Team India at the Cricket WC - we are proud of you!

When you think of it honestly .. most of us thought of our weak point as bowling, yet it was our bowlers who kept getting the opposition all out .. some of our batsmen flattered to deceive. One can look back on this match and do all kinds of analysis, but to have reached the semi without any loss, is also an achievement .. and kudos to Dhoni for the way he managed the team so far !!

Positives ? I think the way our bowlers have developed .. having been in AUS for over 4 months, the way the team members gelled with each other as a single unit, and Rahane's batting !! I also did not see too much sledging in the semi .. has AUS respect for India increased ??

It was great to see the way M Clarke acknowledged Dhoni at the presentation, dismissing any notion of it being over for Dhoni !!

There will be umpteen "analyses", I am sure, each more hollow than the other, from an ever-immature media : the same media which was waxing eloquent about bowling being India's weak point (and conveniently overlooked India's batting inconsistencies) ! It is always easy to sound "analytical" when your "analysis" is not easy to dispute .. it is very difficult to put one failure (that's what it is: just one failure in a string of successes) behind and be encouraging !!
 
Had India won the World Cup, BCCI would have been falling over its feet with various offers and organized a Grand Reception with hordes of people at the airport where they arrived.
 
How many would still be willing to receive the Indian team at the airport where they arrive with a message like "You may not have retained the World Cup but we are still proud of you!" ? How many ?

What corruption are we talking about here ?

It is great to see the country-wide outburst against corruption which has definitely shaken the govt.! As Anna Hazare has himself explained, his fast is to do with the constitution of the Lokpal Committee and the framing of the Lokpal Bill, with a view to tackling corruption cases effectively, which means keeping ministers (and those who are known to be corrupt) out of the committee!

However, a whole lot of people (including the media who have added this as a USP for their general anti-corruption campaign) seem to be riding piggy-back on Anna Hazare in a general anti-corruption 

frenzy .. including politicians of parties not in power in their states, trying to cash in on this to try and

oust the incumbent govt..
We need to understand that this Lokpal Bill will not be a magic wand that will set everything right .. had that been the case, a Supreme Court should have been enough to create a complete non-corrupt environment in India !

Corruption happens at all levels and is of various kinds, and one reason why it is there is because we the people allow it to prevail ! We also seem to be confusing corruption and bribery ! How many of us do not hesitate to pay extra money in a govt. office to get work done speedily rather than wait, and
because of such people, those of us who insist on following due process, end up waiting for long
periods, and are dubbed fools ! It is because govt. officials know that people would be willing to pay extra rather than wait, that they expect bribes.

But that is not the only form of corruption that we put up with ! Any body or agency that misrepresents
information in a bid to meet its own selfish targets, is not such a body being corrupt ? Media people
who misquote others (e.g., Anna Hazare wanting to be Chairman of the Lokpal Committee: he has
denied this openly) or indulge in baseless "sensationalising" of news to increase their TRP's .. are
they not corrupt ? This may not be corruption in the financial sense but it is a form of corruption
none-the-less.

Those of us who find civic authorities not doing their work in our locality but choose to do nothing
about it, thinking "someone else will do it, why should we bother?" or "what's the use of going to the
municipal office, no one will do anything" .. are such people not encouraging corruption ?

So it is not just govt. officials and ministers who are corrupt .. the people "encourage" corruption by
choosing not to do anything about it in its various forms .. let's hope that that changes after all the
publicity that this Anna Hazare fast is getting !!

To be, or not to be, proud of our Independence !

Every year, as August 15 approaches, there are posts and "media shows" by bloggers, and other forms of journalists (from the print and electronic media), freelancers and what have you .. people who are mainly in their late twenties or early thirties, who deem it their privilege to comment on whether we should be celebrating Independence on August 15 !

Such know-it-alls (who actually know very little!) will pull out recent instances of corruption, bureaucratic failures, and calamities (natural and man-made) as though those are the only yardsticks for measuring whether we should be proud of our freedom.

These idiots (and I use the word in the mildest sense!) need to understand that those who fought for freedom of the country 63 years ago (actually, those who started the struggle more than a hundred years ago, and others who willingly joined the struggle, which culminated in the events of August 15) thankfully did not have the same mindset as these idiots do. They, too, could have thought "What's the use of fighting for freedom?", "So many things are not right ! Who will set them right?" and we would probably be in a similar state as so many countries which are still dominated by Civil War. They did not fight for the sake of getting perfection in their everyday lives after August 15 .. unfortunately, after August 15 the percentage of such idiots referred to above, who will only crib about what is not right but will do precious little in whatever small way they can to stem the rot, or to appreciate and extol the virtues of the freedom that we have to exercise our free will in any walk of life, .. well, that percentage seems to be increasing : that is perhaps the one thing we should be ashamed of !

Which country or society should we compare ourselves with, to decide if we should celebrate August 15? The US? It took that country more than 230 years after Independence to elect its first African-origin President! So many ex-Governors from that country have gone to prison after being found guilty of a range of offences! Look at the numbers in their crime data .. and they have a population about 1/4 of India!

The US has invaded so many countries to suit its purpose .. oh yes, these yuppy idiots will talk about liberation of countries from the rule of tyrants .. why has none of these so-called developed Western countries "liberated" some of the South American countries or Sudan (remember Darfur?) ? The reason is in one word: oil !

India has not invaded any country or joined in the invasion of any country just to suit its purpose !

So if those know-it-alls feel there is no reason to celebrate freedom after 63 years, they have two choices: 1. Do something in their own way to improve whatever can be improved, instead of just making empty statements about loving their country etc. 2. Pack up and get out .. go to a country where they believe they can lead a better and freer life, and not be treated as a second-class citizen !

When you do not understand the value of something don't comment on it .. the bane of our electronic media and other such types !!

Yes, there are so many things which we did not wish we had, so many things that need to improve .. but there's no point in just commenting on them if we do not ourselves make a start .. how many of the above-referred idiots will talk about how dirty this country is, and yet will themselves drop snack wrappers on the roadside instead of in a dustbin ? How many of these morons will talk about corruption and yet will themselves not hesitate to bribe someone to get their work done fast in a govt. office ? As I stated earlier, if at all there's anything we should be ashamed of, it is the growing number of such hypocrites in our midst !

Let us not blame the country just because of a few shameless idiots in it !

Jai Hind !

Bangalore Metro : transportation at any cost !

The way the BMRCL (in short, Bangalore Metro) authorities have gone about acquiring space for constructing the metro rail network in namma Bengaluru leaves much to be desired. Obviously, as in many other administrative / civic activities in Bangalore, intelligence has been sacrificed at the altar of political, or vested-interest, convenience !

Did we need a "Slumdog ..." ?

I feel too strongly about this to remain quiet. I am reproducing excerpts of an article by Sandipan Deb (Indian Express critic, and would-be editor of the RPG Group's soon-to-be-launched current affairs and features magazine, 'Open').

"Frankly, I don't think Slumdog Millionaire deserved the Oscar for best film. And even more frankly, I don't think Resul Pookutty should have invoked "my country and my civilisation" in his acceptance speech for best sound mixing. India was not up there in the Kodak auditorium for approval. It was a British film financed by the indie subsidiary of an American studio which happened to be set in India and as a result they could not help but involve Indian actors (including Indian-origin Britishers) and shoot it in India. We crave too much for international recognition. A bit too much than is seemly. Even as all of us go around strutting, pretending to be a superpower.
...
...
Slumdog has won, and we should really rejoice for the six children who acted in it, for they are the real stars of the film. We should rejoice for AR Rahman, though the music he has got his two Oscars for is not even of his average quality, forget his sublime and exhilarating stuff. But the Academy has decided. But I really think it's a bit too much if we take this as a victory for Indian cinema. It's a non-Indian film which happened to have an all-Indian cast. We shoot entire films abroad nowadays, especially in the US, remember?"

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You can get the full article at http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20090224/1241/top-it-shouldn-t-have-won.html

While we may not agree with all of it, it's food for thought.

When Satyajit Ray made his films in the late 60's and 70's he was castigated by
many in the Bombay film industry for depicting India in a poor light, because his
films were based on semi-urban life or rural life in India. Yet, now, in the 21st
century - the century that is said to belong to India - we are going crazy, particularly
most of Mumbai, over a slum-based film, made largely by non-Indians, to get
international acclaim?

Is India so depleted of stories, or indigenous talent?

So now, "foreigners" will visit India not to see The Taj, or Khajuraho, or the
Tanjore temples, or the magnificent forts in Rajasthan, and the myriad sights in
Eastern India, but to see Dharavi ??

NDTV, CNN-IBN, and other channels who have demonstrated since November 26,
that they are shamelessly TRP-hungry, must have set up temporary offices or desks
in Dharavi for doing as many interviews as they can of slum kids! "Slum tourism" at
its peak ?!

Regional English

I have had the privilege of residing in different parts of India for varying periods of time: Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore. A fascinating aspect of this, is the different "forms" of English I have come across - I call it "Regional English"! In each of the four "original" metropolitan cities of India I have come across erudite people who have believed that the English spoken by them, with particular emphasis on pronunciation, is the "correct" English ! Such people were also not averse to ridiculing the English spoken in other regions of India.

My oldest memories go back to my schooldays in Kolkata when even teachers and parents of friends, would take a dig at "south Indian" English, about how it was "yum" and not "em" and so on, conveniently overlooking that in "Bengali English" a bird was the same as a bard ! Poets had wings, in a manner of speaking !! In Bengali English you could never make out which was what - the 'w' was just not there. It was "huitch" and hot, "you" was "jew" and "we" was "bhee" ! When the average Bengali spoke of "sleep" you could not be sure if he was talking of repose or a piece of paper (which most of us would call a "slip" - pun intended!).

When I moved to Delhi, for the first time in my life I heard of men with "good mammary" (the Delhi version of "memory") !! Of course for the biologically-challenged it would not make a difference! "Sport" had its own interpretation, and you would never be short of support (in fact a lot of people needed s'port in learning English!). They would often talk of "hair" which was neither here nor there !! "Cheers" often referred to contraptions that you sat in, and imagine the effect of someone saying on a hot afternoon in the zoo, "oh, look! beer!" !!

In Mumbai, of course, they do not speak any particular language ! "Aisa kya?" "Aisa-itch, mamu" ! It is also a good place to forget whatever Hindi you made the valiant effort to learn, in school !

In Chennai, the intelligentsia believed (as did their counterparts in Kolkata) that their English was the "correct" English. You would have difficulty, however, in distinguishing between the word "yes" and the letter "s" ? Did I mean "yes" ? "s" !!

What amuses me most, however, is the claim I hear some Bangaloreans make, that their English is the correct one ! You will rarely hear of what anyone said here - it is often "what I told?"!! There is also no dearth of people doing something only !! "Like that-aa?" "Like that only"!

Week ends ..and what begins ?

When I reflect on how my weekends have changed since marriage .. one fact stands out starkly : they are not "lazy" anymore! In fact, by the time half the weekend is through I long for the next week to commence!!

In the days of yore Saturdays meant the sheer delight of not having to jump out of bed when "the clock struck six", diffusing out of bed nebulously when the hour was close to eight, and pondering on how to begin the day while boiling the milk for morning coffee (if I had remembered to get milk the previous day - no milkman delivering milk in sachets!!).

Cut to the living room .. sitting in the sofa with a cup of hot coffee in hand, and a few biscuits to boot, switching from one inane news channel to another on the telly, unless one of the news readers looked appealing to the eye!

Breakfast merged with lunch ("brunch"!) used to happen anytime between noon and three, depending on what type of food I was in the mood for, or if any programme had been decided with any friends ! After brunch the rest of the day would unfold by itself, with the possibility of a good game or movie on TV, followed by a snack in lieu of dinner, a bit of a browse on the Net, and then it would be time for bed again ! Complete bliss !!