non sequitur

The Wit and Wisdom of Sidhu

The IPL 2011 has ended and Navjot Singh Sidhu was present on the expert panel on Extra Innings on almost all the matches played on weekends and a few matches on weekdays. I tried to capture some of the wit and wisdom of Sidhu, popularly known as Sidhuisms, over the last few weeks whenever I could manage to catch him hyperventilating. I shall now dive directly into them:

Fear multiplies faster than rabbits.
The biggest room is the room for improvement.
50 in this game! As elusive as Scarlet Pimpernel.
Men of power are feared. Men of genius are admired. Men of character are respected.
You are not rewarded for having brains; you are rewarded for using them.
A bad day never makes a good night.
There is no better exercise to the heart than bending down and lifting people.
There is no such thing as ladder for success in this game. It is a greased pole.
There's nothing going for the Kings Eleven Punjab in the last 3 years. Even if they bought ducks from the market they would have drowned.
A brave man will fall but he will never yield.
If you are not part of the solution you are part of the precipitate.
Hope is bigger than the Pope.
Grace will last and beauty will blast.
Great engines run on small parts.
If the fox runs, the chicken has wings, my friend.
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Sleep and you snore alone.
One man with courage makes the majority.
There are two things beyond your control, my friend - the weather and your wife.
There cannot be any fruit without root.
Better to wear-out than rust.
Strike when the iron is hot. Make the iron hot by striking it hard.
A lost inch of gold can be found, a lost inch of time can't.
God will forgive your sins; your nervous system won't.
Tendulkar - a modest captain with a lot to be modest about.

I shamelessly admit that I admire his quips and I watched the Extra Innings for Sidhu's irrelevant and irreverent quotable quotes more often than the inconsequential matches themselves. If you have noticed any, do feel free to add them here for my amusement. Thank You.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm! Amen.”
-George Costanza, Seinfeld.

Holmes comes Home

Starting 12th December - today - History Channel is airing the 'Sherlock Holmes' series featuring Jeremy Brett every Tuesday at 9 PM. Jeremy Brett is supposed to have given the definitive portrayal of the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - arguably the most famous detective in all literature. He has breathed life into the character, walked out of the pages of the book and all that sort of thing and here comes your opportunity to catch up with one of the most famous TV series of all time.

You can take a horse to the water but you cant make it drink, so goes the old adage; drawing your attention is what I can do, if you are interested in acquainting yourself with the best in business, you will take time to watch it. Do try.

I fart in the general direction...

Aping Hollywood has been something our Indian film industry has been doing since as long as I can remember. Rediff.com has now come up with a very inventive phrase to describe the Abhishek Bhachan - Aishwarya Rai relationship. This is what they have got to say...

The phenomenon has captured front-page imagination across the country, dominating news channel and keeping tongues wagging, and the buildup is too enormous to be ignored. Therefore, in the tradition of Brangelina and TomKat, we at rediff.com decided to christen these two superstars Abhiwariya.

I said goddamn, goddamn!! Abhiwarya, it seems. I tell you, how down-market. The word sounds like something out of a medieval drama. I would rather call it "Asshake". Sounds cool and contemporary, you know.

Next...

Saturday morning i woke up to catch up with the Ashes series on TV and this is what I see being reported in CNN-IBN. I am not much of a TV watcher and what I saw definitely indicated that I was not missing much.

England follow on after they are all out for 157 in 1st Innings.

No, i am not lying. I took a picture promptly for proof, you know.

I change the channel to ESPN and is see that Australia is all set to pile on misery on the English bowlers in it's second innings.

In their hurry to report news first, they forget that the Australian captain might choose to bat or they might have thought that the only possible thing is forcing a follow on.

Last heard of, this particular channel was handed out "The best English News channel in India" award. The best English News channel, forsooth!!!

Next...

If Levi's says 'Since 1853' it is understandable or if Raymond's says 'Since 1925' it is meaningful or say, I tell 'Arvind - Since 1976', it is okay. I can give more examples but that would amount to beating around the bush. There is a restaurant in Bangalore named Biryani Merchant which says 'Since 2004'. Come on, be reasonable. The fellow serves some good Biryanis and all that, alright. But, isn't 'Since 2004' going a bit too far? I ask you. Isn't it going a bit too far? If this is not confidence, then what is?

Oh!! by the way, was I using the present tense in my previous paragraph? Sorry. I stand corrected. There was a restaurant in Bangalore named Biryani Merchant which says 'Since 2004'. The fellow served some good Biryanis and all that...

On his website the fellow says that he hopes to be back sometime in the future. A small piece of advice; unsolicited, of course. He will do better in his next innings if her takes note of the old adage that says something about counting chickens before they are hatched.

RIP.