Dear ICC,

My name is Aditya and I am an avid cricket fan and a voracious cricket blogger. I write to you today with much hope and anticipation, about some new idea me and the readers of my blog have come up with, to take the game of cricket to the next level.

Cricket, in my humble opinion, needs more drama and, more importantly, melodrama. We need to take a leaf out of the reality shows and soap-operas on TV to innovate ourselves. What we need is more conflict, crying, dancing and a general display of a range of uncontrolled emotions. Sort of like Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi meets Die Hard meets The Phantom of the Opera. You have to agree that this is a great idea.

To this effect, I am proposing a few more rules that can be added to the game.

1) 1-dic and 2-dic with house-out
All the readers of my blog have unanimously agreed that this innovation from gully cricket should be accepted into mainstream. What we can do is this:
- Put a House in the middle of the field, somewhere near deep mid-wicket.
- If the ball goes straight into the house, it’s out.
- If the ball goes into the house one-bounce, it’s 2-dic.
- If the ball goes over the house, the batsman gets to run and bring the ball back.

2) One-hand-pitch-catch out
This innovation will also allow additional diving on the field, which adds excitement. An extension of this rule will also be allowed where a two-pitch catch can be out if the fielder catches the ball in his mouth.

3) Get rid of the umpires
Umpires are losers who are too old to play anyway. And because they are old, the players are afraid to hit them with the bat and/or ball. To eliminate this loophole, we will appoint one of the members of the batting side as the umpire. This will bring in the richness of argument and thoughtful debate into this game.
A new umpire signal will also be added: Raising the right hand with the middle finger stretched out. This will signal the transformation of this cricket match into a street fight, as it usually happens in gully cricket. And this will bring in those magic moments that will be remembered forever (like the Zidane headbutt or Tyson ear-bite)

I hope you will consider these innovative new rules to be added to the game. You will agree that these will bring more excitement than simply fixing matches and world cups to have India-Pakistan finals. And the media and cricket commentators will have a lot more material to work with, which is good publicity.

Awaiting your speedy reply.

Yours Sincerely,
Aditya Kulkarni

• 13 Comments

Apparently, yesterday was “Blog Action Day”. It’s about “Bloggers all over the world unite for a single cause – The Environment“. And I found out about it today. Late as usual. But there are several things about this I don’t get.

Firstly, I don’t like the idea of “action”. It’s against my religious principles. Besides, the very reason I’m writing a blog is because I’m too lazy and soaked in inaction to get up and do anything more useful with my life. If there was even a remote possibility of me *ever* getting up and “acting“, I wouldn’t be writing a blog in the first place.

Secondly, what’s wrong with the Environment? I just looked out of the window, and it’s still there. And I’m pretty sure it’ll be there tomorrow also. What’s everyone so hyper about? They’all say the world is getting hotter. Well, Duh! Obviously, it’s because of the sizzling Rakhi Sawant.

And thirdly, who decides these things anyway? Even the holiday-deciding people are weirdos. How come there’s a Mother’s day, Father’s day, but no Son’s day? How about Husband’s day? No People-Whose-Names-Start-With-The-Letter-A day? This is a scam. I’m missing out on so many gifts!

And fourthly, …..hmm…. I can’t remember what my fourth argument was. It had something to do with Sandwiches, Motorcycles, the Mars Rovers and recycling Plastic. I’m sure there was something that related all of it together. It’ll come back to me sometime.

So here’s my action for “Blog Action Day For The Environment” – All you readers get up, wiggle your toes, close your eyes and think about Rakhi Sawant.

Go.

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In this post, I’ll share with you some lessons that I recently learnt from the wife, the hard way, about how to successfully carry more than 100 Kgs of stuff back to India from your latest US trip.

Lets say you went on a Shopping Spree when you were in the US, and bought way more stuff than the Airlines will let you carry back. What do you do? For the record, most airlines will allow you 2 bags of 32Kgs each, but what if you’ve bought well over 100Kgs of stuff. What do you do now?

Here are 4 easy steps to getting all that stuff back to India without paying *any* excess baggage fee. All you need is a little bit of cunning and trickery and an unsuspecting husband.

Step 1: Stuff your own bags to the absolute limit.
This step requires some super skills and a total disregard for the laws of Physics. You stuff your bags until they can take no more. Then you stuff them even more. You keep on stuffing until you have enough density to be dangerously close to creating a black hole.

Step 2: Take one of your husband’s bag, throw out his stuff, and then put your own stuff in it.
The key to this step is not letting your husband know that you’ve completely stuffed his suitcase with your stuff. He’s going to have to carry his suitcase when he comes back, so he’ll get all your shopping automatically.

Step 3: Give more stuff to your husband, and ask him to bring it back with him.
The key part in this step is to ask nicely. Say something along the lines of “There’s this tiny-winy little things that are not fitting in my bag, can you bring them back with you? Thanks so much. I promise I’ll make you Alu Paratha if you bring them…“. Another important thing is to “accidentally forget” to mention that you’ve already stuffed one of his bags.

Step 4: Hide all the remaining stuff in your husband’s wardrobe.
…and don’t say anything about it. When your husband prepares to leave, he’ll “discover” all this stuff that you’ve cleverly hid, and he’ll have to get it back with him. They key is to make sure he discovers the hidden stuff only *after* you’ve already gone.

I can assure you, this strategy works *really* well in real life. Just ask my wife. And in case you’re worried about the husband, don’t be. He’ll only have to throw away all his clothes to make room for all your stuff, but that’s just collateral damage. Everything is fair in Love and War. Especially fair if it’s both.

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They say there are 2 things that are guaranteed in life. Death and Taxes. I want to add a third to the list: Traffic.

Traffic and I seem to have a never-ending love affair. It keeps following me everywhere, never letting me go, always behind me and haunting me.

Traffic is really everywhere. There’s this highway here called the ‘101′. It’s Silicon Valley’s equivalent of Bangalore’s Hosur Road. Now, this is a nice 5-lane-each-direction highway, but it looks like a parking garage during rush hour. Full of cars going at two-and-a-half kmph. And at one of the exits, you have to wait at the same signal -three times- to cross it. Aahh….just like Marathalli bridge in Bangalore. And the other day, they’d dug up 2 lanes of this highway causing even more traffic jams – just like the roads back home. It felt so good. I think I’ve developed an emotional attachment with the 101.

But traffic out here is boring. You have to sit and twiddle your thumbs and just follow the car in front of you. You can’t even honk or overtake or get out and swear at random people. In Bangalore, on the other hand, traffic is very alive and happening. People are honking, the 2-wheelers are trying to squeeze through, pedestrians are running for their lives and the killer autos are driving on the footpaths. Driving in Bangalore is a challenge. It’s exciting and fun. Driving here is a chore.

Driving on the highway is also very different. I remember the first time I drove on a US interstate. Nice wide road, people actually following lane discipline and no signals anywhere. I thought – Wow! This is so cool! But soon, I discovered just how boring it gets. You can’t overspeed, you can’t pretend you’re driving an F1 car and you can’t zig-zag through the other cars. You just have to follow the car in front of you. Even worse, the cars here have this ‘cruise control’ feature that can do ‘follow-the-car-in-front’ thing automatically. You don’t have to do anything! How boring

Compare that to driving on a highway in India – You can do just whatever the hell you like. Plus, there is a real risk of you crashing into a buffalo. You can drive at whatever speed, in whatever lane, in whatever direction. You are the king! All these things make the driving exciting. Makes you feel ALIVE!

Since we have to live with traffic anyway, I’ll take the traffic in Bangalore anyday. It’s like going on the roller-coaster everytime. I can’t wait to drive on Bangalore’s roads again.

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<showoff>
Have you guys been reading the Official Google Blog lately? There’s a post on there that might interest you

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/two-more-reasons-to-type-in-hindi.html

Pay special attention to who the author of the post is
</showoff>

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You know, I don’t understand politics at all. Politicians do things that don’t make sense from any angle. Take the recent Deve Gowda adventure, for example.

Here’s my understanding of the political situation in Karnataka:

1) Deve Gowda’s son wants to be CM, so he makes a deal with the BJP.
2) He says I’ll be CM for 20 months, then BJP can put their CM for 20 months.
3) BJP falls for it, Kumaraswamy becomes CM
4) 20 months later, Kumaraswamy asks the BJP to go jump in a well.

What a beautiful political maneuver! Who would have seen it coming? I mean – A politician makes a promise and doesn’t keep up to it? Who would have thought? How cunning of Deve Gowda! Deve Gowda is my favoritest politician. I mean, he’s got style.

This kind of behavior of the politicians reminds me of a similar incident when I was little. Back when I was in 3rd-4th standard, we used to play cricket on the street in front of our house. We used to play with cheap tennis balls and pieces of wood that passed off as bats. Then one day, this kid got a real cricket bat. He became an instant celebrity! At last, we could finally play cricket like real grown-ups.

We started playing. The kid with the bat got to be captain. His team decided to bat first, and since he was the captain, he got to go and play first too. The match started.

First ball. The kid with the bat decided to go for a six, but got bowled! As the bowling team celebrated, the kid decided he was in fact, not out.

Bowler: “What? You were clean bowled”
Kid with the bat: “I was not ready”
Fielders: “Of course you were ready, you took your stance”
Kid with the bat: “Fine! I’m going home, and I’m taking my bat with me”

There was a stunned silence. Everyone wanted to play with the new bat, but this kid was threatening to take it away from us. And so, reluctantly, he was declared not out, and the game continued. As we proceeded with the game that day, the kid with the bat made up several arbitrary rules to suit him.

- Full toss into the house next door was out, but it was a four if it bounced and went into the house.
- one-hand-pitch-catch was allowed. That is, it was out if the fielder caught the ball with one hand after one bounce.
- Tree-catches were allowed.
- “Current Out” was allowed for run-outs. That is, the wicket-keeper only needed to keep his foot on the “wicket” (i.e., stone) and catch the ball. That would be counted as a direct-hit to the wicket.

This cricket game between the 9-year olds pretty much sums up politics. Someone in power has something everyone else wants, so he gets to make up the rules of the game. Everyone else has to be nice to him if they want to play the game. Else, you can just go home.

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