Friday, April 25, 2008

Cheerleaders and 20/20

My buddy Shiva and I had a very insightful conversation about why cheerleaders look so out of place in cricket, despite the best efforts of Mr.Mallya and the Washington Redskins cheerleaders to make it look as sexy as possible. Here's what I think. American football is the manliest sport you can ever see in this world, with super-sized muscles and testosterone oozing out of every 10 yards on the field. When you watch something so manly, you tend to look for something that complements it, like for example, cheerleaders. They perfectly complete the circle by providing the necessary refreshments in between the grunts, helmet clashes and the pats on the back. Now, if you take Cricket or Soccer, it's not as testosterone-based as football, barring the headbutt by that French soccer player in the worldcup final. The manliest diplay I have ever seen in cricket is Venkatesh Prasad showing the dressing room to Aamir Sohail in the quarter finals of World Cup 1996. So, when you put a bunch of cheerleaders in the gentlemen's game of cricket, no matter where they are from, it only makes it look like a cheap stunt to get some attention.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Ninaithale Inikkum.

Bell bottom, thongu meesai and step cutting. That's Kamalhassan in Ninaithale inikkum. If you thought that was funny, then add Rajinikanth, sporting a french beard, as the guitarist with a compulsive stealing habit and you have the deadliest comedy combo. Can you even imagine Rajini calling Kamal "rascal" and "thalaivare" among the numerous "va da"s and "po da"s today? The movie can be easily classified as belonging to the MUSICAL genre, but it's a mix of comedy, drama, and of course musical. To even think of a musical band like this based in Madras/Chennai sends chills down the spine. Rajini clearly plays second fiddle to Kamal throughout the movie, but you can clearly see Rajini stealing the show in many scenes with his comic timing and the ability to take over Kamal in the form of a solo song. Kamal should have seen it coming. No wonder Rajini is always the unanimous No.1 and Kamal will always be the deserving challenger to the No.1 spot. Jayaprada was so cute with a boy-cut hairstyle, reminding me of my ex. The "Engeyum Eppothum" song is much better than the remix, without the jarring beats and the unwanted lines replacing that best part of the song. I think this is the best tamil movie to watch when you are drunk (or not). FUN is the only word to define this movie. I hope they don't remake this evergreen movie and spoil it.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Turkey-Mushroom Meatball

It's been quite a while since I cooked anything substantial. I have been too lazy to cook for myself since my mom visited me and then I was forced into an entended vacation in India for 2 months. Do I really have to explain what those things do to a single guy in the cooking department? Today I decided to make something good/deep fried/fatty to go with my 6-pack. Here we go:

Ingredients:
Ground turkey - 1 lb
Onion - 1
Mushrooms - 15 small ones (stem removed)
Gram Flour(Kadalai maavu) - 3 tsp
Ginger paste - 1/2 tsp
Green chilli - 4 small ones
Red Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves
Cilantro
Salt - appropriate amount

Chop the onions, green chilli, curry leaves and the cilantro really fine. Mix the ground turkey with the gram flour, the chopped ingredients, ginger paste, chilli powder and salt. Now we have a meat paste. Make balls (NO, not those balls!) with the mushrooms by rolling them in the paste until the mushrooms are completely covered. Here comes the best part: Deep fry these balls in medium heat until they become brown (a little on the darker side) in color all around. You can enjoy them with Maggi hot and sweet sauce or if you are the intense kind, with the chinese chilli sauce. OH BOY, it almost tastes illegal!

Never thought I'd live to see this day.

Z Khan b Ganguly 3 (8b 0x4 0x6) SR: 37.

13.1 Ganguly to Khan, OUT, cleaned up, Zaheer missing the line completely for off stump to be pegged back and Ganguly runs off in celebration and Ponting runs towards him and the two embrace ... now thats a sight, eh?

Now, imagine Steve Waugh instead of Ponting. That would have been a sight! The inaugral game of the much hyped and the highly anticipated IPL turned into a joke for the Banglaore Royal Challengers against the Kolkatta Knight Riders. They were royally screwed even before they started chasing, just by one man, Brandon McCullum. I can totally imagine Rahul Dravid walking up to him at the end of his innings and ask, "Thambi, nee saayangalam enna tiffin saapitte?". Cricinfo reports that the Chinnaswamy stadium was at it's full capacity. One should appreciate Vijay Mallya's business tactics in bringing the Washington Redskins cheerleaders for his team, but the same cannot be said about the captain's tactics. Who in their right minds would make Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jaffer open the batting in a 20/20 game, especially when they are chasing 222. Heck, I wouldn't want them to open even in ODIs. But then, who else could have opened? No one in the Bangalore team can exactly terrorize the oppostion bowlers. And, is that the same Sunil Joshi who used to play for the Indian team? Shouldn't he retired by now? I wouldn't be surprised if I see Sujith Somasundar in the next game. It's hard to describe McCallum's innings. Is it a display of pure power hitting or a mere collection of a bowler's nightmares in the form of a batsman. Whatever it was, I am sure Shahrukh Khan is a happy man. Now, I can't wait to see Mr.Dhoni, Mr.Muralidharan and a certain Mr.Hayden in action.

Friday, April 11, 2008

HOW?

Dei Karthik, how did you manage to get to 100 posts? I completed 4 new posts (including this one) and yet I have only 32. NAASAMA POGA!!!

Lost lunch

When I joined Avichi Higher Secondary School in Virugambakkam for my 6th Standard, I had no idea that my dad put me there just because he couldn't afford to pay the fees for a private school. I don't mean any offense to my dad, in fact if I had known, I would have dropped out of school and gone to work to save my dad from any embarrassing moments. Dramatic statements aside, this post is really about the hardships, if I may say so, that I went through from the late 80's to the early 90's. Those days, spending 30 minutes in a bus just to go to school was considered as an act of bravery. To add to it, I had to carry a lunch basket (plastic koodai) with a tiffin carrier and a water bottle that keeps the water cold for a long time. My mom would never compromise when it comes to food. Despite my begging her several times that I would just take a single tier tiifin box, she'd force me to take the 2-tier carrier, which had 'kozhambu' on the top level and white rice and some poriyal or kootu or varuval (fish or chicken) in the bottom level. My classmates would start drooling over my lunch bag the moment I enter the classroom as they soon learnt that there is always something fresh and hot in the small tower I carried, as opposed to the dry idlis and the lemon rice that they had in their bags. If not anything, my mom's cooking helped me make some new friends. By the time I managed to convince my mom that I am old enough to stop carrying separate lunch bags, I was in my 10th standard. Oh, to justify the topic, I would forget my lunch bag in the bus and get down. There were times when I didn't even realize that I lost it until the lunch bell rings. Good ole times!

Love

What happens to you when you fall in love? Is it just the hormones at work, is it really much more than that? Is there really anything more than physical attraction to love? Just because two people can live together, tolerating the nagging, the smells and the hairy bodies (both men and women), does it mean they are meant to be together? IMHO, it's all about the physical attraction that makes us sacrifice and compromise on everything else, whether it's a girl or a boy, a man or a woman, a dude or a chick. Dare to disagree?

YOU started it!

It may be hot, humid and conservative (atleast it used to be). It may boast of the stinky koovam as the next best thing to the Marina Beach, but hey, that's where home is and we don't START beating up people the moment someone says Water and Karnataka in the same sentence. I am glad I am from Chennai.