..........

I really don't think a title was necessary there; yes, everyone is talking about it and i just wanted to add a little something that isn't on everyone's lips already.
India, as we all now know is out of the World cup - ousted before the 'real' cricketing action begins. To give India company is our good ol' neighbor, Pakistan. So, this is I guess as close as our two countries will get to really being brother-like!
I don' see any point in ranting here; of course i was livid on the day and it in fact, took in a couple more days for the fact to really sink in. Since then we have seen several reports and blogs by famous and unknown indians, dissecting, analyzing and apportioning blame. personally i see little point in adding to all the ranting. what is that going to achieve? apart from letting my fume out, it serves very little purpose. but i have been collating some thoughts on this and what i am about to unleash on the reader who has reached this blog willfully or by error, is simply a precis of that, if you will.
I will focus on 3 individuals here. I'll start off with the one who deserves the least blame for this debacle. Mr. Greg Chappell, ladies and gentlemen.
What sense does it even make, baying for his blood? it was in fact in very poor taste to ask him if he considered his security adequate, especially in the aftermath of Woolmer's murder. But it is easy to blame him, since the hard-nosed aussie hasn't exactly said things people like to hear.
To start off, when his 'experimentation' was in full swing and India went through a phase where it seemed like they could do no wrong, people grudgingly nodded assent to his methods. And then came India's tour of the Windies, where that period came to a rude halt and then suddenly everyone started talking about the experimentation being 'too much'. I cannot recall any instance where Chappell actually said, this is what i was aiming for. I think the closest statement to that that actually emanated from his lips was something to the effect that we are now on the track he envisioned, which was that the players must not be stuck into certain roles within the team. The more flexible the team's structure, the more resilient its character.
Finally there is only so much a coach can actually do. it makes no sense to say, he has to go now since he was being paid so much. what does that even mean?!
the next individual is one who needs to cap some of the blame even though i'd hate to put some on his head. Mr Sachin Tendulkar needs no introduction anyway.
in all the previous outings (World cup games) where India seemed to possess some tooth, most of that tooth was largely on account of this gentleman. Of course, he wasn't exactly a gentleman there; he more or less resembled an angry tiger in those games and we all know what happens when you get too close to angry tigers! The Indian team in 1996 was pretty ordinary in my opinion. But at that time, Sachin was in such magnificent touch that it mattered little. even in that infamous semifinal against Sri Lanka, no one realized that the pitch was so difficult to bat on while he was around. 2003 again saw him reprising that role to great effect. though the India-Pakistan game would have to be the defining game for Sachin's batsmanship in that world cup, to me it was the sheer manner in which he played most of the games. For instance, the one against New Zealand. though we had lost a couple of quick wickets, he had decided that Oram (or was it Twose?) was going to get whacked that day! And only a truly fantastic catch saw the back of him.
the past few games have seen the team 'think tank' allotting him the role of 'sheet anchor', 'team shephard', 'the guide' and other ridiculously nonsensical roles which is far from the way the man has played his game. while his body has certainly been weighing him down, i think the manner in which he has been playing (and please do not quote recent statistics on him now!) has brought him down to being very mortal on many occasions when just last world cup, he was that sachin again! he may know what is wrong and so on, but i think that indian cricket now has to look for serious replacements for sachin. and by that i don't mean that he be sacked from either the ODI team or the test team. It's just that if he falls cheap, we are still almost like lost sheep. and till we find a suitable replacement where Sachin can go and play the way he has played his game for most of his cricketing life, this role allotment nonsense is no solution at all.
the third and final individual is John Q Doe, you average Joe, the next door neighbor, your common indian individual.
what has he to do with this world cup debacle? in my opinion, his contribution (among these three) has been the worst.
o.k. suppose we sack these 11 (or 30, whatever) and usher in an era of 'youth, energy' and whatnot. will that settle the problem?
certainly not. because all this has already been done.
When the betting scandals rocked the cricketing community in India, many Indians suddenly were disillusioned with cricket as such. and then came that India-Australia series with Laxman's piece de resistance. and suddenly cricket became popular again.
Episode 2: India losing a series of finals and several games to lower rated teams. come Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell, exit Ganguly. the next period was almost a honeymoon era in Indian cricket. we had a record sequence of wins chasing and suddenly, the youth brigade had appeared.
then why are we back to square one?
i think that John Doe has been instrumental in the amount of money, attention adulation and everything else that you now generally associate with cricket. All the endorsements come these cricketers' ways because JD will buy it happily. if we are the kind of people who can elevate someone to a pedestal on day one and then bury them deep the next, the players would have to be raving schizophrenics to deal with this on an everyday basis.
yes, their heads are addled quickly, but why?! that is a natural consequence of all this attention that comes their way and that will continue with any new players too. people fell for Dhoni's looks and batting and unfortunately, the loss to Bangladesh saw in its aftermath, his personal property being vandalized by nutjobs who have no bloody right to do anything and who are incapable of anything else.
so, these players might cap all the flak and everything else and maybe the new team India will see a lot of new faces. But take it from me: this situation is bound to reoccur unless we as Indians let the players do their job and not elevate them to the status we have given them.
the real culprits here are in my opinion, the BCCI. these stinkers run the show, are money-grabbing scum who care little about the game, worse, know even less. they encourage all the endorsement crap since it brings them all the more revenue. A cricketing board whose market share is nearly 33% of the world's cricketing revenue has no excuse whatsoever in not being able to provide the right practice conditions. make better pitches, not the feather-beds on which our batsmen roar, but cower in pusillanimity when confronted with bouncy wickets. let them survey all the cricketing countries and make a sample pitch in India which resembles the kind of pitch you might encounter in each of these countries. this has to of course, be periodically revised, but yah, the BCCI has deep coffers too!
these scoundrels who run the game will do nothing of that sort and all they are actually capable of is passing the buck and labeling someone scapegoat. if the average Indian fan has to be livid with someone, it really ought to be the BCCI. but who raises these questions?
and a final word about the players' attitude. This again is something that goes towards all Indians. We seem to, by and large, harbor the notion that hard work is something 'anyone can do', and that it is talent that is really the key to anything. it is my feeling that this mental attitude is largely present in most Indians and that is due to faulty reasoning and high prejudice.
even most kids in school will tell you with a glint in their eyes that the only points they lost were on account of 'silly mistakes'. the teachers feel that that is a totally rectifiable situation and the students here feel that since they had the answer almost right, they possess the inner ability or talent and are happy. and the 'silly mistakes' remain till at one point these people become only that: silly and asinine.
the virtues of working hard are never stressed anywhere, and this has nothing to do with sport in particular. We have always been the elegant batsmen, the stylish classy players who don't need to earn our runs, the safe pairs of hands who don't think it necessary to dive to prove high levels of fielding and all that load of crap. who in his right mind would make a statement about 'strategically fielding certain players in certain positions so as to mask some inabilities some players might have'?!
it is the same thing that happened with Indian hockey. we were all about elegant stick play that we never adapted to astro turf. and now, while teams like Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Korea find the new surface to their liking and their way of playing, which is basically running their opponents hard, we come back with weeping players after a dismal performance in the world cups, the Olympics, the champions trophies and what not. i personally think that it is something right in our attitude and till that mentality changes, we will continually attempt to square the circle without realizing that it is impossible.

A cricket related post now.

The World cup has just started and cricket is of course on all cricket lovers' minds. but what i am going to write about here is something which is more of an 'off the field' matter.
Gavaskar recently went on an admonishing spree saying in print and possibly even on the tele that the Australians need to change the way they behave on the field. Ricky Ponting responded in acerbic fashion drawing to attention Gavaskar's own record for throwing tantrums and so on, as if saying, 'look who's talking!' and also made a reference about all knowing 'how India plays the game now'. I guess he was talking about India's abysmal playing record and of course, Australia have been doing so well for nearly 7 years now that, that point can get no retort.
Sunny responded as is his wont, this time talking about how the late David Hookes got into a brawl outside a bar in Melbourne which led to fistfights and how he succumbed to the injuries that ensued the brawl.
At this point, most Aussies were livid and starting talking about how Gavaskar was totally off his limits here and how his remarks, especially about the late 'Hooksy' were totally inappropriate if not in outright poor taste. That is the current scenario. One can find all the relevant stuff and who-said-what-to-whom from cricinfo.
Now, personally i think Sunny is a person who speaks what is on his mind, without sometimes
thinking to see if it is entirely relevant or not. The Aussie behavior (at least that is the impression i get in general) is a lot better now under Ponting's captaincy than it was under Waugh's. I certainly think that talking about an ex-player's death from some rowdy incident outside a pub,which automatically means most people there are speaking in an inebriated fashion, is to suggest that he sort of deserved what he got and that is outright offensive. Another point about Sunny is that he is a biased individual in general; for instance, Sachin Tendulkar can do no wrong! There might be a very nice shot being played by some player and if Sachin fields the ball, Sunny would get to talking about how accurate his throwing from the deep is, or how committed he is as a player and so on, it gets rather annoying after a while. Gavaskar also sends forth this strong pro-marathi feel. i've heard him criticize bowlers like Srinath several times for rubbish bowling while not really doing the same with Ajit Agarkar, who is inconsistency personified! So this was indeed an instance of Gavaskar putting both his feet into his mouth as far as the Hookes incident reference goes.
But when i see what the aussie media and some of their players have said in response, i think i see what Sunny is actually alluding to.
For starters, let us see what Ponting said in response. He could have attacked Sunny and that would have been tit for tat. but no, he had to say, 'we all know how india play their game' deriding India's track record. so, what he really is doing there is lashing out at the current indian team without provocation. Why?! i guess his intent was to somehow say something hurtful, thats all.
Allan Border followed it up by saying that Gavaskar missed an important point; that it is very much a cultural thing. and that something that people, say in the subcontinent, might find unsavory might not be the case with the Aussies in general. And Darren Lehmann followed it up with, "I came into the international arena a few years after he (Gavaskar) had retired. He was a player I admired. Not any more."
now, Border has a valid talking point but i think he TOTALLY missed what Sunny was talking about in principle. well, he is not entirely to blame there since what Gavaskar did refer to, was said in a very attacking manner to begin with. and as i said, his bias against the aussies has been fairly noticed for quite some time now.
Firstly, the potty mouthed players largely come from three countries - Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. the aussie influence on each of these countries is very large (New Zealand is like Australia's backyard and when SA were banned from the cricketing arena, many of their players migrated to australia and so on and in fact, SA - Australia have played several bilateral series for a long time now). so i think that when Gavaskar talks in particular about blaming it on the Australians, he is kind of justified there. furthermore, if players from other countries have started verbal volleys and stuff, the influence is distinctly australian, so if Sunny is talking of the influence on younger players as such, i think he is spot on.
talking about cultural differences, if 6 of the 9 test-playing nations think some kind of language or behavior is offensive, then it ought to be considered officially offensive! in the initial days, these 3 countries carried more financial and political clout, but that is not the case anymore. and if the people with the money and power feel that such behavior isn't keeping with the image of the game as such, then culture be damned, keep your traps shut!
to drive home this point finer, let me cite two examples. when the McGrath-Sarwan incident got ugly, Pidgy was of course hurt since Sarwan made a nasty reference to Pidgy's wife who was at that time battling breast cancer. of course, an extremely stupid thing to do but then Sarwan later apologized saying that he said all that in the heat of the moment and i guess it was an instance of alls-well-that-ends-well. But here's an important question: Was McGrath hurt because of his wife's condition or was he hurt because Sarwan said something about his wife?

now if it is the case of the latter, then him being hurt is plain hypocrisy considering the kind of nonsense he lets off his own mouth. i personally don't think that is the case; it seems very much to be the former.
But there's the point: you think talking something like that about a sick person is out of line, right? so you do believe that there is something called crossing the line. why should that point of 'losing it' necessarily be connected to someone being sick or ill or whatever? why didn't McGrath (and the aussies in general) think that whatever he did say (probably to taunt the batsman or disturb him or whatever) could have hurt his feelings as much as what Sarwan said hurt himself? Why can't the Aussies understand that other cultures don't tolerate the same kind of bantering which is probably common in Australia?
here's my second instance: When Steve Waugh and several others called Sourav Ganguly snooty and stuff because Sourav made him wait at the toss, he became a sort of hero in India. he became the man who stood up to the Aussies and delivered an appropriate punch on their faces. yes, what he did was unethical, but not against any cricketing laws, i guess. Likewise there might be no laws that say you can't start bantering and bandying words on the field but when foul language is involved, it simply becomes distasteful.
Even a normally reticent Sachin Tendulkar had a go at McGrath. This doesn't happen even in India-Pakistan encounters (except the More-Miandad incident) which are generally so highly electrified situations, all that is needed is a little excuse to start a major showdown.
I guess what I'm saying is that while i love the aussie attitude, the way they play the game, and most of their cricketers, i think they are bad losers and that is exactly where all this stems from. If i were to say that this is indeed what is to expected of people coming from generations of dangerous british convicts, thieves and rapists, then i'm sure all the aussies would be mad at me, as they ought to. I personally don't know any australians and some of my friends who do, indeed assure me that they are a very friendly lot who just don't necessarily come off as being respectful of tradition or orthodoxy. This whole incident of gavaskar talking crap could have simply been an instance of him starting these verbal bouts in order to unsettle the Aussies and it certainly looks like he has been successful on that count. While the aussies do this all the time before each series, why didn't they simply treat it as merely one such taunt and get along with their game?! it is because Sunny said something that hurt them as much as it does every time to their opponents when they start letting their big mouths off.
it is here that i think Gavaskar has the correct larger perspective. And while i don't generally agree with his comments, i think he is spot on regarding the larger question of using unparliamentary language in public display.

finally, as regards Lehmann's comment about Sunny, all i'd say in sweet Australian is, mate, who gives a f*** what you think?!

The unexpected pleasure that is teaching

I have now been a teacher/tutor for nearly 6 years. Well, if i count all the years when i have helped my classmates or my sisters with some of their difficulties in math, it would probably go a little longer than that. And during all these years, i have certainly experienced very different kinds of emotions.
By and large, i now regard teaching as something that earns me my bread. I remember how i would come back after teaching feeling exhausted and also a little dejected because in the very first quarter of teaching when i did so from 2:30-4:30 in the afternoon, i had noticed a lot of students simply not interested in what was going on. The cultural difference accounted largely for the difference between a classroom environment in India and one here in the US. and oftentimes i would come out with a feeling," why in heaven's name am i sweating it out for these dumb-heads anyways?! I have better things i could be doing!"
Soon, a sort of phlegmatic attitude arose since the dejection of teaching began to affect my overall mood. I then viewed the act of teaching as something i needed to do to get my income and that it was going to be something i did for that period of 48 minutes, thats all!
but such an attitude usually takes out any energy or enthusiasm you might have for teaching. so all i did was this: i always imagined that i was an interested student sitting in the audience and so all i wanted to do was teach that version of me !
teaching as such is an art; there is no denying it. and my mom has always been a very energetic and passionate teacher. my mom also tells me that my dad loves to teach too, so i guess it is there to some extent in my genes too. so if i have the enthusiasm to teach, i guess i could be a reasonably good teacher. usually you don't get anything out of it except that you wish to see the student evaluation forms showing you in slightly good light. that is the only thing you get to take back with you.
But there have been a few occasions when some there is evidence that you have somehow touched some students' lives and when that comes to your notice, it somehow makes up for all the displeasure associated with the profession.
I have had 5 such instances. i'll describe them in chronological order.
The first time was while i was waiting at the airport and this girl came up to me asking me if i would mind filling out a questionnaire for god-knows-what. since i had nothing better to do and the girl seemed a pretty attractive looking one, i okay-ed. after the questionnaire was complete, she thanked me again for taking out some time from my "busy schedule" (god, how little they know me!) and helping out with the form. All part of the usual, but then she thanked me further for all the help i had given her in the tutor room. apparently, she was a regular student in the tutor room and that i had on several occasions helped her complete her homework or whatever! i just didn't even remember her face! i had no idea, she'd be thankful for it at all!
the second instance came literally on the street. i was out to the grocery store and one guy called me by name. i, naturally surprised, turned to see this bearded chap standing and giving me a friendly smile. i greeted him and then he introduced himself as a former student of mine, now working somewhere in Columbus. i unfortunately didn't place him properly, told him that and apologized for the same. he told me that in all his years of college life at Ohio State, the TA hours for Math 151 with me were his most enjoyable ones and that he had always hoped to get me as a TA for another course, which didn't happen anyway.
the third case is probably the most long-lasting one. this was a student of mine who was also the best student in the class and seemed reasonably smart. He later came to my office in a subsequent quarter and asked me if i could help him out on some problem in a different course. soon he came to me with lot more questions and then the questions changed from particular problems to general math and then general stuff, philosophy, music, politics and so on; he is still a pretty good friend of mine. and he changed his major from engineering to math and is now looking to a masters degree in applied stat.
the fourth instance was brought to my attention through this guy. he once asked me suddenly if i remembered a particular name and a student by that name. of course, i couldn't. it turns out that my former student and friend met this guy in some orientation program somewhere in the university and that this guy too was a math major student applying for a masters program elsewhere. everyone there was apparently asked if they had any particular role model or someone who motivated them in any specific way. both these guys had mentioned my name and named me as a reason for changing their majors to math!
and the last instance came in the form of a thank you e-mail today. this guy says that he intends to be a professor one day and that he considers me as a major role model in that direction.
It might appear to be an instance of me blowing my own trumpet on my supposedly superior teaching abilities though that is not at all what i wish to emphasize upon. all these instances have only made me feel incredibly elated that i have in some way or other managed to touch some of my students in some way. maybe i might not be an academic at all. but the joy that these little bits of revelation bring about is something that cannot be conveyed in words. They have also made me feel a little more humble and respectful of the truly great teachers of all time, and the indeed noble profession that is teaching.

"Weapons of Mass Deception" (WMDs)


Well, that interesting title isn't originally mine; it is the title of a documentary movie i saw tonight, or rather, yesterday night, made by Danny Schechter, "The News dissector". Basically the movie takes a critical viewpoint of the media's role in general (print, television, film or any other) in not making any serious attempts to dispel the myths about the Iraq war, and in fact acting as a device by the government to propagate a false story, one that has caused people to overlook the actual cause(s) for the US going to war in Iraq. A pretty good movie in my opinion and is definitely worth a watch. probably not as attractively packaged as a Michael Moore film, but nonetheless very good content.
There is also this terrific documentary called "The Corporation" which takes a critical look into the nature of a corporation and how such a legal entity possesses almost all the typical features of a psychopath! these two documentaries made for an interesting round of discussion with my friend as we leisured over dinner.
What i am alluring to specifically is a parallel strain of thought that i had sometime back about the corporate world as such. basically it appears to me that all corporations are there in the market to make profits, to make money. and that is the only real motive.
Now, what are you selling in the deal?
it depends; after all, even the entertainment industry is an industry now, right? that is, it has all the internal workings of a typical industry. what it produces eventually is something that aims to entertain people, thats all.
but if we look at the real money earners, the ones that are really scooping it all up, then it looks like what they aim to sell is something far more fundamental in nature.
One might probably learn in any economics course (personally, I've never had any formal economics course - it just lasted one class and i was out of there!) that the most profitable sale is of something that is most in demand, something that people really want. It also makes sense if what you sell is something that can't go out of demand, so that you have a market that is there to stay.
to look at what people really want, we have to look at what is really necessary but of which there is always a shortage of. there is rampant ignorance, (even among the rich) hence there is a need to educate; people need good medical care, most people need life insurance to help them in case something bad turns up, this list goes thus.
But then it also has to be something that people with money would want ; obviously, there is abundant hunger and poverty in the world but then you can't make any sale on that avenue!

if we look at the major players addressing some fundamental needs, it seems to me that there is a very clever ploy underplay here, because none of these corporations are really helping anyone out there, are they?! I mean, it appears like one would want to help people get what they want, and so the people pay you for your help, .......no!!
most of these companies seem to play on one simple trick: if there is something that people really need, then there is an associated sense of vulnerability that people experience therewith.
that sense of vulnerability, that measure of insecurity is the path towards the inner linings of their wallets and that is the terminal stop!
let me take the example of education. if you wish to educate people with the hope of alleviating ignorance off the world, then noble as the deed and intention might be, there is no Goddess Lakshmi anywhere there, despite all the blessings of Saraswati.. if you wish to make money through the field of education, look at, for instance, ETS.
Since their tests have now becomes standardized in America for admissions into any college here, one needs to give the appropriate exams, pay fees, prepare for these exams and so on. And since ETS is the only one that is the most appropriate source to seek any of those, all that money goes into their coffers, even though the exams they make you write have nothing to do with your years of education, or lack, thereof.

consider another example: to drive around in America, it is federal law to possess insurance on the vehicle. Why? In order to help the common man? of course, not! it is solely to help out all these insurance companies! I don't think any insurance company believes that it exists to ease people's sense of insecurity - rather, their motto is: if this is something that makes people insecure, then there is money to be made here!
so, i conclude with the following idea: if you can think of something that people really need (that is necessary in order to project a 'noble cause' front) but which in reality is something people need because its lack makes them feel insecure, inadequate or paranoid (thats the best option!), then let me know quickly; there's a lot of money to be made there!