Sunday, January 31, 2010

News…that isn’t news anymore…

One more weekend comes to an end. Roger Federer wins yet another slam, this time ramming into a hopeful Andy Murray who at the end of the day must have felt rather hopeless. Pakistan got thrashed once again by the Aussies who by means of the win lashed out their final few brushes of distemper on the former to complete a whitewash,3-0 in the tests+5-0 in the ODIs.Pity the Pakistanis.Time for a few lessons from us on how to give it back to the Aussies in their own backyard,what say?The Padma awards were announced and as is the custom it has left its share of disgruntled aspirants left in the lurch as also a substantial number of undeserving folks getting the honors(Saif Ali Khan is a padmashree-BION*). Ditto with the national awards…Arjun Rampal wins best supporting actor(I loved Rock on and Arjun’s performance too-probably his all time best) but a national award??The time is 8.13 PM to be precise and I am feeling slightly hungry. ‘Ibn-e-batuta’ from Ishqiya is playing on my computer. In fact it just finished and I need to enqueue a few more songs to keep me humming along. Don’t quite know what is for dinner tonight. Guess its chapati and subzi.As I scratch myself (on the head, mind you) to continue this orgy of meaningless rambling, I remember I need to pay for my declared investments and save myself some money from the tax net.Watched Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday on a Sunday,which happens to be today. Thought it was bloody brilliant. Hard hitting indeed. A pity such movies don’t get good enough publicity.Way to go Anurag Kashyap.It seems Shahid Afridi has earned a 2-match ban for ball tampering. Apparently he was caught chewing them!That reminds me, is he still 18 years old?I remember they kept showing his age as 18 for more than 3-4 years prompting Sunny Gavaskar to comment that “Shahid Afridi is an experienced 18-year old campaigner”. :D Had been to Bangalore last weekend and it felt so good there. Guess I am bored being in Chennai . Been 7 years now.One more friend of mine is getting married next month, following a bunch of others who have been surrendering their respective bachelors’ lives. Every friend who comes home with a wedding invite invariably ends up in me becoming the target of “when-will-you-get-married-blah-blah-blah” taunts from the elder ladies at home. My pleasure, let me get my girl, I say! ;) Sania Mirza called her engagement off last week. The week before her grand plans of quitting tennis post marriage ‘to-be-wtih her-husband-otherwise-why-would-she-marry-followed-by-a- silly-laugh’ were announced after yet another 1st round loss at a grand slam. All in that stupid fake accent of hers of course. Which means there’s no end in sight to her now-legendary 2nd round (dis)appearances in all the slams. Way to go Sania. Hope I eat my words at the next one. May you win the Wimbledon. Err… does it sound a bit like Virender Sehwag taking two days to get a 100? Never mind. We’ll still watch out for her.BalThakeray has suggested SRK be awarded with Nishan-e-Pakistan for his politically incorrect statement on Pakistani cricketers getting IPL 3 berths. Take a bow, Balasahib, you deserve a Nobel,no less. We’ll ask them to give the citation in Marathi, scripted by none other than your de-facto heir-apparent and now estranged nephew Raj. And the category? A life time achievement award for inciting mobs,causing public nuisance,making insane remarks and for his tirade against innocent love-struck couples celebrating Valentine’s Day. A legend in true flesh and blood. In the meanwhile, I get a confirmation about tonight’s dinner- it is Chapati indeed. :D Heard Meghalaya now has 2 chief ministers. Apparently the deputy CM was not really happy being deputy.It happens only in India.Vidya Balan looks stunning in Ishqiya. She was gorgeous in Paa too.Rann released this weekend. Evidently,it takes a critical view on the way today’s news channels run and ‘manufacture’ news. Hard to miss the irony in the fact that the makers used the very same news channels for their pre-release publicity. That said I remain a big time Ram Gopal Varma fan( that excludes his Aag and other duds). Like him, hate him but you cant ignore him.Will definitely watch Rann irrespective of the reviews.The time now is 9.08 PM and dinner is still not ready though the sounds and smells of a delicious one are obvious. I had ‘revived’ my jogging routine a few weeks back which were interrupted by a morning shift yet again. Plan to get back on track tomorrow onwards. I never give up, you see! :D It seems there are only 1411 tigers left in India. Atrocious I say, for a nation which considers it as the national animal. Hope that number goes up in a hurry. With this I decide its time to spare the innocuous followers and readers of this blog from further agony. The sole aim of this write-up was to spew out non sense, just for the heck of posting something before 31 days have passed since the new decade dawned upon us.
* BION- Believe It Or Not . In case you are wondering why on Earth I mention this, just scroll to the 9th line from top and you’ll get the answer. :)

It would be a cardinal sin not to give credits where it is due. I wouldn’t want this blog to be a Vidhu Vinod Chopra-Chetan Bhagat type slugfest. Not that this will receive media attention,but what the heck.So here goes…
This blog wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the invaluable inputs derived from the following media groups:

1. TV18 for IBN Live
2. The Times group for ToI and Times Now
3.NDTV
4. The Hindu
5. Rediff.com
6.Aaj Tak
7. Star Sports and Star Cricket. :D

Breaking News: I just finished my dinner, and its 9.44 PM now. On that note, we’ll take a quick break and on the other side,we’ll have an expert panel consisting of eminent personalities like Amar Singh, Rahul Mahajan, Rakhi Sawant, Lalit Modi and Santhakumaran Sreesanth pulling their collective hairs out on the issue of the melting glaciers and global warming. Stay tuned. :P