney. The coolest i felt was my Adidas..I love it. I have always wanted an Adidas..When i was back in india, i always was given Nike,Reebok,K-swiss by parents/relatives when they came from the states..Hence, liking for adidas grew! Bored of Nike's swoosh and reebok's vector(is that the name) by now.Hence, adidas, here i come! It seems americans, on an average, spend 900 bux on this shopping spree during thanksgiving..Isn't that something..The most popular stuff was digicams and then clothes and toys..I want to check out toysRus sometime..But jeez, i cant get up at 4Am and stand in the line for coupon discounts maan! I dont want that EXTTTRRRA discount at the cost of my sweet sleep ..
Chill mama..
Then, watched Mr.Deeds (Adam Sandler)..now i know where arunachalam came from..
Watching ambani case with heavy interest..tell u what..only timesofindia can do this kinda masala on such a routine basis..Got to handit over to those folks..stupid stories but keep u hooked..Lalu pitches in with his 2 cents worth..ROTFL @ those filmy connections finally..I think what lalu says is pretty much on the spot..He does assess things well..

Kanchi case - every1 by now thinks something's fishy somewhere..I think JJ arrested jus to get a headstart over MK..o yeah..the elections r approaching..But to do this to some1 who has made some constructive difference(alrite, he may hv done this too ) to society is not 2 cool..what am trying to say is that all of the normal sanyasi gurus, I think, hv always been non-controverisial and hv just done time-honored traditions..To accept all castes of society and make every1 feel part of the same was no mean task, which i believe was done by him, or atleast it happened when he was at the helm..Also, to start so many schools/univ's, eye-clinics,hospitals was definitely some positive contribution to society, rather than just being the routine guru advising ppl..Action sure sounds better..Ofcourse, some of his establishments are run for profit, but atleast they've been set up and are pretty professional..Now, that also seems practical..It really is tough being a celebrity..Just an issue on u could blow up, taking u to new lows..Ofcourse, for any celebrity, its the grp of ppl around him/her that is finally paramount..what they r upto..Thats what i suspect in this case.

Watched ( in horror!) the Vols almost succumb to the guile-less,harmless, nothing less than a run of the mill Vandy team..Phil Fulmer before the game spoke of Vandy highly that I mistook them for the TB Bucaneers..He's such a bore, praising opponents all the time and trying to think its pressurizing them..! I know for a fact, what he would say before the next game..might talk of Kentucky's 'deadly' defense or 'crafty' centers etcetera..
38-33 made me wonder how it would be in Atlanta on Dec 4 against the tigers..i hope its not a rout..
'Amistad' was the week-end movie this time..Spielberg does the same stuff that others do, but finally manages to get his stuff 2 or 3 notches above the rest, somehow..Maybe, he selects his cast to perfection..Hopkins was brilliant, as usual..
Why would a superstar(not just any superstar; the only one) want to have an SIL who has actually given some1 like Murali(Remember that actor..avana paatha road-side gudusai hotel la sambar ootharavan maadhri irupaan!) a superiority complex..Ofcourse, looks arent much..Still, I find it hard to believe it was a smooth affair after all..
BigB looked aghast in the elite company of incomparable KasthuriRaja(Hereafter, Big K...hope he doesnt make superstar to act in his movie!!)

All does not seem to be lost for the seer
Groups across the country are rooting for him, far and near,
But rooting there is, looks several notches down the gear
Hope this doesnt take much of a political turn, but looks like it, O My Dear..

Exams are fast approaching but so is Thanksgiving..The latter gets the priority, for now! Good link for today..
http://phdcomics.com/
Make ur academics fun(not funny..)

Varta

I feel like kicking ass
But no one's showing any, alas..
God, this week is boring
Spent all my time coding,chatting and snoring
I ate Uppma yesterday,pizza today
Both of them dint exactly have my bowels yelling 'hurray!!'
A limerick is supposed to be 5 lines they say
But we live in a world where rules have been thrown to the dogs anyway
Reading about the arrest of the holy guru made me wonder
How the lady always steals the thunder
She is a class apart,may I acknowledge
Much more interesting than other politicians, the IAS officers would pledge..
The world is rotten, the world is getting to be better
Much of what I do is IMHO the reason for the latter
And so as I sign off with utter contempt for anything seemingly senile
It seems to be more difficult for Chennai to get water from the Krishna than the Nile..

rand(thots)

1. Whats wrong with Sachin Tendulkar..giving press meets saying why he's slowed down..Giving such reasons to the press reduces his stature..In any case, even if he's slowed down for the team's cause, it is for the ppl to realize it themselves sooner than later; not sachin telling them y he's done that..
2. Saw 2 movies..'What the bleep' - Using quantum mechanics to explain how v can lead a better life!( not a bad movie.but i gez science junkies will like it more..i was a misfit in the audience for the movie.)..Other movie was Azhagiya theeye..Was waiting for some twist that never came till the end..Mebbe, 'coz of prakashraj, expected a litttle more..
3. Bush back in business..Mebbe, kerry could've nominated some1 from the battleground states for VP..Or atleast some1 who wud've been influential there..It could've been a closer fight.
4. Kanchi acharya arrested..Obviously the police couldnt hv acted w/o jj's consent..Looks like she's slowly moving away from h'va.
5. Hope the UT Vols make the SEC finals..highly unlikely that auburn could be beaten tho..On current form, looks like an Auburn-USC national finals..Other bowl picks - Utah, Longhorns, Sooners(tho they seem to b struggling a bit of late)
6. Grad student, sleeping at home, not going to classes - thats me.
7. Caffeine taking its toll on my biomedical system; and my wallet too..

Laughing my wits out ..U do the same

If this is true, then its not a gr8 thing..Got hold of this at a blog
http://beerchipsandcricket.blogspot.com

Chek it out sometime..

Adios

2 good links for today

First one is a stand-out interview..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tamil/highlights/story/2004/09/040930_jayainterview.shtml

Excellent drilling by thapar and also some solid resistance by J.j

The next one is absolute fun
http://www.methodshop.com/tech/articles/conan

Hv fun!

Arbit Thots

1. Jay Leno seems to be the weakest of the 3 stand-ups rite now..Hope Conan replaces him sooner..2009 is a long wait!
2. Apprentice sucks big time..Its so stage-managed that it shows very poorly!
3. KamalHassan and Tom Hanks are the 2 greatest actors that i have seen. As to who is better of the two is what is making me tear my hair apart.
4. Ilayaraja has more of a carnatic tinge in most of his compositions than Rahman..Is it because of that that i can listen to Raja's songs over longer periods of time (the freshness doesnt seem to fade) than ARR's...Was it then a coincidence that the best ARR album that i liked was Duet which had a strong classical flavor, thanx to Kadri. I really cannot listen to ARR's songs over long periods of time..Few exceptional songs here n there, but..
5. Debate b/w Bush and Kerry starts today..If am kidding, am expecting something constructive outta it.
6. Cricket is going to be in sometime, confined to just the sub-continent(Massive assumption eh?)..Y dont v create a system like American football, where in u have the game played between american cities/states and are such huge draws..Like v could have between Chennai curry and Mumbai magic or something like that..But for this to be a draw, leave along a huge draw, All the top stars hv to play..obviously indian stars..v could also buy stars from other places..Flintoff could play for Bangalore blues for instance..
7. Usher is one of the biggest things to hv happened to Hip-Hop..I almost listen only to usher when i wish to be cool.
8. Thinkin abt Ayudha ezhuthu, When i listened to the Yakkai thiri number, it sounded like a liberating experience..The video of that number was a sham..It was disgusting, showy and anything but liberating..Mani let me down there.
9. I am thinking of visiting india in december but b4 that, a small halt in Zurich would seal it! Iam thinking of that.

FALL FROM GRACE
Could this be the apt way to describe Sachin Tendulkar's current status..When u have ppl commenting on ur retirement at a time when just 3-4 yrs back, u had ppl talking that u had another 7-8 yrs of greatness ! My thots on this issue further increased after i read an article on rediff today and timesofindia sometime back on sachin's retirement.!
The only thing that stumps me is y did he choose to mature(!) at a time when he can be more free-flowing, now that the support cast(more than a support cast) in the team is as good as it can get. I only hope it was not an externally influenced decision! 1 point..He;s been playing like this for almost 3.5 yrs now.But at teh world cup in 2003, he suddenly exploded and then went back to his own ways again..Y was that? Roger Federer plays well in Grand Slams admitted, but he also plays equally well in other tournaments. Am not too sure any individual would want to perform well in select occasions. Or are there some? Beats me!

Ravi

Just a little incensed over a few people who call arranged marriage as ' arranged prostitution'..
The very fault in their statement is just that they consider marriage only as a license for sex, nothing else..These morons got to get a life and think better..I am not faulting most ppl but atleast some of the present generation have wrong ideas of what's cool and what's not !
If there's some1 here who;s missed out this sentence from dhyaana :

"IF SOMEONE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS FROM INQUISITIVE FORIEGNERS, HE IMMEDIATELY SAYS THAT HE DOESN'T BELEIVE IN THESE THINGS. It may be true that some of them have come by tradition and may not have a significant meaning, but that does deprive everything else of their meanings. The point of the whole paragraph is, this is a simple indicator of how the people these days are more attracted to 'modernism' without even attempting to learn their root culture properly."

Puts what i think in perspective..Arranged marriage is just one instance of this.
I seriously believe pride in Indianism is somewhat missing in this generation..And hey, by pride, i dont mean these external shows of patriotic fervour like hoisting flags on independence day..its more inherent.

The problem lies in the fact that a majority of us are influenced by some ppl who feel what's cool and what's not. For instance, when in school, it was 'cool' to speak in Hindi (even among tamil guys!) while talking in tamil was just considered run-of the mill..I mean, gimme a break..The fad is intially created and is passed on generation thru generation..We need to be independent thinkers and its about time.

Ravi

Comments section added now guys!.So indulge!
Had been to Nashville to visit i)Pillayar and ii) Pillayar in the making. (Vardha, madras pakkam poidaadha..Marina la karachuduvaanga!)
Had a longish talk with 2 ppl there about India stuff in general and govt machinary in particular. It couldnt get more interesting because 1 was a Govt employed Prof from Goa(law prof..a socialist somewhat)) and the other was a guy who'd been with Infy(financial division) whos' currently doing his MBA(pucca capitalist) . I triggered off the argument and watched the fun(or was it!) unfold. Our first target was the constitution..I tended to agree with the capitalist that the constituion in India was somwhat screwed up.I am a greenhorn in all this, so what..the constitution gives me the right to speak against it.(Long live the constitution.:)) The socialist has been teaching stuff like Civil law for sometime now and he defended the constiution so stoutly I wondered if i was mistaken. The capitalist (and mine) main grouse' were with stuff like Whats the President/Governer/ and other really powerless guys doing when they were nothing but a notch more than just puppets of the ruling govt.(I dint say puppets.the capitalist did!) He called them just "ribbon-cutting" guys. I felt myself siding with him because i have always wondered what a visionary like Abdul Kalam could do for teh country if he had power and what he is not able to do coz he is just the president and nothing more...He can visit school kids, tour the country, give inspring speeches on radio and Tv..But what more than that.?? The main stuff like making decisions on hte state of the country..He cant do much abt it, sadly..The socialist starte saying that the consti was absolutely right and that the concept of a President was that an elder statesman as the head of teh country(read powerless head) would be some sort of a moral thing to ppl more than anything else!! My point is that India today is like what the western world was sometime back..Morals and stuff have takena backseat when all that ppl want is economic development..I mean the number of professionals in India have increased and they are not the old "listening to an elder's advise" kind of ppl..They mind their business and get on..Atleast most ppl dont give two hoots for all this..Hence, if the Pres is supposed to be like a scoailly accpeted elder guy who ppl listen to (atleast this was supposed to tbe idea behind the creation of the post), then it was absolutely not flawless as it done in an age when this mite have been right but not so now. I am again speaking like a greenhorn here(forgive me) but even Karl Marx wrote his stuff thinking of a Utopian socirty in mind..At the risk of sounding immodest(he's a big guy!) THts where he went wrong - in not thinking practically..Mebbe, if all of us were programmed devices without any sort of significant evolutionary concepts inside us, Karl Marx' communism would've been great.
Its Charles Darwin vs. Karl Marx now. As regards my vote, Darwin has the edge.
But couple of thots from the socialist made me think. Erstwhile USSR, like say half a century ago, when it got free from Czars and other lords, was in a state of chaos. Food was not easy to get and the basic supplies to take care of a population were not easy to get. They had 2 choices,
1)survival of teh fittest(capitalism)-- hence, what is finally left out after the process would be truly at the upper spectrum of economic strength.
2)Communism(something for everybody).Consider the society as one and help provide in any limited means atleast to almost all.
Obviously, if 1 had been followed, it would have disastrous to millions while the most competent would get thru..If 2 is followed(which was, thouhg in a convolute form), the chaos would've died down atleast a bit and most ppl would've something )
My vote here goes for 2.
THe capitalist said even NewFoundland(USA) was in chaos in a manner not too different from USSR though there were no big feudal lord stuff here relatively..But they went for option 1(i asked him if he knew US went for 1 definitely and he said ofcourse but am not too convinced)..
He asked to compare US and USSR even when Soviet Union was at the peak of its powers..But US was better economically..USSR was mainly a power becuase of its arms power mainly..Economically, they were ok coz of ther natural resources like oil etc. But essentially, the communism which helped them sustain early years ultimately dint work coz the society was not utopian.
In hindsight, initial communism helped USSR sustain itself initially but then what..!Look at how china was 15 yrs go(when it was communist) and look at it now(truly capitalist)..That answers it in a nutshell as to which is better ultimately.Hence, obviosly capitalism is the ultimate solution bbut what before that..What, when a society is getting started up,..Would u want to reduce the disorder or heighten it and then allow it to die down..I am not able to decide in favor of either choice..If i am unemotional and look long-term, captialsm is ok.But , how can u stand looking at the filtering of the chaos using such a method, coz i mean we are emotional(atleast indians are!)
On the other hand, to salvage something for the moment(Which is something that i'd prefer given the circimstances), would mean turning socialist, ATLEAST initially.
The soclialist finally agreed that communism earlier on and then ultimately tkaing up capitalism is the best choice(China stayed communist too long but still is an example).But the change is not easily done.
Hence, if there arises a position wherein making the above possible is known to be difficult at the beginning itself and I am given only 2 choices, i would be in a terrible state of confusion. I am getting swayed either way.I had a look at the capitalist( unassuming yet authoritative in his opinion ) and the socialist(passionate in what he was saying and had almost somewhat close to utopian ideas). I have to decide.
I go with the capitalist.


Ravi

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

I gave my all for an exam yesterday...and dutifully screwed it up.
Maybe i got too confident..i finished(if i can call it that) with more than 10-15 mins to go (which is alot for a 50 min exam)..dint even bother to chek as i thot i had indeed cracked(!)..Horseshit!
Saw the solution test today..Absolutely galled to see every other answer wrong! Seri, anyways, will not study as much hereafter so that idont get too confident in exams!!
Apram, thinking of travel to india in december/jan..mostly jan i think...Ore bayam enna naa ooru vitta thiruppu vara manase varadhu..Neways, decided that i'll settle down there for sure mebe after working here for few years..The vitality there is missing here..(or am i missing it?)
Anyway, http://www.dhyaana.blogspot.com is gettig hot nowadays..chek it out for ashwin's solutions to the maladies...(Ashwin, overaa ethitenaa?)
I did Gayatri japam today on account of Avani Avattam(i dint do it on the proposed day!!)
Anyway, i did it ..hope thats wat counts.!
Among other things, hope togoto nashville to see Pillayar and Another Pillayar(Vanderbilt Varadarajan) and karachufy vardha in some river there.
Ok, will get back soon.
Ravi

I hope Sachin dutifully saw Sourav's knock y'day and about how to play for the team..

Chek this out..

www.20q.net

Interesting..Hope its not another high skool kid whos done this..!

Varta

Chek this out..

www.20q.net

Interesting..Hope its not another high skool kid whos done this..!

Varta

I dont understand how a gold won by such a large team (such as say the Basketball or soccer team) would b of the same value as a god won by an individual in say, weightlifting. Ofcourse, the latter is tough to , but to think that the former needs many more rounds to get thru and opponents, definitely much more than the latter(in say 48KG weightlifting clean n jerk) , and to finally think , they equate to the same value; beats me!
My Indian hope this time, i guess is LeeHesh again, but they run into Roddick n fish first match which is more than jus tuf!Lets c

Adios
Ravi.

Tasted heaven saturday..Actually, it was Madras Grand Sweets' Murukku and Sri Krishna Sweets Mysorepak..
Man, am i on a high..U bet! Amma has sent quite a lot of other stuff too, apart from this.
My mom's the greatest..!

rav

I think i've found out a major porblem with me:
I try to make things sound complex and think they wud b more effective if they were complex!
What a convoluted mind!
In yoda's words,'May the force be with me' to overcome these times!