Raised by the Sea

The Boxing Day tsunami that lashed the Indian subcontinent coast last year washed off the top of the ground in many places. At Saluvankuppam near Mahabalipuram, the tsunami exposed parts of an ancient Pallava temple built more than 2000 years ago. BBC carries the details.

On Tomorrow

My post featured for the 1st time on Tomorrow

On the Ground

Starting 10 days ago, Cricinfo has taken blog-debates a step further by starting 'Wicket-to-Wicket' - debting forum where the leading Cricinfo authors present their varying views on any pre-decided topic. The 1st topic taken up is, unsurprisingly, the use of technology in the game. With the recent experiments with technology usage during the Super Series between Australia and Rest of the World, pretty much the whole cricketting fraternity has a view, an opinion on technology's place in cricket - and much of these views are passionate! With writers as adept as Sambit Bal, Amit Verma, Martin Williamson et all, Wicket-to-Wicket has presented itself as a forum for a well-analysed discussion on this topic close to heart of many cricket-lovers. Read the discussion thus far here.

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In the cricketing vein, any follower of cricket would know that the little master Sachin Tendulkar made a comeback after 6 months of injury layoff on Tuesday as he blasted his way to 93 runs in the 1st match against Sri Lanka, in the process dismissing all discussion on whether he would have what it takes to return to international cricket. During the lunch break after the Indian innings, Anand Vasu's article on Sachin was posted on Cricinfo, and this is a piece worth reading - all the more if you are a Sachin fan such as I. I espescially liked the last paragraph, and I quote below:

As he walked back to the pavilion, raising the bat to acknowledge the raucous applause of a grateful Nagpur crowd, the Sri Lankans would have heaved a sigh of relief to see the back of that No. 33 jersey. One is not sure why Tendulkar chose that number on his comeback, rather than the customary No. 10, but hey, it hardly matters what number plate you hang on some machines. A Ferrari is still always a Ferrari.

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On a related note, many would be aware that Ganguly was omitted from the Indian side for the 1st 2 matches of this series against Sri Lanka on grounds of injury. But his century innings for East Zone in the Duleep Trophy tie against South Zone indicates that injury is no longer a concern. Given Ganguly's century, will the selectors (who meet later today to pick the team for the next 3 matches) decide to give dada another chance to showcase his skills? Well either way, 1 thing looks pretty certain. All those who invested in PublicGyan's prediction of Ganguly losing his captaincy by end-2005 are sure to be richer by tonight - whether Ganguly is selected in the team or not, Dravid will be captain!!

Best Wildlife Photographs of the Year

For some reason, I am greatly attracted by photographs of wildlife in their original environments. The Worldlife Photographer of the Year competition organised jointly by London's Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine is enthralling. Not all the entries are available online, but the winners in 5 categories are up here.

My favourite is this:

Shooting in Singapore!

Shooting for Krrish delayed my journey to work yesterday morning by more than 45 minutes - a normally 25-minute long journey took more than 1hr 10minutes as 3 lanes of Shenton Way (for those who dont know, this is a major road in the central business district(CBD) of Singapore, and usually at morning peak hours all of the 5 lanes are jam-packed) were closed for public and were being used for parking of the movie trucks and movie cranes etc for a scene of Rakesh Roshan's new venture at Lau Pat Sat, a popular food court in the CBD.

At lunch, a couple of colleagues and myself decided to goto Lau Pat Sat for lunch to see if we could catch some 'action', and when we landed up there, it was a massive crowd waiting on the Shenton Way end of Lau Pat Sat. And in the centre over there was Hrithik Roshan on the road (in those blocked lanes) dressed in that black over-coat of his, and the black mask. And he stood there with back to us, looking at a mirror and combing his hair, and combing his hair, and combing his hair, and did I say ''combing his hair'?? Oh my God, he combed his already-combed hair for so damn loooooonnngg. (Couple of my lady colleagues were squealing for him to atleast face us and comb his hair :-p)

Oh and once the hair was combed, he spent the next few minutes adjusting his 'black' trenchcoat. And there was an assistant standing nearby holding 5 similar looking trenchcoats - and he was not a very tall person - the poor guy was holding his hands above his head to keep the 'backup' trenchcoats from hitting the ground (remember that Hrithik is on the taller end of the spectrum). Anyway, after what seemed like ages, the crane nearby started to hoist Hrithik up onto the clock tower of Lau Pat Sat - yeah Hrithik had a harness under the trenchcoat, and that was probably what needed the loong adjustments.

Then we went in for lunch, and 40minutes later when we were out again, Hrithik was still on the clock tower, awaiting his 'flying' or 'jumping' scene to a building across the road. And according to Divya he was there for much longer :-s

Krrish is being shot in Singapore by Film Kraft Productions making use of Singapore Tourism Board's 'Film in Singapore! Scheme'

Weekend Update: Hrithik suddenly experienced a free-fall scene in real life as a wire holding him at over 50 feet from the ground snapped and hurled him straight down. What would have been a fatal fall was luckily broken by a shop canopy which had been put up to to stop the rain. More can be found here. The dedication of the man - he was back shooting withing 1 hour after the fall!!!

10 Greatest Desi Mysteries Of All Time

Taken from the latest issue of the the Outlook. A quick entertaining read. Source.

1. How does Bappi Lahiri get through an airport metal detector?
2. Why would anyone want to learn the ‘Art of Living’ from Rhea Pillai?
3. Why use the term ‘bad hair day’ when you can say Abdul Kalam?
4. Who finances a Dev Anand film?
5. Who watches it?
6. Why are there 50 ways to leave your lover but only five ways out of an aircraft?
7. How many Suhel Seths are there exactly?
8. What will happen to the acting repertoire of Rajnikant when the smoking ban comes into being?
9. Why are the gyms still packed when it’s Adnan Sami who gets all the girls?
10. Navjot Sidhu.

When Law means nothing!

Many of you would have heard about the total lack of security at the recent election rally of R.P.Churasia, BJP's Bihar assembly candidate from Nokha village when a man walked onto the rally dias brandishing a pistol in each hand and opened fire, hitting former Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in the arm. My initial reaction was 'Oh that Bihar, its going to the dogs!', and I would have changed the channel and gone on to watch something on ESPN or StarSports, but the newstory continued, and it just went from bad to worse....

The shooter had been surrounded by the party supporters, and was brutally assaulted, literally lynched. And lynched to the extent that the local police pronounced him dead and took him to the local hospital morgue, where a doctor declared him still alive. (This bit, I only saw on TV and cannot find any website running it). The guy is still in coma, and has been shifted to Patna from Sasaram (a town near Nokha) for further treatment despite worries that the transit could kill him. I saw some nauseating images on TV on the BJP workers/supporters attacking the guy with bamboo sticks and somethings that resembled baseball bats, and even going to the extent of jumping and stamping on him. For God sakes, he is a human... Granted that he tried to take a life, but to want to beat a man to death... thats just disgusting!!! After searched high & low, I found The Hindu carrying an photograph of the former assailant. I must warn you, the image is highly graphic, and please proceed at your own discretion. Link. Not sure how long they may keep this article on their site, so I have also placed a copy (hence its still very graphic :-p) of the image here to show people how barbaric the human kind can be.

And a local Nokha police official has the audacity to say "Honi ko kaun tal sakta hai?" which roughly translates to "Who can stop one's fate?". Indian (Bihari, to be more precise) police for you ladies & gentlemen!