The Weeks Gone By

It took its time coming. Four and a half years to be exact. No big bang announcements, no hoopla, just the way I like it. The boss took me to a room, handed me over an envelope and finally spurted out the magic words."We've finally promoted you''. Strangely I felt no overwhelming feeling of joy when the words finally came out. Just acceptance of something I think was long overdue. But nevertheless it finally came and along with it came a raise in my salary which was surprising. I had been expecting a raise in single digits but it was a low double digit raise but I felt happy nonetheless.

Another pleasant surprise came on 19th July, when I received an SMS with my latest salary figure. Wow! It's taken me 10 years to reach the figure I've dreamt of and here it was! Conflicting feelings flew in the dark recess of the mind. Do I deserve this? But everything happens for a reason and I can only thank my father who seems to be conjuring miracles for his dear son. He has never left me and I can feel and see his blessings and magic work for me since he left me that eventful day (15th June 2008). The almighty too has been so kind to the family and once again has showered us with his love and blessings. Something I should eternally be grateful for.

Tutlam's grandmother passed away last week at Hyderabad. We were luckily there to see her before she breathed her last. The suffering that she endured the past couple of months ended on Wed, 21st June at 5:50 am and being the gentle and good soul that she was I am sure her spirit has headed straight for heaven. A place among the angels. The incident came as a big emotional shock to boo-boo since she was literally bought up my paati. I could sympathize with her but in such circumstances even physical and emotional comfort that I could give wouldn't be enough. Time can be the only healer.

Watched Inception the week before last and I thought it was a brilliant movie. I've now become a fan of Chistopher Nolan and its time to download some of his earlier movies. The ending was simply superb with most of us wondering if Di Caprio was still in a dream or whether he actually sees his kids for real. When can our cinema deliver something similar I wonder.

All of us a down with the a cold and the weather in Bangalore has been very strange. Feels more like Lovedale type of weather with the sun refusing to show itself to us for the past few days.

Spent yesterday morning shopping with Maruthi. He's had a wardrobe makeover and by the time we had finished with our 2 hour spree, he had clothes worth a 11 grand in his bag. I finally managed to shake off some of the lethargy that has engulfed me and did some cycling and a couple of stretches this morning.


In other sports news, India got their butts whipped last week. Out bowling attack is at best pathetic and I think we can kiss our hopes of winning a World Cup if we stick with the kind of attack we have today. Murali took his 800th wicket and got a stellar send off. I was tempted to dedicate a post to Murali but realized that I haven't seen too much of his bowling to be able to pass comments on a career that is unlikely to be matched in the future. Cricket has been left poorer with the retirement of the 3 bowling giants of the last 2 decades (Warne, Kumble and Murali) and I don't see any talent on the horizon that can pick up the baton and continue in their footsteps. Some suggest Bhajji can do it, but in my opinion Bhajji is better of playing only ODI's. His bowling at the test level has left much to be desired.

Viva Espana!

Spain are the World Champions!

After all the build-up the FIFA 2010 final turned out to be a slugfest that had more of WWE in it and less of the 'beautiful game'. The Dutch in all honesty should take a large part of the blame for this. The intention from the outset was to stifle the Spanish midfield and make the passing game that Spain plays so well difficult. While I have no complaints about the strategy the Dutch opted for, the execution was crude and medieval in nature. None more so, than the blatant kung-fu kick from De Jong. That should have been a straight red card.

Holland were lucky to have all 11 men on the field till the second half of extra time. Van Bommel's tackle on Iniesta would have been a straight red too on most occasions. While the jury is out on the referee role yesterday (an astonishing 14 yellow cards were handed out by Howard Webb), I think the nature of the game played by the Dutch called for some punishment (OK maybe 14 yellow cards was a bit too much). 

Finally the better team won and Iniesta's goal  was a consolation for all football lovers who had, till then witnessed a pretty boring match. The Dutch wasted two golden opportunities and Spain will have to thank Iker Casillas for denying Robben, of what seemed the best chance for the Dutch to score.

The Dutch go home once again having lost the finals and they are to me in football what South Africa is in cricket. Never been able to win when it really mattered. I never understood the Dutch tactics. It wasn't that they were a team without talent. Their midfield duo of Snjeider and Robben were equally good if not better than Xavi and Iniesta and they had a good solid defence and could have played free flowing football too. That may have dramatically increased their chance of scoring and making the finals a really 'beautiful game'.

The 3rd place playoff between Germany and Uruguay clearly demonstrated the class of football that could have been played when teams are not under the pressure of playing a final. Sadly it wasn't to be. However as a Spanish supporter, I am overjoyed with Spain's victory and they have finally buried the tag of the best team not to have won the World Cup! 

The WC has once again demonstrated the virtue of humility and dedication to the game, traits exemplified by Xavi, Iniesta and Casillas. At the beginning of the championship, the talks and headlines were all about the Rooney's, Ronaldo's and Kaka's but in the end it was the humble Spaniards that had the last laugh.

A salute is in order for Paul the Octopus too! Wonder if the German government will use his services to predict which European country will be the next to default. Hopefully Paul doesn't favor Spain again!

I as happy to read that Tomas Mueller got the golden boot award. He is surely a superstar in the making. I'm hoping clubs don't fork out gazillions for his services and make him a multi-millionaire overnight. He is still very young and the last thing he needs is too much money working its magic in a wrong way.

Lady luck continues to elude Alonso and Ferrari. I think their hunt for the drivers and constructors championships is pretty much over. Red Bull and McLaren to me are the ones that will continue to slug it out although a big blow up at RBR seems apparent sometime soon.

Now with the world cup done with, attention turns to cricket and the series at Sri Lanka, but I'm not sure too many people are going to watch this series. India and SL have played each other enough number of times to last the next 50 years. I hope the morons at the BCCI realize this and bring in someone with common sense to schedule future series!

On the work front, happy news after 2 years! I finally got a promotion and was pleasantly surprised with the hike I received. My father is working miracles from heaven! A 3 week trip to Mexico beckons but I am in no mood to travel that far to help on a project that is going to get done by the end of next month. I am fervently praying that the plan gets canceled. Sreesanth is out of the series with another injury and I am beginning to think this is the end of the road for him.

A visit to Tirupathi is on the cards and the family leaves tomorrow and I am hoping that the almighty grants us another good darshan as he always has. A new hair style also beckons as I will be shaving my head! 

After months of deliberation we finally have a new sofa for the house and we made our choice pretty quickly yesterday. Suddenly the drawing room doesn't seem to be spacious anymore. But that has been compensated by the comfort that the sofa offers. Next on the agenda for mom is a new dining table.

I am back to lingering between boredom and sleep at work. It's one of those phases you witness in a software company between two projects. So, in that way I don't feel bad being jobless and see others shaking their heads in disapproval when they see me go for a chai break every 15 minutes.

The last project at Cambodia was a success and the customer migrated to your system at approx 2220 CDT on May 21st. The customer and the bosses were pleased with work but as usual the hurrah's and great job, good work e-mails have not resulted in anything concrete. Which brings me to another point. Salary appraisal season is upon us but the joy or rather gleeful expectation was short-lived. The hike's not going to be great and that promotion I've been waiting for the last 2 years will have to probably wait till England wins the next world cup in football and we all know its probably never going to happen!

The hunt for a house goes on and nothing been finalized. The prices are totally off the roof. Am going to do some more house hunting this weekend. Fingers crossed, I get a good deal soon! The missus and I spent the weekend at Chennai attending some family functions and meeting my beloved aunt. The road to Chennai is totally awesome. Chennai continues to be the same shitty place it's always been and although we have so many loved ones there, we were only happy to get out from the place.

The footie WC has been a disappointment and so has Spain. I would have Fabregas starting but Del Bosque seems to have other plans. My MotoGP season is over with Valentino Rossi's crash and I am hoping the accident has not left any mental scars. With Vale gone, the title is for Lorenzo's taking. Wimbledon starts today and Rafa's got a pretty tough draw with a potential QF with Soderling. Not fair! I've been egging myself to doing some exercise but to no avail. The monstrous mental lethargy seems to be too difficult to beat and I find myself resigned to the fact that its not even worth a try. Need to find a way out soon! Thakkai and Laddu will be here tommorrow and I look forward to spending the week with them. Kids are always so much fun!

I finally bit the bullet and have bought a new notebook for the missus and mom. A Dell Inspiron for about 24K. Not a bad buy at all looking at the specs (2.2 GHz Processor, 4GB RAM, 320 GB HDD with Windows 7 installed). My brother-in-law also visits from the US next month and I look forward to that too. Task done for the day and I'm off home!