About the Blog

This is my diary....what I make sense of, around me. You'll find short prose on contemporary topics that interest me. What can you expect - Best adjectives? …. hmm occasionally, tossed around flowery verbs ?…. Nope, haiku-like super-brevity? … I try to. Thanks for dropping by & hope to see you again

July 23, 2012

The Winning Way


This book is a breezy read with its  easy prose, anecdotes, and of course cricket trivia. Who wouldn’t like to know why Kapil & Jayasurya lingered around even after their prime time in cricket, or for that Pakistan Batsman who played selfishly despite the orders of its enigmatic captain Imran Khan forcing him to storm to the field in a rage “ You will never play for Pakistan again” ?.

The winning way jumps frequently between cricket & management and attempts to find similarities in its principles and practices like planning, team building, setting Targets, work ethics etc. Examples abound as to how companies, like cricket teams have fared on these counts. Harsha Bhogle & his coauthor wife Anita have painstakingly dejargonised the content which usually tends to be when combining Management & statistics. 
 
Though the book heavily relies on Cricket, a fair bit of garnishing of other sports also has been done. Particularly Hockey where the authors have tried to explain the ills within the Indian Hockey system which has seen the National sports  slide from being world Numero-Uno's  in the 1950’s to also ran’s by the end of the millennia. So far so good.

However the Book fails to explain why a similar trend was also seen in Indian Football . Or  for that matter why Indian Olympians (past & present) are not made to pass through this litmus test of management principles & practices that the book subjected cricket to?  It would have done justice to the academic and cerebral qualities of the authors if they had addressed the core issues of Indian sports which revolves around the decline of Hockey, Football & Olympics today with the principles of sports Management by drawing parallels & insightful studies of other countries like China which quickly made it up the curve in all of them . By pandering heavily on cricket, the Bhogle’s are once again playing (commenting) to the galleries.

July 15, 2012

a Harley beckons

I had my ‘Boson’ moment sometime late last month. After a nerve jangling journey (on the last row of a multi-axle Volvo Bus) to Hyderabad and after spending considerable time, effort & money, I realized that we were in the middle of a B2B exhibition looking for intending customers who never really showed up. The ‘Bozo’n realization was that it was never intended to be. Like a game of hide-n-seek that sent physicists on the hunt for the elusive (or goddamned as someone called it) particle, we painstakingly discovered  that just about everybody connected with the Business turned up except the one we intended to meet and interact.

A curtailed Business trip but we still had plenty of time on hand the next day for checking out the Harleys at Banjara Hills. The previous evening we went to Himayatnagar which lies in the other end of the town for some shopping & slurping. Going from cybercity where we stayed to the old city is like crossing from Bandra-kurla complex right  into Dharavi. The contrast is quite striking. A Rajasthani dinner at Jharokha with some 50 odd varieties on your plate was  like facing a Uber gun (remember Mask-Stanley Ipkiss played by Jim Carrey showing the thugs what he's packing, which happens to be guns and more guns combined into one gun). The barrage of culinary bits was quite a bit of an assault on my tongue which frankly by the end of the meal was quite as flat as a  bangalore traffic road kill. Dadu’s the next door sweet mart stacks up some really unique sweets and the emotion bites and Badamees variety is a must try.

The Harleys are quite a piece of engineering feat; stocky, neat, and oozing out machismo from whichever angle you look at. For a big bulky machine (at least 30%  bulkier & heavier than Indian motorcycles ) the finishing is great . Hard metal & steel gel beautifully with an engine that appears like a mini grizzly bear crouching under the seat. While I was trying out one of the bikes, neatly stacked in a single row of 4-5 bikes I heard one of the engines coming to life.  Initially I mistook it to a power Generator that might have been switched on in the store backyard (Hyderabad has its share of power woes)  but when the store manager took one of the beasts out of the showroom the misrealization was apparent. 

The price tag has put any ambitions to rest probably pushing to the Bucket-list (a long joy ride if I could manage on a rented out HD some twilight day). Putting out the backdrop studio like pose on FB did though give me the high, the responses made me gush almost in embarrassment.

The road awaits……. sometime in the future and a Harley beckons - to break free. 
Four wheels move the body; two wheels move the soul — Old biker saying

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/25903626.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the Soul - old biker saying

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