Thursday, 28 April 2011

DLF IPL 2011: Match 33 (DD v/s KKR)

Frankly speaking, this match was not Kolkata v/s Delhi. It was more of Delhi A v/s Delhi B. Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, both originally from Delhi, were playing against each other this time. SRK was also present there, who again is born and brought up in Delhi, now lives in Mumbai and is the owner of the IPL team from Kolkata- interesting. Well, another feature to look out in this match was Irfan Pathan v/s Yusuf Pathan. Unfortunately, they didn't face each other's bowling or batting, but Yusuf Pathan was caught by Irfan Pathan at long on. 
The match started off slowly, with Irfan Pathan showing some amazing skills with in-swingers. He ended up being the most economical bowler of the match with a crucial wicket of Jacques Kallis ( 4 overs 16 runs 1 wicket ). KKR's batting was pretty much ordinary and not living up to the strength on paper. Manoj Tiwary was the only one who made an impact with 61 not out, leading KKR to 148 in their 20 overs. I really liked Irfan Pathan today, he surely reminded me of the time when he took that hat trick against Pakistan in a Test Match. He was able to swing almost every delivery. Morne morkel had to bear to burnt on the other side with 42 runs in his 4 overs. Everyone was skeptical with the score, but nonetheless it was competitive enough.
Delhi's batting started off well, but they lost Warner early. Sehwag was looking in good touch, before hitting an awkward short ball to fine leg for an easy catch. The middle order was never very stable, and crumbled very quickly, reducing Delhi to 85/6. Venugopal Rao did what he does best - reviving the innings. His fours and sixes almost led Delhi home, but the wickets kept falling at the other end. After Venu got run out by some fantastic athleticism shown by Brett Lee of his own bowling, there was no ray of hope left. Kolkata won the match by 17 runs, which brought them to the second spot with 8 points, again behind the mighty Mumbai Indians. 

Scribbling 4: Music, where art thou ?

There was a time when I used to challenge myself to be a better singer, a better guitarist and a better composer, but considering the recent events of my life, I am not totally feeling very confident about anything. Well, it is always about comparisons and progressions for me. I have been feeling for a quite a while now that I am not at the place where I ought to be. This has both positive and negative angles to it. Sometimes I feel that I deserve much more success in life than I have now, a better job, where I am making an impact everyday, moving ahead of others, getting my name in newspapers and magazines, a unique domain of my own. At other times, I feel that I am the biggest loser possible and I don't deserve even what I have. This is a crazy situation and always keeps me low in life, and hurts my confidence a lot. Even though I have some achievements and developed a good reputation for my past, I don't feel special, I don't feel that my work is at all affecting anything in this world. 
During my college days, I just shut myself up from the outside world. I wasted tons and tons of hours watching TV series and movies. I realize now, how exciting the field of electrical and electronics is. I guess, I just didn't like the culture at my college. I just couldn't gel with the people there. I always wanted to be at the top, but when I couldn't I just gave up and assumed that I am the worst student ever. I forgot how it felt to top the class and what it took to top it. The only positive thing that happened in college was Music. I learnt the guitar on my own, I performed songs on stage, I composed songs, recorded them too, but I was always stubborn about getting trained in Music. I just assumed that I cannot get trained. Well, during the whole college period I was one stubborn individual - I didn't attend classes because I didn't like the people in my class, but the fact is - the only person who lost in this process was me. Although, the whole college experience was an eye opener, it is still a hindrance for me until I get into higher studies (MBA preferably). I have realized how important it is to extract the best of an opportunity. That's why once I left college and joined a job, I told myself that I won't let myself go into that area again. It was tough to change course, I succeeded for quite a while but then there were few speed breakers on the way.
Well, right now the only thing on my mind is getting an MBA, because that would not only put me into a better position knowledge wise but would also provide me an opportunity to redeem myself by not committing the same mistakes again. Recent set-backs have put me on a back foot but I will keep trying one way or the other.
Music in the title of the post is not specifically related to Music, but it is the smooth flow of thoughts and ideas in my mind. It is that confidence and lack of fear which paved the way of success earlier. I must learn to forgive myself first, and move on to achieve new heights. I have my own example in front of me. I just have to revisit my strengths- patience, perseverance and dedication. The only competition for me is ME. No one can stop me from being what I want other than ME. It is the single greatest fact of life.

Crime Scene Investigation

I just started with CSI:Miami season 1, and I am quite impressed by it already. The methods, the strong observations, knowledge applications, value of experience and many other parameters come into the picture when a group of individuals come together and analyze a crime scene. It is not only CSI:Miami, every other crime related TV series (Bones, 24, Castle, etc) has focused on these aspects. I did some internet search on whether the life of agents in this genre of work is actually so intriguing and nerve crunching. I found one article by a former associate director of FBI, who mentioned that what we see on movies and TV series' is just a part of the whole picture. He added that at a single moment of time, there are agents working as under cover, solving federal criminal cases, building strategies to bring down drug mafias, burning it out to train other subordinate agents, breaking some cryptic code of terrorist group, etc. Script writers often approach bureaus and spend time with the agents, listen to their experiences and attend specific trainings to understand the picture- part of which is visible on our TV screens. I wonder sometimes what the writers of Indian shows such as CID do as research work.
Personally, I am an analysis freak. I like over-analyzing. It not only brings forth some hidden or unseen relations between things but also keeps my brain's grey matter up to speed. Lot of practical knowledge goes in such situations, and practical knowledge comes from practice and experience. TV series' follow this very tightly. They would certainly have someone in the team who has a ton of experience dealing with crimes of many sorts. He/She stands apart from the team in difficult situations and is hence the factor which manipulates the TRP of the show (unless the female agents are too hot). 
Next, I would like to jolt down some methods, tools or practices followed in solving a crime in general. I will try to categorize them but being an amateur don't expect much from me.

MURDER/HOMICIDE/SUICIDE:
Things to look for (not in any particular order):
- Motive : Serial killer, cold-blooded, mafia, revenge, infidelity etc
- Cause/Time of death : bullet , drowning, poisoning, natural etc
- Weapon (in case of murder) : Build, Available sources, Registration Number, Home made knife etc
- Wound : Strangling on neck/hands, Bullet puncture, Knife stab, Trajectory inside the body, Close range or long range, Injection marks, Struggle marks etc
- Vicinity : Isolated, public place, home, party etc
- Victim background : No police history, Gang member, Immigrant, Role in the family etc
- Blood spatter : Can tell us how the scene actually happened, height of the killer etc

KIDNAPPING:
Things to look for (not in any particular order):
- Victim profile : Rich, middle-class, businessman, etc
- Motive : Ransom money, assault, threat, gathering information by torture etc
- Time frame : Last seen when, how much time has been given etc
- Location : Public place, daily routine path (school, work) etc
- Suspect profile : Kidnappers know the routine, Close-relative in need of money, etc
- Similarities with previous cases : Following some pattern or not

This is not an extensive list, but we can easily form an image of a crime scene from the above listed elements. Imagine that the police finds a body floating on an isolated lake, what are the next steps? We retrieve the body and try to identify him/her. Then we would look for cause of death - whether it was drowning or someone killed the victim and threw the body in the lake (this can be determined by analyzing the contents of the victim's lungs - If there is lot of water in the lungs, that means the victim was breathing in water in the last moments and hence drowned to death). After identifying and figuring out the cause, we go for wounds on victim's body (if any) and victim's background to figure out the motive. If it was a suicide, then we may find financial instability, suicide note or social awkwardness coming up in the background check. If not, then we look for possible suspects and motive related to each suspect. Very often we see that someone close is somehow involved unless it is random kill for loot or money. Well, now it is up to the script writer to let the flow of story go either way but in real life, we may need to improvise often and pave a different path to solve the crime.