Hello World!! (All right, I know just a few people will be reading this, but just wanted to prove that my readers mean the world to me.)
Just saw the first match of IPL 3.0 between a team which won the trophy last year, and another which won the wooden spoon. Sounds like a mismatch but it turned out to be anything but that (unless you consider the four 10-over slabs in isolation). Now close matches always thrill you but this one provided all the more excitement because the man in the commentary box was Harsha Bhogle. Don’t know how many noticed but he was at his best, even by his own standards. He truly is a genius and you can’t miss him when he adds punches like “Shah Rukh will be tweeting every two seconds” or like “Wasim Akram would have learnt to swear in Bengali” in moments when tension is at its peak. Real gems, these are; and a real gem he is.
One of my priciest possessions in the small library which I have developed, is this book ‘Out of the Box’ which is a collection of the best articles he’s written over the course of 5 years. And just for the records I had obtained a copy the day it hit the stands. :) Truly India’s (in fact the world’s) first cricketing icon among people who haven’t played the game. (Lalit Modi could well be considered second). Now, one of the best ways to make your blog interesting is by quoting Harsha Bhogle and I’m going to do just that. This one is the opening paragraph of today’s edition of Indian Express. (For the ignorant, he writes for them every Friday). Read it and be awed by it, just as I was.
Pakistan hand out bans like toffees, those handing out the ban pretend they are pristine; Australia’s vice-captain leaves his team behind to offer solace to his girl suffering the after-effects of a dubious relationship; another South African storms his way into world cricket — for England; the world’s most hyped tournament slithers, rather than storms, in. That’s a lot of unusual things for a sport played by so few!
Coming back to the match, I was actually supporting the chargers (the team representing the city of Ashish Garg and N.D. Tiwari :P)- and the only reason was to irritate my sister who is a die-hard fan of SRK and hence KKR. Now any argument involving SRK generally leads to a comparison between him and Aamir Khan. I would’t want to jump into the debate here, but I did mention to my sister that three of Aamir’s last four movies (not counting Luck By Chance where he had a role as small as Dada’s stay in the crease today) – RDB, TZP and 3 Idiots – were probably better than any of Shah Rukh’s; and even she looked convinced about it. But then there is no denying who a better showman is between the two. Just to gauge what being witty means you just need to watch the show when Shah Rukh won the NDTV entertainer of the year in 2007 - the way he handled the barrage of seemingly tricky questions that were doled out to him. But sorry Di, Aamir is the better actor for me.
But again, Aamir is not a complete perfectionist that he claims to be – he didn’t undergo a sex change operation for his role in Baazi, did he?
