Taare Zameen Par

Tears welling up and weeping is not the easiest emotion that a man can express and when the raison d’etre for the tears is a movie, it becomes even more difficult to justify (if there was ever a need to). Aamir Khan’s directorial debut Taare Zameen Par accomplishes this rather effortlessly without too much of a melodrama but with a kind of sensitivity not seen in the recent past.

The movie takes us through the heart of a child suffering from dyslexia and succeeds where Monsieur Bhansali fails. It creates a world familiar to us, which we can relate to unlike Black which exists in its own self-indulgent vacuum. The images of a paint drop falling on Ishaan’s face, the dogs sleeping on his lap and the everyday sights of the world look so beautiful through the eyes of the young boy.

TZP deals with the life and tribulations of Ishaan Awasthi, fondly called Eno by his family. He’s a dreamer, with no sense of time, who lives in his own world inhabited by nature and its glorious manifestations. He is a regular kid who fights off bullies; bunks school and spends a great deal of his time day-dreaming.

Initially, we do not realize that anything is amiss and relate his behaviour to his age and innocence. He’s sent to a boarding school where he goes into his shell further till his disability is finally discovered by an Art teacher in his school, Ramkumar Nikumbh, played by Aamir Khan. The teacher then works to put him back on track.

The movie practically lives through the child’s eyes as he struggles to find meaning in the numbers and syllables drilled through his mind. He needs to not only satisfy his parental aspirations but also work around with his disability. Parental obsession with their children’s performance is only a symptom of this larger malice- where result is the only thing that matters. Only the exceptional ones are required, the rest of us remain people on the fringe without any voice.

The kid Darsheel Safarey is absolutely wonderful as he portrays the everyday kid we are familiar with and not the irritatingly cute kid in movies who tries his best to get on our nerves. His name appears first when the credits start rolling and his performance justifies that.

Aamir as Nikumbh Sir sports a spunky hairstyle and performs admirably, with just the right amount of restraint.(Let me concede that when I saw the Khan in the movie, I wondered how much we was being paid for such a job; shit, he can’t live so comfortably in Mumbai working only as an Arts School. Agreed that’s a cruel thought in the midst of all this but I could not stop myself!!!). The father remains a bit of a stereotype but Tisca Chopra as the mother fits the bill pleasantly well only to be ignored in the second half.

TZP sees Aamir as a very sensitive person; his tears well up just a bit too frequently in the movie. Is it because society has taught us that it’s not manliness to shed tears that many in the theatre felt disconcerting to see Aamir’s tears?

His characterization was a revelation; the protagonist is shown as a very soft-natured guy whose heart pains to see the struggles of a child and who has less control over his emotions when compared to the average hero. I always did think of Aamir as a Method Actor who thinks primarily from his brain; but this movie comes straight from the heart, not just the head and you actually feel for it.

A special mention about the music. Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy and Prasoon Joshi have done a wonderful job in delivering compositions that go along with the feel of the movie. The music has a soft, lilting presence which gives it a beautiful feel. Music has been used liberally in the movie but in no way does it manage to slow down the proceedings.

But there are areas that you wish Aamir could have plugged in, so that the movie could have been even better. The parental interactions in the second half are strangely muted. Ishaan’s mother has sacrificed her career to take care of her kids and is shown to be very sensitive to her children’s needs but even after realizing that her son has a learning disorder, all she manages to do is a Google search on dyslexia.

Was it the Actor Vs the Director clash that caused Aamir Khan to take over the role of the parents too and reduce their role to mere bystanders whose only involvement with their son is to collect his progress report?

Would it not have been better if Aamir had also tried to put in a parental point of view and not paint them in black and put all the blame squarely on them. Yes, they play a pivotal role in shaping the future of their children but trying to understand them would also have helped.

For all the pains that Aamir takes to showcase Ishaan’s difficulties, his progress takes place just a bit too fast, all in the pace of a song. Even the ending has its share of melodrama but even if it were only melodrama I would not have an issue. Instead, it requires Ishaan to take part in a competition and win the first prize to regain his esteem.

After all the bravado about parental mentality and rat-race, it is a bit unfair that Ishaan has to succeed in another rat race to redeem himself. Every child is special, so any need to actually outdo others and prove his specialty?

Most characters in TZP act as caricatures but I’m willing to buy that illustration. Maybe that’s how little Ishaan looks at the world. His perception about himself drives others to look at him similarly. At the end, Ishaan stumbles as he walks to receive the prize; does this suggest that he still is dependent on Aamir?

Nevertheless, the movie worked for me at different levels and not just the parental-child angle. It also talked about listening to one’s dreams as well as one’s inner feelings. The movie is not just for kids and carries a message for all of us.

We have forgotten to admire the small beauties that nature showers us daily with but take it for granted. The fluttering of a butterfly, the rhythm of a fish, the gentle waft of the breeze and its goose pimples are no longer important to us. What is important to us is our obsession with targets and timelines; so much so that we do not have even the time to feel happy about completing our targets.

Every child is indeed special!!! Thanks, Aamir for displaying the guts to break all conventions and make such a beautifully sensitive movie…………

Wooing the Go Slow Movement

As I stand on the edge of a road watching the population hurtling across at an uncontrollable pace, it seems so uneasy watching the faces of people as they grimace and scream at everyone else and move ahead on the wild roads governing our country.

These small journeys can lead to a great road rage but at the same time can also be a lesson in building patience- after all, you realize after sometime that you cannot overcome this ocean of humanity and you have to give in. Both the Merc and the Maruti meet their destinies here and both are equal here.

Speed is a very relative concept and it gets so much more accentuated as you travel across destinations, each location in its own time clock. As I traverse from Mumbai to Hyderabad and swoop down to Kerala, I realize how painfully slow the passage of time can be.

Living and travelling in the din of the Mumbai metropolis acts as such a marked contrast to the lazy life of my town. As I sit in front of my house in Palakkad and watch the cattle grazing and clouds ambling by, I wonder when I last sat down and saw nature taking its own course.

Speed is not always a virtue and is primarily a function of our need to compress our lives into compartments of milliseconds which we cannot live without. Are we genetically programmed to want to do things faster than they should be? Is the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius relevant in our lives at all junctures? Maybe no but we do find it difficult to decelerate and go along with the flow of life.

Life has a certain flow but we always want to go faster; we do not have the time or patience or slow down and enjoy its small beauties- a case of missing the woods for the forest. Trying always to look at the larger picture has numbed our sensibilities and I can no longer strive to be the God of Small things because Size Does Matter.

As you sit in a vehicle or try to cross the road, you see this urge across to push faster and faster. People glaring and screaming at each other and trying to move swiftly but there is no smile on anyone’s face and no one willing to slow down and allow the other person to go ahead.

We have been brought up to believe that the world is always trying to move ahead and conspiring against us and we must not allow that to happen. So, we trust and care for no one; the only thing that matters is what we have done or where we go.

Try this experiment one day- Stand on the edge of a busy traffic junction and observe people moving about. But observe this as an outsider with absolutely zero involvement with the proceedings. You are merely a passive observer and looking at the scene standing outside it.

You observe the flow of life; everything is perfect just as it should be, just as life has willed it to be. It can be a meditative experience to stand outside and observe the world without being a part of it.

I am told that if we were to slow down, we will not reach our destination. But what is our destination? In this race for speed, we have no permanent destinations. Every halt is a mere pit stop in our relentless urge to cross the 100m line but then we do forget that life does not stop at the 100m finish; there are scores of marathons to go and here we are obsessed with a few 100 metres. What we are doing in the process is settling down for the smaller things in life at the cost of the larger, natural and more beautiful things in life.

Our culture puts a premium on speed and the techno world that we live in actively allows and encourages us to keep buzzing 24/7. Blackberry may be a technological marvel to keep you connected every time but the end result is that you remain connected and vulnerable to office pressures more than ever.

Multi-tasking has been thrust upon us and marketed to us as a virtue but think of it and you realize that it is such a misnomer; it is the same as zero tasking. You are there everywhere but in no single place at any time. Technology has reduced barriers and ensured that there is a greater ability to interact with people but willingness to do so is not a function of technology.

“Slow” is therefore, a dirty word and we need to do things fast just because everything else around us is going fast, without even considering whether or not it makes sense. Ever thought how difficult is to sit silently in a meditative state for a few minutes; the body starts twitching uneasily because it has never known what it is to be doing nothing. Inactivity is also required at times if we think about it. You feel like you're chasing something, but you never quite catch up with that something.

This fast obsession manifests even in the food that we have – Fast Food is something we have started living in. There’s no time for proper organic living and so we need synthetic substitutes pumping higher calories in a faster amount of time. As we click and punch keys in an attempt to connect to the world faster, it seems a small mercy that the sun still rises and rises as per its nature and not by the whims and fancies of engineers trying to screw up nature in the name of breakthrough innovations.

Slowly but steadily we may just be close to reach that Tipping point after which it may just be too late to slow down and start living all over again. If we haven't already reached a breaking point, we're close.

In this hyped-up world, we need to keep an eye on our personal speedometers- it's very easy to do things fast just because everything else around you is going fast, without even considering whether or not it makes sense- courtesy slowmovement.com

This thought primarily struck me thanks to this beautiful forward sent by Simrat; I personally would not like to do a copy-paste but I do think that this forward is quite meaningful now.

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalized processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to possess a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x number of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in other words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe named Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US’s attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time.

As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Om Shanti Om

OSO is a Farah Khan movie – if you do not keep that in mind and condition yourself accordingly, you’d miss the point of the movie. Ms. Khan and party are out to have a ball and whether you like it or not, it does not matter or as SRK says, in the movie, in his tribute to Gone With the Wind - Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. There is a scene in OSO when a wannabe Bengali director says that the cameras are ready from the Satyajit Ray angle and the Bimal Roy angle but the producer asks him to focus on the Manmohan Desai angle kyonki wahin kaam ayega.

This philosophy exactly reflects Farah Khan’s mind as she sets out to make a pot boiler with no arty pretensions. For a lover of serious cinema, this can be a difficult experience – akin to a true blooded South Indian reading the Times of India after years of digesting The Hindu. But after the initial period of indigestion, it can also spell fun in a different form of way; of course, this feeling has to be a more conditioned one rather than natural.

Comedies/spoofs suffer when they start taking themselves seriously; and then you wish they’d stick to the comic plot instead of weaving silly melodrama- Check any Priyadarshan’s movie for that. Farah’s Main Hoon Na was a pain whenever the story tried to take upper hand over plots like the Sush-SRK romance; OSO also charters into such a terrain occasionally but for some reason the seriousness never sinks in.

There is not much of a story to mention, except that boy loves girl but girl loves someone, that someone kills her and boy and girl die in the process. They are reborn and the hero takes revenge with a little help from the girl’s ghost – a Karz meets Madhumati and then The End, finally!!! The story of re-incarnation and revenge is old enough and there is no real intent to recreate with a different perspective (we’ll leave that to RGV).

The pre-incarnation story of the 1st half is set in the 1970s while the second half moves into the current world of cinema. So, you have spoofing right from the days of Rajesh Khanna to Abhishek Bachchan. The movie meanders into seriousness occasionally but Farah Khan does not intend to continue the serious element for long. So, the seriousness stays put for a brief period before things again become hunky dory.

The good part about such movies is that they ask you to sit back and just watch, with a sense of abandon - keep your cerebral part out of it. Let’s not discuss the plot and the futility of it in the entire scheme of things because that is not relevant – Damn, we have a topless SRK emerging from the waters and bringing forth the quintessential metrosexual male (he could try the Daniel Craig style next time), a beautiful Deepika Padukone who manages to keep our attention on her face throughout and a whole lot of actors gyrating to foot tapping music!!! And you dare to ask for more????

OSO mocks at many in the industry- Sooraj Barjatya, the Kapoor family (Overacting hamari khandani beemari hai), Manoj Kumar (wonder what was there to be upset over his depiction here???) and many others but it is all in good fun. The clichéd dialogues and the performances (especially in the first half)) are clearly over the top but that is partly Farah’s tribute to the good old world of Hindi cinema.

Only the villain played by Arjun Rampal is underplayed; Baradwaj Rangan has a point when he says- an “unabashedly old-fashioned, over-the-top approach would have been more appropriate” for the antagonist of a self-respecting masala movie.

The songs are good, pleasantly hummable but for some reason they fall short when you watch it on screen. Where is the “Aankhon Mein Teri Ajab si” song; slicing and serving it in parts destroys Vishal-Shekhar’s wonderful score. And the title song is an HAHK type family get-together song- where the idea is “I scratch your back and you scratch mine” (Witness Govinda and SRK scratching each other’s back literally in the song).

The song went on for too long and I was waiting for the song to complete. But the songs still remain a plus point in the movie- Maybe Farah should try her hand at a musical where she can take more liberties with the script.

The best part of the movie is actually the rolling of the credits. It is done pretty innovatively and everyone gets a part in the credits, including the spot boys- Now that is good work and I’m sure that it would have pleased the entire team to no end. Moreover, Farah Khan entering the final stage of the credits and being welcomed to no applause is pretty symbolic of the hold that directors have on audience – none at all!!!

At the end, the movie remains just an occasional spoof – an attempt at parody with a story thrown in bits and pieces occasionally for the discerning guy in the audience to pickup if he wishes to. Too many wisecracks can make a half an hour serial but a 3 hour movie can be a bit of a stretch and that’s where Farah Khan stumbles.

Honestly, I don’t think there is anything much in the movie but if you want to while away a couple of hours and more and you have nothing much to do, go for it. Either way, there is nothing to lose….

My Farewell Mail

I had no intention to post my farewell mail to my company on this blog. However, looking at the overwhelming response that I have received from colleagues and several others who have read it, I have posted it here. The idea is not to sound very pompous about the entire thing but to share my feelings with a larger audience. It was Sudarshan's idea to post it here, though intended half in jest but I decided to take his point seriously!!!

I have always hated reading exit mails since most of them go overboard praising and thanking everyone-working in a dream company and the greatest set of colleagues etc. Why can't people just be honest atleast while moving out?

The idea was to be honest but at the same time not sound very bitter while leaving - after all that's the easiest thing to do, rail against everyone while leaving. Joining a company is a conscious decision that we have made and need to take responsibility for our actions instead of blaming the rest of the world for any misfortune that we may have faced.

Just to clarify, I have not faced any such issues and I'm leaving the company without carrying any baggage from the past. Of course, it is ironic that more people know me now that I have left the company than while working there.

Dear team,

After a brief stint of 17 months through the corridors of *******, I am moving out of the company today and going ahead in life to pursue my career in another company, infact another industry. It's been a bit of a mixed bag, with much more time at my personal disposal than in my previous job. Except for a few hectic months when in Kuala Lumpur , it's been a slow drive on an empty road.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Facilities, Canteen, Travel and Transport departments for the excellent support that I have received during this period. People may inundate the BB with complaints on these aspects but trust me, there are not too many companies who provide these kind of facilities. Laterals like me may understand this point but freshers and those born and brought up in ******* may not appreciate it.

I'd like to offer a special thanks to the entire *** team with which I have been associated during the entire period of my stay here. And a special word for my ex-PM, RC, who's been a wonderful support and guide throughout this period. One of the better aspects of my life here was the ****** pre-sales trip; it was a difficult phase but worth remembering, especially for the friends that I made in those few months in Kuala Lumpur .

Job satisfaction is not a company perk; it comes from doing quality work and with due respect to everyone, I do a feel a tinge of regret that this did not necessarily happen. This is no reflection on the company but on many other factors, both external and internal. There comes a time when you realize that there is a mismatch between your vision and that of the company, and then it is time to move on. Living in one’s comfort zone for the sake of stability may not be the best way to live, at least during early years of one’s career.

There are no regrets or sadness in leaving the company, however, at the same time, it is not exactly a gung-ho feeling. I realize that there is no dream company or dream job; we work because we need to do something and the month end SMS sent by ICICI justifies our efforts. My regards to everyone here; best of luck in the successful completion of all your endeavours. Also, there may be people whom I have consciously or sub-consciously hurt/disappointed during my interactions; my apologies to all of them.

I am available at my personal id - ********@yahoo.co.in - and also blog at http://epradeep98.blogspot.com/ - one of the legacies of bench management in *******.

Regards
Pradeep

P.S: The sentence in bold is not an original thought; that was taken from an ad released by Microsoft as part of its recruitment campaign. I have masked a few names for the sake of confidentiality.

GoodBye, IT

Oct 10th-Wednesday will be my last day in my current job. After 17 months of spending my work life in a premier IT company, it is time to bid adieu to it and move to the industry of my birth-banking. Well, the industry and company shift has been a relatively easy decision but not the change in location. Moving from Hyderabad back to Mumbai needs a certain mental preparation and I still need to prepare for it.

These 17 months have been a mixed bag, really, as it probably happens for most people. It gave me an opportunity to travel abroad (referring to 'abroad' as 'onsite' is a feel food factor and another exercise in branding) and work at unknown areas like pre-sales and direct client interaction.

It has given me enough time in hand to rethink my priorities both at the career and personal front. Now time is not something that was available to me in my previous job but it was plenty here except for a few hectic months in Kuala Lumpur.

I must thank my company for the excellent infrastructure and facilities provided. The canteen, transportation and other miscellaneous facilities (gym, swimming pool, book stall among others) are something that went beyond what the company promised to deliver to its employees. There may be a second opinion about this amongst many but I don't have any complaint at all about it.

But then there are things that go beyond all this, don't they? What about your nature of work? Considering the fact that most of us spend close to 10-12 hours daily at work, it is imperative that we feel good about our work. The remaining time is anyway spent in gossiping, entertainment and sleeping.

The inherent nature of the IT industry facilitates the creation of a large bench strength (something the Indian cricket team badly needs) but then bench management is no joke. This problem is more acute for laterals who keep comparing their nature of work with their previous job.

Having the fastest growing bench strength may sound good on paper but not necessarily so in real life. With a growing emphasis on global offshore model and a rising rupee, onsite opportunities may also be shrinking, adding to the chagrin of employees.

Most IT companies recruit en masse from colleges and have a huge fresher strength. It brings in a certain sense of camaraderie amongst them but this is not the case with laterals. With due respect to the freshers, I have felt that many of them are pampered (atleast in my company) and so, they have so many unreasonable expectations from the company. Look at the complaint boxes in these companies and you'd realise what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I did feel like a fish out of water here. One reason could be my natural aversion towards technology; that clearly slackened my willingness to adapt to work in an IT company. For a functional person like me, technology was only an enabler, not the driver which was at odds with my company philosophy.

On many an occasion, the client and I were at sync with each other but to explain this to technical folks was always a headache-the kind of things that happens when you have scores of people who have never thought outside data tables, Java and codes. Again this is understandable; after all, that is why functional personnel are recruited.

Working on onsite projects also means working with different sets of people and probably never meeting your boss, except when you have a concall to discuss your appraisal; contrast this with my previous job where my boss and I spent more than a month preparing my appraisal form. But with due respect to the company, I do not hold anything against it. The reason for this amicable split is just that my vision and that of the company are different.

Whenever you leave a company, people keep congratulating you and for all such people, the only thing I have to say is there is no dream company. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but simple reasoning says that if I were to love my job, my company would not need to pay me. The pay is the reason we are all sticking to jobs we want to run away from. Knowing myself, it may not be long enough before I get tired even with that job and start cribbing. So, no false hopes for me.

Finally, moving out of Hyderabad and abandoning a life with zero costs currently (advantage of staying with parents) and throwing myself into the din of Mumbai life may not be everyone's idea of progress and I agree. Parents obviously do not understand but then we can't explain all decisons to them, right? After all, gut feeling decisions are best left unexplained.

Hoping that Mumbai will be kind enough to me to ensure that I have a decent piece of real estate for stay, at an affordable price, when I land there in less than 10 days time. And for my Mumbai friends, please open your doors and keep inviting me for dinners; my culinary skills are extremely suspect!!!

A Perfect 20

The 20-20 World Cup is over and against all odds, India actually pulled off an amazing victory. The triumph was well deserved and we beat all the teams in the competition to emerge victorious. This is something that Dhoni and the boys can be clearly proud of; after all, 20-20 or 50-50, a World Cup is a World Cup.

There have been many cynics of this format (me included). My father used to call it the Gilli Danda version of cricket and we both cursed the administrators for coming up with another slam bang idea. But far from being a slogger's game, the game has actually shown bowlers in better light.

After all, victories were pulled off by teams due to the bowling prowess of Umar Gul, R P Singh, Clarke and the rest, dispelling all the notions of this being a Batsman's game. Even, somebody like Afridi did so much more with the ball than the bat!!!!

There is no doubt that cricket won more than anything else. Spectator patience is low and producing a result in three hours is definitely a great USP for the format. The game is not very different from the regular ODI format, except for the free hit rule, possibly.

Nor are the boundaries any shorter, as it was assumed it might be before the tournament began. The only thing that has actually changed is the ability to take risk, which increases dramatically in this version.

The 20-20 version has seen the most accurate bowling in recent times and yorkers being bowled regularly (Recollect the number of batsmen bowled in the tournament). It requires greater accuracy from the bowlers and many of them have shown the ability to deliver.

The overall strategy has not changed much; the Indian strategy remained keeping wickets within the first 5-6 overs and slogging at the end. The best team still won the tournament and it did not result in any bunny cricket.

Will this affect the other forms of the game? I don't think so. A three hour format is a greater threat to movies than to the one day form. Test cricket has a niche audience and they will not be weaned away by this. One day cricket is exciting and still remains a sponsor's dream, with the large number of advertising spots available.

What this could do is to increase the chances that cricketers get to play the game. How about 3 different sets of teams now? There have been other experiments with the game like double wicket which have faded but 20-20 is clearly to stay, primarily because it does not interfere with the actual fabric of the game.

The one day format when introduced in the early 70s was scoffed at but it has survived all the criticism. Gavaskar may have scored 36* in 60 overs but just before retiring he scored one the fastest hundreds in the World Cup (of 82 balls, a far cry from Afridi's record of 37 balls,of course). Even, the traditionalists can come around if the game provides all the thrills which seems to be the case, as initial evidence shows.

Yes, we have won and the country is celebrating - well almost, except for the hockey team. The BCCI can provide $3 million to the cricketers but should the state generously award these cricketers from the money we pay in taxes. With the funds there in the game and outside it, does it actually have to splurge it on cricketers?

No wonder the hockey team is upset to receive this form of state sponsored neglect. Also upset are the people who were stuck in the traffic jam on Thursday because the team was dancing its way to glory!!!

One thought on the finals - Shoaib Malik's comments during the awards ceremony was in bad taste. I don't believe he actually said - Sorry to all Pakistanis and Muslims in the world for losing the match. I did not realise even the current Pakistani generation is so short-sighted, considering the team as a representative of Muslims worldwide.

So what should Irfan Pathan have said when he won the Man of the Match - I am thankful to all Indian Muslims for supporting me??? That one second, I felt so glad that we remain Indians at heart and that victory for Dhoni is not a Hindu victory, whatever Malik may think...

We have a tough Australian series coming up and I hope the audience and the media support them just as they did now. It does not take much of an effort for a fickle audience to change its feelings; Dhoni would do well to recollect that his house was stoned and effigy was burnt when we crashed out the 50-50 World Cup.....

In The Name of Ram

Religion’s a funny business, alright. My site meter tells me that my posts on Religion have traditionally done a better job than my other poorly performing posts. So, just to liven up things here and boost the sagging fortunes of this blog, I am posting one on religion.

Watch any news channel now and you know who are the attention grabbers currently - Ram Sethu, DMK and the BJP and their stallions, the VHP and other rag tags. Wonder how come Shiv Sena has not entered the fray- after all; it is the Madrasi Dravidian Karunanidhi who has been making these anti-Hindu comments.

It all started with the ASI making an ass of itself with its uncalled remarks, in a petition to the courts hearing the Ram Sethu issue. The affidavit claims that there was no historical evidence that Rama and Ramayana ever existed.

There is a lot of literary work that talks about the Ram Sethu and its origins. Should we conveniently ignore all that because the ASI thinks it is unscientific to consider literature as a source for historical veracity?

I am not questioning the ability of the ASI to judge these issues but surely, they could have stuck to plain engineering and economics for their stand, instead of bringing Rama into the picture.

Judging the evidence of the Sethusamudram bridge is fine but questioning the very existence of Rama is not their prerogative. Why would the ASI make such a claim and create a controversy when none existed, atleast from a historical angle? Beats me.

Whether we like it or not, religion is an integral part of all our lives and plays an important role in moulding us. It is a sensitive issue and the government could have shown greater tact. Sonia or Ambika may think that Rama is a figment of our dreams and there is nothing wrong if they think that way.

After all, this is a matter of faith and everyone has his or her set of beliefs which needs to be respected by others. But to put that in a government affidavit and make a fool of oneself is a simple case of committing political hara kiri.

Karunanidhi’s arguments do not even merit a discussion but they do make for decent juvenile reading.

Does Rama have an engineering degree and where did he graduate from???

Did the Tamil Nadu CM actually make such a remark? Imagine asking what Kamban’s authority on Ramayana is; after all, has he done his BA in Tamil from any college?

This is no atheist blogger venting out his spleen against religion and God but the Chief Minister of a State. Is it acceptable for a public figure and that too the head of a state to make such comments? Surely, there are better things to argue about rather than the veracity of Rama’s existence? Matters of faith anyway cannot be decided by logic and are best left to the people who care about it.

DMK cannot raise the bogey of freedom of speech here. After all, you could scarcely imagine them questioning the existence of Jesus and the marine engineering skills of Moses in splitting the sea or probing through the Koran for any non-scientific material?

There are many Hindus who are not too particular about religion but even they are bothered when their religion is selectively mocked at by the highest leadership but in the same breath, nothing is mentioned against the other religions because of the fear of being branded “communal”.

Shouldn’t the political class think that their comments may alienate a certain set of people, simply because of religious bias while taking potshots at religion? Of course, my point is not that they should rant against all religions and thus prove their secular credentials.

India is a religious cauldron and there are people waiting for an excuse to go berserk with their beliefs. What is the need to vitiate such an atmosphere by coming up sensitive remarks that would offend any community?

I do not have any issue if such a feeling were expressed by someone in his personal capacity but public figures must be sensitive to other’s feelings and not just scream over roof tops to claim a point.

What happened after all this mud-slinging is ofcourse highly deplorable. A bus of the Tamil Nadu State Transport was torched (killing 2 persons) and Selvi, Karunanidhi’s daughter, was attacked – all in the name of Ram. There are thousands who are willing to die and kill for religion but no one it seems who wants to live for religion.

Such acts of vandalism have no place in any civilized setup and it is extremely painful to see such acts of democratic hijacks. There are so many of us asking this question repeatedly Is our faith so narrow that one person’s statements can make us behave like barbarians?

To me, the entire issue is a debate of ecology and economics. There will be always be conflict in this area but we need to sit across a table, discuss this out and close it. There is always a solution but it can happen only when there is a give and take and tolerance and acceptance of different sets of values.

As a democracy, we are making rapid strides but where we seem to be caught in a time wrap is our level of intolerance. Forget it, it is not even a time wrap; I’m sure we have been more liberal in the past but as we progress we just don’t care what someone else wants to say.

Considering the complexities of running this nation where the only uniting point is nationalism, we must tread very carefully. A small scratch and the entire fabric holding this idea will tear apart.

I strongly believe that religion divides people but it can also be a great unifier. It teaches us to forgive and forget; the true value of our religions has been conveniently forgotten in the din of intolerance that we have come to practice.