Road To Paris – Episode 11

The Games are nearing and the Qualifications are nearing to a close. We are almost there with just the final few quotas remaining to be awarded and some team announcements to be done. Here is a brief recap of the goings on since Episode 10. A lot has happened since then!

Qualifiers

Archery: Bhajan Kaur added an Individual Quota, which ensured India’s participation in the Mixed event given Dhiraj Bommadevara had secured a Quota in the Men’s side earlier. This was followed by both the Men’s & Women’s Teams getting a place via Rankings. Thus, ensuring that India is fully represented in all 5 Archery disciplines. Tarundeep Rai & Pravin Jadhav join Dhiraj, while Dipika Kumari and Ankita Bhakat join Bhajan to complete the Indian line-up.

Athletics: India Men & Women 4x400m relay teams have qualified for the Games. India has also earned a quota place in the Mixed Marathon Racewalking event. Unfortunately Murali Sreeshankar’s injury means he will not be able to participate despite having breached the Long Jump qualification mark.

Boxing: Amit Panghal (Flyweight) & Nishant Dev (Light Welterweight) qualified in the Final qualification tournament. Meanwhile, Praveen Hooda’s quota place (Featherweight) was returned due to her ban. Instead, Jasmine Lamboriya stepped in as a reserve after cutting down her weight category and regained the Quota place! So 6 Indians will now be in fray at Paris.

Golf: India will have 4 representatives - Gaganjeet Bhullar and Shubhankar Sharma in Men and Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar in Women.

Judo: Tulika Maan (78 KG Women’s) will be the sole Indian judoka

Rowing: Balraj Panwar (Men’s singles sculls) qualified for the Paris Games.

Sailing: Nethra Kumanan (Women’s ILCA 7) earned the 2nd Sailing quota place for India.

Tennis: Rohan Bopanna & Sriram Balaji will represent in Doubles while Sumit Nagal will take part in Singles.

Wrestling: A bit of letdown for India with Aman Sehrawat (57 KG freestyle) as the sole male qualifier. However, India now has its largest women’s wrestling contingent with Vinesh Phogat (50 KG), Anshu Malik (57 KG), Nisha Dahiya (68 KG) and Reetika Hooda (76 KG) securing quota places and joining Antim Panghal.

Squad Announcements

Shooting: Post the qualification trials, quite a few Quota place earners lost out and were replaced. The squad is as follows

Men: Sandeep Singh, Arjun Babuta (10 m air rifle); Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Singh Cheema (10 m air pistol); Swapnil Kusale, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (50 m rifle 3 positions); Anish Bhanwala, Vijayveer Sidhu (25 m rapid fire pistol); Prithviraj Todainman (Trap); Anantjeet Singh Naruka (Skeet)

Women: Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita Jindal (10 m air rifle); Rhythm Sangwan, Manu Bhaker (10 m air pistol); Manu Bhaker, Esha Singh (25 m pistol); Sift Kaur Samra, Anjum Moudgil (50 m rifle 3 positions); Rajeshwari Kumari, Shreyasi Singh (Trap); Maheshwari Chauhan, Raiza Dhillon (Skeet)

Mixed Teams:

• 10 m air pistol: Sarabjot Singh & Manu Bhaker, Arjun Singh Cheema & Rhythm Sangwan
• 10 m air rifle: Sandeep Singh & Elavenil Valarivan, Arjun Babuta & Ramita Jindal
• Skeet: Anantjeet Singh Naruka & Maheshwari Chauhan

Hockey: The following 16 players will aim to defend/improve their bronze medal from Tokyo.

PR Sreejesh, Jarmanpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Harmanpreet Singh, Sumit, Sanjay, Rajkumar Pal, Shamsher Singh, Manpreet Singh , Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Abhishek, Sukhjeet Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh

Qualification Summary for Team India: Sports: 15, Events 59, Entries:83. Athletes: 100

Links: Episode 10  

Coming Up Next: A final round-up of the qualifiers followed by the predictions!

BookMarks #118: Don Quixote

Title: Don Quixote

Author: Miguel de Cervantes

Genre: Fiction, Biographical, Adventures

Published: 1605 (Part I), 1615 (Part II)

Original Language: Spanish

BookMarks

Widely considered as the first modern novel, which also set the template for the classic literature.

This is the story of a man who has become infatuated with the idea of knight-errantry and chivalry after reading many books on the subject. So much so that he considers himself a knight, takes on a squire, falls in love with a lady of his imagination and goes on myriad adventures.

This is the tale of a mind which can simultaneously be considered a brilliant one and a totally crazed one. When he speaks about any other subject, he is rational, more than most but when he takes a whim of being a knight, everything becomes thoroughly disillusioned to an extent, where even the disillusionment is the logical thing in the world to him.

The rational side appears best in the advise given by Don Quixote to his squire Sancho Panza. Yet, over the course of the narrative, Sancho moves to the disillusioned side, while Don Quixote becomes more realistic.

Overall, it is a long, meandering story, which self-references mentioning the adventures in a book and even has another novel written within itself!

Another thing to be noted is that parts of the book have not aged well. What could be considered normal at the time of writing would now be outrightly racist! Just an example to show that cultural understanding evolves.

One line which stood out – “it is always more praiseworthy to do good than to do evil”. Simple yet profound. 

Previously on BookMarks: Same As Ever 

Road To Paris – Episode 10

We are getting closer and closer to the D-Day and more and more qualifying spots are getting sealed up. Here is a quick summary of the updates since Episode 9

Qualifiers

Table Tennis: Men’s & Women’s Teams have qualified via rankings for the first time ever. This also means that there will be 2 Indian players in both Singles events as well.

Weightlifting: Defending Silver medalist Mirabai Chanu qualifies for the 49 KG event as the sole Indian weightlifter at the Games.

Badminton: India will have representation in 4 events through Rankings missing out in Mixed Doubles. Men’s Singles - HS Prannoy & Lakshya Sen, Women’s Singles -PV Sindhu; Men’s Doubles – Satwik Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty duo; Women’s Doubles – Ashwini Ponappa-Tanisha Crasto duo.

Updates

Sharath Kamal will be the flagbearer at the Games.

Athletics: Now 7 Men have breached the Qualification mark in the Men’s 20km Walk. Only 3 can qualify!

Boxing: None of the Indians could earn a Quota place during the 1st Qualifying event and now have to wait for the next set of qualifiers.

Qualification Summary for Team India

Sports: 11, Events 39, Entries:55. Athletes: 66 

Links: Episode 9 

BookMarks #117: Same As Ever

Title: Same As Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

Author: Morgan Housel

Genre: Non-fiction, Self-help, Life Lessons

Published: 2023

BookMarks

A short volume based on a simple premise that planning for the future will depend more on what will not change but remain the same? It is based on patterns which will keep repeating.

Here are a few nuggets from the book:

The main question to ask is what will not change? For predicting the future e.g. base human instincts and responses to stimuli.

Risk is what's left over after you have thought of everything. (Remember the unknown unknowns)

The world is driven by envy. Lower expectations lead to more happiness.

Guiding people's attention to a single point is one of most powerful life skills.

Every market valuation is a number from today multiplied by a story about tomorrow. And stories cannot be always predicted.

The real world is a never-ending chain of absurdity, confusion and imperfect people.

Stability is destabilizing.

Accelerated artificial growth tends to backfire.

Patience and scarcity add the most value.

Remember to stay afraid because that is the best way to not make careless mistakes.

Complex to make and simple to break. Bad news is instant, good news takes time. Progress from compounding takes time and is not often noticed.

You waste years by not wasting a few hours - be a little underemployed.

Plan like a pessimist and dream like an optimist. Save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist.

An expert is always from outside (or as they say घर की मुर्गी  दाल बराबर)

You never know what struggles people are hiding.

It is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than our own.

Medicine is a biological science while being a doctor is a social skill of managing people's expectations.

It's hard to predict a response till you actually experience it firsthand.

Wounds heal, scars last!

Overall, a simple yet profound concept and like the book says a good story-telling. 

Previously on BookMarks: Freedom at Midnight

Road To Paris – Episode 9

We have entered the Olympics Year, and the race for the remaining qualifying spots in heating up. For the Indian contingent, the elations and heartbreaks continue, on the field (and the shenanigans off it).

Here is a quick summary of the updates since Episode 8

Qualifiers

Shooting: After the 2024 Asian Shooting Championships, India now has a qualifier in every single category for the first time ever. 

Men’s: Varun Tomar (10m Air Pistol), Vijayveer Sidhu (25m Pistol), Anantjeet Naruka (Skeet).
Women’s: Esha Singh (10m Air Pistol), Rhythm Sangwan (25m Pistol), Raiza Dhillon (Skeet)

Equestrian: India have a Quota Place in Individual Dressage through Anush Agarwalla – first ever appearance in this particular event.

Sailing: Vishnu Sarvanan earned a Quota Place in Men’s ILCA category

In other news

Badminton: Indian Women won their first ever Badminton Asia Championships. This was also their first ever medal at the event.

Tennis: Rohan Bopanna, at 43 years young, won his first Men’s Doubles Grand Slam title at the Australian Open finally reached No. 1 ranking.

Athletics: 6 Men have now breached the Qualification mark in the Men’s 20km Walk. Only 3 can qualify!

Hockey: Women’s Team fails to reach the Games after finishing 4th in the Qualifiers. A real heartbreak for the team which came so close to a medal at Tokyo.

Wrestling: The mess continues - Elections held, New body elected and then suspended by Govt. An ad hoc committee in place and two separate Nationals held.

Qualification Summary for Team India: Sports: 6, Events 22, Entries:29, Athletes: 44.

Till next time!

Links: Episode 8 

Wisdom in the middle

From today's edition of Times of India came this Garfield comic strip.

Quite a relatable one!

And then remembered a few other lines on the subject

Bread rises in the yeast and sets in the waist

A moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips

I am in shape, Round is a shape

2023: The Year Gone By

Another calendar year closes out. The world moved on from the Covid19 virus, till at the very end a new wave crept in again. As Professor Moody would say, “Constant Vigilance” – which should ideally be a default setting for everyone. 

Anyways here is the list of some events & non-events to remember (or maybe not) the year 2023 AD by.

1. Word of the Year

In a world where AI generated material is becoming more and more visible, “Authentic” being named the word of they year, is hardly surprising. Kudos to Merriam-Webster for making this choice.

Meanwhile, Oxford decided to name “rizz” as their word of the year. I have absolutely no clue what that is supposed to be!

2. Terminology of the Year

Amongst the many risks a flight traveler faced, there was added the risk of being peed upon by a co-passenger! And our enterprising newspapers headlined the culprit as “Urinator”. Talk about the lack of creativity here!

3. Mystery of the Year

On a beach in Japan, there mysteriously appeared a round metallic object. Speculations on its identity ranged from UFOs to spy satellites to Godzilla eggs. But no clear answer emerged.

Meanwhile, aliens are back in the limelight with “alien corpses” displayed in Mexican Parliament  and claims of CIA retrieving UFOs from crash sites.

4. Much Ado About Nothing

One fine day, the social media lights up with “news” of name being changed from India to Bharat. After much shouting in online echo chambers, pointless debates, lots of server space taken up, it all turned into a case of “Much Ado About Nothing”. After all, how does one change a name to a name which already is there?

5. Work-life balance debate

“Youngsters ought to work 70 hours a week to boost productivity and enhance India's competitiveness” – thus spoke Mr. N R Narayana Murthy and sparked what seems to be a never-ending debate on the (lack of) work-life balance, productivity and compensation. In the process providing ideal material for all the LinkedIn gyaanis. Many of whom seemed to be spending more than 70 hours of their week on this debate.

6. Management Lessons of the Year 

The Men’s ODI World Cup provided a full blown opportunity to generate management lessons/takeaways. Glen Maxwell’s 201* vs Afghanistan, Angelo Mathews being timed out, India faltering at the last step, Australia winning (again), Attendance at venues, Pitches, – everything had a life lesson derived from it!

7. The Armchair Experts Edition

They know everything. Any event which hits the headlines also generates a bunch of social media experts. Geopolitics, economics, commodity prices – these are passe. They also operate in niche zones – e.g., Deep-sea diving (the Titan tragedy), Generative AI (Chat GPT), Lunar geology (Chandrayaan landing), Mercenary armies (Wagner group), Short selling (Adani-Hindenburg), Tunnel rescue(Uttarakhand) .

8. When a Prophecy Actually Came True

#AbkiBaarSauPaar – that was the Broadcasters’ tagline for the Asian Games. Quite an aspirational statement, given that India’s best tally till date had been 70 medals. But at the Hangzhou Games, India reached 107 medals! Now, wondering what projections these oracles at Sony make for Paris Olympics!

9. The Dirtiest Match 

World & Olympic medalists on the streets against the Wrestling Federation. The impasse continued. There had to be a solution to it. Nobody in the powers to be even tried. It was definitely not what anyone wanted to see. And the worst bit, it is still not over. Getting suspended by United World Wrestling, Elections held and the sports ministry suspending the newly elected federation within days. Something is totally rotten here.

10. The Chess Siblings

Praggnanandhaa & Vaishali – the first brother-sister duo to become Chess Grandmasters. Both will be appearing in the respective Candidates tournament next year. What a feel-good story.

So this was a bit of 2023. Wishing all readers a Very Happy 2024!

2023 - TYIL

The more I learn, the more I realise that I know nothing.

As another year draws to a close, its time for making of the lists. So without much of a preamble presenting the list of random, totally trivial, and mostly pointless, but fun (at least for me) stuff that I learnt through another year of trawling though the inter-webs and other such endeavors, and most importantly remembered to jot down,

1. India’s first Christmas Cake was baked by Mambally Bakery in Kerala in 1883. (BBC)
2. Hatsuyme – Japanese term for the first dream you have in the new year, which is said to predict how the rest of the year goes! (Kokoro) 
3. Returning Soldier effect – More boys are born during and after wars (Wikipedia). Given the multiple prolonged wars currently going on, could be another validation of this theory.
4. Samosas are banned in Somalia, apparently because their triangular shape in Christian and it is a western food! (News18) Somalis are missing out on a delicacy.
5. In 1976, Airbus managed to get an order of 3 A300s from Indian Airlines. The deal clincher – their Chief Executive Bernard Lathiere was born in Calcutta and showed a picture of himself when he was 3 years old with Gandhiji to the then Indian Airlines top boss, Air Chief Marshal PC Lal. (Source: Business Wars Podcast)
6. Tennis Sets: 6-0 is bagel, 6-1 is breadstick, conceding 0 points – Golden Set, 1 point – silver & 2 points – Bronze Set (Macmillan Dictionary), (Wikipedia) 
7. In colonial times, the roads were illuminated by gas lights which were lit using kerosene. Hence kerosene became colloquially ghaslet.
8. Skeumorph - a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were necessary in the original to to make something new feel familiar in an effort to speed understanding and acclimation. E.g. Floppy Disk as Save button, the telephone receiver as phone icons etc. (Wikipedia) 
9. Terminator Line – the line that divides the day & night sides of a planet. Also called twilight zone. (Wikipedia).
10. Jasper & Jinx – that was the original name given to Tom & Jerry, which was actually the name of a drink! (Link) 
11. Batukeshwar Dutt, who alongwith Bhagat Singh, threw bombs in the Assembly, later co-wrote the movie Shaheed, based on Bhagat Singh’s life and received the National Award for Best Screenplay. (Wikipedia) 
12. Einstein Shape – A shape that can be arranged in a tile formations that never repeats! (Guardian) 
13. Jaquar brand is named after the founder’s grandmother Jai Kaur (Wikipedia) 
14. Cappuccino - means little hood and is named after the colour of the hood worn by the monks in Italy (The Coffee Universe) 
15. Emirp - A prime number whose digits when reversed is also a prime number, e.g., 17 & 71, 13 & 31. (Wikipedia) 
16. The term “mugger” comes from magarmachh! One of the collateral effects of colonization! (Merriam-Webster) 
17. Mickey Mouse has a sister – Mrs. Amelia Fieldmouse!
18. Münchausen Numbers - They can be written as the sum of each of its digits raised to the power equivalent to the digit itself, resulting in the same number. e.g., 3^3+4^4+3^3+5^5=3435
19. Capitonyms – Words which change their meaning if the first letter is capitalized. E.g. March & march; Lent & lent etc. (Wikipedia) 
20. The Hollywood Sign was originally “HOLLYWOODLAND” and as an advertisement for new property in the area.
21. Letters to India’s Antarctic Station are routed through Panaji post office. Just who came up with this interesting idea of Goa & Antarctica sharing a pin code!

This as 2023. Hoping to build on in 2024 with some better noting down techniques.

P.S. Lists from 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022.

Road To Paris: Episode 8

Its been a while since the last post in this series. In the interim, there has been major progress as well as quite few heartbreaks in the Indian sporting arena, particularly in terms of qualifying for Paris 2024. Here is a quick summary:

Qualifiers

• Wrestling: Antim Panghal qualifies in 53 KG Women’s category after winning a Bronze medal at the World Championships. This was an event where the Indian contingent played under the World Wrestling flag as the Wresting Federation is currently suspended due to still ongoing shenanigans.
• Boxing: Nikhat Zareen (50 KG), Preeti Pawar (54 KG), Parveen Hooda (57 KG) & Lovlina Borgohain (75 KG) have earned Quotas at the Asian Games.
• Hockey: Men’s Team qualifies for the Olympics by winning the Asian Games Gold medal
• Athletics: Kishore Jena joins Neeraj Chopra in Men’s Javelin Throw
• Shooting: Quite a few Quota places earned at the Asian Shooting Championships - Arjun Babuta (10 m Air Rifle), Sarabjot Singh (10m Air Pistol), Anish Bhanwala (25m Rapid Fire Pistol) in the Men’s section and Tilottama Sen (10m Air Rifle), Manu Bhaker (25m Pistol), Shriyanka Sadangi (50m Rifle 3 Positions) in the Women’s section
• Archery: Dhiraj Bommadevara earned a Individual Quota at the Asian Championships

Now for the Heartbreaks

It has been the end of the qualifying journey for Football, Rugby, Handball India’s Men’s Football Team have failed to qualify after being knocked out in the 1st round of Asian Cup U-23 Qualifiers

Asian Games Perspective

India had their best ever Asian Games performance in terms of the medals, hitting a century. The Indian contingent actually lived up to the Broadcaster's hype of Abki Baar Sau Paar! Overall, a good feel-good factor. However, for a perspective, here is the Indian medals Tally for the Olympics events only.

Discipline	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Archery	0	1	1
Athletics	6	14	9
Badminton	1	0	1
Boxing	0	1	4
Equestrian	1	0	1
Hockey	1	0	1
Golf	0	1	0
Rowing	0	2	3
Sailing	0	0	1
Shooting	2	5	4
Tennis	1	1	0
Wrestling	0	1	5
Total	12	26	30

Qualification Summary for Team India: Sports: 6, Events 22, Entries:29, Athletes: 44

Till next time!

Links: Episode 7

 

BookMarks #116: Freedom at Midnight

Title: Freedom at Midnight

Authors: Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre

Genre: Non-fiction, History

Published: 1975

BookMarks

The book gives a narrative of the last year of the British Raj from the appointment of Lord Mountbatten as Viceroy of India, to Partition and Independence and Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. The book is at times intriguing, at others gossipy and sometimes filled with gruesome passages presenting the story of those turbulent times.

What is obvious is that it is written from a British perspective. They are presented in a kindly light, traders who somehow ended up ruling the country and never as oppressors. All problems are those of the natives, who couldn’t govern themselves! Talk about whitewashing of history.

Hence, it is best read as Mountbatten’s memoirs and perspective rather than as a work of just history.

A few passages and assertions which stood out for me

• Mountbatten’s claim that if he had been aware of Jinnah's poor health, he may have delayed the deadlines for independence and Partition might not have happened.
• The weighing machines at the railway platforms! Those are finally gone.
• Book banned in Pakistan because it referenced Jinnah having bacon with eggs for breakfast!
• 'Trade not territory', the Company's officers never ceased repeating, was their policy. Yet they ended up ruling and exploiting an entire sub-continent!
• 'The difference between what we do and what we could do would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.': Gandhi
• The eccentricities of Indian maharajas - none more than Kapurthala who decided he was reincarnation of Louis XIV and declared French as his court language
• What an arduous task dividing the possessions between countries must have been. Yet, in one aspect there was no debate - Wine cellars always went to Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan received a credit for what they contained.
• The masses from the villages heading towards Delhi on Independence Day - Tributaries of an immense and triumphant stream, they flowed with the dawn towards the centre of their rejoicing capital to celebrate in its streets the end of a colonization most of them had not even known.
• Gandhi's idea of self-contained village ideas vs industrialization. Something of Aatma-nirbhar Bharat was still there.
• After Independence people refused to pay bus fares, assuming they should now be free.
• £2000 – Cyril Radcliffe’s fee for dividing the countries, which he returned!
• Everywhere the many and the strong assaulted the weak and the few - Still holds true!
• Reading the butchery of the trains was just like the dooms scrolling during Covid times. Wanted to but just couldn't stop. What had gotten into the people.
• Khadi wearing politicians - evidence that the man under it reveres at least the memory if not the message of the man who espoused it.
• The tragedy of Buta Singh Overall, a difficult read. 

Many of the passages are eye-openers. Also, in today’s times, it is easy to see how selective reading of events & confirmation bias can just swing the opinion of the masses. Constant vigilance is the need of the hour to prevent the recurrence of the brutality of those times.

Previously on BookMarks: Dream With Your Eyes Open