It ammuses me to no end when I see this :"One Person Carrying Billion Hopes when going out to Bat" .Well , he can count on me.I will not be resting my hopes on any sportster.Whether he is Batting,Bowling,Fielding or doing whatever he can do.That makes it 1 billion-1 hopes. Right now I have set my hopes on our Finance Minister, who is about to present a budget.Hope he gives some respite for me by giving tax breaks.
Flashback to April 2007. India lose to Sri Lanka and exit from the world cup in the first round. Tendulkar & Co. were chastised and were subjected to endless scrutiny.At least one member in the Indian team would have wished he was in Bob Wolmer's room. They allegedly thrashed Billion -1 hopes. The castigation was so severe in the media,that even Kasab would have felt less guiltier.
Fast forward to present.Tendulkar scores double hundred in a rather inconsequential ODI.Media,Public go berserk. All channels unanimously appoint Tendulkar as god of India(=Cricket). If a non cricket follower watched Indian channels,news papers,forums they would think India got their independence on 24th Feb,2010.
Amidst all this,a big thanks to Tendulkar.For the number of times he brought smiles on our faces all these years.Carry on maestro,without the weight of my Hopes on you !!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
An Opinion about Opinion
A famous notorious quote reads:"A Opinion is like *******,everybody seems to have one."In India people seems to have at least two opinions on each issue.The number of opinions,specifically of those disposable celebrities, is directly proportional to the number of news channels that interview them.
There was a famous interview of our former son of soil(oops!! former PM) when he visited Anantnag in Jammu. A press reporter threw a innocuous question at our then Honorable PM on the Anantnag riots that had happened few days before. Mr.PM promptly responded with his opinion on Mr.Anantnag,who was then a minister in Karnataka government.And that Opinion had lot of venom, since Mr.Anantnag had identified himself with the opposing faction,leaving the reporter perplexed.This is the first kind of opinion:out of context,but still speaks your mind.
There is other kind of opinion that is very prevalent,and the funniest of all.The opinions of the instant cricket experts.There are no dearth of channels on which the likes of Mr.Nikhil Chopra advising Dravids and Tendulkars on how to play short ball.The last time when Mr.Chopra took the field he had 80 runs to his name in an ODI. And he was consistently achieving this feet in his previous matches.Unfortunately for him that was in the bowling card. But still that does not prevent him from expressing his Opinions.These are kind of opinions which nobody cares , including person who asked for the Opinion.
And the third kind of opinions are primarily expressed to meet some business ends.As Mr.SRK did recently. Its very strange that it occurred to SRK that the treatment meted out to Pak players was bad just a week before his movie was being released in Pak. It does not matter that as a franchise owner he was in a better position to pick at least one Pak player. All that matters is that he had two different businesses to run and his opinions was just formed around that.
The only public body which does not seem to have any opinions is the office of President of India.Our Honorable Ms.President appears to be so aesthetic that she is almost a non-entity.We see her in public only two times an year.These people seem to have no opinion on any issues and even if they had nobody cares to ask them.And in country like India,guess that's the best approach.
There was a famous interview of our former son of soil(oops!! former PM) when he visited Anantnag in Jammu. A press reporter threw a innocuous question at our then Honorable PM on the Anantnag riots that had happened few days before. Mr.PM promptly responded with his opinion on Mr.Anantnag,who was then a minister in Karnataka government.And that Opinion had lot of venom, since Mr.Anantnag had identified himself with the opposing faction,leaving the reporter perplexed.This is the first kind of opinion:out of context,but still speaks your mind.
There is other kind of opinion that is very prevalent,and the funniest of all.The opinions of the instant cricket experts.There are no dearth of channels on which the likes of Mr.Nikhil Chopra advising Dravids and Tendulkars on how to play short ball.The last time when Mr.Chopra took the field he had 80 runs to his name in an ODI. And he was consistently achieving this feet in his previous matches.Unfortunately for him that was in the bowling card. But still that does not prevent him from expressing his Opinions.These are kind of opinions which nobody cares , including person who asked for the Opinion.
And the third kind of opinions are primarily expressed to meet some business ends.As Mr.SRK did recently. Its very strange that it occurred to SRK that the treatment meted out to Pak players was bad just a week before his movie was being released in Pak. It does not matter that as a franchise owner he was in a better position to pick at least one Pak player. All that matters is that he had two different businesses to run and his opinions was just formed around that.
The only public body which does not seem to have any opinions is the office of President of India.Our Honorable Ms.President appears to be so aesthetic that she is almost a non-entity.We see her in public only two times an year.These people seem to have no opinion on any issues and even if they had nobody cares to ask them.And in country like India,guess that's the best approach.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Issue That is not
I am sick of hearing and reading about this SRK and Shivsena issue in media.Its a classic case of more messengers than the available news material .In the first place if SRK was so concerned about Pak players, he could have definitely made room for them in his team.KKR anyway are loosing, even without Pak players.And Sena,well, they don't have much to do these days.They have stiff competition in beating up North Indians.At local level, MNS is doing the job and Internationally Australians are handling it.Albeit, more brutally.Apparently, all parties involved have nothing much to do :SRK,Sena and Media.
I have a concept.Indian government should consider having system of internal visas.As our dearest neighbor, China had. And the Visa issuing officers should be Sena and MNS activists.At least for Maharastra. Each state can have an local autonomous(!!!) body like this,with people who are self proclaimed torch bearers of the local culture.(Sadly, MNS and Sena believes beating up people is part of their local culture.). To ensure that the visa issuing procedure is fair, it should be preceded by an public service officer.This effectively means that,by the time you get a Visa of a state/city/locality you are all but dead.That means no room for conflict between locals and immigrants. Problem solved.
And it gets better.Our agriculture minister visited Mr.Thackery Senior to convince him on not disrupting SRKs movie release and IPL.And so kind of his party(NCP),it did not forget to advice us on consuming less sugar.Lest,we would end up having diabetes and all subsequent ill effects.So much for price rise of eatables.Understandably,Mr.Pawar's stakes are far higher in IPL than trivial matters such as Rice,Dal and Sugar.Don't be surprised to see an advisory from Agriculture Ministry in couple of weeks asking all Indians to have food only once a day. Eating twice will make you obese, you see. Don't forget to watch IPL though.
I have a concept.Indian government should consider having system of internal visas.As our dearest neighbor, China had. And the Visa issuing officers should be Sena and MNS activists.At least for Maharastra. Each state can have an local autonomous(!!!) body like this,with people who are self proclaimed torch bearers of the local culture.(Sadly, MNS and Sena believes beating up people is part of their local culture.). To ensure that the visa issuing procedure is fair, it should be preceded by an public service officer.This effectively means that,by the time you get a Visa of a state/city/locality you are all but dead.That means no room for conflict between locals and immigrants. Problem solved.
And it gets better.Our agriculture minister visited Mr.Thackery Senior to convince him on not disrupting SRKs movie release and IPL.And so kind of his party(NCP),it did not forget to advice us on consuming less sugar.Lest,we would end up having diabetes and all subsequent ill effects.So much for price rise of eatables.Understandably,Mr.Pawar's stakes are far higher in IPL than trivial matters such as Rice,Dal and Sugar.Don't be surprised to see an advisory from Agriculture Ministry in couple of weeks asking all Indians to have food only once a day. Eating twice will make you obese, you see. Don't forget to watch IPL though.
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