Tributes to Ajit Agarkar – India’s greatest all rounder since Manoj Prabhakar

(Wrote a modified report like version for fakingnews. Not yet published) 

Within 2 days of announcing his retirement, tributes have been flowing in from all quarters for Ajit Agarkar. I decided to do my own bit and collect all the best quotes(jokes) that have ever been showered on Ajit Agarkar. Sources of some of them could have misplaced:

• Had fakingnews, facebook, twitter been this popular 10 years back, Ajit Agarkar would have christened as the original SIR – Sir Ravinder Jadeja

•  He was the best brand ambassador we could ever have. We will never find any other celebrity who was so perfect for endorsing eggs – Chief Marketing Officer – National Egg Coordination Committee

•  Watching Ajit take all those wickets in ODI’s, gave me inspiration. I knew if he could do it, I can as well – Vinay Kumar, India’s premier fast bowler.

• If only an over constituted 5 balls instead of 6, Ajit Agarkar would have ended up as India’s most successful bowler ever. This proves how a stupid rule can change your life – Author of a world famous management book “Randomness of success”

• You will always be my favorite bowler Ajit. Batsmen around the world have missed you since you went out of India reckoning. Its sad now even Ranji trophy batsmen will not get a chance to face you  – Mathew Hayden

• Whenever we needed a wicket and I had no other choice left, I used to look to Agarkar. I knew batsmen will take him lightly and throw their wicket away – Sourav Ganguly

• We pledge today that we will not your legacy down – Ishant Sharma & Ashok Dinda

• His, Sanjay Bangar and my performance were pivotal in India reaching the World Cup Final of 2003 – Parthiv Patel

• Agarkar could have been india’s best ever all rounder. Unfortunately, he had the worst captain during his tenure – Bishan Singh Bedi.

• I saw him on TV, bowling his out swing in same way I used to do it. Then when he came out to bat, he had exactly the same stance. I called my wife from the top floor. Unfortunately, he was out by the time she came down. But she too agreed, yes he plays exactly like you – Manoj Prabhakar, Former India all rounder. 

• It is only because of people like you that people like me are so popular.Thanks Ajit for all the memories - Pagal Patrakar. 

What’s with this crazy fascination for Sachin Tendulkar??

At the outset let me make it clear that I am myself a Sachin Tendulkar fan. I have absolutely loved watching him play over the years and have admired him throughout my life. However, I do not consider him GOD and neither do I think he has been the best player of our generation. Thanks to the above opinion, Sachin “fans” consider me as one of those cynics who unnecessarily criticize Sachin for being useless. I am confused because I am neither here nor there. On the issue of Sachin Tendulkar, I am strictly a fence sitter.

I wrote about it in the past on fakingnews.com. Here is the link to article. http://www.fakingnews.com/2012/04/man-forced-to-attempt-suicide-for-making-an-anti-sachin-comment/

I was actually scared to put it on my own blog as I did not want to respond to ridiculous comments. But what happened today at Kotla today incensed me so much that I chose to write about it again. When Pujara got out, crowd started shouting “Sachin, Sachin” for no apparent reason. Initially, I was extremely amused at the lack of knowledge of these “fans” because Sachin almost never comes out at No 3. The amusement soon turned to anger when Kohli got out. There was huge celebration in the entire ground at the fall of an Indian wicket, which in this case was also a local boy. The match situation itself had turned precarious. Nathan Lyon was in the middle of a very decent spell on a seriously dodgy wicket. Australia was coming back in the test match and one more wicket would have turned the game on its head. But no one seemed to care. All they cared about was their little master coming out to bat. The Indian team’s position was secondary. When Sachin was still on nought, Vijay completed a very well compiled 50. No one seemed to notice. Everyone was concentrating on Sachin getting his first run. Why the hell was his first run so important. It only adds up 1 to the team total. I wanted to shout at the top of my voice and ask the unruly spectators a few questions. With the fear of getting of mobbed, I restrained myself. I would have asked them:

If you want to chose between a and b what will you choose:
                    a. India winning and Sachin scoring a 0
                    b. India losing and Sachin scoring a 100
      When asked in isolation most people will say a, but many of them are the same people who celebrated    Sachin’s 100th 100 in the Asia Cup match which India lost to Bangladesh and went out of the tournament itself. In case you chose b, you are probably not a cricket fan in the first place and watch the game only for Sachin. Hence you can be pardoned.

This mad fascination with individuals and records is perhaps the reason why we don’t do well in other team sports. Cricket is probably the only team sport where individual contribution is so unequivocally honored. Thanks to cricket’s popularity we have produced some of the world’s best cricketers in the past 50 years. Despite this however, we have dominated world cricket (in strictly playing terms) only for very limited periods. If only we respected team performances more than individual contributions we could have become a much greater threat in world cricket. Sigh!!

To end on a lighter note, I can imagine a very young right back growing up in India being hounded with questions like – “So are you a footballer? How many goals have you scored?” The poor kid would find it extremely difficult to explain to people that despite being a footballer his primary responsibility is not scoring a goal. He would probably end up becoming a pathetic striker in a C grade team instead of a world class right back in an A grade team.

Where does Pappu disappear post MBA???

Pappu graduates from an MBA institute with the expectation that he will make far reaching changes at the proverbial “Bottom of the Pyramid”. Sadly, soon after joining a company he realizes that he himself is the “Bottom of the Pyramid”....Anonymous


All of you must have read countless blogs, books, quotes about Pappu’s life at a Bschool. Numerous books with exactly the same content, have been written about life at IIM B, FMS, MDI and each one has sold like hot cakes. Anyone in the outside world would jump at the opportunity of getting rejected by 60 companies in one day and yet have the chance to sit for 60 more companies. Therefore even though presented in a flippant manner, these stories sell. Very rarely would you find a book or blog talking about Pappu’s life once he gets his dream job. Even though you are made to believe so, it's not a case of – “And they lived happily ever after”. It’s a life full of meetings, 12-14 hour work days, travels, sales targets etc. In short, it is too boring for the story to be of any interest to anyone. And thus no one writes about it.

One set of Pappu’s will soon graduate and enter this drab, boring world. Having now spent almost two years here, I thought I can give them some insights that can help them adapt –


Statutory Warning – Its not funny. I have personally fell victim to each of the following things

1. Meetings are not college lectures. Don’t sleep in them for a minute – I learnt it the hard way. One month into my role, my boss dragged me along to a meeting that had no relevance with my work. I treated the way Marketing students treat Finance lectures and went into my own dream land. After 1.5 hours of a 2 hour meeting, my boss told me – “I hope you are preparing all the notes. You have to share the meeting note with everyone”.
Damn, WTF!!! I looked around for the familiar cute, first bencher ghissu girl whose notes I always copied. Sadly, no one was around.

2. Having a sound vocab does not mean you have great communication skills – perfidious, perfunctory, percipience, peripatetic etc. Remember how hard it was to memorize this particular series of words. Congratulations, you will never have to use them again. Actually, using such words might put off your colleagues because it will be treated as condescending attitude which we MBA’s are anyways stereotyped for.
Sales guys will know that debating about FDI in retail among like minded people in a GD is one thing, explaining it to a small kirana shop owner in Ranchi in his own vernacular is a completely different kettle of fish. “Needs improvement in Communication Skills” will remain in the Key Development Area list forever. Don’t get upset by it.

3. No, girls will not fall for you because of your salary slip. Sadly, their parents will – You fell for it when they told you about it happening if you join IIT, then you thought it will happen at a top B school. If you fall for the myth the third time, I will have to call you a buffoon. No guys, it will NOT happen. Even if you try the audacious stunt where you email her your salary slip and apologize later saying it was meant for some HR of the same name. Unfortunately, their parents will fall for you. Get ready to endure compliments and adoring stares from all aunties the next time you go for a relative’s marriage.

4. You need to prepare well for presentations and even expected Q and A’s – Every MBA has a story to share about how he managed to give a presentation once where he saw the slides for the first time while presenting. MBA professor will be impressed by the figures in the presentation but not expect you to convert those promises into actions. Unfortunately, bosses are not that smart. All numbers you show and even the GAS you generate in your overzealous enthusiasm in the Q&A’s will be held against you in the next quarter review. So beware, before you make any promises.

5. You are not as valuable to the company as you think – Thanks to the presentations HR give, Pappu’s start to think that they are important and start disrespecting the organization criticizing the archaic systems and inefficient babus in place. The fact is that IIM’s, FMS, XLRI’s produce 1000 identical Pappu’s every year. A large proportion of them leave their first job in 2 years. That honest, loyal, hard working clerk who has been with the organization for 30 years is unique. Simple demand supply economics will tell you clearly the importance of each one of you. You indeed are the “Bottom of the Pyramid”. Respect those who are higher up in the food chain or you else you will be eaten alive.

Why Mr Kapil Sibal is so fucking awesome!!!

At the outset, I would like to make it amply clear that this is an attempt to pander to the government because I am sure they will some how succeed in arm-twisting google and Facebook into taking some drastic actions(like allowing only pro Congress blogs in searches). Once they do it, I want my blog to be among the top most hits. Considering how not to so net savy our politicians are, they might appoint me as the chief blogger of the Congress party. I would definitely do a better job than Mr Manish Tiwari does on Television or what Mr Shashi Tharoor does on twitter.

Now coming to the point that has caused so much furor in last few days among my peers. I would like to play Devil’s advocate here and try to look into the positives that come out of Mr Sibal’s suggestion of censoring Gmail and FB –

1. Mr Sibal, the great visionary that he is, understands that US and Europe are passé. The future of the world is in the hands of the Chinese and OPEC countries. To convince these governments that Indians are suitable allies the government has to showcase tyranny to their dictatorial counterparts. Dictators of the Middle East can never trust a true democracy which respects feeble and unimportant issues like Freedom of Speech. Such steps will help India to procure cheap oil and cheap Chinese products in the future. Also, this will bring the Communist back to the UPA and we can hope for a stable government post 2014.

2. Thanks to facebook, India’s stupid idiot common man has started debating matters of national importance. Consider FDI in retail. Sadly, over the past one month Indian Parliament is the only place where no “intellectual” debate has happened on this topic. Clearly, this undermines the position that the Indian Parliament enjoys as the pre-eminent symbol of Indian democracy. The slogan “Keep hungry, Keep Foolish” has worked brilliantly for the Indian Government for 5 decades and maintained peace. Mango people must get back to discussing Bollywood and Cricket. There is no place for politics in their life.

3. Facebook is badly hurting the Indian economy. All sub-standard products like RA-One get caught up immediately. I cancelled my plan of watching the movie on Saturday because hours after its release as my facebook wall was flooded with reviews. Just imagine how many dollars the government loses when such feedback is posted about the services of Air India and other sarkari firms. The world of You Tube is flooded with videos of government inefficiency and misdemeanors. They must go down asap, otherwise the “foreign” private companies will gobble up the navratnas and we will become a colony again. (How?? Don’t ask me. That’s what I heard on television as discussed by our elite politicians)

Of course there is a potential downside to every issue which Mr Sibal understands. In this case the lazy facebook generation might just decide to switch off their laptops and vote on election day. But then he realizes that the only alternate they have is the BJP(lol, rofl on that). One can write a three part LOTR kind of book series to talk about their (mis)adventures. So overall, the idea of banning facebook works perfectly well for the Queen Mother and Prince of India. God Save the Queen. (Oops, do we have that post in a democracy?? Well I am not sure).

PS1: People if you liked the article, please pass it on to Mr Sibal. I would be interested in working for him.

PS2: Like Sheldon Cooper, even google cannot understand sarcasm. So advice to all, in case you want to criticize the government, lets be sarcastic. They will never catch us.

Cab driver Pappu Yadav challenges Vettel for a race on Delhi Roads

In what could be an inspiring story for large number of youngsters around India, cab driver Pappu Yadav has challenged Sebastien Vettel, the current Formula 1 champion to have a race with him on Delhi Roads. Pappu Yadav, a cab driver at a Gurgaon call center, is widely recognized among his peers as the fastest driver on Delhi Roads. He was extremely miffed when he realized that the Formula 1 champion is officially recognized as the fastest driver in the world. Now he sees next week’s Indian F1 as the perfect opportunity to decide once and for all who the fastest driver in the world is.

The Delhi Cab driver union has come in full support of Pappu. Gainda Singh, the union’s leader told faking news, “Formula 1 is completely farcical. The driver who drives on real roads in real traffic is the true champion. Even my 8 year old kid can drive fast on a vacant F1 circuit”. Unknown to the whole world, Pappu is a local hero among cab drivers. All drivers fondly remember how he once managed to drive from Rohini to Gurgaon-Sec 53 in 10 minutes, and that too in peak Delhi traffic and all that without any DRS technology. Raju, a young 18 year old cab driver commented - “He is an inspiration to all of us youngsters. He completes 10 rounds of pick up and drop from Rohini to Gurgaon in a single day. Imagine the money he makes when he picks ups stray passengers from IFFCO Chowk. All money tax free. I want to grow up to become Pappu one day. ” Infact, Pappu is not alone. All these cab drivers, almost cry when they think about the mouth watering prospect of driving on smooth roads with no traffic. They are convinced that they can beat all these foreign cars driving their own desi Mahindra Xylo’s. May be Vijaya Mallaya can be convinced to give 1 or 2 a test trial at the beginning of next season.

Diggi Singh (Indian minister who has an opinion about everything), lamented – “Its sad to see such talent getting wasted in India. Why should the Indian national team (referring to Force India) have foreign drivers. Why shouldn’t it have a reservation for Indian drivers like that in the IPL. Its an imperialistic conspiracy.” Clearly, Mr Singh has very little or no knowledge about Formula 1. But he is not the only one. 50% of the viewers who have bought tickets for next weekend’s race still think that Michael Schumacher is the world champion and Ferrari is best team in the world. When asked about who Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandok were, 40% promptly gave the reply that they are the latest Indian Davis Cup pair. The purists are hoping that the situation changes before next year’s race but the organizers are clearly not bothered because all tickets are sold out. “If they are buying a ticket to just flaunt pics on facebook, so be it. We don’t really care” a delighted organizer of the Indian F1 team addressed the media.

Speedy Singh – A Movie Review

Yes I know, Movie Review is not my thing and I should never write one. But Speedy Singh is such a remarkable piece of fiction that I was inspired to write this post. Moreover, it is a sports movie so I do qualify to write a post.

Statutory Warning
Carrying your brain along to Speedy Singh can be injurious to your brain so viewer discretion is advised.

Speedy Singh Side Affect
After watching the movie, I have decided to fulfill my childhood ambition of playing cricket at the highest level. For this, I need to set up an IPL team. Finding players will obviously not be a problem. There will be many interested in playing at the highest level. In case you have the passion and the drive to achieve something big in life (cricketing ability is strictly optional) please ping me your email id. I will soon get in touch with you.

Further my team needs –

1. A struggling coach – There must be plenty available ex-cricketers in the market.
2. A hot chick who is a lawyer cum doctor cum consultant cum analyst cum sports physiologist. This is probably the toughest to execute but I guess we can manage.
3. A super rich loser in life whose dad will sponsor our kits and training schedule. West Delhi has abundant supply of such species too.

The above matched with 2-3 song dance routines around Delhi Monuments and 1-2 inspirational lectures should be enough to set us up. Watch out for “WestDelhi Wonderboys” in the next year’s IPL. We can at least beat Delhi Daredevils.

Storyline
Now coming to the actual movie, I will summarize as usual in bullet points (no Gas on my blog :D) –

1. Speedy Singh is a copy pasted remixed version of all the classics like Goal(Newcastle one), Invictus, Chak De India, Bend it like Beckham and even the not so classic ones like Goal(John Abraham one) and Patiala House. All the best scenes have been re-created with a little bit of Punjabi flavor to add spice to the original ones. Watch this one and you can claim to have watched all the other ones.
In case you have already seen all those, still go and watch this. For 2 hours you can pretend to be a wizard by predicting verbatim the next scene.

2. If you get offended by Russell Peters racist slurs you must have a copy of the movie in your video library. His role is embarrassing and downright classless. So the next time he offends you go away and watch the re run of Speedy Singh. You will enjoy a hearty laugh – Not at his jokes but on him.
Russell fans can be excited because I expect a whole 2-3 hours stand-up comedy session to be released very soon dedicated only to Bollywood movies and Indian marriages. After all it is important for him to regain his image back.

3. I never knew that leagues in Canada have Sardar commentators and people flock in front of radios to hear (yes hear) a local league match. To make it more exciting, the director has successfully shot some scenes that are almost impossible to occur in real life Ice hockey matches. We get to see Rugby and kabaddi (Yes, I am not kidding) tackles and even football like excitement where the striker hits the puck from half line and the defender clears it off the goal line by a last ditch tackle. Where the hell the goal keeper was is an answer I will never know. But then I have to accept my knowledge of Ice Hockey is minimal. May be in Ice hockey the goal keeper time to time joins the strikers to make up the extra man in attack or he is just allowed to go on a pee break between the game.

4. Some of the jokes like “Oye Jaddu, tune fir pad mara”, the pre goal (yes, pre goal) celebrations and the ridiculous helmets reminded me of my childhood and Cartoon Network. We used to crack similar jokes when we used to play the local street games in Class III. Speedy Singh takes you back to your childhood once again. Ah what a bliss, that nostalgic feeling.

5. The movie provides a lesson that even douche bags like Sreesanth, Joey Barton and Yuvraj Singh have a chance to improve. Because the "Star" of Speedy Singh takes attitude to another level. Despite being a nobody, he has the attitude of a Christiano Ronaldo. But just one match ban suffices to change him and he comes back in the final to help his team win. I hope Duncan Fletcher, Niel Warnock and Fabio Capello pick up something watching Speedy Singh.

Rating
Now I know to properly evaluate a movie you need a rating. So on Gunda’s Scale of awesomeness where 10 Gunda is equal to the perfect movie I will rate the movie at a 8 Gunda.

PS: Trust me, I am not of those who thinks he has wasted 250Rs on a movie and then wants others to face a similar fate. The above appreciation was truly genuine.

PS2: Unfortunately, some of my friends were hell bent on staging a walk out mid way and by the end, the theater was almost empty. Sadly, true art has never been appreciated in India. So in case you are one of those who does appreciate humor, please go ahead and watch the movie in a theater with your engineer college’s chichora gang.

The great tragedy of being a "Nice Guy" in Delhi

This is in response to one of those umpteen posts being shared on facebook which ridicules Delhi boys for being assholes. It might be extremely difficult to believe but there are indeed some perfectly nice gentlemen living in Delhi. There have been protests, candle night marches, facebook communities deriding all kinds of stereotypes but this is one stereotype that has stood the test of time without anyone raising a voice. Imagine what a nice guy in Delhi goes through when his own sister or best friend puts on her wall – “All Delhi men are losers, assholes etc”. So at the outset I would like to declare to all the folks around the world in SRK style –
“Dear All, I am a Delhi Guy and I am not a rapist” (I feel all guys in Delhi should put this as their Status Messages as a sign of protest )

What no one understands is that being a nice guy in Delhi is a damn difficult task. At every point in their life such guys have to suffer humiliation and indignation. A polite, gentle, chivalrous guy will most likely be branded as a wuss very early in his life. And after that his entire life is a struggle.
In case some guy is stupid enough to give his seat to a lady in metro out of genuine goodness, he will have to hear backbiting in not so repressed voices – “Sala, ladki ko impress kar raha hai”. To avoid this most nice guys stay miles away from the ladies section of the Metro Compartment or the left side of DTC buses. This means all the females only encounter the “Not so nice” people standing near them. Parochial in their viewpoint, the ladies generalize and “rape every guy’s character”.

Because of the “Delhi image”, the nice one’s tend to overcompensate by being over polite. Somehow they feel that the entire burden of enhancing the image of the city is on their shoulders. I remember I have missed my bus stop many times because of some girl with headphones blocking my path to the door. Of course she was too busy to hear me and I was too polite to touch her. I know of a friend who controlled his nature calls for two hours because he was sitting on the window seat of the airplane with two chicks sitting to his left. Had he tried to go, the girls would have given him “Die, You cheapster” look. Damn, all the niceness!!

Another baseless accusation against Delhi boys is that they abuse a lot. I know that they use BC, MC in almost every sentence but ask anyone who uses it and he will tell you that “Oh BC” is a major stress reliever. I have never understood why a person using the Fword is considered cool while the one using the Bword a vernacular. Its all down to our imperial hangover. Harvard, Wharton or any other American B school should do a research(Only they have time for such stupid researches. Indian Bschoolers prefer social work :D)and compare the stress reliving powers of the two words and I am sure Bc will win hands down over the English counterpart. So next time some guy exclaims “Oh BC!! You are looking amazing” in front of you please consider it as a very genuine compliment, one coming from the bottom of the heart.

Apart from the apathy towards females, Delhi people are also blamed of being cold on Delhi Roads. What people must know is that almost all of the cab and bus drivers hail from the neighboring H State. And that state is most famous for producing Olympic Wrestling Champions. Need I say more??? When you hit a car or commit an accident on Delhi Roads, YOU RUN, and Not wait for the opposing driver to come up and smash your windscreen. Years ago, I was travelling with my friend and he hit a biker. Instinctively, I tried to come out and help the biker. My friend pulled me back into the car and fled. I had missed the quickly gathering mob comprising solely of bus and cab drivers. Even today my friends pull my leg and have a good laugh at my stupidity. Unfortunately, I have to agree to their opinion.