Jab We Met....

If I remember well, it was in the month of November, 2005. I was returning from Melbourne, Australia to Chennai, after an official trip to one of our clients place there. Though a busy one, the blue beaches, the scenic locations, the beautiful buildings and almost everything there, made that one week of stay in Australia - a wonderful life time experience.

Just as I entered into the Melbourne Airport, I saw her for the first time. She was beautiful or should accept that she was something more than that! She looked like an Indian girl whose age should be somewhere around 20. She was struggling to carry her heavy luggages. It looked as if she was carrying all her furniture back to India.

Few things happen involuntarily - especially when a young beautiful lady needs an help. I helped her move her luggage and then to keep them over the conveyor belt. She smiled and said, "Thank You!" and I replied "Welcome!" and with a smile, I left the place to get my boarding pass.

Then it was inside the airplane, I was searching for my seat, and again to my surprise she was standing there right near my seat - this time struggling to push her big hand baggage inside the small upper loft, there. Again, involuntarily I helped her.

"Hey... you... once again.. (with a smile) Thank You very much".

The excitement in her mind was obvious all over her face. After keeping our baggage we got settled in our seats. Her seat was near to the window and mine next to that.

"So... are you returning back to India?", she started the conversation.

"yeah... came here for a business visit. just a short visit. You??", I said.

"yeah mine too was a short visit,. I am a model and came here for a calendar photo shoot", as she was saying this I was wondering how her luggage would have been if she had stayed for months.

"oh just a short stay...!!! that's why you had so little bags", We laughed at this.

then we introduced ourselves to each other. She spoke a lot about her modeling career, the ads she had done before, why she was traveling alone and lot more. Honestly, I knew nothing about the ads she had done before, but lied to her saying this was nice and that was wonderful.

I have met few chatterboxes earlier in my life, but my God she was superior to all of them, in fact superior even if all of them were combined together. She was the non-stop chatterbox!!!

"So whats your next goal, the Miss.World or the Miss.Universe ?", I asked her.

"Nope. Not that. I want to get into the film industry", she wanted to get there directly. All Miss Worlds and Universes did the same right!!

"Can, you sit in this seat and give me your seat?", I was surprised with this question from her. I thought everyone would like to sit near the window seat (though everything looks blue from the plane), but this crazy girl wanted to sit in the seat near the aisle.

Before I could answer, she continued, "I am tired. If I sit there I can put my legs outside and sit comfortably". That made sense to me.

We changed our seats. She sat a bit cross, putting her legs slightly out in the aisle and resting herself comfortably on my left shoulder. She had become a very good friend then, so I didn't tell her anything. Again she started her talks. This time she asked about my profession, my company, my family and another set of blah.. blah.. blah. I think, the talks about me wasn't so interesting to her, very soon there was silence all over. I looked at her. She was sleeping. All I said to myself was "God must be Great!!!"

I liked that silence after the storm. Browsed through the in-flight magazine and after sometime, even I slept.

I think, we were flying somewhere over the Singapore or Malaysia then, suddenly there was a small jerk on my left side. I think someone had ran over her legs and that woke her up. So did I. Only then, I think she realized that all this while she was comfortably sleeping on my shoulder. She adjusted herself and sat straight.

"Did I bother you much?" she asked me as I was stretching my left arm.

"Not really, you aren't so heavy when compared to your luggage".

"Hey.. that's not too heavy. It has only few dresses that I bought here", with a small pause, she continued, "Hey did you go out for any shopping ???

oooooph... it was again back to one square. The non-stop chatterbox started again. It continued, continued and continued till we reached the Chennai Airport. Though she wasn't boring, but she was talking tooooooooo much. I really felt sorry for her family and friends.

So finally, came the Chennai Airport. She had to take another flight to Bangalore which was her home town. We said bye to each other and left. Only on my way to home in the auto-rickshaw, I realized how badly I missed the presence of the chatterbox - a sweet chatterbox. Long flight trips are always boring, but she made this one an interesting one.

We didn't contact each other after that. Years rolled by and I had almost forgotten about her.

Last month, I was watching the IPL match between CSK and RCB in Chepauk Cricket Stadium, with my friends. Only then I noticed that. The cameramen were focusing on a young lady in RCB's red t-shirt and flagging the RCB flag. First I didn't realize her, but when her face was shown in close-up in that wide screen, I knew it was her.

With excitement, I shouted, "Hey... she is a model. She is Deepika. I know her well!!!". My friends were starring at me, as if I told them India had got independence.

"Yes she is Deepika. Ms. Deepika Padukone. She is not just a model, she is a very popular bollywood actress now and of course we all know her", my friend replied.

She is a popular actress now!!! That sounded great to me.

I don't watch many movies and I think, I had never watched an Hindi movie in the last decade. So it isn't a surprise that I didn't know that there was a popular actress called Deepika Padukone - the same young lady I met in that journey.

I was happy that she had made it to the dream industry. Next time, when she was shown in that TV screen, she was talking to a smart young guy. He must be his boy friend or an actor - I don't know.

I saw her talking.. talking and talking.!!! She is still the same non-stop chatterbox :-)

images from: http://www.gettyimages.com/

Indian squad for ICC T20 World Cup

Members of the Indian Cricket team for the ICC T20 World Cup, that starts on coming April 30, were announced today. No big surprises in the squad. Fast bowler Vinay Kumar from Karnataka is the only new into the team. Spinner Piyush Chawla makes a come-back into the team.

The squad: MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Rohit Sharma

Undoubtedly, its the batting form of Virender Sehwag that will decide our position in the tournament. If he gets into his best batting form, well we do have a bright chance to qualify for the semis. (South Africa is the other team in the group)

I am not sure, if Yuvraj Singh had completely cured from his injuries. He really seems to be like a lot rustled in the IPL (or may be he is not happy about his captaincy being removed) I feel Irfan Pathan would have been a better alternative. Also I feel, Misra would have been a better alternative for Chawla.

Considering the care and affection, our Srikanth had shown towards are tamilnadu players, I was afraid if they would pick Ashwin and Balaji for the world cup team. Thanks to their great performances in the recent IPL, this didn't happen.

Well, considering the injuries happening in this IPL, who knows this entire list might change when the IPL gets over. In that case, our Sachin, Dravid and Kumble will be requested to play the international T20.

Even then no Ganguly - for he will not accept the offer :-)

IPL 2009

IPL 2009 have reached the interesting phase. One single win take a team to the top slot and one loss take another team to the second half of the poits table. Hope the tournament gets more interesting in the coming days.

When every teams are trying their best to rech the semi-finals, its very sad that Kolkata Knight Riders are almost out of the tournament. They do have some of the best players in the game, but unfortunately it didn't click for them this time too.


News say that the Kolkatta Knight Riders' coach wants more than 4 players in his playing 11. If this is true - can someone please tell him that this is suppose to be Indian Premier League!!!

Even if the KKKR team have missed to make some mark this year, this blogger who calls himself as a fake IPL player from the KKKR team, have certainly made his precense felt in the blog space.

Here are some the best from his latest blog

While our fielding coach was busy browsing naukri.com....

I am waiting for the day Bhookha blames global warming for our performance.

We wake up, go to the ground, get bashed around, return, go to sleep, wake up, fly into another city, get bashed around again, go to sleep... and the sequence continues.

very funny!!!

an IPL Story - Chennai Super Kings

It all started well - infact very well!!!

Four consecutive wins and topping the points table. Everyone was delighted.

Then enters, our brand ambassador, who invites the players to watch the preview show of his new movie - "Kuruvi"

Half way down the movie, 3 star players - Hayden, Hussey and Oram, unable to withstand the movie anymore run out of the cinema theatre and later, even out of the country.

Other players with no other options continue playing in the tournament.

Later, they lose the matches against Delhi DareDevils and Rajasthan Royals. Now the Lion is at the fourth postion in the points table and might slide down even further in future [:(]

Hmmm... who would have thought a bird can make such a drastic effect on the lion.

MS Dhoni from Chennai....

MS Dhoni and a little Rajini like voice. Another interesting thing for IPL
I m enjoying this [:)]

few IPL mokais...

# Seeing the first week response from the public, IPL appears to become a hit - earlier I thought who would sit and watch two regional teams playing. I think I was wrong.

# On the whole till today, foreign players have entertained more than our local heroes.

# Not sure what would happen when the Australia, New Zealand and West Indies players leave by the end of April - will surely affect many teams' performance.

# When these players leave , Delhi's daredevil's have a great chance of winning this tournament.

# It was really odd to see the Hyderabad crowd not clapping when Shewag hit a fifty and asked for it, but the Chennai crowd were screaming when Sachin was just shown for few seconds in the TV screen.

# Few of our responsible politicians are more concerned about the cheer girls in the game. Wow!!! what a topic to discuss in the parliament - when there are other useless problems like the Hogenekal issue, high inflation and lot more

# Hyderabad seems to have a good team (except the captain) for this form of the game, but still aren't getting things right on their way

# Sachin Tendulkar??? (10 years back on his birthday thala was rocking!!!)

# Afer the Mumbai Indians - Punjab Kings XI match, Bret Lee and Sreesanth were walking together back to the pavilion, then Prity Zinta hugs and congratulates Bret Lee for his wonderful performance in the match, few minutes later Sreesanth was in tears, Prity says something to Sankakara who then run to Sreesanth and whispers something in his hears.

and this morning, the TV news channels say - "Bajji slaps Sreesanth.... Yuvraj not happy.... blah.. blah.. blah"

Hey whats happening?? Game or a crappy Reality Show??

Vijay, Kuruvi, IPL and then fatal Error...

One of my friends, who is a die-hard fan of actor Vijay, sent me the promotional picture of their hero's next movie Kuruvi and a link to his official website (by fans!!!) : www.vijaynet.com


Just while browsing through the home page of the website, found a message that said - "Vijay endorses Chennai Super Kings". Since it was about the Chennai Cricket team for the Indian Cricket League (IPL) Tournament, I was eager to read further and clicked on the link.

Ooops the next screen said : "Fatal error"

a bug or the message???


PS: Vijay and Actress Nayanthara endorse the Chennai Cricket Team for IPL.