Songs, down the memory lane !

One night, just ahead of the weekend, lazing on the bed, I was just doodling on my phone... For some reason, I remembered this song... and as they say one thing led to another and there I was listening to a set of songs, with my commentary and whatsapping those to a group !

Here is the first song from that movie - Sharaabi - this movie was so slow to pick up and then picked up steam to attain a mini-cult status with lot of us in the mid-20s at that time... Inteha Ho Gayi Intezaar Ki... That movie... That song... Trip down (my) memory lane :-)

http://youtu.be/uourFnscU6Q

Here is one more. The mother is beautiful too. " O Mere Dil Ke Chain"

http://youtu.be/heXQRxM2Gro

And her is the Gujju bhai and ben ! Meri Bheegi Bheegi Si

http://youtu.be/K0THyu8oNlw

And... This one; The way she flirts with the camera is just awesome (no, i'm not talking about VIjay Arora).... Chura liya hai-YAADON Ki BARAT

http://youtu.be/-KgeYnMFBAU

And the next one, is just poetry..Jab Koi Baat Bigad Jaye - Jurm

http://youtu.be/BAqgHmIwp00

And poignant...
To understand that poignancy, you should have been 17 year old, in early 80s, and watch Amitabh lose everything that he loves... That was Amitabh losing - the man who had it all and could do all ! O SATHI RE TERE BINA BHI KYA JINA:

http://youtu.be/OssRAVZhsRk

Although I love  Kishore"s version immensely, there is a certain classical allure of how she (Parveen Sultana) sings it. And here are both the versions. The lead-in music is more haunting... But judge for yourself which version is better... ( "Humien Tumse Pyar Kitna Yeh Hum Nahi Jante from Kudrat)

http://youtu.be/mgqY4XXNbd4
http://youtu.be/75JxottQK9E

Anyways, that's out for tonight... Will end it with a song, that is lyrically just lovely... And the rendition adds to the experience !!! "Pyar Deewana Hota Hai"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lslZptXok8o

:-)

Wired !

Through the

Labyrinths of anxiety,

Skirting the margins of fear,

Briefly stranded,

at the cross-roads of

Madness and lucidity.

Staring ahead,

he was awash

with an enveloping calm;

Of a future opaque.

Systemic Changes with quick fixes

A friend and ex-colleague of mine had written about judicial activism on his blog.  Reading that I had commented on his blog - which I thought might be an article by itself on this one :-)

IMO, the problem is systemic. We, as a culture, (largely and yes, I'm at the risk of stereotyping) do not want to be accountable to ours or hold accountable others to their actions. We need NGOs to fix things, we need judges to over-reach and get into Governance; In Mumbai when there are floods, there are typical stories about how the real Mumbaikar stood up to help their neighbours, year after year; however, no one is asking where the heck is the Governance, why the heck does it repeat every year, what has the Government done since the last few 100 times the same event had occurred.

We reach for quick fixes with an outlook, we will figure out a lasting solution the next time; and sometimes just trusting providence that it wouldn't happen the next time. I believe there are two key perspective that needs to be brought into finding the real solution:

First, we need to find a set of people who would govern better. This implies educating the rural and urban masses, the intent to vote every time and on every issue and actually do it and then hold the elected rep to their promises. This doesn't mean things would change quickly, but it is the toughest process we need to go through. 

Second, what we need to legislate and then govern;  in my view, the smaller-set of items we legislate, the easier it becomes to govern and also for the people to hold the politicians responsible for those. So, the answer may not be as simple as "free market" or "less bureaucracy" or "less constraints and regulations" but sure seems a good place to start. It just seems intuitive to me :-).

Instead, we go the opposite, we have so many rules and laws and continue to legislate more. We try and replace our personal accountability and integrity with public laws and rules. Then the set of laws becomes so  muddled that its implementation in a large and diverse country like India, with so many sub-cultures, becomes impossible; and becomes out of reach of common man and we look at someone else to help us get there - which is why we've so much of NGO and judicial activism. The problem with this approach is, it is inherently not sustainable... It is so dependent on the gray-areas and how the guy in the chair is going to interpret it. And how the next guy in the chair will over-turn it !

On a side-note, although I wasn't a great supporter of Kejriwal in their Lokpak incarnation, I do believe what he has decided now, is more sensible and the only way to go in a democracy. There is only so much awareness etc you can create in a revolution and being outside the system. The changes had to come, by being within the system - Anna Hazare and co, need to be part of the system of governance to change it. They cant be outside all the time and point what is wrong and add yet another piece of legislation to make it work. I'm pretty certain that Kejriwal is going to fail spectacularly in the elections, but I really hope he is in it for the long haul...

The systemic changes are tough and take a long time, but that is the only way to sustain it without quick fixes. Not saying quick-fixes aren't needed; every time we make a quick fix, we need to see what is the systemic change we've made to alleviate or eliminate the pain; the pain that the root-cause had created, in the first place. 

Life's Important Questions...

Thanks to the site, graphjam.com, helping in providing a pictorial view ! :-)

The Fight !!

Shalini was pissed. Very pissed and angry and mad... Add all the words from thesaurus that could convey the depth of the anger. She was glued to the TV all morning, even bunking the the special 2hr economic lecture today. (The fact that she abhorred the economics, in her very first year of her BA class was orthogonal to this story - her hatred for economics stemming from the fact that she didn't get the complexity of it). But today her hatred for economics was only replaced by her hatred with what is going on - in her mind this was simple to hate. She and her friends talked about it last evening after college at Coffee-day, and sat there for hours debating the pros and cons of it. After coming home, she went to her room, turned on the TV and watched the Arnab talk in his typical aggressive style questioning the Government's decision. At the same time, she tweeted effusively and facebooked prolifically - and retweeted multiple messages and shared multiple facebook messages from her friends. As she had gone to bed, she felt her angst still simmering.

It is now - This morning; she was at the junction of the Victoria statue, near the entrance of Cubbon Park. She and her friends had arrived there on a call by some "Brashtachaar Andolan, the Bangalore Chapter". The call was all the like-minded people to gather at the site to protest the arrest of Anna Hazare and subsequent non-grant of permission by the Delhi Police for Anna to fast in his place of choice. There was this bald-man, who was egging on, saying something in Kannada into the megaphone ! She and her friends held placard and shouted slogans at the government... She was glad, that she along with majority of friends (and her parents) had not voted in the last election and felt a lot less complicit with this Government's decision. The fact that she and her family had some other pressing engagement that day and did not fancy standing in a queue for election. Her dad had joked, if only there was a Tatkal option for voting; and she had promptly facebooked it as her own and got huge amounts of likes.

Coming back to the present, the crowd was getting vocal; Shalini found several friends from her past and there were several youngsters, along with some serious-types (as she thought). The bald man, who was holding forth why Lokpal bill made a lot of sense and why the politicians, including the PM need to be policed. A lady, who seemed to be passer-by, asked the question if we are asking extra-constitutional authority for non-elected representative - the bald man, hemmed and hawed a bit, but at the same time, Shalini and friends boo'ed the lady and started questioning if she was a true Indian!! The lady beat a hasty retreat...

After being around for about 3 hours, it was getting to be evening and Shalini and friends started feeling a bit of ennui... They expected this to be fun, but weren't able to envision an end-game to the evening. Fortunately for them, good news arrived. There was suddenly a commotion. The bald man was conferring with a couple of other people. He, feeling important as the eyes were on him, picked up his cell and called someone ! He was flush with excitement as he animatedly talked alternately in broken Hindi and English... As he was talking he raised his fist up and a cheer went through the crowd, without knowing what really has transpired. The bald-man pocketed his cell, in a very self-important gesture, stood up on a soap-box and announced grandly - "We've won !! The Delhi Police have caved in - Anna will be fasting now !!!! We will get our Jan Lok Pal Bill passed !!!!!"... Immediately, a big cheer went through the crowd. People hugged each other and Shalini and co were ecstatic - they've won. All the tweets, facebook and bunked classes is going to change the world. They decided that they need to go out and celebrate the victory - where else at Coffee day !

She kicked her scooty back to life; and Avi, her class-mate got behind her. He was one of those boys who were extremely talkative and she was glad that he was in the pillion as they talked, feeling an enveloping aura of victory as she drove... Then, shit happened... She suddenly saw a policeman in front of her, flagging her down ! In her discussion, she had erroneously turned into an one-way street !! She slowed down and parked the the scooty, a bit ahead of the policemen. Avi, took her papers and license and took it to the policeman. In her rear-view mirror, Shalini saw Avi talking to the policeman...

In about 5min or so, Avi was back; as she stuffed the papers and started her scooty, she asked, "What happened ?". Avi responded, "I just gave him a twenty; saved a 100 bucks fine; lets go !!"

Of Pigs, PFand Pearls...

I'm part of a Fantasy football league for the past four years - its a pretty easy going league with lot of banter, ill-translated sentences, fun but quite competitive place. It is also run by a commish, who does things pretty much with an iron-hand (:-)). During the commish's tenure, the rabbits' DNAs have mutated, that their 4th leg has become an vestigial limb and can no longer be found... (in the lines of முயல், மூன்று கால் etc).

As the new season unfolds this year, he had decided on the draft order (with a feral and ferrous hand, of course), purportedly based on a lunch meeting at a Pizza joint with a few of the leaguers... My reaction to his post where he had published the draft order was as below:
___________________
The below is the result of sinister conspiracy hatched by neo-fascist extreme-left-wing cabal (of 1) !! The order of draft was totally different...

I'm sure commish would Meddle in, generate proof in terms of a torn masala-dosai smelling napkin that he quickly rushes out and picks up from an Indian restaurant nearby and claim it to be from the Pizza joint. This is so typical of first 4 seasons - I was hoping (against hope) that the Echoes of change that is sounding elsewhere in the world will also come to this league... but alas NO ! From behind the Wall, Commish continues to reign in with an iron hand and puts down any semblance of sense. No doubt, we would be pointed to the change in draft process; Its just a momentary lapse of reason and an aberration of deviant from the dark-side; just an exception that was obscured by clouds of, what appears to be traces of transient sense found in the relics of continuing autocracy.

The draft order is the last straw, the final cut. Let me ring the Division Bell, demand not to be treated as one among Animals and set controls to the heart of the son !!! I'm flaming outta here, praying that a new piper would lead you all to a gates of new dawn ! Bye then...

... until the draft day...
_______________________

Well, I was so disappointed, that except the commish, no one else picked the message of the post !! But life... as they have said...
"Sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older,
shorter of breath, one-day closer to death...
...missing the finer points from 17 channels of shit to choose from !"

Love in Modern times !

On the day poetry,
professing love to thee...
"alas", whispered a lil' birdie,
"keep it under 140".

Rhymes, behind bars !

Dreamy nightmare...
scary angels
Friendly demons,
Balmy suns,
Scalding nights,
real imaginations
imaginary reality.
Restless soul
Trapped in strife,
cant explain,
It isn't who I am !*
Dream a little,
Jailed soul
soaring free
Life isn't
reams of reasons
but, imprisoned notes... ...,
behind bars of rhymes...
Cant explain,
That is what,
I'd yearn to be !
___
* Two lines, as tribute to Pink Floyd :-)

The Flow

Today Neel was pensive. That’s a bit of understatement; he has been quite pensive and lost for a while. "For a while" is a bit of understatement – that being a few years. He was driving today in the peak Bay area traffic around 5PM; where opportunities abound in the Land of opportunities. I’m being cynical, as usual, he thought. The ‘as usual’ had become a norm in those afore-mentioned few years. As he slowed down at the intersection, he wondered if it symptomatic of the proverbial cross-roads he seemed to be at. If he had a say today, he’d be back at work, generally procrastinating or checking out what was happening around his home town, surfing the internet; or back at his large stylish house, seeing movies that he had enjoyed growing up; or those lovely mellifluous Rafi’s or P.B.Srinivas’ songs.

Neel a.k.a Neelakantan R Iyer, to the outside world, was living the American dream and had arrived in life. He had 4BR house in the Palo Alto, 3 cars; he himself was driving a Beamer. Or whatever, he thought! His lovely wife – when was the last time, they had a good conversation – Pam (a.k.a Parimala), who had a career of her own now; and two children – A girl who was a senior in the High School – was it 12th? Or as he would have said in his days – “My name is R.Neelagandan, 10th Standard B section” in his small town back in Tamil Nadu. Today, as much he tried to avoid, he had to pick his daughter from the special math class that she was going to a tutor on the south-side of the town - he had not wanted to face the very uncomfortable silence that fills the chasm between them and compensate with banalities. Pam had an important meeting that she didn’t want to miss and had asked Neel to do the chore, as an exception to their division of labor. So here he was, down the 85S in the start-stop traffic, driving from rote without really concentrating…

As he got into the steady moving traffic, his mind once again rewound to black and white… He had married Pam after both the families had matched them up; He had stars in his eyes and dreams in his head. The American dream. He was a hot-shot techie who was very good in what he did. It was a great time, a time that he always looked back in fondness – they were both genuinely happy in each other’s company and made plans. Work had been good, in fact, feel-good too. Then life happened, he thought wryly – they had Shreya, their daughter; Pam had put her own plans on hold. Pam was very keen to stay with the kids in their formative years. As Shreya grew up, she was a bundle of joy for Neel; she was there when he left for work and then made sure she was awake when he came back from work, however late it was. He adored her; his life seemed so complete and blessed when Sharan arrived. Pam spent another 5 years with him. As both the kids started school, Pam started on her career – she went to school, got a degree and joined one of the few start-ups. That was nearly 10 years ago. He was growing fast in his company; from an individual contributor, he climbed the ladder of Technical lead, architect and was behind some of the company’s key innovations. . He was busy, she was busy and the kids were busy. But slowly, something gnawed at him. He wasn’t sure what it was initially… Was it burn-out? Was it lack of time together as a family? Pam now is in a place in her career that he was when he was growing rapidly and feeling the glow. He never found the kids at home – they were either some class or the other; or were at sleep-overs. He often came to an empty home, pottered around the kitchen, and cooked something up for himself and the family. They hardly had dinner together. If they were all at home, they were all doing their own thing. His attempts to get all of them together were all thwarted by lack of cosmic alignment of everyone’s calendar! Or my feeble attempt, rather.

Neel got off the free-way and slowed down at the stop-light. It was red. Was it a symbolic message? Am I the Bruce Nolan? He waited behind several cars for the light. The light turned green, he eased into the traffic again. He was in the back-roads. Back-roads he thought aloud… or cross-roads… Neel’s career had hit a plateau. He wasn’t certain (and possibly didn’t care) if his sense of ennui was due to that; or his ennui created the career slow-down. He was also increasingly finding himself not able to connect to materialistic culture – yeah, it is easy to be not materialistic, when you drive a beamer! He had that inner urge, overwhelming of late, to reconnect with his roots – people, friends, language. He wanted to be able to connect to his parents, his friends, his childhood memories back home. The last time he was back in India, he had really enjoyed the time – connecting back with his father with their usual arguments and meeting his friends over a drink! He had instantly felt at home with those guys. He had started reading tamil literature; also tried and flamed out spectacularly in teaching in Shreya and Sharan Tamil. He was hoping this would be a project to reconnect with Shreya. Shreya had rejected the whole process outright, leading to a still-born project. She had just moved away from him during his hectic days and she had her own ideas now. He had heard Pam talk about some boy-trouble at school, a boy of apparent Indian lineage. Neel didn’t probe too much since he was sure if he knew all he would certainly not like what he hears.

The American dream had become a bit stale and rudderless. He had a sense of longing for something that he couldn’t really pin-point. He felt like a cast-away, without a sail shifting in the high seas with no frame of reference and no control. He and Pam talked a couple of times of returning. But it always fell through and they had, in the mean-time acquired the citizenship. He was an American; and his last tie to being an Indian officially was cut off, as he returned the Indian passports. Try as he may, he just could not relate himself to be seen an American. He tried the local Indian, South Indian, Tamil and micro-org meetings and gatherings – the ersatz culture left him more restless. Neel wondered all this restlessness stemmed from to the fact that he was culturally adrift and when the end comes, he would not know where he belonged. He yearned to be in the place where his heart knew it belonged. The only solace was he felt a reasonable sense of stillness, when he visited the temples in non-peak hours; he preferred to go alone there; he’d pray quickly and sit there for long. He wondered if it’s that hope in the faith (or was it faith in the hope?) that kept the sanity sometimes and do, eventually, what is pragmatically possible given where he was.

Neel smiled wryly, as he turned the corner - have I?; it seemed his life here matched the quote from Jack Higgin’s novel Eagle has landed – “Son, you don’t play the game anymore, the game plays you”. He knew that he was just a Bot in the flow. It was like an assembly line that he has gotten onto and some connected sets of strings had taken over his life; and he just have to go with those pulls and pushes in the flow, that he had no real control over.

He parked in front of the building where Shreya’s class was on. As he waited, he saw her coming out with a boy talking animatedly – they had stopped, Shreya with her back to him and continued the conversation – it was obviously not pleasant. Then Shreya turned abruptly and walked towards the parking lot; she was crying – and she was surprised to see him instead of her mother. She quickly and furtively wiped the tears off and got into the car.

He looked at her, unsure if he could ask what was wrong; instead he smiled and asked her how she was. Shreya, responded with a simple ok and turned her face away. He guessed she didn’t want him to see her tears. He started the car and eased into the traffic; as he exited into the free-way, he stole a glance at Shreya; He reached out and smoothed her hair; she smiled weakly and looked out – she was still crying. He had a sudden urge to hold her as he’d done when she was a small girl and talk to her and if he could help. But he just couldn’t…

…Instead he entered the high-way, did the dance with the traffic, maneuvered himself to the car-pool lane on I-85; it was now automatic, the strings were activated – the flow would take him to his 4BR, 3B, 3Car Garage house. And to the next day. And beyond.

Book Review - Checklist Manifesto

I had recently bought the Kindle, the e-Reader from Amazon - the first book on it was Atul Gawande's "Checklist Manifesto" - this book was recommended by two people I know, one from work and by another friend of mine from college, who I had reconnected with recently. What interested me in the book was the reviews that talked about resolving complex problems. I've personal interest in the theory of complexity and have my own perspective of it.

After reading the book, I believe there is a slight distinction - there are problems which are "complex" in nature in trying to find solutions and then there are problems that have known solutions but the complexity is in execution. The book is about the latter part of it.

Interesting part of it is Gawande' talks about Brenda Zimmerman and Sholom Glouberman (Univ of Toronto's) work on Complexity... Its another matter that it is very similar to Cynefin framework (that had interested me significantly and made me write my perspective on solving problem in complex space). Gawande, in his book, introduces the concept as following: systems can be understood as being simple, complicated, complex. Simple problems, such as following a recipe or protocol, may encompass some basic issues of technique and terminology, but once these are mastered, following the "recipe" carries with it a very high assurance of success. Complicated problems, like sending a rocket to the moon, are different. Their complicated nature is often related not only to the scale of a problem, but also to issues of coordination or specialised expertise. However, rockets are similar to each other and because of this following one success there can be a relatively high degree of certainty of outcome repetition. In contrast complex systems are based on relationships, and their properties of self-organisation, interconnectedness and evolution The metaphor used for complex systems is like raising a child. Formulae have limited application. Raising one child provides experience but no assurance of success with the next. Expertise can contribute but is neither necessary nor sufficient to assure success. A number of interventions can be expected to fail as a matter of course. Uncertainty of the outcome remains. You cannot separate the parts from the whole.

After classifying the problem-types as above, Gawande goes ahead and calls the challenges he describes in his book, as complex. Its erroneous since the most problems he describes are complicated - i.e., they are in the knowable space (as per Cynefin framework) and it just needs diligence in execution. The "complexity" in execution is a function of two things - the number of tasks that needs to be done without any errors, in the right sequence and short time duration within which those tasks needs to be executed...

If you let go the above issue, I'd still think his book is worth a read - he tells a good story. He has quite effectively woven a good front in building up the theme and then presented the solution. He could have been bit more concise, but I guess he was driven by a page-count-need ! Gawande's view is that in a complicated problem, due to its magnitude, the difficulty lies in getting the order, interfaces and hand-offs right amongst equals who bring in different competencies to the execution of the solution; A very visible and concise cook-book, not the one that tells what to do (which the experts usually know), but the one that is a gentle reminder/nudge. He calls this a checklist. I, personally agree to his solution. When you are up against time and pushed to do a number of actions (in a sequence that is essential), I'd rather have a guide (or a checklist) that helps me to do those. Personally, I'd rather take any guidance that would help me get the syntax right, that would help me spend my competency on the semantics of doing my work well.

Another key point of note that he talks about in the book, but I believe he has not highlighted it enough is the adoption of checklist. He describes how tough it was to introduce a checklist in the medical profession, when compared to the profession of flying. The essence being is that checklist are seen as a affront by the expert (surgeons) who believe the checklist are an insult to their authority, knowledge of systems and competence. It would have been of greater use, if he had also addressed some of the work, that led up to a successful adoption of checklist. Was it change management ? Was it working through the chain of command ? Was it through data ? Was it something else ? The message of checklist came through clearly in the first few chapters; instead of repeating it across with several more examples, it would have been a better, rather complete, if he had discussed the adoption too...

In any case, even though it falls short in some areas, a good book to read. Read it if you've the time, $$s and you'd want to know more than what is written above ! :-)

Footprints...

December. Work shut-down. Vacation. Chennai. Morning. Elliot Beach. Walk/Run...

That sets the context. When we are in Chennai during the annual december vacation, we love to go to the Elliot's beach (in Besant Nagar) and enjoy the early (or late) morning ambiance. That is also the time, I run and walk, sometimes on the tiled side-walk, service side-walk, on the sands, and sometime close to the waves.

I've this habit at times, after I run the length couple of times, I tend to look for the foot-prints that I've left behind in my earlier lap and see if I could recognize those. I typically look back as I run to see what imprint my shoe-soles leave and try to match those fresh-ones to the earlier ones... Needless to say, I most often fail to even find a foot-print from the previous lap - in the cornucopia of several thousands of other footprints. And as you are running, the mobility makes it much more tougher...

As I was doing that this morning, it kind of struck me - the greatness of people like Gandhi, Lincoln et al, who have their footprints firmly etched ! I'm sure their journey/run was a million times tiring than a 7.5K run !

Kaminey - Movie Review

A pretty good movie. Considering its a Hindi movie, where run-of-the-mill mushy movies or overly macho gangster movie typically works, this is much more well made and well acted.

The story itself is not very deep, but it has been adapted to a very taut screen-play with excellent editing and direction. All the actors do justice to their roles. Although Vishal Bharadwaj is said to have stated that the movies is a tribute to Quentin Tarantino, this movie is neither dark as QT's nor have the funny lien that a Guy Ritchie's movie has - the other guy's creations with whom this has been compared with . It could be placed in that genre with multiple story-lines interwoven giving a good enough time, but taut, for the characters to develop.

It does hold the viewers in thrall and doesn't overly insult their intelligence by going overboard on emotions (except, probably, for the Mikhail's role). Shahid Kapoor is quite brilliant in both the roles - he was quite a revelation; and has shades of Tom Cruise in some of the scenes. Priyanka Chopra as Sweety is different and has done justice to her role, rather than just being a doll.

If you are a fan of such a genre, watch it - you'd enjoy it. However, I'd place this movie a notch below to that of Omkara, which had a bit more of heavy cast with a higher star value.

Run !

This is not about the movie, Run by Madhavan or Mr.Rai.

I had, for long wanted to run... I, infact, wrote about it on this blog a few years ago as Elevators and had an "Elevator Count" at the top of the blog. Then, as Confucius said, sh*t happened - one after another - knee, ankle, tummy, calf etc... (tummy problem, being just that - the usual middle-age problem :) ).

But, sometime in my life, I'd still like to run a mini-marathon... I know the window is ever-s0-surely closing. I have started running on treadmill - but one of my friends who has discovered running had told me that running on roads is altogether a different challenge... So tried it out today after a long long time (maybe 5-6 years). It was good, although a bit hot, but it was good. I did about 4.3K in about 40 minutes. The goal is to get to 10K and I'll be done ! The plan is to run on the treadmill during the week-days (twice) and run on the roads on Sunday...

Lets see how it goes...

Random Thoughts...

...I somehow am getting to a conclusion or a philosophy: To lead a contented and satisfied life, not just materially happy, but emotionally too, I've to have a cause that 'is just beyond me and greater than my own well-being alone'. Basically, work for something that is greater than ourselves...

...Something tells me that I'm thinking that Nadal/Federer may not meet again in a Grand Slam final. Looks like this year Nadal is out - with the knee issue, am not sure how much pounding he can take on hard courts. Given Murray's improvement, I believe, next year, Nadal and Federer will alternate, Federer may reach 1, Nadal 2 and neither 1. The year after, in 2011, Federer no finals, Nadal a few. So, go ahead and reach for the tapes of the 2008 Wimbledon and 2009 Australian open.

...I am reading the Art of War by Sun Tzu - interesting. As previously noted by many experts, a lot of concepts that could be used in today's business - probably would blog once I'm done with it

...Some fat asses in BCCI is piling on Kirsten for his comments on Indian team and fatigue. These asses have criticized Kirsten about talking about fatigue after the T20 world tournament and not before ! Wtf are they thinking ? Do they think Kirsten (or anyone else in his place, and one who has no control on scheduling) would say that the whole Indian team is fatigued before the tournament and thus demoralize the troops even before they go into battle !

...Pakistan has won the T20- Jai Ho to them - However, wonder how much of a balm could this be to that nation

...Talking about "Jai Ho", I see the whole country going ga-ga over Rahman's Oscar for that. Couple of questions for all (1) Do we really believe that Jai Ho would have won the best song, if the Slumdog Millionaire (as a movie) itself had not garnered so much attention (2) and more importantly, how many of us really think that Jai Ho is the best Rahman's composition ? Really !

...Just found out a few days ago, that கூகிள் ஈமேஇளை உபயோகித்து தமிழில் கடிதம் எழுத முடியும் என்று. என் அம்மாவுடன் communication சுலபமாகி விட்டது.

....Interesting thought: There are always events that gives one a lot of hopes - then something comes along that dashes those hopes. Its a a sinusoidal wave - for every crest, there is a trough that pulls it down. Then it stuck me, what if I think differently: Its probably after every trough there is a crest that pulls me up !