Cage opened… will the parrot fly?
No, I’m not Panda from the Biju Janta Dal… and this article isn’t about the SC ruling allowing CBI to go after top bureaucrats without waiting for a nod from the Government. So, obviously, there will be no politics and thus no tummy-aches because of uninterrupted bouts of laughter. I’m going to talk about cricket…...
Kirkit
The place where I grew up was Bundelkhund… and the people of this region are lazy with their pronunciation. So for many years even I played ‘kirkit’, listened to ‘kirkit’ commentary, and didn’t know that there was an insect too that went by the same name. It was when I was well past the junior...
Cheers, jeers, and fears
I know hundreds of cricket fans who know nothing about the technicalities of the game and yet they look forward to watching every match and also have strong favourites… and I know yet another set of hundreds of fans who talk intelligently about the game, watch every game, but have no favourites. They divide their...
BC, AM, and the Cricket Premier league
We can keep going into the past if we wish to but the one truth that I have always believed in is that there was no life ‘Before Cricket’ or BC. You can be from the ‘Before Streaming’ era or the ‘Before TV’ phase or even from the ‘Before Transistor’ age… but I’m sure there...
PicTale 011 – Dissection of a racing car
I flew down to Coimbatore in December 2012 to drive with Narain. Yes, Narain Karthikeyan, the legendary Formula 1 driver from India. I was right next to him as he drove his twin seater at a mind-blowing… oops, body-blowing 260 kmph for full five rounds of the racing circuit there on the outskirts of...
Haramzadon bhaago! Review of ‘The Race of my Life’
One of the factors that has probably given India a Milkha Singh is the way his instructors made him run. In this book that has text by the man himself as told to Sonia Sanwalka, Milkha Singh says: Gurdev was a taciturn, no-nonsense kind of man, whose tough exterior hid his softer, gentler side. He...
In Coimbatore with Narain Karthikeyan. A great drive – entry for Michelin Pilot Experience by Arvind Passey
A Great Drive – entry for Michelin Pilot Experience by Arvind Passey We were waiting for Narain to come. Narain Karthikeyan, the legendary Formula 1 driver from India. I had flown in from a cold Delhi to a warm Coimbatore in December and loved the tepid sun though I felt better in the shade...
Searching for roads in the sand dunes
Searching for roads in the sand dunes A great drive – entry for Michelin Pilot Experience by Arvind Passey ‘The great escape,’ I heard someone say, ‘is like searching for roads in the sand dunes.’ I thought for a while, turned to him, and asked, ‘Roads in the dunes?’ he was one of the rally...
The alphabet of creative tweets
Winning an FC Bayern München Team Tee-shirt and the team cap isn’t something that one writes about… but if the tee is signed by the world-class footballers in the team, it becomes a different matter altogether! This happened on the 25th of May 2013… and it was a contest on twitter. You might ask: ‘Why was Bayern...
Warriors give way to risers
Let me begin this post with two really cheeky tweets that I read this evening after the Pune Warriors India vs Sunrisers Hyderabad match. Stupid Common Man @D_Evil_Inside tweets: ‘Agar daag (Steyn) se kisi ka achha hota hai, to daag achhe hain. #IPL #SRHvsPWI’ and Abhishek Chauhan @imabhishek268, who tweeted: ‘Haar kar Jeetne waale ko...
We want CSK to be HOT!
Yellow. Golden yellow. Turmeric. The favourite of the Gods! Mangal. Pure talent… What am I talking about? Some mumbo-jumbo about colour therapy? No. I am talking about the colour that is associated with CSK… well, not just CSK, but also with Chennai as a city. Chennai, CSK, and this wonderfully sublime colour connect to give...
Twenty-twenty in a tweet post
The first match of IPL 2013 on the 3rd of April deserves more than the conventional format of a post. This game of twenty-Twenty in cricket is getting more and more unthinkable as the years go by. The innings scores are getting higher, field placements are getting strategic, new rules crop up every once in a while,...
