Santhosh's Blog (2009-2018)

Greetings, one and all! We may be reaching the end of January, but here's still taking the opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year! Here's hoping you have a wonderful year ahead, with a lot of happiness, prosperity and good health! It is indeed yet another clean slate to start all over again, regardless of how we fared during the previous year. Whenever we approach the end of the year, I always used to feel very gloomy about it - and this dates back to my teenage years! While every person of my age group was out there in a festive and happy mood, I was mostly deeply sad and sort of pessimistic about the year that went by. Yeah, I was kind of a pointless philosopher even during my teenage years, as weird as it may sound. *rolls his eyes* And that mindset stuck in my head ever since for all these years... ...until this year, thankfully! Despite 2016 having been a pretty awful year for me in many ways, I made the conscious decision of keeping myself calm and genuinely...

Hello one and all! Here's wishing everyone a very Happy New Year, and wishing you lots of happiness, good health, and success this year! Despite posting this a tad later than desired, I did not want to miss out on writing my usual Year In Review for Bollywood post, as it has been a ritual on this blog for the last few years. This post is sort of like my personal Bollywood guide on what I felt to be the best movies of 2016, and the movies to look forward to this year. A quick side note: It has been kind of annoying to read on a few Indian media websites things like "2016 having been a bad year for Hindi cinema" or "2016 not having too many good Hindi movies" - when there have been a good number of well-made movies this year! So here we go, hope you enjoy the following lists, which includes the movies I watched and enjoyed, as well as the movies I couldn't watch but heard good or great things about them. Here we go!

Hello all! As this year comes to an end, here's reviving my blog yet again to write the usual year-end posts; it is indeed a personal "ritual" I do not want to lose, and these posts are usually among the most popular ones on my blog. So why change a winning formula, right? The first one of the year-end posts will be my pick for what I deem to be the best Bollywood songs of the year. And wow, this has been yet another great year for Hindi music generally! Thus it was obviously a rather difficult list to compile, as it is every year - I am indeed expecting some feedback on the lines of "Why did you leave out THIS song?" and the likes. This list is based on my personal choices, but I'm hoping you will enjoy it. I have featured a playlist at the bottom including all these songs mentioned in the list. Here we go!

Note: this blog post was written and published prior to the 3rd India-England Test at Mohali, and excludes his performances in the IPL and other similar T20 tournaments This year may have been terrible in many ways for a lot of us, but I'm sure Virat Kohli isn't complaining. He has indeed had a fantastic 2016, and the numbers speak for themselves! The reason why I'm writing this post is because I was just very curious about what the numbers have to say about Kohli's nearly perfect 2016 and his career in general. So I went on looking online for the various statistics, and they were SO phenomenal. Moreover, from looking up his 2016 success online, I ended up getting stats about his career itself, and my jaw kept dropping even lower and lower every single time. So I thought to myself "Why not just share these thoughts I have on Kohli's career thus far in a post on my good ol' blog?" I have not published many cricket-related posts on the blog off l...

(The link to the soundtrack jukebox is featured at the end of this post) Review Alizeh features really good vocals from Arijit Singh, Ash King and Shashwat Singh, and an interesting church song-like arrangement. Beyond that it doesn't impress all that much, but it remains a decent melodious listen. Cutie Pie is a goofy song with whacky lyrics, but it is effective. Sung by Nakash Aziz and Pradeep Singh Sran, his voice goes really well the mood of the song. The song having a nice Punjabi flavor to it boasts of an extremely catchy beat. One would think a song which features the line "breakup song" over and over again may be a bit too much, but The Breakup Song actually works as a song. Jonita Gandhi brings it to life with her powerhouse vocals, and does a great job to match the energy of Arijit Singh's voice. The rap by Badshah is also a nice inclusion in this one. Featuring a really nice element of rock with some really good use of guitar, Bul...

The man who has given India numerous victories with his captaincy. The man who has re-written the rulebook of wicket-keeping. The best ever finisher in world cricket. The coolest mind of the game. All these claims and titles go along with results and records for the Indian cricket team. Despite all of the various elements described above, there is no doubt that MS Dhoni is a man who is an easy target for haters. (contd.) Read the full article here: http://www.sportskeeda.com/cricket/thoughts-from-a-dhoni-fan-on-why-he-should-not-be-put-under-pressure-ahead-of-the-4th-odi (Originally posted on Sportskeeda on 25 October 2016)

After waking up from my afternoon nap, I open up my phone and see various posts on my Facebook News Feed saying "PV Sindhu playing Carolina Marin LIVE in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games - follow the updates here". I think to myself: "Wow, what a relief! Woke up RIGHT in time to watch the Badminton final. Would have kicked myself hard if I missed that". To give you a little bit of background, I am a 20-something Swiss Indian, i.e. a guy of Indian origin having been born fully raised and educated in Geneva. Having had parents who have always been diehard fans of cricket, I have been the typical cricket addict, despite living in a region obviously dominated by football fanatics. I also occasionally follow tennis, for obvious Federer reasons. (contd.) Read the full article here :  http://www.sportskeeda.com/badminton/realizations-swiss-indian-fan-after-pv-sindhus-inspiring-performance-rio-2016 (Originally posted on Sportskeeda on 20 August 2016)