What a match!!

Five hours and fourteen minutes. That's how long it took Nadal to defeat his fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco in the Australian Open Semi Final. Five sets of uninterrupted entertainment. It was one match that had my loyalties swaying by the set. At the end of the first set that Fernando won, all I wanted was for Nadal to win the match and take on Federer in the finals. But as the match progressed, I could not but help admire the strapping Fernando who saved break points, hit winners across the court and gave that wonderful resigned smile each time his challenge went against his favor by a minuscule margin.

The match that stood at 6-7,6-4,7-6,6-7 at the end of the fourth set still had so much to offer. Though both the lefties were tired and sweat drenched by then, they continued their attempt at securing a berth at the finals with equal gusto. Verdasco was putting enough pressure on Nadal and it was obvious on his face as he scrambled all over chasing the ball and matching his opponent with his best. Ultimately, when Nadal who got the better of his opponent in the nail biting encounter,I did heave a sigh of relief. Nadal, who did not get it all easily, threw himself on the ground to celebrate the end of one of the best matches ever!

I can't wait for the final showdown on Sunday. The World no.1 and 2 come face to face again. All I can pray for is a repeat of their previous Grand slam encounter ;). FedEx must have gotten enough rest and also watched the match today.Am just hoping that a day is sufficient for Nadal to recover and pull out all stops to get the title. Before I forget, Verdasco has a big fan in me now. Hope he continues his form. Once again, whatta match it was today!!!

p.s. It seems like the day of records. Can't tell you how delighted I am that SA have finally managed to dethrone the Aussies as the no.1 ODI team. It is more of contentment over the fact that the Aussie reign has ended than being genuinely happy for the Proteas. ;)

Padma Shri Khiladi

At a recent awards ceremony, Akshay Kumar turned down the Most Popular Actor award and said Aamir deserved it instead. He spoke about how he loved Ghajini and how his own performance in Singh is Kinng,for which he was given the golden lady,paled in comparison. I was watching it on TV yesterday.So far so good. I was pleasantly surprised at his generosity.But after that he launched into a lengthy speech(John Abraham later commented that it sounded like a lifetime achievement speech!!).He spoke about how he badly wanted the award but did not think he deserved it and he refused to be the man who pretended to take it away from Aamir!!Like Aamir wanted that award!It's a people's choice award for God's sake!! Wonder what Akshay has to say about the Padma Shri now?? ;)

p.s. Hrithik got the Best Actor for Jodhaa Akbar and I was overjoyed. Am sure this is just the beginning of a spate of awards for an impressive performance!!

JAI-HO Networks??

OK!My first post sucked big time! It was more like a what-I-did-in-my-vacation essay!!
And now,I have nothing to write about!!That's coz my holidays are being spent sleeping, watching Two and half men(rocking series!! ) and Grey's Anatomy and sleeping and watching movies and more sleeping. With so much time wasted, I hardly have any time left to prepare for the CN-II exam on Monday.The fact that inspiration to study is close to zilch does not help either!
When the notice about the postponement of the exam was put up(after loads of dilly-dallying by the VTU that resulted in anxious days and sleepless nights for people like me who prepare in the eleventh hour), I thanked the heavens for the elections. I also decided that I'd go really well prepared this one, what with 18 days' time for it. But we don't change, do we?!(like they say, nayi baala donku ;))
Am yet to get seriousness to study. Guess I might as well get back to TV now. I can start burning midnight oil from Friday.
By the way, the promos of Delhi 6 look great. That's one movie to watch out for.And Slumdog Millionaire is one movie you should not miss. Caught it over the weekend. Am besotted with Dev Patel now. The music of the film is great. Totally Globe-worthy. More power to ARR! Jai-Ho!

My First Post

I have been planning to start blogging since a while but that much needed impetus was missing!To the rescue came the South Canara trip with college friends, just a day after the C# exam. Also exciting was the fact that there were friends from Bangalore joining me on the trip.

After a long wait,the train finally chugged into the Mysore station and all of us scrambled in,hoping to get comfy berths next to each other. But that was not to be! Almost an hour was spent on swapping berths with other people but we still did not have adjacent berths and we had so much to talk and catch up!! So what did we do?We huddled up near the door and spent the entire night chatting away, much to the disgust of the sleeping co-passengers, got off at stations and imbibed caffeine and went click-click with our cameras.

Once we reached Mangalore we freshened up at a friend’s place and headed to the Campco factory in Puttur.The heady smell of cocoa welcomed us at the entrance and we knew we were in for a treat!The friendly guide took us through the entire chocolate making process and gave us stuff to taste from each stage.We loved it and gorged greedily on chocolate. It was all wonderful initially, but as the quantity of chocolate consumed increased,it started looking more and more repulsive. So much that, at the end of the tour, most of us were swearing to go off chocolates for a few days.

Then came the Ananthapadmanabha Swamy Temple near Kasargod.Legend has it that getting to see the vegetarian crocodile residing in the pond there is a lucky omen, and were we not lucky or what!We caught sight of it, clicked pictures and then rested at the temple.All this took so long that we would miss the sunset at Someshwara beach but for our driver! I cannot forget how he raced against the sun and made sure we reached the beach on time to catch the breathtaking view and do some contemplation staring at the drowning sun. The exciting day was finished off with Ice cream at Ideals.Special mention to the Chikku ice cream which is really yum.Why don’t we get to eat it in Mysore?!

Day 2 began with swaying on the hanging bridge at Kote road.From there we went to the Kodi Bengre delta and it was time for more sand and more water.We ditched the plans of going to Pili KuLa in the last minute and voted for the Pharangi Kudru ,a private island maintained by our driver’s friend. A half an hour boat trip took us to the island where we were welcomed by the owner’s dogs. It is a place where you can spend your entire weekend and also learn fishing if you have the time. The driver then took us to Pajaka-Madhvacharya’s birth place-an ancient house whose cool interiors were a welcome break from the sweltering sun. An ideal pit stop to catch that much needed rest. Malpe beach was scratched off our list coz the crowd there was scary!Instead, we went to the Kedaki beach close to it. Being a private beach, there were hardly any people.We got into the water and had the time of our lives!

While the second day’s itinerary was chock-a- block with places, we had only two places to visit on the third day before taking the train back to Mysore-The St.Mary’s Island and the Udupi Temple.The former gave us ample opportunity to pose and take pictures while the temple finished off our trip on an auspicious note.All I could pray for was super duper marks in the 7th sem exams!!That reminds me, I still have another exam left on 19th jan Why don’t vacations just last forever??!!