perspective

Cricket was once a gentleman's game, then Pakistan started playing

2010-08-30T01:13:00.000-07:00

I am no fan of Pakistan, neither of their cricket nor their country. However, I do wish them well. They've always got a flair about themselves and seem to surprise people often. A world class leader like Imran Khan or a sensational pace bowling duo of Wasim and Waqar or a super hefty yet superb batsman like Inzamam. They definitely were a good addition to the small... no.. tiny world of international cricket.

But time and time again Pakistan have shot themselves in the foot. And instead of the making the world take notice of the positives, they've either made the world look at them with disgust or made themselves a laughing stock.

Here's a history of the numerous different occassions where Pakistan cricket has failed... Failed itself and definitely failed the game!!

1. Ball tampering
Things started in the 70s when Imran Khan and other fast bowling couleagues discoverd that an old cricket ball would reverse swing. And if the ball was very old with a torn seam, it would reverse swing even more. While the discovery was awesome, it also gave players a reason make the ball old. Thus started an unethical, ugly and unsportsman-like practice of tearing the seam so as to get reverse swing.

2. Baised umpiring
The 80s saw the dark side of the baised umpiring. On field umpires were always from the home team. And teams visiting Pakistan started realizing that the Pakistani umpires were always biased towards their players. While such things may have been happening in other countries too, never did things go so out of proportion as they did in Pakistan.

The best incident that showed this was the Shakoor Rana and Mike Gatting standoff. A frustrated Mike Gatting gave Shakoor Rana a mouthful and went and sat on the stairs just outside the boundry line (he didn't want to talk to anyone, not even his own teammates).

Other teams like Australia and India also complained of poor umpiring decisions.

3. Ball tampering
The late 80's and early 90's saw the resurgence of ball tampering in a different form. Bowlers like Wasim and Waqar were making batsman all around the world hop, skip and jump with their stupendous bowling. One of the weapons they'd discovered was that reverse swing could be achieved easily if the difference between shining side and non-shining side of the ball was large. Greater the difference, greater the swing. Thus started the ugly practise of applying vaseline (or something similar) to the ball so as to make it swing.

4. Match fixing
The late 90's and early 2000's was probably the darkest phase of cricket. Most countries found their players in the middle of the match fixing scandal. The BCCI decided to ban a few players. Australia had to reprimand Shane Warne and Mark Waugh. South Africa was probably most affected with the Hansie Cronje hearings. Sri Lanka had to enquire about Aravind De'Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga.

And how could Pakistan be behind... I don't even know how many enquiries PCB did and how many players were implicated. Almost everyone in the team seemed to involved somehow. Everyone from Salim Malik, Rashid Latif, Wasim Akram and Ata Ur-Rahman.

5. Spot Fixing
The 2000's saw a new form of fixing. "Spot fixing". Where players took money from bookies not to decide the fate of the entire match but to fix smaller things like no-balls, maiden overs, dropped catches, etc.

Allegations started coming up about Pakistani players playing in the English counties were taking money for spot fixing. While the police did some enquiries occasionally (and so did the PCB I think), nothing concrete came up. Players got away scott free.

But the biggest bombshell has come in the form of the sting operations by "News of the World".

Apart from this, there have been numerous instances when Pakistani players have been involved in unethical, unsportsman-like practices.

- Shahid Afridi scratching the surface of the pitch in England
- Shahid Afridi's infamous ball biting
- Mohammad Asif using banned drugs during IPL
- Sure, players have been heckled all over the world ... but Inzamam going into the crowd and hitting a spectator was uncalled for
- I haven't forgotten this.. Sourav Ganguly was caught by Moin Khan on the first bounce (after the ball recociated from the silly point fielder) during a test match (Chennai or Delhi, 1999)
- Afridi and Gambhir's infamous mid pitch tussle
- I don't think I've ever seen a Pakistani batsman walk :-)
- I don't think the Oval fiasco was well handled at all

What disgusts me most is that all this is done and yet there is no remorse or repentance. Its almost as if they can do whatever they want and they know they'll get away with it.
And why not, players retire out of frustration and are allowed to come back within a few days... "life bans" are handed out and then revoked within weeks... The ICC never seems to have any teeth...

The term "no balls" is extremely relevant in cricket these days ... players make money by bowling them ... and they keep doing it because ICC doesn't have them!!

Enjoying Test Cricket

2010-07-26T18:07:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing all these intellectual interviews of past cricketers about the need for reviving test cricket. The compelling argument for doing this has been the empty stands and probably the dropping viewership on TV. Almost everyone, from Geoff Boycott to Ian Chappell to Kumar Sangakkara, has put forth their suggestions for the so called revival of test cricket.

To start with, I simply don't agree that test cricket needs any revival. It is still the form of cricket that best tests a players capabilities. Any cricket fan worth his salt would tell you that the joy of watching a test match far far outlives the joy of watching a T20 or even an ODI.

So what is it that is so enjoyable about Test cricket? And why can't the limited overs version come any close?

The answer is pretty simple. Cricket is not only about fierce bowling or aggressive batting or scintillating fielding. There is an entire part called "strategy". Rather strategy is a part of every sport. And the joy of watching a sport lies in understanding the strategy being employed by the comtetitors and then seeing how well it is executed upon. And since test cricket goes for 5 days, there is huge amount of time for strategising and implementing it. And there are a wide variety of variables in it. The condition of the pitch, the form of the opposition players, form of your own players, condition of the ball, weather, state of the game, time of the day, etc. More the variables, more the combinations and therefore more possible strategies. It is totally fascinating to learn and understand these strategies and see how things are shaping up.

If anything the ICC should try to educate people about what to see in Test matches. I think crowds will throng the stadiums if people understand what is happening.

Having said that, I do think test cricket could do with some changes. Here's what I think.

1. Cricket matches are won by scoring runs and taking wickets. History is the proof (Yes... while thinking I had "Itihas gavah hai" in mind :) ) that the best cricketers are the ones which did either of these (or both) things in huge numbers. And beyond that history tells us that the best cricketers were those who did these things "FAST"!!
Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar and modern day great Virendar Sehwag are reverred as the best in the business because they scored runs quickly. And they are proof that scoring runs quickly is possible. Not everyone has to go through the grind like a Geoff Boycott or Rahul Dravid. Sure, today already most test matches have an average scoring rate of about 4 runs an over, why can't it get better? Batsman should acquire the skills to be more positive while scoring runs.
Shane Warne, Muralidharan or Glenn Mcgrath are greats because every time they came on to bowl, they created chances of getting wickets. If every bowler was able to do that, it would be simply awesome. Bowlers should be more aggressive and attacking and always in the quest to get batsman out.

Think of it this way, if there were 5 consecutive ODIs, would it bring in the audiences? Probably yes... beacuse ODI cricket is fast paced. It doens't have as much strategy as test matches... but it does have some (and part of the reason ODI's popularity is waning is because most the strategies have been tried and tested and ODIs seem to be mundane). Fast paced cricket with lots of strategy would be "yummy" isn't it? :-).

2. Day night tests
Surely this has to happen. On the one hand administrators expect people to come to stadims but on the other they schedule the match from 9am to 4.30 pm. Nobody would want to leave their job and come to watch cricket.

In some ways, test cricket is similar to classical music. Classical music isn't just about the words or the sound that it creates. One needs to understand it a little bit. Only then can one really appreciate it.

Hopefully things will only improve in the days to come. There will be exciting test matches which everyone will enjoy.. both, on the stadiums and on TV.

-Shri

18 off 6

2010-05-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

I was closely following the T20 world cup semi-final between Australia and Pakistan today. The Australians had fought with great valor and the equation read 18 runs to win off 6 balls. In true Australia spirit ("Australian Maaj") Michael Hussey pulled it off and did it with one ball to spare. It was nothing short of sensational.

However, this inspired an interesting thought... If the equation read 18 to win off 6, how would've other teams reacted?

India : Unless someone's pants were on fire, India would've scored about 7-8 runs; at best 12-13 and gone off the field feeling proud of how well they fought (no one would say that they actually LOST the game).

Sri Lanka : Similar to India but they would also make some strange, stupid noises "Aaaalalalalalalala.. geelllaaaalalal.. khlalahh khulalalalaa" (Read this aloud in a high pitched tone and you'd suddenly feel as if you are in Colombo)... or something like this. But yes, they would've lost too.

New Zealand : Would've lost as well. And would complain that most of their 'in-form players' (like who?) were injured.

South Africa : It would've either started raining or they'd have forgotten to play a shot or miscalculated or something like that. Chances of winning would be about 50%.
Pakistan: Anything could happen. They could either score off these runs easily or maybe just lose wickets on all 6 balls.

West Indies, England, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe: Never mind.

-Shri

Indian Society and IPLGate

2010-04-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

I heard one of the more interesting conversations about IPLGate on Cricinfo. Harsha Bhogle, Sanjay Manjrekar and Ayaz Memon made some extremely valuable points there. But the point that really stuck with me was made by Sanjay Manjrekar. He said "I wish for the benefit of India cricket that Indian cricket fans didn't love the game so unconditionally. I wish they were more demanding".

It was an absolutely awesome statement. Two of Indias finest nicities are they they are not very demanding and they are extremely forgiving. It almost comes to a point where some people have started exploiting these virtues. India finds itself in unprecedented times today. The growing economy, the wealth, the importance and the belief that the times ahead promise much more are something that hadn't happened anytime before. There is a tremendous sense of achievement and confidence. However, there are some attributes passed on from previous generations that haven't gone away.

My parents generation was the first one after India's independence. It was probably a time when most of the country had indulged itself (knowingly or unknowingly) in nation-building. Government had tons and tons of work to do. And thats why Government jobs were abundant. Having a Government job was the norm, in fact prestigous. It came with decent salaries and most importantly security. However, poverty and simple livelihood were pretty common. And since people didn't have too many resources at their disposal they were not very demanding. They didn't need everything to be perfect. They were happy to just enjoy whatever they had rather than worry about what they didn't. This in turn makes people more forgiving as well.

Compare this to an American or European society where people have been well to do for generations. They've almost got used to things being just perfect and therefore anything other than perfect draws a lot of ire. For e.g. Indian roads haven't been in the greatest of shapes for years (they've improved now). But that didn't make people pelt stones or burn effigies of the concerned officers. Compare this to an incident where an American freeway has some pothole. Police with immediately shutdown the freeway (or at least that lane) till the time it is made perfect.

But this will change. The India of today is rich, glamorous and is getting used to things being perfect. They can afford a better lifestyle and are getting used to it. I don't think newer generations of Indians would want to go to an ordinary cinema hall once they've been to a multiplex. And once this better lifestyle becomes the norm everywhere, it will mean that people strive to get the best of everything.

So if an IPLGate happens again in a few years, people will not be that forgiving. It will take a lot of effort to win their confidence back. But till then, let's just hope that controversies such as these are few and far between.

-Shri

IPLGate: "Na deshyudh, na dharmayudh... ye hai dharti par karmayudh"

2010-04-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

The Indian Premier League started as this colossus of entertainment. It was the perfect mashup of cricket, India's biggest infatuation along with Bollywood, glitz, glamour and huge sums of money. Sure, the international cricket stars rubbed shoulders against each other. But the best of IPL was these magic moments when somone like Shadab Jakati or Rajat Bhatia foxed the likes of Glichrist and Hayden or Manish Pandey or Shrivats Goswami hammered Dale Steyn and Shane Warne. For almost two months India did nothing but IPL. Cinama halls didn't see movies releasing, TV didn't see new serials starting and I'm sure local businesses found their clientele more glued to television that visiting restaurants or grocery stores. It was almost as if all the money involved in anything associated with "having-a-good-time" was routed to the IPL. Nothing could match the excitement of a three hour T20 match between two privately owned teams. Seriously, the IPL was something India couldn't have enough of.

And now suddenly the IPL has kinda surprised itself. It has proved that there was something that was more interesting (sensational?) that the IPL matches. It was "IPLGate" :). So even though I keep an eye on the cricket matches, I find myself more interested in what Lalit Modi and co. are upto. How many teams did he actually own? How much was his stake? How much money did he swindle? And much more... It also gives me some pleasure in saying "See... I told you... How does someone like SRK, or even worse Priety Zinta and Shilpa Shetty, have these huge sums of money? None of them (nor their respective past and present better halves are as rich as Ambani or Mallya." I may be proved completely wrong and someone could come up with numbers that add up. But you can't deny that I had my moment :D.

The last few days have been especially exciting. What started off as a tiff between a super suave junior minister (popularly found near the terms "External Affairs" (:D), "cattle class", "tweet", etc.) and Lalit, turned into a big brawl and now seems like a full fledged war (where the junior minister has made way for IT officials). The interesting part is that this war is not about who wins. It is about who won't lose.
. If Lalit Modi loses, he will lose his position as the IPL commisioner, pot loads of money and whatever else he must have been cooking behind the scenes.
. If Lalit Modi does not lose, the BCCI might lose its credibility as it failed to act against Modi, the IPL might lose since everyone will continue to look at it as a black money powered, tax evading tournament which didn't clean itself up when the opportunity presented itself.
. If Lalit Modi and the BCCI agree on some common terms and decide to settle the dispute, most likely they'll be able to keep everything under wraps. Given that they have tons of money, politicians from the ruling and the opposition parties, influential businessmen and some people from the media on their side, that wouldn't be too big a problem. In such a case, India loses :(.
Well, India loses in all the three cases above :(.

The best part about an intriguing thriller is the climax. When we almost always find out that someone is schizophrenic :D. But at least there is something we are looking forward to.

So what is it that we are all looking forward to in IPLGate? Would we rejoice if Lalit Modi was found guilty of malpractices and sent to jail? Would we sulk if the IPL was terminated indefinitely? Even if it continues, would IPL be the same again?

The best outcome, I think, might be that Lalit Modi makes way for someone just like him but honest and transperant to be the new head of the IPL. But unfortunately, such a person may not exist and the IPL may never be the same again.

City Of Gold - Lalbaug Paral

2010-04-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Mahesh Manjrekar is all set to release a film on the trials and tribulations of the textile mill workers in Mumbai. Titled "City of Gold" for the Hindi version and "Lalbaug-Paral" for the Marathi version, it seems like the first of its kind movie.

While I've heard many a stories about the textile mills of Mumbai, I haven't had a chance to watch any film on that topic. Apparantly there were as many as 50 textile mils which gave employment to about 250000 people. There were problems of salaries and bonuses which resulted in the textile mill workers going on a strike for almost a year. It eventually led to the closure of the mills. The land that was occupied by these mills was sold to wealthy real-estate owners. The mills have been brought down and large malls, multiplexes, etc. have been built.

There is no single answer about what happened to the 250000 workers who worked in these mills. Looks like "City of Gold" is all about these people.

Startup "Chakraview"

2010-02-25T13:40:00.000-08:00

People trying to get their startup off the ground have to go through a very tricky situation.

The moment you try to explain your idea to someone, they come back to you asking who your competitors are. If you say that there isn't anyone doing exactly the same thing that you are pitching, people say you haven't done enough research. If you do name a couple of competitors, people will then ask you what is it that you are doing different from them. You then take the trouble of explaining what and how are you different. Immediately people start arguing that your competitor will throw a few engineers and implement your idea and you'll be left stranded.

No one can give a definite answer as to what could be done next. One option is ... "To hell with people; I love what I'm doing; I think its interesting and someone will benefit from it. I'll keep going!" :-).

The Genius Of A R Rahman

2010-01-06T19:19:00.000-08:00

A.R. Rahman has changed the face of Indian film music. A Mani Ratnam find, Rahmans first major work Roja (1993), was a breakthrough. The unique blend of folk, classical and natural sounds in the Choti si Aasha… number, created a new idiom which became a Rahman hallmark. For South Asians all over the globe, Rahman is a cult figure. The young love him because his blends are wild. His popular numbers have a magical mix of all kinds of sounds. For Rahman, there are no rules, no boundaries in music.
Here's a collection of my favorite A R Rahman movies:

Roja: This is the first movie of what was to become director Mani Ratnams political trilogy (Bombay and Dil Se, being the movies to follow). While not quite as accomplished as the later movies, he develops a very simple story of a young married couple, the subsequent abductment of the husband(Arvind Swamy) by terrorists and how his wife(Madhu) struggled her way through police and politicians to get him back. Though superbly enacted and excellently shot, the crowning glory was Rahman souful music. It matched the mood of the film and the superb cinematography of Kashmir.

Bombay: The story of a Hindu boy marrying a Muslim girl and their struggle during the communal riots in Bombay. Bombay will eternally be remembered for Remo Fernandes's "Hamma Hamma" and Baba Sehgals "Rukmini Rukmini" :-). Rahman was in full-form this time too with other amazing songs such as "Kehna hi Kya" and "Tu hi re".

Rangeela: The story of a roadside romeo (Aamir Khan) falling for an aspiring actress (Urmila Matondkar), Rangeela marked the true entry of Rahman in the world of Hindi Films. Songs about the Aamir love for Urmila, his frustration over not winning her over and Urmila's situations in the movies she was acting provided Rahman ample opportunity to showcase his talent and come up with an outstanding score.

Lagaan: There's hardly anything to complain about Lagaan. From the actual story, acting to the scintillating music of Rahman, Lagaan truly became the torch bearer of Bollywood's films worldwide.

Yuva: Though the film didn't work much at the box office, Rahman was once again at his scintillating best. Watch out for "Kabhi Neem Neem" and "Dol Dol".

We, The People:- "The Geek Squad"

2009-12-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

Once, while an arranged marriage was being "arranged", the prospective groom sent the prospective bride a long list of questions. One of the questions in the questionnaire was "Do you consider yourself a geek?". :))

It's an interesting question. Mind you, the question is not "Are you a geek?" but whether you consider yourself one.

I'm sure there are many people who would want to consider themselves geeks. Its not necessary whether they are geeks. The point is, they consider themselves geeks :-). Being in the so called 'Hi-tech' industry, I happen to meet many people who think they're geeks or who do stuff which does make them geeks.

Here's a small list of such things which people do which makes them geeks (or look like one :-) )

1. MS Windows bashing and using Linux (and/or unconditionally praising Apple):

Bashing Windows is almost the first step towards showing yourself as the geek. Some people don't even know why other OS's might be better/worse than Windows. But all they see is Windows crash a few times and off they start on their journey to 'geekhood' :-).
I've met some people who crib about Windows source code not being public. But people should know that there's a ton of information about Windows available (either published by MS itself or by people who've reverse engineered it). Also, in the same breath people might praise Apple. Except maybe a few, most Apple policies are identical with those of Microsoft (sometimes maybe even worse). Yet, bashing MS and praising Apple seems geekish!!

BTW, I'm not against bashing Windows. It should only be for the right reasons.

2. Using terminals instead of IDEs, GUIs:

We all know or have heard of some spiritually inclined people who almost renounce everything they have and lead a life of austerity. There are some such people in the industry too. They won't like the latest released version of, say, MS Visual Studio or not even like newer plugins in Eclipse.
They usually have some best friends (forever): vi, emacs and gdb. So away you go IDEs and fancy GUIs. The graphical front-ends and fancy tools only lower the performance of an otherwise well oiled and perfectly working system.

3. Using text based internet:

This was awesome to know. Call me a poor engineer, but untill a few months ago, I didn't even know that we could see websites on a terminal window. But I came to know about it from someone and tried it. Sure, there are a zillion problems with it. But it works. And is awesome when it works :-).

The internet has revolutionised the world. But largely web browsers have been responsible for it. And browser wars have been a topic of great debate. Geeks are kinda beyond the browser wars. As long as they have a terminal window, they're happy :-).

4. Using other text based terminal softwares: pine, apt-get, yum, etc.

5. Debate between vi and emacs:
If you haven't been involved in one, definitely do it. Sure, just like me and most others, you don't know what all vi (or emacs) is capable of ;). But just start the debate for the heck of it. Its always cool to talk about clean interfaces, light-weight softwares, multiple buffers, etc.

6. Using geeky terms/phrases at unwanted places:
I've heard some amazing terms being used in some amazing situations. I think I was discussing newspapers with someone. And this person suddenly said, "I don't like newspaper XYZ. It's signal-to-noise ratio is very high". The argument may be right; but dude "not-the-time not-the-place" for these phrases. Similarly, I've heard many people use the words "latency" and "overhead" in some fairly unrequired circumstances.

Some of the steps might be completely genuine. People do like programming from the terminal using a minimal text processor. But there could be many who kinda do it in the enthusiasm of being in the "Geek Squad". And generally that enthusiasm is short-lived.
I too might be guilty of doing some these things! But then, I'm geek too... oops.. human .. human... I'm human too :-).

Language, accent, pronunciation and the "I-am-so-cool" syndrome

2009-10-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

Haven't you all realized that everyone of us has subconsciously (or maybe even deliberately) developed notions regarding the use of languages and their accents and pronunciations of some words in a way so that we *think* we look cool :-).

I can't think of theories to explain this so let me directly jump to examples.

I come from a city whose official name is Pune. However, inspite of it being a proper noun, I wonder why some people keep referring to it as Poona. I'm quite sure everyone knows that the official name is Pune, so saying "Poona" doesn't come out of lack-of-knowledge :-). Plus, more often than not, its people usually speaking in English who keep referring to it as "Poona". Some people (whether they admit it or not) think its more "cool" or more "hip" to use the word "Poona" instead of "Pune". I don't really understand why. If you see English news channels, this is quite evident.

More than the Pune-vs-Poona debate, we see people using the word Bombay when the official name of the city is Mumbai. Again, its usually the English speaking(and therefore supposedly more "hip") population using the word "Bombay" and not Mumbai. Again, if one proper noun replaces the other, why is one supposed to be better(as in "more hip") than the other?

We recently saw a case where a supposedly more "cool" film producer (suave, sophisticated, urban, good-at-English-sucks-at-Hindi, etc.) had to apologize to a political leader (no "hip" at all :D... always-ready-with-the-"Marathi"-sword) because he used the word "Bombay" instead of Mumbai in the movie (interestingly, a good chunk of the movie revolved around "Mumbai beat"). Who made these unwritten rules that "Bombay" is more sophisticated than "Mumbai"?
I understand that the transition from "Bombay" to "Mumbai" happened recently and not everyone was happy with it. But then, this decision was taken by a democratically elected government. So people should go by it. Not everyone agrees to the increase in taxes but people still pay it, right?

Then comes the most hilarious part. Accent!! People have this notion about a hierarchy of accents :-). The western accent is supposed to be right at the top. The more western your accent is, the more "hip" you are....

WHAT??

Yes... but for some reason, this seems to be the unwritten rule about accents. One easily finds Bollywood film stars speaking in these accents just so that they look cool [the most hilarious piece was; recently Rakhi Sawant was trying to do this accent (in an interview to a Marathi channel)... she tried to speak one sentence in English using this accent and forgot some word in between... then switched to Marathi... again forgot some word... then simply started shaking her head and moving her shoulders up and down hoping that the interviewer would move to the next questions :)) ]
Even within the various parts of India, unfortunately, the hierarchy of accents exists. So people from the northern part of India, esp. Haryana, are supposed to be not-so-hip since their accents don't quite exude too much "hipness" :D. But I think this is similar to the accent and attitude of people from Texas :-).
Aishwarya Rai had made an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and it was so weird seeing her faking the western accent. Neways... let's not even get started on Aishwarya Rai!!

And last comes the unwritten hierarchy of languages. Speaking in English is supposed to be coolest, followed by Hindi and the last is the regional language (this is the hierarchy I've seen people conform to, it might be different elsewhere). In college (undergrad), this would result is some really really funny situations.
Two perfectly Marathi speaking classmates meet each other. But #1 is supposedly more "cool" than #2. So no matter what, #1 will always speak in English. #2 will make some futile attempts first, then switch to Hindi and eventually simply get back to what he knows best... Marathi. When both have a language in common, why can't they simply talk in that language? After all language is supposed to be a medium to convey your thoughts.

Why is one language supposed to be more sophisticated than the other? These hierarchies completely beat me!!

Sports based films suck ...

2009-09-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

Bollywood will see the release of another film related to sports this week. Apparantly "Dil Bole Hadippa"(DBH) will see Rani Mukherjee(RM) being an ace cricketer who disguises as boy just so that she can participate/play in some cricket tournament.

I always seem to have one big issue with films based on sports. Esp. those in India. Sports films will obviously be incomplete withouth sporting action. So a cricket based film will have to have someone playing genuine cricket shots or bowling genuine/legal deliveries. A hockey film should have the protagonists playing hockey of the utmost skill and performance level. A soccer based film should show the actors playing amazingly good soccer. But the biggest problem is... THEY DON'T!!!

Well, they do show the actors playing the sport. But it can never look as good as we're used to seeing it. HOW ON EARTH CAN RANI MUKHERJEE EVER PLAY A STRAIGHT DRIVE AS GOOD AS WE'VE SEEN SACHIN TENDULKAR OR RAHUL DRAVID PLAY? These actors go on an film promotion spree claiming that they trained for six months (surprisingly everyone trains exactly 6 months, be in RM for cricket, the "chak de" girls for hockey....I wonder why bollywood is obsessed with "6 month training"?). Don't they ever realise that people spend their lifetime training in some sport and yet they cannot make it big?

The fault I think lies with the producer and the director. I don't think they are people who understand the sport to the highest level and therefore when they shoot they don't realise that the actual sporting action looks fairly amatuerish.

Some of them do put in a lot of effort and come reasonably close to not making a fool of themselves. "Chake De India" was a prime example. I'm sure anyone who has seen hockey would realize that the girls in that movie were no where close to look like pros (forget winning a World Cup). But it wasn't too bad either. Some of the scenes (maybe shot with professional hockey players) looked fairly commendable. And more so, the rest of the film were so good that the audience (probably) forgot about this.
Same goes with Lagaan. Sure, the cricket there was nowhere near as good as international cricket. But their story basically had the actors not knowing sport.. so they were learning the sport and were not born champions. Even without this, the quality of cricket there was fairly impressive (I loved the fact that the ball did not spin in the second over... and started spinning later when it became old).

People might argue that the film is about the story and not really the sporting action. Maybe... but then don't show me the junk!! If you're so skillful, make a movie about sport without showing the actual sport. Sure DBH might be more about how this girl is going all out to achieve her dream of playing cricket. But the sight of her holding a bat clumsily and hitting a (so called) straight six makes me cringe. Just look at the promo below. Looking at this... and thinking of the climax of the film... yes ... you guessed it right.. a cricket match.. tense situation... wickets falling every other ball... and suddenly our beloved (yuck!!) girl-turned-boy batsman (batswoman?) finds the form of his/her life and starts hitting fours and sixes at will... possibly hitting a six on the last ball to win the match...

WHY WOULD ANYONE LIKE IT? If she trained for six months... did no one tell her how to hold a bat. Or did she train herlself as a scorer or umpire and only realized it on the day of the shoot that she has to play a cricket shot ... not raise or stretch hands.

For all you know... after all this rant, I myself might like the film. But it can only be because of other, non-cricketing reasons.

We, The People - Part 2

2009-06-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

Moving on to another type of people... I'm sure you all have someone of this kind at some point in time. Say you are having a conversation with this person. Your conversation comes to a point where you might discuss some statistics.

(TOG ==> The Other Guy)
...
You: "Oh! That was about 10%".
TOG: "No. It was 9.43%".
You: "Yeah... so what I was saying is that ..."
TOG: "No.. No.. didn't you get it. It was 9.43%. Your knowledge is incorrect."
You: "Yeah alright. But the point I'm trying to make is..."
TOG: "Its not a good thing Shri. If you have knowledge about something, it better be precise. About 10% is wrong."
...

Feeling a little bad or maybe humiliated you simple wish you could walk off.

I'm certainly not advocating that you're fine with imprecise knowledge here. All I'm trying to say is that some people are just so "Difficult". Yes, thats right. Difficult. Being finicky about the absolutely minute details is just one quirk of these people.

I remember one guy giving me a hard time about the pronounciation of the word "Mature". The argument in this case was whether "mature" was pronounced as "Match-ure" or "Mchure".

There are so many other instances that one can think of. Being wierd about the food they eat. Finding faults at somethings that we don't even think about. The other day one person started arguing with me about why USA requires any documentation for processing visas :D. His point was, anyone who can buy a ticket should just board a plane and get to the US or any other country.

I sometimes feel these people are sick. Sick as in... not the emphatic "Sssiiiiccckkkkk!!". Just the sick meaning ill. They're scared. They have these notions that if things are not the way they like something bad is going to happen to them :-). So if they say "10%" and not "9.43%", they'll fall down. Or if they mis-pronounce the word "mature", their tongue will be twisted or something like that. Someone somehow has to give them the confidence that they are just as good as anybody else. The world is good place to live in and they don't have to worry too much.

I happened to speak to one of these guys one day and explain to him that being difficult is not good for him. He agreed and then immediately started arguing about how people are bad in this world :-).

These people also always have some glaring shortcomings. I'm not trying to find faults but its just too obvious to miss. Sometimes they're not very well read. So the 10% guy knows all about the particular topic we were discussing. But when we move on to something else, he knows nothing. Sometimes they don't have common sense. So the guy questioning a countries' procedure for granting visas doesn't really know what purpose visas serve. Incidentally, this guy also wasn't well read. He didn't know who Osama Bin Laden was.

Its not that these people are in anyway less capable than the others. I'm sure all of them could achieve the greatest of achievements. But, its just that they are different.

Chandler "Microsoft" Bing :-)

2009-06-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

I took a look at Microsoft's new search engine "Bing". I was quite impressed with it. Maybe because by now Microsoft is just known for not getting "search" right :-). So the bar was quite low. However I liked what I saw.
At the "AllThingsD" conference last week Steve Ballmer was asked about the name "Bing". He said that they didn't want users to keep clicking back and forth. It tried to do more that simply find the best links and put those in front of the user. Fair enough.

When I heard the name, the first thing that came to my mind was "Chandler Bing" :-). Maybe because I am huge F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fan. But the name 'Bing' is almost synonymous to Chandler Bing and thereby Matthew Perry. I wonder why Microsoft hasn't yet taken Matthew Perry ("Chandler Bing" from F.R.I.E.N.D.S) as their brand ambassador. Chandler was smart, witty, funny, had a job in "Data processing and statistical analysis" and very very popular; not too different from what Microsoft is trying to achieve. If they used Jerry Seinfeld for the brand name "Microsoft", they could've easily gone with Matthew Perry for their search business.

And one by one they could introduce new features named Monica (where they keep the search engine clean), Joey ("date" search), Ross (academia search), Rachel (deals search) and Phoebe (?? search) :D. Maybe this could be the way of bringing all the six of them together again!! As is, we hardly see anyone from the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. starcast these days.

We, The people ...

2009-04-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

I've been planning to write this blog for ages... just never found time. Haah... a friday afternoon and 4.00pm it is. Best time to write one :).

Neways, if you think this blog is about democracy or the Indian constitution, read no further. If you couldn't relate the title of the blog with the term Indian constitution... read this :).

I've met some absolutely amazing people so far. From over-enthusiastic to simply dull and boring. From absolute geeks and nerds to the not-so-bright-but-very-very-hardworking. From rib-ticklingly funny to genuinely irritating. There is a saying in Marathi "Vyakti titkya Prakruti" which loosely translates to each one has a different personality. I want to write a series of blogs on these people. Maybe one blog per 'type' of people. Lets see how far I go.

Obviously, I won't give out any names... and will try to be politically correct (and therefore less interesting?) :).

There's this class of people who are "Omniscient". (Now that you are back after reading what omniscient means...) This class of people is simply amazing in the amount of knowledge that they posses. You talk about technology, they know all about it; you talk politics, they know everything; you talk films and entertainment, they know it. I wonder where and how did these guys gain this much knowledge. I never see them reading :).

There's this typical situation when these guys simply excel in. There are a bunch of people discussing some topic. You *think* that you know more than most people and start leading the discussion. This omniscient guy is all quiet simply taking in whatever is happening around. You thin you have a brilliant suggestion or a path-breaking idea. You put in all your efforts explaining it. You go to great depths trying to prove how your idea is good, how it beats existing ones and how you have *almost* all the facts necessary to prove it. And just when you feel your point has been driven home, this guy will simply put forth a couple of questions to which you will have no answer. You fight, fight really hard in trying to gain the upper hand. But a few thoughts later, you realize that there's something missing. This guy will then simply run over everything that you said. Without being too offensive, he'll prove that your suggestions were 'kinda crap' :). There will be a new idea that he will put forth and this one would seem nothing short of sensational :). Everything just falls into place. His idea is brilliant and there are just no shortcomings. You're left wondering how will you ever be that good!!

If this hasn't happened to you you're really missing something :). That feeling of being almost there but not quite. That definite urge to go that extra mile in your research. And also that big realization to be good listener.

-Shri

A Tale of Two news-websites :)

2009-02-19T09:33:00.000-08:00

A brilliant example of how different news agencies percieve news and information differently is on show today (Feb 19th). The Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) serving news to IBNLive.com, surveyed some Indian companies and found that salary hikes were going to go down by almost 5%.

"The slowdown-hit Indian corporate sector will reduce annual salary hikes by about five percent, a survey by human resource consultants Hewitt Associates released on Thursday said."

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/payday-will-hurt-5-cut-in-salary-hikes-likely/85822-7.html

On the other hand, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reports on TimesOfIndia.com that India is going to see the highest pay-hike in Asia-Pacific.

"India is projected to witness an average salary hike of 8.2 per cent this year, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India-to-see-highest-pay-hike-in-Asia-Pacific/articleshow/4156703.cms

Well, they're not contrary to each other. A pay-hike of 8.2% might still be 5% less than normal and thereby both the news agencies would be correct. However, one chose to write a positive sounding news item whereas the other went for a negative one. I found that interesting and hence this blog. Thanks for reading :).

-Shri
www.videonym.com

Two "Virtual" years

2009-02-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

Its was 5th Feb 2007. Just after completing my Masters, all excited about starting my first job in the US, on this very day I started my "virtual" journey. My first day in the office at VMware.

The orientation, the introductions, the Boot-camp and then onto the real stuff... life was just one task after another. Busy as much as you want it to be and yet very very interesting. Discovering new things about software, discovering how it felt being surrounded by geeks and striving hard to keep pace with everything. Its been an AWESOME journey. Something I will treasure for life. Hopefully many more such wonderful years to come. But then ... I said something 10 blogs ago ;).

-Shri

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

I just had to write this now... I've been reading in the news about Slumdog Millionaire's amazing success at the Golden Globe awards. I watched the videos now and the emotion and pride are riding very very high.

I saw the film a few weeks ago. It was an extraordinary drama. Well worthy of all the accolades that it is receiving. I do have some objections about the way India is projected in films made in the west, but that's for later.
I've seen a few movies where chase sequences are absolutely brilliant. The Matrix or the initial sequence in Casino Royale come to mind. But there was just something amazing in the chase sequence in Slumdog Millionaire. Kids aged 5-7 playing cricket on the runway of the Mumbai Airport and the police 'hawaldar' (constable) shoos them away and chases them in order to teach them a lesson. The innocence in the scene was fantastic. The cinematography was amazing and not to mention, the music was sensational. But the most awesome part of the scene was the way Jamaal and Salim seemed to enjoy the chase :). They seemed proud of the fact that they were making a policeman chase them and were able to outrun and outsmart him everytime he seemed to close in the gap. Awesome!!

When I heard the news about the 4 Golden Globe awards that they received, I was really itching to see the videos. There always seems to be some magic in awards. Inspite for rooting for SM and also knowing that they've won it, I had goosebumps when the awards were announced. Seeing Anil Kapoor and A.R.Rahman share the same auditorium with Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Chris Nolan, etc. was awesome. And everytime SM won an award, 'Jai Ho' in A.R.Rahman and Sukhvinder Singhs voice was truly heart warming.

I felt extremely extremely proud that a film with a story set in India, with Indian actors, technicians and an Indian composer has had this resounding success. Chak De India!!

SRK ... A Microsoft?

2008-12-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

Time and time again, I happen to meet people who just simply can't like Shahrukh Khan :). It happened recently when I asked a group of friends if they would be willing to watch "Rab ne bana di jodi". Its amazing ... since he's probably "The superstar" that the Hindi film industry has seen. And even more interesting are the reasons that people have to not-like him.

Most people say that he is hardly an actor. In all his movies, its SRK who is the the main lead... and not Raj or Rahul or Om or whatever. Its as if Shahrukh, the person, is put into some real like situation and the camera is capturing the scenes. Compare this against Aamir Khan who almost everyone agrees is the better actor.

Although, I agree with this, I don't think this is good enough reason to just completely hate SRK. Fine, he doesn't go into the character but makes the character look like him. So what? The ultimate aim of a film should be to entertain people with characters on the screen which are likeable. If SRK does that job for a film, then whats wrong? So when you see a DDLJ, you want to have Raj as your friend or a member of your family. When you see a Baazigar, you root for Vicky even though you see him going on a killing spree. When you see a "Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa", you do empathize with Sunil even though you see him lying and manipulating his way through. No point talking about Swades and Chak De India since almost everyone seems to like them.

Maybe I am an absolute nerd or just completely out of my mind, but I couldn't help comparing this situation with that of Microsoft :).
In the tech circles, most people just seem to go slam-bang against Microsoft.Its amazing ... since that is probably "The Company" that the software industry has seen. And even more interesting are the reasons that people have to not-like him.

Most people talk about how Windows wont work under some circumstances or worse still, it will crash just out of the 'Blue' (WOW... how subtle was that ;) ). It was they who made the 'PC' really what it is. Without Windows, probably the computer would've never been personal. And not just that, maybe the software industry would probably not existed at all.

From what I think, most of this criticism comes from --- "I am an industry insider. I know it better than most. And guess what... Microsoft sucks." We've all been in these situations where claiming something completely extraordinary catches everyone's attention, people are in awe and probably makes one feel above the rest. But if one thinks rationally, its almost stupid :).

Microsoft has made such an impact that people expect too much from them. And when that does not happen, people criticize them :). For e.g. quite often when Windows crashes, it because some driver written by some companies other than MS did something wrong. Windows did a good thing to crash because that saved your PC. If it had just continued, you might have lost your hardware or data or both. Neways... will talk about BSODs in depth later.

But the point to note about both, SRK and Microsoft is that people like them. They're famous and successful. And most of us would want to be that. So rather than criticizing them people should try to learn from their success (don't emulate it if you don't like it... but just criticism makes no sense).

Mumbai...

2008-12-01T17:57:00.000-08:00

Just like most of you, I witnessed the horror of terrorism in Mumbai... live on TV. And just like most of you, I was left extremely angry, frustrated and completely dejected with 'the system'. I watched most of the 60 hours of the battle and during the process was hounded by many many questions.

1) How on earth can 20-something men (boys?) be convinced to unleash such terror?

I know the quick answer is that these people are brainwashed with sermons with religious/Islamic duties and the idea of trying to save their brethren. But my question is, how would killing people of other religions help? If at all, it only increases the divide between Muslims and non-muslims. If extremists in Pakistan were so sensitive to atrocities on Muslims in India, why don't they call them to their own country? In 1947, people had the option of selecting the country they want to stay in. The Muslims in India made that choice themselves. I know, some of the present Muslims may not have been born then and maybe they disagree with the choice made by their great-grandfathers or grandfathers. If there is any truth in that, the extremists in Pakistan should pressurise their govt. to call Muslims from all over the world who are unhappy with their respective countries and allow them to stay in Pakistan.

2) What about Kashmir?

The original conflict started with the dispute over Kashmir. With the current sorry state of affairs there, I guees, Kashmir has just become a 'piece of land'. Its more in the news for terrorism than its natural beauty. I don't have concrete numbers, but I am pretty sure that tourism in Kashmir is certainly not big enough to affect the economy of either India or Pakistan. I am quite certain that both countries spend more money on military in Kashmir than they get from it. Not to mention the pain that it is causing to the millions of other people. I think, Jawaharlal Nehru's words 'If there is heaven on earth...' has caused more damage than promoting J&K. In such a situation, why would holding a plebiscite in Kashmir under the extremely extremely heavy surveillance of impartial international police (you know who) be a bad idea?
Beyond that, I think, if Kashmir is 'owned' by any country, the other one would be unhappy. Why can't people agree to the idea of open borders? Regarding the money that the tourism and other industries in Kashmir would generate, spend all of it on Kashmir itself. If there is a will, the logistics could be worked out.

BTW, the above should be done only because of the fact that there was no clear mandate as to whether Kashmir was meant to be with India or Pakistan (Yeah I know about Hari Singh and all that... but the ground realities are different). If Pakistan or anyone else thinks about snatching any other part of India it should be met with proper force.

3) Is it jealousy?

I've always felt that Kashmir and Islam is just a reason for the jealousy that some people have against India. India and Pakistan were (kind-of) born at the same time. Who had more advantage at the start is debatable. But the whole world would agree that India has done much more constructive work in the last 61 years than Pakistan. India is a big player on the international scene today with a big booming economy. But Pakistan has probably no significance. If it were not for terrorism, Pakistan would have been no different than say Latvia or Libya or Ethiopia. Seriously; they don't have many people, they don't have oil, they are not a very accepting society and most countries in the world don't play cricket.
Therefore, its fairly natural for them to feel jealous of India. Some of the more aggressive people have therefore taken it upon themselves to bring India down rather taking Pakistan up.

4) Aren't politicians supposed to be 'servants'?

'Public servant' is the term used probably in text-books now-a-days. From the local corporator to the member of parliament, every is my servant. Everybodie's servant. And these servants are not doing a good job at all. Its amazing to see that India is developing so rapidly and so well and yet the people are increasingly unhappy about politicians.
Time-n-again my mind goes back to the lesson learnt in history. The British came to India and promised safety and security to the kings from other kings. And slowly but surely got a stranglehold over the entire country. Similarly, politicians pose a people there to help you in every which way during elections. And immediately after that, they start behaving as if people are at their mercy. Its time these things change. I laughed out loud when Barkha Dutt mentioned on NDTV that no politician was ready to come on 'We The People' after the incident because they were scared. Guilty conscience pricks the mind :). I laughed out even louder when Mrs. Hemant Karkare refused to take compensation from Narendra Modi and also when Mr. Unnikrishnan Sr. refused to meet the Kerala CM.

Unfortunately, 'the system' in India has always given the impression that whatever you want, you can get it done. Be it driving without a license or getting a govt. job or avoiding income tax. What would it take to make everyone more responsible and honest?

India has the 'Right to information' act these days where ordinary citizens can ask for the information they want. I am quite sure that this wrath against politicians will now be translating in many RTI petitions where many scams and promises-not-delivered will be unearthed; especially by TV news channels. I can't wait to see all that...

5) What am I doing?

Its all good to sit back and keep pointing fingers at others. You, me and everyone else knows that if one wants things to be better, then one has to work towards it. We all should realize our responsibilities and act in a responsible, fair and trustworthy manner.

Hopefully, a bigger, better and a much much stronger India will emerge from all this.

"Ganguly's legacy lives on..."

2008-11-14T13:42:00.001-08:00

I wanted to write an article on Sourav myself. But I don't think I could have even matched this awesome piece written by Rajdeep Sardesai.

"Ganguly, on the other hand, is both "Maharaj" and "Dada": feudal lord and neighbourhood 'pada' gang leader, both protector and aggressor. He has been alternately perceived as arrogant (remember the stories that were spread of how on his first tour he was not too keen on carrying the drinks trolley) and resilient (has anyone made as many successful comebacks as Ganguly). He has looked the mighty Aussies in the face, including the famous incident when he kept Steve Waugh waiting for the toss, and yet has been accused of shying away from fast bowling.

At home, he is a most gracious host, and yet he is remembered as the captain who bared his torso on the balcony of Lords. He has pushed for Greg Chappell as coach and has also fought with him. He has been criticised for being selfish, yet arguably no other Indian captain has backed his players more firmly.

Perhaps, its the complex nature of his personality that makes Ganguly so attractive, a fallible human in a cricket universe populated by robots. "

For the complete article click here:
http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rajdeepsardesai/1/52826/maharaj-or-dada-gangulys-legacy-lives-on.html

Jai Dhoni ...

2008-11-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's two outstanding gestures simply won him over. If there was anyone who did not like him, these gestures would have easily made them his biggest fans. The idea to ask Sourav Ganguly to lead for a few overs before the match was over outstanding. I couldn't believe it for a few minutes. And when I did, I had a big lump in my throat. A few minutes later, I had a big smile on my face and respect for Dhoni was infinite :).

Then after India won and during the presentation, he asked Kumble to share the trophy with him and after a few pictures were taken, quickly moved aside and let Kumble enjoy the trophy and the limelight. It showed that he understood the contribution and the hard work that the 'old man' had put in.

Not only does he have great cricketing acumen, he seems to be good at man management.

It was hard to increase the respect that I had for Dhoni. It was already at infinity ;).

India Vs Australia

2008-09-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

Right... the time is just perfect. Its a Friday evening and I've been stuck into analyzing a core dump for the last few hours. What better time could I get for writing a blog!!

India take on Australia in what would be the most interesting crciketing battle in the last few months. Remember India did exceedingly well in their last trip Down Under. Will the Aussies hit back with a vengeance? Or will the famed Indian middle-order rise to the occasion and deliver a splendid performance? Only time will tell...

For starters, all the talk about India giving a red-carpet welcome to the Australians is certainly not good. Yes, the Aussies would certainly benefit from practicing on Indian pitches and Indian bowlers. But a true match is when both the sides are equally competent on a certain type pitch. So this practice to the Aussies will only make the actual contests interesting.

The other worrisome part is the media going hell-for-leather against the likes Ganguly, Dravid, Kumble and sometimes even Tendulkar. Agreed that all of them are well past their prime, but the real question is are there replacements with enough capabilities? The selectors could certainly do with a better strategy. For example, they could have each of these being made to sit out of a match so that some other youngster gets a chance. That should keep everyone happy (yeah.. provided all of these seniors are the same kind of form).

Keeping Ganguly out of the Irani Trophy was pretty sad. Right since the outset, I've had a soft corner for Sourav. He just had that attitude where one felt he'll back you through out. I really really hope that the selectors do select him in the 14 for the Tests against Australia. Its fine if he cant make it to the playing 11. He could play the 2nd test when some other senior batsman sits out. If he's not selected, I would feel bad :(.

I'll write more about this series as and when I find time...

The "VMware" experience

2008-09-22T17:00:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to write about my time at VMware for quite sometime now. I thought I should write when I have plenty of time so that I could do justice to it. But that just never happens. So I decided to write now ... when a build (compiling and linking) is going on.

There have been very few instances so far when hype and huge expectations have been matched by the end product. The two most recent ones were the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa and the IPL. But there has also been one more such instance, one from a completely different league ... VMware!!

Learning about and yearning for system software has been something I've done for years. Right since the first time I was introduced to it (Big Big thanks to a visiting professor in my undergrad college who taught us Microprocessor Based Systems), I've been in awe of it and have wanted to know more and more about it. I have to say that working at VMware has not just made me learn much much more, but has left me craving for more. To say that working in VMware has been an outstanding experience would be a gross understatement.

The idea behind the formation of VMware was pretty simple. I like to put it this way: "Why would you have just a sigle operating system running on a computer at any given point in time? If I can have Firefox and Internet explorer running simultaneously on a computer, why can't I have both WindowsXP and Linux?" ... {I hope I am not totally wrong here. It would be really embarassing to praise the company you work for only to find out that your basic understanding about its fundamentals is totally incorrect ;) }. To achieve the above, VMware introduces the layer of virtualization between the actual hardware and running operating system/s. This layer allows running multiple operating systems (called "Guest Operating Systems") to run simultaneously on the same hardware.

So as one can make out, VMware's work is very close to the hardware on one side and the operating system on the other. Thats precisely the reason some of the biggest geeks from around the world found this idea to be awesome and have been working hard on it. It feels special to be in the company of some of them.

Quite a few people here eat, sleep and breathe technology. Discussions about Operating systems, drivers, processors, instruction sets, etc. are very very commonplace. The two most commonly heard words are "VM" and "Guest OS". In a span of just about a decade, its amazing what VMware has achieved. From being a company with an outstanding idea to being the 4th largest software company in the world, VMware has had a fine run for the last 10 years.

I still remember the first time I saw a "virtual machine". It was simply amazing. The fact that you could see an OS inside a small window, just like you see any other application was really really special. I did harbour thoughts of being in VMware then. Today its a reality and I feel proud of it.

I hope VMware keeps doing just as good as it has been doing (not lately... but over the last 10 years) and scales new heights. A few millimeters from that height might be because of me ;)

Rekindled!!

2008-08-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

I used to believe that my English is good enough to express my thoughts exactly as I want. But I find that my belief was simply a myth. I would suggest that whatever feelings I express hereon; the anticipation, the excitement, the agony and the final disappointment, should be raised to the power of 10 and that would be something close to what happened over the last few days.

I guess its no secret that I am an avid cricket fan. There were times when I would blabber lines like "I eat, sleep, drink and breathe cricket" or more interestingly "Cricket is life... the rest is mere detail!!" and so on. I've also garnered serious thoughts of making it my career, but somehow it didn't happen. Things moved on from then, engineering studies to Masters and then the job. Somehow the passion to play cricket just subsided. I definitely followed the game (EVERY SINGLE MATCH... almost) but the urge to play cricket was never like it used to be. Little did I know that things were about to change :)

I got introduced to "Bay Area Titans" through a friend of mine. He invited me to a practice session and me too agreed. I went for the practice session expecting ... "There'll be a bunch of people playing something with a 38 inch wide wooden 'danda' and a round bouncy object made of rubber. They would be calling this 'Cricket'. After all, how else can cricket be in the US? We are 'saat samundar paar' from where the actual action is".

But when the practice session started ... the first sign of things being extremely serious appeared. Everyone gathered and there was serious thought being put into who bats, bowls or fields. Some analysis of the previous match and also how should things be for the next one. My mind went back a few years ... the same eagerness, the same urge and the same passion to succeed. I kinda realised how much I had missed this for all these years. But I was enjoying it... every moment of it. I bowled, batted and fielded putting in all my effort. I felt a little rusty at times, but who cares... I was enjoying it ... BIGTIME :)

I was told that I was good enough to play a match after a couple of days. I felt a sudden rush of blood and a sense of joy that I had almost forgotten. This had certainly rekindled my passion for playing cricket.

The day of the match of exhillirating. I'll be honest here. I couldn't sleep well the night before the match. I was feeling as if I am going to play a World Cup match :). How should I bat (Sachin? Sehwag? Rahul?), how should I bowl(Lee? Steyn? Clarke?), how should I field (Jonty? Jonty? Jonty?), how will I take catches ... gosh... my mind was flooded with so many things. Neways, before the match began, I made a firm resolve that I will do "Whatever it takes" and give my best ever performance. The match began, we opted to field. Fielding at covers, I started off reasonably well. The batsmen would dab the ball ever so often towards me. They were not able to take any runs and that certainly helped my confidence. The first 10 overs were really good for our side.

After the drinks break, I was asked to bowl. I braced myself for a good show and measured my run-up. I started off with a horribly short pitched, slow ball on the leg stump. BUMMER!! A better batsman could have hit it for six. This guy managed a couple of runs. I hadn't expected that. I didn't know exactly what was going wrong for the next few deliveries either. Things just went on from bad to worse. Short pitched balls, wides, no-balls... you name it. I felt horrible. I was letting everyone down... what would the rest of the team be thinking about me... "He's gross!!" ... "Why did he even come?". My mind was nowhere near cricket now.

People were extremely extremely good to me. They egged me on, trying every which way they could to settle me into that role and make me comfortable. But I was in a territory I had not imagined at all. If it wasn't for their support, I would've probably hid behind some tree for the rest of the game :D.

My batting was nothing to write home (or "to write blog") about either. Others played exceptionally well, but we lost by a narrow margin of 5 runs. I felt really really bad... had I bowled my two overs reasonably or ever batted with a little more sense, I could've seen the team march home.

I guess I'll get some more chances to prove that I'm not that bad. But the lesson learnt again: Don't think of becoming a hero overnight. Work as hard as possible... "herogiri" will take care of itself :D. God knows how many times and in how many ways am I going to learn this same lesson. But I know when I will put this into practice. Next Game!!

-Shri

The "Friday 3.00pm Syndrome"

2008-08-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

I guess I have been diagnosed by it. And I think everyone has. No no ... don't try to hide it. Its but natural. Its called the "Friday 3.00pm Syndrome". You might have a better (more creative?) name :)

If I had to create a Wikipedia article on it and had to define it, the definition would be:
"At around 3.00pm on every Friday, the entire working class feels this "strong urge" to stop whatever activity they are doing in their office in anticipation of the free, lazy and carefree time they will have over the next two days. This "strong urge" coupled with junk emails discussing plans for dinners, movies, cricket (or any other sport) or outings make it almost impossible to concentrate on work. People then simply while away time by reading about movie reviews, restaurant ratings, discussing sports events or even reading blogs! Some go overboard, doing things like watching youtube videos, e-window-shopping on Amazon, Deals2Buy, Ebay or even Craigslist or even going home early under the pretext of (NOT) working from home.
People who show this type of behavior are said to have been diagnosed by the 'Friday 3pm Syndrome'."

More creative and complicated definitions welcome!!

-Shri

www..com

2008-07-25T15:57:00.001-07:00

Ok... so I haven't written anything for a year!! Not that I am great writer or anything, but just a fact :-)

So what has made me write this? Put simply, there has been so much going in my head for the past few months that I feel my head weighs a few tons. The best way to streamline things to write them down!! Also, a Friday afternoon 3.00pm is not the best time to start a new task in the big, bad (COMPLICATED?) world of virtualization. So the best way to spend time was to write this.

I want to start my own software company. Period! I don't know if I will ever be able to. I don't know if I am good enough and I don't know how many new problems it will bring in my life. But, I WANT TO DO IT. The first time I told this to people (some aquaintainces..., neither friends, nor relatives) their first reaction was to smile and politely say that it doesn't work that way. The way to go about setting up a company is to have an AWESOME idea first and then make it grow into a company ... NOT the other way round.

So the start hasn't been good :(

The other thing people asked me is "Are you sure you can do that?". The conversation basically boils down to the fact that my type of people (Brahmins, non-cunning, "Good Boy", straight-forward, etc.) are not at all suited to being CEO's or MD's or founders. They say that people catagorised as above are best suited for doing jobs... they abide by everything that the manager asks them to do, get the job done well and in time, take the salary and go home. Thats it. They are not really adventerous enough to setup something of their own because it involves risks. What about security? What about the bank balance? What about future prospects? What about the family? ... all these questions squash every single ambition (if any) they might have about starting a company of their own. Generations after generations keep doing the same things... and the same legend gets passed down. [So the next generation will do the same things and use the same reasons to justify them :) ].

But somewhere, somehow, I just don't find all these things convincing. Maybe its some inner voice saying I can do it or maybe its just the stupid "jawani ka josh". Whatever it may be, I feel defiant or rebellious or . I feel that if a person puts in a lot of effort, it should be possible to make things happen. Be it in your regular job or be it for your own company. I have seen some entrepreneurs(thanks dictionary.com !!) from reasonably close quarters and I know the kind of work they put in. Should it really be that difficult? I dream about how that objective to do something big would be the single biggest driving force for me. The day when there will be so much to do that 24 hours would seem horribly inadequated.

I'm sure everyone thinks about these things at some point in time. Its just that they are probably not lucky enough to go ahead and try it. Am I lucky enough to get that opportunity? Time will tell ...

In the meanwhile, I am off to search for "That" idea, that one defining moment when I would feel enlightened and sow that one seed which would grow into ...

"The Defining Moments"

2007-08-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

I had heard a great deal about the pains and tribulations that one had to go through when making their own website. Never to believe that, I decided to make one myself... a site where I would be consolidate all the best videos about news, sports, movies, etc.
I came up with

"MarathiTheater"

All in all, I think its a pretty good effort :)

-Shri
http://marathitheater.apalimarathi.com

"I want to be famous"

2007-06-03T15:31:00.001-07:00

I attended an A R Rahman concert yesterday. The Oracle Arena in Oakland, California was arguably one of the best locations to host such a concert. A huge auditorium accommodating almost 5000 passionate Indians, fantastic sound system and of course, world class music from the man himself. The concert began with an awesome composition "Jage hain der tak hume... kuch der sone do" and the confluence of good music, great sound and an electrifying atmosphere was absolutely unparalleled. My joy knew no bounds and my heart was filled with countless emotions... of joy, of praise, of appreciation, of happiness and above all, of respect and admiration.

I am sure, you'd be surprised ...that amidst all this... the first thing that I wanted to do then was to write. No, it wasn't because I am great writer or want to be one... but because that was the only way, I thought, I could depict my state of mind :). Now that I have actually got down to writing about it, I realise, I am not good at it at all :-). Neways, I'll just continue...

Speaking in general, I have been attending all kinds of music concerts through out. Right from Hindustani classical in the Sawai Gandharv music festival to Daler Mehndi, Apache Indian, etc. I am also an ardent fan of Hindi movies and watch almost every well publicized Hindi movie.

Every time I see performances... either from the musicians in concerts or from actors/actresses in movies... I get inspired from it and feel that I should start working hard towards becoming a star myself :-). Trust me... very often, in a cinema hall, when the movie starts and the names of the artists are displayed, I wish that someday I will have my name on that screen too. I visualize that ... a theater packed with audience, the movie begins with some outstanding piece of music, everyone riveted to the screens and the name flashes 'Shrinand Javadekar'... maaaan... how I wish I see that light of that day!!

I have a passion even bigger than movies/music. Its cricket. There was a point in time when I could only think of a career somehow associated with cricket. From a player to administrator to media person to umpire/official, everything has crossed my mind.

Every time I see Sachin Tendulkar in full flow or an outstanding cover drive from Sourav Ganguly or an athletic piece of fielding from Jonty Rhodes or a toe-crunching yorker from Shoib Akhtar, I wonder how life would be if I were them. How awesome it would be to guide India to victory in a nail-biting India-vs-Pakistan World cup final and lift the "Man of the Match" award :-) ? I visualize that too ... two nations, almost at war, the biggest occasion one could get, the World cup final...situation pretty tense and I go out to bat, wickets falling around me, bowlers, fielders sledging me big-time, and yet I keep my cool, play a masterful innings and help India win. Its the presentation ceremony and host is announces the Man of the Match award... 'Shrinand Javadekar'... maaaan... how I wish I see that light of that day!!

I think we all land up living a one-dimensional life. And as the saying goes "The grass is greener on the other side of the fence" ... we all have admiration towards "Achievers" from other walks of life and we wish how good it would be to be them. This comes from a small hidden ambition that every single person has... "I want to be famous" :-). And everyone knowingly or unknowingly strives to achieve it.

The sad part is that it is very difficult to be very good at multiple things. It takes a lot of effort to be good at one itself and that leaves almost no resources to invest in others. But being young and enthusiastic about life, I keep trying to defy this 'almost-universal' truth. I have tried my hand at so many things, from playing the tabla, to playing cricket and other sports, to making a video, to writing articles/book (on cricket), to doing comentry, to dance/theater, to teaching C language ... the list goes on and on and on...!! All this for one quest ..."I want to be famous".

The World Cup disappointment :(

2007-04-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

India's early exit from the World Cup was disappointing. Although it was amazing to see the hype around the event this time, one definitely felt that everyone was overdoing it. And that hype probably got converted to disappointment after the dismal performance.
But there is another subtle thing that came to the fore because of the early exit.

Just when the World Cup started, everyone seemed to talk about it. How this world cup was special, how India has chances of winning it, how India can learn from their previous mistakes, etc. Every Indian looked like a Harsha Bhogle or Geoffrey Boycott; armed with suggestions and statistics. But immediately after India's exit, you could hear criticism everywhere. "Cricket is a boring game", "The game is so long", "Its so passive...", etc.
It was really interesting to see how people's opinions change with events that happen around them. Or is it that people just see one side at a time. Initially they just saw the positives... the nail-biting finishes, the media hoopla, the big money in cricket, the flamboyant stars, etc... and after the world-cup debacle, just the negatives... the boring game, the scandals, wasted money, etc...! Why don't people realize that its just another game. Yes, one could really be passionate about it and want their team to win, but failure does not mean the end of the world :).
Yes, India's performance was extremely extremely disappointing...but people's 'Opinion-swings' about Indian cricket were equally fascinating!!

The Gentleman's Game

2006-07-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Cricket ...

From the panwalas of Kolkata to the corporate Czars in Bangalore, from the dabbawallas of Mumbai to the legislators of Delhi, if theres one common topic to talk of, if there is one thing everyone is equally passionate about, it is "The Gentleman's Game"... cricket.

There are only a few who are born with a silver spoon in the mouth, but all we Indians are born with a cricket bat in the hand :).

My tribute to the two maestro's of Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid!!
Video: Awesome Twosome

Comments Awaited!!

To B or not to B

2006-07-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

The first blog ... like most things that we do for the first time, writing the first blog also seems to be a very exciting experience :). And that too, with a title similar to a Shakespearean soliloquy.

Well, theres a difference. The difference is 'Be' and 'B'. Shakespeare wrote
" To be or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer ... "
which is one of the classics.

But the 'B' in the title of this blog is a very very simple (almost stupid) one. The 'B' stands for 'blog'. Yes, indeed it does.
I have been reading blogs for quite some time now. And believe me, some of them are absolutely marvellous. They inspired me to write one .. and inspired me long ago. But right since then, I was hounded by the question 'What should I write in my blog?'

Should I write about the way I think? Or should I write about my philosophy of life? Or should I just write about the happenings in my life? Or should I write about the biggest passion of my life: CRICKET (the game)? So much was I confused about the answers of these questions that I never got down to writing :).

And then one fine day, it struck me that I could start writing a blog about this very confusion :D.
And thus this piece of text has seen the light of day. Although I am very happy that I have finally got down to writing a blog, I still am confused as to what is going to come further. Maybe you - the reader, the ultimate king - can help me get over this confusion.
- New York City