When I saw the Aurora

So what’s your worst fear? I have many, but driving and cold weather probably dominate the top of the list. Hopefully someday robots will take over or I would make one, but somehow I do survive without driving.  But every year from November to February, I live a nightmare, mad increasingly more nightmarish by biometrics in a digitized world. As far as I remember, I would shed skin in winter, a condition made far worse, by my mother’s dream to watch me play mridangam , my hands would literally bleed and I would curse and wait for my beloved summer. Then I grew up, internet happened, and somehow somewhere my eyes fell on the pics of Aurora, a natural phenomenon which is visible in the poles. I was smitten and had to see her. But wait, the damn thing is visible only in the poles. Uh Oh, yep, dastardly cold weather.

Damn!! But, it had to be done, I had to face up to my worst nightmare.  And with lots of courage and planning, and not so little help from my cousin Priya, it was decided, we would make the journey.

By quirk of fate we decided we would do it in February, and later my research on the science of Aurora, also suggested, Feb would be a good time. Aurora is linked to the solar activity, though it is visible in both the poles, the chance is better in the North Pole.  A. South pole is inhospitable and b. when it is winter in north pole , the earth is closest to the sun. So just after we enter the constellation of Capricorn, or Makar Snakranti, is probably a good time. The sun follows a 11 year cycle, so as per my calculation, I had overshot the best time to see aurora by a couple of years, but all this dawned on me only after the trip was paid for.

But we digress, the first obstacle was to get a visa. After nearly endless documentation, I booked my date with the VFS center in Pune.

As the day of reckoning approached, my heart beat increased and I was constantly chanting hanuman chalisa. Why you may ask. Well, I had to submit my finger prints. In the month of January, my finger tips are as bald as my head. When I proceeded to submit my finger prints, the reader was all read. My finger prints are illegible, I knew my handwriting was bad, but my finger prints, damn! I just can’t catch a break. After a wait for a couple of hours, I was made to sign a document, as to why my finger prints could not be read. Now, I was scared. You, need to have an itinerary, before you get your visa. Details of where you stay, blah blah. Oh god! Now, I am back to being a theist. After 10 days of anxious wait, I finally got my visa. Yay, I am all set. Next step shopping, for clothes, which would keep me alive for 2 weeks, and not sure when I am going to use again. I headed to a shop called Meher in Pune, which apparently specializes in all things wintry, and then for lack of enough research, shoes from woodland.

Now all set, I finally set for my tryst with the Aurora, on the evening of February of 16^th 2017. A long flight from 4am in Mumbai, then to Doha and then finally I landed in Oslo. I was not prepared for what I was about to see. There was only colour, my eyes could see, WHITE. I had never seen snow in my life. Forget so much snow. But, I was still anxious, there was a little thing called immigration, where to my great horror they would again scan my finger prints. SHIT. There I go being a theist again. Rohit, you hypocrite. A little bathroom break, meant I was the last in the line. Finally I reached the counter, I tried to put on my best behavior and best smile possible. The office asked me some question, I hoped against hope he would not make me scan, but nope, out came that cruel, red devil, called finger print scanner. Finger one, nope, two three, four nope. Now, my heart is really racing. He asks me to show my hand. Says try your left thumb. Yay, Yippie-Ki-Yay, It worked. Thank god, it worked. I just burst into the airport dancing in my hearts. Norway hear, I come. I reached the baggage belt, it read last bag on the belt. Wow!!!. I collected my bag, boarded a bus, and by the time, I reached my hotel It was 3:30am. A helpful thata showed me the way to my hotel, from the bus stop.

As I waited for my cousin Priya and my Jiju Karthik to join from London, I decided to move around and investigate the area. The sunset was amongst the most spectacular scenes, I had ever see. The road looked like a giant black forrest cake.

By the time Priya came, it was late and the hotel’s restaurant had closed. The nearby McD did not have anything remotely vegetarian, but thankfully I was loaded, with Theplas and I survived the night. The next couple of days in Oslo, were spent sight seeing. It was stunning to sea an entire sea absolutely frozen. The highlights were the absolutely stunning park, full of statues, and snow. After an hour we had to abandon as our feet could no longer bear the cold.

The sight from the top of HolmenKollen was absolutely stunning.

Day 3, we are off to Tromso. We reached a little late into the night again. Now, Tromso is a very small town, my office campus is probably bigger. We met an Hindi speaking Norwegian at the hotel reception, she could speak better Hindi than I could speak Tamil( Her Hindi was definitely better than Karthiks’s).

Day 4:  We move around Tromso, not much to do. We head of to some chapel, only to find it is closed. Walk back and experience the first snow storm of our lives. I thought we were screwed. Somehow made it back. Thanks to some hot coffee and whisky we were all set. This being a Monday, it was meat free dinners at our hotel. Yay!!

Day 5: We leave our hotel and head for Reindeer Sledge. We meet the Sami people, aboriginals, who are Reindeer herders. Their attire reminded me of elves.

From there we were off to the place where we would see the Aurora. We had to cross a Fijord. The boat was huge, looked like a cruise. It’s late, and too cold and cloudy for Aurora. After some snow shoe trek and dinner, we were dead tired and Zzzzzzzzz.

Day 6: It’s snow mobile time. I tried my hand, but after some time, my spectacles, where completely frosted and could not see a damn thing. I had to ditch it and ride with my guide. L. But still was fun. Next, was some cross country skiing. Damn that’s the most physically exhausting thing I have ever done. In 5 minutes I was sweating  in -15 temperature. After numerous falls and  twisting my knee, I finally gave up. But the day was to get better, we finally saw the Aurora. Yippie-Ki-Yay!!!!. We then headed to the Lavvu. We were excited, a fire place. We were told when the fire gets going, the snow from the roof melts, and we would see stars from our beds. Lies damn lies. Getting the fire in the fire place is one difficult task. After hours of putting logs into the fire place and the snow showing no signs of melting, we finally resigned to our fate, and slept. But in between we did again see the aurora and a gazillion stars

Day 7: We head back to the golf course, which was covered in atleast 5 feet of snow. This is the same place where we did Reindeer sledge. This time it was the turn of Husky’s. Beautiful animals. I am scared shit of dogs usually. But unusually I was calm today. They just love to run. After a long ride and just about avoiding getting frozen we head back to the hotel.

Day 8: It’s snow snow all over. We are worried, how will our flight take off. There was just about 3 hours’ time gap between our connecting flights to our respective destinations. But amazingly, the flight takes off in time. At the Oslo airport, there is more drama, The QA guys ask me to take a different flight and go to Copenhagem. They even offer me money. I refuse. I am scared shit of submitting my finger prints again. They relent.( I had a single entry visa, not sure I would have been allowed entry if I had agreed. It hit me later). After passport control and all I am finally headed to Doha, where I meet my buddy Ramana after ages.

Day 9: Roam around Doha and finally fly back to home sweet home.

I had fun, it was nice to see places, not so crowded. Impressed with the engineering in Norway, and the public transport. Apparently is the happiest place in the planet, it shows. But now it’s back to the daily grind

Oz Oz Oz. India v Oz 2013. The clash of the ????

The men from down under are here. Always been a big fan. Never been much of a fan of Indian cricket. The past decade has given us lots of contests. The initial part of the decade saw some high octane cricket, but as Oz's waned, contests were more fractious, the contest were intense, but quality of cricket sadly quite pathetic.

Both the teams, are in a rebuilding phase. Oz;s will be hurt bt the retirement of Mr. Cricket. India, depsite all their tropubles, should start favourites. Oz's will give a fight, do they ever not?

My analysis of Series.

The player to watch out for will be Pup. Skipper has been in Bradmenesque form. Oz's need him to fire big time if they have to stand any chance of winning. He has to start scoring in second innings. Big first innings score will perhaps not suffice. He has to bat #3 or #4 nothing less. Watson is not a #4. I would use him to be a Sehwag style opener. That's the best chance Oz's have of stunning India. It's going to be a big test for Warner, their explosive opener. He blew away India in a session in Perth. But will be hard pressed for pace. Pace is Oz's strength. They have a talented but inexpereinced attack. Their best strategy would be to attack the stumps all the time. They might get hit. But at their pace, and given the calibre of Indian batsmen, they stand a better chance of picking wicket. Their is no Wall or Lakshman to flick them of the off stump all day. Pujara and Sehwag are going to be their main threats. Kohli will lead a supporting hand, but, I still have my reservations on him as a test batsmen. Mr. Tendulkar was hard pressed for runs in his hey days, when Dravid and the openers did not give a start. If he gets any runs he should consider it as manna from heaven, and retire quietly. If he still wants to play cricket, please sir, Ranji trophy is all yours.

India will have to slightly tweak the strategy, that led him to the top. They are never going to be a top flight test team. They were, but, for a total of around 15 years of their 80 year history, a decent test side. They are not going to unearth a Test quality bowling attack any time soon. India's record at home is misleading. Some of it has been a contribution of the poor economic conditions, and, teams not sending their full strength squads to India. WI and Oz's hardly played India once in 8 yrs.Windia cancelled a tour, when Mr. Gavaskar was not available

Coming back to their strategy, India should try to build their squad around their batsmen. A test lasts around 450 overs. India should prepare tracks which will last 5 days and 450 overs. A decent bowling side needs 500 runs in a match to win. India will need 700 runs. They need to target that in around 200 overs. But this side is not capable of batting such huge number of overs. 130 is the most likely figure you will get. So the strategy has to be to get around 450 in the first dig and 250 in the second dig. India needs to field like tigers. But like the national animal, fieliding as a skill is nearing extinction. They don't have wicket taking bowlers. But they posses very steady bowlers. India should bowl the most negative line possible and strangle the opponents. Field with vigor and grab any opportunity that comes their way. Mr. Tendulkar has to go out. Given India's weakness there is no way he is going to be of much use. He is useless on the field. Unless he can somehow miraculously find the form of 2011. Struggling 160 ball 50's wont do. 50 runs should not take more than 80 balls.

This will be a closely fought series, but mostly boring. Probably a good cure for my insomnia.

My take 2-1 India.

The best of Indian Cricket:: Openers and the fast men

I wanted to do a writeup on the best Indian XI. I rather decided to conjure up the best players for various slots . If I miss someone please remind me.
In the first part I would do a round up on the openers and fast men. India has never been well endowed in these departments. And that explains why they have been perennial whipping boys of test cricket.

The openers.

Indian cricket has never been well endowed in this area. The list is made up of people who were forced/converted to open.
So my choice of the best openers India had, who would also be serious contenders in an International side would be
Sunil Gavaskar: Unequivocal choice. Would walk into any world XI

Virender Sehwag: Continues to redefine the realms of cricket.
Don't need to say much about these two. The others will need some description.

Vinoo Mankad:
The one half of Second highest ever opening partnership. He was an extremely versatile cricketer. Mankad's best performance was against England at Lord's in 1952. In the first innings he top-scored with 72. During England's first innings, he bowled 73 overs and took 5 wickets for 196 runs. In India's second innings in that Test match, he top-scored again with 184 runs out of India's total of 378. Though England won the game easily, Mankad's all-round performance salvaged India's pride in a series where they were heavily over-matched. Mankad was the first player in more than 30 years to score a 100 and take five wickets in the same Test and the first Indian to achieve this feat.

Navjot Singh Sidhu:This motor mouth would not make most of the teams except India. But such has been the paucity of openers in Indian cricket. He started of a stroke-less wonder, but went on to become a six hitting maniac. His double hundred against West Indies would put most insomniacs to sleep. Many people recount Tendulkar marauding Shane warne in 1997. It is easy to forget that he was already softened by the assault of Sidhu and Laxman.

Gautam Gambhir. I feel its too early to put him on the list of best openers. But he is not doubt better than the most we have had. Played the innings of his life in Napier, Newzealand. Batted 10hrs to help save the test. His true test will be when India visit the Proteas later this year.

There are others like Chetan Chauhan and Wasim Jaffer. Jaffer in particular I felt never lived upto his promise. Chauhan had 10 100+ partnerships for the first wicket with Gavaskar.He scored over 2000 runs but never scored a century. And then there is Krishnamachari Srikanth. A maverick batsman, but with the likes of Sehwag around no way he would make the list.

The Fast Men
The achilles heel of Indian cricket. It has always struggled to field more than one quick bowler in its eleven. Most of them have been the fast medium and slow variety. India have only two genuinely quick bowlers and one of them was known as Tiny. India was not always a pauper in fast bowling. In fact it started off with two excellent apprentices in Shaikh Mohammad Nissar and Ladhabhai Nakum Amar Singh.

Mohammad Nissar was as fast as they come. Indian batsman C.K. Nayudu claimed in his writings that during his first spell, Nissar was faster than Englishman Harold Larwood, who terrorized Australia in 1932 in the infamous Bodyline series. He was a Pashtun leader who migrated to Pakistan post Independence.

Amar Singh was a medium pacer of McGrath variety, who could make the ball shoot of from good length. He was a good batsman too and was the first Indian to complete the all-rounder's double of 1000 runs and 100 wickets in the Ranji Trophy.

Ramakant Desai:
At 5ft 6" he was unusually short for a genuine quick bowler.
He was nick named Tiny. Like other Indian fast bowlers he was overworked. His duels with the legendary Hanif Mohammad make for rather interesting reading.

Kapil Dev:
India's greatest ever all-rounder. He would make any side purely as a bowler. A lovely side on action, he could bowl the banana curve out-swingers. A brilliant athlete and excellent outfielder, his catch of Viv Richards in the 83 world cup finals will be etched in our minds for ever. He also held the record for most no of wickets in test cricket till Walsh took it over from him.

Javagal SrinathHe took over the mantle of India's strike bowler from Kapil Dev. He was quite unlucky and suffered quite a bit from butter fingered Indian slip fielders. He was a real lion heart, and could bowl really fast at times. He is known to have flirted around 150K in the start of his career. He famously puked after knocking over Merrick Pringle. He was a key part of the 2003 world cup campaign. He reinvented himself and was India's leading wicket taker of the tournament.

Zaheer Khan Zaheer Khan burst into the collective consciousness with his yorkers in the ICC knock out trophy of 2000. I still remember watching him bowl to Steve Waugh from my college canteen. He started off well and like most Indian bowlers lost his way. But he has bounced back well and is one of the best bowlers in the world today. Can move the bowl both ways as well as from both sides.

There are a few more I would like to mention like Salim Durrani and Manoj Prabhakar. They were generally chosen in the Indian side because of their all round abilities and not real world beaters as bowlers. I would rather cover them in detail while doing the round up of all rounders. Venkatesh Prasad started well. But then Saeed Anwar and Jayasuriya happened. They combined with captaincy of India's worst ever captain post independence put an end to his career.

Prince and the Pauper

The first half of IPL3 is over and will be soon reaching the business end . The success of Indian players has been the story of this years IPL so far.
But the tragedy is that it has failed to throw any new names. Take RR's Naman Ojha. His names started doing round at the same time as Parthiv Patel.
Unfortunately he plays for  a  state which neither has financial nor cricketing muscle, Madhya Pradesh. Ojhais a far better player than patel, but I doubt he
will ever make it to the national squad . Most of the success stories of this years IPL is about known  names  who lost their way or have been pushing their way for sometimes.
While Indian batting bench seems to be in good health.

The quality of fielding too has been good. India used to be a good fielding side in 70's and 80's. But in the nineties and noughties we were mostly crap. Hope the next decade would be good.

But the future of our bowling department looks worrisome. There are no names worthy of mention.
It is really painful to watch witcket keepers standing upto most of our quickies. Kumble is his heydays was quicker than most of the names going around. The spind department looks to be ok,
nothing great but in much better health than pace. Dare Devils Umesh Yadav seems to come like a breath of fresh air. It's good to see a bowler turn in 140K deliveries regularly. His radar seems to be good.
Hope he stays away from the MRF pace academy.
Of late it seems to have developed a knack of converting fast/fast medium bowlers to slow bowlers.

Overall it seems we are princess in batting department and paupers in bolwing. Again nothing knew about it

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A God Or A Ghost

So finally the 200 has been breached in the odi’s. I am not surprised that Tendulkar was the one who did it. Before you continue reading this post let me warn you that I am not a Sachin fan. I admire him for his passion for the game. He still likes his job and excels in it even after twenty years. I find it difficult to keep the love going after 6 yrs. There is many a lesson to learn from him. But let’s keep it for some other day. This post is more on the evolution of the batting in the LOI form of cricket.
Many batsmen have threatened to breach 200 runs mark, but perhaps got too greedy reaching it. Most recently sehwag and dilshan threatened to breach it in the same match. The advent of T20 has pushed the scoring rates to a new high. But what has made the feat achievable is the powerplays and mandatory changing of the ball after 35th over. The bats have been getting better but still it was difficult to maintain the tempo for 50 overs as the balls used to get softer and hitting 4s and 6s with tired limbs was not easy.
If we study the history of the limited overs game, In the first 20 years only 3 men managed to breach the 150 runs mark a total of 4 times. Twice by that great man Viv Richards, once by Kapil Dev and Glenn Turner. These are remarkable innnings as these were before the era of fielding restrictions, helmets, power-plays front foot no balls, strict leg side wides rules, restriction on bouncers etc.
The 1992 was the dawn of a new era as the 15 over field restrictions was introduced.
However it was not until 1996 that powerhitting caught up. In the next few years the 150 mark was routinely breached, till the bowlers started catching up. The team scores continued to rise but the individual scores started seeing a bit of a slump.
Then came the T20s, power-plays and the ball change rules. These changes have removed the bowlers totally out of the equation. These along with ever shortening length of boundaries have removed any challenge whatsoever the batsman had. Only obstacle a LOI batsman has thesedays is boredom.
Technology is advancing in all sports, but so is the human effort. Bolt still has to run 100m’s. Better shoes and tracks help him, but he still is a cut above the rest.
We love the nadal/federer rivalry for the contest, the rallies. It would have been boring if they had been indulging in a slugfest of aces. Similarly in football people love goals. But we don't remove the defenders and goal keepers and have 90 mins of free kicks and penalty shootout.

I don’t understand these craze for feeding more 4s and 6s. A six used to be thrilling as we never knew till the last moment if it was a six or the batsman was out. These days the moment a ball is hit in air the only thrill is if the ball has been hit out of the stadium or not. Perhaps we should bring the original 6 rule. Award 6 runs only for balls hit out of the ground. Not an impossible feat. I love the game. And want to keep on loving it. But for that, the contest should return back. A few more years of such ghastly innings I am off from this nonsense for ever.

The Tragedy of Fourteen Eleven

Fourteen Eleven is celebrated as children's day in India. Tragically it(1411) is also the number of tigers left in India . I often wonder what kind of legacy are we leaving for the future. Will we be leaving any at all? What role does mankind have to play as an evolved species. For what do we owe an highly evolved intellectual faculty? Is mankind supposed to be a cold blooded sophisticated predator with an insatiable hunger to kill without any provocation or cause?

It's high time India realizes the havoc it's ever burgeoning population is causing.
We need our country to be as beautiful as our National song Vande Mataram depicts it to be. It is possible, but will take a concerted effort from both the individuals as well as the government.

"Save the Tiger" campaign should not look at the tigers in isolation. We have to introspect and look at how we can reduce the consumption of natural resources.

At individual level I think people need to shift to a more vegetarian way of life. By vegetarian way I do not want to restrict to what we eat, but also what we wear. The next time you lay your eyes on the exotic leather wallet/belt/shoe, pause for a while and think before you buy it.
Companies should not look down upon employees if employees start turning up in sneakers. At the end of the day its the quality of work which matters and not the clothes someone wears. Companies should encourage casual dress code.

Civic authorities should realize their role as town planners seriously. We need to penalize people who crave to dwell in independent houses/bungalows. Living in apartments/multi-storeyed buildings reduces the geographical span of a city. It also makes planning way simpler. Make public transport affordable and practical.
Tier 2 cities like Bangalore have not learnt anything from the experiences of metros. The public transport in most of these cities is unreliable,expensive and use non-CNG vehicles.

As a fiscal policy it's high time the government removed the subsidy on Petroleum-products. The prohibitive prices will drive down the demand for petrol, create demand for products consuming alternate/clean energy. As the demand for petroleum products decrease the prices will go down.

We need to realize that Tiger as the king of jungle is not of mere symbolic importance. It will accelerate the vanishing of forests. Without forests our country will cease to exist as we know. We will be a vast barren desert. Save the Tiger, Save INDIA.

Mumbai for ALL, But No One for Mumbai

Mumbai belongs to everybody? Really, or is it that everybody wants to belong to Mumbai?
Experts of all hues say that the constitution bestows a right to seek employment anywhere in India. But most importantly the constitution is mum on dignity of a citizen. Shouldn't the right to live with dignity be of paramount importance.For long Mumbai has been the land of dreams and opportunity. A significant chunk of India is spread across the failed states of central and northern India. Millions from these states flock to Mumbai every year. They slog hard and lead a piece meal existence. In a way they are like birds who fly to warmer climates in winter. But unlike the birds they cannot get back. Millions of such birds keep flocking to Mumbai every year. But the truth is the warmer lands are harsher than the cold climates.
Mumbai has become unsustainable. There has to be some kind of censorship to control its inorganic growth. I dont condone the sena, I care for Mumbai.
But I would like to put a question to all the Non-Mumbai intellectual crowd who proudly say Mumbai belongs to all. How many would agree for a National tax for Mumbai. It pinches right? If Mumbai belongs to everybody, everybody in India has to contribute for it. A healthy Mumbai is necessary for a healthy India