Master Blaster

Who says Master Blaster should retire? Seeing the way he is playing now in England on one can say that he is out of form.

Sachin is still the greatest batsman for India . Many have been thinking that he must retire. Even if we think that he should retire, have we found a some one who can replace him? I think there is no one out there in the whole country who could replace him. There is no one currently an in form batsman(younger one) in the team who can play up to the way Sachin is playing now ( not to the best of his form) . When the situation is like this how can some one expect Sachin to retire. Without hesitation I will say for sure Indian cricket will go for dogs if he retires with the current Indian team. Putting it the other way , I will be happy to see Sachin retire from his game when India have found at least some promising young cricketers.

Sachin may not be playing the way he used to play in 1990's . But even tough he is not playing to the best , he is still the one among the top three run getters for India in the resent past. If we see the records he averages 41.x in one days in the year 2006 and also was the second highest run getter in that calender year. I would love to see this Cricketing GOD in the international arena for another couple of years at least.

Free Four

The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime.
You shuffle in gloom of the sickroom
And talk to yourself as you die.

Life is a short, warm moment
And death is a long cold rest.
You get your chance to try in the twinkling of an eye:
Eighty years, with luck, or even less.

So all aboard for the American tour,
And maybe you'll make it to the top.
And mind how you go, and I can tell you, 'cause I know
You may find it hard to get off.

You are the angel of death
And I am the dead man's son.
And he was buried like a mole in a fox hole.
And everyone is still on the run.

And who is the master of fox hounds?
And who says the hunt has begun?
And who calls the tune in the courtroom?
And who beats the funeral drum?

The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime.
You shuffle in gloom in the sickroom
And talk to yourself till you die.

Orkut Community

Orkut , an online community for people to stay in touch with distant ones and also to makes onces social life more active, has no doubt been a great contribution to the modern society where people live far from family relatives and friends. But there is one thing that always pricks me and for which I had thought about to write an article for quit some time. Today found some time to put it on paper.

I came across many communities in orkut which are religious based , I am not talking about religions at higher level like Hindu, or Muslim or Christian , but I am talking about the sub castes that exists in the Hindu society. Even today , most of the people who are leading a very good professional life, have written in these communities such as "we are the most superior caste" , or "Our cast rules the world" etc. I also came across a couple of communities where there was statement that other communities should be deprived of certain privileges just because others are from lower caste. I was stunned by this. I would rather say these communities should come up with sharing their best practices so that other can learn from it instead of criticizing and creating disparity among the communities.

After having looked into these things I some times wonder is education really helping to get rid of some of bad evils existing in our society.

A day at the RTO office

After obtaining my visa which involved a lot drama, the stage was all set to depart to US for my masters. There was so many things to prepare for before leaving. Things were hard and was really cramped for time. One of the agenda was to obtain IDP, international driving permit. On a Saturday I went to Rajajinagar RTO, and produced all the documents with a application fee of 500 /- . I had made sure that I had national savings certificate as the officer had informed me that a national savings certificate is necessary to obtain IDP on my previous visits. I was indeed very happy to go and get my IDP , as I had made sure I had all the documents and there was no way the officer can ask me for a bribery. Once I approached the officer, and produced him all the required documents, the officer rejected the savings certificate even before he could look at it and asked me for bribery of 800/- with great assuredness and with a smile on his swarthy face. This was my third visit to him and each time I met him I went back to get the documents so that I do not have to bribe him. But here I was in vain to avoid bribery. With so little time left on my hands I could not think of any other way except to pay him the bribe. Even today after a year of this incident I wonder if I could have fought against this bribery. But how do I fight it? One way of fighting it would have been to report to higher authorities, which may or may not have succeeded. But thinking about why the officer asked for bribery? One answer could be he is being paid less.

I always wonder which solutions will work better to eliminate bribery. Pay more money to these officers or smack them when he asks for bribery?

Reservation

Reservation policy in India has received a lot of criticism in the recent past by many of them. The very existence of the reservation is questioned again and again. If we ask ourself a question as to who created this so called lower caste and higher caste , the obvious answer would be we. If we talk about equality now, where was this thought in our minds for a 1000 year back. Most of the higher caste people were still educated even in those days , as a matter it was only the higher caste people who were allowed to study and lower cast were deprived not just education but even more things in life and were treated as slaves by most of the higher caste people who even to those many were educated.

The reservation came into fact only during the post independence . The question arises again , is 50 years a magnanimous time given for these low caste people to recover what we deprived them for more than 1000 years? In fact many argue that reservation is one of the reasons why India still remains backward. I again ask the question , why the very same , did not strike to our minds many years ago? But when when see the the other side of the coin , its true that many eligible candidates are deprived of their education , even though they are more fit for the same than many other candidates.

Many a times we talk about reservation only at higher level like graduation or job. But I feel the reservation problem lies much below than we actually talk about. Yes I am talking about schools where a child begins to dream of his future. A school run by a particular community or caste always prefer to give admissions to only children of the same community or caste most of which again belong to higher caste. Much lately schools also prefer to admit a child if the parents are in a good position in the society. Is not this also reservation? I some time feels the problem of reservation exists in the roots of our system. Probably solving this problem will also find a solution to reservation problem at much higher level.