India vs. Australia - 2nd test match

The 2nd test match, especially the last 2 days have witnessed immaculate performance by a team in a test series - team India's biggest win in terms of a victory margin and that too against a top quality team. It was enthralling to see a team effort with so many countributions by almost every player. India vs. Australia - the battle is always a special one to watch - to see which of the top 2 teams in cricket are getting an upper hand of the other.

But the last 2 days in particular, I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the game.

Punter's dismissal of Ishant Sharma - a cracker of a delivery. The only space left for the ball to go through was a size of a cricket ball - and Ishant Sharma with the reverse swing found that only to see the off-stump being uprooted. Ponting didn't have a clue and he too was surprised to see how the ball went through the gate.

Zaheer Khan's wickets today morning - especially Haddin and Brett Lee - pure enjoyment of world class bowling. Stumps flying around, batsmen having no clue on how the ball is moving - these are priceless moments to watch :)

Both Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma as the only 2 pace bowlers in the game - played a very crucial role. The task of swinging the ball which the Australian pacers could not was performed at a more than desired level.

Other Great moments - included the legendary Tendulkar's response to those 2 catches. Even after being the highest ever run scorer in Tests, playing 19 years of test match cricket - (that's a
hell of a lot of test cricket), the same kid-like enthusiasm of taking a catch and celebrating that as if it was your first catch in test match cricket - just makes you smile in awe at the great legend.

Many other moments and contributions worth mentioning, but I am not going to write all of them - will enjoy today being proud of Indian cricket and watch highlight shows to re-live the moments of pure enjoyment :)

With regards to Dhoni, I am only going to say that the future of Indian cricket feels in safe hands.

WHY

Most of the times, people do get in to the rut of living their daily lives, that they forget to question WHY are they doing things. So forgetting to explore this 3 letter word in many lives is the root cause for the lack of FULFILLMENT and in many cases, the journey of exploring this has given a PURPOSE & DIRECTION to their LIVES.

However, when someone passes away - this is the easiest to pop up, it takes a matter of seconds when the WHY is stuck in your mind. And unfortunately, this is the wrong time to ask yourself this; WHY did this happen to him / her / them? - Nope. Don't try to solve the puzzle at that time. It has no answer and increases suffering & frustration.

Quality vs. Cost

In today's globalized 'flat' world, where every other firm is on a race to exploit the cost advantage by looking at manufacturing / producing goods and / or delivering services out of 'developing' economies - you may want to 'oversee' how certain retailers are marketing this.



I bumped into this in the Budapest main market - and initially it seemed extremely funny, but then the thought of how 'quality' and 'cost competition' - in this case, low quality vs. low cost are perceived almost going hand in hand - it is definitely something to ponder about.

Atlas Shrugged

When Dagny asks him, "What's the most depraved kind of human being?"

Francisco answers: "The man without a purpose."

Started reading Atlas Shrugged a couple of weeks back and is shaping up amazingly well.

Viva la vida

The new album by Coldplay - have been hearing since about 5 days now.

You can feel the band's obsession over the details they have put into this. This is a different album as the tone is a bit dark, the guitars are played roughly & heavily - definitely a bold effort by the band but it has paid off every bit - the bar has truly been raised!

You can feel the difference in the songs - for e.g "Yes!" which has odd tunes and Chris's rough voice. The title - "Viva la vida" starts off beautifully and you know hearing the title song - that this album is here to make the difference and top the charts even before you hear all the songs.

Chris Martin and the entire band has done an incredible job with the new album and I am very happy about this fact :). The instrumental -"Life in technicolor" is melodious along with "Strawberry Swing". Also I can feel the ethnic tabla / tribal drums in the song "Lost" - which is beautiful, but I still prefer the bonus track Lost (acoustic) version- where there is absolutely nothing besides the piano playing with Chris Martin singing.

You might call me biased for my fav band - but I still give them a 9 / 10 and there are good reasons for this.

I like the entire album, but to pick my top 3 songs - here they go:

* Viva la vida
* Lost
* Life in technicolor

I hope I can somehow arrange my schedule and manage to watch them live in the upcoming tour with some uncertainty that lies ahead of me as just over 2 months are left in Swiss land.

A flight of freedom...

It was an incredible feeling on the 'flight of freedom' as I like to put it :)



During the 20 mins in the air, it reminded me of this thought that I had posted sometime back.

After the para gliding, followed one of the great lunches at an Indian restaurant :), and later in the evening, Gaurav, Petroula and I had taken this wonderful boat ride for 2.5 hrs on the lake of Thun - it was sooooo pretty and relaxing. It was a day in a weekend - but felt like we were on a loooong holiday - felt disconnected from everything but the nature and you being a part of it like everything else in this world.

Amazing 4 hours for me...

A simple wish by filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, TED prize winner in 2006 -a reality yesterday. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish.

So yesterday, few of us gathered at home at 20:00 Zurich time when the Pangea day was about to be broadcasted live across everywhere in the world.

4 amazing, touching hrs where you saw some of the most fascinating films, visionary speakers, musicians, people from various parts of the world - Touching & powerful messages about how people are working towards from a shared vision of the world.

One of the most touching pieces for me was a brief conversation shown between a Palestinian and an Israeli who shared their experience. Both said they had lost their children killed by each other's country men. And their message of togetherness saying that there are more Israeli and Palestinians who want peace between them and the entire conversation was extremely powerful.

They said when they lost their children, they had a lot of anger and suffering. They said that for people to reconcile in these countries in particular is NOT that they don't want peace, but because they CANNOT live with the suffering and pain inflicted on them. They dont know what to do with the anger.

"There's no way to peace. Peace is the way. You do peace first without any condition." said the guy.

This story of forgiveness and spreading this message by talking to such families from both these countries was one amongst countless other stories told yesterday and a simple idea of bringing the world together through films was breathtaking.

Some people might think it to be idealistic and feel comfortable in their own bubble.

Yes, may be a film won't change the world - but the people who watched those films CAN.

Thank you for an amazing inspiring 4 hrs yesterday.