Quoting Imran Khan......from the Wisden website

Imran Khan - It's a do-or-die match. Never before in the history of the World Cup have Pakistan and India have faced each other in such a situation where defeat means elimination from the tournament. I pity the team who loses. Pakistan have to be aggressive and must go into the match with an attacking mind. It is very important that they win the toss and bat first.

Whatever happened to Bangalore in 1996??????????

With the India Pakistan match coming up tomorrow I thought this would make some interesting reading for all you cricket lovers out there.......

An article from the Wisden website

About 2 week back I had gone bowling . There was sometime for the bowling session to begin and so i was sitting along with a few friends near an alley which was not the one alloted to us........I changed into the Bowling shoes provided by the bowling place and was happy with the music and the beer....when time came we moved to our alley and i bowled non stop for three hours.......anyways its 1.00 in the night and we have to leave and thats when i realized that i had left my shoes ( new shoes) where we were seated earlier........i spent another half an hour looking for them but to no avail.....i had to walk back to the car in socks and it was 10 degrees C below zero that day.....unfortunately now someone else wears them and roams the streets.......absent mindedness at its best.........ok so i have now finally decided today that i will buy new shoes...so im off to the mall for some shoe shopping.........will never wear shoes when i go bowling again.....wonly slippers.......what to do we are like this only!!!!!

I just love this song by Green Day.........Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why.
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

I feel I am in a trance if I lie on the bed with my eyes open when I am very sleepy while listening to ' Moby' at full blast......I just love that feeling......neither in the real world nor in dreamland........ok back to the bed now......

listening to : Flower - Moby

In today's game at the World Cup, Sri Lanka were comprehensively beaten by Kenya. In the past too Kenya have put up some very good performances and ended up beating West Indies in the 1996 World Cup and have to their credit a win or two against India. All Bangladesh have to their credit is a win against Pakistan. Besides saying that Kenya is the ' best of the rest' ....what I also want to point out is that instead of Bangladesh, I think it was Kenya that rightly deserved Test status........

I dont think Bangladesh are doing justice to their status as a Test playing nation. I read in the recent 'World Cup Special' issue of India Today that the similarity between a test match and a limited overs game between Australia and Bangladesh is that both get over in one day.......this says a lot about the quality of Bangladeshi cricket. In my view the decision to grant Bangladesh test status was purely a financial one. Considering the fact that Bangladesh is quite a cricket crazy nation, and wanting to capitalize on this, the then President of the ICC, Mr. Jagmohan Dalmiya went ahead and bestowed upon the 'Bangla Tigers' the higest honour, by making them a Full member of the ICC i.e. a country qualified to play test matches as recognized by the ICC.

Malcolm Gray, the present ICC President, believes that Bangladesh were given Test status prematurely. He has a point. The ' Bangla Tigers' seem to be behaving more like cornered quarry!!!!!

.......................koi shak??????

Its sunday morning.....10.00 am.......J just called a while back asking if i wanna join him for breakfast at Vaishali.....never say no to Vaishali.....i have already made up my mind.....one idli vada sambar...one cheese toast and a strong coffee...maybe two.....winter in pune is just about getting over..........even at 10.00 in the mornirng its still a bit chilly....i get on my 1983 Bajaj Super....Bro wants to use the bike today.....( my jaan ...my Kawasaki Eliminator )......as usual the Bajaj needs to be tilted before kick starting it......tilting and starting done.....i come to the end of my lane....even on a sunday there is something going on in abhinav high school ...how i long for summer and diwali vacations...not a single kid around there running across the road......so peaceful....

coming back to reality...as always i am running about 10 minutes late....J is gonna kick my ass....but all i have to do is make that sorry face and he cant say a thing to me.....(fyi J is my pal from nursery...we went to the same pre school and later studied together at LHS before he entered the commerce stream and i went onto study science)....law college road i guess will be crowded ...even on a sunday morning.....so i decide to take the canal ka raasta.....winding along and enjoying the 'gaar vara' i take the right turn on prabhat road....the canal road beyond this point is not well maintained.......moving along ......i take a right to reach kamala nehru park.....aaah the park where i have spent practically every evening hanging out with the 'galli ka public'.....it all has become so familiar.......there are those medical shops to the left.....Dr Oturkar's dispensary.....that laundry too.....the bhelwala's and the dabeli ka gadi to the right.....and munna ki paan ki tapri......the nariyal pani wala........moving on ahead.....right onto bhandarkar road.....past Neeru's house...and Samy Boy's house......i see the shutters down at the pav bhaji stall that was open into the wee hours of sunday morning catering to the crowd after the were done with their partying at Thousand Oaks or maybe 10 Downing Street.......as i pass the PYC gymkhana grounds i see kids dressed in whites practising in the nets.....

i reach fergusson college road and take a left onto it......i see the present junior college students hanging out outside one of those new ishtyle coffee shops that have sprung up on F C road....there's barista....there's cafe coffee day...and the list goes on..i've heard its not considered cool anymore to bunk lectures and spend time in Vaishali.........any coffee will do as long as its at Barista........how times change......i reach Vaishali and find a nice parking spot right near the entrance...i walk in and find it very crowded.....sunday morning na.....families to be accommodated........there on a corner table in the smoking section...on a table for two i see J seated...fuming 'cause i am late......and puffing away on a Benson and Hedges lights......he makes a gesture as if to question me why i am late.....and i make my sorry face......and he smiles.......i sit and we begin ordering.........

And then i wake up...if only all dreams were this wonderful!!!!!!!

Tomatoes in the house=0

Potatoes in the house=2

Onions in the house=0

Mirchis in the house=0

Wheat Tortillas in the house=0

Feeling of satisfaction after having cooked a verrrrrryyy decent meal with resources exhausted = priceless.......

There are somethings money can buy( not can't as bro points out.....i want it to be this way)
...for everything else there's ________............u fill in the blanks!!! :)

I read the following on a cricket discussion board.....some pakistani fans apparently need some ...maybe a lot of help with their written english!!!!!!! The comments reproduced below are the same ones( including spellings) as on the discussion board.........
Comment No 1
in my openion that it is good chance for pakistan to out all namibia team under 45 it is a world cub rocard but pakistan boller are fail to get last wicket under 45 .

Comment No 2
batting order is the only problem pakistan to coup with

In reply to this another fan wrote.....
Comment No 3
This is an effort of Indians to defame Pakistan. I think Indians on purpose posting as Pakistanis and making mockery of English language to make an impression that Pakistanis are not literate in English.
Well actually it does not matter how elegant one is in writing English, what matters is who is better in cricket when it come to cricket. Can any of you Indian fans here list the stats of one day matches played between Pakistan and India, and please don’t give me the crap about India winning all WC matches.



Some other who were fed up with these 'eloquent' postings said
Comment No 4
I dont want to sound harsh, but whats with all these 'Pakistanis' who clearly struggle to speak the English language and yet keep posting messages that lack any sense.
The English and grammer there was diabolical.

Comment No 5
I have to agree.Not that I want to put anyone off from posting (I'm sure I won't), but it would help if one or two people could brush up on their grammar

I could not stop laughing for a very long time....thanks to panterr for bringing this all to my notice....

Bathe and Brush.....????
or
Brush and Bathe?????

Whats your style?

Made my first ever snowman yesterday....was sooo much fun....school was closed yesterday because of the heavy snowfall........spent close to 3 hours in Border's...sat down in one the aisles and was reading stuff ...astrology.....comics...stephen hawking.....list goes one......after a thouroughly refreshing evening......stopped by for dinner on the way back.......ghar pe Nish had made some kick as sabu dana wada ....and there was some awesome shrikhand that N had made....who says men cant cook.....Adi and me as usual were there to gobble it up all.....ok for the record...Adi, Nish , N and I are the 4 guys who live at 277 torrey street..........these names along with torrey street will end up coming quite often on my blog.......

post second dinner......idhar ka public had decided to make a snowman, in tandem with a snowfight...yours truly being one of the organizers....... the snowfight never took place but anyone and everyone who joined us to make the snowman was given a warm welcome with a shovel load of fresh snow on the head.....i must mention here that anyone who had any protective head gear on was stripped of that ,before this welcome ceremony.......was so much fun especially since i was never at the receiving end........spent the whole time with the shovel in my hand so that i dont get the same treatment that i meted out to others.....but i dont know what was more fun.......making all the noise and running after people( known people of course) on the streets with a shovel in my hand....or then catching hold of them and dumping them into the snow and then sitting on them and posing for the film being taken ......as if they were my trophy.......and the shovel my weapon of choice.....or tha part when the cops came at midnight and asked us to lower or voices since someone complained that people at 277 torrey street were having a party mid- week........!!!!!!!

Now these cops like coming to our place when we have parties...its happened before...the bestest incident is reproduced below with proof......last year in july i had my birthday party......there were close to 30 crazy desis babas and babes........most intoxicated....dancing on the front porch to some goooooood desi music..this cop comes and asks us to reduce the volume since he had received complaints.....someone shouted out and asked him to join us for a beer....'mere ko laga khel khatam piasa hajam....ab sabko ghar jana padega aur mujhe sone padega'.....but this cop says he wished he could have ......unfortunately he was on duty...so someone from the crowd shouts 'how about a picture then?"...this time i thought surely and positively sab log disperse hone vale hain...and he looks at his partner....my best birthday party ever

It snowed a lot last night....was up working till 4 in the morning....i could barely get out of bed this morning ........i walked into the living room and i see N my rommie still at home...now thats a surprising thing because he is the ideal grad student...come rain or shine.....late night or into bed early he is out of the house by 9.30 am......and then he smiles and tells me.....' seth....so jane ka......aaaj university band hain!!!!'.......if only all mondays were like this.....

I take so much pride in being a puneri...and along with it the fact that people consider me to be maharashtrian......Papa tells me that rather than Hemant Thakkar , i should go with the name of Hemant Joshi/Nene/Lele...........i.e. some typical mahrashtrian brahman surname........he says that pichle janam me main Sadashiv Peth ( old city part of pune) me rehene vala brahman tha.....mom has stopped trying to make me eat gujju/kutchi food...........cooking in our house has a distinct maharashtrian touch to suit my tastes..........
purnachi poli....anik gar dudh
phulke nahi.....only polya......
tup poli sakhar
sadha varan bhat....amti bhat........pithla bhakri......lasnachi chutni.....ani mirchi cha thecha......ok i gotta stop....enough!!!!!!

spoilt????? yes i am .....perks of being the only kid.....

it just does not surprise me though.....i guess when i look back if i would not have ended up like this i would be surprised......everyone in my family is very fluent when it comes to spoken as well as written marathi..reading comes along without any question....results of studying in marathi medium.......my ma a bombay girl who went through convent education at J.B Petit and then later a Xavierite has taken to marathi like a fish would to water.....ma and me do have to make a little more effort to read and write marathi.......where the language is very oooncha....results of convent education ....conversations in my house make the transition from kutchi to marathi in the blink of an eye and we dont even realize it.......not that we are not fluent in our own mother tounge........

i dont like people calling my city poona........its pune!!!!..because thats just not how its meant to be....sometimes i hear some say ki they dont think its necessary to know how to converse in marathi even though they are in puneites......to them i say go back to where you came from....if only i could do that....i dont know where these radical extremist thoughts come from..i think punekars are like this.....or atleast i am..........i know kutchi's, gujju's, maheshwari's , ayyer's and orthodox syrian christians ( punna.... this one's for you) who speak fluent marathi and deshpande's who cant......how can people be so ignorant????????? amazes me.....

When P.L. Deshpande ( or PuLa as he was affectionately known ) asks Punekar, Mumbaikar ki Nagpurkar.........you know what my answer is.....with a capital P !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone pointed out that other than the current posts all my other posts are right justified......not that i am unaware of it......just lazy looking into the template....and does not help much that have little or no knowledge of html.....if my life depended on it....id be dead by now......anyways so he says it like reading URDU.....talk about comparisions.....kahi main shayar to nahi ban gaya???????????????????????????????

am majorly sleep deprived as of now.....as you can see from my attempts at writing.....soja bete nahi to Gabbar a jayega

World cup is so much screwing up my schedule...not that i am the sincerest of students......but i do feel like working once in a while and its sooo tough getting up in the morning after watching matches well past sunrise......and being a cricket enthusiast wanting to watch other teams play does not help much.....on monday i spent the night watching Australia vs Pakistan.....was great to see Pakistan lose...as always....but i just did not get up the next morning on time...sleeping at 7.00 a.m after watching Australia bat did not help much..another good thing was that atleast, i ended up experiencing the joys in a sunrise after a long time....aisa nahi to vaisa....so instead of waking up at 9.00 being in school by 11.00 i ended up sleeping till noon....then i realize i was supposed to meet Boss/Dr. G ( my advisor).... at 11.00 and get some corrections verified in a paper we are presenting at a conference.........so i reached late and i went into his office later when he had the time and showed him the paper and apologized for not coming in the morning since it just 'slipped outta my mind' that we had to meet.....he gives me one of those serious looks and i thought i was done for.....and he says..."really Puneri....were we supposed to meet this morning?....i thought we had a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning!!"......we did have one scheduled for wednesday too....and the one on tuesday was something which he had not made a note of....so if i would not have pointed out my folly i could have gotten away with it.....and boy did i fell like giving myself GPL for that.....but i must admit that he is the most flexible guy to work with....as long as he gets his stuff on time he is happy....and he is ok with giving extensions to deadlines too ...once in a while that is.....not to mention the parties and dinners at his place with good food...lotsa wine and cocktails....those periodic group lunches.....summer picnics........im pretty sure now that you are wondering whether i ever get any work done......am i gonna miss working for such a boss once i get a true job or what?......pehele job milna mangta....then we can do the talking......talk about building castles.....

so have finally decided against watching the New zealand vs West indies match tonite...decided i would retire early......but here i am blogging away to glory listening to some kick ass guitar stuff by joe satriani.....well past my bedtime.......should sleep nahi to maa chilayegi...good night ppl...

ciao and sweet dreams and don't you bite the bugs!!!!!!!

@ 2.00 a.m

Only Pune

These are a few of my favorite things...not necessarily in the order reproduced below

@6.30 p.m.

Pune
Chaha ani Bidi (like a true puneri would say) in the evenings on the couch on my front porch...watching a car pass by every half hour
Mitti ki Khusboo after the first rains
Snow as long as it does not get slushy
My Kawasaki Eliminator
Beer and butter chicken at Green Park
The way Ma would shout at me day in day out ......miss it a lot
The baingan bharta nihir makes
Life at 277 torrey street
Payday
India

Finally after what seemed like the longest time.......i now have a resume....yipppeeeeeeeeee.......today finally i got myself to make one......now need to start applying for jobs and the toughest part is yet to come....to get a job....the day has gone by sooooo slowly.......group meeting this morning dragged on for two and a half hours....uggggghhh!!!!! hate them especially since they are on monday mornings......

laters.....gotta go home......walk back in the snow......mondays ....thats all i can say

Was listening to Ghulam Ali last night......the last ghazal i heard before going to sleep was 'Itni Muddat Baad Mile Ho'....a part of the ghazal goes something like this

'Kaun Si Baat Hai Tum Me Aisi'.......Itne Acche Kyon Lagte Hon'..........

When it comes to important people in life....i seriously have no idea why i like them....bas i like them...and to me its all that matters...

The other day I was at a friends place trying to fix some problem on her computer.......problem being she could not connect to the internet and there was nothing wrong with her cable connection.......basically she had run out of patience and options regarding what to do.....so i get a call from here along with a request to try and do something........me?......i asked myself why me?......especially considering the fact that i deal everyday with long chain molecules... ( thats what we polymer engineers sometimes like to call polymers)...finally we did get everything sorted out and she could connect to the information super-highway......but to a layman it would seem that she would have the answers to such issues considering her background...a software professional......after all,to the common man,all my education can teach me is to make a nice plastic tumbler... ...at the end of it all....... after the thank you's.....she tells me Puneri...Ignorance is Bliss.

That night I was reading The Days Are Just Packed......one of the books from the Calvin and Hobbes series....( shall talk about them another day) and i came across this conversation between Calvin and Hobbes as they are taking a ride down the hill in that cart of theirs...

Scene....Hobbes pushing Calvin and cart to gain speed....

Calvin: Its true, Hobbes, Ignorance is Bliss.......

Calvin continues talking as they are winding down the hill in their cart steadily gaining speed

Calvin: Once you know things, you start seeing problems everywhere.....and once you see problems, you feel like you ought to fix them....and fixing problems always seems to require personal change....and change means doing things that aren't fun! I saw phooey to that!.......

Meanwhile the cart is close to achieving terminal velocity.

Calvin: But if you are willfully stupid, you don't know any better, so you can keep doing whatever you like! The secret to happiness is short term, stupid self interest!

They approach the cliff

Hobbes: We are heading for the cliff!
Calvin: I dont wanna know about it......

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaughhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! and they are over the cliff and flat on their bellies....

Hobbes: I'm not sure I can stand so much bliss.
Calvin: Careful! We don't want to learn anything from this.

This first and last statement by Calvin says it all......what say ye all?

1995 I graduated from class 10.........it will be eight years in June 2003.....just cant believe it.....Here i am doing my masters in polymer engineering....i never imagined then that eight years later i would be specializing in this field...anyways thats not the point.....its just that i feel come august 2003 and i will graduate and i am desperately trying to find a way to continue studying.....simplest way is to go ahead and enroll for the Ph.D program....should not be a problem......since my advisor has anyways suggested i do so.......or do an MBA..........its not that i really wanna study....i just don't wanna take that step into the corporate world so soooon...with extra responsibilities and deadlines and blah blah etc.......and i guess thats exactly why i have not yet gotten down to some serious job searching.....and definitely i should do that PhD only if i am interested.....

i have gotten so used to this life as a graduate student....cook every 5th day....laundry once in a week or two......beer every friday or saturday or both nites...cricket over the weekends at 425 Sumner Street...watch friends at 7.00 pm and seinfeld at 11.00 pm.......ohh and did i forget to mention..........manage to get work done in time to meet deadlines...like i said before ....ekdam last minute....and i dont want this to change.....

Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.
Hugh Prather

Its Monday afternoon and after having had such a lazy weekend , there is absolutely no way i feel like working....I thought that if i managed to make it to my advisor's office, he would give me back the scheme of experiments that i gave him last week to approve.......thinking that if i have that paper in hand i will get down to doing some work.....but i guess the force is just not with me today....i walk down to his office and he is not in...apparently he has a lunch meeting with someone....so there...all the plans i had made about work just vanished into thin air......now i need to think of something else to get me working.....before that i think i need to take time for lunch.........salad with ceaser dressing and some bread butter......post lunch i still lack the motivation to get some work done......

i guess like many engineers i suffer from the last minute syndrome.....i have rarely seen myself work like a dog unless i have deadlines to meet and those deadlines are less than a week away.....thats when i really get some work done.....i justify this attitude by telling myself that there is more satisfaction that i can derive from working day and night for a few days than i could by working regularly everyday......i cant believe i just said that :)

but then haven't we heard the saying again and again.....If it weren't for the last minute, a lot of things wouldn't get done"...........

Happy Birthday Panterrr............Have an awesome year ahead panterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have friends from Akron as well as other places who many a times make these feel good statements to me.....i mean i make them at times too

They are something like

" Life is good"........"Its all about being happy"......"Sab theek hain re, Sab fit hain re"..........and so on and so forth.......

I wonder whats the thinking that goes into making such statements?

a) are they trying to make me feel the same way?

b) are they trying to convince themselves that these statements they make are true?

c) or do they really just feel that way?

People who are responsible for the birth and running of this blog

...Buddy.....Panter for introducing me to the concept of blogging among other things, over the last 20 years.

Gaurav for giving me that push and telling me to start my own blog cause he wanted to see what kind of stuff i would come up with.


Thanks you guys.......