ChinmayC Blog

More than ninety thousand spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) watched spellbound as Virat Kohli scripted his most incredible innings ever to propel India to an incredible victory over archrivals Pakistan in their opening Group-2 match of the Super-12 stage of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup today. India-Pakistan matches are always exciting, nail-biting and full of ups and downs. However, in my lifetime experience of watching Indo-Pak cricket today’s match is perhaps the most incredible one, considering the unbelievable climax. When most of Indian fans, including this writer prominently, were almost giving up on Virat Kohli, he has chosen today’s match to prove what champion matter he’s made of. He has made the impossible possible, snatching the most improbable victory from the jaws of sure defeat. No doubt, he has thus bettered the memories of Sachin Tendulkar against Australia in Sharjah . Well, Virat’s innings of 82 in 53 balls with 6 fours and 4 sixes is not without pr...

It is a historical fact that cricketers from the Eastern and the North Eastern regions of the country rarely make it as big as Sourav Ganguly and get to represent Team India at the international level. We’re yet to have a cricketer from the states of North East India who’s made it to Team India. Therefore, when some player achieves this feat people of that particular state or region get ecstatic and their euphoria normally gets translated into a range of sentiments and emotions—positive most of the times, but can be darker at moments of adversity that, according to their perceptions, seem to affect their loved cricketer. I remember quite a few instances while I had been to Kolkata and happened to listen to the radio commentary of India’s test or one-day matches out on the streets. Invariably a person would come up to me and ask what the score was. I would reply India was batting and the score was this or that. On almost a reflex emotion the person would want to know, “Is Ganguly still ...

Maharashtra Postal Circle has today organized ‘Business Meet-2022’ in Mumbai with a view to announce the Circle’s new initiatives to its bulk customers in providing logistic solutions for the speedy delivery of parcels and cargo services. This Meet is a part of the National Postal Week-2022 being celebrated from 9 th to 13 th October with various daily activities wherein October 12 has been marked as the ‘Mails and Parcel Day’. The highlight of this Business Meet has been the presentation of the new initiatives in the presence of India Post’s major stakeholders from Mumbai and Navi Mumbai as regards the parcels and cargo services.   Amitabh Singh, Postmaster General (Mails & Business Development), made the presentation regarding the new initiatives taken up by the Department of Posts and apprised the Customers of the planned Logistic Post and Express Cargo Service revamp.   During the interactive session that followed discussions were held for ensuring better an...

It’s always opined by knowledgeable folks that when a car is kept sitting in the garage for months its maintenance suffers—ranging from battery disorders to even rusting in the body—not to speak of the atrocities heaped upon the inactive object by the rats. This means that all humans of various professions and even lifeless objects need to do what they’re meant to do, on a regular basis. Else, maintenance issues emerge leading to breakdowns of various types and escalation in the expenses. Cricketers are much more prone to such inactivity disorders, because it follows naturally that the more they play the fitter they get. Thanks to the experiments-cum-rest syndrome adopted religiously by the cricket management of India these basic principles have not been followed. As one of the results, the crux of the Indian bowling attack, Jasprit Bumrah who had been on indefinite rest, is out of the ICC Cricket T20 World Cup-2022. Now, the entire Team India management is in a daze, unable to take th...

Kolkata is fully back to its old-normal ways after two long painful years as West Bengal's biggest festival Durga Puja heats up. Pandal hopping is in full flow with thousands on a spree of ' Thakur Dekha' (how many Goddess idols have you seen?) almost since the start of Navaratri. Although Durga Puja rituals start only from Mahashasthi which starts today, technically for all here Goddess Durga descends on earth on Mahalaya, the last day of Pitru Paksha, that is the eve for the beginning of the bright lunar phase or Shukla Paksha . There are crowds thronging the major pandals, particularly from afternoon to late night every day, with their mobiles clicking non-stop, falling upon each other for a better view, the rush for the selfies in all available spaces, thronging all the eating joints to their fullest capacity and all the smiles. Celebration is the motif and soul of the festival. Married or unmarried couples of all ages who could be going through lots of strain and stre...

It is a fact of life that we keep on getting celestial or divine messages from the invisible world—particularly during times when catastrophes/tragedies happening in or about to befall our family or locality or country and we might as well call these as intuition or premonition or telepathy or presentiment or the like. Most of the times we fail to decipher these in time; sometimes we understand but fail to act upon it and some other time we comprehend enough to prepare well for it. From at least three months prior to my father’s demise I had been having a very disturbing time—wanting desperately to go to him, be by his side; dreaming about him and at times having a hallucination of seeing him around. However, living quite far away from home, I failed to act upon it due to various external factors including a persistent financial strain. As was inevitable, he passed away one early morning and I could reach home only on the sixth day travelling for three days on an ordinary train as book...

Although the ‘experiment’ scare is far from over Team India is now looking more like the one it had been in the national sense as regards the international tournaments. Doing justice to the expectations of a decider the third and last T20I match in Hyderabad last night went down the wire keeping the thrill on till the penultimate ball of the match. It was a high-scoring match in a pitch that helped both the batsmen and the bowlers. Australia put up an imposing target of 187 runs for India after Rohit Sharma won the toss for the second time. And India skillfully handled the early losses of both their openers with Virat Kohli (63) and Suryakumar Yadav (69) having a rollicking partnership of 104 runs thus nearing the target with enough wickets left. However, the ride was still not without thorns as the Aussie fast bowlers started delivering beauties and scoring boundaries was difficult. With the demolition-man Suryakumar gone Kohli and Pandya got into some kind of a spot—India needing 32 ...