Great Scot! He actually calls time!

Sir Alex Ferguson

13 premier league titles

5 FA cups

4 league cups

2 champions league titles

10 community shields

countless individual accolades 

The most successful club manager of all time!

When every Red Devil arose from his sleep today, we never thought the date 8Th may 2013 could mean anything. I wake up to a vague message from a friend saying he MAY be retiring. As always I laugh it off. Then he makes a convincing case. I switch on the TV and BBC reports the same so i wait because my friend calls back and says wait till 2.30 pm. Just when its time I doze off.  Awakened by a message on my phone. One word: RETIRED.

I know all the range of emotions we feel as football fans for our respective clubs. There was one I was yet to experience : “Losing a manager”. We haven't lost him in the sense that he was booted out the back door as is the case with ever single Chelsea manager since 2004. Yet this feeling of lost helplessness told me that for the first time I felt a bit worried about the future at Man Utd. We have lost so many players over the years, Beckham, Nistelrooy, Stam, Ronaldo! We had so many great depart Cantona, Keano, Scholsy after this season the Neville's. Yet I was not worried. why should i be? We had the great elder, the watchful eye who held us together as we went through the greatest era the club has ever seen!

Sir Alex Ferguson. A man who defined the club in many ways that we modern fan’s see it today. For many including me we have never seen anyone else at the helm. My connection to his reign is a little bizarre when you see the day my parents got married. It was 6th November 1986. I am not making that up. And just like their amazing marriage, it looks like Fergie's knot to Man Utd was a match made in heaven!

Everyone is going to be talking stats and everyone knows what he has achieved every red devil worth his salt knows exactly every fact and figure about him there so nothing I say about that will surprise you all. I want to look at him as the man, a simple boy from Gavon who changed the face of club football and the English football league as he took everyone by storm to become the most successful club manager in the nation.

When he walks down the tunnel at the Hawthorns on the 19th of may he will complete 1500 games in charge of this great club. Can you just take a moment to think about that number? that 1500 times he has had to sit there be it sun, cloudy, rainy, snowing and knowing the weather there it could all be at once! He took the team from where Reading are sitting pretty right now on the table to heights reserved for the gods. He took a team with frustrated and angry young men, Men who hadn't tasted success in a long, long time and gave them the riches of the kings.

The mark of the man was not walking into a room and saying, "hello everybody, my name is Alex and I have come here to knock Liverpool off their f****** perch." It was standing there on that Blackburn pitch in 2011 and watches his group of superstars dance to celebrate title number 19 and then showing the world he had made the perch his own.     It was not about the guy who lost his cool when he was told he can’t won anything with kids, it was in 1999 when those same kids had all grown up to win everything there is to offer in English club football.

All this brings me to what i loved most about him. HE DID NOT CARE. He was never bothered what people said, what media say what the pundits said and sometimes even what his own wife said. He kept on going, kept on dreaming and helped us fans realize all the dreams we ever dreamt. He was wily and stubborn but those traits made him what he is today: THE GREATEST.

No matter what will be said from here on till eternity, there will be only one Sir Alex Ferguson. Today it was made clear when every single football fans united or otherwise tipped their caps to this great man in recognition of the feat he achieved in his time at the helm of the greatest club on the face of the earth. It is finally the full time whistle but now we are into Fergie time! The future is a little uncertain but I am still excited as long as he is part of us!

He took us over as a manager, he leaves us a LEGEND.

THANK YOU FOR THE MEMORIES ALEX, YOU WILY FOX!

UNITED! UNITED! UNITED!          

                                                                                                                                                                             FOREVER IN YOUR DEBT!

Come.. Celebrate Cinema

Cinema, movies, films, Bollywood, picture, night show, box office, blockbuster, super-duper flop, hero, item... Words that instantly bring images flashing to my eye. As far back as I can remember the movies have been a huge part of my life without even realising it. Right from the time as a two year old toddler when I walked into Victory cinema on East street to watch Rahul Roy strum his guitar and sing "Saason ki zaroorat hai jaise...." to growing up wanting to live the lives of the "hero" and win the girl by singing and dancing to taking your first girlfriend to watch the latest hit of the time. Cinema has been a part of me as much as it has been to each and everyone of us.Few of us can say otherwise. Today I say all this because of late I have found myself criticise and pan the industry asking it to be more then what it is, when suddenly Bombay Talkies hits you out of the blue and brought all those memories flooding back to me. The movie is an ode to 100 years of triumph and the grief of the greatest entertainment factor to a nation of a billion and this is my tribute to the beauty of this masterpiece

Bombay Talkies
Rating: this one is not to be rated. It is a celebration, lets not get it jumbled in numbers :)

As most of you are already aware, this movie is 4 segments by 4 different film-makers, and boy are their styles different. Prepare to be blown away by film making that takes guts and at the same time keeps you glued to that chair. Without further ado lets get to it!

*spoilers ahead*
Ajeb dastan hai yeh:
Karan Johar: what does that name tell you? let me guess.. bubble gum romance, extravagant sets, sad scenes followed immediately by "khushi ke asso"... The moment I heard KJO was doing a segment i was like "why??!" That was till I saw the real Film maker in him and tell you the truth I like what I see!! You wonder what was holding back all these years. What a way to bring homosexuality to the silver screen. At a time when everyone just refuses to talk about something that is seen as unclean and taboo, Karan took the beauty film music from a by gone era and weaves a deft story about forbidden love. The pain reflected is real and so are the characters. what a job Rani, Randeep and newbie Saqib Saleem pull off..(fun fact: Saqib and Huma Qureshi from Gangs of Wasseypur are siblings)... and that song... "AJEB DASTAN HAI YEH, KAHAN SHURU, KAHAN KHATAM..."  hauntingly beautiful towards the end....

Star:
Dibaker Banerjee
My most awaited segment of the movie. two words: Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
Of course the fact that Dibaker Banaerjee was handling this segment was just too mouth watering to resist. No matter what I say we should feel blessed that a talent like Nawazuddin was discovered and not lost in the crowd. You almost feel that this could have been his story to some extent. Purandar is a drifter. He doesn't seem to be interested in a job. Wants to be his own man and his failure is reflected in the EMU (yes it really is one) he has stuck outside his house. He has a family to support but he seems to just go along with his wife's earnings. Even in the eyes of his daughter he is a loser.He happens to get to a shooting set of a Ranbir Kapoor movie and get cast as an extra without even trying. Then comes the beauty of the film. He is a natural actor but has never applied himself to it. he envisions his former acting guru in the brilliant Sadashiv Amrapurkar. The symbology of him sitting in a trash and the Emu walking around isn't lost on Purandar as he is made to realise that life isn't about getting it handed to you. You have to fight to earn it. What I admire most about Nawazuddin is his ability to absolutely change his body language and movement with his attitude. He had me smiling all through the interval marvelling at another piece of genius from a future movie legend.

Sheila ki Jawani:
Zoya Akthar
I always expected this to be the lightest of the lot. I was SO WRONG! Where the hell did they get that kid! What a natural! (Although as a side joke I really don't know what will happen to him if he is in a boys school.) The age old question as long as there have been parents is : What will you be when you grow up? this is a boy who wants to look like Katrina Kaif, walk like her, talk like her but mostly he wants to be a dancer just like her! His dad wants him to play football and become a strong boy. Your heart aches with the boy who knows what he wants at that age but its not remotely possible. Think about yourself at that age. The triumph of a child's dream always makes you punch the air. the underdog is always the favoured one. and boy does this kid dance! I say again, where do they find this kinda talent? Zoya has done a wonderful job with the kids and specially with Sheila Sharma.

Murraba:
Anurag Kashyap
The master of anti-climax was given the climatic segment. Ironic doesn't even begin to describe this tale of battling the odds and doing the almost impossible. For someone who has only heard tales of the Magnificent Bachchan from his dad, this was further proof that there is can only be one Angry young man. period. Even the tribute to him by way of song is so overwhelming, you wonder how on earth will a man travel all this way to just to fulfil his ailing father's last wish: make Bachchan have a bite of murraba?! Just when things seem so bleak and impossible, when things are most bleak with no end in sight, we are greeted by his giant presence. You cannot hold back and your hooting with the other hundred odd viewers. the AC multiplex is transformed in the single screen cinema hall of yesterday in a second once VIJAY DINANATH CHAUHAN comes on screen. What a moment when he bites into the murraba. I don't have the heart to go further into the story and give out the anti-climax of sorts, you will just have to make do with going and watching the movie. That scene with AB remains with you even after the movie is over. Of course nothing taken away from yet another brilliant Anurag Kashyap find: Vineet Kumar Singh.

The credits have the customary song with all the stars of the induustry, you name it. That song was the only downside for me but that's ok. the visuals kind of made up for it.

This movie feels like our movie. A movie of the fans, for the fans and by a bunch of fans if you think about it. I hope this remains as a landmark to inspire future generations just like the previous ones did for us. I sleep happy tonight aware that Indian cinema is still safe and secure in the hands of these geniuses! The magic of movies is alive and kicking! lets go for the next 100 years!

Mama...i went home...

It's been a year and a half that I left India to come to Newcastle. Understandably what was on my mind all this time was when will I go to the one place on earth I have always dreamed of going to, the theatre of dreams, Old Trafford. I put it off for far too long and too many little things have come in the way. No more! I had enough of waiting and watching... I had to go...the date was set...26th December 2012..I decided to wish myself a belated Merry Christmas...

Ironic that the game i chose to go for was the one between us and Newcastle United. All the planning in the world couldn't get us a ticket but I said what the hell...lets just go to Manchester and see if we can manage something... there weren't even any of the tours available at the time of us leaving Newcastle  but my friend Manu and me just took off with just a small rucksack, some cash and a prayer...

 I cannot tell you what it was like to lay my eyes on heaven for the very first time. I have heard of love at first sight. Now I know what it means. Your heart skips a few beats, you get all giddy and all you want to do is run to it and at the same time try and keep calm... and then I lost it. My jaw was on the floor...I was here!! I was home!! you know the banner that says Manchester is my heaven...well that is what OT is to me.... every inch of it looks so perfect.. there is a certain romance associated with the club and it is evident with the way the steward, the guy selling you banners and programmes and the fans talk to you about the club... For the first time I was among people who understood my fanaticism for the club. you start to sing all the utd songs you can think off without even a moment's hesitation.. I was home...

Then reality hits...what about a ticket? of course we cheekily tried our luck at the box office for a game that was sol out weeks ago..the guy at the counter was suppressing a chuckle while almost telling us to move on...we even tried to get some the usual way us back home do...you know the 'black' way...the tout says 150..I love man utd...but even I cant get that kinda money...we decided to see if he decides to drop prices...almost 30 mins later just at the point of saying maybe we should go find a pub or something a man walks by with his 9 year old and whispers "need tickets?"... casually im like yeah? how much?..he is like about 50 quid, west stand.. I'm like yeah, that's cool and as I walk it hits me!! west stand.... that's... THAT'S...SURELY NOT...STRETFORD END!...the guy is like yeah..we have our season tickets there and i get a few from the academy but my son dropped out...you may ask what academy...well the guy just happened to be the guy who coaches the u10 and u-12 kids at carrington!! his own kid plays for Oldham academy...yes, the same school a certain Paul Scholes comes from!!! We still couldn't believe our luck!!! 

anyway to cut a long story short we get in, pay the guy and scramble to get to the ground... the last time I had a moment like this was when I laid eyes on the Taj for the first time. my mind went blank! for a few seconds all I could do was just soak in the atmosphere.. I have watched the team play before but to see them on home turf being cheered on by the crowd was so new to me...we settled in and waited for the game to start...not even one clue of the roller coaster awaiting us!

What a game!! I mean WHAT A GAME!! It was perfect!! In every aspect...I got to see united make a comeback...not once, twice but THRICE!! my heart was pounding throughout...I barely sat and sang my heart out!! danced with strange men, swore like a sailor, and pleaded to the higher powers for victory...watched Alex have a go at the ref, watched Scholes and Giggs calm the team down and watched an inspired comeback after giving away some rubbish goals!! What a finish...literally when it was 90 Min exact we find a winner.. OK so it wasn't in "fergie time" but still very late and what a wave of celebrations broke out around me...73,000 voices blowing away the measly 2000 from the toon...came out chanting and singing on the streets...

Now like I said before we had nothing with us...so when I called back home to talk about the game with Surabhi, she was like she can see some tour dates opened up online...another twist of fate! got two tickets for the tour the next day itself!!

I have always maintained the belief that if we plan something it mostly never works out and when you just things by instinct it works out better then you imagine! I had another chance the next day to spend even more time with my beloved club and stadium...did the usual tour and went through the museum and other aspects many fans have done before and countless will do after...but what will remain with me in my heart is that I made it to the one place I have always loved without question, and sat among the most loyal of them fans and sang songs I always have had to do alone...you know that one dream you all have...the one where your the most happiest...you may have replayed it a thousand times in your head only to wish for it to one day come true...My Biggest dream always was sitting in Old Trafford at Stretford End among the most loyal fans and cheer on the team I love to victory...no matter how many times I saw the dream it never lived up to the actual feeling of doing it... I can still hear the crowd inside my head, I see Chicharito and Fergie walking to us celebrating the win, I can still feel the atmosphere inside the ground. It was so easy for us to say comeback kings but it was that night when I completely understood the DNA ingrained in every aspect, every inch of that club... It screams at you when the team is down...the belief is beyond words and all I could hear from the players to the managers to the fans was never give up! never surrender!! 

I hereby proclaim that the earth now can end itself whenever it wants, there is nothing more for me to find.

I have found peace, I have found zen, 

It goes by the name of Man united, and Old trafford is its den.

WE LOVE UNI-TED, WE DO,

WE LOVE UNI-TED, WE DO,

WE LOVE UNI-TED, WE DO,

OOOH UNITED WE LOVE YOU!

In loving memory

Today i lost a brother. No i will not accept this nonsense that God wanted him to be in a better place. Yes i am selfish. i Dont want him to go to a better place. i want him to be there when i get back. no amount words or gestures will suffice today. i Have lost my closest buddy. my brother. the boy went away too early. I don't know if i will ever forgive God for what he has done to us.

I still can clearly see that day when we were 9. I had just started using the school bus and he was this guy who i only remember seeing carried around school by his dad. He comes up to were am sitting I can still clearly hear him say...actually lets be clear i really dont remember what he said :P but i just remember that we hit it off from day one. and its been a ride for the past 15 years. never outta sight even with the distance. He always made freinds easily and had a bunch of friends but for me he was my 'best' friend. I dont think anyone knows me as well as he did, and we shared everything... lunch, bus seats, school benches,stories  ...memories for a lifetime i have with my friend.

He always valued his friends over anything else. for someone who did so well in studies he didnt really even look like he was putting in enough effort because he would be out with us , screwing around..I owe him a lot in life and im thankfull that i was able to share so many wonderful years with him. he put the love for movies and cinema in me. oh how i loved to listen to him tell me a new movie story. Didnt care if it killed off the suspence for me. it was his way of saying it. I  guess i see now why i love the movies and acting so much. i could listen to him for hours on end.

No matter how much i hate it that he went so soon i know that he lived life to the fullest. I am insanely jealous of a guy who was so brave and awesome . you cared for your friends better then anyone i know. You fought the fight people would have given up on years ago and you did it with a smile on your face and a crass joke in your head. when The Hobbit releases this year what i will miss the most will be your excellent review of it. Hope you will get to watch it where ever you are. Hope you leave some of the angels alone for me when i get there brother. I will live my life knowing now that your presence will be with me. love you bro...miss you so bad...sleep tight...goodbye till we meet again my brother, my friend R.I.P. Harsh Pande.

P.S. i wont forgive you for the words we parted company with- " arre we will meet when you get back...where will i go man!" words that will haunt me for the rest of my life....

FORGIVE THEM DON CORLEONE...THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO...

Appalled , disgusted, disturbed, saddened, embarrassed and most of all down right anger.... i dont really think this is something you would say is enough to make you understand that this will be a review raving about how awesome DON2 is... no no no no no...no way in hell will there be a kind word said...so if u loved the movie, stop! and go away cause your opinion is for another place...not here!!

I LOVE DIL CHAHTA HAI and LAKSHYA...hence i loved the movies frahan akhtar made... even the first don was pretty classy even though it essentially was supposed to up the original one with Big B...and i waited silently and patiently for mr. akthar to come up with another gem in Don-2...oh im tired of putting the 2 so just presume im just talking about this movie...

I have always loved movies and so in essence i liked a lot of the movies shahrukh did...not a fan but yes some was good...but then this thing got in him what we see in so many celeb wannabes like beiber... they think they are SO cool...well ur wrong shahrukh and everyone else in don...you'll suck donkey dick with extra pudding on the side!

I have lived with inspired movies and inspiration taken to cover up the fact that you copy stuff from everything around you, let alone the west, you dont even leave regional cinema alone.... today i realised that no matter what we cannot be as cool as james bond or jason bourne no matter how hard you try mr.khan! you can have all the copied body language, those gaudy dialogues and a soundtrack right out of casino royale but u forget that people no longer go to a movie leaving their brains at home... we have slapstick comedy for that...the whole movie i just wanted to smack you silly for thinking your so cool...on seeing his driver getting shot he goes ' what a shame, abhi boat mujhe hi chalani hogi' ...when he is told killing him will get them a ticket to sell drugs in europe he looks at the other guy and goes ' yeh waha ka ticket collector hoga'...i can go on like this for the whole movie but i pulled my hair so hard some of my grey cells got pulled in the process and now i have dyslexia and cant even type straight..

why blame him though... he wasnt the only disaster in the movie... priyanka chopra is there na...someone like her who i dint really hate is giving me a pretty good reason to lose it... she was just some chick trying to bone don in the first part so that she could then kill him and avenge her brothers murder...how the hell did she become and interpol officer?? and that too a high ranking one...am i missing something here or has it become as easy as getting an erection in the morning as becoming a law enforcer????!! and those dialogues...who is writing this shit...i didnt even bother looking...fucking disgrace!!! they are trying to be so cool and all they forget the basic gist of the plot every 5 seconds...She needs to make up her fucking mind... i want to kill him,,, no he isnt that bad... maybe he has changed after all....wait he jumped prison.... now i want to kill him again.....wait....oh for christ sake i wish that bullet had been shot right through his head in the first movie...the irony of it we had to deal with a second part coz shahrukh is still alive....and we will never see insane talent like heath ledger...god is a BITCH.

the storyline is a pointless as an 80 year old dick...the other characters as you can guess will get killed by don sometime or the other...the only thing u need to remember is no matter what happens or who you think is don up against...in the end that asshole will live and i will now base my efforts on getting farhan killed to avoid another movie being made for that mofo khan....even though i downloaded it through free wifi i hated it...thats gotta tell ya something...

and one final thing- SHAHRUKH you are DEAD to me for doing one of my favorite moments from 'THE USUAL SUSPECTS'...the moment were kevin spacey just does 'poof' and gone....anything else was fine but that...on this note i think im allowed one lame dialogue as well-Don2 ko dekhna mushkil hi nahi...ah u know the rest.....

It's All About Belief....

Tonight is the night manchester united was sent packing from the champions league group stage. A week ago we were knocked out of the league cup by crystal palace, a team struggling in the championship. Manchester city ran riot all over our sacred ground this season and did the unthinkable.that scoreline which cannot be repeated by me. When we began this season no one in their wildest dreams thought we would have made all the above possible. We made amazing signings over the summer although never went for that creative mid-fielder that we all thought would come we were kicking it...And how!! we came from 2 goals down against the same man city team to win the community shield. We took apart tottenham bit by bit to win 3-0..And how can we forget the 8-2 annihalation of Arsenal....
then shit just got bad...how?
all of a sudden we get hit by injuries to key players or a drastic loss of form...players like rooney who were scoring for fun couldnt even hit the ball correctly...and it just starts getting worse for us with that loss to our noisy nieghbours...suddenly we have a wave of bad performances and during this time our defence gets porrus...I dont know for sure but there were games were i saw players not ready to make the pass for the team...rather shoot for glory and make fool out of themselves....and the results ar ethere for us all to see...today was quite the low point......

But how many times have we seen this?? how often did we have our backs against a wall...when we have been down and almost out....been written off and been mocked for being glory hunters...for having a bunch of superficial fans who dont care about united but just about winning...and everytime we have been sent to rot...we get back up..dust off the mockery...pull on those red shirts and say with pride, we are the boys in red and we will never die....we will never give up...we wont back down...there is a reason that for all these years when we had an amazing run of wins and trophies it has never been on one talent alone..how many of our players really were winning the ballon d'or or fifa player of the year....its because without any real wonderkid or genius alone we would still be able to pull through...we are a team...its 11 guys who make saturday amazing for us...atleast until monday morning..for all those broken hearts out there just need to look back at the beautiful memories we have had over the years...as the brits say...just keep calm and carry on....keep the belief....because in the end...it's all about belief!

HOW FAR IS ENOUGH...?

So.....its settled then...this is me....and this is what I wanna do....and I still feel confused! why??
what more do I need now?? how much more do I need to do??...why do I feel like its done and now I can just rest....I don't seem to get the message that I need to keep going...this isn't not even the finish line....not even close....I love this place and I can get used to Newcastle but I can never forget the world is my canvas and its my duty to paint it red!!!
Its now been more then a month over here..although I still cant keep my mouth closed when I see something awesome as always around here...I wish I could show what I see here back home so I could share how awesome it is here...and yes I do miss home...its getting harder to face the fact that I wont see India till 2013!...but I guess its got to the point were the pain just needs to be accepted....I mean I still wish I was there in my society to burst those crackers, to watch my parents have the time of their lives on their 25th anniversary....to go to those SSU sessions again...to just hangout with my freinds at the hidden place...to meet harsh and the others for a night of crazy madness...man I could just keep goin on and on....
but if I had thought bout all these things before I left I probably may have never left....for many I dont think it was a big deal but for someone whose travel stories were limited to Goa and Kerala and the random one to Delhi it was the biggest thing ever to even fly this far, let alone live here for a year and a half...leaving my family, friends and loved ones behind.....

I want happiness so much its almost like a crushing force against my chest and I cannot consider failure as an option...there is no second place....its this moment and the next...every one of those moments is a test....if I get an opening I need to tear into it...if I get a shot at victory I need to make damn sure I make it count...need to seize that moment...because that moment is like a crossroad with everything you want against everything you got standing in your way..Iv got momentum in my back....fear and doubt are thundering down like a friggin express train right at you....and ALL Iv got....the only thing standing between MAKING HISTORY and BEING HISTORY......the only thing...THE ONLY THING... I can count on in every single point of time is ME!!
Its me vs them, me vs 'no!', me vs 'cant!',....ME  vs next year, last year, excuses.....its me vs the odds.....                                            ITS ME VS SECOND PLACE.....
THE CLOCK IS TICKING....
LETS SEE WHAT IV GOT..!