Cricketers can have fun too

Look at the picture and decide for yourself...I believe Cricket is such a great game that Cricketers can have fun even when they are on the field and are just about to start with an important game in the 20-20 tournament....SL's Dilharo Fernando surely is having a ball( yes he is a bowler)...his expression says it all...
cheers,
Kavin.

Four Long Years

I still cannot believe it has been four years....People are right when they say 'time flies'...surely does...I received a letter from somebody which made me realize about the years which flew by....
-KG.

Andheri to Belapur or Edison to New York

I have not been able to post anything in the past few weeks since I have been spending a great deal of my time travelling to and from Edison to NY. I compare this train commute to the same as travelling from Andheri (AD) to Belapur (BL) which I did during my undergrad days in Bombay. Anyone who has lived in Bombay and travelled by trains in which he changed trains between stations will be able to relate to this experience.

I live in Andheri and had to commute to Belapur (New Bombay) to college and to do this, I had to take the train from Andheri (Western Line) and reach belapur (harbor line). To do this long commute in the quickest way possible , me and my friends used to go from Andheri to Dadar where I changed trains to get from Dadar to Kurla and again at Kurla I had to take another train which would eventually take me to Belapur. I am sure all this train changing sounds crazy and painstaking to people who never had to travel this far to college and who would rather have taken the direct train from AD to BL. But me and my friends preffered changing trains because this saved roughly 15 mins of the travel time. But to save 15 mins, it was important to change tracks/platforms at stations to catch the connecting train and this involved running at top speed and making sure that we had memorized the train time table. It was funny because we would always remember the train schedules but never know our class schedule. That should tell you how important knowing the train schedule was. Also back then changing trains had its share of fun because I had a fixed set of friends with whom I used to commute and we would always travel together. In Bombay we would call these friends also as train buddies which I believe was unique to Bombay. Recently I have been commuting from Edison NJ to Downtown Manhattan (NY) and this is pretty much similar to the commute that I had to do back in Bombay in my undergrad. I have to change 2 trains to get to NY downtown and also have to make sure I get the connecting trains on time and make my commute short. I have started somehow enjoying this because the train commute gives me the chance to read which quite frankly I have been enjoying a lot. I love reading the newspaper in the train which to me is more fun than reading the news on the web.

I do not know for how long will I enjoy this commute because it is tiring and expensive too. But so far so good and will enjoy it till I can.

More Laters,
Kavin.

Little Johnny

Little Johnny was sitting in class doing math problems when his teacher picked him to answer a question.

- "Johnny, if there were five birds sitting on a fence and you shot one with your gun how many would be left."
- "None", replied Johnny, "'cause the rest would fly away".
- "Well the answer is four", said the teacher, "but I like the way you are thinking".

Little Johnny says, "I have a question for you now. If there were three women eating ice cream cones in a shop, one was licking her cone, the second was biting the cone and the third was sucking the cone, which one is married?"
- "Well..." said the teacher nervously, "I guess the one sucking the cone?"
- "No", said Little Johnny, "the one with the wedding ring on her finger, but I like the way you are thinking".

This and That

"To bend, but not to break. To yield, but not capitulate. To have pride, but also humility."

I struggle with this every day, and most times fail. For those of you to whom this comes naturally... you're quite fortunate.

Sometimes life for me seems to be either one extreme or the other. One of these days I will learn to stop the pendulum somewhere in the middle. I am somehow reminded of one of my favorite dialogues from the movie..The Shawshank Redemption ...in which Andy Dufresne(Tim Robbins) says...." Hope is a good thing, may be the best of things and no good thing ever dies"....

Parzania

Last night I watched 'Parzania', a movie based on a true incident about the Hindu-Muslim riots that broke out in the state of Gujarat in India in the year of 2002. I have to admit that this has been one of the better movies that I have watched recently. This is the first movie I have seen which depicts the riots that happened in Gujarat because of the train burning incident in Godhra. I was particularly impressed by the directors choice of not playing the blame game on hindus or the muslims. In fact he has rightly outlined the Police force and the high profile Politicians as the main culprits for causing this sectarian violence.
The director of the movie is Jay Dholakia, a US based filmmaker and he directed the movie in English. I do not wish to give away any more details about the movie and recommend it all who might be interested. There is this one line from the movie which I would like to quote here "Never in my life could have I imagined that Religion could be both, the cause as well as the solution of a problem". You have to watch the movie to realize the context of this line and how true it is to the scene.

-Kavin..

Life without Camel

I have always had this dream in which I am stranded alone in a desert and dont even have a Camel for company. I dreaded the scenario where I was marooned in a desert with no Camel in sight and live the rest of my life without a Camel. But again I would like to remind you that I'd walk a mile for a Camel!...make that 2 miles...
Previously I have been guilty for making that extra effort to go out of my way to ensure that I have a Camel with me for company. However in the past few months I have been sleeping peacefully and have not been troubled by the nightmare of being without a Camel...I am actually doing good without it and have been able to avoid even the thought of it..To tell you the truth, I miss it at times but have sucessfully avoided it and would like to stay off it for as long as I can...I am posting a picture of my favorite Camel Brand 'Camel Lights' just to remember the good old days..


Cheers,
Kavin.