Category: general

Lord’s has been avenged.

In two phases.

First at Bangalore last week.

And now at Galle.

The only difference being that neither Bangalore nor Galle would have changed the ultimate result of the series.

The second-last prediction I made (about Punjab getting relegated), in hindsight, looks fundamentally flawed. After Orissa made 300 in their first innings, I assumed that Punjab wouldn’t be able to face Mohanty in Mohali. Instead it was VRV who cracked in Orissa’s second innings, taking four wickets with five balls as they folded up for 76, with the only decent resistance coming from SS Das.

If you look at day cricket at Mohali, it has always been supportive of the hit the deck types, rather than the swingers. If you recall the first ever test there,? Walsh broke Prabhakar’s nose, and along with Kenny Benjamin, finished off the Indians for a little over a 100. Munaf, on his debut here in 2006, had destroyed England, with help from Anil Kumble (and back then, Munaf was fast). If you discount bowling under lights (when dew makes the ball play tricks, and thus assists the swingers), Mohali doesn’t have much swing. It’s more about the hard deck, and the bounce, and ideally suited for the hit the deck types.

It’s the kind of pitch which is best exploited by a tall and fast bowler with a high arm action who can pitch it at a back of a length, and in that department VRV is one of the best we have in India. Face it, but that’s the truth. Ishant has the height and bounce but lacks pace, and I don’t really know about Pankaj Singh. Another exponent of this kind of bowling is Agarkar, who, despite his lack of height, gets excellent bounce when in form. And there is Munaf. The left armers are all swingers, as is Sreesanth.

Anyways, the point is that Mohali would always be more conducive to someone like VRV rather than a swinger like Mohanty. Hence the bet was flawed.

Two days to go for counting and declaration of results. I hereby stick my neck out and make my prediction. Modi will win. And I don’t think ideology has much to do with it.

After Krishna and Chandrababu lost in 2004, and PVN got mauled in 1996, it has fashionable to say that development won’t win elections. I think it has more to do with impact of development. The reforms ushered in by PVN didn’t touch the common man immediately. The change in economic ideology had no impact on them. He wasn’t “seen” by the common man (and the common man doesn’t watch budget speeches on TV) to be doing much good. And got trounced.

Krishna and Naidu fared worse. They actually made a meaningful impact, but went out. They were seen as do-gooders. Unfortunately, they did significantly more good for a certain section of society as against other the rest of society. And unfortunately for them, the section that? got left out was significantly larger. And they bit the dust.

From what people tell me, and what I read in the paper, Modi seems to have done better. Two things catch my eye – the rural electrification program and some scheme for education for girls. The latter is supposed to have increased school enrolment among girls to a whopping 97% (Source: Today’s business standard. Can’t find the link). The former is supposed to have electrified an even larger proportion of villages. Barring a couple of hundred villages, the rest are supposed to receive 24 x 7 3 phase power supply.

If the above is true, there is no way Modi can lose. Two things he has done that both PVN and the southern CMs missed out. Firstly, the reforms have made an impact during his tenure. It’s there for people to see before they vote again. Secondly, and more importantly, they have been broad-based. In his biggest achievements, I don’t see that he has favored any group over another, so the reforms haven’t alienated anyone, as they did to rural Karnataka when Krishna was CM.

While we are at it, another point to mention here is Chidambaram’s statement regarding the massive increase in Gujarat’s debt burden during Modi’s tenure. Coming from the national Finance Minister, this statement ought to be taken seriously. If it is indeed right, it’s hard to see why the Congress didn’t make a bigger issue of it. If the figures are wrong, the BJP can disrupt the budget session of parliament demanding the FM’s resignation.

Footnote: The last time I made a prediction on my blog, I went wrong. I had predicted that Punjab would get relegated in the Ranji Trophy. And riding on the back of a VRV hat-trick, they made a superb second innings comeback to beat Orissa and thus avoid relegation. Hopefully my forecasts are better this time.

some colleague in my office asked “so how is the new project? liking it?”

I replied, “Do you follow cricket? Test cricket? When a batsman comes in with five overs to go in the day, he doesn’t aim to score runs. All he looks for is to play out the overs without any damage so that he can return the next morning and score. I started this project on the 10th of December”

Inflation is less likely to be noticed in items which you buy regularly. For example, I have seen auto fares in Bangalore going up from Rs. 2.30 per km when I first started traveling alone by auto, to Rs. 6 now (this is the official meter fare). However, since I’ve always been a fairly regular traveler by Bangalore’s autos (even when I was in Madras, I used to come to Bangalore fairly regularly, and travel by auto), I’ve seen the gradual increase in the price. And am hence not shocked by the high prices, and think it (the meter fare) is fair.

Or for another example, actually I can’t think about it. I don’t really remember the prices of too many things. And those that I do haven’t changed. For example, competition from SunFeast has ensured that a packet of Britannia Good Day still costs Rs. 12 – the same as about ten years ago. I buy so many things, but simply don’t track prices. As long as it’s not significantly different from what it was the last time I bought it I won’t crib.

However, it doesn’t work this way for goods that you don’t buy regularly. Rather, if you don’t buy it long enough that inflation gets compounded enough times, then you are bound to get shocked. For example, during my six years of hostel life, I didn’t really go buy bread from our regular baker (for the record, this is the Iyengar Bakery at the Jayanagar 4th Block circle. However, for the last year or so we’ve been buying bread from the Iyengar Bakery between Cool Joint and Pavithra. The new guy makes good brown bread, which the 4th block circle guy doesn’t make). And was shocked that a “pound” now cost 13 bucks. The last time I’d been there it was 7. There was a six year gap and prices in general had gone up enough for the baker to have slowly almost doubled his price. If i’d been visiting him regularly I wouldn’t have noticed.

Have you ever wondered why during your childhood your parents used to crib that everything had become expensive? If you recall, most of their cribbing would’ve been directed at goods which are usually consumed by kids. Fact is that the prices of these things would’ve increased at approximately normal rate of inflation itself (adjusting for lifestyle changes, etc.). Except that your parents would’ve last bought these things some thirty years back. A normal inflation rate compounded thirty times over indeed makes things look expensive.

The reason I thought about this was that I was checking out the Tinkle website only to find that it now costs Rs. 40 per copy. Chandamama now costs Rs. 15. I was shocked and decided that if I were a kid now, I wouldn’t be buying them. However, Tinkle used to be Rs. 10 some 15 years ago, and Chandamama was then Rs. 6 or something. The CAGR of the price isn’t that high! It’s only that you haven’t checked it for so long!

So the next time your parents crib that what you’re buying is way too expensive, ask them when was the last time they bought that. And then pull out a calculator or an Excel and calculate the CAGR (compounded annual growth rate). ??

A few months back Pushy, Baada and i had decided that we’ll write a weekly review of the domestic cricket season. Unfortunately, NED
struck and the project never took off. Baada even stopped general blogging. Anyways, I thought I’d just do a random roundup, if not for anything else, to just try and keep up some bit of a broken promise. If i start crafting an essay now, the thoughts in my head might escape me. So I’ll stick to bullet points.

I’ve spent the last half hour creating a profile for my cousin on various matrimonial websites. A couple of pertinent observations:

1. There is a column which asks you for marital status. And then one which asks for number of kids. As soon as you check “never married” in the former column, the latter column gets blocked. Basically assumes that you can’t use these websites if you’ve had a kid out of wedlock. And this is common to both Shaadi and BharatMatrimony

2. My uncle was dictating as I typed. There was this box which said “tell me about yourself”. And my uncle asked me to fill “I’m the only daughter of a wealthy father”. I wonder what kind of guys will now try to marry my cousin. I wanted to open that craig’slist ad by that female who wanted an ibanker chap. Then I realized my uncle and cousin might not have the patience to read such a long thing so I just continued to type… Of course later when my mom came home, she blasted me for blindly filling it in.

3. I recently came to know of this concept of borrowing homes for a short time for bride seeing ceremonies. Apparently if you haven’t bothered to maintain your house well, and it isn’t exactly presentable, you don’t need to despair. Relatives are obliged to lend their houses to you for the purpose.

4. My uncle instructed me to put in his email ID and not my cousin’s. “If you put her id, she’ll start corresponding without my notice. Can’t happen”, he declared. And she watched quietly as I filled things in. ??

Listening to Barrett on the stereo or using headphones is literally a hair raising experience! No wonder his music was classified as psychedelic rock!

The fundamental sound did change a bit after the Barrett era, and they made some real soothing stuff such as “Echoes” and the entire DSOTM album. However, from time to time, the original psychedelic sound did surface – notably in Animals.

I hereby recommend to all of you to listen to Floyd, especially the Barrett stuff using a good pair of headphones.

With the white ball frequently going out of shape or getting discoloured, the ICC has come up with a new rule – the ball needs to be mandatorily changed after 34 overs, with the new ball being approximately 34 overs old and in good shape and white. Assuming that you don’t rotate the balls (that’ll totally defeat the purpose), the question arises as to where people will find the new balls.

How do you get balls that are 34 overs old and yet in good shape and white? is there a special category of balls being manufactured for this? And the condition of the old ball after 34 overs is highly dependent on the pitch, the batsmen, the bowlers, the outfield etc. In this case, is a randomly picked ball of any use? Will it be fair to both teams?

Instead, we should go back to what used to happen at the World Series Cup. Use two white balls, one from each end. Each ball will be used for only 25 overs, ensuring that it stays in shape and white. Of course, we could have situations where teams prepare one ball for reverse swing while letting the other wear naturally. And the batsman will have to keep in mind whether it’s an odd or even over! It’s ok, it’ll only add to the fun.

There isn’t any randomness and it’s the same for both teams. And the ICC is rich enough to afford for one extra new white ball for every match.

No clue why they didn’t pick this option.