Amitabh Bacchan on cricket show????

Yesterday ,there was a T20 match between India and Sri Lanka. While the match was full of entertainment, the prematch and midmatch discussion was the part which became pretty funny...

Mr. Amitabh Bacchan was there to promote his movie Paa. Even though I am not a big fan of wasting the important cricket discussion time on movies, but considering the "experts" were likes of Murali Karthik, I was OK with it.

But then came questions, from Mr. Anchor, who was bound on asking all the cricket questions to Amitabh.
And I kept on wondering why he was trying to act like an expert...Here is how the conversation went:
Anchor: India's middle order has not performed well in last T20 matches (shows stats).It is worse than the tail-enders. Mr. Bacchan, what do you think? [really??]
Bacchan: I think middle order is the most difficult place to bat. You either get a good start from openers, where they can play freely or they get out cheaply and then you are under pressure [what does that mean??]. So this kind of comparison is not fair...

WOW... what an answer....!! Again... I kept wondering...

Next one, during midmatch show:
A: India bowled 17 wides, that's like 3 extra overs. Do you think that is what has changed the match here?
B: I don't understand the tactics of the cricket [thanks for admitting that!] but it might be deliberate. I mean instead of giving away boundaries you prefer to give 1 run and the extra ball that you get, you might take up a wicket or something...
[*speechless!!*]
the question goes to Murali K, and he is speechless as well...
M: umm....I mean... ummm....you have to bowl all those deliveries again, 3 extra overs to too much. But they were trying to not give the batmen any room and strayed down the leg side...blah blah...
[still speechless....!]
May be he should have just stuck to good wishes to the team and talking about his film... :-/

The new states in India..

I was thinking about the whether the formation new states is good for integrity of India as a nation or not... some of my friends are still having a very good discussions on mails...
Out of them one in particular, who is not only a well-read person but also a Dy. Collector has written a blog: Formation of new states
It is worth a read...

3 langauge formula

The HRD Minister, Kapil Sibbal, is trying to introduce a new (?) formula in the Indian Education. "The 3 langauge formula".
The idea is to teach 3 languages in schools: the State language (mother tongue), English (a language to connect to the world) and Hindi (a language to connect within the nation).
The idea is great... ain't it? I wonder why nobody else thought of it till now... :-/

AFAIK, this formula has already been tested and is working well in some states and has failed miserably in other states. For states like Tamilnadu and Kerala, the language Hindi is as alien as any other language on the planet, and we cannot force Hindi down their throats.
Hindi (as in people who speak Hindi) never learn any other Indian language, but they expect others to learn Hindi. Isn't that just unfair to the states down south? or even states like Orisa, W.Bengal and N-E states??

Ideally, I would prefer it if we have a common language in India, cause that will be a symbol of national integrity. But which language could it be? May be Hindi is the answer, may be not...
May be there is no answer right now...

Story behind my previous post....

Soon after I started writing blogs, that I received a mail from a dear friend, Dhanesha, asking me to write a guest post on her blog. She was the first person I asked to see my blog. Her opinion mattered a lot to me.

Dhanesha aka Danny is a seasoned blogger. Her blog, diaryofdan, is one of the best blogs I have ever came across. Some people (like me) just put the words together, but for Dhanesha, the words themselves take their places respecting her creativity and skills. Some people are just born talented!!

well... as the story goes, she asked me to write a guest post for her blog. That was an honour in itself!! She gave me ample time to think about it. So I conveniently and totally forgot about it.

Then, after a long time on when I recalled this, I started writing "The butterfly Effect". When I sent her a mail with the post, to review and moderate, she did not reply. Well... not even to my reminders...

I don't know whether she is angry at me or has shut out everybody (which she is capable of doing) or is simply too busy to reply to my silly posts, but since I have posted "butterfly effect" aleady on my blog, I would love to write another post exclusively for her blog.

And this time, I will complete the job on time!

P.S. Considering the fact that Dhanesha is the only person who has visited my blog multiple times, can this be an attempt to suck up to my only reader?? ;)

The butterfly effect

The butterfly effect or chaos theory describes butterfly effect as
"Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system"
I was watching the movie butterfly effect in which a very small change made in the hero's past changes his future in a huge way.

One of my friends told me that he just bumped into an old classmate from Junior college on the road and now, they are about to get married soon.
Another one had nearly missed his interview for the company where he is doing absolutely great.
Someone just had a awesome idea which made him millionaire.

We can easily find some defining moments in our past life which has resulted in the present as it is. How would the present be if such small things had not happened the way they have?

For me, such defining moment came when despite the high fees (for my economic state as that time), my parents agreed for me to attend Jnana Prabodhini. I would have been much different person if I had not been in Prabodhini.
Another one should be when I got posted in Chennai, which I had absolutely never expected (I still dream of working in Pune :)). It was a shock, but I did OK there and that gave a lot of confidence. I feel I am a much matured person after my Chennai days.

Well... sometimes I think, give a change, whether I would change something in my past... I am still confused about this....
There are always some incidences which always feel totally negative. May be there are some in my life too...
But would I like to change them? And If I do change them how would it affect my present...?
I still have a lot of thinking to do....

A weekend of classics

Some of you might know that I am a movie buff. I watch lots of movies. Not that I watch all the movies that release but I like to watch good movies and remember nearly everything about them.
But I had not watched any black and white English classic. I had a preconceived notion that they are boring for my taste.
Some time last year I came across a movie called "The apartment", which I absolutely loved. (Also, I got know more about how the stories of Hindi movies are "inspired"!)
And then got my hands on IMDB top 200 movies, selected some classics from there.
- 12 Angry Men
- It happened one night
- Casablanca
- The Maltese Falcon
Just watched all of them over a weekend and I realised for sure, why they are called classics.
Every movie had a specialty of its own. An intense drama, a romantic comedy, a suspense thriller, a strange kind of love story...
But there was something common among all of them... they were very honestly told stories with no fuzz... just the way I like them!

A walk in the rain

I was under a lot of pressure and stress at work for a month or so. Well, it became so bad that one night I could not sleep because I just kept thinking about my work and of course it kept on adding to my stress. Then one fine day I just lost it and decided to ditch the work and go home early.
When I got down from the bus it was pretty cloudy and looked like it would rain cats and dogs very soon. I went back to my apartment, dropped off my laptop, took my iPod and left for a park couple of kms away... It started to drizzle and was on and off till I reached the park... There was nearly nobody over there except for the guard and a guy using the park as a shortcut... I sat on a bench listening to songs while it rained...
I was on my way back when it really started to pour... I just kept on walking, switched off the iPod and listened to the sound of rain... felt like sound of music :)
By the time I came back to the apartment, I was totally drenched and totally refreshed!

I was wondering why rain is always linked to sad, hopeless feelings in western world. At least in India, rain is messenger of prosperity, happiness and, of course, hope... The cloudy whether might be a bit dull but there is no refreshment like getting drenched in the rain...

Well... Considering the last couple of weeks at the office, I just hope the rain Gods smile again on Bangalore...

Mysore Part2

My love for Mysore probably originated from the time that I had in Infosys, Mysore. So, My blog on Mysore will be incomplete unless I write about this.

After my BE, I was going to join Infosys on 19 Sept 2005. So on Sept 18th, I entered a "wonderland" called Infosys, Mysore. I can write pages about the campus, but if you are interested you can just google "infy mysore" and you can get all that info. About the environment over there...umm... it was more like extended college life... lectures, assignments, exams... just the same... but we were paid for it (isn't that great!! ;-))

It was a totally different experience being in a professional organisation and all. But that is not what I normally remember when I think about my days in Mysore. Its more the experience I had in my personal life, the people I met, the games I played, the food I ate etc etc...

I made many friends over there, some close, some not so much... some I am still in contact with, some I am not... But all of them became a part of my life at least for some time... and thus have contributed to who I am right now...

Personally, there were lot of "firsts" for me...the first time I went bowling, first time I played pool, first time I shared a room with a total stranger, the first time that I felt totally lost, first time I interacted with people from all kinds of different places, first time I found a close friend in a girl, first time I had a "date" (even though it wasn't a "real" date;-)) and the list goes on...

Most importantly, it was the first time I was truly out of my comfort zone, and I, not only made it through but, thoroughly enjoyed it. The best thing about this journey was that it was so smooth that I didn't even realise when I became comfortable out of my "comfort zone"....
The confidence that I took from this will always stay with me....

Mysore Part1

I just love Mysore (Of course, not as much as I love Pune)!

I visited Mysore again a month or so back and the trip was simply delightful. Mysore is such a small, cozy place, sort of what Pune might have been when I was born.
We walked around the city, to some of the tourist attractions there. It was quite hot and a bit humid too, but it never felt tiring. We took autos and even public buses whenever we felt like. There was absolutely no plan for the trip and may be that's the reason it felt so great...

There were no traffic jams, no honking vehicles and no noisy/ crowded places.
Most importantly, I could find a lot of peaceful time over there, just sitting on the top of Chamundi hill and enjoying the view of Mysore or enjoying the grandness of the palace or admiring the beauty of nature at Ranganthittu bird sanctuary.

My only complaint about the trip was that, my friend got to sit next to a hot girl on the way back... and I didn't! ;-)

Questions

There are 2 incidences which inspired this post. Before I write my thoughts I should write about them.
1. Akshay asked, after a cricket match (Ind V NZ), "How can a side batting second in an ODI win the match by runs, when Duckworth Louis system is applied? It should always be win by wickets..."

2. Chaitanya asked, while watching a kick-boxing match on TV "why are there no points for successfully defending a shot?"

well... both these questions had valid answers, but the questions were, by all means, valid.

So many times in our lives we accept whatever is given/ provided to us, as it is. We don't ask questions. Both the incidences above are related to sports, but I never asked these questions (well, I do follow sports).

There are so many things happening in and around us, which we accept as they are. Mostly, without asking questions and I am not even talking about valid questions, just questions. Does anybody really have to be a genius to question anything?

Well.... I have a question in my mind now, and I ask it here...."Do we really ask questions?"

Now, at least I asked this question. What's yours...???

Me/ We

Something great happened to one of my closest friends this week, something which I wanted to happen to me, for a long time now. When I heard it, the first thought that came to my mind was "I wish this had happened to me" and I felt happy for my friend later.

Isn't it sad that we think about ourselves first and others later, even on occasions like this when the other person is a "friend"? There is just too much "I,me,my,mine" in our minds, isn't it?

I liked an ad that I watched on TV some days back. It said:

Be less discouraged, more determined
Be less distracted, more present
Be less wasteful, more environmental
Be less me, more we...

If"we" could implement this atleast to some extent, the world would be a much better place to live!

Why I started writing blogs

I had reserved this blog name long time ago and had not written anything, or may be I could not. Today (15Apr2009), on the way to office in a bus, I thought of lots of things and then it stuck to me that I could write these in my blog.
I am not an introvert by any means. But I am not good with words, or I am not good at expressing myself. I get a lot of comments that "we don't understand what's going on inside your head". This blog is not aimed at letting everything out, so that people understand what's going on in my head...no... I intend to keep it that way. [I like it that way ;-)] But I wanted to try out something which, I believe, I am not good at. I am not sure if anybody would want to read what I write, but may be that is not important for me.
If I think that I am doing well, I will continue. Else, it would be back to the way it was...
Let's see how it goes....