Oore kai kotti sirichudham

Takes the oft-repeated cliched caption of this post to a whole new level doesn't it?

From Left-to-Right:
Vaanga boss! Ivanga epovume ipdi than - Strauss
Iniku madhyanam meals oda mysore pak poduvangala - Ponting
Hayyo Hayyo - Flintoff
Kai pulla kanakka etti paakra - Anderson

Omitted characters have too innocuous an expression to feature in the list above.

The Aussie camaraderie has always been the stuff of legends. I'm sure some of you have heard about the Tu Tu Main Main sturggle in the Johnson household.


This picture shows the entire team consoling Mitchell Johnson right after he got an SMS while on field, stating that his mother had knocked his kick-boxing girl friend out cold.

Imaginary dialogues might include :

Johnson : Pch... Oru quarter sarayathukaga oru saaraya kadaye vaanga koodadhu.
Clarke : Panesar wicket kooda edukka mudiyaliye unaku tensionave illaya. Nenju pada padanu achikala
Ponting mumbling to himself: budhan, vyazhan, velli... iniku sure'a vadagari dhan idliku. sabbba.

Acknowledgments:
1. The worst ever australian team put together for the ashes.
2. My new room mates for pointing out the first pic to me.

P.S:

FYI the first potaa was taken during this Ashes when the players were waiting for the third umpires ruling which as you can very clearly see gave Ponting out. In one of the greatest captures of ephemeral emotions, this one was taken right after the english players knew about the decision and 'just' before Ponting has realised this. Like I said, gr8 piece of photography!

WTB

A very scholarly friend of mine once told me,

"The four letter F-word is not to be bandied about lightly and hence must be substituted with its parliamentary proxy Buck"

Note : He might have been slightly inebriated but I'm not sure.

Hence WTB.

Let me list the three 'What the' moments I've had recently

• Me updating my blog twice in two days. Definitely WTB worthy. But actually kinda trivial, since I wouldn't have updated if the other two WTB's hadn't happened.

• Federer beating Roddick in five "seven" sets

5-7 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 16-14.

Lets put that in perspective,

Venus Williams en route to the "other" men's final beat Safina 6-1 6-0. That's a grand total of 13 games. Roddick won 14 games in just the last set.

Talk about unstoppable force and immovable object. I've never liked Roddick that much. But man can that guy give a fight. Were they paying tribute to Nadal's stamina or something, seeing who can outlast the other. The fact that Federer took all of 39 Roddick's service games to break his serve goes to say how well Roddick was serving in the match. Not that Federer was serving badly. 50 aces apparently was just one short of Karlovic's record. It was in Roddick's 40th service game that Federer was finally able to break his serve and with that he won his record breaking 15th Slam. Pretty heartbreaking for the American.

Pregnant Mrs Federer was pretty relieved at the end of the match. And not just because of the result, she might probably have started wondering if she'd have to have her baby delivered right there in the Player's Box. Seriously. Thats how long that last set was.

And the camera guy kept coming up with one celebrity after another. I started wondering if I'd begun seeing things. Ofcourse the tennis giants were there - Sampras, Laver and Bjorg. And there was Sir Alex, Russell Crowe and a guy who looked a lot like Ballack but as I said I'm not sure.

Seeing as how this WTB moment is pretty huge, you'd think that this is the WTBest moment of the week. But no. Not even close.

• This July. More accurately on the 11th of this July at 7:00 PM. If you were to tune into Zee tamil you are sure to have a lot of WTB moments.

I present the Worldwide Television Premiere of

Sam Anderson's Yaaruku Yaaro - Steppu Neee.

To all ye un-enlightened souls, let there be light.

P.S 1: To all Nadal fans, yap all you want about how Federer cries too much(thankfully not this time) but ironical seeing as initially they complained that he emotes too little, how his record against Nadal is bad, how he hasn't earned his French victory, how gold plated dresses are a little too much(Er... I agree on this count) etc etc...

The man has 15 slams before his first born sees the world. Beat that.

P.S 2: To all neutrals, I don't not like Nadal. I just hate his fans. ;)

Perips, Pulli and Pup

There are three distinct species in you average Bangalore bachelor household or any other city for that matter.

Perippa (Perips) - Perippa is well, quite literally, the BIG DADDY of 'em all. He's the dude whose got it all. Crazy Girl, Snazzy bike, Long hair, Longer mobile bill... You know... the works.

Pulliraja (Pulli) - Pulliraja is your more down-to-earth guy as in the one without at least the majority of the things mentioned above. He's your epiphany-having, (very un)wise-cracking, constantly bored guy who always finds himself standing in front of the mirror and asking himself a slightly modified version of the one simple question that this bird here asks millions of people everyday.

WHAT ( THE F* ) ARE YOU DOING?

Pullapudikravan (Pup) - This is your immaculately dressing, EPL following, dangerous side-burn / beard having, angry young Amitabh of the 80's. And the name - well its well deserved. All the new mothers in the neighbourhood definitely owe this guy one w.r.t the complete nourishment of their offsprings.

Common Traits - But all three species share several common habits

• Enrol for the Gym at least once.
  
• Start a blog.
  
• Have an extended discussion on whose job sucks more.
  
• Have an even more extended discussion on coming up with new reasons why this is the best 'bad'vertisement in the history of Indian ads.
  
• Rate girls in advertisements according to the Goundamani scale of girls who've got it. (Scale ranges from Rejetted, Unseletted .... to OK and double OK) Very MCP I know but that's what we do.
  
• Write at least one competitive exam every year. GRE, CAT, GATE, Vendhan All Pass tutorial test-1 .... you name it, they are there.
  

Edit : Video link removed as one of the readers(and a very unlikely one at that) found it slightly inappropriate. I concur (atleast regarding the first few seconds). But then I myself find my entire blog slightly inappropriate at times!

And many more, I'll just wind up with the one defining characteristic shared by all of 'em. They are lazy as sloths. Not your average mammoth friend having sloth. But your 4 generation - sitting - food eating sloth.

The last sentence was ill formed, I agree. Maybe this imaginary conversation will give you a better idea

Pulli - (Has an epiphany as usual) Dood! I'm going out. I'm gonna get a life.

Perips - (Holds hand over phone) Oh you're going out. Good. Can you get me one as well?

Pup - (Neck extends out of room - Nirvana - Rape Me runs in the background) Can't we order in? Don't they deliver? I think I have their number.

Pulli - Oh ok.

To P's.

PS 1 : Some of my worst PJs in a long time. So readers kindly bear with me.

PS 2 : And seriously speaking the distinction is more transitory in the sense that every guy is actually all three P's at the same time. Any reference that a reader finds a little too close for comfort was not intended by the author but nevertheless will be thoroughly enjoyed if pointed out.