England's 1000th Test - Analyzing England's Test Cricket history

England is taking on India for it's 1000th Test match at Headingly, Birmingham starting 1st August. As inventors of this modern game, it is quite appropriate that they are the first team to achieve this unique feat.

They played the first Test match against Australia in 1877 at Melbourne. Below are landmark Tests which they had played in their long journey. Looks like they didn't had much of a success in those; winning only their 700th and 900th Tests. England lost their 1st Test and 100th Test to Australia, while drew their 500th Test with Pakistan.

India were their opponents for the 300th, 400th and upcoming 1000th Tests.

Mathematician Jadav Chandra Chakravarti (1855-1920)

When I was in school I had this red book in my shelf. It had just a bright red cover nothing written on the back and only two words in the front; 'Arithmetic' at the top in larger don't and 'Chakravarti' in the lower right corner with a smaller font. That was the legendary book on Arithmetic by Jadav Chandra Chakravarti written by Bengali mathematician more than 100 years earlier.

Jadav Chandra Chakravarti whom we mostly refer as JCC was born in current Bangladesh in a village near Sirajganj in 1855. His father was a priest and it need not be said that he grew up in poverty. His father passed in his childhood but notwithstanding extreme poverty he continues his studies in the village school. Not much details I could find about his personal life or childhood.

It seems he completed his master's from Presidency College in Calcutta, which definitely points to his abilities as bridging the distance between an obscure village of Bengal to Presidency is not an easy job to be done. JCC completed his M.A. in Mathematics from Presidency.

Movie Ratings | Pi, 6 Below, Emperor, Bibaho Diaries, Byomesh Pawrbo

Time for some quick movie reviews. Picked up a good stock from the local library and trying to finish those gradually. Here are few which I saw during the last week or so.

Pi (1998)- This one is a psychological thriller based on a eccentric insomniac mathematician living in a New York City apartment pursuing the search for a magic number which can help him unearth a stock market pattern. In the journey he gets exploited by some religious groups, trading cartels etc. all of whom wanted to get hold of the number for unlawful gains.

This movie was the debut movie of the director Darren Aronofsky and the lead role was portrayed by Sean Guellete. The movie is shot in high contrast black-white which adds to it's psychedelic effect.
The movie  was a successful  one but it didn't appeal appeal to me much as a thriller. To me it lacked the thrill factor and concentrated more on the psychological distortions of the protagonist.

My Rating would be 2.5 out of 5.

World Cup in Russia | Racism and contrasting situations in France and Germany

With the winning of World Cup by France, the immigration debate has entered the world of soccer with a force. In this World Cup France was the team most of whose players had roots outside the country i.e. they were descendants of immigrants to France; mostly from countries which were once colonized by France.
All this has led to the often used reference of the World Cup being won by Africa, which got a bit more serious with the French ambassador replying to an American comedian and talk show host.

Indians must be pretty familiar with this scenario. We have a large diaspora scattered all through the world who continue to achieve great success and glory for their adopted countries. However we in India also boast about the Indian origin of the greats and the achievers do not themselves shy away from such accolades. After all who would not want to loved and respected in the country from where they or their parents hailed.

Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Calcutta University

Shyama Prasad Mukherjee is one of the most eminent sons of Bengal but he didn't mostly receive his due recognition. In recent years though there has been an attempt by BJP to resurrect the Bengal connection through it's founder but that evidently is for political gains; as West Bengal still continues to be an outlier amidst the electoral tsunami unleashed by BJP across the country.

However apart from being a politician there has been a distinctive phase in his career when he was a educationist during which he was mostly associated with Calcutta University. His 28 years of public service life can be clearly demarcated into two phases; the first phase from 1924 till 1938 as an educationist and the later phase 1938 till his death as a politician. Unfortunately this great son of India passed away when he was 52 only thus depriving the country of his able guidance.
In this article we will briefly discuss his contributions during his years of association with Calcutta University.

Movie Ratings | A Hologram for the King, The Manhattan Project, Contagion, October, Sacred Games

A Hologram for the King :Tom Hanks plays the lead role in this 2016 movie which is around the story of a sales executive from a US based technology company who lands up in Saudi Arabia to secure an IT deal. It's about the challenges he faces in this new country which is vastly different from his homeland. Added to that are the downs in his own personal life where he is going through a divorce.
However with time he gets accustomed to the new country, makes friends and even makes it his new home. Other lead characters in the movie are played by Sarita Choudhury and Alexander Black.
Overall a nice watch but fails to.meet the expectations set by a Tom Hanks movie.

My Rating: 3 out of 5

World Cup in Russia | And the Grand Finale

 At the end of a month long journey involving 32 national teams playing 64 matches we have one champion and that is France. No first time winner, no surprise but France.  Along with Uruguay, Argentina it became the third country to win the cup twice; Brazil, Germany and Italy have won it many times over.

France made through the tougher half of the draw. On to the way they beat some of the heavy weight names in world football in the knockout stages; Argentina, Uruguay, Belgium. They beat Argentina, Uruguay convincingly and escaped a talented but reluctant to win Belgium. Never did their knockout stage matches went to extra time; which is actually the first a champion team has achieved so.

Croatia had on the other side managed to win all their knockout games in the extra time; twice even on penalties. All the games were won after being initially down by a goal. They were a battle hardened unit, relentless in their pursuit of victory. On the way they bettered Denmark, Russia and England.

World in Russia | Unlikely Finalists in an Unpredictable World Cup

We are all set for the final showdown in this edition of the FIFA World Cup. And it's France against first time challengers Croatia. Who would have predicted Croatia in the final but again that's the beauty of the game.

This world cup also highlights the supremacy of European football in all aspects. In the quarterfinals we had 6 European teams against 2 from South America. Both the South American teams were eliminated in the quarterfinals and we were left with an all European semifinal. Last time that happened was in 2006 when too France was the finalist.

The quarterfinal stages had 4 previous winners and 4 aspirants competing for the cup. And appropriately we have 1 previous winner and 1 aspirant making it to the finals. Last time an aspirant reached the final was Spain in 2010; which they won.

If Croatia wins the world cup it will be a record of sorts; it would probably the smallest country since Uruguay in 1950 to achieve that feat. And surely the youngest one having been born just in 1991 as a nation.

So as we edge towards the finish line lets take quick re-look of the matches in the quarter and semi final stages as I had done so for the group stages and round of 16 in my earlier posts.

Movie / Show Ratings | Rishta.com, The 33, Raazi, Sanju

Over the past few weeks I completed few movies and Netflix series. Doesn't quite makes sense to have a dedicated post for each of them, so I would just try to write to combine few of them together here. I am starting in the order their viewing was completed; not any ranking.

Rishta.com - This was a refreshing watch. The pairing of Shruti Seth as Isha Mirchandani and Kavi Shastri as Rohan Mehra had a touch of freshness about it. The story is about colleges buddies who partner to start a matrimony startup. Each episode is about their experience while dealing with a wide variety of clientele. Every episode had an unique story line. Even though the series is quite an old one, aired in 2010 on Sony, it is still has a touch about it which made me hooked to it. It's quite a family entertainer which you would definitely love watching. In fact the coolness and the smart of sense of humor which Rohan Mehra's character had was quite contagious. This series streams on Netflix and that's where I watched it.

My Rating for this overall show is 3.5 out 5. Quite recommended if you are looking for a relaxing watch.

On the need of tests

Amid all the frenzy surrounding world cup, the Jadavpur University situation has been quietly brewing up. I have been following it through the reporting of the events in The Telegraph and also through the timelines of my friends. First of all one positive take away which the students have taken from previous agitations is that they lifted the 'gherao' on VC and other professors; allowed them to leave and adopted alternate mode of protests. 'Gherao' is disgusting, an encroachment on basic civil rights and a developed society should not approve of the same.

JU student unions are known to be anti-establishment in stance and any student wing of the ruling party in the past or present has not been able to make much in-roads into the campus. That's something the students should be proud of because it has kept the University campus from turning into a dirty turf for political warfare as has most of the other campuses in the state has turned out to.

But at the same time the blind-folded anti-establishment stance clouds the ability to judge a situation or decision on it's merits. Sometimes it boils down to countering a decision only because the flow has been top down.

World Cup in Russia | Fall of Data Science

This world cup has turned out to be the death bed for Data Science and Machine Learning algorithms. Before the world cup I had seen at least two prediction reports coming from well established sources. One from UBS and the other from Goldman Sachs both concluding that it would Germany yet again.

Today I saw another prediction done by Sports Illustrated (image by the side) after the conclusion of the group stages. This one predicted a Brazil - Spain final.

World Cup in Russia | Recap of the Round of 16

The quarter-finals will be starting tomorrow. So here is a quick recap of what happened in the round of 16. The first day of this round was quite tragic with two of the best footballers of our times being eliminated. While that was on the first day, the next 3 days were no less interesting.

Spain vs Russia: I am not sure if result of this match could really be termed as a surprise. To me Russia were the clear favorites coming into the contest. The handball of Pique for which the penalty was awarded was comical. I have never seen a footballer jumping with his one hand up to head the ball. Reminded me of the way Ganguly used to duck the bouncer keeping his bat still hoisted; he even got out once because of such an awkward positioning of the bat.

Though Spain had the lion’s share of ball possession and passes, those are useless stats if the scoreboard reflects a different story. In the penalty shootout Russian keeper Akinfeev did tremendous job by stopping twice while Russians didn’t miss any against deGea. I always think Spain plays a regressive football keeping the ball to themselves. Their football only attains the charisma because of the scoring abilities of Messi and Ronaldo. This match also was the last international appearance of another legend; Iniesta.

Reading the Menu

How often do you go through the menu card at a restaurant with great detail? If the restaurant is one of your regular ones, then you mostly know what to order. However, if it is a new one where you want to try our do you really read through the entire menu? How do you selectively move through the menu and arrive at your choice?

Definitely there are certain patterns to that and it is that a carefully designed menu card would exploit. The below images are taken from an article published in the Readers Digest magazine. While going through the article I really appreciated the fact how much it is relevant and how many times my choice is guided by the menu card's design and not by the exact know-how of the food.

Some of the often used tricks are items priced like 9.95 / 9.99, items marked in box or marked as 'chef's choice'.

One other point which I frequently observe in the menu card, but not listed in this article, is the calorific value of the food. Consider how health conscious our generation has turned out to be, mentioning the calorific value do drives people choices.

(The pictures below are sourced from July-August 2018 issue Reader Digest magazine)

Movies I Like | Kon -Tiki

This is one beautiful movie which I watched recently; borrowed from the public library. This movie is based on the Kon-Tiki expedition which was undertaken by Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl in 1947. It was a 100-day expedition to trace the course taken by South Americans to reach Polynesia. This was a new theory proposed by Thor and he understood the journey to prove the same. Prior to this expedition the prevalent belief was that Polynesia was populated by people from Asia.

This movie was made in 2012 and based upon a best-selling book on the expedition written by Thor. There was a documentary made on the journey which became an Oscar winner.

The movie is a well dramatized version which captures nicely the highs and lows of the journey and emotions of the men who shared that rickety raft for 100 days. The movie speaks enormously of the self-belief, conviction and confidence of Thor Heyerdahl. the movie provides an insight into the small roles played by each member of the crew in making the expedition a success.

The film is well made but I suppose to get a better feel of such a journey reading the book makes more sense. It's difficult for a 120-minute feature film to capture a 100-day journey across the Pacific in a wooden raft in all it's complexity, toughness and endurance. Still the feature film is a great attempt and is an experience good to have.

The movie was nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

My Rating would be 3.5 out of 5.

World Cup in Russia | Exit of the legends

Yesterday was a day not to be remembered in the history of FIFA World Cup. It was the day which saw the fall of two of the greatest footballers our time has seen. Both Messi and Ronaldo exited the world cup on the same day.

It was not that the results were unexpected but having seen these two men spin magic over the years, the heart always felt some last minute magic to happen. But alas that was not to be.

First match of the pre-quarter-finals had Argentina against France. It is not that France was a much more superior side and their football so far didn't display anything convincing. There were chances that a strategized approach from Argentina could help them. France was the faster team. They had young players like Mbappe whose speed couldn't be matched by Argentine defenders.