Ninety 9

I know the world (I am talking about the Sachin fans) wishes Sachin to get the 100^th international ton. So do I. I have witnessed the most of this records and certainly, this record is one milestone that others can only dream of.

Most of the records including the double century (which was recently broken by his follower Virender Sehwag) came unexpected. But the 100^th international ton was marketed and publicized by the media and his followers to such an extent that it aggravates the pressure on the little master. The champion had faced several pressures and hurdles, he had single handedly faced the teams and his wicket could cost India the match. Such was his wicket price.

Though few realize that 100 is just a number, the hype surrounding it doesn't die. A couple of days back, at the Melbourne cricket ground, when I saw Sachin walking down the pavilion into the ground, there was a tremendous applause from the crowd. It was not just the Indian crowd at Australia but also the Australian crowd who has tremendous respect for him. I adore that kind of respect they have for the batsman; no expectations and they just adore him for the class of a batsman that he is. Ofcourse, he is considered as a God by so many people but there is a match that is more important to it than Sachin getting his 100^th international ton.

Sachin proved, once again, why he is a master blaster. He hit the shots all over the ground with such ease. A gentle wrist work to put the ball into the fence raises a question over other players' performance. The only batsmen to complement such performance are the likes of Dravid and Laxman. The wicket was doing well for the seam bowlers, offering them a lot of movement and bounce. An awesome ball and a gentle trick got the wicket of the master blaster but truly, if there is one batsman who kept the bowlers in a panicky mode (and ofcourse Sehwag) is Sachin Tendulkar.

Its Friday!

Fridays are special. Not only it has a promising lure into the weekend but the day itself has something in store for people. The Universities here, surprisingly, doesn't have classes. The office goers tend to be lazy on Friday afternoons.

The tables, the chairs, the sofas at the University are all empty reminding me of the empty campus during Summer. The open lab also closes at 8 pm on Fridays in contrary to the closing time of 11 pm on other days. What mistake I did to go to the lab at 8:15 pm.

Not only in US, I have noticed this pattern in Indian schools and colleges as well. The Fridays usually will be void of classes. The management must have been very careful about understanding the mentality of the students and the staffs. But then, it is a friday!

"Never felt an earthquake"

“Is the table shaking?”

“Yes it is. Now the chair is shaking as well!”

“It is definitely a tremor. Why is no one reacting?”

“Oh my God! The building is shaking. Now the people downstairs are screaming. I must run”

“Am I not supposed to leave everything and run for my life? Why am I taking my bag with me?”

“Why is that guy going back to his place? Is he going to pick up his belongings as well?”

“It has stopped already. Should have been like 5 seconds”

Random Group:

Guy: “Isn't that an earthquake?”

Lady: “Of course it is”

Random Lady: “Did something happen in this building? In our building, we thought the shake was due to construction”

Me: “No it is an earthquake”

Outgoing message to Roommate friend: “Tremors at gmu!”

Outgoing mail to Mail friend: “Slight tremors here. Had to run. Calls not working”

Exam Friend: “I have an exam today. Am not sure whether they will conduct it”

Me: “Which one would you prefer? Writing it today or some other day?”

Exam Friend: “Definitely today. I don't want to drag it to another day”

Incoming mail from Mail friend: “Omg! Be safe”

Incoming message from Roommate friend: “Here too. It is not a tremor. It is an earthquake”

Exam friend: “The calls are not working”

Me: “The mails and messages are working”

Exam friend: “Ya. They are working fine”

Busy Friend: “Did you notice that some people were crying? We were all laughing it out”

Ph.D friend: “In the Ph.D comics, there is a comic strip which compares qualifiers to earthquakes. Today, I am waiting for the qualifier results and it came true”

Ph.D friend: “You guys had something to eat?”

Busy Friend: “Nopes”

Me: “I did. Just before the earthquake”

Announcement: “We will be closed at 3 pm”

Ph.D friend: “The food court is closed as well”

Group of friends: “We were signing the contract and then there is that dadadada-dadadada”

Exam friend: “I am going to the exam hall to find out about the exam”

Me: “All the best!”

ZeitJalgeist friend: “What da? We met and then there is an earthquake. What did you do?”

Ph.D friend: “I guess our guys were laughing because they must be thinking that it is after all life”

ZeitJalgeist friend: “Do you have a coin? Any coin?”

Me: “Indian coin?”

ZeitJalgeist friend: “Any coin. With heads and tails”

Me: “Are you by any chance going to decide like Rajni in Sivaji movie?”

ZeitJalgeist friend: “Heads and I will remain here. Tails and I will be joining you guys back home”

ZeitJalgeist friend: “It is heads. I am going to spend sometime here somewhere”

Ph.D friend: “That is the most stupidest thing I saw today”

Ph.D friend: “Earthquake changed our day plan completely”

Me: “Ya. It completely did”

Roommate friend 2: “I called my brother in New York. Within few seconds of hanging up, he had received tremors as well. See how the wave had travelled”

Roommate friend : “By the time we decided to go down, the trembling stopped”

Roommate friend 3: “He had searched for his identity card when the trembling occurred. He wanted to use it for his identity in case of severe damage”

Roommate friend 2: “The id card is fine but shouldn't the real person live first?”

Some other day:

Professor: “First earthquake, and now Hurricane! What a way to welcome the students!”

Tickle your senses

There was once a famous comedy programme in a famous Tamil TV channel where comedy artistes played call pranks on people and showed clippings of comedy scenes from Tamil movies. Many people with whom they played prank on claimed that they love that programme because they were relieved to see some comedy scenes after their busy daily routine. That programme was an instant hit. What followed that is either a boon or a bane!

Every channel started following that tradition of airing comedy scenes during the late hours of weekdays. That could be considered worth it cause they were competing with each other. It soon happened that they started competing with themselves. Yes, the channel giants brought in music channels and the music 24/7 would have been a perfect addition to the huge list of channels.

Either the demand for the comedy scenes or the lack of programmes prompted the music channels to air comedy scenes as well. So at the late hours of the weekday, every channel would be airing comedy scenes and one might start wondering about the purpose of music channels. The saddest part, the irony, is that there are two dedicated channels for comedy scenes and the music channels owned by the respective channels want to air the comedy scenes as well. God help them with their creativity! More on the idiot box soon!

Whats the score?

Original Background score earlier belonged only to the Western movies. Some of the music gets so recognized and becomes famous that it is still being played now. For example, we got the Jurassic Park, Brad Fiedel's Terminator theme, Mission Impossible theme, James Bond theme. There are plenty of movies that went unrecognized even if they had good scores.

In the recent days, thanks to web products like YouTube, iTunes that we are getting to hear most of the soundtracks that we hear only in the movie. Every music is liked by thousands and thousands. The Lord of the Rings soundtrack, The Matrix soundtrack, Inception, etc soundtrack are all being listened daily as the views suggest. Musicians like Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore are like being compared to Beethoven and Mozart.

Soundtrack, in the form of songs, is not new to Indian cinema. We have been having these soundtracks ever since the inception of cinema. There is a separate sales for the cassettes and CDS that contribute to the gross revenue of the movie.

Also, background score is not new to Tamil Cinema. Music directors like the Maestro Ilayaraja composed such awesome background score that got forgotten with the movie. They were not released as a separate track or along with the music album which is already replete with songs. However, his son Yuvan Shankar Raja and Mozart of Madras A.R.Rahman were the ones who put serious thought into background score and even went about releasing them as separate tracks.

Yuvan Shankar does the honor to his father by bringing back those forgotten background scores in his own movie compositions. Remember Nayagan music in Chennai 28 or the Sarvam background music? That may sound unoriginal to people but it sure did bring back the magic that his father did.
A.R.Rahman's magic is well known to Indian cinema, let it be with respect to songs or with respect to background scores, he went on to rock the Western Cinema as well. he got the honor to compose background score for the 'Lord of the Rings' play adaptation at London and also for the Hollywood movies 'Slumdog Millionaire', 'Couples Retreat', '127 Hours' and still many more to come.

Tamil Cinema is quickly catching up to the background score. The recent movie 'Aaranya Kandam' doesn't have any songs and so, the background score has to fit into the missing link and as expected, Yuvan lived up to the expectations. The songs will never die, not for atleast another ten years. It is too early to predict whether more such movies will come. It will take long for that trend to happen but songs have been one of the highlights of Indian movies, aren't they?

A cup of coffee

It is not too often I stop by at a nearby tea stall and asked for a coffee or tea. I once had to walk two - three kms as I had no other choice. I wanted to take a break before I boarded any bus and guess where I stopped? At a coffee stall for a hot coffee. It may not be new for you guys. I always go for energizer or refresher cups only on long rides. Rarely have I had any tea or coffee at a tea stall in Chennai. But needless to say, the coffee that they make is awesome. It is what they call in the American market as cappuccino. It came into the Indian market as such and was sold at a higher price.

I tried coffee at most of the famous places here and I savor each drink. One of the coffee shops here make coffee from purely blended beans that they never taste like coffee. It needs a lot of sugar to compensate its heavy bitterness. I had to buy them to avoid sleepy evening classes and within no time, I got used to that cappuccino taste. I used to buy too often that the woman at the cash counter knew that I would be ordering cappuccino and would be prepared to serve me one as if she is acting on defense.

I tried cappuccino at all the other outlets at my university and I already know which place is better for each type of coffee. For example, the coffee variant mocha somehow tastes wonderful only at one place (I am not advertising any product here; so ping me if you wanna know ;) ). This gave me plenty of options to choose from. In the last semester, I started trying one alternative which tasted much better than cappuccino. I ordered regular coffee; they give pure dark bitter coffee. Some shops give you the privilege of choosing your own flavored coffee. I recommend Hazelnut or Vanilla. Then they have the choice of milk – skimmed milk, milk, half milk & half cream. I go for the half and half as it gives a creamy touch to the coffee.

I once ordered tall hot coffee and the vendor, no idea what he understood, gave me tall iced coffee. So it was one of those days when you just go for it wanting to try the road not taken. I once ordered iced coffee at Indian coffee pub and it was not my cup of tea (oh yes, I mean coffee). It was cold outside and I had no winter coat as well. I thought that the drink is going to give me a difficult time outside but luckily, it didn't. Once, the hot coffee did save me from the cold weather outside but cold coffee for cold weather, kidding?

How simple and easy is to order a cup of coffee at a stall in India? The only question you might probably have to endure is whether you want it strong or light. Today, my roommates and I went for a coffee outing and I began to wonder how much these coffee lovers were ready to try new flavors or types of coffee. The climate was perfect enough to have a cup of coffee at the outside of the shop but I believe it couldn't come close to the feeling of independence or the feeling of bliss when you have a cup of coffee at a tea stall in India.

Cause I told so...

Back when I was a kid, I used to be a hater of sports commentary. Maybe it was because I did not comprehend what they were speaking or maybe I was more interested in the actual sport rather than the expert comments. I don't know how it happened but it underwent a process for me to like the commentary. “Commentary is not for the kids”, I had to tell myself.

To keep it simple, they explain what is going on in the screen. I have to agree that it is useful for someone who is not able to view the match. Remember the times when you were cooking (no? Reading? No again? I leave it to you) when you hear “That was a huge six” and you run over to the screen and see what is happening and, in the process, forget what you were doing. Commentary is more than that, you get expert comments. Half of the people may not be sure of the sports event and they learn by hearing the commentary.

Being a fan of cricket, I am going to bring in cricket. Also, I bring in WWE. (Any WWE fans out there?) Recently, I read from Wikipedia where there are two types of commentators – play-by-play announcer one who speaks a lot asking questions to the other commentator, known as the color commentator, who holds valuable experience in that field.

So, back to the topic, all the WWE fans must have heard about Stone Cold Steve Austin. His success is mostly to the fact that he was shown as the larger than life guy, who could beat up ten people single handed, could save a girl from the clutches of the evil and also rise from the ashes. If 80% - 90% of his success is because of what he did, part of his success should also be credited to Jim Ross, the play-by-play announcer of WWE. His catchphrases were so popular that he would literally scream when Stone Cold enters the arena when the thousands of fans erupt. To keep the TV audience glued to the screen, portraying an ordinary man like a hero is not an easy task. Have a look at one of the popular Stone Cold – Jim Ross combo. For those of you who are not aware of these two people, the bald person in the video is Stone Cold and the guy who screams "There he is!" in the commentary is Jim Ross

A year back, I read a satire in a cricket website about the usage of WWE standards to promote IPL. The article was hilarious. As an addendum to the article and to keep it simple, I would suggest bringing in commentators such as Jim Ross to the cricket commentary. Imagine the batting maestro walking to the crease and Jim Ross shouting, “There he is! There he is! Sachiiiinn Sachiiinnn, this arena has erupted!”

Recently, West Indian Chris Gayle hit a monstrous century knock playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore of IPL. How interesting it would have been to hear Jim Ross saying, “What the hell is this?” or when Sehwag was playing a similar innings, “The Upper Cut!!! My God! It is the upper cut!!!”

The power of Jim Ross's commentary is that he could make anyone a hero with his speech. He could end a simple match by saying, “My God! What a night!