My Addiction

I was sitting and doing my pre-read for my Consumer Behaviour class, and there was this case about people who are loyal followers of coffee, and I was amazed to think see how coffee can act as a substitute for so many different things to different people; for one person choosing gourmet coffee provided the only variety in life, for another it was the means for social acceptance which she lost because she was a lesbian (I am serious this was present in a B-school case study) and another person received virtually orgasmic pleasure (not mentioned in as many words)by observing the process of espresso coffee being made. And I couldn’t help but think to myself that these guys must be absolute losers, for their lives to revolve around a brand of coffee. And then it just stuck me, that this thought came from a guy who vehemently follows a football club which plays several thousand miles away from my home, whom I have never ever seen play in person, after whom I named my blog, and last night I spoilt my throat shouting at a television, in the hope that my sound waves will cause that tiny ripple (akin to a butterfly’s wings) which will become the cyclone in Rome which causes one of their bitterest rivals to lose a football match (in all fairness it worked as cyclone Barcelona literally blew Manchester United out of the park).  Yes folks, the realisation dawned on me, I too am one of those losers, I too have an insane, unjustified addiction and it’s called Arsenal Football Club.

But I am not the only one, all across the world there are several thousand football fans (and sports fans) who behave like addicts, often driven to anger and violence by their addiction. For instance 200 Barcelona supporters were arrested last night after celebration of their win went violent, this like the delirium of an addiction which causes you to lose control. On the other end of the spectrum, you had the case in Africa, where a bus of Manchester United supporters ran over and killed 4 Barca fans, deliberately. This is a case where the addiction takes you to new levels of despair. Following a football team (or any sports team for that matter) is not only a passion, but can be an addiction. And this post is about that addiction, to an extent and perhaps few other things I can’t classify.

Let me start, the way they do in Alcoholics Anonymous and those other addiction centres, by stating the fact that I am an addict. I am a crazy fan of Arsenal. I have stayed up till 12 30 Am watching Arsenal beat Tottenham Hotspur to win the EPL championship, the day before my 12^th Std board exam. I travelled for 10 hours last month from Coorg, only to be able to watch Arsenal vs Liverpool, I have title my blog in its honour. And I abuse random people I don’t even know, with most profoundly disturbing insults, simply because they are not supporting Arsenal. I guess that should qualify for a mild addiction at least. But there are a lot of people who have such an addiction, at some level or another. So I got to thinking why people support certain football clubs, and I realized that what football club people support seems to reflect a lot on their psychology (just like the coffee study and the brand that the people followed revealed a lot about their life). For instance in my brief experience, I have observed, Arsenal fans, seem to be the most talkative vociferous type, who often like to engage in debates (intellectual or otherwise), they tend to talk a lot and will take you up on an argument on any topic (often also characterized by a strong sense of cynicism and sarcasm). Manchester United fans usually are quieter, and have a sort of silent arrogance (only in matters of football, no offence meant to any Man U fans, what the heck I am an Arsenal fan, all the offence meant), who require serious goading to get into a debate. Delving a bit deeper, why are Arsenal fans like that, or rather why do people with the above mentioned personality support Arsenal? Probably because Arsenal as a team lends itself to a lot of debate and usually such people like to be on the side of the debate which requires a bit more argument. For instance one of the arguments I frequently get into, is why Arsenal are a better football team, and represent the game better than Man Utd, despite the fact that Man Utd are not a bad team (footbalisticly speaking, otherwise they are the pure embodiment of evil) and are far more successful. Also people like us have a very high opinion of ourselves and perceive ourselves to be the ‘intellectual ones’ who are true admirers of beauty and aesthetics, and follow the truly pure brand of football. Man Utd fans on the other hand support the team which exemplifies the notions of ruthlessness and the killer edge, which characterize modern sport and modern society in general. These fans often aspire to have these values, think they have them or simply like to revel in the glory of others who do. Lastly, like any addiction, there is a certain takeaway. Fans who support successful teams, usually do it for the fact that their team’s success gives them solace when things don’t go right for them personally, fans who support their local community’s team do so because it transfers a portion of the feeling of success from their team on to them by virtue of the community connect (unfortunately it is also true for failure, which is why generally fans under this category are the one who react in the most extreme manner) and then there is me. This is where the post gets a little personal.

Why do I support Arsenal? Why do I continue to spend energy in this pointless pursuit (incidentally my one outstanding desire in life is to watch Arsenal play live)? Why have I named my blog after Arsenal, because, Arsenal in a manner of speaking represents the motivation of my blog. I usually tend to write my blog at the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum, either when I am delirious or severely pissed. And Arsenal represents that flip flop between the two extremes. And that is the ultimate answer to the addiction question. Most addictions, like sports teams, coffee brands and even religion, are the desire for the emotional flip flops which sometimes normal life can’t provide. Just to expand a little, a professor of once explained to me how cigarette addiction works. When you smoke cigarettes it releases a hormone which produces chemicals in your brain which give you a ‘high’, and over a course of time that level of chemicals ultimately becomes the normal amount required to maintain mental stability, hence it forms an addiction. Similarly people follow sports teams initially when they need a pick me up or some excitement, and soon it becomes a common place part of their emotional needs. Sports teams not only give us an outlet to express our emotions but often generate them. That’s why Arsenal games (and other football related activity) in addition to other events of my life act as a spur to many of my blogs.

Finally, why this post? A dear friend of mine once said she couldn’t understand why I was crazy about a stupid football team, and wrote angry rants and ridiculous appeals to God because of them. So I started thinking myself and it leads me to some of these conclusions. And at last, you might wonder whether this is an agony blog or an ecstasy blog. Well, Barcelona just hammered the crap out of Manchester United last night, and I spent tonight at a party dancing with some lovely ladies. So what do you think?

Ciao

Note: I am not a trained psychologist or an expert on any human behaviour (except mine), so a lot of these ideas could be just hot air, and the observations are based on my limited observation set. So if I have offended anybody with these generalizations, my sincerest apologies (unless you are a Man Utd Fan). It was probably the fact that I am beginning a course on consumer behaviour tomorrow and this is my mind’s way of doing warm up

Armageddon Avoided - For Now

Last night we were two minutes away from the end of the beautiful game and just as I thought that for the second year in a row I would have to endure the torture of having to sit around and watch Chelsea and Manchester United run around like headless chickens on a football pitch testing each others stamina and the audience's patience,  Barcelona scored in the 92nd minute against Chelsea to reach the Champions League final. yesterday I was thinking that if Chelsea and Manchester United met for the 2nd time consecutively in the Champions League final, then that was it for football, the game of football would have been shot in the face and left for dead in the streets, to be defecated on by street animals. Sounds a little extreme? Well the fact is simple, between the two of them, Manchester United and Chelsea, represent most of what is wrong with modern football.

Chelsea, well for starters their performance over two legs against Barcelona was shameful, it typical personified the modern day philosophy of 'doing what it needs to win'. Chelsea have long forgotten what football is all about a fact so succinctly reflected over the two games against Barcelona, made even more obvious by the beautiful game of Barca. Chelsea have always succeeded by playing the ugly form of football, something you would expect from teams struggling to avoid relegation in the Premier League, not a championship contender. It's made uglier by the fact that they have some of the most despicable footballers on the planet, John ' I can get away with murder' Terry, Frank 'Kick the ball on the opponents foot to take it to goal' Lampard, and of course Didier 'I can dive better than Michael Phelps or Cristiano Ronaldo' Drogba. Over the course of the last 4 years, Roman Abramovich and his Russian revolution at Chelsea, have been the prime cause for football to become billionaire's playground and it was Chelsea who started the trend of football teams growing mountains of unsustainable debt which might ultimately one day come back to bite them, and possibly the whole of football in the ass. And not to mention that their behaviour last night was deplorable, I mean, Drogba spent so much time on his back, that beyond a point it was difficult to make out whether he was trying to earn a penalty or was issuing some primitive mating call. And after the whistle, the Chelsea players literally assaulted the referee (God Bless the utter ineptitude of that imbecilic Norwegian referee). 

And Manchester United are evil personified, and what is worse is that just because they are successful, they seem to get away with it all. Its true they are successful and play decent football, but their utter lack of sportsmanship makes them the worst ambassadors for sport in the world. And instead of listing all that is wrong with them, I will just say this, they are like the Australian cricket team under Waugh, and for every Indian cricket fan that should be enough.

So ultimately on May 27th, it comes down to the Battle of Good vs Evil, and the fate of football rests in the hand of a little maestro supported by a noble team, which kind of reminded me of the Lord of the Rings, so I got to thinking, if this was a footballing version of LOTR,then who would be the main characters. So here goes 

The Good Guys

Gandolf - Pep Guardiola (Barca manager)

Frodo - Lionel Messi

Samwise Gamgee - Samuel Eto'o (well he's got the name Sam)

Arragaon - Theirry Henry (the King will return)

Legolas - Xavi (he passes with the stunning accuracy of an expert marksman)

Gimli - Yaya Toure (he's big strong and not so bright)

Merry and Pippin - Andres Iniesta (the way he's playing now he's equal to 2 hobbits at least)

Boromir - Dani Alves (well he kind of dies before the real fun begins, just as Alves won't be playing the final)

Elrond - Sylvinho (wise man, has been around for a while, doesn't actually do much in the war)

Arwen - Gerard Pique (well he looks like a Girl a bit and also he's a former Manchester United Player)

Army of Evil

Mordor - Old Trafford (the seat of all evil, with it's evil eye turned towards Rome)

Sauron - Anything Manchester United (the very embodiment of evil)

Saruman - Alex Ferguson (very skilled and powerful, but equally arrogant and all in all annoying pain in the ass)

Army of Orcs - The Rest of the Manchester United team ("Although not dim-witted and even crafty, they ugly, miserable beings, hate everyone including themselves and their masters, whom they serve out of fear. They make no beautiful things, but rather design cunning devices made to hurt and destroy" - Wikipedia)

There you go, the stage is set and hopefully forces of good will triumph.

Thank God Its Wednesday !!!

Since here at SPJIMR we live our lives in between Wednesdays, i've decided to start a sort of "my week in review" section, every wednesday.

The High Points:

Well never thought I would say this, but the high point of my week was my trimester end exams. Oh yes those God awful exams which made me cringe during my times in Engineering, are actually a welcome relief in a B-School. Without saying much more I'll just give you guys a few facts; I slept for about 7 hours on an average during the 3 days of exams, while my average sleep time durina a normal working day at SP is about 4.5 to 5 hours. Perplexed! Me too. In fact my average sleep time during exams in engineering was about 3 to 4 hours. Somehow studying for exams seems utterly pointless, considering I actually ended up doing reasonably well (well enough to be in the middle 50% of the class, where I am extremely happy to be).


Well enough of exams, another good high for the week was the Federal $700 Billion bailout being rejected, although the stock markets didn't react to it that well. However I feel it is a good thing, particularly because the bailout would be equivalent to rewarding the recklesness and greed of the largest corporations in the world, which put us in this mess in the first place. However personal feelings aside, the B-school student in me tells me that in the long run it would be in the best interest of the economy as a whole for these companies to survive, even if it means rewarding (or atleast rescuing) their stupidity. Again however opinion on that front is divided, read this point of view from a Harvard Economist

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html



The Lows:

"What the HULL?"

Sorry for ripping of Times' headline, but that was my low point in the week, to watch agonisingly, on Saturday, as Arsenal lost (at home) to Hull City.It was a truly painful experience. Didn't help my exam preparations either! And it was made worse by the, awesome performance of Arsenal against Porto yesterday, which shows how awful a day Saturday truly was. And it troubles me that Arsenal are become one of the mercurial sides, who can go from the sublime to the ridiculous in a matter of days. And the problem is, earlier when Arsenal lost it was because of some lack of killer edge, or failure to convert their exceptional football into results, but this season whenever they lose, it it because they have played terribly, without any commitment or desire. That hurts as a fan.


Well I have to mention it cause it happened, the bomb blasts. Seems every time I sit down to write a blog, there has been a blast. And I am truly speechless about what to say about these hideous acts. We seemed to be trapped in a vicious cycle of hate and counter-hate, which just doesn't show signs of ending.I truly regret my words in the last blog where I said that I wouldn't think about these things till the next blast. I get the feeling maybe I tempted fate there. But honestly I would consider it a perfect week, if the next time I write a post I could do so without using the words bomb or blast. However tomorrow is Gandhi Jayanti and the 'International Day for Non-Violence', I just hope God does not like irony.



WTH Wednesday

Well this is the moment of the week which made me go WTH!!! (What the Hell), I do it quite frequently but this is the one moment where I meant it.

Well for this week's WTH (more of a WTF) moment; it's a truly comical moment, and I am sure Mr.Murphy will be rolling over in laughter in his grave, looking at Ferrari and saying "I told you so!!!", because what happened with Ferrari in the Singapore GP on Sunday, must surely come under the category of "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong".
I mean allowing a car to move with the fuel hose still attached to the car, is something I wouldn't expect from Indian petrol pump attendents, let alone a Ferrari pit crew, who I guess might be better paid than most B-School graduates (well maybe not)! It was just one of those moments that doesn't make you just laugh but rather roll on the floor with the kind of sarcastic laughter which Nelson has in The Simpsons (he basically points at the person and goes "Ha Ha", repeatedly). I mean for all the money that Ferrari spends on the car, and the fuel and the technology, you would think they can refuel the damn thing without a glitch. Too bad it happened to Ferrari, would have been even funnier, had it been Mclaren, or funnier still had it been Fernando Alonso, in fact Alonso might have gotten out of the car at that very moment and started throwing a hissy fit, as it happened the whiny cry baby spaniard, went on to win the race.

Random Nonsense

One interesting thing I realised this weekend was that, somehow exams seemed to bring out the worst in even the most talented people. And by worst I mean, people who you think could breeze through papers are actually fretting over it, losing sleep and getting nervous. Which kind of really surprised me until I came across this really good article:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Columns/Impostor.html

And it really seemed to connect with me, cause this is a feeling I have gone through personally, especially in a place like SP, where I am sorrounded by some incredible talent, it seems difficult not to feel out of place and wonder whether I deserve to be here. But then after reading that article, it was sort of comforting. And as Harsha Bhogle says, in his speech at IIM-C (a must watch), "One thing the college taught me is...that I after coming here I felt that I have arrived". And it is true, because for once after going through one rigorous, hellacious month at SPJIMR, I finally feel that this is something I can do, that maybe SPJIMR knows what is is doing when they selected me. And maybe soon I will be able to say, I too have arrived.

On that bright note. Ciao .

And SP Rocks!!!

Random Words on a Wednesday : "They claim to be be free-market advocates when its really an anything-goes mentality: no regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail you will have a golden parachute and the taxpayer will bail you out." - Nancy Pelosi

"Pinky: Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?

The Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world. "

The Gun(ner)s were Blazing...But unfortunately,so were the bombs...

Well, another saturday goes by, where the rest of the world enjoys a nice weekend while the future leaders of the country at SPJIMR slog their asses away. We had yet another gruelling mid-term today, DMS. And although my performance wasn't particularly heartening, I will say one thing, God bless the man who invented relative grading (you are not screwed, If everyone else is also screwed). And btw, if you seem to discover a pattern amongst my posts, wherein almost every post has some quiz or mid-term mentioned in it, it's because of 2 reasons mainly : 1) There are just so many of them!!! As one of my friends puts it, when we first came here our reactions to quizzes was - WHAT!!!, and now it is - So what!.

2) With so many quizzes around it's probably, there is no time for anything else here, its the most worthwhile bloggable thing that happens around here.

It was a mixed day really, after the dampner of the DMS mid term, my favorite team in the world, brought a smile back to my face, as the The Gunners demolished Blackburn Rovers with a 4-0 scoreline and a 5-star performance. And it seems Adebayor finally put his shooting boots back on,as he got a hattrick. And if anyone wonders why this team is so special, Arsenal finished the game, with a team on the pitch whose average age of the outfield players was around 23. And the entire team probably costs less than one whiny cry baby Dimitar Berbatov, whose presence could not prevent Manchester United from losing to a Liverpool team without their 2 best players. I do remember somebody saying Man Utd sucks without Ronaldo, oh wait a second, that was me. 

Earlier this week I posted about the futility of rankings, particularly for educational institutions. A couple of my friends told me that I was wrong, and not that I am trying to justify my position, but take a look at this, a ranking for B-Schools, by one of the most popular networks in the country:

http://campusfever.com/blog/forms/zee-bschool-survey

Please do pay attention to the positioning of IIPM in the rankings. And every B-School student or aspirant knows where IIPM stands. And its not just this one fact, look at the various sub-categories given in the rankings. With any amount of decent research and information gathering it is extremely easy to see what a piece of crap these rankings really are. I am not even going to get into the details. But just one glimpse, MDI, Gurgaon, arguably one of the best in the country when it comes to infrastructure is ranked as low as 13th.

The day however ended on a sour note, with the bombings at Delhi. Its really sad to see these kind of incidences occuring so frequently now. And I don't what to jump on the 'attack the government' bandwagon, but really isn't there anything we can do about these things. The cloud of fear is slowly creeping over this nation, and it has almost reached a stage where all the citizens of the major cities are living in a constant state of fear. In fact I remember about a couple of months ago, when the blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad took place, a week after that I had to travel to Marine drive by train for a class assignment, I had to think twice before travelling and almost postponed the trip, because of the threat of an attack. It has almost become a perennial Sword of Damocles, hanging over our heads. And I know we have almost made a catchphrase out of the whole India bounces back again and again thing, but there has to be a limit. We shouldn't have to bounce back so often. Someday we might just stay down. And this attack comes on the eve of one of the biggest celebrations in Mumbai, the Ganesh visarjan and I do believe the mood for the festivities will be dampened by today's events and the extreme security bound to present tomorrow.

May peace be with the families of those affected by this act.

Random Quotes for the Day: "Terrorism is contempt for human dignity"

It's been a good Weekend...

First of all a little fact about life at SP, we consider our weekends to be Wednesday night and Thursday (Thur is the only day off for us), but since the rest of the world still considers Saturday and Sunday as weekends, for their convenience I'll refer to them as such.

And this has been a good, wait scratch that out, excellent weekend.

To start of with, Man Utd got their rear ends handed to them on Friday night by Zenit St.Petersburg in the UEFA super cup. Which also proved what I told all those annoying Man U fans, who happened to be my roomates a year back, that without Cristiano Ronaldo, Man Utd is like the Apple portfolio without the iPod, big name with a lot of stature but absolutely no substance (I have reserved my judgement for the iPhone for later).

And then we had a quiz on ITB (IT in Business) on Saturday, which I managed to survive with absolutely no preparation. After that I was able to watch Arsenal return to their old self against Newcastle with a fab performance (it was like watching poetry in motion).

And then today I had an Operations Management mid-term which I yet again survived. And I also came to a very important realisation. The fundamental difference between a B-School and Engg is that the performance in a test is not directly related to the amount you study. Which suits me just fine!!!! I almost wanted to scream out "Im Lovin it!!!" after the test, but then realised best not to anger the almighty test Gods, who haven't been particularly kind to me this trimester. The icing(s) on the cake came when, Chelsea and Liverpool both drew, and just on a side note, Liverpool have now officially become the most boring football team on the planet. And those good for nothing snobs, AC Milan also got what they deserved, losing their first match of the season (no team has ever done well after stealing players from Arsenal).

Well now I'm off trying to study for my FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) Mid term tomorrow. Hopefully my good weekend will spill over to the week also.

Random Thought for the Day: "Fast, Cheap, and Good... pick two. If it's fast and cheap, it won't be good. If it's cheap and good, it won't be fast. If it's fast and good, it won't be cheap." Fast, cheap and good... pick two words to live by. - Tom Waits

Cheers.

Arsenal and SP Rock

Post Numero Uno

Well, I'll begin my blogging escapades with football..more specifically Arsenal (you should have seen this coming when you saw the title).

Arsenal fans' are one of the most rarest things in sport...I mean who in their right mind would support the Gunners,its a team without superstars- a team which in fact refuses to buy
superstars, a team which very frequently crosses the boundaries between the sublime and the dismal and very often leaves its fans infuriated (kinda like the Indian Cricket Team). So its no surprise that over the past few years, Arsenal fans have begun deserting their team. So, the question being why do I support Arsenal, infact a lot of people would find it easy to support other teams like Man Utd with their Portugese Paladin or Chelsea and their bags of Russian money or the Champions League experts Liverpool. The answer to put it simply in one word - football.

Yes, Football, the sport which amidst all the championships, the trophies, the transfers, the board room power games, we all seem to forget.The sport who's single greatest exponents on the planet are a bunch of 20 something year olds with a French Manager playing in North London.
For the football lover nothing is better than watching Arsenal on a good day, their intricate playing style is arguably the most exciting thing in football today.Now a lot of people might disagree with that statement, particularly fans of Man Utd,who have scored more goals and have been flying this year. And while that might be true the fact is Arsenal have played their brand of football year in year out, in their most succesful and their most barren years, they still play the same way. And that is what you love about Arsenal's football culture, it's unfettered by results, independant of personnel and has grown to become the hallmark of the team. And all this is down to one man, Arsene Wenger , their inspirational manager, who has transformed this once puritan english club into the most energetic brand in modern football. A man who has come into severe criticism for his transfer policy and what is often see as a stubborn selection policy, but would I give up Arsenal's brand of football for a boring collection of superstars ala Chelsea, or for Liverpool who bore opponents to death and win the UCL- not a chance in hell.

And eventually come to think of it football or sport for that matter is all about entertainment, I mean the Ronaldo's and Ronaldinho's of the world wouldnt make their big bucks if not for the entertainment value of sport, so why not support good football rather than trophies or cups. After all if winning trophies was all that mattered then Ricky Ponting would be placed above Sachin Tendulkar, now that would be a travesty. And finally as a last testament to Arsenal's footballing magic, consider this - on Tuesday at Anfield the mere presence of Arsenal, caused Liverpool, the most boring team on the Planet (when it comes to the UCL) to be involved in one of the most exciting matches of the season.

Go Gunners. (My next football post after the Arsenal - Man Utd match on sunday)