Of Human Behaviour

It is quite remarkable how the human mind functions. Cliched statement :-) We live in a world of cliche. Was observing the behaviour pattern of an acquaintance. Spouts spiritualism, relationship, calmness of mind and thought in different online portals but comes of as a pretty obnoxious person in direct face to face interactions, doesn't make an effort to work with a group, emails in a very condescending way, what a contrast and what a hypocrite. Most of us are hypocrites in the way we actually are and the way we want to be portrayed but some folks are bigger hypocrites than others, I guess.

Enid Blyton

My son has been hooked onto Enid Blyton for the past week or so. It has started with Secret Seven adventures, like it happened close to 30 years back. I am hoping that there is a quick progress from Secret Seven to Famous Five, Five Find Outers, rest of Enid Blyton adventure books for kids, a little of the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators has to be read completely, and the complete Sherlock Holmes. Did quite a bit of Agatha Christie and Alistair McLean in between. After which is where I got lost in my reading habits. Couldn't make a transition to Jeffrey Archers or Sidney Sheldon's, nor Irving Wallace. Found them to be very long drawn and dull.

Was checking Enid Blyton out online and was quite horrified by the criticism coped in England in the 50s and 60s. The comments ranged from the language being very banal, the plots too thin, characters not built up properly, gender bias and lot of cliched stuff. I totally loved the stuff when I was a kid and used to gobble up anything served in the form of a paper back. Regarding the criticism goes back to say that, anything and everything can be commented and criticized. Not sure how Enid Blyton promoted her books in the 30's - 50's when she was most active, I am sure it wouldn't have been a media sleaze like what happened with the Potter stuff a few years back. Apparently Enid Blyton, said that the less than 12 year old loved the books and that's all that mattered for her, which I think is fair point, rather than getting into a hyper analysis mode, which is what happened with Potter.  The Enid Blyton novels were essentially for kids below 10 and an indirect way of improving one's basis English (from an Indian perspective) apart from the joy of reading. Apparently a number of the stories are being re-written from a modern language perspective, by keeping the plot intact :-)

My Hero Rahul Dravid

My hero Rahul Dravid has called it a day. In 1986-87 when Sunny Gavaskar quietly retired, as a naive Cricket fan, it took me many many months to come to terms. The 80's and the 70's when India was playing, it was mostly about, "Is Gavaskar still batting". It didn't hurt as much this time, it was a question of when the big 3 are going to call it a day. Indian cricket has had a glowing time after the Gavaskar era, it cannot match the glorious West Indies era of Lloyds and Richards, nor the ruthless Australian machine lead by Border/Taylor/Waugh/Ponting. Still the Indians have done stupendously well in the past 15 odd years, with the arrival of Tendulkar, consistent wins at home with Azhar, brilliant captaincy from Ganguly and result oriented performance from a whole lot of cricketers. Out of which Dravid stood out the best. Whether it was India down at 10/1, whether it was a hand to be put up to open the innings, whether it was someone to take up wicket keeping to lend balance to the team, to Captain when the Captain stands down on the morning of a Test match, to keep the peace within the team and bring a sense of calm to the surroundings. Dravid mattered most to the Indian cricket, in a team of superstars which could have gone any different way, given the distractions it has had in the past few years in the form of the IPL, crony administrators, some dominant coaches to name a handful.

The initial few years of RSD's international cricket so much mirrored another technically perfect cricket just prior to him, Sanjay Manjrekar and it was almost a de'javu for Indian cricket in a short while. But Dravid did wonderfully adopt to One day cricket and achieved so much more than Sanjay did in Test cricket. Read a while back, that Sanjay had similar thoughts and was grateful for Rahul's adaption and re-discover of his self in donning on different roles. It would possibly have been pretty tough for Dravid to break in to the team and hold on if Sanjay had been more consistent and successful, so much for ifs and buts though.

It would have been great to see Rahul go out, atleast with couple of sparkling 50s but like someone had written fairy tale endings have an element of luck to them. It would be easy to say now, that he should have called it a day after England, but hindsight doesn't matter.  Too many favourite Dravid moments, the blinders he held at slip, the agonized look of a simple dropped catch which have been too many in the last year or so, the well left outside of the off stump (and someone recently wrote how this is least appreciated when you face a genuine swing/pace bowler), the clam shown in front of mindless opposition break down a Donald 97 or a Slater 2001 to name two. If there is one to pick, I will pick the 50 odd he scored against Australia in Sydney 2007.  Scratching around desperately, he took ages to move from 18 to 19 and the part appreciative, part critical crowd acknowledged that with a rounding applause, RSD raised his bat in mock acknowledgement. Went onto score a 50, when a lesser man would have nicked the next one to slips. That was Dravid for me, the struggle and doing it the right way. 

Few excerpts from cricinfo commentary  ..

29.6	Symonds to Dravid, no run, and Dravid calmly lets the ball go outside off, he's been scoreless for 30 deliveries but he's still there and that's what counts at the moment from India's point of view

....

33.1	Clark to Laxman, 1 run, cut off the back foot through point
33.2	Clark to Dravid, no run, defended on the front foot
33.3	Clark to Dravid, 1 run, a lesser-spotted run from Dravid brings up wild cheers and Dravid gamely raises his bat
"That brings up the century," says Healy, "Oh no, it's 19."
33.4	Clark to Laxman, no run, defended on the front foot
Great to see from Dravid, raising his bat, gives a good sign that he's mentally untroubled and can play along... oh and ha, they shook hands. He he, the crowd will love it, as do we

Thank you Rahul for being you, I missed Viswanath, but had the pleasure of seeing a high class batsman with down to earth attitude and great values.

Time for change

Like most discussions featuring around the Indian performance in Australia on seniors, I also feel it is time to get a move on the seniors. The anticipation is that Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman should be announcing their retirement during/after the series. VVS has delighted us so much since the 167 scored in anger in 2000, so many critical 60s and 70s which have brought joy to the Indian fan and all the while keeping calm. 100+ catches, 8000+ runs and contributions in a lot of Indian victories. What can one say about Rahul Dravid, the perfect role model for any Indian and aspiring cricketers if they want to make a mark in the longer version. Appreciates cricketing history, very articulate in his comments and from the Karnataka stable of cricket will surely be seen in the future in meaningful contribution. At his struggling best, it was still a pleasure to watch the struggle he put in ball by ball to survive, where a lesser batsman would have preferred to nick one behind to end the agony. A classic example being the 50 odd he scored in Sydney in 2007. But for the 2 year period of captaincy, where the team was plagued by politics and bad luck in the form of Sachin not being at his best, Rahul's career would have been really complete, he deserved every bit of success as a Captain for his selfless contribution. Still he managed Test series wins in England and West Indies. It would be good to see if we can see the two of them go out in style, I don't expect Test match wins in the last 2 tests but atleast couple of good confident knocks from RSD and VVS would be good.

Can think of the 1991-92 Indian tour to Australia, where we narrowly a white wash, Dilip Vengsarkar struggled throughout and the Perth test was his last test and it was really disappointing way for a 80's stalwart to go out the way he did in that series. It was also the end of test careers for Krish Srikkanth and a few other seniors like Kapil and Ravi Shastri struggled after that. Keeping that in hindsight, the decision of phasing out RSD and VVS has to happen now. The next fifteen months is full of home series and would possibly be the best times to get some confidence into the likes of Kohli, Sharma, Pujara and possibly Raina. It is going to be the beginning of a period where we will get to see a lot of reverses especially abroad. There was this time after Sunny Gavaskar retired and India was really exposed. There wasn't even one batsman to whom one could look upto a decent knock, till Sachin turned up. There were many articles and letters asking Gavaskar to come out of retirement. It is going to be interesting and frustrating times for an Indian cricket fan.

News and news makers

Was browsing channels randomly today and jobless NDTV has another interview with former Pakistan President Musharaff. In the 15 seconds I would have lingered on the channel, His highness was claiming he was not responsible for Benazir's security. Why is the media obsessed with people who have brought disrepute to their people. Musharaff likes to be in news, whether he is travelling to America or giving bizarre comments from his exile in London. Speaking of people in exile's, one Mr. Lalit Modi also likes to stay in media limelight. When the Indian media contingent descended in England earlier this year, he was no where to be seen. When the spot fixing trial broke out, he had to speak out his two cents on that. Talk about obsession of the self.

In other cricket matters, was surprised why the 3 Pakistan cricketers actually went to England to stand trial. Will the same thing happen if a white cricketer was caught in the sub-continent. Oh wait a minute, didn't that happen a decade ago.

Talking about exiles, there was this man in the 90's associated with Indian Cricket, Jayawant Lele, Hon Secretary and real entertainment for all and sundry. He used to be every where with his opinions. How to bowl a googly, how to hit a six, how to field like Jonty Rhodes. The last we heard was before the 2003-04 Aussie tour, where he predicted a 4-0 whitewash and ever since he vanished ... till he returned 15 days ago with a book and trying to sell it Aussie style by bold statements on Sachin and the likes. Administrators and their survival skills.

Some of the other folks who have gone AWOL and I am very much interested in finding out where they are and what they are up to are, Ram Mynampati, interim Satyam CEO after the 2009 scam. Apparently went out of the country to meet customers in the US and vanished, without a trace. The second person is Raghubir Goyal, famous for the White house press meets, when the American press would be grilling the spokesperson or the President, he would ask a question totally irrelevant to the context on India. After Bush's term he just seems to have vanished too. Again wholesome entertainment guy.

Chalo Dil Daar Chaalo

What a lovely song ... just realized though that Rafi just sings one line through out and most of the song is sung by Latha. But the one line alone makes it so refreshing. 

Confused ... again

Before the Common Wealth games were held in India, with all the bad press on delays in stadium, infrastructure, failed bridges, I was off the opinion that it would be a terrific thing for India to stage the games and get ready for the Asiad/Olympics. An article in a magazine, I picked up at the petrol bunk, spoke about how the authorities provided amenities to the workers who were building the infrastructure. It was totally appalling. Besides, Delhi was bring primed up, read massive shutters being put on to hide the poverty, remove the beggars and portray a beautiful India. A lot of my friends in Delhi, seem to have had good fun watching the games. I was confused, do we need the games to portray India as a successful and liberal economy or could the money have been actually been spent and made accountable on things which affect the common man, better infrastructure, better schools, hospitals, rural care. I was confused.

Formula I, is a private enterprise. It has involved crore's of rupees and there are a lot of passionate followers of the "sport". It is exciting, lot of technology, science and fundas. It's a free world, capitalist economy and all that.

I am still confused, do we need to spend so much on a sport or can we do better for our masses.

My father always has a premise/justification for the money we spend on traditional marriages and other rituals, that it builds and sustains an economy and helps in people's livelihood, hence. May be that's the consolation one ought to take, although the benefits(in case of CWG and F1) are still probably denied for whoever needs it the most.

In other unrelated items, read this in nytimes blog, don't know whom to laugh at, Newyork times for publishing it or the great Indian, who expected a Western life in India.