This is most shameful act Pakis have done this time, and by looking at the videos & articles like this , it is clear that most of Pakistani players have been doing this for years without being caught, and now they’ve become so confident of not being caught that, they and their bookie kind of let their guard down.

Also, it is equally disgusting to read guys like Lawson showing sympathy towards them, isn’t it ridiculous?
And at other hand guys like Ponting and Shane Watson are talking trash by saying it as a ‘sub-continent’ culture thing. They should first look at themselves before passing such stupid blanket statements, they should ask Mark Waugh, Shane Warne first if it is cultural thing or not.

How can PCB tolerate guys like Asif who has a long list of misdoings, from failing drug test in IPL to detention in Dubai with drugs, then dressing –room fight with Akhtar and now after making a comeback, this guy is involved in match/spot-fixing?

In my opinion even lifetime ban is not enough for guys like Asif / Ameer, they should not be even allowed go near a playing field.

I’m angry because nothing will come out of this, Pakistan Cricket Board, will first – deny all allegations, then will form an inquiry committee, and then after impose bans and then will revoke the bans in lieu of some monetary fines.

Damn ‘monetary’ fines?? So that completes the circle, first make money through ‘fixings’ and if caught then pay some small percentage to board and play again to make some more money.

How can they forget a guy named Bob Woolmer lost his life because of this murky side of Pakistan Cricket, how can they still continue to the same again and again?

Music - aaj kal

Music, it’s been ages since I wrote something on one my favorite thing to do, i.e. listening music.

Prime reason being, it’s also been a long time since I heard something pure class, something which touches you and makes room for itself in your heart, in your mind.

That rare magic of combination of nice tune, touching lyrics and soul-stirring voice is not happening these days.

If you look around, these days there is an increasing trend of music directors singing some of their own songs, I don’t know if this is a good thing or not but know for sure that this trend is somewhere limiting the boundaries of creativity of the composers.

Great Rahman has been a frontrunner in this trend, right from Bombay/Rangeela to Ravaan, he has sung to his own compositions. And regardless of some small pronunciation ‘issues’ one can still feel that no one could have done a better job for those songs than Rahman himself, primarily because of super complex composition.
But it was good till only Rahman was doing these experiments, or when only very few music directors were doing it, and that too once in a while, one song here and there.

But now almost all music directors are doing it, and doing it to the point of singing almost ALL songs of the album.

Worst culprit are Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani, they both just love their voices, and always find a way to sing maximum songs of an album.’

They were good in the beginning when then composed like “Jhankar beats’ and all but now its going crazy, they’ve supremely limited their composing capabilities by binding them within the boundary of own their singing talent.

And another thing makes them worst culprit are, they’ve also ventured into writing lyrics, that too in wholesale manner.
Now imagine how many limitations they are putting on themselves, like first write the lyrics, then compose them and them sing them, and end result either can turn out to be really really good like ‘Ankhon mein teri ajab si…” of Om Shanti Om or total disasters like songs of ‘Aladin’.

This trend is seriously disturbing, it’s like they are composing tunes which only suits their singing styles.

Examples are endless, Shanker-Ehsaan-Loy for instance, now they sound almost SAME in all albums, one slow-number, one-party ‘It’s the time to Disco’ types, and ALL of them sung by Shanker. It’s damn repetitive.

Then there are Salim-Sulieman, again supremely talented guys, I really loved their Dor, Chak-De-India, Fashion, and Rocket Singh scores. But again now they try to-fit in Salim or Sulieman style of singing and too much of Arabic beats in almost all songs.

Sajid-Wajid are the ones I hate most for a single crime of killing Gulzar Sahah’s beautiful lyrics in movie Veer, they stuck to their ‘woh-kehndi-po-po’ mode to even delicate-st lines in Veer. Disgusting.

And then there is a classic case of Mr.Himesh Reshmiyya, only his name is enough.


Though still all hopes are not lost yet, we’ve ever delectable music of Vishal Bharadwaj, and flavor of these days ‘Amit Trivedi’ who are continuing to give fantastic music, the kind which sucks one into it and makes one forget all worries for sometime.
At least that’s what good music does to me, I get so charged up, so happy, to the extent of looking like a loony.

And then there is bunch of unsung/low-profile composers/ lyrists’ like Swanand Kirkire, Shantanu Moitra, MM Kreem, Shandesh Shandilya , Amitabh Bhattacharya , Nilesh Mishra who keep on creating little gems and spreading happiness.

And yes, how can I forget to mention this, has it become mandatory to have atleast one Rahat Fateh Ali song in every movie?

Don’t know why I started writing this, and may be started as a rant against Vishal-Shekhar, but kept on spilling my views about others as well.

I know, you must be thinking what’s the purpose of this, even I don’t know, all I know is that this kind of incoherent posts happen when you write it over a span of 5-7 days.

Rule# 7

Usually there are 2 theories about getting a hair cut –

1) Always invest in a good hair cut; after all you wear it daily.

Then there is a counter-theory

2) Never invest more than reasonable amount on a hair cut, after all hair always grows back.

I’ll leave that to you to pick anyone, but I can assure you about one thing, that’s rule# 7 –

Remember, your every alternate hair cut is going to be screwed, so just make peace with this fact.

Vivaan

Here comes Vivaan's latest pics.
Last Sunday morning, place - home.

That's our morning ritual, I tickle him on his ear and he pulls my hair & scratches my face in return.

Mumma's boy...only in the picture :-)

Rule# 6

6) Always take back ups, and most importantly learn to restore the back ups

Rule# 5

5) Change your fragrances (colognes/aftershave etc) whenever you move-in or out of a relationship.

Rule# 4

4) No matter what, never ever use word 'cute'.

Rule# 3

3) Marry a girl who can cook good pasta.

Another thing totally unrelated to rules; just FYI now all my t-shirts bear stain marks of milk you spit when you burp on my shoulder. All black ones are the worst effected.

These days one simply can’t ignore Jerry Brown – Meg Whitman discussions.
And I’m no exception, though I’m not much interested in politics of the world be it India or US but like everyone, I too have my own strong biases, likes and dislikes for different parties and people.

So these days, almost everyone is talking about upcoming California Governor Elections, and since I’m a tax payer here for almost 5 yrs now, so I simply can’t ignore following their campaigns and all.
Earlier I used to favor Whitman, mainly coz of her huge contribution in the growth of eBay, (for records, way back in 1999, I was part of team which started eBay in India, it was called baazi.com then, and later on merged with eBay, and moved it’s operations to Mumbai). Anyway, I really admire the way she utilized all the resources and made eBay what it is today.

But these days, I’m getting my doubts about her, about the way she is spending her money in her race for the post of Governor. So far she has spent 90+ million USD in her political campaign. Agreed she is spending her own hard-earned money, but still 90+ million is a HUGE amount, and this kind of splurging starts to look obscene in context of California State which is already under some 20-30 billions deficit.

So giving reins of already an economically sick state to someone like her doesn’t sound good to me.

Also Jerry Brown is also not a saint himself, so no matter who wins but state of California is going to lose for sure.

**

Lot of cricket is going on these days, but it is not invoking the kind of interest in me as it used to do in past. Of course Sachin and Sangakara are playing magnificent cricket, and Ed Morgan, Stephen Smith, Umar Akmal are emerging to be future stars, but still something is lacking which I don’t know.

I think I’ll also retire from watching cricket the day Sachin hangs his boots.
Ideally he should retire only after scoring 50 hundreds in both forms but sometimes I get a feeling that he’ll retire from all forms of cricket after 2011 World Cup, which is just 6-7 months. And I dread that day, that’s going to be a very sad day for me and for millions like me.

**
Alright, I’ll stop now with the lines which are playing in a loop in my head may be after writing them here they’ll stop.

‘har ek haseen cheez ko choone ki umang hai….
Main aag kehta hoon, kahe sheyhad ha rang hai….

Rule# 2

2) Once in a while pay for the car behind you in a drive through joint. It's fun surprising strangers :-)