MY POSTS

COMMON SENSE IS THE MOST UNCOMMON Most players take long time to come out of their habits which they develop while learning the bridge. A beginner is told several things when he /she ventures into the idea of learning bridge or someone forces him to learn .These several things as listed below are definitely good guidelines to a beginner but if the common sense is not used while using the guidelines a player finds himself in the loosing position .Below are some guidelines for the beginners. The most important thing is they are only guidelines and need not be followed every time. Guidelines   Second man should play the lowest                 Third man should play  the highest   Honor must be covered              While playing trump suit , first remove the trumps of the opponents  Repeat partner’s lead           In difficulty play trump  If you are on ...

MEANING OF LAGAN I honestly don't like the idea of going to movie in the multiplex .There is strong reason for that. At our home  till I graduated  in 1975, we were allowed to see only 3 or 4 movies in the whole year . While studying in college I saw many movies in  less than a rupee with a group of college friends by bunking classes .Those movies were seen in either  second class or third class sitting in the front row !  Of course those adventures were never disclosed. The first time I saw the movie  from Balcony was with my friend  who  gave me the treat with three other friends..The movie was Johny Mera Naam  Later when I left home in 1975 and  was in Bangalore I saw more than 90 movies  in just  9 months . In those days there were 120 theaters in that Garden city.At that time the rate for balcony ticket  was Rs 4.65 per person in the best theaters like " Santosh "  and Nartaki , both near the M...

BISCUITS I think for me it is almost impossible to avoid eating biscuits particularly when I take tea or coffee. As such there is no rule that one should eat biscuit only with tea or coffee so I eat them anytime irrespective of whether I am   hungry or not.Several times I eat biscuits in the night or early morning at wee hours! I was told by my son after he returned from America that my habit of dipping biscuit in tea or coffee is bad.He insists that I must avoid  this habit infront of visitors.I still dont know what is wrong in dipping the biscuit in tea.The only problem I have faced several time is that if biscuit is dipped little longer it disappears and then I have to use a spoon much against my wishes to swallow the paste after the last sip of tea. I think that the first biscuit most of us had tasted in our childhood was  Parle G ( in fact at that time it was called Parle Glucose) .ln those days there were not many varieties of biscuits compared to what we obser...

That was the year 1986 when Imran Khan led Pakistan cricket team had toured India for  5 test matches.The result of each of the previous  four matches  was "draw ' as both  teams did not want to loose. Banglore T est was last match of the serese and also turned out to be the last test match of  my  Hero ....Sunil Gavaskar. The wicket was prepared in such a manner that there will be definitely  result considering all previous four test  matches were .without any result.This was evident right from the day one .The great batsmen against spin bowling  like Javed miyadad of Pakistan and D ilip Vengsarkar of India could hardly do anything as ball used to turn sharply and may or maynot rise .That was one of  the most complex wickets in the history of Cricket. One man however was least perturbed and he was Sunil Manohar Gavaskar standing there like a rock. I distinctly remember that Sunday which was the third day of the low scoring  matc...

Rahul Dravid ...The real legend ! This may sound funny but I find remarkable similarity in Rahul Dravid and  Aasha Bhosale in their respective fields !  Aasha  Bhosale who is considered the second  best female singer all through her career never made an attempt to become like Lata . She never competed with Lata the great, and gracefully  accepted her sister's number one position. She then  went on giving her own best in every song she has sung and has become the legend.  Our man Rahul Dravid has done the same thing  in his field !   He never competed with Sachin Tendulkar who was his teammate but remaining in his shadow he focussed on improving his own abilities and was not only acclaimed by his teammates but by  every opposition team. Though there is very narrow difference in the abilities of the persons  who is first and who is second ,the world is cruel in making huge difference in rewarding them.This is evident fr...

MY FIRST CAR ACCIDENT Way  back in 1989 when I was going from Faridabad to Delhi in my first ever Ambassador car we had an accident.  By the Grace of Almighty we all three ,myself my wife and my 5 years old son, were safe and scratch free. I clearly remember that Sunday,an accident day .While cleaning  the car in the morning I observed that rear left tyre was flat. The head of the cruel nail which had  happily pierced the tyre ,was visible clearly.I had planned to go to Delhi ....It was obvious that to drive the car,the  replacement of flat tyre with the spare wheel was essential. Flat tyre was an opportunity for me to demonstrate my skill of how I myself can take care of small problems related to car. Till then I had never changed the wheel....but sometime will be the first time so I decided to do the job . I confidently opened the dickey and picked the Jack and spanner.At that time my weight was hardly 52 kg so it was quite tough to unscrew the nuts but by al...

The Chief It was third week of september 1978 when I started my career in Hindustan Brown Boveri(HBB)in Vadodara. I entered Dr. Ramamoorty''s cabin who was our R&D Head and immediately after welcoming me he  started expressing angrily about  my friend who was supposed to join there but  did not even bothered to inform him that he was not joining HBB. The next moment Dr Ramamoorty shrugged his anger and in a very quiet tone he enquired about me and had a brief chat with me hu about professors in IIT  powai.Then he called  one of his  subordinates Mr Shripad Tambe who was assigned a job of introducing me to everyone in the department.As we mooved out and I was introduced to many intelligent persons all from different IITs ,I came to know that Dr Ramamoorthy was called " Chief " Almost all of them enquired about Chief's mood. I was ammused with the word  " Chief ". Prior to that, I only knew that 'Della Street'and 'Paul Drake' used to c...

WE...THE PEOPLE The funniest and disgusting   passive behavior of the INDIAN PUBLIC and the hyper active behavior of Indian Media has always perplexed common persons like me.     Two years ago, the word "intolerance" was used by many intellectuals to criticize some dogmatic or dominant behavior  of a select few. Every other TV channel was flocking with unknown expert speakers from various fields. They appeared to be working overtime / round the clock, in using their freedom of speech in the most liberal manner, thus leading to noisy chaotic scenes. Our mythology and history have innumerable instances proving how tolerant we were. Lord Krishna killed his cousin Shishupal only after making allowances and forgiving his first hundred crimes .The other classic example is ....the great King Prithviraj Chauhan who let go of the invadar   Mohammad Ghori more than half a dozen times. In fact, it would seem as if the over...

FLYING WITH DIGNITARIES be Other day I was traveling in GO Air flight   traveling from Delhi to Nagpur.The Flight was at 19.20 hours from T2. Terminal and the boarding gate number was 29.  I was given seat number 18 D and I had a very bad experience in the flight particularly ruthless and ignorant behavior of one of the Air hostesses. I wonder whether they are given any training or not but certainly they have no sense of how to behave  with their customers.  Since last two years I have been giving preference to Go Air over Indigo as I observed  Indigo in its attempt to be always on time have ignored many other things today I have however concluded that it has nothing to do with Air lines but theo individuals whom you come across matters. On 18 E and 18 F Magassisi award winners Dr  Prakash Amate and his wife Dr  Mandakini Amate were sitting. I felt great  to sit next to such a divine couple. Prakash Aamate was thirsty and was required to...

Breakfast Items In most of the homes where no eggs  or bread are consumed the universal problem is what should be prepared for the breakfast in the morning. In our childhood we used to eat something in the morning before early lunch  but we never used to call it  breakfast ! l came to know about  'breakfast' word much later. I remember many delicious items like " Sattu" (Ata of  dry fried grains mixed with milk and sugar or "Gud")some sweet " Laddu",Pulverised fried bread ("phodnichi poli")or fried rice.  Sometime we used to take "pohe" mixed in curd 'suger and a very tasty "masala mirchi " which I consider delicacy even today. Another  item called "Dhirade" was my favorate which this new generation must not have even heared. Most of the times we directly used to take lunch and   two Biscuits or a piece of toast  and a banana was quite frequent in our so called BF. Things have changed now .Breakfast and w...

In the year 1977 , when I was in IIT Powai my Guide Dr Parmar used to regularly bring an Umbrella while another Professor Dr Banerjee used to bring Umbrella depending on the predicted weather  forecast. One day it so happened that it was raining and  prof. Parmar didnot have his Umbrella while Prof. Banerjee had and he proudly stated that he checks weather report before starting from home...Prof Parmar then jokingly commented. " Actually He brought that umbrella not for rains but for the  hot Sun as he wanted to go home for lunch !  Since then the things have not changed much  for another 30 or 35 years. " Even today when the weather persons  predict  that ""In Delhi  there will be  storm like condition " not a leaf of any tree moves ! Off late l and many others , who have faith in the prediction  say that "this is Calm before the storm!' !! .For the  last several years predictions of meteorological department were never tak...