A great TEST

Gautam Gambhir becomes a Test batsman!!! 

Being the purist that I am, I have never been a great fan of Gambhir's batting. He is one of those modern era batsmen who believes in scoring runs as opposed to having a tight technique. The present generation of batsmen have bloated averages, in spite of below-average technique, due to a number of factors - small grounds, flat tracks, lack of good fast bowling pairs, dearth of quality spinners and most importantly availability of protective gear. (Imagine, if there were no helmets, would Gambhir even think of trying to jump out of the crease to a new ball bowler??!!)

The second test between India and NZ was a weird one! The track at Mclean Park was as flat as a pancake, with absolutely nothing for the fast bowlers early on, or spinners later in the test. India was extremely over confident for the first three days and paid dearly for it. If India had taken all their chances while fielding, they would have bowled out NZ for the next test as well! The batting display was still worse, reeking of arrogance, with almost everyone getting out playing a bad shot. However in the second innings, Gambhir and Dravid swallowed their pride, and played gutsily to salvage a draw.

While Dravid hardly played a false stroke, Gambhir was not timing the ball well for a long time. His confidence was low, and he could not hit his way out trouble this time. True, the NZ bowling attack is the not the greatest in the world and it was one of best possible fourth day surface to bat on. But still, for Gambhir to play the way he did, was quite surprising. It is no joke to bat for close to 11 hours in any kind of surface, not to talk about the pressure of a 314 run deficit. Gambhir played the knock which defines a test batsman - an innings to save a test match, a battle against time. It was not a very fluent innings, but he showed a lot of grit, determination and courage. He was also lucky in the sense that he had Dravid and Sachin - two of the greatest stalwarts of test cricket in our times - to bat along with. This was followed by a Laxman masterclass - he is just a wizard! His touches are magical, placements accurate, timing immaculate and with that lazy elegance, he continues to enthrall people wherever he goes.

To be fair to NZ, they played extremely well, especially coming back from a defeat and 23/3 in the first morning. NZ is not a particularly talented side, but if they are anything, they are a bunch of triers. They do their basics right and you don't often see NZ getting thrashed though they do lose quite a lot. Their huge problem is their bowling line up. They don't have enough fire power to bowl out a good batting side twice, which makes it impossible for them to win games. 

This match wasn't exactly great in the sense that it didn't produce a nail-biting contest, but it was good to see a game that was really competitive in the final two days. The match was bound to be a draw thanks to an absolutely dead pitch. But India managed to dig a huge hole and jumped into it, but played heroically to get out of the hole!

Old Memories ...

Today morning, when I was flipping channels while watching the match, I stopped at a vaguely familiar scene. A guy was standing in a river, face not clear - with Yesudass singing in the background. It took me a couple of seconds before I could recognize the aalaapanai - It was the song "kamalam paadha kamalam" from the movie moga mull. I love this song - brilliant rendition by Yesudass, pleasing but not too great lyrics, and amazing composition by IR. In fact, I like every song from this album (Sollayo vaai thirandhu, nenjey gurunatharin). The movie as such is a bore - but at least would have done justice to the novel by T.Janakiraman. This was one of those IR's carnatic-based classics,  and has prompted me to download songs from this movie and also from the movie Shankarabaranam.

This incident rekindled a lot of old memories and thoughts. When I was a kid I used to be surprised that most of the English movies that I saw, didn't have any songs as such. In the middle of the movie, no one used to jump out and sing a song. (I hadn't seen many musicals when I was a kid, I still haven't seen many!) After a point, I used to wonder, why people don't sing a song, say, when they are sad, in real life! Pondering about it now, I know very few movies in Tamil film industry that are devoid of songs. 

In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of tamil movies and other Indian movies, as well, is that, songs in a movie make it unrealistic - so why then do people use it? To me, the answer is very simple. Why should movies be realistic in the first place? All that matters is logical consistency, and not realism. Making a film is an art and it is upto the director to convey his thoughts on a film reel. Just like an artist who is allowed to use any colour to express his feelings, the director can choose any form of expression. Songs are exceptionally good at conveying emotions and are very powerful forms of expression in the sense they can stick to your mind better than, say, a dialogue. Of course, what I am against is the current trend where songs are placed in the movie just for the heck of it and nobody cares a rat's ass as to what it conveys. 

This prompted me to think of movies which would have been otherwise unknown if not for the music. I guess the same could be said of most of the movies of the mid-eighties and early nineties. So many movies would have been a huge flop had it not been for IR or Rahman. Actors like (mike)Mohan, (G)Ramarajan, would have gone into oblivion, but for IR! Will people even remember movies like Mr. Romeo, Kaadhalan, Kaadhal Desam if not for Rahman?!

I guess this one random post where I have started writing thinking of one thing and ended on a completely different note. A good, fruitful waste of a morning! ;-)

Section 49-O

Sitting jobless at home in the afternoon gives me a lot of time with nothing to do. My morning ritual has been to get up late and then have a late brunch and then keep flipping the 24x7 news channels. With the general elections around the corner, the news channels provide me with variety entertainment. 

Before I start, I want to say that I belong to this group of "educated voters" who can think, analyze and decide and vote based upon that decision. Sadly, the majority from my group think, analyze and decide, but never vote. People from my group take the extremely rational view of the whole issue and hence like Dostoevsky's Underground Man, do nothing about it. ("How-can-my-one- single-vote-make-any-difference?-It-doesn't-matter" kind of attitude)

Having said that, what does a rare "educated voter"- who actually wants to vote - do, when he/she does not want any of the candidates to win the election? Hypothetically speaking, if we had a considerable percentage of the electors who do not want any of the candidates contesting in that constituency to win, what then is the solution? 

A section of the Constitution of India, The Conduct of Election Rules (1961), governs the elections in our country. This set of rules has a particular rule which addresses the case of an elector not wanting to vote, which I quote :

"49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark."

I see two problems as such with this rule. First, the elector has to inform the presiding officer that he doesn't want to cast a vote which goes against the secrecy of ballot. Second and the most important point, the non-vote is not taken into account and just an entry is made some register. The non-votes do not count towards the election results. So the elector who doesn't want any of the candidates to get elected and someone who is sincere enough to go to the polling booth to say so does not matter! So if an elector thinks all the candidates are unworthy, then he might as well sit at home and not go to the polling booth at all! (Of course, there is the problem of someone else casting your vote, which is very difficult to talk about. So I confine my arguments to a hypothetical, ideal scenario!)

Supposing, in that hypothetical constituency, if more than 50% of the electors decide to cast a "no vote", then the voice of the majority of the electors is entirely useless! So one might think that a possible solution is to bring in a clause which says something like, if more than 50% of the electors in a constituency decide to cast a "no vote" then all the candidates must be disqualified and a new set of candidates should contest in a re-election. 

At first, this seems to be a fair enough solution. But on giving it a bit of thought, it is just a way of postponing the inevitable, with only a more expensive ordeal! Considet me, I do not even know who the candidates in my consituency are, and all that matters to me is which party is going to form the cabinet. Even if that means I am not an "educated voter", what I am trying to say is, majority of the people vote for the party than for the individual. (I am not denying that there exist people who vote for the individual in their constituency as against the party as such, but my opinion is that most people vote for the party of the prime ministerial candidate whom they want to win). So if I do not want any of the present prime ministerial candidates to win, I still can't do anything about it, as in the re-election only candidates from the same party are going to contest!

 

What, then, is a solution to this issue? I am afraid, there can be no perfect solution to this problem. On a personal level, I have to resort to deciding between who is the lesser of the evils and vote for that person. (I have quite a bit of problem in deciding that!)

On a more personal, biased and controversial note, I feel democracy is a farce! Simply because, I feel it is not only improbable, but impossible for a billion people to agree on one single person to lead a country. Just imagine, if democracy were to be the idea behind choosing an Indian cricket team, I am sure we would have no single majority and we would never be able to agree on one particular team! So how then are we going to agree on a cabinet of ministers??!

(We could possibly go back to monarchy! Our rajas and sultans weren't that bad after all. Anyways that is what is happening in our country today!)

What the !@#$ ??!

I think I should stop looking at news from now on. Today I saw this news article from The Hindu. The Sri Ram Sena leader openly says that they are going to forcibly marry couples who date on Valentine's day! And what does the Home Minister of the state say? Let them do such a thing, and then law will be enforced! WOW!! What an extremely responsible answer! It makes me wonder who is worse - the minister or the leader? 

Apparently the police have taken the threat seriously - which probably means, they will speculate about taking these activists into preventive custody, but decide against it. Probably, there will be more violence committed by the "upholders of Indian Culture". Once all the damage is done, the police will probably arrest them, only to let them go out in bail a few days later!

I guess I'm just working myself up too much on this issue and over-reacting. Probably I should just live with it and not do anything about it like a normal middle class Indian is supposed to. Or at the most, sit in the comfort of my couch and write a blog about it!!

Nenju Porukkudhillaiye...

I saw two things this weekend which prompted me to write this blog...

The first one was the movie, A Wednesday. If any of you want to see the movie, let me warn you that I may give away the story line. So proceed at your own risk! 

Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher and Jimmy Shergill, the movie was extremely well scripted with a very powerful plot and the actors did a great job in drving home the point. Artistically speaking, the movie didn't offer much (cinematography, music wasn't particularly great). But the theme connects with the minds of the majority and the powerful portrayal by the veteran actors added to its success. 

The whole episode occurs on one Wednesday evening and has no record of it anywhere except the narrator's(Anupam Kher) mind. The story is set in Bombay and the several bomb blasts that have occurred in the past is the central theme of the story. Naseeruddin Shah plays the role of this guy who has planted bombs all around the city (one of the places being a Police Station opposite the Commissioner's office!) and then calls up the Commissioner(Anupam Kher) with a set of demands. I won't go into the details as to how Naseeruddin Shah's call was untraceable, which was technically convincing. Anyways, the main demand of Naseeruddin Shah is the release of four captured terrorists belonging to various terrorist organizations. The cops have no choice but to yield to his demands. He asks the commisioner to send the four guys,  accompanied only by two officers, to a new private airstrip. Naseeruddin Shah instructs the officers to just leave the four people on a bench near the airstrip and to go away without looking back. But one of the officers, Arif Khan (Jimmy Shergill), feels that something is wrong and in the last minute decides to leave only 3 people on the bench and takes the other one away with him. The bench then explodes killing the three terrorists and everyone is taken by surprise! 

This is when Naseeruddin Shah tells the motive behind the entire operation. He calls himself the common man and says that he is just cleaning is house(Bombay) killing pests like cockroaches. He says that he is doing all this because he is sick of being afraid to travel in trains, in buses, going to public places. The government, police and all the intelligence are not able to do anything to stop the terrorist activities. Even if they do catch some of the terrorists, it is not long before someone else comes and creates havoc and demands the release of the captured terrorists as ransom. The common man is aggrieved by all these and is pissed with the fact that someone else is deciding when he should die. So his solution to the problem is to simply wipe out the terrorists once they are captured. So the police agree to his point of view, kills the fourth guy too and the case is never goes on file. The Commissioner doesn't even tell the name of that common man, because his name would reveal his religion and the whole thing would be misconstrued (Nice touch there!)

This movie raises the major question, Is the Common Man (capitals to denote the character portrayed by Naseeruddin Shah) justified in his actions? The Common Man's line of reasoning goes like this - "if I, a common man, could get 6 kgs of RDX and place the bomb right opposite the Commissioner's office in a police station, how much more will an organization be able to do? Why should I believe in the efficiency of the police? You have caught these four terrorists and they are in your custody, but you could do nothing but yield to my demands to release them. You have so much evidence but you still can't punish them in court. (There is a scene in which the terrorists, themselves, say with pride that they were involved in 1993, 2006 and so on). When there was nothing you could do when thousands of people were dying, why should you feel bad when I try to kill these four people?"

Forgive my writing skills - when Naseeruddin Shah said these on screen he was a lot more convincing than I was in the previous paragraph! :-) I do not personally agree with his line of reasoning or killing the terrorists the way he did, but the way the Common Man was portrayed, his anger was entirely justified. In fact, that is what I felt at the end of the movie - anger!

Right after watching this movie, I saw the Big Fight hosted on NDTV . The topic of the debate was "Does Indian culture need moral policing?" and there were many questions about whether pub culture is acceptable in India. I was pained by the fact that an organisation (which shared my name!)  thought it was its duty to stop women from going to pubs. So how do they go about doing it? - Simple! Walk into a pub, pull out all the girls by their hair, slap them and molest them! That is probably the most decent thing to do, I guess!

Days earlier, I was shocked when I heard this news and was wondering who the hell these people were to think it was their duty to uphold the Indian culture. By the way, what is Indian culture? If women going to pubs is against Indian culture, then why weren't any of the men in pub abused? Does this mean, Indian culture allows men to go to pubs while women can't?? I thought that was a logic simple enough for even those pea-brained activists to come up with!

But in the Big Fight episode, there was this guy from Sri Ram Sena, who was trying to justify the actions of the group, by saying the whole idea of pubs,  which disrupts the Indian culture, also proves to be a danger to the society. He was talking about how an alcoholic affects the society (driving under influence and stuff like that). But that has got nothing to do with pubs! Consumption of liquor in India, did not start 10 or 20 years ago. It has been there for ages! He also says, pubs didn't exist a hundred years before - so it is not a part of Indian culture and therefore we should eliminate it!

I would like to see him to counter this argument of mine. Drunk driving has caused a lot of deaths in our country and poses a huge threat to community safety. Alcoholic drinks have always been there in our country, but over the past few years we have been using too many powered vehicles. 100 years back, India did not have powered vehicles on the road, so cars are not part of our culture. So we should eliminate all motor vehicles for public safety and to uphold our cultural values. 

In India, all pubs have age restrictions - "people under the age of 21 years are not allowed inside". I guess 21 years is old enough for a person to decide what he/she wants to do. I do not understand why people always think that young people do not have enough responsibilty and they should always be policed! 

Nenju porukkudhillaiye indha nilai ketta manidharai ninaindhuvittaal

This is what I felt at the end of the Big Fight episode - anger and pain!

(I was boiling with rage when I first started writing this, but couldn't finish writing this on that day. So it might have come out less angry than I felt that day :-) )

  

The End of an Era

(This post is quite long and it is about cricket. If you are not interested in cricket, I advise you to stop reading this right away :-) ) 

Strictly speaking, I should have written this a few days back, just after the end of the recent Australia - SA test series. However, I don't think it has lost any relevance now, as Australia is trying hard to cling on to their #1 spots in both, tests and ODIs.

 

The Australian side of the 80's was always considered a mediocre side compared to its predecessors. So considering that, the fact that it won the 87 world cup and regained the Ashes in 89 were great achievements then. Still, Australia was not proclaimed as the best side in world, but merely a good team. The twilight of Allan Border's career saw a side filled with young and promising players who had not quite established their prowess, barring the Waugh brothers and Warne. 

With Mark Taylor taking over the captaincy in 1994, things started to change especially with the victory against the mighty West Indies (not as mighty as they were though!). Mark Taylor was one of those rare natural leaders who brought out the best in his players. He was a keen observer and had a very shrewd cricketing brain, and is arguably the best Australian captain ever(arguably because it is difficult to compare captains, or for that matter any player, across eras). He was probably responsible for McGrath's development, into the force that he was later, and with Slater formed one of the most formidable opening partnership of his generation. Add to this a safe pair of hands at slip, he was like an all-rounder! Taylor, chewing gum, with a broad brimmed hat, standing at first slip to Warne, is one of my earliest cricket memories. Australia started the 96 world cup as favourites, but lost in the finals to Ranatunga's shrewd gamesmanship. But, this was when the transformation began - from a good side to a great side. McGrath grew up in stature, Warne was already recognized as the spin genius that he is, the Waugh brothers were more dangerous than ever. The one day side had the likes of Bevan and Lehmann who were very good finishers. And they had quite a set of support bowlers in Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Damien Fleming for ODIs.

Taylor went through a form slump but then came back with a stunning century at Edgbaston and Australia won the Ashes in 97. However, Taylor's form was not very great in the ODIs and he was axed from the ODI side. Taylor decided to retire on his own terms and retired in early 99. This is when Steve Waugh took over the side and took it to the next level. Australia started the 99 World Cup as favourites, but soon were struggling and had to fight its way into the next stage. From down in the dumps, Australia fought back to eventually win the World Cup, led by their courageous captain. Steve Waugh and Shane Warne's  heroics in that world cup are legendary. It was after this that Australia began to completely dominate the entire cricketing world. Steve Waugh's side created history by winning sixteen tests (Gilly captained one of the tests in that 16) on the trot. The only blackmark during Steve Waugh's captaincy was that Australia couldn't win a Test series in India. But the Ashes were retained in both the years.

Steve Waugh was axed from the ODI side but he continued captaining the test side. Ricky Ponting took over the captaincy of the ODI side. Australia won the 2003 world cup without losing a game. Personally I have never rated Ricky Ponting as a great captain ( I am sure no one did!), but with the kind of side he had, he would have to do really bad to lose. After the 2004 test series at home against India, Steve Waugh bowed out and Ponting took over as the captain of the test side too. The next four years, they won wherever they went (except the Ashes 2005 of course, but they made their point in 2007!!) The World cup 2007 was probably the worst one ever - considering both the cricket and the administration. Australia were no match for any one and they might have as well taken the World cup without playing the tournament. 

But 2007 saw the retirement of 3 of their finest cricketers - Warne, McGrath and Langer all retired at the same time. Justin Langer is probably one of those extremely under-appreciated cricketers who was largely responsible for Australia's dominance along with Hayden as the openers of the side. All great sides have had great openers - Greenidge and Haynes, Sutcliffe and Hobbs to name a couple of the top of my mind. Openers are largely reponsible for the success of a side (Sehwag and Gambhir are further examples to prove that!). Warne and McGrath's greatness don't need any elaboration, I guess. But in spite of these huge losses, Australia continued to be quite a force. Brett Lee had matured into a very fine bowler and Stuart Clark resembled McGrath in that nagging line and length, just outside off and one felt maybe this wasn't the end of the era, after all. However, Australia had a big problem in filling Warne's shoes, and all their spin options were mediocre.

India gave quite a run for their money in the controversial 2007-2008 test series in Australia, and people started asking questions after Australia lost the ODI series. This series was also a landmark series - it was Gilchrist's last test series. Gilchrist retired from ODIs too, and in that Australia lost another of its priceless gems. The team looked more vulnerable than ever with Hayden in indifferent form, and Ponting not at his usual highly consistent best. A series loss against India in India was not as much of a shock as the margin of defeat. Australia came back to win a test series against the inexperienced New Zealand side before the took off against South Africa.

This Aus-SA series was a series to remember. Graeme Smith's captaincy and his last test bravery is bound to be talked about for years to come. The weaknesses of the Australian side were exposed and they were found to be severely lacking in bowling depth with Brett Lee out of form and eventually injured. Australia still had not found a spinner and Brad Haddin, though a decent keeper and batsman, was nowhere near being a replacement for Gilchrist. The batting also looked shaky with Hayden totally out of sorts and Ponting not at his usual best. Mike Hussey's batting average has also dipped from the initial Bradmanesque figures to something that looks more human. With Hayden now retiring, only Ponting and Lee remain of the historic 16-wins-on-the-trot side. The present Australian side looks quite vulnerable and I guess it is only a matter of time before they are toppled from their number 1 spots.

But unlike the end of the mighty West Indian era, I guess this one is quite welcome (I don't know why this is so!). As for me - I am personally happy that this happened during Ponting's captaincy and made sure that he was not going to be remembered as a great captain. :-)

Whew!!! That was one hell of a long post!! I sit in this country where people play "football" with their hands and hence I hardly get to have a conversation with anyone on cricket. No wonder I rambled on and on and on! This is one of the many reasons I miss India - sitting in front of the TV, watching the match, and discussing with my dad or my uncle or my friends, as to how great Sachin is, what a moron Ponting is, and getting all heated up about some biased remark from Ian Chappell!! Such fun!! 

My First Post

The cliched title that I have given for this post, probably reinforces the fact regarding my creativity. 

What is this blog about? To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to talk about in this blog. It may be about mathematics, science, books, cricket, music, religion, philosophy or even Chennai for that matter! Or it may just be some crap that I feel like writing about. If you are looking for something interesting, well-written or anything even remotely imaginative, I can assure you that you have come to the wrong place. So, there, don't tell me I didn't warn you!

And yes, at last, I have started my own blog!