Posts Tagged ‘India’
Unity in Diversity, really?
Posted on: August 31, 2009
India's diversity makes it harder for the people to stay united
Well I was in 10th standard when I first heard the term “Unity in Diversity” in my civics class. That was an attempt to teach the kids about the greatness of our country and the different languages and cultures India posses from Jammu to KanyaKumari. It was 15 years ago and when I look back now I feel what have we learnt? We are still fighting based on language, religion, region and what not. So what does that one chapter in the book accomplish?
India is a country with a beautiful history and tradition going thousands of years back. The country is made of 28 states and speaks thousands of languages and dialects with 22 of them being official. Each state in India almost has their language as an official language other than English of course. So the country has lots of divide from various avenues. People eat different, look different, speak different so there lays a problem.
The problem is that we study so many meaningless stuff about history that we fail to educate the kids about our own country. I can point out so many people coming from the Northern part of India from the current generation who claim themselves educated have no clue of the fact that Southern India posses of 4 different states and speak four different languages. Same can be said about the people from the south India. There are people from India who will actively talk about the current US foreign policies at length without any problem but ask them what language is spoken in Andhra; 70-80% will say Tamil.
That’s the kind of knowledge we provide our future generation about our country’s diverse culture. Politicians of India are notorious in starting up regional divide to further their political agenda and people fall for it. The reason is that unity is not emphasised in schools or at home from our childhood. Just having one chapter in 15-16 years of education isn’t going to help anyone. I am not even sure if that one chapter exists across the nation.
The rigid mentality of the current modern generation is baffling for a country that has made the entire world to take a notice due to its growth. The fact that this mentality is going to be carried forward to the next generation is even scarier. We don’t have to know the language or speak them but we need to learn to respect each other and not degrade based on region. There was one guy who said that he had a bad impression on south India and I was like based on what? He did not even know South India has four states.
A person from South does not want to learn Hindi and the one from other parts of India does not want to embrace the South unless they are forced to. The country cannot move forward with these divides continuing to the future generation. The schools should include more about our country and culture and beauty of it rather than teaching meaningless history. How difficult would it be to include a General knowledge subject to educate the kids about different cultures and traditions of our country? I guess it also becomes a responsibility of present generation that we educate them to break the language barriers and learn to be friends irrespective of what language one speaks.
We need not speak the language but still learn to be friends with a fellow Indian, Isn’t that supposed to be the absolute “Unity in Diversity”? Indians are already divided by religion, caste, region etc; but one thing which can be eliminated is the language divide. I am not saying that everyone has to learn like 20 languages but I am just saying that we don’t use that to discriminate anyone. It should not be a cause for fight between two people. I have friends who speak various languages and I myself speak or understand 5 Indian languages which makes my job easier though. I guess we need to instill respect and love towards fellow Indian irrespective of their cast, religion, region, color etc from childhood. Unless we do that we cannot call ourselves united. I at least hope that the future generation sees a much united India than we are doing today.
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Virat Kohli deserves an extended run in the Indian ODI squad
It was a fantastic performance from the Indian Emerging players as they beat the SA Emerging players in Australia to claim the trophy yesterday. The South African team was unbeaten till the finals and unfortunately they chocked like their National squad. For India though this was a sweet victory and players like Badrinath, Virat Kohli, Rahane, Tyagi and Mishra did very well during the course of the tournament.
Virat Kohli I guess has further proven his case as a promising player for India for the future. He should be playing in the Indian team often. He played brilliantly against M & M during India’s one-day series win against the SL last year and has not played in the X1 since. Rohit Sharma has been preferred over him in the middle order. I guess now is the time to give him a look in.
Rohit Sharma has had his chances and has consistently underperformed. During the recent WI tour he was completely out of place and did not score any runs. Rohit Sharma has been in the team since his 66 in the finals against the Aussies last year but since then he has struggled at the International level. Having talent alone shouldn’t guarantee a spot for anyone in the team.
Badrinath again is one of the players who have not got enough chances. He had couple of bad matches and he was discarded. That’s the reason I was unable to comprehend what Yusuf Pathan was saying about the squad being Chennai heavy. Chennai has just 3 players in the reckoning, Vijay, Badri and Karthik and two of them never get a chance in the X1. The underperforming players like Rohit and Irfan have got more chances than the 3 I have mentioned above.
Kohli with his brilliant performance in the Emerging players trophy has reminded the selectors that he is one of the best youngsters we have in the domestic set up. Kohli in alien conditions has scored over 400 runs at a healthy average of 50 with 2 hundreds, one of them coming in the finals. Even though Badrinath doesn’t have a great stat to boost his claim in this series, he did have some important knocks and has been performing consistently for Tamil Nadu. I hope that he does not become one of the other Tamil Nadu players before him who retired with lots of promise without getting a look in.
The other player to impress was Rahane who had a brilliant series too, finishing with the second highest run tally behind Kohli. Sudeep Tyagi ended up with most wickets in the series and Amit Mishra had a good series too. I hope that the selectors are taking a look at these performances. The media coverage has been really poor for this series considering that the national team hasn’t been playing over the past month or so.
Anyways great effort by the Indian probable’s and hopefully Kohli and Badri get their due in the coming months.
Attacked by a Crow
Posted on: July 16, 2009
Crows are very prevalent in Chennai, the city in India where I come from
I was in the 6th standard when this weird incident happened. We were at that time living in Royapettah, Chennai in a two storied building. We had a huge terrace where I used to spend lots of time. Most of the times playing with my friends but sometimes I just preferred to hang out up there as it was one of the tallest buildings in the street.
So one evening my cousin and I decided to go upstairs and play some cricket and as usual the ball was hit outside onto the road. So I decided to go and see where the ball fell and that’s the time this happened. There was a huge tree right in front of our house and its branches came up to our terrace. So when I leaned over to take a look suddenly from nowhere this crow flies and hits my head. I was shocked at first and then thought that it was just an accident as there was a nest close to where I was standing, so I thought that I was just on the of the bird’s flight path.
It was no big deal and we went down and picked up the ball and went back home. The next day I was leaving to school in the afternoon walking down the stairs and again this crow from nowhere flies and hits my head once again. Now I realized that it was not an accident and the crow was really trying to harm me. That terrified me and at that age I couldn’t make out why. I was so terrified walking down the stairs that our house maid had to walk me down every time I left to school.
This happened one more time to me and after that the only time I was confident walking down the stairs alone was after dark. This went on for few weeks and one day while I was at school my aunt came home to visit us and the crow for some reason decided to attack her and this time it was serious as the crow’s beak made contact with her forehead and she started bleeding. That did it for everyone, the people around the house decide to end this and took the Crow’s nest from the tree and put it somewhere else. That stopped the crow attack forever.
When I came home and heard this, I was sorry for my aunt but was relieved that they had moved the nest from the tree. It is funny, come to think of it now as to how a crow terrified me like anything at that time. At that time I couldn’t figure out why the bird would do such a thing but when I think about it now, I feel that it was just trying to protect its nest. When I leaned over to look for the ball I was close to the nest of the bird which probably made the bird think that I was trying to harm it for some reason.
Well anyways whatever may be the reason it was such a weird incident and one which I could never forget. Anyways at that age I was relieved that I could walk down the stairs again with confidence and without fear. I guess the bird just acted out of fear at that point but a funny story nonetheless.
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The Victorious Indian team with the trophy
India won their 5th straight series and their 3rd straight overseas. Looking at such a record it would seem that India has no issues but that’s not the case with the Indian team right now. Both Gary Kirsten and Mahendra Singh Dhoni will know that they have lots to think about in the coming two months. The record of Dhoni has been brilliant since he has taken over the captaincy. Except for the bad performance in the T20 WC, the Indian team has had a great year and a half.
They have won away ODI series in Australia, New Zealand and Srilanka (Twice) and won a test series in NZ. They also beat Australia and England at home and drew a series against the South Africans. They are sitting pretty at the number 3 spot in both forms of the game which is fantastic and the current scrappy series win adds to that brilliant record of Dhoni as a captain.
Even though Dhoni has an envious record as a captain he will know that things are only going to get tough. After the World T20 the picture has become little bit hazy for the Indian team. The team which had brilliant youngsters just few months ago is now questioning their talent at the big stage. The recall of Rahul Dravid in the probable’s for the Champions trophy reflects the state of mind of the selectors at the moment.
The English and the West Indian bowlers peppered the Indian youngsters with the short pitched stuff and they had no answers to counter the same. The same continued in the short series in the WI. If not for some individual brilliance India might have lost this series. Yuvraj in the first game and Dhoni in the third game saved the day for the Indians. Rohit Sharma has been struggling and for me needs a break from International cricket for some time. He needs to play more cricket at the domestic level and work on his inadequacies. The same goes for the other Indian youngsters.
If Rahul Dravid does get selected for the Champions trophy it will be a huge step backward for the Indian team. Even though it is a huge step back,the selection in itself cannot be questioned after the performance of the Indian youngsters in the World T20 and WI series. Jadeja needs to go and I am not sure if he will ever make it back to the Indian team. Karthik’s performance in the WI will also put a lot of pressure on the selectors when Sachin and Sehwag come back. Badri needs to get a chance in the middle order and so does Murali Vijay. Both of them are technically sound would be adding the much needed solidity for the Indian batting.
How long are we going to rely on Sachin at the top of the order? He probably has couple of years of cricket left in him and the youngsters need to show that they can take over the mantle. Raina and other youngsters can make use of this time off to work on their game. They need to figure out a way to effectively handle the short pitched stuff. The word travels pretty fast in the cricketing circles and I am sure that when India play in the champions trophy the youngsters will be tested again.
The bowling also needs some work but the return of Nehra to form will be good for the Indians. Ishant has to work on his variations, Harbajan has to control his faster ones and RP Singh needs to get back his zing. India would also be happy with Piyush Chawla’s fantastic all round performance for Sussex in the county cricket. He might find his way back to the team.
But all the issues aside this has been another good series win for the Indians and another overseas one. The team will be enjoying the welcome break from cricket but they will know that they have a tough season ahead.
I will be working on my yard today
Posted on: June 19, 2009
Well it’s a typical Friday morning at work, lot of empty seats, lots of free parking spaces and yes lots of OOO (Out Of Office) messages. I have been working here in the US for the past four years and this is my second client location and some things remain the same. The current client I work for is a giant corporation and is spread across the US.
I work for a typical “Desi” company where billing is everything. I have been amazed by the type of OOO emails we get at the client location. This morning my lead sent an email stating that since it was too nice outside and he wants to work on his yard. This was funny as working in an Indian company you would never even think of giving such a reason.
I work in a company where my manager told me that I shouldn’t take a day off when I was really sick. He said that having cold and fever is not a good enough reason to take a day off. Even though I was angry at that point when I think back it was really funny. That’s the difference between an Indian firm and an American firm.
I have seen so many different vacation emails with reasons such as “I am playing golf tomorrow”, “I am working on my Yard tomorrow”, “I have to collect Fedex package” and many others which will seem ridiculous to us coming from India. In India the only valid reasons for vacation or a day’s leave can be health or functions.
For us consultants at a client place it’s just a dream to be able to give such reasons for taking a leave. It will not be received that well from the managers of my parent company. Well even though I may never be able to work on my yard on a sunny day during a working day, the reasons for leave here in the US never ceases to amaze me.
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Dhoni will be aware that the series against the WI is one of the most important in his captaincy career
Now that T20 WC is done and dusted, it’s time for India to fly down to the Caribbean for a 4 match ODI series. The team announced is sans Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer and Pathan and is quite an inexperienced one. Ashish Nehra gets a call back to the Indian team due to his fine performances in the IPL and Abhishek Nayyar is the only new face in the squad.
The Indian team will directly fly over to the WI from London on the 21st. It will be a different experience for Dhoni who has hardly put a foot wrong during his tenure as a captain of the national side. The failure in the T20 WC is going to hurt for sure but calls to drop him is little premature I think. Dhoni is an excellent leader and India is still the third best team in 50 over and Test formats.
Even though the team is less on confidence we should beat the WI even with this depleted team. The bowling will be spearheaded by Ishant and Harbajan and the batting by Dhoni and Yuvi. Ghambir I guess will do fine in the 50 over format as he was in reasonable form in the T20 WC. Rohit Sharma also will be a key player in the team.
Dropping Irfan Pathan was a bad decision I feel as he is the only other player to have toured WI before. Nehra has been there too and so has Harbajan, so the Indian bowling will do fine but it’s the batting which will be a major worry for the Indians. Irfan could have solved that issue coming in at no 7 as he is a very good bat and a decent bowler at the start. In the absence of Zaheer, he would have been a good bowler to have in the squad.
I hope that the experiment with Rohit opening the bat will end after the T20 WC and someone like Vijay can join Ghambir at the top. Rohit can come at number 4 and Raina can bat at number 3. The Indian captain though would want to come back to his aggressive best. It will be a test of character for the Indian captain as this will show how well he can handle the pressure.
Winning this series will be of utmost importance for the team as this will also propel us closer to the top spot in the ODI rankings. In a way it’s a good thing that India isn’t flying back home after the T20 debacle but on the flip side, watching the other teams battling for the title cannot be good either. Anyways this series will be an important one for the Indians and I hope that we win.
The team has been great over the past one year or so and I hope that we bounce back the same way we did after the 2007 WC.
India crashed out of the World T20 this Sunday after they lost to England by 3 runs at Lords. Needing 154 to win, the Indian batsmen made 150/5 to lose the game to England. The Indian top order was found out by the WI pace bowlers in the previous game when they bowled short pitched stuff to Rohit, Ghambir and Raina who looked unsettled against the same.
England used the same tactics and was successful again. I know that there was only a day between the two matches but why didn’t Indian coach and captain find a way to counter it. It was a given that the English bowlers would try the short pitched stuff again. The overall captaincy of Dhoni in the World T20 was strange and sometimes hard to understand. He made too many tactical errors which cost India at crucial times.
First of all Yuvraj being the senior member in the team, should have always batted at number 4. I don’t understand why you need to hide a batsman who is the best in the side and could have made the English bowlers nervous. Sending Jadeja ahead of Yuvraj was baffling to me.
The other striking error was not bowling RP Singh at the death. RP Singh replaced Irfan Pathan for this crucial game and bowled a brilliant first spell just giving away 13 runs in his first 3 overs for the wicket of Luke Wright but still Dhoni decided to bowl Ishant and Zaheer who were more expensive. It’s a known fact that Ishant is not a good bowler at the death but RP Singh is. Ishant and Zaheer went for too many runs in the end giving England an easy passage to 150 when they had no chances of getting there at one stage.
England scored 53 runs in the last 5 overs and they did not have to take any risks. Harbajan bowled 2 wides which went for 4 and that too in the crucial last over when the first 5 balls had only yielded 2 runs and a wicket. The only thing Bajji had to do it to bowl straight and India would have won the game. The extra 5 runs given pushed the score beyond 150.
Overall the batting and the bowling in the campaign for India was too inconsistent to say the least. Well all in all it was a pathetic performance and India for sure will be hurt by this. The next series will commence pretty soon against the WI where we play 4 ODI’s and hopefully we can do well. The Indian youngsters need to work hard against the short pitched bowling as WI has a good pace attack.
It seems like Sachin might not go to WI which will be a huge blow to the Indian chances. Sehwag might come back to the side which will boost the top order and I hope that we get back Sreesanth in the team along with Munaf. WI pitches are slow and low and we need bowlers with pace in the team. Zaheer might also not play in the series due to injury.
India plays SA later today in their final game of the ICC WorldT20 and they have nothing at stake but the pride. I am sure that Dhoni and his men would want to end the tournament with a win which will give them some confidence ahead of the WI tour.
Dhoni with the trophy after India completed a 1-0 win in the test series against the Kiwis
41 years of wait finally ended as India completed 1-0 series win in New Zealand. This win will be particularly sweet for the seniors in the team as they have been on the receiving end on more than one occasion. It was a fantastic performance by the Indian team and was a total team effort.
I was little bit disappointed that we were unable to close out the 3rd test and win the series by 2-0 margin. When the rain halted the proceedings on day 5 with New Zealand on 284/8 the only thing which came on every Indian supporter’s mind was If only we had 10 more overs. If we look back at the 4th day’s play India batted too long I thought. We should have probably given NZ a target of 550-575. I don’t think that the Kiwis would have had a realistic chance of scaling that score against the Indian bowling attack.
Anyways that’s just in the hindsight. Nothing should be taken away though from the team as they have completed another major victory. They just have two more mountains to climb, Australia and South Africa. If they can achieve this while Sachin, Dravid and Laxman are still in the team it will be really great. Yeah there is one more location India hasn’t won that often which is Sri Lanka. Twice in last ten years we lost the series after going in to the final test with 1-1 score line.
For India to win in Australia and SA they have to improve their fielding and catching as this let them down badly in New Zealand. If Ishant hadn’t spilled a sitter of Ian O’ Brian of Sachin India probably would have won 2-0. So that’s one area which we have to work on. The second area of concern is the third seamer. I would prefer Sreesanth to come into the squad in the place of Munaf. Munaf is a good bowler but sometimes he looks lifeless on the field. I am not even talking about his bowling but just his body language which sometimes is not that encouraging.
Well overall this has been a fantastic series for the Indians. Winning the one-day series 3-1 and later winning the test series 1-0 will give lots of satisfaction to the Indian captain. There were some great individual performances from Ghambir, Zaheer and Harbajan. Sachin, Dravid and Laxman also batted brilliantly and gave consistent performances throughout the tour. Dhoni’s captaincy throughout the tour was excellent and aggressive. All in all a fantastic performance and a great win by Team India.
India needs to step up
Posted on: April 2, 2009
Dhoni would want to win the series 2-0
India escaped with a draw in the second test against the kiwis at Napier through the batting of Ghambir, Laxman and Dravid. India batted out 2 and a half days to save the game which was a great effort but considering that it was a follow up to a thumping win just a week ago was a little disappointing for me. The Indian fielding was mediocre to say the least in New Zealand first innings where they kept dropping catches to let NZ score 619 after reducing them to 23/3 on day 1.
Nothing should be taken away from Taylor and Ryder though; they batted beautifully to get NZ innings on track. Indian batting also was woeful in the first innings. The top order kept playing atrocious strokes to throw their wickets away. It seemed like Sehwag and co thought that they will get to the Kiwi total in 20 overs. India fell 314 runs behind the Kiwi total after the first innings. But resilient batting from Ghambir and the rest of the top order saved India from the blushes.
India now travels to Wellington to play the final test of the series and they will know that this will determine the success of this tour for the team. Dhoni will for sure come back into the side and the rest of the team will remain the same barring any injuries. Dhoni will know that the conditions will be tough in the windy city and the temperatures really low. The pitch for sure will have something in it for the pacers and Dhoni will be hoping to win the toss and bowl first.
If India manage to win or draw this test this will be their first series victory in NZ for 40+ years and it will be a great achievement for the team. The victory will be sweet for the seniors who were humiliated in their previous tour here. Daniel Vettori and NZ will be hoping to stop just that. They would want to carry the confidence of the Napier game and try to go one step better and win the game to square the series.
Let’s hope that we get yet another uninterrupted game and cricket is of the highest standard.
India look for a series win
Posted on: April 2, 2009
India leads 1-0 in the 3 test match series against New Zealand after the comprehensive win in Hamilton last week. India will take on the hosts again and this time in Napier for the second test of the series. Dhoni and Gary Kirsten would want to wrap up the series in Napier. If this happens, it will be a great achievement from the team India.
India have announced an unchanged team for the second test match and understandably so. The batting looked good in Hamilton and the bowling was persistent. Munaf Patel has for now sealed the third seamer position in the team and Harbajan with his 6 wicket haul has solved the spin problem for now. Batting for the Indians has not been a problem in this series. Daniel Vettori knows that they have to do something different in the second game to upset the Indian batting line up. Their bowling looked toothless in the first test and did not look like taking 20 wickets.
New Zealand batting also struggled against Harbajan on a flat batting track. It was a bad loss for the hosts and it seems like on a good wicket they are no match for the Indians. Vettori wanted Jacob Oram to be back for the second test but that isn’t a possibility right now. It seems for the Kiwis Jeetan Patel will be back in the squad. The Kiwis will also worry about the form of their No1 bowler Kyle Mills who has been largely ineffective in this series in all formats.
All in all this will be another interesting game and I guess the toss will be important again for the home team. Dhoni and India would want to get the series win here to cap off a wonderful series. Best of luck to the team and hopefully we will win the series in Napier.
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