The Lord Maketh A Comeback

He is back. Like a Phoenix which is reborn from its ashes. Micheal Schumacher is back to blaze the F1 track. A bit older. A bit wiser??? A bit more competitive!!! He will again team up with Ross Brawn minus the Ferrari car though…these three formed a world beating trio in the early 2000’s and virtually made watching F1 races boring as you knew who would win.

But now with Schumi back things are not that rosy anymore. Offcourse he won’t drive a rose coloured prancing horse. His nemesis of past Fernando Alonso will be the lead driver provided Felipe Massa is again willing to be relegeted to the position of the second driver for the Ferraris. And there is Lewis Hamilton and the defending champion Jenson Button to deal with.

With new pit stop rule in enforcement this season also promises a mother of all battles in F1 history.

Amen!!!

Tale of two snubs

Anger. Resentment. The eventual outcome of the snubs delivered by two different entities on entirely different occassions.

The 1st one happened on the last journey of the Late Jyoti Basu when our ever unpredictable Mamata Di (Banerjee) thought it would be a wise political move and strengthen her stance as a hard core anti – CPM leader by not being a part of the flux of ploitical biggies who had flown down to Kolkata from all over India to pay their last respects to the Late Jyoti Basu and not a departed Commumnist leader. Wake Up Mamata Di. Showing a little respect to your enemy doesn’t lower your intensity to take the battle to the opposition camp.

The auction for IPL 3 hogged the limelight for all the so called wrong reasons. Another snub. This time by Corporate India to the members of the Pakistan cricket team. None of the Pakistan players were bid for and as a result none of them will be able to be part of the cash strapped extravaganza in the form of IPL. The Pakistan Government and Ministers are crying foul over this issue and saying that all sort of sporting ties with India should be terminated. How can India insult “Cultural Ambassadors” of a country? This is one side of the story.

But on the other side, IPL is the playground of some of the biggest corporate biggies in India and even if IPL be a sport for them its just another INVESTMENT. And what matters to a businessman more than INVESTMENT is the ROI (Return On Investment). No political vendetta or wicked conspiracy theories was behind the snub. So, what if the Knight Riders purchased Shahid Afridi for 750, 000 USD and he could not participate due to visa issues??? Huge investment but no returns. The global economic meltdown last year has anyways made the corporate sector a bit wary about the investments it makes. So, the snub to the Pakistan cricket team is more of a lingering side – effect of the economic meltdown not a consptiracy by the BCCI or Lalit Modi or the Goverment of India to kill cricket in Pakistan.

Love means never having to say you’re sorry

So said Jennifer Cavilleri in the novel Love Story authored by Erich Segal. Love Story is a wonderful piece of creativity in itself. Never knew a story could be so touching, so witty, so wonderfully told, so short.

It’s just one of the many wonderful books authored by Erich Segal. And a must for anyone who has fallen in love or in some point of time in their lifetime were in love.

Sadly Erich Segal died from a heart attack on January 17, 2010 but this line from “Love Story” will forever remain etched in the memories of fans of his.

A Chance Encounter!!!

The New Year brought me a chance encounter with “The Fastest Indian”…Narain Kartikeyan. I was on my way back from a client presentation in Bangalore when I saw the familiar face (So far the one and only Indian F1 driver) who had just under gone security check at the Bangalore Airport.

There were no hoardes of fans following him (he’s not a cricketer for chrissake) and he was enjoying the unattention. I double checked with my boss if my eyes were not deceiving me. Thankfully he was knowledgable enough to confirm my sighting.

So, after dillydallying of to go or not to go I finally got our new Nielsen diary out and stode off towards him. I accosted him and asked “Excuse moi, are you Narain Kartikeyan?” He replied in the affirmative and then I somehow babbled that I couldn’t believe I was meeting him in real life.

I shook his hands and asked for his autograph which he smiling obliged. He asked me where was I off to and I wished him Good Luck for his future (NASCAR? A1GP?? F1 Test Driver???)

Was I pleased as a punch!!!

Eden Fadeout & Kotla Fiasco!!!

Let’s speak about Kotla first as that’s the most recent fiasco to blot the face of Indian cricket. But hangon guys it didn’t even make a smear on BCCI or DDCA.

The buck will be passed between these two bodies with egos being ruffled and pathetic little will be done to do something about the Kotla pitch.

Kotla has always been slow and dead as a Dodo wicket and has more claims to infamy than it’s proud moment in the sun (Jumbo’s 10 / 10 against Pakistan). Seriously DDCA should have done much more with the INR 1 billion to provide a pitch up to some standard and not some sub standard “hair transplant” strip of 22 yards.

I think it would be a fitting reply to the officials apathy if all the matches alloted to Kotla for the World Cup in 2011 is scrapped. It would be paying these good for nothing fellas with their own coin.

As for Eden is concerned, its high time that Mamatadi gives up on her Ministry of Railways portfolio and heads the Power Ministry instead. Blackouts of the flood light towers once in a blue moon is OK but everytime when you are having a match is hideous.

As it is since Jaggu dada is heading CAB Eden is not getting the amount of matches under BCCI’s rotation policy (READ DICRIMINATION). It’s like as if you are playing UNO and when your chance comes the player before you slaps down a SKIP or REVERSE card.

I hope the CAB officials pull up their socks and tighten their belts or do whatever they feel like as these frequent blackouts at Eden have been deemed to be a security threat by Kolkata Police (ooorii baabaa) and may result in all further matches in Eden Gardens to become a day – day affair. It would be indeed tragic for the City of Sports to be bereft of the joy of watching cricket in a flood lit Eden.

Loonatic

2nd December 2009. The day I became a loonatic. It’s loonatic and not the usual lunatic. 18 trips to the loo within 12 hours makes you one. Mid way throught the day it seemed that I was a Formula 1 car and making pit stops for a quick splash and dash as the experts would put it.

Medical experts though termed it as SEVERE gastroenteritis. In layman’s term caught a stomach bug and a pretty bugger of a bug it seems as 36 hours since it made its presence felt it is still troubling me a bit.

I hope the medicines do the trick.

PS: Avoid farting when you have got the stomach bug!!!

Best gift ever!!!

What makes one decide this question “The best gift ever”. Do we consider the value of the gift, the necesssity you had for the gift, the gift with no strings attached or a gift just full of love???

The gift may cost anything. The price tag is does not matter. What matters is what the person gifting it to you wants his / her gift to express. Gift is a tangible thing carrying an intangible message. If the receiver can decode this message, then there is no need for words like “Thank You” to express his gratitude.

That’s the best gift you can give to your friend or the person who has given you

TOI – You made my day!!!

I had a recent experience with one of my clients ( Hindustan National Glass & Industries-HNG) which left a real bad taste in my mouth. It involved a research work which we had done for them and in spite of the efforts put in by us they still refused to accept the research findings.

Not only they made us go beyond the agreed upon scope of work but also vilified the reputation of our company and but simply rejected our findings.

During the course of this study, unfortunately there were some media reports raising concerns about our company’s quality of data & findings by a major FMCG giant. A consultant Mr. S, involved with the client even went to the extent of saying that had he been in my organization and any of his clients raised serious concerns about the veracity of research findings he would have immediately put in his papers.

I wonder want Mr. S is doing now. Has he put down his papers as according to this article which apperared in The Times of India, Mumbai edition today his MD turned out to be a petty thief caught stealing a Blackberry!!!

My hands are itching to place a courtesy call to him and check out if he is a man who walks the talk.

I’m a celebrity so I dope!!!

C follows D in the English alphabet. C – Celebrity. D – Dope. Where ever you have a celebrity chances are high that you will also have dope.

Andre Agassi is the latest celebrity to come out in the Open (which incidentally is also the title of his autobiography) about his tryst with drugs. So, what is this thing about celebrities which makes them go for drugs. Is it a necessary precondition to become a celebrity or just that it adds bonus points to your celebrity tag.

What is critical is the way in which these celebrities go about bragging / tom toming about their addiction unmindful of how this act will have a bearing on the millions of die hard crazy fans of theirs??? Who follow or try to imitate everything done by their superstar / superhero / sports icon. So, you can very well have a young Agassi fan doing dope and giving the excuse – “Mom, what’s wrong in this??? Even Agassi did it.”

 As much as  I admire Agassi’s return of serve and baseline power play I was really shocked when I read about this and I am not even his die hard fan (Pistol Pete is the guy & I don’t wanna hear / read any similar stuff about him).

I hope sportstars of today become much more sensible in how they project their image across continents of followers & think twice before they go snorting around. So I hope that the Thorpedos (Thorpe = once lucky), Hamiltons. Ronaldos, Woods, would set an exemplary standard both on & off the field.

Coffee Khichdi!!!

Its that time of the year when my throat problems are compounded with the season changing from Autumn to Winter.

Every morning I wake up with a sore throat with only a whisper emerging no matter how much effort I put in. Drinking warm water brings some respite but its availability is limited at home only.

In my office I ususally do with drinking gallons of coffee (by Indian standards). But the only issue being that the vending machine coffee tastes yuck. Drinking coffee is an addiction for some, trust me put that guy on a month long supply of vending machine coffee he would give up coffee drinking!!!

With me also it was nothing different. I tried drinking Cappuccino.tasted bland. Tried Coffee Mocha. Blander. Espresso. Blandest.

But for the sake of my throat I needed to do something. I am a coffee person so tea was totally out of the scenario.

I decided to have a heady concoction of espresso, capuccino & mocha (1 serving each) and the resulting taste is how to describe it…BLANDEREST!!!

But at least it keeps my throat warm…