Gone with the wind - The fast vanishing virtues of life

We as a part of Gen Y have acquired quite a few virtues from our previous generations, polished a few, made a few vanish and in fact not to deny, we have also developed a few virtues of our own that we can pass on to the next generations. But today, if I make a simple moral accounting of the qualities that we have carried forward and the ones that we have let down the drain, the balance sheet of life really doesn’t tally; and the sad part is that the liability side just keeps bulging as each day passes by.

For a start, patience is something we lack. We need everything in life to be like a 20-20 cricket match; for a 3-hour game it is definitely an interesting format, but not for a 70-80 year lifetime. We need our pizzas fast, we eat fast, we drive fast, we talk fast, and for the craving of this fast-track life, we tend to think that we think fast – but in reality we think less. Very recently I was witnessing a TV talk show, and most of the Gen-‘Y’ers were typical hypocrites and they spoke without applying enough thought on the words they were about to utter. In their perspective any discussion or debate is just like a group discussion for a college seat or a part of the job interview process. All that they are looking for is attention and they think they are getting it by shouting on top of their voice. They are not worried if it really makes sense, does it hurt anyone else, or even if it correlates with their previous statement. Lack of patience is in the forefront of our generation’s debacles and it is high time we realize that virtues like these make an individual and life much more interesting, rather than we claiming ourselves to be an “interesting person”.

Another important characteristic that lacks in the Gen-‘y’ers is modesty. Do you think individuals become famous personalities just because of their talent? The most important ingredient of any individual’s success is his/her modesty and humility. A Sachin Tendulkar or a AR Rahman could have been gifted with extremely good skills and still be unsuccessful; but what made the difference is the humbleness with which they accepted their success. We can hardly see any successful person who is self-boasting. It is always better to be praised by others, rather than praising oneself.

As we talk about success and successful individuals, we come to the next important virtue that is slowly disappearing amongst us. No one can take no for an answer and no one can take defeat as a result; everyone wants to be winner. Unfortunately there can be only one winner and the others have to be content with the spots available for them. This doesn’t mean that we should be indifferent towards our failures. A wise man once said, “Failure should not be taken into your heart and success should not be taken into your head”. These are the occasions in which one needs to take the failure in one’s strides, introspect, and channelize the energy (which is usually wasted by worrying about the past) for constructive efforts.

Although everything cannot be followed on all scenarios, the greater we embrace these virtues, the better it would be for ourselves and also for a lot of others who are directly or indirectly dependant on us.

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one"

- Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor

Out of the blue

It has been almost 25 months since I last visited my blog page, and when I look back at these 25 months, I've had some 30+ occasions when I felt like writing something, started it off with a draft - but never had the patience and interest of finishing it off. Now, that is what I call LAZINESS.

One primary reason for the laziness is about the scepticism about the interest for this page; but lately realized that blogs are not always meant to be interesting and read - it can even just serve a page to talk something funny, crib about something, leave a trivia, etc. etc...

I am trying to draw inspiration from some of my fellow blog writers to make a continuous contribution (or rather bore you guys with my sometimes really uninteresting episodes), and I promise that this second start will not go back in to dormancy (Let me see for how long I can keep up this promise). Nevertheless, I'm still labelling this post as "Comebacks"

Expecting your valuable comments, criticism, and appreciation.

Just do it!!!

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Enthusiasm is the aspect that drives you to do something unique; if not unique at least different from what you were doing; if not different at least something which you have not tried so far. The below picture was something which I tried out of my way:



Neither the best of compilations, nor the best of artistry. But the best I could do with the image portfolio that I had. Now the point of discussion here is not that I started something new, but a couple of inspirational and motivating messages that I received.


Let me go back a little. I was kind of reluctant to publicize this amateur work of mine, but restraining myself from doing that will lead me nowhere. So, after some serious deliberation I sent it out to my "Shaving Set" (that's what we named our closed friends group as). First hour and a half no comments from the group. I surmised that my work was just a piece of crap. But in the 2 hours, I was poured with appreciations; not for the great work that I had done, but definitely for other reasons viz. my patience in compiling this stuff, my thought process, my courage in sharing this with others etc.


It did not stop there - some of my best buddies also came up with suggestions after seriously! analyzing the content and quality of the picture. That was enough for me (Idhu podhume enakku!!!) to get inspired and motivated for some experiments like this. The above scenario is just one of those petty instance that I have quoted. But there were several other instance when a lot in my life had depended over it.


The moral here is people like this can really drive your enthusiasm to reach places which you would have only dreamt of. They are the ones whom I envy, they are the people who stir & motivate me, and they are the ones who drive me to do the unthinkable.


THEY ARE MY INSPIRATION!!!

Clash of the Titans

Disclaimer:
Some of the scenes and the vocabulary exercised in the video attached below are not suitable for individuals below the age of 18. It is also advised to use headphones if you are seeing this video in a public environment.

All of us would have seen the incident embedded above and we would have definitely had a good laughter for the words exchanged between Afridi and Gambhir. I am not here to argue about whose mistake it was, as it is very subjective; in fact Gambhir should have taken a different path to reach his crease at the non-striker’s end to complete his run, but Afridi was also to be blamed for bending his shoulder at the last moment, instead of involving himself into this face-off.

Nevertheless, just like Morpheus in “The Matrix” says “whatever happened, happened in the best way possible; it could not have happened any other way”. Now let us start thinking about how to discipline the players to play the game with the right spirit and not engaging in nasty brawls like this. When I start thinking of things in those lines, my mind really becomes crappy and comes up with funny ideas like these.

To make players not to indulge in such activities the boards should stop imposing a ban or a fine or the players alone, instead:

• Impose fine on each individual of the team

• Make them play in the main eleven (team) and let them not bat or bowl

• Even worse (This was my colleague’s idea - he is FUNNY), play them in the main eleven, make the bowlers to bowl with their wrong arm and make the batsmen bat with their wrong side stands (right-handers to bat left-handed and vice-versa)

• Let the players involving in such incidents to finish off the fuss between them, like those face-offs in ice hockey

These penalties will not only restrict the players from engaging in such controversial “war of words”, but will also encourage their own team members to deter-off such intentions from their fellow teammates.

Any such ideas are always welcome and I would be more than happy to add them to the list. Pour in with your ideas in the comments section, so that I can add them to this list!!!

News on the Loose

I remember the good old days when I used to wait till 10:00 PM on Fridays to see "The World this Week" hosted by the legendary Prannoy Roy. He was a man who revolutionized the way in which news is conveyed at least from the Indian perspective. Maybe he followed the path of the BBCs and the CNNs, but he was the man who transformed the face of news in India.

When he came up with a dedicated news channel in the form of STAR News a few years later, there was a major upheaval amongst the news broadcasters whether a 24 hour news channel will succeed in India; again the man proved them wrong. Then came NDTV and that marked the rising of several new exciting story tellers like Rajdeep Sardesai, Srinivasan Jain, Burkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami etc. Soon there was a flurry of news channels that rocked the Indian media, and I as an ardent follower of news only through TV was really excited about the move expecting diverse perspectives from different people; but what it led to is the topic of discussion here.

The news media is dubbed as the watchdog of the Democracy; but is it really doing its job effectively. This doubt keeps passing my mind every time there is breaking news and soon after that it fades off in thin air. I am talking about the “Jessica Lal Case”, “Amar Singh ka amar kahani”, “Nithari Killings”, “7-11”, “Blue line buses” and the list goes on and on and on…

Every news channel is only interested in bringing the so-called “breaking news” to the viewers to increase their TRP ratings, but they are not really interested in following the story and let the viewers see the final outcome of it; except for a few news items like the “Sanjay Dutt Drama”, “India Fashion Week”, specific sports features etc.

Is this the responsibility of a news broadcaster? I have my own doubts about it and if someone can clarify please do so. The other day when the triumphant Indian team was returning back from Johannesburg, our fragile capital market was at its rocking best touching an all-time high of 17,000. I was really surprised to see all the news channels covering every move of the victory parade of the Indian team from the Mumbai airport to the Wankhede stadium and not the stock market scenario. It was in fact a great feat that India achieved in Jo’burg, but isn’t the economic scenario of India more important that the “Heroes’ welcome”. For me it was…

To add insult to injury, I had to sift through all the news channels back and forth to finally see the figure of 17,000 on my TV screens. That’s the watchdog in full action for you. One more instance: when had lost the cricket series to Australia and we desperately needed to win the 20-20 fixture in Mumbai and you know what is the “hot-news” about the 20-20 match… “Deepika Padukone is going to be at the Wankhede to witness her heroes Dhoni and Yuvraj play against Australia”, what the heck is the buzz about her coming for the match. I am more bothered about the team selection and the fitness of the players.

There is so much of real important news to cover, and there are enough channels and slots to telecast these happenings. The question here is:

• whether they really want to bring the news that is necessary for the public

• whether they are interested not just in improving their TRPs

• whether they want to just engross the audience with “breaking news” and not enlighten them with the hidden facts behind the scene

• whether they want to become the authentic watch dogs of the Indian Democracy.

धोनी का काम क्या हैं? (What is Dhoni's work)

Just as you would have seen in the recent promo's for the ICC World Twenty20, an icecream vendor says "धोनी का काम धोना हैं!!!". It took Dhoni and his men in blue to prove it right in just 4 weeks time. Here's how they did it...



... LITERALLY!!!

DreamWorks ICT

"Dreams are nothing but incoherent ideas, occasioned by partial or imperfect sleep."

Yes indeed!!! Almost 1.1 billion people with partial or imperfect sleep after the ICT’s (Indian Cricket Team) debacle in the World cup, losing to minnows Bangladesh lead to a dream - a dream of achieving something better; something that can console millions of broken hearts; something that the current generation can cherish and pass on to the next generation.

With the stalwarts out of the arena for a little while, owing to opportunity to new blood; with the tag of an underdog entering a new venture; with the stamp of “chokers” at the big stage; with the least of odds to win a competition, what Team India did at the Wanderers winning the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 was a dream come true for every Indian Cricket fan.

India was not the side with the strongest team on paper. It was neither a side whose batting order ran till no. 9 in the line up nor a team with 5 all-rounders, but definitely proved to be a team to be with 11 like-minded individuals destined to perform as a cohesive unit throughout the tournament.

India was never the front runner to win the shortened version of the game as we were “not known” to perform under pressure and that too with only 20 overs to show your mettle and come out winning is definitely something. India proved everyone wrong including Ravi Shastri who commented in Cricinfo “Although my heart says India, my logic goes for Australia” just before the semi-finals.

With the likes of Australia, South Africa, England, and Sri Lanka out of the team tournament (75% courtesy to India), it was left to India and Pakistan to fight it out in the finals. It was an amazing game of cricket, with the arch-rivals competing with each other in every department of the game.

It was a roller-coaster ride for 180 minutes and the momentum was shifting back and forth after every 5 minutes. If Pakistan did well to restrict India to a low score (in the context of the game), India did equally well to take wickets at regular intervals and push the Pakistan batsmen to the back foot.

Some loose shots played by their batsmen and some loose deliveries by the Indian bowlers and suddenly there was amplified blood-pressure and increase in the pulse rate. Thanks to some big-hitting by Misbah Ul-Haq and Sohail Tanvir; from nowhere these guys with their lusty blows took Pakistan towards an unlikely win against the much favored ICT.

It was match down to the wire and worth every second and penny spent on it. With 13 runs to score from 6 balls, I had my fingers crossed like any other cricket lover – but from inside praying for India to win the humdinger. A wide delivery, followed by a six over long off from the extra delivery – what else can you ask for from an India-Pakistan finals. And then came the moment of joy for India with Misbah trying to loft it over short fine leg, but Sreesanth was promptly standing there to take all Indians over cloud nine.

After months of prolonged criticism about the Indian Cricket Team and after futile debates over the composition of the team, the men in blue came up triumphant.

Go-India-Go!!!

And now about the title:

As most of you know, I am ardent fan of movies (apart from sports) and just wanted to relate this dream working for the ICT (Indian Cricket Team) with the movie production house DreamWorks SKG. ;-)