A SPORTS FAN"S TRAGEDY

How can a poor sports fan not that good academically study at a high time like this. The examinations are near and neigh and to add to that we have a spate of sporting spectacles that we just cannot take our eyes off. Actually targeted at a time when the bacha log and the baba log escaping from the hot sun are in for the summer vacations. We the post graduate laggards have to suffer the abomination of giving exams at this bloody time of the year.

We have the T20 IPL and following that the world cup coming up. We sleep live hear near and dear cricket at this time of the year. All you could hear is board meetings, yuvraj’s form sehwag’s injury Nehra’s selection, Uthappa’s omission. We would like to concentrate on the academically unsound subjects as well. But fate has it that we have to suffer the examinations at a very very bad time.

Add to this Chelsea giving a lifeline to Manu and you have the perfect combination to make me want to flunk these bloody days and get over it. Alas in India flunking is equal to poverty, high taxes and children going to Municipal schools. So to prevent my children going to Municipal schools I have to skip one of the most exciting and thrilling ending to an EPL season. What a shame.

IF we also consider the Champions league where the world’s best attacking lineup goes up against the world’s best defense , I am talking about the Inter Vs Barcelona match. All one can do is sneak peek to some of the breathtaking Messi moves, or a Cambiasso run. All these like some intoxicating drugs are pulling my kids from private schools and colleges to municipal run colleges.

This is more of test of my resistance and tempatation rather than a test of management skills and stuff like that. How can a living man resist things like these only you tell me MR. Almighty.

RICHES TO RAGS STORY

How to become a beggar in 10 easy ways:




1. Buy a stake in the Indian football clubs in the ONGC-I league. It’s a great way to lose money.



2. Try buying the stocks listed on the Economic Times. They are good at convincing you to throw your money.



3. Do an MBA from any damn college in India, they charge high but give nothing in return.



4. Try betting on the Indian cricket team for the next April’s T20 World Cup.



5. Turn into an all vegetarian diet, the foodflation is such you are bound to lose a lot of liquidity in liquidizing your stomach.



6. Start your mobile phone company you will be crushed under the competition.


7. Try selling original software in the Indian market.


8. Join Kapil Dev’s ICL.


9. Set up a turn key project in Bihar, boy that sure is gonna succeed.


10. Bet all your money on this blog hitting the 1000 mark in the next fiscal year.

ONE : STICKY NIGHT

In the dark of the night,

You pick up the best in sight,

The bush that brings the smoke,

Something that makes u choke,

They crush it ,

Then they brush it,

They remove it,

They dissolve it,

They fill it ,

Then they refill it,

They mix it,

Then they fix it,

They roll it

Before they burn it.

They inhale it,

Feels like an innocent mover,

They exhale it,

Feels still like a new found lover,

Then comes the spider, the dreaded spider,

It walks through the empty lane,

It crawls through the empty pipes,

Its legs being felt at every inch and corner,

Done to maximize that tingling sensation,

They feel good, but still haven’t been

Feelin’ this well for lives gone green,

Then suddenly you hear them,

You hear them loud you hear them clear,

You feel why some things are so near,

You see your dear,

You talk to your own bloody fear,

You smell the bush

It kills you with a slight push.

Your body fluid dries,

Your throat fries,

Under the moonless night you wonder

Whether it is worth or a bloody blunder,

You can hear ticks, you can hear the tweaks,

Why this is so clear, are we bloody freaks,

You start with a lisa smile,

It means you are taken for a mile,

Some call it a forelorn journey,

I call it a hard fought derby,

You try to fight for normalcy,

The harder you try, the more the intimacy,

You let yourself go,

With one good blow,

But still sounds don’t go,

Emptiness scare you,

People confuse you,

You try to steal a wink,

Alas its an armour with no chink,

You try to remember good ol’ days,

But alas there are only bad hot Mays,

Listen to the music,

Well it makes you sick,

It takes you left , it takes you right,

You try going straight with all your might,

You try to remember to forget,

But it is not that easy to take a bet.

You enjoy munchin

Cause you feel a fire in your belly,

The smoke might have died down

But the ash still remains,

It still blackens your brains

Like an unstoppable rain,

IT floods your thoughts,

You connect the connecting dots,

This might not rhyme well,

IT might sound like hell,

But this is a shit,

That only few can hear the bell.

LIFE :-> A DOG's PERPECTIVE

Live like a dog , die like a dog

This is my memoir: - a bloody hardcore street-dog. Yes we dogs too have a memoir. I would like to thank the owner of this blog , a good friend whom I have chased a hell lot of times, for giving me this opportunity to write my painful story. Sorry I don’t have the time or space to write my painful story as told by the owner of the blog by throwing a stone on my face. Later in this post I would refer to him as just the “OWNER” Hence you as great readers have missed the chance of witnessing some of the tragic stories of all time. What an idiot this OWNER is? Still I would like to share with you my daily routine.
Sorry for the language we dogs don’t care much about that stuff. It is hard to bark in your mind and then write on MS office.

I get up early as 10 a.m. After a hell lot of chasing, the dog’s tired. He needs his sleep. Hence the first thing I do after getting up is pick-up fights with the nice homely dogs that they call “Thorough bred”. These are the dogs usually accompanied by oldies, and cute girlies. Both of whom cannot control a dog, who does nothing but walks on earth like he has never seen land, garbage and dirt before. Boy I live for that shit. These specially taken care or “Trained” dogs (sarcasm intended) move around like a misguided missile without a sense of direction here and there smelling everything from trees to plants to puddle (oh what immature little dogs). I don’t blame them they are so well kept and well-fed that they really have never stepped outside in the sun.

Among these trained dogs are also categories. The first is the Pomerian: the white furry little devil. I don’t why this species has been classified under dogs. Cause you know man I think this a cat with a lot of bloody fur on. Scared as hell he walks as if he just seen Scooby Doo. I have a large gang man. ME with other filthy dogs really scare the little man, he justs hopes that he dies soon enough.
Then the second to come is the German Shepherd. A hunter’s dog they say. But no match for us road-dogs. We are the scrappiest of them all. You might be pure breed but we are the strong breed. He might be lion at home but on the streets you better watch your paw, else you gonna see what the saying “Fight in the dog means”.
Then there are other undogly dogs who put us hard steelers to shame. They think that they real smart, but what do they know that in the street it is the street smart that wins.

Come noon and its time for the dogs nap. He hates it when some damn kid throws pebbles at the dog, when he is asleep. IT really pisses the lamp-post outta me. And yeah one warning to you readers don’t mess with the dog’s tail, its sort of a sympbol of pride for us dogs, you mess with it we mess with you. You don’t mess with it still we mess with you. Coz after all we dogs have our way.

Then comes the night, the most exciting time of ma day. I chase cars, chase bikes, chase men, chase everyone. I become Bond of Quantum of Solace. You got that real smart quip. Cars are the most favourite, that one time I chased an SUV, the driver got so scared that he hit a tree. Later the cops found out that there was cocaine stashed in the hood. Ma’s happiest day of life. Done something for the country. Sent application for the president’s medal , was rejected , Bloody beauracrats. Then at late midnight the real stuff begins. We at gang war with rival gangs over territory. We don’t want any dog to get into our territory and eat our food, drink our water, get dirty in our mud, chase our cars, chase our bikes. Got that really pisses the man off!!.

WE like crocs really territorial. Occassionally we do get cats in our territory but only with the permission of the man. See we dogs do have hearts. And lastly the OWNER is now really mad at the man he is comin with a stick so gotta go, if I get time I will publish ma book and may even win the Poker Prize or is it the Booker Prize. Anyways gotta go.

RENDEVOUS WITH A GENIE

My rendevouz with a damn genie

One not so fine day I was walking across a lake and I happened to chance upon an empty beer can. When I by chance trying to see something was left to wet the man’s throat and suddenly from the cloud of smoke a damn genie appeared.

Then the regular conservations took place ( I really am tired of this stuff) and he decided to grant me a SINGLE wish. I asked him :
“ Damn man I was working like hell to release a genie who was going to grant my five wishes and here you are, and you are going to grant just a single wish, what are you hit by recession or something or stuck on a low paying job”

Genie:- “ Hey don’t damn me I am the genie here remember and first of all you were trying to wet your throat like all my other masters, that’s the reason why I first of all chose to be trapped under a beer bottle and not in some old-age antique lamp which nowadays usually ends up in a museum with high security, so no bloddy fool can either rub it or even touch it.
Secondly, yes I was hit by the slow-down hence I have to grant ur single wish. Now ask it fast so that I can be set free from this stinking low-grade roadside beer bottle.”

Me: Alright then no need to get so stuffy genie boy here’s ma wish “Give me shit loads of money”

Genie: One another thing before I got into this genie business I was a reputed lawyer in a big Boston Firm during the 1930 Great American Depression, hence do not use those words before me like “Stuffy” “shitloads” and “ma” , ( boy what a rustic idiot).
Now before I give you your shit loads of money I would like you to view your tax ramifications. Its like more than 33 % of your shit load. And according to me being a genie of the past a shit load would be around 1 lakh Rupees, if that is your currency. Hence you will be left with around 66000 rupees. Hence after some service taxes and all that kind of stuff you will left with 60000 bucks do you really want that option.

Me: Yeah what a genius you are Mr. genie so I would go for another wish

Genie: Go ahead lad

Me: What about making me the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Good thing, name wealth steady income what more could a 22 year old would want. Ain’t I smart?

Genie: Not so smart lad. First of all I don’t think that you read your papers that much do you?. First of all a sudden emergence of a non-listed company inside the Fortune 500 would create a havoc inside the financial world. All the law firms and lawyers in the world would swoop down like vultures and will ask you to show your assets your source of revenue, your plans. What are you gonna tell them that you have genie in the beer bottle huh, Boy you are going to be trapped for a long time behind the bars.

Me: Hmmm… Then this is a tricky proposition and I am treading on dangerous waters( use of good language to impress the genie). After thinking long and hard for around 5 seconds Okay I have decided “Make me the owner of an already established company”

Genie: So you really want to get killed rather than go to jail hey lad. You really don’t read your papers. The moment you become the owner the real owner who might have to be killed, his brothers and sisters and the whole family will come hard on you. Not for avenge his death but to get that bloddy chair. And then you will be on parole of some pretty nasty cops and even on the list of some not very good men. So think boy think!

Me: Oh shit man, I did not know it was that hard to make a wish. I have seen guys on screen make very simple but stupid wishes. Like getting wisdom, knowledge, eternal life. Now why do you need any of these money alone is sufficient to cover all of these. My brain has already been racked by weighing your different options and I cannot think anymore. So the only thing right now I could think of is GO TO HELL MR. GENIE. I don’t want you see your face and thou shall rot in hell. So off you go into the stinking bottle of yours and never ever show your bloody face again.

Genie: Same old story eh!!!!

Save our Tiger's Commercial

A very fine initiative by India’s leading company Aircel to save the tigers have taken the advertising world by storm. A very noble cause, an initiative that should have been a long time back, especially when there were more than 1411 tigers left. The problem that I have with this campaign is nothing but a very trivial matter. But as a marketing student I would really like to bring it up.

The advertisement shows members of the Chennai Super Kings team MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina bringing to light, the plight of the 1411 tigers left in the country. But would audience connect to this plea. I know this is the IPL season and they are going to be the most visible and talked stars right now on the television media. But really cricketers endorsing a social cause is a little hard to digest.

A better and more effective way out would be someone from the environment front, a Shashi Tharoor or even a Mrs. Azmi would have been much more effective. Because the moment people see them it reminds them of standing for a cause. Such is the demeanor of such powerful individuals. A Mr. Bachchan would also been effective given the father like image that he has created with his on-screen charisma.

Here in this advertisement we could get confused signals, I mean yes everybody understands what they are about to say but Dhoni rooting for a cause just when he is leading his side to defeat is a little difficult to digest. Anyway we can only generate opinions and debate about what is right and what is wrong, but we need to have a close look at a grave situation here, that is the dwindling number of tigers in our country. I am happy Aircel has understood its Corporate Social Responisbility and acted accordingly. And I would urge more such campaigns taken up by different Corporates to make India a better place to live in.

The Return of the Tiger.

Tiger Tiger burning bright
In the forest of the night……

So the poem goes by one of the greatest tigers in Indian literature, that is Shri Rabindranath. Actually although some might call me mad, but the return of the tiger has really re-ignited the least watched sport on the planet before test cricket back to life.
And it is quite right , I did not understand why had he to go to a rehabilation centre. Now sports has nothing to do with your personal life. Just because some of the nice hypocrites you have to hide under the carpet and not do what you do the best.

Elegance , maturity , consistency (seems like the Accenture Ad) was the hall mark of the great Woods. It is sad that we always like to look the other side of the coin and not enjoy some of the greatest players in the history. Similar incidents have happened to Beckham, Cole and now recently John Terry all best in their uniforms, but sadly we tend to put more weightage on their personal lives rather than their on-field exploits. It is a welcome change to see the Tiger back on the green teeing off with some of the greats, but there is still a question to be asked. Will he be able to pull out the best in him. Remember not all have done this successfully, the shame and humiliation might just distract him from the real stuff, but he is the Tiger , if he cannot do it then no one can.

Not everyone has come off from layoffs very well, whether it is the Phenom Luis Ronaldo or even Rondaldhino they all are now a shadow of their best. It is hard after a long time to get back on track .Who better to explain then our very own Dada. Yes I know he averaged around 60 after his comeback, but his strike rate had gone down considerably, he was more subtle in his attacks, more resevered and we certainly do not like to see our Bengal Tiger scratching and with his broken nails. And that was what took him away from the team . A Dada who is not aggressive is not that useful after all. So as our Tiger (only 1411 left) chugs on in the IPL 3 scratching his way back into those classy offdrives we can only hope for the best for MR. Woods ( only 1 left)

IPL THE SIX POINT PAIN

It’s the IPL season again and with it brings a whole lot of new surprises. Getting first to the strategic break where the break of around 5 min has been reduced to two strategic breaks of 2.5 min each. Which the team takes only when it is mandatory. This is the most lamest tactic of earning quick bucks through the advertisements.

Secondly the ball by ball advertisements further adds to the agony of the viewers who still are much interested in the match. As it is with the overdose of the T20 cricket, people still don’t go for the entire 40 overs. Instead they are more interested in the first fice and the last five.

Thirdly the constant spotlight on the celebrity reaction too is a bit of a nuisance for a purist like me, where it is much better to watch the action replay of wicket fallen instead of SRK or a Priety (I never get her spelling right) cheering for no apparent reason. Damn they have earned their due.

Fourth the mongoose bat by Hayden. Now tell me why does HAydos need a mongoose. Already a giant of a man with the talent of a genius, come on now show us poor Indian bowlers some mercy we too are coming here to play not just be spectator of some of pretty hard mongoose hitting.

Fifth and the most important What the hell is DADA doing at the crease. It looks like a Jackson moonwalk everytime he tries to clear midwicket. Even his fielding has gone from worse to even worse. And moreover he has tried every position in the KKR batting lineup ,but to no avail.

Sixth our Indian team is getting injured like a bunch of oldies. We have to remember that we have T20 world cup coming up, with Gambhir, SEhwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni all having to visit the quacks things are not all looking bright for the Indian T20 squad. Do we have to bear another early exit from a major tournament.
And yes lastly with the way Sachin is batting I think he still has it in me to make it to the T20 squad. Any supporters???

HOCK-EYE

(Yeah I copied the title from TOI what are you gonna do, book me for diving)

After the Indian exit from the hockey world cup its time for some out of the D thinking (I would have called it box if it was about soccer).

Five things Mr. Gill besides politicking, nepotism, corruption, playing the blame game and the ruining one of the best teams that the world has seen should do to up their hockey game:

1. Instead of looking for hockey players in the domestic hockey team ( I don’t know if it exists) better look for it in the IPL, with T20 going great guns batsman are more keen on playing drag-flicks, taps over third man, or the falling away scoop (McCullum style) rather than our glances and drives. It seems sometimes they have been trained under Dhyan Chand Hockey Academy rather than NCA.

2. Look for them in our day time soaps, with so many twists and turns every day these so called stars can wriggle out of any defense be it Germans or the Dutch.

3. Go for students of IIT, I think they would have better sense of angles and quadrants rather than our hockey players.

4. Go for our chess players they are one of the best in the world, atleast they will not have any concentration lapses on field. (Phew how could you have concentration lapses when you are playing a world cup game)

5. Go for our soccer players atleast they know how to lose and be extremely gracious about it or even not giving any false promises of winning the world cup.

Gujju fests-Faralli fasting

I think the best thing that Gujarat has to show for except for Mr., Gandhi and Sardar and all those great freedom fighters is its long list of festivals. Really if you consider yourself a Machiavelli or even a Type A personality or a workaholic, I think its best you stay away from Gujarat. Because it has so many festivals which people crazily follow, you are bound to stall at one festival or another.

It all starts with the month of August (correct me if I am wrong, but I am starting according to the EPL calendar). This is the month of fasting or Shravan mahino, as people fondly call it. In this month people enjoy abstaining from food for I think around ten days. Now why did I write enjoy from abstinence. The thing is that you cannot eat normal food, but you can eat farall, a kind of food which is so delicately categorized for eating, it is so delicious and fulfilling that even during the days of fasting you are bound to eat like hell. The food included under this includes faralli chevdo, faralli wafer, faralli samosa, farrali burger, faralli this and faralli that and all the junk food that you could imagine of. Really at the end of this month people actually gain weight instead of losing it. In fact I had one of my friends asking whether PEPSI or even a Coke be categorized under faralli. I said damn man! , The only thing that could be left here would be faralli non-veg.

A common man with simple economics knowledge could ascertain that during fasts the sales of eateries should go down as demand is equal to supply. But you need economists like Friedman to really calculate the demand-supply curve existing here. In this case the eatables sales actually receive a boost instead of a declining curve. We can name it anything supply shock, Nash equilibrium or faralli tendency. But the fact remains that Shravan is one hell of enjoyment from abstinence.

Thinking to take a weekday off .Think again you can kill yourself if you do so.
5 things to consider before you spend your week day at home.

1. The ringing door bell of the milkman, the school bell if you live near to a school, the early morning train if you live near a station all this are major contributors to disturb your sleep in which case you actually are looking for sleeping that extra two hours.

2. Try talking to your neighbours , they will all be mostly retired oldies who hunt people to bore them out of their skins.

3. Try Star Cricket, it will make you watch an entire test match not even an ODI. By entire I mean the full bloody 90 overs and it literally stretches over five days.

4. Try flipping music channels, it will be full of realty show who will make you watch that stuff even it you don’t want to.

5. Try getting online at this time of the day, the whole world is online your broadband will work like a 280 year old sea turtle

PROCLAMATION: DESIRES FROM 2010

PROCLAMATION: DESIRES FROM 2010

DESIRES FROM 2010

10 things I want from 2010

1. No matches between India and Sri lanka.

2. Jayasuriya should retire this time around.

3. No more lame tricks by Microsoft to beat Google in its market share.

4. End of debate whether India is in a recession was in a recession or is it a temporary correction or a long time depression.

5. Sensex predictors targeting 20k every now and then and as usual tanking every time the predictions are made.

6. End of the roadies journey, man they are stretching it like a soap opera.

7. Some less coverage by economic times of IIM-A , its acting like a bloody IIM A newsletter.

8. No more acquisitions by Indian cos just to show power.

9. No more poor jokes on menhgi dal, sabzi, shakkar, doodh , pani ka pouch etc etc. In short nothing about foodflation.

10. More and better posts from me.

MANAGEMENT OLOGY

Some really cool management names for some of the most unethical things in life.

Groups of people promoting plagiarism through visually stimulating techniques and multimedia effects and showing excellent command over language just to state the obvious:-PRESENTATIONS

Groups of people shamelessly performing the act of mud-slinging, character assassination and destructive criticism: INDIVIDUAL FEEDBACK.

Groups of people engaging in healthy backstabbing, unhealthy competition and social loafing: A DYNAMIC TEAM

Groups of people discussing cricket, bollywood, surfing, for a fortnight and a half and slogging like donkeys for a week: EFFECTIVE DEADLINE COMPLETION

Groups of people engaging in gossips, rumor spinning mills to project something positive in a really negative way: WHISTLE BLOWING

Groups of people indulging in scathing remarks, killer statements and being the most unappreciative of somebody’s hard work just to show lame superiority: PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Groups of people engaging in discussing the most irrelevant matter in a sophisticated manner, keeping timers, using resources, showing utter disrespect to other people’s personal time just to go round and round the matter and not even coming close to discussing the irrelevant matter at hand and finally after all these unanimously deciding that it was irrelevant and is documented. BRAINSTORMING

Groups of people engaging in threat calls, legal threats and any other kinds of intangible or tangible threats: MOTIVATION

Groups of people showing shameless flattery like laughing at poor jokes, laughing louder at poorer jokes, taking sides, losing all sense of dignity or self respect just to be the “yes-sir” kind of guys to their superiors: MAINTAINING GOOD RELATIONS WITH SUPERIORS

TRYST WITH POETRY

Dreams a path to reality,
Reality a path of Agony,
Agony a path to pleasure,
Pleasure the ultimate treasure.

Walk the life uncared,
Care the most scarred,
Pain when it rains,
Rains when it pains.

Track your moves,
Move your tracks,
Get into the grooves,
Groove into the hooves.

Life gets sick,
Its easy to pick,
The ultimate niceties,
But pick the vagaries.

Dream on,
Until dawn,
Wake the soul,
Let the body full.

Your heart like blood,
Water like the flood,
Sling the mud,
Damn this world.

Sorry for the agony you might have gone through but this piece of crap was test of my poetry skills written at one shot without any sense, stop , revision, just all the English you bloody know at one go.

BOOK REVIEW: POSITIONING

The marketing gurus “Jack Trout and Al Ries” are back with a masterpiece this time. In cinematic terms it would be called a “remake”. Actually it is modern view of their earlier concept about Positioning. It’s a 1980 classic about how market dynamics has changed from the “product era” of the 1950s to the current “positioning era”. It talks about the current overcrowded market where the consumer is bombarded with a whole lot of advertisements and information that it is hard for a corporation to create a space or “Position” itself in the minds of its customers. It is essentially a brand management book and takes an inside view of how successful brands made it to the minds of the consumers and the rest simply melt away. Loads of examples in almost every industry have been given, right from the bottling giant “Coca Cola” to Proctor and Gamble’s different FMCG products. It has given many success stories where a well thought out and simple names can work wonders for the product. On the flipside it also criticizes major corporations for not concentrating on brand and logo management and losing out market share to those who do. Its perspective ranges right from the huge corporations like GM, Ford to the smaller ones like Avis and even gives a broad strategy on how to take on the “big fish” in your own industry.

It has even given excellent ways where marketing yourself in your career could do wonders to your career. How to go up the corporate ladder and how to make a name for yourself and get credibility for all the hard work you put in. Out of around 18 laws the most interesting that I found was positioning of a ladder where a product establishes itself on the first, second or third rung of a ladder. It also warns about how major companies fall into the line extension trap, complicate their product names, prefer initials over full name of the company, and concentrate on producing already established products. It advises companies to go for niche market segment which they call as finding a hole, that is at any given time each market has a segment which has still not being explored. They also give various ways to discover that hole and stamp your authority on it. The good thing about the book is that it has been written after exhaustive research and analysis. Hence after you read the book you are bound to think over the daily products that you use in marketing sense.

Although the book is excellent in presentation with interesting facts and figures to keep the reader hooked but there were some follies in it too. Although you have be highly critical to criticize this book, but it simply does not explain the rise of General Electric which is a major in around 12 market segments. Further the examples sometimes get too repetitive and because the concepts overlap, many times you are left to wonder if you are reading the same things over and over again. Anyways a good book to read if you are seriously considering marketing as your specialization. But even if you are not its self marketing concept is worth giving a read for future success in career. The authors other best selling books are “The Horse Sense”, “The 22 immutable laws of marketing “ and a few others. All are worth giving a go.

Litigation free India

An interesting article by the economic times has caught me thinking ( a difficult task to achieve). It was the fire at the Indian Oil Corporation which raged for more than a 100 hours. It said that how litigation protected our country was. After 100 hours of constant fire and so many deaths and I don’t know how much ppm of pollution , still no organization or a single person has come forward to actually ask compensation. An interesting observation if you might say. Because for the past two years I have litigation filed for each and everything. Like the average movie producer is the worst sufferer. You have people taken to court for movie title names which for strange reasons have been hurting people’s sentiments. “Billu Barber” is a case in account. Interestingly this fire was one of the best opportunities to cash on some heavy rewards from the Fortune 500 Company if I am not wrong. But sadly like the 5th one day international against Australia it too went begging.

An American counterpart would have been sued heavily by those affected directly as well as indirectly. I think that is why companies in U.S. have such strict code of conduct more from fear of judiciary wing rather than the ethical code. I think that is the reason U.S. companies prefer to work around in India due to such lax laws that prevail in the Indian regulatory system. IOCL in fact responded by hiking their oil prices in all of their franchisees, a strategy which could dangerously hurt their reputation. Moreover the “loss by fire” for major oil companies is mostly insured heavily hence I don’t think there is a problem over there. This also shows how we all the time for the silly things in life for suing film makers to change their titles and stop hanging dolls as marketing strategy but if fire rages for more than 100 hours encircling a city and endangering my lives it is always “the other’s problem”. Again here the rage of stupid journalism played their part to perfection, which has been a constant cause of concern.

Another thing our religious belief often clouds our judgment because we tend to believe that God is superior to the gift given by him “human life”. Again this is main reason why we fail to come so many problems in our lives just because we label them as other region, the neighbor’s problem that is his lookout. When this is the same things that come full circle and cause obstacles in our lives too. Hence we can bear human tragedy but we cannot surely bear religious or Godly tragedy. A person killed near a Gandhian statue will be watched upon but someone throwing stones at the statue of a dead political leader will be killed and buried there and there. Moreover the miscreants destroy public property on account of this and police becomes a mere spectator in that case.

The Demise of ODI

A current wave is flowing among the cricket experts and non cricket experts about discussing the death of the ODI. Now that is a pretty stupid thing to discuss first of all. Come on now how many times would the ICC change its stance or bring circus like innovation to the gentleman’s game to attract spectators. Now firstly I totally disagree with the killing of ODI, no matter what T20 will do. First of all the talks about the demise of ODI is entirely based on stadium revenues. Yes it does play an important part in generating revenue and giving the sponsors good value for their money, but again here we are looking at a very small part of the picture or we are being forced to look upon that small part of the picture. Sponsors and organizers always want a large share of the smallest part of a business unit, no matter what and if they find that another unit is giving that large share of the smallest part it is better to discontinue the current business.

Now take the case of ODI it is true that stadium revenue are low for the ODI games but we do have high TRPs for them. That means viewing is not quite affected due to the longer version of the game. On the other hand for T20 the stadium revenue has huge chunk which maximizes their profit to a large extent. Here is fact to support, the champion’s trophy is slotted to have a higher TRP than the champion’s league although the Champions league is said to have been the event of the year. Moreover CLT20 has done a poor business in terms of viewing revenue even though it was slotted for a higher than 10 TRP.

Another problem with killing ODI is that people do not watch it because they are bored of the long schedule of the match and today in this fast paced world no one has the time for watching all these stuff. But an interesting statistics will show the danger of treading such path. The TRP of last year’s IPL was much higher to this year’s one. Even though some of the biggest stars were roped in to counter balance the losing interest. With the sponsors adding the strategic breaks the pain was turned into agony. This shows as people have lost interest in the ODI format people are getting bored with the T20 format, then we will have cries for Hong Kong Six over games, but then will the cricketing world yield to this also. This could to demise of the pajama cricket itself. All we would be watching is people selected on power and agility and killing the art form of the game. This is more of the American form of playing a particular game.

VENKY THE NOBEL FALL GUY

As the news of the nobel laureate Venky comes in about his irritation towards people contacting him for networking purposes. It is not quite surprising that people now want a piece of the action hence professors , teachers and students which are “so called “ are trying to contact the great just to show off or snob off. Considering the simplicity of the man who used to cycle to work and a mere layman existence is flooded with attention of superstar its indeed asking too much to cope up with. Even after such flooding of adulation he quite modestly was back to work and complaining about people’s email flooding his mail box daily, he said he spends minimum of an hour cleaning his junk mails( hasn’t he heard about unlimited storage).

But that shows what is it like if you are famous and on top of it you are Indian, you will have so many fans just because of the sheer size of the country. They will praise you like hell which if you do something which is good according to their perspective but on the contrary they will hammer you if they find you evil in their perspective. Yeah everybody has experienced it whether its Sachin Tendulkar of Rahul Dravid or even for that case the prince himself Sourav, you had during the world cup his house being painted black but during exclusion from the national side you had riots and violence everywhere. That is what we have as Indians that we think with our hearts, have a very short term memory and tend to act on it quite impulsively.

Another thing is that why do we get excited when somebody of our origin excels using resources of some other country because its like the caretaker is more important than the one who has given birth. We have many Indians using foreign shores to excel in fields and why is that whether it is Sunita Williams or Kalpana Chawla or any other artist. We should be ashamed of ourselves that our country does not have the back up or resources to retain local talent , that such talented individuals have to leave shores to excel in their respective fields. Then these guys do well all we do clap for them after they have achieved their goals through sheer hard work we do not support them when they require us the most and after they have done their thing we are there to shower false adulation just because it is cool to do that.

BOOM IS BACK

After a long hiatus of ongoing recession we are atlast seeing some signs of recovery. The market is getting up like a tiger dying down before rising up again. With exactly one year since the prediction of end of capitalism we at last can see it is not that easy to kill capitalism atleast for this time. I think recession or slow down is a necessary evil, something which like a nagging mother pulls back to the ground saying that money is not something to be squandered around. Anyways after seeing some positive growth we again have a slew of IPOs listed back on the bourses but this time people are careful and not getting carried away by the sudden jump in growth rates and the positive mood. Come Diwali and I think we can expect more of the same as we could just looking for a bloody bull run.

A positive impact really has a great rub on effect on other sectors too. Like we could see a great increase in blockbusters during such times even crap movies do well on just the buyers sentiments. People start buying crap even if they do not need it giving a rise in the retail industry. Wallets become highly volatile getting thicker and thinner by the day. People start preferring computers over mechanical, suddenly the worker in them becomes technorats. Suddenly people will choose finance over marketing in MBA , because the finance sector is doing well. I don’t know the exact pattern but yes the mood around really affects decision making. You have people with no accounting sense predicting rise and rise of companies. You have passports for U.S. increasing because the mama nu motel is doing really well. You have people throwing parties for no particular reasons. You have suddenly a slew of crap channels being launched and a slew of series being launched just to do a quick business. You have mobile phones giving endless features schemes and policies to confuse you with a shit load of data.You have production houses being started up again to do a quick business. All this happens so fast that you simply do not have the time to note the movies let alone the production houses. You have your relatives sons and daughters ( avoiding gender bias) getting picked up by top MNCs or sent US to get trained at something which he already knows.

All this happens until a pessimist like me forsees another debacle another slew of tight monetary policy and another game of allegation and counter allegations. Well that is how the cycle works believe it or not.