So, the prince of Calcutta is back in the squad. The selectors' love for new blood seems to have been bloodied by those string of bloody defeats in the recent past. And so the good old experienced masters of Indian cricket are back in the reckoning. The very very special Laxman from nowhere has become the vice-captain of the team and Ganguly is expected to be the mainstay of Indian batting lineup.
Guru Greg's experimentation with the youth seems not to have gone down well with the BCCI chief Sharad Pawar who himself has shown extraordinary interest in the team selection this time. Instead of the usual meeting in Mumbai, the venue for selection was shifted to the unsporting Delhi. Facing opposition from the MPs over Chappel's comment, the board chief, himself a shrewd politician, convened the meeting in Delhi to convey the "popular sentiment" of the political class, who are in turn the representatives of the People of India, to the selectors. Though I am happy that Ganguly has made a comeback to the team, I am not particularly pleased with the politics played over his selection. Now, the critics have all the reasons to "reason" that Ganguly's inclusion in the team owes to the perpetual tirade launched by the Left. Please, he has scored more than 15 centuries in one days and has won many games for India besides being the most successful captain. If numbers are the staple diet of politicians, shouldn't Saurav have an upper hand? He deserves to be in the team.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The two Bhartis
The name Bharti rings a bell everytime it appears in newspapers. It does remind me of an emerging India and also of a patriarchal India. If you have been reading the morning papers, you must have noticed Bharti occupying a slot in the front page. One a mournful lover, the other a telecom giant.
Both have a foreign connection now. While Bharti Yadav has settled abroad in London after her brothers brutally killed her lover Nitish Katara in 2002, the telecom major has forged an alliance with US retail leader Wal Mart. On one hand, an Indian women is forcibly sent to the West by her parents to prevent her from marrying the man of her choice. On the other hand, we are bringing dollars from the US to propel our economy. While we are contantly innovating ourselves to bring more money into our economy, are we doing enough to change the patriarchal nature of our society? The entire juxtaposition of the two Bhartis of India is indeed a reminder of the two Indias that we inhabit in the times of economic resurgence and growing divide between the rich and the poor. Let the government take pride in providing tax sops to Mr Mittal as also in getting rid the country of honour killings.
Both have a foreign connection now. While Bharti Yadav has settled abroad in London after her brothers brutally killed her lover Nitish Katara in 2002, the telecom major has forged an alliance with US retail leader Wal Mart. On one hand, an Indian women is forcibly sent to the West by her parents to prevent her from marrying the man of her choice. On the other hand, we are bringing dollars from the US to propel our economy. While we are contantly innovating ourselves to bring more money into our economy, are we doing enough to change the patriarchal nature of our society? The entire juxtaposition of the two Bhartis of India is indeed a reminder of the two Indias that we inhabit in the times of economic resurgence and growing divide between the rich and the poor. Let the government take pride in providing tax sops to Mr Mittal as also in getting rid the country of honour killings.
Monday, November 27, 2006
It's only a game
It's a country of extreme reactions and benevolent genuflections. Hero-worship and instant demonising are nothing new to the millions here. More so when cricket is the riding passion. And everyone seems to have an opinion.
Two mammoth defeats in South Africa and the tounges have started wagging again. Failed-players-turned-commentators, journalists by the sheer weight of their misguided words, and the public in general are on a witch hunting exercise. Everyone is after the wretched team. So much for the tolerance that our tradition teaches us.
Then you have the proverbial Mahisasura, Greg Chappel, who loves to talk his heart out. His zeal for experimentation, the last thing that the conformist politicians would prefer to emabrk upon, has won him many enemies. The entire Bengal and the Red land is against this White man and his belief in the capitalist thought of entrepreneurship. The Bengali bhadralok is deeply disturbed for he has shown the door to their own babu moshai Saurav Ganguly. I too feel that Ganguly was given a raw deal but there are enough reasons for me to believe that the Tiger would again claw his way back into the team.
Well, when will we learn not to take ourselves too seriously? Can't we just take the losses in the spirit of the game? I know it's difficult but then it's only a game and not a war. Let's stop becoming experts and just hope that our team will be more professionally equipped to take on the best. Let's give them their due.
Two mammoth defeats in South Africa and the tounges have started wagging again. Failed-players-turned-commentators, journalists by the sheer weight of their misguided words, and the public in general are on a witch hunting exercise. Everyone is after the wretched team. So much for the tolerance that our tradition teaches us.
Then you have the proverbial Mahisasura, Greg Chappel, who loves to talk his heart out. His zeal for experimentation, the last thing that the conformist politicians would prefer to emabrk upon, has won him many enemies. The entire Bengal and the Red land is against this White man and his belief in the capitalist thought of entrepreneurship. The Bengali bhadralok is deeply disturbed for he has shown the door to their own babu moshai Saurav Ganguly. I too feel that Ganguly was given a raw deal but there are enough reasons for me to believe that the Tiger would again claw his way back into the team.
Well, when will we learn not to take ourselves too seriously? Can't we just take the losses in the spirit of the game? I know it's difficult but then it's only a game and not a war. Let's stop becoming experts and just hope that our team will be more professionally equipped to take on the best. Let's give them their due.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Charge of an IDEA
An idea, goes a popular ad of a mobileservice provider, can change your life. But how difficult is it to hit upon an idea as I have found it time and again. Writing this blog with a vacuum in mind and a void in soul isn't going to be easy. That's where I need the ideas.
Am I not reading books, or those anti-establishment editorials, or have I completely disassociated myself with literature so as not to bathe in ideas? Its extravagance baffles me now, its rarity is puzzling and the very idea that it's scarce scares me. I turn to morning newspapers or those endless news breaking bulletins to be intimidated by the idea that so much idea or the lack of it has gone into the making of reels and tapes.
well, it's about the idea and not the lack of it (excuse me for digressing) but I can, as of now, only track the endless streams of thoughts and notions hitting a cul de sac. The ephemeral is troubling me again. It should have sustainable value as I have found out from my temporary brushes with several ideas. And for those ideas to keep going, passion is ideal fuel. Well, it seems that I have run out of that steam and my ideas evaporate without much consequence.
Am I not reading books, or those anti-establishment editorials, or have I completely disassociated myself with literature so as not to bathe in ideas? Its extravagance baffles me now, its rarity is puzzling and the very idea that it's scarce scares me. I turn to morning newspapers or those endless news breaking bulletins to be intimidated by the idea that so much idea or the lack of it has gone into the making of reels and tapes.
well, it's about the idea and not the lack of it (excuse me for digressing) but I can, as of now, only track the endless streams of thoughts and notions hitting a cul de sac. The ephemeral is troubling me again. It should have sustainable value as I have found out from my temporary brushes with several ideas. And for those ideas to keep going, passion is ideal fuel. Well, it seems that I have run out of that steam and my ideas evaporate without much consequence.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Doctored version
With a bulk of uncertainty enveloping the mind and more so the body, I have finally come to realise that life is on a teething edge. Physical fitness and job are such great companions, I never knew until last year's experience. This year too I am going through the same rigour, facing similar 'veiled threats' from people who call them doctors and claim to take care of the human body. Till now I had despised Mr Ram for disdaining the great Indian media bazaar. But, I would pay rapt attention now if he speaks about the great Indian Medico Mafia, which runs commanding the highest respect from society and under the 'watchful' eyes of law.
On a more dreary note, the custodians of morality are playing the deceitful agents of immorality scaling new heights in swindling the poor under the garb of 'treating' them well. Oh, what happened to the Hippocratic oath? Can't help recalling Mr Marquez's assertion that the invention of scalpel is the greatest failure of medical science. Or shall I say the cunning, money making 'scalpeled' mind of the present day doctors. The days of symptomatic treatment are over. The wisdom of years of medical science has yielded to inanimate instruments, which speak truth about the greatest invention God has made on the erath, the human body. No diagnosis is complete until the cells are put through a series of machines. The magical touch of human hand doesn't exist anymore.
Ask me, I had to bear the brunt of all of them, the doc's touch and the diagnosis equipment. One operation, supposed to be the most advanced in the country's state-of-the-art hospital and now doctors' proclaim another intervention might be needed in future. Some papers with undulating graphs obtained from an echo machine decide my fate. Wish I had never known about my illness and doctors. I would have been happy.
On a more dreary note, the custodians of morality are playing the deceitful agents of immorality scaling new heights in swindling the poor under the garb of 'treating' them well. Oh, what happened to the Hippocratic oath? Can't help recalling Mr Marquez's assertion that the invention of scalpel is the greatest failure of medical science. Or shall I say the cunning, money making 'scalpeled' mind of the present day doctors. The days of symptomatic treatment are over. The wisdom of years of medical science has yielded to inanimate instruments, which speak truth about the greatest invention God has made on the erath, the human body. No diagnosis is complete until the cells are put through a series of machines. The magical touch of human hand doesn't exist anymore.
Ask me, I had to bear the brunt of all of them, the doc's touch and the diagnosis equipment. One operation, supposed to be the most advanced in the country's state-of-the-art hospital and now doctors' proclaim another intervention might be needed in future. Some papers with undulating graphs obtained from an echo machine decide my fate. Wish I had never known about my illness and doctors. I would have been happy.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A new Bihar
A day after the people of Bihar had voted the invincible Lalu Yadav out of power, I had left for Mumbai on yet another jittery journey. Almost a year after, I visited home. And nothing seems to have changed excpet for the half-done new overbridge that has come in place of the crumbling 'Chiraiyantad pull'.
The culture of flouting norms is as stark as it was during the 15 years of jungle raj. People still love to talk about their caste affiliations. Ministries and their bureaucrats are still decided by their proximity to politicians and social engineering. Roads are chaotic as ever, saabjiwallas have not yielded an inch, monster autos are spreading more pollution.
Though doctors are heaving a sigh of relief after a massive crackdown on kidnappers by the new government, the state healthcare system continues to be held ransom by the private doctors' mafia. No medicare for the poor. Even in the new regime, a private clinic is the only way out for all and sundry.
Funds are being snactioned for new projects but only to 'strengthen' the commission system that had been laid to rest in the last 15 years of no-development phase. So, the real benefeciaries of the emerging Bihar are the thousands of government officers who had been denied their share in the 15 years of Lalu-Rabri rule. Up for grabs.
Bihar on the path of peace, progress and prosperity!
The culture of flouting norms is as stark as it was during the 15 years of jungle raj. People still love to talk about their caste affiliations. Ministries and their bureaucrats are still decided by their proximity to politicians and social engineering. Roads are chaotic as ever, saabjiwallas have not yielded an inch, monster autos are spreading more pollution.
Though doctors are heaving a sigh of relief after a massive crackdown on kidnappers by the new government, the state healthcare system continues to be held ransom by the private doctors' mafia. No medicare for the poor. Even in the new regime, a private clinic is the only way out for all and sundry.
Funds are being snactioned for new projects but only to 'strengthen' the commission system that had been laid to rest in the last 15 years of no-development phase. So, the real benefeciaries of the emerging Bihar are the thousands of government officers who had been denied their share in the 15 years of Lalu-Rabri rule. Up for grabs.
Bihar on the path of peace, progress and prosperity!
