Both eyes for an eye, and for the tooth– the whole jaw!

There would be a million sports fanatics who would claim just like me, that the love for the sport is above and always precedes the love for one’s own country. To seem politically correct, we hide the jingoism within us when our country is being pitted against a foreign opposition. Any rational sports aficionado would evaluate the strengths of both the playing teams, as in the case of the current India-SA cricket series and come to a conclusion that the S. African team deserves to win because they have field a better playing 11, and probably another set of non-playing 22 too!

But what does a team do when there is adversity staring in the face in the form of a better quality, and in this case an arrogantly pompous opposition? Be nice losers? Well, there surely isn’t much humility required in the first place if one does not end up on the winning side! There are instances aplenty within the domain of cricket itself, the very mention of which should pump up the adrenalin of a sportsman and invigorate the fervour to win which is almost as important as the skill itself!

The moment of today- Sreesanth’s amusing concoction of the Arabic belly dance and Mallu-land Dampanguttu (a word that Tamilians use to indicate “dancing at will”) exemplifies this spirit of the vehement desire to win against a team and an individual (Andre Nel- Kill the bastard!!!) that prides on its caliber, what if sledging is a critical constituent of the end result! For all we know, the Indians might still end up on the losing side in the series, but all that a spectator investing 8 hours almost meditating in front on the television wants is purely a reaffirmation of the zeal to win, not the win itself.

I agree that there are surely less animated ways of doing the same, something that the 2 pillars of our cricket culture, Sachin & Rahul show us from time to time by letting only the 38” wooden instrument do the talking- But the game would lack on the entertainment value minus the public displays similar to that of Dada waving his shirt, Kumble punching the air with his fist with a bandaged head (the picture-perfect moment when he got Lara LBW after he was hit on the head), Rahul himself giving a mouthful and a bat-full back to Donald on the 96-97 ODI series & Sehwag’s utter disdain for the Aussie bowlers during the last tour to the Oz-land- These are moments that spiral off two things, one- bring alive the Indian in us and two- create un-viewable one-hour segments on primetime news with stalwarts of immense repute such as Yashpal Sharma, Chetan Sharma & Madanlal beaming on the camera with "Rajnigandha & Prince gutkha" plagued million dollar smiles! Great they can feel happy about the game, now that their prestigious careers are over!

What a small gesture like that can do to the team can’t be quantified. I mean, the scorers did not add another 36 runs to the 6 that they already added, just because Sreeshanth broke into a jig that one only witnesses the Delhiites do at typical “Chom” Delhi weddings. But the impact of such an “in-your-face” antic was visible from the way the team fielded after that. Such a public display of emotion stirs the other team-mates up into believing that all is not lost and in fact, what seemed insurmountable moments ago can be conquered!

Just a small reality check though, which the sport itself will keep providing from time to time to budding and to use a rather strong word, mediocre players (Sreesanth still has a long way to go, as opposed to the sudden revelation to the two “Chom” Sharmas- Yashpal & Chetan who will go back to their irritating, morose and populist comments as soon as Mr. Sreesanth gets back to his wayward, short & outside the leg stump, in other words- Ajit Agarkar ways); that such display of style should be backed by substance- and at least for today the Mallu- boy deserves every sticky-eyeball (Am habituated to using that term, thanks to the industry that I am in) that he got on our 40 odd national news channels. Truly, in the words of John Dryden- None but the brave deserves the fair! And as once Mr. Arun Shourie quoted on national news related to the Kashmir issue, our response to a piece of aggression need not really be as impulsive and clichéd as a “tooth for a tooth, and an eye of an eye”. In situations with one’s back to the wall, it needs to be “both eyes for an eye, and for the tooth, the whole jaw”! And for over-confident buggers like Andre Nel & Graeme Smith, perhaps the skull too!

Mr. Sreesanth- I blame your frolic for once again killing the rational sports lover in me, even if for a few days and for once again bringing out the xenophobic & jingoistic Indian in me, a label that we so shy away from displaying, often in an attempt to appear so prim & correct and paradoxically, so English!

To witness the moment, watch the video on

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3454538612898135067&q=sreesanth

100 Rupye Ki Baat!

Disclaimer to start with – This post is as random as it gets. This is about the number “100” that is a great source of amazement & mystery to me! There is hardly an object, concept or theory that carries almost the same meaning across so many disciplines. And there is definitely no "number" that signifies the same across so many aspects of life. Figure this out:

-The distance seems really long if it’s beyond 100 kilometers!
-The speed feels too high once you throttle your vehicle above 100 kmph!
-The company is huge if it has 100 employees!
-You have done well as a batsman if you’ve scored a 100!
-You are a bowler to be reckoned with if you’ve taken a 100 wickets in a season!
-You’ve lived a healthy life if you trot along till you’re a 100 years old!
-100 goals in a career – Boy, that’s some striker!
-The team scored a 100 points in a basketball match…that’s high!
-100 television channels to choose from – that’s some choice for the viewer!
-The building is sky-high if it has a 100 floors!
--A 100 minute movie - Ideal by Hollywood standards!
-Bowling at 100 mph? – Jeff Thompson almost managed it!
-Congratulations – you’ve just won yourself a grand prize of a 100 thousand dollars!
-The movie is a hit – just completed 100 days at Maratha Mandir!
-A 100 marks – I never got ‘em in any exam (One example from personal experience… err…I mean the lack of it)

- And then there are opinions! - “That obese lump of lard weighs must weight at least 100 kgs”, "You know the guy is such a con – he can come up with 100 excuses for everything", "The dude is a casanova– must have slept with a 100 women"

The history provides sufficient proof of the fact that the concept of number was born directly from observations of real phenomena exhibited by the natural forces. But this number 100 seems like a number around which the man has fostered his life.

Why did this particular number gain so much significance? Is it just because it’s the first three digit number that appears after a big list of 90 two-digit numbers? I read this wonderful quote that “mathematics arises wherever there are difficult problems that involve quantity, space or change”. And it surely seems to me, that in lots of cases wherever man wanted to impose a numerical limit to something that seemed like an excess, he’s used the number 100.

But my question is why only 100? Why did we end up having the fraction system based on 100? Why not a number like 96, 90, 84, 72, 60, etc. that have more factors than 100?

The logic here, as many of us would already know is that the metric system or the decimal based system is based on the “metre” & “gram” and is the most widely used system in the world recognized by International System of Units, the benefit of the system being that it has a single base for each physical quantity and all other related units are multiples of 10 of this base unit. The actual history is interesting too– Post the French revolution in 1789, this system was devised in France when Louis XVI ordered the mathematicians to develop a unified measurement system as a replacement to the multiple & incongruent systems in prevalence then.

Keeping history aside, it still beats me as to why this number signifies the height or excess of something across so many measurable & even figurative areas (Right from having a vision to own a 100 companies to having the urge to slap that dimwit Fardeen Khan a 100 times). The above examples and am sure many more that we will keep encountering around this beautiful number will reinforce & vindicate the point that numbers and particularly the number 100 belongs in the mind rather than in the empirical world!

Battle of Sexes!

Okay…this post required the most amount of effort from my side in terms of compiling information. And it has to rank right up there in terms of satisfaction of the output too. Hate this, but one is actually more satisfied about any result that comes out of an excel sheet and fancy charts rather than a word doc alone!

The idea, (besides trying to a prove a point thru charts) is to draw an inference for the reason behind women’s tennis having generated lesser interest than the male version during most of years post the open era (I mean another reason besides the slow pace of the game as compared to men’s tennis) and the reason for the hike in interest levels in recent years for the female version.

The chart below depicts that amount/intensity of competition at a half-decade level post the Open-Era in 1968, with the intensity of competition defined as number of unique players that won grand slams (close to 20 every five years) in these 5 year periods.

You will notice that the trend line for men (unique grand slam winners for each 5 year period) has mostly been above the line for women. The last two 5 year periods have marked a quantum shift in the women tennis scene, especially after the exit of Graf and Hingis. This is also the period where the number of equally matched opponents has grown for the female version. Let me get into the detail of how numbers can at times paint a completely wrong picture…look at the last bar point in trend line for males – a number of 11 means that so many different guys have won a grand slam or more in the last 5 years!...but the truth becomes apparent in the chart below.

Federer has won 9 out of the 19 grand slams played in the period. The next guy with the most slams is Nadal with just 2! The rest of the unique winner list includes names such as Costa, Ferrero, Gaudio, Johansson, Hewitt, Roddick and Safin – all probably one-time wonders apart from the last three who might be restricted to 3 or 4 time wonders at most, courtesy Federer!

The point again centres around my earlier blog on the extent of competition in the sport – We would all agree that the best times for Men’s tennis were the ones featuring McEnroe, Borg and Connors battling it out and the period where you could place your bet on anyone amongst Becker, Edberg, Lendl or Wilander to emerge triumphant in a grand slam. While it is a tennis lover’s dream to watch Federer play like god, it takes away from the sport the very emotion that fuels it – thrill, suspense & anti-climax and till the time that the men's game is fortunate enough to get two or three players that can rival the Swiss Mister, the sport will always lack on this count!

Just compare this with the female version of the sport, where the average number of unique winners per five years has been around 7, much lower than the average of 9 for men. A possible explanation for the women tennis inviting lesser viewer interest that the male version?

The escalation in interest for women’s tennis is clearly evident from the above chart. Just have a look at the bars for 97-01 and 02-06. About 10 unique winners per five year interval with near equal competition from worthy adversaries like the Williams sisters, Henin, Clijsters and the new Russian brigade of Sharapova, Myskina, Kuznetsova and the likes. Another example of near equal competition leading to a hike in spectator interest! No wonder why the women’s tennis scene was so boring immediately after the open era were Margaret Court and Billie Jean King smashed every other pedestrian opponent that came their way and a similar phenomenon ensued with Christ Evert and Navratilova taking their place in their next decade. The memory of decade post has been filled with Graf smashing Sanchez, Capriati losing it, Novotna crying & many others just wilting away under some severe Steffi style serve & volley!

I hope this comparison would go some way in explaining the reason behind the surge in spectator interest for women's tennis (besides the entry of a slew of Russian Glam-dolls) and the catching up, so to say, with the male version in the recent times!

Chillaao Mat!!!

In any meeting, if you feel overshadowed by domineering, overweight and louder peers with 5251165% SOV more than yours, then don't be distressed or distraught! All you got to do is wait for everybody to finish. Just summarize the discussion by agreeing with everybody and you will scape thru the meeting. This strategy can also be used if one's just pure dumb and cannot contribute to a discussion with a valid point of view.

You can do this in a polished manner, taking pauses at the right places, and enunciating with conviction on words like "Guys", "People", "We GOT to", etc. On the other hand, you can also appear very innocent & modest (to hide your dumbness) by starting with a phrase like, let's say "Wait a minute, if I get this right what you guys are trying to say is" or just be a good samaritan acting as an empathatic soundboard by saying something akin to "I believe what you guys are getting at is..." or a plain and simple "I believe both of you are right"...This one is a killer! (I mean, consider that as an original point of view). You will emerge as the good guy cos you're not taking sides and your boss will love you for it too!