Indian Express derailed …

Years back, tennis whizkids Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi came together to play some scintillating tennis and thereby became the first Indians to win grand slam titles. However after some years, misunderstandings resulted in their partnership coming to an end, thereby ending their fairytale run. The poem below is a dedication to the many victories and special moments they gave us.

 

Two young stars came together
Won hearts with their game
Playing some great strokes
Winning grand slams and fame

 

Fans flocked to watch them play
They were named ‘Indian Express’
Whatever they did was news
Including the way they dress

 

Success never got to them
As they reigned supreme
Tennis regained its charm
Lee & Hesh Oh! What a team

 

More adulation followed
Chest bumps became a rage
Their articles were all over
The newspaper’s sport’s page

 

Alas! Like all good things
There was a twist in the tale
Misunderstandings’ cost them
As the partnership turned stale

 

Playing with different partners
They couldn’t repeat the feat
Even during Davis Cup ties
Watching them was no more a treat

 

Just that they didn’t Mud-sling
But the differences became known
Events during the Uzbekistan Tie
Was again the contention’s bone

 

They may not play together
For this year’s Olympic gold
That the country comes first
Maybe, they should be told

 

As a fan I still hope to see
A day when Lee-Hesh combine
Forget the ego, forget the past
Then things could fall in line

 

Protests and Traffic Violations: An Indian Way of Life

The newspaper these days is abuzz with the news of Lalu’s comments on the people of Karnataka. Lalu on an official visit to Bangalore has been quoted as calling the people of Karnataka as ‘Dirty People’. If Lalu has indeed made this comment, then it is condemnable without a doubt.

Even if the remark is not merely a rumor, then the pro Kannada activists could have silently protested against the same and sought an apology from him. However they have chosen to be on the wrong side of the law, as a habit. They have been ruthlessly destroying railway property; 2 days ago at the Divisional Railway Manager’s office and just yesterday they went about destroying the ticket counters at the Bangalore Contonment railway station near Vasanthnagar. The irony that these so called protectors of the land don’t seem to realize is that they are proving Lalu every bit right by going about destroying the government property. Who else but ‘Dirty people’ would indulge in such activities. Their act is not only resulting in unnecessary expenditures to the government, but also causing extensive damage to the reputation of the friendly folks of Karnataka.

Coming to Traffic violations now. A conversation I heard between 2 students riding a two-wheeler last week. The pillion rider suggested to the person riding the bike, that they take the one-way route to reach college. The rider kept repeating to him “No machan, that’s a one-way”. However the pillion rider had his say and managed to get his friend to use the one-way route to reach college. How easily is it for us to get influenced by these negative thoughts and minds? Why can’t we stop for a minute, think and then decide against breaking a law? It scares the daylights out of me when I think about the attitude of this generation. Another such incident occurred last evening. Not the first time, I watched a law protector becoming a law breaker (broker seems better). A ‘Hoysala’ jeep driver (constable) was driving the jeep even as he was talking on his cell phone. All this while we keep reading that the Bangalore Traffic Police are looking out for people who drive while talking on their cell phones. They don’t ever realize that the culprit is one amongst them, do they?

Satirical Headlines

Satirical Headlines in the newspapers has always enchanted me. On a dull day, it’s the headlines which decide which article I should read and which I could skip.  Below are some of the best that I have read over the past few years. 

When Ganguly was dropped from the Indian team, a leading Indian Daily had this to say “Past Perfect, Future Tense”. “Wow!” I thought wondering whoever was behind this super catchy headline.  During the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the same Indian Daily had this wonderful catchy headline, “If someone can, its Oliver Kahn”, to highlight the then German skipper’s goalkeeping efforts. As part of their supplementary issue, they had another funny headline which read “He Khan do anything”. The reference here was to Bollywood’s best and perfectionist Khan.  

Not only headlines, even articles can contain catchy sentences at times. Many years ago, a well-known Sports Magazine had made this comment in their article on a historic innings that Steve and Mark Waugh played against the touring West Indians. “Forget the parents; even the fielders could not control the twins”. Again I could feel my mind let out a wide smile about the person behind this one-liner.

Time and again these one-liners have inspired me to dream that one day I shall eventually give up my routine IT industry job and get into the advertising world. Don’t know if that would ever happen.

Traffic Non-Sense on Bengalooru Roads

I have always tried my best to follow all traffic rules. This has only become better after I have returned from my assignment in the UK. So much so that at times, if I happen to see a woman holding a baby and waiting to cross the road, I ensure that she gets the priority. Many times, the women are surprised to know that I am in a no hurry to get to my destination unlike my other city brethren. Even when I give priority to the elderly folks to cross the road, they interrogatingly look at me to question if I have a trick or two in mind.

Separate lanes have been created for rickshaws in the city. Ironically though, the most of the rickshaws don’t use this lane. Instead we see 2 wheeler riders and cyclists using this lane more often.

During an earlier assignment in Hong Kong, I was walking down one night to my hotel post midnight. A car obediently stopped at the traffic signal and moved from there only when the signal changed to GREEN. Here, we hardly adhere to the RED & GREEN signals during daytime. So this rule to be followed at night may not happen in our lifetime. In fact, we still believe in riding/driving our vehicles in the direction where a 24 hr one-way rule is applicable. This morning, during my walk to Sankey Tank I noticed a ‘gentleman’ driving on Sampige Road in Malleswaram, but in the opposite direction. I reminded him that this is a one-way. The response was just the thing I was not prepared for. He smiled back at me, as if to say “I am aware! Thanks anyway”.

Why is that we think we can get away with such offences? And to top that we ourselves decide that this is just a minor offence, considering the other traffic violations that happen all across the city.

Strangely, with better education, things have only turned to worse. Lack of education was considered as one of the primary reasons for traffic indiscipline. But today, education has been made available to all class of people. Still people belonging to all sections and class do not want to stick by the rules. It almost scares me that in our lifetime, we may never see traffic sense prevailing on Bengalooru roads

India Victorious

As Anil Kumble bowled the last ball of the 5th and final day of the Oval Test Match, curtains fell on a historic series that India won convincingly. Watching the Indians celebrate after the final ball was very pleasing to the Indian fan, especially after the World Cup debacle early this year. 

It was very heartening to see the current captain embracing his predecessor Saurav, affectionately. Not often do you get to see such emotional scenes on the field involving Rahul. Also joining them in this special moment was the other integral part of this famous batting trio, Sachin. The 3 stars were aware that this could be their last test at England. More importantly, it seemed as though they had shared a dream of winning a series in England and that had come true finally.

Kudos to the Indian team. They deserved to win and 1-0 or 2-0 is after all just numbers. Remember, we have won the series in 21 years and that is reason enough to celebrate.

An evening at Sankey

Thanks to a nagging shoulder pain, I decided to skip my regular morning walk at Sankey’s Tank last Saturday. By evening I was feeling a lot better and so decided to make up for the morning walk. It was a rainy evening and the weather was chill too. And when I reached the tank, what I got to see was nature at its best in namma Bengalooru.  

An overcast condition, water droplets dripping from the leaves was a perfect sight to behold. More than a routine fitness walk, it seemed as though I was out on a walk amidst nature.  Many a times, we talk about the scenic beauty we get to see in other countries. But I got to see all these and more at Sankey.  

I had a nightmare of a time editing the snaps. Given a choice, I would have probably uploaded all the snaps. Yes, I have deliberately avoided capturing the not-so-clean portions at Sankey. But then how many of us, actually capture such snaps when we travel outside India.  

Before writing this post, I was like a film producer with 5 scripts in his hand, not knowing which script he would direct first. But after the walk at Sankey, my decision became an easy one. After all, nature takes priority and rightly so.

My Wife and her lenses

My wife has this uncanny habit of getting into adventurous situations when it comes to her contact lenses. I had the first hand experience of this during our courting days. I was accompanying her to the Malleswaram 10th cross bus stop on Sampige Road, from where she usually boarded her bus home to Sanjaynagar. When we were on the way to the bus stop, she had some irritation in her eye and even before she knew, one of the pair had popped out of her eye. We spent a good 30 minutes trying to locate it on the road, with the help of streetlights. It didn’t help much and finally she opted for a new pair of lenses. There was more adventure to come.

We went to Munnar for our honeymoon and one evening after we returned from the daily sight-seeing trip, my wife realized that one of her lenses was not in her eyes. She frantically searched all across our hotel room, but just couldn’t find it.

The lens seemed to be more interested in a game of hide and seek rather than help my wife’s eye vision. Tensed and without any other option, we went to the Tata Tea Hospital in Munnar. The opthalmologist we met concluded that he couldn’t find the missing lens in her eye with the instrument he used. His opinion was that we meet Dr C, a leading eye surgeon in Munnar. It was around 7:30 PM when we reached Dr C’s clinic. He looked into the matter in detail and conveyed that the only thing we could do is to come back to Tata Tea Hospital the next morning where he would examine the eye with much more sophisticated medical instruments. We returned back to the hotel, dejected and worried as to what could be in store for us the next morning. My wife still wouldn’t give up and she continued to search the hotel room in the hope of avoiding a visit to the hospital the next morning. She bent over the dressing mirror to get a clear view of the dressing table, and with increasing frustration probably, just banged softly on the mirror. And then what do we see, the other lens that we were desperately looking out for, popped out from the mirror’s surface. Her excitement was worth watching. She was a relieved person. 

Fast forward to 7 glorious years later. We returned to Bangalore after a 2 year stint in the UK. One fine morning she woke up to tell me that she had some irritation in the eye.  A closer look into her eyes revealed that the soft lens in her left eye had split into two parts and worse still, the second part was missing. Furthermore, the burning and irritation in her eyes was getting unbearable. This was on a lazy Saturday morning, around 11 AM.  We quickly got ready to rush to a local eye doctor in Malleswaram. The receptionist at the front desk told us that the doctor would only be available in the evening. With no other option left, we rushed to a well-known and famous eye hospital in Rajajinagar.

As soon we parked the car and headed towards the reception, we saw this huge crowd of patients waiting for their turn. We knew this would be one long never-ending wait. We took an appointment and waited for close to 3 hours. While waiting for the opthalmologist i examined my wife’s eye and could make out a blue-tinged particle in her eyes. I kept on insisting that the missing portion was there in the eye and it had not disappeared anywhere inside. When our turn finally came, the doctor ruled out any possibility of the missing part of the lens to be present in the eye. He confirmed that he had verified through the medical instrument, that there was no foreign particle(the missing lens part) in her eyes and proactively he went on to check my wife’s eye power and even suggested what lenses would suit her etc. The feeling one got was that my wife was there only for a new pair of contact lens and our visit had nothing do with the missing portion of her lens. This was followed by another senior opthalmologist again confirming what her junior had just said. She even prescribed some eye drops, in case the irritation in the eye persists. After a long day at the hospital we headed back home.

In the next few weeks, my wife kept insisting that she still felt the presence of some foreign particle in her eye. I just brushed it off, saying it was just her hallucination and the fear of actually not having seen the missing portion of the lens. By now we had decided that the missing portion had fallen of her eye and was indeed missing. But that was not to be. A few days later she called me at the office to inform me, that when she woke up that morning, she felt irritation in her eye and on further rubbing the eyes, the missing portion of the lens popped out finally.

Phew!!! Must say, we have had some unique experiences with her lenses. Its been close to 2 months since she has switched back to her spectacles. And she still insists on shopping for a pair of lens soon.

My First Blog

I am all excited. This is my first blog. Expecting some serious and not so serious comments from all of you. In the software industry, when we generate a document and send it out for review, we expect review comments. I hope your comments won’t be as serious as review comments  

And why is the site named milcote.wordpress.com is a familiar question my near & dear ones have asked me. I was in UK for close to 2 years and stayed in an area called Milcote Road in Solihull. I liked the name ‘MILCOTE’ because it can also mean A MILLION QUOTES although i am not targetting to reach there by the end of this fiscal year ;-). As you can see from the blog title, i am in awe of one-liner quotes and may use them extensively in my articles. A Million qoutes is still a distant dream.

In our day to day life, we happen to come across many individuals and many interesting incidents. Will try and publish as many stories as i can remember. The idea is to make this blog available for some light reading. However, please refrain from reading this blog, after a sumpstous meal.