As we celebrate Independence Day

Tomorrow we will unfurl the lovely tricolour

Pay homage to the courage and valour

Of the people who brought upon us this day.

To celebrate another Independence Day

How many of us will attend the flag hoisting?

Would we curtail a few hours of sleeping?

Go to offices, colleges, or the parade grounds.

To watch what; some marching rounds?

We see everything wrong with the country

The commoner today reduced to peasantry

A myriad of problems that keep haunting it

Leaders all around just busy snatching it

Corruption the red hot evil today

Economy not shining, no making hay

Homebred extremists ripping apart

Cricketers even not playing their part

Roads are bumpy, trains leave the track

In every system exists at least one deep crack

More most of it you can do nothing

‘It happens this way’, response for everything

The youth books its flight to greener pastures

The farmer, the poor for most some alien creatures

Status symbol today all the brands foreign

Non English speakers looked upon with disdain

Yes today there are problems galore

But they certainly are better than yore

And it is not that bad as made out to be

The fact remains that we actually are free

To be born in free India we are privileged

Not seen emergency when rights got infringed

The worth of which not easy to comprehend

Ask the Arabs who have nations to mend

Our views are not muzzled, we can voice opinions

Would not fathom such freedom the Chinese dominions

Least worries day to day for the safety of life

Unlike the Pakistanis a country forever torn in strife

The small city man realises his dreams

Future brighter for young one seems

Women do not have to stay in a veil

Rags to riches many story’s tell tale

Proud we must be for a rich heritage

We belong here, dollars just a mirage

All the while we have enjoyed its fruits

Could we deny that here lie our roots?

So many evils haunt this nation

But the train has not yet left the station

Yes there are dark gloomy clouds all around

But also little things to make us proud

I am no optimist to paint a rosy picture

But it is our duty to make things better

Motherland that we call it needs our love

Only will then fly in the sky the white dove

Cricketing Blues



          It doesn’t matter even if Indian cricket team miraculously pulls off a win in the third test match. What have been blatantly displayed over a period of few months and about half a dozen test matches is the sheer chinks in what was touted as a formidable armour in world cricket. Of course Indian cricket has been on a high tide in the recent past with notching the top ranking in Test cricket and the world championship of course. Then what went wrong all of a sudden? How did a sudden streak of failure hit the invincible (as they were projected to be)? I believe there are four reasons (not exclusive of course), all inter related, behind this present gory picture that the team represents.

       Firstly, what is so glaringly visible in the fall-of-house-of-cards Indian batsmen is something that has nothing to do with how the bat comes along or how leg moves, it is do with what makes it all move – the mind. The human mind unfortunately doesn’t have a switch which can be turned off and on with relation to the format of the game. It just appears as if the switch has not been turned on for Test match for most of the players. The lack of patience, the quality of shots, the inability to ball long overs both by pacers and spinners, the body language, the clinical approach of a Test match, are all displaying incongruity.

          Secondly, which serves as a primary cause for the above mentioned point, is the overdose of cricket especially the shorter versions of the game. Long gone are the days when cricket was supposed to play with sweaters in the cooler months. There is 24/7/365 cricket played. And the Indian cricket team plays the maximum of it. It is such an issue that everyone talks about as player but is not ready to do anything about it. Players of other countries, including star players, absent themselves if they feel it is taxing on their performance. Is that even a possibility in our cricket team? Throw in the attractive models of 20-20, new talent waiting in the bench (wonder why they don’t make it big) and you have everyone wanting to play every format and every time.

         Thirdly, which is intertwined with the above reason is people like Messrs Sharad Pawar. The fiefdom called BCCI (its inclusion is more important than the PM’s in Lokpal) which is run by people who seem less like administrators and more like members of some secret society. Just because of the viewership, a cricket frenzy nation (despite match fixing being a persisting phenomena), and the revenue it generates, BCCI has a clout in ICC and is wielding the stick at its own will. Touted as worlds richest sports body it has made players more like machines. The tight schedules that are planned, with a separate window planned for IPL in the international curriculum (no marks for guessing what could be the reason) are definitely taking its toll on players.

           Fourthly, the present debacle of the cricket team has a larger deep rooted link to the psyche of present Indian mentality. Fuelled by economic consolidation and the growth story which has catapulted people from lower levels to higher, where ‘winning’ has become a necessity and being a ‘winner’ an identity. The numerous reality shows are a case in point. We are not ready to accept the faults that a Sachin Tendulkar might have. We are in a state of denial regarding Sehwag’s partial hearing loss. We are not ready to accept that cricketers have a shelf life too. The hype created, the aura built and the demi god statuses given to our cricketers have created an invincible and unbeatable image. Add the winning streaks (largely in home conditions) to that and you have a heady mix for people who just cannot fathom the fact that the team can be tamed.

           There is no denial of the fact that we are a cricket crazy nation. Large swathes of people are bonded by cricket. It has been believed to be a religion in our country (the communists though have severe objection to this). And it hurts people when the gods of the religion let them down. The break neck pace at which cricket is being played, the magnitude at which newer formats and newer rules are incorporated to make it more appealing to people, the overdose that people are fed with, all of it places cricket on a still higher pedestal. However the present state of things managed by the mandarins of cricket in India clearly depict a disconnect between aspiration of the public at large and fitness of cricket in general on one hand and raking in the moolah on the other.

Benefits of Scam



Who says scams are the worst thing to happen? Are not there any advantages or positive meanings drawn from the multitude of scams, gigantic upon that, that plagues our country? Am sure you are ready with the answer. You will say it has made the scamsters richer. Well that is a very obvious fact. But what good has it done to the public at large, to the ‘aam aadmi’? Well let us find out.

The section of crowd which is benefited with the number game of scams is our school going children. That too especially in the lower classes (though am sure for some until matriculation too!). Scams have now widened the horizon, err the number game too, to learn large numbers. A simple question which is sure to make a 5th grade kid annoyed at you is how many zeroes do you think is there in 1.73 lakh crores? Until Raja kids were fine with five zeroes in lakh, seven in crores, but lakh and crore together! With a decimal point thrown in. Huh! Seriously?

The next group benefiting out of the scams are a little older students. When you are already familiar with large sums of money next you might be asked a question: if ‘x’ crores of rupees is stacked in Swiss banks, how much would it be in dollars? Ah, sure to get you thinking. For that you need to know the present dollar rate (with recession part II in offing, it is changing at the rate of any Bollywood actress changes clothes in one single song). It can still be made better with a multiple choice question where you choose the politician or businessman and calculate his or her worth in dollars.

Rising little above in classes, the next arithmetic benefit of scams goes to students of commerce. Now they could be asked questions which will have to do all of the above plus calculation of tax if that amount of money was here in India. And that how much would it help decrease the fiscal deficit on the whole. And of course one has to calculate it considering the rate of inflation (which has been rising steadily in the recent past). See, quite a tough question. A real challenge to students which will sharpen their skill.

The beneficiaries of scams directly is the media. No we aren’t talking about media scams (yet). Tentacles of Rupert Murdoch is sure to cause ripples in Indian media too but we will deal with it in a separate essay. But yes the scams have provided enough fodder to Messrs Arnab Goswami to steal away TRP’s from talent shows and Ekta Kapoor’s. Scams have generated employment opportunities for journalists and marketing professionals who on prime time have to sell all possible aspects of scams starting from what Kanimozhi had to eat in Tihar to the laptop Yeddyurappa threw in rage. Employment opportunities sure are signs of benefits.

There are a host of other people who are benefited by scams like your chai wala at the nukkad. Its for you to think how! Anyway, you see with crores becoming the new thousand (they don’t talk about any scam in lakhs) you have to get your numbers right. Additional zeroes for kids to count, dollar to rupees and vice versa conversion, ad space by News channels, these are all but a few examples of benefits derived from gargantuan scams our country is facing. And they say scams have no benefit?

P.S – the article is not to be read when seething in anger over scams in India.