A rare gem in Indian sports arena

IPL has popularised cricket more than ever before. Even bits and pieces players like Jakati, Saurabh Tiwary, Abhishek Jhunjunwala, Asgonkar, Trivedi, Bisla are household names now. Nothing wrong with that as BCCI, first during Dalmiya period and later during Pawar's period, and now Lalit Modi has managed to package the product extremely well so much so that IPL has the second spot amongst franchisee based sports worldwide, after NBA and ahead of EPL. Good luck to them.

But there are quiet achievers on the Indian sports arena, especially on the distaff side. Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika, Chess Grandmasters are the prominent amongst them. Sania Mirza showed lot of promise but then withered away. She reached a peak ranking of late 20's a couple of years back, but is languishing now amonst the backpack. She is in the news these days for wrong reasons regarding her personal life than for her tennis.

The person who has quietly made tremendous progress as a world class sportswoman from India is the Badminton Ace, Saina Nehwal. Just 19, she has already achieved a career high ranking of 5 and is currently the 6th best player in the World. She was awarded Padmasree and comes across as a very intelligent, hard working, dedicated sports person who has her head screwed in the right places. While Sania has hogged all the limelight for achieving much less, Saina has gone miles ahead of her in achievement in the sports field.

Not many know that gut wrenching hard work goes into making of a world champion. Listen to Saina "Everyday is a gruelling nine-ten hours schedule except perhaps Sundays. My day begins at 7.30 am with training and is divided into sessions with fellow players and my coach Gopichand till about evening. And that's just on-court. Off-court activities involve extensive physical training at the gym and stamina-building exercises"

She is also very balanceed and sensible for someone who is just 19.... "First, be fair to yourself and ask whether you really want to take up sports, professionally. Even if you don't intend to play professionally, definitely play to keep fit and for your health. If you are a natural in the game, then work hard, practise every day. But come what may, don't leave your studies. If you want to play professional sports, make sure you maintain a balance between playing and your education"

Her achievement is no mean feat, considering her rivals - the chinese, indonesians and the koreans. These countries have tremendous badminton infrastructure and State support. As against this, Saina had to fend for herself and she has come up, despite the badly managed Indian Badminton Federation. She had the fortune to be tutored by the All England Champion, Gopichand, and her ranking was earned brick by brick through sheer consistent top class badminton. She won the World Junior Championship in 2008 and the tough Indonesial Open last year.

May her tribe increase.

'Fire Engine'

It is alright to make a car, but there should not be any compromise on basic safety and quality. Toyota is paying a heavy price for brushing under the carpet safety related issues and may have lost its market leadership status forever. Built on the promise of a no nonsence quality value for money premise, Toyota has been on a downward spiral since the news of its sudden accelaration problems started hitting the newschannels.

The original peoples car was the wonderful Volkswagon Beetle. The car was an engineering marvel, an epitome of German technology. I can vouch for it because I drove one for 2o years. The car was strong as an ox and efficient as a beever. That is also why the car, manufactured first during WW II, lasted seven decades with minimum changes.

Tata Nano is touted as the modern people's car. The ultimate aspirational product for the teeming lower middle class at an affordable price of Rs 1 lakh plus taxes. But there is a worry that not all is quite so right with Tata Nano. Electrical short circuits, wires melting and other issues have plagued the car from day one. These were pooh-poohed as teething problems. But now, during the third week of March 2010, disaster struck.

A family of husband, wife and 5 year old son were driving home a brand new Nano from the showroom and ecstatic about it when the car burst into flames (see picture above). Fortunately, the family escaped unhurt but has vowed never to buy another car in their life. All Tata offered to do was to either replace the car or give a refund - but what about the compensation for the trauma suffered by the family? Tata is silent on this and has treated the whole issue in a cavalier fashion, quite unbecoming of a Brand known for its customer care. The link below gives the whole story, including the bland letter from Tata and I am sure you would share my outrage at the way the company has treated such a serious incident. Why is it that, in India, people have to die before someone sits up and takes notice of things?Tata is lucky that this happened in India or else they would have had to pay multi million dollar damages.

The whole story in the words of the customer plus the atrocious response from Tata can be found in the link http://www.mid-day.com/news/2010/mar/250310-santosh-purushottam-sawant-tata-nano-fire-mulund.htm

Is Tata falling into the trap of 'chalta hai' attitude of Indians?

Courage in the face of adversity

Courage in the face of adversity is wonderful and the field of sports is replete with stories of how sportsmen overcame personal tragedies for the greater cause of the team. Who can forget Anil Kumble, jaw broken by a bouncer wired together, face covered with bandages and body pumped with pain killing injections, walking out to bowl a memorable spell in West Indies in a Test Match? Then there was Sachin Tendulkar, in a world cup match, a day after he lost his father, coming out and scoring a century. Lance Armstrong, the legendary cyclist, overcoming cancer to win multiple Tour de France. Then there is Phil Mickelson, the then No.2 Golfer behind Tiger Woods in 2009. During the year, he heard the shattering news of his wife Amy having breast cancer, and then later in the year, his mother Mary also being diagnosed with breast cancer. Shattering for any man, but Mickelson is made of sterner stuff. He put aside his personal problems and roared back with magnificent golf during the later part of 2009 to earn the respect of one and all. But all the above pales in comparison to what happened to young Bob Blair, a 21 year old New Zealand Cricketer who was touring South Africa in 1953. The melancholy of the situation is poignant.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/sport/3481631/Kiwi-courage-at-its-best

Imagine knowing you have lost your beloved, and then continue getting letters from her, written before she has died!!

Very often we give ridiculous excuses for not completing our tasks. Before you think of doing that next time, remember the story of Bob Blair. At least, it will make us all better human beings.

Choice of Colours of Dress

I have always wondered at the diversity of India. Have travelled a lot in my teens and early 20's. The journey from lush green Kerala, to the buzzing national capital in Kerala Express, through the dry, barren Tamil Nadu, the black soils of the western and central India, through the mountaineous terrain covered with distant forts in Madhya Pradesh, a glimpse of the majestic Taj at a distance in Agra - the 42 hour trip which I made at least twice an year during college days was an excercise in education.

The traditional dresses of people from various States have attracted me. Remember this was a quarter of a century ago, unlike today where the dresses across the country have become more standardised. Those days one can hardly see a churidhar wearing girl in Tamil Nadu or Kerala.

One thing that struck me was how Malayalis prefered white coloured dresses, as depicted by their fondness for mundu set (for ladies), mundu/shirt (for gents) while the Rajastanis wore multicoloured dresses and still more 'colourful' turbans. The Rajastani dress worn by ladies is a riot of colours ( I presume all the Indian film makers who shoot song/dance sequences have been inspired by the Rajastan dress sense ). The contrast is striking.

One reason could be that Kerala has been blessed with so much natural beauty of various hues and shades- from the dark green trees, to the light green paddy fields, to the red hebiscus flower, to the yellow konnappoo, to the colourful dahlias, to the blue sea, to the blue/greyish sky. Hence people living there must have chosen to wear plain white dress as a contrast to the colours around them to make them stand out.

In the case of Rajastan, the nature is dreary- miles and miles of white sand merging with a blue sky with only splattering of while clouds. It could be why the people decided to add some colour to an otherwise dreary canvass by wearing multi-coloured dresses.

Why travel abroad when you need a life time to discover the diversity of our own country and its wonderful people.

More the merrier

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a leader" - John Quincy Adams

'Auto'mate

Egalatarianism is a social philosophy whose ultimate aim is to remove inequalities (economic or otherwise) among the people.


You need tools that facilitate egalatarianism. Socialism, communism, good natured samaritanism all propound the cause of egalatarianism.


I would like to add Internet to this list. When you see the link below, you will know why,


http://www.tuktastic.com/index.htm

Very ingenious way of marketing a commodity and differentiating isn't it?

There are thousands and thousands of autos in Chennai, a town whose auto drivers are notorious for squeezing the passengers. This auto driver, Samson, is really using the power of internet to target western tourists.

As an aside, on the topic of Chennai auto drivers, there is an anecdote. One of my favourite towns, Calicut (Kozhikkode in malayalam) is renowned for the honesty and integrity of the auto drivers. They do not refuse fare nor do they overcharge nor are the meters tampered with. They are also extremely courteous, polite and a lady can safely take any auto in the town even past midnight. Even today, when I drive down to Calicut, I park my car in a hotel, and use auto to commute locally.

Once, as the story goes, a Tamil Nadu minister who happened to visit Calicut was so impressed by the culture of the auto drivers, he asked his Kerala counterpart to send a delegation of Calicut auto drivers to Chennai to teach all the good habits they are known for to the Chennai auto drivers. After a week, the Tamil Nadu minister woke up to a call from the said Kerala Minister, who started abusing him profusely. Reason - after a day or two, the Chennai auto drivers started 'teaching' the Calicut delegation the 'tricks of the trade'

Predictably unpredictable

Many things we foresee in market place dont happen when we think it ought to.

I had predicted to my Cable TV operator in India, way back in 1995, that Cable TV (by which I dont mean satellite TV, but the business model in which a Cable operator supplies to multiple houses) will be a thing of the past by the millineum - to be replaced by Direct To Home television (DTH). The exhorbitant cost of owning a DTH delayed its oncoming by a decade. With Cable operators getting greedy and increasing the monthly rates and with DTH prices coming down drastically, the demise I predicted is finally about to happen.

One of my students did a project on M-Commerce in 2004. We were gung-ho about the prospects of mobile commerce then and predicted that it will revolutionize the way we purchase things. We had predicted then that in a few years we will be ordering through mobile, making payments through it and all we have to do is collect the product. We had also envisaged mobile as a E-wallet, replacing the credit cards. But six years on there is no sign of M-Commerce picking up and the product is nearly dead.

Segway, the personal transporter, was another product that was expected to alter the mobility landscape. Technical and reliability problems, and a high price tag killed the product.

Electric cars replacing Petrol driven vehicles have been talked about since I was doing my MBA. Quarter of a century later, we are still only talking about it, and nothing else.

Video telephony is another concept that was expected to make a significant breakthrough during the last decade. We are still quite far away from making that a commodity product.

Teacher less global education through web - still a long way off. The good old teacher, with all his/her limitations giving lecture is still quite popular. Concepts like E-tuition all died a quiet death after a brief flaring.

Demise of Radio was another prediction that has gone awry. The FM revolution has revived Radio like nothing else. The popularity of local FM stations in rural india needs to be seen to be believed.

Only thing predictable about Market place is that it is unpredictable.