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Sachin’s 20 year long glorious career. One way to look at it… [got this some a friends status msg on GTalk]

When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.

When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican, Tiger Woods was 13 years old

This one is long coming.

Last two weeks has hopefully shaken every Indian to the core. The siege of Mumbai for days has asked the most uncomfortable questions to all the people who believe in the idea that is India. I say an idea because India is a place for all humans to be equal and to prosper. To live and to grow. The reality of India is quite different. An Indian today is a hindu or a muslim or a christian. He is than a brahmin or a scheduled cast or an OBC. He is than a maharashtrian or a bihari or tamil. He is than rich or poor. And finally he is an Indian. The only matter of consequence is whether he will vote for you. That’s what an Indian is to the politicians for India.

Few things changed a couple of weeks back, or atleast I like to believe so. Call me naive, but I am hopeful. The last few shots of Hemant Karkare donning the bullet proof vest just before going to battle to salvage the idea of India make me. The Indian does exists. And the count is becoming more prominent now. Two weeks later, as the NDTV runs their tribute every now and then, I still try to imagine how Hemant, Kamte, Salaskar, Sandeep must have felt as they began their campaign to salvage the idea of India must have felt. But I know, there is no way I will ever know that. I am a bystander, I accept whatever is dished out to me, I complain about the system, yet I have done nothing pro active to change it. I have become comfortably numb. But things have to change. Blogging is one medium. But that’s not the end. Enough is enough is the common man’s movement that has started.

The media has brought out the imbecility that exists in our politicians, whether it the home minister’s comment, or the lipstick comment or the dog comment. The aam admi has heard & seen it and is disgusted. Let’s see if we are still shameless enough to vote these nalayaks back into power. Therein will lay the real test. I was pretty outspoken in my own little way about what I thought of our now ex, good-for-nothing Home Minister Shivraj Patil. But these are extra ordinary time. Heads have to roll. Infact I would demand that the PM step down. This may seem a bit extreme, but the accountability for the sheer mess the whole intelligence system that tackle the cross border terrorism is, demands some introspection in the pmo’s office. If his home minister, intelligence system could not protect the innocent mumbaikers, then he should own up to it. But I guess the sad part is that there seems to be no one who is charismatic enough to lead the nation right now in the Congress.

As the visuals of the nightmare is played countless time on by the media that looks to feed upon such tragedies and sensationalisation of these, the visuals of the gun battles, grenade explosions, the commando air drops, the gunshots, the faces of the family that lost a hero, compels the viewer to pause and take cognizance of the times we live in and appreciate the courage shown by the Mumbai Police, the NSG, the MACROS as they without any reservation entered the conflict zones to save lives and the idea that is India.

I am sure that this will not be the end of such tragedies, but hopefully the process to take actions to prevent them from occurring has begun. The first step being electing the right people atleast this time around.

” If anyone wants a first hand look of the Indian democracy, then please switch to the next available Indian ‘news’ channel. Showing now, ‘The Great India Tamasha’, live from the Parliament, 2 days only!!!. “

It’s so tragic, that it’s actually funny that we have such hypocrites as representing us in the Parliament. I am sure, not more than a few handful know anything about the Nuclear deal. Yet they will vote on the issue and make it look as if they are doing so because the people they represent compel them too.

For the record, I would like the Nuclear deal to go through, for I would rather live and hope that some day in my life time, in most places in both rural, urban India, there will be electricity, connectivity than prepare for a doomsday when we fire nuclear weapons on each other and die anyways!

The Nano, pretty nice isn’t it? no not the iPod, but the new Tata’s 1 lac People’s Car. I think the Tata’s have done a super splendid job, almost close to a miracle bringing out this marvel of engineering. The world shouted that it was not possible, but leave it to an Indian to make a paisa vasool product, the Chinese will do it too, but the product might just cause you to die of lead poisoning … hehe.

Today’s day definitely belonged to the Tatas’, the engineers who made it all possible. Ratan Tata deserves a standing ovation for taking up the challenge to build a ‘car’ for 100,000 Rs.

The biggest challenge for this car was to look like a car, and by god, she does. Infact I think, she aced the looks department. It looks pretty trendy. And if it can survive a wife, two bustling kids, and a bag of groceries, than I have no reason to doubt why this car will not rewrite automotive history. Apart from being esthetically pleasing to the eye, it meets all the safety norms, Bharat Stage-III emission norms and can also meet the Euro 4 norms.

It indeed is a historic day for India, and Indians all over. Today we gift the world, the cheapest car!

Additional read, People’s Car website

I have been living in Pune for the last 3 years, and since, had always wanted to attend the Sawai Gandharva. I had heard a lot about this, the preeminent gathering of the most gifted exponent of the Indian classical arts. This year it happened. It was by sheer chance though, over a rather mundane talk over coffee in the office. A colleague, upon my mention of Sawai Gandharva mentioned that it was happening the next weekend and volunteered to arrange a pass upon seeing my rather unexpected enthusiasm. I got the pass, paid Rs. 350 for it, in hindsight, worth every rupee. So now I had no excuse to postpone my desire to attend the festival.

I attended all the evening session. Sadly though I missed the performance by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi on Sunday, as it was not a scheduled performance. But, I can hardly complain, I got to see some of the most well know artist performing live. Over the course of the festival I have listened to Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Jasraj, Aarti Tikekar, Murad Ali, Rahul Sharma, L Subramaniam, Sardeshmukh, Vijay Ghate. I was also mesmerized watching the fleet-footed Alarmel Valli performing Bharatanatyam. Honestly, I have no understanding of the classical music. I was just curious; I had a desire to attend such an event, just for the experience. I am glad I did.

I will say this though; these performances are not for everyone. The raagas can last for hours. And only if you are genuinely interested to explore this field will you be able to make it through.

All the performances that I attended, I enjoyed. The event is unlike any live performances that I have attended. The audience sits very quietly and just absorbs the music. Most of the time they are in a meditative state, I guess they converge all the energies/attention to their sense of hearing, taking in all of the sound of music. Of course, it helped that the pandals had Bose speakers all around, recreating the crisp sound. I must mention the exceptional sound setup (courtesy Swaranjali), complementing the artist perfectly. Another good thing about the event is that it held in December, when the pleasant winter is about to set it. Every day there is at least one well known artist performing, so it helps novices like me interested. The one performance that stood out for me was by Pandit Hariprasad playing the flute and his Jugalbandhi with a very talented tabla player Vijay Ghate. The crowd consisted predominantly of the seniors, but the younger generation made it’s presence felt.

The high point of this year’s was reached on Sunday afternoon, when I was told the rather feeble looking Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, also is loving called Panditji, to the delight of the lucky audience, took to the stage and sang at his festival. My colleague who is a regular told me people had tears in their eyes at the end of the performance. Panditji had made it a point to show up in the evenings at the festival, though he watched the performance from his car. So I was really amazed that he actually performed.

So if you are a patron of the classical arts, or just someone curious like me, if you are in Pune in early December, please take out time an attend the Sawai. Who knows, you might just enjoy this genre, I did!

As this year rushes towards it finality, I am compiling a list of the most memorable sporting events that we had the privilege to witness this year. There were quite a few this year. For India it was a bittersweet year.

So let me begin with the one event that had billion and half people come to a standstill on one promising Monday evening in late September. The event : The Twenty20 final. After, what could only be termed as the most disgraceful performance by the Indian team in the ODI World Cup a few months earlier, the expectations from us were at an all time low. Also, majority of the desi crowd were oblivious with this new format. So when our first match was washed out, we were like… déjà vu… But then the tie with the Pakis, and we winning the bowl out got us curious. This was quickly followed by a loss against the kiwis. Phhbbt… But from that point on… the rest they say is history. Sending the English out of the park, followed by stealing victory against the Proteas, and then outclassing the almighty Aussie and finally defeating the Pakis to claim the maiden Twenty20 World Cup had the whole nation euphoric.

The stars for India were Yuvraj, Dhoni with a young and fired up team. Dhoni, who was just made the captain, displayed outstanding leadership (I have never seen a more honest, calm, motivating Indian captain) and unwavering belief in his team. The moments that will forever be etched in our memories are Yuraj hiting 6 sixes, and Sreesanth beating the pitch…

Cheers to Dhoni and his desi brigade…

As we all know, The Sunday Times of India is an extended edition. In addition to the news, it has articles from various prominent personalities. Two such personalities are Shashi Tharoor, and Shobhaa De. The articles by these two on this week’s edition caught my attention. Shashi’s screamed ‘Too bad we can’t have a leader like Sarkozy‘ while Shobhaa De’s read, ‘Jawani Diwani‘. Ok, so first thing first, Shashi, Ofcourse we can’t have a leader like Sarkozy, because we are not France. We are a blend of a billion plus individuals, who don’t speak the same language, are mostly Hindus yet pray to different gods, have been cataclysmically classified into the senseless hierarchy of castes, celebrate different festivals, eat different cuisine, have different traditions, have different lines of thoughts, views, have localized issues, are not educated enough, have to fight everyday to get access to life’s basic necessities, are living in a ‘developing’ nation, are surrounded by non democratic neighbors, are subjected to terrorist brutalities, are home to illegal immigrants. Yes, if we were like France, we would have a leader like Sarkozy, I would even suggest that we would find someone better than him from amongst the billion. It’s not easy juggling the aspirations of extremely diverse billion people, which call India their home. I see it as nothing short of a miracle that we even have a democracy and have sustained it for the last 60 years. I guess it’s easy to sit in an audience and be mesmerized by an orator who uses charm and wit to influence his audience, not that there is anything wrong with that, Sarkozy is a politician, he has to, but you Mr. Shashi, must also soak in the ground realities in India. We are not perfect, but we are doing well!

Next, the socialite, Shobhaa De. Hers is not an article but a cheeky summary of week’s event using some witty adjectives from the comfort of her home surrounded by, what I assume, are her uber - elite friends from Mumbai. She mentions three young ’single’ Indians who were in news this week, Dhoni, Rahul Gandhi, and Prashant Tamang. The article looks promising, but then as one skims through it, the realization is dawned that she only understands and can articulate the cricket related story. Sadly Rajiv and Prashant are just mentioned to, maybe prove to the readers that she is indeed aware of the week’s ‘people in the news’ but in no ways, well versed enough to comment on their actions, or talent as in the case of Prashant.

My point is that it’s nice that Times can get these ‘well-known’ people to write articles, but it doesn’t guarantee that these would enrich the lives of the people who read them. These two articles, this Sunday, are in my mind nothing more than ordinary views that anyone one with some inclination to writing can come up with. These are just words to fill up space. And seems like the authors can get away with them. I would want the Times, at the very least to provide for a forum to question, commend, argue the views expressed, rather than SMS a number conveying my like or dislike of the article.

Anyways, just my two cents!

Well done Team India. I can almost hear the hallowed words, “First Twenty20 World Champions… India”. Poor host, they caught us on the wrong freaking day. Ofcousre, we were gonna win the match, but we wanted to top the group. No way were we getting out of Durban. Not with another weekend approaching. We get treated like gods here, especially by the female kinds. So after we win against the Aussies, we go straight to party.

And then on Monday, well why wouldn’t they just hand over the trophy! Does Pakistan really want to be humiliated once again? Last time, we were kind to them. We made it look as if it was real close. After all we are neighbours! But this time around we will take no prisoners. Prepare to die, you Pakis!

As for a final with NZ, naah, not a chance!

~views expressed are of a member of the Indian team

I have never put pictures in my blog but today is an exception. I have got the perfect picture.

What a glorious day it must have been. Lucky are the people who lived and experienced 15 August 1947, we can only celebrate.

We all love and admire various things about our nation. It’s diversity, distinct regional heritage, its cuisine which changes every 100 kms, its traditions, its zillion languages and dialects, its dresses, its head gears, its dances, festivals, aah the list could go on. I mean we can all be Indians in a room and yet speak a different language.

Happy 60th year of India’s Independence!

picture taken from Indiatimes.com Times of India :: e-paper