Farewell Rahul

I just realized that I intended to write a farewell note to Rahul Dravid after his retirement from international cricket, but the draft was still sitting in my blogger dashboard.

Rahul may not have been the most worshipped, and adored cricketer of his generation. He may not be the guy that owns all Indian batting records. Almost all the "bests" for his generation of cricketers will be associated with Sachin Tendulkar. However, for me, Rahul was perhaps the most impactful Indian cricketer of his generation. He was the spine around which our batting was built, he was the selfless team man who gave everything to the team, he was the fearless leader who did not hesitate to do the right thing for the team - ever, and he was the man who gave us the belief to win overseas.

Thanks Rahul for the entertainment and joy you have provided to us over the years, thanks for the steel and resolution you brought to our team, thanks for the dignity with which you always carried yourself, and most of all, thanks for showing us the value of hard work & plain old fashioned grit.

Wish you the best for the next stage of your career.

Attaboy Rabbi!

I must admit that I am not very adventurous when it comes to trying out new things. It applies to food, music, movies, places to go - pretty much everything. Every once in a while this attitude leads to pleasant surprises. Today I discovered a song that moved me immensely - more than any other "new" song in a long time.

Rabbi Shergill's "Bulla Ki Jaana" is absolutely magnificient. I must have heard it about 25 times today. I googled and read about Rabbi's background, dug up the lyrics of the song, and renewed my love for the Punjabi language.

As to why it took me 7 years after its release to discover this song is a matter for a separate discussion! Shame on me!

Here's a link to this gem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTxZy32Fv_0

America has stopped dreaming...

Dr. Neil degrasse Tyson is one of the most influential Astrophysicists in the world. He is also an outstanding orator, and frequently speaks on Astronomy and science in general.

I first discovered him while listening to excerpts of a TV show on youtube. He was an invitee on the show along with Richard Dawkins, a very well known evolutionary biologist who has written several remarkable books on evolution.

So what does all this have to do with America and dreaming?

I am a big fan of both of these gentlemen. A few days ago I started following Dr. Tyson on Twitter and read a couple of his tweets this morning. Here are a couple of videos where Dr. Tyson shares his thoughts on the importance of the space program in general, and NASA in particular on American enterprise and the future of America. Very thought provoking videos indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFO2usVjfQc

Tennis Bean Poles

What's with these ridiculously tall tennis players on the ATP tour? I am watching a French open match between a couple of bean poles - Kevin Anderson (6' 8") and Tomas Berdych (6' 5"). Actually Berdych is a relative dwarf when you consider other men on tour like John Isner (6' 10"), and Ivo Karlovic (6' 10"). Then there is Juan Martin Delpotro at 6' 6" and Marin Cilic at 6' 5".

It was not long ago that Goran Ivanisevic at 6' 4" and Todd Martin at 6' 6" were considered to be the "giants" in the game!

Of the present lot of giants, only Delpotro has won a major title, so the jury is still out on how much a height beyond 6' really helps in the sport of tennis. However these guys are a lot of fun to watch!

Then there are the women. I can count at least 5 of them beyond 6' - Sharapova, Venus Williams, Ivanovic, Kvitova, Azarenka. I am sure there are more. They don't stand out in the world of tennis like Pam Shriver and Helena Sukova did during their time.

Let us stop spreading these hoax emails!

One of my pet peeves these days is the countless forwards of hoax emails that float around on the Internet. These are carefully crafted messages that are meant to fool and scare. What amazes me is how educated people lap up these innocent sounding emails, and forward them with their own exhortations for the recipients to be careful!

As far as I am concerned, if something doesn't add up, or sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There are some great resources on the Internet to help identify many of these hoaxes, and it is very simple to use them and get authentic information. A couple of good ones are:

http://www.snopes.com

http://www.hoax-slayer.com

Recently I received a forward on a group that I am a part of. This was a forward that warned about the "dangers" of traditional cancer therapy like chemo, radiation and surgery. It suggested dealing with cancer through diet control by "starving" the cancer cells by avoiding certain types of food. The research was attributed to a famous Cancer Research Centre in the US. Unfortunately the whole thing is not only untrue, but downright dangerous. You will find more information about this hoax at http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cancerupdate.asp

My hope is that more people will question these types of forwards and stop spreading them through automatic forwards.

Way to go Nass!

There is a lot of international cricket on TV these days, and an assortment of commentators describing the action.

Most of the commentators are run of the mill describe-the-action-and-state-the-obvious kind of guys. There are some really bad ones like Fernando, Sidhu, Akram, and Srinath. Then there is a handful of really good ones.

Nasser Hussain is one of the really good ones - has great insights, is very candid, and does not hesitate to put anyone on the spot. I didn't care very much for Nasser Hussain the batsman, but love Nasser the commentator.

Nasser set the cat among the pigeons a couple of days ago by describing some of India's fielders in the recent T20 international as "donkeys". India has been one of the worst fielding sides in the world for a long time, and Nass's comment was a little cruel, but very funny. The BCCI is up in arms and asking Nasser to apologize. It is the BCCI that needs to apologize to the cricket fans for the appalling fielding standards in Indian cricket.

Beating Goliath

Malcolm Gladwell has put together another little gem of an article - how do you win against a much stronger opponent who has more power, more resources, and more skills. This is a vexing problem that one encounters regularly in business, sports, and other walks of life.

Gladwell's key point is that the underdog needs to go beyond the accepted set of rules, work harder, and not be concerned about the "social consequences" of his/her actions. Goliath usually has to play by a set of rules, often assumed. Goliath also sticks to socially acceptable behavioural patterns, which restricts their options.

Gladwell illustrates these concepts with brilliant examples from recent and past history. One of the most compelling examples around which his article is built is how a really "weak" Junior Basketball team executes a unique strategy to consistently beat much stronger opposition.

The entire article is at: http://www.gladwell.com/2009/2009_05_11_a_david.html : a highly recommended read.

Welcome back Juan Martin

The big hard-hitting Argentine metronome Juan Martin Del Potro is back in the limelight with a 3rd round encounter with Novak Djokovic at Roland Garros.

Del Potro came out of nowhere and won the 2009 US open. OK, no one really comes out of "nowhere" to win a big sports event - there is years, even decades of hard work behind it. What I mean is that he was a relative unknown when he won the US open a couple of years ago.

What took my breath away when I watched him in late 2009 was the consistency of Del Potro's hitting. He hits the ball extremely hard and low over the net, yet was very consistent. After that huge win, he slowly faded away due to injuries. I watched him play Djokovic at Roland Garros in an unfinished match yesterday - Juan appeared to be coming back to his best. The match was tied at one-set all, to be resumed today. What a mouth-watering battle this is, early in the draw. I think Del Potro could cause a huge upset today in the three set shootout that remains.

Cricket - Is it a religion?

How big is cricket in India? My friend Tushar Lowalekar sent me this lovely first person account a few days ago. I reproduce it verbatim here. Thanks Tushar!
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I was in Delhi on Wednesday & Thursday (the day when India was to play Australia in Ahmedabad). On Wednesday evening, after our work session was over, a few colleagues from across the country sat down for a drink. I met many of these people after months so we got talking. A nice guy from Mumbai asked me which flight was I taking on my way back home. I replied "Kingfisher". On which he said "I wish we had taken Kingfisher (KF). We are flying Jet". Now normally had anyone else said this I could have easily attributed this to the smartly dressed air hostesses, but I knew this guy well to not expect this from him. Also, Jet is not a bad airline in itself! To add to this quandry, a female colleague, again from Mumbai, said "Yeah, even I feel we should have booked on KF but our travel desk did not even seek our opinion". Now this clearly took the mickey out of me! So I ended up asking them why was it so. "Cricket match hai na?", "So?", "Are sir, KF mein live TV hota hai, you will get to watch cricket the match between India & Australia". Now that explained.

On Thursday, (the day of the match), at the end of our work session around 5:00 in the evening, our Country Head walked in and thanked all of us for having taken time out to travel to Delhi and Blah! Blah! Blah! Then he turned to the person responsible for organising the session & said "I hope you are not going to repeat the mistake of organising such a session again on the 30th. Man, all of these guys will be travelling back, when they should be watching India play. You did not think of this small inconvenience?" I was amused.

India started playing Australia and I started for the airport from Gurgaon. The Travel House cab, did not have any music in the car. Instead, the radio was blaring the running commentary! Now I am not much of a cricket buff, but boy, the tempo was starting to build. I checked into the airport to realise that there was a lot of commotion in one part of T3. Curiously I walked towards the crowd only to realise that a large TV screen was set up right in the middle, no sound, just the picture, and there were some 200 people around it watching th match. Sachin was still playing then. The PA system was making constant announcements of last and final boarding calls and I could see some peole scurry towards th boarding gates. I hoped that they did not miss their flights.

I boarded the craft. KF. Full service. I got a middle sit unfortunately. The guy to my right was an Indian and to my left, a Korean.The Indian guy got a call on his mobile, probably from his wife, to ask about flight status so that he could be picked up from Pune airport. Without answering those questions, he enquired "Score kaay jhala? Kaay? Oh! Fuck! These guys are going to make it difficult. I hope they don't throw away the match. Fuck!!! Bara, send the driver at 11:30. I should reach by then." The Korean did not understand the reason for the excitement. The Indian turned to the airhostess and requested her to turn on the entertainment console so that he could watch the match. The lady very politely said, "Sir, the Sat TV is down. The unit is not functional." "What?". I could not hold a chuckle back but fought hard. The lady turned up very genuine smile and told me, "But you don't worry sir. Once we are airborne, the captain will keep announcing scores. He did that on the previous flight too!". I couldn't help but laugh.

We were airborne in a while. India was at 230 then. From there on, every 10 minutes or so the captain's voice crackled over the PA " We are in the 42nd over and need 30 runs to win." "We are now at 251 at the end of 45th over". We had hit an air pocket. The automated system was announcing the bad weather. The captain was announcing the score. The airhostesses were collecting back the trays, he was evaluating options. "We need 24 off 30 balls" We were flying somewhere over Kota then. He seemed inclined to turn the aircraft towards Ahmedabad if required, if the Indian team did not measure up to his exacting standards. "India achieved the target in 47.5 overs. We win the match by 5 wickets" There was an applause in the cabin. We continued on our path to Pune. The Indian heaved a sigh of relief. I started wondering on what is cricket? Is it a religion? Naah! Regardless of the communal track record, we are not so passionate about our religion ofcourse. Why, we don't even remember God as many times as we check the cricket score during a match? This has to be much more than religion. Even if I am not so much of a cricket fan I could sense that.
The Korean, not understanding any of this, kept a straight face and kept on staring ahead! Afterall, you need to be an Indian to sense this excitement !

Way to go Nandan!

Nandan Nilekani is one of the icons of modern India. The company he founded with Narayana Murthy - Infosys - is one of the biggest global Indian brands today.

A couple of years ago Nandan surprised many people by taking up a position with the Indian Government - to implement a Universal ID for all Indians. Surprised because he was the first successful Indian businessman to take up a non-elected position with a view to implement a clearly defined program. Other businessmen have gotten into governance in the past - Vijay Mallya and Rahul Bajaj are notable examples who have done so by sneaking their way into the Rajya Sabha. They have made virtually no visible impact on policy, and have certainly not boosted their reputations through these stints.

Nandan is different - he did some stellar work on the UID project and has taken it to a point where it is ready to be rolled out.

That is why the recent announcement that Nandan has signed up to pilot an alternative to the subsidy regime of the Government of India made me sit up and take notice.

For the longest time our governments have been handcuffed by the socialistic agenda pursued by successive governments since we became independent. Subsidies on things like fertilizers, sugar, kerosene, petrol and many other big ticket items have been part of this sorry agenda. Sorry not because of the intent, but due to the stupid implementation. Racketeering, adulteration, corruption and many other side effects have resulted from these policies. Finally the government is talking sense - direct cash transfers to the people who need help, rather than market-distorting subsidies that are causing undesirable side effects. And they have chosen Nandan to pilot the implementation - I can't think of a better guy to do it.

All the best Nandan - kick some ass. Hopefully some other industry leaders will get their hands dirty with such initiatives to bring about the change we need to take our country to the next level.