Inevitable

Yes, the inevitable and expected has happened - the Indian Cricket team failed to make it to the second round of the WC! As expected, there are loud protests, the usual stone throwing, effigy burning and police security outside the cricketers' homes (all this is becoming very repetitive and boring though!) The usual blame games have started, the media doing countless postmortems, and calls to sack everyone from the captain to the coach to the selectors, players - everyone! Thankfully, no one is asking for the masseuse / physio's heads :-)

I read a very good article in the print version of the STOI yesterday, where the author has stated that maybe instead of we losing, the other team won! It was the better team of the 2, better prepared and had the skill + manpower to win! I agree with the dude completely. For all the money that the Indian board has, it has failed to do the basics right and the result is there for all to see! No point in me dwelling on those as everyone in India has an opinion and knows what ails India cricket and what needs to be done (except for the people in power!).

The main point I want to make is - it is about time we as a nation stopped being so obsessed with cricket and according the status of God to our cricketers. We cannot put impossible expectations on 11 men and expect them to go out each time and thrash the opponents. And when they fail to do so, we need to accept that is just a stupid game after all and a loss is not the end of it - at least not for the aam junta! Come on people, get a life, and if you can't stop indulging vicariously through 11 men and then try to slaughter them when they fail to live upto your expectations!

-uv.

p.s. looks like playing for the country was after all not enough "inspiration" for Harbhajan Singh and the rest :-D

7 years ago!

Just read an article The Bubble Burst! according to which today was the day 7 years ago when the beginning of the end began! Yes folks, this day 7 years back, was the last time the dot-com saw heady highs. After that, it was all downhill which saw many people suffer big losses! Some lucky ones made a fortune and got out unharmed, but those who held on to their stocks dearly are regretting it till this day!

7 years hence, most companies have recovered from the dot-com burst. One of the few remaining companies was Sun Microsystems, and going by recent developments and the rise in stock price (investor confidence?), it also seems to be on the recovery path!!

Of course, today we have Google, which has changed the rules of the game and is considered one of the few serious challenges for M$ !! And there is a lot of stuff open sourced (Sun being at the forefront) and available for free! And Bangalore is now supposed to be the place where the boom is! The question I have pondered over for sometime now is whether we will see another burst - this time in the Silicon Valley of India? Will not dwell much into that one for the time being, since as they say - make hay while the sun shines ;-)

-uv.

Inspiration!

With the Cricket WC round the corner, at least one blog on cricket is inevitable! Today morning, on way to work, was switching between radio channels - they also, like tv channels have this uncanny timing of all stations airing ads at approximately the same time! So, I settled on one ad which was about some dude recounting the eng vs ind match where eng needed 200+ runs to win on the last day...and how the crowd started chanting "chak de phatte!" and it "inspired" him and he went on to take 5-31 and help India win (all this while I am wondering who is this dude!!). Turns out to be none other than Harbhajan Singh! Then he says, it's World Cup time and what are you going to do this time to "inspire" him and the team again!

And that is where I have a problem! Is getting payed lakhs of rupees as match fee is not inspiration enough, is making crores through endorsements is not inspiration enough and above all playing for the country is not inspiration enough ??? that the idiot wants us to shout "chak de phatte" to inspire him?? I hope that is not the attitude our team has gone to the WC with! Else, coach Chappel's bold statement that we can reach the semi finals will remain just that!!

Anyways, me being another one of those die-hard patriots when it comes to cricket and esp WC, I am going to support the Indian team as usual (hoping they do not disappoint as always) :-)

As one of the many ads (obviously on cricket) says, "Come on India, deekha do!"

-uv.

p.s. in case you are wondering which product HS was endorsing, it was Seagrams!

Disturbing!

We have this joke alias in our company where some dude keeps sending daily mails called Sip of the Day. I have accumulated over 70 such mails (shows how sincerely I work :-p). But today for a change, I decided to read the latest one and saw a link for the Anatomy of a Suicide Attack Reading the blog and seeing the pictures was very disturbing...scary! The kid shown is smiling after making the bomb, not caring about the fact that soon he himself will be blown to pieces by the bomb he has made! And the fact that there are hundreds of them around is not comforting at all!

After all, in India as well, bomb attacks have become very frequent and easy to execute. The Mumbai local train blasts and the blast on the Samjhauta Express being fresh in memory! Those were planned by terrorists, but now with such videos available on the net, it could be possible for anyone with access to materials (or some ingenuity) to make bombs and kill people! (There was a comment on the above blog that even in the US it's easy to do such things - we all know of instances where kids have managed to procure guns, go berserk and kill innocent kids including themselves!).

Once again, I may sound too pessimistic here, but off late, every time I try to be positive and optimistic about things, some thing like this comes up and the optimism quickly disappears :-(

-uv.