har tuti hui khidki kuch kehti hai…
A Summer Postcard…
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rustle hustle, rustle hustle…
cracked the dry blades of grass…
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diligently, attentively inspected the greedy soul…
each and every piece in his bounty…
made him feel just like in heaven !
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Photo Credits : The Ghost Who Ate those lovlies ! 
be at it…
There are some songs that you really want to hear when you just feel a little low… this is one of them…
The great Indian cricket circus…
As the unending IPL continues I wonder if anyone has similar feelings to that of Dale Steyn here ?
To be fair the matches have been very close, but, my biggest problem is IPL makes for unfair battles where champions are pitted against trundlers who get smashed. Rarely are we given treats like when AB Devilliers took apart Dale Steyn the other night. That apart I was just wondering what good does IPL do to Indian cricket apart from earning money, money they say is very important but hey remember we never had money problems in India did we ? Our matches and our cricketers were always well paid and there was enough revenue. So, IPL does give more opportunities for our youngsters, while only 20-25 would get a chance of playing for India now many more can hope to be in the game and make their careers. Which is the only good thing I like about IPL a budding cricketer can be now encouraged to take up a sport he loves and not just be worried about his Maths or Science marks all his life whether he likes it or not.
However, if we look at the current IPL and more importantly at the performances of Indian cricketers lets see what have we gained and lost. At the outset the biggest gain is probably getting Ajinkya Rahane in the spot light, the kid is calm, has time, plays conventional cricket shots and has clearly indicated he is one for team India. Now Rahane apart lets look at all other future prodigies…
Umesh Yadav, though is growing in stature hardly needs this smashing in T-20. He needs to be taken care of and saved for Tests or else he will lose his beautiful length that makes his outswingers most deadly, not a finished product yet, this kid has a lot of potential. Ishant, SreeSanth, Varun Aaron are no where to be seen. Zaheer is one of the many. R P Singh seems to be getting his rhythm back but still nothing of note. The less said about Munaf the better. Maybe an Awana has made some moves but he is not pushing any of the regulars is he ? Vinay Kumar and Praveen Kumar have been ordinary at best. So the biggest worry for India the pace bowling is at tatters.
Coming to spin its even more deadly, no signs of improvement by Harbhajan. Even Ashwin’s aura is diminishing and another potential India Cap Rahul Sharma was smashed in one match and he has been warming the bench more than fizzing his topspinners. Ojha too was omitted at times for Robbie Peterson which was completely appalling for me. There is a slew of left arm spinners who throw darts but India really wants wicket takers and I seriously am worried.
If you leave out Rahane and look at the batting you wonder where is the brightness coming from ? Kohli’s performances this IPL have almost made us forget his heroics just a month back. Raina has been patchy. Cheteshwar Pujara warms the bench for the entire IPL. Rohit Sharma is fast becoming the biggest joke in Indian Cricket the talented player who can only seem so but do nothing. Sachin’s prowess is waning and is visible. The biggest worry is the Indian captain who seems to have lost zest out of cricket, maybe the 2 month break after the IPL changes his demeanour. Don’t talk about how Gauti and Veeru are in form, they underachieved on two foreign tours and we all are aware of their capabilities of smashing on Indian tracks and I refuse to be flattered by Sehwag’s run of form. I am his biggest fan if there ever was one but this is not where Sehwag has to prove he is still good. The other youngsters, Utthappa failed to get our attention, neither did Manish Pandey, Badrinath too seems to be waning. There are Mayank’ss, Mandeep’s, Saini’s, Rayudu’s, Pathan’s, Jadeja’s and Tiwari’s but none have really come to the party.
Yes, there is money flowing, yes there are more opportunities but where is Indian cricket headed ? Is anyone bothered for the future ? The nucleus of Anil, Sourav, Sachin, Rahul, Laxman has been broken. Maybe Indian cricket now really needs to review its priorities. The money penchant will happen and the mechanism has been set. Admist all that do not forget the biggest ticket always was team India. If team India keeps underperforming and Indian cricketers keep going down it surely won’t keep the audience interest as high as this always.
Lets just hope the 2 month break from international cricket that is if our board doesn’t manage to fix another series in between will give time for the administrators time to think about team India and take a long hard look at them. Its a crucial juncture, Australia seemed to have recovered their mojo and the Proteas and the Pommies are a pretty cracking outfit. India needs to decide its priorities and look at the rankings table with renewed zest in International Cricket !
Reaching the top is always easy… staying there is the most challenging part !
pic courtesy : www.cricinfo.com
Wordless Wednesday
Narkanda…
Pankhon ko hawa zara si lagne do…
It was on 1st May last year when after a meeting in office where I felt unreasonable firing was given to our Sales team by our as impractical boss as there can be, I went home and told my wife, I have had enough, I want to chuck this job, and today !! I was pissed off and although you should never take decisions when you are emotional and I wanted to do exactly that.
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She was probably stunned but didn’t show, she knew I didn’t like the job much, it was a stop gap job to move to Bharuch first and find another in a Bank perhaps, but things were not working out there. She listened and told me think it over and decide. I told her, getting a job in an Insurance company if things didnt work out independently was 1o mins job. I must take this chance. I will also do some content writing and somehow make it up. She told me if you really feel confident and are sure go ahead. She just had got permanent in her school job and promised full support if a crisis arose. Those were just the words I wanted to hear at that point. At most times in my life for all decisions and changes I made I have had a lovely companion who has always supported and stood by my decisions even the wrong ones God bless her
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Since ours is a joint family next to be informed in line were my Mom and brothers and they all also thought it was upto me to decide and hence the resignation was written the same day and the notice period began !
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Luckily I was a Mutual Fund Advisor and my previous boss in Max New York Life had encouraged me to do the side business even though I was doing this job. I had got good business during the year. Even the impractical boss was an investor with me. Every colleague of mine was worried how can I survive on Mutual Fund selling. In 2011 there were 85000 Mutual Fund distributors in India of which only 14000 odd were active. Meaning only they did new business every month. The commissions in the mutual fund industry had dwindled and lots of distributors who now do business actually charge the customer for the service they provide.
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Unlike my job here I was not bound to sell just one product but had to actually use my brains to find out the best product. I was not tied to one company no longer did I have to squash my guilt of selling an inferior product well knowing that there were a lot of better options available in the market. When someone asks you what do you think is the best alternative I would blurt the truth and sales would not be concluded as my product had many superior products in the market. Insurance as an industry in India works on basis of getting investments, where as reality is one should never invest in Insurance. With that naked truth in my mind it was terribly difficult to sell insurance. I didn’t actually have to sell, get it sold by others but most of the times the others would put me in front of the client and when the client would look at me and ask is this the best I couldn’t help it. It was killing me.
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Eventually thanks to my wife I managed to chuck the job off and started my own firm. A few things I had decided to do not to sell products that give high commission as they are invariably not good for the investor. Hoping and praying that the low commission product selling would eventually do the customers good and they would refer me. Another very important and to many, including my wife, a strange decision was to not do any direct marketing. I decided I will not ask people to buy from me unless they seek my advice. In this market everyone is out to sell financial products and so much mis-selling has happened that a lot of consumers have completely lost faith and when anyone comes to sell anything to them direct they are most apprehensive. I used to work as a free lancer before I shifted to Indore so I had a client base earlier. The only bit of marketing I did was to sms people about the products available in the market from time to time and if anyone got interested and called that is when I was to get cracking.
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The most anxious moment of my life has perhaps now passed. Today one year down the line I am a lot more relaxed and assured of myself. Thankfully the investors have opened their wallets and so far so good. I now have enough time to look after the extension work going on at my house or be with my son to play cricket when he wants, or cook a new recipe I see on a cooking blog. I can now help at home whenever I want to and can take a break when I want to
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Most importantly I like my work now, for the first time in my life I don’t loathe at work. I go out to meet people drink tea with them, have lunch with them, talk about my travel or my blog and show some of them how to work on facebook and they invest with me. Many times I have no work and I just go out to the city to show my faces to all sorts of people and they suddenly remember they have so and so money lying which they would like to invest Like Rocket Singh says always give your customers more than they expect. In a time when people are charging a fee and giving no service I don’t charge any fee and try my best to keep my investors happy Their satisfaction has ensured the volume of business has gone up and the miniscule commission that the MF’s pay is sufficing.
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So far I have been working from home but I hope to rope in another guy as a partner and look forward to opening an office next year. Touchwood but this is slowly but surely starting to work out. Travel is now so much easier, trips are now happening at the frequency I love and looks like more and more trips beckon I can take breaks impromptu and being a reasonably greedy guy is helping settle things in life for the first time. I know I shouldn’t be counting my chickens yet, this is only the beginning.
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This song has been an inspiration and I want to dedicate it to my wife who is vacationing in Pune.
Lets now sms her to read this post. I am sure a smile and a lot more beckons when I reach Pune to meet her tomorrow It would not have happened without you sweetheart <3
Punished !
Just saw this photo Ritu shared on FB and it brought back so many memories…
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The kids here in this pic look so punished !!!!! ha ha its a priceless photo invariably brings a smile to my face.
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I dont know about you folks but I have spent a lot of time stading outside classroom. Thankfully I was never made to raise my hands outside the class like this ! Only stand there and whenever the Principal would come for a round I would walk smartly to the toilet not at all letting her feel I was standing outside the class.
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We had one Maths teacher who was pretty cool at punishing, I guess she should have been a gym trainer but became a teacher instead, she had a simple and clear rule -
not brought book = 25 situps
talking in the class = 25 situps
incomplete work = 50 situps
not sketched red lines (yea after every sum of maths you had to differentiate with a red line and if you didnt do that) 50 situps !!!!!
lol no wonder I never gained weight in school !
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Then there was our Physical Education teacher and he was rather rough whenever we would play Kho-Kho he would be almost military type… our school was a champion in our city in that sport (sigh how kids never play such sports now) and if anyone during the practice would do any smart work he would get a good kick in his backside. I mean a literal kick. Wonder how parents today would react to that ?! I took a few from him but even today I meet him and I like meeting him and always recall those days… his patent dialouge used to be “Abey dabbey Kho-dena chuk gaya bey” (you tinhead you missed a Kho please dont ask me to translate Kho in english ) !!!! (Crafty you wanna help with that translation )
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When we were in XIth and XIIth we bunked school crazily for movies 12 to 6 school meant 2 movies but of the few times we were in school we had one rather finicky Accounts teacher. In those days Hum Aapke Hai Kaun had released and there was this patented cough in it… somehow this teacher in his mind was convinced that anyone who coughed was actually copying Madhuri and Salman and he would get really mad… so we had a simple routine… the moment we saw a team playing volleyball in the ground we would tell our teacher that I have cough and instead of coughing in the class and irritating you its better I stand out… Once out we would join the volleyball game
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I also remember one time when we had a corner class and we had a superb monitoring system so we all would have all sorts of fun while a watcher would alert if a teacher came from a distance and all would be normal when he came… it so happened that once I was standing on a desk and flying helicopters made of paper out of the window from our second floor class when our watcher didn’t alert and our same Physical Education teacher came in to see me up on the desk flying helicopters ! Oh boy ! soon I was below the bench and still was being kicked by my Teacher ! Sigh I will never forget that Pitaai !
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Amazingly remembering all those punishments & beating they still bring a smile to my face
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So how much time did you spend outside the class or standing on the bench or raising hands or were you made a murga ? lol
