clog

Breaking News

2011-04-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

Some snippets of news seen recently on TV within 5 minutes

Redefining Nervousness

2011-03-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

Is Afridi on his way to create history

2011-03-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

Does Afridi have it in him what it takes to win the world cup. I never thought much of him, even when he scored his famous 37 ball century. T20 world cup changed some bit of perception. He looks like one of those who live for the big moments and who knows with his current "can't do anything wrong" streak, he might just join the elite company of very few who lifted the world cup trophy. It may not be too early any more, given its just two more matches. However, I am not giving up on India either. India can easily outlast the Australian side which looks more pale than yellow and hell even Australian fans want Sachin's team to win the cup. For all the Sachin bashers, he has already done enough, in fact I have planned a post on them, but that is for some other day. Mentally tomorrow might be one of the toughest matches for India in this tournament and definitely the toughest so far. I just hope we win with a Sachin century. What a way that would be to complete his century of centuries. Without jinxing it further I am going to go to bed with my fingers crossed and who knows I might even pray tomorrow morning, something I do once a year or so. Even though the title names Afridi, quarter of this world's population wants it to be Sachin creating history.

Third time unlucky with Airtel

2011-01-23T00:34:00.000-08:00

Despite hearing so many stories about Airtel being good at customer service and more such, I may be a part of a few unlucky who always received the short end of the stick. The first two times it was with the Internet and now it is with their dish TV. For Internet, the first time they took my money and never got back to me. It took me a few phone hours and countless recitals of the details of my request to convince them that I indeed made the payment and never got any response back. I did get my cheque back but after a couple of months. The second time they took 15 days to respond on the feasibility of the connection and by that time I had already taken the lesser of the two evils - Reliance.

Now it is the DTH connection, and it is turning out to be an endless wait yet again. I am searching for the call center number for ICICI to block my payment and cancel my connection. I hope that doesn't turn out be another painful series of music tones I hear while I get my call transferred to the 'relevant' department (which I am sure doesn't exist).

I hope everyone else has a better luck with them.Let me get back to dialing 1800...

Amwayed

2011-01-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

I am convinced that I look really gullible after being attacked by folks from amway thrice in my life. I have nothing against them and I think they are doing good for themselves but its funny that they are so easy to spot and predictable. After the first encounter, I almost felt like asking if the person is from Amway the moment he asked for my phone number, but I stopped short. He almost proved me wrong by never reaching out to me again until one day after three years I get a call from him (yes I did save all their numbers and I remembered them). The third time, I did the rude thing, the next day as soon as I got a call from the friendly guy I asked him if he is by any chance associated with bww and it ended abruptly.

They are all trained by Britt World wide and use a template based approach to (s)talking

- They will always stalk you in a mall in the checkout queue or a book shop or on a road on the pretext of asking for directions.
- They will find a way to complement you - your job or your clothes(?) or anything at all.
- Then they will ask for your phone number and promise you to keep in touch.
- Then wait for x amount of time before they will call you with a business plan for which they are looking out for ambitious young people like you. This x varies from one day to up to 3 years based on my experience

They tend to oversell their idea to the point that they make rudeness the easiest alternative, which I haven't tried.

Also, there is a flaw in their basic advice that it is easy to sell stuff to friends and family. In fact it is the worst thing you can do for your relations. The moment you exchange money with your relatives or friends you start on a journey to screw your relations.

While dealing with your relatives in the domain of lending/borrowing, here is the sequence of events in increasing order of disastrous-ness.

- Lend without charging interest and never ask it back. Not even a possible time line
- Lend without interest and ask it back
- Not lend any money
- Lend and charge interest (doesn't matter less than the market rate)

These experiences have made me really suspicious of any stranger trying to make small talk with me any more.

Captains in the fray

2011-01-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

So many times has Sachin been accused of not playing when required and most of the times the exercise of determining whether his playing well was required or not happens at the end of the match when all is done and dusted. I don't think today was the day when he was required to play given its not a final/qualifier/do_or_die situation. In any case, Ind - SA match is going on and our current captain and potential future captain are playing against a tough target. Let's see what comes out of it. Hope my cynicism is proved wrong.

IPL is Back (Auction)

2011-01-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

It is a self sustaining nuclear reaction now and things can only get bigger in years to come. When IPL came in the first year, it kind of caught me unawares and by the time I could predict or analyze what will happen to it or whether I will like it or not, I got sucked in the whirlpool of DLF maximas, cheer leaders and KKR's mysterious ways.

This time, I got hooked to the auction even though I missed the meaty part due to my uber-lazy Saturday routine. All these years we have seen people changing. We have seen Mandira Bedi turning from a bimbette asking cute questions about cricket to an 'expert' talking about all rounders, consistency and conditions. Gaurav Kapoor and Sameer Kochhar are joining the rank of Arun Lal in doling out bullshit. It was so lame when they would comment for 20 seconds after every auction saying the same things in different words. They were surprised that Ganguly and Lara had no takers even though post auction analysis they shamelessly said that was as they had predicted. They can actually be hired to run some of the corporate meetings, press conferences where they have to talk about the great works of the team and the long way to go and some such.

Neeta Ambani came in her corporate avtaar in her black rimmed padaku glasses to give you an impression that she was the one who developed models to decide on the players to bid for. Siddhartha Mallya was pretty animated in his expressions and was showing surprises at Vijay Mallya's actions as if he was really getting what was going on.

One of the other things I like about IPL is that it puts India at a place it should be, a place of might and power. No longer are Indians at a disadvantage just for being Indian. At the risk of sounding xenophobic, most of us attribute our job to the currency arbitrage or at least that is the perception, but not in IPL. All are paid in the same denomination and yet being an Indian places you at an advantageous position.

The auction numbers reek of a valuation bubble, even more than Facebook :) Not sure when people will make the money they are hoping for. More on that later, maybe. Few interesting numbers that came out of the auctions were for Angelo Mathews and Saurabh Tiwary, who went for more than 60 times their previous prices and Gambhir went for a whopping 11 crores, highest ever in IPL and there are a few more. I am waiting for cricinfo to do some stats pieces on the auction. However, none of this means that Gambhir is a greater player than every other, hell, he is not even in the top 3 in his own team. It's just a matter of chance and reasserts what Warren Buffet has always said -"Tide is always more important than the swimmer"

It is still some time before it actually starts, but it definitely is off to an excellent start, yet again.

Economics of my dhaba

2011-01-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

My dhaba has different menus for eating in and take away. Now, conventional wisdom would suggest if you are ordering a take away it should cost less unless you are giving away containers which cost. My dhaba does no such thing yet the cost of eating in is less than the takeaways. The only explanation I could think of was that having more people on the dhaba is good for business. Strange as it is, I am still stuck given that it is the most convenient.

1.1.11

2011-01-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

Here comes another customary new year post as cliched as the phrase "Time flies by so fast". For those who say time flies very fast, I would ask what is their benchmark. Would you like a year to last two or what?

So, in an attempt to break the cliche, I don't have any new year resolutions like every other year. I am not a big fan. However, it is nice to have things like new year. They are like commas in an endless sentence called life. It will be really hard to make sense had it not been for these breaks.

For me 2010 will be known as an year of insignificance, which isn't bad even though it does sound so. Saving more details on this for my autobiography ;) so in a way you are lucky having escaped the boring details for now.

Lets see what I have in the next year, like every other year Bejan Daruwala says this will be my year. Had it been him writing my destiny, I would be Barack Obama or Siddharth Mallya. Since I am neither of the two, I hope to go about my business as usual enjoying the little break on the pretext of new year. For, tomorrow is another day.

Hope is a good thing

2010-12-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. - The Shawshank Redemption

This is one of the most memorable quotes from one of the most memorable Hollywood movies. The movie is long and the pace is slow; signifying the pace of time in a prison. Things don't move fast, yet over a period of time, the small things done by Andy created a whole new world for himself outside and a way to get to it.

Rich or poor, we all live with the hope of something, looking forward to something. And I think to be able to do that is the right of everyone and to be able to enable that for someone else is our privilege. There are a lot of children in our country who don't know hope so well, because it is hard when you are hungry. What they need is, a sign, a ray of hope, that things can get better and that hope lies with people like us. And trust me it won't be hard to do.

What I am trying to tell you here is basically two things - hope and the power of small contributions done by many over time.

When trying to do something you feel right about, don't go by how big or significant it is, but how soon you can do it. I am sure there were times in life when you promised to do something for underprivileged. Here is a chance for you to feed a child for one full year and all it will cost you is a little over 500 bucks. I am sure most of you will be able to make that contribution without changing any significant digit in your bank balance. "Akshay Patra" is trying to ensure that no child goes hungry. You can make your contribution by clicking this (And believe me this is not going to my account, not this time :)

Make sure you don't belittle your contribution by weighing it in terms of the amount of money. Its not just the money, what you are giving is - Hope.

Subversion at will

2010-12-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of uproar about wikileaks and I don't think I have taken a side yet, or at least clearly so. If I have to lean, I will follow the diktat, when in doubt more is good and support the leaks over censorship. However, what struck me while reading one of the articles was the following excerpt (courtesy rediff)

A group of hackers took down the sites of Internet payment service Paypal and Mastercard and Visa after they froze the flow of funds to Assange's accounts

Looking at the tone of the comment, it looks (and I am sure they did) as if they could do it at will without a long process of planning and execution. And that is the scary part given so much of business and life is moving online. If there is a group of people around us capable enough to cause severe damage, and the scarier part, without jeopardizing their identity (mostly) and with possibly nothing but their moral rectitude stopping them from doing it.

Pizza Hut vs. My Dhaba

2010-11-20T01:32:00.000-08:00

These are the two most common places from where I order food and I like both of them. However, I noticed the huge difference in the time taken to order stuff from these places. To be fair to both, I never get into any long discussions during ordering. It is always a fixed directive order and that will be all kind of message. For pizza hut, it used to be less than a minute but now it has gone somewhere close to 2 minutes with all the questions and promotions thrown in. And for my dhaba, I timed it and found out that it took an incredible 6 seconds!

the social network: Retribution of the geek?

2010-11-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

This is not a movie review because I am not sure how I felt about "the social network" as a movie. It in fact didn't seem a lot like movie to me. While watching it, I was reminded of the documentary "The pirates of silicon valley" and a book I read on Steve Jobs (iCon). I always thought Steve Jobs as the (relatively) non technical guy (Wozniak being the tech muscle) who by virtue of his other qualities got to run the company as his own. I am talking of the beginnings and not about his eventual departure before he was called back again. Facebook had the tech guy holding the reins whereas the business guy was sidelined neatly though with help from dubious avenues. So, it seems, the tables are turned for better or worse.

A little more clarification on Jobs vs. the business guy comparison. Honestly there is none. I think Jobs was way too hands on to be compared with Saverin who in all earnestness said he didn't know how to change his relationship status. Also, Jobs has far redeemed his image in last decade or so and needs no more justification to his value add.

Now, I don't intend to pass any judgment on any of the guys as I am a believer in Karma and I think "over a period of time" you will get what you deserve. I don't deny the presence of outliers to this rule, but like I have many times said earlier, if you are out of luck, you are just fucked. So no rules apply to you any more.

One thing is for sure, the aura of Mark Z will grow enormously with the movie, possibly an almost facebook-like expansion. It might actually give a big boost to the eventual IPO if it happens soon. On that front, I am of the opinion that they should do that within next one year. With the rapidly changing world of internet, it doesn't take a lot of time for things to go downhill and faster will the reaction of investors who tend to anticipate these things. It is the time that they en-cash their "equity" literally. It is already valued at $25b and I am not sure if their growth trajectory is steep enough to make the risk worth it. I can come back a year later and check on how my analysis fared. I have a terrible record at it, but thankfully most of it is undocumented.

I love reality

2010-11-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

(relatively long post)

As promised earlier, I am going to talk about my fascination with trashy reality shows. I will start with my lack of fascination for reality shows dealing with talent. I tried watching KBC, but failed to continue for long because I thought I was trying to see a quiz show. However, KBC tries and is actually a lot more than that. It is supposed to be about thrills, emotions, travails and what not. I get a feeling that most of the folks who watch it, don't even care about the question, except whether the contestant got it right or wrong. Whether the contestant, who is a farmer, looking to repay his loan with the 25 lac he might win, will win or not. That's the start of my disconnect with talent based reality shows. Whenever I watch them, I end up watching for the talent part, but realize there is way too much dilution of the talent part due to emotions, drama and all the circus around. It just seems too much for me to look at these disparate aspects.

I would like to focus on a few things at a time rather than looking at too many things superficially. Most of the reality shows try to cover so many dimensions that they lose my interest. In fact, more than the talent, most of them focus on drama. All they want to show is drama, a peak into how people behave in different situations. The key is situations. They amplify and accelerate their reactions by virtue of making the stakes higher and platform bigger. To enable that, they need a backdrop, 3 months of house arrest, or a life in wild.

My point is, why dilute the backdrop by having a talent layer in it. If I watch a talent show, I would like the most talented one to win and not someone else for reasons other than his/her talent. And I am not sure if that always happens. So, if we are in for drama, then let there be drama, totally undiluted.

In talent less reality show, the winner like in real life doesn't have to be the best one. It is a combination of chance, talent, personality and so many other factors contributing in equal measures. It is so damn uncertain, just like real life. The two reality shows that came closest to achieve total undiluted life like simulation were "iss jungle se mujhe bachao" and big boss. Jungle.. not so much because winning a task also played its part in elimination unlike big boss which is totally unadulterated. The show also works at creating those situations, but a lot of times that isn’t even required.

The trashy part of every one's behavior goes on to show what Joker said and I always believed (the cynic in me :)). It couldn't have been put better, so reproducing his quote here verbatim:

Don’t talk like one of them, you’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak–like me. They need you right now. When they don’t…they’ll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their code: it’s a bad joke. They’re dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see, when the chips are down these civilized people will eat each other

This may be true of each one of us yet we don't see enough of this simply because life is kind. And a lot of people pretty much go through all the life without many situations that threaten to tear off their mask. Reality TV does everything in its capacity to force that mask off.

I have been an avid follower of reality TV, but it seems even from my standards it has gone to new levels of depravity and somehow what Rakhi Sawant does in front of camera has a very direct correlation to it. She is the sensex of deparvity of reality TV in India. Fresh off the press is the death of a poor guy who came looking for justice (really? Dear justice seeker, I think your destiny was decided the moment you thought of this) in Rakhi's show where she plays judge and doles out verdicts like "arre tum to namarad ho" (Translation: you are impotent).

One other show which I found repulsive was Emotional Atyachar which I couldn't see more than one episode. Looking at the trend, not sure how long will I be able to enjoy these shows. But till the point I can, I am eagerly waiting for Pamela Anderson to enter the Bigg Boss house :)

Planning, Improvisation and A bit of Luck

2010-11-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

Having labeled myself a life long planner, I believe in the credo - "Failing to plan is planning to fail". A lot of people actually think it's better to not plan at all than plan and fail. I don't agree and I would like to clarify why. Doing something well is not a function of just your planning, a lot comes after that, but I consider it as the first and perhaps the most important step. So, here is what I define as different steps to accomplishment big or small.

Planning: Let's start by clarifying the misconception about planning. You plan with the understanding that your plan may (make it will) fail. When planning you think about the objective and what it will take to reach it. However, you just don't get too hung up on it. Having planned through things, you will have a better idea of what you are going to do and what will help. In any case, have a plan B if you can else look at the next step in the process.

Improvisation: Getting too rigid about the plan is going to hurt you, may be more than not having a plan at all. This may well be the reason a lot of times no planning is better. However, if you can be open about changing your actions if things don't get your way, rest assured you will improvise better. Having thought through things you will be better at deciding the change in course than a totally unplanned person. Having said that, a lot of times with the first two steps going absolutely right, people tend to fail and that brings us to the third and the most important part.

Luck: Luck alone doesn't guarantee anything, but if you are out of luck, to put it mildly, you are screwed

Spectacular beginning of an exceptional end

2010-11-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter is back, with an added dimension in more ways than one. Even without seeing it, I am pretty sure it is going to be excellent. It is hard to go wrong with the script.

Here is the trailer

Bigg Boss Season 4 - So far

2010-10-30T22:54:00.000-07:00

(This post was written right after the first episode but due to editing delays ;) wasn't posted till now)

Big boss has been living up to my expectations so far. TRPs are not so flattering which means it isn't meeting everyone's expectations.

However, the way it started was better than I imagined. Bunty, the thief with a lot of cases on his name and who has spent 13 years in jail didn't take longer than a day to break down. In the process the biggest victim was the camera that he chose to cover with his, hold your breath, ...sock.

While he was evicted the same day, he deeply disappointed Abbas bhai, why? Well, because he went without shaking hands with anyone. I am sure with this kind of logic, he must have done a helluva job a defending Kasab. Poetic justice for a killer who should have been hanged a while back, not only because I would like to have no more of him, but because we shouldn't be spending a penny more on keep that **** alive. Mr Kazmi's issue to me seems akin to our censor board policy of not showing people smoking on screen because that would be a bad influence as if stealing, murder, rape, cheating are all acceptable in normal human behavior.

The following episodes were not as exciting but they did a good job in putting Khali in at the right time, just when things started going a little downhill. And then later, the firebrand, Bindra.

Soon to follow a post on my fascination with non talent based trashy reality shows.

‘Peepli Live’ Live

2010-10-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

This was one of the movies that I knew I would like even before I saw it and I did. The trailer showed glimpses that the backdrop of the movie was somewhere in the Hindi heartland of India, the area where I come from. The movie turned out to be shot in Raisen, even closer and the state is called Mukhya Pradesh, a not so subtle reference to the state. Well, this post is not about the movie but about my experiences here which I always wanted to publish.

Every once in a while I make journeys in buses and trains there, more specifically these are non ac buses (the only ones we have there) and general compartments of trains. I do it with minimum of liabilities (i.e. no luggage, no company) because I believe I can’t do it peacefully anymore with luggage. Every single time I do it, I feel fortunate that I don’t have to do it as a need or as a regular part of life.

MP is unique in the sense that there is as much poverty as most other popular poor states i.e. Orissa, Bihar etc. but it never makes any news for it. The invisibility is what defines it; nobody knows about it and doesn’t care about it either.

Peepli live paints a very real picture of how majority of the villages are. Abject poverty, overfilled tempos (locally called bhatsuars), a real huge market for desi thurra, an abundance of time and acute lack of work. Now at the verge of labeling folks here a total loser, a comfort is there in their own condition and no real effort to get out of it. Highlighted by the fact that Nattha’s plan out of his misery was not to try harder but to give up and die, the only possible state more laidback than his current one.

A major part of the state is immune to shining India’s GDP growth of post liberalization era. The state is somehow against emigration to other places (mostly true for unskilled labor which forms the major part of the population) in search of jobs unlike Bihar which is accused of spiraling out everywhere. In fact one of their pet peeve is people coming from outside and spoiling their state of being (if that is indeed possible).

It is stuck in some kind of treadmill time, it keeps slipping by your feet, yet everything stays as it were.

Every time they enter a queue to buy a train ticket, I think they are prepared to have a fight; the next one would be when they enter their compartments. Classic case of scarcity of resources! It is easy for me to be patient since it’s not a daily routine for me but for them showing any kindness is damn too difficult if not impossible and yet you see them doing that quite often.

The buses here still play the music of 90s like the songs of “Dilwale” or Altaf Raza. I found this similar to the fascination a few friends and I share for the songs popular during my college years. May be it is indicative of our desire to be in that time, like my state’s desire to still remain in 90s, a time they are comfortable to live in.

While a lot of places have issues due to increased traffic, we are facing the same. Only difference is that we have it because of lack of roads and not due to any increase in traffic which would be a nicer problem to have.

In one sweeping analysis, I am inclined to label the problem is a lack of vigor/life. Indifference, idyllic drinking, drugs and endless and mindless discussions about everything around yet without any desire to ‘do’ anything even for their own good.

Like every time you cite a problem you should have a solution, I don’t think I would like to do that because the problem seems to be more basic than systemic. At the bottom of it is probably laziness or some such silly reason. The morose attitude once replaced by a little enthusiasm can take care of most of the issues in due time.

Bigg Boss Season 4

2010-10-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

The line up seems promising. They have a thief, bandit, hermaphrodite, someone who appeared in an explicit mms, a lawyer who seems to be taking the wrong side in many high profile cases (kasab being one of them). I am sure the rest are no less but they don't have stuff like this to boast of.

He's got balls

2010-08-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

Federer in an ad shoot

Found few links questioning whether its real or not, to me it looks real

Movie review: Inglorious Basterds

2010-08-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

Alright, I know I am late, can we please get further now. So, after everybody has watched, raved and forgotten about this movie, I finally watched it accidentally today. I came home dead tired and like everyday before I did anything else I switched on my TV and threw away the remote and then threw myself on the couch. Usually a few minutes of relaxation give me enough energy to pick up the remote and start surfing, but today was different and by the time I could get to that point, it came. It was on my watching list for quite some time, so there I go. The fact that I didn't untie my shoe laces for next half hour is evidence enough for me that the movie was gripping. Now on to the actual review.

Like every other movie, book or comic series, I liked it because of the characters not as much for the story. This movie had pretty interesting and impressive characters. It doesn't take them long to establish themselves which makes the later part more enjoyable and less of figuring out. The two characters in particular that I felt were excellent were Hans Landa and Shosanna. It doesn't take Hans more than 5 minutes in his first scene to showcase his incisive intellect. Every scene where he is investigating (in most of his scenes he is) something, you can feel the chill of the knowledge that he knows it and is just playing till he opens it up. The only disappointing part would be the ending, was too lame for his character but I guess they also wanted Brad Pitt to look better.

As for Shosanna, the super pretty chic, who seemed to have made peace with her misfortune, the transformation (for the viewer) was quick and edgy. These were the two characters that carried the movie for me and of course I liked the climax. In a lot of movies I feel letting a disaster happen would have had more impact than averting it, this one actually lets it, even though it turns the history on its head.

While we are on the subject, Kurbaan was one such movie where this disappointed me more than any other recent one. From the beginning I thought, the movie will end with Kareena dying and Saif living with guilt, a deserved punishment for his deeds. But sadly, they kill Saif and let Kareena take all the pain of living through her life.

Time Warp

2010-08-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

These are two pictures taken five years apart, the recent one was taken this independence day. Something tells me, I will have another one like this in 2015 :)

For those who are not steeped in New York culture (its really hard to find you guys nowadays), this is the famous bronze bull in Wall Street.

Yet another desi rant

2010-08-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

I was planning a really cantankerous (my word list mugga session acting up after may years) post after reading the following articles. But I think I let some of the steam off by writing comments on them. On second thoughts, I might have ended up writing a self flagellating post, but then, what the hell. But hopefully what follows at the end doesn't have that much of a sting.

Someone ashamed of her Indian identity
If you do click on the link and read the article, look at the extreme reactions of all sorts. The last one (first one to show up in the comment list) is definitely not the least. My relatively moderate comment is hard to find in the sea of comments.

Few more
A little more balanced one
This one takes the cake simply because of the popularity of the medium - Time magazine

and here is my little classification of Indians abroad

When in doubt choose people

2010-08-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

While selecting a job or work, if there are many competing factors (within reason) and people is one of them, I would say choose people over anything. Go to place where you think people are good, whatever your definition of good is. The chances are you will do well. The more work experience I gain (really?) I think the work at some point will become a fucking pain. So, the chances are you will enjoy doing shit if you are doing it with good (again whatever your definition of good is) people.

I apply the same theory to relatively smaller decisions like attending sessions, apart from the topic, if I know the speaker is good, I usually go irrespective of the topic.

This is how I had theorized this at some point, being a cynic, it was about avoiding stuff rather than choosing.

Main chutiya kaam kar sakta hoon lekin chutiyon ke saath kaam nahi kar sakta

(For my non Hindi speaking readers, if there are any - it translates to: " I can do shit work, but I can't work with shit people").

Text limit for google search

2010-08-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

Out of curiosity I was trying to see what is the maximum number of characters that google would allow you to enter in your search box. I thought there would be some limit on it. There is no limit on entering the text but it fails beyond a point while searching because the url becomes too large. Google being google, my initial expectation was that they must be capable of handling practically any size (which may still be true).

Pakistan: A nation on self destruct

2010-07-09T18:09:00.000-07:00

The following link confirms the title of this post.

Pakistan 10th most failed state of the world
Finns are happiest, Indians 45th, Pakistan last

Look at what Pakistan has done for herself giving in to temptation of being more fundamental than it needs to. This is perhaps one reason why they seem so eager to inflict pain on others. It is the desperation of a falling guy who wants to taken down with it everyone else possible. Icing on the cake would be if that someone turns out to be your sworn enemy. For all its soft stance India has been doing fairly well comparatively given that they came out of the same shell at the same time. We had bigger diversity issues owing to the size and heterogeneous nature of our state. At the end, with all that, we haven't become the best we could, but have done at least reasonable for ourselves. A case to continue living with high level of tolerance in every aspect.

As for managing our neighbor, there are only two possibilities if you will. Either pull them out of the rut and get them on the path of accelerated growth, leaving them motivated to live rather than having a morbid fasciantion to kill or die. This is far easier said than done, the other option is to 'stay away' just watching out to minimize our losses in these conflicts. A full blown engagement would only lead to them getting a purpose for their fascination and their millitary leaders would be prompt in putting a garb of martyrdom or something like that to mislead their directionless masses.

This is not an anti Pakistan post even though it may sound so. I am trying to put to attention the benefits of being a tolerant nation to the zealots amongst us. While I cannot say that is 'the reason' why we are doing how we are, but I am very certain that it has some part to play in it. I would be happy if our neighbors recognize the same and take care of themselves rather than snowballing themselves to a ditch. If we can't help break their fall, the best we could do is to avoid getting sucked into it leading us down with them.

Book Review: The Greatest Trade Ever

2010-07-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

Buy it

This is one book I wouldn't pick up if I want to understand how the financial crisis unfolded over years. You would do well for yourself if you pick just about anything from net about it. However, I would recommend this book for it's human element. It is a book about the could have beens ultimately achieving something they always deserved or thought they deserved. I must warn you though, the numbers in the book will drive you crazy. I have thought a lot about what would be a good amount for me before I call it quits to active money making and the numbers in this book just drove me fuzzy.

Paulson has made $4 billion in two years. If he decides to retire in India with this money, a savings interest would fetch him 9 billion INR a year for his expenses while keeping his principle safe. The other fringe 'successful' players made few hundred million dollars.

Barring a few like Greg Lippman, who was a hotshot banker then and now, most others who benefited especially the ones on Paulson's team were exceptionally smart underachievers. It also goes on to show how, there are many moderate successes for every single luminous success in this industry. And then so much of it depends on chance apart from a lot of other great qualities in those individuals least of them is exceptional smarts which is a given just to get an entry anyway. It also shows, what can happen to people despite their brilliance if they are not in the right place at the right time with right people. The two key architects of Paulson show, he and Paulo Pellegrini were kind of past their sell by dates for their calibre. Paulo almost a failure and Paulson a moderate success, who had his share of brilliant bursts but was never acknowledged overall to a status he thought he deserved. It wasn't like he just entered in the business, he has been around for may decades and yet it took this latest crisis to get to a place where he always wanted to be. And there must be thousands (if not tens of thousands) like him who never got their chance and faded away in twilight.

Paulson isn't retired yet and still talking about future as far as four years forward, shows he still has a lot of hunger left in him.

Overall it is an engaging read at most times and turned out to be a far easier read than I thought, the initial apprehension which caused me to delay my reading of this book for so long.

Indians Abroad

2010-06-20T12:40:00.000-07:00

Every time I come to the US, I am in for a sense of surprise at how common we are here. I found that US has 0.6% of Indians, and then I stayed in Jersey. Jersey has one of the highest concentration of Indians, the number is at ~6% and these were the numbers from my past visit. This time I get a little more parochial and I look around in my weekly meeting to see 6 out of the 9 folks being of Indian origin, a whopping 66.6%. And the last bit, I share a cube block with three other folks, 2 of them are Indians and the next cube block is all Indian. I don’t feel particularly sad or happy about it but I do feel amused.

The purposeful walk

2010-06-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

It's like Batman would say,
It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me

Joe (click the link to know more about Joe) would say it's not what i do at my desk, it's what I do while fetching my coffee that defines me.

I have seen Joe walking intently to fetch his coffee peering down at the cup or just to the restroom. It is no ordinary walk. To an untrained eye it may look like he is studying the coffee like a lot of people who read tea leaves. In reality his mind is busy doing calculations of unimaginable complexity. He probably is working out the price of his next multi-billion dollar acquisition

I have been told, however, that may be this isn't what Joe thinks during his walk. May be he is thinking about the expansion of the company. Like admiring the new chick he sees on his way to pantry. Or at times, he might be thinking about his next strategic move like whether he should go to pee on his way to pantry after all restroom won't be a really big detour. Well, he could do that but then where does he keep the cup? Oh, here comes Senior Joe, so that makes his decision easy. He decides to keep his line and say hello to him. OK, so its final, Joe decides to have the coffee and come back to pee, the coffee would add to the pressure making it a more fulfilling release.

Joe is great at keeping up appearances, in fact that's one of the few things he is good at. If not careful enough, he might create a first impression on you that you will live to regret.

Can NDTV Imagine do it again?

2010-05-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Every year post IPL I go through withdrawal symptoms as far as my TV viewing is concerned. Last year it was Rakhi Ka Swayamwar that got me back to TV. Will it be "Desi Girl" this year. The promos and the first episode show a lot of promise. With all the delectable bitches in the mix pitted against rustic folks and each other, it can make for an edgy 2 months on TV. Let's see if it lives up to the promise it has generated.

For starters, one of the girls comments looking at cow dung - "hauuu, kya yeh gai ka gobar hai?" (Is this cow dung?) as if she just spotted a unicorn. Boy in the house where Anmol (one of the contenders) is staying has taken a liking to her and is planning to convince her to marry him during the show. Two other contestants have already gotten a lashing from their keepers for their dressing.

Initial signs are good like every other talent-less reality show (the only ones I see), let's see how far this one goes.

Why blog?

2010-05-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

The question keeps coming back again and again. The last time I publicly thought about it was around 2 years ago. Some of the comment-ers suggested the following two blogs to inspire me to keep writing.

An article on Scientific American and Steve Yegge on why you should blog

Well what prompted me to write it this time is some constructive feedback I received from a regular reader. And mind it, given the number of readers I have, each one counts for a huge percentage. The exact comment he made was "You have trivialized your blog" owing to the presence of many posts that didn't need a lot (or any) thinking at all. Now, there is no way I can say he is wrong, because that's his viewpoint and no logic can prove that wrong, so I won't be trying to do that. What I will however try is to have enough thoughtful posts along with everything else.

While I will do that later, for now, I will try to write why I think I blog. I guess, more than anyone else it is for me to know why I do what I do.

So, here I present my reasons for writing and I am blatantly using content from my chat transcript (perhaps a case of another post that doesn't need a lot of thinking)

I need to balance between what I want and what my readers (I know they are already limited) want but the fact is as much as I write for them, I write for myself no less. So, what I need is probably a middle ground because it's neither a personal diary, nor a newspaper. Actually before I started blogging, I had a diary and recently I read something I wrote 4 years ago and I could relive stuff and realize which parts of my life were more formative than others. Now this chronicling of my life on my blog will also tell me what I had in my mind at certain points. How I changed/evolved (for better/worse). Like last year I was crazy about IPL, so wrote a lot of posts.

I agree blog can't be totally personal, so as I said earlier I need a middle ground. And there are some readers who read these light posts and avoid heavier stuff.

See, I write what I think people will like and something I definitely want to write. Now obviously it won't be palatable to everyone even though I try to make it so. But I won't know until I post it. I don't publish anything knowing that nobody will like it. It's just that I don't get it right in cases when nobody likes it.

So, the transcript ends here.

As a side note, I know of unknown readers (the ones I know now are no longer unknown) also who would never comment, haven't ever met me and I may never about them yet they are there. So, you never know who is reading your blog and what out of it until you actually try which in this case is by posting things whenever you see some value in doing that.

So, as long as I have it in me, I will keep posting for all of you, my known readers, my unknown readers and myself.

void

2010-05-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Spotted on Bhopal Vidisha road.

The biggest celebrity I have ever seen live

2010-05-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

is in the news, though many would say not enough. For them, here is something they might like

So, while on topic, of all the celebrities I have ever seen live (being within 5 feet distance is my definition of live here), Anand has to be the biggest. The others in my short list are Digvijay Singh, Kamini Kaushal and Nandan Nilekani (shook hands with him!).

Recently a friend of mine went up close and personal with Amir Khan. That's the biggest celebrity link I have via my first degree contacts unless I am mistaken and there is someone in you, my readers (yea, I mean the four of you !) who has met someone bigger.

Please welcome Joe Don

2010-05-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Recently while I was attending a conference call I heard a name John Doe a couple of times. Same evening I was watching a movie where the name came up again. Coincidence? That's what I thought until a friend enlightened me the practice of referring unknown people (usually suspects) as John Doe or Jane Doe for reference.

I have been meaning to create a character for my blog especially the ones where I rant. My pet peeve all my life has been shitty Managers. It is always easy to deal with shitty developers since they can do limited damage. I was looking for a name for the guy (hope females won't be looking to be treated equally here) and I came up with Joe, an average manager just like an average Joe and then the first paragraph happened.

Combining the two of them, without any further ado, please welcome Joe Don, our average manager who by definition would be crappy. All things you dream of not becoming while you are growing up.

* This sounds like a real name though I don't know anyone by this name. I don't intend to mean any disrespect if a person with this name exists. If you are the one, and chance upon this blog and have objection, feel free to drop me a line and I can make amends.

why always seek?

2010-05-08T04:41:00.000-07:00

Multiple conversations about reading fiction vs. non fiction led me to the conclusion that we are always seeking something. I started my reading in childhood with whatever was available like champak, chandamama, all in hindi. During my engineering I discovered my love for fiction and I went on reading as much as I could. And then I started reading non fiction. The ratio of fiction to non fiction has been going down recently. A couple of friends also claimed a similar pattern and they said they have stopped reading fiction because they realized they weren't 'gaining' anything by reading fiction.

I share the pattern, but not necessarily the reasoning. One of the points I brought up was you can see new ways of thinking and seeing things by looking at fictional characters. Now, I don't know how that would be useful and may be it's not. But, claiming that you know what would be useful knowledge (or not) for you in future considering life is so diverse, would be rather too presumptuous. It's like one of the learning from Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford, where he talks about connecting the dots. You don't always know the immediate benefit of something you are doing. But the fact that you like doing it should be reason enough to keep you going. I would be quick to add a disclaimer here to rule out habits like doing drugs from this category.

So, even if overall our lives are about seeking things, why make it rule every part of our being. Especially when it comes to things like reading which most of us classify as hobby and not work. Also, in large number of cases not reading fiction may not translate in reading non fiction. It probably translates into doing something else, perhaps not as worthwhile or nothing. There I go seeking again !

The artist in me

2010-04-29T23:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some fruits of my multitasking efforts at office while listening intently to conference calls :)

kcab!

2010-04-29T12:08:00.001-07:00

after a month long break from any activity on this blog owing to endless stuff to be taken care off on personal and professional front. Just when the monotony of it all was killing me, I am getting a whiff of the changes (welcome!) to come soon now. I am finishing my longest ever stint with a team and a system and a city at a stretch. Very soon all the three parameters will change at least for a short duration and that is definitely welcome. To make it happen was no mean task and drained me off a lot of energy (which I so value!). While I think of last few months and more specifically, the last month, it was a blur. Apart from other things there was IPL, and all the stuff related to me moving out of my project and then in one insane moment I enrolled for a morning yoga class with a really sincere and demanding trainer who ensured that every absence was well explained. And then one day, suddenly it all ends like the climax of a Godfather movie, where last 10 minutes would see the end of pretty much everyone who ever messed with the Corleone family. So, with this new found emptiness, I decided to get back here. Before I get too optimistic, I should remind myself that this is probably a matter of a week or so, for next few months promise to be at least as relentless if not more.

I have always been a proponent of change, but this time around I am yearning more for constants. I always had the tendency to feel happy when I would struggle with something, once I get a hang of it, I would get bored and restless. However, this time even though I am pretty happy about the changes (at least till the anticipation phase), I would like this one to last longer. Sort of in a steady state and comfortable mode. Perhaps that is my old age catching up with me.

Cast your vote

2010-04-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

Let's honor Time magazine by having Sachin Tendulkar in its 100 poll :)
Times 100 2010 poll

Chinese love me

2010-03-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

and/or perhaps they love Virat Kohli. Here is the proof

Partial Marks Syndrome

2010-03-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Social Studies used to be the most difficult subject to score really good marks but the easiest to score average marks. This peculiarity is attributed to a phenomenon known as partial marks. You can study a very limited portion which can most easily be plugged into any question. Irrespective of the question asked, you can put some general stuff and your teacher would willingly give you a few marks helping you get passing marks overall.

This probably gets so entrenched in our minds that I see the application of this principle so often at work. As always, its hard for people to say I don't know. To respond to something they don't know, they would tell whatever they know without really caring about the question. Often times, they would go on explaining that what they are telling is more important than what is being asked. Well, of course, it may be true in some cases, but not when the partial marks guys are the ones explaining.

Why do IITians fail?

2010-03-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

For the same reason why a lot of attractive girls are not smart or funny or creative. Now this will sound like a gladwell-esque statement but unlike him I have no stats to prove this right or wrong.

But, being attractive sometimes can cause people to not focus on trying to be smart or funny because they don't need to. In case of IITians, they are usually smarter than the average folks and all they need to or want to rely on is their intelligence. In their over reliance, they tend to ignore a lot of other qualities that make up for a successful career. The big bucket of which is Inter-personal skills and soft skills.

Now, I don't mean they fail, but rather underachieve their potential a lot of times. Granted that the entrance exam is meant to test raw intelligence but the students should have the good sense on build on their raw intelligence.

Contrast two people who do similar in their academics, one brighter than the other. The bright one scores without much effort and the other one does the same but as a result of lot of diligence and hard work i.e attending classes, being nice to the professor, participating it the class by asking questions and may be even dressing well in vivas and classroom. Now, assuming the output is usually same for both of them, the latter would be much more successful in a professional setting. The diligent one is used to being nice to professor and can do the same for his/her superiors. They focus on forming relationships, socializing and in extreme cases just plain old sucking up.

Also, doing something easily some times undermines the value of the work done, so again, the diligent ones score better. Overall, there is more sympathy towards them and they have the right 'look' and usually there are more of them as compared to the brighter ones.

On the other hand, the bright guys don't stop at being careless, some times they develop contempt for lesser able folks (sometimes their bosses) and that is a true recipe for disaster in a team setting. Part of it comes from the culture propagated at IITs. Hard working people are not often seen very kindly there even if they do well. Worse is someone trying to suck up to make up for it. If I have to draw a quadrant, this is how it would look.
Now, even though I have generalized it for IITians, I have seen enough non IITians who's over reliance on performance and complete disregard for everything else has been disastrous for them. This argument may not be valid in all the settings. More or less all the jobs need easy to average problems to be solved and hence other things become more relevant.

However, if you can get to a place where the problems are genuinely tough and there is a clear case of some people doing it clearly better than others, the 'non performance' things may become less relevant. So, for someone with this issue, choosing the right environment may be the easiest and most sustainable solution.

Most Eligible Bachelor

2010-03-12T23:07:00.001-08:00

Stayed in draft a bit too long

Its highly unlikely that you didn't recognize him, but if you really didn't, two things - 1) Work on your gk. 2) He is Rahul Mahajan

Another Sachin quote

2010-03-09T10:14:00.000-08:00

I have been seen a lot of forwards with quotes on Sachin from various greats. Recently came across one after his 200, that I think should get added to the list.

The old Sachin radiated heat. The new Sachin gives light.
But he still remains the sun.

Courtesy: Greatbong

Easy Accessibility

2010-02-28T05:09:00.000-08:00

There are people who are easily accessible and then there are those who are not. The ones who are easily accessible are always helping others (foremost condition is they should be capable). Most of the times they get their due, but do they always? They become like pee pots in the corner of a restroom, used most often but not necessarily designed/rewarded for that.

The point is, the pot has hardly anything to gain from being the most popular to be picked up for the dirty job. It happens in an environment where there is no good work. If you are good (like the strategically located pot is for "pee-rs" - pun intended), you will end up doing the dirty work more often than others (for yourself and others) and a lot of times to no end.

Mobile Photography

2010-02-27T22:45:00.000-08:00

Rediscovered my love for photography after I realized my mobile camera could click decent pictures in daylight.

Animals starting their day at a location near Bhopal

Creepers:
Most fearless duck I have ever seen
Coot

Keep playing Sachin

2010-02-24T07:27:00.000-08:00

In a crazy world where you see 16 hot chicks running after a loser like Rahul Mahajan in front of an audience of a billion, some things always make sense. Today Sachin reasserted his status as God. Glad to be born in an era where I could watch him play since he started.

Tendulkar hits first 200 in ODIs

Cat Attack

2010-02-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

This cat has been a regular visitor whenever it finds an open window. Never has it been as persistent as this Friday when it just refused to go away. I ended up playing a benign host. Here are some snapshots:

OK, that's a pose for a passport size photo

Getting comfortable, feeling at home

On being dragged out

A nation of Limited Hobbies

2010-02-01T10:09:00.001-08:00

This blog is about hobbies, so let me start with the first one that caused me to write this blog - Self flagellation. I hate to be part of this brigade, but I will anyway knowing fully well that I am part of what I am criticizing.

In my pretty long life so far, I think 99% of the folks I ever met would have one or more of the following hobbies
- Stamp collection: Seriously, do they really mean it
- Coin collection
- 'Listening' to music
- Watching TV
- Reading books
- Playing: A lot of people claim this but a very few continue to play after a certain age.

Most of the ones that survive are passive hobbies whereas in my travels outside I came across people who would brew their own beer, a guy who had a server 'farm' in his garage and a guy who would select a historical site, read it up and visit it. Now, it may not sound really outstanding till you know that these are three guys out of a 6 member team and the other three were Indians.

This topic came up because one of my friends who is in US right now told me about a guy who designs and builds furniture in his free time. Now that, you are all red and violet with anger, this guy is actually an Indian staying in US for last 8 years. I wonder if he would be doing the same had he been staying in India. For, I don't see too many people here doing such things.

Cricket this year

2010-01-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

Here you go up to world cup 2011
http://cricket.rediff.com/report/2010/jan/22/world-cricket-calendar-fixtures-schedule.htm

David Blaine on TED

2010-01-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min

3 Movies of this weekend

2010-01-20T09:41:00.001-08:00

Finally after everyone else in the world I managed to watch Avataar and 3 idiots this weekend along with the much low key Rocket Singh.

Its interesting to see Hollywood and Bollywood's all time biggest grossers running at the same time. The other movies in the top two are again by the same set of people (James Cameron - Titanic and Ghajini by Aamir Khan).

I was thoroughly impressed by Avataar and not just because of the 3d circus. My experience with these kind of things have been that you are amazed for a while and then it all becomes ordinary. So, to say that it worked purely due to effects might be injustice to the overall movie. In any case I wouldn't have minded sitting another hour had they made it longer.

The much hyped "3 idiots" that managed to go beyond that hype was also a good watch. What struck me was the black and whiteness added to the grey shades of the story in the novel. Not in his wildest dreams Chetan Bhagat would have written a script like this where a God-like student is twisting everyone around him much like Krishna in Mahabharat. It was the filmy brain of the other guys that introduced the caricatured characters of Suhas, Chatur and Virus. A more subtle show would have left everyone disappointed. Who would be interested in watching how "Venkatraman Ramakrishnan" managed to get a noble while he could not qualify in JEE to get into IITs.

Rocket Singh was an honest effort to make a realistic movie. I liked it, not sure why others didn't. To end this, I will leave you with this quote from Rocket Singh

"Hum aise office me kaam karte hai jahan hamari speciality koi nahi dekhta. Aur jis cheez ka kaam se koi lena dena nahi wo sab dekhte hain and hum bhi wahi ban gaye hain - main ek joker sardar aur tu ek item girl"

Lucky charm for World Cup?

2010-01-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

I am probably going too far with this and possibly jinxing it, but the way Virat Kohli has been playing recently makes me wonder if he is the lucky charm India was waiting for before we could win another cricket world cup. For those of you who don't know, here is what I am talking about:

Youngsters spice up dull tournament
Kohli comes of age
Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli tons hand India series

He was the captain of U19 Indian team that won the world cup in 2008. I wonder if 2011 world cup would be known for Kohli making merry in the field and India winning the cup (irrespective!). Here's to a long shot :)

...what matters now?...

2009-12-22T06:22:00.000-08:00

Something to read during the holiday period - What Matters Now

Blog on Break

2009-12-13T02:55:00.001-08:00

It is evident from the date of my last post that this blog has been on a break. It's not due to lack of content for sure, I have more drafts than ever. There is no lack of time either. The problem is converting those drafts into something publishable. I am in midst of lot of uncertainties that are taking up most of my mind share. There are too many open threads without any actionable items on them. I am depending on some future dates or people to bring them to a logical conclusion. After grappling unnecessarily with them for quite some time now, I have taken a back seat. I once jokingly said in one of my project meetings - "Time takes care of more number of issues than rest of us" owing to the fact that a lot of issues got closed because they just became irrelevant after being left open for long times. I think I am relying on time to see my open items through.

I was in two minds about publishing or not publishing stuff. I realized that polishing those drafts felt a lot like work which clearly meant I was not enjoying the process. So I decided to just let it be and not try too hard.

Uber 'cool' is here

2009-11-08T10:36:00.000-08:00

Just when I mentioned Facebook to be one of the tools for flaunting coolness, Himesh lent it extraordinary credibility by using it in his latest film "Radio". Now, in my list when it came to coolness Himesh could have only beaten Keshto Mukherjee. But surprise surprise, here he is, geared up with all the borrowed tools of coolness.

- First things first: He is on facebook in his movie
- He describes his relationship status as "its complicated"
- The film even talks about f** buddies, a term alien to most of us Indians till we started exporting our software and importing few of these concepts here
- He has named his heroine Shanaya which sounds like a real earnest attempt at coolness.
- Commitment phobia? I don't know if it existed so much in India, or may be it did but was never named. Let's face it we are not great at naming stuff. Go west, you have cuddle buddies, f* buddies, play mates for your kids, your locker room buddies etc. Everything that can be, is named.

Anyway, my labeling of Himesh's movie as an attempt at coolness may be premature and wrong. May be his movie might prove everything I wrote about to be relevant to the script or some such thing which basically rubbishes my opinion. But I won't worry about it now and will take my words back when that happens, till then keep facebooking.

Lost

2009-11-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

Too much of cricket this year caused me to stay away from the first four matches of "The honour series". But matches like this keep pulling me back. Another ethereal knock by Sachin and India was sniffing the victory. I wish Jadeja had taken a few deep breaths after Sachin was gone. Unable to stand the pressure, he was almost rushing to get out and be gone from the field.

Australia's bench strength is getting stress tested and yet they manage to outperform.

A disappointing loss but a great match.

Move fast, break stuff

2009-11-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

This theme keeps coming back in some form or the other every now then.

the default for most organizations is "managing to avoid blame". Their implicit motto is "Reward success and inaction, punish failure", which ends up making inaction the most appealing course. "Move fast and break stuff" encourages a different mentality, "Reward success and failure, punish inaction".

Its a choice between punishing or promoting CYA behavior

Here is the full article

Average Movie, Awesome Phrase

2009-10-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

Came across an average movie (of course my pov) titled "Butterfly on a Wheel" that is based on the phrase - 'Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel'

Assholes @ Work

2009-10-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

There is a book written by someone called "The No asshole rule". I am not going to bother googling and finding out the author or putting a nice link to the book on amazon or wikipedia. I am being lazy. If anything, the title of the post should give you the idea that this isn't going to be a nicely written post, rather an impulsive entry. I don't know of the definition that this guy used for his assholes, I have my own and somehow I am getting a feeling that the two may not be that far off.

I am tempted to write this post because today I faced the challenge (once again) of not falling in the vicious circle of assholeness. The assholes will always play their game, and the only way to counter them is by being one of them. You have to become an asshole to beat another one if you are not exceptionally stronger in which case asshole would be sucking up to you and the question wouldn't arise. Well, so coming to the play part. That indeed is their play. To beat them, be one of them and in the end if you beat them by being an asshole, you become a part of that asshole cartel. Whoever wins or loses, the cartel gains. Also, as a newly transformed asshole, you will start learning the alphabets and the other experienced assholes will hold an advantage, until you become better than them. At this point, you would probably have become a bane on civilization, not visibly so, but I can assure you that the world would undoubtedly be a better place without you.

Now, at some point or other we all behave like assholes, but are we conscious of it when we do. If we are, that's half the battle won and trying to avoid being an asshole is as far as most of us can go. What happens usually is, once fallen into this asshole trap, there is no looking back. The pit is slimy, keeps you from getting out.

The only way out of asshole-dom is to get rid of assholes. If you can't, run away from them.

This post is scheduled to be published at a random date in future. So, this doesn't reflect my current (the date of this post) state of mind. However, I am very sure I will always stand by this. I am in the thick of things, posting it now would give the asshole away to the folks who know me. But I want to get this rant out nevertheless.

Goldman ceo's interview with NY times

2009-10-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

Appeared a month back - shows why he is where he is

Link to the interview

Is Orkut Downmarket?

2009-09-28T01:53:00.000-07:00

Some random google searches helped me conclude that Orkut is still the number one social networking site (4th overall) in India but as suspected facebook is catching up fast. Not in the least is it helped by the fact that most of the western countries prefer facebook.

Similar to what Amit described here, I have independently observed that orkut indeed is considered sidey (that's not my personal view though). People guess based on the personality where would a person be on social networking scene. Comments like "Oh him, he must be on orkut" followed by a laughter are the ones that I have chanced upon more than once in last one week. 'Still stuck to' orkut (just orkut) is definitely not seen as cool.

Internet speed test

2009-09-25T23:58:00.000-07:00

This is what I get out of my 2MBPS reliance connection :(
You can test yours @ http://airtel.impatientones.com/myspeed_standalone.html

9/11 - The Quiz that never happened

2009-09-12T00:48:00.000-07:00

This is strangely how I have my memories of 9/11. I was reluctantly trying to prepare for a quiz on "Design of Steel Structures II". It was the time after my placement was over and I was living a life of no worries. Anyone who has stayed in an IIT hostel would vouch for the fact that it is almost impossible to study in the evenings unless you are living a life of total isolation. Noises came about planes crashing in building in NY and all news channels going berserk. I kinda ignored it for a while, and continued droning on DSS 2. The time was around 7 PM or so, a little before our dinner starts. I took a mental note of going to the TV room which was next to our mess before having my dinner. Others were faster in catching the significance of this happenstance and the noises grew. Having found a valid excuse to not study for my quiz, I came out . It all happened in a hurry then, we all rushed to the TV room which was by now packed to its full strength.

When we came back to review what has just happened, our biggest worry was centered around the quiz and how we should try and get it postponed. And our willing professor complied and canceled the quiz next day since we could not study due to all the things happening around.

Few months later, when I would have least expected, this event gave more wind (or rather pulled out more steam off) to the dot-com bubble burst. I almost lost the job that I never actually started. As weird as this may sound, but I think this one event did a lot to improve everyone's understanding of the world outside their own country. For a lot of first world countries, the largest continent on the planet came into being for the first time.

Beyond the immediate impact of killing 3000 people, the after effects of the incident has since been seen in our minds. Racial tensions got a whole new life. The world got a new metaphor to describe extreme disasters meted out by terrorists. Somethings that used to be just alien now became scary.

Since then, I have been to ground zero twice and found a gaping hole staring, the full import of which cannot be felt watching it on TV. Much like the small holes that most of the folks related or even unrelated to the incident carry in their hearts that gets translated into random acts of hatred every now and then.

vòng tròn

2009-09-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

Re: What have I been doing..

2009-09-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

Well finally "Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao" is over and I got some spare time at hand. After years of watching unorganized television, a series of reality shows got me hooked back and at the same time I rediscovered my love for American sitcoms. All said and done, last couple of months seem like a blur now. As a result there is tons of stuff on my todo list including some fresh rants to be blogged about. All in due time.

Long but very interesting read on Delhi's rich

2009-08-08T01:45:00.001-07:00

http://www.granta.com/Magazine/107/Capital-Gains/1

What have I been doing..

2009-07-31T11:49:00.001-07:00

off late while I am not watching tv is voting to keep Negar Khan in the reality show "Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao". Its been since school that I have followed programs so seriously on tv. Don't get me wrong, I watch more tv than an average housewife, but it is mostly random. Not so this time. So much so that, it has eaten into my reading, blogging and a few other things I do.

So, what is it that has got me hooked up. The answer comes every day at 1130 PM on Sony TV when an uncut version of the show is aired which invariably opens with a sequence of bikni clad Negar Khan taking a bath. Negar Khan with her surgically enhanced lips is given special clothes to match up to her personality. While everyone got a normal T-shirt, hers ends a couple of blocks above her shorts leaving behind a large chunk of real estate uncovered.

What else is interesting in this show is the return of Palak (a roadie) who would have put to shame the rudest guy I have ever met with her gallis. The return isn't without its own twist where Palak instead of saying "Tune apni bahan *** hai" is doing "haan ji" like Shweta Tiwari's character in most of her serials. (She, btw, is another participant in the show). It seems she got some makeover done for her looks as well as her English. Few months back where majority of her dialogs were heard as *beeps*, she is now very comfortable using "so sweet" and "love you" thrice in every sentence. Not to mention her new found Lakhnavi accent ("Hum apne ghar walo ko bahut miss kar rahe hain").

Equally surprising is the fact that the rest of the gang members seem to have fallen for her innocence or at least pretend as such. In something akin to poetic justice, her theatrics got the better of her. Her crying etc for gaining sympathy turned into a nightmare when she was chosen to be one of the two people fighting for survival (and she lost). Apparently everyone felt she was missing her home way too much and is too young to handle this rough journey. Good for her.

I would have talked about two other popular shows, Rakhi... and Sach.. but not doing it, since the former has lost all its fizz and I haven't tried watching the latter.

Anyway, now that I am done with my token post, I am getting back to work. Gotta go to personally kill everyone who is not voting for Negar.

Evolution

2009-07-21T11:11:00.001-07:00

FAQ!

2009-07-08T06:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a slide from a presentation given by DHH ("Hacker of the year 2005") in a Ruby on Rails conference.

"I’m not in this world to create Rails for you. I’m in this world to create Rails for me and if you happen to like that version of Rails that I’m creating for me, than you are going to have a great time."

Look at the 'subtle' choice of words to get his message across.

Cursing is like dark arts- you have to mean it to make it effective.

I have always been of two minds when it came to profanities in my blogs and professional interactions. So far I have stayed away from it (almost). There are, however, too many advocates of swearing in my circle with their fair dose of workplace rants or casual remarks in colored language. I agree to this in part, because sometimes the best responses in a lot of situations sound something like ".. because you are fucking insane/unethical/stupid/anyOtherWord".

I had once thought of a matrix for creating profanities, put a relation in one axis and some body parts on the other one. You will get a nice mXn matrix of random abuses. Apart from this one there are some other categories, few of them are:

Equating to Animals: You used them when you didn't know any better.

Character assassination:

Realistic ones - kamina, nikamma, nalayak, saala etc
Character assassination: Most of the standard ones (*c variety) come under this category
Character assassination (Sentences) -This was when the above kind of abuses became way too common to have any effect at all. People graduated to sentences thus allowing them much more creative freedom and you know what, when someone creates a sentence based one, (s)he means it. So, there you go.

After this long piece, here is what I actually wanted to say; I will experiment a bit with some strong un-parliamentary language here and there in my future posts. Let's see how it goes.

Signs

2009-07-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

Saw the following two telling signs on Bangalore roads:

A tempo driver wearing a tee with label "michael schumacher" and a driver's gate on a bus carrying "Pilot".

The Broken Fourth Wall

2009-06-23T11:25:00.001-07:00

It's been centuries since the concept of Fourth wall has been in existence. At home, you would see a Kader Khan talking to camera in his millions of comedies or a child Mithun in Muqaddar telling the camera - "meri ma hai lekin baap ka pata nahi, main harami hoon".

A little further, Marvel comics has a character who knows he is a comic book character! Most recently he was seen in X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I could never appreciate the fourth wall and subsequently its breaking until I saw it in action. It was one of those moments when I witnessed something remarkable unexpectedly, kind of an aha moment. I was part of an exercise where a play was staged, and then paused to get audience reactions. To my surprise the reactions from audience were met with reactions from the characters without them coming out of their characters. It was not a defense of non committal parties. They were vehement or mild defending their actions as those characters would have, but defended they all. The experience amazed me, the simplicity and effectiveness of the medium. Not to say, the message they were trying to drive came home easy and was thoroughly entertaining. To put it mildly, it was f***ing awesome.

When F7 is not enough

2009-06-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

when a missed letter, or typing the next letter on the keyboard can get you in trouble.

Count
Duck (in more ways than one!)
list
Public
boon

I am sure there are many more, but these are the ones I have come across at one point or the other. It is never a good idea to type looking at only the keyboard.

IIT Kharagpur: A tale of two news reports

2009-06-17T09:44:00.001-07:00

Came across these two news stories on the same day:

IIT student hangs in hostel
IIT Kharagpur tops the list of best Engineering Colleges

Dhoni: A leader or a manager?

2009-06-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

A leader creates a way when there is none, while managers help navigate a defined path.

Dhoni has already catapulted to the league of the best captains India ever had. In a short career span of less than five years, he has seen fame and glory which can fall short to may be just Sachin Tendulkar. He is considered one of the coolest persons on the field and is counted as one of the best playing captains in world.

There were few times when he went wrong with the media. Extremely frank in his opinions, he is one among the minority in Sub continent players who can speak well (not commentary material but not an Inzy either). He is the man among boys and nobody has (had) any questions about it until recently.

The signs of crack started showing in IPL 2, when he lost his cool and some run out and stumping chances. His batting is no longer what he came in the team with. From a prolific boundary hitter, he became a nudger, a lot many times struggling to get a run a ball. His team went on to do well in IPL 2, but it was largely despite him and not because of him.

World cup started on a completely wrong foot, losing the first warm up match and Times of India making a big deal of something about Sehwag's injury. I still fail to see what the big deal was about (ok, I am dumb). While writing of this post, India is already out of contention in wc 2009 and are struggling in their third super eight game against South Africa with Dhoni and Yuvraj on crease.

And see, this is what happens in T20. not even a minute passed since I wrote my last line and Dhoni attempted an impossible run, Yuvraj was not even looking at the runner's end. Dhoni was duly sent back to the crease first and then to the pavilion. This was pure stupidity or nerve may be.

Back to the point of the post. T20 2009 saw India's early demise and all the fingers are being pointed at Dhoni's captaincy. With a team that is strongest on the paper is still relying on a couple of people to bail them out in every game. Dhoni is not even a shadow of his former self as a batsman. He is jumping, crawling, swinging but reaching nowhere. His lack of confidence showed when in all the chases all he seemed to try was rotate strike and expect the other players to do the heavy hitting. His captaincy has left enough gaping holes and he is being blasted from all the directions.

Is Dhoni really a great leader who transformed a bunch of misaligned players to put up a formidable line up that even Sachin Tendulkar feels is the best ever he has seen. Putting that completely on Dhoni would be gross injustice to the older captains especially Ganguly who actually nurtured a lot of players who are the key stars in the current line up.

Has Dhoni gotten far too much credit for the recent successes where he was leading team to victory just because he got a good team who could win matches without much needed from the captain. Has it been the case of a good manager, with a pretty strong team where all he needs to do was juggle them around. Taking this a bit further, is this the case of a 'wily' manager who actually removed all the uncomfortable elements (read Seniors) one by one so that he can reign supreme. While playing under other captains (Kumble) his performance seemed to dip considerably while it picked back up pretty well soon after he got the captaincy.

A lot of people in my generation would hate Dhoni for actively trying to drive seniors (trio) out of the team. I think they were on their way out anyway but he gave that slight nudge to initiate the fall. Of course, we still have Sachin playing because no one can drop him from team in India and expect to breathe easy next morning. However, this is a thing of past and he now has a new set of challenges to tackle. This is the first time since he took over as the captain when he is under pressure to perform as a player and as a captain. How well he comes out of it will define what he becomes in long run, a flash in the pan or a legend.

(India needs 25 off 10 now with 3 wickets in hand)

Re: Its ashes for now, can he do a Phoenix

2009-06-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

After his Australian open loss this year to Nadal (yet again), I wrote a piece about Federer and the ghosts of Nadal in his mind.

While Federer was climbing the stairs of glory, French open remained an anomaly in his otherwise perfect script. Losses to Nadal in the French weren't probably as biting to begin with. But the sting kept getting nastier with every loss. Initially Federer could dismiss it as just the surface. But then came the Wimbledon scare where he narrowly defended his title (07) and Nadal seemed that much closer to usurp all the he had. French open final of 2008 was extremely humiliating, but that still was Nadal's turf. Soon after, an epic loss in Wimbledon 2008 would have started ringing the death knell. It was a proclamation by Nadal, do what you can in the best way you can, I will still kick your ass. An Australian open defeat which saw him break down, choked on the podium, prompted me to write the piece I mentioned earlier.

All these losses one after the other cemented a belief our rather disbelief in Federer. Shades of that disbelief keep coming back to haunt him. The final set in Australian open 09 saw it. It seemed as if Nadal became his Kryptonite.

The ghost of Nadal is still out in open, but having conquered one of the ghosts (French open), that will be one less albatross while playing. I think this would bring a lot of self belief back. Not sure, enough to beat Nadal convincingly though. Here is what I think can be the ideal script for him. Have Wimbledon (preferably against a lesser player) and then face Nadal in US open final and crush him like he could in the days of yore.

However, Nadal's form is far from over. I always thought Federer has great strength of mind, but I got to concede Nadal might have greater. The way he got back to Federer after every loss is much better than what Federer could manage after his.

As I have always said, these are the folks I watch tennis for despite being in a cricket crazy nation and spent a sum total of 30 minutes on tennis court in my life.

WC T20 2009: Aussies out!

2009-06-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

Trust Ponting to come out with a statement calling T20 to be a game of luck. After complete demolition by Gayle, Sri Lankans pushed them off the cliff in a balanced match. Aussies have lost last five of their T20 games. I guess all they were lacking in this side were two retired players and an undisciplined moron to see them through.

Timezone Puzzle

2009-06-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

Working in a global environment for many (not putting a number is intentional ;) years now, I would expect myself to be an expert in timezones. But sadly, that has never been the case. At times, the differences are not clear. Sometimes when the differences are clear, like in case of NY (9.5 now), the math is just too tough to do again and again. After downloading timezone converters, using websites etc, here is the 'tool' that I found most useful.

Line to the excel

PS1: I did use outlook for some time showing two zones, but doesn't help beyond that.
PS2: The AM/PM thing is a little mixed up (can change in your sheet if you want to), but works just fine for me.

Re: IPL 2.0 - No one can beat Knight Riders

2009-05-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

(May 16 - DC bt KKR)

This time luck played its bit as well. 21 runs were needed of the last over and here is what you get.

5^nb 1^lb 1 6 1^wd 2 4 6

The biggest over in IPL so far conceding 26 runs. The first no ball due to some obscure rule about the number of fielders being in circle or something. Truly unfortunate for McCullum.

Another look at the points table and you see the four teams with icon players (Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj) perched in the bottom half.

IPL 2.0 - Bye Bye Mumbai

2009-05-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

(May 16 - Chennai bt Mumbai)

And yet another disappointing performance by the most supported team in IPL. It was heartbreaking to see them lose the last match in a photo finish, devastating to see them out of contention after a comprehensive loss today.

Food Art

2009-05-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

Photograph was done by me, not the art work.

IPL 2.0 - Men in Blue beat the Boys in Red

2009-05-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

(May 12 - MI vs KXIP - MI won)
comfortably and that brings them back to #4. The batting order changes that seemed long overdue worked finally. There were some minor changes earlier which didn't really work, but I guess MI finally learned their lesson in handling the concentration risk. Sanath walking back right after Sachin got out or vice versa a couple of times was a real pretty sight for the opponents and a blatant signal towards the issue.

IPL 2.0 - No one can beat Knight Riders

2009-05-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

(May 12 - KKR vs RCB - KKR lost, obviously)
when it comes to losing. A very healthy total of 173 and in an extremely strong condition after 15 overs, they went on to lose yet another match. I gotta hand it over to them, when it comes to losing, no one can beat them

IPL 2.0 - Aur Bolo

2009-05-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

(Match: Chennai vs Kings XI - 7th May 2009)

The following picture can probably summarize the match between Chennai and Kings XI Punjab so far. It was raining and then it was raining sixes. After being at 80 from 10 overs, next 8 overs saw 105 runs scored. Dhoni coming good once more scoring his fifty at a little over 2 runs per ball. Hayden brought back the question of his retirement once again continuing his purple (or should it be called orange) patch.

The match is in progress and rain can still be a factor, so not writing anyone off now, but every passing moment can make it difficult for Punjab to come out better in this tie. Already lost their first wicket in the second ball of the innings they looked shaky but Katich (33 off 12 balls) is just making sure that they are not written off. Let's see how it goes on from here.

The Argumentative Indian

2009-05-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

There are possibly different classifications of arguments in a debate, I am not searching on Internet to find them out. Some examples could be personal attacks, negation but no assertion (i.e. just disproving other's point of view rather than proposing something yourself). I thought, may be we can have some radical names for these classifications.

To start the list, my recent favorite is "Test Match argument" (can be alternatively called Dravid argument). You argue so much (all of it pointless) that the opponent wears out and gives in.

Add yours if you have any!

The greyscale

2009-05-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

I have always held the opinion that people in private sector are on an average more honest than people in public sector. People in any kind of job are more honest than people in politics. I am not so sure any more. It seems to boil down to opportunity.

To put the question more bluntly, would you steal when no one is looking. How hard would you play when no one is watching. How hard would you work when you know you wont't get the credit(but the project will get boost). Even worse someone else will take the credit. Would you take credit for something someone else did.

And when I apply this, I guess most of the people I have come across in my work life would go for an unfavorable response on these questions. A lot of them seemingly nice and hard working. They probably have worked out an acceptability threshold to corruption/immoral behavior and politicians would be justified when they say (they will never) that they just pushed it.

The Dark Knight, one of my all time favorite movie has an excellent premise. The villain isn't out to get money. He is out to prove his theory - "When the chips are down, these civilized people will eat each other". I, kind of agree to his theory. You will see the masks falling at the slightest chance of trouble/possibility of gain and everyone almost feels justified in doing that. The movie however, ends on a positive note, because in the face of death, people decide to do the right thing. And Batman, figures out that the greater good lies in sacrificing himself, does so. But that was in the movie, right.

Here are two questions that I will leave you with:
- If the only way forward for your team/project is by sacrificing yourself, would you do it?
- If the only way you can make your presence felt is by letting things fail, would you do it?

Karma, Wall Street and Bonuses

2009-05-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

It would be highly unlikely to find a person who hasn't commented on the topic of fat bonus of wall street employees as the cause of financial meltdown. In spite of all the excess coverage, if there is someone who missed it, here are a few thoughts of my own, mostly repackaged from others much like the repackaged CDOs.

Starting with the simple mathematical explanation. Consider your bonus is 10% of the profit you make, but you don't get penalized for losses. If you can make a profit of $100 across two years, here are two scenarios.

1. You make a profit of $50 each year earning a bonus of $10 for two years.
2. You make a profit of 1000$ in year 1 (bonus=$100) and net a loss of 900 in year 2 (bonus=0). You end up with a net bonus of $100.

So, in short there is no incentive for creating long term wealth. This was one reason so many of investment banks that prided their ability to help companies go public were wary of becoming corporations initially. As partnerships, they were assured of loyalty from the top executives, unlike public company model where a major component of earnings is non-returnable hard cash.

The second, more philosophical explanation is of morality [my favorite topic :)]. Increasingly, the whole world is working towards an optimization of everything. Some of the cliches that I think create a wrong framework for growth are:

Don't fight your perception; perception is reality - then why not work on just that. Just put up an excellent show.
People remember your peaks/troughs - much like the wisden greatest cricketer of all time rating, consistency be damned.
Your success depends a lot more on who you know than what you do - there you go.

Mind it, none of these are made up, they are real. And in places where success/performance isn't measurable so easily (thankfully IT industry in most of the cases will not be part of this), they have the potential to rot the whole culture.

So many of these supposedly career building mantras become fundamentally disconnected with your real contribution. I would have been happy only if they were combined with advice about improving the contribution and ways towards it. Isn't the most popular competency an MBA can offer to a recruiter is - I will be whatever you want me to be, if it is immoral, so be it.

The world rant week

2009-04-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I meant my world. You will understand what I mean in my next few posts.

IPL 2.0 - DD bites the dust

2009-04-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

"No score too big with Yusuf"

Rajasthan Royals (vs Delhi Daredevils - Match 1) were not looking very strong through the chase until Pathan started his blitzkrieg. Another cool win for Rajasthan Royals. They must be happy that Smith could finally dig in his heels and stay there throughout the innings. He seemed a bit frsutrated at the end may be because Pathan was hitting so well. But I still think he needn't be. He did well, welcome back to form (hopefully).

Talk to any Royals player and half of their answers are filled with what Shane Warne told them to do and how it helped them perform. He must be doing something right to command that kind of respect. Other teams should take a cue from him. As brutally honest as he is always, he was pretty harsh on his top order when they lost the last game.

Coming to Pathan's secular hitting. He showed no respect for reputation, taking out Mendis in Super over in the previous match and then today all the bowlers. He is soon turning himself into the man of the tournament, again I guess I am speaking too soon, but then what do I got to lose :)

Off for today, tomorrow we will see the two of the laggards (Royal Challengers and KKR) battling it out to regain some pride and get back into the tournament.

IPL 2.0 - MI Back on Top

2009-04-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Its heart warming to see Tendulkar and Jayasuriya knock out the (freakishly) talented Mendis giving him a thrashing he isn't used to. Tendulkar must have felt vindicated after the disappointing Test Series against Sri Lanka where Mendis domesticated an already tamed Tendulkar.

Well, enjoyed watching the match since this is the side I am supporting to go all the way. Support stems from the fact there is a certain 36 years and 3 days old player who has spent two decades (spanning across three) in international cricket is captaining the side.

Few nice things that came out of today's match
- Tendulkar got his highest score in IPL
- Zaheer got his first wicket in the tournament
- Bhajji is showing signs of maturity, spending his energy where he should be (hitting those 2 consecutive sixes)
- Malinga getting the purple cap

Lessons to be learned for the teams:
- MI needs to get someone to fire in the middle order. JP Duminy is looking lukewarm at best and Nayar is still untested. That one knock might as well be a flash in the pan. However, Nayar doing his bit with the ball makes him a 'useful' player.
- Shahrukh Khan needs to understand that he is a big part (if not whole) of the problem he is trying to solve.
- McCullum needs to sort his act out. Is this the time for Dada to make his way back given he is known for his dramatic comebacks like no other!

Aside: I follow online scores on rediff since I could never get through cricinfo. Today after I followed the scores on cricinfo, I realised why it is so popular. The ball by ball commentary is just excellent.

IPL 2.0 Encore

2009-04-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Is Rajasthan on its way (27/4) to beats its lowest score (58) or have I spoken too soon; will be happy to eat my words if that turns out to be the case.

IPL 2.0 - What a match!

2009-04-25T04:05:00.000-07:00

The first match between Rajasthan and Kolkata was clearly the match of the tournament so far. There were so many nail biting moments that Ganguly would have chewed his fingers out had he not been busy creating those moments.

It was a battle between an extremely centralized team to a team experimenting with decentralization (multiple captain theory). Shane Warne solidly forms the core of an otherwise ordinary Rajasthan team. He has redefined the art of captaincy almost changing the game from physical to cerebral. Who could have imagined a team to lose from 8 needed from 8 balls with enough wickets in hand in a T20 tie where one of the players in the middle is among the top five run scorers in one day internationals.

Ganguly brought KKR very well back in the game where one ball from Munaf costing 13 runs (no ball and a free hit - both sixes) . Second last ball wicket of Ganguly left KKR to score 2 of the last ball. A superb save by Warne which reduced a potential triple to a single left the scores tied.

Super over had its share of many exciting moments. Shane Warne's find Kamran taking the over giving 15 runs, a really defend-able one over target. Pathan from Royals made an easy work of it by scoring 18 of the first four balls giving them, if not a historical, definitely a memorable win.

IPL 2.0 - Dust is settling

2009-04-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

As the days are progressing, things are getting clearer.

Well I thought I will continue providing my commentaries on the proceedings. See, when Arun Lal can do it, why can't I.

Who is Arun Lal?
A friend of mine asked what makes Arun Lal qualified to speak about the games. To which another friend of mine replied, he is the guy who comes out of the local train in "mile sur mera tumhara" song. Now that was some shocking piece of information even though I know who he is. All these days I have been thinking that the local train scene was meant to have just the crowds and commoners and not great Arun Lal. To know that it was him, was as shocking as the revelation of Santa Clause not being real is for the foreign kids (and may be a few Indian kids). Well, for those interested to know, Arun Lal played 16 tests and 13 ODIs averaging 26 and 9 respectively (for India, of course).

Takeaways
Kings can win only in a high scoring match and Royal Challengers in a slow scoring one. RCB is riding (~barely floating) on the batting of an unlikely hero, who has been doing exceptionally well something that he is not supposed to be good at. Although today they scored a very healthy 160 and soon I might get proved wrong in which case I will gracefully eat my own words. There is nothing wrong in it, thats what Arun Lal did when he commented before Mumbai/Chennai match that Tendulkar hasn't read the conditions well.

Also, as a side note, I think Laxman should start calling himself Re-laxman and may be Gilchrist should really let him rest for a while.

Weather/Duckworth-Lewis method
Statistics is not just what you create while playing, it decides your results now. KXIP being the favorite victim so far.Thanks to SA weather, you can see a poster of the following graph in all the dug-outs. Of course, Sehwag could never understand it.

The definition of a match is redefined as well. If you can have 5 overs per team, it will be considered a match. Appalling!

I have internalized IPL so much that I am even using a strategy break between writing my blog. If you don't believe the Arun Lal memorabilia was the result of one such break.

Today's match between Deccan chargers and RCB brought out a few things:

Dravid moves to the top of the table of leading run getters after scoring a smashing 48 off 27 balls
He also scored 2 sixes in his knock which is two more than the total number of sixes in his career (ok, this is not correct, just a hyperbole)
Today's match saw Praveen Kumar laughing for the first time in his life. It took a throw from Uthappa directly hitting him on his head, temporarily making him forget that he is Praveen Kumar and not supposed to laugh (or even smile)
Robin Uthappa who I thought used to be in Indian squad primarily because of his communication skills is showing a lot of sincerity. Playing the wicket keeper and really trying to give his best with bat. I really hope he does well now.

That's it for now, stay tuned

IPL 2.0 starts with upsets

2009-04-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

but I am not upset.

The first two games of IPL 2.0 saw the two finalists losing their respective matches. Chennai lost in a close match, but Rajasthan got devastated. And look at the major contributors to the victory. For Royal challengers, Dravid scored 66 of 48 balls (highest score and highest strike rate barring Vinay kumar who score 8 of 2 balls), only other score in double digits was 32 by Pietersen. Kumble scalped 5 in 3 overs conceding just 6 runs. Talk about test bowler, he sure made the batsmen play like a test match in his short spell.

To top it all, Rajasthan made the lowest score ever in IPL.

In the first encounter, Tendulkar led from the front scoring an unbeaten 59 of 49 balls. So, surprisingly, in this young men's game the top performers were all on the wrong side of 35. Dravid in the presentation ceremony uncharacteristically mentioned (I think thrice) that to succeed in these pitches you need to play 'good cricketing shots' and that will be an advantage for players like him. A touch of arrogance perhaps, coming from where least expected, but I am not complaining.

If initial signs are anything to go by, this season may not be as high scoring as its last version and will be more testing for inexperienced Indian players who are not used to overseas conditions.

This is, however, very early to draw conclusions and definitely too soon to write obituaries (remember last year Rajasthan had a similar disastrous start), but the action has begun. Keep watching.

Graphjam Timepass

2009-04-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

This is what you do when you are generally pissed off. No, I am not talking of creating graphs, that you do when you just have some time to kill. I meant posting that crap on blog. Here you go, make some of your own, its fun

PS: As usual, this is a fun post and is not intended to be a reflection on my past, present or future employer and not to forget employers from my past births.

Colors

2009-03-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fitting to write a post about colors after a week from holi, but well this isn't about holi colors.

Colors is the most promising channel as cited by some popularity stats. In less than one year it has become a threat to stalwarts like star and zee. It took a series of regressive saas bahu sagas to take star to new heights. Not surprisingly, it is even more regressive saga of child marriage that is helping colors. What's wrong with us?

I also felt pretty pissed off after watching their new (or may be not so new) series called Utran. Every episode is punctuated after every 5 minutes by a sad tune where a poor girl is made to feel the pinch of her poverty. I doubt if any poor kid would self pity himself or herself as much as she does. I think most, if not all of them would have made their peace to not complain or think about it every 5 minutes. Its good to show efforts of getting out of poverty, but they could have spared the unnecessary self pity.

They have a talent hunt competition for stand up comedian kids who perform well beyond their ages in every sense of the word. To top it all, one of the judges is a wife beater and drug addict. Some role model, way to go colors!

Java's dad in Hyderabad

2009-02-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.sun.com/jag/entry/at_techdays_in_hyderabad

Punk and Pink

2009-02-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

Someone who nobody had heard of a fortnight back now has a wiki page dedicated to him created few days after the Mangalore incident (some soldiers who Lord Ram wouldn't have had in his sena came out and beat some girls for whatever they were doing). For him, the battle is already won, everything else beyond this would just be bonus. On top of that he might just make a lot of money selling all the underpants he is getting for free.

So who stands to gain in this. I guess everyone starting with certain Mr PM, folks from pink chaddi and off late may be folks from pink condom

I am really unhappy that I am adding another blog to the list of blogs mentioning this guy. Anyway, here is the most interesting post I read on this topic.

Its ashes for now, can he do a Phoenix

2009-02-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

This may be one quote that Federer would regret making. Not that not making it would have changed things.

"He (Nadal) is a fantastic player and is going to be around for so much longer so I am happy with every one I get now before he takes them all." -- After Wimbledon 2007

The Australian open loss this Sunday acted like the last straw that broke the camel's back. He just wasn't prepared for a defeat, like so many of us. He was waiting to make history, like so many of us. But his perfect script like his perfect rhythm was spoiled brutally and disappointed him deeply and broke him, like so many of us.

Now, this may be too early to right obituaries, I will be the last person to do that. Consider this - Federer has reached a male record 19 consecutive Grand Slam singles semifinals and reached the finals of the last 4 grand slams. By any standards, this is exemplary performance, but the fact that it is being moaned tells you that he isn't (never is) judged by any normal standards.

Only after the loss of Sunday did I realize how big he had become. Even if he stops playing right now, he will probably end up with more records than anyone else in the history. I can't even imagine what would have happened, had Nadal not been around in this era. To get an idea sample some of these quotes:

By Him

It's just unreal, I'm shocked myself. I've played good matches here, but never really almost destroyed somebody.

It's a match for him to forget and for me to remember.
After defeating Andy Roddick in the Australian Open 2007 semi-final

On him

For me, in my prime, I felt unbeatable. In Roger's days, he's unbeatable. It's really hard to put one guy over the other. Having said that, I think Roger is dominating the game much more than I ever did. I think he's going to go on and pass 14 and win 16, 17, 18 majors. I think he's going to break all records.
Pete Sampras, before playing his third exhibition match with Roger Federer, Macau, China, Nov. 23, 2007.

He can beat half the guys with his eyes closed!
John McEnroe, BBC Wimbledon 2006 live broadcast

If he is playing very good, I have to play unbelievable. If not, it’s impossible, especially if he’s playing with good confidence. When he’s 100 percent, he’s playing in another league. It’s impossible to stop him. I fight. I fight. I fight. Nothing to say. Just congratulate him.
Rafael Nadal, after losing to Federer in the Shanghai Masters Cup semifinal, Nov.

And fight he did and look what he has done to someone who was (almost) invincible if there is any such thing. The ghosts of Nadal in Federer's mind are/have taking/taken concrete shapes. A win this Sunday could have taken care of them, but alas that wasn't to be. It pushed the knife even further and I wonder how hard it would be for him now to come back up and vanquish the one who has beaten him time and again.

Leaving you with some more quotes here and the following two pictures:

Re: Combination Generator

2009-01-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

Related to my post on Combination Generator, I received some email requests for some other variations. While answering one such request for generating nCr combinations, I did some search. As expected Perl did not disappoint me and I got to know of the awesome perl module for Combinatorics. To give an idea of how simple it is to use, here is the code for nCr generation.

use Math::Combinatorics;
my @n = qw(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14);
my $combinat = Math::Combinatorics->new(count => 8, => [@n],);
while(my @combo = $combinat->next_combination){
print join(' ', @combo)."\n";
}
output:

Barkha Dutt and NDTV in action

2009-01-29T09:02:00.001-08:00

Found a lot of noise about withdrawal of an emotional post by a blogger who wasn't happy with the way NDTV and more specifically Barkha Dutt covered the Mumbai terrorist attack. Here is the withdrawal link.

http://ckunte.com/archives/withdrawal

I read a cached copy of the post and completely agree with what he wrote. While watching the coverage when it all happened I wasn't happy with her reporting either. Here is what I had to say at that time. Hysteria and dissatisfaction form the core of everything I have seen her doing including her program "We the people" which I can't stand any more after watching it once. The topic was about stopping prostitution where Kiran Bedi and Barkha Dutt were trying to tell a prostitute that she was forced into it even though she felt otherwise. She seemed quite happy with the way things shaped up in her life.

Leaving this aside, there isn't much I have to add to what people are already writing on blogs, but I guess I will do my bit by adding another post in the already long list of posts opposing her.

As a parting note, interestingly this is what wiki has to say about her:

According to a study by Newswatch, a media watchdog based in Delhi, Barkha Dutt was the worst anchor in terms of sensationalizing the Mumbai Terror Strikes.^[13] Perhaps most disastrously, during the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008, Barkha Dutt shared and telecast critical information live on television regarding

the location of civilians hiding in hotels (thus potentially endangering their lives),
the then ATS chief Hemant Karkare's safety preparation (showed him wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof vest in excruciating detail live on television: the officer succumbed to bullets in the neck),
the exact number and location of commandos defending the hostage locations at the Taj and the Oberoi hotels (information easily available to the terrorists via television or sat phone),
contacting the head of Oberoi to release sensitive information regarding the current hostage situation in the hotel which drastically contradicted the sanitised information released by Indian security agencies in order to keep the rescue operation uncompromised,
she further went on to say that even though the govt said that there will be no negotiations with the terrorists, her diplomatic sources – she named the diplomat – said that negotiations are underway.
It has been reported by a survivor(Lynne Shaw) that this information was used by terrorists in Oberoi to get to some of the hostages. There are also reports that this information may have let terrorists to the next steps by the armed forces.