Apostle's Panegeric

Only two Sporting events which I watched in the recent months were the two historic events- Fed winning the 15th Grand Slam and Barca winning all the three in one go. However the comparisons end there itself.

Federer won the game at his worst. I mean, he was stretched and it was basically his luck and experience which carried him forward. Roddick impressed me more with the game. I am a great Fan of Fed and missed his impossible angles he used to create on the court. This final was complete let down and I could not help but compare it to the Sampras-Agassi Final. That is the best tennis I have watched. I have not seen such a sublime and beautiful game. The zone Sampras was in, made Agassi , who himself was no mean player , look like a novice. It was an amazing game of gods, a show of lethal power and strength each of them had. In that beauty and grace and complete control of the game Sampras was unparalleled. Look at the players he faced in his time. Agassi, Courier, Ivanasevic, Becker, Edberg.Do not know about Mcenroe and Bjorg rivalry and that era; but if Sampras was at his peak playing with Fedrer at his peak, Sampras would have beaten Federer hands down.

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Talking about beauty , I watched the most beautiful game of the planet, Soccer and watched the practitioners of that beauty Barcelona (Spain) taking on Man U in Champions League Final. Well Man U started with an attack and Ronaldo took even a shot at the goal,(Felt more of a Bravado) and then after 5 mins it was all the way Barca. The beauty and creativity of Iniesta, Xavi, Messi and Eto. The Sublime crosses, Curling Free Kicks and finishes plucked out from the realm of impossibilty. It was creativity of Iniesta and Xavi feeding Messi, Eto and Henry. It was visible triumph of beauty and creativity over the ugly defence and tactical game of other European clubs which thankfully Spain has not touched upon. If I watch Soccer, I watch it for Brazil, Argentina and Spain (which finally is coming on its own on world stage). Who could forget the 26 touch goal of Argentina in world cup when the opposition could not even touch the ball once. Ronaldinho’s free kick against England and then the countless matches which Argentina and Brazil making the game, so Sublime, bewitching and Mesmirising.

Thanks Sampras, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Messi, Riquelme, and Ronaldo (Brazil). You guys make the sports so beautiful. Giving us moments to cherish in this life.

Sorry Guys

I was cleaning up my Blog... Thinking, organising it with labels and I deleted a few of them...

I am sorry to all and I am extremely angry with myself...

Its not at all fine... and I would like to retrieve it for sure, as it was my own thought...


sorry to all.

Laughter by Neruda

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

For My Timmy

...A Dog by Pablo Neruda

My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention requiredto make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.

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Memories

Me at 6 Months










Seven Months Me








MySis Six Months Old










My Bro 2 Yrs Old

Birthdays...

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What are Birthdays? A way of telling you that dude you are getting old. Or, for people a moment to rejoice that you came into their life. As per Hindi Calendar I was born today on “Akshaya Tritaya.” My Nani goes by this only and not Solar (25th). She called up saying I had not been even brought home by now. You were still in hospital. Being the First Child in that Family I may have given birth to so many expectations. Brought Joy in lot of peoples life. And on your birthday, you feel for those. Getting buoyant if you have achieved some of those expectations; or weighed down if you let them down.

Also, birthdays as the way it is given importance; make lot of things happen in your life.

Like this time I got so many gifts. Like an Apples Shuffle IPod (Loved it has 4 GB space in slim little package), Chocolates, Perfume (Yes that too), Two wonderful books and like always Mom’s and Sis’s card. Even my Kinshuk’s. But this time something really unusual happened. I never thought it was possible. Few years earlier an extraordinary experinece of my Life had started with a Birthday Cake. Seems this year it is an attempt to finish it with a blank…

It is heart rendering. Leaves you so empty with a void in your heart…

So I do not know what to make of these Birthdays… Is it harbinger of Life or constant reminder of Fickleness of same… Is it happiness or just a day which reminds of things lost forever…

Whatever it is I feel it’s a day which is a mirror to you: Your Today, Tomorrow and most important your yesterdays. Its Joy its Reality check… Its emptiness and sadness.. Its Love, Its Loss… In a nut shell its reminder of Life, Depends How you take it that day…

The Reading Wish List

As per BBC most people would have read only 6 out of the list below... I do not believe it. I have read more than that.
Though have read just 43 (Marked in X). I have miles to go. Not even 50% and I call myself Voracious Reader.. Shame on me...

Do tell me your Scores through the Comments.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 1984 - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth X
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac X
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy X
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie X
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce X
76 The Inferno – Dante X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry X
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton X
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo