Japan days!

It was moderately cold when I came here and winter is getting to its peak here!

They say it might snow in a few days time from now....and i have all the indications that it would :)

Lets face it, cmon just snow right...!

War

Am I the only person or are there people in India who thinks that India and especially its media has gone mad? Daily I watch this CNN-IBN and thankfully dont buy it completely. I tried to base some of my opinions in line with the masses, but more than taking opinions I find myself arguing in the middle of the night (alone, thanks to the time difference with Japan) with the media pundits!
Having said that, I can imagine what is being played in NDTV and Times NOW. Cmon this is about war right? A war of survival in the commercial India where if you dont give a sensational story for a guy who comes back at 8 PM after a tired day's work at office, braving the terror threats that are omnipresent, feared by the recession and his job, whose wife is most probably looking out for oppurtunities again to start working, thanks to the inflaaaaaaaaaaaaaation, he will definitely switch off the Tele and think again at his own worries or worse switch on the all india radio for some old hindi songs. You cant let him be careless. Can you?

He should be worried about the war now! But this war is already on. The war of inequality, the war of injustice, the war of languages, the war of cultures and the war of stubborness. He who has no time to think about why his roads are so bad, why the drain is full and overflowing again, why the bus cant hold only the 40-odd people it can hold and not the 150 others who "hang around!", he who wears a helmet and pained to see another one flaunting it on his petrol tank.

My man has no time to think why he was abused so unhumanly when all he did was to stop his bike when the yellow light went ON. If these social problems arent enough, he has to deal with the economic problems, a collegue has been asked to leave and a friend who doesnt know when his company will collapse. His boss has happily announced that your job is safe, except take a 10% salary cut.
My man, who is tired by a midday call from the credit card company reminding him of his bills and his agents mail about his policy due date. A common man, fighting thousands of war in a course of day only finds himself in a war against survival. I dont know cartoons. But if R.K.Laxman can still do it or any one half as good, please convey to the war hungry media houses in India that we are already in war. A war which was waged on him, when he did nothing wrong and he can only fight. A war where everyone runs after his hard earned money, he has to be cunning. Ruthless and insensitive even to the poor.
After so many wars, he has lost the hope of the government for he sees them as one collecting taxes from him and pay its employees, nothing else. For the leaders, for all they bother is that you dont turn up to vote, I will take care of it. To him, "I" and "My" are the most important terms in the world.
Because my man, now has to feel that he is a part of the society. He has to live a pseudo life. He texts the tele guys, to kill all the pakistanis, vents his anger for the day, sleeps in peace that night to fight another war the next day! For the tele guys who he knows are working late, but waging the same war, the war against the race of time.

Disease prevention!

I dont know what to do!

I am staying away from India for the time being and have this luxury of living life without breaking news of the Indian news media. Believe me, I am living a very peaceful life here. The Indian in me sometimes asks me to look at what is happening in your country! Well, nothing special. They have now found out a "Hindu" terrorist organization or whatever. But, as I said, the luxury of living in Japan made me realize that news is no more news here. I felt like watching a crime movie everyday!
Here are the news that had the prievilage of the Media
Encounter of a Bihari job seeker in a Mumbai
A Sadhu and a Guruji are arrested in connection for planting bombs
India won Australia to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy
Among other more important news that reached me was more regional, Dr. Ambedkar Law college students in Chennai had a bloody (literally) fight among themselves and the state of Tamil nadu has been put on high alert!
I dont know if this is correct or wrong, but somewhere in our total news coverage the media and the news savvy citizens like me, We have gone more and more negative. When the stock market crashed on a monday. I am now prepared to tune in to a headlines stating that "Blood bath in Dalal street" or something to that effect. When a Language fundamentalist, ask Mumbai to respect Mumbai's culture, the whole of Media is ready to bash out with something like "Raj Thackrey lashes out at the Biharis, declares Chat pooja illegal!" And in cricket (I ve been writing too much of it off late!!) this funny line, "India outses Australia 2-0, Are they the new world no.1?) blah blah blah...

The world is not safer, with terrorists striking, fundamentalists attacking, finances galloping and life getting harder by minute as a result of this. But what good is this? Worse we have got some bad people out there! We have had the Hitlers and the Idi Amins in this world. Can some young college students have the same threat to us. They normally shouldnt. But they are, because of the protrayal in our great news media that more than fifty % of the commuters feel that commutation is a threat!

I wouldnt for a bit deny that terrorism or anything of that sort needs to be under estimated or taken less seriously. But, where are the positive signals to combat terrorism? I was in Singapore which woke up to Mumbai Train bombing they continuously play video on how to counter terrorism to the commuters. But bomb blast after bomb blast we have been told that how a man of twenty something place a bag in the garbage bin and walked away into thin air..we have no clue, though densely populated!

Give me solution guys, for I dont have one! Give this to your friends if you feel the issue is worth it! Let us all come up with a responsible way of working for the media and be more careful in handling issues such as terrorism and give a person, however big a celebrity he is, some personal space...Till the time we would have a solution implemented, we will keep this thread alive

Start now!

Sovrav Ganguly....A true satyagrahi!

Yesterday, the 2nd of the October 2008, was full of two stories, the 139th Birth anniversary of Gandhiji and the umteenth comeback of Sourav Ganguly. The news media, though did not bring in a correlation, I think, it is perfectly justified to compare the likes of Gandhiji's satyagraha with Ganguly's "Fight for No.5". They both have failed, withdrawn from the war, hounded by the masses(read media) yet emerged victorious. Gandhi was though fortunate enough to get the support of a lot of people, all the supporters of Ganguly dont have their voice reach a lot of people.

Sourav, we must accept is not a good test player. Not one to be seen with the likes of Brain Lara or Sachin Tendulkar. But hey, he is still a fine player like Shiv Chanderpaul, Inzi-ul-haq or even Matt Hayden. While, Chanderpaul remains the best in the Windies till date, Inzi left Pak, taking that great skill of batting baton, without passing it to anyone. Ganguly, however didnt have such a good luck. He was always compared with two of the greats the game has ever seen, Sachin and Dravid. It is no wonder that he is third on that list, if there be a comparison. So, why is dada victimized? I don't see a cricketing logic behind this, but a lot of marketing factor.

Think about this,

Sachin, he is our icon, legend, the no-nonsense, no-controversy, the god of medern cricket in India, he can sell, Colas to Biscuits to Insurance to you.

Selling point: Best and greatest

Rahul, awefully out of form in the past year(except the last few innings), but he is still the great wall of India, anyone calling for his head will always be a idiot in cricket, rightly so.

Selling point: Reliable and gritty

Kumble, he is not as great as Shane warne or as cunning as Muralitharan, but yet he is a fighter, remember his straped on bowling in Windies to get Lara out? Or the 10 for in the Delhi tests?

Or even the hero cup batting with Srinath while his mother and Grandma watched with the same intensity as we all? Or the no non-sense press statements, ever since he took the captaincy?

Selling point: Fighter, symbol of respect

Well, that where we are left out with two of the nicer players of our time, not the greats though, Sourav and Very Very Special Laxman. Ganguly would be remembered as the best indian captain, One who can give it back to the opposition and who lead India through to the finals of a World cup, never his game. Even his "god of the offside" title were not his selling point contrast to Laxman, for whom "I-get-my-tail-up-when-i-see-the-baggy-green" has been his sole selling point.

So, now when Ganguly is no more the captain, he is no more seen as a leader. He was made a captain when Azhar outsted, Tendulkar refused and Kumble wasnt a one day specialist at a very earlier. right from the early 2000-01 we knew dada as a leader, it didnt matter if he didnt hit those runs, his team selection, bowling changes were spot on. So when he was sacked of the captaincy, there is no selling point. The dada factor wont sell. He might still hit those occasional gems and still contribute as always. But the fact is simple. However, hard they try, dada will still be considered one of Indian crickets greatest leaders unless Dhoni's mavericks perform consistently;even in the finals.

So, the next time, you see some channel calling for his blood, its not their outright cricketing sense. Its just that he is no more a marketing material. Rest all are plain rubbish.

After posting this blog, Dada announces his retirement succumbing to the rubbishes, but to me he walks away with his head held high!

So Long and so less

I dont know whether the world of blogging has seen its high already or not. I used to get a lot of blog updated(!) messages and some fantastic blogs via email. Oflate, I stopped receiving anything remotely related to blogs. The world today is not similar with the one that I stopped blogging. The world today is full of negativeness. Filled with terrorism. Masked with trustlessness. There is a very serious need for people, I mean you and me to understand each other better.
I write this blog sitting in the sixth floor of an air-conditioned office in the heart of Chennai and I know many people who have the access to this blog, need not even know that there is a place named Chennai! That beauty, amazes me! This medium offers an excellent platform to lay things simple and plain before this world. Therefore, I dedicate this post to the agents of positiveness in the world.
What is the need for me, suddenly, to start worrying about the world, all of a sudden? Has it got anything to do with me sitting jobless after a long long time(!!!). Of course it does. But what worries me most is that though I have thought over countless time to convince myself that there will be an end to it. The drama is getting more serious and the end might perhaps be a prologue to a whole new other drama. The terrorism threats me. Yes it is bound to. Thats why some 20 young graduates planted bombs all over the country, killing about 200 people in the process.
But what threats me more is the flavor of religion, that adds to any thing and everything that I see.
This flavor in the terrorism, in the vandalizing of churches, in the money-to-convert scandals topped with global temperatures increase of the same, panics me. Humanity needs a leader.
For all the gods who have successfully failed in saving the world from this misery. I doubt, even a man for all of what he is, would be able to do it.
And, that is what threats me the most!

this post might not bring smiles on the face, but I hope in some years, I would like to read it and laugh at it as an unnecessary panic (Definitely not Nostradanamically!!)