Vishal's Wedding

Hi,

This trip was planned in December 2006 when all of us got together for Gullu's wedding described in my Pune Post.The plan was to attend Vishals (Vikas's younger brother)wedding. After all sorts of changes it was final Zool (Me), Mamu and Tillu would travel from hyderabad and KMan would fly down after playing cricket match against TCS.

Tillu already reached Secunderabad and sneaked into the AC Waiting room using his Kurnool ticket stating that he would continue his journey. I joined him around 10:00 with some food. By the time Mamu saw us we had finished the food and were watching "The Departed". We stood there talking for a while before the the train approached the platform. I took a shot of two drunks resembling Mamu and Tillu posted below


After arranging all the bags and Tillu's Airhostess suitcase ;-) we sat down to catch up and talked for a while finally deciding to call it around 12:30 midnight.
Next morning Mamu was the first one to wake up and obviously Tillu waking up last somewhere around 8:00. Freshened up (only brushing teeth) to find Tillu reaching out for the sweets box and Amul buttermilk. Took a laddu and buttermilk fearing the choke loosening up (Damn!! these train toilets), thankfully it didn't happen.
Tillu pulled out his laptop and we continued watching "The Departed" along with a few curious daily commuters. Mamu seemed very content reading this novel about some civilization with no privacy, ask him if curious about the name.

Additional Pictures with description:

The above picture was shot when our train left for Raipur and you could see a mosque. It's around 10 minutes from Nagpur.

 
If you look at the right corner below the top bar, you would notice a few bushes (actually bamboo)growing in patches. It looked beautyful but by the time i took the shot it was almost out of the frame.


The train stopped here for a while and Mamu pointed me those 7 seater types with a different look.


Me and Mamu were talking about the over bridges being constructed every where and this half finished over bridge came up.


The picture could be of a steel plant coz we shot it thru the window of the compartment. Tillu was very keen on visiting a steel plant at Bhilai but we foiled his plan. Didn't have to do very much either as one required special permission from the people in the management. Though there a small ray of hope but it never worked out.


Here we're with a friend who came to receive us at station, my apologies for not remembering his name. Anyway we planned to surprise Vikas by making Tillu call him and tell "No one is coming and i'm the only one. This is really frustrating, everyone diched". Vikas took the bait and informed everyone at home about us. We reached Raipur and included his friend too who reached station to receive us. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw us.


The colors in the picture are not correct, don't know why such a picture came up. The significance of the tea is that it took around 45 minutes for it's preperation.


Enter KMan, booked tickets with Tillu, decided to play match next day with TCS and take a flight via Mumbai after loosing. He reached at 6:00 in the morning and you can see Tillu pretending to sleep. We had tea and took our time to freshen up. Tillu took like ages to get out of the bathroom, finally came out with droplets on his single pack. It reminds me of the pics we shot of Tillu posing; It made a really good animated gif. Tillu doing dance steps, south indian movie types and mamu doing abs with his novel.


We decided to book tickets back from Raipur to Nagpur. Thought of using the railway track to reach station, but the stink made us change the course and take a rickshaw. Tillu (wanna be director at heart) thought up of taking a pic sideways Ramu (Ram Gopal Verma) style. You can see clearly that we are bad actors except Mamu who potrayed as someone poked really hard under.


Tillu and CaveMan seem very happy about something, the picture looks perfect but Tillu's face seems skewed coz nothing can be done to such faces ;-)


Us waiting for reserving a ticket from Raipur to Nagpur, our token number was 513 and the current token was 287. We took a short trip to a nearby Bakery look a like restaurant, did some bird watching and then returned only to wait another half an hour before getting our ticket's booked.


Sitting and doing nothing but waiting for out turn to book return tickets from Raipur to Nagpur. We watched people going in and out of the building, a guy cleaing the stairs with a kid. We had a small photo session, Tillu and me posing for pics shot from different angles.


We had a small stroll after getting a token for reservation. Don't remember the name but the place looked like a bakery from outside but a restaurant from inside. They served the regular cuisines. The best part was that we found chick partying and managed to get a few pics of our friends. Check out the mischievous look on Mamus face.


After booking return tickets we decided to have lunch at Madrasi. We took a few pics there including a broken CFL socket above. Pics thru the a glass of water (Kman) trying to create new style in photography. Taking wierd shots, finally we snatched the camera and asked them to pose; didn't expect anything less either ;D.


Here me and Tillu expressing our instinctive response to the possibility postulated by Mamu and Caveman above.


Post packing tight at Madrasi we strolled back towards Pardesi's house using the same path used the evening before. I spotted this one (Raat Din), was confusing coz the suggestion could be about that 24 hours open thing or was it something else.


Returning to Mittal Bhavan's top floor a small room with all our bagage we decided to play Uno. It's a nice game if you want to pass time enjoying. You can see mamu very content making Tillu pick cards with a +4. Tillu trying to get himself into the frame unobstructed and me holding back my hair (not to scare you guys). Kman pretty happy about the random wins. Don't remember who shot this one, my guess is it's Vikas.


While talking casually about Uno and stuff and Tillu tried to act smart and got us stripping him and taking pics along. This is just the preview, you don't want to see the rest.


Don't know who took this leg shot, Could it be Mamu (based on the toe nails) then who's the one lying down.


This is the reason for our visit to Raipur, Vishal and Megha enjoying Ladies night. Check out CaveMan's Vampirish looks (specially the eyes) and Mamu is not here coz he was behind the camera.


The above one was shot while trying to shoot a few chicks at Vishal's Ladies night. This was a fun occasion everyone dancing, a few more moments and you would have seen a pic of me and Tillu dancing. Food was great and we had good time chasing chicks. Almost forgot about the pic, well it's shot by Mamu and we are standing beside this old guy (Bheemsenji Agrawal) who perhaps created that function hall.


Well the program started with these ladies singing and ribbing the couple. Tillu seemed more interested in the one in yellow. After a while, Vishal's mom too joined the group and entertained everyone. The best part was Vikas singing for the couple, one of my favourite songs ("Tarein hai Barati" - Virasat).


The above pic was shot when all the ladies were putting turmeric on Vishal's face, hands and legs. I guess every one looks funny after this part is done. CaveMan and Tillu couldn't attend this part, they had to leave the previous night.


Vikas packed us lots of roti's-paratha's with a very delicious ladyfinger curry and sweets. Mamu and me enjoyed the meal to the very last of it. This pic was shot when we were waiting for the train from Raipur to Nagpur. Notice a calf standing on the track (pointed out by Bhallu), don't know where it went when the train arrived on the same track.


The final pic of our trip, this one had the details of the change of trains available from Nagpur other places. The trip was an enjoyable one, and these pictures will certainly keep us reminding of the delighful days.

Territorializing Turf - Pissing not Required

Cricket as you know is an outdoor sport played everywhere on roads, ground, 
parks and anywhere that could accomodate the required yards to bowl. Generally
the batsmen don't have much problem handling the bat, i.e playing with it. Bowling
is a totally different pie coz stroke of the bat is not lost with the shine and the wind conditions don't dictate your grip and so on...



All the time playing with a hard tennis and a cork ball never playing on the mat and turf until now made me feel like a novice after playing on the real thing. Recently I got the opportunity to play on both Mat and Turf; a great experience.

The pace of the ball goes down in the order of Tennis on ground >> Glaze on the Mat >> Glaze on Turf, momentum being more in the reverse order. The first time I was to bowl; called up my brother a night before to get tips to which he said "Keep the seam straight and the ball will do the rest". It worked wonderfully and surprised myself with the bounce and speed generated. It seems that the mat has the skid property which allows the ball to zip past the batsman quickly and adds to the bounce as well.

That day moisture was minimal and the ball continued to hold it's line and moved a little now and then after seaming. Actual fun began after a few subsequent matches we played when moisture was plenty and wind was good. After being popular for many days it was time to taste the other side of it. My first over was ok but the second and third over snapped me to the reality of bowling. Suddenly the ball started going out of control; moving really wide after seaming ending up in lot's of wides.

Next over my skipper reluctantly asked me to bowl another over. Already shit scared i approached to bowl now losing the rhythm and getting wacked for 24 runs in that very over mostly of wides not kept by the keeper, a straight four due to a full toss in an effort to control the ball. After the over, it was time to do serious thinking and almost everyone was giving me advice about getting it right. Out of those i picked up things which seemed correct for my situation. These points might seem lame to you but i never thought of them before:

1. Losing line and length then shorten your run up. (Helped in my first Turf match)

2. Not sure about the run up (hair falling on your eyes; my case ;D)i.e. out of sync approach towards the crease then stop immediately, don't go into the delivery.

3. You can scare the batsman with pace and bounce but won't get him out unless you make him play. (answered my doubts about not getting more wickets)

4. Never rush to bowl the next ball, don't jog or walk fast to being the next bowl. Take your time relax walk normally and think about the previous delivery.

5. Turf is slippery, regular shoes won't help you. Get spiked shoes; they help to retain the grip while you bowl and field (specially for a pace bowler).

6. In your first over never try to generate pace, concentrate more on the line and length. Once your body gets used to it, start putting in more pace and bounce.

My first Turf match was against Synopsis and was offered to bowl from the 2nd over from the pavilion end. Mouth dry, throat dry with a funny sensation in my stomatch i started the 19 yards run to deliver the ball. First ball was wide travelling around waist height. Second ball followed the first one, and i could feel me going out of balance, the shoes were not holding the ground just like my captain pointed out.

The ball was moving just like it was doing in our internal matches. After seaming the ball was moving out, sort of an out cutter. Now using the advice of shortening my run-up i tried to ball, this time i banged in short with out pace; ball rested on the boundary waiting for us to fetch it back. My captain having panic attack came to me and said don't bowl short unless you have pace. Till now i had bowled only 1 ball. I stopped for a while to think and decided to bowl round the stumps. This time the movement was helping me to beat the batsman. Even though the pace was missing the movement and length restricted the bats from playing further shorts and i continued bowling round in the next over without giving more runs.

As suggested about the bowling shoes by the skipper, i persuaded him to come with me for the purchase and finally before the match day against AMD, i got my bowling shoes and was less bothered about one thing.

I was eager to try the new shoes and wore them with 2 pairs of socks on, yes you need two pairs of socks, so that the shoe is firmly in place and you don't injure yourself on the field. Today was an exciting day, trying new shoes that you've never tried and when the ball in not fully in control. This time the feeling was no different than the first match, anyway first ball went wide. I thought about it and controlled it this time with very few runs (around 3 runs). The other thing bothering me was that openers were left and right handed batsmen. I had to deal one more thing apart from the troubles facing already.

Somehow i noticed that the ball was seaming out naturally and it helped me to take out their left hand batsman, pitched on the off stump and it staightned geting him out.

From the above experience, all i can say is modifying my thinking process has helped a lot.

My other blogs...

Daily dairy with pics of Hyderabad,India Sky.
My observations and experiences with Pool.

First Smoke

Hi,

Today is my first day of Blogging. I wanted to do this since a long time but i guess it was to happen today [19th March 2006, 10:34 pm] anyway the init for this thing to happen started today when i attended Twincling LUG meeting at Eat street and we were going thru the details of Twincling Linux/Green Count both products totally composed/developed by a core group developers including me.

Our Product Architect and Coordinator was suggesting us about immediately posting ideas to the group asap which might get lost in our daily activities. During the conversation one of our team member mentioned about "Soha Ali Khan" writing a blog and one of my friend mentioned that he too had created a blog for posting stuff. This seemed like a cool activity and i'm asumming that whatever posted here will stay on net forever*.

I always loved diary writing and did it for a while, had a break in between and now resuming what i left a while [3 years] back.