Poineers, cell phones, comments and a virgin tour

• It’s funny that, just this morning, I read this (link via Wendy Seltzer via BoingBoing) line – Our downtown hotel was packed.....post-bloggers (blogs are so 2002!)........ And then when I took a break from whatever it is I do everyday to get a break, I came across Kiruba’s post about his “retirement”. He has his reasons. But his absence will be felt since through his blog, I have discovered facets to Chennai that seemed to have morphed out of nowhere during my period of absence. Adios dude. I still am sad that I could’nt make it to the first ever Chennai bloggers meet that you invited me for, back in 2003 when this blog was still in its early days.

• Earlier, in Chennai, the item of choice use to be thaalis, perhaps leading to one origin of the colloquial thaali aruthuduven threat. Now it seems to be cell phones…

• Is it just me or is anybody else feeling that Blogger’s commenting system is slower than Haloscan’s system, both from the main pages and the archived post pages?

• A friend forwarded a link to a video clip – an excerpt from TV coverage of the recently concluded cricket series between India and Pakistan. The 1:53 long clip shows part of an over bowled by Arshad Khan to Sehwag and Dravid (and a minute odd break after), with India’s score at 121. It starts with the image of a teenage girl (face resplendent with a painted tricolor, sans the Ashok Chakra) holding a small placard to her chest with the words “Zaheer” and “I” + bright red heart + “you”. The footage comes on the Jumbotron and the gal self-consciously covers her face with the placard and then giggles with one hand nervously rubbing her face. The over ends in the meantime and the footage changes to show the dressing room with Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj watching the action. It is apparent that they have noticed the placard waving gal and someone (Wright?) proceeds to talk to Zaheer as he walks past. Now Zaheer and Co. are on the Jumbotron and a huge roar goes up with Zaheer himself giggling and pointing as if to ask the cameraman to concentrate on the on-field action. It’s obvious that Pathan and Yuvraj are ribbing Zaheer. Yuvraj actually holds Zaheer’s chin up, as if to show him off to the camera. Yuvraj then holds Zaheer’s hands up and the Jumbotron seems to alternate between Zaheer and the gal (the gal totally giggly at this point). The gal decides to blow a few kisses to Zaheer (obviously at the egging of her friends). But she is now self concious and you can read her lips saying “That’s it, now stop”. But stop, it doesn’t. Zaheer promptly returns the favor (shades of Machiavelli in Yuvraj?). The crowd roars again and this time, you see Sehwag grinning. It does not stop at that. Before the next over can start, the Jumbotron shows a still of both the smiling protagonists in a split screen and the crowd roars again. All the while, you hear the commentary in the background with Ravi Shastri (?) going on and on about how the crowd is enjoying it.

On a lighter note, after watching last year's series in Pakistan, I commented that one of the losses of Partition was the beautiful gals who seemed to frequent the cricket grounds in Pakistan. So, I enjoyed this clip too. Seriously speaking, however, this clip could have easily become an argument against the Jumbotron. I am certainly happy that Sehwag did not enjoy it too much to lose his concentration. He did go on to score a double hunndred. Hmmm, I am wishing now that I could see how Dravid reacted to the footage.

P.S: Are you wondering about the term "virgin tour" in the title? The term is sometimes used to refer to the continous stream of random beautiful women/gals that videographers linger on (usually without their knowledge) in the audience at events that they record for posterity. Hell, is Public Voyeurism a oxymoronic expression?