Does Birbal Cat Strategy Work Everywhere ?

In an episode in the sitcom "Everybody loves Raymond" (Sarabhai Vs Sarabhi is its INDIAN version) Raymond advises Robert, how to get away from doing the house hold chores. His strategy was basically to messes up the first time so that Debra, his wife never gave any important or extra chores. What struck me was that it was a no brainier strategy; it’s was the same old strategy that I was accused of using to get away from doing work. The fact was that I was inherently messy.

Just mess up a bit or give a cold response the first time and world would never assign you extra task. This strategy was demonstrated by the Great Birbal using a cat. Because he fed his cat with steaming milk for the first couple of days, his cat never drank milk and always ran away from milk. And after a month when everybody's cat had grown big and healthy, Birbal's cat was pale and lean. Birbal even showed Akbar that his cat never drank milk upon offer and always ran away for it. Akbar was astonished in the first place and then praised Birbal for his intelligence when the secret was revealed.

In our busy day today lives we tend to over look these Birbal's cat strategists. In grocery stores, super markets, malls, colleges, banks, offices you find them everywhere. These are the Amitabhs (angry young man), who would spur fire when approached; and with their grin, serious (read: scary) faces one would pass out rather than talking to them let alone seeking help. And with none of us having time/patience that Akbar had to analyze this, we tend to approach people with Madhuri (read: pleasant & smiling) faces and get the job done. The irony is that in the short run these Madhuri faced people tend to get the extra work just because they are approachable.

Next time just observe whom you would prefer to approach Amitabh or Madhuri and see if you can decipher and find those Birbal's cat strategists.

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Software Companies and Premier League Franchises

When a software company starts a new project it would divide the work load among its full- time employees, which would be a blend of experienced as well are fresh hires who would be trained in return for long term benefits towards the company. At times there would be a scenario where a chunk of work needs to be done at min cost and at a quicker pace. Training employees and then expecting an output from them might not be feasible all the time and that is where IT Consultants come into picture.

IT Consultants are experience and technically well equipped individuals who would advise, implement and deploy the IT System on businesses behalf. They are contracted for a predetermined duration on the project and are billed hourly. Because they add so much value they charge heavily and hence much is expected from them without much advice. Every project would have a cap on the amount spent on full-time employees and the IT Consultants. Also fixed is the number of IT Consultants that can be hired in some companies.

Premier League Franchises pick their team in no different way than a software company, which would be a blend of experienced cricketers who are at the top of their game. Well complemented with very talented fresh hires who would contribute and learn at the same in a hind view of long term benefits to these Franchises. To maintain proper balance in the team and to fill in the void gaps, specialist and experienced foreign players or over sea players are hired.

Because of the value they bring into the team they are purchased at a higher price and are typically auctioned and are contracted for a fixed duration of time. Expectations are high from them as they are paid heavily and so their contribution are heavily monitored. Every Franchise would have a cap on amount spent on local and foreign players.

If software companies earn by selling software produced by their employees, Premier League Franchises get richer by selling the game produced by their players. Users enjoy using their favorite software just as much spectators get entertained in watching their favorite game.

I might call that game cricket you might call it soccer.

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Cricket and Swimming Pool - Interesting thought

Have you ever noticed in a public swimming pool where the people density is the highest, it is at the shallow areas. With feet grounded and nose above the water level every one seems to be a winner. It is the only place where a beginner & expert are at par. If you zoom in a bit, you see that those are the ones who seem to be enjoying the most, jumping, peddling & splashing around. They always are keen on getting more attention from the crowd for various reason apart from swimming.

But there is a radically different scene happening at the other end of the swimming pool, where people are swimming intensely putting their head down without bothering about attention. Their strokes are perfect and feet peddling in sync making it look ridiculously easy. They are there because they technically sound enough to sustain the fact that their feet no longer touch the ground and water level is past their nose. As the time elapses owing to energy drain or lack of stamina one can easily separate the best from the rest, and the gap between them keeps increasing, the more these people swim.

Twenty20 and Test matches are no different from shallow and the deep areas of the swimming pool respectively. The fact that anybody can win in a T20 on his day makes it far me exciting and hence seeks in lot of attention. But the real connoisseurs of the game(read: test match watchers) would hate it calling it rubbish and would rather love to watch a dead Test match where winner is known before the toss(read Ashes), rather than getting a glimpse of T20.

Just as in a Quality Assurance reducing the bar level doesn't always guaranty quality products, reducing the number of overs in cricket neither guaranties QUALITY CRICKET nor would guaranty quality players. But what it guaranties is the sheer quantity that would guaranty dollars in quick time and that is what drives cricket and for that matter even the SWIMMING POOL.

CROSS POST cric-times

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Mera Gaon Seh Mera Desh

After the high profile IPL the focus now shifts from Rainbow Nation to the Nation when it always Rains, yes ENGLAND and with attention shifting to international cricket, it would a nice change to see players don their national colors. Playing for your franchise is one thing and playing for your NATIONAL team is totally different affair. The talks about value of a player, runs / dollar or wickets / dollars won’t dominate every time a player performs. Rather than having a faked City Vs City rivalry we now will have the real Country Vs Country rivalry. Matches like IND Vs PAK or AUS Vs NZ would bring back the tension and hype that existed on the field.

The IPL in rainbow nation with the local drummers and bugles’ along with the bollywood music played in the background created a carnival environment. Cloud and gloomy weather conditions in England compounded with “decent” crowds, who would either clap hands or sip bear, hopefully won’t take away the festival atmosphere that T20 brings along with itself. Bigger capacity grounds would increase crowd count.

There neither would be DLF maximums or CITI moments of success nor would the commentators thank the sponsors every 10 mins. Neither would Lalit Modi been shown talking on the phone every 15 mins. With no strategic timeouts, we would miss the glamour that was attached with Miss Bollywood South Africa and also the HEAT (Health Educate And Teach) convention which funded a lot of local student in SA. Players will miss definitely the hugging and kissing from their team owners.

Two things the players would carry from IPL; MONEY and INJURY. Money was all talked about throughout the IPL; injuries would now be talked about. No sooner would a player miss a game due to injury; an anti-IPL of statement of cricket overkill would be made. Already talks about Flintoff, Zaheer and Sehwag‘s fitness is being talked.

One thing that T20 lacked was and that IPL has provided is statistics or numbers; with so less T20 played prior T20 WC 2007 teams entered with an uncluttered mind, played mostly with instincts. Now with so many games and different scenarios and many unexpected results in IPL even the minnows would fancy their chances. 60 required in 4 overs, batting team would still fancy it, because they now have the right statistics to back them up. A sense of belief would seep in. And the memories of Rohit scoring the required 26 in the last over against Mortaza will give nightmares to every fielding captain when they arrive at a similar situation.

As they say attaining the top spot is easy maintaining that is tough, INDIA now face the burden of defending the World Cup title probably first time since 1983; this is something new to this INDIAN team. And in the recently concluded IPL we saw how Royals failed to live upto the expectation of defending the title. Hope the INDIAN team would be unfazed by the hype and would live by its expectation. Also like how Bangalore and Deccan bounced back one wouldn't mind Dutch or even England clinching the cup.

Let the focus shift on Mere Desh Ki Dharti from my Mera Gaon ki Chori.

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