Icy Web of the Silken Snow God

One of the few positive outcomes of having a blocked nose on a semi-permanent basis is that the danger of me being asked to croon "Oooo Huzuur/Teraa Teraa Teraa Suruuuur" is slight. However, I can report the following note of interest. Notice how the lines

Meri baate.n\
meri saa.nse.n\
tanhaa raate.n

are tuned very similar to

chho.Do chho.Do\
merii raahe.n\
merii baahe.n aa

a.k.a the song Disco Station from "Hathkadi" (starring Reena Roy IIRC)?

Though given his track record, I'm willing to give Himesh R the benefit of the doubt. To his credit, one has to say that people seem to like his music and though he's milking the udders dry as a result in his leather jacket, baseball cap and doleful palette of expressions, good luck to him while it lasts.

On a closing note, let me record my disappointment that Himesh's nose wasn't awarded the Filmfare R.D.Burman Award for Upcoming Musical Talent.

Sawan Kumar Tak Dhina Dhin

This is one of those unfortunate things that you think, you tell and you blog. In a populist, no-holds barred comment-seeking post, leave your answers in the comments... [Gaurav banned]

Q. If Sawan Kumar Tak was a sportsman, what would his jersey number be?
A. "110" (owing to what can only be termed as the "Sou-ten fetish")

The greatest ODI ever? Naah!

Predictably, everyone's calling it the greatest limited overs match ever. Not for me. The greatest run chase? Without doubt. But just like people tend to pick Sir Garfield Sobers as the Best Cricketer ever (if they don't, they should :-) ) over Sir Bradman, I wouldn't call it the best match, simply because it was just a batting extravaganza and the art of bowling had no say for more than 10 balls in the whole match.

I tend to cock a snook at these "batting jamborees". Yesterday's match was reminiscent of many thrilling chases in the past, of which I have loathed many. What's the point in having a cricket match if the ball has no role but to ricochet from bat to boundary and back? Personally, the best ODI I've seen still remains the 1999 World Cup semi-final between the same teams. Because you had roles for the spinner, the seamer, even the fielders apart from the batsmen. It turned out to be Warne's imposition of his will to win over Klusener's shotgun shots. In contrast, yesterday's effort was one of those little skill testing tourneys they play for tp on television.

Take nothing away from Smith and co., for having the gumption to believe that they could sustain the effort throughout (something India didn't manage almost exactly 3 years ago). For surmounting the chokers tag that Cullinan referred to on air (which was promptly followed by Hall holing out). But do you want to see a game where it was a question of a swing-batters exhibition? Hopefully it was a freak occurence and stays that way. Or else, pack your team with batters, some of whom can bowl a bit for they're anyway going to end up with an economy rate of 8+. Agreed that both sides lacked class in the bowling and wilted under pressure like hot butter. Still, there's only so many sixes one can take hit by a batsman teeing off. Plus the frontiers get pushed back oh so much, spills over to Test matches and makes bowlers even more defensive.

And Australia have serious trouble brewing. Even before yesterday's match, it was quite clear from the 1st two matches in this series that the bowling cupboard is bare at the moment and the young 'uns aren't there yet. The batting needed Ponting to make a massive difference. Going back to Martyn and Kasprowicz for the Test series was a retrograde step (plus by dropping Hodge, they'd have upped the insecurity ante even more in the team).

The wolf is clearly at the door for the champs.

Rediffraction

Some recent "Bollywood" stories that have the Rediff hallmark:

* The story Diya comforts cancer patients informs us that "a special screening of Chingaari -- Kalpana Lajme's film about a prostitute and a priest -- was held for the patients, and the filmmaker was joined by Diya and vocalist Ila Arun".

Now, I greatly sympathise with the cancer patients and hope their treatment goes well with the least amount of suffering. But judging by how the film seems to have turned out, was it necessary to add greater pain to their lives by showing them the film? No wonder they needed comforting, even if it was only Diy[?]a Mirza doing the balming.

* In the irresistably (?) titled Chaos with Shahid & Kareena, we are informed to our distress that Priyadarshan continues to haunt us (like a sore on an adamant barnacle) with yet another film with picks from his usual desi-Ikea furniture store cast (compounding it this time with Messrs. Kap[oo|u]rs and Dhupia). To balance "the horror, the horror!", Rediff provides this wonderful nugget:

"Which, for Chup Chup Ke, is saying a lot, considering Kareena plays a mute girl and Shahid pretends to be one."

Whether Shahid really turns out to be a mute girl or not, you'll have to watch the film. Or you could read the remaining slides, which, I suspect, might be less painful.

Blank Noise Project

I learnt about The Blank Noise Project via Sarika. I couldn't get myself to contribute to this "blogathon" because there were way too many irreconciliable strands personally. So I thought I'd let everyone else do the writing on this. Then Amit wrote this brilliant post that pretty much says everything I wanted to say on the topic.

But a small conversation with Gaurav prised out a small point that had remained dormant in my head. That if you're in a group of guys, there is a definite amount of peer-pressure to gawk and comment. If you don't behave like them, you're considered a simpleton (or whatever other inferences the group chooses to make). Of course, no one knows who draws the line between "admiration" and "leching". But if you're a third-person observer and if you see a girl walk by, instead of looking at her, look at the clumps of guys around. And pause a little to think.

There are degrees and there are degrees, but since the people reading all this will in all likelihood be a bunch of bloggers who're not likely (hopefully) to shove women around in public, this shouldn't be just about the more obvious physical abuse.

Update: (Oh, and nice excuse to bash up the movies) As a child I remember always thinking it weird that the villain got beaten up for chasing the heroine while the hero did pretty much what the villain did but instead was rewarded with a coquettish glance and with more melodious background music. Hmm...

O Costs

Gaurav, Kunal and Harish will testify that I have now started pretending I'm a budding economist by asking them clarifications on opportunity cost problems [Smirking? See if you get this question right!] and slapping my head on failing to answer a question (in a "real quiz") on the invisible hand.

Incidentally, last week, I stumbled upon it in a very interesting context. This was from the Xooglers blog.

Sergey once asked a large assemblage of Googlers what our greatest corporate expense was. “Health insurance!” was one answer shouted back. “Salaries!” “Servers!” “Taxes!” “Electricity!” “Charlie’s grocery bills!,” came back others. “No,” said Sergey. “Opportunity cost.” He explained that the products we weren’t launching and the deals we weren’t doing threatened our economic stability more than any single line item in the budget. It became a regular call and response at staff meetings and added to the sense that no matter how hard we were working, success was slipping through our fingers. Rather than cause employees to feel defeated, however, it became a rallying cry to redouble their efforts.

Interesting mantra for a confirmed structured procrastinator like me.