Monday, September 29, 2008

Indian Sports : A Torch Relay



I stumbled upon this video hosted on Youtube from a friends Orkut Profile and it took me back 10 years when I used to wait to see this video. I have already, now seen this video 3 times today. Wonderful!!!!!

It was one of my dreams as a sportsman to be part of a torch relay. It remained unfulfilled primarily because I changed school after 10th std. If I had continued, I would definitely have been the torch bearer for the school. In my new school I was not there long enough to stake claim to be the torch ot flag bearer.

Coming back to the video, i was trying to identify each sportsman and heres the ones that I have got. Correct me if I am wrong and help me name the rest :

  1. Krishnamachari Srikkanth, the dashing opening batsman and now Chief of Selectors
  2. PK Bannerjee, who is the Dhyan Chand of Indian Soccer.
  3. Shiny Wilson, multiple Asian Gold medallist and represented India in a distinguished Athletics career. Was part of a Golden era of Indian womens athletics.
  4. PT Usha, like the video rightly shows, shes the gazelle of Indian athletics and the heroine of the era I mentioned earlier.
  5. Ramanathan Krishnan, one of Indias Tennis greats
  6. Ramesh Krishnan, completes the father and son duo, another Tennis great
  7. Nawab Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, flamboyant cricketer and youngest captain of India. (Id s it Soha Ali running with him?)
  8. Kapil Dev Nikhanj, needs no introduction. Champion par excellence
  9. Milkha Singh (from one Pa'ji to another) . Indias Best Athletics Olympian
  10. Michael Ferreira, ace cueist
  11. Merwyn Fernandes, former Hockey captain and Olympian
  12. Sunil Manohar Gavaskar, first cricketer to 10K Test runs
  13. Erapalli Prasanna, one of the Indian champion spinning quartret
  14. Dilip Vengsarkar, distinguished cricketer, scored centuries at Lords in all of his innings there.
  15. Srinivas Venkatraghavan, another from the famous Spinning quartret (Bedi and Chandrashekar are the missing ones)
  16. Prakash Padukone, first Indian to win the All England Badminton Championship.

If I were to make a video like this currently, here are the people I would cast in it :

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Bhaichung Bhutia, Dhanraj Pillay, Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Abhinav Bindra, Vijendra Kumar, Sushil Kumar, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Anju George, Pullela Gopichand, Vishwanathan Anand, Geet Sethi.

I have a feeling I am missing someone really special here.

With goosebumps, I sign off.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Things I have wanted to Do, and not gotten to yet!!!

Theres been quite a few things that I have wanted to do for a while, but for one reason or the other, I havent gotten down to doing it with full gusto. Any reason will be an excuse, so i better not mention any. These are the things I have been wanting to do :

1. Sing and record a few of my favourite songs in Karaoke. These songs include : Kannal Pesum Penne (Mozhi), New York Nagaram (Sillunu Oru Kaadhal), Hum hai Is Pal Yahaan (Kisna), Ajab Si, Ajab Si (Om Shanti Om)

2. Make a simple website for my Mama who is a practising Hydro Geologist, to enable him to reach out and market his services.

3. Join a short course on Photography.

4. Develop a nice and simple utility software that will help in automating/simplifying some routine task. The aim of this is to learn the new and emerging technologies as well as to do something productive. Perhaps, this is the only thing on this list that I have done something about.

5. Go shopping to utilise the gift voucher that I received for my budday.

6. Take my car for a service.

I better stop here and try and get on to one of these tasks right away.......

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Australian Ma(i)te!!!!

A couple of weeks ago, I "officially" became Australian. After 6+ years of living in this country, I have now been conferred Australian Citizenship. The Ceremony was simple and was presided by the Mayor of the Moreland Council, Joe Caputo. The function started off with a few words from the distinguished guests and was followed by the Pledge. We all were then invited on stage individually to be given our certificate of Citizensship and a native plant (dunno which one I got, trying to find out yet). My interpretation of being given a native plant is that the plant is a symbol of Australia and as Citizens it is our duty to nurture it and grow with it.

Once all of these formalities were done, it was time for the National Anthem. As much as I love the Australian National Anthem, I had a feeling that singing it was not going to be that special. I proved myself wrong, for when singing "Advance Australia Fair", I had a few goosebumps. Afterall, this is a country where I have spent the last 6+ years of my life. I enjoyed the feeling, knowing very much that I am Indian by heart, by soul and by whatever else. I fell bad though that my India Passport is no longer valid and I am speeding up my OCI application so that I will never have to obtain a visa to travel to India.

A couple of days ago, I was speaking to a colleague and I said "I cant wait for November", and when he asked "Why?", I replied "Because I am going home". He shot back with "Were'nt you at an Australian Citizenship ceremony not long ago?". I expected that question and replied to him "It will take more than just a ceremony to make Australia my home" :)

I am proud of the 46 Olympic medals that Australia won, but I am more proud about the 3 Olympic medals that India won :)

Talking about the Olympics, I did not have the time to blog during week 2 of the action and just for a round-up on that - it was amaing to see India come back with our biggest haul of medals ever. Sushil Kumar and Vijender Kumar deserve Kudos for their efforts. The upward trend - Bronze in Atlanta, Silver in Athens, Gold + 2 bronze in Beijing bodes well for India and we should continue with this trend. The Commonwealth Games in Delhi and London 2012 should be the next targets.

The Olympics in all was Fantabulous and it was 2 weeks of sheer BLISS in front of the TV. Watching champions like Phelps and Bolt perform on the worlds biggest stage was amazing.

I am very tempted to write more about athletics. The hurdles and the batten played villain to many a Olympic hopes. The hurdles saw favourite Lolo Jones and Suzanna Kallur fall and in the mens, Chinas golden boy Liu Xiang got injured and in the Relays US, Great Britain and Jamaica were among the horror upsets. It was great Drama in all, but none greater than the Fairy Tale that is Usain Bolt - 3 Golds in 3 WR times.

I started the Olympics as an Indian Citizen and finished it as an Australian. The olympics was the same, wasnt it? Nothings changed!!!