Sunday, April 27, 2008

I Pee L

Unparliamentary title aside which reeks of urea, I think the Sreesanth-Harbhajan-BCCI episode smacks of smart, sickening revenue strategy generated by smart asses in the Modi-Shah Inc. I am willing to hedge a bet on the likelihood of the scenario comprising of the PR/Chartered Accountant/Treasury guys involving the top brass at BCCI with a willing pair of scape goats in Sreesanth and Bhajji, pitching proposals across tables.

"Sir, we have noticed that the gate revenue isn't as much as we expected, and this is a blow to the very format which promised a couple of hundred crores to our kitty"

After careful deliberation it might have been decided to play the dirty card which everyone is up to in the entertainment-amusement-media-sports industry today; pluck the eyeballs when you fail to grab them. Oh, the instances are many, the mediaspace abounds in such examples. Rakhi Sawant tamasha, the Star News tamasha, the Yash Raj tamasha preceding any release are legendary.

They would have found two readily available jackasses in the said pair, and within time that would have subnuclear reaction times to shame, decided to have a drama at whose expense, the ever gullible junta janardhan.

"Sreesanth aur Bhajji ko line pe lagaao"

Come to think of it,

1) Harbhajan slaps Sreesanth hard in the field/dressing room
2) Sreesanth lets his emotions get better of him, sobs on the field like a kid who has been robbed of his candy by the highway dacoits
3) The fellow cricketers run up to console him
4) Hours later when IBN reporter asks him how it felt, Sreesanth plays the slap down cheerfully, smiling when he says "The shakehand was at the wrong place" with his sense of wit intact
5) Punjab XI complains to BCCI who take up the issue seriously, and what have we now Harbhajan faces a life ban

It doesn't take a Harvard MBA grad brains to smell the urea in this! I am all for banning a cricketer, sportsman when he doesn't uphold the spirit, or brings disrepute to the game at frequent intervals taking the very game for granted.

But at the end of it if Bhajji and Sreesanth are seen waltzing to Daler Mehndi beats at the closing ceremony, do not shocked or let the feeling of having been taken for a ride bother you.

Or is it that I am showing the signs of early senescence? Should I be taking all this with sacks full of salt as I am supposed to, and enjoy the circus?! Since IPL, ICL, 20-20, Honkong Sixes, Sharjah were always meant to be the junk versions of cricket aimed at the coffers any amount of cheap publicity or gimmickry was deemed okay. So this might have been one more instance.


Whichever way I look at it,

it is not cricket Gentlemen.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Scrapped!

After being a part of the utterly chaotic, silly, juvenile, social phenomenon for close to two years, I feel purged. The world seems so lighter, fuller, and richer after I grew out of it. I don't know if I might miss out on any good things owing to my not so impulsive decision, but I promise myself that I will keep in touch with all those fantastic souls whose associations have made my life so far worthwhile.

Not that I didn't enjoy while it lasted; I had fun, I met most of my buddies lost in time, met not so new faces, relived a few memories through photographs, videos and things like that. I would give full marks to Mr.Büyükkökten for his apocryphal search for his lost girlfriend something that served as the seed for this project networking people to a great extent, and hassle free that too.

But there came a point when saturation threatened to take its toll and I had to decide between two things; take it forward being a part of this customary social circus,

or kut the crap

I chose the latter.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Ab initio

It boils my blood when I see individuals becoming larger than the institutions themselves; the same institutions whose service they start off with, and in due course assume unsurmountable positions at least in their minds climbing on the small steps that the institutions offer at every corner.

While this is largely true of different arenas and streams viz. politics, sports, entertainment, and academia, disastrous it is when this disease afflicts those who are in the service of science. These moles by the virtue of a few degrees that they earn seem to be in the know of everything, and precisely at some point start acting Gods. While it is supremely beneficial for people doing science to be critical, cynical when required, and detailed what drives me up the wall is the fact these noble souls seem to reason out everything, and rationalize every known and unknown thing with our minuscule limits of reasoning. There exists nothing called "being in awe of nature", same nature which has an answer to every theory of ours and could unleash out fury with a latent smile. I am all for people advancing in science with newer pursuits adding a few material degrees to their names along the course of these pursuits. Science has progressed to a vast extent with contributions of endless number of such inquisitive souls, and will in future. No harm. But when they do not let an ocean as magnificent as science broaden their mental horizons, it is just not worth it.

Let us not even fool ourselves into thinking that we know all for we all are in the bigger picture mere moles.