Idle musings

THANK YOU, MASTERS     Sachin Tendulkar has announced his retirement from one-day internationals. It is a matter of time before he will retire from Test cricket as well. This year has seen the fade away of three batting superstars in cricket - Dravid, Ponting and Tendulkar. Cricket will be poorer in their absence. The teams will find replacements but the unique characteristics of these three batsmen will be missing. Such is cricket.     To me, Sachin was always second among my list of idols. My early teens were fired by the innings of Sunil Gavaskar. As the blog http://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.in/2011_04_03_archive.html indicates, my interest in cricket developed AFTER the 1983 World Cup win. After the World Cup win, Clive Lloyd and the West Indies toured India.     The Windies were led by Lloyd and he had the fearsome Malcolm Marshall and the Rolls Royce of West Indian fast bowling, Michael Holding as his spearheads. Looking for revenge, India was outclassed in both the tests and

A RECOVERY, A SMART PHONE AND A TRIP TO PUDUCHERRY     This blog covers three topics as the heading indicates. As I write it, I feel it will be a long one, so though I am writing this on a Thursday morning, I think it will be uploaded on Saturday or Sunday.     *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- THE RECOVERY     The first topic concerns my health.     Around Ganesh Chaturthi time this year in September, I caught a 'flu (I think !). Usually, the pattern when I catch a 'flu is that it manifests itself as cold with bouts of sneezing and then transforms into cough and a dry cough before subsiding. I don't take tablets and the process lasts around a week. This time, the cold and sneezing was not much, but worse was to follow. For a few days, I woke up with an extremely painful throbbing headache which began over my right eye and then just pulsed over the head. Literally sick, I consulted my doctor w

    Last weekend, my wife and I watched two Hindi movies on TV that made my weekend : Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD, link http://www.znmdthemovie.com/ ) and Kahaani (link: http://www.kahaanithefilm.com/ ). We had watched Kahanni in the theatres with my mother. Similarly, we had also seen ZNMD earlier.     Still, both movies are extremely watchable and I wanted to blog about them - so here I am, one week later, well settled after the initial urge to blog !     My thoughts shall go to ZNMD first and then Kahaani. There is one common thread between the two movies which is the way that both movies reflect the places they are set in. ZNMD captures the landscapes of Spain superbly and Kahaani manages an even more difficult task : it captures the soul of a city, to some extent.     Let me begin with the negative points of ZNMD first : there is hardly any story to talk about. Three well-off friends Kabir, Imran and Arjun set out on a bachelor trip to Spain and indulge in dares. Kabir is the

On 8-Jun-12, it was my last day in a company that I worked for 11.5 years. Personally, the duration means little to me. My father worked for around 30 years as a scientist in a cotton related laboratory ; my maternal uncle has also worked for a comparable duration in a private organization and my brother has completed more than 20 years working for a private airlines organization overseas. In comparison, 11.5 years is little to talk about ! However, there are two factors that change the situation, now. First, the generation gap : my father and uncle belong to a generation where opportunities and options were few. In today's world, particularly in cities, the options for a graduate are many. Engineering and medicine were the major streams open to students until the '90s. Now, an enthusiastic student can take up animation, finance or dabble in electronic media if s/ he chooses to. I am sure there are other options also, like opportunities in the retail sector. Second, peop

WHAT IS RECESSION? I have been working since 1996 and have experienced "global recession" thrice since that time - three times too many to my liking :-) ! It first happened in 2001. The dot com boom in Bengaluru went bust and the one-liners started : B2B was no longer business-to-business ; it meant Back to Bangalore (as it was called then) ! B2C was no longer business-to-consumer ; it actually meant Back to Chennai ! There were stories of how dot com companies in Koramangala were affected and how those offices (in sheds, etc.) were now deserted. I had just joined a new job and was not affected personally, but it was still an uncomfortable feeling. Then there was a second recession in 2008, triggered by the sub-prime crisis in USA. In 2010, just as it appeared that the worst was over, we have the Eurozone crisis which threatens another recession, at least in Europe. In today's world, the interlinking between countries and groups is more, due to advances in transport a

MY DREAM INDIAN CRICKET TEAM - 2012 The Indian cricket team's tour of Australia is coming to a close. Unfortunately, there are a few unpleasant similarities with the England series in 2011. First, we have lost the third test and a 4-0 prospect looks extremely likely. That is one obvious similarity with the English series :-) Apart from the series scoreline, the previous test series before we played both England and Australia in their respective countries was against West Indies. That is another similarity. Thirdly, our famed batting line up disappointed us in both tours. In 2011, India won the cricket world cup and most of its stars played the IPL after that. Since then the team has played cricket almost continuously. They then won the one day and test series in West Indies. My own opinion is that this led to an unconscious complacency. In West Indies, if the catch of one of the current West Indian batsmen is dropped in a test, the chances are that there would be another one comi

WELCOME, 2012 !     The Yahoo homepage on our Firefox browser shows the date as January 1, 2012. It is just another day, but it represents a new beginning : a new year has dawned. The cloudy weather due to cyclone Thane has gone for now and I see bright sunshine in Bengaluru now. I hope that is also a harbinger of things to come as well : there were a few areas that were black spots in 2011. As a new year starts, I hope the spots vanish and there is a promising 2012 for all of us ! We wish you and your family a happy 2012 !     2011 has passed us by. The time is set for a few reflections. The year was remarkable for few events :         * We saw an India shaking off its apathy (the famous "chalta hai" attitude) to support a simple 74 year old social reformer. Anna Hazare has become a hero in 2011 due to his insistence to set up a strong mechanism like Lok Pal to fight corruption. Young and old identified with his ideas and resulted in a groundswell of support for him, p