With 48 matches done and majority of the group stage matches played, usually we’d have a fair sense of who the final four would be but not this time. Rather, it’s anybody’s game now with the points table being so congested. GT has now virtually booked its Top 4 spot by scoring 14 points in their 10 games, whereas the next 6 teams are all on 10 or 11 points. Now comes the tricky part, the bottom 3, i.e. KKR, SRH and DC, with all of them virtually still having a chance to try for the top 4 and KKR having the best chance out of them all because of their NRR.

If we are to look at the story of IPL 2023 till now, it’s a very unusual one for the reason that there is no one team (maybe other than GT) which has looked very consistent. All of the teams have almost lost 50% of the games that they’ve played and we haven’t seen any proper consistent play. It’s like a team will probably win one game then lose one then win a couple and lose a couple and on and on. That does not mean that this hasn’t been an entertaining season because we’ve kind of seen it all already. From defending scores as low as 130 to even chasing down 213 and just yesterday we saw GT restricting RR to a measly 118 and chasing it down quite easily.

Coming onto the main issue that is what is going to happen next and which teams will be more likely to qualify for the semis?

Like I previously said GT has virtually already booked its slot in the semis because not only are they the highest point scorers on the table, they are also the only team who have somewhat looked consistent in terms of playing and winning.

The next spot or rather the next two spots may well be CSK’s or LSG’s considering that they are each a point above the congestion and depending upon how they play their next games. But I’ll say the same for MI and RCB who are currently on 10 points each having only played 9 games each. So for example if MI beats CSK, which is very likely considering MI’s red hot form, then they will have an upper hand over CSK and LSG in the points table and the same goes for RCB.

Now talking about RR and PBKS. These are two teams who started out very well but haven’t looked their best over the last few games. With both of these teams having 10 points off 10 games, the future margin for error is very thin if either of them even want to qualify. Honestly their level of cricket and consistency has been pretty average this season because even though they did have a few good games, unless you have a team which performs consistently then even if you do qualify, the chance that you’ll actually win the cup is very less as is the case with both RR and PBKS.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let us finally come to the curious cases of IPL, the current bottom 3, KKR, SRH and DC. These are the teams who play so spectacularly one year and then the next year, they’re nowhere near the qualification scenario. The only team who has a chance to get into the top 4 from these three teams is KKR and is only because of their good NRR in comparison to the other 2. This also means that SRH and DC are virtually knocked out even though they might have the same points as KKR just because of their low NRR. The only scenario where KKR does qualify is when they win the next 4 games they play and SRH and DC play spoilsport to other team’s chances. If and only if this happens and luckily if there’s a spot remaining at the points table will KKR qualify, an instance somewhat relatable to the 2014 IPL when they had only won 2 games out 7 in the first leg and then won all the rest of the matches in the second leg to the semis. However, in the current scenario KKR have lost 6 games whereas in the 2014 season, KKR had lost only 5 in total. So, while KKR might qualify because of nothing short of a miracle, it’ll be a miracle worth watching.

In conclusion, we are in for a hell of a remainder of the tournament with so much to gain and so much to lose for so many teams. It’ll undoubtedly be the best time to watch IPL.

That’s it for today folks, do let me know what you thought of the article and what type of written content would you like to see in the future. I am as excited as you to see what happens next in this year’s edition of Tata IPL. See you soon!

 

p.s. This article was written post the RR V GT game in the 5th of May, 2023

With just about a month to go for the WTC Final, nerves will be high in the Indian camp and the pressure will be immense. After all, India has NOT won a single ICC trophy since the 2013 Champions Trophy. But do not rely on this stat alone as India has also been very consistent in the ICC trophies from then onwards, in a good way and also in a bad way. When we talk about being consistent in a good way, India has been in an ICC trophy Final or Semi-Final 7 times out the past 8 ICC tournaments (2014 T20WC F, 2015CWC SF, 2016 T20WC SF, 2017 CT F, 2019 CWC SF, 2021 T20WC eliminated in group stage, 2021 WTC F, 2022 T20WC SF).

Now, coming onto the part of being consistent in a bad way. Inspite of having played 4 Semi-Finals and 3 Finals, India has not tasted success for the past 10 years and the only apparent problem that we can observe is PRESSURE. India has simply not been able to handle the pressure of playing in the knock-outs. Every time we played in a KO, the inherent problem has been the batting or in the case of the 2016 T20WC or the 2022 T20WC, it was the batting and the bowling as well.

So, what can we expect?

Well, if history is any indication, we might just fumble somewhere be it a batting collapse or giving away too many runs without taking a wicket or both and unless the team management and the players collectively have worked on absorbing the pressure well and not losing key wickets cheaply, it is going to be same script all over again.

Coming to what the XI should be, BCCI has definitely released a strong looking squad with a few surprising additions namely Ajinkya Rahane and Jaydev Unadkat. Now, the reason I call them surprising is that we haven’t seen them in international test format regularly over the last few months.

Let’s get to what the ideal XI should look like, we’ll go position wise.

I don’t think there should much discussion or argument when I say the only opening pair we should use is Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill. Rohit being the captain and having a spectacular record batting in England will obviously open. The only question is who will he open with? But with Gill’s recent performances it is only obvious that he should be the one opening and it will make zero sense if KL Rahul is made to open and Gill is pushed down the order because then you will be pushing him outside his ‘comfort zone’ and you really do not want to disturb the rhythm of a batsman who is very much in form.

The number three and four positions are already set with Pujara coming in at 3, followed by Virat Kohli at 4.

Now is the time for the big question, who plays at 5 and 6? Is it KL Rahul and SK Bharat or Rahane and KL Rahul or even Rahane and SK Bharat by excluding KL Rahul from the XI completely. In my opinion, the best option has to be Ajinkya Rahane at 5 followed by KL Rahul at 6 who will then also the wicket keeper for India. The reason why Ajinkya Rahane at 5 will be better is that one, he is in good form, two, he is a very reliable player and is someone who has a good record playing in England and three, he is a natural leader. Ajinkya Rahane has a great captaincy record and even though he will not be the captain in this match, the team and Rohit Sharma can very well use his intellect and Rahane has the ability to lead and motivate a team forward. The prime example was the 2021 Border Gavaskar Trophy where he not only batted brilliantly in Melbourne to give India it’s first win of the series but also led the boys to a famous series win after the humiliating defeat at Adelaide. This shows that even if Rahane does not score too much, he will still be a value addition to the team solely because of his leadership skills. As for KL Rahul, he is a decent wicket keeper and can also score runs when playing in the middle order and in a game where scoring runs will be important, it would be wise to have Rahul over KS Bharat because of his ability to score important runs and at the same time keep wickets.

Moving on to the lower order, when you are going to be playing in England, it is always better to have 4 fast bowlers/seam bowlers and one spin bowler and when this is the case I feel the best way to go forward would be Shardul Thakur playing at 7 because then your batting order goes very deep, which helps and plus we have seen that he is a good bowler who will get the team wickets. Other than Shardul Thakur, the remaining 3 fast bowlers have to be Mohd Siraj, Mohd Shami and Umesh Yadav over Jaydev Unadkat solely because of his experience in international test cricket in England. Honestly I’m missing Hardik Pandya and Ishant Sharma in this squad. Hardik because not only is he performing better than Shardul in the IPL but also would have been a great fit considering the conditions at The Oval and Ishant because 1) he has greater experience than Jaydev Unadkat, 2) he seems to be in a good form with the ball and possibly can even substitute both Jaydev and Umesh Yadav in the current circumstance and last but not the least, he has had a pretty good bowling record in England especially when there’s going to be good amount of swing in the pitch.

The last decision will be who gets the only spin bowler position. It will interesting which perspective the selectors will be going for. One is you can go for more batting depth or you can only focus on the bowling aspect. If we are to look into the more batting depth option, there are only two players: Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel because of their current form and especially the way they are batting. But even between these two, the better option would be Jadeja. Again, the sole reason being his experience and maturity compared to Axar Patel. The other perspective, which is solely choosing the bowler based on his bowling and not taking into account his batting skill. If we are to choose the final player according to this perspective, the best option would be Ravichandran Ashwin because 1) he’s economical, 2) he can get you wickets even in surfaces like those in England and 3) he can hold the fort while batting like we’ve seen so many times and most recently in Australia, which is really a bonus.

To brief it all up, this is what I feel India’s playing XI should be: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Shardul Thakur, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohd Shami, Umesh Yadav, Mohd Siraj.

This is all from my side for today, I am as excited as you to see what happens next, who makes it into the playing XI and finally, who wins the long awaited WTC?

Stay tuned for more blogs and cricket related content.

 

Update: KL Rahul has now been ruled out of the WTC Final due to an injury picked up in the LSG vs RCB game. It is most likely that he will be replaced by Wriddhiman Saha for the final, who is a great fit and is also in a good form as long as IPL is concerned.

Ever since I was a child, I always had one dream: To eat a krabby patty, it was probably not meant to be, but as a kid who watched shitloads of Spongebob Squarepants I was starstruck when Mr Krab, owner of Krusty Krab gave me a surprise visit. It all happened about a few days back, it was around early evening and I was walking towards the living room when I heard some noise from inside the bathroom and to my surprise it was Mr. Krab in my toilet. However, this was not the first time he had surprised me. He had visited me about a couple of weeks earlier too but then I was not able to recognise him because contrary to his red colour in the cartoon, in real life he was brown (maybe the creators did not want a brown character in the show ☹). Since I now knew him, I was no longer scared of him, after all no one can be scarier than my roommate but that is a discussion for another day.

We drank some tea together, had a little chat and then I flushed him back so he could go back home but that little son of a gun had other plans, that fucker wouldn’t budge. It was as if he had declared it was his home from then onwards. I tried to reason with him that every man has his needs and to sit inside someone’s toilet and blocking it is not kind but I guess he was a naughty one and wanted to pinch my ass with those great black pincers of his. It did not leave me a lot of options but to try to RIP him and in that moment of desperation I poured in half a bottle of harpic in hopes that he won’t come back and it did work, or atleast i thought it did.

But, just as great movies have a twist, my life too had quite a twist when he came back the next day. However, this time I had had it and I snapped (not the crab) and just like most of the desi parents I give him an earful in the hopes that he understands and just like most of the brown kids, he surprisingly understood and literally went back inside after seeing me and hasn’t returned since. So, I guess I have learnt how to parent the desi way lol. But the amount of mental trauma this has given me, I still check the toilet from all angles to check for the crab.

So all in all Mr Krab, great dude but still a major asshole, maybe now I understand why Plankton wants to steal his secret recipe.

Hey Everybody

Its been more than a year since I last wrote anything on this website and honestly even though I think of writing something, what will I write about? Most of the days have been ridiculously similar to each other because of the pandemic. I do have some ideas about what I can do. I tried to live stream but thanks to sucky net and bad set-up it didn’t turn out to be as well as I hoped to. I even started making podcasts but after some time I just wasn’t feeling it but hopefully I’ll start making more pretty soon. I do have one idea about starting a solo talk show but I’m still working on how I would approach it. On one hand I want to make it interesting and fun but still stay original in what I do. Let’s see what happens. Other than that I just moved into a new house a couple of weeks ago and honestly it hasn’t been the best start. For starters, the very next day after shifting I slipped in the lobby and hurt myself to the point that I practically lost the entire grip in my left hand for a couple of days. I even hurt my wrist on my right hand but that got well in a day. Just when it was getting well I slipped again. This time in my house *facepalms* but this time it was serious. Apparently there is some tissue injury after I twisted my knee so I have to get a lot of rest and I even need to wear a knee brace for about 10-12 days but enough about it. There have been some really positive things in this year. I got into the best law college in my state(we have a lot of law colleges and I mean it) so that was worth it, I got into Rotex International Board as secretary and treasurer and honestly its a big deal for me and my club because we were never involved in something so big. Oh and I almost forgot! I GOT A NEW DOG!!! Finally after lot of pleading and convincing we got a Labrador retriever and we named her ‘Happy’ and quite rightly. She will turn 1 year old on 29th of September and I really don’t know how to celebrate it. I mean she won’t even realise it but it’ll be a big deal for me so we’ll see how that works. Also I’m now fully vaccinated so I’m really hoping of going somewhere and writing a travel blog this year. If I’ve to talk about right now I have my college going on, I have a routine now(somewhat) and overall things are good. I haven’t been out of my house for almost a couple of weeks because of my leg. I just can’t wait to go out and try so many food places around my new home. Every one here is obsessed with food and well… so am I. Maybe I’ll even do food reviews 😉 that’s it for now and I hope and promise to stay more active over here and try to really post every week. That’s my goal for now. Ciao.

India, a country with the oldest civilisation, the Indus Valley Civilisation and the many other civilisations that followed which are the birthplace of the Indian culture, language, religion has faced for long a problem of knowing and understanding its true identity and the political scenario through all these years is to be blamed. In school we were all taught about how ‘great’ Akbar was, about how patriotic the Mughals were, about how good their culture was and how greatly they administered and made India better. But we were never told how Mahmud of Ghazni came to India killed its people, looted us and actually destroyed us. We have always taken everything for granted and honestly we never cared about our history and this actually helped in glorification of these terrorists who weren’t born here and neither did they die here. They were invaders who destroyed us but yet we glorify them. For example, Khilji, the person who destroyed the great Nalanda University, the oldest known university to ever exist which was destroyed thrice has a railway station as well as a district after his name (Bakhtiyarpur). We even had a road in New Delhi (capital of India) after Aurangzeb, who was ruthless murderer, a person for whom hindus were second class citizens, a person who not only destroyed innumerable temples, charged taxes on hindus for visiting temples but also killed his own father and family for the throne. We also have an entire city named Aurangabad because it is where Aurangzeb was buried. We live in a country where people are so oblivious to the truth and to the history that we actually celebrate ‘Tipu Jayanti’, the celebration of the birth of Tipu Sultan who is nothing but an invader and a killer. We even glorify Taimur (aka Timur) a person who killed so many people and hindus specifically that the world population at that time fell by about 3%. It is said that he was so cruel that he used to make a pyramid of skulls of hindus he killed at every milestone. We celebrated the Babri masjid which was built by a invader who destroyed temples and built mosques over them and the issue of rebuilding the destroyed temples by breaking the Babri Masjid brought nation wide outrage, protest and even caused riots and literally broke the nation into half.

Fun Fact: India’s first mosque was built in Kerala, India.

If you thought this was it, you’re wrong. The misidentification of India continued long into our freedom battle as well where we were quite successfully by the British and their lovers divided inspite of our common culture. Indian culture was actually destroyed by the British as they destroyed the Sanskrit universities and made us learn English education which was obviously manipulative. It surprises me that even though it was Indians who were ruled by the British we never united completely to fight them. For example Indians became a part  of the British Indian Army which did nothing but kill its own people and fight for their rulers instead of uniting with the other countrymen and fighting the British. Even in the saddening and the highly unfortunate and cruel Jallianwala Bagh attack by the British General Dyer, all the soldiers who killed those thousands of people were Indians. This sometimes makes me think how we Indians do not have any self respect. The only thing we care about is how costly potatoes and tomatoes are. We never cared about our history, our culture and our story. Some of the Indians were so power hungry that they not only supported and acted like a slave of the British but also somewhere and somehow acted in the downgrading and even probable murder of various Indian freedom fighters. As patriots we never gave Subash Chandra Bose, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Bhagat Singh, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sukhdev, Rajguru and various other freedom fighters who lost their life for us their due. While we were always taught about how great Jawaharlal Nehru was, we were never taught about actually great Subash Chandra Bose was. That man singlehandedly created the Azad Hind Fauj who gave the toughest competition to the British which no other person could. As a matter of fact he was elected the president of Indian Congress twice but he had to resign after winning his second term as Gandhi was opposed to him. Due to this a sect was created within the Congress which was called All India Forward Bloc. This great freedom fighter died later under mysterious circumstances, even though government and official documents said that he died in a plane crash.

Fun fact: Jawaharlal Nehru was never elected as the first Prime Minister of India. It was actually Sardar Patel who was elected by the Congress National Committee to become the PM of India but due to the stubbornness of Nehru and with Gandhi on his side Sardar Patel had to leave his decision to become the PM and gave the post to Jawaharlal Nehru. It is also said that during Nehru’s rule he had refused to have an army but he was forced to have one because of the continuous attacks by Pakistan and the attack by China.

As we approached our independence the British and their supporters worked so hard that we finally had to undergo the partition of India and the reason for partition was to make an Islamic state divided on religious basis. Due to this Pakistan became an Islamic country and India impliedly became a Hindu Rashtra with the majority of Hindus. As we talk about a Hindu Rashtra, we must really understand what it really means. It means a country with people of all cultures, religions and with their own way of life living together peacefully. It is said that the core of India is Hindutva. It is a known fact that the constitution of India was altered wrongfully to include the words, ‘Secular and Socialist’. These words were not in the original copy of the constitution as India was not made as a socialist country and we did not affirm to the western conception of secularism even though our culture teaches us to co exist with everyone peacefully. According to BR Ambedkar socialism is the death of democracy and yet we became a socialist country. Why?

I think the only possible answer can be for selfish reasons, for money and for vote bank politics which is done on a great extent by the leftist and the communist parties in India. During the emergency period by Indira Gandhi when all nationalists, politicians and journalists or in short anyone with views opposite to hers was jailed. The reason for such an emergency? Political gain and the never ending hunger for power. It is also written in a book called ‘The Mitrokhin Archive’ that it appeared that during her time India was for sale and was a Disneyland for spies some of them who were in the government and were on the payroll of the KGB. This was only possible after former Indian PM Lal Bahadur Shastri died under mysterious circumstances and the reason was never found as postmortem never took place inspite of his body showing signs of being poisoned but we don’t know all this because we were never taught this and because we never cared to know this and to get educated about our history and our real identity.

Coming to modern politics, abusing Indian culture has become a trend. The Indian leftists and communists have nowadays opposed everything related to Indian culture or the ruling government. For a country which is the birthplace of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, we have been fairly oblivious to it. Recently there was a web lectures in JNU about Ramayan which was surprising caused a huge uproar among the pseudo liberals and the left who called this rise of communalism in India. As a matter of fact Indian culture is valued more outside India than it is valued within India due to these vultures who played the western secularism card to make sure that they can divide the people on basis of religion and rule over them.

Fun fact: Indonesia which is an islamic country has their national airline named after Garuda, a character from Ramayan. In Jakarta, there is a huge statue of Lord Krishna and Arjun from the Mahabharat in the the heart of the city and various of their names come from Sanskrit. They also have a currency note with the photo of Ganesha, the Indian elephant god and when once asked by an Indian ex-minister to an Indonesian minister on why they have such statues and references to Indian culture even though they are an Islamic country. The Indonesian minister answered that even though he is a muslim, all those things were a part of his culture and in India if we even think of doing anything related to Ramayan and Mahabharat, there will be a massive uproar by the seculars because for them it is communalising. It’s unfortunate that they have yet not understood that Ramayan, Mahabharat, stories of Lord Krishna, Ganesha are not religious books. They are the Indian culture! Take them out and there will be no culture left in India.

Finally coming to the long standing issue of Hindutva and a Hindu Rashtra. India became a hindu rashtra the moment the great country was partitioned on basis of religion. But the meaning of hindutva was changed by these very same communists for political advantage. In reality hindutva means everyone living together peacefully irrespective the fact whether he is a believer or a non-believer and for many years these people have defamed hindu organisations and believers of hindutva by calling them terrorists and a threat to the world peace. But in fact these people are the actual terrorists who cause unrest over non existing issues. While Indian civilisation is the last surviving civilisation after the others were destroyed, be it the Roman, be it the Egyptian civilisation which was destroyed by Muslim Arab invaders, the Chinese civilisation and many others people are hell bent to defame it. According to a study out of around 49 civilisations, 48 civilisations have ended and the Hindu civilisation is the only one remaining which gives us more reason to be proud to be part of such a civilisation.    

At the end I would just say that rather than dividing the country on the basis of religion, unite the people on the basis of the rich Indian culture which is common to us all irrespective of our colour, caste or religion and not to forget our true identity which is that we are INDIANS first and are part of the great INDIAN CIVILISATION which treats everyone equally and fairly unlike how the communists portray it.

Hey guys,

Welcome back to my blog. It has been almost 9 months since I last wrote a blog and so many things have taken place in these 9 months. From hanging outside with friends and partying to staying at home for more than a month, I have seen and experienced everything. A lot of crazy stuff happened in these 9 months like England winning the cricket world cup 2019 on boundary count, the resignation of Theresa May and election of Boris Johnson as the new UK Prime minister, heavy protest and violence in Hong Kong, the US women’s football team winning its fourth world cup, someone set the Amazons on fire, Australia faced massive forest fires in which more than half a billion animals died, the unfortunate death of basketball legend Kobe Bryant which brought tears to all our eyes and so many more events. But the one which has rocked this world right now is the Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus.

Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment.  Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness.

The best way to prevent and slow down transmission is be well informed about the COVID-19 virus, the disease it causes and how it spreads. Protect yourself and others from infection by washing your hands or using an alcohol based rub frequently and not touching your face. 

This new virus and disease was not known before this epidemic started in Wuhan, China after a person reportedly ate a bat. Even though this theory is still not confirmed, it is the most famous theory as to how this virus moved from an animal to a human. With around 82,000+ people infected in China out of which 3,500+ people died of this virus, there are questions raised by various people and governments as to how China controlled this virus so well where as US and European countries have been the worst affected countries in the world. There are various conspiracy theories about the coronavirus such as that the coronavirus is a biological weapon made by China which was accidentally leaked and that the Chinese already have a vaccine/antidote and they are waiting for this virus to be at its peak so that they can release the vaccine and have huge economic gains.

As a matter of fact only 9 out of the top 100 billionaires have earned a profit and all of them are Chinese. The Chinese government has even bought various shares in European and American share markets so that they can earn profit in the future. China has also emerged as a top exporter of safety kits and masks but again controversy was not far when various countries reported export of faulty kits supplied to them and this gave rise to more such conspiracies.

Coming to India, which has a population of 1.3 billion people has till now performed way better than any other developed country in the world with just 11,000+ infected people and 350+ deaths . Even though they are facing economic recession due to this virus, India has become the leading exporter of Hydroxychloroquine, a drug which is being used world wide to treat patients of the novel coronavirus. This has earned India as well as its PM Shri Narendra Modi international goodwill. Even with the opposition parties in India and critics of PM Modi criticising the amount of testing done in India and safety kits which according to them are minuscule and are less than what is necessary. According to the government they have enough of safety kits and that they have ordered more than 17 million more kits. Indian industrial giants such as the Ambanis and the Tatas have donated more than 500 crores and 1500 crores respectively and others have started to manufacture ventilators and safety kits at reasonable prices for the government as well as the private hospitals and servicemen. Inspite of the often non-constructive and useless criticism, the government has released along with the RBI various Economic policies to help the daily wage labourers and the people who are unemployed. The government has even facilitated in the distribution of ration worth of 3 months to the public. Some parts of the country have gone through a migrant crisis following the spread of fake news amongst the vulnerable daily wage migrants who have not been employed since the lockdown started in the country. While critics of PM Modi say that it is the result of his inefficiency, it has been shown from time to time that it is nothing but a conspiracy planned and spread by various anti social and anti-government forces who want to defame the ruling government and the country.

While the coronavirus has its negative medical effects, the lockdown despite its utmost importance and its advantages has had its fair share of disadvantages as according to experts it may lead to the increase of suicides and divorces as the people may be stuck at home with their abusers and may face more abuse not only physically but also emotionally, verbally and even sexually which may as the worst case scenario include killing themselves. To avoid this, awareness should be increased about the helpline numbers by the government or the police to whom the victims may call and get rescued from literal hell. Instead of sidelining this issue, it should be taken upfront and measures should be taken to ensure that people are able to call for rescue through some kind of code words. So in case you are a victim or might know someone who is a victim, share with him and her the helplines or if necessary call the helpline on behalf of the person. The most important thing in this case is to be sympathetic to the victim and not to be rude or ignorant of him.

Last but not least while the vaccines are still undergoing trials and medical workers and researchers hope to get a vaccine within the next 12-18 months, the most important thing in the current situation is control which is only possible through self isolation, quarantine and social distancing in case you have to head out to buy essential products only. Those countries which did not follow these things are now the worst affected so it is in the hands of the people whether they want to live and stay healthy or suffer from the covid-19 pandemic.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to share this as much as possible and leave a comment below. You can also send me a message on my social media which is on the website.

Take care, Stay home and Stay safe from the Novel Coronavirus Disease.

” Climate change is no longer some far off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now. “- Barack Obama

In the recent days we’re hearing a lot of things about Climate Change and how it’s harmful for the planet, but still not everyone knows what exactly Climate change is. So let’s start by knowing what it actually is.

In simple words climate change is the significant long term change of the average weather patterns of a region or the entire planet due to natural or man-made causes. One of the famous examples is the melting of polar ice caps which is caused by increase in global or regional temperature. 

The main cause of climate change is the growing carbon footprint caused by the burning of fossil fuels like Oil and Coal which emits the greenhouse gas Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.

Today Climate change is at its worst ever and if not fixed within the next 7-8 years it is expected that Humanity might even end till 2050. This is a shocking statistic which has put most of the people and countries into panic mode and they are finding solutions to reduce the pollution and prevent the global apocalypse. While many countries are trying their best to solve this crisis by coming together, the absence of world superpowers like the United States of America has been a huge setback.

Most of people believe that it’s the third world countries and the countries with huge populations which are mainly  responsible for causing pollution and climate change and if you are one of those who believe this. Well, guess what, you’re wrong. Even though China recently surpassed the United Stated in the greenhouse gas emissions becoming the largest emitter. But looking back over time the United States is responsible for producing a massive 27% of the total global carbon dioxide emissions and no other country was no where close to that with India and China, worlds most populous countries emitting only 3% and 11% of the carbon dioxide emissions respectively.

Inspite of all these statistics, the president of The United States of America, Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change an ‘hoax’ and that it is a Chinese conspiracy and with all his policies favouring industries exploiting coal and fossil fuels in huge amounts causing a lot of pollution and with all the controversial decisions he has taken regarding pollution and the industries which emit a lot of carbon dioxide and especially the Paris Agreement. It is a disadvantage for everyone that the president of the world’s biggest economy is ignoring the science and all the evidence.

Climate change has some disastrous effects and we are already seeing many of them such as increase in the global temperatures which is causing severe droughts and heat waves like the one India has been facing for the last few months. Due to climate change the frost free seasons are lengthening, precipitation patterns are changing.i.e some places are suddenly facing more precipitation whereas some are facing droughts. Climate change also causes hurricanes and natural disasters more intense and stronger.

The most important effect of the climate change is that due to the increase in the global temperatures the polar ice caps and the Arctic region specifically is likely to melt and become Ice-free which will further cause the sea levels to rise by 1-4 feet by the year 2100.  

So in this case where our planet is being destroyed, what can we do to prevent human extinction especially at the time when the doomsday clock is just 2 minutes to midnight?

The solutions are simple but it is not something we usually do or forget to do for various reasons.

1. Make your commute and travel green: Today everyone has a car and drives it to college or to work and this many times causes traffic jams and not to forget, these emit greenhouse gases which destroy and harm our atmosphere. So instead of taking your car, take public transport. It is a great way to cut the emissions or better ride your bicycles.
2. Be Energy Conservative: This is something most of us are not including me at times but saving electricity and energy is a great way to prevent pollution. This means that you must make sure to turn off and unplug devices that are no longer in use. Also replace your lights with energy efficient light bulbs.
3. Vote: One of the best ways to counter climate change will be to vote for the one who will fight it and pass regulations against pollution causing industries when gets in office.
4. Recycle: This is the easiest of all solutions. Buy only those products which can used again or is 100% recyclable. This will reduce the number of new products being manufactured and products could be made by recycling things like paper, glass, etc.
5. Ban Plastic: This is one of most important solutions. Even though it does not have a direct role to play in climate change but when the plastic is discarded it lands in the deepest of waters and highest of mountains, causing pollution and deaths among large number of animals and even extinction in some, indirectly causing climate change.

In conclusion, I would just say that climate change IS very real and is harmful for us and if not stopped, it would end up killing us all. So go out there, inform people about this, spread awareness about how we can stop climate change because we aren’t out of time yet. But if we don’t do anything now. It will be the endgame for all of us.

SAVE THE PLANET!!!

This is it from me for now, hope you all are doing well. Take care, Ciao!

A Trip to Cambodia

Day 1

It was 6 o’clock in the evening and I was ready to leave for the airport with my parents to go to Cambodia. I was going to Cambodia with my family to visit my cousin who is doing his PhD in Microbiology there. For those who don’t know where Cambodia is, it’s a small Asian country which is surrounded by Thailand and Laos on the top and Vietnam on the side.

Getting back to what I was saying; I was ready to leave at that very moment at 6:15 PM I got a message on my mobile from Cathay Pacific  that our flight which was supposed to take off at 10:30 was delayed and would now be leaving at 1:30 AM. After reading this I was shocked to my very core, this was the third time my flight was delayed. My dad called up the travel agent, who spoke to the airline confirming the delay in our flight. We had two flights that day: Mumbai to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong to Phnom Penh, Cambodia and due to our delayed first flight we were going to miss our connecting flight so not only did Cathay Pacific accommodated us in the next flight to Phnom Penh but also as compensation gave us access to the VIP lounge at the Hong Kong airport. It was as of yet the best compensation I had got. 

So finally we got at the airport at 10:00 PM and soon boarded our flight to Hong Kong. We reached Hong Kong at 9 AM local time and were then taken to the VIP lounge. It was honestly the place I’ve been to, just to give you peeps the idea of how good it was, it had free unlimited food and drinks!!! I was in the lounge for the next 4 hours so I made the most of it. Some of the stuff I had there was roasted beef, pork and lamb dumplings and a orange lime mocktail. It was soon time to leave for the boarding and within the next 3 hours we were in Phnom Penh, where my cousin was waiting at the arrivals to meet us and take us to our hotel. On our way to the hotel there was a lot of traffic and sometimes I even felt like I never left Mumbai. On reaching the hotel, we checked in and I just went to sleep, after all I had an exhausting day and I was going to have a busy and tiring next day.

Day 2

I got up early at around 6, got ready, repacked my bag and went to the hotel restaurant to have breakfast. After finishing our breakfast, we left for Siem Reap at around 8 in a personal mini van which we had ordered, it was a 4 hour journey to Siem Reap so halfway the journey we made a stop in a market where everyone usually stops to take a break on the way to Siem Reap. We actually had the idea of stopping there and getting some snacks and fruits but when we reached there all we could see in the market was ready to eat silkworms, crickets, snails, tarantulas and quail eggs which we of course didn’t eat and also the only fruits they had were raw mangoes and pineapple which were still pretty good.

We continued our journey 15-20 minutes after stopping at the market, the journey ahead was fast and we reached at our hotel in Siem Reap in the next 2.5 hours. We checked into the hotel, went to our rooms and after sometime I went to the pool to refresh before going to the night market which was just below our hotel. We did some window shopping and then roamed around the city centre and went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner and finally after almost 4 months I had a proper beef steak.

Day 3

We left our hotel at 9 after getting ready and having breakfast to go to Angkor Wat, one of the largest religious complexes in the world. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was originally constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god, Vishnu which gradually changed to a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century. We first went to the ticket counter where we bought our entry tickets for Angkor Wat. We then went ahead towards the main temple in our van.

The actual temple is very huge and you have to walk a lot if you want to see the entire thing. Inside the temple there are few idols of God Vishnu but they aren’t maintained really well and are also a bit of damaged due to natural causes, theft and war damage but overall the temple is really good. After seeing the Angkor Wat we went ahead to look at the Bayon Temple and a couple of more temples in the complex of Angkor. We had lunch in a restaurant in the complex, spent some more time in the city, saw a few ancient structures and temples and then returned to our hotel. Till the time we reached our hotel it was already 6:30 and because I was so tired, all I did was take a relaxing dip in the pool. 

The night market starts at 7 and I even had to buy some gifts for my friends so I went to the market. The market is very big and everyone in there is continuously asking you to buy their stuff but one thing tourists should not do is to look around things, ask the rate and then just walk away. This pisses off the shipowners and they won’t be as polite as they were but it is also wee bit funny to see them get pissed and say something you won’t understand in their language. After shopping for gifts I went back to the hotel to have dinner with my family. For dinner I had a cheeseburger and honestly it was the best cheeseburger I had ever eaten.

Day 4

It was our last day in Siem Reap and we had seen almost everything except for one place ‘The Kulen Mountains’ or as often called in Cambodia ‘The Holy Mountain’. Thats where we headed early in the morning on our last day in Siem Reap. Our first stop was at a lake where over a thousand shivlings were built which are underwater. The view was mesmerising with trees and the jungle all around and a lake, with the water flowing smoothly and below you could see the structures, some damaged over the years and some intact. Our next stop was a pagoda which had a statue of the sleeping buddha and also to my surprise there were even idols of Hindu gods like Lord Ganesha, Garuda and a big shivling, which is a structure built by devotees of God Shiva to worship him. At that exact time it was also prayer time for the Buddhist monks so we also saw that. We then proceeded to our last stop in the Kulen Mountains, a waterfall.

After we left Kulen Mountain, we went to a Khmer restaurant which served local and traditional Cambodian food. The traditional Khmer food was very delicious and is a must have if one goes to Cambodia. Our next destination was the floating village so we went towards a small port from where all the boats leave for the tour of the floating village. We went to the floating village and took a tour there and what a brilliant place that was. After we finished our adventure for the day we returned to the hotel and then went around the city centre and then stopped for dinner in an Italian restaurant and I had a pepperoni pizza. We then went to the food trucks and carts on the street to have dessert where I had a chocolate pancake and a Oreo-Nutella rolled ice cream. We finally went back to the hotel after an exhausting day and had a good night’s sleep because we were going to travel the next day to Phnom Penh.

Day 5

It being a travel day, I got up early, had breakfast, checked out and started our journey to Phnom Penh which was about 4-5 hours long. 

After taking a couple of stops, we finally reached Phnom Penh at around 4:30 and checked in our hotel. Also because our hotel was on the riverside I took an evening stroll along the Tonlé Sap River. I then went to a Indian restaurant with my family to have dinner after which I had a nice choco-mint ice cream at an ice cream parlour nearby and went back to my hotel.

Day 6

It was a lazy morning and I woke up very late after getting some much needed sleep. I freshened up, took a shower and went to the restaurant for breakfast and then went to the riverside for a small walk and even had a citrus flavoured Fanta. At around 11 I left for Choeng Ek genocide museum with my brother and my dad. The Choeng Ek is a museum and a memorial for all those people who were killed in the civil war by the Khmer Rouge. As a matter of fact around 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge. The story about the civil war is very saddening and in the memorial site you can literally see the burial grounds and the place where the people were killed. In the main memorial there are thousands of skulls of the people who died there and all them are kept in a huge glass enclosure which is about 10 to 14 storeys high.

After coming back from the memorial we went to have food in an Indonesian restaurant which I later regretted because even though the food was good I had an upset stomach after that. Another place we went that day was the Reptile café, its basically a cafe where you drink a coffee with various reptiles surrounding you. There were snakes, lizards, frogs, turtles, tarantulas and many different animals. It was a  really cool place and normally you can hold a snake and have your drink with it sitting on your shoulders but unfortunately for us the snake had eaten recently and was resting so we couldn’t hold it . After the cafe we returned to the hotel and I just stayed at the hotel for the rest of the day.

Day 7

It was our last day in Cambodia and so we decided to first go shopping in the Central Market but I didn’t anything of my interest so instead we went to a supermarket nearby and bought chocolates and some other stuff. I even got coffee flavoured and vanilla flavoured coca cola. After my shopping spree we went to the Royal Palace and though they didn’t let people in the main palace we went around the entire complex, the silver pagoda and even a small museum inside the complex which was full of all the ancient artefacts, statues and stuff they had found in the palace. 

In the evening all of us went to a Cambodian traditional dance performance and honestly it was really awesome, the dancers had a lot of elegance and smoothness in their moves. Overall it was brilliant. We later went to a really good pizza place in the city centre and I had a pizza with pepperoni, sausages, roasted pork and chunks of chicken. So, basically it was a pizza I always wanted to have because pork isn’t easily available in India and beef is banned here. We then returned to our hotel and started packing our bags for our flight the next day.

Day 8

As it was the day for our flight back to Mumbai, we woke up early, checked out and left the hotel to catch our 10 AM flight to Hong Kong. We reached the airport, went through the security and immigration and had a smooth flight to Hong Kong but thats where the good part ends(lol). When we reached Hong Kong and got our boarding passes, we got the news that our flight was delayed by 3 hours which meant that our 8PM flight was now a 11 PM flight. So we had a 5 hour layover with nothing to do because even the wifi at the airport sucked and to entertain myself a bit I went around the airport and bought a pack of popcorn which costed around 7-8$ because everything at the airport costs so much. After making many such rounds around the airport and listening to music on my mobile and eating, it was finally time for our flight and even after boarding our flight, it didn’t move for about another hour. The reason: someone got sick and had to get off. But after our flight was quite smooth and because I don’t get sleepy and cannot sleep on a flight(idk why???) I saw a couple of movies: Mission Impossible 6 and another movie called Tag featuring Jeremy Renner. We finally landed in Mumbai at around 6, went through customs and immigration, took a cab and went home. The only thing I did as soon as I reached home is jump on the bed and sleep, finally waking at 1PM in the afternoon ending my exhausting yet very fun trip.

P.s. Photos of this trip are in the Homepage section, check them out.

Most importantly don’t forget to comment below and share this blog. Also comment down topics for my next blog, it will be highly appreciated.

Peace out. Cheers and take care.

• Continue reading “The attacks of 26/11”

SCHOOL LIFE

School, a place most of us loved as well as hated. Loved because we enjoyed our time at school with our friends playing and doing crazy shit almost the entire time. And hated because of the strict rules, teachers and especially principal who never let us have any fun or at least tried to stop us.

We all came to school for the first time with a tear in our eyes and left with a tear in the eye and the promise of always staying in contact with each other. But sadly, it doesn’t always happen as everyone goes on their own new path, a new journey, a new chapter in life as some get separated while some remain best friends even after school. 

In the 9th grade, I had one of the best class I ever had in my 10 years at school. So of course I have lots of fun incidents to speak about for example, that year we had a very boring, lenient and dull history and geography teacher so for us it was more like a free lecture and we did the most crazy shit one could do in a class. Like we sometimes suddenly started singing some song while the teacher was teaching and though the teacher used to be very upset we did not care and continued to do our thing.

I clearly remember that in the 10th grade me, my friends and a big group of about 50 people started singing and dancing to a famous song near the supervisor’s desk who wasn’t at the desk but unfortunately for us a really strict teacher saw us dancing and even though we all ran away on seeing her she somehow saw some of us including me and called us. When we were asked about who started dancing, no one told her a thing because it was our friend and even though she threatened us that if we didn’t tell her, she would look in the CCTV camera and if we were caught lying we would face dire consequences but we still kept quiet because we knew that the CCTV did not work and she had no chance of knowing who started it.

Another incident I vividly remember is when me, my bestie and some others were made to stand up as punishment for talking in the history class but that did not stop us from having fun and whenever the teacher used to turn towards the black board we used to shout a couple of lines of a very famous Bollywood song and my best friend did its dance steps.

We even used to exchange novels and used to ‘smuggle’ them to school without anyone knowing because we weren’t allowed to bring novels to class and we even read them in school in hiding so that no one could know.

With so many memories made that if I ever was to narrate them all, it would take me quite some time to complete it and thats the best thing about school. You may leave school, leave your friends, leave the country and start a new chapter in your life but one thing you can never leave behind are memories and these are the memories which you will keep with yourselves for the rest of the life and always smile whenever you think about them .