Return of the King!!

Schumi makes a comeback with Merc!!!

http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20091223/375/tsp-schumacher-to-make-f1-comeback-with.html

Wake Up Call

Personal note from me:-

In the last 2 weeks between us we have managed 2/3 major incidents spanning 48, 72 and some time more hours than we cared to calculate.
While some of us took enough rest in between, there were some of us who did not care to and wanted to do stretch just for the heck of stretching. At times we do this out of practice, at times just for the heck of doing so, and at times, let us be honest, we just do not trust the person who is going to take over from us to do as effective a job as us and want to do everything on our own. I admit, I have had these same feelings sometimes in the past.

In our situations, let us "not be proud" that we managed an incident and are also running several other calls thru the day and are able to cover 15-20 hours a day. Is all this worth the end.?
Let us be pro-active. Trust & Engage others, take enough rest and be healthy. Read on to understand.

SAP India CEO Ranjan Das Dies After Gym Workout
Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP Indian subcontinent died after a massive cardiac arrest in Mumbai on Wednesday. One of the youngest CEOs, he was 42 

What killed Ranjan Das and Lessons for Corporate India

>A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. Ranjan, just 42 years of age, was the CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India . He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra's Carter Road . Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young kids.

>It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India . However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner ( in Feb 09, he ran Chennai Marathon at the same time some of us were running Pondicherry Marathon 180 km away ), the question came as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumb to heart attack at 42 years of age.

Was it the stress?

>A couple of you called me asking about the reasons. While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress.

The Real Reason

>However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program 'Boss' Day Out': Boss' Day Out: Ranjan Das of SAP India .

>Here he himself admits that he would love to get more sleep ( and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled ).

The Evidence

>Last week, I was working with a well-known cardiologist on the subject of ‘Heart Disease caused by Lack of Sleep’. While I cannot share the video nor the slides because of confidentiality reasons, I have distilled the key points below in the hope it will save some of our lives.

Some Excerpts:

>·Short sleep duration ( <5 or 5-6 hours ) increased risk for high BP by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Paper published in 2009. As you know, high BP kills.

>·Young people ( 25-49 years of age ) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006.

>·Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999.

>·Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!!

>·Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004.

>·Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.

Ideal Sleep

>For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times.

>The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type.

>For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess ( lack of non-REM sleep ), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down ( I’ve been there, done that ).

>Finally, as long-distance runners, you need an hour of extra sleep to repair the running related damage.

>If you want to know if you are getting adequate sleep, take Epworth Sleepiness Test. (http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/epworth.html)

Interpretation: Score of 0-9 is considered normal while 10 and above abnormal. Many a times, I have clocked 21 out the maximum possible 24, the only saving grace being the last situation, since I don’t like to drive ( maybe, I should ask my driver to answer that line ).

In conclusion:

>Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising ( marathoning! ), maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. In my opinion, that killed him.

>If you are not getting enough sleep ( 7 hours ), you are playing with fire, even if you have low stress.

>I always took pride in my ability to work 50 hours at a stretch whenever the situation warranted. But I was so spooked after seeing the scientific evidence last week that since Saturday night, I ensure I do not even set the alarm clock under 7 hours. Now, that is a nice excuse to get some more sleep.

>Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance. Please forward this mail/article to as many of your colleagues/friends as possible, especially those who might be short-changing their sleep. If we can save even one young life because of this email, I would be the happiest person on earth.

This article was written by one of the corporate managers.

Movies..Reviews???

It has been quite sometime since I “reviewed”, or shared my thoughts on any movies.

For sometime now, I have decided to only “list” movies that I watch. Let us see how that goes.

In the last few days
1. Trans Siberia
2. Defiance
3. The Incredible Hulk

Let me keep that list going, just to understand why my wife thinks I spend more time watching movies than with her!!!

Tasveer 8x10

After a long time I got to watch a decent movie that did not have the typical running around the trees or the tear jerkering hospital scenes so very typical of bollywood movies. It even had just one song in the movie and one as the credits roll at the end.

Plot summary - Rich father meets with an accident and dies. Everyone believes that it is death by accident, until a former cop who the father helped emigrate to Canada (where the whole story takes place) thinks otherwise. Son who has some sort of super-natural powers, where in he can look at a photogaph and visualise all that happened around individuals on the photograph, but only for a minute. The usual suspects for the son are the mother, his fathers brother, friend, who also happens to be the mother's lover (one sided though) and the fathers surrogate son. How the son uses his super-natural powers to find out the killer forms the rest of the story.

Akshay as the son has given a restrained performance, very "hatke" from his usual song, dance, fight routines. You do get to watch some stunts, but if you are looking for a hard core action movie of Akshay, this is not it. Javed Jaffrey, as the former cop who suffers from OCD impresses. I am actually beginning to like this guy as a supporting actor. Can anyone forget the cigar smoking aussie in Salaam Namaste. What?, Eeechatly!!!. Ayesha Takia.. hmm.. nothing much to say. The girl has to learn how to emote. Rushad Rana as Adit is just fine. Nothing much to give, nothing much given. The rest are all veterans who know how to act. Sharmila Tagore, Benjamin Gilani, Girish Karnad, Anant Mahadevan.

The twin Akshay's entrance was good. At times, it made me think that the movie was running in 2 dimensions actually. One in which Akshay the son wants to figure out the killer and the other in which Akshay the killer is on the loose. Nagesh sure knows how to keep one imagining what is next. Towards the end howver, the movie turns a little melodramatic, but thankfully does not linger for more than a minute or two though. Why the twin kills the oracle/tarot card reader still beats me. I felt it was totally unnecessary.

The movie opens with a young Akshay looking over a cliff at a ball that is on the edge of the cliff stuck in some rock. The parents run over, look over the cliff and then take the boy back home. The movie quickly moves to present day where Akshay is living in Canada with Ayeisha Takia in a live in with him. He is a forest ranger with the EPS (Environment Protection Society). He is estranged from his father since their ideals collide with his fathers Caniol polluting and Akshay against pollution.
We are given a feel of Akshay's ability to look at a photograph and visualise the happenings around what happened to people in the photograph in the minutes before the photograph was taken. Though it is harmful to his health, Akshay uses it to help people around.
Akshay's father meets with an accident and is critical. Akshay rushes to the spot and his fathers whispers something to him, which he is not able to understand. The father eventually dies. Akshay has visions of his father asking him to help him and is disturbed. It is at this point that "Happi", a former cop enters. He is confident that Jatin (Akshay's father) was killed. His theory is that since Jatin was an excellent swimmer, there was no way he could have drowned. His theory is that blood pressure tablets were mixed with alcohol and that Jatin was pushed into the water after he drank them, because of the BP tablets and the cold water, Jatin had a heart attack and he died. Akshay does not believe this at the beginning but then with his visions of his dad asking him to help him, goes in search of the photograph that his mother clicked right before the accident.
There are others in the boat where the accident takes place along with Jatin. His brother, friend, his wife and his surrogate son. Akshay uses his "powers" to look in to the happenings of each and everyone on the boat and starts putting things together.
In the end it turns out to be that there is a long lost twin to Akshay (Jeet) who wants to take his place. He uses Sheila (Ayeisha Takia) his lover to get into  Akshay(Jai) life and learn his habits and style so that they can kill Jai and Jeet can step in to his shoes and inherit all the wealth. But the father has a different idea. Jatin wants to give away all his money to EPS, where Jai works and win over his son. So instead of killing Jai, Jeet enlists the help of Sunder (Anant Mahadevan) and Adit to help him kill Jatin. They succeed in doing that by cutting the railing in Jatin's fav spot in his boat and spiking his drink with BP tablets. But then Jai starts his search for the killer and reaches Sunder. So Jeet kills him and then Adit, since Jai finds out about him too. All the while, Jai is unaware of Jeet's existence. He and the family is under the impression that Jeet died when he fell off the cliff(first scene of the movie). The parents move away from India and relocate to Canada and remove all memories of Jeet from Jai's life since he is traumatised from the event and that is when he develops the ability to look in to photographas and envision.
Jeet attempts to murder the mother since she wants to make the fathers dream of giving away all the money to EPS true. But only succeeds in hurting her since Jai, under the impression that Adit is the killer rushes to his mothers house when he learns that she is going to leave everything to EPS. The mother whispers "attic" to Jai as she is rushed to the ambulance. Jai visits the attic and understand that there is a twin. He visits the photograph once again and now looks at the twins face in the boat. As he wakes up, he looks at the twin standing in front of him, thinking he is dead along with Shiela, his supposed lover. Both of them think that Jai is dead since Jeet has burned the photograph, which is very cinematic, however, Jai had taken the adrenalin shot required to wake him before the burning and hence is awake.
After a tussle during which Shiela kills Happi, and Jai does a Houdini underwater, the brother come face to face with Jai ready to accept Jeet, eventhough he killed so many including his father. Sheila at this point tries to kill Jai, Jeet shoots her and in the process get shot himself.
The movie ends with the mother and son laying the photographs of the now really dead brother on a table along with other family photographs.

A day in the life of Superstar

I know this is off –topic. I know this does not get into the Movie Review theme. I also know that I am not going to get another opportunity like this. I also know that I can not meet the ‘Superstar”and “Miss World ” (or is it universe, does not really matter) at the same time.

It started off looking like the last weekend was also going to be the usual boring kind. But, a call from a distant friend changed all that. On Friday 9 Jan I received a call asking if I would be interested in being a part of Rajinikanth’s latest movie Enthiran (Robot in Tamil). Was I thrilled. I said yes, what do I need to do. All she said was that I have to reach the shooting spot at 8am on Sat in formal wear with tie, blazer et all.

All else was forgotten. I got a hair cut, pressed my clothes, blazer and was ready at 6am to leave home. I was joined by 4 friends. All 5 of us set off to see our “thalai” in flesh and blood.

We reach the shooting spot and see around 400-500 ppl dressed in formals there. What’s happening? We find out later that all of them are there for the same reason. What a dampener? We all loose our enthusiasm. The coordinator we were asked to meet there asked us to get in and sit.

I can not give more info of what and where as that would give away something about the movie, right. And Shankar will definitely not like that. After seeing him in action for 2 whole days and the pains he goes through in keeping things under control, you just do not want to “leak” the smallest information knowingly or otherwise.

So back to my story, we all went inside and that is when I noticed that about half of us were in blazers and tie and some in shirt, tie and some with only formal shirt on. So, there was a difference. The assistant directors were running around here and there looking for good “property”, that is how they referred to us all. And they concluded that I was one of the “good” property. Hence, I was asked to sit in the second row of one section of seats. One of my friends was asked to sit in the first row and was informed that Danny Denzongpa (this is common info that he is part of the movie) was going to sit next to him (my friend. Iwas thrilled. I was going to sit next to one of the main characters and had all chances of getting in the “frame”. While all these thoughts were running in my mind, I was asked to move to the next section first row, in between 2 old men. :-(, imagine my plight.

The assistant director then came to me and asked me to kind of sit “down” in my seat. He told me that I am blocking the view of the person sitting behind me. I turned around and saw an empty seat there. Duh!! What was he doing?

It is 9am and in walks the Superstar. A thunderous applause breaks out, shouts of “thalaivaa” nearly brings the set down. One wave of his hand and the crowd nearly calms down. Now starts the Superstars day. The man breezes through the day. He does not flinch an eyelid if he has to stand rooted in one place for even about 10-15 mins for the lighting to be set. While most stars would make someone else stand in for them, the Superstar does not mind doing it himself. Carries his chair wherever he goes. Talks to everyone on the set. Mingles with them. I mean, he does everything that we have heard that he does, and it is very clearly not because he has to “live upto” the expectations set, but it just comes to him naturally. That’s all.

Imagine my excitement, when it turned out that the “person” I was covering up was the Superstar. Yes, he was sitting right behind me and beside him was Aish.

What else can a die hard Rajini fan who has never set foot inside a shooting spot hope for.

That day and the next almost breezed past me as I was sitting there either in front of Rajini or sitting in the front row watching the man perform.

I also got to shake hands with him and get his autograph, that’s only a bonus, considering that I got to watch the man for 2 whole days.

So, what does the title got to do with the blog. I could go on and on writing about him. His humility and stuff like that. But that would require too much time.