a mARTIAN dIARY

(Sorry this is not a blog by an expert cricketer on T20 strategies for that I suggest this)

I think plenty has already been written in the blog-sphere, some gushing out their exhilaration at the “World Cup” win and others frustrated at the monumental importance that is being attached to something, that is in their opinion, not deserving of such high praise.

Coming from the heart of “mallu-land”, I could be forgiven for being in the second group, but I have also been infected with my share of this disease that’s congenital to most Indians during my time in Bombay and Lucknow. And if you ask me if I am not happy about the win, I would without hesitation say yes, since I was also one of the cores of Indians who were recalling long forgotten mantrams during the see-saw of the final.

But probably the reasons that fuel this euphoria in me would be different from my fellow Indians.  This is partly because its not winning the “world cup” that’s important to me. Not just because the “world” in the “Cricket World Cup” (any format) consists of 8-12 counties, but also because T20 is a new format and I feel that lady luck had a lot more of a say in our win. Of course you could argue that luck is an inherent part of any game, but with people just coming to terms with ground rules and strategies of the new format, she had a much larger say and had she changed her benevolent gaze from us for even a minute at umpteen occasions, we could have been sitting at the wrong end of the cup.  To draw on an analogy only my CAT taking friends would probably understand, it’s easier to imagine luck playing a larger role in earlier years of CAT where the strategies etc where not this well discussed and documented.
 
But this is not to discredit the achievement of young Indian team. To put it in context, I would like to compare this win with our “loss” draw at third test in England. Rahul Dravid, my favorite from our current bunch, lion-hearted as he is, fell a in my eyes lot that day for I admire people who take the risk and go in for the kill. This killer instinct, not fueled by just passion, but more by careful planning and calculated risk taking. This also reminds me a well written article by the fraud mallu Shashi Tharoor critiquing the same test match and comparing it with another mallu , Sreeshant’s , attitude in the Johannesburg test
Now Sreeshant is a very controversial character, with this issues ranging from on-field to off field, but he does represent a new kind of Indian, ready to take risks and for the playboy nonchalance he displays on the outside, I think a lot of it comes out as the result of careful mind game strategies (if not, that’s at least how I feel it should be)

Coming back to the euphoria surrounding our World Cup win, I do not want to tow the oft-repeated cliché of other games not getting their due, since people like what they like and you can’t change that. But I would like to say, enjoy the moment, savor it but take the right lessons from it not the wrong lessons like blocking roads and giving the world in "Cricket World Cup" a different meaning.

Edit: Yes I know it’s a LAMMEE heading, but what to do…creativity is a precious commodity these days for me

(No aliens were harmed / got hurt during the events mentioned in or writing of this post)

Recently going thru the list of referrers to my site, I happed to glance upon an entry “www.google.com/reader”. Among other things, it also meant that I was not the sole subscriber to one of the least used feature of this blog, the RSS feed. To be honest, it was an exciting thought but the titillation wore off soon and I got on with other “real” things that end up filling my stomach.

It was next morning while driving to office that something stuck me. Even though it was too much for the cat to take, there was this sudden need in me to know how many people would have actually subscribed to the RSS, however low it would be. With Statcounter and Google analytics, I get some statistics regarding the WEB 1.0 visitors to my site the site but this was WB 2.0. And so my morning started with a quest for finding a similar service for RSS feeds.

To be honest, one part of me desperately wanted to find such a service so that I could quench my curiosity fast but the other part, the veiled entrepreneur, hoped that such a service was not there, since I thought that this was a very marketable idea. So it was with a mixed feeling that I clicked my way through to feedburner.com. So to cut a long story short, I got my feeds burnt and in the process added another feature that I had once given up on, email subscription to the comments feed.And whoever that *wonderful* soul is, who has me on his/her google reader, please do update with the latest link so that I can satisfy my petty ego by seeing a 2 on my subscriber count

An interesting forward I got recently .

Notice that it has only 9 used and that too exactly 3 times for each hour.

Logged in today to my blog account to find that I have been TAGGED!!! ???

I don’t know how to explain it, but to get your first tag is something that keeps a smile on your face which lasts the whole day

I was tagged by angel-doc who in her own words is a woman-doc-friend, a blogger with a strong affection for hyphenated words and someone who’s posts I have always found to be excellent reads. Having been fed on a regular dose of Scrubs, ER and Robin cook its nice to get to know the person inside the while coat.

Ahem…enough soapfying of my tagger…and getting down to business

The subject of the tag is “Human Nature” which is one of the things I think I am weak at. Be it judging people or dealing with people or anything with the root anthro in it.

Being an engineer (not to lean too much into the cliché) I like things that are logical. I mean, I like it when a=b and b=c follows with `a=c`. I like it, my mind likes it. But in case of human beings `a` can be any range of values from b-z and might borrow something from other scripts as well. But then again, being human (I would want you to believe that wouldn’t I? ) I, at some level like this unpredictability, chaotic-ness ….for a lack of a better word….humanness. It is the same factor that mystifies and at the same time excites me.

(Disclaimer: the nature of the tag is such that once you read it there is HEAVY chance that you get influenced by it…that’s Heisenberg at work for u there….but still I shall try to be as unbiased as “Humanly” possible )

First To Name The people I want to Tag

Being my first tag I wish to limit it to just my best friend Zubin aka Madnezz aka crazy_guy

The second part of the tag is about the "Kinds of People I Judge"

I do not believe in “earth is flat” type of judgments and believe that most people are just products of their upbringings. While I do give this due consideration while judging people, still for getting a reference point from which to see the outer world, to introspect myself and make decisions I judge people. But to draw a list would be hard but here goes

I judge people who are born with the silver spoon and act as though they are the only people who should be living in the world. And on the opposite side if a person with the same background shows humility, I value it a lot.

As with most people, I dislike sycophants. While I do believe that you need to be in the favor of the powerful, you should have a stand of your own and that stand should have some driving force other than mere sycophancy.

I can accept a certain level of Hypocrisy, since at times I have felt that I am a hypocrite and with this the set of all hypocrites’ changes from “them” to “we”. And True to my human nature I have tried to justify it and the justification I could couture up is pretty straight forward. Your views change and when it does a lot of associated ideas change. For example, in my school I used to proudly declare that I won’t drive a polluting vehicle and I was vehemently against my parents for buying a car. But now I can’t live without my little Unicorn. I think it can be attributed to naivety than hypocrisy but then again I cant be impartial in judging me . But oscillatory or totally contradicting morals with in a small temporal space is something I would despise
 
Maybe I will add more here later

The third part of the tag is about "People and Things I admire"

I admire a lot of people. Recently I have been doing a lot of Find + Replace of Envy with admire in my lil book of emotions.

I admire 

• People  who are polite and courteous even when they gain nothing from it
• People who are dedicated for a cause and work tirelessly for it (Its something I really cant do)
• People who are able to take bold decisions against the flow due to right reasons
• People who are brave enough to speak out the truth how ever hard it is
• People who can understand people much better than me (that would include a large percentage of the world’s population )
• People who can live life as it comes
• People whose writing moves me (songs/poems/prose).
• Music and people who can sing from their hearts…and who can enjoy music

Yes? No?  I ask – Is it really a question to be asked?

But for some unfortunate reason this and similar idiocities are the burning questions that  are being debated for the past sometime in public media in reference to the Ram Sethu project. The final nail was hit recently by the Government categorically stating in a court of law - Director (monuments) of the ASI C. Dorjee, in the affidavit, stated that the mythological texts of Ramayana formed an important part of ancient Indian literature, “but which cannot be said to be historical record to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters, or the occurrence of the events, depicted therein"

I am not well versed in Indian mythology and hence am not in a proper position to comment on the mythological relevance of the aforesaid site. But one think I can assure is that perceptions are realities and currently public (read ignorant people if you want but just remember that they constitute a lot) perception is that it has relevance and in such a state it is best not to unsettle the populous.

I also want to bring out that the Government’s statement is not that the proposed site is not historically relevant but that RAMA himself is a fictitious character. Notwithstanding the “absolute” truth of the statement, such a statement is a very arrogant and dangerous statement to make and it is a direct insult to cores of people who have grown up hearing about the same in different contexts in all facets of life.

Finally I think, such a statement is not just demeaning to Hindus but to the sprit of nationalism it self. I feel this because the two epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana and related stories are the implicit source of a lot of nationalism and individuality we have and in this sense is also the source of our self-worth as a nation. The characters  depicted have been role-models ( or anti-role modes) for our nation’s people for centuries if not millenia and for the Indian government to categorically state that it is some cocked up story is something that , I feel,  is striking at the very root of OUR way of life. And this can be very detrimental the idea called India.

There are people who are taking a disparaging view of the whole situation just because one of the right wing parties is supporting it. I think this is a classic case of the logical fallacy of Guilt By Association. It may be true that they are raking up this issue as part of a political drama but the important fact to consider is that the concern raised is genuine and our support should go out of it. And lets not be naïve, its very hard to find politicians or parties that would take up an issue whether its genuine or not unless he/they can gain political mileage of it.

On a more sober note I also want bring out a face of the issue that my friend Shrihari raised as being close to his heart. It is that the proposed project is not just blasphemous (not a view shared by him) but also that there has been a study and it has been proven that this project would have a disastrous effect on the fragile eco-system present there. Proof can be found here

My humble plea is to take back both the decision and what they said in the Court so that this matter does not get more muddy messy and painful than it already is.