The Future of Cricket

The Year: 2020.

The Venue: San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The Occasion: World Cup Instant Cricket Finals.

Guatemala Vs Samoa.

An exciting final awaits the 100,000 screaming audiences and the millions watching on their television screens at home. People of all ages and races have come together, putting their differences and hatred for each other aside, for this momentous occasion.

As the cheering grows louder, the two captains take the field. The Guatemalan skipper, in his bright magenta outfit, appears extremely confident of his chances, although the dressing room is full of nervous men in Magenta, biting at their fingernails fearing the backlash from the fanatic supporters back home should they end up losing the finals.

At the other end, the Samoan dressing room is unusually quiet, with all the players, dressed in their traditional leaf-skirt and head-gear attire, bowing down in front of their Chief Shaman as he continues to chant a silent prayer to a Pagan God.  The Samoan captain, forced by the racist and ethnically intolerant ICC, is looking uncomfortable in the Fluorescent Green Toga that he has pulled over the leafy-skirt costume wearing which his team had conquered 36 other nations on its way to the finals.

As the match referee throws the Royal Thai Baht in the air, the Guatemalan skipper screams “Heads” while counting the rosary in his hand. The Toga clad Samoan skipper has already launched into a glorious Tribal Dance as an offering of prayer to his Pagan Lord.

“Heads”, screams the Referee as the coin lands on the artificially laid green turf. The Guatemalan skipper collapses on the ground, even as he continues to clutch at the Rosary. The Magenta Men are already running in with loud cheers, and the supporters have already gotten their drums out as they start chanting “Guatemala, the Land of Champions”  in sync with the huge Mexican wave that has permeated through the crowds in the stadium.

Amidst the chaos, the cameras move towards the other end of the ground where the Samoan skipper is running towards the exit leading to the parking lot. The cameras catch the skipper casting aside his Toga and looking back every two seconds at the wild Samoan crowd chasing him with skulls and daggers, egged on by the blood-thirsty Head Shaman. The Samoan players, for their part, are also running towards their skipper to protect him from the crazy crowds. Oh, wait….they have the uprooted wickets in their hands, and one of them has just hurled the stump in his hand at his skipper, who luckily evades it even as he jumps straight into a waiting SUV about to speed away from the venue into safer havens.  

The media, have already made their way into the stadium, pushing aside the ambulance that was trying to come in to administer CPR to the victorious, albeit fallen, Guatemalan skipper. Half an hour later, amidst great fanfare and media glare, Kim Hughes, ex-captain of a luck-less Australia Cricket team in the 1980s, hands the “World Cup of Instant Cricket” to the Guatemalan Cricket Team. The country goes into delirium. The ultimate moment of triumph. The sweet culmination of years of hard work.  The perfect gratification for the sweat and toil that the team and the management put in for over 20 years.

It was all worth it. The World was conquered. 2020- Guatemala, World Champions.

As the Guatemalan flag is hoisted higher than the flags of the 119 other nations that had participated in this grand event, Sunil Gavaskar sitting in a desolate corner of the stadium reminisces sadly about the evolution of Cricket from a “Colonial Sport” to the World’s most popular “Game”. And the subsequent demise of the traditional powerhouses of the game.

It all started in the late 1970s when a greedy Australian tycoon decided that Test cricket was too boring and long, and had to be shortened in order to appeal to a larger audience.  That was the beginning of the One-Day cricket phenomenon, which literally added color to what was previously known as a dour sport meant only for the older and consequently, more sober, audiences. What followed was a series of innovations to make the game more colorful and appealing to a global audience.

Twenty20 caught on in the mid noughties, and went on to displace the 50 Over match as the de-facto standard for international cricket. Spurred by the popularity of the shortened game, the ICC went ahead with more changes in the name of “adding color “. As the innovations continued, the game went from 20 overs-a-side to 10, and then 5, and eventually reached its peak popularity in its current form – Instant Cricket.

With Instant Cricket, the game made its way into every part of the world, and the hitherto virgin nations took to the game like fish to water. As a direct consequence, the erstwhile powerhouses saw their influence diminish. Cricket crazy nations like India and Pakistan, where nearly a billion people used to gamble away their hard earned money on Cricket betting, were left in a lurch, and eventually had to shift their fanatical attention to other sports such as Football. Little did the Indian cricket board, BCCI, realize at the time when they aggressively campaigned for revolutionizing the sport, that their actions were going to come back to bite them where it hurts. And hurt, it did, when India did not even qualify for the World Cup 2020 play-offs from the SAARC region. The proverbial goose that laid the golden egg had been slaughtered in haste. And India had contrived to lose the one sport where it had a semblance of on-field World Domination and was a run-away winner off the field, thanks to a billion passionate fans and their ever-bulging wallets.

Today, as Guatemalans celebrate their maiden World Cup victory, a silent prayer to the colonial powers that laid the foundation of this revolution. The past 20 years has seen the game change from a Gentleman’s game to a common man’s game. 

The only complaint, if I may, is that what started off as an attempt to add more color to an already popular game resulted in the game ending up with just color. And nothing else.

And if it matters, the toss still continues to be important. More than it ever did! 

Creativity Unleashed

This term I decided to humor myself a bit, and enrolled for a course called "Creativity, Innovation and Design", CID in short. From what I saw in the first class, it seems like a fun course, unlike most other courses in a B-school curriculum.

Our first assignment was to write a 55-word story. The word count restriction, at first, sounded ridiculous. But as I started thinking about it, I realized this had to be like a 3 panel comic strip. And Calvin and Hobbes was a classic example of how the most memorable stories are written in the fewest of words.

With some heavy inspiration from Calvin's Spaceman Spiff alter-ego, here's what I conjured:

The great escape
“We are taking you to Planet Kroz as proof that intelligent life exists on Earth,” the alien chief glorked in perfectly accented English, tentacles awkwardly clicking and scrolling through the online “Krozzian–English Translation Manual”. As he moved to close the Explorer window, his cuticular eyes fell on my Blackboard grades.
“Release him,” he screamed.

P.S. The Prof liked it, and even edited it for me. I simply couldn't resist taking a dig at the "universal" corelation between intelligence and grades. But frankly, I am not complaining at all.

Lifecycle of a software professional

The life of a software professional is full of insecurities.
When you start out with your career, it is all about getting into the most reputed MNC. If a college-mate with lesser academic credentials that you got into a better company, with a higher pay, you'll have sleepless nights. Insecurities.

A couple of years later, when you realize that academic credentials have very little to do with who ends up in which company and earns what salary, the angst at being underpaid subsides. The comfort of being part of "the" most famous IT company provides consolation for all the under-achievement.

The next goal is to go to the US, and live there for a few years. When you finally manage to do that, it gives you a new high in your career. You are sitting in the US, and sending mails to all your batch-mates, who had gone past you in terms of salaries and achievements.
"Sup guys, how is our India these days? I am missing it badly, although USA is a pretty neat place to live in"
And then, to your horror, within 5 minutes, you receive 10 replies.
"Hey dude, just arrived eh? Gimme ur number, and i'll call ya. Been in NJ for the past 2 years" types.
Such kill-joys these friends are. And so your years in US are also spent sulking at how everybody else has already achieved everything that you are about to achieve. Insecurities loom large.

Finally, you decided you have had enough, and decide to return to India.Once back, you think of finally getting one up on all those US-based friends.
"Namaste friends, I am back in India now. All those months in Pardes taught me the importance of appreciating my own country. Now I have come back to my home, and am enjoying the warmth and joy that no amount of dollars can buy you in US. Jai Hind" You write.
Within 5 minutes, your mailbox is flooded again.
"Good you are back. Why don't we all meet up this weekend at Vidyarthi Bhavan for dosa?”
Just like that, your thunder is stolen. Yet again.And you are back to your ways of wallowing in self-pity. And insecurities.

After a lot of pondering, you decide to completely severe your links with all your batch-mates from college, to avoid being reminded of your under-achievements. So you decide to hang around mostly with colleagues. Since these guys are in the same boat as you are, there is no fear of being upstaged. Or so you think.

Soon, however, most of the guys that you had branded as "hopeless" due to their lack of charisma and attitude, and had ridiculed as people who will remain "techies" all their lives, manage to find jobs as "Technical Architects", with salaries more than double of what you get. The rest, who you ridiculed for being total "no-brainers" when it came to technology, accept positions as Project Managers and go on to earn pay packets several times more than yours. All of a sudden, you find yourself alone and left behind. Stuck in mediocrity, and complacency. As a jack of all, but master of none. The only thing that stays with you loyally through all these times is your fear of under-achievement.
Insecurities.

And then you go do an MBA.
You think a B-school education is the answer to all your woes. And after spending all your hard earned money on that B-school degree, you realize how wrong you were.
After all the rigorous schedules that you go through at the B-school, you realize that you are just as clueless, but a whole lot poorer than before. And you are back to square one.
Insecurities: Driving the lifecycle of a software professional.

Speed Demon : The URO experience

NOTE: In adherence with the Honor Code rules at ISB, the author acknowledges that this post was originally published a year ago on his now defunct blog. The post is being republished as an open acknowledgement of his "Writer's Block".

The protagonist in this story is an old friend, who I shall refer to as R. Mister R had shown signs of his greatness at a very early age, and has now gone on to vindicate us with his lofty achievements. This incident that I will recount here, is one such proof of the great man that R would grow up to be.

It happened one evening, about 8 years ago. We were all in our college, most of us being students of Engineering. Being budding engineers with a penchant for Science and all things related to it, yours truly and his good friend D were engrossed in a highly scientific conversation about scientific marvels, and unexplained phenomenon. I was narrating interesting anecdotes about another friend of mine who had claimed in school to have spotted a UFO on his first floor terrace. As shocking as that was to D, he proceeded to narrate another amazing incident that he personally experienced.

During one of the several internal exams that D had to take as part of the Engineering course, D had been to his friend's house on KR Road in South Bangalore, for a group study session. The compulsive smoker that he was, D had come out of the house to steal a quick smoke. He had checked his watch to give himself exactly 5 minutes to get back to studies. The watch had the time as 12:57 AM, on the 3rd of December 1998. And suddenly it happened. A streak of black and orange flashed past him, and before he could fathom what was going on, the streak had disappeared over the horizon onto the other end of KR Road. D was at a loss to explain what it could have been. When he sat down to think about exactly what he saw, he realized that the streak of black and orange had made a sound like that of a purring engine. But that was about all that he could gather of what he had seen.
It finally dawned upon him that he had just witnessed a rare spotting of a URO!
For the uninitiated, URO stands for Unidentified Riding Object, and if the apocalypse-watchers are to be believed, most future alien attacks will be through UROs and not UFOs, due to advancements in rocket science on earth.

D confided that ever since, he had been having sleepless nights. He had been having nightmares of the URO attacking him since he had seen it, and as depicted in most Alien movies, anyone who discovered their existence died an unexplained, untimely death.
When D recounted his URO experience, I was completely amazed and stunned at the same time. I was also a wee bit jealous for not having spotted the URO myself, since I didn’t live too far away from KR road myself.

A week had passed since this amazing revelation. I had gone out for dinner at a Dhaba with my group of friends. Since we were poor students then, our parties would almost always be at a dhaba. One such favorite was the Eden Huts dhaba on Kanakapura road. I can’t put a finger on the exact occasion for our partying, but nevertheless, I remember we had a blast that night. After finishing our dinner at the dhaba, we were riding our motorbikes on our way back home.

It was close to midnight, and some of us had driven a lot faster than the others, and so the faster ones, including myself, had decided to stop at one of the pan-shops and wait for the others to join. A and I (as in me) started boasting about the max speed we had touched on that night. A claimed that his Yamaha had easily crossed 100 KMPH, and I, not wanting to be left behind, retorted that my Samurai had also crossed well past 100 KMPH. At this point, the third guy, AS intervened, boasting that he had a Shogun which could easily do a 120 KMPH, leaving A and me with no option but to shut up. Just when AS thought he had won the argument, and the crown for Speed Demon, our dude R dropped the inevitable bombshell.
"Do you guys know I can do a 140 KMPH on my dad's Hero Honda?" R thundered.
"What? Dude, you've got to put a lid on your gasbag. There's no way you can do a 140 in that 4 stroke" A screamed.
"You bet. No way" I agreed.
"Yo R, get a life. Your Hero Honda is a sissy 4 stroke underpowered mileage bike" AS joined in.
There was a long silence. R was visibly unimpressed, and disgusted with his friends for dismissing his claims the way they did. So he decided to let the cat out of the bag.
"Do you know the speedometer on my Hero Honda is calibrated till 140 KMPH? Why do you think they'd take the trouble if the bike couldn’t do that speed?" R reasoned.
"And you, CK, your bike is calibrated only upto 120. So don’t you try to compete with me when it comes to speed" he continued pointing at me.
"And I guess it’s the same with the rest of your bikes as well. Just 120 KMPH. Isn’t it?" R went on, this time admonishing the rest of them as well, for their impudence, and the chiding they had given him.
At this point, A had somewhat recovered from the unexpectedly vitriolic attack, and he tried to counter-attack.
"But R, this is India. How the hell can you expect anyone to believe you did a 140 KMPH on Indian Roads? Do we look like no-brainers to you?" A thundered.
That was our cue. AS and I joined in and began to dismantle R's composure with our jibes and jokes at his overtly far-fetched claim. Not one to be undone, R then adopted the sentimental technique and explained the scenario to us.
"Guys, I can’t force you to believe me, nor am I interested in proving it to you. But just to let you know, that night my mom was very ill, and she needed some medicines urgently. It was well past midnight. 1257 AM in the night, to be precise. My dad gave me the prescription, and asked me to rush and pick up the medicines. At that time in the night, I knew there was only one drug store that stayed open. On KR Road. But even that stayed open only till 1 AM. I had just 3 minutes to rush and get those medicines. I got on my bike, and gave full throttle and within seconds, I was cruising at 140 KMPH. It could be more, but I have no way to know since the speedometer is calibrated only upto 140. And I managed to reach the drug store on time and get those medicines for my mom. If you were to be in my situation, I am sure you'd also probably push your bike to its limits. But maybe not 140 KMPH since your bikes are calibrated only upto 120." R concluded, with a lost-puppy look on his face, as if to add credibility to his story.
"hmm, I guess we were a little too fast to jump to conclusions. We’re really sorry." AS apologized, almost ashamed to have initially disbelieved R's story.
"Yeah dude, you’re right. When you have a family emergency, people do experience miraculous super-human powers" A agreed wholeheartedly.
I was, however, lost in thoughts. The mention of the word miracle had set me thinking. And the fact that this incident occurred on KR Road had really got my mind racing.
"What time did you say this occurred?" I questioned R.
"12:57 in the night" R replied, with an annoyed look on his face since he was expecting an apology from me, and he hadn’t got one yet.
"And was it on the 3rd of December, 1998?" I went on.
"Umm..Dont remember the date exactly. But it must be around the same time. Why do you ask?" R was puzzled.
"And what color is your bike?"
"It's black and orange."
BINGO.
The mystery of the URO had been solved. Just like that!
I stopped at the nearest phone booth, and called my friend D and explained the story to him.

That night, my friend D slept a peaceful sleep. Without nightmares. Finally.

International Women's Day

A special thanks to the two women who define my very existence.
The mother and the wife.

It's amazing how easy it is to take them for granted, just because they don't mind.
Or even if they did, it doesn't matter since they will still continue to love us anyways.
It's funny how we know that we take them for granted, and yet don't do anything to change it.

But Men, being intelligent species, realized that sooner than later, it was inevitable that women would rebel. There was only so much that they would take, and once that limit was crossed, they would make life miserable for their men.

At this point, a genius among the male species spoke.

"How about setting aside one day in a year to appreciate the women of this world? That way they will also feel special, even if it's for only one day in a year".

Men being men, a few of them had apprehensions.

"That leaves us with only 364 days of bossing around in a year. Aren't you asking too much from us? Being magnanimous is one thing, but this is plain sacrifice"

The genius pacified the detractors again.

"Considering that there will be leap years, we will still have 365 days of domination once in 4 years. And if you want the bigger joys, you will have to be prepared for a few sacrifices, however tough it may be".

Finally, after a lot of convincing, all the men agreed to celebrate the women of the world on one day each year.
Today is that day.

Happy International Women's Day.

Gastronomic Nightmares

It happened when I was in std 8th. Mom had been transferred to a far off place, and couldnt impress upon her superiors to move her back to Bangalore. Dad had, therefore, inherited the kitchen. Food would mostly be alright, but there were times when Dad would outdo himself, and cook a fantasy dinner that we thought should stay only in fantasies. But since brother and I were kids with a paltry pocket money of Rs.50 per month, which would mostly be spent on the first weekend after receiving it, we had to force ourselves to like everything that Dad cooked. It was only later that I realised that going hungry is a lot less harmful than eating bad food.

One fateful evening, Dad decided to cook something exotic. I dont remember what it was, but it smelled like volcanic ash. And it tasted just as hot. Since we dont hail from Andhra, and we dont even have any remote ancestral links with Andhra Pradesh, the gene for digesing spicy food was never inherited. Not even the recessive variety. But Dad believed in the "All humans are evolved from the same ancestors" theory, and insisted we eat the spicy volcanic ash that he had conveniently branded as food.

Armed with a bucket full of water, sweetened by a generous helping of sugar, Bro and I went through the ordeal. We had to eat till the entire ash was consumed, since my Dad was strictly against wasting food. Brother suggested that we save some of it for later, hoping that would give us sufficient time to dig a big pit in the neighbour's backyard and dump the food so that nobody could find it. However, Dad was quick to see through his plan, and warned us that the food would get hotter when it turns cold. Some oxymoron that. So we cursed and ranted and cried and ate the entire lava , while all the time emptying bucket loads of sweetened water and draining our watery noses with turkey towels (since all our hand kerchiefs were dripping wet).

The next morning, I had to excuse myself atleast thrice during class, to relieve myself in the loo. As luck would have it, it was a Tuesday. And Tuesdays were dry days in Bangalore since there would be no water running in the taps. I dare not explain how I came clean out of my predicament. But I have faint memories of all my fellow students reaching for scented kerchiefs the moment I came back to the class. Someone later told me it was chemistry class, and they were discussing Hydrogen Sulphide.
But I know better than to believe it.

Valentine's Day

P.S. This post was written on Feb 15th, but has been posted on Feb 20th.

It was Valentine's Day yesterday. And I managed to pick up a rose for my wife just before I went home at 930 PM. Luckily for me, she didn’t seem too upset by my late ways. In fact, it appears that she has given up on me.

That was my V-day. But the rest of the country seems to have woken up to love in a really big way.
The V-day festivities begin in early February, and linger on till the end of the month. Barista and Cafe Coffee Day outlets seem to be in a competition to outdo each other in ushering in the spirit of St.Valentine.

Last weekend, the waiter at Barista tried every clichéd trick in his book of marketing to sell my friend and me one of those mushy stuffed teddy toys to gift our girlfriends on Valentine's Day. We put up a brave front, and refused him every single time. But he kept coming back with more and better offers. Due to his insisting, my friend decided to buy it for his girlfriend.

After scanning through the variety of stuffed toys on display, he finally decided to buy the huge cute teddy that adorned the top shelf.

My friend walked up to the waiter and asked him
“So you think that huge Teddy would make a perfect Valentine's Day gift?".

The waiter smiled.
"Sir, I can assure you that you will receive VIP Treatment from madam on V-day if you give her this gift".

My friend was convinced. He asked the waiter to wrap the gift in mushy colors and lace befitting the Valentine's Day spirit. Just when he was about to pay up, he noticed another small, little teddy thrown away in a corner.

"How much for that little teddy?" he asked.

"Sir, that one's been discarded since it is too dirty. But if you like it, I will give it to you as a free compliment" the waiter offered.

"Great. Wrap that one too, and stick a message saying 'To my dear wife'. I don't want her feeling left out on Valentine's Day"

My friend must have had a blast yesterday. I called him at home last night, but his wife told me he hadn’t yet come back from work. I asked her if she got the Big Teddy or the small one.
She just said
"You mean there was a Big Teddy? That b@#$*#".

I am yet to hear from him about how his Valentine's Day went.
But I am sure he had a Blast.