Norway in June & December

UK being away from the equator faces quick changes in the seasons. Like there is a change in 2 minutes of sun light everyday. When the season changes from winter to summer there is a drastic shift of sun setting at 4PM to 10PM.

Now this was new for me and I wanted to see what is the difference between sunlight light time period in Norway. They call Norway "the land of mid night sun", but it can also be called "the land of noon darkness" (or something like that)

These are two videos of North of Norway.



In the month of June 2008, you can see that there is so less darkness. Hence the name "land of mid night sun"



And in the month of December 2008, we can see that the sunlight is out there for hardly 2 or 3 hours. Interesting isn't it?

I never felt this sudden "total sunlight time period" issue staying in India, but then that was India.

I also love the way the trees change from "no leaves in winter" to "new leaves in spring" to "green leaves in summer" to "red leaves in autumn" and back to no leaves in winter.

In India we generally have ever green trees & forests, pretty different here. :-)

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Crouchy's Ballet & the Idiot Dancer

Every time Peter Crouch comes on the football field he has something hilarious to do. It may be his bad header or his after goal scoring robot acts or his bad foul or his geek look towards his team mate after missing an open goal.

Yesterday's game against Belarus showed us why he is a clown of great talents. He can "Ballet" & also to assit him he can ask people from Belarus to join in. Check these photos.

Crouchy and his pals from Belarus doing Ballet

Professionals doing Ballet. See the resemblance??

I just couldn't stop laughing after I saw the photo on Telegraph. It was hilarious and must be nominated for the "best dance action to score a goal of the century" category !!! :D

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Lalit Modi is typical Gujju

His best friend is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, not in real sense but just the Gandhi photo on the 1000 rupees note.

I can now live in peace!!!

See see even Gandhi's smiling & smiling "Yes he loves me & he will let me live for ever". Lalit Modi the IPL CEO and BCCI top notch executive will do anything for money and will even make the Indian Cricket players play on the moon if that pays him & BCCI.

The main moto of a sports governing body is promote sports in youngsters, help the sports people when in need (or injury), bring up new talent from the corners of the country & help build glory to the country.

Lalit Modi is now organizing a 20-20 champions tournament & "ONLY THE BEST" are playing in it.

Oh really?

• Sir I have a question : What about the champions of World 20-20 cup, the country called Pakistan? They also won the ICL tournament, didn't they? The IPL -1 champion team had Kamran Akmal & Sohail Tanvir, why were they not allowed to play in IPL -2?
• Modi is angered by this question and barks back: INDIAN GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WANT TO HAVE ANY TIES WITH PAKISTAN, SO NO TEAM CAN COME FROM PAKISTAN. ALSO RAJASTHAN DIDN'T QUALIFY FOR THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
• Question 2: Sir Afridi is part of Deccan Chargers why isn't he playing?
• Modi barks back louder : "YOU WANT INDIA TO WIN OR PAKISTAN TO WIN?"

Lalit Modi doesn't care about cricket, for him IPL is a profit making company and it should give him profit. He doesn't give a shit if any youngster comes from IPL to the Indian team or not. He just doesn't care !!! All he cares about is his 8 franchisers and how can I make more from them.

SRK "This guy to my right is an inspiration to the world & to all who don't care about anything & find out a way to make money"

Modi "please SRK you are embarrassing me, I am just a humble servant of BCCI"

I remember there was one young guy Manish Pandey who made a century in IPL -2 and since then hasn't done anything to come to the Indian team level.

IPL doesn't help domestic cricket, it is just spoiling the cricket scene in India. Half the players are injured when India plays an ICC tournament. India hasn't done great at the test level in the world until recently; now that our team has been doing well lets not kill the best 11 by forcing too much cricket on them.

Sehwag was injured for the ICC ODI Championship and now he is fit to play for Delhi Dare Devils. What if he get injured in Champions Trophy tournament and can't play against Australia?

Does Modi care about that? I am sure he doesn't. Infact even BCCI doesn't care, its now become a company & they want to make profit year on year. I don't know what great work are they doing after making so much money. The stadiums in India are bad and don't have good toilets or good seats. There are no good coaches at district level.

Modi stop being a typical Gujju and please give back to the people what you have got from them.

And I am totally against 20-20 cricket as a launch pad for cricketers to come to the national scene.

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Obama, Healthcare & Change

Being an Indian citizen I haven seen how difficult it is to get good medical facilities in small towns like Kharagpur in Bengal, India. My uncle & aunt had an accident sometime back and they had to go to Calcutta from Kharagpur to get an operation done, after the accident. But once they went inside the hospital everything was taken care of. It means that in India if you have a medical problem and land in the right hands, you will be taken care of.

I stayed in Chennai for few years and I found the medical facilities in big cities in India to be great. Infact some of the hospitals in India were so good that they didn't make you feel as if you were in a developing country.

If you had medical insurance (you can get it from your company or buy it yourself) then you need not spend anything and still get the best facilities. My University had sorted out my medical insurance and after a freak accident on my face while playing; I didn't pay a penny at the private hospital outside the University Campus and got the surgery done.

These are the kind of things which Obama wants to bring to every American citizen. Its a great thing and yes medical facility should be available and affordable to all. But right now a lot of people in the US Congress have their election funds coming from large Healthcare & Insurance companies and it is getting impossible for Obama to sell the idea to the Congressmen. To put in in a nutshell "The current generation of US politicians have become shameless bastards !!!"

How much money do they want? They are not going to live forever, most of them are around 50 and will die in next 25 to 30 years, then what about the millions and billions they have made?

My wife & I, moved to UK and were amazed to see how cheap the medical facilities are here. It looks like we are living in a socialistic economy and not capitalistic economy. Everyone who goes to the doctors in UK need not pay a single penny. The doctors in UK work for the government and the government pays their salaries. They write prescriptions to the patients and the patient has to buy every prescribed pill for £7.20. He pays only if he is between the age of 16 and 60 years. Isn't that great? If you are in an age where you can earn and pay for your living then you can pay a nominal charge for the medicines which you buy. Doesn't matter if it is a cancer medicine or AIDS medicine it is £7.20 for the pill. Doesn't matter if the medicine is for 10 days or 10 weeks or 10 months course, you pay £7.20. It is that cheap.

I think some people might in US are also arguing to the fact that "Why should I pay for your medical facilities? I pay my taxes and my tax money is being used by the government to provide medical facilities to the poor!! The poor don't pay any taxes and don't help me in anyway." You are helping the poor because you can. In a country or in a community isn't it nice to care for each other? If I am a poor guy living in a community and all the community members come together and help me in finding a good job or constructing the roof of my house, wouldn't it make this community a better place to live in? Wouldn't it bring a good name to the community? Yes it would.

So sometimes the Healthcare Policy makers should understand that "It is not just about the money & the profits each company or hospital makes. It is about a nation and its people !!!"

In France there are doctors employed by the government who have the sole duty to work only during the night. If someone calls them and says "It is 2AM in the night I have a very bad stomach ache" the doctors visits their home and checks them, and it is free and you need not pay any insurance for such a service. Can we imagine such a thing happening in USA? Right now I don't think so.

In my opinion US mentality today has become profit oriented and money focused. The current governmental policy makers have forgotten what is right for the future of the nation. I hope that the Congress understands that everyone has a right to live & good health. It is the duty of the leaders of the nation to provide these basic necessities.

OBAMA FOR CHANGE !!! The first change which has to come in the US Congressmen's minds is "no more greed" .

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Bank Holiday Weekend

We went to Dover on the Bank Holiday weekend and it was real fun. Ever since I was a kid and read stories of World War II (my cousins had those black & white comic books of WW II), I wanted to visit the port of Dover, as this was the closest town to Europe...

I always had my imagination that this would be filled with military & navy... We can see that on most of the Indian border posts, but this is what we found....

...a sleepy little village town with cars parked and very scarcely populated...

We walked from the town to Dover Castle which was on the top of the hills or cliffs of Dover... The walk from town to the top was really nice and we just sat here and there for a general photo session... The place is so less populated that we couldn't find anyone to take our photo, so I kept the camera someplace and then used the timer to click the photo... :-) Imagine Indian Population!!!

This is the English Channel & you can see France at a distance... On a better day you can see a clearer France...

Dover Castle... It had loads of tunnels and stories of how it was an important part of the 2nd World War, for the Allied forces... There were stories that it is one of the most haunted places in UK...

Walls of the castle, most of the walls had places where they had anti aircraft guns shooting German planes from 1939 to 1945...

The next day we wanted to see the cliffs of Dover and had to walk around 6 miles for the whole route... This route was earlier used by trains to transport chalk for industrial use...

The cliffs overlook the port... Pretty cool ain't it?

Living on the edge literally !!!

The wind was very strong on the cliffs.. We can see here that the growth of the branches has become unidirectional... Just loved the fact that nature still rules!!!

You had to actually take a small path from the top of the cliffs, then walk down the stairs to go to the beach.. The walk was loads of fun...

WW II observation posts... the scenes would have been different when the war was on...

The beach was very different than the beaches we have back in India...

Now the fun of going on a vacation is that you have to wear a different dress everytime we go out... And "meri pyari biwi" had like tons of dresses to wear for these 3 days... She brought so many dresses that even though she changed dresses every 6 hours, some of the dresses were taken back to cambridge without being touched... It is fun for girls to mix and match various dresses for different occasions... :-) This is the dress for going to the beach, this for generally going out & this for dinner !!! Amazing !!!

For men?? It's simple "Change the Tshirt - Change the mood !!"

Even the start of the train journey from Dover back to Cambridge was very scenic... :-) The train went along the coast line for around 20 mins and I was busy clicking photos... :-) Just loved it !!!

"The tourists" had a great time in Dover.

Thankfully the sun was out, weather was great & we loved the last summer days of 2009 in Dover !!! :-)

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6 years on & the passion still remains...

Been 6 years since I played good competitive hockey. But the passion was always as good as it was in those days. I am leaner & fitter since last year and rearing to go for the hockey season which starts in end of September.

December 2003

September 2009

Woaaaaaaahhhhhhhh Been a long time I should say !!!

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Full of geeks...

You know you are in a place full of physicists / mathematicians / geeks or in Cambridge when you can read this on the walls as graffiti...

Weird people but the formula does express what someone's ENERGY level must be; given that his mass = M!!!

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