Dilemma

Mr. Anderson: How do I make a choice?

Oracle: You didn’t come here to make a choice. You have already made it. You are here to try to understand why you made it.

WordWeb says dilemma is:
State of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavourable options.
I would say 2 unfavourable options. But I want a word for state of uncertainty which requires a choice between two equally favourable options?

Mr. Anderson had concluded Choice! The problem is choice.

FINAL(ly)

This is what everyone in India was waiting to see.. the World Cup in our hands. Kudos to both the teams for a thrilling final. The shortest version of cricket has been conquered by beating Pakistan by just 5 runs. Now the Indian team faces their next test on the homegrounds with the Aussies visiting for the 50-over version. Woohoo!!! :-)

Slam, bam, bang!!

Sweet? Salty? Na re na na.. 50-50

This simple ad jingle of this Britannia biscuit is still one of my favourites and the biscuit as well. But nowadays the talk of the town.. err.. world is 20-20. If you are not into cricket let me tell you that this is not a brand of biscuit but the new version of limited bowling overs (20 overs each side) in cricket and the world cup is currently underway in South Africa. After the major Indian debacle in the 50 over world cup contest I had lost interest in watching cricket but this version of game has sort of rekindled the love. 20-20 is definitely an attempt to make cricket endearing to those sect of people who think it takes a long time to finish one match. Football, rugby, hockey etc take hardly a few hours while the 50 over matches take up the whole day and let’s not talk of test matches which go on over 5 days and that too mostly end in a tie. 20-20 match takes only 3 hours to get done with. I remember a conversation with my college friend Rohan, who is a die-hard football fan. During one practical class he was going ga-ga over the previous night’s match and I retorted that the score line was 0-0 so what was so interesting about the match. He said that the attack and defense that both teams put forth was worth watching. Now I am of the opinion that a game should be entertaining because I would love to play football no matter if it ends in a 0-0 result but if I am watching it then I should be entertained in form of goals. In cricket I don’t care if a batsman defends a ball well or the bowler swings the ball to perfection coz what I want to see is wickets, sixes, boundaries.. so match highlights is the best option. But 20-20 is the thing which provides all this stuff I want and I have started loving it.

Yesterday one cricket legend wrote in his column that 20-20 is detrimental to the game of cricket as it is a batsman’s game and fielders are mere spectators looking at the ball sailing over the stadium. I agree but might be this form is in a nascent stage, so a few modifications to it might improve it and it will be more acceptable and lovable format in cricket. India-Pakistan match never fails to arouse excitement and the one last week also lived up to its expectations. Had it been a 50 over match it would have ended in a nail-biting tie but the new bowl-out rule turned the same nail-biting finish into a finger-biting one (if I may use the word). Who had thought that castling over the stumps without a batsman in front of them can turn out so difficult that Pakistan couldn’t manage even a single hit? Many a times matches being played on a neutral venue can tend to become boring due to lack of spectators of the host nation but in 20-20 crowds are thronging to watch the blitzkrieg launched by batsmen and also the DJ and the dancing troupe have a lot of activity to keep the crowd on their toes. Cricket purists say that the dancers should not be brought in this so-called gentleman’s game (sledging is part of being a gentleman :D). I have started agreeing with them coz they are deceiving us. Last week the dancers were wearing Jiah-styled (of Nishabd fame) teeny-weeny shorts and suddenly this week they switched to ankle length commando pants. WTH! Lol.. my cousin bro during a match said that the dancers were dancing on a platform by Reliance (a highly reputed Indian company) and I was busy looking at the blondes shaking their booty (literally). Who had the time to look at Reliance label? Entertainment is the word. That is why I love watching women’s tennis as well even though many say it is slow and boring. Where would you get to see good tennis with such beautiful faces? How can it be boring.. Maria was resplendent in her red hot dress last month. May I request Star Cricket to stop Hindi commentators from boring the TV spectators to death and cutting down the commercials between the overs? Anyways, I leave you with a video of Yuvraj Singh hitting six sixes in a single over in yesterday’s encounter with England.

Have a good day all of you.. ohh that is also one of my favourite biscuits :D

Big Brother!

Can someone please pass a few racial comments against me so that I can win 1,00,000 pounds (only prize money mentioned) like Shilpa Shetty? No wait.. what use is hearing comments here if I don’t get to live in with Danielle Lloyd. So I will wait for the official Big Brother invite.. until then I will be a brother at home.

Yesterday was Raksha Bandhan (thanks to wiki I don’t have to explain).. some of you might be surprised that this festive occasion was in last month, but for some reasons not known to me our community celebrates it yesterday on Rishi Panchami (no wiki entry on this). Like all the years down the lane I would have sent money orders to cousin sisters but this year we have my uncle’s daughter at our place for her studies so the ‘holy-thread tying ceremony’ (phew!) was to take place in real. I got a shock of my life when mom said that I had to bring a gift and just giving money won’t do. I remembered Aditi & Pooja’s brother (from their rakhi posts) complaining why the sisters don’t have to gift the brothers. I wasn’t expecting a gift here but dreaded the thought of getting a gift simply coz I suck big time in choosing a gift. That too for a girl!! I was trying to remember last time when I had picked up a gift for a girl.. it was when I was around 9 yrs old. Mom had bought something and I had ‘picked it up’ from home to gift it.. yeah that’s how close I am with girls on this planet lol. These are the times when you really wish for a girl friend to drop by from the sky and help you get out of this situation. But smart that I am I didn’t look skywards and decided to take sis out and let her choose what she wants. But smarter than me my mom is who said that it should be a surprise. WTH! I love surprises.. but in pranks, not for gifts. I mean just imagine the look of the person who gets a horrible surprise gift and ditto for the person who gives it. So frantically I messaged a few girls I consider myself close to, to suggest me what to get for her. They all messaged back that it was a difficult question and they were the wrong people to ask about gifts. Great!

I attended my Sunday afternoon classes and hoped that somehow everyone at home would conveniently forget about the festival. Coming out of the class I saw that I already had 2 missed calls from home. Mom asked me what I had decided to get and I said I had appointed a 5 member committee to mull over the topic and they will get back in a few days. But mom was not in a mood to laugh at my sick jokes and gave me an address of a store of her friend (mom of a student of my mom) who could help me select something. Mom was so precise in giving the address that I couldn’t even whine that I might not find the clothes store. Off I went to the store..

Just at the entrance of the store I forgot the name of the lady and fearing that mom would come out the mobile and smack me down I didn’t call up home and went inside. Luckily I remembered the student’s name and asked the cashier about his mom.. his in the sense the student’s and not the cashier’s. The lady was on a holiday. It seemed that the entire female species was up in arms against me yesterday. Still I went to see if I could get something and a sales-boy asked me what I wanted.
Me: I am looking for a short kurta for a girl
SB: *starts piling up tops of myriad colours*
Me: *dude this has so many colours.. doesn’t help to be colour blind*

I kept staring at the kurtas laid down on the table for 2 minutes hoping that one of those would spring to life and hug me crying out ‘Take me home, Take me home’. Sadly that didn’t happen and suddenly I noticed that the size was too big for my sis so I asked the boy for medium size. I saw a pink one and told him to pack it. 5 mins and I was done! I felt elated and as a buffer gift I also picked up a box of assorted chocolates. Sis was delighted to see the kurta coz pink is her fav colour she said. I didn’t lose the opportunity to say that I knew it was her fav colour so had spent time searching for it.. didn’t I mention I am smart :D. We guys (2 cousin brothers were also present) devoured more than half of the chocolates ;-). All in all I heaved a sigh of relief. Bugged all those girls I had asked earlier that I had shopped for a wonderful gift in flat 5-7 minutes *drumroll* and then slept peacefully.

Lessons learnt yesterday:
1. Surprise gifts can bring a smile on the receiver’s face unlike pranks

2. Don’t waste time in choosing clothes and instead simply pick up 2 boxes of chocolates as gift when you know that you be eating more than half of them MUAHAHAHA :D