Shane Warne’s Century

The book is an interesting collection of personal anecdotes about international players that Shane Warne has played with or against, and he ranks these players in a particular order based on several factors.  At the onset, Warne outlines several hints as to what these factors are, but does not give the weight he assigns for these factors.  Before even he begins to rank the players, he confides that it is his personal opinion, thus it is open to debate.  For an international cricket career spanning 15 years, Warne has obviously seen many different, colorful, varied characters on field and it is very enthralling to hear a first-hand account of his encounters with many of these great players. More than the ranking, his battle with these players are much more appealing.

Warne is an unbelievable competitor and it shows in the way he writes about his battles. I have come to appreciate his cricketing brain after reading his thoughts on the players. His on-field statistics is a testament to his greatness as a bowler but his intangible qualities holds me deeply intrigued.  Warne’s bowling strength (more than his mastery of leg spin) is the control he is able to muster on his techniques. There are lots of bowlers who have excellent technique, but at the highest level it is control and temperament that differentiate the really good from the great. Warne joins the elite class purely by his probing tactics.

There is very little room for doubt in the top ten list of players.  Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara top the list primarily because Warney had no obvious plan to figure these two guys out. They hardly had any flaws in technique (Lara was more unorthodox but still very composed) that his leg spin could expose. If there was one player Warney would have traded for Glenn McGrath in the Australian team, it would have to be Curtly Ambrose. Amby is a guy who took complete advantage of his height to generate pace/bounce, thereby making himself extremely awkward to face. Moreover, he was the last of the Windies pace machines to truly live up to the word called ‘intimidation’. He let the ball do the talking rather than his mouth and his 7 for 1 against a Australian batting line up comprising Boon, Border and S Waugh is ample proof.  50% of the top ten are Aussies – McGrath, Ponting, M. Waugh,  Border and Healy. Overall the book makes a very interesting read, with quite a bit of incisive analysis thrown in on each player’s strengths/weaknesses as perceived.

On IPL commentary

Clearly, Richie Benaud’s crisp advice on commentary “Don’t say anything unless you have something to add to the picture” is kicked and thrown out of the door in this IPL. Infact, the opposite of the veteran commentator’s advice is being followed by most of the commentators. I don’t know if you have heard any of those so called “punch” lines, but here’s an excellent one. Situation: AB DeVilliers does a fantastic piece of fielding (as most SA players do) in the Chennai Superkings match and because of the way he stopped the ball, his back has a quick tinge of pain and this is shown on TV. Commentary from Jeremy Cony: “<Some superlative praising this fielding>. May be he’ll get a massage tonight”.

If you have ever heard this Cony fellow speak, he packs suspense, theatre and drama in the most superfluous way possible. Harsha Bhogle was top on his wit when he entered to comment with him, to mock this guy’s fakeness in creating suspense, by a “Hello Mr. Cony” in a very close imitation of the corny voice.  In the same match, Mr. Cony gave immense build up for Albie Morkel, by repeatedly saying that “He’s a player who maximizes mayhem“, even though he did not hit a single clean shot until then. At the end of the match, his statement turned out to be a huge farce as Albie did not maximize anything for the Chennai team. A few other gems by others that I did not have a chance to hear are listed here .

A cricket writer named Gideon Haigh summarized succinctly in one of his articles:  “When 20 off 10 balls exhausts your superlatives, how do you describe a hundred off 50 balls? When a young Indian domestic player getting away a couple of beefy blows is so thrilling, what tone do you adopt for Sachin Tendulkar? As Gilbert and Sullivan put it in The Gondoliers, “When everyone is somebodee / Then no one’s anybody”.  A further complication is Twenty20’s inherent unpredictability, its mixing of the sublime and the ridiculous. When commentators hype a batsman up for consecutive boundaries only to watch him perish to an imbecile smear, or praise a bowler to the skies for four dot-balls, then see him smacked into orbit twice while closing the over out, they subtly erode their own authority – such authority as they had, anyway.”

Gita and Ahimsa

There has been this one doubt that has been lingering in my mind for a long time that I did not have a clear answer for, but I found some interesting information today that addresses my question in some senses – and I wish to share it. The Bhagavad Gita, a supreme song (part of the mahakavya Mahabharata) that Lord Krishna delivers to Arjuna on the battle field, is believed by renowned scholars as a practical and self-contained guide of life. Swami Vivekananda notes that Gita is a bouquet composed of the beautiful flowers of spiritual truths collected from the Upanishads (core teachings of the Vedanta philosophy).  Although the Gita deals with several core philosophies of the Hindu religion, the part that I am concerned here is Krishna’s advice to Arjuna that he should act. As a warrior, he has to fight for the righteous cause but Arjuna is grief struck, looking at his own kith and kin on the enemy lines. Krishna advocates Arjuna to fight as that is his dharma.

So if a war is fought for a right reason, is that war justified? Does the Gita then directly contradict the principle of Ahimsa?Ahimsa means abstaining from causing harm or injury. War is one of the worst forms of inflicting harm and Krishna advocates Arjuna to fight. Why? These are very basic/layman questions that I had and I haven’t really heard any satisfactory answer from anywhere so far. Mahatma Gandhi, a major political and spiritual leader of India and one of the prominent advocates of non-violence – studied and commented on the Gita – “When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita”. So if the question raised above was asked to the Mahatma, what would his answer be? The surprising fact to me was that a question on very similar lines had indeed been asked by someone through correspondence and Mahatma replied to it, the gist of which is below:

When a poet composes his work, he does not have a clear conception of all its possible implications. It is the very beauty of good poem that it is greater than its author. The truth which a poet utters in his moment of inspiration, we do not often see him following in his own life. Hence the lives of many poets are at variance with the teaching of their poems. That the overall teaching of the Gita is not violence but non-violence is evident from the argument which begins in Chapter II and ends in chapter XVIII. The intervening chapters propound the same theme. Violence is simply not possible unless one is driven by anger, by ignorant love and by hatred. The Gita, on the other hand, wants us to be incapable of anger and attain to a state unaffected by the three gunas (Saattvic, Rajas and Tamas). Such a person can never feel anger. I see even now the red eyes of Arjuna every time he aimed an arrow from his bow, drawing the string as far as his ear.

But, then, had Arjuna’s obstinate refusal to fight anything to do with non-violence? In fact, he had fought often enough in the past. On the present occasion, his reason was suddenly clouded by ignorant attachment. He did not wish to kill his kinsmen. He did not say that he would not kill anyone even if he believed that person to be wicked. Shri Krishna is the Lord dwelling in everyone’s heart. He understands the momentary darkening of Arjuna’s reason. He, therefore, tells him:”You have already committed violence. By talking now like a wise man, you will not learn non-violence. Having started on this course, you must finish the job.” If a passenger travelling in a train which is running at a speed of forty miles an hour suddenly feels aversion to travelling and jumps out of the train, he will have but committed suicide. He has not in truth realized the futility of travelling as such or of travelling by train. Arjuna was in a similar condition. Krishna, who believed in non-violence, could not have given Arjuna any advice other than what he did. But to conclude from this that the Gita teaches violence or justifies war is as unwarranted as to argue that, since violence in some form or other is inescapable for maintaining the body in existence, dharma lies only in violence. The man of discriminating intellect, on the other hand, teaches the duty of striving for deliverance from this body which exists through violence, the duty, that is, of striving for moksha.

[skipped over some text]

I do not wish to suggest that violence has no place at all in the teaching of the Gita. The dharma which it teaches does not mean that a person who has not yet awakened to the truth of non-violence may act like a coward. Anyone who fears others, accumulates possessions and indulges in sense-pleasures will certainly fight with violent means, but violence does not, for that reason, become justified as his dharma. There is only one dharma. Non-violence means moksha, and moksha means realizing Satyanarayana (Truth as God; God in the form of Truth). But this dharma does not under any circumstances countenance running away in fear. In this world which baffles our reason, violence there will then always be. The Gita shows the way which will lead us out of it, but it also says that we cannot escape it simply by running away from it like cowards. Anyone who prepares to run away would do better, instead, to kill and be killed.

[From Gujarati]

Navajivan, 11-10-1925 —-Complete Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 033, Art no. 50, pg. 83.—-

Mahatma also explains the discipline required to understand the Shastras in this article. The Shastras could be easily misread [which is detrimental towards understanding the real essence] and hence the importance of a Guru to deliver the right meaning with relevant interpretations. I can only begin to comprehend how difficult it would be to walk on the path of non-violence, with a complete understanding of the resilience it demands.

Slumdog mania

I haven’t seen the movie so I don’t have an opinion on whether the movie is 10 Oscar Nominations worthy.  However when I read this, I have a gripe. I don’t mind reading a personal opinion as long as it is kept within the spectrum of the discussion and does not become emotional. Emotion clouds judgment and blurs the argument. First off, the guy who wrote this does not seem be giving any valid arguments against Amitabh’s comments. Because of his primary focus being degrading the actor. On the face of it, Mr. Bachchan simply seems to have expressed his personal opinion on the movie, which I notice among many people I know have seen the movie, tend to agree. It doesn’t look like this fellow thought at least for a moment that Bollywood or Mumbai does not constitute the entire nation’s film making ability.  The article concludes with a really ridiculous statement “they should be ashamed that it took a white man to show India how to do it.”

What the?????. Ignorant, ill-informed.

However good or bad the movie may be, if one looks at these nominations objectively, the voters (people who decide the nominees) are not publicly disclosed but it is reasonable to think (since that is the best we can do anyway) that an association formed by Westerners [1][2] will primarily consist of them. The choices they make would be the movies that they are able to relate to, the most. I seriously doubt if this set of audience is completely qualified enough to make a judgment on a global scale, where languages, sensibility and cultures separate the world into thousands of different factions, thus making a fair consideration an impossibility. This is my assumption/theory, completely subject to the test of veracity, which I welcome. As a corollary, I seem to get a sense that Slumdog resonates with the Western pulse and hence a bagful of nominations, although I can assert this only after seeing the movie.

I have seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button already and I would be surprised if it loses out on its key nominations (best picture, actor, director).

Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This movie is poetic in every sense of the word. There is a sequence in the film where Benjamin describes how Daisy met with an accident and goes on to state something about life being a series of intersecting events beyond our control. The cinematic brilliance of this team is demonstrated beautifully during this sequence. Death is such a common thing in the world but none of us *really* acknowledge that it is. One knows how one actually feels only when his/her time arrives. This movie conveys this eventuality of existence in a very profound way. People keep dying throughout the life of Benjamin and he keeps learning more and more from what he sees. He says towards the end “I was thinking how nothing last, and what a shame that is.”

There are so many dialogues like this in the movie that are “auto pinnadiyey yezhudhi vekkalame” stuff.  The movie’s storyline, although different on several levels from Forrest Gump, aligns very closely with it in terms of presentation. The screenwriter is the same guy so that touch is still there. Forrest Gump talking about life is like a box of chocolates equates perfectly with Benjamin Button speaking about never too late to be whoever you want to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie bags a whole bunch of Oscars this year. It has all the ingredients that are needed.  Superb Cinematography, Top notch acting, splendid screenplay and the look and feel of an artistic film. To me, the most resonating part of the movie was in the way it expresses the transient nature of life.  It joins the list of one among the movies that are meant to move.

Stealing a victory

Until Day 4 afternoon, the game was in control of the Pommies. Then one man came. He hit. He hit ridiculously. He doesn’t really care what format of the game he is actually playing and he is aggressive no matter what the situation is. It is told by many cricket pundits that those traits are his strength and his weakness. A double-edged sword so to speak. That statement would be true if he is aggressive to the point of being reckless. Apparently he is able to control his aggression, which makes him even more perilous for his opponents. If you ask England today, they will tell you more about this guy who just robbed a victory, which was almost theirs to take. His team mate says “We are quite used to that. You kind of expect something which is not expected. When Viru is batting, it’s always entertaining and full of surprises”. The hope that this momentum will carry on for a long time is bright.

Rab ne bana di Jodi : Crap in the name of cinema

I have to vent my frustation. Enakku movieku start pannumbodhey .. as vivek says “mildaa oru doubt vandhadhu”. It is confirmed beyond doubt. I have seen movies that depict realism and the ones that depict total fantasy. I can understand why fantasy, out of the world concept, no logic only jaali – such things exist. But never have I seen a movie utterly confused between both. No idea of direction, Crappy Shahrukh Khan love scenes (one cannot stand this nonsense. The way he conveys his emotions is contrived, constipated, far-fetched and stupid) with some bhangra music thrown in, storyline that reaches its pinnacle in naivety – This joker named Aditya Chopra has taken his most retarded film ever, with Mohabbatein giving a serious competition. There are punch dialogues on “what is love”. There are also several punch dialogues on “god”. And not so surprisingly, there are some on the combination of both. And as usual there are dance competitions, raining, romance and all that standard masala with an overdose of Shahrukh’s  horrible mannerisms. Don’t watch it. Seriously. Ever.

The danger of jingoism

What adds fuel to the already existing depression due to the recent mumbai terror attacks is the jingoistic and nationalistic opinions of wide sections of the media.  There are news links out there which seemingly report what they hear as “black and white” and severely attempt to bias public perspective on the whole issue. Only a handful of journalists try to assess the situation as “grey and hazy” and provide a balanced and reasonable report. 

In a report to Reuters India, B. Manjula, chair of the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences states “Everyone is being led to believe that by lighting a candle or carrying a poster they’ve done their part as a dutiful citizen without questioning whose opinion they are pandering to … their actions only make for great visuals for TV. This is a complex issue with various dimensions to it. Simply reducing it to ‘politicians are villains’ and ‘Pakistan is the enemy’ without discourse or debate is a deep failing of the media, but it does influence public opinion.” 

What she says clearly shows the impact of jingoistic and mediocre media influence. The day when the media understands its responsibility in reporting to the public is a dream now. It is all about advertising, marketing and cashing in on the heat of a hopeless situation.  Very few attempt to accept the complexity involved in execution and the implications/motivations of an attack on such scale [1] [2] [3].  If at all an increased hostility between India and Pakistan is what the perpetrators of the attack want, we have ignorant and idotic media working exactly towards that. Sad state of affairs.

Economic Crisis

When one’s day is fully revolving around the global financial crisis, it is very hard to ignore it. Early morning when I drive my car to work, I turn on NPR news to avoid all other crap that FM carries on air and the main focus is on you-know-what. Browse Internet – Crisis. Talk with friends – Job security. So it is justifiable to say that a sufficient amount of time in the day, I sense through several sources that it is a highly focused, discussed and debated topic.

So why is it that this needs so much attention right now and people all around the world need to worry about it? There are several reasons but the most fundamental of all is well-being. Since money determines the quality of life that all/most of us lead, when the system that churns out that key factor is screwed, the quality of life is screwed. Fair enough.

The economic system is complex and I don’t understand the details of the system’s jargon for the most part.  Several pages of information has crossed my eye trying to explain what caused the economic system to fail. But there are some articles that cut through the crap and bring out the essence.  What I am writing about is based on one such article that I chanced to read, by Barbara Kiviat of TIME magazine. Here’s the link .

The above cited article is good for the most part because it serves to highlight some very important fundamental aspects of human nature.

“In the short term, an era of risk aversion is sure to continue as financial outfits .. blah blah blah .. pull back on everything from the creation of complex securities to credit-card limits. But as the appetite for risk returns – and it always does – companies are promising long-lasting change”. The question to be asked is why will the appetite for risk return?

“Risk gets forgotten in all bubbles”. Why?

“In times like this, people do listen to risk managers. The problem is, times will become good again and then you listen to the trader who is making a big profit”. Great saying. Why?

“It requires human beings to ask the big-picture questions that computer models don’t, like, what would happen if the fundamental assumptions – house prices go up, institutions are too big to fail – prove to be wrong?”. It is clear that a crisis can be avoided if such questions are asked and they have historically never been. Why?

“The financial models that predict the return on an investment are inherently flawed because they preclude the possibility of an outsize event”. So yeah, it is humanly impossible to predict how the future will look like, yet there are several complex financial instruments out there doing exactly that. Why?

The answers to all the above questions are simple and true facts.

Humans are fundamentally selfish. I take care of my interests always, sometimes it could be even at the expense of someone else’s.  Either I don’t care or I cannot even see that as a possibility because I don’t know what future holds. That’s frank truth that many of us find very hard to comprehend.

Humans are fundamentally greedy. I always have an interest to go from a particular present state to a next state where I derive more happiness, and in almost all situations it comes as a result of the fact that I have enough money to afford it. One could see a point of the definition of happiness, which is highly individualistic and subjective. So yes, I acknowledge that my happiness is a variable that is derived through materialistic means. One could also look really farther ahead and ask the ultimate question – OK, so what is that final state where I am most happy and that is all there is and nothing more? Neither do I know what it is or how to reach it. But at least it seems logical to ask the questions of what/how since I know why. To the extent that I can see, materialistic goals and means seem to be an infinite loop and I am stuck. As I read back what I’ve just written, there are tons of places where I keep repeating the word “I” or “me” or something synonymous. The ultimate of the ultimate questions is what is this “I”, which seems to have taken a form of its own and is asking these ultimate questions? I don’t know is the best answer I am able to give for this, at present.

Humans are fundamentally stupid and ignorant. A famous relativity expert states: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe“. His remark seems to hold a lot of profound value when we think of answers to the above asked questions. We solve a problem just so that we can be greedy all over again!

The title of that TIME article reads “A new approach is emerging: human judgment”. What needs to be acknowledged is that it has been emerging for quite a long time and it remains flawed. As long as it remains that way, there’s really no way that one can see to prevent it. Well, not everything is so hazy. The author also goes on to cite some guys who are supposedly risk experts and who had a “vision”. Even then, this vision cannot extend to “long-term big questions asking” mentality simply because of the fundamental human limitation that the future is uncertain and the only thing that can be certainly said is that it will remain that way. So let’s simply ride along and see what’s in store.

The most dangerous batsman.. ever.

We worked out during World Series Cricket that he was such a good leg side player, that bowling off stump to him which you do to most batsmen was like bowling leg stump to anyone else because he came across to off stump and hit everything through the leg side. So we decided that – that  far outside the off stump was the best place to bowl; that was more like off stump to him. We had a lot of success for a few games, 2 or 3 games. We had him caught behind, caught on the slips.  We concentrated for the rest of that season on his off stump. The biggest mistake we ever made because we then turned him into not only being the best leg side player in the world, he became one of the best off side players as well. So we just doubled his repertoire. – Greg Chappell on Viv Richards