Thursday, April 30, 2009

Rahman Da Man!

Predictably, Rahman makes it in to the top 100 personalities list of TIME magazine.

Slumdog Millionaire's OST  was not a patch on Roja or Kannathil Muthamittal or Alaipayudhey or Kandukondein Kandukondein or a Dil Se. But I believe all that good work got recognition thro SDM. The only genuinely awe inspiring piece of music in SDM was the O Saya BGM/song, but as the great man himself said, SDM would not have happened if his previous body of work was not as popular.

Here's Padma Lakshmi's piece on ARR, the Mozart from Madras .

(and for God's sake, I'm not going to say _ _ _   _ _! here)

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Dada and Co.

Ganguly's fans are a species of mankind which defies the assumptions that I make about life/mankind. I have had arguments (where I try to be as objective as possible, with no personal bias) with them and have found that I have been given these 'reasons' as to why Ganguly should be in the team/why he should be captain.

1. Ganguly went out on a high
    This is precisely the issue - Ganguly has had 'high' series every now and then but at any given point of time, you had to make a call about he was in form or not. While on any given day, on any given pitch, you could expect a Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid to hold their own against ANY bowling attack, you could not do so with Ganguly with the same certainity. If anybody tries to argue against this proven fact, then I think that you are flogging a dead horse.

2. Ganguly did not bat up the order.

From I remember, Ganguly had all the batting spots (except for the No.4 spot, which typically has the team's best batsman coming in - The No.4 needs to be a natural strokeplayer and also have a sound technique so that he can be an asset when there is a platform already set or if the top 2 have fallen cheaply) for his taking - I remember he used to bat at No.3 but could not match Dravid's peerless technique in test cricket. So, given his talent/skill, temperament and technique, the only place that he could occupy was the No.5 coming in after Tendulkar.

3. Ganguly was the talent spotter / Captain Courageous

I honestly do not think that Ganguly turning up late for the toss against Steve Waugh was heroic or anything nice. Sledging while on the field is fine/okay - but being the Captain of the team and coming late for the toss - thats despicable. And for as much talent that Ganguly fostered, he killed as many. I think the ONLY reason that a moron called Yuvraj Singh (the biggest flat track bully in the circuit now). And he has been given such an assured run, that this guy has still not established himself in the test team - perhaps thinking of which model to hang out with next. Similarly, in terms of bowling, there was one player, named Murali Kartik whose career and confidence was wrecked, irrepairably. Not to forget Hemang Badani (who IMO was a better rounded player in terms of fielding, batting temperament and bowling). If I remember, there was this keeper called Saba Karim from Bengal who played with only one working eye, the only plausible reason being that he was from the same state as Ganguly. So actually doing a head count, objectively, either Ganguly is a no loss - no profit or a slight loss when it comes to nurturing new players. And if at all anything he has taught these kids, he has made these pseudo aggression like waving your shirt half naked (at LORDS for Godssake), talking crap and all that is cool. No wonder you seee Harbhajan Singh slapping Sreeshanth and others doing funny stuff.

4. Dhoni is a lucky player/crappier batsman than Ganguly

Perhaps true. Dhoni plays as if he is swatting flies. But I think Dhoni has a better temperament. I (and the whole world) can see that Dhoni has moved heaven and earth to improve his batting from what he was. True, he does not look elegant or stylish - but he gets the job done, and that, I believe is all that matters. And I'm certainly amused as to what people call as Luck/fluke. Every achievement by Dhoni is being attributed to his luck. I can accept or cede a point if Dhoni's successes are few and far spread. But how come a person can be SO lucky that every time when the game is in clutch, his decisions pay off? Come on, if Dhoni was so lucky, he should be playing the lotto everyday and very soon, Bill Gates might have a competitor for the World's richest tag. But again, the resources that Dhoni has and that Ganguly had were different. Ganguly got a losing team (from SRT) while Dhoni got a competitive unit from Dravid. So I do not think its a fair comparison between Dhoni and Ganguly. But definitely, Dhoni's successes are NOT because of luck, just from mathematical or logical perspective (one of those cases when logic and mathematics concur). But just by the fact that to support Ganguly, his fans need to berate/talk down on Dhoni (and sometimes, Dravid), tells me that they lack the proper ammunition. They have come to a gun battle with a knife.


Now I have questions for the Ganguly backers:

1. Fielding
At any point of time, when Ganguly was in the team, he was a weak link in fielding. You could not even classify him as a safe fielder. How many times have you seen him run with the ball till the damned thing stops and then throw it back? How many times have you caught yourself chuckling when Ganguly berates another player in the team for a misfield? And now the game being highly competitive as it is, every run that you save, might save you the match. Not a point of team when you want to carry a fielding liability in the team. As much as you can score a 50 in match and contribute to the team, misfielding not only contributes to runs lost but also demoralizes the bowlers/other fielders.

2. Inability to fix technical flaws
From time immemorial Ganguly has had a weakness against short pitched bowling. At various points of time, SRT and Dravid have had their shortcomings exposed too. But where they went back to the basics and fixed their game, Ganguly with all his (lazy) royal blood took his place for granted. By the time he actually sought help (before the 2004 Aus Series), it was too little, too late. As a person involved in quality engineering, I do not see a sane reason for anybody not to continually improve their game so that they retain their edge. 




Tuesday, April 21, 2009

IPL - Masala

http://fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com/

Like Kamal says, ippo ellam makkal ellathileyum masala ketkaranga.... kadavule. The ultimate twist would be if Shah Rukh himself was posting as this blogger. I would not put him beyond this as Shahrukh is called as a Badshah Dildo.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Sodhanai for Sodha

Dada, the ever over hyped, well beyond bury-by date cricketer, finally justified the support of his fan legions by playing one of the best knocks seen in T20 form. While every other veteran player who have been doubted have performed over the last 2 days (SRT, Dravid and Kumble), this guy with the gargantuan ego instead chose to silence his critics. Anybody who have been criticizing Ganguly's hunger for power (which rivals Dr. Karunanidhi and his family's) will I think be silenced - flogging a dead horse is not many people's preferred avocation.

I think, Ganguly has surpassed one Mr. K.D Nikhanj in making people desperate to see him go - at least once Kapil got his 434, he spared us the agony. Ganguly is making sure that we see the various version of the same story. Like the insipid remakes that Dr. Vijay makes of already insipid telugu movies, Ganguly remakes his own - If it was G. Chappell in the Indian team, its Buchchanan in KKR. If it was Dravid in the national team, here its B. McCullum. Frankly, Mr. Ganguly, if you had not noticed, remakes and especially Vijay movies are flopping like anything nowadays. So please take pity on those who want to see cricket (and not your third rated politics/DADAGIRI) and kindly retire from every form of cricket currently being played and those that will be invented in the future. 

P.S: Mr. G, please talk to one Mr. Steve Waugh who was dropped after one failed home ODI series about how to make a graceful exit.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ashton Kutcher endra thaangamudiyadha Mokkai


I had to keep awake yesterday to make a trip to the airport and so ended up seeing this movie called "Just Married". Man, this guy cannot act. Like oldies in tambrahm families say, Suttu pottaalum nadippu varadhu pole irukke? He hams and literally makes you cringe and I think he actually managed to make me change channels - that does not happen often. I have sat through entirely nonsensical movies/performances like Talladega Nights (don't even ask how I managed it - I ended up cursing myself and hating myself for doing that to my brain).  But Ashton Kutcher upped the ante which I think is difficult for anybody to break - Will Ferrell and Keanu Reaves included. And aptly this guy has a dialog in Cheaper by The Dozen -2 when he says his face is the reason he gets roles and not because he can act. Never were any words spoken on screen been more true than absolute truth itself. And it was a good thing that a good friend of mine said no when I wanted to go to that Ashton Kutcher - Cameron Diaz movie - I would have died in the theater.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Gyaan in Life - 1/XYZ

This week I had one of the things which I fear/hate the most. I ended up managing a project on which a couple of desi colleagues worked. I'm strongly believe and advocate the theory that developing a personal relationship with a collegaue (discount the rare occurances when a person known to you joins the company) at work.

Its quite easy to maintain a strictly professional relationship with non-Indians. My manager is a dutch person and his boss is a korean guy. I maintain a semi-formal relationship with them - I do end up car-pooling with one of them or giving the other a ride to the airport on a weekend - but other than that and the odd weekend (when I end up alone with nothing to do) where I do some kind of activity with them like sailing or playing basketball or going for a combined cuisine cooking - mostly fusion of Indo-Dutch/Continental European.

This entire delicate arrangement becomes utterly impossible in the case of desi colleagues. They end up asking you to help them buy a car or they call you when they are sick and you get to see their softer/weaker side and once you get know that side, the other person, I believe, thinks he has to keep you a personal contact. They try to talk to you in indi (which is a no-no to me) or they ask you about your family/personal life, which again is something I would not like to share with someone who happens to work in the same place as me. So the entire gist of the last few lines have been that, much against my wishes, I ended up with a non-formal/non-semi-formal relationship with these 2 desi colleagues. And I ended up being in charge of supervising their work/approving their work times and all the hajaar work and I can tell you my posish is what one Mr.Bertram Wilberforce Wooster frequently finds himself in the master's works - if only there was Jeeves at work?!

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Different Strokes for Different Folks

So P.Chidambaram was Bush for a day when he got a shoe thrown at him. I was reading a few articles/sound bytes given by P.C and it was interesting to note that he had said that the reservation system was to set right the evils/practices which had been prevalent for the last 3000 years - leaving the credibility of the time line or historical accuracy, why not address these 'social injustices'?

1. The mughal conquest of the Indian subcontinent
Amongst the numerous consequences of the Mughal Invasion, the primary was the spread of Islam as a religion/faith amongst the people. There was rape of women, rampant plunder of resources, systematic and forced conversion, destruction of architecture and the sanathana dharma. Amongst the numerous temples destroyed was one which had Rama in Ayodhya. Numerous sculptures were mercilessly destroyed. So if the Hindus demanded justice, would the Congress Government go ahead and exile the muslims now (who much like the brahmins of today, do not have anything to do with the massacre which was perpetuated by their forefathers?) Can temples like Srirangam or Bhadrinath levy a tax only from Muslims to compensate for their loses (as some the statues that were destroyed were perhaps Panchalogam and might be conservatively valued at a few crores today).Can Hindu men of today arbitrarily rape a muslim women (I know you'd want to hit me - but this is what the forward caste are being subjected to), and be let free? (I know that for one, the Muslims do not even follow the Indian Penal Code - when will India have a Uniform Civil Code)?

2. The English occupation of India
English who introduced Christianity (and so are forefathers of today's Indian christians) plundered the remains of what the Mughals had left and scrapped whatever we were left with - they use Sanskrit words Jabam, Sthothiram - Sanskrit is called a deva baashai and can be comfortably be owned by the Sanathana Dharma religion. So can the Ahobila Matam and Sankara matam copyright Sanskrit words and levy a royalty each time Dinakaran uses it on TV? Even a few decades back, there were forcible conversions to Christianity - so could we go ahead and levy a forefather sin tax on all christians?

All these seem totally ridiculous because they ARE - Very. But then how come this so-called Secularists (who are nothing but anti-brahmins or anti-hindus as the situation demands) justify reservation? These morons are nothing but convenient opportunists who would not think twice before forming alliances with a party and leader who were accused of killing your kith and kin.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Suntrust - Please do not trust

I happen to have a credit card from my employer from this bank - Suntrust. I generally do not use my corporate card for anything, but about a month back, I had to schedule a trip to the other corner of the country from Florida on quite a short notice for work and so ended up using this CC to cover the not so cheap airfare.

Now all the expenses were made in the first week of March and this bank is one of those imbeciles who still are in an age where they send you a paper statement and you need to send a cheque and all that 20th Century stuff. And now I see that by the first week of April, even before they can send me the paper statement, these morons have charged a late fee for not honoring the payment.

Am I going cuckoo or such crappy banks still exist?

Stay away from Suntrust bank - The bank for senile and stone-age people.

Ganguly - Buchanan Spat

Agreed that Buchanan is a moron who accidentally happened to coach Australia when they had the best players and so ended up with this halo of being a super-coach. The idea of multiple captains is as காக்கா an idea as any of Dr. Vijay's movies.

But why the heck does this ego-maniac Ganguly accept that his best captaincy/playing days are behind him? After being asinga-paduthified in the national team, it seems SCG is going to go through a painful mukkal monagal process through in KKR too. And those morons who are seemingly Ganguly fans point out to the fact that he won the man of the match award some 4 times in the last season - what crap? If you end up being the least dirty sock in a pile of dirty, stinky socks, does that make you any better? Seeing what Chris Gayle has managed with the oppu-kku chappu West Indies team, I cannot think of any valid reason that Gayle cannot be the captain of the KKR team - as much as I don't see a reason for Sourav Azhumoonji Ganguly to not lead that team. But honestly, being a fan of the Chennai team and not too fond of Shah Ruck "Six Yuck" Khan, perhaps, Ganguly captaining KKR might ensure that its that much more easier for Dhoni and the Chennai Pasanga.