As an Internet meme goes viral, the probability of a Der Untergang/Downfall parody tends to 1, after which the meme dies a natural death.

[Originally postulated here: http://3.ly/AnanthasLaw]

Corollary No. 1 to Anantha’s Law:

A Der Untergang/Downfall parody is always the highpoint for any Internet meme.

[Originally postulated here: http://3.ly/AnanthasLawCorollory01 ]

For those of you that dont really know what i am talking about. Here are some resources – Wired magazine talking about the various Der Untergang parodies & the relevant section from the movie’s Wikipedia page.

This brilliant picture was shot yesterday somewhere in London. Apparently the photographer used a big flash and rendered useless the Stig’s trademark black visor on this crash helmet. Sadly though, speculation still abounds.

The original black jumpsuit clad Stig was once revealed to be Penny McCarthy, a former F1 driver and tester for a number of teams like Arrows, Benneton and Williams. But after he was killed off in a Top Gun-esque stunt on the HMS Invincible, the white Stig was introduced and his identity has been a closely guarded secret.

Interestingly, British bookie William Hill has offered odds on the identity of The Stig. Former F1 drivers, Damon Hill, Martin Brundell and Julian Bailey have all been mentioned on Stig rumors and have received odds of 4/1, 6/1 and 3/1 respectively. Even current McLaren Mercedes driver, Lewis Hamilton faces 16/1 odds. Oddly even celebrities such as Simon Cowell (yes THAT Simon Cowell) has been mentioned as a possible Stig.

While excitement has spread in the Top Gear forums in the intertubes, BBC has refused to comment on the new pictures. Interesting!

I realized that I was closing in upon a milestone. By the time this post is online, it will be 5 years since I started blabbering. My first post was posted on Blogger on the 10th of February, 2003. And barring a few months early on and around 100 days in late ’04 and early ’05, I have been posting rather regularly.

Looking at Lekhni’s tag, I realized that she had given me a good chance to take a retrospective look and to reminisce upon these five years gone by. But the problem with my blog is that, as my erstwhile tagline (( I have an ever-changing tagline now, courtesy Twitter?)) goes, it is the record of an egoist’s road trip through life with cricket, music, books, cars and movies for company.

Which means that this blog is about me and me alone. So, as the days go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember the odd posts that one has “written” relating to some of the keywords of this tag. Also, the difficulty is compounded by the fact that I took an oath, with myself as witness, that I wouldn’t post anything personal here. So the odd heartbreak has almost never found an outlet here, even if some friends (both online and IRL) have heard me obsess over it.

I have come to a conclusion that wherever I think I won’t be able to fit within the confines of the tag, I will bend the boundaries to my whims and fancies. Hey, this is MY blog and I do what I think is right. Also, my ego prevents me from sticking to the “1 post per keyword” rule of this tag. I will hence go ahead and regurgitate multiple links wherever possible. But let me just make the basic rules clearer to everyone.

The rules of the tag are: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

Family: As far as family is concerned, my mom offers the single largest (potential) inspiration for posts on this blog, but I haven’t posted much in this regard. Anyways, as much as I denied it then, this post had its genesis in a phone conversation with my mom.

Friends: I think I will use this keyword as a chance to link to a couple of 55 word shorts. This short is about a short lived friendship. Here is another I wrote about what will intrigue some of my vetti friends.

Yourself: The majority of this blog is about me and my overblown ego. I am tempted to link to some of my “infamous” posts here (tulips/volcano, anyone? Or the silly photo meme?). But I have other plans.

Two years ago, I put up an “accomodation wanted post” that the aforementioned vetti friends hijacked and converted into a post that screamed “Looking for a Significant Other” post. Occupied as I was in my worries about finding an apartment and settling into a new job, I edited that post to make it sound less frivolous. But later, seeing where they were coming from and the fact that it did sound like a matrimonial ad, I recovered the post and put it into a private vault, not wanting to lose anything I wrote.

Until today, that is. So here it is – in an unedited, “directors cut” format, my appeal for shared accommodation in the Parsippany / Rockaway area.

Your Love: I don’t know if people realized this. But I started blogging because of cricket and the fact that Rediff and Cricinfo stopped accepting pieces from guest authors. My posts as a guest author/columnist in these portals were perhaps my earliest attempts at putting my thoughts into paper, barring a few emails that I sent to friends from time to time.

So without my ado, here are my earliest Cricinfo contributions to the Writer in You section -

1. About the continued exclusion of Sadagopan Ramesh in March ’02

2. About the test match at Lords in August ’02

3. Thoughts about the first day of India West Indies test match at Bourda in April ’02.

And my contribution to Rediff as a guest author -

1. Musings about the win at Port of Spain in April ’02.

Apart from these, I’m going to link to a pair of long posts about my favorite cricketing pet peeve – The BCCI. These posts (part 1 and part 2), though a couple of years old ring true even now. I also believe that India needs to look at a core competency model for its selection policies, though positive changes seem to have come through in these past couple of years. And lastly this post about playing cricket with a scientific calculator.

Anything I like: I am romantically challenged, but even then I have a soft corner for this post of mine, a what-if tale of romance, from the perspective of a member of the vehiculum futbolus genetrix family. As I do for this one – about PTC/MTC buses in Chennai.

Another interest of mine is movies, so here are a couple – this post about one of my favorite movies, and this one about the general state of Bollywood. I have also pontificated in the past about dancing my heart out – Here and here. Lastly, I dont think this tag will not be complete without this cooking type post.

But before I leave, I have to apparently tag 5 bloggers whose blogs I love to read. Seems like two of them have to be new acquaintaces. Hmmm, let’s see.

In keeping with the trend on this post, I will cheat and tag 7 bloggers instead. I will tag – Smugbug, Arun, Pri, Megha, DoZ, Missus Em and Max Da Vinci.

A couple of these people haven’t posted recently and that’s never good. So I believe this retrospective look will spur them on. Particularly, Megha, whose latest anniversary post was such a cop out! Yo, Can we get a real post now? And DoZ, if you want, I will look away if you include your posts from Stochastica as well.

There, DONE!

Whew, five years is such a long time. But I am not done yet. Keep coming back and please do leave a comment or two everytime. Thanks to Lekhni for this opportunity. Came at the right time and I can’t think of a better way to usher in a new blogging year.A new template would have perhaps been perfect icing to this cake.But thanks to a brain freeze by yours truly, it was not to be. Ah well. Life’s not perfect, either.

And in other news, I seem to have been tagged again. Guruprasad’s tagged me to write about “non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself”. Now that is quite an impossible task because the blog does not have anything else apart from non-important things/habits/quirks about me and 480 odd posts is a large number to wade through.

In fact I think that this blog’s the single biggest reason that I am still single, because so much dirt on me can be got with a simple google search. So I have decided that I won’t muddy the waters any more. Can you excuse me, Sir?

My dirty secret is something that will probably earn condemnation from most of my friends. Some will smile and make polite public noises about how it is all fine and yet privately swear off any association with me in the future. Maybe my inbox will be flooded with emails with “WTF” on their subjects. Maybe people that I haven’t spoke to in years will call and pray to get my voice mail because they don’t want nothing to do with me and yet are forced by social pressures to commiserate with my less than perfect life now.

Such is my probable fate, a fate certainly not pre-ordained, but one that I brought upon myself. You see, ladies and gentlemen, I was once a die hard fan of Shah Rukh Khan. And most inconveniently, that piece of history seems to have come back, ready to bite me on my posterior if I don’t come clean now. Because, lately, even with these historical misgivings and in spite of the revulsion that the infamous 6-pack evokes, I have been doubting my decision to disavow any affiliation with the name Rahul and the most (in)famous bearer of the name.

My induction into the Shah Rukh fan-boy circle happened about a dozen years ago. Being a student in a school favored by the Punju and Marwari crowd in Chennai gave me the unique experience of being in a “indhi” group in a city that was staunchly “anti-indhi”. Even though one’s parents were staunchly against any contact with corrupting influences such as movies, one always managed to catch the most recent superhit “indhi padams” via rental VHS camera prints.

It was via one such VHS tape that one first caught a glimpse of Shah Rukh Khan. Baazigar was not his first on screen stint, but it was certainly his best at that time. Soon he had become the resident psychopath of Bollywood. But he also spoke his lines in a manner more befitting an ass, braying his lines again and again when just a whisper could have done the job. Not that it mattered to his adoring fan-boys ((Not sure if murdering psychopaths are “attractive” to potential fan girls)) like me.

May be it was a conscious attempt to establish a strikingly obvious attribute of the kind that set apart the likes of yesteryear Bollywood heart-throbs like Dev Anand, but it was definitely an attempt that hit the bulls eye. Even now, more than a decade later, his lines have gotten so much following that rumor has it that they may have helped people win JAM contests (in Hindi) at IIM(L) ((Sources in the know, please clarify if its true!)).

Then almost overnight, the psycho-boy underwent metamorphosis into the lover boy and the fan girls took over. And the fan-boys tried to ape the lover boy to get the attention of the fan girls. Even in the farming hinterlands of Tamilnadu, we were not free from his influences. So whether the general populace knew Hindi or not, “Kuchikuchiotha aye” and “Dhilthopaakal aye” were avidly watched.

One was so much of a fan-boy that conscious attempts were made to model one’s wardrobe after his. Pastel shades started to find favor and I think at one point, you could see me walking from half mile away with my fluroscent green and orange tennis hats. And then there was the famous “COOL” chain (( It was substituted from time to time by the oversized metal “bling bling” pilfered from a piece of imitation jewellery that been discarded by my sister. But let’s not go into that.)).

It appeared magically on my neck wore it soon after I got on to the KPN bus to Trichy and disappeared soon after the bus stopped at Tambaram on my way back for the holidays. In the intervening period inside the college, the chain was carefully hidden away from prying eyes and let out during opportunities befitting its stature as the “coolest” fashion accessory.

And then one day, it inadvertently popped out in the presence of a teacher, who asked me about it. Embarrassed, I stayed silent, till a girl who was standing by, volunteered to explain what it was. Everyone else laughed and needless to say, the “cool” fashion accessory was rendered un-cool and soon discarded.

I became more discreet from then on and while movies like Yes Boss and Duplicate were watched multiple times, deniability became the name of the game. While privately his antics were enjoyed and aped, publicly I denounced him for taking every chance to hold his hands apart and go “hhhheyyyyy”. Slowly I really became a hater. The fact that he was a Yash Raj – KJo staple made it simpler.

By 2001, when I came to Ohio, the change was seemingly permanent. Watching Devdas cemented the sense that I had outgrown my fan boy status. It seemed like he was incapable of even swatting a fly without the “hhhheyyyy”. And slowly I stopped watching his movies. Movies like Swadesh did not do much to change my self imposed embargo since they seemed outliers on an overwhelmingly negative statistical curve.

Then a couple of months ago someone pointed me to the most recent Shah Rukh Khan soundtrack – Om Shanti Om. Watching Saturday morning desi tv here in NJ, one found out that Om Shanti Om was going to be Farah Khan’s second directorial venture and that Shah Rukh Khan was going to appear topless in a song, and attempt to emulate Salman (and dirty coal miners). Outwardly I groaned. But soon a sense of déjà vu washed over me.

You see, in one of my pseudo intellectual moods a few years ago, I had vowed not to watch Farah Khan’s directorial debut Main Hoon Naa. Mainly because I had heard that the climax had incorporated a chase sequence with Shah Rukh on a rickshaw with the bad guys in a car. However later, when I finally watched the movie, I ended up eating humble pie because I enjoyed the experience so much. And I was similarly confused for months later.

Fast forward a couple of years, I watched Om Shanti Om a few days ago. Now I am torn between pseudo intellectual hatred for what is essentially entertainment and being the fan-boy that is hidden inside me. Through the movie, I was humming along with the songs and laughing out aloud at the gags. I will clarify that I was offended by the “Enna Rascal-a” gag that draws its vibes from the preconceived notions about South Indians that have been established by yesteryear actors like Mehmood. But at the end of the movie I wanted to get an encore of some of the scenes and at least one song ((NOT THAT outrageous “ewww” inducing number.)).

I am confused. Am I going to be ostracized by my friends for coming out the closet as a Shah Rukh Khan fan-boy? Will people end conversations about me with a “not that there is anything wrong with it”? Will that hot Tamil gal who flashed a smile at the local grocery store last week frown and turn her face away this week? Will my already thread bare social life take a turn for the worst? So many questions. So much confusion.

Jokes apart, the biggest question I really have is – while I have been laughing at Shah Rukh these past few years, has Shah Rukh Khan been laughing with me too?
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Sadly, and most typically, no one understood! And since then disillusionment has crept in. *sigh*

I got this picture as an email forward yesterday. This is one of the VERY few cricket related email forwards that actually made me laugh. For those of you who are not in the know, the conversation is actually from this movie. Non-Tams, please excuse. The point of the joke’s lost upon explanation.

Ask Dhoni if you want..

Asked what advice he gave Sreesanth before the last ball of the match, Dhoni said, “I told him to be free, and control his mind. He’s like a computer, he just has to bowl one ball but he might be thinking of bowling 100 different deliveries.”

Heh!

Funny, but interesting ad, considering how the McLaren drivers’ working relationship has panned out IRL. Watch out for a special appearance at the end. The Europeans surely put the “F” in the word funny.