I L S G ( I Love Saurav Ganguly)

I am not first person to write about Ganguly and certainly not last. At the same time, I am not in majority when I say that I love Ganguly but I won’t be in the minority either. Strange as it may sound but I believe that Ganugly saga is a test of Indian mentality, questioning their abhorrence towards brashness, aggressiveness and their timidity. It will show who do we, as Indians, want to be in the future?

Love him or hate him, one has to agree that Ganguly was a great one-day player and certainly a great captain. His record in one-days is unbeatable and his commitment towards his team is unquestionable. I am kind of biased towards lefty batsmen. That is why I like Lara more than Tendulkar and for me the joy of watching Ganguly rampaging through oppositions bowling line-up is incomparable.

May be I am reading too much between the lines but the brashness, arrogance and aggressiveness of Ganguly certainly mirrors the youth spirit. His naked shirt waving stint in England, best possible answer to the country that whines like a new born baby when then come to India. His ‘waiting’ tactics against Steve Waugh and Co. is a best possible to Australians who sledge against us because they feel being Australians makes them superior to us. Such examples are numerous and his captaincy record certainly proves that this arrogance backed with professionalism lead India to dizzying heights, comparable to 1983 Indian team. For me the best part of his captainship was his unwavering support to his team mates. If it were not Ganguly then Mr. Dravid was well on his way out in 2000. Same thing applies to Harbhajan Singh too. Because of Ganguly, we have such a array of young talent in the team. He bought and nurtured players like Yuvraj Singh, Virendra Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Mahendra Dhoni, Irfan Pathan and the list just goes on. When they came to team they felt that someone is looking out for them and ready to support them come high and low. Such camaraderie and unity rare in India team in recent past certainly helped team in winning against everyone and virtually everywhere.

But, Ganugly is not related to Cricket only. Cricket is the biggest sport in India and though, national game of India is Hockey, the sheer number of Cricket players in domestic circuit are probably more than Hockey fans. So, captain of Indian Cricket team is more than the leader of 11 gentleman playing on the field, he is more than just a good cricketer, he is more of leading Indian youth aspiration. He has to win every time because he is leading Indian pride. Indian youth carries emotions on their wrist. They are talking about world domination. And even though China is giving stiff competition and the ‘colossus’ US is still very much on the stage, the amazing success of IT sector seems to be cementing the belief that 21st century belongs to India. But, this confidence is completely absent in Indian political class as they are too busy in filling their bank accounts and perhaps, saving their ass. So, whether one likes cricket or not, it is the most gentlemanly way for Indian youth to express themselves and perhaps, get the feeling of superiority.

I don’t want to imply that Ganguly was unblemished. I don’t want to say that he should be in the team if he was performing badly. But the treatment given to him when he was still successful in his captaincy is certainly not a good precedence of treating our heroes. We need heroes. We need honest, hard working and perhaps, a bit cocky people to lead us. We definitely need integrity and talent but not the timidity of Dravid. Dravid is certainly a great player and my prove to be good captain in the future too but he seems to be carry colonial burden and as Gavaskar said earlier, as long as we carry this colonial burden we won’t be winners.

P.S. "What had upset Ganguly most was Chappell's comments in the interview given to the newspaper that the Kolkata stalwart wanted to cling on to the India captaincy for financial reasons."

I H S K

coming soon !!

Guess, who is next on my Hate list?

Bonfire of Creeds

First, I thought the issue is not worth the attention. Second, I thought it will die down in short time as it is too ludicrous to even think about it. And even though I still think that it is a non-issue, the reaction to it, the reaction to the cartoon of Muhammad is taking demonic shape and spreading like plague epidemic. For me, there are two questions, two central issues and I am trying to figure them out through political as well as non-political prism. First, are there any other paintings of Muhammad before this cartoon controversy? And, is it legitimate for Muslim world to demonstrate so vehemently and perhaps, so violently?

That said, even if we consider current demonstration more of political agenda, I believe that there is definitive underlying tendency in Muslim world to be angry, to be angry at everything that is non-Islamic. They completely disregard the minorities if they are in majority and if they are in minority then they make sure that they get more rights than majority. Basically, there is no equality when they have to deal with non-Muslim world.

Coming back to the two central questions, surprisingly, answer to the first question is empathetically yes. Just google the word Prophet Muhammad and you will see quite a few old paintings of Prophet Muhammad. If you don’t trust google then there is a 16^th century miniature by Sultan Muhammad-Nur Bokharai, shows Muhammad riding Buraq, a horse with face of beautiful woman, on his way to Jerusalem for his M’eraj, i.e. on his journey towards heaven. There is a painting showing Archanger Gabriel guiding Muhammad into medina. There is a 17^th century Isfahan miniature depicting the prophet with his favorite kitten, Hurairah. There is a 19^th Century painting by Kamaleddin Behzad’s miniature showing Muhammad contemplating a rose produced by a drop of sweat that fell from his face. There is a painting “Massacre of Prophets family” shows Muhammad watching as his grandson Hussein is put to death by Umayyad in Karbala. There is a 18^th century painting that shows Muhammad and his seven followers and 19^th century painting by Kamal ul-Mulk’s portrait of Muhammad showing the prophet holding the Koran in one hand while with index finger of other hand he points to the Oneness of God.

These paintings are drawn by Muslims throughout the history of Islam and across the Muslim world. They can found at various museums within the Muslim world. If this is not enough, there are many busts of Muhammad by contemporary Iranian and Arabian sculptors. U. S. Supreme court hosts a bust of Prophet, where he is honored as one of the great ‘law givers’ of mankind.

So, do they have right to protest violently? Or in fact, do they have rights to protest at all? Well, they do have right to protest, reason or no reason. But, this issue is more complicated than just violent protest. It shows the insecure mentality of leadership in Islamic world, political as well as religious. Curiously, the cartoons became a major controversy only after Organization of Islamic Committees meeting at Mecca in December. It started as usually by Saudi Arabia, who, in their attempt to out score fundamentalist (fundamentalist against fundamentalist!) recalled their ambassador from Denmark. Syria followed the suit. The agitation began systematically through out middle-east only after that. These events are in too chronological order to dismiss them as an instant reaction. May be, Islamic leadership is feeling heat from Western countries in their democratic drive and perhaps, general populace is inclining towards democratic mode of government. If that is the case then such protest are not only in vain but also painting the Muslim community in bad light.

(Historical information is courtesy of Wall Street Journal)

Capitalism - A need based development

With end of cold war and, communism proving to be defunct, capitalism was left with no rival. Yet, most of capitalizing attempts in non-western world in post cold-war scenario proved to failure at best and disaster at worst. The term failure term is subjective but looking at south-American continent, south-east Asian countries and host of African countries and Russia, capitalisms definitely failed in its attempts to lift the ‘rising economies’ to the new level. Increasing income gap in India and China its effect on their respective societies is sure to provide new case study of Capitalism. I am just praying that at least in case of these two countries capitalism should succeed because more than one-third of humanity is in peril.

Capitalism basically lets people to decide about their consumption as democracy lets people to decide their choice of government. The concept looks fairly enticing and workable. Yet, capitalism almost always ends up failing. No wonder the dissent against capitalism is growing through out the world and left wing parties are coming to the power at alarming rate.

Actually, it is not entirely capitalisms fault per se, at least not in the theory, the enforcers that is, western countries and the implementers that is, local government are both at equal fault. As in case of democracy, the forceful sowing of capitalism is a bad strategy itself. It has to grow according to the local needs, according to the local mindset, according to the local ethos and work culture. If it fails to become local then it defeats the very purpose of capitalism.

Capitalism is successful in western countries because the model developed according to the needs of the people. The theory itself developed as the demands of the people developed. Thus, the tool developed as the need was felt, and then those tools were used to build a new structure where new needs were felt. The cycle continued with each wheel of the capitalistic machine seamlessly fitting into one another forming a efficient, self-correcting economic system over the period of time.

With all such developed theories, economic models, western countries go into non-western, non-developed countries and try to apply this economics and hope for wonder. And in a sense, the wonder does happen, albeit for western countries. They are able to earn profit out of non-western countries leaving almost nothing for the natives. With no knowledge of economics, technology, no known infrastructure, no skilled labor, not skilled for modern machinery; corrupt political class, and western educated elite class that has no understanding of local environment, the capitalism is bound to fail.

The knowledge base should be home grown. The elite class that usually rules the country should understand their country more in order to rule. And most importantly, western country should give rising economies space to breath. With constant spanking by IMF and World Banks, they (western countries) are not exactly portraying capitalism in good light.

Capitalism is definitely mantra of success. But the procedure to go down the capitalistic path needs to be studied and molded according to the need. Wrong chanting of ‘mantras’ always leads to adverse effects.