Hutch Delhi Half Marathon

I Registered for it today, it is happening on Sunday 28th October, still around 59 days to go for the big event. Well now that I have started running Marathons I have to run one of the biggest marathon organized in the country (the other I am planning is Mumbai Marathon). Initially I thought that going to Delhi just for a Marathon... but then I discovered the route plan of this marathon, and found that it would pass by India Gate, Rajpath..... and all those areas..... I got nostalgic, those clean big roads, and in front of you the India Gate, running on them would be too exciting.

And I think a couple of more people are enthusiastic about it, the list has Pandey, Nitin and Rajaram, lets see how many of us finally make it there but definitely it will be a great experience. And by the way a part of the registration fee is going to the charity as well, so kind of.... running for a cause!

So all you Marathoners see you in the capital on 28th October 2007!

Song Today: kanto se kheech ke ye anchal
Film: Guide
Music: SD Burman

Weekend Started

Chalo weekend aa hi gaya.... kuchh khaas to plan nahi kiya par haan is weekend ke liye intezaar kaafi kiya, kabhi kabhi lagta hai ki sab software mazdoor (aakhir hum rehte to dihadi par hi hain) Monday se hi friday ka wait karne lagte hain.

Aaj apun ne Heyy Babyy ki tickets bhi kara li hain, kaafi kismat waala tha ki Bangalore main mujhe Friday ke show ki tickets mil gaye hain. dekh kar kal review daal ta hoon!

Aaj kal running bhi achhi chal rahi hai meri, 8 se 10 KM to maar raha hoon daily, aur ab main apne aap ko us esteemed runner's club ke layak samajh sakta hoon.....

chalo zada kuchh hai nahi likhne kop.... kaafi din se kuchh likha nahi tha isiliye socha samachaar daal doon! Shayad is weekend ke baad kuchh hoga mere paas likhne ko...

Song Today: Tum aa gaye ho noor aa gaya hai
Film: Aandhi
Music: RD Burman

Chak De India....

Saw Chak De India this weekend and then again saw it with office colleagues yesterday! Pretty nice movies, read my review here. This movie has glamorized hockey which is exactly what the game needs, maybe we need to concentrate on other games as well apart from cricket. No I don't have any problems with the cricket and I follow the game and Sachin Tendulkar in particular pretty closely.... but we are like "Jack of all master of None" see Australia, they are the world champions in a lot of sports.

Yes I agree that Sports is not a successful career option in India... but then too we have people who dare to stand out of the crowd, people like Dhanraj Pillai and Baichung Bhutia. Just imagine the amount of hard work they might have put in their daily lives to reach that level, considering the fact that they were not playing cricket, and any other sport in India does not get sponsors, even Raghvendra Singh Rathore was able to go to the Olympics just because he was in the army and he had a secure job!

Lately the Indian Hockey federation is taking measures to promote this sport, the PHL (Premier Hockey League) which is organized every year is a wonderful tournament and we have some nice players playing them as well. My favorite team in the tournament is Shere Punjab!

And then came Chak De India which gave the much needed glamorization to the Indian Hockey, people have started acknowledging this game and the gorgeous girls definitely added up somewhere.....

Do see this movie, this is a perfect blend of :
Patriotism
Women's Liberation
and Promoting Hockey as a sport in India

No wonder this is our national game :-)


Song Today: Aasman ke baad shayad..
Film: Rockford

Feast your eyes on my latest sweetheart

So this is here, meri zindagi ki pahli car! Yes it is a Swift VXi (Azure Grey Color). was planning for the same since the last one year, did an extensive survey and market research on all the options that are available with Maruti as well as other brands. So here goes my experience:

Chevorlet Aveo UV-A
This car was about to get the honor of being my first car, but then I test drove it and found it to be pathetic, some of my observations
*bad build quality as compared to Hyundai Getz and Swift
*It had a 1.1 Litre engine, now that is the exact capacity of Santro's engine, no need to pay Rs 5 lac for a 1.1 Lt engine
* The body weight of the car is qyuite high due to which it suffers on pickup
*Didnt have any great mileage (even with a 1.1 Lt engine)

Zen Estillo
I considered this as well but this one never came close to that place, firstly it looks like an autorickshaw to me, and has an engine capacity of 1000cc so didnt find it worth the money, looks like a matiz to me!

Hyundai Getz
Good car, spacious, good pickup and has a 1.3 Lt engine but it suffers a lot on the mileage , Nitin has it so I know the biggest disadvantage of this car, but then too this one came quite close to that honorable place

Tata Indica
Good car, value for money, the petrol version has a good pickup and is fuel efficient too, but Dad already owns one so there is no point going for an Indica again.

Swift
I didn't used to like the shape of this car a lot, till the day I drove it, man this is an awesome piece of machine in 4.9 Lacs on road, awesome build quality, a tried and tested 1.3 Lt engine (the engine is Esteem's engine) so you don't have to worry about the performance of the engine. Awesome pickup, okish mileage and this car falls in the B+ Segment

So it is here now......keep watching this blog for more reviews

Song in Car: O meri Jaan
Film: Life in a....Metro

Yellow Journalism....

Finally CNN-IBN has also resorted to all kinds of yellow journalism, the latest Blog by their "star"reporter Sagarika Ghose (here) she has gone to the extent of genralizing that it is only Muslims who are getting punishments these days. Well according to me there is a way of visualizing the things that are happening in and around you. If a channel like CNN-IBN goes to the extent of saying that "Soon India's jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims." this can have serious effects on the society, whatever you are airing on the channel or writing on your website , affects ppeople in some or the other way.

A section of the Indian society might go to the extent of thinking that it is only our community that is being targeted by these judges and judiciary, but this is actually not the case, everybody who is guilty should be punished, and that guilty can be a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian. Somewhat media is not playing the role it should play in today's time.

There is no point talking about the news channels like Zee news, Star News or even Aaj Tak for that matter, the level of news has gone so down that its practically like watching a "C" grade Bollywood movie (something like daaku Hasina ;-)). Now considering the type of news we get on channels like CNN-IBN, well I think they started off well but lately they have become the self proclaimed channel for giving verdicts, a news channel should only report news and not give its own opinion, or even if they are giving their own opinion, why are the opinions biased in case of the political party sitting in the center. They create a news and then they end up spending hours discussing about that news in the name of "Janta's Polls"

Its high time that these channels analyze themselves instead of airing advertisements like "awarded the best news channel of 2006" by the way who gives these awards, some organization like Filmfare, where Dharmendra never got a best actor award???

Angoor Khatte Hain.......

The Definition given by Wikipedia : Sour grapes is the false denial of desire for something sought but not acquired; to denigrate and feign disdain for that which one could not attain.The phrase is sometimes also used to refer to one expressing, in an unsportsmanlike or ungracious way, anger or frustration at having failed to acquire something.

Well now coming to the incident, Nitin and me thought that we would go for a long run on Sunday, and then we were not able to wake up early in the morning , so we thought that we would probably go at around 12:00 noon for a run! Rathi also joined us, we decided to go towards the outer ring road. Well we were not just running not even looking at the people passing by or the traffic but then too people kept saying "paagal hain" I recalled the phrase angoor khatte hain, this specially works with distance running, maybe a lot of people want to do it... secretly but then their reactions to your passion for running would be something like these:

1) Paagal hain
2) I dont think that I need to run (Well I never said that you need to run.....)
3) yaar itna patla hokar bhi kya karega (I don't know why people always relate running to losing weight)
4) yaar itna khaali time aa gaya hai kya? (well there is no free time, but if you want to do something you need to find time for it)

So you see in all these cases Angoor Khatte hain phenomenon is applicable! ;-)

Mota's Birthday!

Yesterday was Mota's birthday party, so we were all sent a mail stating that the venue of the party would be Thew Village Restaurant in Indiranagar. I went to Mota's office from MG Road and then we decided that we would go to Trupti (our house in Bangalore) and then we would head for the restaurant. No we were not tired , we just recalled that the cake from last night must be still in the refrigerator, so we thought of finishing that first before anybody else does. The traffic was bad, it took us almost an hour to reach home, but we were determined to eat the cake and so we did that as soon as we reached home!!

Soon after the cake was over Pawan Goel (of the Joel Gang!!) dropped in, with his naya hawai jahaj (thats his new SX-4), and soon we were heading for the Venue, in our way we were supposed to pick up Rathi near the Domlur Flyover. The time we spent in The Village was too good, soon me Rathi and Moti decided that its better if we just drom the main course and head staright for the deserts and at the end of it we ended up eating deserts as our Main course. Well just take an account, I can remember how mainy we ordered but

5 plates of Ras Malai
4 Gulab Jamoon
and I think it was 6-7 Kulfis!!!

Between the three of us, it was time to go back now!! oh I forgot the gifts Mota got!! two bouquets and one balloon!!!

When we reached home , we were so exhausted that sleeping was the best option we could think of... Mota went for net surfing as usual and me and Rathi went to sleep!!

So this was Mota's 28th Birthday!!