give me a A, give me a I, give me a L, give me a A …..AILA! re

NEWSFLASH: Cyclone Aila strikes Kolkota … Is it Sachin's revenge on KKR for the big loss against them in the recent IPL? or may be retaliation against the Fake IPL KKR Player for giving him this outrageously funny nick name?. But still what an awesome name.

A little research and what I find out. Cyclones until recently didn’t have names. But Hurricanes and Typhoons always had one. Since the Cyclones affect multiple countries in a region, an easy to use naming convention would help with better communication across countries with different languages and standards. Each member country of of a South Asian Meteorological association takes turns in naming cyclones. In this case, Aila, in thelocal language of Maldives, means Fire.

Dont you see a commonality in the names. If Katrina is recognised world over, South Asia still remembers the cyclones of the recent past - Nargis mesmerised Pakistan, Bijli struck Bangladesh. Scientists have already named the cyclones predicted by them in the future. Nisha has set her eyes on India, Laila to follow Nargis all the way till Pakistan and Phyan to harass Myanmar in protest against the detention of Aun Sung Syu Kyi.

Strange coincidence that the cyclones are all named after women. Why ?. As we all know, Cyclones usually represent fury and destruction. The joke that is doing the rounds in meteorological circles is that, the scientists at work named the cyclones so, as they remind them of their wives back home.

The scientists better keep silent. In the times of Amma & Didi, it is preferable to assuage your better half’s angst, rather than run into a risk of getting into legal tangles. Like an airforce officer, found out during a recent supreme court judgement. A vacation bench of Justice Markandeya Katju and Justice Deepak Verma threw their hands up, quoted in the judgment to the harassed husband in true Mumbaiiya accent - ‘Ae... Shane, Jyada Dimag Ko Taan Nahi Dene Ka, Chup Chap Biwi Jo Bolti Sun Ne Ka ‘

Aila!

Quiz Time

Keep you google search tabs ready. 5 questions, 5 minutes. Your time starts now!

Q1: Name this lady who played Roop (Kareena's Cousin Sis) in Jab We Met. She is also the hostess of the most popular dance reality show on Zee TV. She is also a poet with special interest in Shakespearean Literature.

Q2: Identify this daughter-in -law of the one of the most important cabinet ministers from South India.The cabinet minister quit his long standing finance job , to become a home maker (literally) recently. The lady is also a doctor and a trained Bharatnatyam dancer.

Q3: She is a very popular british cookery show host on 'Discovery Travel & Living'. Despite being on the wrong side of the 40s, she still has hundreds of websites dedicated to her. Born to a former Chancellor Ex Chequer and Heiress to British business house, she has carved a distinct identity for herself.

Q4: She is the second daughter of highest paid actor in India, who is worshipped by legions of fans in one south indian state and across several asian countries as well. A graphic designer, she is producing animation movies with Warner Bros currently.

Q5: Identify this immensely popular hollywood actress, who started her career with 'The confessions of a teenage drama queen' and hit the popularity charts with her role in the sci-fi blockbuster 'Transformers'.

Now there is a connecting theme in the answers to all 5 questions. If it is one late saturday evening and you have five eligible bachelors sitting around the living room, ruminating about life and suddenly you rake up the topic of 'Who you think is the most beautiful celebrity?'. These were the five answers that came out. Innumerable arguments and eventually, not a single guy agreed with another guy's choice.

PS1: What Anman eventually concluded - 'Beauty is in the IRIS of the Beholder, Never the twain shall meet'

PS2: If that was very easy, let me increase the level of difficulty. Now identify which guy chose which lady. Besides me, The other 4 guys would be Bertie, Da-1(Banker), Da-2(Consultant) and Anman. Should be easy for anyone, who knows the 5 guys well :-).

The long & short of it

First, I owe an explanation for the previous post. Well, it was an attempt to write a short & witty post. A touch of Hamlet & hence the Polonius quote,might have been a bit over the top, nevermind. More importantly, for me it was reflection of Facebook/Twitter addiction, that is so omnipresent. Verbosity seems to have gone truly out of fashion. Broadcasting tweets and facebook 'what is on your mind? one liners are definitely the in-thing'. Advantages are many. Well, you dont need to comment, you can simply like a status. If I am not wrong, 99% of blog post comments just mean ' I like what you have written' sort of stuff. Nice & Easy!

Now that should leave me, a 2 month old blogger feeling completely outdated. Yes & No. Yes, coz I am quite tempted to quit this sudden blogging craze and I am just looking for an excuse. No, Coz a blog has so much more to offer. But how ?. Well, to a sizeable bunch of friends I know, blog is good source of alternate reading during office hours.

1) If you have plenty of time to kill, 2) your company IT policy doesnt allow orkut/facebook access, 3) short one liners just arent enough meat for reading pleasure you are looking for.

Verbosity is definitely in, Brevity is definitely out. It also reminds me of a Tam friend's reason for preferring 'The Hindu' over TOI. Given the same level of information content, the sheer verbosity of a Hindu article makes it more satisfying to read.

Second reason, you can't post pictures in tweets/status msgs. If you do upload an album, you can't storyboard them into a nice read. Blogs score again!.

Third & the most important reason for me, It's about addressing a select audience. Readers would visit your blog, purely out of their own self interest. Status messages might seem like forcing your point of view/thought on an unintended audience.

Blogs I have seen, over a period of time tend to get biased towards one particular area of interest/subject. Book reviews, Movie reviews, Football/Music blogs, Stock market views among others. In my personal opinion, what brings me back to a blog, is sheer anticipation of what topic next ?. As long the blog has personal touch/opinion/viewpoint, I am sure I would keep coming back, however mundane/trivial some of the posts might be.

Personally, the day I get repetitive & have little new/different to write about, I would like to quit.

I, Polonius

Brevity is the soul of wit

10 fondest childhood memories

Well, this post is definitely inspired by the Honest Scrap Award, that I received from my dear friend Mrunalini, for being a regular reader of her blog. The funda is that the recipient of the award has to write '10 honest facts about themselves'. Then he/she needs to forward it to 7 other people.

Well, since I have a clear promise to myself , that I won't to write about my current personal life or crib about any frustration on my blog. I would write about 10 fondest memories from my childhood. I don't know how many of you had similar experiences to relate.

1. I was the local tyre running champion in my neighbourhood. The game is simple. You get a old tyre and use a stick and run the tyre over a distance. I had the advantage of owning a bigger and thinner Luna tyre that my uncle had gifted me once, while all other friends had smaller and fatter Bajaj Scooter tyre, the most prevalent one those days. But I was never good in the game of marbles (goli) and the marble slab game, where you had a clear a pile of matchbox covers.


2. I have been trying to whistle and blow a bubble gum since childhood. I still can’t whistle, but I learnt to blow the gum, instinctively one Saturday afternoon in my class IX, while playing a cricket match


3. Rs 10 per month pocket money that I used to get, was spent mostly on lunch time treats which included Rs 1 Kismet Chocolate, 50 ps Lolly (pepsi), Rs 2 Yummies chips and the Rs 4 rubber ball to play cricket


4. I owned this pink coloured tricycle, which I drove for quite a long time. There after it was gifted to a cousin, who later gifted it to another of his cousin. I believe it still exists, may be in an attic somewhere


5. I collected WWF memorabilia during those few years, when the craze had reached feverish pitch among all kids. These included splash cards and a big poster of Bret Hitman Hart, that adorned wall of my room for quite sometime.


6. I have watched every quiz show that used to play on Doordarshan – Quiz time, Parliamentary quiz, BQC etc. Most of them enjoyed competing against my grandpa and the one who answers most questions had to gift the other a chocolate. I have also watched every Hindi movie played on doordarshan on Friday night and Saturday night.


7. Any house construction work in the street was the season of joy for all neighbourhood kids. You got a huge pile of sand to play and make sand castles, dig rat holes (Kappe Goodu in Kannada). You return home all dirty and you are ordered to enter through the backdoor straight into the shower.


8. I never had much writing ability. But in rare moments of creativity, I had written poems, short as well as long ones. Though I never filed them, I found out recently that my mom had penned down each one of them in her own little personal diary, without my knowledge


9. I was the shortest guy in my class until class X. So much so that, My mom managed to buy a half ticket for me in Bangalore city buses until I was 14, while the legal age for half ticket is only 12.


10. I registered for Bungee jumping once, but chickened out at the last minute, when my fear of heights finally got to me. My sister, 5 years younger to me, barely 12 then, completed the jump instead of me, ensured that I became the butt of jokes in my family

Added on demand ..

My pleasure to award the honest scrap award to some of my favourite bloggers

Manan : Dude! You were damn witty/funny in ur writing sometime ago. What happened now?. I hope thats provocative enough :)

Vimal : Now stop acting pricey and restart blogging :-). I hope to see the distinctive KADHAL flavour in your list of 10 things.

Tanvi : Madam, you may pick 10 of your favourite paragraphs from books your read. I am sure, most of us would not have even heard of the author, let alone the book :)

Mahesh : You can list 10 favourite stock picks for the month or may be 10 banks most likely fail in FY10 :)

Siby : I would like to read his 10 most perverted jokes. Guruji, please accept this humble request to enlighten our ignorant minds :-)

Wayne : Good boy Wayne would like to tell us, about some not so good mischiefs he has played in life. I hope there are 10 of them, or else you can cook up some stories as fillers

Kasturi : Not a blogger yet. This is just the right impetus you need to start your blog, that should definitely impress your special someone :)

Mobile Story 2050

We all know how mobile phones have impacted and continues to improve our lives in a big way. Much has been written about converged device of the future, with mobile phones at the centre as the universal control device. Here is what I want my mobile phone to do for me in 2050.

In addition to the regular app TODO list, I want to add an application WISH LIST. Let me cite a few examples, how I imagine it to work.

1) I wish I want to watch a certain movie ABC, while dabbling with boring paper work at office. My mobile would communicate wireless to my home automation hub, Which would direct the set top box to place a download with the service provider's server. Well, the service provider's server would place a search with YouTube or bit torrent, find the AVI file, download it and stream it across to the set top box. Now based on my synchronised calender schedule, my mobile would plan to screen the movie.

2) You are feeling lonely and you wish you could spend some time with your best buddies .. Well, my mobile device now is equipped with voice analyser and SMS analyser. It has mined all communication (voice & data) for key words which indicate your mood/state of mind. It also has a record of people, with whom you communicated most, when you felt similar during the previous times. The mobile phone decides to act on his own, and messages your identified buddies, indicating that you are in mood for a chat. If none of them respond, you get a automated call from a AI software called ELIZA, which is trained to counsel lonely individuals, while interpreting your voice/data responses.

3) On the way back from a long day's work, you look forward to a warm welcome at home.Well, GPS of today is the spatial alarm of the future. You receive reminders based on location. The moment you reach within 5 km radius of your home, the google latitude app on the home automation server detects the your impending arrival and activates AC to cool the living room, communicates with the microwave to warm the food and the coffee maker to keep the warm cuppa ready in time for your reaching home

4) You are constantly worried about the health of your loved ones. You wish , there could be a solution. Watches of the future would come with pulse rate monitors, placed along the strap. These would have blue tooth dongles to communicate with a mobile device on certain events. These mobile devices can periodically update a central mobile device, which should help you keep track of health of your aged parents and little kids. In case of an emergency like a heart attack, the pulse rate monitor can directly connect with the defibrillator to address first aid. Or may be, the mobile device based on current location can check with the nearest available ambulances and even place an request for immediate arrival, while providing your current location coordinates automatically.

5) I am at a conference and like to build a good network of business contacts. Now when, LATITUDE is integrated with LINKEDIN, the moment I enter the conference arena, I will get the directory of all attendees in the area. I would use a filtering criteria to shortlist relevant sales targets. Now, the blue tooth application would alarm me, whenever I come in proximity of any of the people in the target list. Immediately, LINKEDIN would provide me with profile detail of the client including conversation starters. if connected to the target through a common acquaintance, you know, whom to ask for an introduction, if he/she is around.

Well .. I am not much of a techie these days .. May be some of these apps are already available in US or elsewhere .. Well .. I would definitely want to have them.

If you have such ideas at some corner of your mind, you are welcome to share it in the comments section :)

Whose team is it anyway ?

Who is bigger ? Owner or the team ? .. If the ongoing KKR saga is anything to go by, its clearly a case of owner's megalomania. Any sensible businessmen would invest in a business only if his expected returns are higher that his opportunity cost of capital. If Shahrukh has a personal appeal , so does Cricket as a game, Sourav as a star and Kolkota as a city. If reality shows like Indian idol, Dance India Dance over the last few years are anything to go by, regional loyalties of Bengal and north eastern states are the strongest. Sourav has the strongest regional fan following, not even Dravid or Tendulkar had fans crying hoarse/ protesting in streets when dropped from the national team.

I am reminded of a lesson in brand management about value proposition. It talked about three different benefits - Functional benefit, Emotional benefit and Self Expressive Benefit. While tough game of cricket played and match won is an functional benefit, the emotional benefit comes from the fans associating themselves with Kolkota as well as the support for Sourav as the bengali representative. Shahrukh khan represented the self expressive benefit. All fans identify with Shahruskh, they want to be like him, they love seeing him on TV, but you wont miss him if he not there.

The fancy team dress and the hummable team song in bengali was excellent symbolism. While the performance of KKR in IPL 2008 wasn't great, it still was not as miserable as say RCB or DC. But that was not enough for Shahrukh. He started believing that KKR appeal extended across the country, across age groups. The glitz and glamour would haze out the raw passion of Eden gardens crowd cheering for their favourite bengali cricketer. Like EPL clubs, he thought a top ranked coach would dramatically turnaround the fortunes. An array of sponsors and a profitable first year, just added to the over confidence.

What he did not realise that, the ManUs and the Liverpool's of the world have been around for decades and have loyalties which transcend generations of players, viewers and fans. IPL is still in its infancy and KKR is still being evaluated by the audience. Niether IPL nor KKR can take the loyalties for granted. By rubbing sourav the wrong way, squabbling with bengal cricket association besides suffering the ignominy of being bottom placed team, KKR's business plan is in a complete disarray. Mere symbolism can't sustain the appeal of a brand.

Its high time KKR revisited its communication strategy, if it plans to retain any of its sponsors/supporters. First, get dada back at the helm. Bengalis love his mis fields , they adore the fact the he runs his opponents out, they can forgive his low strike rate. Instead of getting the local boys to warm the bench, get them a few games and a little more publicity. Any amount of good PR will only help salvage some pride, badly hurt by the fake ipl player blog.

As far as team performances go, they have been brave losers in many close matches, unlike RCB and DC last year. The fighting spirit has its own charm. Goran Ivanasevic or Jana Novotna were players better known for their brave losses than victories.

Will we see a reborn KKR next IPL ?. Anybody's guess..

PS: Is it sheer coincidence that Mumbai team was named Indians and the team blue jersey resembles the national team's colour the most?. May be its clever branding or just that RIL never had any mass consumer brand to advertise. Thankfully, the Maratha factor has also been underplayed.

PPS: Why have owners of the Delhi and Chennai teams keeping a low profile ?. No owners/No stars to be seen around to cheer the teams.