Another Ferrari 1-2

Barcelona GP had a perfect finish.

A Ferrari 1-2 with Kimi scoring perfect 10 and whats more…Alonso retiring due to blown engine!!

Hamilton on podium again but only 1 Mclaren finishing the race. Its good though that Kovalainen is fine after that near fatal accident. Even with 5 rows of tire stacks, the head on collision delayed his recovery from damaged car.

BMW maintaining stunning performance but seperated by a distance from Ferrari.

Force India car pushing it to the top 10 is like a cherry on top.

I feel a little sorry about Super Aguri though…their absence will be felt at the back of the grid. Thanks to Honda, they were able to race in Barcelona. I hope something promising will come up for them. I really want to see Sato racing …the guy is a real entertainer.

Thats the way it is

Traffic in Pune…that says it all

Take a look at these snaps-

The electricity was there, but this signal was out of order near very busy Mehendale garage at 6pm on a weekday. The traffic police was nowhere to be seen. The chaos is evident.

Here is another one-

This truck was traveling on JM road carrying concrete road dividers, totally unprotected. Not a single string holding them back.

Sad thing is nobody cares about these things. If someone breaks a rule, he is hardly ever punished (only in March when the ‘Collection’ has to be shown on paper). Jumping the signals is as common as signal itself. Helmet rule came…emptied your pockets and is now resting in peace! There are many bridges in city which are closed for heavy vehicles (eg-Mhatre Bridge), but everybody including ST buses and Volvos use them.

According to basic principles of traffic management, pedestrians should get the highest priority because they (supposedly) pay the taxes and need least infrastructure. Next should be bicycles, public trasport vehicles and then private vehicles. But we see the exact opposite. No signal allows smooth passage for pedestrians. Some signals like the ones near Sancheti hospital and Bal Gandharva do have some 15sec gap for this. But traffic police are ignorant about this and they allow vehicles to pass in that time, while pedestrians have to run in between vehicles listening to the cursing. Subways in Pune is altogether different topic for research. Their locations and maintenance is worldclass. Same thing is about overhead bridges.

The BRTS and in general PMPML buses are the victims of inert bureaucracy. I have already spoken earlier about the rickshawalas.

One thing the police do perfectly well is tow the vehicles from no parking. You cant challenge their decision. And the way they pick up and carry the bikes is just horrifying.And why just the bikes? Who cause more trouble..2-wheelers or 4-wheelers? Parking policies are…as expected..all wrong. You have enough no parking zones. But how about some parking zones?? Even pay n park..like in camp!

You bring in BRTS or Metro, unless you follow the basics this mess will never be cleared.

Timepass in Vashi

After we collected tickets from Dr D Y Patil stadium, we had 2 hours before actually entering the stadium. It was extremely hot so we decided to go to any place with A/C. Fate led us to one Raghuleela mall near Vashi station. I had a bad feeling about it, because it had no door on entire side facing a main road. Good way to annoy already tested people. Actually it was better outside the mall because it had no A/C. We wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes. Then we entered Big Bazar for some entertainment (had gone to see match between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers…and we had nothing better to do than visiting Big Bazar!) Then Gadre spotted a great book. The book was useless but the cover was hilarious! Take a look-

See what that price sticker cost them!

In the toys section (yeah, I know…but we were there!), I saw this F1 car model-

They sure know how to sell things to people and people actually buy these things because they look like Ferrari.

Outside the mall, there was a chinese hotel. And what an innovative name for one!-

A lifetime of experience

This was a near perfect Sunday. Watching Gilly score the fastest century of IPL was the next best thing to watching Sachin Tendulkar play. Unfortunately, the 2nd one did not happen. But I did saw him! Me and bunch of my friends went to see the match between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers at Dr D Y Patil stadium at Nerul in New Mumbai. After watching an actual match, I started appreciating IPL even more. The main advantage of such tournaments is that you dont need to to be loyal to any particular team. I supported Mumbai Indians during the match. But when Gilchrist went after Pollock and Jaysurya I was not disappointed at all. I enjoyed his each and every shot.

We were sitting in square region, so we were able to see the length and pace of the ball. Batsmen get so little time to react facing the pacers, you actually start admiring their skills. We were on the third floor. After the match, I went to see the other levels. You cant see a thing from the higher floors. The 2nd floor was rubbish. You cant see the lofted balls at all from there. Poor guys sitting there missed all the sixes. And the most expensive ones at the front were like sitting in a prison with the fence around.

The crowd was unbelievable. I cheered for each and every shot (and Gilly made sure that I was busy for the whole time). Not just me but each and everyone in the crowd celebrated Gilly’s sixes. With each shot, crowd started chanting ‘We want Sixer…We want sixer!’ Some of the other popular chants were-

‘Ch***ya banaya, bada maja aaya’ (with each misfield from chargers)
‘Symonds Go Back!’

and

‘Nehra hatao, match bachao’ (during Nehra’s disastrous spell)

And now the cheerleaders. First, see what Gadre thinks about the whole deal. Thanks to pathetic balling by MI, the local talent had nothing to cheer about in the second half. But they bugged us enough earlier. DC cheerleaders lapped around the ground at the start of DC innings. Its a good thing they dont understand Hindi or Marathi. The things that were being said to them…some things are better not understood!

Avnish has written extensively about our expedition. Take a look

A Royal Finish

Rajasthan Royals vs Deccan Chargers match saw a thrilling finish. After loosing 4 quick wickets, Royals still managed a win thanks to their captains last over fireworks. Warne hit Symonds past boundary thrice in last over to finish things off in style.

After their first match, I thought this team had no chance of survival because the team was a total mismatch. But todays match has showed once again that team is hardly a criterion after a certain level. When it comes down to the last over, its just a question of who loses the cool first. Unfortunately, Mumbai Indians missed out on what could have been a grand win yesterday. Run on a noball that brought Nehra on strike turned the tide. Such close finishes are very important in a long tournament. Otherwise the whole thing will be like 2007 World Cup, long, monotonous and boring.

Shakti Kapoor saves the day!

I had a stupid EDCS paper today and I was asked to present a B-plan out of nowhere. I never did 1 before. I am sitting there looking at the paper with no clue about any other question. The only ray of hope was B-plan. And then it struck me. All these years of worshiping Govinda had finally paid off. ASGM gave me a great idea. And I presented a B-Plan for the same mini-motor wala fan! I think that it was actually believable. I cant believe I am saying this but Shakti Kapoor saved the day!

Pune Mirror strikes MANU

Manchester United was still recovering from the big shock of Fergie being sacked. And today, before the big showdown in Barcelona, Pune Mirror delivered another blow for the whole team. According to PM the whole MANU team has been replaced by Fenerbahce team. But MANU are not the only ones suffering the blast. According to the same source Barcelona team has been replaced by Chelsea squad. Under the circumstances it is being said that MANU team has upper hand as all the players of BARCELONA are tired from the action at Anfield last night!

(Who the hell is covering Football at PM????)

TOI running out of Gossips

I still dont know why Graffiti section is there in Sports section of TOI. Many pathetic gossips which are remotely related in some way to sports are published in that section. And today it got, if possible, even sillier. They printed the same 2 stories from yesterday’s paper with same snaps.

Ironically, one of them was about Danielle Lloyd, who was spotted in some London restaurant in same outfit two nights in a row. So what is TOI up to? Doing the same! The other one was titled ‘Tom & Kat skip Posh Party’.

One more thing…how does Danielle Lloyd relate to sports? Defoe WAS her ex. Now leave her alone! You have page3 for these people. Why waste precious sports section?

Confuse a Cat

Remember the sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus-confuse a cat

Well, I tried to confuse my cat and was very much successful! But not like the Pythons of course. My younger brother has a cat (we call it maaMjar ). It is so hyper-excited all the time, it wont let you sit for a minute. So I found a way to confuse it for a while. Watch this-

Pythons had to do a lot of work to confuse their cat. But this 1 being curious was easy to confuse.

Imagine..if Govinda launches his own line of clothing..