Career Progression

This is one of the speeches I gave at a company event. Hopefully someone learns from this.
To take this forward, I would like to share two instances from my previous jobs. Hopefully, those will reiterate the belief in our system and also throw some light on the career path. When I started off with a construction company, where career path was unheard of. If you make sure you keep your senior engineer on the site in good humor, you will get a good hike the next year. Since I was staring off my career, I didn’t know much about how to make sure that I keep that person happy apart from doing good work. It was my first job and I hadn’t developed the soft skills like saying yes to the boss even though I knew that he was absolutely wrong on many occasions. So we both differed and there went my chances of a good appraisal. I thought, doing good work will automatically earn me brownie points and I should be able to go up the ladder, though I didn’t know whether there was any ladder existed in that company at that time. I say this because, the senior engineer was the person running the show on the site. Appraisal cycles were unheard of, but every year we had a review. Honestly, I didn’t know what went on. The senior engineer will talk to the DGM and come back with the comments. There wont be anything recorded on anything. So, I had the opportunity to get some feedback. That was the shortest ever appraisal ever done in my life. The conversation was for two mins. He called me in and told that I am still going to be a junior engineer for another year.since I knew It was coming, I stood up and started to leave when he asked me “don’t you want to know the development needs”, “I said “yea absolutely if you do have one”. There ended my tenure with the company. Based on this experience, I made sure that whenever, I jumped jobs, I wanted to go to a company which had some appraisal system in place. The second company I joined was slightly better. They gave me five reasons why I was not getting promoted compared to none in my previous organization. In that sense, I thought I was making the right kind of choices to progress in my career.
So when I joined xxx, one of the first things to strike me was the system that was in place. It was called a c3 at that time, but it sounded fancy, though I didn’t know what they did with it. As it evolved over the years, I understood that progression in your career doesn’t necessarily mean that you get a change in titles. It means that you are able to take lot more responsibilities and do different things than what you did a year back. As I look back at my career with xxx, that’s what I think is the most obvious thing. I have been able to do different things over the years and the title never really came in the way and thankfully I need not say yes to my boss all the time. I became a fan of the system here which not only emphasized on the detailed feedback but also on career progression. I was able to appreciate this better since I had seen the other two. Progression, not only in terms of the title changes, but meaning changes in the work. The company did not at any point in time allow the title to come in the way of good work. That was important, as it keeps everybody occupied.

It has been a long time since I wrote a blog. Its time I started it again. Since I didn’t have anything to write (you must be wondering when did I have stuff to write, that’s probably true too :)), I decided to write whatever came to my mind.
One of the main regrets of my life is that I was not able to attend some of my best friends’ marriages. Sathya to start with – it was in 2006 immediately after my marriage (in fact just two months after my marriage), couldn’t go as I was stuck in some s….t project work. Suresh’s, Venkat’s, Revathi’s, Parthi’s, Viji (Vijayakumar). Given how short my friends' list is, this is pathetic l which will haunt me for my life. The only exception to this list was Dinesh (I made it to his reception). All my friends will surely be unhappy with me.
As a child I always wanted to be a doctor. My father thought I will make it too. Coming from a Tamil medium background, we didn’t realize how difficult it will be. Also, my family probably overestimated me (as all the families do). Finally, common sense prevailed and I changed my mind to become an engineer. That was more reachable given my IQ and the marks I scored in my higher secondary.
My father always asks me a simple question. Well, simple for him, but too complicated for me. What do you do in office? I am always tempted to say “I produce paper” as one of my senior managers used to say. But on a serious note, he wants to understand, what do I do starting at 7 AM and extending till 12 midnight most of the days. Is the job so complicated that I have to be there everyday for about 15, 16 hours or I just wile my time away? I tried to explain him once. When I started my first job at a call center, I yielded to his continuous taunting and explained him about what I do from 6 PM to 3 AM (yea that was a night shift). He kind of understood that, but didn’t understand the connection between my MBA and the job. I told him, this is more like it. We don’t necessarily do what we have studied. However, that job description didn’t last longer. I changed my job within a month of me explaining the job profile to him. My new job was completely different from what I did earlier and luckily it had some MBA connection too. Again, one fine innocuous morning, my father started the conversation. “What do you do”? I said, Father, chuck it, I am not going to explain it coz, I need to first understand what I am doing :).
It was 2002 when I was in my MBA and went for a tour to the north which included Delhi, Manali and Agra. During the journey, I proudly said to my friends how good the buses in Bhopal were (I studied my engineering there). I told them that nobody can find people standing in the buses since the police will put a spot fine on the driver and the conductor. It was true and I was building up the story for my friends when the train reached Bhopal. To my horror I saw people sitting on top of the buses and Suresh (Sr.) immediately pounced on me. “Santa, you are right. Nobody will stand inside the bus, they will all sit on top of it” and I was not able to control the guffaws that surrounded me. :)

Today's generation

I always wondered how the current generation of children will shape up. They have loads of information in front of them, but are they able to assimilate them all? They don’t play outside. The maximum workout they have is for their fingers when they play computer games. My childhood days were different. When I come back from school at 4.30, I usually play for three to four hours outside till we are blinded by the darkness. And they were not sophisticated games. Some days, it was gilli danda; some days it was kabaddi, some days it was volleyball (with a plastic ball) and most of the days it was cricket that occupied my evenings. And my parents didn’t say anything about me playing outside. One more thing to note here is that we didn’t have home works those days. Those were reserved for kids studying in convents. For students studying in government schools, we hardly had anything either during the school time or after that. So we were free to do anything and everything we wanted. When I think of my childhood, it was free of TVs, movies, Shopping or even video games. It was mostly physical games and sometime chess and carom. Look at today’s generation. They have everything, yet if you think of it, they don’t have anything. First of all, they have bad memory. Before the cell phone days, I used to remember, almost all of my friends’ and family’s landline numbers by heart. But now, that is fading away. Today’s kids almost spend their entire day in front of TV. They watch what the adults watch, they speak what adults speak. Yet we are oblivion to everything. They know everything by 10, 11 which I didn’t know even when I was 17, 18. We pat ourselves on our backs if our kid is singing a song from the recent movie. Another worrying trend is the advent of realty shows for kids. Some of the shows I watch are simply outrageous. Some loser might come in as a judge and give comments to the kid that are so insensitive to say the least. I am not a psychiatrist to assess the effect these comments have on the kids when they grow up. But I can assure you that they are not going to be good. This is where playing outdoor games come in handy. They tell you how to lose and still be happy about it. The worrying part still is that the parents seem to relish that and push their kids to do things which they wouldn’t have done even in their dreams. The advent of internet also has cast a spell on today’s kids. The other day, my niece who is all of nine years old, sent me a friend request in facebook. I immediately called my sister and scolded her for being so careless. The parents should at least know what their kids are doing infront of their computers. It doesn’t mean that we should watch them over their shoulders, but at least the kid should know what they are supposed to be doing. My neighbors have two children (girls) aged 12 and 9 respectively. They were at my home recently and watching hindi songs on TV. They knew most of the songs by heart and sang the songs as they were played in the TV. Not sure if they had the same interest towards studies. My only worry about today’s children is their ability to assimilate information and apply them . Its one thing to have information infront of you and another to apply them. That’s where the worry is. Some of the worries about today’s generation are –
Are they physically and mentally fit?
Is our education system keeping pace with the changing times?
How will the kid react if they are faced with a dire situation?
Not sure I know the answers yet, but I will once this generation grows up. Till then I will have to keep my fingers crossed.

Inlaws

Getting married has a lot of implications. Apart from the fact that you are going to support one other person lifelong, you also need to realize that you will have to cop a lot of issues which the in-laws (s) bring. In my case the problem was pentupled (don’t know how to say “five times”) because I had five brothers in law. Yea. You read it right. Five. The problem started when met her for the first time. It was November of 2005 and I had travelled to Chennai to see her. After getting lost five or six times, my cab finally arrived at her place when I was greeted by two of the five. It was not intimidating outside the house, but when I went in, the hall was full of people, rather there were these five of them but coupled with a small hall it looked like I was entering a theater releasing a Rajnikanth movie and it was first day first show. By now you would have understood the scenario in the hall. The more I think of that set up, the more I believe (after four years of marriage) that I said yes to the marriage probably because I was worried about my safety.
After marriage, things get even worse if you have so many in laws. First of all the question of them coming to Hyderabad from Chennai to help the bride and the groom to settle. The more I think of it, the more I wonder whether it was any help at all. First of all I had to book tickets to a total of nine people. My father, mother and there ends my family. Now coming to the extended family – Her mother, father, one of the brothers, one of the brothers’ father in law and mother in law. So including Priya and me it was nine people who boarded the train (by the way I booked tickets for all). I don’t understand how so many people make two of us comfortable. The problem didn’t end there. I had to look for three autos the next day to take these people to safety. The issue was that I was the only one who knew where my house was. I had to literally coordinate with the two remaining autowallahs to make sure that we go in tandem (and you know how the autowallahs in Hyderabad drive). Predictably I reached home first. I looked for the remaining two autos. They were not there. None of the others had a cell phone for me to coordinate. It took them an hour more to reach my place (I had given the autowallahs some direction on how motinagar looks). But for that one hour, I was walking up and down the moti nagar roads and checked each and every auto which passed by to make sure that not anyone with close resemblance to my family members was there. Looking at this, some people on the road even came to me and said “bhai saab, aap police hai kya”. Some autowallahs even tried to bribe me. By the end of it all I was so jaded that I was about to call all my friends who were still bachelors and tell them about the perils of marriage. I don’t want to go into details about how the next four days went. It was about the same problem day in and day out.

April 2010
Even after four years of marriage, the problem with the in laws still remained at large. One day, my wife said that one of her sisters in law will visit our place. You know how men react. When these conversations start, you know that you are in big trouble since the way you react will make your wife know how you feel about them. I tried to keep a straight face and said “oh is it. How nice”. The next day she said, “you know what, my mother and the eldest brother are coming too”. Again the same reaction from me. The next day, one more person was added to the list. I don’t even remember who that is. The D day arrived when they were supposed to come. By that time, I had lost count of how many people were in that visitor’s list. So the day before their arrival I asked her “how many people are coming”, She said that three ladies are coming. I said okay. I will see if I can pick them up. The next day, I had to get up at 4.30 AM to receive them at the station. I woke up, and saw my wife sleeping. I said, “Priya do you want to come, I want company”. She readily agreed. We went there and when the train came, and I saw them, my jaw dropped. There were four adults (including three ladies), three kids and five baggages. How an earth they will all fit into my i10 is anybody’s guess. I went inside my car and sat in the driver’s seat (without uttering a word. That is important because you don’t want to jeopardize your chances of getting a hold of your meals). They opened the boot and tried to fit in as much as they could. They had one bag and two people left outside the car at the end of this ordeal. I looked at my wife and asked her “how many people you said were coming”, she said “three ladies and my brother”. I don’t know where the kids will fit in her category (ladies?). I replied, “if you knew very well that these many people are coming and you know our car’s capacity, why did you agree to come with me in the first place?” There was no reply. I couldn’t do much either, I asked her to come in an auto and tried to bring the remaining people home. The arrangement was that all the ladies sat at the back, with my kid and I had three kids to manage in the front seat. How I drove that day is another blog worth of story. Long story short, I literally had no control over the gear box. If i10 people come to know of this, they might probably reward me for the adventures I performed with the vehicle.
Oh no. Time is up, I need to be going back home. Yes the in laws are still there and I need to take them out tomorrow. Till the next batch of inlaws visit my place - adios.

This was a story i wrote for a competition.

“Just beat them to death”. As Aashish spoke these words, a chilling fear went through my spine. I never contemplated killing anyone, not even in my dreams. I know that it’s beyond me. I have had no experience in doing this. What if the authorities found out that it was me who killed them all? But, I realize now that I have to do it. There is no other go. Every day, rather every night for the past three months has been a nightmare. As these thoughts flashed through my mind, the thoughts went back to the events in the last three months. Working late has never been a problem for me. But in the past three months, working late and going back has been a constant struggle as these five gangsters (as I would like to call them) prey on me day in and day out. When I told this problem to my supervisor, he had a hearty laugh and said “the city has changed a lot. You have to adjust to the changing times. You can’t go home early just because you have this issue. Everybody faces this problem. Even Aashish faced this kind of situation sometime back. Ask him what he did to overcome that. Just work around as you know we will have a lot of conference calls late in the night”. “Sir” I said, “The other day when I entered the street at 2 AM, they were waiting to pounce on me. It is as if they know when I will come. I can’t take this anymore. If you can’t guarantee the safety of an employee, then I don’t see any point in working late. I am not able to concentrate after nine since I know that these predators will be there waiting for me”. Aashish gave me a piece of wisdom, “you know what, initially I was also struggling to come to terms with these, but as time went along, I understood that it’s fear on the person’s eye that they feed on. So try to stay calm and bully them back or better still, try to befriend them”. I said “What are you talking about? I can’t be friends with these thugs. Never. The other day I tried to shout at them but they came back with a vengeance.” I was on the verge of crying. That’s when Aashish suggested that I kill them. I decided to use pepper spray to unsettle them and then attack. I know that it needed a lot of courage but I have to do it. Somebody has to stand up and let it be me. I will show the world that I am not a coward. May be my son will take some inspiration from me if I am able to do it. It was 2 AM, and time to go home. I packed my laptop and started going home. My home is 3 KMs away from the office, and there is a dark corner near my apartment where these predators usually wait. I could sense my heart racing. From a distance, I could see my apartment and the dark corner as well. I was sweating profusely as I neared that corner, waiting for them to pounce on me. To my surprise I found no one. That’s when the watchman of my apartment came running towards me and said, “Aarthi Madam, the authorities took note of our situation. They sent a dog catching van today and caught the dogs that usually loiter here. So don’t worry, you can go home peacefully now”.

Avatar - a review

Finally, I had to join the bandwagon. When people started asking me these million dollar questions, I had to oblige. “Have you seen Avatar, it’s a great movie, you must watch it, and remember watch it only in 3D. You will be amazed.” Add to this, all the social networking sites I go to were flooded with messages saying the same thing. Frankly I am not a big fan of these movies, I like the old ones filled with emotions and I am a great fan of director Bala. That must tell you something about my taste. People have already started telling me that I am getting old for the new generation, still listening to Ilayaraja songs, not knowing how to play video games and doesn’t understand the difference between a PSP and an XBOX. So, here I was, trying to decide whether I should go for the movie of the year or the decade. Finally, I decided that I will give it a shot. I shelled out 600 bucks for three tickets and waited for the D day to arrive. In between I had to persuade my three year old son to allow me to watch. I had to do this, since during my last attempt at a 3D movie, “Monsters vs Aliens”, I had to literally stand outside the theater, since he didn’t like me wearing those glasses and didn’t like those cartoon creatures. This time though, he behaved better allowing me to watch the movie. Now coming to the movie, I was quite amazed by the spectacle that unfolded in front of me. This was a visual spectacle and nothing more than that. The storyline is as thin as a wafer. In fact we have seen this story innumerable times in Hindi, Tamil and English films as well. Human race as greedy as ever, trying to get hold of unobtonium (frankly, I thought James Cameron could have come up with a better name for the rock, Goldanium could have been apt given the skyrocketing price of gold :)). Creating Avatars and trying to persuade the Navi race to give that up. Then the hero turns the savior. Then the usual story of how the evil loses to the good. For a movie with a thin story line, the length of the film is unusually long. After some point in time the initial awe gives way to boredom. This is not to say that the movie was of no use, but the director could have concentrated a little more on the length and the story line. Probably, this film was not to my liking (and age probably), but has transformed me as a cine goer. For example, as I initially said, the visual spectacle that unfolds in front of you in incredible and that too in a 3D environment, the experience is amazing (for the lack of superlative words). As a normal cine goer, this film has transformed me and I am not sure, whether I will be able to accept anything less than a visual spectacle in future. I know this is not possible since most of the tamil films I watch have not really taken off in terms of using technology. My rating – 3 out of 5 (I know this is kind of stupid and you will laugh at me for saying this on a film which has grossed $1bn in revenue so far and expected to sweep the Oscars). But, I feel that good films are not those which create an aura around them, but those which create an impact which will be difficult to come out of for at least three to four days after watching them. Sadly, I did not have the same kind of experience with this. But as my friends say, I think too much while watching the film about the loopholes and that’s why I am not able to enjoy them. Probably true and let me see another film to check whether I am able to enjoy it without thinking too much about it.

Toastmaster - Icebreaker

I gave my first toastmaster speech today, phew. It was one heck of a week, with butterflies in the tummy. And I dint expect so many people turning up for the speech. There were close to 50 people in the audience and I was like a bunny. But I took solace in the fact that there were people who were not able to speak even for half a minute. I was better than them any day. I waited for my turn with batted breath. My only worry was whether I will forget and add some points which will blow the time. I actually prepared my speech for seven minutes. But when I went into the meeting, I found that for an icebreaker speech, it is 6 minutes. I was mentally adjusting myself for the parts which I should be cutting off. My turn came and the TMOD (Toastmaster of the Day) introduced me as a baby, (since I was giving my first speech), which sounded kind of funny because I had that nickname during my Engineering days. I thanked everyone, and started the speech. I asked couple of questions to the audience to keep them engaged and added some funny quotes as well. The speech went well, and at the end of it, people gave me a standing ovation, Can you believe it. I still couldn’t. The evaluator gave me a couple of points where I could have improved and the meeting was done. I am looking forward to the opportunity to be a TMOD in the next meeting. Updates will follow :). Here is the Ice breaker speech.

Hi Everyone Thanks for providing me this opportunity. Not just because I have got this lovely audience to listen to my life story but also because of the opportunity to look back on my 30 years of life. My name is Santhosh, people call me Santa. Before, I get into my Icebreaker speech, just a quick question. How many of us have got a beating from our teachers. (people will show hands). How many of us have got a beating from our teachers for not eating vegetables at home. Yea, that’s funny. That’s one of the many things you go through if you are the youngest in your family and if you have a sister who would be kind enough to tell your class teacher that their brother is not eating any vegetables at home. The teacher in turn will be very kind enough to take that as a license and beat that hapless kid. No don’t get me wrong. I had a wonderful childhood, barring some instances like these (which actually were many). My father was a sr lab technician at the government hospital before he retired in 2007 and my mother is a homemaker. I was the only male child in my family with two sisters. Naturally I was pampered by my sisters and parents.
I grew up in a small village called Kottucherry. For those of you who don’t know where it is, it’s a small dot in the Indian Map and its part of Pondicherry where everyone in the town knew everyone and all of them knew my father. So people took pleasure in watching me over and inform my parents promptly. Like for example, I once rode a TVS 50 to the nearest town with my friend. When I came back home, my father was standing outside the house and enquired me where I went. When I replied, he said, that’s fine but you shouldn’t be riding the bike too fast. Fast? Dad what are you talking about? I was going at 40 and moreover even if I tried it wouldn’t go faster than 40. He said, no no don’t lie to me, Swamy Mama who was there in the town saw you going too fast. Just then I saw Swamy mama emerging from the sidelines with a smile. I was Like . hmm okay. So whatever I did either in school, or outside went to my father’s ears even before I completed doing them.
I studied in a Tamil medium school till my 10th since my family couldn’t afford the fees for the English Medium schools those days. We had only two or three English medium schools in my locality. I was very good in studies always topping the class. I was a school topper in my 8th exams (yes 8th was a public exam for us in Pondicherry). I took a step further in my 10th , topping in the district level. Obviously my family was very proud. Then came the biggest challenge. I had to Join the English medium school for the 11th and the 12th to give myself a chance in the engineering exams. But the switch from Tamil to English was not easy. I even flunked couple of exams in 11th. But my father didn’t say a word. He knew that I will come out of this. Which I did, and was ranked third in my 12th exams. I still consider that as one of my greatest achievements since I not only beat my friends who came from an English medium background but also the myth the people carried that only students from English medium will fare well in 12th. I did my engineering and MBA.
Okay, enough of my education. Let me talk about something which is close to my heart apart from studies. Cricket. I was 7 when my father introduced me to the world of cricket. It was 1986 when the sharjah cup was going on and my father took me to a family friends house. The TV had not made its way into my village big time and all we had was a portable TV with 30 cricket enthusiasts trying to get a view. In those days, the programs in DD1 were not so good and when they decided to start DD2, people jokingly said that they started DD2 because they know that a blade should have two sides to it.
We eventually bought a TV and I became so addictive to the game that it became a part of me. I played a lot and eventually played cricket at the district level. But after a point in time I couldn’t continue since studies took priority. I am a die hard fan of Rahul Dravid. I love him because he was not gifted like Sachin or a Sourav but he made best of use of his talent and continued to work on it. Every time I see him on the field, I can connect with that person in whatever he does.
I joined Deloitte in 2005 which by the way is my fourth company and till now didn’t find a need to be a new hire in some other company. I got married in 2006 and I have a lovely little kid named Sujith Krishna who is 2 and half years old.
I just want to finish by telling you a couple of instances which left a lasting impression in my life. It was 1998 and I met with a freak accident. I should have died then, but was rescued by couple of friends. In 2002, I was again rescued from deathbed by a couple of friends. Since then, I always asked myself, why I am still alive, why god let me live, but I got the answer 6 years later. One of my sisters died in 2008 leaving behind her three year old kid. Suddenly I realized, I am living because there is a bigger design. I should take care of this kid. I am taking care of the kid now. All of us should understand that we have a reason to live, we just need to understand that to give something good to others. Thanks for the opportunity.

Deloitte Cricket Tournament

And finally, I did it. I thought my little career in Cricket was over when I fell from a rather harmless bike and broke my right hand collar bone. So when I decided to participate in this year’s Deloitte tournament, a few eyebrows were raised (including mine in private). But I decided to continue. I started running for 30 minutes in the gym and pulled the roving machine (I don’t know what they call it). I didn’t feel any pain in my hand so I thought it was okay. So the D day arrived. I was there in the stadium at 7’o clock, one hour ahead of the scheduled start of play. When I entered the stadium I saw a young girl in her jagging clothes doing the rounds. The face looked familiar. I instantly recognized the figure to be Mithali Raj (the first woman double centurion for India). But one of my friends told me that it was not her. But my first instinct is always right. That’s how I recognized Sunitha Williams in the JFK airport when nobody else did. My friend told me she was doing her thirteenth round around the stadium. I decided to control my inquisitiveness and continue with my practice. I started doing the catching practice. And it came along well ( I had always been a good fielder you know). In the meanwhile, the lady (who I thought is Mithali, was doing her running between the wickets practice). And after twenty minutes my curiosity over powered me and I decided to go ask her whether she was Mithali. At that point in time, she was done with her running practice and was moving towards the grounds men (yea there were two of them who were setting things up for us for the match). She talked to them in telugu and moved. Me and my friend were almost near her and asked the grounds men whether it was Mithali. They replied in the affirmative. I immediately followed her and said “Excuse me”. She was not listening. May be it was her Ipod which was preventing her from hearing me. It was three times before she finally removed an earplug and turned and gave that look. I don’t know how to describe that but it was not courteous. I just asked her, “Are you Mithali Raj”, and she replied “Yea” with a voice that could have turned even a stalker away. I dint know what else to do. I was so happy that it was her and I could see her. I just turned back and continued with my practice. She went along and continued hers. In hindsight, I think I was being so stupid. I could have told her that I follow Women’s cricket keenly as well and asked for her autograph. At least I could have told her that she is doing a great job and wished her the best. I dint do any of this. Probably I was overwhelmed by the moment. Anyways, it was good to recognize a lady who makes the country proud instead of going behind a cine star. I also think she might have been happy to have known that somebody in India recognizes women cricketers too. :)
Now coming back to the match. We won the toss and elected to field first. I was asked to field in the third man area. After two overs, I said to Atul (my captain) that I will be effective in the inner ring where I can save singles. He obliged and put me in short cover position. Fielding is always fun and I expect the ball to come to me always. So it was not a problem for me. The only question was whether I will be able to throw faster. But I dint require a strong throwing arm to effect two run outs. My reflexes were so good that by the time I dived and stopped those shots to effect the run outs, the batsmen were in such a hurry to cross over that they didn’t expect me to stop them and they ended up shaking hands with each other. So I had all the time in the world to throw it back to the keeper to knock the bails off (err sorry we didn’t have the bails).
We had the opposition under the mat at 31 for 5 and I decided to bowl. People told me to take one thing at a time since they were worried that I might do some damage to the right hand. But I insisted on bowling and they had to relent. I took 13 steps and started to bowl. The first one came along nicely and the batsman defended it. The second one went past the batsman who tried to cut it and edged behind. Karthik took a good catch standing up. I was delighted to have got that wicket. I bowled one more over after that and I felt pretty okay with it. The opposition didn’t do anything special. They stuck it out. But we were giving away too many wides for comfort. I guess we had 25 to 30 in total and they scored 101 in 16 overs. Not a big target. Run a ball and we should be good to go. We lost couple of early wickets and I went to the crease. Couple of inside edges to get me going and I started to feel better when this bowler came along. The first ball from him was a big chucking delivery which the umpire failed to notice. I was at the non strikers end and I immediately told the umpire that I think he was chucking. The umpire didn’t reply. We decided to go on. I lost my partner to a needless run out and Atul came to the crease. I told him to watch out and complain about the bowler. He watched him for one ball and went straight to the umpire to complain. I can tell you the umpires were so stupid that they didn’t even know whether to call it a no ball or not. And the Irony is that I was frustrated at the non action of the umpires and decided to give that bowler a lesson on cricket. I decided to pull that chucker and inside edged the ball on to the stumps. More than losing my wicket, I was so annoyed with those two umpires who stood there like a shopping mall doll. Worse still, we lost Atul and Karthik in the same over to the chucker. The match was virtually over by then. A couple of late bursts from our team members and we went close, but we lost the match by 12 runs. Stupidity. I should have shown more patience and stayed there at the wicket. But instead, I allowed my emotion to take over that lead to my downfall. We have another match coming up in a fortnight’s time. Let me see how I fare.
And by the way, England is losing :)

We all know how great a player Sachin is (and will be for many of the generations to come). But, in this blog I am trying to look at possibly the lowest points of his career and leave it to you to decide how good or bad he is. I always thought Sachin is not a big match player. True that his exploits have helped us reach the finals or semifinals, but when the whole world (especially the Indians) look up to him to deliver, he invariably falters. One of the prime examples of this is the 1999 world where he had a disastrous campaign. Apart from the emotion filled century against the minnows Kenya, he failed to deceive against the big guns. 28 against SA to start with, missed the match against Zimbabwe (which India promptly lost and made it difficult for themselves in the super six stage). In the super six stage one of the most awaited contests was between India and Australia. The pre match hype was so much given what Sachin has done in the sub continental (India and Sharjah) pitches during the 1998 series in which he demolished the Aussies single handedly. But when the ball moved and seamed he was found wanting. Scored a blob against them and 16 against Black caps. Let’s get back to that epic series in 2001 between India and Australia. His contribution in that series was slightly better than Ganguly’s (who had a torrid time). His two half centuries came in a losing cause in the first test. He had virtually nothing to contribute in that epic match in Kolkata (out for 10 in both the innings). Even though he scored a century in the last match, it came after some dropped chances. Also, when it mattered the most in the second innings (India was chasing a paltry 155 and huffed and puffed its way to it losing 8 wickets along the way), he scored 17 and was out. This is not to blame him for all the loses India managed throughout his 19 year career, but to show that he is after all human.

Again in the 2003 - 2004 series against Australia in Australia he had a torrid time often flattering to deceive. In the first three matches, he had nothing to contribute apart from the 37 he scored in the second innings during the famous Adelaide victory. In the fourth match in which he scored a double (241 not out), he looked like a boy lost in a new world. He virtually created an Untouchability rule to the balls even slightly outside off stump. If you see his wagon wheel, 70 to 80% of the runs are scored in the leg and it is no wonder that India needed two and half days to score the 700 runs which literally left no time to bowl the Aussies out twice. That was the most selfish innings I have ever seen him play.

The 2007 world cup is nothing to write about given that India played only three matches; lost two and promptly crashed out.

Of late Sachin’s struggles are countless. In the recently concluded India Sri lanka Series, he required only 173 runs at the start of the series to go past Lara’s record of most runs in tests. But, after three tests alas, he still requires 97 runs to surpass the record. Even though he looked assured against the unorthodox Mendis