IPL,Cricket ,India ,people,bollywood basically random thoughts

People who know me will be squirming and wondering what is this cricket moron writing about IPL , me writing about cricket is like an illiterate commenting about shaskespearean book, but then IPL isnt really cricket is it ? It is more masala, more bollywoodish and all about money.

"Cricket is a religion in India" , I remember having read this umpteen times right since my school days .My brother being a huge fan of cricket whether i like it or not i have been watching cricket but then i really really dont mind watching IPL.

Indians have always supported cricket team also Indian govt has funded cricket may be at the cost of other games (result is obvious in Olympics et al) but still we always cheer India as a team right but then hats off to Lalit modi for segmenting the cricket into bits and pieces within India and getting players from other countries and still make people follow it., How did it tick off by the way ?
1) Suddenly followers of cricket who were fighting for india as a team are now fighting for teams by state per se.
2) Hard to get tickets for rare matches are made available for a reasonable price and now everyone gets to see it.
3) A match for which initially you had to set aside full day is now 3 hours , time taken for a typical bollywood movie, so it is now a perfect after office hour entertainment.
4)But I guess the biggest plus it gets is because of the glamour involved , suddenly bollywood and cricket was one ! Bollywood stars being owners/brand ambassadors of any franchise, so be it the after hours party which makes to page 3 or the cheer leaders .Thus this factor makes it
more appealing to non-cricket crowd .

But one thing i must admit about this set up is that it is extremely honest , we have all known that money and self - obsession rules any day and what other set up but IPL proves it better.Though the viewers identitfy the team by their region , if you see the team there a lot of foreigners playing so what is the identification for them ? Before we all used to raise the cricketer to a level of sacrificial philanthropist who owes all the runs to india and his fans in here .But what would a greatest player in IPL tell ? At max he would tell is he his hitting for his team or the regional fans but is it really ? Knowingly or unknowingly we all admit that its all money that the player cares for(very fact that a player can be moved from one to other proves it) . Now if we get to the non IPL set up lets see what is the incentive for a player there , he would bag more endorsments and also win some accolades which will make sure he will continue to remain in team and thus would be able to secure his endorsment rating but the money factor there is less acknoweleded. Where as in IPL is more pronunced and thus i call it honest.
Now coming to the people aspect of it we often are hard core Indian cricket team supporters be it in world cup or any tri series or even a 2 team matches for that matter , but now what is driving us to support IPL ? There was report in TOI that TRP rating of IPL has fallen this season less than some popular serials on TV , but is it ? May be ? if so what is the reason ? The very people who would watch match on TV are now in stadium and identifying themselves with the cricket of their region remains just a reason , because if that was the case with whom would keralites or people from Assam would identified themselves with ?
So has IPL proved that cricket in India is not as sanctified as it was hyped to be and more mortal ? So now would this make people watch less of it after few years ? Not really .. People will still be drawn to it now not just with the hope of following or cheering it but also with the hope of one day playing for one of the region (especially kids and teens), without realizing the fact that it is only the top of pyramid that makes fortune when there is a huge under thrived base.
But IPL rocks ! For its revolutionary idea and yet getting people to watch it. I know i'm a little late writing this blog but still ....

Farming - A curse in India?

When i was walking back home on 12th march around 9pm , I saw a huge pile of tomatoes lying on the ground and some people fighting with the stray dogs to get the share of those free tomatoes , as i was wondering as to what's happening there i saw a man gloomily looking at the pile.
As usual my curiosity always wins and i asked him what was all the tamasha about,He told that those tomatoes are the one's that was grown in his farm in Magadi(near Bangalore) which he had got and failed to sell as the retailers were not ready to pay even 2rs/kg.As it would cost him more to transport those back he had left it piled up there.
I remembered my attempt at gardening when i was in 3rd standard or so when we were taught about seed germination, My first patch of coriander leaves from soaked seeds are still a fond memory ,why then? How often do you feel proud of a single tomato or even a bean grown in your small vegetable patch.The farmer sitting there would have felt the same pride and pleasure on his patch too, more so when his livelihood depends on it ,but the sad state is he will not be able to support his family with the earning nor would he feel the pride anymore.
Isn't a person like him who will either fall towards suicide,so that he will get a death amount that will at least keep his family alive, or leave the land untilled and search for some unskilled job in cities ,adding another mouth to be fed,instead of feeding several?
What is happening here is sheer injustice , denying a man of basic amenities who not only works hard for his living but is also responsible for filling all our bellies.
What is our, for the people, by the people ,to the people,government doing on this one ? Right since i was a kid i have always seen that the best thing they do is to waive off farmer loans or announce certain amount of money on death of farmer who commits suicide.
Is it really benefiting the farmer is a question to be asked.. Instead of loan waiver which would mainly help landlords/plantation owners(As i really doubt whether our banks give loans to small scale farmers who really need it), wouldn't fixing a fair price for all food grains/vegetables etc help them ?
Wouldn't a easier method to buy all their products from the farm directly avoid the pain they have to go through ,transporting ,dealing with the middle men ?
Wouldn't usage of cold storage or appropriate storage mechanism after buying help ,Instead of talking about some bullshit story of BT seeds which will make the farmer dependent on others for yet another parameter(How often do you read in news that the government doesn't have enough stock to supply fertilizers/water/current to farmers? It will next be the turn of seeds if this is allowed!)
Is it so difficult to carry out some measures, when it is a question of lives of crore's of people who depend on agriculture ,also noting that at the end we all need food to live and it is a matter of our nation's self sufficiency too?
Now if anyone says forget government there are countless NGO's and microfinance which helps them finance the question we need to ask is are they really helping,as we read many many scandals..
At the end of this write up the problem of those countless farmer still exists and there is some farmer drinking the pesticide to kill the weeds to kill himself of all the miseries he is facing abandoning his wife and kids to the mercy of fate..

5 Reasons Why its Good to be or not to be a Woman -- Women's day special :)

Tomorrow being women's day (march 8th) just wanted to list down top 5 reasons from the top of my head as to why it's great to be one also 5 reasons why it sucks to be one(Though many hold in Indian context):

Now let me start of with the benefits
1.You have to pay less tax on your pay than your male counterparts.
2.Assume you are caught by a traffic police you can always escape with a suggestion of a tear drop same holds for any argument you have on non work environment ( I haven't and will never try this one though ).
3.There is reservation for women in bus , also how can a bill on reservation in election for women that will be put forth tomorrow be forgotten.Also talks about reservation in work place(Trust me we don't need it)
4.You always can experience and express all your emotions without any hindrance.(It could be while watching movies like legally Blonde,Kate and Leopold,Serendipity or Notting hill too :D )
5.You can always keep yourself busy or pep up your mood and never get bored for hours by just window shopping.

Now coming to reasons why it sucks though a huge list is possible let me confine to 5 points
1. Irrespective of how hard/smart you work in most of the places you have to be far better than guys to reach the same position as they do.*
2. Irrespective of your Grey matter it is always the case that you will be judged for your looks than your brains! . Which frustrates any woman with self esteem.*
3.Its always a woman who has to give birth to the child and go through the process and its really unfair that it is neither transferable nor there is a easy upload download method.**
4. I guess this one comes even without mentioning that working women are expected to multitask day in and day out ,as both home and work are now no longer an option but mandatory fields one stimulates emotions and other brain.(A homemaker is taken for granted to do all the work at home)**
5.Last but not the least you have to go in search of restrooms to Pee! and hygiene in bathrooms a major reason for discomfort..

*No offense meant nor it doesn't have any bearing with my employer !!!
**Info based on others experience !

After reading this if it has occurred to you that the tree is totally unbalanced where the negatives by far outweigh the positives , Yes that is the fact though not for people like me but for countless souls struggling day in and day out.
But it is not pity that is expected but respect because every woman is proud of herself , A word of appreciation is all that is needed .
For all the good done without any expectation go now and wish all the woman in your life, be it your mother ,sister,colleague,friend, neighbor...

"Yatra pujyante naari ramante tatra devataha :) :) :) "

Birthday Blast :)

This one is dedicated to one's who made my day on feb 11th :).
As a kid i had always liked to celebrate my birthday with chocolates , cakes etc but it was when i was in 3rd standard when i went to give cake to a newly joined teacher on my birthday that she told that one should not celebrate birthday because it indicates that you are one year older and closer to death so birthday is not worth celebrating and asked how can you celebrate when there are countless souls who dont have this luxury ,though mom said its all bull shit and the words are not worth heeding in some corner of my mind i never forgot those words though i always knew it was wrong i couldn't find an explanation, until recently thanks to john galt a character in atlas shrugged written by ayn rand.

Birthday is a day when you are born ! what other day makes you feel more alive than that day.. Life is a gift which one should enjoy and live by what one thinks is right and only people who dont think their life is worth living or celebrating find solace in thinking of death than enjoy being alive and strive to achieve better :-) .so I had decided i will enjoy my day no matter what but thanks to people around me for making it even better than i thought it would be.

Mom and dad sneak around to make sure they dont wake me up accidentaly(But its a known secret that i would be awake all the time they are around but still act like im asleep just to enjoy the effort they put in and listen to their whisper :P) and wait till my alarm buzzes and then wish.
Then comes the part for which I shamelessly wait to see well thought out gift from my bro :D.

This time there was a added surprise :P it was none other than my 3 yr old niece who came to my room n asked "atte doddamma told your happy birthday is it ?" on acking she started singing the happy birthday song sung in her school with clapping n actions :P once done she asked for a chocolate :P , As i thankfully had i gave one to her but saw her still standing there so i asked her what ? she said elli innu cake chips kotte illa , n mumbled attege gotte illa birthday ge enu madodu anta and she went down and she was calling me hey birthday girl baa , It was really funny .. I always knew she treats me more like one of her age than as her aunt :P but this was heights but i was enjoying nevertheless.

I have to mention a cool surprise given by my college friends by coming to office with yummy cake and also lunch we had in lajwab (where we were ironically made to sit near booze :P though the gandhian in me was busting to revolt I have to admit the colors of those liquids were funny like the one;s u see in magic shows :) ).

But then came the worst part of the day; working after presumptuous lunch , but then am glad that work beat my eyelids, though the battle was close ;O).Then as i reached home mom waiting with all my fav food prepared but wait how can it complete without aru dropping by :) , For past few years aru(my school frnd) has spoilt me by her presence and a pack of sweets :-) .By the time i had dinner eyelids won the battle finally but overall had a gr8 day but am happy that i'm now able to enjoy it without being conscientiously guilty for being happy :P.

Moon now bigger and brighter

Right since i was in high school having watched srk movies ,all movies have atleast one dialogue that when one is love the moon looks bigger and violins play in the background , lol i had never got a chance to experience that even with many love at first sight ( my ipod touch or canon s5 is digi cam or some old geeky prof :D ) but....
It was on 29th January 2010 ,When i was walking from office to bus stop in btp by lake side around 6:20 with a romantic song are jaane kaise kab kahan playing in my ipod touch and me as usual staring either at lake or sky but then there it was staring at my face ,full Moon shining bright and appeared much bigger than as always.It was more like a proud face which anyone would admire.
It was only after coming back after some googling i read that it is 50k kms closer it being at the perigee and thus its going to be 30% brighter and 15% bigger .Thank god i still dont have to doubt my sanity or eyesight :).
so what else but to take out my cam(Not to forget i badly wanted to try some practical of the theory on photography i was reading on here it is
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm (need to thank bro for this one)) and take some snapshots here are few.

"I" , The individual

Bindra does not make into the shooters list for commonwealth games from india.

shashi taroor's twitter followers count reaches 6L

kareena kapoor redefines size 0 among indian women

captain gopinath merges air deccan with kingfisher , mars marries venus.

Fairness cream gives xxx beauty which elevates social status of him/her.

What is common among all that news , the fact that it is one against/influencing many.It is not about an individual i'm talking about but about the cause and the society which is the target audience.

Why was bindra kept out of commonwealth games just because he respected his self-respect more than NRAI ? I am not trying to justify anyone as all i know is the news from the media which again is a questionable source , but isnt it always that respecting oneself make people hate you?

Now coming to shashi taroor with all due respect to him , as it is not him i'm talking about but this news is just an instance to illustrate what i want to put forward.Before his "cattle class" comment he hardly had 40k twitter followers but then no matter whether people understood it or not he was made an icon .. But did anyone realise that it is us whom he called as cattle class ?

And then when it was his personal opinion to bash foreign policies that was made a huge public cry and that increased his popularity and his twitter follower count reached 6L.But at the bottom line have we questioned ourselves as to what is our view on that and what is it that we really think above all that publicity ? or what is delivered to us.

Now size 0 of kareena kapoor , I remember the very same news coming up as kareena is down with some deadly disease which makes her look like a ghost , but the very same media tweaked it to make a mass market out of it , How many ads do you see that markets size 0 ,right from a basic sugarfree to laptops! all endrosing the same news as though its a newest and best thing to do to oneself and its sad to see so many people falling for it,inspite of reading some one line last page news that lots of anorexic girls having acute bone problems or exhausted to death.

But have we ever questioned whether we want to achieve that at the cost of one's own health ?

doesnt what makes you happy more important than what people think of you ? same holds with the fairness cream marketing inspite of so many news that such creams can damage your skin and also can lead to skin cancer people try to use it , but why just to please some one else ? have we forgotten atleast in india that draupadi/sita much adored beauty were not fair? Why coming to present day priyanka chopra/bipasha basu stand as an example ? Inspite of all this people fall for ads endorsed by actress (who endrose all possible conflicting brands too).

Now captain gopinath started off with a a great motive but why did he choose to giveup his cause ? Man who can concieve the concept of cheap airlines to masses cant be so weak ? I hope his ties with kingfisher airlines turns out well and not dampen his spirit/motive.

With all the above news If you are wondering what the hell i'm talking about it's about "I" the individual.Media and other people's influence have encroached us so much today that it is easy to be led than to lead , thus as we tend to easier way to join the mass but in the process do we realize that we are killing our own self and indiviuality ? Its always an average which is taken when it comes to masses , the spikes are lowered ridiculed and cut down to match the average ..

But it can always be a group and it is not even close to The individual. As long as one does not realize one's individualtiy all that he/she does is it to morph what exists and never add and thus becomes a part of a pronoun "he/she". It may not be ground breaking but atleast an attempt to add your personality to create something new makes a difference , when i say difference it may not be to the world but oneself.

If you have read bhagavatgita/fountainhead its the same; everything upholds "I" the individual.

Nothing explains better than

"nainam chindati shastrani; naina dahati pavakaha |

nahchainam khledayantyapo; nacha badhyanti marutaha|| "

I know its a difficult path but i'm learing to tell "I",because "I wish", "I like" nothing holds unless you know how to tell I.(But the very fact that i have used we earlier makes me an amateur yet :0)).

Why am i writing this? If i expect someone to read and learn how to tell "I" then i become a parasite/second-hander again as i depend on others , so this is more of an introspective writing to help myself.

Solar Eclipse

I have never used my blog till date to share some gyan[:D] , So let me break that routine.Though not sure how many will agree that this news was useful :).

This is about solar eclipse , Friday 15th january 2010 being solar eclipse i'm pretty sure every one in bangalore / southern india will be super excited about it as one can see ~85% of eclipse very close to seeing a ring.

But I'm equally sure that right since we were 3~4 year old's when one was old enough to understand the funda of solar eclipse we were told not to look at the sun and not eat during the period of solar eclipse and also it is prevanlent in many households (I dont think i need to mention that it is strictly followed in my place)to put a dried grass by name darbe into all containers with cooked food stuff and into water.

I remember i had aways resented it and called it stupidity but all such harsh comments gleefully ignored until i turned 10~11 and there was a total solar eclipse visible in bangalore and all my school pals were busy buying some goggles to view solar eclipse and my mom knew that it was inevitable to convince me about it ..

By then i atleast had some sense that eyes have a lens which can concentrate the light and focus on retina to burn it out which can result in blindness, But was a super confident on those goggles and was ready to watch it for minutes, But then it was only when mom explained it to me did i realize , so here i quote though not exact words but on similar lines..

Firslty i have already mentioned as to why one should not look at the sun not only on eclipse but on any day for that matter .

Now coming to goggles what exactly does it do ? All it does is that it reduces the intentisity in the order of 10^6 (Also tries to block uv and IR rays) but still exposure to longer duration beyond say 10secs is still harmful { To prove this you can do simple experiment of using a lens and hold it against sun with a paper held below (once in bright sunlight and then in shade) ,Both the time its going to burn the paper though in shade it may take a little longer.}

Also there is no guarantee that the goggle is conformant with what is it is expected to do and it is not a risk worth considering the gift of vision is at stake.

Now coming to the topic of why to fast during solar eclipse and the usage of darbe.. It is told that during solar eclipse there are certain harmful rays which increases the bacterial growth and thus not advisable to eat , and darbe is known to have great capacity to diffract light and sound waves and thus used to preserve the cooked food."

So when i was about to leave almost convinced but greatly disappointed that i cannot watch eclipse ,

Mom stopped me and gave me a 15"X15"(approx)cardboard and asked me to cut out a 2"X2" hole and paste chocolate wrapper(Aluminum foil also will do). and make a small hole in it and to hold it against the sun and look at the reflection it cast , I didnt believe that it would work but surprisingly it did only later did i know that it was easier version of a pinhole camera.That was how i watched my first solar eclipse and waiting to watch one on 15th :).

Now before i forget I musnt forget how mom and her siblings used to watch solar eclipse in her village , they used to get cow dung and mix it with water in a bucket and used to watch the reflection cast by sun.. cool na I really love how one can go about even the seemingly toughest problem if one wants to do something really badly :).

Now i know i did enter the controversial territory when i quoted about harmful radiations from sun during solar eclipse , yes science says its bullshit but have they been able to prove it completely ? May be some of the facts proven by vedic period have turned out into plain non-sense superstition due to manipulation in stating those facts but we cant deny of all the glory , why dont we try to provide proofs to those facts (either proving them to absolute right or wrong) rather than bullshitting them and trying to hide them as a shame rather than displaying it as a star of our great heritage...