Heart Break End to a Great Finale...

I had put my money on Netherlands at the start of the world cup itself and seeing them progress to the finals without losing a game was a wonderful and majestic feeling.

Holland have been one of the most exciting teams in Europe for years now, but due to the infighting in the team they have never been able to reach the lofty heights of success on the world stage.

On the other side of the equation were the "Golden Generation" of Spanish footballers who in the past 2-3 years had squashed every side in their path to the Euro-2008 championship.

The World Cup finals was as enthralling as any I have seen till date. It was more exciting since there were only 2 to 3 Dutch supporters in school against an army of Spanish renegades.

While viewing the finals in our small SSR t.v room, it seems like I was in a war zone, with the enemy waiting to slaughter me. Every action on the tele was accompanied by oohs and aahs from all around.

The game in itself was highly entertaining, with each team showcasing their strengths on the field. The Dutch midfield was resilient and organized and contained the Spanish mid field much better than the Germans.

The first half was punctuated with couple of easy scoring chances which were missed by Sergio Ramos, with 2 easy header.

The Dutch resorted to touch tackling and fouls in order to slow down the Spanish armada. They were successful to a large extend but had to offset the success with having more than half their team booked by the end of the 90 mins.

Robben and Sneider were the star performers for the Dutch in attack and the defence was well handled by Heintinga and Van De Weir.

The Spanish armada rolled as then had all through the tournament with Villa getting close to score on more than one occasion. the mid filed duo of Iniesta and Xavi kept creating sublime football in the middle of the park but the Dutch defence was at their their supreme best.

The 3 defining moments in the match for me were

1.] When Robben missed a simple chance to score in the 2nd half and his shot was well saved by Casillas. The ball by Sneider from mid field deserved a goal and Robben will be kicking himself for the rest of his life for the poor effort in front of goal.

2.] The save from Stekelenburg to keep out a Fabregas shot in the 2nd half of extra time was again a piece of brilliant keeping.

3.] The defining moment of the match was the red card to Dutch defender John Heitinga in the middle of the 2nd half of extra time which reduced Holland to 10 men.

Spain got the breathing place they wanted and as it seemed that the match would be heading for a repeat of World cup-2006 with the climax ending with penalties, in comes Iniesta with a goal in the 117th min of extra time. The man with the defining and all important cross being none other than "Fernando Torres" who till then had been a peripheral figure in the Spanish side in this WC.

It was a heart break to see Iniesta to score a goal so late in the game and the mad rush in the t.v room didn't help at all as all the Spanish supporters got together to hug each other as well as show their apathy towards the handful of Dutch supporters who were stunned to silence.

It was sheer joy to watch the final of the world cup with so many people and replicated the experience I had in 2006. However at that time I knew only a handful of the people around whereas this time, everyone present was known.

I still cannot believe that the Dutch lost the game and I can just imagine if I was feeling so bad after the game, how would the Dutch nations as well as the Dutch players feeling themselves.

I have been in the same situation myself when I was in engineering and lost the semis twice on penalties, but then I know that the experience just made me stronger. I guess the same goes with the Dutch squad.

I was the only one left in the T.V room after the final whistle and the presentation were done and I saw the last few minutes of the most magnificent world cup to date all on my own. The disappointment of defeat was balanced by a sumptuous breakfast at McDonald at 6 am in the morning and though I had class at 9.30 am, I chose to bury myself in the comfort of my bed.

Well for all my Spanish supporter friends...Congratulations...

You put your money on the right team...

South Africa 2010-You Beauty!!

South Africa-2010 was the greatest spectacle on Earth till date. Agreed the quality of football on display as well as the drama quotient was at a level lower than what we experienced in Germany-2006; however South Africa as a host nation;TAKE A BOW...

The FIFA World Cup is the pinnacle of international football and as such the tournament offers fans the unique experience of seeing so many stars performing at the highest level.

What an extravaganza!!! Everything about the tournament was perfect, right from the stadiums, to the organizers, to the crowd. The action on the pitch could have been better but still the tournament saw it's glimpses of extraordinary skill and supernatural performers with the likes of Diego Forlan, Wesley Sneider, David Villa, Meuller, Messi lighting up the stage at every given opportunity.

The stadiums for the tournament were indeed a piece of art as far as infrastructure is concerned. Not only were they state of art but the buzz around each stadium was an experience to cherish. South Africa came alive in all its colour and splendor; especially because of its people who were instrumental in making the tourney a huge success...

The Soccer World Cup provided South Africa the opportunity to show case to the world that they are no longer a third world country and are more than ready to step into the limelight.

The World Cup in itself was a wonderful sporting spectacle capturing audiences world wide. The action on the pitch was wavering in terms of quality and drama. However the strong showing of countries like Ghana, Paraguay and Uruguay brought the element of uncertainty to the fore.

However countries like England, Brazil, Argentina,France & Italy failed to live up to the pre-tournament hype.

The World Cup however did throw up some new soccer powerhouses who were traditionally known to be big tournament chokers. Spain and Netherlands did their reputation no harm and showcased their pedigree all through the duration of the tournament, establishing themselves as best 2 teams in the tournament.

In it's 80th year since the inception of the tournament in 1930; World Cup-2010 bought forth a new holder of the trophy in the form of Spain. Spain became the 8th nation to have won the most prestigious tournament in the world.

To conclude, as I said earlier, World Cup 2010 will be etched in my memory for a long time to come. The month long extravaganza has been one of the most memorable event in my 26 years of existence.

Cartoon Anyone...

In today's BEM class (BEM: - Brand Equity Management for the uninitiated), we were discussing about how brands are formed.

The discussion ranged from what are the do's & don't for brand formation, to the attributes and values which a brand name should symbolize.

During the class, we also discussed about the origins of some the world's most famous brands such as Rolex, McDonald's, Nike etc.

The most insightful learning from the session was the reason behind why cartoon characters have large heads with respect to their body size. any ideas why????

Well the logic behind the whole thing as stated by our prof was that since cartoon characters were catering to the target segment of children above 3 to 12, the characters had larger heads since the children also had larger heads w.r.t to their body size when they are young.

Hence the cartoon characters were replicating the physical form of their target segment...i.e children between age 3-12...Funny isn't it...

So next time you find yourself watching mickey mouse or tom & jerry on cartoon network, sit back and think for a minute about how much thought and strategy has gone into making the characters of your beloved cartoon shows.

Test of Patience...

Monday, 17th May 2010 will have to go down as one of the most frustrating days of my life yet. The last month and a half has been nothing but useless in terms of work experience, or any experience for that matter. I started my summers at HUL on 5th April'2010 thinking that in the next 8 weeks I'll learn a lot, execute a lot and achieve a lot in terms of my individual development.

Well the only thing which I have learnt over the course of my internship has been the art of being "patient".

On Monday I arrived at office and my desk at exactly 9.30 am hopeing to meet up with my bosses and to discuss the status of my project which appears to be in tatters. I waited the whole day for my divisional head in order to brief him. The wait ended at 21.30 in the evening when my brand manager informed me that the meeting looked bleak for today and I should try my luck again tomorrow.

Can you believe that? Waiting 12 hours in office doing nothing but waiting for your boss in order to just meet him for 5-10 mins. Utter nonsense I say...

I have no respect for those who don't have respect for other people's time.

Well, there is more to this dreadful day that this. I reached home by 10 pm completed exhauted & frustrated. However my day was just going from bad to worse. As soon as I reached home, my moom started with her usual banter which I had no inclination to hear at that moment. She just over did her bit and I completed lost it...Period...

I guess at the end of the day, I come out on the losing side as far as testing my patience was concerned.

How Ironic Part II

Well it seems it was a week of ironies for me. On Friday, at work as I was browsing through facebook (yeah that's a part of my J.D here at HUL), I came across a status message of one of my friend from engineering college.The guy has been in the U.S for the past 3 years and I hadn't communicated with him since then. I was very tempted to reply to his status message but decided against it in the end.
Well to my utter amazement I met the same guy, in the evening when I was on my way to Sambit's place to have a few rounds of beer.
The expression on my face said it all...It seemed as if I had seen a ghost...Well how ironic is that!!
Anyways this friend of mine is in Mumbai for a few months now & when I met him he was also on his way to grab a few drinks with his friends near Dadar...Hahaha...
Well isn't it funny that the status message which started this whole thing was the following: -
" Mixing drinks is never a good idea"...LoL

How Ironic!!

I was watching a movie on T.V till late last night. The movie in question was "Iron Man " an action thriller. I was just remembering the time when I had seen the movie in the theater a few years back. However during one of the commercial breaks in between the movie as I was channel surfing, I was thinking in my mind about a hindi song which I hadn't seen for 8-9 years. The song in question was " Zanam Samjaa Karo" from the movie of the same title. I think the movie released sometime in May 1999 and I hadn't heard the song or seen the movie on T.V since then...That's 11 years back. Well to my surprise as I was channel surfing, I chanced upon the movie on one of the hindi movie channels and that's not all; with in minutes the song in my mind was playing on the screen...Talk about wishful thinking coming true.
However, it's sometime nice when something which is very insignificant in the larger schemes of things comes true even though you could easily do without it.
Well of all my wishes in the wish list God decided to grant me this one. Thank you God...!! It was worth its weight in gold in the circumstances

First Week Back in Mumbai...

It feels so good to be back home…Back to my roots, back to my friends and family.
The last one week has gone in a blur. Everyday there is something or the other happening. So if one day I was busy getting my license at R.T.O, the same evening I found myself sitting at Sambit’s terrace having Chivas Regal. In between I have managed to play cricket & carom with my engineering friends too. The first venue was Sanket’s place where we tried our hand at both cricket and carom and then on the weekend it was Matka’s place.
It was fun catching the Man Utd and Chelsea match at a sports bar… (More details on the same in my previous blog entry)
In between all this I have also managed 3 trips in a span of 7 days to the now rechristened “Zeus Fanoos” to have hukka with friends. Reliving old times. Well it seems nothing has really changed here in Mumbai, but at the same time my life has changed a lot since I left the shores 11 months back.
The last week has also been good in terms of catching up with people who are back from the States for a while. I met up with Ruchi, Aditi and Aarti in the past 2 days too.
Well the only thing which I hadn’t been able to do yet in my first week was play squash at the club. I did manage a practise session with my coach but until yesterday I hadn’t played a game of squash for exactly 11 months now. Well my this wish was also fulfilled yesterday when I had the chance to lock horns with Mandar at the club yesterday. Though I was comprehensively beaten it was fun to be back at the court. We celebrated the game by having a couple of beers afterwards. Even Manpreet had come for a game after a long time. So it was kind of a reunion of sorts.
The first week of my short Mumbai trip has gone better than expected and as I enter my second week here; my internship at HUL is just about picking up steam. I guess from tomorrow all my time and effort will go into doing the project at HUL well in order to get a PPO. Anyways I am sure I’ll survive since the after work scenario now is much better and I have friends to catch up with every evening and play squash which is a welcome relief…