Cricket World Cup 2011

I have been a cricket fan since my childhood days, like most other boys in India. And even though I follow a little bit of other sports as well (mostly Tennis and Football), Cricket is and would always remain the top priority. 

I don't know what it is about the game that has the whole nation hooked to it - may be it was the world cup victory in 1983. A nation tied down by bureaucracy, and the perennial underdogs came out as the World Champions. May be it was that one moment - mind you, it was at the venue of our previous Lords, that transformed the sports landscape of the nation. Hockey was relegated to background, and cricket became a national obsession. 

Another interesting thing about the game was it is an individualistic team game - you have teams, but most of the time its individual brilliance that wins you the match. You don't need passes like in Football or Hockey, and if you are good, you will play well. Add to it the plentitude of numbers - there are just too many statistics - runs, wickets, fours, sixes, 50s, 100s, etc. This game is a statistician delight, and can easily employ half of graduates from Indian School of Statistics every year (with so many IPL teams coming). 

Coming to the present, the World Cup is about to begin in a few days, and I'm really excited. Its been a long time since we had a all-nations tournament, and given the form of teams, this one promises to be really interesting. Of course I would be supporting India, but am mindful of the challenges as well. SA and England are dangerous as well, though they haven't really played in India recently (which is a different 'ball' game altogether. 

Atonement & King Arthur

This has been a movies week - and saw a couple of interesting ones. I had seen King Arthur earlier as well, but didn't remember much about it so gave it another run as well. 

Atonement is a classic, in every sense of the word. Usually the Oscar nominated movies are not really to my liking, but this is different. The story is set in 1930s and 1940s, and first part deals with an English household. I wouldn't detail the storyline here, but the cast is superb in their performance. Both James McAvoy and Keira Knightley are perfectly cast in their roles, and the young actress (who plays the little sister to Keira) is awesome. The basic premise of the story is how an act can change life of many people, and it may be impossible to rectify the mistake at a later point in time. 

King Arthur is very different in treatment, and even though it wasn't much of a success, I liked the movie. In fact, I tend to like most of the grand historical movies with battle sequences. They make for such a perfect viewing - with larger than life sets and dresses. This one is set in 5th century England, and deals with the folklore of King Arthur. Though the story is not historically accurate, with many a historians doubting even the existence of the King, its an honest treatment. Over the course of the movie, the Knights (Arthur and his friends) discover that they have been fighting a wrong battle, and their conception about ideologies of their empire is misplaced. 

Three Months

I am on a long leave, lets call it a sabbatical. It was not exactly pre-planned or my choice, but I got it nonetheless. And almost a month has passed as well. Now I have to decide what I can do over the remaining 8-9 weeks. 

Firstly, it gives me some time to catch up on some classy movies - I have long wanted to watch the IMDB Top 100 movies collection, and it might be time to give it a shot. If not all, then at least half way through the list. Over the past few weeks, have really saw a lot of stuff I had kept on my to-do list for long. 

Secondly, there are serials which I always post-poned for future viewing. There was OC which I had left mid way, and there are plenty of others as well - 24 and Lost among them. 

Thirdly, I am catching up a little on my picture management - learnt a few things about iPhoto today. Its really cool, specially the latest version - would upload a slideshow tomorrow featuring a few of my recent albums. 

Finally, I need to learn a few things about photography - and how to take good pictures under different conditions. I will spend some time on it tomorrow, and then try to go through the camera manual. I had bought a really cool camera last year (Nikon D90), and have been using it mostly in point-and-shoot mode. 

Television In India

I have completely stopped watching Television these days. During my childhood days, we used to watch Cricket and MTV/Channel V. Over time, I stopped watching music channels, and limited myself to Cricket only. However, after moving to HK, even the Cricket is gone from my life (as I have do not have the cricket channels here). So, in a nutshell, television is almost dead for me. 

The only use I have for it is as a large screen where I can connect my hard-disk and watch movies/serials. And guess its a decent enough use. 

Still waiting for Indian Channels to improve on the content and make some meaningful programs. I would really love to see something like FRIENDS or HIMYM in our Mumbai or Delhi settings. Guess we do have an audience for that. 

Books Vs Movies

Everyone has their own favorite between the two - the more carefree people usually prefer Movies, whereas the thinking and introspective sorts (most people writing blogs) prefer Books (usually). Its similar to a choice between technically sound and superior (like Rahul Dravid), or flamboyant (like Dada, Yuvraj). I had always been a 'book-person', but given my full time job, I don't find much time to read. However, I loved to buy books, so over the past few years have grown a large collection of 'new and unread' books - hoping to read them some time in future. However, with each passing year, the list keeps on getting longer. 

One of the reasons I didn't see Harry Potter and LOTR all these years was because I wanted to read the books first. And that never happened. (Another reason was the fact that these are grand movies, not worth watching on computer screens or laptops. And having missed the screenings in theaters, my only hope was a big screen TV - which I finally got now in form of an awesome LED TV). So I finally stopped fooling myself, and admitted that I may never get to read the books. That I should go ahead and watch the movies at least. They do not have the feeling of reading the books, but you can manage to see a lot of movies.