The day History is made

Very rare are the days that one can claim to have said that history has been made. There have been events which have over the course of time proven to be of historic significance. But to call some thing as historic while it unfolds is a rare occasion. Well, with what little experience I have gathered about the world in general, I can safely say that Barack Hussein Obama's victory in the US presidential elections definetely comes into that category.
Well, on first look, at the surface it would seem an improbable victory. Obama's victory seems to have been written in the Hollywood studios rather than in any real life. Obama is of African-American descent. He is the son of a Kenyan goat herder who came to US on a scholarship. His middle name is Hussein (which also led to rumors of him being a Muslim). He is a first time senator with no foreign policy experience and was a virtual unknown even a couple of years back. Against him was John McCain, a respected war veteran and former prisoner of war, who had been in the Senate for years. Still it was Obama who emerged victorios by a comfortable margin.
The reasons for this victory has already been analysed the world over by political pundits. Most of them agree that McCain lost as a result of Bush's policies. And Obama won riding on the wave of a promise of change. Whether the change takes place or not, only time will tell.
However, the election results do justify one thing, i.e. the Great American Dream still lives on. An African-American president in a country which was racially divided not too many decades ago is a great event in its history. Race may not have been a issue any longer but the final frontier still remained to be covered.
And now we have to see what the future holds. Obama's presidency starts at a very tricky time. The world is in the grips of a big economic slowdown if not a recession. Also there are the various issues like Iraq, Iran, Korea and terrorism which have to be taken care of. The election of Obama has been greeted by enthusiasm across the world. Only time will tell whether he will live upto his promise of change.
But today certainly history has been made.

Tis a wonderful feeling

Tis definitely a wonderful feeling. There is a festive outlook in the air. Diwali is a couple of days away. And after a gap of four years, I'll be at home for Diwali. Well to add further joy to my festive frame of mind, I had home made food for the first time since arriving in Mumbai, a period of nearly five months. It feels great to have a meal prepared by yourself. Nothing much complex, just rice and chicken curry made at my cousin's place.
Today being Dhanteras, decided to gift myself an electric kettle (also helped in achieving the sales targets for Retail folks). Arriving home late in the evening, ran straight off to D'Mart for the neceessary purchases. Came back within half an hour armed with, a mug, spoons, coffee powder, tea bags and sweetener. Reached home and prepared coffeee for myself (for the first time). Cant imagine having tasted anything better :).
Will be off to my home town tomorrow.
Well, I can only say "Tis a wonderful feeling".

And to everyone who reads this blog, Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Diwali.

The Legend called Sachin Tendulkar

If I start writing on the above topic, I could just go on and on. During the first day of the ongoing Mohali test against Australia, the Little Master became the highest scorer in the history of the game. Though this is a big achievement, it had a sense of inevitability about it. He had just achieved something which he had seemed destined to since he made his debut against Pakistan way back in 1989 as a 16 year old. Although he has been the backbone of the the Indian batting for the last two decades, I havent counted Sachin Tendulkar as my favorite Indian batsman at any time. Mohammed Azharuddin and Rahul Dravid have been my favourites. However, Sachin has been and will remain the greatest batsman of all time. I actually started following cricket seriously from that particular Pakistan series onwards (I remember the results of all Indian test matches and most of the ODIs from that point onwards). Many players have come and gone. Sachin has been the only constant. I will not even try to list down his achievements which are many. Here is a random compilation of memories I have of Him and His performances.

• Carrying on batting after getting hit on the nose by Waqar Younis in his debut series.
• Hitting Abdul Qadir all over the park in the festival match in Peshawar in the same series.
• Bowling the last over in the Hero Cup semi-final against South Africa.
• The performance throughout the 1996 World Cup.
• The 169 against South Africa in the 1996-97.
• His pinnacle year 1998
  
• The consecutive centuries against Australia in Coca-Cola Cup (Sharjah, 1998) including a tournament winning one on his 25th birthday. I also rememeber the documentary "Tendulkar at 25" which was telecast after this tournament.
• The century in the lost cause against Pakistan at Chennai in 1999.
  
• Century against Kenya in the 1999 World Cup after losing his father.
• An out of form Sachin scoring a double century against the Aussies at Sydney.
• The upper cut 6 of Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup.
• The late cut played over the keeper's head off Lee & Johnson in the last Australian tour.

There are many more memories of Sachin Tendulkar as he went past various records. Once he retires there may be others to take his place in the line-up. But can anyone else rule our hearts as he has done for the past 19 years (and hopefully will be doing for some more time to come).

P.S. I also have a personal memory. Having dinner at the restaurant Tendulkar's, while wearing chappals while other diners were in suits.

Durga Puja & Vijayadashmi

Today was Vijaydashmi, the last day of the Durga Puja. This year is the first time I realized that how much I enjoyed this particular festival. For the first time in my life, I have not seen a single Puja Pandal. And I really missed it. From the times I remember, Durga Puja has been the most important festival in my life. Having lived mostly in the eastern parts of the country, Durga Puja was the the time for a week to fortnight holiday from school, college. The things that I remember are the pandal hopping, all day and even night whether with parents, cousins or friends; the beating of dhaks, the huge pandals, the various images of the goddess, eating the bhog-prasad. Even the weather is quite pleasant at this time of the year. And this was true for all the places I have lived, Patna, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad and even Duliajan. But sadly the same cannot be said for Mumbai. Mumbai may celebrate Ganesh Puja and Janmashtani with great fervor. But I still miss the Durga Pujas.

Anyways, I had a day off from work today which was spent in basically doing nothing. Watched a few downloaded episodes and followed the cricket matches. International cricket returned after some time. And there were interesting things on the field. Ponting finally scored a century in India, though after Day 1, the match is still in the balance. A depleted Bangladesh beat New Zealand for the first time in an ODI. Now will be following that series with more interest.

Being a festive holiday, quite a few SMSes went to and fro today. There were generally the usual ones wishing Happy Durga Puja/Vijaydashmi/Dussehra. But the one which stood apart from others read " Happy Vijayadashmi!! May you also win over your bosses as lord Rama won over Ravana :) "

P.S. Its now time to change the "Missing Pujas" status from my Gtalk and Orkut accounts.

Pigeons & Flights of Thought

Sunday mornings are meant to be slept through. But today wasnt meant for such a pleasurable activity. Early morning I was waken up by strange noises in my room. The source of noise turned out to be a pigeon fluttering about my window. Had to get up and shut the glass window to stop it from coming inside. And then I saw another one moving along the floor. When I tried to shoo it away instead of going through the second open window it decided to fly into the hall. The hall has glass doors on the balcony side and glass windows at the other end. Now pigeons are supposed to be pretty intelligent animals, with a great sense of direction and all that. We also hear a lot about pigeons being used for delivering messages. But after what I saw today morning made me think that how could any one trust these stupid creatures. This particular pigeon went into hall. It flew across and banged into the balcony doors. Flew back and banged into the windows. And this process was repeated again before I could go and open the sliding doors. And then it proceeded to settle on the fan. It was pretty tough to make it fly away. Some bird!!!
Well, by this time I had lost all thought of further sleep and proceeded to stay in my 14th floor balcony watching the other members of the species flying around. Overhead at regular intervals aeroplanes went passing on their way to land at the Mumbai airport. And this is when my thought process started taking flight. Human beings have been always trying to copy from the nature around them. Seeing the birds they also wanted to be able to release their spirits and soar across the wide sky. This dream came to be true, albeit in a different way, with the invention of the aeroplane. Now, the though which came across my mind is would we have thought about flying if there had been no birds to teach us about flight. And if no such thought had come would there have been any aeroplanes. And without the aviation industry how different would have been the world today. And more to the point, would the progress made over the last hundred years since Wright Brothers' invention took off, have been possible.

The Clash of Titans: A Preview

People may have their own arguments. But in my opinion, the India-Australia test series is the ultimate cricketing clash. People say a lot of things about the Ashes, but probably thats because the Britishers are nostalgic about everything. With the decline of the West Indies, the Wisden and Frank Worrel Trophies have lost their sheen. India-Pakistan clashes do not have the passionate following associated with them anymore. South Africa's isolation during the Apartheid period has ensured that though being tough competitors, a series against them does not attract as much attention. So finally it boils down to India vs Australia as the ultimate showdown in Test cricket.
This is the second 4 match series being played between the two countries this year following the acrimonious and highly controversial series earlier this year. In spite of the many controversies it was a keenly fought contest with India winning the 3rd test in Perth after losing in Melbourne and the controversial test in Sydney. The series ended with Virender Sehwag scoring a match-saving century in Adelaide. Eight months on, the Aussies are in India for the return series.
The Indian side remains more or less the same but there has been significant change of personnel in the Australian camp. The biggest loss has of course been that of Adam Gilchrist both behind and in front of the stumps. Gilly will definitely be missed, by the team as well as all the fans. The Australian spin attack has for practical purposes vanished with Brad Hogg and Stuart McGill retiring one after the other. The Australian search for an opening partner for Hayden is still unresolved. And Andrew Symonds, one of the men at the centre of Monkeygate controversy has been thrown out of the team for having gone fishing. So, all in all, it seems the Aussies definetely look quite vulnerable. And going by their performance against the Board President's XI, they are the underdogs in this series.
As far as the Indian team is concerned, it has a sense of familiarity around it. No injury worries, all the big names still around. This series is considered to be another chance for the Fab Five of Indian cricket to have another go at the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. They also have a chance to redeem themselves after the poor showing in Sri Lanka. It will also give them a chance to shut up the critics who have been clamoring for their retirement. Personally, I feel that the Fab 5, Sachin, Dravid, Kumble, Ganguly and Laxman should retire only when they want to and not just because people have started hollering for their retirements. In my opinion a player should quit only when somebody else is able to push them out of their slot, like Gambhir replaced Jaffer on account of his splendid showing over the past year. Players like Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Kaif, Badrinath, Raina etc maybe good enough but they have still a lot of way to go before they replace the middle order stalwarts. Similary Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra are definetely not in the class of Kumble. So lets stop all this talk of retirement and just enjoy the game while they are there.
Hoping to be able to enjoy another rivetting series between these two nations.

Welcome To Sajjanpur

The past week was full of news. Some bad, the Investment-Banking industry and some good, the great news about the Indian oil & gas sector. The week ended with another bomb blast on a Saturday, this time in Islamabad. However this post is not about any of these events. Thanks to the torrent downloads, I am now updated with all the happenings in the movie world. And it has been quite a while since I wrote about any movie.

Just finished watching the new Shyam Benegal directed film, "Welcome to Sajjanpur". The film is seen through the eyes of the central character, Mahadev, played by Shreyas Talpade who is an aspiring novelist. However he ends up becoming a letter writer. And we get to see the variety of things he gets to do being one of the few literate people in the village. He also abuses his position but manages to do the right things in the end.

A slightly different kind of movie from Shyam Benegal. This is set in a small village in the Hindi heartland. The film also touches on a large number of social issues, like widow remarriage, superstitions, organ selling, muscle power in local elections, the third gender, village infrastructure etc. These are mentioned in passing but the focal point remains the letter writer.

And finally acouple of random thoughts which crossed my mind while watching the movie

1. Pen is mightier than the sword
2. With great power comes great responsibility

Overall, the film is definetely worth a watch

The Shock & After-Shocks

It was some Saturday for the financial markets. Three major shocks in one day, Merill Lynch being taken over by Bank of America, Lehmann Brothers filing for bankruptcy and AIG suffering huge losses. AIG was rescued by the money pumped in by the Fed which for all practical purposes has taken over its control. And all these after the recent collapse of Bear Sterns, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Citigroup has had its value eroded by a large extent. All of these companies seemingly the victims of the sub-prime lending crisis in the USA. The recent collapses come just as the world was on a recovery path from the crude price shock.

During my B-school days, most of the people had come with dreams of becoming an investment banker after completing their MBA. Being placed in Merill Lynch or Lehmann Brothers would have been a dream come true for most people. These investment banks had also built up a reputation of taking the "toppers" only which implied solid acads and excellent communication skills. As time went by people became aware of the other profiles available and moved on to other profiles also. But still being an investment banker was the job.

When I was in second year the sub prime crisis had started taking toll with fears of the oncoming global recession whch would lead to lower packages. However these fears came out to be largely unfounded and the placement figures reached new heights. However six months down the line, it seems that those fears are coming true. With even the big banks collapsing and being taken over, there have been huge job cuts. The finacial markets are down and this may lead to the smaller firms also shutting down. Cost Cutting and downsizing has become the buzzwords across all the sectors. Reports are coming daily of companies cutting jobs or being taken over.

And where does this leave the B-school jobs. During my two year stay at Planet-I, I never worried about not getting a job. And in fact got the exact kind of profile that I had been looking for. But given the current situation, this may not be the case now onwards. The market has to absorb the people who had their jobs cut and the batches passing out from the B-schools. And so the competition would be more while the jobs are getting reduced. The salary figures and packages are expected to go down and new profiles will have to be explored. And quite a few compromises would have to be made.

Situation definetely looks grim, with more and more rumors circulating (I was chatting with a friend who told me that he had heard from some knowledeable person that ICICI was about to go bankrupt due to its dealings with Lehmann). However it is not that bad speacially in India. The growth rat would be lower but still healthy and with the reduction in crude prices, inflation would also be coming under control. And quite a few people would be coming back to India, maybe a reverse brain drain will be take place.

All I can say is lets keep the fingers crossed and hope for the best.

P.S. A friend's post on similar lines is here

http://thedopetimes.blogspot.com/2008/09/career-advice-in-difficult-b-school.html

Another Week Ends

Another week ends and comes another Sunday. The one thing I really do not like about my current job is the 6 day week. Although I maintain strict office timings and havent had to put in too many extra hours on any week day, every Friday comes the bad feeling of missing one rest day. Every Friday, I see the "Weekend :)" status on various gtalk accounts, I still have another day in the office remaining. My week comes to an end late on Saturday evening. With the 6 day week there are many things left over to do on one Sunday. And things really have to be planned out well in advance. And given Mumbai's pathetic and unpredictable weather, plans generally have gone haywire.

After 6 office days comes a Sunday and it has a really lazy feeling about it. Like today morning. I woke up, saw that it was still raining and decided to get back in bed.Then realized that some thinga needed to be cleaned up. Clothes put in washing machine, room rearranged a bit and time for the computer to be put into action. Opened the same old set of webpages, orkut, gmail, facebook, yahoomail, cricinfo and google news. Read the stories of the bomb blasts in Delhi which are now happening with alarming regularity and some other stuff. Have been advised not to venture out too much after the blasts. But then who would want to in this weather. As I write this it is still raining. And being in Navi Mumbai, the places I can go to are the nearby four malls. And as my laptop speakers are not working, I think the best way to spend today would be to just go back to sleep.

Researches.....

It seems some people in this world have nothing to do. So they RESEARCH. As the word itself implies they re-search, search for something which has already been done before. And come to their own new conclusions about this world. Or maybe assume something to be true and then let the world know about it. There have been some quite some weird researches and findings in this regard. Here's another weird research which I found while surfing. According to it alcohol "helps" in remembering the "good times". Another so called benefit of alcohol.

"Researchers have found that people who drink are more likely to remember the good things and least likely to recall the bad things, say, the worst experiences of being drunk in a party as alcohol affects memory in a selective manner."

Here is the link to the full text http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/10alco.htm