Glass is half full with a hole at bottom...

At the beginning of 1st test at Lord’s

Optimistic Indian fan: “2000th test match, Sachin knocking at 100 tons, Sachin+dravid+laxman at 99 centuries together, India vs Eng-Almost like Ashes etc etc”
Event: Eng amass huge total. Zak gets injured (surprisingly the injury never surfaced in the long IPL circus)

2nd/3rd day

Optimistic Indian fan: “Shit ! Zak got injured. He would made a difference (As though the other 4 bowlers were just making the numbers). Our batsmen will give a fitting reply. Sachin will go past 100 at the home/mecca/bethelehem/thirupathi of cricket”

Event: Indian batsmen bundle out just after avoiding follow-on


End of 4th day

Optimistic Indian fan: “Wow ! amazing bowling by India. Eng biting dust at 62/6..No looking back. We shall win from here on. Sachin will hit a 100 on a winning note in the 2nd innings”

Event: England go past 250 and declare (yeah. Indian bowlers couldn’t run thru the last 4 batsmen) setting India a target over 400. India reach some 90 for two wickets
Beginning of the 5th day
Optimistic Indian fan: “Any of the three results possible !. Worst case, India will draw the test. After all, it’s only 90 odd overs and we are capable of playing the overs. Interesting to see if Sachin can hit his 100“
(how the hell is the result of an Indian win possible. That after the defensive tactics in the last test in the WI which India should have won for the modest target in 4th innings against a very weak attack. how can an Indian fan ever forget Sachin and his feat to be. Hehe)

Event: Indians lose all wickets and Sachin scores 11 from 50 odd deliveries (he scored 100 plus only on the thermometer). Often he forgets he is a much better batsmen dominating bowlers than trying to give them unnecessary respect. He should show scant respect to bowlers all the time like Don did

End of the 5th day

Optimistic Indian fan: “Indians always start bad in a test series. They will now bounce back. Let’s start hyping up Nottingham test”
Well..honestly, I am an Indian fan myself. Optimistic at that. But sometimes, people forget you need to take 20 wickets to win test matches and our bowlers are just not good enough. Wonder why on earth Bhajji is our first spinning option. He is past his prime in the ground and on the Ads. Whatever said and done, our fans wont give up on our team. After all, if I were a farmer, I would still prefer it not to rain if there is match on a given day !!

Hot is cool too...

There are many reasons why people don’t list Chennai as favourite place to live. At least vis-à-vis Bangalore. This I guess would be view of anybody (including people from TN) who is not biased of his/her own city/state. Among biggest negatives is the humid weather there. Even though it’s true that the weather is bad, it’s something over-hyped I feel. Anyway, the idea here is to project the plus’es of the city that Chennai is from an unbiased tamilian’s point of view. And I am not talking about beaches that Bangalore is so deprived off.


Firstly, anyone born in TN in the 70’s and early 80’s would be crazy of two things from film industry. One is Rajini/Kamal and other is Ilayaraja (IR). The better combination is Rajini and IR (here I won’t rule out any bias. :P). If you are in Chennai, you are lucky to hear great IR songs played in almost all FM channels late evening. There are 6 or 7 FM channels (here again RJs have bad language skills) that do this with great consistency. Compare this to the stereo-typed, similar sounding kannada songs sung by sonu nigam/kunal ganjawala/shreya ghoshal (taking 10 deep breathes in one song) in Bangalore FM channels. Old kannada songs are so great compared to the new ones

Secondly, the city is so active even middle of the night. I don’t know why Bangalore is hyped for it’s night-life when there is no life on the roads after 10 PM and before 7 AM at least. After all, night life is not all about pubs. In fact, it was so funny to see STD booths in Bangalore open at 10 AM years ago when people were going to STD booths to make calls (remember the less prices early mornings and late evenings?). The real active life is what you get to see in Chennai. There are buses plying through the night. Even if you land wee hours in Chennai, you would see tea shops open and activity on the roads. Frankly, in that sense, there is no night life in bangalore

Thirdly, talking of tea shops, nothing can beat having tea in the long glasses. In places like Bangalore, one gets tea in paper or plastic cup. This is no fun to what you get to experience in Chennai. Besides, you get great food in the hotels and road-side shops. And all this is at least 50% less to prices in Bangalore
Next is for movie buffs. Fame Lidos and Fun Cinemas would be put to shame by the quality of movie-watching in places like Sathyam. The best movie halls in Chennai charge only 120 per ticket. Even during weekends. It’s almost equal to Bangalore multiplexes running buy 1 get 1 offer. Not to forget, the popcorns are proportionately cheaper too. :D

Cold water bath (better for health compared to hot water), local trains, cheap bus and rail tickets (finding a place inside is your talent) are some other advantages
This is not an effort to convince one-self of relocating to Chennai as despite all the limitations as above, Bangalore rocks !!