My Bucket List

There are times when you sit back and think what you have accomplished in life and what you would like to achieve with the rest of it.
Life is too short to enjoy to the fullest. Super busy schedules hardly give us time to ponder anything out of our comfort zone or to mull over all the things we want to do in our life, atleast once.
I am sure you must have given some consideration to an idea of preparing a bucket list – stuff you would like to do before your last breadth.
If you haven’t yet, I hope my post would inspire you to make one ;-)
Here’s my bucket list, which I am trying to make since a long time, and I believe I now have a long enough to-do list before I breathe my last.
I shall update this page as and when I accomplish any of these or I figure out any other stuff to be added to this list.

The order is not significant. :-)

1. Participate in a Cyclothon.

2. Learn Street Biking Stunts

3. Skydive in Dubai

4. Take my parents for a World Tour

5. Visit Pattaya/ Amsterdam/ Macau – partly accomplished

6. Own a BMW 7 Series

7. Travel in Space

8. Reach home completely drunk - done

9. Own a Vineyard

10. Bungee Jump from world’s tallest tower

11. Drive Buggati Veyron

12. Own a Beach House in Goa

13. Travel on Cruise for a month

14. Get a Pic with GOD: Sachin Tendulkar

15. Be a Certified Paraglider – hopefully this November

16. Buy a Revolver

17. Stay awake for 2 days straight – almost there

18. Drink wine from a bucket

FB: a basic necessity of life

The Social Network, released in last October, revealed the bona fide saga behind the inception of one of the fastest growing Internet companies - Facebook. In just six years, FB had clocked up 500 million active users and furnished the youngest billionaire in history... but for this entrepreneur, success led to both personal snags and legal holdups. Even though the top brass at FB denied any nexus with the movie, the makers deemed it to be a true story. Whatever may be the reality of the foundation of FB, the movie was worth a watch.

Facebook, a mouthful topic, has certainly become a basic necessity of life and is absolutely one of the best things to have happened in the last decade. In fact, people are getting addicted to such an extent that FB notifications are preferred to the Office Outlook/Office Mailbox. According to Nielsen, in January 2010, the amount of time the average person spent on Facebook was more than seven hours and each American FB user spent an average of 421 minutes per month, which amounts to more than 14 minutes per day. Currently, 2.6 million minutes are spent on FB each day!!

Undoubtedly, FB is a great platform to promote businesses, to endorse campaigns and to do show-offs. However, it has faced condemnation on issues such as online privacy, child safety, inability to terminate accounts without deleting the content, etcetera. To add to this, the censorship issues have taken their toll on FB as there is no control over the inappropriate content. There are loads of applications which post unsuitable and ill-fitted images on the page with just one click.

Is downfall looming?
Last month, a Market Research company published a report on how and why FB is losing millions of users. It claimed that privacy issues and fatigue have caused 1lakh Britons and 6 million users in the US to shut their FB accounts. Even Canada is catching up fast in this race of FB dropouts. It saw a fall of about 1.5 million users while in Russia the numbers fell by more than a hundred thousand. Ironically, when FB was aiming to touch the feat of one billion members, its growth rate slumped for the second consecutive month. Some internet psychologists have predicted that Facebook users would suffer the same kind of fatigue that comes whenever men and women get bored with trying anything that is new.

Well, it’s dead right that people get terribly excited about something new (such as posting some random objects captured with their SLRs(courtesy Mishraji)) and after a while the novelty wears off.

GOD

The year was 1989, Pakistan. The official one-dayer had been abandoned because of bad light and a 20-over exhibition match was organized instead. The Little Master had recently made his debut in Pakistan. Sachin Tendulkar, not even old enough to get a driving license, was facing the best bowlers in the business. As the Pakistani crowds jeered and mocked Sachin holding out the placards saying, ”Dudh Pita Bachcha, ghar jaake dhoodh pee”(Milk drinking baby,go home and drink milk), Sachin sent the young leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed hiding for cover as he hit him for two sixes in one over. The frustrated mentor of Mushtaq Ahmed, the legendary Abdul Qadir challenged Sachin saying, “Bachchon ko kyun maar rahe ho? Hamein bhi maar dikhao”(Why are you hitting kids. Try and Hit me too). AQ then decided to bring himself in action and before the commencement of his over he went towards Sachin and said,”Main tumhe maarne nahi dunga”(I will not allow you to hit). To which Sachin obliged, “Main aapko kaise maar sakta hu. Aap toh bahot bade bowler ho”(How can I hit you. You are a great bowler). He was tacit and let his bat did the talking. AQ had made a simple request and Sachin indebted, and how!! He hit four sixes in an over, making the spinner look the kid in the contest. The over read 6, 0, 4, 6, 6, 6. And yes, a legend was born.
Cricket's greatest ever player, Sir Donald Bradman, was watching a 1996 World Cup match on television when he first saw Sachin Tendulkar bat. The Little Master's technique seemed strangely familiar. Though his stance and his movements were compact and efficient, he hit the ball hard and his shots were ruthlessly effective. The Australian called his wife into the living room of their suburban Adelaide home. "Who does this remind you of?" asked Bradman, then 87. The answer was obvious. "I never saw myself play," Bradman said later. "But I feel that this player is playing much the same [way] I used to play." Being labeled the next Bradman has never been an easy honor. But perhaps no batsman has worn the tag with so much grace—and so deserved it—as Tendulkar.
His prowess as the best batsman is well known and his sublime form in last year’s IPL showed his mastery on the shortest format of the cricket, believed to be a game for younger generation. After tasting defeats and registering bottom positions on the charts in first 2 editions of IPL, the onus was on him to take his team out of the abject. He played an indispensible role as a captain for the team with his sterling performances and almost making sure whenever he bats he finishes with victory for his team. It sends a wave of panic among the packed stands every time he gets out. The incessantly chanting crowd suddenly comes to a silent after he gets out. He was awarded as the best batsman and the best captain of IPL 3 with 618 runs, at an phenomenal average of 47.54, 5 half centuries and 4 Man of the Match titles.
Sobriqueted as the Tendlya, Little Champion, Master Blaster and more recently the God of Cricket by his fellow team mates, he is the only cricketer to receive the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India's highest sporting honor and the only cricketer to receive Padma Vibhushan (2008), the second highest civilian honor of India. He is the only man to hold a record of double-century in One-Day Internationals. I hope his enthusiasm for batting, hunger for runs and oomph to play cricket continues for years to come. With 98 centuries (51-Test and 47-One day) in International space, his infinite fans around the world are waiting for ‘Century of Centuries’ feat, which I believe is a dream of every INDIAN.