Andre Agassi and THE CONFESSION…

A lot is being written about Andre Agassi and his confession about using performance enhancing drugs – http://www.ndtv.com/news/sports/i_couldnt_live_with_lies_anymore_agassi.php.

I couldn’t stand Agassi between 1987 and 1995, I was puzzled why he could not win a Grand Slam till Wimbledon in 1992, I thought he deserved to win the French Open atleast thrice (he lost to the lesser known Anders Gomez in 1990 and an unknown Jim Courier in 1991 in the finals), he lost to the then unknown Pete Sampras in the 1990 US Open final, was quickly treading in all the wrong steps with his hairstyle, flashy clothes and what not…

I was a big, big fan of Boris Becker and couldn’t hide my excitement when Becker came back from a set and 4-1 down in the Semis at Wimbledon in 1995 to beat Agassi.

But, when Becker faded from the scene, though I admired Sampras very much, I took a liking to the mercurial Agassi and began to appreciate his great back court game and the precision with which he took the balls from very near the baseline and hit them whereever he pleased (I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone play that way before and after!)

Agassi grew as an elderly statesman of the game after he won the French Open (a redemption of sorts) in 1999 and then the US open in the same year and followed it up with a couple of good Grand Slam wins later.

I cannot imagine seeing many better matches than the 2001 US Open Quarter Final in which he lost to Sampras in 4 tie breakers, where neither man lost a service game.

I was bitterly disappointed when Agassi ran into Federer in the 2004 US Open QF, while I went on to watch the disappointing final between Federer and Hewitt live at Flushing Meadows (I was so hoping it would be Federer vs Agassi in the final, which it turned out to be in 2005 when I didn’t go).

Agassi continued to entertain and win hearts all through his career and was a sign of endurance as he competed with the best past his 35th year into 2006.

When I watched him on Center Court at the French Open to give away the last remaining title on Federer’s resume in 2009, it felt great to see one champion be there in person to acknowledge another.

So, the revelations in his book come as a surprise, but not entirely as a shock. We all knew Agassi had a wayward life right till 1999, with his talent and game, he should have probably won 15 grand slam titles – that he eventually didn’t was because of his own drawbacks – now, when such a champion reveals so much about what went on behind the scenes- he even goes to the point of saying how much he hated playing tennis – it is time we think deeply – into the effect that top level sport is having on all the champions out there.

I’m fully with Andre at this moment – how many people can look back and confess about all the silly and wrong things they’ve done? Who would risk a reputation built upon all the good things in life?
I think he has done the right thing – he has probably raised it at the right time – if it does indeed help the next generation of sportsmen and the people who push them to any limits to win a game – it is afterall a game.

I’m in no way hinting that Agassi’s drug use is right – I’m just saying he has done the right thing by telling us all about it (and probably a huge burden off his heart) and all of us should learn from the experience – not just sportsmen/sportswomen.

Why all the fuss about the 1 paisa per second plan?

I don’t understand why the whole mobile phone industry and the stock market is reacting so much to the 1 paisa per second plan…

To the layman, no great statistics are needed to prove that this is not probably such a great loss to telecom revenues.

Prior to the introduction of this plan, the telecom rates were mostly around 40 paisa (or in some cases 30 paisa) per second – all you needed to do was to add an additional Top up to reduce the call rate from Rs 1 per second to this rate

(In the case of Airtel, even this top up rate has been coming down steadily – in Jan 2009, I paid Rs 84 per month for this, in April this was Rs 64 per month, in August I paid Rs 160 for 3 months and I’ve seen messages later which were offering this rate for almost nothing).

Let us consider someone just making a lot of local or within the state calls:

Current rate: Either 40 paisa or 30 paisa per minute
New plan: 1 paisa per second

Here are a few examples:

Call Duration: 10 seconds
Current Rate: Either 40 or 30 paisa
New Plan: 10 paisa

Call duration: 30 seconds
Current Rate: Either 40 or 30 paisa
New Plan: 30 paisa

Call duration : 60 seconds
Current Rate: Either 40 or 30 paisa
New Plan: 60 paisa

Any call over 60 seconds ….say 3 min, 5 min, 10 min
Current Rate: Either 1.2, 2 or 4 Rs – or 0.9, 1.5 or 3 Rs
New Plan: 1.8, 3 or 6 Rs

So, anyone can clearly say that the telecom providers are going to make a significantly higher exponential revenue than they were making with the older plans by introducing this per second plan – only if the call duration is less than 40 (or 30) seconds, does the revenue actually go down compared to what it was earlier.
So, how many short calls of 1 minute or lesser do people actually make? We are a nation of people who can’t have enough of the mobile phone, are we not? And that too…for local calls…where a whole network of family and friends is always on call

I’m referring to local or within the state calls only above.

It could possibly lead to a dent in revenue in the long distance calling (out of state) though.

In the case of the STD calls the lean in the new plan is towards 1.2 paisa per minute.

STD calls were mostly in the range of Rs 1.5 per minute (or sometimes Rs 1 based on the top up) – so it could possibly lead to a 50% decline in revenues (or lesser) from this segment. Won’t some of that be compensated by bigger volumes?

I see that most Indians still stick to their home states (atleast I hardly call anyone outside my state and I see the same amongst most of my friends), I would like to see some statistics on how much revenue local calls bring in versus STD calls before passing a verdict on this plan.

However, I can’t see why the so-called famous and well acclaimed analysts are beating down the stocks of some of these valuable companies on the grounds of a tariff war – a great money making tactic for the investors isn’t it – bring down the stock value, invest at the low level and reap the profits by pushing up the stock value again…..what say?

Federer-Federer-Nadal-Federer-Nadal-Nadal-Djokovic-Federer-Federer-Nadal-Federer-Federer-Federer-Nadal-Federer-Federer-Federer-Nadal-Safin-Federer-Federer-Gaudio-Federer-Roddick-Federer-Ferrero-Agassi

I guess it’s not tough to guess what the string shown in the blog title represents. It’s the list of all Champions at Grand Slam Tennis events working backwards from Wimbledon 2009 to the Australian Open 2003 – basically the year in which Federer’s era started and just a couple of years before Nadal burst onto the scene.

It reads in this order:
Wim09-Fre09-Aus09-US08-Wim08-Fre08-Aus08-US07-Wim07-Fre07-Aus07-US07-Wim07-Fre06-Aus06-US06-Wim06-Fre06-Aus06-US05-Wim05-Fre05-Aus05-US04-Wim04-Fre04-Aus04-US03-Wim03-Fre03-Aus03

So, here’s a question, when did someone apart from Federer and Nadal win a grand slam title in the last 5 years?
(1) Novak Djokovic – 2008 Australian Open
(2) Marat Safin – 2005 Australian Open

There’s not been any other Grand Slam where another player has won a title apart from these two in the last 5 years (no wonder given Federer’s dominance at Wimbledon – 6 titles in 7 years and the US open – 5 successive titles and Rafa’s dominance at the French Open – 4 successive titles). I can’t recall any other period where 18 of the last 20 Grand Slam titles have been won by just 2 players (Federer 12, Nadal 6).
Also, Federer’s 15 titles have come in the last 25 Grand Slams that have been played. That’s an amazing success rate.

So, with the US open beginning next Monday (August 31st) what are odds that we might have a champion whose name doesn’t include a Federer or a Nadal?

The men’s field always seems very competitive, any player in the Top 20 can possibly beat anyone else on his day – but this US open the field does seem just a touch more open.

The likely champions:

Federer – Following his epic wins at the French Open and Wimbedon, he lost to Tsonga in Montreal, before beating Murray and Djokovic on the way to a win in Cincinnati. The only question remains – does he still have the hunger for it after breaking all the records? Recently turned father too

Murray – Freshly crowned No 2, won Montreal with ease and said he’s ready to lift the US open title, lost to Federer for the first time in 5 meetings since the US open final last year at Cincinatti in the Semi Final – yet to win a grand slam. Is he ready? Federer brushed him aside after similar claims at the US open last year…

Nadal – You can never ever write off Rafael Nadal, he is the man to beat most of the time – but he’s a little sluggish on returning from injury and got knocked out early in Montreal and Cincinnati – but he showed signs of getting back to his style of play. More importantly, Rafa along with Fedex knows what it takes to win a Grand Slam.

Roddick – Deserved to win Wimbledon, that was really heartbreaking and had 2 early exits after Wimbledon. But, we can’t really discount the fact that he looked great at Wimbledon and is the last winner at the US Open (2003) before the Federer era started

Djokovic – He’s kind of inexplicable – on his day, he seems to be invincible at times – when’s he off, he looks like he doesn’t belong in the Top 10. But, he has shown that he has what it takes to win a Grand Slam – the Australian Open 2008 where he knocked out Federer in the SF. Looked in good form in Cincinnati, where he knocked out Rafa in the Semis, only to lose to Fedex in the Final.

There are a few contenders like Tsonga, Del Potro, Gonzalez etc, they will have their time under the sun and are very much capable of knocking out any of the 5 above – but I think Grand Slams require a different level – winning 7 matches of best-0f-5 sets over 2 weeks is a different ball game compared to 4-5 matches of best-0f-3 sets over a week.

Watch out for : Marat Safin, his name belongs to the exclusive club above and if not for his mercurial temperment, he might just have won a handful of Grand slams – this will be his last Grand Slam appearance.

The verdict: Why Ashes 2009 was not so great to watch after all….

Ok, I agree I wrote a post about 10 days ago on why the Ashes was heading for an exciting finale at the end of the 4th test. However, I thought the 5th test was a damp squib the moment the Aussies lost those 7 wickets for 38 runs in the post lunch session on Day 2 and ended up with a paltry score of 160. The writing was on the wall from that session onwards and stayed true to the script till the end. (Scores: England 332 and 373/9d; Australia 160 and 348)

Stats do tell a story sometimes – if you take the 4th test, England got bowled out for 102 in 33 overs on the 1st morning – it didn’t really need a clairvoyant to predict the result after that shocking display of batting.
(Scores: England 102 and 263; Australia 445)

Even the first match of the series at Cardiff ,where the Aussies were denied a victory by 1 wicket (Scores: England 435 and 252/9; Australia 674/6d), was dominated by the Aussies throughout the match – there was only 1 clear winner possible.

If you take the 2nd Test at Lords, where the Poms pulled off a once in a blue moon victory – the Aussies actually collapsed to 215 all out in the 1st innings and there wasn’t much hope after that. The writing on the wall was actually under threat when Clarke and Haddin were at the crease at 313/5 on the 4th evening, but then came that man – Andy Flintoff with one of the spells of his life and that ball to Haddin first up on the 5th morning – which kept the writing on the wall intact – this was possibly the only evenly matched contest of the whole series (England 425 and 311/6d; Australia 215 and 406) with the Aussie blip in the 1st innings still spoiling the equation a little bit.

Ironically, though people believed that England were in with a chance in the washed out Edgbaston test (Scores: Australia 263 and 375/5; England 376), it was the closest difference between the 1st innings scores of the 2 teams in the entire series (113 runs as compared to 239 at Cardiff, 210 at Lords, 343 at Leeds and 172 at the Oval).

It’s quite evident that usually only one team turned up for the match in full form most of the time, which made it quite an uneven contest. In hindsight, this was just another series – it certainly doesn’t figure in my list of great series – the quality of the cricket was just about ok, the stars were missing from both sides or hardly made their presence felt and the series missed the oomph factor throughout.

P.S: Ask the Aussies how they managed to end up on the losing side despite having 8 centuries to England’s 2 and the top 3 wicket takers in their team -:)

Back-up power – A necessary, but avoidable evil…..

Did you know? Indians spend a whopping 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) every year on fuel and maintenance cost on power back-up equipments to secure themselves against frequent outages. .

Given the dreadful power situation in our country, I would not blame anyone for relying on backup power (generators, inverters etc), I’m guilty of using back-up power myself in my apartment and everytime I hear big roars around me in the IT park where I work, I know that the the back up generator is on its way to work yet again. Of course, as more and more people can afford the prohibitively expensive back-up power, it’s usage keeps increasing.

According to a pan-Indian study commissioned by Wartsila India, The Real Cost of Power, the expenses on power generation using inverters, generators and other back-up equipments are almost 80 per cent more than what consumers pay on grid supply. The operational expenses on generating back-up power in the country are estimated to be around Rs 30,000 crore every year, the study says.
Dwelling on the cost difference, it says a consumer on an average spends 80 per cent above the grid cost when faced with 6-7 hours of load-shedding everyday and the cost increases three-fold if all the appliances like fridge and TV are run on back-up.

However, there do not seem to be too many options before us right now – we do continue to add thousands of Megawatts of extra power generation capacity every year – but how much of it is efficiently distributed remains a big concern due to the losses and pilferage that is apparent everywhere.

I know that I pay about Rs 4-6 per unit for the normal grid power and Rs 15 per unit for the back up power.
However, back up power has become such an integral part of our life after moving into our new apartment, we just live with the higher expenses – it’s actually very difficult to go to a place which doesn’t have this facility – maybe, we are just spoilt!

But, think for a moment about the key sources of back up power – most of the generators run on diesel and inverters use the normal power to get charged and use environmentally hazardous batteries and chemicals.
So, though we might be having the impression that since we pay 4-5 times as much more as we do for normal grid power and reserve the right to use as much back-up power as we can pay for, we are still harming the environment – the least we can do is turn off some of the bigger appliances which consume a lot of power – AC, Washing Machine, Microwave etc when we are on back-up power – I know it’s probably not possible if we are in the middle of the night and the AC turns off and on, but whereever possible we should make a conscious effort to reduce the dependency on back-up power – it’s not only a hole in the pocket, but also a costly threat to the environment. Small steps sometimes have a big impact and maybe this is one such thing…..

Source of the study reference: http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/aug/25/power-outage-indians-spend-30000-cr-annually.htm

IITs, IIMs and other premier institutions faculty should be paid on par with corporate business leaders

I came across this article about the IIT faculty asking for a better deal with their pay structure – http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/aug/26/iit-faculty-seeks-rs-15000-pay-hike.htm

I think one of the sad things about our modern education system is the decreasing value that is attributed to “teaching”. Sadly, modern India somehow doesn’t seem to agree with the adage from ancient India “Guru Devobhava, Acharya Devobhava” where we used to put the teacher on an equal pedestal with our parents, teaching was considered the noblest of professions and the teacher usually occupied a high position in society and was really revered. Today, there is no doubt that the premier institutions in India, especially the IITs, IIMs, the medical colleges (AIIMS, PGIMR, JIPMER, CMC etc) and other professional colleges of national repute produce some of the best talent in the world. However, the people who act as a catalyst to that talent, the teachers, still have to live on salaries from a bygone era. I think it is high time we correct this anamoly and pay our teachers on par with the best in the corporate sector. To take the IT sector as an example, I believe at the very least, an Assistant Professor has to be paid on the level of a Project Lead, an Associate Professor on the level of a Project Manager and a Professor on the level of a Group Project Manager/Delivery Manager. If we can ensure that we pay at this level, we can definitely attract some people who might actually be very good teachers, but were put off by the monetary part of the profession and decided to pursue something else. One thing is for certain, we need quality faculty and we need to ensure that the faculty we recruit is the best and can effectively replace the stellar faculty of yester years as some of our great teachers step down. This applies to not just the top of the line institutions, but to several other very good universities and colleges across India.

I understand that faculty at these premier institutions supplement their income by working on projects for industry and as consultants, that is a good factor, but we have to realize that it takes a Professor some time to build industry contacts and at the entry level, it is not possible for someone to directly start getting such consulting assignments.

The Union HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, has tried to stir the nest of our educational system with some radical thoughts, I think he certainly needs to take a look at what can be done to not only continue to retain the best faculty, but also plan for the future by attracting the best talent to come to our best institutes.

I think it is very unfair that the IIT faculty are not even being paid the revised UGC scales and I’m totally in support of them putting up a fight in this matter.

(That brings me back to the question I asked in an earlier blog – what’s happening to the educational cess that I pay? Can a part of it also be used for paying the best teachers around the country – just a parting thought)

Indian Stock Markets – A case of the foreign tail wagging the desi dog

The Indian Stock Markets these days seem to react more to news from outside the country than within it. What else explains the stock market’s defiant stance to the state of the monsoon in the country, the rising inflation of basic necessities for the common man and other local factors (I can’t explain why the overall inflation continues to be negative and at it’s lowest in 20 years when the price of Toor Dal, Sugar and others have skyrocketed by more than 50% in less than 3 months), while succumbing to every small bit of information from abroad?

How else can you explain the jitters the stock market experienced twice this week just because our Bhai Bhai (the Chinese) coughed?

http://www.moneycontrol.com/mccode/news/article/news_article.php?autono=411801&special=mkt_topnews

Agreed, there are FIIs and all who have made the markets more global that anyone ever wanted them to become. For a couple of decades now, our stock markets almost were a proxy to the US, UK etc – and there was a heavy dependency on the US markets for everything. However, rarely have I seen our markets reacting to what happens in China until recently – why should we even be bothered? How much affiliation do we have with China anyway? (or for that matter even the US).

I mean there are perfectly good companies in India which are giving astounding returns quarter after quarter, year after year – why should they be hammered because some nut on the street (pardon my French!) connects them to the Chinese market, where some other nut decided that the stocks should crash.

I can never explain the happenings in the stock market – I can certainly not take the “global cues”, “negative sentiment” etc – maybe that’s the reason I’m not really a smart investor!

But, I certainly think that this is a case of a desi dog acquiring a foreign tail which it knows nothing about and cannot control!

Usain Bolt – Pushing Man to the extreme limit at 9.58?

“I love you”, “I love you”, “I love you” – say that out 3 times? How long did you take? Well, there are men around the world who can run a distance of 100m in less than the time it takes us to say “I love you” thrice! Isn’t it amazing?

Well, not quite – because there’s one man above them all who’s just not too impressed with that either! That man is a phenomenon – a once in a lifetime athlete – none other than Usain Bolt…I still can’t believe that he broke his own World record by 11 Hundredths from 9.69 at Beijing last year to 9.58 at Berlin.

I remember watching a programme on Discovery channel last year which explored the limit to which man can push himself – surely someone will not be able to run the 100m in 5 seconds one day! Well, Bolt is already talking about hitting the 9.4s. Of course, nothing is impossible – but everything is not entirely possible either.
I’m just a bit concerned about what the pressure to create yet another World Record (especially when it is almost deemed impossible by even some scientists) can do to athletes. There’s only a certain level of improvement that you can get through better nutrition, training techniques, gear etc – maybe beyond that it is God’s gift to some extent – but what beyond that? Can there be other supplements – the ones of the dangerous type?

Everyone who saw the event and the aftermath cannot possibly forget Ben Johnson’s then World Record of 9.79 at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 – the thrill that it brought instantenously and the dark shadow that it cast on the sport following the revelations of the usage of drugs. Sport can be cruel at times and in the quest to pursue higher ambitions and break records, athletes can falsely believe that they can do anything – I’m just hoping that we will never have to see a World Record holder ever falling prey to such circumstances again – I’m not even remotely suggesting anything about the quality of Bolt’s performance here, even his arch rivals Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell agree that he’s a revelation and keeps surprising everyone. I just hope that in our mad dreams to see records being broken, we aren’t forcing athletes and sportsman to take undue risks and put their careers and in some cases lives in jeopardy. We need to cherish the achievements of Bolt, Phelps and the great athletes of the current generation and treasure them carefully.

My name is also Khan!

Of course, it isn’t – you all know that my name is Sunil Ayalasomayajula . However, approximately 1/4th of the world’s population is Islamic (about 1.5 billion) and Khan is one of the most common names (it could be a first name, last name or even one of the several parts of the name) and the title of this blog is a reflection of how they would introduce themselves. It is probably as much used as “Smith”, “Johnson” or “Williams”, which are the Top 3 most common surnames in the US or perhaps much more. Approximately 1% of the US population (approx 300 million) is a “Smith” (approx 2.8 million), hypothetically if we extend the same to the Islamic population of the world, we are talking about at least 15 million Khans or more here (I believe the figure might be much higher)! Ofcourse, not all our hypothetical 15 million will have the resources or will need to step into the US or any Western country, but it is still a pointer to the number of Khans at risk of violation of fundamental rights/basic courtesy/humiliation etc.

Did you know that “Khan” is among the top 10 names in Greater London and the 80th on the list of most common names in the UK?

If the airport authorities in the US are assigned the task of profiling a person based on his name having “Khan”, then they will have their hands busy round the clock! Perhaps this is a way of keeping so many people who are jobless during the recession busy!

Getting back to the more serious side of things, I think the US authorities need to reevaluate what they’ve been doing – there is outrage over Shah Rukh Khan’s detention for about 2 hours at the Newark Airport (There has been a denial that Shah Rukh was stopped based on his name, but you never know), just a couple of months ago it was the turn of one of the most worthy citizens of the world (not just India) – our former President Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam in our own backyard- and there have been numerous other instances from recent memory. I can’t just believe that this is a diplomatic goof up – there’s much more to this than that – the film “New York” did bring out the dark side of 9/11 on some of the innocent Muslims and I think the suspicion has been increasing by the day – we cannot live every day of our life by alienating 1/4th of humanity and forever looking at them with a suspicious eye!

Also, though one of the easiest ways to identify a person is through his/her name, there is no guarantee over what an unknown terrorist’s real name is – several of them have so many aliases. It’s just not the terrorists alone, even the outfits they represent forever keep changing names, I lost track of what the Lashkar-e-taiba’s newest avatar (or spelling) is!

Given this background, it’s time for people around the world (and especially the Western half) to stop this sycophancy (not just name and person profiling) and devise a better way to keep the real terrorists out of the life of the innocent citizens (And, before they do that – stop inflicting more pain on all those innocent Afghans, Iraqis and so many other nations around the world – you are making these innocent people turn towards terrorism because you sowed the seed and killed their father, mother, brother, sister, friend etc).

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_(name)

Finding a long lost friend….

It’s always a great feeling to catch up with someone you’ve been out of touch with for a while…

It’s not often that it happens, but when it happens the joy is certainly overwhelming…

With a few people, I find that the fact that you’ve been out of touch for a while (or even years) doesn’t really have any profound affect – we just seamlessly delve into a conversation as if we have been talking to each other every day – with a few others, I’m not so sure where to start.

I guess it’s much easier when you have a lot of common ground together – and in most cases this happens only when you have been school or college mates and to a lesser extent when you’ve shared office space together.

When it’s been a few years since you’ve last met the person, you just cannot expect how it will be. Sometimes you probably notice that while you treasure the moments spent together earlier, your lives have moved on in different directions and the “oomph” factor is missing, though you both have tremendous respect and admiration for each other – that’s the natural progression of life in some cases.

I don’t really know, but when it comes to the family aspect, it’s easier to bond with a person of a similar status – the bachelor with the bachelor, the married-but-no-kids with the married-but-no-kids and the fully furnished family with the fully furnished family . I’ve felt it happening at various stages and maybe it is the personal compulsions that each phase presents that separates and bonds people alike. I’ve seen that the change in status leads to changing social equations in many cases – I feel sorry for my few bachelor friends around as they are pretty much the odd-man-outs at this time. I feel nervous about my friends with kids, because their natural tendency is to talk about the kids first (as any new parents would), but you don’t really strike a chord with them yet, as you haven’t reached that stage yet. Ofcourse, I do promise that there’s no offence intended from my end, it’s just a phase of life when certain things are out of sync – it could just be the mindset really

Anyway, coming back to what I started with – I really caught up with a few old friends of late – fellow alumni, old mates from work etc and I feel really good about it!