Happy Bday Meghneel

As Balls aptly puts it...
Jiska naam Meghneel hai, jo Malad se aata hai aur Temple University mein mein Master's kar raha hai Data Mining mein ..woh kabhi uth sakta hai kya??
The answer is a resounding No..woh kabhi nahi uth sakta jindagi mein..kyunki..
"Yaaahr !.. kuch cheejein hoti hai ..samjha karo"
1.He changes his name from Meghneel not to "Neel" or any simple Indian name but to Mike, easily the name of every 5th person in the US of A
2.He starts speaking his affected American accent the day he embarks in the USA (fresh of the boat).
3.His voicemail greeting has to be heard to be believed. "You have reached "Meg Neiyal"
4.His deep conversations always have to involve something gross like "SHIT". Sandaas is his fav word, usually interspersed with a barrage of expletives, a minimum of three a sentence.
5.Ask him anything, coming to Baltimore, going out somewhere,his first answer is always no. Finally he is the one who is most enthusiastic ..talking about "Line pe aana".
6.His first blog on Freaks Inc was the most controversial blog of 2005 on which at least three days were spent in heated discussion.
7.He is the only guy in our group to have the fame (read ignominy) of having his mugshot with a huge burger at "CheeBurger CheeBurger", Paoli PA after he finished eating a humongous 1 pound 4 ounce burger. Panni he re !
8.He is the girl judge GJ who certifies whether a girl is hot or not.
9.He hails from Temple unversity and is allergic to CPT and graduation extention.In his boredom he applies for OPT.
10.Think of any shortcoming and there is a hefty chance that he has it..

Thats Mike a.k.a MegNeiyal for you..
Jokes apart he is a very funny, happy go lucky person, cheerful inspite of being banged from all sides, hassle free, cool person to hang out with, understanding, mature and level-headed and one whose pleasing personality exhorts you to befriend him.
Here's wishing you many happy returns of the day Mike.Enjoy your day..kya pata shayad aakhri ho :-))
Aup

We The Sick People

I saw this article on Gauravs blog, found it extremely thought provoking. Copy pasting because I couldnt find a straight link to the particular article.

"Something that I saw on 'We The People' last weekend really jarred me. The topic was rapes, safety of women etc, and Barkha Dutt was prancing about conducting the debate. She then introduced us to a victim of rape who would share with us, her trauma.

The camera focussed on a woman, who was covering her face with a dupatta as she spoke.

That shocked me, jarred me, saddened me.

What sort of a sick society are we living in, where a rape victim has to cover her face? In fact that one gesture has stripped our society of the mask of empathy it wears.

Imagine, somebody picked your pocket while you were travelling in the train. Would you cover your face and hide your identity while talking about it? Would you cover your face if your house was robbed? Would you cover your face after being cheated or swindled? Would you cover your face if you survived an attempted murder?

I don't think so.

Then why does a rape victim have to cover her face? What does she have to be ashamed of? In my opinion, a rape victim has as much reason for shame, as somebody whose pocket has been picked. Both of them were victims of another person's misdeeds. It is the perpetrator who should cover his face with shame.

But throw your mind back to television reports. Thieves cover their faces, fraudsters cover their faces, smugglers cover their faces. But have you seen rapists cover their faces? Sunil More's mug is as familiar as Sunil Gavaskar.

I see this as another side of the "death-to-rapists" argument. Only a society which attaches unnecessary stigma to a rape victim, would think of advocating a death sentence for rapists. "

From Ahimsa to Apathy in 58 Years

From Ahimsa to Apathy in 58 Years

One might say that the independence of India was a truly defining moment in the nation's history. One might say that it was a truly black day for the entire subcontinent, depending on the way one looks at it. For parties that subscribe to the first line of thought, the plethora of possibilities and the manifold broadening of horizons that occured for Indian citizens after independence has far outshadowed the problems, if any, that one might see in the day to day running of the country. The flip side of the line-of-thought-coin is that it's not the independence, per se, that was a disgrace, but the way in which it was achieved and the horrendous repercussions that were and still are felt.

Ahimsa, by definintion, is non-violence. However, it doesn't stop at that. Ahimsa means that a person voluntarily chooses not to commit violence despite that fact that they are fully capable of inflicting untold injury on someone. Now, this definition of Ahimsa changes the perspective with which we view the non-violence movement that purportedly brought India independence. According to Gandhi's ideology, if someone slaps you in the face, you should turn the other cheek. Thence, the perpetrator would feel ashamed at his own gaucheness and apologise to you. However, if you analyse this scenario carefully, you will see that you are being oppressed and are succumbing to the oppression. It is said that succumbing to oppression is also a crime. If you don't cry out against oppression, you are as much at fault as the oppressor. Therefore, Gandhi's ideology is a little flawed in accepting, nay, condoning the oppressor's deeds by turning the other cheek.

Still, I think that flawed though it was, enough cheeks turned that the British Raj had to take notice and leave the country, albeit not without partitioning it, but I digress. Everyone was happy that India had independence, that Ahimsa worked, that India was the only nation in the world that gained independence without war. Ahimsa was entrenched deeply into the minds of Indians, which is not an entirely bad thing. However, somewhere down the line, "turn the other cheek" metamorphosed into "turn the other way". A classic (if you can call it that) example is the rape of a mentally retarded young woman in a Mumbai Local train some years back. There were four other people (all men) in the train compartment who could have come to the poor girl's aid, but none had the courage to stand up to a petty goon. I am sure if all four of them had come together to fight that bastard, they could have overpowered him. The sheer lack of will and the moral turptitude exhibited in this heinous crime and the equally horrendous apathy shown by the men in the compartment is not only sad, but an incontrovertible sign that Ahimsa has turned into Apathy.

The Roving Reporter

57 for 6 chasing 200 and well and truly staring down the barrell. In these times, you need to be a real optimist to open your eyes when you wake in the morning. And that is surely what Srikant and Vishy did...wake up on the correct side of the bed. Vishy was throughout his ebullient self, chatting in his inimitable heavily 'Gult' laden Hindi and Srikant was just being...well Srikant! Drought became a trickle which inturn became a flow that metamorphosed into a rapid culminating into a barrage. It rained in Oxon Hill, the usual downpour and also the tonks from Srikant and Vishy’s bats. It certainly was a resurrection of implausible measures from the ‘22 yarders’. The main strength of our team ruminating on the past couple of performances is the fact that we bat really down the line and of course not to mention the Never say Never spirit.

Faisel got lucky with the toss again and I presume didn’t have a doubt in his mind to put the opponents in. Fairwood Cricket Club were a motley bunch of cricket enthusiasts from The Windies, Pakistan, South Africa and India. From what I could make out from their team was they comprised of about 4-5 quality cricketers and the rest were just fillers. Nevertheless Faisel got us an early breakthrough and relaxed a few nerves on the field as well as in the stands. But I jumped the gun a wee bit early and before the 10^th over a burly guy named Sargent (if I wouldn’t have seen his name on the scoresheet I would have asked for his autograph for he looked and batted like Clive Lloyd to the hilt!) was hitting us to all parts of the ground. They managed to put in 2-3 solid partnerships throughout the innings without ever going full throttle. If it weren’t for some sensational overs in the death by Rehan and Vishy, we would’ve definitely been chasing something in the range of 220 plus. But in the end it turned out that we had to chase only 199 in 40 overs.

The mood in the dressing room (if I could call 4 planks of wood fused together by Iron bars as dressing room then it is ;-) was pretty relaxed with all of us believing that a target of 200 or the bowling attack wouldn’t send a shiver down our batsmen’s spine. How very wrong we were!!! We sputtered and spluttered all the way mustering hardly anything sizeable to even contemplate a fight. Our frontline batsmen just couldn’t cope with their guile nor the swing; result we were 57/6 even before they broke into a sweat. Enter a piece of lard by the name of Srikant to join Chinmay in the middle with a plethora of runs to score. I’ve already talked a bit about Srikant and Vishy but I really have to credit Chinmay with the upheaval efforts. His defence his rock solid and when you’ve got a sharp cricketing acumen and a fantastic temperament to go with it, you’ve found Gold! He stood well outside the crease to negate the movement and was pretty successful in keeping the rampage in check. Once he got out it was pure mayhem from the likes of Srikant and Vishy. The spinner was treated with disdain and the part-timers with scant respect. Srikant swept and Vishy smote the bowlers to parts of the ground (and trees) where it never did travel in the first innings. Of particular importance is a shot that Vishy hit off a medium pacer that traveled over point for a massive six!!

In the end Rehan’s street smart running and the ever present figure of Vishy saw us through albeit leaving us with wrenched guts. Even though we won the match guys, I wanted to share a few points to ponder before our next match. I couldn’t see any fire on the pitch; the players have to play with their hearts on their sleeve. If we instill that aspect into our game then it would do us a world of good. Also we constantly need to keep encouraging our batsmen in the middle. We have a tendency that if things don’t go our way, heads start dropping. Even though I wasn’t part of the team for this match I thoroughly enjoyed the entire match and left with a contented heart and a twinkle in my eye. I would like to end with a very relevant quote from Black Sabbath :

There's no need to have a reason
There's no need to wonder why
It's a part of me that tells you
Oh, don't you ever, don't ever say die
Never, never, never say die again

BRING ON VIRGINIA CRICKET CLUB!!!!!!!!

-Balls