Thank you Sachin

As a guy who born in 1984 and who followed cricket from 1992, Cricket means mostly SACHIN for me. When I ask for match status to anyone, the next question from me will be "what is SACHIN's score?". Because SACHIN's score is what I was more interested with. In the duration between 1994-2001, I mostly turn off tv and lost hope when SACHIN gets out. I'm not wrong most of the times. That's when Indian cricket fans used to call him "One man army". I follow cricket - I follow SACHIN. Both are almost equal for Indian cricket fan at that time.

In the last 24 years of cricket many players won the matches for India. But they all are kind of came and gone. No one carried the expectations of cricket fans like SACHIN did. Lets say SACHIN scores between 30-50 runs in 10 innings with an avergare of 40, people will tell that he lost his form. In international cricket avg of 40 will never be bad. But the expectations on SACHIN will be so high that anything less than Cenury will be considered as bad performance. That is the standard set by SACHIN's game in last 24 years. There were lot of good cricketers in that period but durability & consistency will separate SACHIN with REST OF THE PLAYERS.

In India people speak around 20 languages, but cricket is one of the easiest language to start a conversation. When Jhonty Rhodes took a controversial catch of SACHIN in late 90s, I turned off tv and started walking to my friend's home. Suddenly a unknown guy walking next to me asked "That was a wrong decision by 3rd umpire rite?". I was little surprised. I never know that guy and he doesn't have a chance to know whether I followed the match till that time or not, but still he started conversation. We continued that discussion for next couple of minutes till I reach my friend's home. That is what cricket in INDIA. Without SACHIN, I don't see the face of cricket will be like this today. SACHIN was the reason for mass following and SACHIN will be the inspiration for many youngsters who are carrying cricket in INDIA now.

The unique quality of SACHIN is his best comes out against the best teams of the world. When the challenge gets tougher, he performs well against the challenges. Playing against Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, England at their home soil is the toughest challenge for Indian batsman. SACHIN scored centuries in all those countries even in his first series at those countries. He scored centuries by facing bowlers like Walsh, Ambrose, Warne, Muralitharan, Steyn, Akram, Donald, Akthar, Saqlain, Vettori etc., Mcgrath may be the exception who troubled SACHIN, Other than that no bowler ever dominated SACHIN which is quite impressive in the career span of 24 years.

If the purpose of sports is the entertainment, SACHIN is by far the the best entertainer in the last 24 years. If the purpose of sport is pride, SACHIN made Indians proud across the world. Even though it is 24 years long, my heart still asks "Why not for some more years?". It is hard to believe that SACHIN is past of Indian cricket. In any moment of my life, if I fall short of motivation, SACHIN is the one I will look up to for inspiration. Health and Consistency are highest priority for me in life. Who else will be the better example other than SACHIN. For all those wonderful memories and all the entertainment, Thank You SACHIN.

Sachin retirement news

How many matches did Sachin played in 2013?
4 test matches and around 20 T20s for MI. Hardly 2 or 3 ranji/practice matches.

How many runs did he scored?
Nothing great to mention about it.

By the standards set by him, we are already missing Sachin in cricket. Then why I'm feeling so sad after his retirement news? May be I'm not able to digest the fact of seeing Sachin without batting for India.

As far as I remember, the first match I followed was Sachin playing against Australia where Sachin came after Kapil dev  & Azharuddin and scored a half century. It was may be 1991-92. From that day, I'm seeing Sachin as a batsmen for India. After 21 years, now I have to see a different story.

I may not be crying externally, but inside my heart I can feel the weight of sadness. All the beautiful memories are scrolling in the mind like a slideshow. That double century in ODI at the age of 36. Those back to back centuries against Australia in Sharjah(1998) with beautiful sixes in Warne's bowling. That upper cut against Shoib akthar. The last gem in his career, 146 against South africa (we can say against Steyn) which helped to draw the series. Those 673 runs in 2003 world cup which took us closer to world cup. Those century partnerships with Ganguly in ODIs. Those partnerships with Dravid & Laxman in test matches. Those moments where everyone asks about Sachin's score while India batting. That moment when he became the first person to score 100 international 100s. The moment people criticized when he score anything less than 50. Those days where people believe India can win even after 9 wickets down and Sachin is playing from one end. The moment Azhar throws the ball to Sachin to break big partnerships. Those man of the match performances between 1995 to 2002 with the weight of one-man army tag.

Probably Sachin has given memories for the lifetime. As a Sachin fan, I have to move on with those memories.

The black days of Andhra Pradesh

In ages long past a great son of India, the Buddha, said that
 “The only real victory was one in which all were equally victorious and there was defeat for no one."

Andhra Pradesh, once famous for Largest producer of rice (Rice bowl of India), Tirupati, Hyderabadi Biryani, Hindu-Muslim Bhai-Bhai culture is now famous for being a scapegoat for Congress party. The decision to separate the state caused a huge rage in the public who ultimately gonna suffer. People of Andhra pradesh reacting in may ways.

Some people are fighting.
Some people are protesting.
Some people are dying.
Some people are crying.
Some people are afraid.

People are concerned for their investments in the current capital city. People are afraid of their security after state division. People are worried of the new taxes between Telangana and Seemandhra, which will lead to inflation of basic needs. People are worried about the water distribution of Godavari & Krishna rivers. Karnataka & Tamilnadu are fighting from ages for water distribution. All Indians are worried as they learnt "Politicians can make people scapegoats for the sake of power".

Telangana separation may not be delayed as people of Telangana strongly believe it will help them to get more opportunities for business and to get more government jobs (As per the Sri Krishna committee's observation). But the way Congress party declared the decision is to be questioned. As a leader of 120 crore people, you declared the decision without addressing people worries and consequences. Is this the way government take the responsibility of public?

This division shouldn't be considered as victory by Telangana people. As the decision was taken solely on political interests, basic needs of people are ignored. If Telangana state is formed, then Telangana people gonna experience the worst side of politics where every party wants to take the credit to their name. To calm the people, more and more reservations will be given to lower castes, which we all know that nothing gonna benefit them. (I feel shame that we still categorize people based on castes). As always middle class people will be ignored.


But the people of India deserve to suffer all these. People knows the fact that politicians are the one can change the life of people, still we elected the congress government as our rulers. Even though the current government is UPA, it is Congress party who can take decisions. We have to consider, Congress party formed the government not because people wanted it, but people failed to elect any other party. The best example can be taken from Andhra Pradesh only.

When an I.A.S officer Jayaprakash Narayan thought the faulty governance process is the biggest hurdle in India’s path of progress and created Lok Satta Party by resigning his job. The people of Andhra Pradesh denied him from making any progress. Part of his loss in elections may be because the members of the party are not popular. But hardly anyone considered them as the fresh blood which can change politics. On the other side Chiranjeevi who formed party by taking already established politicians, who joined his party just to make money has got more votes than Loksatta party. Because Chiranjeevi is a popular figure in the state.

When people are not ready for change, nothing will change. Just spare a thought, Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy who has allegations on many scams is still running a party and so many people are supporting him. A huge set of people in Andhra support him because he belong to their caste. Shame on us.

There is one more example which clearly explains how educated people will react to politics. When Anna Hazare did the fasting in support of Lokpal bill, he got huge support in all the Indian cities. Realty is people supported him only on weekends. People doesn't want to waste their office hours for the sake of country. We often think illiterates who vote for money are the reason for dirty politics, but the educated people are equally responsible for current politics. Because of our mentality, Congress party was able to kill the protest for Lokpal bill by deviating public with false statements.

So is there a point to think we deserve anything better than this?

What will be the future from here? We all know that Andhra Pradesh politicians collectively failed to keep the people happy and everyone played games to keep their power over public interests. Are we gonna ban all of them from politics? NO. They are going to contest in the next elections either from Congress party or from other party and they gonna gain power on public. If not in this term, they can definitely win in the next term. Because we forget the past quickly and fall for the promises they make before elections.

It's not how much we talk but the one really matters is how we act in the necessary situations. We People talk about dirty politics for years but ignore to elect a right leader at the time of elections. I feel shame for not electing a better leader and I sincerely accepts the blame on public who elected such politicians even though we know their real face. I hope we, people in India learnt the lesson and take the responsibility of electing good leaders.

Three years of cycling to office

I completed three years of cycling to office. What does this mean to me?

"I can take a good decision and I can consistently follow it."

Three years back I used to read messages of pollution,  global warming, traffic problems etc.,  and share it with friends. What happens after that? Mostly we discuss that topic for 1 hour and blame someone in the world. I felt shame about myself.  I'm an well educated, but still not ready to take any responsibility. I always used to talk about every problem in our country and finally blame someone else(mostly government). So I decided to take the problem of pollution as my own. 'Bi-cycle' looked like a best solution. Then again I have problems of my own. I can start it, but the question is,  can I maintain it in the long run? 20 kms every day looking very big. Unless I do it for long term I can't get the results what I expected. This question chased me for quite some time, but still I decided to start it with a condition. "At least one day a week, I should do cycling to office."

That decision is inspired from an article which I read in childhood. The prime minister of Japan or Korea (don't remember exactly), identified the  health and traffic problems of using  cars. To convey the message to his country, every Wednesday he was cycling to his office. I really felt very proud of him. 

After the decision, opposition came from my family. For them vehicle is a status symbol. Since I'm earning money, they wanted me to buy a car. Cycle is a poor man's vehicle. It was very difficult to convince them. Since I was not ready to take back step, they left the discussion. It was very strange that, even my friends who are well educated also didn't understand my motto. Some people even laughed at me. The above said prime minister came to my mind again. In front of him, I'm a very small person. I don't need to worry about status at all. 

After I bought the cycle and did the cycling on very first day, it was a proud feeling and 20 kms looked very small. After that I dumped my decision of 'Cycle one day in a week'. I started to cycle every day and even today, Cycle is my first priority to office.

Now I can happily say to myself that:
"I'm not a guy who just talk about problems, I try to solve them".

Risk free agriculture

How many farmers in India really wish to see their children doing agriculture?

Not so many. Many farmers wish their son to get good education in cities and find a good job in city. But why we forget that food is our basic necessity and we all mostly work for food more than anything?

Farmers have their own story:

1.  Agriculture has lot of constraints at various levels. For example you can't plant when it is raining. You shouldn't get heavy rains after planting or at the time of harvesting. Whether there is a proper rainfall or not, the ground & crop should be watered properly based on the crop you are growing. 
2. When you want to buy food it is always costly. When farmer wants to sell the crop he always get the least price. You never get the deserved value for your effort.
3. Apart from the above, 'natural calamities' are always there to hurt you. Farmer is the first one to suffer for nature's outrage.

we have to agree that, this is the current scenario of farmer in India. Instead of blaming anyone for all those issues I thought of finding solutions and implement them. I categorized issues first.

1. Finding the right crop in right season at right time
2. Rains & Water
3. Electricity
4. Protecting the crop from pests
5. Marketing the crop

Finding the right crop in right season at right time:
 The very common mistake we hear about farmers is, "Every farmer will grow the same crop at same time and they don't see any demand in market by the time they want to sell". Farmers should have the knowledge of market and must understand the "Demand and Supply" theory. Farmers should be ready to try variety of crops to yield better profits.

Rains & Water:
We all know the value of water but we hardly make any effort to harvest rain water and maintain ground water level. Whatever the cost it takes we have to implement it as it is the proven solution.
When water is going to be the major concern all over the world, the farmers who depends on water more than anyone else should learn "How to use water effectively". The techniques like "Drip irrigation" should be implemented at any cost.

If the land is situated in a location where weather plays spoil sport every year like "heavy rains", "no rains", "heavy winds" etc.,. then "Poly housing" should be considered as a solution where temperature, humidity will be controlled artificially.

Electricity:
All Indian villages will get only 6-8 hours of power in a day. That can be day or night, nobody guarantees that. It is very inconvenient for every farmer but still everyone depends on the government. We all know that if we depend on government, this problem can't be solved in our lifetime.
Farmers should start using solar or wind power. Even though they are the costly solutions, we get the permanent solution for electricity. In the case of small farmers who cannot afford them should form a group and should implement this.

Protecting the crop from pests:
Pests are clearly the enemies of farmers. But how you destroy the pests plays a major part in the quality of crop you gonna get. Chemical pest control methods are so easy and used by many people, which is going to kill pests quickly and can affect human also. Natural pest control methods are little expensive but safe and improve the food you gonna have. There was an episode about "pesticides" in tv show "Satyameva Jayate" was an eye opener.

Marketing the crop:
As everyone says "Last but not least", How/Where/When you sell your crop is very important to earn good profits. The common scenario is, by the time you get crop into your hands, merchants will temporarily reduce the price of the crop in the market so that they can buy it in cheap and earn more profits.
Farmers should preserve the crop and sell at the time when there is a good market. Farmers should have enough exposure of various markets where they can get more worth for their crop.

It is easy to argue that small farmers cannot implement any of them. Hence we can't change the current scenario. Farmer need to put a step ahead to have a better life. All the above mentioned techniques are planned for long term and will definitely make the life easy for a farmer. The PLANNING will inversely reduce the RISK.

I welcome all the readers to share their opinions and arguments as discussion is going to give a better idea for everyone.

Note: I'm not a experienced farmer who used all these techniques. But I'm the one who is interested in agriculture and going to put the step ahead.

Thanks to experts who shared their knowledge and experiences with me, which helped me to take right decision.

Will education gives common sense?

"Education is must for every one to lead a good life". 

This sounds good. But I want to slightly change it like this:

"Good Education is must for every one to lead a good life". 

YES. I strongly feel the education should get better than what we have right now.

In the ancient days when very few people had education, people still knew what is the good food and what is the bad food. Those times people suffering from different diseases and most of them are not because of food. But now people eat lot of bad food even though they are aware of it clearly. Now the common diseases around us are Diabetes, Heart attacks, Gastric trouble which are mostly occur because of our food habits. Don't you think common sense has died in case of diet. How many of us really know dieting doesn't mean "Eating less", it is actually "Eating proper food".

Most of the people living in cities doesn't have knowledge of economics, which leading to higher inflation year after year. People who are earning more, spending their money in wrong things by falling for brand names or thinking that malls will have better products. This is actually making a lakhpathi look like a lower middle class guy in cities.

As per the current market standards in India, a software engineer can earn 3 lakhs per anum as his first salary. After 10-15 years of his experience he can surely become crorepati (One crore per anum salary). But only then he will realize he can't even buy a house with his salary, he can't afford education for his kids and he will feel like one crore salary package is not enough for anything in his life.

I've mentioned this in my earlier blog, "With more than thousand Doctors, Surgeons passing out  from college every year. Everyone of us should have become healthy and we should have found solutions for every disease". But in reality, medicine is getting costlier and moving away from common people. Patients and Diseases are proportionally increasing with the education. Does the highly qualified MEDICINE education ever taught to DOCTORS that the purpose of their profession is not to earn more money but to make people healthy.

We need food more than gadgets in our life. In the span of one update in a 'harvester' or 'tractor' or 'water harvesting method', we are getting 10 updates in firefox browser, 10 updates in samsung mobiles, 1000 updates in Windows operating system. It clearly shows where we are progressing and where we are lacking progress. 

You ask any kid of 10th class. He/She will be interested in engineering, Robotics, Medicine, Army and so on. You will be shocked if someone says they want to become a farmer. Whom should we blame? Can you expect any teacher or educated parent  or even the current education system teaching the kids regarding 'healthy food', 'agriculture', etc., 

How many of us really happy with our political leaders in last 30 years. I bet more than 70% of Indians are not happy. Then why can't we find a solution for this? Having so many educated people in the country, are we moving towards to a solution?

Isn't all these things important for us? but we are still ignoring them. We have to build the common sense to have a happy & better life. People get common sense by reading life (mostly after completing their education) and not with school/college books. It will be good if everyone can get the common sense as part of their education.

Drink more and more water

We are back to summer and as expected it is recording high temperatures in every state. There are so many reasons why the temperatures are going high and high. Nothing can be solved immediately. So to survive and stay healthy in this summer, the best solution is to hydrate yourself by drinking more and more water.

If you make the habit of drinking more water everyday, it not only helps in summer but helps you to keep healthy for rest of your life. You can see the picture which explains how every part of our body will be benefited by drinking water.

Now a days, Knee pain is the commonly seen disease in elders. By drinking water it will help to create more cushion between joints and you knees will be happy when you walk long or when you sit down. Other benefits are:

• Better productivity at work as brain is mostly made up of water.
• Look younger with healthier skin
• You can avoid cramps
• Reduce headaches
• You can lose weight, coz water will help in suppressing your appetite (you gonna eat less) and water has zero calories.

How much water we need to drink? Doctors suggest 3-5 litres of water depending on the nature of work we are doing on that day. If you are doing more physical work(gym, sports etc., are also included) or if you are exposed to sun more, then it is better to consume 5 litres. If you are just staying at home and doing nothing, then 3 litres would be sufficient. One more best tip is to drink sip by sip in regular intervals instead of drinking 1 litre in the morning and night.

The only problem I see in drinking more water is you need to go to Loo more times. Now a days every home, work place, college have access to good toilets. So it won't be a big problem when compare to benefits we get by drinking more water.

If you guys knows any benefits feel free to add them in the comments.

A GIRL - The Best and The Worse

I believe GIRL is the beautiful creature of the world for so many reasons. She got so many good characters to make her special. But women now a days developed some negative habits with which they are loosing respect. Here are some qualities I noticed which make a women the best and the worse.

Eyes: Eyes are the most attractive part of a women. Girls can express almost every feeling with eyes. Most of the times boys fall to girls because of eyes.

Smile: Similar to eyes, a girl smile is naturally beautiful. A smile, A glee, A wink ... all look very beautiful. 

Curves: After eyes, curves are the second attractive thing in women. Am i lying? ;)

Soft assets: They not only have soft body, they also got soft characteristics. They are generally Soft-spoken. They walk soft, and the list goes on.

Love: If you want to see the height of love look at a mother. Her unconditional love on her children is incomparable.

There are some bad qualities of girls, I don't know they are natural or not, but they are commonly seen in every girl.

Jealous: They get jealous so quickly on every other girl in this planet. If it comes to men, they will admire or they will respect if other has more talent.

Comparison: Comparison is such a small thing which can spoil a good family. A mother will compare her son/daughter with other children for good score in the exams and spoil their child life. A wife will compare her husband with neighbors/relatives and spoil their marriage life. Why does a girl want her husband or children should be best in the entire world? How can all the children will come first in a class?

Gossiping: For girls Whisky, Rum, 25 years old wine..... nothing is better than a gossip. They doesn't mind how it is going to affect some one's life, they enjoyed the gossip at that moment. That's enough for them.

Show off: This is the next level after comparison. First they spoil family life by comparison and then they want to show off what they don't have and become fools in this process.

I have lot of respect on girls but still afraid of girls bcoz of these bad qualities.

Understanding GOD - part 3

I have been trying to understand GOD from different perspectives. You can read my earlier posts Understanding God, Me vs Me to understand God , Understanding God - Part 2.

We generally listen about god from Theists (devotees of GOD) or Atheists (who denies the existence of GOD). I tried to observe the lives of devotees around me. There are lot of people in my family and friends who pray to god everyday.

1. Are they happy in their life? Ofcourse not. I never seen their wishlist being empty. Or is it the human nature to always wish something new?
2.  Devotees sometimes behave like escapists. They put all the failures/non-achievements on GOD's name. Instead of trying hard they will say that "God has given me only this much" and they will adjust with that.
3. Jihadis: Unfortunately big devotees are scaring the world on the name of GOD. Terrorists do prayer everyday. They kept a name for their process, "HOLY WAR". But will GOD ever tell them "Don't kill people"?
4. Indians won't forget Ayodhya and Godhra incidents, both happened on the name of GOD.

In all the above cases, I feel GOD has failed in giving WISDOM to the devotees. I'm not evaluating GOD, but I just feel devotees could think/act better.

When you think of positives:

1. GOD really gives confidence to his believers. I know many people who hold Jesus cross or start chanting Hanuman name when they are scared. 
2. Some people are afraid of doing bad things. B'coz they think GOD will punish them later. I call it utter foolishness. A person should be scared of his heart not to god. But atleast something good is happening. 
3. Its not only about god, but you really feel very peaceful when you go to some temples. That may be because of architecture, environment etc,. Or may be you feel the presence of GOD there.

I don't know what to conclude from this post. Being a devotee of god will have both positive and negative effects in life.

Can I love something in this world?

An Idle brain can become a devil's workshop. So on the free time I kept my idle mind to think something good. Here are my thoughts of what I can love in this world?

Nature? 

We are very active in destroying the beauty of nature.  We pollute this nature using automobiles and our municipality will help us by cutting the trees. I used to love Bangalore(Garden City of India) 4 years back. Now I don't love Bangalore's climate anymore.

Friends? 

They are not the same after their marriage.

Family?

Yes I can love them. But don't expect same love from anyone as you are not the whole life for anyone. Priorities do change for everyone.

Company?
They fire you anytime. They don't love you same when you're on bench.

Project?
Clients can stop project for many reasons. And of-course projects are not permanent.

Kids?
They grow up very fast. Their innocent face, smile won't stay for longtime.

MySelf?

Yes. I can love myself for whole life.

But to love myself:

• I need to have a great character so that I never look normal.
• I need to have good habits so that whatever I do should not look bad to me.
• I need to take decisions on my own so that I can feel I'm the driver of my life.

Note: It doesn't mean that I don't love family, friends, nature, kids. But it just not 100% love. My unconditional and infinite love will be on me only.