Archive for August 2009
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Federer hot favorite to claim his 6th US open title
US Open begins today and unlike last year, Federer is the overwhelming favorite to win his 6th title. Nadal is back after missing French and Wimbledon and will also be a strong contender for the title. For Roger though this will be another record equaling win if he manages to win the title this year. I am sure he is not the one to chase records but this will surely be on his mind.
Andy Roddick and Andy Murray will also be in the race for the title as both of them have beaten Fed this year. In the women’s section, it’s difficult to look past the Williams sisters as they have been so dominant. Even though there is Sharapova, Demetiava and Safina in the mix, it will take a lot from them to defeat the sisters.
For Indians it will be a great championship as Somdev Devvarman has made it to the main draw this year. Hopefully he can win some rounds and make our country proud. Ever since Leander reached the third round in Australian open about a decade back, there has been no significant achievement in singles by an Indian in Grand Slam. Let’s see how far Somdev can go this year. He will be playing later today.
But this year’s championship again belongs to arguably the greatest player in tennis. He just broke Pete Sampras’s record for most titles and won French and Wimbledon back to back and now he is chasing his 6th US open title. He is the most popular champion in tennis and it’s hard to find anyone who hates him. I wish him all the best for the championship and also congratulate him on becoming a father. Go FedEx!
Unity in Diversity, really?
Posted on: August 31, 2009
India's diversity makes it harder for the people to stay united
Well I was in 10th standard when I first heard the term “Unity in Diversity” in my civics class. That was an attempt to teach the kids about the greatness of our country and the different languages and cultures India posses from Jammu to KanyaKumari. It was 15 years ago and when I look back now I feel what have we learnt? We are still fighting based on language, religion, region and what not. So what does that one chapter in the book accomplish?
India is a country with a beautiful history and tradition going thousands of years back. The country is made of 28 states and speaks thousands of languages and dialects with 22 of them being official. Each state in India almost has their language as an official language other than English of course. So the country has lots of divide from various avenues. People eat different, look different, speak different so there lays a problem.
The problem is that we study so many meaningless stuff about history that we fail to educate the kids about our own country. I can point out so many people coming from the Northern part of India from the current generation who claim themselves educated have no clue of the fact that Southern India posses of 4 different states and speak four different languages. Same can be said about the people from the south India. There are people from India who will actively talk about the current US foreign policies at length without any problem but ask them what language is spoken in Andhra; 70-80% will say Tamil.
That’s the kind of knowledge we provide our future generation about our country’s diverse culture. Politicians of India are notorious in starting up regional divide to further their political agenda and people fall for it. The reason is that unity is not emphasised in schools or at home from our childhood. Just having one chapter in 15-16 years of education isn’t going to help anyone. I am not even sure if that one chapter exists across the nation.
The rigid mentality of the current modern generation is baffling for a country that has made the entire world to take a notice due to its growth. The fact that this mentality is going to be carried forward to the next generation is even scarier. We don’t have to know the language or speak them but we need to learn to respect each other and not degrade based on region. There was one guy who said that he had a bad impression on south India and I was like based on what? He did not even know South India has four states.
A person from South does not want to learn Hindi and the one from other parts of India does not want to embrace the South unless they are forced to. The country cannot move forward with these divides continuing to the future generation. The schools should include more about our country and culture and beauty of it rather than teaching meaningless history. How difficult would it be to include a General knowledge subject to educate the kids about different cultures and traditions of our country? I guess it also becomes a responsibility of present generation that we educate them to break the language barriers and learn to be friends irrespective of what language one speaks.
We need not speak the language but still learn to be friends with a fellow Indian, Isn’t that supposed to be the absolute “Unity in Diversity”? Indians are already divided by religion, caste, region etc; but one thing which can be eliminated is the language divide. I am not saying that everyone has to learn like 20 languages but I am just saying that we don’t use that to discriminate anyone. It should not be a cause for fight between two people. I have friends who speak various languages and I myself speak or understand 5 Indian languages which makes my job easier though. I guess we need to instill respect and love towards fellow Indian irrespective of their cast, religion, region, color etc from childhood. Unless we do that we cannot call ourselves united. I at least hope that the future generation sees a much united India than we are doing today.
Congrats Dan!!
Posted on: August 26, 2009
Daniel Vettori being congratulated by his team mates on reaching 300 test wickets
Daniel Vettori became just the 8th player in the history of cricket to have achieved the double of 3000 runs and 300 test wickets in test cricket. He completed the double in his 94th test. Congrats to Dan on this fabulous achievement. He has been one of the most underrated spinner in the world and one of the most unassuming character’s in cricket.
Below is the list of cricketers who have acheived this feat in the past (Courtesy Cricinfo):
List of Players who have achieved this feat in the Past
Disapointed Aussie captain after losing the Ashes for the second time in England
England won the Ashes and Australia was pushed down the rankings from the first time since 2003. Australia has been such a dominant team for the past 15 years or so that this loss would have hurt their pride in more than one way. First thing is that Ponting losses both his English Ashes assignments in 2005 and 2009 and second thing is that the Aussies drop to number 4 in the rankings. But like the cricket Australia said all cannot be blamed on the captain. This situation was already predicted by few pundits earlier last year.
Australia had lost to India and South Africa last year and scraped through to victories against SL and WI. Australia is still quite a decent team but no way as intimidating or dominant as they used to be couple of years ago. To be frank both the teams in this series were pretty ordinary. Australia’s demise in the rankings was expected. No team can recover quickly when you lose players of the caliber of Warne, McGrath, Hayden, Gilchrist, Langer etc, in such a short span of time. The biggest loss for Australia has been for sure Shane Warne. Australia since his retirement has struggled to find a decent spinner to replace him.
The Problem for the Aussies was that Stuart McGill who was supposed to walk into the squad announced his retirement immediately after Shane did his. This put a great dampener on the Aussie plans. Since then they have tried Hogg, McGain, Hauritz and Krezja all with limited success. Their batting has been okay and has held its own most of the time in the recently concluded series but the bowling did struggle a bit. Even though the Aussie bowlers finished with better stats at the end of the series they came short at the crucial moments in the series.
The Aussie problems were compounded with the failures from their main batsmen namely Hussey and Hughes. Phil Hughes was immediately replaced by Shane Watson who even though did a good job, never kicked on to a big score. Hussey though was the biggest disappointment for the Aussies. He did score a hundred in the lost cause in the final innings of the series but it came a little bit too late for his team. The other major disappointment was the injury to their premier bowler Lee who could not play in a single game. In spite of him being in good form and fit the selectors resisted playing him in the final test.
They can’t be faulted as Clarke, Johnson, Hilfenhaus and Siddle combination did a great job at Headingly. Not playing Hauritz on a turning Oval pitch shows the complete lack of confidence of the skipper on his premier spinner on this tour. The way Marcus North was turning the ball square only made everyone think what would have happened if Warne was still playing for Australia. Even though the Aussies lost lots of great names in the last 2 years the biggest of them was Shane Warne. I guess the Aussies will do reasonably well with their pace attack in the coming few years but not having a decent spinner might work against them.
Well anyways the top three teams currently are South Africa, Sri Lanka and India (In the same order) followed by Australia and England forming the top 5. The Aussies will be disappointed by their showing in the Ashes and the English will be elated on regaining the urn. There will be lots for the Aussie captain to ponder about in coming days but he does not have too much time as the Champions Trophy begins in less than a month’s time. There are rumors of Ponting being replaced as the captain of Australian team by Clarke but that might not happen.
Anyways congrats to Strauss and England on regaining the Ashes and to the South African team who have reached the top of the test rankings with consistent performances over the past couple of years. The rankings are going to be interesting as I expect musical chairs at the top spot for the next couple of years as no team looks as dominant as the Aussies were couple of years back.
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A typical cricket maidan where kids in India spend their weekend mornings playing cricket
When you look back at your childhood some memories always linger in your mind. For me as a kid growing up in India playing cricket was normal. The best memory of playing cricket was when few friends form a team and start playing matches with random teams we find in the ground. We wake up at around 6:00 AM, gather around at a common spot and leave to the ground with our kit. Sometimes we would have a pre-scheduled game and sometimes we would go to the ground, find a great spot, pitch the stumps and wait for find another team who are looking for a game. It was fantastic experience. We had a decent team and had lots of fun playing together. We had players from all age groups and it was fun to play as a team and enjoy the time spent with each other whether we win or lose.
Even though we played for fun, the fact that we kept losing played on our minds a lot. This changed when we played a game against a team we did not even know, scored just 48 runs in a 12 over game and bowled them out for 48. So not exactly a win but gave us a huge amount of confidence. That was the first time we did not lose a game.
That tied game was followed by our first win as a team and it was unfortunate that it wasn’t a bet match :). The memory of that game is still fresh in my mind. We were playing a team who had beaten us couple of times before so obviously we did not have much hope. We did not even have a full X1 and picked out a guy who was at the ground and was hoping to get a game with some team. The funny part is that he turned out to be our best bowler of the day. This was just a friendly game and they won the toss and elected to bat first. We did not start that well with the ball but eventually restricted them to a decent total. Considering it was just a 16 over game, we had done a decent job in keeping them down to just 95 runs. We wanted to win this game badly but before we realised we were 4 down for about 17 (I don’t remember the exact score or the overs but remember the situation) and things weren’t looking good for us.
That’s when I came into bat and my cousin was already batting at the other end. Having lost 4 wickets already we decided to go for the broke as we realised that keeping wickets isn’t going to help at this stage. It was counterattack of epic proportions and the opposition hadn’t expected this. I have had few partnerships with my cousin before but this was the best. The fact that we kept hitting boundaries at will was just amazing. I couldn’t believe that this was the same team to whom we had lost before as they were completely falling apart with every passing over.
At the end of the 14th over we needed just 4 to win with both of us still at the crease and I was really nervous as this was going to be our first win as a team. The first three balls of the over, I wasn’t able to connect and I decided whatever happens I am going to throw the kitchen sink at the next ball I am going to face as we had enough batsmen in the hut even if I got out. The ball was short outside off stump and I hit the ball as hard as I could, the ball sailed over the boundary over the cover fielder for a six and that was it. It was our first win as a team and that too we completely hammered them in the end. It was a great feeling. Even though it was just a tennis ball game and wasn’t a bet match we enjoyed the victory.
We would go on to win couple more games after that but nothing as sweet as the first one. We stopped playing after that summer as people got busy with academics and I left to US the following winter for studies. But those memories will never fade away. Memories are all we carry throughout our lives and that sure was a great one for me.
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Shahrukh Khan was detained at the US Airport for 2 hrs for interrogation
No news has grabbed the headlines in the past few days more than Shahrukh’s detention at the US airport. Even swine flu had to take a back seat on the Indian media. Was the Indian superstar making a huge deal of the incident to promote his upcoming movie which is based on the same theme? May be, but Shahrukh has denied such claims. Yeah it was bad that Shahrukh was detained at the Airport for couple of hours but it’s not a National disaster. It was funny when a famous Bollywood actress claimed that Shahrukh is a “World” figure and should not have gone through such treatment.
The above statement is all that is wrong in India. If she had said something like any Indian should not be subjected to such treatment based on his religion or race, I would have had more respect for her sentiments but that was not what she meant. There were lots of reactions from Bollywood after the incident which only showed arrogance on their part. I know that there are millions of Indians who go through such hell everyday around the world and none of us complain. Maybe we should, but who will listen? If I had been detained at the Airport for any reason, it would have been difficult for me to even get hold of our Indian consulate.
The VIP, VVIP, VVVVIP etc culture in India is sickening. In know that the Indians are now used to that culture but why do you expect the same treatment in a foreign country. The comparison with Brad Pitt was another dumb statement by yet another Bollywood bigwig. If the Indians treat Hollywood superstars differently then it’s our problem and the US immigration should not be blamed for that. The Indian security check is a joke and lots of Americans (not only Brad Pitt) are let through without even being checked. The problem with this incident is that no one has spoken on behalf of the entire Indian community who undergo such checks and interrogations every other day, it’s all about one superstar detained for 2 hours for the first time in his life.
Since becoming a superstar in Indian cinema, he was made to feel human for the first time which the star did not like. Now the stars should realize the predicament of common Indian who goes through such scrutiny everywhere in the world. If Dr. Abdul Kalam can be stopped at the Airport then why not Shahrukh? Is Shahrukh bigger than our former President? Our defense minister had to go through the same problems, so is our Bollywood superstar bigger than the above two National leaders? No he is not, at least not for me.
Yeah I know that this is not an ideal scenario and discrimination based on caste, Religion and race has to be questioned but why only when a high profile star is detained. What about the common Indian man? I guess it’s okay that our over the top superstar was brought down to earth for couple of hours, I don’t care if that happened. Nothing is going to change here. Even if the US immigration apologizes for their act, Indians are still going to face these checks, so why worry so much. The incident is done and dusted and Bollywood has to realize that this is not India and the immigration officers across the world don’t recognize Shahrukh Khan.
In 4 days I will be completing 4 years in the IT field. When you take that into account I am relatively a novice in this field. I joined a large Indian firm in 2005 and I am currently working for the same company. This is the second client location I am working at and the experience has been interesting over the past 4 years. I came here to the US to do my Masters and started working few months after my graduation. So working in a professional environment was kind of new to me then.
Going to work, meeting people and impressing the client were my major objectives when I walked into my first job in 2005. I did a reasonable job at that as I stuck around for 2+ years with the client with a good reputation. During the initial phase of my career in this field any form of appreciation was welcome. It really excited you and made you work harder. An appreciation email or just a quick word from your managers meant a world to me.
Getting appreciated by the client is a great thing but in larger picture, it doesn’t matter unless your parent company recognizes your work. Four years down the line and working for the second client in my short career, appreciation from the client or managers from my parent company doesn’t matter that much to me anymore. It’s not that I don’t like being praised or appreciated but I know that it doesn’t matter in the larger scheme of things.
It’s been an interesting few years working for a large Indian IT firm. Knowing how they operate and the nuances involved to succeed in such a big company. Yesterday I got an appreciated for the job I have been doing by my client manager and in response to that I received a plethora of emails from my parent company managers. It generally follows a similar pattern (Kind of understand the pattern being here for 4 years now). The immediate manager first sends his appreciation copying the other big people in the organization and the Account managers. Then we receive appreciation from the Account manager telling us how proud they are of us and how we have been the shining lights in their armor. The client appreciation is more genuine and they actually do that to encourage the employees. But I never understood the motive behind the appreciation from the parent company.
I was recently watching a show on TV which was actually a debate between Management and employees. The Employees complained that worthy candidates don’t necessarily get raise or promotions. Which is actually true in real world scenario and we have to live with that and should not even complain. The mediator on the show said the right thing, don’t get emotionally attached to a firm, if you feel they are not appreciating your worth, just move on and look elsewhere. This is something I have come to learn in this field after being here for 4 years now.
During my parent’s time, job security and loyalty towards the company used to be the norm. Now days the company is ruthless and the employees need to be ruthless too. So when I got the emails yesterday I wasn’t that excited as I know it doesn’t matter a bit when the decision to promote or giving a raise discussions take place.
I know what I will be told when the next appraisal takes place in my parent company. You did a great job in fact you did an excellent job but still you are not getting anything.
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Kandhasamy hits theatres this Friday
Kandhasamy is set to hit the theaters this weekend after lots of postponements. The movie has been in the making for over 2 years now and it has generated lots of hype in the media and also among the public. Vikram’s last movie Bheema which also released after a huge delay in 2008 was a big dud at the box office. This movie is touted as the first super-hero movie in Tamil cinema and hopefully the director has justified the hype associated with the same.
As with lots of movies released in Tamil with big stars, this one also comes in with a huge budget. We just have to look at the money spent in the launch and audio release function to gauge the budget on the actual movie. Director Susi Ganesan has made some decent movies in the past such as Thiruttu Payale and Five Star but none as big as this. For Vikram this is an important movie and so is for Shreya. Even though Vikram is still popular with his fans, this movie can further enhance his status as a superstar in Tamil cinema. Shreya though has had a disaster at the box office since Sivaji as her movies such as ATM and Thoranai have been colossal flops. She would want Kandhasamy to resurrect her career in Kollywood.
The last time I saw such an attempt in Indian cinema was “Krish”. That movie came as a sequel to “Koi Mil Gaya” with Hrithik Roshan in the lead and was a disaster. Even though the movie itself was reasonably successful at the box office, it was a sad example of a super-hero movie. I hope that Kandhasamy doesn’t fall in the same category. Vikram though can be expected to give his all in his movies. By looking at the rushes and the trailers it seems like he has put in a lot of hard work and the production of the movie looks rich.
Kandhasamy is one of the most expected movie in the industry and the biggest one this year. I hope that it doesn’t disappoint the fans.
Selection conundrum
Posted on: August 17, 2009
Dravid makes a surprise comeback to the Indian ODI squad after a two year hiatus
The team for the Tri-Series in Sri Lanka and Champions trophy has been announced and there are quite a few surprises in the final 15. First let’s concentrate on the omissions. Sehwag is yet to recover from the injury he sustained in the IPL, so he is the most high profile absentee from the squad. Rohit Sharma has been shown the door after some mediocre performances over the past year. Ravindra Jadeja also doesn’t find a spot in the team after his indifferent performance in the World T20.
The major disappointment was the non inclusion of Virat Kohli. I don’t understand the reason for the same from the selectors. He hasn’t played a single ODI for India since 2008 series against the Sri Lankans where he was very consistent and handled the M & M threat with competence. Kohli’s brilliant performance in the Emerging players tournament recently concluded in Australia has not had an effect on the selectors it seems. I hope that they don’t keep wasting a talent and give him a chance pretty soon.
Badrinath and Vijay have been dropped from the squad and I don’t know why. I guess probably an effect of the comments from Yusuf when the 30 probables were announced. Except for Dinesh Karthik, there are no Chennaites in the squad, should please Yusuf Pathan now. Badri again is being given a hard time by the selectors and there is no reason for the same. Vijay at least I agree is more suited to the longer format. Badri played a crucial knock in the 2008 series against the SL to steer India home and it just required 2 failures for the selectors to discard him. Rohit Sharma though had been playing in the squad for the past year and a half on one match winning innings in Australia. I guess Yusuf should realize where the bias is. I just hope that Badri doesn’t become another Sharath or Sriram.
Amit Mishra has been given a go after his great performance in the Emerging players trophy and suddenly Ojha doesn’t find a place in the squad. Ojha has done nothing wrong till date and has been performing brilliantly whenever he has played for the team and it’s unfortunate that the selectors are not consistent with his selection. Ojha will be disappointed and rightly so. The biggest surprise was the inclusion of Rahul Dravid in the ODI squad. He is making a comeback after a two year hiatus and it is a huge surprise.
Dravid’s comeback was always on the cards after the Indian youngsters struggled against short pitched bowling in the recently concluded World T20. This might provide the team with necessary solidity in the absence of Sehwag but I think it’s not the right move by the selectors. It’s like we took 5 steps forward in the past couple of years and this selection has pulled us two steps back. When Dhoni requested an all youth team couple of years back, everyone blasted him but after seeing the results people started backing the young team. Getting Virat Kohli in the team would have been much wiser decision I feel.
Rahul is a great player and does not need to prove anything regarding his credentials as an ODI player and I am sure he will do well. The rest of the team is almost same as the one which went to the Caribbean couple of months back. The team travels to SL to play a Tri-Series, with the third team being NZ before flying to SA to participate in the Champion’s trophy.
Let’s hope that we win both the series coming our way in the next couple of months.
Love for the game
Posted on: August 13, 2009
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Kids playing cricket in India
I was like any other kid in India growing up in Chennai. Like most I was drawn to Cricket at a very young age. A wooden plank and a rubber ball and you are good to go. Cricket is one of the most inexpensive outdoor games anyone can play. For me as a kid I started playing the game even before I understood the rules. Even the harshest critic of the game now would have at least had a couple of hits during his younger days. I still remember the first time I watched any cricket match. It was India Vs Pakistan and Sachin Tendulkar smashed Mushtaq Ahmed for two consecutive sixes in Sharjah.
Since then I have been hooked on to this great game. Cricket has been a part of my life in one way or the other for almost 18 years now. I used to watch almost every game that India played, kept track of the records Sachin broke (I Still do) and played the game whenever possible. We even had a team in our locality in Chennai and we used to play some matches with random teams in the play grounds when we were young.
The playgrounds in Chennai during the weekends were an incredible sight. Starting at 6:00 AM in the mornings teams used to run to the grounds to catch a spot to play a match. The matches mostly will be fixed between two different teams and they will agree to play in a particular place at a particular time. It will mostly be a bet match. The money never used to be huge but still enough to keep the teams competitive.
It was fun and we also played our share of bet matches. We did not win too many games but it was great fun. On a Sunday, getting up early in the morning, assembling outside a team member’s house. Riding our bicycles to get to the ground to catch a good pitch to play our game used to be a thrilling experience at that age. We have had our share of losses but even though we played the game as hard as we can, we always had a hearty laugh about the game later when we met again in the evening.
I remember the first ever time my team had a tie and the first game we won. It’s all part of a memory I will always cherish. The game has been so close to my heart and has remained a passion. When I was a kid I always wanted to be involved with the sport. I used to think, even if I don’t make it as a player I would at least become a presenter or commentator or writer or even a statistician. Even though I could not achieve my goal and ended up as a software engineer, the game still lives close to my heart. The main reason I started blogging was due to my love for the sport.
Cricket is a game of extreme emotions and unlike other team sports it is played for a longer duration. In the other team sports you don’t have enough time to go through various emotions during a game. Cricket is a game where you can be happy a minute and shattered immediately after that.
I have learnt a lot from the game. It has taught me the virtues of life like patience, competitiveness, team spirit etc. Even though I hardly get to watch any games these days and mostly follow the scores online, I still try to keep in touch with the game. I write about the game whenever I get time.I still have a dream of reporting cricket for living in the future but that might not happen.
The game has been really close to my heart for all these years and will continue to be so throughout my life. I am not sure how involved I can be with the game in the future but I will always cherish the memories the game has given me till date.
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My Thoughts 