SRI'S Blog

Men ( Young and old alike ) love the Kudi and Kadi on a daily basis.. Does not matter what time of the day it is for the Kudi… I see them having Kudi and Kadi most times at the numerous stalls that are on the road side near to their work place .These stalls come up there where there are people !! Sometimes, people have a smoke along with the Kudi and Kadi. Kudi and Kadi are a great refresher to many to recharge their batteries and they get back to work or any other business with great energy.World affairs are discussed , marriages are confirmed , relationships are strengthened/improved and brainstorming on various difficult topics happens as people have the Kudi and Kadi. The crowd at the stalls pan across economic divides for the pricing is attractive ( of late , the inflation seems to have hit them as well and prices have been on the upward trend but it is difficult to manage without Kudi at any cost ) and this seems to a great thirst reliever to all mankind. Women are a hesitant lo

Recent Two Test series made a mark and impact on the future of Test cricket . While it is clear, that the shorter version of the game has more interest , is result oriented and pulls the crowds in to the stadium with added entertainment and hype, the longer version of the game has drawn lesser crowds and lesser following . But this may change not dramatically as one would think --- If Test Matches are played the way it was played in the recent South Africa - Australia Series and to a lesser extent in the final test between India and West Indies --- there are bright chances for the Test matches to survive and thrive to a extent the onslaught from the One day and the T20 version's of the game What made the two test series interesting ? The South Africa - Australia Test matches was a outstanding one .It had great intensity , players focus on the game and plenty of following. The bowlers of both teams did better than the batters. The first test was done and dusted in two and half days.

I get in to this nice laidback mood every year when I go to the place that I lived for over 36 years. We moved in to this lovely independent house in 1971 and till we moved out completely in Jan 2002 - this was my permanent home. I did move out to Mumbai for a period of time but this was the place that I always liked. I go there every year ( fierce banking need forces the yearly trip ) and after the banking work is complete, I, just go around the colony driving through the streets , looking at the houses and recollecting the residents …and all of my childhood The place has changed a lot but still remains very distinct . I have roamed on all the streets , nooks and corners , shortcuts and we all knew each other in the colony so well. When we moved in 1971 , there were hardly any dwelling. If I went to the Terrace of my house , I could see Villiwakkam the next Railway station about 6 KMs away ( I am not kidding ). There was so much empty space of land and then development took place. Tod

The most expected and exciting sporting event for India , post the Commonwealth games and the Cricket World Cup of course, went off so well at the Budh International Circuit, India over the last week end. No dogged controversies ( there was one ), snakes in rooms , used bed sheets , leaking and stinky toilets ,over bridges falling down etc Etc. The media must have been disappointed on this count. The big difference was that this event was driven by Private sector and flawlessly executed . It was clear as to what went wrong with the Common wealth games. Politicians trying to arrange a event to suit their personal needs and overall as a fund raising event, could never make it a success. It showed up at various stages as the infrastructure crumbled due to deficiency of the base structures and we were glad and relieved when the Commonwealth games began and ended. So , India is on the Formula one circuit and with the successful conduct of the inaugural event , it is going to stay that way f

I was waiting for the past two weeks before I wrote this post with immense satisfaction and the result of the third ODE was just wonderful to savour and so this happy post ! As Dhoni smashed Tim Bresnan over for a four that signalled the India's third successive win in the current ODI series, the crowd at Mohali launched in to Bhangra and with that the series was in the bags of the Indian team. Too much was spoken about England's win in the English Summer, couple of months ago and I think this sport is a great leveller and England are back to the ground. Virat Kohli said before the start of the series that we ( India ) did very well in England in the ODI but were done in by the Weather , Duckworth Lewis method and dame luck ! How true .. The weather gods did not intervene in Hyderabad , Delhi and Mohali and so no Duckworth Lewis and the luck factor simply went away from the English. Of course , the weather ( hot ) did influence the English performance …. Dhoni went through a le

Episode 1 Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the Spirit of Cricket Award .Dhoni was chosen for the ICC Spirit of Cricket Award for his fine gesture of recalling Ian Bell after the England batsman was run out under controversial circumstances during the second Test at Trent Bridge in July.On what was the last ball before tea on the third day, Bell hit the ball towards the boundary. He mistakenly thought it had gone for four, left his crease and headed towards the pavilion assuming the session was over and the ball dead. The ball, which had not reached the rope and therefore was still in play, was returned to the middle, the bails removed and Bell was correctly given run out.Upon reflection during the tea interval and following a request from the England team, Dhoni withdrew the appeal and recalled Bell thus turning boos into cheers from the appreciative Nottingham crowd. Commenting on Dhoni's gesture, ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said, "While the initial appeal and um

The Indian Cricket team tour of England has finally ended. It was one of those tours that Indian Cricket lovers ,would like to forget. A test series washout ,( lost all the four tests ), lost the one off T- 20 match and a performance in the ODI not supported by the result ( Series lost but the result could have been more favourable to the Indian team ). The team did not win a single match except the side county practice matches that it played against local teams and this "no win "must be a record of sorts for the ODI World Cup holders. While it is easy to criticise , many things went against Team India and Dhoni's lady luck deserted him totally. Some thoughts and comments : A total of ten players were injured as the tour progressed and replacements were sent in. I am not sure if any touring team called in for ten replacements on a tour . There was a eleventh injury on the final ODI ( Munaf Patel ). It is difficult to plan your team options in this situation. It is incredi

Do you have a car and park on the road ? The travel operators who have taken to parking on the side roads , main roads and where ever they can , now have a unique way to confirm parking slots on all roads.. All it took was a some yellow paint and a brush. With intense pressure from the locals to clear the road , of the travel cars , they have hit upon two great solutions and they work so well. 1. Draw a Yellow line on the side of the road that will allow a car to be parked and the parking slot is now official . No questions from anyone . The car parking is reserved only for their cars. No one dare park them in these slots. If you park , the damage is yours 2. When the cars go out on duty, heavy stones are placed at these vacant spots , so that no one can park. If you dare remove the stones, you had it. You will be challenged by a unruly mob and forced not to park. Remains to be seen as to long this will work. The traffic Police have not done this for sure as they looked cluele

Not sure how many of you noticed it , but following a government notification to discourage the use of plastic bags while shopping, all major retailers have started charging for plastic Carry Bags. The aim of this initiative is to create more awareness among consumers about the environmental impact of plastic. So we end up paying extra Re 1 or Re 2 or Re 4 or Re 7 for various sizes of carry bags to carry the stuff that we buy. The more you buy, the more Carry Bags you need to buy ! The Government clearly did not tell the retailers to charge but they have smartly used the notification and are making something out of nothing in terms of revenue , however small it may be. While we are happy with the intent , we can challenge the retailers to : 1. Give us a cloth bag or any other environmental friendly bag that we can carry our stuff. We are paying for it anyway , so we can demand the right thing , is it not ? And these can be re used. 2. Since we are paying for the cost of the bag , we ca

England thoroughly deserved to win-- Strauss and his men outplayed a hapless Indian team to go up 3- 0 in the four match test series and get to the No :1 status ranking for Test playing nations in Cricket. Dhoni seems to have lost his"magic"suddenly and Strauss seems to have gained all the "Magic" that Dhoni had. Dhoni could go no wrong but going by the results of the three test matches , Dhoni can do all wrong as well !! Some obervations --- When the English team batted , the sun shone , there was no movement of the seam and swing and the Indian bowlers looked clueless as they were carted all over the park and when England bowled , the sun went behind the clouds and there was plenty of swing and movement that the batters found it difficult to deal with . The partial implementation of the Decision Review system ( DRS ) also went the English way. LBW could not be referred and there were several that went against India . How could one explain the fact Harb

For the past the six to eight weeks , I have been noticing a difficulty and it showed lack of abundant good eateries in Chennai and also the fact that many people prefer eating out over week ends. I am not referring to high end luxury restaurants ( they may be crowded as well ) but those that are Vegetarian and do not harm the wallet very much. May be this situation has been in existence for a much longer time than i found out but I noticed it because we were trying to go out over the last six weeks to eight week end with friends for dinner and had a struggle to book tables and eat peacefully and connect well amongst us. One good veggie restaurant which is expanding and runs its restaurant as part of a Hotel does not open till 7 PM and they take calls only after 6:45 Pm. And even if they pick up , they do not take any booking ." Come along , let us see " is the response. "Come at Sharp 7 PM " and you may get a table is the answer. So , you kind of rush , tension fil

What do you look for in a leader ? If you do a Google search , it may throw you some of these characteristics : Accepts Challenges ,Courageous , Risk taker , Objective about things ,Decisive , Communicates well ,Won’t give up, firm but fair , great listener, Keeps promises , unrelenting focus ,straight forward , Open door policy, let bygones be bygones attitude , Open and honest, follow through Patient, gets everyone involved , operates well under pressure , sense of urgency , being humble. I saw all of these in Mr T.N . Manhoran ( TNM ) as he walked us through the Satyam Revival story. TNM is no small fry. He was the past President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and is very well recognised and respected in his Profession and by Society as a Outstanding Person. It was a honour for us as he accepted to come and speak to us. When the Government called him to be a Government nominees on the Board of Satyam in the thickest of messy times ( post the Scam ) , TNM accepted

This may be a lousy topic to write on , but I am penning this down just to provoke some thinking on we can do - on grooming and managing expectations. Two incidents that I thought , I can share to get our thoughts going on how we can refine , manage expectations and be good leaders. Situation 1: On the TTK Road and CP Ramasway road in Alwarpet ( where I live and have to wade through these two roads often ) traffic was allowed to flow both ways until a couple of years back or so. Then ,in the name of traffic pattern study ( devious way to implement a change-- how nice ), changes were made and both TTK and CP Ramasway became one way for traffic flow. Then some more changes were made on "side roads" to ensure that vehicle flow through a particular road would be minimum or not allowed at all. It looked stupid but the change was made. We all realised the changes were made to accommodate a Minister of the old regime who lived on that road. People protested , bus stops changed and t

It has been more than a month since I had my last post in to the blog. . For good reasons . I took off on vacation for three weeks . I have never been off from my work that long ! Did I miss work ? Not really. Why ? I was wired all the time . But I did stop writing the blog and enjoyed the lovely break from routine with family , relatives and friends . Why no break from work ? Can we get away in the current Techie Mad World -- NO !! With the technology support that is available , the need to stay connected is very high. So, I packed my laptop , soft phones and accessories along with my packing for the vacation trip. It proved so useful and I did not repent for carrying the Laptop. I also cannot imagine coming back from this long holiday to be up and running at work from day one which is the normal expectation. My daily email traffic is very heavy ( in my own terms ) and I cannot imagine having to clear a backlog of fifteen work days.. I also used the time zone to my advantage to work o

It was a defining moment when I finished 15 years with Ford.. It was defining for many reasons… 1. The employee number that I carry is a special number .. No :001 and so for the number 1 to stay with the same company for fifteen years sends in a great message to the young youngsters. 2. I was not expecting a celebration for this , but the teams that work with me more than surprised me .. Cake cutting , a lovely pictorial frame of my pictures was done up …. People worked on it to get the right pictures and frame it .. Thank you guys. 3. A write up on the Ford website that brought in lot of attention and comments on to the post was truly a humbling experience. 4. The comments told that I was doing the right thing in many ways and it was testimonial to my leadership.. What more can you want ? 5. The challenge bar is much higher post all this -- Need to raise the bar , not just maintain it . Comments by various people helped me walk the journey of the past fifteen years. I realised how ha

The Events in Egypt , Yemen , Libya and smoke in Bahrain are all great signs of what people power can do . No matter what type of military power you have with you or other support you possess , people power can easily decimate these powers in no time. Egypt was classic . A dictator overthrown after thirty years in power. It was so simple . People wanted him to go and they did it without any great strategy or tact. The common theme of "Oust Mubarak " brought them together. In this context , Anna Hazare has brought in attention in India with various groups in multi cities and for all good reasons . A simple man , who gave notice of his fasting to the government to take forward the Lok Pal bill would not have expected such a support through out India for what he is trying to do . May be the timing of his call was just about right . With the background of Egypt events, and what was happening locally in India,with the 2G scam involving crores , the Adarsh Housing Scam , the Common

There was so much of expectation from the India Pak match . Everyone was involved -- the Politicians , the bureaucrats , the filmi stars , the common man and of course the teams. You had the two leaders of the playing nations watching the match amongst back end work by the Diplomats. It was all exciting stuff at the Mohali stadium . India had to win and there was no other result that one can compromise with. This was the final as far as any Indian or Pakistan was concerned. Winning this match was more important than the final. India has a good record in the World Cup against the Pakis . All the five matches that we played in the previous World Cup against Pakistan were won by us and this record could not be blemished and so extreme hype and pressure was built up on the eve of the match with many a Corporate India facilitating the viewing of the match in one way or the other . The prematch talk was about who will fire in the match . For sure the name of Wahab Riaz did not figure in tha

India won the World cup -- after a long gap of 28 years . They were the favourites to win , but to ride that tag and end up winners is something else . I hear everyone saying after the win " I told you. India will win " -- Does not matter. We have won the title and that is awesome for the Cricket fans of this country. The final was a fantastic match . It had to be and brought out the best team to fight hard to win it. Sanga and his men , lost the plot , I thought at the team selection stage. What else can you say ? Changing a winning combo is never good and to change four players from his winning semi final line up and then play a player who just arrived in to Mumbai was too much for the asking. Also too much was made in pre match reviews about Randiv and what he could do with Murali on the pitch. SL should have had one change - replace the injured Mathews with Thissara Perera. Ajatha Mendis had the best average as a bowler till the Semis -- less than three a over and they dr

The stage is set for the semi finals .. The line up is on expected lines -- except for South Africa missing out ( I can add " as usual " ) . India - Pakistan and SL Meeting up with Kiwis. In the first Quarter final match , two unpredictable team met up .. Pakistan was more predictable that day. West Indies were never in the match and Pakistan was the first to get to Mohali.Nothing to talk about the match ! It was funny that Bangladeshis turned up to cheer Pakistan -- Why -- West Indies team defeated Bangladesh in the group match and revenge had to be taken. If Pakistan defeats West Indies , it is as good as Bangladesh defeating them !! Great story of Cross country love and friendship amongst enemies !! The second match was the one that I was waiting for ..Ind- Aussie Match . Aussie had to play for lot of pride as holders of the World Cup. Ponting said that Aussies would play the Aussie way and Dhoni responded -" India will play the India way.".The stage was set . A

The qualification matches ended mercifully.. I say this because , most of us knew which of the teams would go through to the Quarterfinals. It was no surprise that we had Australia , South Africa , India , Pakistan , Srilanka , West Indies , England and New Zealand go through . As Allan Border said before the start of these matches , Bangladesh would be the team to create the odd nuisance value but would not qualify and how right he was . The most improved team from the affiliates was Ireland and I think they would go to do well in the future. Kenya , Canada , Zimbabwe and the Dutch are far away from the top eight to trouble them . Now on to the knock out matches and many a heart is going to break as we finish the quarter final matches . The last week of the qualification matches had very good matches in store and it was no surprise that England was involved in one more tension filled nail baiting finish. England took on the Windies needing to win to stay in contention. Bangladesh on

New Zealand Pak Match The New Zealand - Pakistan match was a great match . Pakistan fielded first and all was quiet till the 45th over of the NZ innings . Pakistan did well till that point , pushing the Kiwis to the back foot and having a good dominance over the game. Birthday boy Ross Taylor changed all that , sent them on a unforgettable leather hunt. 114 runs came off in six overs as Taylor tore in to the Paki attack and sent the ball over the ropes with ease. It was carnage . If Rawalpindi express Akhtar gave away 28 runs in one over , his colleague Abdur Razzack bettered him. He conceded 30. Taylor's magnificent attack pushed NZ past 300 mark and from then on Paki were never in the match . Twenty Twenty has brought in this element of attack by the batsmen and Taylor played some audacious shots as Pakis who did well for 44 overs of the Kiwi innings could not believe that they played badly for just six overs of the 50 overs and lost. Pakis were also bent back by some good swing

England were in the thick of action and become famous for both right and wrong reasons. First the right reason -- They defended a small total against a team that is known to "Choke" -- you are right against South Africa . SA were sailing at 124 for three at one stage , chasing 172 for a win and lost four wickets -- three on the same score of 124 and one at 127 and then England realised that they were playing against the "chokers" and nailed it in . Broad bowled dead straight and was promptly rewarded . Now South Africa have to redeem themselves.. And their next match is against India .South Africa normally play well in the round robin but not in the knock out and so this should be a big wake call for Graeme Smith and his men. England for the wrong reasons England played Ireland and they put a total that they thought was a winning one and then had Ireland on the mat at 111for five chasing 328 for a win. And it all became messy for England after that. Kevin O'Brie

The Cricket World Cup Action so far The matches have gone on predictable form so far. The minnows have been generally outplayed and questions will be raised on their participation in the future world cups . The ICC has already trimmed the teams from the current 14 to 10 for the next One Day Series World Cup. Seemed the right thing to do with teams like Kenya and Canada out of depth at this level. New Zealand and Pakistan thrashed Kenya while Srilanka did the same to Canada. The Dutch gave the run for the money to the English but the English prevailed due to their experience at the end over's. India played out Bangladesh -- Bangladesh ran up more runs than they should have but at no point they threatened to win after India had put up a winning score. Sehwag and Kohli sizzled and that was good enough irrespective of how you bowled. All this set up the weekend matches between Lanka and Pakis and India and the English. The Pak SL match , although it went to the wire , I had no worries