Sunday, November 26, 2006
The No.1 Team of the World - Take Three
Like I had mentioned in my previous post, everybody likes The No.1 Team of the World. But right now it is the Proteas who like them the most. The reason is beyond the obvious.
The cricketing gods had long deserted South Africa. As a result, the Proteas were mauled beyond recognition by Australia. Moved by their stricken plight, the new cricketing Gods (formerly mortal Men) decided to set things right. Judging by recent events, the Gods (formerly Men) have been quite successful in their selfless endeavour.
This is what the grand old game of cricket is all about. It's about humanity, friendship, peace and the works. And that's why the Men, nay Gods, are undisputed global ambassadors of the game. They travel all over the world, uplifting downtrodden cricketing nations and resurrecting the self-esteem of ravaged national teams. It is an exercise in nobility the likes of which has not been seen since the times of Geldof's Live Aid concert.
Even a team as evolved as the Men, nay Gods, can sometimes get carried away by the animal instinct of competitive sport. This was reflected in this match when they reduced the puny South African line-up to 76/6 within no time. Fortunately, the Gods (formerly Men) woke up to their actual intent of comradeship and solidarity with the struggling Proteas just in the nick of time. The Gods (formerly Men) then set aside baser goals and quickly helped their opponents reach 274/7.
Of all charitable deeds that are regularly performed by the Gods (formerly Men), one really stands out : while the Men, nay Gods, treat the opposition's fast bowling attack with kid gloves, their own fast bowling attack doles out half volleys and full tosses to the opposition's batting at the death, redefining benevolence and munificence in the process. Is there is any other team that can boast of giving away in excess of 100 runs in the last 10 overs of a match with astonishing regularity?
India coach Greg Chappell cautioned the Men, nay Gods, against getting carried away again during batting. Led from behind by the legendary opening pair of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, the Men (nay Gods) accomplished their mission with aplomb. They even made a has-been like Shaun Pollock look good. Hollywood insiders inform us that the next installment of the Mission Impossible franchise will feature the impressive Gods (formerly Men) instead of the unimpressive Tom Cruise.
Sachin pretended to do a Ricky Ponting in attempting to play a pull shot off Pollock. The ball went up in the air, briefly bringing memories of Ponting to the horrified Pollock and his teammates. But instead of sailing over the fence, the ball landed in the quivering hands of an overjoyed fielder called Boozeman or something like that. It was a well-played joke that led to quite a few chuckles and Sachin walked off, quite pleased with his sense of humour. Most of the Gods (formerly Men) stuck to Coach Chappell's words of wisdom except for the captain Rahul Dravid and the "new Gilchrist", Mahendra Singh Dhoni. There is talk of having them disciplined for contravening the Indian code of conduct. But all's well that ends well. The Men, nay Gods, finished with 168/10. Inspite of their stupendous efforts, the Gods (formerly Men) had to face criticism from some quarters for handing out such a strenuous workout to the hapless Proteas bowlers in uncomfortable weather for all of 41.3 overs.
Coach Isiah Thomas of the Knicks (the No.2 Team Of The World which has been vying for the No.1 position rather unsuccessfully for a while now) followed the game with keen interest. He is said to have shown a video of this incredible game to his team in order to inspire them to even greater heights of success.
Management Class : News
The cricketing gods had long deserted South Africa. As a result, the Proteas were mauled beyond recognition by Australia. Moved by their stricken plight, the new cricketing Gods (formerly mortal Men) decided to set things right. Judging by recent events, the Gods (formerly Men) have been quite successful in their selfless endeavour.
This is what the grand old game of cricket is all about. It's about humanity, friendship, peace and the works. And that's why the Men, nay Gods, are undisputed global ambassadors of the game. They travel all over the world, uplifting downtrodden cricketing nations and resurrecting the self-esteem of ravaged national teams. It is an exercise in nobility the likes of which has not been seen since the times of Geldof's Live Aid concert.
Even a team as evolved as the Men, nay Gods, can sometimes get carried away by the animal instinct of competitive sport. This was reflected in this match when they reduced the puny South African line-up to 76/6 within no time. Fortunately, the Gods (formerly Men) woke up to their actual intent of comradeship and solidarity with the struggling Proteas just in the nick of time. The Gods (formerly Men) then set aside baser goals and quickly helped their opponents reach 274/7.
Of all charitable deeds that are regularly performed by the Gods (formerly Men), one really stands out : while the Men, nay Gods, treat the opposition's fast bowling attack with kid gloves, their own fast bowling attack doles out half volleys and full tosses to the opposition's batting at the death, redefining benevolence and munificence in the process. Is there is any other team that can boast of giving away in excess of 100 runs in the last 10 overs of a match with astonishing regularity?
India coach Greg Chappell cautioned the Men, nay Gods, against getting carried away again during batting. Led from behind by the legendary opening pair of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, the Men (nay Gods) accomplished their mission with aplomb. They even made a has-been like Shaun Pollock look good. Hollywood insiders inform us that the next installment of the Mission Impossible franchise will feature the impressive Gods (formerly Men) instead of the unimpressive Tom Cruise.
Sachin pretended to do a Ricky Ponting in attempting to play a pull shot off Pollock. The ball went up in the air, briefly bringing memories of Ponting to the horrified Pollock and his teammates. But instead of sailing over the fence, the ball landed in the quivering hands of an overjoyed fielder called Boozeman or something like that. It was a well-played joke that led to quite a few chuckles and Sachin walked off, quite pleased with his sense of humour. Most of the Gods (formerly Men) stuck to Coach Chappell's words of wisdom except for the captain Rahul Dravid and the "new Gilchrist", Mahendra Singh Dhoni. There is talk of having them disciplined for contravening the Indian code of conduct. But all's well that ends well. The Men, nay Gods, finished with 168/10. Inspite of their stupendous efforts, the Gods (formerly Men) had to face criticism from some quarters for handing out such a strenuous workout to the hapless Proteas bowlers in uncomfortable weather for all of 41.3 overs.
Coach Isiah Thomas of the Knicks (the No.2 Team Of The World which has been vying for the No.1 position rather unsuccessfully for a while now) followed the game with keen interest. He is said to have shown a video of this incredible game to his team in order to inspire them to even greater heights of success.
Management Class : News
Friday, November 24, 2006
Mental Baba, Stupid Baba
Hey Amrita,
How are you doing? Please allow me to introduce myself as one of the millions of admirers that you have across all psycho-temporal dimensions of the multiverse. My admirers (my pot-bellied manager and a family of stray cats I occasionally feed) know me as Mental Baba and I'm a model product of the assembly line also known as evolution.
Well, I would like to begin by stating what you keep hearing all the time - you are SO beautiful. You are one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen. And having surfed the internet quite religiously for the better part of my adult life, I have pretty much seen them all. To put it succinctly - I have the HOTS for you.
Now you are a movie star. You are pretty and rich and famous and all that. But I would like to think that I have a few things going my way too. According to certain peeps, I make stupid money - that makes me a gazillionaire and the multiverse's second richest Baba (after this quack). According to my manager (the one with the pot-belly), as defender of the 42nd psycho-temporal dimension, I have the most challenging and exciting job in the entire Milky Way galaxy. According to technorati, my blog is ranked in the (haw!!) top ONE MILLION - that makes me famous. According to the Greeks, I'm nothing short of a God. So, there.
It is simply quite impossible for me to stay away from your thoughts. Like the Sirens who drew so many to their doom, you draw me towards mine. There I was in my ashram, happy and content, heading towards the inevitable conclusion of Babahood. And then, you happened again. Don't get me wrong but I had a hard time sitting through the scenes which did not have you. I had a hard time not thinking of breaking that dork Shahid Kapoor's head everytime he got cosy with you. I had a really hard time when I looked at you on the screen and realized that you were not just few metres away - but a few light years and rebirths away.
There's not much else that I can say. Evermore I love you's, but the language, the language - it's leaving me.
Mental Baba
Management Class : Meandering thoughts of a fickle mind
How are you doing? Please allow me to introduce myself as one of the millions of admirers that you have across all psycho-temporal dimensions of the multiverse. My admirers (my pot-bellied manager and a family of stray cats I occasionally feed) know me as Mental Baba and I'm a model product of the assembly line also known as evolution.
Well, I would like to begin by stating what you keep hearing all the time - you are SO beautiful. You are one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen. And having surfed the internet quite religiously for the better part of my adult life, I have pretty much seen them all. To put it succinctly - I have the HOTS for you.
Now you are a movie star. You are pretty and rich and famous and all that. But I would like to think that I have a few things going my way too. According to certain peeps, I make stupid money - that makes me a gazillionaire and the multiverse's second richest Baba (after this quack). According to my manager (the one with the pot-belly), as defender of the 42nd psycho-temporal dimension, I have the most challenging and exciting job in the entire Milky Way galaxy. According to technorati, my blog is ranked in the (haw!!) top ONE MILLION - that makes me famous. According to the Greeks, I'm nothing short of a God. So, there.
It is simply quite impossible for me to stay away from your thoughts. Like the Sirens who drew so many to their doom, you draw me towards mine. There I was in my ashram, happy and content, heading towards the inevitable conclusion of Babahood. And then, you happened again. Don't get me wrong but I had a hard time sitting through the scenes which did not have you. I had a hard time not thinking of breaking that dork Shahid Kapoor's head everytime he got cosy with you. I had a really hard time when I looked at you on the screen and realized that you were not just few metres away - but a few light years and rebirths away.
There's not much else that I can say. Evermore I love you's, but the language, the language - it's leaving me.
Mental Baba
Management Class : Meandering thoughts of a fickle mind
Thursday, November 23, 2006
The No.1 Team of the World - Reprise
I would like to apologize to my readers (four at last count) for having utterly and miserably failed in my previous attempt to do justice to the Men in Blue.
Reliable sources have informed me that, stung by my pathetic portrayal of their undisputed talents, the Men in Blue decided to put on the kind of show seldom seen in any of the psycho-temporal dimensions of the multiverse. And indeed, they did so with aplomb. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Men in Blue. As I always am, I was hopelessly wrong. The Men are not, by any stretch of imagination, just The No.1 Team of the World. They are beyond mortal powers of description now.
The Men in Blue have transcended the mereness and triviality of sport with this spectacular performance. Reliable sources state that, after an emergency session, the UNESCO decided to include Durban, the scene of the epoch, in the list of World Heritage Sites. Such has been the magnitude of their feats that there is also talk of adding the Men to the list of modern day wonders. There is also talk of adding the "new Gilchrist", Mahendra Singh Dhoni, to the list of one day wonders.
The true meaning of the adjective heavyweight, which is quite often used to describe the Indian batting line-up, is finally clear. While some luminaries are heavy in weight, others are heavily weighed down by leaden feet. However, the spirits of the Men in Blue are never weighed down. In fact they rise to atmospheric heights (leaving the body way below), especially when there is a fast bowler at the other end.
Allow me to let you in on another secret. You know why they were named Men in Blue in the first place? It is said the fearsome Indian batting line-up, for some weird reason, went blue in the face when they had occasion to take guard against the White Lightening Allan Donald, the last and perhaps the most classical of all fast bowlers, some years back. Perhaps it was a result of their deep compassion for all fast bowlers - that dying and fast-disappearing breed. Parallels could be drawn from the compassionate Hindu god Shiva who ingested poison, his throat turning blue in the process, to save the multiverse from certain annihilation. This probably explains why they are regarded as gods and worshipped by millions, nay billions, of fawning Indians. But really, more than the average Indian, it is fast bowlers across the multiverse who need to worship the Men, nay Gods. In this day and age of marauding poachers, if the species of fast bowlers is alive, it is because of the five-wicket hauls that they subsist on. Courtesy the Men, nay Gods, of course. In my personal opinion, what the Gods (formerly Men) do need is not Padma Bhushans but medals from WWF.
There is also a school of thought which is of the opinion that the combination of an Indian batsman in blue, a fast bowler with a red cherry in his hand and a green pitch makes for an excellent course in the principles of optics for the millions of Indian schoolkids (a result of all that frenetic copulation) who would otherwise avoid that greatest of all subjects - physics. While fielding or while getting run out, the Men (nay Gods) often disseminate knowledge in physics by demonstrating, rather ably, Newton's equations of motion. Like, v = u + at or v^2 = u^2 + 2aS. The beauty of these equations is well and truly brought out when the ball's final velocity (v) is greater than or equal to 140 kilometres an hour, and even the greatest of all Gods (formerly Men) is clean bowled.
Yoohoo! The way the bails flew!
See that, the batsmen had no clue -
The most excellent Men in Blue!
That they are No.1 is damn true!
It's just freaking amazing. What a bunch of good-natured blokes! The fast bowlers like them. So do educators in physics. Advertisers and desi chicks (pardon my oxymoron) dig them. Cool!
It is likely that this effort of mine does no semblance of justice to the Men, nay Gods, AGAIN. But hey, undoubtedly, there will be several more opportunities to correct this shortcoming in the future. Until then.
Management Class : News
Reliable sources have informed me that, stung by my pathetic portrayal of their undisputed talents, the Men in Blue decided to put on the kind of show seldom seen in any of the psycho-temporal dimensions of the multiverse. And indeed, they did so with aplomb. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Men in Blue. As I always am, I was hopelessly wrong. The Men are not, by any stretch of imagination, just The No.1 Team of the World. They are beyond mortal powers of description now.
The Men in Blue have transcended the mereness and triviality of sport with this spectacular performance. Reliable sources state that, after an emergency session, the UNESCO decided to include Durban, the scene of the epoch, in the list of World Heritage Sites. Such has been the magnitude of their feats that there is also talk of adding the Men to the list of modern day wonders. There is also talk of adding the "new Gilchrist", Mahendra Singh Dhoni, to the list of one day wonders.
The true meaning of the adjective heavyweight, which is quite often used to describe the Indian batting line-up, is finally clear. While some luminaries are heavy in weight, others are heavily weighed down by leaden feet. However, the spirits of the Men in Blue are never weighed down. In fact they rise to atmospheric heights (leaving the body way below), especially when there is a fast bowler at the other end.
Allow me to let you in on another secret. You know why they were named Men in Blue in the first place? It is said the fearsome Indian batting line-up, for some weird reason, went blue in the face when they had occasion to take guard against the White Lightening Allan Donald, the last and perhaps the most classical of all fast bowlers, some years back. Perhaps it was a result of their deep compassion for all fast bowlers - that dying and fast-disappearing breed. Parallels could be drawn from the compassionate Hindu god Shiva who ingested poison, his throat turning blue in the process, to save the multiverse from certain annihilation. This probably explains why they are regarded as gods and worshipped by millions, nay billions, of fawning Indians. But really, more than the average Indian, it is fast bowlers across the multiverse who need to worship the Men, nay Gods. In this day and age of marauding poachers, if the species of fast bowlers is alive, it is because of the five-wicket hauls that they subsist on. Courtesy the Men, nay Gods, of course. In my personal opinion, what the Gods (formerly Men) do need is not Padma Bhushans but medals from WWF.
There is also a school of thought which is of the opinion that the combination of an Indian batsman in blue, a fast bowler with a red cherry in his hand and a green pitch makes for an excellent course in the principles of optics for the millions of Indian schoolkids (a result of all that frenetic copulation) who would otherwise avoid that greatest of all subjects - physics. While fielding or while getting run out, the Men (nay Gods) often disseminate knowledge in physics by demonstrating, rather ably, Newton's equations of motion. Like, v = u + at or v^2 = u^2 + 2aS. The beauty of these equations is well and truly brought out when the ball's final velocity (v) is greater than or equal to 140 kilometres an hour, and even the greatest of all Gods (formerly Men) is clean bowled.
Yoohoo! The way the bails flew!
See that, the batsmen had no clue -
The most excellent Men in Blue!
That they are No.1 is damn true!
It's just freaking amazing. What a bunch of good-natured blokes! The fast bowlers like them. So do educators in physics. Advertisers and desi chicks (pardon my oxymoron) dig them. Cool!
It is likely that this effort of mine does no semblance of justice to the Men, nay Gods, AGAIN. But hey, undoubtedly, there will be several more opportunities to correct this shortcoming in the future. Until then.
Management Class : News