Straight Talk

Those carefree days!

2011-02-08T01:03:00.000-08:00

The move to Saraswathi Puram when I was about 9 years old was sudden. There had been no prior discussions at home about moving houses and I hadn't even imagined that we will be leaving our familiar surroundings ever. But one day, Anna came home from office and casually announced that he had seen a new house for rent in this new locality and we will be moving there. Within a couple of weeks, we had already moved.

The change in environment couldn't have been starker. In Agrahara, we were used to narrow roads, rows of dilapidated brick and mud houses with tiled roofs, road-side drainage, gallis where mangy dogs and pigs used to roam freely. And suddenly we found ourselves in this modern locality with broad roads, huge playground right opposite our house, beautiful parks, rows of identically designed houses with gardens, modern drainage system, and so on. It virtually opened a new window to the world for the 9-year-old boy in me. Looking back, I can clearly see the mind expanding with the open spaces available everywhere.

Even though we were surrounded by large houses with gardens, and it was a pleasure to just see those houses as we walked past them everyday, the house we had rented ourselves was just an outhouse behind one of those large houses. Sure, it was bright and airy, was spacious enough for us and certainly an improvement over our previous house. But I remember feeling a bit awed initially by the other houses in the neighbourhood. Oh, look at those spacious study rooms looking out into the garden and their well-equipped study tables with a globe and all! Can I compete with children in those houses? Those doubts were soon put to rest, as I found out that the boys in those houses were not only friendly and accessible, but I was actually doing better than them - be it in studies or carom or cricket. Initial diffidence soon gave way to confidence and I started enjoying my stay there even more.

Summer holidays were naturally the best times in those days. Our day used to start at around 8:30. Laze around for an hour reading newspaper and magazines, take a shower and have breakfast at around 10. And then, off we went to play with friends. Cricket and lagori were the preferred games. We used to pop in to the house for a quick drink of Rasna around noon and then some more playing in the hot sun. Come home at around 2, quick shower under the backyard tap and then lunch time. Post-lunch used to be mainly indoor games - either carom or short cricket. And then some more cricket in the evening, followed by an hour of 'katte' - just sitting around with friends chatting. Back home at around 8 and we were still not done. Some more indoor games amongst us brothers - handball, short cricket, anything. And then a late dinner around 10. Same routine repeated for entire two months of holidays.

Hindi - yet another window to a new world

Around the same time as we moved to Sarasawthi Puram, I also started learning Hindi outside of school syllabus. Till then, apart from a little bit of English that we used to learn in school, my life was mostly dominated by Kannada. Kannada medium in school, Kannada newspapers and magazines, Kannada movies and music and so on. So when Amma enrolled us to learn Hindi, I was naturally excited. But I had little inkling of how much joy this new language was going to give me over the next few years. We started off with construction of simple sentences and translating small paragraphs from Hindi to Kannada and vice versa. Pretty soon, within a year or two, we were studying mature essays by some of the best writers in the language, logically constructed argument pieces, beautiful poetry, dohas of Kabir and Rahim and even some Urdu poetry with subtle turn of phrase by the likes of Ghalib and Mir Taqi Mir. There was even a novel about a determined small-town girl (Warija) who goes to a big city to become an actress but ends up being a rich man's mistress. At the age of 12, I wasn't sure whether I should be studying a 'mature' novel like this, but needless to say I quite enjoyed it :-) Again, I probably didn't realize at the time how important learning this new language was, but looking back, I have no doubt that it had a significant role in enriching and expanding my young, adolescent mind at the time.

But even better part about Hindi classes, other than all that literature we had to study, was just going to the class and coming across a remarkable woman, our Hindi teacher. The classes used to be conducted either early in the morning or in the evenings and I used to particularly enjoy the morning classes. Getting up at 6 in the winter months of December/January, walking alone in deserted roads, watching the dew-kissed parijata flowers in full bloom along the way and then listening to the Hindi teacher delivering her lecture in her soothing, cheerful voice was indeed a beautiful experience. A few words about the teacher - Mrs. Indira. She had seen many a hardship in her life. She used to stay in faraway Delhi, but had moved to Mysore with her three children after the death of her husband. In Mysore, she was staying with her spinster sister, a doctor. She had to support herself and her three children on the meager income she used to earn from these Hindi classes. But, despite all these hardships, she always maintained a cheerful and positive attitude. With a book in hand, she used to forget about all her other worries and immerse herself in conveying the beauty of literature to us students. Maybe, that was her way of escaping from her problems for a little while into a world free of worries. Whatever it was, all I can say is that she was a remarkable woman and she left a huge impression on me in those days.

Pretty soon, I completed Hindi studies up to a certain level ('graduation equivalent' we were told in those days - not sure how true it is) and a year later, I also completed my high school uneventfully. We again shifted house around that time, but thankfully this one was in the same area, just a couple of roads away. This new house wasn't as well-lit and airy as the 8th cross one, nor did it have some of the better features like a playground opposite. This could have dampened my spirits a bit, but luckily, there were other vistas opening in my life. I was about to turn 15, started going to college, love was in the air and the beautiful world of mathematics - with trigonometry, calculus, analytical geometry, etc - was opening itself to me. But more than anything else, I was about to discover the joys of old Hindi film music thanks to All India Radio's Vividh Bharati service. Soon, Rafi, Mukesh, Lata and all those countless listeners from Jhumri Talaiya became my constant companions. I used to come home from college, have lunch while listening to aapki farmaish, and go back to college. We used to even record the songs from the radio using an old Sanyo tape recorder. Evenings between 9 to 11, the radio had to be tuned to VB. Soon came the television and it added another dimension to entertainment. But Vividh Bharati continued to entertain in the afternoons and late nights.

From PU college, moved on to engineering, but the routine remained pretty much the same. Most of the friends had also joined the same college, so we didn't feel any change between PUC and Engineering. Attend classes in the morning, back home in the afternoon listening to radio (or even earlier if there is a cricket match on tv), go for a round of cricket and katte with friends in the evening, back home around 7:30 and get glued to either radio or tv. Unless there was a test or exam approaching, I don't remember spending much time studying at all. If I were to draw a pie-chart of my waking hours in those days, it would probably look something like this:

Overall, when I look back, those 12 years I spent in S. Puram between the ages 9 and 21, were some of the happiest days of my life. We had multiple activities to keep ourselves engaged (sports, friends, tv, radio, magazines, discussions and a little bit of studies). We used to interact with so many different people on a daily basis - uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, etc. In a way, each one of those interactions served to enrich us as human beings. There was never any sense of jealousy, envy, bitterness or anger in any of those relationships. What's more, it hardly cost our parents a fortune to maintain this lifestyle. We didn't have to buy expensive gadgets or go on expensive vacations. Just eat simple home-made food (or at most, an occasional panipuri), soak in copious amounts of sunlight, play, talk, be merry and have fun. Wish that life could be as simple for ever. If there is anything to complain about that life, I guess it is that it spoiled us. It provided us with such fun and simple pleasures, it left us not aspiring for anything else and inevitably, anything that life had to offer us later was bound to be a disappointment. Boring meetings when I could have been watching cricket? Getting stuck in traffic instead of cycling down gulmohar tree lined roads? Expensive cars instead of the good old Luna? Who wants these things?

Why Ministers shouldn't tweet

2009-12-28T07:13:00.000-08:00

Or anyone in responsible position, for that matter.

Imagine if someone hacks into Shashi Tharoor's twitter account and posts something inflammatory, like say, "India plans to nuke Pakistan" or "All muslims should be killed" or some such thing. It is quite likely that it will be taken at face value by many people, including those in power in other countries. Pretty soon situation may get out of control leading to serious consequences. One could say, "oh it is the others' mistake if they jump to conclusion without verifying the authenticity of the comments", but then, given that he is known to have a Twitter account, you can hardly blame others for taking comments on it seriously. So what it does is to give some engineer sitting in Twitter office the power to change the course of an entire nation. And he has that power, because someone in a responsible position thought it fit to use the services provided by some little American company to communicate his thoughts.

Currency-basket based salaries

2009-12-28T06:54:00.000-08:00

One of the issues for Indian IT services companies is that while most of their revenues is earned in foreign currencies (mostly US dollars and Euros), a major portion of their expenses is incurred in Indian rupees. This leaves their margins susceptible to currency fluctuations - if Indian rupee strengthens against dollar, their profits go down and if Indian rupee weakens, profits go up. To offset this effect, they resort to currency hedging.

But, imo, that is a suboptimal solution. There are bound to be losses in hedging and also they end up spending too much time in managing all that. A better solution would be to align their expenses (particularly salary expenses) in terms of the currencies in which they earn their revenue. Let's say a company's revenues are 60% USD, 20% Euro and 20% Yen. Then they should structure their salaries also in the same proportion. So, let's say, they decide to fix an employee's salary at Rs. 1,00,000 per month. Instead of specifying the salary in rupee terms, they can fix the salary in the three main currencies which consitute their revenues. So, it will be (USD 60,000/dollar-rate + Euro 20,000/Euro-rate + Yen 20,000/Yen-rate). And then convert each component to local currency based on prevailing exchange rate and pay the salary. If the currencies fluctuate, salary also varies in terms of local currency, but the profit margin remains unaffected.

KSCA all set for IPL Opener

2008-04-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

Preparations were going on full swing at the KSCA for tomorrow's inauguration of what is being described as watershed event in the history of cricket. It looked more like a giant discotheque than a cricket stadium - what with laser lights flashing, cheerleaders practicing in one corner of the stadium and stage being given final touches. It was a riot of colours and here's hoping that the tournament will be even more colourful and exciting.

Oh, tickets are completely sold out for tomorrow's match, if you are to believe the club functionaries walking around in the stadium.
There were quite a few people standing around hoping to get a ticket somehow.

Don't shed tears for Cricinfo

2008-04-16T03:55:00.000-07:00

The editors at Cricinfo are crying themselves hoarse over BCCI's decision to bar websites from getting access to IPL match photographs. Apparently, it is a "denial of their rights as a media organization" , one which according to the editors is "serving" millions of cricket fans. I don't understand this denial of right business. As far as I understand, IPL is an event organized by BCCI, a private club, and as such surely they are well within their rights to decide who they allow to cover their events and who they don't. On what basis does Cricinfo assume that it is their right to be allowed to cover IPL?

What is even more disingenuous is this attempt to project themselves as some sort of charity organization providing a service to the cricket fans and to the game at large. And it is the height of hypocrisy for a website owned by Disney, of all companies, to be crying about another organization trying to protect its copyrights. I mean, Disney is the past master when it comes to copyright protection. Ever heard of Digital Media Copyright Act?

Be Patriotic, Support IPL!

2008-02-27T23:08:00.000-08:00

It is amusing to read all this outrage at players being auctioned and bought by IPL franchises. "Cricket has become a business now" goes the refrain. Let's face it. Cricket didn't become a business with the introduction of IPL. It has been a big business for more than a decade now. ICC sold the rights for its World Cups and other tournaments for a whopping billion dollars recently. Was that not a business deal? The reason players play the game is because they get paid by their boards and sponsors. The reason boards organise matches is because they are paid by the broadcasters. The reason broadcasters pay huge sums for rights and show the game on their channels is because they make money from advertisers. And the reason advertisers pay broadcasters is because in between watching cricket we watch their ads too (or vice versa) and then go out and buy those products. As simple as that. It is an ad-driven, eyeball-driven business. Are we clear on that?

ok, good. Now, the only difference in IPL is the way that business is structured and as I am going to argue below, it is better for Indian economy. With the system being followed currently by international cricket, it is the board or entity which organises an event (be it a tournament or a series) that owns all the rights for that event. That means, when Indian team plays a series in Australia, as they have been doing for past two months, it is Cricket Australia which owns the rights for that series and hence they make all the money from that series, including from Indian market. That's right - when we sit in front of our TVs to support our favourite Men in Blue, we are in effect contributing to the coffers of Cricket Australia. And this is true when we watch World Cups too. We are making ICC richer. Or when we tour Pakistan, we fill the coffers of PCB. And so on.

Now one could ask, in that case, when those teams come and play in India, doesn't BCCI make money from those other markets too? Well, they could, but the problem is there is no other country that has a market remotely comparable with India's. Which means, whatever little money BCCI makes from overseas markets is peanuts compared to what other boards make from Indian market. Net effect is, millions of dollars go out of Indian economy to the coffers of various cricket boards around the world every year.

With IPL, that is going to change. Since IPL is completely owned by BCCI, whatever money is generated by those matches will stay within Indian economy. Sure, a few foreign players get paid a few hundred thousand dollars each, but that is nothing compared to how much the boards are making from Indian market at present.

So here's my question to Dasgupta's and Thackeray's who are criticising IPL. Would you prefer that Indian audience continues to watch cricket matches imported from Australia, England, Pakistan, etc. or would you prefer that we watch cricket matches produced in India by an 100% Indian entity, which pays its taxes to Indian government? I can't see how any Communist or a Nationalist can support imported matches over 100% Indian ones.

India on Tour - memories

2008-02-05T02:02:00.000-08:00

Since Test cricket is on its last legs, with cricket going the club way, I thought of going through the various away test series I have followed over the years. For old times' sake.

Tours of England:

1979 - Best remembered for Bharat Reddy being picked over Kirmani and other selection goof-ups.

1982 - Entire theme of the tour for me was Vishy. Glued to the transistor and hoping against hope that he finds his touch. I think he scored a couple of fifties. Don't remember much else.

1986 - Probably one of the best cricketing memories of my life. Having just finished gruelling PU exams and engineering entrance test with flying colours, was enjoying a long break (May to October). So nothing to do all day. Get up very late, have a lazy bath and breakfast, do crossword, read some book or magazine and wait for clock to turn 3:30pm, tune into BBC TMS, enjoy their wonderful coverage. Off to play cricket with friends at 5pm and after a three hour cricket and katte session, come back to watch the highlights of previous day's action on DD and to catch the final session on radio. Abiding memories - Chetan Sharma inducing a collapse with two quick wickets, Maninder's mesmerising spell, Kapil scoring the winning runs early on day 5 of second test sealing the series victory.

1990 - Again mostly on TMS with highlights on DD. Pathetic bowling from India but more than made up by Azhar's batting. Blofeld on Azhar - "Out comes the feather duster again". Tendulkar's hundred to save a test at Old Trafford. Remember listening to Kapil's four sixers and not getting too excited (he was by then on my hit list). Kumble's debut. TMS comms getting all excited to watch two leggies bowling in tandem.

1996 - First time watching a test series from England live. Srinath and Prasad's spells particularly in second test I think against Hussain and Stewart. Ganguly's debut hundred and Dravid missing it by 3 runs. Collapse against Ronnie Irani.

Tours of Australia:

1978 - Chandra's 6-52 & 6-52 at Melbourne. The heroic chase. Remember elders talking about this being a Packer-depleted side, but didn't understand all that then.

1981 - Melbourne win. Being informed by the neighbour as soon as we got up amidst huge cheering and shouting. The Gavaskar incident.

1985 - Rain, Border and Tail frustrating us, not once but twice. Remember Shastri and Yadav running through the aussie batting line-up early one morning. Gavaskar, Srikkanth and Mohinder all getting a hundred.

1991 - Plenty of memories. Mostly sad. Whitney and Hughes running through us. Age finally catching up with Vengsarkar. Manjrekar failing to live up to expectations. Azhar raising hopes in Adelaide, albeit briefly.

1999 - First time watching a test series from Australia live. Sachin shoulder before wicket. Sachin's Melbourne hundred. VVSL Sydney hundred. McGrath showing Dravid his 'aukat' :-) Srinath bowling a good first spell but not able to maintain it longer. Agarkar getting lots of dharma wickets.

Tours of West Indies:

1982 - Mohinder standing tall amidst ruin. Windies chasing 200 after tea. I don't remember listening to any commentary. Mostly newspaper reports.

1989 - We had commentary this time and it was a funny feeling with a Test match starting at 7pm. Insipid Indian bowling. Hirwani in particular disappointing. Shastri and Sidhu's decent batting. Azhar flaying at everything.

1997 - First time watching a tes series from West Indies live. Dravid standing like a rock. Azhar getting out to Hooper. Barbados collapse.

Nuclear deal and Left's position

2007-08-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

If you believe the commentary in most Indian media, both mainstream and blogs, the Left parties' opposition to the nuclear deal with US is motivated either by their traditional anti-Americanism or their love of China. It is certainly not driven by India's national interest. Assumption there is that the deal is in India's national interest, but Left parties don't care for that and hence are trying to scuttle the deal.

How valid is that assumption? Is the deal really in India's national interest? Or can one make an argument to the contrary? Let's see.

First of all, the leftists have made it clear that their opposition is not so much to the deal itself but to India's strategic partnership with US. So rather than looking at the nitty-gritties of the deal, let's see if a broad strategic relationship with US is in India's national interest.

Now, USA's relationship with China is lukewarm at best. So it is reasonable to assume that by entering into a strategic relationship with US, we reduce our chances of having a friendly relationship with China. How good will that be for India? No matter how great a relationship we have with US, fact remains that they will always be half way across the world from us whereas China will always be our neighbour. So it is more important for us to have good relations with China than with US. More so, when you consider that China is a growing economy and could well be the largest economy in the world in another 20 years. So we have to choose between China and US. If we go with China, we can be an equal partner with them and along with Russia, Brazil and Arab countries could form an alliance formidable enough to dominate the world in a couple of decades. Or we can go with US and end up having a troubled relationship with many countries in our neighbourhood (China, Iran, Russia, etc) which is going to hamper our own growth.

One could argue that let's have a relationship with US for the time being and we can always switch to China when we find that they are becoming more powerful than US. But the nature of strategic relationship is such that we won't be able to switch sides so easily. Take the 123 agreement for example. We will be expected to shape our foreign policy on the lines of US policy or we will have to not only return all the nuclear fuel supplied to us but also forgo the billions of dollars of investment that we are going to make in building reactors to make use of that fuel. That is, once we enter into a relationship, there will be cost associated with getting out of it. All that the Left parties seem to be doing is asking us to think carefully before deciding to tie the knot with US.

Update:
There is an interview with Edward De Bono in today's (9/18) Economic Times and he makes pretty much the same point I have made above:

Q: How can India become one of top three economic super powers?

De Bono: If India can partner China, they can be a real superpower in a short time. Alternately, if India and China form a coalition bringing other developing countries in their fold, it will beat all other world superpowers.

Cause and Effect

2007-08-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

There is a railway crossing in Mysore which we go past many times whenever we are in that city as it happens to be on the route from my parents' to in-laws' place. Last weekend as we went past it, my four-year-old daughter asked: "Daddy, why does the train always come only when the gate is closed?".

This and that

2007-08-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Was in Cairo last week. Quite a nice city. Was surprised to find that the quality of infrastructure is much higher than in Indian cities. No phat-phati autos and hardly any two wheelers for example. Beautiful Nile flows through the city and is remarkably clean. No one washing their clothes or themselves in the river. Instead, you find boat shaped restaurants, some moored and some which actually go on a two-hour cruise and you can have dinner on the deck with dance and music and cool breeze from the river. Not surprisingly, most of the city's elite hang out near these restaurants.

This is not to say that it is on par with first world cities or anything. It is very much a third world city - roadside hawkers, pedestrians crossing roads even as vehicles are moving, reckless driving, honking and so on. But still, it is definitely better than any of Indian cities. The 3 km long al Azhar tunnel bang in the middle of the city linking downtown Cairo with the expressway that goes to airport is something I haven't seen in any Indian city. Or the ultra-posh Grand Hyatt which makes Bangalore's Leela look like a Patel Motel. There is a 10-floor mall, with restaurants, shops and a multiplex, all inside the hotel.

Another pleasant surprise I came across in Cairo, though nothing to do with Cairo or Egypt itself, was Al Jazeera English news channel. For someone jaded with IBN's and NDTV's, Al Jazeera was indeed like a refreshing breeze of professional, balanced and most importantly low-key news reporting. In their nightly 9 o' clock news for example, they only report news! No opinionating, no breaking into a panel discussion on a news item, nothing. Just an anchor and on the spot reporters. We don't have a Rajdeep telling us whether a judgment was harsh or mild, no anchor "hoping" that government takes this or that action, etc. Just report news as it happened. What a novel concept! Even their panel discussion programs are quite muted (and to think it is an Arab channel!), give plenty of time to panelists to air their views and again the moderator doesn't seem to have an opinion of his or her own. Quite a contrast from the Indian news channels where you can easily tell by their tone of questioning which side of the issue they are usually on. Here's a suggestion to Rajdeep and Prannoy: shut down your channels for a month, hole yourselves and your key editorial staff up in a hotel room and watch Al Jazeera non-stop. If that doesn't change your approach to news reporting, nothing will and you might as well look for alternate careers.

Hmm... what else has been happening. Oh, the Test match. BCCI Bozos vs ECB Idiots. One team bowls head-high beamers and the other throws peppermints on pitch. What drama, what emotions! To top it, I heard that ESPN made half an hour program on just one incorrect lbw decision! In that case, I hope Taufel got a cut out of the ad revenues ESPN made from that show.

Why keep the Rupee down?

2007-06-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to huge inward remittances of dollars, there is pressure on Rupee to appreciate. RBI has been trying to control this appreciation by buying dollars from the market. This in turn is creating inflationary pressure. The reason RBI doesn't want a stronger rupee is that it is bad for exporters. Everyone seems to take it for granted that a stronger rupee is bad for exporters. But, does it have to be so?

Let's take the IT industry. Let's say rupee goes from 40 a dollar to 30 a dollar. It doesn't mean the IT services companies have "lose their competitiveness". They can keep the billing rate at the current levels and still make profit - by cutting costs. Reduce salaries to account for the rising Rupee - other costs like travel etc will go down anyway as they are linked to dollar rate. A 20-30% reduction in salary for IT folks only means they are back to last year's salary levels in rupee terms - hardly makes a dent. Especially, if rupee is at 30 a dollar, petrol and all other imports will be much cheaper bringing down inflation - so your salary may be lower numerically, but in terms of purchasing power you are no worse off.

So, why not let the rupee appreciate to its true value? Why keep it artificially down in the process taxing all the citizens in the form of higher inflation?

Update: A ToI article supports the view with this sentence: "But many feel the focus has to be on cost control, and especially salary cost, which is by far the biggest component — about 40 per cent of total cost."

Destiny's Child

2007-06-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

Rags-to-riches stories are plenty. But I find Rajanikanth's one of the more remarkable ones. A maharashtrian of humble background from Bangalore, no great looks, through sheer grit and determination becomes a super star in Tamil film industry. And then his popularity spreads all the way to Japan! A true Destiny's Child!

I have not seen any of his movies till date and I hope to correct the situation with Sivaji. Here is wishing him all the success.

"India Unbound"

2007-06-21T22:43:00.001-07:00

Read this book on a recent long-haul flight. It is written by Gurcharan Das, former head of Procter & Gamble, India. It is partly biographical, but mostly an account of post-independent India's economic policies. Written in an engaging, informal style, peppered with anecdotes, it is a very easy read. Author is clearly a believer in free markets and recounts with frustration the socialist policies India adopted and the kind of impact they had on the economy.

Even though most people blame Nehru for taking us down the road of Fabian socialism, Gurcharan seems to think that larger share of the blame has to go to Indira Gandhi. Nehru at least had the excuse that at that time ('40s and '50s) central planning was considered the way to go by a number of leading economists world wide. When P.C. Mahalanobis came out with his Second Five Year Plan document in 1956, it was hailed as a master piece in economic planning. But by the '70s it had become apparent that central planning was not all that it had been cracked up to be and the author blames Indira Gandhi for not only refusing to change the course but actually taking us deeper into socialism.

Overall, a very informative book for anyone interested in history and India.

Sir Osama

2007-06-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

In response to Britain knighting Rushdie, a group of Pakistani clerics have decided to bestow a similar honor on Osama Bin Laden. From now on, he is going to be Saifulla (Sword of Allah) Osama. Just goes to show the depths a society plumbs when it takes the path of religious extremism. I mean, Rushdie and Osama - one a man of letters and the other a gun-toting terrorist - and these guys think they are comparable. Scary.

Return of Atlantis

2007-06-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't followed this Atlantis space shuttle story that closely, but till today I had thought that Sunita Williams is the only passenger on that space ship. Imagine my surprise when I learnt this morning that there are six others along with her and she is not even the leader of the team or anything. Then, why does the Indian media focus only on her? Is it just the first name? Idiots.

Actually, I don't even understand why there is so much hype about these astronauts. Given the risks involved in space travel, I am not even sure if we should be sending these highly qualified people and then worry about getting them back safely. Why not pick a few death row prisoners, give them six month training on the kind of experiments they need to do in space and send them off. If they come back safe, fine, they get amnesty, otherwise, well, they were going to die anyway.

Mallus' invasion of Mysore - Domestic tourism explosion

2007-05-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

Spent the long weekend going around some tourist spots in and around Mysore - Talakad, Somanathpura, KRS, Nanjanagud etc. It was nice, but what surprised me was the number of tourists, especially out of state tourists, in Mysore. Had never seen that kind of rush in Mysore except during Dasara. Most of them were from Kerala, but there were quite a few from Tamil Nadu and Andhra too. There were cars, taxis, matadors, tempo travellers all bearing neighbouring state registration numbers. Good to see domestic tourism growing in India. What was even more heartening to see was that majority of the tourists weren't the "new economy people". Is this an evidence for trickle-down effect in operation?

Mysorism

2007-04-25T02:09:00.000-07:00

I have always believed that Mysore is more than a place - it is a state of mind, a way of life. If I were to describe Mysore in one word, it is moderation. In Mysore, like its weather, everything is moderated. Pace of life, desire, ambition, wealth, effort, ostentation - Mysoreans love everything in moderation. You are not supposed to be either too rich or too poor. If you are over ambitious, you are ridiculed. But if you live like a sanyasi, you are ridiculed too. You study or work too hard - you are called a kudumi. You don't study at all - you are classified lazy or useless. You spend a lot on your daughter's wedding - you are called a show-off. Cut corners and you are called stingy. Whatever we did, we were always encouraged to go for that golden mean. Neither too much, nor too less.

In sharp contrast is the metro philosophy - more the merrier.

Virginia campus shooting coverage

2007-04-17T00:08:00.001-07:00

Indian-origin prof killed in Virginia campus shooting shouts the headline on CNN-IBN website. Even their TV coverage in the morning was focussed on the Indian victims - a professor dead, a missing student etc. I don't understand this. If this was some hate killing and the victims were mostly Indians, then yes, it makes sense to emphasise the nationality of victims. But from what I gather, there have only been a couple of Indians at most out of the 30+ victims. It seems more like indiscriminate killing than targeting persons of any nationality. Then how does the Indianness of the victims matter? Is it some kind of pride: "We Indians are not behind others in any field - not even in getting killed on US campuses"? I just don't get this. If you want to cover it, cover it for the human tragedy it is. Cover it for the growing trend of violence in US schools and colleges. Or if you think such coverage won't be of much interest to Indian audience, then leave the topic. Go on to something else. Even Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty. But why focus solely on the couple of Indian victims?

I really want to see how the thought process of those who decide such things goes. Do they get excited when they hear that there were a couple of Indian victims. "Whoopee, surely they must have some relatives over here. Can we get their sound bytes?".

If Sri Lanka can produce a top class cricket team, why can't Karnataka...

2007-04-12T22:34:00.001-07:00

If Sri Lanka with a population of 20 million can produce a quality cricket team, there is no reason why every state of India cannot do the same. Yes, I am not talking about single Indian team, but every state - Karnataka, TN, Maharashtra etc with populations 2-4 times that of SL should be producing such teams. After all, these states are no worse than SL in economic parameters or in level of interest in cricket and we are no different genetically/racially either.

So why doesn't it happen? Simply because of this stupid nationality based format which allows a Test team for a tiny country like SL but also limits a huge nation like India to one team. So since the requirement is to produce just one team out of a billion population the system has geared itself to produce just one team out of this huge amount of raw material we have. Change the requirement to produce twenty teams instead of one and each state will be churning out a team like that of SL or the current Indian team.

Just goes to show ICC's stupidity - they constrain a huge cricket crazy nation of one billion into producing just one team and then go around desperately trying to create teams in places like Netherlands, Canada, what have you.

Secession of the successful

2007-04-12T05:59:00.001-07:00

Is Narayana Murthy's comment about singing of national anthem embarassing the foriegners another evidence for this phenomenon mooted by late economist JK Galbraith? Where the successful just retreat into their own world and tend to be disconnected from rest of their countrymen? And to think such a man was being considered as a candidate for President of India!

BCCI's restriction on endorsements

2007-04-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

Couple of points:

1. BCCI is well within its rights to impose these conditions on players who wish to play for them. I have seen people (including some business leaders) question bcci's right to do so, have called it violation of players' rights etc. which is utter nonsense. Playing for bcci is not a right guaranteed by constitution. If you want to play for them, you abide by their conditions, as simple as that.

2. As for whether it makes sense - I don't agree with the stated reason (spending too much time on shooting ads etc) but there are other grounds for justifying the decision. There is no doubt that endorsements do not reward all performances equally. Batsmen who do well in one-dayers end up with bulk of endorsement deals whereas bowlers and Test batsmen (Laxman vs Yuvraj/Dhoni for example) don't get as much. This can lead to and has in the past led to frictions within the team. If bcci doesn't want to create such differential rewards, if for them harmony within the team is important, then it makes sense for them to impose restrictions on endorsements. There was a similar case in my previous company when a customer wanted to reward some of the team members, but the company didn't allow it - they said we have our own performance management and incentive schemes, we don't want you to meddle around with it.

3. In any case, I have always argued that boards are more powerful than players in the current system and I am just happy to see the players get screwed :-) If this leads the players to go play for a parallel league, as a consumer, it will be better for me.

How cricket continues to delude itself...

2007-04-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

I hadn't seen this earlier. A world map showing flags of all teams participating in the world cup. You look at it and you will think, "How evenly the game of cricket is distributed across the world. 4 in Asia, 4 in Europe, 3 in Africa, 3 in Americas and 2 in Australasia". Never mind that 80% of the market is represented by just that one tri-colour there!

Nenapaadalu Shakuntale

2007-04-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

Watched a play by that name at Rangashankara last evening performed by Aneka group. The play followed Kalidasa's masterpiece pretty much to the letter, but the notable feature was music and songs in kannada. Probably the songs occupied more time than the dialogues and they were sung very well by the group led by a youngster called Venugopal.

Highlight of the play - Shakuntala's friends Anusuya and Priyamvada run off to the ashram leaving their friend alone with king Dushyanta. Shakuntala, while happy to be alone with her lover, pretends to be scared and tries to follow her friends. Dushyanta holds her hand and she keeps saying, "leave me, leave me". Dushyanta says "yes, I will". She turns to him and with a smile and feigned impatience asks, "yavaga?" (when?). Beautiful.

However, more than the performance, while watching the play I couldn't help but admire Kalidasa for creating a masterpiece like this nearly 2000 years ago. The description of serene atmosphere of the ashram, Shakuntala's love for nature, blossoming of love in those pristine surroundings, friendly banter between Shakuntala and her friends, everything in this play reflects the sheer genius of its author. Thanks to Rangashankara and Aneka for staging this and keeping the great poet's works alive.

Another organization that is doing its bit to keep alive our tradition and culture is Sri Rama Seva Mandali of Chamarajpet. Like every year, this year too they have organized music concerts to celebrate Ramanavami. Had been to couple of concerts (Kadri Gopalnath saxophone and vocal recital by a youngster called Madurai TN Krishnan) - both were excellent.

Speaking of music, got Worldspace satellite radio installed at home. It rocks!

Timmajjiya Myaglundi

2007-04-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Here's an attempt to write in kannada - a review of a book I read recently. Click on the images to get enlarged versions.

A suggestion to make one-day cricket more interesting

2007-03-30T22:49:00.000-07:00

There is a problem with one-day cricket. No, I am not talking about match-fixing or the over dependence on Indian market or too many meaningless tournaments or chucking or any of those. Those are bigger issues. But the problem I am talking about is to do with the game itself. Which is that there are very few exciting games taking place these days. Even if the teams are evenly matched, even when we can't tell in advance who is going to win but what we can tell with fair amount of certainty is that it is going to be an easy win at the end for either team. In nearly 80% of the matches, result is obvious within the first 15 overs of the second innings. They are either chasing a low total and get off to a good start or chasing a huge total and lose a couple of key early wickets. In first case there is very little the bowling team can do except going through the motions and in the second the batting team does that.

This has mainly to do with the fact that a couple of key batsmen can have a huge impact on the fortunes of a team. So if those key batsmen get out cheaply, match is as good as lost. So here are a couple of changes to fix this problem:
- A batsman can continue to bat when dismissed.
- Deduct 30 runs from batting team's score per dismissal [1]
- Maximum limit of 50 deliveries per batsman

Pros:
- One mistake by batsman doesn't put him out of the game thus substantially reducing the luck factor (or bad decision factor)
- One or two batsmen cannot dominate the entire innings. Just as a bowler is limited to 10 overs, batsman is limited to 50 deliveries.
- Match is not over till all the 100 overs are bowled. Even if the chasing team is 100 runs past the target there is always a chance for bowling team to take a hattrick and win back the game.
- More importance to attacking bowling and taking wickets.
- Just as a bowler can be taken off if he is not bowling well, batting team captain can recall a batsman if he is struggling and send him back in at a later stage. More thinking to be done by captains.
- Since only 6 batsmen are required to bat, teams can go with 4-5 pure bowlers rather than going with bits-and-pieces players as done currently.

Now, tell me why it won't work.

[1]: If you think deducting 30 runs leading to negative scores can be confusing to viewers, add 30 runs to bowling team's score instead.

ICC, call off the world cup

2007-03-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

Now that the Jamaican police have confirmed that Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered, I think ICC should cancel the world cup if they have any sense of decency left. It is bad enough that they got on with the event without missing a beat when an important member of the cricketing community died under suspicious circumstances. But to carry on with the carnival when it is confirmed that it was a murder and probably related to cricket would be totally improper. World cup is supposed to be a celebration of the game and how can you carry on with the celebration when the game itself is under the cloud?

Besides, all the caribbean governments have invested heavily on this event and it is in their interest to make sure that it is a success. It is not inconceivable then that pressure is brought to bear upon the police to delay the investigation till the world cup is over. If ICC is really interested in getting to the bottom of this murder, they should call off the event so that the police can carry on the investigation without any fear of their own governments.

C'mon ICC, for once act with courage. If you have to, return all the money you have received from your sponsors. But don't let cricket and justice down for a few million dollars.

Vegetarianism

2007-02-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

While returning from a business trip recently, as the efficient staff of Singapore Airlines started serving breakfast and the familiar sten... er, smell of roast beef filled the cabin, my mind as is its wont wandered. Why is it that of all the places on earth, vegetarianism has a significant presence only in India? Look eastward, and in Korea, Japan and China people eat everything including creepies and crawlies. Look west and you have middle east, Europe, Africa and Americas - again mostly meat eating societies (despite some recent movements of vegetarianism in Europe and USA). So how is it that India alone has developed this habit of not eating meat? According to the wikipedia page on vegetarianism India accounts for more than 70% of all the vegetarians in the world and that the percentage of vegetarians in India is anywhere between 20-40% of the population (this tallies with the recent CNN-IBN survey too which had mentioned that in South India around 20% of the people are vegetarians whereas in North, the figure is around 40%).

So, coming back to my original question, why has this practice developed only in India? The wiki page cites mostly religious reasons like ahimsa, asceticism (as meat is considered a luxury), the Law of Karma (you hurt the animals, the bad karma will come back to hurt you), etc. But then, next question would be, why did those religious beliefs develop here? What made people here, and only here, realize that hurting animals is bad? As someone who believes that there has to be an economic reason for most human behaviours, I wasn't willing to accept religion as the only reason for vegetarianism in India. Sure enough, the wiki also mentions economic reasons for not eating meat.

As populations grow, lowering meat consumption worldwide will allow more efficient use of declining per capita land and water resources, while at the same time making grain more affordable to the world's chronically hungry.

But that doesn't fully explain the behaviour either, because if the reasons were economic, then you would expect the poorer people to be vegetarian. However, in India it is not so. It is the upper castes like Brahmins and Rajputs (of Vaishnav variety) who are vegetarians by choice. So, maybe it is religion after all which has made us vegetarians.

Speaking of vegetarianism reminds me of an incident which happened a few years ago. I was telling my wife about a team lunch we had gone from office and mentioned that fish was on the menu. My daughter, who was three year old at the time, was surprised and asked "What?". I explained to her that some people do eat fish (and other animals). She said, "No, we shouldn't eat that". I was surprised by her vehemence, because I didn't expect her to have an opinion on anything at that age, let alone on what people should or shouldn't eat. Just to understand where she was coming from, I continued the argument and asked why not. Just as we eat vegetables, they eat fish, what is wrong with that? She thought about it for a few seconds and then said, "But fish have eyes like us. We can't eat them?". I was intrigued by her response. I wondered why did she choose eyes and then realized that she didn't yet have the concept of life or living beings at that age. However, she somehow instinctively knew that fish are more like us than vegetables and when I pressed her she had to think about it and justify her belief. She couldn't say they have arms or legs or head or face, because fish don't have any of those. So she chose eyes as one of the few things they have in common with us. This got me wondering - are kids vegetarians by instinct? Remember, we had not taught her that it is bad to eat animals or any such thing. In fact, that was the first time she even got to know about the option of eating animals and somehow her instinct told her that it is not right. Food for thought.

Telecast rights imbroglio

2007-01-22T03:28:00.000-08:00

They are at it again. Doordarshan is once again fighting with the cricket rights holder, Nimbus in this case, for something that they don't own rightfully. Nimbus bid for those rights and have paid a hefty price. I don't understand what makes DD think that they have some god-given rights to the signals of cricket matches. If Sony gets exclusive rights to telecast some Bollywood blockbuster would DD similarly ask Sony to share the feed with them? They don't. But somehow neither DD nor the government seem to get this simple concept of "he paid for it, he owns it" when it comes to cricket rights. The I&B minister has called Nimbus "unpatriotic" for not sharing the signal with DD. Come again? Onstensibly, the objective is to make the matches available for those who do not have cable connection. But then, what about those who don't have a TV set itself? Would the minister ask LG or Samsung to distribute TV sets for free to all those who don't own one and call them unpatriotic if they refuse to comply with such a ridiculous request? It is no less ridiculous to ask Nimbus to part with something they have purchased legally.

In any case, what has cheering for a bunch of cola salesmen got to do with patriotism anyway? It is high time we put an end to this myth that the players are "representing the country" and supporting them is a patriotic activity. It is just entertainment business, folks. No different from movies, music or other television shows. The players make money, boards and sponsors make money and hopefully the viewers get some entertainment. Let's leave it at that, rather than attaching non-existent attributes like nationalism, patriotism etc.

Media hypocricy

2006-11-20T01:39:00.000-08:00

The coverage of Jessica Lall murder case on our 24x7 news channels has been bordering on ridiculous for some time now. But Karan Thapar's interview of Ram Jethmalani on Sunday went way beyond the ridiculous.

The whole basis of Thapar's questioning was that the argument used by Mr. Jethmalani in the court is immoral and unethical. Implicit in that suggestion is that the argument is also false and not based on facts. Because, surely if the argument is based on fact, then Thapar can hardly accuse it of being immoral. So, the question then is, on what basis did Karan Thapar conclude that the argument isn't based on fact? Isn't it the job of the judges to make that decision? Why is the media so eager to pronounce judgement in this case. First there was another CNN-IBN anchor pronouncing that Manu Sharma was "indefensible". Now we have Thapar claiming that Jethmalani's arguments are "immoral". Hey guys, how about leaving it to the courts to decide the matter for a change?

Another argument made by Thapar was that Jethmalani was "maligning the reputation of a dead woman who can't defend herself". That's one of the lamest arguments I have ever heard and it is sad to see it coming from a person like Karan Thapar. Now, as I said above, if the claims made by Jethmalani in court is true and crucial to the case, then you can hardly expect him to NOT make those claims just because it allegedly maligns the reputation of a dead woman. If the claims weren't relevant, then surely judges wouldn't have allowed them to be made. As for the veracity of those claims, again, let the judges decide. But, I have a question for the media. If these guys are so concerned about Jessica's reputation being tarnished, then why are they publishing these arguments being made in court? Jethmalani atleast has a reason for making those arguments - he is defending his client. What reason on earth do media have for publishing those arguments, except to increase their TRP ratings?

Plan for restructuring cricket

2006-11-01T03:25:00.000-08:00

Interesting interview with BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi on CI. He makes it quite clear why BCCI is frequently having issues with ICC. It is not because BCCI is being greedy or arrogant, but because all the money in Cricket at present is in India and everybody, including ICC and all the other boards, want to have a share of this money. BCCI is naturally trying to protect its turf.

Some quotes:
Tony Greig:

This country has now become the banker of world cricket. There is no doubt about that: this is where the money is and everyone realises it. Knowing the abundance of money here all the world of cricket including Cricket Australia realise that if they want to implement some of their programs this is the key to it.

Lalit Modi:

But you got to keep in mind that when we look at their schedule, when we look at their balance sheets, whether it's right or wrong, majority of these sports are making their money only when India plays with them and that's once in four years. And if you see at the rest of the matches you will see a big spike: two million dollars a game when India plays, when India doesn't play it is 100,000
dollars a game. So they actually make money only when India plays except for the Ashes. Apart from that none of these boards make any money.

I think this is a ridiculous situation to be in for many reasons. First of all, all these teams are supposed to be competing with India, but how can they compete when their boards are making money only when they play against India and hence are dependent on BCCI for their very survival?! Secondly, why should Indian money be financing all these various boards and ICC? Let the Indian money stay within India.

So, how do we achieve this? To do that, teams should have roughly equal sized markets. However, there is no other country which has a cricket market anywhere close to India's size. So, the only way to go forward is to have multiple teams within India. Let there be four teams, one from each zone. In addition to those four, let there be teams from Australia, England, Pakistan and Africa. I think those eight teams will make for a terrific league. There will be intense rivalry between all the teams. In the present league, hardly anyone cares for teams like New Zealand, West Indies and Sri Lanka, not to mention Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. That means, five out of ten teams are uninteresting or boring. Which means, out of the 45 possible match-ups, 35 or close to 80% of the match-ups have suboptimal viewer interest. Compare that to the league suggested above, in which every single rivarly will have huge fan following and generates tremendous interest. Be it any of the Indian regional teams vs Pakistan/Australia/Africa/England or the inter-regional matches like South vs North or North vs West etc. What's more, the teams will have roughly equal sized markets, so we won't have the kind of situation where one team will be driving the entire cricket world.

Ofcourse, you can't name the teams as North, South etc. You can't shout those names in the stadium. But not a problem. Go retro and name the teams as Uttar, Dakshin, Pashchim and Poorab. I can already imagine myself shouting "Dakshiiiin, Dakshiin"!
Ofcourse, players will be free to move from team to team, so you can have a Ponting playing for Dakshin or Dravid playing for Australia.

You might say the Indian regional teams won't be of test standard. Which is utter nonsense. If Sri Lanka with a population of 50 million and the same economic standards as India can produce a test side, there is no reason why each region of India with over 250 million population cannot produce a test side. To start with, they can use imported players to improve the quality of the teams, till they produce required number of Test quality players.

I think this proposal keeps the international flavour of the game, takes unwanted/uninteresting teams out of the picture, restores balance in terms of market sizes of teams and makes for a terrific league. What say?

BCCI's bid for global rights irks some people

2006-10-09T01:35:00.000-07:00

BCCI's announcement of bidding for global rights of ICC events has elicited some strange response from certain quarters. Scyld Berry writing in Telegraph rants about "India's bid for world domination". So, according to Berry, was Murdoch's Global Cricket Corporation, which owned the rights for last 2 world cups, running world cricket for last four years? Or does Berry fear about world domination only because it has come from an Indian organization?

A quote on Cricinfo goes even further, questioning BCCI's capability to handle such rights:

"This is an organisation that only set up its own website in the last year or so. Not so long ago, frustrated observers would complain that it was incapable of answering a letter. Now it is saying, 'We'll deal with worldwide television for you'."
Wisden Almanack editor Matthew Engel on the Indian board's move to bid for global TV rights

Now, could someone please tell Mr. Engel that BCCI has successfully sold the rights for its home matches for close to a billion dollars, so they know a thing or two about selling television rights? Incidentally, BCCI is in the process of setting up its portal (bcci.tv) which according to Lalit Modi will be the best sports portal in the world. Is that what is worrying Cricinfo and Mr. Engel (Wisden owns Cricinfo, btw)?

Cricket moving to club format - gonna happen soon?

2006-10-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

Google search threw up couple of slightly old interviews with BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi. Very interesting...

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006

"Modi also said a national inter-city league and a Twenty20 tournament, in which each side plays 20 overs, would be launched in the 2006-07 season.

'The inter-city league will be on the lines of the Premier Football League (of England), and we will have separate television, merchandising and grounds right for that,' he disclosed, and added it would not be part of the rights that Nimbus holds.

'It will probably become the single largest revenue earner for the BCCI in the years to come, if we structure it right. It will also help us drive crowds back to domestic cricket and help build more stars.'

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Now to cricket. Do you see it eventually moving away from its nation-based structure to something like football, where the real interest lies in club rivalries?

Oh yes. It's gonna happen. The intercity cricket league is going to happen. My next big project which I'm going to announce. I'm still not ready for it because the game has evolved since the last time I developed it. It will be a home-and away concept. We hope to launch that by the end of the year.

He also talks about his earlier attempts to start an inter-city league almost a decade back which was scuttled by the then BCCI. This guy is smart, I tell ya.

No wonder he doesn't mind taking ICC on. He believes the domestic league will be the biggest revenue earner for BCCI, rather than this stupid international cricket.

An afternoon of adventure

2006-10-03T03:07:00.000-07:00

I was studying in fifth standard when we shifted our house from Agrahara, one of Mysore's older central localities to Saraswathipuram, a relatively posher locality on the outskirts of the city("extension", as we used to call these outlying new areas then). Consequently, I had to change schools too. Probably a month had passed in the new school when one day the school was declared closed for afternoon due to some teachers' meeting or something. My younger brother, two years junior to me, was also studying in the same school. We finished our lunch boxes and then weren't sure what to do for the afternoon. No one will be home and we didn't have the key. Mom used to teach in a school in another part of the town, close to Agrahara. Dad's office was close to our school, but we knew he won't let the two of us go home by ourselves - he will either ask us to stay with him in the office or insist on taking us home. Idea of spending the rest of the day with our disciplinarian dad didn't quite excite us.

That's when we got the idea. Let's go to ajji's place! Our ajji (mother's mother) was also staying in Agrahara, quite close to our old place. When we were staying in Agrahara, our daily routine used to be to go to ajji's place on the way to school in the morning and drop off a set of clothes to be used later in the day (and anything else mom had asked us to carry). Once the school was over in the afternoon, go back to ajji's place, change from school uniform to "home clothes", eat the snacks that ajji has prepared (dosa, uppittu, idli, chapati, etc) and then run off to play with friends. Mom and her sisters used to come back from work later in the evening, gossip among themselves and with their mother for a couple of hours over snacks and coffee. By the time we were done with our play and Mom with her gossip it used to be well past 7 in the evening. Off we used to go to our place, just in time to have dinner, finish whatever little homework that is to be done and then to bed. As a result we used to spend a good portion of our waking and non-schooling hours in ajji's place, all our friends were from that street rather than near our own house etc. Since ajji was always at home, we never had to worry about things like what to do if the school closed early.

Now, barely a month in the new locality and new school, we were already missing ajji, aunts and our friends from that street. We had been there just once or twice in the whole month and for those who were used to spending close to 4 hours everyday there, that was clearly not enough. So this half-day closure of school (remember where we started?) came as a blessing for us. Going to ajji's place for the afternoon, having the snacks prepared by her and reconnecting with friends there seemed like a perfect idea. But then came the question - how to go there? It was quite far, atleast by Mysore standards. We could have taken the city bus, but neither of us had a penny in our pockets to pay for the bus fare. But our enthusiasm to go to our favourite granny's place was such that we didn't let such petty things come in our way. We decided to walk all the way.

By the time we reached Saraswathipuram 1st main bus stop, barely 1/10th of the total distance to be covered, we were already a bit tired and the thought of going ticketless on city bus did cross our minds. But a sense of self-respect and the fear of getting caught (more of latter than former) prevented us from taking that route, and we marched on. Soon we reached district court office and the road diverged there - which led us to our next problem. Which road to take? As I said, we had only been in S.Puram for a month and weren't much familiar with the route. After a bit of thought, I said "Left" and off we went. It was only when we reached RTO office and saw the familiar landmark of a house with a chariot on top that we were sure we were on right track. We continued with more vigour, now certain that reaching the destination was only a matter of time.

Soon we reached Siddappa Square and mom's school was nearby. We entered the school and mom was surprised to see us there. "How come you are here? How did you come all the way from school?". "School is closed for afternoon, amma. We came walking". She was close to tears hearing that. Her colleagues started hugging us and we felt like some heroes. Mom hurriedly took permission for half an hour from her headmaster, we took an auto and headed to ajji's place. Mom dropped us off and went back to school. More hugging and crying by Ajji. She prepared our favorite snack - akki rotti. Mom and aunts came back in the evening and the entire discussion that day was focussed on our heroic walk. There was quite a bit of crying and some cursing of our dad too, for having shifted to that "godforsaken" place against everyone's wishes and for having separated the kids from their grandparents.

As for us - we enjoyed the walk, enjoyed all the attention and were happy to be back in familiar place with familiar people. And oh, akki rotti I had that day is probably the best I have ever had in my whole life. All things considered, not a bad afternoon.

Who makes money from Cricket?

2006-10-02T21:28:00.000-07:00

It is fairly well-known that India accounts for close to 70% of the total cricket market. Thanks to BCCI's recent much-publicised broadcasting deals, it is also fairly well-known that the Indian board is the richest among all cricket boards. Yet, what is not so well-known is that this huge Indian market for cricket, apart from enriching BCCI, also sustains many of the cricket boards world-wide. That is because of the system cricket follows where the hosts own all rights for the series they organize. So when India goes and plays a series abroad, it is those foreign boards who make money from the Indian market. We play a series in Pakistan and PCB makes a cool $150 million from Indian market. We play in Windies and WICB hits a jackpot. We play the world cup or a Champions Trophy and it is the ICC which makes mega bucks out of those events. So much so that, most of the boards, like Windies, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, etc are surviving mostly on the money they make by hosting India or from the handouts from ICC.

Sometimes, the consequences of such a system goes beyond financial. PCB for example, has awarded the rights to matches held in Pakistan to Dubai-based Ten Sports channel, owned by Sheikh Abdul Rahman Bukhatir. Now, Bukhatir is apparently still close to Dawood Ibrahim and played a key role in Dawood's daughter's wedding. Which means, every time we play in Pakistan and millions of Indians tune into watch the match, it is quite possible that we are contributing to the coffers of India's most wanted terrorist.

Good thing is, there is a simple solution to solve this problem. All that needs to be done is, instead of having the hosts own all the rights, let each board have the telecast rights for its territory irrespective of where the match is being played. So BCCI owns the rights for Indian territory, irrespective of whether it is a home series or away series or world cup. Similarly, ECB for UK territory, CA for Australia, PCB for Pakistan and so on. Let the ICC own the rights for all neutral territories like USA, Far east etc. That way, every board makes money from the market they have created, rather than freeloading off others' markets. Sure, that could lead to some of the boards like Windies, New Zealand and Sri Lanka going bankrupt, but so be it. If there isn't enough market there for cricket to survive, there is no point in sustaining those boards artificially. There is enough demand for cricket in India, Pakistan, Australia and England and let cricket cater to that market well. If you think four teams aren't enough to have a decent league, then create multiple teams within India. As it is we have enough diversity based on region/language etc that we can create a good rivalry between these teams. Let these regional teams also import players from outside to strengthen the team initially, while we develop strong teams. So a league of eight teams, say South/North/West/East India, Pakistan, Australia, England and Africa will make for terrific cricket. The markets will also be pretty evenly balanced, so you won't have the current situation where India accounts for 70% of the market. Allow for movement of players from team to team, so that the players can also earn their true market value. As it is, in the current system, the players can only play for one team, which means they are the bonded labourers of their respective board. A few can make money from advertising, but those who can't have to live on the pittance that the board pays them. If you allow for movement of players, they will also be more competitive and that makes for good cricket.

Google news archive search - History brought alive

2006-09-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

Google news has a new feature - ability to search archives of newspapers and magazines going back over 200 years. For now, the sources seem to be mostly Time, Guardian and Washington Post, of which the first two are free but the Post is pay-per-view. But Time alone is good enough. You can read reports of historic events as they happened and understand how they were viewed while they were happening. Be it Hitler's rise in Germany or India's struggle for independence.

Speaking of latter, there is a school of thought among some Indians that Gandhi's role in India getting freedom from British isn't as great as it is made out to be, that the second world war played a bigger role in Britain's decision to leave India, etc. Couple of reports from Time in 1930 - one on Gandhi's Dandi march and the other on 1930 Man of the Year is enough to show that Gandhi's independence movement had become a major threat to the British long before Hitler had even come to power in Germany. So much for the revisionists.

Like father, like son

2006-09-08T03:21:00.000-07:00

Read a nice article on Mohammad Ayazuddin, a 14-year-old promising cricketer from Hyderabad. If this kid goes on to play for India, that's one thing that will probably get me hooked to cricket all over again. The same gaping mouth, same open-chested stance, loose grip, apparently he even nods with a bowed head like his father. Go Ayaz!

Doordarshan vs Cable TV

2006-08-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

Cable Television has been around in India for more than a decade now. Considering that the peak of Doordarshan as a monopoly lasted for less than a decade - from 1984 when it really began expanding nationwide till the advent of cable tv in 1992 - I thought it is time to compare the two to see which has fared better in terms of providing entertainment, information and education to the viewers. The monopoly of a state-owned broadcaster or the competition among private players?

Even as I set out to do the comparison, I ran into a problem. I used to be a regular DD watcher when growing up - seeing as that was the only source of entertainment back then and being a student I had plenty of time on my hands. I used to watch most of the serials, the news, current affairs program, sports etc (some say I even used to watch Krishi Darshan, but there is no truth to it. That was only for the first year or so :-) But since I started working around the same time as cable TV started, and hence time became somewhat of a scarce commodity, I haven't watched as much of cable as I have of DD. So it was never going to be an objective comparison, but since when is objectivity a requirement for blogging?

So, anyway, as I started comparing, I found that there is just no comparison. I could come up with dozens of programs that I liked and remembered on DD, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of a single cable program that I have watched in last decade that I really liked (not counting the likes of BBC, Nat Geo, Discovery etc - I am comparing DD with the Indian cable channels to compare apples with apples). The DD list was seemingly endless. In no particular order and off the top of my head - Buniyaad, Darpan, Katha Sagar, Tamas, Yatra, Intezaar, Nukkad, Bharat Ek Khoj, Malgudi Days, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Choti Badi Baatein, Vikram aur Betal, Mirza Ghalib. Heck, even Mahabharat had its likeable moments (not Ramayan though). And this is just those programs which we used to call "serials". On top of that there were documentaries, the musical programs (sunday morning National Integraion show or some such), discussion programs (there used to be one hosted by Vinod Dua on Sundays called Phursat mein or some thing), award winning movies from such renowned directors as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Bimal Roy, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal etc. And what do we have on the cable side? Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi? Indian Idol? Even the much hyped KBC was not a patch on DD's Quiz Time, if you ask me, in terms of the quality of questions or of participants.

So how did this come to pass? How come a state-owned, cash-strapped monopoly could churn out entertaining *and* informative programs at such a regular rate, but the cash-rich private players can only come up with duds like Ghar ghar ki Kahani? Is it just my nostalgia or is free market really inferior to state-owned monopoly when it comes to providing meaningful entertainment? Note, the operative word there is meaningful. I have no doubt whatsoever in market's capability in delivering endless jhatka's of Rakhi Sawant into our living rooms. But why can't all those zillion channels produce a simple Darpan or Tamas?

Some observations on NRI's

2006-08-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

This comment on a blog triggered me to post these thoughts on NRI's which I have been thinking for some time.

In my observation I have found that NRI's are more negative on India than those who are living here. They generally tend to highlight the bad aspects of India in discussions, they are more alarmed by any bad incidents happening in India etc. It has always intrigued me as to what could be the reasons for this - after all these people are all highly intelligent, reasonable, successful people and there is no reason to suspect that they have anything against India per se. In fact, most of them do care a lot for India. Then why this harping on the negative aspects of India? (Actually, the last two sentences could provide a reason for this - that they are intelligent and hence can see what is going wrong with India and care for India enough to voice their opinion about it - could be, but I don't think it is just that). Here is what I think are some of the reasons.

Having lived in a developed country for some time, they are more sensitised about issues like corruption, freedom of expression, value for human life etc - more so than the resident Indians. So a corruption scandal or a farmer's death is viewed more seriously by them, whereas those of us who have lived here most of the time just take it as part of life. I mean, we don't even think politicians can be anything but corrupt.

Added to that, they get most information about India through news media on a daily basis. And it is a well-known fact that media generally has more bad news than good news. So, if you read Deccan Herald, you will find reports about deaths and rapes and murders which happened in Bangalore yesterday. What you are not going to find is that a beautiful park opened in my neighbourhood or that there is a nice darshini serving excellent dosas or that there was a great classical music concert two days back and so on. When rains flood the Bangalore roads it becomes front page news, but the papers don't report the beautfiul Bangalore weather for rest of 364 days a year. For us, it is those latter things we see most of the time. Yes, we also see garbage on the road, traffic jams etc and we do read about deaths and murders in paper, but the point is we also see these other positive things which kind of gives us a balanced picture. But for someone sitting in US, as he keeps reading about only the bad things everyday, the negative image keeps getting reinforced.

Now for the controversial part - it is that keeping and reinforcing this negative image sort of serves the NRI's purpose at a subconscious level. Most of the NRI's, whether they admit it or not, feel this need to justify their decision of having moved abroad. And let's face it, after a while, life in US does get very boring compared to life in India. Life may be hard here, but it is never boring. Sure, we have the traffic jams and pollution and crime and what not, but we also have many more means of entertainment here compared to US. Most of the family and relatives live here and we have the regular get-togethers be it for a naming ceremony or birthday party or a wedding or even a death. We have our festivals - especially those like Ganesha Chaturthi, Dasara and Deepavali which are celebrated in public. They may have their Indian associations or kannada sangha's but the celebration there doesn't come close to the experience in India. Come next week, there will be loudspeakers blaring out "orchestras" all over Bangalore for Ganeshana habba. It might irritate you when you are trying to get some sleep, but it is never boring. So, anyway, when the NRI's compare their boring life in a US suburb - same old commute to office and back, grocery shopping and visits to mall over weekends - they feel they are missing out on all the excitement in India. However, they can't just shift overnight - so what better defense than to have this negative image of India. They may not do it consciously, but without their knowledge they keep reinforcing this negative image because it makes them feel that they have done the right thing by moving abroad.