Monthly Archives: March 2011

Direction sense of random Puneites

Today, I went on a road trip for a gig at the Pune Hard Rock Café with one of my bands (Overhung).

Getting to the Mumbai-Pune Express highway was easy. But getting off it and heading to Koregaon park in Pune, where Hard Rock was located, proved to be much tougher. We tried to use GPS but Vodafone’s GPRS was crappy enough to not let us do that.Whomever we tried asking for directions asked us to go straight to the left, straight ahead from the signal, straight from the Railway station, straight after turning right.

One guy said this: head straight until the signal. Then you go straight until the intersection, from where you go straight. After that go straight for another couple of kilometers until you reach the Pune Railway station, from where you go straight.

We got very tired and frustrated of this ‘straight’ business. I mean what’s wrong with Puneites?

Anti-Pakistani sentiment

Yesterday was the big India-Pakistan semi-final. I was working full day and had a rehearsal at my friend’s place in the evening. So I decided to watch the second half of the Pakistan innings there. Out of the six people out there, three were very biased anti-Pakistani people. They would swear at each move made by a Pakistani player and despite having cricket-oriented brains, would comment negatively on everything. Apparently, they were totally enjoying this.

For me, however, such behavior takes the fun totally out of watching an interesting, high-octane match. Even I wanted India to win, but I don’t hate the Pakistanis. I love them like everyone else. Later, when I tweeted about it, I got a response from a Pakistani tweeter that he felt the same when he hangs out with people with a strong anti-India sentiment. Soon, more users were complaining about people more interested in swearing at Pakistan than celebrating the Indian victory. Such behavior should be condemned and discouraged.

On the positive note, I was encouraged by Shahid Afridi’s responses in the post-match ceremony. He said he was proud of his team’s effort and was happy for the support that he got in India. Here’s a snippet.

Later on, when he reached Pakistan, he gave another brilliant reply to some of the anti-India questions he was asked.

I have full respect for Shahid Afridi and the way he reacted. More Indians should be acting like him and accept Pakistan, its sport, culture, people with smiles and respect.

ODIs are back

The Quarter Finals of the World Cup cricket are on. After the horrible mismatch in the first Quarter Final between Pakistan and West Indies, the India vs. Australia match and the New Zealand vs. South Africa matches have proved something that even I had stopped believing – that the good old ODI had life left in its legs.

Four years ago, when India won the first T20 World Cup, I had given up hope on the ODI. Every time I tried watching an ODI, I would feel that each innings was at least 20 overs too long. But this World Cup has proven me and many others wrong. I think there are two reasons why this World Cup has rejuvenated the ODI.

– The England cricket team, which consistently provided close finishes.
– The not-so-batting-friendly pitches, which have brought the gap between the bat and the ball down, albeit slightly.

I hope the ICC goes and makes things better by arranging for longer bilateral series and scrapping the Champion’s Trophy.

Jar of Flies

Two years back, Jar Of Flies, a tribute band to Alice In Chains (more specifically Layne Staley) was formed. They performed in front of a packed house in Musician’s Mall on the anniversary of Layne Staley’s death. They were well received!

Last year, they didn’t play a gig for the same occasion. However, this year, they are performing at a tribute gig for Layne Staley and Kurt Cobain on the 6th of April at B69 (Bajaao) in Andheri (E). More importantly, I’m joining them on bass and backing vocals.

The line up consists of the following:Link

  • Nicky Chorwadi (ex-Metakix, Bad Influence): vocals
  • Sheldon Dixon (ex-Metakix, ex-Dream Out Loud, Overhung): drums
  • Michael Lee (ex-Aftertaste, Bad Influence): guitars
  • Howard Pereira (Depth, Dischordian, Overhung): guitars, backing vocals
  • Kris Bass (Shor Bazaar, Cirkles, Ideat Savant, Bad Influence, Overhung): bass, backing vocals

Another band will be performing a Nirvana tribute set. Don’t miss it! It’s free entry!

That day

That day I made a promise
That I’d write a song for him
One month later, I’m far from keeping it

That day was the end of winter
In a noisy old hotel in Delhi
And now, I’m sweating in summer heat of Mumbai

That day, I wasn’t lying
To a very dear friend of mine
And now, I’m waiting for him online

That day seems so far away
When I will see him again
And now, I’m waiting for that day again

Their last World Cup, I hope

I most of my Sunday watching the final match of the World Cup group stage between India and West Indies. I was happy to note that Sehwag and Nehra were being replaced by Raina and Ashwin. A few might wonder why I was happy why Rain’s inclusion at the absence of Sehwag would make me happy. It’s simple. I think the present Indian World Cup team is too batting heavy, bowling light, and fielding feather weight.

I personally believe that the Indian team which played ODIs against the Kiwis, Aussies, and South Africans in the last few months before the World Cup (which excluded Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir and a few other big names) was a much more balanced side. Indian batting, even without the top three ‘big guns’ is good enough to put up a good total on the board (or for chasing down one).

But when it comes to bowling/fielding, it’s much better to have the Rainas, Ashwins, Vijais, Rohit Sharmas around. That way you would save an extra 15 or 20 runs – the same amount of runs that a Sehwag or Tendulkar might bring you extra that he had played. But because the young legs create more pressure in the field, the bowling would become more capable and probably provide us with more wickets than otherwise. This gives a clear advantage to a younger side.

Back to the match – anyway, despite Sehwag’s absence, India did well with the bat. If only the fielding was better, we would have felt more assured after our relatively easy win of the Windies. This victory, despite it’s comparatively large margin (80 runs), would not give the Indian team some reliability when it takes on the Aussies at Motera. This, despite the Aussies not performing at their best.

Come what may, even if India goes on to win this World Cup, I hope this is the last World Cup in which India will have to field such a lethargic team. I hope most of these big guns retire from the shorter formats of the game so that we can have a young energetic fielding unit to back our bowling. Oh, I forgot about some more genuine allrounders. When are India going to start finding them?

Policies that don’t make sense

I love my job. I love my office. But I disagree with most of the HR policies. About leaves, about the dress code, about not getting compensated for working extra etc.

Today, for example, I needed to work 3 hours extra just because a translator did a shoddy job. Most of the translated text (from Japanese to English) didn’t make much sense and I had to make sure that the final output, which involves my efforts, has some semblance of quality. So I had to spend my Saturday night at the office working.

I don’t mind working extra. But I do think that such extra work should credited and acknowledge by paying for the extra hours that I had to spend at the office. Currently, my superiors tell me that it eventually gets evened out – one day you have to work extra, and another day you work less. But I’m sure the “working less” part happens very rarely.

The leave situation is altogether another issue. On one hand, the company policy wants to ensure that the workers are adequately rested, the company says no to increasing the leave quota for seniors. This year, 4 of the 10 recognized national holidays fall on Sunday. That’s almost half of the extra leaves other than what we are allowed to take per year. When asked about it, the answer is the same – it evens out. No it wouldn’t. It will never even out. We won’t get more than 10 holidays any year.

And about the dress code policy – well, they have a strange sexist policy. They allow kurtas/kurtis and sandals for women. These are not allowed for men. They allow round-necked t-shirts for women and not for men. Isn’t that strange?

I wish there were more people to protest against such indifferent policies.