Small thoughts

This Terrible Process

In a lovely little profile of James Taylor in the New Yorker, he is quoted as saying, about his wife Kim:

If I went online and tried to find the perfect mate—and I think that that is probably an excellent use of the internet—I couldn’t have done it better. That’s such a smart way to do it, by the way. I think that a couples therapist and a computer geek should form a company and shepherd people through it. For so long, there’s been this terrible process where we find a mate through our worst instincts and our reiteration of all our family mistakes. We always become one parent and marry the other one.

That sounds like a fabulous little insight to me, though I think that it is also true that some people do it the other way around, and find a mate who is nothing like their parents, so that they don’t end up like one of them. Who can say who is making the greater mistake?

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I am reminded of Philip Larkin’s great poem, “This be the Verse”, and even though it has appeared on this blog before, I shall reproduce it again:

This be the Verse—Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Miyamoto’s Fish

Nick Paumgarten’s fantastic profile of Shigeru Miyamoto in The New Yorker has this wonderful quote by Miyamoto about his childhood:

I can still recall the kind of sensation I had when I was in a small river, and I was searching with my hands beneath a rock, and something hit my finger, and I noticed it was a fish. That’s something that I just can’t express in words. It’s such an unusual situation. I wish that children nowadays could have similar experiences, but it’s not very easy.

I think Miyamoto’s lament holds true not just for kids but for all of us. We are desensitized and apathetic, and there is no sense of wonder in our lives anymore. How does one recapture it? I don’t think going back to nature and escaping from the urban grind is an answer in itself. Those of us who do that do it as an anaesthetic or a balm. There has to be something more.

When was the last time you noticed a fish?

Garbage In

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There is something terribly poignant about a man trying to commit suicide by jumping off a ninth-floor window but being saved by an uncollected heap of garbage that lies below. His self esteem is obviously low, he feels discarded by the world, but, like the garbage that eventually saves him, not yet dispatched. So he jumps, and wakes up not in an afterlife like heaven or hell or suchlike, but in a hospital, all bandaged up, tubes entering and exiting his body like the world refusing to let go. It makes me wonder what is the greater tragedy for him: feeling the need to let go, or not being able to do so.

There’s the seed of a short story here, but I feel too lazy to write it. Such it goes.

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On another note, if someone asked me to guess where this happened, I’d think of garbage and I’d immediately rule out New York. Instead, my guess would be Andheri East.

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(Pic courtesy Reuters.)

The Mystery of the Lewd SMS

From Shane Warne to PSR Anjaneyulu (allegedly), the sending of lewd SMSs is a common complaint against many high-profile men, especially those intoxicated by power. Now, here are two contradictory notions I am wrestling with:

1. Most women are turned off by lewd SMSs.

2. No rational man would indulge in an act again and again unless it paid off at least some of the time, thus compensating for the many times it didn’t.

I have never sent a lewd SMS in my life, and thus have a sample size of zero to attempt to resolve this from personal experience. So I wonder: Are lewd SMSes positive EV? Or, in non poker terms, do lewd SMSs work often enough to justify their downside?

My theory is that sending a lewd SMS in either like surfing porn—gratification from a distance, without the slightest chance of actual contact—or a form of release, and that a man doesn’t need to find takers for his lewd SMSes to keep sending them. It is also possible that a lewd SMS would work with women already interested in you. But then, any SMS would work with those women. If you send a lewd one, though, and the woman responds, you could mistake correlation for causation. Maybe that’s why…

The Wire

I thought I’m inured to shock and horror, but this story made even me gasp:

In a hair-raising incident, a husband stitched the private parts of his wife with wire in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad city after her request to visit her parents enraged him, police said Friday.

[…]

Munda became angry when Sabitri said Wednesday that she wanted to go to her parents’ home and charged her with having an extra-marital relationship, Dhanbad Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajiv Ranjan said.

Their quarrel took a vicious turn when Munda tied his 21-year-old wife’s hands and legs and stitched her private parts with “iron wire”, Ranjan said. After committing the ghastly act, he locked her up in a room.

From one point of view, this guy is an outlier, a complete freak show, a madman.

From another, he’s the typical Indian male. He treats his wife as his property, and is sexually insecure. The manifestation of that is unusual—but the sentiment, alas, all too common.

Such it goes.

On Allrounders (and All-Time XIs)

There are three kinds of allrounders in cricket.

No. 1: The player who can command his place as a specialist in the side in both batting and bowling. This kind of allrounder is hugely rare. Garry Sobers was one; maybe Keith Miller at his peak; among Indians, Vinoo Mankad qualifies.  Of the quartet of the 1980s, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham and Richard Hadlee would not have got in as specialist batsman; and while Imran Khan was good enough to be a specialist in either discipline, his batting peak came after he had declined considerably as a bowler. In recent times, Jacques Kallis was one, but his bowling has declined since.

No. 2: The player who can command his place as a specialist batsman or bowler, but while he’s a worthy part-timer in the other discipline, would not command his place for that alone. Most people you call allrounders today fall in this category. Kallis has slipped into this category, and Shane Watson also fits in here. Shahid Afridi was one, though his bowling seems to have gotten worse. Among Indians, Irfan Pathan was one, till his bowling fell away just as his batting improved.

No. 3: The player who would not get in the side as either a specialist batsman or bowler, but who does both well enough for their combined value to get him into a weak side. India had some such ‘bits-and-pieces’ players in the 1980s (remember Kirti Azad?) and New Zealand had some in the 1990s. But against top-quality opposition, the bits-and-pieces allrounder will usually deliver in neither discipline, and will be a liability to the side.

Well, the reason I’m going over this is that in the current side, India have one player in the third category. I don’t believe Ravindra Jadeja would be in the Indian side as either a specialist batsman or a specialist bowler. We saw his limitations as a batsman when MS Dhoni sent him out to bat earlier than he should have in the game against England in the 2009 T20 World Cup, and the balls he ate up cost India the game. (He made 25 off 35.) We saw his limitations as a bowler today, when he was hit for six off six consecutive balls—Watson pumping the last three of his first over, and David Warner laying into him on the first three of his next. To add to this, he got himself run out with a ridiculously lazy piece of running between the wickets, ambling diagonally across the pitch. Like, really.

Jadeja is good enough to play in the IPL, where the standard of cricket is not so high and he will add value to any team. But I don’t believe he is international material, and it is shocking that he kept out a player like Rohit Sharma in the earlier games of this World Cup. We may just have learnt an important lesson today—but is it already too late?

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The question can be asked, which category does Yusuf Pathan fall into? He is not good enough to play as a specialist bowler, but does he cut it as a batsman? I think the jury’s out on that. He is a phenomenal striker of spin bowling and medium-pace bowling—but has yet to prove himself against quality fast bowling. He had a good chance to get set in today and establish himself in the side—and he muffed it.

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If we consider a wicketkeeper-batsman an allrounder by virtue of his performing in two disciplines, then we are fortunate to have seen Adam Gilchrist play in our lifetimes. He was both a great batsman and a top-flight wicketkeeper, and walks into my all time XI. In recent years, Mark Boucher, at his peak, could have played as either a specialist batsman or a specialist wicketkeeper. And I believe Mahendra Singh Dhoni also falls in that category. Yes, even in Test cricket, where the captaincy seems to have done him much good—he averages 71.8 as captain, in 13 Tests. That’s off the charts.

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Since I mentioned my all-time XI, just for kicks, here it is: 1. Hobbs, 2. Gavaskar, 3. Bradman*, 4.Viv Richards, 5 Headley, 6. Sobers, 7. Gilchrist+, 8. Akram, 9. Warne, 10. Lillee, 11. Muralitharan.

On a different day, I’d probably give you a different XI. Nos. 5 and 10 are the ones always in question, and I’m also tempted to push Sobers one spot up and play five freakin’ specialist bowlers. Just imagine. Even Martians with eight hands and four bats would have a tough time against the Earth XI then.

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I know you’re complaining Sachin isn’t there. How could I leave God out? Alright, then, here’s an all-time India XI, and God walks into this one: 1. Gavaskar, 2. Sehwag, 3. Dravid, 4. Tendulkar, 5. Laxman, 6. V Mankad, 7. Dhoni*+, 8. Kapil, 9. Amar Singh, 10. Kumble, 11. Harbhajan.

Why not Bedi, you ask? For balance. We already have a left-armer there in Mankad. Why not Prasanna instead of Bhajji? Because that damn spin quartet is too freakin’ romanticised. See their records carefully. Filter for matches won; filter for matches played overseas; that’ll tell you the story.

And yeah, we also romanticise Vishy, and don’t give Laxman his due. Compare their records also.

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Enough cricket for the day. Good night.

Play the Specialists

Among our commentators, Sanjay Manjrekar can be reliably banal, but rarely says something outright ridiculous, unlike some of his colleagues. Well, today he did. As India were headed out to chase Australia’s 184 in the T20 game today, he praised India’s strategy of playing the extra batsman, since the total they were chasing was so big, and said, ‘In hindsight, that’s proved to be a very good move by MS Dhoni.’

Duh, no. India lost precisely because they played that extra batsman. It meant that they played one specialist bowler less, and had to rely on part-timers to bowl 8 of the 20 overs in the innings. Against a quality batting side like Australia, that was asking to be pumped. That was exactly what happened, and Australia got a total that, given their pace attack and India’s problems against pace, was way too high for India.

Some people suggest that in T20 cricket, a side is best off playing as many batsmen as they can, and part-timers can do the bowling. This is nonsense. Bowlers win T20 games, as we saw in the IPL recently, and every team must have at least four specialist bowlers in the XI. Those that don’t will lose—and sometimes get pumped, as India did today.

The Trials of Khushboo

ToI reports that the Supreme Court has “quashed 22 criminal cases filed against South Indian actress Khushboo for her remarks in various magazines allegedly endorsing pre-marital sex.” This is an encouraging judgement—especially the following words from the bench:

When two adults want to live together, what is the offence? Does it amount to an offence? Living together is not an offence. It cannot be an offence.

Well put. And extending that further, if two adults want to do anything together, by mutual consent, without harming or involving anyone else, what is the offence? Should there be an offence? No freaking way.

And yet, such “offences” are to be found all over the Indian Penal Code. I hope one day they are scrapped.

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The cases against Khushboo were filed in 2005. It took five years for this trivial matter to be sorted out. Imagine the state of someone spending years living through the tension of more serious cases. In our legal system, the process can be the punishment.

And oh, while confirming when the cases against Khushboo were filed, I came across this masterful headline:

‘Kushboo enlarged on bail’

One can only presume she had a really good meal when she was released.

Wash Your Hands

In the book “My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic”, the following Q&A takes place:

Question: Do you wash your hands after you have had a wee?

Saatchi: I have an acute sense of hygiene so I wash my hands before I have a wee.

I love this because it so succinctly hints at what I have always believed: that we are dirty, not our sexual organs.

I do not recommend, of course, that you leave your hands unwashed after having a wee. Wash your hands as often as you can, out of courtesy for others if not concern for yourself. Indeed, wash your hands every time you read India Uncut—or you could catch my disease.

It All Evens Out

Much to my surprise, quite a few people were surprised when King’s XI Punjab beat the Mumbai Indians yesterday in the IPL. They shouldn’t have been. At the halfway stage of the tournament, I predicted to a friend that Mumbai, then leading the league, would do worse in the second half than in the first, and Punjab, then at the bottom, would do better. And so it’s turned out. My reason for believing this had nothing to do with any deep cricketing insight, but with a simple statistical phenomenon called “regression to the mean.”

The teams in the IPL are more or less evenly matched: they have a similar mix of overseas players, national stars and domestic players. (The salary caps ensure that this will continue.) And the format, being just 20 overs a side, that ensures that chance events play a much greater role than in other formats. For these reasons, I don’t believe that any team can ever truly dominate the league—unless they have a phenomenally lucky season, which will even out in the long run—or be too far below the rest. While in the short run the game is unpredictable, in the long run everyone’s going to be bunched around the mean.

So while I’m wary of predictions about specific results in the IPL, I’ll be glad to make a general wager on IPL 4. I’m willing to bet that the team that tops the league at the end of the first half will do worse in the second; and the other way around for the team that comes last. I have absolutely no idea, of course, which those teams might be.

As it happens, I would not make a similar bet for the EPL, where neither of my two conditions apply. (ie, teams are not evenly matched, and there is a far greater premium on sheer skill.) Is that a good thing or a bad thing for the IPL?

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Regression to the mean also explains the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx, by the way.

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I don’t mean to say that matches at the IPL are decided purely by chance. There is immense skill involved, and I love the contest between bat and ball that we get to see every day. But the skill is so evenly distributed among the teams that in the long run, it evens out. The X factor that a captain like Shane Warne brings to the game does count for something—but while the Rajasthan Royals won IPL 1 under him resoundingly, in IPL 2 they won six out of 14 games. Such it goes.