The day has come. History has once again been made. He is the superman from India. The man of the century. The date : 16th March, 2012. The name : Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. The record : A 100 international 100s. Till yesterday, there were illiterates having an opinion on Sachin Tendulkar. People were advising him on how his future should be handled. Spare a thought gentlemen, he has spent 23 years in this profession and is by far the most unparalleled icon the world has ever produced. Today, the ever so incorrigible Nasser Hussain, said he should be placed above Sir Don Bradman for there is no doubt that when it comes to longevity, consistency & brilliance, even the Don could not come close. The country has been in a delirium since 5 pm today. Festivals being celebrated, sweets distributed across the nation. The same media houses , the same cricket illiterates who asked for his head till yesterday come up with nothing else on them but Sachin. There are aartis being performed on the news channels. Bloody hypocrites. Kapil Dev(please refer to my previous blog post), pops up on the TV today, sticks out his head & says, "Sachin is a legend, looking at him, I want him to play, to continue & maybe score 15 more." What an irony! But what I witnessed today, isn't something I would like to dampen with the pedestrian opinions of media houses. I do not have a memory of Sachin Tendulkar when he played first in 1989. I was too young to assimilate the genius of the man then. The first I saw of him was 1993 world cup, where he made a couple of 50s. I liked his name then. The sound of Ten-dul-kar felt nice. Through the next 6 years, he became not just mine, but the country's obsession. The 'desert storm' innings is a part of the folklore now. 15 years down the line, I am going to, like millions of others, tell my kid : "Hey look, you wanna know what dedication, hardwork & patriotism is? Watch this.. the desert storm...on youtube(provided google doesn't go bust by then)" His ferocity for runs at 39 is something which people have at 23. His popularity is such that Shah Rukh Khan would be embarrassed if he and Sachin ever shared the stage. Despite all this, he chooses to be mum, polite & humble all the time. Through the 23 years, people have taunted him, ridiculed and slighted him with terms like 'Endulkar', he has remained the same humble, mellow person. Everytime he replied, but only with his bat. Not once in his 23 years did I ever hear him using expletives or retorting angrily to the raucous media. The endulkar was predicted by the media and cricket pundits in 1996. Some of those people must be in their graves by now. Sachin has continued 16 years after that and mind you, like a star. Myth People come up with all kinds of false statistics saying that whenever he scores a ton, India loses. Reality Out of his 49 ODI 100s till date, India has won 33, lost 14, drawn 1, no result 1. The true measure of his following is illustrated by the below video. This was shot at my workplace today. Despite hectic work, people chose to stop, pause & come to watch their hero. They came to a place where they would otherwise not go to. We went to the drivers' retiring room in the multi-level-parking-lot. That's the only place a television is available. The small room was filled to capacity. People trickled in when Sachin reached 50 and stayed on exactly till he got out. Even the 'helicopter baba' in the slog overs couldn't keep the crowd on. People left as soon as Sachin got out. Check out the feverish adulation that this man got. Scroll to 2 mins & 59 seconds directly because this video isn't particularly a short one. Please excuse the poor quality of the video and the bad angles. Shooting through the crowd was a challenge. A 100 100s and look at his reaction in HD now. Muted, satisfied and content. His trademark 'look-to-the-sky' also a part of it. Don't miss the uncharacteristic tap on his helmet, showing something to the dressing room. Check the video at 0:23 seconds for this. He is almost saying, this milestone is for an Indian to achieve (tapping the helmet pointing to the Indian flag). His interview after reaching the milesone. It's true when they say that you don't realize a person's worth till he is long gone.
But this man isn't yet gone. He is amidst us. We live the spectacle every time he comes on field. We watch him in awe, we adore him, we can't get enough of him. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, you have achieved the unthinkable. Live on. Rock on.
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Ok, so here's the deal. No crap.
What do you get out of the below two pictures? If you find something common, mail me. I owe you 50 bucks for possessing common sense. If not, then abuse me in the comments section(you will, by the time you finish reading this). Did you ever try comparing the Homo sapien with Panthera Leo?
The commonalities could be interesting. Men are just like lions. Women, lionesses. 1. Lions and lionesses are born similar. Ditto men and women. 2. Lions build more muscular mass and heft. Lionesses are more gracious and beautiful. Ditto men and women 3. Lions have ugly manes, lionesses look suave without body hair. Ditto men and women(minus the metrosexual, chest shaving pseudo andro). 4. Lions hunt hard till they achieve success. Success would mean skills of hunting and a companion. That’s the end for them. Lionesses continue to do the good work, earning bread, doing the daily jobs while the lazy lions look around, sleep and gaze at trees. The following statement is a palindrome of sorts, just that it is a statement and not a word. "The nucleus is considered the boss of a cell". The other way round, "Boss is considered the nucleus of the cell". This is true in many respects, without the boss, the cell(or a business project) cannot function. So a sensible and stable boss is what is the heart of every successful project. But 90 out of 100 instances, the bosses that we get are insensitive, clueless about their team and grossly unreasonable. These are what are defined in the urban dictionary as 'Bosszillas'. A godzilla kind of boss. It's important to understand that the boss is also an individual and hence his ablities are limited like any other mortal. He is no superhero, so in times of distress, he would have to turn to few of his 'trusted beneficiaries'. I have developed the following diagram which illustrates the various attributes of the boss and his team, the pros and cons of being in each spectrum. The innermost part, the nucleus, does not need any description.
It's reserved for the boss! Coterie : This is what I earlier referred to as 'trusted benefciaries'. These are the finite set of people who form the white protein layer, around the yolk. They are super efficient, all of them. Bug busters, efficient machines who work tirelessly to deliver everything to machine level perfection. On a scale of 100, some are 101, some are 90, but still the level of dependency that they create on a boss is totally irreplacable. Pros : 1. Fabulous appraisals 2. Good recognition 3. You become a star at work Cons : 1. You are overworked and overburdened. 2. Boss depends on you, so obviously you pay a price for it and that you do by sacrificing your personal life many times. 3. You get very less leaves. EGOM : This term caught my fancy. This is a realtively new term which is widely used in the Indian democracy these days. It's the new 'in-word' in the corridors of power. Whenever there is a specific 'high profile job to be done, the govt of India finds itself inept because the leaders are poor visionaries. So the best person from the specific industry is picked up and made the head of the project. Such people are called : 'Empowered group of ministers', they are the real set of decision makers, the parliamentary minister merely signs the documents then. Now in a project environment too, you would find many EGOMS, working behind the scenes, if the lower grade of the 'Coterie' works at 90% efficiency, you can find EGOMs delivering 90% efficiency very easily if not more. But like the parliamentary scenario, they lack the political clout, to make it to the 'Coterie'. It's like a situation where the boss cannot do without them(because they are the work horses and are more in number), but does not recognize them enough as well. Pros : 1. Reasonably good appraisals. 2. You are not a star, but you are still looked upon as 'the few white collared people' 3. You get quite a bit of personal time in which you can do what you like. 4. You do not sacrifice your weekends. Cons : 1. There always is a glass ceiling, which stops you from jumping to the 'Coterie'. 2. No matter, what you do, even when you perform better than a few coterie members, your contribution is forgotten pretty quickly. 3. You are sometimes frustrated with the happenings around. The Waywards These are the set of people, sometimes many in number, who come and go without impact. The boss is not duly worried if they leave. The mindset of the boss is pretty rigid about these people, so there would be more cons than pros being in this band. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" they say. Bosses are not very different, multiply the agony by 2, if the boss is a woman! The waywards are mostly the people at the 'bottom-of-the-pyramid' or people who have rubbed him the wrong way sometime or the other. Pros : None Cons : Too many to describe, and will include just about anything that can go wrong with your life. If we equate, the office space with the game of snakes and ladders, the ladders are always taken by the 'coterie' members. the 'EGOMs' generally move step by step because of the glass ceiling, but get a ladder here and there, but they are far in between. 'The waywards' are alwars bitten by the snakes. Either of these 4 bands, the one who calls the shots is the Bosszilla. Love him, loathe him, you just can't ignore him. |
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