Dreams! Dont we all wish...

Dreams are beautiful. Dreams keep our flame burning. It could the reason for our survival. Just like the rest of you, even I have cherised desires that drive me to work harder to achieve them.
Personally, I feel life would be worthless, if we dont have any dream to achieve or fulfill.

Back as a child, I had this weird dream. I would find myself floating in the house. Like a helium balloon, I would drift from one corner of the house to another. It was scary, I have always been scared of heights and this dream tested my limits. 12 feet was enough to scare the hell out of me. But the feeling of floating gave me a sense of freedom that cannot be described in words. I prayed every night to have the same dream, because I enjoied the liberty to do my own thing. The closest I have come to flying is para-sailing in Langkawi. All by myself, way above beautiful clear blue waters, I can still recall. All I did was look up to the sky, said "THANK YOU JESUS!". It was an unforgettable adventure. Sandwiched between the blue waters and the blue skies, I was left speechless by the wonders of the creator. I was flying that day and to some extent, I fulfilled my dream.

Thanks to Vikram, I even have a video of my escape to heaven..



We all dream of a big house, a nice job, a fat pay package, a loving partner(:-P) and so on... These dreams dont really mean much do they. It is the stupid rat race that has resulted in our minds focussing for materialistic goals! Of course, even I have changed. Even I want a nice big house, ample of $$ to spend and unlimited happiness and success.

But one thing I know for sure, the feeling of fulfilling the 2 dreams will be different. If i get a house of my choice tomorrow, it will not bring me the satisfaction that I got up above the waters the other day in langkawi...

Dreams should be unadulterated, they should not be influenced by the rat race that we all are involved in. You and Me should not stop dreaming of floating like a balloon, because the day you will fulfill that dream, it will be a feeling of completeness!

Till next time, keep dreaming and dream different...

Those good ole days!

Just finished watching Prison Break - Season 2 for the second time. Am addicted to it! My roomie calls me Michael 'Slow'-field. The reason being, I pretend to be smart and plan-it-all fellow like Michael Scofield, the protagonist from the TV serial. But unlike the real Michael, this fake Michael is very lazy, dumb and fails to even understand the simplest of puzzles. Hence the 'SCO' is replaced by 'SLOW'. I like it tho...

But PB, is nothing compared to the fun I had watching TV serials back in the days! Those good ole days as the title mentions. I have been a TV freak since childhood. I can watch everything and anything. I remember, mine was the first household in my society that took cable way way back in the nineties. It was a proud moment. All that came on TV for the first few days was ZEE TV in bold and no transmission at all. But soon the cable tv boom got going and my rendezvous with cable begun.

As i look back, I can still picture myself watching 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air' with Adrian. We used to love that serial. Will Smith at his comic best and his numerous encounters with Carlton, his short cuz. We used to laugh all night. It was a time when i put my books down and took a break. It def helped me get a few good marks here and there!! Then there was 'Full House'. Another serial which I can proudly say that I have watched all episodes of. As a matter of fact, I have watched most of the episodes more than once. But I can still watch that serial. It has an innocence, a simplicity which attracts me to watch it over and over again.

But the legendary of all TV serial during THOSE days was 'The Wonder Years!'. This serial was my fav, simply because it was so real! Yes, it was more real than 'Scofield' breaking thru 2 prisons so easily!!! The serial was called a DRAMEDY!!! Yes, a overlap of drama and comedy. The serial aired at 5:00 PM IST. I used to finish my tea and wait for it to start. The music was legendaaary... Joe Crocker's music set up the atmosphere to an absolute best. Day by day, as Kevin Arnold grew, his interesting run-ins with his parents, siblings, friends at school grew more interesting. His love interest, Winnie Cooper was as innocent and sweet a gal can ever be/look!! Hence innocent smile and her ability to convey every message through silence made her my first TV crush!! I can still remember her first kiss!! Not with me of course!!! But yea, on screen with Kevin Arnold!! I was left speechless, not for a moment, but for more than a minute!!!!!

Once the serial was over, it was time to go down and play some good-ole cricket with my 'Ganga' building friends.

Friends, there are many things we all like in life. We all want something, we all dream of something. But it is how much far we can go to get our hands on them that makes the difference. Our dreams are not easy to achieve. Its not how tough or far our dreams are, but the effort that we put in to realise these dreams that distinguishes one person from another. At the end of the day, it could be the difference between success and failure too...

A small anecdote to add a realistic flavor to the above mentioned philosophy....

As mentioned, I loved 'The Wonder Years'. I wanted to have the DVD collection of all the seasons. I tried hard looking for it. I must have asked all the piracy-stuffed-filled stores in Malaysia. But none of them had 'TWY'. They would have everything else, even the 'Doogie Howser M.D' episodes. But no one had 'TWY'. I even checked the biggest piracy market in south-east asia, Thailand!! It was elusive there too....

Just when I lost all hope, Adrian got the entire collection. I did not really ask him, how he layed his hands on this collection, but he did. It is this quality of Adrians that makes him a super-achiever and me a very average fellow. I tried, I tried a little harder and then gave up. To be frank, I never thought anyone could have ever got hold of the collection. But Adrian somehow got all the seasons. He loved the serial too and now that I think of it.. he loved it more than I did!!

Blunder... Bizzare... Blooper....

Before I begin, 2 things. 1, i cant stop laughing when i write this and 2, I hope it brings a smile once the read is done with. The reason for this write was an incident that happened in the morning. That incident is discribed at the fag end of the blog.. but because of that incident I thought long and hard of other incidents that I could recall where I have goofed up big time!!! So here we go.... Ive re-called a few incidents and ranked them from 1 to 3. The countdown begins...

3. BLUNDER:
Time: Junior KG. Setting: Small classroom in St.Anne's High School, Orlem, Malad. Question: So who of you children have brothers or sisters. I was the first to raise my hand. Slowly my other classmates also raised their hands. I looked around, almost everyone had a sibling. Next Question: How many of you have sisters? I raised my hand again. The teacher looked at me awkwardly, said "Ashley, you have a sister". I said "Yes, I have one sister and 1 brother". Teacher goes, "Ok, so what is your sisters name?". I go, "Premila". The teacher grins at me and says 'Ok'.
Here's what happened. The teacher knew my family very well. She was from my neighbourhood. She knew I did not have any sisters. Premila, was my Moms younger sister. She used to always take care of me and I till then (Junior KG) thought she was my SISTER!! Some days later, my Mom was in school and my teacher made it sure she told her that I think Premila is my sister. Think about it, Aunt Premila, took so much care of me then that I always thought she was my elder sister.

2. BIZZARE:
Time: Today Morning, woke up at 2 PM. Ok, it was technically afternoon. Actually, I was awake at 5 to watch Adrian in action against Argentina. We lost in extra time. Anyways, back to my morning time. Woke up, had a brush and headed straight to the kitchen for some nice filling breakfast. I took the bowl, added a whole bunch of cereal and opened the fridge. Took the carton of milk, kept at the daily place and added it in the bowl, until my cereal was buried in the white liquid. Took my bowl and spoon to my bed. Sat comfortably! Laptop ready, and YUCK!!!! WTF! What happened to the milk? The first reaction was to check the spoon, if it was clean? yiiiecks! What the hell was wrong here... why did it taste so damn wierd. Took another spoonful, it tasted unusual. My roomie, Manish was talking to me. I did not listen to him, but wondered, what the hell was wrong here. I was sure the MILK was spoilt and I was the unfortunate person to have had to taste it. Swallowed the second spoon of cereal and kept the bowl nearby. Thats when I realised the problem. What i poured, thinking was MILK was actually BUTTER MILK that my friend had bought last night. I had happily drowned my cereal in butter milk and hence the weird taste. Now that I knew it was not spoilt milk, nor was the spoon dirty, i finished the entire bowl, happily enjoing my cereal and laughing about the incident with Manish.

1, BLOOPER:
Time: Sometime in Pune. Its a cold chilly morning. And as always, your truly is running late to make it to work. My bus arrives at 8:08 AM, it was like 7:35 and I just reached the wash basin. I took the brush put some paste. And started brushing. Soon i got a feeling, something is wrong with my mouth. Or was it the brush, or was it the toothpaste. I did not know what, but something was surely wrong. This did not feel right. The feeling was like you are driving a car, and the brakes wont work. You know something is wrong. But you cant really pin point the issue. But my problem was not very tough. It was no brake failure. It was just a weird taste in my mouth. So the first thing i did is checked the toothpaste! And what i seen is unbelievable. It was not bloody toothpast, what I was brushing with was ODOMOS!!! Lolz!!!! For those souls who are unware, Odomos, is a cream which is used to keep mosquitos away. To be frank, till that date I had not even used Odomos on my body and here I was, my mouth full of odomos cream. And I did not know what to do. Laugh? or Spit it all out? Or tell my roomie and then spit!!!!! Well I did the most sane thing I could think of and spat it all out. Gargled for like 5 more minutes. Cleant my brush as if it had fallen into the gutter. Put some COLGATE on the bursh, burshed well. I checked the time, thanks to this misdemeanor I was gonna be late to work. So i skipped my shower and rushed to the stop. All day, I kept thinking of what a fool I was. Brushing with Odomos!!!

Well, we all come across incidents like these. For once we dont know whether we should laugh or take corrective action. But these incidents stay put in out minds for the rest of our lives and bring a smile anytime anywhere!

Till the next blooper... Bye...

How safe are the roads today?

So the 'common mans car', NANO is going to hit the roads soon. Thats great news, a car for 1L buks, is unheard of. Super going India, well done! Bravo Bravo! But lets take a minute here. Instead of celebrating what superficial achievements, let us get down to issues which are more critical and important to the 'real common man'.

The real common man my friend does not need a car. He will travel from a place A in Mumbai to place B in Mumbai using the public transport and spend a fraction he would have spend on gas using the NANO. The real common man, does not need luxury, he needs safety. The real common man does not need the comfortable seats of the NANO, he just needs a small place to sit in the train/bus. Yes, it is true 1L is not a very huge amount for many Mumbaikars today. But its not the initial cost thats the concern. Spiralling fuel costs, lack of infrastructure, insurance for the vehicle and finally the maintenance of the car. These are what will desist the 'real common man' from going for the NANO. But screw the NANO, we have to look at an even bigger issue today and tomorrow.

I was just reading the Sunday Times. And what i read on page 2 shocked me. 6 deaths on the Mumbai roads and not one seems to have happened because the person using the public utility was at fault. So whom do we blame? The goverment, the other person involved in the accident, God, fate, Pakistan??? Well, the blame game will always continue. It always has!! Thats what is special about our country, The NANO is just a phase, but the governance of the country, the value for human life is what makes me feel ashamed about our country.

6 lives!! What the hell!!!! I mean, a mother and daughter are walking on the street and are knocked down by a car. 2 people are crossing the road and are knocked down. A speeding Air-India bus driver rams into a biker and he is dead. There are more on the page, but i feel too shaken up to mention about those.

You know whats the hard part. Those 6 could have been anyone of us, or our family members. Crossing the road, walking on the pavement, riding a bike... its part and parcel of daily life, isnt it? I understand some of you must be defending saying that accidents happen. I know they happen, but 6 lives in one day. In 5 different places. And that too this comes after 16 people died in 1 single accident. We would have expected the authorities to be more rigid and stern. But NO, they are busy gobbling the 50 rupee notes from poor motorists like you and me!!!

So what does the common man want? A NANO, or safer roads? But are we even striving to achieve better facilities? From what I have seen in the past few years, we can just forget about safer roads and just live on a prayer and God's grace. There is no law and order. And our politicians are quick to point that other states are having a goonda raj. My dear Politician, please ask a Mumbaikar like me. I can give you the real picture. People lose their lives everyday, you dont give a f***, you are busy in vote-banking politics and making strategies as to who will vote next for you and how are you going to please his a**.

I beg the authorities to make the law of the land a MUST BE FOLLOWED norm. But, I wonder if anyone is even listening. Even if they are, they will ignore me thinking he is just another fool with no understanding of what the common man wants. Of course, the common man wants a NANO, isnt it?

Birthday Gift!

Who does not like a gift? Not me... and am sure many of you also love to recieve a nice surprise birthday gift. This is exactly what Adrian did yesterday... On a bright sunny afternoon in Ipoh, Adrian had the perfect recipe to produce one of the best recent goal-keeping performances lately. To do this against our arch-rivals Pakistan, just adds that much more icing onto the cake.

So, it was my Mom's birthday on the 14th of May. And as it as happened over the past few years, nor Adrian or Me were around to celebrate it. So my Mom and Dad had their little celebration. Cake cutting at home a small birthday party given by Dad to Mom at the Marriot. But this was not all. Adrian had other plans.

Adrian, was not going to let the distance matter and made sure Mom had something to remember about 'Shanu' and her birthday day.

I watched the game live!! Me and Manish, enjoied every bit of the game. Hockey is very exciting and if it is a India-Pak game, then the intensity is even greater.No team wants to give one quarter away. Pakistan, were playing at full strength. They had a small hiccup the previous day when Belgium got the better of them 3-5.But prior to that they were unbeaten. A win against India would have put them through to the finals. So they had a lot at stake, leaving aside the fact that they were playing their fiercest rivals.

India, on the other hand, were just about surviving. After 2 humbling loses, India just about scrapped to 2 win. Against Canada, we came back froma goal down to win 3-1 and against Belgium, we were leading 5-1 until it became 5-4 and finally we closed it 6-4.

But things were going to change. Of course, it was my mom's birthday!!!! India scored early through a PC and missed atleast a couple of chances to add to their tally. In the meanwhile, the Pakistan team looked lost on the field. The defense made silly errors, the mid-field would not release the ball and Rehan and Co up front looked isolated. Taking advantage, India scored a second goal and wow, things looked gr8. India took this 2-0 advantage to the lemon break!

This is where things change. coming back from the break, India were a changed side.The attacking flair seemed lost. The team looked as if they had no purpose and no attacking was happening. Pakistan on the other hand, came out all guns blazing. M.Saqlain was getting his rhythm back and looked ominious. His controlling of the mid-field is dangerous for any opposition. But we had a hero!! Pakistan,just kept hitting the wall... Adrian was not going to let the ball past him. He brought of saves using his stick, his kickers, his gloves, his pads.. whatever he had.. was used!! The only thing I did not notice was him using the helmet to save.

But, AD was tremendous.Excellent is too soft a term for his performance. He single-handedly took India past Pak. He last minute save was tremendous. He would have saved all day I think. Thats what confidence can do to you. Soon the 70 minutes got over.India had beaten Pak, 2-1. It was an upset win. No one gave India a chance. But the team proved everyone wrong. Ric Charlseworth is making the difference. A team with 12 juniors is on the verge of making it to the finals of the Sultan Azlan Shah cup. Go India Go! India pay Malaysia tomo and its a virtual semi-final for India. Win and make it through to the finals.

I am very confident that India would be able to out it across the home nation.

Coming back home, my Mom called me at 2:40 AM. She was not aware that I had watched the entire game live. I spoke to her and she was so excited and happy. It was nice to know what. Being so far away, AD was still able to make Mom smile and feel happy. Today when i spoke to AD, he told me that the WIN was dedicated to Mom. It was a small token of appreciation from AD to my family.

It is the zillionth time that AD has made us all proud. When i say US, it is not my family, but all of us.Us Indians, it is his hardwork and commitment that has kept him going for 4 years now. As a fresher who was selected in may 2004 to play for India to a senior pro taking India on his shoulders to the next level of hockey, he has come a long way.
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thanks AD for the gift. Mom could not have asked for anything bigger or better.Now, yours truly has to decide what gift I can send across. I have already missed the deadline, and I am sure I cant even remotely come close to what AD gave to MOM.

So looking forward to India beating the host nation and taking Argentina in the final. its gonna be a rocking weekend!!!

enjoi and take care!

Things I hate to do...

Well, how many of us like to iron our clothes in the morning before leaving for work? Not many i would suppose. Infact, for lazy bums like me, its Mission Impossible!!! firstly, my bed is a virtual warzone in the morning. My mind Vs My body. One wont getup and the other screams, its time for work!!! Finally, somehow my body gives in and I make it up. In this state, if my mind tells my body, please iron those clothes, my mind had it. :) As you must have realised this is one of the many things I hate to do. This is just the beginning of the day. We still have a long long way to go, dont we?

Ok, so ive reached office. Yea, am about 15 minutes late but ive made the long walk to work. Btw, I wake up at 8:40 AM. But for me that 8:40 seems like 5:30 AM.

Once at work, the thing i hate to do is open an email about a production issue, which i need to analyze. I mean, come on for heavens sake, could you not find the issue during System Testing, UAT or even Beta testing. If you cannot find it given so many chances, how dare you come to me now!!!! But thats the routine life of a software engineer. Develop(actually it is maintenance) - Test -Deliver and then FIX FOREVER!!!! Once all the emails have been opened and partially analyzed its time for worst task number 3. Lunch!!!

For all time that I have spent at Infosys, the most I must have cribbed about must be food. Yes, I cribbed more for food than for onsite!! It is true!! Day in and Day out, we cribbed, abused, cried, shrilled whenever lunch time came. Eating the food from the canteen was a painful experience. Growing up, I was always thought to respect food, but when I used to go to canteen, I wondered how come these guys dis-respected the food so bad and made such a big mess out of it. The Chole would be half-cooked, the dal would miss some flavor, the chappatis were like papad, the papad was like chappati. I can go on and on... But its not something I looked forward to. Just FYI, today things are much different, I come home for lunch and eat good home cooked food. Once my food ordeal is over, its back to work and analyzing the issue again. Somehow I used to scrape through the day and complete my day.

As already understood and clearly explained by me, I am one big lazy bum. One thing I hate to do is goto the gym. This is the next task. I used to be a member of the recreational center, it had a state-of-the-art gym, but yours truly would surely find one reason or the other to skip it. Its a natural skill that God has given me. For eg, today I told me friend that I am tired because I had a 1 hour 15 minute meeting!!!!! All I did in that meeting was sit and listen. Nor did i speak, nor did i think, i did not do one thing, that should have made me sweat!! But, Mr.Lazybones escaped the run on the treadmill... yahooo.. instead i played UEFA 2008!!!

So, i was able to cover quite a few interesting things that I hate to do, or have really detested to have done previously....

As a matter of fact, writing blogs was also something that I was not very fond of.. as always I could make a million reasons NOT to write ..... whereas there were a million and one reasons why I should have written....

But, things are changing.. slowly but surely!!!!!

No more hating writing blogs!! its nice fun to share experiences with the world!!

Thanks Atlee for pushing me to write... appreciate it....

adios!

Climax..... RK steals the show...

So, there we were... 57 to win to make it to the quarters. A stronger batting line-up sans Ashley 'stupid' D'souza. There was already a feeling of making it through to the next round. I was very confident that we would make it through. The reason being, we had learned quite a few lessons from our previous two games.

So the opening pair left the dug out. Ravi opened with another Ravi. This Ravi was called red-ravi because he wore a Red tee. He was my replacement. I should admit he had better technique than mine. He looked more confident out there, more focussed and more resolute to make those 57 runs. The (Ravi) 2 pair gave us a good solid start. We were cruising at 14 for no loss. I say cruising because in all the previous games, we have lost the wicket of your truly very early and hence the early hiccup!!!

Yes, so 14 for no loss in 4 or 5 odd overs was a very good start. Now the win looked even more real and the new Ravi looked a real good change that worked very well for the team. I was happy too, cause I knew winning was important for my team. With or Without me does not really matter.

But just when things looked good, the worse thing in cricket happened. RUN-OUT, Red Ravi was run out going for a non-existent single. Out pack of cards got ready now. Soon, the most fragile middle order in the history of cricket crumbled like a pack of glass cards. Deja Vu, 17 for 5. Man-O-Man, this cannot be happening again, I thought in my mind. We were cruising, what happened.

The bowlers bowled pretty well. They kept a good line and their wicket-keeper brought a fantastic catch to get rid of the danger man, the other opener Ravi.

So could be re-do the magic we did against Infosys. Alas No, we collapsed under the pressure, Yarli played some good shots, but even he perished. We were short by some 20 odd runs I think.

But, the icing on the cake was my friend RK's wicket. Ok, let me just brief you about RK's style of batting. Picture this. Legs stuck to the ground. Batsman waiting for the bowler. Bowl comes. RK does a shakira and moves his hips 180 degrees towards the left(leg side). During this movement, his bat is perfectly horizontal and parallel to the ground. I hope you all got the picture, if not I can ask my dear friend RK to send a video of the same.

So RK comes to the crease. Last wicket batting now. RK plays a couple of confident defensive shots. Then comes the shakira dance, hips dont lie, do they??? And voila, his bat and hips move a complete 180 + degrees and he becomes hit wicket!!

The entire dug out burst out laughing. We did not care that we had lost the game and hence were out of the tournament, but the funny scene at the end was hilarious.....

it kind of sums up the weekend that I had. Good fun, Good time-pass and nice to make new friends. We again had lunch at rasthal. I ate like kilos of baingan ka bharta and chilli fry.

The good friend that RK is, he dropped me home and then even to my Church. It was a real nice fun weekend. Thanks to RK, I made new friends and added a wonderful new chapter to my blog!!!

Thanks RK for all the help you've provided to me since day 1!!!

So friends, Artesia(name of my team) is no longer in the LA Challengers Cup!!!

We shall come next year, better prepared and more hip thrust!!!

Till then, cya!!

Wow, what a finale!!!

Yes, so lets fast forward... as it happens in the movies... the camera points towards the sky.. darkness falls and soon the sun rises...

"Good Morning Ashley", RK said at about 7 AM in the morning. I tried to get up, but could not. So what was wrong, i wondered. 2 things. Firstly, Adrian had a game against Canada. It was at 1:00 AM Pacific time. So I had woken up and watched the game and then slept. That means, instead of taking rest, I was watching Hockey. Secondly and most importantly, the elephant was hurt. Elephant = ME. Last evening, when i tried to save a single i ran a little too quickly and a sudden motion seems to have hurt my knee. So I was unable to run and even climb stairs. The pain still persists now. At this juncture, I would like to please reiterate that this is NO reason for my batting failure. The pain in my knee is genuine and I will not use it as an alibi for my horrendous failure.

Ok, so it was a problem to get my ass of the bed. Somehow i did get up. It was already 7:30 now. The game was to begin at 8:30. And yea, the drive was about 40 mins. So we were running pretty close to getting late.

I packed all my stuff, the laptop, tees, tracks into my bag and took it along. So we were off, heading to the ground for a pre-quarter final. I had thought long and hard in the night, about my failure. What mistakes I was making. How could I get back to earlier times. I did my analysis and was ready to make a bigger impact. The analysis was as follows. I was trying too hard. I was trying to hit the ball out of the park everytime. Giving no respect to the ball. My footwork was also not upto the mark. I should have come on the front foot to play the shots. Ok, So there I was. All set for the big game. This is when 1 thought crossed my mind.

"I was palying such a trivial match. It was not of a serious concern to any one of us. it was just a time pass game. But there was pressure on me. Just 2 failures and there was pressure. then i thought about Adrian. he has played over 120 games for India. Every time he must be going to sleep there must be so much of pressure. I cant even imagine the pressure before a India-Pakistan game. And him being a goal-keeper, things get even bigger. He is always in the limelight. Cameras are always on him. So here, ill take a moment to raise a toast for my dear brother. Bro, I always knew playing proffesionally is a tough task, but today after a long time ive realised its a taks of unimaginable pressure and expectations. I am so proud of you, you have given your sweat, blood and tears for the game and country. You are a real Hero. That Shahrukh Khan can only make money and sleep to glory. It is people like you, the soldiers of this country, who are the real heroes. God Bless you and people who strive to bring glory to our country, day in and day out."

Ok, so we were on our way to the game. We picked another 3 friends and headed to the ground. today the ground was another one. we reached there, the ground was different, but the conditions were the same. Chilly and Unbearable for me!!!

So i did a small jog. Suddenly i realised my captain, Laxman had 2 friends who were in tracks and getting ready to play the game. Now, this was interesting. So the toss happened, we were going to field again. I went to the dug out to keep my cellphone. RK came behind me.

"Ashley, there is a slight problem. We have 12 players and either you or me will have to sit." To be frank, I was not surprised. I kind of expected it. The team had added me as a batsman and if I was unable to make runs I was of no use. So I was dropped. I sat in the dug out cheering my team. The guys bowled really well to restrict the opposite team to just 56 runs. The score was similar to the chase we performed against Infosys. So how did it go?

Did Ashley not being there make any difference?

Did the team benefit from the 2 new players whom the captain had called for?

More answers and results in the next round!!

Till Den, good nite and cya!

Cricket..not my cup of team anymore?

Well Well Well, lets jst see what has happened today. 2 matches, 1 catch dropped, 1 first ball duck and one run in the second match. So my batting average is 0.5. My catching average is -1 and I was of absolutely no help to my team. Add to the fact that I was the opening batsman and brought the pressure on the team thanks to my spectacular batting, things look even worse.

But, for all those who dont know about me and cricket, things were not always this bad. I am sure some of my friends can vouch that I was a pretty decent cricketer. Batsman to be precise. My childhood days in 'Ganga' Bldg and 'Mithchowki' were good starts. The best was my cricketing days in my engineering college. As a student of second year of engg, I one handedly took my team past the defending champions, the Final Year Mechanical batch!!!
It is easily my most cherished cricketing moment.

But things have changed. After moving to Pune, playing cricket was rare. And once i moved out from Ganga Bldg, it was over. No cricket. But when my friend RK asked me to play in the cricket tournament here I was excited. It was something I liked to do.

So there I was woke up at 7:20 AM, after a 'Friday Nite' party at home. We had like 4 large pegs of Chivas Regal + Black Label. Got up, packed my stuff and was all set to leave. RK came and picked me up and zoom, we were off to Glendale. A suburb about 15 miles from downtown LA. The scenery was awesome. A sight to behold. The ground was in the moutains. Surrounded with a lush green view on all the sides, the 9:30 AM match was gonna start in conditions ive never played cricket in. The temperature must have been below 15 degrees celcius. But what was even tough was the cold breeze blowing in the mountain area. Did a small warm up, I mean i ran onto the ground. Thats it!!! :D

The game started, we were bowling first. We had a gr8 set of bowlers. They restricted 'Infosys' to 55 in about 14 overs. it was a 20 over game.

Laxman, our captain asked me and Ravi to open. So there I was, just 55 to chase at an asking rate of less than 3. What a time to get settled and practice. But what happens next is funny and disgraceful at the same time.

Ravi takes a smart single of the first ball. I am on strike. My mind does a zillion calculations. I check the field again and again and store the gaps in my head. The bowler approaches. All hell breaks loose, stupid Ashley goes to hit a SIX of the first ball and CAUGHT BEHIND. ZILCH!!!!

What a come back i must say!!! Team mates are shocked. RK had told them Ashley is a good batsman!!! Nice joke RK.... I make the long walk back to the dug out. Sit quitely in the corner. Soon i realise team is 12 for 6. Wow, thanks for the positive start Ashley. 22 for 7. Btw, I just forgot to mention, we played a player short. So we had only 9 wickets to give!!!

Then Jagan started the revival. He and Kartik had a good 8th wicket stand. Things got interesting. We were now about 18 runs short, when Kartik was out. Last wicket. Can we do it.....

Yes we could, Shashank and Jagan got us through it. It was an exciting match. A very good experience after a long time.

The next match was at 4:30 PM. We had grub at Quizznoz, which now is my favorite Sub joint.
Came for the game. It was against a team, which happens to be one of the better teams. They made a good 120 odd runs.

Yours sincerely was out to open again. This time no FIRST BALL DUCK I thought. Played with a straight bat. Defended well. Second ball one run. Third ball, defended well again. Fourth ball, all hell breaks loose again, 2wice in one day!!!! ASHLEY goes for a big hit, caught about 15 metres inside the boundary wall. Just a single run. Made the long long really long walk back.

We lost the game. But we had good fun. Cheering our tail-enders. A real good fun time. Then ate good Indian food at Rasthal. Now its time to focus on tomorrow mornings game. If we win we are through to the quarters. If we lose, it may goto runrate and we might lose that race.

What I want to do tomo is show that I am not that bad a cricketer!! Lets hope and wait for the best.

I should know whether or not I should retire from the sport or not tomo!!!

Adios.

Ashley

Redefine Rediff... puhlz..

Rediff.com and Indiatimes.com are the most common websites that I visit, to update myself about things happening back home. I suppose much like Yahoo and Google in the global market, they too make their strategies based one each others progress and initiatives.

But, over a period of time, REDIFF has absolutely lost the plot. Following the footsteps of many other over-hyped and Zilch news reporting agencies, they just copy+paste stuff from some other source and modify the headlines to attract consumers. What hurts the most is that, almost everytime the headline has a religious/sex/racial overtone to it. Dear Rediff, If you cannot market yourself well and cannot publish/report your own stories, i understand. Your incapability is sympathized with. But please dont use cheap and stupid tactics to make readers read the news you so balantly modify and publish. If I were an agency you took information/news from and modified the headlines for you own bloody benefit, I would sue the very lasy penny from you.

You buggers, like most other countrymen, just want to use someone else's hardwork, add your supposed flavor, which most of the time is offending and fake and scream loudly that you have achieved something.

Lets take a small example. Today rediff has a story which goes with the headline 'Religious concerns take beef off British Airways' menu'. Now I travel British Airways sometimes, and was curious. What has happened that BA had to take this step. Was there any mishap, or its plain pleasing to a particular community. I clicked on the link and read the entire article.

While reading the story I came across the following line too..
"It has nothing to do with the fear of causing offence -- we always offer alternative meals for people with special dietary requirements if they order in advance," the spokesperson said, adding, "We are still serving beef-based meals on certain menus in First Class and Club World and are currently deciding on whether or not to use beef on the menus for World Traveller customers for the winter season."

Now can someone please explain to me, why has rediff such a distracting headline when the spokesperson clearly states the opposite. Is there something which i have not read or failed to understand in the article. Why bring the religious sentiments into the picture. Why not agree that beef prices have sky rocketed and hence the change. REDIFF, just shutdown the server and go home! Stop the crap reporting you guys do now-a-days.....

Ok, let me check for some other fake, crap stories published on rediff.. just a sec... going to the stupid site again....

Ok found one stupid one.. 'Akshay: Getting a PhD better than an Oscar' Now, firstly, I wonder if Akshay has used the same words as mentioned in the headline. If he has then I have 2 questions. One, a normal person can do a sensible comparison only between things he has felt/known/understood. Akshay is a good actor, but we all know he will NEVER EVER win an Oscar award. So how come he can say that getting that fake Phd is better than an Oscar. I can be proven wrong if Oscar is the name of his dog and for Akshay getting this Phd was better than getting the puppy??? weird eh? Rediff has started to make me think like a crazy nut too....

But yes, I did not have the patience to read the entire 75 minute interview and I dont really care. What I do know is that rediff has lost its plot somewhere. The management or whatever is running the website needs to do some serious introspection and understand that using hatred against the west, using religious gimmicks, using fake sexual/racial discriminating headlines will not really work. Yea may be we will check the site, but once we read the article and realise that rediff has basically fooled us into reading it, we pray for the closure of the website and end of the torture you guys are giving us.

Dear Rediff Editor, please go and read some better website. My blogs, though totally amateurish, are real and not fake like ur headlines. You can sleep with a better conscience like me, rather than faking and sleeping like a bum.

Adios!

P.S: My fav site is www.cnn.com!!!

What cooking eh?

Cooking is the best way to pass time! No No, its not something i proclaim or follow, but it is something my past flatmates have always said to me. Luckily for me, until now, ive never found it necessary to set up a full fletched kitchen at my on-the-move home. Of course for more than 22 years i was previledged to eat lovely home cooked food. But then things changed, I moved to Pune and home food was now only for 3 days a week. Still not bad, huh! For 3 years or so, that I stayed in Pune, the only thing i ever cooked was MAGGI!! yes, the 2 minute magic. I never made anything else in that kitchen in Pune. Only Maggi. Of course I was not on a maggi diet for 3 years. Some other places where i regularly ate from were Swad in Aundh, my home tiffin wala in Baner and a few restaurants here and there.
Then comes Malaysia. Exotic eh! Not really, when it comes to food, Malaysia is harder to survive than Pune. In Malaysia, the tamil food house at Cyberia was out fav huntdown. Roti Tulur, aka Egg Paratha was my fav for quite sometime. Once i got bored, moved to plain Masala Dosa. Once i got bored with that, moved to Egg fried rice(thanks to prasanna). And yes, the lunch time meal was fixed. Rice+Sambar+Baby Corn Fry(if available) else Chicken dish. I had this meal for almost 4 months. But it was fun. Malaysia thought me one thing. Dont try and act too smart. It will come to haunt you. Poor Prasanna and Me once went for Dinner. I heard the word Goreng many times in Malaysia, but never knew what it meant, or what was it made from. Prasanna was hungry(as always). I ordered safe, 1 plan dosa... Prasanna said he would eat a Maggi. Yours Sincerely, added.. "Aare Prasanna.. eat Maggi Goreng man, it is nice". FYI, I had never even seen Maggi Goreng till that moment. The sweet fellow that Prasanna is, he said YES. Maggi Goreng came, Prasanna almost puked. I was happily enjoin my Dosa. I said "Prasanna, why are you not eating?" With a very confused look he told me.. "Dude, it does not taste good and smells worse". How worse could Maggi be? I could not believe he was making fuss of Maggi Goreng. Btw, this Maggi Goreng, looked pretty normal. It has a blackish colour, which i presumed was because of the Soya Sauce. it had pieces of meat in it. Of course the vegetables were sprinkled all over. So kewl, isnt it. I was like, "Dude... come on.. dont be fussy.. eat the chicken atleast" It looks good. In the meanwhile, I ordered another Plain Dosa!!!
Prasanna stared at his plate, looked and me and ate one small tiny piece. He almost puked again. I did not bother. My Hot dosa came, i hogged it. Prasanna had not eaten anything.

Then the smart me came forward. "Buddy, how bad can this be" I got the plate closer to me and almost threw the entite Dosa into the Maggi Goreng plate!! It was ..... yuck!!!!

Poor Prasanna, he now ordered for 1 plain dosa. I paid for my 2 dosa's and the maggi goreng which i almost forced my dear friend to eat!!!!

It is funny that sometimes, we expect others to do things we presume are simple and easy. Only if we stepped into their shoes, or pulled their plated towards us and had a look!!!

More about the cooking stories in my next blog!!

Adios Amigos!