Gary!!!!

Any literature on all rounders always provides for a fascinating perusal.Be it a TV program or a book, the pleasure of finding out how the spirit and mind of an individual tirelessly earns to contribute in more than one way to the success of a cause or a team. If the article is a well written book by an admiring peer the joy is doubled indeed.
I am writing this precisely the very moment Ian Botham is praising Andrew Flintofffor his all round performance contributing to the phenomenal success that Englandhave achieved in the land of proteas. Cricket is a wonderful game, but a game that requires loads of stamina and persistence of concentration (again loads of it) to participate and participate successfully. Being an allrounder in cricket is all the more difficult. Imagine being a player who is expected to bat and score centuries, bowl and take bucketful of wickets, stand at close in positions and take amazing catches and to cap it all captain the side with astuteness. Do not think that I am referring to God almighty playing cricket. I am referring to the only true allrounder that ever was in cricketing legends. It is the legend of Gary Sobers. Added to this curious mixture of a master batsman , superb fielder and bowler par excellence is a heart that is surprisingly simple and incredibly large. It was a pleasure to get to know a great human who played thegame of cricket in its true gentlemanly spirit. For any budding cricketer this book "Sir Gary" isa must read. This delightfully candid book is authored by another cricketing legend Trevor Bailey, an allrounder himself.
Before reading this book, I had only heard interesting anecdotes of Gary from my father who followed the games that Windies played in his early times via the reliable old valve radio.He had told me once that once Sobers was sleeping in the dressing room and when his turn came, just went out blasted 95 runs in no time to come back to the dressing room to continue hissiesta from where he had left! I had doubted such tall tales, doubting them to be stories fabricatedby hardcore fans of the legend. After reading the book I was convinced about the amazing physicaland mental strength of the first jet setting cricketer who can blast any bowling attack, jet lagor no jet lag. The book dwells considerable portion on introducing us to "Sobers the human being".It tells us this fairy tale story of a young widow from a poor Barbados family who single handedly rised her sons to positions of affluence, the story of Thelma Sobers which is told as an interesting chapter.
Coming to the references to India and Indian players in this book, I was again surprised to know thatthe great Gary was briefly engaged to hindi film actress Anju Mahindu. Luckily for Gary that engagementdidn't fructify into a marriage. Trevor details candidly Gary's flirtatious nature prior to his marriageand also how he was an avid gambler. Another significant remark on India comes from Gary's assessment of bowlers whom he thought had him in more than a spot of bother. He mentions generously that Subash Gupte's leg spin was something that he found very difficult to play.
Now what are the ideal qualities that a legend like Gary expects from a batsman? He says "An ideal batsman is onewho is able to destroy bowling attacks without appearing to give away his wicket". Well, going by this yardstick,the only batsman in our Indian team who comes to my mind as I read these words from Gary was Sachin Tendulkar before his niggling injuries. Looking outside Indian team, I can think of only Mathew Hayden of 2003 and Justin Langer of 2004. One tends to think about the young Michael Clarke of australia and Andrew Strauss in line withGary's definition of perfect batsman, but it is too early to judge them. So my vote surely goes to Sachin Tendulkar!
The most interesting fact about Gary was that he could bowl left arm orthodox spin, left arm fast medium, and googlies and chinamen too. More awesome is the fact that he used to take international wickets consistentlywith all these types of bowling. So truly a player who cannot be kept out of the game!!! Go get this book if you dont have it already. Look out for the beautiful foreword by Richie Benaud!! On the whole a delightful book for a cricket lover!!

Gary Sobers, Vedanta The hub and Tsunami

A very refreshing stay in chennai had my creative juices overflowing. Also made a conscious decision to pick up the reading habit, which I had suspended days before pongal.

Firstly stay in chennai was good, caught up with a lot of relatives over my grandfather's anniversary or Dhivasam as I know it in sanskrit and Thamizh. Writing Thamizh, reminded me of my friend who had called up to enquire whether I was into urdu poetry. I later realised that he mistook Thamizh for thameez and urdu word for etiquette. Somehow I am not very comfortable using 'Tamil' compared to 'Thamizh'. Anyways getting back to the topic at hand, called up few friends and got to know that couple of them are getting married this month, so which means one more trip to chennai is on the cards. Chennai city by and large has picked up in infrastructure, though my cousin disputes with that. He says that he is toiling everyday to get to Tharamani from Perambur all due to traffic jams near Mylapore. I will have to go by his word since my visit to Chennai was a holiday visit. Weather was cool in chennai and the pollution level too was marginally better, compared to last couple of years. As usual Thamizh print media manages to remain hyper and T.N. government is also keeping them that way by providing enough news in subjects ranging from Tsunami relief to Shankaracharya affair which has assumed graver proportions over rumours of a mutt takeover by government.

Getting back to good old Bangalore, as said in the intro, some good ideas started flowing in my rusted brain off late. To summarize them,
1. Idea to pen a story.
2. Idea to read on Vedanta and upanishads.
3. Idea to implement a electronic patient record database for free.

The idea to pen a story came from my interaction with "the hub". Now here is a forum that lets your creative juices out in all topics, albeit biased slightly towards Thamizh literature and films. A thread in which I was participating gave me the spark to try my hand at writing. I had penned a couple of poems before, all locked away in my diaries. Maybe it is time to get them out of closet! With the power of a portal behind me, I guess there is no stopping now. I have started a more loose story idea in the hub with a thread "Continue the story" under the miscellaneous section. I will see how that goes. The idea is to pick up different thoughts by various creative persons and see how and idea develops into a story.

My bus mate Mr. Shrinivasa Rao is an erudite scholar who is well read in topics ranging from Vedantha and upanishads to Ayn Rand and Michael Crichton. Thanks to him, my bus journey is not dull these days. He spurred me to give a reading on the topic of Vedantha a serious thought. Guess what, yesterday I came across a wonderful book shop in Jayanagar 4th block, where books old and new were up for sale or for rent. It was fascinating to see old engineering books, books that I hated in my college days like Control Systems by Nagrath and Gopal to amazing books on Mahabaratha, to Arthur C.Clarke's 2010 A Space odyssey (a sequel to 2001 a spac odyssey). I was lucky to spot two interesting books. One was Sir Gary by Trevor Bailey and the second was "Jewels of intuition" a book on vedantha. I have picked them up both since then and already started reading the former.

"Sir Gary" is a biography of a great cricketer by another great , Trevor Bailey. The book was published originally in 1977 by rupa and Co in India. The book has foreword by Richie Benaud the legendary Aussie leg spinner. I will post a special review on this book later. For now I am thrilled and excited to get these books. My next acquisition would be the 2001 series of novels by Arthur C.Clarke. Price at which these great books are being sold is in one word 'encouraging'.

The idea to create an electronic patient record database came from my paternal uncle who narrated me how his brother- in- law, Dr.A.N.Chandrasekhar conducted a medical camp in his native village of Arumkundram in Arcot. He mentioned the tedious process of writing down new patient's details in a notebook and recalling from that when the same patient visited the camp again. The medical camp organized by the good hearted doctor was drawing good crowd in that village. Here is a doctor who is a former dean of the prestigious General Hospital in Chennai with his sons well settled diverts his energy and experience to do a yeoman service to the village where he hails from. Yet another swades story!!!

On the tsunami front, my brother recently visited affected parts in Kadaloor and Pondicherry as a volunteer of AidIndia. He went there to survey the relief work and estimate the need for long term rehabilitation like housing and livelihood. On the whole the picture is getting better in these areas. He had interesting real life stories, stories detailing the terrible destructive power displayed by the tsunami and equally astonishing strength of human spirit on display in the aftermath. I have been asking him to post these, but he is busy with his relief work. Right now he is in Kalpakkam doing similar work.

I will post more on Gary Sobers, Vedhantha and the proposed system that I have in mind that would record medical details of most of the rural poor.

Looking forward to Pongal

After some harrowing time reading and writing on tsunami, i am really looking forward to my chennai trip next week. My train ticket was standing precariously in waiting list at 63. With no hope of the queue moving any forward any sooner before 13th, I decided to pursue other avenues like K.S.R.T.C. That proved to be a dead end as all routes were fully booked. Cursing the lack of budget airline routes between Bangalore and Chennai, I moved on to the last real hope, the TNSRTC. Inspite of the fact that 90% of people travelling between Bangalore and Chennai being Chennaiites, I could observe an absolute indifference to patronising Tamil Nadu states bus service. As a result I got the ticket I wanted in no time. It makes me wonder, with the state of the government bus service in a very bad shape how can the state government think that there will be tourists and travellers flocking to "enchanting Tamil Nadu". Such apathy and misgovernance clearly shows that there is lack of coordination in every aspect of what governments do in India. If the infrastructure and tourism departments of governments cannot coordinate among themselves, then it is like expecting a miracle for the emergency disaster management mechanisms and the district collectorates to coordinate smoothly in reaching relief to affected populace. Coordination is a crucial but essentially simple thing to do. Any supply chain or manufacturing industry guru can tell that. It is a pity that our government has not yet masterd this art. It also makes one think, how are our IAS officers educated in various training academies. It is widely reported that the areas in Nagapattinam that received quick and effective relief were the ones in the control of Collector of Thanjavur , Mr. J.Radhakrishnan. The man himself admits that it is because of the fact that most of the relief work is done by NGOs , to whom he has given a free hand. Again a revealation that our IAS officers and their study(which they claim is very rigorous ) is all a bunch of nothing as they cannot drive the government machinery full overpaid and corrupt officials to even coordinate among themsleves and police to reach a simple thing as relief. Such is the state of affairs.

Heartening news is the handling of the affairs of relief by our Prime Minister Dr.Mamohan Singh. The rediff report indicates that he is well and truly in control of things in face of such a massive calamity. Also interesting is his balanced approach in spite of childish attempts by DMK and BJP to politicise the entire relief operation.

I was surprised by the news that a professor from California had warned people of Indonesia about an impending disaster. Dr. Kerry's here. The questions posed by Justice Lahotia seemed quite valid. How long is the Tamil Nadu government and its counsellors are going to keep harping on motives? The longer they carry on this, it will only provide fodder to yellow journalilsm(a kind of which is not in shortage in Tamil Nadu). The police have tomove on and explain the money conduit with clear material evidence. Also interesting to note is , why these questions were not raised by the Judge who heard the bail plea in the High court earlier? It seems that the police and the public prosecutors are happy just by letting out slanderous stories and not bothered to investigate in a silent manner, a manner in which responsible investigative agencies function. It raises doubts as to whether it is the same police that plotted elimination of Veerappan in an efficient manner. I will keep my tabs on this case and my comments will keep coming in.

The month of margazhi so far has been anything but peaceful and spiritual. Let us hope that we see the path in the month of "Thye" !!

World responds!!!

Though the end of last year was on a diturbing note due to the Tsunami, the new year could not have been better with all nations of the only known world to host life in this galaxy coming together to lend support to the affected nations. It was also heartening to see nations which were split against each other and UN, are coming together under the umbrella of United Nations in providing much needed relief and rehabilitation. Reports of UNICEF's donation of 100 portable schools to Sri Lanka also filled the hearts of one and all with hope and determination. Much is being done by leading nations of the world USA, UK, Germany , France, Russia and Japan. Other countries like China and Australia are also pitching in to assuage the sufferings of millions of tear drained eyes in the affected countries. Much needs to be done particularly in Indonesia and Srilanka where the nature's fury added more fuel to the simmering war between rebels and the respective governments. The Tsunami, cruel as it has been, also has been crucial in making the world understand that it no longer is a striated and sepatated place. Business, education and technology has united each and everyone of us in such a way that joy or sorrow, it affects us all. This universal spirit of brotherhood must be carried on forward by all the nations in the times that follow. In the midst of all this destruction and despair, I can feel proud of being an Indian on hearing two news snippets:
1. India refuses financial assistance from foreign nations. This shows that atleast Indian government is not poor anymore. Looking forward to the day when no Indian says he/she is poor.
2. India rushes relief to Srilanka , Maldives and Indonesia. My country is not the bad bug bully as nations in SAARC often complain. It is a responsible democracy which thinks of neighbours as allies irrespective of their political leanings.

Coming Back to U N , other interesting news are the elections in Palestine and Iraq.

Palestine elections will be keenly watched as it is the first one after the demise of the legendary Yasser Arafat. In the wake of recent Israeli responses(military responses that went terribly awry) to guerilla attacks which killed a group of teenagers, it is a million dollar question whether a moderate like Mahmood Abbas will be elected or not. The shadow of Hamas is beginning to loom large over these elections. Therefore it will be an important election that may well decide the direction of the peace process in the years to come. Understandably the world media is hyper in reporting any news from Middle East. Let us hope that the new year brings shift in the minds of hardliners and brings them closer to everlasting peace in this region.

Iraqi Elections on the other hand are more complicated when compared to the Palestinian one. While USA claims that it will hold the fairest polls in this country since the days before Saddam came to power, it remains to be seen if the recent (daily!) violence is having any impact. The sad feature is that the insurgents will find the people who proceed to vote to be easy target. This would mean that American forces will have to stay longer than the planned pull out date. The fate of Iraqi people is the most pitiable. They were liberated from a heartless dictator only to fall into chaos as USA had no plan of pulling out bringing UN in. The safer option for USA would have been to recede into the borders(for preventing insurgency) while UN would have normalized the heart of Iraq. Sadly that bus was missed and everything afterwards has been adding more unpredictability to the chaos and anarchy already prevalent. So the world waits for the election day. May the people's voice be heard!!!

I wish one and all a very happy new year. This year has been declared as the year of Physics by the United Nations. Physics happens to be my favourite subject. May the spirit of Einstein, Bohr, Dirac and Pauli guide us through to more and more inventions and discoveries!!!!

Adios!!!