Archive for Chows

March 25th 2008

Anoop The Expert On Indian Cricket And Hockey

by Anwin in Chows, Cricket, Friends, India, Rants, Sports     tags:       2 Comments

I got this from one of Anoop‘s comments on my post long time back. I just can’t imagine now that Anoop can write a long comment like this. Hehehe… So here it is:

well..I dont know if the Indian team is being selfish these days..their attitude seems a lot different…I just think a lot of players in Indian sport lack fitness and that affects their concentration..I dont believe there is lack of talent..

Imagine school….there is no emphasis on fitness and even young ppl who are serious in their efforts to be professional athletes have fitness sessions only on the weekends. It is only after a certain age (prob 15 or 16 if lucky), that they concentrate on improving fitness on a day to day basis. This is not enough….

Even in Indian hockey..in this world cup..india always took the lead but lost four matches in the last five or ten minutes… This is a serious problem and in cricket you really cannot tell if the player is tired..because if he is, he can still defend the ball and be happy..If he was fit..it would be another story. In kaula Lumpur..the poor boys in blue could not take the heat there and it was very evident… standing even in an hour of soaring temperatures can sap the life out of you..If you are not fit..no point!!!

The pitch there played the same during both innings..but there was a distinct difference in batting after the indians had fielded all day and then went to bat during the second innings!!!..why?? Pressure? i dont think so!

During the Chappel-Ganguly wars..just read some of the articles..Ganguly opposed Chappel cuz he could not take some of the tough training sessions..Chappel was bemused cuz he thought those training sessions were elementary..! Now you know why the Aussies are kicking serious ass!

Some Indian players look like they need Liposuction!..well cant blame them man…some of them probably had parents like some of us..he he..go to school..read books..do homework..what play??????? be a scientist!!!!! excercise?? who are you??? jakie Chan>????

Well as far as indian mentality is concerned..If parents did push their kids to fitness at an early age..chances are that the kid would bunk it anyway in typical rebellious fashion and go to CSI hostel ground and drink beer on the sly..Catch 22!

Original post and don’t forget to read the comments.

February 27th 2008

The Bangalore Chows Go To Chennai

by Anwin in Chows, Friends, Humor, Pics, Trip     tags: ,       6 Comments

All great things start from a small idea. I think something like that is a saying or a maxim or whatever. But we, the Chows, believe that all fun things stem from a whim or a trip that is unplanned.

So Anoop, Karthik, S, Nafisa and I got into Anoop’s trusted Knight Rider at about 4:30 in the morning and we were off. It all started a couple of days before that when Renie asked if we would like to drive down to Chennai. And of course, Anoop said yes and then informed me. Hehehehe. That’s how it works you see.

We were all so happy and excited that we forgot about the turn at Krishnagiri and went straight towards Salem. We realized the mistake after 45 kms and then we had to turn back. About an hour or so was lost. We felt a little bad since we were actually making very good time at a steady speed, thanks to Shell’s Super Petrol.

Once we reached Chennai and Renie’s house, the sea, we relaxed (you know what) and contemplated what to do in the evening. We, the chows, and Nafisa were ready for anything. But apparently S had come down with some grand plans of clubbing and night life of Chennai. So she wanted to go to Temple Bay. No amount of coaxing for a relaxed evening convinced her. Since she was the new one in the group (at least for Renie), we decided to go. After a brief sleep and rest we took off in the evening towards East Coast Road.

Temple bay was seriously good though. It was a peaceful environment by the beach with subdued lightning. I am sure we got cursed by all and sundry for making a lot of noise. One sample pic below.

Temple bay, Chennai

Then we went back to Renie’s place for some quiet time of “memory game”. I won’t go into details too much except for the facts that S got conned into not sleeping early (as usual of course, we are really good at this) and that I started snoring in the wee hours that everyone went to sleep.

The next day we went to Kafeoke, a Karaoke coffee bar, by the beach side. We had loads of fun there singing to a lot of memorable songs. Anoop started off with Call Me, by Blondie. We literally scared a lot of people who were there. Then I sang Cocaine by Eric Clapton and got the highest point for the evening – fifty something. My bro, Edin, did a couple of songs – Crazy from Aerosmith and Light my fire from Doors. The girls did an awesome song from some Hindi movie which was quite entertaining. Below pic is when we finished with a song on the house, with a photoshoot by a photographer for a local weekly newspaper.
Karaoke from the Chows And then, I bombed trying to sing Creep by Radiohead. It was so bad that Nafisa

  • tried to pull the mic from my hand
  • then hesitated because I refused
  • then she laughed at me
  • then she hid her face from me
  • and then she pretended to sleep and not hear me sing

The whole sequence can be found at the below gif. The pictures where taken by the damned fellow Renie and me being good humored created a animated gif out of them.
Anwin doing a karaoke

And then it was time for all of us to leave. So we were back Sunday night at our respective places. Thanks Renie for a wonderful time! Remember, that was not an invasion but the start of a series of raids. Hehehehe!

February 4th 2008

Iron Maiden In India 2008 – They Played, They Rocked Again

by Anwin in Chows, Concert, Cool Stuff, India, Iron Maiden, Music     tags: , , , , , ,       2 Comments
[digg=http://digg.com/music/Iron_Maiden_Rocked_India_again_2008

Almost a year ago I was one of the most fortunates to watch Iron Maiden in full concert in Bangalore.

I just can’t believe that its been less than a year and Iron Maiden came to India again! Wow! And to top it all, they started their Somewhere Back in Time World Tour 2008 with India as the first concert. Amazing. Thanks guys. You guys seriously made mine and my friends and so many other fans in India happy.

The concert was simply brilliant. I have too many words describe the experience. Some of the songs I best liked were Clairvoyant, Revelations, The Trooper, Heaven can wait and Moonchild. Mind you, these were songs that I didn’t expect them to play. So it was f’ing amazing when they played these songs out of the blue. I went berserk. And all the “Scream for me India” and “Scream for me Mumbai”. Oh boy, what a voice Bruce Dickinson has. Jeez!

So we were six for this concert when we were double for the concert last year. From the core Chows it was just Anoop and I. We missed the others, especially Renie and Naveen who could not make it to Mumbai.

Some pics taken at the Mumbai concert, courtesy Maiden Norway. They’ve even got a video of Eddie :) .

And when Eddie came on stage I almost cried.

That is Eddie playing the guitar with a little bit of help from Janick Gers.

The playlist was amazing with their 80′s songs. The songs I used to love when I was back in School. Ah, talk about bliss!

01. Intro – Churchill’s Speech
02. Aces High
03. 2 Minutes to Midnight
04. Revelations
05. The Trooper
06. Wasted Years
07. The Number of the Beast
08. Run to the Hills
09. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
10. Powerslave
11. Heaven Can Wait
12. Can I Play With Madness?
13. Fear of the Dark
14. Iron Maiden
—————————–
15. Moonchild
16. The Clairvoyant
17. Hallowed Be Thy Name

That was 1 hr and 45 mins of pure adrenaline. And best of all, how many of you can say that you were in a Heavy Metal concert and were able to see and participate in a mosh pit huh? We can, buddies, we can. Unwilling participants, yes, but still, we were there. YEAH!!!

Ask me or Anoop for more awesome details. Hehehe…

October 8th 2007

The Great Indian Octoberfest 2007

by Anwin in Bangalore, Chows, Concert, Friends, India, Music     tags: , , ,       3 Comments

Dear Diary,

As usual we as the 404 Sapthagiri gang went out and partied last weekend to the fullest. Where else can we party when the biggest party in recent times was happening at Palace Grounds, Bangalore, just like the past two years – The Great Indian Octoberfest organized by KingFisher. Unfortunately, some key members (Naveen and Abhi) could not turn up for the party. But we went and enjoyed for all of us and all the guys we missed.

To tell a short story long, oops. Let me start again. To tell a long story short we were a bit tired what with playing cricket that morning for about four hours or so after a long break of inactivity. However, our enthusiasm was never stained with aches and pains. So we reached around 8 PM to the sounds of Deep Purple’s Highway Star being played on the Rock Show stage. Aum the band was doing a great job of the song with the lead singer jumping around topless and the lead guitarist playing the lead pieces quite quite well indeed. You can watch their video at YouTube too. What a perfect start for the evening.

And then some band was playing metal to the likes of Mudvayne, SOAD, Slipknot, etc. Not too bad. But the vocalist was not doing a great job. Maybe he just had a sore throat and having a bad voice day.

And then came in David Pascal, the Chennai based singer, with his band (I guess). And that was heaven. I tell you, you have to be there to appreciate his voice. They just set the stage on fire with their music. The songs the played were the likes of Sting (Message in a bottle), Oasis (Wonderwall), RHCP (Aeroplane), Bryan Adams (18 till I die), etc. It was a great pleasure watching them sing and perform on stage. All accomplished musicians by the way they played and sounded. And, David Pascal, just sang away to glory and had the crowd mesmerized with quality vocals.

And then some DJ from UAE came on stage and practically set the whole grounds on fire with Dance music. It was one huge Disco. People gyrating and dancing all over the grounds. Lasted for more than an hour and a half by which time we left.

Pros:

  • Vijay Mallya rocks and he knows how to organize parties. All hail to the king of good times
  • The event was organized well with the beer flowing
  • The food stalls were really good. Lots of tasty food
  • Even the urinals were better than last time

Cons:

  • The front stage audience jumping onto the stage for a minute under the limelights. It really cheesed some musicians and most of us to see them going wild when the musicians were on stage.

Until next time, dear diary!

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August 30th 2007

Paintball

by Anwin in Chows, Flickr, Friends, Games, Pics     tags:       No Comment

Dear diary,

My long time ambition came true last Sunday. To play paintball!!!

Read more at Naveen’s blog.

The reason I didn’t blog was that I was waiting for the pictures from Renie’s camera. A sample pic below.

He he he. That is me!!! More awesome pictures at Naveen’s flickr Paintball set.

We all enjoyed it a lot(Siva, Naveen, Anoop, Karthik, Pochi, Renie, Sanjeeb, Nafisa, Jackie and Martin. Martin was the Rambo and he single handedly paved way for victory two out of three games. And the fourth game, which was last man standing, he won. Of course!!!

Until next time, dear diary.