Futile statistics

Reportedly, Harvard students are going to take IPL as case study. Add one more member to that… ‘Sakal’..the newspaper has dissected the whole event to a such a low level..it cannot sink any lower.

Their parameters-

• Price of the player
• Number of runs scored
• Rs/run

Formula-

Rs/run = (Price of player)/(Number of runs scored)

By this calculation, Chennai SuperKings owners were screwed as Dhoni cost Rs 1.5 lacs/run and Shaun Marsh got a shoddy deal as he got only Rs 1100/ run.

So apparently the franchises bought the players because they are just run making machines. Fielding, bowling, captaincy is for free and T-20 is all about batting.

I think this was a project of some 1st yr Statistics students who wanted to see if they can divide two numbers.

Biased Pune Mirror heading nowhere

Today’s Pune Mirror features a front page brawl against MNS supremo Raj Thackeray. The article is aimed at discrediting Raj. Let me make it clear…this post is not written to support Raj in any form. But the only intention is to point out the fundamental flaws in assumptions of PM.

Mirror has interviewed a bunch of people. The selection seems to be totally off the mark. Let me take you through the interviewees-(I dont want to mention names, so I will just write which group of people they represent)

• Politicians- Yeah, right! You expect them to talk FOR Raj Thackeray?
• A scientist- Fair choice, but the guy seemed to be in accord with Raj, even if not to that extremity.
• Educationalists- Why would they not want North Indian students? ‘Donations’ …always welcome!
• A bunch of NI students- They are the victims.
• Student Leader- One of them
• Restaurateurs- They think their customers will be lost. But one gentleman thought that culture is changing and thats not good.

Politicians, Scientists are not the victims in any logical frame.

Students…basically, Raj just wants these people to behave. Are they not ready to do that? If they are they are not the victims.

Educationalists…how many times have read about IT raids and large number of unaccounted money they possess? So if their ‘unaccounted money’ is stopped they can’t be called victims.

Restaurateurs…yes 7-8 lakh of NI students do matter to them. But again they are not their only customers. No doubt some of them will be deeply affected.

Pune Mirror tries lamely to portray Builders as victims. Thats totally preposterous! Not a single builder was interviewed and we know that they really don’t care who buys the flat. They are sure…if students don’t buy them, somebody else will.

People they have chose do not even represent quarter of Pune’s population. For a fair opinion, they should have interviewed Housing Society chairmen, landlords, neighbors of NI students, ‘AAM JUNTA’ along with them.

So the whole drama created by Mirror to show ‘Pune cannot survive without North Indian students’ is utterly ridiculous. And the headline ‘Huge NO to Raj’ is completely baseless!

Disclaimer- I have nothing against NI students and I feel they have as much right to live in the city as anybody else. But I believe that Pune’s economy is not run by them. They are one of the factors.

An evening with Jeffrey Archer

I was in Mumbai a couple of days ago and I happened to be in Landmark when I came to know that Jeffrey Archer was to come there in half an hour as a part of his promotional tour for his new book ‘A Prisoner of Birth’ I have not read a lot of his books but I admire some of his works. So I bought his book and joined a large bay of people waiting for him. Crowd erupted when his arrival was announced.

After the formalities, he started answering some FAQs, expecting them to come up that day also. While mentioning his initial struggle to get a publisher for ‘Not a penny more, not a penny less’ he compared himself with JK Rowling and said that he beats her on this one that he had to approach 18 publishers while Rowling had to visit only 16!

During Q&A, he lightened up a bit and endless topics were discussed. After a 2hr ride to Landmark from his hotel just 15km away, he was convinced that Indians have understood traffic rules in some whole other dimension which nobody else can understand. He said that he could have walked a lot faster, but would have been a lot sweatier so decided not to.

Being a purist, he is not happy with the whole T-20 and IPL hype. According to him, real cricket match is a test match….between India and England…….at Lord’s………when India is 37/7…….(after a lot of BOOs)ok 37/6. He narrated one incident when an Indian guy called him and wished to meet him over dinner. Archer tried to explain how famous he is and how his time is important. But the guy did not yield. So Archer asked his name and the guy said ‘My name is Rahul Dravid and my friend is Sachin Tendulkar’ He invited some more BOOs when he said that both of them can bat OK!

He mentioned that real success in India is when a book is sold on footpaths and traffic signals. Todays Pune Mirror runs a story about him. He was surprised when they presented him with a copy of his book from footpath. Apparently he was not aware that those are pirated copies.

When he announced that he would be signing the books, INDIAN within the INDIAN woke up and everybody started running towards the dais. After 15 mins and a lot of bickering, the crowd narrowed down to 7 queues and that was it! I got his autograph after an hour, but it was worth a wait.

South Indian Food..Not Ready yet

I am not talking about same old ‘Idli’, ‘Dosa’ or ‘Uttappa’…I am talking about REAL south Indian food…Authentic! Yesterday, I went to ‘Vithal Kamat’s Soul Curry’ on Mumbai-Pune highway with my family.

My curiosity was tickled as soon as I entered the restaurant, as I could see all south Indian crowd inside ( crew and customers )  After attempting to read the menu for a few minutes…it was clear that I was at a wrong place. South Indian is not my type. This has nothing to do with the food itself…because everybody else thought, that it was awesome. I cannot consume such a large quantity of coconut in one go. Also I thought that the taste was a bit extreme….either too sweet or too spicy. Our 4 course dinner included

• Corn Wada (not a south Indian dish but was served with coconut chutney..so..)
• Uppam with Drumsticks and Banana Flower silk curry (too spicy)
• Curry leaves rice with Aviyal (was shockingly sour)
• Chikoo milkshake (for me and Payasam for the others)

Probably our selection was altogether wrong. I was more than disappointed (partly because I had to miss Jayasurya’s dazzling century). My mom hails from south India and I did not have a faintest idea about south Indian food. When you live in Sangli…outing essentially means going to a typical pure veg restaurant (like- Shiv Sagar) for Punjabi food. So I was not prepared, mentally, for such a changeover.

I should have taken things step by step. Suggestions and directions are welcome. I should work a bit more to develop my taste!

Niranjan’s new Ishtyle!

Niranjan introduced a new way of presentation at his only visuals quiz ‘Dekho Magar Pyaar Se’. It was a part of BCQC May open quiz. The presentation was superb. Take a look-

Whats the logic Yuvi??

60 sec with Yuvraj Singh before IPL match between King’s XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders…

Interviewer- Your favourite player?

Yuvi- Tendulkar.

Int- Favourite bowler?

Yuvi- Brett Lee.

Int- Favourite bowler in your team? (What a stupid question, I thought…. )

Yuvi- Piyush Chawla.

(What???? Dude, umm….isn’t Brett Lee in your team???)

Thats the way it is

Traffic in Pune…that says it all

Take a look at these snaps-

The electricity was there, but this signal was out of order near very busy Mehendale garage at 6pm on a weekday. The traffic police was nowhere to be seen. The chaos is evident.

Here is another one-

This truck was traveling on JM road carrying concrete road dividers, totally unprotected. Not a single string holding them back.

Sad thing is nobody cares about these things. If someone breaks a rule, he is hardly ever punished (only in March when the ‘Collection’ has to be shown on paper). Jumping the signals is as common as signal itself. Helmet rule came…emptied your pockets and is now resting in peace! There are many bridges in city which are closed for heavy vehicles (eg-Mhatre Bridge), but everybody including ST buses and Volvos use them.

According to basic principles of traffic management, pedestrians should get the highest priority because they (supposedly) pay the taxes and need least infrastructure. Next should be bicycles, public trasport vehicles and then private vehicles. But we see the exact opposite. No signal allows smooth passage for pedestrians. Some signals like the ones near Sancheti hospital and Bal Gandharva do have some 15sec gap for this. But traffic police are ignorant about this and they allow vehicles to pass in that time, while pedestrians have to run in between vehicles listening to the cursing. Subways in Pune is altogether different topic for research. Their locations and maintenance is worldclass. Same thing is about overhead bridges.

The BRTS and in general PMPML buses are the victims of inert bureaucracy. I have already spoken earlier about the rickshawalas.

One thing the police do perfectly well is tow the vehicles from no parking. You cant challenge their decision. And the way they pick up and carry the bikes is just horrifying.And why just the bikes? Who cause more trouble..2-wheelers or 4-wheelers? Parking policies are…as expected..all wrong. You have enough no parking zones. But how about some parking zones?? Even pay n park..like in camp!

You bring in BRTS or Metro, unless you follow the basics this mess will never be cleared.

Timepass in Vashi

After we collected tickets from Dr D Y Patil stadium, we had 2 hours before actually entering the stadium. It was extremely hot so we decided to go to any place with A/C. Fate led us to one Raghuleela mall near Vashi station. I had a bad feeling about it, because it had no door on entire side facing a main road. Good way to annoy already tested people. Actually it was better outside the mall because it had no A/C. We wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes. Then we entered Big Bazar for some entertainment (had gone to see match between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers…and we had nothing better to do than visiting Big Bazar!) Then Gadre spotted a great book. The book was useless but the cover was hilarious! Take a look-

See what that price sticker cost them!

In the toys section (yeah, I know…but we were there!), I saw this F1 car model-

They sure know how to sell things to people and people actually buy these things because they look like Ferrari.

Outside the mall, there was a chinese hotel. And what an innovative name for one!-

A lifetime of experience

This was a near perfect Sunday. Watching Gilly score the fastest century of IPL was the next best thing to watching Sachin Tendulkar play. Unfortunately, the 2nd one did not happen. But I did saw him! Me and bunch of my friends went to see the match between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers at Dr D Y Patil stadium at Nerul in New Mumbai. After watching an actual match, I started appreciating IPL even more. The main advantage of such tournaments is that you dont need to to be loyal to any particular team. I supported Mumbai Indians during the match. But when Gilchrist went after Pollock and Jaysurya I was not disappointed at all. I enjoyed his each and every shot.

We were sitting in square region, so we were able to see the length and pace of the ball. Batsmen get so little time to react facing the pacers, you actually start admiring their skills. We were on the third floor. After the match, I went to see the other levels. You cant see a thing from the higher floors. The 2nd floor was rubbish. You cant see the lofted balls at all from there. Poor guys sitting there missed all the sixes. And the most expensive ones at the front were like sitting in a prison with the fence around.

The crowd was unbelievable. I cheered for each and every shot (and Gilly made sure that I was busy for the whole time). Not just me but each and everyone in the crowd celebrated Gilly’s sixes. With each shot, crowd started chanting ‘We want Sixer…We want sixer!’ Some of the other popular chants were-

‘Ch***ya banaya, bada maja aaya’ (with each misfield from chargers)
‘Symonds Go Back!’

and

‘Nehra hatao, match bachao’ (during Nehra’s disastrous spell)

And now the cheerleaders. First, see what Gadre thinks about the whole deal. Thanks to pathetic balling by MI, the local talent had nothing to cheer about in the second half. But they bugged us enough earlier. DC cheerleaders lapped around the ground at the start of DC innings. Its a good thing they dont understand Hindi or Marathi. The things that were being said to them…some things are better not understood!

Avnish has written extensively about our expedition. Take a look

A Royal Finish

Rajasthan Royals vs Deccan Chargers match saw a thrilling finish. After loosing 4 quick wickets, Royals still managed a win thanks to their captains last over fireworks. Warne hit Symonds past boundary thrice in last over to finish things off in style.

After their first match, I thought this team had no chance of survival because the team was a total mismatch. But todays match has showed once again that team is hardly a criterion after a certain level. When it comes down to the last over, its just a question of who loses the cool first. Unfortunately, Mumbai Indians missed out on what could have been a grand win yesterday. Run on a noball that brought Nehra on strike turned the tide. Such close finishes are very important in a long tournament. Otherwise the whole thing will be like 2007 World Cup, long, monotonous and boring.