Think again if you say you've seen an 'insane' tennis match...

How many adjectives do you know to praise or appreciate something? You think you can manage with them for 5 hours and 14 minutes? That’s 314 minutes! What am I saying, you ask? Well, that was how even the commentators felt witnessing the Australian Open semi-final match between Rafael Nadal and fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco.
5 hours and 14 minutes of tennis at a feverish pace! I bet I can’t even play carom for that long. But this match, it seemed that the two players were on drugs or were being run on batteries. Neither of the two was willing to let go of the tempo of the game. Of course, I don’t expect that to happen, but at least, after a couple of sets, the pace should have slowed down. Not to be, in this match. Every point in the game was a war being fought. Verdasco’s scorching serves, Nadal’s relentless return of shots, the player’s stamina and strength was just too much to ask for from a tennis match. Nadal being the top seeded player, hadn’t dropped even a set till this match, such was his form. Verdasco, ranked 14th, was a surprise element of the championship. Enroute to the semis, he had got the better of 4th seed Andy Murray and 5th seed Tsonga. Interestingly, the first set lasted more than what Nadal had taken to wrap up his first match. Eventually, the match ended in Nadal’s favour 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4. The commentator Alan Wilkins, rightly said, “The great pity of the match is there has to be a loser.”
I remember writing after the 2008 Wimbledon match between Federer and Nadal. This match had all the qualities to match up to that reputation. Once again, this grand slam final is between the same two phenomenal athletes, Federer and Nadal. This final too, could be a ripper of a clash. Definitely, don’t miss the action, sure you’ll regret if you do.
Do check out this video, it is not an exaggeration if I say most part of the match was like this...
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=FDeboVmambo

Under Construction

Been travelling around Bangalore a lot lately. Don’t ask why, festivals bring not only the delicacies and the mouth watering menus with them, sadly! Sankranthi is one festival I both love and dread at the same time. Love of course for all those specials I get to feast upon. Moreover, I love to assist my mom in making “sakre achchu”. Partly I dread this festival as I have to take up some girly things like the distribution of “ellu bella”. Well, I don’t do that in fact. I just drive around with my mom and she does most of the distribution work. This is not entirely boring as I get to visit a fair lot of houses, which I love doing.

Back to what I was intending to say; travelling around Bangalore. It was not an entirely heartening feeling, considering all the “under-construction” boards. Displays like “Go, slow work under progress” (err… sorry for the mis-placed comma. But it sounds correct) were so prominent, it made driving a very tiring experience. There are fly-overs, underpasses, elevated roads and what not. Oh yeah, namma metro… With these entire projects under way all at the same time, where are we supposed to travel? The detours and the diversions are not good enough to handle the amount of traffic. Well, travelling in Bangalore was an awful experience.

But what’s the point in me writing about this? There is none. All I did was to travel for a couple of days and that’s it. I walk to college. And there’s nowhere I go other than that (if at all I even go to college). So, this entire post is waste, as all other posts are. But thanks anyway for your time.

With all the trash I’ve written about roads being dug up, I am compelled to write about the “good” roads too. Come sometime to where I am, you’ll get to see roads freshly tarred and de-marked. Not only roads near my house, I found a lot of them being re-laid, fresh. There are new medians on prime roads as well. So, for all those who were complaining about the city’s infrastructure, be prepared for a turnaround…

Hi again

This surely is a better way to evaporate my internet bandwidth, blogging. It has been almost 2 months since I last wrote. Thanks to the ever agonizing exams. Talking about the exams, I have to say, they – as usual, perhaps – didn’t go well. And I’ve become accustomed not doing well in these exams. Hope all you guys have done a good job.

Leaving out the examination trash, I hope you all had a great New Year bash (be it for the exams that ended on the eve or for the New Year itself). So, here I am, almost a fortnight after the day, wishing you a great year. To make up for the delay, wish you a happy Sankranthi well in advance…

What kept me busy: Part 1, Books

Some pretty good things I am into this vacation. One of them, getting into one of my favorite pastime, reading. Before you jump into any conclusions, I’ll get that straight. Novels. The latest one, Stephanie Meyer’s much hyped “Twilight”. I guess you’ve heard about the movie of the same name released just a couple of months ago…

When the author describes the characters, it’s more than essential to get into the descriptions and picture them for yourself. For me, this is the most quintessential part in reading the novel (of course, next to the story). The problem was, I had watched the movie’s trailer even before I had laid my hands on the book itself. So, whatever the descriptions, I could only think about the actors who acted in the movie. But strangely, the there was a stark difference in the descriptions and the actors…

Coming to the book: The story is about vampires. One of the vampires, Edward falls for Bella. The girl too, falls in love with him, not being sure about what he is, a superhuman perhaps. She gets her doubts cleared and yet, she isn’t afraid to be with him. Even when she knows they drink blood to survive, she hangs around.

The story grows, slowly though. I feel the whole genre, vampires, is pretty dull. Add to that a slow moving love story, it becomes even duller. The whole book is a buildup. It is centered on the two main characters, Edward and Bella. The author takes great care to accentuate the chemistry between them. But ironically, it starts to get on your nerves. But the novel has its strong points, which makes the book a good read. The story is basically a narration from the leading lady’s point of view. The recital is witty. The conversations don’t run dry. There’s humor in every conversation which makes it a good page turner. There are not too many facts, as in a murder mystery. So, it is a light read. All you need to do is to enjoy the scenario…

If you get a chance to get hold of a copy of this, do find the time and read once. Even if you end up not liking, you would have enjoyed while reading. After reading the book, I just watched the trailer. As a matter of fact, the movie doesn’t seem nice. It’s a difficult adaptation though. Guess I’ll wait sometime for the movie…

What kept me busy: Part 2, Movies

Come vacations, the one thing I’m very good at is watching movies. This vacation is no different than the others. I had a few movies lined up to watch. Here are some of them I watched and how I felt:

The Dark Knight: Probably the 4^th or the 5^th time. And guess what, I have plans to see it again. This can never bore me. Be it for the story, or for the sheer dimension of the movie, or for the Joker. The most sinister movie I’ve ever seen till date.

Rating: 5 on 5

Die Hard: Pretty old. It’s one of those movies just for the main lead. This is for Bruce Wills, the hero. Fairly simple plot. Hero and heroine are facing a trouble in their relationship. Hero is a cop; heroine is employed in a higher post in a good company. The company is held under siege when our hero is within the building. Then on, the movie is about how the hero saves the day for the rest of the trapped. Good movie though

Rating: 4 on 5

Collateral: Another good movie I caught up with. Story is centered on Jamie Foxx, the dutiful and ambitious cab driver and Tom Cruise, a deadly assassin. Cruise steps into Foxx’s cab and hunts his targets. Good acting and a bit different storyline makes the movie a good time pass.

Rating: 4 on 5

Transporter 3: One of the rare movies I can go on saying was bad. Watching it in theatre didn’t help. The stunts were given no importance. The heroine looked worse than ugly. The saving grace was Jason Statham. Well, how often do you get to hear that, I kept looking at the hero instead of the heroine (Stop your thoughts there)

Rating: 1.5 on 5

The Departed: This is the 2^nd time I tried. The first time, I was bored and had stopped in just the early 15 minutes. This time, though, I found the complete reversal of my feelings. It was a great movie, exciting story and a superb star cast. One piece of advice, try to differentiate between Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg. All of the three seemed alike to me initially.

Rating: 4.5 on 5

Donnie Darko: I have to admit, this falls into the category of The Matrix and Memento. These movies have made me to think and do some ‘after watching research’. The story is so complex, so very different and so tough to get to know about the characters that you spend a lot more time after the movie wondering. I can’t write any more, because I don’t know. But I ask you guys to help me with this movie. Well, it’s about time travel, for you to get started…

Rating: !@#$% on 5 (How much do you rate a movie you don’t understand?)