President Me

Dear politicians,

The Presidential succession seems to be causing much strife. Political equations are breaking down, threatening the stability of a delicate coalition, perhaps hurrying us along to an early election we can’t really afford.

While Mr Pranab Mukherjee is, no doubt, well deserving of a quiet start to his retirement, his selection as a candidate is finding vociferous objection from many quarters. And, truth be told, he is well-nigh indispensable as the Mr Fix-It of the current coalition.

May I propose an excellent alternative candidate?

Me.

Yes, I know. This is a bit sudden, and unexpected. But hear me out.

I’m not political. Broadly, you could say I’m from the arts (I once won a poetry contest), so as much as I don’t represent any political party, I also won’t antagonise any of them either.

My name may appear to disqualify me, but really, if you look at it, it’s a plus. I’m a member of one of the smallest minorities in the country. Technically, I’m Anglo-Indian, but actually the European part of my ancestry isn’t British; it’s part-irish (and you know how the Irish feel about the Brits), part Scottish (they want to split from the United Kingdom too). The rest of my ancestry includes some East Indian, some South Indian and who knows what else. I was born in Vizag, my mother in Khurdha Road, my father in Ludhiana, one grandmother in what was Burma, the other grandparents in various parts of what is now India. While my name is Christian, I’m more of an atheist / tree-hugger. So you can’t place me in any real slot. Ergo: no regional, caste or community equations to balance. I am, sirs and madams, national integration in the flesh.

Then, I’m media-friendly. Heck, I work in the media. I’ve also spent many years in advertising, so I can be hands-on with the creation of our next tourism/FDI-attracting campaign. I also have a pleasant, microphone-trained voice, with a small portfolio of voice-over and radio work behind me. (While on the media, I will quickly concede that a glance at my profile picture will tell you I’m not prime-time’s dream face. But then, none of our presidents have exactly launched a thousand ships.)

Add this: I love to travel. And I’ve actually worked as a travel writer. And I’m reasonably tech-friendly: I blog, and I dabble in social media. So, hey, I promise to live-blog and live-Tweet and Pin and Facebook all the Presidential tours. How’s that for distracting the people from all the real issues?

Oh yes, I also have long hair, in keeping with the trends set by our current President and the one she succeeded. Granted, it’s not silver, but then, we could turn that into an advantage: I could be India’s youngest President! (Here’s an idea: how about I dye my hair in the colours of our national flag?)

But, most of all, I really, really need a house. The price of real estate in Bombay and its neighbourhood is just unreal, and I can’t even think about buying a place of my own. So, a five-year stint in Rashtrapati Bhavan followed by a retirement in a wee mansion on some re-purposed army land would be wonderful.

Thank you for your consideration. Please indicate you support by tweeting with the hashtag #ZigzacklyForPresident. Long live the Republic!

Your future President.

Rah-Rah Rahul

I'm not a cricket fan. At least, not in the way that a large part of this country seems to be. I played a bit of 'colony cricket' as a lad — who hasn't? — but vastly preferred basketball, badminton, table-tennis, and volleyball. I've never watched a game from s stadium seat, but have watched my share of the game on TV, and watch bits of cricket on the office television happily enough, now that I don't have a set at home, but if I had my druthers, a nice escapist movie works better. I read reports and analysis, and follow a few exceptional cricket writers, but that reading is more for the writing than the game. And I couldn't care less if the BCCI's team wins or loses.

What I can say about Rahul Dravid, therefore, would be shallow, because it would not begin to be knowledgeable and affectionate about his cricket, which defined him for all of us.

My far more knowledgeable colleagues have been engaged in heated debate (on our private newsgroup) on the man's legacy and his place in the pantheon, but this being a hectic time for the crew, with the Budget around the corner, no one has had the time to do a connoisseur's take just yet. So I will play curator instead, and extract from and link to some excellent pieces from around the Web.

But I'll venture to say this first. Dravid epitomises the ideal of the sportsperson. He played hard, without being boorish, respected his opponents without conceding an inch of ground, put it all on the line for his team-mates, leading by example. That he retired when he did, without pomp and long farewell tours, while people still "'asked 'why?' rather than 'why not?'" spoke volumes for his character. He is a gentleman to the bone, and everything he does spells class.

The writer CLR James asked, "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?" I'd wager that very few top level cricketers would know the quote. And that Dravid would be one of an even smaller group who'd know that the line was after Kipling's "And what should they know of England who only England know?" Dravid always came across as a complex, curious, well-rounded personality, of someone who could talk about many things, with understanding and compassion.

I've had few sporting heroes — Muhammad Ali, Prakash Padukone, Michael Jordan, Sunil Gavaskar, Carl Lewis — and Dravid is one of them. He's younger than I am, but I can say this with certainty: when I grow up, I want to be like Rahul Dravid.

---

Rohit Brijnath in Mint:

If the old-fashioned among us have a quaint notion of whhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifat the athlete should represent, then he met it for us. Greatness can be worn gently, a man can stay true for 16 years to the idea that desire and sportsmanship, ambition and etiquette, are not virtues in conflict. We needed a reminder that even amidst the over-indulgence and over-worship of modern sport a man need not lose himself.

Sambit Bal in ESPN-CricInfo

There is a normalcy about him that is almost abnormal. There are public figures who go out of their way to put you at ease, but the effort is palpable. Dravid does it just by being himself. There is no affectation and artifice to it. Not that he is unaware of his stardom or is falsely modest about his achievements, but he can step outside all that and connect with the world at a real level.
It's almost as if he leaves that part of his world behind him when he leaves the cricket field. And perhaps that's why he can see the cricket world from the outside, reflect on it objectively, and see the ironies and futilities of stardom. It's a rare and remarkable quality. It has helped him engage in relationships in the outside world without baggage.

Mukul Kesavan in CricInfo

Greatness in batting, specially in the last 20 years, has been associated with masterful aggression: Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting. In the same period, Dravid (along with Jacques Kallis) showed us masterfulness of another sort: great defensive batting put to winning ends. Dravid's originality as a batsman needs an essay to itself; suffice to say that by melding Gundappa Viswanath's wristy genius with Gavaskar's monumental patience and poise, he became that remarkable and original creature: a stylish trench-warrior.

jamie Alter in Cricketnext

In particular, I remember two shots of Dravid's. The first, when was closing in on a century in Adelaide, the scene of his most famous innings. Jason Gillespie had just bounced him, and Dravid looked a bit rattled. Gillespie repeated the short ball again, and this time Dravid took him on with the hook. It wasn't connected perfectly, but sailed over the fielder at fine leg to bring Dravid his century, one that turned into 233 of the most fabled runs ever scored by an Indian.
The second shot he played during his colossal 270 in Rawalpindi to drive India towards a rare series win in Pakistan. He was batting on about 220 - I am not sure - and played a drive for four past extra-cover off Danish Kaneria. Dravid was sapped, mentally and physically, and stooping over in his crease; but the way he planted his front foot forward and drove that ball with all the basics intact was stirring.
These two shots came in different circumstances, and showed two different shades of Dravid. It is hard to imagine him playing an aerial shot, that too with a horizontal bat, when so close to a century. That too when the bowler had just mouthed him off. But Dravid did it, and on that day succeeded. It was one of the rarest instances of him sending a message back to the bowler, in anger. The shot in Rawalpindi came after he had crossed his double-century and was sagging. But even when his body was showing signs of collapsing, he stuck to what he knew best. That, it was as if he was saying, is how you play a cover drive. These two instances, for me, encapsulate Dravid.

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, a.k.a. Sidvee, consistently one of Dravid's most eloquent admirers, in a letter to Dravid on his blog

You are too conveniently slotted as a specialist batsman. I disagree. That’s too simplistic. For me, you are an allrounder – not in the way our limited imaginations defines an allrounder but in a broader, more sweeping, sense.
I find it hard to think of a more versatile cricketer. You were one of our finest short leg fielders. You were, for the most part, a remarkable slip catcher. You have opened the innings, batted at No.3, batted at No.6 (from where you conjured up that 180 in Kolkata). I’m sure you have batted everywhere else.
You have kept wicket, offering an added dimension to the one-day side in two World Cups. You even scored 145 in one of those games. You captained both the Test and one-day teams. Sure, things didn’t go according to plan but you were a superb on-field captain. More importantly you were India’s finest vice-captain, an aspect that is often conveniently forgotten. Jeez, you even took some wickets.
There’s something unique about this. In Indian cricket’s hall of fame, you can proudly share a table with Gavaskar and Tendulkar. But you can also share one with Kapil, Mankad and Ganguly – cricketers who excelled in more than one aspect of their game for an extended period of time.

Ed Smith, Dravid's team-mate at Kent, in CricInfo

One word has attached itself to Dravid wherever he has gone: gentleman. The word is often misunderstood. Gentlemanliness is not mere surface charm - the easy lightness of confident sociability. Far from it: the real gentleman doesn't run around flattering everyone in sight, he makes sure he fulfils his duties and obligations without drawing attention to himself or making a fuss. Gentlemanliness is as much about restraint as it is about appearances. Above all, a gentleman is not only courteous, he is also constant: always the same, whatever the circumstances or the company.
In that sense, Dravid is a true gentleman. Where many sportsmen flatter to deceive, Dravid runs deep. He is a man of substance, morally serious and intellectually curious. For all his understatement, he couldn't fail to convey those qualities to anyone who watched him properly.

And the last word from his wife, Vijeta Dravid, in this eloquent piece. Here's an extract:

People always ask me the reason for Rahul being a "normal" person, despite the fame and the celebrity circus. I think it all began with his middle-class upbringing, of being taught to believe in fundamental values like humility and perspective. He has also had some very old, solid friendships that have kept him rooted.
He is fond of reading, as many know, and has a great sense of and interest in history of all kinds - of the game he plays and also of the lives of some of the world's greatest men. When he started his cricket career, he had a coach, Keki Tarapore, who probably taught him to be a good human being along with being a good cricketer.
All of this has given Rahul a deep understanding of what exactly was important about his being in cricket and what was not. It can only come from a real love for the game. When I began to understand the kind of politics there are in the game, he only said one thing: that this game has given me so much in life that I will never be bitter. There is so much to be thankful for, no matter what else happens, that never goes away.
Cricket has made Rahul who he is, and I can say that he was able to get the absolute maximum out of his abilities as an international cricketer.
What next for him? I know he likes his routine and he's in a good zone when he is in his routine, so we will have to create one at home for him. Getting the groceries could be part of that. A cup of tea in the morning for his wife would be a lovely bonus, I would think, particularly now that he doesn't have to take off for the gym or for training at the KSCA at the crack of dawn.
More seriously, though, I think he will spend time relaxing and reading to let it all sink in a bit. He has loved music and wants to learn how to play the guitar. Then perhaps he would like to find something that fills in at least some of the place that cricket occupied in his life, something challenging and cerebral.

And the announcement:


(cross-posted)

Gah

How many times have you got this email forward? Does it piss you off or leave you feeling all soft and warm and fuzzy and proud?

You may know some of the following facts. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA.
• India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.
• India invented the Number System. Aryabhatta invented zero.
• The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
• Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software reported in Forbes magazine, July 1987.
• Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization.
• Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the early 17th Century.
• The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.
• Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart; Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.
• Budhayana first calculated the value of pi, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians
• Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India; Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th century ; The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 10⁶ (10 to the power of 6) whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10⁵³ (10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BCE during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera 10¹² (10 to the power of 12).
• According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world.
• USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of Wireless communication was Prof. Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
• The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.
• According to Saka King Rudradaman I of 150 CE a beautiful lake called 'Sudarshana' was constructed on the hills of Raivataka during Chandragupta Maurya's time.
• Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.
• Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plastic surgery and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 different surgical equipment was used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.
• When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization).
• The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

Make Blog Not War

From Anja Kovacs of the Internet Democracy Project.


MAKE BLOG NOT WAR
A Freedom of Expression Training for Bloggers

An initiative of the Internet Democracy Project

Are you a blogger and interested in deepening your understanding of Internet censorship and freedom of expression as they play out in India? Would you like to know more about the ways in which such issues may affect you directly? As a blogger, do you see yourself has having an important stake in the freedom of expression debate?

Then this is your chance. The Internet Democracy Project is organising a training on freedom of expression and censorship for bloggers on 25 February 2012. In the course of this day-long program, a mix of short lectures and more interactive sessions will take you through:
• the history of censorship in India and its current status;
• the legal framework regarding online censorship and the ways in which it may affect you;
• debates on difficult questions such as where and how to draw the line where hate speech is concerned;
• what to do if you are served a legal notice;
• alternatives to censorship to fight problematic content;
and much more. Throughout the training, we will of course be paying particular attention to how all of this may affect your blog and yourself.

As the training aims to be highly interactive and will draw to a significant extent on participants’ experiences and inputs, there will be space for only fifteen select and experienced bloggers. They will be joined by four trainers: lawyer and law and tech blogger Apar Gupta; documentary film maker Bishakha Datta; literary critic, journalist and blogger Nilanjana Roy; and the Internet Democracy Project's Anja Kovacs.

The event will take place in Delhi, from 10 am until 5 pm. Bloggers from all over India are welcome to apply: the Internet Democracy Project will take care of the travel costs of all participants in the event as well as food for the duration of the event (as this is a day-long program, we will, however, not be able to provide any accommodation).

In return for facilitating your presence in the training, we ask that you write five blog posts on issues related to freedom of expression in India in the two months following the event. That is the commitment you make if you decide to join us.

Are you interested in being part of this program? Please send your answers to the questions below to Anja Kovacs, anja AT internetdemocracy DOT in as soon as possible and by 17 February at the latest. Selected participants will be informed on 18 February.

Where do you blog? If you are on Twitter, please do include your Twitter handle as well.
Why are you interested in joining this training?
Have you blogged on or otherwise engaged with freedom of expression issues before? If so, please share some details.
What are particular issues/questions you would like to see covered in the training?
Have you ever implemented any kind of censorship on your blog? Please expand (please note that answering yes to this question is not a reason to disqualify you from participation!).
Has anyone ever attempted to censor you as a blogger in one way or the other? Please expand.

Please note that while a demonstrated interest in one form or another (including on Twitter or Facebook) is definitely a plus, expertise in freedom of expression issues is not a requirement for participation.

We look forward to hearing from you!

#flashreads for free speech / Feb 14th

THE IDEA: To celebrate free speech and to protest book bans, censorship in the arts and curbs on free expression

WHY FEBRUARY 14TH? For two reasons. In 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the death of Salman Rushdie for writing the Satanic Verses. In GB Shaw’’s words: “Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.”
February 14th or Valentine’s Day has also become a flashpoint in India, a day when protests against “Western culture” by the Shiv Sena have become an annual feature. In Chandigarh, 51 Sena activists were arrested by the police after V-day protests turned violent in 2011. Our hope is to take back the day, and observe it as a day dedicated to the free flow of ideas, speech and expression.

#flashreads is a simple way of registering your protest against the rising intolerance that has spread across India in the last few decades. At any time on February 14th—we suggest 3 pm, but pick a time of your convenience—go out with a friend or a group of friends and do a quick reading. If you'd like some suggestions/ selected passages, email me or leave a message in the comments and we'll send you some selections from challenged books. Or pick your favourite passage on free speech, or passages from a challenged book or the works of any writer who has faced sedition charges, a book ban or other forms of censorship.

Feel free to create your own protest.

Places where you might do public readings: subway and Metro stations, public parks, coffee shops, open areas in malls. If you’re talking about Flashreads on Twitter, please use the #flashreads hashtag.

If you have a blog, a tumblr or a website, an easy way to join in is to post Tagore’s poem, “Where the mind is without fear” (see below) on your site for a day, or choose any other passage on free speech/ censorship that appeals to you. Or write a post about free expression and what it's meant to you in your own life.
(You could do this on your Facebook / Google+ / other social site profile page too. On Twitter, consider linking to one of the many posts that contain this message. Or Tweet 'Where the mind is without fear' line by line, with the #flashreads hashtag

Where the mind is without fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

~Rabindranath Tagore

Elections and the elephant in the room

The Election Commission's order to cover up all statues of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, and her party symbol, the elephant, has caused some consternation. One sees the logic, and one holds no brief for Ms Mayawati. Nevertheless, in the interests of fair play, one recommends that symbols of other political parties (PDF, scroll to page 79) in UP — and elsewhere — be similarly obscured.

So:

• All lotuses in all ponds should be covered, lest they give the BJP free publicity. (We recommend little gauze bags, so that some air and light get in.)

• Sickles should not be used: in cornfields, since that is an obvious advertisement for the Communist Party of India; and near hammers, because that's a plug for the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

• All alarm clocks must herewith be banned. They ring for the Nationalist Congress Party. Tell the boss that when you're late for work.

• Also to be kept away from the impressionable public eye, or to be covered with tarpaulin: bicycles, bows and arrows, hurricane lamps, spectacles, rotary dial phones, busses, lions, the rising sun, incandescent bulbs, torches, roosters, conchs, mangoes, weighing scales (the manual kind; you can go ahead with the electric variety), umbrellas, tops, hand-pumps, leaves (in pairs), three-petalled flowers, and a number of other fairly mundane items (see link above for the list).

• And, of course, since it just wouldn't do to let the Indian National Congress get away with it, you, yes, you, every one of you, will, until after polling day, kindly keep your hands in your pockets.

You who can't sleep tonight

You who can't sleep tonight,
As restlessly you move,
Tossing, turning, left, right,
But just can't find the groove -

Yes, you sod, you're alone!
Man up, don't whine, no tears!
Get online, yeah, c'mon!
And tweet away your fears.

Not Vikram Seth

Why Sachin Tendulkar isn't god

We — our media, but also our chattering classes, as visible on social media — call him God. We say he is gifted, that his skills are superhuman, and that his records will never be broken.

One begs to differ.

Every time you ascribe divinity to the man, you're doing him a great disservice. You're ignoring the hours and hours of practice that made handling a bat second nature to him. You're ignoring the fact that his coach, Ramakant Achrekar, ferried him from game to game at maidan after maidan on his scooter, so that on a given day he got more turns at bat in a competitive environment than anyone else. You're ignoring the more than 10,000 hours of purposeful practice that he had put in, honing his skills, before he made his India début; hours that most others managed to do only by their late teens at best, more likely in their early twenties.

You're also not paying due respect to the giants on whose shoulders Tendulkar stands, his wonders to perform: the generation that brought India's first cricket World Cup home, thereby inspiring countless young lads for whom cricket was suddenly more viable as a vocation, as a way of life. Which, in turn, encouraged the setting up of hundreds of cricket academies, and, in time, the channelling of advertising money into the game, which made it even more viable for all those lads, which in turn inspired even more... you get the picture.

We live now in an age when, thanks to the IPL, hordes of young men can aspire to a life of reasonable affluence on the back of nothing more than cricketing skill. They don't have to make it to the national team for the money to start rolling in. And their aspirations are being reinforced by the many hours of cricket being streamed into our homes by television and the internet, by the many advertisements starring cricketers who are the flavour of the month.

Which means more cricketing academies, more trained coaches, better facilities, and definitely more striplings wanting to play cricket.

Chances are, as you read this, many millions of little boys aged five to ten are out there in the playing fields of the towns and villages, dreaming of being Tendulkar, much like he dreamt of being Gavaskar.

In a few years, some hundreds of thousands of them will actually get to play the game with some level of seriousness, maybe for school or college, or impromptu neighbourhood teams.

Of those multitudes, many will drop out even while still in school, sure. But some will genuinely fall in love with the game and want to put in the extra hours in the pursuit of happiness (and excellence).

Some tens of thousands of them will have pushy/supportive (your adjective may differ) parents who send them off to cricket classes.

Of those, a few thousand will have the good fortune to receive high-level coaching, the kind that hones the basics but also innovates, pushes boundaries, teaches mental strength as well as physical skills, all without burning the tykes out or making them thoroughly sick of the game.

These kids will go beyond making it to the school and college teams: they'll play for clubs and states, and probably in smaller, more localised versions of the IPL, of which, I think, there will be a fair number of, and from which scouts for the big franchises will find their talent.

Of these, dozens will be good enough to be in contention for the national team. And they'll be playing at a level that is much higher than the current incumbents can. This is natural: standards rise over time, and cricket is much further from hitting a theoretical wall defined by human limitations than, say, the 100 metres track event.

What are the chances that at least one of them — inspired as a child by the winners of the 2011 World Cup, nurtured by parents and coaches, favoured by circumstances, and with the mental strength and the physical conditioning to last through a long career — will beat all Tendulkar's records?

Sacrilegious as it may seem, pretty good, I think.

Well, okay, maybe the little big man's Test records will never be broken. Because that form of the game will have vanished by then.

Jaipur Literature Festival

Will you be there?

The history of Star Trek

Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration