More »
I was thoroughly domesticated when the phone rang. So domesticated that it had to take a missed call and a friendly fire before I could call back.
It was a number I didn’t know, it could be another wealth manager who thought I’m one of those wealthy expats who could take care of his wealthy aspirations or it could be one of those Pathan sounding prophets who was going to deliver the message that would change my life, these Pathan’s are our friendly neighbourhood Nigerian attorney would who call us to say that we have won and how we claim !!
As another hungry executive who is after new business I decided to take a risk, call the number back.
Hey, Raja it is Gaurav… NC
That was how the other end sounded, familiar finally.
So where do we meet ? Krossroads in Bur Dubai, said the voice.
I’ve always been a pampered kid, I have been fortunate enough not to have seen crossroads till date. So, where is it, I asked ?
The answer puzzled me, this hotel was a well known pick-up place in town. It is match fixing I thought, this guy NC is trying to fix a match, either a Chinese or a Russian. I felt like I had just pressed the "I'm feeling lucky" button on google.
This dream and expectation was squashed with his next word, my wife, my cousin & his wife are joining us.
So I landed up in Krossroads, crossroads of a Chinese & Russian abundance. And I met Gaurav Sethi, his lovely & lively wife Vandana and his cousins. It wasn’t a purely cricket meeting, but for the Champions League semifinals there wouldn’t have been a common cricket thread.
But still, even before I knew Gaurav and his inner circle we managed to speak about the recently concluded Irani Trophy, the 2010 Ranji season (TN vs Delhi), the fast bowlers in India and their mind set, injuries to the players and the boards reaction to that, Gayle’s batting, draft beer, Stella’s, Kalyani's and much more.
It got better when I got to speak to the family. Crazy they are as our community is named. The wife is someone who was awake and watched full matches in ’83, the Prudential times. The cousin is a guy who finds fault with the way Gayle cocks-up and delivers his deadly blows and his wife, someone who grew-up loving Gavaskar.
Man, that is too Naked a Cricket family his is… And to top it all off, this ladies sister is a Kapil Dev fan and they had friendly fires in the family as to who’s great !!
Man, I got to know how Naked Cricket love or craziness can get… I never knew I can get so close to the flesh of cricket.
God Bless Naked Cricket and his lovely wife Vandu !!
It was a pleasure meeting them in home conditions. Now I await a return series !!
A Bored Meeting, in a long time...
Watching cricket from the womb.
Driving past JNS yesterday, the chat swerved towards the first India South Africa ODI played there, some million years’ ago. The young apprentice, Bored Member Mahek, rambled off numbers and figures like his first name was Clive, and his second, Rice. He informed me how 287 was a good score but India was doomed when both Shastri and Manjrekar tonked tons. Yeah, yeah, I nodded. That was one of the few one-dayers I watched, and was doomed to remember, but how the hell did Mahek? Could it be because it was played on 14th November, Nehru’s birthday (Childrens’ Day) – and Mahek, as a child, or even before, was being given a rare treat – ok, beta, sit in front of the TV for 7 hours today!
Across the 4 hours that our Bored Meeting lasted, Mahek consumed chicken with great gusto, and spouted cricket trivia with aplomb. He even spotted an infantile cricket fan in a Delhi Daredevils’ jersey.
And what about the other Delhi Bored Members – SP was business lunching, K was golfing in Bangalore, AEL on his extended honeymoon, while Som was rioting at his new office.
Bored Art
Bored member Namya was in Delhi on football duties. We had a bored meeting in a chauffeur driven City, picked a painting, packed a pizza and close to two hours in an art gallery. Chances are this will spawn a new series on cricket art.
The Bored Chennai meet
Well, finally the Bored Chennai meet did happen. After months of our bored president throwing the BCC! Slogan* at us on getting the Chennai chapter started, the bored meet did happen, though most of the members were not available.
It was left to K from Delhi who was in town along with me and a friend of mine. We met ahead of schedule at the Residency towers and headed off to “Bike & Barrel” for some mild refreshments and chow.
It is football fever now in Chennai and the TV screens didn't give a hoot about the Ashes. The closest thing to Freddie was a “french fry”. Needless to say, we spoke about cricket, some of our fellow bloggers and other events in our life.
A few hours later, we decided to get going and so we jumped on the suspended Norton 500 along with their fishing net and rode off to St.Thomas Mount to have a panoramic view of the city. Right on top, we thought it would be cool to sandboard down the hill.
One thing led to another and before we knew it, we were right outside Krish Srikanth's house, wondering whether we should wake him up in the middle of the night and pull his mustache out. Fortunately for him, he was out-of-town and so we headed to the beach and amused ourselves digging holes in the sand till the high tide swept us away in the morning back to our workplaces.
K and Scorpicity amusing themselves in the beach.
Oh, well... None to this obviously happened. We had a pleasant time at the residency for the first Bored Chennai meet and hope a lot more fellow bored members meet up the next time, so we can do some of these above things.
Thanks K for coming down.
Yawns from Chennai!
* BCC! Slogan – tere maa ki
Minutes of the Bored Meeting:
Take a peep. The bored meeting was held inside many such bottles.Bored Members Present: Bhaskar Khaund (who flew in from Dubai), K and NC who flew in from Delhi. The Bored meeting was held in Delhi. Two Khufia Bored guests also contributed to the cause.
picture by moi
Bubble Cafe: Where Cronje's bubble burst.
21st June, 2009. Bored Meeting at The Bubble Cafe, Ernakulam. Present: Achettup, Naked Cricket. And once upon a time, Hansie Cronje. According to Achettup, this was the very cafe where the cops busted Hansie. And the chair where I sat was the very chair he sat. Or could have - basically Cronje was big on musical chairs. That sure added an edge to the one-sided T20 game we watched that evening. Or was it the Kingfishers. And yeah, we didn't fall for the Foster's in spite of the 1+1 deal.
Pak Cricket: When we was fab. Q that's for you. Damith, you got Galle.
Would you believe it, this guy wanted to give one of the cricketer's head. That's right, he wanted to sit right in front of the screen, and plonk his head in front of Gul's youknowwhat. When I said, WTF, he said, I don't care for cricket. I had his head evicted.
Indian cricket just don't make them like that.
The pop music sure took the piss
Have you ever watched a World Cup final with a bunch of zombies sing the Everly Brothers and The Moody Blues, while one team's life is on the line? Killing me softly with your song.
Bored in Dubai - LIVE Update 4
This is the one all cricketing world's waiting for : we just ordered more beer - raja assures me we're not broke yet but I suspect our sobriety's seriously broken - 70-3...reaction at this point - hic
Bhaskar Khaund
Sent from Blackberry handheld
Bored in Dubai -LIVE Update
124-4 : Boom Boom finally filled that long overdue room . Well here we r , Raja n I representing BCC! at the BCCP ! Great atmosphere , the beers r going down swell ; our neighbours are having a great time and so are we ! Great meeting Q finally, tho' he is understandably too tense to sit down in peace , he is knocking back his coke standing up, unlike we knocked out Injuns who can now sit back with our beers to actually enjoy a game ...More later
by Bhaskar Khaund
Sent from Blackberry handheld
Drunk Daredevil
A drunk sways past our table, shrieking Mallya’s name in connection with some sorting out. He does his round across the bar, sways back again, declares that the match is fixed, and he knows everything. We nod, encourage some drunk banter, he doesn’t disappoint. He repeats he knows everything. We repeat our nods, and agree he knows everything. He repeats the match is fixed.
Bored meeting at Def Col Club, present: K, SP, NC. While Som is in Jo’burg fulfilling his duties as the Real IPL Player. Earlier in the piece, the club wallahs put up a giant screen for just K and NC. Reckon if SP had arrived earlier, who knows, a second screen? The kebabs like Delhi, were underdone. But then, like Jatman, we selected poorly.
Mini Bored Meeting
Present: Ajoy, SP and NC. Absent: everybody else. It was decided that Ajoy will use his old SRK contacts, pull the KKR cheerleaders ‘Out of Africa’ – and push them into ‘Delhi 6’, to dance for the Delhi Daredevils.
The cheerleaders will perform at an overhyped Vasant Kunj Mall, on any Delhi Daredevil D/N match day, i.e. 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21 (of May), 8 pm onwards, in front of a giant screen that will make us all feel like little Parthiv.
It’s basically an illusion to transport us to South Africa. Think we might fall for it, and be there in the flesh.
Hand-eye coordination
Here’s a nibble from Som’s take on the 3rd Bored Meeting'If Argus had eyes all over his body in Greek mythology, Gaurav had hands all over his. It seemed hundreds of spooky fielders were running around to catch a skier with only their raised arms visible to the eyes.'
For your five course meal, please be seated here.
3rd Bored Meeting
3rd April 2009, Delhi: Bored members, Nikhil, John, Som, SP, NC arrived at the bar only to discover that Ten Sports had long departed.
It was apparently illegal and punishable by law to broadcast Ten Sports at the premises. ESPN however, had a field day.
The manager armed with his remote had disarmed Ten Sports long ago, still he 1) pointed remote at TV 2) Pressed digit code for Ten Sports 3) TV revealed Ten Sports was locked, inaccessible 4) Screen was blank, and so was I. 5) He looked smugly satisfied.
Bored Meeting went off perfectly well without Ponting and KP. Who needs one dayers? Especially when England's winning.
Bored Meeting
In defiance of the terrorist attacks, a Bored meeting was convened at Defence Colony, New Delhi. From here we travelled to New Zealand, Pakistan, and back to India for beverages. Bored Members present: John, Straight Point, Naked Cricket. Rohit Sharma’s future and Raina’s past were discussed among other non-cricketing issues.
bored meets...and how!
by straight point
so finally the day came when BCC! had its first bored meeting...on Wednesday, 5th November 2008...
and what a meeting it turned out to be!
we were so eager to meet and talk talk and just talk cricket that we didn't even realize how the time passed...we met at where else but CP at about 7:30 pm and were sort of forced to move out at 1.00 am!
even the beer and food seemed like a distraction...
i sincerely recommend that if you know the blogger near your location try to meet maan...you will be pleasantly surprised how wonderful the experience can be...it might turn out to be a refreshing relaxer from an otherwise hectic and monotonous routine...
as for the minutes of meeting...
bored member: you know we met yesterday...
bored peon: hmmm...and what you did?
bm: we just talked cricket and cricket...nothing else...
bp: but then what you do on blog?
