Why to be a Pune Warriors Supporter in this IPL

IPL Season 6 has accomplished the difficult task of becoming an even more irritating television spectacle than the previous versions with the "Nayi Soch Award" , Farah Khan's extremely moronic dance Step along with Mr Danny Morrison and Navjot Singh Sidhu carrying on with their insightful commentary.However, Pune Warriors have been a serious disappointment for the 3rd year running. Here is my $0.02 on why one should still support them, come what may:

1. When you look at Ashok Dinda, with the headband and ridiculous delivery leap and all, you realize that no matter if a billion people think that you are completely useless, there is always that special someone who will still value you at INR 2 crore. At your lowest ebb, you will take heart from the fact and believe that "Life is all about finding that special someone".

2. Such things help you empathize and learn from the Zimbabwean and Bangladeshi Cricket fans who have been going through the same feelings for the past 20 years. If nothing else, supporting Pune will make you a better person. It may also prepare you for the times when our own cricket team goes abroad to get blanked out by South Africa, England etc.

3. You can always put up funny status messages about any Pune player and even Pune fans are bound to like them because most of them would be on Facebook rather than bear the pain of watching the match.

4. A loser team always helps you appreciate the performance of the winning team better. In the end after all, "Cricket is the Winner". You can follow average cricketers like Saurabh Tiwary, Ashok Menaria, Mayank Agarwal, Mithun Manhas etc and when even they start looking good just because they are playing against Pune, you will be rest assured that the future of Indian cricket is in good hands.

5. They beat the team to beat this year. CSK. Yeah, for some reason I hate them. We are kings, Whistle Podu, Yenna Rascala. Fans bloody behave as if Dhoni eats rasam at their house every night for dinner. And Pune did beat them. If not anyone else.

6. They are the only team who totally believes in the philosophy of their owners- The Sahara Group, which is to Take the money home and not bother about performance,giving returns to your investors and such crap. Such devotion and dedication to your owners deserves immense appreciation.

7. The matches get so unbearable that you begin to look for inspiration elsewhere. You read the IF poem by Rudyard Kipling, the poem about the Spartans and the 600 vaali army from Blind Side.You read about Oskar Schindler, Irom Sharmila etc.What did the others get-Their team won and they finished their pizza and slept. You, on the other hand were inspired and more prepared for the bigger things in life.

8. After two years, all people will remember is the winner of the IPL ,that is CSK. No one cares about who came second or 5th etc. So, for the other 8 teams, this IPL will be as meaningless as the Pune Warriors.We fans will not have to needlessly suffer the agony of losing out on a playoff berth due to an umpiring error or losing a close final. We can enjoy the dancing cheerleaders (of the other team), Page 3 celebs, Karishma Kotak. Preity Zinta and all that is to like about the IPL.

9. This one is for the girls. They may not be setting the house on fire with their performance but they have more than a few good looking guys in their ranks e.g Steve Smith, Aaron Finch, Mitchell Marsh, Luke Wright etc. The girls who do not understand cricket but are made to bear it because of their over enthusiastic boyfriends, you have some serious eye candy.

10. Most importantly, Pune fans can get on with their lives, pursue their hobbies and interests which are not even remotely related to cricket. They can stop being a part of the crass IPL bandwagon and do meaningful things in their life. So in case you have a girlfriend, it is time to concentrate on her because immediately after the IPL , there is the Champions Trophy and then there is the South Africa tour, New Zealand tour etc. Now is the time. Who knows when Sachin might retire and you may go in to depression for a year or two.

11. Everyone supports Manchester United. You can be the cool one by supporting say Hull City or Wigan. Life's monotony sometimes is irritating. One could do with a few pleasant and unexpected surprises such as a Pune Warriors victory. For an MI or CSK fan, roz ki baat hai. It's only us who will know the true intrinsic value of something, and that will help us in our investment banking careers.

12. Risk free strategy. If tomorrow, the tin roof falls over the IPL and all cricket boards say that we want to recall our foreign players, other teams will run for their asses and be screwed left and right. But with the quality of international players that Pune has, No board wants them to play for their country. What hindsight, dude.

13. Corporate Social Responsibility and Philanthropy is what every company wants to focus on, but that is being practiced only by the Sahara Group, who have purchased poor SL players like Angelo Matthews and Ajantha Mendis because their board is not paying them, Aaron Finch, Mitchell Marsh and Steve Smith because their board is not picking them and of course awesomely talented Indian players like Udit Birla, Dheeraj Jadhav, Krishnakant Upadhyay etc. Itne daanveer owner hai koi aur, Batao.

Pune Warriors could be very well on the path to creating history, albeit of a different kind. We as Pune fans must be proud about what we are going to endure for the next few years. It will help us become mentally stronger and survive the cut throat corporate competition that we will soon be exposed to.

ODI Cricket Bids Adieu

Following the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, Cricket has also decided to end its foray in the limited over format with immediate effect. “I have decided to retire from the One Day format because now it serves no real purpose, given that Tendulkar will not be playing. However, I will continue playing Test Cricket to prepare for the all-important IPL”-It said in a statement read out by BCCI Vice President Rajiv Shukla, who also added that the decision was made under no pressure whatsoever.

“I began my journey in the 1970’s, the same era when HE was born. Back then, people like Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Geoffrey Boycott used to bore crowds and put people to sleep by playing over after over and I wondered what my purpose was. It was only when he started playing that I discovered myself. And Yayyy, I even got people playing me in coloured uniforms, even though I never liked the Australian Yellow or the ridiculously red West Indian uniform. But to heck with all of that, I was the in thing and life was exciting, thanks to HIM and his exploits on the field. As against paan chewing office babus and enthusiastic young boys, even girls now came in throngs to watch me. How I blushed when they said they were “Cricket” lovers. Sigh, those were the days.

Like millions in his country, HE filled me with great joy when he went berserk against the yellow yellow dirty fellow Australians in Sharjah. HE also chose to save his best for me and my premier tournament-The World Cup, with all those centuries and memorable innings. But somehow, I kept eluding him. I will never forget the pride and gratefulness I felt when everyone dedicated India’s victory in my 2011 World Cup to HIM. Whom will India now dedicate its rare victories to, now that he is gone. Whom will they play world cups for. Virat Kohli, Who always keeps on abusing me, despite the fame I have given him or M.S Dhoni, who is too fixated with pitches and curators to think about improving his skills to play me better. Since yesterday, I am having bad dreams where Ravindra Jadeja and Piyush Chawla’s performances are being applauded and cheered. Moreover I also heard that Raju from Faridabad, Pappu from Bhopal and even Rosy from Mumbai will never watch me again. I will be played in empty stadiums and they will have to show players scratching their crotches as there will be no advertisements. Only DD-1 will telecast my matches because no one watches it anyways. No, I would rather face an honourable death of my own choosing than be insulted like that.

I would like to give my best to my older cousin, Test Cricket and my foster brother, the IPL who are yet lucky to be graced by his presence while I rot alone. Shahid Afridi has suggested that the first retirement is no fun and that I should take at least 17 retirements before ending my career. But no yaar, I shall come back only when God’s own son, Arjun Tendulkar decides to choose me as a career.

Thank you for all the good times, GOD

Sincerely, ODI Cricket.

The CineMagic of Barfi

It has been a good three days since I watched the movie. However these lines spoken by Ileana's character Shruti still ring in my years and that for me is the essence of the movie. That true love is that which is unplanned, out beyond the ideas of right and wrong doing, just a pure impulse of the heart, not at all premeditated or blemished by worldliness.

Barfi is sweetness, Barfi is cuteness, It is Chaplinesque innocence. It is silent yet colourful, It is so full of love, yet so tragic and heartbreaking. It is refreshingly funny, not at all sappy yet sentimental. Throughout the two and a half hours, you experience emotions ranging from pure delight to utter dismay to my favourite "Awwwww and Hawwww" moments, but not even for a fleeting moment does that smile leave your face ever since effervescent Ranbir Kapoor appears on the screen and engages the Police in a goose chase across the bylanes of Calcutta, recreated to timeless perfection. Even if you are the most cynical prick in the whole wide world, the movie does a commendable job of giving you hope and positivity!!!

The one thing that stands out for me about the movie is the very niche and never overtly sentimental treatment of Ranbir's disability which is clear from the funny yet tragic opening song whose lyrics go something like this "Radio on Hua, Amma off hui,Munna Mute hi Aansu Bahaaye".The initial portions—in which we see young love bloom between Shruti and Barfi—do try to steer clear of mawkishness and sympathy, managing to make us believe in an initially reluctant Shruti becoming gradually smitten by Barfi’s wordless charm and ability to make everyone smile.

However, Shruti goes ahead with the pragmatic and safe choice by marrying a suitable boy, although she is never able to forget Barfi for the next 6 years, and even beyond. The scene where Barfi realizes in the midst of throbbing rain, that he is not good enough to be with the girl he loves, there was not a dry eye in the theater.

When Priyanka Chopra's adorable autistic character, Jhilmil enters the movie,it picks up its pace and gets more interesting. In order to get his father's ailing kidney operated, Barfi attempts to rob a bank and fails at it with a hilarity beyond bounds. When he decides he will kidnap Jhilmil, the movie transgresses into a different plane altogether. Priyanka Chopra plays the autistic kid with such alacrity that it is achingly beautiful to look at her face, so often placed in Close Up. The relationship between her and Ranbir develops slowly where Ranbir evolves from a protective simpleton to a crazy die hard romantic who would tirelessly throw a shoe high up in the air, again and again, because he knows that she will see it, and he will go back to her. And yes, He does.

The model of true love in Barfi is actually the relationship between Barfi and the autistic Jhilmil. To the non-disabled, ‘normal’ Shruti, now the outsider in their wordless world, it is the only love that lives up to her childish vision of her grandparents, who lived together for ever and then died a day apart. But childish is the operative word here. The relationship between Barfi and Jhilmil may well be unplanned, spontaneous and untainted. But it is also uninhibited by the invariable crisscrossing of mutual expectations, or the occasional messiness of egos, or the essential frisson of desire. It is devoid, by its very nature, of any of the elements of real-life love as most people experience it. I ask myself, Is it actually pure love or pure fantasy??

The movie is a treasure trove of magic moments, right from Barfi offering his invisible heart to Shruti to that fleeting kiss between the two. The sequences where he tries to handle his heartbreak and also cope with his father’s illness, all so silently still give me goose-bumps. Barfi and Jhilmil’s intertwined little fingers as they sleep, gawky and open mouthed, when she chases him shouting his name and he can’t hear her, and then when the play around near that mound with the flashing mirrors and then fans him like a dutiful wife as he eats, or tries to copy the elegant Shruti by wearing a Saree, it leaves you with a taste that just melts in your mouth.

Pritam gives you some really soul searching music and a very subtle background score, which further places the film in an alternate universe. Silences seldom spoke so eloquently. It's been a while since we saw a film that set style at a subsidiary state to substance , put the characters' inner life ahead of the flamboyant manifestations of self-identity in a world governed sometimes by fake charm. 

It makes you wish that there was someone sitting beside you, to share and fight for that popcorn and laugh whole heartedly with you during those awesome comic sequences. You wish you could intertwine your little finger and hold each other’s hand like Jhilmil and Barfi and keep sitting like that forever. And Smile. Or better still, just keep looking at her smile. When you get lost a few times, you wish there was someone to bring you back from the trance that the movie creates. And then you get lost in something else altogether and move from one beautiful trance to another. And smile.
Finally, this is for you. When Shruti says that Barfi taught him that“Life mein sabse bada risk hota hai kabhi koi risk na lena”,It gave a very clear message. So let’s just risk it J J

The movie is beautiful,funny and heartbreaking.Go watch