As the curtains come down to one of the most anticipated series (Ashes) in the world of cricket, it is already time for the Australians to do some serious introspection.
The score on the 4th day (close to Tea time) of the last test match reads like this, "Australia require another 300 runs with 5 wickets remaining to win the match". This is 'Oval' my friends and England does not loose many on this ground. Only a miracle can save Australia now and if I have to bet, it would be for a England win :-)
So what has happened to the much hyped about 'Australian' dominance? Honestly, nothing much except that they have just lost the belief that they can win from here. Their confidence got dented earlier in the series when Anderson and Panesar made them almost beg to the gods to stop nature's clock and let them bowl for 1 more hour. They lost the next test match very badly. Yes, they did bounce back to win the next one but that was more of England losing it than Australia winning it.
Both the teams came into the decider hoping that it does not end in a draw. Few years back and in a similar situation, Australia would have wont it by the 3rd day itself but this team and its members do not have the same confidence that existed in the era of Warnie, Pigeon, Gillie and of course the big-hitting Hayden.
I have always said that may be Ponting is a better batsman than Tendulkar but his arrogance (both on and off the field) has ensured that he does not have a huge fan following. Now I have started to believe that he is not a great captain too. May be it is time that CA looks at the 2 Michaels in their team lineup (Clarke and Hussey) as people who are going to revive the old glory. Personally, I am not a big fan of Clarke because I think that he has already learnt what he should not have from Ponting whereas Hussey on the other hand can bring something new to them.
Looking forward to the steps CA would take in the next few months...
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The 'Coffingate' scam
Come on guys - we are not a corrupt nation?
A scam on coffins being procured during and post the Kargil war has finally seen charge sheets being filed (after a decade!!) 500 aluminium caskets ordered during the Kargil war and at a price of $2,500 per casket i.e. ~INR 1.2 lakhs (at a decade old value of rupee).
Take this now - most of the soldiers who gave their life never even got $2,500 as their cumulative annual remuneration for serving the country. Our politicians and bureaucrats have managed to make money out of dead bodies also now and these were not ordinary people. These were dead bodies of the brave people who decided to give their lives for their country and we surely gave a 'fitting' farewell to them...
Ashamed again,
Suhel
A scam on coffins being procured during and post the Kargil war has finally seen charge sheets being filed (after a decade!!) 500 aluminium caskets ordered during the Kargil war and at a price of $2,500 per casket i.e. ~INR 1.2 lakhs (at a decade old value of rupee).
Take this now - most of the soldiers who gave their life never even got $2,500 as their cumulative annual remuneration for serving the country. Our politicians and bureaucrats have managed to make money out of dead bodies also now and these were not ordinary people. These were dead bodies of the brave people who decided to give their lives for their country and we surely gave a 'fitting' farewell to them...
Ashamed again,
Suhel
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Law of Convenience
Everybody tries to always make others believe that your thoughts are facts and theirs is a perception. We will always have situations where people do not have the same thoughts about varied subjects and they will keep on arguing why what they believe is right and have a thousand examples to prove that.
I come to my favourite theory - the theory of LOC (Law of Convenience). We believe in what we find convenient to believe in. Convenience as a factor itself may change with time but till the time it stays constant, our thoughts remain constant. We do not change our opinion about things or people, we change the level of convenience with respect to them. LOC to me is the only universal law (and right now I find it convenient to write about it as thus I believe in it or vice-a-versa if that is what you think is right).
Can we scrap this whole convenience factor and redefine it in our lives? Far easier said than done; reason being that life is not as easy as we would want it to be. But it is not impossible...
Unless and until, you believe in re-birth and 'Karma', I think life is short and you need to go by what your heart says instead of your mind. I am not a very philosphical person but still believe that our lives and our satisfaction is all about how comfortable we are with ourselves on every single day of our lives. Living on our own terms is critical but may be not the only thing.
Last few days have been an eye opener because I had almost made myself believe in something that I honestly did not. I am back to square one and that is because my definition of convenience has changed yet again!!
I come to my favourite theory - the theory of LOC (Law of Convenience). We believe in what we find convenient to believe in. Convenience as a factor itself may change with time but till the time it stays constant, our thoughts remain constant. We do not change our opinion about things or people, we change the level of convenience with respect to them. LOC to me is the only universal law (and right now I find it convenient to write about it as thus I believe in it or vice-a-versa if that is what you think is right).
Can we scrap this whole convenience factor and redefine it in our lives? Far easier said than done; reason being that life is not as easy as we would want it to be. But it is not impossible...
Unless and until, you believe in re-birth and 'Karma', I think life is short and you need to go by what your heart says instead of your mind. I am not a very philosphical person but still believe that our lives and our satisfaction is all about how comfortable we are with ourselves on every single day of our lives. Living on our own terms is critical but may be not the only thing.
Last few days have been an eye opener because I had almost made myself believe in something that I honestly did not. I am back to square one and that is because my definition of convenience has changed yet again!!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Life is too short to think about small things and too long to not have them :-)
62 years of Independence, 3 pegs of Black Dog, 4 Pegs of Glen Drummond, 1 pint of Tubourg and 5 shots of Baileys could not do it but 1 message did...
It is strange that after almost 16 months, I am back on my blog but not because of anything else except a short 1 liner from a friend asking me why I do not blog anymore!! Answer is simple: The classic lame excuse - 'I don't get time for all this...'. But today I am taking out that time and writing about something that I have always wanted to.
Although history was my favourite subject in social studies, I never understood why we should know about our history; I still do not have any idea. But the interesting part is that every time this question came back to me, I always thought of my own life's history and it has always led to introspection resulting every time into a new learning. Today the catalyst was a question for which I did not have a good answer and made me think again. This is the 2nd time in 3 days that I have been asked a question for which I did not have a concrete answer. I know all this sounds vague but so have been the answers in my mind - I guess introspection always leads to a situation like this...
So what's the learning of today's introspection? - Life is too short to think about small things and too long to not have them :-)
Often we do not notice the 'signs' that the world wants us to see and with the result, we fail to appreciate that comes to us. Even if we manage to notice these 'signs', more often than not, we do not value them. I guess the key is to look for those 'signs' and grab them because you never know what is in store for you tomorrow. My most memorable days of my life are still those moments where almost insignificant things happened to me - catching butterflies in my house, playing cricket with my brother, my first movie marathon in Qatar, my crush in school, burning my hands trying to save my popcorn, cooling the beer bottles in the water cooler of a hostel, the double rainbows, the crazy little things in office, etc. The fact is that after so many years, I find these incidents insignificant or small but at that point of time, they were huge events for me.
We keep on reciting our history in front of strangers, friends, relatives and colleagues without realizing that these were probably the 'signs' that we were suppose to grab and we did. The important questions are that were there more such 'signs' that I missed noticing and is it that my life would have been more pleasant if I would have - for sure yes... Unfortunately, I cannot go back in time but can I use my senses more effectively to grab more of them in future - for sure yes...
Life is seriously too long to not have such moments so let us go ahead and look for those 'signs' and safely store it in our memories so that when we look back, life looks more balanced and brings a smile on our face :-)
Cheers
It is strange that after almost 16 months, I am back on my blog but not because of anything else except a short 1 liner from a friend asking me why I do not blog anymore!! Answer is simple: The classic lame excuse - 'I don't get time for all this...'. But today I am taking out that time and writing about something that I have always wanted to.
Although history was my favourite subject in social studies, I never understood why we should know about our history; I still do not have any idea. But the interesting part is that every time this question came back to me, I always thought of my own life's history and it has always led to introspection resulting every time into a new learning. Today the catalyst was a question for which I did not have a good answer and made me think again. This is the 2nd time in 3 days that I have been asked a question for which I did not have a concrete answer. I know all this sounds vague but so have been the answers in my mind - I guess introspection always leads to a situation like this...
So what's the learning of today's introspection? - Life is too short to think about small things and too long to not have them :-)
Often we do not notice the 'signs' that the world wants us to see and with the result, we fail to appreciate that comes to us. Even if we manage to notice these 'signs', more often than not, we do not value them. I guess the key is to look for those 'signs' and grab them because you never know what is in store for you tomorrow. My most memorable days of my life are still those moments where almost insignificant things happened to me - catching butterflies in my house, playing cricket with my brother, my first movie marathon in Qatar, my crush in school, burning my hands trying to save my popcorn, cooling the beer bottles in the water cooler of a hostel, the double rainbows, the crazy little things in office, etc. The fact is that after so many years, I find these incidents insignificant or small but at that point of time, they were huge events for me.
We keep on reciting our history in front of strangers, friends, relatives and colleagues without realizing that these were probably the 'signs' that we were suppose to grab and we did. The important questions are that were there more such 'signs' that I missed noticing and is it that my life would have been more pleasant if I would have - for sure yes... Unfortunately, I cannot go back in time but can I use my senses more effectively to grab more of them in future - for sure yes...
Life is seriously too long to not have such moments so let us go ahead and look for those 'signs' and safely store it in our memories so that when we look back, life looks more balanced and brings a smile on our face :-)
Cheers
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
