Oh! Mr. Modi

It's amazing how the human mind works. The most amazing of the minds start breaking down beyond a certain point. It's greed that got better of Raju - he took his book cooking innovation a bit too far...

And now, it's Modi. Is it his ego or unedning greed or is he just too high on the success of IPL to realize what he is doing... First, he showed the middle finger to the govt during IPL2 by taking it to SA and now, someone who was once implicated for an armed robbery and has enough and more dealings within IPL setup to be easily pointed a finger at, decided to take on a union minister... I dont know (and don't care) if Tharoor is at a fault but Modi is plain stupid... Sheeshe ke gharon mein rahne wale doosaron par patthar nahi phenkte... it's the golden rule that Modi has blatantly broken...

"The issue will be swatted and it would be over soon... just like before" is what Modi claimed a couple of days back... I have my doubts... And I suggest he prepares himself for some good, nice swatting... coming soon!
 
I love the game of cricket and IPL has been a great entertainer... The events of the last few days has taken the fun out of IPL... I feel sorry for myself as well as for Mr Modi... Oh! Mr. Modi... All the best nevertheless...

Am I going to die in terrorist attack?

Public safety is a huge concern in India today. Threat perception is very high. And it's getting worse and closer by the day. On Feb 11th, I was discussing the security issues and terrorism in India with a distinguished gentleman at the Pune airport. He was in a hurry so I had to meet him at the airport. Two days later, on Feb 13th, the unfortunate German Bakery incident took place. Less than 4 kilometers away from the airport.


This morning, I saw the bomb squad entering State Bank of India. I still don't know if it was a drill or a hoax or an actual threat. There is nothing in the news yet. The bank is less than a kilometer away from my house. It's getting closer and it's scary.

But wait a minute. Why am I talking about all this on this blog? This is not supposed to be serious blog. Right? This is why – I am gung ho about the upcoming IPL. Version 3.0.

For the uninitiated, IPL is the Indian Premier League - T20 matches played between clubs of a colonial game called cricket – not played in white clothes anymore, unless you play for five days. This one is a three hour version and apart from cricket , you get to watch skimpily clad women dancing at the drop of a hat, sorry catch! Another thing – the game is played on a pitch about a hundred yards away while the girls dance right in front of you. You know what I mean. It's more than cricket and you might be interested even if you don't know what this game means. (Disclaimer – I love the game and insist on watching even five day version, including the ones between Australia and New Zealand – which, btw, has become easier now that I have quit my job. Disclaimer 2 – I did not quit my job for watching cricket (or for writing stupid blogs, for that matter))

Coming back to the game of cricket and IPL, some of the games will be played in New Mumbai and Nagpur which are not very far from Pune. I do want to watch some of the matches in the stadium (apart from some in the multiplex – another novely of IPL v3. Lalit Modi ji ki jai ho!). Now the issue is this – there already is lot of discouragement from friends and family. It's supposed to be risky. What if there is a bomb blast (which, in fact, is a possibility)?

Now, please consider the following data (sources: various) -

Odds of dying in a car crash – 1:185
Odds of dying in a terrorist attack – 1:19,159,765
Odds of winning a jackpot – 1:13,983,816

My chances of winning a jackpot are higher than my chances of of dying in a terrorist attack. And I know it for a fact that I will never win a jackpot. Yes, I do increase my chances by going for an IPL match or by going to any other public place but so do I by buying an actual lottery ticket. The buying ticket thing hasn't worked for me till now. Also, my chance of dying in a car crash are really scary. I should stop travelling in a car before I stop going for movies and IPL matches, I guess.

Btw, I am planning to drive down to the stadium. I will drive carefully!
 
Happy Living folks!!
 

The secret of my "success"

I am asked this question sometimes… Before you start grunting oohs and ahs, please read through…

Success is a very relative matter. A certain Stuart Charles Glyndwr MacGill might be seen as an unsuccessful player because he did not get a chance to play enough for the great Australian team… only because the MacGills decided to copulate around the same time certain Warnes were doing the same and were able to produce a much better offspring (when it comes to cricket!) named Shame, sorry Shane, who made sure that MacGill stayed out of the Oz team for most of his career. Had MacGill been in any other country or was borne at a different time, he would have played at least 100 test matches… he ended up playing only 40 odd while Shame played 140 odd… Playing 2 spinners in an Oz team is unheard of (Btw, Has anyone seen Cameroon White bowling? Someone rightly said that he won’t be picked up as a spinner even in Zimbabwe team… with this kind of quality, no wonder Aussies are losing)… Coming back to success, while a Stuart MacGill is more or less a loser, a relatively senior one-of-100 in one-of-100 company might be genuinely seen as successful by some… it could be naivety (some of my relatives think that I am the 2nd most powerful person in my company after the President… I don’t try to break the delusion of obvious reasons) or for some 1-of-100 is still 1-in-100 and hence good enough (alas! that’s a very low benchmark!!)

Sometimes I wonder if the other person is trying to take my pants off (in an intellectual way) when he/she is asking me that question… Or may be they want to make sure they don’t do the things that I did or do to be successful!!

In any case, I play safe. My standard answer is “Act Busy”. The answer is both genuine(I will come to the point soon) as well as funny and serves both the classes of people. The naïve ones think I am being humble while the smart asses (the ones trying to take my pants off intellectually) get beaten in their own game.

I strongly believe that one can’t be too busy in his or her life… if someone says s/he is too busy, there could be only two things – 1. s/he is lying or 2. s/he is trying to achieve impossible (for example, if someone wishes to jog a marathon every day, they would be “too busy” in other things to achieve this or something similar)…

I always have time on my hand. Time is never an excuse for me. Some examples – I always get time to watch 8 hours of one-day cricket match; I slept for 3 hours last afternoon; and I always get time to write this stupid blog…
At the same point of time I ensure that I look busy – impresses the boss, impresses the colleagues, impresses the team, impresses the family… essentially I can get away by doing less in professional as well as personal life…
Trust me – “Act Busy” works if you are a mediocre like me and don’t have very high goals…

In case you are still with me, here are some tips on how to “Act Busy” –

1. Don’t sit in the headquarters. Be stationed in a different city. The boss is smarter than you and will figure out soon if you are very close to him physically. I have been able to achieve this with last 3 of my bosses and it hasn’t hurt.
   
2. Don’t pick up all the calls. But make sure you call back and call back at some unexpected hour (i.e. between 8pm and 8am). Btw, make sure you pick up the calls from unknown numbers – else you might miss the chance to get that credit card or that home loan that you have been waiting for since you were borne.
   
3. Make sure you do pick up some of the calls – especially when you have given X the time for a call and Y calls. When X calls, switch over between X and Y several times. This is bound to show you as busy and important!
   
4. If there is call scheduled with your boss, make sure you call a friend of yours just before the boss is about to call. Apply #3 when boss’ secretary calls at the scheduled time. This is bound to impress secy as well as the boss (remember to explain that you were speaking to a prospect for that 100M$ deal)… and I can’t tell you enough about the importance of impressing boss’ secy (that can be a separate blog in itself!).
   
5. Don’t reply to mails… WRONG! If someone gave you that stupid idea, don’t follow it – it would only end up showing you incompetent. Trust me, it does not work. Do reply to some of the mails. There are some rules here also…
   
6. Reply to the most unexpected mails.
   
7. Reply to the group mails.
   
8. Reply to the mails in the evenings or early mornings (there are ways of doing this without actually working in the evenings and mornings).
   
9. Make sure a glut of mail goes out of your mailbox in a span of 15-30 minutes (“mail diarrhea”). Two things – the other person remembers getting mails from you at unearthly hours (“brand recall”); secondly, because of the mail diarrhea, some of the mails would be missed which means less trouble for you (in terms of return mails and action items)
   
10. Make sure you keep lot of unread mails in your mailbox. Allow others to peek in (or in a meeting, project it on the screen by “mistake”). People are bound to notice.
    
11. Do not settle your expense accounts for long periods and when you do, don’t forget to write a blog cribbing about the red-tape in your company.
    
12. Don’t take vacation when most of the people take i.e. Diwali, Christmas etc. Make sure you work “hard” during this period. Trust me, scarcity is very valuable.
    
13. Travel! You don’t need to work while traveling and you still get to log “on-duty” hours…
    
14. Spend lot of hours in the office. The hours logged look good and you get away from doing mundane domestic chores. Thanks to internet, there are enough things you can do to kill time. For example – last week I found this great website called www.wikihow.com... It covers pretty much everything from “how to survive a fall from an airplane” to “how live in a car”… The latter would definitely come handy if I am fired from my job or thrown out of my house or both if certain influential people in my life stumble upon this blog…
    
15. When the boss calls unscheduled and hence you are not able to apply trick #4, make sure you put the boss on hold and tell the empty table and chairs in your room – “Guys, urgent call from the boss. We will have to reschedule the meeting” (Caution – Don’t try this trick if you are on video phone).
    
16. Keep your calendar busy. Create some dummy entries so that your calendar seems full on any given day. (Caution – Don’t “open” your calendar completely else one can figure out that you are playing around)
    
17. When you walk around (mostly aimlessly), walk briskly and look worried… very worried as if tsunami has struck the city and its your duty to save it… avoid smiling at people…

In a nutshell, successful or not, if you want peace and at the same time want to feel and be seen as important by others, follow my mantra – “Act Busy”… It’s also one of the surest paths to “success”…

Dhoni baba is tired

Oops! I was wrong. The poor officials turned lucky turned poor again – thanks to Monika, Gold at Beijing and Bindra’s outburst – in that order. I was expecting Bindra to take care of Mendis but he trained his gun on the officials instead! Well, looks like this chap is clear of his priorities – officials now… Mendis can be taken care of later…
Or may be Dhoni has figured out a better way to handle “Mendisis” (sounds like a disease, no?) – we won the one-day series after all… I am sure Dhoni’s idea must be costing less than 30L to BCCI… and in that case, Bindra can kiss the 30L promised by BCCI goodbye!

People and newspapers are already talking about Dhoni being the test captain as well… Poor Kumble… but does Dhoni want to play test matches?? If my memory is right, he refused to play the test series against Sri Lanka last month because he was “tired”… hmmm, that’s interesting… very very interesting! One plays some 20 IPL matches under scotching heat and does not tire and just a month after that, he is tired because of “too much of cricket”! So mister Dhoni, why did not you take a break during IPL? Why did you play each and every match?
Wait a minute – aren’t you the highest paid IPL player (Mundu endorsements extra!)? And isn’t it true that you get paid full only if you play every match? If you decide not to play a match, proportionate amount of money would be deducted from your fees? Well, that explains…
By the way, can you tell me how many ad shootings you did while you were “tired”? One Pepsi ad for sure – both Dhoni and Sri Santh missed the Sri Lanka trip and only these 2 guys are there in the given ad… and some Mundu ads for sure which have mushroomed up on TV…
Now, now, don’t tell me that ad shooting is not as tiring… I am sure all the bollywood actors are not lying when they say it’s lots of hard work!

I think Dhoni is very lucky… I see luck playing a bigger part in his success as a captain rather than some high funda strategy… The commentators go gaga over his cool demeanor… All this makes sense when things are going good. Ganguly’s aggression was his biggest “asset” when he was winning and biggest “liability” when he wasn’t!! Let things go bad (don’t start cursing me - it happens with every team and every captain), the same commentators would say – “what kind of person is he? No impact even when team is losing. He needs to show some emotions, aggression and show to the world that it matters”… and so on!

I think the issue is something else, this chap is an expressionless dud(remember Clint Eastwood?)… Can’t you figure out by watching his ads? Anyways, works well for him (at least for now)…

Btw, if you spot Dhoni and Bindra together, they would mostly be exchanging notes on “Mendisis”…

Gold and Supari

Poor Monika Devi and lucky officials! Abhinav Bindra’s Gold killed the most exciting story till then, i.e., “politics of nothing” and changed the focus to some real stuff. This is really exciting stuff. India has 9 golds in the history of the games now – same as what Phelps got in the current version of the games.

For a brief period (a few hours) I thought may be we have found a sport that Indians can excel in – first Rathore and now Bindra. It’s all about focus and concentration – mental strength rather than physical strength… then in the evening I saw the footage of Bindra’s way to glory… the moment I saw his superman like suit, I realized the sport must be beyond the reach of most of the common people.
My doubts were confirmed when I got to know that this dude is rich and practices in his personal air-conditioned shooting range (while other shooters cribbed about the lack of proper infrastructure in India).
The newspapers the next day were full of all the money showered by various – PM, CMs, BCCI, Lalu, sporting bodies et all… with the value going up to Rs 1 cr!! And what was dad’s reward to his prodigal son – ahem… a Rs 200 cr hotel!!! It not only humbled all rewards and awards (as far as $ figure is concerned), it made me realized that this dude is not rich… he is very very rich…

But wait a minute… one unlikely name in the long list was BCCI – that’s “Board of Control for Cricket in India” – Rs 30L. Why would a cricketing body which can't spend on it’s own infrastructure would do something like this? They have some of the worst cricket stadia in the world – Bangalore is one of the worst. Once I paid Rs 5K to watch a match between India and Australia – travel from Pune costed me on top. Before it was washed off by rains, I could see 2/3rd of the ground. I was given a hole to watch the match from for the Rs. 5000 I spent on these jokers. Every time there was a high shot towards the 1/3rd of the invisible ground, I had to guess and judge by crowd’s reaction if it was a catch or a 6 or a 4. And then there was a pillar right in the middle bisecting the pitch into 2 parts. Guess I was fortunate enough to be able to see the stumps, well in fact spot them from my hole.

Coming back to Bindra - one of the things the gold did was that it lightened the pain of the humiliating test series defeat in Sri Lanka. But why would BCCI reward him or pay him? Are they thankful that the attention was taken off cricket and there was less of flak for the Sri Lanka debacle?
Or may be IS Bindra (one of the top officials of BCCI) is related to Abhinav and he wanted to reward his biradari-wala!
I think the real reason is something different – it’s a Supari… yes Supari. Very clearly, Ajanta Mendis was the difference between win and defeat for India. But for him, we would have definitely won the series. And he is young, has just come in – its not only the current series… if this lad continues to bowl like this, we can kiss the next world cup good bye already… so what’s the solution? Take him out… literally! And hence the Supari to Bindra, the sharp shooter…
And what a brilliant way to pay the money – Khule-aam!!
This might sound like dark humor to you all… the time would tell…