From Fake IPL Player's Blog – The Build Up

SEPTEMBER 23, 1893

Let The Match Begin

Well, as far as getting into the playing eleven in IPL (Indian Players for Lagaan-maaf) team is concerned, I am a no-hoper. And the only thing I expect to do during the course of this match is serve water, chhachh and baajra rotis to the players in the middle. However, this also means that I would have enough time on my hands to write this blog, and update you with the live action straight from the Champaner cricket stadium, as well as all the gossip from the dressing room. And for this purpose, I am going to use my newly bought Macbook Pro, launched by Apple Inc in January 1892.

What I like the most about this tournament is the hot cheer-leaders dancing in their sexy costumes. That’s one thing that I am going to enjoy the most here. Those beauties, dancing to that hep tune, really make my day.

Hot cheer-leaders of IPL

Another good thing about this tournament is that I can be at a very close range of all the superstars of this star-studded cricket team. During the first few hours spent with them, I have noticed the traits in some of them, and I am now going to share these with you. My captain Bhuvan, carries a lot of attitude with him, wherever he goes. He never stoops down either in front of the Goras, or the film fraternity even if they offer him prestigious awards such as The Manikchand Filmfare. The only exception to this, however, is the excitement and enthu seen in him when these Goras offer him an Academy Award. Our coach is a British Lady named Elizabeth, who apparently also happens to be the sister of rival team’s captain (Captain Russell). And then we have our team-owner, a local ruler, Rajah Pooran Singh. Other teammates are pretty interesting characters as well. Unfortunately, our evergreen international player, Mr Dev Anand (if you remember him from the Awwal Number series) has dropped out this time due to some other prior commitments. Had he also been there, our team could have aptly been named as Circus XI.

SEPTEMBER 24, 1893

The Issues

Before we could even push the start button, our team realized that it was in a much bigger shit-hole now, than the time when our captain, Mr Attitude had challenged Captain Russel for a match. The whole team is at the lowest of the abysses. Everyone around is dropping catches as if it is not a cricket ball, but rather a snitch used in the English Quiddich League headed by Sir Harry Potter himself. Two of our leading bowlers, Goli and Guran, have bowling actions that would put the likes of Lasith Malinga to think very highly of themselves. There are great chances that the two would be called for chucking by the umpires. Our coach, Elizabeth, whom I would refer to as Phoren Babe from now on, is too much bent towards our captain, and never makes even a single eye contact with any of the other players in the team. I can also spot a lot of racism within the team, with some of our super-stars looking down upon our only genuine spinner Kachra, who happens to be from a lower caste, and is considered untouchable by others. And as a result he has always been afraid to open his mouth in front of others. Last, but not the least, our team-owner Mr Rajah Pooran Signh, has neither uttered a single encouraging word to us, the way Mr Shahrukh Khan did to his ladies hockey team in Chak De, nor has he sent us any best wishes before the start of the match. He has kept himself totally aloof from us. Perhaps he doesn’t want the world to know that he owns our IPL team, and might be looking forward to sell us no-hopers, and purchase the British Raj Colonists XI team next season.

SEPTEMBER 25, 1893

The Rumours

My roomie tells me that our captain Bhuvan has hots for Gauri, our wicket-keeper Ishwar Kaka’s daughter, and also the leading cheer-lady for IPL. Apparently Gauri also loves Bhuvan, and both of them have been found numerous times singing songs and dancing around the trees.

Captain Bhuvan and Gauri spotted fooling around (as reported by Bhuvan's bullocks)

Also, there are rumours doing the rounds that Lakha is also very much in love with Gauri, and often says sweet nothings to her. However, Bhuvan, being a bigger star than Lakha, gets all the attention from Gauri, and Lakha’s innocent love gets totally ignored. Well! Girls can be so mean.

So this is the love triangle that all of us know of. But wait! There is another angle to this tale that none other than yours truly, Fake IPL Player could notice. Our coach, the Phoren Babe also has a secret crush on Bhuvan, and she is trying her level best to get closer to Bhuvan’s mom Yashoda Mai and rest of Bhuvan’s friends, so as to catch his eye.

Whoa! So it has now become a love quadrangle. It seems as if we are not part of a cricket team, but rather some typical Bollywood masala movie.

SEPTEMBER 26, 1893

Team Meeting An Hour Ago

I never had an idea that my blog would become so famous. Until yesterday, I had not even a single follower. And look at my blog today; I already have 7842 followers. I thank you all for taking interest in all the gossip and bull-shit I write here.

However, fame also has a heavy price-tag attached with it. IPL team management has found out about the blog, and is on the lookout for the guy who is leaking all the inside news. The first to be interrogated was our captain Bhuvan, as he has got excellent communication skills, and has his very own blog which is considered to be the most popular in entire country. His blog has about 170,000 visitors, and chances are that my blog is going to test him soon. Anyway, the team management is also spying very closely on rest of the players in the team, to catch the thief red-handed. So I am going to delete all the Cookies and Temporary Internet files from my laptop now. Also, this would mean that I would not be able to stay in touch with you readers as frequently as I earler used to.

In the evening today, just after our usual training sessions, where everybody did a fantastic job once again dropping catches and bowling wide deliveries, a team meeting was called to decide on the final eleven, and the team strategy for tomorrow. Well, after long discussions, we decided on using a brand new strategy, which incidentally never crossed our minds ever, that is until now – “Gola phenk, Phalli ghooma”.

SEPTEMBER 27, 1893

The All Important Day

So the day has finally arrived when our team has to take on the mighty British Raj Colonists XI for pride, for Tiguna Lagaan maaf, and for an Oscar win. The morning is bright and sunny, but not for me. As I had always expected, I was the 12^th man, whose job was to clap whenever our player took a wicket or scored a boundary or a six. The spectators in this era do not know much about the game of cricket, and they clap only if they see a fellow Indian clap. And hence, I am the chosen one to ensure that the crowd cheers our players.

Anyway, here is the final list of playing eleven that had been selected for this all important match:

Bhuvan (c)

Deva

Guran

Bagha

Lakha

Arjan

Ishmail

Goli

Ishwar Kaka (wk)

Bhura

Kachra

The playing eleven for IPL

The team looks excellent on paper, with all the major stars in it, and the name of our icon player right at the top. Let us see how it fares against the British Raj Colonists XI.

(to be continued…)

How Global Recession saved the world

Economic recession is a good thing after all. The current financial crisis has done something that our government could never do in 61 years since Indian independence. It has brought down the disparities in distribution of wealth among rich and poor. For instance, let us consider the case of a small farmer named Deen Dayal (name changed here to maintain anonymity), who is living in a remote village of India named Charanpur, where not even a single politician would ever dare to go, and the only civilized person from a city or a town to visit the doomed place is Shahrukh Khan, who thinks that leaving NASA and living in Charanpur is a cool thing to do, and would bring a definite Oscar win this time for his director. Anyway, Deen Dayal, who once could not earn money enough to support his family of one wife, seven daughters, four sons and two bullocks, is a very satisfied person today. Reason – Well, he recently came to know that the current global financial situation has suddenly left him as rich as the global financial giant Lehman Brothers.

Terrorism is at an all time low today. There have been some miniscule incidents here and there, such as 26/11 Mumbai attack, or the attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan, but nothing major. And thanks to global recession for that, which has ensured that the lending power of banks reduce to such levels that they are not able to finance terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Yashraj Films, either knowingly or unknowingly. Result – These terrorist groups are now not in a position to purchase weapons and artillery to attack a city, or produce movies to attack the whole nation and oversees as well.

One of the many terrorists from the terrorist outfit Yash Raj films, Picture taken directly from the scene of latest attack by the group.

Pollution levels in major cities have reduced drastically in past few months as majority of industries, that used to emit harmful gases in the environment, resulting in global warming and creating a black cloud of smoke in the atmosphere as if sending an SOS signal to inhabitants of another planet to come and save the world from the path of self-destruction that it has set itself onto, without realizing that those aliens are not the friendly ones like those shown in the movie ET but are rather more of the destructive kind whose sole purpose of existence is to see the end of mankind, just like the ones from the movie War of the Worlds, both movies considered to be masterpieces to have come out from the shelf of Mr. Steven Spielberg whom I rate as the greatest Hollywood director ever, next only to Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, have now gone bankrupt due to the current global financial situation and have pulled their shutters down. However, the important point to be noted is that the previous sentence is fourteen lines and one hundred and sixty six words long, and does not have even a single spelling or grammatical mistake when copy-pasted in Microsoft Word.

Pollution levels have reduced because the industries have closed down. But that is just one of the many reasons. The other notable reason is that those who lost all that they had to the global recession, are now walking on foot, rather than riding a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce. And then there are those who are counted among the elite few, as they have enough money left to purchase a bicycle, and thus are willingly or unwillingly contributing towards the noble cause of keeping pollution levels under check on the planet.

Also, as a result of shutdown of majority of industries, the consumption of our natural resources such as petroleum, wood and coal has significantly reduced. It is being assumed that these natural resources, instead of lasting for mere 10 years as predicted earlier, would now survive the wrath of humans, and would last till the end of the world, which as per Mayans’ prophecy is 2012.

These are only some of the global problems that recession has been able to solve. If you know about any more which have been solved by the current economic situation, do leave a comment.

ABSOLUTEly unbelievable is Pune

Property prices are falling all over the world owing to the current global financial situation. The only exception, however seems to be Pune, the city I hail from, where property prices and rents are rising at a brisk rate comparable only to that of increase in my waist size. And also to the rate of decrease in my spending power.

I was completely taken aback when my landlord called me the other day, and taught me the mathematics they use in Pune (for details click here). The formula that governs property rent in the city is as follows:

Incr in rent (%) = |Incr in IT employee strength in city| / |Incr in property prices everywhere| x 100%

where |x| =x, if x is greater than or equal to 0

and |x| = -x, if x is less than 0

The reason I was taken aback was not because of the complexity of this formula, but because of the fact that it was for the first time I saw someone apply absolute value function for some useful purpose.

I first came across the absolute value function in my mathematics textbook in standard 9^th. And I always wondered what the use of this function is. Is it just to make the algebra problems more complex, so that math teachers such as Mrs Scott can easily group students into “My favorites” and “Spam” categories? Or does it serve any practical purpose in life? One practical purpose that I could think of was to apply it in my grades vs prize graph. Consider that the x-axis in the graph below represents the difference in marks I scored in mathematics when compared to the last test I appeared in, while y axis represents the price or the number of prizes I get from my dad for improvement I make in my grades. I suggested this idea to my dad, and got a week's detention.

I was always hopeful that engineers do use this function in the designs they make for nuclear reactors, fighter jets or T-800 robots that can travel back in time to save the world. However, to my disappointment, I never encountered either a formula or a theorem in my 4 years of engineering, that made use of the absolute value function anywhere. Or a T-800 design lab for that matter. The closest I came to experience a || symbol was while I was studying about capacitors in an electrical engineering book. So I started believing that this world is living a fool’s life to have invented this great mathematical function and never use it in day to day lives.

Years went by, and I totally forgot about it until the day I heard from my landlord. It seems like Puneites know how to use things to their advantage. They are the most educated and rationale people I have come across, as they have made the most out of absolute value function, and devised this magic formula. They have even generalized it to other spheres of our day to day lives such as calculating auto-rickshaw fares or the price of a movie ticket in multiplex. Hats off.

And after my landlord explained me about the formula, the conversation took a new direction altogether:

VM: Great calculation sir! Kudos to Pune property dealers for showing the world what it had been ignoring for long.

LL: So you also appreciate the fact. It is time now to apply it for betterment of society in general. How about making a start and raising the rent for your flat by Rs 500 per month?

VM: But my salary hasn't increased this year by even a single penny. And the property prices have fallen everywhere!!!

LL: That's the power of this calculation. It drives the city. Soon, the whole world will look at Pune as the city that set the example.

VM: Umm!! Sir on second thoughts, ignorance is bliss.

Darn the absolute value function. I can only hope that this world doesn’t open its closet and start looking for similar old unused stuff the way Pune did.

Worst is yet to come!!!

Could it get any worse than this? It took me almost a month to digest the fact that the current global financial crisis has sent such a strong kick in my ass that I literally flew all the way from UK, back to India. And subsequently, the company for which I work, after carrying out thorough analysis and wide range of surveys among all strata of its employees, came to the conclusion that in these bad times, the best way out is to employ the law – Employ the laws on employees, wherever possible. Or in other words - To maintain profitability, reduce workability. And hence, the company cut down on the following key parameters:

1. Employees Promotion

2. Employees Salary

3. Employees Lunch break and leisure time

4. Employees Toilet Paper usage quota

5. Employees

So, the promotion I was expecting got delayed till time indefinite, and I got a negative salary hike this year. Also, due to the upper limit imposed on usage of toilet paper, my productivity and creativity reduced drastically, as I now get to spend lesser time in the “innovation room”.

I thought this is the worst that could ever have happened to me. But how wrong I was? I got a call on my mobile the other morning that resulted in a conversation compared to which, all of my professional hassles stand zilch. It was the landlord of the flat I stay in Pune. Here is a brief of that conversation:

LL: Hi Vaibhav! This is the landlord of the flat that you have currently rented in Pune.

VM: Oh hello sir! How are you?

LL: Listen! You have to pay 500 bucks extra for rent starting this month.

VM: But sir, property prices are going down everywhere these days. What forces drive you to increase the rent?

LL: Look Vaibhav! You are new in Pune, and you perhaps do not know about the property market here. In gist, rent of a property always rises in Pune at a rate calculated by the following formula:

Incr in rent (%) = |Incr in IT employee strength in city| / |Incr in property prices everywhere| x 100%
where |a| = a, if a is greater than or equal to 0
and |a| = -a, if a is less than 0

This great insight into the dynamics of property prices and rents helped me understand why rent always keeps rising in the city of Pune, and how property dealers maintain profitability even in recession times. My company should organize a training session for its Board of Directors, and invite these landlords as trainers.

So this sharp hike of Rs 500 in my flat rent has left me speechless now and pennyless in foresight. And I thought those were the Worst Days Ever???