UDRS- Umpire Decisions RUINING System

The league phase of this tournament is not yet over and we have seen sixes flying, some stunning catches being taken and some simple ones being spilled (yes, you know whom I'm talking about), excellent displays of batting and bowling, a tied match, upsets, huge run chases, a TV being broken, and yes, of course, umpires messing up decisions tanks to new fangled technology, which has only, as Dhoni says, "adulterated human decision making".

What the decision review systems have brought with it is more confusion. Reminds me of Michael Crichton's words "A complex system will always a lot of problems". A complex game such as Cricket has N number of problems. Rules are written in a language which border heavily on the lines of ambiguity. Sometimes, I'm sure even the greatest lawyers, judges and pundits of the game must have been confused by some rules.

There have been quite a few umpiring errors in recent times, that too with the use of such advanced technology. The worldcup may lack the cutting edge of the hotspot or the assistance of the snicko, but certainly, it has the hawkeye to make some of the LBW decisions easy for the umpire. All that the umpire has to do is to ask the third umpire at the behest of the player who questions the decision. Despite technology which can show out and not out clearly, there are some utterly stupid umpiring errors made.

Technology has been introduced into a game as lengthy as cricket, which once Hitler commented when watching a test match "I could've conquered another country in 5 days", to make sure that correct decisions are reached. Of late, there have been ghastly errors which show reputed umpires in poor light. Why do such errors occur?
1. Umpires these days rely far too much on technology. All the parameters for an LBW decision are shown on a big screen alongwith the reply, but the technology still cannot judge the amount of turn or bounce that the pitch provides at that point of time. The umpires would love to see hawkeye telling them that also, so that decisions can be made properly. What do you guys have a brain with immense cricketing knowledge and experience for?
2. Rules, rules and more rules, which are made ambiguous by each letter.

I could think of only 2, and there could be many more.

Gone are the days when good umpiring decisions were made solely by the two on field umpires. Maybe, with the advent of such technology, umpires could be done away with in the future. Lets just hope that we don't find that happening really soon. Cricket would never be the same if not for umpires like Billy Bowden, and Simon Taufel. Humans can make errors, even utterly stupid ones, on their own that is, but the game will live on. When technology interferes with plain and simple human decision making, it not only makes some highly respected umpires look foolish, it also causes a lot more confusion and sometimes even controversy when the decision making is thrown back to the on field umpire.

The game can only improve by either standardizing the UDRS components. Either make it all (hotspot, hawkeye and snicko) or nothing at all. An already complex game doesn't need a further complexity in terms of absurdly wrong decisions made even with the help of technology.

Real life inspirations

When someone asks me whom do you look to for an inspiration- that man's name comes out of my mouth so spontaneously. The greatest test captain India has ever had- Saurav Chandidas Ganguly. Imagine the guts that man had. He went to the brink of his career ending in a manner that would hardly befit his glorious career. He made a comeback from that point, went on to prove his critics wrong. Played a belligerent innings against South Africa on his comeback, when the entire Indian team including Rahul Dravid was reeling under the bowling attack from South Africa. This man stood up and said- I will not go down so easily and he proved his critics wrong- time and again during the last few months that he played for India. That man is an inspiration for anyone, anyone who knows cricket would know him for all his efforts. Especially that of irritating Steve Waugh on his quest to conquer the "final frontier" and his efforts of building the present Indian Cricket team, his efforts as a player in the team were innumerable, his partnerships with the god of Indian cricket- Sachin Tendulkar, all that.Of course- his fighting 144 against Australia in Brisbane will remind everyone what sort of a cricketer he was. Winning was all that mattered for the former captain, losing was not an option. India played to win under his captaincy. The team never looked for anything less than a win in any situation. Saurav Ganguly did not go down without a fight. He fought till the very last ball he faced and the very last ball he bowled and fielded. His acts of sterling leadership and all his majestic innings will never be forgotten by anyone who has watched cricket and loved the sport.

Another man who inspired me in just one single act of heroism was Anil Kumble, another former captain but a legend in his own right. The moment of inspiration was when he came out to bowl against the West Indies, after his jaw was broken. He had his head bandaged and proceeded to bowl and even managed to pick a few wickets. How can anyone who mention Anil Kumble's name, fail to mention his greatest achievement ever- 10 wickets in an innings against arch rivals Pakistan. That's what every INDIAN fan will be proud of when they say Kumble's name.

Sachin Tendulkar has always been an inspiration. But one moment that will remain etched in every Indian's memory was when he had back spasms while playing against Pakistan in Chennai and he went on to take India close to victory, but could not achieve that. That particular innings will stand out, more so, because, even though India lost that match- the Chennai crowd payed due respects to the winning team by giving them a standing ovation. However, that stellar- 98 off 75 balls against Pakistan at Centurion, where Sachin and Sehwag tore Pakistan apart to give India a fantastic win over their arch rivals will take the crown.

When it comes to the Indian cricket team as a whole- the Natwest Trophy final of 2002 against England is the one that will remain on top. Purely due to the reason that it was a complete team effort, with youngsters, putting their hand up to be counted. However, the sweetest memory of a team being inspired is South Africa- inspired by Gibbs and Smith beat Australia, who had earlier posted the world's highest total in a one day match by scoring 434 in 50 overs. Australia celebrated too soon and ended up having to lose to South Africa who ravaged the Australian bowling attack.

One other team that has inspired me- Liverpool F.C. (even though- I'm not a Liverpool fan). Led by Steven Gerrard, Liverpool took on A.C.Milan in the Champions League final in 2005. By half time- Milan had got 3 goals on board. Scoreline- Milan 3 - 0 Liverpool. At 90 minutes, Milan 3-3 Liverpool. Those 3 goals scored by Liverpool was within a space of 5 min, ladies and gentlemen. The game dragged on to penalties, where Liverpool beat Milan to win the Champions League. Being 3-0 down at half time and coming back to win it is no mean feat by all means.

Apart from all these examples, one man- Mr. Narayanamurthy, Infosys chief. His brains- well, honestly- I dont have them, but someday, with experience- I might get some maybe 0.00000001% of his brains. Well, his success story, he started with a vision and not much of capital. Apart from that, Mr. Narayanamurthy didn't have a business background to begin with.

Look where Infosys is now. One thing which he and his core team, which included Mr.Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India, which built the company must have had was- HARDWORK, which doesn't come easily. Now that s something to draw inspiration from.

However, one guy whom I look to as a personal inspiration is one of my best friends (who never reads my blogs). He hardly used to be the academic sort of a person. He was more of the hanging out type, who just made the cut in our 12th standard. He went on to do extremely well at college, way beyond all our expectations. When he joined college, his college's director (or whatever they call him) told "how you make your entry in this college is not important, how you make your exit is important." And my friend went on to prove it to us. Today he is one of the most respectable guys that graduated from his college.

Remember these people, they are really the ones from whom anyone and everyone can draw inspiration from. Each one of us would certainly have our own people to draw inspiration from and will certainly differ from one another.

Back where I come from

I don't know if any of my American friends read this blog, but if you are reading.. just carry on..

Well, back where I come from, I find my streets crowded with people, cars and my roads are always buzzing with activity, whatever be the time of the day. Here in Buffalo- its a surprise to see ten people walking on the road at any point of time. I always find it very odd not to find too many people on the roads, because my eyes are used to it and also used to looking for known faces where ever I go.

To buy a chocolate, I needn't walk a kilometer down a so called main road. All I need to do is pop down the stairs, buy it and get back home. Cars don't stop by for pedestrians and people keep bumping into each other. Signals do change and people don't forget to break rules.

At the fag end of each month, cops stand at almost every road, waiting for unsuspecting prey to cross their path and at the end of the day, they are the rajas. Back home, I didn't think twice about spending on anything, now things are such that, the thought of spending doesn't occur that often. Back home- I agree- I didn't walk much, but here, the number eleven bus's my main mode of transport.

I hardly used to see a cop having a gun on his person, but here, there's not a single cop who doesn't have a gun. Back home, proper queues are rarely ever seen, while there's a queue for everything here.

Back home- I could watch TV, here I don't have a TV. I used to watch a movie at Satyam, almost every weekend or atleast twice a month- here, I watch a movie that I ve watched a thousand times over.

Pani puri and Bhel puri used to be an item, which I could eat at will, now- merely seeing those items at the India store, brings back memories of having those stuff at chat stalls all over the city. I used to ask dad to change the old zen for a new car, now merely seeing my old zen, would certainly make me feel happy.

I used to sympathise with many of my friends who used to stay away from home, as they miss their mother's cooking. Now I have some of my friends who sympathise with me for that. Back home, staying awake till 1 am in the night would mean that I would still mean that I wake up by 8 am in the morning, but here, I wake up only by around 12 pm.

I had everything at my disposal at home, here I have nothing at my disposal. It s a cycle of life mates, whenever you have something, you don't realise its value and when you are away from it, you realise it's value many fold. When I asked one of my friends if he had ever been tipped by a customer at the food court where he works, he sorely recollects, never having tipped any waiter at any hotel that he went to, and now he hardly gets any tips.

But really, whenever I see something written in Tamil or Hindi, really- I get so excited, because, it's not everyday that I get to see something like that here. However, living in a maximum Indian area of Buffalo, I'm happy that I atleast get to speak in Tamil and Hindi rather than ending having to learn chinese and learning to catch the American accent, which does take sometime to understand.

Its been 2 months since I landed up here, but I'm still to actually realise that I'm away from my dear old Chennai.

But one thing that I have carried from home till here is Faith and Hope, which will certainly take me through tough times.

P.S: Mum, I know you'll read this, don't worry. I'm all fine here, jus wanted to let ppl know how things are here.

Buffalo....

Finally, landed up in this dumb place called buffalo (aka ERUMAI). Its a very small town, literally the size of Nungambakkam, T.Nagar and West Mambalam put together. That's d size of it.

Anyways, down to business- its been a over a month since I landed up here. It s nt really my kind of a place. Very small, very quiet. Not much ofactivity round here- except the univ though.

The univ- SUNY buffalo, fondlyknown as UB- well- its a nice cool place.

A huge campus- known as the north campus (That s where all my classes are). Lots of activity only in this part of buffalo, really. and one thing I noticed here was that I got to see a lot of Indian and Chinese faces rather than a lot of American faces. Anyways.

After getting all that used to just going downstairs to buy anything I need, walking more than half a kilometer to get even a chocolate seems.. ugh.. really. And after having lived on 2 of possibly the most busiest roads in Chennai, staying in a very quiet street in a very sleepy town doesnt appeal a lot to me. I do miss Chennai really, despite all the negatives that it may have, Chennai is home.

Hmmm.. food- yes- mum, if you are reading this, I miss that vathakozhambu a lot, though we made an attempt to make it, it doesn't come out that well. Im just yearning for some proper Indian food(at a very cheap rate). Anyways, we do have good food(by our standards of cooking though- which is by no means- abysmal)- Thank god. Ofcourse- Pizza's good and cheap by all means, so we do have pizza on a regular basis.

Transport- Guys- I'm sure whoever knows me only reads this blog, so Im sure you still remember how I look. I'm still the same size.lol. We have quite a distance to walk everyday, and that gives us enough to burn whatever we eat. We walk from home to the south campus, which is near home, catch the shuttle to north campus. For every place other than north campus- there s the bus (namma ooru ptc- athey than) and trains (to go to the main city- never been there yet). The buses are never crowded- cos everyone has atleast 1 car here. I guess the trains should look similiar to the ones shown in the movies here.

Entertainment- best entertainment- sleep. Well there s the downtown buffalo that one can go to for timepass, lots of shopping can be done at walmart, boulevard mall, etc. and there s a mokka theater called amherst here, that hardly anyone goes to. Most people at Buffalo tend to stay at home and relax rather than roam around. Damn- I miss Satyam, Pondy Bazar, etc.

Cimate- This place is really freaky with the climate. It was warm and sunny this morning( uncharectaristically) and its started raining when I started for classes. There's this line about Buffalo-"Don't like the weather? Come back in 5 minutes."

Biggest attraction- Obviously- Need I say anything at all. Common Knowledge. Niagara. Well, Buffalo's economy thrives on 2 things- UB and Niagara.

My opinion about Buffalo- Sucks, that too after coming from a big city like Chennai. But UB rocks absolutely.

A tour to the heartland of terror- Day4- Pahalgam

Bleary eyed and not in quite the right frame of mind, I struggled to come to terms with daybreak and finally did so. Post breakfast, we embarked on an hour's drive to a path that led to the famous Amarnath temple. That point was supposed to be the start to the holy Amarnath yatra.

Another icy place. God knows I became sick of ice then and there. My cousins took to the ice, a little reluctantly, due to their dad's insistence. Off they went trekking, I even thought, at this rate, they'll probably touch some peak and won't get back. After about a half hour or so, they came down, happy to land their feet on solid ground.

A few minutes after they came down, we were herded back to the Sumos and off we went to a place called Aru valley (apparently called the Switzerland of India. ) Wonder if Switzerland is really that cold. Brrr.. frozen hands when we reached the end of the pony ride. I was really happy to find a tea stall. And it would be a crime, not to mention a Kashmiri speciality called kawah. It s basically a decoction of tea, in which you add things like broken pieces of badam and cashew and some fine grounded ginger and masala. A very nice drink for the really cold weather, keeps you really warm.

Dinner- once again the same menu, no big change, except for the soup and the sweet dish. Gulab Jamun. As usual, you could here my grandmother and her cousin groaning for south Indian food. I finished my dinner quickly, to catch the IPL match in the lobby. I am very thankful to BSNL, for that was the only provider whose signal was picked in all of Kashmir. And I am very thankful to my dear dad for letting me use his phone. God knows what the bill'll come up to.

One nice comedy that I noticed during this trip was that my grandmother (who's a little hard of hearing- like Prof. Cuthbert Calculus, of Tintin comics.) She and her cousin would give different interpretations for anything that they talk about. I even thought of it like, 2 schoolkids, who when they see a cloud say- hey that s an elephant. no, stupid, that's a cow. That way.

One more night- half asleep. Thankfully, there was a room heater this time. It was really cold on that night. Before sleeping, I had the luxury of stretching out in front of the heater in my parent's room. My thoughts before falling asleep, quite late into the night- Wonder when the hell 'll I return to Chennai? Now I knew how Steve Harmison must feel on every tour that he goes on.

The Indian TALIBAN

Everyone knows what the Taliban did in Afghanistan. Then you may ask me, I know it, why the hell are you writing this then? Well, Taliban has apparently surfaced in India too.
WHAT???!!!!

Well, this Taliban dont wear attires similar to the ones worn by the ORIGINAL Taliban. This Taliban wears ORANGE/SAFFRON. Yes people, This is our very own, HINDUTVA (or whatever they call it) Taliban. India has always been a strong critic of the Taliban and here is our very own Taliban that displays a brutality that can only be matched by the people who inspired them.

The papers screamed about the recent attacks, by the ram sene on an MP's daughter. The reason- She was found talking with a Muslim guy on a bus. Err.. Pardon me if I'm mistaken. I don't think she was talking to an alien creature about how to take over the earth or something? or is talking to a Musalmaan so illegal and Taboo in Karnataka, that there is hardly any person there that fails to interact with their muslim colleagues, or is ram sene gonna attack anyone and everyone who is found interacting with a muslim?

Apart from all that, Valentine's day IS wrong in India, as per our culture, it should be banned. That s what the ram sene wants right? Alright. Well, Far as my memory goes, everything we use today, right from A-Z, from calculators to computers, from mobile phones to cars, everything came to India. All these were not a part of Indian culture. And the concept of independence day too, once again borrowed from the west. We follow all these but what exactly is wrong with Valentine's day? You are all fathers and mothers to someone. You accept fathers day and mothers day wholeheartedly because you are happy that your son/daughter remembers that day and wishes you and buys stuff for you and keeps you happy. Is there no thought in your mind that your son/daughter may have someone close to his or her heart that he/she may choose to express the love in their hearts on a chosen day.

Well, It's just another day. Come on ram sene, Give us youngsters a break. And who on earth gave you the idea that young India does not have any regard or respect for Indian traditions.
Count the no of heads with grey hair and saffron cloth in a temple, no, you wont find too many.

The Taliban did all that they could to wreck their country from within, in the name of protecting Islam. The ram sene, appear to be doing the same thing. Such activities should be nipped in the bud and made sure that such weeds do not crop up again.

OK, what exactly do these people want? That people wear only saffron coloured traditional clothing? That women be humbled so much that we would not be having a lady as a president? That people should never ever interact with a Muslim colleague/friend? All these issues seem so superficial, when there are extremely important issues to be targeted.

India already has enough problems thanks to terrorists and corrupt politicians. And this is only adding fuel to the fire. Should the members of ram sene,etc, have something called a brain (if you know what it is. And if u don't know what it is- it's a cauliflower shaped thingy that tells you what to do and what not to do. and if it dies, you are dead.) they should realise that their acts of brutality and total nonsense are only demeaning the country.

Hope the ram sene and many such moral-policing organistaions realise that they are a disgrace to the country and shut up their work and do some work to help the country grow, not in population, but in stature, in respect, in economy , in prosperity. And....




































DON'T MAKE INDIA LOOK LIKE A JACKASS BY YOUR STUPID ACTS OF MORAL POLICING. YOU ARE DOING MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

Dynasty or Die-nasty??

Ever seen dynasty politics?? or at least heard of it??

Well.. what exactly is Die-nasty or is it dynasty politics? Little too confusing ain't it? Simple, yet so complex.. That's what it's all about. Dynasty politics is a little complex compared to die-nasty politics..

Die-nasty politics.. easy one.. politics in which u get to die in a nasty way.. ugh.. that's die-nasty politics. for eg: You get involved with a tiff with your rivals, and they are out to get you; Make you feel real bad about that tiff, so they put up a really devious plot, which 'll get you killed or at least hurt very badly. Now, that's what you'd say Die-nasty politics.

Toughie- Dynasty politics.... this 's something more delicate than the die-nasty politics. Simply put, a dynasty is a family. So, it 's more often than not called, family politics. Now, family politics, as popularly known, it's basically all the political happenings within a family. Consider a very Indian scenario, to better understand family politics. To understand this deeper, consider a typical, Indian joint family.

In a typical joint family, it's more or less like the elders rule the roost. In the elders itself, in almost 9 out of every 10 families, have the poor male "head" of the family, who happens to be the "head" only as a name. AKA rubber-stamp . This "head" has to obey his wife, who happens to be more or less dominating. She continues to dominate the male, till the poor guy passes away.. that's a bad one.. Then, in the heirarchy, comes the daughters of the "head". These daughters. These daughters are eventually the mother's pet. Obviously, if there are more than one daughters , the last one's bound to be the favourite. And the the last daughter's kids get more attention and care than even the son's kids.

And yes of course, just like their mother, these daughters tend to go after their husbands, reducing their husbands also to the status of their father, the rubber-stamp. Finally, lowest down in the order would come the son, his wife and kids, who do everything for the "head" and his wife, who hardly ever recognise anything done by them. To the "head" and his wife, or to be even more precise, the wife would hardly ever give a shit to what her daughter in law does or says. Then, even if the daughter in law's extremely good, she gets kicked even then. Right from day one, when a girl gets married into a typical Indian joint family, she is looked at with such contempt, like she 's meant for bonded menial labour. Not only does the head's wife irritate her, she draws flak from her sisters in law for being the nice girl that her husband and mother in law want. Apart from all this, she has the additional burden of taking care of her parents and siblings; which is to compound her already existing problems. Final nail in the coffin- she goes to work and has an extremely demanding boss. Bad times befall her everywhere. All in all to sum it up- it's saas vs bahu, everywhere, with all the others playing supporting cast.

Poof.. That's just the outline, and I know, your eyes bleed already. Imagine, if this 's just the trailer, then the movie??? Anyways, it's all a part and parcel of life in an Indian family...


"All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts,"

Where do these lines fit in? The rubber-stamp was once upon a time a kid to his mother, then a husband to his wife, a father to his kids and then finally a grandparent to his grandkids. Implied meaning- Males are always dominated by his female counterpart. There may be a few families in which the females are dominated. If you, as a reader are from one of those few families, please forgive me.

Disclaimer: The above post was written from my own observations. Any resemblance to any real life happening is purely coincidence. And, I'm not a chauvinist.