It so happened that during my fourth year at IIT there was an ODI series between Australia and Zimbabwe – a classic case of ruthless extermination, if there was one. In the second match of the series at Harare on 23rd October, 1999, with Damien Fleming bowling to David Mutendra (the No. 11 batsman), Steve Waugh decided to try his mental disintegration and packed the slip cordon with 9 fielders (the maximum possible):
Australia vs Zimbabwe - 9 slips (If you know the source let me know)
This was the first and to date only time that such a field setting has been employed in ODI cricket. On the day after this match I recall the Times of India reporting this incident and stating:
Such a tactic had been used earlier in a test by Greg Chappell against New Zealand. At that time the bowler was Dennis Lillee and the batsman was not a tailender, but the top order batsman Glenn Turner.
This tidbit became a rage with trivia buffs and people would ask you to identify the batsman and the bowler from this picture:
Australia vs New Zealand- 9 slips (Source: Wisden Asia Cricket, July 2003)
The answer, as I always knew, was Glenn Turner and Dennis Lillee. Then I started subscribing to Wisden Asia Cricket in April 2003. The July issue of the magazine had the above picture and the following story as recollected by Lillee himself:
Australia were playing New Zealand in the second test at Auckland in 1977. We were heading for an easy win with more than two days to spare. It was the centenary year and Greg Chappell was about to bring out his book, ‘The 100th Summer’. He had a photographer standing by for the right opportunity, and when their No. 11, Peter Petherick the offspinner, came out, Chappell called all the guys in. I ended up bowling to nine slips, but it was a pretty poor ball. As you can see, Marshy [Rod Marsh] had to go down the leg side to collect. I was trying too hard I suppose. Petherick wasn’t the greatest batsman in the world, but I didn’t get him out for a while that day.
So the answer should have been Dennis Lillee bowling to Peter Petherick! I realized almost four years late that TOI had been misleading.
I have seen several instances where newspapers (and reputed journalists) get their facts wrong. The Times of India is notorious for this. I recently read the film reviewer Nikhat Kazmi claiming that Slumdog Millionnaire was set to become the 4th highest grossing movie of all time worldwide, while the truth is that it was/is nowhere in the top 100.
Indian journalists are notoriously lax in their research, perhaps taking Indian readers for granted. Maybe that is why plagiarists run amok in the Bollywood music industry, because if the journalists did their homework properly and branded every plagiarist a cheat, things would be so much better.
In continuance of my previous “Who Died …” post, here are a few more gaffes
At roughly the same time as Sehwag’s mother, Reliance hit upon another catchphrase – “Kabhi mobile, kabhi computer”, to highlight the fact that the phone was capable of a lot more than just making calls. This was actually a pretty good line. However, as is bound to happen with new technology, the phones faced teething problems. One of the problems was that they would overheat quite alarmingly. So the users started saying, “Kabhi mobile, kabhi toaster” (Sometimes a mobile, sometimes a toaster)
I had bought a motorbike in Bangalore in mid-2000. If you are familiar with the lay of Bangalore, you will know that Brigade Road is one-way in its most glamorous section and two-way in a section that few people know even exists – the place in front of All Saints Bakery / Sparks / Urban Edge. My office happened to be in Raheja Chancery, the building opposite All Saints. To get there you would have to pass All Saints, take a U-turn and go about 50m. Or you could cheat and go about 10m on the wrong side of the road, thereby saving yourself around 100m of driving distance. So, with a new bike and nary a care, I cheated. And then a traffic cop stopped me. A lot of Indian traffic cops are out to make a quick buck and would not hesitate to fine you (or take a bribe) even if you have done no wrong. I was a clear offender, so I knew I had it coming. What ensued next was the most interesting conversation
Cop: What were you doing?
Me: I was in a hurry
Cop: So?
Me: So I thought that I maybe I could take the short cut…
Cop: And?
Me: Well, there was no traffic coming in this direction and it was only around 10m
Cop: Are you educated or uneducated?
If you are wondering, the small font is not a formatting error. It is just that my deep baritone voice had become more mouse-like than I thought humanly possible. And after the last question I had no voice left. I have been called a lot of things in my life, but somehow this was worse than everything else put together. I could only look on sheepishly as the cop let me off without even a fine. After that incident I haven’t ever driven on the wrong side of the road – even if there is nobody watching.
The socials happened the weekend before 14th Feb and we had exams from 12th to 14th Feb. So I happened to be calling her on the day right after Valentine’s Day. We talked for a while, then came the topic of what we did on our respective Valentine’s Days. I complained about being stuck in an exam. And then:
She: Oh, I did not do anything. I am not … Valentine
Me: Yeah, precisely.
She: (a long pause)
Me (thinking): Oh S***!! Did I really say that?
The “…” is because I could not understand what she had said at that point. This is often the case with old payphones in India – the slightest disturbance in the phone’s machinery can result in an onslaught of static. I responded with what seemed like an absolutely reasonable response. It is only during her pause that I figured out what was said in the ellipsis. She had said, “I am not anybody’s idea of a perfect Valentine”. It goes without saying that we didn’t have any further conversations after that.
Maria Sharapova once remarked regarding her clay-court play: “I am like a cow on ice”. You could probably apply the same analogy to my dancing. During a Deloitte party in Hyderabad I was asked by a lady to dance with her. In spite of my protestations regarding my complete lack of grace in this department, she dragged me on to the dance floor. Compounding the situation was the fact that I was wearing a kurta-pyjama and chappals. A little while later she burst out laughing at my discomfort and kindly accompanied me off the floor. Since she was a friend of mine I didn’t have to endure any embarrassing remarks from her.
Somehow the instinct that makes you want to dance is completely absent in me. As a result I have had to learn some typical dance moves that help me live to die of shame some other day. Folks might be familiar with the roti belna (where you pretend you are using a rolling pin to flatten out dough, then pretend to toss the flattened dough from one hand to the other), kite flying (where you imagine that you are holding the twine for flying a kite and tug at it over your head first on the right side and then on the left), toweling dry (where you think that you are holding a towel in both your hands and wiping your back dry) and some other such moves.
I was, however, certified a disaster on the dance floor long before I learnt the face-saving moves. During my first Rendezvous in 1996 I was generally impressed with the droves of young ladies paying a visit to the IIT-D cultural festival. My friends and I would hear some guy bragging about how well he it it off with some visitor and would privately wish that guy a slow, painful and girl-free death. Come the last day of Rendezvous, it was time for some drastic measures. My friend Ahuja and I were dancing at the podium, hoping to spot some unsuspecting girls whom we could subject to our torturous dancing. We did manage to find one such pair and danced for about 10 minutes, after which they excused themselves. We high-fived our way back to the hostel, finally having something to brag about.
The next day I bicycled to class, while Ahuja took the bus. Lo and behold! Who should he see there, but the two people who we danced with! One of the girls happened to spot Ahuja and immediately started talking loudly enough for him to hear:
You know ya? We were at the podium last night and these two guys came up to us and asked for a dance. Those two had no clue about what they were doing and were clapping their hands and pumping their fists as though they were happy to see us dance. Those dumbos didn’t know how to dance at all.
Naturally I heard this by proxy, but it was embarrassing enough to be told to the whole hostel. I remain a dumbo to this day – Tanuka will vouch for that.
Back in 1988 we were making our entry into the fifth standard (fifth grade for Yanks). This was of special significance to students in India, for we were graduating from using pencils for writing to using pens. At that point the choice was between fountain pens and ballpoint pens.
Given the fact that most of us were from a middle class upbringing, the best fountain pens those days used to be the black-body gold-cap “Hero” and “Wing Sung” pens that came with the inscription, “MADE IN CHINA”. In the days prior to the market liberalization it seemed a privilege to possess one of these, which, even today would rival several others in terms of the quality and ease of writing.
There were the rest of the folks who would use ballpoint pens – Reynolds (“Fine Carbure”) was a rage those days. Most people would agree that penmanship was undoubtedly better with a fountain pen, but then would actually use a ballpoint simply because it was easier to use. You never had the problem of a leaky pen and you didn’t have to cope with the growing pains of broken nibs.
But somehow I always liked fountain pens. Never mind the fact that the ones we had were often of poor quality, which more often than not resulted in a mess. Once you got used to them, however, you could actually notice a significant difference in your handwriting. Fountain pens gave you a lot of control while writing, and moreover, since you were always concerned about them leaking, you paid that little extra bit of attention to them. I do recall, though, alternating between fountain pens and ballpoints, depending on what I felt like at that point. Somehow in exams critical to me I always ended up using a ballpoint – the board exams of Class X, the board exams of Class XII, IIT-JEE and all other entrance exams. The reasons are not hard to fathom:
Fast-forward to my professional career – almost. I did purchase a “Hero” during my summer internship at TCS/TRDDC Pune in 1999. This was my only “indulgence” in a summer of frugality. It was the first time I was being paid for work and out of my total earnings of Rs. 5,900/- for the entire 2 months, I was able to pay rent, buy train tickets for the journey back home, purchase breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, manage bus tickets for a daily commute, buy a waterproof jacket to shelter myself from the rain, buy a “Hero” pen and save Rs. 50/-!! I somehow never ended up using the pen too much.
Then came 2004. My project team decided to gift me a Parker. I was so touched by the gesture that I decided to start using the pen right away. I did use this quite extensively for the next year or so. I do remember conversations in this vein:
Somebody: Can I borrow a pen?
Me: Sure, here you are
Somebody: What the…? What kind of a pen is this? You use a fountain pen??!!
Me: Yes, that way if you inadvertently walk away with the pen you know later who you took it from!
This works. Everytime. My romance with the Parker came to an end when the cap and the body developed a crack. So I was on the hunt again and got a really expensive “Senator”. I was really happy with this one, till the mechanism I used for refills clogged. And then I got myself a Lamy, which I have been quite content using for the last year or so.
However, it is a sign of another malaise that in my one year with this pen I have had to refill it only once. Naturally I was quite annoyed with myself when I saw that I was out of ink when I desperately needed to complete the Sudoku on my flight from Austin to San Jose last evening. This, and a host of other incidents on my trip to Austin prompted me to write this.
In this age of the internet, laptops and PDAs, we really have no time for the old-fashioned letter to friends and relatives. If we don’t have someone’s email address we lose all contact with him / her, never mind the fact that we know where exactly this person lives. All it would take, though was to simply put pen to paper. My dear friend Ahuja, on my just concluded trip to Austin gave me copies of two letters that I had written to him back in the days of IIT. The originals were printouts of what I had typed out and sent to him by snail-mail. You see, we had computers those days, but not internet. The printouts sent me on another train of thought. There was a time when I used to write at least two letters by hand each week. Two letters each week! I was regular, I had good style and most importantly I had a great handwriting. At present I probably write one letter every two years. My emails are by no means regular. And my style of writing has deteriorated to an alarming extent.
Has technology pushed us so far back? I recently wrote in a post that children today are missing out on the undiluted thrill of turning the pages of a book. I would like to take it a step further and state that adults today are missing out on the good and effective means of keeping in touch in trying to keep up with their work. Perhaps that is why the sound of the scratch of the nib of a fountain on a sheet of paper seems so nostalgic to me.
Here are a few things that really make you question the infinite sagacity of the folks in charge
No, you read it right. If there is anything I loathe about the US it is the healthcare system. For a country that is advanced in almost every sense, it is surprising how they have let the healthcare structure run amok like a rabid dog.
My first experience with the healthcare system was when I developed a carbuncle on my jaw, that made things so painful that I couldn’t open my mouth. I had driven to Orange County from the bay area and the pain kept progressively growing by the time I got to the destination. I tried the different home-grown remedies, all of which would gross out readers with fine sensibilities, so I will not describe them here. My friends felt sorry for me and suggested that I go to the ER to get it treated. So we went there. On the way I enquired from my friends about the typical cost of getting treated. This was the response:
With insurance it takes about $20-40. In the ER it will probably be around $80-100. Without insurance it would probably come to around $200.
I had travel insurance, but my employer had a funny way of working in these matters, so I actually did not have the insurance information at hand. Fair enough – $200 is something that I could afford and later get reimbursed. I kept thinking on the way that if this was India, I wouldn’t have to go to the ER. Almost every hospital has a doctor on call almost all the time. And it would not cost more than Rs. 200/- to get this treated. But I guess this is the price you pay for living in the richest country. We got to the hospital and met the doctor. He essentially tried the same home-grown treatments that I had used a lot more effectively than him, then gave me some Vicodine and sent me off saying that there was nothing he could do. So I went out to make the payment. The receptionist asked me if I had insurance, to which I replied in the negative. So she ran through some numbers and very graciously said:
OK, so I applied a 40% discount and this is your invoice.
$1,350.00. I am usually a calm and collected individual. So my first instinct was to take my glasses off, wipe them clean and put them back on. No, it was still $1,350.00. After a 40% discount. For those feeling too lazy to do the arithmetic, the original amount was $2,100.00. Again, displaying every inch of my calm and collected personality I took out my corporate card and paid the bill. After all, I was on a tour and my employer had failed to provide me the insurance information. To my credit I avoided freaking out. As soon as I got internet access I wrote an email to my employer outlining what had happened. I was given an assurance that this wouldn’t be a problem so the issue was taken care of. About a month after I had returned to India I received a letter saying that I owed the doctor for his services – another $695.00. So to fail to treat a carbuncle it takes $2,045.00. I could have flown to India and back, gotten much better treatment, rented a car for a few weeks and taken all my friends out to a lavish dinner and still have money to spare.
My second experience was in Chicago, again during a weekend, but arguably more painful. I had developed extreme discomfort and a sharp pain in my stomach which prevented me from sitting, standing, eating and sleeping. Essentially it had rendered me useless. This time, though, I made sure that I had my insurance information. I also tried to first get a regular appointment, but it was just after the offices had closed, so I again had to go to the ER. Suffice to say that after around 7 hours of mucking around with CT scans, Ultrasounds etc. the best they came up with was – yes, Vicodine. Never mind the fact that I tried to explain to them that this was probably an ulcer, given that the first occurrence of the discomfort was when I ate something. No recommendations about how this could get better. And then came the other shocker. They could not locate my insurance benefits. Luckily they said that I would have to call them in a few days about the invoice. I did, and figured out that using my SSN they had managed to bill my insurance company. They weren’t able to do it earlier because my SSN and insurance were both pretty new. Later I got my Explanation of Benefits from the insurer and found that my 7 hours in ER had a total cost of around $9,000.00. I would also have had to be treated for cardiac arrest at the time of treatment if I had known of this amount.
The third experience was with a doctor in the bay area. Fortunately this trip was not within miles of an ER. But the doctor was a quack masquerading as a hypochondriac. This was the gist of my conversation with him:
Quack: Your blood pressure is off the charts. You have the BP of a 60-year old
Me: OK
Quack: Does anyone in your family have a high BP?
Me: Well, my father developed it recently, but he is past 60.
Quack: Oh, but being 60 shouldn’t affect pressure – so it is hereditary in your case.
Me: What the hell are you talking about??!!
Well, I didn’t really say that last bit aloud, because my calm and collected personality intervened. This quack has put me on hypertension meds and cholestrol meds and claims that I am borderline diabetic. Weird, since the tests show all results as normal. Yes, my BP was high, but that was directly correlated to my stress levels those days. Of course, this may simply be a problem with this doctor, but the trend is disturbing. All doctors I have been treated by seemed way below standard. Agreed that the ER doctors specialize in trauma, but I would expect at least some basic knowledge of other branches of medicine. In the case of my stomach ailment they couldn’t even suggest that I go to a gastroenterologist or get an endoscopy later.
When you fall ill there are several hurdles that you have to think through
Why does the whole process of getting treated have to be so convoluted? When I was in the UK I had to go to a hospital for treatment. The process was slow, but that was to be expected since I had gone after hours. But what I really liked is that the person treating me knew her stuff inside out. She laid out all the options in front of me in a clear and succinct manner. And it didn’t cost me a thing. But the cost is not a big factor. I am a firm believer in paying a person commensurate to the services / goods received. But nothing in the US healthcare system inspires that kind of a wish. Truth be said, things are not always bad in terms of the doctors. I have seen doctors much more proficient at work here. But given the amount of money that they make, I would hope that the average standard would be a lot higher. I have had much better care at Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital in Hyderabad, which is a government-run hospital, than I have had in the U.S. of A. Since the healthcare industry in this country is effectively run by insurers, you had better start your daily apple to avoid the insurers.
