What a Bitch of a Day?

As I watched the New England Patriots lose to the Indianapolis Colts, and the call made by Coach Bill Belichick - it makes me wonder why a 3 time Super Bowl championship coach would decide to throw, when it was 4th down and 2 yards rather than take the conventional approach of punting. Some would argue that he thought with the defense lagging and Colts Quarterback Peyton Manning getting “hot”, it did not make sense to send the defensive team out again. Others would say that Belichick wanted to prove an aggressive point to the Colts as well as the rest of the league - just like what he had done in the 2007 season when the Patriots went 18-1, and on most days would give the opposition a hiding! Regardless of these arguments or what sides one takes, it is pretty clear to me that Coach Bill Belichick has the gut instincts and mentality to be a winner and the courage to take a risk and embrace it whether it succeeds or not. If anyone had watched the press conference, one would be able to conclude that despite the loss, the coach looked steady, felt that he made the right play, embraced that it had failed and was ready to move on. That is what makes him as an individual - a winner and thus enforces that passion and commitment to others in that organization.

When one looks at history, all great acts of courage, success, rewards and achievements have come in the face of a defining moment - one where a leader or an organization, makes a decision. These are not your typical marketing strategies that are deliberated on for a month or so with statistics and numbers, or the pre-planning to the execution of a project with heaps of documentation. These are “do-or-die” moments if one wanted to add a theatrical ambience to the situation. Great soldiers, sportsmen, politicians and others have defined themselves and their lives by such moments. Whilst a rookie Senator from Illinois decides to take a risk at running for the Presidency of the United States, Steve Jobs decides to revolutionize the mobile phone industry and take on the dominant telecom industry.The decision to revolt against the Crown by the 13 colonies, the soldiers who swam across the shores on Omaha Beach during the Battle at Normandy, clutch decision plays by Michael Jordan, LBJ’s decision to go against the South and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - these are all decisions made by individuals or leaders, that involved a large margin of error and a high percentage of risk - yet I am sure that they all foresaw the positives outcomes, rather than pondering on “too much” about the negative outcomes of the “to-be-executed” scenarios.

I am not suggesting that these individuals did not deliberate on their decisions before it was made, but it can be safely said that many of these folks were going against the numbers. They were going against the norm, the safe bets. Had Kevin Faulk caught that catch from Tom Brady - Bill Belichick’s risk taking abilities would have been hailed all week long and for the rest of the fall season by ESPN analysts. Instead it will be considered a great misread and most of the praising would be thrown at the other side. It remains to be seen whether Coach Belichick will come back from this loss but if a team can lose their only game of the season at a SuperBowl Championship - and return next season with a 11-5 record - I am sure the Patriots will come back from this loss.

Engineers, Teachers, Programmers and Scientists can never earn as much salary as business executives and sales people.
This theorem can now be supported by a mathematical equation based on the following three postulates: 
Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power (Knowledge=Power) 

Postulate 2: Time is Money (Time=Money) 

Postulate 3 (as every Physics student knows): Power = Work/Time
It therefore follows: Knowledge = Work / Time and since Time = Money, we have: Knowledge = Work / Money

Solving for Money, we get: Money = Work / Knowledge

Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of Work done

Conclusion: The Less you Know, the More you Make!!!
 

Seconds roll away - The feeling remains the same. It seems like just yesterday when he would hear “What is this?”.  He strolled around the park - the running was getting to the point of self-infliction of pain, the ten pound weights seemed like it had a two hundred kilogram weight attached to it and definetly alcohol had not helped. Every single item he saw, felt, heard, touched and tasted - had her fragrance and voice. He felt miserable when he smiled, he felt cold when he could not cry and he was shattering himself slowly. The awakening moment of every single day that passed by, had the agony of depression - the ambience of an absent soul and the hopelessness of another second. Nights were linked to vikodin he thought, yet he could not summon the strenght to take it most of the time. He wanted to fight the hurt, the pain and then there was this unusual, ego-centric obsession with the whole process. He felt if love was a chemical reaction of ecstasy - then he had to embrace the cruel deterioation of his faint heart.

This is a song I relish …..

Link on NY Times

Cheers,

-Thanesh

As the interrogations and investigations begin on the aftermath of the Mumbai tragic episodes of the past few days, I have a skeptical feeling that within the next few days - there is a high chance that these horrific scenes would vanish from peoples’ minds or simply become a distant memory of the past. Talking to a few colleagues and friends, they seem to disagree and remind me that “this time it is different” - “the bloggers let the world know what is going on”, “it was for 3 days - the terrorists’ siege on the city”, “the media exposed it to the world”, “we have new outlets of media”, “the world is watching”, “this is India’s 9/11″, “citizen journalism has taken this way beyond borders”, and “we are going to be tough from now on”. These are some of the frequent replies and statements that I seem to be receiving when I put my thought across. So maybe it is time we took a look at the past and see whether we see any differences from some of the tragedies that have taken place and whether we remember those tragedies everyday and whether we appreciate - what I think these days with all that is going on in the world - our privilege to live. The tsunami of South East Asia took hundreds of thousands of lives. These days I hardly hear anyone talk about it. Hundreds of people die in Iraq everyday - I hardly hear a whisper. A US soldier dies in Afghanistan - the media is more concerned whether Britney has left her house. Millions of people die of starvation everyday - does anyone care on a everyday basis? There was a clip on CNN IBN where you see people walking as if there was no time to waste in a crowded area. The video looked like it was filmed in a major city. There was an old man lying on the street - seemed like he was suffering from some heart attack - literally dying - and none of the bystanders or people passing by cared. What does this mean?

I think we as humans only need a small dosage of suffering from time to time to keep us grounded. We cannot afford to hear “bad news” everyday. Our own lives, our own problems and our own dilemmas take over and our priority becomes “I” rather than “WE”. It is a sad fact of human life, something that I doubt we can control. When a man is thrown out of his house, loses his job, has to feed his kids - I doubt he has time to look at the Mumbai tragedy or any other sad story of the day and reflect. So to answer my own question - How fast will we forget? Well I think it depends on how fast you want to and how fast another personal issue tries to perpetrate your world.

If we were to take a lesson out of the 9/11 that took place in New York - it is that maybe we can give the job of reminding us about such tragedies - to the media, certain commissions, an organization and other propaganda machines. As much as it sounds sarcastic it is in fact NOT. We need something to consistently and constantly remind us - and outsourcing this element of our lives might be helpful - thus creating that period or second everyday in your life - where after watching that commercial/infomercial or small documentary - you take time to reflect, appreciate, mourn and try to think about the families of those passed away and just hope that they wake up with a smile. Maybe for a second there you might have just thought about “WE” rather than “I” - and that is all that matters.

As we see the fires blaze through the Taj Mahal hotel, newspaper reporters accumulate information and pass it through various media and the horrors/sadness of what has taken place in the high octane city of Mumbai, I wonder about the aftermath of this tragic episode. The question of terrorism - the view of one set of minds and so called freedom fighters in another set of minds seems to be the greatest dilemma in the 21st century. The question is “why” - why are there these different set of minds, what causes boys in their prime teens to take to guns, why do we have such tragic moments and why do we never come together to compromise on a solution. As a citizen of Sri Lanka, I have seen my cities blaze many a times and it continues to do so. From Jaffna to Colombo, we have seen tragic deaths, continuous fighting and no solution in sight. Why does this happen? Can we not shed our pride and come together for a common solution? As i wonder about the LTTE and the current Sri Lankan goverment take on each other, I wonder whether such a incident would take place between the Indian government and another entity - whether its in the form of Pakistan, Kashmir militants or internal indigenous terrorists. Or would this turn into a communal fighting that would lead to more escalation of terror, deaths and loss of every value of being human. Deepak Chopra on CNN came out and said that maybe it is time to figure out the roots of these issues instead of creating the backlash that might provoke more terror. The simple theory behind this is “tit for tat” If a young boy saw his father die in the Mumbai blasts - how would he react to anyone who is blamed for these blasts. How would the young girl in Kashmir react to the deaths of her parents through bombs from government forces? The aftermath scenarios at least in such circumstances seem to be very similar.

I am not sure what is going to happen after this tragic episode - but all I can hope for is that communities come together - whether they are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish or of any other faith, ethnicity or background. I can continue to only pray for such hopes.

http://search.twitter.com/search?max_id=1027240098&page=2&q=+%23mumbai

Mumbai Under Seige

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/26/india.attacks/index.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/video_streaming.php

Live streaming of events unfolding in Mumbai