Freezing Thoughts

Undoubtedly, Royals Vs Chargers was the best match of the IPL so far. It is also the first time in the contest that a team chased a 200+ score successfully. Hats off to Warne for holding the nerve and play three pure cricketing slogs off his countryman Symonds. Earlier, Pathan virtually shattered the Chargers attack. His shots were ruthless, brutal and would have hurt any bowler's ego. Also the partnership with Smith, who himself played an anchor's role to perfection, was the decisive phase, which was well complemented by Kaif cameo. Laxman's poor run as captain continues. He would do better to take help from Gilchrist and Kaif. He was clearly running out of ideas. Why toss the ball to Symonds for the last over, when you have two overs left for Ojha, a left arm spinner ? He could have turned the ball away from Warne, and Warne would have had to slog against the spin to hit it over longon or midwicket. Instead, Symonds' off spin was an easy pray. Talking of Symonds, his

Chennai Vs Mumbai was a thrilling match. The lack of penetration in Chennai bowling was glaring. Guess they need to pull out something special to pull out a victory against Knight Riders on Saturday. Mumbai, well, they missed Sachin for sure. Already, the Mumbaikars are sad that their lobbying to have the name 'Indians' and blue jersys are helping them in no way to win the match. Hope Sachin recovers soon, and adds weight to the team and the contest. Or atleast improve the mood in the camp The coverage of the matches is very very poor. The cameramen don't seem to have a fair idea about the game. A few instances: Raina is swinging the bat towards extra-cover, and misses. The camera swings from longoff to fine leg, and finally comes to rest at the umpire's hat. Oram has just taken an outstanding catch at longoff. Just after the catch, the camera goes on to show the audience roaring in D-stand (man, show the cheerleaders at least!) and after few seconds its advertisement.

A big thanks to Times of India for arranging the show of A.R.Rahman in Chennai. Maybe, its a business gimmick to improve their sales, but as long as they are able to come up with such quality shows, no complaints. It was a sweet shock to me, when I came to know, just minutes before the starting of the program, that Rahman is accompanied by Hariharan, Shankar Mahadevan, Karthik, Naresh Iyer, Javed Ali, Blaaze, Sadana Sargam, Madhushree, Rehana and Chinmayi. A cluster of real stars in one stage, ready to enthrall ! Starting with Jaagey Hain from Guru, Rahman went on to bind us all to the atmosphere with a perfect blend of Tamil and Hindi songs: Azagiya Tamizh Magan, Dil Se, Varaaga Nadhi, Sivaji, Sandana Thendral, New York Nagaram and all Jodha Akbar songs (except Manmohana ). A treat to any Rahman fan. There was also an unexpected tinge, when Azeem-O-Shaan Shahenshah was fused with Rukkumani from Roja and Veerapandi Kottai from Thiruda Thiruda. The most unexpected thing was perhaps

The kick off of the Indian Premier League was indeed flashy and extravagant. Introducing an all new competition, in spite of the already packed international schedule, is no mean job. That way, the BCCI needs to be appreciated for their efforts to coordinate well with the other boards, and importantly to convince the ICC. Well, money matters, isnt it ? The match was a real "one man show". Minus Brendon Mccullum, the match was nothing. He was ruthless, and lucky that a few edges found the right way to the boundaries. The erring length of Bangalore bowlers made matters easy for him, and, well, we all saw what happened. It was nice to see players of different international teams play as a team. Especially, on-field team spirit was very pleasing to watch when the Knight Riders were fielding. Its indeed a rare sight to find Ricky Ponting pat and appreciate Ishant Sharma. That too, for taking the wicket of Rahul Dravid ! As a captain, Ganguly was way ahead of Dravid. There seemed

Last year, today we won EQ. (Chee, sorry folks, my English is getting bad. Beg your pardon.) Well, last year, same day we won the EQ finals. One of the best cherished moments in my life. Again, same day, in 2004, I scored my first (and only) half century in national Under-19 cricket tournament. They are 20 over matches, and hence, a half century is very special. Today, I was afraid the April 14th good luck charm will be shattered by Microprocessor and Microcontroller University Lab exam. It almost did, but oh boy, what a turnaround it was ! As usual, I went to the exam without studying all experiments, but, banking on my luck. It has never failed me in my three years of engineering life. To be precise, so far 16 labs have transpired and I have been lucky every time. So, today I entered the lab with the odds in my favour. I picked up the paper, and was stunned a moment. Rate generator and bit manipulation. the first one is damn easy, and I knew it very very well. The second one, was a n