Nomad rider of the ancient east
Nomad rider that men know the least
Nomad where you come from no one knows
Nomad where you go to no one tells
Nomad, you're the rider so mysterious
Nomad, you're the spirit that men fear in us
Nomad, you're the rider of the desert sands
No man's ever understood your genius....

was screaming rather streaming from my discman, one of the famous songs of the Iron Maiden. The memories flashed by. The golden old times flashed across my memory. What a nomadic life I had lead, I thought. What a good life that was, I wondered. Such crazy roomies I had. Such wonderful inningns I had played. Such wonderful inningns my peers had played. It was all a learning experience for all of us. We learned a lot especially in tours. They were the real times which underlined the fact of team than indivudual. In my cricketing career I have seen many team players & indiv players. But the guys I am going to mention about are the core team guys. These guys rather we guys have been playing for the same state, same university, same city, same college, why even some same club teams too from the past six to seven years. We have seen India together, experienced the warmth of doing things together. We know each other so well that we always fight over even the small things, but it never used the kind of fights which you are imagining right know. I always had fun with those around. Now when I think my future roomies are going to be two of six out of them, I am not able to express what I am thinking.

I don't know what to say when I think that I am going to be in the same room as another guy who polished his shoes to take a passport size photo. You would still be shocked if I say he even used a perfume on the same day. Once when I asked him did you see the solar eclipse he told he wasn't in town. Then once when we were travelling to meerut it got so cold that he started jogging in the train & aparently asked a sardarji for the time at midnight twelve. He was even the only guy who walked in the street with just one banian & one shorts in the night at ten when the temperature was just two degrees. He was the same guy who replied when our manager asked him to be positive that he is 'o' positive. He was the same guy who once flirting with a blonde replied to her question which got to do with something about how beatiful UK was, as what you are talking about UK you must see how london is. He is the same guy who got thrown out of the class for snoring, now I know people who sleep he was the first to have snoored out of them all.

Yet he was one of the best pals I had, probabaly the best, without him life would be so boring, I swear this time I really mean it. I wonder many times, is he acting as if he's dumb or is he really one dumber. Guess it's up to me figure that out. I am certainly looking forward to spending every moment with him when I leave the country(GG). You might have guessed his name by now! **** here I come.....

Update:Just saw thailavars new film title...enzoy!








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All that diwali (or deepavali?) reminded me than any other festival did were two C's, yeah Clothes & Crackers. No doubt that it's the 'Festival of lights', for me it's the leading light over the rest of Indian festivals. I enjoyed every diwali infact freeked out single everytime, whatever I did. I really don't want to get into the Krishna & Naragasuran story which I am bugged listening to. So let me write a something else!

My childhood were the best time when I enjoyed the most, nowadays its become more of a family get-together than anything else. With all that hype surrounding the pollution caused due to the crackers, its even become more dull. Generally the festival falls in the last week of October or the first week of November. As soon as the Navarathri celebrations are over the news would spread in our flat,(Oops! forgot to mention, all throughout my life I have lived in a flat). My parents used to get crackers at a concessional price from their respective workplaces (goodhal crackers! half of which just 'buussseedd'). I generally had a fixed budget of five hundred rupees as the crackers estimate each year. So practically I would divide the money into two list, one my dad's & the other my mom's. Lot of planning would go amoung the boys of the flat as to who has to buy what. After the planning is done & submittion is done to my parents well before four weeks of diwali, the wait would begin. I was never allowed to write anything on the rockets column since my parents thought it was too dangerous(they didn't know that they had a pshyco son! or may be they knew ~x(! ). Then once every two days, alternatively, I would start pesturing my parents about the crackers where abouts, since all my friends would have got their crackers.

Once it arrives the first thing I do always is to segregate them according to a plan. The simple formula being, the Total number of crackers divided by the total number of days left just one day before diwali, since I always believed that I need to burst the most on the diwali day. Seldom it happened that way, always ended up bursting my crackers well before the diwali day that on the occassion all I would be doing is watch Sun TV. It would be the same case with the clothes too. Would shop for the occassion on one of the previous weekends & also wear the new dress sometime before the occassion, so on the festival day, wear one shorts & teeshirt.

Things I also remember during diwali are- when I planted a bomb in cowdung which splashed into a scooterists face who came chasing me, those 'indiaya thollaikachikalil mudhal muraiyaga', leoniin patti mandhram's, my mommy's murukkus & diwali 'legiums', rocket which went flying into my neighbours bedrooms, the time when I burned my hand & missed the schools state selection.

On behalf of the sambhar family I wish every one a very happy sambharred diwali!

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As such you now know who are the other characters (that sounded like one cinema, but this was real life) it will be easy for me. The first day of the twenty day tour commenced in the Bangalore city railway station with me waitting for the rest of the guys. Baby & my future roomies (dada & kutub) boarded the train just before it was going to leave, reason party! Buggers left me & partied the whole night and came straight from there to the station. (Now how unlucky I must say I am, everything we do together but these guys left me out for this, gggrrrrr!). So all they did was sleep through the entire journey to madras (6hrs flat...dada snoored too!). Now our connecting train to delhi was at 4.30pm, GT express (dunno who the hell named it express, bleady stopped in every station it could!).

All of us were too tired to do anything else, we resorted to being at the central station itself. After the boggies were pulled back we found out that only seven tickets(berths) were allotted in one boggie & the rest in some other coach, very far away. These delhi trains, especially north trains, have some 25 boggies (omg!). So our gang stayed back in this (the reason one punjab gals college basketball team was in the same boggie as ours, unfortunately the only guy around for them was one big 50 yr old sadar'ji'!). Madras was pippig hot(u guys know it!). So all of us were in shorts & athletic cut tees. Being athletes ourselves, all of us are unique in showing of our physical attributes (hey only upper body!). That night was just a little warm so we stuck to what we wore.

The next day morning all of us got up with a shock, eunuchs(!), some ten of them. Infact one of the eunuch cooly slid her hands into chilpi pant's (he was still snooring), then suddenly ask if some shock triggered he jumped out of the middle berth, bumped his head straight into the upper berth & fell down where we had kept our kits & bags(imagine u were in that position). I was awake & laughing like mad from the upper berth. After we pooled in some two hundred bucks they left. Chipli as if nothing happened walked to the loo (infact after sometime he called the eununch who slid her hands onto his fly, a hot babe! what?!~x().

Afternoon was the time to reach the city of oranges, nagpur. This was the first station after we got up. So we went out to grab the newspapers. Uniqueness I would say referring to the headlines, it read- COLD WAVE STRIKES DELHI!.....

(to be obviously continued!)

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I have always wondered 'what the hell, am I a nomad?'. My life was such. With travelling as a part of my, rather demand, of my career I needed to travel a lot to play or compete. All though now I miss that life, sitting at my work place starring at the same computer from the past three months, I feel that I needed a change. So I thought let me write about the best tour I had ever been.( By the way, I have quit my company. So this would be the last post from my workplace. May be I am considering to start a blog named vettiofficer.blogspot.com, wht u say?!).

When I was in my first year bachelors itself, I was fortunate enough to be selected for the Bangalore University team. To my luck we won for the first time in the history of the university & also after being dropped (being the junior) for the first three matches, I got back with the Man of the Finals trophy, one of the most pretious knocks I have ever played. So what's the next step, move ahead & compete in the All India University Tournament in Meerut, a remote place some one hour drive drom Delhi (by the way that's where my sponsors live, plz do check it out! it's not going to get me any money....LOL! I have already looted him enough). I would say now, after playing uni for 3 yrs & captaining it that, it's really un-organised when it comes to ticketing. So we had to go throu Bangalore-Chennai-Delhi-Meerut route (ooops, just took so long to type itself!) & the worst thing is we had to start on Jan 1st. Did we have an option, the answer is no. The new year eve midnight I am snorring away to glory where all my friends are partying hard! Next day morning 6am I am in the railways station waiting for the train.

Guess this will the right time to give one small intro abt the whole gang, basically there were two gangs. One our gang (the notorious one), five guys from my college (jain) myself, my future roomie's- two guys & one guy named baby(one more guy fell drunk somewhere he missed the trip, he's the best!), three guys from another college (bhs) shetty, chipli (the two would always hang out with us) & another guy named patel from another college. I don't want to get into the other gang since they were no relevance to us, the only pertinant thing was we had to be elevan on the field so they joined in. But the mischief was done by only this gang.

Hey, forgot to intoduce two most important people-one my manager & another my coach on that trip. Two of the most hilarious peole. Our coach was so old that we thought we would have to bury him there & come caz of the cold. The manager guy, just don't ask him anything abt cricket (once he asked what if you touch a wide, how many runs u get?, now what do I say for that). This was the time when 1000 people died in north india due to the cold wave, very lucky that we weren't few amoung them.

I don't (or won't....;)!) want to be giving all in one post, so expect as many as it gets, caz every moment was fun, a real fun, which I still cherish!


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Quite sometime back I had written a post about my crazy peers. I thought in continuation of that let me enlighten you with few of my accomplishments (oooh man just hold on, these are the funniest things I have ever done in my entire life!)..... I am not able to form some kinda of an order here so i am just pening it down as it flashes across my kutty brain..I remember this because my mom told me this.

I get annoyed when someone wakes me up from sleep. And to top that if the bathroom is not free in the mornings that's all the hell would be unleashed. To avoid this our folks moved into a two bathroom (generally it's bedroom) house. I was in third standard when this happened. I got up from my bed then walked straight to the loo room finding that it was being used by someone else. Me totally sleepy & not aware that I am going into the other restroom opened the refrigerator and started peeing in it. My granny luckily saw me doing it & pulled me away from the refrigerator. When I heard it like two years back I just rolled!

I was in school guess maybe in the eigth standard. Full day match and I was worn out. Totally tired & exhausted standing in the boundary playing cricket. Our man ,the batsman, hit a ball to the fence. All I remember was I ran after the ball. Invariably there was this big volleyball post I bumped into head first & all I know was getting up the next day. It seems I went into my neighbours house & walked straight into their room and crashed..... How embarasing!

All of us especially cricketers during our under 12 had this habbit of not doing anything much with the first ball we faced from the bowler in any match. It's more to do with getting set funda than anything else. They would wait for like two or three overs even though a bad ball is thrown at us. So our coach used to say this- first ball samika da? So I got really angry. So for the next three matches in row I went out to bat I got out the first ball I faced. When my coach called me & asked, I told him- Sir the god is very angry on me, see if I don't play defense for the first ball I face I will get out!!!

Our school was very strict. It was a boys school & one rowdy school I must say (I can hear ram's knuckles breaking sound). After the assembly every day they would call out few guys names and those guys have to stay back after the assembly is over for a special round of appluase from the PT masters. They would carry like two big bamboo sticks or in short & sweet words perambu with which they wacked the shit out of us. We are supposed to hold our pants tight and show our bum & they would cooly wack one shot as if they saw some kind of a ball coming towards them, ohh boy don't they want to give it a wack! One such day my name was called for some reason. The blow hurt really badly, I mean literally (yeppa...amma.... sami.... kinds) & I couldn't sit for two days, even in the class I stood in the corner at the back and starred at the board. (I latter discovered a road from east to west on my a**!!!!!)

These were some of the funniest things I have ever done in my life. May be if I remember few more I may write a second part.

Get sambharred!!!

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There was pin drop silence in the room. The streets lights were still on. The sound of the fan was the only noice that was heard. Suddenly there was a noice, so much that it disturbed his sleep. His eyes opened. He was still sleepy,the alarm clock showed five thirty am. It was the coldest morning in that year, atleast for him it felt so. He managed to get out of his bed. After brushing his teeth, he walked straight into the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee. He always knew the importance of the early morning caffine hit.Then he walked out of the kitchen to his balcony to pick his early morning newspaper. After going through the headlines he headed straight into his room where he found his cricket kit. He packed it into one bag which contained all his bats, thigh guards, batting gloves, helmet, etc. It was the time for him to set his goals. He likes to listen to hard rock in the morning to get him motivated so that he set his goals high. He switched his laptop on from which the Turn the page song of Metallica streamed out. He set his goals. As a middle order batsman his goals always had been to come not out & help his team to win the match.
After having a quick shower he went to the pooja room to pray, which he had made a habbit right from his childhood days.He changed into a tshirt & shorts, walked off straight into the garage. His bike stood there as though awaiting for him. He got on top of that & placed his kitbag. The vehicle started in the first kick that he gave & accelarated like a ducati. The next moment he wasn't seen there.
He reached the ground well before time. After the warm up his team captain went in for toss. They won the toss & elected to bowl first. This was the most important game of the total tournament, no wonder it was called the finals.Their opponents have always given them trouble, but somehow due some extraordinary performance from his team, they always pulled it off. Now this was the match they were awaitting for a very long time. It would decide the best team in total country.
The first three & half hours went in a jiffy. The opponents had piled a huge six run per over target. His teammates were very confident. They were good chasers but you never knew when it came to finals, anything could happen due to the high pressure environment. The second half after luch begun. Suddeny he realised that his team were five down for nothing. The top order batsmen were back in the pavilion. It was his turn to bat. He put his left leg front & tied his pads. Got all the gears set. Wore his helmet & stepped into the white line. It was called white line syndrome, he always had it. Once he step's into the field he forgets everything. It was just one goal, one aim, one ambition, one determination, one motivation. Some call it taste for success some call it in some other way, for him it was all the same.All he remembered was they walked out of the ground with the stumps.

The next morning's newspapers flashed the photo of his team captain holding the trophy & the headlines read
BHARATHWAJ SLAMS TON IN (TEAM) WIN....

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Some time back Vikki in his blog had written about his superstitious beleifs. It's my version...

I had developed a habbit of writting diaries offlates (that means for the last 12 months or so). My new year resolutions would be to start writing diaries ever since I remembered, but they are just those same old new year resolutions. Ever since I have been hooked/hitched (still wonder which one...hmmm!) I wanted to translate my experience, emotions, great times, opinions, views (etc etc...) using the power of the keyboard. I no longer write diaries though, but if you ever (in case my great grand child is reading this!) get to read my diary it would contain all the info about me (everything...winking!). And that's why I hide it from anybody. What the hell is the heading & what are you writing you may ask?(I am sure that's what you are thinking by now). I would say that I want to confess all my stupid (infact pathetic!) beliefs in my life so far.
My top sooper-infectious beliefs:
1. Number: Any number totalling up to or end in/with 1,5 or 9. Infact it can end in anything excepting 8. So I used to go to bat at number five or when I open I take strike,so that it becomes one. It was so stupid because it had got into me so much that in my family' s ration card my name was the third, so I wanted to place my name after my grandparents which would make it five.
2. Shirt: Beleive it or not, I used the same white shirt for batting for more than five years. When I think about it now, yuck! is what i say. But invariablely if I used to wear some other tshirt, I used to get out soon (which i did anyways after wearing also!LOL!).
3. Goals: I had to set some goals in writing before the match begun. I would seldom achive(infact never achieved it is what i can say). Even then I wanted to.
4.Lots: This is the worst one of them all. I would write yes or no in two differents chits & pick up lots. If the chit was the one with yes then the thing I would ask for would be successful otherwise I wouldn't do it. What was the worst things is that i used rather releied on this so much that i used this for anything pertaining to decisions to alcohol!!!......

There are more than this to be listed but due to sensor problem I am sticking to this much for today!

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I may be 21 years old.I may be a six footer weighing over 80 kgs. I may hold a bachelors degree with a gold medal from one of the best sports colleges in the country. I might have represented my state for over six yers. I might have been the captain of the strongest college & university teams. I may be working in one of the best multinationals regarded as 15th in the world by some stupid survey, yet though I cry!
I dunno why it doesn't even matter how hard I try(sounds familiar?!) I just can't control my emotions. I am a very emotional person, yes I am. My blogs may look stupid to you. You may be thinking wassup with this guy. All that apart I cry. When I was young my patti used to say "Ambala pasanga azhalama". What does that mean, that only girls can cry? how absurb. Even men cry, yes they do, I have seen. Now that I am 21 years old 136days as on today, I can proudly say that I am a man & now that related to my previous sentence. My usual style of crying is run to the bedroom hit the sack, face down & scream/yell to glory!, till someone comes to my recue (rather theirs?!!). Then I would weep for sometime till I can talk, I would stop crying & start talking. Now those whoever came to console me would think this guy is better of crying than talking (forsure!).
I have pleasure in repeating the statement that I am an emotional person (dunno why?!). Sometimes when things hurt me, that's all. Mostly it would be something that my parents would have said or some duck that I have scored or some important team selection that I have been left out from or some bad performance.
Now you may ask why the hell should I be reading this?(That's incase if you are still reading this much). I wanna say that this time around I felt like crying (Ok, I cried, I accept that I wept today) thought I could do something differently. So I resorted to writting this blog.
Now I know what you are thinking? Should I have to repeat something that I have said already...

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The sound of the shuttle cork filled the indoors. The shuttle being hit from one side of the net to another. He was there, leading one of the best sports college's in the country to win the most prestigious college sports fests of the nation. It was his responsibility to make sure that things go smoothly & according to plan. He has been having a blast with the rest of the sports, is himself the captain of the cricket team, which had already won the trophy. But when it came to badminton he always had problems. They had to win that all important finals to clinch the overall trophy by which he could stamp his authority as the best students sports secretary. He was really nervous, biting his nails & really focused on what was going on. All of a sudden it was all over, they had clinched in style beating the opponents by huge margin. His college crowned the best & he lifting the trophy. He knew the very next day that the media would be flashing his photos with the trophy all across the state.
Everybody was relishing that moment of joy with kunde kunde (victory song), but he looked very upset. His best friend abhi with whom he shares anything & everything surprisingly looked at him & urged him to join the party, but he just couldn't. His mind was not allowing him to celebrate the accomplishment. How could he since it was here at the same court that he met her for the first time in his life. The girl who would change his life. How could he forget her? Maya, she had introduced herself. They soon became good friends & the relationship went on to become a very serious one.
He would run after his match got over, to pick his mobile & dial her number, just to know what she was doing. Every moment he relished in her company. He found all that he wanted in his partner in her. She was no different, even she enjoyed his company. All that she could think was about him. They were madly in love. This went on for sometime when all of a sudden she disappeared away from his life, totally away without even informing him. He searched but he couldn't find her. He was very good at his profession so he was successful in that but in personal life he just couldn't. Now abhi consoled him giving few words of encouragement. He appreciated him for the victory thinking that it would cheer him up but it just didn't help. He gathered himself for the moment to get out of that place.
The very next week he went to a family friends wedding. He met her there. He was shocked & so was she. She explained to him what had happened. Her parents living abroad met with an accident & she had to leave with immediate effect. She tried contacting him but just couldn't. Even there she was too busy with her personal work. After few days she thought he would have found some new love in his life so didn't want to disturb him. Both of them were so relieved to see each other & started going out again.
Then came the day when each of them had to make a decision on their individual careers. She decided to pursue her MBA abroad & he wanted to make it big in his cricket. They decided to give themselves two years time after which they would get back by which at least one of them would have settled in their life. He kissed her, for the first time. She stopped him before he came close & asked him to tell her age. He revealed her age. She replied saying she had been waiting so many years for this first kiss. Then they started kissing. The last looks they shared before they left was filled with emotions. He hadn’t imagined that she would leave him. They wanted to get married & live together all by themselves with lot of kids. But destiny had to separate them this time but only for two years. They parted their way.
Two years later they met. She had completed her MBA & was recruited by one top MNC in the same old place. He was an established player now waiting for an Indian team call. There was nothing that is going to stop them now. They decided to get married. His parents opposed to the wedding so they decided to get registered married. The date, time & all the arrangements had been made. It was the 27th of May at 11am. Yes they wanted to marry on the same they had first met.
It was eleven on the marriage day. The tension & excitement gripped the air. For him it was the moment he had been expecting ever since he had seen her. He was wearing a new silk dhoti & had also brought her one of the most expensive saris available at the market. He had asked her to wear the sari to check whether it was good. She looked like a goddess. They made love that same moment. It was the first time they had done that. Now he waited for sometime & picked up his cell phone to call her. There was no reply from the other end. He kept trying but his efforts went in vain. It was getting late. It was probably the fiftieth time he didn’t get a replay. He was worried now what had happened. Sweat started pouring out of his forehead. Tension gripped, he has been waiting for over 5 hours now. She hadn't turned up. He decided to visit her PG. Her roomie told she left in the morning itself. He called few friends of hers; even from them he got no appropriate response. He was dejected, disappointed, left home & hit the sack.
The phone rang. ‘Maya calling’ slashed in the screen. He picked it up immediately. He heard a male voice from the other end of the phone. The voice requested to him if he knew the owner of the number. He said she was his good friend. The voice asked him to come over to a place immediately & didn't identify itself & didn't give out any more information.
He rushed to the garage, got into his car & stamped the accelerator. He reached the destination in 20 minutes. The voice, which had asked him to come, stood before him wearing a police uniform; yes he was a police officer. The officer walked next to him & apologized for not revealing his identity due to security problems. His worry had reached limits now. The officer took him over to a body & asked him to recognize it. He almost lost control of his mind; he was just going to break down, he gathered himself to open the white piece of cloth with blood strains. It was Maya.........

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'Cancel the tickets' I screamed early morning at five. We had to catch the train at 6 am to reach Tiruppur. I had worked just a little 'extra', the previous night which made me doze of only well past midnight. Somehow I made up my mind caz maybe I knew this might be my last visit to this crazy place (export surplus & rejects...lol) or my mom hypnotised me, anyways I had to get there to make mu EDU loan set right.

The city taxi driver honked thrice disturbing my neighbor who came out screaming not realizing that he was disturbing the rest of the street is when I realized I need to get it going. I crawled out of my bed & my patti was ready with my coffee even at five in the morning. I had a sip of coffee & immediately remembered ram(onemoreiyervaal) for his blog on kaapi. Yeah! What one cup of coffee can do to you especially in the early morning (hey, hold it I am not goin to write a blog on kaapi...by the way kaapi rocks!).

Got into the cab & it took him over forty five minutes to reach. I saw only three more cars in the total journey time we had, even then it took him so much time. Actually when I sat inside it I realized that this is some special car, maybe those which are used for shootings!!(The oldest car I have ever traveled in & the most rusted too. Every time it would produce some sound while changing the gears...keeee...eeeekkkss...). God knows how the hell he could drive it. The worst thing was that I had to tell the route too ( I was like yawning & blabbering...left ogi..yawn...illa right....yawn…illa left).

What's with India & Railways stations? The name board top of us displayed that S3 was going to come at the same place where we were standing i.e. at coach no.16. It was when the train came we realized it was S6 & not S3. I ran like hell to reach my bogie. It was like Ben Johnson trying to finish his 200m hurdles(hey does he run hurdles?), I jumped on top of at least 25 bags, 7 thata's, 5 patti's & one mami before I boarded the train. After I boarded I realized that my mom had come with me & she disappeared. Now what the hell do I do? I cursed myself & was just abt to get out of the bogie when I saw my mom coming from inside the train. What a relief I had after seeing her, sssshhooo...who the hell wanted that hurdle jump again, jumping over mama's & mami's, even Ben Johnson wouldn't have liked it once more....

As I settled in for a short rather long train journey to.......