Six with attitude
This is so funny, it is worth watching.
For background, India won a test match in South Africa for the first time ever (since South Africa was re-admitted into world sports). It was truly a blowout performance, especially after how they were whitewashed 4-0 in the one-dayers. The funniest moment though was from the Man of the Match, Sreesanth.
Note to the non-cricket followers: In general, the Indian team is a well-behaved if somewhat meek team. This guy though is all attitude. Sreesanth is a bowler and often has a word or two to say to the batsman when he’s bowling.
Here he’s batting. Right before the clip starts, the bowler, Andre Nel (who sets the gold standard for goading the batsman), tells Sreesanth that he doesn’t have heart. Sreesanth promptly tonks him for a six.
Telecom Italia ad uses Gandhi
This award winning ad is a little old, but I just saw it. Powerfully communicated message.
The text at the end says -
Imagine the world today
if he could have communicated like this.
Yes, indeed.
Finally, some analysis
Amidst all the brouhaha about the performance of the Indian cricket team, finally, Rediff has done some analysis. Amazing stuff, analysis - actually gives you facts to talk about!
Ganguly vis-a-vis Dravid as captain in ODIs
Captaincy record
| Mts | Won | Lost | NR | Won% | Lost% | |
| Ganguly | 146 | 76 | 65 | 5 | 52.05 | 44.52 |
| Dravid | 53 | 27 | 23 | 3 | 50.94 | 43.39 |
| Ganguly after 53 matches | 53 | 27 | 26 | 0 | 50.94 | 49.06 |
Hmm… seems to me they are *exactly tied* at this stage in their captaincy careers. So I guess the moral of the story is that the Indian team has in fact been this pathetic before. Hopefully, this too shall pass.
Everyone has the right to representation
Apparently this concept is too hard for the Indian press to understand. As background, there’s quite a famous case in progress. The court of public opinion has convicted the accused. That’s fine — happens all the time.
But apparently they are having a hard time understanding why a leading lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, is defending the accused. Mr. Jethmalani, who is, if anything, brilliant, takes the reporter, Sagarika Ghosh, to the cleaners on her lack of understanding between public opinion and legal fact. The basic issue is not whether Manu Sharma is guilty or not guilty. The basic issue is that being convicted in the court of public opinion does not mean that he is guilty according to the law.
Sagarika Ghosh can’t grasp that distinction. It is ludicrous how she keeps asking him “why are you defending him?” - because everyone has the right to a fair trial and everyone had the right to representation. Even the guilty ones. Only by ensuring that the guilty have fair representation can you ensure that the innocent will get fair representation.
I love this quote –
That is my courage. I have moral courage, and who are the citizens of India? You are not the repositories of the citizens of India. I decide according to my conscience who to defend and please understand and tell those people who are asking this question that there is a statutory rule of the Bar Council of India that a lawyer who refuses to defend a person on the ground that people believe him to be guilty is himself guilty of professional misconduct.
Watch the video here. [Hat tip on video and quote: Confused]
While I personally might feel that Manu Sharma is guilty as sin, is using his political connections and must be convicted, I will also defend his right to the best counsel available. Why is that hard to understand?
The on thing I completely disagree with him on is that the press has overstepped their ground - India has too many instances where politicans get away with, well…, murder. So I think the press has done a great job of exposing this story and all it’s gory details. But, he’s entitled to his opinion. I hope Jethmalani doesn’t give himself a coronary with all the screaming.
Why do I do this to myself??
I slept on the couch. I was up at 3:45 AM. I turned over; my computer was on and plugged in. The browser was open, set to Willow TV. I refresh the browser and start watching the India-Australia match at the ICC Champions Trophy.
Half way through the match, I was feeling quite good. India didn’t collapse. They had 249 on the board. Nice. But then of course, it was back to normal. The batting and the bowling can’t both work well — that is the cardinal rule for the Indian Cricket team. One has to suck!
And the bowlers duly delivered. They sucked (and continue to do so). Australia is just cruising along. They will win this match.
I’ve got to stop torturing myself like this!
UPDATE — This is a great post on why I likely won’t stop torturing myself. At least the World Cup will be in a closer timezone. That’s something to cheer about!
Happy Deepavali
Deepavali, traditionally known as the Festival of Lights, is a celebration of hope for the world and the triumph of good over evil. It is one of the most important festivals on the Hindu calendar.
When I was growing up, we’d be woken up at first light, taken to the prayer room, given new clothes, and told to wash our hair and wear our new clothes. Then we’d run outside and burst crackers of all sorts (flowerpots, chakras, rockets, string bombs). It was a great fun for a kid. A few weeks before the big day, you go with your parents, choose your fireworks and then carefully use them, making sure to ration them out to last till Deepavali (so you get two weeks of nightly fireworks, and the whole neighborhood is filled with noise of kids celebrating). On Deepvali, after you set off the biggest and the best fireworks that you’ve carefully kept aside, you consume a delicious breakfast and visit family you hadn’t see in a while. The whole morning was spent driving from one house to the next until everyone was checked off the list. Of course, you ate incredible food all along the way and come home to eat a sumptuous lunch before napping it all off.
As an adult in New York, I’ve adapted the tradition significantly. Since I can’t really set off fireworks on my fire escape, I sleep in, get up when I please and then pick out the new, unworn clothes I’ve reserved for the occasion and dress up. Then, I call family, wish them and proceed to enjoy the wonderful food the festival demands. I think I’ve kept the most important elements!
Cycles of Social Networking Sites
It is interesting to see how Social Networking (SN) sites evolve.
Friendster took off like a rocketship when it launched. It was out of control - everyone was on it and everyone was talking about it. Then techonology problems (like an excruciatingly slow site) caused it to fall off a cliff. But, if you look at the graph below (from Alexa), they are reemerging…
Orkut, Google’s venture into SN, also took off with a ton of press about Orkut Biakutten. Everyone I knew logged on, added all their friends and then, maybe 6 months later, everyone got tired of it and stopped. Primarily because there was no point.
But Orkut is *huge* in certain places. The well known one is Brazil, but they are actually also huge in India. All the evidence is anecdotal. Go to most any Indian blog and you will see mentions of Orkut. I also get a fair amount of messages from Indians on Orkut. Actually, looking at the Alexa numbers, there’s been an incredible spike as of Q2 of 2006. Why?
And comparing Friendster versus Orkut, you can see that Orkut has clearly taken off.
Here’s an interesting blurb from ZDNet News (from July ‘06):
In May, Orkut had 210,000 visitors in the United States, up 85 percent from the year earlier, according to ComScore.
Worldwide, Orkut enjoyed more popularity. It ranked fifth in May by ComScore’s measure, more than doubling its visitors for the year to 33.7 million. In contrast, MSN Spaces doubled its visitors to 101 million, and MySpace grew 250 percent to 74 million, according to ComScore.
Wow — US traffic is smaller than a speck of dust. Incredible how significant international growth is.
The only SN site that seems impervious to cycles is the juggernaut, MySpace.
Kiran Desai wins Booker Prize
This is cool. Kiran Desai became the youngest woman to win the Man Booker Prize for her book “The Inheritance Of Loss”. The last Indian woman to win it was Arundathi Roy for “God Of Small Things”, which I loved.
It took Kiran eight years to write the novel (wow!) and she dedicated it to her mother, Anita Desai, who was nominated for the Booker three times, but never won.
Click on the book to listen to Kiran’s reading.
Here’s an excellent interview by one of my favorite bloggers, Jabberwock.
Of Cool Grandmas
You can either dive headfirst into the technology revolution or make excuses as to why you can’t. The person who amazes me the most in this regard is my Grandmother.
She is one cool lady. There’s been a history of coolness - from a gold medal in Sanskrit in college to driving herself (and her kids) around in Bangkok, to speaking Thai and French in addition to English, Tamil and Kannada, she’s always exhibited a passion for life that’s contagious.
Not that my Grandfather is not cool in his own right - both my grandparents are iPod converts, pulling out the little device when they feel like listening to their favorite ragams. I have a “technology is compressing our world” moment every time I see my Grandfather, sitting in his veshti, white iPod earplugs sprouting from his ears, lost in his music.
But my Grandmother takes the cake. On my last trip home, I was sitting near my Grandmom, talking on the phone with a friend. The conversation was about Wikis. I was telling my friend how they work and I said “Of course the most famous and comprehensive wiki is…” “And my Grandmother piped in with “Wikipedia”! She then proceeded to explain how it worked. So cool.
I recounted the conversation to Om and he blogged about it. The post subsequently got a couple of trackbacks too.
Not just cool, but famous in the blogosphere!
Cool desi meme: Ready, Steady, Charity
I stumbled upon this cool meme. I wasn’t “invited” to the meme by anyone since I don’t know any of the bloggers, but it was so cool that I decided to participate (is that kosher?)
Gaurav proposed three words — Mahmood, Chardonnay and Musharraf. He proposed that not only do you come up with a story, but do so in 55 words. Interesting!
Here’s my take:
FuckingEffing Musharraf was on Jon Stuart. Dictatorial comedy. Made me smile nonetheless. Not quite a smooth pinot noir, but maybe a perky chardonnay instead. Reminded me of the best of Mahmood. Wit, charm, convenient memory, lies. The worst of Mahmood. Crawling into bed alone, I wished he were here. Rememories surface at most inopportune times.
The goal of this meme is to give to ProjectWhy. Please do.
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