Shaken and Stirred

Since I am a native of Andhra Pradesh, I know a bit of Telugu. Having stayed in Delhi all my life, I come across people from all kinds of cultural backgrounds: Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Malayali, etc. When I was in primary school, it was a fun passtime of some of us to learn words of the other's native language. Keshav was a particularly keen one. He had not only learnt counting to ten in Tamil, but also in French and used to flaunt his superior knowledge to all the rest of us jealous beings. There were many Hindi speaking friends of mine who wanted to learn how to say 'Hi' or 'Thank You' in Telugu. Nighi (Punjabi) – who was my neighbor new the Telugu word for 'water' when she was 3. But that was when all of us were little. Now everyone wants to know how to swear in a language foriegn to theirs. Though I get a lot of requests to learn curses in Telugu, I can do little to help out. As I learnt all my Telugu from my parents, I had little to ...

The following is an email sent to Ms. X by Mr. Y. Y is an ex of Ms. X and she moved to a different city soon after breaking up. They haven't been touch for years till a couple of days back X and Y chat on Gtalk. Then X gets this mail: Hey Sexy ! Hey X watsaa ! hows life ? how are u yaar , long time naa ! so where are u , someplace naa ? hows da place , i hope its nice ! im missing u alot yaar ( as a friend not more ) . just so you knoe ive broken up with my girlfriend . a long time backactually , sometime in september . so how are you , wen are u comin back to india? You have any new boyfriend or sumin , i mean i gues u shud by now ! a chick like u can easily get a rockstar . i know no1 can match me and after me uve got high expectations but its okay , you ve gotta give oder guys a chance u knoe . im so sure dere are tonnes of guys who are dying to talk to you and have a crush on you ! So temme , do u miss me or have u just forgotten me ? you shudnt have left and gone to delhi ya...

Once upon a time, there lived Handsome Prince who left The Capital to go to The Far Far South. Though his friends laughed at his prospects there, he did not lose hope. He was duly rewarded for his optimism and confidence in the form of Beautiful Maiden who fell in 'like' with him. It was the calmest of nights. Prince and Maiden were walking alone when he (being a daring fellow) thought it will be really adventurous to check out a damp and abandoned shed , whose thatched roof had caved in. Once inside the two shared deep personal feelings (the ambience brought it out) and comforted each other. Maiden, quite overcome, put her head on Prince's lap. Prince was immediately struck by a strong feeling of deja vu. He recalled another intimate incident when Hot Maiden had put her head on his shoulder. Being quite young at the time and having a rather reserved upbringing, he had no clue what was to be done and all that resulted for Prince was a backache. That was the one high point ...

Now that the ICC has acquisced to the Indian team's demand of replacing Bucknor and the procedure for the appeal against Harbhajan is underway, it is time for Cricket to come to the forefront again. The emotional outbursts against the Australian team's behavior while understandable should be transient. Lets recapitulate what all they have done to so upset us and unite the whole nation behind the team: Ricky Ponting, the Aussie captain, after entering into a gentleman's agreement with Anil Kumble chose to use it as and when it suited his advantage Ponting, Symonds, Clarke, Hussey were guilty of not walking when clearly out Gilchrist appealed for a catch that he must have known to be non-existent Excessive appealing and harassing the umpires Celebrating like a group of 15 year olds and not giving credit to the deserving opposition Accusing Harbhajan Singh of racial abuse after deliberately taunting and provoking him It is quite clear that to make an issue out of 2, 3, 5 and w...

The Indian cricket team suffered at the hands of an establishment which has repeatedly shown itself to have a separate set of standards for non-white teams. Here are some of them that immediately spring to mind: The preposterous decision to just fine Mark Waugh and Shane Warne after their self-confessed encounters with bookmakers while banning Ajay Jadeja for a similar crime The Mike Denness shocker , who incidentally shares his first name with Mike Proctor (the match referee for the Sydney test), where Indians players including Sachin and Sourav were fined and banned for 'ball tampering' and 'excessive appealing' without any complaints from the umpires themselves Darryl Hair 's accusing Pakistan of ball tampering and consequently calling off the test match when the offended Pak team walked off the ground Muralitharan's elbow flex was deemed to be way over the prescribed 5 degrees and censure was imminent before the ICC found that many bowlers including Brett L...

It is not because I have nothing to write that I pick my pen up so sparingly. It is because I have so much to write. Not events. My life remains as devoid of them as ever. But thoughts. And there is an unlimited amount of these for an idle mind like mine... Its funny how right upto opening the diary and writing the few opening lines, I will have incredible ideas and remarkable remarks. But now there is nothing. Its like that incredible pulp of amassed thoughts is trying to makes its way through an orifice as big as this pen's nib has. * from my journal, dated 2nd January 2007. The situation is not very different a year on.