Was Capello wrong in stripping Terry of the England captaincy?

No, he wasn't. No doubt it was a hard decision for Capello to make. Anybody in his shoes would have done the exact same thing. The timing of the scandal wouldn't be helping John Terry, Chelsea or England with the World Cup around the corner.

England is one of the prime contenders to go all the way and is favoured by peers and critics alike as is Chelsea in the Premier League. As the captain of such high profile teams, there is undoubtedly a lot of responsibility on Terry, people look up to him and he has to set an example for everyone. But this momentary lapse of focus would act as a blot on all the things he has achieved both in his personal as well as his professional life. What was he thinking? There are more important issues for Terry to focus on than leading England on the field at the World Cup.

Capello did the right thing. The pressure on Terry's was increasing by the day, and being the captain the expectations were sky high. One would think that after all these years, Terry would have gotten used to it. He is human after all. Capello did what he did to ease off some of the pressure from Terry's shoulders so that JT could sort out his issues without jeopardising England's chances at the World Cup. Fabio has waited 4 long years to get the right players, to make the team as perfect as possible and he is not going to let this one mistake get in the way of all the hard work done till now. Fabio Capello did not go to the media and make a tamasha out of his decision. He did it admirably, by informing John Terry personally, man to man and Terry respected him for it.

To make matters worse, the English media didn't help either. If you are a well known personality, the media is always snapping at your heels waiting in baited breath for you to commit that one mistake and once you commit it, no government or court can protect you from them. Why is the media so shameless as to report intricate personal details the general public? Do the general public want to know about the personal lives of celebrities? Absolutely. Is the media obliged to give them the inside stuff about these celebrities no matter how low they are willing to stoop to get the story? Abosultely NOT. What right do they have to interfere in anybodys personal lives? None whatsoever. Such activities happen all around the world. It is not the first time that people have committed adultery. If the media really wanted to report such activities, they should report every such activity and not offer money to Terry's mistress for the details about the entire affair. I'm not saying that John Terry did the right thing. Agreed, he shouldn't have done it. What should have happened behind closed doors has been open to the entire public and it is sad that no one has tried to keep the media from reporting it. Why does the media hype up such issues? Is it for the moolah? TRP ratings? higher market share? Competetion? If you were to approach the head of any TV News channel seeking for an explanation, the obvious answer one would get is, "As news reporters, it is our duty to bring out news and let the world know about it". There is a line they need to draw and make sure that they do not cross it whatever the circumstances. But for every good deed, there are a lot of negative people waiting to ensure that the good deed fails. Such is life. How did the media come to know about Terry's affair in the first place. That is some food for thought.


PS: I am no fan of John Terry, Fabio Capello, Chelsea or England. The above piece was penned to enforce the use of correct principles and these thoughts are my own. Having the correct set of principles and following the right path is imperative.

Once upon a time...

In a land far far away called Bengalooru lived a Tall Dood. Like most dood’s and dudette’s today, he worked in an IT company and in his spare time he read lots of blogs and was inspired by many of them especially Hari Shenoy’s. He aspired to have a blog of his own some day and felt happy at the mere thought. Time passed by and as it usually does, didn’t wait for this Tall One. Then one lazy afternoon, the spark of creativity ignited and he happened to post his modified version of an excerpt from the novel named ‘Frankenstein’ on a popular social networking site which can now be seen in the ‘About Me’ section of this very blog. The Tallster felt that he still had it in him to continue writing and the blogs you find here were a result of this new founded enthusiasm to write well, be entertaining and attract more and more people to his blog. Although numerous people were convinced he could write decently, the Tall One humbly didn’t seem entirely convinced. The mere thought of making his written literature more and more perfect made him to procrastinate a lot. Though the ideas were there to be expressed, he felt that the manner of expression wasn’t perfect enough to his liking. So more and more NED happened and the thought of writing kept slipping from his list of priorities…

Time flew and a year passed by… In this time, some people close to him enquired about his blogs and the reason behind the discontinuity at which he blamed it on NED. He also wrote some extremely dramatic fictional literature at the workplace simply to put a smile on people’s faces and he did succeed to a certain extent… Due to certain events of personal and professional importance, the Tall One had to abruptly stop this activity. One day, he happened to read some of his aforementioned older content and penned one more to see how people reacted and was amazed at the reaction. Buoyed on this vociferousness, albeit a small one, egged him on to continue this wonderful habit. Although the Tall Dood knows that he himself was to blame for all the procrastination and his unfruitful attempts at perfection, he hopes to continue penning down as often as possible as imperfect as it may be and is thankful to all the people behind making him take a decision to take another shot at writing.

Hoping to continue penning.

Yours truly,
The Tall Dood

The Wimp's a cool doood

From quite sometime (about 2-3 months), i had not followed up on reading blogs from a certain Mr.Hari Shenoy as i usually used to. So on Monday morning, when i walked into office and with no work on my hands till Thursday, i decided to see what he was upto. On the very first topic he had scribbled about, i came across a link to skthewimp's post. Till date i had thought that Hari was the most beshtesht blogger i ever came across who wrote stuff making reading fun though i think that he is always his usual sarcastic self. Then i came across skthewimp's blogs who i must say am getting fond of by the day. This does not mean that i will stop reading Hari's blogs thus not resulting in a drop in his blog's hit rate. There used to be a time when i was so obsessed with Hari's choice of words/language and the flow that i used to check up his blogs 3-4 times a day similar to prescription medicines and they did have a similar effect on me.
Skthewimp you rock man. I could relate to almost all your blogs i have read viz. about studs and fighters (me more of a fighter than a stud), relationships (though i haven't been in one), marriage stuff and recruitment at IITM stuff to name a few(CV's extending more than 2 pages will not be entertained). Of the topics i have read and all of them seem to be so diverse, i wonder how you manage time to come up with these blogs and most of all to be in those situations which give way to blogs. Anyways i had always been a fan of Hari's and now you can count me as one too.
At coffee breaks here in office, i have narated small excerpts from your blogs and this has generated considerable interest among my group of friends. But my favourite ones have been the ones when you have fallen head over heels over many of the opposite sex and it was truly fun reading them so much so that i really look forward to reading them everyday. If you have come up with some model as to solve the same, please have a post about it for the greater good of people like me.

Fatwa for the traffic offenders...

Not so long ago, a certain "shampoo boy" (not Fez played by Wilmer Valderrama from the popular sitcom That '70s Show) decided to come up with fatwas for the intolerable mistakes which people committed not out of chance but out of practice ...Almost all of his blog posts are wonderful to read, having the right mixture of suspense, action and stuff like that. Do check his blogs and have a wonderful read.

I thought of adding to his list with my own set of fatwas and hence this blog...

Prereading: Traffic Fatwas!! and Fatwa Time!!

I'd love to be a part of shampoo boy's sniper team. My cv would include having played Max Payne and an expert at random shooting in a haphazard manner which would kill a few good guys maybe. But a lot of bad guys would be slain \m/

Scene1: A one way sign at the intersection of 2 roads pointing along neither of the roads. i happen to head along one of them when i meet this cop who stops me and demands i pay a hefty fine for violating the sign, not bothering to listen to my side of the story when he himself is travelling along the one way in the wrong direction.

Comment: Whats happening to the pot-bellied policemen? To say that they are greedy is an understatement... In the recent past, a news channel had shown a video recording of policemen being trained. They had to run for some distance with rifles in hand. But there was a word of caution from their leader. All people who weighed more than 70kgs, had asthama and arthritis etc. were exempted from carrying out the drill and were warned not to...Don't know the reason as to why they are in the police force in the first place?

Scene2: A busy road where traffic is moving at a pretty fast pace in both the directions. People on two-wheelers come in the way of oncoming traffic from the other direction(while overtaking) not seeming to give a damn about the value of their life or any body else's. Auto-rickshaw drivers driving at a snails pace right in the middle of the road and no amount of honking from other commuters behind him seems to awaken this zombie. People taking left or a right turn with no indication whatsoever..or still better they show the right indicator and turn left or vice-versa..You are zooming at some speed say 60-70kmph on an empty stretch of road when some auto rickshaw driver surfaces out of nowhere, does not seem to care about your presence and turns into the road.

Solution: Implementation of the ROADRAGE cheat code(from NFS) into my bike horn :)

Scene 3: Another busy road and bystanders on the footpath await patiently for their chance to cross the road. The scene is pretty chaotic. There is a traffic jam at a particular junction. At some distance, vehicles are zooming past one another. Suddenly an autorickshaw turns into the way of oncoming traffic from a nearby road and narrowly misses being killed thanks to the presence of mind of the old gentleman sitting at the seat of the WagonR who realised to apply the brakes(special thanks to the WagonR people for their brakes equipped with advanced technology). The gentleman in the car questions the autodriver's senility at which the autodriver recalls his mental lexicon of obscenities and lets go a barrage of his choiciest lingo,much to the surprise and amazement of all the people surrounding him.

Solution: Appoint the autodriver as the dummy while conducting crash testing of cars and other vehicles.

Hope people will be more responsible and use more of their COMMON SENSE.

The Sitanadi Trip contd...

The Sitanadi Trip – Part 2

Day 1: July 14, 2007 Agumbe Saturday morning….The driver took us through the pouring rain and the potholed filled roads past Shimoga and Tirthahalli towards Agumbe. All of us were so tired that we hardly noticed or felt the bumpy roads except on one or two occasions. At about 5:30 am in the morning we were on the verge of entering Agumbe when we were stopped at a police checkpost. It was a routine security check for Naxalite related activity. This security check had woken everybody and we were on our way to Agumbe. We followed the road signs and also asked whoever was around for directions. As we covered Km after Km, the road ahead was starting to disappear. No, we had not hit a dead end or a road block. We were engulfed by thick fog.

The TEAM
(From left: Sunil, Shiva, Randhish, Ashwin, Vishal, Jiten, Ashley, Bala and Lavanya)

The road ahead

All of us alighted from the vehicle and decided to enjoy the fresh morning air and also the environment outside. Now we knew how heaven would look like. A few of the team members clicked photographs. There was no one in sight. We could see the shadowy figures of a couple of kids running in the fog with football in hand. This made a couple of us chuckle at the idea of playing football in this dense fog when let alone the football, neither the opponent nor the team mate would be visible. After a few more clicks of the camera, we decided to continue our journey. A further half hour into the journey saw us approaching the Agumbe Ghats with a range of hair pin bends suitable for a F1 race. I’m sure there were butterflies in some of our stomachs as the driver negotiated these bends. The closer we got to our destination, the narrower the roads kept getting. Finally after a good 10 hours of journey, we reached the Sitanadi Nature Camp @ 8am.

The front gates were thrown open for us to enter. There was dense foliage all around filled with the constant chirping of birds and insects alike. To top it all there was this narrow stream flowing right through this path. All of us were really excited and very very hungry. As we got down from the vehicle, Prashanth, the local organizer showed us to our dormitories (for men) and tents (for the ladies) respectively. He hurried away to arrange breakfast for us. Even before he left, he asked us to come prepared for the rafting trip which was scheduled after breakfast. It was going to be an eventful day.

Our hideout - The Dormitory

Our backup hideout – The Tent

We settled down with our belongings in the dormitory and the tents respectively. The breakfast was ready at 9am. The men quickly refreshed themselves, got dressed for the special moment ahead and were ready to gorge on the breakfast prepared. Even though the men had helped themselves to two helpings of a delicious breakfast, there was no sight of the women folk. This was one of the many times Vijay’s skill as an organizer came to be tested. After two or three visits by Vijay to their tents, the women folk were still nowhere to be seen. Either this says a lot about Vijay’s skill as an organizer or even more about women’s age old custom of getting late for any occasion (more of this in the coming pages). You have the luxury to choose who was to blame. Anyways, when the breakfast was about to be taken back to the kitchen and nearly finished, the women appeared out of nowhere and were surprised that there was not enough breakfast for them. They satiated themselves with whatever was left. It was now 10am. We were now eagerly looking forward to the rafting to begin.

A rollicking time down the river….

At about 10:15am, Sharath, the organizer for the rafting trip, asked us to get ready for the next item on the itinerary – the much awaited river rafting. He had arranged for a mini van which was waiting to take us to the starting point of the rafting trip about 5Km from the camp. By the time all of us got into the mini van, it was jam packed.

White water rafting is an unbelievable experience. If you trying it for the first time don't worry, expert personnel are there to guide you.

Rafting is a team effort and it is important to act in tandem with fellow rafters as you navigate through the powerful rapids. When there is more pressure on the left side of the raft, the team members have to move to the right and vice versa. The instructor tells you on which side you should shift to maintain balance and whether you should row backwards or forwards. Safety is paramount so you cannot get on the raft without wearing a life jacket and a helmet.

Besides the unbeatable thrill of feeling the force of nature, you can also enjoy its calmer side as you travel through evergreen forests.

On reaching the start point, the expert personnel from Adreno laid down the ground rules to be followed by each and everyone of us. This briefing included wearing the safety jacket and helmet, the do’s and don’ts while on the raft, the sitting position each one should assume, the rules while rowing and do’s and don’ts if any of us were to fall in the river. We were divided into 3 groups and an instructor was assigned to each group. These instructors were all Nepalese who had expertise in rafting activities. These groups looked like F1 teams in the pits.

Before each group went into the river, there was another round of briefing by the instructor. We hoped the next 3 hours would pass as slowly as possible so that we could enjoy the journey to the hilt. The 3 rafts were blue and white in color. Let’s name the blue raft guys as team “Renault”. The guys on one of the white rafts were wearing red safety jackets and yellow helmets. So let’s call them team “Ferrari”. And the guys on the third raft had orange jackets. Hence we’ll name them team “McLaren Mercedes”.
The 3 teams have been named after popular F1 teams just to avoid confusion. Team Ferrari and Renault had a few of the people from Cisco. But all of us on the McLaren Mercedes team were from MindTree \m/

Team Ferrari

Team McLaren Mercedes aka MindTree \m/

Team Renault

Team Renault started of first and took a sizeable lead followed by team Ferrari. After having given the other teams a good lead we started on the race track. We were determined to finish the race (well it wasn’t actually a race-but to enjoy it a bit we raced against each other) ahead of the other two.

The river was infested with poisonous snakes. Locals had reported of 18-20 feet king cobras in the river. The locals have seen signs of crocodiles on some occasions during the rainy season when the river swells. It was a rare sight and we hoped to see one soon.

Ok back to the race. Team McLaren Mercedes was gaining on the other two teams and it was at this time that the other two teams panicked. One of the crew from team Renault lost his balance and fell into the river. Since the river was smoother and shallower in this area, he quickly got back on his raft. They had certainly lost some time. Team Renault was now in third position. The other two were fighting it out. There was a hands distance between the first two teams.

The rapids were very close now. Not a good time to overtake. We managed to survive the first two rapids and so did the Ferrari team. We slowed down a bit after that and this gave them some considerable lead and maybe made them a tad over confident. We then raced down the river gathering good momentum. The team work was phenomenal and the late charge of the McLaren Mercedes team caught the Ferrari team off guard. We vroomed past them. They were never able to reach us again till a particular incident made the safety canoe come out in the open (more about this sometime later). The Renault Team was struggling to keep up and time and again we had to slow down to conserve energy and wait for the other two teams to catch up.

Now for the incident…We were coasting along and had just crossed over another of those rapids.. when something happened and no one knew it had happened. We were thrown off balance.. by something underneath.. Whether it was the turbulence due to the rapids or a python gliding underneath, no one knows. One of the crew from the McLaren Mercedes team (yours truly) fell off the fast moving raft head first into the turbulent river. Some team members felt someone was missing..did not know who it was..Twas indeed a funny situation. After this all three teams came to literally a standstill someway down the river. It was time for the safety canoe to save me.

All this while, I was trying to keep my head above the surface of water but somehow kept getting pulled downwards. Little did I know that I had dived into a giant whirlpool. When we had started this race, the instructors had told us not to panic incase we fell into the river and that a bag would be thrown to us in the eventuality that this happened. I kept waiting for some bag being thrown into the air or someone approaching to save me. But nothing happened. All the three teams stood at a distance staring at me. It was a very awkward situation to be in. I hoped for some help and also looked out for snakes and pythons in the vicinity. As I fell head first and hadn’t felt the need to learn swimming till now (believe me), I had gulped down a lot of river water filled with nutrients, vitamins and what not. I had no other option. I wasn’t thirsty at all. But someone had other plans. I tried to remain calm but it didn’t look that way. The whirlpool was twisting away my body and from a distance it must have looked as if I was struggling for my life or panicking. Anyways it took some time for the safety canoe to come my way. I was very happy but the happiest moment was yet to come. I held along some rope at the back of the canoe and it glided down at a rapid pace down the river. Me at the back of the canoe with my both hands stretched forward, I felt like Superman. It was awesome moment that. I thank the heavens that no slithering disturbance came my way.

In no time the safety canoe reached my team raft. I was not shocked or anything but some people did and were trying to lift my spirits. The team urged me on and we were more motivated than ever to beat the other two teams to the finish line. Again we gave the other two teams a sizeable lead. But they didn’t have the kind of co-ordination which we had. In no time we caught up with them and maintained a steady pace. After sometime when we turned back, they were nowhere in sight. So we slowed down yet again and some of us decided to take a swim. The river was shallow here and the currents also were not strong. So it was not a problem. This was kind of a pit stop.
After 3 hours of competitive racing, team McLaren Mercedes beat the other two teams fairly easily and the crew could not hide this delight. Happiness was writ large over each of those tired faces.

Podiums finish for the winning raft

The mini van which had taken us to the starting point awaited us at the finish line. All of us were simply speechless. We were very very happy and also sad at the same time since this river rafting trip was coming to an end. But there were many more things to look forward to.
We reached the Camp and were drenched not only due to the river water but also due to the rains. It was raining on and off as we were rafting. So the need to refresh was unanimous and obvious too. After a good cold water bath courtesy the solar panel and also the local organizer, we were refreshed. Just before lunch, the team had decided of a possible visit to a beach nearby. Lunch was ready. We, the men swooped down on the lunch. The women were late yet again and Vijay decided not to try his luck this time. After a sumptuous lunch, all men had thought that a 15 minutes rest would do no harm. What was thought of as 15 minutes turned into 3 hours and all men had a sound sleep. For once, it was a good opportunity for the women to complain :P

To be continued........

The Sitanadi Trip

The Sitanadi Trip – Part 1

How we decided on the trip:

Sometime in mid June, one Friday afternoon, Nagesh, our PM called for a quick team meeting of the projects he handled viz. AISMART FE, AISMART, BOP, ER, NUCORE and RATABASE. This must have woken all those who were in the snooze mode (almost :D). People from all these projects gathered in a conference room with a confused look on their faces. Vijay (the main organizer) and Ashley (played the role of co-organizer on this day) had prepared a presentation of the places we could visit for a team-outing sometime during the coming weekends. It was decided that the destination for the trip would be Sitanadi Nature Camp. After the presentation, as Vijay and Ashley looked around, people still had that confused look on their faces. Perhaps this was not what they were expecting. All of us were given time to think about it. And time passed by …….


Time whizzed past……long enough for everyone to forget about the whole plan. In the mean time, all of us at the AIG account had been on an outing to the PVR theatres one Friday evening to watch the movie Die Hard 4.0 All was well and everyone was happy. And life went on as usual. People were continually getting pestered for their approval on the trip but to no avail. You must have heard actors say about them not having dates for movies. This was a similar situation. The trip was spoken about in the passing and the dates were postponed two or three times. Then in the 2nd week of July, there was another team meeting. The dates were decided as the 14th and 15th of July. 12 people volunteered to go on this trip filled with adventure and excitement: Shivanantham aka Shiva, Lakshmi, Vijay, Ashwin, Randhish, Jiten and his wife, Balamurugan aka Bala, Sunil, Lavanya, Ashley and Vishal.

We decided to start from Bangalore on the 13th night. The excitement amongst the team kept growing as “The Date” approached. The travel guys were contacted well in advance and a tempo traveler was arranged for the journey. The vehicle had a DVD player which was an added bonus.

Excited team members unable to hide their happiness (above).

Shiva working as hard as ever minutes before the trip began

About Sitanadi Nature Camp:

The Sitanadi nature camp is situated amidst & inside the wilds of the Someshwara wildlife sanctuary along the banks of Seethanadi River in Udupi District and is about 400Km(approx.) from Bangalore. The nature camp is located close to the river Sitanadi and the setting is an awesome experience of raw reality. A pleasant drive away from the camp is Agumbe, which receives the third highest rainfall. This location in short is for those daring to go where only eagles have!!.

Indus Outback and Adreno together conduct the monsoon white water river rafting activity & the Koodlu theertha trek.
There is also a very different kind of trek that you are taken to, where you go approx 6 kms into the 8th thickest biosphere in the world…and climb to the Koodlu Theertha waterfalls. The complete experience is exhilarating & just pumps up your adrenaline.

The route: Bangalore -> Tumkur -> Gubbi -> Tiptur -> Arsikere -> Kadur -> Birur -> Tarikere -> Bhadravati -> Shimoga -> Agumbe -> Tirthahalli -> Hebri

July 13th Friday: We start from Bangalore….

(Itinerary: Bangalore ----> Sitanadi Nature Camp, 13th - 14th July 2007)

The trip must have meant different things to each of us. For me, it was a chance to visit this place so close to Udupi in good company, have lots of fun, and slack off work, something I hope to get really good at, so I can write a book about it, and live off the royalties for the rest of my life. Our trip was supposed to be packed with things to do and places to see and we wasted no time in mobilizing ourselves to reach the first rendezvous point, our Banashankari office.

All of us gathered at the MindTree Office at Banashankari at 9:30 pm, well prepared for the journey ahead. At about 10pm we boarded the tempo traveler and we were on our way…

12 excited and restless MindTree minds in a conjusted tempo traveler were making some noise!!!

Along the way, some of us felt thirsty and so we shared “The” Sprite….not everyone wanted this drink…….some quenched their thirst with water. Ashley and Randhish prepared the drink and distributed it to us.

Since there was not much we could do inside the vehicle to pass time, everyone suggested it was movie time… Spiderman 3 it was then…

As the vehicle drove on, many fell asleep. The driver took a pit stop lest he fall asleep as well. It was a welcome respite (to those who were still drowsy) from the cramped seats we were in. Some of us had coffee. We resumed the journey and the rest of us saw the whole movie.

The looong journey continued……


All of us were faast asleep…The headlights of a passing vehicle woke me up from my slumber and only then I realized that the vehicle wasn’t moving. I was rubbing my eyes to be sure when I noticed that the driver was napping on his seat with his legs sprawled across the dashboard to his left. The poor guy must have had a hard and long tiresome day. He had stopped the vehicle a good 100 something Kms from Shimoga. It was 4:30 in the morning. Randhish, Shiva, Vijay (the others who were awake) and I decided to wait until 5am and got of the vehicle to have some tea in the teashop nearby. This was the only shop on this never ending stretch of road and surprisingly open at this unearthly hour. We chatted away till 5am when it started drizzling, slowly at first and then the rain picked up pace. All of us got back into the vehicle.

Shiva always has this serious look on his face but you never know what’s cookin in his mind…Well this was when he decided to have some fun. He started at first by clicking photos of the people who were sleeping and then he did something which made everyone jump out of their seats. He played this ringtone which had a ghostly feeling to it at the loudest possible volume that his mobile could muster. All sleepy heads woke up with a start (except the driver). They didn’t know what hit them and the rest of us had a hearty laugh :D We awoke the driver at 5:15am. He took some time to refresh himself and at 5:30am we resumed our journey. It was pouring cats and dogs outside and were on our way again.

Shiva @ play (victim1: Ashley as victim2 looks on)

Shiva @ play (victim2: Bala)

Shiva @ play (victim3: Vishal)
To be continued……

Six n over!!!

Wasim Akram is one of the very few cricketers(He is the only one who comes to my mind) who have consistently hit a six of the last ball of the innings. How many of us can boast of such an achievement? Not many. But I can and I am very proud of it. Let me brief you a little. I don't want to beat around the bush, tell you all a long story and put everyone to sleep. So I'll get straight to the point. This cricket match took place in the picturesque town of Manipal in 1999-2000. Twas a hot and sunny afternoon. You'd think what got into us that day to play in the energy sapping heat. Well thats what cricket crazy Indians will do to get a kick out of competetion no matter what the weather conditions are. The opposite team batted first and set us a decent target in the 12 overs a side match. Runrate of around 8 or 9 i guess(don't remember the target score*). We batted well right through till the last 4 or 5 overs during which we lost some quick wickets. All this time I was cooling my heels in the pavilion while Sukhadev was fighting it out in the middle holding one end steady. These last 4 or 5 overs were very eventful. There was tension, anxiety and restlessness among our teammates. We needed 12 off the last over. The runs off the first five balls read 2,1,2,1,1 which left us with 5 to win off the last ball of the match. Now our corner of the ground was getting restless and lets be honest. No one would have thought that we would pull off a win. The onus was on me to deliver as i was facing this final delivery. The restless teammates, the ever pressurising opponents and the nervousness of having to pull of something as big as this was taking its toll on me. My palms was sweating a lot and was going weak in my knees. Sukhadev was constantly trying to keep me focussed and he along with a few others in the team were a calming influence. Hats off to them and especially Sukhadev. He had done a commendable job at batting right through the tournament. I decided that come what may I will give the ball a mighty heave and leave the rest to God. I took guard almost midway through the pitch. All the bowler had to do was bowl a straight one or just outside my reach. But i guess he was riding high on confidence. He hadn't conceded a single boundary in the entire tournament. Then it was THE moment. He bowled a knee high full toss and i gave it a whack with all the energy i could muster and saw the ball sail dead straight towards the boundary. I didn't even know if we had won when all of the 30 something of our supporters and teammates stormed the pitch. There was pandemonium and chaos all around. I was mobbed and gheraoed and in the melee i lost my footwear :( . It was ony after about 5 minutes of non stop cheering that someone told me that it was a SIX. What an ending it was! I am more than happy to join Wasim ;) in making this a reality atleast once. Last but not the least, this win is dedicated to the completely professional and close knit unit whose never say die attitude helped us win that tournament. Cheers to all the maites.

PS: We were knocked out in the first round the very next year :(

* about me not remembering the target, I would like to quote one Mr. Dasi aka Subhash.H.S (one among the many team mates instrumental in us winning the cup), "the legend is greater than the trivial facts like what the target were... i too have forgotten.. guess we could ask roshi for it.. he'd remember..even if were 200 in 12 overs.. the truth is that.. it was the six off the last ball, and we got there!!"