Realm of Randomness ..

Decoding the plight called elevators..

The beasts called elevators end up pissing me off every single time. I had rambled about these dumb asses earlier here. Go grab a bite.

If you have read that post, you will know that the ramblings mentioned earlier were particularly about those ill-chipped lifts of that underdeveloped guest house. But now I am convinced these shameless creatures are programmed to torture their inmates.

I mean think about it. What are the decisions these lifeless steel rooms have to make.. (Inspiration)

• Where do the people want to go?
• Where they are and where each floor is?
• What strategy they need to make so that they are cursed the least?

First decision is pretty simple. We make that decision for you, you bugger. You see those glowing numbers on the number pads we keep on pressing one after other? Yeah that is where we want to go. As quick as possible.

Second decision has a whole lot of mechanics behind it. I mean there are some shafts and then there are some holes on some vertical tapes and then there is some counting involved. I would surely like to go in details, but I don’t want to. So I won’t. Visit that inspiration link you see above.

However the part that puzzles me the most is the strategy because that’s when these supposed-to-be angels stop being ones and enter the devil’s land. Now these buggers have to strategise where to go, when to go and how to go. And I absolutely feel that they are not wired to do so. I mean how else can you explain the simplest of the things these dudes screw up.

How many times have you waited for an elevator to scroll right from 50 meters below basement up to the 14th floor when his other buddy is resting right at the 15th floor? Do they have some gentlemen’s agreement where one simply says “Can’t you see sucker I have just finished carrying 6 fat asses up and down thrice between just 2 floors. I am tired now and you can for sure handle these dumbos”.

How many times have you jailed yourself in a jam packed elevator as it drools itself down the shaft stopping and opening at each floor. If you are outside, those seemingly endless few seconds you spend when you apply all your permutation skills to see if you can possibly fit in any of the available gaps inside before giving up are just killing.

There are many other plights of these long travels between floors. But you see the point is the where, when and how part has to be strategised properly.

I will pen down the requirements for you. An elevator, for minimum, has to

• follow quickest path to you and quickest path to where you desire to go.
• open only if it can intake any of the fat asses, close and start the journey as soon as everyone hops on.
• understand when some mischievous fatty calls it, but does not want to hop on.
• not kill my mobile signal.
• close the doors faster so people get less chance to stop the elevator and say the meaningless “S” word again.

These are just a few suggestions that can make this floor travel not a sucking experience after all.

PS: On an unrelated note, why the hell does every single elevator has to have mirrors? Who wrote this unwritten law first? It just gives me one more chance for not letting the elevator know where I want to go and follow a journey to a floor undesired with this lifeless but life sucking beast.

by Amit Gawande Tags: elevators, experience, humor, silence | Posted in experience, humor, judgement

Thoughts on movie making (and reviewing)

Just finished watching “The Negotiator”. A tense drama between two negotiators that was . Well at least for three-fourth of the movie. After which I think the director fell prey for the behaviour which I am seeing a lot recently. However I have no intention here to post a review about the movie.

  

Actually these days I have lost belief that reviews actually hold any credibility. Not just do I find them monetarily inspired, but they are also dependent on many external factors. This makes it practically impossible for two viewers to watch a movie with same frame of mind and same expectations.

Well not to forget the reviews themselves rig their own viewpoint on the moviegoers. So a Taran Adarsh might make each Yash Raj Film an extreme must watch while Masand makes the same one the extreme bore of all time. Two thumps down he would scream. However what the movie ends up being is not any of those.

Not just is this case true for the actual critics whose bread and butter is film reviewing. Even friends that unwelcomely review a movie for me, make it difficult for me to watch any. One likes any movie he watches, another says “ah Bollywood sucks”.

So hardly is it possible for me to decide which movie to watch based on anyone’s comments. Ironically the most of the movies that I have loved recently are the ones where I had no clue about their plot or performances. So no reviews for me I say.

Anyway back to the pit that most of the directors fall in. I call it the “lets-make-it-goody-goody” pit. See when you have made a strong impression on audience by throwing at them what they least expected, you don’t take an unwanted faltu turn saying “Hehe buddy, there I fooled you.”

One most cliche scene I would like to mention. In a movie with 2 heroes, one kills other at the most unthinkable stage. Only is it revealed momentarily after that both were together in this and no one’s killed. That was part of the bigger plan. Villain is caught and yippie, everything is goody-goody.

Well, screw you Mr. Goody G. Goody. You could have made the movie hell lot better by killing that god damn hero, and making this gaddar friend fly away with villain and all the money. Why is there a mental block to show “achhe ki jeet aur bure ki haar” (good wins bad leans)? Well not that this is how the real world behaves, is it?

Anyway even extreme wonderful movies like The Departed could not dodge this pit. Only thing I can say is it takes guts to end movie with not so “goody-goody” a situation. I remember one movie which managed to do that. The Mist. I still fell saddened when I remember the ending there. Hats off to you Mr. Frank Darabont the director. You had managed to give a most unthinkable horror an horror movie can give its audience. Extreme unthinkable.

Image Credit: darpantheatregroup

by Amit Gawande Tags: film making, movie, review | Posted in instant thoughts, judgement, sensible

"Sachin not a Match Winner": A judgement

I always come up with a statement “Sachin is not a Match Winner”. And if you try to go to the depth of the statement, you will find that the people mainly complain about following issues:
1) He never sails india to victory.
2) He is never there till the end.
3) He never strikes in a crucial stage.
4) He never plays well in finals.
5) He plays only on the Batsmen Friendly Indian Pitches
6) He is not like Lara, Steve Waugh or Bevan.

Before we start looking at each issue, lets try to answer a couple of questions first:
1) Who is a Match Winner?
2) Can a single person win the matches for a country?

Ok so lets move to the first question. So is “Match Winner” the one who stays till the end? If that’s the case then Srinath and Kumble were the match winners in the 3rd match of Titan Cup played against Australia on 21st October 1996. But still the man of the match award was given to the Sachin. Because he was holding one end of the indian innings when the greats like Dravid, Ganguly and Azar were making their way to pavalion. He was sailing India home with a great victory but for a good ball which he just happened to misjudge. This was the innings that created a base for the “rare” nice flicks from the two Bangaloreans and made them to take India to a fantastic win and they get full credit for doing it with perfection.

Now lets consider a Test Match. Take the 2nd test of the Border-Gavaskar trophy played against Australia on 26-30 December 1999. The first innings of Australia saw 405 runs. Thanks to great innings by Slater, Langer, Gilchrist and even some fine knocks by Fleming and Lee down the order. India’s 1st innings score was 238 which had a fine inning of 116 from the Little Master. He was the 9th man to get out. Then Australia scored 208 runs before declaring their second innings. In the responce, India just managed to score 195 runs again having an inning of 52 from Tendulkar. But then he could not sail india to victory at last. Still the man of the match was given to him. Can we imply from this test that Sachin was not a match winner as he didn’t won the test for india? No we can’t!!!!

But then you again can’t say that Sachin was the match winner in the First match we discussed. No he wasn’t. On the contrary, no one can be a match winner in a team game like Cricket. You cannot neglect the support he got from Jadeja and Mongia that helped him to to take india on the verge of a win and then the nice flicks from Srinath and Kumble that sailed India to victory. You cannot forget even a small contribution of 30 odd runs in Cricket because that, with a partnership, counts big. Even in case of the test discussed, same thing would have happened if sachin would have got some support from his fellow teammates. The fault was not Sachin’s — it was just that India could not find a Fleming/Lee who could score some runs down the order in the first innings.

People may query “why are you just considering these two innings?” Or may be something like “You are getting biased”. But then I am not discussing the greatness of Sachin. I am just trying to judge the statement about match winner concept which I totally disbelieve exists. I think these facts are good enough to prove that the fist two issues can be discarded when you say he is not the match winner and very well answer the two questions we developed.

So lets move to 3rd and 4th issues. I think these don’t need to be discussed seperately as they are too similar. No situation can be more crucial than the final of a series. Here i will just like to ask one simple question. How many of these finals would india have reached but for Sachin? Does it not take some fine performances to win the matches which take us to the final? C’mon man. After all he is an human being who too has got limits. Nobody in the world can be perfect and neither is Sachin. But the mere fact that he doesn’t play in finals unlike few others (not Indians offcourse because i guess no indians play well in finals) doesn’t reduce his briliance.
Or it can again not imply/disprove that he is not a match winner.

The fifth query can be considered in two parts. 1) On Batsmen friendly pitches: Ok then i think this is a part of the game. Sachin is a batsmen and every batsmen is considered to play well on batsmen friendly pitches. But it will be wrong to say that he plays only on batsmen friendly tracks. Because he do have a few innings under his belt to disprove this statement including the ones at bulawayo and johannesburg against Zim and SA. Lets move to second part.
2)On Indian pithces: This statement will be best judged by few statistics which I will soon come up with.

Lets move to the last and the most important comment. He is obviously not like Waugh, Lara, Inzi. He is far ahead of Waugh and Inzi and in case of Lara, I will just say its better not to judge one greats performance in the vision of the others. But I can say one thing. Sachin may not be a Steve Waugh but then he does not have a Warne, Gillespie or Lee who could win a match by hitting the last few runs after he scores a century. Lara and Waugh both had great teams to back their efforts, not just a few good players like what Sachin has. Tendulkar has shone as the lone gladiator for India.

So I think everybody should stop worrying about who is a batter match winner and enjoy the game of all the greats. One thing is for sure. Today, when Sachin goes out to bat, he has over a billion people praying for him. So, whether he is a MATCH-WINNER or not, who cares: he is a HEART-WINNER. Today’s great moments are tommorow’s sweet memories. Though Dravid might be “the great WALL of India”, if you look beyond the wall you can see a monument, an “Unconquerable Everest”, in Sachin Tendulkar.

In the end, I would just like to put a plain request to all those who debate on this topic. Just leave the man, who has given 14 years of his life to his passion, alone and don’t put him under a microscope. This will sure help you enjoy the numerous innings he had played and the numerous he is yet to play. I CONGRATS THE LITTLE MASTER for all the fine innings he has played and wish him all the best for his remaining carrier. So bowlers beware. SACHIN AALA RE!!!!

by Amit Gawande | Posted in bat n ball, judgement