The Chennai Crowd passing a standing ovation to Saeed Anwar's 194 at the Independence Cup league match.

Atal Behari Vajpayee, then leader of opposition, patting the United Front Government's Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, in parliament, for clinching the sukhoi 30 fighter planes at an unbelievable price.

Or take the latest, The Rawalpindi crowd saluting Sachin Tendulkar on his 141.

These are instances of transcending beyond boundaries to appreciate a rivals achievements. It just goes to show how healthy competition draws a whiff of fresh air.

But then, these examples are far and few. We have more of the other kind. Take the case of the Congress party pooh poohing the 'India Shining' platform. If they had come with something original, than countering the ruling BJP's claim, to showcase their poll plank;maybe then they could have had a shot at their glory days--Forming a government on their own.

Here is an int blog

Blame India watch

The site description reads, Blame India Watch is concerned with the increasing anti-Indian/anti-India sentiment among tech workers, as well as media coverage that focuses disproportionately on Indian workers or propagates anti-India(n) sentiment. What began a few years ago as IT grumbling about Indian-specific H-1B "Temporary Guest worker" and L-1 "Intracompany Transfer" workers and immigrants has now morphed into the outsourcing issue, and is now gaining international attention.

How English survived in India

Here's an out of the box opinion by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in The Economic Times and Times of India.

To give one, a gist of it--Aiyar says, if today India can boast a strong English speaking population, a BPO wave, then give the damn credit to regional chieftains who opposed tooth and nail the move to position Hindi as the official language and shove English down the rung.

While criticising rabid Hindi imperialist leaders including Vajpayee, Aiyar adds, local Chieftains like Annadurai (TamilNadu) denounced the move to abolish English, as brazen Hindi imperialism.

However, he is quick to clarify that Annadurai was a champion of Tamil, not English, and whatever happened thereafter ( peaking of English speaking population) was not intended then.

As a matter of personal pride, my ancestor, who was also a textile baron with interests in banking, insurance, cotton and education actually led the Hindi agitation at Madurai. While a large part of my extended family still survives on the enormous wealth he created, we still agree his and our proudest moment was when he courted arrest leading the movement. But to give the man his due, he was not just a champion of Tamil, his children were proficient in Hindi and English as well.

Twice before Advani undertook his yatra's.One that unseated the VP Singh Government in 1990 and the other in 1997 officially to commerate 50 years of Indian Independence and more so to canvass BJP votes.

There is a marked difference between those two and this one. Last time Advani fancied himself as some one resembling the mythical warrior Arjuna and rode on a rath (Chariot) ensembled bus.

This time, Advani and Co are trying to propogate the new BJP, one focussed on development. And there goes along with him a satellite fitted funky bus.

Here is an article in Rediff on the new BJP and it is aptly titled Who's the big draw? Advani or his bus

If Mclaren's much hyped car is as fast as it was in Australia last weekend, then i have to eat my words. The car was more than a second behind Ferrari. Mclaren pacers David Coulthard and Kimi actually slated the car.

A couple of days ago, I wanted to switch allegiance to my other favs Renault and BMW Williams ( Was Williams crazy in the mid 90's before switching over the then swashbuckling Silver Arrows (Mclaren). But then did not want to be as fickle as a Roman.

However, read this in some F1 site and though strongly of it as well. Two teams, (Ferrari and Renault) which just focussed on the development of their new racer have added a few Kms/hr pace to their machines.

While the other two contenders for the top Williams and Mclaren were and are still involved in driver politics. Racing guru Frank Williams ( Team Principal BMW Williams) and strategist Ron Dennis( Team principal Mclaren) are experienced enough to know F1 is about 'The Man, The Machine, The Tyres' and not politics or driver trading!

Revisiting sales and marketing chants, here is a 'clever clever' example. A friend who has just donned the role of an insurance marketer called another common friend now at Bangalore. Did it read call, nay he messaged "please call". This techie marketer at Bangalore, obviously was open to spend some hard earned dough, that he promptly dialled him.

Without engaging in small talk, the insurance guy started reeling out the policy options to this bewildered techie. After a non stop barrage this guy said, c'mon which one do you prefer. The caller, by now alert and on his guard said, "buddy am dropping in at your town next week end. We will finalise a deal by then." Not to be outdone the seller quipped " By the way don't forget your cheque book!"

Last heard this techie is totally mystified and constantly recites, " My B school ( A premier one though) never dealt on that sales model-- Tagging on the pre- sales cost as well on the buyer."

Heard this recently. A friend came up with an antithesis for the saying, "A known devil is better than an unknown devil."

Turning a full 360 degrees, the amendment read "An unknown devil is preferred to a known devil". The explanation-- the unknown devil hardly knows you and you can pose yourself as a smart aleck!

Now that justifies the deduced statement to an extent atleast. More than anything, the thought is original.

Marketing mantras practiced by B school graduates is no big deal considering what this old man from Kumbakonam did.

A soft drink vendor close to the Mahamaham tank (where millions of pilgrims took a dip between February 26 to March 6) displayed his wares in the pathway bang opposite his shop. While his shop with droning refrigerators, swaying banners and fading crates was a crowd puller, this man with a twirling white moustache sat with a few stacked crates in the opposite end and magnetised a few devotees to sample local 'colours'. He quipped, by doing that he could cater to thirsty devotees running towards the tank, as well those returning contended after the dip and in a mood for some sweetness.

that's not all, his business acumen too mirrored business leaders. Quizzed about his business, he reeled out the spiralling electricity rate/unit, notional margins allowed by several bottlers. Besides how the actual margins differed between local manufacturers and cola giants. Reason, logistic and storage costs differed as he had to stockpile pepsis and cokes as the stockists was 50 kms away and came in once in three to four days.