Nishant Sah: (On a friend’s Facebook profile sometime in the past)
There are no fans of Sachin. . only believers and non-believers
Nishant Sah: (After the 2oo runs inning)
Before Christ: Buddha said that he was not God… Buddhism became the most followed religion Near Christ: Christ said that he was not God… Christianity became really big After Christ: Sachin says he is not God… Cricket already the religion of 1.1 billion people!
The other mortals said this about the God… Ofcourse the list is not complete and no like God is infinite, the things said about him are also infinite…
Nasser Hussain:
I have never liked comparisons between great players, but after Wednesday’s incredible game it must be said — Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest batsman of all time. Better than Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting, the other two great players of my era. Better than Sir Viv Richards, Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border. And I would even say better than Sir Don Bradman himself.
Michael Clarke:
He’s probably the greatest batsman I’ve ever seen play, live.
Merv Hughes to Allan Border
This little prick’s going to get more runs than you, AB.
Shane Warne
I’ll be going to bed having nightmares of Sachin just running down the wicket and belting me back over the head for six. He was unstoppable. I don’t think anyone, apart from Don Bradman, is in the same class as Sachin Tendulkar. He is just an amazing player
Sunil Gavaskar
closest thing to batting perfection
Wasim Akram
Cricketers like Sachin come once in a lifetime and I am privileged he played in my time.
Viv Richards
He is 99.5 percent perfect. I’d pay to see him
Brian Lara
You know genius when you see it. And let me tell you, Sachin is pure genius.
Barry Richards
Sachin is cricket’s God.
Allan Donald
‘The best batsman I’ve bowled to’
A friend’s Status message
“The old Sachin radiated heat. The new Sachin gives light. But he still remains the sun.”
Hashim Amla, the South African batsman, reassures himself as he boards a flight
Nothing bad can happen to us if we’re on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it.”
Shane Warne delights the Indian press with his views on batting greats of this era
“Sachin Tendulkar is, in my time, the best player without doubt – daylight second, Brian Lara third.”
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova joins the Sachin Tendulkar fan club after watching him bat at Sydney Feb 2, 2004
“Sachin was so focused. He never looked like getting out. He was batting with single-minded devotion. It was truly remarkable. It was a lesson.”
Daryl Tuffey
“You can never say that he is out of form. He is a volcano waiting to explode and we hope he doesn’t do that against us in the one-dayers.”
There’s Steve Waugh and Brian Lara. And then, a notch above, there’s Sachin Tendulkar
Shahrukh Khan
I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing us to breathe the same air as you do
If he scores less than fifty, he is not in form..
If he scores less than hundred, he doesnt finish mathces
If he scores a hundred, he plays for hundreds
If he scores one fifty and India loses, he did not play well
If he scores in the first innings, He doesnt in the 2nd
If he scores in the second innings, it was an exception
If India wins, it was the team
If India loses, it was bcos he did not play well enuf…
come on.. give him a break!
A media house partnership right at the corner. Almost a done deal. A few contracts with schools. 4 of them. The way a few coaching institutes work!
I use the phrase the End of the Beginning for two reasons.. one the start-up that we started! That does not mean that we have become a mid sized company! Far from it. But what has probably happened is that we have a “size” in terms of revenue, and unless things really dont go our way from here on, we are here to stay
The other reason is that it is near the end of the first phase of my life.. if not already, i am afraid there is very little time left. This is true for most of my friends who have studied with me too. As the famous blog says.. “Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement” will mark the end fo the first phase of a lot of youngsters of my generation. I guess he is not too far from it.. (2-3 yrs max?)
I hope there is a lot of good news I put on the blog… and update my blog more often..
I know this is not a long list. And that I am writing this blog partly bcos of the hate that i have against the politicians. Without writing too much on why and venting my anger against them all, I thought it would be a good time to pick my set of leaders who I think could change the country, who seem honest, upright and hardworking! Not too many that I see.
1) Nitish Kumar : He might seem a stupid choice but I put him above all others partly because I am from Bihar. The condition of governance is the worst. Add to that the worst flood in a hundread years. This man is faced with the challenge not many poeple can take. To me, he really can do or should I say in some sense is the last hope Bihar has. People mock him but in him I do see real dedication and values that can take Bihar to a better condition if not the best!
2) Sheila Dikshit: Well in one sense of the term she is Miss India? Another person I really like for the work she has done in Delhi. I visited Delhi after 7 odd years for a couple of days and I could see the change in Delhi. To be very very true, I could not recognise half of the roads. Not because of the bad memory my friends relate me with but because of the flyovers above them. Of course it is not about flyovers and things. But yeah she has done a lot and ppl living in Delhi may not realise it but I was impressed!
3) Manmohan Singh: The best person in Indian politics. The reason why he is not the number 1 on my list is that he is too good. A prime minister needs to be sharp as the queen on the chess board and have the same persona that the queen has. He does enjoy the love of a lot of people but he is not “wicked enough”. I think that is the only difference between him and an Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Read his degrees and posts held, and if you can show me even one of those in your CV, you have the right to critisize him.
4) Rahul Gandhi : I have seen a few debates in the Parliament. I am impressed by the way he talks (if that is the reflection of the way he thinks). Just imagine yourself being the son of Rajiv Gandhi. Tell me ofa single son of an IAS or any other politician(1/10 the stature of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi) who could be as low profile as him. But that is not the reason he is here. In him I genuinely have started to see a future leader of the country.
5) Chandrababu Naidu : Well Mr Hyderabad? or Mr I.T. He single handedly changed the way Andhra Pradesh used to appear on the India map. I think from whatever I know about him that he is one forward looking politician in India.
6) Omar Abdullah: A brilliant person. I admire the way he thinks about things. Leave a few things that he needs to talk out of political compulsions, but I genuinely believe that he is one of the people who could have a huge influence in bringing the people of Kashmir into the real mainstream of India. The way he talked during the No confidence motion was really great. It showed a person who was concerned about the country and not merely a state party representative.
7) Mani Shankar Aiyar: Wont say too much. He was a wonderful person. Did a lot for the country and I loved the way he used to function as the Petroleum minister of the country. Unfortunately the crude prices souring and him persuing the IIP pipeline meant an end ot his stint. But he did really well to try and make India’s future energy secure.
I know that many of you would like to put a lot more people, but in my list there is no place for communal dividers. (Narendra Modi would be a candidate if only he had no blood in his hands! I dont believe that he was clean.. But then how can I pass that judgement? L K Advani. I hate him more than any other politician. He is a double faced power corrupted and power greedy person.)
This m*****f***er hailed by many as Leader of tommorow is already doing his politics just 1 day after the killings. What a shame. I hate him. I hope others too..
I am someone who is afraid to get into a bus or a train these days.
I am someone whose wife thinks is going to war..
.. while I am actually going to my work.
She is afraid that I may not return.
She calls up every two hours. To find if I had my tea.
To find if I have lunched.
Actually she wants to find out whether I am still alive.
I am someone who sometimes gets stuck in the rain or in the blasts.
I am someone who suspects the person carrying a rosary.
I am also the one who is afraid to grow his beard and wear a cap.
If I buy a shop I am afraid to choose a name as..
.. someone might see the name and burn it during the riots.
No matter which two parties are fighting..
.. I am the first one to get killed.
You must have seen a crowd. Choose a person from it.
I am that person.
I am just the stupid common wanting to clean his house.
How did this common man suddenly wake up?
And that too with six kgs of RDX?
Has that got you worried now?
Do you want me to live my life and die every moment of it?
Mr. Rathod, this did not happen all of a sudden!
I just did not get the time to do it.
In the process of earning my daily bread this work got neglected.
But it’s better late than never.
That remaining cockroach will also die today.
Why just these four? There are others as well.
I drew a lottery and I got their names.
Are you trying to say that if we don’t kill Ibrahim..
.. then you will kill thousands of innocent people?
Sooner or later they are going to die and..
.. people like Ibrahim will kill them.
The last time they were killed in a train..
.. this time it will be somewhere else.
They will keep on killing until we learn to give a solid reply.
Who are you?
- What do you mean?
I mean are you a Hindu or a Muslim?
This has nothing to do with my religion.
There is.
I told you, I am just a stupid common man.
Doesnt it sound so much more true!
Am still searching for the whole thing in Hindi.. bcos translation takes away a lot of essence of the whole scene. If you do have it.. pls let me know!
How often do we put all the blame for everything wrong on “The Politician”.
Be it Lalu Yadav, Raj Thakrey, Bal Thakrey, Advani
The Babri Mazjid went down.. Advani was the villian. When the Fodder Scam took Place.. Lalu Yadav was. Now when there is this fight to get all the Bihari and UP babus out of Maharashtra.. It is the Thakreys who are the villains!
Have we ever looked at ourselves? Who allows them to divide us? Who allows us to believe that the Marathis and Biharis are different? Who allows us to Believe that the Hindus and Muslims have a different blood.?
It is us. Only us. No one else. No single other person. They do this because this sells. They do this because they know our weakness. Raj Thakrey becomes a hero in 1 month! Why because he knows that Divisive politics works. Advani became a hero in 1992 because we succumbed to believing that he would save us from “Muslims”.
I hope i can get even one single Indian to change by this post. If it does, do let me know. There is too much venom in me as I write. So i better cut it short!
Did you, did you see the frightened ones?
Did you, did you hear the falling bombs?
The flames are all long gone, But the pain lingers on.
Goodbye, blue sky. Goodbye, blue sky.
Goodbye. Goodbye.
Bombs exploded in Mumbai, then Surat, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bangalore, Guwahati, Lucknow, Hyderabad and everywhere else. Until it became a joke.
Then came the cowardly murders at what is one of the Icons of India. The Taj. May the killed Rest in Peace.
But yeah. I feel ashamed to see our Politicians not for a minute get united to fight against this. All they do is to bow seeds that will only be detrimental to the long term unity of this country.
What does a terrorist do? They do things so that the country gets divided into fragments so that the Hindus hate the Muslims and the Muslims hate Hindus.
What do our politicians do? Mr Lal Krishna Advani. Did his famous Rath Yatra. For what? A temple for lord Rama. REALLY? Or was it to increase his position to No. 1 in the BJP? Only till the thousands of innocent human beings got killed did his Rath stop. Only when the Babri Mazjid went down did his rath did.
Why did Lalu Yadav stop the Rath. Not because he is secular. But because he has a Muslim vote bank.
Mr Raj Thackrey. The less said the better. He is the Bal Thakrey of our generation. Why do North Indians Hate him? For the same reasons that the South Indians hated Bal Thakrey.
This is not the time to spread hate. Its a time for peace. Its a time to be one. I hope we stopped slinging mud at someone for being Muslim and even Islam as a relegion. I feel ashamed when I hear people talk or paint Islam with one color. If there are a few rotten apples you cant throw the whole basket away.
It is also time we get the hard questions to the politicians. I guess they are already feeling the pressure. But the important thing is that we should not let them free even 1 yr from now.
All the blasts, killing everything was forgotten every time India was attacked. I hope this is not the time.
Well.. I hate to see my blog dying.. I have been irregular before but then I am sure that the future will be no different
Updates..
Me Have beeen doing very well. Not earning millions but yeah i love my work.. More than probably most ppl out there. (So far) Put up in Calcutta(South)
TargetIIT has taken off well. I really believe that we could to be the benchmark of Online education (atleast for IIT JEE) My conviction comes from the fact that I am already seeing ppl copying us . But the bigger challenge is to bring in revenues from the site without making it paid! (This is what i always wanted.!) We would like to give it another 6 months so that it is really known everywhere. We have done most of the hardwork i guess. Now it is about perceverence.
What else?
Nothing much.. I love this freedom that i seem to have these days and most of the friends i have dont! (i always had that.. din i ).
The Future:? Not thinking too much.. I can see mom getin eager about ma marriage.. (And so wants to see me earn.. big and quick ) Dad is cool.. Atleast doesnt show/ say too much. But yeah they support me at every moment
I would love to do some coaching at some point in time. I love doing that (atleast my close friends know this ) but now even u do … basically i love giving lot of GYAN.. so this is understandable. May be I could leverage being in Online Education ?
8-830 hrs…….. I Wake up. Have a lot to do today. Nothing is in place. All our stuff is lying on the floor. Only one computer is unpacked. Lot of stuff (actually everything one could need) needs to be purchased. Our 1st day cost of living is already too high. Bank balance shrunk to almost unsurvivable levels. We have some bfast. well just nominal. Complete the daily stuff.. bathing etc…
1100 hrs… Waiting to go to purchase some stuff. The Internet guy is finally here.
1300 hrs Our room is connected to the net. Singhee rings up. He and Asha will be here at 3:00 odd to meet us. The landlord wants the copy of our passports/ identity etc and photographs. I as usual dont keep my photographs.. u know how i look like (monkeys dont keep photographs).. neways.. i rush, with manish to get the photos done.. Kalighat metro station. Power shedding here! No photograph. Rush back to reach home before singhee and asha come. My cousin is with me. He handed me my passport n is looking for a flat here for a friend of his.
1500 hrs We are back home. 10 mins later singhee rings up. He was at the mall. I goto to get them to the flat. My cousin, his friend, Asha and Mukul. They are all here. Asha had a small gift for us. A good luck Ganesha. I loved the gesture. Din thank both of them for being here. But I felt too formal doing that. Dont know how they felt about the flat and all… but they said it was good
1630 hrs We havent done any purchasing today. No work yet. So we have to have to hurry. We rush to the Chandni chowk again. Have to get a fan, a hard disk, the household stuff and what not! Of course we are late by one day.
1830 hrs Bargaining is not my forte. Lokesh is doing it hard. I have to learn a few tricks from him. We get a couple of fans, a hard disk and a press. We do a few rounds here and there. among us, only I partly know caclutta. So we had to do a few extra hours on the road.
2000 hrs Home is 1.5 hrs by bus. They wont let us in the metro cos the fans and iron(press) box could contain bombs. And last night’s dinner was not something we would want to have again! We have dinner at Chandni in a decent restaurant…
2100 hrs Savi, mukul and Goel know how vocal I am about the bad things of calcutta. Of course, Most of what i used to say was exaggerated bcos it was meant to tease savi and singhee more than anything else. But I am still sure i never said anything wrong. Our bus driver(We cant afford a taxi daily) hit another bus. Like all big metros, rash driving by busses is the way here. And it is worse when compared to delhi. Seriously! Lokesh is quick to point out how I could ever wish to live in Calcutta in the Longer run (Lokesh wants to live in some good Place, For me Calcutta is the good place )
2200 hrs Finally unhurt, We reach our flat. We goto the South City Mall to see morning show timings for the Dark Knight. Lokesh and Manish want to be there.
2300 hrs We are on our comps. I have a shower.Did work for an hour and then sat down writing the first part of this blog.
0130 hrs I am sleeping.
PS: Half the work was not completed today. We have to make another trip to chandni. We had no lunch even today!
Finally decided on a location. First it was Calcutta, then Hyderabad and then back to Calcutta. Have to thank tulip and anand for forcing us (read Lokesh) here . But that is a different story altogether.
Its been around 50hrs since we reached this place.
One week, and we are here. I had to make a couple of trips to Calcutta last week to finalize this place. Got a decent place. Actually a good place. Just if we could keep things clean and nice . The locality is ok.. Our building is a small one.. about 15 odd flats, just constructed. Actually, we havent met any of our neighbors yet! I hope we will be good ones . Our flat, a 650 sq ft 2BHK. The K here is nominal! You could say, a 2BH(k silent)
The flat is just near the South City Mall, if any of you know of the place, that claims to be the largest(and probably is) in Calcutta. Actually, a 1-2 minute walk!
The first two days were bad. To say the least.
(Day 0)
The first night was short. There’s a no entry into calcutta, like in all major cities on small lorries! We brought our luggage by a very small lorry (dont know what it is called!). So, we reached our flat at 2330 hrs! took us about an hour to shift the luggage to our flat! I had to had to take a shower!!! Within half an hour, we were all sleeping. Without a fan. (This is a fully-unfurnished flat) But there was enough breeze. Actually we din need a fan at all.
(Day 1)
(aside) I had found this flat with Goel (whom I havent thanked, bcos i feel all this thanking business is very formal). But then we used a broker. The deal was done 7-8 days back.
8 a m. We are all up!!! We do some unpacking. We need everything. Literally!
10 am. Here comes the broker to our flat. He thinks we owe him a 2 month’s rent! Surprised (more shocked than surprised!) We do some negotiations and bargaining to get it down to a month’s rent!
11 am We leave the flat in search of everything! Go to the places nearby to get Tubelights, fans, table, chairs and every small house hold stuff you can think of! Two hours had passed, We did not find any single thing that we needed (to be true, bcos of our constrained budget.)
1 pm We get some milk! (This is all we have had since the morning!) Goel and Savi call up saying that they were coming to the South City Mall. Goel needed to upgrade himself from a Marwari Seth to a Cool Indian Dude. So he got himself some branded stuff from Levi’s, Adidas (probably) etc. It is matter of India’s reputation abroad more than Goel’s .We stayed with him and Savi in the mall till something like 4:30. We, have some puchkas just outside the Mall. And we leave for the heart of Calcutta for some purchasing (of course, bcos we cant afford buying stuff from this Mall at this point in time ). Goel and Savi left us somewhere on the Metro Route.
5 pm We got down at the Chandni metro, Manish and Lokesh used the metro for the first time in their life. We move around for 2-3 hrs without much knowlege trying to find all the stuff that exists without finding any. Finally, we reached a place where we got decent and cheap talbes (for the comps) and chairs to sit. All this with the bargaining took around 2 hrs. We took a taxi and reached our place. Put the comps etc in place. Had our shower.
9 pm Did you notice that we hadn’t had our food yet!! and that we were walking since 11 am! We leave the flat searching for some food. Ask a shopkeeper nearby for a eatery (We still cant afford a Rs 150 meal at the mall). We get one. One that is damn bad. The chappati sucked. But we are very very hungry. Very very very hungry. We just had the food. Din we love eating! Oh! and we got water! We had lost all hope of getting the 20l bottles in the locality but we finally got it! Shell out some money and the bottle is at our home
Again, did you notice we dont have a fan yet!! We slept without the fan!! But again it was not at all an issue (believe me!)
11 pm All of us are sleeping! btw we did some rearranging. But only a little.
I am late by 1 day but that was bcos the Cable guy din turn up to install the net connection! . I will keep posting this for you a few more days.. may be a couple of posts..
‘I’ could now be replaced by ‘we‘ in many of my posts.. And this stands for we as a group of people who call ourselves TechTantra! Lokesh, Manish and myself.
Nothing much to boast of … not even close to that.
We are now working from Kolkata.
If any of you happen to be here, pls try to give us a visit. We would love to get any kind of advice etc from you guys
And even otherwise..
Ours is an office cum living place. Right now that is all we can afford
Having a lot of tough times.. managing things, actually most of the things.
I hope I have a different story and some good/interesting stories of these days a few years down. A lot of things about what people thought, what we thought, what we hoped and what not!! I wont write all this right now, because it could put us in a pitiable position
But I am sure that I will definitely have something to say Retrospectively, a couple of years from now!! (good ones i hope)
How easily do most Indians end up believing that Reliance is the real forerunner of the Indian Industry and the real source of inspiration to the next generation Entrepreneurs of our country!
To me the Reliance is a very good company when it comes to vision, but far from a benchmark that I would like to follow if ever I were to own a company! I have hated the manipulatory designs they have used to influence the government. I also think that there are issues related to corporate governance in the Group.
But this is not the time to blast Reliance.. It is a time to celebrate Ratan Tata’s story. The Nano is just a stepping stone to what lies ahead! I wont write much about the Nano cos its all too much there in the press these days; I would only say that I am pretty confident that this will be the car of the decade.
I remember having seen an interview of Ratan Tata saying that he wanted all the Tata Group companies to be in the top 3 companies of their respective segments. To this endeavour, the Tatas sold off what some would say, their “top” companies. ACC, Tomco, Lakme, Goodlass Nerolac, Merind, Tata Yellow Pages to name just a few!
I guess most people would only dream to own such businesses! But then the empire had become too large and was unable to stand its own weight. It was the vision and far sightedness of Mr Ratan Tata that made him dare selling these.
The Tata group companies were bleeding bad… Tata motors the Indian Giant bled to the tune of 5 billion rupees!!! Tata Steel was in blood-bath. Perhaps, only TCS was doing well. It was the determination of Mr Tata, that these companies are today one of the largest companies by Market Cap in India. TCS and Tata Steel are Global giants. TCS is the largest Indian Software Company. Tata Motors probably at its point of inflection today. I would not be surprised if it could be the largest seller of cars in India 5 years from now!
Take social causes for instance. Not one Indian corporate house has given back to the society what they have.
When Tata Tea acquired Tetley, about 7-8 yrs back, It was by far the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian Company. There are a lot of Indian companies which have a so called global foot-print but to be true not many are really global in true terms! The only Indian company to be truly global, I think is Tata Steel. It has its manufacturing facilities and clients around the globe and that is the true test of being global. A lot of eyebrows were raised when some years back, the Tatas donated a good sum to the Oxford university over our IIT’s or IIM’s, but I guess the Tatas were only fulfilling their global responsibilities.
Ratan Tata has successfully done what very few can dream.. To transform a lazy, lethargic giant that was dying of its own weight of internal conflicts and egos to a vibrant war horse that most would defy size and strength. Kudos.
How many times do we see reports in the newspapers citing the success of the odd Indian in the States.. or how the Media abroad applaud the performance of one of the Indians; and then how often do we ourselves have that feeling of joy from within us?
When Rehman is called Mozart of the East or a young kid is selected for a NASA project or a NRI (who hates being associated as an Indian) successfully wins a seat in the Elections abroad or any other scientific development hyped up by the foreign media, dont we all start looking at these as the idols of our nation?
Very often, as a Nation get a sense of joy. To me, this is the Indian Mentality. (you could call it the developing world mentality as well!) Half of us Indians do not think that India has a future anywhere close to the developed world. Only when we see such reports, we say for a moment that some Indian did something big; the very next moment India is an abysmal failure.
The number of people who aspire to make a career outside India is a testimony to what I am saying. I hope that we start believing in ourselves on our own and stop thinking that the west is where success is and also stop looking to them to find successes/achievements that we have.
I hope we stopped taking pride in a movie receiving/getting nominated for an Oscar, or an actor having his wax replica at the Tussad’s.
I hate the fact that there are only two strong Indian politicians.. one is Mayavati.. the other is Narendra Modi….
I had this false impression that the Indian politics had really matured after the last Lok Sabha elections, which were fought on the issue of development! alas.. Hindutva and Caste politics are the only way to a sure shot victory.
I hope that Modi loses this election… But then I know how politics is
but yeah i love my work.. More than probably most ppl out there. (So far) Put up in Calcutta(South)
