Facts n Fiction

Newspapers, News channels these days are flooded with postmortem, analysis, evaluation, and speculation of Indian team’s recent performance at the World Cup 2007. I read and heard a lot of cross fires between the experts, the selection committee, cricket board, coach, and needless to say backed by the opinions of the general public. The team’s failure was supported with many excuses and stained with a lot of blames. While many feel that our cricketers should stop doing ads, there are others who suggest that we should have specialized teams to play different types of matches – 20/20, 50 over match, test match, and so on. Going through all this tittle-tattle I ended up confused with “yes”, “no” or “may be” type of outcomes. However, a little later I was reminded of a hearty laugh that I had had with a friend of mine last week. We were watching the India – Sri Lanka match last Friday on a “BIG SCREEN” and we were frustrated looking at the way our team was taking the game. Agitated and fru

If we look closely everything that we do or intend to do is a decision. Even deciding not to do anything is a decision. And what I have observed is decisions are governed either by determination (I have to do it assertively) or by desperation (I have to do it, there is no other option). Decision by either way is fine as long as you have scored a goal. However, I have observed (even through my personal experience) that desperate decisions are not fruitful in long term and often tend to bring in frustration. The pay-offs of these decisions are short-lived. While determined decisions reap benefits in a slow manner but are permanent. Decisions taken with desperation as a premise take longer to achieve your ultimate goals. These decisions look good short term and console you with initial offerings. However, getting back on track to achieve what you wanted becomes more and more difficult. Similar thing happened with me in 1999 when I had to decide on something out of desperation to survive a

India Growing, Shining, Rising! All this indeed makes me happy and feel proud about my country. IT and ITES is the choicest sector for the private equity investments, retail industry booming, Indian companies acquiring foreign firms, young entrepreneurs venturing into small & medium sized enterprises, and so on are proof of India’s accelerated growth path. However, amongst all these goodies there was something that was bitter, something that was hitting back very hard – the SEZ chaos and its effects on rural India. Yes, the rural India – significant part of our country which is often neglected on the roadmap to growth or remembered only during union budgets or at time of calamities. I agree and accept that I also thought of rural India (or the farmlands) when I was going through all the SEZ chaos that has caught up the entire country. It is saddening to know about the farmers committing suicide to protest against the acquisition of agricultural land to convert it into SEZ and gover

The Cricket World Cup 2007 fever is scaling rapidly on the excitement thermometer as we are almost at the end of the elimination rounds. And I guess India and Indians top the list of excitement, anxiety, speculation, and enjoyment when it comes to World Cup Cricket or any form of cricket for that matter. Yes, we have all blends of cricket fans, fanatics, critics, and mere spectators. It is rightly said that cricket is a religion in India. India stands at a crucial stage of entering the “Super 8” round currently, with many “ifs” that will decide India’s fate. Let the experts handle those speculations. I am certainly not going to give you a pre or post match analysis here. To summarize in a single line, what I would like to convey is that its time we get emotionally detached to cricket and take it as just a game. I am referring to incidents that happened after India lost to Bangladesh last week. Posters burnt, players bad named, slogans were shouted and I even saw (on some news channel)

In past few weeks I have come across some peculiar things between married couples. I have read, observed and even witnessed things in certain cases. And I keep thinking why and how can a person have some confidante outside a marriage. I don’t know if it is correct, proper, required or so important and I am still wondering. By someone outside marriage I surely don’t mean any ill relationship but just someone who is sought to discuss issues, solve problems, or just to share things. I have seen many who are doing it; prefer talking to someone at their workplace or one time close college buddy. I am not making things specific to any gender. Everybody irrespective of the gender is doing it. A husband discusses things with his female colleague at the workplace or his college pal. And there are instances where a wife has found someone with whom she feels comfortable discussing most of the things. Few of my married friends have approached me just to talk, share things, express worries, get res

I was busy reading “Digit” magazine sitting in the balcony of my apartment few hours ago. Suddenly I heard crowd shouting some slogans from a distance. Assuming it must be some event in another building I continued my reading. The voices seemed approaching near and I could hardly concentrate. I finally gave up on my attempt to focus on the article after I was shook by thundering sounds of crackers. In no time my building was surrounded with smoke clouds and the smell of cracker bursts started irritating me. The crackers continued to burst and for a moment I felt it was diwali time. The voice of the crowd had somehow drowned in the cracker thunders and I couldn’t make out anything that was happening. I couldn’t help looking over the balcony edge to find out what was the mega event. It was an election campaign procession for some candidate in my locality. Yes it was election time indeed and rarely seen candidate and the supporters were vividly visible all of a sudden. The crowd continued

I glanced through the SMS that had flooded my cell phone on the New Year morning. With a heavy head, blurred vision I was trying to read the tiny text that spoke heart felt wishes for the New Year. I popped out of my bed only to become a telephone operator, taking calls every 3 minutes. These calls were from almost the same people who had already wished my “Happy New Year” on SMS. With a toothbrush in my mouth, I was thanking them, wishing them the same, and so on. However, there was something different in the voice wishes and the text wishes. The SMS usually ended in “Happy New Year 2007” with some prologue. The phone call ended in “So, What’s your new year resolution?” with my answer to it as “Nothing” only to result in an outburst from the other end with words like “Why!”, “Why not!”, “What!” and so on. As I sat sipping my tea I was thinking what could be a New Year resolution. Why would one make (or vow) a resolution on the first day of the New Year? I mean to decide something for