Mexico vs Netherlands WC 2014

With Netherlands going into the match as clear favorites based on their current form, no one expected such a fight from the Latin American country, who haven’t reached the quarterfinals in their five consecutive previous appearances in the World Cup. But Netherlands proved that the match is not over until the last minute, with their cool heads, even though it was scorching hot in Fortaleza. Dutch team wouldn’t have survived the entire match without the cooling breaks, which were taken for the first time in this World Cup. It was not a great start for the Dutch with Nigel de Jong going off the field within first ten minutes of the first half due to injury. First half saw equal opportunities missed by both the teams. Mexican goal keeper Ochoa continued his good form from where he left off against Brazil, keeping the Dutch goal less. With minutes into the second half, Giovani put the Mexicans in the lead with a crisp goal into the corner of the nets. This brought the animated Mexican coach, Miguel Herrera into action. I just wonder how can a coach act so insane, whenever his team scores a goal. Mexicans totally went into defensive mode after scoring this goal, which turned out to be a very bad tactic costing them a place in the quarter finals. Luck was not favoring the Dutch with Vrij’s little contact off Arjen Robben’s corner kick, bounced off the cross bar due to the amazing reflexes from Ochoa. I was almost in a shock when Louis van Gaal substituted Robin van Persie with Klass-Jan Huntelaar in the 75th minute. It calls for a lot of courage to take out Persie that too when Netherlands was trailing! That turned out to be a decisive moment in the match with Huntelaar scoring the winning penalty kick. When the entire nation started losing its hope of going into the quarters, Sneijder rocketed one into the nets with just two minutes to go in regulation time. After so many saves in the match, Mexican goalie Ochoa was a mere spectator watching the ball crashing into the nets. Even after scoring the equalizer, Netherlands went for the kill to finish the match before the extra time. This lead Arjen Robben gaining a penalty kick which Huntelaar converted into a goal. Netherlands just WRAPped up Mexicans hope of making the quarters in the final 5 minutes of the match and they took one step closer towards winning this World Cup.

Spain vs Netherlands WC 2014

I have never felt so excited before for a football match. There are many reasons for that. The most important one is me being an Indian. You might wonder how someone’s nationality can decide his love for sport. But that’s a fact. Let me break this for you. Cricket is a religion in India. Since I was an avid cricket fan, I never felt the need to follow football. And India ranks 154th in the world football ranking, with a handful of matches played every year, it doesn’t make any difference whether I follow it or not. But football is all about playing for a club rather than your own country. But as a fan, I never felt a real connection to any of this clubs. Things have changed and now I can finally relate myself to a football team, The Netherlands! It was the third match of 2014 FIFA World Cup – Spain vs Netherlands. A rematch of 2010 world cup final. There were many questions to be answered. Can Netherlands give a fitting reply for their defeat in the 2010 final? Can Arjen Robben get past Iker Casillas? Can Netherlands defy the odds? There was so much excitement going into the match with people gathering in pubs, in front of giant screens – all dressed in orange with an electrifying atmosphere. There are only two occasions when the entire country turns orange – Kings/Queens day and when Netherlands plays an important football match. Definitely this was one such occasion! Most part of the first half was dominated by Spain, until Robin van Persie started flying! I would say his diving header was the turning point of the game, which lifted the spirits of his teammates. That was also the emotional moment of the match. Robin ran all the way to give a high-five to Louis van Gaal. How often do you see a player doing that to a coach? Second half was a complete turnaround, with Netherlands attacking from the word go. That actually paid off with Arjen Robben and Stefan de Vrij making it 3-1. These two goals in the second half almost sealed the match for Netherlands. After that it was more like a ritual for Spain, from defeat to embarrassment with the final score line reading 5-1 in favour of Netherlands. The final goal by Robben was a class act. He single handedly scored this goal by running 2/3 rd of the ground, almost a 100 meter race between the Spaniards defenders and Robben, which he won comfortably. No one ever dreamt a score line like this. The last time Spain conceded at least 5 goals in an international was in 1963. That sums up the tremendous win for Netherlands in their opening match in 2014 World Cup!

Safety first

Have you ever heard of a ‘Safety Day’ being celebrated at an office? I can hear many people saying - No. Even I didn’t know anything about it until one of my clients celebrated it. So, what do they do on ‘Safety Day’? The idea is to lay emphasis on the safety rules that everyone should follow in their day to day life. So on this day, they give a T-shirt to all employees that they need to wear on that particular day. They also give Safety Awards, conduct a Safety Day quiz and also have a safety day T-shirt painting competition. All of this is done to keep people alert about safety protocols, else they may forget. They have a very strict safety policy which has to be followed by everyone - starting from the vice president to the office assistant. There is no exception, even for auditors. A mail is sent as a warning to a manager if anyone violates any one of the safety policies. More than two warnings can also lead to banning the person from entering the client premises. Their safety policy mainly includes wearing seat belts/helmets. So out of compulsion, even I started wearing seat belts. It was mandatory to wear seat belts/helmets to enter the client’s parking place. Even in the driving school, they didn’t teach us how to wear a seat belt. So it’s been nearly four years after I learnt to drive a car that I learn to wear a seat belt! In the initial days, I felt they were overdoing things in following these safety policies. Why do we have to wear a seat belt in a country which is full of traffic and you cannot drive more than 40 km/hr during peak office hours anyway? I used to wear the seat belt only for 2 minutes before I entered the parking area. But I realised the need for it after I heard from one of the client who met with an accident. There was severe damage to the car but he didn’t sustain any injury only because he was wearing his seat belt. From that day I’ve started wearing my seat belt every time I drive my car. Why do we find it so difficult to wear helmets if we can wear shoes to work? It mainly depends on our mind-set and how we’ve been brought up. If we follow certain things, our kids will eventually follow it. I strongly believe that we should start fostering these safety measures in people’s minds. Another important but rather weird safety policy followed at my clients place is to hold hand rails when climbing up/down the staircase. I started following it even at shopping malls or any other place where I use the staircase. I was finding it so difficult to let go of that habit at other places as well. The crux here is, we should make it a habit rather than a policy, and then people will follow it. On a lighter note, when a slow animal like a tortoise wears a helmet, then why don’t we use it when we travel at a speed fifty times more than that!!! I believe we should at least encourage people to start wearing helmets/seat belts in all our offices. It indeed does save lives!

Super Sunday

A Super match on a Super Sunday – Wimbledon Men’s Finals - Roger Federer vs Andy Murray. Federer trying to regain the No.1 spot from the Joker, after beating him comfortably in the semis. On the other side, Murray with a strong backing from the British press saying “Come on Andy” will be the first British person in 87 years to win a Wimbledon championship. I was bit late for the match, Murray already won the first set and the second set was tied at 1-1. Murray was on his top of the game and Federer was playing the bad tennis of his lifetime. Murray was giving him a tough fight but still he could not break Federer in the second set. Murray was serving to save the set at 6-5 and Federer broke him when it mattered the most. That’s what we call as Champions Play, snatching those important moments of the match. Score line read 4-6, 7-5 Federer begins the third set with an ace, the confidence of winning the second set. In the same game, Murray hit one out of the stadium. I could sense the momentum shifting to Federer. Before anyone could seize the advantage, there came the rain. It was not so good to see the umbrellas opening and players going back to their locker rooms. I was wondering why they didn’t use the roof even when they had one to cover up the stadium. There was no stopping from the rain gods, so they finally decided to use the roof. Match was delayed by 40 mins. The sixth set of the game which lasted for nearly twenty minutes, brought back the sublime form of Federer. Murray fell down thrice in the same game with the pursuit of sending the ball to the other side of the net, but he failed in all the three instances. I nearly lost the count of the deuces, definitely more than 8. Federer breaks the serve to take the advantage. I could see an old and a young lady jumping out from their seats whenever Murray was winning a point. Well we could assume who they would be. Back to the game. Federer wins the third set with an Ace, just like how it began. Fourth set, Federer was firing the aces down to Murray’s throat and breaks him to take the advantage. Federer was serving for the championship with the score reading 5-4 and there fell Federer into the ground for one last time in the match.

Ten days of cultivation

Everyone at PwC knows about ATP, the Audit Transformation Programme. But the training which we went through recently can be called as TTP. We will come back to its expansion later. Employees in any office will love to attend any training. Not because they get some break from work but they can sharpen their knowledge. I can’t imagine stating this before attending this particular training. I have always been in the other side of the fence, troubling the tutors. Now I got the taste of my own medicine. But to be honest to become a successful tutor you should work your heart out with some sincere effort. I am not going to bore you with too much of philosophy. I am certainly not a Shakespeare. But I would like to shake the minds of my peers with some thoughts like this (shake+peer = Shakespeare). Never mind! Let’s make it interesting. The three most famous things in Pune (which I can think of) are the food items - Bakarwadi, Vada pav and the Hotel Le Meridian (the only person who liked the Hotel was our instructor. So I had no choice other than to bring it in here). Well we are talking about Pune because the training was organised there. Everyone who came to the training had the taste of all three things. I have never gone to a city in India which doesn’t have a road called MG Road. If you really want to do some good shopping in any of the Indian cities even if you are new to the place, you can always bet your money on MG Road. Pune was not an exception. Something about the training now! I have never attended training with so much fun but nevertheless it fulfilled the purpose. There were plenty of firsts I experienced in this training. My first ever training wherein we didn’t extend the scheduled time on any day. That can only happen when we have instructors who can manage time efficiently. Who were the instructors? None other than people who attended the training! We had more than 40 people across offices from India. Every two days we had new set of people visiting us who have previously attended the academy. I could draw an analogy to a hospital where specialist doctors visiting the patients. But no one could actually cure us! We were bit by a knowledge virus – our instructor! We did lots of activities across ten days and learnt many things. It started from how to write a flip chart to how to handle mischievous people during trainings. Before the training everyone knew how to write a flipchart, but after the training we learnt to write it in a way that can draw the attention of the trainees. Our team (called “Desi Boyz”) won the activity of writing an attractive and colorful flipchart proving that even boys can be colorful. We had one more team activity of making an elephant with the things that are available inside the training room. Few teams didn’t find anything to use. So they finally used their own team members. Until then I was under the impression that humans came from apes. But after seeing few team members turning into elephants I had a doubt whether humans came from elephants/apes. Oops! Now I am questioning Darwin’s theory! We also had plenty of technical sessions. One such session was relating to Fraud. The instructors related the number 420 (everyone in India knows about 420) with the International Standards on Auditing which deals with fraud i.e ISA 240. No one can ever forget the ISA number with such references. There was also a picture quiz which was amazingly done. There were 100 reasons to make it amazing. But one of the most important factor was, it was done by our team! During the weekend it was party time with free cocktails. It would look much better for our trainers to move their mouth than to move their legs which was so obvious from the dance party. But we had few people who were good at both. On the final day a collage made by our own instructors brought back the memories of entire ten days together. Now, coming back to the expansion of TTP. It can be called “Trainer Transformation Programme”. It really transformed everyone who attended the training. The next day after the training, when I was getting ready to go to office, I nearly forgot how to wear the tie. During the ten days of training we were wearing only casuals! One of the firsts in trainings I have attended.

Pic(s)nic

Gone all those days when people spend a portion of their savings for holidays. It’s the age when people pay in EMI’s to enjoy their holidays. EMI used to be an abbreviation for Equated Monthly Installments but now it is Easy Monthly Installments. That’s the change in people’s perspective. Going for a vacation tops the to do list for many. But there are people who have never gone for a vacation. They are very reluctant in spending time and money towards this. So these days, corporates organize a fully paid vacation (popularly known as ‘offsite’) to build a bonding among employees and especially for those kind of people who are not interested in holidaying. This is about one such offsite organized by our office.

The excitement started when we received a mail from our HR partner informing about the vacation. None of us actually remember when was last such tour organized. Many of my friends completed their shopping for the vacation even before the date was finalized. I generally wake up to my alarm. But this day was an exception. I switched off the alarm before it could ring. This shows how excited we were.

Three buses were arranged for pick up from office. Even though many of us were on the way to the resort, we came to office to enjoy the ride with our friends. Finally we reached our destination where we spent our next 24 hours with so much fun and frolic.

Tender coconut water (the most nutritious beverage the nature has provided) as a welcome drink was welcomed by everyone. It took us a while to search for our rooms. We were used to the high storeyed hotels where in the room numbers can be identified by floor numbers. But that was not the case in a resort wherein a room was like an independent house. Fewer sign boards for the directions made our life even harder.

After checking into our rooms we had a free time of nearly two hours before the team bonding events were supposed to start. So we all decided to play our adopted national sport, cricket. We played absorbing cricket for nearly 2 hours. After a sumptuous lunch there came the team bonding activities. A Head start to the team bonding events was given by one of our partner. Event manager pointed a question at him – “Name ten women colleges in Chennai”. His answer included a college which was an all men college and he justified his answer by asking “whether the question was to name where women study or where women are being studied?” Everyone burst into laughter. We were then grouped into 4 teams of 21 each. One activity was to dress up one of our team member as a tribal leader and to showcase our dancing talents by dancing like tribal people. Our team did an animal sacrifice sequence in the dance which won the points for us.

In the evening, dance floor was opened and at the same time even the skies opened up. But that didn’t stop our MJs and J Los to hide away. They were dancing even in the heavy down pour. The DJ’s actually extended the time upto nearly an hour. We won’t get tired so easily. Will we? No one ever wanted the day to end so soon. But all good things come to an end. Everyone was back into the rooms with their own gangs. There is nothing interesting than playing cards with your own bunch of people and chit chatting. The topic for discussion was much more exciting than playing cards – Who all boozed up in the evening? There were few hits and misses and also surprises but finally the number was quite high.

It was a memorable day for every one of us and we tried to capture everything with a DSLR Camera. There were approximately 800 clicks which added nearly 3 GB of data to the digital world. This was followed by sharing the pictures in facebook and picasa which has become more of a ritual these days.

OMG! I cant believe myself that am not following the current India - West Indies series as i normally used to do with other cricket matches. I am an avid cricket fan, so for me following a match means trying to know wats happening for each and every ball by watever way possible - watching in tv if at home, cricinfo.com if at office, m.cricinfo.com if travelling. But i never tried any of the above during any of the matches, let it be twenty 20 or one day or test match. I used to follow even the matches in which India is not involved. So i was trying to find out whether something happened to me or due to some external factor. When i just gave a thought about it, there were plenty of reasons for such an abnormal behaviour from my side. Is it due to the clock time of the matches - 07 pm IST to ??? wat ever be the time it ends, cos i ve never been awake till the end of any match. But to the contrary, this is the prime time for the Indian television industry and time when IPL matches are held. Even the world cup 2007 in west indies had poor TRP ratings. No one cud ever find the reason being the early exit of India or due to the timings. Coming back to me, this is the time when i return from office and try to catch up on so many things. Why nothing pulled me towards the match?? Our so called star cricketers were missing in the lineup!!! Every one had a reason of their own starting from family to injury. So a blend of all these things may be d reason... which will be confirmed in the next India England series.