Ramblings of a maverick

Over the past few days, I have experienced the loss of my dear grand Uncle, my wife's friend and my classmate's dad. From the time the news of the passing away reaches you till the time when the doors are shut literally, a plethora of feelings flash by. News of the passing away: You know quite a few in your family, friend & acquaintance who are perhaps suffering from some ailment or the other and going through some degree of recovery. Your mind scans this cache and in a wicked way, it seems to be relatively acceptable if a person was in this list. And if the person is outside of this 'list', that's when shock seems to set in. E.g. someone passing away in an accident is obviously a black swan moment. We seem to look for a cause-and-effect theory to reconcile the event. With the advent of all pervasive social media, it takes very little for news to go viral and disseminates the info virtually instantly. To the extent that folks seemingly auto-expect that you ...

There is something very philosophical about travelling by bus especially to work. Initial feelings of saving the pains of having to be alert processing multiple angles of traffic and pedestrians much like an AWACS. This is guaranteed to drain your batteries even before you reach half way to your destination. Depending on the distance to travel, you are bound to save substantial amounts of money. And considering the wet weather in  town (which, btw is NOT due to the copius tears shed due to the exit of Yeddy as he would like is too believe....we call it rain ), it's certainly a better option to commute. And when  you look around the fellow passengers, you see a sampling of the World around us that you probably chose to ignore or considered it being out of  your way. The casual and care free student fiddling furiously on his/her phone, quickly utilising the government quota of 100 sms for the day.... The daily wage worker who cannot afford  turning up late, traffic ja...

I had an experience of travelling by the Shatabdi express from Chennai back home after attending a family event. It has been several years since I travelled by this train. It's a kind of a mirror image of the transformation that India has gone through. The passengers now seem to be an eclectic mix of IT yuppies, doting ' mamis', spoilt brats, the oh-so-cool-to-travel-by-train posh types and the day in and out business men. The interiors are in itself a surprise with a  pleasant decor something one does not associate with our trains which are normally look like a welding lab project output from a local scrap dealer with some coconut mattresses thrown on top for comfort. The windows are large, two seats long with an optional drop-down sun shade. Seats are admittedly comfortable and the overhead luggage carriers at a comfortable height made of toughened glass and plastic. The meal drop down trays are adequate with a slightly clumsy water bottle holder. Overhead lighting was ...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Saina-storms-into-top-five-of-world-badminton-rankings/H1-Article1-520466.aspx This is fantastic news all around. Quitely & surely, Saina has been sweating it out with the best in the World and making steady progress. First Indian to break into the top-10 and now the best ever, top-5. Am sure that this is not her Goal. Her goal is very likely to be a consistent #1. Compare with the hulla, We witnessed when India got the '#1' ranking in tests that has been promptly been overtaken by Australia. Lakhs of money a-la Mayawati flowed towards the Cricketers. And Saina probably makes a dignified & quiet entry & exit out of the Hyderabad Airport when She goes/comes back to/from the Super Series events. Why do we go on & on about Cricket ? I'm a Cricketer myself but find that the priorities of BCCI are not Cricket. After all, the website for BCCI is www.bcci.tv and it points to the Champions League site (an event that was dead ...

Finally I could lay my hands on a Smartphone courtesy a shocking surprise from my family. I have been wanting to blog during my off times including waiting at traffic lights @ Bengaluru :-). Hope to blog often.