Prashant Paleja

Yesterday is History,
Tomorrow is a Mystery,
Today is a Gift,
And that's why it is know as 'The PRESENT'
~ Master Oogway, Kungfu Panda

[Prashant Paleja @PrashantPaleja]

@rishabhm Don't think he has every been to a cricket match in India

[Prashant Paleja @PrashantPaleja]

@upendraho @worshipVK @GautamGambhir Ego or not, @GautamGambhir was the coach of Indian team which won the world cup before this match !! @BCCI

[TMZ @TMZ]

⭐ David Beckham gets a Hollywood star, son Brooklyn is not there, but Tom Cruise is. https://t.co/0S7HKtn6Yx

[Ban Dilzerian @BanDilzerian69]

@worshipVK Now that's what you call peak detailing.

[D Prasanth Nair @DPrasanthNair]

The movie "Anand" hurts differently once you grow older.

As children, you notice Rajesh Khanna’s charm.
That smile. That warmth. That impossible ability to make even illness look full of life.

Then adulthood arrives and suddenly Babu Moshai starts making sense too.

Amitabh Bachchan’s silence in that film is extraordinary. He spends half the movie watching Anand live loudly while quietly preparing himself for loss. And somewhere between them, Hrishikesh Mukherjee creates one of Hindi cinema’s gentlest heartbreaks.

“Babumoshai… zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahin.”

That dialogue survived generations for a reason.

Notice how simple the film looks today.
No manipulative background score screaming for tears. No dramatic hospital glamour. Just conversations, humanity and the unbearable knowledge that some people enter life briefly only to leave permanent emotional damage behind.

Even the ending feels strangely quiet.
Like somebody important just left the room… but their voice is still floating around somewhere.

Rcvd from WA (courtesy FB page Timeless Indian Melodies)
@SanjayMuthal

[Erik Solheim @ErikSolheim]

Why is the West not curious on the great Indian 🇮🇳 civilization?

This week Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Norway. The government rolled out the red carpet. King Harald invited for lunch. All bigwigs of Norwegian business turned up. This is of course as it should be at such a historic visit.

Rather different was media. No curiosity, no real attempt to understand India. When the third most powerful man in the world visits Norway, you may expect some real interest? An attempt to understand the world’s third largest economy, a global green leader, one of the world’s brightest civilizations??

It’s not that Norway is overrun with visit at this level. Last Indian top visit was Indira Gandhi in 1983. Last Chinese president visit was 1996, last American president was 2009.

Here are some taste bits from Norwegian media:

* Aftenposten the largest newspaper printed a caricature of Modi as a snake charmer, many found it racist and derogatory. The accompanying article (written by an otherwise brilliant journalist) described Modi as a “slightly annoying man” and simply showcased that India is not high on the papers reading lists.

* Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK), the state broadcaster, explained “why prime minister Støre is clearing his desk to receive Modi”. From everyone outside Norway I got exactly the opposite question: Why did Modi use his valuable time in such a small and insignificant place?

* Dagsavisen, a left of center daily, sent a young journalist to throw questions after Modi - claiming that India is 157 on a global democracy ranking. When a ranking is so contrary to common sense - why doesnt she ask those who created the ranking why they spread such nonsense?

I am not aware of one Norwegian journalist closely following India. NOT ONE! How can the public learn more?

Unless you believe democracy only fits a handful of small, homogenous, ultra rich western nations, India is the miracle of democracy. The large, complex, lingustically and religiously diverse nation with many poor people - which has etablished a vibrant democracy and is much less violent than Europe or America.

India can in fact make a claim to be the worlds most homegrown and impressive democracy.

We are entering the Asian century. Unless we Europeans become more curious - to civiliazation, history, politics and economy in the Global South - we will become the big losers of history.

[Simons @Simon_Ingari]

HR: We lost another senior employee today.

CEO: What happened?

HR: He resigned after receiving an external offer.

CEO: That makes no sense. We could have matched it.

HR: That is the issue. We were willing to pay a stranger 70% more for the same role, but would not give our existing employee even a 20% raise.

CEO: External hiring is different. That is market pricing.

HR: He noticed that too.

CEO: We appreciated his loyalty. He had been here for years.

HR: Yes. And during those years, he consistently exceeded expectations while being told to “wait for the next review cycle.”

CEO: But budgets are complicated for internal employees.

HR: Apparently not for external candidates. The new hire budget was approved in three days. His raise request sat for eight months.

CEO: We had to stay competitive in the hiring market.

HR: He was part of that same market. The only difference is that another company valued him before we did.

CEO: So he left over salary?

HR: Not just salary. He left because he realized loyalty was being rewarded less than leaving.

CEO: That is unfortunate.

HR: Yes. Companies will sometimes trust a candidate after a 45-minute interview more than an employee who already proved themselves for five years.

CEO: So what are you saying?

HR: If companies only recognize employee value after a resignation letter appears, then eventually employees will stop waiting to be appreciated internally.

Sometimes the fastest way for an employee to get market value is to stop being your employee.

[Giorgia Meloni @GiorgiaMeloni]

Thank you for the gift

[Luis Garicano 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @lugaricano]

Countries get the cabinets they pay for. Singapore pays its Foreign Minister about S$1.1m, around US$800,000. The salary is benchmarked to 60% of the median income of the top 1,000 Singaporean earners. That is why you can get Vivian Balakrishnan, former eye surgeon and hospital chief executive, implementing @karpathy's external brain idea (link below). The speech shows deep understanding of AI and fills one with confidence about Singapore's future.

The UK Foreign Secretary earns roughly £165,000: the MP salary plus a ministerial salary of about £67,000. The ministerial part is frozen since the crisis and is down by roughly a third in real terms since 2010. This is what a junior Magic Circle lawyer earns.

Spain pays its ministers around €85,000. So you do not get a surgeon who has run hospitals. You get a party loyalist who has never run anything.

[Cricketopia @CricketopiaCom]

“He (Tendulkar) can’t bat”🤣

~ Ganguly

What a wholesome video from 2005, when Sachin Tendulkar broke Sunil Gavaskar’s record for the most Test hundreds.

The celebration from Yuvraj, Sehwag, Dhoni, Kumble, Dravid and Dada 🎉🥂🥳🎁🍾🎈��

[Mufaddal Vohra @mufaddal_vohra]

Virat Kohli said, “the other day I was talking to Kane Williamson, then suddenly Champak appeared. I told the other guy to take it away, I can’t even a conversation with Kane. It’ll make headlines ‘Kane mama with King Kohli’ and what not, I mean I know him since U19 days. Sometimes it’s too much”.

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

Mental strength is not a gift, it is something that you have to work very hard to develop.

A masterclass on focus, by Novak Djokovic

[Prashant Paleja @PrashantPaleja]

@SagarH62 Craig McDermott

[Prashant Paleja @PrashantPaleja]

@SagarH62 Alan Lamb

[Prashant Paleja @PrashantPaleja]

@NehraWorkss You are factually wrong. sameer and Rahul chari were both my classmates in enginnering and that's not BITs Pilani !!

[KV Iyyer - BHARAT 🇮🇳🇮🇱 @BanCheneProduct]

Late Shri Manohar Parrikar Ji once narrated his ordeal.

"I'm from Parra, a village in Goa, so we're called 'Parrikars.' My village is famous for its watermelons. When I was a child, the farmers there held a 'Watermelon Eating Contest' in May, after the harvest. All the children were invited and asked to eat as many watermelons as they wanted.

Many years later, I went to IIT Mumbai to study engineering. Then I returned to my village after 6.5 years. I went to the market to look for watermelons. But they were gone. The ones I found were very small.

I went to meet the farmer who used to hold the 'Watermelon Eating Contest.' Now his son had taken his place. He still held the contest, but there was a difference. When the old farmer offered us watermelons to eat, he would ask us to spit the seeds into a bowl. We were forbidden to chew the seeds. He was collecting seeds for the next crop.

We were, in effect, unpaid child laborers.

He would keep his best watermelons for the competition, using them as the best. He obtained good seeds, which produced even bigger watermelons the next year. When his son arrived, he thought the larger ones would fetch a higher price in the market, so he started selling the larger ones and keeping the smaller ones for competition. The next year, the watermelons grew smaller, and the next even smaller. A watermelon generation lasts one year.

In seven years, Parra's best watermelons were wiped out. In humans, a generation changes every 25 years. In 200 years, we will realize the mistakes we were making in educating our children.

Selecting good seeds, that is, talent, is a huge task in itself. Due to irrelevant ideas and useless things, our good watermelons will go to market, leaving us with useless, inferior seeds.

We must think about this in today's context.

[Ananth Rupanagudi @Ananth_IRAS]

ACP Sanjay Singh of @DelhiPolice had played cricket with Gambhir and Kohli. He is a traffic cop with 20 years experience. As a former cricketer, it was his instinct which told him Ngidi’s injury was a bad one.

He took the call to activate the green corridor, an emergency route to allow uninterrupted passage that is generally reserved for organ donation.

The ambulance with Ngidi and ACP Sanjay Singh, reached the hospital in 11 minutes, instead of 40 or so. 60 cops were involved for that 11 minutes. Ngidi is stable Maybe it is due to that call. Well done, sir! #IPL #DelhiPolice #Ngidi

[Abhishek AB @ABsay_ek]

Since 2023, Rinku Singh's strike rate in last 2 overs of T20 is 256.7. Best in the world for anyone who has faced minimum 75 balls. In 20th over alone, it climbs to 275.6. Again, best in the world, minimum 35 balls. These numbers are acts of violence against probability.

Since 2022, no one batting at 5 or lower has made more runs while carrying a better average & strike rate than his 40.5 & 150.2.(2553 runs) His strike rate is higher than likes of Miller, Pandya, Stubbs. Yet the conversation around him has never been about what he does. It has always been about what he costs.

13 crore. That is the shadow that follows him. The retention price that turned underdog into target. In 2024 & 2025, when the runs dried up & the caught dismissals piled up, the same timelines that once called him "Lord" turned forensic.
Excel sheets appeared. Graphs showed a 68% drop from his 2023 season. Wrist-spin was his kryptonite. He was a one season wonder. A fraud propped up by one over of 5 sixes. The experts did their work with the cold satisfaction of people who have never faced a yorker at 145 kph, let alone buried their father & returned to camp within days.

Khanchand Singh delivered LPG cylinders in Aligarh. Loaded them onto a tempo. Brought them to houses where people cooked dinner. Rinku was so close to taking a sweeper's job as a boy that the what-ifs still hurt to imagine.
His father watched him practice on such grounds that Mumbai kids would not warm up on. In February this year, Khanchand died of stag 4 liver cancer. Rinku was with India's T20 World Cup squad. He left. He performed the last rites. He carried the body. He came back.
"Farz sabse aage hai."; that's what his father taught to him. He posted after the World Cup win that his father's dream was fulfilled. Then he showed up for KKR as vice-captain.

Here is what the spreadsheets miss. In those quiet seasons, Rinku was batting at 6 or. And he is kind of batter who takes his time initially & then explode. The 2026 season gave him responsibility. Number 5. A top order that kept collapsing. A franchise that looked like it had forgotten how to win.

Against Rajasthan Royals, he walked in at 85 for 6. Needed 69 from 39. Scratched to 8. Got dropped. Reset. Took 16 off Bishnoi without swinging wildly. Broke Jofra Archer in the death.
7 days later, 31 for 4 against LSG, which became 93 for 7. Mohsin Khan was shredding them. Rinku made 83 not out. Absorbed pressure for 30 balls. Then 4 sixes in final over & 43 runs in last 2 overs. Took 5 catches in the field as well Including a grab of Markram that made no physical sense. Then hit the winning runs in Super Over.

The same accounts that wanted him dropped were writing apology threads by 26th April. Cricket forgets fast. But Rinku does not. He remembers Aligarh. He remembers the cylinders. He remembers the man who believed in him when there was no reason to.
And he keeps walking back to the middle, every single time, because that is what the job demands.

[Joy Bhattacharjya @joybhattacharj]

One of the most fascinating parts of the of the IPL is celebrity stalking by fans at the team hotels. It has always reminded me of big game spotting at sanctuaries. I wrote this around 13 years ago, when MI were in Kolkata for a match.
"It's like the watering hole at Corbett Park. They arrive in their Sonatas and Scorpios and lie in wait at the ITC coffee shop, talking in loud whispers over the third helping of masala dosa. Apparently, Sachin was spotted here yesterday. The wife spots Pollard and sidles up behind him so that some one can take a photo. Another pair of minor sightings,Munaf, and a thin guy they could not recognize(Dhawal Kulkarni). It's like seeing chital and boar while waiting for tiger.
A plump son stares disconsolately at his empty plate while the father indulgently tells a flunky, 'kal raat me jo aaye the.. unhe kuch nahin dikha.. morning main hi dikhta hai.'
They see Kumble flash by before the son could recognise him. Then papa finally decides to throw his weight around and calls a waiter and asks him to take the boy to Jonty. The poor man is put out of his misery by Jonty who suddenly gets up and rushes back to his room.
The boy waits, his croissant arrives...

[Mohan Sinha 🇮🇳 @Mohansinha]

I still remember the day as clear as daylight. I had just moved to then Gurgaon in 1998. We were having a few beers at 32nd Milestone, which is off the Delhi-Jaipur Highway. The kids were playing pool. It was the usual sultry day. Then He started his assault. I was watching on the big screen. Suddenly, the kids had stopped playing pool. They were watching the TV. Every eye in the restaurant was on the TV. You could sense it that day that something unique was about to happen. More beer flowed, food arrived. But nobody moved from their seats, except to jump and cheer as The Master showed to the world why he was the greatest. And he was still only 25.