Frozen Hell!!

Work should be a part of life. It should never take the driving seat. Work life shouldn’t force us to think if we really need put our heart and soul to fulfill our hunger and needs.

Working environment plays vital role in bringing the satisfaction quotient to our daily life. Lately, I have been feeling that I have been forced to go to work. When one gets up in the morning shouldn’t feel that one has been forced or conditioned to go to work. When one gets that feeling it’s hard to comply with oneself. In a smoother work life manager plays the crucial role. Having a good manager is a gift in disguise. Before we go any further, how do you define a Good Manager? In my view, a Good Manager is one who supports you in all your efforts in discharging your responsibilities, who puts his arm around your shoulder when your mind stuck in deep hole, who brings his experience to your rescue out of hole, who makes sure that work environment is more friendly than hostile, who seeds the plants of ideas and waters them as needed and who provides an opportunity for you to grow wiser and smarter. A manager should be more like a coach than a player. He should guide his employees/crew towards success but in the same he should get involve as and if the situation demands.

Like any other relation, manager and employee relation is relied greatly on the thread of trust. Manager should have to trust the abilities of his employee to certain extent. As someone said, a good judgment always comes from bad experience, in my view, an employee should have freedom to elucidate his ideas, he should have freedom to try and execute his ideas. Failures may or will arrive in the process, which isn’t uncommon, but a manager or a good manager supports him in dire situations and makes sure that employee learns a lesson from each and every failure and wouldn’t repeat that in future. But the freedom to be failure is the faith entrusted by the manager in his employee.

As someone said, ‘Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies’. When you get back home after work, if your mind is occupied with lingering thoughts of awful workday and when you get up in the morning feeling hostile to go back to work, I believe its time that you take some serious decisions. It’s better to rot in hell under a good mentor.

One more point, there are many ways to vent your emotion, like I find one here.. in writing!!

Gung-ho Cricket!!

The optimum way to describe the encounters between India and Australia would be ‘balanced insanity’. The ballyhoo surrounding this event has truly lived up to the expectations. It seems like we have already hit the zenith even though we are still have half of the voyage to cap off.

The second test of the series got the interest of all cricket minds all over the world. There is more than one reason to mark this test match. One of the major milestones of the test match was Sachin Tendulkar’s emergence as highest run getter in Test cricket History. He now holds the record for highest run getter, highest centuries in both test and ODIs. This record might have taken a test or two more than anticipated but the beauty of the achievement was the timing and it was up against his favorite opponents. He was expected to reach this point in the series against Sri Lanka, but thin form denied him of the milestone. Even after two decades of impeccable cricket, a mere presence of Tendulkar on field turns a billion people, atleast go crazy. I am honored to be in the era of Tendulkar. He has inspired a whole generation, if not more, and always let his bat talk. Nonetheless his high stature, few questions remain unanswered, some dents remain unsettled, and some spots remain under darkness.

Other than Tendulkar’s feat, Ganguly’s patient century in his last Test series worth writing here. Looking at his recent test record, one would realize that patience in approach had brought success for Ganguly. That is why as cricket analysts say, a cricketer performs better in his thirties. In the twilight zone, a player tends to bank more on his strength. He would prefer to adapt than being innovative, in other words one would realize his limits and play within his game.

Of all the things, team effort was the biggest factor in the victory over Australia. Probably after the golden era of Kapil Dev, we are again witnessing some quality bowling from Team India. Bowling had always been an Achilles heal for Team India, and that was the main reason for not securing many victories in spite of world class batsmen in the line up. Zaheer and Ishanth bowled their heart out. The encounter between Ishanth and Ponting would remain as one of the classic battles of the decade. Ishanth is one of the very few bowlers who troubled Ponting in this decade. He looks hopelessly uncomfortable at the delivery where the one that comes into him. Zaheer’s swing bowling was simply amazing. It took him years to come to understand his strengths. Kumble’s unavailability surely sent some tremors at the beginning of the test but the idea of including Amit Mishra in the final eleven had been vindicated undoubtedly, thanks to some wonderful orthodox leg spin bowling. The bowling performance surely had fired the efforts of Sehwag and Gambhir at the top. Being played for Delhi together definitely helped them to get gelled easily and very nicely. M S Dhoni’s credentials needs to be mentioned here. He seems to be carrying head over his shoulders. He is confident, aggressive and quiet at the same time, which is a seldom mix.

One point that has to be mentioned here is unending debate over dominance of Australia. A lot have been written and a lot have been said about coming to end of Australia dominance. I believe it would be preposterous to think that Australia lost the glitter of supremacy. I strongly feel that Australia knows the mantra to success better than anyone else. It is just that Team Australia lost some major players in the last one yearor so; it is just taking time to fill those shoes. Even in that aspect, it’s very easy to find replacements for Australia compare to any other team. We have seen the defeat of Australia every now and then in the last decade, but everytime it rejuvenated as a stronger and as an even better team. With this victory a lot of pressure is on both the teams. India have to continue their aggression filled orthodoxy to prove that the victory was not a flash in the pan and Australia have to regroup and perform better to hoist back their flag of dominance to dismiss the qualms.

Either case, the stage is set for exciting outing with full of gung-ho cricket.

Couldn’t ask for more!!