The way we see Sachin…

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Sachin enters the pitch.
Commentator: And this is the 50,000th time Sachin is entering a cricket pitch!

Sachin waits at the non-strikers end looking at Sehwag.
Commentator: And this is the 250th time Sachin is at the non-striker’s end!

Sehwag hits the ball and Sachin runs.
Commentator: And this is the 15,000th time Sachin is running a run for his partner.

Sachin plays a dot ball.
Commentator: And this is the 20,000th dot ball Sachin has played in his life!

Sachin hits a 4.
Commentator: And this is his 2000th ODI 4 and 3000th overall!

Sachin takes a single.
Commentator: And this is his 5000th single, what a record! What a player!

Sachin sips water from a bottle.
Commentator: And my statistician has just informed me that Sachin has just completed 20 years, 20 weeks, 20 days, 20 hours and 20 minutes of his international career! Wow! Gush!

Sehwag hits a 6.
Second Commentator: And what a glorious shot! Whenever…
Our original commentator cutting him short: …Sachin plays alongside him, Sehwag plays his best! What an inspirational player Sachin is!

Sachin…
Commentator…

Moral of the story: Most surveys will show Sachin Tendulkar to be the greatest cricketer of all time. But there are other not so invisible players who do great deeds and a team’s victories are greater than the sum of all records.

© Sunil Rajguru

6 noisy and Indian things I simply don’t understand…

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• Putting up a pandal with a million-watt speaker all day and night at any time of the year for any religious festival and for any kind of celebration bang in the middle of a dense residential area.

• Millions of cars honking billions of times a day for no rhyme or reason on congested dusty roads.

• People disturbing everyone around them by shouting on the mobile or landline as if the person they are talking to is a million miles way.

• Putting a car stereo on full blast… if I can hear it so clearly, then is the person inside deaf by now?

• Shouting, screaming and laughing loudly at fine dining restaurants and creating an even bigger nuisance if drunk.

• Whither silencers? All Indian vehicles should be called noisemakers, especially autos, trucks and bikes.

I guess for a country which doesn’t bother much about water and air pollution, expecting any kind of sensitivity on the issue of Noise Pollution is impossible…

© Sunil Rajguru

2009. Unconventional action: Instant Reaction.

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• Admit to an affair and destroy a Respected Sports Icon.

• Log on to Twitter and launch a revolution.

• Sneeze and scare your entire neighbourhood.

• Smash a few atoms and scare the entire world.

• Give a fancy speech and get a Nobel Prize.

• Threaten nuclear anarchy and get a few billion dollars.

• Go on a fast and single-handedly create a State.

• Show a sleazy tape and a sack a Governor.

• Throw a shoe and retire a Minister.

© Sunil Rajguru

Random Thoughts 6

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• I wish Santa Claus would distribute Joy, Hope and Happiness in little packages for a change… the world has no shortage of material gifts.

• The more Connected you are Online, the more Disconnected you are Offline. They talk of a Work-Life Balance. But what is required is an Online-Offline balance.

• The Office Laptop should come with a Statutory Warning: Usage of this device is dangerous for both health and family.

• Recession and Inflation are antonyms. And both are equally bad. No wonder the Common Man gets rammed no matter what state the economy is in.

• Off late, Reality Shows are looking more like Fiction Shows.

© Sunil Rajguru

The A to Z of Copenhagen

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A cynic’s ringside view of the recently concluded Copenhagen climate summit…

One Problem: The world is getting hotter.
One Solution: Cut down on greenhouse gases.
One Roadblock: No-one really wants to do so, but all the countries are ready to spend billions of dollars and burn umpteen tonnes of greenhouse gases to hold dozens of conferences to allegedly inch forward in the form of treaties and resolutions.

A for Acting and Actors: Is anyone really interested in a deal? Everyone was merely enacting out a drama and hoping to get home soon.

B for BASIC: Brazil, America, South Africa, India, China. A so-called Copenhagen power group. But when there are more acronyms than agreements, you know you are in real trouble.

C for Chindia: China+India and their coming together briefly. But whether you like it or not, unless the world has these two countries on their side, more than 2 billion of the world’s population is out of it. Though they were arm-twisted by the US, we are still not sure what will happen in these regions.

D for Danish Text: A document that talked of “keeping average global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” but ended up being another battleground between the two Ds: Developed and Developing countries.

E for Everyone: The head of the Chinese delegation said: Everyone is happy. Wow! Overstatement of the year?

F for Fredrik Reinfeldt: Who’s he? That’s what even the US thinks too, for a news report said he got an SMS saying that the deal was wrapped up even though he was still negotiating. For the record, the Swedish Prime Minister is the EU president.

G for Global Warming, for Greenhouse Effect, for Greenhouse Gas: Is Global Warming happening in the first place? If it is, will countries cut down on emissions? And if they will, will it really make a difference? We live in a very iffy world.

H for Hundred Billion Dollars: Wow! That’s a huge sum of money! The amount rich nations are willing to pledge annually for Climate Change Aid. Wonder why no-one is impressed!

I for IPCC: The grand Nobel winner Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the United Nations. But more in the news for a report which said that the head stood to make money if there was a breakthrough in Carbon economy talks.

J for Joseph Fourier: Heard of him? Yeah, the famous mathematician. He’s the dude who started this whole thing. In 1824 he postulated something that would later be called the greenhouse effect. Do you think we can reach a deal on the 200th anniversary of this great event in 2024?

K for Kyoto Protocol: Adopted in 1997, it came into force in 2005. It will expire in 2012. What is it? Does anyone remember? I don’t.

L for (not) Legally Binding: Ha! After all the furor and subsequent agreements, we were told that whatever was decided upon was not legally binding. How convenient!

M for Mexico: If Copenhagen was COP15, then Mexico 2010 will be COP16. Wait for the drama to continue there.

N for Negotiations: Negotiate, negotiate and negotiate… compromise, compromise and compromise… dilute, dilute and dilute… then tell the world that it’s all a resounding success.

O for Obama: The difference in this summit and a big Change from Bush. He pushed and at the end of it all he told us it was a success. And we are supposed to believe him.

P for Percentages: 10%. 20%. 30%. What does it all mean? How will countries bring about those emission reductions? Who’ll check?

Q for Questions: Which were more in number than answers.

R for Rubber Stamp: We are all rubber stamps of the US. Bush rubbishes climate talks. Obama pushes climate talks. It’s all down to the whims and fancies of the US President, the rest of the world be damned.

S for South Africa: In 2011 it will be COP17. Then 18, 19, 20, 21, 22… keep counting.

T for Tuvalu: A small island which could sink in case of global warming and rising of oceans. At its highest it is 4.5 metres above sea level. A gem from its spokesman on the final Copenhagen draft: It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future.

U for Urban: Urbanization. Modernization. Development. With the population increasing like crazy and more and more people living in the cities, I seriously wonder how they are going to pull the whole thing off at ground level.

V for Venezuela: One of the countries that called Copenhagen a Capitalist Conspiracy. Other countries which joined in with the name calling were: Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

W for Water: The crux of the problem after global warming reaches a critical point. Islands will start sinking, beaches will start disappearing… We will wake up The Day After.

X for Xerox: COP1 happened. Then they photocopied that and COP2 happened, Then they Xeroxed that and COP3 happened… OK I am being pessimistic. But you go through all the documents of the last couple of decades and tell me what really has changed at the ground level, apart from all the treaties and conferences that is.

Y for Yankee Imperialists: Another term the US and its lackeys got called by Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

Z for Zero: One way to sum up what really happened at Copenhagen.

© Sunil Rajguru

7 reasons why Social Networking is the “Thing of the Year”

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1. Facebook crosses 350 million.
That’s more accounts than email market leader Yahoo. If Facebook was a separate country, then we’d all live in virtual utopia full of lovey dovey friends and groups, no enemies, virtual gifts, quizzes that predict the future, virtual farms, water worlds, nice Tarot sessions and fortune cookies… And yeah, in numbers, that’s next only to the population of China and India.

2. US actor Ashton Kutcher gets 4 million “Followers” on Twitter.
How many did Jesus Christ have in his lifetime? What was the population of the kingdom at that time anyway? Will Kutcher state in a Lennonisque fashion: “I am more popular than…”?

3. The Most Powerful Man in the World is on LinkedIn.
And Twitter (Trailing Kutcher with close to 3 million Followers). And Facebook. (A cool 7 million supporters).
Is that why he beat Senator McCain? Great power in the online world as a launching pad? (Even if Obama doesn’t actually post the updates himself, it’s still a Huge Leap Forward for Cybermankind)

4. The high and mighty are all getting Socially Networked.
Raymond T. Odierno, the Commanding General, Multi-National Force—Iraq is on Facebook! And he’s joined by Pakistan’s former General Pervez Musharraf! Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is on Twitter? Need I say more? I could go on and on… but you get the general picture!

5. Controversies! Controversies! Controversies!
When anything enters into multiple controversies, then you know it’s time has come.
Republican Joe Wilson raised his finger to Obama and said, “You lie!” and before he knew it, a storm was unleashed on Twitter. The Internet assures an immediate and widespread backlash nowadays. (Incidentally, Wilson is also on Twitter!)
Religious leaders slammed Facebook and there was a surfeit of crimes related to these networking sites
In humble India too, where the Internet penetration is so low, there was the Shashi Tharoor Twittergate controversy, where the minister almost lost his job and the hilarious trending topic #chetanblocks related to writer Chetan Bhagat blocking a Follower.

6. Reel life and fiction.
A Twitter mention in the climax of the latest Robert Langdon adventure? Facebook in a Bollywood movie? Social Networking gained a lot of traction in 2009 and it is inspiring a lot of fiction for 2010 and beyond. Look out for Kevin Spacey produced The Social Network about the founding of Facebook. (Directed by none other than David Fincher)

7. The Uber Cyber Ego.
The new age Ego Search was the Google Search. But now here’s something even better…
How are you feeling? What are you eating? Do you have a headache? Are you stuck in a traffic jam?
Is anyone interested? Well even if they are not, then you can make sure a few thousand people at least know about it. If you’re a celebrity, make that millions—all without a newspaper, TV channel or a personal website. A handful of social networking accounts will do the trick.

© Sunil Rajguru