Dress well , whether you like it or not.

I don't know why I was reminded of this now and I am not sure if I have already blogged about it but I am going to write about it anyway.

There have been many such embarassing moments in my life ( and hopefully in others' lives too , why should I be the only one!) and this particular incident was very awkward. This was when I had been to Mexico city a year and a half back. I had 3 flights to catch with very long breaks at the airports and I even met my friend Lalitha and her husband at San Francisco during a very long break( around 9 hours) before heading to Mexico city. All in all from the time I left my house till the time I got to the hotel, it must have taken me around 45 hours or close to 2 days.

Reached the hotel at 6am in the morning on a Sunday and had a quick breakfast and then slept. I had no idea which universe I was in coz' of the sluggishness that encumbered every cell of my body. Finally when I got up it was late afternoon and had a light lunch and waited for my Project Manager's call. He was from the land of Texas and if you jump hard from there, you will land in Mexico city. We spoke finally around 6pm and planned to meet later for dinner.

Now I am not / I wasn't till I met this person , very wary about what I wore for dinner at such hotels when I end up staying there. Who wants to even think about this after a typically hard day's work ? You just want to gobble something and hit the sack. As it is , I was tired and when the time came, I was in my tracks and went down to meet Mr PM at the lobby. So here I was in this tracks and there I suddenly see this grey haired huge Texan ( probably twice my size in height and weight!) - ( I found later that he is in his early 50s) who looked very experienced and was in a spick and span black dinner suit. I wanted to rush back immediately at Usain Bolt's pace but he saw me and recognised me.

(Within me , i kept saying, dude, what the !) We exchanged pleasantries but believe me, it wasn't pleasant at all. I was determined that very moment that I would be dressed more than decently for the morning. Dinner followed and he was and is such a wonderful person. Was extremely glad when we took leave at the lift and I felt extremely awkward. Next day, I spent 10 mins extra with the coat and I think he complimented saying I was looking good and presentable and thats when I told him that the previous night , I was so damn tired that my head was throbbing continuously.

Anyway, the trip was excellent and I got to know Mr PM better. You can read my Tequila experience somewhere in my blogs. Moral of this particular story however was - dress well especially when you are meeting someone professionally even if its a Sunday night and you are hopelessly jetlagged,whether you like it or not !

A game of cricket...

Well high time i wrote something about cricket since I think/read(newspaper/cricinfo.com)/talk(lunch/tea/dinner/news time) about this atleast once a day... The "/" means it might be at any of those times and doesn't mean ALL of that every day!

You would say , dude, its impossible not to be touched by cricket in this nation! But I give you an example of my cousin Mahesh who is untouched by any teeny weeny thing to do with cricket and almost lives like he is in Europe - every cell of his body thinks/talks football ! Anyway, Mahesh, if you are reading this, thats the amount of awe, surprise, dedication and appreciation I have for you.

Anyway, my recent memories of cricket include India and Sri lanka playing whenever I went to channel 107 and after a while I completely stopped that as it was so freaking boring. I mean every player, his wife and kids in the 11 and the 15 and the 'A' team from one side knew every player, his wife and kids in the 11 and the 15 and 'A' side from the other side. It was as tedious as you reading the previous line. Seriously!

On the other hand, I loved and I tell you I really really loved watching Dale Steyn bowling to the haughty Englishmen and lately, our own Indian fellas. I had previously got this feeling only when I watched Allan Donald bowl to the Waughs or Wasim Akram bowling to the Aussies. 99% of my body wants to be a fast bowler(1% wants to be a batsman who wants to play with a straight bat :D) and watching Steyn when he is at his best is like eating the best Masala Dosa in the world and relishing every bit,nibble and byte of that! yumm...

Ahh, let me not forget , I like this guy Manish Pandey, provides me with the same restlessness and tension that I had when I used to watch my all time favorite Brian Charles Lara. His Ranji Trophy final exploits should have been enough to make him play instead of Saha against SA but the selectors didn't think so . Pity them. Anyway coming to Brian Charles Lara, I followed these doctrines :
1. Never watch him play live as he always gets out. Remember several such occasions. One was in the 3rd test against Australia he was batting on 182 when I switched on the TV and did my yahoo and told my dad that he is batting and immediately, the next ball , he nicked Colin Miller to first slip !! Unbelievable.
2. Always watch highlights whatever time it is coz' he is worth it. Watch the 90 runs he made against Aus in late 90s where he took 90 balls for his 1st 50 and 20 balls for the next 40 and obviously won the game!

One of my dreams was to visit Trinidad and that actually came true and I saw where he practiced his cricket, which school he went to, his memorial, got a memorabilia and finally missed meeting him by a day or so as he was out of the country!

Finally, last evening I played cricket at the office nets where people just gather in numbers after 4.30 to play. I think I might have bowled 15 overs for an hour and a half. I never probably was more irritated with my bowling before ! Every ball was down the leg side - whatever I did it didn't help for the first 30 mins. It slowly improved and finally got a couple of nicks and then bowled a good bouncer, got a guy beaten and gave him one of those fast bowler STARES and then got him nicking again and then stopped as I wanted that good feeling to stay within me...

Seemingly very long post but hey I have missed IPL...hold your horses ,thats going to come soon as well :)

Cheers!