Adios!

Pang and agony my heart shall feel,

Some moments of mirth shall never return.

Distant in time, but closest in love,

The memories will remain long beyond the game!

Consumed

A lot of times, I am consumed. Consumed by anger the most, by hatred a bit, by fear very little and by love sometimes.

Its a state where I have no control over myself, or, I should rather say, its a state where I do not want any control over myself. I just let that emotion rip through me and to engulf me. What happens during those moments is something I can only recap, sometimes with agony and sometimes with remorse. But those moments do come back and I let it take me over yet again.

Some say its just human. I tend to think the same. I dont believe in curbing emotions. Some say we need to excercise control. I have tried and seldom succeeded.

But in recent years, I have realised that in certain situations or with certain people, my love or my anger or my actions or my words make no difference whatsoever. It it these circumstances that lead me to think that perhaps it is better to excercise control after all.

To be consumed by my own emotions is one thing. To be consumed by someone else is totally a different thing!! I much prefer the former!

Cutting trees COULD mean lesser CO emissions.

Recently, there were reports on protests against cutting trees on Sankey road. Needless to say, we cant chop of trees just like that. But then, I decided to take a second look to see if it makes any sense to cut the trees after all.

In a city where the number of cars bought is exploding every single day, and in the same city where individual houses are making way to multi-storey apartments, there is bound to be traffic issues. And since we don’t want to stay too far away from all the action the city may offer, we have no choice but to be on those roads, in the middle of the mayhem.

So, logically, from an infrastructure perspective, widening existing roads is the only solution. Its not like we can build new ones! Public transport and metros can pose an argument, but only to some extent. And if we have to widen roads, we have to cut trees.

We might benefit from cutting trees on one account - CO emissions. Sounds a little odd doesn’t it? Here goes:

Note: This article is being written after just one simple round of research, mostly done through online resources. The numbers represented here involve assumptions and sometimes, data picked off the internet. I intend to dig in more in coming weeks to prune the data.

An average tree can absorb up to 48lbs (22Kgs) per YEAR is what they say.

Assume we are talking 25 trees, spread across a stretch of 250 meters. This can roughly translate into 250 meters of extra traffic in ONE lane.

Take a look at this table:

* Assuming we spend twice the time idling
** Assuming total 6 hours of peak time
Note: The CO Emission levels here are based on BSIV or Euro IV, assuming all vehicles are compliant

We would release upto 7 Kgs of CO per day, just because of an extra 250 meters of stop-and-go traffic. For a year, its almost 2520Kgs of CO.

25 trees would have absorbed 550Kg of CO.

For a finite number of vehicles, if the trees were to give way to another lane, the traffic would have flown in half the time and hence the emission would have been half what it would be otherwise.

So, Emission with trees: 2520 – 550 = 2000Kgs of CO (appx).

Emission without trees: 2550/2 = 1220 Kgs of CP (appx).

Need I say more?

Still, having said what I said, we cant put a number to the aesthetic values or trees. Not to mention the home they provide to smaller life forms. Neither can we quantify the amount of rainfall it may effect. And nor can we sum up the breeze and shade they offer when the sun is beating down!

Moral: If you need them trees, Move out of cities or buy a bicycle :)

Note: Alternate measures like re-planting the trees is always welcome, but not directly under the discussion here.

The 'Semi-Final' experience!

Or should I call it the semi-'Final' Experience?!

I dont wanna talk about the excitement the India-Pakistan world cup clashes bring about. Neither do I want to talk about the nail-biting moments or the favorite seats we all held on to. Nor shall I talk about the 1000s of FB updates!

I want to talk about the celebrations... the after match 'feel' so to say. It was a delectable win no doubt. My spirits were already soaring... and what met my eyes after, at mid-night, took them to the stars!

I went for a drive after the match. But was stopped at my apartment gate by our own watch-men. I was wondering why. I was asked to roll down the windows. And in came a warm hand - congratulating me for the Indian victory. I was surprised, but recovered in time. I shared the joy and said lets hope we repeat it on Saturday. The reply was "I dont care about Saturday. To me, today was the finals". I smiled. I drove on.

Half a mile down, traffic stopped. 50 odd people were in the middle of the road. Dancing to a live band. The Indian flags fluttering proud. The glee in people's faces made wonder if we had already brought the cup home. All this in the middle of the night, mind you...

Fireworks were still on. I could see them lighting up the sky through my rear-view mirror. I could hear the shots all around me. Groups of people were standing and celebrating at every corner. People had their faces painted in Indian tri-colours. I almost joined them in the dancing, but stopped short. "Maybe, after the finals..." I said to myself.

It then occured to me. My ultimate cricketing joy would be to see Sachin holding the cup. Smiling. I could picture it in my head. He cant get any closer anymore. This is the chance... This is it. So I say... come on Sachin... come on Team India... Bring home the cup! Bring home the Joy!!

Eco-Variance and Strike-Efficiency - the number crunching...

A little recap first:

Eco-Variance shows us how economic a bowler has been, relative to the rest of the bowlers in the match.

Strike-Efficiency shows us how effective a bowler has been in taking wickets, relative to the rest of the bowlers in the match.

I have picked up a set of bowlers who have been around in the Indian ODI arena in the past decade or so. From veteran (retired) Anil Kumble to green-horn (WC debutant) Ashwin Ravichandran. I took the numbers from every single match they have all played up till this world cup. I calculated the variance between the economy and the innings run-rate for each bowler in each match they have played. Then I averaged the variance to get the average variance. I also calculated the % of matches where the variance is positive to get a consistency factor.

I ran a similar exercise for the Strike-efficiency as well.

Here are the results:

Pragyan Ojha, a noted omission from our WC team sits right on atop the list when it comes to economy. Given that in ODIs on Indian pitches we need to save some runs, he should have been an obvious choice.

Bhajji is the next best when it comes to spinners. Then comes Jumbo. If you noticed, the ranking as per eco-variance and economy does look the same for the top 3. But we start seeing differences beyond that point. The same can be said about the bottom 3 bowlers - RP, Ishant and Sreesanth being the worst of the lot.

Its the world in-between that causes us selection dilemnas. Here is where Eco-Variance can come into play to pick the one who typically does better than the rest!

Going by this, Chawla's selection ahead of Ojha can never be justified. Unless our think tank believes we need his batting exploits, in spite of boasting the best of line-ups! But even then, Ashwin would have fit the bill. Its just pure simple bemusement I am led to!

Talking about being effective in taking wickets... The stike efficiency gives a completely different picture as against the bowling average. Ashwin would be our go-to bowler for the wickets. And he is at the 4th spot when it comes to eco-variance.

I think our selectors got it right for the most part when it comes to picking the ones who would be able to take wickets. Munaf is in, if you purely go by the average. But if I were to pick a better performer comaritively, I would go with Nehra - purely for wicket taking. Both are in the squad and have been in playing 11s.

I was a little surprised to see Zaheer in the middle of the pack for both eco-variance and strike-efficiency. So maybe he is not too great a bowler as he is made out to be, although he is among the top 3 seamers when it comes to eco-variance.

Its up to the interpretation of the individuals to see what weight-age they want to give to economy and the wicket taking abilities. I would want a mix of both.

So perhaps the ideal bowling team to me would look like this:

Spinners: Ohja, Bhajji, Ashwin

Seamers: Munaf, Nehra, Zaheer (Praveen being unavailable)

What do you think? Do these numbers make sense? Should I even take this further? Please be frank in your opinion :)

Introducing new bowling statistics - Eco-variance and Strike-Efficiency

Let me jump straight to the point - The bowling statistics available today talk about a given bowler's individual performance. It does not provide a scale to compare them against other bowlers. (I say this because an economy of 5.25 for example is an absolute number and does not give us any idea on whether the bowler performed better or worse than another bowler in the same set of matches. The same argument can be extended to other stats used today.)

What I have attempted here is to come with statistics that provide us an idea of one's performance relative to the others in a given match or over his career.

So how do you judge a bowler today? Anyone who follows a good amount of cricket would put up his or her hand and say "Economy and Wickets". Some might actually say "Economy and Average". 'Average' being the average (duh!) number of runs a bowler gives away per wicket. A few might venture out to say "Economy, Average and Strike Rate". 'Strike rate' being the number of deliveries per wicket. But all these numbers are absolute numbers, specific only to that bowler and in no way provide a relative scale for ranking one bowler over the other.

What I am introducing here are two numbers, that I would like to call the Eco-variance and Strike-efficiency.

Eco-variance is the percentage delta between the bowler's economy and the innings run-rate, averaged over the career or the selected number of matches. If the bowlers economy is better than the innings run rate of the opposition in the matches under consideration, then the eco-variance would be a positive number, else negative. Obviously, positive numbers means he has bowled better than the other bowlers, in terms of the runs given away.

Strike-efficiency is the percentage delta between the number of wickets the bowler has taken per run given away by him in the match, and the total number of wickets taken per run given away by all bowlers together. Again this number is averaged over the career or the selected number of matches. If the bowler had taken more wickets-per-run, than the wickets-per-run for the entire innings, then the strike-efficiency would be a positive number, else negative. Again, positive numbers mean he has bowled better than the others, in terms of the wickets taken.

Having said this, I will pause, before I produce the numbers I got from the extensive number crunching I had been doing over the last few weeks. I have kept it down to the Indian bowlers, in ODIs for now. The idea was to release this in time before the WC, so I could analyse and criticize the team selection ;) But then, I said, lets do it atleast before the quarter finals :)

Note: I am also working on similar numbers for batsmen. These details are not to be used in other forms without my prior permission ;-)

I heard her and then, I saw her :)

I heard her voice as soon as I parked outside the office. I thought it was sounding in my head. I waited. I listened. I heard her again. A sweet, melodious whistle. I looked up into the blue sky and the green canopy beneath. Nothing. But the voice sounded again. I walked up beneath the green, kept looking up, called in some help (Another friend who would know what I am talking about). We both walked out of the office. We looked all around. We searched for the voice. We searched for the singer. Then I saw her. A Black-naped Oriole. And yes, the call was so so different from her usually not-so-nice tone. We were surprised.

But I heard her and then, I saw her :)

BBMP invites tenders for super-sized diapers

Bangalore,

March 09, 2011

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has invited tenders from diaper manufactures across the country to supply 3.65 million super sized diapers, as an immediate measure to contain the growing sanitation problem in the third most populous metro in India.

Earlier in the day, residents from several areas of the city decided not to make much of a fuss to wade through streets filled with sewage leaking from every other manhole in the vicinity. Some drivers chose to splash the water on the pedestrians, much to their glee. But this was not to be taken lightly by the city's governors who saw an opportunity to make a quick buck or two, having lost out on the 2G deals.

An independent commission set up to study the health of the sanitation facilities in the city had come up with a novel recommendation, at an astonishing speed of 4 milli-seconds, that the city could use diapers to contain the leaks encountered everyday from thousands of sewage-holes. It has been estimated that about 10000 diapers would be needed everyday across Bengaluru, with stand-by diapers kept ready in mobile diaper dispensing vehicles.

However, this recommendation was over-ruled by the city officials unanimously. They instead proposed a GIANT diaper, 18Kms long and 15Kms wide (approximate city limits), that could cover up the entire city to soak in all the leaking sewage, in one single shot. They have also proposed to build a tertiary outer-ring road along the diaper boundary as indicated in this new map of Bengaluru.

Leading diaper manufacturers, both local and international, are expected to send in their quotations to what would go down in history as the most novel solution to a city's sanitation problems.

Reporting from Bengaluru, Your special correspondent, That Inner Voice.

How much more childish can it get?!

Long Long ago, But not so long ago, Humpty owned a small farm.

The farm was bright, full of sprites, green and breezy, warm and cozy.

Humpty, then, held this farm, along with Dumpty, happy and gay!

Jack and Jill, sat up the hill, watching the farm, arm in arm.

Humpty got bored, so went back home, leaving Dumpty sitting all alone.

Little John and Goosy Gandor, with Georgie-Porgie, now joined the party.

Jill then thought, why sit lazy, so gave Dumpty, a nice little Kick.

Humpty and Dumpty who sat on the wall, had a great fall.

Johny and Goosy, just to please Georgie, made the farm ill.

This angered Jill, so Jack and Jill came down the hill!

Jill pushed Johny, Johny called Goosy, Goosy called Georgie.

Georgie lost to Jack and out came Jill with good kid Tommy.

Tommy the good kid, watered the plants and fed the dogs,

Tommy the good kid, took care of the farm.

Jill and Tommy, gelled like jammy, sugary and sweet.

On came Peter, the pumpkin eater, just to make the jam not so sweet.

Peter added salt, Jill liked the taste,

Jill pinched Tommy, but Tommy never flinched.

Georgie lost his chair, Peter lost his tooth.

Jill lost her cool, Tommy lost his sail.

Now Tommy sat alone; mostly on the phone,

No ice on his cone, Aching are his bones!!

106 not out!

One whole day. Sun rise to sun down. Twelve hours of non-stop birding. And the result? 106*... We saw 106+ species of birds - from House-crows to a Sirkeer Malkoha!

That was the story of the day. The HSBC Bangalore bird race saw its 5th edition today and for us it was the second year. Last year we had 59 birds to our account, as debutants. The target this time around was not just to get to 59, but to go past it and score a century. And we did just that!

The Ravens, as we called ourselves, set out before day-break, searching for owls and owlets. No luck there. But a Magpie Robin (a relatively easier find) kick started the day for us. From there on, there was no looking back. The valley school, our next stop, yielded us perhaps about 50 sightings. Some of those birds that we had hardly seen before made some special appearances - like the Black headed Cuckooshrike, Blue faced Malkohas, Puff throated Babblers, White browed Bulbuls, White browed/throated Fantails and on and on...

And along the way, I personally discovered the pleasure of birding armed with just my binoculars. Usually I carry around my camera with telephoto lens to take tons of pics. This time around, I didn't want to waste time looking for that perfect photograph and inadvertently started enjoying the idea of just birding, in the pure form. Walking all by myself (when separated from the team), watching those winged angels, I realised what it meant to be at one with nature!

We headed to a local lake next and then on to the Bannerghata forest corridor. And this is where we saw 'our' bird of the day - a Sirkeer Malkoha! What a beauty he was... a rare sighting I suppose. We lingered on. A few more birds were added to the list and then we headed to Jigni and Chandapura lakes before winding up. A quick status check revealed we had crossed our target. Rejoiced, we headed to the closing ceremony. The smiles and the sense of satisfaction that came upon us then, hasn't left us yet :-)

The owls and owlets still remained elusive. The woodpeckers remained invisible. Some of the water-birds didn't give us an appointment. But beyond all of this, we saw a promise. A hope that we can make it 150+ next year to put ourselves among the top 3. And that, by the way, has turned the sceptic in me into a believer!

Paravaigal palavitham! Ovvondrum oru vitham :)