Team India - Cricket World Cup

So Team India swept to their Cricket World title after a span of 28 years, and in the process became the first country to win a title on its home soil (Sri Lanka was the first to win as a host country, but the final was played in Pakistan in 1996).


I was thinking about the gauntlet that India had to run through to win the cup...and their last four victories came in order against 
The West Indies
Australia
Pakistan
Sri Lanka.


Now, the Cricket World Cup has been played since 1975, and the following countries have, in order, won their first title since then.
West Indies
India
Australia
Pakistan
Sri Lanka.


The amazing thing about Team India's run in the 2011 World Cup is that they beat the teams in the same order as their first World Cup title. Obviously it is a mere coincidence, but it is still uncanny that the sequence played out in this way.


Beyond all this though, congratulations are in order to the Men in Blue. They did themselves and the country proud.


This year, S and I have been privileged to have watched and followed two teams that made a successful run at the title. Both of them were talented enough that they were considered favorites for the title, both stumbled a bit and then when they hit on all cylinders, took on all comers and blitzed their way to the epitome of their respective sports.


One is Team India in Cricket. The other? The 2010-11 Green Bay Packers in the NFL.

The King's Speech

Colin Firth, interviewed by David Mermelstein of the Wall Street Journal, about the role he played in The King's Speech:

"My profession can so often be completely frivolous, which is one of its virtues. But whenever I play someone who suffers, I feel that there's a danger that I'm an impostor. So it's a relief that people who stammer haven't felt misrepresented. The reason why people tell stories and read stories and see films is to feel less alone. And if there's a story that takes everyone through something like this, it's a way to say to others, 'Now you live through it and see how it feels.' And if my profession gets that wrong, we've lost that opportunity. So it's a great relief not to have dropped the ball.''

J loves all things Colin Firth, and I have promised to take her to see the movie, and the above quote makes me want to see it even more. Even if it figures to be drama at the highest level.

Overheard on the radio this morning...

My commute to work is a manageable 15-minute drive whirling like a dervish through a maze of snow-bird traffic. I typically favor listening to NPR or my favorite smooth-jazz station, KYOT on the drive to-and-from work, and this morning I turned to KYOT after quite a while of staying away from that station.

True to their form, they played an impeccable selection of music that helped smooth the drive to work, and then it happened. They went into a break, and the host announced - "one hour of commercial free radio presented by Hyundai", and then went straight into a commercial break featuring ads for, amongst other things, bankruptcies, IRS liens, wage garnishments.

Now, it is highly likely that they were advertisements for non-profit (which I believe are exempt from the commercial-free hours that radio stations often run), but the impeccable timing of the entire thing had me in splits, and set me up really well for the work week. Especially the first week back from the holiday season.

Vancouver 2010

So Vancouver signed off on the 2010 Winter Olympic spectacle in style.

Watching coverage of the games on ESPN during the early part of the games, the way the presenters emphasized on Canada not having won gold at their two previous attempts at hosting the Games was irritating at best, and gloatingly condescending at worst. I am glad that the Canadians answered in the most fitting way possible - by winning a record number of golds for any country at the Winter Games. And oh the icing on the cake. No. make that the cherry on the icing on the cake. They beat US for the Hockey gold.

Now, if the US had won, we would have heard ad nauseum from various bloviators on how it was akin to the Miracle on Ice yada yada yada. But now it is like, who cares about the Olympics. Oh well.

Now onto London 2012. Can't wait to see the Londoners try to follow Beijing's act.

"Fear the blobfish"

So I came across this hilarious piece of writing in the LA Times. Click the link and read. No, I mean it. Read it fully. Done? Good.

You know it is about the blobfish and you have to admit, it is somewhat unnerving to look at. It is like revolting scene in a movie that you cannot take your eyes off of. It is like the fender bender on the freeway that everyone has to have a look at, craning their necks in weird angles and causing traffic to slow down to a crawl.

So, what is my point with this post? Just this. We seem to have forgotten what it is to have a good laugh at something. We take everything we read, and wring it through our own spectral biases and then react either in sheer delight or scathing scorn. Somehow everything has gone in the direction of "you are with us or against us" that seems to be pervading everything and everyone these days.

I really am hoping that the pendulum would veer toward the center at some point, and soon.

Jai Ho!

Ella pugazhum iraivanukkae. God is great.

These simple words summed up the Academy Award acceptance speech by the Mozart of Madras, AR Rahman, after picking up the award for Best Original Score for his racy, elegant and beautiful score for Slumdog Millionaire.

And this after paying tribute to his mother (to quote...I have nothing else, but I have my mother with me...end quote).

And I sat there thinking, if this guy were to win for one of his two songs nominated for Best Original Song, he is not going to be able to top that speech I'd just heard.

Boy, was I wrong!

This overanalyzed and yet often misunderstood genius doing his work from the oddly named Pachathan Record Inn in Chennai, turned up trumps again.

He summarized and succintly said what needs to be the mantra for everyone every day of their life..."the essence...is about optimism and the power of hope in our lives." And the exquisitely worded nod to love...as a choice as opposed to hate..."all my life, I had a choice of hate and love, and I chose love, and I am here. God bless!"

And finally...

D'oh!

Boston's New England Patriots lost. Tom Brady lost. Bill Belichik lost. Good for the rest of us.

Tom Brady's chip on shoulder at being picked very late in the NFL draft (he was the sixth round pick in god-knows-what year) was a good story for a while, but now it just rankles me whenever I hear that this apparent diss - is he such a wuss that he can only motivate himself for his profession by looking back on a diss that is so old that only his insecure a** can even remember it?

Oh well...I can only ramble on at this time...I am just glad that we got spared yet another Boston parade and chest-beating. Now if only the Celtics would get their behinds whooped the same way...

We got spared by the condescending Bostonians but the reward is a victory for an equally obnoxious and condescending New York crowd that did not really believe the Super Bowl winner QB and coach...

I guess this is why they say sometimes you just cannot win them all...

You work for money...or money works for you?

Overheard on one of the episodes of The Cosby Show that runs regularly as part of the Nick @ Nite family shows.

To paraphrase Claire Huxtable..."your father and I are not rich. We work very hard for our money. You are rich only if your money works for you."

Now, that is an interesting statement. Makes complete sense I would say. And that got me thinking...using this as a qualifier, how many of the really rich people can actually be counted as rich...oh well...I am off...to work hard for my money...

Thank You For Smoking

Spin. Spin-doctoring. How you want to call it, whatever you want to make of it, the one thing that is constant in this day of instant media and instant news, is spin. Not the facts, not the news, but the interpretation of what that means to you and me, the ordinary joe. And not the interpretation that we choose for ourselves, but rather the interpretation of the news given to us, rather thrust down our throats by the so-called media and Government.

Granted, it has been proven beyond doubt that smoking is harmful to health (and no, don't even bother trying to convince me otherwise). Granted, the harmful effects of smoking need to be taught to people so that they can make informed choices. But is that the reality? Nope. Instead, we have pseudo advertising in movies and such that portray smoking as a cool activity that screen heroes do. Ergo, it must be a cool thing for teens and kids to do.

What we have is a total abdication of personal responsibility by parents and actually everyone around. Until we as individuals can stake and claim the responsibility for our own lives, no matter what happens around us, we are going to be stuck in this vicious cycle. Till we wake up, well....Thank you for smoking!!!

Summer of movies

Wifey and I both love to watch good movies. We both get bugged with typical run-of-the-mill movies (read: most desi movies). So while Netflix and public libraries contribute to satisfying the thirst to watch good movies, there is still the occasional indulgence towards typical summer blockbusters. So far, we're two into the summer movie season. Pirates of the Carribean - At World's End, and Ocean's 13.

Loved Pirates. Loved being able to loudly guffaw in the theaters. (Side note: Only Ocean's 11, Ice Age, and Pirates of the Carribean - Curse of the Black Pearl have provided for totally, utterly, and completely satisfying movie-going experiences. These three movies were a perfect synergy of disparate sources of joy - all coming together at the right place at the right time.). Granted that both movies sorta-kinda-desparately tried to live up to the glib-tongued smart-a** feel of their original versions, they were still good in their own merit. Weirdly enough, we've missed the third installment of two other successful movie franchises of the recent decade - Spiderman, and Shrek. And even more weird, we don't even care we have missed it. I guess you can only flog a dead horse ever so much.

Oh well...I am working up the reasons to convince her to go with me to see Ratatouille from Disney-Pixar, and maybe she won't need nudging to see HP-OotP.

Netflix is providing the nature-fix through the Planet Earth series from BBC/Discovery. Thankfully, they are shipping the Sir David Attenborough narrated version. No offense to Sigourney Weaver (she did a very excellent job in another amazing documentary - Why Dogs Smile and Chimpanzees Cry), but in Planet Earth, her narrative is, to say the least, awful. Well, maybe the reality is that I am biased towards Sir David Attenborough's clear, concise and involved narrative. Maybe it is watching series after series of Sir Attenborough's works including Life of Birds, Life of Mammals, Blue Planet - Seas of Life etc. Maybe it is also the knowledge that he is actually a field guy (an expert even) in wild-life reporting. Whatever it maybe, watching Planet Earth seems that much more complete with his narrative.

You can experience the difference for yourself here in the US - watch Planet Earth Wednesday nights on Animal Planet, and then get your hands on the Attenborough-narrated DVDs selling through retailers or available to rent at your neighborhood or internet video store.

Next up on the 2-do-list - classics and yesteryear black & white features...afterall, "our" movie is one such b&w classic - the evergreen (or should it be ever-black-and-white???) "The Shop Around The Corner".

Good to be back

Life is changed. I am changed. The day has changed. And so has the year. I have a right-shoulder to lean on ( and a left-shoulder too: albeit belonging to the same person :P). But she and I won't let one thing change...our love for writing.

It is good to be back.

Eating Out vs Eating In

Eating out is the new eating in, or so claims this feature on MSN Money, and lists two peoples opinions to substantiate the purported fact that eating out actually comes out pretty even on dollar terms to eating in (also known as cooking at home).

That is as fallacious as can get in terms of substantiating an argument - take two premises, make comparisons on essentially uneven terms, without establishing common ground, come to conclusions on those uneven terms, and then proclaim one argument as the winner over the other...and the media companies wonder why people are skeptical of their reporting?

Take the first example of a person who would get off with spending $17 plus tips on dining out on hand-stuffed ravioli slathered with puttanesca sauce as opposed to about $30 for cooking at home (you know, driving to the farmers market, buying organic veggies, spending an hour cooking etc). Another dude goes as far as counting his hourly rate to the cooking time and opines that taking out his family to eat would essentially come out to the same...

Crunching numbers, this is supposed to prove that eating out is cheaper. Count me as one of the skeptics to this theory, and also to the veracity of this feature. For one, both the examples are set on uneven terms. Hey, the second dude factors his wages for cooking at home, but not for his waiting at a restaurant for his food to arrive etc...and the first dude prefers organic veggies for home cooking, but would rather eat cholesterol-laden ravioli made from non-organic stuff at a restaurant...comparison indeed.

Heck, the simplest logic demands that eating out be more expensive than dining at home. Just the simple fact that eating out is a convenience, and any convenience costs money. That's why a cup of coffee that otherwise costs about $0.10 sells for at least $0.99 at your local gas-station. Do the math...and enjoy dining out, because that is indeed an occasion to indulge the senses...

Baseball Bliss

Now, it must be said that thanks in part to a series of collapses over the past several years (2001 to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 2002 to the Anaheim Angels, 2003 to the Florida Marlins, 2004 to the Boston Red Sox and 2006 to the Detroit Tigers), bashing the New York Yankees for their collapse is becoming almost too sad. Almost. Because it is never enough to poke fun at those Bronx bomber fans with their sense of entitlement, bordering on the obnoxious.

So, to all those Yankee-haters amongst us, ESPN.com has this veritable top-ten list of Yankee collapses. And you may note that of the ten, five happened in the last six years. Must be that baseball players now no longer believe the "mystique" and "aura" of Yankee Stadium. Must be Curt Schilling's famous quote in 2001 ("Aura and Mystique sound like night-club dancers") is coming true. Afterall, night-club dancers do have their shelf-life and then they are just consigned to dust-bins. Thanks to the fawning New York-based media, we've been treated to stories of Yankee mystique and aura etc, and of how Yankee Stadium is the toughest place to play in etc. Now, thanks the same media, we can gloat over the failure of these paper-champs. Until their next such collapse.

Washington Post: Gender? It's A Gray Area.

Here we go again. Another attempt at reasoning out why women are, well, women, and men are, shall we say, men.

See the single-page, printer-friendly view of the article and you can as well decide if you are going to agree or disagree.

Louann Brizendine, a Bay-area shrink, writes in her book "The Female Brain" that men and women have different systems for the brain. And her choices are rather telling. Women have Mac. And men? PC. (Sniffle. No wonder my girl thinks I am on the verge of a memory-overloading crash all the time. Atleast, now I know and have my excuse. It's my circuits. )

Some of the stuff that's apparently discussed in the book (hey, it's on my library check-out list, so can't say for sure without actually seeing it) does actually seem like tired-old rehashing of stereotypes, and the Wash Post article does make it appear like it's just a tired-old rehash with out basis in truth. But none-the-less, they make for one hilarious read. To wit...(quoted verbatim from the Wash Post along with added commentary of my own in green)

- Men think about sex every 52 seconds while women think about it about once a day. Man, I gotto wonder how they decided to estimate or measure that one.
- Women speak faster on the average - 250 words a minute to 125 for a typical male (now, I know a few women that are quite good at speed talking, but then, if you tune in to the typical radio network, you hear men that are quite adept at speed talking as well. Makes you wonder about the legitimacy of this specific comparison...but then I digress) and also adds that women use 20000 words a day while men use about 7000. This does make me realize what some men complain about when they say their wives talk too much. Its not that they talk for longer time as much as they cram too much in the time they speak...
- A woman knows what people are feeling while a man can't spot emotion unless someone cries or threatens bodily harm. Oh boy. I surely can't complain or contradict this one. Because I for one surely refuse to "interpret" what other people are thinking, without any external sign of it. But then, what do I know? I am a man.

But at the very least, it does add fuel to the gender stereotypes prevalent in our societies, and maybe, at its remotely best possibility, has stumbled onto something that is really significant. I doubt this latter possibility, but I am just willing to keep an open mind until proven otherwise. Definitely worth a peep from your local lending library, if only to laugh at the hilarity of "reasoned deductions" that are likely nothing more than convenient twisting of facts.

Walking.....Shark??

See related post here.

Ok. So we've seen an octopus that puts up an act. In any of (known till now) three disguises - a lion fish, a flat fish, and a sea-snake the octopus surely puts on a show - evasion? Safety from predators? (Thanks to Tom Tregenza at University of Exeter in Cornwall) Maybe...whatever...ultimately, its just a treat to see an animal mimicking behaviour.

Now we are getting to see another fantastic example of unusual behaviour in another sea-living animal. This time, the walking shark. It apparently walks. See image above (Copyright Conservation International, via AP). Nick-named the epaulette shark, its been observed in the area called Birds Head Seascape off the Indonesian Papua provincial coast in Asia - the so-called Asian Coral Triangle.

Whatever will they find next?

A Model, a role model at that...

From the South Asia pages of the Beeb a.k.a BBC.

A heart-warming story of Guriya Khatoon.

Five Years Studies done in Nine Months.

Some may fold in the face of a single strike. Not this girl. All of thirteen years young. Talk about perseverence and guts. She had three strikes against her - poverty - Bihar - gender. Pile up the fact that her family tried to hush her up behind a purdah because she is Muslim.

Yet, in her own words - "...you have to face all your challenges in life, but most of all get an education. Because without it, you can't change your life - or your world."

Yes, Minister

James Hacker: Opposition is all about asking awkward questions.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: And Government is about not answering them!

Just one of the many memorable exchanges between the Minister for Administrative Affairs Jim Hacker (played memorably by Paul Eddington) and his Permanent Under-Secretary of State Sir Humphrey Appleby (played by Nigel Hawthorne). Throw in the Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley (played by Derek Fowlds) and you had an awesome threesome of comedy.

And for the unitiated, this is from the classic 80's comedy sitcome of the venerable BBC - Yes, Minister. A political satire of the first order, it is well written, and resonates very well, even today, even here in the US.

To paraphrase the BBC's own description:

Clever and complex plotting, cracking and convoluted dialogue, accurately drawn observations and top-notch acting all combined to create a Rolls-Royce of a show that ran with the smoothness of that engine and the precision of a ministerial cover-up. Co-writer Jonathan Lynn saw the show in simple terms: a Jeeves-and-Wooster concept wherein 'the servant is cleverer than his master'.

Lets just say it doesn't take much for a show to get established as top-of-the-line. Hey, you know its good when my only exposure to this show was in the mid 80's pre-cable India when the telly was entirely state-owned and controlled.

Jim Hacker the politician veers from his ideas of commitments to his electorate to his ideas of protecting his own hide/seat. And he is either abetted in his ideals to protect his seat or frustrated in his ideals of serving by the electorate by his typically-bureaucratish bureaucrat Humpy Appleby. And though, if they were real people, (and if they were indeed real, my experience with the system in India would attest to the fact that the show wasn't far away from the truth, and India's systems are designed after the British system) I would be hopping mad, now I am just howling in laughter watching these episodes on DVD.

And the dialog writers have unearthed gems of dialog in the shows episodes...

"If people don't know what you're doing, they don't know what you're doing wrong."
"[Citizens of a democracy] have a right to be ignorant. Knowledge means complicity and guilt. Ignorance has a certain...dignity."
"It used to be said there are two kinds of chairs to go with two kinds of Minister. One sort folds up instantly, and the other sort goes round and round in circles."
"I don't want the truth. I just want something I can tell the Parliament!"

There are many many more gems in the 21 episodes of this series. Once I am finished with them I can't wait to get onto the sequel - "Yes, Prime Minister".

All aboard! The comedy train is rumbling!

Indian "Encyclopedia"

Bleeding bio-pirates.

But thankfully enough, these pirates have spurred new action from the Indian government - the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. (sign-up available)

Its about time that the Texmati and Neem-based herbicide patent-holders are put in their places.

But more importantly, it makes available traditional, non-toxic, non-chemical remedies to all of us, at a time when we seem to be living in a chemical soup of food-preservatives and OTC (over-the-counter) drugs.

Organic, Baby. The way to go.

Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish, Press # to repeat the options again.

Its here. Finally.

Elaborately listed workarounds for the Integrated Voice Response systems that always seem to wall us out of speaking to a customer service rep.

Based on the list..hooray to Amazon.com and Southwest.
You can be forgiven if you dial their numbers directly, and get to speak to a live person, and scream "Its Alive!"

Country Roads

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue ridge mountains
Shenandoah River

If there was a song that was the primary reason behind a road-trip, this song was it. In mid-August of 2001, my friends and I planned on rendezvouing at a home in Iselin, NJ and then driving down to Seneca Rocks, WV for camping and white-water rafting on the Shenandoah. This took place over the labor day weekend of 2001 - September 1 to September 3, 2001 if you must know. Driving down that concrete stretch of highway nightmare known as the New Jersey Turnpike, ponying up upwards of 50 bucks on tolls alone, we rolled into beautiful rural Maryland and Virginia. Boy was it scenic...

Rolling country-side somewhere in rural Virginia..it had been just two weeks after heavy rains, and with the water re-charging the soil, there was that fresh green all around..absolutely beautiful..

Two predominant colors in the landscape...the black tarred roadtops and the nascent green of grass freshly sprouting following torrential rains of two weeks prior. And my, the gently rolling landscape dotted with white picket fences and grazing pastures for cows and horses, was like a scene out of some classic English poem.

ok, so I lied...it was not all green around..there was this hay field glowing a golden yellow in the mid-day sun...somewhere in rural Virginia...circa September 2001
And sorta true to the song, West Virginia did not disappoint with the blue ridges of the branch of the Applachian Mountains that run into the state.

Maybe, if you drink moonshine like John Denver proclaims in "Take Me Home Country Roads" you will proclaim that the ridge in the background is indeed blue! Meanwhile though, this place was amongst the most peaceful places I have been to....Seneca, WV...circa September 2001

Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growing like a breeze

I cant vouch for either, cuz I am younger than them all :)
But one thing is really for sure...life sure is simple there. And it seems like you stepped through some time-portal of some sort, because of the idyllic calm of the place gave an impression that time ran slower here than elsewhere in the country.

The peaceful hamlet of Seneca, WV as seen from summit of the Seneca Rock, a limestone formation that has weathered erosion to stand proud and towering over the town....circa September 2001

Country roads, take me home
To the place, I belong
West Virginia, mountain mamma
Take me home, country roads

If you wanna call a camping trip with almost no prior experience, as going home, then yeah..the country roads of W.Va took us home. Those three days spent white-water rafting, hiking and camping was sorta way outta the ordinary. Even though it is over three years removed from that trip, the memories are still as vivid as the day I was there - the low hanging mist during day-break, the chill that permeates the entire region during the night, the sun light falling on the face of the Seneca Rock, illuminating it like it was a beacon in the midst of swirling mist and fog.

All my memories, gathered 'round here
Miners lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine
Tear drops in my eye

I don't know nothing about moonshine, you see, cuz i am an in-bred country brute :P
Kidding aside, for what the song claims, I have to say that the air looked, and smelt and felt pretty clean. Possibly the cleanest air I have inhaled in the continental US.

Country roads, take me home
To the place, I belong
West Virginia, mountain mamma
Take me home, country roads

I hear her voice
In the mornin' hour she calls me
Radio reminds me of my home far away
Driving down the road I get a feelin'
I shoulda been home yesterday, yesterday!

We did our white-water rafting at Harper Ferry, WV, and then crossed the Shendandoah and drove along the shores of the Potomac, upstream. Often times, the road would deviate from the river and run into heavily canopied forests, where a brook would run by the roadside....

A rocky stony brook in Seneca, WV. Surprisingly, the water, while being just about upto the knee level, was still with a strong current..even more surprising...after all the rainfall that region had received just two weeks previously, the water level had subsided this far down.....circa September 2001

In the far distance, sunlight beamed on the road in areas where the canopy was missing...and it was mesmerizing and enchanting...not to mention, simply beautiful.

At last, some clearing in the canopy covering the state highway that leads into Seneca, from Harpers Ferry, WV. Almost straight out of a story book, there was a little gurgling brook running right by the road, on the right side of the picture....circa September 2001
Country roads, take me home
To the place, I belong
West Virginia, mountain mamma
Take me home, country roads

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mamma
Take me home, country roads
Take me home, now country roads
Take me home, now country roads