The Last Samurai of Test Cricket & definitely the best test cricketer ever

The Wall aka Rahul Dravid(Jammie)

To start with lemme quote Matthew Hayden

“All this going around is not aggression. If you want to see aggression on cricket field, look into Rahul Dravid’s eyes”

It is people like him who keep cricket Gentlemen’s game. He is probably the best test cricketer ever. Also he was the kind of a player who puts team first.

He was everything Indian Cricket Team wanted him to be. They needed an opener he was there, they needed a class fielder on third man or slip or gully, he was right there. India needed an extra batsman he becomes the wicket-keeper and performed very well. India needed a captain, he was captain reliable

What has been remarkable is the consistency with which he’s been able to do it overseas. In 2006, Dravid scored two fifties in the Jamaica Test as India won their first series in the Caribbean in 35 years. He lead the side to series victories in England for the first time in a generation too, as captain.

I doubt I can put it better than Bhogle, who said, “Ask him to walk on water for his team and he will ask you how many miles.”

In 286 Test innings, Dravid played 31,258 balls. More than anyone else, ever. Just to add to his ability to endure and push himself beyond limits:

He was challenged every time and he challenged the challange every time.

When they called him ‘slow’ for limited overs cricket, scored 50 off 22 balls.

When the opposition never hesitated to appreciate (See the player behind him, even though he reached Pavilion)

You want avhievement how about this:

Some Quotes to make it understandable:

“Try to take his wicket in first fifteen minutes, if can’t then try to take the remaining wickets” — Steve Waugh

Vijeta(his Wife):

Glenn McGrath once said that if there was one Indian player who could get a direct entry into the famous Australian team of the late 90s, it would be Rahul Dravid.

“Dravid has been a class player for a long time now and we know his ability better than anyone. He’s not like the other guys who love scoring off every ball, and there’s no real weakness in his game either.” — Glenn McGrath

“If you can’t get along with Dravid, you’re struggling in life ” — Brett Lee

“Rahul Dravid being known as ‘The Wall’ is pretty much spot on. ‘The fortress’ could also describe Rahul. Because once, Dravid was set, you needed the bowling equivalent of a dozen cannon firing all at once to blast him down,”” — Shane The Warne

“If I have to put anyone to bat for my life, it’ll be Kallis or Dravid“. — Brian Lara

“Time and Tide waits for nobody, except Rahul Dravid” — MTV India

It is a sad thing that we won’t see more of his cricket any further and the greatest of the people around the world will never say such beautiful things about anyone.

May God Bless the Wall!!

To sum it up with the Batman Series:

Rahul Dravid was not the player India asked for, but he was the player they needed.

 

Spending too much on any phone like a brainless monkey is no good so wake up and read

I recently bought a phone, a smart one!! Yeah!! 😉

So this was my first thought, for a product which costs very little to manufacture (compared to selling price), you end up paying extra costs for advertising. People waste precious productive time trying to acquire it and to add to that they feel an emotional connect to it.

I did not want to spend too much money on phone neither I wanted to make emotional connect with a Phone. So I spent 7000 INR (~$130) bucks to buy Moto E. But that is not the agenda, I am talking about this obsession of owning a super expensive smartphone.

Yeah lets take a scenario of two statements:

a) I own a fascinating smart phones which has a glistening high resolution screen, powerful camera, extra ordinary battery life, has a great connection contract, the large number of supported apps mean that I can keep this single device for both my professional and personal needs.

b) I own an iPhone.

Now think of the impact which second statement makes, it’s massive isn’t it? Why? I will tell you because it conveys your status and more importantly it says that you have spent quite a handsome amount on buying the phone which does exactly what is done by statement (a).

Now lemme tell you a fact there were over 300 million iPhones in active use by December 2013 and yet if you own one you are unique, HOW??

Apple or Samsung or HTC or any company for that matter sells their high end product at a stupendous price which btw is manufactured for very less. Amazed, not really, you probably knew it. Then why do they charge such a hefty amount? Because they spend too much in advertising and promoting and running tests rejecting models etc. but primarily it is advertisement. You pay so much not for the product but the ad which made you buy the product. So watch this one:

Now this advertisement boosted the sale of iPhone to a hell lot, but look closely how many of iPhone features are talked about in this ad?

By the way did you know that selling a product at out of the world prices is a PR/Sales strategy for luxury goods? If something is cheap it is not a status symbol, hence it will not be bought by rich people, and middle class will not “dream” of “owning it”. And if it is priced at a lesser margin then it will remain unaffordable for some and yet of no interest to rich. This is the reason why successive phones still continue to remain pricier than previous while cost to manufacture them and need for advertising comes down.

I am not asking anyone to stop buying iPhones or Samsung S5 or HTC 1 M8 or whatever, so proud owners please do not release a fatwa against me. However, my $120 Moto E, does everything I want from a smartphone, it tells me directions, news, views, good blogs on WordPress, get all the knowledge on Quora, stay connected to Twitter, watch videos on youtube/coursera, let me edit docs/excels and entertains me when I need it to.

Nonetheless it is your hard earned money so it is your decision to spend it on a product that you need or on advertisement campaigns of a super expensive product.

P.S.: I am not promoting any Moto product whatsoever.
P.P.S.: I am not anti-iPhone, in fact I love their designs but that doesn’t change the fact that they are overly priced.

 

Ridiculing achievers be it Sarthak Agarwal or Gaurav Agarwal won’t bring any good to you, so please stop!

I miss the time when we used to admire the achievements and achievers. I do not understand what is wrong with the new ALL-TIME-ONLINE junta out there.

First I saw people ridiculing Sarthak Agarwal,  the Class 12 CBSE topper who got 99.6% marks. First thing first, Congratulations dude!! We are proud of you!! Now he did something which most of the people will not achieve even if they are given a  1000 chances or even if we let them write their exam even with an open book.

So instead of understanding that and asking kids to admire him and find a role model or atleast congratulate him, what we do ….. we ridicule him. Well that is something great ain’t it?  C’mon folks he is what 17 or 18 or 19(max) and you are making trolls about him, did you for once thought how is it going to affect him. Probably not coz had you thought of it you would not dare do that.

Now today I saw a useless post on my facebook page which take about Gaurav Agarwal, who holds Bachelor of Technology (Computer Science) degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow and now has topped  the prestigious examination of IAS.

 

Now lemme tell you an amazing fact: For the first time in four years, a male candidate topped the prestigious examination who by the way is Gaurav. So he deserves some applause and not some sick and third class jokes.

I understand that they are overachievers and everyone[parents, aunties, teachers and god-knows-who] around you compare with them every now and then to make you feel bad about you but giving low standard comments and making abusive memes are not going to help anyways. Internet can be used for other things, don’t be another angry kid sitting in his dorm and abusing whosoever the kid doesn’t like. Be a sport not hypocrite!!

Live long and prosper \\//

Why AAP failed to get people’s support?

Okay this is a late post in the series, so what?

#AAP lost the elections on most of the seats they contested for, they got 4 of their candidates in Loksabha which is a great news but people thought they are going to be in double digits atleast(being pessimist). Then what exactly went wrong.

It is not people like me who stopped supporting AAP were the reason why AAP failed, it was their supporters who argued in their favor even when they were wrong and in fact an absolute measure of wrong.

Well first thing first,  the party wasn’t ready to compete in the Lok Sabha elections. It didn’t have the necessary reputation among most of the Indian masses to make a big impact in the final analysis. This was, in my humble opinion, a case of jumping the gun. The Aam Aadmi Party was crying from the rooftops that they were prevented from passing the Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly. But guess what, people do not want to hear Delhi’s story they want to know what you have to offer.

The specter of Aam Aadmi Party’s ill-fated 49-day government in Delhi was always going to hang over their head. It was the job of Arvind Kejriwal and his think tanks to show people that they were right in resigning prematurely. The party campaign instead focused solely on the opposition candidates, most of all on Modi, and we all know how this strategy works out (Think 2004). The tag of escapist which they got stuck to them and took them down in this Lok Sabha.

Another important aspect of being established as a party are the supporters. It is their job to convey the message, values for which party stands but instead they were busy fighting everyone they could find who was speaking against their messiah Arvind Kejriwal. Mr. Kejriwal is just a human being so he has all the rights to be wrong. It is supporter’s job to make his stand clear, but they were too busy maligning oppositions that they could not even make Mr. Kejriwal look good.

Also, during their government, Arvind Kejriwal took up protest against central government and conducted mohalla sabha for taking decisions for the country.

When people go vote for you, they hope you’re gona govern them with right understanding and judgement. Its your skill they trusted. Your coming back to them for every decision is childish and many people took it as sign of incompetence.

The expectations were never set properly. Goals were never clear and the execution (to spread too thin with very limited resources) was flawed as well. It was never going to yield anything satisfactory. They put all their energy in bringing down the opposition and did not focus on their rise. They often told what would happen if Modi/Gandhi come to power but they forgot to tell what would happen if they come to power.

The things are yet not over forever, they still can be the answer to several political setback questions. Remember there is no permanent crisis in politics and AAP is just in their beginning phase. They can reach to a place where they can bring the fix they say and can change India for good as they promise. But that road is rocky and I do not know if they will resign again in middle or not? Though I do not want them to.

Valley is enjoying the most peaceful time, Repealing 370 straightaway will only mean pushing them in a darker age

Kashmir became part of India in very weird situations. Post independence the Maharajah Hari Singh of this region wanted to stay alone, completely ignorant of the geopolitics around him. Pakistan forcefully tried to take control of his independent nation and without any option left he chose to join India in October 1947.

In order to make them a part of the country Constituent Assembly gave them Article 370 with which they get a li’l special status. The key sticking point which creates controversy is that the citizens from others parts of India cannot easily migrate to Kashmir nor acquire land in the state. Only “Permanent Residents” of the state can acquire property and other Indians cannot become permanent residents.

The state prides in being unique this way and there is a claim that such “uniqueness” breeds further separatism. We took the country in but never accepted them just like what we did with North-East. They are Kashmiri first and then Indians.  So when people say it creates separatism we are not correct as we never fully accepted them on the first thought.

Now as per Article 370, army was deployed to protect the borders of Kashmir from attacks but conditions worsened and Army was deployed on the streets. There were separatists who reacted to army in negative ways and I accept that army has also done several heinous crimes in Valley. The traction has been mutual and more wrong from our part. Army was there to protect them and not torture and harm them in any way.

I hear people often say they want to be part of Pakistan, I say “NO” not even in a zillion year. They hate pakistan way more than that, they are in this situation primarily because of Pak. We have to understand that if they do not support India in an India-Pak match then it is because they want to get back at India for crimes done against them. If India was playing against Nederlands they would support Nederland, it is as simple as that.

Now how people get bad picture, the answer is simple our brainless media. No surprises here, right?

Media only tells that there was a strife in valley and doesn’t tell that it happened because a 10 year old kid was shot dead and in protest the youth of Kashmir came on roads. Now only strife lead to a picture of people creating chaos for no reason however the story is different altogether. It was much like when people came out on streets to protest against the crime against Nirbhaya. But that is covered in a different fashion by media.

Kashmiris can’t forget what happened to their families, the lost lives of their loved ones and neither they can’t forgive it. That is why they do not want to be part of India as well and want to be an autonomous state. It is not separatist, it is rather a right thought.

What India can do or rather must do?

India promised to work for progress of the state, better road, railways, healthcare facilities. But did they get it, well partially yes. They have roads but not they way it should be healthcare there is not in its best shape and neither is communication which was promised in order to make it a part of the nation. First we need to take this as a priority and make an effort to prove that they have not been abandoned.

Did you know  Kashmir produces a large amount of electricity and yet it is not available to the natives themselves. Even now there is a system of “vayr” in Kashmir, where one either gets electricity from 9 to 1 or 6 to 10. So you see the injustice right in the basic call of repealing it.

Repealing 370 straightaway will only mean pushing them in a darker age. Instead if we get them up to speed and help the valley grow let them use their full potential. Provide opportunity of growth to the youth there, involve them in policy making, create better infrastructure over there, we can expect to see it happening in future. But right now it will only do more bad than goods.

Valley is right now in its most peaceful time since late 80s. It will not be right to put this peace in danger for some political mileage.

I am hopeful things will change but not all of a sudden or overnight. Events will take the time they would, no hurry can lead to better result.

Further reads:

http://kafila.org/2013/05/28/eleven-things-india-must-do-in-kashmir-justin-podur/

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/data_sheets/annual_casualties.htm

The town that is unbelievably perfect & worth watching

There can be things which are breathe taking, you won’t notice anything special till you are told the truth about them. Here first let me show you some random pictures of a town. But you’ve got to look closely. So, there you go.

 

 

There’s not much going on in these pictures, but it’s obvious that this town is nothing but charm. But what if I told you that this town doesn’t exist and artist and photographer Michael Paul Smith has spent hours upon hours photographing this piece of beauty. To give you an insight, here are some of the pics :

Michael builds custom miniature models and sets, meticulously crafting every detail.

Then, the 60 year-old photographer creates the hyper-realistic images.

If you didn’t know any better, you might think these are vintage photos of a town from a few decades ago…

And NOT the extremely small models this man built.

He started building these models as an exercise. He wanted to practice his craft and also photography.

He never imagined it would be a “dream-like reconstruction” of the town he grew up in.

To Michael, this is what quintessential America looked like when he was a kid.

It is absolutely beautiful.

If “Elgin Park” were a real town, I would love to live there.

He creates the scenes by setting up Danbury Mint and Franklin Mint die cast autos and trucks in front of his models on card tables.

Then, he uses the surrounding scenery to make the backgrounds for the photos.

The perspective has to be JUST right…

 

 

Usually the resulting photos are completely convincing.

Even when you know what’s going on behind the scenes.

It’s all an illusion.

But Michael is able to make an incredibly convincing one.

His selfies aren’t part of the official photo series, but I think they just add to the charm of his work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Quora