A journey of 1000 kms begins with a single spin!

Life is a journey, travel it!... it’s the path that matters, not the eventual destination… focus on the efforts, not on the results... da da da

Sounds like a perfect beginning to one of those long boring philosophical posts on life and goals, etc, etc… however, dear readers, don’t be so disappointed, this post is the exact opposite!

I was initially thinking of posting a very objective matter-of-fact review of different cars that I have test driven in the recent past, but decided to instead post about a day that was from my point of view exciting, ambitious, thrilling and entertaining and for someone distant from the driving world, it would have been at best boring and tiring!

The story till Friday, May 4th 2007:

Singapore, a near diamond shaped island, 40kms wide and 30 kms in length when extruded out of complex trigonometry and geometry formulae would probably stretch to 100kms in perimeter. I had driven nearly 1300 kms in Singapore in 2 weeks, essentially implying that there was no major road left untouched. I started off with “lets try this expressway”, two days later I was like “lets try the 2nd lane of the same expressway”, a couple of days more I was like “practice makes a man perfect, so keep driving and repeating the same roads again and again!”…

It was during one of these drives, the music deviated away from “high-bass, side rear view mirror vibrating and floating rock music” to “…I want to break free…I wanna break free…” and I thought, well, I have had enough of driving in Singapore - I actually need to break free as well – probably a drive to Malaysia and experience highway driving. Next step was rather simple – visa application to embassy of Malaysia and I got my multiple entry visa in a week’s time!

Then I started calling up my friends to join me for the trip - while some were direct in their feedback “dude, crazy idea… I am not joining”, other psued specimens like Candy were a bit more refined “would have loved to join you on the trip, but have got work over the weekend and a couple of meetings in the office”… finally after much persuasion, Abhishek and Aparna (K&M from now on, dorm names not used in public interest :P) agreed to be part of my crazy idea – a trip to Mount Frazer and back (~1000 kms) in a day!

Saturday, May 5th 2007…

With no real preparation required for the trip, we decided to start at 5:45 am after a negotiation process that lasted for 30 mins debating the pros and cons of a 5:45am start vs. a 5:50am one! As usual, I had to goof up with the alarm and by some strange configuration of phone settings, the alarm just didn’t ring. I got a call at 5:45 from K&M and I woke up in a state of shock – “What! I am late to get up for a drive?… no way, this is not me…!” However, made some quick recovery and we finally managed to start off at about 6:15am. A quick trip to money exchanger and stocking up a couple of cold drink cans, we were all geared up for a trip to Malaysia.

We crossed the border after immigration formalities by 7:30am and hit the expressway by 8am. The road was excellent with speed limits not as strict as in Singapore. So, I decided to throttle a bit more and see how the car behaved at higher speeds. At 150 kmph, Avante was sailing – well balanced and sturdy, felt in complete control. I will go into technical and driving details in the next post, but to sum it all up, the drive was quite cool and the engine behaved in the exact fashion that fits my exact definition of an ideal engine/ car – packed with power when required, otherwise serene, refined and calm with low decibel levels!

While M free-rode and peacefully slept, K was busy with navigating out goof ups. We had one map to help us – on most occasions we got the highway right, however a couple of times we found ourselves driving down the wrong direction though! :-)

We reached KL is quick time, had a quick brunch – so did the car (petrol refill)! The next stage was a bit more challenging as we found our way to the other end of KL bye-passing the city. We soon reached the smaller highway leading to our final destination. With significant decrease in road quality and width, it took us much longer to get to Mount Fraser than we had initially imagined. We got lost a couple of times, till we found a desi to help us with directions. In typical desi style, the route from his point of view was simple – “keep going straight, no turns”… we were like, “thanks, you are the man!”. However, 200m further down, the road split to two tangentially opposite directions! With not much left to trust the directions we were provided with, we decided to trust our instincts instead - right turn was the verdict!

The uphill drive was a challenge as well, at times the road was a bit too narrow to be classified as 2-way – meant that much more of focus on the road and control at the bends. But Avante behaved very well at turnings and steering through the challenging climb was a pleasure – more on this in the next post.

Finally, we made it to Mount Fraser at 2:30pm and then began the search for a restaurant for lunch. We had to now define the “next steps” – any places to see around? K managed to catch some sort of cold on the way and that was reason enough for him to free-ride. I was the designated driver and therefore I tried to act as if I was too tired. That left M to do all the googling for places to see. Next 5 minutes were completely hilarious – M tried to communicate with a mixture of sign language, actions and Singlish, but that did didn’t help much. We were trying to get the directions to a lake: “ehh… lake, where?”… no reply… “water…?” again no feedback from the other side to confirm if our attempt to communicate had been received and understood… next, we tried showing mineral water, but that did no good too… finally M got the idea of asking for “..boating?” aahaa, our receptionist understood and gave us rough directions to the lake.

We were in more ways that one excited about the lake and boating… our conversation went like:

“… wow, lake would be fun here” … “lets get the camera out” … “we don’t have tons of time, so lets keep the lake visit short, mebbe just cover one part of the lake boating” … “a speed motor boat would be fun here, lets try for that”… and there was a gradual build-up in excitement leading to the lake.

The lake was not too far, we got there with 5-10 minutes of drive. However, we were greeted with a shocking sight: 1) The lake was a bit brown in colour, as opposed to blue that we had envisaged 2) There was exactly one pedal boat in the lake and the other 3 were stacked one over the other at the corner of the lake 3) … and finally it hit us… nooooo… the lake was only a fraction bigger than a bath tub… just a hint bigger! Ofcourse, as M was the navigator at Mount Fraser, K and I peacefully blamed her and added the lake to her list of exponentially increasing list of recent goof-ups!

It was time to lower our expectations – to understand and accept that Mount Fraser is not a tourist spot by any stretch of imagination. We spent half an hour doing time pass at a view-point – it was good, just that there was no view. To limit any further damage to our self-esteem and trip-planning confidence, we decided to erase out from our memories that we ever visited this place! It was unanimously decided that all pictures taken at Mount Faber would be donated to the recycle bin of our laptops, once we get home!

With K down with tons of cold and a bit of fever, M decided to be the navigator on the way back. We started from Mount Faber at around 4pm, stopped at another lake in between in an attempt to search for that one good scenery to make this trip good, but didn’t find any. With not much left to see, we started the return journey back to Singapore.

Next 6 hours was all driving – we stopped once in between for tea and once for petrol, but otherwise I did what I enjoy the most – night driving, a true test of driving technique, stamina and inclination. Avante clocked 500kms in quick time and we were back at the Singapore immigration at about 10:30 at night. There was some visa and passport configuration problem and resulting punga at the Malaysia immigration, but M in her typical style went and gave a big lecture to the immigration officer and sorted it out!!

As we entered Singapore, the odometer read 970 kms for the day. With Newton/Novena being only 15-20 kms from the border, I knew that the decimal system of mathematical numbers wouldn’t let me reach 1000 kms in a day. So, took a slightly longer route, via Tuas to inch closer to the 4 figure mark. Next when I saw the reading, it was 994 for the day – and I knew we were ~5-7 kms from home… was not sure if we would get to 1000, but decided to go ahead with the straight route back home. One traffic signal from home, the odometer read 999… it was close, very close and the meter turned to 1000 exactly when we were at the security gate of the building!

We were all tired after doing 1000kms – but M still had the energy to make some quick dinner and we called it a day soon after that!

This was my second time to 1000 kms in a day, the first being in October last year in South Africa. I wouldn’t want to compare, but this trip was probably a bit more challenging with 3-4 hours of hill drive included. But statistics apart, it was a great trip with K&M. More trips in the pipeline over the next few weekends, any takers? :-)

Capturing a very special moment - the state of Nirvana

This is a very special post, to capture a very special moment that has eclipsed everything else over the last 3 days. I will struggle with words for most part of this post, ‘coz I am currently in a state of Nirvana, a high resulting not from 5 bottoms-up of neat Scotch Whiskey on the rocks, but a high resulting from realization of a long cherished dream come true. It might sound like I am going a bit overboard with this, but it wouldn’t have been a special post otherwise, right?
This Thursday, I got my car! … lemme give a short preview to the events and emotions starting from just before Thursday evening to the time when I started typing this post.

Jan 2007, first serious thought about car ---> Applied for Basic Theory Test to convert my India license to a valid Singapore one ---> Started with understanding various different cars, a trip to showroom almost every weekend to understand the specifications, price, design, etc ---> booked 17th March as test date for driving test ---> 16th evening, got a Singapore traffic book to ghot ---> went for a movie on 16th evening, came back at ~2am and then realized “ohh. crap, haven’t ghoted for the test” ---> ghoted the driving rule book from 2am to 5am on 17th early morning ---> went and gave the test, lady luck helped me pass the test and after ~2 hours of patience in the queue, got my license to drive!

Without even thinking of breakfast or lunch, I directly went to the car dealer, told them, “look, I am legally permitted drive now, so better let me take a test drive”! ---> went to different showrooms – Chevrolet, Subaru, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, Toyota to check out all possible cars that could fit my extended-extended budget! ---> gave a very deep thought to what I really wanted vs. the risk of taking a huge loan ---> developed an excel model to see if there were any remote cost savings that I could do to fit the monthly installment of car in ---> alas, it made no financial sense to buy a car here in Singapore à so, Mr. Logic said, “don’t be stupid, there is no real need to buy a car, it makes zuk financial sense” ---> then Mr. Unknown told “stop living life so defensively, stop being calculative with things that matter to you most, try being fearless for once, stop relying on logic for every damn decision!” ---> and so… decision was made, Mr. Logic was asked to take a chill pill!

So, after one final round of test drives on 1st April, made up my mind to go for Hyundai Avante ---> surprisingly, it was not even in my initial short-list, ‘coz I wanted a manual transmission only, while Avante came with automatic version only ---> deep thought again, decided to let-go the stigma attached with manual transmission to appreciate the other good things with Avante à booked the car over lunch on Monday, 2nd April

I was reasonably happy with the decision, though felt nothing special as such à work kept me busy for the next one week ---> on 11th April, got a message from the dealer – “your car has been registered and will be delivered this week” ---> I called back immediately, said “please please, asap!” ---> the plead was responded to and I was informed that I could collect it on Thursday evening (12th April) ---> Since then, I have been in a different world! ---> Mr. Logic probably gave up and disappeared and Mr. Unknown has been governing all my actions since then ---> didn’t sleep much on Wednesday night, out of sheer excitement and expectation of a special day ahead ---> next morning, went to work à everyone was like “can you please stop smiling for no reason?” ---> did a bit of work, with half my mind in the fast approaching dream world ---> finished the work and left office early at 7pm ---> rushed to the showroom ---> signed the documents, saw if the relevant papers were intact, and this was it ---> was handed over the key and …

Wasn’t entirely sure of the way back home from the showroom ---> a very tentative drive back home ---> takes a bit of time to adjust to a different car, so patiently drove back home ---> a quick couple of calls back home, started off within 10 minutes to see my cousin ---> lost my way, took the wrong route, but “so wat, I was enjoying it”! ---> drove and drove from 8pm to about 2:30 am, ofcourse with stops in between for a Birthday party and some late night Mc Donald’s visit ---> special thanks to special friends (Candy, Bharti, Bulco, Abhishek) for making the evening special ---> back home at 3am, had clocked ~150 kms by then!

Since then, a few more drives all across Singapore ---> have done 400 kms already! ---> many of these drives were purely “aimless” ---> take any damn expressway, keep driving, will reach somewhere at some stage, take a U-turn back and drive and drive ---> get lost somewhere in between à but I have enjoyed it all ---> I delayed the decision to purchase a road map and since then haven’t looked at the map, ‘coz I am enjoying these “aimless drives with no real motive or destination” ---> Maslow would have seen me drive before he came up with the term “self-actualization”!

Today, Sunday morning, got up à went for breakfast, something that I haven’t done in years, just to drive! ---> came back, did the first car wash here, spent a bit of time near the engine, but frankly, with all technology coming in, I couldn’t understand much

So, this is how it has been ---> frankly, I am in a totally different world at the moment ---> have dreamt of having a car for way too long (~2 decades now probably!) ---> and it is slowly sinking in ---> not sure, if any one else can appreciate it, probably Maharaj who is himself a bit crazy about driving would get somewhere close to appreciating my state of mind at the moment! ---> for others, I continue to a topic of intense research over the last 3 days “… he was okay till sometime back, currently looks like a case of acute mental instability, lets pray he recovers and stops smiling… ” and from my point of view, this is Nirvana!

PS: This post was purely to capture this moment. I will get back to my logical ways soon, hopefully before tomorrow morning; otherwise my boss will give me a tough time!! My next post will be a driving review on Avante. In short, I currently term Avante as “Raw power fused with dazzling curves and calm refinement”

A bit of rubbish...

This is going to be a slightly different post - I am a bit annoyed with the way we all have reacted to World Cup debacle...

I am just as much disappointed with India's early exit from World Cup... to the extent that I haven't seen a match since India lost to Sri Lanka. But nothing on earth, warrants this sort of reaction from the media, public, etc

Anyways, that is history now - the events that have since then transpired have showed one simple thing - as a nation, we are highly emotional - we tend to live on extremes - worship Tendulkar one day and then show utter disregard the very next, now that we are out of the cup.

Probably, we all need to put things in perspective. Are we over-reacting? More importantly, is over-reacting to the situation and dumping the entire team likely to improve the performance of the team? My answer is a crystal clear no to the above. Yes, there is need for young blood in our team, but not at the cost of Tendulkar and co.

That is anyways a lesser point - I seriously don't mind that much when critics take a dig at Tendulkar's recent performance - it has been ordinary by his standards. But, to go one step deeper and question Tendulkar's attitude, motivation and commitment to the game is something unacceptable. We all have observed Tendulkar for 17 years to know what the truth is. Our ex-coach got this part totally wrong. I am still giving Mr Chappell some sorta benefit of doubt, terming his out-burst against Tendulkar as an 'error in judgment' as opposed to something 'intentional'.

May be, just may be, the onus is on us, to support the team and ask ourselves "What can be our role here?" Can we look beyond criticizing players and being a threat to the safety of their families?

My experiments with stress management

This is going to be a bit of a heavy post, I will get back to my ‘chill blogging resolution’ soon. A post on stress management has been in the pipeline for long – has been a topic of interest and research since school days and more so in the last couple of years.

However, over the years, there have been a few changes to my attitude, understanding and approach to stress management. Often as it turns out to be, going through a rough phase can help us discover new things and this is what exactly happened with me. It is so much like Test match cricket, you go through a rough phase, you then improve your technique, temperament and attitude to the game. For me, in some ways, it has been a journey of extremes – from a point when I thought, stress meant nothing, driven by some sorta arrogant belief that one can take tons of stress (I can handle it all!) if one has the ability to chill out – to the other extreme when I finally understood that stress needs to be managed on a regular basis and there is more to it than just trying to be chill.

Since then, it has been a process of gradual reconstruction, driven by the intent to discover what I termed as AM_v2 (much like how Indica transformed as a car after initial quality issues!) – there is always that scope for improvement, but I have learnt a bit about stress management and this post is an attempt to put it all together.

Rest of this post is going to be more in graphical format to communicate the complex message better:

We all deal with stress differently. Please do get back to me with your comments if you think differently about stress management.

Of rusticity and vibes!

I am currently at the half way point of the long Chinese new-year weekend. After an unsuccessful attempt at an unplanned road trip to East-coast Malaysia, I am back to my default state of doing nothing, also termed as guss in certain rustic parts of North-Western India! Having mastered the art of ‘doing nothing’, I thought, well, doing something constructive might not be that bad an idea. This in turn led me to spending a fair bit of weekend time thinking of possible serious blogging topics ranging right from motivation to driving to world cup to India’s growth story to stress management to wikipedia vs. unclycopedia, etc, etc. In the next few months, I will pitch in with my 2 cents on these topics, but for now, I am in ‘maxo arbit’ mood to even think of anything remotely serious! So, without further ado, let me jump into the most arbit post published on this blog since the previous posting!

Before moving on, a huge disclaimer: The following post, might make some (non)-sense to my wingies, but others please consult your psychiatrist before reading any further!

Nene/Ajay provided the initial momentum to this random post. Hence any frustration and disgust resulting out of this post can be directly communicated to Nene!

The following statements need no introduction, so...

Inspirational Quotes

• Give me a rustic to vibe and I will move the earth
• Give me vibes, I will give you rusticity
• Whatever the rustic can conceive and believe, the viber can achieve
• A journey of thousand miles begins with a single vibe
• After all, a rustic is a social viber
• All that vibes is not rustic
• Not everything than can be vibed vibes, not everything that vibes can be vibed
• I was born a rustic, education vibed me!
• Vibes is mightier than rusticity

Murphy’s Law

• If rusticity can vibe, it will

Laws of Physics

• An object in rusticity will remain in rusticity unless acted upon by an external vibe
• The rate of change of rusticity of a body is proportional to the resultant vibes acting on it
• For every vibe, there is an equal and opposite rusticity
• Vibes can neither be created, no be destroyed, it can only be transferred from one rustic to the other
• If two rustics are in vibed-up equilibrium with a third, then they are vibed-up with each other
• In any vibe, total rusticity of universe remains constant
• The rusticity of the universe increases with every spontaneous vibe

Okay, even I am tired of these vibes! Too rustic, I think

Freeriders with a pinch of professionalism!

This post is a result of a news article that was recently published in The Economic Times instigating an instant spam on freeriders mail list.
Link to the article:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/IIM-A_to_revise_placement_fee_for_flagship_programme/articleshow/1502401.cms


Being a topic of utmost significance and a decision that we had owned till recently, we discovered the setting was just about perfect for a placecom meeting! The participants of this meeting are the free-riders. (Boopos, Candy, Cosmo, Daph, Deepthi, Oik, Peepu, Slippy, Me)

The stage was all set for another round of heated discussions. But, there is a small issue now. The last meeting was held a fraction under 2 years back. We were then purely the pizza ordering, room cleaning, chairs lifting, walkie-talkie communicating, file making, stationery storing, phone line connecting, catering-desk setting, dynamic scheduling, PPT attending, preferences matching, company logo pasting, e-pigeon maintaining, short-list withholding, CV dead-lining, interview scheduling, recruiter-faculty lunch arranging free-riders!

However, two years down the time line, would the placecom discussion still be the same? Or will all of us look at things differently given the “professional-ization” that we have been subjected to! Let’s take a glance as to how things have changed and the influence that professional life has had on us.

Given the gravity of this problem and the possible repercussions it could potentially lead to, free-riders decided to take a day off to meet at Placecom office, Wimwi, Vastrapur. The venue for the meeting was the same old rectangular room in placecom, now with air-conditioning support to manage the temperature that the discussion could possibly result into!

We entered the room and quickly assumed our standard seating configuration. Let’s take a peak into how the discussion started off.


Me: Let’s order some pizza yaar, long-time no free pizza!!

Peepu: Get serious guys, we are meeting after a long time. All I can say is that I missed you all a lot. Those were simply amazing days, those discussions, those night-outs at LKP…

Rest of us: abe koi iska senti band karwao…!

(Peepu then realized that no one actually reacted to his senti speech. Dumb silence ruled the room for 15 seconds. The leli had happened, now let’s get started with the meeting!)

Peepu: Let me set the context for this meeting. As some of you might have read, insti has decided to charge a fee of Rs 1 Lakhs per candidate across all slots. We are here to discuss this matter and I would like to hear your views on this.

(A pause of 15 seconds again…)

Slippy: Let me pitch in, since rest of you still don’t seem to be in any mood to discuss! While setting up the retail chain that I did recently, we had to pay similar amounts to the building constructors per store across all cities in India. I see a lot of synergies of this discussion with my current work and I think insti is justified in asking for this fees.

Cosmo: I think there are multiple sides to this issue. Being a CA, I know how difficult things can get between placecom and insti – the sheer mammoth task of reworking the credits and debits into different slot accounts will require a lot of understanding of accounting basics. Then there is this issue of deferred tax that comes into picture and we need to figure out the possible impact it would have on the resulting ratios that wimwi would get to…

(Dumb silence again engulfs the room; we are all reminded of the dreadful Manac classes and quizzes of first term at wimwi way back in 2003. Candy and I exchange “extreme give-up” looks! Boopos appears to have understood some part of this funda with a nod of his head that either implies that he actually got the funda or he is looking at this as an opportunity to improve his listening skills!)

Comso: … add to it, with the extra cash flow coming in, insti can think of investing in infrastructure bonds that I recently recommended one of my clients to invest in. Typically, high return bonds and there are plenty of tax exemptions under section 420 of Indian Accounting and Tax Act…

(We all again look at each other, with high levels of internal self-doubt and body language that read “anyone else in the same boat? Or am I the only one who still doesn’t understand Manac?” None of us dared to speak a word. It required a brave soul to pull the discussion further. Who better than the anti-placecommer to take it forward)

Deepthi: I don’t want any companies to come on campus. It sounds so stupid to ask for money – okay call it fees. Ever since this article has been published, the recruiting head of my company simply refuses to go any further than one sentence with me on phone call…

(Free-riders burst out in laughter. We all are reminded of Deepthi’s “heellllaaaaa” on phone. We totally understand the agony that Deepthi’s recruiting head had to face and he/she is perfectly justified in keeping the phone down. May be, it’s not the fees debate, it’s just Deepthi driving his/her reaction!)

Oik: Wot the hell? These booshtaards don’t understand the implications of this decision. I spent some time in US and there students from best of schools actually go out and give interviews. So, charging 1 lakh is not a lot and insti must do it. Wot the hell…

Deepthi: Oik, you don’t understand the consumer’s point of view. In all the surveys I have done for projects on campus and at work, my greatest input has been to prove that customers are lying about their preferences. Similarly, companies might say that they will pay, but eventually they will not… Aaai aaam pained by this decision…

Daph: What do you mean by they will not pay? I will Kung-Foo them and get the payment out! I might be getting old, but there is still enough to kick a few recruiters out! Just like I recently scared my boss to death…

Peepu: I think we are deviating a bit away from the main discussion. Being in an entrepreneurship environment, I know how important it is to focus on right things. Do you guys have any sense of financial impact this decision would have?

Boopos: Yeah, I think we should do that. Infact, I will do it tonight. Today seems easy. I should finish my official work early today, by 3am, one hour before my normal time. So, in that hour, I will make an excel model and run different simulations and scenarios for impact of 97 variables including interest rate and exchange rate fluctuations on fees income of placecom and the resulting valuation. I will code a macro for this and when you guys receive the file, simply click the run button. I should send this out by 4am.

(trinnng trinnng… trinnng trinnng…looks like someone just got a call. Oh, it’s Candy with his psued “hello” on phone. He blushes and says “yeah, sure, this evening sounds perfect to spend some quality time together on this”… and rest of us are like… “dude… kya crack maara hai!” He finishes the call and is back to the discussion. To break the anxiety (and jealousy?) surrounding the placecom room, we asked Candy… “ehh… bandi?”… and our man nods in disapproval… “again a call from my boss… chutti pe bhi he wants to have a conference call to discuss the slides… uski to @#&**@^#…” to get back the discussion on track, Candy pitches in with his 2 cents…)

Candy: I will think about the whole situation from buy and sell side point of view. In the recent deal that I had worked on, we supported our client on raising funds for the acquisition that they had decided to go ahead with. So, if the need be, I can help the recruiters raise funds for the wimwi recruitment process. It should be fairly straight forward, after all this doesn’t even look close to a deal of billion dollars. Tell you what, I will actually not spend my time and energy on this, I will ask a new fachchi in company to take care of this.

Peepu: That is a valid point Candy… I think you are right.

Daph: But, there is a chance that companies might make us sign a bond in return, given the high levels of “job switching” that is going on these days…

(I was like chilling out in one corner of the discussion table… I looked at everyone else… and it struck me…they all had chipped in, everyone had put in some CP or the other… ohhh crap, I haven’t said a word till now. What would fellow-free-riders think of me? That I don’t even have a point of view? I will not let this happen. The setting is perfect for a consult CP… I need to show the vision that I have for placecom…I gather all my thoughts to put a consult CP)

Me: Firstly, thanks everyone for all your views. This was a very “insightful” discussion that would go a long way in enhancing our differentiation as wimwi placecom freeriders. But, I can’t believe we have gone through the entire discussion without slides. I think, we need 2 circles at the top of slide, overlapping with a triangle in the middle and then a solid rectangle at the bottom of the slide to support our vision. Then we need to consider the synergies and the factors that would feed into creating sustainable competitive advantage for wimwi placecom in the medium to long term. Once we have envisioned the new placecom with new fees structure, it is critical to get a buy-in from various stake holders. One key question that we need to answer is: Is collecting fees the core of our placecom strategy? If not, shouldn’t we be looking to add value to our core verticals like building sustainable relationships with recruiters? My view to the entire puzzle surrounding the fees issue is that the answer probably depends on the adjacent externalities and the resulting internal fit! We are talking about a potential paradigm shift here!

(There was silence in the room again. I was like… wow, I have proved myself to be a stud!... look at all of them, they didn’t follow anything, total lack of vision I would say… ehhh… sudden change in configuration of the room… oh noo… another typical ending to placecom meeting as Boopos screamed out… Tharki ko bumps!!!...)

Disclaimer: The above post in no way supports or opposes Institute's decision to change the recruitment fees structure. This post is purely for entertainment and any other conclusion resulting out of this post would be purely coincidental. In any case, free-riders are only a minority subset of Placecom 2005 and therefore do not represent the batch's point of view on this topic!

India’s team for World Cup 2007

The countdown has begun! We are 38 days away from the world cup. Amidst the excitement surrounding the event, most teams are in final stages of getting the 15 on paper for the grand tournament. So, what’s going to be our team like? Our selectors have 2 weeks in their pockets before they get down to naming the team.

India’s 3-1 win over West Indies did answer a few questions. Here is what the skeleton of my team would look like for the world cup:

(2) Ganguly to open with Uthappa
(3) Dravid, Tendulkar, Yuvraj select themselves
(1) Extra batsman or bowler depending on conditions
(1) Dhoni, an automatic choice again
(1) Agarkar: Has been consistent enough to be a certainty
(2) Kumble and Harbhajan, both should play in West Indies
(1) Zaheer Khan, again has well done well enough though would need a back-up

So, we have 9-10 players who would play every match.

Before moving on to the other 5 who should board the flight to Caribbean, quick comments on two senior players of the side. Tendulkar’s century yesterday would do his confidence a world of good, apart from getting his one-day statistics back on track. His average is again back to “above 44”! In the last few weeks, there were a few statements made by so-called cricketing gurus that in my view were totally uncalled for, however this aggressive knock should shut all criticism against Tendulkar. With the form he is getting to, World Cup could get exciting, even for Australia.

A couple of months ago, we would have never imagined Ganguly to feature the above list. But, he has made a terrific come back, would go down as one of the greatest fight backs in the history of cricket. I have been and I am a Ganguly fan. Despite this, in my view, Ganguly was out of the team for all right reasons. There was never a question mark on his talent – it was more to do with his attitude. Now, he is back with a bang, looking a lot more focused with no airs surrounding him about being the ex-captain or the Prince of Kolkata! Let’s hope Ganguly continues to perform, a consistent Ganguly is a must for India’s chances at the World Cup.

Back to the team selection, the contenders for the other 5 slots are:

Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Sreeshant, Dinesh Karthik, Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Gambhir and Ramesh Powar.

I am still not sure if Sehwag should be counted in the scheme of things. Just like Ganguly a year down the time line, with Sehwag it is again not a question of his ability or technique. It is the attitude and focus that is missing. Selectors should probably give him 1 or 2 matches against Sri Lanka and observe his attitude on the field, not the number that appears on the score card eventually. I would much rather see a determined Sehwag scoring a fighting 30-40 than an attempt at a run-a-ball flamboyant 50.

I would include Pathan for the balance that he gets to the team, with Munaf Patel and Sreeshant as back up bowlers if India decides to go in with 3-4 pace bowlers. Karthik would be the 14th in my selection list and for 15th, it would all depend on the question around Sehwag. Otherwise Raina should probably make the cut.

Let’s see how the home series against Sri Lanka turns out to be. The team should now stop experimenting (other than a chance to Sehwag probably) and play consistent cricket. Wishing team India all the very best for the World Cup!