When team fails- the Coach fails, team wins?

The World and hence the media has been on a frenzy due to the ongoing football worldcup. Its interesting to read pre- and post-match summaries and obituaries. The moment a big team has crashed out - in this case - England, France, Brazil and now Argentina- the coach has been blamed- either for playing natural football or for playing unnatural football. Why is it that for defeat the coach is blamed, he is removed. The same players carryon to play for the country.

While a coach can train them, teach them tactics, its for the 22 foot at play and the 11 heads to execute the strategy on the ground. In a victory if individual players are praised for their play of the day, then in a loss to they should be brought down to earth.

Bhramaram

The caption of the movie- Brutally innocent intrigued me quite a bit. Being a die-hard Mohanlal fan who has now got around to criticize his movies offlate and not critically analyse them, i did hope that this one would be good to watch.
When I did finally watch the movie, it left me with quiet a few thoughts of the movie much afterwards, which I guess is the true test of a motion picture. Its not the script, the story , the direction or the visuals. Its the spirit of acting displayed by Mohanlal. A role written for him, showed shades of the naugthy lalettan, the ‘chetta’ Lal, the macho man LaL and the emotional Lal whom we have grown up with.
Its pure and vintage Lal, intoxicates you as the movie unfolds and explodes in some of the scenes of the movie especially when he drives the jeep with a sadistic tone and in the climax scene – which i shouldnt talk about.
It will definitely rate in LALs Top 10 movies as an actor.
Watch it if you are a LAL fan, watch it if you are a student of acting. Watch it if you want to see an actor- not acting, just living the role.

King of Pop - No More

I was late in hearing the news that shocked music lovers across the globe that the King of Pop had popped off from this great life of ours. While there is tremendous media scrutiny now going into what made Jacko have a cardiac arrest let me reflect the influence of one the greatest entertainers of all time.
MJ is easily the most influencial cross-over not just within the U.S but across countries,continents,languages, cultures and became the most successful American export. Besides his huge talent, he was lucky to have been born in that generation. His ‘Thriller” was launched around the time MTV. Both MJ &MTV grew as cult brands, revolutionising pop-music as well as music-vidoes. International appeal was tremendous. His was probably the only voice that reverberated in the Asian countries leading to huge fan following.
Todays young generation maynot realise the impact ‘Thriller’ had on us. It was to do with the fact that we were in the early 80s, TV was only terrestial & hip-hop hadnt happened. MJ’s music transcended generations, equally accepted by the young and the old due to a clever mix of rock and ballads that each of his albums had.
He leaves behind a rich legacy of outstanding pop songs. dance tracks, ballads and ofcourse Moonwalk, easily became every teenagers dance step in the 80s.
While he has been in the news for the wrong reasons, he is not the first one to be in that boat. Some of them self created, some of them by the media who were out to kill the superstar they made. A child who never had a childhood, a performer at the age of 5! and a man who tried to live his childhood.
As a diehard fan i choose to ignore the incidents of the last decade, but i used to still listen to his songs. As the media scoops in on how he died, i decided not to view any of those trials. For me Michael Jackson will live on for ever.
This is it.

Dhoni - Media's Darling to Media's Whipping Boy

Mahendra Singh Dhoni has always been in the news ever since he made his debut in the Indian team. The meteoric rise to become the Captain of Indian team is like a fairy tale surely. Apart from his talent, his diplomatic relationship with his seniors, he was helped to a large extent by the media. After being tired of writing about Fab 4, they were waiting to create the next icon and who else but Dhoni. He became the media darling, all of them ganging up the build the case for captaincy and then his success tales. The media ignored the fact that during the last year or so, he hadnt performed particularly with the bat till the day Dhoni decided to take on the media over the Sehwag injury fiasco at the t-20 world cup. The battle lines have been drawn and every media ( print/electronic) is on a race against time to bring out his fallacies into the limelight.

The bubble has burst Mr.Dhoni. From now on, your bat also has to do the talking. Ask Saurav Ganguly - he has gone through it as well.

Air Tragedy Air France AF 447

Air travel is still the safest mode of travel. However the moment one hears about a mishap- the tragic feel of the same is next to none. Extremely sad on hearing the missing of the AF 447 flight to Paris. One feels for all those who are missing from lives- probably for ever.

While we do travel in multi-modes like air, train, bus / drive in car, its the air travel which usually makes you think more. There is always a sense of helplessness once the plane lifts off. The mind races by thinking of all that needs to be done when one is back on the ground and these are usually the things that we dont do. After some minutes you settle down into a relaxed helpless comfort when you have no option but to while away the time in either reading some crappy inflight magazine or watching the inflight entertainment.

While the flight lands on to the runway, again the heart skips, the praying type sends some silent prayers, some guys grip the seat handles etc and then usually give a sigh of relief as the aircraft comes to stop.

Its not to be for these unlucky 228 people on board this Air France flight. Wonder how their last moments were. Did they know it was all over or it was over before they knew it. Hope no one gets that kinda fate.

Smiling to Roaring Assasin - Anil Kumble

As the tamasha of IPL2 finally ended, the enduring image for me is of one man who has transformed a bunch of also-rans and no-hopers into a combat unit. This man who despite being the highest wicket taker for the country is still not considered in the same league as the greats is the one and only Anil Kumble. Anil showed fierce determination, resolve and passion in restoring the pride of the Bangalore cricket fans by taking his team to the final of IPL-2 and almost winning it. His contribution was maximum. As a captain he lead the team remarkably well on the field. As a bowler, right from the first over of the match when he got Gilly for a duck, he did one of the best 4-over spells in IPL-2. Its unfortunate that his batting isnt suited for this type of cricket or else he would have pockets those runs too for his team. For all you know from now to the next IPL, he would be practising his batting shots, knowing that his batters can let him down even in chasable targets.

For a format of the game which is supposedly young, veterans like Kumble has been phenomenally successful, using their experience to handle situations exceedingly well and turnaround for the team's cause. Thats why the cooldaddy that he is, outplayed the cooldude(msd)& his superkings in the semis. Think for the team reaching the final itself was enough whereas for Kumble, he wanted the cup as well which eluded him by just 6 runs!

We dont know what's in store next year. But this year will be remembered for the Smiling Assassin's transformation into a Roaring Assassin

Raining Cats Dogs..no Rats...Bangalore

As i stepped out from office and walked towards the area from where I usually get a rick home, I saw that the sky had become real dark in the direction of where my home is. It was only a matter of time before it would pour.Somehow I got a rick in time and we began a memorable journey.In just about 5 minutes time it started pouring. Somehow the ricks in Bangalore doesnt seem to have the screen they use for rain, so i was doomed to be wet. Getting wet in rain is normal. But then the route home via Old Airport Road was water logged. The poor rick was chugging along with speed around 15kmph as the chappie also had to wipe the glass( as the rick dint have a wiper). In the process cars were zipping by from both the sides and thereby splashing the water on to us. I would have had quite a few baths by the time I reached near home. By that time the auto-driver had enough and requested me whether I can proceed on foot from there. Which was OK to me as the water logging on roads was making it difficult for him to drive on. So I walked through what would be 300 meters to home. It took me some 15 minutes as there was only water and water from the drains which were gushing out brining along with it all the muck that had been piled up. One always talks about raining - cats and dogs...but this one was raining rats, as the rodents were uprooted from their homes due the flooding of the drains and they were face to face with the humans above and it was funny to see some of them shaking the water off their bodies like dogs n cats do. It is sad to see Indira Nagar inundated like this. For a place like Bangalore which has so much rains, surely they could be better prepared. Why is it that the same old story keeps repeating...