20 years of Glory

Its more than 20 years that we are watching game of cricket but for last 20 years that game is called as Sachin. I don't think there is a sportsman that exists on the earth who has such a huge fan base but is still on ground and I am sure there will not be any in coming years. Some say that he play for records. But after 20 years he had created and broken so many of them, that I try to think what does motivate him. This was the question asked to him after his blasting innings of 175 against the aussies in the series concluded recently and his answer said it all. "I care about playing for India, it's a passion and I have been absoloutely honoured to play for India so long."



Hats off to this Legend of the game. Enjoy this reading from Harsha

Happy Diwali

This time last year it was snowing when we were glowing candles. Diwali celebrated in another environment altogether. Was a different experience of celebrating your festival in London. But this year is different. Back to the familiar sounds of crackers made us wake up in the morning. However you talk about air pollution, sound pollution, child labour its a wonderful experience to see and feel that.
The day started early morning with sounds and lights of crackers coming in from the windows. This is followed by the diwali special 'faral'. We do get everything now-a-days all over the world but home made things on this day makes it different.
So all and all a good start to this years' diwali and looking forward to have great time for next 3 days.....

Enjoy and wish you a very happy and safe Diwali....

After long time.....

Back home after an year and settling back home. It's almost an year while we were in London. Enjoyed the extreme weather there. Saw a snowfall in February and scorching 27 degrees in June. Two extremes in one year.


But back home it's fantastic. Came right in festive season. Ganapati just about to get over. Then came Navratri. City is full of enthusiasm despite of fears of swine flu.


Winding up for today. The first blog from home. Watch this space in future...

Exciting sporty weekends

I knew this would be exciting weekend with lot of sports. However it all started on last weekend when Usain Bolt created new world record (9.58 sec) in 100 meter sprint in Paris. Any other player would have celebrated but not this man. He was resting and preparing for 200 meter sprint. Another world record was thrashed. 200 meter sprint in 19.19 seconds. While reading through web for his feat there was an interesting finding. "The 200 metres has always been Bolt’s baby. It is the event he has worked at for years. He fancied the 100 metres, but Glen Mills, his ursine coach, told him he would only allow him to do so if he broke the Jamaican record for the 200 metres. Hence, he clocked 19.75sec in 2007, claiming Don Quarrie’s 36-year-old record, and the stage was set for sporting history."

Come Thursday and last test match at Brit Oval was about to start. England did well on day 1. Not big score but an important toss they have won. Day 2 is happening. 15 wickets falling with just above 200 runs being scored. Broad has a stunning day. 5 wicket spell in ashes.... that too in decider. Aussies 160 all out. Not what they were looking forward to. But Mitchell Johnson has bowled terrific 2 balls to get rid of two Englishmen. Katich must have had an awkward feeling when Nassir Hussain wished him on his birthday end of day today. He had done good with bat and fabulous runout and 2 catches. Just to see aussies trailing by 230 runs with 3 days left in game on this pitch. It will be very important day for both the teams tomorrow. I am not going to miss it for sure.

In the meanwhile I will also be watching the F1 without Schumi. Well the show is on......

Planned Engineering work

If you are in London, you know what I am referring to. The lifeline of this metro is not working over the weekend. They call it "Transforming your tubes". Problem is, it's the weekend when we want to visit places in central London and the tube lines are closed. Especially Jubilee and Circle lines. You will have to plan your travel and add up about 30 - 45 minutes. But that also shows our dependency on this network. I must appreciate this network built in 1863 and maintained so far and responsible for making Londoners' life easy. There might be other networks that might be better than this one. However, maintaining something so long has its own challenges. Even the youngest line (Jubilee) on this network is 40 years old, older than me. :-) So I think this maintenance is essential to keep this lifeline up and running during the peak hours of week days. I found an interesting information while browsing internet. Even though this is called underground, 55% of the trains travel overground. :-)
However complicated it may look like, but traveling in tube is easy and fun. If you keep your eyes open and read the boards and instructions carefully, you will not get lost at all and reaching destination is not a challenge. You will have to try hard to get lost in the city. Get used to colour coding and directions and you can plan your travel just like that.
DLR is another experience. You cannot imagine how fun it is to sit on first seat of train and get feeling of yourself driving it. So go for it and experience travel in this network.
On a side note, even though there is planned maintenance, I have plans to travel to central London today (on the weekend) in the tubes to celerate Independence Day of India in England.

Schumi and F1

It cannot be so bad. Yesterday evening I wrote that I am excited to see Schumi's return and came in this news of he cancelling the plans due to neck pain. (http://www.michael-schumacher.de/?page=news&story_id=82524&lang=uk) Well as his die hard fan, I'll miss to see him on track but at the same time I would not have loved him seeing on track not completely fit and then explaining the reasons as why he could not perform. He is champ and will remain in everybody's heart as champ. For us somebody coming back from his retirement after three years in game like F1 where fitness is the prime thing and no excuses will work if you are not fit. You will just not do it. Look at the records 249 starts, 91 wins, 154 Podium finishes. Amazing. I still recollect the 2004 season where he won 13 out of 18 races and was champ with 4 races still to go. He was then called to be responsible for making F1 boring.... What a mockery.... But that's what media is all about. Isn't it? Anyways that's history. We'll keep watching him in the Ferrari garage as advisor.

Let's wish Massa faster recovery and return to active racing...

Fight to win back the urn

Test matches in recent past had seen nail biting finishes. But not this one. Match finishes under three days is not the one we look forward to. But certainly this has shown what kind of team Aussies are. 1 - 0 down after 3 matches. Their spearhead bowler not performing and under criticism due to personal reasons. Any other team would have given up. But not Aussies. They turned the whole thing around and now it's England who is under pressure to regain the ashes. I am sure my bro will be happy reading this. He's die hard fan of team down under which I keep on criticizing for non cricket things that they "perform". But I must admit when it comes to cricket they mean business and time and again they have shown this. Remember in past when they were loosing match after match before last world cup. Remember the famous 400+ chase by the Proteas? But when it mattered Aussies fought back and won the World Cup.

The Ashes series started with predictions from Aussies that they will win 5 - 0 turned into laughters as the first match saw heroics of the tailenders. What a finish. This is test match. I don't think this would be seen in any other form of cricket. The media made scene as if England had won the match. Of course the way they played that was not untrue. Mitchell Johnson performed brilliantly with 6 wickets in the win. This will definitely worry Straussy. Of course he has lots of home worries. Bopara not performing at his slot, Freddie not confirmed his fitness. The whole series has shown that their bowlers are not performing as expected. So to win back the urn, the batting must perform and he will be certainly not happy with the scorecard at Headingley.

But for a sports fan like me, that week is a feast. Decider Ashes test, Europe F1 GP with Schumi making return. Excited to see all the action.....

Trip to Brighton

A Sunny weekend after a long and wet week was much awaited. All the papers were blaming the weatherman to predict barbecue summer wrongly. But I think that's a bit of fuss. Enjoy the weather that's there. We did that yesterday. As usual planned to leave early. Of course did not scheduled time. Headed off to London Bridge to catch train to Brighton. Suddenly saw a board on Farrington station that the trains to Brighton go from there. By the time we take any decision train was on the move. Got down on Barbican to come back a station. Before boarding a reverse route train, just enquired the counter. What do we come to know? Trains to Brighton leave from London Bridge only on the weekend due to planned engineering work (this needs another blog). So we have to go to London Bridge only. Okie... again came to same platform and took next tube to London Bridge. Got into a fast train to Brighton and headed towards the so called nice bridge in the UK.

After an hour long journey in train, we reached Brighton. I was actually not very optimistic about this bridge due to my previous experiences about Weston Super Mare etc. But when on our way we saw see, I thought I would be possibly wrong. The view is similar if not same as Harihareshwar sea. Of course the major difference is when you come on the beach. Harihareshwar is a beach which will give you peace of mind and this will take peace off your mind looking at the beauties sunbathing. A nice pebble beach where we relaxed had lunch and the little devil made a castle.

Some sun bathing (with all clothes on of course) and sleep was rejuvenating. Had a round of fish and chips without fish, a cup of coffee which made us ready for return journey. Suddenly we saw a summer end sale. With two ladies with us it was obvious that we enter there and come out with hole in pocket. But this was no issues. Why? Because they were spend on the little one. He was so excited with his 2 new pairs of shoes, paisa vasool....

After another hour of journey we were back in London. It was nice walking on Thames bank (Will I enjoy the same with Mutha?) in the evening. Had dinner and then its time to return home. A fantastic day was over. After long time (in fact first time in this trip to London) I had a Saturday without calls from work. Was this the reason of good day? Who knows...