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New Blog

2010-04-23T00:55:00.001-04:00

Started a new blog. Only for cricket related stuff.

Take a look http://thecricketcouch.wordpress.com

Change is the only constant

2010-02-19T16:43:00.004-05:00

I just returned from my trip to India. It was to be a 19 day trip but got extended to 50 due to visa problems (What's new, you ask!). I was visiting home after 9 years and I was told by all and sundry, that I am not gonna be able to recognize the India (especially Chennai where I spent most of the 50 days). In fact, a friend of mine in the U.S. (a desi) wrote to me while I was in India to check in on me and find out how was doing. He also asked me, "Isn't it all so different to you??".. My short answer was "No".

The long answer went something like this, "Yeah, there are dozens of new flyovers, shopping malls, wide highways with lanes marked (which no one follows very much), Nike and Reebok showrooms, coffee shops and all that, but the essence of the city - and the people - has not changed". I meant it in the most positive way. I did not say this, knowing, especially, what he wanted me to say in response to his question.

The city, the towns and the country is pretty much exactly as I remember. The way people interact with each other, the smells (the good, the bad and everything in between), the sounds, the colours, the richness, the poverty, the traffic, sea of humanity -- All that is absolutely unchanged. This is how I remember India. This is the India I lived in. This is the India I cherished and continue to do so.

I belong there. I cannot really explain it. If you know what I am trying to say, then, you know it. There is only one place in the U.S. where I get the feeling that I get when I am in India, New York City. May be, its the cosmopolitan nature of NYC, or may be the foods, may be its the sounds, I don't know.

India never changes. That is the beauty of her. We change. We think we change. We think since we think we have changed, India would too! But India is like a parent. No matter how much we change, or think we have changed, she is always there with the same, unchanged love, affection and the open arms.

Good Ol' Chennai

2010-01-03T07:36:00.004-05:00

Tennis Ball Cricket at Besant Nagar Beach

Its good to be be back.

Bradman v Patterson - The Don Wins.

2009-12-04T15:17:00.002-05:00

I saw this story posted on during a rain delay of a cricket match while following the text commentary on Cricinfo, which received it from a reader. Its about the incomparable Don Bradman.

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A fanciful story from Michael Henderson on Don. Absolute Gem . "I think I have a beauty. It was told to me by the great Australian batsman, Dean Jones, who positively swore on the head of his daughter it happened, and I have since been told that Merv Hughes also confirms its truth.

The scene is set at a Test match between Australia and the West Indies at Adelaide Oval back in February 1989. These were the days when the Windies were the greatest power the cricketing world had ever seen, the days when they used to select 11 fast bowlers in the team and a 12th man who was a fast bowler just to be on the safe side.

And it was into just such a furnace that the young bowler Mervyn Hughes walked - with bat in hand. Figuring fortune favoured the brave, Hughes wielded the willow like an axeman his axe, and somehow - after snicking fortutiously, connecting full-bloodedly, and missing entirely - he finished the day's play at 72 not out.

The tradition in Test cricket is that the batting side take a few beers into the fielding side's dressing-room afterwards, but not on this evening. Instead, Merv took an ice-box full of bottles, so keen was he to give the men of the Windies the full blow-by-blow account of every run he'd made. So it was that half an hour later, Jones - who himself had contributed 216 - and Hughes and several other Australian players were in the Windies dressing-room, when a sudden hush fell upon the gathering.

They looked to the door and there was Sir Donald Bradman himself, being ushered into the room by several South Australian cricket officials. The Don had expressed a desire to meet this mighty team, and now here he was.

For the next 15 minutes or so, the great man was introduced to the visiting players, with each West Indian standing up well before Sir Donald got to their position on the bench. Then, when their time came, they warmly shook his hand and had a few words.

This all proceeded splendidly until Sir Donald got to the last man on the bench, Patrick Patterson - the fastest bowler in the world at that time. So the story goes, not only did Patterson not stand, he simply squinted quizzically up at the octogenarian. Finally, after some 30 seconds of awkward silence, Patterson stood up, all two metres of pure whip-cord steel of him, and looked down at the diminutive Don.

"You, Don Bradman!?!" he snorted. "You, Don Bradman?!?! I kill you,mun! I bowl at you, I kill you! I split you in two!"

In reply, Sir Donald, with his hands on his hips, gazed squarely back at Patterson and calmly retorted: "You couldn't even get Merv out. You'd have no chance against me, mate!"

All Time Underrated Test XI

2009-11-25T14:52:00.004-05:00

Any discussion of an all-time great test team in Cricket, includes, names such as Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram etc. However, there are some outstanding cricketers that have made tremendous contributions to their teams, and the game in general, that have had their entire careers overshadowed by some these legends. For example, Rahul Dravid. He has been an outstanding servant of Indian cricket with his grit and determination and has come through in many big occasions. However, some of his vital contributions have been outshone by innings such as the 281 that VVS Laxman made in Kolkata, 2001. Or for example, a toiling Jason Gillespie has always been overshadowed by the presence of Glenn McGrath and a Shane Warne. Or, a Danie Vettori, whose contributions do not get the necessary accolades because he plays for New Zealand (a small time team compared to Australia, India and England etc.).

So, I thought, I should put together a team of Underrated Individuals picked from around the world. My only criteria was that, they played during my cricket watching years (1983-present). Without further ado, here is my underrated Test XI:

Graham Gooch
Saeed Anwar
Rahul Dravid
Jacques Kallis
Aravinda De Silva
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Alec Stewart (WK)
Shaun Pollock
Daniel Vettori (C)
Anil Kumble
Jason Gillespie

12th Man: Justin Langer

Let me hear about your underrated ones.

My Favorite Fast Bowler

2009-11-25T14:27:00.003-05:00

That Maan Courtney Walsh. I had tremendous respect for Courtney when exhibited exemplary sportsmanship in not running out Salim Jaffer in the final over, in the World Cup quarterfinal in 1996 (which West Indies went on to lose to Pakistan). Its not something I would do. I disagree to this day with what he did, but respect it nevertheless.

My admiration for Courtney grew through the nineties as he would run through the Aussies and the English, along with the one of the best fast bowlers of all time, Curtley Ambrose. Anyway, here is a video clip I found on Walsh. The slower he bowls to get Graham Thorpe, is an absolute gem!

Enjoy!

My 20 favorite moments of Sachin Tendulkar's career

2009-11-12T21:12:00.022-05:00

On Nov 15 1989, the cherub-faced wunderkind, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (who later on in his career, would be designated GOD by the hundreds of millions of Indian cricket fans) made his cricketing debut on the international stage, against Pakistan, in Pakistan - no less. This kid, now the wise old Yoda, is still plugging away, setting records by the bunches and motoring along in his 20th year of International cricket. He has had his ups, downs but has never lost his passion for cricket, the pride of representing India. He is the richest cricketer ever to play the game, one of the most talented to ever pick a bat, one of the most popular sportsperson and even with all that, the humility he shows on and off the field, his ability to stay out of trouble (not a single scandal). What a role model for generation of Indians and cricketers everywhere! I am extremely proud and boundlessly happy that he plays for my country.

On this 20th anniversary of his international debut, I thought I should list 20 of my favorite Sachin Tendulkar moments of the last 20 years. Following are my rules for the list selection:

It need not only be his batting exploits. As you know, he has pulled off some miraculous catches and un-bee-lee-vuh-bul wickets out of nowhere
There needs to be video evidence available on the internet, so that I could link them.. or at least, photographs with associated columns/articles waxing poetic
I either saw it live on TV, internet, or followed it on cricinfo text (These are my rules. If you don't agree, go, make your own list)
Moments that had huge bearing in the outcome of a match/series/tournament will be pushed up the list, even if it is not a "dominating" performance

On that note, without further ado, I present to you, MY 20 FAVORITE SACHIN TENDULKAR MOMENTS OF THE LAST 20 YEARS ( SRT/20, if you will). I am posting #1 to #10 in this post and the rest, in the next post.

#1. India v Pakistan, 2003 World Cup

Unquestionably, the match of the tournament. India facing a daunting total of 273, needed a fast and positive start and that's exactly what they got from Sachin in the company of Sehwag. This was additionally more fun for me, as in my apartment in State College, PA, my roommates and I had set up satellite dish (this was before the time of online streaming boys!) and had two rooms full of cricket fans watching the match. It so happened, one of the room was full of Pakistan fans and the other, full of India fans. The ebb and flow of th match was a great spectacle and the cheering and hollering from one room to another was very memorable. Of course, all this, till Sachin stepped in and ripped their hearts out with a breathtaking display of batting. This was also the first time India and Pakistan faced off on the cricket field after the Kargil war and some Indians may have thought of this as an opportunity to settle some scores as well.

The highlight of that marvelous inning (@ 03:41) was a backfoot, on the up, punched drive through extra cover off Wasim Akram, after which, Sachin held the pose for a second. You can hear Robin Jackman almost have an orgasm!! My then roommate Gautam and I were discussing at the time, whether we should just give honorary India citizenship to Robin.

#2. The making of the genius

Fast forward to 3:24 and spend two good minutes watching till 5:23.

Tom Alter: Sachin, So you prefer facing Walsh and Marshall? You prefer facing fast bowling, why?

Sachin: Of course. Of course. I like facing fast bowling, because, the ball comes straight on to the battt.

GAME, SET and MATCH. (I know this does not qualify as a part of his 20-year International career, but come on! Seriously. Also, I make the rules here.)

#3 India V Australia, Sharjah 1998.

Sandstorm game. Needing to qualify for the finals. Enough said.

I was in the final year of undergrad in college. Already had a job. So, I spent the last 2 semesters in college, doing the two things I love to do. Playing and watching cricket. And 1998 happened to coincide with one of the most productive phases in Sachin's career. Lucky me.

#4. Four-Four-Four

India vs Australia, 2008 CB series league match in Melbourne.

#5. India v Australia, Sharjah 1998, Finals.

After playing one of the finest one-day innings in its sheer belligerence and audacity and taking India through to the final of the tournament on a better run-rate, Sachin tormented the Aussies one more time to win the tourney! Just brilliant.

#6. India v West Indies, Hero Cup, Finals, 1993.

The legend of Sachin continues to grow, following his sheer magic to pull the rug from under the South Africans in the last over semifinal match. I did not watch the match live. India had made a modest total of 225, and Sachin had made a very crucial 28 runs. However, he was not too far away from the center of action, as he took out Brian Lara for 33. (Time mark 4:03)

#7. India v Australia, Wills International Cup, QF, 1998. Dhaka

Sachin's day at the office that day reads, 141 runs off 128 balls and 4/38. One man wrecking crew. The Aussies were probably having nightmares how much Sachin had whupped them in 1998. I could not find the video for this match online. If someone has it, please pass it along.

#8. India v South Africa, Hero Cup Semis, Last Over

South Africa needing 6 runs off the last over, Sachin came on to bowl and gave away only 3. I remember watching this game as a 16 year old and being completely a nervous wreck. Sachin kept his cool and was way beyond his years. A major glimpse in to his psyche that would show the potential the man had! Cricinfo had included it at #25 in the list of 50 magical moments in cricket. Time Mark 1:10 begins the last over by Sachin.

#9. First Test Match Century

India were in a dire situation of losing the test match at Old Trafford, Manchester. Needing an improbable 408 runs to win the match, India were reeling at 109-4 when SRT walked in. While couple more wickets fell, he played a long inning in the company of Prabhakar and scored his maiden test ton (119 not out) and secured a draw. I had written about my memories of this test match recently.

#10. India v South Africa, 1996-97, Capetown Test Match

India was having a terrible tour of South Africa, after being humiliated in Durban. My college class were on an industrial tour and we couldn't wait to get to Jamshedpur and get to the hotel, so that we could catch India batting in the 2nd test at Newlands, Capetown. South Africa posted a massive 529/7 in the 1st inning and India were doddering at 58 for 5, when one of the most special partnerships in test cricket I have ever witnessed or read/heard about happened between Sachin and Azharuddin - for the sheer elegance whilst being absolutely brutal. I remember us getting to the hotel and staying near the front desk for 3 hours while watching the partnership. Spectacular.

Click here for the Youtube Link

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Next Post: #11-#20.

An eye for an eye

2009-11-11T11:30:00.003-05:00

Today, the sniper, John Allen Muhammed, who shot 11 people in the D.C. area in 2002 was put to death. One of the family members responded, after the execution by lethal injection, thus: "I feel better. I think I can breathe better," Nelson Rivera said as he watched the execution of convicted killer John Allen Muhammad. "I'm glad he's gone because he's not going to hurt anyone else."

I don't get it. If you wanted to feel better and be glad that he is not gonna hurt anyone else, why not just let him be in prison for life. Why go for the death penalty?

An eye for an eye, seems to be the driving force here. I am not a proponent of death penalty. However, people who commit crimes, need to be punished and given time to think over what they have done. Our society, the way it is set up, is very fragile and the laws are in place, so that the society doesn't descend to anarchy.

I have heard it a zillion times, that the United States is a land where people are given a second chance. Where is that philosophy when it comes to death penalty? Its not as if death penalty discourages serial killers and such atrocities. If you are not gonna desist someone from committing a crime with the prospect of life in prison, you definitely ain't gonna do it with death penalty. In fact, death penalty is an easier way out for those who commit the crimes. Instead of a life in prison, mulling over what they did, you are providing an easy escape by putting them to death. Taking someone's freedom is a harsher punishment than just taking their life.

I have heard from talking heads and interviews with the victim's families that the execution of the perpetrator, may provide closure on the issue. Really? No, Really? How do you attain closure where a loved one was so abruptly taken away from your life? How is it any different if the loved were to die in a car crash or an airplane accident? Time heals everything. I just cannot subscribe to the idea that watching the death of the perpetrator somehow brings closure. It is sick. In fact, it turns the clock back, thousands of years on "civilization" as we call it.

However, not everyone of the victim's families were gungho about the eye for an eye attitude. Bob Meyers, one of the 11 victim's brother, put it this way: "God calls for me to do that in the Bible and the second thing is related to that. If I don't, it rots me from the inside out. It doesn't really hurt John Muhammad or anybody that I have bitterness against."

In my opinion, if you are trying to run a civilized society, death penalty does not have a place in it. It feeds in to the basal blood thirst for revenge and nothing else.

Defending a Small Total

2009-11-03T17:35:00.020-05:00

I had mentioned in my previous post that I will write a 4 piece article on the different strategies in defending and chasing a total. This only applies to limited overs cricket. All my knowledge comes from watching Cricket for the last 25+ years and playing it for about the same time, plus competitive cricket since my high school years.

In this piece, I intend to address the question of defending a small total. Of course, all this is applicable when you have players that can execute your plans and ideas, more often than not. Else, its a vain academic exercise.

Since a lot of the competitive cricket I have played is of the 40-over format, I am going to discuss my strategies for trying to defend the small total with respect to that format. In a typical 40-0ver match, a total of 200-240 (at a run rate of 5-6 per over) is considered a safe total and anything above 160 (and less than 200) is a competitive total. However, for totals less than 160, you have a fight on your hands. Of all the one-day international matches (totally, 1919 to date), there have been only 144 matches where a team batting first, has scored less than 200 and won (Source: Cricinfo Statsguru). That 144 is out of 924 instances where a team scored less than 200, which is merely, about 16%.

1. Opening Gambit

While defending a small total, it is highly imperative that you pick up an early wicket or two. I always tried to use bowlers, not necessarily express pace, but those that have excellent control, up front. I provided them plenty of wicket taking options, when setting the field, while at the same time, provide a bit of cover, if the batsman come out smashing. A typical field set up would be, if the conditions assist the swinging ball - 2 slips, point, gully, cover, mid-off, deep midwicket, long on and straight-ish short midwicket. If there is not much swing, remove the slip and have a short cover. I try to have a deep midwicket and long on, just in case the other team has ideas of making a short work of the total. But, if they show any tentativeness up front, I'll bring another fielder in to put additional pressure and try to squeeze out a wicket.

2. Powerplay strategy

With the introduction of power plays in to the modern scheme of things, it adds an additional dimension to the game and another thing the fielding captain needs to think about during the course of the game. Since the fielding side is allowed only two fielders outside the circle, it becomes imperative that the chosen fielding positions are important. Not just stopping scoring options, but also as a wicket taking option. Sometimes, the bowlers want to keep a fine-leg, so that if they err in line, they don't get picked off for easy boundaries. Sure, that's good thinking, but that's not gonna cut it in power play. I prefer to have a deep midwicket as a default power play fielding position. In the leagues that we play in, the players, tend to be stroke makers more often than players who exploit gaps in the field. So, in my opinion, they usually cannot resist going over the top in the early overs and predominantly aim to target midwicket and given the width, square-point areas. If I have the confidence in my bowler to maintain a line at the stumps, I usually gave them protection for erring in length by giving them midwicket and perhaps a long on. (If they could maintain both length and the line, they should be playing at the international level).

3. Bowling line up - Saving the best bowlers for the end?

Its my nature, as is the norm pretty much anywhere, to start the defense of a small target with your best bowlers and hope for some early wickets. Let's say your opening gambit paid off, and you got a couple of quick wickets upfront. Then as the match progressed along, you got couple more wickets and the opponents have scored a few as well. Let's say, the score is 70-4 in 16 overs, while the winning target is 155. You have used 4 of your front line bowlers, bowling 4 overs. The dilemma now is: Do you use a 5th bowler or other part-timers and play the waiting game and bring on your best bowlers for the crunch in the end? My attitude is to go for the jugular when you get a chance. Even a sniff. Bring your best bowler on for an over or two and try to get a wicket is my advice.

4. Field setting during the middle overs

When the power play is over, teams tend to spread out the field and try to avoid giving away boundaries. My idea here usually is to set an inside-out field, meaning, you have sufficient players to stop easy singles and put pressure on the batsmen to go for risky shots, while providing decent cover at the boundary as well. During the power play, its 7-2 (7 inside the circle and 2 outside) or 8-1. After play, I prefer a 5-4 or 6-3. The boundary areas I like to plug, are deep midwicket, sweeper cover and long on. In some cases, I provide a long off as well and keep 5 inside the circle. In case of 6 inside, i keep a straightish midwicket, squareleg, short thirdman, point, cover and mid-off. In case of 5, the mid-off, moves to long-off.

5. Extra-curriculars

Its very important to keep the morale up at all times. Either the captain or the wicket keeper have to take the responsibility of keeping the chatter going through out. Yeah, your bowlers may get hit for a few, misfields may happen, catches may be dropped, but, you need to motor along with the chatter. Good body language from the captain and the wicket-keeper is a must for the other team members to follow suit.

I often took it upon myself (whether as a captain or as a player in the team) to needle the opposition a little bit to see where their temperament and focus is. As a bowler, once a while, I'll walk down the pitch and give the batsman a piece of my mind on what I think of him. I also preferred once in a while to stand at a short leg position to keep chatting away to distract the batsman. Throw in a couple of F-bombs here and there, to get them thinking about it rather than Cricket and perhaps, complain to the umpire. I have seen opponents complaining to umpires about my swearing and making comments about their mothers. Of course, outwardly, I'll pretend as if I did nothing wrong, but I know my job is done. I have the batsman focusing on something other than the job he is supposed to do!

6. End Game

If a lot of things go according to plan, you will be approaching the end overs with a fighting chance. Probably, the equation may look like this: 3-4 wickets in hand, 25-30 to get in 7-8 overs. I relish such situations. I think I have been in such a position may be, 8-10 times as a captain in different formats of the game. If my memory serves me right, my teams have lost, just once. With tailenders batting, I prefer to have a slip in place. Too often, Captains think of protecting the boundaries and forget about taking wickets. I mean, you need to take 3 wickets to win the game or prevent the other team from scoring 25-odd runs. As a captain, you need to know which of your bowlers are your "go-to-bowlers". Not just on skill, but mostly on temperament. Remember -- the team/player that keeps cool in such situations, will win out more often than not.

Its a bit of a cat-and-mouse game at this point. You need to choke off the easy ones and try to create tentativeness in the batsmen when they are going for 1s and 2s. Gives you an opportunity to get a run out. Here is the thing about bowling in the "death" overs - Keep it full, Keep it straight. End of Story. You don't need express pace.

When it gets really close, I usually step in and try to re-organize the field to give the batsmen something to think about and gives the bowler a breather. Typically, the bowler tries to rush through the over. In doing so, they get out of rhythm and might give away easy runs. Its my opinion that, you make the batsmen play the game at your pace. Slow the game down.

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I would rather act on a thought, than die wondering. I remember hearing it somewhere - "If a captain thinks that he should make a field adjustment or bring on a different bowler, he needs to act right away. Not wait for the end of the over (in terms of field placement) or wait for another 15 minutes. You have to lead with your instincts. There is no point in second-guessing or wondering what if. You make a decision on the field, you stick with it."

Not everything you plan, try on the field, is gonna work. Sometimes, everything you try may work, and you may still lose. But, at least, you can go home with the satisfaction that you tried. Everything.

To Do List

2009-10-23T11:24:00.002-04:00

Following up on the theme from my previous post on Cricket captaincy, I am thinking of writing a 4 piece article on the approaches to winning a match. I want to put down my thoughts on approaches to chasing a target (big and small), defending a target (big and small), setting a total etc.

The Art of Captaincy

2009-10-13T20:01:00.007-04:00

I am no Mike Brearley, but I have some experience in captaining a Cricket team. The first time I ever captained a team was when I was 11 or 12. It was a bunch of 6th and 7th graders playing cricket matches over the summer. There were not many strategies involved back then, because all you are trying to do is, just play and hope you win. The skill levels -unless you are wunderkind like Sachin Tendulkar - have barely developed and you do not much have a clue. You have a general idea of the concepts of the game and you run with it.

By sheer luck, I ended being the captain of the Penn State Cricket Club in 2003. The regular captain, was not present for the toss for a game, and since I was serving in an ad hoc role in the running of the club, the team members told me to go for the toss and the following week, since the regular captain could not travel for the game, I served as the captain and we won the game. It was a miserable season. The game for which I was the captain, was our second win in 8 games or so. However, I continued as captain for the rest of the season and the following season as well. I took the lead in the running of the practice sessions and people seemed to be comfortable playing under my captaincy. We won a couple more games that season but I started picking up on the little things that contribute to winning the games.

When you play in an amateur cricket league, albeit competitive, like we did, the skill levels are pretty even amongst the teams. The team that wins a game, is usually the won that wins the important moments in the game. PSCC lost about 4 games under my captaincy the first season in 2003, where we thought we had the upper hand three-fourths in to the game. This served as an important lesson for me, personally. The ability to identify moments in the game that will have a big influence in the outcome of the game. The captain, if not the team, needs to identify these moments before they actually materialize on the field, put the fielders in right position, have the right set of bowlers or batsmen operating. For example, let's say, we are defending 155 in 40 overs. The other team is 58 for 4 and is facing an uphill battle. They are looking to build a decent partnership and consolidate. So, they will try to avoid taking risks as much as possible. So, here, as the fielding captain, I would want to pack the inner circle with fielders to save the ones and twos, and dare them to take risks, if they wanna score runs. I have seen other captains - not only in the league we play in, but on the international level - back off slightly, to get through the overs and bowl their 5th and 6th bowlers. Typically, I try to bring on my best bowler of the day, or someone I think has shown to me in practice or earlier matches that he could really attack the batsmen. Of course, the fielders need to back up the bowlers and a captain is only as good as the team.

There was a conversation I had with my lieutenants from the season of 2004, Gautam and Viren, while sipping on cold beers, on the eve of a game. The 2004 season had started not so well for us, but we started to put together some wins and we were on a roll. I thought I had figured out how to make us win. I made, routinely, the right moves on the field, and the players seemed to enjoy playing and travelling. Viren told me that he was not happy with the way I was leading the team and that was a big blow to my ego. I swallowed my pride and asked him to elaborate. He mentioned that, although the players are having fun playing and winning games, the way I was on the field and during practice sessions left a lot to be desired. Especially, when it came to listening to the players. He was of the opinion that I did not listen enough to the players and it would only be a matter of time before players start resenting me. Especially, if we start losing a few games. Since we were winning a fair bit, and at least competing in games compared to the previous season, players were putting up with my bullshit.

Viren said, "Look. You need to pay attention to what the players have to say. You may not agree with their inputs. You may think it is downright wrong. But at least, pretend like you are listening. For some of us who have been here playing for the last 2 seasons, know how you do things but for the new comers, it does not sit right with them." It is one of the most important piece of advice I have received. The need to empower your players. The need for your players to feel that they have their captain's attention and the captain is listening and not treated like a child. I have tried to incorporate that since that day and provided avenues and space for the players on the team to come forward with their opinions and suggestions.

Another thing I learned was that the team, if they have been playing together for a reasonable amount of time, takes the character of the captain. Its extremely important for the captain to project an air of confidence, no matter the situation. There have been matches when we had no business winning. It goes with out saying that you need some feisty characters in your team, that just refuse to lose. A particular match from 2005 comes to mind. The opposite team needed 30 odd runs, with 6 wickets in hand and a lot of overs to go. If I were a gambling person, I would not put money on us. Against the run of play, I got a direct-hit run out, Charan bowled unbelievable well and dried up the runs and took a wicket. Viren got a couple of wickets, the fielders tried to back up the bowlers, there was a buzz on the field that we just can't lose. With only 6 runs needed, we got the final wicket and was one of the best wins I have been part of, with PSCC.

Typically, a team is made up of a handful of players who have played for a while, some really good players, some role players and a few who are new to the scene. It is the captain's job to make sure everyone is treated the same way, with no special concessions for any particular player. I would like to think I did a decent job of it. In fact, I would do the opposite of special concessions. I would be hard on some the of really good players to show the rest of the team that, no matter how good you are, you would be treated like just any other player and not to expect any special treatment.

There is a particular strategy I follow when we are batting first. I always give a small target to the players, that I think is a winning total. So, even if we were to lose some quick wickets, my players know that the target we need to get -that we could defend- is not far away and hence, they could play with freedom. For example, in a 40-over game, I always tell my players that, if we can get 120, we can defend it. It will be mighty tight, we have to bowl and field out of our skins, need to execute and have a couple of lucky breaks, but it is possible. Whenever I have played in the Penn State Cricket Tournaments, I always make 50 as the winning total (12-over game). In fact, we have successfully, defended 2 or 3 times, such low totals. Yeah, its nerve-wracking and your margin of error is pretty much, non-existent. But the adrenaline rush you get when you come through with the game on the line is well worth it!

Another thing I do as a captain is to take the pressure off of the team and put it squarely on me. During these games, there are situations when the people from other team could pick on someone "sledge" and I wanted to be the target of that, so that my players can focus on what they have to do, rather than have their attention distracted by inane comments. Growing up, I played backyard cricket with my 6 older brothers. Being the youngest, they would pick on me and constantly make fun of me etc. There were times when I would break down and walk off. But as they kept doing it, I made a pact to myself that I am not gonna let them get me out, no matter how hard they try. I would take blows to the body and never respond to their "sledging". While I was playing in IT-BHU, the comments from people outside the field of play (or "hooting" as we used to call it) was so extreme, that the things people say during a match here in Penn State or in Washington D.C. games, feel like compliments. So, these days, I take every opportunity to get under the skin of the other team. If they lose their cool and we get a wicket, great. If they make me the target of their sledging, better!

If you have a good team, like I did in the recently concluded tournament at Penn State, Captaincy is the easiest job in the world. Every one knows what to do, and have the skills to back it up. All you are doing then is, setting up a batting order and a bowling line up. However, the true test of captaincy is when you have a so-so team and/or facing adversity. The key things to remember (in my opinion anyway) are:

1. Project an air of confidence that you are not gonna let your team lose. Its infectious.

2. Manage the egos of the players.

3. Make sure everybody feels like they are a part. A part of something bigger than them.

4. Give the team small goals that they can achieve and let them play with freedom. You don't wanna tell the team, in its first game, they need to win the finals.

5. Identify the big moments of the game and make sure you dominate the other team on those!

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P.S. In my opinion, MS Dhoni is an unbelievably good captain. Team India, totally, lucked in to him. If not for weird circumstances before the T20 World Cup in 2007, where all the senior players chose to rest, he would not have become the captain. The aura of calm he oozes of, no matter the game situation, I am really envious of that. Although Ganguly was very instrumental in changing the image of Indian Cricket and providing an "edge" to the team, he looked like a nervous wreck when the games were close and I didn't think that's good for the morale of the team. I think Dhoni is the Indian version of Steve Waugh, Captain Cool, Ice Man, whatever.

Say Whaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt?!?!?!!?!?

2009-10-09T13:46:00.003-04:00

Listen, I am huge supporter of Barack Obama. I think he has an absolutely fascinating personality. But, Nobel Peace Prize? Already?? Hmm.. Come on... Norwegians are getting lazy.

Finally!

2009-10-09T12:43:00.009-04:00

Last weekend, The Penn State Fall 2009 Cricket Tournament was held. It was on a brand spanking new pitch that has been laid down through the efforts of a lot of PSCC members and the grounds keeping crew at Penn State. Once the astro turf get laid on top this concrete beauty, it will be perfect for traditional Cricket. Can't wait.

I have taken part in these "hard tennis ball" cricket tournament since its inception in 2004, in one form or another. I organized it couple of times (of course, with lots of help from the PSCC office bearers and other club members) and have participated as a player/captain a few more times. The closest I have come to winning the whole darn thing was last year, when the team got to the finals only to be completely outplayed and outclassed by the Nittany Warriors (led by an able but often short-tempered Sridhar). In the spring of this year, we ran in to Sridhar's team again but this time in Semis and were duly kicked out. They just had more talent and skill on their side, and we played poorly as well.

For this tournament, the prime mover was Mahesh aka Matter. He contacted three months before the tournament and gave me a list of people that we could put together and spelled out how desperate he was to put it across to Sridhar's team (Mahesh's team lost to them in the last tournament finals). He had an ace up his sleeve, which was very crucial to our eventual success in the tournament (Oh right, I did mention we won the tournament this time in my last post, correct?)

Vikram Kumar was the much sought after player prior to this tournament. Sridhar wanted im, Matter wanted him on our team, and I played along. You can look up his cricinfo page! (That's right, we had a player on our team who has his own cricinfo page!! Beat that!). Through a lot of negotiations, back room machinations, dozens of phone calls and emails, it was decided that Vikram was gonna play for our team. We originally had planned on bringing back some PSCC alums and also players from our Washington D.C. league team. On paper, we looked unbeatable and I even suggested we should print a t-shirt with "Champions 2009 Fall Cricket Tournament" on the back. The idea was shot down by majority and we only got a sweat shirt made!

The tournament format was slightly different this time, than all the prior tournaments. 10 teams; Points alloted for wins, run rates, wickets taken; Top 8 go through to quarterfinals and so on. We had our first match early Saturday morning (Oct 3). Due to some last minute situations, we did not get the same team that Mahesh and I had envisioned a month ago, but still we had a very solid team. Here is the line up: Mahesh, Vijay (Mahesh's high school buddy, who is now in Georgia Tech), Charith (PSU), Viren (PSCC alum), Shreyas aka Matla (DC team), Vickey, Rohan, Rampu, Vikram and me (All PSU). We had a good mix of batsmen, bowlers and all rounders, and more importantly, people with good cricket IQ. It has been my experience in all this time of playing organized Cricket -- Skills and talents can win you matches, but people with reasonable talent levels but high cricket IQ can win matches and tournaments. They just know the basics and can be consistent. Simple little things like backing up a throw coming in from the outfield, cut down on risks when you have to, while batting etc. For whatever reason, Mahesh had asked me to be the Captain of this team (There was no other way for me to force my way in to this talent laden team :) and I must admit, I did not have to do much captaincy when everyone just knows what they have to do. All I had to do was to make the bowling changes, here and there, get a set batting line-up by the time we get to Semis, tinker around a little to make sure everyone has had some form going in to Semis and are comfortable in their roles.

As luck would have it, we played the same team in our first two rounds and we whupped them. Both times, we got to bat first. Matter, Charith and Vikram buried them in the first match and I think we scored 120-odd in 12 overs. We restricted them to 60-odd. In the Quarter finals, facing the team and knowing exactly what was required against this team, we scored 180+ and got them out for 104. Our bowling looked really flat in the second match and way too many easy runs were given away. However, I noticed during this match that Matla does not get flustered by having to bowl late in the innings when the pressure is on. Although, we bowled not so well, I had the confidence in bowlers as they have come through many a time in the past. Our batsmen were clicking on all cylinders and our fielding was okay as well. Now on to the semis.

Funny thing happened on the way to the semis. The two strongest teams - on paper and according to me - were ours and Sridhars. However, it turned out, after the first round matches, these two teams were seeded 2 and 3, meaning, we will be meeting each other before the Finals. Lo and Behold, both the teams kept their promise and here we were, in the Semis, baying for each other's blood and Matter - for revenge. As Matter and I told each other, "Enough is Enough. Its time!".

As it turned out, it was one of the most gripping matches of the tournament (as you can expect when two really good teams go at each other) with its share of controversies. Words were exchanged, feathers ruffled, some names were called before and during the match. We lost the toss and were asked to bat first by Sridhar. We lost the early wicket of Vijay to a run out (I am still not convinced) and built a platform after the early set back. We were aided by some shoddy fielding effort where 3 catches were put down (2 of Vikram's no less). We had a reasonable effort going when the match turned on its head, when Akhil took 3 wickets in an over, including Vikram. He was going for a cute paddle shot (which he had executed in the earlier over too) and was bowled. In a split second, we were facing a severe setback with 56 runs on board and 5 wickets down already. Mahesh held one end up, scored a few lusty blows, Rohan aided him with a few of his one and we got to a really fighting total of 121 in the alloted 15 overs.

Its a middle of the road total, where you need a solid bowling and fielding effort to stay in the game and compete. By now, I had a good read on our bowlers and their abilities and temperament. It was absolutely crucial that we get an early breakthrough and that's exactly what Vijay gave the team, by bowling one of their better batsmen - Rahul - around his legs. There was a quiet period where the Nittany Warriors were focussed on consolidating and did an admirable job. They completely avoided any risks but took full toll when the opportunities were there to score. Going in to the break after 8 overs, it was very even-steven, with the Warriors at 44 for the loss of 1 wicket; 78 required in 7 overs with 7 wickets in hand. Very possible.

Right after the break, Viren took one of their batsmen out and in walked their captain, Sridhar. He played some exquisite and innovative shots and kept his team in the game. I knew, one wicket here, especially that of Sridhar, we will be cruising home. Controversy ensued with a catch at the boundary by Matter, off Sridhar, no less and the umpires decided that its not a catch. Off the very next ball, Sridhar was run out, going for a non-existent third run!! The floodgates were open and we took wickets every over and with an unlikely 24 required of the last over, Matla delivered a gem of an over and we were through to the Finals. The Man of the Match has to be Mahesh for his match-winning knock and helping us to a fighting total. Sweet revenge for him!

I umpired the next semifinal and knew from the looks of it, no matter which of these two gets through, they stood no chance. There was a mild upset in the 2nd semifinal which made our jobs of winning the finals, just a formality. We lost the toss (yet again.. 0 for 4) and bowled first. We kept them on a tight leash and restricted them to 90-odd in 15 overs. Matla, once again bowled brilliantly (took a five-fer), along with Viren.Vijay and Charith opened the batting and were scoring at more than 11 an over. Though we lost 2 wickets, the final outcome was never in question and Vikram got the winning run with a long single to long-off. So, after many attempts, here we are.. Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Fall 2009 Champions of the Penn State Cricket Tournament, The Cup Thookers!

Back Row (L to R): Vickey Kalaskar, Viren Patel, Charith Tammineedi, Vikram Kumar

Front Row (L to R): Subash Jayaraman, Mahesh Krishnamurti, Rohan Shirwaiker, Vijay Narayanan, Shreyas Shah

All the Way in the Front: THE TROPHY.

Update: Vikram was declared the "Player of the Tournament" for his batting and the phenomenal glove work behind the wicket. I think he had his hand in at least 50% of all the wickets we took.

The Three Week Blur

2009-10-08T17:08:00.003-04:00

Its been a while since I posted here. The last three weeks have been really hectic at work and the weekends have been spent on going to and coming from places. I have had to attend a conference, a workshop, write a proposal, put together lectures for a course in Malaysia and win a cricket tournament in the last 3 weeks.

I attended a conference in Philadelphia, where I stayed in a hotel that was literally just around the corner from the Phillies Baseball Park, Eagles Stadium. I heard from a friend that there is a chance we could tickets to go to a Phillies game and that too VIP section. However, that didn't pan out, sadly. The conference was mostly for networking and it was alright. Met up with some old friends while there.

The following week I went to a workshop for companies that were awarded a research contract by the National Science Foundation. I stayed in the hotel where the workshop was held, Hyatt Regency. It was the first time I have ever stayed in Hyatt, and I must say, its pretty good. One of the most comfortable rooms and very pleasing ambiance. Even the blinds were very stylish. Flat screen TV, Oak desks, funky lamps. All in all, it was a pleasant stay!

Few cool things happened while I was at the workshop:

1. 10 minutes in to the workshop, I noticed a very familiar face. It was one of my buddies (Pradeep Bhatta) from Penn State circa 2000. He had moved to Princeton University and I had not seen him in 9 years. Like me, he is also a Cricket nut. I was glad to see he still had all the characteristics that defined him during his stay at Penn State.

2. I was on the phone while this guy walked up to me and said, "Hey, I know you!". He looked familiar but I couldn't place. It turned out that he and I graduated from IT-BHU in 1998 together and stayed in the same dorm. We reminisced the good ol' days and caught up on friends from the past!

3. This another guy - about 50 years old, while Pradeep and I were chatting up, approached us and introduced himself and started talking to us. Eventually, he asked me, where I went to college in India and when I mentioned, burst out laughing. Even he went to IT-BHU and graduated in 1980 and is a professor in the U.S. and has set up his own company. We exchanged contact info and talked about the sense of entrepreneurship you find in Indians..... Good times.

During the workshop, I had a deadline for an Airforce proposal and I had to pull all nighters to get the stuff done. When I got back to State College, I had to prepare for the Fall Cricket Tournament. I have led teams to Semis and Finals before but never won. This year, I knew, I was taking a loaded team, but still, we had to go out and get it, which we did. I shall write a whole post on the tournament with pictures. This week has been relatively quiet compared to all the craziness of the past 3 weeks. Oh by the way, During all this madness, The Champions Trophy took place in South Africa, India got kicked out in the first round, Australia won the whole darn thing. Bleh!

09-09-09

2009-09-11T17:04:00.003-04:00

This eccentric date marks the two-year anniversary of my relationship with Special K. India, here we come.

Bite My Shiny Technological Ass!

2009-09-10T16:02:00.003-04:00

I am sure all of us have gone through the experience of staring at the download process status bars that show how much of the data has been downloaded and how much more to go! Even though it might say the expected time left, we keep staring at it, hoping against hope, that somehow, it will accelerate and get done.

Of course, there are many situations you just get fed up, curse the network connection and close the whole darn thing! There is a limit to it, Isn't it? A tech company in South Africa, "Unlimited IT" got so fed up with the internet network speeds available there, performed a stunt where they attached a data card to the feet of a pigeon and the pigeon beat out the elctronic transfer of data to Capetown from Pietermaritzburg, a distance of 50 miles. The news report mentioned that, including the time to obtain the data from the card, the pigeon data transfer route took only 2:06:57 during which time, the internet network transferred a grand total of 4%. The pigeon took little more than an hour to cover the 50 miles. (Of course, the leave out the amount of data that was transferred). Weird wild stuff!

Murder by Cricket

2009-09-03T23:15:00.006-04:00

"I fixate on a New Zealand fielder, a guy named Bond. Black shirt, black pants, black hat, black wraparound shades. He's dressed to fight high-tech vampires. Standing in the equivalent of deep left field, he's basically removed from the action; during the 20 minutes I watch him, not a single ball comes his way.

Still, he fidgets. Swings his arms. Claps his hands. Crouches on every bowled ball, staring intently at the batter, alert as a fire alarm. Ready to move. And here, I realize, is the sport in a nutshell: a game of perpetual focus, not wham-bam fireworks, a game akin to a candle in an empty wine bottle, perfectly attuned to slow-burn obsession."

Excerpt from "Murder by Cricket" by ESPN's Patrick Hruby. The article was written to cover the death of Bob Woolmer, during the 2007 World Cup in West Indies. Funny thing is, I was at this game (where the above action was described from), expecting India to be playing NZ but alas, it wasn't to be!

Just Because...

2009-09-02T00:55:00.008-04:00

I was on the road today with my boss, traveling to a couple of meetings intended on enhancing collaborations on our company’s proposals to conduct R&D in to certain Structural Health Monitoring applications. My boss has himself a XM Radio subscription and we listen to a lot of talk radio whenever we are on such road trips and these inevitably lead to discussions between the two of us about geo-socio-economic politics. Since nearly 90% of talk radio in the U.S. is hosted by conservative talking heads, I get to hear a lot of the viewpoints that I don’t really subscribe to, on a variety of topics, ranging from abortion to healthcare, everything in between and beyond.

During one such discussion with my boss today, he mentioned that probably all the black people voted for Barack Obama in the recent presidential election and of course, I contended that is not possible. This point came up because he thought that the liberal, left-wing machinery is the main reason for the lack of improvement in the lives of the minorities, especially, blacks, as this left-wing is more in to providing welfare and other such initiatives, that it desists people from actually getting of their asses and change things about their lives, you catch my drift. Blacks, he surmised, probably voted Democratic usually. Neither of us could actually vouch for it, as 1) We did not grow up as minority in this country and 2) We cannot really understand or comprehend the feelings of growing black in America. He mentioned that the blacks must’ve had so much invested in the success of Obama (one of their own) that they would’ve voted for him en masse.

This is like saying, just because you are Muslim living in India, you must secretly be rooting for Pakistan, which is utterly ridiculous thing to even insinuate. You cannot question someone’s integrity and their love and commitment for their country, just because they are not in majority. Its like saying, only whites have claim to patriotism in the U.S. (Well, it depends on what kind of whites you ask this. Recently, there was a video of a woman crying – in regard to the healthcare reform tamasha that’s been going on – and saying, “She wants her America – the America she grew up in – back”. I do not know what she means by that! Perhaps, she wants the America where Republicans were liberal and Democrats of the South were pro-slavery. Perhaps, she wants her America where it was mainly only whites that ran the country, I don’t know. Daily Show had an interesting piece on this that was absolutely brilliant and infinitely hilarious!)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Reform Madness - White Minority

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Healthcare Protests

An interesting thing happened a week or so before the presidential election in October 2008.I was waiting at a bus stop to take the bus home and there were lots of election volunteers going around registering people to vote etc. There was a girl volunteer who approached a guy – who was black – and asked him whether he had registered to vote. He said yes, she probed further – she was from the local Democratic Party chapter – as to whether he has chosen a candidate. He said yes and she further wanted to know, if he didn’t mind, whom he was leaning towards. There was an interesting dynamic in action, right there. She didn’t assume right away that since he was black, he must be Pro-Obama and he wanted to see how far she would go. He duly said he is leaning Republican and McCain. They got in to a little chitchat about the pros and cons of the candidates (Pros of the candidate they were supporting, and Cons of the other candidate). I was standing about three feet away from them and watched the entire thing unfold. Soon my bus showed up and I had to leave, but before I boarded the bus, I inserted myself in to their conversation and indicated as a foreigner, how I felt about the candidates and moved on.

During our return trip, we listened to some more conservative radio and lo and behold, there were some callers on the show that were blacks who said they did not vote for Obama. For crying out loud, The RNC Chairman is black and I’m assuming he didn’t vote for Obama either.

Now, as to what my boss thought about NOT all blacks voting for Obama – Well, I did not want to do the whole, “I told you so!” routine. I know he heard those callers on the radio show and he shall come to his own realizations.

Sachin's First Test Match Century

2009-09-01T16:25:00.005-04:00

I remember reading in the sports pages of "The Hindu" how bravely the 17 years and 112 days old wunderkind batted while coming in when the team was in dire straits and fought to avoid defeat, and in the process, became the second youngest century maker in test match cricket in history (Damn you, John Wright. He could've been the youngest!). The only thing I remember from the match is a photograph of Eddie Hemmings dropping a Caught & Bowled chance when Sachin was on 10 (Is that correct?). Anyway, recently, I spotted this video on youtube. Enjoy!

Also, If anyone has video of Sachin's debut match against Pakistan in the 1989-90 series, please forward it to me or send the link. Cheers!

Okay, Here is an idea for a book

2009-08-13T16:47:00.003-04:00

I was chatting with my buddy about random things recently when I sort of blurted out what became an idea for a book. Of course, its gonna be on Cricket. What did you expect?

Let me lay it on you and let me know what you think: I have always wanted to write about Cricket (as a hobby and if possible, for a living). However, I am severely crippled when it comes actually putting the thoughts and ideas on paper in an eloquent fashion. I can hold an interesting conversation (interesting to me anyway!) especially about Cricket, the history, the nuances of only the most beautiful game on the face of the planet, the little intricacies and the passions.

I will be turning 33 at the end of this year and I have actively followed the game of Cricket for as long as I can remember. It involved initially going to Sunday games with my brothers, listening to the commentary in Tamil and English (and Hindi sometimes) on the AIR, watching the games on neighbor's TV, reading about it in the sports papes of "The Hindu" and then re-living it on the pages of "Sportstar". I have been a passionate fan of Indian cricket and have seen the origin, growth and maturing of one of the finest cricketers ever (of course, its Sachin) and have been lucky with the advent of Internet to have followed the game from afar and even, go to a World Cup tournament.

I am sure there are fans as crazed and nuts as me (probably more) that have passionate and fond memories and thoughts about their respective national team and players of their childhood and youth and beyond. What if, I could get a handful of these cricket crazies and have them contribute chapters to a book that will chronologically record the game of cricket (from a fan's perspective, remember) starting 1975 or 1980 up to now? These could be essentially short stories from each of these fans. For example, 1981 HAS to be accorded to an English fan (or an Australian). (Why, you ask, 1981? Ah! You are not a cricket fan then!). 2001 has to be given to an Indian fan and probably 1998 as well. 2005 could again be given to English/Oz fan. 1992 has to written by a Pakistani fan. You get my drift.

After having been in Penn State for so long, I have developed relationships with an eclectic (always loved that word, and finally got an opportunity to plug it) group of people who share a passion for Cricket. A lot of Indians (of course), a few Aussies, more than a few Pakistanis, some English, a couple of Sri Lankans, South Africans, and West Indians. (I am yet to meet a New Zealander).

Perhaps, I could rope these fellas in and pitch the idea and see where it goes. As I was telling my buddy, if this arrangement doesn't work, fuck it -- we will just have the contributors all from India, I am sure there is a market for Indian fan perspective on the last 30 years of Cricket.. Yep, only a billion strong!

Growing up with Sachin - Part 1

2009-07-22T16:16:00.003-04:00

I very vividly remember reading the article on the magazine sportstar about the wunderkind (not even sure back then how to pronounce that word) from Mumbai that had been signed by the Yorkshire county cricket club, the first cricketer to be born outside Yorkshire to be signed by the club. I was on my way to school (10th grade - 1992) on the bus and I had taken the magazine from home to read during the bus ride. I remember the goosebumps I felt while reading the article. There he was, holding a cricket bat (it had the "Power" logo" and I felt so proud.

I used to read the sports section in the newspaper "The Hindu" religiously everyday. We did not have a TV in our household till 1998. The only way I could stay in touch with not only sports, but news in general, was to devour the newspaper and listen to the radio. Growing up, my brothers listenened to every cricket match that was broadcast on the "All India Radio" and that was instilled in me as well. Every chance I got, I listened to the live commentary of cricket matches. For matches that were taking place in Australia and England, I would listen to shortwave radio.

There was a buzz about a kid named Sachin Tendulkar in 1989 (I was twelve and he was fifteen) from Bombay who was setting all kinds of records by scoring centuries on domestic cricket debut and he has been fast-tracked to the Indian cricket team on its cricket tour to Paksitan. Sachin's returns from the tour was average but there was a legend born as you read stories about how he played the Pakistani pace bowlers and refused to leave the field even after getting hit on the face by a Waqar Younis' bouncer.

Then came the tour of New Zealand in 1989-90 where he came so close to scoring a century (out 88) and was stopped when the future Indian Cricket Coach John Wright took the catch. I was rooting for Sachin to get that 100 and set the record for the youngest century maker in test cricket. Eventually, he scored the 100 in England in a match he helped India avoid defeat. It still is very vividly etched in my memory, the photograph of Eddie Hemmings dropping a caught & bowled chance off Tendulkar when he was on 10. Sachin batted in the company of Manoj Prabhakar and drew the test match at Old Trafford.

I feel so lucky having grown up in the era of Sachin Tendulkar, as do a millions of other Indians, probably. Cricket was instilled in me at a very young age as having 6 older brothers really helped. Our family on Sundays would go to a local cricket ground (slightly out of town) and would play typically from 8 AM till Noon. We played a a lot of backyard cricket as well. India had won the Cricket world cup in 1983 (I was 6) and there were two outstanding cricketers from India at that time, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev and a third one was beginning to emerge in 1985 (Mohammad Azharuddin) who scored three consective centuries against England in a home series. There was a definite cricket craze going through the country at that time, and India won the Benson & Hedges series in Australia in 1985 as well. India reached the semi finals of the world cup in 1987 and Sunil Gavaskar retired in 1989. And, Sachin exploded on to the stage and captured the imagination of a country.

The tour of Australia in 1991-92 followed by the Cricket world cup there was when I started following the matches on TV (at my buddy's place). India lost the 5 match test series 4-0 (drawing only in Sydney) but the legend of Sachin grew out of this tour. Ian Healy called the Sachin's inning of 116 at a lightning quick track in Perth, as "one of the finest batting display I have ever seen". Merv Hughes, the big, burly, mustachioed fast bowler, is known to have said to the then Australian captain Allan Border about Sachin as, "This little prick's gonna get more runs than you, AB". Sachin scored a huge 148 at Sydney along with Ravi Shastri who scored a 206. It was the debut match of a blonde Victorian, who would go on to become the leading wicket taker in Test cricket, Shane Warne. I read the match report in the newspaper and then in Sportstar, over and over again, trying to memorize the stats from that match. One thing besides Sachin and Shastri's personal score, that has stuck with me from that match is that, Shane Warne took 1 for 153 from 30 odd overs. Don Bradman, considered the finest batsman to have ever played the game, both statistically and artistically, is said to have told his wife Jessie, to take a look at this kid on television, who reminded of himself playing! The legend of Sachin Tendulkar was well and truly established.

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Check back for Parts 2 and 3.

A much needed cricket tool

2009-07-06T10:50:00.004-04:00

There was an article on Cricinfo recently about the need for a rating tool to standardize the efforts of fielders in the glorius game of Cricket. Cricket's ugly cousin, Baseball, is so steeped in stats. They have the RBI, OPS, ERA, Fielding percentage and all that to keep the interest of a number nerd plugged in to the game and provide gazillion different ways of approaching the game from the points of view of manager, player, pitcher etc. Cricket has its share of number crunching but its traditionally in rating the batsmen and bowlers. That shows how much of a backseat the fielding standards had taken a back seat to the pure skills of batting and bowling. Fielding (ground fielding, catching and throwing) are such an integral part of the modern cricket game.

With the one day international introduced in the 1970's and the fans' interest in the shortened version of the game, gave birth to a new breed of cricketers that were pure athletes. They could bat a bit, perhaps bowl a bit, but were absolutely electric on the field,, cutting down easy runs, taking acrobatic catches, scoring direct hit run outs... The Twenty20 game, a furhter shortened format of cricket, that lasts only 3 hours and is more palatable for TV viewing for the modern day, fast-food munching, short attention spanned viewers. Fielding standards have become a lot better these days and especially in the Twenty20, couple of runs saved here and there, ultimately decide the winner in this wham-bam cricket.

Now that we have established the value of fielding in not only saving a few runs, but actually playing an immense role in winning the match, it becomes neccesary to actually come up with tools that quantify the fielding quality of the cricket players. There might even come a day, when players who are "fielding specialists" are part and parcel of the game. Perhaps, somewhat similar to pinch runners and defensive replacements in baseball towards the later part of a baseball game.

I was at my buddy's apartment yesterday and shooting the wind while I came with this idea. I am copyrighting, trademarking the idea right here. It begins with a GPS chip. Current international cricketers are decked out in their fancy outfits, sneakers, hats and sunglasses. The GPS chip could be installed in any of this accesory. There exists already a software in Cricket that tracks the scoring shots of batsmen. Basically, it plots the direction and distance of the shot hit by the batsmen and the runs scored by them as a result of these shots. My idea incorporates that in to 10 m diameter circle around any particular fielder. The 5 m on either side of the fielder is his range. The efficiency of the fielder to stop anything within 5 m of his fielding position will be quantified. If he makes an effort to cut down the scoring shot and keep the scoring down, that will be noted down . So, you have a computer screen on the analyst screen in the production trailer or wherever they keep these background people that tracks the location of all 11 fielders in the field. It will display a 5m radius circle around each of these fielders. When a batsman hits a shot towards a particular fielder, if it is within that 5m circle, the fielder's effort in cutting down that shot and keeping the scoring down will be noted. This way, it will be easier to see the number of runs a particular fielder saved during the course of a match. The 5m range will be graded into 1m wide regions (basically, 5 concentric circles). Each circle away from the fielder would indicate a level of difficulty. From 0-1 m, easy; 4-5 m difficult, and everything in between, graded out. The farther the ball is from the fielder, the harder it is to stop it, Isn't it? So, a composite number could be derived based on the different levels of difficulty fielding efort produced by the fielder.

Initially, this idea could be trialled in county matches, or domestic Twenty20 tournaments and then, eventually in all formats of the game. Its about time the fielders got their due.

The name for this technology??? Let me hear it. First thing that popped in my head was "Fielderange".

Bye Bye 377

2009-07-02T15:45:00.004-04:00

Today is a big day in the life of gays in India. Its been long overdue. A colonial law that criminalizes homosexual relationships was adopted in to the Indian Penal Code when it was written in the 50's, has been deemed unconstitutional.

I have had several conversations with people near and far about the rights of homosexuals to be with one another, their rights to marriage etc. It, of course, was a rallying issue during the U.S. presidential elections. In the U.S. the homosexual marriage rights becomes a platform issue during every election cycle but the speed of news cycle with all the 24 hour news channels, it gets on the backburner sooner than later, sadly.

I first read the news about the Delhi High Court's judgement that it is not criminal to practice homosexuality in India on google news feed and read some more related stories on BBC and other news websites. I also wanted to read the comments section on some of these stories to see the reactions of people who feel compelled to actually login and comment on these news sites. I have never had the motivation to actually register and comment no matter how compelling the storyline is. A lot of the times I get put off by reading the comments on these sites because it quickly degenerates in to name calling, racist taunts and all that and I could not associate myself with it, so I never felt the need to comment there.

The comments fell pretty much along two lines: homosexuality is a sin and immoral, and this high court ruling is shoving homosexuality down their throats, and the other view was supportive of the ruling. BBC also published views of people from different walks of Indian life as well. One that really caught my eye is the following:

"Dr PV Cherian, medical doctor, Chennai - I am not very happy about this ruling.I am a Christian believer and I think homosexuality is a sickness affecting men and women, that is increasing these days in our affluent materialistic society.God intended us to enjoy normal sex between faithful heterosexual married partners. Discrimination is not a good thing and I everyone should enjoy freedom of choice. But freedom of choice is a dangerous thing, because sometimes we choose the wrong things. Freedom is harmful. I pray for homosexual people to realise their mistake. They need to be educated."

Here is a medical doctor, who has got the best possible education - definitely lot more than an average Indian. He still thinks homosexuality is a sickness. Firstly, he is wrong in saying that homosexuality is a sickness. Secondly, he does not know how much freedom people should be allowed to have. Thirdly, he contradicts himself within the space of two sentences. He thinks discrimination is bad but also, freedom of choice is only applicable, when the choice is something that he can agree with. What a hypocrite! He needs to be educated in the meaning of freedom.

This brings us to a more relevant point. Although the courts have ruled that it is prefectly legal to engage in homosexual sex in India, how will an averge Indian view it? Of course, it will take a long time before a majority of Indians accept the homosexual lifestyle among some of their fellow countrymen. The current activist movement seems to be more concentrated in urban areas. At the very least, this ruling guarantees the rights of ALL Indians to engage in whatever sort of personal relationships they may deem fit and its no body else's business but theirs alone. At the very least, the gays of India do not have to fear for Policemen harassing them. At the very least, they could be tested if they like, for HIV in a clinic and receive treatment if needed, without fear of 10 years in jail. At the very least, this is the first stepping stone for couples like these.

Here are my thoughts on this: The courts needed to deal with the civil rights issue. People are unneccesarily bringing in their moral values in to the equation. The Indian constitution guarantees all the basic personal freedoms and rights. The rights of the homosexuals come very much under this umbrella. They too are citizens of India and no worse or better than any other Indian. To prevent a section of the country (however small or large it is) from exercising their rights based on moral opinions that have been derived from their religious faiths is unconstitutional. For example, it was illegal in a lot of the states in the U.S. for people of different races to marry till 1967. In the current day and age, that sort of law sounds extremely ludicrous. However, you'll be surprised to know that it did not come off the books in the State of Alabama till 2000. Although, no one was arrested or persecuted in Alabama for interracial marriages, the fact that the law was in the books is utterly unbelievable and unconstitutional.

Similarly, the overwhleming majority of homosexuals in India were not arrested or harassed by policemen eventhough the Indian Penal Code 377 professed homosexuality as a criminal offense. However, its unconstitutional and it needed to go and finally, it has. I do not know how long it will be before homosexuality is accepted in India by a overwhelming majority of Indians. This ruling alone is not gonna make it happen. Its an uphill fight for the LGBT community and all the other rights groups in India but I am sure, this ruling has given them a renewed sense of purpose and filled winds in their sails.

You may or may not agree with homosexuality. You may think its a sickness. You may think they need to be saved and cured. But one thing you can't deny in a democratic society is the fundamental rights of people. You can't deny the rights of an individual to be with someone they love. You can't deny their rights to be married to each other. At least, not forever.

Lord Sachin is Mr. Cricket

2009-03-25T14:19:00.001-04:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/2282979/Lord-Sachin-is-Mr-Cricket

Cricket state of mind

2009-03-25T08:24:00.002-04:00

From Cricinfo: Dhoni took it a step further. "Mentally we are right there. When it comes to the mind it depends on what you're feeding into the mind. The mind doesn't know if it's Napier or what you're feeding. You come and say 'this is Napier', and it believes it's Napier. If you see, it's an abstract. When people say 'he's in form', nobody has seen form. It's a state of mind where you are confident and you think very positively and everything you think about, you think it's very achievable. It's about how you treat the mind. One day here, one day there doesn't really make a difference. Preparation-wise, we are up to the mark."

Guest Spot

2009-02-12T18:44:00.005-05:00

Every few days, while sitting on the couch, I open up Subash's blog and make a sad face at him to remind him he hasn't posted in a while. Today's pouty face was met with the suggestion of my making a guest post.

And so, hello everyone, this is Kathleen, the person in love with your dear friend.

I've been thinking a lot lately about traveling. The weather warmed up for a brief moment, giving a fleeting reminder of what it feels like to wear flip flops and be free of the heavy layers of winter. Subash and I have only been on 2 "real" trips together, one to Chicago and one to Florida. We have talked about future trips, though, and I simply can't wait. I feel very lucky that we are together and I get to travel with him--he is one of those people that makes friends wherever he goes, and always seems to get by no matter what. I can't wait to go on adventures together, walk unknown blocks, eat street food, collect stones from beaches, fall asleep in small patches of sun, watch out the window of planes, buses, cars, and trains as old and new landscapes roll by.

I don't know exactly what else to write about. So, I think that I will change directions and leave you with a completely different kind of story. No one was there with me to share the moment at the time, so I will force it on all of you now instead.

Today on the way to class in the morning, while fighting some driving winds that had appeared out of nowhere, a little squirrel and I crossed paths. It was eyeing a giant slice of pizza with only a few bites out of it that had been left on the ground. It looked at me, looked at the pizza, and made a run for it, grabbing the crust in its mouth. It tried to get away with it, dragging the pizza across the ground as it awkwardly ran to the nearest tree, a thin spindly thing only a little taller than me. It hauled the pizza up the tree, climbing out to one of the thin side branches, where it began shoving the slice between two branches with it's eager little paws. It stuffed it there and turned to look at me, wary and victorious.

I looked all around for another person that could acknowledge how ridiculous the site of this giant piece of pizza in the high branches of a tiny tree was. As mentioned, no one was around, and so here we are.

I think that's all I've got for now, but hopefully Subash will post again soon. Until then, I hope everyone is doing well and having a great time.

Until next time!

-Kathleen

SH!T

2009-01-15T17:22:00.004-05:00

Some of you may have seen this episode of South Park where they say the word, Shit. Of course, you cannot say the word, Shit on basic cable TV in the U.S. It gets bleeped. Its one of the 7 words, made famous by the late comedian George Carlin. These days the FCC in the US has gotten so high and mighty, that anything they consider remotely offensive, crude, explicit... they bleep the shit out of it.

Anyway, When I was in Montreal, Canada last week on business, I was watching TV and it was some random talk show. The guy was interviewing James Cameron, the famed director of Terminator, Titanic, Alien etc. Apparently, he has got a star in the Canadian Walk of Fame. They have one up there as well, similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So, durin the course of the interview, the host drops the "shit" word and since I have been conditioned the past few years of living the U.S. of A, my ears perked up pretty quickly. I saw few more shit droppings on other shows as well. Then, it dawned on me that its okay to say Shit on Canadian TV. Now, India has something in common with Canada. I was reminded of the times in India where you could say Shit!

During the business meeting, the consultant also mentioned the word a few time, with the word bull thrown around generally in front of it bunch more times. He even dropped the F-bomb once. Now, I am aware even in Canada, you can't say the F-word on TV. But for a business consultant to do it in a professional setting and no one react adversely to it, it was an interesting sight for me. I wonder how it would have been received in the U.S. I work in a place where things are pretty informal but we still don't curse very much.

I have always considered these rules by FCC extremely stupid. I understand you shouldn't swear on TV because little kids mght be watching and/or its just plain offensive to people. But, there definitely is a time and place, where no other word could substitute for a good curse word. I hope someday the people that work in the FCC get to their senses and get down from their snooty positions and provide some wiggleroom for cursing on TV and other media! Its about fucking time.

Update 1: Funny.. I uploaded this post and went home, only to see the aforementioned South Park episode come on TV. Weird!

Update 2: You know how the Canadians in South Park episodes always say 'aboot' and have 'flopping heads'. Only one of the two is actually correct.

O Canah-duh!!

2009-01-08T10:45:00.005-05:00

I am traveling today to Montreal with my boss and my colleague on a strategic business planning meeting. We will be meeting with our sister company north of the border and discuss the present and future of the company. Some sort of business consultant will be helping us in sharpening the focus of the company, I suppose. Whatever. Its all mumbo-jumbo for me. I am supposed to make a presentation on "Knowledge Capture". All I know is to send Mithun Chakraborty in a police/military officer uniform, he can capture anything! (I suggest you watch the hindi movie "Cheetah" to really understand what I mean by this).

Hypocrisy

2009-01-06T11:42:00.006-05:00

As an Indian, the stance taken by the U.S. and a lot of the western world regarding the "response" taken by Israel on Gaza smacks of double standards and plain ol' hypocrisy. When elements that originated from Pakistan held Mumbai under siege for 3 days (beyond any doubt has been proven, except for the fact that the Pakistan government refuses to accept it, even when the father of the only living attacker corroborated that it was his son), everyone including the U.S. through Condaleeza Rice's visit to India and Pakistan, urged restraint and let things cool down.

I understand that any rash decision by the Indian government to attack training camps within Pakistan (there was tremendous support for that from the people of India, no doubt, similar to post 9/11 in the U.S.) would have pitted two nuclear-armed neighbors in a battle that could have very quickly escalated. So, I was a supporter of letting cooler heads prevail before any decision was taken, putting sustained pressure on the Pakistani government to come clean and lead up to closing of the training camps within their territory.

However, with the charade that the Pakistan government does, of detaining a few "leaders" (that previously didn't exist on their soil, by the way), and placing them under house arrest till the dust settles and be back to its own merry ways, really pisses me off. I am actually glad this time, there is at the least, a sustained media and diplomatic pressure on the Government of Pakistan by the Indian government.

Coming back to the original point about American hypocrisy diplomacy, There are many talking heads from both the Republicans and Democrats, justifying Israel's response to mortar shelling from across their border. That's fair enough. One of them said, "Listen, wouldn't we (The U.S.) react if Canada were to lob bombs across the border on to Seattle?" and the other said, "Hey, How do you think We'd react if Mexico were to drop shells from Tijuana on to San Diego" and so went all the metaphors. Very fair, I think. Every sovereign country reserves their rights to protect their soil against any external attacks.

However, If India were to actually launch a military offensive on Pakistan with the goal of destroying the terrorist training camps and taking out a bunch of their leaders etc, 1) It could easily escalate in to a full scale war that might go beyond conventional weapons 2) pakistan will have to redeploy its troops from its western border with Afghanistan to resisit India. Point #2 severely disadvantages the U.S. in their fight against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I think I have a working understanding of geo-politics and I see why nations make decisions that they do. But when I see the Bush administration come out and flat out support Israel on their response and tell India to simmer it down, is bullshit. I am glad when Mr. Obama responded - on the heels of the Mumbai attacks whether he thinks India should respond to it the way U.S. did after the September 11 attacks - "Every Sovereign country reserves their right to defend it, on their own way of choosing, and I'll leave it at that". Thanks Mr. Obama for calling it like you see it.

The Three Nieces

2008-12-26T10:08:00.005-05:00

Its been 8 years since I was last in India. Due to a combination of many different circumstances, I have not been able to make a trip. During these eight years, three of my nieces were born there (and 2 more in the U.S.). So, without further ado, I present to you (from Left to Right) Sai, Mitra and Bhavna.

In all, I have 9 nieces and 1 nephew (Aged between 2 months and 24 years). I think our family by itself is taking care of the sex ratio in India.

Sir, Yes Sir, No Sir

2008-12-23T14:08:00.003-05:00

By now, I am sure you have heard of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel - the first Indians to get a contract with a major league baseball team. On December 8, 2008, The Pittsburgh Pirates signed these two gentlemen to a minor league deals as pitchers. Their story is definitely one for Bollywood movies!! These guys won the competition called "Million Dollar Arm" in India and were brought to the US to have a try out with major league scouts. They have been interviewed on NPR, USA Today carried an article on them, and ESPN did a feature on them last week on thier "Outside the lines" show. I wish these guys all the best. Already the second season of MDA is in full swing and I am sure there will be one or two more worthy candidates that will get to test their skills in the majors.

One thing I noticed during all these interviews was, how these guys kept saying Sir at the end of pretty much everyone's names and sentences and reminded me of the time I first came to the US. As is the habit in India, you address anyone in any position of authority, superiority with a "Ji" (in North India) or Sir (especially if they are your teachers, boss) or "Sair" in South India. When I had my first meeting with my graduate advisor at Penn State, I would address him and respond to him with a "Sir" added to his name. At the end of the conversation, my advisor told me that I need not address him with a "Sir" and just call him by his first name, or if I feel the need to give him respect for his position and/or age, just address him as "Dr.________". It was kind of weird at the start but I soon got used to it. These days, I pretty much address most of the professors I interact with by their first names without even pausing for a second. I had always admired the "informal" way Americans (all westerners typically) do business.

"Respect your elders" -- That's always a running theme when you are in India. Obviously, its a good thing to respect your elders. So much so, sometimes, that people never even think twice about what they are being told to do, never question authority. "Oh the elders know better!". This is counterproductive many times, because the kids never gets to experiment themselves and don't get in to the habit of asking why and why not. This kills off ingenuity and creativity. I guess a good balance of "advice and guidance" and "let's step back and let the kid figure it out" is what is needed. From the kid's point of view, its counterproductive to question authority just for the sake of doing it as well. There is that phrase again, "everything is good in moderation".

'Tis the season

2008-12-22T16:51:00.006-05:00

The other day I got a phone call from one of my mates I played cricket with at Penn State, Herman. Herman is from South Africa and he wanted some online links to cricket streaming sites so that he could watch the Australia V South Africa test match!! I couldn't answer the phone and so, he left a voice-mail. I didn't get to check my messages for three days for whatever reason.

All the while, the test match at Perth was building up to a great crescendo following the memorable run chase by India at Chennai versus England. When I finally heard the message, I felt so awful that I had not shared the free cricket streaming links with Herman, I text messaged him that. The day after the monumental effort by SAF to beat the Aussies, I sent him an email congratulating him on his country's accomplishment. Hopefully, this will help heal some of the wounds they have suffered as a cricketing nation!! (World Cup '92, World Cup '99, World Cup 'o3, T20 Worl Cup'07).

On a realted note, he shared the news that Herman and his wife have welcomed a new baby boy in to this world. I know there are plenty of options for a kid growing up in the U.S. in terms of involvement in sports but I am glad to know little Herman Jr. has his heart in the right place.

(P.S. The bat is autographed by none other than the SAF great Fanie De Villiers himself!).

What Sachin means to India

2008-12-16T01:32:00.003-05:00

"Once I was on a night train winding down from Simla to Kalka that stopped halfway for refreshments at a station lit by flaming torches. On a small television screen wreathed in cigarette smoke in the corner of the dining room Tendulkar was batting in a match in Mumbai. No one moved or spoke or looked away. The train was delayed by 20 minutes. Not until Tendulkar was out could the world resume its normal timetables and rhythms."

Excerpt from an article on Cricinfo

Also, check out this video where the groundstaff at M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai rush to congratulate Sachin Tendulkar after hitting the winning runs in the First test match against England! He patiently shakes hands with every one of them! (00:53 time mark).

Jesus Says: Take a chill pill y'all!

2008-12-16T00:46:00.005-05:00

That is the picture of a Christmas tree - the first one that I have ever bought. Its a 3 feet midget tree from the local Lowes store. My girlfriend Kathleen and I got it over the weekend. We wanted to get a 6 feet tree but it wouldn't fit in my friend's car. Oh well!

Kathleen was raised a catholic and I, a Hindu. She is not a believer in God, neither am I. In fact, a interesting story to tell here. She used to be a firm believer in someone upstairs, his son and the whole production till the day of her communion. (She says it was by a Philadelphia cardinal -one of the more famous ones, apparently! All the cardinals I know are either in St. Louis or Phoenix). She felt the whole notion of God and the Faith system leave her the day of her communion. Fascinating.

Although I never have had the whole Christmas experience with Santa and Jesus, I believe, even as a non-believer in God/Agnostic/Atheist, I am alright with people saying merry christmas. I personally don't think when people say "Merry Christmas", they mean for you to have a happy time on the supposed day of birth of the son of God (or Not). In my opinion, its another way to greet you and it just signifies the time of the year. And so, No - I don't get offended when people wish me a Merry Christmas.

As you may have noticed, every year, around this time, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and few more talking heads get in to the whole business of "Attack on Christmas". Because, Secular minded people want to say "Happy Holidays" there by not prefering one holiday with religious undertone to another. In fact, it became a huge talking point when the Governor of the State of Washington allowed people to place signs from a group of Atheists declaring the absence of God etc, next to a nativity scene in that state's capitol. Obviously, the Governor was widely criticized by the right and praised by the left. As I see it, its a wonderful interpretation of the tenets of democracy by the Governor. If one religious holiday can get a display in a government building, then, every religion's followers if they want, have claim to that same space. Either you accomodate all, or have none. Of course, O'Reilly frothed at the mouth, calling the governor a pinhead and what not. Didn't the people land on the shores of this country many centuries ago to escape persecution based on religion? Or, you are free to practice any religion, as long as it is Christianity?

Both the people that get outraged when some one greets them with "Merry Christmas" and those that get angered when people say "Happy Holidays" to them, need to relax a bit. By focusing on the technicality, you are missing out on the spirit of the season.

On that note, Happy Freakin' Holidays and a Merry Effin' Christmas to all of you!

Yes I can

2008-12-04T14:12:00.001-05:00

and I will blog at least infrequently. and not be dead.

Good Times, Bad times. Its all good.

Couple of links of purpose

2007-12-15T15:55:00.000-05:00

1. Two doctoral students from India, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, at the Louisiana state University were killed recently during a home invasion. To aid the affected families in this time of need, there are some foundations set up where you could donate any money you would like to. Please pass along this information to friends and others that might be interested in helping out.

http://www.lsufoundation.org/

Komma and Allam Support Fund

The LSU Foundation has established a support fund for the family members of Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam.

To contribute online:

Visit our online giving page here.
Fill out the requested information on the page. On the drop-down menu that reads "For the Benefit of:" select "Komma and Allam Support Fund."

To give by mail or in person:

Please make checks payable to "LSU Foundation." In the memo line of your check, write "Komma and Allam Support Fund."
Mailing Address:

LSU Foundation
3838 W. Lakeshore Dr.
Baton Rouge, LA 70808

2. Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC) is a home for street kids operated mainly by a group of dedicated college students from around the globe, located in Pune, India. They have a AIC holiday Cards campaign to raise money towards a permanent house for the facility in Pune. Please take a look and contribute to the effort if you can.

The Indian Cricket Coach Conundrum - Part II

2007-11-28T15:28:00.001-05:00

Click here for Part I

Part II

The fitness of the player gets taken care of by the trainer and physio. Either the player is fit or he isn’t. But if a player hides an injury or declares himself fit well before he is done with the rehab, it not only adversely affects the team’s immediate interests, it affects the player in the long run! On those lines, you need to give credit to BCCI when they were so disappointed with Munaf, they sent him packing for a while.
In terms of the technique, Cricket is one such fabulous sport (similar to Soccer) where natural flair and the skill blessed upon you by the man upstairs, although it might be completely contrary to “textbook”, still finds a place. However, batsmen, bowlers - no matter what level they play at - pick up some bad habits when they have been around for a while. It needs an extra pair of eyes to point it out before it actually brings about a form slump. I think that’s the role of a coach. Understand the fundamentals, know your players and their skill sets, and have a keen eye for changes before they actually hurt the player’s confidence! Case in point: How closely was Irfan’s bowling monitored after the 03-04 season? His action ended up going awry, couldn’t generate the pace, couldn’t generate swing (because of wrong wrist positioning).. A keen-eyed bowling coach points out the flaw in technique well before you have reached a point where you have to reconstruct the whole bowling action.

There are two ways to coaching a team. One, with Authority (ruling with an iron fist) and the other, treat the players as adults who have made their bones in world cricket and provide them that space. If a coach is handed a team with relatively young, inexperienced players that is still learning to win, in spite of their cricketing potential, its easy for the coach to lay out ONE plan and have his charges follow it. However, that is not the case with the current Indian team make-up. So, Gary Kirsten has to be smart about the situation. Its quite normal for a group of people that have their established ways, when having to learn to do the things in a whole different way, they resist it. It becomes beneficial for the new coach to first gain the confidence of his charges by acknowledging the fact that, even without a coach, they have attained a certain level of success (which must mean they ARE doing something right) and suggest additions rather than wholesale changes overnight. If Gary Kirsten thinks he has this “model” that he is going to apply to the Indian team and hope for success, then that WILL NOT happen. Even business models need to be re-calibrated and adjusted quite a bit when applied to varying markets.
IMHO, Few things the new coach needs to do:
1. Gain the confidence of Coaching staff, Trainers, Kumble, Dhoni and Yuvraj by letting them know that there are not gonna be wholesale changes to the way things are run, only tweaks, here and there.
2. Play to the team’s strengths. We’re not gonna match the fitness levels of Aussies. Its alright. You can only push so far. Test matches are won by taking 20 wickets and having experienced batsmen who can absorb the pressure of a test match and still produce. I think when we have a healthy squad, we certainly have the ingredients in place to take on, Yes, even Australia.
3. Kirsten will have to work extensively to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, and lay out plans and strategies for every player in the opposition. At the same time, identify the areas our players will be attacked and provide the team, with the help of his staff, plans to counter them. For example: Let’s talk about Ricky Ponting. He is absolutely the very best in cricket these days in picking the length of the delivery and play shots off the front or the back foot. Absolutely marvelous to watch. So, your strategy should be to changing the lines and make Ponting focus and refocus in picking the point of delivery. So, you have a right-arm bowler and left arm bowler working in tandem, while the left-armer comes around the wicket as well from time to time to give him an extra thing to think about. Take away his one or two scoring areas (hello wagon-wheel!). By asking questions of him by adjusting the different lines and movement and coming up with other areas of scoring, you are making him think about more than a few things which increases the chances of a bowler getting him.

My money is on Gary taking the latter route, as he played against many of the players he is in charge of, the Big 5 (AK, SRT, RD, SG, VVS) as well as Prasad and Robin Singh. You have to give credit where it is due. This is actually an excellent hire by the BCCI for the following reasons:

1. Test team: The Indian Test team still relies on 4 or 5 of the Big 5 for sustained success in the next 2 years. Yes, there are capable replacements in the form of Yuvraj, Rohit Sharma and Badrinath (at least from the looks of it) waiting in the wings. So, Gary will have to take that in to consideration while he plans for the future. As long as the 5 keep producing, as they seem to be doing, there is no question of replacing them in the near future. Look, Mike Hussey played a lifetime of first-class cricket before he broke through to the test side. All the talk about Yuvraj being in top form in ODIs and hence warranting a spot in tests is slightly over the board. He’ll better for it when he gets his chance either due to injury or lack of form amongst the Big 4, and is given a longer run, when he does not have to worry about his spot if he does not produce right away. Kirsten has gotten two excellent, calm and thoughtful captains that have made it big through perseverance, although are not “textbook” talents or geniuses. They will be more amenable to “out-of-the-box” thinking that he might bring.

2. ODI/ T:20 teams: These are definitely young men’s game. Yeah, It was harsh that RD was given the boot before SG or SRT. But, such is life. I think SRT’s role outweighs RD’s in the ODIs (their fielding abilities being on par with each other’s, SRT provides you bowling options. SG - ditto). The middle order is in pretty safe hands with Uthappa, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Irfan. Gary can have the most impact with his methodologies in the shorter versions as he will have more willing listeners yet to cement their spots.

One thing to remember is: Even if the BCCI selectors decide to drop SRT and/ or SG to make way for permanent spot for Gambhir, Imagine the pressure that’ll be put on them by Captain Thackeray and the likes, and Colonel Chatterjee et al in the Parliament. Let’s say the BCCI decides to take the heat from the Netas and goes ahead with it anyway, Imagine the amount of effigy burning and dung-cake flinging at the younger players’ houses if Team India were to lose an ODI series or a tournament and all the 24-hours talking heads baying for blood. Its a thankless job, obviously. But I firmly believe the BCCI may be on to something good this time around.

The Indian Cricket Coach Conundrum - Part I

2007-11-28T15:23:00.000-05:00

Gary Kirsten, the former South African batsman, is touted to be the next coach of Indian cricket team. There was a blog thread on Prem Panicker's site. I am assembling some of my responses as two posts that deal with the challenges facing Indian cricket and the expectations from the new coach.

-Subash

P.S. Sorry I had been away for so long. I promise, I'll try to post at least 1 every week. *pinky swear*

--
Regarding the timing of the appointment of the coach and Kirsten supposedly joining the team IN Australia:: If Kirsten had any wits about him, he will and should get in touch with Prasad, Robin Singh, Kumble and Dhoni right after the offical announcement of the appointment as to get things rolling instead of waiting till he joins the team. Come to think of it, he may not actually contribute to the team’s plans and strategies during the tour down under since he will not have had the team to get acclimatized to the team’s character and personalities. This provides him ideally the time to sit back and observe the way the team and its support staff operate without the need to stamp his way of thinking on the team’s preparations and plans. If the team’s original plans work out, then he can modify his ideas and conversely, if they hadn’t, he could provide the alternative possibilities. Its a win-win situation. Its all about the perspective!

“Maximizing the potential of each player” - What does it exactly mean? Let’s take the case of someone like, say, VVS. He has the potential to bat long, well, take the attack to the opposition and score big. He has the potential to take catches in the slip cordon. So, how does the coach help him maximize this known potential..? Its not as if VVS is disinclined towards scoring runs or taking catches, now is he? Obviously, one of the prime requirements beyond the skill sets (that he so obviously possesses) is his physical fitness, which get taken care of by the physio and the trainer. So, i personally think this maximizing potential is all a bunch of baloney! There is a fielding coach (Singh), there is a bowling coach (Prasad).. The need is a batting coach. I guess Kirsten may do that! Beyond it, his role is to come up with a game plan (and a back-up plan or three) in identifying and attacking the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
Allow me to borrow from baseball. The manager in baseball identifies match-ups with the aid of his bench coaches and goes with what the numbers say.. Eg: Batter X has 0.200 average against lefty sinker pitches, etc. Primarily, He is there to manage the egos in the team (especially if it is a veteran team), keeps the clubhouse in order and shields his players from the media scrutiny as much as possible. That’s about it. I think a cricket coach, especially to a veteran team like India’s, needs someone that can understand the sensibilities of the players, massages and manages their egos and make the players buy in to the concept of greater good of the team. Add to this, the support staff (coaches for batting, bowling, fielding, techies and trainers)!! Its elementary, my dear Watson!

Part II

Day 4 - Antigua

2007-08-15T15:28:00.000-04:00

It was a Sunday. It started bright and early for me but that was all the excitement I could handle. All the drinking, partying, running around, traveling had taken a toll my body and I needed some much required rest. Staying out in the sun all day on Day-3 had finally taken its toll. So, when everybody wanted to head out to the beach and do water ski and stuff, my body just refused to cooperate. I stayed in bed all day while everybody went out and even had a celebrity sighting! I laid comatose till about 4 PM and finally decided to take walk around the area where we were staying at, Freeman's Village and get a pack of smokes. I walked about couple of miles and a funny thing happened on my way back. A pickup truck pulled up close to me and a man jumped out from the back. Apparently he was being dropped off from work. I was lost in thoughts about the similarity of life and living in the Carribeans to what I was used to back home in India and I was startled to see a man jump put of a truck in front of me. He walked up to me, "How is going, my brother?" in his Antiguan accent and started inquiring about where I was from and how good a time I was having in Antigua, enjoying cricket etc. While we were talking, a stray dog (at least that's what I thought) came rushing towards us. As I prepared to take evasive action, he said, 'Don't worry maan. He is learned. He's mine" and proceeded to instruct the dog to head home.
Soon after I got back to the apartment, the guys got back from the beach and we started planning for the rest of the evening and night. After asking around about the places to go on a Sunday night, we were told to go to Shirley Heights, which is the venue for an outdoor party that runs from 3 PM till Midnight. After much deliberations (I still do not know for what!) we finally got to SH around 10 PM and Jesus Eff-ing christ.. it was easily one of the biggest outdoor party I have ever seen, outside of concerts and football games!Since we were so late in joining the party and we needed to get in the mood quick, all of us ordered ourselves couple of shots of Bacardi 151 and a few beers. We had a pleasant surprise waiting for us at Shirley Heights and also a rude awakening for one of us :) Since it was an off-day for the Australian cricket team, couple of their current players and a couple of their former players who were in the Carribeans as commentators, were at SH. Adam Gilchrist, arguably the best wicket-keeper batsman to have ever played the game was standing a few feet away at the bar ordering drinks!!! Greg Blewett and Damien Fleming were also around! There were so many people approaching Gilly for autographs and photo-ops and he respectfully refused every demand. Rohan took Gilly's picture anyway! Blewett, for most part, was standing with his back against a wall in the bar, with a completely stoned look on his face. People hardly recognized him! This was a man that scored centuries in his first two test matches and was involved in one of the highest partnerships in Test cricket!! Golu and Nishant took a photo with him! We were getting a picture with Fleming as well when the camera malfunctioned (Actually, Adi screwed up !!! :) The best part of the night was yet to come. You might remember I made a passing mention of Nishant's drunken debauchery from "Abracadabra" on Day 2. He hooked with a "woman" Alice! Since it was dark that night and we were all "bombed" we didn't know exactly who it was that he hooked up with! But in the bright lights of SH we got to see Alice in her full glory!! I am trying real hard to restrain my temptation to put the picture of Nee-shawn with Alice. After that night, the theme song for the trip ended up being, "Alice, Alice! who the fuck is Alice?". (Although, if there is enough public demand for that picture, I'll put it up in my next post!)

At the stroke of midnight, the party at SH ended and everybody dispersed and we decided to explore other parts of the island, looking for more parties!! By this time, it looked like the B-151 shot had taken its toll on Rohan and he started feeling sick. Also, while we were waiting at the parking lot waiting for Shawn to say his goodbyes to Alice, it came to our knowledge that Alice did not have a ride back to her place (Whaat?!) and since it was late at night, Adi (overcome with her motherly emotions blah blah) suggested we should drop her off at her before we head out to other bars (Again....., Whaaaaa?!!!). So, the 5 of us and Alice piled into our little Toyota and headed out! Golu and Adi were talking non-stop non-sense, such as introducing me to Alice as "Sean Connery", and Golu as "Andy Garcia" and Adi as "Catherine Z Jones" blah blah!! It looked like Alice wanted to hang out with us for the night but, Nishant was very clear this time around, and told her, its best for her to go home and call him the next day!! We drove across the entire freakin' island to get to her place (By this time, Adi apparently was hungry and asked Alice whether we could come in and scrounge around for some food!). Nishant and I were, literally, pissed off that we are missing out on quality partying time!! Thankfully, we didn't go in! Rohan had passed out in the back of the car by the time we got back to Jolly Harbour looking for a place to party!
At JH, Rohan couldn't get out of the car and wanted some rest. We were discussing, louldly I might add, about the options. Whether Rohan could stay with Adi in the car, while we go to the bars and meet up with them later! All the talking got to rohan and he yelled, "Can't you guys understand?". Eventually, Nishant decided on staying with them, Golu and I went in to the bar. There was wedding reception party going on there and karaoke for entertainment. I put my name down for 'Twist and Shout" by the Beatles - which, Golu had apparently never heard of - I comforted him saying its a pretty easy song!! We went to the bar and realized all the money we had was Pounds and no US dollars or local currencies. The bartender - she was giving us such a bad conversion rate, but yet, we took it as we were desperate for some beers! We got gypped man! We met up with the groom, the bride and the best man and promised to buy them a round of drinks which we never did as we were getting gypped on the rate!
It seems Rohan wanted to head home around this time, so Nishant came looking for us but never could find us in the bar!! When he went back to the car, he heard on the PA system, the Dj calling my name out for it was our turn for karaoke!!! After a lousy start with no sync, Golu and I ended up ripping the song so good, the wedding party decided to join in the sing along! Golu, didn't know to twist.. but he was shouting and doing this "convulsion moves" that may pass for dancing in some remote parts of the galaxy!! Hearing my name on the PA system, Nishant finally found us in the middle of the dance floor and we headed home. Rohan was still passed out. On the way back, Golu needed to take a leak, so we pulled over! He climbed up the ledge on the side of the road, relieved himself and tried to slide down! All we heard was him yelling in pain, as he slid over a nail that was sticking out from the ground! OUCH! He had a hole in his pants to take home as souvenir!! Hilarious!! On the ride back, Nishant and I decided we should get back out after dropping the people off! Adi was mildly inclined to join us, but she bailed out when we got home. After everyone had gone to bed, Nishant and I rushed back to JH as it was getting close to last call. We had to convince (beg) the waitress to give us a couple of beers as it was past last call. After hanging out for another 30 - 45 minutes talking to people from all over -who offered a variety of things for personal recreation - we finally got home at 5 AM and hit the sack!
I still do not know whether the others know about our little jaunt back to Jolly Harbour!! Here is a picture of us at Shirley Heights as I sign off on Day 4.

Write you fat ass, remember we were in Antigua for 5 and not 2 days

2007-07-25T16:26:00.000-04:00

That was the kick in the rear I needed to actually get back to blogging. Thanks Rohan. Its been a long time Since I blogged and I think I put out 1 post in the last 3 months. I know, I could check the dates and confirm that but I am gonna trust my memory on that.

BTW Rohan, you were in Antigua for 5 days but I, Se7en days!!! I win.

Day3.

Waking up at 8 in the morning to get ready and go to my first live cricket match, my head was still hurting from the previous night's debauchery! It was supposed to be India playing Australia except, The Indian Cricket team crapped the bed against Bangladesh in the first round of the tournament, and we had to put ourselves through the travesty also known as Bangladesh cricket. It had rained pretty good the previous night and the early news on the telly was that the start of the game has been delayed and this match will be a shortened one. Good and Bad. Good in that we won't have to spend too much time watching a mismatch, Bad in that, If India had made it, this would've been perfect - shortened game where they could've matched the Aussie firepower! Oh well!

We all got decked out in Indian colors (Obviously) and made our trip to Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground. We had to park our car nearly 1.5 miles away from the stadium and walk. Since we knew the game is gonna be delayed, we took our time getting there.
The stadium itself is very good-looking one and we got ourselves some food and beer and headed to our seats. After a little while, we walked down to the lawn area where you could just lie down and it was right at the boundary. There were a lot of Aussie fans around and surprisingly, a lot of Indian fans had made the trip as well even after India got booted out. Finally after couple of hours of waiting, it was announced that game would be 22-overs a side match. The two teams came out for the warm-ups and it was really neat that the Aussies warmed up closer to us. It was something to actually see Mattie Hayden in real life, Shaunt Tait bowl at blistering pace, Andrew Symonds going through his batting practice. This is what - in general parlance- is known as "Paisa Wasool". (If you wanna see all the pics, go to my facebook profile. if you don't have a facebook account, get one. Duh!). I am just gonna put this one really funny photo of Golu punching McGrath.
We had loads of fun in the stadium, the beer guy hooked us up. we met our Aussie neighbors, Garth and Sarah, there. We were holding the Indian Flag by the sides and running through the section of Aussie fans. Obviously there was a lot of good natured ribbing going on between us and Aussies. It was such a carnival atmosphere. Having had a lot of beers and not a lot to watch in terms of cricket action, helped!
Coming back to the match itself, Bangladesh made 106 in 22 overs and the Australia chased it down without loss of a wicket with Gilly scoring a 50. It was unreal watching him and Hayden go after the bowling. We got back to our apartment and made plans for the rest of the day. One funny moment from the match: During Bangladesh's batting, Ricky Ponting, the Australian Captain, was fielding at the boundary just a few yards away from us. Aditi and others started the, "Sachiiiiiiiiin, Sachin, kach kach kach" shouts. And I started "Oh Ricky! you're so fine" a la "Mickey" song by Toni Basil... It was priceless to see Ponting turn towards and give us a stare!!
We freshened up and made our way to St. John's Harbor looking for this bar-restaurant "The coast". We finally found it and got our dinner and few drinks in. We met some interesting people there, especially this two middle-aged Indians who live in the U.K. One of them apparently travels to all of India's overseas test matches. He showed us his itinerary for the world cup. He had booked flights, game tickets and hotels for all the matches that India were supposed to be in, all the way through to the finals. In fact he had gotten flight tickets for both the semifinals matches!! I was totally amazed by his commitment and craze for Indian cricket. We were exhausted by midnight and finally made our way back to the apartment for a deserved good night's sleep!

Free Will

2007-06-03T01:53:00.000-04:00

... Its a wonderful thing. You always have the choice. You just hope you'd made the right choice when you look back at it. However, if you had made the choice knowing fully of all the consequences and all the ramifications in spite of the selfish transient needs and wants, well, you'd be perfect person and cease to be human, I guess. I do not know.

I had exercised my free will which eventually jeopardized a friendship. Would I still do it knowing what I know now? Probably not. But, when I was faced with the situation, I made the decision thinking it wasn't such a big deal and I made the choice. Therefore, I do NOT have any regrets. I shall live with the outcome. I have no problems with it. That's the way the cookie crumbled. If the result of me making that choice was the loss of a good friendship, then so be it. My friend (not so much now, anyway) had rightfully pointed out to me... "You knew how this would affect me, but still you went ahead with it anyway." True. And I shall live with it. I put a good friendship in jeopardy by putting my selfish wants ahead of what is good and decent. Therefore, I do not deserve the friendship. As you sow, so shall you reap! I am comfortable with the fact that I made a conscious decision and I solely am responsible for what comes out of it.

Anitgua - Day 2

2007-04-12T17:43:00.000-04:00

At the end of Day 1, we settled in to our newly constructed and furnished apartment quite nicely and had a little shindig to celebrate our arrival in Antigua. Next morning, after waking up pretty late, lounging around, Rohan and Nishant set out to rent a car for the duration of our stay, from the Airport. Unusually for Antigua, it rained pretty heavily during the mid-morning to mid-afternoon period! The rental car apparently stalled on the way back due to battery problems and Rohan and Nishant were completely drenched by the time they got everything set. The Aussie neighbors took these two to the Airport and helped 'em out!

Late afternoon, we decided to go to St. Johns and check out a restaurant called "Roti King" which serves sort of Indian tasting food. We walked around a bit after that, caught the game between Ireland and England at the B-Hive, obviously rooted for Ireland only to see them not quite manage the run chase. After some more walking around and enjoying the scenes, we got back to the apartment to get ready for the night!

We took directions from our delightful host Lionel to get to English Harbour which has quite a night life. We decided to go to a bar &restaurant place called "Abracadabra". For some it turned out to be pure magic!! :D Oh boy! How the fortunes and fun on this trip turned so dramatically after that visit to Abracadabra! One of the funniest thing we noticed was, "Bar open 5 PM - Late". We later found out that late = last customer! Excellent!

Our neighbors also came along with us to English harbour! Nishant as usual hassled some of the women at the restaurant while getting dinner! Post-dinner, we were told the place gets hopping around 11 PM and boy, were they right! Nishant and I, after a round of Irish car bombs were feeling pretty good and were generally having a good time on the dance floor.

One little peeve though! The bartenders typically do not know to make shots and not-so-mainstream-cocktails. So, we had to settle down for the usual suspects! While having a chatter with a bartender, we were told about an outstanding establishment few doors down,, whose motto is, "whatever gets you through the night, its alright". Thanks John Lennon! Nishant and I stopped by there and also look for Rohan, Aditi and Golu! They had gone for a walk along the harbour! We all got back to Abracadabra and the magic started to happen, at least for Nishant! (More on this later). During the course of the night, I got sick and the neighbors were very gracious to take me home while the rest of the crew stayed back! It was past 2 AM or so and I promptly hit the bed as soon as I got back, so that I could be ready for the game next morning between Australia and Bangladesh!

Antigua - Day 1

2007-04-09T12:20:00.000-04:00

Rohan, Aditi and I landed in Antigua around 3 PM. The people we were renting the guest house from were supposed to pick us up from the Airport. After getting done with the immigration & customs, we waited outside the Airport for about 45 minutes. It was slightly humid but there Rohan, Aditi and I landed in Antigua around 3 PM. The people we were renting the guest house from were supposed to pick us up from thewere Carribean dancers to welcome the tourists which helped us pass the time. Our lovely host picked us up eventually and the first thing that occured to me on the ride to the guest house was, "Damn! This reminds a lot of India!". The ride was a bit bumpy, the roads were a little narrow than what you're used to in the U.S. but they ambiance was something you never find in the U.S.

When we reached our guest house, we saw that it was still in the process of being completed.. There were people in our apartment still putting things together such as furniture and painting the walls etc.. but we were not too worried. As any sane person would do, we dropped our bags, didn't even ask for the keys and took the ride to St. John's harbour!!!

Sitting by the harbour, sipping on Carib lager and local rum, we were chatting away and plotting our next move. By sheer stroke of luck, I ran in to a fella from my high school in India - who was 6 years younger to me, I barely remember meeting him then but he seemed to remember me well! See, these are the things that could happen during a world cup.. Just imagine what'd have been if India were to have been playing! We inquired around a little bit about the closest beach front and were advised to go to Jolly Harbour. As we were planning on it, we stopped by a Guyanese restaurant that served their version of Indian food, which absolutely tasted yummy and had few more drinks and we took the bus to go to Jolly Harbour. I need to qualify the term "bus". I was looking forward to seeing something like what you see in the U.S. or India for that matter, but a bus is nothing more than a mini-van that can seat about 10-12 people. This is how simple life is there. Taxis have their registration numbers starting with TX, and buses, BUS and rental vehicles R and administrative vehicles, A. Easy as easy gets!!

We took the bus to Jolly Harbour (which cost about $3.25 Eastern Carribean (EC), which is a little more than $1 US and we started looking for the beach front. By this time, it had become dark and it was around 8.30 PM. We followed the signs and we seemed to walking for a while. So, we stopped by a resort and asked the security people for directions. They seemed a little concerned with our (tourists) presence that late at night. They probably thought we were out to score some drugs or something!! Anyway, after we clarified the situation, they gave us the directions but that led us to a bar in a resort. After couple more beers, we asked the bartender (A blond American) and she had absolutely no clue of the beach front. After much effort and beers, we found an Englishmen in a golf cart, who gave us a ride (at the price of promised mutual hatred of the Aussies!) to the beach, which was about a quarter-mile from the aforementioned bar. You would've thought a bartender would've known about the existence of a beach that close!!

We spent some time there and called up our host to give us a ride back home. He - Mr. Lionel Walker - was such a nice guy!! He picked us up, stopped by a supermarket, bought the essentials (Beers, Rum, Soda, Toilet paper and Chocolate cake). I still have no idea why Rohan picked the cake up which turned out to be the most expensive thing we bought in the whole trip!!! We dropped our stuff off at the apartment - which by now was all set, and went to the airport to pick Nishant (Shawn) and Saurabh (Golu) up. We went through most of our beverage reserves by the end of the night and hit the bed! One more thing - Shawn kept playing that song, "It's goin' down" all the time and it became the theme song for the trip! "Meet me in the Mall, It's goin' down!! I was never a big fan of that song, but you know what, after you here it about 172 times, it kinda grows on you!!

P.S. Shawn told me last night that he'd contribute to this series of blogs by posting comments. Golu, Rohan and Ad, do the same. The next in the series will start by incorporating your comments and roll on from there!!!

Hello Antigua!

2007-04-08T06:22:00.000-04:00

This is the first of a series of posts on my (with a few friends) recent trip to the beautiful Carribean island of Antigua for the Cricket world cup. I had just returned from San Diego (see previous post), only to witness India get royally kicked in the butts all the way out of the World cup tournament and was still recovering from the partying while I had to set out to the Carribeans. I took the China town bus from State College to get to NYC and then the trains to reach the Newark Liberty International Airport. This was first time taking the China town bus. They are so precise. Left town at the exact departure time and reached NYC slightly ahead of schedule.. the driver said, "due to less traffic". Not too surprising since we left around 1 AM.

As I mentioned earlier in my SD post, i had lost my bank card. By the time I left for Antigua, I had gotten the card in mail but no PIN number.. why would the banks do that? What use is the card without the PIN?? I couldn't withdraw cash till a much later time when my roommate called me up in Antigua.

As I was waiting in the airport lounge after checking in, munching over a delicious breakfast sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts and their delicious coffee and reading "fear and loathing in Las Vegas", Rohan and Aditi joined me.. I swear, DD has the best coffee in the world! One thing I was impressed with, was this DD was all run by Indian women. I felt so much pride watching them go to work, in a foreign country to boot!!

My student visa to the U.S. had expired a long time ago. However, due to some technicality in the Immigration & Nationality Act, my Foreign student advisor at Penn State had informed me that I could travel to Canada, Mexico and other contiguous islands including the Carribeans He also told me to carry along with me all the relevant documents (just in case!!! Man, he saw it coming, sure as heck!!).(but not Cuba, for obvious reasons).. (but i was told by a fellow traveler i met in Antigua that when you travel to Cuba, they don't stamp your passport.. so no one will know that you actually were in Cuba. Hmm.. whatever.. not that I'd do it, but I'm just putting it out there!). My FSA also instructed me that while leaving the country they'd ask for my I-94 (departure record) and told me not to hand it in. If I hand that in, I will have to apply for a new visa to re-enter U.S.

Wouldn't you know, when I lined up to board the plane, they asked for my I-94, I told them I need to hold on to it, blah blah.. they said, "sorry sir! you can't board the plane.. we'll get your bags out of the plane.. we will figure this out today and maybe, you can leave tomorrow!!". Oh boy! I got all the paperwork out and explained the regulations etc, but nothing doing! Finally, one smart guy called up his superiors and asked for clarifications and luckily for me, the superior knew the technicality and so they let me board the flight! (Sign of things to come!).

It was very uneventful flight lasting about 4 hours. I was seated next to an elderly couple from NY who were into solving puzzles, crosswords, sudoku and all that.. right up my alley! The 4 hours just flew by. Literally. And, we touched down to beautiful sights of blue waters and white sandy beaches and to the words, "Welcome to Antigua!! Enjoy your stay!"

Sun Diego SNAFUs

2007-03-28T23:06:00.000-04:00

The past week I was in beautifully sunny San Diego, CA for the SPIE conference. (SPIE - international society of optical engineering.. I know the acronym doesn't match up.. but the original name in french or italian or something supposedly matches up.. I have been told.. don't think i didn't think of that!).

As luck would have it, I left for SD with my buddy Mattie the day after St. Patty's day.. On St. Patty's day, India lost to Bangladesh and Pakistan lost to Ireland (who didn't see that coming!?!) to virtually put these teams out of the cricket world cup tournament. Depressed from the game, I went out that night and got pretty "irish-ed" at the local pub, got home late, finished packing for the 6 A.M flight out to SD. Luckily, i woke up in time and made the flight, still very hungover. Matt wasn't doing any better. At least, i got 3 hours of sleep!

As some of you might know, the Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer was found murdered in his hotel room after their loss to Ireland that put 'em out of the world cup. It was horrible! I have had more than a dozen people that know nothing about cricket ask me about this.. very intrigued, I am. Talking about death-threats, shouldn't they actually be "life threats"? After all, its a threat to someone's life?

We got to SD to the good news that our luggage didn't arrive. Finally, after doing paper work to have our luggage delivered, we got to the hotel to this beautiful sight from our balcony.

The disappointment at not having the luggage wore off, thanks to the beach and few beers at Pacific Beach Bar & Grill. Wouldn't you know it, I very promptly lost my debit card (my only form of money), and had to call up my bank and cancel the card and do all that shizzle. SO, here I am in SD, with no money and no clothes, nothing. Fun times. My buddy in SD helped me out with the money and my luggage got the hotel, next day afternoon. Wearing the same clothes for the flight, partying, sleep in, and going to the hotel restaurant for breakfast next morning, I was looking like such a hobo!

The conference went off pretty well; we visited a local brewery, golf course (the rental clubs were titleist (yes, they are awesome. just like the TV ads)), pacific beach area bars, downtown and all that craze. The only trouble other than missing baggage, lost card etc., was a short shower. No seriously! It only came up to my buddy Mike's armpit, notwithstanding the fact that he is 6'6". Watch his head grazing the ceiling!

On the way back, our flight from SD was delayed and we were bumming in the airport. I had a celebrity sighting. Former Purdue QB current New Orleans QB Drew Brees. I noticed him walking towards us, with this super hot blonde next to him. He was on the phone (or at least pretended to be). I told my buddy that its Brees and he didn't believe it. As Brees was walking away, I yelled across the corridor.. The blonde turned around first and then Brees too, gave us the nod and the wave, "hey!".

Apparently, there is this weird ordinance in SD that flights cannot take off after 11 PM. Noise violation crap! Stupid Californians! Who the hell do they think they are! Our flight just made that deadline and we got back to Philly just in time to catch our connecting flight to State College.

Things didn't get any better for me as India lost to Sri Lanka that day and got kicked out of the World cup. However, Liz came to town and it was good times afterwards as we partied our brains out!! Anyway, I am leaving for Antigua to watch the India-less world cup with a few of my friends. We have decided to go the games wearing the India jersey anyway and carry a sign, "we never got the memo". I informed my advisor that I'd be gone for 6 days, he said, "rough life, huh? too many parties, sandy beaches, sunny weather!!", love him!

Another pic from the SD trip while I bid adieu for a while! Hate me.

BFFs

2007-03-27T02:17:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, my former colleague/labmate/partier and future eastern hemisphere wife (I'll give you 50 bucks and a Ravi Shankar CD, Benjamin Ross!) came down to State College for a weekend visit. It was a really good time all around, with us going to a Penn state baseball game, dinner at the local indian restaurant, iranian new year's function and full-blown drinkies at Zenos. Some more of my labmates joined in the fun. The above picture was taken towards the end of the night. Clockwise from top-left: Ryan Pfaff, Matt Kropf, Liz Blickley and Yours truly.

It got me thinking: Way back in my final year of undergrad, I had a job with a software firm in India and also had got admission to a few colleges in U.S. with assistantship for graduate studies and I was leaning more towards the job. As I stand here now, I look at the past 8+ years I have spent at Penn State and the amazing set of people I have come in contact with and the relationships and friendships forged with a diverse group of people and I feel so lucky to have taken the grad school route than the professional career right after undergrad. I'm sure I'd have met a whole bunch of people there too, but the dynamic of a group of college students where some life-long friendships are made based on mutual trust and admiration and personal beliefs can just not be substituted. Can't you just tell it from all the love in that picture above??

Sooner than later, almost all the people that I know will be focused on their own professional and personal lives and we'll be far removed from each other; some of 'em already are. It brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes that there is a chance that I might see some of 'em never again in my life! But, as long as I shall live, I'll cherish the memories and look at back at that night in January 1998, standing in a phone booth talking with my brother and making the decision to go to graduate school!

Here is a list of some awesome human beings I have had the privilege of knowing through these years that I'd like to call my BFFs. I'm sure I'm gonna be missing a few names.. if you and I are BFFs and I had forgotten to list you, refresh my memory with a $20 bill!! Cheers!!

Deepak, Gautam, Ram, Amy, Rob, Viren, Mike, Anup, Matt, George, Nishant, Liz, Pfaff, Karthik, Mark, Ramesh, Siddharth, Cliff, Raasa and of course, Dr. T.

TIA

2007-03-14T02:30:00.000-04:00

Transient Ischemic (i-skee-mik) Attack - also known as a mini-stroke, is an event where a person suffers paralytic stroke-like symptoms for durations less than 24 hours,before recovering to normalcy. Although, it does not cause any permanent brain damage to the person, it is a foreboding of a more serious attack in the near future. Based on the statistics on the National Stroke Association website, more than a third of people that experienced TIA, will go on to have an actual paralytic stroke.

A week ago, I was informed by my brother-in-law in Chennai, India that my mom (she turns 70 this year) had stroke like symptoms for a few hours where her speech was slurred and lost feelings in her right arm. She has been going through acupuncture therapy of late, so that guy came over and did whatever he does, and my mom regained her speaking abilities and also her right arm was completely functional - I was told that, and was comforted that there is nothing to worry. As soon as I came to know of this, I called up my mom and I did not notice any slurring in her speech and I suggested that she get checked out by a doctor and confirm whatever her therapist hypothesized using CAT scan etc.

I checked in with my brother in Chicago and we updated each other and discussed on how this should be pursued further. There was one piece of information that was not told to me (but everybody else knew - they didn't wanna "burden" me apparently. One of the two drawbacks of being the youngest of the sons, the other being, growing up, you are fair game to all your brothers as they could beat you up if they want to. No questions asked :) Apparently, my mom hit her head against something in our kitchen back home by accident couple of weeks ago. I do not know how bad the bruise was. However, it seems to have caused a blood clot which in the course of time, partially blocked the carotid artery - they deliver blood to the brain, you see, so they are kind of important. This lack of blood (and so oxygen) causes speech slurring, blurred vision etc., often.

Anyway, eventually, my mother consulted with a neurologist who explained them the above rationale and suggested that a surgical procedure needs to be done to clear up the artery. This was decided over the weekend and the surgery was scheduled for yesterday 2.00 PM (IST). I checked in with my sister around that time and she kept me posted. The surgery seemingly lasted for 2 hours and involved drilling 2 teeny holes in my mom's head to bleed the clot out. 60 ml of that was drained out. She is still in ICU and will be so for another couple of days for observation- I was told. I was also told that, once she came around after the surgery, she recognized everybody, and answered questions testing memory and also did not slur. So, that's good news. The surgery seems to be a success. I haven't been able to talk to her since I heard about the surgery. I guess I'll have to hold on for couple more days. I need to get hold of the low-down on the whole situation once mom gets home and want to take a look at the medical reports. I read up a bit based on some of the information I had from my sis and bro, and have summarized the medical conditions here. (Internet - its a beautiful thing, Ain't it?)

As they say, All's well that ends well.

Beauty at its very best

2007-03-13T08:32:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine sent me this photograph.

Sleepless in State College

2007-03-13T04:27:00.000-04:00

Its the eve of the opening match of the Ninth Cricket World cup. Actually, its pretty early in the day but its still dark out, so I guess the term "eve" still holds good. The opening game is only few hours away and I can't go to sleep. I think there is something definitely wrong with me. In fact, I had fallen asleep earlier in the night watching The Daily Show but kept having cricket dreams and I woke up around 2 A.M. I have been trying to go back to sleep since, but to no avail.

For the Third World cup tournament in a row, I'll be watching it in State College. Man, time sure does fly. It feels only not too long ago when I was at Batman's place watching the 1999 World cup. God! With some help from friends and a magnetic compass [If you wanted an instance to prove how hopeless Batman and I are: We went to the local Wal-Mart to get the magnetic compass to align the satellite dish. As luck would have it, it was right next to the sports goods section. Yep! We bought a pair of baseball gloves and a baseball!! I have already cut the inside of my lip open too while trying to catch a flier! I need more practice :)] , we set up the satellite dish outside our apartment and the world cup watching is well and truly on its way. Batman and I cleaned up the apartment a little bit so that people coming to watch the game don't feel like they are walking in to a pig sty. (Actually, our apartment is probably one of the clean-er apartment you'd find, of two single guys in a college town).

Good news. Its good news to me and not so much to any of you out there. I got my Visa from the Jamaican Consulate. Its funny how I'd check th FEDEX website everyday to see whether it has been shipped out of NYC every day and I'd be disappointed to see it not happen. Over the weekend, I did not check it once for one reason or the other and, Voila! Wouldn't you know, when I stepped out of my apartment Monday morning to go to work, it was right there on the doorstep. Moral of the story: If you want things to happen, they just don't. Let it go so it comes back to you!! OR, Don't read so much in to something that involved the efficiency of people at the Jamaican consulate and a courier service, stupid. Whatever.

One new development. I received an email from my advisor that he is interested in sending me to Lawrence Livermore labs out in Northern CA for a couple months of internship over summer to complete the project that I have been working on in the past couple of years. They got some powerful magnets and stuff that we need. The person in charge there is also interested in hosting me. Hmmm. You know what that means? It seriously cuts in to my original summer plan of playing cricket in Washington, D.C. I am kinda bummed about it but, I think this would actually help in graduating some time very soon. So, Its good, I guess!!

As I laid awake in my bed, I was organizing my thoughts to write this blog post as a song to be called, "The cricket song". But, as I started putting the thoughts down on notepad, I realized, I couldn't make it into anything decent. The last lines of it were going to be,

"So, I wrote thing song, - to tell y'all
Bitches, the games are ONNN!"

Yep. The World Cup -- ITS ONNN!!!!!!

Random notes

2007-03-11T01:01:00.000-05:00

1. I was in Wal-Mart couple of days ago and When I got to the check-out line and was ready to pay for me stuff, the card-swipe thingy had a questionnaire in it. "Was the Cashier Courteous to you?" and the possible answer options were, "Yes, No, Ignore and Espanol". So I was kidding with the cashier when I asked her, what happens to her when I choose espanol. With all the seriousness in the world, she responded, "There should be Yes and No options on the screen". I was flabbergasted and I had to explain to her I was kidding. My other question is this - If you have Espanol as an option, if the reader doesn't know to read English, How is he/she gonna know what the question was? Does selecting Espanol provide the customer the same question and the choices, "Si, No and whatever it is for "ignore" in Espanol in the next screen? I need to figure this out next time I go to Wal-Mart.

2. There is this one fella that works two doors down the corridor from me in my department. I do not know him all the well, you know, at best, he is an acquaintance. I see him at the least 5-6 times in the course of a day. I run out of ways to say "Hi!" to him every time I see him. I don't wanna start a conversation with him as I found out the other day, It gets BORING real quick. I give him the "hey! How is it going?", "what's up?" and the "nod".. then I run out of ways to acknowledge his existence. Hmmm!

3. In Microsoft Word, there is this align left and align right. I know what the "justified" option does. But, why is it called "Justified"?

4. The killing of the Persian soldiers in the movie "300" by the SPARTAAANS was awesome. Excellent stunt direction.

5. My next post would be my hundredth. party anyone?

6. I just lost an hour. If you find it, bring it back to me. You'll be aptly rewarded.

7. Two more days to WORLD CUP.

8. Get well Mom.

Race War -- Its ONNN!!

2007-03-08T03:12:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a very feeble attempt at commenting on the first episode of the new season of South Park.

#1. It was - as usual and expectedly - SUPER HILARIOUS!
#2. There was so much irony masked with sarcasm that was delivered as a commentary on current affairs of racial climate in the U.S.
#3. They made fun of midgets, er.. little people. Little people with their little suits, and trying to "rise" above things when people mock 'em.

For those that didn't catch it, such as Nishant, who did not have a cable connection because he is moving out of his current apartment.. (Dude! You could easily have gone to Golu's place and watched it. You could have streamed it on sopcast, TVU player or any other p2p player.. What is more important than a new season of South Park? Seriously, I mean, COME ON! and you call yourself a SP fan. Its WRROONGG!).

Randy Marsh gets in to trouble for saying the N-Word on the game show Wheel of Fortune and he is getting to live with the stigma of being the "niggerguy". He is trying all kinds of stuff to rid himself of it, such as literally kissing Reverend Jesse Jackson's ass, free-styling, going to watch black performers etc. Token Black is pissed off at Stan Marsh in school and Cartman is hoping for a race war between them that never materializes! However, a midget (Nelson - what a choice for a name! Awesome!) guy comes to their school to let the kids know about sensitivity and Cartman can't stop laughing. Eventually, he fights the midget in hand-to-hand combat style.. Randy Marsh gets saved by Michael "Kramer" Richards et al from a group of people that do not want "niggerguys" around and they help in passing a bill - by mostly white congressmen, mind you - to ban the word, "niggerguy" from the American Vocabulary, since, that word brings memories of bad times and all the shame etc. (The word Niggerguy cannot be used, and the words nigger and guy should at least be 7 words apart, if used in the same sentence!) Matt Stone and Trey Parker, you are geniuses! Stan finally comes to the realization that he could never understand the way token would have felt when he heard Randy Marsh on TV, and admits that, "he doesn't get it". Token forgives Stan, saying, "now, you get it Stan". CLASSIC!!

Obviously, the episode is loaded. Where to begin? Its a commentary on the Michael Richards episode at the Laugh Factory, The attempts at banning the word Nigger, Political Correctness, and possibly, hyper-sensitivity! One thing I never understood is, if there is so much stigma attached to the word "Nigger" and causes so much pain and trauma to the blacks, why do they keep perpetuating it themselves? By calling each other "niggers", and everyone else from a different race "prohibited" from using it, what are they trying to prove? Obviously, it is easy for me - someone that did not grow up in this culture, where apparently the mistrust between the Whites and Blacks run deep, and the society carries the burden of slavery - to make that observation and obviously, I'll never be able to understand the pain that one word might cause to the blacks. Would it be okay if I greet someone a-la Jackie Chan in Rush Hour, "What's up my nigger?". Something tells me it won't fly well, or maybe, I have been in the U.S. too long to even try it! If a Black comedian during his routine, makes fun of white folks by using the word "Cracker", why aren't there people (Black and/or White) up in arms about it? Isn't this the true definition of racism?

Be honest with me on this -- How many of you have made jokes about people of races, religion, backgrounds different than ours? I know I have. Is that racist? Or, does one have to discriminate somebody else based on their race etc., to be called a racist?? If former were the case, I am definitely racist. And everyone I know, Indians, Americans (black, White, brown, yellow, whatever), Africans, Australians, British, Latinos are all racist. I guess by making jokes, I am acknowledging the fact that we are all different in a variety of ways, but I'll never hold it against you!

On that note, There is a racial slur database online that I came to know of. Phenomenally funny. Out of all the "nicknames" for Indians, I loved "Target". Pretty much, the database covers every race and all prominent countries and regions of the world. Its an equal opportunity database!! The best ones are those for the mixed races..

So Anyway, here is my message to you all: Lighten up! Settle down!

I'll shoot the Sheriff

2007-03-07T21:45:00.000-05:00

Jamaica -- You owe me $133.34 (US) and also a five day all expenses paid vacation to Phoenix, AX and Las Vegas, NV. If I have to, I'll shoot the Sheriff's Deputy, too. Believe you me, it won't be in self-defense either!

Everybody, get your laughs out that the only form of ID I have is my passport. Done? Okay then, let's move on to the real story people! I sent my passport to the Jamaican Consulate in New York about 10 days ago. It is advertised on their website that it takes about 3-4 days to get the visa for the world cup in the Carribeans, excluding the time spent in a Fedex or a DHL truck. I had planned on leaving State College for the spring break vacation and the conference in San Diego, on 12th and spend a few days in Phoenix with my buddy and pay a visit to THE sin city of the world, Las Vegas.

I had been trying to track the Fedex package online and I was getting mildly worried that it has not been dispatched out from the Jamaican consulate even 8 days after they got my passport and the $100 fee (daylight robbery, if you ask me). I tried for 2 straight days before I got to talk to a real person. Oh by the way, when you get put on hold by the "operator" in their embassy, they play this godawful song, "Sleepy island sunshine, Jah..maiii..caa, Jamaaaai..ca!" over and over. The first time I got somebody on the phone, "Graham" said my visa has not been processed and in fact, he can't even locate my passport. Splendid!!

After making some contingency plans such as looking up the options of going to their consulate in NYC, if need be, and letting the travel agent know that rescheduling of the trip out west might happen, I got back on the phone for another couple of hours before I got the answer that, my passport is indeed on their system and my visa has been approved. However, it still has to go through some "final processing" (whatever that means) and needs to be dispatched out to me. The kind lady helping me on the phone said she can't guarantee exactly when I'd get it. It could be this friday, It could be sometime next week. God, help me! I know I took your name in vain in my last post, but let bygones be bygones, alright? For old times sake?

So anyway, I went ahead and rescheduled my trip out west. Now, I just fly out straight to San Diego and fly back in 4 days. No Vegas. No gambling. No golfing in Phoenix. No sky-diving in Tempe. Goddamn it. Oops! Just kidding, God!

God -- Damn you!!

2007-02-28T01:26:00.000-05:00

Some are just born with the gifts. Obviously, there is no substitute for hard work. But, to attain the level of greatness, I don't think you'll disagree with me when I say, you need to be born with "it". No matter how hard he tries, Totti is not gonna be able to hit a cricket ball, or make a basket or any of the other zillion things. There are certain limitations imposed on you by nature that you are never gonna be able to overcome.

I have seen the signs of it from close quarters in different fields of expertise. Be it academic or sports. I have had the good fortune to rub shoulders with some of the most brilliant guys I have ever met in my life.. When they seem to work on a problem, it seems to get solved, oh so beautifully, with the greatest amount of ease. I have always envied that. And usually I'd walk away thinking, "how did I not think of that?". Once in a great while, I have had such clairvoyance that could be described as "being in the zone" where you just know what the next step is, but those times have been so very few and far between.

There was an article published yesterday on cricinfo, "The science of reading" discussing the research by Sean Miller, an Australian, who in his doctoral research, tried to analyze the "mechanism" by which batsmen in Cricket seemed to read the ball from the hand of the bowler, and identify the length and line, and swing of the ball, and oh by the way, estimate the effect of the 22-yard strip on the bounce, and hit the ball, all within 600 milliseconds. The article briefly describes the scientific methods and experiments conducted by Sean in understanding the batsman's ability to perceive and react.

Any cricket fan would attest to it - there is nothing more beautiful than watching a top flight batsman on song, where he effortlessly caresses a 90 mph delivery through the extra cover region with such delicate balance and panache! High elbow and all, to boot! The top echelon of batsmen - the Tendulkars, the Pontings and The Laras of the world - seem to be able to do it at will, and fairly regularly. Obviously, there is a decent amount of luck needed to survive the initial "get your eye in" period. Once they safely negotiate that, there is no telling what is going to follow.

Obviously, to play international cricket as a batsmen you need to have the talent and the tools. There is a physical side, there is a mental side and the third side, which is revealed to only the chosen few. The only times we get to realize the existence of the third side is when we are fortunate enough to bask in the radiance of the geniuses in action. And I think that's friggin' unfair. So, damn you god or whoever that is in charge of apportioning the mojo.

The closest I have come to witness someone with such talents in flesh, was Maninder Bola. You could tell the moment he walks to bat that he has got the goods. I mean, anyone selected to play under-15 World cup for their country must have sufficient potential to succeed. I had the marvelous opportunity to witness the 128 (not out) he scored last season for Penn State Cricket Club. I was the square-leg umpire for our innings and I had the best seat in the house (except for the bowlers who were dispatched all over). He took his time settling in, nudging ones and twos (he hardly was able to practice as he had already started his job). It was a fun thing to watch unfold. He used the initial part of his innings to get his "net practice", gathered steam and towards the end, unleashed his wide repertoire of shots. The pick of the shots was an effortless on-drive that sailed way, WAY over the long-on boundary for a six. He ended the innings with a flurry of boundaries. The shot he played off the penultimate ball of the inning was just mind-boggling. He was on to his front-foot but realized quickly it was short of length, drew his arms inside and flicked it over deep square leg for a boundary with an imaginative wave of the wrist. These are the times, although I am overjoyed at watching the shot making on display, I am looking for this God-person to kick him square in the nuts, for shortchanging me!!!

So anyway, I leave you with the cruel joke that God gets to play on people, in this case, Totti.

(ROTFLMAO :)

One last rehash

2007-02-27T00:37:00.000-05:00

It was the most disappointing day for me, as an Indian cricket fan. The Indian cricket team had defied odds to get to the finals of the World Cup in 2003, held in Africa. They had turned the corner from a wretched pre-world cup tour of New Zealand, recovered from a nine-wicket bashing at the hands of the reigning champions, played smart cricket, maximized their potential and rode on the shoulders of a genius, beat their arch rivals handsomely and determined to have their little tryst with destiny on that beautiful day, March 23, 2003.

The world cup in 2003 was my second world cup in the U.S. I had watched the 1999 world cup mostly due to the pioneering work of batman and psycho in setting up the satellite dish in Parkway Plaza. It was a time when internet streaming didn't exist, dial-up modems were still used. I spent the summer watching Cricket although it was a terrible tournament for India, losing in the super sixes stage.

I was an undergrad in IT-BHU, Varanasi watching the dreams of a nation evaporate on that minefield in Calcutta. Once again, The Genius took the team almost to the promised land only for his teammates to squander it away.

Of the other four world cup tournaments to have been held during my lifetime, The less we talk about the campaign in 1992, the better; I don't remember 1979; I vaguely recall the images of the Indian cricket team holding aloft the Prudential Cup in the Lord's balcony; 1987 was sweet, for one-day cricket had kicked onto a new gear (literally.. colored clothing for the first time in a world cup) and Sidhu was smacking everybody around the park (he'd go on to smack someone in real life and end up killing him!) and it was a farewell tourney for the premier batsman of Indian Cricket Sunil Gavaskar, Chetan Sharma picked up the first hat-trick by an Indian; The tournament was heading towards a possible epic clash between India and Pakistan in the Finals until the Poms (damn you Phil Defreitas!!) and the Aussies crashed the party!).

I so desperately want to see India lift the worldcup once in my lifetime. (1983 doesn't count. Bad TV, Bad coverage. For heaven's sake, There is no video footage of one of the best one-day innings ever played.) All this made me think that the turn around by the Indian team in 2003 was going to culminate in beating the Aussies in the final.

The path to the final was completely surreal. As I mentioned earlier, wretched preparations, a team under fire, good spanking from the Aussies... but then, Zimbabwe came around. Sachin made 90-odd and showed the rest of the team how to bat in South African conditions. Bowlers started to deliver.. Top order batsmen chipped in. A huge morale boosting win over Pakistan. (Sidestory: We (Batman, Ram and I, has set up dish in our house and set up 2 TVs for the world cup and had people coming over (for a nominal fee, of course) and enjoy cricket. For the India-Pakistan game, there were about 70 people in our house. As it turned out, Fans of the two countries split evenly between the two rooms and it was the most fun I have ever had watching a game of cricket. Yaaayys from one room drowned the Aaaaahs from the other (and cive-versa) and it stayed that way for the most of the game. After Pakistan's innings, (where they put up 273 around a fine century by Saaed Anwar) the Pakistani fans were more than generous to bring donuts and other refreshments as "consolation" for the impending Indian defeat, AND THEN... SACHIN CAME TO BAT! The rest is obviously, history! I still very vividly remember the reactions from the crowd when Wasim Akram (who along with Rashid Latif put on some real quick runs) was bowled, off a no-ball. When the wickets were knocked over, the Indian fans burst out in joy and when the image of the umpire showing no-ball came on, the Pakistani fans erupted!! Cricket.. as its supposed to be!

I don't have to narrate how the 2003 finals turned out. The indian bowlers were way to psyched up and couldn't keep their emotions in check and the Aussies took a good toll of it. The last glimmer of hope went out when Sehwag got out for a fighting 82 and India lost by 125 runs. The silence in our household was deafening and the mood, morbid. Don't believe me? Check out the picture from that fateful day. (The look on Gautam's face, says it all!!)

Anyway, let bygones be bygones! The 2007 World cup brings with it the new set of promises and hope and a dream that could be cherished forever. I remember telling myself in 1999, that, when the 2007 worldcup rolls around, I would go to the West Indies to watch it. Now, here I am, going to the World cup. I just fedex-ed my passport to the Consulate General of Jamaica in New York for the Caricom Visa. Now, if you'd excuse me, I have a date with destiny!

life is too short

2007-02-21T17:51:00.000-05:00

There is so much to do, but there is so little time. Okay, i am pushing it. There is only so much I want to do. Not a whole lot, but taking into consideration my laziness, the amount of time available to do the little things I want to do, gets vastly cut short. Here is the list of things - outside of academics (it can't wait any more, but what the hell!!) that I intend to do in the near future.

As some of you might already know, I am planning on going to the Carribeans to watch two cricket world cup matches featuring India (hopefully!) against Australia and New Zealand (probably!). The plan is to fly out March 29th morning and return on April 3rd. I am going with Nishant, Saurabh, Rohan and Aditi. It promises to be one helluva time.

But before the world cup, I need to take care of few things. I have a conference in San Digo, CA from March 19-22. I just sent in the manuscript today. As luck would have it, the penn state spring break vacation is from March 12-18. So, i am thinking - why not couple this conference trip with a visit to Phoenix to visit Karthik and may be hit up Vegas (and check out Ajay's new domicile.. yeah, that lucky rat got a job in Vegas.. can you believe it?) and pay a visit to the Grand Canyon and spend a day camping and hiking. I have never been to Vegas before and I am sure as heck it'll be a swell time.

Oh yeah, by the way, there is the bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee in June. Headlining acts: The Police, The WhiteStripes, Flaming Lips and I had some good review about the three-day long escapade from my buddies who were there last year. Somewhere in between all this, I wanna give sky-diving a try!

Coming back to the world cup -- Oh man! I am so psyched to have the opportunity to watch "GOD" play!! Am I lucky or am I lucky? I have never watched a cricket match in a stadium.. This trip is slightly on the expensive side but I am glad I am doing it. This probably is the last world cup campaign for some of the legends of Indian cricket. Sachin, Ganguly, Kumble and Dravid.

Since my last blogpost, the world cricket scene has changed a bit. Australia has lost 6 of their last 7 games; India won two bilateral series; England rose from the ashes (pardon the pun) and beat Australia (thrice!!!!); Pakistan self-combusted; New Zealand have hit a purple patch; South Africa seem unbeatable; SriLanka have shown top order weakness, West Indies are gonna be playing at home - in short, the world cup seems to be wide open.

I like India's chances as long as neither the bowlers nor the batsmen mail in a game against any of the heavyweights. The opening bowlers seem to get the initial breakthroughs quite regularly, with decent performances in the middle overs by the back up bowlers. The bowling at the death still seems like a work in progress. The return of Yuvraj - he seems to be in form - and a sensible Dhoni batting at 7, gives the Indian batting line-up a completely different outlook than what we saw in South Africa. Virender Sehwag and Robin Uthappa - are going to be hit or miss opening the innings, no matter who you pick. But, just going on self-confidence and self-belief and form, I'd pick Robin but Sehwag provides an extra bowling option. Then, it becomes a toss up between Karthik and Sehwag. Karthik is dynamite on the field and can apply himself under tough batting conditions, as he showed recently in Cuttack against W.I. On a bowler's wicket, pick karthik. On a flat belter, Sehwag!

Without further ado, here is my lineup: Robin, Sourav, Sachin, Yuvraj, Rahul, Karthik/Sehwag, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Ajit, Zaheer, Munaf.

P.S. Golu just emailed the stadium seating to us. We are in block 142, row 6. (Square-leg/extra cover region). Happy times!!!

Happy 58th

2007-01-26T16:31:00.000-05:00

Many more happy returns of the day you became a republic, My love, My dear India.

Photo Courtesy: BBC

Egg-ing and Egging on!!

2007-01-26T16:26:00.000-05:00

These are the two states of mind that an average fan of Indian cricket knows and lives by. If things are good, put the Indian cricket players on a pedestal and treat them like gods. On the first sign of shakiness, throw the team under the bus, throw rocks at their family's cars and houses, burn effigies and start saying that so-and-so is past his prime and should make way for the next wunderkind.

If the fans are so inconsistent, what do you expect from the team, which is formed from people who at some point in their life were nothing but an average fan? What is it that afflicts us, Indian cricket fans to act so over the top, good AND bad?

We are very quick to jump on someone's bandwagon, anoint him as the Saviour of Indian cricket, sign him up to huge corporate deals? We love mercurial talents, if you have noticed. People that could produce an inning of a lifetime or that magical spell that brought a win. There have been only very few in the history of Indian cricket that are regarded as greats, were consistent in what they did and also had that ability to provide that magic inning or spell. Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar. Rahul Dravid is hailed - very correctly - as one of the best batsmen that India has produced, ever and obviously, he is Mr. Consistent. He however lacks that ability where when the going gets tough, he could just take the bull by its horns and counter-attack single-handedly and beat the opposition down into submission. Sehwag has this ability but of late he is floundering but consistency was never his hallmark and so, he can never enter the rarefied air of Sachin and Kapil. Yuvraj has that streak in him as well, and has shown the ability to be consistent. Hopefully, this comeback of his from injury will provide him with the opportunities.

The love and adulation for the one that fights against all odds and produces that one game turning performance -- is it a by-product of all that junk that comes out in Bollywood, where our Mr. Hero, bashes down all the villians, gets revenge for the death of his mother, gets the girl as well? Are we dying to know that "heroes" exist? Is it because the life of an average Indian is beset with so many problems of "just making it" that he is living vicariously through the on-field odds-defying triumphs of our cricketers?

I personally would like to believe I am sane (only) when it comes to rooting for Team India. I shall never waver from it. True, I do get depressed and frustrated at times if we go down in a game, without much of a fight. I do not worry too much if we lose, but a spineless submission, lack of stomach for a fight, gets me. However, I firmly believe the Indian cricketers are thorough professionals and are putting their best effort in every match to win. As Dravid mentioned, no matter who we think is good for the team based on the team's needs, expectations and fit, we play to win.

Transcendental Tennis

2007-01-25T15:14:00.000-05:00

It was pure joy watching it. It was like watching a mathematical genius working through an elegant proof. A well-orchestrated symphony. I know my words can NOT do justice to the way Roger Federer dismantled Andy Roddick in the Australian Open Semifinal, last night with his genius strokeplay, immaculate angles, and other-worldly anticipation and a ballet dancer-like nimble footwork. I feel so fortunate to have witnessed the genius putting on a clinic. There was a time he rolled off 11 consecutive games from the end of first set to 3-0 in the third, which included the second set where Roddick didn't even get to as much as a game point. Federer gave away, S-E-V-E-N (That is, 1,2,3,4,5,6...7) points in all in the second set. If you missed it, watch it. It only takes 83 minutes to watch the whole match. Trust me, you will thank me for giving you the heads up.

There are only two athletes that go on trance like this, in current times, where they play shots - with alarming regularity- that their fellow competitors didn't even know existed. Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. Such as Tiger hitting a 3-iron from a thick rough for 200 yards and let it roll to within few feet of the hole or Roger hitting a backhand slice down the line passing shot with such tenderness usually reserved for drop shots. The commentators brought up Sachin Tendulkar's batting when he is in the zone, to relate to greatness of the stroke-making geniuses. But, Sachin - even in his prime, did not do it, this regularly.

Federer was so zoned in that he won all of the five line-call challenges.. They weren't even more than few millimeters off. During one of those challenges, Roddick - overmatched and manhandled - walked up to the linesperson with a wry smile, and thanked her for trying to help him out!!! To throw a stat for the heck of it -- Roddick who has one of the biggest serves in the game, had 4 aces to Federer's 10. That's how well keyed in, King Roger was! Its like, he lives in the future, by which he already knows what is to come and is just biding his time on the baseline waiting to pounce on the ball whenever it gets there..

At the end of the match, Roger took a bow - eventhough it was just a semifinal - when the crowd gave him a standing ovation. He himself knew he had just played one of the most special display of Tennis to be ever played. Later, Jim Courier interviewed Roger and asked him to explain, what he felt, being in the zone, was like? Response: "The tournament isn't over yet. Let me play one more like this on Sunday, We can then start celebrating", Although he himself admitted to his game being, "unreal".

During a recent interview, when asked about his practice routines, he opined: I do not practice that much anymore. I play so many matches as it is; I need to give myself some rest.True sign of a maestro that is supremely confident in his abilities to invoke any shot from his repertoire at any given time. It is common knowledge that Tiger spends ungodly amount of time honing his game everyday to stay way ahead of the field. I think this where the genius of Federer separates itself from anything we know or seen, ever. He could very well start playing basketball and he might put Steve Nash and Magic Johnson to shame. People sometimes bring about Michael Jordan's name into the conversation when talking about special talents. I think he had the indomitable will to win and not accept defeat anytime. But, I don't think he was a genius, like Federer is.

During the road trip to San Diego, CA, we had just left Austin, TX and it was close to sundown. We were admiring the scenes we got to watch. After a while, it was so, so very beautiful, there was this joy that filled our hearts that we just couldn't continue driving anymore. We pulled over to the side of the road, got out and spent a good amount of time, basking in the pure, unadulterated beauty of nature. It was so overwhelming. That is the feeling that comes close to defining the art that Roger Federer is portraying on a Tennis court. All Hail the King! We should feel so extremely fortunate to have lived during the same era of this genius and have had the opportunity to witness his masterpieces.

Carnatic Sangeet to Classic Rock

2007-01-25T02:02:00.000-05:00

I have a collection of about 80-100 CDs and whole lot more albums on my laptop. Of these, majority of them are by artists from the 60's and the 70's. I, in the last 8 years, have spent good amount of money to acquire all of the Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, most of the Beatles albums. As you can tell, I am more of a fan of the "Classic Rock" genre of music.

Growing up, there was no television in our household but there was cassette player. Since ours was an orthodox tam-brahm household, all the tapes we had were devotional songs, carnatic music, religious discourses, vedic chants et al. There was a radio in the house around which we used chill to listen to "vividh bharti" on a regular basis.

When I was in high school, I got the first real taste of "western" music as my brother brought a bagful of cassettes when he came home for vacation from college. It had the odd Micheal Jackson stuff and Phil Collins and things of that nature - mostly pop. (I think I just threw up in my mouth! I still like MJ - the thriller, Bad! days, but Phil Collins???? What was I thinking?)

However, the whole scene changed when I left my home after high school to go IT-BHU, Varanasi. Although, it does not have as great a music scene as, say colleges in Mumbai or Delhi, It certainly was really good and very varied. In my first month, I went to see my first of many "Rock Informals" (Where the bands in the college put on a show for the students on Friday night - for free). As I later found out, the first band had opened the show with "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin. I still very vividly remember truly enjoying it and jumping around to the music. I think the bands covered the Beatles ("I wanna hold your hand" was very popular), Dire Straits (Sultans of Swing and Walk of life), Nirvana, Metallica, Pink Floyd (Another Brick in the Wall), Def Leppard among others. One of my classmates and my neighbor in the freshman hostel had a fair bit of idea of rock music and I used to borrow music tapes from them and develop my knowledge.

Initially, it was all very "pop"py but by the time my third year in college came around, I had experimented with range of music from Pop, heavy metal (in fact I once bought an Iron Maiden album and remember getting my ears jarred from it), punk and rock 'n roll, and I found the most enjoyment from listening to Classic Rock.

It is still very clear in my head about the time when I bought "The Wall" and listened to it non-stop for weeks (I had a cassette player in my room, that my sister gave to me) and I rated all the songs in that album. I think I drew crowns next to "Comfortably numb" and "Mother". I was truly and completely blown by these two compositions and I still get goosebumps every time I listen to these two songs. (Me and my buddy had a rating system. A five-point Crown indicates the absolute best. The worst song would get a 1-point crown. The aforementioned songs got the five, obviously. We actually used to draw small crown thingies on the inlay card. Yep. Those were the days!!).

When I graduated from College, I has about 90-odd albums but I gave 'em all away (I wanted to start a CD collection) to one of my juniors.. He was a drummer in a band and was from Chennai :) He had introduced me to Black Sabbath and most of Led Zeppelin works. I remember my last semester in college when there was nothing much to do in terms of classwork, I had a job and I had also been accepted for grad school -- A few buddies and I would out on town, grab a few beers and spend the rest of the night on the banks of the Ganges, talking and toking, and come back to our hostels and listen to the Doors. Good times.

In the first few years at Penn State, I devoured every music related show on TV, caught up on the history of rock 'n roll, went out a lot and listened to a lot of good music, went to a few concerts etc. Now, my musical taste is although primarily classic rock (Pink Floyd being my absolute favorite), is still quite flexible. Of the current lot, I like the whitestripes and Jet. I guess I can take Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Radiohead, Nirvana from the 90's. Having Napster gives you a lot of freedom in terms of listening to a whole lot of music before you go out and buy them. I, for the first four years of my stay at Penn State, used to buy one album a month, as a habit. This was before the time of iPod and mp3 players. Now, goddamn batman has all the music that I so diligently loved and bought over the course of so many years.. 'coz he could just 'rip' it.

P.S. Listen to "Heroin" by Velvet Underground. Or, "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton. Or, "Mary Jane's last dance" by Tom Petty. Or, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles, if you already haven't. They're all good. ;-)

string free

2007-01-25T00:25:00.000-05:00

it can be done, you told me so
come as you please, choose to go.
all the times, 'twas a show
i guess you did but i just din't know

The Analogy, and Destiny!!

2007-01-23T00:29:00.000-05:00

On Sunday night, Peyton Manning, one of the most prolific quarterback in the National Football League (albeit in the regular season) unloaded this giant monkey off his back and finally broke through. He led from the front, helping his team claw back from a deep hole to beat their long time nemesis New England Patriots and reserved the right to play for his first Super Bowl win. The Indianapolis Colts have been beaten, bruised and battered quite a few times in the recent history by the Patriots and have had their post-season plans derailed only to sit at home and watch the Tom Brady-led Pats win - Count 'em - three Super Bowls. It was always said that Peyton couldn't win the big one. Well, technically he still hasn't won the big one but he and his team have just taken a huuuugge step towards achieving that goal.

This got me thinking on the parallels between Peyton - and arguably one of the best batsmen to have ever played cricket - Sachin Tendulkar. He has every batting record or atleast is among the top batsmen in almost all categories but has never won the World Cup. Their career paths have been eerily similar. Well, Peyton comes from a family of QBs and went to a big football program, and was the first pick in the NFL draft and went through a horrible rookie season before they started winning on a regular basis but never made it to the Super Bowl. Sachin -- not a whole lot of cricket pedigree, except for his brother who was a decent enough cricketer, but was earmarked for cricketing greatness when he was very young, lived up to the expectations, plodded his way through the disaster also known as Indian Cricket Team of the early 90's and has never won the Big One. Just like Peyton whose teams always had the offensive firepower to outscore people on any given day but didn't have the defense that could stop a good team in the playoffs, Sachin sometimes singlehandedly would pile up runs only to see the bowlers give it away. (World cups 96, 99, '03). Just as the NE Pats were Peyton's lightning rod, Sachin hasn't been able to break through the Aussies in a World cup. He took India oh-so-close in 1996 (made a brilliant 90 against the Aussies, only to see his teammates throw it away) only to be beaten by that minefield in Kolkata and the Srilankans (Peyton - last year against the Steelers); The Bowlers just gift-wrapped the cup in 2003 to Australia, even though Sachin singlehandedly kept India in the world cup after that opening game bashing by the Aussies.

Peyton, before Sunday's victory, has led the colts to wins against Patriots in the regular season and Sachin too has put together mind-boggling performances to beat the Aussies (Sharjah 1998, Anyone?).

Before this current playoffs, People and experts had written the Colts off because their defense was acting up and teams around the league were gashing 'em up and since a stout run-defense is required to win in the playoffs, they apparently had no chance. Well, the defense regrouped just in time, won the first two games of the playoffs even with Peyton way off colour and provided an opportunity for him to come through and shine against their Archenemy.

You see where I am going with this.. Indian Team has been written off after back-to-back One-day series drubbings in West Indies and South Africa. Their team composition seems to have gone haywire. There are only a handful of games before the world cup tournament begins. From the team to beat last year when they rolled of wins against Pakistan, SriLanka and whoever else, the decline has been super fast. Indianapolis started the season 9-0 and ended with a 12-4 record in the regular season, a bad slide of 3 and 4 in the last seven games that included shocking losses to lowly teams.

Based on the World cup team groupings, India is expected to make it to the Second round (they are clubbed with SriLanka, Bangladesh and Bermuda for crying out loud) and are expected to face Australia on March 31. Why am I telling you all this? Why am I so keen about the imminent defeat of the Aussies by India on their way to their date with destiny on 28th April? 'Coz I am planning on being in the Carribeans bitches, to see Sachin finally put it across to those goddamned Aussies.

Bring it on, Batman!

2007-01-20T01:51:00.000-05:00

Dr. Officer Batman - after a really long hiatus, made his new entry in the blogosphere recently. He had selected a World XI Team to play test match cricket. He had made his selections based on the need to form the best team, taking into consideration the current form, abilities and how well they'd be able to play the roles asked of them. Most of the players he has picked are absolutely the best in what they do. But what good is a team if they cannot compete against an opposition that can put them to the test.. Pardon the pun. Here it is, my selection of the best of the rest, to fight the evil hegemony of batman.

1. Stephen Fleming (C)
2. Rahul Dravid
3. Jacques Kallis
4. Brian Lara
5. Kevin Pietersen
6. Mahela Jayawardene
7. Adam Gilchrist (wk)
8. Daniel Vettori
9. Shoaib Akhtar
10. Stuart McGill
11. Makhaya Ntini

12th man: Harbhajan Singh

I, as you can see, have two guys opening, that do not do it on a regular basis and are playing out of position. They both have opened for their teams in the shortened version of the game, and occasionally have done it in the longer version as well - with pretty decent results as well. There are 4 left-handed batsmen in the top 8 which will make it difficult for the bowlers to maintain a line. Five out of the top six have the ability to play really long innings and KP - in the recently concluded Ashes - has shown he has it in him to play a long one as well. They are all really good players of spin as well!!!! There are four captains in the team- so there will be no lack of ideas - out of which I picked Fleming as the one to lead this team, as he has shown many times that he is very imaginative and can bring the best out of his mates and is a master in motivating his troops. Jacques Kallis, Gilly and Vettori play the role of all-rounders. There are 3 batsmen in this line-up that can take the game away from you in the space of a session -- Lara, KP and Gilly. It has 3 that can just pitch a tent if things start to go awry - in Dravid, Kallis and Jayawardene. The top 3 are all technically well equipped to play the new ball, in all conditions. And, they are really good runners between the wickets as well. So, even if a Shaun Pollock or an Asif try to peg away at the batsmen, they could pinch singles to ease the pressure.

The bowling department -- There are 2 absolute tearaways in Shoaib and Ntini. In conditions that may not even suit the bowlers, you gotta have the pace to hustle the batsmen. And they both bowl, absolutely vicious bouncers. Yes, Shoaib does get carried away at times, but that's where a calming captain like Fleming's role will be appreciated. You absolutely need to have a wrist spinner in your team... After Warnie's retirement, the natural choice is Stuart McGill. For the second spinner role, I had to pick between Vettori and Harbhajan. Vettori got the nod because he is a lot more experienced and can play as an all-rounder as well. But if the game is on a turning pitch, Bhajji shall play instead of Vettori.

If there was weak link with this team, it is their fielding. The slip cordon should not be a problem at all, with Dravid, Fleming and Kallis. Mahela should be at point, while Shoaib and Ntini will be boundary riders.KP and Lara will have to be in the covers and mid-wicket, respectively. That leaves McGill and Vettori at mid-on and mid-off. Vettori is a decent mover but Stuey not so much.

By the way, 8 of the test playing nations are represented as well.. That way, we shall have a truly global audience.

So, there it is, Batman. Game on, Doctor boy!!! For all the marbles.

Ready, Steady, Fire!

2007-01-19T18:33:00.000-05:00

I have always been overawed by the power of guns. The ease with which you could cause damage to someone else (or to yourself). I have never been a big fan of guns for the destructive power you hold at the tip of your finger(s). A lot of my friends are completely enthralled by guns and like to go shooting in ranges or go hunting. They discuss the types of guns their parents own or the awesomeness (is that even a word?) of the feeling they had when they shot a 45 or things of that nature. I almost always stayed away from these discussions as I am a firm believer that guns do not have role in "human" society. Nothing good ever comes out of these man-made weapons. I had never even held a pistol, or gun of any sort in my thirty years of existence. The closest I have ever come is holding a pellet-gun (for we were conducting experiments to understand the ability of human cells to recover from blunt impact; This was part of a project sponsored by the Navy on "non-lethal weapons").

All this changed today. Last night, When I was out with my friends, one of them asked whether I have ever shot a gun and I truthfully said, "No". He said he is an avid hunter and he owns a shotgun and would like to take me to a local shooting range and fire some shots at targets - for fun. Usually, I say, "Thanks, No Thanks! I am okay not having fired a shot from a gun in my life". But last night, I said, "Sure. Let me know when". I had forgotten all about it when I woke up this morning till I received a call from my friend later in the afternoon - while at work- whether I was still interesting in going to the shooting range. I was working on a Finite Elelment code and things were going rather slow. I thought a little gun firing action could probably get things going for me, and so I agreed to go.

It was still pretty cold out there when we got to the range and luckily, my buddy thought of bringing an extra pair of gloves - not to mention the shotgun and 75 rounds of ammunition. Good times!! So, we registered ourselves at the shooting range (which involves writing your name on a sheet of paper.. and that's about it) and were ready to blow some shit up. My buddy told me that since the shotgun he owns has a shorter barrel, it has smaller range of accuracy and is good from only 10-15 yards. Whatever. By the time we got ourselves set and the targets ready (few wooden boards and a starbucks cup and a CD case), it had started to snow pretty well.

My buddy went first and shot 5 rounds in a matter of a second and hit the targets pretty well. He loaded the shotgun for me and told me how to shoot it. Hold it up and support it by your shoulder to take care of the recoil and aim using the sighter and go click! Well, I did and fired the first shot in my life. Goddamn, I was NOT ready for the recoil, man!! Since I was supporting the gun more with the upper part of my right bicep than the inner side of the shoulder socket, the gun recoiled pretty well and caused a good amount of pain. I learned my lesson quickly and placed it on the inner part of the shoulder, cocked the gun and shot again.. The recoil was much less this time but the aim was still way off. At the end of 5 shots, I barely grazed the target once. I was so pumped from holding the shotgun and firing it, that I wasn't able to focus on the target.

The second time around, after my buddy completely destroyed that piece of wood, I felt a lot more comfortable holding the gun and this time, I got slightly closer to the target and went 3 out of 5. During the third round, I was getting decently good at it and started hitting the targets pretty well, going 5 out of 5. I still could not shoot as fast as my buddy could, still taking much time between shots to cock the shotgun.. but, it was fun.

I shot about 25 rounds while getting better at hitting the target in later rounds and the snowfall got much heavier and we decided to leave. There were about 25 rounds of ammo left and we have decided to go back to the range when the weather gets a little more nice. Its hard to shoot when your hands are freezing, you know? Oh by the way, I got back to my lab and worked on that FE code and its now up and running... Yeah baby!!

Three hundred Sixty Nine

2007-01-17T00:56:00.000-05:00

It has been that many days since I wrote my first blog post. I wanted to write this post on the one year anniversary but I was busy getting back to San Diego from LA-LA land. (YES!! I am still giddy from the road trip). Anyway, 369 is a better number than 365, ain't it? I have written mostly crap and sometimes, just pure unadulterated class A bullshit. I am not at all gifted when it comes to penning skills.. in fact, i am not gifted with any skills. But, I still managed to put up 80-odd posts.. so, I kind of feel like, I am the Bappi Lahiri of the blogosphere.

I usually don't give two hoots about how I word my thoughts on this online journal. Since I wanted to use this space just to record the state of mind I am in, I left very liberal hints in terms of the theme of the posts so that when - after many years down the line - I revisit the pages, I would like to know what was happening in my life.

Memories - is all you are left with. Hopefully, you learn from the experiences as well, but that is more tertiary or something like that. Memories -- I do not have much of my childhood. Since our family was not too keen on taking photographs, there is not very much I remember from the good ol' days.

Anyway, when I started this blogging biznitz, I was really keen and all but as time wore on, due to other demands on my time and overall laziness, i tapered off around September or so. But, I am back baby. Hopefully, I shall be more regular the second time around. I still am working on a piece about this guy from England (originally from Pakistan) that went back to Pakistan in 1988 (when he was 18 years of age) and was sentenced to death for killing his cabbie but received clemency in 2006 and went back to England.. You may have seen in the news, couple of months ago.. Is he just happy to be free? (I bet he is). How is he gonna get readjusted to "normal" life and what he may have missed in this time.. I need to do some research on this before I could write the post. Let's see.

Anyway... Three cheers to me for completing one year in the blog world. Hip, Hip....

Going to California

2007-01-16T03:00:00.001-05:00


The home stretch of the road trip -- As we entered CA on I-10 West.. near Palm Springs

Words of Wisdom

2007-01-13T03:26:00.000-05:00

Two things I learned during this road trip :)

Reminiscing the road trip

2007-01-13T02:21:00.000-05:00

Ahhh!! where do I even begin??!? I am a few hours away from getting to the San Diego Airport to board my flight to the city of brotherly love. I left State College on the 29th of December and the past 15 days have been a whirlwind.. sometimes literally.. We drove through a tornado in Louisiana. It was the first time in my life I have done something of this magnitude and I have to thank Siddharth for providing me with this opportunity. It has been absolutely phenomenal and am getting verklempt thinking about the experiences of the past fortnight. You can take a look at my previous post to check out the road map and my facebook for all the pictures from the trip. I don't think I am ready to go back to Penn State just yet.. but, you gotta do whatcha gotta do, innit?

When we were in Atlanta (technically, Decatur, GA, about 10 minutes from ATL) and looking to book a hotel in New Orleans, we realized it was the day of Sugar Bowl game between LSU and Notredame when we'd be getting there, we understood the signs that the partying part of the trip was about to start. It did not end till we got to LA. Two marvelous places along the trip -- New Orleans and Austin, TX. New Orleans for the obvious reasons and Austin -- the bar scene, music, the ambiance (college crowd and a small town outlook in a city), nature in its full glory all around. I highly recommend any of you out there that might go on a road trip to include these two places and spend good amount of time exploring them. Happy times!!!

The marathon 16 hour drive from Austin to Pheonix, AZ was test of patience for Sid, mostly but I stayed awake through the entire drive except for a 20-minute catnap.. We were at the end of our wits by the time we were at the outskirts of Phoenix. BTW, store up a lot of water. Texas-New Mexico border is completely lit up in the night and you can see Mexico from I-10 (we spent inordinate amount of time on I-10 - basically from Mississippi to San Diego), and Mexico is more lit than the American side of the border. Don't drink flat soda - no matter how thirsty you are -- it fucks up your throat.

The water in Mississippi and Arizona taste extremely funny and look sort of yellow. Aaack!

The Waffle House serves extremely greasy food but is really tasty.

When they say Bible belt, you better believe it.

The quality of coffee in the south is much better than what you get in the North-East.

You always hear about the laid-back attitude of the southerners.. you gotta see it to believe it. :)

For the first time in my life, I climbed down a mountain.. It was a blast. Sid - he is a qualified mountaineer (whatever that means) helped me through it, especially the slippery part of it and saved my ass at least once when I tripped and humpty-dumpty was about to come crashing down. Thanks again buddy!

Most picturesque places along the drive -- North Carolina, West of Austin and Yucca Mountain/Palm springs area of CA. Its just unfair how beautiful California is. I am still getting chills just thinking about how gorgeous the drive into CA on I-10 was!!!! Absolutely breathtaking. I remember getting overawed by the sheer power and beauty of Niagara falls the first time I was there. This was atleast 10 times better than that!!!

I climbed down a moutain, hit golf balls in a driving range, went to baseball cages and then played cricket -- all on the same afternoon in Phoenix and am still feeling the after effects on my quads!!

Sid and I termed this road trip when we left NJ as "The Fellowship of San Diego". It included a 2-liter can of Pepsi, a bottle of dry-salted peanuts, Gracie (Sid's car) and the two of us. Mission Accomplished.

The Fellowship of San Diego: Sid, Peanuts, Gracie, Pepsi and Me.

The Great Odyssey

2007-01-11T03:14:00.000-05:00

From State College, PA to Los Angeles, CA.

3578 miles in 11 days. January 1-11, 2007.

Dec 30-31, 2006 New Years Party @ Ocean City, NJ. Leave NJ on Jan 1, 2007, 12.30 P.M.

End of day 1 at Blacksburg, VA (Virginia Tech)
Pit stop @ Clemmons, NC
Day 2 ended at Atlanta, GA
Day 3 New Orleans, LA (Sugar Bowl, LSU vs. ND. Luck of the Irish?)
Day 4 Houston, TX (Driving through Tornado Showers.. FAAAANTAAASSSTIC!!)
Day 5-6-6.5 Austin, TX (Phenomenal Bar Scene).
Day 8-9 - After 16 marathon hours on the road, Phoenix, AZ (Championship game, UF vs. OSU).
Day 10 San Diego, CA
Day 11, Los Angeles, CA

Jan 13, 2007. Return Flight to PA from CA.

More details to come.

The Lone Inevitability

2006-11-27T10:23:00.000-05:00

The Following is a passage by Somerset Maugham. It appears as preface in a novel by John O'Hara called, "Appointment in Samarra". It gives you a look in to the inevitable perishing of the novel's central character, Julian English.

DEATH SPEAKS: There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions, and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw that it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The master lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Fantasy Fun

2006-09-28T16:36:00.000-04:00

In the last 6-8 years, which seemed to coincide with the explosion of internet all over, there has been a huge explosion of fantasy sports league all over. Oh yeah, if you thought I was going to write about the softcore smut magazine that used to exchange hands back in the college years, along with debonair, mast ram etc, you are mistaken. But I must say, those were really good times. Out of the house and away from your parents' supervision for the first time and entering adulthood, and in most cases, at a college in a faraway city, it was a free-for-all. But I digress.

Fantasy sports league was the brainchild of Wilfred Winkenbach, a part owner of Oakland Raiders Football team in 1962, where in people would "draft" players and call in before the week's games and submit the roster.. (History of FFB) Those were small times for fantasy leagues and pretty strenous considering the fact that you have to go through the stats of each and every player by poring through newspapers and reading up on injuries etc. It never became a huge thing. It was only amongst a few devoted sports fanatics. With the arrival of the information age, it became a lot more easy to take care of the rosters, injury reports etc... and now you have fantasy leagues in cricket, golf too, not to mention football, basketball, baseball and hockey!!! However, fantasy football (FFB) seems to be the king of all fantasy sports as a lot all the games are on sunday, so it becomes a lot easy to manage your team unlike baseball or basketball, where you need to worry about the rosters on a daily basis for a 6 month period...

This is my fourth season of FFB. In my second year, i was in to football, basketball and as well as baseball. As you can guess, whatever little work i used to be able to do, was NOT accomplished. Last year, I even was the commissioner of my league and in fact, won the whole thing. That's $140 of other people's money for few minutes of work a week. There is one real advantage to FFB if you're a sports/TV junkie. Usually, you root for your favorite/hometown team. But once you get involved with FFB, all allegiances are out the window. Every game on TV is of interest to you!! You get torn sometimes, between rooting for your favorite team and also for their opponents. Apparently, there are close to 15 million people playing fantasy football in the U.S. currently!! Explains all the ESPN commercials promoting the leagues they provide.

Anyway, this year I am part of 2 leagues, one with the fellow desis, run by shawn (ESPN), and the other by a former labmate, Jim (Yahoo). I got my first loss of the season in the ESPN league (2-1 so far) and first win in the Yahoo! league (1-2) last weekend. In fact, last weekend, except for the win in the Yahoo! league, was downright pathetic in terms of my favorite teams. Penn State Cricket Club, lost the semi-final match in the WMCB tournament very handily, Penn State lost to arch-rival Ohio State (Shut the f*** up already, Matt!!!!), Pittsburgh lost to Cincinnati, Yankees lost, India lost to Australia and failed to make it to the DLF Cup Final. It was an almost 0-fer weekend!! Goddamn it!!

On the bright side, I went to a Roger Waters (former front man of Pink Floyd, FYI Totti) concert in Virginia and it was absolutely stupendous. I had seen him perform once before in 1999, at Hershey, PA. This time I had equipped myself well to enhance the concert watching experience. I was in a really happy place! If you care to know the songs that were played, click here (Set list). Thanks to Rohan Samsi's unbelievable sense of direction/navigation, (I think, in his previous life, he must've been christopher columbus!!! Set sail for India, end up in the carribeans!) we missed the first three songs but since I had seen him perform before, It did not bother me as much as Batman. He was PISSED. Rohan, you owe him one!! (The Brunch doesn't count!!!).

Before I leave, here is a YouTube clip of "Best of Rambo Fights" set to the extremely cheesy 80's tune of "JukeBox hero" by "The Foreigner" to brighten up your otherwise boring life (you are reading my blog, aren't you?)... Its through the roof in terms of the unintentional comedy scale.

At a loss for words......

2006-09-12T15:47:00.000-04:00

I saw this image on BBC this morning. It made me wonder about the range of emotions she could be feeling...... She was passing by a hunger strike protest by the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).

Git 'R Done

2006-09-06T00:19:00.000-04:00

Its been exactly a month since I last wrote a post. Finally, I have got some peace of mind and valuable R&R. I could not fall asleep and ended up reading some of the blogs and thought, maybe I should post a new one. Most of you who visit this space already know that I had my PhD comprehensive exam last week and I passed it. And to those who didn't know, pass along your congratulations. Your beer is in the mail!

I was happily working towards the thesis proposal document.. (read: procrastinating and writing a few lines a day). Every time I decided to write some more, I estimated how much time each section should take and no matter how I added things up, it did not sum to more than 24 hours of work. So, that is 2 days of hard labor and that's it. So, i would decide to postpone the inevitability and have some fun (and beers). Eventually, the deadline I had set myself to hand in the document to my committee was only 24 hours away by which time, I had given a rough draft to my advisor for preliminary evaluation. On that fateful day, my advisor dropped the bombshell that I needed to completely rework the proposal and change my research objectives etc. By this time, I wasn't even paying much attention to what he was saying.. I was trying to recover from the initial shock and tried to put an optimistic spin to it by telling my advisor, "Well! Its not the end of the world now, is it?". "Well, not exactly. But pretty close", he deadpanned.

After a brief discussion of how to structure the new proposal, I went into a prolonged funk while at the same time taking some damage control measures, such as informing the committee that I'm going to be a little late in giving them the document etc. By the end of the day, I had gone through some many ups and downs emotionally, I was completely worn out and mentally fatigued. Thanks to a few friends, i recovered emotionally but was looking at postponing the examination. (The Beatles were right!! I got by with a little help from my friends).

Next morning brought along with it a fresh set of ideas from all the parties involved and I went to work. My advisor - the champion that he is - totally came through by spending the weekend going through everything I was writing and making corrections as soon as I'd send them to him and by Monday morning, I was home free. (Dr. T is just a phenomenal person. You dream of having an advisor like him). By this time, I had pulled all-nighters 5 out of the 7 nights. I think I'd have easily qualified for a part in the "thriller" video even without all the make-up!!

Next came the part of making the presentation. During the dry-run, my labmates ripped it apart and only stopped short of making me drop my pants. However, they were so incredibly thorough in their critiques that, when I was done rewriting the talk, it was one of the best, coherent presentation I have ever made. The exam itself was a cake-walk.

As is our lab group tradition, we all went out and had a grand time getting intoxicated although I had to call it quits earlier than most of the rest - as by now, i had slept a grand total of 20 hours in 9 days.

I will never be able to forget all those who called me, emailed me, IM-ed me to pass along their good wishes before the exam. Thank you, Thank you. It was an incredible feeling to know that there were so many people around that cared for me. One thing I learned during this adventure - there is no amount of emotional letdown that couldn't be overcome by few hugs from your friends. Thanks Pfaff, Cliff and Jennie. Thanks Batman and Ajay for your help. Mattie, Markie, Lizzy and Mikey -- incredible inputs. Doctor Wizard Michal -- Thanks a lot DUDE! My labmates -- best colleagues one can ask for. Love you guys!

Now - on to actual thesis work. It seems the norm is, one can graduate within 6 to 12 months after the comprehensive exam. As you all know, my time-dimension is pretty warped. Let's see!

Moving.... SUCKS

2006-08-06T01:38:00.000-04:00

D-Day: Monday, July 31, 2006. That was when Cheeru, Batman and I had to say goodbye to our glorious residence that saw its share of parties and cricket matches also known as 649 Marjorie Mae Street. Batman, Ramu and I first moved into that apartment in 2002 and when Ramu graduated in 2004, Cheeru slid in seamlessly for the next two years. Four years of stay in the same abode resulted in us collecting/buying a boatload of furniture. Luckily, few mates from the cricket team needed some furniture and we were able to unload some of the junk to them.

I realized one concept about moving during this ordeal: Postpone the inevitability for as long as you can. See... You eventually have to move out. If you cut down on the actual "pack and move" time, you'll be able to trash a lot of the stuff you'd otherwise be having second thoughts about trashing, if you had a lot of time on your hands. For example, Batman had bought a good-looking dresser table that even had a mirror couple of years ago. If we had had been moving the furniture over a period of time, say 1 week, we'd positively have taken that monster with us to the new place.

Even after giving away a lot of the furniture to our mates, we left another bunch at the dumpster. Its funny how people in the neighborhood somehow know that somebody is leaving a whole bunch of stuff at the dumpster. As soon as we started throwing away the junk, there were couple of families in their cars and vans taking away the stuff. At one point, cheeru just handed over the table he was carrying to them instead of leaving it at the dumpster. Its like, their antennae are tuned in for the moving!!

The whole ordeal lasted about 12 hours and we had a cricket match the next morning. Weather forcast: High in the 90's and humid. Boy, was it hot or was it HOT? We lost the game inspite of matter's spectacular effort with the bat. Rest of the team batted like chumps. (Totti -- its okay. I think we can still manage. We are not in that dire straits that we need your abilities. Not quite yet!!!).

I saw something during the whole moving thing. There was a family that pulled up by the dumpster in their car. I thought they were going to take some of the furniture and stuff. I was really surprised-more shocked- to see the father and son jump into the dumpster and start going through the garbage and pick stuff out that they could use or whatever it is that they were going to do. Isn't it some kind of federal violation.. you know, invasion of privacy?? I don't know these rules and regulations, but I'm sure there is some law in the book to that effect. Anyway, it reminded me of some homeless people that I have seen in India that would go through the garbage collected on streets looking for things. I guess its all the same anywhere you go in the world, except they pull up in shiny Honda Civic in the U.S.

P.S. My lab mates made an awesome video of one of my buddies making a putt (about 25-30 feet) in our department corridor. Its complete with background music and all. The production values are excellent!! Click this link to see it. PUTT

Relationship Rigmarole

2006-07-24T16:08:00.000-04:00

I have had this thought for a while. Every time I have come across this situation, I ponder over it but as soon as the situation changes, I conveniently forget about it. I always tell myself that I'll write a blogpost on it after I discuss about this with others and take their feedbacks and try to incorporate it into the post. But, eventually I forget about it and do nothing about it. Finally, I have remembered it and discussed about it with some of my buddies and now, I am writing the post.

Its about the relationship that comes to be, between these two things in our lives. Butt-cheeks and toilet seats. If you already know what I am going to say, either I have had a chat with you or the both of us are in the same wavelengths. We should meet. Especially, if you're a chick. If you're a dude, that's okay too. We can always discuss such enlightening thoughts over a beer!

No, Seriously! Let's say you go out of town for a conference or just visiting some friends or relatives. Let's say you have to drop a deuce. The bathroom might look "exactly" like the one you are used to, everyday. But, as soon as you sit down for business, your butt-cheeks immediately know they are in an alien environment.. They'd be like, "Ay! Where the hell am I? How come I didn't get the memo about the trip out of town? Did you all - the rest of the body parts - know about this? I am not familiar with this seat".

What is this relationship your ass-cheeks develop with the toilet seat? I mean, come on!! Its like, your butt is some sort of lie detector. You can fool all your senses into believing that you ARE in your own bathroom, but the butt-cheeks would have none of that crap (pun intended!).

As I brought this brilliant thought of mine up with a few of friends and colleagues a couple of days ago, (and you wonder why the hell am I still in grad school?), the most common and immediate reaction I got was, "ohhh yeah, dude. You're right! It crossed my mind, too, sometime ago!!" Usually, the follow-up would be, "Yo! that's gross" or "That's hilarious dude". Either which way, I have brought it to your attention.. Admit it if you have had this thought as well.. come on, its okay!!

Le français a perdu la coupe du monde

2006-07-20T21:31:00.000-04:00

We are like this only - Part I

2006-07-19T20:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Batman and I were at the Indian Consulate in NYC to renew our passports. I know I have not been home in 5 years and 9 months and every time I have discussions on India or anything related to everyday life in India, I am quickly reminded that I do not have grasp of the changed India, with its tachno-savvy new breed, and the countless flyovers and wide-open highways. The soul of a nation does not change in 6 years. Deep rooted traditions and societal make-ups don't change with the flip of a switch. I know my country has its share of troubles and problems, with a lot of its residents struggling for 3 square meals a day. I hope to go back to India when I graduate. Some have asked me the reasons. I don't think I have a reasonable reason beyond, "Because, It is my country". No matter how long I stay in U.S. I'd never be able to associate myself to U.S. like I should. Pointy wrote on this using Major league soccer fans equivalent.

I digress. I just wanted to write on the sights and scenes at the Consulate. First up, As Batman and I were about to enter the passport division of the building, we made way for the family that was leaving the office. In the slightest space that was between us, a rather opportunistic gentleman squeezed in so that he could be ahead of us.. I felt nothing but humored by his apparent rush to get things done and not let that family through and walk behind us, like he should have!

An American lady was shouting at the woman working the information window. Apparently, her stupid (sic) secretary sent her VISA papers to the consulate instead of the travel agent and she wanted them back. The Info woman was trying to tell her how to get them and she wouldn't have any of it and instead.. "YOU LISTEN TO ME. I NEED MY PASSPORT. NOW. LET ME TALK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR". She could have easily sorted it all out if she would've been a little more patient and talk in a reasonable, not-so-rude tone. I hope she learned something from this.

I was waiting my turn to hand in the documents. My token # was 893 and the display at the office goes from 01 to 99. This one guy with #903 walks up to me while 93 was on the display to tell me that its his turn as 93 stands for 903.. Nice try buddy. After I told him that he shouldn't try that cheap trick on me, he walks away with a sheepish grin. He goes back to his spot in the line with a smile that smacked of, "I tried to pull a fast one and it didn't work".

I was told that they needed to check something about my passport and I missed the 11 AM deadline for same-day pick up of the new passport. While I was waiting for the checking to be done and pay the passport fees, a guy approached me and asked in broken punjabi about the procedure. He did not speak any English or Hindi. When I tried to explain it to him in either language, I just got a blank stare as reply. Although it wasn't his turn (#935) he quickly went to an open window, which prompted the next guy in line to inquire about #935. I told him, "He doesn't seem to understand the procedure, I explained it to him and I don't think he got it". Quickly came the retort, "Why can't I cut the line?". I told him #935 doesn't seem to be a literate and he doesn't have an idea of how to do it.. He deadpanned, "So?".

When I paid the fees and was told that, since I missed the 11 AM, i either have to come back the next day to pick it up or have it mailed. I told the person at the window that I am from out of town and I can't come back the next day and I needed the passport ASAP to get my other paperwork such as I-20 and I-9 taken care of. She said she can't do much about the deadline but however, I could have the passport mailed to me overnight for $15 more. As I was paying the extra money, another person who overheard part of the conversation, assumed that I was giving a bribe or something and goes on to comment "Oh yeah! Money talks", loud enough to be heard by me and as well as the person behind the window. I was thoroughly appalled with his questioning of both our integrities... I gave him the most disgusted look and told him that I was just paying the extra fee for overnight mail. He moves away without the slightest apology for having questioned the intergrity of two people. I mean, COME ON. I know there is corruption in a lot of places, but just plain assuming without any real basis???

Hi! My Name Is....

2006-07-17T23:55:00.000-04:00

(what?) My name is.. (who?)
My name is.. fricky dicky Slim Shady

I wish it were that easy. Easy as slim shady. You know how it is... Especially with people from South India.. We always find a way to screw up our last name, surname, family name (whaat???) and given name, first name etc.. Typically, South Indians, especially those from Tamil Nadu, go by one name (like the Brazilians.. :-) For example, Suresh, Ramesh and Karthik et al., and usually your dad's first name's first letter becomes your initial and that forms your name. In my case, J. Subash (J for Jayaraman and you may have noticed, the right spelling "Subhash" is not used in my name -- Another by-product of being from Tamil Nadu.

For the longest time, I went by J. Subash. Around 7th or 8th grade, my eldest brother thought of using our family's gotra "Bharadwaja" as surname to all of us in the family... so, my name became J. Subash Bharadwaj. So, in my high school mark sheets etc., my official name is J. Subash Bharadwaj. Then came the time in my third year in College to apply for my passport. Here comes the real trouble. The passport application had spaces for family name, surname and given names.. Now, that is worse than opening a pandora's box.. you never know what you end up being called the rest of your life. I'd have preferred to be called Subash Jayaraman Bharadwaj but now I go by Subash Bharadwaj Jayaraman.. which isn't too bad.

I first got my passport in August 1996 and it was valid for 10 years.. How quickly time has flown by. I am right now sitting in NJ at my buddy's place on my way to the Indian Consulate in NYC. Once again, the passport application form got me. All the mumbo-jumbo about surnames and family names got me confused but the age old trick of seeing what batman has done in his application came through..

While on the topic of filling out the Passport application, they needed 2 forms of proof of residence in U.S. Here we go! I never got a Driver's license and my state ID expired a while ago and I never bothered to renew it. The electric bill is in Batman's name and I share a line on Batman's cellular plan.. Now, What i got is lease agreement and Bank statement to show these folks in the consulate that I have been living in State college, PA for the past few years.. Let's see how that works out...

My Hometown

2006-07-12T17:07:00.000-04:00

I was born in a tiny little town called Polur in TamilNadu and moved to Vellore, which was about 50 kilometers away when I was 12. Ever since that, I have called Vellore my home. There are some distinguishing characteristics of Vellore.. It came into national prominence in the mid 1990's when about 50 LTTE detainees had dug a tunnel from their holding cells and made their way back to SriLanka. Any person from TamilNadu will readily identify Vellore by its "Central Jail" (more like a state penitentiary in

U.S.

There is a medical college-cum-hospital called the Christian Medical College and Hospital which is one of the very best hospitals in Asia for its facilities and the physicians and surgeons. It also holds a special place in my heart as my dad was taken there for treatment and rehab when he suffered a stroke.

One more piece of fact that is not very well known about Vellore is that, it was the venue of the first known organized rebellion against the British Empire. The war for independence when Jhansi Rani and others took part and fought against the British in 1857, is what is usually referred to as the "First war of Indian Independence". Efforts are underway by the Indian Government to commemorate the 150th anniversary of that great struggle. The TamilNadu government however went ahead and decided to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the struggle in Vellore, known as "Vellore Mutiny" by releasing a postal stamp, depicting the fight that happened in Vellore Fort.

There was an article on BBC about this and it was also reported in it that "south India's participation in the Indian independence struggle is neither recognised nor recorded". I necessarily do not agree with that. I studied mostly in the central board of education, and there was a fair recognition of sipoy mutiny in the history textbooks. I can understand that it is not accorded similar sort of reverence as war of 1857 due to their differences in magnitude and the collective effect the war had on the populace. However, any rebellion against oppression is still a remarkable endeavor and the sipoy mutiny was one of the first historically recorded outbursts against the British rule in India.

Of all the leaders of the Indian freedom struggle, there are very few nationally recognizable names from South India. That is not to say that the efforts of the people from south India were any less. One of the brightest was Dr. Rajagopalachari ("Rajaji") who served as the Governor General till India was officially a republic and then, in Pandit Nehru's cabinet. I guess, if you grew up in the South, you came to know and read about a lot more of the freedom fighters from South India, along with all the luminaries across the great nation.

Talking about textbooks, do any of you have access to the history textbook from class IX (C.B.S.E)? It was one of the best I have ever had. It provided the history of ancient, medieval and modern India, alon with the cultural heritage of India -plus - the world history as well. A marvellous textbook. Really. If you do have it or have anyone you know has it, I'd like to buy/borrow it from you.. let me know.

There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip

2006-07-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

It was bright Sunday afternoon when something that has not been achieved in a long time came to fruition. On July 02, 2006, Team India won a meaningful away series, when it beat West Indies by 44 runs at Sabina Park, Jamaica. It has been coming for a long time. The 1997 collapse at Barbados while chasing 120 runs for a momentus victory immediately comes to mind. A victory at Sydney in January 2004 would have shut the Aussies up for good, but for valiant knocks by Tugga and Katich. Lack of match winning bowlers in overseas conditions and top order batsmen who had the stomach for a fight were put forth as reasons for India's poor showing in alien conditions. In the last 4 years with Dravid reaching the peak of his batting prowess coupled with Sehwag's agression, and the infusion of young fast bowlers -- add to it the old war horses, Sachin and Anil, it seemed like it was just a matter of time before India broke through. However, it wasn't to be.

Another thing happened on that summer afternoon as well. Penn State Cricket Club, after laboring through three years of growing pains, finally won its division outright in its fourth year of existence. By beating Nova CC by 45 runs in a rain-shortened match, PSCC collected a total of 11 points won the WMCB Main-League South Money-Matter trophy and qualified for the semifinals outright. Some of the club members from 2003 when the club came into being in its current avatar, were there to see their efforts come to fruition, including Gautam, Rohan, Shiv, Ramesh, Vivek and yours truly. Last year due to circumstances beyond our control, the trophy slipped away from us. Sure - we had the ball bounce our way this season, but it was a good team effort that made this happen. Words are not enough to describe the enthusiasm and efforts of all the members who have represented before and continue to do so. It has been the pure passion of the members for the game of cricket has kept the club going for the last four years and I sincerely hope it would continue to be so.

Priorities, priorities

2006-06-29T13:53:00.000-04:00

So, What all would you do (or not do) to watch the world cup soccer matches on TV? Would you quit a job inspite of your boss' promise to give you a pay-hike? Would you lock your wife in a room if she seems to be bothering you when you are watching the games? Or, would you let your house be destroyed in a fire??

Apparently, people in China are ready to do all of the above just so that they could continue watching their games.. Unbelievable. I think I was more stunned, not because these things happened, but they happened in China - not exactly a football powerhouse!!! I'd have thought people would do the aforementioned things in England or Brazil or some other place like that!!!

The poor wife who ran out of the house with her kid was reported as saying, "My husband paid no attention to the danger, he just grabbed the television and put it under his arm. After getting out of the house, he then set about finding an electric socket to plug in and continue watching his game." Bravo Mister. You are my inspiration.

This other marvellous fella quit the job, even after a promised pay-raise because soccer is more important than a job." And another one, when his wife turned off the TV during the Argentina-Ivory Coast game as it woke her up, locked her up in the bedroom and continued watching despite her loud protests.

This world needs more men like these. For too long, men have had to turn the TV off during important games/tournament (no matter the sport!) or switch channels to watch some stupid house-wife serials... This will not be tolerated anymore. The precedent has been set. We shall break free.

One final note. A crime is a crime only if you are caught, or even after being caught, charges have been pressed. The Guangzhou Daily reported that local police were forced to release a thief arrested for stealing a mobile phone when the victim refused to press charges because he did not want to miss the start of a match.

Source: Reuters

Blindingly obvious

2006-06-27T18:08:00.000-04:00

Last week, I was waiting at the bus stop, looking for aride to take me to a bar to meet up with my friends so that I could join them for a few drinks. Oh boy!! Don't I have it too hard... I had taken a ride from my roommate and I was kind of not too happy that I did not get a ride all the way to the bar, eventhough that would have been out of my roomate's way!! As I stood there in the shade of the bus stop, I saw a person with the help of a walking stick , get to the bus stop. He was blind. He stood there waiting for whatever bus he was waiting for, with me. As the bus that was gonna get me closer to my destination came by, I boarded it along with my new co-passenger. During the ride, he tried to make a phone call from his cell phone. That is when I realized maybe even cell phones ae braille-d?? I pulled my cell phone out to see whether it had any features built in to help blind persons. I have been using a cell phone for the last three years and that was the first time I had ever thought of its manoeverabliity --- for a blind person.....

Do I have it easy or what? I have all my five senses working most of the time and I don't have to look for Mr.Braille's inventions to help me find which floor I am at or a hearing aid or a wheel chair to get me where I wanna go. Yet, I sit there complaining about things that are not so good about this world.

There was a time when people asked me what the hell I am so happy about, I'd tell them, "I am just happy to be alive". Somewhere along the way I had forgotten how lucky I am to have been born into a family where i was fed well, sent to schools for education and provided with the moral values that you need to build your own set of values etc... Thanks Mom and Dad, and my brothers and sisters for all that you have provided for me. I am the luckiest person ever. Thank you for helping me be whoever I have been, and will be. Thanks.

Lost in Translation

2006-06-23T16:06:00.000-04:00

Couple of weeks ago, I was in Providence, RI, for an acoustics conference with my labmates. There were people from all over the world, which always is interesting, as you get to hear all sorts of accents and funny pronunciations et al. This one particular speaker from Osaka University, Japan topped it all. He was talking about some new probe he had developed which is state-of-the-art in Atomic force microscopy or something like that, who knows!. For those of you that have been in Grad School in the U.S., I am sure you have had course instructors from Japan/Korea/China and the first few weeks of the semester are usually an adventure when you try to get attuned to their way of speaking.

My lab mate, Matt K, wrote down a list of words, as he heard them, during this Japanese guy's presentation and we tried to figure out what they actually were supposed to be, after the talk. This was a lot more fun than I thought it could ever be -- You should definitely try it, when you get a chance. Some of the most "catchy" ones :

Oh Shitter -- Oscillator
ding dong counter - Ring down counter
Ting horse - Spring Force
charcarate -- Calculate
police office - Polished surface
impotent -- Important
cappa - Copper
material 'sickness' -- Material thickness
smaller 'brains' --- Smaller grains

The best sounding of them all was, "freaking C" which is "Frequency". Since this was an acoustics related conference, he dropped quite a few freakin' C's. We were sitting in the last row of the room and I saw the partial list of the words and I completely lost it. I had to go outside before I burst out laughing.

And also, every word that ends with "-tion" is pronounced as "shown".. such as "function == funk-shown". After going through the list of words, we had one that left all of us stumped. "Elijah". We could not figure it out for the longest time... and finally, it occurred ---

In Gods, I trust

2006-05-15T14:51:00.000-04:00

Cricket Gods, that is. There is nothing in life, like sports, where instant justice is handed out. I am speaking from my experiences while playing for the Penn State Cricket Club, the last 3-4 years. Anytime we feel that our opponents are cheating or trying to take wrong advantage of rules, I always console myself and tell my teammates as well that, cheaters don't win. From all the different instances of such happenings, I vividly remember that being played out to be true.

Yesterday, PSCC opened their WMCB league season with a match against Chantilly CC. The team that represented us was not the very best we could send out but nonetheless, were a bunch of dedicated characters. Eventhough Chantilly were finalists from last season and boast of big centurions, we always thought we have a chance because of our team. The weather forecasts were really bad for the day. We won the toss and made 142 all out in the alloted 40 overs with Shiv top scoring (yet again!!) with 48 and some late inning charge from Ramesh, Wagla and Venky. During the innings break, there was a slight bit of rain.

Herman -playing in his first game - gave us a dream start and took 2 wickets off his first two "legal" deliveries. We knew even with our modest score, we are in for a fight. Chantilly scored at a brisk rate but kept losing wickets. There was stoppage of play due to rain in the 4th over and after that, we took 3 more wickets to leave chantilly at 82 for 5 in 18 overs. For a game not to be abandoned, atleast 20 overs have to be bowled. Chantilly CC realized if they play till the bitter end, PSCC had the better chance of winning. So, from 1oth over on, they wanted to maintain a decent runrate and hope the game is called off after 20th over. They were planning on calling "bad light" after 20th over, by which we end up losing. As luck (or cricket Gods) would have it, it started raining after the 18th over, so there was a break. The playing conditions were very bad by now with the outfield pretty wet and slippery and the cricket ball awfully wet. Anyway, after the break, we had to take the field although we knew Chantilly were gonna call off after 20 overs. Lo and Behold, the heavens opened up again after the 2nd ball of 20th over was bowled and no further play was possible. This means both teams get one point each.

There were a lot of interesting conversations and altercations/arguments that went on, which will be published in the pscc cricket blog.

There was this another instance in 2005 season, when we were hosting a team from D.C., Jamaica here at Penn State. We were defending a total of 177. There was a whole lot cheating that went on from their side when they were chasing the target. As always, we overcame that and we won very comfortably.

This also brings up0 the inevitable question: Why is there such prevalent inclination among the players to cheat? Why can't you try to win it fair and square?

caught in between

2006-05-09T20:27:00.000-04:00

watching dreams with wide open eyes
caught a glimpse of the very thin ice
arms outstretched at the sky she cries
ma! let me come to you from the lies

lives and trusts, people and trends
all beginnings hurtling to their ends
flags raised and batons exchanged
say your goodbyes to all circles and friends

chasing endless silences deep inside
says the little voice stop your fight
in my head crying tears only dry
nothing to lose, there aint no secret to hide

Wanted: Death of an Illusionist

2006-05-09T00:41:00.000-04:00

I never liked Mondays. It seems to be the day right after Sunday. And Sunday is a great day to be spent sleeping, lazing around, play a few games and gaze at TV, all the while throwing down couple of beers. As they say in "office space", I am not a big fan of "case of the Mondays". I like to sleep in whenever I can, go out to the real world as late as I can. I found one more reason to hate this particular Monday, May 8, 2006.

I was happily hanging out with Surdi and Golu at Sportscaf, after an hour at the baseball batting cages, chugging one of my recent favorite beer, when we realized they were not gonna show NBA playoffs on one of their big screen TVs.. WTF mate? So, we made our way to a neighboring bar, cafe 210, to catch the game. Eventhough they do not have big screen TVs, there are many TVs around, and we were hopeful of catching the game on one of the TVs. We ran into my friend and a few of his friends there. We found our momentary happiness as we had set a TV up for the NBA action -- A smoking hot chick walks up to the TV and changes the channel on the the telly to ABC. It seems they were gonna show the biggest farce on the face of the earth - David Blaine - hold his breath under water for 9 minutes.

This has always baffled me. David Blaine and his gimmicks - spending 2 months inside an ice box; standing in a plastic cubicle for days over river thames in London. Its just stupid. People seem to be thoroughly enthralled by this bullshit. As Golu said, Blaine got nothing on P.C. Sarkar. Hey man, I got nothing against your card tricks, 'cause its just math. But all this crap about making miracle happen on streets -- what the hell do you want? Do you want people to think that you are God or something like that? If you wanna perform miracles, go to Africa and make food appear for the starving millions. Cut your crap. Stop with your gimmicks.

Anyway, there were a whole lot of people that were seriously curious to know whether Blaine would be able to spend 9 minutes under water, like it was going to change the way they lead their lives if he were to do it!! (A lot of them did not know why 9 minutes. Apparently, the world record stands at 8 minutes and 58 seconds). Golu and I, and a few sympathetic souls started the "Die, Blaine Die" chant as we thought this was absoulte rubbish. In fact, I told a few of my friends at the table that if he were to die attempting this stunt, I'd start believing in the existence of God - mainly because, God is supposed to be fair and just and what Blaine is juking the people of, is complete anthithesis to that.

ABC Television had a 2-hour special event even though the whole shit is supposed to last a maximum of 9 minutes. They needed the other 111 minutes for their precious commericals, Blaine's attempt at setting the record for standing the longest in water and his training regimen and all the shit that goes along with it. Come on people! Just because ABC and its family of TV stations have been hitting you with a barrage of commercials for this "live" act, and sensationalized this absolutely worthless piece of gimmick, you DON'T have to feel like you have to watch this.

The best part of it all was, the douchebag Blaine did not succeed in it. He could not stay longer than 7 minutes and 8 seconds. That is a total of 110 seconds short. Actually, you know what? That's the worst part. You know he is gonna "try" again to break the record. However, i don't have to start believing in the existence of God. Goddamn it. The funniest sight was one of my friend's buddies missed the exciting conclusion as he was in the loo. He comes rushing back to the table asking, "did he do it?", "did he do it??". Come on dude. Grow a penis. For Christ's sake!

P.S. Golu.. I beat you to it! Nyannanna Nyah Nyah!

Picasso got nothing on Hannah

2006-05-04T17:07:00.000-04:00

My buddy Jim Seliga sent me this picture around the time the Steelers won the Super Bowl in January. His niece, Hannah (aged 6?) drew this for her school. I was going through some of my old emails and came across this gem!!!

Truthiness

2006-05-04T16:49:00.000-04:00

Those of you that watch on Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report (Col-bear Re-pore) every night at 11.30 PM, already know the meaning of the word, Truthiness. It was declared the American Dialect Society's Word of the year (2005). Although Stephen wants recognition for coming up with the word, according to Etymology experts (word police - as stephen calls them) the word has been around since the 1800's. Although I must say I was a little disappointed that it wasn't available at dictionary.com, I could find the entry in Oxford English Dictionary online.

I went to a local computer services store to get my laptop fixed yesterday, with my buddy. My laptop has been acting up lately. This is the second time when it has just stopped working and I, even with a lot of help from my buddies, could not figured what the hell was wrong with it. The first time, the trouble was that --- while booting up, the boot up procedure never really identified the hard drive, so it would go to some error screen and continue doing that. This went on for a month or so. And all of a sudden, it just started working fine.

This time around, I could not charge the battery. It looked like there was something wrong with the power cord/adapter cable. So, i tried a few things -- got another power cord from a friend, changed the battery etc. Nothing doing!! So, finally i took it to the computer store yesterday. The owner of the store plugs it in, pushes the button, it starts working fine. Anybody believe in miracles??? I do, Now. Everything about my laptop computer, baffles me. Its more moody than a woman during PMS (what? I am no sexist. I am just stating the facts!).

Anyway, while on our way out, the owner (a korean-american elderly gentleman) wanted to ask us something. "So, if I had told you to leave the laptop and pick it up the next day, and I absolutely did not have to do anything to fix it, and if I charged you a fee (in his store, it was minimum $18), would you have paid it?". I said, "Yes". I told him that I expect him to be truthful with his job and if he charges me any fee, I trust that he has earned it. If the job didn't entail any of his time and expertise (as was the case now), I completely expect him to tell me that. By the same token, if a costumer comes in with a problem, although he spends hours on it but is not able to fix the problem, I expect him to charge the costumer, atleast the minimum charge. He said that he has had costumers who just plain refused to pay any money if he is not able to be fix the problem. That i think is bullshit. If the guy has spent his time and effort, eventhough he might not be able to solve the problem, you have to reward him for the trouble he took. I guess that's where the trustiness and truthiness come in. Costumers need to have confidence in the truthiness of the shopkeep and, the shopkeep needs to know that he will be paid for the efforts he puts in.

The Word of the Day

2006-05-04T13:39:00.000-04:00

is Iontophoresis. It is the process by which certain medication is delivered inside the patient's body using electric current. In the continuing story of my fucked up shoulder, this is the new chapter. During my last physiotherapy session, they told me that they are gonna use this method to send in the anti-inflammatory drug (dexamethasone... oooh!! I am getting all technical and shit!) to heal the supraspinatus tendon.

Couple of pairs of electrode pads were attached to my shoulder (the bottom surface of the electrode has the drug, by the way) and it takes about 20 minutes for the whole procedure. Today, I am getting a second dose of the drug. The shoulder felt fine for a while after the procedure, but the pain came back in couple of hours. Anyway, at the end of it, the physiotherapist wanted to know whether I'd like to remove the electrodes myself -- as its like "waxing"... and I was gonna lose some hair from the arm area.... I told her she could go ahead and do it. As she was about to rip them off, I thought it would be a good joke if I shrieked (since i am a jokester), which completely startled her.... I thought she was gonna get a heart attack... Phew!!

P.S. I saw one of the three episodes of South Park that I have never seen before... I had mentioned that in one of the earlier posts. Its called "Jewbilee". This is where all the Jews in South Park get together for a meteor shower and pray to Moses and so on and so forth. And a anti-semitic Jew tries to ruin it all by invoking a "negative" jew supernatural and the story is how the jew scouts (or squirts) and Kenny and a Bear save it for the Jews.

Shoulder(ing) burden

2006-05-01T18:16:00.001-04:00

The Penn State Cricket Club (PSCC) is in the 4th year of its current existence. We'd be participating in a summer long tournament in Washington D.C. starting May 14. This would be our third year in the WMCB league. In the last season, I shared the opening bowling duties with Viren Patel (more often than not) and I finished the season as the highest wicket taker for the club (22). Going into this season - especially with Viren switching his loyalties a club in Virginia itself - I was really psyched up to be the "senior" opening bowler and leading the team's bowling options. But alas! As you might know from my previous post, My shoulder is hurt from a freak football accident and I've gone to the doctors to get it fixed in time for the Cricket season.

Today, I had an appointment with a physiotherapist (there is a joke in there, I am not even touching it!!) and once again, I showed up late, thanks to the magnificent public transportation service here in State College, also known as CATA (it should be more like, kata). This felt more like a doctor's appointement. After a few minutes of going through a range of motions and exercises, my physiotherapist figured out what a doctor with a M.D. and a few x-rays could not. I have inflammation of the Supraspinatus tendon. This tendon forms the part of the rotator cuff. A good description of this injury could be found from the Mayo Clinic site.

The supraspinatus tendon muscle runs along the top of the shoulder blade and inserts via the tendon at the top of the arm. This muscle is used to lift the arm up sideways and is also important in throwing sports. One could cause damage (tear) to this tendon by repeated overarm action (such as in sports like tennis, cricket etc). In my case, I caused damage to it by falling on it. So, there is a whole bunch of inflammation to it.

I was told that with a lot of rest and some prescribed exercises, I could get this puppy healed in about 2-3 weeks time. I scheduled for 2 more PT sessions this week, where they are going to do basic exercises and some ultrasonic treatment + ice-pack time, and 3 more next week, where more strenous throwing motions will be undertaken.. I hope to get into some cricketing action in about 20 days time. Till then, no monkey business.

Oh yeah, by the way, about the whole me-nailing-a-nurse-or -someone-in-the-medical-profession-in-a-hospital, it did not happen :-( Damn you PT person.. you and your workplace rules... Piss me off!!

India - From them to me

2006-04-28T16:41:00.000-04:00

These are samples of the feedbacks I got from the elementary school students to whom I spoke to, about India.

Nobel Peace Prize for me?

2006-04-26T15:38:00.000-04:00

The Good, The Bad and The Funny

2006-04-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

Its been so uneventful the last few weeks. Have you ever noticed, if you are completely into something, you get kind of sucked into it and everything else outside, doesn't really exist?? I guess its like being in the zone for a major league pitcher or something. Anyway, I was all consumed in the cricket tournament we organized last week, and am glad to say, it was a success. We had more than 100 participants, sold more than 100 t-shirts and everybody went home happy. It was the single biggest fund-raising event for the cricket club so far. I think we probably will end up with about $1200 in the bank from this weekend event alone.

On the first day of spring, (March 21 or thereabouts) I played some flag football with a bunch of my friends and hurt my shoulder. I did not get the time to go to the university hospital and get it checked out, because of the tournament, india-england series, research etc. Finally, I scheduled for an appointment for this morning 9.45 AM. Since the local buses run on their own schedule, I ended up being 10 minutes late for the appointment. Apparently, that is the cut-off limit for canceling someone's appointment. They told me I was lucky that the scheduled doctor had agreed to see my bum shoulder eventhough I was right on the cut-off time. (Maybe, I should buy a lottery ticket today and find out whether I am really lucky!!).

Believe me when I tell you this was the funniest doctor meeting I have ever had. I have gone to quacks, semi-doctors and dentists before (I am an anti-dentite... :-) , but nothing beats this one. Every time I have gone to see one, usually, the doctor checks out by touching your forehead, pulls your tongue out or in case of hurt shoulder, asks you to, you know, MOVE IT A LITTLE. Today, our man was busy typing. He typed onto his computer for 15 minutes about how it happened, how long ago and all the generic crap. And after a lifetime, he goes onto check my shoulder. Mr. Doctor tells me to finally get an X-ray as he thinks I do not have a normal shoulder injury (What the hell??? Do people have to come in with missing shoulder sockets or bones sticking out with blood all over, to be called normal??).

At the X-ray room, when the lab nurse asked me to remove my necklace, i almost took off all my clothing!! She said, "no, just the necklace would be fine! ". Goddamn it! One of my all time favorite fantasy is to nail a nurse in the hospital. So close, yet so f-ing far.

Back at the Doctor's office, after a few "huh!"s and "Ah!"s, he tells me that the Good News is, I probably don't have a broken bone or dislocated joint!! Are you kidding me??? You took all this time to figure this, Einstein? You could've just asked me!!! Going in, I knew it was probably a bone bruise or soft tissue damage!! Gosh, don't you ever watch ER or Scrubs or something Mr. Doctor Charlatan??

Now, the Bad news is, he still doesn't know what it is, as the X-rays are not very clear!! (obviously. They still haven't figured out what to call these rays, and now you're gonna figure out what they apparently have imaged??). I was given 3 options. Go to another orthopaedic expert and get an MRI, surgery or the third: wait it out, have some physiotherapy. As I sat there thinking through these options, I realized by getting physiotherapy, I still had a shot at making my all-time fantasy come true.

Monday, May 1, 10.00 AM. Appointment with Destiny. Ms. K is gonna be working on my shoulder. I have been advised to wear something comfortable!!! Hope she does too!!

Long way home

2006-04-10T17:52:00.000-04:00

Ahh... Its good to be back. I think I have been away for close to 3 weeks now. Trust me when I tell you its not due to laziness. It was due to a combination of a few things... a) busy with some research work b) helping out my advisor with the teaching of an undergrad class c) India-England series and d) I am the event coordinator for the 2nd Annual 8-a-side cricket tournament organized by the Penn State Cricket Club.

One of the projects that I have been working on, involves studying the interaction of Laser with a variety of materials. Since that project was coming to an end, we needed to run final set of tests and put together a report and things of that nature. Combined with it are the all-nighters due to all the India-England cricket matches which are on TV from 11.30 PM to 7 AM.. So by the time I got done with any test on a given day, I was totally exhausted to blog.

Today, I have been feeling a little under the weather.. bad cold, sore throat and coughing and am running a little temperature as well. So, I thought I'd call it an early day at office. I just couldn't sit in the lab any more. I thought I'd get something to eat and head home. I made my tired, weary walk from my department to downtown State College to find some food. It usually takes about 5-10 minutes. Today it took me almost 30.

First up, i ran into a friend from the department, did a little chit-chat about weather and stuff. Then, it was Totti. We discussed a little about his team's name for the upcoming tournament. Right now, he is using what he used last year, "Out of Form".. When suggested that he better change the name and come up with something new... he got some fundaes from pointy and called me back with "Australia" or just "Ozzies". I thought that was a funny name for a team of Indians. I guess, looking at the teams registered for this year's tourney, Totti's team looks the strongest and prolly might walk away with the trophy. I guess "australia" is apt.. but as luck would have it, Bangladesh is walloping Australia as we speak. Nice going Totti!!! Way to Jinx the world champs!!!!

Finally gotta move on from there and met up with Morgan, who made fun of my walking around college avenue and *not" going to any bars.. and wanted to know of the prep work for the tourney.. whether he could find a spot in an team. Redirected him to Totti, who he knows!

A guy from the Geography department says Hi.. tried not to have even a little conversation as I was hungry by then. Successful! Nazar is walking towards me but he was in a hurry as he had move his car...

FINALLY... Hello Irvings!!! Hmm... Grilled chicken Pesto sandwich, with a cup of coffee and a bag of chips. Delicious!!

I'm gonna be on television.....

2006-03-25T16:16:00.000-05:00

Has any of you seen the "Beef Cake 4000" episode of South Park? It is the one where Cartman wins an essay contest and is going to be given an award by Kathy Lee Gifford and this is going to be shown on TV. So, Cartman thinks he needs to "spruce" up his figure a little bit so that he could look nice on TV. He orders in the BeefCake Weight gain 4000 product that he saw on TV which promised that he'l put on whole lot of muscles.. Eventually, he becomes way too fat from eating all that beefcake and so and so forth.

Anyway, click here to play the sounclip of cartman singing "I'm gonna be on Telly-vision" to Kyle and Stan to piss 'em off.

It seems Penn State TV - After Hours program wanted to have a a little chat with the representatives of the Penn State Cricket Club. This would provide their viewers a little something to know about cricket and helps PSCC to gain much needed publicity. Considering the fact that we are having a tournament in a couple of weeks, it will be nice. Also, we'll be able to make some promotional material out of this whole thing.

As you may have guessed by now, I have been chosen along with the token whitey (James) to represent the club. Me - i am a veteran of the club and also the event coordinator of the tournament.. and james - already explained :-)) Already I am receiving suggestions such as.. "Don't forget to apply talcum powder". Don't worry, i'll remember it. I am aware of my ability to disappear when it gets a little dark out there!!

P.S. Once I get on TV and become famous.. Next Stop.. Bollywood! Screw you guys, I'm going home

Stamped out

2006-03-19T16:18:00.000-05:00

Just from the title of this post, a few of my friends will know exactly what this is about. Am I going to publish very personal and private experiences for others to read, here on this blog? Probably. If it involves other people, I will try to get their consent before I share it here with you. For example, a chat I might have with a friend about sexual positions or just a regular conversation with friends over the role of mosquitoes in maintaining the ecological balance in the swamps of Florida.. I don't know.

Anyway, a few years ago, I was chatting around with my roommates and other friends. We were talking about random shit and somehow, I brought up an ugly episode in my life, I was about 12 or 13, when I was molested by a stranger. I used to go to private hindi classes in the evenings and take a bus to get there. It was a good mile walk from the bus stop to the class. After a few uneventful months of going to the class, one day this stranger guy approached me on a bicycle and started a small talk - where i was going, which school i studied at and things of that nature. He asked me about my hobbies. I was a philatelist as a youngster. He said that he works at the local hospital (one of the biggest in the country) and he had access to stamps from many different countries as they had patients coming from all over (which is true). He promised he'll get me some, soon. After a couple of days, i saw him again and he offered a ride in his bicycle to my class. and I took it. I sat on the cross-bar. A couple of days later, during the bicycle ride, I thought his hand brushed against my genitals and I thought it was accidental and didn't think too much of it. A few days later, it was more than a brush - his hand stayed for more than few moments..a definite fondle.. This is making me sick just to relive the memory, but I am going to get through this. Looking back at this incident, I don't know why I didn't refuse to take the ride to the class or why I didn't stop him from proceeding further. A month or so afterwards, I was walking back from the class to the bus-stop as the class was canceled and I was offered a ride. At that time, I never paid attention to how that guy seemed to be around when I'd be on my way to class, but now I have realized many times over, that he was just stalking his prey. This time It occurred to me absolutely positively what his intentions were and yelled at him and told him to stop the bicycle and jumped off and I started running towards home. I could hear him saying something like, stop.. dont run or whatever. I did not stop running till I got to a well-lit place in the neighborhood. I turned around to see if he was following me. He wasn't and that was the last of this tough ordeal. I never knew his name, whether he actually worked in that hospital or anything of that sort. I have never told my family of this, only a few friends. I needed to get it off my chest, so that I can bring closure to the whole issue. I have heard of stories from people that were molested by strangers, family and "friends". I sympathize with you. In my case, It did not deteriorate into something really bad and The whole episode did not have any severe impact on my psyche. I don't think that probably is the case with a lot of you that have gone through this. Everybody has had bad experiences through their lives. I feel its important to let it out, rather than let it stew inside.

P.S. I did not want to describe the whole thing in graphic detail. I didn't want you to feel very uncomfortable.

State of Apathy

2006-03-14T18:34:00.000-05:00

It was always a rough ride, taking public transport to go to my high school. The buses packed to their gills, jostling for space with the book bag weighing me down. I followed a tight routine in high school. Wake up by 5 AM, and study for a little bit with the aid of my mom's early morning steaming cup of coffee, take shower, eat breakfast and rush out by 7.15 AM. This happened for three years. I had a constant companion for about a year waiting for me at the bus stop. A homeless, old man. He looked to be about 60 years of age, wearing a few bit of clothing and surviving on whatever somebody gave, on and off. He would always be curled up in a ball, probably trying to keep the cold hunger at bay.

A few weeks ago, I was involved in a long conversation with Nishant which started with the dropping of Sourav Ganguly from the Indian Cricket team, and moved on to the state of affairs in India vis-a-vis U.S. and the direction the country is probably headed, and how all of us could play an active role in whichever way we can, in keeping the ball rolling. During this conversation, I, somehow was reminded of my old man friend that I never knew the name of, that provided me company with his silence everyday while I waited for my bus.

As a 14-year old, coming from a family that was strapped for cash for the most part, I almost never had anything to give him. Anytime I had something to spare, I tried giving him so that he could atleast eat his next meal. There were many days when I get off the bus to make my walk home in the evening, the sheer inability of mine to help him has made me cry to myself. I was not even aware of other avenues by which this man could be helped. His wrinkled face with the straggly grey beard is still tattooed in my memory. Even while I was chatting with Nishant, I couldn't hold myself back. I remember his health deteriorating, and one day, when I returned from school, I saw the local municipality workers removing his dead body. I didn't do much to help that man. It still rankles me.

Nishant was trying to tell me how Indians are generally good-natured, well-intentioned folks. And I always believed it and want to continue doing so. With the kind of diversity and differences in culture, religion, life-style that we have in India, we need to be even-keeled, peaceful and caring, for the most part, to have survived as long as we have. However, instances such as this, where you see a lot of poeple go through with their lives as if helpless beings like my old man didn't even exist is what bothers me. The apathy towards your fellow man's well being sometimes gives me doubts about the inherent human nature. I understand everybody has problems and struggles in their lives but is there anything better in this world, than helping to provide for someone that cannot provide for himself? Can we be so self-centered that we do not recognize the hardships faced by our fellow men? Have we gotten so accustomed to human suffering that a loss of life does not matter in a country of a billion?

Death-Cycle

2006-03-14T06:03:00.000-05:00

Frozen ground, slip, slide, i hold on
lazy winter white don't stay too long
buried underneath my mother blue
spring messengers screaming through

Wonderful world its mighty fine
dancing green in the bright sunshine
hope and joy and full of life
come into this you bloody man and wife

In out up down right and wrong
you're making me feel i don't belong
your space is stiflingly dual
beg you let me be an individual

Didn't ask to be born, it was you
falling down now drag me through
saw you last drooping madly grey
tell me tomorrow is just another day

An Empty Cafeteria

2006-03-14T01:31:00.000-05:00

Hello There, Children!

Hey Chef!

How is it going?

Bad.

Why bad?

Anyone that has seen South Park anytime in the last 9 years that it has been on TV, would immediately recognize the above exchange between the South Park elementary school cafeteria Chef (Jerome McElroy is the chef's actual name by the way) and the four foul-mouthed kids. Usually, this conversation would continue with the kids telling chef their problems, and chef tries to help them out by singing a song with sexual connotations and so on and so forth. Looks like, it is going to be coming to an end. Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef, is quitting the cast of South Park and has requested to be released from his contract. He is mad that the creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, have crossed the line by ridiculing the religious beliefs of certain communities.

There was an episode from season #9 where SP had a good time satiring the beliefs of people (including Tom Cruise and John Travolta) following the religion of Scientology. Apparently, Isaac Hayes is also a scientologist. However, he does not quote this specific episode as the reason for his quitting. Although I must point out Isaac's take on SP's usually blunt ridiculing of religions and any sets of belief for that matter, in NY Daily News article in 2006, "Nobody is exempt from their humor," he said. "They're equal-opportunity offenders. Don't be offended by it. If you take it too seriously, you have problems." I remember him saying something to the same effect even on VH1 ("Going down to South Park"). How quickly he seems to have changed his opinion on religious satire?!

Isaac says that SP has crossed that invisible line between satire and just plain intolerance and bigotry towards religions. Is he serious? Where was he when mormons, jews, christians, muslims, hindus, buddhists and pretty much everybody under the sun was made fun of? I still DO NOT call it intolerance. I understand the views and the jokes in the show might definitely offend more than a few people, but there is an underlying theme to the show... everybody is fair game and everybody is treated equally! That is a lot more than what the proponents of tolerance could say!

This brings me to the biggest beef I have: Tolerance vs. Acceptance. Everybody seems to be so keen on promoting tolerance. Religious tolerance, homosexuality tolerance etc. There is a definition for tolerance - The capacity to endure hardship or pain. Is that what the society is asking us to do? Just try to put up with the differences you may have with the person next to you!! Or should I recognize the differences in the person next to me and appreciate them for who they are? So if they are middle class white of polish descent, I should be able to respect them what they are and still be able to make jokes about it! Political correctness is hijacking a whole generation of people in this country. Screw you guys, I'm goin' home!!

street -- cricket & tamil

2006-03-13T17:35:00.000-05:00

Warning: If you do not understand the concept of gulli cricket (street cricket) and/or the concept of madras baashai (madras language), for your own well being, go no further.
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The other day, Raasa and Venky were over at our place to watch the 2nd test match between India & England. Raasa mentioned about the "street cricket" entry in Wikipedia and all the associated terminology especially those that are used in TamilNadu (TN). This brought back a flood of memories from my childhood and adoloscent years growing up in TN.

First of all, I had to come up with excuses to get permission from my parents to leave the house (Ma, I have to go to Satish's house to get some of my homework done, or Appa, He borrowed a book from me at school but forgot to return it & I desperately need it right now!!) After the escape(or in Tanglish (Tamil+english), escape avarudhu or escape udradhu) i'd go to my friend's neighborhood and play cricket. The street cricket(SC) link above lists almost all the tanglish slanguage needed to interpret the rules and efficiently play the game. Almost everybody (atleast guys) that grew up in India will have their own version of terminolgies, depending on where in India they grew up.

After carefully going through the list, I must say I'm thoroughly impressed. It looks like they have almost all the terms used in TNSC. Almost. (Those from TN-- get the TNSC pun? Chittukuruvi pola, siruga siruga semiyungal!). They have left out a few.

1. Gandhi Kanakku - (Gandhi + Kanakku (Account)). This is brought up when one team is accusing the other of cheating with their score. The origin of this goes back to the days of Indian independence struggle. Pre-1947, individuals and firms that donated money towards the freedom movement could write it off as "Contribution to Freedom movement" in their accounting statements. So, if someone's numbers didn't add up at the end of the financial year, they used this as a loophole to make numbers match. So, from there on, any cheating with numbers is called as "Gandhi Kanakku".

2. Poo - Any ball delivered with no real pace. (Poo - flower in Tamil). The origin could be from ball badminton (called Poo Pandhu (flower + ball)). I don't know if you are aware, but badminton (not only the kind with shuttlecocks but also with a feathery yellowish-orange ball used to be pretty popular back in the day. This one involved teams of five though and used wooden racquets).

3. Well batting, well bowling, well fieldings.

There were couple of innaccurate definitions I could find.

1. Hits the bat after every ball - This is the usual practice followed by the batsmen in the middle. This gives little time to take breath and also signal for a quick singal (single) in the next ball. The best part is even if they dont want to discuss anything, they still need to hit the bats. I agree that there is no proper term for it. However, the reason for doing it entirely different. Usually, its done for "bat exchange". Typically, there will only be one good bat. For the non-striker, you could use a not-so-good-bat, a stump, a stick that's as lengthy as a bat or any other serviceable thing. After taking a single, you meet your batting partner in the middle of the pitch, exchange bats and hit the bats to show that exchange has been accomplished. I think the definition of "current" could be invoked here (sort of). By the bats touching each other, the transformation from non-striker to striker is complete.

2. Double side batsman -- This situation arises when there are odd number of people to start the game. So, the final person is eligible to bat for both teams and keep wickets for both teams as well. Although they have mentioned the fact he keeps wickets usually, I have to say that he ALWAYS keeps wickets. So, this term should have been called "double-side keepings" rather than double side batsman.
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While I was reading up on SC, i came across a link for madras baashai and Thathuvams (pearls of wisdom). Take a look when you can. Its hilarious. I have a couple more to add to this as well,

1. Well left -- If you are faced with an issue or a situation or provokings, "to not react to it and stay idle". Origin from cricket where a batsman lets a ball go, if he doesn't want to play at it.

2. Gujili - A female with whom you do Gujaals (making out). Another usage is gujili-kaaran pettai - (area where you can find a lot of gujilis/figaru). (figaru - hot female (from figure)).

3. Tukkar - Excellent, super. Origin unknown to me. Usage - Tukkar figaru.

4. Mama Velai - Pimping (Origin - Tamil) Mama -Uncle; Velai - work. Since uncles and aunts are usually the ones that come with horoscopes of prospective brides/grooms, hence - to get a couple together is to do mama velai.

5. Pottu kudakkaradhu - To add fuel to the fire; to snitch; to complain about someone else. Origin - Tamil.

6. Orai - alcohol. To prevent production and sale of illicit alcohol, TN government, in the 80's came up with the idea of selling liquor in small, polythene packets (orai). orai adikkaradhu = sarakku etharadhu.

7. Saami Padam - soft porn movie. (saami - god; padam - film (or more correctly, filim). So, if you want to tell someone someone about a softcore porn, in front of others, you hint at it by calling it a "Bhakti padam" or saami padam. Another equivalent, bittu movie.

Just Plain and Simple

2006-03-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

There is only one principle I follow when I blog: KISS. No, not the " touch or caress with the lips as an expression of affection, greeting, respect, or amorousness" nor the Rock band from the 70's - more ridiculous costumes and pyrotechniques than music. I am referring to "keep it simple, stupid" philosophy. In my case, my blogs are more exactly a reflection of what's going on in my head at that point time or something that recently happened than anything else. I see a lot blogs that have a central theme, such as sports, politics, a commentary on pop culture, abstract thoughts etc. Usually, it will be a funny take on any of the above or explaining the happenings in one through the situations in the other. For example, take dialogues from a movie and apply it to a sports team or something. (Read Boston sports Guy's blog on ESPN. He does this a lot!). I don't think I am quite that capable to recognize the relationships that easily. So, in my blog, WYSIWYG.

People go through a whole lot of rough drafts before they publish an online article. Screw that. I don't have that kind of patience. Obviously, this is going to make most of my posts, insipid, disjointed, not worded well and might look incomplete as well, But, you know what, i can be satisfied that I put it out in a form that is as close as to the original thought. I believe it is nice to let your thoughts be published in as original a form as possible instead of going back and making changes to it too much. You are never going to be perfect.. so why not?

Once in a while, i might put out something that might be funny or thought provoking or actually makes sense.. This is where the bottomline needs to be established: Why is it that I am even engaing myself in this whole exercise of blogging? Am I just looking for an avenue to record my thoughts as they happened (you know, like maintaining a diary or a daily journal of sorts) or Am I looking to provide amusement/entertainment to those poor ones that might somehow end up on this page? May be, we try to make our posts funny to provide a channel to the comedians that's in all of us to come out. Maybe, its just a feeble attempt by us to verbalize the comic strip that is life, outside and within ourselves.

My initial motivation was to make a diary of my thoughts that I could look back on a later time. A compliment here, an appreciation of your thoughts there, or a friend telling you that the recent post you wrote - which you thought was rib-tickling funny - is not that funny at all. Infact, it was just a regurgitated version of a whole lot of blogs he has seen and read many times over. (I have had all these happen to me. I am glad somebody even made that effort.. This will keep me going all the more.). I guess my style of writing is influenced by books, newspaper articles, blogs and TV etc. But that is to be expected, isn't it? We don't live in vacuum. Every waking hour, you are hit with a barrage of opinions and viewpoints in media. Its up to me to derive my own way of narration from it all -- which i try to do - but even that, i'm sure someone has done it before. After all, history repeats itself - Now, doesn't it?