Rally of Compact SUVs

The concept of Compact SUVs was launched in India in auto expo 2012. Its size was under 5 meters so it was called compact SUV. Due to compactness of its size companies afford to sell it within the price band of rupees 8 to 10 lacs. So It was like a jackpot for SUV lovers that they were going getting SUVs within the price range of 8 to 10 lacs.

At that time all the big guns of automobiles came blazing with concept of their respective compact SUVs. Maruti Suzuki came up with 'XA alpha', Ford came with 'EcoSport', Renault came with 'Duster' & Mahindra came with 'Quanto'. Among these Maruti Suzuki 'XA alpha' and Ford 'EcoSport' grabbed most of eyes and were considered as big launches for both of these companies. These launches were going to affect the sale of Innova for sure as these were in the same price range as of Innova so Toyota launched new variant of Innova soon after these launches. Now let's have a look at them one by one as how they performed in the market.

Renault Duster

Renault Duster was the first compact SUV to hit Indian roads among those which had been launched at auto expo 2012. Duster got the maximum advantage of being launched earliest in its segment. Renault wouldn't have even imagined that Duster would be such a huge success. It exceeded all expectations & sales estimates of Renault. Duster put a huge dent in Innova's market as it was in the same price range as of Innova.

Mahindra Quanto

Mahindra led SUV segment of India with its products like Scorpio, Bolero & Xylo and then Duster happened. So Mahindra launched Xylo's younger brother Quanto. Quanto hit Indian roads couple of months after Duster with much lesser price but unfortunately it was overshadowed under the influence of Duster. On the other XUV 500 blossomed some good amount of profit and captured SUV (not compact SUV) segment for Mahindra.

Ford EcoSport

Ford EcoSport was launched in june or july this year; an year later than it was expected to be launched. There was a news in auto expo 2012 that EcoSport is going to be first Compact SUV to hit the Indian roads. Its launch was delayed as its price was going over than the price it was promised to customers. EcoSport's latecoming has surely hurt Ford but it has affected the market share of Duster. Its start is sluggish and that puts question mark over its ability of living upto the expectations of company and customers.

Nissan Terrano

As there is everywhere in news that its a Duster based compact SUV. I would like to add that Terrano is a Duster based compact SUV with X-Trail's looks. The best thing about Terrano is timing of its launch couple of months before diwali when people are bored of seeing Duster everywhere. Due to this Nissan has got great opening as bookings are pouring in for Terrano.

Maruti Suzuki XA alpha

It was the only compact SUV which impressed me with its looks and features both but unfortunately it is still a concept car. XA alpha had looks in it which defines SUV. It was about to hit Indian roads by the begining of 2013 & here we are at the end of 2013 but there is no sign of XA alpha yet. I don't know why it has been delayed so much. Is Maruti Suzuki afraid of launching it due to failure its other premium cars like kizashi etc.? Hope it will be launched soon.

In between Volkswagen launched Cross Polo earlier than Terrano was launched but it is not even in the picture yet. So auto expo 2012 brought great changes in the automobile sector. Now we are heading towards another auto expo in the begining of 2014 and hope it too has some good surprises in store for us.

The Comeback King

I have seen some of the great comebacks in the world of cricket over the years. May it be Sachin Tendulkar's return from tennis elbow injury or many other such comebacks from other players as well but for me there is only one comeback king and that is Yuvraj Singh.

Everything happening in our life is destined to happen. Cancer to Yuvraj Singh is the best example of it. 2010 was not at all good for Yuvraj Singh. The talks were going on of droping him from the Indian side before the 2011 world cup. But selectors stuck with him in world cup & the rest is history.

It was all destined to happen his selection in the team, his performance in the world cup, his pain & bleeding while coughing during that world cup & India winning that world cup with Yuvraj Singh being the man of the tournament. Noone ever thought that his cough on the field during that world cup will come out as dangerous as cancer. When this news of cancer broke it was as much heartbreakning for us (fans) as it was for him. Everyone just prayed for his survival.

I saw the glimpse of what he has gone through while fighting with cancer in his documentary 'Zindagi Abhi Baaki Hai' & in each episode of it my eyes used to get wet by seeing his condition. It was his will power who told the cancer that 'boss I still have a life to live & I still have to have a got after bowlers to hit those big sixes. So I am not going to give up against you.' So with his strong will power & determination he fought with cancer with weapon called chemo therapy & kicked it out of his body. Not only that he even made a comeback on cricket field shortly after he was cured of cancer. Now that deserves a Salute & here I go Yuvi paji.

Everyone wrote him off by saying that he won't be that fit again to play cricket but he proved everyone wrong by hitting double hundered in the longest version of the game test match & then it was no stopage for him. He made it into Indian team. His start was steady as it was like he is starting his career all over again but soon he came back into his groove & started hitting the harder than he used to hit earlier. His most memorable innings was the in which he made 72 off just 36 balls here in Ahmedabad against Pakistan. After that injuries started to hit him again and these injuries were coming in between his form. In IPL 2013 his injuries made him to loose his form completely & he didn't made even a single 50 in IPL. As a result he wasn't included in Champions trophy squad.

It is going to hurt any veteran of the game & it hit Yuvraj Singh too. So during that off time he went France with Zaheer Khan to improve his fitness & he trained hard there. After one and half month of hard core training he came back 100% fit & there is noone more brutal and dangerous than fully fit Yuvraj Singh. He started the season with blistering 123 in first class cricket then it was followed by knocks of 40, 60, 52, 84 & 29. It is more than enough to get selected for Indian team. So finally he is selected in the Indian squad for the series against Australia starting from 10th of this month.

His will power, determination, skill & fighting attitude helps him to grow bigger & bigger every time he falls. Yuvraj Singh himself & his comeback stories are inspiration to me. It inspires me to comeback as hard as him every time I fall. I have always adulated him and it has just increased after his fightback with cancer. I pray to god that keep Yuvraj Singh free from injuries so that he can help India to be at top in the world of cricket with those big sixes for many more years to come. In the end I would like to give one more name to 'Prince of Sixers' & i.e. 'The Comeback King'.

India's bench strength

Its time for India to register two national teams in ICC & if it happened then both the Indian teams will have the capabilities to dominate the world of cricket as per the current situation. Today India have such great & huge amount of talent that it needs two national teams to give everyone equal opportunity.

I am big critic of current selection panel with Sandip Patil being the head selector. I always have criticized this selection panel as I never understand on the basis of which tournament they are selecting or rejecting the players. Moreover they don't think twice before kicking out any player from the team. As they did with the likes of Zaheer, Yuvraj, Gambhir & Sehwag. They didn't thought much before axing them despite of their experience.

Axing of these veterans (front benchers) resulted into deserving opportunity to back benchers in the test circuit first against australia & likes of Dhawan, Vijay, Jadeja & Bhubaneshwar Kumar made most of it to seal their place in Indian squad for Champions trophy ahead of players like Pujara & Rahane. And this young side didn't only won the champions trophy but made the hattrick of wins by winning ODI tournaments in West Indies & Zimbabwe as well.

Now all of the sudden these guys has become the front benchers for selectors. This current Indian side tends to be India A side but its other way round at the moment. At the moment Yuvraj, Zaheer, Gambhir & Sehwag had finally made their way to India A after a lot of hard work on their respective fitness & form. So now these guys will give everything to get back into the team & Yuvraj has already begun this new season with big hundered & Gambhir has also hit a century for essex. On the other hand in between all these events players like Pujara (for ODIs), Rahane, Rayudu, Mohit Sharma etc are still waiting outside those crashed doors of Indian side and are trying to get in from somewhere.

Phew! Lot of chaos. Next selection is really going to be tough for selectors. I can already the sweat on their heads by seeing the amount of players. The headache of selectors is going to increase with the increase in amount of players. This headache is not because of scarcity of options but because of too many options. The only way out of this is to select different teams for different formats but again each and every player is capable of playing all three formats.

As a fan of Indian cricket, I am very happy to see the increase in strength of benches for Indian team. As this shows that the future of Indian cricket is very bright & selection is very tough. I hope that selectors use this amount of talent wisely, timely & effectively.

Pedagogues & Guides of my life

Guru brahma, guru vishnu, guru devo maheshwara. Guru saakshat param brahma tasmahe shri guruway namah. I hope I have written this shlok correctly & if not then please don't go by words, only understand my feelings. Yes I am dedicating this post to my teachers & will try to give tribute to them.

Mamta teacher

If I have to define a teacher, I think her name is enough. Likewise her name, her personality also has lots of mamta for us. She treated all of us as her own children; out of 12 years I studied in that school, she was my class teacher for 5 to 6 years. After that when I joined next school, I started finding her qualities in every teacher. Now whenever I hear the word good teacher first image comes to mind is of hers.

Deepak Sir

Very few people know that I was allergic of maths & calculations till 10th standard. It was this man who made both Accountancy & Statistics my brahma astra from 11th standard onwards. Bond between us is such that that we are like friends only, despite having the age difference of 12 to 15 years. Whenever we meet now we still tease each other. The worst comment he made on me is 'tu 11th standard mein gaay tha uske baad change ho gayaa'. Don't worry sir, I won't call you Deepak here.

PC sir

The full form of PC is Parasharan Chari. The man who defined hard work & dedication; he is the most workaholic person I have ever met. He might have lessened his workaholism after his marriage in recent times but he taught me how to plan things & how to manage time with those things. He was my go to person whenever I needed any guidance during CAT. All I want to say is sorry to him for not scoring well in CAT.

Dwijendra Sir

The man who taught me to be conceptually strong & clear always. His teachings made my concepts stronger & stronger with those late night classes he used to take with the help of his energy sticks. I enjoyed to be in his class because he will never let you out of his class until you clear on any particular concept. I again want to apologise to him for not getting good score in CAT.

Amrut School teachers

Two years in amrut school where I completed my higher secondary were the best two years in my academic life. All the teachers from Rasila Madam, Patel Sir, A K Sir, Darmendra Sir to Menos Sir with all of them I have very fond memories. As a student you don't want to go to school in higher secondary but I used to go to school daily. I had some sort of connection with that place which taught me some great learnings of my life.

And last but not the least my parents who always teaches & guides me in every event of my life. I would like to thank all the above mentioned teachers for making me what I am today. I am not a big name today but I will try my best to make you feel proud & I wish & pray that happiness & prosperity always prevail in your lives. Happy Teachers' Day

First Love

Love is a beautiful feeling in this numb world. Here I will talk only about first love as after all that happens is an agreement of love in which is made up of lots of terms & conditions. First love is like a season of spring, it blossoms happiness in your life. It starts with friendship, then it gets converted into an attachment & then that attachment will get converted in to that thing called (first) love.

It is such a blind thing that it doesn't see factors like religion, caste, age etc., now a days it doesn't see even a gender under the act of 377 of Indian law. Its best part is that you will never know that when did you fell into it; It will form a chain or flow where you will just go with that flow without worrying about the world. It binds two persons together in such a way that both of them get addicted to each other. Whether it is a good news or a bad news both of them will share it with each other before the remaining world.

Now a days people has defined love till the limits of physical intimacy but I still beleive in traditional love. I still beleive in soulmate kind of love. I think its more of being there for each other in hard times, standing by each other in hard times & celebrating each & every happiness together throughout the life time.

Lucky are those who people who get their first love as their life partner. God bless very less people with such fortune whose first love lasts forever. I beleive love stands on the base of four pillars & those four pillars are: 1. Transparency, 2. Expectations, 3. Trust & 4. Loyalty. So couples having all these pillars strong tends that their love lasts forever. If any of these pillars are weak or missing then love will end at some point of time.

Now what if first love doesn't last forever. One thing is for sure that you will never forget that for the rest of your life. It will stick in your some part of your heart like someone has applied fevi qwick to it. You will never have same feelings for the other person coming in your life. If any other person comes in life for whom you are his/her first love & you are most important person for him/her in the world & if he/she rates you above the rest of the world then never ever let that person go out of your life. Never ignore or hurt that person on the grounds of practicality.

I always beleive and rate human values more than practicality. For that person you are the world & you can't hurt or ignore that person just because you are too practical. Atleast I can't because I know that that person will do everything possible to make me happy always. For the time being my only love is cricket. I keep lots of expectations from it & it never lets me down. It will be with me forever whether I get my soulmate or not.

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Trip to Chennai

On 18th july 2013 MRF interview was conduced at Park Plaza in Ahmedabad. I got the mail that I am shortlisted for it on 11th of july. It was a big opportunity for to start a career with India's no 1 company with the revenue of over 13000 crores in 2012-13. I went to give the interview it consists of 4 rounds & it took around 4 hours to get finished. In the end I came out with the letter saying that I am qualified for the last round of interview which will be held in chennai on 30th of july.

28th july
5:30 a.m
I was off for railway station as train to chennai was at 6:40 a.m. I was confident that I will reach there by 5:50 as there won't be any traffic. I was at the gate of railway station by 5:45 & then I faced one of the heaviest traffics of my life from the gate of railway station to platform no. 1. I reached at platform no. 1 at 6:10 a.m then I got into my seat & train 'took off' at 6:40 exactly.

29th july
1:02 a.m
I by mistake dropped my mobile on the lower berth. My seat no was 9 & it was a lower berth but a tamil uncle asked me to sleep on middle berth & the worst part was they made me asleep by 10:30. So I was trying to search network from 10:30 but all efforts were in vain then I started reading 'Dork' & read it till 1:00 that's when I was searching my mobile to check the network & I dropped it. I went down & started searching over tamil uncle's head & he was in deep sleep. Soon I realised if saw me like this he will think that I am a sri-lankan & trying to kill him. Moreover I didn't knew tamil to explain him what I was doing. So I waited till 3:00 a.m that's when he got up & went into washroom & finally I searched my mobile & came back & slept. Phewwww.

29th july
4:30 p.m
Train 'landed' at Chennai central. After all that chaos in the night everything went smoothly till I reached chennai. Then I got out of station which was awkwardly designed having entry & exit gate at platform no. 11 rather than at platform no. 1. After reaching there I was ready for all the tamil language, the lungis & all the related stuff. Next task was to get an auto to hotel, as I came out I got an auto, I showed him the address he told me Rs. 120 which was double of what I was instructed by a chennai localite who was gujarati. I said to that autowala 'Anna this is too much' in half south Indian accent. He came down to Rs. 80 that was the impact of that statement. Wonder I have said it twice more he would have taken me to hotel free of cost and finally I reached hotel.

30th july
4:30 a.m
I woke up to a terrible nightmare & checked the time it was 4:30. After that I knew I am not going to get sleep now so I killed the time till 6:30 then was off to get ready for interview. I was at MRF's corporate office half an hour before the given time & was introduced to 39 other candidates from west & north India mainly. MRF's corporate office was at 8th floor of the building. Before interview my expectations were high may be on 6th floor of 8 floors of building as we were told in Ahmedabad that going to Chennai will only be a formality & we came to know that there is an elimination at that time my expectation came down to 2nd floor. Then we were divided among 2 panels & mine was no. 15. When it started I was nervous as the pressure was piling on. After I thought of my experience of giving interviews my nervousness was converted into an excitement. My turn came at 11:00 a.m & after 20 minutes of grinding interview, I came out with an excellent remark from Vice President.

30th july
2:08 p.m
Result time! My expectations were at top most level after the kind of interview I had given. I was pretty sure that my name was going to be in the list of selected candidates. The names were announced & after the last name an awkward silence fell into the surrounding atmosphere. There were celebrations & condolences from fellow candidates from Ahmedabad that I am fresher & I have a lot ahead & all that but I knew one thing that I was rejected. After some time all of the sudden music of 'keh ke lunga' started playing in my mind then I told myself that this is Chennai not Wasseypur. So they won't understand 'keh ke lunga', they will only understand 'nagamuka' & will leave snakes behind me if I said anything like keh ke lunga to them.

31st july
6:34 a.m
Woke up to another dream & that was like there are only 2 people in MRF's office me & VP (Vice President) & he has that devil horns on his head. He took me from 8th floor to the basement of building & told that 'this is your place. Hahaha' & went off. That was enough to disparage my efforts for being selected for the last round despite being a fresher.

31st july
8:40 a.m
Back to Chennai central for 9:30 train to Ahmedabad. It was on time as it left for Ahmedabad exactly at 9:30. This time there was one tamil family & one rajasthani old couple with me. That rajasthani lady came with some sort of mantra like 'eat, sleep & fart'. She didn't do anything else than these 3 things but she farted a lot. In the evening I came across one 60-65 years old man with spikes on his head. I don't know whether they were real or they were his hair but they were straight as darts. They gave me inferiority complex, I clicked his pic & put it on twitter. And I reached Ahmedabad at 7:10 p.m on 1st august. Overall it was fartful experience filled with disappointment & dejection. Once again in my life I was kicked for keeping expectation from something or someone. This is the way life goes accept it, improve yourself & move on.

Spot (fixing) less era of Indian Cricket

Spot fixing or fixing of the match is not new to India earlier also the players like Mohammad Azharudin and Ajay Jadeja has been involved in match fixing. In the year 2000 Azharudin was a captain of India and was caught by CBI on the allegations of match fixing. As per the CBI report Mohammad Azharudin confessed to fixing games with the help of Ajay Jadeja and Nayan Mongia. At that time I was just 9 years old so didn't even understood what match fixing is?

At present the level at which I am passionate about cricket, I find it as big thing as selling its own nation for some amount of money. When you don't like spot fixed naturally on the face then how can you like spot fixing in the match. As we go out in the market to find spot removal cream to remove spots from the face, similarly we need to find out some pretty strong punishment to remove spot fixng as I feel life ban is not enough. Some more strict actions needs to be taken to remove fixing with its root.

After Azharudin and other players' life ban, reins of team India was given in the hands of Sourav Ganguly. Ganguly along with Sachin, Dravid, Kumble, Srinath and Laxman put the base of world champion team India since 2000. These players had such a strong personality that if anyone tries to raise a finger on them then their finger used to get burn automatically. So these players made a spot (fixing) less team with their discpline & professionalism. They set an example for youngsters that nothing matters more than playing for India.

Players like Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Sehwag, Gambhir etc. came under Ganguly, Dravid & Kumble. Under them these players also learnt the lesson of India first. So overall it was a spot (fixing) less decade or you spot (fixing) less era of Indian cricket. During that decade we won world t20 as well as the 50 over world cup.

It was the high time to put India's dominance over the world cricket then IPL 2013 happened and all those fixing scandals came out. And big names including players, team owners & even BCCI cheif were involved in it. All politicians and cricketers turned politicians came into it by saying to stop IPL to gain political advantage. I would like to say them that it has also been done in international cricket so that too should be banned right. Now everything is hid under the champions trophy win as the big names were getting involved. I feel proud that IPL as an Indian brand has grown so much but it equally saddens me that it was created in such a corrupted country.

Now its time to clean the dirt from Indian cricket as the trust of the people towards the fame is on stake. Its time to bring back those spotless legends of Indian cricket & allow them to control the board. If it happened then I am sure with likes of Ganguly, Dravid & Kumble India will be back in that spot (fixing) less era again & the dream of Indian dominance on world cricket will come true.