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Indian Wins Twenty20 World Cup Amazing team performance, and great grit and determination won India the inaugural Twenty20 world cup. It was great joy following all the games of the tournament. A moment to cherish a lifetime for many. India defeated Pakistan twice... India defeated South Africa(the favorites to reach final) India defeated Australia(who played with the full team) India defeated England(hot favorite, since they discovered and played lots of Twenty20 games). Related Stories India Day Central Pa(Aug 19, 2007) I am currently involved in developing a community site (http://www.indiaday-centralpa.com). The site gives information about the event we would be organising on Aug 19, 2007 at harrisburg, PA. The site also has information and details about india and the indian community in general at central pennsylvania. A R Rahman Concert (Washington DC, 17June, 2007)
It was 1992 when roja came, and my elder brother bought the audio cassette of it. It was the time of audio cassette and cd's were not in the vicinity. He used to play it all the time, and it would piss me like anything. I was a huge RD Burman and Laxmikant Pyarelal music fan. Infact, i use to love laxmikant music like anything, now my opinions differ a lot. Anyway, i wasn’t hooked to Roja songs, maybe of all the songs i only loved "Yeh haseen wadiyan" and it took me more than 6 months of listening that i developed rahman's music sense, still i didn’t go gaga over it.
So when another ratnam movie "Bombay" was coming with its controversies attached. They used to show a micro clip of "Kehna hai kya" song and the theme music as well. Well the trailer was so abrupt and so nicely cut it increased the curiosity of the music and the movie. I could not resist but go on the first day buy the audio cassette. And god the music was simply irresistible. It was so mellifluous, i could not listen anything else. And now i knew, i am a big Rahman's music sucker. I needed more of his music. Saw Bombay movie first day first show among news that the theater can be closed because of the tension in the movie. The movie was provocative, the background score ufffffffffff haven’t heard anything better as yet. I started hunting for Bombay background music, still no clue where to find that.
Anyway the addiction just started, and god can i listen to anyone else any Laxmikant music (EGADDD NOOOOOOO NEVERRRRRRRRR).Can i listen to anyone else maybe never........ I am done, i am hooked..... Soon Rangeela , Dil se followed and it was like an encore, further validating my new fad for Rahman's music. Soon i bought off any music which was made by Rahman, even movies like "Priyanka" and "Lovebirds" and so many others. And the fad continues..................with "Yuva" and "Rang de basanti" and "Guru" it further solidifies my blind faith in his music. Even a Tamil version of "Sivaji" has an incredible score. I hardly understand a word in the whole song or the album, but the music and the song are worth listening over and over and over again............The more you listen the better it becomes.......
I use to always dream of going to Rahman's concert and watch and listen him create music. So when i heard last year he came to Cincinnati, Ohio, and i missed him by a couple of days, i was pissed like anything. So i was always on the lookout for Rahman show in the east shore and was willing to travel miles for it. The moment i saw a concert in Washington DC this year, i had to go. So i bought the tickets in one go, convinced my wife that it was worth going for. And voila the day reached, and i had loads of anticipation of hearing him and watching him create magic on stage.
Well first it was hard to believe that all these last 15 years i listened to and crooned to every song, and he is singing in front of us. And the show was par excellent. It was the best concert i have ever attended. I haven’t attended much, but the ones i have seen in TV, this has to be the best. Although Madonna show would be the ultimate show(my dream show). Every one was in good spirits, some of the songs were in Tamil mostly sivaji songs, and god even they were hit with the crowd. I was thrilled to no length and good to see my wife enjoying the whole atmosphere(although the ice cream also helped set the mood for her). And in comes hariharan with his happy rendition of sivaji song, followed by high tempo song of rang de basanti followed by my favorite singer Sukhwinder singh, the guy is so talented and so underutilized.
Rahman gives sukhwinder singh some of the best songs. The "Aayo re" song from "Water" is so tough to sing and he sings it with such ease. He also has sang some of the best songs from Meenaxi, the music of that movie was awesome( i liked the movie as well). And then came the solo jamming by Sivamani, and the way he enthralled everyone. He brought the crowd in, the crowd participated in every thing they were jiving. The whole show ended in such a high note, the last three songs, Mayya mayya, Rang de basanti title song, vande mataram put a perfect end to the greatest show ever. Everyone was thrilled, excited and it was fun..............................The best part was watching the show with my wife, which I always wanted. She was so happy and thrilled as well, I hopefully have converted her to listen to rahman's song all the time playing in my car, and finally she has given up, and maybe she too has got hooked to some sivaji songs.....................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chicago Trip(Memorial Day, April 27, 2007) Well the 11 hours drive to chicago was fun, taken on memorial day, 2007. This was the first solo drive in so many years for 660 miles one side. I wasnt sure about my stamina and how my wife would cope up with travel fatigue. So we took it slow. I started early on friday morning 7:35am to be precise, made some good decisions, bought an ice box, and some home cooked food, reached pittsburgh by 10am, took a break on the outskirts of pittsburgh. And again we leave after spending around 15-20 minutes to Ohio. Ohio was once my most favored destination, and a great desire to go there. But, not anymore, it was fun touching ohio by 12pm and I was making good time, and we were in good spirits. The mp3 player hardly had 55 songs, and each was run and exhausted by now. My wife's phone has more than 200 songs, and I had to hook that by now. I never knew I would run out of songs so fast. Rahman saved it by giving some new tunes in "Rang de basanti" and the more you listen the better it becomes everytime. The ohio stretch was long, montonous, often lonely, and we again took a break around 1pm at a travel center(i think rt 80 is interspersed with these food joints). The food was so so(Hardee's chicken sandwich), chicken never tastes bad, so I was pretty okay. My wife had trouble eating food, she ate her home made noodles(obviously her fav food). All the while we were fuming about gas prices @ 3.09 per gallon at PA, in Ohio it was 3.54 per gallon, and now we were realising, hey it was cheap out there. The stretch from that travel center to the border of indiana was another 3 hours. We stopped at a subway(the preferred place, because of some vegetarian options). The place was literally in the border of Ohio and Indiana. The landscape was changing, and Indiana is an agricultural paradise, you can see that. Well there were huge machines with lines drawn in the field, never understood what it was, or what it was being used for. Looking for some help there...... So far so good, the ride was smooth, we made it a point to steer away from arguments(its really hard). And we were happily jostling towards Chicago. We were pretty successful doing that. I love the clause "only super hero couples fight once in 16 years (from Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd)". Indiana is beautiful, i wish they had some roadway overlooking the lakes, maybe they had, we didnt have a clue. And around midway Indiana, we got a hour bonus in time, the central time came into play. So we were quite happily chatting with my sister and brother in law who were also on their way to chicago. Theirs was 9 and half hours drive ours was 10 and half hours. So everything went fine, the trip was unbelieveable not tiring, my wife was in good spirits and ever excited as i was to meet my sister and brother in law and to see chicago. Here comes chicago, the skyline was great but not wow like nyc, still it was beautiful. Lake michigan resembled a sea more less of a lake. It was huge, clear water lake. And seeing the skyscrapers, in all this excitement missed the I-290E exit to the airport, where our hotel was. Well thankfully was able to realise in another 10 minutes only and didnt cause us much trouble. My strategy was to keep resetting the milometer Trip B every now and then whenever a big milestone has been reached from google map. And that helped greatly knowing that I was in a wrong path, made a about turn soon, and finally found that road. So our vow to keep our arguments at bay, finally gave way. And there was some tiff regarding missing the exit, but thats understandable. And now we were in the vicinity of the hotel. Double tree @ wood Dale was a beautiful hotel and with a free wifi internet facility. Although it was 24 miles away from downtown, but it was ideal for a stay, overlooking the flights reaching to O'hare airport. I love airplanes and so does my nephew. He enjoys the sights of the airplanes. So finally we reached chicago at 8:30pm a good 12 hours journey. I was estatic and didnt feel much, maybe the weather was pretty nice all through, it even rained briefly in ohio......................
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