Goa... - Part 1

 Goa... Well to start with I am in love with this place. I came to this place last year, I went this year and I am sure I will visit every year to come. This place makes you feel alive, takes you far away from cultural boundaries, religion , daily nuisance and hectic job. Beautiful beaches , parties, water sports just hold your breath and makes one lost in the moment. You think about fun, fun and just fun!

We started the trip from Delhi in the evening and reached Goa after 3 hours. It was after long time me and my brother had a trip together. Next 4 days promises to be soaked completely in fun. Our days will be filled with late night parties rather than late night work. Beer will replace tea as morning beverage. Rather than banging the head in the office we would be diving in the sea. Office formals will go away and hat, shorts all it would take to roam around the streets. We would ask time to stand by rather than looking at clock every hour.
Well then Bring it on! Beach, Beer and the Babes

We stayed in a beach resort named - N V beach resort. Its situated at famous Calangute beach. It was heavenly to find a place to stay which is 100 m away from the main beach.

Early in the morning we were joined by our other gang members. So after bit of chit chatting we all were ready for some real fun.We started with Calangute beach. Calangute is one of the most famous beach of Goa. It is located in North Goa and attracts majority of the crowd along with Baga beach. It is these two beaches where you will find most of the water rides and all the amazing shack's. After getting absorbed in the environment it was the time to take a dip in the sea. 1..2..3 ...run... and into the sea. wohhooo! It feels awesome! And perhaps even better when you do not how to swim :P . And the best when 7ft high wave come and hit you. All of you go down into the water , get up after a while and then see everyone around you is trembling. Well that experience is for the starters. Seasoned swimmers enjoy the high tides with the art they know, of course you would have to keep tsunami out of the definition of the high tide :P .

Water sport is the most fun part. We tried our hands on parasailing and banana boat because those were the most adventurous sport of the lot. If you decide to go for parasailing make sure you ask for dip in the sea. They will take you up in the sky and then bring you down into the water and it continues for a while! It feels good to fly in the sky. Actually it feels great!!
          

Banana boating was of course the best of all! It carries max 5 people on a banana shaped boat. The motor boat pulls the banana boat far into the sea and then boom.. it topples! haha... Imagine how would one feel right in the middle of the sea ,perhaps better or worst when you don't know how to swim(depends how you take the ride). Adrenaline rushes into the body , some shout, some laugh, few cry for their life and few just start believing in god!

In our case the ride became longer then usual  after getting toppled because I decide to use my swimming skills and hop onto the boat quickly. In the process instead of hopping I turned the boat 180 degree...haha.. People freaked out at me but i was enjoying the moment ..And since this is India money cannot be too far.. People started shouting for the boat carrier to save them and they ask for money in return. The boat carrier says to my nephew 100 bucks it is to get you back onto the boat. My nephew says "you son of a  ***%^&*" save me but I will give you 50. Alright 50 it is says the boat carrier... haha.. perhaps it was the first time i had seen anyone bargaining when life is at stake. But one in all the experience was freaking awesome and I throughly enjoyed it. So guys do not miss the chance and definitely try the banana boat.

More to come about beaches, parties, pubs... till then XOXO :P

And the misery continues....

Well yet another loss and yet another humiliating defeat! As an Indian and die hard follower of cricket these defeats at home are too much to digest for me and for a matter of fact to any Indian. Starting from the test series in Australia and till this last test in Kolkata one thing is common. It's the attitude of giving up in strenuous situation.

It was during the summer of 2011 when it all started. Indian cricket team studded with stars and with big claims landed at the mecca  of cricket, Lords. With great Zaheer Khan being out of the game on the first day ,India suffered a major blow and that was just the start. One after another most of the  player got injured and there was a stage when only 11 players were fit in the squad. After a test or  two Dhoni said "Whatever bad could happen , have happened", little did he knew worst was yet to come. During this very series India lost their number one crown to England in test. Barring Dravid no one else could even settle their foot firmly on English soil. Misery continued session after session, day after day and end result tells everything .India shamefully lost test series by 4-0, one day series by 5-0.

Then comes the great Australian series for which we all Indians look ahead for. Same paper , Same pen, almost same squad. Story could not be more different . India lost test series 4-0. Mind you, before the series started its been said that "This is the best possible chance India have to defeat Australia on their own soil". Come on man, Do the statements change so drastically? From the "best possible chance" to "worst possible defeats". "The Wall" got demolished several times, Laxman was not "Special" and master blaster gave no "fire works". For rest its better not to even talk about. I must appreciate Kohli for this performances though.

Now something interesting , out of these 8 defeats only once India managed to go above a score of 300 in an innings. Once in 16 innings? Yes. Unbelievable. What hurts me is the margin of these defeats. The way we lost. Without putting in a fight. Accepting the defeats and telling opposition "Thanks for finishing the game early, We have lot of shopping to do".

We all are professionals. What do we do when things do not work out? Of course one puts more and more efforts to get it right. But team India always have other ideas like going for a carting in Australia and taking a long rest after the recent Mumbai test defeat.

In a way IPL and Champion leagues have their contribution as well in these defeats. Players were busy playing IPL 2011 before the England tour and Champions league 2012 before the England tour of India. The patience , determination and class that is required for a test cricket clearly seem to be missing. If above statements looks like a "big statement from a small mouth" go check the shots our dear ones played you will get an answer. The challenging pitches , close in fields, swinging red cherry seem to be too much to handle for all of our great against the charm and pleasure of T20 cricket. Confidence is good , Over confidence kills one easily. Dhoni are you and your team listening?

Alastiar cook prepared in Dubai, Pune and eventually in the warm up games before coming to face the first ball in the series. Compare this preparation with the efforts put by team India.Shane watson pulls himself out of  T20 bash to be fit for test cricket. Michael Clark stopped participating in IPL to shape up his test career. Aren't these examples reflects their success in Test cricket? We don't know who is responsible here, BCCI for asking players to come and play IPL, Champions league or Players themselves. But something need to done here.

Also by no means this team is a young team. You will call a team with Sehwag, Gambhir, Sachin, Yuvraj a young team? Clearly no, these folks are playing for ages and these performances from them are totally unacceptable. And what our dear selectors, coaches, leaders are doing? Waiting for Sachin to come and say "I will continue playing till i enjoy this game"?. With all due respect to great Tendulkar, we all understand every good thing one day comes to an end. Dear Sachin you have done lot to Indian cricket but its time to take other responsibilities , Its time to contribute to Indian cricket in some different way.

Criticism can continue and will continue. We understand every one is human and defeats are part of the game. We will accept defeats in a while but do not continue them "for a while".

As the great Ganguly said "My suggestion to Dhoni is do not ask for the turners because if India lose I am sure there will be lot of changes in Indian cricket". Yes Mr Ganguly we understand your statement. Let the changes begin for the betterment of Indian cricket. We will support lot of defeats in the process  if it will eventually lead us to reign the cricket in all formats of the game.

Nokia do you really care?

Its been a year since i had started using Nokia E5. As always this cell as well was attracted by lovely rainy season and died when meets with its love :P . So i had to go where i am suppose to The Nokia Care . My cell was analyzed by the service engineers and after 15 minutes it had been announced it would take 2850 Rs to repair the cell and problem reported was Keypad IC and mic is dead. Already bankrupt it did not took me much time to say No.But as this dreadful world is ,life without mobile phones seem impossible and i decided to get it repaired by having the full faith on the great Nokia Care.

It was on the next day I decided to find out the price for same components at the local vendors. So I placed a call to my cousin (who owns a mobile repairing shop) and I almost fainted when he told that the price for those components in the local market would be around 50 bucks. What the f***? Just 50 bucks? And what about the price for same components from Nokia ? I asked. Pat comes the reply cant be more than 5 times. So 250 Rs max? it could not be more than that. I would add 250 as service charges hence total repair cost cannot be more than 500 bucks? They why the hell I had been charged 5 times? Or for matter of fact everyone else would be?.

It took me 10 min to find out the cell number of manager of the Nokia store and the discussion begins. I asked him not to have my cell repaired and I want it back for so and so reasons. He told me to check that in the morning and if the the repair would have been  done he cannot do anything. It was around 10  AM next morning when I got the call from Nokia care telling me that cell had been repaired and they are giving me discount for 350 rs . Wow! Just  a call to the manager and already a discount of 350 bucks. That gave more weight to the analysis I had done and I decided to give a real fight.

After few days i went to the Nokia store to collect cell and when I asked to breakup the 2500 Rs (after 350 Rs discount)  no one agreed to do so, but I had been told 220 Rs have been charged for software update. Alright man! So that would have actually solved my long pending problem related to software? I checked the cell and there you go software problem still exists. I asked again did software updated have really been done? reply was NO only software reset(What the F*** is this?) was done. And there i am barking on those morons for doing all this shit . More discussion and they agreed to give another discount. Wow! another 220 less in 30 min discussion. And i ended up paying more than 2000 bucks for those damn little things. Heck what a waste of time and money. But definitely a lesson to learn.

Nokia i do not think you really care. Indeed it was a horrible experience . You wasted my time and money to a greater extent. Interestingly it was not just me I could see scenes where people  barking at the manager for various reasons and getting out of the place where I am sure they would never enter again and so will I.