Kallis - The Unrecognized Champion

How many times have you heard the commentators or any cricket analyst levelling Jacques Kallis with Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara or Ricky Ponting? Probably zero. The efforts of this danger man go unrecognized. When Sachin hits a ton he gets praised as the best batsman the world has ever seen.More or less same is the admiration for Lara and Ponting. Undoubtedly they deserve to be called 'The Best' for their outstanding contribution to the world of cricket.The respect they deserve is beyond any limit.Now when you look at the batting average of Kallis and his contribution to South Africa's victory it can be derived that he shares the same status as that of Lara,Sachin and Ponting. So far I have watched the matches of South Africa I have seen Kallis performing consistently both with the bat and the bowl. He proved his excellence in all formats of cricket. Off late his performance in IPL 3 is outstanding . But rarely I have heard anyone equalizing his efforts with that of Lara,Sachin or Ponting. Click the links below to know their career statistics.

Sachin Tendulkar - http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/35320.html

Brian Lara - http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/52337.html

Ricky Ponting - http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/7133.html

Jacques Kallis - http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/45789.html

Now from the links above it can clearly stated that Kallis deserves to be in the top position.It does not matter how many double or triple centuries he has scored but what matters is how many times he has led South Africa to victory.He did it many times.Besides, his performance in T20 matches is even better than Sachin.His consistency is even better than Lara and Ponting.He is widely known as the best allrounder but to give more justice he should be better known as the South African Sachin or South African Lara or South Africa Ponting.

The intent of this blog is to let the cricket lovers admire Jacques Kallis as much as they do for Sachin,Ponting and Lara.

Education - not a hard core business

The assault on Indian students in Australia has become almost a daily news. I came to learn that not all colleges in Australia accept students on a merit basis. This is applicable to many institutes in the world If education is made a business , then children of affluent parents, who become aware of it, will no longer give a try to crack the best institutes and they will depend on their father's money. They not only become incompetent but also feel insecure to take critical steps in their professional career. They may enter some organizations but they will take the alternative path to grow which may not be always helpful to them.A few days ago I came to learn that many illegal immigrants entered UK through some bogus universities. If the aim is to gain quality education then instead of investing a huge amount of money in some unknown universities students can work hard to get into some decent institutes, I am not saying the top,to realise their dream.

Institute authorities must understand that making education a business of making only money will paralyse many young minds.Instead, if profit is the main goal then they should define profit not in terms of money but in terms of nurturing young minds.Speaking of India , a lot of homework has to be done to position India into the league of developed countries. To make this happen ,mere money game has to be eradicated from educational institutions.

Unfathomable experience at the Aero Air India Show.

It was an early February 15th morning, we all started for the Aero AirIndia Show. It took 2 hours to reach Yelahanka. I was on my friend's bike. We were searching for a parking place when one fighter plane flew over my head.'Zoooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm......' what a sound! What a plane!what a sight!what a cheer from the people around. I guessed it was a F-16.The plane flew high making a mark in the sky. My excitement knew no bounds. I was completely lost. Finally my friend had to park the bike. It was overcrowded at the main entrance.We struggled to enter through the gate. The MIGS, F16s ,Sukhois caught the excitement of the people. The Sarang Helicopters made all stunts in the sky. The amazing stunt was when the two pairs of helicopters crossed each other.The sukhois flew 90 degree high up in the sky and suddenly came to a halt ,then a free fall and finally flew exponentially.We all shouted at such an amazing sight I tried all my best to capture the moments in my camera. I bet it is very difficult to take snapshots of fighter planes when they fly in the sky. I succeeded and also failed. It was 50:50. Then came the paratroopers with colourful parashutes.What a colourful sight it was! Red , light green , yellow in the blue sky.

The air show was to resume again at 2:30 PM. The afternoon was really very hot.We went on drinking cans of coca cola .'Piyo Sar Uthake'. The airshow began with a US war plane flying high up in the sky. The most amazing was the hawks ejecting gases in saffron,white and green in the sky. The national tricolour drawn by the hawks in the sky in different angles caught the excitement of the people. There was a loud cheer in the ground.I took all the pics.After this we went to exhibition. There were models of Russian,Israel and Swedish fighter planes. The description of the capabilities of the fighter aircrafts was really knowledgeable. The fighter pilots looked like Hollywood heroes.I wondered that I might have seen them in some hollywood movies. The pilots's lives are always at risk as they take the onus to protect their nation but they live a very exciting life.They die once but live forever.

The show ended at 5:00 PM. We reached home at 9:30 PM fully exhausted.It was really a great and knowledgeable experience.I would recommend every reader of this blog to visit the Airshow atleast once in a lifetime. I bet you all will enjoy the thrill. You all will realise, as I have, that there is more interesting thing to do in life.

ThInK BeFoRe YoU OpInE

Most of the people have the tendency to find the defects in any work or any performance and stick to criticizing the fault. They cannot ignore the defect and find something positive in any work or performance. I do not hesitate to start the lines in a negative tone but it is the fact. I have been in such situations many times where I myself found the work unworthy.But when situations keep on improving people still cannot improve their silly habit of criticizing. This behaiviour is not only restricted to human beings but also holds good for media.Let me support my opinion with two real life experiences.

One morning I switched on the television and was listening to a news program where I came to know of Shane Warne's adieu to international cricket. The news reader inlieu of admiring his greatness as a spin wizard criticized of his personal life. We know that Shane Warne had been in controversial situations for a number of times, which were completely personal and nothing to do with cricket. But he was always respected as a hero of Australian cricket. The media criticized Shane Warne very much of his personal life. It was such a cheap outlook of the media that on his farewell day the newsreader did not speak of his deadly leg breaks which sounded as a death to the batsmen or of his outstanding feat of 700 wickets in Test Cricket.Really as the country leaps to new heights of progress , the media should change its outlook. This is one instance.

Let me speak of another instance.I watched the bollywood movie 'Heroes' and told one of my friends to watch it.His response was that had it been a good movie , it would have been a hit. He mocked at Sunny Deol's performance. Is that all? I wondered how he could comment on something without having a look at it. He just agreed to what his friends or Newspapers or the famous critics said. Instead the movie showed some really emotional and touching situations of the life of a soldier. It is easy to ignore and forget such pains which a soldier's family faces but nobody takes into account of the adversities that the family's faces and people forget the herioc deed of the brave martyr. The movie showed reality, few can only face reality and for the rest it becomes an easy job to form a flawed opinion.

We should not be deaf to reality and accept opinions blindly everytime. Let us put your own thoughts and I believe we can definitely extract the positive out of everything. It will broaden out outlook.

Want to know who Kim Peek is. Read it

I do not know how many of us have come across this wonderful person personally or through internet,books,TV programmes and newspapers etc. I came across this person in Wikipedia, my friend in idle time.The article on this person bewildered me and I wondered that how it could be possible. I did not give a thought to check the authenticity of the information for I trusted my friend,Wikipedia. Kim Peek is probably the world most famous savant.Mentally retarded at birth he got the enormous support from his father and by dint of which he developed unmatched memorable skills. It is said that he reads a book at a phenomenal pace and can remember 98% of what he has swallowed,memorizing vast amount of information in different subject areas like geography,music,sports,numbers,dates etc. He can recall 12000 books from memory.He reads the left page with th left eye and the right page with the right eye.It is said that his neurons make some connections which results in an increased memory capacity. The movie Rain Man is based on his life.

I have not covered more details of Kim Peek in this blog. I have just keyed down some lines to make the readers aware of Kim Peek who have not heard his name.More details can be read in wikipedia or just make use of the following url
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/kimpeek.html.

Really God's creation is strange. A disable person with some rare abilities. Please go through links which I have mentioned in my blog. I am sure you will be thrilled.

Follow the standard short forms

"Send me the documents ASAP"."PF the mail". "MS will be a better option"."A COM degree will propel your career growth".Can a novice make out what are 'ASAP','PF','MS','COM' and many others? Or can we decode some of the short forms that are used frequently in the office? I faced some of these small problems in my career.I dug into the meaning of the sentences and applied hit and trial method to undestand the real meaning. It took some time initially but now I am used to it. Whatever be the case don't the short forms really create confusion which are not the standard ones? 'ASAP' means as soon as possible. 'PF' stands for please forward. But what does 'MS' mean if you analyse the statement written above? Is it Microsoft or Master of Science? What is a 'COM'? Does the sentence mean commercedegree or computer degree? I leave it to the speaker.

Why do people use such short forms while mailing? Are they really in a hurry to frame an email in seconds or are they impatient? Standard short forms like UNO,WHO,ASEAN etc are known to all. We don't have to waste time to decode the meaning. But I feel that usage of 'PF','ASAP','MS' and 'COM' etc doesn't contribute to good written communication skills. What will happen if one uses such short forms in an email sent to an important person who is unaware ofof the actual meaning? The conversation consumes time to meet the objective. I believe the usage of the full forms does not kill time but it makes a written statement more meaningful.In contrast, the usage of these short formsdoes not prove one's smartness but the habit enables one to create confusions. Stick to the standards and makeothers feel comfortable.

Traffic rules - Are we really conscious of it?

Every day a question frustrates me. "When will this end? Is it nearby or there is no end to it?". The question relates to Bangalore traffic.My first visit to the Silicon City of India was in 2003. I came here to undergo Industrial Training as a part of my sixth semester engineering curriculum. I found it a very pleasant place due to its weather. Indeed it is. Now I have been settled in Bangalore for the last 46 months.I find the city changing day by day. The best part is the IT boom.The sad part is the drastic weather change and the worst part is the spiraling traffic.Traffic is increasing day by day. It adds to road congestion.People travel hours in buses and personal vehicles to reach office. A colleague once said that if this traffic mystery continues then he would have to spend half of his life in buses.

Even though new highways and roads are constructed, road congestion seems to be a burning problem.People break the traffic rules and take short cuts to reach office in a hurry which doesn't solve one's problem but poses more problems for others.Even though we complain about traffic jam, do we ever question ourselves that how difficult it is follow the rules? I guess that it doesn't take much pain to be disciplined. On one Sunday evening I read an article in Times Of India where the writer pointed out the similarity among New York, London and Bangalore. The lanes of these foreign cities are narrower than that of Bangalore.The number of vehicles are almost the same. But the difference lies in the sense of road discipline.In the same edition Kiran Majumdar Shaw, CEO of Biocon, expressed her discontent over the road indiscipline that we practise everyday.If we take the proper left and right turns we can allow others to be comfortable and thereby we can help to reduce the intensity of the problem.

Road accident is a common news in every newspaper in Bangalore. A little carelessness ends a life. People have enough sense to sort out this congestion problem. To realise it we just have to be disciplined , a lesson we learnt in school. We only have carry out the experiment in our daily life.