sand's view on everything sane insane in india

Plz Mind Some cash For Tennis Sir

2006-02-19T06:41:00.000-08:00

During Lunch break of Final ODI the Chief of Hutch India was talking to Arun lal on how happy he was to be associated with cricket ,cricket is religion etc etc , well i know i am sounding rude here and its free market economy anybody can sponsor anything , but how about some cash for tennis or bangalore open then perhaps the linesman would have been more committed to do better job (thats no excuse for the continued poor performance) the extra cash would have had some more clean water for support staff etc etc , and i know i am getting unpopular but It was PCB that made the buck out of hutch ..... not much revenue will come to BCCI from this series atleast, to develop cricket at the grassroot in india, so that indian cricket develops so indian company funded the whole show which of course thankfully was won by indian team (after karachi test performace welcome relief) didnt Mr CEO Hutch think on my lines i dont think he did ... and mind you Tennis is somewhat Up market sport ... and even here mobile company will care not for it then imagine lets say Kabbadi's fate ...no wonder every cricket board from australia to zimbabwe or bangladesh wants to host india coz there even in england or austrlia corporates cant put all eggs in one basket i.e cricket there is only one sport in india whether you like it or not and its quite sad ...

traffic jam's

2006-02-17T08:15:00.000-08:00

Traffic jams's are most common in bangalore more than perhaps more than any where in India yet today is was because of other reasons apart from usual reasons with two events one the Art of Living holding a convention in jakur so all roads leading in direction of bellary road got jammed ... and in shivajinagar there was massive protest against Denmark, yeah in shivajinagar so much so that bus stand was evacuated ohh god in god's name today bangalore traffic went crazy only inside the cubbon park area finally it was a differerent world as usual the park was quite calm and quite a few couples trying to perhaps catch up some lost time ..... and of course inside tennis centre woman hitting tennis balls with lots of power ... and some music being played outside in the carnival . God what do we do with this traffic ....

Dignity of labour

2006-02-17T00:51:00.000-08:00

First there was a shrill but now it has got more apparent such that it has attracted comments in the press .I am talking about the quality of linespersons in WTA Bangalore open and I think I know the reason for it. I am not going take names here but an acquaintance I know, a lovely person no doubt, with very good intentions I must say, To add his bit to make the tournament a success went around asking for persons who would volunteer to be linesperson's and of course it was selection based you had to get selected rather qualify and pass the test and get remuneration for week’s job but I guess commitment and dignity of labour is something that’s not natural to us .For quite of few weeks before the tournament everyone thought it was as easy job just shout out and raise your arms when ball crosses the tramlines in singles and out of court in doubles then many failed in test realizing that you needed to be on the job for long time (an hour in match conditions)crouching and then standing up and doing it over and over again and many realized its not job you wanted to do .Then those who were left have now began to falter and this tournament unlike Grand Slams or other Hi Fi tournaments I guess cant employ professional’s due to lack of funds perhaps I hope they now realize that people remember the mistakes only much like Umpiring in cricket or any other sport for that matter as it looks glaring they might say that its couple of poor calls per match but in this level of tennis that quite bad... i suppose everyone needs to realize the importance of dignity of labour being linesman can lead you to go up later in value chain if you are good enough to travel abroad etc... but that aside if you take up a job you need to show commitment towards it…..only when everyone plays their part to perfection does the final act come good and after all your country's reputation is at stake

Twenty 20

2006-01-25T01:06:00.000-08:00

Twenty-20 is not good for India , and its no surprise that BCCI has decided that is not going to implement it in India .Maybe the reasons for BCCI not plumping for twenty-20 is purely market driven when you can easily market 100 over ODI’s why bother about twenty 20 and lose money by reducing the cash flow there will be less commercial breaks and less exposure time for all the in-stadia Ads now they get Full day’s exposure instead of few hours during twenty 20 , After all lets face it in India cricket is seller’s market not buyers….Also note in UK before the Ashes cricket was at an all time low and it needed to be introduced to new generation hence twenty20 to take attention from David beckham Wayne Rooney or rugby hero Johnny Wilkinson or forever hopeful Tim henman with all “Henmania” and henman hill etc but in India why we need twenty20... Not at all … everyone has his/her opinion on cricket here and cricket is doing just fine .. Thank you
Financial resources is not an issue for BCCI with all latest marketing ploys of leading arm and non leading arm logos for players making the Indian cricket team shirt higher in endorsement value than even clubs Juventus and Real Madrid so why need to generate money from twenty 20
Now let’s ponder over what happens if twenty 20 is played out in India, all these corporate will jump on to the bandwagon and all color will be there cheer girls cartoon characters etc but the most important thing the players….?? The kids will forget to play with straight bat have patience for long innings. Alarmingly in jharkhand from where India’s latest super hero comes from …instead of trying to build on MS dhoni success some coaches are trying to develop sloggers by teaching them baseball i.e. telling kids that in three balls you do need to hit at least one shot over the fence.. What nonsense is that …Dhoni is not a slogger.. Sloggers can’t hook shoiab akthar for six over square leg...
Imagine when twenty 20 is introduced what will happen to Art of leg spin who will want to take up Leg spin where you need to flight the ball and induce the batsman and what about swing and what about the eternal Indian dream of Super quick Indian fast bowler that should be given quite burial if twenty 20 is introduced . Everybody will want to become medium pacer who can ball straight and can tonk the ball …hard … and of course no bouncer’s neither batsman will face bouncers since he will be twenty20 specialist nor bowler will want to bowl it
Even now guys like laxman and kumble despite having the best knock ever and best bowling spell ever by an Indian are hardly given their due place under sun … we are so much obsessed with ODI’s aren’t we
I know perhaps these very arguments would have been put forth by people when ODI cricket began but still lets face it ODI cricket is also game of skills and fitness but twenty 20 is not .. And if you feel that cricket is very long and boring then please don’t watch it … that is not going to happen... is it?? Yesterday as soon as I realized that the second test was heading for draw when India didn’t pick up wickets early I switched channels and watched Marcos Baghdadis unleash winner after winner during Australian open. Cricket has its inherent disadvantages like long playing time but that’s its charm like it or leave it and watch and support other sports which of course we Indians will never do … but please let’s not destroy our future generation of players by making them sloggers

What is Real Face of Pakistan??

2006-01-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

Yes Can any one please answer this question ..people with an open mind not the JNU educated english speaking elite or pretending to be ultra liberal or the RSS/VHP type guys.. just ordinary indians who go to work come home and enjoy life amidst all the trial's and tribulations of typical indian life .. .The main reason of course is the recent IISc attack which sadly killed Certain Prof Puri of IIT delhi .There is personal angle to this My uncle Mr Shshidhar Pandit does Research In solid state metal behaviour there and believe me its not funny to see images on Tv and then enquiring his welfare ...Its one thing to see Baghdad/Tel Aviv being attacked by suicide bomber but this bangalore "NAMMA Bengaluru" where it happened .The same Bengaluru where Young Pakistani girl Noor fathima had come to Dr Devi Shetty's hospital and created lot of goodwll . so which pakistan to believe the one which gave the cricket team very good time in 2004 from where singers like adnan sami the group Jaal come but from where Laskar-e- toiba also comes .. There is a School of thought that says that more people to people contact will ease tension .. since we are same race we eat same food both love cricket appreciate similar kind of films,music ...But then how do we ensure terrorists dont come We hope When they see our society that they will not want to hate us If Mohd Atta and his 19 pals too thought the same way 9/11 would not have happened Since USA is far more open than any other country They did carry the hatred with them
After all Mushraff was man behind Kargil he continues to be there still Mohd Hafeez chief of laskar says he will create three pakistan's in south india too and in Govt school's in pakistan they are taught to hate hindus and jews .Funds continue to be collected in name of jehad in pakistan
I hope the Profits from Ind-pak series collected is used to make pakistan a better team not DONATED to "JAMMAT UL DAWA"or laskar -e- toiba as known to indians
Should we then stop more kids who need treatment from coming over ..i dont think so... .
This has set me Thinking We have gone about trying to rectify One nehruvian mistake That is Socialism.. by opening up the economy by creating competition and allowing market forces to take over and Disinvesting from Public Sector Units .Now has the Time come for us to correct the Nehruvian BLUNDER i.e Kashmir should we Disinvest from Kashmir and agree that Nehru made a blunder so that even our Army particulary the Rastriya Rifles that faces allegations of human rights abuse yada yada etc etc blah blah blah will then be allowed to live in peace After all every year we spend so much of money on Defence and more on subsidies to Kashmiri people which can be used For Madam Sonia gandhi's "BHARATH NAVA NIRMAN" .. After all I know quite few Kashmiri classmates in College who liked all things India offered them right from the engineering degree to good jobs to little things like cheap mobile phones and multiplexes but always said that they would one day like to see Kashmiri Homeland...I dont know Whats the solution ...Will pakistan give up Its India Obession ....If Kashmir Is Disinvested will Pakistan be happy ...or do they carry a HATRED for india that transcends Kashmir upto kanyakumari The least i think is to stop having Abnormal relatinship with Pakistan Now currently its yo-yo time with Pakistan IISc and delhi market attack nothwithstanding .......
Has Pakistan realised That whatever it does India will not respond ... Hope thats not the case

World Cup Soccer!!!

2005-11-29T22:18:00.000-08:00

I know that the world cup soccer is still many moons away june 2006 but it was touching to see Superhuman sportsmen like Roger federer ,Ricky ponting and Brian lara all feel elated that their nations had made it to world cup soccer finals .The Real Story is about Trinidad and tobago ,i know a lot of people will say Australia finally beat Uruguay, that their region does no have direct entry always have to play tricky play off but cant beat the story of T&T.The population of trinidad and tobago is about one million yes one million (btw hope all indians know what is India's population ).They are tiny island in the carribean island now making them one of smallest nations to play in FIFA world cup .Even Brian lara amidst his record breaking feat spoke of how his child hood mate Dwight yorke who is in the twlight of his career will finally play on world' biggest stage ,on what impact his record breaking feat and football team qualifying will have on people of trinidad .I know lot of people have said that nations like Trinidad &tobago playing in world cup means that its not the best 32 teams etc some of bigger european teams like greece ,turkey have missed out blah blah etc etc.But these guys are missing the point.A world cup needs to have Global represenation but keeping quality in mind (else India too should have been there) ,Trinidad and tobago beat baharain in the play offs now these middle east countries what do they do ?? using petro dollars lure poor african players change their names (remember the middle distance runner Stepahno now his name is saif and runs for qatar), why people dont talk about them?? is it fine for country to use short cuts like this ,look at most football teams around middle east many have african orgin players isnt making fun of their poverty?Then look at Trnindad and tobago and smiling faces they had and we realise that money cant always buy success and reinforces belief that Sports is Pure and Real.

Why Indians Love Cricket !!

2005-11-22T07:33:00.000-08:00

A lot of people have tried to analyze why cricket is so popular in India. Cricket in India began taking roots when the British introduced it and later on given patronage by the local Maharajas. So cricket became an expression of national sentiment for Indians it’s as if when we win we escape from worries of day to day and lose we vent our frustration on members of national cricket team.
Before they said Indians were not world class in anything else but cricket this includes all sections of society not just sports. I don’t think it’s true because organizations like ISRO were after all dealing in rocket science! Now slowly but surely our IT/BT industries are attaining that standard our automobile auxiliary industry like Bharath forge are reaching that level as well.
Now since we our into 2005-06 15 years after we have began open up our economy and getting to exposed to all kinds of entertainment Cricket continues to rule the roost .Lack of heroes in other sports cannot be excuse with people like Rathore,Paes ,Bhupathi and Sania Mirza along with Arjun Atwal,Anju George and Narian karthikayen and of course the peerless Vishy Anand have made their mark in truly global sports (lets accept it that cricket is not a global sport in the real sense )However cricket will continue to dominate the Indian psyche because even before we had a world class hockey team which was sweeping every one before them. We had great touch artistry on display when the Krishnan’s Ramanathan and Ramesh played and if story of Vijay Amritraj who from being sick child to top tennis Pro is not inspiring enough then nothing else is…. so lack of heroes can’t be the reason.

Poor marketing well…BCCI is not the organization known for marketing skills are they?
They schedule matches in Chennai in midst of north east monsoon and hope it’s a drought year! They schedule D/N matches in November December and make ODI’s a lottery. They can’t decide the television deals well in advance leaving two companies in court fighting it out .Contrast this with EPL which starts matches in mid afternoon GMT on weekends so that large parts of south East Asia like Malaysia Singapore are able to watch the games and newer markets are open and lots more revenue comes in. Yet Indians love cricket. Cricket inherently has certain distinct disadvantages like length of playing time, complex playing conditions difficult to comprehend etc.
So the single most important reason why Indians love cricket is STATISTICS. Yes this angle has not been explored by people when they analyze Indians love for the game .of cricket; How Cricket has entered into the sub consciousness of the Indian mind.
We love discussing statistics why sehwag has not scored fifty since X matches why agarkar has high economy rate, how many runs will Tendulkar end up scoring in his career. Now lets compare cricket with some other sports swimming and athletics only winning time/jump/throw with Olympic or world records are the only stats perhaps time taken to begin the race/swim measured in micro seconds and maybe wind aided/unaided timing etc then football the no of corners, no of fouls .shots on goal, % ball possession of each team, but all this we come to know only during half-time or full time only after data has been keyed into a computer and results shown so anybody just cant calculate all this, same holds true with tennis unforced errors ,winners ,first serve %,points won on first serve etc, Only after a set/match is over all data that is keyed into computer is processed we get to know the stats .
Contrast this with cricket each individual player records like matches played, runs, centuries wickets are all tracked by supporters with all help from willing media. Each player’s home average away average is calibrated .Then of course during course of the matches itself current run rate, Required run rate is on everybody’s lips .Lots of afternoons are spent by Indians over tea and snacks discussing which player X orY is better based on stats by which time is night!!!
We are happy on numerous occasions even when the Indian team lost because some Indian player would have broken some record by scoring century/crossed milestone etc so irrespective of team’s performance there will be Individual statistics that game provides which can discussed and debated over the dinner table, office canteen, bus stops etc
Maybe this because Brahmins, bania’s ,marwari’s are traditionally good at maths/arthimetic .Counting and number crouching comes easily to Indians that’s the reason we love stats and since cricket cricket offers the most stats we have embraced cricket totally
Its quite strange situation but that’s what it is Indians are perhaps the biggest consumers of international sport without being participants themselves .The reasons why Yankees don’t like cricket like its a complex sport too much stats might be exactly the reasons why Indians love cricket .

Domestic Cricket

2005-11-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

For a country that's mad almost fanatical about cricket the amount of interest or rather the lack of it is staggering indeed!!,in many other countries also domestic cricket is played in front of empty stands expect England where county championship is popular .Yet in Australia and south Africa people have sense of affinity towards their regional team province etc .Here we often complain that domestic cricket is not marketed well perhaps true but some comments like "i don't support karnataka but India"is amusing to say the least .Its almost as if you support karnataka it sure that its going against India's interest .They don't understand that if domestic cricket improves the national team will do well in long run .Coming to forthcoming season karnataka has become an also rans for quite some time now , i know after producing India's greatest test batsman anything else will be let down but such huge letdown?? . Other non traditional teams have gone on to produce india players which is very good from the indian team's perspective .Orissa had D.Mohanty and SS das who was decent while he lasted ,kerala had Tinu youhanan and now sreesanth and UP has now kaif ,raina and R P singh, and the biggest of emm all dhoni from ranchi .So karnataka has not been able to replicate its mid and late 70's success and mid 90's success.Perphaps mumbai too faces same problem after sachin tendulkar(who is a once in a lifetime,one in planet player) no one has been permanent member yet i think mumbai cricket association can pat itself for players like Wasim jaffer and romesh powar coming from very very humble bakgrounds have able to play for india (please dont tell me to go to stats guru and show that they didnt do well thats besides the point)so that shows that mumbai is always in the business end of ranji trophy unlike karnataka who have become quite useless .My fear is that cricket in karnataka is becoming an elitist game if dont believe me just see the trials for U-13, U-16 and other age groups
its like carnival atmosphere lots of cars lined up and parents being pushy trying to initiate contact with talent scouts and selectors. Poor selectors trying their best to be polite and same time be impartial .Now in such a scenario some one somewhere might fall prey .I know if non performer gets in he will be shown up in match but spare a thought for guy misses out he will bid good bye to cricket altogether and will be lost to cricket .In Mumbai with people like powar and jaffer coming through such things happening is unlikey i hope !!! To finish off the post during my interaction with cricket lovers/authorities in karnataka they have special delight that Anil kumble and Rahul dravid do well when they play arch rival pakistan since some of finest players that karnataka or indeed india has produed like EAS prasanna BS chandrashekar's career was terminated by zaheer abbas in 1978-79 and G R vishwanath by sarfaraz nazwaz "reverse swing"remember those days no match refree or close in camera in 1982-83(thank god i wasnt born in 1979 and too young to know about cricket in 1983).Hopefully guys like robin uttapa gaurav dhiman and rowland barrigton can redeem karnataka this season and hopefully ranji trophy will throw up some more stars from any corner of india for national team

indian television !!!

2005-11-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

two shows on indian TV today one is mission udan on national geo promises to be exciting stuff REAL reality Tv unlike some crap like nach baliya fame gurukul etc this one really rocks now thats the sublime part the funny part is star news boy these hindi channels, star news is discussing the wedding of zayed khan what dishes who are the guests what clothes comon man if two people want to get married fine why are they telling the viewers ehhh ??this star news is totally disgrace match ki mujrim being another hall of fame or rather hall of shame

Roger federer is human !!!

2005-11-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

today must be some be day indeed roger lost in the finals finally !!! the swiss watch got a bit slow even after leading two sets to love still lost but indeed it will be harsh to judge him on basis of this the guy was coming off injury to reach finals was quite good achievement though for david nalabadian this must be huge to win the year end masters take no credit away from him that hewitt safin and roddick didnt play and agassi and nadal withdrew after going to shangai beating the tennis god is some achievement for nalabandian who had beat roger in q/f of us open in 2003 but surely beating federer is something else so looking forward to 2006 tennis season with nadal hopefuly coming to chennai open to kick start the year
eleswhere barca thumped real madrid 3-0 in santigo barnabeau with ronaldihino scoring two goals and samueal eto one i think barca will retain la liga champions league also well chelsea maybe promising stuff ahead

Cogeneration and biomass the way to go???

2005-05-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

hello
I had been to village near bangalore about 60km in ramanagaram taluk where something amazing happened or rather has been happening and hope it continues to happen after all of us are this "URBAN ENGLISH SPEAKING " going sometimes to rock concerts etc we would never know how villages work what i saw there was generation of power by biomass
Now what is biomass ??All of us are familar with lot of wastes from indust Until recently, the only place to put that trash was in landfills. Today, however, waste and its by-products are being recycled into more useful products. Some waste materials can also be used as a fuel in power plants to create electricity or other forms of energyrial waste to houseold These WASTE-TO-ENERGY power plants are defined by the type of fuel source they use: biomass, digester gas, industrial waste, landfill gas, and municipal solid waste Biomass consists of organic residues from plants and animals which are obtained primarily from harvesting and processing of agricultural and forestry crops. These are used as fuels in direct combustion power plants. The biomass is burned producing heat that is used to create steam to turn turbines to produce electricity. The steam can often be used for another process -- such as drying of vegetables or used in a factory. This is called cogeneration.
There are different types of Biomass
methane gas e.g. from landfills and sewage treatment plants
municipal mixed wastes eg. household garbage and prunings with recyclables removed.The village lighting has been done by this atleast one more village has light at night ,The man behind this Mr Shivalingaliah of KRDEL says that the biggest hurlde for the growth is Govt attitude ,He says that Govt has a mental block always comparing cost of power generation in Shivanasamudra plant which was India's first Hydro electric plant where all loans have been cleared to this type of plants where for obvious reasons the intial cost will be high about Rs/-3 or 4 per unit and of course it would be wishful thinking to suggest that India's power problems would be solved if this is implemented however atleast for domestic purposes it will do the job
cheers
sandeep

Bangalore's April rains

2005-04-11T02:26:00.000-07:00

one thing that for sure that people cannot crib about namma bangaluru is the weather !!! i dont think many metros in india get the amount of rains that bangalore gets in month of april for some days before the rains arrived it was getting to be like any other city chennai for eg now its back to bangalore special . For all the talk of crumbling of city traffic lack of roads lack of good public transport this thing forever will be one of the most important things along with the people of the city who are not fanatic like shiv sena etc no version of me mumbaikar here anybody comes here and does business this one aspect of bangalore does not its credit when the talk of IT ,BT success stories are made

isnt cricket a game after all

2005-03-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

hello everbody
yesterday india could not pull off what many expert and non expert like me believed was routine victory and now very disappointed indeed all of us experts and non experts are !!! but folks tell me isnt cricket a game !! a game played between two teams having fanatic fan following around world but end of day a game which brings me to question but these absurd 24 news channel in india just sample the shows that these have cricket controversy,match ki mujrim now what does mujrim mean i think for the hindi that i know(pardon me i am engineering student not language) mujrim means criminal isnt it(sic)now is losing or rather drawing a game a crime especially in this friendship series where people are coming across border hugging each other shopping etc in that show the cricket controversy show that is the only talk is who is dalmiya man and who is anti dalmiya man now is this what to young kids we are teaching not about beauty of game its history the joy of playing the game is all missing (any interview with any great player like shane warne, waugh etc they have said the took up game for joy not money fame etc) the people of india the great one billion are also to blame here we have frog in well mentality we dont watch marat safin play roger federer in aussie open dont watch barcelona play chelsea or juve play madrid (ok i am a maniac to wake up and watch late in nite ) but now Major rathore is blacked out(remember him)yesterday he won GOLD medal at commonweath meet who is Sania or naraian for that matter now only we need to find out who the MUJRIM is? and on a more serious issue in fact lot serious issue does any one remember TSUNAMI ??could not have BCCI have said they would have donate atleast 5%of gate collection of all indo-pak matches to tsunami fund ??? and what about these channels now they have complelty forgot it first day they went and now great reporter of a 24 7 said" look here look there etc" now what ?how are those unfortunate people coping?No it Does not matter only We need to find the MUJRIM

is religion a way to truth or make money

2005-02-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

during recent times i have always asked this question myself and found no answers isnt being an non believer(atheist) the most secular person around not the most hindu bashing person as in case in india what has religion given us pain to endure,heart break at times for placing trust in some one or some thing and not getting it and than some godman who are caught in various scandals ranging from financial scams to murder to sex to terrorism(conspire against nation) ranging across the board across the religions everbody and yet people trust them why???i know answers arent easy some people might accuse me of being a loser and people will quote from various religious texts again across the board i am not trying to behave like an intellectual liberal or whatever as some hindu bashers in india call themselves (not condeming the ethnic cleansing of pandit in kashmir) i am just confused hope to post more postive things in future