Satoma Asadgamaya

India has gracefully exited the ICC Champions Trophy.

In an exhilarating game of cricket, the likes of which not too many teams are capable of, India lost to Australia by six wickets. Defeated - but by no means disgraced.

It was a stupendous performance in line with the age-old Indian tradition of atithi-dharma. India ,being the hosts of the tournament, had an obvious moral responsibility to take good care of their guests. Needless to say, that duty was discharged with aplomb. Also, the phraseology of the tournament name presented a dilemma that had cricket fans all over the world perplexed. ICC Champions Trophy. And not ICC Champion's Trophy. The lack of an apostrophe indicates an inherent entry criterion to participate in the tournament of champions. India's dignified exit served to put an end to that debate as well.

The Indian skipper Rahul Dravid won the toss and elected to bat first. The legendary Sachin Tendulkar was the first to go. Like any good host, he decided to go in order to spare Australia grief while chasing. However he may have been mistaken in his thinking. Because history finds it extremely unlikely that he would have put bat to the ball against the Aussie attack on a pitch which was not Sharjah's . With the exception of the captain, who failed to stick to the team strategy, the rest of the batting line-up played their part in ensuring a smooth passage for their opponents into the semi-finals. Sehwag's effort, an ugly product of the law of averages, only belied his real intentions (which was to return to the air-conditioned cool of the dressing room pronto). Anyway the batsmen huffed and puffed their way to 249 - knowing that it would be a walk in the park for any team up against the Indian bowling attack. Some were heard bemoaning the absence of the hype also known as Yuvraj Singh - who would have single-handedly ensured that the score did not cross 200.

At this point, one would have imagined that the team's cause - to help Australia win their first Champions Trophy - had been accomplished. But the Indian bowlers had other ideas. They sent down thunderbolts and bouncers which struck terror into the very hearts of the Aussie openers. Fortunately, such was the pace generated by the Pathan and Patel and Sreesanth, that the faintest of edges raced away to the boundary. At the end of 14 overs, the Aussie total stood at 100 something. The turbanator Harbhajan Singh joined the party soon after to hand out some lollipops to the run-starved Ricky Ponting. Inside sources inform us that Ponting personally thanked Harbhajan at the end of the match for helping him find his form. At the end of a long and tiring day, Australia finally limped its way to 252 after losing all of FOUR wickets in the process. With FOUR.TWO overs in hand.

There's nothing quite like a good game of cricket. The Aussies are in the semis - they are happy. The Men in Blue returned to their five-star hotel and had the most scrumptious tandoori chicken for dinner - they are happy. The ICC is said to be considering India for the Spirit of Cricket award in recognition of this selfless performance - they are happy. The television ads were sold at a premium - the broadcasters are happy. Everybody is happy. The BCCI president Sharad Pawar is the happiest (although nobody knows why) - he was seen grinning from ear to ear at the presentation ceremony.

It was only spectators who were not happy. The Indian batsmen despatched so many sixers into the stands and the Indian bowlers kept assisting the Aussie batsmen in sending the ball over the ropes so many times that the physical safety of the audience was threatened. In vain did they try to draw attention to their plight by chanting "Hai! Hai!" Unfortunately, with the Indian team being caught up in the passion of purpose, their pleas fell on deaf ears. Needless to say, it didn't take too long for the stadium to empty out.

Management Class : News

mental.baba@blogosphere$pwd
/usr/3rdrock/usa/tx/sat

mental.baba@blogosphere$ps -ef | grep bin
4048 pts/0 20:00:04 /bin/slowdecay
4409 pts/0 21:01:17 /usr/bin/thralldom/71141
5082 pts/0 21:04:55 /usr/bin/metalove

mental.baba@blogosphere$kill 4048; kill 4409; kill 5082
Cannot kill pid 4048. Permission denied.

mental.baba@blogosphere$su
Enter password:
Incorrect password
Enter password:
Incorrect password
Enter password:
Incorrect password

mental.baba@blogosphere$tar -cf truth.dat peace.dat justice.dat | gzip imagination.tar.gz

mental.baba@blogosphere$mv imagination.tar.gz $HOME

mental.baba@blogosphere$gcc -o baba.c
segmentation fault: core dumped

mental.baba@blogosphere$file core
@#^&*$#!@&(%4#22d!~``[+%j)@^.m?

mental.baba@blogosphere$emacs baba.c &

mental.baba@blogosphere$r gcc

mental.baba@blogosphere$./baba.out
Hehehehe!!!

mental.baba@blogosphere$cd
/home/ptd/42

mental.baba@blogosphere$whoami

mental.baba@blogosphere$

mental.baba@blogosphere$

mental.baba@blogosphere$echo $PATH

mental.baba@blogosphere$rm -f imagination.tar.gz

mental.baba@blogosphere$logoff

>_

Management Class : Meandering thoughts of a fickle mind

The Nobel prizes for 2006 were announced recently. In yet another stunning show of ritualized and brazen effrontery, Mental Baba's claims to the honour were rebuffed again by the atrocious designs of the Nobel Committee. And this is the same Mental Baba whose pathbreaking achievements in science and remarkable accomplishments in literature are quite extraordinary to say the least. His passion for world peace and penchant for macro-economics have spawned ideas and ventures which have made the world a better place to live in. The Baba being the savant that he undoubtedly is, recognition and limelight is not important. Only the 1.4 million dollars is.

However, it pains the selfless and noble Baba to see quality research being ignored, time and again, by the unbelievably idiotic custodians of the prize. The Baba would like to demand an explanation from the motley bunch of heretics engaged in desecrating Nobel's name as the years goes by. How could the progenitor of this incredible study, unparalled except by a pair of parallel lines perhaps, be ignored?

Consider the thrust of that gentleman's most enterprising endeavour:

"The central hypothesis underlying my research is that infectious disease can compromise the respiratory systems of lower vertebrates and invertebrates and thereby limit the ability of animals to sustain and recover from normal activities."

Infectious diseases can compromise respiratory systems? And limit the ability of animals to sustain and recover from normal activities?

Mon Dieu! Magnifique! Exceptionnel! This has got to be the greatest thought process that originated in a human mind since Darwin's Theory of Evolution. And, if I may add, it proves that theory right as well.

Which brings me back to my original point - the phoney and ridiculous Nobel Prizes. How could they overlook this incredible effort which could have fitted into any one of the six categories with absolute ease?

#1 Physics - The treadmill. Ah, the treadmill. Not only is it an engineering design worthy of comparisons with the nutcracker, but it has scripted a new and glorious chapter in the annals of nanotechnology. Not to speak of the exciting discoveries in the field of hydrodynamics that come free with it.

#2 Chemistry - The rigorous exercise regime followed by all shrimps will keep them in top shape. This is most desirable for the physiological (and psychological) well-being of the shrimp fraternity as it can catalyze their chemistry with members of the shrimp sorority(and therefore populate oceans of the world with shrimplings, much to the delight of seafood connoisseurs).

#3 Physiology and Medicine - The revolutionary techniques being used in this experiment would undoubtedly lead to pathbreaking cures for the various medical malaises plaguing modern society like dengue and chikungunya.

#4 Literature - The thesis of this most astounding undertaking would top the charts in the New York Times' bestsellers list any day of the week (including Monday).

#5 Economics - Thanks to this inspiring work, the seafood industry will find itself in a position to produce healthier and tastier shrimp. And sell them at a premium of course. This will have a domino effect in the pan-food industry, thus leading to higher wages (and hence better standards of living) for its employees across planet earth, from Uganda to East Timor. Consumers will also get more protein and monounsaturated fats for their buck, thus increasing their productivity and economic output.

#6 Peace - Increased economic stability will have a positive impact on crime rates and minority alienation. Islamic extremists will get suitable employment. They can spend their time fruitfully in cutting off shrimp-heads in seafood processing plants and be happy.

I can almost hear Alfred Nobel turning in his grave. Dunno why.

Management Class : News

Summer has gone -
To distant lands.
Leaving these
Shores and sands.

Summer has gone -
It sailed away.
Like a voyager
O'er the blue bay.

Summer has gone -
To burn elsewhere.
Rivers won't shrink
Under its glare.

Summer has gone -
Away to the south.
The rains are come
To end the drought.

Summer has gone -
There was no goodbye.
It just disappeared.
Only the clouds cry.

Summer has gone -
But winter will come,
Cold and windy,
With brandy and rum.

Management Class : Idylls of the Wannabe

Let me begin by apologizing, in profusion, to those enlightened souls who may not have had the good fortune of growing up in the barely-intersecting intersection sets of the Venn diagrams representative of certain popular languages of India. This post is not for you.

When I was a kid, all eager and curious and enthusiastic about learning new stuff, language always held great attraction for me. Language - irrespective of origin. I would ask my neighbours and my friends all sorts of questions about the various languages they'd speak at their homes - Bengali, Oriya, Marathi , Tamil, even Hu, what not. The song from Khuddar, with its catchy lyrics describing the common refrain of love-struck Romeos in just about every Indian language, was always a big favourite of mine. Ah, the joys of trying to decipher the meanings of strange tongues and to recreate them! And oh! The innocent joy of watching Parveen Babi.

Being a fake gult born and brought up on the very extremity of the Hindi heartland came with its own set of linguistic pros as well as cons. There were three languages that I could speak with some measure of proficiency and intelligibility - English, Hindi and Telugu. I will not risk being lapidated in Panagal Park by attempting to add my version of Tamil to this limited roster which, most unfortunately, could never get any additions on account of subtractive preoccupation for the most part of my storied life.

Anyway, back home in India, I would probably be regarded as a good speaker of English . But that wouldn't be quite the case in the world west of the Prime Meridian. Similarly, I might be considered a fair speaker of Telugu among the substantial population of fake gults around the third rock from the sun but I'd certainly come a pretty big cropper within the confines of gultland. Which brings me to my last and only hope - Hindi. Here again, I was dealt a rude shock today when I realised that my colloquial Hindi wasn't really how it is actually meant to be. And that the only glimmer of hope for me lies in C++ and JCL.

I had been walking back from office with a pure-blood from New Delhi. It had rained intermittently throughout the day and the roads were wet. We pretty much stuck to the sidewalk, careful enough to keep our Hush Puppies clean and shiny (and I might add that he was holding up the ends of his trousers quite daintily as well), until we arrived at a short-cut to our apartment building. A short-cut which would take us through sloshy grounds and inevitable grief.

I cast my eye over it and remarked, quite innocuously, "Arrey kitna kaadaa hai!" The pure-blood, who had been eyeing the mud distastefully, now turned his eyes (and perhaps his distaste I daresay) to me, a mud-blood. "Huh? Kya kaha?" (connoisseurs, especially the ones of New Delhi fame, will note the kya kaha instead of the humble kya bola).

Being deprived of the kind of IQ that comes naturally with a brain nourished by pure blood, I replied without thinking, "Kitna kaadaa hai na?"

"What exactly you do mean?" said he, of the New Delhi lineage, in a tongue tempered by the purest of blood flowing through the millions and millions of its well-fed capillaries.

Like a little boy in a Hindi classroom manned by a ferocious guardian angel of the ancient language, with my fingers nervously clasped behind my back, I mumbled and bumbled, "Kaadaa. You know, kaadaa. All that mud. And all that muddiness. Kaadaa."

He looked at me for a few moments before magnanimously allowing a smirk to creep up that wonderfully chiselled face that is so unique to gentlemen hailing from New Delhi. He sort of decided to take the longer route I guess. Before leaving me to contemplate upon the vast expanse of kaadaa, ahem, slosh that lay ahead of me, he remarked, "So you mean keechad?"

Ah! Keechad! Really, there's nothing worse than dirty language. I'm going to have my dinner in a few moments. And I wonder if the chattu is jhaal.

Management Class : Meandering thoughts of a fickle mind

The unthinkable has occurred. No, the blindingly white-hot Paris Hilton has not written a doctoral thesis titled Kinkajou Mood-Swings : Effect on Solar Storms.

Mental Baba has finally managed to do what he never could in all those years of playing gulli cricket with tennis balls - hit a century. A incredible century of posts in that most magnificent of venues - the Stade de Blogosphere. In front of gazillions and gazillions of starry-eyed fans chanting "Baba! Baba!".

In this new-fangled game called blogging, usually played by peeps who have nothing better to do in real life, Mental Baba has proved himself an outstanding example as a player with a difference.

He had trudged to the crease about two and a half years ago as a rookie playing for the combined team of Truth, Peace and Justice. Technically accomplished but temperamentally suspect, he was not really considered a very smart selection by many (except the opposition).The Baba was essentially a touch player, relying more on a deft flick of his wrists than opening his shoulders up for the big shots. His forte was the soft silken game generally disliked by spectators. He did not have the daring cuts, the booming drives and the outrageous pull shots of the natural strokemakers.

So the Baba found himself on a queer pitch, being dominated by quicks swinging and seaming the ball around quite wickedly. But he saw other players hit huge shots into the stands and race to their centuries and more.

He did what any good Baba would do: he grafted in a way that would have done a Geoff Boycott or a Sunil Gavaskar proud. He limped and staggered towards the magic three figure mark.

Every run is a struggle. It gets harder and harder as the match progresses but, well, he's still batting.

Asked for a comment, the late George Bernard Shaw's spirit (which now inhabits the body of a garden lizard in south Texas) was heard to exclaim: "Blogging is a game of uber fools, played by uber fools and watched by uber fools." Damn! Some peeps never change, do they?

Management Class : Meandering thoughts of a fickle mind