Agarkar's World Record !!

I am and have always been a big fan of Ajit Agarkar, who is known more for his consecutive ducks against Aussies and to a lesser extent for his part in the Adelaide test victory in Dec 2003, than his all-round skills. And this always disapppointed me since he is more or less the same age as me and I was following Cricket when he made his debut and was the then Irfan Pathan of Indian Cricket. At all his faliures, me and my best friend always used to joke that he is the future of Indian Cricket.

But, beleive it or not, The wicket of opener Nafis Iqbal in first of back-to-back ODIs at Dhaka gave Ajit Agarkar a world record. This was Agarkar’s 200th wicket in shorter version of the game. Having already aggregated 1,049 runs before this match, Agarkar joined the exclusive band of cricketers with the all-round double of 1,000 runs and 200 wickets.

Agarkar was playing his 133rd match and he is now the quickest in terms of number of matches taken to complete this all-round double.The previous record was held by South African Shaun Pollock, who took 138 matches.

Kapil Dev, the only other Indian in this list, was the first player to do so. At 27 years 22 days, Agarkar is also the second youngest after Pakistan’s Wasim Akram who achieved this feat at 26 years 257 days followed by Agarkar.

Not only this, Agarkar also became the quickest among Indians to take 200 wickets. Agarkar accomplished the feat in only 133 matches – 14 matches lesser than Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath, who previously held the record for India. In all ODIs Agarkar is joint fifth fastest with Australia’s Glenn McGrath and after Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq (104), South Africa’s Allan Donald (117),Pakistan’s Waqar Younis (118) and Australia’s Shane Warne (125). And still, Agarkar is treated as the biggest what could have been of Indian Cricket !!

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who's the most popular of them all ?

On one of the yahoogroups that I am a member of, we were having a discussion about which is the best programming language, etc. I found this interesting article about a company that measures Programming Language Popularity.

This is done by a company called TIOBE Software - the Coding Standards company - where TIOBE stands for "The Importance Of Being Earnest", a comedy by Oscar Wilde !!

Do You Want to Live Forever?

Technology Review, February 2005

"Aubrey de Grey thinks he knows how to defeat aging. He's brilliant, but is he nuts?" asks techreview.com's lead to Sherwin Nuland's article on Aubrey de Grey. This article "has created quite a buzz, particularly in the Technology Review forums," and here's Aubrey de Grey's letter in response to the article.

Ten of MLK's Quotes

My previous post was about quotes by Subash Chandra Bose. Today is the birthday of another pioneer Martin Luther King Jr.Here are 10 of his amazing quotes.

1. If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

2. Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.

3. There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.

4. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

5. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

6. Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.

7. All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

8. The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.

9. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

10. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Love.. by Vievekananda

A nice article from Swami Vivekananda on LOVE........

I once had a friend who grew to be very close to me. Once when we were sitting at the edge of a swimming pool, she filled the palm of her hand with some water and held it before me, and said this:

"You see this water carefully contained on my hand? It Symbolizes Love."

This was how I saw it:
As long as you keep your hand caringly open and allow it to remain there, it will always be there. However, if you attempt to close your fingers round it and try to posses it, it will spill through the first cracks it find

This is the greatest mistake that people do when they meet love...they try to posses it, they demand, they expect... and just like the water spilling out of your hand, love will retrieve from you. For love is meant to be free, you cannot change its nature. If there are people you love, allow them to be free beings.

Give and don't expect.
Advise, but don't order.
Ask, but never demand.

It might sound simple, but it is a lesson that may take a lifetime to truly practice. It is the secret to true love. To truly practice it, you must sincerely feel no expectations from those who you love, and yet an unconditional caring."

Passing thought... Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take; but
by the moments that take our breath away.

Life is beautiful!!! :-)
Keep the faith!! (Y)

A grad-student emotion check-list

Well, I haven't been posting much for the last few days.

Today's post gives you an idea of how busy I am here.

A grad-student emotion check-list