Trailer of the movie was released on 16th December 2011 along with MI: Ghost Protocol. One word about the trailer: FANTASTIC.

Here’s my version of what the story might be after watching the teaser and the trailer:

The story seems to be picking up after 8 years from the ending of ‘The Dark Knight’ and now Bane (Villain) trying to unleash his own form of terrorism in Gotham city. With Batman fell out of favor of public of Gotham after taking up the blame for killing of 5 police officers, Bruce Wayne was reluctant to take up Batman suit. On Gordon’s request he comes back as Batman but gets badly punished by Bane and gets locked up in some prison. There he tries to gain strength by training again and faces Bane to save Gotham to fall again into mayhem. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.

On first impression Bane looks so imposing with all those stuffs on the head. Its really frightening and standing before him batman looks like a kid. Its like Bane taking all the calculated steps and Batman just reacts. Batman seems to get some serious kicking and all I hope is, they don’t kill him as part of EPIC conclusion. It would be really sad. But knowing Nolan’s way of film making anything is possible.

Well, these days only past time of mine is watching this trailer as many times as possible. I will update once I find anything new in that

Whether I love any football or interested in watching any club based football match?

If you have asked the above question last year I would have said, ‘R u mad? How one can love a club? Whats there in it to love? We never knew about it. The players are not somebody we know. They don’t even belong to that country. So I can’t watch it on that basis.

Players? Players from different countries play together and they change from one season to another. This option also goes out. Then for what reason I can watch it?

Pure entertainment? Without taking sides I can never enjoy a match. There you go. There is no reason for me to watch club football matches’

But lot of things were changed in the last 6 months with me following English Premier League as much as I can. Its all happened when I started watching this year’s Copa America, a tournament which is competed by South American countries. I usually watch the country-based football matches. During last year’s world cup I found the website goal.com to follow the live action in text. As the whole world is playing football there were no news related to clubs. But this year there were news about the transfers happening in them and I developed some interest in it.

For some reasons which can’t be explained, I started following the English club Liverpool. I just had a feel for them. One of the greatest comebacks in Liverpool’s and Football’s history was their win against AC Milan in 2005 champions league final. They came back from 3-0 and won it in penalties. And there was some great feeling when I watch the below video where the commentator say @ 5:35 minutes ‘40, 000 Liverpool fans hold their breath inside here and hundreds of thousands hold their breath at Merseyside‘.[Click on the link to go directly to that part].

And since then I have seen most of their matches. Also I am sure there is no news I left unread about them. This experience is really rewarding with me knowing the nuances of football more. I am watching many more matches of Champions league, Spanish league and what not. I love this very much as I am able to get to know lot of great clubs, their histories and also many, many players.

I will update my thoughts on matches I watch here

Here are some of the finest goals and assists I have watched over 6 months:

Messi’s one great pass [MUST WATCH]

Goal from Messi in the same match – GENIUS

Larsson’s Kick – WONDERFULLY HIT

http://www.goalsarena.org/video/england-barclays-premier-league/13-08-2011-liverpool-sunderland_en.html

Fletcher’s goal – WELL EXECUTED

[LINK]

Suarez’s great curler:

Bodhidharma…

Genetic engineering…

DNA memory…

Operation Red…

Well, these are the terms used to elevate the expectations of the viewer whose expectations already high for a movie which is directed by A.R.Murugadoss, who is yet to deliver a flop in the eye of box office and a bad movie in the eye of critics and have Suriya in lead role, who is the only star soaring high with each of his new releases in the last few years.

Beautifully designed title. It only raised my interest in the movie.

5th- 6th Century A.D.

Bodhidharma was a prince in Pallava kingdom, well versed with one of the oldest Indian martial art Kalaripayathu and also in medicine. On his mother’s wishes he travels to China where he cures an incurable disease with his medical skills and also saves the people when attacked by people from other regions with his martial art skills. He also teaches those people the skills he possesses. On their request, he dies in China itself which is against his wishes of travelling back to visit India.

Cut to present.

Subha Srinivasan… A genetic engineering student who believes the skills and talents possessed by a person will be transferred through DNA, generations after generations and when stimulated we can bring those skills to present. She takes Bodhidharma as the person to bring back those skills.

Aravindan… A circus artist who fells in love with Subha.

Dong Lee… A Chinese hitman who trained excellently in Martial arts and hypnotism. He is sent to India to introduce bio-war and also to kill Subha to  prevent her from bringing back the Bodhidharma’s skills.

The film then answers the questions…

• Did Subha able to bring back Bodhidharma? Or Dong Lee gets ahead of her?
• Did Bio war is introduced?
• Did India able to face the Bio-war situation?

With an interesting plot and interesting questions, all we get was, a movie which was less entertaining and less inspiring. The movie was for sure runs well without pushing us to boredom but the end product was just not memorable.

Suriya for once was not at the forefront of things happening in 7-am arivu. His role is more subdued as Aravindan. Its an effective performance from him. But he can reduce his showing of bare body acts. Shruthi Haasan has done her role well but her Tamil makes it look like somebody dubbed for a Hollywood movie. Dong Lee got the most powerful role in movie he did very well striking fears in audiences mind.

Cinematography could have been surely better with none of the scene created a WOW factor in mind. Music from Harris Jayaraj was a complete let down. Only ‘Yamma yamma’ is good due to the voice of SPB. Other song which goes well with movie is ‘Innum enna Thozha’. Background score was nothing short of horrible.

Murugadoss should be lauded for his effort on reminding our glorious past and also pointing out our mistake of forgetting it. But he did missed the mark the below mentioned things:

• The opening sequences of Bodhidharma are shot well but lacks in depth. It looked like some scenes were inserted just to show his prowess in medicine and martial skills. And then there is no concrete reason why Bodhidharma dies at their request there itself. Is he developed such bond with those people? If so, it is not evident in the movie.
• Dong Lee kills every person he meets on screen and most of them were policemen. But no action is taken against him by Police and they are not even searching him. Quite laughable.
• Climax could have been surely better as it is at the most predictable best.
• There are sequences in the movie which tells about the greatness of Tamil language and Tamil ancestors which are true but when it is explained by the broken Tamil of Shruthi Haasan it didn’t created an impact in me.
• Director says that we forgotten our Tamil ancestors. But he could have chosen a better person than Bodhidharma who certainly spent his fruitful years in China. In my eye, he was a NRI who got his education here and servicing his skills at foreign land. All the skills were taught to Chinese people. When he questions the people in India about Bodhidharma and they didn’t know about that, is not something to be ashamed of, I felt.

In this internet age, the information provided by the director should be accurate. But the details provided on screen about Bodhidharma was not true except he traveled to China. Others were just the theories made up. With a complete inaccurate depiction, Murugadoss lets himself down along with the movie.

7-am Arivu – It won’t be remade in Hindi.

Trailer (Which promised much):

Before getting into what all happened with me over these months, let me say to myself, ‘let me be aware things happening around. Let me have enough sense to comment about them.’

So that I can blog

What’s about my life story in the 3 months passed? It’s story didn’t even came close to a episode of MEGA serial There you go

Change during hibernation:

From a crazy cricket fan, I have become a equally, if not more, crazy football fan. You could have seen them in my FB posts. Football domination even in the sparsely status updates. I never thought I will love the club football but I am now addicted. No day goes without reading some dumb editorials from goal.com and I almost ignored cricinfo, where India’s loss or crushing loss made me to stay from it for quite sometime.

Worries during hibernation:

India’s test series whitewash to England. When the former England players said the same during the start of the series I laughed. I thought all it will take is 1 test to get acclimatize to the conditions. But I was proved wrong with Indian team hit new lows with every passing test from 2nd one. In T20 and one-dayers also we lost. But there are fine as we given some fight. But in tests just a meek surrender.

Happiness during hibernation:

1. Indian team is doing well against England in India. After the whitewash in England, the least I wanted is, a defeat to our team in our home. But glad, we are paying back in style. For once I feel deaf as I couldn’t hear the comments of Boycotts, Hussains on how pathetic Indian team is. Well, I think they can take care of their own business now.

2. My favorite actor Ajith was back with bang in Mankatha. Its an average film but with extraordinary villainy performance from Ajith with the mix of class and mass. Be its style, dance or acting he rocked. Loved his intro and dialogue delivery. Yuvan has delivered a theme which elevated even a ordinary scene to exciting levels. A sample below which has some slick editing work.

Funny moment during hibernation:

The planning commission’s evaluation of 32 rupees/day in cities and 26/day in villages is enough to lead a normal life and the people are not poor. What a joke!!! I don’t know whether they are fools or we are, for being managed by them. The best way to test the above evaluation would be to give the same amount to money to our dignified officers and ask them to live merrily.

Hoping to be regular here

Now to the movie:

Earlier part ended with Harry, Ron and Hermione escaping with the help of Dobby and Lord Voldemort possessing the elder wand from Dumbledore’s tomb. The story continues from there with all the three goes on their mission of finding Horcruxes. Lord Voldemort with the collective strength of all his dark forces tries to find Harry Potter and kill him. As Harry, Ron and Hermione enters Hogwarts to find the remaining Horcruxes, Voldemort too reaches there summoning Harry which will result in no-harm to anybody else. But the Hogwarts professors helps Harry in search of Horcruxes stopping the Dark forces for some time. When Harry hears the truth through Snape’s memory its shocking and shattering not only to him and us also. Harry confronts Voldemort only to be…. Well enough of story.

What I liked:

• As with the case of first part, this time too the filmmakers largely stuck to the book avoiding the curses of the fans of the book And they have done very well by not dwelling into the past of Dumbledore which would have slowed down the movie very much.
• The casting is so perfect with all the lead characters giving consistent performances. For once Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort looked frightening. Alan Rickman as Snape for the first time in the movie series has given a weak performance. It maybe because of the kind of fast cut sequences he has involved.
• Each of the beloved characters of the book were given enough screen time, brought cheers from the crowd.
• First half of the movie was swiftly paced with no time to get breath. Very well written and brought on the screen.
• The visuals are anything but stunning. Usually Harry Potter movies are always a winner in technical terms and this time its no different. I loved the sequences where the protective charm was laid all over the Hogwarts castle and Snape’s disappearance while dueling with Minerva Mcgonagall.
• I liked the 3D effect of the movie but still would have liked to see in 2D.
• Another surprising thing is there at the end, which I never thought will be filmed. I loved it. Don’t want to reveal it here for first few weeks. Enjoy

What I didn’t like:

• First and foremost, the ineffectiveness with which Snape’s episode pictured. While reading book we will be moved by the bravery of the man but in movie it just passes us without affecting us. I may be partial but surely it didn’t had half the impact of the book. Considering it is the most important part of the book, it should have got same treatment of Dobby’s episode and ‘Tale of three brothers’ episode in first half.
• While the first half is well built with fast paced action, the climatic battle between Harry and Voldemort is not worth remembering. It could have pictured in a grand way.
• The battle of Hogwarts could have been paced better with the visual freedom they have.

Overall:

I liked the movie as it tried to stay true to the book and managed to bring in all the important characters of the book. Hagrid, Neville, Snape, and Mcgonagall all got cheered from the crowd. But the biggest cheer was reserved for Hogwarts castle. People loved to see it after a movie David Yates who brought the series down with those dumb adaptations of 5th and 6th book, redeemed himself with almost perfect ending. Take a bow!!!

Its quite sad that there won’t be anything I could expect more from Potter series, I just wish JKR writes something more about Voldemort’s schooling life and the fight between dark forces and order of the phoenix before the birth of Harry.

PS: Going to catch the movie again in biggest screen in Chennai. All excited again guys

Last Saturday (02/07/2011) me, DI and Vimmuuu went for marriage reception of Ash’s in Trivandrum and it was a good trip. Me and DI had conversations on lot of things and most of the times we were in same boat We went to Vimmuuu’s home (Bhooth bangala by his terms ). Mr. and Mrs. Vimmuuu treated us with lunch and we were set to make the gift ready. Evening we went for reception.

Next day, By morning 6:30, I wanted to be at Kovalam beach and all I managed was to get up at 8:30 and reach there by 11:15. Not late right?? By afternoon we were joined by Mr. and Mrs.Vimmuuu and went to visit a museum named Keralam. Not a big one but still enough to keep our interests for 45 minutes. The most wonderful thing I found in Trivandrum is the public park around museum. It is well maintained, completely covered by lawn and most importantly free of cost to enter. A very good place to take afternoon nap after a tummy full meal

One thing that disappointed me was, even though monsoon arrived in Kerala we didn’t got a glimpse of single drop of rain from heavens. I guess the bad luck followed from Chennai

To read more on the trip, pls visit DI’s blog.

End of the Defence:

Fabio Cannavaro – Captain of the Italian world cup team and only one of the defence player to win the FIFA world player of the year announced his retirement 2 days ago (Day he guided his team to win world cup 6 years ago). Defense is not a pretty job but one expected to be agile, anticipating and fast in that role. Even though I don’t like Italian team for the kind of defensive football they play, this guy was very impressive in his tackles. While the other defenders goes for the leg of the striker, he goes for the ball. That says it all.

Glimpses of his performance in 2006 world cup,

Anger fires bullet:

Last week, when I heard a little boy was shot while trespassing in Army’s residential complex it seemed like the mystery will never get solved and even if solved it won’t come out. But CBI has managed to find the killer, a retired LT. Colonel. I felt how a guy can shoot a little boy just for trespassing. He served in army and he didn’t even used his brain. Very sad!!! and some of the stories I have read about that Army residential complex is horrifying. A boy said that at times they received current shocks for frequently hitting the ball inside the complex while playing cricket. Heights of misusing of power!!!

Good that the common man in India doesn’t have guns like in US else we will find such killings frequently.

Kung fu Panda 2:

This movie has very ordinary storyline but the characterization, animation and dialogues were absolutely top class which eclipsed the former. The Panda Po was lovable with his expressions and never ending comic sense. Ever seen a peacock playing a bad character??? Surely we won’t even think about it but here they took the challenge and came out trumps. Peacock was indeed scary.

I feel the character Po is going to be an icon in the  cartoon history with the ending provides the clue for next movie.

Trailer of the movie,

Mixed feeling:

How about being happy and sad at the same moment? That’s how I am feeling when I know that final part movie of the Harry Potter series going to be released by coming Friday. 2 years before at this same time I surpassed surprised myself when I finished reading all the books of Harry Potter in one go and within 7 weeks. Now its really sad that there is nothing to look forward to after this movie. I am just hoping that this will have some good action on screen without much deviation from book.

Trailer is kinda ok, hence I am keeping my expectations pretty low as I have done for previous part

Huf.. huf… puf..its 250:

This is my 250th post.. YAY!!! After the 240 posts which I done by last year I almost crawled to reach 250. Just hoping the 300 mark will be hit soon Thanks for all your support friends. Without you all I wouldn’t even reached 50 posts

1. How good the movie is
2. Why there is no such movie is coming up in Tamil.

Even though the language of movie is never a concern until you get the feel for the characters and the atmosphere but the local flavor which was missing in them can’t be compensated. It like a hot pizza will hold good during a rainy day but nothing like a hot sip of coffee alongside a plate of our own hot pakoda

There are some memorable gangster movies I have watched like Godfather, Nayagan, Goodfellas, City of God, Pulp fiction, Reservoir dogs and Satya. Of these, Pulp fiction was quite different considering its non-linear screenplay and an abundant usage of black humor. It’s a kind of you-don’t-care-for-anybody movie. Just watch, enjoy and appreciate it. Everybody in that movie is bad and everybody will have some intentions behind their action. At the end of it we will be excited as no loose ends were left and it’s a perfect cinematic experience.

While I have got a taste of Godfather in Tamil version through finely crafted Nayagan, I thought it’s almost impossible to re-create what pulp fiction brought to screen in Tamil. I am glad that I have proved wrong.

My cribbing time is over and I have seen a movie in Tamil which I can put on par with any of the non-Tamil gangster movie I have watched. Its Aaranya Kaandam.

What makes this film?

• Singamperumal, an aging hoodlum, trying to show that he is still very much in power to his very younger partner and to Pasupathi who is working under him.
• Pasupathi, holding second position in Singamperumal’s group questions Singamperumal’s courage when he wants to cross a drug dealing with another gang headed by ruthless Gajendran.
• Subbu, the younger partner of the Singamperumal, tries to escape from the hold of Singamperumal.
• Sappai, a nothing guy in Singamperumal’s gang who was given the responsibility of taking care of Subbu in the absence of Singamperumal.
• Kaalaiyan and Kodukkapuli, the father-son duo, who once were zameendar’s trying to make a living out of something with the past pride still intact.

With Singamperumal’s courage questioned, the drug goes into the hands of Kaalaiyan and Kodukkapuli’s hand and Subbu and Sappai finding sometime together throws in a series of events which is dramatic as well as realistic.

 Acting:

For a good movie, the acting should be good. In this movie, each character is very well etched and choices of actors were spot on. Jackie Shroff as Singamperumal shows his animal instinct in whatever he does that makes us to hate him to core. Sampath as Paspathi to save his life and his wife shows the desperateness and enough cunningness to come out of the cornered situations. Well done. Ravi Krishna as Sappai was easily acceptable due to his vulnerable actions and voice.

But the ones who take the cake were the father-son duo of Somasundaram and Vasanth (Pic above). Somasundaram with his ever ending blabbering on the activities happening around him and the little boy Vasanth providing witty comments even at the serious moments keeps the fun going.

The only weak link among the main character was Yasmin ponnappa who don the role of Subbu. Somehow I felt she was odd in the whole setting.

Technical aspects:

Technically the film is top-notch. The first person who needs to be appreciated was the music director Yuvan Shankar Raja who brought the feel the movie wonderfully. He understands that this is not a usual gangster flick which should bring tension among the audience. Instead there is an air of casualness even during most serious events. It was best defined when Pasupathi and Gajendran’s brother meets alone. Classic!!!

Both the cinematographer P.S.Vinod and the editors Praveen and Srikanth have done a wonderful job in bringing out the colors and nature of the surroundings.

The main man:

Thiyagarajan Kumaararaja. 

Nobody will believe if they say this is his first movie. But that’s the truth and he deserves a great praise for bringing out pure cinema when it is least expected.

The dialogues penned by him were awesome from the start to finish there are many memorable lines.

The screenplay is well written as there was no confusion between the 3 or 4 parallel stories running simultaneously. Also the small twists and turns add fun to this movie.

Overall, perfect 10 to him for such a movie and hope he does more movies soon. Also I like to congratulate him for the guts of not having a single song in the movie. (Even though none of the situation in this film demanded it, in which film a situation demands song )

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There maybe few who avoid this movie on the basis of excessive violence, gore and foul mouthing. I am not going to argue that they are not there but what else we can expect from a gangster flick?

If you don’t mind the above said 3 things and what you are going to learn from a movie then for sure you can enjoy this movie.

-ve points:

The only drawback I found in this movie is, it is a little slow while building up the characters during first half. Once it is over, the film just runs like a bull

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Interesting posters and trailer of this movie. The trailer really require knowledge of Tamil language and I will try to translate it in my next post  

PS 1: After a long time, I willingly watched this movie 2 times in theater and I enjoyed it very much both the times.

PS 2: I think the title can be suited to my blog also as it is starved for almost 3 months without any posts. Thanks for asking about whereabouts and posts when I didn’t posted anything Felt happy Will try to be regular here and yours too

Usually I have this image in mind about elections. Meetings will be held every other day to canvass the voters. Tube lights will be tuned on during the meeting nights and until 10, leaders of some party speaking to sparse crowd. Speakers blaring the achievements (?!?!?!?!) and promises of the parties in the form of voice or songs were the order the days before D-day. The candidates will be traveling in open jeep in sweltering heat to show their face for one last time to us and get the vote.

The above said things are all happened this time too. But very minimally. Here and there. Election commission once again showed what all powers they have to ensure smooth and money-free elections. The transportation of money was curbed by some effective checking across all the vehicles. For the 20 days prior to the election day, the cab I used to travel back to home is checked at various check points. Not one single time we were left. By April 10th night, the night before the last day for campaigning we were checked at at least 15 check points within 3 or 4 kilometers. And by morning also we were checked. Even though some of my cab drivers were irritated by this, I am quite happy. At least some steps were taken to reduce the distribution of money. I am sure Election commission was well organized and has done the job wonderfully. It takes a lot of courage to do this considering the kind of politicians we have.

Chief electoral officer Praveen Kumar said that,

This time, money distribution has gone underground. We have done our level best to prevent it. I don’t know whether the money distribution could be prevented even if we post one policeman per house.

The real fun part in this elections were the voice of our current CM and DMK leader M.Karunanidhi on election commissions activities. He was so frustrated that he went on to say ‘Election commission’s activities created an unannounced emergency situation in the state‘. DMK always thrived on money in the recent elections and no wonder Karunanidhi couldn’t handle the pressure from EC.

Also I guess the money involved for campaigning is very less during this election. I hardly seen the drawings of any party’s symbol on walls, flags of the parties.

My home is situated at the end of North Chennai and usually a quiet place insulated from the the Election’s frenetic pace.  But it went even quieter by its standards and I have seen only the BJP candidate who contested in my constituency as somebody associated with this election. Well that sums up the efforts taken by EC for people to led the normal life.

I voted this time (Hope I don’t miss to vote for any election till I die) but I am very much dissatisfied with myself. With no alternative I voted for the candidate I don’t want to. Maybe few of you can tell me the 49-O option. But I don’t think it serves any purpose. And I have few questions regarding it.

• Why the voter should declare his identity while casting 49-O?
• Why it is not taken into account?

If the no. of votes polled in for 49-O is higher than the votes got by any other candidate, the polling should get cancelled in that constituency and some alternative should be found to get somebody to represent that constitution. Hope EC finds a way for this.

Note: I am not going to say that this is my come back post. Beacuse I myself tried of saying that. I can just say I will try to be more frequent from now on, not only in my blog, urs too

Was our team done too bad as portrayed in media? No,is the answer. We won the first game against Bangladesh comfortably as expected. Second match was a tie against England . We won the 3rd and 4th matches against the associate nations Ireland and Netherlands. In all the above matches the batting was good even though it went downhill from the first match. Bowling and fielding were consistently mediocre combined with apparent lack of energy.

But in the 5th match against South Africa both batting and bowling is exceptional till 40th over of each innings. Even though we could have got 330+ easily, 297 itself proved to be too much to handle on that night. Bowling and fielding were for once charged up with no easy runs were conceded. Its a great improvement to see the energy flowing through the team which was sorely missed in the matches played before.

Dhoni as captain played smart by running the middle overs with the part timers preserving Harbhajan for the death overs. It worked with Harbhajan got crucial wickets whenever the game seemed to run out of India’s control. Maybe if the team won on that day this trick would have been appreciated. But its not that kind of day for Dhoni whose one misjudgement of bowling Nehra in the last over was magnified. Dhoni had his reasons for picking Nehra as he had the experience of bowling the last overs in some of the past games where India emerged successful. The only negative being he is not in his best of form or fitness. Yet its worth a try and see whether he is up to it and the end result is, he surely not. The experiment backfired and I hope it won’t be repeated.

From the past 5 matches the only thing I can infer is, our bowling and fielding were getting better and there should be no worry on our batting as it can take care of itself. Its just an off day against South Africa with none of our big hitters clicked. For sure, there will be no another day the same thing will happen.

Lets see the conclusions made out of previous matches:

Kohli and Pathan were wasting their chances and Raina has to come in:

Raina has to come in and there is no doubt in that considering his hitting prowess in perfect batting conditions and his ability to think and bowl. But to be fair, Kohli and Pathan were played out of their batting positions in the last 4 matches and its too harsh on them to call that as failures. We know Pathan can bowl few overs but he is not a thinking bowler.  One among these two should make way for Raina but its a tough call.

Not winning consistently and convincingly:

The only time Indian team was in such mood was during their 8 games winning streak in 2003 world cup. I have never seen Indian team steamrolling their oppositions (To win convincingly a team should have better bowlers and we don’t have). Even to the lesser known cricket nations the respect shown by men in blue was admirable.

On an optimistic tone, sometimes too much of domination is not good as it will bring complacency with it. Now with the kind of form our team is in, complacency won’t creep in and the team will know they have be at their best to beat any team. That’s a blessing in disguise.

R Ashwin should play:

For once everybody got right in this one except Dhoni. His blah-blah-blah’s like ‘No 2 off-spinners in XI’ or ‘We must see how much a player needs the game’ theories for not picking up Ashwin are garbage. With the Indian bowling at shambles it will be better to use your better bowler than pick somebody who is not consistent.

With the last game happens today, it provides an opportunity to get a settled XI before moving into the knockout stages. I could see India is as much as favorites as the other 7 teams who qualified for Quarters.

World cup has always been a special event, according to me, be it any sports. Cricket is more special as I am following it if not for 365 days at least when India plays. It’s an opportunity for the big players to showcase their talent on big stage. England, South Africa and New Zealand had many good players which includes Mike Gatting, Martin Crowe, Shaun Pollock but nobody remembers them now as they do Clive Lloyd, Sir Viv Richards, Kapil Dev, Allan Border, Imran Khan, Aravinda de Silva, Arjuna Ranatunga, Jayasuriya, Klusener, Steve  Waugh, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist. (Allan Donald was remembered but reason is different though ). It’s not only because they are great players, its not only because they performed when it mattered. But it is because it is at the bigger stage when the eyes of whole world was on them.

Previous world cups except for 2007, left me with fond memories. I used to read every crap article written by anybody in a newspaper during the world cup event. 1996 world cup is the first one which I watched completely. Matches held in India and as many in the nation I am also a huge Sachin fan then. One incident I still remember clearly now also. I was studying in 5^th grade then. On that day it’s the match between India and Australia in group stage. It’s a day-night match which meant we can’t watch first 20 – 25 overs. While one of my friend worried about India’s fortunes, I said to him, “Sachin irukkarula” (Sachin is there na??). Such is the confidence I had in Sachin and he very rarely failed. I was such a fan that I used to remember each of the Sachin’s score, how many balls he faced to score those runs and where he is in the tournament’s top-scorers.

Sachin topped the batting chart in that world cup with 584 runs but the Indian campaign ended in a very sorry way with India crashed in Semis. 251 was a chaseable total, I thought. That is the one and only day I cried for a match lost by India. It took me some days to believe that India was not in the cup hunt. I was cursing Kolkatta fans for throwing everything into the ground as I had the belief that India will score 131 runs in remaining 15 overs. Silly me!!! (I am more optimistic about Indian cricket players than me )

After that 3 world cups gone, leaving me with wonderful moments like Klusener creaming the bowlers to all parts of the ground, Warne makes the batsmen to look like his bunnies, Sourav’s epic 183, Sachin’s masterclass in 2003, Ponting’s fearful knock in final, India’s bull run to the finals and also the painful moment of India leaving in first round of 2007 which forced me not to watch any further match in that world cup. Well time to move out of nostalgia and start to enjoy the live action. Already Sehwag is restless trying to whack the bowlers, let me join the fun by watching it.