Envy of Sachin getting all the limelight!

         One of the most talked about achievements of 2009 is Sachin Tendulkar reaching his personal landmark of playing for 20 years. He was showered with wishes and prizes and understandably news coverage by people of India as well as cricket loving world. There are a few articles that mushroomed in the magazines regarding how Sachin's achievements were useless and personal and did not deserve the "attention" it got. I was quite frankly shocked to read the ignorant comments made by these Sachin-haters. I like Sachin and many other cricketers like Wasim Akram for their game and the entertainment they provide.
         One of the biggest negative comments I read was how has he helped the poor people of India with his game. I wonder if the people, who say this have any basic education of economics or they are still in 10th grade. I am not saying that Sachin in perfect. He cannot be...he is human....even Mahatma Gandhi was not perfect. I did not like what Saching did back when he tried to evade taxes of gifted Ferrari.
Let me list down some direct and indirect factors of what Sachin's achievement got India.

1. 20 years of happiness of watching cricket and proudly winning against our arch rivals Pakistan and Australia.-  The people who do not watch cricket, this comment carries no value (you don't know what you missed out on)
   
2. Because of Sachin's prolific game, every small kid in small nooks of India wanted a bat with MRF logo on it and wanted to play for India. Sachin has been one of the main catalyst in bringing together the entire nation for one good cause- National Integrity. (People who hate Sachin have no background is bringing together the nation......I am saying nation not one random community of a nation)
3. The kids inspired by Sachin started going to coaching camps which were opened by some of the former Ranji players who could not make to the National team and feared of dying hungry. This definitely provided them a great source of income. 
4. The ground staff- like the gardener who prepares the pitch, people who clean and maintain these facilities are the jobs created solely because of these camps.......(Doesn't this credit go partially to Sachin?)
5. The business infrastructure that goes around with the development of a cricket stadium includes the hotels, restaurants and even small vendors making their good day sells on the match days. Where would all that come from if there is nothing great to see in that stadium?
   

Now, there are some people who would say, " what a bull crap...wouldn't this all have happened if there was no Sachin?". For this I have a counter question as an answer " We have amazing players like Dhanraj Pilley in our national game-Hockey. Why don't you see kids in Mumbai or any other cities walking around with Hockey sticks on playground, why do majority of people in India still don't know the name of even the captain of our hockey or soccor team?" .....I am not saying this to look down upon Hockey or Soccor, but frankly, we are still to see that star in both the games who can bring together India to support them in those games equally as in Cricket.

All I am saying is what problem anyone can have if people want to give that respect to a person who has given them some moments of happiness in their life. We get 1000 people walking fora  dead politician who has killed 10 people in his career, why not have 1 billion people to celebrate the entertainer of two decades for us- team India!

Comments on News Articles in Indian News Papers

       Indian media has long been flaunting their logos containing a freedom fire to a tiger. As a kid growing in Indian school system, I was taught that journalism is about being neutral to a news and enjoy the right of freedom of speech.
     Then came the time, where political parties started coming out with their own news papers, which is nothing more than a platform to shout about their propaganda from the top of the roof. It is long been suspected that although not endorsed by any major news papers openly, the politicians/government controls the media. They do control the matter in the media to a large extent.
Now . They went a step ahead like all the western countries to allow the readers to post their comments ........... that is where the freedom of speech was lost. If you try to post some comment on some news article, you will get a message that "Your comment is queued in for moderator review and then it will be published." Is that what we have all come down to? The comments section, of a news paper is not a reflection of the news paper's editor. People are free to have their opinions and express them. I completely understand the need to moderation check especially for slang language. But that can be achieved by adding a software filter while posting the message itself. Are we saying that

1. India, the largest supplier of software engineers do not know how to do it?
2. News Paper moderators, who are generally literature/language majors; are incapable of coming out with a list of words to be banned from the post and incorporating them with the screening software.

 This moderation is a sleazy way for the news paper editors to maintain a clean image in Political arena and may be have their office broken by the political party hurt by comments :).
This is not journalism my friends, this is a circus show for entertainment. Ring master in circus decides and directs what kind of cycle and elephant rides, or what does the Tiger jump through. Here News Paper decides, how much news to be exposed, whom to cover and guess what there is a bonus, get free interesting comments from the people and then decide which help them get good publicity rating and publish only them.
   
        Yeh dil hai mushkil kuch kehna yahan! Zara bachke, sambhalke, yeh hai media meri Jaan!  
   



 

Glorifying the dark sides!

          Recently Tiger Woods rammed his car in to a fire hydrant which generally helps in taming the fire. This hydrant lit his entire life on fire. It led to an eruption of the dark side of his personal life out in public. Why is that the entire media (TMZ is in the front) after this dude? So what if he has done mistakes in his personal life, so what he is horrible in bed (according to some lady)....does it change the fact that He is the top golfer in the world and not TMZ?
          I know a whole bunch of people who say "These are role models for the kids and other young men and women, so they need to be careful about their actions". As far as I know, I am still to find a perfect person in the world. You make a person ikon or idol based on their performance in a particular field. I will ask two questions to these media freaks:

1. Did you not ever speed even 1 mph over the speed limit? I am not asking about if you have been ticketed, because on many of the occasions, the person who gets caught is a criminal the one who doesn't is not.
2. Can this bunch of media who live vulture's life off of corpses of celebrity lives, point at a one person in the world who is famous and has absolutely no baggage?

The answer to both the questions  is a big "NO". The media has infiltrated so much in our community that they have a great deal of responsibility of shaping our culture. I have seen so many examples in the recent times that were solely aiming at glorification of the dark sides of the personalities.

1. Tiger Woods and his extra-marital affairs (let her wife decides what she wants to do)
2. Mike Phelps smoking pot in his teenage years
3. Obama's drug addiction in his college days
   

 We need to cherish the better part of the people's life to present it as a ideal for the people. Take the best out of everyone. The vulture instinct of media gives a boost to morons who like a fame out of 10 minutes of stupidity (great example is the White House gate crashers- Mr and Mrs Salahi).

Every coin has two sides. It is your decision to what to look at the heads or tales. Who knows, what you glorified in other's lives, may come back and glorify something in your life.....but it will be too late then!

May God Bless our Media!





        
          

Indian Parliament Buffoons

      Watching the Indian Parliament with your kids may save you a trip to the zoo. Majority of the people sitting in that place behave like buffoons. No one gives a damn about getting anything done. Every parliament session is a classic example of "How to waste money?".
       Today, I am really mad about the habits of the parliament buffoons of  talking over top of each other. How about pushing for a legislation where, every person who interrupts a speaker pays at the rate of Rs 1000 per interruption. Don't we have basic manners of not interrupting someone while talking? The speaker may be displaying his most moronic ideas in front of the parliament but making a chaos in reply to that does not solve the problem.
        Can media play a role in this? Sure they can! But even they need the same training "DO NOT INTERRUPT PEOPLE WHILE TALKING". I watch the Times Now's nightly debates with 2 to 4 guests. I was initially under the impression that when politicans get wild talking over each other, the anchor would control them. But guess what, even he joins the Mohalla Style Debate. So you have 4 people talking at one time over the national television every single evening!
         Think about it and ask for these delay causing interruptions be tied to personal fine of Rs 1000 per interruption. If we fine the party, the buffoons are not going to care. If we want our country to be considered a Civilized country, lets behave like one first!
 

Election Debates

I just felt like writing about election debates after Sarah Palin's recent book release. I am neither a left wing or a right wing guy. I am in the middle with my both wings balanced.
I really never understood as to why the Television media in US is so handicapped with their research.for example: If you invite two individuals for debate on a topic, you are the one who decide what questions are asked. You exactly know what answers these politicians are going to give. You have all the historic information at your expense to make it available at the time of debate, to point out if someone is mis-stating the facts. We do not do that, we sit on the information. Then we run short 15 minute segments on Truth-o-meter on the speeches of these candidates given in front of public.
Has media lost all the testosterone to use this meter during a live debate? This is the same thing media is doing now, going after Sarah Palin. I do not consider her a candidate by even farthest stretch of imagination. All the media is giving her enough exposure already needed for her book to sell, then why not just confront her with the facts on a show! But NOOOOOOO we won't do that because, the television media is an invertibrate animal.