Tendulkar Memories

The moment arrived yesterday when we saw last of On Field Sachin. All we are left with is memories. Memories of that exquisite Cover Drive with full opened face and absolute still head over the ball, that perfect straight drive when ball kisses the Non-striker’s stump and attains speed of light (nearly) simultaneously. Some umpires know about speed of ball very well (It was brutal but shows speed of the ball). Memories of an magnificent innovator who opened new in-field areas for scoring like the area behind slips through uppercut which sometimes sailed over keeper’s head(literally), areas behind the keeper in leg side through elegant paddle sweep which no one could imitate. It is for cricket historians to notice but I am speculating that these shots will be counted equivalent to Ranjit Singh Ji's Leg Glance through leg side which opened area behind square in legside for scoring for others to follow. Some players have taken Sachin’s innovations forward (DilSccop) to make them more effective (although less stylish) in limited over cricket already (they are still too risky for tests). Another innovation was helicopter shot (Yes it was him who played it first, watch it here) which Dhoni have adopted and made more popular since. It is only Sachin who could have made this shot of brute power look so graceful. My favorite memory is the pull shot in 2003 world cup against Andrew Cadick when he knew the next delivery is going to be short ball well before bowler began his runup. A perfectly positioned pull followed and Caddick got recorded in the memories of hundreds of millions of fans forever indelibly. This shot was special because ‘Pull’ had been resting in the arsenal form long due to back pain and been used very sparsely since. Second one is more talked about conventional uppercut over third man against so called Rawalpindi express. There are so many others but I can’t fail to mention that flick(look at 6:33) during ODI 200 from outside off stump which he played against best bowler of our time and made him appear as helpless as a school kid being bullied by someone 5 year senior to him.

Individual shots form incredible pointed memories. They reminds you short burst of incredible joy you felt at that point of time and Sachin is not just about short burst of joy. Beauty of Sachin as a phenomenon lies in the fact that he not only offers so many pointed moments of ecstasy but also sustained period of bliss across 24 years. Agreed that there were periods of disappointment in between but then suddenly he will play a gem of an innings which will leave an enduring mark over psyche of the nation. Being born in 1988, I was too young to take note of his Pakistan adventure in 1989 and the unbelievable feat of heavy scoring against every opposition I faintly remember “169” in Cape Town” in 1997 but that is more because of mind blowing catch taken by Adam Bacher (Another cricketer who will find mention only either in memories of a Sachin fan or in archives of cricinfo). In 1998 when I was 10, Desert Storm happened and I saw a storm on the batting pitch which ignited a hard to control passion for cricket (rather Sachin) in me. I have followed cricket (Sachin)* since. Those were the best consecutive 2 innings anybody will ever play. I distinctly remember “155” against Australia when Shane Warne was routed for once and all and “136” against Pakistan despite the back pain which almost won the match for us, both played in Chennai (I wonder what Chennaites have done to be so lucky to witness display of so much divinity from God). There are so many of them that I can’t mention them all here, be it “241” in Sydney or “175” in Hyderabad. But I will mention “146” against SA in Cape Town which happened to be his last Test century. This Inning marked greatest spell of bowling form one of most potent bowler of all time. He was forced to retreat after failing to dislodge the warrior with a bat (his best weapon) in his hand. During this innings Sachin was not the usual self, he wasn’t dominating, he wasn’t hitting the ball all around the park; those cover drives, straight drives and on drives were not flowing as freely as they normally did, those quick sprints across the wicket didn’t happened because there were lesser mortals to be protected from an assault which was rarely seen from the bowling side (If you don’t remember Google “Sachin vs steyn cape town 2011” and you will know what it was). In this inning he was not looking as an immortal teasing and bullying the lesser mortals, instead he looked like a human who is vulnerable, who needs to negotiate but who can stand and fight against adverse conditions.

Sachin will not be creating any more memories for us now but nobody can rob us from the already existing ones. Cricket will not be the same and will be watched more on Youtube than on ESPN or Star Sports. This Probably is a natural progression which earlier saw radio, Black and White DoorDarshan and Coloured StarSports with multiple cameras and analysis. Thank You Sachin. It has been a pleasure following you and being a fan of yours.

* Cricket and Sachin have remained synonyms for me till now. Don’t know what will happen in future.

Cold war and its impact on human exploration of Universe

After reading a wonderful book by one of most accomplished experimental Physicist Prof. Walter Lewin, I spent 2-3 days exploring our current knowledge about Universe. It was indeed a humbling experience. This pic of Hubble Ultra Deep Field is enough to make you feel how small and insignificant Earth, Sun and even Milky Way is  (Look I am not even talking about Me, My Family, Community and Country and we keep on fighting about these issues). While reading through wikipedia I noticed a thing which have started bothering me. I noticed that off late our investment in space exploration is declining. During cold war, both USA and USSR was in a race to explore the universe to gain an edge over the other. It helped the technology leepfrog to next level year after year, especially in space exploration. NASA invested billions of dollars to get man on Moon, sent missions to explore Jupiter, saturn and deep solar system. We are reaping the results even now in the form of Voyager missions which are still flying away from earth and are reaching to the limits of solar system (For those who do not know, this mission contained 2 spaceships launched in 1977 which are still active and have reached to the limits of solar system. One of the recent pics by Voyager 1). Hence many new techniques were invented which in turn gave birth to new fields of Science like X-Ray astronomy (Prof Lewine is one of most respected X Ray astronomer) and Gamma Ray Astronomy. These new fields were instrumental in extending our knowledge about some wonderful universal objects like Nebula, supernova and Black Holes.  

NASA consistently send so many unmanned and manned mission to increase knowledge of mankind about Universe. Even  academic astronomers were given easy money to explore. Most useful of the missions was Hubble telescope which enable us to see deep (as deep as 13 billion light year away) in to the universe. It was launched during fag end of cold war in 1990. Since end of cold war, space exploration has taken a backseat as there is no race to prove superiority. For decision makers (Politicians) political doles or unnecessary wars are more important than Space exploration. NASA is witnessing deep budget cuts and retiring its space vehicles as they are old and it is too expensive to replace them.

Indian Mission of Mars is a fresh air when most of other countries are cutting budgets or cancelling space missions. India’s frugal engineering is one of the reason behind it. But ISRO is at least 20 year behind NASA technically and India lag by 50 years in terms of availability of funds for space exploration. It may sound like a cynic but I wish to see another cold waresque race which may result in another golder period of technological advancement.

On a different note private organizations have pitched in to fill the hole created by lack of funding form Govt. side. Google is sponsoring a competition where participants have to send an unmanned mission on moon before 2015

Technology World

Today I was discussing about technologies and future of technology giants in our world. We talked about hardware starting from iPhone, iPad to Google Glass and smart Watches that will be released soon and softwares starting from outright success like iOS and Android to some of the biggest failure like Samsung Bada and BB10 and also to still struggling ones like Microsoft Windows 8. This kind of discussions are good as you get to know about newer trends and technologies. So I thought of writing key takeaways:

1. Phone and portable PC fight is going to fought primarily by Google, Apple and Samsung now with Nokia having an outside chance of becoming major player in medium term.

2. Google’s Android is going to become biggest platform for integrating all the digital devices in future. Android will not remain limited to Cell Phones or Tablets. We will see Android powered Fridges and workout machines sooner rather than later. iOS will be left behind in this race because of its closed approach.

3. Google Glass will open a new horizon and will open a floodgate of innovation as Apple did with iPhone and iPad.

4. Apple haven’t came out with a earth shattering innovation since long after iPad. New Mac is good but not in the same league.

5. Social Media is also showing interesting race between Facebook and Google Plus. Everybody agrees that feature wise G+ is far more superior than FB but still it is not able to get users queue on to it due to many reasons including feature overload.

6. In Google plus, Engineers are doing a lot of work to roll out new features but marketing is not marketing them barring recent campaigns like #incredibleindia. For Google Plus problem is not the features but marketing. Engineers can spend their energy in simplifying the interface.

7. Photosphere is a wonderful app, for which people will find lots of uses for example they can post photosphere pics of houses with ads for rent and it can cause wonders.

Overall Next 5-6 years are going to be very interesting with Google fighting with Apple, Samsung, Facebook and Microsoft on different fronts. The fight will not be easy but rewards are also very high.