That one blemish in Sachin's career

At the very outset, I wish to reassert my loyalties towards the country. Although, I would not mind Rahul Gandhi becoming the Prime Minster of India in the near future and would like to see Pakistani players being included in IPL, I am NOT a traitor. In fact, although I cannot remember very clearly what was my opinion on the Sonia-Gandhi-was-not-a-born-Indian-but-wants-to-be-PM issue, I think I would not really have opposed it tooth and nail.

But I am not a traitor and neither should my opinions in this post be used to judge my patriotic feelings.

That being said, let us talk about Sachin Tendulkar. Undoubtedly, he is the man of the moment. He is the favorite son of the nation and has successfully and deservedly captured the imagination of a billion minds. What he could do at 36 is a testimony to the character of the human being within Sachin. Never the one to be involved in a controversy (unless it's the Shiv Sena, which harps on dragging celebrities into controversies) nor the one who's commitment and love towards the game can be doubted, Sachin's knock of 200* at Gwalior is a stamping of his supremacy on the game. This knock has most certainly taken Sachin into a league of his own, perhaps a league into which even the all time great Sir Don Bradman would have struggled to make it.

The only milestone I'd love to see Sachin conquer is a triple ton in Test matches. In about a year, he'll be playing his last World Cup and a player of his calibre and a man of his virtues does deserve a share in the highest cricketing honour. As rightly pointed by Harsha Bhogle in this article, he could plan for it but he doesn't hold the key to a win in a team sport. It must happen, he cannot make it happen.

So, we can only hope that his 36-year-old body and his teammates ably support him in this endeavour. I'd also love to see Sachin leave a un-erasable mark as a match winner. Sachin is still not in the same club as the likes of Steve Waugh and Brian Lara. Steve Waugh, who is not as gifted as Sachin, has won matches for his country and at times single-handedly. It probably helped that he had a team which could ably play around him. Lara, a genius by himself, has certainly taken the West Indian cricket to new heights. Given his talent, combined with his deadly aggression, he has batte(re)d innumerable oppositions out of the match. Lara did not have the same cushion of a talented team as Waugh. Lara, in my humble opinion, is the greatest match-winner of the past decade.

Sachin, on the other hand has come dangerously close but never made it there. During the period which was till now being referred to as his prime - the '99 Sharjah innings against Australia - two back-to-back centuries that helped India clinch that series, Sachin was at his best ever. My memory of Sachin as a match-winner deserts me there. Perhaps, his performance in the 2003 World Cup is worth a mention, where he hit the likes of Shoaib Akhtar and Andy Caddick for towering sixes. Sachin getting the better of Shane Warne during the home series of 2001 is also a showcase batting performance of the era.

That said, Sachin has got India mindboggingly close to epic victories: The '99 Chennai test against Pakistan where we lost by 13 runs after a heroic knock of 136 by Sachin. He had gotten India close to victory, where there was none to be seen. He got out with India needing 18 runs and 4 wickets in hand. We lost. Another instance is the recent 175 against Australia at Hyderabad. The whole nation was on its knees reeling under the brilliance of that knock. Chasing 351, he got us there, almost.

The Gwalior innings and his performance over the past year has certainly made people rethink. Sachin is one of the greatest ever sportsmen in this era. I would love to see him end his career as a match-winner too. I wish in the next few months upto and including the World Cup, Sachin erases that one blemish I see in his career. He can certainly do it - one billion people can't be wrong!

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There is an interesting discussion on my Facebook profile (oh yes, Facebook can be used for constructive discussions too!) - on whether Anwar's knock of 194 at Gwalior was better than Sachin's 200 at Gwalior.

The facts of the case are:

1. Anwar had a runner through-out the innings

2. Sachin had 20 overs of power play which Anwar did not.

3. Anwar had just returned to ODIs after a 4-month injury break.

4. Anwar scored it at Chennai in May,which is much more testing at 40C than Gwalior at 29C.

5. Anwar scored it on foreign soil.

6. Sachin scored it at the age of 36, while Anwar did it at 29.

7. Anwar's bowling attack had Kumble & Prasad, Sachin had Steyn and Parnell.

8. Anwar's opposition had a weaker fielding attack than South Africa.

9. Gwalior ground was smaller compared to Chennai.

10. Pitches during Anwar's times were not designed for ultra-high scores. Gwalior was.

(With inputs from Archana and Shankar)

My personal opinion is that Anwar's innings ranks higher than Sachin's. What do you think?

Like I said at the beginning of the post, I am not a traitor and neither should my opinions in this post be used to judge my patriotic feelings. :-) I love Sachin as much as you all do!

How 'engineers' get to screw the nation and notes on IIT degree as an 'investment'

It is 3:15 AM. I just got back from an energetic and engaging discussion with a bunch of friends. That discussion has prompted me to write about the most-favourite topic of mine. The IITs. The discussion was more general in nature, talking about the education system as a whole.

Let me start with a brief incident that I encountered on a Sleeper Class coach when I was travelling from Pune to Bangalore.

Two railway employees were talking about their kids. One of them mentioned that both his sons got into IITs this year. The younger one ("woh bade wale se zyada hoshiyaar tha") joined IIT Bombay and the elder one joined IIT BHU (sic). (The whole discussion on whether BHU is an IIT at all, is something I have already ranted about here). He went on to explain how much he spent on the studies of the two kids and it obviously ran into lakhs.

He seemed to extremely pleased with his 'investment'. Paraphrasing that gentleman's comment, the gist of what he said is this - "If I had invested the same amount of money in a plot of land, it would have given me certain returns after a few years. Instead of that, I have invested that in my kids and since they have gotten into IITs, my investment is worth every penny and the returns that I expect are much more than the returns I'd have gotten on the plot of land."

This gentleman had just put words to the feelings of lakhs of middleclass Indians. Thinking about it, it makes perfect business sense. For a middle-class Indian, it is a gamble. 'Invest' in your kid's JEE coaching and hope to reap benefits of the investment. It is, without doubt, a high-risk-high-return game. 2% of investors get the desired returns. 98% are forced to write-off the investment as non-performing asset(s).

Well, strictly speaking, of the 2% who ultimately make it to the IITs, a considerable fraction don't end up being 'high performing assets'. Indeed, of the 98% too, a considerable fraction turn out to be 'high performing assets'. That's their good fortune and hard work. But what irks me is the fact that an entire generation of 'Engineers' are being misled into Engineering and Technology courses, primarily driven by peer pressure and false information. The premier newspapers of the nation leave no stone unturned in this regard. The much-hyped, but utterly sub-standard Times of India comes out with articles that are factually incorrect and ones that are meant purely to capture the imagination of the populace. Many a articles distort the information in a manner that will ensure that the copies sell, compromising heavily on the fundamental spirit of journalism. This article in the Economic Times is a stand-out example. An IIM degree might fetch you a 1.5 crore job. But is that the point of the MBA degree?

To the Indian middle-class bystander, such articles fuel his desires to be rich. They force him to rethink the path that he had set out for himself. In that article, he sees himself as the protagonist. He'd do a quick cost-benefit analysis - If I spend a year preparing for CAT and then another two years at IIM, at the end of it, I'll be earning 1.5 crores an annum. Tax deducted, I will still be able to earn about 8-9 Lakhs a month. Oh, that is sweet. Let me chuck whatever I am doing, let me prepare for CAT!

There! thanks to some masala-journalism, you have a miserable victim. Now, multiply that by about 3 Lakh people, and you have the state of today's management aspirants. Please be careful to note that nowhere in his thought process did the bystander include anything about becoming a good manager, which is what the MBA is supposed to do, I think.

As it turns out, that front-page news article on ET was false as per this blog post by IIM Ahmedabad.

Pan across to the undergraduate engineering scenario: You have 9 Lakh such engineering-aspirants, who are being misled into pursuing engineering degrees (as opposed to becoming 'Engineers') simply because at the end of the dark tunnel, after enduring 4 years of whatever they throw at you, you will land a job in an MNC. Oh, and congratulations, you are an engineer too!

When I take a step back, I realise that an entire generation of people has no idea of why they are doing what they are doing. 9 Lakh people X 4 years = 36 Lakh man years. Discount that by about 10% - I'd like to believe that atleast 10% of the people are doing what they are doing because they WANT to do it - you still have about 32 Lakh man years being utilised sub-optimally, that translates to 8 Lakh man years being utilised sub-optimally every year in a country like India, that prides itself on being young and resourceful. You do not need to be Paul Krugman to identify that should these 8 Lakh man years be put to 'better' use, the overall efficiency would drastically increase and the country can actually benefit immensely from being 'young'.

The media has a major role to play in how a country shapes up. Everybody joins the IITs assuming they have hit a jackpot. At the end of four years, irrespective of what you are and what you do, you'll have a heavy wallet. If you are lucky, you will end up with that 1-crore job, about which your news daily had reported just days back. Is this not what they think?

And that has as much basis in reality as Avatar! Reality is vastly different. But reality is boring. And hence, reality doesn't sell. Consequently, reality is hard to find. As long as the Indian thought process and decision making is based on fables and wishful thinking, our populace will never take a moment to THINK. They will instead race with the other rats of their generation towards the jackpot which, I suspect, is just an illusion. Twenty five years hence, when we realise this, I can only wish it would not be too late.

A post for the times when I did not post

I must admit I have not been too busy. On the contrary, time has been rather generous on me. Blogging, I realised, is just like my dual degree project - DDP - (it is a year-long project that one needs to finish in order to graduate and redeem the times spent during college) - when you start your DDP, there is a lot of motivation to keep working every day and finish it bit-by-bit. After a fortnight, it is "there is always a next week".

Nonetheless, I am thankful to three specific people for rekindling the blogging energies in me - Archana, who for reasons beyond my conscious understanding, likes my blog. Laddoo, who had the time and inclination to remind me, from halfway across the world, that my blog "needs attention". And my Mommy dear for diligently following my blogs without any attempts to 'censor' them to make it suitable for all ages. The tipping point, though, was this blog - one of my faculty member's blog. If a professor can find time to write a blog, so can I! For those who have read my previous posts, the same professor has been referred to, in a couple of previous posts too, albeit not in the most recommended manner - atleast not for a final year student with an incomplete DDP.

To be blogging on a Tuesday afternoon is sure sign of atleast one of the two things: an uncontrollable desire to write OR an outlet to kill time. I suspect it is a holy combination of both. My guess is that it'll stay this way for the better part of this semester - until May, or until I finish my DDP, whichever is later.