18 off 6

I was closely following the T20 world cup semi-final between Australia and Pakistan today. The Australians had fought with great valor and the equation read 18 runs to win off 6 balls. In true Australia spirit ("Australian Maaj") Michael Hussey pulled it off and did it with one ball to spare. It was nothing short of sensational.

However, this inspired an interesting thought... If the equation read 18 to win off 6, how would've other teams reacted?

India : Unless someone's pants were on fire, India would've scored about 7-8 runs; at best 12-13 and gone off the field feeling proud of how well they fought (no one would say that they actually LOST the game).

Sri Lanka : Similar to India but they would also make some strange, stupid noises "Aaaalalalalalalala.. geelllaaaalalal.. khlalahh khulalalalaa" (Read this aloud in a high pitched tone and you'd suddenly feel as if you are in Colombo)... or something like this. But yes, they would've lost too.

New Zealand : Would've lost as well. And would complain that most of their 'in-form players' (like who?) were injured.

South Africa : It would've either started raining or they'd have forgotten to play a shot or miscalculated or something like that. Chances of winning would be about 50%.
Pakistan: Anything could happen. They could either score off these runs easily or maybe just lose wickets on all 6 balls.

West Indies, England, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe: Never mind.

-Shri

Language, accent, pronunciation and the "I-am-so-cool" syndrome

Haven't you all realized that everyone of us has subconsciously (or maybe even deliberately) developed notions regarding the use of languages and their accents and pronunciations of some words in a way so that we *think* we look cool :-).

I can't think of theories to explain this so let me directly jump to examples.

I come from a city whose official name is Pune. However, inspite of it being a proper noun, I wonder why some people keep referring to it as Poona. I'm quite sure everyone knows that the official name is Pune, so saying "Poona" doesn't come out of lack-of-knowledge :-). Plus, more often than not, its people usually speaking in English who keep referring to it as "Poona". Some people (whether they admit it or not) think its more "cool" or more "hip" to use the word "Poona" instead of "Pune". I don't really understand why. If you see English news channels, this is quite evident.

More than the Pune-vs-Poona debate, we see people using the word Bombay when the official name of the city is Mumbai. Again, its usually the English speaking(and therefore supposedly more "hip") population using the word "Bombay" and not Mumbai. Again, if one proper noun replaces the other, why is one supposed to be better(as in "more hip") than the other?

We recently saw a case where a supposedly more "cool" film producer (suave, sophisticated, urban, good-at-English-sucks-at-Hindi, etc.) had to apologize to a political leader (no "hip" at all :D... always-ready-with-the-"Marathi"-sword) because he used the word "Bombay" instead of Mumbai in the movie (interestingly, a good chunk of the movie revolved around "Mumbai beat"). Who made these unwritten rules that "Bombay" is more sophisticated than "Mumbai"?
I understand that the transition from "Bombay" to "Mumbai" happened recently and not everyone was happy with it. But then, this decision was taken by a democratically elected government. So people should go by it. Not everyone agrees to the increase in taxes but people still pay it, right?

Then comes the most hilarious part. Accent!! People have this notion about a hierarchy of accents :-). The western accent is supposed to be right at the top. The more western your accent is, the more "hip" you are....

WHAT??

Yes... but for some reason, this seems to be the unwritten rule about accents. One easily finds Bollywood film stars speaking in these accents just so that they look cool [the most hilarious piece was; recently Rakhi Sawant was trying to do this accent (in an interview to a Marathi channel)... she tried to speak one sentence in English using this accent and forgot some word in between... then switched to Marathi... again forgot some word... then simply started shaking her head and moving her shoulders up and down hoping that the interviewer would move to the next questions :)) ]
Even within the various parts of India, unfortunately, the hierarchy of accents exists. So people from the northern part of India, esp. Haryana, are supposed to be not-so-hip since their accents don't quite exude too much "hipness" :D. But I think this is similar to the accent and attitude of people from Texas :-).
Aishwarya Rai had made an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and it was so weird seeing her faking the western accent. Neways... let's not even get started on Aishwarya Rai!!

And last comes the unwritten hierarchy of languages. Speaking in English is supposed to be coolest, followed by Hindi and the last is the regional language (this is the hierarchy I've seen people conform to, it might be different elsewhere). In college (undergrad), this would result is some really really funny situations.
Two perfectly Marathi speaking classmates meet each other. But #1 is supposedly more "cool" than #2. So no matter what, #1 will always speak in English. #2 will make some futile attempts first, then switch to Hindi and eventually simply get back to what he knows best... Marathi. When both have a language in common, why can't they simply talk in that language? After all language is supposed to be a medium to convey your thoughts.

Why is one language supposed to be more sophisticated than the other? These hierarchies completely beat me!!

Mumbai...

Just like most of you, I witnessed the horror of terrorism in Mumbai... live on TV. And just like most of you, I was left extremely angry, frustrated and completely dejected with 'the system'. I watched most of the 60 hours of the battle and during the process was hounded by many many questions.

1) How on earth can 20-something men (boys?) be convinced to unleash such terror?

I know the quick answer is that these people are brainwashed with sermons with religious/Islamic duties and the idea of trying to save their brethren. But my question is, how would killing people of other religions help? If at all, it only increases the divide between Muslims and non-muslims. If extremists in Pakistan were so sensitive to atrocities on Muslims in India, why don't they call them to their own country? In 1947, people had the option of selecting the country they want to stay in. The Muslims in India made that choice themselves. I know, some of the present Muslims may not have been born then and maybe they disagree with the choice made by their great-grandfathers or grandfathers. If there is any truth in that, the extremists in Pakistan should pressurise their govt. to call Muslims from all over the world who are unhappy with their respective countries and allow them to stay in Pakistan.

2) What about Kashmir?

The original conflict started with the dispute over Kashmir. With the current sorry state of affairs there, I guees, Kashmir has just become a 'piece of land'. Its more in the news for terrorism than its natural beauty. I don't have concrete numbers, but I am pretty sure that tourism in Kashmir is certainly not big enough to affect the economy of either India or Pakistan. I am quite certain that both countries spend more money on military in Kashmir than they get from it. Not to mention the pain that it is causing to the millions of other people. I think, Jawaharlal Nehru's words 'If there is heaven on earth...' has caused more damage than promoting J&K. In such a situation, why would holding a plebiscite in Kashmir under the extremely extremely heavy surveillance of impartial international police (you know who) be a bad idea?
Beyond that, I think, if Kashmir is 'owned' by any country, the other one would be unhappy. Why can't people agree to the idea of open borders? Regarding the money that the tourism and other industries in Kashmir would generate, spend all of it on Kashmir itself. If there is a will, the logistics could be worked out.

BTW, the above should be done only because of the fact that there was no clear mandate as to whether Kashmir was meant to be with India or Pakistan (Yeah I know about Hari Singh and all that... but the ground realities are different). If Pakistan or anyone else thinks about snatching any other part of India it should be met with proper force.

3) Is it jealousy?

I've always felt that Kashmir and Islam is just a reason for the jealousy that some people have against India. India and Pakistan were (kind-of) born at the same time. Who had more advantage at the start is debatable. But the whole world would agree that India has done much more constructive work in the last 61 years than Pakistan. India is a big player on the international scene today with a big booming economy. But Pakistan has probably no significance. If it were not for terrorism, Pakistan would have been no different than say Latvia or Libya or Ethiopia. Seriously; they don't have many people, they don't have oil, they are not a very accepting society and most countries in the world don't play cricket.
Therefore, its fairly natural for them to feel jealous of India. Some of the more aggressive people have therefore taken it upon themselves to bring India down rather taking Pakistan up.

4) Aren't politicians supposed to be 'servants'?

'Public servant' is the term used probably in text-books now-a-days. From the local corporator to the member of parliament, every is my servant. Everybodie's servant. And these servants are not doing a good job at all. Its amazing to see that India is developing so rapidly and so well and yet the people are increasingly unhappy about politicians.
Time-n-again my mind goes back to the lesson learnt in history. The British came to India and promised safety and security to the kings from other kings. And slowly but surely got a stranglehold over the entire country. Similarly, politicians pose a people there to help you in every which way during elections. And immediately after that, they start behaving as if people are at their mercy. Its time these things change. I laughed out loud when Barkha Dutt mentioned on NDTV that no politician was ready to come on 'We The People' after the incident because they were scared. Guilty conscience pricks the mind :). I laughed out even louder when Mrs. Hemant Karkare refused to take compensation from Narendra Modi and also when Mr. Unnikrishnan Sr. refused to meet the Kerala CM.

Unfortunately, 'the system' in India has always given the impression that whatever you want, you can get it done. Be it driving without a license or getting a govt. job or avoiding income tax. What would it take to make everyone more responsible and honest?

India has the 'Right to information' act these days where ordinary citizens can ask for the information they want. I am quite sure that this wrath against politicians will now be translating in many RTI petitions where many scams and promises-not-delivered will be unearthed; especially by TV news channels. I can't wait to see all that...

5) What am I doing?

Its all good to sit back and keep pointing fingers at others. You, me and everyone else knows that if one wants things to be better, then one has to work towards it. We all should realize our responsibilities and act in a responsible, fair and trustworthy manner.

Hopefully, a bigger, better and a much much stronger India will emerge from all this.

Jai Dhoni ...

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's two outstanding gestures simply won him over. If there was anyone who did not like him, these gestures would have easily made them his biggest fans. The idea to ask Sourav Ganguly to lead for a few overs before the match was over outstanding. I couldn't believe it for a few minutes. And when I did, I had a big lump in my throat. A few minutes later, I had a big smile on my face and respect for Dhoni was infinite :).

Then after India won and during the presentation, he asked Kumble to share the trophy with him and after a few pictures were taken, quickly moved aside and let Kumble enjoy the trophy and the limelight. It showed that he understood the contribution and the hard work that the 'old man' had put in.

Not only does he have great cricketing acumen, he seems to be good at man management.

It was hard to increase the respect that I had for Dhoni. It was already at infinity ;).

India Vs Australia

Right... the time is just perfect. Its a Friday evening and I've been stuck into analyzing a core dump for the last few hours. What better time could I get for writing a blog!!

India take on Australia in what would be the most interesting crciketing battle in the last few months. Remember India did exceedingly well in their last trip Down Under. Will the Aussies hit back with a vengeance? Or will the famed Indian middle-order rise to the occasion and deliver a splendid performance? Only time will tell...

For starters, all the talk about India giving a red-carpet welcome to the Australians is certainly not good. Yes, the Aussies would certainly benefit from practicing on Indian pitches and Indian bowlers. But a true match is when both the sides are equally competent on a certain type pitch. So this practice to the Aussies will only make the actual contests interesting.

The other worrisome part is the media going hell-for-leather against the likes Ganguly, Dravid, Kumble and sometimes even Tendulkar. Agreed that all of them are well past their prime, but the real question is are there replacements with enough capabilities? The selectors could certainly do with a better strategy. For example, they could have each of these being made to sit out of a match so that some other youngster gets a chance. That should keep everyone happy (yeah.. provided all of these seniors are the same kind of form).

Keeping Ganguly out of the Irani Trophy was pretty sad. Right since the outset, I've had a soft corner for Sourav. He just had that attitude where one felt he'll back you through out. I really really hope that the selectors do select him in the 14 for the Tests against Australia. Its fine if he cant make it to the playing 11. He could play the 2nd test when some other senior batsman sits out. If he's not selected, I would feel bad :(.

I'll write more about this series as and when I find time...