open your eyes

the media is supposed to be a propagator of news and information. they have to uncover and discover. but in the race to do so, they do transgress the privacy limits of individual. drawing the line to say what part is private, and what is public, is challenging indeed. in an ideal situation, the media would love it if there aint anything private. then their job will be restricted to just propagating news. but...
it aint something weird for a married man to have an admiration for another women, however prolonged it may be. the public profile of the people involved does enthuse the random freelancer. but when he is trying to exploit such a situation, and publicising an individual's private time with a woman, morality finds its unrightful place in a dust bin. just put yourself in ganguly's shoes, and then question his intent to slap the reporter. a whole lot has been made about the issue since, and about ganguly as a whole.
here comes a supremely rich man, a gentleman in the public eye(oh yes, he is a nice fellow), who deftly evades parting a small sum of money, for his standards, while procuring his latest prized asset, a ferrari. however great his contribution to indian cricket, exploiting it in the form of monetary gains against the govt's money, is pure irresponsibility. the darling of the public that he is, you dont want me to say what the public reaction was, right?now that people have almost realised that the ganguly era is over, everyone has a thing or two to point out as to what started his downfall. short-pitched bowling, packed off side fields etc etc... its all crap my dear. he has scored 100's against every opposition, and every country, even after his weaknesses were supposedly discovered. ask mr shaun pollock.( last time india toured south africa - 2001). his downfall can probably pinned down to one thing: his removal from the opener's slot. sachin's removal from the slot brought out the hypocrite in him. on one hand he professed to do anything the captain asked for. and another time, confessed his liking for the opening slot. a national uproar followed. sunil gavaskar was quoted explaining sachin's exploits at the top of the order. 20 odd centuries and all that. and when ganguly was under performing??? all that the public had offer, was a mouthful of criticism. little had they realised that ganguly was almost as impressive at the top. when will people grow up?

Arun S Devarajan, M.P, Capitalist Party of India

i love these 87 rupee-ticket general compartment train journeys. it is a much better depiction of the common man than an sms poll on 6388, or even the letters to the editor of times of india. perhaps this is the environment which nurtures a politician's mind. and i guess, is nurturing one more, as i write. whatever the society's perception of a politician is, it remains the toughest job on earth. there aren't any theorems to be looked up, for solving a problem. the problem space never has a perfect answer. nor does it remain static. every tick of a second hand breaches a deadline. every step has a cascading effect on the society, in terms of the number of people on the receiving end, as well as the amount of money involved.just look at the problem he has in hand. he has to bring in an equal platform in a diverse society, with unequal abilities. his problem units are people, in a continuously evolving society. understanding people is, without a doubt, the biggest challenge. people's tastes and aspirations change with time. what it evolves to, cannot be answered by even bejan daruwalla. nor has the late peter drucker written books to deal with the changes. no wonder wise old men rule the world.

my dada

I just cannot believe that there are 1 billion - 16 lac mean indians living. I just cannot believe that a person who has been surreally successful as Mr. Saurav Chandidas Ganguly has been treated like this by the Indian press. He is without a doubt, India's most succesful captain. He is the man behind the turnaround in Indian cricketers' attitudes, the one who brought that fire in their hearts and in the stomach, which seemed restricted to a single person in the shape of Sachin Tendulkar. I just cannot believe that now the whole media is behind Rahul Dravid now, praising him for a good series against a good Sri Lankan side, and speaking in outrageously glowing terms of him, just forgetting that under Ganguly there were much greater ones. And the praise showered on Greg Chappell is nothing short of amusing. He is an Australian. Thats it. Indians still put up shoddy fielding displays every now and then, get involved in stupid run outs, dont take all the 2's and 3's on offer. But the odd day they summon up all of this, all the flash lights beam on to greg chappell's face. Though it was ganguly was the man who brought in greg, it was pathetic man-management of Mr. greg to write to the board in the first place without even having a long talk with ganguly, and make an effort to get him back. Loser. Ganguly thought greg would have been the ideal man to get things back on track, both on the team and personal front. Greg wasnt smart enough to find a solution with ganguly in the picture. he just put all the blame on him. and as usual, the whole of the media would love it. cant belive that there isnt any more than a whimper from any section of the population other than the 16 lac proud Kolkatans(+1, of course). It is probably the best testimonial to the influence of the media in the country.But ganguly is just a surreally aweome character. The world has tried to throw everything at him. He keeps fighting, and succeeded. How well. People talk of dravid as the great fighter. ganguly is two leagues ahead. He made his debut when hea was 17, in the '91 tour of australia. He was criminalised for showing too much of an attitude in front of senior players, by not committing himself to the duty of serving drinks, and getting gloves across to the player on the pitch. NO one has ever thought about the things from ganguly's perspective. twas kris srikanth who made this particular comment. Now he is just a real self-centred arrogant over-rated loser in cricket, life, everywhere. No one really asked the question as to whether ganguly was treated the way he ought to have been. He was out of the team until '96 Lords. Turning point 1. Lesson: Treat precocious talents carefully, whatever their character. Benefactors : Yuvaraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Virendar Sehwag. They are the future of indian cricket.He makes a statement at '96 Lords. And then again at Trent bridge. End of the series, Dravid said: "On the off side, first there is God, and then there is Saurav". He continued in the same vein for atleast 5-6 years. The next battle was: "Ganguly cannot play on bouncy tracks, cant play well on the on side, cant play balls targeted at the rib cage etc". This rhetoric continued and still does. Ganguly. Left-Handed Batsman. India. Age :32. Tests. Average : 42+Centuries:10-15. One Dayers. Average: 43+ Centuries: 20-25. Oppositon: Everyone, everywhere, every ocassion. During India's 2001 tour of Australia, after the one-dayers were over, Tony greig uttered thus: "this team is Tendulkar-Ganguly". He was the top scorer in that series as well. Though india won only one match, against Pak, Adelaide. Ganguly - 144.Now, the criticsm at Ganguly's technique gets overboard and stupid sometimes. I mean no one can play the ball hurled at 140 kph, at your rib cages. Even Sachin tendulkar, got out of a similar ball from Shoaib Akhtar, after his imperious, arguably his best,innings against pakistan, wc2003, centurion park. Now about the on side thing, how does it matter where he scores them. Hence we can conclude that, Ganguly was the top 5 one-day batsman of his generation.(Sachin, Bevan, Inzy will give him company).Now Tests. Ganguly is by no means one of the best test batsman of his generation. But when a decent batsman like mike atherton is highly regarded by the english, come on ganguly is atleast much better than him. It is so unfair that he is being compared to Sachin and Dravid and then judged. Asking for 3 legendary batsmen in a single line up is asking too much. Only Australia has more that 2 batsmen who average more than 50 in tests: Ponting, hayden, gilchrist, steve waugh. No wonder they are the best.Over a year of poor displays has led him to be thrown out of the team. No one goes and talks to him to get him back to his best. 1b-16lac-1 dont want him. Ganguly is regular sports page headline material now, though in ranji trophy, taking wickets as well as scoring runs :p. Back in the test team, but not the one-dayers. Bemused.Gear up for Saurav Ganguly. Part III.

i love the loafer my mind is....

its one of those times when i feel like taking recluse in writing but just like everything else around me, words join the striking unions. leader of the strike has to be a person... but i am lucky about the fact that only one of the union members is a living object... the others are just incidents and lifeless objects waiting to explode.. for instance .. my lan card.. it just showed its generosity by providing me the spark instead.. the other thing waiting to explode is my head itself.. as you read this you get bestowed with another right in the form of calling me a psycho... i feel like shouting at ultra sound frequencies... when i cant summon up enough energy to talk to a person.... maybe the thought process went just like my other usual things..if i am not good at technical things.. then CAT is the thing meant for me.. YO!!!.. lets get back to the leader of the union... it has to be a person.. i still havent figured out the sex though... the question is whether the problem has got to do with the sex or should i just take up to crucify some innocent goat whose relationship with me is gonna come under fire... when i started writing all this , i thought i was grappling with too many problems that i cannot handle.. now..3?? ha ha.. ok thats assuming that i have solved my war with the words for now... then lets get down to the others... one big head ache is my acads.. they have been nothing short of disastrous... all assignments and seminars pending... main seminar lies in wait this friday.. and my sessionals..single digits. period. the lan card is behaving a bit better now... the problem was as silly as a loose connection.. the shouting thing needs a psychitarist.... and it is related to my acads... and my acads are connected to everything else... ;).. and now the leader... i want to get over with the whole thing as quickly as possible.. however a bad thing it is gonna be... come on... throw it at me... (the only spurt of energy derived goes down the drain.. again...)
the only thing left over at this point in time.. is the leader... i hope to find an answer by the end of the day.. *smiles*

thy department

i just hate my department. just look at the way it is: 5 semesmsters, not even one can i call anyone, of the people who turned up in the class to scribble on the board, a teacher. it is understandable that there is a shortage of funds which contributes to this state. but, on the other hand, the college authorities are just being fooled by the placement scenario, thinking all is well with us. they dont realise the consequence of having dumb, i mean dumb, lecturers taking classes for some really good students, hour after hour, week after week, semester after semester. the world is result oriented for them. it is not about the disrespect to the intellectual level of the so called babes who turn up for giving lectures. they have their own place in the society. fine. they say matha, pitha, GURU and then god. The teacher is the one who defines the path. think of 6 semesters with not even one of them gaining the confidence of the students of the class. students love to criticize any teacher who comes across as one, but somewhere inside there exists some respect for the man/woman who DOES impart some knowledge.6 semesters. 36 months. not even one of them inspire. how do you expect the child to sustain motivation to excel in his life? they are spoiling the lives of 60 good students every year. criminal. unjustifiable against any sort of alibi.there are 2 ways to go about this. either shut down the dept, citing the effect of poor faculty on the students. or, as it was in its first year of its inception, borrow lecturers from other departments. but borrowing is not easy. every lecturer is proud of his dept. only his. but then, a person, who priotirizes his department over the meaning of his duty itself, is another criminal.

the key lies with the thief...

A voice rises against a powerful politician. He is dead in 24 hours. A voice rises against a media person. He is humiliated through out his life. But never killed. Politicians - crucified. Media - _____ . You just read why. I cannot believe that the whole media never ask themselves these questions before they try to be heroes in front of the people by going after a politician. I mean, there aint any perfect metric to justify a crime as less heinous. A crime is a crime. Period. The public's perception about any public personality is mostly second-hand, and hence garbled. It is amazing how honesty works. Produce 5 true facts. Flush the other 25 down the toilet. Conclude. Newspapers retain their integrity by claiming to be "honest".

i withdraw support to ferrari this time...

its a strange thing - life... i was crying a few days back that i was wasting a lot of time doing nothing.. and now i am cursing father time for behaving like a drugged sprinter... and it is me who is supplying the drug in the form of curiosity... i feel like i want to jump into a time machine sometimes.. and some other times.. some very old and apparently mature voices thus: "my son.. take life as it comes".. i guess the producers of the cult movie "matrix" wont mind reading this.. i ask myself what i do at any point in time... my pop would have heard enough times about me coughing sarcastically when i am met with the same old question : "are you studying properly or..".. and poor mom will take that for a serious one and prescribe a whole set of tablets for that.. poor ie gets the blame sometimes when i go thru my ritual of flunking in my exams.. students from all over the country work really hard to get into this premier institute and their motivation levels dont normally reduce once they succeed in securing an admission here.. which does fortunately concur with the educational system and the profs who run the system in the respective institutes.. the question that always pops in front of me is : am n't i a systemic defect? amn't i the real culprit that the whole entrance exams and more significantly the people who set the questions try to kick out.. but blessed is my luck that they dont succeed.. students like me come and go.. how did i get in... the reason might smack of rationale when i say god's grace.. but isnt god one of the world's favourite excuses and answers when met with a puzzle of any sort..

i me myself and a ferrari

There are different ways of presenting oneself... However different it might be from the real one... I just cannot explain or justify the way i behave, though i admit i prefer remaining like that... The more people try to scoff at my antics, the more i get encouraged to venture deeper... I always get the feeling that i am just too calm inside, hence the energy is feeling bad, courtesy of its bruised ego... Its mode of revenge is to turn up at the wrong place,wrong time...In just another of those analogies between a human and nature itself,if fission of a few nuclei can have a devastating effect on the world,so can a split vote in the mind wreck a similar effect on a person's world... There are choices to be made at every step in life... and the worst has to be about life itself... But just like i see myself in everything else, i am not the worst... Not the worst base to start rebuilding myself that... rebuild was the only election which produced a unanimous result... Yes... rebuild a ferrari... rebuild the ferrari... there is enough time left for the race though... just when the thought comes to my mind that all the ferrari needs is a coat of polish, the screws go crazy...