My Fav Western songs Part I

1)Brothers in arms- Dire Straits

Album- Brothers in Arms

Time play: 06:56

I had only heard the song but it did not make much of an impact till, I saw the video and everything fell in place. This song has very effective lyrics with an outstanding rendition by Mark Knofler. The best part of the song is the idea of conveying the message of a soldier during a war. The scene is so well set in the mind through not just the lyrics but also with the tone and the instrumentation. Every stanza has a powerful line and a statement to make. The last two stanza’s are just the best set of poetry I have come across.

“There's so many different worlds

So many different suns

And we have just one world

But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell

And the moon's riding high

Let me bid you farewell

Every man has to die

But it's written in the starlight

And every line on your palm

We're fools to make war

On our brothers in arms”

The last 4 lines are just the most nicely worded ‘in your face lines’ against war. The following Solo is a very typical of the era. But I feel it is more to do with the sufferings and the lasting effects of a war how they go on even after the war.

2) The End- The Doors

Album- The Doors

Time play: 11:43

I first heard this song while watching the movie ‘Apocalypse Now’. This song comes as an introduction to the movie basically setting the tone for a very engrossing movie. Was part of the first ‘The doors’ album and while Light my Fire was the more popular one, this song really shows the greatness of Morisson. Personally the songs first stanza

“This is the end, Beautiful friend

This is the end, My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes...again”

I am not too sure whether it is for a girl or just a friend, but these are the most powerful lyrics to start a song with. Morrison has that anger in his voice add to it the background strumming that flows into the drums. The song in my first few listening seemed to lack much structure but as I started to hear it more I could see it having a gradual build to a crescendo and then reach a climax which has sexual connotations as well. There seem to be three crescendos in the song with all having similar beat patterns. The singer in this song seems to portray the persons troubled mind and how it starts to grow violent but keeping the 3 developing crescendos short he also makes the listener understand the dilemma in the persons mind.

3) Bridge over troubled water- Simon and Garfunkel

Album- Bridge over troubled water

Time play: 4:55

This song is just majestic. It follows a typical old school music a slow build to a crescendo and then the climax filled with base drums and piano and most importantly the vocals. This song is surely a test for any singer. Garfunkel shows all his variation through the 3 verses of the song. Starting from the very lowest note with a nice piano being played behind and as he is consoling the listener who is feeling left out and alone he maintains the understanding tone and then when he says ‘like a bridge over troubled water’, he sounds so comforting. By the time he reaches the 3^rd verse where is asking the lost listener to take a stand he raises his voice not in frustration but to get the adrenalin rushing through the listener. The 3^rd verse is interesting with Paul Simon joining in and the backing drums adding to the climax almost making you feel like a bridge is soldiering over rough and troubled water. Just the picture that is generated in one’s mind with not just the lyrics but primarily by the vocal strength of the singer is what makes this song one of the best composition.

My fav Indian Cricket team Part I

I love cricket and I love the Indian Cricket team. I love every Indian cricket team even if does not have my favorite players. I loved the Indian team during the 2003 season. Maybe it would have been nice to have Anil Kumble in place of the 7th batsman Ganguly persisted with. As a wicket- keeper if we had M.S. Dhoni it would have been perfect. My favorite Test Indian team consisting of players I have seen play would be

1) V. Sehwag

2) G.Gambhir

3) R.Dravid

4)S.Tendulkar

5)M.Azhauddin

6)V.V.S. Laxman

7)M.S.Dhoni

8)J.Srinath

9)H.Singh

10)Z.Khan

11)A.Kumble

12)S.Ganguly

13)V.Prasad

That would be my choice of players whom I have seen from 1996 world-cup. Now I know I would feel miserable to have Ganguly be a substitute but then how does one drop the rest.

V.Sehwag- His coming to the opening position was Ganguly's greatest contribution to Indian cricket. Sehwag's greatness has not just been in the fact that he would give the team a good start and a blazing start but also you could bank on him irrespective of the track. He has played well at Melbourne, Chennai,Gall, Bloemfentain, Trent-Bridge,Multan. His greatest innings in Tests would surely be the Chennai test against England in 2008 where he scored a quick-fire 82 to help India chase an improbable 387 on the last day. Not too far would be the 293 he scored against Sri-Lanka at Mumbai in 2009. That was an innings of pure class and power and confidence. He hit Muralitharan with so much ease that Muralitharan was made to look average. Amazingly when after the 2007 world-cup when he was dropped he hadn't performed really badly. Yet on India's tour to Australia in 2007 he was selected with not many strong performances and what a difference did he make to the team his 151 in the final test was as much a master class as any. His greatness lies in the fact that in the entire history of Test Cricket there has'nt been any opening batsman as consistent and destructive, well atleast not in Indian Cricket. He also made the common belief that technique was the only thing an opening batsman needed, not that he lacks it as shown amazingly in the 201 against Sri Lanka, but really what is needed in the confidence to play.

G.Gambhir- He is still a rising star. Unlike the other Indian Greats in the team he still has a lot to prove. But really since his coming India at least now has a fixed opening pair. There have been so many before him and Sehwag...Sidhu and Prabhakar, Sidhu and Laxman, Sehwag and Akash Chopra, Sehwag and Bangar, Jaffar and Karthick, Jaffar and S.S.Das, S.S. Das and S.Ramesh and the list is long with a few combinations interchanging. What Gambhir has got is that he is a perfect foil to Shewag's attack. He has a lot more technique and a lot of patience as shown during his match saving innings of 137 at Napier. It took him a long time to settle into his groove. His temprament was his problem initially where his hotheadedness would let him down. I think the 2007 20-20 world cup was the turning point for him and then his performance against Australia an innings of 206 took him into the league. But till date his best innings in tests has been the innings at Napier. India were following on and he came out and batted for 5 sessions to save India the test and then his 167 at Wellington helped India win the series.

Rahul Dravid- To me Rahul Dravid is God. He was never as talented as Sachin but he made a league for himself. His test debut was one of his very good innings but was made sour when he edged Chris Lewis for 95. But that was a good trailer to what was to be a great career. He then in the year 1997 came up with a lot of scores in the 80's and the 90's. He was called a chocker near 100. Then he broke his 100 draught with a wonderful 148 against S. Africa. An innings I rememver at the end of which I think it was Hansie Cronje came and patted at his back. Dravid was one of the best pullers in the Indian team but his best shot was that lean to a cover drive where he has a long stride meeting the ball at the center of the bat. The most stylish shot of his is the cut. The bat coming so perfectly and the body weight transferred front and then back on one leg all most like a warrior cutting the enemy down. Later on he also developed a beautiful late cut. A shot perfectly employed against Muriltharan. His career started to peak with the innings of 180 against Australia at Kolkata. Till then he was struggling to play Warne on the leg side. The drive between mid-wicket and mid-on was where Warne was testing him the test at Mumbai. But here he started to play Warne amazingly by coming down and place the ball between mid-wicket and mid-on with confidence. This innings was full of grit and determination with almost the whole country sweating along with him. He proved his class with the fact that even though he was demoted to number 6 losing his number 3 position to Laxman, by just letting his bat do the talking.Then came the his best phase 3 centuries in England starting at Trent-Bridge where the early morning movement was perfectly negated by the master. He left the balls outside the off-stump cut,drove,punched and pulled the ball with class. He then played a master class innings at the Adelaide Ovel. An innings of 233 which was importent in setting up the match but his innings of 72 not-out was the more important innings which helped India win the test. This was Indian Crickets Golden age. Australia had scored 500 plus runs but the team believed that it could run them close and on taking the lead they even believed they could win and that was what Dravid got to the Indian team along with Ganguly, Sachin and Laxman. But to me Dravid best innings was at Sabina Park,West Indies. Only he was the batsman who seemed a class apart. In both the innings he scored half centuries but each of them were almost like double hundreds on a track that was uneven and very difficult to play on. His innings of 68 in the second innings was the most out-standing one played by any. These two innings helped India beat West-Indies on their home turf after 35 years. He played a captains knock to perfection. He then lead India to a win over the English, their first series win after 1986. Dravid also played a very important role at Kolkata again where he scored centuries in both the innings to help India over come a sticky Pakistani team. To me he is the greatest player of all time and what makes him even greater is his humility and passion. Even today when he comes out to bat no matter how slow he plays his every ball played is a lesson. People say he bats slow but his batting is what encircles the greatness of test cricket. A test of not just skill and ability but also a test of character and responsibility. After a long time could India find someone who could share the burden of the Indian public long with the great Sachin Tendulkar.

Undefined relationship Part-II

ADVANTAGE, NOT YOU!

Here is a very difficult point to make. So in an undefined relationship mostly the guy has a stronger hold most times but at the crucial moments no matter how well placed you are in the situation you will not have it. That is the art that makes the undefined relationship a success. Although i still place it second in the list. So it is a simple game plan. You know there is a saying in cricket that if you cannot get the batsman out, start feeding him balls in the zone he loves and then suddenly in his rush he makes a mistake and he is out. The plan is very similar here just that here you will get a bad decision from the umpire every time you are playing well. So basically it’s like this if you plot a graph between advantage vs. correctness for something the girl is wrong. On the x-axis you have correctness and along the y-axis you have advantage. You start at the top of the x-axis and the girl is on the negative axis. You start to question and you slowly are rising while she is pretty constant with a slight dip maybe. Then you start to lose your temper while she is still quiet. Here is where technically you think you are just soaring exponentially while she is just gone and then her silence starts to get to you, you are thinking why is she not reacting or maybe you’ve just taken it too far and you begin to soften and thats where everything goes down. With no reason you are just falling not even like a pack of cards but at a speed faster than the speed of light just then, to throw in the hydrogen bomb she starts to cry and there you are even the graph is too small to assess your fall and her meteoric rise. There you go the advantage is then actually never with you.

GET-TOGETHER

Now this is basically another form of PDA but really is what leads you to the final show-down. Well I’ll get to that right after that. So in PDA you should not touch or pass comments in public. But a get-together is different. Here you tend to have a set of people who know you. So really the question that you guys are dating is a constant threat. So here is where you’d want to be safe. Well no that’s where you are given the options. So a drinking get-together is like everyone drinks and at the end when everyone is high the two end up sharing looks and feeling each other. Its fine everyone is drunk and out of their senses. This is what leads you to the final stage of it all.

AROUSAL

Now this is what really makes the undefined relationship, undefined. This is the last of it. So while texting, flirting and dating can still save you; arousal can just kill every thought for you. Now I am a guy and I have sexual wants. The texting, flirting, dating and get-togethers play indirect and direct parts in the arousal. Arousal is a very difficult thing for a guy to hold on to. A strong guy can ward off at best two advances but that’s about it. So this is the most difficult thing to explain. A girl who has an ex-boy friend about whom she keeps talking about, you should go totally and take the advances or this is the time when you should set things right and start defining. Anywhere in between you are bound to be dumped in due time. A girl dating a guy if she comes on to you, you can take your time you know you are the winner every time. So basically you have won is what you believe. You get the fun and if you are smart you know that you will get it till you want it. Just that you need to stay detached. This is not easy partly because of the other steps and partly because of you. So you reach a state where you get used to it and then starts the desire for more. This man's eternal let down is what will be the final nail in the coffin.At this point comes the withdrawal.

THE WITHDRAWAL

This is where you realize that you are an idiot and have been used. So when the two of you move away from the common ground you begin to realize that everything just changes. The messages stop, the calling stops, the muahs and the miss yous stop but then most importantly you begin to lie. Now such things are basically in such a relationship what makes it out standing. You realize you were enticed into it all by the girl. At some point both of you felt something and then it reaches a crescendo way before it should when the girl starts to drift leading you to a pre-mature climax. You feel a bit bad and so you start to make an effort to get back but then you guys are too far and yet too close in that undefined zone where you really cannot get back. That is where the relationship undefinably comes to an undefinable end.

The Undefined relationship Part I

I have always believed that relationships are just a dimensional thing. You can only love that much about someone. It is just all like the mathematical dimensions or lets say in cricket even though Sachin is the one of the greatest modern batsman yet, there are some shots of Yuvraj which you admire. So why define a feeling and only get to enjoy a certain aspect of the feeling? I mean if scientists would not have looked atom beyond the nucleus and the electrons at a point science would’ve stagnated. So the requirement of thinking in different dimensions is needed in everything we do.

So is it necessary to define a relationship or draw definite lines? Truly I am not sure. Now its easy to say if you have a definite feeling like love, dislike, friend, erotic, family etc etc. The problem is when you play these different roles with the person with a non-specific term.

CASE STUDY

Supposing I meet this girl. She’s nice and pretty. She comes and talks to you, you obviously respond, exchange numbers and you end up calling right then. You guys are getting along well, till she drops the bomb -“I am dating”. Now you are in a fix? You guys haven’t really known each other long enough for you to react adversely. There are two options here: leave her and move on or just go along! Smart or not smart, the decision is very relative to where you take it.

THE PROBLEM

You don’t know if you like the girl all that much to not go on. You know she is hitting on you but the boyfriend thing kind of makes it seem mystic. You might just think all right in case I start to like her I know I’ll let her know and if she feels the same(which intuitively you are always confident off) you are through but if she doesn't bby then the friendship would be strong enough to sustain. Yes the thought holds if you were Shah Rukh Khan or maybe Sonu Nigam (for his singing only). But an average guy as I am well....

THE STAGES THAT LEAVE YOU UNDEFINED

Ignorance

Now ignoring the boyfriend in a conversation is a smart option which really gives you the idea that you are the only one. You obviously try and change the topics in the beginning to get yourself across. This results into going out for the unofficial date.

Dates

Now dates are really of two types one’s that aren’t called dates and the others that are called dates. The girl loves it if you make the effort to call it a date, really if it is bad it’s your fault. But if she calls it one, oh man! You are just so screwed. One if the date is her call the place has to be your call and it better be a good call or you are going to be told about how irresponsible you are about women safety. The first date kind of sets a tone for the rest. A flower in one means that you can get it a few more times and after sometime if you are still stuck at flowers you are termed boring and non-creative. A poem is amazing the first time but really by the fourth time you know the look that says what a jack-ass.

Texting

Now making a call is fine but texting can be done anytime and that’s sexy. You know if you are a guy with inhibitions texting is the greatest invention. You can take your leap forward at your own pace. The best thing about texting, let’s say you want to drop a hint without actually making a fool out of yourself but aren’t sure of the persons reply, like for example, ‘ I think I miss you’ or just a ‘muah’ or just a random message saying ‘ I think that girl is really nice and I like her’ and you know the girl says was that message for me and you say i am sorry that message wasn’t for you. You get the girl thinking. But really that’s as sad an approach as people in India banning the Da Vinci code when around the Christian world most people did not care. But while you may think you are doing a great and a smart job really you are giving the girl an upper hand because she knows something about how you feel about her. And that gets us to flirting

Flirting

Flirting is a very harmful and an addictive act. You would like to ignore it all you want, you end up doing it. The female species is just very smart at it. It all starts with a simple text and you don’t even know when you got into it and life seems to be so different. You begin to be lured into it and when you go overboard you are always reminded of the pole. ‘Back to your place Tommy’. But here is the game you are never left off the hook its life you always hanging off the cliff standing on that stick that’s so thin that you are too scared to put any weight on it but still having that as the only hope to save your life. Soon you are talking to the girl all day. The world around seems meaningless and boring. Even a wonderful cricket match does not match up to the level.

PDA (Public Display of Affection)

This is a counter to flirting but really is an adjunct to flirting.Now this is a very tricky situation. Most girls aren't fond of PDA. I just hate the abbreviation itself. So you can’t comment about certain things or touch in front of a live audience. That’s just so stupid, you don’t want the world to know. oh actually! the world should not think anything wrong. Now interestingly here is the dilemma, so what is wrong between the two of us that has to be hidden and if the society is wrong anyways how does their opinion on the fact that we are dating or not matter. But you see the point made here is you wouldn’t understand how it affects the girl. When this is said you should take the hint and stop everything right there. But then you are held on by certain things like subtle flirting. You know those secret smiles, those sexy talks or a move that only the two of you understand. Now this is not under PDA because the public is not aware completely while actually the public was really not the point, it’s just the fact that she doesn’t want to be termed a slut. But if that fails for the girl, in comes the pole.

The Pole

The pole is a very necessary ingredient in an undefined relationship. You see this is what keeps you in that zone of no man’s land. So basically a girls typical solar system comprises of, in the centre there is the boy friend or the guy they like actually at times even the ex. Then the mercury are the parents. Then venus is close friends and close boyfriends friends, earth is the society around you, mars is studies or job( this keeps shuttling between Venus, earth and mars), Jupiter and Saturn are certain girls secrets that you cannot be told and Neptune is drinking alcohol and Pluto well that not a planet so lets put that out. Now we know that the solar system is not just made up of the sun and the planets, there are asteroids, comets and other celestial bodies. And so you are the celestial body undefined of your position. You tend to make long strides and you reach Venus till the sun melts you down. The sun really is powerful. He can play the role of the ex or a long distant relationship. But his ever presence should basically affects you and never try to be the terminator because you’ll always end up like braveheart. The pole comes is at varying times. If while making out you are not the want tears come down saying that she still loves her or if the girl feels she needs to give it a shot with the guy just ask out and try to make the guy feel jealous or just have the guy to make you feel good but under most circumstances you are just the back-up option. Mister back-up option is a commodity that comes in surplus that most people keep. The girls who don’t have a back-up option will find it hard to get over the pole, but the ones who have one can use him skilfully as a satisfier, saviour and stalker. Out of all this stalker back-up option is really used rarely.