Chandrayaan-1 and the Man behind the mission

After almost 10 days of intense behind the scene activities since it's take off India's first unmanned Lunar Mission reached its destination when the spacecraft entered the internal periphery of the Lunar orbit within 500 KM's of the Moon and would in due course start its R&D Mission. Incredible feat achieved by ISRO using indigenous technology fully controlled by home grown Indian space scientists and the cost of the mission is much lesser at 600 Million USD than the large amounts spent by all the big brothers of space technology like US and Russia

Of course for every such Indian space feat there are people behind the success who are simple, unassuming but get the job done with very little hype and publicity. One such Scientist is Mylswamy Anna Dorai, the project Director of Chandrayaan-1 with a rural background and a Masters degree from PSG, Coimbatore who did not even have electricity in his house till age of 7 and had to ironically study in the natural lights of the Moon may be imagining in his dreams that one day he would be in charge of successfully sending a spacecraft to the same place. He is not trained in NASA, does not have any overseas doctorates or high profile prior positions but is a simple contended scientist who has completed the jobs given to him to perfection for the last 26 years at ISRO and has stayed back though he must have got innumerable overseas offers.

This story is an eye opener to some of our young engineers and scientists who have rushed in the past to US with a desire to pursue higher scientific education and then settled abroad with a high profile job or the current batch of under graduates even now trying to go to US when the US economy is in dire straits. In an interview with NDTV he was humble but confident when he made this closing statement.

'We as a team are confident of taking India's space mission to heights where nobody has never been before'

RK

DADA-is it the end of a Golden Era in Indian Cricket?

Ganguly's climax scene was typical of his career-A fairy tale ending filled with highs and lows. Started with a century 12 years ago at Lords and ended with a Golden duck at Nagpur. Not even the great Sir Don could sign off with a Golden duck. Don was out for a zero but not of the first ball in his final innings when he just needed a boundary to reach the magical three figure average. Even the unsporting Aussies who had fought many battles on the field with Dada on and off the field gathered together for a Guard of honour and he walked in to the crease for one last time

423 International matches for the country, 18000+ runs, 38 centuries,49 tests as Indian captain, more than 100 wickets, decent 40+ average in both forms of the game and the irony was the man had to fight for a place till his last test not sure when the selectors would sack him for some flimsy reason or other. Arguably the greatest and unarguably the most successful Indian captain ever who possibly instilled the sense of pride and confidence in Team India that they can win outside Asia, (till then it was just the 83 WC and 85 B&H cups) groomed the current fast bowling talents as a formidable force rather than just relying on spin for overseas victories and more than anything else scripted incredible comeback stories after being confined to rubbles every time by the selectors.

Well Dada's 12 years with Team India can virtually become a classic case study and subject in any leading management Institution for Leadership, Team building, Motivation, Grit, Determination and above all a never say die attitude irrespective of the situation or for that matter a perfect subject for bollywood movies in few years on the lines of Chak De

I liked this quote of the Great Somerset cricket journalist Peter Roubuck on 'Dada' which is what Ganguly's career was all about in the sense more than as an individual cricketer with personal glory he contributed to the Indian team's resurgence in a much bigger way and that's what team sports is all about:

Ganguly has been neither a genius or a saint or a great batsman, but he has served with distinction and leaves Indian cricket in a much better state than he found it.

RK

Mrs. Revathi Sankaran- Great talent and versatility

Recently I had a chance to go thorough video link of possibly some Tamil serial where in one of the scenes Mrs. Revathi Sankaran portrays a super duper performance of how Twinkle Twinkle songs can be sung in various Desi lstyles like classic Carnatic, Telugu, Malayalam , Punjabi etc and this is brilliant stuff and must see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmdAF4ihedM&NR=1


Thanks to a close Friend, I had the chance to meet her earlier on one or two occasions and was amazed at her versatility whether it be all forms of music, Carnatic, folk, light or other activities like cooking, health tips, literature, public speech, classical dances, dramas, movies, journalism, women's forums, leadership, Tamil proverbs, riddles, etc and the list is endless. But again she was so humble and pleasant and when somebody wanted to her to sing an old classic in a small informal gathering she sang a Banumathi classic in the same style without inhibition or even thinking for a minute.

Beyond all that I also came to know about the various charity activities in which she is actively contributing without any show of publicity or hype. Just to give an example she makes it a point to visit some of the old age homes without fail every month and the abandoned or orphaned elders consider the time spent with her as the most precious in that one month cycle. There was also a real life incident where due to her other commitments she missed one visit to one of these homes for a month and one of the old inmates who was disappointed with her absence that month unfortunately passed away before next month she kept on repeating Ms. Revathi's name in her final moments.


It's a pity that her great talent and versatility has not been fully utilized either by the big cinema or televesion channels or magazines except for few performances here and there, but she is very contended with life and continues to make people around her happy and joyous.


RK

Largest Mall in the World- Dubai Mall

Dubai added one more shopping mall to its ever growing list of world class entertainment cum shopping malls when it opened doors to Dubai Mall this week very close to the tallest building in the World Burj Dubai. Some of the Mall's attractions are simply awesome and bound to increase the visitor traffic to Dubai in the days to come.

• Total indoor floor space of 5.9 million square feet, with a massive 3.77 million square feet as the gross leasable area


• Of the proposed 1,200 stores, nearly 600 opened on Tuesday with a further 300 stores set to open by the end of the year


• The Grove is an indoor-outdoor area with a fully retractable roof for an open-air shopping experience.


• The aquarium holds 33,000 animals including 36 tiger sharks and three giant groupers that weigh around 200 kilos each.


• The aquarium holds 10 million litres of water and has won a Guinness record for the world's largest 270 Degree acrylic walking panel, which measures 32.8 metres by 8.3 metres.


• An Olympic-sized ice rink at 60 metres by 30 metres that can hold 1,000 skaters at one time and has seating for 350 spectators.


• There is also a 440,000 square feet Fashion Avenue area devoted to high-end fashion and some leading brands


• The world's largest indoor gold souq, with 220 stores


• Dubai's biggest food court, with 40 outlets.

The mall is expected to get huge amount of visitors in the first year and is no doubt going to be the biggest attraction for Dubai along with Burj Dubai for all the residents and visitors.

But where is the money to spend for in all these high end malls with the ever increase in cost of living in Dubai is the question uppermost in the minds of some expat residents and might be just a window shopping for time pass!

Credit Cards -irukkave irukku. Enzoy

RK

'YES WE CAN'- Obama's sensational speech

For the 1 Million + faithful gathered in the Grant Park and the Millions who saw in TV live possibly the speech made by President Elect in the early morning hours of today at Grant Park was one to remember for a life time. His speech was eloquent, majestic, emotional, soul stirring, outstanding and summed up the hopes of millions around the world. He spoke about his humble beginnings, trials and tribulations, support from family, his hard work for last 20 months and more importantly how much of work lay ahead to fulfil the aspirations of people who had voted as well as not voted for him and the need to stay calm and cool without getting over excited and getting carried away with such landslide win. His punch line 'YES WE CAN' after every pause is bound to become a super duper hit( sounded like our own Visu's punch sentence after every long dialogue in the climax scenes)

For those who missed the live telecast here's the extract of his speech to read and preserve.

Equally impressive was the short and sweet speech of the defeated McCain who accepted defeat with such grace, poise, and elegance and took all the responsibility for the defeat on himself without blaming any of his team mates and extended a sincere olive branch of handshake to work with Obama in the best interests of America. Can't help comparing this scenario with our Indian Democracy and the speech of defeated leaders where typical blame games like allegations of rigging, fraud, impersonation, violation of guidelines, violence are the order of the day with few exceptions. May be it will take light years for our politicians to reach such standards of professional campaigns and graceful acceptance of people's mandate


This Para in Obama's speech summed up his entire approach to his future tenure as America's President

'The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there.'

RK

'Gilly The Silly'- Hero turned Villian

Gilchrist or Gilly as his fans used to call him had earned high respect with his exploits on and off the field in the last 10 years as the best wicket keeper batsman the world had seen till date and was also famous for his sportsmanship and courteous behaviour refreshingly different from the other Aussies. So it's a complete surprise to see some of his comments in his upcoming biography

• Tendulkar did not shake hands with the opposition after the infamous Sydney test and was not to be seen around
  But the TV pictures replayed on the channels clearly showed that Sachin was the first to congratulate Aussies after the Sydney test. What’s the point of apologising after such comments and unruffled Sachin as usual simply brushed aside the whole controversy in commenting that the subject matter was closed
• Harbhajan chickened out on seeing a green top and faked a fever so that he won't be exposed in the Nagpur test when Aussies toured last time
  You can say anything about the Turbanator but nobody can accuse him of not giving 100% to the Country as he is a fierce competitor and even if you make a false accusation you have to choose the right person and in this case Gilly got it all wrong
  
• Murali has been a chucker and is a fact that he along with others have been chucking away for their wickets
• It has been proved that Murali's action is due to a birth deformity, has been subjected to rigourous tests and his action has been cleared by ICC any number of times. So to call him a chucker just because the Aussies don't like him or he surpassed Warne in terms of total wickets is really silly and laughable. Even for a moment assuming that Murali chucks when he bowls the Doosra he has perfected that ball like never before and no other spinner in the world can even come close to his strike rate or match winning performances and it's better for Gilly and Aussies to accept that Murali is a champion cricketer and if he had been born in UK or Australia by now he would have been knighted and would have the Wisden cricketer for the last 10 years without a break

Gilly has spoiled his entire reputation built over years by making such allegations about famous fellow cricketers without facts and has fallen from such esteem in no time just by writing a biography for few Hundred Thousand Dollars

In Gilly's case

'Willow and Keeping Gloves were always mightier than the pen'

RK

Barack Obama - America's new Ray of Hope

Looks likes Obama has beaten all odds and is set to become the first Black and Afro American to lead the Democrats to a resounding victory unless the much spoken about Bradley effect comes in to play where the opinion polls turn out to be completely misleading with voters changing preferences for the other candidate in the last few days. It's a battle of Old vs. Youth , Black Vs White, Democrats vs. Republicans, experience vs. relative inexperience, outside female rookie politician vs. seasoned Diplomat for the VP and never before has there been such a feverish pitch or expected large voter turnout in American Election history. In this process Obama seems to have transcended all the barriers across states, castes, religion, race etc and is set to create history in turning out to be the only hope for millions of deprived and poor Americans and migrants.

In a country which has been ravaged by the financial tsunami, toxic credit all over the place, mis management of large financial corporations, complete lack of Governance with utter disregard to internal controls and resultant large scale Federal bailouts, Obama's victory seems to be the only silver lining amongst the frightening dark clouds of uncertainty. It's also refreshing to note that he is just 47, possibly the third youngest US President elect, full of fun and energy and above all a man of ethics, integrity and values. So far so good but the acid test starts when he becomes one of the the most powerful presidents of the world.

When you consider the age factor and compare his age and election with the depressing Indian scenario where except Rahul Gandhi nobody in the 40's seems to be ready to lead the Nation. Almost all the current leaders or aspirants like our PM, Vajpayee, Advani, Mulayam, Lalu, Kalingnar etc are all 70+ or around but still want to cling on to power instead of calling it a day and handing over the baton to the next generation of youth leaders .

Obama's quote on the Nation in one of the campaign speeches summed up all his efforts and the road ahead:

'It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.'

RK

Rajni-Unusual Rasigar Conference

கடமையைச் செய்; பலனை எதிர்பார் - ரஜினி

Words of careful wisdom and his typical non committal approach from Rajni again in this exclusive with his fans that had become restless over a period of time not knowing where they were heading in the midst of all the political parties started by his contemporary movie stars like Vijayakanth and Sarath Kumar

Going by the interview it's not clear what he wants to do in the TN political scenario except the fact that he is busy with his 'Enthiran' AKA ROBO. His out bursts in the Hogenekkal issue, then the apology, his decision not to act in movies after Baba and then the turnaround with a series of super hits and his non committal stand on host of other issues had left his mass base of Rasigar Mandrams bit confused about Thalaivar's roadmap and hence they had forced this meeting. However going by his answers which have been repeated in the past in other forums with respect to the future, looks like status quo at this point of time.

'Thalaivar Vazhi Thani Vazhi' seems to be true in this context as well since he seems to waiting for that eluding God's signal to jump into the TN political bandwagon which might happen tomorrow or after years or never happen at all. Till then like many of his die hard fans I would also wait
To sum up in Vadivel's style

'Arasiyalukku Varuven-Ana Varamatten'

RK

TT Rajan's speeches-Mind boggling and inspirational

During the last 2 days in Dubai I was fortunate and lucky enough to attend to some of the talk shows by the founder of Alma Mater from Chennai TT.Rangarajan or 'Rajan' as he is affectionately referred to by his friends and admirers. Ranga is an old time friend from Nanganallur who was our cricket captain for the TGCC Team and even those days had phenomenal capabilities in terms of attracting people around him with his vast repertoire and informal speeches after our playing time.

Though I had lost touch with him for than 15 years I knew for sure from all the press coverage and his web site that he had become one of the most inspiring and motivational speakers in the country and countless folks had benefited from his speeches like students' employees, management, service staff and many had come out of suicidal tendencies and depression syndromes to turn a new lease of life. So it was a pleasant surprise to meet and listen to Rajan in Dubai and it turned out to be a memorable affair. Rajan spoke on spirituality, materialism, leadership, honesty, meditation, art of non doing, unconditional love, humility, power of non sexual touch, awareness, ego destruction, bliss, etc, etc and he flowed like the Niagara falls without even a single stutter, stammer or break quoting extensively from Bible, Quran, Mother Teresa, Kannadasan, Ramayana, Gita and the list is endless. Needless to add that Audience was spell bound with the messages from a powerful orator who kept on reminding us that we were applauding the messages and not the messenger (i.e.-Rajan) himself and some of his quotes were mind blogging and brilliant. Just to quote a few:

• Even technology is beginning to yield to the indiscipline of people in the current age-snooze option in alarm is a classic example
• +ve thinking does not guarantee success but –ve thinking guarantees failure
• When ego comes in everything goes from you-When ego goes everything comes in
• Instead of killing ego and developing relationship we kill relationship to save our ego
• Starting on time is a respect to people who reached on time rather than disrespect to people not on time
• Comfort is a feedback of alignment to laws of life- suffering is a feedback of non alignment
• Value the Master but more important Master the values (Scriptures help us to align to the laws of life)
• You are possessed by what you try to possess
• Son to Parents- When you die I won’t cry but when you are living I won’t allow you to cry
• Ability to love everything which has life and to leave everything which is lifeless-Detached attachment
• Instead of doing things for happiness do things out of happiness
• We don't attain meditation but meditation attains us
• God is not a matter of belief but alignment

There were many more and hence I have requested for a personal video copy of the speeches to treasure and preserve and try to follow in practice to the best extent possible some of his suggestions. Most of his suggestions are possible to follow in day to day practical life and can definitely make a difference in our day to lives for us to become better persons and sincerely try to make people around us happier

The best part of all these programs were that they all started on time irrespective of the number of audiences and ended on time and there was no introduction of Rajan and he beautifully explained later how such introductions are ridiculous and embarrassing experiences for the speaker in front of the speaker himself. There was not even an iota of ego in his entire speech in spite of being so versatile and knowledgeable (classic example of the Tamil proverb-niraikudam thalumbadhu) and this gift of oratory for Rajan is definitely Divine and there is no other way to explain such extraordinary prowess.

For those around Chennai , Bangalore, Pune or Hyderabad where ALMA MATER has centres or if Rajan visits your place, I strongly suggest that you attend his speeches irrespective of the topic without fail and also read their magazine Frozen Thoughts . The experience might change the way we look at our lives for the better.

RK

Kumble- The Great Indian Soldier

Well -There were few tears in the eyes of his fans and lumps in throats like mine as he bowled the last over. The inevitable retirement which was round the corner came, may be one match early thanks to his finger injury sustained in the Delhi Test. Kumble was possibly the most underrated cricketer India had ever seen simply because he won more matches as a bowler for the country on his own than anybodyelse and still he had to answer critics who questioned his bowling credentials from day 1 and as he rightly pointed in a sarcastic way in the final interview he himself is not sure whether he is a 'leg spinner'. But like the man himself he let his actions do the talking rather than answering his critics like the media which crucified his performances through the year and even sports commentators and ex selectors like the 'Colonel' who suggested that he should call it a day. Imagine any cricketer coming out of a general anesthesia after 10 stitches taking three wickets next day and that too a caught and bowled with both hands or performing with a broken jaw in West Indies. Some of his records and statistics which are bit unique are mind boggling.

• 619 wickets, third in all time list, 4.69 wickets per test , wicket for every 65 deliveries and all time fourth in highest 5 and 10 wicket hauls
• The old Indian spin quartet played together 231 matches for 853 wickets and if Kumble had gone on to play the same number of matches he would have ended up with the same strike rate with a phenomenal tally of 1083 wickets
• Only player with a century and 500 + wickets in the game's history
• 5 wicket haul 35 times and 10 wickets in a match 10 times and the beauty is that India won 80% of these matches including the famous 10 wicket in an innings at Delhi with PAK
  

He is truly a match winner and this beautiful article of Suresh Menon highlights some of the above statistics and brings out clearly why Kumble is India's biggest match winner in the History of Indian test cricket. I liked this one liner which sums up his career

'Kumble was described by what he did not do rather than by what he did.'

RK

02/11/08