I mute the TV sound when Gavaskar is on air

Posted: March 17, 2007 in gavaskar, hookes, ponting
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I had a lot of respect for Gavaskar as a batsman, back when he was a player.

I also liked his guts on the field, when he took on opponents including his tiffs with Australia, on the field. He was the first signs of Indians breaking off that third-worldly complex of being inferior to the Englishmen or Australians. He had that confidence of saying that he was an equal in all respects.

I liked him for all that.

But since he retired, and more so, in the last few years, he has shown an extreme attitude which pains me. First of all, anytime that he is in the commentary box, his bias in favour of India, comes out too openly.

I cam imagine lesser chaps like a Srikkanth or a Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, going jingoistic even when they are supposed to be doing impartial commenting on the game, but for a person of his stature to do so, was sad. Its like, I have so much more respect for an Ian Chappell or a Richie Benaud or a David Gower in the commentary box, as they play the perfect expert giving their views on the game, without taking sides for any team of player. Whereas for a Gavaskar, the Indian bias is not even disguised.

Ravi Shashtri is another old and respected commentator cricketer. Even he tends to get a little patriotic at times. I suppose that this goes with being Indian, or perhaps, since the Indian fan is your biggest ‘customer’ so to say, you have to feed this kind of commentary, as that is what the fan likes to listen!

However Ravi Shashtri definitely gives a far more balanced perspective than Gavaskar does. Gavaskar, the one time highest run getter and century maker in test cricket, behaves like a fan on the street!!

Just for the record, in terms of Indian commentators, I quite like Harsha Bhogale, and amongst the cricketers, I have some respect for the views expressed by Sanjay Manjrekar and Javagal Srinath. They may not have the fluency that comes with experience, being on the mike, but their views are fairly balanced and often, technically to the point.

As for the rest, people like Laxman Siva, Srikanth, Venkatesh Prasad, Mohinder Amarnath, Arun Lal, Atul Wasan, Kirti Azad (yeah, ALL of these jokers have made it to the commentary team, at some time or another), the less said about them the better. Or more correctly, the less they say, the better!!

Coming back to Gavaskar, as mentioned, my first pain about him, is his jingoism.

Thereafter, he also does not manage to disguise some of his strong prejudices, e.g. his hatred for Australians in general. He disliked Greg Chappell becoming India’s coach. He was part of the committee that made the final selection and he was personally rooting for the Indian son-of-the-soil, Mohinder Amarnath. I suspect simply because he was Indian (with just a tinge of the old camaraderie of dressing room friendship, also playing a role in Gavaskar’s choice then), and also that he was competing against two Australians that time, namely, Moody and Greg Chappell. Gavaskar would of course, like to get anyone but an Australian!

However thankfully, the committee had others who did not have such biases and they picked Chappell. And Gavaskar has once again, not let it get off his head (like his hatred for Australians probably has historical reasons from the on-the-field issues that he had with the likes of Lillee back in the 70s or 80s). At any opportunity that he finds, he makes it a point to find faults with Chappell. In his newspaper columns, on TV, etc. Again, where he may make an odd valid point, his bent towards the prejudice for Greg Chappell is not hidden, and comes out quite openly.

Sad again.

And now the recent uncalled for fracas with Australia and Australians, is just a bit too much. When you needle the Australians about being unpopular winners, Ponting is certainly going to respond. And he responded, in a way, correctly, by reminding Gavaskar about the time he almost walked out of the stadium, with his team! Things could have stopped at this point. But Gavaskar chose to speak further, and in doing so, he breached the line. He referred to the late David Hookes. That is something that is JUST NOT DONE. The Australians from Border to McGrath to Hodge and everyone else, have taken strong offense to this latest foot-in-the-mouth statement of Gavaskar. And rightly so. And yet, most of them have been dignified about their responses.

Now, imagine for a second, if it was a reverse situation. Say, some Australian had made a remark of this type, about a Polly Umrigar or a Hanumant Singh, or someone like that. How strongly would Gavaskar have reacted?? Just imagine.. And of course, the Indian media and the public would have gone to town, on account of that statement. Perhaps effigies of the person making the statement, would have been burnt in Lucknow and Gorakhpur, and it would have been prime time material on news channels, with comments being solicited from Sharad Pawar to maybe, even Manmohan Singh.

One only needs to remember the Champions Trophy celebration party, where Damien Martyn, accidentally pushed Pawar, or something of that nature happened. The reactions to that ‘non-incident’ tells us how the fans, the media, and especially, Gavaskar, can react, to situations of this kind.

One must credit the Australians for behaving with far greater maturity, inspite of the Gavaskar b.s. on David Hookes.

Having said that, I have reached my limits with Sunny. I have lost all respect for the man, I genuinely feel sad that a person of his stature has so little maturity, and I will not like to read any of his columns nor listen to him on TV anymore.

South Africa’s win against the Netherlands: This is what I meant!

Posted: March 17, 2007 in boucher, cricket, gibbs, kallis, netherlands, smith, south africa, world cup
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When I wrote few days back that I thought Australia and Sri Lanka appeared a little cautious while playing minnows, what I was trying to say is that they should have been playing far more aggressively and crushing the opposition.

Like how South Africa did with the Netherlands…

In 40 overs, they topped 350+ for the loss of only 3 wickets, Gibbs smashed six 6s in an over (the first EVER in one day internationals), Boucher scored the fastest half century in World Cup cricket, Kallis scored a predictable hundred, and Smith scored a half century too.

THAT is an assertion that we are a mainstream team, with a chance to life the World Cup, and the team opposite us is a poor second cousin.

We don’t need to practise our batting like we are at the nets before a test match, we don’t need to give the other team a respect that the other team does NOT deserve, we don’t have to be insecure about getting upset.

We are good, we are FAR better than the opponents, and we will show them in no uncertain way. And in the process, we will also give a message to the rest of the teams that we are good, we are in form, and we are keen to win the world cup.

Australia should and could have done the same, Sri Lanka too. But they did not.

For this reason alone, I give the first early lead to South Africa, in terms of being a potential ultimate winner. More than the win or the extent of it, its the attitude that I am sensing.

And now lets see how assertive India is against Bangladesh!

Vacation Report: Tarkarli Beach and around

Posted: March 15, 2007 in beach, chiplun, goa ganpatipule, kankavali, konkan, tarkarli, tondavali
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Early this month, we took a vacation to the southern Konkan region, and specifically to a beach resort location called Tarkarli.

The place is about 10-11 hours by road, driving down from Mumbai. Not comfortable to drive such long stretches and also not aware of the conditions of the road, we chose to go half way, and take a night’s halt. This mid point was Chiplun. We stayed at Hotel Pagoda there. It was a decent place with a swimming pool and other facilities. We reached in the evening and left the next day morning, after breakfast, to head up to our final destination, Tarkarli. That was going to be another 5-6 hours drive.

Recognising the length of the drive, and also finding out that there was a decent place on the way, at Kankavali, where we could have lunch, we decided to stop there. This was the Neelam’s Countryside Resort, apparently owned by Maharashtra’s ex-CM, Narayan Rane. Rane, by the way, comes from that part of the state, and he was also in the area, during the time that we were there. This was on account of the zilla parishad elections which were happening in a few days thereafter. Although I digress, let me mention that all through our stay, and our drives in and around the area, we hit a lot of campaign teams, which slowed our drives then. It just showed that these elections are big in the small towns, and lot of campaigning happens, as it does for the larger elections, that we see in the city.

Coming back to the vacation, we had a decent lunch at Kankavali, and headed on to the resort at Tarkarli.

It was quite a breathtaking site that greeted us. Interestingly, although there are so many beaches right through the Konkan patch, and the road that we took, kind of runs close to these beaches, until we hit Tarkarli, we had not even seen a glimpse of the sea or the beach. The road does not exactly run, by the sea, you know.

So when we hit Tarkarli, it was an amazing site. The resort is an MTDC resort, bang on the beach. Its one of those places that has existed for a while, as there is no way that new resorts could get CRZ clearances, to be located right on the beach, as this one is. The ‘rooms’ are in fact, cottages, with 2 ‘rooms’ to a cottage. Just the ground floor. From the cottage and its balcony, you can watch the sea, and the beach. And it takes about 20 paces to walk, and get on to the beach itself. The entire property meanwhile is leaden with beautiful tall trees. In the mornings when the sun comes up, it makes for an amazing site, with the sun peaking through the thick foliage of the trees.

The general area is called Sindhudurg district. The nearest large place, near Tarkarli, is called Malvan. We visited Malvan often – to eat, to shop, to go for other sight seeing. There is a neat Malvani eating place in Malvan, called Chaitanya. We had a couple of meals there. While Malvani food is better known for its non-vegetarian varieties, there was good vegetarian fare as well. Particularly loved the shrikhand and the soul kadhi there.

One of the days, we just took a drive to reach another beach. We thought it was going to be close, but by the time, we kept asking for directions and kept driving along, it was a decent 30 min. drive. It was the Tondavali beach. If Tarkarli had about 20 odd people other than us, on the entire beach, the Tondavali beach had 2. That empty and that clean a beach it was. The two other persons that I mention, included one who got us fresh coconut water. While at the beach and in the water, we suddenly spotted at a distance, several dolphins in the water. We watched attentively and closely, as the dolphins came much closer to where we were. There were at least half a dozen of them. Many of them would flip in and out of water, as if they were doing a show, for us. Well, we thoroughly enjoyed the show!

At Tarkarli itself, we enjoyed the beach across our resort many times. The water was good, and although they warn us about the risks, it was not difficult to get till waist deep water levels and enjoy the surf there. The kids had a lot of fun too.

Dinners at the resort were nice. We would sit in the middle of the trees close to the hammocks, etc. and have a few drinks, before heading to the dining area. Thanks to some good ordering by some of our group people, we got a range of food options to try out over the days. The service levels were relaxed as one would expect from a typical government place. However the rest of the resort impressed, inspite of being a government place. We discovered that this was on account of two facts:
a. The manager, who seemed reasonably committed, and
b. More importantly, the resort being a halt for the Deccan Odyssey. This is a train trip, in lines of the Palace on Wheels, and they stop at a station nearby, and the passengers are brought to this Tarkarli resort. This firm business one day of the week, each week, keeps the resort on its toes, and maintenance is good, on account of that.

Another excursion that we took, was on a boat. We were taken out in the waters, where we spotted some more dolphins, this time at a much closer range. We also headed to another beach, viz. the Bhogwa beach, completely isolated again, and having a few additional bonuses:
a. A couple of small shacks who made fresh poha with kokam sherbet for us (some of us had tea, which was good as well),
b. Large number of sea gulls comfortably sitting there, several flying around as well,

c. An isolated bay kind of, which we discovered, was not deep at all. It became this very large swimming pool for us, with the steady water. It was awesome.

On the way to this beach, in the water, we spotted some birds too. In fact, within the Tarkarli resort, especially in the mornings, we heard and saw some beautiful birds.


Another trip we took was to go to the Sindhudurg fort. This was also by a boat. We got a guided tour to the rather dilipidated fort, which we learnt, was built by Shivaji, very strategically, to combat the Portuguese, from Goa.

We also met up with this very interesting “doctor”, a marine biologist, who has located himself there, now. He is trained in Australia. And he has been appointed by the MTDC to try and develop a kind of tourism opportunity in the area. He trains students for snorkelling and will be doing so, for scuba diving too. These are just the initial trials. He shared with us his various plans, and they seemed very ambitious and yet exciting. Now with an airport likely to be cleared, in that area, all these will make sense, and the tourism opportunity can be very good. This chap is doing a good job, he is very committed, and I am sure, he will deliver the goods there.

The one last trip that we took, was a day trip to Goa. Goa is about a 3 hour drive from Tarkarli, and we left in the morning. We headed first to a flea market that happens on Wednesdays, at the Anjuna beach. It was quite a sight. More than 500 booths, selling all kinds of interesting flea market stuff. In the middle of the day, with temperatures quite high, the place was packed. Mostly with foreign tourists, visiting Goa. Several of the booths were also manned by the foreign tourists, selling stuff there. Bargaining was a pleasure, and thankfully, the market had some food and drink places too, one of which also served chilled beer! We also had the pleasure of being hosted for lunch by a close friend of one of our group members. While the hospitality was superb, from a well equipped bar to a lavish spread which had a clear Goanese touch to it (especially for the non-vegetarians and the sweet toothed amongst us), what remains the most vivid memory of this visit, was the amazing house. Located at a height on a small hill, it faces the beautiful marine drive and the vast sea at the back. There is no way that this view is going to be blocked, being on the hill. It was an amazing view and also got a pleasant breeze on account of this location. The house itself was out of some National Geographir or Discovery Channel program about great architecture or the homes of the rich and the famous! A lavish, about 5000 sq ft place, it was made with great taste, with most of the design efforts coming from the owners themselves (our hosts that day).

Returning back to Mumbai, we again chose to break the journey. This time around, we headed to another beach resort on the way, called Ganpatipule. This place is also known for its Ganesh temple there. We stayed at the MTDC resort there too, again bang on the beach, and also just across of the Ganesh temple. A much bigger resort with larger number of rooms and cottages than the Tarkarli one. A much bigger restaurant. Quite an awesome place, apparently the best MTDC resort in all of Maharashtra. There were some water sports too, which the kids enjoyed, at Ganpatipule. A fabulous place, and we wished that we could have stayed there longer than just that one night.

As we headed back to Mumbai, we could not resist just that one last lunch, at Chiplun, at the Gateway ex-Taj hotel. That is a fantastic property and lunch was fun there. By the time we headed out after a relaxed lunch, we had lost enough time, to ensure that we had several hours of driving in the dark, later than evening. After picking up batata wadas at shree datta, we managed to reach home comfortably by around 10 pm at night.

All in all, a fun vacation.. !

Driving vacation on Indian roads

Posted: March 15, 2007 in driving, highway, vacation
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I have driven a lot in the USA, for work and for fun. I quite love vacations by road, where you can stop at small towns, and seep in the scenery, as you drive along. However I could never imagine doing so, given my perception of Indian roads, also based on the roads that we experience in the city.

So when a few weeks back, a friend mentioned the vacation that he took with his family, by driving to Rajasthan and back (from Mumbai), I got very curious. He raved about the excellent roads, most of which were part of the Golden Quadrilateral project. Somehow his narration of his holiday stayed in my mind, and I was keen to do a similar holiday by road, in India.

The opportunity came earlier than I would have expected.

Early March is a small vacation for our kids, and we try to take time out, during the period, to take advantage of the “off-season”. This time, along with three other friends’ families, we decided to drive down to a beach resort which is about 10-11 hours drive away from Mumbai.

I will talk about the place per se, in another post, but just to share the driving experience here. It was nice. The road itself was excellent all along. Right to the point where it goes off the National or State Highways, and into the small beach location. The road condition was good, the traffic was nominal, and all in all, it was fun to drive. The National Highway, for most parts, was a 4-lane one, i.e. two coming and two going. Several parts of it had a divider in between. So this part was quite cool. The state highways were two lane (one on each side) but in good condition, and hence easy to drive on.

The only challenges that we faced were:
a. On the return trip, coming back to Mumbai, we kind of took it easy, to get started and took a longish lunch break too. By the time we were still 2-3 hours to Mumbai, it was pitch dark. No lights on the roads. Lots of heavy vehicle traffic, most of them trucks. Very challenging to drive. Not the recommended thing to do, as per me. But we did and managed to get back safely. But doing again, I would avoid driving on the highway at night. Oh, the highway also passes through several small towns / villages on the way, where there is a presence of people around the highway. They often wear dark clothes, and make their appearance close to the edge of the road, quite all of a sudden. That is also something to be concerned about, as it can easily lead to accidents.

b. The similar thing happened once during the trip, when from the resort, we went for a one-day driving trip to Goa and back. Then too, the return was delayed, and we drove a decent 1-2 hours in the dark. There, there was no traffic. So we did not have the truck problem. But it was an internal state highway, and very dark and isolated. Again not the best place to be driving through, at night.

c. The worst possible risks encountered on these highways, were on account of occasional and sudden tresspassing by animals, on the road! Mostly cattle. They don’t listen to your horns, so you have no choice, but to come to a screeching halt, when they suddenly make their appearance on the road. Watch out for the animals, then.

All in all, its an inspiration, and I would not mind doing such vacations, once in a while.

Oh, by the way, it turns out cheaper compared to most other travel options, especially if you are 4 persons in the car (which means, you compare 4 air tickets to one car ride, etc.). Even if you rent a car in India, it comes with a driver, and turns out much more expensive than driving your own one. So that is one more reason to consider driving vacations.

Discovering audio book CDs

Posted: March 15, 2007 in audio book
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I have been doing a decent commute to work and back, daily, and when I did not have a driver to drive me to work, I would listen to the radio while commuting. From the time I got the driver, I would try to read and catch up with work, on the laptop.

However both of these activities are not the most convenient to do, in a moving car. So often, I would end up listening to the radio inspite of having a driver.

Sometime back, I thought of replacing the radio with audio book CDs. That way, I figured, I will also cover up on my reading backlog. And I managed to get a few audio book CDs.

And then coincidentally, I happened to take a vacation by road, that involved more than 30-35 hours of being on the road, totally. I used the opportunity to take the audio book CDs that I had invested in, and ‘read’ through all but one, of them. In case you are wondering, how I could do that, when I must have had others in the car, while on vacation, it is this way:

a. I was the driver on the vacation, and all others in the car would go off to sleep, after an hour or two of the drive!
and
b. There was at least one audio book (“The Long Tail”) that even the family enjoyed listening to; it had fascinating cases of real-life and current stories, which they did not mind listening to.

Anyway, at the end of the trip, I was hooked to the audio book CD concept. I am going to work on getting more and more titles. I have been able to put the car drive to great use, I have been able to cover up on my reading, and I have been able to do it, in quicker time, than I would, by reading the printed book!

In case of the print book reading, I tend to often stay at a page, and start thinking about what I just read, visualising it, etc. But with an audio book CD, since the ‘page’ keeps moving ahead, I have to focus and keep listening. Sure, the stop and visualise aspect is good, in many ways, and gets the content ‘inside’ me, much better, but this is a fair compromise to get through a book quicker and cover up on the reading backlog.

Oh, the titles I covered on the trip included The Blue Ocean Strategy, The Long Tail, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and I am now listening to The World is Flat.

Cautious against the minnows?

Posted: March 15, 2007 in cricket, world cup
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The World Cup in under way.
The first game was the only one so far, between two majors, viz. West Indies and Pakistan.

But its the other couple of games that intrigued me.
First was the Australia vs Scotland one.

For most of the time that Australia batted, they seemed to give a lot of respect to the Scotland bowlers. Almost like they were playing England or New Zealand! I would have thought that the aggressive Australians would have gone hammer and tongs against the Scots, and posted a really massive total. To totally assert themselves and also give a warning to the rest of the teams. But they appeared to be over cautious. Only Ponting asserted himself. But then he is special. The rest of the chaps, be it Gilchrist, Hayden, or the young stars, Clarke, Hussey, Hodge – they all looked like they were up against Shane Bond or Muralitharan! If not for the cameo by Hogg, the total might well have fallen short of 300.

Now as I am seeing Sri Lanka bat against another minor team, Bermuda, I am seeing almost similar cautious stuff. Sure, they have also topped 300, but they lost a few wickets, and some guys missed out on making a large score for themselves, and also for the team.

WHY is this happening?
Are the senior teams having first game blues? Want to just put a win behind them, than take any chances?

Are they concerned about a possible upset by the junior team?

Is it the world cup factor? Is there too much tension?!

It sure feels that way!

The best ever..?

Posted: March 13, 2007 in best, federer, michael jordan, schumacher, sportsperson, tiger woods
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Would we, in our lifetimes, have possibly seen sporting heroes, who might be considered to be the best ‘ever’ in their respective sports??

Lets try and pick some names.

Michael Jordan in basketball. I presume this will go through unanimously!

Schumacher. I am not much of a racing fan, but having seen the following, and the results he managed to notch up, maybe he qualifies.

Tiger Woods. Well, in terms of sheer numbers, he may have a distance to cover, to catch up with the big heroes of yesteryears, but he has many playing years left, and he seems to be at top form, still, so there is fair chance that he will emerge on top, by the time he is done. And there is enough evidence of his abilities, till date, to believe that he can justify the tag of being ‘best ever’!

Federer. Here is where I expect the most debate to come in. Sure, there was Samparas. And many others like Laver and Borg, and what not. But again, like Woods, at a relatively early stage of his career, Federer has shown an awesome game and dominance that makes one believe that he can lay claim to that position of being best ever. Okay, he needs to continue his performance at this level, for a few more years. But he is definitely out there.

Amongst the popular sports, these are the names that I could think of.

No, sorry, it does not work in cricket. First of all, there was Bradman. So….!
Also, even in present crop of greats, it is tough to make a call – Sachin or Lara or Ponting, etc. So we will not elevate any of them to anything even close to the ‘best ever’ levels!

Let the games begin

Posted: March 13, 2007 in cricket, world cup
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Enough talk, enough speculation.. now, what matters is performance on the field.

The World Cup of cricket kicks off today, in the West Indies.
The warm up matches did not throw up any serious surprises. Even if some teams won and others lost, it was clearly not as serious as an official game. Even those who lost (like New Zealand and West Indies) are not reading a lot in their losses. Which is how it should be. On the other hand, teams that played well and won, rather than feeling good about the victories, should be happier about the form that some of their players are getting into.

Do we have any indicators about relative form, who’s in with a chance, who’s not??

Not really.
Except that there are many teams which look hungry and want to win, for different reasons.

Australia wants to reassert their supremacy, after the recent hiccups against England and New Zealand. They want everyone to know that they are the best, second to none.

South Africa has always been in the reckoning, have performed well, have a good team, but have not won the big one. They would believe that they have a good chance this time too, and with a young and aggressive captain, they will like to take it, this time. Also one of their biggest heroes, Shaun Pollock, could well be on his way out, and this will be a fitting gift for him.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan are both big time fighters. They want to win each time, and they have tenacious players like Sangakara, Vaas, Murali, Jayasuriya for SL, and Inzy, Yousuf, Younis, Razak for Pakistan, who do not give up, till the last ball. They will surely give it their best.

New Zealand have looked good often, from the times of Glenn Turner and Martin Crowe and Richard Hadlee and Chris Cairns. But they have almost never looked good enough to take it all. But with a tighter ship now, with Fleming at the helm (one of the best ODI captains in the world), and guys like McMillan (what amazing innings against Australia recently), Oram (the man in form, one with a huge heart), Vettori (smart young man, tipped to be their next captain) and Bond (perhaps the best fast bowler on view in the World Cup), they may fancy their chances this time around. Any team taking New Zealand for granted will do so at their own peril.

England – they are a mystery. They have reached such lows recently, but then they came back and won in Australia. So on their day, they do deliver. I am just not sure about Vaughan’s injury, and his infrequent presence in the team in recent days, and then being captain here. I am not sure if he can lead well, under the circumstances. I would have preferred to go with Flintoff as captain. Anyway, if Bell, Flintoff, Collingwood and Peitersen fire, they do have potential. Except I do not somehow see them doing well, consistently, for the whole month, and which is where they seem least likely, to be able to take it all (amongst the major countries, I mean).

West Indies, the hosts, have a chance. In Lara, they have an aggressive captain, who has seen things from the very top. That is such an important factor – to have the ‘head space’ to be at the top (for example, Fleming has never been there, individually or as a captain, and which itself could be Fleming’s biggest challenge to surmount). And with extremely motivated players like Chanderpaul, Gayle, Sarawan and Bravo, the host team will give it their best. And they could well be the dark horses for the tournament, as far as I can see.

Which leaves India. The country that drives the cricket money. The team with the largest number of fans and sponsors. The team, that for once, seem to have a decent combination which has run into some kind of form, and which hence, promises a lot. With guys like Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly and Kumble, perhaps playing their last World Cups, there is a lot of pride that is at stake. Motivation will not be low, for these guys want the one world cup in their trophy cases, before they hang up their pads. Sure, there is the Sehwag bother, but if they can put it out of their heads, and focus on the rest of the team, India can clinch the title. They have it in their means.

So let the games begin. And we prepare for some long nights (watching the games in India)…

Who wants to know all this?

Posted: February 28, 2007 in investment, rakhi sawant
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The Times of India has a weekly supplement on personal finance where they cover stock, mutual funds and the like. Along with it, they also tend to feature some celebrity and have her talk about her finances and where she invests, etc.

As long as the celebrities are respected ones, who have clearly made a lot of money, some of us may be interested to know what they did with their money. I mean, where they invested, and the like.

But this week, they featured Rakhi Sawant there! For the reputation that she has, I wonder WHO would be interested to know about her investments? I mean, if it was a page 3 feature, well and good. The piece belongs there.

But on the financial pages, where you expect serious value to be present, WHY feature her? I thought it was degrading the paper itself.

What’s with these "days"?

Posted: February 28, 2007 in PSU
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Few days back, I caught in the papers that it was the ‘Central Excise’ day that day. Similarly, I have seen at banks, every once in a while, notices saying that its the ‘customer service week’ or ‘meet the customer’ day or something like that.

All of these are very public sector centric things, hardly seen in private banks or private organisations.

Simply because, what is the meaning of a customer service week? Are you saying that for the rest of the time, you are NOT giving service to customers??!

What is with the ‘meet the customer’ day? On other days, you would not meet them?

Or this central excise day? What is it about the day? (Pardon my ignorance, if there is any specific relevance to the central excise day!)

It appears as if some organisations have not grown at all. OR that they want an excuse to have some budgets sanctioned for celebrations with snacks and the like, and having a way to explain the numbers in the books?!

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