tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11961205919531738892024-03-05T03:12:40.038-08:00India, its peoples and its neighborsPax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.comBlogger254125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-55851176027400552622020-01-21T13:17:00.000-08:002020-01-21T13:24:10.269-08:00The Jester in the Darbar After a really looooooooooong hiatus in terms of watching any movie, let alone a Rajni one, I finally broke the shackles and went ahead and watched Darbar. For the ~6$ early morning show on a Friday and a 7 person theater occupancy (out of perhaps 150), I would say paisa vasool! That, and a typical old school Rajni fare is always a good welcome from the breaks in the immediate past.<br />
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Here are my feelings.<br />
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1) The movie itself is good time-pass for a traditional Rajni fan. It conforms to the standard stereotypes of a Rajni pot-boiler, which is what a Rajni fan would always want (independent of what they tell you about time, ageing, etc.)! And unlike movies such as Kabali or Kaala, there are no social messages or justice-seeking andolans, something anyone with common sense would always welcome from a Rajni movie.<br />
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As they say in Tamland, go watch a Bhaarathiraja movie to get your daily dose of social messaging; go watch a Rajkiran movie to see how high the lungi can go and still appear non-offensive; go watch an Ajit/Vijay movie to figure out the bronze medal winner; go watch a Kamal movie to not understand the psycho-babble; and go watch a Rajni movie to have pure fun.<br />
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2) As usual, they ran out of villains in Tamil/Telugu/Kannada cinema including Rajni himself (Enthiran). So they had to bring in another "Bollywood" villain in Sunil Shetty. This follows the recent trends of Akshay Kumar and Nana Patekar, after they explored a Chinese/Malaysian guy in Kabaali. Who next? SRK, Aamir or Salman? Who knows?!<br />
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3) As is common with most recent Rajni movies, Rajni has to be a super-hero of sorts although with some gray shades to hide his white hair. This took the form of a family-loving respectable gangster, who has now morphed into a cop (a bad one, as he himself says).<br />
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4) That said, the "mad cop" part of Rajni showed a lot of promise before they nulled it all and followed the usual fanfare of Rajni-isms. A mad guy is mad when he does not know why he is mad; not when he knows why he is. Very quickly, Rajni moves from the very lovable (at least to me!) mad guy imagery to an almost moronic sentiment-infused hero. Just to say that the cringe-worthiness of sentimentalism here pales into comparison with the old fare from the mad 90s. Rajni is typically best when he is in a "don't care" state like in Moondru Mudichu or Avargal.<br />
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5) The movie diverges itself from a "typical" Rajni-fare in almost totally lacking punch dialogues. The heroine role for Nayantara is a non-starter. She is there for almost no reason and I have no idea why she would accept such a non-role except to return a past favor to the Director.<br />
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6) The comedy in Yogi Babu is underwhelming. Given the recent parade of Yogi Babu-isms (aka his clean strike of a nonchalant uncaring loose-talking schaedenfreudish capers), this one seems like a total loss. I am not sure why Yogi Babu would accept such a role except to follow in the long tradition of Goundamani-Senthil-Vadivelu-Vivek-Santhanam to have paired up as a side kick to the Superstar. <br />
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7) From a Rajni point of view, there are some glimpses of his old self with lots of dialogues from his badass characters interposed in between, but with no justice to any of them, sadly. There was definitely a chance to make him more anti-hero than he has been in his last few avatars. But that was neither attempted, nor did the attempt go anywhere. In fact, it did not even approach the "MG Ravichandran" character in Sivaji.<br />
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8) The daughter role for Nivetha Thomas is a lot better than Nayantara's, but somewhat oversold and underdone. It is a bit of a (at least Tamil) unrealism for a daughter to try to find a spouse/companion for her ageing father.<br />
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But the thing that may take the cake is the more recent Tam fare of taking complex technical terms (either from communications, cryptography, medical or beyond) and building a sorry excuse for a story that has logic!<br />
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Instead of a mythological aagaya vimanam (a flying saucer) that can be pooh-poohed as "lacking rationalism," how easy it is build a subdural hematoma (<a href="https://www.webmd.com/brain/subdural-hematoma-symptoms-causes-treatments">Linky</a>) that can kill you in two hours?! How did a hematoma not create instant death, but delayed it by two hours to give a fleeting excuse for sentimentalism for the daughter to post a FaceTime video to be seen beyond death and to build Rajni's anger potential in his time of lows?! In any case, how is it that a hematoma is not treatable in a trauma care that can also induce a five hour coma for Rajni himself?! And btw, who induces a five hour coma for a concussion?!<br />
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I am no medical expert, but the reality is that when you can mix a few buzzwords and make it sound ah-so-right, it passes muster in much of the world, as that is how life has always been :).<br />
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9) The villain role in Sunil Shetty had so much promise for punch dialogues, so many deep strategies, and a deeper intelligence which should make the Vaseegaran character (in Enthiran) eat the dust in terms of helplessness. All of that is just plain wishful thinking as the villain character has been assassinated with a ruthless and a sorry spectacle in terms of mindlessness and brainlessness.<br />
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10) My main mirth with the storyline is how Murugadas has taken creative liberties in portraying cops. I am no cop, and I am not related to one, but if this movie is expected to be a compliment to policing and how sorry a job it is in India, I am appalled at the chisel to make this deity.<br />
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Policemen (and more recently, policewomen) in India live a mostly sorry life acting as everything from marriage counselors to Panchayat for caste issues to prestige issues to social harmony maintenance to nabbing real dopes from chain snatchers to cell phone stealers to pickpockets to roadside romeos to blue and white collar criminals. A policeman (and woman) usually has no real schedule and can go from the high of people bestowing flower petals on them for kicking to the curb gang-rapists to being kicked by the same people for being doormats for politicians, IAS cabal, etc.<br />
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A policeman (and a woman) job in India is highly stressful and usually comes with more of side benefits and prestige than real pay. Of course, a number of policemen (and women) make money on the side to arbitrate peace in a sullied form than what the rule book ever so states.<br />
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That said, no police department is going to let go of a single comrade's death or hurt that easily. It may end up being unsuccessful, but there is always an attempt to score one past the opponent in forms that cannot be openly stated lest the human-rights nazis jump on you. None of the big city's department would let go of 10s of their comrades' sorry death in shame and forgetfulness. That may make a good storyline, but that is so not true. Further so, no big city needs a Chief imported from elsewhere to fix its woes, even a Rajni :).<br />
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<b>Bottomline is:</b> If the Director thought this was a movie offering a tribute to the policemen (and women), it so is not the case!<br />
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<b>Scorecard:</b> Rajni 70/100, Sunil Shetty 30/100, Murugadas 50/100 for trying to restore sanity in the field against the likes of Pa. Ranjith, Future 100/100 (now that I know that the ship has sailed out of the Mariana Trench).<br />
<br />Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-2001953765982060892019-07-08T10:41:00.003-07:002019-07-08T10:41:57.318-07:00Travelogue: London could be falling down<div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1) London reminded me of a bit of Melbourne and a bit of Auckland, both places that I have seen up close for awhile. After all, that should not be surprising given that both Melbourne and Auckland have fashioned themselves as the London of the East. London is most definitely a multi-cultural city in its truest sense. Pretty much everywhere I went, I saw whites, blacks, browns, as well as people of all colors. No wonder it voted overwhelmingly for Sadiq Khan (an immigrant) as well as against Brexit in the fondest hope of a multi-cultural Europe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">2) Much of London is a tourist heaven. Every major spot of interest saw a horde of tourists (American as well as otherwise) making for long queues and nightmarish planning. It is almost impossible to make justice to a hop-on hop-off bus tour when you cannot see a damn thing and the bus is fully loaded with tourists to the brim. For sightseeing, there is a famous "London pass" that allows one to see many of the worthy spots such as the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Shard (controlled by Qataris nonetheless), Kensington Palace, London zoo, etc. Unfortunately, this pass does not include other interesting places to see such as the London Eye, the Lord's, Big Ben, etc. My general impression is/was that most of the places are worth visiting once, but nothing specifically stuck out as either a sore thumb or as an underappreciated spot (which is often the case for most spots in India). And then there is also a call to the London bridge, which is not really famous or worthwhile except for being a part of a nursery rhyme. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">3) While most of Central London is coverable by walk, beyond that, London is well connected by underground, buses, trains and even the odd ferry (less said the case about much of the non-Northeastern US). I just bought the 7 day travel pass for 34.10 pounds, that allowed unlimited travel on underground and bus. And to be fair, that was good value for money. One weird thing that I realized is that you can get a pass for the underground that also works for the buses, but not in a reverse manner. You tap in and tap out of the underground, but in the bus, you just tap in once. We did get checked for tickets once on the bus, but that was pretty much it. Of course, in most underground stations, you cannot head out without tapping your card on the way out which is indeed a good check. The cost of a single fare is 1.50 pounds on the bus and 2.40 pounds in zones 1-2 on the underground (most of Central London), which makes the use of a single fare option an expensive affair. There are a large varieties of fare options (beyond the 7 day travel pass), so it can take a bit of getting used to (of how to use these options as well as one's footing in London). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">4) London food is similar in flair to American or Australian, but with a much better quality (as is much of European food) than the American fair. There are a gazillion McDonald's and Starbucks of course, but also London peculiarities such as Nando's, Slug and Lettuce, etc., as well a gazillion fish and chips outlets. Most of the "Indian" curry joints are run by Sylhetis. Even eponymous Indian sounding places such as "Rajasthan-IV" are run by Sylhetis, which makes it hard to feel good. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As a side point, Sylhetis came to the UK in the late 60s and 70s as a part of the mass migration that cannot be really explained (even though I did see the explanation of Bhola, Liberation War, etc.). That brings me to the odd history of Sylhet (aka Srihatta) when it was initially part of the Assam province in British India (despite Sylheti being a dialect of Bengali). Gopinath Bordoloi and most of the Assamese elites were happy to get rid of Sylhet from Assam province and unify Assam under a "Assam for Assamese" model. Most of the Muslim Sylhetis were also keen on joining the then East Bengal/East Pakistan/Bangladesh than to remain a part of Assam/India. So there was a referendum in 1947 (one of the few actually held) and much of the Hindu Bengalis voted for India, and most of the Muslim Bengalis/Sylhetis voted for Pakistan. A lot of water has flowed down the Barak since the referendum and within Bangladesh, there is still an uneasy truce as to the distinct Sylheti vs. Bengali conundrum, which keeps popping its head every now and then. More here: <a class="" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6bGMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=6bGMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">5) Historically, London has seen its fair share of violence. Every historical place that I went to such as the Tower of London was described as "xyz was hanged here, abc was hanged there" + a lot of this was built in 1066 after Charles-I came in from France etc. Pretty much the whole of Westminster Abbey is a cemetery to the rich, famous, influential and politically connected + a scene for coronations and marriages. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That said, modern Britain borrows a lot of history from France and more recently Germany. The latter should not be surprising since German and English are cognate languages. But the French connection would be missed given how the popular meme of France vs. England/Britain is peppered all around us. The surest way to observe this is via the Lion heraldry that makes the British lions (<a class="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_(heraldry)" rel="nofollow" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_(heraldry)</a>). The Lion came into popular usage as a sign of valor and chivalry from the Count of Anjou, who in his own way had borrowed it from the lion of Judah (an early Christian symbol, perhaps used even before that). In fact, much of Western Europe shares the lion heraldry with the UK. And then there is the <i>fleur de lis </i>(<a class="" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur-de-lis" rel="nofollow" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur-de-lis</a>) that is a uniquely French symbol, which exported it to James-I and Scotland and via this approach to the UK. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">6) And then there is the colonial period. Unlike what Indians (ought to) think, the white Britishers are not ashamed of their colonial past, period. Colonialism in their eyes was their duty to "civilize the natives," period. And 100+ years of post-modernism does/will not make them feel ashamed at their past. The parrying aside of a request for an apology of Jallianwala Bagh ought to be seen in that view. In fact, for any sort of contrition to happen, they have to gnaw at their very cores which valorizes the "unknown and forgotten" soldier in the corner of the earth doing his fair duty of holding the Union Jack flying high. They have to rub down Westminster Abbey or the many churches around London and UK which memorialize the forgotten soldier (see four pictures below). </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5KnlhbegWWhfslHU_rJFu0QvGfPNo2IPpgbmIdYnyvbU78Fo1v8cTxVHNW5ImAG5V2xikPftg7pfVpNCmo1RAtku6-Sfi2suRUB0J66pR0C2imBh64kJ1_jW4LfEEC7mKsLYCu1j85g/s1600/IMG_0294.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5KnlhbegWWhfslHU_rJFu0QvGfPNo2IPpgbmIdYnyvbU78Fo1v8cTxVHNW5ImAG5V2xikPftg7pfVpNCmo1RAtku6-Sfi2suRUB0J66pR0C2imBh64kJ1_jW4LfEEC7mKsLYCu1j85g/s320/IMG_0294.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As much as Shahshi Tharoor or a Madhusree Mukherjee can scream at the top of their lungs, the stiff upper lips in the elite class will not get it and will remain oblivious of their offenses. There is no way to shame the unshameables, and that is a sad lesson for all! That said, most of the white Brits I saw (that did not belong to this elite class) were mostly ok. I did not encounter any sort of racism or anything even remotely close. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">7) An odd thing I noticed is that it is hard to find elevators (except in airports, underground stations, train stations, etc.) as well as air conditioners in London. Along with France and Germany, this seems to be a general theme in Western Europe. I was told that it hardly ever gets/got hot in these places that an air conditioner was ever needed. And then there is the German theme of Durchzug (<a class="" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-scorned-air-conditioningthen-it-got-really-hot-11561918952" rel="nofollow" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-scorned-air-conditioningthen-it-got-really-hot-11561918952</a>), which is a different category altogether. While most days in London were pleasant, one awful day made the lack of an air conditioner a painful experience. Plus, the buses and underground without an air conditioning/circulating system makes it a hot boiler plate. Slowly, as the heat waves and wider variations made possible by global warming make their way into Western Europe, one would hope that fans and air conditioners/coolers will make their way into normal Western European lives as much as they are in Asia and the US. Also, for someone like me who has seen the 5 AM - 8 PM sun out period, the 4 AM - 9 PM sun out period in London was surreal. Surely, I would be freaked out by places such as Norway or Finland. After checking out the latitudes of London and NYC, things became much clearer to me. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">8) And then onwards to what I went to London actually for... Wimbledon, which is quite an oddball tournament primarily because it has some strange customs that make life excruciatingly hard (and quite unnecessarily). In the garb of tradition, they do make life more messier than it should be. As a comparison, I have seen the US open quite a few times (up, close and center), so I can indeed make a fair comparison between the two events. At the US open, one can buy "grounds admission" passes online (from Ticketmaster, for example) and just walk into the Billie Jean King NTC on the day of your choice. At Wimbledon, unless you are willing to pay a huge price and buy tickets from an official seller or are just lucky to get the debenture tickets (perhaps cheaply), it comes down to queuing at the AELTC. This means waking up early/late and walking in to a <i>loooooong</i> queue. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If you arrive at the AELTC at 6 AM, you are sure to meet a whole bunch of stewards and honorary stewards and the famous yellow flag, and be presented with a queue number around 2000-3000. Walk in at 9 AM and expect to see a number around 9000. At 11 AM, perhaps 15000. In any case, if they do give you a queue card, you are expected to get in "eventually." With a seating capacity (of a guesstimated 39000), I am not sure if anyone will not get a queue card at all! But then, ask the stewards about the wait time, and you will get a blank, "it is supposed to be a state secret!" pithy response. That is baloney, even by English standards!! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I walked in at 9 AM on two days, picked a queue card number around 8500-8800 (quite consistent) and walked in to the arena at 12+ish (as consistently). That is a miserable waste of 3-4 hours waiting in a queue for what is a simple grounds admission pass (all in the name of tradition). But then, I also heard of people who had tented themselves for days on end to catch a Center court ticket (one of 500 perhaps) opened on the day of interest. That is clearly not tradition, but one of joblessness. At BJK NTC, I would have walked in at 9 AM and hoped to be inside by 9:45 AM for a 10:30 AM start. I would have parked my derriere in a half decent seat at either Louis Armstrong or the Grandstand and hoped to see a decent match (even though I might have been galled at the self-pity and propping up of classless/relatively talentless American tennis players only because they are well, American - cue in on Madison Keys, Coco Vandeweghe, etc.). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">All that said, there are a lot of differences between the two Grand Slam events. Unlike the US Open, Wimbledon-ers do not make an ass of themselves regulating the size of your water bottle or the backpack you carry. </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">O</span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">r the food you can carry inside the arena. </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">They do whine if you try to bring in your tent inside though!</span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You go through security at both places and reasonable items are fine at Wimbledon (not so with the glorious US open). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">At the end of the day, the event in itself was uneventful. As in, you get to see what you came to see (slower grass notwithstanding). You also get to see stranger things in life: strawberries and cream, white vs. colored clothes, ryegrass vs. asphalt/concrete, food style differences, Henman hill/lawn vs. flat ground of Queens, roofed vs. roofless courts, Middle Sunday vs. both Sundays, Southfields vs. Mets-Willets, </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">etc. Overall, it might have been far pleasant if only I could get grounds admission online instead of having to suck up with the cold breeze and then a heat wave and basically crawl my way in after wasting a good 4-5 hours. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">9) Speaking of life beyond tennis, as far as I know, London has two famous cricket grounds: Lord's and the Kia Oval (aka Kennington Oval). The latter stadium was the scene of the spin triumph of Ajit Wadekar's team in 1971 (India's first in England), as well as the scene of the Pakistan team forfeiting their test match for delays taking to the field after being accused of ball tampering. It was also the scene of the first test match in England (2nd overall after the Melbourne one in 1877). I could not get in and see the ground tour itself due to the odd ball timings of the tour, but a weird thing one notices as one enters the neighborhood of Lambeth (around the Kia Oval) is the suburban ethos in contrast to how London and Lord's are like. Then, there are the huge gaslighters outside the Oval itself which makes it look like an old-school industrial town surreal-ly suspended in real-time. In any case, if it was not for the colored's interest in cricket, much of the English cricket scene would be like the attendance in their churches -</span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> sporadic and falling with time. </span></div>
Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-7411767036171940482019-06-15T21:32:00.000-07:002019-06-15T21:32:24.913-07:00First-world problems<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
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I thought I will get started again, but then, there should probably be a reason :). Perhaps something has changed, perhaps not! But in any case, before I go to think of Nepal or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, let me disabuse you (the reader) that I only think of profound neighborliness. Here is an anecdotal display of fortitude! </div>
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I am not big on competitive sports, even though I track and follow pretty much every worthwhile sport out there. </div>
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The reason being: Victory is too over-rated and defeat is too sullying and degrading. One of the least analyzed aspects of life is defeat. We all get defeated, often enough to write tomes on it. Yet, we do not and also, defeat (that is not complete) does not stop us from living life. Such defeats themselves are never a major real problem even though they are made spectacular than what they are. In fact, defeat is the overarching theme of human civilization and evolution. A defeat that does not kill makes one strong (assuming that someone is a rational person and takes the implications of the event rationally) and has the tendency to teach us a lot about ourselves, what we are made of, and what wrongs we make. In fact, even in the case of an irrational being or entity (such as Pakistan), a defeat that does not kill makes it strong because it has survived to fight another day despite the enormity of the bets against it notwithstanding the sillyness of being beaten black and blue. </div>
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And a victory usually does not teach us that much. Victories lead to lethargy and mistakes that lead to defeats. </div>
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Despite all this, I am a big believer in competition against oneself, against one's reluctance (self-imposed or otherwise), against one's innate ability to assume that something is not possible, and so on. And I am also a big believer in competition against time, that nemesis we all face and yet cannot stand to put our fingers to it as the nemesis of life. </div>
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I competed today against myself and I learned a few things. I found those lessons too profound (at least personally) and to have a bearing on my outlook on life. Which is why, I decided I will write this out. Even if it is a bit embarrassing to write this ... </div>
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I started a run at 6:16 PM and the gym was expected to close at 7:00 PM. I typically do far longer than 45 minutes and the gym always sharply closes at 7:00 PM on Saturdays and Sundays. I am not a high speed runner trying to outmarathon a big armada in 3-4 hours flat nor am I an endurance freak. I just care about my health, period, without screwing up my legs and knees. So dont ask me about pace, dont ask me about weightscales, etc. Running is for the heck of it, for no good reason in itself! </div>
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Given this, I typically run at anywhere from 10-12 minutes a mile, with a 6-7 minute warm up of walking where I cover perhaps 0.3-0.4 miles, which would have placed me at somewhere 3.3-3.9 miles covered in this time (6:16-7:00) depending on which side of the coin I faced while I pursued this. The scenario here does not count for any running breaks or cooling down breaks in the middle which could be a 2-3 minute cut that could bring down the numbers further. I was quite reasonable in terms of expectations and did not plan for anything extraordinary. </div>
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The first 15-20 minutes went uneventfully with me being around the 1+ mile mark. Somewhere along the way, a bright light shone before my head (does not happen often!) that asked me if I could get to 4 miles in the time I had. That would typically mean racing away to glory in a hifalutin fashion, but given the limited time I had for the gym to close, it was not impossible. At least, it did not sound impossible. This is the T20 of running, slam bam thank you mam! So I accelerated, slowly in steps of 0.1 mph speed increase every 2 1/2 minutes to the point I left the "comfort zone" of sub-6 mph and left to pushing the aerobic thresholds (which I usually do not tend to unless really necessary). That jump increased to 0.1 every 1:15 making it even harder on the body. Initially, I thought I would coast along till the 3 mile mark and then speed up in a T20 fashion. However, that rarely, if ever happens since it gets too close for comfort and one usually gives up in their objectives at that close stretch. So at the 2.5 mile mark, I decided to go for broke and start the T20 anyway. </div>
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Slowly I was at the 7 mph mark increasingly huffing and puffing beyond my comfort zone. I reached the 3 mile mark with around 7-8 minutes left and for the gym to close. Somehow I mentally calculated that if I could be steady at 7 mph for a good 8 minutes, then I could somehow easily reach the 4 mile mark at 7:00. My mental calculation was 7*8 = 56 which should allow me to somehow make it. Lo, the blasphemy!! </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 0:</u></b> When you are in time trouble, even simple math is hard! It takes close to 8.5-9 minutes to get to a mile at 7 mph (60/7) and not 7*8 :). </div>
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As I progressed at the 7-7.2 mph mark, I see the clock ticking by, but only 3.2-3.3 miles covered. That is when panic sets in and I realize something is off. So I speed up more, because this is T20 after all and what point it is to do a Ravi Shastri in Australia. I up the speed by 0.2 mph every time I cross a 0.1 mile threshold. There you go. If you need a lesson in how to tire yourself out, here it is. The better strategy may have been to up yourself a 0.3 mph step for a fixed/finite time allowing your muscles to learn the pain before you jump the hoops. </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 1:</u></b> Bad strategies are easy to come up with, good strategies need experience and thinking. There is no way one can come up with the best strategies at the get-go especially when one is new to something! </div>
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As anyone who is a slow runner can vouch, the moment you give it a fight, the body fights harder! At the 3.5 mile mark, I am in a big amount of pain to decide to call it quits in my quest and slow down my speed to 4.1 mph to recover! And quit, I kinda did. I slowed down to 4.1 mph for 30-40 seconds losing precious time and almost irreversibly getting defeated. </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 2:</u></b> Fundamental difficulties have a good way at getting back to you, no matter what! Perhaps knowing one's limitations can reasonably set expectations?! </div>
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In those 30-40 seconds, I think of South Africa in cricket. I recall the choking article by Malcolm Gladwell (<a class="" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/08/21/the-art-of-failure" rel="nofollow" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/08/21/the-art-of-failure</a>), sadly behind a paywall now. I think I have epitomized past experiences and I know what it feels to be South Africa. And then comes the morbid thinking which is hard to explain. You know you have suffered, mentally and physically. Physical pain is easy to recover, but mental agony is harder. You have attempted to get at something personally, even though it is against a faceless nameless enemy (like time or yourself). And you know you have been defeated in your quest. The sadness of that feeling is hard to explain. It feels disgusting, it feels debilitating, it feels excruciating.</div>
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You wonder at lightning speed, if it was due to bad calculations, or whether nature conspired against you, or whether you are just not good enough. At least South Africa can name and shame someone (a villain of sorts, may be rain, may be butterfingers, may be West Indies, may be ... AB MIA). I can name and shame no one but myself, I am the villain, I am the victim. What blasphemy is this illogical exercise in idiocy! </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 3:</u></b> It is normal to feel angst and pain as you go through reverses. It is normal to feel like the world has ganged up against you, even though the world does not care about you at all! People have better jobs in life than to conspire against you. It is just an illusion and the dash of irrationality that makes one think the way they do. </div>
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As my muscles recovered, I decide to give it a go again. After all, what point is a silent defeat? Somehow I accrue one more burst of energy to get to 8.5 mph (now that time is really ticking) to see what can be done. I may not get to 4 miles, but even a 3.8 is fine and respectable. It may not be a PVC, but it is perhaps a Mentions in Dispatches. That is my only thinking. So I go for bust and I run down time at 8.5 mph. I think I have run long enough, only to be halted by a repeat of the lactic acid induced slowdown. A look at the distance and no more than 3.65. There you go, 0.12 miles at a high speed for basically nothing. Even the MiD looks far now. So I slow down yet again to blow another 30-40 seconds. </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 4:</u></b> Dont count your chickens till they hatch. It is always easy to talk long and hard in terms of strategy when the hard work is done by someone else (here the legs)! That may be a lesson in management, but then what good is it when we have psychopaths around us? </div>
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Another recovery prompts to turn on the adrenaline to a higher level. So this time I go to 9.5 mph even if it is only for perhaps the same time as before. Somehow magically I am at 3.8 and may be I should actually call it quits. In any case, that is what my knees tell. That is what my legs scream. In any case, the clock is ticking and the 7:00 mark is a minute (if not seconds) away. You have fallen short, but at least can go home with some reasonable fame (even if it is the stupid-est attempt at vanity). </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 5:</u></b> Whether it is 8.5 or 9.5, the effective suffering is the same. So you might as well push yourself to the limits, if at all you choose to push it. </div>
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It is at this point greed kicks in. As the Wall Street aficionados say, greed is good. Minus greed, half (or more of) the things we have today in this world will not have existed. I decide to go on till the "get the hell out of the gym" buzzer sets off at 7:00. May be it is a 3.9 and I fall short only by 0.1. May be only 0.15. I want to know how much more I can kick in. So I continue... in this first-world problem of mine. And the buzzer does not come in at all. And I cross 4.00. I check the time and it is 7:01. Just a minute (or so) longer than I wanted to do it in, ah, not so bad. </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 6:</u></b> Every minute and every second counts. I am not talking in the sense of trying to maximize the utility of every second in a day. I am just talking in terms of the differences between getting something done on time and not. There is usually no more than a minute or a few minutes of difference between the two. That in itself should not be surprising for anyone taking the NJT here. There is usually a minute or two difference between catching a train and waiting for the next one 15-20 minutes later. </div>
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Now that the deed is done, and I decide to stop right away! On a normal day, if I have set myself an x mile mark, I tend to push myself to x + 0.2 or some obsessive compulsive claptrap target that is beyond x. But today, it was a firm no ... </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 7:</u></b> Whatever it is, when you are done after many odds, you are done. You just quit quite quick. There is a difference between enjoyment of a journey and a journey completed because you had to for whatever reason. The latter happens a lot (ask the PhDs around to begin with), so that explains the difference between the quitting and the returning. </div>
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At this point, I am still stuck on the treadmill hoping to make a winner's pose, but with no one to give a rat's behind for! The buzzer is still not on, which of course is odd. I check around and people are streaming out one by one, on their own. I cannot but wonder: May be someone at the gym had a bigger vanity problem than me. May be the world actually did stop and threw him alone off course. May be someone saw the irritating me in action and decided to throw in a piece of pity rolled into a sliver of sympathy. May be I should feel gratitude for this guy?! May be I should declare myself the oppressed who did see the sun out at the end of the day?! After all, is it not always fashionable to cast the world as a fight between the good and the bad, the subalterns and the superior beings, the mainstream vs. the Others? </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 8:</u></b> Reality has nothing to do with oppression and suppression. Things are often far simpler than any complicated conspiracy. (In this case, perhaps someone got stuck with something random and they could not come down on time at 7:00 to ring people out.) That does not mean that there are no Bilderbergs or Freemasons or the Eye of Providence or the Dajjal. It just means that Occam's Razor is still a good yardstick for many things in this world. </div>
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As I march out of the gym, one sordid reality hit me. I could have quit at 3.50 or 3.80, but I did persist with unclear outcomes till the very end. Even when the buzzer was supposed to have rung and thrown me out. This is life. Sometimes, we are lucky. Sometimes, randomness kicks in and we end up unlucky. Sometimes, there are no good reasons. Sometimes, we are the reason, perhaps the only one out there. Sure, not every event is as prestigious as finishing a 4.00 miler in 45 minutes (take that, you sub-4 minute milers, eat humblepie now, can you?). </div>
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<b><u>Lesson 9:</u></b> But that is that ... Or as a non-fan of Hegel, this is what aufhebung probably is. Victories and defeats are self-contradictory. There is always a time-scale at which a (not-so Pyrrhic) victory looks like a defeat and another time-scale at which it looks like a masterstroke! How one deals with that is why we have such a wide latitude in terms of interpretation of the past (something that is clear and well laid out). </div>
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Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-41182550537930417282018-08-12T15:18:00.004-07:002018-08-12T15:42:15.828-07:00The problems that maketh Tamland It has been a long time of <i>vanvaas</i>, but it has been probably worthwhile to remain silent. But then they also say, "don't speak ill of the dead." And if we follow that maxim to the hilt, we would never talk about anyone or life in itself, since we are all eventually dead anyway. So I will ignore such maxims perhaps to my own peril.<br />
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1) Mu Ka was a great Tam litterateur and no one can take that away from him (not even Lord Yama!). He also ably contributed to nation-building by putting his foot down for the devolution of what were then Central rights more to the States --- a principle accepted much later by the Sarkaria Commission for the stability of modern India in contrast to a million mutinies in our extended neighborhood. Foremost amongst these was making a common cause with a wide base on issues of Tam pride in times that mattered the most, a much needed succor from the onslaught of the Congress-i/Jan Sangh-i/Samyuktha Socialist Party version of <i>intolerance</i> in the bygone era including those from the Nehru family, Raj Narain, etc., as well as many stalwarts from Tamland such as Rajaji, Satyamurti and Bhaktavatsalam. It may have been a mere coincidence that he and the other DK/DMK stalwarts took to protest on behalf of Tamil for what he/they felt, but in ensuring the version of the Official Languages Resolution, 1968 in the way it did (http://rajbhasha.nic.in/en/official-language-resolution-1968), he/others ensured that there was a lot less misery for a large section of the Indian population over time.<br />
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2) More to his credit, following his own misrule from 1989-91 and JJ's misrule from 1991-96, he did not get too bogged down by details in terms of who/what affiliation ran/wanted to run a certain business or how they ran it, as long as he/his family/party got his 5-10% cut (a precursor to the infamous Jayanthi tax or the Mr. 10% jibes at one AA Zardari across the border) letting Tamland march towards industrialization and progress in its own way, independent of whether it was an ADMK front or a DMK front ruling/misruling it. Both ADMK and DMK ensured continuity in terms of policies as long as they got their choicest porterhouses (no pun intended).<br />
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3) Much of DK/DMK's rise to fame is/was correlated with the meticulous use of the newly arrived propaganda medium in the form of films to social messaging whether it be caste affirmation in the form of self-respect/<i>suya-mariyaadhai</i> and non-Brahminism, Tam language pride, or social evil eradication. And in that segment, a lot of credit goes to people such as Mu Ka and the atheist-turned-theist of "Arthhamulla Hindhu madham" fame Kannadhaasan as well as brilliant orators such as Sivaji Ganesan, SS Rajendran, KR Ramaswamy (who is conveniently forgotten today), etc. all of whom could sting a bee like no tomorrow, let alone like one Ali. The imprint of the Soviet/Communist revolution on all that propaganda as well as social messaging cannot be ignored, as well as the deep reasons to rename oneself from a Dakshinamoorthy to a Karunanidhi, all the while going for a Muthu, an Azhagiri and then a Stalin instead of a planned Ayyadurai (a morphed version of Periyar 'Ayya' and an Anna'durai'). What that says about what he valued the most is left to one's own imagination!<br />
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4) That said, Mu Ka knew which side of the bread was buttered the best and played both BJP and Congress masterfully, as the time of the day demanded it. Like CBN in 2018, he sided with BJP and Vajpayee in 1999 and then dropped out of the coalition when BJP/NDA suited his needs less (that movement began as early as 2002, but nevertheless). He then sided with Congress/UPA and then dropped out of that coalition when he got sucked into inaction over the death of LTTE and more so, the 2G spectrum scam. He had like-minded friends, well-wishers and advisers on both sides of the aisle and kept his rhetoric primarily for the gullible electorate, especially as he aged, mellowing down fast, but not fast enough to witness some beautiful dung droppings such as, "Is Ram a civil engineer?"<br />
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5) Mu Ka was also a man of masterful guile in converting pawns to queens on the political checkerboard. If being a No. 3 in CNA's Cabinet to sidelining Naavalar Nedunchezhian with MGR's help first and then planting himself firmly as the CM/Party President face was not enough evidence of this, realizing the gullibility of the electorate that only appreciated the face behind the versatile oratory (and not the playwright) in putting up a Mu Ka Muthu against MGR and when that attempt flopped miserably primarily due to the ineptness of Muthu, to totally removing MGR from the party when MGR demanded the election finances for the 1971 hustings be audited was one too many for even the Frank Underwood's of Tamland.<br />
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6) The typical stick to beat Mu Ka is with the epithet bestowed on him by the MGR-demanded Indira-instituted Sarkaria Commission (a different one) report: "the man who institutionalized scientific corruption in Tamil Nadu politics" (not a paraphrase from the report, but the tenor of it). But a more realistic assessment of him is more of a man who institutionalized family politics in Tamil Nadu. All others from that era have mostly fallen wayside except his family. The numerous episodes in which the DMK leadership were sidelined to ensure the pre-eminence of the Mu Ka family starting with the Maaran-Mu Ka tag-team to promote Mu Ka Muthu over MGR in the late 60s and early 70s, followed by the <i>vanvaas</i> as the Ram-loving Mu Ka called it (the 1977-1989 interregnum with three ADMK governments), and the early 90s' sidelining of folks such as VaiKo when he became too big for his boots in being more-Tamil-than-Tamil, or those actions that sidelined K. Anbazhagan, Arcot Veeraswami, and even the scions of the Maaran family and Azhagiri, all in favor of one Stalin.<br />
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7) As much as Mu Ka moved away from the literary Brahminical Tamil dialogue delivery that was common during the 40s with a more colloquial and mass understandable Tamil dialogues that could easily reach out to the vast majority of the people, one could also accuse him of failing to move with the times as his screenplays bombed in the 90s. While his 80s renditions such as "Paasapp paravaigal" and "Paalaivana rojakkal" were still reasonably connected to the audience, his final film screenplay for "Ponnar shankar" was one distasteful and badly mangled version of what would be a pre-eminent story of the Gounder community. As expected, the movie miserably bombed at the box office.<br />
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8) A lot has been written about Mu Ka not losing a single election from 1957 to his death. But not much has been said about the 1991 scraping in the Harbour constituency (an 890 vote win) coming as it did in the wake of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and the disrobing of JJ in the State Assembly by Durai Murugan. The other winner in that elections on behalf of DMK was Parithi Elamvazhuthi, someone who was tom-tommed to be one of the DMK greats that defied a sympathy wave in the Egmore constituency in those days. But if one looks 25 years later, Parithi is spending his time in the ADMK vacillating between OPS and TTVD gangs/camps, further bolstering the credentials of Mu Ka for sidelining everyone in the party except Stalin. Stalin, by the way, lost in the Thousand Lights constituency to KA Krishnaswamy (a family member of KA Mathiazhagan, one of the Five Founders or Aimberum Thalaivargal when CNA left DK to form DMK).<br />
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9) The other less talked about event is his skipping of the 1984 Assembly elections when he more or less knew that he would be ousted in the aftermath of the sympathy wave following Indira Gandhi's assassination, MGR's reasonably ok governance from 1980-84 despite his kidney failure, the sympathy in Tamland for MGR and the beaming videos from Brooklyn, as well as the charisma of Rajiv Gandhi. In some sense, Mu Ka had a good premonition of the whacking the DMK alliance would take in the polls (195/234 won by ADMK) and quite easily skipped the elections. MK Stalin had again lost to KAK in the same Thousand Lights constituency in 1984 also (in what was his debut fight at the Assembly level).<br />
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10) All this said, Tamland's pre-/post-independence electoral period can be neatly delineated into three or four eras depending on one's biases.<br />
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The first era from approximately 1940 to the mid-60s witnessed populist Congress governments carrying over from Gandhi's messages, with often incorruptible and clean leaders, only mightily burdened by their philosophical and ideological inclinations as they came from elitist Brahmin/forward caste/well-to-do families. Even the Opposition in this era could not find corruption or personal animosity against the likes of T. Prakasam, Ramasami Reddiar, Kumarasami Raja, Bhaktavatsalam, Rajaji and Kamaraj. In fact, the handing over of the baton from Rajaji to Kamaraj took the sting out of the likes of EV Periyar quite quickly.<br />
<br />
The second era began a bit earlier in the mid-50s and continued through the mid-70s with the rise and popularity of the Justice Party/DK, social reform, anti-Hindi agitations, a transformation from a "vengaayam/kattumiraandi" religious/linguistic depictions to one of "ondre kulam, oruvane devan", and the rise of film icons such as Sivaji and then MGR to prop up the DMK to power. A lot has been written about whether the 1967 win of the DMK could be attributed to the shooting of MGR by MR Radha, but most likely even if this event had not happened, the social/linguistic churn would have meant a rise of the DMK at some point in this period.<br />
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The mid-70s to mid-2010s (a really long period) is basically the era of bipolar disorder in Tamland (pardon the pun) from sun-rise to son-rise, the demise of ideology and the natural reversion to the mean in the form of compromises, nepotism, money-making/corruption and caste re-affirmations in the form of petty and fissiparous outfits such as PMK, VCK, PT, DMDK, MDMK, IUML, etc., support for pan-Tamil causes across the globe with no heed to Tamil causes and issues in the state (e.g., VaiKo), and basically vindictiveness and melodrama that has often no parallels anywhere else in India (perhaps!). This is the period that completely drove away any space for nationalist/reasonable parties in Tamland, much to their own detriment, but perhaps reaffirming faith in the idea of India (in contrast to what the current Opposition dispensation would have you believe in) that one can start with a demand for a <i>Dravida Naadu </i>and end up with a demand for a<i> Bharat Ratna </i>instead!<i> </i>But then Periyar is in a thidal, Anna in a samaadhi, MGR in a mani-mandapam, may be that explains the trajectory that is Tamland, perhaps!!<br />
<br />
With the passing away of both JJ and Mu Ka, we have a giant vaccum that cannot be filled in by the likes of the 4-5 percenters (aka Vijayakanth, Ramadoss, VaiKo, Thirumaa, etc.). Nor can they be filled by the likes of PC and the essential jokers in Satyamurti Bhavan. Completely out of picture are the nationalists in Kamalalayam. Just because that name sounds similar to Arivalayam or Anbagam, the BJP cannot overnight replace the Dravidian front with its own agenda. In fact, what is the agenda of BJP in Tamland, one wonders. May be nothing and that is not too bad in a way! This vacuum that corresponds to the fourth era sees the likes of Rajnikanth and Kamalahassan trying to wade into.<br />
<br />
In fact, I did witness a surreal event before Vishwaroopam-II that was played out in the movie hall in the US --- an in-your-face petty propaganda clip for Kamal's party, MNM. Gone are the days when subtlety used to be an art-form with phrases such as "Anna, nee naalai aaluvaai" to "thalaivare" or movie titles such as "Kaanchi Thalaivan", or even Rajnikanth's quasi-political dialogues couched as real movie dialogues in such movies as Padaiyappa and Bhaasha. This in-your-face propaganda and the distancing of the party name itself by calling it a <i>Maiyyam </i>or <i>Maiam </i>(however that is written in English), instead of a <i>Kazhagam </i>or a <i>Katchi</i> (loosely translated as either an Organization, a Grouping, or a Party) + a more South-centric focus rather than a Tamland-centric focus (not quite sure what exactly would come out of it though) just stands quite opposite to what used to be <i>status quo</i>. Not much good is likely to come out of such ventures, especially if one has to see Vishwaroopam-II as the first-post MNM movie to showcase a new-Kamal, if there really was one who indeed needed a rebranding.<br />
<br />
The continuing strong anti-Shaivite stand in some form or the other starting with Anbe Shivam and continuing through Dasavatharam and now Vishwaroopam + a world where all establishmentists speak a Brahminical Tamil (laughable even it were only a fraction true) + a confused stand on terrorism (with dialogues such as "religion does not cause terrorism, but people do" quite like the NRA's stand on gun violence) does not portend an intelligent yet unintelligible Kamal who is trolled by all and sundry. This is more of a <i>useless idiot</i> (in contrast to the <i>useful idiots</i>) wanting to be a do-gooder who is probably just the wrong pressure valve in a state filled with an enormity of confrontations, complications and confused histories.<br />
<br />
The other side sees Rajnikanth's political fantasy-world with an always ueber-correct hero now having to confront political quagmires where one does have to make a significant compromise, and can and does get trolled ceaselessly in such ventures. This front is also not likely to see a great future ahead even if it presents a mirror to the hypocrisy of the state and its erstwhile/current crop of self-declared leaders (unabashed anti-Brahminism/anti-Hinduism, but with the reality of someone who cannot skip a yellow shawl for decades + need to pull the plug on an Ekadesi and a quick burial on Dwadasi so that one can attain <i>saranagati </i>at the lotus feet of the same venerable God who one can veritably question as if one is a Nakkeeran-lite just because they have read Tamil well + a clamoring for a burial site despite having pretty much a good chunk of Madras in one's possessions + a corrupt regime that is tolerated and accepted as lawful/reasonable/forgivable, let alone a bigamy + countless other accusations). Primary reasons for Rajni's failure would be the strong pulls and conflicts that he has to handle + the unrealistic expectations that he has already projected (real or imaginary) + the poor health he will have to confront in building an organization from the ground up despite the presence of enough of his <i>rasikar mandrams</i> + a changing reality of a significantly aspiring middle-class where there is no unquestioned loyalty to anything ideological/to any person, even if reality seems otherwise, etc.<br />
<br />
With a similar age class as Modi and MK Stalin, these two film stars have probably 5-10 years (if at all!) of good/reasonably healthy life before all their vices start taking a real effect on their well-beings. This chasm is not likely to be filled by the different power centers in ADMK and its splinter-ist outfits corrupt as they are, nor is there an alternate hope when the reality of DMK's family-centric agenda comes up to the forefront. Whether such chasms get filled up by pro-leftist anarchist outfits that supposedly emancipate marginalized outfits or worse, pro-Tamil outfits with an axe-to-grind on every Tamil problem in this vast wide world, or whether they get pushed back by caste re-affirmation fronts, or whether there is a space for moderate yet nationalist forces would be an interesting problem to witness, if only one was an outsider peering in. For an insider peering out, these are bound to be eternally uncomfortable events where one lays low, watches the surreality of modern Tamland and its various actors get played out in real-life Big Boss type events, and possibly troll away to one's merriment!<br />
<br />
Sadly, we may not have to witness anyone asking for a plot near the <i>Cooum</i> in a long time to come! That may be the only comforting reality in the short while!!Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-53895937017045981162016-04-07T17:33:00.001-07:002016-04-07T17:33:17.222-07:00New paper draft on terror monitoringSometimes, a day can feel like a month. Sometimes, years can feel like pfff. And sometimes, decades cannot be felt :).<br />
<br />
In any case, it is time to announce the follow-up to my <a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2012/07/new-paper-draft-on-models-for-terrorist.html">prior work</a> on terrorism monitoring. <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.02051">Linky</a> to the paper for those who are interested.<br />
<br />
This is a long overdue work (as are most things in my life) on non-parametric approaches to terror monitoring. It builds on some reverse majorization theory to generate functionals for monitoring terror signatures. The good part of the deal is that the scheme is "practical," within the confines of keeping things real and simple. The bad part of the deal is it can be used for monitoring all things under the sun, and hence can be easily misused. The ugly part of the deal is whether it will ever be used, anywhere. But in any case, the job is done, well or not!Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-57951224740997824622016-02-17T11:15:00.000-08:002016-02-20T14:30:09.756-08:00Know your Nepalese leaders A placeholder for all kinds of influentials from Nepal... with more to follow over time. <br />
<br />
<b>Maoists camp aka <i>UCPN (Maoist), associates and splinterists </i></b><br />
1) Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda -- Chairman<br />
2) Narayan Kaji Shreshtha -- Vice Chairman <br />
3) Krishna Bahadur Mahara -- General Secretary<br />
4) Matrika Prasad Yadav -- Coordinator and also leads <i>United Madhes National Movement </i>(not to be confused with former PM, Matrika Prasad Koirala)<br />
5) Lila Mani Pokharel, Haribol Gajurel <br />
6) Futuristan (:P): Prakash Dahal (Son of Prachanda)<br />
<br />
7) Dr. Baburam Bhattarai -- Ideologue and JNU graduate, formed a splinterist outfit <i>Naya Shakti</i>, to the right of UCPN(M)<br />
8) Hisila Yami-Bhattarai (Wife of Baburam Bhattarai)<br />
<br />
9) Mohan Baidya Pokharel 'Kiran' -- Formed a splinterist outfit named <i>Nepal Communist Party (Revolutionary)</i>, further to the left of UCPN(M)<br />
10) Ram Bahadur Thapa 'Badal' -- General Secretary<br />
11) C. P. Gajurel<br />
12) Dev Gurung -- Secretary <br />
<br />
13) Netra Bikram Chanda 'Biplav' -- Former a splinterist outfit called <i>Nepal Communist Party Maoist </i>out of UCPN(Maoists), further to the left of NCP(R)<br />
14) Kiran Ghimire<br />
15) Kamal Majhi<br />
16) Sabitri Dura<br />
17) Bil Bahadur Gurung<br />
18) Narayan Kunwar<br />
19) Bharat Bam <br />
<br />
<b>Congress camp aka <i>NC and associates </i> </b><br />
1) Sher Bahadur Deuba<br />
2) Ram Chandra Poudel -- Acting President<br />
3) Arjun Nara Singh KC<br />
4) Krishna Prasad Sitaula -- General Secretary<br />
5) Prakash Man Singh -- General Secretary<br />
6) Mahesh Acharya -- Member of Working Committee<br />
7) Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat -- Former Finance Minister<br />
8) Sujata Koirala -- Former Deputy PM and Former Foreign Minister, Daughter of Girija Prasad Koirala<br />
9) Shekhar Koirala (Son of Keshav Prasad Koirala and cousin of Sujata)<br />
10) Shashank Koirala (Son of Bisheshar Prasad Koirala and cousin of Sujata)<br />
11) Gopal Man Shrestha, Nabindra Raj Joshi -- Central Committee Members <br />
12) Futuristan: Gagan Thapa, Gururaj Ghimire, Pradeep Poudel<br />
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Sushil Koirala -- now deceased, Former NC President and Former PM<br />
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<b>Marxist-Leninist camp aka <i>CPN(ML) and associates </i></b><br />
1) Khadaga Prasad Sharma Oli -- incumbent PM<br />
2) Subas Nembang -- Deputy Leader of Party<br />
3) Kamal Thapa -- Chairman of <i>Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (Nepal)</i>, Deputy PM, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Local Development <br />
4) Bijaya Kumar Gachhedhar -- Chairman of <i>Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (Loktantrik)</i>, Deputy PM and only Madhesi in the current government<br />
5) C. P. Mainali -- Deputy PM, Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare<br />
6) Bhim Rawal -- Deputy PM, Defense Minister<br />
7) Chitra Bahadur K. C. -- Deputy PM, Minister for Poverty Alleviation, Chairman of Rashtriya Janmorcha Nepal <br />
<br />
8) Bishnu Poudel -- Finance Minister<br />
9) Bishnu Rimal -- Chief Political Advisor of KP Sharma Oli<br />
10) Radhika Shakya -- Wife of KP Sharma Oli<br />
11) Sher Dhan Rai -- Minister for Information and Communication and Official Nepal government spokesperson<br />
12) Devendra Karki -- Minister of Physical Infrastructure<br />
13) Top Bahadur Rayamaji -- Minister for Energy<br />
14) Shakti Basnet -- Home Minister<br />
<br />
15) Jhalanath Khanal -- Former PM of Nepal<br />
16) Madhav Kumar Nepal -- Former PM of Nepal<br />
17) Khil Raj Regmi<br />
18) Mohan Shrestha -- Aide of Kamal Thapa<br />
19) Narayan Man Bijukche Rohit -- Chairman of <i>Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party (Nepal) </i><br />
20) Ananda Prasad Pokharel -- Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation<br />
21) Agni Sapkota -- Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation<br />
22) Satya Narayan Mandal -- Minister for Youth and Sports<br />
23) Shankar Pokharel -- Standing Committee Member<br />
24) Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal -- Party Whip<br />
25) Rajan Bhattarai<br />
26) Futuristan: Yogesh Bhattarai, Rajan Karki<br />
<br />
<b>Madhesi camp, associates and splinterists </b><br />
1) <i>Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (Loktantrik) </i>-- Bijaya Kumar Gachhedhar (Chairman, Deputy PM and only Madhesi in the current government), Jitendra Dev<br />
2) <i>Sadhbhavana Party</i>, part of the <i>Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha</i> -- Rajendra Mahato (Chairman), Laxman Lal Karna (Co-chairman)<br />
3) <i>Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party</i>, part of SLMM -- Mahantha Thakur (Chairman), Mahendra Rai Yadav (Co-chairman), Hridayesh Tripathi (Vice-chairman), Mahendra Sonal<br />
4) <i>Tarai Madhes Sadhbhavana Party </i>-- Ramnaresh Rai Yadav<br />
5) <i>Federal Socialist Forum (Nepal) aka Sanghiya Samajwadi Forum Nepal</i>, part of SLMM -- Upendra Yadav (Chairman), Rajendra Shreshtha (Vice-chairman), Pradip Yadav<br />
6) <i>Rashtriya Madhes Samajwadi Party</i> -- Satat Singh Bhandari (Chairman)<br />
7) <i>Federal Sadbhavana Party</i> -- Anil Kumar Jha (Chairman) <br />
8) <i>Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (Republican)</i> -- Raj Kishore Yadav (Chairman)<br />
9) Jay Prakash Gupta -- Head of Federal Inclusive Alliance<br />
10) Jai Krishna Goit<br />
11) C. K. Raut -- supports secession of Madhes<br />
<br />
<b>Assorted set of people </b><br />
1) Bidya Devi Bhandari -- President of Nepal<br />
2) Nanda Bahadur Kishore Pun -- Vice President of Nepal<br />
3) Deep Kumar Upadhyay -- Ambassador to India<br />
4) Tirtha Wagley -- Counselor at Nepal's embassy in New Delhi<br />
5) Rajendra Chhetri -- Army Chief<br />
6) Tulasi Dangi -- Personal Joint Secretary of VP Pun<br />
<br />
7) Ranjit Rae -- Current Ambassador of India to Nepal<br />
8) Jayant Prasad, Rakesh Sood -- Former Ambassador of India to Nepal<br />
9) Arun Kumar Sinha, Akhilesh Misra, Abhay Thakur<br />
<br />
10) Wang Yi -- Foreign Minister of China<br />
11) Wu Chuntai -- Ambassador of China to Nepal<br />
12) Chang Fang -- Deputy Minister for International Affairs of China<br />
<br />
13) Laxman Tharu and Lahu Ram Tharu -- Part of the <i>Tharuhat/Tharuwan Joint Struggle Committee </i>for the formation of a Tharu state in Nepal<br />
14) Ramesh Nath Pandey -- Former Foreign Minister<br />
<br />
<b>Journalists, Litterateurs, Activists and Others </b><br />
1) Rishi Dhamala -- Journalist<br />
2) Basant Basnet<br />
3) Prashant Jha<br />
4) Subina Shreshtha<br />
5) Kanak Mani Dixit<br />
<br />
6) Manjushree Thapa -- Writer<br />
7) Khagendra Sangraula<br />
8) C. K. Lal<br />
9) Kishore Nepal<br />
<br />
10) Subin Mulmi -- Activist<br />
11) Anubhav Ajeet<br />
<br />
12) Prashant Tamang -- Winner of Indian Idol Season 3<br />
<br />
<b>Monarchists, pseudo-monarchists and the like </b><br />
1) Gyanendra Shah -- Former King<br />
2) Sagar Timilsena -- Personal Aide of Gyanendra<br />
3) Paras Shah and Himani Shah -- Son and Daughter-in-Law<br />
4) Devyani Rana (Daughter of Usha Raje Scindia and purported bride of Dipendra before his killing spree)<br />
5) Kunwar Aishwarya Singh (Spouse of Devyani Rana and grandson of Arjun Singh)<br />
6) Karan Singh (Son of Hari Singh of J&K and spouse of Yashodhara Rajya Lakshmi, granddaughter of Mohan Shumsher Jang Bahadur Rana)<br />
<br />
7) <i>Rashtriya Prajatantra Party</i> -- Kamal Thapa (Chairman), Lokendra Bahadur Chand (Co-chairman), Buddhiman Tamang (General Secretary), Rajeev Parajuli (Vice President), Prakash Chandra Lohani <br />
<br />
<b>Track 2 people aka "intellectuals" </b><br />
1) Sukh Dev/Deo Muni -- From JNU and purported mentor of Baburam Bhattarai<br />
2) Sridhar Khatri<br />
3) Ananda Swarup Verma<br />
4) Nishchal Nath Pandey<br />
5) Kul Chandra Gautam -- Former UN Representative<br />
6) Dinesh Bhattarai -- Former Ambassador of Nepal to India<br />
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7) Ram Madhav -- BJP General Secretary</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<b>Eminent Persons Group (reviews the 1950 treaty among other tasks) </b><br />
1) Bhekh Bahadur Thapa -- Former Foreign Minister, also a royalist<br />
2) Rajan Bhattarai<br />
3) Surya Nath Upadhyaya -- Former Chief of CIAA<br />
4) Nilamber Acharya<br />
<br />
5) Bharat Singh Koshyari -- BJP Vice President<br />
6) Mahendra Lama<br />
7) Jayant Prasad -- Former Ambassador of India to Nepal<br />
8) B. C. Upreti<br />
<br />
<b>Blast from the past </b><br />
1) Former PMs -- Manmohan Adhikari, Kirti Nidhi Bista, Girija Prasad Koirala, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Surya Bahadur Thapa<br />
2) Former Kings -- Prithvi Narayan Shah (first King), Mahendra, Birendra, Dipendra (committed suicide), Gyanendra<br />
<br />
And here is an older version: <a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2010/07/nepal-update-july-2-2010.html#links">India, its peoples and its neighbors: Nepal update (July 2, 2010)</a>Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-41713809164812532132016-02-10T07:26:00.001-08:002016-02-10T14:05:59.981-08:00Nepal update <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1455045234414_88033" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; padding: 0px;">
Sorry for the long absence, but life is a-churning, as is Nepal.... Please excuse the lack of complete sentences aka social media-type rambling. Take it for what its worth... </div>
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... the passing away of SuKo aka Sushil Koirala (the vanguard of the Koirala dynasty) has opened the flood gates of a rapprochement... of sorts.... Seems like the IB had intel on his impending demise. Plus the fact that the UDMF was splitting away and folks like Rajendra Mahato of the Sadhbhavana party were saying "get the hell out" to the threesome in UDMF (that is, Mahendra Thakur, Upendra Yadav and Mahendra Raya Yadav). Looks like despite the blockade, illegal trade/smuggling was going on (which would always be the case --- happens anywhere there is a border crossing) and Rajendra Mahato might have been pissed or not making enough cash relative to the threesome. So Rajendra babu loosened his hold of Birgunj and he was the one holding the forte at the Birgunj-Raxaul border crossing (70% of Indian imports go through this route, not Biratnagar, not Sunauli, definitely not Nepalgunj, not nothing)... </div>
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So the Indians/IB must have been seeing all this tamasha and forced the UDMF to call off the blockade... And of course nothing moves in the Raxaul-Birgunj sector without the South Block saying ok... This is reality, however one would like to deny it. </div>
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So here is my story, rumor-mill sourced or otherwise... SuKo bulldozed through a Constitution as a mission that cannot wait for the next hour, let alone tomorrow... Why I dont know... Was it the fact that he knew of his near/impending-death... wanting to be the Messiah of a new Nepal, a republican Nepal, a 21st century Nepal?... No idea, but this tamasha was easily bought in by the CPN(ML) and CPN(M) cabal... Was it just a case of entrenched Pahadi elites holding forte for eternity?.. I dont know... but does not smell right to me... </div>
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But there was/is a vertical divide inside the CPN(M) camp.. with the ideologicals (aka useful idiots) led by Baburam Bhattarai saying, "what, what, why so urgent?".. and the Prachanda gang sitting opposite to the ideologicals.. There was already a split with the now not-so-healthy Mohan Baidya Kiran camp going wolf on "People's war is not over yet, we need to torch more buses, torch more thanas, recruit more thugs, fight more battles, till then laal salaam, laal salaam"... Now that Baburam-da has quit CPN(M) and started his useless party of sorts (which had been long time coming btw), Prachanda and MBK are making up... They will make up given that MBK is nearing his saranagati days and he needs the army of Prachanda cabal to sing along, lest he be consigned to the trashcan of history... Prachanda too needs MBK to shore up his wing as the real CPN(M) given that Guru Dronacharya is out of the ranch now :))... </div>
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But still... how did CPN(ML) and CPN(M) buy this SuKo drama all along?.. This is something I dont see a good answer to.. its not just the anti-Indian of sorts, Jhalanath Khanal, but also the old aspiring PM-lot (aka Madhav Kumar Nepal) and that dreg who is the PM now, KP Sharma Oli... All were seeking bread crumbs??.. Makes little sense... the Indians/IB/South block/MEA/foreign office seem to have been caught up in surprise given the quick movement of things... and the quick sabaash-waa-rewa (1-2-3) from the Chinese, the Americans and the Pakistanis meant that Indians said "Start the moosik, pronto." Of course, the Nepali establishment had to retort with "We will seek the warmth and embrace of our birathers up north," but even an IQ-deficient person knows that this is just claptrap. The Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Dhivehis do this too, but in the case of Nepalese, it is utter claptrap. China cannot supply beyond a certain point to Nepal and only the poor will suffer (as it is the case now). Even the Nepali establishment (visceral in its hatred of the Indian establishment is) knows it. All they want is for the Chinese to supply their party offices so that they are not using firewood to light up their offices, aamchi Gorkhali be damned. Anyway.... </div>
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One major thing was a few amendments were made to please the Madhesis.. the kicking of the bucket of SuKo + wanting a face saver + things quickly spiraling out of control and losing the face of not holding the border to ransom meant that Indians called things off at that stage... now people (aka Singha Durbarians) will forget the remaining Madhesi demand for re-drawing provinces... none will happen, yes you heard that right. If they did not happen for so long after 4 1/2 mths of crippling blockade, none will happen with 4 1/2 yrs of People's war... So we have 6 provinces now, or was that 7?.. I lost count already. Also, plus, the person who is going to run riot in NC now (Sher Bahadur Deuba - the other pole of the NC) does not want to split one of the provinces despite the Tharu demand or inspite of it. So status quo it is. Each province shares a border entrypoint with India (is that good or bad, even that Pashupathinath will not know!)... the Madhesis get their amendments... the Nepalese get their fuel and supplies.. India gets its face saving withdrawal... now does it mean that the Nepalese will go back to normal or will people remember this blockade for far longer?... Of course, time will tell... but most likely people will remember.. they remember the 1990 blockade.. Why wont they remember this given its so immediate pain?... This is also a yug where every dog and his uncle needs to have an opinion, so yes, the blockade stings/stang/whatever. </div>
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Now what can they do if they remember?.. Nothing... Nepal is landlocked, period... You can euphemistically call it any way you want, go to the UN or even a bigger body, sing dongfang hong or pak sar zameen, but that is what it is.. But did it (the blockade) help for India?.. Probably not... So I am confused... What is the grand strategy to all these tactics?.. What am I missing?.. It is idiotic to assume that the South Block decided to blockade because they woke up on the wrong side of the bed one fine day... South Block is legendary in its deep elephantine memory and things do not move up quickly unless they are serious, important and worse, painful. </div>
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Did the SuKo Messiah mission ruin a carefully built decade of work, albeit moving at a glacial pace??.. the Constitution work was going on from 2004 since the 8-point agreement was signed. There was one 6 year mis-rule of CPN(M) followed by another elections (which was long time coming when I was waiting for that) and Constitution writing was going nowhere... and within a few days/weeks they promulgated one.. Even for miracles, its weird... how.. what.. wtf.. This is exactly what must have happened at South Block... So here are a few questions that make no sense (at least to me) now: </div>
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1) How did the Constitution come up overnight? </div>
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2) Who orchestrated it?</div>
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3) How did all the three parties buy into it? How did the greasing/convincing happen? </div>
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4) Why did the Indians get surprised? </div>
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5) Why did they blockade? </div>
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6) What do they want as a face saver? </div>
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7) Did they get one? </div>
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8) If so, is all well now? </div>
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9) If not, what can be done? </div>
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10) What is being to address the colossal intel failure that was? </div>
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Here are more questions that can be asked, but wont be: </div>
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1) Did the INC ruin the India-Nepal relationship by cosying up with the Pahadi elites for so long, across party affiliation? </div>
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2) Is the change from embracing the Pahadi elites and ignoring the Madhesis for so long get a U-turn with the arrival of Modi? All this roti-beti tamasha make no sense with the Pahadis, it started with Modi. Innit?! </div>
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3) Why did India let the mudslinging at the "Indian-origin" Madhesi take traction when the Madhesis are Nepalis? </div>
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4) Are we preparing for a demographic shift in favor of the Madhesis? </div>
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5) Are we seeing a Pahadi (which is euphemism for the upper class partisans of the Brahmin-Kshatriya varna) vs. Madhesi (which is euphemism for OBC/more comfortable in Hindi than Nepali) fistfight in the name of something else? Or is this a regular fight of the entrenched vs. usurpers? How much of this is caste, class and status? </div>
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6) All policies get the imprint of the man in-charge, but does the current change in policy have an imprint from Nagpur? </div>
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Of course, remote controlling happens across party-lines and not that one can do much if Nagpur does frame policies. But one is indeed curious as to if there is a grand strategy and if so, have all things been considered properly? </div>
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In general, I am more confused with time than not... </div>
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Did that non-partisan line-up (of Anand Sharma, Sitaram Yechuri, Sharad Yadav, Sushma Swaraj + Ajit Doval) cremate a SuKo type Messianic effort for good?? Did it?? I will always doubt such certitudes... Will KP Sharma Oli stop barking at the wrong tree now? While the Burnol will take a few days/months to heal, I dont expect the visceral garbage to go down any time soon. Nepal establishment is not a bosom friend of the Indian establishment, period. It never was, it never will be, and one should not even expect anything close to that. Period... </div>
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So what is our strategy now? How exactly is a strategy supposed to be defined? What are the parameters, what are the contours of the optimization? "Do nothing" is loser-talk and I dont buy grand visions and strategies hinged on inaction ... So what exactly is going on in Nepal?! </div>
Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-10924277034182605062015-09-12T16:13:00.002-07:002015-09-15T12:18:45.175-07:00Impressions from watching Leander's 17th Major win<div dir="ltr" id="yiv7440458635yui_3_16_0_1_1441921961254_39444" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
We went to the US open yesterday and watched Leander and Martina win the US open mixed doubles title. This was Leander's 17th win in a doubles event at Grand Slam events. Some of my observations from yesterday. </div>
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1) The best access to Flushing Meadows from Central Jersey is to get to NY Penn and then take the Long Island Railroad to the Mets-Willets station and walk from there. It is worth buying the LIRR tickets from a ticketing station (one has to stand in the queue to do this as the stations dont automatically show Mets-Willets) than to buy it in the train (a steal usually of $6 per ticket). The alternate possibility of taking MTA-7 subway from Times Sq and 42nd Street (or elsewhere) is not the best access from NY Penn. Plus, MTA subways while cheaper than LIRR ($2.75 vs $6) end up being less cleaner, longer with more stops (but more frequent at less than a 30 min wait) and more crowded. </div>
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2) Before the mixed doubles event began, there was an ongoing women's doubles semi-final match. This match ended up being a close call, but a good chunk of the people (including us) were egging on the match to finish up faster. That was because of the coming Leander-Martina match-up. </div>
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3) The mixed doubles' final was initially scheduled for the much bigger Arthur Ashe stadium, and as luck would have it, got pushed to the much smaller Louis Armstrong* stadium. Unlike AA, a good view of everything (including the grunts, the moans, the whines, the screams and the chest thumps when they do happen) can be had from even the far corners of LA. We sat 3-4 rows behind the reserved seating area (which in itself is pretty small), so that gave us a pretty darn good view of Leander and Martina as well as Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sam Querrey (the runner-up).<br />
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4) While Bethanie and Sam are Americans, and the match itself was on 9/11, the Indian/Indian-American crowd was far more behind Leander. For every "Go Bethanie" or "Go Sam" crowing, a "Go Paes", "Go Leander", "Go Martina" cry crowded it out. While noone was disrespectful of/to the Americans, surely the Indian crowd was behind Leander. Why not? After all, Leander has been the most nationalist** of all tennis players ever seen on the Indian circuit, far more than anyone else I have ever seen or watched or read about.<br />
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5) Leander is really old, at 43. And it shows. Every serve of his is accompanied with grunts leaving everyone with a sad reminder that age catches up with everyone, even good people. Leander's super-quick reflexes are all but a distant past. He actually made a number of errors going the opposite way of the ball many times (I counted 4), calling balls that were in long (2-3 times), and catching the net on a weak second serve a few times. This is not the Leander I have seen before, nor the one I expected to see. (That amazing acrobatic 6-3, 4-0 lead against Agassi in the 1996 US open seems a distant past.) His still decent serves took him to hold the game many times here though and therein lies the rub.<br />
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6) But it was Martina's day and she kept it going. She took a majority of the return serves (inspired or conspired). The number of points Leander pulled out could have been counted, no disrespect that. But when it mattered the most, at 7-all in the match tie-break, he pulled a clutch shot on the line. With 2 serves to close out the match, and after one "dam lagaa ke aisha" (yes, it happened), we had a winner. Martina and Leander had closed out the match 6-4, 3-6, [10-7].<br />
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7) That brings us to the scoring system. The USTA uses one of the most non-puritanical scoring systems in doubles events. At deuce, the first point winner wins the game (the no-Ad rule). If it is 1-set-all, the system moves to a "first to win 10 points with a 2 point gap" tie-break scoring scheme (the super tie-break rule). These belong to the class of innovations introduced by the Hall of Fame founder, James van Alen, primarily with TV scheduling in mind. Unlike the other three majors as well as Davis/Fed/Hopman Cups that employ a tie-breaker only in the non-final sets and an Advantage set (remember the Isner-Mahut scoreline of 70-68 in Wimbledon 2010) in the final set, the USTA prefers a tie-break set in all the five/three sets of men's/women's events. In the mixed doubles, pushed by an aggressive TV schedule, only the Wimbledon runs the best of three set event with the other three following a super tie-break. However one debates it, a super tie-break is a super cop-out, as is a no-Ad rule. If I am paying to see the match, I would rather have a fighting game bringing me value for the cash I am spending than a quick cop-out, esp. if I have a good view of the match. Why not? If I am watching the game on the telly, I would rather have a quick game with who I like as the winner. These two benchmarks are potentially conflicting and the USTA in its grand wisdom of who brings the most profits for them has decided on optimizing over one goal than the other. While this is always the reality with anyone, it is worth noting that.<br />
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8) All that said, of all the 4 players speaking after the match was over, Leander was the most gracious. He was gracious to Martina, Bethanie as well as Sam (with whom he played in the World Team Tennis event). He was the most jovial and most articulate. And at the World Team event, he had given hints to Sam on playing doubles. While Leander did not give explicit credit to his horde of "Indian" supporters, that is understandable in this time of having to wear an American flag on one's lapels or empathizing with one doing such raucous stuff even if that statement/act is undeserved and unnecessarily in-your-face. After all, either one is with Americans or against them with no middle ground in place and life is all black or white (did not MJ say that?).<br />
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9) On the other hand, Bethanie and Sam had put up a team like 30 minutes before the sign-up deadline for the mixed doubles event. That speaks volumes on how disorganized this whole doubles scene is and how "easy" it is to come up trumps relative to the singles scene. Leander and Martina were richer by $150k, and compare that with the women's singles winner Flavia Pennetta's paycheck ($3.3 million). So Leander's take home of $75k, after due diligence to Uncle Sam and his set of trainers/coaches/physios and travel budget, etc. etc., comes to around $25k (for two weeks of hard work). Surely, singles is a more physical game, but the 40 times mark-up is deserved? For pure interesting-ness, doubles games are far more capable candidates than the walkovers we saw in the men's singles scene (an injured Cilic winning three games against Djokovic, or another cakewalk by Stan Wawrinka against Federer). That also explains why Leander is still playing at 43. In addition to his interest in the game, he has a grave need to win more events to retire peacefully and in economic safety. Whatever the case is, it makes for a sad little side story on prize money. And all that equal prize money etc. etc. is perhaps only for singles events, one assumes. Looking at the official prize money list (see pic below) shows how skewed this whole charade really is.<br />
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10) In any case, after the match was over, Leander went around the stadium (small as it is) twice to sign autographs on any damn thing (cap, ball, t-shirt, paper, anything). I must have seen him up close for a long enough time to see no airs, the banter and all. Sad that I forgot to wish him good luck to get India into the world group stage at the Davis Cup in a week's time. He needs all the luck, as does India given that the Czech Republic (even minus Tomas Berdych) are a strong team. But the match-up is in Delhi and all seedings calculations are off. As far as the Indian crowd that missed the Davis Cup thing entirely, I dont know what to make of the brave "Go Leanders".<br />
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11) This win makes Leander a winner of three major mixed doubles event this year barring the French, where he and Martina lost in the second round. At age 43, winning 3 on 4 is not just great, it makes for some fun scenes where you make up a majority of your team age (43/78). That said, the last time Leander won at Flushing was in 2013, when he and Radek Stepanek (who will be in Delhi the coming week) stopped the Bryan-Slam (another time when the Queens' crowd was as maddening as it was yesterday waiting, hoping and praying -- mostly braying -- for the Serena Slam). The guilt of a prior racist history that runs amok at the neo-liberal USTA is hard to miss as well as the in-your-face patriotism (wanting minority singers rendition 'America the Beautiful' or 'God Bless America' and illustrating the melting pot that it would nt be otherwise), what with James Blake getting a serious round of applause when he came on the jumbotron at AA later in the evening. Surely, some of that guilt could be fired at the mistrial in Alabama, or better yet, to actually help the African-Americans get ahead in life without institutional blocks rather than do lip service to them by honoring Arthur Ashe, Louis Armstrong, Serena Williams, etc.<br />
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* I really never understood why the LA stadium was named after Louis Armstrong. Sure, LA was a great jazz figure (perhaps the greatest) and he lived right next to the NTC, but other than that, what are his connections to tennis? If this is meant to appease the predominant African-American residents of Queens, well, that is a point worth noting.<br />
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** I dont know how long Leander will play, but having watched him from 1989 or so, from his winning the Junior Wimbledon in 1990 to slaying the French at the Frejus clay in 1993 (aye-aye sir to the Ramesh Krishnan ambling to win the 2 games on the 4th day to finish the miracle against who was that Rodolphe Gilbert) to the Indian Express thing that was still-born to the assorted set of partners from a Martina he idolized to a Martina who was named after her to having the sort of respect on the Tour that he is seen as a good bloke to be with, and to actually have nice words from everyone else except the touring club of Indians (ouch!), it will be sad to see him go, whenever that is. Sure, there will be Grounds Admission next year on, and I hope to catch him still, again, hopefully winning more major events. Yea, sure, Leander is no saint, no god, no vodka, no turn-on that you get when you finish up that badass paper, but he sure will always be the most Indian of Indian tennis players on the circuit. That gets him something more than the bronze he won at Atlanta beating who was that Fernando Meligeni. And that something does nt come from wearing your two-bit Stars and Stripes on your lapel, but comes with knowing and acknowledging that you are neither with them nor against them. After all, Galatians 6:7 rescues us all, amen to that.<br />
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Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-66272560802499476502015-08-27T11:08:00.001-07:002015-08-27T11:17:14.406-07:002011 religion census and comparisons with 2001<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I broke down the data into 35 States and Union Territories (AP and Telengana treated as one state as was the case in 2011) to parse the trends in each State/UT separately between 2001 census and 2011 census. All numbers in the above table are percentages of each religious denomination in the State/UT's population.<br />
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<b><u>Main conclusions: </u></b><br />
1) Most states appear to have reasonably stable religion figures, modulo small fertility differentials between Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and Muslims.<br />
2) Two major states (Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh) saw the Hindu percentage drop below 80% for the first time, even though Buddhists' numbers have been historically high in Maharashtra courtesy of Ambedkar. It is indeed surprising that the land of Mayawati has barely any Buddhist numbers.<br />
3) Kerala, Assam, West Bengal and Jharkhand seem to be slowly in the path of religion-driven turmoil of an existentialist kind that comes with instability and differentials across religions.<br />
4) Goa appears to have stabilized due to constant migration from Maharashtra.<br />
5) Northeastern states are a seething cauldron of changing affinities, often quite dramatically as in the case of Arunachal Pradesh. Almost always, Hindus appear to be losing out to Christianity. This does not lead to any form of transactional stability and soon Arunachal Pr. could have its own religion-driven terrorist outfit apart from NSCN(K).<br />
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6) Evangelical money networks could only keep the Christian numbers stable in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Maharashtra, it could not prop these numbers up dramatically. One could argue that the very fact that their numbers have held stable is because of the moneys pumped in. In any case, someone who is pumping the cash from foreign shores has to wonder about the value for his/her money.<br />
7) Modulo conversions to Christianity, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Christians are decimating themselves proportionately via family planning.<br />
8) Bangladeshi immigration seems to have had a major impact on Assam alone, but not on West Bengal or Tripura like I would have expected. Either this must mean that the West Bengali Muslims do not enjoy a fertility differential that their counterparts elsewhere in the country do not enjoy (more unlikely) or that West Bengal must be seeing Bangladeshi Hindu immigration in proportionate numbers to compensate for the fertility differential.<br />
9) The rise of tribal affinities in Chattisgarh is probably a direct effect of the Maoist menace.<br />
10) Of course, all of this is based on gross numbers and not based on localized data. So the reality could be far different on a microscopic scale, across districts and tehsils.<br />
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<b><u>Approximately stable states in terms of religious figures modulo small religion-based fertility differentials </u></b><br />
1) Andaman & Nicobar Islands<br />
2) Bihar<br />
3) Dadra and Nagar Haveli, 1.2% Christians down, 1.2% Muslims up<br />
4) Daman & Diu, 1.2% Christians down, 1.2% Hindus up<br />
5) Delhi, 0.5% Hindus down, 0.5% Sikhs down, 1% Muslims up<br />
6) Goa, 0.4% Hindus up, 1.5% Muslims up, 1.6% Christians down<br />
7) Gujarat<br />
8) Haryana, 0.7% Hindus down, 0.5% Sikhs down, 1.2% Muslims up<br />
9) Himachal Pradesh<br />
10) Jammu & Kashmir, 1.2% Hindus down, 1.3% Muslims up<br />
11) Jharkhand, 0.7% Hindus down, 0.7% Muslims up, small changes from tribal affinities to Christianity<br />
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12) Karnataka, 0.5% Buddhists down, 0.5% Muslims up<br />
13) Lakshadweep, 1% Hindus down, 1% Muslims up, small base<br />
14) Madhya Pradesh<br />
15) Maharashtra, 0.5% Hindus down to less than 80%, 0.5% down from Christians, Buddhists and Jains put together, 1% Muslims up<br />
16) Orissa<br />
17) Pondicherry<br />
18) Rajasthan, 0.6% Muslims up, 0,45% Sikhs and Jains down<br />
19) Tamil Nadu<br />
20) Uttar Pradesh, 0.8% Hindus down to fall below 80%, 0.7% Muslims up<br />
21) Uttarakhand, 2% Hindus down, 2% Muslims up<br />
22) West Bengal, 2% Hindus down, 1.7% Muslims up<br />
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<b><u>Unstable/Outlier regions: Part I </u></b><br />
1) Assam, 3.5% Hindus down, 3.5% Muslims up -- most likely due to Hindu-Muslim differential and Bangladeshi immigration<br />
2) Chandigarh, 3% Sikhs down, 2% Hindus up, 1% Muslims up -- Hindu-Muslim vs. Sikh fertility differential<br />
3) Kerala, 1.5% Hindus down, 0.9% Christians up, 0.6% Muslims up -- Christian-Muslim vs. Hindu fertility differential<br />
4) Punjab, 1.5% Hindus up, 2.2% Sikhs down -- Hindu vs. Sikh fertility differential<br />
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<b><u>Unstable/Outlier regions: Part II </u></b><br />
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1) Arunachal Pradesh, 4.5% Sanamahi down, 5.5% Hindus down, 1.5% Buddhists down, 11.5% Christians up </div>
2) Chattisgarh, 1.5% Hindus down, 1.5% tribal affinities up -- probably propped by the Maoists<br />
3) Manipur, 4.5% Hindus down, 2.5% Others down, 7% Christians up<br />
4) Meghalaya, 1.7% Hindus down, 2.8% Others down, 4.5% Christians up<br />
5) Mizoram, 0.75% Hindus down, 0.5% Buddhists up<br />
6) Nagaland, 1% Hindus up, 0.7% Muslims up, 2% Christians down<br />
7) Sikkim, 3.1% Hindus down, 3.2% Christians up, 0.7% Buddhists down<br />
8) Tripura, 2.2% Hindus down, 1% Christians up, 0.3% Buddhists up, 0.6% Muslims upPax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-41576279421976653942015-07-06T06:40:00.001-07:002015-07-06T06:40:37.748-07:00Reflections from the hockey field Now that the Hockey World League semi-finals have concluded at Antwerp, it is time for some reflections and stock-taking.<br />
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1) The initial Indian men's practice matches saw a 1-0 win against France, a 1-2 loss against Belgium, a 4-0 win against the US and a 2-1 win against England. Most teams take these matches kinda easy and reserve it primarily to fine-tune certain set-pieces without revealing too much about themselves, learning as much about the opposition, and getting a hang of the bounce in the field and other shenanigans of the umpires. Thus, while they reflect very little about the overall state-of-affairs of each team, they do provide general indications about the trajectories of different teams. Setting up four practice matches before the main event also speaks immense proportions about the HI administrative machinery, a congratulatory note deserved to them given the ramshackle nonsense one has witnessed in the bygone era. The Indian team actually arrived ten days before the event (surprise), and an Indian umpire ran the ground in many matches, surprise surprise.<br />
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2) Anyway, from these score-lines, it augurs well that we have caught up with the English a bit (to whom we lost in the ill-fated Santiago qualification match for the 2008 Olympics as well as later in the 3rd place playoff), while we have fallen beside Belgium a bit. But it must also be pointed out that much of the "spectacular" (ably assisted snidely by the Euro-centric FIH) English climb in the 2005-10 period was built on the backs of people such as Barry Middleton, Ashley Jackson and Simon Mantell. While an official Project India was going on at FIH, an unofficial Project "Heil Europe/the white man" has been in the works over the last four decades, with a lot of backroom parleying in terms of voting/rule changes/policy changes to suit the European teams primarily. Similarly, much of the Belgian climb has been on the back of people such as Tom Boon (the costliest flop in the HIL that concluded earlier in the year) and Florent van Aubel. While it can be argued that every team climbs on the back of a few star players, it is more so the case with European teams than is the case with India. Lone superstars in the Indian team annals is a bygone era, and therein lies the rub, despite humongous noise made about the case of Sardara Singh and his lonely presence in the best-11 team of many a year. To break the Indian team and its rhythm, in general, one needs to see many injuries, like in this event.<br />
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3) The performance of the Indian men's team at the event has not been abysmal, but has not been spectacular either. While one can discount for the fact that the pre-knock out matches were only useful for discarding the 5th team (4 out of 5 teams enter the quarterfinal stage), it could also be useful for steering an easier path to the finals. In that sense, a 3-2 win against France, a 2-2 draw against Pakistan and a 3-2 win against Malaysia in the quarterfinal stage did not showcase Indian capabilities in any sense. Both the 3-2 wins against France and Malaysia were wins pulled out of nowhere-land, with goals in the last-5 minute period from Ramandeep Singh and Jasjit Singh Kular, respectively. Sadly, these were the instances in the past, where India would have demitted the opportunity to the opponents, however crappy they are/were, however lowly they stood in terms of history or the more recent FIH rankings eke-ing out draws from victories and losses from draws. These are opportunities on which we capitalize these days. This says a lot about the fitness of the core bunch --- a notch or two upwards from the good old days.<br />
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4) The other side of this performance coin was the series of massive losses --- a 2-6 loss to the Australians, a 0-4 loss to the Belgians in the semi-finals and a 1-5 loss to the English in the 3rd place playoff. Not much can be said except that our rhythm has been too wrecked by one or two initial bad happenstances in the first quarter. An early goal conceded in the first quarter has led to a meltdown, especially against strong opponents who can pounce on silly mistakes in the D. A number of such goals were scored by the Belgians and the Australians. The lack of defensive depth that could couple with penalty corner strength was sorely lacking in the event (Raghunath with an injury prior to the event and Rupinderpal's continual presence in the field dogged by his injury in the practice matches). Our penalty corner conversion rate in the league matches was beyond abysmal. Jasjit Singh Kular donned the mantle of a drag flicker for the first time in the match against Malaysia and he came up with two spectacular strikes to the top of the goal box especially when it mattered the most. The last goal, coming 5 minutes before the final hooter, was more than perfect exquisitely targeted in a way that even Kumar Subramaniam (the no. 1 custodian of Malaysia who had to return due to his son's death) could have saved.<br />
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5) The rise of Jasjit, a product of Sansarpur, hopefully opens up the now defunct assembly line of Sansarpurian hockey players. Jasjit made his debut last year and it is remarkable what a bit of trust can do to a player who was/is not in his best elements in his debut series. But the empty cupboard beyond Raghu and Rupinder is how the state of affairs is in India, let alone most teams. Take away one or two linchpins and every team falls crashing down. The losses against Australia and Belgium clearly demonstrate that the young Indian team (very different from the one that won the series 3-1 in Australia) is still fresh on its knees and experience. The Indian team will go back to the drawing board to lick its wounds and fix the mess that left them without a medal in this event. But more than cleaning up the mess, the bigger questions that need attention are: who after Sreejesh?, who is filling the D-line when Raghu/Rupinder/Birendra are out?, who are the PC-exponents?, who can double or treble up their jobs at the front, the middle and the D?, etc. and more. When the margins are wafer-thin, the pipeline needs to be hot. Despite the massive improvement over the last decade, <i>dil maange more</i> in terms of the lower rungs of hockey. This is a sad case of work eternally in progress. It also looks like Roelant Oltmans has stepped aside leaving the job to Paul van Ass, but the substitution charts seem to indicate that we did nt exploit this capability like we did in the Walsh era. Is this a case of one step forward, two back, or is it a transition to the good old era of "a man should last the 70 minutes?" <br />
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6) Despite all the fiasco, the order of the day was that India could end up on the podium with a win over England in the 3rd place playoff. This is how every tournament is. Pakistan finished runner-up in the Champions Trophy at Bhubaneshwar recently after squeaking through the knock out stages. Many other teams just up their ante only during these stages rather than go for the kill in the league matches. All this means nothing as knock out matches essentially capture a path to the finals and eventual hockey performance depends on the side of the bed one wakes up on. There are no rewards for "consistency" in the FIH rankings, except for consistent finishing on the podium, which is rather indirectly reflected by the strength of the team. In contrast, in most other sports, every match counts in some form or another. Take that, FIH! There is no incentive for a bilateral series in the FIH rankings chart. Thus, a win here and there against Australia or Belgium or Germany does not mean much to India, but what is needed are consistent top-few finishes and wins that matter in the knock out matches.<br />
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7) It is a fact that the FIH has skewed its rankings for Asia with a massive inertia to the past rather than the recent current. For example, the Asian Games gold won by India in 2014 will not count for the top-dog in Asia mark-up (a 750 point boost over the current 700 points we have for being the 2nd top-dog based on past calculations) till 2016 has begun. This means that South Korea will continue to be ranked the no. 1 team in Asia till the end of 2015, even though the FIH rankings get updated often enough to see the impact of the Asian Games gold medal. The obvious justification for the FIH actions is that the continental events for the other four continents do not happen till 2015, but with the next Asian Games initially scheduled for Hanoi in 2019 and the Asia cup happening in 2017 and in regularity every four years, the two-year regularity between the Asian Games and the Asia Cup was to have brought back Asia to the same page as Oceania and Europe. Now with Hanoi withdrawing from running the Asian Games, and with Jakarta stepping in but with 2018 as the host date, things are again back at a flux. It is time for the Asian Hockey Federation to step in and run the Asia Cup event at a regularity of every two years. Four years is too long a time in hockey and a weighted average of the Asian Games could only help. Given the lethargy that dominates AHF, nice try at that revolution.<br />
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8) Nevertheless, despite the inertia, India's chart is only going to go up in the oncoming future. With South Korea failing to qualify for the Rio Olympics from the other Hockey World League semi-finals at Buenos Aires (So Korea finished 7th), Pakistan failing from Antwerp (finishing 8th) and Malaysia with a thin chance (finishing 6th at Antwerp), India is perhaps the only entrant at the Rio Games from Asia. That brings us to the likely qualifiers for the Rio Games: As the top-3 finishers at Buenos Aires, Germany, Argentina and Netherlands have made it. So have Australia, Belgium and England from Antwerp. India has made it as the Asian Games gold medallist. The other four continental events are to unfold in the next few months with likely winners being Argentina/Canada, South Africa, Germany/Netherlands/Belgium, and Australia/New Zealand. I am more biased towards Argentina, Australia and Germany/Netherlands as continental champions. With Brazil with a very faint hope of qualifying as the host (it has already finished beyond the 30th overall rank set by FIH for the end of 2014 and it looks likely to finish past 6th in the Pan-Am games), that leaves 7 spots to be filled from the two HWL semi-finals stage. With this set of likelihoods, three/four spots open up for Buenos Aires and Antwerp each with the 4/3 switch depending on the head-to-head FIH ranking of the 7th team from each list. Since 3 spots are assured from each event and with two spots vacated from Buenos Aires, Canada and Spain are going to make it. With 1 spot vacated from Antwerp and India already qualified, Ireland are going to make it. The 7th spot is a head-to-head between New Zealand and Malaysia, which Malaysia will lose leaving Asia with India as the lone entry. In the remote possibility that Brazil qualifies, New Zealand is out, which would be sweet comeuppance for being the darling cinderellas of FIH, a la Belgium and England.<br />
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9) The less talked about tale is the remarkable "success" story of the women. The women have all but qualified (just the official list yet to be printed) for Rio, finishing 5th beating Japan 1-0. India has now consistently beaten Japan in the recent past (including the bronze playoff at the Asian Games last year and Asia Cup in 2013) making us the 3rd best women's team in Asia behind South Korea and China. Again, this is not reflected in the FIH rankings chart. If one discounts the boycott-ridden Moscow Games in 1980, which most sensible people do, this is the first real qualification for the women's team. The entry to the World Cup in 2006 on the back of the Asia Cup win in 2004 in New Delhi and the subsequent 11th finish was ok, but not something to crow about given the massive hosting help the Asia Cup did to us. Not blaming India for hosting that event, but this qualification, on the other hand, has happened despite adversity and essentially foreign/hostile conditions.<br />
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10) The tidings towards the qualification did not look prosperous at all. With a no-name Mathias Ahrens being appointed the head Coach in May 2015, after the Australian Neil Hawgood departed from the women's team in a show of support to the ousted men's coach Terry Walsh, things looked ominous from the start. The gap from the expiry of Hawgood's contract (Dec. 31, 2014) to Ahrens' eventual appointment/first pay-date (May 4, 2015) says a lot about the lethargy that runs rife at HI, SAI and MSYA, notwithstanding their other claims to change, mobility and dynamism. Despite the women's qualification for the Rio games, Ahrens' CV and claim to coach the women's team is a bit untested. Much will depend on the team's performance in subsequent events. Is Ahrens the lucky bellweather of change initiated by Hawgood AND HI, or is Ahrens going to take a leap from Hawgood's book and jump out of the sky? Time will tell.<br />
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11) In any case, the women had earlier traveled to Hastings, NZ for the Hawke's Bay Cup and performed reasonably well, even if they lost all the matches except the 7th-8th playoff against Japan (won 3-2). That performance left one with the feeling that the climb is far and high to the top echelons of women's hockey. Given our rather wayward performance even in this event, that feeling has only been re-emphasized. The 1-0 loss to Belgium (ranked just above us in the FIH ranking list) must have hurted the most with the 5-0 and 4-2 losses to New Zealand and Australia looking like usual business. The 3-1 win against Poland (a repeat of the HWL Round 2 finals win) set us to the quarterfinal stage against Netherlands, which we lost comfortably 7-0. But the subsequent penalty shoot out win over Italy (a team ranked considerably lower than us) and Japan set us up for the 5th place finish. Our victories, like the men's, were not comfortable and does not give us a great feeling of satisfaction despite the end result.<br />
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12) As far as the Rio games are concerned, England, China and Germany make it from Valencia (the first of the two semi-finals) and Netherlands, South Korea and Australia make it from Antwerp. With South Korea already qualified as the Asian winner, New Zealand make it too. And with one of Australia/New Zealand bound to be the Oceania Cup winner, India will definitely make it. South Africa will make it as the African continental champion and Brazil wont make it as the host. With Netherlands and Argentina/US as the other likely continental champions, the list is heavily skewed for the Antwerp half of the semi-finals, with the loser of New Zealand/Australia, India, Japan likely to make it from this half. The loser of Argentina/US in the continental event is likely to make it from Valencia on account of head-to-head against Belgium. Thus, in contrast to the men's outing, all the four major Asian teams will make it to Rio.<br />
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13) That brings me to the ugly 13th point, that of Pakistan. There is a lot of hand wringing going on in Pakistani media about the non-qualification/departure from the Olympic movement. Following up with the absence at the World Cup at the Hague in 2014, there is a lot of clamor for the heads of Akhtar Rasool (the PHF president), Shahnaz Sheikh (the coach) and Muhammad Imran (the captain, who has already resigned along with the selection panel). Sadly, none of these goals will get any job accomplished. What Pakistan needs to do is to observe the climb of the Irish (who also beat them at cricket not long ago). Or closer to home, India since missing the boat at the 2008 Beijing games. What the Irish and the Indians have going for them is exposure and more exposure. Given the dearth of exposure to hyper-running teams, what did the Pakistanis do on their first foreign visit (even missing the Sultan Azlan Shah cup for want of travel moneys) to India for the Champions Trophy in ages: show a middle finger to the crowd. What did they do in South Korea, where they had gone for an exposure trip before the HWL semi-finals: walk out of the game after a yellow card. Whether the crowd was hostile or not, whether the yellow card was undeserved or not, great going that, where one loses focus on one's strategic goals and thinks with their backsides.<br />
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With Narinder Batra still hostile to any Pakistani player in HIL (and get over it, HIL is a money spinner just like IPL is and where the money grows, one goes), the ball is entirely in the Pakistani court to fix the mess amidst them. The Pakistani team is not a bad team yet, but they could well on their way to be one, given the desert that is the PHF calendar in the subsequent years. It is not India's responsibility or obligation to lift Pakistan out of its morass by hosting a rivalry now, but perhaps a business dealing, much like cricket is. What does India stand to gain by hosting a match/series/badlaa? Nothing tangible so far. And India will only host an event if it sees net benefits to itself, get over it. I am no fan of India-Pakistan matches (rioting with or without tanks and bullets), but I am an even lesser fan of a cross-border pissing contest when the Indian team has a task ahead and with diversions galore that could knock it down from its path.<br />
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That <a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2012/06/medal-winning-london-bound-indian.html">medal-winning London-bound team</a> post could still be alive and kicking, for all one knows. Aye Gorkhali to that!Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-88444617351171040132015-03-26T10:24:00.002-07:002015-03-26T10:53:33.800-07:00Castaway like a Hobbit<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427207140265_47936" style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
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This is a travelogue on New Zealand based on our (my wife and I) trip over the holiday break. We spent close to 10 days (4 nights in the South Island and 6 nights in the North Island). This has been a long time overdue just like the trip was and would have been better off written right away, but god knows why I did not (most definitely not for the lack of time). Anyway, better late than never... </div>
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<b><u>Intro:</u></b> New Zealand is a postcard-sized country, much like its cricket stadia, split into two halves. Nevertheless, a cursory search of the Internet throws up beautiful vistas in its broad diversity and lots of advise on must-not-miss places somuchso that an expa(e)nsive itinerary is always the first draft. When the rubber hit the road (literally and figuratively), we pruned the itinerary so much that a postcard would have been the best epithet for our plan. Our real trip took us to Christchurch, Mt. Cook-Aoraki, Queenstown and Doubtful Sound in the South Island, and Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, Waitomo and Hamilton in the North Island with multiple stops in between. We skipped places such as Wellington, Taupo, Nelson, Dunedin, Invercargill, Whanganui and Napier, reasons for which are very easy to figure (it is impossible to drive a large circuit in either the North or the South Island within a short time-frame and still see enough places). In hindsight, we would have spent more time on specific spots in the North (Bay of Plenty region and Wellington) and South Islands (Franz Josef glacier and Dunedin may be), cut short a few (Queenstown) and skipped a few altogether (Hamilton and Doubtful Sound). </div>
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<b><u>Broad Impressions: </u></b></div>
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1) Our visit coincided with the Christmas-Boxing Day-New Year break, a peak time for tourism in New Zealand as it is summer time in the Southern hemisphere and coincides with the holiday season in the Northern hemisphere. In hindsight, we were lucky to find dinner on Dec. 24, a timely and well thought out booking at an Indian restaurant in Christchurch saved the day. We were extremely lucky to find ANY food on Dec. 25, a drive to Mt. Cook where a crowded Chinese-run sit-down place was still serving some food and some hoarding from a local Supervalue chain in Christchurch did help. That should reinforce the point that immigrants work harder in the so-called developed world, whereas the long-bygone-immigrants chill out and sport around whenever they can -- a point reinforced from my personal observations in Australia (cry me a river on the essential shutdown of most things from approx. Dec. 1 through Jan. 26, only the 7-11s run by Indian immigrants are/were open on Dec. 31 when some choose to work -- a blasphemy that, right in the heart of Melbourne CBD). Boxing day was nt too bad, but Dec. 31 in Hamilton was a disaster with the whole city essentially shutting down for god knows what reason. </div>
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2) Boxing day in Australia is an even bigger disaster than it is in New Zealand. The trans-Tasman cousins are conjoined in many ways, yet different in many other ways. Love for and crowding at the beaches is a common theme in both places, but in-your-face-sporting culture is almost absent in New Zealand, as much as I saw it and people are more chilled out to be in all kindsa shapes and sizes without having to worry about that. That probably reflects on the cricket field too where the Kiwis are the last ones expected to stand in your face with aggression, while their Australian counterparts would be expected to be number 1 (make it number 0, if you can) in that list. Yet for all this, my understanding on counterfactual history is that the course of New Zealand as a nation independent of the Australian Commonwealth was just only a bit more than an accident in ~1895-96. </div>
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That said, the Kiwis are more British than the British in many aspects and this facet of the Kiwis has been noted by many a cricket commentator-turned-sociologist (or <i>vice versa</i>), whereas the Australians love to love and embrace their British past when things matter (war, intel cooperation, politics, policies on handling China or India or even the US, visa issues, pom beanies and other Kangaroo route-type shenanigans, different education-sphere boondoggles) and yet disown it when it does nt matter (on the sporting arena). The Australians are broadly more racist (clarification: I believe that everyone is a racist, they just differ relatively speaking from each other) than the Kiwis and a good exhibit of this fact is that the aboriginals have been completely wiped out of Australia (except perhaps for Northern Territory) unlike the Maoris who reside prominently in the North Island (even if that is just an uneasy truce going by the considerably many Maori narratives and renditions of the Treaty of Waitangi that I found in a Whitcoulls in Auckland). That commentary also extends to many Kiwi names, which carry a hoary Maori attribution (even if in just name) including that for New Zealand itself (some long white cloud somehow embracing a hitherto unnamed South Island), unlike the Alberts, the Elizabeths, the Georges, and the Prince and Dame charmings of bygone-England. It was indeed fun to see a Bombay on the drive to Auckland, but funnier to see the expression that "New Zealand stops at Bombay Hills" (a contemptuous description of Aucklanders by non-Aucklanders). As a big city boy, I have seen and heard that before (Madras does indeed stop at Tambaram). </div>
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3) It is common for Indians to be fooled into believing that every Australian and Kiwi must love their cricket and to pick a random conversation with a random Australian or a Kiwi, only to be rebuffed by their slight indifference and lack of a <i>joie de vivre </i>Indian style. Reality is far from that sentiment. A vast majority of the long-bygone-immigrant people who love their dose of cricket in Australia and New Zealand are the old, the white and the men -- those that can probably sip their tea with a stiff upper lip perhaps. As much as NFL is a water cooler conversation at work in the US, that role is played by Aussie Rules Football (which I must also admit is a more artsy, athletic, suspenseful and a fun game if not for the rampant racism by its fanatic fanbois like with European football) in Australia and Rugby Union in New Zealand. I myself am an All-Black fanatic with a craving for the Haka (not surpassed by many other war-cries barring the Gorkha), a deep love to bash both the Wallabies and the 'Boks in the Tri-Nations and beyond, and an ardent belief that black/gray is the best manly color ever, so I will not be surprised to see such a feeling from the aam aadmi Kiwi around. And trust me that the Kiwis (both the Maoris and the whites) love the All Blacks more than you can figure out. It is as embracing as cricket is in India and if not for the Gallipoli bruising, New Zealand identity formation would have had much to do with the Invincible tour of 1924. The point being, the Indian subcontinent and its expat population drives the love for cricket on a global scale and make no mistake about that. If it were not for the subcontinentals, cricket would have been cremated literally and figuratively and saved in the Ashes urn. </div>
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4) Kia Ora is just a hallowed Bula! Just as Fiji has oversold and overmilked Modriki island (the "false" island location for the shooting of the Tom Hanks-starrer Castaway somuchso that the mere mention of Wilson, the volleyball that kept company with Tom Hanks, made us cringe), New Zealand has oversold its Lord of the Rings sceneries (making us cringe everytime we heard either Hobbiton or a LOTR/middle earth theme somewhere). Our personal impressions of Fiji were of a place with not much to do except support tourism, sugarcane plantations, and a bit of this and that. Relatively speaking, our impressions of New Zealand were pretty similar. There is really not much to do in New Zealand (beyond Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch perhaps) except support tourism in exotic locales and the businesses associated with tourism (tour-day operations, selling cheap memorabilia, restaurants on the way-side, supermarkets, ferries, skywalks, hotels/BnBs, etc.), sheep and woolen industry, and dairy farming. In contrast, Australia seems to have a more varied economic profile (some form of educational infrastructure, mining industry, etc.) and it reflects in the University profiles in Australia, things to do, and more. That is, there is a good reason why New Zealand and Australia do not fare well with the US economically speaking. It is not just the lack of a scale or a population, it is also that things are far more chilled out outside the US with only the people in the US basically killing themselves with work (take it from my 1 1/2 years in Australia and far more in the US). </div>
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5) In my stay in Australia, I had an uneasy peace with the "Hai Maite" English not following many things spoken and heard. But the Kiwi English seemed more at home with the Indian and the US English, a lot straighter than Australian, a lot easier on the ear and a lot simpler. In fact, I found the "mate" stuff peddled only when the Kiwis met the Australians, and things did get a bit hairy then unlike what one would assume. Call it friendly competition or needling or banter or chit-chat, whatever suits you. </div>
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6) Enough sociologizing. In terms of travel planning, plan the itinerary well ahead and book hotels far in advance, especially in the tourism season. Fiji is far better in its touristy credentials with visa-on-arrival for Indian citizens, but that is that. Unless one is a citizen of a predominantly white country or barring a few other exceptions like Singapore, Japan or South Korea, one needs a visa to enter New Zealand. Just as the case with Australian visas, the Kiwis are fairly well-organized and an email/phone call will push the status of the visa application in case the visa is not issued on their declared/advertised timeline (which is often the case). I did notice that the immigration desk at the airport seemed to be quite nosy on arrivals that had booked their accommodations in a hostel or a backpacker alley and there is the usual noise on fruits and food items (as in Australia), but in general, things are as expected. We did have the mistaken rush in transferring from the international terminal to the domestic terminal in Auckland due to change in time-zones, but New Zealand has a common time-zone, so no worries like the US. </div>
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7) The domestic terminal in Auckland is quite a mess relative to the international one and people do look at you weirdly when you carry more than a small piece through the security line. The car rentals are randomly located relative to the baggage claim area, but right next to each other, and Christchurch seemed such a breeze relatively speaking. And since New Zealand is in the middle of nowhere (yes, it is), it is important to book inbound and outbound flights as well as all the connections on the same carrier. This helps with a uniform baggage allowance policy also. We had the most retarded scenario of an outbound connecting flight in Singapore pre-poned by an hour or so with no notice to us till the last few hours by either the carrier or Orbitz. Since the flights were on different carriers with noone clearly speaking (in English despite being in New Zealand, in facts or in details), it was indeed a horrid few hours that should have ideally been spent relaxing before the flight rather than Skype-ing to people and asking them to call and figure things out for us because you get only 30 minutes of free Wi-fi in the terminal per device. Indeed, Changi and its Wi-fi seemed to be far sophisticated relative to Auckland but <i>deja vu</i> again in Madras (which is another story, but Madras is still Madras -- you can talk in reasonably pure Tamil and you get a lot of help right from the policemen to the shop assistants to the security people roaming around, than if otherwise). In most of these places such as Auckland, its a chicken and egg where you need a phone connected to a local carrier to get a passcode before you can start accessing the Internet and you need Internet to pay for the local carrier because they are nowhere around. And this is in the international terminal, not the domestic one. In any case, a standard overnight stay in most places in New Zealand should be < 70-80 USD and most reasonable accommodations have free parking and wireless, but expect less and less of that in Auckland unless you choose to stay far away from the city center. Wireless internet speeds are as shoddy as in Australia, perhaps a little better, so do not go with too much hope. </div>
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8) Do not take tour buses in New Zealand ever (especially if you can drive) for there are a plenty of them on a cursory Internet search. They are all safe, but they are all expensive, they go on the same beaten tracks that they irritate you seeing them when you drive alone, they follow a strict schedule with no control on anything in the bus, and they do not provide a good bang for the buck. If the lazy-me had to make a choice, it would have been a tour bus (99 out of 100 times), but I was correctly dissuaded by my wife. And thank goodness for that decision. The only times we actually regretted the whole trip was when we went on an organized tour of the Doubtful Sound, from out of Queenstown (a total disaster). The only forms of organized touring that I would recommend are things that require a motor/speed boat to either look at glacier spinoffs or high speed spin maneuvers or sophisticated equipment like hand glides, paraglides, sails, etc. </div>
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9) Driving on the left is no different than driving on the right and it might be a small problem getting used to things as one heads out of the airport car rental, but once one heads out of the city center, you are pretty much lonely on the road with more leeway. This is true more so in Australia -- my prior drive from Sydney to Adelaide and back in 2005 was pretty much a lonely drive (not even a kangaroo or a wallaby in sight -- not even dead ones on the road, but with road trains, yes) except for a big speeding ticket in a village running short of resources to make their ends meet. In any case, it is always worth getting a liability insurance and unlike the US, the liability does not cover all of the damage(s) (if any). Depending on the daily rates, there is a certain uncovered amount of liability (could be 300$ or 3000$). We did not have any accident (good fortune that), but we did have a bird hit on the way to Waitomo (a disturbing incident even for someone well exposed to birds on the plate), which damaged the front grill. It could well have been far more than a damaged grill. </div>
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10) New Zealand may seem like a postcard-sized country, but the moment you start driving, that impression comes to bite you back. Our drive took us around ~600 kms in the South Island and ~750 kms in the North Island (because of the circuit). Now that may seem short compared with the US roads and ridiculous to be nothing when one does that over 10 days, but being essentially lonely on the road is no fun thing. And doing that over ten days tires you out, even if it is the drive of a piddly distance. More so, enter a village and the speed drops from a coasting 100 kmph to a 40 kmph lest you want to share your savings in the form of a ticket (which you will get). In general, the South Island is more sprawled out than the North Island and that is seen in terms of the traffic patterns, the distance to destinations, the number of people as well as sheep density. It is clear that there are enough beautiful vistas in New Zealand, just getting to such vistas takes forever. Our oft-repeated statement over the whole trip was: miles and miles of nothingness leading to something pretty at the end. Things sure were pretty at the end with some blue lakes, glaciers, underground caves, geothermal outpourings, small mountain tops and some city views being the destinations. Initially strange are one-way bridges on the way to Mt. Cook with right-of-way for one side. The US-based GPS units do not work well (or at all) in New Zealand, and it is worth renting out a Navman or buying one outright (good luck with that chicken and egg problem). The Navman one rents is a crappy unit but does the job, except for one weird incident when it drove us into a closed road (locked with a grill and nowhere to go but backwards) near Tekapo, the Tekapo Twizel road, with water on both sides, noone in sight (not even a bird or an insect let alone people), and having to retrace the last 6-7 kms to the main road with an eerie feeling about the whole thing.</div>
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<b><u>Other tidbits: </u></b></div>
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1) Christchurch was knocked over by a few earthquakes in the recent past and it continues to be a place of seismic activity. We felt a minor tremor right after landing in Christchurch making us wanting to get the hell out asap. </div>
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2) Gas is far more expensive than in the US and sometimes you have people helping with gas (much like in New Jersey). I have seen 100 and 110 kmph in Australia, but 100 kmph seems to be the universal maximum in New Zealand. Thats a piddly 62 mph for folks who drive at 70 or more in the US. Right after we landed, cops pulled us over for a customary pre-Christmas day alcohol test in Christchurch. Weird was that we were pulled over by the same cops on both directions even though we had to go through that point and turn back because we had come there by mistake. There are enough cops floating around and they come in different colors, sizes and shapes depending on where you drive, so it is pointless speeding past the 100 kmph mark anywhere any time. The speed limits make sense often because most of the roads do not have more banking. </div>
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3) The long and lonely ride into Mt. Cook/Aoraki leads one to Lake Tekapo on the way. Lake Tekapo is beautiful with its brilliant azure blue waters, but after awhile it does get boring to see the same blue color sandstone from different directions and vantage points. Sad that we had to miss the North Island counterpart, Lake Taupo. </div>
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4) After Tekapo, one sees the outline of Mt. Cook, but it does nt appear as majestic and before you as it is until you get super close. That said, Mt. Cook is even more awesome when you wake up to see the low hanging clouds right outside your hotel window. The glacier exploring at Mt. Cook was boring since I have seen far better glacier walks at Seward, Alaska. </div>
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5) The long drive to Queenstown can be safely said to be one of the most unpleasant ones. Narrow roads winding up and down hillocks and valleys with big trucks and cars often tailing and goading you as the frontsman to hit way past the speed limit. Except for the Roaring Meg vantage point on the Kawarau Gorge, pretty much everything is a blur including the drive through Frankton into Queenstown. Queenstown downtown in itself is a messy mess with buildings packed like sardines on a death-wish and hotels are hard if not impossible to find that you end up with the least messy ones. </div>
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6) That is because Queenstown is stated to be a good spot to take off into different directions: trekking, watching penguins and whales (penguins are easy to locate but for whales, one needs lady luck on one's side), coniferous trees (who cares?), just laying prostrate on the beachside, gliding, you name it. We tried to beat the beaten track (which is going to Milford Sound) and take a tour bus first into Te Anau, a boat on Lake Manopouri and then a bus ride into the accessible point in the Sound and a boat ride into the far reaches of the Sound. The rains did help bring out extinct waterfalls into action out of the hilltops, but spending the whole day (6 hour ride either way) and a whole lot of money with really pointless food on the bus on seeing this is taxing at best. It grates your senses after a few minutes and is a waste of time. Much ado about essentially nothing, but we did see a lot of locations that have been VFXed into Tamil movie songs and what not :). </div>
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7) We returned the rental car at the Queenstown airport and took a flight to Auckland. Arriving after the sun had set (9ish), the most sensible thing we did in Auckland was to find a hotel very close to the airport. After the meandering drives in Christchurch and beyond, Auckland driving does shake you up a bit, especially late night. </div>
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8) From Auckland, we headed to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty region. We did a hike up Mt. Manganui (a small hillock) and it was a pleasant view from the top including watching someone trying to air glide himself into the seaside. The whole trip was ok except that we ended up picking a BnB without realizing it (excellent person hosting the BnB with spotless accommodation etc., just that it was odd in terms of privacy because it came as an unplanned surprise/shock). </div>
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9) Happy to leave Tauranga, we did find the most brilliant fruit servings at Woodturners Cafe in Ngatea. Rotorua is just the stopping point to explore the geothermal wonders of this region. We were at Hell's Gate and Wai-O-Tapu. Both were brilliant beyond words, in color, activity as well as awe. If Hell's Gate was small and cool, Wai-O-Tapu was cooler. Skip the hot pool cooked food and the tinker bells. The only downside to these two places is the sulphur-rotten egg fumes and the heat that can potentially screw up one's contact lens. Even in Rotorua where we stayed, the restroom commode kept releasing gas endlessly (no pun intended) as did the mildly racist behavior from some Maoris. Of all the things in New Zealand, this short visit at the geothermal spots was really worth the cash spent. </div>
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10) From there on to Waitomo Caves, we did the three cave Blackwater Company tour (Aranui, Ruakuri and the main cave). Aranui and Ruakuri are ok and they allow cameras inside, and after awhile one does get bored. How long can one watch stalactites and stalagmites? The most beautiful part of the whole cave thing is the boat ride in the main cave where you see a gazillion glowworms on the cave roof, which does wake you up if not anything else. Unfortunately, no cameras allowed at this point and even if they are, its almost impossible to get good shots unless one is a non-shaker with an SLR. The uneasy peace between the Maoris and the whites is visible at both Rotorua and Waitomo, but noone expressed it in so many words. </div>
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11) On the way to Waitomo, we had the bird hit, which only re-emphasizes the point that the introduction of certain mammals has led to the extinction of certain predators and hence many birds have become flightless (with no fear of predators that are absent) and stay close to the ground. This point gets repeated so often on the boring bus ride into Doubtful Sound that it seems eerie when you face a consequence of this flightlessness. Australia and New Zealand, where nature has been skewed by man, seem to repent their innocent past with signs such as "dont bring fruits and food into New Zealand." That said, the whole ride into Waitomo caves seems like an endless series of deserted roads going from nowhere to nowhere, with only Navman to assure you that you are heading in the right direction and perhaps on time for your appointment. </div>
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12) Hamilton seemed to be a short ride away from Waitomo, but except for the Waikato river (which we did not see and which seemed to be too close yet too far), nothing was great here at all. We did see the signs for the India-Ireland WC clash, but this place is so close to Auckland (2 hours and hence with no other way to access it than by bus), it must have been a pain ride into Hamilton for the Indian team. There is really nothing to do in Hamilton other than claim that one stopped here. </div>
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13) The ride back into Auckland brought back civilization, so to speak, and with it all the parking and driving woes of being in a new country. Auckland downtown in itself is more livelier than much else that we had seen in New Zealand (even Christchurch) with even a book shop around. Our trip to Nadi in Fiji showed us that the main city bringing international flights into the country can be without a major/any book shop (perhaps there is something in Suva -- which we never visited -- given that the University of South Pacific is based there). I also did see the University of Auckland campus buildings right next to the CBD, which also assured me that there is indeed some life there. In general, Auckland mirrors Sydney -- the ferries to nowhere (at least ferries take one to nice beaches in Sydney), the bridges, Sky tower, the CBD layout, some reasonably questionable areas, the same George-Elizabeth-Victoria-Queen-Princes street names (the Swanson street reminds one of the Swanston in Melbourne, but yeah), high-end fashionista boutiques, and reminding one that New Zealand is as expensive as Australia is/was. </div>
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With that uneasy number, let's close this travelogue. </div>
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Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-84641131267199941202014-12-14T09:17:00.001-08:002014-12-14T11:33:49.384-08:00Lingaa works, par dil maange more ... Coming in the backdrop of ueber duds like Kocchhai-adiyaan and Kuselan, and unbelievables non-pareil such as Endhiran, Lingaa is a simple deja vu tale on many counts. And it works, for a Rajni fan, despite what the critiquing neanderthals and High Court paramatmas could say! That means, the box office is/will be a-ringing, and there ends the economics lesson.<br />
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But beneath that account book lies the why-s, what-s and wtf-s. Here is my take on some of these.<br />
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The good-old Rajnikanth movies of the early- to mid-90s (before Superstar became S-U-P-E-R-S-T-A-R) such as Rajaadhi Raaja, Adhisayapp piravi, Muthu, to name a few, used to be believable tales that took off on a tangent, with ample space for comedy (situational as well as contrived), new-age Thirukkurals (on everything from faith, politics, way-of-life, and love), detestable villains who played their role perfectly, beautiful heroines at their personal heights as a set-piece (all those Kuluvalilles, Adikkudhu Kulirus, Selai kattum pennukkorus were primarily a highlight on the music and the heroines rather than on Rajnikanth), followed by an unbelievably funny yet idiotic fight sequence that noone could have rationally cooked up except as the climax of a Superstar movie.<br />
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Lingaa is all that, and more. I wont regale you on the positives, as they need to be rewinded, many a time. I will bore you on "the cup is half-full" moments, for that is often missed out.<br />
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The side tale is believable, fantastically so that it could well be the main tale rather than a sidey one, and hemmed in perfectly given the eternally parched nature of much of Tamland. This is the second big water war movie in Tam this year, with Vijay's Kathhi capturing the urban-rural dichotomy on water issues nicely (within the caveats of Tamland's movie-making of course). Rajnikanth's role of the British-era 18-gun salute zamindar transforming himself into an ICS Collector is filled with historical inaccuracies, especially so for the pre-World War II stage in 1939, but not necessarily discernible to a Rajni fan and the historically inept <i>hoi polloi </i>Indian. The desi version of a John Pennycuick and Arthur Cotton rolled into one tries to leverage their ongoing valorization efforts in different parts of India. There is the usual Kallanai-Kodiveri argument on dam building in Tamland, yet there is no finger pointing elsewhere (thankfully!) except at nature's fury perhaps. Even the British have been treated relatively softly with positives highlighted as much as the humans come in different forms-type argument. While that soft tone is typical of Rajnikanth movies, it still leaves a jarring note to the absolute perfidy that was the British rule. Only ignoramuses can find positives (net or otherwise) in the British rule.<br />
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Like Thanneer Thanneer (that original water war movie that begins with a kid losing his balance and losing the water he has collected with some effort, after picking up -- funnily enough -- a Rajnikanth picture on the way-side), this is a movie with a politician tale in the background. Nevertheless, the politician-villain continues the transformation of the Rajnikanth villain club from the hallowed heights of Ekambaram (Senthamarai in Moondru Mugam), Mark Anthony (Raghuvaran in Baasha), Neelambhari (Ramya Krishnan in Padaiyappa), etc. to the dud level that it has become with characters such as Adi Seshan (Suman in Shivaji), somuchso that Rajnikanth had to cook himself up as the villain in his next tale in Endhiran. This villain is not even a caricature, he is beyond a damn dud who cannot even confront Rajni with one tale of intrigue/sophistry despite being an MP. Even a pale version of a Perumal Pichai or a Saniyan Sagadhi or a Muthupandi would have made a better villain any day.<br />
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The heroines are as expectedly under-used and showcased primarily because that is what they have signed up for. And like most of the heroines of Rajnikanth's movies, they will be quickly forgotten for they have better career highlights than this movie. It is clear that age has slowed down Rajnikanth and with all those attendant constraints, he cannot shake a leg, not even comparably with Sonakshi Sinha. Yet when he does, however limitedly, there is a deja vu moment. And of course, noisy requests for encore from the faithful. The unbelievable stuff is limited to one stupid fight sequence at the end. Impressive is KS Ravikumar in limiting the crapfest to the very end, and that is one sharp turn from Endhiran, thank god for small mercies.<br />
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Rajnikanth's earlier movies used to be known for a fantastical comedy line, with all those paa-paa-paambhu, jalaja jalsaa, saathvikam-prachodhakam-bayaanikham scenes, not necessarily out-of-sync with the main storyline. The comedian used to be a counterfoil (Goundamani in Uzhaippaali, Senthil in Padaiyappa, Vivek in Shivaji) or a challenger-of-sorts (Vadivelu in Muthu and Chandramukhi). While Santhanam tries to reprise the counterfoil role, the comedy in Lingaa is half-baked with Santhanam's presence guaranteed only because he is the <i>numero uno</i> comedy king of Tamland today. Most of the blase dialogues and the context of these comical interludes appear to be a grand misplacement and a waste of time for everyone including Santhanam. Even Vivek in Shivaji appears to have done a far better job than Santhanam's debut in Rajnikanth movies. At close to three hours, the movie is quite slow and boring in phases (especially the British India scenes) and could have helped with at least a 20 minute cut. AR Rahman continues his fare of dishing out somber bores* across the board -- a far cry from his shake-a-thons in Muthu or Padaiyappa or Shivaji or most of his numbers from the early- to mid-90s.<br />
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Despite all the negatives highlighted, Lingaa works because it is <i>paisa vasool </i>(despite being 20$ a pop) for a Rajni fan, as simple as that. It is a deja vu movie in how it smoothly ties a Maanik Baasha of days gone-by with a Kaasu-panam-duddu-money-money reality. From the word go, Lingaa Lingaa sounds like Baasha Baasha and that is not meant to be an accident. There are many such un-accidentally constructed parallels/reminiscences into different scenes to appeal to the deja vu generation. In general, it is deja vu for those good old KS Ravikumar and P Vasu days, which were suddenly interrupted by the need-to-be-pseud Shankar days. It is a simple lesson to Rajnikanth in what a post-Shivaji landscape should ideally have been. While those seven years cannot be gotten back, there is still space for a real blast from the past with the next Ravikumar feature that is to start filming soon. That hopefully means that Shivaji may not be the Himalayan peak of a Himalayan career and Lingaa may only be a small way-stop in that journey perhaps. And one also hopes that someone can convey the message to his daughter that she can find someone else for her boring farce. Sorry, business is business and a fraction of the Indian GDP is tied to this machinery!<br />
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But more than all that, the deja vu lies in the unabashed theism that used to be Tamland cinema and Tamland at large, before the need-to-be-in-sync-with-the-new-powers-that-be kicked in. The highlight of the movie to me is the slow but well-laid out connect from the credit reel of Rockline Entertainment to the Shiva Thandava Sthothram played playfully somewhere before the one-third stage. With a name like Lingaa, one could nt have gone too wrong in that messaging, I guess. Unlike the Mani-Raavanan combo (the movie I meant) that was straight from hell, this Shankar-Raavanan combo (the sthothram) will always remain an eternal powerful hit! Therein lies the simple lesson of Lingaa on the reality of life: dissing the gods is as much hard work as praising Him!!<br />
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* Ok, Mona Gasolina is fine after a few hears, especially nice to see someone like Mano reinvent himself after years. But one cannot ignore the closeness of this song with Nenjukkulle and therein lies the rub, southern style yodelling or chamber music, its all deja vu again.Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-23591395572549773562014-07-28T22:55:00.002-07:002014-07-29T11:49:55.804-07:00Pakistanisch hockey: eine Komödie, ohne gleich<div>
A mild interlude.... </div>
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Unlike many hockey fans in India, I am not in favor of an India-Pakistan hockey revival except as a prop to lift India up if (and god forbid that happenstance) India is doing far badly than Pakistan in hockey. Thankfully, those days seem to be far behind and even as I speak, I hope not to Manjrekar them. Nor for that matter am I a big fan of India-Pakistan bilateral cricket matches, despite the huge economic stimuli such matches can be for/in India. Nevertheless, I like to observe Pakistani hockey, its decline, its players and their socio-economic-cultural moorings, the flair for exquisite showmanship beyond the normal in some of them, and the state-of-affairs in terms of administration to see any signs/hope of common-sense -- a commodity that is often lacking in Indian hockey administration.<br />
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One such observation forced me to write this piece. The Pakistani hockey team is missing from the ongoing Commonwealth Games and therein lies the sad comedy of errors that is Pakistan hockey administration. </div>
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Every major event such as the Olympic Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. has a deadline for each participating National Olympic Committee (NOC) to enter its final list of athletes that are eligible to compete at that event (having crossed a certain pre-set performance threshold, having met the drug-free compliance policy, etc. being the usual criteria). In the case of the Commonwealth Games, that deadline for all sporting events was set for June 11, 2014 (see Footnote 1) even though different sporting events had different/specific deadlines. In the case of hockey, this deadline was August 16, 2013 (significantly ahead of the Commonwealth Games, but understandable on account of organizational issues). </div>
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Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) refused to send an entry (a list of players) by the August 16 deadline because it refused to recognize the authority of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA), which had re-elected Syed Arif Hasan for a third-term Presidency in Feb. 2012. For the record, Syed Arif Hasan (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syed_Arif_Hasan">Linky</a>) is an ex-Pakistan Army guy. The International Olympic Committee (think of such notable examples as Juan Antonio Samaranch or even the famous one -- Pierre de Coubertin from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidents_of_the_International_Olympic_Committee">Linky</a>, or individual sports federation Presidents such as Leandro Negre, Sepp Blatter, etc.) does not forbid the re-election of the President for as long as he/she pleases (some tenures last decades) and as long as he/she is re-elected by a simple majority of the eligible voters in the POA elections which is usually overseen by a retired Judge and a government observer for purposes of neutrality (as is the case in India). However, the Pakistan government run Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) objected to the re-election citing its national policy of a two tenure, thus bringing it in direct conflict with the POA (<a href="http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/07/05/sports/poa-wants-top-level-interference-to-resolve-sports-policy-dispute/">Linky1</a>, <a href="http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/09/28/sports/poas-declaration-of-war-with-psb/">Linky2</a>). </div>
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A rival group (also, primarily led by Army men) in the POA went ahead and formed a splinter organization. Somehow this group obtained some traction from the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination and the Federal government as also with the PSB, thus putting the continued recognition of POA in ambiguity (<a href="http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/10/18/sports/gen-arif-enjoys-majority-in-poa/">Linky1</a>, <a href="http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/sport/05-Jul-2014/arif-hasan-led-noc-finally-gets-government-recognition">Linky2</a>). Leading the charge on the POA was an Army guy named Muhammad Akram Sahi, who happens to be the younger brother of Muhammad Afzal Sahi (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaudhry_Muhammad_Afzal_Sahi">Linky</a>), a leading PML(N) politician and a close confidante of Nawaz Sharif. With Sharif's re-election in early 2013, the POA's recognitional ambiguity became one of revoked authority, much to the chagrin of the IOC. </div>
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Given this background, back to PHF. PHF was/and is still led by Qasim Zia (a former Olympian to his credit) as well as a PPP politician (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qasim_Zia">Linky</a>) that was ruling Pakistan till the re-election of Nawaz Sharif. The National Sports Policy (NSP) of "two-tenures and no more" was brought in by the PML(Q) government in 2005 (<a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-10-107302-SC-upholds-sports-policy-2005s-tenure-clauses">Linky</a>) and also seen in a favorable light by the PPP government (with which PML(Q) formed a coalition) as a means to pull the rug from underneath the feat of PML(N) backed politicians, army-men, administrators, businessmen and bureaucrats (the same complex ensemble that also thrives in India with the only major difference being replacing army-men with judges) that had dominated National Sports Federations (NSFs). Qasim Zia could not go past his party's diktats and its attempts at neutralizing power-grab attempts by its rival party. Hence, the PHF's reluctance to send in an entry to the Commonwealth Games. The change of tenure to the Nawaz Sharif government initially saw no change in the NSP because of the gains that the Nawaz faction would make by taking over the POA. However, as the crisis continued and the IOC stood steadfast in its attempts at de-recognizing Pakistan from the Olympic movement till the government gave in, and the slow realization of how the PML(N) would be the biggest loser from the insistence on the NSP meant that the Nawaz government slowly backed away and then recognized the Arif Hasan faction in the POA. So, the net result (see Footnote 2) of this tragi-comedic farce is that Pakistan still remains in the Olympic movement and its 62 member team is participating the Commonwealth Games after the Lahore High Court cleared their way. </div>
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But the Pakistan hockey team missed out on its Sept. 16, 2013 extended deadline also and will miss the Commonwealth Games. They might have also not been able to defend the Asian gold at Incheon, but they barely managed to make the deadline for the hockey competition at Incheon and will hence compete there. However, there may be some confusion in the next few days since the official list of players did not include some well-known players. Yawn. </div>
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Now what does this mean? For a team that missed out on the 2014 World Cup by failing to be in the top-3 (and even the top-4 lest some openings fall open following the automatic qualification of other teams -- Pakistan finished 5th behind 4th placed Japan and in any case, no trickle-downs happened to Japan also) at the World league semi-finals (see Footnote 3) at Johor Bahru in June-July 2013 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_Men's_FIH_Hockey_World_League_Semifinals#Semifinals">Linky</a>), to be missing out on the Commonwealth Games, which would have exposed the team to much needed competition (from at least two of India, Newzealand, Australia and England) is sheer chutzpah of the highest order. To lack senses to the point till which the entry to the Asian Games was also threatened is serious ability to inflict crime on the well-being of many (there are many hockey families that depend on the sustenance of the paychecks from PHF, which in itself depends on the well-being of hockey) for the benefaction of a few select elites. Hopefully, for some Indians who are aware of such juvenile attempts at pointing a gun to one's own temple and the Army's stranglehold on almost every affair in the country, this is no news. </div>
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In contrast, even at the height of the HI-IHF imbroglio/impasse, neither organization prevented the Indian team from making it to the 2010 World Cup (which conveniently was hosted in India and would have drawn considerable horror from everyone around even beyond the horrors that were the Kalmadi-run Commonwealth Games of 2010, if the IHF had protested legally). Nothing more than a symbolic protest was done to prevent the 2012-Olympics bound hockey team go to London, by which time the HI-IHF crisis had kind of blown away in favor of the HI. Despite such fortunate occurrences, it is highly improbable that the IHF (or the HI) would have prevented the Indian team from going for a certain event, provided they qualified for it. The contrast with Pakistan is thus complete. </div>
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The absence of Pakistan paved the way for Trinidad & Tobago to make their long way to Glasgow and earn some experience at the hands of considerably superior hockey teams. So far, the essentially unranked women's team has given a fight to the much higher ranked Canadian team. The much lower ranked men's team has given a better fight to the more higher ranked Canadian men's team too. While T&T has got whipped by everyone else, Pakistan's loss is T&T's gain, even they will agree on this despite the pains from the whipping and the long healing time that might take. </div>
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Does this mean that the Asian games are spooked for Pakistan? Time will tell, and hopefully they tell a better story for India. But if lack of matchplay experience is an excuse that has to be peddled following the usual ululation following a disaster in Pakistan, then the PHF will have none else to blame but themselves. And Pakistani hockey fans (if they still exist) have my deepest sympathies despite the considerable anathema I have for an India-Pakistan hockey contest. My extended condolences at missing the World Cup at The Hague. I still cannot forget/forgive Santiago 2008 and a 1008 poxes on the English team for the cheating they did to get to Beijing. And more pox on the Chinese team which took the host spot based on a dubious Doha Asiad outcome. Sadly, for Pakistan fans, there are no ready enemies to point at except the PHF. </div>
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Footnotes: </div>
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1) Several countries missed this June 11 deadline because of varying reasons and the Commonwealth Games Federation still accommodated them at a later date, but not without a fuss (<a href="http://www.insidethegames.biz/commonwealth-games/2014/1021448-exclusive-trinidad-and-tobago-olympic-chief-slams-cgf-for-claiming-they-had-bungled-glasgow-2014-entry">Linky</a>). </div>
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2) The only close analog (I can think off-hand) at spooking oneself happened in the Indian tennis world: <a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/search?q=davis+cup+">Linky</a>. </div>
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3) The biennial World league semi-finals (which is played in two pools) is the new FIH-adopted method to earn qualifications to the World Cup and Olympic Games, in addition to the five continental automatic qualifiers + the host. The host country needs to cross a certain threshold of qualification, which will be missed by Brazil by the end of 2014 (the deadline for host qualification) thus eliminating them from being a part of the hockey competition for the Rio games of 2016. Thus, seven spots will remain open from the World league semi-finals of 2014-15 for the Rio games. The World league events is a four round event with Rds. 1 and 2 being the feeder for the semi-finals and the semi-finals providing the teams for the final. The consequences of this system are: 1) continued dominance of the European teams at world events (more on this in a later post), 2) elimination of ad-hoc qualification events for entry to the World Cup and Olympic games thus avoiding a Santiago 2008 type "one failure meltdown" for teams like India, 3) possible redundancy in terms of qualifications for these events by being in the top-3 (for sure) or top-4 (with high probability -- there is a luck of the draw as India made it as the 4th ranked team in one of the pools while Japan missed out on the other pool), 4) a single unified and well-understood, well-bid qualification tournament, and 5) continuation of the Champions Trophy as a bling-only event without any big impacts on more ceremonial events such as Olympics or the World Cup. There goes another Pakistani invention. </div>
Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-27657543143014434492014-07-26T20:14:00.002-07:002014-07-26T20:37:13.180-07:00The caboodle of crap aka hockey updateCars and marriages are similar. Those who have one want an upgrade, and those who have none want a new one. Time management philosophy is similar. Those who have time, dont know how to blow it and end up being a pain for everyone. Those who dont have time, dont know how to create it. Sorry, I fall into the last category for the time being (hopefully), and the blame is entirely mine.<br />
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There is a lot going on in sports these days and sadly, I am still following them all. Unfortunately, I cannot write about some of these things without rolling my eyes at the lack of clarity in the desi media discourse. Hopefully, I can pen some of this down. First love first....<br />
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The end of the World Cup hockey at The Hague brought in a mixed feeling of "so close, yet so far." Eking out last minute losses to Belgium and England (no-name teams for a long long time) meant that India was out of the fight in any of the 5-8 spots. A simple draw against both teams would have taken us to the 7-8 spot playoff against Newzealand, which we would have most likely won. The 75 point differential in the FIH rankings system would have seen us retain the 8th spot in the FIH ranking list, which we had usurped from Argentina in May 2014, but by swapping the upward climb of Argentina following their third place finish with the slide of Korea following their loss to us in the 9-10 playoff spot.<br />
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Why is this important? Because the pool in the Incheon Asian Games is going to be based on the latest FIH rankings, which means that India and Pakistan will form one pool, and South Korea and Malaysia will form another. Surely, a team aspiring to win the event should nt bother too much about pools or randomness, etc., but that nonsensical thought process is often a disaster like witnessed at the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010 and multiple times before that. India had won every match in the pools (including the match against Pakistan 3-2), and in the semi-finals, India conceded a late (not late by Indian standards) 66th minute equalizer to the second ranked cross-team, Malaysia. Another few more minutes of extra-time madness at the top of the circle later, India was out of the finals of the Asian Games and ergo an automatic berth to the London games (which we might have missed had the qualifier event been held in some random place like Santiago 2008, unlike in Delhi where we whipped the French 8-1 to get to London, only to lose the plot and end up with the wooden spoon for which there is a good excuse towards the end of this post). Incidentally, both the goals in that semi-final were scored by the penalty corner specialist and a flat-footed defender, a role for which he was repeatedly criticized (same as has been the case with Sandeep Singh, Raghunath or Rupinderpal Singh in the Indian side), Md. Amin Rahim.<br />
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The point being, modern field hockey is a game of madness where fortunes can (and often do) repeatedly swing depending on the random mistakes of the players. It is truly a game of snakes and ladders, with minimal opportunities for recovery and restitution, unlike the good old field hockey which was resilient to human frailties and madnesses, a redeeming feature allowing the Indians to excel at it, aided by deft stickwork skills that had been beaten into the system from the club level to the higher level and organizational transparency (more on this much later).<br />
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In fact, the Goans and the Anglo-Indians (the initial stalwarts of Indian hockey by a far significant margin than comfortable), with a need to redeem their identities in the face of their mixed-race ancestries and the red-flag of the Aryan claims to preponderance in every known human activity, were consistently aped and then bested by the latter arrivals such as Dhyan Chand and Roop Singh, leading to a positive feedback loop of competition, cooperation and collaboration (adding one more C down the line -- cronyism aka social networking) in the form of Muslim players (many of whom later crossed over to Pakistan), Hindus (such as Kishan Lal, KD Singh Babu) and much later the Sikh players (such as Randhir Singh Gentle, Balbir Singh Sr.), etc. That Goan and Anglo-Indian heritage of Indian hockey probably explains the lukewarm feeling in India for the 1928 Indian team or the 32 one or even the 36 all-marauding one.<br />
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In short, early Indian hockey was Indian in the sense of how it embraced real as well as perceived disparate identities into a seamless whole of Team-India, but that very redeeming feature probably did not enthuse it to the vast majority comfortable in their own isolated cocoons till that esoteric happenstance started becoming the norm in cricket much much later. It is indeed a sad reality that many of those Goans and Anglo-Indians despite their confused identities chose to migrate to the colonial west or its ramparts as did the Muslims to the newly created state in their name and for them. How much of that can be attributed to the minimal enthusiasm for hockey from the majority community? Probably little given that many Muslims still chose to stay back for whatever reasons and many of the Anglo-Indians from other countries (Sri Lanka for that matter) chose to migrate too, but an unbiased look at the past cannot discard hypotheses (however didactic they may be) with certitude based on uncertain and imprecise arguments.<br />
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In any case, no community can claim to have a first right on Indian hockey (did someone in HI hear that today? or may be that lesson needs to be imparted to the IHF?) because Indian hockey legacy has been built on the sweat, blood, grime and sinews of so many communities and regions, across the length and breadth of India. Truly, a sport egalitarian in not just tall talk and grand hopes, but in precise and swift action. To be even more point-blank, cricket reaped the benefit of standing on the dead ruins of the old Indian hockey and enjoying the second-mover advantage. No harm, no foul, love is still love even if it is unrequited and life a bit plaintive that the bygone days are bygone.<br />
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The broader more useful non-wistful point (relevant to the current) being that one has to minimize the chances of errors and add a layer of redundancy to any conceivable plot to make the automatic berth to the Rio Games in 2016. Given that the Asian Games is in Korea, and a host country has the deck skewed for them in any match against an outsider (with a very high probability), India has to play out of their skins to best Korea in the semi-finals or the finals. If such an event were to take place, it better be in the finals because the high adrenaline of having to play out of your skin with a deck stacked up against you and the high-stakes of the game (ranking points, auto berth, gold medal, bragging piece on the mantle, etc.), means that if India gets to win it in the semi-final, there is a good likelihood of it coming a cropper in the final, even against the lackadaisical Malaysians of today. The cost of conceding those two last second goals at the World Cup is to skew the prior distribution at the Incheon games in the form of an India-South Korea semi-final. This is the butterfly effect as regards hockey (more on this much later), something from which we have been long itching to break free from with minimal success.<br />
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That minimal success is only because we do not fully realize how small things matter in the end and this whole dynamic is a work in progress. That brings me to the positives of the World Cup event, a non-drooped Indian team taking the field for the 9th place finish and finishing first in Asia besting South Korea 3-0 comfortably. This win was no fluke, it is the result of the Indians getting better at fitness over the last 2-3 years (by a significant margin) and the Koreans going down with the refresh of their team. It helped that the average age of the Indian team was one of the lowest at the World Cup. A lot has been said about Sreejesh's performance which saw him elevated to the vice-captain role for the Commonwealth Games event. A lot has also been said about how Raghunath and Rupinder flopped miserably at the one role they are in the team primarily for (penalty corner conversion). Not a lot has been said about the call from Dhanraj Pillay (and the rank of the "home-grown" Coach club) to axe Terry Walsh, Roelant Oltmans and co. because "they failed to win a medal/do better/[fill in your blank]." Sadly, Walsh's stint has not been so bad at all, even if <i>dil maangey more!</i><br />
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The debutant, Jasjit Singh, was axed even as he was surprisingly brought in to the team with no senior performance worthy of credit prior to that. He did score the first goal in the win against Malaysia, but that did nt save him. SK Uthhappa and Mandeep Singh were dropped to pave the way for Gurwinder Singh Chandi and Danish Mujtaba. The 20 year old sub-goal keeper Harjot Singh has to wait for his day or best Sreejesh (but before that has to consistently best Sushant Tirkey) or hope for a 18 man team. Nikkin Thimmaiah and Ramandeep Singh, debutants in the Asia Cup last year and who were injured in the pratice matches before the World Cup and had to be replaced with Yuvraj Walmiki and Lalit Upadhyay, returned while the returnees were dropped. Lalit, who was a victim of a sting operation gone bad (with the dubious claim that he tried to make his way into some district level team by bribing the officials) is 23, as is Nikkin. Ramandeep is 21 boding well for a young, fit and agile future. Knocking on the doors are junior-turned HIL stars, Affan Yousuf, Gurjinder Singh, Talwinder Singh and Satbir Singh.<br />
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Sadly, the HIL 2014 top-scorer and by all means one with a creditable performance in HIL 2014, Sandeep Singh, is probably not going to make any further forays with the Indian team jersey primarily because of the apparent obnoxious claim that he concedes more goals than he scores. Sandeep's inconsistency in the defense, India's weakest link, means that even a less-successful Rupinderpal and Raghunath are preferred over Sandeep. India's constant search for a replacement for a stonewall Dilip Tirkey or a Pargat Singh is still a tall order given that we have lost touch with the deft skillwork that the old Indians were famous for.<br />
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While the stage has not yet begun to start thinking of HIL 2015, it is clear that the erstwhile IHF has de facto become defunct. The essential disbandment of WSH, the impending lapsing of the 3 year contract that WSH and Nimbus signed with many players in early 2015, the lack of vitality on the part of IHF-organized events has meant that despite the Competition Commission of India declaring HI's actions on players who took part in WSH questionable/ambiguous in terms of conflict of interest issues (<a href="http://www.cci.gov.in/May2011/OrderOfCommission/732011.pdf">Linky</a>), the HI apparatus has got away OJ Simpson style. In fact a read of the CCI ruling makes the issues at hand rather transparent.<br />
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Specifically the DG (not the final verdict) stated in (Sec. 7.4.2.5, page 16):<br />
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In light of the above mentioned facts, DG concluded, that HI acting through FIH has abused its dominance to maintain their control over hockey sports in India. They have restricted players to participate in any match or event which is not sanctioned by them. Their conduct has also resulted in foreclosure of market for any other enterprise to organize hockey tournaments. </blockquote>
After looking at the sum-total of the arguments by both parties and the DG, the Commission though declared (Sec. 10.12.6, page 58):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The prospective application of Bye laws negates the 'afterthought to WSH' finding by DG. </blockquote>
The Commission in its final Order (pages 62-63) said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Commission after considering all the aspects relating to the case concluded that there is no contravention of Section 3(3)(b), 3(4), 4(2)(a), 4(2)(c) and 4(2)(e) of the Act in this instance. However, the nature of the present system itself, with the possible conflict of interest between the 'regulatory' and 'organising of events' roles of Hockey India, has raised certain potential competition concerns in the mind of the Commission. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A regulator must necessarily follow the dictum that 'Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.' In this case the DG report points out circumstantial evidence which, though not establishing violation of the Competition Act, further persuades the Commission about the inherent potential of violation, and the need for clear articulation and separation of the two roles of HI. </blockquote>
Another version of the same report has the following (<a href="http://www.cci.gov.in/May2011/OrderOfCommission/732011R.pdf">Linky</a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Page 61 (para 111): In the beginning hockey like other sports did not have much money. But with the advent of television, live coverage of hockey came to households and with the advance in communications the viewership of hockey went worldwide. Hockey therefore like other sports became a source of entertainment. This brought advertisers and money to hockey in the form advertisements, sponsorships, broadcasting rights through radio, T.V. and internet. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Thus, a regulator like FIH got interested in the cash which was generated through sports. </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Page 61 (para 112): <b>Prior to 1970, FIH did not have a strangehold over the sports of hockey from grassroot level to the international hockey </b>as there were other associations laying down rules of the sport. Though the Olympic Charter was issued in 1896, one International association for hockey came into being only in 1970 for men’s hockey whereas for women’s hockey the international association came into effect with effect from 1982. <b>FIH is a federation of national hockey associations but by the byelaws of 11.03.2011 it appears to control the domestic hockey in the territory of each national association through a system of sanctioned/unsanctioned event. If a national association did not accept the byelaws of FIH they could be penalised or expelled from the FIH. </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Page 62 (para 112): The idea of sanctioned/unsanctioned events for hockey were probably borrowed from cricket. The system of sanctioned/unsanctioned events was introduced in cricket by the International Cricket Committee after the Packer episode in the late 1970s. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Page 63 (para 116): <b>The other facts which are clear are that FIH had directed that players should not participate in unsanctioned tournaments. If they participated they had to be denied the opportunity to playing for their national team. </b>FIH also directed that the officials, coaches and umpires etc. should also not participate in the unsanctioned event. If they participated then action was to be taken against the officials. FIH also directed the national associations to come out with the code of conduct which HI issued in September 2011 and every player who wanted to play for India had to sign. HI initially was probably willing to allow WSH league to run but probably at the instance of FIH put impediments to the running of the league. The WSH league was held in early 2012 after the intervention of the Delhi High Court. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Page 63 (para 117): <b>It is clear from the above discussion that HI was acting at the behest of FIH for the simple reason that its recognition and existence depended on FIH. This was confirmed by the submissions of HI before the Commission</b> where it stated that its actions were in accordance with the directions of FIH. Thus it is the behaviour of FIH which requires scrutiny under the Competition Act. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Page 65 (para 121): <b>As far as the regulators like FIH and HI are concerned their role is mainly to apply the rules of the game and the anti-doping code. The regulators organise international tournaments and they decide the calendar of events so that the events do not clash with each other. But if they start using these powers for the purpose of furthering their economic interest then there is a cause of concern.</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The directions are as follows:- </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(i) The Code of Conduct between Hockey India and FIH should be modified and issue concerning sanctioned/unsanctioned events should be deleted. There should be no restriction on players to play sanctioned/unsanctioned events. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(ii) There should be no penalty on the players for playing unsanctioned events. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(iii) There should be no question of having no objection certificate from any tournament organiser for playing in some other tournament in the case of players. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(iv) FIH should not have a stipulation that if a national association participates in unsanctioned events, it could be penalised. This works against the concept of the independence of the national association and is abusive in nature. FIH should therefore modify its byelaws accordingly. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(v) FIH should also modify the guidelines and remove the penalty clause for players who participate in unsanctioned events. </blockquote>
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In effect, HI killed IHF by using FIH as much as FIH propped up HI to kill IHF (all de facto). FIH has appropriated the right to recognize hockey events <b>AND</b> to appropriate commercial profits by the running of the sport in such events, even if that laundering of resources is to the detriment of the host nation and unbeknownst to the hockey lovers of that nation. We came last in the London Games because we followed the FIH diktats in toto and discarded a whole bunch of folks (Prabhjyot, Rajpal, Viren Rasquinha, Vikram Kanth, Len Aiyappa, etc. come to the mind) from being considered for the Games. That theory was stood on its head by the Pakistani team which included players who had contracted and played for the WSH and sadly, there is no explanation why the FIH did not exclude the Pakistani team from London, STILL. The World Cup in 2018 is in Bhubhaneshwar not just because HI and MSYA put in a good bid, but also because the FIH can milk maximal profits from an event hosted in India (like in Delhi 2010). The unwitting Indian hockey lover in effect bankrolls the FIH and various other FIH-sanctioned events like HIL, without commensurate benefits to the players (not always) and with a strict monopoly only to the FIH. In short, colonialism by the rule book is still that and the Indian taxpayer and the government bankrolls his/its own subjugation by means of tax waivers to an outside organization that does nt have the best interests of India at its heart. </div>
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As far as Sandeep Singh goes, his major creditworthiness of pulling off from the WSH just before the launch of the event still could not buy him life from the vindictive HI apparatus which had sidelined almost every player in the WSH, except perhaps the super-talented Gurjinder. The case of Gurjinder is however one of half promises as by now, he should have been a Sohail Abbas in the making rather than a potential Gurbaj. Therein lies the sad tale of India and Indian hockey. We would spite each other twice at the propping of the outsider, maim each other, and in consequence wreck our own destinies when instead of competition, collaboration and standing up could work just as well.<br />
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Education does nt cure all ills, but it at least opens the eyes to some...<br />
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Part 1 (hopefully) of a long three-part series concluded.Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-36227062598055400422014-05-25T01:32:00.003-07:002014-05-25T13:13:56.064-07:00Revenge of Kochhai-adiyaan I watched Kochhai-adiyaan (as it is supposed to be spelt in Tam instead of the more fancier but incorrect Kochadaiyaan) and had a lot of impressions on the latest Rajni movie.<br />
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The title itself could mean anything from "saint with the shaggy/mangled hair" or "man with the shaggy/mangled truss of hair" depending on how one parses the Tam. In any case, it is a pointer to Shiva just like some of his previous movies have been (Arunachalam, Annamalai, the yet-to-come Lingaa) or to the son of Shiva (Padaiyappa as in Aarupadaiyappan, Muthu), etc. It is an open secret that Rajni has embraced the quintessential Tam god in Murugan as is seen from the character names in most of his movies that are based on Murugan's 108 names. As for the main character's name in this movie, Ranadheeran, if one parses the Tam right, it means "the braveheart who won over pain and suffering."<br />
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Semi-spoiler alert!<br />
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As someone who grew up with such fare as Mandhirikumari (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manthiri_Kumari">Linky</a>), Aayiram Thalai Vaangiya Abhoorva Sindhaamani (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF6wNNKWTW8">Linky</a>), Marmayogi (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmayogi_(1951_film)">Linky</a>) and as someone who digs into the historical Tamland filmi fare in Black-and-white as well as the later Eastman color, as much as the sociological fun- and farce-fest of the 50s through the 90s, it has been a sad tale that this genre has been essentially wiped out by the lack of imagination, lack of plotlines, lack of enthusiasm for a four-hour potboiler of intrigue, drama, vengeance, and twists and turns from the T20 generation, mismatch in investment between art direction and the grandeur of current day cinematography, etc. And even if dished out in some form these days, Tamland historical fare is an utterly casteist tripe a la Ponnar Shankar. In this midst comes Kochhai-adiyaan, which though it cannot hold a candle to some of the late 40s and 50s fare, is still brilliant in terms of intrigue and suspense in the storyline.<br />
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The movie starts a complete dud by insulting a Tamlander's sense of pride in the diction of the language with a rambunctious tripe that will make folks such as SS Rajendran and RS Manohar turn the other side in their graves with immense angst at the state-of-affairs, even in supposedly historical fare. While Rajni himself has no awesome command over the language, it has been his impeccable timing, stylish dialogue delivery, comic sense, and the dialogue construction that has set him apart from his peers. With essentially no comedy in the movie, even with the recreation of a Nagesh character (who sadly is drunk all the time, much like in his younger years in real-life), and with plasticene abundance that denies the possibility of timing and flow, it all looks downhill and hopeless from the beginning.<br />
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The dud continues with an introductory scene and song (typically setting a high bar for the Rajni show that follows for the next three hours) that fails to capture a hardcore Rajni fan's cochlear imagination. The sad death of AR Rahman's musical flourish and depth is probably noticeable to many, but every good thing has to come to an end, I guess. As someone who still digs for the underappreciated in Rahman's fare from the early- to mid-90s (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDprEzC-eD4">Linky 1</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIp4YLtiB-I">Linky 2</a>, for example), the last few years have been a blur and this movie continues the trend. The height of introductory agony is to watch an abominable plastic Rajni's plastic horse leap over a plastic cliff that is unbelievable even for a Rajni fan who is willing to suspend reality for the sake of Rajni.<br />
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Slowly but steadily, the intrigues catch up and we are revealed the tale within a tale within a tale (as much as I could count). And then comes the father-Rajni, walking like we all wished a real Rajni would have done on the stage (and shaming the son-Rajni in the process who walks like an oaf, with no insult meant to to oafs), and setting the floor alight with his unabashed Shivathaandavam dance moves that would have put a Prabhudeva at his prime to shame. If only that plastic Rajni was substituted for a fraction of what we saw in Thillaana-Thillaana (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7HTRKI1iLY">Linky</a>) with a beat like in Kuluvaallille (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C89P-eN9CCw">Linky</a>), both from Muthu, we would have got our 20$ worth for the 3-D picturization that seemed short (two hours), needlessly extravagant and useless to tell the tale that it was.<br />
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Despite being simplistic, the Hobson's choice faced by the father-Rajni character is something that I have (surprisingly!) not seen in my as-many-years of watching pot-boiler historical fare. There are two not-so-smooth changes without much explanation in the son-Rajni's character in the movie: from one of a loyal soldier to a loyal soldier of the other party, and a loyal soldier to a man with a burning pain that can only be set right by providing a rightful ending for the villainous character(s). Having seen enough reruns of Murattukk Kaalai and Paayum Puli, I know the difference between the acceptable from the indigestable. When Rajni (the epitome of Tamland values that he has shaped over the last three decades) is made to dance to such abrupt dichotomies like ripping the jugular vein of certain characters and doing a Thevar Magan (even if only as revenge), it becomes too jarring to watch, appreciate, love and remember Rajni by. Any amount of wise Rajni-isms that come out as supposed punch dialogues cannot compensate for that loss in confidence and trust in the supposedly sensible hero who is anything but that. And the punch dialogues fail because they are neither punchy nor dialogue-y.<br />
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Many of the characters are hopelessly shoddy with it being difficult to recognize beyond a select few. If there was a Sarath Kumar and a Jackie Shroff, I did nt miss them a beat! A Yamunai aatrile eerakk kaatrile Shobana and her stickler father Chaaruhassan would have rotfl-ed at this current Dasavatharam version!! And a Nayanthara would have saved her blushes for it was Deepika who has to carry the ignominy of plastic degeneracy!!! The basic plotline for this story by KS Ravikumar would have seen far greater justice in his hands than in Rajni's daughter's hands. The KSR-Rajni combo came up with Muthu and Padaiyappa before this, both earth-shattering (at that point in time) revenge tales that had a certain political undertone after the excesses of the 1991-96 JJ regime that came to power in the sympathy wave after RG's assassination. Come 2014, and this movie's TV advertisement rights are with the incumbent party in power, ADMK -- a reflection of why Vishwaroopam went through such turmoil before its release.<br />
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Tamland is not yet ready for motion capture nor is the state-of-the-art in motion capture a substitute for real action with real people. As the movie progresses, one gets to understand much of the revenge talk in the movie. The movie's central theme is revenge: revenge of Kottaippattanam on Kalingapuri for its deceit instead of a straight and ethical battle, revenge of the son-Rajni against the father-Rajni's unseemly suffering at the hands of the Kottaippattanam king, unquenched revenge of the friend who pits statecraft over friendship, revenge of the friend who pits friendship over statecraft but only after taking what his due was (unfriendly though it was), revenge of the kings who care pretty much about their own reputation and sustenance over what is right, and so on.<br />
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When Sivaji was released in 2007, the heartland of IL was flooded with Rajni fans who all enjoyed themselves to what then was an epic! And not everyone was a Tam!! Fast forward seven years, I have seen a nearly empty Kuselan (again in IL), a nearly empty Robot/Enthiran (in the middle of a raucous Sri Lankan Tam community in Melbourne), and now a nearly empty Kochhai-adiyaan. This story is also a story of revenge that has been served raw and cold: revenge of time where even Rajni ages and cannot dish out his usual fare (dance, fights, style and all things that make Rajni Rajni), revenge of the other daughter (with supposedly good intentions) who ends up hurting the brand and fan-base more than helping it, and revenge of the gods who cannot allow for a Sivaji to be bested for after all, Rajni is Sivaji, Sivaji is MGR and MGR is Sivaji.<br />
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Even if I have to wait a la Vishwaroopam II for what the next two hours are supposed to fill in vis-a-vis the knots that have been left untied, it is a sad commentary that I am looking forward more to Vishwaroopam II than to Kochhai-adiyaan II. On to Lingaa, and just like with the hockey team that disappoints me over the years, I shall lose no hope.<br />
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To death with hope! <br />
For man can die, but hope cannot,<br />
For Rajni can blunder, but his legacy cannot,<br />
For kamal can wonder, Rajni he is not!Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-83650386080954485972014-05-17T02:16:00.000-07:002014-05-17T02:45:50.307-07:00Sense of Tamland<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is really nothing new one can say about the massive Modi win except sounding a monotonous bore grinding the same old half-truisms. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">In any case, I will stick (for the time being) to opinionating on Tamland only because I feel that I have not read any sensible analysis and parsing of the numbers so far. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1) <b><u>General trends:</u></b> The BJP and its partners took part in 38 constituencies (barring the Nilgiris mishap) of which 14 contested on a DMDK ticket, 8 on PMK, 7 on MDMK and 9 on BJP (including the KMDK and IJK candidates). Of these, there were two first place finishes (Kanni and Dharmapuri), six second place finishes, 29 third place finishes, and one fourth place finish. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The fourth place finish of PMK in Naagai was one of wrong candidate selection -- a non-existent PMK fighting in a reasonably deep South seat which is somewhere close to religious polarization than to caste polarization. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The two first place finishes were ones where strategic alignment worked successfully, Pon. Radhakrishnan in Kanni and Anbumani in Dharmapuri. If the Congress and the DMK had aligned, there is a good likelihood that Pon. Radhakrishnan would have finished second (just as in 2004 and 09). Dharmapuri (in North Tamland) presents a more confusing picture. While the caste violence between the numerically vastly dominating Vanniyars and Adi-draavidars (a Dalit sub-caste) and the subsequent action against the PMK partymen and leaders by the ADMK regime had meant that the Dalits were in favor of a ADMK candidate, the ADMK bent down to demographic destiny in picking a Vanniyar candidate. Also, picking a Vanniyar candidate was DMK. With the waters murky, some BJP-MDMK-DMDK vote bank alignment helped Anbumani cross the post by around 75000 votes -- a performance that is not much to crow about given the Vanniyar dominance in the seat. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The six second place finishes were in Coimbatore, Erode, Pollachi, Tiruppur, Vellore and Virudhunagar. Of these, the first four are in the Kongunaadu-Gounder belt, Vellore in the Vanniyar belt and Virudhunagar in the Naicker/Naidu belt. That said, none of these were close finishes with the ADMK walking a winner comfortably in all the six seats, which just goes to show how caste consolidation behind a rainbow coalition was an ephemeral idea from the very beginning. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of the 29 third place finishes, there were close contests (defined as approx. 10K votes) with the second place candidate only in Aarani (PMK candidate) and Perambalur (IJK). Five seats were complete washouts (defined as < 1 lakh votes): North Madras, Dindigul, Karur, Thanjai, Tiruchi. Of these, four were contested by the DMDK (the other by BJP in Thanjai) showing how much DMDK punched over its weight in the coalition. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of the eight seats contested by the PMK, their candidates got over 2 lakh votes in 5 constituencies. On the other hand, DMDK could get over 2 lakh votes in just 4 of the 14 contested whereas for MDMK, this number was 3 in 7. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Almost all the constituencies had the classic Chandu Lal Sahu episode in some form or the other. In some seats, it was a clear case of a prop candidate with the same or similar name (</span>Chandrakasi vs. Chandragasan, etc.)<span style="font-family: inherit;">, in some seats, it was a creative way to introduce confusion (K. Nandagopalakrishnan vs. K. R. Radhakrishnan). Clearly, Tamlanders have some weird unique names that cannot be easily copied and there is the oft-mentioned statement: "vote for the [xyz] symbol." Those two probably explain the nonchalance of the mainstream parties to this menace. </span><br />
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2) <b><u>Modi wave:</u></b> There most definitely was a Modi wave in Bihar and UP (and much of north and west India for that matter), but whether there was one in Tamland requires some serious statistical introspection. In the last elections, none of the BJP candidates except Pon. Radhakrishnan from Kanni and the eternal-party-hopper Su. Thirunaavukkarasar from Ramnad could get anything over 50K votes. Ela Ganesan could get no more than 43K votes in South Madras. In 2014, this scene has changed dramatically with 6 in 9 of BJP contestants securing over 2 lakh votes. Ela Ganesan in fact could win over 2.5 lakh votes, a no mean feat even in South Madras given that it has most likely no more than a few 1000s of upper castes (aka Brahmins). If Ganesan could sew up so many votes, it must have come from the educated, aspiring and climbing middle-class, of which there is plenty in South Madras. Only the total BJP washout in Thanjai is surprising given the temple town's vibes. So yes, there was a Modi wave, but not as big as in UP and Bihar. But big enough to be noticed and recognized. However, whether this is a sustaining wave is a 108$ question.<br />
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3) <b><u>Deep south and religious faultlines:</u></b> I define the deep south as the four semi-religiously polarized constituencies of Thirunelveli, Thoothukkudi, Kanni and Ramnad. It is remarkably surprising that the BJP contested only Kanni and Ramnad of these four. May be the fact that BJP could not secure anything more than 50K votes in the last elections had something to do with this calculation. But in any case, the story of Kanni has been told before. In addition to the lack of DMK-INC coalition, too many Christian candidates indeed mucked up the broth in a case of reverse polarization chronicled well here: <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/lok-sabha-elections-2014/news/Election-results-2014-Reverse-polarization-is-why-Muslim-votes-did-not-count-in-UP-and-Bihar/articleshow/35222065.cms">Linky</a>. The same can be said for Ramnad except that Muslims replace the role (to a certain level) of Christians in Kanni.<br />
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The strong showing in Aaduthurai of a MMK candidate is most likely because of the DMK vote bank which got transferred to MMK instead of Mani Shankar Aiyar of INC. The only other faultline that is seen is in Vellore with a strong third place finish by the IUML candidate. Again, the DMK vote bank that could have been transferred to the IUML candidate is suspect behind this strong finish.<br />
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4) <u><b>Caste faultlines:</b></u> The Vanniyar-Dalit fistfight in Dharmapuri spilled over into killing the bonhomie between Ramadoss and Thol. Thirumaavalavan of VCK. It was no wonder that PMK jumped at the opportunity presented by the INC's bumbling (<a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/lok-sabha-elections-2014/news/Congress-leader-Manirathinam-joins-PMK-after-being-denied-ticket-in-Chidambaram-Lok-Sabha-seat/articleshow/32975379.cms">Linky</a>). Even some new-found <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/thirumavalavans-temple-visit-evokes-mixed-reaction/article5929824.ece">bonhomie</a> could nt help Thirumaa pull a fast one over the ADMK candidate. To rub salt into the wounds, the PMK candidate finished 30K votes behind Thirumaa, a sharp drop from the 1 lakh margin in the previous election.<br />
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The case of PT's K. Krishnasamy in Thenkasi is similar. The Pallar/Devendrakula Vellalar-Thevar faultline is seen even if the constituency is SC-reserved. The MDMK candidate finishes a strong third to rub salt into the wounds festered open by the ADMK whipping.<br />
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5) <b><u>Three idiots:</u></b> Three members of Idinthakarai/PMANE (<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/ready-to-face-police-action-aap-candidates/article5806513.ece">Linky</a>) that took part in the protests over the Kudankulam nuclear plant took part in elections as AAP candidates: SP Udhayakumar from Kanni, Pushparayan from Thoothukkudi, and Jesuraj from Thirunelveli. The net votes received by these rabble-rousers were 15K, 26K and 18K, so much for their credibility. More power from the power plant, please.<br />
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6) <b><u>Azhagiri:</u></b> With DMK suspending MK Azhagiri from the party, he was on a one-man mission to scupper DMK and Stalin's chances anywhere and everywhere. That he saw the complete decimation of DMK is no surprise given Tamland's bipolar disorder in terms of love affair with one party/coalition. Whether Azhagiri was indeed responsible for the decimation is a bit questionable though. In Madurai, he vowed to push the DMK candidate Velusamy to the third or even fourth position. However, Velusamy finished a strong second. Ditto for Theni where the DMK candidate came a strong second. Given that even a swing of a few votes in each ward could push a winner to a losing position, Azhagiri did get away with what he wanted despite their being limits on what Anjaanenjan can do (aka Anjaanenjan can fly, but not do a rope trick!).<br />
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7) <b><u>Happy to see 'em get whipped:</u></b> Mani Shankar Aiyar from Aaduthurai (my home town of sorts, courtesy my paternal side). <span style="font-family: inherit;">Suffice it to say that, Modi's win is important because it takes upward mobility (in politics) in India from the realm of the improbable to the possible, provided one aspires for it unabashedly and with unapologetic determination -- a lesson reinforced in the vaporware circles of academe. Anyone who pisses on the climbers deserves to lose and badly so. MSA ended up fourth with < 60K votes, which just goes to show how much he badly depended on the DMK coalition to win 3.2 lakh votes last time around. Glass house, stones, anyone?! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The bequest of Sivagangai from papa-jaan ex-Home/Finance minister was not enough to help the one-man destroyer of Indian tennis (<a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html">Linky</a>), Karti Chidambaram, get a win from there despite Sivagangai being a Nattukottai Chettiyaar bastion of sorts. Despite the Chettiyaars' philanthropy all over Madras and in Chettinaadu in particular, the deference people have for the Azhagappas, the Muthaiahs and the Annamalaiars does not easily translate to the Chidambarams, go figure! Given the high impact that the Kaanaadukathan Annamalaiar had on people in the vicinity, it is indeed a remarkable surprise to see a one-man demolition army three generations ahead. As for me, I am just happy to see that PC at least bowed down without too much mud on his face. Now if only he would have closed shop on his lectures to Modi over the last few days and let his son roil in the muck, it would have been even better. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The other progeny to bite the dust again was EVKS Elangovan, the grand-relative of Periyar. Swapping Erode from where he finished runner-up last time to Thiruppur only got him the wooden spoon with less than 50K votes. In a land where the catcalls of "Anna naamam vaazhga, Periyaar naamam vaazhga" have been hijacked by a semi-theist outfit, it is indeed a no-brainer that there are so many DKs, let alone *MKs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is indeed a pleasure to see the flopshow of VaiKo in Virudhunagar. Only a glutton for punishment would like to see one more LTTE fanboi shackle India's hands in normalizing relations with Sri Lanka with a carrot and stick approach, a much needed Modi-JJ bandwagon that could set things reasonably ok on the ground in Sri Lanka over the next few years. </span></div>
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8) <b><u>Corruption:</u></b> If the BJP candidate had indeed filed his nomination papers right, Andimuthu Raja of the 2G infamy could have actually won the Neelagiri seat given that the BJP candidate would have split the ADMK votes happily. That around 3.6 lakh voters did not see a problem in electing Raja again shows how corruption is not so much of an issue with which one could whip up sentiments in Tamland anymore. Gone are those Rajnikanth's 1996 avatar days, may be people are just that numb of the sordid reality that is political India. If so, more power to them! Harping endlessly on corruption never got any society cleaner than a completely agnostic one. One point failure models like AAP and their fanbois can keep harping endlessly on how corruption-mukt-India is ah-so-great, but what is needed is not a mukt for corruption, but a mukt for unreasonable corruption. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">9) <b><u>DMDK and BJP:</u></b></span> The no-name brother-in-law of Narasimha aka "Tamland's original transformer-buster" came in third at Salem (and ditto for the DMDK candidate in Madurai) -- a far cry from the days when DMDK was touted as the replacement for DMK and ADMK. That should bring a sobering calm to those who tout the BJP to be a replacement to the *MK parties in Tamland. That reality seems more wishful than real, more fantastically fictituous than fanatically factual, especially given that BJP has repeatedly shown no interest or keenness or alacrity in understanding what drives Tamils. That accusation in the light of a super-strong performance might seem orthogonal, but someone needs to drive home the point that winning one polarized seat, a dynasty does not make. </div>
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Giving a speech in Hindi in Madras may buy a few curious looks and a polite "hmmm", but that does not translate to wins that matter. For that matter, an outfit that goes with the name "aam aadmi" can hardly make any inroads in Tamland, even if Tamland is not necessarily completely agnostic to corruption matters. As far as BJP goes, aligning with casteist outfits like PMK, DMDK and MDMK might have helped an eternal runner up in Ponnar into a first place, but that does nt sync with holding a nationalist chip on the shoulder often enough. But if that was the norm, there could never have been an alliance with an LTTE-ambivalent (at best) DMK or for that matter a Khalistani-ambivalent SAD in the first place. </div>
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The DMK's numbers are not exactly numbered in Tamland. The DMK is a resilient family-first unit that will be around in some form or the other for at least the next decade and more. While Mu Ka and Stalin draw an eerie parallel with Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, there is already a next generation in the form of Udhayanidhi who is all that Mu Ka Muthu could never be. What DMK lacks, just like what the ADMK lacks in a more serious form, is a strong rank and file that is deep in terms of intellect or strategic thinking. DMK leading men such as Naavalar Nedunchezhiyan, NVN Somu, Veerapandi Aarumugam are no more and it is not far from the day when more will pass away. That the idealistic enterprise has transformed into a family business with a hand in every profitable pie is no surprise. Yet, the business-first mentality will make the unit survive in some form. </div>
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Less can be said about ADMK given the absolutely asymmetrical power structure of the organization. Nevertheless, the ADMK's steady vote bank today (the Thevars) is not necessarily available for poaching by the BJP. One look at the ADMK candidate list shows how JJ has been cultivating pockets of deep influence in the Vanniyar and Gounder belts, in addition to the traditional Thevar belt. Some post-Congress feelings in the Naadar community is also seen to lead to some bonhomie with BJP and to a certain extent with ADMK. The broad point being, the lack of a second rung leadership hierarchy NOW does not in any case disabuse or suspend the (magical) formation of such as and when the need arises. The eternal truth is that nature abhors vacuum! </div>
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10) <b><u>Net winners and losers from the hustings:</u></b></div>
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Winners: JJ, BJP/Modi, Pon. Radhakrishnan, Anbumani Ramadoss </div>
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Hon. mention: Azhagiri </div>
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Losers: Stalin, the Maarans, A. Raja, Vijayakanth, Vai Ko, Dalit parties </div>
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Hon. mention: Today's Chaanakya with a 7 plus or minus 3 seat prediction which was always laughable in the first place for anyone who has a grasp of what drives Tamland </div>
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Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-27288564623242470002014-04-13T00:00:00.000-07:002014-04-13T10:01:37.842-07:00Getting rustic again... Sometimes one has to take a break, sometimes one has to brake the break, sometimes one has to call it quits. Let us say that I am in the second stage. Getting to write again something seriously requires a silly one to begin with. <br />
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And since I have seen a few Tamland movies of late, why not do a semi-surgical examination of this type of claptrap? Why not? Also, this type of topic goes well with the coming Tamil new year.<br />
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I have seen two types ("types" would be a big word given that every movie is a type of its own, but I mean it in a half-silly way) of movies in Tamland these days: the village type theme or a retro theme as in the 70s and 80s, when things were more village-ish even in the Madras side. This type of movie is rife with caste, violence, luv, family H&D tales, people who use red hot chilli peppers for brushing their teeth and ergo get affronted at the drop of a hat, drip vengeance in every ounce of blood, and so on. The comedy is more typically rustic: there is the usual belly farting jokes, there is also the usual schaedenfreud-ish jokes where one guy gets hurt and everyone except that guy (and may be even that guy) laughs. There is the dripping sarcasm that typifies Tamland films and especially so certain pockets of Tamland where sarcasm is better than in Madras. Of course, comedy has to be situational, else it will stand out like a sore thumb. Then, there is the violence and gore as a recurring leitmotif. Overarching both comedy and violence, there is dirt and grime. There are things that are not so polished and is often uncouth, something that will put off the urban side or will be in sync with the rustic side of the urban polity. Since many of us grew up in dirt and grime (in my case, the late half of the 80s and the wrong half of the 90s in a typical non-agraharamish South Madras neighborhood), it is what is in sync with our growing-up days.<br />
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And then there are the polished movies, more urban tales, it-vity tales, Gen Y tales, college-goer setpieces, growing-up stories and other nutty pieces of crap. The pseud factor in most of these movies is high. One needs a typical Siddharth or an Arya or Vijay to fit into these movies. Here, the comedy is more of the typical Madrasi fare, often with a sidekick meant specifically to dish out comedy. While I do not discount the fact that a sidekick comedian's role is a tough one, they are just that, a sidekick. Like, for example, a "nanben da" Santhanam or a "Kaipulla" or a "theeppori thirumugam" Vadivelu or a "Chaari-Sorry saar" Vivek or sometimes even a Vijay. This comedy is typified by crap talk, petty talk, tall talk, and of course, the two distinguishing features: peter-talk and paruppu-talk (aka pseud-ish Madras-giri and its Tamland cousin). There is the usual dripping sarcasm + social message based comedy that has always found a refuge in Tamland films. There is also a tale, which is usually a masala, but sometimes really a tale. </div>
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The first type of movie appeals to the rustic side of Tamlanders, who apparently seem to be more common than I expected them to be. It appeals to people who don't want to go back to rustic Tamland, but want to see it in the movie and reminisce the good old days. Those who want to bring out their inner rusticism to life, even if it is just for a three hour period. The second type of movie appeals to the urban side of Tamland. This set seems pretty small relatively, but that is pretty much what everyone wants to imitate. Newly minted Madras-bhashai becomes a massive hit overnight. Even jargon and pet-themes that were popular in certain colleges and in certain pockets become overnight famous everywhere. I mean such universal jargon/terms such as dhommai, dubooku, dokku, mokkai, koomuttai, devaangu, nngoyyale**, etc., have become the lingua franca of the angry and sometimes the happy-drunk Madrasi. And when the auto guy in Madras uses it, one knows that everyone uses it. Of course the auto guy uses it in anger or pain or for livelihood reasons, many use it for comic relief and because, sarcasm thy name is Tamland. </div>
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And then there is an unsaid third type (you should have expected that by now, knowing me very well). In this type, there is a bridge between the first and the second type of movie. The amount of bridging makes the movie appeal to an even broader audience than normal. Some of the better hit movies have something appealing to everyone. There is a rustic element either in the form of the protagonist who acts punch-drunk (Soodhu kavvum, Rummy, Varuthapadaatha vaalibar sangham) or sidekicks who take you back to those parts of life that you never want to see again (Yuddham sei, Aadukalam). And then there is the pseud element (Theeya velai seyyanum kumaaru, Raja rani, Maattraan, Aarambham). Or often both.<br />
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There are people who seem to have type-casted themselves in one type of role. For example, it is hard to expect a Vijay Sethupathi or a Sivakarthikeyan to don a pseud role. Typical of the upward mobility that has been Tamland film-dom, it is still hard to expect either of them to land such a role given how status quo is loved in the film world in general. On the other hand, it is hard to expect an Ajith or a Siddharth or a Madhavan to do anything but pseud roles. Vijay of course is the eternal college-goer, much like how Vikram or Surya is the eternal cop and how Vijayakanth dons double duty as a cop and a Maxwell's equations-defying transformer-buster. Speaking of transformers, transformation in roles do happen... A Parattai could become a Paayum puli, a Sappaani could become a Sagalakala vallavan. Sometimes, they start off as a Sakthivel who becomes Chinna thevar by the middle of the movie. and Thevar magan by the end. Managing that transformation (both real as well as in the minds of people) is more of an art than a science. Now that folks like Sivakarthikeyan and Vijay Sethupathi have established themselves as bankable stars with serial hits and mega-hits, it is a 1001$ puzzle whether they can become versatile Rajnikanths, let alone a less overacting hundred-role-toting kamalahassans.. </div>
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That transformation, if it does happen, will be a further commentary on the state-of-affairs as much is everything else that happens in Tamland filmdom. Till then, rejoice the fact that: The masala as we knew it is dead, Long live the masala.<br />
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** nngoyyale... I love that word because Tam grammar cannot take a word that starts with a half-sound and here we have a word that is so-unTamil and yet so popular. By its very existence, it has defied the Tamland grammarians who can all throw a sword at you with their half-aruvaal moustaches (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma._Po._Si.">Ma. po. si.</a>, anyone?!) and burn down the house if they so wish (Nakkeeran types, not the new one but the old one). In a way, this very "word" means nothing if you look at the sky and exclaim, something if you look askance and deliver, and everything if you look at someone and mutter it. It has become the quintessential onomatopoeia of new age-Tam. It is the alpha and omega of cusswords. You could start a sentence with nngoyyale as in "nngoyyale, sollittu vandhuttiya," or end a sentence with it as in "vandhuttaan da, nngoyyale," or just have that alone in a sentence "nngoyyale". It could be added as a prefix or a suffix to many things as in "adinngoyyale." It could be used by women in buses when oldies harass them with their age-defying stomach-churning kasamusa aka gilmaa aka jalpaans aka any series of finely-tuned sounds that is intended to mean that. It could be used by school kids playing cricket on the street against anyone who acts cocky with them including class teachers, but of course under the radar. It could be used by college kids on rival gangs or policekaarans (or policekaarars or policekars depending on who you are) who ask them to "take the 20" for going without license or RC book or insurance or road tax documents. It could be used to mean "teri maaki" without*** actually saying it in so many words. It could be a snide "I am pissed with you" type claptrap too. It could well be a filler. It could be whatever you want it to be... or whatever not... its dirty and beautiful.. its a sociologist's delight and a grammarian's kryptonite... its one man's tool and another man's cool...<br />
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*** Even though etymologically, nngoyyale comes from a Tamland version of teri maaki, it has now become a guruvai minjina sishyan. It is a word of its own, in a class of its own, with a purpose of its own. </div>
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Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-11393173101593683982013-10-01T23:08:00.000-07:002013-10-01T23:11:25.682-07:00Response to a comment on the Madras Manade postI found this comment on the post on claims to Madras city (<a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.in/2011/12/chennai-illai-madras-tales-from-city.html">http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.in/2011/12/chennai-illai-madras-tales-from-city.html</a>):<br />
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<b><i><u>Comment:</u></i></b><br />
The account given is evidently partisan as it is apparently written by a Tamil or a Tamil sympathizer.If history is written by an interested party, truth suffers. Go back to history. The city developed around the settlement (Fort Saint George) permission for which was given to the British by the Nayaks, Telugus, who ruled different regions of the province. The Nayaks controlled the coastal areas from Pulicat to Santhom.After all Chennai is a name derived from Chennapattnam, a village named after Damarla Chennappqa Nayaka. When readers wrote to The Hindu, your own paper, to keep politicians out of the issue and hold a referendum, it was not taken note of.If the Tamil leaders were so sure of their numbers in the city, they would have agreed for a plebiscite to settle the vexatious problem. Neither did they agree to the Wanchoo committee recommendation to allow Andhras to share Madras as capital for a limited period. It shows their intransigence, well supported by Nehru indirectly. The evil genius Rajaji, who is supposed to be a leader of national stature, was so cruel that the Andhras were forced to go overnight and put up tents in Kurnool to serve as capital. What is this "greater contact" of Tamils, Kalki, a writer of so repute and is supposed to be universal in his outlook. speaks of. He acted as a mouthpiece of Rajaji unashamedly. When so many readers wrote to The Hindu to keep politicians out of the issue and hold a referendum the Tamil leaders simply ignored it to their convenience. As there was genuineness to the Andhra Cause there was no response in support of Tamils from Tamil leaders themselves.<br />
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<b><i><u>Response:</u></i></b><br />
From what I can guess, the author of the piece that you are criticizing is most likely Tamil rather than Telugu. But he could as well have been a nobody. The point of his article was to expound on the claims and counter-claims on Madras city.<br />
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Madras did not exist in the form we know it today prior to the setting up of George Town (the then Black Town, which slowly merged with the White Town established by the British). Madras in the form it exists today has known of a substantial native population (by which I mean a predominant generation that has been born in Madras and grown in Madras) only over the last 60-70 years. Madras has primarily been an immigrant city, and even today caters to a large "immigrant" population from all over Tamil Nadu and also the rest of India, especially with the boom in IT, manufacturing and construction industries. While not as cosmopolitan as Bangalore or filmi Bombay are, Madras still maintains its ethos of crappy conservatism (copyrighted) by limiting/discouraging free-for-all immigration inside the city limits by an artificial and socially structured process of reverse gentrification.<br />
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That said, Telugu speakers have remained a significant part of Madras in the 40s as well as today. I know of enough cases of some version of Telugu spoken at home followed by fluent Madras Tamil conversations on the street. Nevertheless, claims to Telugu speaker majority are a bit of voodoo science. There are enough evidences to point to the fact that Telugu speakers were NOT more numerically preponderant than the Tamil speakers in the 30s and 40s. The 1941 Census under the British points to a 15-70 split (or so claims the author of the piece). From my understanding and studies in the by-gone days (on which I wont bet my paycheck, except for a first order claim), the 15% in 1941 census reflected a growing percentage of Telugu speakers in Madras city from what that number stood at in the late 19th century.<br />
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There are multiple reasons to explain that trend. Foremost of which was the rise of limited private enterprise in Madras city under the British. As is usually the case, the most sought after factor in private enterprise was kith and kin, followed by trust in the form of local, regional, religious and linguistic bonds. With trade and business firmly in the control of Telugu speakers (vis-a-vis the Tamil speakers), it was only a matter of time before the non-land owning Telugu speaker percentage rose in Madras city. Another important factor behind the rise of Telugu speaker percentage was the rise of South Indian cinema from the late 20s through 40s and beyond. Bilinguals (Tamil and Telugu) were a common feature as was the free use of resources (capital, people, ideas and audience) from all over Madras Presidency. With the cinema industry acting as the springboard for all types of social revolutions (version 1.0), Madras city attracted all kinds of people from far and wide. If the Telugu speakers had made a claim to Madras city and Andhra Pradesh in 1961 instead of 1951, there is a good likelihood that Madras city would have become a part of Andhra Pradesh.<br />
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There are no vexatious problems as for the claim of Madras city -- neither then nor now. The "referendum" idea makes no sense either especially when census figures are right there to look at. Even discounting a 20% adjustment from Tamil speakers to Telugu speakers, for whatever be the reason, there is no case made for Madras city as a part of Andhra Pradesh, if it is one vote per person. However, the idea of equal votes for all is an illusory fancy that titillates the imagination of socialists of all hues. In practice, every person can claim only as many votes as per the decibel level of ruckus they can raise. If that is the case, sure there is a vexatious issue to resolve. Unfortunately, I am not too bothered about such problems as I have enough of my own.Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-36120510241836046222013-09-01T09:30:00.000-07:002013-09-02T20:21:45.234-07:00Ten things I think about hockey Not that it matters, but anyway... Let me amuse myself in making a point or ten, ogay?<br />
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1) Sad that we did nt win at Ipoh. Ipoh has been a favorite hunting ground for India with the many Azlan Shah Cup wins unlike Kuala Lumpur, where the honeymoon of the 1975 World Cup win has soured over the years. And the more recent addition of Kuantan where we ended up 5th at the last Asia Cup makes me feel that Malaysia should host all the events at Ipoh! With Ipoh having far more Chinese-Malaysians than Malays and Indian-origin peoples, even an India-Malaysia match is not as skewed as a match in KL in terms of crowd support, one would think. It would have been a good thing to enter the World Cup not as benevolence from FIH (as the fourth reserve from the World Hockey League), but because we deserve it as a right (as the continental champions). But that day will have to wait for a bit longer, thanks to the Indian disease of last-minute heart attacks.<br />
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Now I have one more reason to love Ipoh: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRgxK-vgjow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRgxK-vgjow</a><br />
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2) The team that got sent to Ipoh was/is young and inexperienced as Akashdeep Singh, Danish Mujtaba, Gurvinder Singh Chandi and SV Sunil were laid low with injuries. On top of that, Sardara Singh went through a bout of viral fever prior to the first match against Oman. Some of the injuries can be attributed to the shoddy state of the polytan turf at the SAI center in Bangalore. I hope the busybodies at Hockey India end up re-laying this turf instead of letting the team shift practice and conditioning venues every time. Akashdeep has been reported to have suffered a career threatening injury, Gurvinder has been out of action for a long time now. It is really not clear if Gurvinder will be the same player if and when he returns back. At 24, he still has time on his side, but still not much (may be 3-4 years!).<br />
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3) While a lot of credit gets dished out to Roelant Oltmans, the High-Performance director, I would give most of the credit to MK Kaushik sir. MKK was appointed as the Coach in a last-resort move by the clueless HI after the Michael Nobbs gravy-train had hit the point of no return. With a European style under Oltmans and an Australian style under Nobbs, who was pulling up Sardara as the first-among-equals, the team was splitting vertically from one boondoggle (Australian-speak for contradiction) to another. The banishing of Sandeep Singh from the team and his replacement with the then-shoddy VR Raghunath was equally crass. The same can be said for Bharat Chettri's case, but then at 33, Bharat must have been hoping for some miracle to have been available and pickable for the Rio team.<br />
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MKK, one of the few gems in Indian hockey coaching annals, had been banished from all hockey teams since he had been accused of seeking sexual favors by a large section of the senior women's team. While not one to condone sexual aggression against women in any form, it is also not within the realms of reality that MKK indeed sought and used the services of a prostitute rather than seeking favors from the team and team selection policies did play a role in some of the accusations. Without getting too much into details, and even if there can be a strong case made against MKK, it will always be a tricky tradeoff when smart people come with crappy flaws. Does one burn the house for the sake of integrity and values, or are values and ethics subject to re-interpretation of the situation at hand? What does Krishna say about this dilemma?<br />
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I would take a page from the American NCAA coaching annals (Bobby Petrino, Joe Pa and the like) and say that the answer is subjective and dependent on the context rather than written down in glorious red ink on a gold plate and framed with impenetrable shimmering glass. While theory is good for the higher mortals of this earth, practice is left to the poorer ones like at HI. The HI apparatus did a commendable thing in recalling MKK, but then it was a one point caveat (qualify for the WC or else) to MKK. Whatever one says, MKK did pull the team through in not losing to Malaysia in the semis. I would stick with MKK because he is a known performer (he pulled the women's team to their ONLY gold at Bangkok in 1998).<br />
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All that said, MKK and Oltmans still have a conflicting style of hockey-ing and a good performance at one event does not wish that fact away. The Indian style is neither European nor Australian, it is Indian. We are not the run-athoners, we are not the non-stop army-style machines, we are no longer the deft stickworkers, we are no longer the magicians, we are mere mortals playing a stupid game followed by even more stupider people, we are not 200% fit, we concede last minute goals, we eke out draws from the clutches of victory and defeats from the clutches of a draw, we define ourselves in slowing the game sufficiently to speed up as and when we choose. While all this may seem hyperbole, that is indeed the Indian game and the state of Indian hockey in a nutshell.<br />
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4) The last minute appointment of a goalkeeping coach and the excellent form of Sreejesh during the tournament only makes me feel that placebos do exist in reality. Sreejesh has been limping back and forth between excellent and shoddy form and it was always a when, not if, as to his return to form. That said, we do not have a steady stable of reserve goalkeepers with a 34 year old PT Rao serving as the backup here. This reality is atrocious. You cannot have a team that wishes to climb up the rankings with one in-form goalkeeper. On placebos, if a sports psychologist is what it takes the team to beat up the mental dragon, so be it. Why cannot the HI apparatus have a sports psychologist on the panel of team staff befuddles me. It has befuddled me for eternity, but that is a different story.<br />
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5) The Continental Cup champions standings will see India update itself from the 4th position (540 points) to second (700 points). This is because of the four year window, which will see the expiry of the 2009 Asia Cup where we performed disastrously (5th) and a 25% weightage for the 2010 Asian Games where we still performed disastrously (3rd). With the 2013 Asia Cup getting a 100% weightage, the cumulative score (which is 100% of the 2013 performance weighted by the ranking secured in the event + 25% of the 2010 performance weighted by the ranking secured in that event with ties broken by the more recent better performance trumping the far-off one) will see India rise to the second in the Asian standings. The weights are 750 for the first place, 700 for the second, 650 for the third, 540 (90% of 600 for Asia) for the 4th, 495 (90% of 550 for Asia) for 5th and 450 (90% of 500 for Asia) for 6th. Note that the Euro-centric FIH has allocated 100% of weighted points for the top 36 finishers in Europe, even though not more than four of the European teams (Germany, Netherlands, Spain and of late England) can claim to be good. That is one of the other games FIH plays, skewing the world of hockey to its rules and controlling the weights that other teams secure in their continental tourneys!!! No wonder teams such as Belgium have been able to make a steady climb in the recent past and I hope the Flemish pull off from the Walloons, but yea, who cares.<br />
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In any case, all the calculations (I double-checked it and you can trust me on that) mean that we get the continent's share of 2nd finisher which is 700 points. So we rise from 1598 points to 1758 points (a 160 point rise), good enough to swap the 10th and 11th spots with Argentina at 1725 points (another one of those teams that missed the Beijing Olympics). The points update will also see Pakistan drop from 1920 to 1820, a drop from the current 8th spot to 9th. Meanwhile Korea climbs from 1923 to 2023 points, a rise from the 7th spot currently to 5th. Malaysia stays put at 13th despite a drop of 160 points to 1259.<br />
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This is the anatomy of how the Koreans have been able to stay stable despite being equals with India and Pakistan in almost every count, if not worse. They are able to win the matches that matter the most (finals and playoffs) and accrue points, a loss in those events that would see them plummet the FIH rankings. That sustained standing gives the FIH's nomination and benevolence (!) in case of a coin-toss. This is the exact gaming of the game that the Indians need to be aware of, will they? God knows. Despite claims to being the masters of everything under the sun from zero to kalpa, simple strategizing is not the forte of the hockey aficionados in India, and Indians, in general. The rise to the top is achieved by a 1008 toiled nights where progress does nt scream out in your face. Fight the battles that need to be fought, win the wars that need to be won. Anyway...<br />
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6) Despite the reserve route, our entry to the World Cup and a strong finish there will see us climb the ladder again. With Pakistan not coming through to the event, they are bound to lose more points relative to other Asian teams (India, Malaysia, Korea and even Japan -- because Japan has no points to shed on this count, but Pakistan has). While I understand how that can be for the Pakistani supporter(s) from seeing the Santiago spectacle before the 2008 Olympic Games, I would also be thinking of the shenanigans that the PHF played in 2007 when the Champions Trophy was shifted from Lahore to Kuala Lumpur, instead of India, which also clamored to host the event. With the PHF vetoing a move of the 2007 CT to India, the hitherto six-team CT expanded to a eight-team event to accommodate the Pakistanis who could not host the event due to their own self-created security nightmares. With Malaysia making the 7th team and England (the 9th ranked team on the FIH standings at that point) getting the FIH nod ahead of India (the 7th ranked team on FIH standings at that point) because of their 5th place finish at the 2006 WC at Monchengladbach, IHF (the then-runners of hockey in India) were left wondering about the miss between the cup and the lip.<br />
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7) Not only was that nod to England a contradiction to the FIH norms of "a good performance in one tournament should not make up for a shoddy last four years" (a justification for the four year cycle of the FIH rankings), that singular event exposes the creative way in which the Euro-centric FIH reads and interprets rules to the suiting of European (aka white) teams. First, the six-team event became a eight-team event and not a seven-team one, a possibility noone has explained why. Why was there a need to have two pools of 4 teams each when a round robin could not have added more than 6 matches (or 2 to 3 more days of the tournament)? Second, the Pakistanis were invited to the 2007 CT because the FIH removed them as hosts due to security reasons and the team should not suffer because of that, whereas when the CT was shifted from India in 2011 (ostensibly because there were two organizations running the game in India), the Indian hockey team was not invited for the Auckland event even though the team should not have suffered due to the fact that there were/are 108 organizations running hockey in India. Instead the FIH chose the Pakistani team as a reserve!! Third, the use of metrics as and which suits their agenda best is a no-brainer, but it is easier to document horseshit with pen and paper than in blood and gore.<br />
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In any case, that 2007 CT miss did bite back India dearly as the English team steeled further by their exposure against top teams was the one that won the 2008 Santiago Qualifier event to make their way to Beijing. As a person with a certain elephantine memory, revenge is indeed best served cold, and I am indeed happy to see the way in which the Pakistanis have found their way out of the event they "conceived." I really wish the Pakistani team the very best in climbing their way out of this rut, Insha Allah, as they say in Pakistan.<br />
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8) As for India, to climb the FIH rankings is a long-term plan. With no further ranking points for this year (to the best of my knowledge), one has to hope for a better 2014. The hope is that the reserves will be healthy and a good practice turf will be had.<br />
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And there are three big events lined up for 2014: World Cup is at The Hague in June, Asian Games is in Incheon from mid-September to early-October, and the Champions Trophy is in New Delhi in mid-December. To recall, Incheon won the Asian Games bid by beating Delhi after the disastrous remarks of the then Sports minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar. While the spectacular corruption of Commonwealth Games was still episoding on the side unbeknownst to the common man, and did nt reach its heights till early 2008, I am still thankful for MSA's remarks and the fact that New Delhi did not win the bid. In any case, it would be a double-icing on the cake to whip the Koreans as well as secure a spot at the next Olympic Games in Rio with a gold at Incheon. A good performance at all the three events will see us get to the top-six, which is where we really belong. I have been saying that for god knows how long that it sounds so stale even to me, but I persist. Losers are not the ones who end up losing, but those who believe they will end up losing.<br />
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9) That brings me to China, a team that could not have turned up at the Beijing Olympics except as the host. While one could claim that their second place finish at the Doha Asian Games in 2006 was enough justification of their getting a freebie as the host, their FIH rankings at the end of 2007 was 17! Again, steeled by exposure, the Chinese team finished third at the Kuantan Asia Cup in 2009 and fifth at the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010. As the wise saying goes, "every man can only climb to his level of mediocrity," the Chinese have absented themselves from this event for whatever reason they could only conjure up. This no-show singularly pushes them to the 6th spot in Asia, independent of how well Japan (the eventual fifth place finisher) had performed at the event. The Taiwanese team was invited as a reserve and even if they did come out completely whitewashed, one does feel for debutants. With revenge part deux out of the way without even being said so, Oman did indeed spring a surprise or two by shocking higher ranked teams like Bangladesh.<br />
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That China as a host example also overemphasizes the importance of the mad rush to secure the Olympics berth at Rio when Brazil will be bestowed an automatic entry (or will they!). Incheon or bust, that is the motto for the Indian team. There is only a small gap (a one game performance) between losing out on a big event or not, like the Pakistanis can affirm now and the Indians and Argentines could have affirmed from their experiences in 2008.<br />
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10) Looks like Amit Rohidas, Nikin Thimmaiah, Gurmail Singh, Malak Singh and Manpreet Singh have made a successful transition from the junior side to the senior one. In the Indian context, the transitions are never perfect with a lot of pilferage on the way. While the 2001 Junior world cup winning team threw up players like Devesh Chauhan, Bharat Chettri, Jugraj Singh, Kanwalpreet Singh, Gagan Ajit Singh, Deepak Thakur, Arjun Halappa, Rajpal Singh and Prabhjyot Singh, the 2005 junior team ended with contributing Sreejesh, Sandeep Singh, Birendra Lakra and Tushar Khandekar. The much-highly touted 2009 team finished 9th and have so far contributed just Danish Mujtaba to the senior ranks. The captain Diwakar Ram has been lost as has been the case with much of the team. That said, the 2013 Junior World Cup will be in New Delhi at the end of the year. Hope this event could lead to something akin to what the 2001 team did at Hobart.<br />
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And finally, Mandeep Singh from the Ranchi Rhinos part of the Hockey India League has turned out to be one of those to look out for provided he remains healthy. It is sad that the other star performer Gurjinder in the World Series Hockey has been lost out even without making the team. Pilferage is not the way to climb the rankings. The importance of that sordid reality cannot be overemphasized. While the recently concluded Indian Badminton League (IBL) has secured the second spot behind IPL in rallying up the common man in India, one hopes that HIL continues its onward journey in early 2014. One also hopes that a team from Karnataka comes up soon (as was expected in the 2013 edition, but did not happen) so that the game becomes representative of the following in India. It would be even more excellent to have an Imphal Impalas or Imphal Indians to have a seven team event, but dreams can wait for a couple of years.Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-35711553363572272482013-08-26T18:23:00.000-07:002013-08-26T18:24:19.451-07:00Three posts on education1) In the wake of India trying to welcome US-based universities to educate its future generations,<br />
(<a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/how-loyal-are-overseas-branch-campuses-to-their-host-countries/32723?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en">http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/how-loyal-are-overseas-branch-campuses-to-their-host-countries/32723?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en</a>) here is a report on how loyal are overseas branch campuses are to their host countries? Some points are worth emphasizing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"A couple of weeks ago, the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business announced that it would leave Singapore and shift its Asian operation to Hong Kong. The reasoning seems to be strategic. Its contract with Singapore was concluding in 2015, and Hong Kong offers better access to the rapidly expanding Chinese market. Similarly, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas has signaled that it may be leaving Singapore after its last batch of students complete their study in 2015. In this case, the university couldn’t agree on the student subsidies paid by its host, the government-sponsored Singapore Institute of Technology. And, in the midst of its global expansion, New York University also recently revealed it was closing its Tisch campus on the island nation after it also failed to reach a new financial arrangement with the Singapore government.<br />
...<br />
Within a matter of a few months, three international branch campuses on one island signaled they would be closing or relocating because they didn’t like the financial deal provided by the government. This is virtually unthinkable back home. The University of Chicago is not tempted to relocate to Houston because of Governor Perry’s pitch that business is better in Texas. The University of Nevada at Las Vegas will not be leaving Nevada no matter how much it dislikes the financial arrangement it has with Nevada. And NYU would never have closed its New York campus, even if it didn’t get approval from the city for a controversial expansion in Greenwich Village.<br />
...<br />
International branch campuses, though, seem to have a more flexible sense of place. They are less like a university in a college town and more like a department store in a suburban mall. If the community declines or the market shifts, the university soldiers on; the store has a moving sale."</blockquote>
There you go, in simple English, overseas branches are BIG business ventures for a university. As long as the money cow can be milked, India will be a target for every university in the US and Europe. Which means, India will always be a target for these universities. Thus, it behooves the MHRD and GoI to not loose their senses (which they so far have not) in opening up the education sector. As much as future generations of Indians need to be educated, it is not like the overseas universities are being benevolent, they are just trying to take care of their own bottomline first and foremost. If any philanthropic act accrues in the process, while these universities would like to take credit, only the naive will bestow free credit to them.<br />
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2) William Deresiewicz writes the following in his piece, "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education" (<a href="http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/#.Uhv4B5JQFgo">http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/#.Uhv4B5JQFgo</a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, <b><u><i>they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it."</i></u></b></blockquote>
That last line quite caricatures the US and west-based Indian-origin peoples who find fault with most things that is India today and in the past, on both sides of the divide: leftists as well as rightists. When one takes themselves out of India, they should tend to judge less and accepting (in a non-flippant yet resigned-to-fate yet observational sense) of every possible stupidity that India and Indians display. The ones who want change by sitting outside and by influencing the proceedings inside do end up being the proverbial cats that run after their own tail. Quite amusing to watch for a show, not quite funny to have as a pet.<br />
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In any case, while admittedly a looong piece, the author belabors and rambles about the simple point that no metric can capture it all. Yet, there has to be a metric, some metric, any metric to measure things, even if incompletely, even if imperfectly, even if idiotically. The criticism of existing measures is not the same as an alternate/candidate metric that will meet these virtues and more. It is just a destructive criticism of things that exist as not meeting the imaginary benchmarks set by the author. A more constructive and far more difficult criticism is to propose a candidate that could be tested for being a useful solution to the problem at hand.<br />
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Nepotism and elitism are not new phenomena that have come about with Ivy League universities or their poor Indian copycats. Nepotism has existed ever since man has, every set of peoples end up subdividing themselves till they feel comfortable as a unit. To deny that these do not exist is to whitewash history. Given that these two traits do exist, the current solution is the best till a new one comes up. And when a new better solution is up, people do switch on to that bandwagon till another one turns up. To deride the course of history in the hope of building a better h metric is one, to deride that to endlessly circle around the same point without solving the problem at hand is quite another.<br />
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3) Buttressing the above claim that nepotism and elitism exist even in the highest circles, here is a report on how four of the key ideas in Obama's plan to control college costs bear familiar fingerprints (<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/4-Key-Ideas-in-Obamas-Plan/141239/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en">http://chronicle.com/article/4-Key-Ideas-in-Obamas-Plan/141239/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en</a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The president's plan dovetails closely with the agendas of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has spent $472-million to remake college education in the United States, and of the Lumina Foundation, the largest private foundation devoted solely to higher education. Many features of the president's plan have been advocated, too, in the research and analysis of the New America Foundation's education-policy program." </blockquote>
There you go, even the only superpower's policies get made in Seattle, Bay Area or Indianapolis. Thank god that the Obama administration did not source ideas from the Heritage Foundation.<br />
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<br />Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-12214320249878845682013-08-25T16:00:00.002-07:002013-08-25T16:00:58.191-07:00Vishwaroopam, Thalaivaa, Madras Cafe, ... (Or) Trends in Tamland....<br />
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The behavior of every political party on matters pertaining to Tamil identity (whatever that means) has been/is predictable to a large degree. What varies across party-lines are the nuances and fine-prints. This has been the case since competitive multi-party electoral reality with a reasonable representativeness became the norm in Tamland (circa early 40s). Any party that defies this natural dictum gets banished by the electorate, either slowly over time as happened with the Communist/socialist parties from the late-40s through the 60s, or in a jiffy as was the case with the Congress party in the 1957-67 phase. In this sense, Tamland is not unique, with similar trends identified and witnessed across India.<br />
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Given this background, what does one make of the Tamland pressure groups' clamor to ban the movie "Madras Cafe?" What does one make of the trends in Tamland, in general? Here is my take based on my understanding of history. There are four lines of thought that come to my mind from watching the trends in Tamland over the years.<br />
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1) <b><i><u>Weakening hold of ADMK and DMK:</u></i></b> Both ADMK and DMK have been around in Tamland for a long time to systematically master the full-circle art of propaganda and populism, short-term vs. long-term electoral strategizing trade-offs, victory followed by shoring up the support-cast, and resilience following defeat in electoral battles. In terms of leadership, both parties follow the classical Indian model of a tree hierarchy in contrast to the hub-and-spokes model that is common among the Communist outfits. While the tree hierarchy with an asymmetrical leader is advantageous in making quick business decisions (an obvious need for a well-oiled democracy), the hub-and-spokes hierarchy can be constrained by the ideological differences between the first-among-equals. On the other hand, the former hierarchy is more susceptible to a decapitating strike than the latter.<br />
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While Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi have been <i>de facto</i> bosses of Tamland (in turn), neither can boss around the boss of them all: time (the theists might prefer to substitute time with god, but Mr. Karunanidhi will prefer the irreverent rationalist idea called time to the reverent "venghaayam" of an idea called god, one might hope). It is amply clear that the hold of Karunanidhi, even on his own family, is not steady over the last decade, let alone on his party and the state. With two sons, a daughter and a couple of nephew's sons seeking to control the party, and a large clique from the families of the fellow travelers in the DMK saga seeking to align themselves with the most likely victor, DMK is passing through a stage where the post-Karunanidhi phase is assured to be a civil war. On the other hand, the multiple anti-corruption cases and the copious amounts of biriyani have had a lasting impact on the hold and health of Jayalalitha. With no second-rung in her party to pass the baton to, Jayalalitha is still confronting the ghosts of confessions from her partner-in-crime that seems endless. A capricious nature, that has resulted in a large number of sharks hurt by her past actions baying for her blood (as and when the opportunity may strike), means that the leader of the ADMK is a leader alright, but one who has to watch her back all the time.<br />
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2) <b><i><u>Hedging the bets:</u></i></b> In addition to the weakening hold of the ADMK and DMK on power politics, their hold on Tamil identity matters is also vanishing slowly, but steadily. Decades of brushing aside (see Footnote 1) the casteist-religious dynamic of Tamil society by the supposedly-unifying theme of a mythical Tamil identity is dying a slow and visible death. I personally do not find hiding behind the mythical Tamil identity a good or a stable long-term solution provided the real differences between different sets of peoples is held at the personal and family level, rather than induce a noxious circle of calumny and abuse at the societal level. But, I digress.<br />
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Overtly caste and religion-driven political outfits such as PMK, DMDK, KMK/KMP, MMK/TMMK have flowered aplenty in Tamland over the last three decades. While one could empathize with the Live and Let Live dictum that seems to twine through India, certain outfits present a good case for being banned outright or asap. Except for the common theme of "munnettram" (progress/progressive), "makkal" (people) and "kazhagam" (organization/group), none of these organizations have an ideology or a vision that is beyond the narrow and tunnel-visioned. As a result, these outfits have not burst across the seams except past their own unique support base. A case in point is PMK (the successor of the Commonweal and Toilers parties of the 50s) whose vote bank and vote share has stabilized at 5% and is primarily in the reckoning only in the Vanniyar-dominated North Tamil Nadu belt surrounding Madras city.<br />
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Being survivalists, they have forged ties with the DMK and ADMK in turn and then, going alone with bridges burned on both sides. The ADMK and DMK have found these petty parties to be "useful idiots" in hedging their bets on their loosening hold on different segments of Tamland society. But more importantly, when in union with either ADMK or DMK, these petty parties have punched above their weight by acts of connivance using the weight of the two dominant political parties. When on their own, they have acted as a nuisance to the common man with the opposition party remaining silent on their tantrums while the ruling party tries to put down the fire using its resources. As much as one would like to see the negative side of these outfits, I would see the positive in how they expose the self-contradictory nature of Tamil society, especially as championed by the DMK and ADMK (in turn) and also by these petty outfits.<br />
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3) <b><i><u>Calculus of power vacuum:</u></i></b> While the power vacuum in ADMK and DMK and their constant self-doubts has given space to petty outfits, this vacuum has not been filled by the more than life presence of the Congress or the BJP, both entrenched in their own tales of self-pity and paranoia. Gone are the days when a tall leader like Kamaraj walked the length and breadth of the state. Even a poor shadow of Kamaraj like G. K. Mooppanaar could induce more life into the Tamland Congress party than the stale breath that emanates from Sathyamurthi Bhavan these days. That said, even the very name Sathyamurthi Bhavan is emblematic of the disconnect the Congress party has with the demographic of Tamland. A Brahmin and the political guru of Kamaraj sure has good claims to having the TNCC headquarters named after him, but Kamaraj is "<i>Guruvai minjina sishyan</i>" by any yardstick. The Congress party would have bitten dust in the 1957 elections (instead of in 1967) had it not been for Kamaraj forcibly taking over the reins of the party from Rajaji, the support that move got from Periyar in the form of non-Brahminical camaraderie, and in turn, Kamaraj's decency in co-opting C. Subramaniam (Rajaji's nominee for the leader of the party) and M. Bhakthavatsalam in the Cabinet -- both Brahmins and tall leaders in their own mold. Like in <i>Invictus</i>, Kamaraj delayed the inevitable, only to be undone by the surge of father time and the impending demographic bulge against the fortunes of an anachronistic party whose shelf-life had long expired.<br />
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Beaten back by the language blues, one would have hoped that the Congress party would have learned its lessons in re-selling itself as the panacea to the hopelessness of the Tamland electorate oscillating between the vagaries of the two *MKs. Not to be, the constant family-centric policies of the Congress party has meant that tall leaders like Marshal Nesamoni Ponniah (who led the efforts in joining the southern Tamil-speaking districts of the Travancore province with Tamland in the state reorganization efforts of the mid-50s), P. Subbarayan (who started off by opposing the Panagal Raja faction of the Justice Party, but later moved closer to Rajaji, CS and Bhakthavatsalam), etc., have been shunted to the back pages of Tamland Congress history. Why, even the Congress (I) vs. Congress (O) split (following the takeover of the party by Indira Gandhi) has not healed in the party with the abuses meted out to Kamaraj by the Gandhi family loyalists still a constant reminder to the Kamaraj loyalists of what the party looks like and will look like. In contrast to being the refuge of the non-casteist with a national vision beyond the petty, TNCC has been at the forefront of inter-caste feuds like the Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar-Emmanuel Sekaran fight, Muthuralaminga Thevar-Shanmuga Rajeswara Sethupathi (deceased Raja of Ramnad and one of the champions of the Justice Party before shifting loyalties to the Congress) fight, Kula kalvithh thhittam and non-repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act during the Rajaji regime, and so on. While these are old stories, the scars remain as constant reminders, especially in rural Tamland where blood flows more eloquently than Cauvery.<br />
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In contrast to the Congress, the BJP and its unilateral focus on Hindutva in a state that needs no preaching on its Hindu credentials (with a deep sense of piety despite the enormous stresses induced on such a piety by the rationalist movement) has led to it being a non-starter everywhere except in polarized constituencies with a demographic shift. A constant stand-in-your-face assertion of the BJP will bring it not many new voters in Tamland till the demographic shifts visibly --- a good 40 to 50 years away, based on my biased estimates. In short, the BJP is hobbled by an inability to understand the linguistic ideals of the state, its moorings in Maharashtra and North India coupled with its hopelessness to tailor itself to the needs of a state that is as unique as can be, and a constant with-us-or-against-us catcall that is decided by voters conveniently looking past it, and so on. Thus, for the Congress party to become a force to be reckoned with again, it needs to look past <i>La Familia</i>. For the BJP to become relevant, it needs to win Tamil orators, rhetoricians and cultural stalwarts who can connect with what drives the state and what matters to the state. Fat chance either of these trends are happening in the near future.<br />
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4) <b><i><u>Aggressive manipulation:</u></i></b> A visible power vacuum that is not filled by the national parties is ripe for being taken by the contender(s). Whatever drives the current cultural and political space of the Tamils will be used aggressively by the petty outfits to space themselves as the champions of Tamil identity. This is the precise space that has led to the constant attempts at hero-izing (see Footnote 2) Prabhakaran, Veerappan, and the murderers of Rajiv Gandhi. Not to mention inter-state water disputes like Cauvery and Mullaipperiyar. Of course, while the latter issues need two to tango, the former are primarily a power vacuum where the national parties have been hopelessly beaten at the propaganda game by the petty outfits and the regional parties are dancing to the tune of these outfits which enjoy the first-mover effect.<br />
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In this game, no-namers like Seeman and Pazha Nedumaran as well as spent-forces like Vai Ko are all only emulating the grandiose sound-and-fury of the early DMK propagandists with no significant effect in power politics or real power. Where the DMK propagandists succeeded in co-opting the newly educated student population of the 50s and 60s, the current propagandists will find it more difficult (in addition to the difficulties of displacing the incumbents) due to the presence of social media and constant in-your-face non-stop debating on TV. While the current student population (beyond a microscopic minority) are not vulnerable to becoming anti-national by these acts, the rebellious streak that led to the isolation of the Congress party from the state will see no abating, let alone rollback.<br />
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Overall, the Tamil identity supporters are wielding a double-edged sword (and would end up hurting their own cause) by picking an axe-to-grind at every eventuality. It is easy to ride the Tamil Tiger, but difficult to dis-mount as the DMK will be able to regale from its tales of woe that was the late 70s through the late 80s. Sooner than later, the petty forces will face a growing backlash from the sensible set of peoples in the state (a good majority) who will add the propagandists to the list of equally execrable parties in the state. No, Rajnikanth cannot help the state as his cigarette fight with Ramadoss was a stalemate because of financial issues beyond his control. And he is picking no fight for he has a better movie to be released any time soon.<br />
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Till that eventuality kicks in, the order of business in the state is going to be one of self-censoring. Any movie with a political bent and self-introspection on the course of the more recent Tamil history will have to be shelved if business is what matters. Even caste re-renderings of history like Ponnar Sankar will have to be shelved (as witnessed by the fate of Meendezhum Pandiyar Varalaaru). For folks who had witnessed the plethora of Kattabomman Transport Corporation and Thevar Transport Corporation from the crazy days of 90s, this is <i>de javu</i> all over again. Course correction to be euphemistic, but clear in terms of what to do for those in the entertainment business. The coming years will see a long laundry list of <i>masala</i> madness that was commonplace in the 80s and 90s. The mythical villain will no longer be Pakistani or spouting political Islam, lest it hurt the sensibilities of Muslims. Every non-Hindu will be a good guy/girl, and all the bad guys/girls will be Hindus (as was the case in the secular Dasavatharam as against the non-secular Vishwaroopam). Nor will it be a woman (no matter how thin and fragile and Ramya Krishnan or Kanthimathi look-a-like), or a fluent Tamil spouting man with a coolers (no matter how cool he may be otherwise), or a man with a <i>karakuli</i> cap and a beaten down voice (no matter how stylistically he can whip a <i>sattai</i>).<br />
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He might speak Singhalese, Chinese, Malay, or English. For Indians, that is good too, as the Mount Road <i>paramatmas</i> will be challenged on their worldviews. Do not worry about what the villain utters, for it will be type-scripted into Tamil. That is the only predictable thing these days. That can be bested only if a Tamil dialogue is also type-scripted into Tamil. That could also happen...<br />
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<u><b><i>Footnote 1:</i></b></u> Tamil society was never a non-casteist non-religion driven society rife with rationalism and intellectual discourses. Just as every part of India witnessed backlashes against organized religion and societal order at different points in time, Tamil society saw a big backlash against the entrenched Brahmins in the civil society, education and governmental spheres from the early 20s through the 60s. When the dust settled down, one set of entrenched were replaced with another and things continued onwards until the left-behinds protested in the 80s demanding another cut in the reservation system that is now aped across India (putting the legislation behind judicial scrutiny and upping the ante all the way to affording reservation benefits to around 90% of the state's population). With essentially the entire state not wanting the cart brought down lest it hurt them, the fistfights spread to sectors that are the biggest money-spinners: engineering/medical colleges, entertainment business and support-cast, infrastructure business, real estate, etc.<br />
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<b><i><u>Footnote 2:</u></i></b> One should thank the stars that "Auto" Sankar is not valorized today and noone has dug up the Aalavandhar murder case to bat for Tamil heroes laid low by Kerala business-couple!! While the attempts at valorizing the LTTE have a pan-Tamland impact, the "rebellion" by PMANE at Idinthakarai cannot transcend from being petty developmental green-nik issues to being a Tamil issue.Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-41714397687785539762013-08-18T15:16:00.004-07:002013-08-18T15:38:16.031-07:00Impressions from the sport arenaIt has been a looong looong time since my last post. And life has indeed changed in the meanwhile, whatever that is supposed to mean. No, not the change Modi-<i>ji</i> wished. Hopefully, I can squeeze in life into the blog more frequently than the last few months.<br />
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It is more than a truism that Indian sport succeeds whenever it does, despite best efforts by its benefactors to help it --- efforts that eventually destroy any success story. One tricky compromise in robust-ifying whatever success stories that exist in India is to spin-off excellence centers in different sports to different regions across India. Much like the Kota, Ramaiah, Super-30 type non-franchised efforts, sports excellence is indeed best achieved by regional centers where the best-of-the-best across India hope to sharpen their wits and trade-craft.<br />
<br />
Unbeknownst to us, this is indeed happening today. The latest exhibit in this list is the badminton capital that has flowered over the last few years in Hyderabad despite the chaos that rules the streets on its future trajectory. A similar path was realized for squash in Madras, tennis in Madras, Calcutta and of late in Bangalore, shooting in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi, wrestling in the various akharas in and around Delhi, boxing in Bhiwani, and so on. That said, much of shooting's success is top-down as has always been the sport. Without the support-cast of the Army and the maharajas of the yester-era, and the neo-maharajas of this era, shooting would have been a dead sport in India, as would be golf.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, reverse to this trend is the trajectory of the various hockey academies and excellence centers in Punjab, Coorg, Jharkhand, Orissa and Manipur. While we lack enough astroturfs on a per-capita basis, destroying the existing structures due to poor maintenance is even more sacrilegious. As much as middle-class India gangs up on the hockey structure for its dismal performance over the decades, much of this venom has never been directed at the bureaucrats, government officials and stadia custodians who put stumbling blocks beyond imagination in ensuring the wrecking of existing infrastructure. Even the much hallowed structures at the SAI center in Bangalore have been wrecked by ineptitude and shoddy maintenance somuchso that the training Indian team has to shift camps elsewhere (to the NIS camp in Patiala).<br />
<br />
India departs for the Asia Cup in Ipoh, the home of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, with the winner goes-to-the-World-Cup-eventuality, provided that the winner is one of Pakistan, India, or Malaysia. Malaysia will qualify from the event as the 5th best team from Hockey World League if South Korea wins it --- since Korea have already qualified based on their 4th finish at that event and the good fortune bestowed on them by the Argentines at the Pan-Am cup. With either India or Pakistan guaranteed to miss the boat to the World Cup for the first time, here is to hoping that it is Pakistan that misses the boat. All that of course depends on the semi-final line-up and how the young team performs on that day. I would nt be too hopeless with the much dissed Shri MK Kaushik at the helm, but stranger things have happened in Indian hockey than I can say.<br />
<br />
<div>
I have not turned on to watch the chess pages over the last few months. And I firmly believe that radio silence from the Anand camp is a much better way to prepare for the showdown with Carlsen than to tip-toe around with selective leaks. Of course, I do not know if leaks have happened as my receiver has shut down anyway.<br />
<br />
Doping for the tiniest of edges is a universal phenomenon in sport today (recent showcases being A-Rod and Miguel Tejada) and nothing exemplifies India's rampant doping than the athletes and weightlifters. There is a common understanding that Indian athletes dope beyond imagination at home and that explains why their personal bests are often seen at home than in world-class events where they come a-cropper and go much worser than their personal bests. The just concluded World athletics championship adds more fuel to this fire, where with the exception of Vikas Gowda, it has been a rather similar story. The women's relay team, which won the other gold at the Asian event at Pune a month back with a 3:32.26 timing (Vikas got the first gold), ended the heat with 3:38.81 --- unexplainable unless one athlete lost her footing or got tripped. (I have not watched the video, so my guess is as good as yours).<br />
<br />
That said, coming as she is from her recent ban, how Ashwini Akkunji could make it to the 1600 relay team, even if she was the 5th/6th runner, is beyond me. She has not run any competitive event for two years and is the talent-pool in relay so shallow? But this is India, where nepotism is better seen than voiced. As much as she was the shining symbol of a rising second-tier India, as are/were the cricketers from unknown places, her symbol had vanished along with the entire septet of relay runners when they were all caught for doping (for exactly the same stanozolol and epimethandiol combination). The technicality under which Manjit Kaur was banned for refusing to give her sample for testing does not allow her to escape the doping accusation, as this is an arena where you are guilty till you exonerate yourself. I would go one step further and annul the Commonwealth games gold voluntarily as there is a big question mark on that record, especially with the whole team getting caught. But this is again India, where sports wins are important in getting police and government jobs as well as promotions, which explains the rampant doping in who-dares-win that is India.<br />
<br />
There is really not much to report from the football field, as we notched up a good 3-zip loss to Tajikistan and thus remain stable in the FIFA rankings, wallowing amidst the shambles that is world football. At the very least, we stay above other subcontinental teams rather than dive to the bottom of the pits. Ditto for the tennis arena, I have stopped following the craziness that was Davis Cup with the boycott led by Somdev & co, which really achieved nothing except set back the DC moorings by a couple of years. We lost the first round encounter of Group-I Asia Oceania, which automatically forced us to fight to stay back in the same group for the remaining part of the year, forget the world group playoff that was possible with a full-fledged team. The backtracking by Somdev & co and the subsequent calling off of the boycott in the playoff match (against Indonesia) with essentially nothing new given by AITA in writing or deeds only goes to show how strategically stupid Indians are. And how callous middle-class India is in questioning the stars and prima donnas about their actions and strategies.<br />
<br />
To round a full-story, Indian hockey is strategically stupid and intellectually inept. It is not necessary to win all games to rise up in the FIH standings. It is important to win the meaningful games instead of appearing crestfallen and dejected by failure. Winning a bronze medal show-off followed by a hardly fought semifinal loss is more important than walking dead in the playoff game. It helps you gain valuable FIH points and every point counts. You rise up in the Asian league and get the opportunities that you would have missed, by making the boat for the Champions Trophy and so on. Success is not just talent, success is also opportunity to get better by experience. There is no longer a nature or nurture question anymore, it is <i>nature, nurture and knowledge</i>. This lesson is clearly seen in the fortunes of the English and Kiwi hockey teams, poor ones by any standard metric in hockey: lore, myth or reality, but not so poor as seen from the FIH rankings.<br />
<br />
As for doping, I wish the Indian hockey players get a new drug supplement that will open up their heads to strategizing better and implementing that on the field, in action and results. That wish beckons the question: is there hope for hockey in India? As a dyed-in-the-wool optimist, I remain hopeful with the caveat that "hopeful" is often a hopeful word for the hopeless. As someone who cannot change the tomorrow, I am not sure if it is worth changing the yesterday that presents itself as today.<br />
<br />
Let us move on, anyway. Till sooner than later....<br />
<br />
PS: It turns out that the Don Driver and Greg Jennings hit-out against the other A-Rod are for real and that makes some story for the naive. As for me, this is the bastion of uber-elitemen. During their heydays, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman had few nice words for MJ, the friend. The Sampras v. Agassi, Connors v. McEnroe, Billie Jean King v. Chris Evert spats are legendary of course. Hope the cheeseheads roll the tide back for one more season and it is nonsensical to see dreams killed half-way, we will see. </div>
Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-56607610350738448522013-05-17T10:16:00.000-07:002013-05-20T11:50:24.555-07:00Letter to a colleague: on LTTE Back from the long siesta... Oh well, what goes up has to come down. Anyway. Here is a letter I wrote to a colleague on LTTE and terrorism.<br />
-------<br />
<br />
<div>
Here is a piece by Aatish Taseer in New York Times on the LTTE saga: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/a-people-without-a-story.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow" style="font-size: 10pt;" target="_blank">(</a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/a-people-without-a-story.html?_r=0">Linky</a>). I thought I would comment on the article.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<div>
I am not sure if you know about Aatish. He is the son of an Indian
journalist and commentator, Tavleen Singh, and a (now deceased)
Pakistani politician Salman Taseer. Salman Taseer, as long as he lived,
did not openly acknowledge Aatish as his son and Aatish primarily grew
up in India with his mother. Towards the end, the father and son
reconciled. But then, as fate would have it, Salman Taseer defended a Christian woman who was
also
accused of blasphemy and insulting Islam. So Salman got killed by a
jehadi named Mumtaz al Qadri, who is probably in jail now but with a lot of
sympathy from the general population of Pakistan which still sees this
act as wajib-ul-qatl (crudely translated as due punishment for apostates, blasphemers and their supporters). Salman also had a visceral
hatred for many things India, and it was an irony that just like most things
in Pakistan, the primary thing that defined Pakistan (not being
India with Islam being in danger in India and safer in Pakistan) goaded someone to kill another defender of the same idea. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That partly explains Aatish's empathy for the Sri Lankan Tamils, at least in this article. I think the most common theme missed by many commentators on Sri
Lankan matters is that things flow back and forth over time. The
momentary hopelessness of the Tamil polity in forging their destinies is
somehow seen as a bad thing or a good thing, if one gets
emotionally invested in the situation. But if one discards that
approach and sees things from an observationalist viewpoint, the
triumphalism that is very common in the Singhalese population is pretty
much a self-goal. Further, the triumphalism is displayed not only
against the Tamils, but also the Muslims (who are also mostly Tamils,
but never accorded that respect by either the Tamils or the Singhalese
for their own complicated reasons). For their part, the Muslims have
remained divorced from the violence of the different Tamil outfits, but
there is often a last straw that breaks a camel's back. </div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I
will probably give the Tamils 10 to 15 years of cooling-off time before
they start getting violent again. The one thing that is keeping the
powder dry is the skewed demographics as of now, due to the emigration of Tamils to Europe, Canada and
Australia and also the losses in the various wars. The Singhalese
believe that posting ex-Army people in Tamil
territories in the North and the East amidst the Tamil population would
give them early warning signals of trouble that could allow them to
ship soldiers to flashpoints, which is why they are speeding up
infrastructure projects in collaboration with China. There are often
limits to every such contingency measure. When things go unpredictable and belly-up,
it is often a new issue that noone had imagined would happen which could
then be post-facto rationalized -- the classical black swan argument or the argument on how complex systems fail. It is often not a single reason that causes things to go belly-up, its often a collection of small things just like in the Titanic or Pearl Harbor. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
I am not sure if there is a theory of self contradictory outcomes
somewhere in the sociology literature. But one such candidate theory
would be: any action that is well thought out to make a certain outcome
less probable would often produce a certain other outcome which in turn
could make the original outcome more probable. I am pretty sure that a variant of Murphy's laws can be twisted to this form.<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span>In any case, in the signal processing literature, we have a variant of this tradeoff called the bias variance tradeoff (<a href="http://scott.fortmann-roe.com/docs/BiasVariance.html" rel="nofollow" style="font-size: 10pt;" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://scott.fortmann-roe.com/docs/BiasVariance.html">Linky</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">). </span>To put it in simplistic terms, if the goal of an algorithm is to game/predict a certain unknown outcome based on indirect observations that are random, one could hope that the policies prescribed on average produce the intended outcome (no bias). But then with a certain realization of the observations that is actually seen, the variation from the intended outcome may be too huge so as to defeat and render useless the average property of this class. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I
think the Singhalese are trying too hard to game this scenario into the
far future in case things go wrong. But there are simpler means to
achieve that than by planting ex-Army men and land grabbing in what are
seen as Tamil territories. I think reconciliation and trust is a better
approach with some carrots and sticks. But then, we would nt have had
the problem of the LTTE in the first place if reconciliation and trust
was there to start with. The LTTE in itself came up only after the
meltdown of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam pact (the Banda-Chelva pact
as it is called), the loss of trust by the Tamil people on a mostly-democratic outfit TULF, leading
to violent outfits from which emerged the LTTE as the victor. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I believe some form of reconciliation has been achieved in how the
Government of India (GoI) deals with some terrorist outfits. Of course,
some of it is purely accidental and somewhat deep-down philosophical in
terms of approach and life, and not because of great planning. For
example, when the Mizo National Front (MNF) abandoned violence in ~1986
in one of the northeastern
states (with a mix of tribal groups of which the Mizos were the
dominant demographically), the Chief Minister of the state resigned to
pave the way for a MNF government followed by a general elections in
which the MNF won the popular vote. This regime only lasted for a short
while as the leader of MNF died of natural causes, but Mizoram has more
or less remained peaceful relative to the otherwise violent Northeast of
India. <span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span>But to coax the MNF to the table, the Indian Air Force was used to shell civilian locations, one of probably very few (if not perhaps the only one) uses of aerial bombardment against civilians in India. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
The current model of dealing with what the GoI deems as the pro-talks faction of one of the major outfits in the Northeast, the ULFA, is also precisely this. The pro-talks leaders were all safely put up in Bangladesh, hosted by the various Islamist regimes under Zia-ur-Rehman, Hossein Mohd. Ershad and then Begum Khaleda Zia from the late 70s and early 80s till now. When a change of regime happened in 2009, GoI coaxed the Bangladeshis to hand over these people in return for a land swap agreement with net loss of territory for India (the final fruition of the Indira-Mujib accord of 1974) and water sharing on the Teesta river which is absolutely critical for Bangladesh. Neither of these has fruitioned now for Bangladesh, but that is a different story. The GoI has treated these ULFA leaders with a good amount of respect, even though electorally if they contest today, it will be a walkover for the current regime in Assam. I think the GoI will be happy to see them form a political party and burn their credentials over a period of time, as every terrorist outfit always does if it takes the democratic approach. </div>
<div>
<br />
Historically too, that approach has been followed by the GoI in different forms. The Communist party formed the first democratically elected government anywhere in the world in the southern state of Kerala in 1956. Nehru, despite being a Fabian socialist and a good friend of Stalin, Brezhnev and Khruschev, was deeply suspicious of dictatorship of any kind, even the Proletariat one. So it did take a fair amount of moving away from his position via rhetorical gymnastics to allow the CPI to take over the Kerala government. The CPI takeover of educational institutions from the Catholic Church and the consequent violence led to the Constitutional use of an approach (now sparingly used, thankfully) to disband the state government. But I think the CPI has been coaxed into democratic politics with all the barrel of a gun speeches primarily restricted to rhetorical fanfare. This is a remarkable transformation which the Maoists accuse the Communists of. In fact, the Maoists would treat the Communists as their biggest enemies before attacking any other party in India today.</div>
<div>
<br />
The same can be said about many other political parties in India in different states: DMK in Tamil Nadu, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, Akali Dal in Punjab (which then splintered into many outfits with different consequences), Asom Gana Parishad in Assam, and so on. Even the definition of a successful terrorist outfit is not well defined. I believe the most successful ones are some of these political parties, DMK especially. Despite all these attempts over the years, India still has approx. 50-60 terrorist outfits, a good ~30 of them would be based out of the Northeast, ~10 Islamist outfits, mostly from J&K, ~10 Leftist outfits, and a few Hindu and Sikh ones. </div>
<div>
<br />
Its amazing that these attempts at neutralizing outfits, Indian style, has not been studied that much. There are a large number of lessons to be learned, good, bad and ugly, and one could try to discern conscious policies from historical accidents. The limits of predictability in policy making and the consequent agnosticism that brings into the picture have not been well understood, either in the Indian context or elsewhere, which is why we see folks keep getting too protective of their own ideas and turfs. Again, signal processing literature rescues us by allowing an inevitable Cramer-Rao lower bound to any estimator/predictor.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Further still, the metrics used for defining success for the outfit as well as the government is also needful of reassessment. A terrorist outfit would do well to transform to a political party that can pilfer the state coffers at will. The government would want this eventuality to happen as it would enhance the State's claim to suzerainty in a theoretical sense and would also be de facto assured in a practical sense with certain caveats. Yet, despite a commonality of eventual goals, we do not see all terrorist outfits abandoning themselves overnight. I think this is because terrorism is a cat and mouse game where from a game-theoretic viewpoint, the Nash equilibrium is clear. But both parties are greedy to seek a solution in the Pareto boundary that favors only itself. </div>
<div>
<br />
To connect it back, this is precisely what Prabhakaran was. Even amongst the greedy terrorist outfit chieftains, he was greedy beyond explanation. Which is one reason why the people who were coaxed into condoning him and his actions, either of their own free will or unwillingly, will have to bear the cross for his sins. But then this is just another short-term momentariness in a long-term back and forth, which could be easily predicted to a certain degree under the caveats mentioned above. </div>
</div>
</div>
Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-36517857544193370342013-03-12T12:03:00.000-07:002013-03-12T12:07:54.167-07:00Academia, Radicalism, and the Publication IndustryThree small reports on these topics:<br />
<br />
1) From <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/03/05/the-actual-politics-of-professors/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en">Linky</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Cruz’s comments about Harvard echo the claims of other prominent
conservative politicians and commentators, who like to assert that
faculty lounges are nests of radicalism. But are they? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To answer this question, among others, I analyzed data from surveys
and interviews with professors, including a nationally-representative
survey of the American professoriate, conducted in 2006 with the
sociologist Solon Simmons. My research shows that only <b>about 9 percent
of professors are political radicals on the far left, on the basis of
their opinions about a wide range of social and political matters, and
their self-descriptions </b>(for example, whether they describe themselves
as radicals). More common in the professoriate—a left-leaning
occupation, to be sure—are progressives, who account for roughly a third
of the faculty (and whose redistributionism is more limited in scope),
and academics in the center left, who make up an additional 14 percent
of professors. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Radical academics, it turns out, are overrepresented not at elite
research universities, like Harvard, but at small liberal-arts colleges.</b>
Most are concentrated in a handful of social sciences and humanities
fields, like mine, sociology (in which radicals are nevertheless in the
distinct minority), and in tiny interdisciplinary programs like women’s
studies and African-American studies. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But who are academic radicals, and what do they believe? This is a
diverse category, encompassing social democrats, radical feminists,
radical environmentalists, the occasional postmodernist—and yes, some
Marxists. All told, <b>about 43 percent of radical professors say that the
term “Marxist” describes them at least somewhat well. </b>(About 5 percent
of American professors, over all, consider themselves Marxists.). </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the course of seven years of research, <b>I never encountered any
radical professors who advocated “overthrowing the United States
government.”</b> Those who are politically committed to Marxism are
profoundly concerned with economic inequality and class, believe that
things aren’t going to get much better for people at the bottom of the
income ladder unless capitalism in its present form gives way, and
harbor some hope that things might eventually change—but are generally
pessimistic. Radical academics vote Democratic in national elections,
but do so holding their noses, seeing the Democratic Party and President
Obama as far too centrist and business-friendly. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
While it seems unclear that the specific professors at Harvard to
whom Cruz was referring would describe themselves as radicals, it is the
case that many radical academics see no point in trying to neatly
separate their politics from their scholarship. Their academic analyses
and teaching often have a political thrust. This can be a source of
great tension not just with conservatives, but also with generally
liberal professors who believe that politics, scholarship, and
teaching shouldn’t mix. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Layered on top of these tensions are generational differences. <b>The
social unrest of the 1960s and 1970s led to an influx of radicals in the
social sciences and humanities. </b>Scholars who came of age in the 1980s
and 1990s often took issue with the radical intellectual perspectives
championed by their predecessors.<b> Today a new generation of scholars,
influenced by the Occupy Wall Street movement, appears poised to embrace
radicalism once again, </b>in the latest phase of a back-and-forth cycle. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Is it a problem for American higher education that 9 percent of
faculty members are political radicals? The answer is that <b>far-left
academic radicalism is both a weakness and a strength. </b>Were there no
radical professors for conservatives to fulminate against—or had radical
academics done more to keep their politics and their work
separate—there might well be fewer political attacks on higher education
today, and greater public support for colleges and universities.
Radical professors in the post-1960s period <b>overestimated how much
tolerance there would be for them, and how far the idea of academic
freedom could be stretched. </b>Also, some academic radicals, privileging
politics over scholarship, have waged unproductive battles against the
scientific aspirations of their colleagues. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
At the same time, <b>academic radicals in the social sciences and
humanities have given us novel and important ways of thinking about
society and culture.</b> They have alerted scholars and students to
previously unrecognized dynamics of inequality around race, class,
gender, and sexuality.</blockquote>
2) On this count, its <i>de javu </i>time all over again in Tamland. An opinion piece motivated by <a href="http://news.vikatan.com/index.php?nid=12841#cmt241">Linky. </a><br />
<br />
Student protests were last seen in Tamland in the mid- to late-50s and the early 60s on the "National Language" imposition issue. The Central Governments under Nehru and Shastri, both in terms of personal ideologies as well as pushed to the brink by the stalwarts who later dominated the Jan Sangh from what is now UP and Bihar and the aam aadmi on the street in quite a bit of "North India", as well as the local Congress regimes under Rajaji and Bhaktavatsalam badly botched their credibilities by pushing the envelope on the language issue. <br />
<br />
Sadly, what that meant for the future of Tamland's electoral politics was that opinions got so badly polarized that there has hardly been a <a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2012/12/losing-plot-in-tamil-nadu.html">space/say for non-regional parties</a>. And a common-sense perspective will be hard pushed to hope that there will be a say for national parties in Tamland in the near-future. And even more sadly, a Tamland precedent driven regional party culture has spread throughout much of India. While one can argue that this is both good as well as bad, precise answers depend on the issue at hand.<br />
<br />
What should be the role of a State Government in foreign policy/diplomacy issues? Should WB get a veto over trade relations with Bangladesh, especially if it harms the milling industry in TN (<a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2011/07/bangladesh-vs-tamil-nadu.html">Linky</a>)? Should TN get a veto over bilateral relations with Sri Lanka, especially when there are ample reports on human rights violations on normal people independent of whether they are (former) members of LTTE or not? Should Bihar, Uttarakhand and UP get a veto over relations with Nepal, because of the Madhesi bonding across the borders? Should the states from the Indian Northeast have a veto over border demarcations on the contested India-Bangladesh border? Should a state (TN) have a say when the Central Government hands over an island (Katchhathheevu) to a neighboring country (Sri Lanka) for the sake of good neighborly relations, especially if it harms the livelihood of a subset of its peoples? Of course, Sarkaria commission recommendations do not study these aspects as these things seemed far from immediate in the mid-80s. Even then, the Sarkaria commission recommendations did not get fully enforced especially when it came to the dreaded misuse of Article 356 and one had to wait for the Supreme Court to have its say on the Bommai case, or in the case or river water tribunal recommendations on inter-state disputes where the Central Government could not enforce its neutral perspective due to political considerations. It is time that the Central Government constitute a new Constitutional panel on what should/can be the say of the various state governments on issues under the Central Government list.<br />
<br />
But, without digressing, Tamland today is witnessing a student-driven protest time. Independent of whether they have legitimate issues (or not) to protest, and independent of whether they are being supported by anti-nationalist (perceived or real) forces or not, the new reality is that it does not take two to tango. Things do go belly up very quickly and fixing the ground realities and perceptions of angst against the Central Government's inactions take a long time. Further, these are needless issues at this stage in independent India's evolution given the enormity of crises at hand.<br />
<br />
What should/could the Central Government do at this stage? Two things: the DMK is not the sole conduit of popular opinion on ground realities in Tamland for the Congress government at the Center. Opening a dialogue with the detested Modi-friend is not only the need of the hour, but also realpolitik. Opening dialogues with no-namers such as Vai Ko, Ramadoss, Seeman, etc., can be done on a need-to basis. But more importantly, opening dialogues with students is not needed to convince them of their futility, but to provide them with a hope that someone from the Central Government is respecting their opinions enough to talk with them. We often get talked to, it is hard for people to talk with. During the height of the language crisis, Nehru sent Indira Gandhi as an ambassador to open a dialogue with the local DMK leaders of that era. And Indira Gandhi did a great job in bringing the DMK to talk with the Center somuchso that the DMK chose to ally with Indira when the situation arose (1971 elections). That the DMK-Congress alliance went belly-up after that is great credit to both sides in the equation. <br />
<br />
Without getting too regionally involved in how India chooses to vote at the UN, it is at least incumbent on the Central Government to explain how it has forced/coaxed/encouraged the Government of Sri Lanka to act on perceived human rights violations of Tamils in Sri Lanka, providing a shared vision of dignity and hope within a United Sri Lanka model, reconstruction of demolished temples and villages in the North and the East, etc. How has the Central Government aid announced in 2008 after the end of the War been spent? Any random observer would tend to appreciate the positive role played by the Central Government in this mess, provided they get to see its perspective. As a popular wisdom goes, Good Intentions are not Enough! It is time to talk, to people in Tamland, to the Government of Sri Lanka, to the Tamils in Sri Lanka, and especially to the protesting students in Tamland (independent of their utter stupidity). <br />
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3) And finally, from <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/China-Crowds-Into-Scholarly/137815/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en">Linky</a>. The report is best read pictorially. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGNdvwvM0kd2agaEIsZEYsQADpLkOAAm897tg7HAWTp5i4ThMALshCea0nmgse2StLhOEUL_YeFoDdqGPmFhhqdjkLFJwakPpK2w-l5mffC23pGpUq2FG13mSa9WaffKA8agvx10prAw/s1600/china_research.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGNdvwvM0kd2agaEIsZEYsQADpLkOAAm897tg7HAWTp5i4ThMALshCea0nmgse2StLhOEUL_YeFoDdqGPmFhhqdjkLFJwakPpK2w-l5mffC23pGpUq2FG13mSa9WaffKA8agvx10prAw/s1600/china_research.png" /></a></div>
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As much as I would like to see the rise of China from a scary-eyed perspective, I would say, "bring it on." My personal experience having reviewed hundreds of papers (if not a thousand and more) that get flooded into the Manuscriptcentral system in EE from China, Korea, Japan, Europe, Australia, India, and even the US has been that most of the papers are junk with stale ideas meant to ensure that the CV gets padded by a few lines this way and that. The new competitiveness that I see from Chinese academics is not a great cause for alarm because of their uber-productivity, but a great cause of alarm for how they flood a system that is already strained at the margins (find three good reviewers for your paper and you will be in the 95th percentile and above in terms of how the review process works). In some of the high eigenfactor score journals, earlier, one could expect profound reviews that makes the author(s) think through their ideas once more. But these days, one should be very happy if at least one reviewer follows your idea deep enough to provide an intelligent response. The simple fact that I get at least a few review requests every week in an area that I have abandoned in all but spirit (and yes, I do accept every single one of them in the vain hope that I will uncover a brilliant idea before it gets published) just tells a random observer how remarkably over-strained the whole system is by the flooding that is CV padding. I pity the IEEE for it has become more of a company culture than a professional association-based community values driven culture --- a sad price to pay for globalizing engineering.<br />
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Coming up next: Making sense of the Northeast verdict <br />
<br />Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196120591953173889.post-71634844024914705582013-03-09T15:46:00.000-08:002013-03-11T00:32:08.412-07:00Impressions: How to Lie with Statistics I just finished reading the old classic "How to Lie with Statistics" (<a href="http://archive.org/details/HowToLieWithStatistics">Linky</a>), a good basic intro to statistics for non-statisticians. It is not a sophisticated text, and meant for people from all walks of life to get a simple hold on basic statistical maladies. <br />
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The book starts with the premises that: "The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical methods and statistical terms are necessary in reporting the mass data of social and economic trends, business conditions, "opinion" polls, the census. But without writers who use the words with honesty and understanding and readers who know what they mean, the result can only be semantic nonsense.", and "A well-wrapped statistic is better than Hitler's "big lie"; it misleads, yet it cannot be pinned on you." In this direction, the book illustrates and explores issues in biased sampling, systematic/interviewer bias in opinion polls, the empirical meaning of probability as the frequency of occurrences of the said event, convergence issues, missing p-values in some of the grand claims in media, going from statistical mean to realization values, misleading graphics, unmarked axes, missing ranges/spreads instead of a single mean value, strawman arguments, fudging figures to report one's point-of-view, how so much sensationalism is tied to politicking, misleading comparisons in the before-and-after genre, disease/epidemic statistics, etc. <br />
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The grand-daddy of them all is the classical post hoc fallacy (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc">Linky</a>): attributing the wrong meanings to certain statistics by not understanding the difference between correlation and causation. For example, the standard fare, the smoking and low grades example, could be read as "smoking causes poor grades," or "poor grades cause people to smoke," or with no relations either way. Choose the one that pleases your ideology, agenda and propaganda intent! One would assume that anyone attaching strong causative attributions would bring in solid evidence (and if they cannot, one would hope that they would remain agnostic), but in this world of 140 character attention span, even good old statisticians fudge data. Lamentable, but a sad nature of the game that is life! While good intentions may make good people to make unneeded causative attributions, statistically it is still a falsity. <br />
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I would leave it to the reader's imagination for the wide variety of stories that Darrell Huff describes. But being a book from the 1950s, the book illustrates, even today, far more about the US of the 50s than people could care to see. Here are some of my impressions, not necessarily statistical, but impressions in any case: <br />
1) Today, a mean stands for the arithmetic mean unless explicitly stated otherwise. It is rather difficult to visualize readers confusing the mean for the median or the mode. Surprisingly, this was how it was in the 50s as the three terms were often used interchangeably, possibly because of the new-found fancies for the Gaussian distribution where these three quantities coincide. It must be noted that a mean is preferred in scenarios where the upper and lower range of the variables are comparable, whereas the median is preferred in scenarios with outliers/extreme outliers, while mode can do what neither can in the case of categorical variables.<br />
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2) The Democrat-Republican divide we see today in American politics in terms of the lower middle-class and poor being the captive votebank of the Democrats, and the upper middle-class and the rich elites being the captive votebank of the Republicans seemingly stretches to the 30s with the Roosevelt vs Landon vote. In fact, Literary Digest's famous flop-show due to biased sampling (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1936">Linky</a>) beats the Dewey-Truman spectacle (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman">Linky</a>) by a mile in terms of remarkable statistical lessons from the 20th century. <br />
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3) The book stresses the simple statistical intuition that preciseness in terms of statistical quantities goes hand-in-hand with "cooking the books." This is a very important lesson for today's big data applications that are over-hyped, oversold, and oversimplified. While notwithstanding the fact that data mining and analytics can indeed bring in some benefits to a priori (non-quantitative) formulations, expecting precise answers with high-dimensional data mining and model fitting is just that: a big fat joke sold in search of Series B or C funding from gullible VCs or grant funds from well-meaning philanthropists or agenda-driven organizations. <br />
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4) In terms of medical treatments, we hear nuggets of truism perpetuated by the foibles of the irrational human mind under suffering, pain and angst: "The guilt does not always lie with the medical profession alone. Public pressure and hasty journalism often launch a treatment that is unproved, particularly when the demand is great and the statistical background hazy." "As Henry G. Fulsen, a humorist and no medical authority, pointed out quite a while ago, proper treatment will cure a cold in seven days, but left to itself a cold will hange for a week." This reminds me of the Tamiflu scam and the associated famous Cochrane Review (<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD008965.pub3/abstract">Linky</a>). In the genre of statistical mis-statements, let me add one more: Tamiflu is not efficacious and is over-expensive at 30$ a cycle; that comes with the firm backing of a sample-size of two! With the Cochrane Review, one could have made the sample-size two thousand and not at all be surprised :). <br />
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5) In the same vein is the section on the remarkable irrationality of humans on accident statistics that even the educated sound statistically stupid at times. As mentioned in one of my <a href="http://dharma-yuddham.blogspot.com/2013/02/it-is-more-than-week-since-i-watched.html">earlier posts</a>, traffic accidents kill more people in India than a terror attack could or a nuclear accident might. Yet, we have more educated people fighting against nuclear plants in India today than about road safety guidelines. The less said about the business of terrorism, the better. Terrorism is business not only for the terrorists, but also the counter-terrorists. That is a truism! <br />
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6) On truisms, some simple (yet profound!) facts that are made in the book include: i) Nearly everybody could be below average, ii) It is dangerous to mention any subject having high emotional content without hastily saying where you are for or agin it, iii) A difference is a difference only if it makes a difference, iv) The fact is that, despite its mathematical base, statistics is as much an art as it is a science. A great many manipulations and distortions are even possible within the bounds of propriety. And so on.<br />
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7) Even popular best-sellers of the 50s liberally used the word "Negroes" to describe African-Americans, without any sense of compunction and/or morality. The simple fact is that treating fellow citizens as second-class for a loooong time cannot go hand-in-hand with claims to being <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/how-joseph-stalin-invented-american-exceptionalism/254534/">extraordinarily exceptional</a>. And sadly, the impact of American exceptionalism on the emerging Indian consciousness of today cannot do any overall good for India of tomorrow except to browbeat and forget history as it happened, and replace it with a pithy 140 character land of milk, honey and dreamz unlimited-type summation.<br />
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7b) On that note, a better appreciation of the universal adult franchise that is a part and parcel of the Indian Constitution can be had when one realizes that India is perhaps one of the few countries in the world that started off with universal suffrage right from the day the first (and only!) Constitution got promulgated. The world's self-appointed greatest democracy did not. Nor did the UK or much of Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Americas. In fact, women first got the right to vote in New Zealand bang at the turn of the 20th century. The sad story around the Indian neighborhood of discrimination against fellow citizenry and the associated woes can be well-understood when one compares the Indian model and puts that side-by-side against the competing ones in the neighborhood. All that does not discount the simple fact that India still needs to compare itself with India of yesterday and not with some utopia from elsewhere. In that direction, the distance to cover is still and will remain unlimited.<br />
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8) And finally, the moral of the story, as I see it: Being the home of fundamental innovations and seminal contributions in large scale sampling techniques (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prasanta_Chandra_Mahalanobis">Linky</a>), it is remarkable that Indians still cannot "predict" their electoral outcomes with a measure of accuracy that is acceptable under the constraints that go with the multitudinous cacophony that is Indian democracy. In contrast, India apes the US in not being the land of the brave and the home of the free, but in being the land of the gruff and the home of the fluff.Pax-Indicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02176307360039349938noreply@blogger.com0