The bird has flown.....

Jatayu now considers himself some sort of an authority on wide rangin subjects. He is writing under a new name at a new site.

Not quite a whimper, but....

....as Rahul commented, certainly not the nail-biting exciting finishes of the last three matches that everyone was hoping for. Australia had a chance when they had England at 199 for 7 before tea- but Kevin Pietersen simply took it away. The ending was a bit farcial with the Australian openers returning to the pavilion on account of bad lights and a bit of confusion reigning over the official announcement of a by-then forgone result.

Kudos to England for regaining the Ashes (after 18 years) - I can understand the excitement of the supporters from nation where hype and expectations have mostly trumped real achievements in the field. After the first test, England certainly had the better of the exchanges with the decisive factor being Freddie Flintoff - he provided the balance in the English team - bowling fast and reverse swinging to get cruical wickets and then coming in 4/5 down to score important runs. He is probably the best all-rounder in the game at the moment. Eventually, as another cricketing-cliche goes, it was the game that was the winner. A standard has been set for competitive test cricket. Unfortunately, the two other series (Ind-Zim and SL-Bang.) currently in progress certainly won't provide that kind of intensity.

What an ending.....

(...no this is not about ending the blog)

My last post was about the first day of the second Ashes test. Haven't had time to write in between (will comment on that in another post) - but fittingly, I am coming out of hibernation to write about the last day of the last test - going on now. So much has happened since that second test, which England went on to win, followed by a draw and yet another win for England. This Ashes has lived up to all its pre-series expectations and hyperboles and even more. Sometime you wonder if someone actually scripted all this drama as an advertisement for Test cricket. And just when you thought that there could be no more twists and turns - with England, helped by the weather, seemingly in control of the last test (a draw will win them the Ashes 2-1), Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, those two old war-horses, pick up a couple of wicket's each on the last day morning, to leave the test in a tantalizing position. Can Australia get England our cheaply and chase down 200 odd runs in quick time ?
As the master of malaproprism said and has been subsequetly hackneyed by cricket commentators, 'It ain't over 'til it's over'. Looking forward to an exciting two sessions.

A prayer in the morning...

Longish post over a small report I read today morning....bear with me.

Long time ago in a galaxy far away....Back in my school days in Kolkata, there would be certain mornings when I would wake up overwhelmed by thoughts of the task ahead of me. I am talking about days of the annual (or half-yearly or pre-selections, selections, board etc.) exams (or Tests/Quiz as the Americans would describe it) - particularly if it happened to involve remembering the dates of the Panipat battles and comparative notes about the art and culture of the Gupta and Maurya dynasties. Contrary to a lot of people, Mathematics was not the dreaded Exam - not that I was any good at it - but it involved very little memorization, which I was and still is pretty bad at. Additionally, anybody who has attended that directionally named 'reputed' school in Kolkata with its huddled mass of white-and-navy blue will tell you that our Mathematics teachers (especially for the 9-12 standards and while I am at it, lets include the Physics and Chemistry teachers for good measure) were certified sadists. They would throw you a few bones here and there in form of problems worked out in class or ones that more or less adhered to straightforward application of theorems and corollaries - for the rest you would squirm in your seat, look at the problems from all angles scribble a few things on paper and finally give up. Later the teachers would return the paper, strewn with big red circles (nobody in India told teachers about the soothing effects of purple on the student's psyche) with delight and unconcealed glee reducing you to feeling like the stupidest person on the planet. You knew you would get slaughtered at these exams and had nothing to lose - you would read up on the concepts and give it your best (on an immodest note, I have to admit that I never did that badly as dramatized here in the science related subjects, which is probably why I ended up where I am now).

History, on the other hand, would bring about much consternation. It's not that I hated History - in fact I loved reading about it and adding to the vast base of trivial knowledge that used to osmose into my brain and help out in quiz sessions (a note to those who might find a contradiction in my uselessness at memorizing and remembering stuff for quizzes - the latter would happen quite automatically ie I would read a piece in the newspaper about how Coca Cola was the new sponsor for the Australian cricket team replacing Benson and Hedges and that would just stick to my mind without having to put in any effort. However, I had to force myself to remember dates when Humanyun was defeated and driven out of Delhi and the date he came back).

The problem was that our School Board (West Bengal Board of Secondary Education) did not believe in brevity - for History and other 'social science' topics, we were expected to write volumes and by volumes I mean quite a lot. I used to hate writing too much, specially if I had to do it fast and especially with a pen. We would have several short notes (recommended 1/2 to 1 page), notes (recommended 1 to 2 pages) and finally a big essay (recommended 5 pages !) to write - all in 3 hours time and preferably in handwriting that would be legible to the examiner (Remember the opening examiner scene from Jana Aranya - you wouldn't want that to happen - would you ?). According to some people, however, legibility was not the big issue - rumor goes that some examiners would simply look at quantity and not quality, even suggesting that some kept a weighting scale and your mark would be proportional to the mass of written work !
Unless you are pretty prolific and the language gushes out of your pen 'like the Ganges flowing out from Gangotri' at the exam hall, you had little choice but to pre-prepare all these essays and notes, learn them by rote and (figuratively) puke it all out on the exam paper. I hated doing that - used to take all the joy I would find in actually knowing about history.

The main reason for the sense of discomfort, however, was the fact that I would almost never be able to completely study the required syllabi for History. I mean, by the time the final board exams came around - we were covering Indian history from Mohenjodaro-Harappa (3000 BC) to 1947 - Independance and partition. I remember having about ten 96-page notebooks containing all the notes. No way was I going to cover all of it. So I had to resort to a screening procedure based partly on inspired guesses, partly on going through questions set over the last few years, sometimes even gauging the political climate ! (The INA and Netaji was a hot 'sure-shot' topic that we know would be a topic of questions in the exams).

In spite of all that, I would wake up in the morning of the exam feeling queasy, having had nightmares of a question paper full of topics I had triaged earlier. As a last resort, knowing that I was woefully underprepared, I would seek divine intervention. Even though I realized it would be too late for Him (or Her, whoever He/She is) to do anything - the question papers having been printed already - I would pray that the essay/notes question would be from within those portions of Indian History I had feebly managed to cover. Whether or not due to the prayers, I thankfully survived these ordeals and other than having to forego answering few questions on a couple of instances, I emerged relatively unscatched through my 10th standard board exams - choose the science stream for +2 and lived happily ever after and all that.

The reason or the inspiration behind this post ? This little cricket-related incident that happened on the other side of the Atlantic earlier today.

Glenn McGrath was ruled out of the second Test shortly before the start of play on Thursday, after suffering a freak injury during Australia's pre-match warm-up. He is now a major doubt for next week's third Test at OId Trafford as well, having sustained a grade two tear to the lateral ligaments of his right ankle.
........

McGrath, 35, trod on a stray cricket ball during a game of touch-rugby and had to be helped into a groundsman's buggy by his team-mates.

Having been soundly beaten and thrashed in the first test, being particularly tormented by Glenn McGrath, the English side saw very little hope for the second test starting today. English batsmen must have said that little prayer in the morning. And maybe Someone listening to them placed that stray cricket ball! And boy did they make merry in the pre-lunch session in McGrath's absence.

Update - Of course, this being the English team we are talking about by the time I finished writing this post, they had managed to lose three quick wickets in the post lunch session! Another disappointing performance from Vaughn.

Welcome to the jungle....

According to the State of the Blogosphere report in Technorati, a blog is being created every second !

Serendipity strikes again !

As is well-known, many of the major discoveries in science have been serendipitous - most famously Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin.

A group in Britain has shown that forgeries of paper documents, plastic cards etc can be detected by using a simple laser scanner. The method, published in the latest edition of Nature, takes advantage of the fact that almost all documents 'contain a unique physical identity code formed from microscopic imperfections in the surface'. This fingerprint can be read by using the phenomenon of laser speckle (in lay terms, scattering of laser light from a surface) with an appropriate scanner. The biggest cost-saving from this technology would be not having to impart an external security tag such a hologram, watermarks, microchip etc. to important documents, currencies, credit cards etc.
So why the title ? As this report on NPR Morning Edition mentions, the researchers were actually scanning a new security chip they had developed, which fell off, exposing the paper underneath it to the laser. To their surprise they found a signal coming from the paper - further investigation led to the discovery that each piece of paper has its own unique 'roughness' and hence an unique signal !

Some excellent reviews and missing a movie...

GreatBong has two excellent posts reviewing Pather Panchali and Aparajito. These are pieces that you read and go ' I wish I could write like that ...' ! And even though he claims that the reviews are intensely personal, as the comments sections to his post and my thoughts while reading them shows, the themes resonate with us all.

Jai Arjun is also doing a series of reviews on the Ray movies he watched during the Cinefan festival at New Delhi. All good stuff.

Meanwhile, Asif Kapadia's 'The Warrior' starring Irfan Khan has finally released in the US but not at a theatre near me :-( . Not even the so-called 'artsy theatres' in the triangle are are carrying the film. I have been looking forward to this for a long time - guess I have to wait for the DVD release or go to DC/Philly/NY to watch it !

Made by British-born BBC documenterian Asif Kapadia with British backing, but in Hindi, the movie was nominated by British Academy of Film and Television as the UK entry for the 'Best Foreign Language' entry at the Oscars. Strangely, the Academy in their infinite wisdom decided that since Hindi is not the native language in Britain (while tikka masala can be their national dish!), it could not qualify as a British entry ! As the trailer indicates, the images (it was shot on location in the Rajasthan deserts) should be breathtaking and then there is Irfan, who I would consider to be among the best actors in India at the moment (truth be told though, I haven't really kept up with Hindi, far less other language movies in India for the last year or so). His potrayal of the college activist (read thug) come aspiring politician Ranavijay Singh in Haasil, is one of the best I have seen since Nana Patekar in Parinda and Prahaar. He delivered a great performance in Maqbool as well. Hopefully, he will not be slotted into the dark, brooding, soft-speaking yet menacing villain stereotype by Bollywood.

Swiss chesse ......

...or something else ? Go here to find out.

Thoughts from the suburbia

Living up the American Dream ?? Nah..well...kind of.....but it just made plain economic sense to buy a house (and sign away our souls during the process) and move into the 'burbs. Well...technically our zip code falls within the city limits - but lets not get into semantics - we have the rows of houses with lawns spread out, porches in the front, decks at the back and considerable backyard spaces. Fortunately, unlike a lot of suburbs I have seen in Rochester, NY - we do have quite a few street lights.

One observation - I used to believe that people moved to the suburbs to get away from the noise and hustle-bustle of the city - however so far I have found worse sound pollution here due to the constant roar of the lawn movers from one house or the other. Similar to the 'bigger is better' car syndrome - these people seem to suffer from 'louder is better' syndrome in terms of lawn mowers. Tone it down fellas !

Also, this is the first time I am having to commute by driving in my own own car - back in Rochester I walked to work, out here from my previous place I took the (free) bus service. Granted its a mixed commute right now - I only have to drive about 10 minutes to a Park and Ride lot and then take the (still free) bus to work. That 10 minutes gives me enough time to get updated on the major news through NPR.