The Tonight Tamasha!

It started a few weeks back. Or was it days? Who cares...? Feel like stuck in a time warp! The frenzy, the spirited send-offs, the songs sung by all and sundry have come to this. One pathetic day against Bangladesh has forced us into a nail-biting stand-off with the Lankans. I would have wished for an intense, uncertain and an interesting tussle between the ball and the bat anyway for this encounter. But this is not I would have dreamt of in the worst of my nightmares! There is a strong possibility that India be eliminated tonight. I fear for the worst and hope for the best!


This might be my last post on cricket for a long time to come. Yes, the possibility exists. Inspite of the elimination of pakistan, imminent elimination of India, Murder of Woolmer, Sledging off the field and many more of such incidents - I believe many of us would not be interested in Cricket for some time if we were to lose tonight!


With about 10,000 crores riding on the match today in betting money, one just wonders if it is all fixed. A grandiose version of Donald Trump's WWE! Hope not! I think more money enters the betting arena on other sports. As I type this Upul Tharanga has hit Agarkar for two consecutive 4s. And I think the MIB need my support and yours as well!


Here's to the underdog! Am really hoping that this is not the send-off that the stalwarts of yesteryears get. Zaheer just took off Jayasurya...


Hoping to type some more iff you-know-what happens!

Air Dhakkan

Col. Gopalan would be nothing short of overjoyed at this. His heist is working out just fine. And nobody is hauling him to the consumer courts of our defunct customer protection machinery. After all, he is the messiah who has democratized Air travel for the Indian hoi-polloi. Ah! Those days of 99 Rs ticket that would get taxed by another 221 Rs. Gone are those days! Between Messers Gopalan, Krishna and the other civil aviation ministers, they have ensured that air travel does not remain ‘cheap’ anymore. Actually, some credit goes to the oil traders in US and UK exchanges as well!

I made a mistake. I make a lot of mistakes but this is special. I bought a ticket with Deccan and then decided to cancel a leg! Since that fateful decision, I have spent some 98 minutes (and counting!) on the phone listening to the instrumental version of ‘Another Day in Paradise’ and the message ‘Thank you for calling Air Deccan, please wait while your call is being transferred to a customer support executive shortly.’ I have started feeling that I know this lady intimately. No sensible woman has spent so much time talking to me in a long long time! Typical woman she is, no idea of value of time. Lady, I am telling you – 103 minutes (counting) is not shortly. Since she is almost a friend now, I take her advice when she tells me to get onto the website and do what I want to.

Being the normal sensible person I am, I did it even before she told me. But after 7 continuous clicks on ‘Cancel Bookings’ and subsequent encounters with the enclosed screen, I gave up to hear her croon! I hope god offers warranty, my ears are about to fall off!

But, when a woman nags you to get onto a website every 30 seconds for 108 minutes, you do not have much choice. So I logged on to the website. Clicked on the link and voila! A hitherto unseen page appeared before my eyes. I was almost overjoyed. With a tinge of remorse, I almost admitted to myself that at times even nagging women mean well. But how mistaken I was. Because the next page was the following:



It asked me to click on ‘Modify’ or ‘Remove’ button. Any normal person would have been baffled by so much choice. But the abnormal person I am, I embarked on the challenge just to fall short of it. WHERE ARE THE BUTTONS? NOWHERE! Sach bol raha hoon, I am planning to file a FIR at the Gumshuda talash Kendra at Daryaganj, New Delhi. Buttons ko jinda ya murda dhoondne waale ko Rs. 50000/- inaam! Looks like the Dhakkans seem to have taken the line, ‘you can checkout any time you want, but you can never leave’, too seriously!

But thankfully, I had not kept the receiver down. So after 118 minutes, and a total recall of that friends episode that Phoebe spends on the phone, Naveen gets on to the phone. I complain. He is dismissive at best. But thankfully, he does cancel my ticket. So he saved my day (Wednesday of the next week to be precise!). Kal kya hoga kisko pata! Am flying with them tomorrow! Say a small prayer for me tonight. Till then, Khuda kafiz!

Why I Hate Hindu

Have been wanting to write. But could not think of anything that was not threateningly personal to some people. And life has taught me that it makes sense to keep the bakar to myself. Finally, as I was reading this in the top stories section of a newspaper, something in me got as gleeful as it could have gotten.

I subscribe to The Hindu. The no-nonsense newspaper that reports only news worthy of "reporting". So there would be 2000 word articles on health legislation in US, decline of pluralist thought in France, hung parliament in Serbia and time based extrapolative effects of the bhootmange massacre. Heavy stuff, eh? Yes, I admit, I am the masochist of the newspaper world! But every once in a while you need to know if Jade Goody is in India or if Amitabh has a thing for Vidya Balan! It is for this noble reason that I go tap-tap today!

I have a confession to make. I am, for no evident reason, missing Delhi times (To a lesser extent, the Delhi edition of TOI too) today. Those insightful discussions on the glam world, the 3.5* rating for KANK and the delightful pictorial representation of all data. My favorite was the article just after the CSO (Central Statistical Organisation) had estimated that the GDP growth rate for a particular quarter was in excess of 9%. There was this accompanying graph interposed on photograph of a girl with a tantalizingly short skirt with the caption: "Rising Hemlines: GDP growth rates move northwards." I remember Dilip Padgaonkar (TOI, Editor in Chief) justifying this by "a newspaper needs to get the attention to the important news items. We encourage usage of visual aids, as research has proven their efficacy."

Alas! N Ram of Hindu never gets to see this research. The only photograph I cannot forget from last 3 years of uninterrupted Hindu subscription is that of a punctured skull of Veerappan! Sad sight it was. No wonder I prefer to borrow TOI from my neighbours for covering shelves etc. Hindu, the dork it is, never betrays the human penchant for chak-mak gossip. One of these days they would come-up with a small article on Shivaji. But that is about it. No stories on Rakhi Sawant (the one that got the puppy), Elizabeth Taylor-Arun Nayyar wedding, John Abraham being mistaken for Antonio Banderas etc. How can a self-respecting human being exist without all of these? TOI, HT and party have this wisdom and Hindu does not! Someone please tell the content team at Hindu about the embarrassing situation that I am in, when my more informed peer group gossips about the Akshay-Salman tiff over the over-friendliness of Akshay towards Katrina! One look, only one look at me, amidst that conversation would convince Ed. Ram to revamp the entire content management strategy! Remind me to photograph myself, next time it happens.

On a serious note, Hindu sucks at sports coverage. Wonder why they cannot get some of the sportstar people to write every once in a while. Baaki sab to thik hai!

What Is Wrong With Tendulkar?

Let me start of by sharing a few myths that threaten to occupy collective consciousness of cricket following populace.

"He is not a match winner any more"

"India has lost the game in most of Tendulkar's high scoring matches"

"Lara and Ganguly have won more matches for their country than Tendulkar"

"Most of his centuries have come against cricket minions"

"He is a burden on the team and we would rather someone else don the cap that he wears for India"

The operating word here is "myth" - so let me try and demystify Tendulkar's non-performance for you.

Just a look at his record and a comparison with the fellow 'greats' tells you that you are lucky to have seen him play.

Table : Top batsmen in One-day format

India has emerged victorious 29 times from the 41 centuries of Tendulkar.

The charge I hear most often is these days that SRT labors for runs. Incidentally, the records tell a different story. The time taken to reach 10K milestone by the so called more aggressive batsmen has been more. More surprise, the career strike rates of the so called quick scoring willow-men are lower as well. Amongst all the batsmen who have score more than 5000 one day runs, only Gilchrist and Jayasuriya have a higher strike rate. Even the ‘explosive’ Ponting has a lower strike rate. Tendulkar has also been a handy bowler with a 147 wicket haul to boast about. Anyway, I know I need not wax eloquent about what Tendlya is capable of, numbers speak for themselves.

Table: Matches taken to get to the 10,000 milestone

He is often charged of plundering runs against the minnows. Let us look at the record of centuries scored against Minor cricketing nations viz., Namibia, Kenya, UAE, Netherlands, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe (though I believe that the Zimbabwe team of Heath Streak with the flower brothers was a good team. Remember the 3-0 white wash of the English team in 1996!)

Table: Performance against Cricket Minions


Thus, a whopping 32 centuries of Tendulkar have come against the greater cricketing powers with 6 of them against Australia. Even at 32 centuries he stands taller than all the other top run getters in ODI cricket!

Is Tendulkar a match winner? We will figure that out from the following analysis.

Table: Match winning capability

Let me explain how this table works. The first two columns are 100s and 50s made for the match-winning side by the player. Here, we see that Ponting firing means almost a certain victory for his team as the Aussies have returned victors for 86% of(f) all the matches that Ponting has scores a 50/100. But to the surprise of many Tendulkar doubters, we do win most of the times when Tendulkar fires! (Though we might all want that number of 63% to be a tad higher)

But hey! Tendulkar compares poorly with the other greats here. Why? Cricket is a team game and very often victory (or loss) is a function of how the rest of the team performs. So lets move on to the second half of the table. ‘Team performance’ is the number of matches won from all the matches that the player has played. ‘Team Dependency’ is the ratio of matches where the player has ‘scored’ and ‘Team performance – Matches won’. This ratio conveys the dependency of the team on the player for winning a match.

So Inzy seems to be blessed with a team that is least dependent on him for winning a match, he has fired in only 28% of the matches that his team has won with he as a member of playing eleven. Ponting has a lower number than most others. But that was expected, Aussies are a fearsome lot on the greens with each of the playing eleven a potential match winner! They have won 67% of all the matches that Ponting has played for them.

And unexpectedly (!), Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is the best that India has got! Though the above analysis shows that Lara (42%) is marginally better than Tendulkar (40%) when it comes to winning matches for the team, Tendulkar is undoubtedly better than anyone else! He has been instrumental to team victories 40% of the times the team has won which, as the table shows, is more than most ODI batting legends. On absolute numbers, he has won more matches for his team than anyone else.

And to answer the question that the title poses, NOTHING! Yes, he has had a miserable last year. But he looks in good nick! And every cricket fan in the country hopes (at least secretly) that Tendulkar sees us through in this world cup! After all, he is the highest run getter in the cup of all times. And in the matches that India has won, he has an average of about 80!

Table: World Cup Performance

With this last deluge of numbers, I sign-off. I think all the myths have been taken care of, except the first one. So, please to do a memory refresh, he was the Man-of-the-Series for the recently concluded ODI series with West Indies!

Yeh Desh Hai Veer Jawanon Ka!

The band broke into the tune of “Yeh desh hain Veer Jawanon ka” and I knew that we were close to Rambagh palace where the wedding was supposed to happen. It is a tune that never fails to amuse me especially because all the marriage bands play it at least thrice for every outing they get to make. A tried and tested number that makes that most bashful of aunties shake a leg or two! But the buzz is that kajrare is all set to dethrone it as the compulsive body shaker. In one my chit-chats with one of the uncles in one of the weddings, the topic under discussion was the inappropriateness of this song. Pat came the reply, “Arre if the jawan is not veer enough, how would he muster the courage to go through all this?”

Anyway, Bullbull was in no need for any courage, he had shown his intentions with his surprise item in the ladies Sangeet. Trusti matched him with Piya to-se naina which was as graceful as Waheeda’s actual rendition in Guide. I think all of us were awed by the well choreographed show put up by both the families. I for one was so stunned at a certain point that I could not clap. It was like watching something on TV! Finally we also ended on the dance floor and did some real mean jigs. One of the high points of the day was the trip to the railway station at 1:30 AM in the night. We did squeeze 7 people in a Wagon R. It still beats me how none of them complained! Tea was refreshing indeed. And I realized that I know more of Jaipur than I think I do!

Back to the baraat scene. It started raining. I saw a few aunties berating the groom for eating in Karahi (the belief is that it rains if the groom eats in a karahi. My mom tells me that it will rain many times over in my wedding, whenever it happens). All happened as planned. After the Jayamaal and the grub, we moved for the Pheras. The women, Tulli, Laika and Tanvir, retired for the day. Gori and Pee also gave up after a while (I seriously doubt if it was even a while!). Bhushan and I prevailed but if alternate reports are to be believed, I took sufficient power naps to be captured on camera multiple times!

Anyway, the Spice Jet flight proved to be an adventure in more than one ways. Apart from the rough take-off and landing that had my neighbour clutching the arm-rests and everything else, the experience was incredibly bad! The flight from Jaipur was just 3.5 hrs late and I almost missed my connecting flight (With Spice Jet again!). I could hardly believe my ears as I was told that Spice Jet is a point-to-point carrier and only 600 Rupees would be deducted for me missing the connecting flight! They charge you for all the inconvenience they cause you. It is your fault that you chose them in the first place. Anyway, as luck had it, the connecting flight was delayed as well. So after some confusion and a couple of “Last Call for Mr. Mehta” later, I managed to board the flight. On landing, Namma Bengaluru had the airs of a town that had a dawn to dusk bundh planned for its denizens the very next day. Perfect end to the perfect weekend! The only spoiler was the unavailability of bread at all the supermarkets. We will talk about that some other time. I think I will go download the song; it is still playing in my consciousness!

Late again!

I was late again. But this time it was something that I am never late for. I think I drove like a possessed person. It was almost like being late for JEE. Another reason why it was different is that the delay was due to a friend who believes that all late comers are inflicted by a deadly disease called prateekolytis. I was late for a Kailash Kher & Lucky Ali concert. I missed almost all the songs of Kailash. He was done with Diwani and other songs of Kailasa by the time we reached IIMB. All I got was Allah ke bande, Chak-de-fatte (Kholsa ka Ghosla) and Sanu ek Pal (Cover version of Nusrat's original). Vishy, I am not forgiving you for this for a long long time to come!

Lucky Ali was good as well. He did all his hits. He is not that great a performer on stage. But he manages the sweet raspy sound that has earned him fans across the globe(?). Kailash Kher seems to more at home on stage. Finally, had to settle for a few rounds of kailasa with some vodka thrown in for good measure. So, to all the people who read this, do invite me if Kailash performs at a location close to you. I think I will be willing to travel if need be!

Talking about music, there is something magical about the voice of Chinmayee! It is nothing short of magic when she starts off with "tere binaa chaand kaa sonaa khotaa re" in Tere bina of Guru. Another in-the-loop song on winamp! Another number that fascinates is "Maula mere maula" from Anwar. Roop Kumar Rathore does an amazing job with the vocals. At times, I feel that he is one of the most underutilized singers of bollywood. A new boy by the name of Mithoon is the music director. Apparently, he shares credits with Pritam (Gangster, Mere yaar ki shaadi fame) for Bas Ek Pal.

And on an unrealted note, watch Annie Hall. Based on a real life relationship between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton (Playing themselves in the movie), it talks about Anhedonia (a state of acute melancholia with an inability to experience pleasure and enjoy oneself) - a state that Woody is trapped in. Funny with a great comic timing, must watch! Dekh Lo...

Good work ESPN

ESPN is doing something really nice with PHL. The quality of the game is ok. Players still dribble a lot. Trapping is bad and passing patchy. But the speed and the uncertainty of the game of hockey is very much there. Businesses and touts do smell an opportunity here. So much so that the domain name www.phlhockey.com has been registered by some "Pylon hockey league." But ESPN got smart and registered it in a different name. The “Pile-on” was largely unsuccessful!

The coverage has stark similarities with the way NBA is covered. Players are profiled. Small interviews are shot and shown. Field incidents are covered in great detail. Doctors treating injured players give their opinion. Time-out conversations are shown. And the best part is that most of it is in Hindi! So you cannot help but feel the excitement when the Maratha Warriors coach tells Viren Rasquinha to "Ball lekar uske left side se nikal ja, wahan par reflex kharaab hai". You have to rejoice when Mukesh Kumar puts his fingers between his lips and whistles away to glory as Shakeel Abbasi manages to find the net.

However, the sad part is that the numbers in the stadium are miniscule. But it feels great to see the ball rolling under the flood lights. If only KPS Gill does something similar on the administration side of things! But that would be to expect too much from someone who is shamefully power hungry. We probably have the best team in years but all that talent seems to be destined to ignominy. Any hockey follower would have been weaned away from the game because of what Mr. Gill has been doing to Indian Hockey. If only Mani Shankar Aiyar (Minister of Sports and Youth Affaris) does something, i.e. get someone capable and passionate at the helm of affairs, we might get a chance to see what the present team is capable of!

AWOL

I have been away, to use an acronym from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, AWOL! Have traveled a bit and had the last two Mondays as non-working. So life has been looking up!

Mathur got married. But I cannot write about marriages without writing a long piece about Namu's wedding. So will skip that with the remark that I have a few hundred rupees notes as sabashi for the incessant dancing, which has been ascribed the unbecoming verb of body-throwing in my specific context, on Mathur's Mehendi-Ki-raat. I think it might have to do something with the adulterated Limca that I laced my inners with! But thanks to this wedding, I got to see Lodhi Garden in Delhi. Beautiful place, one has to visit this place to believe that it is in Delhi. I think Delhi has many such treats to offer but one never gets down to enjoying them when he is around!

And then I visited the hallowed city of Rajnikant and his adoring fans. Stayed three houses away from Ms. Jayalalitha. She does have a huge house for a single woman of her age. Anyway it is always good to be back in Chennai (for a short while, I must add - just in case, there is a god and has a funny sense of humour). So I was there for a visa interview. People in U.S., no need to raise the alarm. This was more of a just-in-case visa and nothing to do with a visit in the offing. But the entire experience of getting a visa is very humbling or did-I-mean humiliating, indeed! Even the guards at the consulate treat you with a lot of antagonism. The Consulate in-charge gives the most condescending of lectures on "how to handle your visa interview".

"Say Hello to you interviewer. What would you say?"

Silence

"I did not hear anything"

Some people mumble Hello.

"Did you say something?"

That does elicit a louder Hello! And he goes on to complete his set of instructions which are as helpful as the one that was just discussed. To add injury to salt (or it is the reverse), I got ripped off by an autowallah. I really hate being ripped off, especially by the autowallahs. Amma! They are still not using the fare meters.

This is the centenary year of Satyagriha. And Gandhigiri is all that our TV channels can think of. Seriously wish some channel has the sense to run a decent program. But I guess it is too much to ask for. Why burden your viewers with a program on Gandhian principles while you have the choice of inflicting them with the mangal-dosh in Aishwarya's horoscope and Shilpa's coup in Big Brother! I think an apt justification to this would be the market demand for the fatuous and a lack of appreciation for anything more purposeful. I really hope this is not the case!

Life's Cube

A cubic age is an important milestone in one’s life. Having reached one in the recent past, I would share the model that was built so assiduously on the day I turned the cube of the largest possible prime number (Atleast that’s the plan!)

1: Too young. Sound of air blowing through pursed lips makes you pee. You are the inspiration for the waterfall advert of Pampers (or was it huggies!)

8: Conscious of life. Id and Ego are in a hard setting mould. The Freudian school of psychologists has given up on you! You are yet to discover the charm of “late-night-movies” but the day is not far. All sports persons but for Koneru Hampi are of an older age. You dream of all the wonderful things that you would do when you grow up!

27: Marketers do not try to influence you anymore. Parents/ Girl Friend want to you get married to someone/ herself respectively. Dreadful thirties are dreadfully near! The set of sports people older than you are genially referred to as old-fogies. You think of all the wonderful things that you did when you were not grown up! Piece of advice, Say no to Cynicism!

64: You have en-cashed your retrials and are invested in a very-low yield government bond. You tell point-less stories about how things were when you were at the previous cubic. Young people scurry off when you start of with “Hamare jamane mein….” There are a lot of things not physically possible not matter how much you crave for it. Like climbing Mt. Everest etc (What were you thinking?). You can definitely buy that Ferrari but would you drive it?

125: You have to be a Japanese citizen on welfare.

I was about to write a pensive post on turning old. But then someone else wrote it. For the record, I saw my first white strand yesterday. I like to think of it as uparwala's camera trick. To people in similar predicament, this thought helps!

Happy New Year!

I know it is five days too late but what the heck! The gin-ke-do-char-log who read this blog know that I have a knack of defying all timelines. So I do it again! Have a wonderful 2007. Have fun and do not bother yourself with the vagaries of life. Hope you get to dance more often.

Someone somewhere sometime back told me that a blog is a responsibility. Did not realize that two months back but this sudden realization today (or was it yesterday - does not matter anyway) has left me with the guilt of a father who has not changed the diapers that were wet 5 hours back. So here's a senseless and totally inane post which is half done already.

Have watched nine movies over the last two weekends. Do watch Groundhog Day. Clean and an incredibly feel-good movie (even an incorrigible cynic like me could not avoid feeling good at the end of it, so I guess it is a heady concoction of uplifting emotions). Phil (Bill Murray) is a weatherman stuck in time. He lives the same day over and over again till he finds …. Strange parallels with the lives that we live. In one of the most ironical of conversations, Phil talks to a half-drunk guy at a pub:

Phil: Have you ever felt that you are living the same day over and over again?
Half Drunk Guy (HDG) (aghast like when you are when a complete stranger knows your secret): I feel like that all the time!

Alice McDowell adds the garnish that a mildly cute but not destructively attractive actress is supposed to add to a movie.

Two other movies that I would strongly recommend are Motorcycle Diaries and Syriana. Motorcycle Diaries is a movie on the bike ride that Ernesto Guevara de la Serna el Fuser (better known as Che Guevera) and Alberto Granados embarked on in the early 50s. In the words of Ernesto, “This isn't a tale of heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams.” Nonetheless, what a fabulous tale!

Syriana is the movie that got George Clooney his Academy Award for his role as a supporting actor. I think most of you have already watched it but I will write about it regardless of that. I watched it without subtitles the first time. Something highly recommended for a few tamil movies but not for this one. A lot of dialogue is in Arabic/Persian and Hindi. Hindi I knew, Persian I do not. Hence, I had to watch it again. I would have watched it twice anyway. A powerful concept and a compelling execution would make you do that. A hard hitting movie on Oil imperialism.

Not that the diapers from the second paragraph have been changed. I think it would be safe to sign-off for today!