On the Waughpath

Fuck the terrorists

2008-11-27T01:32:00.003-05:00

I have, for at least 19 years now, been an atheist. Untenable assumptions and stories about some invisible gods in the face of lack of evidence and in the face of the problem of infinite regress of the putative designer, just didn't fly, even to my 9-year old brain. Anyone who has debated and discussed religion with me will know of the sheer contempt with which I view religious conservative kooks who want to legislate morality for all of us. I have been critical, in general, of all religion: Hinduism, with no central authority to target for its ills, and for all its bells and whistles which is conducive to spawning jerkasses like Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba and that fuckface Aniruddha Bapu. Conservative Christianity, which takes the travails of Lot's wife at Sodom a little too seriously for my liking and seeks to impose their biblical morality on everyone else. Conservative Hinduism and conservative Christianity have their issues, open for debate and argument. At this point, however, I will draw the line and separate myself from a number of my fellow atheists. It is rather fashionable among atheists to draw an equivalence of extreme elements of Christianity and Hinduism and others with the extreme elements of Islam and others. That's a bit like drawing an equivalence of the harmful effects of a common cold with those of cancer. Islamic extremism is a special case, simply because it does not lend itself to debate and argument as the extreme idealogies of the other religions. The pernicious effects of Islamic terrorism are slowly but surely going to lead to a terminally internecine war between the idealogy of freedom and life, and the merchants of death. Call me a cynic, but to my mind, it is no longer an if, but a when. And till such time that happens, we must be prepared to temporarily suspend or circumscribe civil liberties. We must be prepared, if necessary, to impose Draconian laws to make sure more innocent lives are not lost. And we must be prepared to fuck the terrorists. In the ass. With a red hot iron poker.

The sheikh of tweak

2006-12-21T15:56:00.000-05:00

In this post I am going to go the way of all the garrulous cricket commentators who irritate me no end with their verbal diarrhoea. I am going to use every platitude, every cliche in the book. Because, try as I might, I don't think I'll ever be fluent enough in the language to describe who to my mind, is the greatest cricketer to have walked the planet. And he's just announced his retirement, leaving cricket much the poorer for it.
Shane Warne, The sheikh of tweak. The blond bamboozler. Hollywood. A genius on the field. A tharki (the Hindi word sounds better than the English one) little bastard off it. He was all of that and more. I've said it before and I'll say it again: In all the 21 years that I have been watching the game, I have not seen anyone who is more capable of making a difference in a test match. If I can stick my neck out, and say another sacrligeous thing; I don't think anyone in the history of the game, ever, has been more capable of deciding a test match, Bradman and Sobers included.
But obviously, this great man, this genius, has been about more than statistics and wins and losses. He has been about the big, looping, drifting, dipping, ripping leg breaks that are so orgasmic to watch. He has been about the flipper, the zooter, the slider and the toppie, which when used as variations with his sharply turning leg breaks, have spelt the death knell for so many batters over the last decade and a half. And about talking up each of those deliveries so that even when he lost the ability to control half of them in the latter half of his career, he still beat the batter in the mind. And he was about the wonderful, intelligent sledge, although Tubby Taylor claims that he was more about the four lettered word followed by some incoherent nonsense. The only flaws I can think of are a) The sparingly used googly, which he rarely bowled, because, in his own words, good batsmen could pick it up and b) An over reliance, sometimes, on trying to bowl the batsman out behind his legs or at slip or short-leg. To those who might wonder why I think he should be faulted for that when he has 700 test wickets,
the answer is simple: His record in India would have been infinitely better had he mastered the art of enticing batsmen to go over the top or through cover a la Subhash Gupte.
Having said that however, he did revive classical leg-spin, post Qadir. Is he the greatest spinner ever? Yes; I am sure of that. The Indians who bitch about his record against India being poor, and about Murali being the better bowler, can go stuff it. Murali's record against India is comparable.
Warney's action is infinitely cleaner, and he is far better to watch.
I wish he would play on longer, as long as he physically can, but I can understand his desire to quit. Just as well Australia lost the last Ashes, else he would have retired then apparently. Kinda makes me wish Australia had lost these Ashes too. Well, whatever! Warney, you will be missed.

Had enough yet, Fletch?

2006-12-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

Today was both exhilirating and disappointing. Exhilirating on account of the greatest champion cricket has ever produced. Disappointing because it's almost decisively turned a test series one would have thought over the previous four days to have the makings of a classic, into a one-horse race. The remainder of the Ashes are bound to be just an academic exercise now.

Before I lay into Fletch and his bitch Gilo, something on the Aussies. Frankly, there's no way they should have won this game. But they did, and to my mind, the only person who can take credit for this is that great genius of our times, Shane Warne. Yesterday, all the elements of what makes him a great bowler were on display; guile, craft, control, turn, drift, loop, bounce and most importantly, his self belief. Warney, take a bow!! Having said that, the Poms had no business crawling to 30 runs off 28 overs in the first session. It seemed to be a hark back to the dark days of the 90s when English cricket was so haunted by its own negativity. Which brings me to my next topic, Fletch and his bitch.

Any which way you look at it, Fletch has outlived his utility to English cricket. He is negative and pig headed. I really cannot think of any other way that the extremely ordinary and mediocre Ashley Giles would be allowed to play as many test matches as he has done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that if England are to do something great with its talented bunch of players; and they ARE talented, Freddie, KP, Strauss, Harmison, Hoggard, and Vaughan when he returns; Fletch must go.

Frankly, two years ago, I would have laughed hard in the face of someone who dared suggest that there could be a cricketer who annoyed me more than Darren 'Boof' Lehmann did. But now there is; Ashley Giles. And like it was in Lehmann's case, a little celebration will be in order when Giles is sacked.

Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust, Lee-KP help me remove blog rust..

2006-11-26T14:45:00.000-05:00

So I'm back blogging after ages. Been extremely busy with my professional life, and have finally had some decent things happening to me. Anyway, I surprised even myself by my reluctance to put out a post even after the Ashes had started. It took a classic duel between Lee and KP on the 4th day of the game to shake me out of my stupor, but here I am.

First things first. My prediction? I haven't had the epiphany I did last time around where I predicted that England would win the Ashes, but common sense seems to suggest 2-1 to the Aussies. England without Simon Jones are a bit weak on the bowling front. Hoggy and Jimmy Anderson, both competent bowlers under English conditions, are always going to struggle down under, to the point of being ineffectual. It is going to have to be Freddie who's going to have to toil manfully, and I'd hate to see him pick up another injury or be reduced to a stock bowler. He bowled quite beautifully in the first innings and the workload probably reflected in his lethargic batting in first innings and in the cavalier attitude in the second. Giles is bloody useless, and frankly, he's got no business playing test cricket, when they have a young, more skilled and eager Monty Panesar. But what the heck, if Fletch wants it that way, he gets it that way. Finally, the one bowler who can make it or break it for England: Steve Harmison. He's going to be crucial.He's got the height, pace and bounce to trouble all the Australian batsmen, most of them a bit long in the tooth. You wouldn't think it looking at his appalling performance in the first test, but he needs to pick up his game quickly to a) Give England a realistic chance of taking 20 Oz wickets and b) Take someof the load of Freddie. Now on to the batting: Pathetic as they were in the first innings, England have already showed in the second that they have it in them to make a competetion of these Ashes. Let's leave out Strauss, who's become some sort of a happy hooker and will soon become a modern day Andrew Hilditch if he doesn't learn soon. Let's also leave out Bell, who for his first innings fifty, is still going to remain Warnie's bunny. Cook's decent, but he's got a long way to go. Collingwood was superb, leaning into his shots and playing those backfoot punches straight down the ground in a manner that would have made Sachin proud. But the one batsman, who's close to genius, and will destroy the Oz attack on his day, is KP. His batting yesterday, especially against Lee and Warnie, was fascinating to watch. Hooking, pulling and driving in style, he also wasn't shy of letting Warnie know what he thinks of him. I hope to see much more of him in the series. Now, if Freddie can get his batting together, he along with Collingwood and KP will define England's batting for the remainder of the Ashes.

Well, what about the Aussies then? Hard to fault a side which scores 602, bundles out the opposition for 157 and bats purposefully in the second essay to set, in even time, a target of 648. A couple of headaches though: Phil Jacques pushing Haydos for a place in the side, and Watson edging out one of Martyn or Clarke. That's a real heartache for me, really, considering how much I enjoy watching both of them bat. But no denying that with this geriatric Australian attack, they could use a genuine fifth bowler, and Watson might prove invaluable. Mcgrath, at 36, still bowled like God in the first innings (the one that got Cook? Superb!), but Ponting no longer has the confidence to enforce a follow-on given that his bowlers are on the wrong side of 30. Watson's presence could change that however, and it will be interesting to watch. Lastly, the great Adam Gilchrist: Voldemort himself. He's been a disappointment of late, and I really hope he goes back soon to his devastating self. It would be a pity if the world's already seen the last of Gilchrist, the scourge of bowling the world over. Plus, his keeping yesterday was shoddy.

Keeping my fingers crossed! I will update this blog regularly now, well, at least as frequently as the test matches are played:-)

More commie bashing.....

2006-11-06T21:42:00.000-05:00

Hmm. So those CPI (M) commie jokers want India to intervene in favor of getting Saddam's death sentence rescinded. As Patrix put so well, would they still have had a problem had the sentence been handed out by their 'impartial' and 'fair' China and not come at the end of a trial 'rigged' by the oh-so-capitalist Americans, their hatred for whom they never tire of professing?

Seriously, I have had it with Indian communists. I wish I could turn back the clock and just make communism not exist.

You thought cockroaches were the creatures I hated the most..

2006-10-22T22:02:00.000-04:00

..but you're wrong. How can cockroaches get such an exalted status when communists exist? Came across this article as I was perusing one of my favorite blogs. Immense anger arises. Wish Bayer made something for their kind.

Azza ki Saza

2006-10-20T14:41:00.002-04:00

It is after a really long time that I am writing a post on cricket. My hand pretty much forced by the mad happenings off the cricket field. So the BCCI, as an act of defiance aainst the ICC, is speculating overturning the ban that was imposed on Azhar after the match fixing scandal broke out. The reasons given are:

a) He has served his term so he should be given a chance to live as an honorable citizen in the cricket world again. Wrong! What he did was tantamount to murdering the hopes and interest of thousands of cricket lovers across the country, and if a murder deserves a life sentence at the very least, so does this.

b) Not overturning the ban denies him the right to earn livelihood. Yeah right!

c) Probably the worst reason I've heard though, was the fact that others have wronged as much, but gotten away with it. Seriously? That's your reason? So just because others were not man enough to do the right thing gives you the right to shirk your responsibilities?

There are, to my mind, no two answers. Azza's batting was magic, god-like even. But his days of contributing in any form to Indian cricket are and should stay over.

When hunger strikes...

2006-10-20T11:47:00.000-04:00

Make yourself some Tandoori chicken:-)

Like I did on Sunday. Bloody good it was too. The gulab jamuns, Arpan made. They were pretty good too.

Quis custodiet ispos custodis?

2006-09-22T13:10:00.000-04:00

Who will watch over the guards?

Big brother. He's everywhere. Or at least wants to be. In your personal phone calls, in your private emails, heck, in your living rooms if he can. Violating every inch of personal liberty that a libertarian like you and me might have. And yet strangely, for someone who swears by libertarian principles, I find myself not too perturbed, in fact welcoming Big Brother. How do I resolve the paradox?

It is extremely simple when you realize one important thing: Pure libertarianism is a utopian concept. For me and for thousands of students from India, who grew up on a steady diet of bullshit history and opinions from the likes of left-wing historians like Romila Thapar, it had been ingrained into our thought that communism, whatever its practical implications, was a utopian concept. Over time, I have been increasingly convinced of the fallacy of this thought. Logically speaking, what would you have in an ideal world? Enforced property and wealth distribution by an extrinsic force "the Government"? Or a working and organized society where everyone has their own personal and economic liberties, to the same extent that they do not violate anyone else's? I would definitely go for the latter. And which do you think is more difficult in practical realization? An all powerful Government imposing its will? Or the realization of a peaceful and organized society that sustains itself inspite of everyone's right to their personal and economic freedom? The latter,IMHO, seems far more difficult to realize.

So, once accepted that pure libertarianism is a utopian concept, it becomes fairly easy to look beyond the Big Brother ethical dilemma. In a world replete with imperfections, utopian concepts need to be tweaked to serve practical utility. If the world were ideal, you wouldn't need Big Brother. But with security concerns rising everyday, I fear one might not have a choice. One would have to give security agencies worldwide the carte blanche to ensure the safety and security of human life as well as property. It does not mean that one has ceased to support personal liberty. It is just that as has been often touted in the case of the global softening of practical communism, we need to define practical libertarianism. To my mind, this concept would fall somewhere between conservatism and libertarianism.

I knew every inch of the cell

2006-09-11T10:21:00.000-04:00

And the cell knew every inch of me. Except one.

An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it away from us.

V for Vendetta rocks. Period.

In a battle where there's no victory for me, I've decided to quit my PhD with my advisor and let him know about it. Apart from the day my dog died, this has to be the saddest day of my life. And as with all sad days, a period of moping shall follow. Then there will be time to pick up the pieces and figure out all over again what one must do with futile existence, one, that once, one imagined to have some purpose in the scheme of things. An existence, that one once imagined, would do good things and great things. And keep trying. Making sure always that the last inch is never compromised.

Deeply Disturbed

2006-09-11T10:18:00.000-04:00

By this.

I don't think this is the right way to go. Unless of course they know more than is revealed in the article.

Comments policy

2006-08-22T21:47:00.000-04:00

Ok, maybe a tad too presumptuous considering not too many people read this blog, but just so we are absolutely clear, a comment from the previous blog and my reply to it:

Anonymous said...
In any case searching for girls is not so easy that you can post a snap and get a girl

9:27 AM

Tugga said...
@ my anonymous pal: Funny you should say that, considering your sister saw my snaps and was just begging me to f**k her brains out!

Ok, with the not-so-nice rejoinder out of the way, let me make a few things clear:

a) If you know me, you know I am sporting and don't shy away from laughing at myself. In fact, most of my humor is self-deprecating. But then you would also know that I detest people kidding with me or fucking around with me from behind the veil of anonymity. If you want to say something have the balls to use your name. My largely libertarian principles support freedom of speech for everyone and I will not delete any comments on my blog as a matter of principle, as long as I know who is making them. I respect anyone's freedom as long as they respect mine to an equal extent. My commenters know the identity of the blogger, and have free reign to comment on my blog; I don't think it is terribly unfair if I expect that I know their identity as well.

b) If this was just an honest mistake and you just forgot to include your name, I am extremely sorry for the rude reply.

c) If you don't know me,don't pretend you do. You WILL be deleted.

7:21 PM

Just so we are clear.

A weekend in Burlington

2006-08-13T21:19:00.000-04:00

So, like I spent only my second whole weekend in Burlington in the two months I've been interning here. Had to make up a day of lost work at office, so did that on Saturday. Came home and read a bit of Shantaram, followed by Dave's thesis. Yashas came from Boston in the evening and we went to the waterfront on Lake Champlain. There was some reandom festival going on in oneof the parks on the waterfront. They had some pretty sucky live music barring the bass guitarist, who was quite fabulous. Yeah anyway so had a couple of beers there, grabbed a few brochures for info on things to do around Burlington and headed to Sweetwaters on Church Street. I was all excited that I'd get to have the Steak au poivre(pepper steak, if you will) that I'd loved so much on my last visit there. Unfortunately I was told that it had been discontinued and so had to settle for the Teriyaki steak, which was quite good too. That with a couple of Chivas made for a pretty nice meal. For dessert, we went to this litte street stall that did thin pancakes that could be filled with stuff.. think masala dosas, with thin crepes and generally any type of filling. So I had bananas and strawberries with whipped cream and hot peppers as my filling. ( although I must say, my choice of hot peppers to go with the rest seemed to freak out the really cute girl who made the pancakes. Oh yeah, damn she was cute!) So that was Saturday for you.

Sunday was when we had the real fun though. Took a 2 hour round trip on a ferry on Lake Champlain going from Vermont to New York State and back. It really was quite beautiful, especially when we could see Green Mountains of Vermont to our left and the Adirondacks of NY to our right. Snaps follow. When we returned, as a continuation of the whole getting-over-fear-of-heights thingy, I went to this cool place called Petracliffs, where you could do indoor rock climbing. The good news: I really seem to be over my fear of heights. And the bad news, well is that I found a new phobia I need to get over; the phobia, y'know, OF WORKING OUT MY LAZY ASS REGULARLY. Unfit, sodding bastard! Anyways a couple of snaps of that too.

Martha's Vineyard

2006-08-07T20:03:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, Dave, Yashas and I went to this little island in the Atlantic, just off mainland Massachussets. We had to drive from Boston to this place called Wood's Hole followed by an hour's ferry ride to the island.The trip in addition to being memorable for the extremely good crabcakes and clam chowder and the usual "khurak" of alcohol I had on the island, was particularly noteworthy for a couple of things
a) I overcame my fear of using cameras: Photos follow
b) I overcame, to a large extent, my fear of heights: Had a whale of a time parasailing, God it was awesome!

Paint me those pretty little vignettes:Ferry ride

And then more..still on the ferry ride

Where seagulls dare...

Those magnificent flying machines

Yet another Steven, er, seagull

Me on the ferry

Weird "Prohibition", they freakin' do serve alcohol!!

Me on the motorboat to go parasailing, love the Atlantic water

The eagle has flown...

Up above the world so high...

The eagle has landed

Boston Cow Parade

2006-08-07T19:42:00.000-04:00

Yeah, they have this weird thing in Boston. Some 200 wooden cows, painted with some art and shit, all over the city. Here's me with some of them.

Cow Parade, Boston

Milking it for what it's worth

Thanks for the milk, babe

Awesome mercury rectifier

2006-08-07T19:36:00.000-04:00

Taken at the high speed photography section of the MIT museum, this awesome mercury rectifier also had its picture in the GE SCR manual.

Bostonian Tharki

2006-08-05T22:02:00.000-04:00

I was on the T with Yashas up in Boston today. Went to do a bit of touristy stuff over at the MIT museum, Harvard Square and then finally to the Quincy market and Boston Commons in downtown Boston. There was this little interesting story at the MIT museum, in the hologram section. This dude actually tried to click a picture of a hologram on his digital camera, and in the process, made it amply clear that he wasn't an MIT student :-) ( The MIT museum was awesome by the way; there was like this really cool section on the history of high speed photography. Completely orgasmic!! Harold Edgerton, the guy who pioneered this, actually went to MIT because he was interested in seeing the effects of lightning on synchronous motors. That he was able to link this with the great work he eventually did should stand as inspiration for all us wannabe researchers out there. Another reason I mention him is the pride I feel on account of his being an electric power engineer. More on him in a later post) Anyway this post is not about that; it's not about the MIT museum. It's about a tharki uncle on the 'T'.

Let's start at the beginning. For the unitiated, the 'T' is just what they call the MBTA (Massachussets Bay Transportation Authority) subway in Boston. So we are waiting for our train at the T station and on the platform opposite us is what a lot of guys would describe as an extremely do-able chick, the kind which inspires the I'd-do-her-in-a-heartbeat reactions. She's wearing like these next to nothing clothes, so I give her this usual, cursory, appraising glance and then look away, you know, 'cause it isn't polite to stare at women. Just then we notice, there's a desi uncle on the same platform. And he's looking at her. Also in a I'd-nail-her-in-a-heartbeat, sort of a way. Only he doesn't look away. He keeps staring; and his face is this inscrutable mask, so I can't tell if he's scowling or just horny like hell. Well, then Yashas and I happen to get into the same compartment as the chick and guess who, yes, Uncle Tharki. So we are sitting on the seat opposite her, and our libidinous friend is sitting a couple of seats away from her. Yashas and I are discussing some EE stuff and suddenly we notice Uncle Tharki looking the chick over; multiplexing his concentration powers on her long legs and not insignificant assets. Yashas still insists that he is scowling and that he merely disapproves of her dressing in that fashion. Me, no way. I am thoroughly convinced that he was doing a lot of thinking, getting his other head into overdrive. Who the heck keeps staring at someone in disapproval? I mean, yeah, you give one disapproving, condescending glare and look away. What's with the repeated leering? It was effing hilarious, looking at this pathetic guy, at least 45-50 years old, casting lustful glances at this chick, who couldn't have been any more than 20-21. The poor girl even used her compact once to make sure she looked alright. Little was she aware that to our Bostonian tharki, her face was her least interesting feature.

I apologize Mr Cab Driver

2006-08-05T21:52:00.000-04:00

Given my rant last week, I suppose it's only fair that I issue a public apology, for what it's worth, to the cab driver in question. He drove me to office again on Friday morning. LIke I said in the comments section of my previous post on this topic, I couldn't be sure if his behavior was racist or he was simply xenophobic. I was curious to find out and hence drew him into a converrsation. And after this, I knew. The guy's neither racist nor xenophobic. He's just plain bitter. He's 60 years old and has lived in Burlington all his life. He doesn't like thaat cash is being increasingly replaced by plastic, that there are roundabouts in Vermont now, and there are many more traffic lights than there used to be. In other words, what he really fears is change. I looked it up: it's called metathesiophobia. Yeah that's what the guy suffers from. He was not racist at all, and just gives a lot more bottom to my practice of not accusing anyone of something as bad as racism without being absolutely sure. I erred this once, for which, I again apologize.

To live for, to die for

2006-08-03T21:12:00.000-04:00

Time for some more mental masturbation. This is probably one of the most unorganized posts I've written in a long time, and is purely a log of some of my random thoughts. I apologize for any incoherent and obvious thoughts, platitudes and banalities you might encounter in the post.

I am talking to one of the guys and he seems a little peeved with what he termed an Israeli overreaction. I tell him I don't know about that and that I knew a significant portion of people back home wondering why India couldn't be more like Israel. He then wonders aloud about what will happen to the world next. A tad too facetiously, I remark that nothing much except we'd all kill each other. He wonders who will win. I reiterate, we will ALL kill each other, we will all die. I then make a comment that he seems to agree to; even if we had no religion, no oil, we would still find something to live for and something to die for, something to kill for.

What is it that we would live for, die for and kill for, if, say, religion as we know it did not exist? If there was no oil to fight over? If wealth was evenly distributed?

The answer lies in the fact that some of the worst genocides in the history of mankind have been initiated by or have occured in the guise of organized religion. But what is organized religion at the germinal level? It is just an idea. And as long as we have ideas, we will continue to have something to live for, to die for, to kill for. And as I recently commented on Gandhi on Anshul's blog, the greater or nobler an idea seems, the more fascist it makes its progenitor, a fact history attests to. It brings about varying degrees of intolerance to other ideas or methods towards the same greater goal. Then what happens when the world is filled with this vast melange of ideas and ideals? Is it equivalent to a philosophical and idealogical "anarchy" (probably not the right term to use, because I definitely do not mean a lack of Government, but am struggling to find the best fit)? Maybe. But is that bad? Maybe not, because, unlike in fascism triggered by organized religion this vast melange of ideas ensures that no ONE fascist voice is strong enough to drown out the others. So one of two things happen:

a) The world gets by a with a huge volume of diverse ideas, necessitating tolerance as a key feature of society.

b) The more likely one, judging from historical evidence, unfortunately, is that "lack of religion" will reveal itself to be an unstable state, one that cannot survive for long. So we end up with like-minded people with similar ideas gravitating towards each other, giving strength to fascism and repeating the whole cycle of death and destruction again.

So, at the base level, IMHO, the human race will show time and again that it is only ideas that are worth living for, worth dying for and worth killing for.

As V remarked,"There. Did you think to kill me? There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea; and ideas are bullet-proof."

Black Heart Scarring Darker Still.....

2006-07-31T18:15:00.000-04:00

Will she be there when I'm gone?

Heck, I sure as hell don't wanna find out this soon. Went to the Bodies exhibition in NYC. You know, the one with actual dissected human bodies. And the difference between a 'healthy' lung and a smoker's lung was something beyond even my wildest imagination. I mean I know cigarettes contain tar, but I certainly didn't expect to look at a pair of lungs that seeemd like they had been dipped in molten tar.

Just as well that the previous night at Horus, this Hookah cafe in downtown Manhattan, I had decided to quit smoking. The decision stands reinforced.

Pictures from the COMPEL conference

2006-07-27T23:46:00.000-04:00

Here goes..

I DO speak English, Mr Cab Driver

2006-07-26T19:20:00.000-04:00

Warning: This post contains use of expletives and offensive language. If you are offended by such, read no further!

Imagine. You are late to work. So you call a cab. The cab driver seems to have a major problem with your paying with a credit card. "I can't call the card number in while I drive." So stop and do it you fuckwit! I never fucking asked you to take your fucking eyes off the fucking road now, did I? Then he goes like, "You people, you foreigners have more money than Americans, why can't you pay in cash?" Heh? What follows is worse. In a mock foreign accent, nowhere close to mine, and almost Eastern European, he goes, "Which count-ree are you from?" I kid you not. The 't' in 'count' is a soft 't' and the 'r' is clearly an Eastern European 'r'. I am like, "I am from India." "You from India (soft 'd' sound), so you Indian?" By this time my patience is starting to wear thin and so I go, "Yeah, that's what people from India are called, you know, like people from America are called Americans?" Then he goes, "We American good at fucking girls, you Indians not." Huh? Where the fuck did that come from? And what's with dropping verbs like you are trying to communicate to some English-challenged person? He then starts talking about how women are trouble. Finally he says it's good he doesn't have a squaw now, but he'll get one soon. I am not sure I hear him right, so I am like ,"What??". He's like, "Squaw. A woman. Geez you people don't even know English." Really, you mother fucking piece of shit? So, next you are gonna go around calling African Americans n****rs? I do know what squaw means, perhaps you don't know that it's an offensive and derogatory term. And don't even fucking think about putting your English up against mine. I'll fucking whip your sorry ass till you are so old you can't get it up for your "squaw" anymore.
It is the first time in my two years in the US that I have observed racial overtones to someone's behavior. Those who know me will definitely vouch for the fact that I am the absolute last person to ever accuse anyone of racism. Also, although just a tad more xenophobic than Troy, the people of this city have been very nice. These two factors have caused this incidence to come as a bit of a surprise, but I'll let it be.

Under The Bridge-Part 2

2006-07-24T19:45:00.000-04:00

Struggling to find the answers. That's where I left the last post. Sanity has now more or less prevailed and have decided to stay liberal in this regard for the time being. Am sure Spielberg's awesome storytelling in Munich has had a part in this.

Some quotes from the movie by the Israeli PM Golda Meir...
"..we say to these butchers, you didn't want to share this world with us, then we don't have to share this world with you. There's legitimacy for this, am I correct? Ambushed and slaughtered again.."
"..These people..just want to destroy us. Forget peace for now. We've to show them we're strong. We have laws. We represent civilization. Some people say we can't afford to be civilized; I've always resisted such people. But I don't know who these maniacs are, where they come from..."

That was 1972. Look where that's got us. In a never ending cycle of vengeance and retribution. It's never going to work. And although I am not a left leaning liberal by any stretch of imagination, I would suggest the contributors at Little Green Footballs would do well to remember this.

A counterpoint can be found here in an article from the Washington Post.

The sordid tale of Dalmiya and Ganguly

2006-07-21T19:42:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought the matter was dead and buried, in come reports of Ganguly coming out openly against someone who was supposed to have been his mentor all these years. I don't know whose version of the story to believe, but I would like to believe Ganguly rather than Dalmiya. One's a cricketer, the other a pimp. I hope I am not mistaken on that one.

Why I LOVE the English sense of humor...

2006-07-18T14:53:00.000-04:00

From quote..unquote on Cricinfo

"In the circumstances, I felt I should oblige. She was a lovely mature lady, and quite ample. In fact, Muttiah Muralitharan would have had plenty of room to sign his name."
David "Bumble" Lloyd was rather taken aback when a former Sussex Ladies cricketer asked him to sign her cleavage with a felt-tip pen. Apparently, if he agreed, she stood to earn £200 for charity

Nonchalant. Just like that.

Cold Playboy

2006-07-14T18:46:00.000-04:00

Frome quote.. unquote on cricinfo..

"A few years ago, I was chatting up a girl in a lift and she was not having any of it. She thought I was too tall and geeky and all that and I needed a wing-man. In walked Shane Warne and he was the best wing-man."
Coldplay front man and international heart-throb Chris Martin shows his gratitude to the original player

It's fucking hilarious. My fondness for Warnie just keeps growing. Pure genius at cricket and a complete nutjob when it comes to women. Warnie, don't ever retire, you are the greatest entertainer in the world today, on and off the field; and with the amount of shit happenin' around us, we need the enetertainment. I know I do.

Under the bridge

2006-07-12T22:58:00.000-04:00

The Red Hot Chili Peppers once sang.

Sometimes I feel
Like I dont have a partner
Sometimes I feel
Like my only friend
Is the city I live in
The city of angels
Lonely as I am
Together we cry

My Mumbai. My friend. My love. What did they do to you? 1993 all over again. It's at times like these you wish you were back in Mumbai. In the middle of it. Like you were in 1993. The 8th grader who sat on the window sill in his bedroom as the Shivsena Bhavan bomb went off. The 8th grader who felt a hard slap of debris and dust on his face. The 8th grader who still didn't feel enough then, who played cricket on the streets just because there were no vehicles on the street. Who did not know how to do the right thing. And now when you do, you are not there.

Just glad no one I know was hurt. And glad we live in an era of mobile communication. And of blogs and MumbaiHelp. And at the risk of sounding cliched, my heart goes out to all the people of my great city. Those who died. Those who didn't. Those who were injured. Those who weren't. And to all of us, who were just hurt. To my darling, the railway line. The dichotomy of my idealogical and pragmatic mind confuses me. To be a liberal in thought that no innocents be punished in the quest to bring the guilty to book? Or the rightist solution where the ends justify the means? I don't know.

Morals: Part 2

2006-07-03T20:04:00.000-04:00

This is a disclaimer, a clarification and a continuation of my last discussion on the issue of morals. First the disclaimer and clarification. This was prompted by a discussion with Kiran Pai, who, I have realized, is bloody good at reasonable debates, when he wants to be. Now, here's the thing: I do not endorse prostitution. Period. The last post was merely a vent to my frustration at most people accepting social mores at face value and not questioning them at all. I am not a social scientist, and am unaware of the relative strengths of the pros and cons prostitution might have on society, and will definitely not be so presumptuous as to make a definitive statement. However, again the point is, THINK people, THINK.

With that out of the way, time for some more intellectual masturbation. This is essentially a summary and interpretation of some discussions I've had with Dave and Kiran since my last post. It involves these questions:
a) Is morality absolute?
b) If not, and it is relative at most levels, is it still absolute at some level?
c) What is evil? Are terrorists evil? Was Hitler evil?
d) What is darkness?
e) Is it moral for a woman to sell her body?
f) Is it moral for a man to be a willing customer?
g) Is it moral to steal?

The way I see it, the answers to the first three questions are intricately linked to the answers of the other questions. They are also the guidelines, to those who will buy the ensuing argument, to answer the remaining questions.

In my opinion, morality can never be absolute. It is essentially a conditioning of the society or "framework", in which you view it. The boundaries of this framework might be confined to a caste, a community, a religion, a village, a city, a country, a whole continent or maybe all of humanity. Some mores have a way of getting confined within the boundaries of a smaller framework, such as that of a caste or a community. Others seem logical enough so that they encompass all the smaller frameworks and become applicable to all of humanity. Hence, premarital sex is immoral in some societal frameworks, but not in others. Killing another human being is universally accepted as immoral, and by universally, we mean within the greatest known framework, that of humanity.

Accepting these basic premises now puts us in a position to answer the question on evil and darkness. Who or what is evil? Is killing another person an act of evil? Are terrorists evil? Was Hitler evil? Dave's take on the matter was that one is evil if he does evil fully aware that his act is one of evil. In other words, if he is immoral rather than amoral when viewed within the framework of interest. So Dave's argument was that if Hitler did not believe in the tenets of the societal framework of humanity, he can only be amoral, not immoral. If terrorists believe what they do is right, then, for all of our hatred for terrorism they still cannot be termed evil. That is one aspect of it. However,I do not agree with Dave's contention that one who knowingly does evil is necessarily evil on an absolute basis. As should be evident, I am a great believer in relativsm and this is how I countered him. Facetious and made up as it may seem, I think it drives the point home. Let us say I am part of some obscure societal framework where it is the norm to beat up your wife each morning. If you don't do it, you are branded evil. I, however, am a very lazy person. I could not be bothered less. It's too much trouble. Hence I do not beat my wife. I know what I am doing is evil, yet I do it and not beat my wife. So am I evil because I do evil when I know it's evil? Or am I good because I don't beat my wife?
I believe this thought on relative morality is important even in daily life because it lets us view things in hues of grey rather than in black and white. Hence, a woman who sells her body might not be immoral. A man who pays for sex might or might not be immoral, even with the small thought at the back of his head (now completely devoid of blood circulation, cause everything's gone to the other head:-)) that he is not sure if he might be exploiting the survival need of a woman. A thief might not be immoral because he might be simply fulfilling his survival need. A murderer might have his reasons. Each of these acts therefore become immoral only within specific frameworks, and the ones we usually consider evil are only those that are immoral within the larger framework of humanity.
But what gives us the right? Do humans really know how the world is meant to function? Are we really sure that we are stting the right bounds on the framework of humanity? "God does not play with dice" is an often mentioned quote by the great Albert Einstein. However, with the inability to unify relativity and quantum mechanics, we are still way off from a cause-effect deterministic explanation of the way things happen or should happen. In other words, we still don't know enough physics. The believers then say that the framework to supercede all frameworks is that of God. That, I found to be a ridiculous argument because there is no unanimity on what is the framework of God. It again therefore becomes a question of man acting as a proxy for God to enforce the tenets of His framework. Again, too presumptuous. In an ideal world, I would definitely love for a deterministic set of solutions to all that exists around us. Extreme phyics, you might want to call it. Where you know exactly how things are meant to happen based on a cause. THAT would constitute the unquestionably absolute framework for all societies, human, extra terrestrial, animal, the works.

As a last thought, an interesting snippet from my converstaion with Dave. What is space, is the question he asked me. My answer was that it is anything in which matter can exist but does not have to. It is the union set of the universe and that "thing" which does not contain the universe. Hence the topic of discussion veered towards the origin of the universe and the big bang theory. Dave is defintely a subscriber to Friedmann's first model of the universe which postulates that the universe started at the big bang and will expand till gravity slows it down and causes a collapse or the big crunch. I am not very well disposed at the moment to understand which of Friedmann's models would most accurately describe the universe, but the first model has interesting philosophical implications. If the big bang and big crunch are inevitable, then, and assuming no singularity, the universe is without beginning or end in time. It is both the creator and the created. It is the Divine being Krishna talks about in the Bhagvad Gita. Krishna is said to have taken the "Virat Roop" in his rendition of the Gita to Arjun, where Arjun sees the universe and space embodied within Krishna. I like to think that Krishna is just a personification of that great divine space.

Fanaache Shlok

2006-06-11T21:52:00.000-04:00

Happened to catch Fanaa last night. Trust Yash Chopra to stretch and stretch what might have been a half decent story and make crap of it. Seriously sometimes I feel like jamming a red hot poker up his butthole. But I'm nothing if not excellent at making light of one exasperating moment after another, particularly with the lead actors talking in sher-o-shayari for literally half the movie. Also disappointed with the exclusion of Bhajji from the side for the second test, I came up with this gem ( watch out Javed Akhtar). Harbhajan Singh is like proposing to like, uh, a girl, who insists on her guy being an excellent shaayar. So this is what he comes up with :

Tere ishq main hua meri jaan main fanaa
Pehle tha sing, ab hua hoon chanaa

Leaves the stage to the sound of defeaning applause:-)

Seriously? Seriously?

2006-05-19T19:09:00.000-04:00

Lest I sound like someone from Grey's Anatomy, let me explain what I am talking about.

http://dhool.com/blog/?item=an-interesting-ruling-by-the-indian-supreme-court

It is disturbing on so many counts, I don't know where to start. Although I can sort of figure the rationale behind it, one that bases itself on the premise that a rape victim wouldn't necessarily go to the police immediately after the incident, it is still probably one of the more unfair rulings by the judiciary I have seen. The article brings out quite well the pitfalls associated with the ruling, so I won't go into them. All in all, an interesting read, and one that would make you ask, "Seriously?"

A double hundred to dizzy

2006-04-19T10:08:00.000-04:00

Bangladesh are easy.

Hmm. Guess I'm not much of a poet, after all!

Reservations about affirmative action

2006-04-13T18:40:00.000-04:00

Where and how does one take a stand on affirmative action and reservations, particularly in education? Does one join the ranks of the general category students, who feel wronged by missing out on opportunities due to reservations? Does one sympathize with the recepients of affirmative action who claim, and not unjustifiably, that a) they have been wronged for eons and this is the only way to set the record straight, to achieve equal footing b) Students who have got in with the aid of affirmative action often do as well, if not better than the general category students. I am a huge supporter of meritocracy and generally view with scant respect, anything that interferes with free market forces. But as one of my friends has labored to impress upon me, India is not completely ready for a one hundred percent free market society. It is not yet ready for socialism to be given the complete boot. Then what is the answer?

I won't waste my written word on well-to-do people who claim reservations,. There's no question in my mind, that reservations should definitely not extend to them. There's a school of thought that says that reservations should be on the basis of the economic condition of the individual claiming the benefits of affirmative action. Then should a poor Brahmin be just as entitled to reservation as a person belonging to the so-called lower castes?The argument made against that is a Brahmin who is as poor as a SC/ST/OBC/NT/... will still have an environment at home that is conducive to learning, and hence should not be entitled to reservation. Implicit in this argument is the reasoning that it is the ambience and the learning environment that should decide if a person should benefit from affirmative action. My neighbours were a rich gujju family traditionally inclined to trading and business. Education in their household was pretty much the ugly step sister that had very little importance. In other words, an environment that was inimical to learning. Then if my neighbour's kid did want to go to college and get a higher degree in the face of this, why shouldn't he be entitled to reservation?

Do I believe, then, that there should be reservation in higher education? A categorical no. I don't care if you show me an instance of a reserved category student having done well. The fact is, the ends do not justify the means. That student is there in someone else's place in the first place. What about the possibility that the student might not have been eligible for the seat because he/she was not on equal social footing with the more privileged students? What about the responsibility we bear to make sure that the disparity and the chasm between the two sections of society does not widen any further? To these questions I have one answer. Attack the cause, not the symptoms. A person who is deemed by screening procedures to not have the requistite skills for a seat in an institution is not going to grow them overnight. Throwing such a person in at the deep end is counterproductive. As Sandipan argued in his post, it's like bringing into a national cricket team, someone who has not had the skills to make the cut at the ward, taluka or district level. Admittedly, he did not have the same practice facilities as his more privileged team members did, but so what? You really expect this poor sod to now suddenly negotiate Mcgrath and Lee?

Having said that, I reiterate that mere rhetoric and posturing of this sort is not going to get us anywhere either. The problem of the widening disparity is very real and needs addressing without any further delay. Attack the cause. Go back to the drawing board. Revamp primary and secondary education and make sure it is available to everyone across caste and class boundaries. Spend taxpayers' money on that. I can bet my bottom dollar they would prefer that to the opportunity costs they incur. It's too idealistic, but it can be done. By ensuring that everyone gets equivalent levels of preliminary education, help create a situation where you take out the argument that justifies reservation in institutes of higher learning. It will take time, but show me a better way that preserves the virtues of meritocracy without depriving the different strata of society of the benefits of a free market society and I'll accept that without complaint.

Morals, anyone?

2006-04-08T23:09:00.000-04:00

I am back again then. Not really in a better place in life, as I had hoped when I went off the blog. But I figured if I waited for that to happen, I might as well give up blogging for good. In the last few months, we've had countless coffees, endless hours in the lab, a few semi-succesful attempts at publishing some research and more abortive attempts at doing SOME work that's worth more than piss. Cigarettes on the working days and booze on Friday nights have been kind and faithful companions. The cigarettes especially are about the only thing keeping me sane at the moment; I am going through them like Warney through the Poms. Add some more things I don't find suitable for mention on the blog, and the darkness is complete. Yet strangely, I don't feel as unhappy as I should be. Scary, but at the same time liberating. Liberating, because it's allowed me a chance to indulge myself in debate over one of my favorite topics. Morality. What constitutes morals? Something religion teaches us? Or our parents? Or grandparents, maybe? What if, you, like me, are not a follower of organized religion? What if you question some of the morals that were inculcated in you as a child? It isn't enough to say that your parents, being experienced people, could tell right from wrong, and tried to pass that sense of judgement to you. I am older than my Mum was when she had me, and I sure can't always tell right from wrong. What your parents did pass on to you was less their experience and more the things their parents taught them. Is that how it is always going to be? Turning morals into this inscrutable, immovable rock that doesn't change with time? For e.g., in Indian society and also in some religions, pre-marital sex is considered immoral. I am yet to understand the reason for this. What dictates this morality? And why are we bound to follow it in that if we don't we are branded immoral? Is there no room for relativsm? I get frustrated when I hear this whole virginity thing touted as one of the cornerstones of Indian morality. Who the f**k gave you that right? To make a virtue out a necessity imposed by our society? Chicken and egg, really, chicken and egg. Take it to another extreme. Almost everyone agrees that prostitution is wrong. When I am asked if I would get a hooker when I go to Montreal or Amsterdam, the first natural answer is always a resounding no. But why? No one ever told me why it was wrong. But I've been brought up to believe it as an absolute truth. What if I said, and I am purely hypothesizing, that there is a possibility that the frequency of sexual crimes, big and small, (if there is such a thing as a small sexual crime) could be cut down if people could buy sex and power for the time they could afford instead of forcing it down some poor woman? Again, in a purely hypothetical scenario, if that is indeed true, would that make prostitution moral? On a personal note, no, I fail to see the bad part of premarital or even casual sex. On the prostitution issue, no,I wouldn't pay for sex because my morality still stands divided on the issue, so I would much rather be a confirmist in that regard. It would be interesting to hear from you ( Sandipan especially) your take on the matter.

Last Chance

2006-01-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

Pretty much that. My last chance to prove to myself that I can do it. And while I am at it, I'm going off the blog. Thanks to all the people who visited and commented. Those who visited but didn't comment, you were great too:-) I shall be back hopefully when I am in a better place in my life.

Take care, y'all!

Happy New Year

2005-12-31T09:44:00.000-05:00

Have a great new year people!. Work well, party hard, and don't drink and drive:-)

Of arranged marriages and research projects...

2005-12-24T16:08:00.000-05:00

The 4 of us, that's me, Abhishek, Arpan and Sandipan were just sitting around making small talk the night before yesterday when the topic veered towards marriages. I'll leave some of the unprintable parts of it out, but eventually as it came down to a question of arranged marriage, majority of the group thought the whole idea of arranged marriage seemed unfathomable to me, especially if there has not been a sufficient amount of a courtship period. Arpan then interjected with a gem. It went like this: An arranged marriage is like a research project a PhD student gets placed on; he has to learn to love it along the way.....

For the statistically minded

2005-12-16T16:42:00.000-05:00

Just for fun, and spurred on by the post comparing Sachin's and Ganguly's performance in recent test matches, I decided to conduct a bit of research and here are the numbers. First though, the assumptions and methodology. For the 5 players discussed in this post, the statistics of their last 15 test matches were viewed. Performances against Zim and BD were dropped and the runs scored, 100s and averages evaluated. To be fair, the actual number of test matches played by each of these players against all opposition but Zim and BD were also recalculated.
What is the point of this, you wonder? Just this:
a) Throws the whole dumb Sachin-Ganguly email out of the window.
b) Shows that through this supposedly bad period, Sachin's fortunes have still been important to India.
c) Lara has been single handedly carrying the WI( but of course, you knew that)
d) What is happening to Lara now has dogged Sachin in his prime, a colossus in a team of under achievers
e) Dravid has been going through a relatively lean patch by his own standards
f) Ganguly and Laxman have both faltered.
g) I am a big VVS fan, but given these comparisons, I would have to say Ganguly is very unlucky. The only thing in VVS' favor is probably the brilliant 69 at Mumbai.

And finally, the point is this, don't bandy emails showing statistics and the likes to me. Statistics can be manipulated if youn only know how. For instance if I recognize the fact that Sachin missed a few tests in the dark period of the last one year, or consider only those most recent 15 tests which all the 4 Indian batsmen have played together, Sachin's figures would probably look less impressive while Dravid's, Laxman's and Ganguly's more than they do now.

Next post, I'll be back with Matt, Punter, Kallis and the likes..

Not the way

2005-12-15T00:57:00.000-05:00

Over the past few years, I have been a strong critic of Ganguly's test match batting. I was definitely of the opinion that he should not have been selected for the Delhi test. But even I am appalled by the manner in which he was sacked from the third test. I thought he did quite well at Delhi. He seemed also, after a long time, to be enjoying being out there. I still dn't think he would cut much ice against quicks with any dgree of quality. But the fact remains that against SL and against Murali, he is way better than Yuvi. I don't know also, how much of a say Dravid and Chappell have in selection, but if they do, and if they were silent spectators or vocal contributors to what transpired at the selectors' meeting, the implications make me worry for some dark times ahead.
Update:Gaurav Sabnis has an excellent article on this here

Apologize , Waz!

2005-12-11T15:26:00.000-05:00

It would be an understatement to say that it shocked me. Wasim Akram, one of my idols, going on record to say that the ICC was run by "goras" or whites, who did not have the talent or the passion to do so. I have myself, in the past, been critical of several decisions taken by the ICC which have smacked of a racial bias. There is however, a thin line between accusing someone of racism(which is bad in the first place) and using racist slurs to undermine someone. Racism, along with untouchability, is a crime against humanity, and it just does not matter if it is a white person or a brown person doing it. It is simply unpardonable. I have seen this in the US where the minorities seem to be a lot less responsible about being politically correct. Indians, African Americans, Hispanics, it just doesn't seem to matter. A major persecution complex has fuelled a "reverse" racism among these communities. Wasim seems to have fallen prey to that too, in the large, cosmopolitan world that is the ICC. I still respect him as a cricketer, but no person who indulges in racism of any sort will ever be an idol of mine.

Geeky Joke

2005-12-05T16:54:00.000-05:00

One of my labmates wanted to send out a PCB for fabbing. The only problem was he needed to convert it to Gerber form so that it could be portable to a number of manufacturers. Seeing him wait in mock anticipation to hear from the company which does the conversion to Gerber format prompted me to ask him, "Which format would Jughead like to convert the file to?". And since he couldn't get the answer(dumbass) as I am sure, none of you can, it is Burger format.

Hehehehehehe!

On all-rounders

2005-12-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

Here's something I posted as a comment on that fantastic Cricinfo blog, Different Strokes, and thought it might be worthwhile posting about it here, so that maybe some of you could give me your opinions on the issue.

It's no surprise, with the slew of ODI cricket played on the subcontinent, that the average cricket fan began looking at the bits-and-pieces cricketer as an all-rounder. You say, the key point is "Can you walk into the side on the basis of a a single skill alone?" Although that seems to be the fashionable definition at the moment, it leads one to ponder a number of things. Would you let a batsman averaging 30 be a test match regular? Would you let a bowler averaging 35 with the ball be a test match regular? Both of the above figures are definitely not the worse in the world, mind you, but in a side where the rest of the batsmen score 40-50 runs per knock and in a side where the rest of the bowlers give about 20-25 runs apiece before claiming a wicket, would these players walk into the side purely as a batsman or a bowler respectively? I would think not. So, either Kapil Dev and Sir Gary were not all-rounders, or, there is a need to revisit our definition. A convenient way to gloss over this by further qualifying the all rounder as a batting or bowling all-rounder, but to my mind, that just takes you one step closer to the much maligned bit-and-pieces all rounder or more appropriately, a part time allrounder, a la Steve Waugh or Sachin Tendulkar.

Out Of my comfort zone-revisited

2005-12-01T01:16:00.000-05:00

I finally got the book delivered to me today; took long enough to get here, but I wasn't about to let that, or the fact that I am now buried under a huge pile of work, dampen my enthusiasm. After all, late nights to make up for the work are also exciting:-)

Anyway, simply put, this is the best cricket book I've ever read, and considering I've read more than a fair share( Zed, Sandy Storm, Marshall Arts, all of Gavaskar's, Boycott's, Bradman's best,two on Warney, two on Junior, a couple of Tugga's diaries), that's saying a bit. Steve Waugh is brutally honest to himself and his readers and helps one break away from their impression of him as a serious and sometimes self absorbed cricketer. The book is laced with the wit and humor that made him a past master of the sledging game and contains unbelievably funny anecdotes from his personal and professional life. And maybe, given where I stand in life today, it's just the inspiration I need.

P.S.: Lynette's take on her husband in the concluding part of the book is particularly poignant, as well as funny, and some of the parts had me quietly smiling to myself.

PK: Don't miss this book. Buy it.

Minu: You do the same

Mangesh: You're an idiot

I'm the UN???????

2005-11-27T14:18:00.000-05:00

You're the United Nations!

Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to
completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long
way to go. You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each
other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of
beating each other about the head and torso. Sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result. But your heart
is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.

Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

Shot of the day- 2

2005-11-25T00:05:00.000-05:00

Bravo doing a VVS on Lee to the square leg fence. Beautiful to watch!

Shot of the day

2005-11-24T23:54:00.000-05:00

BCL hitting Binga to the square boundary to move from 92 to 96. Hail the Master!

Fooled you, bowled you!

2005-11-24T02:09:00.000-05:00

M. Trescothick b. S.Akhtar

Serious lack of knowledge of off stump on Trescothick's part. Great bowling by Shoaib. Two quick deliveries going straight on, outside the off stump. Then the third, slightly slower, 86mph, and late swing into the batter, hitting top of off-and-middle. Brilliant stuff and just keeps the game open for a while. Let's hope we do get a result

Clear Lee quick

2005-11-16T22:24:00.000-05:00

The working over Lee gave Lara. Fantastic. Great to watch a furiously fast bowler work over a past master against quick bowling. The old one-two trick. Bouncers and yorkers. Fend off the throat, keep your toes out. Eventually BCL didn't and got caught in front. Good stuff. By the way, the six that Gayle hit of Warney; awesome!

Happy Diwali

2005-10-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

Happy Diwali people! Be good, and enjoy! And please, it's a festival of lights and not of sound, so please remember that:-)

Greatness and failed predictions

2005-10-28T02:09:00.000-04:00

I suffer from low self esteem, I really do. The only thing keeping me sane and confident all these years has been the belief that I truly understand the great game. I have a great gut feel for it and my predictions about cricketers have rarely been wrong. I picked Steve Waugh out as my favorite, when I was all but 6 years old. I marked him for greatness as a cricketer a year before Border did after the successful WC campaign of 1987. PK and I picked out Craig McMillan as a good talent and though he never quite became great, he did look good playing quality bowling. I marked out Ganguly as a trashy test match batsman 5 years ago and my predictions haven't
been wrong.

But, and this has been the greatest failure of my gut feel, one I would gladly exchange for all predictions bar the one about Waugh, I was wrong about Ajit Agarkar. He was 19 then, on a tour to Pakistan playing their 'A' side. He hammered a 100 and picked up 5 wickets in one of those 'test matches'. I remember both PK and I being happy and overjoyed like kids who had just been gifted with a year's supply of candy. What we saw of him on the international level wasn't disappointing. He had raw pace and the ability to move it in the air. He would bowl 4 unplayable balls and 2 hit-me balls. I was so keen to see the next Kapil Dev in him then (yeah,when the Pommies were busy finding their Beefy in every Ealham, Hollioake, Chris Lewis and Freddie, some Indians like yours truly were seeking out a Kapil Dev in Ajit, ..oh well, just Ajit considering there was no one else), that I convinced myself that it was just his lack of experience and that he would get better with time. Well, we all know just how that turned out!

I had marked Ajit out for greatness, and he did show the occassional flashes of brilliance but as they say,one swallow does not a summer make. Today I finally relinquish my faith in him and admit what has been evident for a while. The guy is a cretin. And I, an even bigger one, for believing in him so long.

Out of my Comfort Zone

2005-10-23T03:21:00.000-04:00

Steve Waugh's autobiography is out. I purchased it online for a cool Rs 1600(800+postage) and can't wait to lay my hands on it. He hits back at Ian Chappell, is surprisingly critical of his great mate Ian Healy, talks about the great master Shane Warne and so also of Michael Slater and Trevor Hohns. Funnily, he also sheds some light on his brotherly love for Mark Waugh. And of course the story of Antigua, his watershed series, where he went eyeball to eyeball with big Curtly Ambrose. At 1600 I think the book's the best buy I've made for a long long time. To the only two people in my friends' circle who might want to buy it, here goes:
Minal: Buy it, you are bleeding rich.
PK: I am sure you won't buy it, but do try. For old times' sake. I can call up and we can discuss the book for an hour or so.

Influenza? No problem!

2005-10-21T01:46:00.000-04:00

Came across this commercial on NBC, about some medicine called Theraflu. Hmm. So I just need to take Thera flu for mera flu and I'll be fine!

Of cricket, cricketers and Ganguly

2005-10-14T19:12:00.000-04:00

It sucks that I have not been able to watch the Super Test. My life's pretty much been a super test these days, what with research deadlines, quizzes and homeworks. Voldy and Haydos got stuck into the World XI and I guess have led some of their Ashes demons to rest. And I can't help but feel extremely happy for Katich's failure. There are some cricketers who look like they belong on a cricket field; who, to quote Ian Chappell, look every inch a cricketer. You know, like Warney, Lara, Sachin, Dravid, etc. And then there are the Darren Lehmanns and the Saurav Gangulys. Katich, to my mind, falls in the latter category, a misfit in a team of modern day greats. I would dare any cricket fan worth his salt to point out how he is more worthy of a test spot than Damien Martyn. Does he play those silken drives of the back foot? Does he play those beautiful Mark Waughesque cover drives? Does he bat with the guts of a Steve Waugh? Does he have a sense of timing that would rival VVS? On the same note, while I am happy Ganguly is out, I am not overly thrilled about VVS' exclusion. I hope it's limited to the one-dayers only, and that he is not put on trial everytime he comes out to bat in a test match. Like I mentioned in another post, VVS brings to the side something no one else does; neither Sachin, nor Dravid.I am all for giving youth a run though, and I hope some of the young guys do come good. The dropping of Zaheer has clearly sent out a signal, I should hope, that indiscipline and laziness would not be tolerated. I am also not thrilled about Sachin's induction without sufficient match practice at the domestic level. I seriously think it's time for him to think about giving up on that prostitution of the great game, and concentrate only on playing tests. He has already made sure he will go down as the greatest ODI player of all time. But he has some way to go before he earns close to the same stature in tests. And the sooner he endeavors towards it, the better it is for Team India as a test match side. And Ganguly, ah Ganguly, good riddance to bad rubbish I say, at least for the time being.

Of the right way and the easy way

2005-10-11T12:23:00.000-04:00

The big IIPM scandal.

The hero
Good to see a man stand by his principles. Way to go Gaurav!

Often, in life when one is offered a choice between the right way and the easy way, one takes the latter. Gaurav didn't and deserves all the kudos coming his way.

I wonder if I would have made a similar choice though. For one, Gaurav seems to be supremely confident of himself and his abilities. I am not. Secondly, I think IBM is too big an entity to be really affected by IIPM burning their laptops. The bad press would go to IIPM, and not to IBM.

But the deed has been done. The die has been cast. And time it is, for everyone to stand in support of Gaurav and Rashmi.

How to spend a birthday

2005-10-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

1) Since your research has not been going well, you have not had time to do laundry for 3 weeks and now its code red time. So the day before your birthday, be sure to do your laundry.
2) Ah, also, since you haven't shaved for 3 weeks, for the aforementioned reason, spend an hour doing that.
3) Take 12 am calls from your friends and family.
4) Go to bed
5) Wake up in the morning worried about a homework that needs to be submitted.Get wished by roommates.
6) Go to school, spend time doing homework.
7) Attend the class, and ask for an extension on the homework.
8) Go to the Discount liquor store and buy a bottle of Chivas Regal
9) Invite your friends over to your place, while you go to the best Indian restaurant in the area to buy craploads of food.
10) Drink Chivas. Straight. Only sissies have it on the rocks.
11) Talk about how at 26 you are going through a quarter life crisis. Have some smartassed friend comment about how optimistic you are for thinking you'll live to be 104.
12) Have the amazing food you've bought. Beautiful Beautiful food. Thinking about it still makes my mouth water.
13) It's almost 12 am again, welcome a friend whose birthday is on the 30th, i.e, just past midnight.Stare longingly at the bottle of Tequilla he's bought.
14) Think out aloud that it would not be appropriate to have Tequilla then as it would like driving an Ambassador after a Merc. Have a tequilla sunrise anyway. Make a mental note to celebrate the friend's birthday again in the evening for the sole purpose of enjoying tequilla.
15) Give him birthday bumps and basically kick his ass. Say you have been excused because you are old.
16) After some basically useless discussions about the relative merits of studying engineering in the US as against in India, drive out your friends out of the house.
17) Call it a day

P.S:
We did celebrate the friend's birthday again,in the evening, and we cooked Chicken Malabari, shrimp sautee, lemon cake, and aaloo paratha, to go with the tequilla.

Dada ka rada

2005-09-23T11:21:00.000-04:00

Sourav Ganguly. The most succesful test captain India has ever had. A man who didn't shy away from giving it back to those 'arrogant', 'white' captains. A man who rose above the parochialism so endemic to Indian cricket, and created tough competitors who had the steel to compete with the best in the world. Sourav Ganguly. A man who, today, and before it is too late, should be out on his butt.

Make no mistake, I've had a lot of respect for what Sourav brought to the team with his streetfighter attitude. I have had a lot of admiration for his ODI game. But, and I said it to all who would listen, as far ago as 2001, that he did not deserve to be in the test match side. The reasons, at least to me, were quite obvious.

1) Technically flawed against short pitched bowling.
2) Complete lack of courage in the face of short pitched bowling.
3) Clear lack of success against the best bowling attacks in the world.
4) If Bevan and Kambli, who were walking wickets for the quicker men, were out in the wilderness, what made Ganguly special?
5) Setting a wrong example for youngsters coming into the game, "it's alright if you can't play the bouncers, you can still captain the side"

Ganguly, even in his prime, was at best, a flat track bully. Back then, I had opinions ranging from " even Steve Waugh struggled against the short stuff", to "Ganguly is a tough customer, he'll learn to cope" to counter my argument. I had hoped that they would be right, but it was obviously wishful thinking. Face it, Ganguly just didn't have the balls to stand up to really quick bowling. Steve Waugh did, and accepting the fact that he was technically as poor at it as Ganguly was, it was the only thing that made the difference.

Today, he had the opportunity to do the right thing. Put his ego away in the waste basket, and do what's right for Indian cricket. Not compare himself with Dravid, who is on his way to become the No.1 or No. 2 legend of Indian cricket. Accept his shortcomings. Accept the regimen that the coach had designed to get the best out of each player. Not feign injuries. And definitely not sideline young cricketers in the team just because they were a threat to his place in the side. But to put it mildly, and excuse the French, he fucked up. He went to the media. Only this time he underestimated his adversary. Greg Chappell did not shy away facing the best fast bowlers of his era, and in my opinion, was, along with Gavaskar the best bastman of that era, a certain IVA Richards not witshstanding. He was certainly not going to get cowed down by Ganguly.
He had a vision for Indian cricket and Ganguly was increasingly putting himself out of it. After calling a temporary truce, in what I believe was just a move to make sure that the team didn't lose focus of the 2nd test, Chappell sent a missive to the BCCI, practically demanding Ganguly's ouster. Ganguly responded by questioning the character of a man who could do this within hours of a truce. Yeah right. Rich, coming from a person who cold shoulders his young players just because they are a threat to his place in the side. I never did like Nasser Hussain much, but as an excellent article on Cricinfo put it yesterday, he did his Churchillian bit for English cricket, and stepped down at the right time, letting Vaughan take over. Ganguly was the Churchill Indian cricket needed the last few years; now however, he's outlived his welcome.

Ganguly, with his bunch of supporters in the BCCI, might just win this battle with Chappell yet. In the process, the biggest loser would be Indian Cricket.

The Fall Guy

2005-09-21T22:34:00.000-04:00

Yet again, poor Damien Martyn is 'it'. I wonder what sins the poor guy has committed in his life, that he keeps on getting made a scapegoat for Team Australia's collective foibles. He replaced Dean Jones in 1993, played quite well I thought, and was dumped for playing an 'irresponsible' stroke chasing a low total in Sydney, costing the Aussies the match. If you ask me if he merely doing then what most people advocate today; low totals are dicey to chase in the 4th innings and you get them by knocking them off as quickly as you can. 7 years in the wilderness is too big a punishment for that I think. His return to the Australian side, and his recent crucial performances on the subcontinent have meant that Mark Waugh has probably not been missed as much. He had been scoring like God before the Ashes began and to drop someone for not performing in one series just seems a tad harsh to me, especially considering the one or two indifferent decisions he received. I am a big fan of his and do hope he makes his way back quickly to where he belongs!

Ashes To Ashes, Dust to Dust....

2005-09-12T17:56:00.000-04:00

The war has concluded then. A bloody war. One where skill, courage, pride and nobility all came to the fore. To show the reason why soccer, for all it's popularity, isn't a patch on this Great Game. First things first. A word of praise for the English team, which after a tortuous journey through the dark 1990s now stares greatness in the face. England are now, without doubt, the best side in the world. Far from the whingeing, boring Poms I had grown up watching and hating. Almost Australian in their methods, agressive and confident. A little work needs to be done still, however. Australia in their prime would never have allowed their opponents a whiff. Clearly, seeing as we did that all the matches went down to the wire, England still need to become as ruthless as Waugh's men were. As a footnote to the story, it is now obvious that the Aus v/s the ROW, which was meant to be a battle between the best side in the world and the best from the Rest of the World will now have an almost empty ring to it. Fate has its funny ways sometimes.
Now on to Australia. I wouldn't like to be in Punter's shoes today, I really wouldn't. The first Australian captain to lose to the Poms in 16 years. That is not a label one would wear proudly. For all the excellent cricket played by England, one cannot help but feel that Punter clearly lacked the tactical nous to counter Vaughan. And I am not even speaking of the colossal blunder in putting England in on a nice pitch at Edgbaston. It was that decision, more than anything else, that altered the momentum of the series, and Australia went from dominating the first test to playing catch-up for the rest of the series.
I am highly tempted, in this post, to do a quick review of the performance of each of the Australian players.

1) Hayden: Fought very hard at the Oval to bring up a classic test match hundred. IMHO, should be persisted with, if for no reason other than the availability of a viable replacement
2) Langer: Played quite well I thought, and exceptionally well at the Oval
3)Ponting: Disappointing series overall bar the magnificent hand at Manchester. Indifferent captaincy.
4) Martyn: Started off looking in good touch, but was hard done by some indifferent umpiring, and then just seemed to lose his confidence. Is another player whose place in the side is being questioned, but too premature and stupid in my opinion. Classy player and must be in the side.
5) Clarke: The Pup got a few good starts but seemed to fritter them away far too often. To be fair to him, he is only in his second year of international test cricket and will definitely improve. Tall, Languid and graceful, to me, he is the new Mark Waugh.
6)Katich: Have never been a great fan of his, and I thought he let up too many technical deficiencies come through. Again a couple of bad decisions went against him. He's only 29 though and I'd keep him.
7) Voldemort, or as He is commonly known, Gilchrist: His failure in the series is the single most important reason for Australia's collective failure. Often, the cracks in the top order batting have been papered over by the brilliance of this one man, but unfortunately for the Aussies not this time. Anyone who knows his cricket will not fail to see the similarities between this and the circumstances of the fall of the West Indian Empire. For the uninformed, Dujon's batting went first, and we are talking about someone, who, although not as destructive as Gilchrist, had been good enough to average over 50 for a fair length of time. Is this history repeating itself? Only time will tell.
8) The GOD, Shane Warne: 5 matches, 40 wickets, 4 heartbreaks. It is a testimony to how well th English have played that 40 wickets from their old nemesis has not mattered to the final result of the series. I have gone on and on about Shane in my earlier posts, and I shall try not to get carried away here, but seriously, such mastery! The way I see it, Shane is a great leg spinner in terms of skill and talent, but no cricketer I have seen in my entire life has his brains and his self belief. Unfortunately his dream of going through an entire career remaining undefeated in the Ashes has collapsed, and ironically, for all the sweat and tears he has given this series, with bat and ball, the simple chance he missed off KP might well have been the most serious influence he has ever had on the result of a test series, in all his 14 years of international cricket.
9)Brett Lee: Has come of age. Will need to carry a Mcgrath less attack on his broad shoulders and big heart, in the not so distant future. If I were Ponting I would see an essential role for Lee as a bowling all rounder. He has the batting talent, he just needs the desire to succeed as a genuine allrounder and I believe he can make the grade. He will need to, considering the dearth of talent that supposedly exists in Australian domestic cricket at the moment. Will be remembered for arguably the two most poignant moments of the series: disconsolate, on his haunches, with Freddie having a consoling word or two to say and then at Trent Bridge, knocking Freddie over with a jaffa.
10) Mcgrath: Did brilliantly well in the first match, but after his freak accident, seemed to lack any penetration in the remaining matches he played. He did well enough though, and like Warne, it should be left completely up to him to decide on his future. I would hope earnestly though, that he does not decide to give up on the game until a worthy succesor has been identified and mentored.
11) Kasper and Dizzy: I don't know which one of them was more disappointing, but I'd probably plump for Dizzy, simply because expectations from him were much higher. His failure to find 'it' meant the Australian attack lacked the ability to maintain pressure for sustained periods, once Mcgrath and Warne were done. Beautifully though Lee bowled, he does tend to bleed a bit, as against dizzy in full flow, who can almost match Lee for agression and Mcgrath for accuracy. There have been calls for Dizzy's head, and this is projected to be the end of the road for him. He's only 30 though, and I would definitely take my time and give him a series or two before making that judgement. Anyone can have a bad series. And if the 'form is temporary, class is permanent' adage applies to batters, then why not to bowlers? Kasper is too old though, and anyway, he was never more than a utility cricketer, he must go.
12) Finally, Tait: Did alright. I can't forget his stupidity(although he might be excused and forgiven, considering it was his first match) in walking across the stumps in the second innings at Trent Bridge and getting knocked over. All he had to try and do was to stick around and they might have just been able to get the extra 20-30 runs that might have made all the difference.

So where do the two teams go from here? England will continue her quest for greatness, and with tours to the subcontinent not so far away, they will have the opportunity to play exciting cricket and show that they are a team for all conditions. In India, I would definitely mark Freddie and Jones as major factors. As for Australia, the decline has begun. It is upto the powers that be to make sure that this decline is slow enough to allow new talent to take over and take the team back to the top. Hopefully Australian cricket won't go the West Indian way. Bloody shame it would be, if it did.

Saara shaher mujhe loin ke naam se jaanta hai...

2005-09-04T10:02:00.000-04:00

Or not. Was just searching for some stuff on google, and one of the search results was

Oh well. When dogs start hitting you for boundaries, you just know your name shouldn't be Ajit.:-)

Musings....

2005-08-29T23:44:00.000-04:00

One of my good friends finished his candidacy exam, which he cracked (despite his cribs that he would flunk; wonder how people can crib so much about exams:-)) and took us out to dinner up in Albany, at an Indian restaurant called Gandhi. I use the term Indian very loosely, because it was really a Bangladeshi restaurant. Not bad, if you discount the really rude waiter and the crappy music in the background. Had malai kabab, fish kabab, chicken tikka, lamb kabab, chicken korma, chicken karahi and chicken rogan josh with nice pudinah parathas and lassi to wash it down. Finished with malai kulfi and rasmalai. Was so stuffed towards the end, just made an observation. I like to make connections, so here's a good one: Research and Food. The thought of doing research is sometimes more romantic and exciting than the research itself (I know it's totally wrong, but hell, it happens sometimes) THe thought of eating so many items sounds great, but sometimes finishing up so much food is really quite painful, as I discover again. Literally.

Nottingham

2005-08-28T20:59:00.000-04:00

At the risk of sounding cliched, who IS writing the scripts for these test matches????

First, the good news. I no longer need to crib about not being able to watch the cricket. Brilliant coverage, with Benaud et al, is now available, and it's fantastic to say the least.

On to the match, then. I'm impressed with Shaun Tait, I really am. Frankly, I can't, in all my years of watching cricket, remember another tearaway with a sling-arm action. (Unfortunately, Thmmo was before my time.) He set up day one nicely with the wickets of Trescothick (looks increasingly unlikely the poor bloke will ever get an hundred against the Aussies) and Bell. This was always going to be Freddie's series and his exquisite butchery (only in this great game do these words go together) of the Australian attack on Day 2 meant that Australia who had looked competitive at the end of Day 1, would now have to bat out of their skins. Well, they didn't and with some brilliant bowling by Simon Jones and Hoggy, were left licking their wounds. Another first innings failure, something that's becoming far too common with this side. For the first time since 1988, this proud team had been asked to follow on. Vaughny must have had a couple of things to weigh:
1) These damn Aussies control the weather, I'd better not risk the time element.
2) That damn Warney
Well, anyway, he thought that Warney was kinder than the weather and enforced the follow on (and almost regretted it, in hindsight).
The second innings effort was infinitely better, Langer, Clarke, Warney and Katich playing quite well to give some sort of respectability to the total England needed to chase. At this point, I must also be really critical of the umpiring, and frankly, Bucknor should go. He has been slipping steadily for the past few years, and now is probably no better than S.K. Bansal, he of the LBW-when-ball-pitched-outside-leg fame.
Finally the fightback. Everytime the Aussies find themselves with their backs to the wall, the true champions in the side rise to the occasion. Like I said in my last post, I dare anyone to find a cricketer with as much charisma and game-influencing-ability as Warney, not just from the post-modern era, but from the golden age of cricket as well. Sir Gary and the late great Sir Don can chew on this, but it won't stop it from being true. Champion, this man, absolute champion. Two wickets from the opening deliveries of his first 2 overs, and yet, nothing surprising, considering everything we've come to expect of this man. The fizz, the dip, the drift and finally the rip snorting turn and bounce. Orgasmic delight, really, watching him bowl. The one that got Vaughny was particularly special, I thought. As for the other big hearted Aus cricketer, Binga Lee, my respect for him grows with each passing game. He must be absolutely gutted, 3 tests in a row, he's had to pull out something extraordinary out of his bag of ammunition, and each time, he's manfully done his bit. Unfortunately the scoreline reads 2-1 against his efforts. Anyone who was lucky to see him bowl Freddie, the great Freddie Flintoff, neck and crop, would carry that image with them to their senility and beyond. Just bloody fantastic that!
Either way, what the result has done is keep the Ashes alive, and we should have a real cracker at the Oval. My prediction? A draw, and Aus losing the Ashes. A change of guard.

The kings are dead, long live the kings.

Oh, and by the way, I have won my 12 pack of Heineken already:-)

Old Trafford

2005-08-15T21:24:00.000-04:00

I followed every minute of the exciting last day at Old Trafford on Test Match Special on BBC radio, and frankly, I have chewed on the last vestiges of my poor nails (courtesyEdgbaston) and I am now down to half a thumb and forefinger. First, a word of praise for the TMS team. Back in India, ever since ESPNSTAR entered our lives, about 1991-92, practically every major cricket series has been available to watch. While there's no denying the incredible amount of cricket knowledge this brought, what with the amazing expert teams of commentators, pitch reports, key tests, etc. , TMS took me back to the good old pre satellite TV days when I, all of 8 years, used to tune in to BBC radio on SW transmission to catch test match broadcasts and to MW transmission for Ranji trophy match broadcasts. The TMS team consisting of Christopher Martin Jenkins, Geoff Lawson, Graham Gooch, Jon Agnew, Vic Marcs et al. transported me to the action at Manchester in a way only truly great radio commentators can. Laced with typically dry English humor (the asides on the supposed row between Warney and Punter were particularly hilarous), and interspersed, for good measure, with keen insights into the edge of the seat excitement at Old Trafford, it was a truly wonderful experience. Thank you TMS!

Now, on to the match. Punter showed more character than I would have given him credit for. Blame it on his mateship with Mark Waugh during the latter's playing days, and his love for a good punt, but I have always looked at him as too much of a weak character to stamp his authority on this great Australian side as a leader. I mean, you just looked at Steve Waugh's side and said that, yes, that was HIS side. Ditto for Taylor and AB. In his early test matches as Captain, he had the experience of Darren Lehmann (Yuck!) to guide him, but coming into the Ashes, his tactical and decision making abilities seemed about as solid as a politician's promise.
But anyway, his 156 was the stuff of legend, the kind of stuff that Steve Waugh built his persona on. He will probably never be a Taylor or a Warne as far as tactics and strategy go. He might never match Steve Waugh for sheer force of personality, decison making and ability to inspire men. But today he has gone some way towards proving that he CAN be a leader of men, given eough time. I see, rather, I hope for another period of decline for the Aussies to match that of early-to-mid 80s, and the romantic in me almost willing Punter to guide them out of the rut, flinty eyed and grumpy, much like AB did.
A word on Warney too. The flawed genius or the wizard, no matter what he is to you, there is no denying the fact that he is the greatest champion in the world today, Tendulkar,Lara and Dravid notwithstanding. No one I have seen in the last 20 years of watching cricket has come close to influencing test match results with as much regularity as he has. Ball, bat and mouth, he just has it all. The media has not been kind to him, nor has Cricket Australia, in denying him captaincy, but when he is gone, the game shall not hold half the charm it does now, as far as I am concerned.
And finally, a word of appreciation for both the sides enacting this great Drama, and opening the eyes of the football crazy English nation to the excitement that even a draw in cricket can offer.

Ambivalence

2005-08-12T16:22:00.000-04:00

"The coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings, such as love and hate, toward a person, object, or idea."

In other words, a situation where I want to be happy for cricket, but cry buckets for the Aussies.

Just as well Punter is the captain. I don't think I would have been able to take it, had Steve Waugh been the first Captain in ages to lose the Ashes to the Poms.

A friend of mine who was a great WI supporter has had to endure the torture of watching HIS side plumb the absolute depths, and now it's my turn. Sad, but necessary.

Like they say, no one or nothing is greater than the game!

Ranatunga

2005-08-08T19:13:00.000-04:00

I came across this article on Cricinfo, by the "great" Arjuna Ranatunga

"The injury to Sourav Ganguly off a short-pitched delivery will once again raise the old bogey of his weakness. But then the wickets of sub-continent help the fast bowlers with its own vagaries. Unlike Australia or South Africa where the ball comes at even pace and height, the ones in the sub-continent are generally not true. I still carry the image of Ganguly of previous years when he was good at hooking and pulling. "

Oh dear Lord, when?????????????????????? When was he good at hooking and pulling?????????????

Ranatunga adds, "May be he should start doing it more often once again."

Please, Saurav, don't heed his advice. Please spare us the agony of watching a pull shot being played with stiff forearms holding the bat in a tennis grip and arcing it from knee height to shoulder height.

And if you, old dog, are still interested in learning how it's done, watch Dravid do the pulling and Punter do the hooking.

The Old Man who Lived

2005-08-07T13:59:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, when the balance between the powerful and the meek had shifted, and seemingly irreversibly so, to the wrong side, a prophecy was made. "The meek shall not lose", it said, "they shall win ". But since the prophecy had been made by someone who was but one of the Meeks, someone who answered to the name of David Graveney, neither the Powerfuls nor the Meeks really took it seriously enough. After an epic battle on the first two days of the war, at the most hallowed battleground in the world, when the Meeks realized that the Powerfuls were not infallible, not invincible, the Powerfuls were stung into using weapons so deadly they should have been outlawed by the human race long ago. The Meeks had no answer to the Metronome, so straight, so pin-pointedly accurate. They failed to negotiate the Thunderbolt, who unleashed misery upon misery upon the hapless Meeks. It wasn't fair, but most things in life aren't. The Powerfuls even had in their midst a wizard, who could weave magic and confound his enemies into making mistakes and into looking as intelligent as a Communist. He would curl his weapon, almost like he was winding it up to strike like a great black cobra which would spit venom at his enemies. The Meeks suffered crushing blows and lost the battle. In an earlier era, with this one battle, the war would have been lost too. But fate knew that there was an infirm, but righteous Old Man to save, and he would die if the Meeks lost. Therefore, it had intervened and chosen one warrier who would not give up, who would display the qualities that made the Powerfuls so formidable. He was the Chosen One. He had joined the ranks 8 years ago, but had yet to fight a battle against these most powerful Powerfuls , until this war started. He reminded everyone of another great warrior who had laid to waste the Powerfuls in an era when the balance of Power was not as skewed as it was on this day. He had to put his hand up and be counted, which he failed to do in the first battle. But with the Old Man's life at stake, fate intervened. The Metronome got damaged and the Powerfuls lost their most subversive weapon. On the first day of battle the Chosen One then took the battle to the enemy camp and destroyed the Gypsy, the Thunderbolt and Wizard. On the second day of battle, he destroyed the enemy defences as he conquered 3 of the warriors defending the enemy fort. Then, just as the Meeks began to have hopes of a heady victory, the cunning Wizard struck a demoralizing blow. With a spitting cobra that breached the defences of a Meek warrior, the battle was in balance again, as Day 3 began. The Wizard, more powerful than Dumbledore the Wise, or Gandalf the Grey , threw curses left, right and center, unleashing the destruction that had made him the most feared name in most Meek households for more than a decade. The Thunderbolt was also hell bent on exacting revenge for the ignominy of Day 1.It seemd a battle gone wrong for the Meeks again. Till the Chosen One stood up. Alone. A bloodied warrier standing amidst the ruins. Battling a painful wound to his shoulder. Battling the great dark wizards of the enemy. Battling history. Battling for the Old Man's life. The Cunning Wizard's curses were repelled and rendered useless. The Chosen One then pulverized the Thunderbolt into submission and gave the Meeks new hope. He returned later to capture some of the most important defences of the enemy, helped by an ordinary footsoldier who had his big moment when he captured the darkest of the enemy, a dark wizard who must not be named. The battle was almost won. Almost. But day 4 brought all the nightmares of previous defeats back to life. Self doubts began creeping in. But the Old Man's life was important. It had to be saved. For all the things that are great and good, for all the things that the young need to learn, the Old Man had to be saved. And just when it seemd like the Powerfuls would call upon their great mental resources to emerge victorious again, the tall, lithe and graceful Meek warrior struck. The Battle was over. The Meeks had won. They had lived to fight another day. They knew the Powerfuls would come back at them hard, but for the time being, however, the Old Man had a new lease of life.

I join them today in celebrating English Cricket, the Old Man who Lived.

Freddy and Jason

2005-08-05T12:32:00.000-04:00

Reading the scorecard on Cricinfo yesterday made me all too aware of a great connection that exists between so many different things in the world. As my advisor(who, by the way, features in the story later) says, "Illustrate your thought process", and so here I am, doing just that.

I have already mentioned cricket and power electronics as two of my great loves. A third one, though to not the same extent, is movies, more specifically of the slasher, serial killer variety. So, anyway, on the cricinfo scorecards, the names of Flintoff and Gillespie just stuck out like sore thumbs. Fintoff and Gillespie???? Cmon, that's Freddie and Jason! Of the slasher, serial killer variety. Where does power electronics figure you ask? Well, this one is more complex. But it took only one Eureka moment triggered by the dark, confused (read utterly screwed up) recesses of my mind for me to make this realization. The Neville Cardus of power electronics is a guy called Fred Lee, from VTech. He has 60 graduate students working under him, and any self respecting power electronics student has had occasion to read at least one of his papers. So, there's our power electronics Freddie. And you know what my advisor's email id is? jsun@..... jsun. Hmm.. Jason. So there, we have our power electronics Jason as well!

Like my advisor says, research is all about making the connexions:-)

Freddie Rulz

2005-08-04T15:04:00.000-04:00

Followed a bit of the test match day one on Cricinfo. Without the great Glenn Mcgrath, the Aussie attack was never going to be as menacing, as has been clearly evident in test matches he has missed. The Aussies are REALLY gonna struggle once the great man retires, Warnie notwithstanding. Lee was taken for over six an over, which is just superb. The Poms eventually managed 407 in a day. Couldn't believe this was an English team we were watching here. The slow, boring Poms of yore, playing at a Trumperesque or Bradmanesque pace. Good for cricket, I say! Freddie came into his own and hit Binga for 3 massive ones, apparently. Look forward to catching the highlights at night. Let's see how the Aussies bat tomorrow. Hopefully, it should be a cracker of a test match.

The greatest joke ever

2005-08-01T16:36:00.000-04:00

I made this one up as I was cooking dinner a couple of days ago.

Q. In aquatic animals were to make a Hindi Movie, who would be the villain?
A. Ah, it isn't the shark, but the Pra(w)n.

Happy Birthday

2005-07-31T20:46:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday, Harry Potter....

The Ashes

2005-07-31T20:09:00.000-04:00

I just love them. The oldest, the grandest test cricket rubber of them all. It's a pity I can't watch them live this time around, what with being in the Baseball country and all. So, I guess, it'll just have to be Cricinfo and BBC radio for the live feeds and DesiTorrents for the highlights. Just as well. I can't see myself getting any work done otherwise. Anyhow, since the first test ended, I have been anxiously waiting for Edgbaston, starting the 4th of August. I have a wager on England for these Ashes. Yeah that's right, you can unglue your eybrows from the top of your forehead now. Let me explain. I am a huge Aussie fan, my blog name suggests that, I should hope. But to my mind, the game has to start doing well elsewhere in the world ( the subcontinent does not count, where mindless prostitution of the game continues in the form of senseless ODI series at fart of a fart named Dalmiya). And this has to happen in the next couple of years, before Australia loses its champions and becomes a mortal, even ordinary, side. There needs to be another Champion team just waiting to take over, waiting to excite, waiting to inspire its young to take up the game. WI are totally past it. India and Pak can alternate between the sublime and the ordinary more frequently than any other side in the world. SL are, well, just Murali, esentially. SA, dunno if they will be able to play any sort of exciting cricket. Anycase, with the whole affirmative action shit happening, it will take some time . That leaves the Poms. They look the most exciting and talented young unit after the Aussies. Freddie, Harmison, Vaughan, Trescothick make for good cricket viewing. KP has the biggest champion of them all, the flawed genius of Warnie to mentor him , and hopefully, he will be a big draw. What I am getting to is, eventually, this English side has the potential to re-establish cricket as a top sport in England and hopefully attract younger kids towards it. With cricket in the UK now available only on cable TV, this becomes all the more significant. A victory against the Old Enemy will certainly help, a defeat may be catastrophic to the future of the game there.
But I, being such a die-hard Aus cricket fan will not find it in my heart to support the Poms unless there is a little incentive involved (no, the nobility of the cause ain't enuff). Incentive translating to a 12 pack of Heineken.

Let the battle resume.