… and we will use it like the biggest stage in the world and shout our hearts out.

Without any further ado, presenting…. Ashok!

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?

Reliable sources have alleged that the members of the simian world are thinking of complaining to the US Senate (which has recently been perceived as having an edge over Judge Judy and the United Nations, as the premier small claims arbitrator of the world) about the use of “that word” as a racial slur. You, Mike, can help us dismiss this simian charge and bring normalcy back to international simian-human relations.

Recent reports have also suggested that inter-racial couples and couples in aviyal relationships are refraining from using “that word” while referring to their partners affectionately. Your explanation might help to restore normalcy to that part of society too.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Anantha.

(P.S: I don’t expect either you or those arses Symonds, Ponting and Hayden to know this, but a friend suggested yesterday that a certain bawdy Hindi phrase could rhyme with “that word”. And while the aforementioned Hindi phrase is admittedly offensive, there is nothing racial about it. Brett Lee, who is starting to annoyingly become “more desi than thou”, can be called to give circumstantial evidence to this claim. As you know, Brett Lee is an Aussie. So his words would be more credible than mine, no?)

Rediff’s Rajaneesh Vilakudy says,

If top industry sources are to be believed, Shankar will work with Rajnikanth in Robot, which was planned to be shot with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead and as producer. But the project apparently did not work out owing to ‘creative differences’, with Shah Rukh himself confirming the separation.

In any case, going by what I know about the movie, its not Thalaivar material at all.

Though the film’s thread is not confirmed, the name ‘Robot’ and widely-speculated media reports suggest the story is about a maverick scientist who creates a robot and later runs into trouble with his pet creation.

Thankfully (even if you don’t agree with me that Thalaivar should not touch this even with a pole), Rajaneesh also reminds us to take this piece of news with a pinch of salt with his parting shot -

Interestingly, a search on ‘Robot-Shanker-film’ throws up many actors’ names as the heroes of this dream project — the latest being Ajith of Billa fame in the lead.

So, thanks for nothing!

Every Australian tour is packaged with pitfalls, both for individual and the team itself. The team pitfalls come on the field, via the Aussie juggernaut. But the individual holes are dug by the team management and in some cases, allegedly by the players themselves. Ganguly’s apparent refusal to carry drinks as the 12th man comes immediately to mind.But these individual issues mostly get resolved as time goes by, but the real problems are the ones that are caused by loud mouthed non media savvy administrators of the game who don’t think before their speak. Jayawant Lele’s comment did more for the downfall of the ’99 team than the potent Aussie bowling or the impotency of the Indian top order.

Lalchand Rajput’s case of “foot in mouth” and the subsequent denial is the latest example. The funny thing though is that almost every one of these media missteps happen right before or during an Australian tour. Is the Australian media to blame? Or is the egoistic Indian cricket administrators the cause?I think its more of the latter. Indian cricket has always been ruled by men with scant regard for the rigours and pressures of the game. Or if they have some experience, these same men seem to be afflicted with selective amnesia once they decide that they want to be an administrator.

Early this year, one of the ad hoc managers who went to South Africa, a man from the armed forces, if I am right, seemed to do a good job and the job of a full fledged media manager was pooh poohed by the powers that be. Perhaps it is time to take this job more seriously. For, never before has the case for a media coordinator for the Indian team made so inadvertently and yet so forcefully.

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

A couple of years ago, I had ranted (parts 1 and 2) about the disdain shown towards “massy” dappankuthu (and in general non-Hindi/non-Bhangra) type numbers by DJs and the “classy” crowd at dance parties both here in videsh and back home in India. But my personal experiences have mostly been outside Chennai, in fact outside India.

And those who know me will attest that, at times, I can be as “massy” as one can get, mostly in the (few) aforementioned dance parties that I get to go to. And most of the DJs I have seen in these parties, suck. One DJ even went as far as feigning loss of the mix CDs (they magically re-surfaced at the end of the party) that a couple of us had painstakingly created so that he has a mix of Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi numbers to play during the party. But that old post immediately came into mind when I read about the fiasco Radio Mirchi RJ hunt party at Dublin, the disco/night club at the Park Sheraton in Chennai.

I do agree with Su when she questions the attitude of Chennai nightclubs and their refusal to play Tamil numbers even if the majority of the crowd (in this case, almost the whole freaking team that was responsible for the original numbers in the first place) requests it. On top of all this, I think what Su went to, was in fact an “invitation only” party. Sad days indeed, if the guests at a private party don’t get what the hosts paid for, i.e. a good time!

I get pissed when I hear migrants from North India complain about the lack of a social life and a club scene down south. Let me put this question out there. If the few clubs that are there, (by playing only English/Hindi/Punjabi numbers) refuse to cater to the locals, why would the locals come to these clubs? If the locals don’t come, would the business model even work? I think with a major attitude change, Chennai clubs can attract more locals and therefore make their business model attractive enough leading to more clubs entering the scene.

I know that the culture police is out in full force sometimes, but if the majority takes a stand, would the culture police be feared as they are now?