Twenty Ten

Finally 2009 is over. I am not late or just woken up. Didn’t get time to publish it. It is always an exciting time of the year around Christmas. Everybody is looking at the year gone-by, the parties, the fun, the colours and the frolic. Though I miss the wintry chill of North, where I have spent 24 years of my life, wrapping yourself under layers of clothes, moving around with a blanket, holding hot cup of chai in hands to warm your body, the real taste of whiskey is felt in cold weather and the bon-fires.

I really don’t know or understood why people celebrate New Year. For the year goneby, the events, the moments, a flashback is so different from the normal routine. 2009 ending was special as we were waving goodbye to a decade. To a tumultuous decade. The decade evoked to the fall of WTC in New York. The ultimate terrorist attack ever accomplished on a superpower. Suddenly the West realized how big the problem is and what poor nations and ill-equipped nation like our’s is undergoing. 9/11. 26/11, 7/11, 11 was symbolized for terror. Bali blasts, Madrid bombings, Tube blasts, Taj coup, so many dead and yet the fight for jihad is on. Osama Bin Laden seems like a case which will always be in progress. Al-Jazeera was one of the most sought after channels in the world. Afghanistan and Iraq fell, Pakistan will fall in the coming decade. Just pray India does not follow them. Coz when your neighbours are shouting, even you find it difficult to sleep. The talk of bombs and bombers was the supreme activity of this decade before Mr. Fuld took over.

The ending of 2009 was definitely an event to be celebrated. 2009 was one of the most painful years in past few decades. The pain inflicted by events of 2008 gave its conclusive results in 2009. 11’s were forgotten. Suddenly the World opened to a new phenomenon which nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams. All the money that the Central Govt’s had printed was eaten away by rats. Americans would have been happy and restored peace by firing missiles on rats. But unfortunately those rats were American, so out of sympathy, they fed those rats with some more green paper and the diseased population spread to the world. It was only for few people like Indians and Chinese, who didn’t entertain those rats or fried those rats on their hotplates, respectively.

The World order changed in this decade. The people from BRICs, BASIC, Chindia, Emerging markets/nations were rubbing shoulders with the first world and would try and look straight in the eye, if not scare them. Hope something better comes out of it in the coming deacde. Otherwise, the process and the idea has changed globally. Orator Obama, sexy Sarkozy, dumb Brown, Madam Chancellor, everybody has changed and with them their outlook towards the world. India found water in space, for which NASA had spent billions of dollars.

This decade was extremely special for India. India was able to display to the World that we are capable and hopefully may come up with bigger surprises in the coming decade. We got one of the most intelligent and honest person in the country as our PM. Every politician falls short on his/her promises, but the good thing to notice is how many promises they were able to keep and what efforts they put in for those promises.

In technology space, laptops became cheaper than a typewriter, kids learn to operate mobile phone before they start speaking. So in the coming decade, you can expect some credit card sized gadget to be better equipped than your laptop, you blink about a message to be sent to your loved one, it will be their on his screen. Don’t look me as I’m fool, such things are happening and will happen, when companies are spending billions on cloud computing, Google is bidding for telecom spectrum to offer free internet services and guys like Pranav Mistry have built a cell phone sized super computer (that’s how I’d say it).

In entertainment world, Playboy is up for sale. I don’t understand why Mr. Mallya didn’t bid for it. Everything came out of closet, when we have reality TV and people like Rakhi Sawant, who can make money and career out of bull shit. In the coming decade, expect the few sheets remaining on the bedside to be dumped. The whole flavor of naturalness will get more evolved. Already international celebs are posing in the name of vegans and greens. India is also in the race with them for everything so leave the glamour potion.

Cheers to 2010…………..!!!!!

Future of IPL

Just a forward - too hilarious

As Napoleon Nayudu prepared to face another ball, several thoughts raced through his mind. After being bought by the Gummidipoondi Gumboils for an astronomical $5 million in the 2015 Indian Premier League (IPL) auction, he knew he had a reputation to keep up. Should he try a straightforward Toyota Front Foot Drive this time, or should he aim for a Bombay Dyeing Cover Drive ? Or perhaps an ITC Square Cut (Statutory warning: Smoking is Injurious to Health) would be a better idea? He realised he needed to hit an IBM boundary soon. Ever since IBM had announced they would pay Rs 1 lakh per boundary and Rs 5 lakh for a six, he had been trying to run less and hit more. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been doing either in this match, because the Begusarai Bandits had some very good bowlers. The next ball, he played a Pepsi Inside Edge onto his Maggi middle stump and trudged wearily off the field to the accompaniment of boos from the Vodafone Zoozoo stand at the Kellogg’s Special K-Cereal stadium in Gummidipoondi.

Relaxing in the Parle Glucose commentary box, Saurav Ganguly ruminated on the momentous changes in the game that had occurred since the IPL came into being. In 2010, he remembered, the game started to really grow, with huge sums of money being paid for the Pune and Kochi teams. Teams soon started springing up like frogs in the monsoon. And when the Gorakhpur Gorillas won the IPL in 2012, every district town in the country wanted its own side.

The IPL season was extended to six months in the year, then to 12 months and soon, once the villages started having their own sides, you had matches on all 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Industrialists sold off their old companies and bought IPL teams. Twenty five of the 30 Sensex stocks were of cricketing companies. Advertisers fought with each other to sponsor matches, stadiums, sixes, fours, shots, balls, wickets and what not. Every patch of the players’ clothing, his arm guard, helmet, and pads was covered in advertisements. Tendulkar Itch Guard Crotch Guards started a new trend in merchandising, selling like hot cakes.

As the money flowed in, players’ salaries zoomed. Everybody wanted to be a cricketer. Engineering and medical colleges were deserted and Indian Institutes of Management converted themselves into institutes of cricketing management. C.K. Prahalad lectured on the pot of gold at the bottom of the leg stump.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Lalit Modi mooted a radical proposal in the Lok Sabha for nationalising the Board of Control for Cricket in India , pointing out that its profits would wipe out the government’s fiscal deficit. Food production had suffered, he said, as villagers refused to till their fields and spent their time playing cricket instead. A law prohibiting the transformation of arable land into cricket pitches was swiftly passed. A resolution to install a statue of Lalit Modi in Parliament was also adopted unanimously.

Back in the commentary box, Ganguly did a rapid mental calculation and told his listeners that Napoleon was now being paid the equivalent of Rs 10 lakh per run. A twinge of regret passed through him — during the IPL season in 2010, he recalled, he had been paid only about Rs 1.8 lakh per run. He needed to make more money, he thought. Maybe he would join Navjot Sidhu in The Great Indian Laughter Challenge and be paid lakhs for laughing. For the rest of the match, he practised laughing hysterically at each ball.

F1 - do watch - IPL

“Manoranjan Ka Baap” is back in town! The carnival of cricket begins today. So get ready to drench in streams of fours and sixes for next 44 days. Such grand openings are generally observed for World Cup’s (any sport) but not on annual events. Akon, UB 40, Lionel Richie, Deepika Padukone will be performing for the event. No event ever (be it any other sport, politics, green earth, rape, murder, Bollywood, even other forms of cricket – ODI, Test Cricket) in India has been showered with such publicity or broadcasted across such wide range of medium.

Everybody knows that cricket’s most popular event is as much about entertainment and marketing as the sport itself, if not more. The eight IPL team captains will take an oath to respect their opponents, their teams and their umpires and sign a globe made of recyclable material to demonstrate their commitment to reduce the tournament's carbon footprint as a part of IPL’s association with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). UN will also cover IPL. And there will be brands, more than a hundred, fighting for consumer’s attention through different media, from television to the Internet to even live streaming in multiplexes.

Official IPL broadcaster SET Max is expected to take away more than 30% of the total TV ad spends in March and April when advertisers are estimated to spend around Rs 1,600 crore. SET Max will be laughing its way to the bank with all their costs and expenditure for the entire year will be recovered in 44 days, beginning March 12^th till April 25^th 2010.

“The kind of innovation in branding and sponsorship deals that have taken place this season has almost doubled the brand equity of IPL,” says Indranil Das Blah, former vice-president, Globosport India. The Google deal for live streaming of matches on YouTube, Indiagames as IPL gaming partner, Karbonn Mobiles' association as official mobile phone & title sponsor for parties post matches, ‘IPL Nights’ on MTV, special IPL shows on Colors and merchandising deal with Swiss watchmaker Bandelier are a few examples of the new branding initiatives.

In addition all the franchises are jumping in with their merchandise, t-shirts, caps, bandanas, head bands, bracelets, cricket merchandise, logos, broaches, chains, lockets and what not. The clubs are being built and soon there will be restaurant’s and pubs from franchise owners. In Europe, the organizers ran the promotional campaign. Don’t buy things manufactured during the season. They are all faulty as everybody is busy watching football. The same level of phenomena, will perhaps be witnessed. Bollywood celebrities are generally without work in IPL season and will be seen waving flags for different franchises. There are hardly any movie releases during the season. I guess, there’ll be more Bollywood celebrities than players on the venue. This time, even multiplexes will be showcasing matches, who would presume a movie.

Yes, it’s a bonanza for cricket lovers. Vijay Mallya is the happiest, the consumption of beer shoots during the IPL season. All said and done, I’d say skip the IPL match on Sunday and do watch the Bahrain GP, one of the challenging races in F1 circuit since past 15 years. Perhaps till next year or may be a year after that, F1 remains one of the costliest sports on this planet.

There have been rare or none occasions in the past when there were four teams neck to neck fighting for the title. With each posing the equal risk to the other. Closing 90’s and opening 2000’s, all the walls were painted with red colour by one name, “Michael Schumacher”. Even if somebody did succeed in posing some challenge to Schumi (as Michael is dotingly referred to), there would be a race between two.

Now after renouncing his world, Michael Schumacher is back after three year long hiatus on racing circuit under Mercedes with silver dress shedding his trademark red colour of Ferrari. Ferrari is pitching Massa and Alonso (thought to be best F1 driver these days), who had posed some serious challenge to Schumacher in his recent races. Hamilton is the man to watch from McLaren and the dashing duo of Red Bulls will be vouching for the title.

To add to the excitement, the change in rules forbid the fuel refilling for pole position holders. To add to the persistence, patience, technique, knowledge, understanding, cool head, the restraint of resources has been brought in this race. The diversity of their experience, of their age groups adds to the adrenaline rush. Alonso and Hamilton have worked as teamed together in their earlier races. But now the roles, the sides, the conditions have changed. Lets see who holds the forte on 14^th of March 2010. Do hold your seatbelts and drop your bats?

Twenty Ten

Finally 2009 is over. I am not late or just woken up. Didn’t get time to publish it. It is always an exciting time of the year around Christmas. Everybody is looking at the year gone-by, the parties, the fun, the colours and the frolic. Though I miss the wintry chill of North, where I have spent 24 years of my life, wrapping yourself under layers of clothes, moving around with a blanket, holding hot cup of chai in hands to warm your body, the real taste of whiskey is felt in cold weather and the bon-fires.

I really don’t know or understood why people celebrate New Year. For the year goneby, the events, the moments, a flashback is so different from the normal routine. 2009 ending was special as we were waving goodbye to a decade. To a tumultuous decade. The decade evoAked to the fall of WTC in New York. The ultimate terrorist attack ever accomplished on a superpower. Suddenly the West realized how big the problem is and what poor nations and ill-equipped nation like our’s is undergoing. 9/11. 26/11, 7/11, 11 was symbolized for terror. Bali blasts, Madrid bombings, Tube blasts, Taj coup, so many dead and yet the fight for jihad is on. Osama Bin Laden seems like a case which will always be in progress. Al-Jazeera was one of the most sought after channels in the world. Afghanistan and Iraq fell, Pakistan will fall in the coming decade. Just pray India does not follow them. Coz when your neighbours are shouting, even you find it difficult to sleep. The talk of bombs and bombers was the supreme activity of this decade before Mr. Fuld took over.

The ending of 2009 was definitely an event to be celebrated. 2009 was one of the most painful years in past few decades. The pain inflicted by events of 2008 gave its conclusive results in 2009. 11’s were forgotten. Suddenly the World opened to a new phenomenon which nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams. All the money that the Central Govt’s had printed was eaten away by rats. Americans would have been happy and restored peace by firing missiles on rats. But unfortunately those rats were American, so out of sympathy, they fed those rats with some more green paper and the diseased population spread to the world. It was only for few people like Indians and Chinese, who didn’t entertain those rats or fried those rats on their hotplates, respectively.

The World order changed in this decade. The people from BRICs, BASIC, Chindia, Emerging markets/nations were rubbing shoulders with the first world and would try and look straight in the eye, if not scare them. Hope something better comes out of it in the coming deacde. Otherwise, the process and the idea has changed globally. Orator Obama, sexy Sarkozy, dumb Brown, Madam Chancellor, everybody has changed and with them their outlook towards the world. India found water in space, for which NASA had spent billions of dollars.

This decade was extremely special for India. India was able to display to the World that we are capable and hopefully may come up with bigger surprises in the coming decade. We got one of the most intelligent and honest person in the country as our PM. Every politician falls short on his/her promises, but the good thing to notice is how many promises they were able to keep and what efforts they put in for those promises.

In technology space, laptops became cheaper than a typewriter, kids learn to operate mobile phone before they start speaking. So in the coming decade, you can expect some credit card sized gadget to be better equipped than your laptop, you blink about a message to be sent to your loved one, it will be their on his screen. Don’t look me as I’m fool, such things are happening and will happen, when companies are spending billions on cloud computing, Google is bidding for telecom spectrum to offer free internet services and guys like Pranav Mistry have built a cell phone sized super computer (that’s how I’d say it).

In entertainmwnt world, Playboy is up for sale. I don’t understand why Mr. Mallya didn’t bid for it. Everything came out of closet, when we have reality TV and people like Rakhi Sawant, who can make money and career out of bull shit. In the coming decade, expect the few sheets remaining on the bedside to be dumped. The whole flavor of naturalness will get more evolved. Already international celebs are posing in the name of vegans and greens. India is also in the race with them for everything so leave the glamour potion.

Cheers to 2010…………..!!!!!