What is CRICKET ? oops!!

"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side thats been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out,and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!"

We told you it was a simple game :)

Scenes at F.C. Ground

Since sometime now I have been playing cricket at F.C. ground with my friends. We convoke at the ground at around 7 on Saturday mornings. The ground is teeming with activities - people of all ages exercising, cricket teams of varying team sizes with varying paraphernalia playing, F.C. ground staff rolling the patch of ground that has semblance of a pitch etc. However, these activities themselves were not the ones which drew my attention. Unfailingly at around 7:15 AM a distant loudspeaker somewhere in the college campus heralds the beginning of day by first playing few second-long shenai-based classical music piece which is immediately followed by our national anthem. As soon as the national anthem begins the whole F.C. ground freezes as far as you can see. The joggers, the young boys cricket brigades - *everyone*. They literally stop whatever they were doing and pay reverence to the national anthem. After the national anthem concludes it is as if someone pressed the play button to resume the hustle bustle where it left from. It was such a heartwarming scene!

The cricket matches themselves are pretty amusing. At any given time there could be six to seven matches going on on the same ground. It is enough to make any ICC official's jaw drop. The boundaries of each "groundlet" overlap. The pitches themselves are haphazardly placed. It goes without saying that it isn't uncommon to find fielder of match A at mid-on just a few pace away from a third-man fielder of match B. In fact during one match while fielding at mid-wicket position I almost ran into the batsman of match B at striker end who was just about to swoosh the ball wildly towards *his* mid-on. I was saved from a jaw-dropping incident - literally. Seeing the IT folk riding of the outsourcing wave, these cricketing teams have mastered outsourcing too. The fielding beyond certain circumference is duly outsourced to the adjacent team. So when you find a pinch hitter hitting the ball off the park (park = groundlet) you will invariably find the fielders from that match A screaming "Eh ball! ball!" signalling the fielders of match B to collect the outsourced fielding assignment. Fielders from match B do that diligently often juggling with their ongoing fielding chore. And we have mergers and acquisitions too. When a few slackers from some match don't make it to the ground they find the most appealing team and make them an offer for alliance.

We usually play till 9 AM or so and then the event culminates with a customary trip to "Vaish" or some other F.C. road eatery for piping hot idli sambhar and filter coffee.

- shamelessly copied from Kartik's column

9/11 Military photos of the Twin Towers

Govt of India Online Grievance forum

Can you imagine this happening in INDIA?

Government of India has an online Grievance forum at http://darpg-grievance.nic.in

The government wants people to use this tool to highlight the problems they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments like Passport Office, Electricity board, BSNL/MTNL, Railways etc.

I know many people will say that these things don't work in India, but this actually works as one of our colleague in CSC found. The guy I'm talking about lives in Faridabad. Couple of months back, the Faridabad Municipal Corporation laid new roads in his area and the residents were very happy about it. But 2 weeks later, BSNL dug up the newly laid roads to install new cables which annoyed all the residents including this guy. But it was only this guy! Who used the above listed grievance forum to highlight his concern. And to his surprise, BSNL and Municipal Corporation of Faridabad was served a show cause notice and the guy received a copy of the notice in one week. Government has asked the MC and BSNL about the goof up as it's clear that both the government departments were not in sync at all.

So use this grievance forum and educate others who don't know about this facility.
This way we can at least raise our concerns instead of just talking about the ' System' in India. Invite your friends to contribute for many such happenings.

Educate our friends. Let us see New India ...Soon

Nasik,T'shwar,Saptshrungi(Vani) Trip