Biryani edges Bisi Bele Bhaath

What a match! And what a tournament!

Atleast if one is a fan of the Deccan Chargers, who came from being at the bottom of the table last year to take it all this time around! Kudos to Gilly and his bunch of dedicated fellas who did not lose hope and gave a tough fight to all their opponents. And a huge round of applause to the Royal Challengers for showing that you can come back to the top after you have had your backs to the wall.

But all the great work put up on the field by the cricketers was negated by the horrendous job done by the broadcasters. Ram Gopal Verma might just shortlist Mandira Bedi for the lead role in the sequel to his Bhoot. Gaurav Kapoor can easily replace the laughter track in any sidey comedy show. And Sameer Kochar was so good, that I actually missed Navjot Singh Sidhu.

When it came to Sherry and his 'Siddhuisms', they atleast conveyed some meaning and any linguist would be proud of the vocabulary used. Not Mr Kochar. Like being at the boundary before the start of the final and asking the spectators, " U guys here to enjoy the match?". "Naah, we have more fun listening to your Kocharisms!!" Seriously, why else would they have come to a cricket ground? To see a mujra or something?? (well, that too, what wid Kat babes going Jai Ho with her booty and bubbles!) Next up was the talk with Rohit Sharma after DC put up a meagre 143 on the board. RS explained that although the score did not seem much, it was defendable because the pitch was slowing down, showing low bounce and the spinners were able to get some good spin out of it. And then the next question was again a great Kocharism... "How is the pitch behaving like?" Now, did not RS just talk about it? What were you doing while he answered? Oogling at the cheergirls behind? And in a previous match, he mentioned that J. Singh replaced H. Singh in the DC line up and even had the guts to mention on air that he did not know what J abbreviated for!!!

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A couple of more things related to the IPL that interested me were the adverts. No, not the 'strategically' placed ones, but the regular ones. The best one is no doubt the Zoozoo series. They looked cute initially, but more than the characters, I loved the concept of each and every advert in the series. And exceptionally well executed. Vodafone (and erstwhile Hutch) adverts rock!

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Another wonderful advert that caught my attention is the Voltas AC advert. Great concept about the villages getting electricity if we use their ACs. I truly appreciate the brains behind the advert who made using ACs an energy-saving mantras!! Now all the mantris and their chamchas will have the "India ka AC" in their homes so that they can fulfil their election promises of giving power to the farmers. Even if they do not succeed, no one can fault them for they atleast made every effort possible by installing ACs in every nook and corner of their homes!

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Talking of mantris, I'll be the happiest person on earth when the Union Cabinet allocates ministries based on individual merit. I love SM Krishna, but for all his greatness, I still feel that Shashi Tharoor is the best person(and not just the best politician) in the country for the post, but they still ignore him. Sharad Pawar has probably allocated more funds to grow grass in cricket stadia than to farmers to grow rice in the villages. What nuances of the finance ministry does a law graduate in Pranab know? Why not get someone who knows the subject? The less said about the DMK tamasha the better. They probably provided more masala than the Chennai Super Kings did all month long.

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Coming back to the power situation, Hyderabadis have been facing one or two hourly power cuts everyday due to demand overshooting supply. But still half of the city was lit up with disco lighting to celebrate the Congress victory in AP. I mean, do you have any sense? Why the hell should we pay for your enjoyment?

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The weekend just gone by did nothing much to place a dent on the Brawn GP F1 car of Jenson Button, but it also showed that the Ferrari team were regrouping and had closed the gap to a certain degree. And hopefully in a race or two, will actually fight for the Chequered Flag! Yo Tifosa!

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GMail is awesome. It allows me to pick up my rediff, hotmail, yahoo mails and view them all in one inbox. Plus I can now have multiple inboxes on one page to view these accounts separately. So totally awesome. And yeah, the attachment reminder, Undo send, super labels and the many more labs features that can be added on! Google, hats off. Now, only if I could get my Yahoo and MSN messenger contacts on the same page...

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I was thinking of revamping this blog design. Suggest what base colour would suit it. And if anyone has a great template that gels with the theme of my blog, do let me know!

Rat-o-Raat

Borrowing the title from Sudev's comment on my facebook status message describing my late night adventures with the sweaky visitor.

It was a tiring Sunday night, almost about to hit midnight, when I spotted a small rat in my house. It was the second such sighting, the first was almost a year ago and had been effectively dealt with. Now this tiny creature was fast and made its way into the kitchen. Fortunately, it could not find its way onto or into any of the cabinets and so plonked itself under the refrigerator. Yours truly went into the war zone armed with a jhaadu amidst screams from the biwi! Shut the door behind me but did not bolt it, and that turned out to be a mistake. The nasty fella found its way through the small gap that remained and found its way into my bedroom. Holy thy me!

Searched all humanly reachable places and came to the conclusion that it was hiding below the bed. Now the newer types of beds have these cases to put your linen, etc below the plank and are closed from the sides. That leaves no room for mortals like me to search for absconding rats! Resigning to fate, dozed off to sleep.

Sometime around 2.30AM, biwi shoves her elbow into a sleepy me with a notice that the rat has been spotted trudging its way back into the kitchen. I would'nt have woken up faster even if a Ferrari F1 car was found at my door! I again armed myself with the jhaadu and re-entered the battlefield, ordering biwi to bolt the door behind me.

Now the modus operandi was simple. Get the rat out of the kitchen window. Could not risk getting it to take any other route. This chap was unfortunately too young to be able to reach the window sill which was about a couple of feet and a half from the floor. All it could do was run around from one end to the other and back under the fridge. There was no escape. Now, the fella was too swift to get him onto the dust pan and out of the window. So I used a small bucket and made it lie on its side at one end of the kitchen. Nearer the fridge, I kept an empty polythene carrybag (Thank you Spencer's) fully inflated! Used the jhaadu to get the fella out from under the fridge and go around the kitchen. It was going around from one end to the other for almost five minutes before it went into the trap! It found its way into the carrybag! In a jiffy, I was at the carrybag and lifted it off the floor with the rat in it and off it went out of the window!

The light weight of the bag would ensure a smooth landing for the rat onto the tarmac, whence he could continue his midnight adventures - two floors below me! And thus ended the Saga of the Midnight Rat...