Category — The Musings of Life

Sport mirrors life. There’s a lot more to sport, than what the television broadcasters offer us, and I’ve always looked at sports as an invaluable medium to inculcate life lessons. A lot of stories today – all from sporting careers. And a lot to learn. There’s an African, a Brit, a Pakistani and a New Zealand national – no world beaters as such, but winners in a not so usual a contest.

Collins Obuya is your average frail Kenyan who looked like he’d blown away by Shaun Tait’s bouncers in a recent World Cup encounter. Obuya burst onto the scene in the 2003 World Cup and impressed all with his leg spinners. He picked up 13 wickets at an average 28.76 in the 2003 World Cup and took a career best 5 for 24 in Kenya’s win over Sri Lanka at Nairobi. Hailed as the successor to Asif Karim, Obuya was touted as the best young spinner in Africa. His stellar performances earned him a contract with Warwickshire in the English League. In the months to follow, the ball just wouldn’t turn for Obuya. He faced health issues, his bowling deteriorated and he couldn’t buy a wicket.  Obuya has thirty ODI wickets to his name. He had 25 till 2003, which means he’s picked up five wickets in the last seven years, after earning his contract with Warwickshire. To much surprise, Obuya has played in both the 2007 and 2011 World Cups. Not as a leg spinner, but as a specialized middle order batsman. Obuya is Kenya’s highest run-getter in the 2011 World Cup with a healthy average of 48.60, scoring a 98* against the mighty Australians.

James Franklin made his Test debut in 2000 when he played as a seamer against Pakistan. He scored a pair (zero runs in either innings) to kick start his Test Career. For the last three years, he has been a permanent fixture in New Zealand’s batting order. In his first year in international cricket, he had a batting average of 7. He averages 54 in one day internationals played in 2011. Franklin suffered a knee injury in 2006-07 and was never the same bowler. That he switched his core competency from being a bowler to a batsmen given the circumstances, is what still guarantees him a spot in the Kiwi side.

The highest wicket taker in the 2011 World Cup is our very own Shahid Bhai. With twenty one wickets to his name, he’s outperformed stalwarts like Muralidaran and Harbhajan Singh. The problem is that he started his career as an opening batsman, some twelve years ago. Afridi was ferocious with the bat in the late nineties. Aged 16 years and 217 days, Afridi became the youngest player to score an ODI century. In his first international innings, Afridi broke the record for fastest century in ODI cricket, reaching his hundred from 37 balls. The eleven sixes he struck also equalled the record for most in an ODI innings. Batting was his calling or so it seemed. Sometime in the middle of the last decade, he was found out by international bowlers. And runs came to trickle. His technique and approach was not good enough to merit him a spot in the team as a specialized batter. He had to develop his bowling to remain a part of the Pakistan side. As things stand currently, Shahid Afridi is Pakistan’s most successful spinner. His 313 ODI wickets make him Pakistan’s third highest wicket taker behind Wasim and Waqar. Not bad for a Pathan, for whom batting was his ‘true calling’.

Rebecca Romero has two Olympic medals – a Silver in 2004 and a Gold in 2008. What makes it special is that the 2004 medal was won in Rowing and the 2008 triumph was in cycling. A champion rower – she won a silver medal at the Athens 2004 Olympics in the quadruple sculls, and the following year was part of the British crew that won the 2005 World Championships in the quad sculls. In 2006, she quit rowing due to a chronic back problem. But she couldn’t give up her love for sport and the stomach for a fight. She took up cycling and made rapid advances. The individual gold at the Beijing Olympic was her crowning glory.

We have been told a lot of times, stories of companies going out of business as they failed to embrace change, failed to adapt themselves with the need of the markets and the consumers, failed to innovate. A lot of corporate branding has to do with change and dynamism as well. More importantly, a lot of careers hit a roadblock, when the employee fails to reinvent himself in the workspace.

How difficult is it to reinvent yourself professionally? Suppose an employee working at a desk for four years just realises that his core skills are no longer good enough to sustain him in the market. What does he do? Surely, pick up something else. That he can’t afford to given that he is so highly leveraged is another issue altogether.

Why are certain people able to reinvent themselves faster and more peacefully than others? How can Sachin Tendulkar rule over all three versions of cricket, whereas most others invariably restrict themselves to one form? Anurag Behar, in his latest column talks about two extremes in philosophy of education – “the liberal educationist” and “the instrumental educationist”. He says -

The “liberal educationist” believes in education for its own sake: That only learning anchored in deep thoughts and broad perspectives can be called education; that stoking the thirst for knowledge is sufficient to handle life. To him, thinking of how education can prepare someone for a vocation is somewhere between ludicrous and sacrilegious.

The “instrumental educationist” wants the child to prepare for employment— the earlier the better. After all, the real purpose of education is generating livelihood—everything must be aligned to that. Skills and knowledge relevant to employment must be central to the curriculum. In this view, the ability to think critically, perspectives about society and scientific understanding of nature are somewhere between distractions and unaffordable luxuries.

As graduates in India, the focus on instrumental education is very high. Liberal views are not valued by the system, peers or examiners. The current focus of Indian education, especially IT, is on vocation, which aims at transforming lifestyle and eating habits more than anything else. There is no impetus for thought per se, and the confluence of thoughts from various walks of life. And this method of learning perhaps, is what makes most Indian graduates very rigid; very inflexible. Because most students are taught to study for a particular vocation, it becomes difficult to change career tracks at a later stage. Most of us join engineering because a mediocre engineer earns more than a mediocre lawyer or a mediocre artist or a mediocre footballer or a mediocre keyboard player or a mediocre ballet dancer.

Say you are the 256,443 rd best engineer in the country. You’d still be having a six digit annual salary. And a 256,443 rd best physiotherapist in this country would be jobless. The problem is that they day India needs 256,442 skilled engineers, you’ll have nowhere to go, if your education has not been a marriage of the the two extremes mentioned above.

Realising that your core skills which you’ve been nurturing for more than half a decade, are not good enough for the marketplace, can be a very damning experience. But as a lot of sportspersons have showed, it’s not the end of the world. With the right mentality and “soft skills” or “soft attributes”, mastering another domain or vocation, is not really out of reach. Viren Rasquinha captained the Indian hockey team and then studied management and currently heads the operations of the Olympic Gold Quest. So, if you are 21, and totally out of sync with your current vocation/training, all’s not lost. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of this country is a production engineering graduate. Take heart. Have patience. Strengthen your “non-functional” skill base. Vocation training is easy.

A few summers ago, I remember lazing around on weekends, watching Formula One races with more than just a passing interest. Those were the days when the elder Schumacher was the top dog, Hakinnen and Raikonnen in their McLarens were his key competitors and Minardi used to bring up the rear in almost all races.

Even back then, I had merely a statistical interest in the sport. I never really understood the technicalities involved in setting up a F1 car. Chassis, Traction Control, Automatic Gearbox Transmission, Low Centre of Gravity were just terms that I thought were cool to hear. I was more busy plotting scenarios where “if Kimi won this one, and MSC finished outside the fourth sport, Kimi would have surely sealed the title. Go Mclaren” (I was more of a Mclaren fan, always rooting for the underdog in the title challenge). Steve Slater and Chris Goodwin’s commentary was another highlight of my Formula One watching days.

In one of the races with little or no room for overtaking (perhaps it was Monaco), MSC’s Ferrari was bottled behind a Minardi. And I vividly remember Steve Slater going, “This is one of the most frustrating feelings ever for MSC. A Ferrari being held back by a Minardi.” It was funny, because when I heard it, I thought, with all the horsepower of the Ferrari engine, it must not be too difficult for MSC to overhaul the meandering Minardi.

Schumacher was bottled down behind the slower car for a good 8-10 laps and kept on waiting. He did not do anything outrageously stupid; did not try to cut any corners or have a look at a possible attempt to pass through on the inside at any curve. During the next round of pit stops, he ensured that he put in a couple of really quick laps while the Minardi went into the pit-lane and he emerged ahead of the inferior car after his own pit-stop. I do not remember what happened of MSC at the end of the race, but this duel with an inferior car captured my imagination.

What could have been the possible reasons for the World Champion to have endured those laps of frustration? For one, the race mattered more to him that it did to Minardi, at least as far as the Championship points were concerned. An error in judgment on his part would have had more far-reaching consequences. An attempt to pass on the inside on a curve which was not suited for an overtaking attempt could have sent him crashing into the barriers, thereby ending his race prematurely. Somewhere deep down, the Ferrari management and the driver himself realized that they had bigger battles to fight, and in this case, they had to just toe the line, be a bit disciplined and not do anything stupid.

I say this because I find myself in Ferrari’s shoes for over an year now battling those proverbial Minardis who are blocking my path to the greater good. Sorry to sound a bit haughty, but it’s been that way. Unlike MSC, I have been trying hard to get past the slower car in front of me; trying to cut corners; trying to manufacture something even when there is nothing in store. But slowly realization has dawned, that there are bigger challenges to follow ahead. And for now, it just boils down to “grinning and bearing it” and not doing anything impulsive about it. It is hugely frustrating to say the least, but I have to bide my time, till the next round of pit-stops which is seven months away, which is when I will finally stop attending college. Sigh.

As I wait for the elevator door to open, an image of Vinod Kambli springs to mind. Hailed as a ‘bigger’ talent as compared to the austere Tendulkar during their formative years, Kambli frittered away whatever advantage he had and ended up being a part of the voyeur thriller named Bigg Boss. And while Tendulkar was scoring heavily on the cricket turf, Kambli exercised his vocal chords and wistfully stated – “’He (Sachin) took the elevator, I went up the staircase!”.

Elevators and staircases, both lead to the same destination. Tendulkar reached his in no time. Fifteen years have passed since Kambli started climbing the staircase. He has still not reached the top. What happened to him? Did he get edgy in the corridors of uncertainty? Was he caught with his pants down in one of the numerous washrooms that lay in his path? Did he contemplate jumping off the seventh floor? Or did he climb two floors just to realize that the rigour was not worth it and decided to embark on the downward journey on the same spiral staircase?

Why did Kambli miss the elevator in the first place though? Was he not allowed because of the lack of hair on his scalp? Or is there more to it than what meets the eye? Did Kambli not reach in time for the elevator shift? Why was he late? Did he not wake up early enough? Or was he too stoned to bother about reaching his destination on time? Assuming that he was never at the lobby when the elevator began its upward journey, it’s a bit preposterous of him to suggest that Tendulkar took the stairs.

The lift-boy’s verdict gives a completely different spin to the story. In a press conference, the lift boy tore Kambli’s story to shreds. He emphasized that Tendulkar was a diligent chappie, ever eager to learn and excel and was at the lobby a good ten minutes before time. He waited for the elevator to see if it was empty, and since very few had taken pains to be there on time, he found the elevator eagerly waiting to accommodate him. But when the doors opened and Tendulkar stepped out on the top floor, he suffered a minor setback. He realised that he had forgotten one of his bags at the lobby. The elevator was nowhere in sight. The little chap stood there for a while, with hands on his hips, a bit exasperated and a little defeated. But then he took the stairs and briskly made it to the lobby without waiting for the elevator to return. He heaved a sigh of relief to find his bag safe and sound for he believed that it had all the accessories he needed to succeed at the top level. Little did he realise, that more than the contents of the bag, the intangible virtues within him were going to propel him to stardom. While wanting to reach the top for the second time, Tendulkar saw the clamour at elevator door. The pretenders to his ‘to-be’ throne were voicing their displeasure loudly. He could not wait for the whole affair to settle down. He quietly started climbing up the first set of stairs. And just when had turned the corner, a bald guy came running in with a swagger to see the elevator door close on his face.

A thrust in the backward direction brings me back to reality. Hordes of people are coming out of the aluminium enclosure. Another bunch is jostling to get into it. The fraction of a second that I took to recover from the sudden jolt has cost me dear. It has caused irreparable damage to my chances of getting into the elevator. The door closes on me and I am left stranded, although being one of the first few to be at the premises. I look to my left. There is an inviting calm about the staircase. The prospect climbing up the hierarchy of floors – slowly, steadily, organically and peacefully, traversing every nook and corner, meeting new people on the way is enticing to say the least. That it would help me stay fit in the longer run is an added incentive. I look around. Everyone is waiting for the elevator to lift them out of their misery. I can’t wait any longer. I’ve taken the plunge. It’s time to take the stairs!

Even though I did not have the privilege of attending the after match IPL parties, the last two weeks were very hectic and sapped a lot of energy out of me. Not being a party animal, I had to scrap to complete my submissions on time week before last. Over the last seven days, I slept intermittently, studying out of fear more than anything else for the practicals and orals. The best part about studying in fear is that there is no external form of distraction so to speak of. The only distraction comes from within – if your train of thought takes makes you dwell on things you would normally not give much heed to.

While studying for my first viva, I came across two approaches of building a data warehouse. The bottom up approach where you create individual data marts (small warehouses) and then integrate these individual modules to make the actual warehouse. And the top down approach which entails one to build the whole thing in entirety and then divide it into components. One minor difference that the book mentioned was that the bottom up method had a higher proof of concept while the top down method had very little proof of concept. It hence suggested that one take the bottom up appraoch as the proof of concept would be there for all to see. Innocuous as it may sound, this point of difference became my plaything (muse for the artistically inclined) over the next couple of weeks.

Proof of concept is pretty much self-explanatory. To put it in simple terms, if what you ideate, think or follow translates into visible, tangible results then you got a high proof of concept. To explain with an example, a salaried job has very high proof of concept (we’ll call it PoC here on) as there is amount credited to your account at the end of each month. On the other hand, if you are an entrepreneur, there is minimal PoC. It is difficult to explain to people what you are doing, why you are doing it and what is coming of it.

When faced with a difficult choice to make, often we tend to choose the one which has the higer PoC. A lot of decisions we take are influenced by the PoC value attached to it.Is a higher PoC necessarily a bad thing ? It depends on what you are looking for.

Lets start with the engineering examination scene. I envy those lucky bastards who study in autonomous colleges. Because autonomy brings with it tremendous PoC. Examination results are declared almost instantly and the timespan for realization of your efforts gets reduced drastically. Very high PoC. On the contrary, we have very low PoC at the Univ of Mumbai. Examination results are not declared for two months after the exams leaving a lot of students shrouded in worry. A classmate of mine was nearly in tears when she messed up her practical exam in one subject. Because of this low PoC, she would not know if she’d clear the same for the next three months. She admitted that she would worry herself to death over this and would not be able to concentrate on her written exams. At such times you really do need a very high PoC.

Gambling and intra-day trading also have a high PoC. Within a span of minutes, you realize your money. And that is what attracts a lot of people to the equity markets and casinos. Because it’s human to take the path having a higher PoC.

Boy-girl romances provide an amazing insight into the PoC story. We have come to a stage where a simple “I love you. I will always be there for you unless ofcourse I don’t fall for some prettier female while coming to meet you” does not suffice. Abstract nouns have a very low PoC. Kindness, niceness, empathy, trust are often relegated as they fail to pull their weight  on the PoC scale (*very thrilled with the pun*). Something on the lines of “You are Vishwanathan Anand. You are not controversial enough to be India’s leading sportsman”. You need to shower praise in public, throw hugs, pecks on the cheeks, click lewd pictures – perhaps distribute them, make out – in rickshaws, movie theatres and behind closed doors to prove your concept of love. Everthing that is done thereafter is to ensure a higher proof of concept. It reminds me of  a Monica Bellucci movie I watched a few years ago – Combien tu m’aimes which when roughly translated means – Show me how much you love me.

Gautam Chaturvedi once very passionately mentioned that the only thing he really loved to do was to frame a quiz. And that his parents could never understand in the true sense why he quizzed, why he loved quizzing more than his Power Generators and Transformers. He then went on to explain that every six months – marksheets quantified his progress in his academics whereas quizzing had really low PoC. I’m pretty sure he’d use a quizzing funda to ace some interview in a couple of years and then it will all be worth it.

All good things have a really low PoC. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, suggests that in order to be good at something, you need to devote 10,000 hours of your life to it. Geez, perfection does have a very low PoC doesn’t it ? Imagine waiting 10,000 hours for perfection to happen. And it might not happen at the end of it for all you know. Say you decide that you want to be more humble or more sensible or more compassionate from now on. Would you give in after three months ? Because there is no metric to measure if you have “grown” over the period. There is no tangible yardstick. Very low PoC. All the really invaluable qualities in life have a really low PoC. The whole idea is not to get intimidated and soldier along. Because when you take up a task with a very low PoC and when it reaches fruition, you’ll be the most content person on the face of this planet.