Bidding Farewell to Dada

Skimming through the news sites on the net yesterday evening,I could not believe my eyes,as it kept gazing over the caption 'Ganguly announces retirement'.Though the script was prepared partly by the media and partly by naysayers of Ganguly,I found the words "Just one last thing lads, before I leave, I just want to say that this is going to be my last series" (as voiced by him) struggling to go down my throat.Yes,the 'Prince of Calcutta', as Geoff Boycs would call him, has decided to descend from his throne after a pretty successful reign.Though this is not the door for exit, that he would have dreamt about, it could not have come at a better time than this. Remember,with the axe hanging over his head for more than a year, he has had a very successful year with an average of over 45, silencing his critics and once again proving the Darwin's theory - Survival of the fittest.Imagine,how strange it would have been,if he was out with an injury and never returned to the dressing room again,without even getting a farewell series to thank his enthusiasts. Would that be the perfect climax that a tiger from Bengal,who commanded respect all his life, deserve?Thanks to his pro- activeness,which eluded all these speculations and walk out of the cricket arena with a great dignity.

The fab four are the ones who defined the dimensions of cricket for me,to be frank and the one special factor that makes Ganguly stand out from the other three, is that he is a left-hander.Though I have heard about the legacies of Clive Lloyd or Allan Border,I have not enjoyed their game as much as I have enjoyed watching Sourav Ganguly and Brian Lara in full flow.And going by that,I hold Sourav only next to Lara and even better than Lara in certain aspects.The southpaw,who hit an imperious century,the first time he showed his willow to the bowlers at the international level and also taking 3 wickets, would be an ideal start to the career,that every debutant would dream of.Gradually improving on the one day front too,he started opening the innings with Sachin, in less than a year of his debut.Salvaging the team with a century,to win the Independence cup in '98, scoring his highest of 183 runs against Srilanka in '99 world cup, with a rain of sixes are a few escapades, that came to my mind instantaneously,when I threw some light on his cricketing career.And not to forget,he almost took the ownership of the ground in Toronto,scoring at an average little above 55 and taking 15 wickets(in fact,this is what shaped him as a reliable bowler).The God of off-side, I must confess had the best control of atleast half of the ground in front of him, any day he was asked to bat on.Even if 10 fielders are placed on the off side(including the square leg umpire,if he is allowed to),he can still bisect the fielders to fetch his victory,as accurate as a compass.

But the quality I admired him the most for, is his stint as a captain.A dictator of his own terms,he could convert all of his thoughts into action.He baptised many youngsters into the team and injected fresh blood,which keeps the adrenaline pumping all the time and being as aggressive as possible, into the otherwise placid Indian team.He not only preached his doctrines, but also made sure people practiced them and stood as an example himself,to lead others from the front.How can one forget the vivacious moments of the shirt at the Lord's balcony,which was achieved only because of two of the finest young talents,who were the products of his experiments with the team selection.Getting to feel a world cup,though not able to grab it,the only one to do so after Kapil Dev and almost sensing a series victory in Australia in tests(which I rank higher than a world cup) are few pages out of Dada's book,which Dhoni should memorise and keep saying to him daily.
As all good things should come to an end, like what American Capitalism showed us few days back, the day has come, to bid farewell to the most successful captain of Indian cricket, though his legacies would linger in our thoughts for some time to come.What would a person,who has learnt just to live with cricket,for more than a third of his life, can do, after renouncing only what he knows best to do, is what I am wondering about.May be sharing the commentary box with Gavaskar and Shastri or doing a cricket chat show in television or can be something even more fancier than what we think.But whatever it may be,the ardent fans of the Dada can find some solace,when he wears his black jersey again, where he rules his own world, for another couple of years guaranteed.Keeping those speculations aside, I request you all, both the fans and critics of him, to give him atleast a standing ovation,when the Tiger comes out to roar for one last time, as a mark of gratitude, for all that he has done to our nation.

By the time I finished writing this, looking out through the window, I saw that the sun was about to set in the horizon.The same, I thought is happening in Indian Cricket too.....

Still in Gandhian time warp??

Alarm bells have started ringing louder than ever before in India - that of terrorism.Though the sound is deafening our ears,it seems to fall into the deaf ears of the bureaucrats who rule us.Sounds of bomb explosions and bloodshed have blent so intricately with our quotidian that the news of a tragedy exits our memories,as fast as it enters our ears,which makes me wonder sometimes,if India is an Iraq in the making.Imagine three blasts within 2 months of time,in a nation renowned for peace and regarded a safe place to live on earth.Where did this all trigger and where is it progressing to,is one thing we will have to ponder over.
To begin the analysis,it takes me to the pre-independence era,when a part of the flesh of Mother India was communally divided to form a nation called Pakistan.We had fought hand in hand for more than 200 years to free ourselves form the clutches of the British,but ultimately were not able to hold the spirit even for an year after independence.If only the vanguards of the liberation movement had settled for this compromise at its early stages,so many people would not have sacrificed their lives preventing the inevitable partition.Who will console the souls of those who died dreaming of an united, independent India?Even after 60 years of independence,nothing seems to have changed,except for the names of the upper echelons of the government.Pakistan still seems to be the alleged cause for the terror escapades in India and pathetically we don't have answers to the conundrums they have for us.Gone are those days,when Jesus Christ asked to show the other cheek,when slapped on one cheek.In today's world,I tend to believe that if someone slaps on the other cheek also,even Jesus would get furious.Playing on the back foot is as good as forfeiting your wicket(could not control using a cricket terminology here,only which I know best) .
Four commercially important cities including the national capital have witnessed bombs going off in public places,in this year alone.And that too on consecutive days in Bangalore and Ahmadabad.All that the police and the home minister has to say is "the criminals would be brought to light and booked soon" and they take off to their own world.How can a minister be so apathetic to a national crisis and not even ashamed to give out the same reply every time media questions him.Not many would have forgotten the 7/7 blasts that shook London,when the culprits were identified days after the mishap,using a CCTV recording.When we live in an age, when even 'kirana' shops have a CCTV fitted in them,why don't we use it for national security?But I would be wrong if I say that the technology was not in place.I was shocked to see a report on a news channel,which showed a senior police official confessing that out of the 28 CCTVs placed in the Gaffar market in Delhi,only 4 were functional and even those are not capable of scanning 360 degrees.In fact the reporter showed a wire from one such gadget lying unplugged.What is the point in having a dog that cant bark??
Even worse is the blame game played by the politicians just to hype their image.Narendra Modi recently said that he had alerted the PM on the attack on Delhi,which he knew out of an investigation with those convicted in the Ahmadabad blasts.But the icing on the cake was the home minister's acknowledgement,that he was well aware of what was to come,even before Modi, but he owed the negligence to the lack of sufficient data.Logically speaking,are the terrorists inviting us for their wedding party,to mention the date and venue of the incident?Why the hell do we have intelligence agencies like RAW and IB then?Would they have acted in the same way,if the threat was for the prime minister or the president?Just because people don't show back their aggression,doesn't mean that they will nod their heads for anything that the government says.When the police department is intelligent enough to diffuse at least 20 live bombs in Ahmadabad,what prevents them from being proactive rather than repenting over the spilt milk?Since the time I started eyeing the national headlines,I have been hearing the names of terrorist groups like Indian Mujaheedin,Lashkar-e-Toiba etc., but don't remember any truculent steps that were taken to annul their existence.Time and again we have only succumbed to them, who hide themselves behind the veils of the religion Islam.Though this appears to be an unending debate, I would like to place a full stop to my analysis with few suggestions from my side,for India to win its war over terrorism.

• Set up a ministry exclusively for the national security,led by a minister who has to take care of the intelligence agencies.
• Create a R&D environment(for which RAW exists already) to anticipate things and curb the action of these anti socials.Funds should be allocated exclusively for this.I feel,this is as important as signing a nuclear deal,on our march to become a super power.
• A Special Task Force should be created to continuously monitor the activities of the alleged anti socials in the country to crackdown their missions and keep battling against them,rather than just doing an autopsy after a tragedy happens.
• Is the government actually aware of and updated on the demography of India?This is like a hole in the ozone layer,which permits the existence of any living being,without entering the records. Like in the US,every citizen should be given an unique number for identification,with which one can be tracked anytime.Also the particulars of every transaction they make,like even buying a phone connection,should be authenticated and stored for future use,in case of emergency.
• The database of the police department and even the CBI should be linked together and made available to the public,without whose cooperation nothing can happen.Remember,every citizen is a police without a 'khaki' uniform.
• Acts of terror should be judged and punished as fast as possible,with rigorous punishments,giving them the highest priority.

Though Mahatma Gandhi's birthday is just a fortnight away,I would urge you all to just remember him,but do not carry forward his principles and ideals of non-violence into this century as well. Jai Hind!!!

Blogging na ivlo daana(Is this what blogging all about)???

Bogged down by the boredom of office work,I kept thinking of a respite,to do something interesting,however useless it may be.Unfortunately,writing a diary is not my cup of tea,finding it rather dull,to remind myself of my past.Why dont I reach out to my friends and connect with them,for a change,I thought.Then I remembered one of my friends,filling up empty sheets,with words, in the name of blogging.Though I have actually read a few of them,I was not able to get what it was all about.Brushing this aside,I had made up my mind to give it a try.The very next moment,my mind was overwhelmed by thoughts,which gave me the confidence to go ahead.But when I sat down with a notepad open,thinking what to write on,it went blank suddenly and I ran out of thoughts,unsure what to start with.How can a person be void of opinions,I thought.Then started the process of reverse engineering,leading me to think what is that with which I associate myself so easily.Instantly came the answer for this,without even a second thought-sports.Though this sounded interesting,my confusion did not end there;in fact it bugged me even more whether to write it on Sachin or Federer or Massa,to name a few.Or if its a cluster of all in one,I knew I would not be able to finish it here.Deciding that I had taken the wrong route,I went back to where it all began-what to write on. Can it be about the Russell Crowe movie that I watched yesterday or the girl who I had a crush on in my school days.Or can it be about something that had hit the national headlines recently-inflation,may be.But to be honest,even before I had completed the sentence,my thoughts were already riding on the reverse gear for flimsy reasons-why should I be bothering about inflation,when even prodigies like Mr.Chidambaram and Mr.Manmohan are struggling to face it,as long as I have a penny in my pocket,to survive.Besides all these,one thing that I was always sure,beyond doubt, is that,I was never good at the world history,geography or physics,for that matter,to think in those lines. So after all this,I had narrowed it down to just two choices,to make life simple-whether to actually write a blog or not.Frustrated,I kept thinking whether blogs are only for the bright and the brilliant ones..Not willing to give up,my final attempt to choose a topic of interest,led me nowhere but to the easiest and obvious destination,Google.When I typed in to search what blogging actually means,I was surprised to learn that,it was nothing more than penning down whatever a person thinks.With a sigh of relief,I have already tasted success,I thought-by making you read my blog,stealing atleast five minutes of your time,conveying absolutely nothing.
Kudos da,Dharma!!! You have become a blogger too....

Why Yuvraj 'Singh' is not a 'King'...

Eight years ago,this time,the world witnessed the entry of a classy,confident southpaw into the Indian team,courtesy Sourav Ganguly's innovative captaincy and courage to inject young blood into the team.Since it was a time,when Sourav 'dada' was on a talent hunt,to form a stable team,many kept visiting the dressing room,but not good enough to make their presence felt on the field. But then came this 'Punjab ka Puthar'(Son of Punjab) who was determined to show that he was no ordinary cricketer to just dreaming to get under the blue jersey,but to wear it with the collar up.

The way he dominated the Australian attack made us wonder if it was the one which had won a world cup just an year ago in '99,that he was playing against,more so because it was the first time he went in to bat,in an international game.The match winning knock of 84,was followed by a stunning catch at covers,which I believe was the spark to set the fire of passion for fielding in the Indian contingent,and was duly adjudged as the Man of the Match.Not too far after that came the innings of his lifetime, which would come instantly from everyone's memory if Yuvraj's contribution to the team was to be looked back.It was a day when people literally lost hope and many even switched off their television sets,not willing to waste their time watching England butcher India.The partnership he built with Kaif literally wriggled India out from the seemingly impossible situation to clinching the humdinger,was more than a litmus test to show that he is a real match winner.

Though he had a silent bout of two years,it did not take enough time for him,to came out flourishing,to silence his critics.The years 2005 and 2006 saw him at the peak of his career seen yet, bagging man of the series awards more consistently and even back to back,once.The way he slaughtered Stuart broad in the T20 world cup,smashing six sixes in an over,is the icing on the cake for him.

Having said all this,the bizarre truth that everyone should accept is that spin bowling still remains an enigma to him.Not reading the spinners is not unpardonable,but a player of his calibre,who has played for so many years remaining reluctant to seal the gap is an indigestible fact.A time when he has to nurture the young lads in the team,he is still fighting for his place,especially in the test squad,just because of his temperament.He even wasted the opportunities thrown at him in Australia not captivating even in a single innings.The age old problem has magnified itself into a new menace in the form of Ajantha Mendis.Though the entire Indian team suffered at the hands of Mendis,Yuvraj became the scapegoat,just because of his indifference to learn from his mistakes.When Kapil Dev commented about Yuvraj,saying that he spends more time on a dance floor than in a cricket net,it was misappropriated by him and his family.But as time shows,we all tend to believe what Kapil said was true.Remember,India is a nation where heroes are made overnight;where a Laloo can become a Lenin and a Sania an become a Steffi Graf,overnight. But at the same time,the memory of the people is too short lived.The higher you climb the ladder,more cautious you need to be not to fall down.

Now,all that Yuvraj needs to do,is to take a break like what Dhoni did and use this time off to analyse himself,get operated on his knee(which has been his Achilles for sometime now) and start practicing with confidence in the nets all over again.In fact Yuvraj can learn a lot from his skipper,who has proved repeatedly that determination can overpower the inherent talent and nature's gift that only few like Yuvraj possess. He is lucky,for his skipper Dhoni believes in him more than anyone else.With such support extended to him,the stalwart should be back to reign his supremacy in Cricket..

Come on Yuvi, we need you,to retain the next World Cup with the hosts in 2011...I believe you can do it,as goes a latest chart buster 'Singh is King'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!