Impressed !

I was so impressed by a device that I came across today that I thought I would blog about it right away. My brother-in-law got me what is labeled as an ‘In-Car MP3 Player & Wireless FM Radio Transmitter for USB Flash Drive & SD Card with 12V Lighter Plug’ from Bangalore. Sounds quite impressive right? Yet in terms of looks, it is a compact metallic device with a few buttons at the front.

What is impressive about this fancy sounding compact device is what it does. I have an old mp3/CD player in my car. It also plays FM radio. When I changed cars, the mp3 player came with me to the new car. When I enquired about making my car USB ready, the mechanic told me I would need to buy a new player.

Now what this device does is that is plays mp3 music from an USB stick or an SD card. All that one needs to do is to plug the device to the lighter plug in the car and tune the FM radio to the same frequency! Sounds cool, right? No need to burn CDs anymore. All you need to have is a couple of USB sticks with your favorite music.

This is a great device that is in the market at the right time. Already most new cars have a built in USB player. This device is a boon for those who have those old CP based systems and want to have a cheap alternative to buying a new system.

First Strike !

No! I am not referring to Jackie Chan’s movie of the same name nor am I using this phrase in the nuclear context nor is this a reference to any sporting action.

I am referring to today’s dawn to dusk motor strike. Barely had the new cabinet (Kerala State Government) been sworn in than we had our first taste of Hartal/Strike/Bandh.

The motor unions gave the call to strike to protest the petrol price hike and the public complied with the call- more out of fear for life and property than anything else.

A sample of things to come in the next five years perhaps?

Did the petrol price come down at the end of the twelve hours of inactivity? NO

What else was achieved by the strike other than loss of productive time and money? NOTHING.

Will those who call for these Hartals learn anything from the experience? NEVER

There is a saying in Malayalam which states that even if you put a dog’s tail in a straight pipe, it will still be curved when you take it out of the pipe. How apt!

Every cloud has a silver lining. On the personal front, Hartals are the only occasions when I clean my Hero Honda bike and use it for my daily commute. Else it is tucked away in a corner of the garage and left to rust. A Hartal once in a few months keeps my bike clean and in running condition.

Memories of TCL (Thirumuppam Cricket League)!!

The IPL is meandering on and this constant exposure to Cricket on Television brought back memories of childhood – thought I would share an interesting Cricket related moment with you.

During our summer vacations at Thirumuppam (then a sleepy village an hour’s drive from Ernakulam) we used to play cricket in the late afternoons. There were two small teams in the ‘League’. On one side were my first cousin and me (we were around 14 at the time). The opposition team had a couple of younger first cousins and 2-3 other kids (distant cousins) from the neighbourhood (average age around 10).

Though outnumbered, we were bigger and stronger than our opponents and always insisted on the same team. Naturally they were no match for us and the results were almost always a foregone conclusion. It was like a matchup between India and Bermuda!

Whenever the opposition would raise their voice against the injustice in team formation, we would pacify them with the carrot of ‘double batting’ – each of their batsmen could bat twice. Not that this made much of a difference – it just delayed the inevitable.

Things changed with the induction of an ‘overseas player’. This kid (roughly our age) was the son of the brother of the pujari of the nearby temple. He had never played cricket before and wanted to join us. We – the ‘League commissioners’ - said why not? It was deemed that he could join the ‘chottas’. We were sure our dominance would continue.

What happened next knocked the wind out of us - the favourites. This kid who had never held a bat in his life before turned out to be a cross between Srikanth, Sehwag and Pathan. He had the recklessness of Srikanth, the hand-eye coordination of Sehwag and the power of Pathan. He could not hold the bat properly and had only one shot (expansive swing of the arms) in his armoury. But that was enough – each delivery we bowled disappeared. If he favoured the top of the coconut tree the first time, the next time it was targeted at the ‘Moovandan’ mango tree. If Shastri were there he would have said that it was raining ‘DLF maximums’. There was no way we could even hope for a ‘Karbon Kamaal catch’.

My cousin and I took a ‘Maxx mobile strategic time out’ and discussed the options. Those days we used to listen to radio commentary quite a lot and prided ourselves in our knowledge of Cricket. It was decided that one of us would bowl ‘fast in-swingers’ while the other would focus on ‘orthodox left arm spin’. Unfortunately for us the ‘overseas player’ was not knowledgeable in ‘in-swingers’ or ‘orthodox spin’!! He treated every ball the same way, same shot, same result. We were completely demoralised.

The hiding continued over the next few days (our attempts to change the teams were met with stiff resistance from the ‘chottas’ – even the offer of double batting did not work). Respite came after a couple of weeks in the form of the ‘overseas player recalled for national duty’ – the kid left Thirumuppam to spend the rest of vacation at his maternal grandparent’s place.

Thankfully next summer there was no sign of the ‘overseas player’ – not that we were particularly eager to check on his availability!

Dream come true

If the current IPL lacks zing due to its timing (scheduled as it is just after the World Cup), it did throw up a few surprises and helped uncover a few gems.

At the start of the tournament we had a relatively unknown Paul Valthaty bursting onto the scene with a quick fire century (120 off 63 balls). Since then the public have been expecting him to emulate that act in every match. Valthaty’ story is one of grit and determination. He had been injured in an under-19 world cup match (in 2002) and almost lost his eyesight. After getting cured he worked hard at a comeback finally doing so in 2009. He was part of the Mumbai squad and also the Rajasthan Royals squad for the past two years. In IPL 2009 and 2010 he did not do much except warm the bench for most of the time.

But what a turn around he has had since he joined Kings XI this year! Today he is spoken of in the same breath as big hitters like Uthapa and Pathan.

If Valthaty’s story is fascinating, Prasanth Parameswaran’s story seems straight out of a fairy tale! Inducted as a nets bowler for the Tuskers just a few days back, he impressed the coach Lawson so much that when there was a replacement opportunity Prasanth found himself in the squad. A couple of days later, he played his first match and the rest as they is history. He deservedly got the man of the match award as his dismissal of Sehwag was the most significant contribution to Kochi’s victory. Sreesanth did the translation during the post match interview. Good to see another Keralite do well. Hope he eventually makes it to the Indian team at some point.

Post script – Dada is back ! Yes he is ! Read in the papers yesterday that Saurav Ganguly has been inducted by the Pune Warriors as a replacement for Nehra. Well Pune does indeed need some inspiration – they are currently languishing at the bottom of the points table. It remains to seen whether the Dada magic will work for Pune.

I am back

Yes I am back - it has been quite a while since I blogged. It was not due to lack of topics to blog about or that I was too busy to write. As I had indicated in my last entry in the New Year, just another bout of laziness! Sometimes initiatives run out of steam (I had resolved in the New Year that I would blog as frequently as last year). But hey, better late than never, eh? So to compensate (over compensate?), this entry is a pretty long one (Never know when I will drag myself to the computer again!).

A lot has happened in the first four months of 2011. The Japan earthquake and the tsunami left a trail of destruction and thousands perished. The fragile nature of Man’s existence was exposed. In-spite of being a modern ‘developed’ economy, Japan could not withstand the fury of nature.

The subsequent Fukushima nuclear mess shook not just Japan but the entire world. Today, the viability of nuclear power as a safe source of energy is being questioned. A good time for us (India) to introspect as well before embarking on building the next set of nuclear plants.

In the Middle East, a single act – an act of self immolation by one man (Bousazizi) -led to an awakening across the Arab world. What followed was revolution and regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt. The crisis in Libya led to a civil war which continues without an end in sight. There have been protests in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen and murmurs across the most of the Middle East.

The Kate and Will show culminated in the wedding of the decade. It was British pomp and pageantry at its best and the event surely surpassed the Diana- Charles wedding. The Indian media went to town too fawning over every single inconsequential detail.

And the biggest event of them all, just a couple of days back the US announced they finally got Osama – of all places he was hiding not in a cave in the hills but in a palatial bungalow just an hour’s drive from Islamabad and a couple of hundred meters away from a local military academy. The Pak authorities are in a catch 22 situation – if they claim ignorance of Osama’s stay, it proves their incompetence, if they don’t their collusion with the extremists is proved.

Closer home we have been stumbling from one scam to the next. If one thought the CWG scam was damaging enough, on came the 2G and the Radia tapes which dwarfed everything in sight. While the politicians and the babus are laughing all the way to the bank, for the common man, inflation continues to be an existential pain.

We did have a round of state elections with some important states going to the polls. The voters have cast their votes and the politicians have a long wait till May 13. Good to keep them in suspense :-)

The silver lining for India was Anna Hazare - and the amount of support he generated amongst the general public during the week that he fasted. Anna proved that Gandhian tactics are still powerful and he brought the mighty to their knees. Good to see that Gandhiji is still relevant in this time and age; correction - his ideals are more relevant than ever before. We live in a world that is struggling to find heroes. And Anna is one of the few left.

Speaking of heroes, India finally won the World Cup after a long wait of 28 years. It was a dream run from the dream team (especially the victories in the knock out stages after the wake up call from South Africa).

Those of us who watched the 83 final at Lord’s will never forget the defining images of that day

- the outrageous banana in-swinger from Sandhu that got rid of Greenidge
- Kapil running backwards to catch and get rid of ‘King’ Richards (probably THE turning point of the match)
- And of course of the snapshot of Kapil lifting the trophy and of the wild expression of joy thereafter on the Lord’s balcony.

Now we have another set of memories to add to that list –

- Yuvraj on his knees, arms stretched, shouting out at the top of his voice after knocking out the defending champions Australia
- Dhoni’s rock hard (frozen) expression after hitting the winning shot in the final
- … and of course…of Sachin perched on the shoulders of his mates during the victory lap. What can you say – the man finally achieved what he had always dreamt of but failed to in 5 earlier attempts over 21 years. Now, there appears to be no trophy left for Sachin to win, no peak to surpass. He is at the pinnacle of the sport.

After the victory, for a while it seemed nothing else mattered in India – everyone -young or old, rich or poor, Cricket lover or not seemed to be on cloud nine.

Parting note -

Just a couple of days after the world cup, on came the IPL tamasha. I would not have been interested if it were not for the new kid on the block – Kochi. However after 3 weeks of IPL and an average performance by Kochi, it does seem like Cricket overdose after all – at least that seems to be view of the fans judging from the attendance in the Kochi stadium for the IPL matches.