Musings

Well, well, it can't be as ironic as this. The first ODI held at Rajkot was a run fest with the ball not doing anything but accept the batsman's hit, the last ODI at Delhi had a different dish though, where the ball had its revenge, it hit the batsman! Yes, it is not good to watch the batsmen getting hit quite regularly like that. It is bit tough to bat on that surface as the ball did few things off-the-pitch. The trick was the 'variable' bounce on offer. Now, suddenly the pitch becomes dangerous and in-conducive to batting and the play was called off. With all the gears that the batsman wears, I just can't understand how a pitch can be dangerous. There is a helmet, a arm guard, a chest guard, a thigh guard as protective gears. This almost covers the entire body of the batsman from getting hit by the red-cherry (the cricket ball!). With so much covering, still they get hit means there must be something terribly wrong somewhere. This pitch called for a superior t...

Mahatma Gandhi once famously quipped... "India will attain her real independence only when her girl can walk alone in midnight without any fear" . I know, I didn't translate the exact message, but the crux is given here. I think, this is true with any independent nation. A nation that offers equal rights to all people, not only in words but in action too. A nation that treats ever citizen equally, be it the prime minister of the country or your low-lying beggar down the street, is the real independent country. But, I have always thought why did Gandhi chose to say 'girl' rather than 'anyone'. I believe, he thought, the women to be the weaker among the two sexes and so being more gullible to torture and offence. How true this statement is! You keep hearing the news about woman child molestation and sexual harassment each and every day now-a-days and there seems to be no stopping of this. There are only a few that catches the attention of the media (read sen...

Gujarat government has announced that the citizens have to compulsorily cast their votes in the upcoming local body elections. Now, this is a serious stuff and a very hot topic for debate. Our media, not the one to shy away from such 'sensational' stuffs have all gone ga-ga over this proposal. At one end, they complain of poor voter turn outs in the elections and on the other hand, they call the compulsory voting as a 'force feeding' of democracy. Are there any better way to ensure proper voter turn outs? For one, I think, making voting compulsory, although sounds rigid, may be actually something good for the citizens. Even after 60 long years of democracy, the citizens are yet to realize the power of their votes. A single vote can change the government itself. I think, some times it is not a bad idea to be rigid. Much like the way mothers force-feed their babies, although much to their dislike. But, she knows, the feeding is essential for the kid's growth. Likewise...

Lot of pundits and purists have questioned the pitch of the Rajkot ODI cricket match. There were more than 825 runs scored by both the teams put together. But, there were also 15 wickets that were taken. I'm no expert on the pitch analysis and I don't want to get into those vagaries. But, one thing I want to stress upon is the efficiency of the bowlers. Yes, the batsmen were going hammer and tongs at the bowlers and were scoring boundaries at will. One thing I noticed in the match is a literal resignation of the bowlers from both the teams. No pace bowler was bending his back to get that extra pace to unsettle the batsman. No spinner, barring Harbajan, was trying to bowl different lines and length to confuse the batsman. They were literally feeding the batsman the same deliveries and got the same result. I don't understand why no expert is questioning the dearth of intelligent and hard working bowlers from either side. After India amassed a total in excess of 400, it liter...

The Liberhan report is out and it points fingers at the top BJP leadership being responsible for the Babri Masjid demolition on December 6, 1992. It further states the inaction of the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Kalyan singh to be one of the main culprits of the demolition exercise. What is more interesting is that it has named the BJP's top 3 leaders (Vajpayee, Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi) as 'pseudo-moderates' of this demolition. Well, the report has no new findings. I think, after 17 years of the act, many of us know mostly what is given in the report and many knew the involvement of the BJP/RSS and other Hindu groups in this activity. What does this report submission mean to the country now? Well, this doesn't bring in the communal harmony into the region and it doesn't aim at resolving the issue too. All it will help in is to get the parliament hours to discuss this issue and make the citizens look like a fool. It is one of the best tricks p...

This is the latest controversy spurred on by the Shivsena. They are taking on Sachin Tendulkar. Mr. Bal Thackarey has asked Sachin to "Play on the ground and not in politics". Although, I can understand what the Shiv Senas and MNS (Raj Thackarey's party) want in Maharashtra, I still condemn the way they are taking laws on their own hands. One problem that is happening in Mumbai, the capital city of Maharashtra and the financial city of India, is that there are lesser jobs for the local Marathi people. Most of the low-skilled jobs are taken by the Hindi speaking North or North-east people (Biharis, UPs etc.,). Yes, this does spur something on the localities and I can see how the Shiv Sena and MNS want to politicize this. It is similar to what the Americans feel when their jobs were "Bangalored". ie., their local BPO jobs were now outsourced to India and the US citizens were either unemployed or were made to upgrade their skills to stay in contention. There is a s...

Sachin Tendulkar has scored 30,000 runs in international cricket. Is it something to cherish? Well not really according to me. This is one more statistics to his marvelous career. Run scoring has been his forte and he has been doing that for the last two decades. Anyone playing for that long is bound to score that many, if not more. The greater fact is that this man is able to play that long! Now, tell me how many of us will be doing the same thing over and over again for two decades? Being in a software field, I'd expect to do different things every now and again. Ie., you can't expect me to be doing the rigmarole things for long. ie., writing the code, validating it etc., this kind of routine gets monotonous and leads to boredom. But, look at what Sachin has done, he has been doing literally the same thing for over two decades, without any complaints. I'd just admire him for this mere fact. There are critics who come up with a thing or two every time he crosses a mileston...

I have never felt like this before. But, after reading about this announcement on a new open-source language from Google Inc., called GO , I'm feeling literally bad about myself. These Google guys come up with one innovation after another and it is amazing the amount of engineering going on out there. GO isn't the first open-source language and it isn't , imo, a completely new concept. It is trying to cook the good things from different languages and put it in a single one. It may not be the next big thing after all. But, why am I feeling like this? I don't know. I think, as a Software Engineer myself I'm yet to come up with such innovations. Being in this field for more than 11 years, my achievements pale in comparison to the ones churn out by the Googlers. Am I feeling jealous? No, this is not jealousy but a feeling of hollowness. Don't know if this is good or bad but this is certainly driving me crazy. Any ways, I'll play around with this new language and...

I stopped watching cricket for a while now. Not necessarily the 'boring' 50-Over ODIs but everything that involved bat and ball. I considered there was a over-dose of cricket being offered to us in recent times. Especially, this year it is more than what I could chew. May be that is one of the reasons why I didn't follow the recent India-Australia seven match ODI series with any interest. Yesterday was different though. I caught up with a fever (+ cold + cough ...) and had to take a "compulsory" rest (you know about the compulsion once you get married :-) ). As the day went by the fever got doused, I got more strength to get up and watch the TV. I missed the complete Australian Innings yesterday and by reading the scorecard (350 for 4 wickets) could grasp the type of innings their batsmen would have played. I thought it is all curtains for India. Any sane follower of Indian cricket will get to this conclusion. This team boasting of the BEST batting line up in the...

I've been through turbulent times of late. Especially the last 6 months have been nothing but terrible. It must be one of my worst phase of life, I believe. I'm wishing it will end soon and I'll see the light at the end of the tunnel soon. I'm just jotting down this blog to let go of my frustrations and anger. It all started with the water shortage way back in May 2009. In the area I live, water shortage during the summer season is nothing new. People are accustomed to it and have different ways to counter it. As we live in a semi-apartment, we had a meeting and decided to effectively utilize the available water. This would mean, we'll have independent water lines drilled from our common overhead tank and be distributed to each house independently. We also decided to build a bigger water sump (we had a In fact, I agreed to this idea, partially because, this will at least ensure that we have enough water to be shared and the existing pipe lines will cater to the need...

There are few moments in sports that takes your breath away. Similarly, there are few sports person who seem to do the impossible like a routine. Think of Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger Woods and the one and only Roger Federer. Oh! what a match it was yesterday. The Wimbledon finals and the champ facing a familiar opponent, but a much improved and rejuvenated one at that. Roger showed the world what steely resolve he is made of. Any other 'ordinary' player would have given up. He overcame tiredness, a relentless opponent and more importantly for most part of the 4th and final set, he seemed to have lost his 'magic' touch and he had to play a more sedate/down-to-earth tennis rather than the more sublime tennis which we are so accustomed to. I feel lucky that I could watch the last few games of this match at least. Arguably, Roddick was the much better player on display yesterday. He controlled most of the match . In fact, his serve wasn't broken till the last ...

There has been quite a few concerns raised by the cricket 'experts' about the overdose of T20 (IPL in particular) cricket being played. They 'fear' the youngsters will take it to T20 cricket more than the Test cricket, which is the 'pinnacle' of the game. I have to completely disagree with these experts on this. The main worry of the experts is that there is so much money at stake in the T20 format that youngsters will be lured into it and they will abandon playing for country (read Test cricket). Now, what is wrong with earning money? You can't select every good cricketer to represent the country (only 11 'best' can play!). These IPLs and T20s give the youngsters a different avenue to realize their potential and earn money too. I see this T20 preference to be a pragmatic option left before a cricket youngster today. If at all the ICC want to promote the Test cricket, it definitely needs to be made more exciting, especially to the spectators. Market ...