Bye MMV Welcome MMVI

Christmas is gone and it’s now time to bid goodbye to the old year. Celebration time again!

Some will continue to watch the fare dished out by cable television and yawn their way into the New Year. Some will sleep in the old year and get up in the New Year, giving them the satisfaction of having slept through a year or maybe through the year. Many of us will be far away from home welcoming the New Year in a new place. Resolutions will be made for the New Year and broken once it gets a few days older. Others will make hay stuffed mannequins (Old Man) and burn it signifying burning off the bad of the old year and leave the ash on the road to be carried forward to the New Year. Some will Sizzle and Sozzle at Pubs and Private Parties ringing in the New Year with a buzz in their heads.

Some will be there alone on a crowded beach in Goa with a bottle of beer and stare at the stars while lying on the beach hoping for loneliness to go away in the New Year.

May your New Year be filled with Fun, Goodness, Cheer, Joy, Happiness, and loads of Hope. All the very Best and Cheers for MMVI.

Taking Guard

1st Ball
"This is not how you treat the most successful captain in Indian cricketing history" is what most Sourav Ganguly fans across the country and more so in West Bengal are screaming. I will agree with them even though I am an ex fan of the God of the off side. But unfortunately that's what it has come to be. Selected to play again for India after an injury hiatus, Ganguly found himself holed up in his hotel room all alone when he was dropped for the third test against Sri Lanka. This in spite of a match winning partnership that he was involved in. So he gets dropped for really no fault of his performance but about his fitment in the future of Indian Cricket – so say the newly appointed selectors by the newly elected BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India).

This one is a doosra. No one knew it was coming. This has beaten the batsman completely.

2nd Ball
The replacement is announced as Wasim Jaffer, the champion domestic cricket opening bat from Mumbai, not to mention an ex India failure. Great! Getting him in the team augurs well for the Indian Cricket team who have been fiddling to find a stable opening pair since the days of Sunil Gavaskar. The playing eleven is announced for the Ahmedabad test match and Wasim Jaffer is sitting in the pavilion twiddling his thumbs. This is when he would rather have served for Mumbai who are weakened by his absence, playing a crucial Ranji Trophy match against Railways. So he sits there in the Indian pavilion to go out there in the middle and show the world he is not a failure any more.

Cuts from the middle and off stump and hits the pads – HOWZZAT – Appeal turned down.

3rd Ball
Bengal are leading the Elite Group points table ahead of Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy and have a good chance to win the Ranji with the way they are going. With Ganguly available it makes sense for them to use his services to guide the team to Ranji glory. With Jaffer not available for Mumbai they are weakened because he is a match winner for them and has been in sterling form.

Well pitched ball, should have been hit. Batsman misses – very bad hand eye coordination.

4th Ball
Jagmohan Dalmiya the ousted Supremo of Cricket in India and the Deal maker of World Cricket hails from Bengal and is known to have been a Ganguly Godfather. Enter Sharad Pawar, who with his power play ousts Jagmohan Dalmiya and becomes the Kingpin of the BCCI. Exit Ganguly – Enter Jaffer.

Well pitched ball, should have been hit. Batsman slashes on the offside misses again.

5th Ball
What if Ganguly comes back as Bengal Captain and takes Bengal to the Ranji Championship with both his guile and his skill as an “all-rounder” will Ganguly get back into the Indian cricket team. Chances are he will. Smart move, take the focus off him when he is down and out and bring him back on when he is on top again.

Yorker by the bowler; batsman has struggled to keep his ground.

6th Ball
In all of this what are the BCCI members doing, both the present and the erstwhile regime members. I think they are negotiating and making deals to see how they can get their people in or if need be out. I think they need a change of name from Board of Control for Cricket in India to Board for Control of Cricket in India.
Small changes for gains in greater ranges.

The doosra again, fantastic delivery, leg stump uprooted – the batsman walks back to the pavilion without scoring.

End of the Over.

Conversation...

'AAARRRGGGHHHH' the voice inside of me screamed, laced with a few not so nice words. Once again something had gone wrong. This was getting to me. How come I do not come face to face with this thing called right as often as this thing called wrong.

Growth pangs I thought to myself. ‘Come on….you’re taking far too long to grow up’ said the devil’s advocate side of me. I rate him the best, because he is just unbeatable. Always comes up with things to size me up. Then mocks at me with a right angle sign he makes with his thumb and index finger. I hate him.

His job was to make me stronger and better but he is so god damn counterproductive to my growth. I plot to kill him but he spots it the minute I begin thinking of it and takes evasive action in his inimitable style.

How I god damn wish I was him!

Are you competent?

Does being competent mean, how effectively you manage your incompetence?

I know this question sounds sarcastic, but it is not. By virtue of being competent in a field you have come from a place where you were incompetent to begin with. It is up to the individual how s/he has ‘managed’ that incompetence, which makes them competent or leaves them woefully incompetent. Building competence out of incompetence is like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Either you fall prey to it or you work towards transcending it by building competence.

I'll end this post with a quote by 19th century English Journalist, Walter Bagehot, "The Greatest pleasure in life...is doing what people say you cannot do".

My Talk Show!

Hello Sir! May I come in?

Yes Please.

Interviews! The fun part of my job description. It’s my entertainment for the day, so to say. Over these past few years I have interviewed more than a thousand candidates, and I have had my moments of joy, irritation, boredom, happiness – all emotions rolled in one.

I wouldn’t say I am like the more famous Oprah Winfrey, Vir Sanghvi or Simi Garewal who have their own talk shows, but yes I do have my very own talk show that runs unscheduled in my cabin. There is no sight of any camera crew etc., but yes the prying eyes of my colleagues who wonder how come I have such long conversations. But I must admit it’s a lot of fun talking to strangers, who want to become one of us.

“So who is 'candidate name'?” I ask my guest (read candidate) most of the times. The funniest response that I get is “Me!”. Some of them get even better and ask me with a strange looked “Personally or professionally?” and I have half a mind to ask them “Duh-uh do you think you’ve come to a marriage bureau, of course professionally!!!”. Some remember their Class I composition of “Myself” and parrot that out to me. After that answer I have no option but to go to the next question a suppressed smile.

Well there are far too many anecdotes that I could narrate, but I choose not to, after all my trade secret is also dear to me.

"Thanks for coming across to meet up, wish you all the best in your career." - Parting line that is a potential signature for my talk show".