Football Fever

Sam was too excited. He could not recollect since when he wished Spain should pick up FIFA 2010. And finally they were just two steps from achieving that. Even the Octopus had predicted in favor of his team. July 7th 2010 arrived, when the Raging Spainiards were going to fight the Firing Germans. From the moment he woke up, he couldn't wait for midnight to come. He kept tweeting about it; his facebook updates were all in support for Spain and he also had comment arguments with his friends.

While at work, however hard he tried to concentrate, the match kept coming back to him and nothing but it were persistent. As soon as the clock struck 6, he jumped out of his seat and rushed home. But, he wondered why it seemed like so fast. He was just driving in that morning and he is already heading home. He hoped that the next six hours would pass in the same manner.

And it did. He setup his mat in front of the TV. He went through all that he needed to settle down. Water Bottle (1 + 1) - Check! Remote - Check! Mobile - Check! Bluetooth Headset - Check! So, he settled down and the whistle was blown.

The game was being technically taken forward by both the teams, considering how much was at stake. Everything was well, until he saw Yuvraj Singh running down the ground. It was really funny. What was Yuvi doing in the ground during the semi-final of a FIFA cup? "What shit security!", he thought. Once Yuvi reached the center of the ground, he turned and smiled at Sam. And without second thought, Yuvi ran towards Sam, broke out of the tv and jumped into Sam's house.

Amidst all the shock, Sam was happy that Yuvi dropped in. He immediately asked, "Who do you think will win today?".

"I'm not gonna tell you", replied Yuvi. "She will", he continued and pointed behind himself, as he stepped aside giving room for Sam to see her. There stood a girl who looked familiar. Sam started googling his brain as to who it was. And it struck him. It was Sakshi Singh Rawat, Dhoni's newly wed. His head throbbed with anger.

He jumped at Yuvi shouting, "Its been only 2 days since Mahi married her and you have brought her here! You Rascal!"

"You talk bad about Yuvi and I will kill you", he heard Sakshi say in a devilish voice. He looked towards her. Shock rushed up through his veins as he saw she had grown long teeth, protruding out, on both sides of her mouth. All of a sudden horns propped up on the top of her head like a bull. He started yelling out of terror. Giving him no time to run, she jumped upon him and both of them crashed on the floor, breaking it and going down, far beneath the house and into the earth.

As you'd have already guessed, Sam woke up with a start. He was trembling. Sweat trickled down his face. He could feel the heat. The match was still on, but he couldn't read the scores as his brains were out of order from the sudden jerk. He felt sick. He could feel the increased body temperature. "Shit!", he exclaimed as he felt his forehead with the back of his palm!

And Sam kept up with his football "FEVER" even though he fell asleep during his most awaited match.

PS:
1) Sorry for missing out the warning (in the beginning) about a mokkai (PJ) coming up.
2) The past few posts have been really intense and the mokkai factor of Chiju Speaks had taken a back seat (as some of my readers felt). So, here I go. Broken the ice, have I?
3) Stupid Sam is this character (imaginary) I've created for Chiju Speaks. Sam and his stupidity will continue.
4) Football fans: Enjoy the real football fever.

All about an (ab)normal day

The silence of the closing in evening was nothing new. The occasional tadattuts of keyboards from the nearby cubicles always gives the working feel. For a roller-coaster ride going on for the past four days, today was an unusually slow day. Lack of sleep or the "feel-good" factor of a fruitless task, I was not sure, it was about lazing through the rest of the day until I have to board the train to Cbe. I prioritized my tasks in such a way that I contributed to the tadattuts once in a while, to reassure the surroundings and myself that I'm awake.

The floor I work, situated on the seventh floor of a nine floor building, is huge enough to accommodate around 120 people. It is a square area distributed with cubicles, with a lean pathway on one corner of the floor, leading to two conference rooms and ending in the back exit. Within the floor, right adjacent to the lean pathway is the restroom and next to it, the pantry. Perpendicular to the pantry are a couple of cubicles that end in the corner diagonally opposite to the lean pathway, and on either side, is fenced with cabins of "Periya Thalais" of the BU. This finally leads to the front exit of the building.

Looking up and around every other minute, I kept telling myself that I have to concentrate. It was like a buzzing in my brain that I so didn't want to accommodate. I figured I'd work on an Einstein Riddle my friend had sent, to get into rhythm. Trust me, there is nothing more effective to come out of boredom - solving solid math/logic problems. As I was about to scan through the list of mails, my teammate came in for some support and the buzzing was back. Unfortunately, duty first (no other go) and I got it done for him.

As he left, my hands reached the headset that lay on top of the CPU and immediately, I let go; It crashed on my desk-phone with a bang. For such a silent environment, the sound was definitely distracting, but to my surprise, no one seemed to have noticed it. The reason was that an even louder wailing sound like a factory siren had masked the headphone crashing. A drilling machine piercing a nearby wall was the first image in my mind to map with that sound. Simultaneously overtook the thought of imagining it (brain buzzing). I did not bother to stand up and look around. My mind was pretty blank, except that I wanted that noise to stop and that too right away.

I'm not able to explain how it happened but out of nowhere, I could reads the words "Carlton Towers" in my head. In a split second, the wailing seemed to make sense.

I did not need second opinion that it was a fire alarm. I could see lots of things happening in the next few seconds. My reflexes began to overtake my presence of mind. I stood up and saw half a dozen score of pale, terrified faces looking towards the lean pathway. None of them had started to react though. It does take some time to take in something out of the way in an issue filled IT day. The ERT (Emergency Response Team) plunged into quick action. I saw a couple of them pull out their ERT caps from their desks and put it on. One of them rushed towards the restrooms and pantry while the other went into cabin after cabin. The evacuation process had started.

I locked my system immediately and started towards the front exit. I walked quick without acknowledging any known colleague I met on the way. I could see people rushing towards and away from me. A couple of them were heading to the exits with their laptops. I reached the exit pretty soon. No one dared to use the lift, I noted. I turned back into the floor to check on any familiar people. A force of guilt rushed. I hadn't bothered to check on anyone. As I peeped into the floor again, I saw that it was pretty much empty already.

I turned again and started down the stairs. After a couple of failed attempts, I slowed down. The rush of people made it difficult to be fast. It was surprising that I saw no panic amongst the people around me. In fact, I heard one guy inquire with another if he had a D-Link Modem reserved for use. Few guys were cracking jokes and laughing their way down. Well, can't blame them, for, one joke was so damn funny and my lips twitched close to smiling. Floor by floor down, the number of people increased and finally, I was down in the ground floor. I quickly walked down the flight of stairs to the road and looked up at the building. I saw it.

It was a tinge of orange-red and a mix of black. None of the windows were open. The bright sun of the late afternoon added to the refraction effect. It was of no use. I was helpless. Lots and lots of people were still walking out of the exit. Few were talking on their mobiles, few keeping a look behind and few holding their laptops dearly. Once they were out of the exit, they turned right, walked into the lawn and turned right again, to go to the open space down the other exit of the building, probably, instructions from the ERT, I thought. For sometime, I alternated between glancing up and looking at the exit. I knew there was nothing I could do. I looked up at the building once again, enjoyed the beauty of the red-orange and black colored window panes that were arranged neatly. The sun's rays always added to the class of the building and I love that sight. After taking it in completely, I joined the queue of people to see what the fire-drill was all about. :P

-Dated, Friday, 5th March 2010

View of my office building! :)

Vetti aapicer special movies

There is no need to define the term in the title. There is not a better feeling than be a Vetti aapicer. One may ask what's the big deal? My answer would be "Try!"

There is a scene from a Tamil movie where Vadivel challenges a guy to be a Vetti Aapicer for one hour or else take 10 whackings with a whip, and you know who wins the joke. Another instance I always remember, is from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, where Joey proves to Chandler that the coffee shop is less than 100 foot steps from their apartment, and Chandler replies, "You've got way too free time Joe!" (or is it for some other reason he says that?? whatever...)

Well, to clarify all the doubts, I'm employed and am busy with my work. This post also doesn't refer to any of the anybodies I know who are vetti! :P

The thing is that my system is under repair, I guess the hard disk committed suicide, and with it went my entire collection of anything and everything. So, @people-I-know, don't be surprised when I come to you hunting for all the photos you might have taken from me. Unfortunately, I've got a great memory in these respects.

So, having nothing to do at home or the small matchbox I live in, or to console myself about my PC, which is in coma, I've seen "almost" every movie in my list and I covered it in the last 2 weeks. Simawl reviews following.

Goa - Watchable (once)
A very light-hearted movie with nothing called story, but rightly tagged as "A Venkat Prabhu holiday". Very late to say this, but, please don't go with any Saroja or Chennai 28 expectations and you will return satisfied. Sampath has acted very well. Jai's English dialogues were so hilarious that I can't stop laughing about it even now. Everybody were something different and nice, but Premji was so cliched and boring. Pia was so adorably cute and I've not stopped thinking about her as well. :P The song Idhu Varai was so romantic with Andrea's sexy voice. Cheers to the song!

My Name is Khan - I loved it, Screw the rest! :P
Brushing aside other reviews, I loved the movie. I never felt that SRK has over acted, which I thought otherwise before seeing the movie. The first half was a good mix of humor and emotions, but the second half was intense and in a good way. Kajol was not so cute as featured in the trailers. Well, she looked the age she has played. When the movie was in the making, I felt, its just gonna be some kind of drama crap, portraying SRK as the King Khan or something. The movie was nothing like that, but the title is still so apt. Leaving it there.

Striker - Fantastic Attempt
Siddarth has been my favorite since Ayitha Ezhuthu and I'm always interested when I hear his name in the cast. Rang De Basanti (the first Hindi movie I saw in the big screen) and Bommarilu (the only Telugu movie I've ever seen) were two movies I saw, only for Sid and Striker was the latest addition. It is a great attempt. There are obvious problems (not calling them flaws) in the screenplay and the language was difficult to follow. They could have definitely tried to come up with a better link between carrom board and communal riots. Claps to the song "Cham Cham" - simply wow! Its a soothing qawwali type number and the first time I heard it, I knew I had to change my caller tune.

Tamil Padam - ROFL
None other than Shiva could have filled in for the protagonist. The spoof suits him so very well. The side-kicks of Shiva have done their best to keep up and it has worked out pretty well. Every formula of Tamil movies have been targeted. I believe the director made a list of all the films he hated, wrote against them the reasons and the script of Tamil Padam was ready. However, a 2hr plus Lollu-Sabha is more than too much to take. Looking at it as individual scenes would make a lot of difference than looking at it as a movie. This is a movie for all those Peter people with this pickup line, "Taaaamil movies are crap!".

Naanayam - Something different?
Fascinated by the magnum opus in movies like Oceans series and Bank Job, many directors want to re-use those concepts in Kollywood and we have a winner here. A no-nonsense storyline, simple screenplay and at times irritating but credible cinematography. Prasanna (again, one of my favorites) plays security officer of a bank and scores as usual. Sibi was a bad choice, but I can see him grow as a villain in future. Let's wish him luck. I never expected SPB to play such a different role. What pained me was, when I was walking out, I heard a lady say to her husband, "I warned you that we should have seen Vettaikaran" - one reason why Kollywood directors never bother to attempt out of the way stuff.

PS:
1) Well, I've asked at least 10 people till now and none of them want to accompany me to see Avatar.
2) I'm looking forward to Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya, releasing this weekend.
3) I hope to setup my system again this weekend. Prayers requested! :(