Boredom

I am a management professional and thus familiar with all this 'self-help' panorama. Hell, we are not only taught about all of Shiv Kheras, Stephen Coveys, Ken Blanchards, Ram Charans and Phillip Kotlers but even made of to munch on all their theories day in and day out. So, to be very frank, I don't go along very well with 'self-help' books. This was the sole reason I was suspicious of Abhishek Ratna's book, No Parking, No Halt Success Non-Stop's success against my premonition. Couple of hrs later from the time I took it in my hands, I knew I did alright and book, super alright. It defied all my expectations and unlike the 'coarse' reads all self-help books generally make, this was a very easy simple and lucid read. This is gotta be Ratna's book's biggest strength for I know how all these books put off their readers off the course going just into few pages. It has been punctuated with great insights and small inspirational stories and anecdo...

Writing is really a very demanding profession or I rather say, a hobby and that's why any person who comes up with a book of any type gets due praise and respect unconditionally from me. In this way, I congratulate the author of 'First Love Matters, So Does the Second', Mr. Vishal Sah for coming up with his debut work. Vishal is all of 20 years old and one among those 'new-wave' writers who are joining the profession of writing at such a young, enterprising age. Talking about all these 'new-wave' writers, one thing a reader almost always comes across is the identical genre that they are favoring the most and that must be the writing a 'romantic', 'teenage' novel where a character (read the author only) falls in love with a girl, almost always with characteristic and charismatic ease. He might not be the most popular or even very bad looking but he almost always gets by with the most popular and beautiful girl in his college/school. Damn luck...

During the 3 hrs of my class, I restlessly kept checking ESPN Cricinfo (and that was after India was beaten miraculously) for any info regarding MS Dhoni resigning the captaincy of Indian ODI Team. But as you know, it was all futile for Dhoni is our captain. He didn't finish off the match which he was quite used to do till 2011 and took the complete responsibility of this loss upon himself. Steven Smith himself concluded that when Kohli and Dhawan were batting, he felt like needing 15-16 men for keeping their run-scoring in check. But at the end, he must have been gobsmacked seeing the glorious and hugely unfortunate ineptness of Indian Cricket team. This team never plays Australia to beat them. Ask any men from Indian Cricket team and they will all say before the commencement of an Aus match that they are feeling positive and sure of doing well but they are never sure of beating Australia. Doing them for an Indian bowler means going for 55 runs in an over and for a batsman, a good...

This post has to be very special for it's dedicated to a person who has continued to remain special in our memory for a better part of last two decades. Shivnarine Chanderpaul. The first 3-D batsman of our generation as he is hilariously known and called in some quarters of World Cricket. Shiv today announced his retirement from all forms of Cricket and thus we shall never get to see his like (well he is his only copy) again in International Cricket. I did a post on Shiv some four-five months ago as he was supposedly preparing him for the unlikeliest of records (and certainly the biggest) in West Indies Cricket History- To become the greatest scorer in Test Cricket for WI. He was supposed to topple the prince of Trinidad, Brian Lara and everyone was in awe, including Lara. But Lara being one of the most gentleman cricketer ever was all praise for Shiv's longevity, ironclad determination and insatiable appetite for runs. But other people, apart from Lara and his fans, Chaderphil...

Cricket has an enviable history of providing its supporters with tonnes of watershed moments as compared to other public sports. The date of 04/01/2016 thus shall go down in that glorious lineage of memorable dates as this day provided us with a moment so legendary that generations to come will be teary eyed remembering it. Cape Town test at a picturesque Newlands ground stood witness to history as Temba Bavuma, a black African cricketer by birth, became the first ever black cricketer from SA to score a test century. The whole Cricketing world and all of SA went into a delirium in celebrating this glorious feat. A country with 80% black African population deserved a hero in SA Cricket and until now, they had only Makhaya Ntini and Paul Adams (remember the Chinaman with unusual shoulder bending bowling action) to refer to but they were both bowlers. Today, Temba 'Bravo-Ma' Bavuma fulfilled that long standing dream. And in doing that, Temba somewhat corrected the chequered hist...

In months of March-April this year, ICC scheduled the World T-20 Qualifiers for associate teams in Ireland and Scotland. Two spots were reserved for 12 teams in World T-20 scheduled to be played in India in March 2016. Tricky scenario is that they will again have to participate in a qualifier event before the commencement of actual world cup where they will compete against the likes of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. So you see how tough is their journey to the center arena of World Cricket. So in the aforementioned qualifier event, Nepal and Oman were competing in a match. I wanted to see the match live on Star Sports 1 which was the official broadcaster of this event. But I didn't get to see it for Star was supposedly broadcasting only 16 matches from the tournament. I was dumbfounded for I wanted to see the progress made by teams such as Papua New Guinea, Jersey, Oman, Namibia, Hong Kong, Nepal and many others first hand. But then again, some of my favorite teams qualified for the ma...

If there is one movie that I miss the most from my collection, it's got to be 'Immortal Beloved'. I remember deleting it but not really the reason for doing so. I feel almost gutted whenever I find a mention of Gary Oldman and his unforgettable portrayal of legendary German Music Composer, Ludwig Von Beethoven in the Bernard Rose's film, 'Immortal Beloved'. I am feeling quite low especially today for today is not an ordinary day, it is the day commemorating Beethoven's 245th Birthday. And if you have logged on Google today, you will have already known that. Beethoven need not an introduction to all the music lovers across the world but those who are unaware of him, let me tell you that he was the LION of European (or Western) music jungle in early 19th century. He composed divine music that resonated through both classical and romantic era of western music scene and his compositions remain as influential today as they were in his prime. Beethoven started l...