ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023

India certainly stormed into the finals. They didn't loose even one match in the league stage and defeated New Zealand in the semi finals to enter the finals. It's even more painful to note that, Indian team defeated Australia in the league match, that too in a very convincing manner. After the match with Australia, many of the Indian batters and bowlers performed exceptionally well, scoring centuries and 5 wicket hauls. Fielding and catching was also satisfactory though not extraordinary. The team gave the entire Indian population sky high hopes. Also, the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat had 130,000 capacity and was ready for the big event. 

Australia wins the toss and sends India for batting. So far so good. India looses opener Shubhman Gill for 4 runs. That was also manageable and can happen in any game. Rohith Sharma, Captain continues his great touch and punishes the bowlers scoring more than run a ball. This gives us hope. Incoming batsman, Virat Kohli is also in good form and scores two or three boundaries. So far, so good.

Now the things started turning around in favour of the Australians. Instead of playing a responsible innings, captain plays an irresponsible shot and gets out. Rohith Sharma had already scored scored 10 runs in the over including a 6 and a 4. However, his carelessness becomes the turning point of the match. India scores a disappointing 240 runs in the 50 overs. From here onwards, India accepted the inevitable and body language became weak and eventually Australia received their sixth world cup from the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The commitment of the Australians on the field was something really appreciable. The turning point of the match, where Head runs backwards to take an astonishing catch reminds us of the climax scene in IQBAL movie where a well thought out plan has been executed. Also, 37 year old, David Warner shows his on field commitment by diving and stopping a certain boundary. This is an age old strategy by the Australians. They will dry up the boundaries and Indians will start getting out one by one. The same was successfully implemented against Sachin and Sehwag by McGrath, Gillespie and Brett Lee in earlier World Cups. History repeats. Compared to Australian on field commitment, fielding performance of the Indian team was lacklustre. They didn't dive even once to stop boundaries unlike the Australians who dried up the boundaries for Indian batsman. Boundary was not scored for 10 long overs when Kohli and Rahul were batting. 

May be, we can console ourselves telling that, this is only a game and winning and loosing is a part of it. But the most important take away is that, Australians executed a strategy, which has been time tested.

It's here we miss our dear Captain Cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for whom ICC cup victory was the ultimate objective, rather than personal milestones and rash shots. In the 2011 world cup, he motivated the entire team to achieve this objective. Personally, he also ensured that, he scored the winning runs without getting out to careless shots. When will India get such a captain once again?? Only then, can we hope to lift the World Cup again, if at all the 50 over match exists till then. The fate of our Indian Prime Minister was even worse. In his home country, In a stadium named after him, In a tournament where the Indian team didn't loose even a single match till the final, he had to hand over the cup to a different nation with a wry smile.

This team was not able to fulfil the hopes and aspiration of an entire nation due to carelessness and lack of commitment. The next generation will continue to have only Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni to get inspired. Rohith Sharma 36 years and Virat Kohli 35 years should immediately retire from all forms of the game owning up moral responsibility rather than waiting to achieve personal records and milestones. As a team, they didn't lift the ICC World Cup 2023 trophy missing it between the lip and the saucer.

Miss you badly Captain Cool!!!!

Gangubhai Kathiawadi

This is a wonderdul movie starring Alia Bhat telling the story of red street and prostitutes in Mumbai. Like all other girls, she also gets cheated by her lover and is drawn into the profession.

A rowdy fellow comes to her work place and attacks her left and right and she gets hospitalized. After discharge, she takes the help of Ajay Devgan, Rahim Lala to fight him. Next time, when he comes, Lala comes and thrashes him.

Slowly she becomes the mistress of the brothel and later she becomes the president of entire Kamathipura by beating incumbent Razia Bhai. She makes this possible by playing a movie in her lane for all the ladies. The second thing she does is carrying out a marriage for the daughter of her fellow worker with the nephew of the tailor. Both had not happened earlier in Kamathipura.

The third part is when, misionary school people want to evacuate Kamathipura citing moral issues. She fights against this by admitting the children of fellow workers to the school. Kamathipura people face discrimination in school, hospital and all other public places. She goes for a speach in Azad maidan where she talks about all these rights.

Subsequently, she meets Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India and requests for legalisation of prostitution, non evacuation of her fellow workers from Kamathipura and social rights among others. PM agrees to all these requests and hands over the rose in his dress to her.

She returns home a heroine admired and accepted by all.

A very emotional movie where a weekling converts to a strong person with a very strong social message. I enjoyed watching the movie on Netflix.

Super Sharanya

This is one movie which has come in ZEE 5 OTT platform. After i purchased new smart tv, I discontinued recharging my dish tv connection which was there with me since 2012 during my Mumbai days.

As a small compensation or to avoid guilty kind of feeling, I paid 500 and got this ott channel. Comparitively it's cheaper than other platforms and having lesser films than other platforms as well.

One movie which I am eagerly awaiting on this platform is Kashmir Files. I read somewhere that, zee has produced kashmir files and they are having exclusive satellite and ott rights for kashmir files. Now, Kashmir Files is running full house in all the theatres and probably will take another 2 to 3 months for ott release.

Earlier, when pooja, adi and sreekutty were here, i hardly used to watch any movies during week days. Mostly, I used to take adi and sreekutty for walk after dinner. After coming back, i used to read story books for Adi, sreekutty used to come and play in our room. Even sreekutty used to pretend reading books holding in her hand mostly upside down lying under the warmth of our blanket. During weekends also, adi demands me to take him to childrens park. We used to watch movies on tv only once in a while. But now, my dear dearest family has gone to kerala again during beginning of this March 2022 to attend Adi's year end exams. So, now i am watching so much movies. During holidays I am watching sometimes three to four movies per day or minimum two. I know this is not an ideal situation. Once my dearest ones joins me back at bangalore, i will surely go back to my earlier schedules and itenary. That used to give me so much more happiness.

I watched this movie on last friday ie, on 18.03.22. Coming back to sharanya, she is the same girl who acted in thanneer mathan dinangal. Similar to previous, there is not much story line except romance.

Sharanya native of Palakad, joins an engineering college in Thrissur. Four people are having crush on her. First her senior, then her lecturer, her classmate and finally an outside fellow whom she meets while roaming with her friends at Ernakulam.

She falls for the last fellow. The usual story of break up and reunion between lovers follows. There is some comedy in this movie and not dry like super star movies. It's okay, watchable and having some laughing element.

Jurassic Park :: The Lost World

This movie is based on Micheal Crichton's novel and sequence to the movie Jurassic Park. The movie was released in 1997. I remember reading the novel in my high school days. It took me a really long long time and Amazon Prime to watch this movie.

This movie again depicts the greed and idiotic nature of Corporate companies to make money at any cost.

In the first part, they try to take visitors to an island where the dinosaurs are kept. Then, all the plans backfire and the entire park is destroyed by the dinos and many people are killed.

In this second part, James Hammond, the Ingen company owner sends a research team first. Another group of company owners sends a team to capture the dinosaurs and bring them to USA for opening an amusement park.

As usual, many lives are lost. The twist is that, they manage to tranquilize a t-rex dinosaur and it's kid. The kid is being taken back in a helicopter and the adult in a ship to San Diego USA for displaying in the park.

The company is in for a rude shock when the ship arrives. The adult dinosaur sets free and kills everyone on the ship. The ship comes and crashes into the harbour. The adult breaks free into the common areas with huge population density. Huge panic and havoc follows.

Finally, people from research team uses the kid rex as a bait and brings the adult dino back to the ship. The adult is tranquilized, locked in the cargo deck and taken back to the island.

The moral is simple. Don't mess with nature, else we will have to pay a huge price.

Good Luck Sakhi

I saw this movie on Amazon Prime. This is a telugu movie dubbed in Malayalam. Actually Keerthi Suresh is the only actor whom i know in this movie. Apart from her, the trainer has appeared as villain in malayalam movie pulimurugan.

The story is about a village girl Sakhi. Initially, she is leading a normal life like other girls in the village. Then kernel comes to the village seeking talents for shooting competition. Based on her talent in playing goli and concentration abilities, Sakhi also participates in the trials conducted by the kernel and she is selected.

After 2 months of training, she participates in district trials and qualifies for state level competition. Just the day before, she has some issues with her boyfriend and looses her concentration. Then, in the middle of the competition, he boyfriend comes running, gives her the lucky golis and emotional issues are solved.

Now, she is on full fire and wins the state level competition against the established players.

It's a nice movie and watchable. It's about village girls, women empowerment and sports.

Neyyattinkara Gopante Aarattu

This is a Mohanlal starrer movie. The first half is really boring. It's like a fusion dance where multiple songs are played for 2 minutes each. Movies like Rajavinte Makan, Chandralekha, Rajamanikyam etc are replayed.

The real story begins during second half. Anti national forces are being dealt with properly. The loss of parents for an army officer is being avenged by a mozad kind of agent. The employer is unknown.

UnLike shown after theatre reviews, i found the second half better than first half.

But most Mohanlal movies are kind of unwatchable now. Though he is 60, he is acting in far too many movies and in roles which doesn't match his age. Mohanlal has over the years, lost his brand value due to wrong selection of movies and this movie is also one such wrong selection. Watched in Amazon Prime and didn't go to theatres.

Dark Side of Giving- The Rise of Philanthro- Capitalism

Source- Economic Times (25th March 2011)

This article makes a shocking revelation about the so called philanthropic interests of Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation. Warren Buffet is currently in India requesting Indian Business Men to contribute Funds to the Gates Foundation. 

The article says that they are not doing it out of charity, but to propagate and encourage American Corporate interests.

Africa is one place where the French and Europeans have greater influence than the Americans. Now both the Gates foundation and Rockefeller foundation is planning a new activity. It's termed as Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).  The real intention is to make 'MONSANTO' a dominant player in Africa. In due course of time they plan to make African agriculture fully dependent on the Genetically Modified varieties as they are trying with India and other Asian countries. 

There's another accusation against the Gates foundation. ie they have invested $23 billion in Monsanto, when asked about this Bill Gates replied that investment and charity must be seen separately. How can it be so when the main aim of the organisation is to help them come out of difficulties in life?

Some time back, Bill Gates had visited India and requested Indian business men to donate to their foundation. Shiv Nadar of HCL technologies said that he would do charity through educational institutions in rural areas and not through their foundation. He must have known the actual scenario there itself. 

Bill Gates initially ruled the world through Microsoft, he eliminated all other players. Now he's trying to do it in Agriculture through Monsanto. It seems his strategy is like making the India pay to ensure their dominance over us. It reminds me of the British era when taxes were collected from Indian peasants to maintain the army which was in turn used to suppress the freedom movement. Gates wants to repeat history once again it seems.

I don't know why Americans are always so selfish? Why don't they peacefully coexist with other nations instead of always trying to dominate?