Off with their heads !

I happened to see the Australia - South Africa game in the early stages of the 2007 world cup. The first thing that struck me was that the level of cricket that these two teams put up for show was simply beyond the capacity of India - and for that matter, Pakistan. The fitness levels of the young brigade of Australia are awesome. The ground fielding of South Africa is light years ahead. India looks pedestrian in comparison. An old ambassador parked next to a brand new Ferrari sports car.

I read an article in Cricinfo which suggested that what happened to Indian hockey 30 years back when Astro Turf was introduced, might be happening right now to Indian cricket. I think it hit the nail right on the head. In addition to the primary, basic requirements for batsmen like timing, placement and running between the wickets, qualities like strength, endurance, stamina and brute power are acquiring importance. India, a team packed with softies, I fear, is being left behind.

Sharad Pawar, immediately after India exited the world cup declared that drastic changes would be made. A couple of days later, the news doing the rounds was the Tendulkar might be asked to take over the captaincy !!! Is this what is meant by drastic ? Makes me want to laugh ! If it is drastic changes that the board wants to make, then drop Tendulkar and Sehwag. Ease out Ganguly. This present team needs to be dismantled ruthlessly.
Kumble took the right decision by retiring from the One day game. Hope the message percolates to Tendulkar. I think the Indian public is slowly coming to realise that they don't need heroes if they do not perform. I think the corporates are realising it now too. They are going in for shorter contracts with players and are including stricter clauses linked to more consistent performances.

75% of this current crop of jokers need to be asked to leave. Indian cricket, especially the one day version, needs fresh blood. We need more Dinesh Karthiks, more Uthappas. Neck out players who are unlikely to be around till the 2011 world cup. It would be ok even if a new-look team loses a few tournaments. The current team is losing them anyway. At least we'll know the new bunch will give 100%.

Is this a knee-jerk reaction to India's shock exit from the 2007 World Cup ? I think not.

India's 'population problem'

I don't believe India's population is as big a handicap for the country as it is made out to be. There's another dimension to it which always gets overlooked. The population should not be viewed in isolation. Rather it always should be spoken of as the population per square area.

Not many people know that the people density is much more in, say, Singapore than it is in India. And Singapore does not have any natural resources, mineral deposits, forests, rivers etc, to speak of. So how is it that Singapore is more successful than India, which is blessed with abundant natural resources ? How is it that their per capita income is better than ours ? I think we just need to attack the problem smartly. There have been some basic flaws in our approach to urban planning these past 5-6 decades

Yes, I do agree that India's cities are overpopulated. That's definitely true. So, I think that the real issue is that rather than over-population, India's problem is that
its population is concentrated in pockets. The real issue is that our cities are splitting at the seams while other areas are underdeveloped and hence sparsely populated.
There's so much of hinterland in India that's just sitting there doing nothing.

Since there are just 5-6 metros in India, all the migration that happens from our rural areas happens into these 5-6 cities. And this is a load even cities with good
infrastructure can't withstand; and we all know what the state of our cities is. So what's the answer?

The obvious solution is control the population growth. But let's be practical. This isn't going to happen overnight. Though the rate of population growth is on the decline
in India, it is going to take decades for it to stabilise.

So we need to look at other alternatives. Satellite towns. I believe that holds the key to this problem. We need to develop satellite towns and cities. These new cities
should be self sufficient in all respects - hospitals, schools, public transportation, railway stations, parks, security, industries: in short, the works. People living in
these towns should find no reason to come to the parent city on a regular basis.
People who leave villages in search of jobs, as indeed current residents of our existing cities, should be convinced that their chances of finding a job or their quest for
a decent standard of living, in these new towns will be just as even as in a Bangalore or in a Mumbai.
There is tremendous scope for growth here. Building these new towns and cities will spawn a huge demand for cement and steel. Millions of jobs can be generated. New vistas
for economic growth can thus be opened up by pursuing this approach.

Our existing cities have reached a point where further investments in infrastructure is not yielding proportionate benefits to their burgeoning populations. We need a
massive paradigm shift to happen to our demography. Future investments need to happen in areas which would result in a more even distribution of our people. The setting up of SEZs is a step in the right direction. (I'm not going into the contoversy of displacement of people, this entails. That's beyond the scope of the issue
this piece is trying to address.)
SEZs, in priciple, are good. Industrialization of an area automatically guarantees the breeding of other spheres of growth which support it.
People are drawn to these areas and this in turn ensures the achivement of self sufficiency of the entire area.

These are the kind of measures that should be taken to address the 'population problem' that India faces.

Forgive and forget !

Two defeats in three matches.

A team which was touted as title contenders is knocked out in the first round. The Indian team must be having nightmares about the kind of reception they will get at the airports when they return home. Fans will be baying for their blood.

Editorials will be written about what went wrong. Private TV channels will call experts to the studio and the matter will be discussed threadbare, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

But this too shall pass. Public memory is short. Soon the next tournament will start. This team will manage a good performance and the cricket crazy Indian public will forgive and forget. And all will be well till the next shocker.

This is a vicious circle and the gullible public is caught in the vortex of it.

Blue Ridge Parkway 17 Mar 2007

We started out at 630 am. This being the first week of daylight saving, it was still dark. We hit I-85 in a new white Hyundai Elantra. We’d taken with us music cds and they were on at full blast.

You know, there is this thing about traveling in the mornings in India. There's something about the cool, chill, crisp air as it plays upon my face that gives me a high. But one can't really keep windows open when traveling on freeways in this country. For one thing, the noise of the wind would be deafening; moreover at this time of the year, it would be freezing.So I have to be content with letting the cool, chill, crisp air-conditioned air play on my face !

Blue ridge parkway, by the way, is a 500 mile long scenic stretch of asphalt that stretches across 3 US states (I think). It is not a freeway. In fact, it is just a 2 lane road with 45mph as its maximum speed.

I did some research before starting out. I knew that fall would be the ideal time to travel on it. But I'll not be here till fall. So March, it has to be. I discovered that Ashville would be my closest access point to the parkway. Ashville is around 2 hours from Charlotte.

Well anyway, back to our drive. We stopped at a McD outlet for our breakfast at around 830 am. After a refreshing meal of pancakes and the inevitable cup of coffee, we set out again. Reached Asheville at around 10ish.

We walked into an information center to find out how to get onto the parkway. Information centers in this nation are totally cool. The staff is always so friendly and so helpful; always a joke ready ! Why can't we replicate such things in India? You never get the feeling that they are doing us a favour by giving out information. On the contrary, you get the feeling that you are doing them a favour by taking time out to visit the place. Amazing !

We came out of the information center with a cartload of brochures and maps. They recommended to us a Folk Art center some 5 miles away to start our drive with. Not surprisingly, their directions to it proved to be accurate.

The folk art center turned out to be a Khadi emporium kind of a place with exhibitions of artifacts and pottery. In fact there was a potter at the place actually making pots. It was simply fascinating to watch. As i was going around the place, i happened to see a notice that appeared to say that the Blue Ridge parkway was closed because of bad weather. Immediately concerned, i make enquiries. Sure enough, I was told that the road was closed 8 miles up north and 38 miles down south. That was certainly a blow.

Anyway, there was nothing much to be done but head south to drive till we reached the barricade. The Blue Ridge parkway is along the Appalachian mountain ranges. The road itself was a narrow winding road. As we climbed, I could feel the familiar 'pop' in my ear. We were really climbing ! The views all along the route were something ! Of course we constantly reminded ourselves that this was nowhere near its best. Fall was the season to be doing this drive in !There were a lot of tunnels along the way. We could see streams and rivers all along the way amidst thick vegetation. This country is certainly blessed with abundant natural beauty !

We made a lot of stops along the way to take photos.It took us almost 90 minutes to cover the 30 miles. (On freeways, it would take around 20-25 minutes. Just gives an idea how leisurely we were driving). It took us a little less time to come back.

Having come back to Asheville, we headed back home. We stopped at a Burger King to have lunch. we reached home at around 5 in the evening.

Bangladesh beats India !

Well, there it is. The impossible has happened.

Bangladesh pulled a fast one over India. Now, we will see the inevitable chest beatings and the usual post mortems done by our eminent experts. And blogdom will see its fair share of frustrated bloggers with nowhere else to vent their ire.

Me included.

We are Indians, after all. Cricket is in our blood and no amount of good advise will rid us of it. Leave us to our doom, I say.

So here goes.

Bite the bullet and boot Tendulkar out. 'I might play the 2011 world cup', our hero says. I say he shouldn't be part of India's One Day outfit at all. Yes, India needs him for its test matches. But there is a lot of youth on the cricketing horizon in India as far as one day cricket is concerned, and it can do without the great Tendulkar.

Wonder what Dravid was thinking, taking Sehwag to the world cup ! This joker needs to go back to the drawing board and work his way up again. What is it with Indian cricket ? A man is only as good as his previous tournament. And Sehwag has had way too many bad tournaments leading up to the world cup. So how is it that he's still around? Only God can tell.

Poor Ganguly (figuratively speaking, of course. The good Lord knows he's anything but poor). He made a back door re-entry into the team. (He should never have been out of it in the first place, but that's another story) He's been delivering the goods almost everytime he's gone out to bat since his re-entry. And of course, that means the sponsors are back in his waiting room again. He must be one smug man. Let's leave him out of this discussion. The mud won't stick.

What is VVS doing in India? When will India learn to give a genius his due? He's been typecasted as a Test match specialist. Test match specialist, my foot ! He is one among only 3 players in this entire country who can play genuine, hostile pace bowling (Tendulkar and Dravid being the other two). Not to say anything about the slower variety. One day cricket, test match cricket, this man can handle everything, and then some. He must be wondering what else he needs to do to get selected. His world cup dreams went up in smoke.

They said this Indian team looks most likely to lift the cup. Well, this performance must have sent the bookies scurrying in all directions. Of course, the last world cup started on a somewhat similar note for India. And they made it to the finals. As they say, it is never over till it is over.

India may get knocked out early, but hey, Pakistan may get knocked out earlier. :-)

If nothing else, I'll sleep in peace tonight knowing that I've done my bit of chest beating and post morteming.

India Shining. Really?

I'm getting rather tired of seeing 'India smiling' and 'India shining' reports in various sections of the print media. No doubt, while it is good that we are looking at the glass as half full, we should'nt go overboard. Check these out.

-The vidharbha region in Maharashtra is witnessing farmer suicides like crazy. They are dropping like flies. The numbers are unbelievable.
-After 60 years of independence, more than half of India's arable land depends on seasonal moonsoon for irrigation.
-65% of our people depend on agriculture.
-No country in the history of the world has become a developed nation without moving, en masse, its people from agriculture to industry. What is India's track record in this area?
-More than 60 percent of children drop out of school before class 6.
-For all the surveys done till date, nobody really knows what is the correct number of Indians who are BPL(below the poverty line).
-Women are still abused in our society - domestic violence.
-Child labour thrives.
-Literacy is a pathetic 50 per cent, if that. Women literacy is best left unsaid.
-Infrastructure even in 'modern' cities is a joke. One good monsoon in bangalore causes all communication lines to be snapped. One good monsoon in Mumbai and its airport -the lifeline of India's economy - is marooned. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
-The media in India which is supposed to be the 'watchdog of democracy' needs to bring these things to the attention of the people. But what does it do? It thinks Aishwarya rai's love life is more important. Shilpa Shetty's racism charge is front page news. What irony !


The first step we need to take is accept that we have a problem. We seem to have a problem doing that. BJP's India shining campaign was and is unadulterated crap.Yes, there are a few individuals in the corporate sector who are billionares. Reliance is doing very well. Tata is doing well. Yes, the software sector is booming. But how many people in India depend on software for a living? About 10 lakhs? And what is India's population? 1 billion plus. Do the math.


But having said that, it is definitely good news that at least corporate India is on a roll; which is more that what could be said of it till not very long back. Let us keep up the good work. But let us not put the real issues on the back burner.

A colossal waste

Gold and diamond ornaments worth millions are regularly offered to presiding dieties at various shrines, especially in South India. What's the point, I ask. Is this some way of ingratiating ourselves to the Lord? A way of atoning our sins? Considering that many times this wealth is ill gotten, is it a way to silence our conscience?

Why can't it be put to better use? Why can not it be used to feed slum childern? Why can't it be used to build a hospital for the poor? Why can't it be used to support orphanages?

I read an article recently that something worth 50 lakh rupees was donated to Tirupati. That's 5 million, for God's sake, excuse the pun.
Let's see here: assuming it costs Rs 18 to feed one poor child for a day(that's a conservative estimate; given scale, I'm sure it will be much less), 50 lakhs can be used to feed 30 kids for 308 months. In other words, theoretically, that amount can be used to feed 30 poor children for 25 years !! Isn't this a colossal waste? I mean, it not as if the good Lord needs all this grandeur.


I'm sure He'll only be too happy to give up a diamond studded crown if it means that some poor child did not have to go to bed hungry and cold.
When will we learn?