How not to be a test opener - K L Rahul

KL Rahul is doing all the right things, watching the ball till the last second, playing it as late as possible, trying hard not to push too hard,  and yet he nicked a ball that didn't come in as much he thought it would.

On another day, he might have left the very ball without prodding at it, he might have pushed it just hard enough to drive through the vacant cover region, or he might have even gotten lucky that the ball came in to meet a meatier part of his bat. But not today ,on a day when he really needed to stay around long enough, long enough to pull the tired fast bowlers, long enough to sweep the spinners, long enough to stay in the test team.

 He has one more chance to redeem himself, one more chance to stay in the test team. The spicy red ball would zip past his ears like a bee swarm, snaking in from Starc, straightening out from Josh, deceiving all around from Cummins. He must be prepared to hear them out, play himself in, and play them out.

 So how should he go about doing that? Should he defend with soft hands, play close to his body and get out to an excellent ball? Should he hoick the balls to all the corners of the field like he does in the shorter format? He got out playing such a shot in his only respectable innings of the series. He did play the best shot of the series along the way, that unflinching cover drive to fly Cummins into the stands.

 Some people are just not meant to be test openers, it is for him to decide what he wants, does he want to win matches as a batsman in all the formats? Then accept his weakness, the worst that a test opener can have, and beg not to be sent in to play the new ball. It won't matter to Pujara, for he will be playing the new ball anyway if Rahul is allowed to open in the slightest of the seaming conditions.  

India in Adelaide, Australia

      'Chasing outside off stump , a nothing shot' is the first thing I heard when I switched on the TV.  Gavaskar was commenting on Vijay's dismissal off Starc, cliched as his words were, it wasn't a bad shot, only that Starc did better this time around. More so in the context of the shots played by other the captain and vice-captain. Thirty minutes into the game India were already on their way to their usual dismal beginning to another overseas tour.

  India's last overseas tour began with India having the chance of their lifetime to win in England, so did the one before that in South Africa, so did the one even before that, somewhere, at this point it doesn't matter anymore, just another country they never did well.

  Australian grounds are so enormous that fielders are never out of the game. The fielders chasing balls forever, the batsmen running between the wickets forever, while the ball keeps rolling on looking like a red island on a lush green ocean. I wouldn't be surprised if the broadcasters habitually slowed down the frame rate a wee bit to keep us in the chase a bit longer every time the ball went past the inner circle.

 Having listened to cricket commentary for years now, I confess there is only so many ways you can say certain things. 'He is a good player of spin, he uses his feet well against spin.'  must be one of the underwear hanging by the thread if there ever was a question of overuse.

Why so many questions?

Do you like trivia? The kind of useless facts that has no real practical value? 

Tell me one.

Here is one for you about colors: Red and yellow increases your appetite, that's the reason KFC and McDonalds are painted predominantly reddish and yellowish, the same reason why you should never paint your bedroom with yellow or red.

That's the last trivia I want to hear today. Why do you ask so many questions all the time?

Because I wish I knew all about you.

Wouldn't it be unbearably boring if you knew my reply to every question you ask? Imagine, you ask me about my favorite movie , and before I reply , somehow , miraculously, you knew the answer.
What a boring life would that be - like a trailer full of spoilers.

I ask so many questions to you that I feel like a three year old pestering his grandpa on a bus trip.

Grandpa just wants peace of mind, but the grand kid prefers a piece of grandpa's aging mind.

Yes, Grandpa's all knowing mind. If I was that little kid, you are that sweet and endearing Grandpa.

The Second kind of writer

   Like most people, my love for writing grew from my love for reading. As a kid, I read everything I could; newspapers, flyers, ingredients on tin food wrappers to tattered comics from street vendors. I kept reading, and my appetite for the written word grew leaps and bounds with every passing year, but it never occurred to me that I could write, I did not write anything of significance until I reached college, until I stumbled upon online blogs, and thriving online forums. 

  I created a blog, and began writing about my life in general, about things I read, things I cared about, and things I felt deeply connected to, mostly with the objective of doling out a fresh perspective on old things, but I mostly ended up sharing agreeable thoughts.

  Keeping up the blog, although as regular as rain in a desert, taught me some tough lessons: Reading is easy, thinking about writing is easy, but writing is a real thick hide. If you ever want to learn about procrastination, take up an exercise regimen or even better, take up writing. Writing requires deliberate effort to focus, keep still, and keep at it for hours together to come up with something devoid of clichés. There is one cliché for you. Of course, mastering the syntax, semantics, and tricks of the language, and holding it all in the head can be daunting, even for Hercules of a writer. 

  The notion of being a writer for is a highly romanticized one. My vision of the writer was a person, who would sit in his pajamas and write in long hand from morning till afternoon, and then read whatever he liked until late in the day, of course he was still in his pajamas. There were no difficulties, obstacles or whatsoever - a perfect way to spend your life. A few months after starting the blog, I realized, my vision was blurred, my notion far removed from reality, and that I needed an appointment with an ophthalmologist. 

  While writing a personal letter can bring about a sense of freedom and liberation by letting out all the scattered thoughts playing hide and seek in your head, writing to a larger group is like stripping yourself in public, and if you haven't exercised regularly, the potbelly, the love handles, and the flabby flesh will only make you a laughing stock.

  For me, there are two kinds of writers; the first who dread the process of writing, but write it anyway, and the second kind, who dread the process of writing, and wait for the best day. I'm not proud, but I belong the second kind. 

Mexican cravings

  The Mexican cravings is not located at the usual place where you find highly rated restaurants. You don't expect a highly rated restaurant at the end of a two lane road, so narrow that you had to wait to let a cyclist go, so empty that you could slow down to watch a plane in landing motion to the nearby cargo airport. But then you expect a quaint location like this if the restaurant is not a restaurant , but a food joint set up in the living room of a pink house.

 A six car parking lot, a five table dining room, and a modest kitchen with young kitchen staff doubled up as cashiers is all you see when you open into the small food joint. Once you sit down at one of the corner table, you notice ; the walls are light pink, tv is playing Spanish soap operas full of beautiful women crying and handsome men drinking, an unusual, small, indescribable painting on the wall, a larger , almost life size painting off an early nineteenth century cafe; all in an effort to accentuate the artsy uniqueness of the restaurant. I really didn't care about the decor, it was all about food, good food wins ambience hands down. The menu - posted above the cashier counter- was not in Spanish, but deciding what to order is as hard as it gets if you are unfamiliar with Mexican food, which I'm guilty of.

All sorts of questions popped in my head; what is the difference between sopes and tacos? Will it end up like the colorful, tasteless fried rice from the chinese-japanese take away? 

  I ordered a chicken sope, and waited at the two person table with my roommate.  Faded rain-coat like sheet for table cloth created a peculiar ambience to the dining space, so did the motley crowd assembled in the dining room on that evening. Their reactions gave no indication of what was to come, they were deeply engrossed in either the food or the conversation. I wished it was the former, and I still didn't know anything about sope? 

Here is a link to the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sope

For those lazy people, here is a brief:

A sope is a traditional Mexican dish.The base is made from a circle of fried masa of ground maize soaked in lime with pinched sides. This is then topped with refried black beans and crumbled cheese, lettuce, onions, red or green sauce (salsa, made with chiles or tomatillos respectively), and acidified cream. Sometimes other ingredients (mostly meat) are also added to create different tastes and styles of sopes. Sopes are roughly the size of a fist.

 Thankfully, my apprehensions were proven wrong with the first bite; the chicken couldn't be any better, the avocado and lettuce made up for the healthy greenery, and a dash of habanero made my tongue sweat like a dog on a summer day, and I liked it. I thought about the times I had to eat bland chicken, so utterly tasteless that I could have chewed on a used chewing gum instead. So why did you buy that bland chicken, you might ask, what if I say the other options were dried up bread and stale saltless french fries? 

 As they say, it is the worst in everyday life that allows us to appreciate the good things that come our way once in a while. How liberating is knowing that your next bite would be as good as the last one? It is like eating a good Sope. 

A special dinner

  I'm at a Thai restaurant on Hillsborough road. I have been here several times, and every time I had had crispy duck with white rice. It is no different this time, it has become my usual. But tonight is different, and special.

  The restaurant wall is adorned with paintings, they remind me of Hindu mythological figures - slender, and longish faces with layers of gold ornaments, unlike the more muscular, and rounded Greek and Roman mythological figures. From the high ceiling, a thin yellow light fall on the white table clothes in front of me, ice is melting in a large bottomed wine glass on the round table.I'm waiting for the crispy duck to arrive.

   An east Asian lady wearing a wide smile in a silk dress placed the crispy duck with a bowl of rice on my table. A slow melodic Thai tune is playing in the background, and for the special part of the day - I'm alone. I'm eating alone; there is no one at my table, there is no one else in the entire restaurant. I ate for a long time, nibbling and enjoying every morsel of my dinner. My mind was blank, in the moment, so much like the definition of 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I was alone with the ducks, rice and broccoli in front of me, moments away from becoming one.

  The old lady came back with the check and a fortune cookie - an expensive dinner. I opened the cookie to see my fortune, " Your winsome smile will be your sure protection" I didn't have a good week, but I realized I like myself, I like to be with myself for a change. I should do this more often.

Turkish coffee in a tiny white cup

  I love coffee, from South Indian filter coffee to American espresso. They say, coffee is the second-biggest traded commodity after oil, but getting a satisfying cup of coffee is no less an act than finding inspiration to write a poem. In search of the best coffee , or coffee that suits my palette best, I'd tried bitterest of coffee powders, only to realize that the dark roast, or the soft roast was not for me, I like something in between - the medium roast, although not completely satisfied, that was what I settled for, until today afternoon.

  At a vegetarian Bistro at St.Pete, after a sumptuous lunch, the waiter placed tiny white cups with a picture of cute floppy puppy on the table. And minutes later,  he came down with a large steel vessel filled with piping hot coffee, the aroma of the vapors filled the entire room in a flash, it was as if I were dreaming in coffee, I was insanely intoxicated.

  One sip, I had finally found the perfect blend, strong but not bitter, sweet but not syrupy, flavorful but not overpowering; a coffee that your soul will yearn forever - the Turkish coffee. If you love coffee, you will die for a cup of well-made Turkish coffee. I felt so intoxicated that I didn't drink or eat anything after that cup of coffee, just so that I could retain the taste and the flavor as long as possible. Four hours since that cup of coffee, I still feel the remnants of the flavor in the corners my tongue, and I'm ready to even skip my dinner if I can have it for longer.

  I didn’t ask the host how the coffee was made, but had I inquired, the chirpy host that he was, he would have said: 'We are not Starbucks, we don't sell coffee in a Styrofoam box; we make coffee for the soul and serve it in puppy printed ceramic cups.' He did dispense the secret of tiny bits of cardamom in the Turkish coffee, which was unrecognizable even after his grand revelation.
  
  The recipe is out there on the internet, making such highly specialized coffee requires special equipment and a much harder commodity – the experience to blend it the right way. All I could do is to drive down 25 kilometers once in a while to St.Pete to have that wondrous coffee. Would you care to join me?

I forget

I forget. I forget to switch off the headlights of my car. I've had this car for less than six months. I have also dried up the battery three times in those six months. That’s about once every two months, in spite of being cautious and completely aware of my problems with lights. I know I forget, but I also forget that I forget.

The first time it occurred, it was ten in the night. Who in the right mind would forget to switch off lights in such utter darkness? I did, probably it was a full moon day. I called up the insurance company to fix the dead battery. The battery was not dead that it cannot come alive, the battery was just in a coma state, like those heroes in the tragic movies who wake up to say the final lines after the heroine shed drops of tears in despair. I waited for my car’s heroine to bring it out from coma. She arrived — the car doctor, in a funky car that shouted ‘I LOVE PINK and I'm blind to all the other colors’ and pulled out a red box much like a doctor’s defibrillator.

The car came alive, puffing, panting and ready to run around. Like any other car doctor, she advised me to keep the car running for at least twenty minutes before asking me to sign a bunch of papers. Then you tip her, attend automated phone calls to provide feedback hoping that the insurance company is tracking all your wonderful feedbacks that will eventually turn into a sizable discount the next time you renew. Or you’ll probably find them expensive and switch to a new insurance provider, who' will charge you for the crow-shit on the passenger side door-handle.

If I can forget to switch off the light at night, I can do it in the broad daylight too. To be really honest, there was n’t much daylight on that foggy, rainy morning. I parked my car under the usual tree that gave reasonable shade in the insanely hot parking lot. The office parking lot is humongous, and with all the cars humming all the time, it is no place for humming birds or human beings. It is so hot that you might wonder if the Sun is somehow closer to the parking lot than the rest of the places in the world. It is hot enough to turn an egg into an omelet if you don't mind your dashboard getting a little sticky and smelly.

On that rainy day, when my battery went into a coma state for the second time, I had borrowed a colorful umbrella from a colleague at office. That is also the day I understood the logic of why people buy kaleidoscopic umbrellas. I just had to say, “Look for a rainbow in the parking lot” to the car-doctor who had no trouble in finding me in that parking lot. He came in a flashy car, and he promptly finished his defibrillation even before I closed my flashy umbrella. Now I had to tip him. I wondered why I should tip a guy who came in a maroon Challenger when I rode a marooned so called car. Oh- what the heck, I paid him. You don't get to tip to people who are richer than you every day.

The third time hasn't occurred yet. But it has occurred many times within my subconscious. I wake up in the middle of the night, I ponder about the time I parked my car at the community where I live. I probably won't remember much apart from dinner. Anyway,I grab the keys from the porcelain bowl at the door and run to the parking lot only to breathe a sigh of relief. The car would be perfectly okay. I had switched it off when I parked it.

I know that it serves no purpose to get excited in the middle of the night, the battery would be either in a coma-state or in perfect condition, and it wouldn't matter much if I continued to sleep, but I forget. I forget that there is only a thin line between what you are aware and what you think you are aware.

David vs Goliath - Who was the real underdog?

The Giant stood at the valley, dressed in full armor and carrying weapons for close combat. The short sharp spear, a javelin and a shiny sword made of bronze. An attendant stood in front of him.

“Choose a man and let him come down to me. If he prevails in battle and strike me down, we shall be slaves to you. But If I prevail and strike him down, you shall be our slaves," shouted the Giant, standing almost 7 foot tall and as thick as the bark of the thickest tree in the world.

 Nobody moves, the Giant was intimidating; they had no chance in front of him. That is when the underdog shows up, an unassuming shepherd boy with a sling for weapon –David. 

 The king is not willing to send David to his death, but David’s words are very persuasive “I've slayed wild animals to protect my sheep, the Giant can’t be worse than that."  It doesn't matter to David that the wild animals were unarmed. David prepares to face the ultimate favorite – as the world will know.

Goliath bellows, “Come to me, Come to me.”

David runs down the valley, with a stick in his hand, and sling in the other hand. As he runs forward, he whips his sling several times around his shoulder, Goliath moves slowly, his movements are particularly slow for a warrior. His attendant warns him of the impending danger, the Giant doesn't heed to his attendant’s words - after all he is the ultimate favorite against a puny shepherd.

Goliath is amused, “Am I a dog that you should come with sticks?”

 In few minutes Goliath will realize what a sling can do. The speed of a rock from an expert sling projector is almost equal to a modern short gun, the closer he is to the Giant, the harder the impact. David is running in as fast as he could, he is taking his aim at the only vulnerable spot of the armored suit – Goliath’s forehead, for he had a prominent forehead.

The rest is his history. That’s the story, but what if we are missing some crucial links? What if David was the favorite to begin with?

  Modern medical science says that abnormal size of human beings can be connected to Acromegaly – a disease caused by uncontrolled pituitary gland secretion. The side effects include - vision problems such as blurring and double vision apart from abnormal body size and clumsy movement control. Goliath was probably a gentle Giant with partial vision, the attendant was his visual aid – the opponent’s strategy was not to fight the battle, but to win by intimidation.

 Acromegaly explains Goliath’s words at the battle field – both his strengths and his weakness. What we perceived as his strength - his enormous size, and what we didn't know about him -his weakness - the poor vision.

He said, ‘Come to me, come to me,’ because his vision is blurred and he couldn't see objects far away from him. He doesn't see David, he just sees a blur.

He said, "Am I a dog that you should come with sticks?” But David had only one stick, unless he had another hand to hold the sling. Could it be double vision?

What’s in it for me?

 This is a profound story of perspective change - a complete shift in basic understanding of a well- known scenario in new light. Imagine you are trying to convince a very stubborn person to look at alternatives. What if he is completely closed to options outside his own? Now, I’m assuming that you are able to tell this story to the stubborn person with enough flamboyance to eke out some reaction. It doesn’t matter if the reaction is overly aggressive or defensive; a reaction is all that matters. He may not even fully accept the shift of David’s character from an underdog to the favorite. He might even question the validity of the modern extrapolations on a biblical story. 

    

      Nonetheless, this story will definitely open a small possibility for an alternative to your original problem.  Subconsciously, this story will prepare him for the other alternatives. He will begin to question his options; can there be another way to look at his options? That moment of doubt is the perfect place to present your alternatives. Such is the power of a good story, the fastest way to get in touch with the subconscious of the audience. 

Conclusion:

It is true that history is written by the winners. The more dramatic the story is, the better the longevity of the characters. The story of the underdog David against the Giant Goliath is much more appealing and inspiring than a gentle giant slayed by a clever trick on a battlefield.

We often forget to compare the strength and weakness in terms of known factors. The sling made David the real favorite. Goliath had as much chance as a knight with a knife against the revolver of a rebel.

At times, what we perceive as strength is the source of the very vulnerability that is hidden at first sight. Complacency and confidence are just hair-strand apart.

Reference: “David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell”

Disclaimer:  What’s in it section is based my own assumptions and understanding. If you have time and money, you are welcome to conduct experiments to disapprove that. 

Troublesome tables

There was this girl who worked with DBA team in my company. 

She was so bad at her work that she replied, 

‘I’m not good with carpentry,’ to a request for creating a simple table with five columns. 

 Her next question to the requester proved to be much more insightful about her capacity to surprise the most calmest, ‘Why do you need five columns in the first place?  The tables usually come with four legs.’ The requester is still rolling on the floor and has never been able to come out of the terrible trauma. 

  She was not joking; she also didn't realize that the joke was on her. Poor soul, within a week, she was so fed up with troublesome table related queries that she stopped eating on dining tables and decided to take her life standing on a large table. Regrettably, she couldn't even do that, for she forgot to commit the suicide.

Disclaimer:

It is just a joke. Please don't sue me. I have no tables at home.

Look up ! Into the clouds

On the very first day, I realized what I’m going to love about Florida, it is not the people, it is not the weather, of course it is not the work. It is the clouds of Florida.

  The clouds in Florida are like fluffy white cotton candy balls held from an enormous blue hanger of sky. Shape shifting polar bears roaming so close to the ground, so close that you can almost touch it with your bare hands.  At times they are scary, the times when they feel like  monstrous white cloth waiting to engulf your tiny being. See the first photo, don't they look like a monster?

  Some of the clouds are angry, and they cry aloud with tantrums– it rains with thunderstorms and lightening. Once they stop crying, they become as white as dove in a blue field. Some of them turn red  and pink with the mood of the sun at dawn and dusk. The cloud in the second photo might have been in a romantic mood, blushing in baby pink.

Of course not everyone enjoys cloud watching or appreciate it,I did n’t enjoy gazing at the clouds for more than a quarter of a century, I did n’t even know that it could be a serious hobby. Is there something called a serious hobby in the first place? 

There is always atime and place for everything, after all appreciation is just an extension of your life experience, the reflection of your perceptions. Why don’t you look up into the clouds next time you are out in the streets?

    

Are you a puppet or a puppeteer - Playing the victim

There are no two kinds of manipulators, only one kind – the kind who plays the victim. It is incredibly hard to spot them, because they appear so much like real victims.

  At times even they are unaware about their poisonous skills, but they take pride in achieving their goals. They always work with the end in mind  - one of Stephen Covey’s seven effective habits. Every little action, often done slowly and steadily takes them closer to their ultimate goal– to extract something from someone.

  "Playing the victim" type of manipulation involves the manipulator telling the actual victim that he feels guilty about the bad things he did, although he will continue to do the bad thing, and constantly crib and repeat how guilty he feels for doing that.

 For eg: He will tell you that he had a poor upbringing, bad relatives and a difficult life all along- the reason why he is taking drugs or the reason why he did that terrible thing to a friend.You get hooked because his troubles are much worse than yours. 

  You feel bad for him, nothing wrong, it is only human nature to feel bad and sympathize when you hear a sad story. But often their stories are not true, or they are embellished versions of a small incident, or a stroy borrowed from a real sufferer.

 In reality the manipulator feels very little to zero guilt, but the actual victim feels sorry for the manipulator, thinking that the manipulator is the victim. The actual victim slowly falls for the whims of the manipulator, the web of the manipulator grows slowly and steadily. He will take things slowly, never rush you into things, and probably behave in an admirable way at unexpected situations. 

  That way he builds a sense of awe and in turn develop the most important trait of a manipulator - credibility. Rarely do we associate credibility with a manipulator, as a converse anyone with credibility has even fewer association with manipulator. That's the strength of a master manipulator, and that makes him very difficult to spot.

 Once the credibility is achieved, he will begin his manipulation with a renewed vigor, by this time the victim has reached a level of hypnosis - the inertia moves the victim forward. 

  As with Newton's First law, without an external force - a third person or an awareness about such manipulators, the victim continues to remain in the grips of the manipulator. The only exception is the completion of the goals of the manipulator. 

  At that instant, the victim is unceremoniously dropped out , and often ostracized by the manipulator. The victim continues to be in dark about what had happened.     

This is from one of the case studies

This is about a man who had actively participated with two others in the vicious bludgeoning of his victim. When questioned about the motivation for his act, he complained that he had no idea how the vivid memories of the event had haunted him and that he would probably have to live with them for the rest of his life. 

 All of a sudden, don't you feel tempted to feel somewhat sorry for him. Here he was, a vicious killer with a long history of cruelty to others, and he was beginning to appear as a victim of post-traumatic stress. 

That's playing victim. Only a very experienced manipulator can pull it off. And some of us might have even played it at a very innocent level.

  When the manipulator casts themselves as a victim, they don’t really see themselves as victimized, they just really want the other person to see them as wounded, injured, or suffering in some way in order to elicit sympathy, cloud the picture about just who is the victimizer and who is the victim.

Have you met anyone like that? 

Case study reference:

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2009/03/16/playing-the-victim/