Thursday, April 17, 2008
Dada'r kirti
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Book Review: The Kite Runner
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Soccer Snippets 2
League of the Champions or emergence of also rans?

Manchester Utd and Roma already faced of this year in group stage and set to replay last years memorable action and goal packed quarter final. Roma is different team this season, as not a lot of team go to santiago bernebeau and knock off real madrid. Not a lot of team go to san siro and beat AC Milan.Soccer Snippets 1
Monday, March 24, 2008
"aye aye captain...."
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The Ugly Ducklings
Thats th name of a book I used to read in my childhood. Really childhood. My mom used to bring me one book everyday (almost) when she returned from work, I used to read the book, and kept it if I liked, and torn it apart if I did not. My love for book grew that way. Ugly duckling was a story o an ugly duck who was not wanted in duck society, hated by other ducks, hated by society, almost died in winter from freezing, only finally being rescued and accepted by a few beautiful swans which makes his heart filled with joy.
Society is always hard, we do not want to recognize anything off the track, we do not want to accept which does not fall into 2+2=4 category. But good hearts always win the race ultimately, however tough the journey be.
Well, the ugly ducklings story probably has nothing to do with what is to follow. When a batsman scores a 0 in a cricket match in Australia, the australian broadcasting channel accompanies the batsman to the pavilion with a animated duck on the TV screen. That ducklings is not ugly.
The term duckling gets associated with Australian cricket team just as only channel nine started this duck-walk with the batsman out for a "duck".
The ugliness of the duckling is eminent here, where it is pointing to. We all know cricket is no more a gentleman's game. No game are gentlemen's game anymore. There is too much at stake, there is not enough time to be gentleman. But still, sometimes you let your good heart win the battle with heated neuron signals in your head. All the fiasco that happened over last week between India and Australian cricket team, needs no more discussions. In an age of media dominance, every movement of every individual is thoroughly scrutinized. It is heartening to see that good sense prevailed at the end of scrutiny, mud-throwing, finger-pointing, bad-intentions, rough columns, life-threats. Yes thats what I mean by ugly duckling. The rough face of the duck, who is good by heart ,has been exposed over the last week.
We all descended from our ancestors through evolution which happened due to errors made by DNA during copying. Our ancestors were not homo sepiens. There is nothing to get agitated about it. Lets play some cricket folks..!!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Mishar diary Intro
1st paragraph intoduces the egypt diary by shuchismita. Read the intro before you start reading the diary, it will help you get into the mood.
Click here to read the intro
http://www.guruchandali.com/guruchandali.Controller?portletId=8&porletPage=2&contentType=content&uri=content1196119322974&contentPageNum=1
Monday, December 10, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Eye of an Optimist
The 7 match ODI series between India and Australia has recently been concluded. The series, played with high intensity and temper has been won by Australia, 4-2.
The way India approached australia's sledging was wrong. They shud have approached with smile, not with artificial jumping in the ground. But this is not an article on sledging, this is just a small report on the optimistic side of Indian cricket.
Spinners bowled well, both M.Karthik and Harbhajan generated turn, and sometimes bounce. Brad Hodge has a horrible series, and if all the catches were held properly, Symonds average wouldnt have look so healthy.
runs came big. In the 4th and 6th ODI, the opening stands were 91 and 140 respectively. India ended up scoring 291 and 299. We need that level of consistency more often. Sachin and Sourav together have opened for India I think close to 180 times, and they have crossed 100 runs together as openers for 21 times. Their average as a pair is 45+ . Undoubtedly this is the best opening pair EVER to play one-day cricket. Indian selectors should remember that before they get influenced by a 70 by Gautam Gambhir in challenger trophy, or a meaningless 75 by Virender Shewag in domestic tournaments. Yuvraj's century at Hyderabad was treat to watch, so was the fight by Zaheer and Karthik in the last ODI to win from 64/6. In Uthappa, India has found a batsman who can take the attack to opposition in true sense. His stepping up to the crease, his walking silently to the ball before hoising it for six, his calm head and silence aggression is definitely a wonderful sight for the future. He needs to do this more consistently.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Chak De..India..!!
ner junta's demanded the head of the players, specially those who failed to perform.
at much, till that point. Then India faced of England in a must win match. In came Yuvraj Singh, blasting 6 sixers in a Stuart Broad over. Game on, suddenly the tri-color flags started flapping in the crowd more vigorously. India defeated England by only 18 runs though, 218-200. Bowling remained a question, Joginder Sharma's low medium pace being main concern.
Yes , what a match it was. Any adjective will fall short to provide proper description, so I am not using any. Just suffice to say, it is indeed the match for the ages, it is indeed the best final in any form of cricket have seen so far. India won the toss, batted first. Yusuf Pathan, Irfans older brother opened the batting with Gambhir in Shewags absence. He hit Asif for a six in the 1st over. Gambhir played superbly, kep the scoreboard ticking and picked up boundaries as well. Pakistan did their homework on Yuvraj. Yuvraj was not given pace to work with, and he never felt too comfortable against spinners. Dhoni also failed to score big, and Umar Gul strangled India in the middle over. On a sunny day, a flat Jo'burg pitch, everyone felt anything short of 175 will fail to challenge Pakistan. India were 120 in 17 overs. Rohit Sharma provided the late fire-power and India managed to reach 157 in 20 overs. Gambhirs 75 was the main pillar, and Sharma's 30 n.o. provided the late impetus. Runs on the board. Though 157 is well 20 run short of expectations, chasing 7.9 runs an over in a final cannot be a cakewalk. India been bowling well for last few matches.
Imran Nazir started as if he is playing a 10-10 match, not 20-20. He blasted two cover driven sixes in Sreesanths 1st over that cost 21. RP Sing removed hafeez and Kamran Akmal in his 1st two over to keep things in check a little bit, but Imran anzir just carried on, he scoed 33 of 14, and Pakistan were 53/2 in the 6th over. Match is slipping away from India.
..and here comes the cliched turning point.Imran Nazir wanted a runner, but since he carried an injury to the match, umpires didnt agree to the request. Younis khan pushed a ball to the mid off region and called for a single, Uthappa picked up the ball and throwed to the strikers end. the throw beat hobbling Nazir to the crease, and 3rd umpire pressed the OUT button.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7821150331115380257&q=Imran+Nazir+run+out&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Md Asif edged a full toss from RP towards thirdman boundary for 4. Again it swings to Pakistan. 13 of last over with Misbah on strike. Harbhajan was whakced by Misbah, so Dhoni called Joginder Sharma again. Joginder finished it off well against Australia in semis. But there 21 was required, here only 13. Joginder bowled a full toss in the 2nd ball, and Misbah whacked it for 6. 6 required from 4 balls. Everyone is on the edge of their seats. The world cricket have not seen more tense final before. The flags in the crowd are not waving. Which way it will go?
There is a proverb,"dont try to be too clever, you may be hanged". The fine leg was up indeed, but just playing with straight bat will have earned Pakistan victory. Misbah tried to scoop Joginders out-side-off stumo full delivery over fine legs head. Bad attempt, and he did not connect it properly, Sreesanth held the catch. It was over, the best final match in the history of the cricket was over. So the outcome..? India has won the inaugural 20-20 cricket world cup.

A nation errupted in joy. People just ran out of their home, fireworks started shooting up in the sky. The joy knew no bound. The escapades from the daily monotonus life been wide open. The only true religion in India has won today. Cricket has provided a billion people their moment of glory. All the Indians in every corner of the world felt special. "We are the world-champion of a sporting event." And what a way to win it...
In the ground, the players were ecstatic beyond words as well. These players, they faced criticism, their houses were attacked, their families were targeted when India lost in carribean.
The smile is back, the enrgy is back, the youth is back, the enthusiasm is back. The freeness, the liberty to express your mind is back. You are allowed to dance , you have earned the right to go for a victory lap with the tricolor flag and a world cup trophy in your hand.
Its a story of success, its a story of youth, passion, exubuerance, story of camaraderie, story of a nation , who after all, full of people with emotion..full of people who feel proud when the tricolor flatters in the sky..a nation with full of people who get excited when they hear the music playing in the background sounding.."Chak de...India.."..!!!
Friday, May 25, 2007
Mighty Milan is the king of Europe
A befitting end to grueling and competitive season of football in Europe. The curtain fell on the continental scenario when AC Milan beat Liverpool 2-1 in Athens to lift the champion’s league for 7th time. Rewind the tape to the start of august, when Milan is shattered by match fixing bribing referee allegations, people shouting for Berlusconi’s head, the game is tampered. But the Milan players and coaches can do nothing about it. They don’t fix the matches, the officials upstairs do. Yet they had to fight adversity, they had to qualify for the champions league.
In an earlier writing I have discussed the season as a whole, how the two teams reached final, not going to do that now. I will keep my discussions on the final match itself. Liverpool played much more flaring attacking football from the beginning. They had to. They saw how Man Utd carried a 1 goal lead in san siro in semifinal, and got destroyed by playing not-so-pressure football from the beginning.
Rafael Benitez asked his boys to go out in the attack from the start, and they did. They used the flank pretty well, with Pennant and half-fit Zenden running down. Pennant was simply superb, and so was Mascherano. It is mascherano who never allowed Milan upfront players to settle down, he didn’t allow them to hold the ball, do slick passing. Milan was trying to free Kaka and Inzaghi, with little success.
Milan was doing another thing, giving up the possession near their defense number of times. But Liverpool never took advantage of those gifts. In today’s world, no body misses a chance to grasp on free gifts. If you don’t, you are lagging behind. That’s what happened to Liverpool.
Milan’s 1st goal was completely against the run of the play, Xavi Alonso sort of pushed Kaka, and Kaka did enough to earn a free kick. Pirlo’s shot deflected of Inzaghi’s shoulder to go in. Liverpool supporters call it luck. No it’s not luck; it is part of the game. The mix of players, who stand beside the wall, always follows the ball after the free kick, so there is always a possibility that the ball going to get deflected.
That goal changed the whole game. Milan came after the half time with more assurance that they can take their time and hold the ball, while Liverpool looked desperate with every second passed by. Seedorf and Kaka was not a factor in this game, but Jankulovski, Ambrosini, Oddo, Nesta and Maldini..They were huge factors. They never really allowed Kuyt or Gerrard to have a clear easy shot at goal.
Master tactician Benitez did two big mistakes. 1) He kept unfit Zenden on pitch for 60 minutes, and 2) he brought in Crouch on 76th minute. Too late. Dida is never comfortable on aerial balls, but Liverpool never tasted him in air. One would have predicted that Liverpool will have Crouch upfront, have pennant or zenden crossing from wings, and Crouch will try to nod it in. Or Gerrard will have some long-range shots. Did not happen. I think Liverpool, instead of sticking to the basics, tried to do too much. Tried to out think Milan. In the process, they lost their natural game.
Viva Milan..
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
A Journey to Dreamland
When we got married this January, our parents and other family members were eager to send us to a so called “honeymoon”. Puri, Digha, lots of name were floated. We had to expedite everything due to my shortened stay in Kolkata after marriage. Yes, it was painful. Leaving my wife just 10 days after our marriage, only to wait for two months till she gets visa to US. So we decided we are not going to spend time on honeymoon now. But back of my mind, I had some other plans. I planned something big back then. Something extravagant, something I really dreamed of, we really dreamed of, all the time. How about a trip to Disneyland, a trip to Hollywood, watching killer-whales and sharks jumping around in sea world, wild bear running loose in African rain-forest environment in sandiego zoo?
The plan seemed exciting itself in its birth stage. So after my wife shuchismita came to US 2 months later, and after my grueling semester was over, we thought about materializing our dream. After spending few sleepless nights on doing research about airfare prices and hotels, and tours, we managed to purchase everything through yahoo travel. We could not wait for the big day, 9th June, the date of our travel. We could not sleep the night before, part of the reason being the excitement, and other part being we had a flight to catch next morning at 6:30 a.m. Yes, 6:30 a.m. Sometimes you have to pay price for materializing your dream.
Day 1: The Journey Begins: San Diego Zoo
Nevertheless, our journey got off to a good start, reached San Diego at scheduled time, around 11 in the morning. The ride from airport to hotel was pleasant one, and view of palm trees, house in the slant side of mountains, gave us a pleasant feeling. It felt like home, and when we went to our hotel, Good Nite Inn, it completely felt like home. The hotel has surprisingly Indian ook. We kept our baggage in the lobby (since they didn’t allow us to check in early) and went off for Zoo.
The first dream came true in the zoo, riding an open-hood bus. We only heard about this in stories, saw in movies, so when we actually sat on the bus, it was really exciting. The tour itself was quite good, taking us through different part of the zoo. First part was different herbivores, including African wild buffalo, and deers with fancy horns, Texas longhorns, Giraffes and more. I haven’t seen six giraffes together at one place before. There were horned pigs, hornless rhinos, elephants playing with iron-balls, bears trying to eat a fish, lioness feeling restless in hot, and lot more. It was really enjoyable, and we really felt sad when the tour came to a close. But to treat us as soon as we got down from the bus, a peacock was standing right at our face posing for photos with its decorated colorful tail wide open. Yes, it was cloudy. I did not miss the opportunity.
We were off to visit Panda after that. We dreamt about seeing panda live, as I always feel exclamated by this creature. Finally saw the Panda, a couple, one male, and one female. The attendants were saying the female Panda is pregnant. After seeing the panda we went back to the main zoo, to ride on the aerial tram. The view from the aerial tram was excellent. The vast greenery is bound to give pleasure to your eyes. After that, we decided to explore something of our own, went for a walk in the tiger trail, and experience African rainforest. African rainforest was simply superb. Big green compound leaves covering the sky, eerie silence throughout the surroundings, chirrups of unknown birds, it really felt like we are in a rain-forest of Nairobi. We were walking through a pathway, where there were not too much visitors, and sometimes groaning of cheetahs coming from distance, the feeling was mixed with enjoyment and horror. We visited a sea lion show in between; the sea lion was smart enough to show some stunts, acted like a human being, to bring the crowd alive.
We managed to see couple of cheetahs and one Puma in the tiger trail. The weather was gloomy and cold, it was a little bit surprising for the tigers not coming out. Slowly the day came to an end; we saw some Australian cranes and bought a magnet as souvenir, before calling it a day. The San Diego zoo was a marvelous experience, and indeed, we are feeling proud about the fact that we visited the zoo.San Diego is a city of immigrants. Since it is very close to the border of Mexico, and due to its closeness to the sea and tropics, it has attracted tourists and people from all over the world. Our taxi driver on our way back to hotel from zoo was Middle Eastern. He guessed right that we were tourist and did not miss his chance to earn a few more bucks since we were not aware of the shortest route back to hotel. We had to check in the hotel after we came back from the zoo, since the check in hour starts from 3 p.m. in the afternoon. The room was spacious and good, and did not look like a hotel in a first world country..!! Anyway, it was a long and tiring day, and since we have to get up early next day, we had our dinner in a nearby fast-food joint and went off for bed. Thus ended the first day of our .. well .. you know..:
Day 2: Disneyland
Once inside, Mickey greeted us with the 50 year celebration sign. This is the 50th year anniversary of the opening of the Disneyland Park. In 1955, Walt Disney realized the dream and made the dream reality in this part of the world, which became a legendary place itself for years to come. We wasted no time and jumped into the adventures. First we embarked on a boat which took us through the jungles of Amazon. There were elephants in the river, piranha fish in the water, tribes shooting to the boat, lions and tigers roaring. Well, they were fake, but the atmosphere was good enough to feel excited. We stopped in at Tarzans tree house to get some wild experience. Then we got a little bit hungry, but the prices in the restaurant were extremely high. We manage to have chicken skewers (it is more like a kabob dipped in barbeque soss). After the lunch, we decided to join Jasmine and Aladdin in the fairy tale story. There were kids all around, and after entering the show, we realized that we have already lived through these years in our childhood. We sat there nevertheless for some pictures.
After this came the most electrifying experience in the Disneyland. A ride through the bumpy mountain railroad. A rail with 6 seating compartments were traveling through mountain caves with enormous speed and every moment it seemed that we are going to hit one of the mountains. Luckily for us, we did not hit any, and safely came out of the ride, but I was feeling a bit shaken.
By this time we were getting a bit tired, the clock was ticking towards 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We went inside the “Sleeping beauty castle”. What a marvelous sight it was from out side. Inside the castle, we went for the fairy tale boat-ride, and enjoyed Alice in wonderland. The crowd was getting larger by each second, so we had to wait in line for 10 minutes on average for every ride.
We were really exhausted by 6 p.m., and decided to take some rest. We almost missed the snow white musical theatre show. We rushed to get to the theatre by 6:15, and enjoyed the best musical theatre show ever. Snow white was sheltered by the seven dwarfs and rescued by the prince from the wicked witch, after she died by biting the poisoned apple. All the characters were played marvelously, and the effects and music was awesome. Our mind was fulfilled after the show ended.
We then thought about getting some star-war adventure stuff, and went to the futureland drive. We jumped inside a box that was vigourously shaking and having a fake speed of light-year velocity, which sometimes make you jump out..!! It was artificial, scary enjoyable, messy.After this, we were headed to Mickey town. Mickey mouse and his girlfriend Mini live in this town. We went inside Mickey’s house and had a picture with Mickey, explored mini’s house too.
We had a park-hopper ticket, which means we were allowed to go to Disneyland California Adventure Park, just across the street to Disneyland. They organized an electrical parade in the evening, we stopped by there to observe that, did not found that amusing, and came back to Disneyland main park. By now, we were totally exhausted and waited impatiently for the famous firework. We heard about this firework for long long time.Around 9:30, all the lights in the Disneyland were turned off; only the sleeping beauty castle was lighted in a pinkish color. Suddenly buzzing fireworks in the form of several Disney characters flew in to the sky, and the music was pumped up. We just looked into the sky, soaked into the music, and enlightened by the glittering light. Truly, there cannot be a better experience. For those 30 minutes, it seemed that there nothing exists in this world; we were escorted by magical creatures and put into this dreamland, where all the fairy tale angels came to life and they are making us happy. It was truly one of the most memorable nights in my life. We finished our dinner at a fast food joint and came back to hotel, but our mind was far away from this mortal world, we were truly in dreamland in our heart and soul.
Then came the most exciting and knowledgableble part of the tour. The behind the scene tour of hollywood studios. We boarded a two compartment bus, and our driver was giving running commentary of the site. We started with different stages where many indoor special effects of various famous films have taken place. We saw the place where the epic movie “SPARTACUS” was shot. We went through the movie set of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Whenever I saw snowfall in the movies, I wondered how come there can be so much snow in different times of film shooting. Now I got my answer. They were FAKE..!! We went to different demonstrations where we saw how fake snowfall can generate real filling, how fake landslide, waterfall and rainfall can make you think how disastrous the weather is. Then we visited the “War of the World” movie shooting site, and we were taken to a plane-crash site. It is simply unbelievable to believe that there was no actual plane crash happened in that place, no one was actually dead there. We did not missed out our chance to see 3-D movies, with Arnold Schwarzenegger involved in Terminator and Shrek animation. The effect were really intense. Me and my wife are not exactly accustomed to these sort of things, so as soon as things went to crazy(like a shark coming towards us, we are falling down from a huge hill-top), we opened the 3-D glass and removed the effect.The last event of the day was animal-channel show. I actually fought with the gate keepers to let us in after the gate closed for that particular show. I loved animal and I thought they would show really exciting things. But it was pretty dull one, few stunts by monkeys, parrots flying around the arena, and that’s about it.That summed up another day of our tour, and before coming out, I stood on the red carpet outside the studios, and really felt something special. If you love movies as I do, you think about Oscar awards ceremony, all the starts gathering and posing on red-carpet. I stood there on the red carpet for a while, realizing that there has been fulfillment of another little dream of mine.On our way back to hotel, I clearly got a glimpse of the famous Beverly hills street, where Hollywood is written in white letters. Thats it, that’s what we have waited for so long, and now we can be counted among one of the elite class of people who have seen Hollywood sign.:)
Sunday was the next day, and we somehow lost track of the days and month, we were such intensely engulfed in our tour and experience. All these places were dream-come-true experience. Anyways, Sunday was our time to bid adieu to Anaheim and Los Angeles, and go back to San Diego. The weather was gloomy in the morning, and when we were on the bus, we kept thinking about the past two adventure-filled days, at the universal studios and Disneyland. The bus stopped at one beautiful spot, the stop was inside a big yellow house, resembling our Hajar-duari at berhampore . There were Palm trees surrounding that place, and we were feeling like we are in a place of many many years ago, we were in a place when there was peace in the world. It really gave an unusual nostalgic feeling.Journey back to san diego was uneventful otherwise .After coming back, we took a quick lunch, and was headed for sea world straightaway. The weather was continued to be cloudy and gloomy.We have heard about this sea world a lot, its an utmost experience of going through ocean life in this sort of setting. We are more used to see zoological garden, but sea world is fist of a kind to me.First we went to a polar atmosphere, and it was really amazing to see how a frozen north-pole like atmosphere has been created.
The polar bears were sleepy, and shy in front of so many people.Then we continued our journey in the polar atmosphere to observe different other creatures that live in such extreme conditions. There was a little funny looking bird having yellow hair on the head, then we saw few penguins which hover around the coldest mountain range of Chile and Argentina close to the south pole.
First time I saw a whale, and it was white. These white whales live in the water under the frozen ice. After finishing the polar atmosphere, we quickly headed to a dolphin show. I already saw this kind of show before in Chicago aquarium, so this was nothing new to me. Dolphin has a very developed brain, and it can communicate with human brain pretty well. After watching that show we went to see sharks and then sea-lions. The sharks did not look as horrible and terrifying as it is portrayed in the Hollywood movies. The interesting part was that, when we went to see sharks, we were walking inside a tunnel, and the water reservoir where the sharks were floating , was above out head. So sharks were actually floating above us.
Sea Lion is a creature that looks like sea horse, but its black, and makes some weird noise, and it loves fish. So people were throwing fish at their direction, but there are sea-gulls. These birds are dangerous, and they show no mercy when trying to catch the fishes that are thrown to the sea lion’s direction. Somehow the cry of the sea lions made us feel sad.
To freshen up our mood, we went to see the famous “shamu-the killer whale” show. We have heard about this show for long time, and every one that we talked about our tour advised us not to miss this one. Shamu is an internationally famous killer-whale, and he has been used in number of movies too. The tag attached to his name” killer-whale” is somewhat misleading, because he is not killer by any means. It is actually the whole shamu family, the father shamu, mother shamu and baby shamu. They danced, they jumped out of the water, they waved with their fins, and they spread the water too drench the crowd sitting near to the huge pool. It was really an entertaining show, and our mind was filled after watching the show. Then we were of to a bumpy river ride, in which we were completely drenched. Then to make things pleasant, we went for the aerial tram, to get a glorious view of san diego and sea world from sky. We were not disappointed, though the sky and weather was gloomy, so we could not take too many good pictures.
By now, we started to feel a little bit tired. We were running around for last 4 days non-stop. We sat down, had a chocolate ice-cream, relaxed, watched a circus show in the water (not so great). Then we again took a ride on sky tower. It basically takes you about 400 fit high and lets you watch the beauty of san diego in twilight. After doing that, we came back, and titum wanted to have a go with the dolphins, and played with them for a while.We waited to see the shamu show again in the night, and the show , shamu, water pool in the floodlights, all looked amazing in the night. We enjoyed it even better than we did in the morning.Finally our day at sea world came to an end. We waited outside for a while for the taxi, and then came back to hotel. Needless to say, we were pretty tired. So tired that we did not have the energy to go for a decent dinner. There was a fast food joint just outside our hotel, I quickly went their and came back with some food, we ate it quickly and went to sleep.
Day 5 : The city and harbor tour
Monday was the last day of our tour. We almost covered everything we wanted to cover on this trip, so we saved the last day for the local views. The city of San Diego, the old town Mexico, and the sea beach. We started from our hotel in chartered bus that picked us up pretty early in the morning. Then we roamed around the city and its suburban area.
We saw the older side of san diego, the beautiful side of san Diego. We went to one of the most expensive places in the world, it’s a small town called “La Jolla”. The beach is beautiful, and the guide told us that lots of Hollywood stars have houses in this area. We visited an art museum in La Jolla, and visited a sea-side gorgeous hotel. Then we visited the old town Mexico, the place is almost at the border of Mexico, and many regards this place as the birth place of California. The place gives you a pretty nostalgic fantasy feeling .It reminds you of old times, when civilization did not engulf the world, when people still survive on hunting, when red Indians used to be the only population around this part of the world.
Bushy trees, old style cars and trolleys, artifacts and handcrafts resembling the old Maya Inca civilizations and many more sights like this exactly portrays the old town Mexico feeling in your mind. It was really wonderful and memorable place to see. We did some shopping in this area and added a photo-frame resembling old town in our collection.
Then we were off to see the san diego port and harbor. It was a one hour long drive in the san diego bay, which is a part of pacific ocean .It was enjoyable, but nothing extravagant .We got a good view of San Diego skyline. The journey was closing to the end. We came back to hotel in the afternoon, and discovered Panda House around our hotel. The best Chinese-oriental food we had for long long time. Then we came back to hotel, and did not take much rest, and went off for sea-beach. Another dream come true. So far ocean meant Bay of Bengal. Now, when we see the pacific ocean in front of us, when we get to play in the water of that ocean, its really an experience we want to cherish for long long time. We hear the stories about pacific ocean, its vastness, its depth, its mysteries, its sharks, its whales..and lot more. The beach was not the prettiest beach, but we enjoyed nevertheless, in the water, danced around, withstood the water current, collected snails, ate hot delicious fries. And thus came the end of our tour. It was indeed the most memorable tour we ever had. People dream about such trips, let alone Honeymoon. Both me and my wife was so satisfied that we were really repenting how the days went so fast.
I am sure now and also in many many more years to come, whenever we would dream, we would dream about Disneyland’s snow white, dream of parade, fireworks, spaceship to eternity in Hollywood, whales jumping in water, and we would dream about the distant, far away shoreline of Pacific ocean still wondering what is beyond that line.Journey to dreamland was finished on high note, and we came back to Ann arbor on Tuesday, June 14th,and still thinking, “once upon a time in San Diego..”.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
A preview of 2007 Champions league final:Two teams,Different approach, same result
On athens, panathinaikos stadium, AC Milan and Liverpool will lock horns for the 2nd time in 3 years for UEFA champions league, to decide who is the king of europe, who is champion of champions. Gerrard and Maldini will exchange pleasentaries, shake hands, and in back of their mind, Istanbul will loom large. Shevchenko scored the winning penalty when Milan won it in 2003, Sheva missed the last penalty in tie-breaker when Milan lost two years ago. Sheva isnt
there with Milan this year. But the legacy of number 7 will be there. Xavi Alonso, Carragher, Gerrard, will remember that night. Maldini and co. will want to forget and take revenge.
In Liverpool and AC Milan, UCL got two most competent and consistent team in this year's final. Two teams with completely different approaches. Liverpool is a group of "men-at-work" under Rafael Benitez's instruction. Rafa knows the limitation of his players. Doug Kuyt and Bellamy is fast, Peter Crouch is good in air, but they are not Eto'o, Nistelrooi, or Drogba. Thats why you have to provide the ball into their area of strength, they are not going to create chance on their own. Thats why you have gerrard, ager, penant, zenden. They will float the ball across the area, put the ball in the air, and 6'7" Peter Crouch will try to head the ball in. Bellamy and Kuyt will try to outpace other defenders with off-the ball run. Mascherano and Carragher will get behind every ball, stop the oncoming centre-forwards. Chalked out strategy..when you attack them..it seems to you the lanes are open, but when you get there..every where is stop sign.
Liverpool overcame defending champion Barcelona in 2nd round, got off an easy win with PSV in the quarter final, and "luckily" got past chelsea in the semifinal. Yes luckily. Chelsea shud have won that match in the 1st leg itself. But again, if you dont take your opportunities, you will fall behind in this opportunistic world.
On the contrary, Milan had a mixed campaign. They fought hard to get over the match fixing scandal issue, and had the luck of easy group in UCL. They sweat to beat Celtic. But suddenly after that , the campaign and the body language changed. The beat Bayern Munich 4-2 on aggregate, and 2-0 in Munich. Not many team beat Bayern in Allianz Arena. Milan's playing style is total artistry. they pass the ball in small areas, depend on individual brilliance to creat a thru ball or nagging pass. Kaka runs with the ball in a brisk pace, keeping the ball in front of him.
Pirlo is a cool customer..he takes his time, places the ball with a curling velocity in the feet of the destination striker. Seedorf is mixture of both, he can slow it down..he can play a quick one-two, and then he can unleash from the top of the box. Then there is the wall at the defence..Nesta, Ambrosini, Jankulovski, Oddo, and ever young Paolo Maldini. Think about this, Milan's current coach Ancelotti and Maldini played for Italy in 1990 world cup semifinal. Maldini played against Maradona..!!
Coming back to the discussion, Milan's defense is hard nut to crack. They screen the ball so well, never two defenders are on the same line. If you cross the ball in goalmouth, they will head and clear, they will not leave space infront of the penalty box.
The position Milan will struggle is upfront. Goals have been scored by Kaka (10 so far) and Seedorf. Inzaghhi , Gilardino are inconsistent. You cannot count on them. That is why I said in the beginning, the legacy of jersey number 7 will be there. Andriy Shevchenko will not play in Athens on 23rd May. But Mialn wish he could have played for them. Mialn will again need Kaka and Seedorf to score.
Dida and Reyna are also two completely different goal-keepers. Dida has got past his prime, he is susceptable to aerial balls, and Liverpool will put a plenty of balls in the air,no doubt. Reyna is good keeper, but he lacks the agility in one-on-one situation. If Milan can free Kaka or Filippo on one or two thru balls, it will be interesting to see.
All in all, it is clash of two different styles of football, two different modes of football. It will be a fascinating match. May the best team win.














