Sleepless in Seattle

Ever since I crossed over the Atlantic and moved to US, my friends back in Europe have always been complaining that I am not pursuing my photographic hobby any further. Well, while in Italy my work routine was pretty different as compared to here and hence I could manage to create time to travel around the continent. While traveling around Europe you often end up taking some great photographs. Thats how I had managed to build a good photo gallery on Flickr. In Seattle, my work does not give me much leeway to exercise my creative cells and my traveling is now reduced to just between home and office.

With a sizeable Indian community in and around Seattle, there are plenty of activities happening on weekends. Cricket is one such activity which is scheduled on my weekends. There are couple of leagues for recreational and professional enthusiasts. So the hiking and climbing I used to do on weekends (in Trento) until last year has now been replaced with cricket. On some occassions I do get a chance to carry my camera around and click some shots of the city. So, all my freundeskreis aus Deutschland und giro di amici dal'Italia, please subscribe to my photo feeds on Flickr.

The new iGoogle interface

The new iGoogle interface is such a pleasant change. The new version of the optimized home page experience from Google is available only to developers initially and is being made available to select users in a phased roll out approach. After the announcement last month, I was hoping this month they would expand the selected customer list to reach my ID ;) But the wait seems to be a little longer than expected. The new interface gives a very at-home feeling for all the plugged in gadgets. An instant view management for Gmail and Google Reader would be a big relief for me. So each time I open my browser, I hope my iGoogle page has been optimized :)

Gmail Contacts issue

Gmail has decided to drop off its feature of adding contact names automatically when you compose your mails. Earlier, whenever you wrote a mail to or recieved a mail from someone, that mail Id was automatically added to your contact list. And names from this list would be suggested to you automatically in the address bar. Honestly speaking, I was so used to this feature that I rarely remembered any mail Ids of my contacts. In the new version of its contact manager, Gmail allows a list for holding the "Suggested Contacts" names along with the "My Contacts" address list. For some wierd reason, I havent still had access to this new feature of Gmail Contact manager, but I hope I get back that auto-adding feature soon, such that I can create my list of frequently mailed contacts once and later not worry about remembering their mail IDs

Managing our Personal Expenses - The Buxfer Tool

How many of you have lived in shared apartments with friends during your graduate life? Remember the time and effort spent in managing the shared expenses with your roommates? I remember my student life, living in a shared accommodation with friends and sharing my living expenses. It was quite an effort to keep track of the finances. Who owes how much to whom? During my travels and hikes across Europe along with my friends, it would become even more cumbersome to keep track of the expenses. I remember that small notebook we had to update with our names and expenses done, later split the expenses and exchange money.

Google Docs brought us some relief. We could create a Google Doc, mark our expenses in a centralized spreadsheet and share it with our traveling group of friends. Each of us could view and edit the sheet with the expenses we had paid for. This centralization eased the process to a certain extent, but still we had to do our calculations of splitting the bills.

One such student sailing in the same boat was Ashwin, who was a PhD graduate student from Carnegie Mellon University. Our man with brains, sat down and wrote a small script to manage his expenses - to keep track of how much he owed others and how much others owed him. His simple but smart idea formed the base for Buxfer - a social money website.

Buxfer allows users to keep track of their personal finances, regulate and organize loans and IOUs to friends. It informs you of what you owe and what is owed to you, as well as divide bills among a group of users. It has some good features like tagging your expenses, which could help you analyse your expenses in a better manner with some cool graphs and charts. Among other features are support for various currencies, support for multiple languages and integration with other online payment services like PayPal etc. With the growth in social internetworking, Buxfer has plugins and widgets with social sites like Facebook, where you can manage your expenses with your friends on your Facebook list. For all iPhone uses, the good news is that Buxfer has launched its iPhone application too. With some cool graphics its more easier to manage your expenses from your iPhone now.

Switch-Hitting : Improvisation in Batting

During the one-dayer against New Zealand, Pieterson provided yet another reason to define him as one of the evangelists of modern day cricket. I have always been impressed by his bold attitude towards the game. Be it the decision of switching base from South Africa to England for a better career or be it the strong-willed hitting he brings to the crease during his batting. He has shown strength of character in crunch situations. Along with Flintoff, Harmisson and Hoggard he had brought a revival in English cricket during the summer of 2005. There have been a lot many eulogies written about him and I dont intend to add one more to them.

The reason to cheer about his batting in that game was his improvisation against Scott Styris. On two occassions he changed his grip from a right-handed one to a left-handed batsman just before the ball was delivered and carted the bowler over the boundaries. I have been a great fan of improvisations in batting in the recent times. It demonstrates the skill of the batsman to play innovative shots and take risks to a higher level. Especially in the case of changing ones grip, the batsman is too close to loose his wicket while changing the gaurd. And to do it effeciently and hit it for a six proves the skills of the batsman. I myself have a tendency for playing this shot atleast once in my innings. I love to do it especially to fast bowlers who are bowling a nagging off-stump line. Changing the grip and lofting them over the square boundary with a left-handed shot is a feeling to cherish!

There has been a hue and cry about the positioning of rules in such a scenario. Many purists were calling for the shot to be made illegal. Thankfully for the spirit of the game and keeping the thrill of the game alive, MCC has decided in favor of the shot. There remains a debate on the rules for LBW and wides in such a delivery. In my opinion, the rules should be applied depending on the batsmans grip while he was playing the shot. If a right handed batsman changes the grip to a left handed one, then his off stump switches with his leg and the LBW rule and wide rule should be applied correspondingly. Agreed the umpire might have some difficulty in judging LBWs depending on where the ball had pitched, but in such a situation he can always refer to the third umpire for the decision. Thats what technology is for - help in taking right decisions.

With this shot being legalised, I am eager to see more such improvisations from batsmen in the Twenty20 matches which are ideal for such shots. MS Dhoni, Pietersen, Misbah-ul-Haq, Yuvraj Singh - these are the batsmen to watch out for more such innovative shots.

Tips on development with Hibernate

One of the common problems in query optimization using Hibernate is when one of your tables is associated with several other tables. This is a common problem and has a pretty straight forward solution. Consider a sample Hibernate mapping file of a table Student associated with other tables like Course, Professor

Now a simple query like

from Student where student_id := entered_id

will generate a sequence of selects from its associated tables, which will greatly effect the query performance time. To reduce this waterfall effect we have to load the associated objects in the initial query by using a "left join fetch" construction as shown below

from Student student
left join fetch student.course
left join fetch student.professor

However there are some limatations on usage of "fetch". It cannot be used on queries using iterate() or queries involving result row operations like setMaxResults(), setFirstResult() etc.

for further reading visit the detailed discussion on this site


For those of you starting up with Hibernate and would like to implement it using MyEclipse IDE, here is a good tutorial (though a slightly outdated with the versions)

LOST 4th Season review

Its thursday again and I am not yet overcome by the eventful episodes of Lost screened on last thursday. I get a void sense of feeling in my daily thursday routine from now onwards, yes I am going to miss Lost for several weeks to come. Having followed this series across 3 countries in 3 different languages over the past 4 years, Lost has become a part of my life. Many of my friends and work colleagues are big time LOSTies. The usual friday routine was to discuss the episode of the earlier evening. Well looks like these activities are going to take a back seat atleast for a while now. Coming to talk about the recently concluded 4th season, I must admit this was by far the most action packed season of the series so far. The 3rd season was kind of a let down and many people including myself were beginning to get bored with the series. The story of Others was not exciting enough to satisfy our LOST-apetite. The only interesting character addition was of Juliet, but her presence in the plot seemed to fade away gradually. There was hope of a romantic angle between her and Jack when the last season ended, but good for all of us Jate fans, Jack came back to Kate during this season. With the entry of several interesting characters like Miles (the ghost-talker) and Faraday (the phycisist) one had hoped to see some interesting sub-plots in the narrative. But owing to the writer's strike, the series had to be cut short and we only hope to see more of the freighter folks in the next season. I personally liked the geeky-physicist Faraday and am looking forward to see more of his time-travel fundas unravel in the next season. Miles would have been one of the greatest characters this season, given his ability to talk to ghosts and spirits and given the fact that many ghosts from the past were appearing frequently on the island this season. The interesting plot was the gradual death of Claire, after that bomb blew up her cabin, one could have guessed from her abnormal behaviour that she was a ghost walking among the living. Her interactions with her Dad, Christian Shephard were touching and appeared to give more logical reasoning for her transition from the living to the dead world. Another interesting concept this season was using Christian Shephard to speak on behalf of Jacob. Whenever Jacob wanted to parley with any of the Island folks he was passing his messages through the senior Shephard. That raises a question here, why Christian Shephard? and why could only a few of them could see or listen to him, why not others. And does the fact that some of those who could talk to Christian Shephard (John Locke, Hurley, Claire, Micheal) make them any special than the others? Does this mean these people are already dead and somehow their mind is empowering their bodies to carry out a specific task the Island or Jacob wants them to carry out? The shocking revelation in the end about John Locke gives more credence to this theory, but if that is the case then why did a living Hurley escape the Island? There are several questions raised by the script writers here and we only hope that they do justice to them in the next season.

The season finale had all the elements for a blockbuster. The grande stand-off between Jack and Locke again brilliantly portrayed the struggle between the man of science and the man of faith. I just love the confrontations between these two characters. It was great to see Locke following his instincts about submission to a higher authority - a power which is as elusive to him as it is to us - and being crowned as the chosen one to lead the Others. Towards the end of the episode Jack started appearing a bit fazed out and uncertain in his vision - a characteristic in complete contrast to the Jack we all know. Was leaving the island the right thing to do? From the future flashes, we see that he deeply regrets leaving the island and is trying eagerly to come back. I guess the next seasons will deal with this plot of the castaways trying to lead a normal life away from the island and not coming to terms with the realities they try to get back to the Island. I loved the manner in which Locke was explaining the magical status of the Island to Jack, but unfortunately he couldnt make his point across to the skeptic medic. Sawyers sacrficial jump from the chopper and the kiss with Kate was very touching. Later when he walks out of the sea towards a rum-drinking Juliet reminded me of the scene from Casino Royale when Mr. Bond comes out of the sea. There was a small hint dropped towards a possible romantic union between Sawyer and Juliet for the next season. But its sad to see Juliet getting such a second had treatment in terms of romance. Little is known about Faraday and his group on the boat, I only hope that they were in the Islands zone and had traveled in time along with others. Ben's appearance in the deserts of Tunisia makes sense after the season climax. There appeared a sense of vengeance in him as soon as he appeared in that desert. How far is he going to succeed in his revenge against Charles Wildmore will be an interesting watch. The resurgence in Sun's character was remarkable. The manner in which her character develops into a revenge-seeking-sharp-business-sense woman was good. I am hoping that Jin had dived away from the freighter, before it blew up and had swam towards the island. This would have made him within the island's zone and hence would also travel along with the other people left behind on the island. As per my predictions, next season onwards we will get to see Sun's quest to get back to the island and save Jin.

Talking about re-unions, it was an overwhelming moment when Desmond meets his long lost love Penny. Infact the best episode of this season in my opinion was "The Constant". The manner in which the past and present moments of Desmonds life are shown, and the fast-paced narrative switching between Penny in past and in London and Desmond in present and on the freighter (both in different time-space frames) kept me glued till the episode climax. When Desmond speaks to Penny on phone, those feelings were emoted in such an intense manner, it certainly deserves an award nomination for the actors. To continue talking about the romantic angle of the characters, the episode showing the blissful relationship between Kate and Jack was very sweet too. Another twisting revelation was the identity of Aaron as one of the survivors. Honestly it was something totally out of the blue. Great job writers!

So whats next then? Will Ben continue to play a strong role on the islands politics or will Locke take over as the undisputed leader? The shocking revelation of Locke being the man in the coffin from last years season finale was another jolt in the blue. Though he is a bit eccentric in his mannerisms, but Locke was surely one of my favourite characters, especially for his philosophies and his never-ending faith in the island's powers. The character of John Locke allows the writers to introduce many such supernatural concepts into the story plot. I hope that the factors leading to his death are as dramatic as his life on the island and are properly justified given the strength of his character. By the way did any of you notice the poster of 4th season. In this image the reflection of the island shows many high rise buildings. Does that give a hint of time travel? Does that mean the island is going to move several years ahead in future in the next season? There are plenty of questions raised all over the LOST story line to capture the fascination of its fans. We are all waiting eagerly for the next season to get our answers. Untill then, our minds will be happy building our own theories about the island's future.

Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa by Allama Iqbal

I found the translation of Iqbal´s famous Shikwa and Jawab-e-shikwa at the Al-Huda website. I am replicating it here for my reference :)

If you prefer the original Urdu script you can read the Shikwa here and Jawab-e-Shikwa here.

Shikwa:

Why should I abet the loss, why forget the gain,
Why forfiet the future, bemoan the past in vain?
Hear the wail of nightingale, and remain unstirred,
Am I a flower insensate that will not say a word?
The power of speech emboldens me to speak out my heart,
I'll sure be damned, I know, if fault my God.

Hear, O Lord, from the faithful ones this sad lament,
From those used to hymn a praise, a word of discontent.
Enternally were you present, Lord, eternally omniscent,
The flower hung upon the tree, but without incense.
Be Thou fair, tell us true, O fountsin head of grace,
How could the scent spread without the breeze apace?

The world presented a queer sight ere we took the stage,
Stones and plants in your stead were worshipped in that age.
Man, being inured to senses, couldn't accept a thing unseen,
How could a formless God impress his senses keen?
Tell me, Lord, if anyone ever invoked Thy name,
The strength of Muslim arm alone restored Thy fame.

There was no dearth of peoples on this earth before,
Turkish tribes and Persian clans lived in days of yore;
The Greeks and the Chinese both bred and throve,
Christians as well as the Jews on this planet roved.
But who in Thy holy name raised his valiant sword,
Who set the things right, resolved the rigmarole?

We were the warrior bands battling for Thy cause,
Now on land, now on water, we the crusades fought.
Now in Europe's synods did we loudly pray,
Now in African deserts made a bold foray.
Not for territorial greed did we wield the sword,
Not for pelf and power did we suffer the blows.

Had we been temped by the greed of glittering gold,
Instead of breaking idols, would have idols sold.
We impressed on every heart the oneness of our mighty Lord,
Even under the threat of sword, bold and clever was our call.
Who conquered, tell us Thou, the fearful Khyber pass?
Who vanquished the Imperial Rome, who made it fall?

Who broke the idols of the primitive folks?
Who fought the kafirs, massacred their hordes?
If the prayer time arrived right amid the war,
With their faces turned to Kaaba, knelt down the brave Hejaz.
Mahmud and Ayaz stood together in the same flank,
The ruler and the ruled forget the difference in their rank.

The rich and poor, Lord and slave, all were levelled down,
All became brethern in love, with Thy grace crowned.
We roamed the world through, visited every place,
Did our rounds like the cup, serving sacred ale.
Forget about the forests, we spared not the seas,
Into the dark, unfathomed ocean, we pushed our steeds.

We removed falsehood from the earth's face,
We broke the shackles of the human race.
We reclaimed your Kaaba with our kneeling brows,
We pressed the sacred Quran to our heart and soul.
Even then you grumble, we are false, untrue,
If you call us faithless, tell us what are you?

You reserve your favours for men of other shades,
While you hurl your bolts on the Muslim race.
This is not our complaint that such alone are blesse,
Who do not know the etiquette, nor even can converse.
The tragedy is while kafirs are with houries actually blest,
On vague hopes of houries in heaven the Muslim race is made to rest!

Poverty, taunts, ignominy stare us in the face,
Is humiliation the sole reward of our suffering race?
To perpetuate Thy name is our sole concern,
Deprived of the saqi's aid can the cup revolve and turn?
Gone is your assemblage, off your lovers have sailed,
The midnight sights are no more heard, nor the morning wails;

They pledged their hearts to you, what is their return?
Hardly had they stepped inside, when they were externed.
Thy lovers came and went away, fed on hopes of future grace,
Search them now with the lamp of your glowing face.
Unassuaged is Laila's ache, unquenched is Qais's thirst,
In the wilderness of Nejd, the wild deer are still berserk.

The same passion thrills the hearts, enchanting still is beauty's gaze,
You are the same as before, same too is the Prophet's race.
Why then this indifference, without a cause or fault?
Why with your threatening looks dost thou break our heart?
Accepted that the flame of love burneth low and dim,
We do not, as in your, dance attendance on your whims;

But you too, pardon us, possess a coquettish heart,
Now on us, now on others, alight your amorous darts.
The spring has now taken leave, broken lies the lyre string,
The birds that chirped among the leaves have also taken wing;
A single nightingale is left singing on the tree,
A flood of song in her breast is longing for release.

From atop the firs and pines the doves have flown away,
The floral petals lie scattered all along the way.
Desolate lie the garden paths, once dressed and neat,
Leafless hang the branches on the naked trees.
The nightingale is unconcerned with the season's range,
Would that someone in the grove appreciates her wail.

May the nightingale's wail pierce the listeners' hearts,
May the clinking caravan awaken slumbering thoughts!
Let the hearts pledge anew their faith to you, O Lord,
Let's re-charge our cups from the taverns of the past.
Through I hold a Persian cup, the wine is pure Hejaz,
Thought I sing an Indian song, the turn is of the Arabian cast.

Jawab-e-Shikwa:

The word springing from the heart surely carries weight,
Though notendowed with wings, it yet can fly in space.
Pureand spiritual in its essence, it pegs its gaze on high,
Rising from the lowly dust, grazes past the skies.
Keen, defiant, and querulous was my passion crazed,
It pierced through the skies, my audacious wail.

"Someone is there," thus spoke the heaven's warder old,
the planets said, "From above proceeds this voice so bold."
"No, no," the moon said," "tis someone on the earth below,"
Butted in the milky way: "The voice is hereabouts, I trow."
Ruzwan alone, if at all, understood aright,
He knew it was the man, from heaven once exiled.

Even the angles wondered who raised this cry,
All the celestial denizens looked about surprised.
Does man possess the might to scale empyreal heights?
Has this mere pinch of dust learnt the knack to fly?
What are these earthly folks? Careless of all respect,
How bold and impudent, the lowly dwellers of the earth!

Extremely rude and insolent, cross even with God,
Is it the same Adam whom angels once did laud?
Steeped in bliss, man is of wisdom's lore possessed,
Nonetheless, he's alien to humility's sterling worth.
Man feels proud of the power of his speech,
But the fool doesn't know how and what to speak.

You narrate a woeful tale, thus the voice arose,
Your heart is boiling overwith tears uncontrolled.
You have delivered your plaint with perfect skill and art,
You have brought the humans in contact with God.
We are inclined to grant, but none deserves our grace,
None treads the righteous path, whom to show the way?

Our school is open to all, but talent there is none,
Where is that soil fertile to breed the human gems?
We reward the deserving folks with splendid meed,
We grant newer worlds to those who strive and seek.
Arms have been drained of strength, hearts have gone astray,
The Muslim race is a blot on the Prophet's face.

Idol-breakers have left the scene, idol-makers remain,
Aazar has inherited Abraham's glorious name.
Wine, flask, and drinkers-all are new and changed,
A different Kaaba, different idols now your worship claim.
Therewas a time when you were respected far and wide,
Once this desert bloom was the season's wealth and pride.

Every Muslim then was a lover profound of God,
Your sole beloved once was the all-embracing Lord.
Who removed falsehood from the earth's face?
Who broke the shackles of the human race?
Who reclaimed our Kaaba with their kneeling brows?
Who presses the sacred Quran to their heart and soul?

True, they were your forbears, but what are you, I say?
Idle sitting, statue-like you dream away your days.
What did you say? Muslims are with hopes of houries consoled,
Even if your plaint is false, your words should be controlled.
Justice is the law supreme, operative on this globe,
Muslims can't expect the houries, if they follow the kafir's code.

None of you is, infact, deserving of the "hoor",
A Moses is but hard to fin, burneth still the Tur.
Common to the race entire is their gain or loss,
Common is their faith and creed, common too the Rasul of God;
One Kaaba, one Allah, and one Quran inspire their heart,
Why can't the Muslims then behave like a single lot?

Cast, creed and factions have disjointed this race,
Is this way to forge ahead, to flourish in the present age?
It's the poor who visit the mosque, join the kneeling rows,
The poor alone observe the fasts, practise self-control.
If someone repeats our name, it's the poor again,
The devout poor hide your sins, preserve your vaunted name.

Drunk with the wine of wealth, the rich are unconcerned with God,
The Muslim race owes its life to the poor, indigent lot.
"Muslims have vanished from earth," this is what we hear,
but we ask, " Were the Muslims ever the Jewish sects.
You are Nisars by your looks, but Hindus by conduct,
Your culture puts to shame even the Jewish sects.

If the son is alien to his learned father's traits,
How can he then claim his father's heritage?
All of you love to lead a soft, luxurious life,
Are you a Muslim indeed? Is this the Muslim style?
All of you desire to be invested with the crown,
You should first produce a heart worthy of renown.

The new age is the lighting blast, it will set your barns on fire,
It can't produce in groves or deserts the Old Sinai's burning spire.
The new fire consumes for fuel the blood of nations old,
The clothes of the Prophet's race are incinerated in its folds.
Don't be depressed, gardener, by the present scene,
The starry buds are about to burst with a brilliant sheen.

The garden will soon be rid of its thorns and weeds,
The martyr's blood will bring to bloom all the dormant seeds.
Mark how the sky reflects its orange purple hues,
The rising sun will flush the sky with its rays anew.
Islamic tree exemplifies cultivation long and hard,
A fruit of arduous gardening over centuries past.

Your caravan needn't fear the perils of the path,
But for the call of bells you own no wealth at all.
You are the plant of light, the burning wick that never fails,
With the power of your thought you can incinerate the veil.
We'll love you as our own, if you follow the Prophet's ways,
The world is but a paltry thing, you'll command the pen and page.

The end of Windows XP ?

Are you using a Windows XP machine, if yes, then you might be interested in reading this piece of interesting information regarding the Microsoft timeline policy of providing support for its XP users.

Some Useful add-ons for Firefox users

The best thing about OpenSource technology is that there is a huge community of developers who are constantly coming up with some useful tools. Among the web browsers, my favorite is the Firefox. Simply because it is effective in blocking the ever-annoying pop-ups from several webpages, its effective in providing security from any spyware installations happening without our knowledge, plus it comes with a huge community of good souled folks providing numerous extensions - which not only enrich our user experience but also make our work easier.

One such add-on which I came across recently was PicLens. If you use Flickr or any such photo galleries, or rather any website which has a lots of photos to browse through, this could be a great tool to have. It provides you a virtual 3-D gallery of all the photos on that particular root URL. And its not just Flickr, this tool currently supports all the popular web hotspots like PicasaWeb, Photobucket, MySpace, Friendster, Google Images etc. It is currently supported on Windows and Mac platforms. If you are the person who spends a considerable share of your browsing time looking for images, then this is the tool which is a must-have ;) Give it a try

This is how my Flickr gallery would appear if your browser has PicLens.


Talking about add-ons, I would like to share two other tools which I personally find to be very useful.

• gDocsBar is a sidebar extension for Firefox browser. Its a very practical tool which has a drag-n-drop feature to upload your local documents onto your Google Docs directory. I personally find it very helpful while working on any of my documents hosted on GoogleDocs. To give it a try visit here.
• DragDropUpload is a Firefox add-on which helps you to attach files into your mails very easily. By just selecting a file and dragging it into the textbox area of the mail attachments we can provide a link to that file directly. It reduces the time needed to browse through the dialog box into the particular folder to provide the needed path of the attachment file. To install this add-on visit here
  

On a snowy night in Winter

'Be off!' say Winter's snows;
'Now it's my turn to sing!'
So, startled, quivering,
Not daring to oppose

(Our fortitude grows dim in
The face of a Quos ego),
Away, my songs, must we go
Before those virile women!

Rain. We are forced to fly,
Everywhere, utterly.
End of the comedy.
Come, swallows, it's good-bye.

Wind, sleet. The branches sway,
Writhing their stunted limbs,
And off the white smoke swims
Across the heavens' gray.

A pallid yellow lingers
Over the chilly dale.
My keyhole blows a gale
Onto my frozen fingers.

- Victor Hugo

About Cricket and the action Down Under

I havent been posting anything new on this space for quite a while now. I had been in India for the past 2 months and so was a bit busy with things there. As a cricket loving person I was looking forward to that time, because of the India Pakistan series and then the India Australia series.

I should honestly admit that no other series could upstage the last Indo-Pak series as THE boring series ever. There was nothing exciting in those matches. The old fighting spirit was lacking from the players and the Pakistani players seemed to be enjoying the dinners and parties hosted in their honor more than winning any matches against their traditional rivals. The real party began when the Indian team landed Down Under. The Border-Gavaskar series were a great one to follow. The end score line of 2-1 depicted the tough fight the visitors gave to the Aussies in their own backyard. The series started with Australia showing their cricketing prowess and the Indian team meekly went down in Melbourne. But as a giant was awoken from sleep, they put up a good fight in Sydney. Who knows if the umpiring was not such erroneous then the series might have ended on a different score line. The Aussie winning march met its waterloo in Perth, where the same Men in Blue became their nemesis, as it had similarly happened in 2001, where a winning streak of 16 consecutive matches was halted by the Indian team. Much of newsprint has already been dedicated to discussing the aftermath of that test and the racism controversy between Harbhajan and Symonds. The truth of that matter seems to have lost behind the shady curtains of BCCI and the ICC. Cricket again took center stage in the remaining tests, with the Indians coming together to give a brilliant display of talent and team work to win in Perth. Had the pitch not been so batsmen-friendly we could have surely expected a result in Adelaide and probably the series would have ended in a draw. Adelaide also bid farewell to one of the best players in the game. Adam Gilchrist finally hung up his boots after a glorious career in cricket. He gave enough reasons to cheer for any cricket fan no matter where his loyalties would lay. We will miss those attacking innings, those chirpy moments behind the stumps and that elegant walking which had become a Gilchrist trademark.

The IPL took centerstage with announcing its corporate sponsors. The entry of big names from the corporate world and entertainment industry into the cricketing arena promise a new revolution. The manner in which revenue will be generated and the manner in which the game will be marketed is bound to change soon. Lets wait untill April when the IPL would get underway to see how things unfurl from there onwards.