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Cricket Mania - Y! vs Y!

Posted on 24th February 2007, Tags: , ,

Today we played a cricket series. It was Yahoo! Vs Yahoo!, yes its Yahoo! QE team Vs Yahoo! Ops team. The venue was National College play ground at Jayanagar. We played the game in a 3 match series comprising of 10 overs per side in each match. Yahoos had turned up in a pretty good number for both the sides by 1:30 pm as we had planned earlier. We lost the toss in the first match and Ops team decided to bat first. We were able to contain them to 50 runs off 10 overs by bowling first. Chasing a score of 51 was not at all difficult for us and finished the match in a span of less than 6 overs! Thanks to few of the folks for their wonderful shots that made the chase look so easy.

Again, we weren’t so lucky with the toss for the second match. There wasn’t any change from ops team either in selecting to bat first. As we had about 20 people from QE group in the grounds, we decided to give everyone a chance to play. Nine of the first match eleven opted to be spectators this time. In this match, ops team was successful in putting up a score of 82 by the end of 10th over. Chasing this wasn’t too tough either for our team. We chased the target having a couple of more overs to spare! Again, batsmen from our side made it look easy and we weren’t in panic at any point during the second match either. Once this match got over, some of the folks were tired by then and decided to be the spectators. Also, we made one more unanimous choice to bat without the toss after our consecutive failure with toss in the first two matches. Nevertheless to say, we were flying high with two wins.

In the third match, we had the worst possible start! First three balls, 3 wickets down! It was a hatrick bowling performance from Ranadheer of ops team! By the end of first over we were down with one more wicket making the score card look very gloomy at 2 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. We were in a miserable condition loosing some of the good batsmen so cheaply. Prashanth Gowda and Chandra were the stars in our batting line up. We managed to put up a score of 91 by the end of 10 overs. Our bowling was good enough in the first 4 overs, however, we gave away too many runs in the middle overs. Naveen, Sachin and Nachi did a good job in denying what it looked like an easy win. Ops team was in the verge of winning the match when the score card read 8 required off 6 balls with 5 wickets remaining! We held our nerves and won the match by 1 run! That was a thriller.

At the end of the day, we won all the three matches. Though it was a white wash, both the ops and qe teams had lots of fun. We got to know each other better and had a gala time playing cricket. Its always good to be on a cricket ground and relax ourselves once in a while unlike our daily routine of staying inside an air conditioned office all the day!

  
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Down to earth - a good lesson

Posted on 22nd February 2007, Tags: , ,

Today, I write this post with a special message. This is a wonderful lesson that I learned from one of our senior managers Alex from US. Occasion was that of an all hands meeting for quality engineering group. This meeting was just more than any other all hands as our Bangalore team head count reached 150+. To mark this, we had ordered for a big cake. The first and the 150th yahoo were invited to cut the cake. While cutting the cake, a bit of cream fell on the ground. I was just watching how the cake was being cut. In the mean while, Alex moved closer to a table to grab a couple of tissues. For a moment I thought he is taking tissues to assist himself with the cake, but I was wrong! He politely started to clean the floor which was dirted with the cream that was dropped while cutting the cake! Wow, I was dumb folded for a while. It was a kind of surprise for me. A senior manager is down to earth and grabbed an opportunity to clean the floor while I was so busy in watching others cutting the cake.

This is something I can relate to the cultural barrier. We Indians are a kind of laid back when it comes to make our minds to access the situation and act. Alex taught me a great learning today. I will not hesitate in future to behave down to earth and act accordingly.

To add a bit more on today’s event, I was recognized with the spot award by Yahoo! for my contributions at work. It was a happy moment for sure. For the very first time, I was the sole camera person for the event! That too with my newly bought Canon Powershot SD630 clicked few pictures during the all hands meet, infact Raghav (my manager) pointed at me and addressed as ‘our cameraman’ is the next spot award winner!… Special moments are always memorable, this added a bit more of flavor to it.

  
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This day that year!

Posted on 20th February 2007, Tags: , , ,

Days pass so fast, I can’t believe that one year has passed since I met a so called “friend” on this very day last year (Sunday, Feb 19th 2006). Thank you so much for all the learning and the goodwill gesture you have given to me in this period. I have learnt what to be and what not to be in my life. Though the friendship was short lived for a span of over just 1 month, I still have a strong respect and appreciate all the thoughts you invoked. Though it still hurts at times, when I think about your mischievous, not so open minded and shrewd nature, it puzzles me for sure! This has made me become ever strong in my beliefs and I certainly have matured a lot in handling people with your attires. Short lived were the joys of inner child during that period. This has given me lessons in the long run and I am not a looser for sure.

I got to know what you are up to sometime back. I can understand how bad it feels when you don’t get to meet your parents after traveling hundreds of kilometers though you were so close to their place. Can’t imagine the amount of pain your x-family members would have gone through when it all happens so fast. You are always welcome back to approach me incase any help is required. I would be more than willing to assist you and guide you as I used to be. I know you were a spoon fed baby and never had inculcated to think on your own. It must be hurting to stay distant from the people with whom you were so obsessed with. At the same time it is even more tougher getting used to new environment and whole new set of people whom you were not aware about a couple of months before. That’s life anyways, I am confident, you can stride your path even then and make a happy living. Wishing you all the very best.