game, set, match - roddick

my teammate called in sick yesterday, and gave me his two tickets to the US open round 4 game between roddick and gonzalez. i thanked the virus (hope my teammate doesn't read this blog!), my stars, and cursed myself for not taking any action even after the maria maria incident.

the atmosphere at the flushing meadows was reminiscent of a mela. well lit stadium under a clear night sky, XXXXXXXL tv screens outside the courts, beautiful fountains, confused staff, delayed schedule were all part of it.

hundreds of people were court hopping to catch glimpse of games that were simultaneously in progress. in transit, one could pick food and drinks from one of the many food stalls that were put up. desi food was being served at new delhi masala ishtall. the long queues at the stalls didn't daunt the food lovers.

the tickets, 60$ a piece, were for the seats in what i would call a vertigo-zone, where neither a tennis ball nor a tv camera could reach. but watching the game live on the center court (arthur ashe stadium), with all the fan fare, was exciting.

the desi couple (dc) sitting next to me, and the referee of the game added humorous touch to the evening.

the dc were giving running commentary about the types, make, intricacies of kati rolls that they were hogging. while roddick was firing aces at 130 miles per hour, the dc were going strong at 6 rolls per set. when the last set was underway, the dc ran out of rolls. after some heated discussion, they left the court, never to return.

"thank you", "silence please", "....sh..shshsh...sh..", "gracias" - few of weapons employed by the referee to silence the crowd. worst, when roddick was serving at 6-2, 6-4, 5-1, and the crowd was going berserk, the referee yelled 'just one more game'! gonzalez must sue him for match fixing.

gosh! "game, set, match - roddick", was declared within 90 minutes of the start of the show. had the 11th seeded gonzalez played like a 11th seed or roddick played a bit like the 11th seed, the match would have been a better paisa vasool. but, as always, there is next time.

wednesday

foreword : read the following lines slowly. if you are in a hurry, come back later and read the blog.


the beauty. have i seen her somewhere?
why is she approaching me? was my stare obvious?
will the.. she inquired something !
am i drunk? what did she say?
concentrate.
more of listening, less of staring...
she has a beautiful nose - long, slender, pointed.
stop. listen.
she is silent. i guess its my turn to speak.
i am sorry...what ?
what... what what ?
oh boy. she is loud.
i thought ...wait. am i thinking or am i speaking.
i thought you asked something. i spoke.
her hazel eyes!
idiot. keep listening lest you want to miss her.
no.
oops! sorry. btw, what time is it ?
why the hell did i ask that question ?
7:00 am.
oh shit! now i remember. she is miss.wednesday.
i have a 8 o'clock to go to. wake up!
i hate early morning meetings.

maria maria

maria sharapova was here at south seaport at tennis ball's throw distance from my work place. the tennis star was here to launch a diamond studded cannon camera that is worth $10000.

got to drool at the her from a close span of 10 ft.

damn! i did not have a camera with me, and could manage couple of low resolution shots with the phone camera. i must start having a camera at my workplace.

how good is a bum ?

the other day, my counterpart in a downstream system was explaining a new requirement to me over phone, "assume i am a bum, i should have access to ... ."

i put the phone on mute, and started laughing.

that day i came to know of the fact that a business-unit-manager, in short, is a bum.

i wondered what sort of jokes/humor would be passed around by the sub-ordinates and the superiors about the bums. my mind raced, and came up with a few funny sequences. here is one of them!

a business-unit-manager calls up support team, and says "hi! i am a bum, and i am not able to see the trade."

the smart support guy, who knows that manager does not have permissions to see the trade, replies, "of course! you will not be able to."

"why?"

"because you are a bum."

a mastercard weekend

toll on garden state parra-slow-way [very slow way] - 2 $ 70 cents
go-karting at mayville - 35 $
30 minute jet ski @ wildwood beach - 65 $
weekend rentals to dollar-rent-a-car for a dabba car that even a dollar store parking lot would reject undoubtedly - 200 $
a krishnamurthy, the care taker at econo lodge in marmora, welcoming us with a 'vaango, payanam eppadi irundadhu ?' [welcome, how was your trip] - 250 $
the group coming to consensus on a restaurant to have food - chanceless
driving home safely from cape may, on garden state parkway, in the thunderstorm with visibility of just about 10 feet - priceless

karthik is my name!

when my parents christened me karthik, they had thought it was a unique name. coincidentally, this unique thought occurred to quite a good number of parents in the late 70s and the early 80s. end result, scores of karthiks were released into this world.

whatever school i attended, coaching class i went to, there was a minimum of two karthiks on the roll-call. the max number was at my college that had 4 karthiks in the class. i did not dare to take the count across the 2000 batch, or across my college. definitely karthik would have made it to the podium at the most-common-name-contest.

class was divided into groups of 4 or 5 to do experiments in the labs. my group consisted of karthik, karthik, karthik and kiran.

even though karthik's spelling varied from karthik to kaarthik to karthick to kartic, the name was pronounced one and the same. in order to distinguish the beings, some characteristic or the other was used to qualify the karthiks. for eg - nettai (tall), bodhai (drug- the guy was always in a trance), dumm (cigarette), delhi, current.

year 2008. i am attending evening accounting classes at new york university. the strength of the class is 20, and the only other desi in the class is also named karthik. now what are the odds?

dasavatharam review-ed

a genuine effort from kollywood at something big and different.

+ kamal's multiple roles and voice modulations. the characters of fletcher - the ex-cia agent, balram naidu and boovaragan have been very well done.
+ racy screenplay. please leave your brains at home though!
+ immense effort has been put into making the sets and the visual effects.
- bad graphics.

catch the movie at a good theater so that the decently made graphics does not get degraded any further!

trivia : ten avatars - rangarajan nambi, govindrajan naicker, president bush, fletcher, japanese kung-fu master, balram naidu, avtaar singh, krishnaveni paati (grandma), vincent boovaragan, khalif ulla.