To the uninitiated, a six is the most runs a cricket batsman can score with a single batting stroke and requires the ball to fly out of the field of play without bouncing … sort of like hitting a home run in baseball. A cricket bowler gets six consecutive chances (at a time) to bowl at batsman to try to get him out. This six-ball bowling effort is called an over. The bowler is required to bowl all six balls as legitimate deliveries to the batsman facing him that allows the batsman to have a chance to play at. If any bowling delivery is illegitimate for any reason, the bowler is required to re-bowl that delivery and the batting team’s scorecard is enhanced by one run as a result. These illegitimate deliveries are called extras for self-evident reasons. Anyway, ignoring these extras, if a bowler cleanly bowls an over, an opposing batsman can technically hit 36 runs off him. A holy grail of cricket. This is not the first time that six sixes have been hit in such a way. First class cricket has seen the great Sir Gary Sobers do it first and later by India’s Ravi Shastri. However these first class cricket occasions were not international matches. Gibbs is the first to have done this in an international match and at the World Cup no less. For his achievement, Johnnie Walker whiskey brand will donate US $1 million to Habitat for Humanity.

Relive Gibb’s superb achievement here:

The latest transgression is an unsubstantiated accusation of cheating against a Pakistani cricket team that was, in all probability, going to win a Test match against England. Hair declared that the cricket ball must have been tampered with just because it was beginning to reverse swing. He has, so far, not justified his claims and his decision to add five runs to an England total and change the ball in question, is deplorable because he gave no warning to the Pakistani team of his suspicions. This is giving way too much power to umpires to act on their biases and not be questioned.

The ICC, apart from handily punishing Pakistan by awarding the Test match to England and then adding bans and fines to the Pakistani team for refusing to come out to play in protest, is a body that is neither progressive nor is it going to learn from this public relations disaster. This has lead to the unprecedented forfeiting of a cricket match for the first time in the 129 years of test cricket. Maybe the ICC needs to quit only policing the conduct of its member teams and also look hard at the far-reaching actions of its umpiring board. Too often, any time there is a controversy, the ICC comes out in blind defence of its umpires without looking at a situation from a player’s/team’s point of view. ICC, screw you and your fucking bunch of morons like Hair that you call competent umpires. Take him and while you’re at it, take Steve Bucknor as well, and pink slip them from the embarrassment that you call your elite panel of umpires. Most of the ICC’s umpires are competent professionals but people like Hair and Bucknor are running jokes that need to be retired to some special needs homes.

Read about the international incident caused by Hair here.

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ star quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, was involved in terrible motorcycle accident in downtown Pittsburgh that nearly killed him. Big Ben was not wearing a helmet while riding his 2005 Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle and it is a position he has maintained rather stupidly in the past. Just looking at the state of the motorcycle above tells you how close he came to the end of his life. Pennsylvania law makes helmet wearing optional, not compulsory. It must truly be an idiotic set of PA legislators who decided that one.

A good fool and his life are soon parted young. That’s my proverb for what Big Ben was trying to do. Reports say that he did not have valid rider’s license and so he really was a lot more irresponsible than initially thought. I’m glad he survived and hopefully he will have learned a lesson from this episode. I can see the Steelers quickly redrafting their contracts with everyone to include a clause about riding motorcycles. That will be more effective than all the advice Roethlisberger got from his coach and others about riding his motorcycle without a helmet.

I’m more of a classic rock and pop music lover and this is reflected in my expansive music CD collection. But there comes a time, every now and then, though rare, when a new contemporary musician totally blows me away. I highly recommend anyone reading this to check out the debut album of the musician of the moment, the British sensation, James Blunt.

Blunt could not be a more unlikely story for a successful musician. His father had been a strict disciplinarian when it came to music in the Blunt household … quite simply put, music was “unnecessary noise” according to the elder Blunt and needless to say, there wasn’t much anything musical in the air during in his early years at home. James Blunt was a product of the British boarding school system, having been sent there at the age of seven years and it was there during his teen years, that he first picked up a guitar and taught himself to play and write songs. It also turned out that he excelled at science and maths and joined Bristol University to study Aerospace Manufacturing Engineering. He did not enjoy it and then succumbing to family tradition (and pressure from dad), he joined the British army.

To say that military service runs deep in Blunt’s blood is a blatant understatement as his family military pedigree apparently goes as far back as 995 AD. Wow. His father, a lifelong military man, insisted that the junior Blunt join the army, which he did. James Blunt accomplished quite a few notable achievements in his time in the army. He rose quickly up the ranks to captain and served on peacekeeping missions in Kosovo (which would later lead to him writing a song about his raw experience). Blunt once was assigned duties to protect the Queen and he also stood watch over the body of the Queen Mother as she lay in state in 2002. Though he has since left active military service, Blunt is technically still a reserve and could be called up for duty in Iraq or elsewhere if the situation arises.

Shortly after leaving the army, he met American songwriter-producer Linda Perry who recognized this talent and immediately signed him up for her Custard label. Perry also has Christina Aguilera and Pink on her label. Blunt set about putting his musical talent to proper display and the resulting album, Back to Bedlam, is what I classify as a debut masterpiece. Most songs on the album deal with poignancy of relationships such as the radio airwave’s ubiquitous You’re Beautiful in addition to Wisemen, Cry and the touching Goodbye My Lover. He spent time in LA during the album creation where he stayed at the house of actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia!). Goodbye My Lover was written in the bathroom of Fisher’s house where she kept a piano (of all things) but the song was not referring to her. Varying song themes, Blunt also wrote a tribute to Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison (which he later admitted even though he typically does not explain the meanings or contexts of his songs) in the song titled So Long, Jimmy. Perhaps his most haunting work is No Bravery, the very last song on the album which reflects on his experience in Kosovo and in which he laments on the destroyed lives of the people he met.

It is wonderfully refreshing to come across a musician who is a genuine talent at writing and performing songs. In this cookie-cutter age of so-called “musical talents”, true talent is truly lacking as many newcomers sing songs that are written for them and cannot even play any instruments. Blame American Idol, Pol Idol and whoever launched the Spice Girls, Britney Spears and other musical-less spectacles. Looking through the album credits, James Blunt wrote every single song on Back to Bedlam, albeit in collaboration with various people. The album title is ironic and hints of Blunt’s sarcastic humor with his return to civilian life and a musical career. And so with one of the most unlikely backgrounds of any musician around, James Blunt is probably counting his blessings and I think he best sums it all up with a simple line in the song You’re Beautiful:

“My life is brilliant.”

A hack is typically a university prank done in good fun that doesn’t cause any damage to the subject of the hack and often is very clever in its execution and amusing in its results. No other institution has a more storied history of hacks than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Well the MIT hackers have struck again. This time, in an incredibly well planned and logistically coordinated operation, the hackers have transported a century old cannon (known as the Fleming cannon) all the way from the Caltech campus in Pasadena, CA to the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA. A website has been set up by the hack team. There is even another website that keeps track of and scores hacks played between the rival schools. This caper scored MIT a huge 10 points.

While the South Africans are dealing with spell-casting foes, the reasons for rest of the world have more to do with status issues. Many people include jewellery and other articles that were important to them in life. People are also requesting to be buried with their cell phones, PDAs, blackberrys and even laptops. Some people just like to take their work with them to grave and it imparts a whole new spin to the phrase “Til death do us part”.

This whole trend is not even limited to burials. In the US, after little explosions starting going off during the cremations, crematorium owners found that people were leaving cell phones in the clothing of bodies being cremated and the phone batteries were doing all the fireworks. The workaround is that they’re offering to place these cell phones in the urn with cremated ashes instead of burning it with their late owners.

We are one hell (no pun intended) of an crazy species. Read the article here.

It works like this: A man leaves early in the morning for the office and his wife cooks his lunch for him a little later on and packs it into a tiffin box (i.e. dabba). At a specific time every morning, a dabbawala arrives to pick up the tiffin box and from there, it goes on an amazing journey where it is changes hands, passed on from one dabbawala to another, all working together to ensure that the tiffin box arrives at the man’s office on time for lunch. You could liken it to a relay race where the tiffin box is the baton. The dabbawalas rely on their legs, bicycles and Bombay’s extensive commuter rail system to transport the lunches. After lunch hour, the process is reversed and the empty tiffin box is returned back to the man’s residence. All of this for a very affordable monthly fee.

Part of what makes this amazing is that most dabbawalas are semi-literate. Yet they have developed a simple but fail-proof code marking for each tiffin box that indicates exactly who owns the lunch, where it is picked up, where it is dropped off as well as the route to be taken each day. This code markings consist of simple letters, symbols and colors. There are no modern conveniences such as computers, internet, cell phones used in the delivery model.

A Forbes study in the late 1990s designated the dabbawala system with an amazing six sigma rating, which indicates an extremely efficient process where the errors occurring were so minimal that the process could be said to be practically error-free.

Ratings aside, there are other real problems that the dabbawalas have to deal with on a daily basis. They have to carry their heavy dabba loads while jostling with other commuters on the trains. They have to negotiate the treacherous Bombay vehicular traffic when on bicycles as well as the crowded pedestrian sidewalks. Accidents do happen and when they do, news travels like lightning through the grapevine. If a dabbawala is incapacitated, another one will often take over the tiffin box delivery, thereby ensuring the lunches arrive at their destinations (even if a little late). There is also that little event of the seasonal monsoon floodings that can wreak havoc on the Bombay transportation systems.

A few years ago, Prince Charles, on a visit to Bombay, was so impressed with the dabbawalas he had met and their business system, that he invited representation from them for his wedding later on to Camilla Parker-Bowles.

So to the hardworking, highly efficient dabbawalas of Bombay, a salute to your dedication, ingenuity and tradition. Keep those tiffin boxes moving and may your business continue to thrive.

Read more about them here.

• a schedule that favors the US (the only team that got a rest day in the first round)
• American citizens playing for (or thinking of playing for) the countries of their parents (we’re talking born and raised Americans here … Nomar Garciapparra playing for Mexico, Mike Piazza playing for Italy, A-Rod deciding to play for the US, no make that Dominican Republic, no make that US again … a true flipflopper if there ever was a sporting one)
• the very real possibility of the US being knocked out in the first round. It almost happened because they got upset by Canada and if Canada had beaten Mexico by a low scoring game, it was bye bye American pie. In the end, Mexico played savior and thumped Canada.

Baseball has a very long way to go if it is ever going to create a tournament that truly is global in its reach and appeal. It currently is played and followed strongly in North America, Central America, a few Carribbean and South East Asian nations. Contrast this with football (soccer) played everywhere or cricket which is truly a worldwide played sport which has gone beyond traditional former British colonies.

A World Baseball Classic? I don’t think so. Actually the World Series is a more appropriate title than its current application where the baseball championship of two nations is deemed a global event by its sweeping name. Or perhaps World Baseball Championship. One day when we have true representative worldwide participation of baseball players, maybe then we can expect something classic.

As can be expected, late night comedians (hell, comedians of any shape, size, hue or humorlessness skills) are having a field day at the expense of the VP.

I hear that former VP (and media buffoon), Dan Quayle, has rescinded all future hunting trips with Cheney after hearing that Cheney was really hunting for quail.

Indian cooks in Madras used the most souplike dish ready to hand, a peppery tamarind broth called molo tunny, and jazzed it up with rice, vegetable and meat. This cultural mishmash became an Anglo-Indian classic, mulligatawny soup.

I always thought mulligatawny soup was a British evolution/corruption of Molligu thanni (pepper water) which I thought was a reference to rasam.

She also explains how Indian carry-out and curry and chips became working-class British, and why almost all Indian restaurants in Britain and the United States are Bangladeshi.

I think this is not true for the US because as far as my experience here goes, most Indian restaurants are Punjabi-style cuisine and run by Punjabis (or at least not Bangladeshis). I suspect that the author Collingham is British and is probably speaking about the British scenario but has overextended that generalization to cover the US as well.

There is also a very modern side to the museum where, for instance, there is this huge almost floor-to-ceiling LCD screen that is an interactive display. It allows you to look up ethnic and population demographics of the entire United States. For example, you could check to see which states had the highest concentrations of ethnic (East) Indians, the numbers, etc. It really is amazing.

Very beautifully maintained by the US National Park Service, the museum is housed in the former customs and immigration building on Ellis Island. The island itself has awesome front row views of lower Manhattan and the NY harbor. While we were walking around the grounds of the island, we came across a modern monument to the immigrants of this great country. People like me. It is called the American Immigrant Wall of Honor and is a stainless steel wall of names that people can add their own names or their forefathers’ names to. It is a wonderful idea conceived by a famous American son of Italian immigrants … Lee Iacocca, the former head of Chrysler Corporation. This is what he said in his own words.

It struck me that day that I would love my name on that wall for all posterity and if I am fortunate, one day maybe a descendant would be able to look for my name and touch his or her history, making an instant connection with their past. I see this not as an ego building exercise but rather a permanent tribute to the personal effort that fulfilled a dream to live in America. Most of us had a similar vision but took different routes here.

So after much procrastination, I recently went ahead and registered my name which was rendered longer by the fact that I prefaced it with my Kerala Syrian Christian family (clan) name. There are different cost structures associated with the type of name etching you can choose, with the standard one costing about $100 or so, per name. Details are in the link. The fee is considered a donation to the National Park Service and is tax deductible for us living here.

I did call in to ask how long it would take for the actual name to go up on the wall and the lady told me that if registered now, the name would go up on the wall only in Spring of 2008! So my friends, if this appeals to you and you’re interested in doing the same thing, it makes a lot of sense to do it sooner than later. Maybe one day we can all coordinate a reunion at the wall and celebrate our names, our histories, our roots and our routes to life in America.