Underdogs!!

We all like supporting the winning team…. Do we really cheer for the losers or for that matter the underdogs? We do cheer for home country albeit its an underdog.. Viz. every Indian would cheer for India (except of course some morons who think they are aussie citizens and cheer for em no matter what). So most of us in India or for that matter any country that usually does not do that well in sports are used to bashing losers and cheering only winners… Take the case of EPL as an example, I have seen scores of my friends and acquaintances following EPL like crazy and cheering for clubs as if they were their home clubs.. Millions in India cheer for Arsenal or Chelsea or ManU or Liverpool…Rarely do I see a person cheering for a reading or tottenham hotspur or Bolton or West Ham for that matter… Reading and west ham are two teams that almost were relegated last year. During my stay in London, I lived closer to Boleyn, the home of West Ham united. Every Sunday when there was a home match scored f West Ham fans rush to cheer for their team with team jerseys and mufflers .. A guy won 2 million pounds in a lotto and shared some 70 K pounds with the club to build some infra at the Boleyn ground (Wow)….my client manager religiously cheered for Manchester city (another underdog) and used to say that I know they’ll ose against big names as they don’t have much money like a Chelsea or arsenal etc bt still I cheer for em… Now this sort of loyalty is amazing. With our own IPL in cricky starting, at first I felt that the Jaipur team is the underdog, I followed their games and found that they are doing pretty well, but alas sachin’s Mumbai is getting bludgeoned.. even Hyd has just won one match….and Bangalore is not doing too well either… especially they have a reputation of having a test team for T20 outings… so I have decided to cheer all the underdogs , especially Mumbai as they have not yet won a single match…. Now that makes me a follower of 7 out of the 8 teams… the only team I don’t like is the Punjab 11 as I am not a great fan of either yuvi , sangakkara or sreesanth … for that mater even Preity zinta is not gud enuf to cheer for…and as a kid o the road said today win or lose cheer for Sachin !!! Whoever wins IPL lets start cheering underdogs and adjust to our team getting defeated.. this will ensure that we will not seethe in anger the next time India gets knocked out from any big tournament in any sport…. After all Winning isn’t everything…

cop muvees

indian cop muvees were never close to reality barring a few attempts by actors like kamal hassan etc....
but off late a lot of cop muvees have come up with the story line ver realistic and the generes vaying from social to thrller....

the baap of all cop muvees is gangajal.... boy prakash jha shud definitely be admired for givng such a great muvee with minimal masala.. 2-3 hours of gripping story and powerful performances... this muvee is easily a family favourite for us.. dad simple loves it and we have watched it together some 5 times.....
theres one more muvee that i watched called seher.. another lovely muvee on how lucknow police took to mobile technology.. power packd performances from pankaj gupta and sarkeshwar aka arshad warsi.....then comes muvees like lokhadnwala .. a bit o masala buttill worth a watch..
kurudhippunal by kamalhassan can easily stand out as one of the best in class but many say its inspried from a govind nihalani muvee..
kakka kakka was excellent but again i felt it had some masala elements to it.. same s the case with vettayadu vilayaadhu...
recently i came across a muvee in tamil called anjadhe.. its a hard hitting muvee about cops.. so real and kind of dark.. two of the leads naren and prasanna have put on a very decent show... with such actors around thers a lot more tamil cinema will offer...
thers this unkonown chinese muve that i saw 2 days ago.. its abt a lady cop who joins a secret survelience unt and how she comes of age.. well the plot was so gripping that i cursed the TV guys when ads came up... it was an enjoyable time for 90 minutes... a muvee on a lady cop that too minus he hollywood action is something really great...
so what makes a gud cop muvee.. some nice plot... gud sequencing.. a bit of reality with creativity..
many a times songs are detrimental to such mmuvees but if the plot can overcome that disadvantage its okay.. anjaadhe has 3-4 songs but the pace overcomes em better than kakka kakka or vettaydu vilayaadu ( mind u songs of kakka and vettayadu are chart busters).. gangajal had only one song and it gelled pefectly.. seher has a couple i guess but kuruthippunal has none... there have been only handful f indian muvees without songs ... as music is one of he keys to a muvve's success here,,,,,thinkng of other genuine cop muvees, shool comes into my mind but its just too dark..
i wud still love to explore this area and see what else do we have...........

oh darling yeh hai india

at last some politican gets sense and tries to build a reservoir somewhere to end water woes, but this has snowballed into a bigger controversy between two states... as usual the main matter has been forgotten and people have gone for an all out war against two languages.... its easy to understand the kannada predicament now because, assembly elections are due anytime and ever one aspiring to enter vidhana soudha needs to be seen and heard in the print or e-media...
But i cant really understand tamil muvee stars.. they jst cant stop behaving like clowns ... they have started a hunger strike again .. oo ooo what do they plan to achieve? nothing many of tem just want to be seen in public some more what to kck start a career in politics and some just want to pass time... india just had enough from the maharashtra fiasco.... mr MK was speking a lot on that but he keeps mum now... my side of the story is whetver they do in bangalore should not be repeated n chennai... especially film stars need to be ept out of this.. those clowns did a lot of drama at the NLC some 5-6 years ago over cauvery issue, they should be stopped right on their tracks.... Regarding the water project, MK and his ally congress should have the balls to sort it out at the earliest... better wait for a month more and sort things once theres an electd govt in karnaaka in power....

i think winston churchill's prediction will come true if we keep figting along linguistic lines for long....Nuke superpower, IT powerhouse, asiangiant inline wih china etc etc will become pipe dreams if we let this continue....
But from the heart are we truly federal or just parochial....

we are not federal from deep inside our hearts... one best example can be the way people behave when they move outta hometown...
the best scenes were obsered by me some 5 years ago when we were getting posted after training...
the mere fact that we ha no chennai vacancy for a bunch o 200 tams was shattering...people said yes to hyderabad, bangalore and a strict nono to mumbai delhi or whatever.... one is obviously expected to go back to hs hometown... many a times i have been askd in professional circles as to when i plan to move back to chennai.. wen i say no not now it sends a message that i hate to be back there... well the fact is i am location agnostic wherevr be in india... i dunno who understands thsi but definitely my dad understands... thas why when he saw a news saying my company might start shop in north east... he was like cribbing to hs friends that oh no my eccentric son wudlove to travel thr..i cnt go thr at this old age.. (he travelled all over india in his youth)....
so what is the best way to improve federalism.. like the policy of central gvt make most of the gus to roam the country.. this way you will end up exploring your own country....

the fact here is most of us( especially s/w guys) are okay to g anywhere if it is OVERSEAS.. if given dollars we will happily spend lives even in hell holes.. ( china ?) but will definitely shy away from moving our home state or preferred location..
one of my colleagues said that hes the only child and has to be near his parents and went great lenghts to produce fake M/C to refuse an opportunity in delhi.. he came back to chennai and had been in europe for 3 long years... wnder how europe is nearer to chennai than delhi?..if the so called erudite s/w profs behave like this, how do u expect politicians and grassroot party workers, and the not so sophisticated people to get a federaistic mindset??

is india a federal union or just a loose confederation of states??
the founding fathers of the constitution were wise enugh to say that the only citizenship is the citizenship of the nation... but there are a great many who openly say that being a ta,kanndaiga, andrite, or mallu rather than an indian.... even most of those who say that i am an indian see it as mere words and tend to be parochial at heart... i truly ask myself now... AM I AN INDIAN? WHAT IS INDIA?