Robin Sharma (of the monk who sold his Ferrari fame), wrote “if you follow a thing/ habit for 21 days, it becomes a necessity and you need another 21 days of determination to get out of that necessity” . Not that I am a big fan of Robin Sharma or I have followed the tips he gave, but yes it reminded me of some Miss Lucy of DDLJ...who said… “Aadatein agar jaldi badli na jaayein to wo jarooratein ban jaati hai...”
Well, I went to a hospital yesterday and saw something strange. A person lying on the bed and staring on the blank TV screen and shouting in between something incomprehensible, then again keeping quiet. The doctor told me this abnormality will continue up to 11 pm or even till 12 pm. He will get out of it soon. Don’t worry. We have about 50 similar patients sitting here and doing this. Some of them even not eating anything in dinner and some continuously asking popcorns and pepsi. I asked what the disorder is. He told me it’s “Life after IPL”.
I had a good laugh and came back from the place. I have this married friend who has a 2 yr old kid with an ability to refresh your mind. I went to his place for a tea and found the couple fighting. The fight was about who will make the dinner tonight. I was surprised as they had a pakka arrangement for alternate day of sacrifice, each helping other with dishes and cutting onions and vegetables. What’s the fight now?
It seems they had gone into that betting culture that with each supporting a different team and whoever wins the bet will enjoy the next day dinner without anything to do. NO Match No Bet ...dare I say No Dinner. They seem to have forgotten the earlier set up. May be another 21 days. Or they need to find another topic of betting. Like who will read the news on aajtak today Deepak or Vinod. What will be the colour of the sari of Tulsi...Blue or Green...?
People seem to have caught these diseases. They have left the old saas bahu sickness and picked up these. I thought its only families which are getting affected. So I went to a bachelor friend of mine. He was too depressed to even talk. I for a moment thought that he is the most affected. He is missing the matches and the drama. He said “Hell with IPL , its over and now I am free ...for full duration I watched it and enjoyed , but now I have forgotten it and want to go back to my normal life and meet my girl , but she is in no mood..” . Well, I wanted to tell him that it’s a revenge she is taking on you for not taking her out for a month but decided against it and kept quiet.
Nothing seems to have replaced IPL as of now. Families are looking for some old serials but it just doesn’t seem to fit in. Pets got a good game of jumping on every boundary or six , don’t feel like jumping on close ups of 'Mihir' or 'Baa' face being shown three times in a row without any reason . Wives who were worried in the beginning of IPL that they may loose track of the story line after one month are least bothered about the story of the serials now. Though I can tell you nothing much would have changed in these stories. It might take an IPL of 80 teams and a league of 4 matches each to let the stories of these move ahead.
Well it has its effect. You can see groups in the office/work place/home being formed based on their teams. People calling others as DD member or DC or RR or CSK. Some of them have got this habit of sending message to others “DD or RR?? "...not even mentioning in the sms the obvious part of the question which team are you with. Some shouting (presumably singing) “dhol bajane aaye hum” or “korbo ladbo jeetbo re..” on any achievement or moment of success. People have already started enquiring about marriage organizers for arranging cheerleaders in baarat or ladies sangeet. A request for a dug out for barathis will not be totally unacceptable.
Research conferences arranging opening ceremony with a bollywood star/dancer/singer/ being arranged will not be totally out of place. After each presentation some dancers dancing and cheering the public scientists. Some of them might even go to SRK or PZ for funding their presentation to start a club culture promoting science. Each bidding for the best presenter and may be a prize money for a few billions for the coveted ones.
Welcome to the World After IPL.
Showing posts with label Cricket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cricket. Show all posts
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Which team are you with ?
Sachin, Shahrukh, Symonds, Bhajji,Shilpa,Deepika Mallya, Ambani, Warne, Murli, Gilly, Veeru, Jaysurya all at one place. Fireworks are a must. Well not neccesarily. On the forefront it does seem it's the quality of players, teams and power of BCCI that made IPL a big success unlike ICL.
But if you go a little deep, you got to get impressed by the way IPL tournament was promoted and packaged first time around. Was difficult to get this league thing accepted in India, after all which team a common man will support? He likes Sachin, but he likes Sehwag too, he likes Yuvraj but also Dhoni. The Biggest challenge!!! Get this format accepted. But How...how to sell it ??
But then came the ads and promos.
Bollywood !!! It does sell cricket. A specially designed catchy promo was the "Kab aayega ranjan aur manu ka baap?" It was a typical ad that promoted the tried and tested bollywood masala, twins, father missing, mother taunted and teased by society…and finally coming the "Aaa gaya manu-ranjan(implying manoranjan) ka baap…DLF IPL CUP".
It was not that cute little ad that everyone watches and forgets even the name of the product...it did give the desired effect, created the curiosity with words...'kab aayega …kab aayega...ranjan aur manu ka baap' and then flats it out with a very comic ending. People criticized that advertisement a lot but the important thing is they discussed and that was the idea. To make it a topic for tea time discussion.
After all which team will he support and on what basis, what logic. No country, no state, nothing to identify with. Then again came the ads for the rescue.
The dentist asking the patient "which team are u with " and poor patient not knowing the team of dentist replies innocently Delhi Daredevils and then in a low voice doctor reveals that he supports Kolkata Riders. Nurse suggesting doctor to get one tooth removed of the patient. "Ek kyon paanch daant nikaliye...kaafi daring aaadmi hai...daredevils"...was the punch line. Then came a series of promos which created a curiosity and a support for different teams and in turn the tournament.
Some lady blaming a guy of teasing just because he was a Mumbai Indian supporter and she a Bangalore Royal Challenger supporter, another place a boy not giving a place to an aged fellow just because boy is a Chennai Super King's supporter and the aged guy is wearing a band of Deccan Charger.
"Which team are you with...?" was the buzz word....who are you supporting...No logic was required. These ads were conveying the idea, forget the logic, pick any team with emotions and support with passion.
90 % of the reason why I am watching IPL is these ads only and rest is obviously cricket. But saying that ads alone made the tournament a big success is too big a statement to be made in a society that is not used to be called easily influenced specially by cheap ads and therefore I will leave it at that.
Till the society starts accepting facts, keep enjoying the front foot of daredevils and dhol of Punjabi kings XI. And yes don't forget asking "Which team are you with...?"
But if you go a little deep, you got to get impressed by the way IPL tournament was promoted and packaged first time around. Was difficult to get this league thing accepted in India, after all which team a common man will support? He likes Sachin, but he likes Sehwag too, he likes Yuvraj but also Dhoni. The Biggest challenge!!! Get this format accepted. But How...how to sell it ??
But then came the ads and promos.
Bollywood !!! It does sell cricket. A specially designed catchy promo was the "Kab aayega ranjan aur manu ka baap?" It was a typical ad that promoted the tried and tested bollywood masala, twins, father missing, mother taunted and teased by society…and finally coming the "Aaa gaya manu-ranjan(implying manoranjan) ka baap…DLF IPL CUP".
It was not that cute little ad that everyone watches and forgets even the name of the product...it did give the desired effect, created the curiosity with words...'kab aayega …kab aayega...ranjan aur manu ka baap' and then flats it out with a very comic ending. People criticized that advertisement a lot but the important thing is they discussed and that was the idea. To make it a topic for tea time discussion.
After all which team will he support and on what basis, what logic. No country, no state, nothing to identify with. Then again came the ads for the rescue.
The dentist asking the patient "which team are u with " and poor patient not knowing the team of dentist replies innocently Delhi Daredevils and then in a low voice doctor reveals that he supports Kolkata Riders. Nurse suggesting doctor to get one tooth removed of the patient. "Ek kyon paanch daant nikaliye...kaafi daring aaadmi hai...daredevils"...was the punch line. Then came a series of promos which created a curiosity and a support for different teams and in turn the tournament.
Some lady blaming a guy of teasing just because he was a Mumbai Indian supporter and she a Bangalore Royal Challenger supporter, another place a boy not giving a place to an aged fellow just because boy is a Chennai Super King's supporter and the aged guy is wearing a band of Deccan Charger.
"Which team are you with...?" was the buzz word....who are you supporting...No logic was required. These ads were conveying the idea, forget the logic, pick any team with emotions and support with passion.
90 % of the reason why I am watching IPL is these ads only and rest is obviously cricket. But saying that ads alone made the tournament a big success is too big a statement to be made in a society that is not used to be called easily influenced specially by cheap ads and therefore I will leave it at that.
Till the society starts accepting facts, keep enjoying the front foot of daredevils and dhol of Punjabi kings XI. And yes don't forget asking "Which team are you with...?"
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Dude Who screwed The Alto....
When your mood is off, you tend to run away from the place which caused the switching off. That explains travelling as a wonderful refresher. I would not go into why mood was off but that day travelling was the most preferred thing after office. I came home and thought of biking and going to Mysore.
Called Rajneesh, my company in all the places I have been to after coming Bangalore.
"Shall we drive to mysore...Are You free and ready to go.." I enquired.
"Have I ever refused to go...I can go anywhere...provided you are there in the trip.." He replied..
That used to be my answer to all his queries before...I had this belief that it’s not the destination that I enjoy, it’s the journey and the company on the journey. Ignoring the sarcasm I asked him to come down my place and we can leave as early as possible .We wanted to catch the IPL Semifinals in Mysore after all. I had little interest left as the team I supported was out in the first semis. But still reaching Mysore in 2 hrs meant real fast driving and that I was game for.
Unfortunately it started raining. But fortunately our dude came on Car. I keep referring to him as dude for the obvious reasons. He was a Dude. I was lucky enough to start as around 6 30 pm and thought with car I may still reach by 8 the IPL time.
We packed the necessities and went off in the rain. The bets on the IPL matches and the girls in our life were the common topic these days. Dude as I said earlier was suggesting some psychology of girls when suddenly a tractor with a ploughing machine appeared out of nowhere in the dark. Actually little did we realize that we were going at 50 and the truck at 10. My physics relativity would have calculated the relative velocity in a second but even that calculation did not help as the tyres had stopped but we kept skidding and banged into the ploughs. Actually the rain had further spoiled as the brakes were literally ineffective . The driver of the tractor turned around and looked as if we had waked him up from the sleep. His glare made me to shout...
“Where are the backlights you idiot...”
The tractor drive smiled after listening to me as though saying...
"Forget my backlight...Check your headlight..."
Both of us had felt the jolt though the effect wasn’t great and the car kept moving without any hiccups with full lights glowing. We both consoled each other that it was just a small hit and nothing much has happened and never had the courage to stop and check. Rain and darkness dint help the cause either. So we continued driving but for a change stopped talking to each other for a while. Silence.
"Chala jaata hoo kissi ki dhun me..."...My mobile rang...that was the ring tone. So untimely and so very situational. It broke the silence and yes I could see it in dude’s eyes that the song hurt. Real Bad Hurt. I picked up the phone and on the other side of mobile call was Prashant.
"Well Punjab has lost 4 wickets for some paltry score of 34...”
I could almost see despite the distance being about 100 kms the wry smile on Prashant’s face. He knew I had my inclination towards Punjab if any...But that news brought back the smile on our Dudes face. He was a 'Dil Se' Supporter of Chennai.
But before he could say anything. I cautioned him..." Good that we dint try to reach by match 8 pm otherwise it could have been worse...though the accident is not that bad. But then who knows."
For the rest of the journey we were pretty much quite except the address searching part. After reaching Mysore we searched the sankranti circle after circling for one hour. Left....Right...Dead End...Straight....Take left...I don’t know how many we took turns. I think Mysore was too small a city for a dude from Bangalore. May be we were taking lefts and rights after 1 km whereas the actual turns were only after 50 m. Funny part was we reached our starting point after one hour. Match was almost over by then and we saw Chennai winning against Punjab. Poor Preity couldn’t give her famous hug to any of them that night. I would have loved to just be a part of that team to get a hug. But here I was searching the Sankranti circle. But finally some luck and Prashant helped us to reach the place and have some dinner.
We reached his home and before even he could start the chat session I was off to sleep. Some dreams of PZ I believe. Some calls and missed calls and SMS ...important ones..Who cares when you are in dreams of PZ...I slept like I had never before. Oh..By the way did I forget to mention about the Car. Well it had many dents and the ploughs had done the ploughing on the car at three places. It would be around 5-6 thousand..That was our estimate. I dint know a thing about it and was worried about the money owner might take and the banging he might give.
Next day we went to one of the most sought after campus in India. They say the best in the business, a training center of Infosys at Mysore. Well I don’t know what training they give over there but I could go through the swimming pools and Pool tables Multiplex, unique architectural buildings, Some cricket, Huge Library, Basketball grounds, Tennis fields...Etc.Surprising thing was there were too many visitors like us who had come to see the campus .Soon it will start giving competition as a tourist place to Mysore Palace.
As an outsider I felt thats what infoscians are getting trained in. Living life king size. But one could sense that this was only the Cup, Coffee was elsewhere and we didn’t know how it tasted. That was a topic of discussion as well amongst, Cup or Coffee which is more important. Nothing came out ...Only like Hen or egg which came first.
Then we started off back to Bangalore, again targeting the finals of IPL. This time we left early and I decided to try my hand at the already banged car. If I hit again what’s the fuss. Not much to increase the expense. Best chance to try out my hands.
I knew what gears brakes and steering could do, so only thing I lacked was what all three together can do. Experience started off with the initial hiccups while changing gears when the car swirled and so did the heart of Rajneesh. He was on the mobile and whenever I was changing the gears, he looked as he was on hot tin. But soon the anxiety died and he calmed. After about half an hour I could drive without dude jumping and even bothering to stop talking on mobile. Soon he forget in his chat with I don’t know who that I am driving for may be first time and I also gained in confidence. But since it was my first drive I was a bit slow and we lost time.
We got the Bonnet and bumper checked and came to know about the huge expenditure that further slowed down our dude’s spirits and his speed as well. But we did reach before the finals and saw RR win and poor Chennai loose. That further dampened the spirits. Shane Warne had literally chopped RR off...of course this time it was Rajneesh Rai and not Rajasthan Royal...It was a memorable trip and yet a dampening in physical , financial and spiritual sense. I can’t say my mood was better after the journey, as the bills are yet to be settled but I enjoyed the overall stay and journey to the max.
Called Rajneesh, my company in all the places I have been to after coming Bangalore.
"Shall we drive to mysore...Are You free and ready to go.." I enquired.
"Have I ever refused to go...I can go anywhere...provided you are there in the trip.." He replied..
That used to be my answer to all his queries before...I had this belief that it’s not the destination that I enjoy, it’s the journey and the company on the journey. Ignoring the sarcasm I asked him to come down my place and we can leave as early as possible .We wanted to catch the IPL Semifinals in Mysore after all. I had little interest left as the team I supported was out in the first semis. But still reaching Mysore in 2 hrs meant real fast driving and that I was game for.
Unfortunately it started raining. But fortunately our dude came on Car. I keep referring to him as dude for the obvious reasons. He was a Dude. I was lucky enough to start as around 6 30 pm and thought with car I may still reach by 8 the IPL time.
We packed the necessities and went off in the rain. The bets on the IPL matches and the girls in our life were the common topic these days. Dude as I said earlier was suggesting some psychology of girls when suddenly a tractor with a ploughing machine appeared out of nowhere in the dark. Actually little did we realize that we were going at 50 and the truck at 10. My physics relativity would have calculated the relative velocity in a second but even that calculation did not help as the tyres had stopped but we kept skidding and banged into the ploughs. Actually the rain had further spoiled as the brakes were literally ineffective . The driver of the tractor turned around and looked as if we had waked him up from the sleep. His glare made me to shout...
“Where are the backlights you idiot...”
The tractor drive smiled after listening to me as though saying...
"Forget my backlight...Check your headlight..."
Both of us had felt the jolt though the effect wasn’t great and the car kept moving without any hiccups with full lights glowing. We both consoled each other that it was just a small hit and nothing much has happened and never had the courage to stop and check. Rain and darkness dint help the cause either. So we continued driving but for a change stopped talking to each other for a while. Silence.
"Chala jaata hoo kissi ki dhun me..."...My mobile rang...that was the ring tone. So untimely and so very situational. It broke the silence and yes I could see it in dude’s eyes that the song hurt. Real Bad Hurt. I picked up the phone and on the other side of mobile call was Prashant.
"Well Punjab has lost 4 wickets for some paltry score of 34...”
I could almost see despite the distance being about 100 kms the wry smile on Prashant’s face. He knew I had my inclination towards Punjab if any...But that news brought back the smile on our Dudes face. He was a 'Dil Se' Supporter of Chennai.
But before he could say anything. I cautioned him..." Good that we dint try to reach by match 8 pm otherwise it could have been worse...though the accident is not that bad. But then who knows."
For the rest of the journey we were pretty much quite except the address searching part. After reaching Mysore we searched the sankranti circle after circling for one hour. Left....Right...Dead End...Straight....Take left...I don’t know how many we took turns. I think Mysore was too small a city for a dude from Bangalore. May be we were taking lefts and rights after 1 km whereas the actual turns were only after 50 m. Funny part was we reached our starting point after one hour. Match was almost over by then and we saw Chennai winning against Punjab. Poor Preity couldn’t give her famous hug to any of them that night. I would have loved to just be a part of that team to get a hug. But here I was searching the Sankranti circle. But finally some luck and Prashant helped us to reach the place and have some dinner.
We reached his home and before even he could start the chat session I was off to sleep. Some dreams of PZ I believe. Some calls and missed calls and SMS ...important ones..Who cares when you are in dreams of PZ...I slept like I had never before. Oh..By the way did I forget to mention about the Car. Well it had many dents and the ploughs had done the ploughing on the car at three places. It would be around 5-6 thousand..That was our estimate. I dint know a thing about it and was worried about the money owner might take and the banging he might give.
Next day we went to one of the most sought after campus in India. They say the best in the business, a training center of Infosys at Mysore. Well I don’t know what training they give over there but I could go through the swimming pools and Pool tables Multiplex, unique architectural buildings, Some cricket, Huge Library, Basketball grounds, Tennis fields...Etc.Surprising thing was there were too many visitors like us who had come to see the campus .Soon it will start giving competition as a tourist place to Mysore Palace.
As an outsider I felt thats what infoscians are getting trained in. Living life king size. But one could sense that this was only the Cup, Coffee was elsewhere and we didn’t know how it tasted. That was a topic of discussion as well amongst, Cup or Coffee which is more important. Nothing came out ...Only like Hen or egg which came first.
Then we started off back to Bangalore, again targeting the finals of IPL. This time we left early and I decided to try my hand at the already banged car. If I hit again what’s the fuss. Not much to increase the expense. Best chance to try out my hands.
I knew what gears brakes and steering could do, so only thing I lacked was what all three together can do. Experience started off with the initial hiccups while changing gears when the car swirled and so did the heart of Rajneesh. He was on the mobile and whenever I was changing the gears, he looked as he was on hot tin. But soon the anxiety died and he calmed. After about half an hour I could drive without dude jumping and even bothering to stop talking on mobile. Soon he forget in his chat with I don’t know who that I am driving for may be first time and I also gained in confidence. But since it was my first drive I was a bit slow and we lost time.
We got the Bonnet and bumper checked and came to know about the huge expenditure that further slowed down our dude’s spirits and his speed as well. But we did reach before the finals and saw RR win and poor Chennai loose. That further dampened the spirits. Shane Warne had literally chopped RR off...of course this time it was Rajneesh Rai and not Rajasthan Royal...It was a memorable trip and yet a dampening in physical , financial and spiritual sense. I can’t say my mood was better after the journey, as the bills are yet to be settled but I enjoyed the overall stay and journey to the max.
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