The Story So far

Saturday, May 23, 2009

ipl2 finals - kal ke zero, aaj ke hero

last year ipl ended with RCB and DC being at the bottom of the points table. and this year, we have RCB and DC being the finalists of ipl2.

in fact, at the beginning of ipl2, RCB did not have a good start. but change of captaincy and change of attitude has helped them. on the other hand, DC started off the tourney in a great way under the leadership of gilchrist.

whoever wins tomorrow, ipl2 has been a success. i will be cheering RCB, may the best team win. both the teams are winners, coming back from the dumps. zero yesterday, hero today!

Friday, May 22, 2009

with power comes arrogance ...

manmohan singh was sworn-in yesterday as the new pm of india. it was a momentous occasion as the 15th lok sabha had given a decisive verdict in favour of congress(i) and since 1971, manmohan singh is the first pm to complete a full 5 yrs term and voted back to power.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IM4YI5Bdho&hl=en&fs=1]

since 1991, this has been cong's best performance with a whopping 200+ seats. and this unpredicted success has probably gone to their head. they are suddenly found distancing themselves from their allies. while dmk was over-expecting by asking for so many ministries, but yet cong should try and mend their ways and politely disagree. no point in angering your allies, they will come handy during crisis and approval of important bills.

similarly, even rjd and sp should be kept in good humour. lalu yadav has been behind the cong and supported sonia gandhi during worst of crisis like 'foreign origin' issue etc. i surely do believe that cong should try and keep all their allies happy by distributing the goodies with everybody. cong should share the pie with everybody and not just make them eat humble pie. cong is in danger of falling into the power-trap, coz with power comes arrogance...

Thursday, May 21, 2009

time management personality types

recently i had a session on time management and quite a lot of things were spoken about skills and techniques involved in using time in a more efficient manner. my personal opinion, albeit a little philosophical, is that we don't manage time but time manages us. time for me is synonymous with destiny, as we usually say time-time ki baat hai

anyways, coming back to the session, a very interesting thing remained with me even after walking out of the session. it was about the various time management personality types based on the way in which different types of people manage themselves within the given time-frame or how they use their time, their behaviour pattern etc. here goes the types, place yourself in it:

perfectionist: these guys are, more often than not, over-indulgent. they get into minute details and begin micro-managing things. they never do a hurried job coz they want to be precise about everything.

fireman: these people treat every incident as critical. they are always on the run, from one crisis to another. they are busy putting out fire, extinguish one then move to the next. they burn-out soon, that's a major consequence.

over-committer: these guys accept every task that comes their way. they just cannot refuse anything that's asked of them. this results in them always running away from the very people who have assigned him tasks.

chatty-kathy: these guys have very good communication skills and thye just can't stop themselves from indulging into small-talk with every tom-dick-harry. this talkative nature leads to pending tasks and unfinished work.

aquarian: these are another breed of people who have work piled on their desk. but its not because they are chatty, its because they are tardy. not just tardy, sometimes they don't even have the wllingness to perform.

having read these, where do you place yourself?

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

KKR salvage pride, MI bring shame

kkr have won the last two matches and salvaged some pride. in fact, they have ended their ipl2 on a positive note with a win. this will boost them up as well as bring some cheer to srk. and more importantly, it was not a match of no consequence. kkr's win actually resulted in rajasthan royals being out of the tourney. that in itself would have given them immense satisfaction. kkr peaked a little too late; a case of too little, too late.

on the other hand, MI haven't played to their potential at all. they have been a big let-down. the team that boasts of tendulkar, jayasuriya, zaheer khan etc just haven't played their best cricket. they have lost 3 close matches which they should have won. if a team can't chase 120[lost to RCB] and if they can't score 4 runs off 6 balls then they don't deserve to be in the semis.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

paan singh tomar - a soldier, an athlete, a bandit

i had not heard of PST ever, until the day tigmanshu dhulia announced that he would be making a movie on him.

initially i thought it was some fictitious character coz the name sounded quite strange. but i was in for a big surprise when i did a bit of reserach on PST and realised that tigmanshu was getting ready to shoot a biographical on a real life character.

PST is quite an enigma, his story is definitely worth telling. a man who served the army in the 'rajputana rifles', took to the tracks and created national records in steeplechase, picked up arms and became a bandit and finally was shot dead by police in an encounter. what a fascinating tale to tell!

in 1958 national games held in cuttack, he timed 9mins & 12.4 sec in the steeplechase event and created a national record. later, in 1964 Open Meet he broke his own record at the karnail singh stadium, delhi with a timing of 9mins & 4 sec.

in between the two records, in 1962 during the India-Germany meet he won the gold medal.

so, what made hin take up the gun? 1960's was a difficult phase for india. there was the impact of 2 wars and of course the widespread poverty and slow-rate of development. maybe such social issues and class barrier, impoverished demography, and a non-paying sports field and army-life may have pushed him into desperation. he became a bandit.

and he was finally put to rest in a police encounter. a sad end to a life which had seen more glories and deserved much more than he got.

it will be difficult for tigmanshu to translate this complex story on screen because very less is known abt PST. there is not much info available, no photographs or videos of his athletic skills etc. i believe his coaches and close friends are still there to recount the tale.

what i have stated above as a disadvantage can turn into advantage because it gives tigmanshu the freedom to mould the character any-which-way since little is known about him. and with irfan khan playing the lead, i am sure he will do justice to the character. all the best to the team of PST. hope to see this character come alive on screen, pretty soon.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzrOSwmor-A&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

prabhakaran dead - bure kaam ka bura natija

its been almost 18 years since rajiv gandhi was assassinated by ltte who used a human bomb to eliminate him. it was a gruesome act in which all the body parts were scattered by the impact of explosion.

the sri lankan govt has finally found the dead body of prabhakaran, head of ltte, in similar state. his head was totally delinked from rest of the body. the head had to be placed above the shoulder for photo-shoot. even that part of the head was without the temple and hairs. a gory scene, to say the least.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnHzdQlqoHE&hl=en&fs=1]

violence begets violence, a case of divine justice. prabhakaran finally met the fate what he had written for many others. terrorism cannot resolve any issue, in fact it gives birth to a new set of problems and un-thought of consequences. please give peace a chance, make love not war.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Prakash Mehra - A Tribute

Sunday, May 17, 2009

maruti ritz - new car on the block

maruti has come out with their new car 'ritz' to compete with hyundai's i20/getz and chevrolet's u-va. as usual, the design of the rear is pretty bad. but its awesome from the front and profile view. Name: rear view.jpg Views: 12565 Size: 154.0 KB

Name: rear view.jpg Views: 12565 Size: 154.0 KB

these images are taken from team-bhp Name: front view high.jpg Views: 12524 Size: 123.1 KB

the pricing of the car is competitive as well. its priced at 3.9 lac ex-works price, which means that on-raod price will be around 4.75 lac

Name: Side view.jpg Views: 12388 Size: 182.2 KB

Name: Side view.jpg Views: 12388 Size: 182.2 KB

for more info please click here

Saturday, May 16, 2009

pm's in-waiting will remain so...

the polls results are out and we have a decisive pm in manmohan singh, thank god for that.

till a few days back, when the poll pandits had predicted a hung parliament and at best they were a little optimistically saying that UPA may return to power, the third front was in fray. i too was scared at the thought of third front coming to power, mainly because of the probable pm's who were being thrown up as options. all the smaller parties who were led by political stalwarts with narrow vision and immediate gains, wanted to become a pm. mayawati even went to the extent of asking the third front to declare her as pm-candidate, a couple of months back. lalu prasad, mulayam singh, nitish kumar, sharad pawar, jayalalitha etc...all aspired for the top job. all these are now pm's in waiting.

the above mentioned politicians could aspire for the pm-post only because they have seen how deve gowda and ik gujral became pm's although they never had all-india-appeal.

and of course there was the bjp's old warhorse lk advani, the declared pm in-waiting for the longest time ever. and even before he could come close to the elusive pm post, some members of his own party and some business entrepreneurs declared narendra modi as their pm-probable. so, modi became the pm in-waiting for 2014 elections. all these guys are just waiting their turn, but they will need lot more than votes. they need people's acceptability and their own allies receptability.

anyways, all issues are buried for now as manmohan singh will become only the 2nd pm to be voted back to power after a full 5 year term, since 1971. so, the pm's in-waiting and pm's-probable will remain so...

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

left parties ... living in fool's paradise

today was the 5th and final phase of polling and exit polls are coming out with their predictions, one after another.

the exit poll results suggest that it will be a photo-finish between the Cong and BJP, but what is totally clear is that Left is nowhere close to either weilding power or dictating terms.

Exit Poll Source	BJP	CONGRESS	THIRD FRONT	OTHERS
CNN-IBN	135-150	145-160	110-130	70-100
Times Now	183	198	-	162
Headlines Today	180	191	38	134
India TV	194	195	108	46
News X	191	199	104	48
UTVi	189	195	-	14
Star News	196	199	100	36

2004 polls were historic in a sense that BJP were the front-runners and the clear favourites to win at least 300 seats on its own, but that did not happen. in fact, Cong pipped them to the post by becoming the largest single party. and for the 1st time, Left parties together garnered 60+ seats.

so, history will now remain history because Left parties will be back to their realistic total number of seats hovering around the 35-40 mark. they can never think of getting 60+ seats again, never.

another reason why i say that they are living in fool's paradise is because of their opposition to the nuclear deal, their out-dated economic policies and their anti-US foreign policy which recognises just one country, china.

its time they re-think their policies and not repeat nandigram. while they practised disinvestment in WB, they opposed it in the centre. they need to shift focus and be forward-thinking. follow the reading on the wall, understand what jyoti basu and buddhadeb are trying to say; its still not late. else, continue to live in fool's paradise.

amateur vs professional

i was just reading a blog post by john august where he speaks about an amateur against a professional. he starts out with the generally accepted fact that a professional is one who gets paid for doing a particular kind of job, while an amateur is someone who does the same thing out of love. so, pay-package forms one of the major differences.

but, he later debunks the above notion with some really interesting points. he goes on to say that what happens when the amateur goes professional - does he stop loving what he does?

so, basically the difference between the two is of mindset. sometimes professionals do things amateurishly; e.g. an accountant misses a decimal point in the final figures. sometimes an amateur does things really professionally; e.g. an amateur's photograph making it to the Discovery magazine.

here's a small list of the qualities that can make an amateur look professional and vice versa:

a. presentation - writing a business letter with loads of typos

b. accuracy - a pharmacist doling out the wrong medicine

c. consistency - a fastfood joint stuffing different ingredients each time in a club sandwich

d. accountability - taking the bottomline

e. peer standards - going by the accpeted norms of people doing the same job, e.g. bar association

here's the link which has the entire post finely worded

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

winning is a habit, so is losing

As knight riders lost their match to royal challengers, my heart went out to them. Although I supported the RCB team, I still thought that KKR might pull it off because 174 is a huge target.

KKR played very well till the 16th over, but then they could not hold onto the advantage. They fiddled away their chances as Ross Taylor belted a superb 81 off just 33 balls and saw RCB home comfortably.

KKR are low on confidence, have lost the will to win; a side in disarray with no one to show them the path. And KKR have made it a point to lose matches even from winning positions. They pull defeat out of the jaws of victory. Just as winning is a habit, so is losing.

winning is a habit, so is losing

as knight riders lost their match to royal challengers, my heart went out to them. although i supported the RCB team, i still thought that KKR might pull it off because 174 is a huge target.

KKR played very well till the 16th over, but then they could not hold onto the advantage. they fiddled away their chances as ross taylor belted a superb 81 off just 33 balls and saw RCB home comfortably.

KKR are low on confidence, have lost the will to win; a side in disarray with no one to show them the path. and KKR have made it a point to lose matches even from winning positions. they pull defeat out of the jaws of victory. just as winning is a habit, so is losing.

Saturday, May 09, 2009

lo mai aa gaya ...

hey...i have found a new webspace and i hope to access this more often than i could access my blogspot account. hope it works out better this time around...

Thursday, March 19, 2009

truth about s/w professionals

*10% of Software Professionals are predicted to be affected by major diseases like Carpal tunnel syndrome, heart diseases etc

*20% of Software Professionals marry their co-workers

*30% of Software Professionals are interested in Live in relationship because they tend to hate the responsibility both in office and house

*40% of Software Professionals are confused about settling down

*50% of Software Professionals has No savings in their Bank Account

*60% of Software Professionals are not satisfied with their current wages

*70% of Software Professionals work more than 8 hours across globe

*80% of Software Professionals live away from their Parents ☹ ☹ ☹

*90% of Software Professionals are NOT HAPPY about their Life, meeting deadlines, client satisfaction, incentives, promotions, increment, onsite trips, wife, children, visa status, and commitments

*100% of Software professionals wish they had a choice other than computers in their life at least once in their lifetime.

Friday, March 06, 2009

15 years ago ...

A program was ... a television show

An application was ... meant for employment

Windows were ... something you hated to clean

A keyboard was ... a piano

Memory was ... something you lost with age

A CD was ... a bank account

A hard drive was ... a long trip on the road

Log on was ... adding wood to a fire

A mouse pad was ... where a mouse lived

A web was ... a spider's home

And a virus was ... flu

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

the last evacuation drill ...

XYZ Office -> A fire alarm rang at 5 PM when almost all employees were in office. As usual, the entire office staff was evacuated within 3mins & every employee gathered outside office. 10 mins passed..................................5 more mins passed.. then a Security Officer appeared.

Security Officer -> Announcement started, "Dear Employees, With melting heart I am making this announcement that for many of you this maybe the last evacuation drill as we are laying off almost 80% of the employees. While moving in who-so-ever's ID card doesn't work they have been laid off & all their belongings will be couriered to them tomorrow. We followed this approach as we didn't want to fill mailbox with layoff mail in thousands & also to avoid any fight inside office. Hope you have a nice career ahead. Please move in & try your luck.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Quotes by Goran Ivanisevic

* The trouble with me is that every match I play against five opponents: umpire, crowd, ball boys, court, and myself.

* I wouldn't want to go to a sports psychiatrist, because when you're finished, you come out more crazy than you go in.

* I still break rackets, but now I do it in a positive way.

* My fines? I pay more fines than some guys' career prize money on the tour.

* I think it's interesting, you have three movies in one match: horror, comedy, drama. It's fun. I enjoy it. I am like that. I don't like to change. And if I could choose, I would be the same again. Just me, and I like who I am.

* In every game I play there are three players in me that could surface anytime, Good Goran, Bad Goran, Crazy Goran! They can all serve aces.

* I have so many runner-up cups that I am thinking of starting my own tea shop.

* I do not want that 'plate' again --- coming into his fourth Wimbledon final having lost the three others.

* Today's players, they do not know how. If you are going to throw it, you break it. You have to show commitment --- on throwing rackets

* I'll go kill myself --- after losing the Wimbledon 1998 final against Pete Sampras

* I woke up at 2 and went back to sleep at 3, I woke at 4 and went back to sleep at 5, when I next woke The Teletubbies were on TV, so I thought it must be time to get up --- on his night's sleep before the 2001 Final

* I don't understand it. She was no. 1 in the world and she retires. She was such an unbelievable player and could have won more Grand Slams. I don't know why she did it. Maybe it's a woman thing. I don't understand women. It's very sad for tennis .. a big loss --- speaking about the sudden retirement decision of Justine Henin while at Number 1

* It's just hitting; it's only 33 aces, that's not so good --- after his 1992 Wimbledon quarterfinal win against Stefan Edberg.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

'sin'ister report from vatican

The Vatican recently released a report which says that men and women sin differently. While the most common sin for women was pride, men sin in their urge for sex. This report was created from the data that they gathered from the confession box.

What is funny is that, apart from the 7 original sins they have come out with a list of 7 modern sins. So, now we have 14 sins to contest with and classify people. The original sins were pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. And the newly added modern sins are genetic modification, experiments on the person, environmental pollution, taking or selling illegal drugs, social injustice, causing poverty and financial greed. Unstoppable globalization, they feel, is the reason for the modern sins.

It also stated that men often fell prey to lust, followed by gluttony, sloth, anger, pride, envy and greed; and women fell prey to pride, envy, anger, lust and sloth. The Vatican may have come out with their findings, but I am not sure if anyone is reading them.

don't be concerned about public opinion ... just save your ass

A pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered in another race and it won again.

The local paper read: PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in any more races.

The next day the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES THE PASTOR'S ASS.

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent.

The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline: NUN HAS THE BEST ASS IN TOWN .

The Bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey so she sold it to a farmer for $10.

The next day the headlines read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the high plains where it could run free.

The next day the headlines read : NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

Alas... The Bishop was buried the next day.

Being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery and even shorten your life. So, be yourself and enjoy life. Stop worrying about everyone else's ass and you'll live longer.