Lest we forget...

As I write this blog, all the news channels are reporting the commencement of a hunger strike by a few of India's hockey players in front of the Karnataka CM's house. Their reason for protest - the cash prizes awarded to cricketer's of the state after their T20 World Cup win in South Africa.

In a country of a billion people the victory of a team of 11 players in a sport that is played professionally in not more than 15 odd countries evokes an outpouring of emotions. When the men's hockey team won the Asia Cup I doubt if even 10 heads turned. ( And hockey is the national sport of India ). I often wonder what is the cause of this phenomenon and I am yet to find any substantial answers.

One point of view is that cricket is the only game where India produces great performances. The reasons for great performances in competitive sport could be the following:
1. Talent/Skill/Hard Word - The amalgamation these attributes can produce winners in any sport irrespective of how good your competition is.

2. Global Participation in the sport - I need to elucidate this viewpoint. Take the following case. If a world cup is played by 10 team then each team has to effectively compete against only 9 others. If it is played by 50 teams then the competition can only get tougher. More the number of teams the chances of winning a world cup or complete domination in that sport also decrease. It must be remembered that spectator interest is only generated and sustained not by how artful a sport is but by how frequently the spectator's favorite team wins consistently. A sport generates money only if it is viewed by a large mass of people which is possible only if the team that this mass supports wins consistently.

My grandfather used to tell me that India and Pakistan ceased to forces to be reckoned with in hockey once Astro Turf was legalized as the playing surface. The change of surface helped in the rapid globalization of the sport that consequently increased participation and raised the bar of the game. The mandarins who ran the game in India did not anticipate that the globalization of the game would also require a significant investment back home. Their complacence was fueled by the fact that they thought that the arty wristwork of the Indians would overcome the power game that the Europeans would unleash ...
And the sub continent withered away ..

What does it require to make a sport successful ?

1. A good management committee that is comprised of experienced sportsmen and efficient administrators. ( People who can network and get sponsors )
2. An initial grant that will ensure the selection and training of talented players in that sport.
3. A long term plan for 5 years.
4. A string of successful victories.
Once consistency in results is achieved people are bound to sit up and take notice. And then the sport becomes a national passion.

A passing thought -- The title song of Chak De India - a film that reviles cricket - has become the theme song for all the cricket matches that India is playing ... that's cricket for you.

Munger - 2

I vividly remember that after having lived in Munger for a couple of months, I had written a letter to my parents in which I had talked about the enormous difference between the lives of managers living in the park and those living outside.

The factory is a five minute park from the colony where I live. As soon as I step out of the high green gates of the park , I get glimpses of the real world ,of the world that has not seen the 9% growth in GDP that we are talking about. Men squatting on the roads sipping a glass of tea and looking forward to another day of unemployment. Children preferring to run across the roads in tattered clothes rather than going to a school without walls and teachers.

If Premchand had seen the high walls and barbed wire separating our colony from the outside world he would have compared it to the barriers that the prosperous Indians create between themselves and their not so lucky brethren. I wonder how the Capitalist countries have managed to create a decent standard of living for at least 90% of their population, while we still have 25 % of our people living below the poverty line even after toeing the so called socialist policies.

I have never seen such contrasts anywhere -- except maybe in Mumbai where a a 40 storey building will come up beside a sprawling slum. I often wonder how people live in those buildings without ever feeling guilty.

Munger - 1

I never imagined that I would be spending so much of my adult life in the hinterland of Bihar. It has been close to 21 months that I have been working in Munger and I have a lot to write about this place.

The nearest railway station connecting Munger to Howrah and Patna is the Jamalpur Railway Station. Jamalpur's claim to fame is a railway workshop that is nearly 150 years old. The road from Jamalpur to Munger reminds me of all the movies where the location of the plot is one of the small towns of the state. Lush green field and mango orchards dot the road connecting these towns apart from small time hawkers setting up their carts to display their wares.

After having lived in this place I have come to realize how far removed we are from reality in the urban metros of our country. Here we are in a town where infrastructure is non existent , the ostentatious display of wealth absent and yet the people have happiness written all across their faces. The hospitality showered upon you if you happen to visit their houses make you feel ashamed and also wonder if the suave urban populace has real warmth behind those plastic smiles that they put up if somebody comes visiting.

Will keep writing about Munger... watch this space for more...

They also rise

When somebody mentions the word India what do you think of ? Do you think of an individual with Aryan or Dravidian features tilling away in lush green fields or of a modern outward looking denizen of the metros of Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore ? Wait a minute ... does the image of an individual with Mongoloid features living in bamboo huts in the hills among the clouds .. or of a group of young men and women heavily influenced by Western Music and evangelical Christianity ever come to your mind ?
It has been a quiet revolution.. The Seven Sisters of India have been in the grip of militancy since India gained independence. With only 25 out of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha they do not have the numbers that would bring the Masters of Delhi to their state more often. With only 21 km of border shared with the rest of India via the chicken's neck one wonders how they have integrated into the Indian state. Yet, these diminutive men and women have produced great sportsmen ( how many of us know that Manipur won the last National Games ? ) .. they give us the finest teas and handicrafts and also great soldiers...

The North East has always been known for its high literacy figures and a large chuck of an English speaking population. In the era of liberalization where a number of companies require people fluent in English these men and women are rising to the occasion. They are taking over the hospitality sector , BPO's and now the newsrooms. Their persistence and hard work is certainly paying off ..
And it will not be long before the scourge of militancy is wiped out by the prosperity that these youngsters shall bring to their state.

The Bourne Ultimatum

The movie 'The Bourne Ultimatum' is the third in the series of the Bourne Trilogy and if newspaper reports are to be believed then it has grossed more than both it prequels put together. One thing that I like about the movie is that it can be comprehended without viewing the first two instalments of the Bourne series.
The protagonist Jason Bourne is an A grade CIA operative who has lost all memories of his past and is desperately trying to know who he is and why is the CIA intent on eliminating him. If we were to go beyond the action packed sequences we can perceive the following themes to be the underlying undercurrents of the script:

1. Guilt (From Jason's perspective)
Jason cannot come to terms with the fact that when he kills he does so without any remorse and also with a clinical efficiency. He believes that he has an identity that is distinct from 'Jason' and the people who gave him this identity are responsible for what he has become. He induces this guilt in a CIA operative towards the end of the movie where Jason asks the operative who is about to shoot him if he knows why he has been sent to kill Jason.

2. Fear (From the CIA's perspective )
The CIA director and his friends believe that the 'malfunctioning' Jason Bourne poses a threat to their survival and credibility. These men sincerely believe that when they created Jason Bourne they were creating a killer who would protect the interests of the United States but a 'masterless' Jason Bourne is dangerous and a ticking time bomb with information, which if leaked can threaten not only their government but also their own careers.
The war between these two themes has give rise to a screenplay that is action packed and keeps the viewer on the edges of his seat with a number of nail biting sequences.

The movie also gives the us glimpses into the fast paced world of intelligence agencies. The world of 'intel' is not just about extracting deals from shady sources, it is a world that employs the brightest of all individuals who have exceptional analytical skills coupled with an ability to make instantaneous decisions after having mentally sifted through all the data at hand.

All in all a great watch......
- I would love to be a Bourne.. would you ?

The Cyber World

The last decade has been a silent witness to the power of information technology. It was not so long ago that government owned postal systems held sway over the act of communicating with family members and business associates. The only alternatives were express courier agencies who would cut short lead times by 50 %.
The electronic mail or the e-mail as it is popularly known had its own detractors who argued that the warmth of paper transactions could never be replicated by a cold system that transferred messages in the form of electronic impulses. Well, those detractors have been proved wrong , but what is even more interesting is that the internet has spawned a new culture and also altered the facets of human interaction.


Could you imagine yourself talking with a stranger, sharing details of your personal life and eventually falling in love... It is my observation that the curtain that separates two human beings allows them to interact more freely. It enables them to overcome inhibitions that they might have about their own visual appeal also verbal communication that would , in normal circumstances inhibit them from interacting in a peer group. Psychologist should study this phenomenon and explain it rationally - i daresay that educationists use this as a tool to teach children and draw them out of their closeted worlds by making them feel comfortable in a parallel cyber world.

Social networking sites seem to have proved the hypothesis that man is inherently a social animal who seeks to reach out to others of his race and desires to be appreciated for his accomplishments. People also do not mind to divulge details about themselves and leave it in a place for all to see. I shall not be surprised if the profile of people is one day used by product companies to typecast their users into different groups and come up with 10 separate target audiences for a particular product. And what better way to test launch than orkut !