26/11- Images from Colaba Causeway

All photos taken on 27th November between 4 50 pm and 6 15 pm.

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This was taken behind the Taj Mahal hotel in the lanes that lead to it,from Colaba Causeway. There were a bunch of unarmed policemen who were hiding inside the apartments near the road. If you were a bomber looking for a new place to Bomb, you could go right in and do whatever you wanted. Even after such an incident, there are certain sides of the Taj Hotel, that dont have enough protection. The police and the commandos are doing a good job, kudos to them for managing to fight it out for the common man, but still there are some slips, which could derail some of their plans.


Saw a 'Times Now' reporter who was rehearsing his lines before the limelight is thrust on him. Lives of these journalists are also tough, in the sense that they leave their families and come in a high tension zone, and sometimes need to talk gibberish under the influence of their honchos at HQ. But I loved Arnab Goswami's interview today with Suhel Seth, Alyque Padamsee and Shefal sheth this evening on Times Now.

Mumbai they say wll rebound, but somewhere down the line we have taken people n Mumbai for granted by issuing this sentence. The politicians and media get away by this famous phrase. Mumbai is a city of burgeonng population where people come to make a living. So to them if a bunch of people die, it doesnt matter to them as they need to make their daily wage to feed their house. Yes,Mumbai has a spirt and a soul, but dont kill whatever is left by using the cliched dalogue that Mumbai will rebound. Media and the politcians skirt some of the major issues by using ths term "rebounding"



The commandos keep going about on both sides of the road. The police was trying to make the people go back home, but there were onlookers who wanted to see what the heck was happening to their dear city. In between these, were bunch of people whose friends were caught in the TAJ. So they were frantically moving about coordinating wth relatives.







Some more smoke billowing from the new building of the Taj

When we went there, we just saw a grenade come down on the road, and the 4th floor of a building (I guess it was the Taj) that caught fire. It was shocking to see the fire that was spreading fast, even as men were trying to get to a positon from where they could safely extinguish the fire, as terrorists inside were tryng to prevent them from spraying water.

Vinay(My classmate at GL) and I scanned some of the smaller lanes and spoke with the policemen. We found some scattered glass pieces on the lane, which was due to a hand grenade bursting within the Taj. To Think that it came 100 feet away was mind boggling, when you think of the power of the explosion within the hotel room where it exploded.

OTHER IMAGES

An ambulance rushing to the save the lives of people injured

Road to Colaba

Glass pieces lying broken on the road leading to Taj Hotel

Terror attacks in Mumbai again

Just happened to switch on Television. The bombs and terror attacks are slowly increasing from isolated reports in VT to a petrol bunk bombed, Leopold cafe and Taj Mahal hotel firing, explosions in Vile Parle. Its sad that such a bustling city is regularly subjected to such bombings every few years.

I see a lot of blood and trash strewn about near the site of blasts, but the way the reports are happening, I dont know whether the media is making up a lot of stuff especially when a reporter says " I think the terrorists have sophisticated weapons and are going to strike south Mumbai today". My condolences with people who have been affected, and I beg the media not to scare the citizens and for heaven's sake, dont add more drama, when you are reporting death. I am sure the reporter would not love to hear his triumphant voice, if he sees his kith/kin being dead.

My Latest Article at Crickblog

Neccesity is the mother of inventions, is what the proverb says, but in Cricket, when you suddenly require a youngster to fill in somebody's boots, it cant be done instantly. The only way of ensuring a transition and ensuring healthy bench strength is by experimenting with raw promising youngsters at home. India seem to have a pretty balanced scorecard, on this front. The following article tracks India's ascent since 2005.

Infy Literature

The last couple of weeks, I have been reading a lot of literature penned by the founders of the Infosys family. Sudha Murthy's "Old Man and his God","Wise and Otherwise" and her other short stories have been a great peek into the Indian way of life,across the length and breadth of the country. I have also been seeing a lot of media attention on Nandan Nilelani's book, 'Imagining India' that is all set to release on the 24th of November. With the newer breed of writers also having a blog to interact with readers, Nandan Nilekani has started his book based blog right here.

I am pulling an extract of what the book has in store.

" Why then, do our challenges seem so intractable? We are an emerging economy, making waves in the global market, but the numbers of our poor are still staggering. We struggle to provide our citizens with basic levels of education and healthcare. In many parts of rural India, infrastructure is nothing more than a distant hope – we have villages with no roads leading out, and villages with mobile connectivity but without electricity, where people have to walk miles to the nearest town just to charge their phones.
I believe that much of India’s challenges come from our divisions. The Indian state has long championed the country’s ‘unity in diversity’, but in reality, our diversity has also meant that we are a fractured society, split along the lines of caste, religion, region and class. As a result, our politics have long been a politics of our divides rather than one driven by ideas or solutions.
However, there is a chance that this has begun to change. I think that the most effective answer to such politics is creating a ’safety net of ideas’ that can weather political storms and divisive rhetoric. If such ideas become popular across large numbers of voters, no government can survive by simply mining our resentments, and without addressing these issues."

If this interests you, I'd reccomend you book your copy at the earliest.

So This weekend's theme and flavour

1) Order the book

2) Complete Sudha Muthys books

3) Watch a DVD rerun of "Swades"

England 0-2 Down! Whats the Road Ahead

I had written this article a couple of days back for Crickblog. If you find some 3 minutes to thumb through, I'd suggest you click here

India's first I.T Magazine for Women

Came across an ad in my inbox for this magazine called L.I.V.E I T. Now if this magazine can get me women like this in IT(reverse positioning), I will buy the magazine on a 5 year subscription :-)

I always have bad memories of women in IT, as the hittable chicks are already having a waiting list, the emerging ones have boyfriends who flirt with them in sourcecodes and tech talk. So if u cant code, ur chances of hitting on even the second string ones are gone. The rest of the lot are invariably loaded in your project, and when I was in Infy, I had 6 girls in my team and some of their conversations went like this(2005 August/september time)

Sample a conversation at 8 15 pm, after a routine On-site call(Am converting this from Tamil to English)

Girl1- Hey, did u find the guy interesting ?

Girl 2- (She was on the phone, so I cant hear).#$@#%$%$*

Girl 1- " hey, You should not reject him, You are a Dot Net girl, he is a C# guy who also knows mainframes.Its a good combination for work. He is soo ideal no, marry him na"

I was dumbfounded! Why does this have to be so formulaic and happen only in Chennai , damn it?

During my engineering, I asked a friend of mine, who was the hottest girl in their department, and he said pointing to a girl, " she studies well da, she got 87% in the last univ semester exam". I coughed and caught cold soon enough.

Believe me, these are times when its tough to pass a comment on the person, as it takes some time to get over the shock of what he/she said. Women, I have met in Chennai(in IT) invariably end up marrying your skill set(java, #$%^^ whatever) or your temporary onsite stint.

So If you are an IT girl who indulges in such conversations, then you wouldnt have understood the joke. So go back and code... and create an application for skill set based dating(orkut, u have competition)

If You arent, please feel free to socially network with me...

Nice Interview!

Just chanced across this on In.com http://www.in.com/active18/watchnow/watchvideo_mc.php?autono=357158

An Interview with Harsha Bhogle! He states that his first commenary stint was in 1983, while he was a student at IIM-A, and its 25 years since he started getting into this field of cricket/television journalism.

Over the week, liked a couple of other links that has started the week on a good note. Loved both those speeches by Harsha. I regard him very high, as there is a certain romanticism i assosiate with his simplicity and when he comes on air. I've literally grown up watching Harsha Bhogle since the early 90's when he was handling ranji trophy matches for ESPN.

Check this and this

Back To School!

Just before returning to Mumbai after Diwali, I managed to pass by my school in Adayar,Chennai (Bala Vidya Mandir)
Hand Cricket Wicket- The Cement block next to the temple was our stumps, where three lines were carved way back in 1993, when we started playing hand cricket. Some of those lines dont exist, but if you observe closely you could see a few straight lines. The temple was built around 96-97 and that restricted the place we had for cricket. Our dressing room was the tree and behind the wicket


The serene Jungle gym has given way to more cemented structures. Sad they couldnt maintain the jungle gym. That was one lovely place for a lunch with classmates with beach mud and trees all around. I guess we did play hand cricket there also. I guess thats where I started giving commentary bytes aping Tony Greig, Brian Langley(Of Prime Sports Fame), Ranjit Fernando and Micheal Holding.

Our school auditorium and the erstwhile Jungle gym were bordering the Gandhi Nagar Tennis court. Secretly most of the boys were hoping that some of those gleaming fluroscent yellow tennis balls would bounce of the court and we would get to keep some of those tennis balls. COSCO was the brand, we amateur gulli cricket players loved owning. I guess we played 7 stones, football and catches also with the same ball after school. Those days were so simple, with modest ambitions and time for everything. The fresher yellow colour of the COSCO ball was a sign of your status, and ofcourse if you had a spare ball, at a time when guys just lost a ball, in the midst of a interesting game, your status grew by leaps and bounds.

My school auditorium flooring seems to have changed, apart from some architectural modifications. I owe this auditorium for helping me make the transition from a guy who couldnt address a crowd, to a guy who went and hosted inter school quizzes.

The auditorium now has AC rooms and proper control rooms unlike the messy wires that were all over the place earlier. I remember a play in class 7, when I had a small role as a son, who was eating. Now when you get free coke and cake to eat, and you suddenly realise that your play is about to end, I thought the free party was about to end a little too soon, and I ended up gorging myself with cake and coke, and ended up ruining the play, as everybody's attention was on me.

It was good rewinding memories, 8 years after I passed out school.

Howzzzzzzzzaaaat!

Ten Sports, seems to have roped in Aarti Chabbria for this show called Cricket Boom Boom with a scaery Atul Wassan. Mandira Bedi-Part 2? Going Past Noodle straps Huh! Sometimes its an insult to cricket when some one like her hosts a show. Cricket isn't just about Fine Legs, Balls and Shots! There's lot more to it and TRP that meets the eye!

My Day will come! Even if it takes a few years, It sure will . Hope never dies :-)