Into my 2nd season of cricket at Arizona, people might feel I am too inexperienced to write an article on Arizona cricket. Sure, I might not know the history, but I sure have my own personal experiences to talk about. This is just my take on Arizona Cricket.
I came to this alien land of America almost 30 months back chasing my dreams. 30 months after that day, I am still chasing the same dream, though in a different plane. New possibilities in a new land also meant crushing other dreams, not possible here. The cricketing avenues that Arizona had to offer me, presented me with a new found hope to reestablish my interest to play the game of my dreams-cricket, yet again!! As part of these 30 months a lot of things changed about me, but one thing that remains intact, if not more, is my passion for the game of cricket.
Sure clubs like my own-'I Kingfishers', are trying to improve the conditions of pitches, they laid down the region's first 'Astroturf concrete' pitch in Snedigar Sports Complex, Chandler. The Umpiring standards are trying to be improved by introducing 'elite umpires' chosen from the players who passed a written Elite Panel Umpiring Assignment Test (UAT). There are things that need more work to be done- especially the unity between the different teams and representation of the players from this region, in the nation (USA). Also there is no body representing the interests of the players.
The best way to describe Arizona cricket would be 'weekend cricket'. Rant as much as you want, it's hard to ignore that. Sure, it's different than the other leagues & formats of cricket played in this region, in the seriousness with which the games are played here. I was surprised with the seriousness involved in the games here, and that is the biggest reason I got attracted to them. The ACA has a set of rules & regulations of their own within which the games are conducted. Rules are needed to maintain discipline & proper conduct in such an environment. But with rules come responsibilities & breach of rules. Tolerance is needed in such a scenario. Jumping for heads straightaway as the only solution for breaching conduct is 'immature'. The 'disciplinary procedure' involved leaves a lot to be desired. The worrying detail is all of it is done in the absence of the player involved. I can talk about this from my own personal experience(s). Sadly, this chapter had been 'coldly' finished, without any concern about my feelings, neither from my team nor the ACA.
I call for a body representing the interests of the players, which keeps track of the feelings of the individual players. When there is punishment, there needs to be a chance for redemption too. The judges are not correct always. This is where ACA lacks I feel, in trying to ape other leagues & professional cricket leagues by conveniently ignoring those details which they are not comfortable with. Taking strides is of primary importance to them, in which direction, is something that is not well thought about. The exact working details of the executive committee is something, I am not in a position to talk about.
But complain as much as you want, professional cricket per se ain't possible with the kind of lifestyle people have around here, with work/school as their primary motive. People are all busy in their own lives where they have no time to worry about players feelings, but indeed have time to punish them, to maintain discipline that is!! I am sure a lot of people reading this are already prejudiced and view this as an immature attempt by rebel, rather than the honest pleas of a victim !!
Harsha Bhogle is passionate in the way he writes articles about cricket. Sachin Tendulkar is passionate in the way he wants to be a champion for his country. Sreesanth is passionate about the way he wants instant stardom, forgetting that his bowling alone can get him the laurels he craves for. Commentators like Ian Chappel, Sunny or Mark Taylor are passionate about the way they find mistakes in the current players, forgetting easily they did the same few decades back.
In a similar way I am just passionate about the way I go about with my cricket on the field, leaving them on the field. Everyone has a different way of showing passion for the game, expecting everyone to react the same way is unreasonable, if not naivety. If not for the passion, none of them would be playing cricket anyways. Sadly this tolerance is something I see lacking in the Arizona cricket among players & the so-called authorities.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, December 07, 2009
Twitter as a news source - Twitter vs Google Reader
This is my take on Twitter as a source of news and how different could it be when compared to other sources of news in the present social media. I won't get too technical and as usual this is the perspective of an everyday avid user.
So of late there is this explosion of social media, applications and devices which specialize in bringing specific personalized news to the reader's (consumer) door step, instead of the traditional method of consumers reaching out and picking information that interests them the most, from a plethora of junk. Those were the days of the good old newspapers.
Times been changing and I have always been an ardent newspaper reader. Somehow I haven't been able to adopt properly and feel comfortable with the explosion of e-papers ad e-news. Plus the idea of traditional network news is too time consuming and too specific in terms of the news. All of that, along with the teenage-youth excitement and perpetual laziness have pushed me away from news for a while. Somehow it seemed all fine to be away from news, lesser things to worry about, plus I always kept track of things that I wanted to, anyways. With the lots of free time on hand social sites like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut and YouTube, made way into my browsing time. Ironically, I also stumbled upon twitter in this process.
I had my concerns before adopting to Twitter. But a series of incidents led to my first #helloworld tweet on twitter. It was surprisingly easy to use and the rest as they say is history.
In Twitter I found a social website, which lets you follow the tweeple( people on twitter) that you would like to follow and only them. This way you get to see only specific information that you would like to, right on your computer. The pain of going through news websites to search for news that interests you could be eliminated. This gave me a new hope for reviving my interest in news once again. Sure there have been devices which pushed specific news to your computer before, with the RSS feeds, etc, but I was attracted to Twitter because of its social interactivity and social presence.
Other news devices for example 'Google Reader' serve a similar purpose too, when it comes to pushing specific news to users. Add to that the power of google i.e the information they collect about users and their powerful search capabilities - we indeed have a device which potentially could wreck some major media houses. But that hasn't happened yet and why? if you wonder!!
I guess Google Reader lacks in a few areas. I have been using it off late and one thing that I don't quite like about it is, its inability to share information with my friends on facebook/twitter. For now, I guess we can safely say that the power of friends & followers in Facebook(FB) and Twitter can't be challenged. Other social websites like YouTube and news websites have accepted that and are harnessing this feature for their own good. It is surprising to see Google Reader not adapt the same. It allows you to share the information to your 'Google profile' or 'followers' on Google, which is minuscule in terms of the power of twitter or FB. I am feeling handicapped at not being able to share it with the people I know, who all have established profiles on either FB or twitter. So why should I change base to Google Reader ?
Sure Google Reader's selling points would be its excellent recommendations in terms of 'news you might like' ( thanks to powers of google) and of course the power of 'google news' itself. But I did a small check on most of the sources of information on google reader and found almost all of them having a twitter profile and who tweet at the same pace as information that appears on google reader. Add to that the powers of Twitter in being able to reach out to the audience and a big user database, I see no reason in changing base to google reader. Of course I will continue using google reader to get updates on the new blog posts of my friends who i subscribed to on 'blogspot', but is that the extent of google reader ?
Twitter might not have the data that google has, of users- so the recommendations are missing, but all it takes for someone like me, would be to use the 'recommendations' provided by Google Reader, and follow the tweets of those recommendations on Twitter. There, with that simple step the power of 'recommendations' provided by Google Reader, just became redundant. With the new additions of 'Retweets' & 'lists', Twitter has become a stronger source of spreading and accessing news. Lists are able to eliminate the deluge of information on Twitter. They are doing a great job in segregating useful information from random information. They are doing the same thing like what 'feed bundles' in Google Reader do. Almost all the major media houses have 'list bundles' now for the ease of 'news-push' on Twitter now.
Next with real-time updates of Twitter almost any netizen or a phone user can become a news reporter and push news real time from any corner of the world. That's another power of Twitter where as Google Reader does not have any such features. With the latest 'real-time search' introduced by Google, they have started collecting the real-time data from twitter users, thus recognizing Twitter as a very good source of real-time news.
The trends on Google Reader have already been challenged by the 'trending topics' on Twitter. The re-tweets on Twitter definitely are stronger than the sharing feature on Google Reader, thanks to the user database of Twitter.
The idea of using a simple hashtag (#), to reach out to almost the entire audience on twitter is overwhelming, where as on Google Reader I just feel like a single aloof entity in this whole wide global village. Unless Google Reader adopts the power of friends on twitter and Facebook, it might be a great potential resource not properly utilized. The 'Social search' on 'Google labs' has already been trying to harness the connectivity between users provided by twitter and facebook.
Also the feature of Google Reader in showing unread posts over the last few days is 'annoying' to sat the least. I don't like the idea of opening Google Reader after a week to see '1000' unread posts. Sure all it takes for me to do is 'mark as read', but well Twitter does not do that.. So...
Looking forward to a more technical comparison of Twitter and Google Reader by people working on Social Media like a friend of mine 'Munmun'.
So of late there is this explosion of social media, applications and devices which specialize in bringing specific personalized news to the reader's (consumer) door step, instead of the traditional method of consumers reaching out and picking information that interests them the most, from a plethora of junk. Those were the days of the good old newspapers.
Times been changing and I have always been an ardent newspaper reader. Somehow I haven't been able to adopt properly and feel comfortable with the explosion of e-papers ad e-news. Plus the idea of traditional network news is too time consuming and too specific in terms of the news. All of that, along with the teenage-youth excitement and perpetual laziness have pushed me away from news for a while. Somehow it seemed all fine to be away from news, lesser things to worry about, plus I always kept track of things that I wanted to, anyways. With the lots of free time on hand social sites like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut and YouTube, made way into my browsing time. Ironically, I also stumbled upon twitter in this process.
I had my concerns before adopting to Twitter. But a series of incidents led to my first #helloworld tweet on twitter. It was surprisingly easy to use and the rest as they say is history.
In Twitter I found a social website, which lets you follow the tweeple( people on twitter) that you would like to follow and only them. This way you get to see only specific information that you would like to, right on your computer. The pain of going through news websites to search for news that interests you could be eliminated. This gave me a new hope for reviving my interest in news once again. Sure there have been devices which pushed specific news to your computer before, with the RSS feeds, etc, but I was attracted to Twitter because of its social interactivity and social presence.
Other news devices for example 'Google Reader' serve a similar purpose too, when it comes to pushing specific news to users. Add to that the power of google i.e the information they collect about users and their powerful search capabilities - we indeed have a device which potentially could wreck some major media houses. But that hasn't happened yet and why? if you wonder!!
I guess Google Reader lacks in a few areas. I have been using it off late and one thing that I don't quite like about it is, its inability to share information with my friends on facebook/twitter. For now, I guess we can safely say that the power of friends & followers in Facebook(FB) and Twitter can't be challenged. Other social websites like YouTube and news websites have accepted that and are harnessing this feature for their own good. It is surprising to see Google Reader not adapt the same. It allows you to share the information to your 'Google profile' or 'followers' on Google, which is minuscule in terms of the power of twitter or FB. I am feeling handicapped at not being able to share it with the people I know, who all have established profiles on either FB or twitter. So why should I change base to Google Reader ?
Sure Google Reader's selling points would be its excellent recommendations in terms of 'news you might like' ( thanks to powers of google) and of course the power of 'google news' itself. But I did a small check on most of the sources of information on google reader and found almost all of them having a twitter profile and who tweet at the same pace as information that appears on google reader. Add to that the powers of Twitter in being able to reach out to the audience and a big user database, I see no reason in changing base to google reader. Of course I will continue using google reader to get updates on the new blog posts of my friends who i subscribed to on 'blogspot', but is that the extent of google reader ?
Twitter might not have the data that google has, of users- so the recommendations are missing, but all it takes for someone like me, would be to use the 'recommendations' provided by Google Reader, and follow the tweets of those recommendations on Twitter. There, with that simple step the power of 'recommendations' provided by Google Reader, just became redundant. With the new additions of 'Retweets' & 'lists', Twitter has become a stronger source of spreading and accessing news. Lists are able to eliminate the deluge of information on Twitter. They are doing a great job in segregating useful information from random information. They are doing the same thing like what 'feed bundles' in Google Reader do. Almost all the major media houses have 'list bundles' now for the ease of 'news-push' on Twitter now.
Next with real-time updates of Twitter almost any netizen or a phone user can become a news reporter and push news real time from any corner of the world. That's another power of Twitter where as Google Reader does not have any such features. With the latest 'real-time search' introduced by Google, they have started collecting the real-time data from twitter users, thus recognizing Twitter as a very good source of real-time news.
The trends on Google Reader have already been challenged by the 'trending topics' on Twitter. The re-tweets on Twitter definitely are stronger than the sharing feature on Google Reader, thanks to the user database of Twitter.
The idea of using a simple hashtag (#), to reach out to almost the entire audience on twitter is overwhelming, where as on Google Reader I just feel like a single aloof entity in this whole wide global village. Unless Google Reader adopts the power of friends on twitter and Facebook, it might be a great potential resource not properly utilized. The 'Social search' on 'Google labs' has already been trying to harness the connectivity between users provided by twitter and facebook.
Also the feature of Google Reader in showing unread posts over the last few days is 'annoying' to sat the least. I don't like the idea of opening Google Reader after a week to see '1000' unread posts. Sure all it takes for me to do is 'mark as read', but well Twitter does not do that.. So...
Looking forward to a more technical comparison of Twitter and Google Reader by people working on Social Media like a friend of mine 'Munmun'.
The Twitter era - Twitter vs Facebook for dummies :)
At the end of the day it entirely depends on the user on how they would like to use these plethora of social networks, but this is my take on the social websphere and a beginners guide to twitter :P :). -My take not being too technical, but from the perspective of an everyday user with a little more analysis, when scratched a little more on the surface.
There are so many social networks these days. Gone are the days when a bunch of kids used to hang out after school and do stuff like pranks, play and do other things about which we do not talk.
Now they prefer sitting at home and doing most of it virtually on the computers. The frequency and the time spent on real-time interactions and communications has definitely taken a beating. They have created virtual networks on the computers, and doing which is the 'in-thing' to do. This is where the money and people are, so this is where the new investments are (lately) too. There have been huge success stories, the likes of Facebook, Myspace, Orkut(google) and YouTube, to name a few. Not surprsingly many new ones keep coming up everyday. One such social network has been 'Twitter'.
I wasn't too keen on twitter to start with. But after some discussions with friends, primary among them a Munmun and its visibility almost everywhere around me, I took my first steps in the 'Tweet-world'. It wasn't that difficult to adopt to, was an easy progression and then started the game. Slowly the focus shifted from facebook to twitter and that's where I am standing right now.
I like to tell people what I am doing and share information with friends and/or strangers with similar tastes as mine. When I was naive to the whole twitter era, I felt Twitter is similar to facebook's status updates. Now if I look back at it, the difference is that in facebook you push your news to almost everyone in your friends list, people who might not even know what you are talking about when you are talking about touchdowns and football. In twitter, on the other hand, only people who know football and care about touchdowns will follow you. Plus, another good feature in Twitter is, 'you don't have to follow your followers' - meaning you follow someone only because you are interested in doing so, not because they are interested in following you, like say the 'friends' concept in facebook. So the whole concept of 'friends' in facebook has been transformed to 'followers' in twitter.
So to say Twitter and facebook serve different purposes. Facebook is more like a social website where your aim is to befriend as many people as you can and network in the process. Of late facebook has also become a good source of video-sharing. The concept of 'friends' has not explicitly been defined in youtube. YouTube is good for videohosting, but in terms of social interactivity, it still depends on other social websites like Facebook and Myspace. Facebook excels at the concept of 'events ', where in you are able to spread the word about invitations to a large group of people.
Twitter is more specific where you choose to follow only people who might interest you and is a very good source of specific news being pushed to your door-step. It specializes in bringing specific personalized news to the reader's (consumer) door step, instead of the traditional method of consumers reaching out and picking information that interests them the most, from a plethora of junk. Also Facebook is good for creating a good fan base like communities/groups/pages, etc but I don't think Facebook has been able to really expolit the fan base, after creating them. This is where Twitter has been able to capitalize and use the power of fan base for some good. I feel Twitter is in a better position to harness the powers of a fan base and reaching out to a huge mass of like- minded people. Next, 'Trending topics' are something unique to Twitter, which facebook doesn't have. The concept of hashtags (#) , retweets and lists only work to make Twitter better at what it is.
hashtags (#) lets one know of the 'trending topics' and reach a specific audience ( esp strangers). This proves a good point to twitter being as a good source of news. Re-tweets is a new concept which lets other users re-send your information/updates to other people, thus resulting in spreading of information across the web. Lists are a new concept, which lets the users segregate information on the tweet-space. These are similar to the bundles in other news pushing devices. More about twitter as a news source in another article.
There are so many social networks these days. Gone are the days when a bunch of kids used to hang out after school and do stuff like pranks, play and do other things about which we do not talk.
Now they prefer sitting at home and doing most of it virtually on the computers. The frequency and the time spent on real-time interactions and communications has definitely taken a beating. They have created virtual networks on the computers, and doing which is the 'in-thing' to do. This is where the money and people are, so this is where the new investments are (lately) too. There have been huge success stories, the likes of Facebook, Myspace, Orkut(google) and YouTube, to name a few. Not surprsingly many new ones keep coming up everyday. One such social network has been 'Twitter'.
I wasn't too keen on twitter to start with. But after some discussions with friends, primary among them a Munmun and its visibility almost everywhere around me, I took my first steps in the 'Tweet-world'. It wasn't that difficult to adopt to, was an easy progression and then started the game. Slowly the focus shifted from facebook to twitter and that's where I am standing right now.
I like to tell people what I am doing and share information with friends and/or strangers with similar tastes as mine. When I was naive to the whole twitter era, I felt Twitter is similar to facebook's status updates. Now if I look back at it, the difference is that in facebook you push your news to almost everyone in your friends list, people who might not even know what you are talking about when you are talking about touchdowns and football. In twitter, on the other hand, only people who know football and care about touchdowns will follow you. Plus, another good feature in Twitter is, 'you don't have to follow your followers' - meaning you follow someone only because you are interested in doing so, not because they are interested in following you, like say the 'friends' concept in facebook. So the whole concept of 'friends' in facebook has been transformed to 'followers' in twitter.
So to say Twitter and facebook serve different purposes. Facebook is more like a social website where your aim is to befriend as many people as you can and network in the process. Of late facebook has also become a good source of video-sharing. The concept of 'friends' has not explicitly been defined in youtube. YouTube is good for videohosting, but in terms of social interactivity, it still depends on other social websites like Facebook and Myspace. Facebook excels at the concept of 'events ', where in you are able to spread the word about invitations to a large group of people.
Twitter is more specific where you choose to follow only people who might interest you and is a very good source of specific news being pushed to your door-step. It specializes in bringing specific personalized news to the reader's (consumer) door step, instead of the traditional method of consumers reaching out and picking information that interests them the most, from a plethora of junk. Also Facebook is good for creating a good fan base like communities/groups/pages, etc but I don't think Facebook has been able to really expolit the fan base, after creating them. This is where Twitter has been able to capitalize and use the power of fan base for some good. I feel Twitter is in a better position to harness the powers of a fan base and reaching out to a huge mass of like- minded people. Next, 'Trending topics' are something unique to Twitter, which facebook doesn't have. The concept of hashtags (#) , retweets and lists only work to make Twitter better at what it is.
hashtags (#) lets one know of the 'trending topics' and reach a specific audience ( esp strangers). This proves a good point to twitter being as a good source of news. Re-tweets is a new concept which lets other users re-send your information/updates to other people, thus resulting in spreading of information across the web. Lists are a new concept, which lets the users segregate information on the tweet-space. These are similar to the bundles in other news pushing devices. More about twitter as a news source in another article.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Why Mahathma Gandhi deserves to be 'the Mahatma' despite some bloopers !!
Well this has been one of the most discussed/debated issues, right up there with say the 'Indo-pak' debate or 'Sachin Tendulkar being the best batsman, debate. I am sure what I am going to say here today has been said hundred times before, but I do need to say this, as I just cannot digest the way a lot of Indian people treat 'The Mahatma' - MohanDas K. Gandhi, without the slightest of the tiniest ounce of respect. Don't already conclude where this post is heading, please read it till the end, before you conclude.
Time and time again, many Indian people have insulted and abused the Mahatma. Biggest of their concerns was his soft-corner to Pakistanis and Muslims and the 55 crore bounty he wanted to give Pakistan despite the lack of interest in doing so by the Indian Government, among other things. For an intense discussion on this and much more please follow this blogpost by my friend 'Anand' which contains a 'nice discussion among various friends about the Mahatma.'
Another major concern was this excerpt taken from the 'Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol.LXXXVII, p.394-5'
"I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancor. You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain."
Now here is my response to it. I urge everyone to read this with a clear mind, please.
Firstly, agreed he was cynical in asking Hindus to put down their lives for Muslims, but hey, why do we get so emotional about it, isn't that the exact same thing ' the great mahatma' said 30 years before to make the Britishers leave our country. Did he not ask all the people to put down their lives for the freedom of the country ? When it worked then, why didn't it work now ? That is because of the sparks put in by the Muslim leaders and misinformed people like Nathuram Godse, who had only half-knowledge about things beneficial for the country in the longer run. Someone great truly said, 'half-knowledge is dangerous'. It indeed costed us the 'Great Mahatma'.
Mahatma has achieved so many things which we couldn't have achieved by going through violent means. He is known the world over, for this unique method he employed - Nonviolence. He was just being true to his ideals of nonviolence and urging the folk of his own country- India to follow the path of nonviolence. Be it for achieving freedom or when Muslims were going to attack India, for a separate country. He tried his best not to separate the two nations, but after he realized it was not in his control anymore, he just urged his countrymen to follow the path they have been following successfully, that of nonviolence. In line with that, I believe he said the above statement, if at all he did.
Secondly, just because he asked us to put down our lives to Muslims, didn't mean that was going to happen. Take the case of the Britishers before, everyone agreed to put down their lives for the freedom of the country. Did all the leaders die ? Did all the people die ? NO. True few of them died, but most of the people who died were because of the violent routes they took, how many people who took nonviolent ways got killed? Not many, but ironically the Mahatma was one of them, thanks to the misinformed people. Also, the final choice was with the people, he did not force anyone to do anything, he had his own teachings. Did anyone have a better plan, if they did why weren't any of those plans successful ? I believe the tension between India and Pakistan presently could have largely been avoided if 'Mahatma' was indeed not killed at that time.
And lastly, Gandhi is after all human and mistakes do happen, but he deserves the tag of Mahatma, more than any other person would have deserved. If anyone, it had to be him .....For all the great things he has achieved through nonviolence, he definitely deserves the respect and the title of mahatma, true he did some blunders, but hey he is human !! When sachin can make mistakes, Mahatma Gandhi also can ;).. they are both human, after-all..... but they are 'Maha-Purush' or 'Mahathma' meaning a 'Superlative Human', but still human.....RESPECTTTT !!!! :D
A little background about me. I am Indian :).... I don't like the aftermaths of the Indo-pak separation and wish it never happened and also hate what Pakistan do to India, every day.... Also I totally am a violent person ;), but I just respect what Mahatma Gandhi has achieved through nonviolence. It makes me question my own violent ways, but I have enough reasons to justify my violent actions and will take another post to explain those. Also I hate being humble and modest, which is the 'international identity' of Indians. I would like to change that, but what to do, being humble is in our blood :P :)...
But all said and done, Gandhi is indeed a Mahatma ! :D .. but then people can have different opinions, ... but I would just hope that people have a little more tolerance towards Mahatma, look at the 1000 good things he has done for India, instead of focusing on few blunders.. and if you actually read what I said above those blunders ain't that bad either, just a mis-interpretation!!
To a more tolerant Indian attitude to 'The Great Mahatma Gandhi' on his 140th Birthday celebrations.
Oct 2nd 2009.
Jai Hind !
Time and time again, many Indian people have insulted and abused the Mahatma. Biggest of their concerns was his soft-corner to Pakistanis and Muslims and the 55 crore bounty he wanted to give Pakistan despite the lack of interest in doing so by the Indian Government, among other things. For an intense discussion on this and much more please follow this blogpost by my friend 'Anand' which contains a 'nice discussion among various friends about the Mahatma.'
Another major concern was this excerpt taken from the 'Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol.LXXXVII, p.394-5'
"I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancor. You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain."
Now here is my response to it. I urge everyone to read this with a clear mind, please.
Firstly, agreed he was cynical in asking Hindus to put down their lives for Muslims, but hey, why do we get so emotional about it, isn't that the exact same thing ' the great mahatma' said 30 years before to make the Britishers leave our country. Did he not ask all the people to put down their lives for the freedom of the country ? When it worked then, why didn't it work now ? That is because of the sparks put in by the Muslim leaders and misinformed people like Nathuram Godse, who had only half-knowledge about things beneficial for the country in the longer run. Someone great truly said, 'half-knowledge is dangerous'. It indeed costed us the 'Great Mahatma'.
Mahatma has achieved so many things which we couldn't have achieved by going through violent means. He is known the world over, for this unique method he employed - Nonviolence. He was just being true to his ideals of nonviolence and urging the folk of his own country- India to follow the path of nonviolence. Be it for achieving freedom or when Muslims were going to attack India, for a separate country. He tried his best not to separate the two nations, but after he realized it was not in his control anymore, he just urged his countrymen to follow the path they have been following successfully, that of nonviolence. In line with that, I believe he said the above statement, if at all he did.
Secondly, just because he asked us to put down our lives to Muslims, didn't mean that was going to happen. Take the case of the Britishers before, everyone agreed to put down their lives for the freedom of the country. Did all the leaders die ? Did all the people die ? NO. True few of them died, but most of the people who died were because of the violent routes they took, how many people who took nonviolent ways got killed? Not many, but ironically the Mahatma was one of them, thanks to the misinformed people. Also, the final choice was with the people, he did not force anyone to do anything, he had his own teachings. Did anyone have a better plan, if they did why weren't any of those plans successful ? I believe the tension between India and Pakistan presently could have largely been avoided if 'Mahatma' was indeed not killed at that time.
And lastly, Gandhi is after all human and mistakes do happen, but he deserves the tag of Mahatma, more than any other person would have deserved. If anyone, it had to be him .....For all the great things he has achieved through nonviolence, he definitely deserves the respect and the title of mahatma, true he did some blunders, but hey he is human !! When sachin can make mistakes, Mahatma Gandhi also can ;).. they are both human, after-all..... but they are 'Maha-Purush' or 'Mahathma' meaning a 'Superlative Human', but still human.....RESPECTTTT !!!! :D
A little background about me. I am Indian :).... I don't like the aftermaths of the Indo-pak separation and wish it never happened and also hate what Pakistan do to India, every day.... Also I totally am a violent person ;), but I just respect what Mahatma Gandhi has achieved through nonviolence. It makes me question my own violent ways, but I have enough reasons to justify my violent actions and will take another post to explain those. Also I hate being humble and modest, which is the 'international identity' of Indians. I would like to change that, but what to do, being humble is in our blood :P :)...
But all said and done, Gandhi is indeed a Mahatma ! :D .. but then people can have different opinions, ... but I would just hope that people have a little more tolerance towards Mahatma, look at the 1000 good things he has done for India, instead of focusing on few blunders.. and if you actually read what I said above those blunders ain't that bad either, just a mis-interpretation!!
To a more tolerant Indian attitude to 'The Great Mahatma Gandhi' on his 140th Birthday celebrations.
Oct 2nd 2009.
Jai Hind !
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Does 'Slumdog Millionaire' deserve all this hype ?
What's all this hype about the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' ? The IMDb site shows that the movie has been voted as top#34 in the all time list at a rating of 8.7/10. Quite Interesting. You believe that ?
I am an Indian, so I see the hype more pronounced all around me. I have heard a varied number of people talk varied things about it, both people from USA and India. The attitude with Indians, mostly has been a feeling of pride about the movie and the attitude among the Americans also has been on similar lines, in fact they like the movie better. With Indians, the feeling is understandable, rarely does an Indian movie get nominated for Oscars these days ( that says nothing about the movies that get made in India). Surely, having made by an American, this movie did enjoy that 'luck' which other great Indian movies made by Indian directors, lacked. That's a good starting point to be noted.
Coming from an American's point of view, they had a shot at seeing more about India, and what do they see? India in bad light, as usual !!! For most Americans, even in this 21st century India is still all about Snakes (cobras), Elephants, Cows, Taj Mahal, AIDS, 2nd most populous country, Kama Sutra, Gandhi, cheap labour and of course the land of beggars and slums, the latter shown in particular by the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire'. So for once the world got a chance to look at India, much deeper than the surface and again the director portrays the same old bad things about India.
There are people who tell me, isn't that true ? I agree partly though. The way the movie has been picturized is bad. Sure, there have been beautiful movies in the past which threw some light on aspects like these. India is the country which makes the most number of movies in the world. All Indian languages put together, India makes more movies than the movies of all countries put together. Have any of these movies ever made it to Oscars ? Well, apart from "Mother India", "Salaam Bombay", "Gandhi"( not totally Indian) and "Lagaan", none of the other movies ever made it to the world stage. Does it mean those were the 4 best movies ever made in India ? NO. So when Slumdog gets nominated for Oscars ( mind you, it's not even in the best foreign film category, but in the 'Best Film'), is it as good as the 4 movies mentioned above ? NO. Not even close. It is not even close to any of these movies, a list of all Indian movies sent to the Oscars. What happened to movies like 'Roja' or 'Bombay' or 'Yuva' or the recent 'Rang De Basanthi' or 'Taare Zameen Par', does anyone outside India know about these movies ? NO. They were made with much better intentions, they and many others do show India in bad light, because that is the truth, but the way you show it, matters. Of course as a director, you try to cash in on the bad things of a society and in the process pass a message to the movie viewers. What was the message passed in this movie, other than the obvious bad things in India, known to everyone. Every country has its own unique bad points, but how many movies made in India, make fun of America? Hardly any and how many of those movies made it to Oscars ? NONE. So, I personally feel, this is where 'Slumdog' lost in comparison to other Indian movies.
It depicts how, many kids in Mumbai (India) are exploited in their infancy, the poverty in Mumbai (India), a glimpse of the Communal riots, the economic problems, the gangsters, the bad people, etc. That is all true, but the way it has been shown, never in the movie, I felt the movie made emotions flow out of me. Any of the other great Indian movies would do that to you. But I never felt that at any point in this picture ( except maybe a couple of scenes, but that was due to the merit of the scenes, not because of the attitude of the movie). It lacked compassion to all these problems, I felt.
I feel the movie's main theme was 'Entertainment' and if not for the horrors shown in the movie, it did achieve that. The sad thing is, the movie used the 'Indian common man's sorrows and tragedies' as its USP. It has cashed in on the sorrows of these Indian people to entertain the movie viewers the world over, as an entertainment. It doesn't have any message, doesn't have a stand on the bad things depicted in the movie, like say a Bombay or a Roja or a Yuva does. Neither does it provide any solutions to the horrific horrendous horrors that it has portrayed India to be, in the movie. It was an out and out, pure entertainment movie sold with India's sorrows as its USP and lo, it is in the nominations for the 'Best Film 2008' in the Oscars. Rest is for you to decide.
Also some scenes portrayed in the movie I feel, left a lot to be desired. What are we supposed to make out of the scene in which a Kid gets beaten up a taxi driver for stealing his passengers(Americans) luggage and the kid tells them, ' Here is a taste of Real India for you, madam'. To which the lady says,' here is a taste of Real America for you and hands him a $100 bill'. Also quite nonsensical has been the way ' the SLUMDOGS' aka the 'The kids/gangsters/ illiterate people', converse with each other in English. If the director, was so hell bent on showing the true colors of India, where did this trick come from ? Also the concept of the 'Kid' having come across each of the questions at some point in his ' slum life' was quite unrealistic to believe. But isn't that entertainment!!! These are few points, I noticed when I scratched more on the surface.
Also as a closing statement, I want to just mention about the music director, A. R . Rahman. Many consider him to be India's finest music director and it is sad that one of his worst works ever gets nominated for Oscars. It just gets to show us, how bad the other nominated movies music was and how lucky it is to have an American director, direct the movie for you and show bad things about your own country. Well as you see, it counts:). Btw I would suggest the interested readers to listen to his other works. ( people who do not know about A.R. Rahman's works I mean).
Well, I dissected it for you. There are many out there who totally disagree with me, here is an example, but this is what I personally felt after seeing the movie. As they say , to each one, his own, so it's upto you to decide now !!!!
I am an Indian, so I see the hype more pronounced all around me. I have heard a varied number of people talk varied things about it, both people from USA and India. The attitude with Indians, mostly has been a feeling of pride about the movie and the attitude among the Americans also has been on similar lines, in fact they like the movie better. With Indians, the feeling is understandable, rarely does an Indian movie get nominated for Oscars these days ( that says nothing about the movies that get made in India). Surely, having made by an American, this movie did enjoy that 'luck' which other great Indian movies made by Indian directors, lacked. That's a good starting point to be noted.
Coming from an American's point of view, they had a shot at seeing more about India, and what do they see? India in bad light, as usual !!! For most Americans, even in this 21st century India is still all about Snakes (cobras), Elephants, Cows, Taj Mahal, AIDS, 2nd most populous country, Kama Sutra, Gandhi, cheap labour and of course the land of beggars and slums, the latter shown in particular by the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire'. So for once the world got a chance to look at India, much deeper than the surface and again the director portrays the same old bad things about India.
There are people who tell me, isn't that true ? I agree partly though. The way the movie has been picturized is bad. Sure, there have been beautiful movies in the past which threw some light on aspects like these. India is the country which makes the most number of movies in the world. All Indian languages put together, India makes more movies than the movies of all countries put together. Have any of these movies ever made it to Oscars ? Well, apart from "Mother India", "Salaam Bombay", "Gandhi"( not totally Indian) and "Lagaan", none of the other movies ever made it to the world stage. Does it mean those were the 4 best movies ever made in India ? NO. So when Slumdog gets nominated for Oscars ( mind you, it's not even in the best foreign film category, but in the 'Best Film'), is it as good as the 4 movies mentioned above ? NO. Not even close. It is not even close to any of these movies, a list of all Indian movies sent to the Oscars. What happened to movies like 'Roja' or 'Bombay' or 'Yuva' or the recent 'Rang De Basanthi' or 'Taare Zameen Par', does anyone outside India know about these movies ? NO. They were made with much better intentions, they and many others do show India in bad light, because that is the truth, but the way you show it, matters. Of course as a director, you try to cash in on the bad things of a society and in the process pass a message to the movie viewers. What was the message passed in this movie, other than the obvious bad things in India, known to everyone. Every country has its own unique bad points, but how many movies made in India, make fun of America? Hardly any and how many of those movies made it to Oscars ? NONE. So, I personally feel, this is where 'Slumdog' lost in comparison to other Indian movies.
It depicts how, many kids in Mumbai (India) are exploited in their infancy, the poverty in Mumbai (India), a glimpse of the Communal riots, the economic problems, the gangsters, the bad people, etc. That is all true, but the way it has been shown, never in the movie, I felt the movie made emotions flow out of me. Any of the other great Indian movies would do that to you. But I never felt that at any point in this picture ( except maybe a couple of scenes, but that was due to the merit of the scenes, not because of the attitude of the movie). It lacked compassion to all these problems, I felt.
I feel the movie's main theme was 'Entertainment' and if not for the horrors shown in the movie, it did achieve that. The sad thing is, the movie used the 'Indian common man's sorrows and tragedies' as its USP. It has cashed in on the sorrows of these Indian people to entertain the movie viewers the world over, as an entertainment. It doesn't have any message, doesn't have a stand on the bad things depicted in the movie, like say a Bombay or a Roja or a Yuva does. Neither does it provide any solutions to the horrific horrendous horrors that it has portrayed India to be, in the movie. It was an out and out, pure entertainment movie sold with India's sorrows as its USP and lo, it is in the nominations for the 'Best Film 2008' in the Oscars. Rest is for you to decide.
Also some scenes portrayed in the movie I feel, left a lot to be desired. What are we supposed to make out of the scene in which a Kid gets beaten up a taxi driver for stealing his passengers(Americans) luggage and the kid tells them, ' Here is a taste of Real India for you, madam'. To which the lady says,' here is a taste of Real America for you and hands him a $100 bill'. Also quite nonsensical has been the way ' the SLUMDOGS' aka the 'The kids/gangsters/ illiterate people', converse with each other in English. If the director, was so hell bent on showing the true colors of India, where did this trick come from ? Also the concept of the 'Kid' having come across each of the questions at some point in his ' slum life' was quite unrealistic to believe. But isn't that entertainment!!! These are few points, I noticed when I scratched more on the surface.
Also as a closing statement, I want to just mention about the music director, A. R . Rahman. Many consider him to be India's finest music director and it is sad that one of his worst works ever gets nominated for Oscars. It just gets to show us, how bad the other nominated movies music was and how lucky it is to have an American director, direct the movie for you and show bad things about your own country. Well as you see, it counts:). Btw I would suggest the interested readers to listen to his other works. ( people who do not know about A.R. Rahman's works I mean).
Well, I dissected it for you. There are many out there who totally disagree with me, here is an example, but this is what I personally felt after seeing the movie. As they say , to each one, his own, so it's upto you to decide now !!!!
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