Mid-day Hits Bullseye

Yesterday's advertisement in Mid-day proved perfect today. In my usual hurry(The day I land up well before time for anything , I think my hubby dearest will throw a huge party:-), I'm always Just- In- Time, a principle taught in B-school that most MBAs apply in almost all walks of life;-))to catch the office bus outside Borivali station and in that frenzy picking up my daily copy of Mid-Day, I chanced upon the Mumbai Mirror and picked it up for curiosity sakes.

After having a first glimpse of the paper, it seemed to be a prototype of the existing Mid-Day. So what has ToI done different? Nothing. Changed the section names, content the same. The soap opera stars will get some more media coverage and papers will thrive on their gossip.

The paper has added international business news, and that's the only difference.

The puzzles/crosswords lack any standard. One reason that could've motivated me to pick up a copy daily, but they are not worth solving. The comics nothing great and Mid-Day will still be a priority as it carries my eternal favouriteCalvin & Hobbes

Mid-Day hit the nail in the coffin with its advertisement yesterday. I don't see Mumbai Mirror eroding into Mid-Day's readership.

DNA is yet to hit the stands, will wait and watch what awaits us readers:-)

Chutta Nikalo!

Those living in Mumbai and commuting by B.E.S.T. buses should be familiar with the above two words. We hear them practically everyday when we try to buy the ticket from the B.E.S.T. conductor.

Read this in the ToI and I wonder why we still have the conductors asking for change? Why do they need more, after these B.E.S.T. woes?

Some people never learn do they?:-)

War of Words Begins...

Somebody once said " The TV can never replace the newspaper, you could never carry a TV on your head when the rain is pouring hard on you"

Jokes apart, the print media, especially our daily newspapers will remain an integral part of our daily lives, this inspite of internet boom, media expansion and technology advancements.
There is a certain charm about the newspaper that no other media has.

Today's Mid-Day carried an advertisement on its last page. The advertisement carried the heading ' This is the great new newspaper idea according to the Times'. It was followed by a print of an article carried in the Times of India which spoke about the success of big dailies going compact to increase readership and targetting the youth. The Times had this printed to set up its new paper the "Mumbai Mirror".

Below the 'printed article' it said " We had it 25 years ago"

The war of words has already started between Mumbai Mirror & DNA-promoted by the Bhaskar-Zee group. Mid-day has decided to join in as well.

Survival of the Fittest are we seeing this here now?

The Amul Ads.

I used to manage to catch up with the Amul Ads regularly when I was living at Worli. Post marraige no hoarding falls on my daily route and I do miss those witty takes on any and every current situation in India.

Well, they say the internet is a place where you simply cannot not find anything...

If anyone out there is missing the Amul Ads too; catch them right here.

40 or 14?

Those figures are the distance in kilometers from my place to my previous office in Cuffe Parade and current one in Andheri. Which distance would you prefer to travel daily? Obviously 14, What a stupid question to ask?

Stupid question!!! Not after encountering the Mumbai traffic woes on the Western Express Highway! On my way to office today by the company bus, I got stuck in bad traffic jam,at Kandivali East, near the Mahindra Office. In the morning, it usually does not take more than 45 minutes from Borivali to Andheri via the Western Express Highway and the new Jogeshwari- Vikhroli Link road. I do not know why the clog happened, but as and when after a wait of 40 minutes on the stretch we got near the junction right in front of the Mahindra office, I was stunned.

There was no signal at the junction which allows a free right turn from the other side of the highway. There is no traffic policeman stationed there to regulate the flow of traffic, knowing it is a heavy traffic road. Today there was one, who I presume must’ve come only after hearing about the jam.

Surprisingly instead of allowing traffic to flow on either side at regular intervals he simply held up the traffic on the main highway flowing towards Andheri and allowed the vehicles to take the right turn towards the Mahindra office. The drivers refused to stop later and kept flowing in and as a result we were held up even longer and that caused the clog to aggravate further.

Later, it was appalling but also heartening was to see a few people get down from the buses ( a majority of them traveling to the various offices located in Andheri) and regulate the traffic flow, eventually leading us to get out of the jam in few minutes.

The site was appalling cause in a city like Mumbai which is so heavily congested, the traffic controllers apparently haven’t done their homework on congestion points and appoint more than one traffic policeman to control and regulate the flow there. This junction has been existing without a signal for long now and somehow no one has bothered to install the much needed signal there.

What’s more, the people who tried to regulate the flow, received a hell lot of abuses from the auto-drivers and other car owners trying to get to the Mahindra office way. A person even drove his car on the wrong side. This on a highway, when a policeman is around! Not one person bothered to stop and let the other vehicles pass towards Andheri, showing a complete disregard for other’s time. Each just wanted to get out of the way, come what may, without bothering how much of a discomfort it will cause to the already distressed travelers. How self-involved are we getting?

A little bit of understanding and co-operation shown and the traffic could’ve got sorted out in few minutes. The ‘I wanna be the first one to get out of here’ attitude added to the congestion getting worsened.

The site was heartening cause a few sane people took it up as their responsibility to come ahead and sort the traffic problem. They either wanted to help the sole policeman there or realised that he is doing a shoddy job so might as well teach him a few lessons. Maybe he learnt a few things from them. Or maybe, they wanted to be the ones to get out of there asap. Whatever the reason, their timely intrusion did save everyone a great deal of time and torture of being in the same place for 1 hour.

The western express highway that stretches from Bandra to Borivali is a highly populated one and the traffic jams are unbearable. I once tried to take my company bus in the evening, thinking it’s highly comfortable and it took me two hours to get home!! I would get home faster form Cuffe Parade to Borivali! I’d prefer the travel to Churchgate any day to the traffic horrors that one faces while traveling to Andheri!

The roads are being expanded, places all over have been dug up, there are slums all along the highway, and the dirt is unimaginable. It is indeed a pitiable state. What rehabilitation and construction is the BMC/Maharashtra govt. talking about? I’m dreading the travel in the monsoon to work. There are lots of places where water is gonna get clogged, making life impossible. How are we gonna rectify this? No one has the answers, but everyone to blame! God save the Mumbaikar!

More on the cleanliness/hygiene/civic sense later. That will make up for another blog chapter. I also happened to travel by the new boogie in the local train. Definitely thumbs up, it’s stylish, the stainless steel look is great, it’s spacious , more airy, seats are better and the handles comfortable! Problem is, the railway authorities are trying level best to lift the standard of daily travel in Mumbai, how responsible will we Mumbaikars be in maintaining it? Think about it…..

Black Wednesday for Indian Cinema

Yesterday the industry was shocked with news of the demise of Sunil Dutt and Ismail Merchant.

Sunil Dutt, made Birju’s role in Mother India immortal and gave birth to the angry young man phenomenon. What appealed most of him as a person was his modesty, down-to-earth nature and a life full of struggle faced with immense courage and solidarity. It’s not easy for anyone to deal with the death of his wife due to cancer, lose his son to drugs and see him held up in police as a terrorist when he was doing immense social work and had a long standing as an ethical politician. We must give Dutt Saab his due respect.

Ismail Merchant made a different genre of movies but they were acknowledged by all. They were pieces of art and will remain so. You can read about him here.

Often in the past I’ve observed that the film industry has lost atleast 3 personalities in a short span of time. Is it a jinx or some scary coincidence but that’s been the case. Someday, I will cite those cases.

As of now, praying for their souls to rest in peace.

Crosswords:The New Addiction

Ever since I moved from Worli to Borivali, the travel to Churchgate began to look overwhelmingly painful to me. Quickly did I realize that here was a chance to get back to reading, a habit I had lost out on in the last two years partly due to studies and partly due to my laziness.

The one hour train travel to Churchgate from Borivali got me back to my books and puzzles. Each morning started off with buying a mid-day from the regular newspaper guy in the train. In an attempt not to doze off and keep myself busy I switched to the puzzle section of the paper and have got hooked on to the crosswords there.

For amateurs at the game, the crosswords are just right. I remember my best friend waiting for her dad to get mid-day every evening so that she would crack the crossword. She was amazing at that and has probably advanced to much tougher ones.

I don’t mind having caught onto it really late, but it’s a habit I intend to keep. The net also offers decent crosswords, a regular being the Indian Express one as it is solvable online. It’s a nice break from your work routine. You can check out the Online Mid-day Crossword which is really simple compared to its print edition.

It helps you keep pace with the vocabulary and also keeps me afresh in the mornings as the brain gets to work. Have shifted office from Churchgate to Andheri now, but still have a 45 minutes bus travel and the mid-day crosswords and puzzles keep me company still and will continue to do so daily as long as I work;-)

The Indian Express also carries a Cricket Crossword, what more could me, a cricket fan want. Cricket with crosswords that are my latest interest! Small things in life just about brighten up your day:-)

Chappell In..

So the news is finally out and the suspense finally over! Greg Chappell takes on the mantle of John Wright. His only serious contender for the 'coveted' job was Tom Moody.

Tom Moody

Tom Moody may have a good track record as a coach. Imagine this though, if Moody was appointed coach, what would he tell Sachin Tendulkar?

Sharjah 1998: The Coco Cola Cup: Sachin's finest moment as a batsman. He thrashed every Aussie bowler around the park, Tom Moody was one of them.

Just picture the dressing room with Tom Moody giving Sachin coaching tips...I can't!

Desmond Haynes

A last minute choice, no previous work ex as a coach, just didn't fit. His argument,'I am most suitable, as the next world cup is in Windies', was as lame as it could get and exposed his thought process too.

Going by his logic we should be changing coaches as per the tours and then what would the Aussies do? Their best coaches Marsh, Buchanan, Simpson have all been from the soil. Poor Aussies they are struggling badly aren't they? A decade of dominance, two world cups, ya they sure are struggling!

Mohinder Amarnath.

Hilarious wasn't he? I don't know what the big deal is about laptops and computers in coaching. We don't either, ask Buchanan and Wright who used technology to the fullest to study other teams and exploit their weaknesses and strengthen their own teams as well. In today's world where everything is being technology driven, when cricketers have acknowledged the immense help it has offered to them, Mr. Amarnath doesn't understand the big deal about it.

He is not into coaching but is of the firm belief that only an Indian coach can do a better job with the Indian team as he alone would understand their mindset.

Ashok Malhotra even asked, What did Mr. Wright do? He was insulted, cause he and Madan Lal were not considered as suitable candidates, even though they have been coaching regular A-level sides. Madan Lal, may I remind you was a national coach and am not too sure the current senior players would have been too keen to have him.

What did Mr. Wright do? Nothing much actually!

• He stayed on as Coach of India for 5 years without a break.
• He brought the team together and built team spirit where they played for each other and not self. No wonder we had so many miraculous comebacks and victories. Had it not been for our old inconsistent selves he would've ended his tenure with a better percentage of victories 40% in tests and 52% in ODIs.
• He got India to her first World Cup final since Kapil's Devils made it in 1983 after a gap of 20 years!!
• India started testing success on foreign soil, every series after a gap of 15 years
• No Indian team had won a test, let alone a series in Pakistan. Wright's India accomplished that and also the ODI victory.
• And last, but not the least, he did what no other team managed in the last decade; provide Australia its serious competitor in the test arena. In the three series played during Wright's Tenure, we won 1, lost 1 and drew the other. Never letting Australia dominate us the way it did others. It added a new rivalry to the world of cricket surpassing the India-Pak and Eng-Aus.

Seriously Mr, Amarnath the previous Indian coaches understood the mindset of Indian team much better than Wright did. Yes Mr. Malhotra what did Wright really do?

I happened to read a column by Gavaskar on the coaching job. What happens in the dressing room is none of our business. Our business is to see if they are performing or not. The point mentioned by him that the players abused Wright face on and would never do that to an 'inefficient' Indian coach is downright ridiculous. He adds to it by saying Wright might have not accepted the job due to these abuses.

Kiddish I must say, it's funny and hard to digest. I'm still trying to understand what point is Gavaskar trying to make and was he not a part of the committee that once again chose a foreign coach? And are we still gonna be debating over the nationality of the coach, Indian or non-indian would be better? Person matters not his religion, not his nationality!

As for the common man, we shouldn't expect miracles out of Greg Chappell, he is dealing with the same inconsistent Indian team. They'll be sparks in between and lull otherwise, they'll just be hmmmm....... Themselves.

Give him the same amount of time and patience as we did to the Wright- Ganguly combo. They did work wonders, they taught us to believe in this team.

Most importantly, let's not compare him and Wright. Even Wright wouldn't want that. The only thing I know for sure is there will be no lethargy creeping into this team and discipline will be at the highest. How they utilize Chappell's experience to the fullest is upto them. How this Indian team shapes up is Chappell's responsibility but more than his, it's the team's responsibility.

Let's see how we take that till the 2007 World Cup!

Off the mark

Hey There,

Blogging, bloggers... Heard it all. Read it all.
Did I get inspired or just thought let's join the bandwagon and see where it takes me...

I don't have an answer to that but just that it's a nice medium to put down your thoughts and be heard.. oops ..sorry Read!

And even if I'm not read, it's a great way to punch in thoughts as and when they come, unedited...

Started a bit too late, but then it's better late than never, Hmmmm the age old adage to start with.

Will try to be a regular as much as I can.

Right now, as of today, I'm finally off the mark...