Satyameva Jayate!

Read somewhere:

Life is one long series of truths - some we recognize, some we fail to and some we ignore. 

(Oh fish! I made that up :-))


Here are some truths that one stumbled upon recently - most of them we ignored, of course!



#1

A few days back, Saeed Ajmal, of the doosra/teera/chautha fame said that his action has been cleared by ICC under special grounds: that his hand can bend upto 23.5 degrees instead of the allowed 15 degrees !!! I am saying that 15 itself is bogus; now 23.5? What next? 90 degrees? Then we can rename cricket as baseball and move on :-)

For more fun reading, click here :-))

#2

Heard that as part of the recent bye-election festival in Andhra (Kovur?), people were betting on the winning margin (not the winner, mind you!) of the YSRCP over TDP. Since it was a pool, the margin splits were (<25K, between 25K to 35K, >35K).

Believe that until the last round of counting the margin was around 27K, drawing more bets into that pool; unfortunately, the last machine was from a TDP stronghold (fixing the counting sequence, perhaps?) and the margin dropped from 27K to 23.5K, thus causing immense heartburn to punters.

According to Eenaadu, 600cr was sprayed on this exercise with one unfortunate farmer (???) putting up 30 acres of his land on the losing pool!!! Hunger deaths, anyone?

#3

Over the past several months lot of chest-beating happened around the Norway- Bhattacharya case about the 'abducted/snatched' children.

Every journalist and his uncle (including the once venerable Times of India group) jumped on the bandwagon and shouted that the Indian Govt should flex its muscles and put the Norwegians in their place.

SM Krishna obliged. Norway saw the muscles (or worked out that an unmarried uncle is better off to handle the children is better than the parents!) and was about to withdraw. Then all hell broke loose!

Papa Bhattacharya accused momma Bhattacharya of being emotionally unstable/depressed and all such stuff.

Norway went back to the old stuff and said, "Let us start from the first paratta!"

Now where are the great journalists? I am checking ToI for the last week or so. No news. Times Now - no chest-beating by Arnav Goswami...

What to do, we are like that only?

#4

Last week, Dravid was felicitated by the BCCI for his fantastic services to Indian cricket. (Old news? Tick.)

Sachin did not attend the function. (Old news? Tick.)

During his acceptance speech Dravid did not mention Sachin (Conspiracy? Tick.)

Sachin had to go to London to meet the specialist (Old news? Tick.)

Does friendship or same-dressing-room-for-million-games-camaraderie matter? - Nah! Only IPL matters. Better get the toe fixed for the month of T20 tamasha. Can always text Rahul! (Truth? Tick.)

Satyameva Jayate!

Final, no, Beginning of Charity!

After a few over- and under-settlement of trades, here is the final position of the Charity from BQ 2011.

Thanks a million to all those who contributed.

Final details and Charity Donation Receipt shown below.

Next stop: Quiz winners' prizes... Wait with bated breath :-))

God Bless.

Finals: Blue Blooded Warriors!!!

Bleed them blue, they did.

I did not want to bombard you with anything. The mood was to enjoy and savour the most important victory that India has scored in many many years across many many areas, rather than pressing my thoughts on you!

Indeed 1983 was great - but that was providential (aka fluke - blasphemy!).

But this victory will be the new bench-mark for a victory in any global sporting event - winning at home is extremely difficult, especially if you have even an iota of a chance! Even Bangladesh dreamt of getting through to quarter-finals :=)

I think that only the Chinese know how to handle the nerves (do they have any?) in front of their home crowd - even there that 110m hurdler blew it by competing with an injury.

Which brings us to a few questions that Sanga is trying to answer...

I could understand Perera for Angelo; Kula for Herath. The other replacements were a waste. Even though the Indians know Ajantha like the back of their hands, a final is a final and that guy has been doing better than other bowlers - definitely better than Ranadiv who probably choked on his kiribath when the call for the finals came!

As far the Indians...it was not the...

... three consecutive maidens by Zaheer

... timely breaks by Yuvraj

... the inverted C dive by Gambhir

... Dhoni's incessant pounding of the extra-cover boundary with those off-side helicopters

no, not even the 'i-have-hit-the-winning-six-and-i-don't-know-how-to-react' MSD moment!

It was the fantastic fielding that the guys put up on the field that stole the show. Yuvraj was impregnable at point; Kohli and Raina were omni-present; even Zaheer and Sachin - the Mumbai veterans, were diving and saving certain boundaries. Guys! I could not believe any of my faculties!!!

Sidelights:

• The toss was a goof-up par-excellence. Jeff Crowe did it again.
• Aleem Dar had a fantastic tournament - and I can tell you that one single appeal can make the bowler see red (Just yesterday, I was asked, "Are you able to see the ball or not!!"). Imagine Simon and Dar, doing it in front of those braying public and coming out unscathed! Incredible. Kudos, fellers.
• And the most important reason for India winning the world cup is, of course, Rajinikanth was there!!! Add a new Rajini-ism to the lore: "On Saturday, Rajini was watching the finals - second time!"
• And Murthy from Dubai says that there are at least two/three sweet boxes delivered to his home by complete strangers celebrating India's victory!

Q Part:

Nobody got the complete correct answer.

Basanti from Khuddar, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Pursuit Special from Mad Max, Herbie from Love Bug, Homer from Simpsons are the correct answers.

Raghav (3.5), Guru (3) and AdarshB (4)  are the ones who had a good crack at the questions.

So, that brings us to the end of the more-enjoyable portion of BQ from my perspective...

Here is the final status of the quiz from BQ-CWC 11.

CONGRATULATIONS to
RAGHAV
ADARSH &
GURU
Thanks for all who took part in keeping the Quiz flying!!

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B Part:

Final Status: Maddy was cribbing a few days back that he is missing out narrowly. And I advocated patience to him and he did reap a handsome reward for that!

Look out for my emails on settlements and such.

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F-1: This sentence has no full stop,

Q Part:

Yes, it was a tough question. Yet, there were a couple who either through sheer luck or some nifty deduction got the right answer.

The  inimitable Dickie Bird - the other famous Yorkshire-man was regaling us with that Fred Truman anecdote.

Raghav and Yuva got the answer. Definitely good show, fellas! 

And here is the 25th (and last) quiz of BQ - CWC 2011. Have a go! Top 3 get a prize.

Give me the character names of these movie cars.

Five Points.

.

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The title of the post is courtesy Dhoni. He actually said: "Till the full stop doesn't come the sentence is not complete"

Our man paraphrased 'It ain't over until the fat lady sings!' so eloquently, that all the linguistic professors are hurrying to honour him with a nice little doctorate!! Dr Dhoni, rings nice, eh?

A short prayer for the final:

Our father in the heaven

Holy be Thy name

Your kingdom calm

In Wankhade, as in heaven

Give us a ...

... Sachin Century

... Murali 4-for

... close match and

... victory to the ones who won at the Lord's long time ago ;-)

Amen.

(after all, what are prayers for, if you are not partial and sure of something? Blasphemy...)

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B Part:

Status: No change from the previous  post :-) Somebody was asking me, when is the 'small' final - yeah, he was meaning the 3rd/4th place decider - nice terminology! 

Please note the timings for the last game on Saturday - The Final:

India v Sri Lanka 16:25 hours SGT Saturday

(Remember: Final guesses cost 5 bucks)

Go ahead and open your purses for the finals. Open for all!!

Answers and guesses to the usual place. 

(The usual place is my email address, which you can find along with the ranges etc., at http://sribees.blogspot.com/2011/02/world-cup-here-we-come.html)

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