Lord Of the Ring

Zinedine Zidane, for me without doubt the greatest football player of all times will not be there any more on the field after the World Cup in Germany, without him football will not be the same again. His creativity, his magic has no parallels. He took football to another plain, sublime, the joy of watching him weave his magic hard to describe. Have watched lot of great players, but Zidane’s dribbling, his ball control just amazing, the ball always seemed to be glued to his feet. The kind of things he did, left the spectators baffled and crying for more. The bigger the occasion the better he was. Two stunning headers in world Cup Final buried Brazil in 1998, that made him the most popular man in France. In 2000, he starred again as France won its second European title, scoring a penalty to beat Portugal in the semifinals. Unfortunately he was plagued with injuries during the last World Cup.
He had retired from the national team, but when France looked struggling to qualify for the World Cup 2006 he came back from retirement. He was immediately reinstated as Captain, that is the stature of the man.
So during the World Cup the Lord will be seen for the last time, for all of you whom this isn’t making any sense, just watch him in that number ten jersey during the Cup.
He played his last match recently for Real Madrid, a star studded team, with names like Ronaldo, Beckham, Figo, Raul and a few more big guns. Real had paid a whopping US $ 82 million for his transfer from the Italian Club Juventus, the biggest transfer fee. He was voted three time as the FIFA player of the year and also the best European Footballer in last 50 years.

Bulls Eye

Recently I got my first gun, a 315 rifle, no it isn’t for those predators. Its absolutely deadly weapon, I fired it on a wall and it left a 10 inch deep hole, it can be effective up to a 1000 meters. Actually Dad was more keen but since he already has three licenses he could not get another one so I got the license. Yeah in India you have to first get a license to keep a gun. The kind of environment we live in I think one should have something for safety. In our family every one can handle a gun, including the females. With a gun I can go to any place at any time without fear, I have carried a pistol to the University for some time, we got entangled with some bad elements. Either you give in to them, or you stand up. The bad guys too fear for their lives, perhaps more than ordinary people. So when we made it loud and clear that we would not hesitate to kill if any harm came to us they backed off, and we never had any problem since then, if that day we had surrendered it would have been life long bullying.

Fortunately we never had to use a gun, the only place we did was at shooting ranges. Dad won the District Championship a few times, though he never took it seriously as a sport. Once he was dragged to State Championship and without any practice he managed to bag the silver medal in Pistol shooting.

I was involved in shoot out at the District Championship once in a Shot Gun event, it went on and on other events where delayed, finally I lost the first place to the guy from the army. At the School, once the NCC boys where having shooting, with .22 rifles, I wasn’t old enough to be in NCC. I went and pestered the NCC teacher to let me shoot. The event was supervised by two guys from the army. So the teacher asked me to borrow a uniform and use the name Vij, some one who was absent. I was there, 5 shots, each one of them bulls eye, the guys from the Army wanted me to go to Delhi for Republic Day Competition and the teacher was ‘arre yeh kya kiya marwoge mujhe’ (wht did u do u will get me killed) since I wasn’t from the NCC. The high point was when in NCC I used the Light Machine Gun, that was some fun.

But keeping Guns means a lot of responsibility and any one who is short tempered, the kind of people who just loose it, should not keep one. Never ever play the fool with a gun, the saying is, empty guns fire, so pointing a gun towards any one even if we are 100% sure that its empty is a strict no no. While firing a gun lot of things have to be made sure off, especially when it’s a long range weapon like a rifle. I would never fire until I am sure about the final destination of the bullet, it should either head for the sky or the ground or be hitting something which I can see. The angles are very important. Stray bullets have resulted in many accidents. And always keep out from the reach of the children. As a 7-8 year old I almost shot my sister. I picked up the Air Gun, thinking it was empty, aimed towards my sister from a few meters, ‘aaj mai tumhe khatam kar dunga’ and pulled the trigger and it actually fired, thankfully since it was too heavy for me I missed her, it could have been a real disaster, even though an Air Gun but from that close it could have been lethal.

To Kill or Not To....

We have this little garden at the back, which is frequented by many birds especially during the summer months. We leave plenty of water for them to drink and bathe, you can sense their happiness. It’s fun to watch them bathing, drying themselves and singing merrily. They let us come so close, perhaps they know that we will not harm them. Quite a few of them make it there home, nest and lay eggs. It gives me so much joy to see they building the nest, lay eggs, the excitement when the chicks hatch and when they grow a little big the parents teaching them to fly. However all those birds have begun to attract quite a few predators, attacking the birds, taking away the chicks, the eggs etc. and that leaves me so upset, like that ‘bulbul’ in the picture, a day after her chicks hatched the nest was attacked by a cat.
Both the little ones of the dove (the one in pic) were taken away by a hawk, the next time they laid eggs a mongoose cleaned the nest. It really upsets me, I want to kill these predators. You see those birds putting in so much effort and then it ends like this in a disaster. The dilemma is that a part of me stops me from killing those predators, I feel that by doing so I will be interfering with nature, after all they kill to survive, to feed their young ones. But what about my birds, the birds who trust me, who take refuge in my home. I actually keep an eye on the nests when ever possible but how long and more often than not those idiots win the battle…what do I do????

Colors

Here are some of the art work which i have done on computer, using photoshop, though there is so much more to learn there. The first painting is a copy of Van Gogh's work..titled yellow House. Unfortunatley i have not been able to post my favourite painting here, beacuse of it's size, and the kind of tools i have used there doesn't let me reduce the size....anyway.....i know some of you here paint i would love comments and suggestions, especially since i have had absoultely no clue, i mean i have no formal knowledge about the art.

Corruption Free

The CBI raids on Chautala’s (ex Chief Minister of Haryana) is again a grim reminder of the corruption that prevails in our Country. Imagine Rs 1500 Crore worth of property and cash have been discovered. In a country where almost a third of the population still struggles to get two meals a day, another section of the population is hell bent in robbing the scarce resources we have. A house alone worth Rs 35 Crores, if I cud have my way I would put a bullet in your head and send you to another home.

No matter what the country has failed to stem the rot, and I don’t think it will ever change, how you can expect one thief to catch another. We need something more dramatic something revolutionary, here are some of my suggestions, if you have any ideas please share……..

Do away the system of competitive exams, when the bosses the politicians don’t require any education and still run the country then so can others… yes you need to just be say High School pass, now instead of the competitive exams, we will have competitive bidding. The one who bids the highest gets the job.

Government would not pay any salaries, one will be free to rob the ordinary people as much as possible. The Government gets a fixed sum depending upon the post one holds and plus a 20% cut in all earning beyond a certain limit, which will be again specified. The individual departments will dole out incentives like Swiss holidays etc for the people who contribute more to the State.

The benefits from this would be tremendous, the Government not only save billions of Rupees paid in Salaries but would also earn a substantial amount, we will get the auditors working to calculate how much we stand to gain.

The money needless to say earned thus would be ploughed back to improve the lot of the poor. Another outcome of this will be that we will dramatically, improve our position in the eyes of the world. We are constantly up there as one of the most corrupt nation, this position will be altered since bribes etc will not be henceforth looked as crime.

Before I forget, we will have a package too for the reserved category, they can get jobs just paying 25% of the bid amount, but their earnings will attract a higher rate of deduction.

Once More

All right this one is courtesy Has to be me…..here I go…….

Name 10 of life's simple pleasures that you like the most and then pick 10 people to do the same (optional). Try to be original and creative and no to use the things someone else has already used.

Try and be original….yeah I am no clone……..and be creative I thought this is something ur born with……now how can I be creative..can I buy a lil of creativity somewhere :) ….anway

1. Sleep: I don’t think there is anything better than that

2. I love the beaches, the mountains, the forest ….i never tire of these things

3. Being with loved ones is something I always look fwd too…..though it’s a rare occurrence now : (

4. being with my pets….lil doggy n parrots ..wow what fun

5. watching TV…..almost can’t live without it…….don’t laugh now..sometimes I watch 3 channels at the same time..i have two sets side by side plus one of them has PIP…but mostly when we are having football n cricket games….and yes tennis

6. I love driving….but only on highway…..those real long drives lasting 5-9 hrs..btw hate driving in cities esp Delhi

7. I enjoy clicking away pics..birds, trees, sunset…….

8. Yeah sometimes I paint but only using PC…never tried on canvas

9. It’s a pleasure to interact with you ppl thru this blog…..

10. Love playing games..anything and everything…

Do I have to go thru the second one too..anyway here its is

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.
(haven’t understood y we are stuck with pg 18 line 4)

for a change here is pg 97 line 1 Readers Digest : )..it says……Its midnight in San Antonio, Texas, and I am wandering the Menger Hotel’s elegant lobby looking for maid Sallie White….(haunted) (why the maid at midnight . ) )

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
& catch air?
……I stretched both my arms..feels good
3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
CNBC..about stocks….
4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
4.05
5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
4.15
6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Birds in the garden…
7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
half hr back..went to meet someone for work……
8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
my self in the mirror..i had to get ready na for this lol
9. What are you wearing?
jeans n black T shirt….
10. Did you dream last night?
don’t think so ..mostly when I do I remember it…..
11. When did you last laugh?
hour back when I spoke to my sis…….
12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
hmm calendar, clock, a plastic plant, a souvenir from Canada and pics of brothers kids
13. Seen anything weird lately?
yessssss I have been seeing this thing for months…….around 7.30 eve…I see this small light moving in the sky, which appears like a satellite…..moving frm South to North….and then at one particular place….it suddenly turns so big n shinny.say one third size of the moon…for a few seconds and then it fizzles out.to its normal size and continues on its way ..have seen it at least 2 dozen times..wonder wht is tht….
14. What do you think of this quiz?
wonderful …. : ( who devised this….
15. What is the last film you saw?
Along Came Poly
16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
Would buy a big mansion in Shimla….where I wud host all bloggers during summers
17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.
After midnight I turn into a blood sucking vampire : )
18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Erase all boundaries created by man……..one world one people…… and the language LOVE
19. Do you like to dance?
yeah I do……
20. George Bush.
Bush full of thorns
21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
I will have a poll on the blog …..
22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
shame as 21….. I mean same
23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
yes …..because this country will never change..small unthinkable things are huge problems here….power, water WTF
24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
been looking out for u for quite a while..this place was so quite without u
25. 5 people who must also do this in their journal.
No I am not going to name nyone…….but if some one wants to do it plzzzz go ahead……