Socialism in Cricket too!

Former International Cricket Council CEO Malcolm Speed has dismissed suggestions that India is trying to take over the sport by flexing its financial muscle, insisting that such apprehensions are too far-fetched.

"There is too much fear of an Indian takeover and the power of the Indian administrators," Speed told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"Cricket's unique selling point is the passion for cricket by Indians -- cricket is the most popular sport by a factor of about 30 in the second-most populous country in the world. This should be seen as a major positive. The game needs to find ways to use that unique selling point," he added.

The above is the excerpts from the interview of Mr. Malcom Speed, the former CEO of ICC. I am not very much clear about his intentions behind making these statements. Whether he wanted to point out the dominating Indian muscle power in international cricket or he wanted to just dismiss the recent allegations of Indian dominance by few of the cricket boards and media. Whatever the reason may be, but one thing becomes clear. Speed or the other officials of CA, ECB or for that matter any official of the developed nations is self-obsessed and big time hypocrite. They love any principle till the time it puts them in the comfort zone and benefits them.

Though I am not going to write about the recent bail-outs, import quota, or fixed exchange rate to floating exchange rates drama. But, the recent happenings has made one thing clear that these developed nations just talk of morality, principals, and equity but hardly put these in practice. After lambasting the developing countries for their protectionism and socialist approach, these so called developed countries (run by the intellectuals!) has turned to socialism to protect their market. What happened suddenly? Has the basic ideologies of socialism and capitalism changed? These question will be debated for times to come. So, let me look at the world cricket form this angle. Cricket is not isolated from the world politics and economics.

Starting from 90s, 1996 world cup to be more precise, there has been a drastic shift of power in world cricket. India emerged as unchallenged power in controlling the cricket. This was not because of the mercy or kindness of white skinned cricket administrators. Credit goes totransparent or non-transparent cricket administrators of India and rising Indian economy. Today revenue generated by the Indian cricket is 30 times more than that of its nearest competitor, as said by Mr. Speed. So, naturally India is a much bigger fish in the pond of world cricket nowadays than Australia or England were during pre-90 era. By virtue of their opportunist tendency, CA, ECB have started to talk about responsibility, equity and many more globe terms (these terms look better on paper not in practice! or say it like..these terms look better only when you are expecting these from the other party).

Let me clarify my stand. I am not a fan of socialist ideology. I strongly blieve that socialism can never be a good thing in practice. It may be good only for intellectual discussions, simply timepass with tea, or ideological debate under high spirits caused by spirit! It can never be practical. So, Mr. Sutherland (CA), or Mr. Speed prepare yourself to watch the show in coming years. I request you to just look at the pre-90 era of world cricket and think how responsibly and equitably you have behaved? I even don't think that India's sun will be always rising in the world of cricket. Let few more Bindra, Vijendra come to the scene and India will shift its focus from cricket to some other sports. It was you people who were in a notion that white skinned people will always be ruling cricket.

Sorry Mr. Speed, mr. Sutherland....whoever is concerned! Cricket too has its cycle like business! Be patience to come out of this recession (may be it would turn out to a great depression for you!).

Just shut up Mr. Ramadoss!

He did it again! Our health minister has mastered the art of cheap publicity. Every other day he is in the limelight of media, unfortunately, at most of the times for wrong reasons.He is used to make useless statements and encroaching in the personal space of others. But, whatever he spoke today was totally illogical and not accepted one form a mentally fit (I think so. As our constitution says that to be a minister you need to be of sound mind!) person.

While answering the questions of reporters on possible epidemic in Bihar as the water in the flood affected areas has started coming down he told that it's nothing new about Bihar. His detail statement goes like:
Bihar has been a center of epidemics even before the floods. So it is nothing new for Bihar. They have cases of polio, they have cases of JE (Japanese Encephalitis), malaria is a problem, kala azar is a problem. All have been there,” Ramadoss said.

I have certain reservations regarding this statement. My first objection has nothing to do with reminding him of his responsibilities as a health minister. It is also not that being a native of Bihar I am hurt emotionally by his statements. People from Bihar are used to get nothing after empathetic statements as well. My question goes as:

Does the smoking of SRK was new thing? That was a big concern for the minister.
Does endorsement of Lays by Saif was a new event? This also bothered minister very much.


Height of stupidity! A health minister is more worried about individual habits than about the healthcare of masses. That too in the hour of need, when Lakhs of people are facing one of the worst natural calamities of the recent times. Keep apart the past and present, that itself is another big discussion topic. Lakhs of marginalised people, majority of them are women, old aged and children - because in search of bread and butter for their families the adult males have gone to some other states, are suffering from a tragedy of this scale and our health minister instead of empathising (Doing something is far from expecations!) with them is rather mercilessly saying that their lives are of no use for the minister and this nation. Minister is telling that it doesn't matter to him that these flood affected areas are not at all appear in his map of India. I don't know the motives, but the other states and other ministeries are lending their helping hands to the state in trouble and there is our insane healt minister making such senseless statements.

I am not arguing with the minister that Bihar is one of the most developed states of our country. Neither I am saying that the politicians from Bihar are the best ones. But, what justifies his statements. Which theory suggests that we should not develop? If we don't have to develop or improve the thing then why we keep on talking of growth and development? If something is bad then should we try to make that good or make that worse. Can Ramdoss tell me if someone is suffering from a life threatening disease like Cancer or AIDS for that matter, should we kill him? Understanding the rationale behind his statement is out of my understanding. May be I am not that much intellectual!

During the tenure of this UPA government we have witnessed many good and bad incidents. But, what is important that there are few ministers in this government in this government who whenever opened theie mouth, only shit came out of their mouth. No prize for guessing one of the names different from Ramadoss- yes, he is our own home minister- Mr. SHivraj Patil. On numerous occasions he has done this. Things are always better when these people remain silent.

So, please shut up Mr. Ramdoss.

Oh! Enough of Kasmir appeasment. Stop it now.

Jammu is burning for last two months. Every political party is trying his best to get out of this situation and make a clear path for victory in upcoming assembly election. Center is watching all this as a physically and mentally challenged creature of god (rather Allah!). The so called powerful persons and administrators of Indian democratic systems are showing their impotency. One fundamental question arises why at all such a scenario come in first place which led to the vioent display of oppressed Jammu citizens' anger and frustration.

People of Jammu has suffered a lot in last 60 years due to all pro-Pakistan and separatists movement in Kashmir. They remained calm on most of the occasions when larger chunks of development amount were spent on the smaller population of Kashmir. They did not display their anger on migration of Kashmiri Pandits. After 60 years of independence Jammu region is one of the underdeveloped regions of India. This is largely due to the absence of governence and terrorism and Kashmir. Jammu suffered for such a long time because none of thir mistakes. They kept quiet, all because they always felt like an Indian and just because they wanted Kashmir to be the part of India at any cost, they never complaint about the partial treatment.

Now just look at Kashmir and the Kashmiris (I don't know what each of the Kashmiri feels, but what their representatives feel is vary clear). India spent billions of dollar on kashmir's development and security. The per capita central support to J&K around Rs. 9754 Kashmir and Rs. 876 Bihar. Ten times better support and this figure doesn't include additional billions of dollar spent on defense. Point here to be noted is that out of this support most of the money is spent on Kashmir and Jammu junta find themselves at the receiving end. In 2004, the Prime Minister announced special package of $5 Billion for the development of state. We are spending our taxpayers money freely without thinking about anything else. For the sake of development of Kashmir we are depriving another states of funds. The states which contributes larger amount to tax collection are getting lower support than Kashmir which hardly contributes anything to the tax collection. We are still carrying the burden of Article 370 (thanks to appeasement policy) due to which Kashmir is not an another state despite being part of India. Our constitution and acts are not applicable (with the exception of Foreign policy, Defense and communication).

In my opinion the provision of article 370 in the constitution was the biggest blunder. Till now Kashmiris don't feel to be part of India. Even when separatists movement was at low the article 370 never gave them a sense of belongingness to India.

Coming to the current hue and cry over land transfer, we need to look the issue closely. The reasons given by the hardliners in opposition to the transfer of 40 Hectares of land to SASB.

The All-Parties Hurriyat Conference spread three canards: First, the transfer amounted to alienation of 'Kashmiri land'; second, it would lead to intrusion of 'Hindu culture' in Muslim Kashmir; and, third, it would cause ecological damage.

In a so called secular nation and the people who always shouted the "aawaz of Kashmiriyat" are now opposing a move based on communal grounds. Even after 60 years they are still feeling that Kashmir should be separate from rest of the India. And lastly, the firing and terrorist activities going on for so long has done no harm to the ecology of Kashmir that land transfer deal will do. Let me try to understand the rationality of their arguments on the communal basis. In our secular democratic country, exchequer spents about Rs. 300 Crores for the welfare of "Haz Yaatra" of 14% minority (of course 1-2 % are not minorities. After all 1-2 % don't constitute the vote banks.Christians, Sikhs, Bhudhists...who are they?). Government try their best to provide airfare subsidy, opens special terminal at airports, sends teams of medical staffs and so on. Nobody has any objections on that. Whay at all a secular state provides any kind of support in a religious activity. A country where illiteracy, infant mortality, malnutrition to name a few still remains a major problem, is spending such a huge amount on religious activities. When the same government tried to help the pilgrims belonging to the about 82% of the population these Kashmiris started feeling the pinch. How one can be so insane. Form any comaprison these two supports are unmatched.

These Kashmiri leaders have always keep India warning about their willingness to merger with Pakistan just because the state got the basic supports form the center always on a preferential basis. We have done enough. What have we got in the return? Always a sense of hostility, their affection for Pakistan. We ahve faced the separatist movements in a number of states. Punjab, Nagaland, Mizoram and many more. We didn't provide any special status to these states and finally all these states are back to normal life and part of Indian democratic system. We have already done enough to appeas Kashmir and the Kashmiris. Just stop this appeasement right now. Let them do whatever they want. Stop the central grant and let them realize there is something called Economics and politics can't fill the hungry stomach!! This is high time when we must take some bold move rather than just pacifuing the situtaion for the time being!

But, I am not very hopeful. Every party will ook at the situation from the angle of upcoming state assembly elections and more importantly upcoming parliamentary elections. Anyways, I sincerely appeal to every poltical party please rise above narrow election politics and stop this Kashmir appeasement right now!

M. G. Road Bangalore to M. G. Road Indore: Without ticket train journey in between

Sunday, 20th July 2008
It was the third weekend in Indore. This time our determination was strong enough to cross the boundaries of IIMI. After having enough of quizzes, presentation and assignments, we understood the fact that we had to go out and at least see the city in this hectic schedule itself and there would be no time when we have nothing to do. The last 2 weeks were a kind of standard punishment of IPC (Indian Penal Act) - 15 days of jail (all minor crimes and wrongdoings attract this penalty...given our police prove the charges)! I went to city 3-4 days ago - thanks to the person who stole my cell phone. But, that was a visit to mobile store and not to the city.

We usually don't have any academic activities apart from classes in morning till 1.30 in afternoon. But, this was not the usual case, everything was coming as an obstacle in our way to city or more precisely way to movie. This time it was batch photograph for the placement brochure. I am in section D, a first time section at IIMI. It is not that only teachers are satisfying their sadistic wishes by the means of assignments, quizzes, presentations etc., many more things are there to test our patience. Our section's photography was scheduled last - at 1.00 PM on Sunday. With the dreams of going to watch a movie I slept on Saturday night and with the hope of making it I woke up at 10.00 AM on Sunday. After having lunch at afternoon, we came to know that photography of other section has overshot the time limit and ours is ultimately going to start at about 4.30 PM. What the hell was going on? Cursing my hard luck I came back to my room (more appropriatley "mera gaon": A construction funded by NABARD at IIMI) and slept. I was witnessing one more Sunday passing very fast and Monday approaching. To attend the photograph session I woke up at 3.45 PM and then got ready. Getting ready in formal dress and too formal means Suite...It was a time consuming task for me. Thankfully by 5.45 PM, the photography thing was over. I ran back to my room and changed dress. We thought about going outside the main gate and then catch some bus or taxi. But, then we realized the IIM van leaving at 6.30 PM would be a better option. This van will drop us at the beginning of city.

We started at 6.30 PM in the IIM van. Thanks to Sunday evening, this van was full. Anyway we managed to get packed in the van. Nothing was going right..just on reaching Rau railway crossing (4 Kms from here), the gate was closed!! There were two train crossings - means about 20-30 minutes of waiting. It was frustrating especially when we had to come back to the campus by 11.00 PM. We were five persons. Two of us came out of the van and started walking at the railway gate. We collected all the details from the gateman about the trains available from Rau to Indore and Indore to Rau. The gateman told us that one of two trains was going to Indore. After few minutes, we saw three of us, who were sitting in the van were running towards the train. They were telling us to run and catch the train. We also followed them and managed to catch the train at Rau. As we were running short of time, none of cared about buying the ticket.

What a memorable experience it was!! We were travelling in a train without ticket. This was the desperation to watch a movie or if tickets of movie not available then roam around the theater/mall. Our journey started with discussing different analysis about arrival of TTE and strategy formulations to get rid of TTE. We reached at a conclusion that considering the fact we were in local train running on a meter guage and too coming form MHOW (Army Cantt), there was hardly any possibility of meeting a TTE. So, we reached Indore station in just 20 minutes and that too without encountering any mamu (TTE). It was 7.10 PM by the time we came out of the station. We aske the first autowala " Bhaiya TI mall chaloge"? He replied "haan chalenge, kitne log ho? We told "5 log hai..le chaloge kya"? haan haan le chalenge..50 rupaye lagenge..
haan bhaiya jaldi chalo...". We reached the dream destination TI (Treasure Island) Mall located on M.G. Road Indore by 7.30 PM.

Oh my God!! is this a mall or a mob? This was the first impression after entering the mall. I was more comfortable with those kind of overcrowded malls. I still have the memories of weekends at Garuda and Forum mall at Bangalore. But, for many of us, who were not in Bangalore, this was just like a mob. We started running towards ticket counter at 4th floor. We needed 3 tickets of any movie (The Dark Knight or Janne Tu Ya Jaane Na was ok for us..of course we couldn't have tolerated RGV's Contract). Two of us were not watching the movie because they had to meet some of their friends. We reached the counter and the screen was showing sold out for JTYJN and fast filling for The Dark Knight. Great..we managed to get last three tickets of " The Dark Knight." Fortunately, movie was awesome. It turned out to be a real entertainer and that too in the need. But, the movie was longer than usual English movies. It was of 2 hours and 40 minutes. That meant movie would be over by 10.15 PM. We booked the cab in advance so that we could manage to reach the campus by the deadline of 11.00 PM. Once the movie was over and people have their part of dinner (McD burgers), we left the mall at 10.30 PM. Anyhow we managed to enter the maingate at 10.57 PM. Thank god..we entered just in time!! What a great weeekend...I went outside the campus and watched a movie in theater!

Again I was back to normal campus life. Looking at timesheet of Monday, What assignments and pre-readings? Leave it.. I started thinking about the omnipresence of Gandhi in our life. Ye saala M.G. Road har city me aa jata hai..wo bhi prime locations pe..Gandhi ko notes pe aa ke chain nahi mila..sadko pe bhi apna naam likh diya!! M.G. Road Bangalore was like playground for me during last two years. Now, I reached M.G. Road Indore to enjoy weekends (it can't become the playground.. I don't have the liberties now!!). In this transition from M.G. Road Bangalore to M.G. Road Indore, I enjoyed the Without Ticket journey of Train. Hope to see the city soon!!

Studying Economics is Interesting!!

Studying Economics is Interesting!!

After moving across the width and height of the country for last two months, finally I am settled for two years in Indore (better to say IIM Indore!!). I will prefer to say IIM Indore or Planet-I (IIMI is commonly known as Planet-I.... especially among student communities) not because to add IIM, but in order to reflect the real feel of this place. This place is about 20 Kms from Indore Railway station and airport. So, from Monday to Saturday life remains confined to the boundaries of IIMI or maximum it reaches till Rau (the local market place..about 3-4 Kms from here). Study, enjoy or celebrate - for all the purposes, we have campus as the only choice and that makes it a different planet. I have not yet got a chance to roam around Indore. We planned to go to city on last Sunday but the riots and subsequent curfew screwed our plan.

I reached here on 29th June ( a day before registration). Soon after arrival to campus I was dropped to my room in an ambulance (no, I was not injured or ill!!). Thanks to Arjun Singh's rapid expansion plan of IITs and IIMs. The new hostels were not yet completed so, we ( 60 out of 240) have been accommodated in newly built staff quarters. These staff quarters are slightly far from the rest of hostels. This distance adds 5-10 minutes overhead to every work of my routine. Another bad thing about these staff quarters is that these are not connected to Institiute's LAN. This resulted in having no net connection. The good thing about these quarters is that I have got attached bathroom (so, no waiting queues even during peak hours!!!). Currently I am sharing room with another guy from Bangalore. Sharing room is another something that people usually doesn’t like. But given the current tight schedule and no net connection at room, most of the time room is occupied by only one person. The interesting point is that the current busy schedule makes the need of single room even less important!!!

Before coming to this place I was anticipating that the registration and hostel allotment process would be a real pain. I still have the bad memories of standing in long queues and filling up the same information in countless number of forms during my admission process at IIT Roorkee, 6 years back. Surprisingly here these official procedures were smoother than my imaginations. Don't know if things have changed so over the period of 6 years or B-schools are good at managing processes.

To add to my surprise was the loan disbursement process of banks. Here it was a tough competition between State Bank of India and State bank of Indore. They both were trying their best to lure students to opt for their loan. Bank staffs were chasing the students worse than the credit card agents use to chase employed persons in cities. They were running with readymade drafts and telling students - Sir, aapne loan liya kya?? agar nahi liya hai to ye check lijiye and kal deposit kar dijiye aur formalities kal complete karenge! Even though I have already got my loan approved from State Bank of India before coming here, the bank personnels arrived at my room 3-4 times with drafts in their hands. Everytime I said that I have already got the loan. Their question was - achcha, kahan se liya loan?? As I said, State Bank of India se liya hai! This was resulting in a relaxed smile on the face of State Bank of India's staff and a sad expression on the State Bank of Indore's staff.

On 29th night seniors called a meeting of our batch and they announced a shocking schedule for us for coming weeks. We were told to assemble at Hostel lawn at 5.15 AM. From 5.30 AM it was physical exercises for 1 hour and then from 6.30 AM was the one hour lecture of SAD (Self Awareness and Discovery!!) and most importantly YOGA for another one hour!! Just after listening this schedule, the instant reaction was what the fuck is this?? This was just not enough, we have to attend the classes from 9.30 AM and to add all these miseries I was staying 5-10 minutes away from hostel! But, now when those morning rituals are over and a story of past I can say that was not so bad. In fact that helped a bit to get accustomed to the routine for the coming 20 months. I am not going to write the details of these routines here.

On the day of registration we got some 8-9 books, few spiral notes, few notebooks and other stationery items. We also got a 2-3 page printed document and the staff told us--- this is the case for your tomorrow’s introductory class. Oh! What is this? We are supposed to start study from the very first day! The next day it was inaugural of our program. BCG, India Director, Dr. Harshvardhan was the chief guest. On the day of inaugural I woke up at 5.00 AM and went for morning rituals (Exercises, SAD, YOGA etc.). Once the morning rituals were over I came back to room and then attended the inaugural ceremony. I tried my best to be awake during the inaugural and luckily I succeeded in that. After that it was the introductory class and that too a case discussion and for 70 minutes!! A big challenge for me! People who know me can imagine that how can I attend a 70 minutes class without sleeping? Anyways I was trying my best to remain active in class. The first impression of the prof also made me aware that I have to be careful. What a cool prof… He asked 3 guys to stand in a corner for the whole class (that too after negotiation.. else he asked them to leave class!). The mistake of these guys was that they didn’t bring the case printout with them. After some 40-45 minutes I yawned badly and that prof saw me in the class of 62 at that particular moment. “Do this next time, leave the class” was his immediate reaction! The sitting arrangement (fix seat in the class with nameplates in front of your desk) adds another pain.

Life is not so bad. God can’t be always so harsh on me. Just some adjustments were required and as an average Indian I am also not bad at this life of adjustments! Now it has been about 2 weeks and I am used to this routine. After attending the few nightmare lectures (how can I forget Material Science by bcc..fcc, Physics by Kelu..and many more..) By some of the pathetic profs at IIT Roorkee it was not much difficult to get used to the lectures here. Here I can classify profs under the category of good and bad but, almost everyone try his/her best in order to make classes interactive. At least they are tech savy! There are 8 courses in this semester. Few of them are interesting and few others are just to be digested. Fortunately we have Economics. I like Economics and have got the prof who tries to make it more interesting with his crazy jokes. Few of the jokes I can recall…

While explaining indifference curve he spoke 20 units of clothing and 30 units of food and then he clarified, don’t worry about the units the concept is more important. Unit of cloth may be meter for Rekhajee and Centimeter for Rakhijee!!

While explaining the concept of consumer satisfaction, he spoke that the basic assumption here is that “more is better”. Then he suddenly reacts ..there may be exceptions.. more of spouses is not better or that may also be better for some people!!

The best of the lot was when he was explaining the concept of marginal utility. In order to explain that once you get more amount of anything you are less willing to sacrifice any other thing for an additional unit of that thing (which you already have more). He told.. ”do you watch these IIFA awards, Filmfare awards…you would have noticed that for the first song the actresses/actors come fully dressed and then start removing their cloths very fast and when in the end they left with two or three pieces whatever you say they completely stop removing cloths. While that is time when people eagerly waits for the removal of those 2-3 pieces!!! What an example…now no one can forget the concept of marginal utility!!

Though being a South Indian he always enjoys pulling legs of South Indian eating habits. He never forgets to site an example of Kellogs. “Kellogs came India 10-15 years back with a goal in mind of changing the breakfast habit of Indians even if it takes 30-40 years. He says it seems almost impossible. Go to Chennai…in morning anywhere you will get Idalies at the rate of 50 paisa an Idaly. In Rs. 5 you will get 10 Idalies. So, why a south Indian would prefer paying Rs. 90 for 200 Gms of Kellogs instead of paying Rs. 5 for 10 Idalies!!!”

This is not all about the Economics. There are countless of graphs, theories and equations. But, yes studying Economics is interesting!

Some of my good friends might be wondering that I have not written anything about Indore yet whereas they claim I came to Indore by choice! Great! When I hear that I have come to IIMI by choice it adds some height to my greatness! Getting only 2 calls and finally converting IIMI only, I didn’t have a choice. But, these comments make me feel that I have opted for Indore. Last week riots and then subsequent curfew made it impossible to visit Indore city yet. This weekend it will be preparation of reports, presentations and studying for quizzes. So, It seems I will not be able to comment on Indore for coming few days. In the end what all I can say is..yes, I am enjoying life at IIMI and Indore!!

Sunday Special: Special Sunday

Slowly or rapidly the time was approaching near to Wednesday, 28th May, 2008, a day when I will leave Bangalore after being stayed here for about two years. These two years of my life have been really special. I enjoyed every bit of it. In these two years I have experienced a wide spectrum of events and changes. Starting my professional career and then working in a pure technology based startup and then finally moving to pursue higher studies in management field, visiting pubs frequently to complete teetotaler for sometime and currently drinking socially, a naive smoker to frequent smoker and then non-smoker, curly hair to straight long hair and now Gandhi baba style (only this option is left now!!!) and many more- life has gone through uncountable big and small changes. It was not only me who has gone through so many transitions (changes), I have seen many people around me changing greatly!!

Coming to Bangalore, I loved moment of Bangalore life. The pleasant climate of Bangalore or worst traffic jam, having bottoms-up at pubs or vomiting after that and lying the balcony, working late in night at office (on few occasions though) or watching movie at Inox during office hours- I learned to enjoy every dimension Bangalore life.

Yesterday was the last Sunday (weekend) of this brief stint of mine at Bangalore. What a special Sunday it was! Karnataka got rid of dirty politics of Thande-Makkala party (father and sons party). Now hopefully state will get a stable and professional governance (hope so..more the time will tell!!). My day started at 10.30 in morning with the challenging task of talking to Landlord to get back the security deposit of house. Thank to Bhattu and Bajaj, they forced me to wake up by 10.30 and to my luck I was able to meet the landlord after a week of failed attempts. After that I had Mashala Dosa ( unusual..breakfast and that also MashalaDosa!!) at a restaurant near the house. After that I had to go to M.G. Road (almost like mulle ki daud masjid tak..during two years in Bangalore, I have been mostly to the places around M.G. Road-Airport Road) to meet Jaya and Bajaj. Though meeting on Sunday at M.G. Road has become a routine for last few months, today I was expecting it to be a bit different. On reaching there I was greeted by a giant size farewell card. The size of card is causing problems to me. I have not yet sorted out what to do with that card. it's so beautiful that throwing it out is not an option and at the same time it's do big that carrying it safely is a big challenge. I will try my best to find out what to do with this card! Along with the card there was a kurta for me (good dress to face North-Indian summer!). After the farewell gifts distribution it was routine thing. We had our lunch and then went to Amoeba for bowling (one of the addictions that got developed in Bangalore). Knowing that this was my last weekend at Bangalore, I was feeling a bit different (but not enough to make me emotional!!). Then it was the time for Jaya's class. I received a call from Bhattu. Awesome..Bhattu invited us for a dinner tonight!!! After doing partial packing lunch/dinner at home is not an option. My good luck..I was going to have good dinner. Instantly I asked Bajaj to go to his room and change his socks (though he didn't take bath for last two days..taking bathe today was his choice..but it was his socks which has almost killed me yesterday.).

In evening we went to a new place for dinner. We opted for buffet and to our surprise there was no starters in that buffet. We ordered starters separately and then had main course. Suddenly Bhattu started feeling the need of Alcohol and to add t Bhattu's hard luck they were only serving mocktails. Daal-Baati ( A dish from Rajsthan) was the mystery of our dinner. I found it totally tasteless. Bajaj was busy in explaining the ways to eat this and the waiter was telling some different way. Finally, Bajaj added the correct information regarding this to the waiter,s mind. During the dinner we discussed a wide range of issues (except mostly discussed topics...). We finished with the dinner and came back to room. For Bajaj and Bhattu, tomorrow is again another Monday.

So, they have already slept to welcome another Monday. I started my packing after preparing mentally for last few days. After finishing a part of packing work, I got lost in recollecting the memories of this special Sunday and so finally wrote this Sunday special.

Hope that I will not suffer from amnesia (I am not suffering from this currently..in fact forgetting few things are most difficult for me!) and will cherish this special Sunday forever!

Welldone...Mr. Lalit Modi

Indian Premier League aka IPL is a big hit this summers. That is not just the case with Indian audiences, in fact Ricky Ponting needed to appeal to Aussies to watch their current ongoing test series with West Indies. The mastermind behind the planning and so well execution of IPL Mr. Lalit Modi well deserves the attentions for his administrative capabilities. I am not a big fan of Lalit , but in the way he has handled the current Jaipur crisis was definitely admirable and laudable.

When Mr. Lalit first came up with the idea of IPL to crush the already existing ICL, it didn't impress me. Especially the monopolistic approaches BCCI and Lalit used to give IPL an unfair advantage over ICL is something which I can never appreciate. IPL has realy become "Manoranjan Ka Baap" this summers. The tournament has attracted a lot of attraction for On-field as well as Off-field activities. A number of less heard names have established themselves on this big platform and few of the big names have failed to justify their worth. Someone has experienced perhaps the costliest slap in the professional arena (Slap to Sreeshanth costs around 800 thousand USD to Bhajji.).

Going well with all these hype and hoopla, IPL faced one of the worst tragedies of our nation when Jaipur was rocked by 7-8 serial blasts within 30 minutes on 13th May evening. These blasts put a serious question mark in front of IPL organizers about the matches scheduled in Jaipur. In fact Bangalore franchise came up with the idea to shift the match between Jaipur-Bangalore which was to be played on 16th at Jaipur, to Bangalore. Shifting the match could have easily solved the problem for the organizers. Especially when the foreigner players were thinking to even leave the IPL in between, shifting the match venue was the easiest thing to do in order to save the IPL. But, this could have solved the problem in short run and in long run it could have created a lot more challenges and embarrassment to a good administrator/organizer.

When all the electronic media was trying to cover every moment of the news that Warne and Co. is thinking to leave IPL in between Mr. Modi gave the example of a smart administrator and manage the whole thing as he wanted and more importantly what was required. Leave the politics apart, any change in IPL would have encouraged the terrorists. Mr. Modi has successfully sent the message to terrorist organizations, though we lack in political will but we are no more a coward nation and these inhuman act of terrorist will not damage our human spirit. Well done Lalit!!! Other sports too need administrators like you..