Ashes

The first test in the Ashes came to an end as the Aussies bowled out the Englishmen cheaply. At the end of the 3rd day's play, England had lost 5 wickets with Kevin Peterson guarding one end. It took merely 61 minutes of play on the rain afftected 4th day to finish of with the tame English tail. The only entertainment was provided by the aggresive Kevin Peterson. He played some beautiful shots against the otherwise dominating Shane Warne. The Aussies are back close to their best. The bowling attack is not as good with Jason Gillespie being the weak link. It is now to the Englishmen to take advantage of it to come back in the series. The second test starts on 4th August in Birmingham. Stay tuned!

good writing

I read an article on writing good blog. The most useful part was:

No matter what your audience size, you ought to write as if your
readership consisted of paid subscribers whose subscriptions were
perpetually about to expire. There’s no need to pander.
Compel them to re–subscribe.

Sarkar

Went to see 'Sarkar' on a rainy Monday evening. I had heard that the theme was based on the Mario Puzo's Godfather. While some plots were clearly taken from Godfather, they were well Indian-ized. I thought the appearance of 'Sarkar' (lead character in the movie) carries some impact from Shivsena Chief's personality. Amongst other things, a clear factor different from Godfather was the number of people that you can see on the screen. In every other Bollywood movie one can see hundreds of people, creating a crowd for one reason or the other. The population problem is becoming serious, even in the movies.
--
Ash visited 'Siddhivinayak' temple in Mumbai. It became a news along with a pic. She has become so much more important, even more than Tajmahal.

early morning

Overheard this from an auto-rickshaw while waiting for a traffic light to turn Green.

Passenger X: Why have you stopped?
Autowalaa: Traffic light shows Red.
Passenger X: (puzzled) But others are still moving!!
Autowalaa: So? The light shows Red and we stop. That's all!!
(Last two lines repeated one more time)

[Cut!!!]


Bravo, Mr. Autowalaa!! We need more like you.

sad but true

Ayodhya is back in news. Very few people would know the motive behind the attack a couple of days back. However, the incident brings back some sad memories. For a developing country like India, the last thing needs to happen is any more riots. I think it is important for us to ignore such small incidents and not to spread any fear. Unfortunately, many political parties and religious groups are busy telling public that they have a feel of after effects of the recent attacks. Media should play its role by downsizing the amount of material that gets printed on this matter. If media restrains itself to publishing incidents only, it would not give rise to anger against anybody. I think that opinions of various leaders etc. on this matter should be suppressed by the media. It is these opinions that give further rise to anger in common man. Having said that, in a democracy like ours it is hard to enforce such constraints on the media. We can just hope that people behave "sensibly".

I am back.