"Cricket can never be friendly" - M.S. Dhoni

The Indian skipper made this statement based on the recent incidents like the Roy- Bhajji episode and the Roy - Ishant episode in the ODI's etc. This is the situation that the game has come to. A game where the sole aim was to have fun and score runs and whichever group of 11 guys had more number of them being declared winners. Today, squash balls, iron bats :P, titanium blades and what not have diluted and are diluting the essence of the game let alone that dirty art called sledging. This is one of the biggest effects of what ill can competition do to you...this can be seen anywhere and everywhere, all competitions are started with the ultimate aim of promoting learning, knowledge and brotherhood most importantly. Today, we see it very differently, competitions are there to be won and to win anyone does anything as long as it goes unnoticed, as simple as not sharing points with your opponent who could also be a very good friend in a debate, shielding your tactics from your own friends in an intra - college event, or worse knowing the weaknesses of your opponents and playing to them rather than to your own strengths. This is the highly unhealthy scenario that is present in the world. Competitve SPIRIT which used to be the essence of a competition and which still is in words alone remains in words only and not in action. The very spirit that would enable the third component of BROTHERHOOD is dead in competitions, people can go to any extent or in other words, people can Cheat to Win, which turns out to be the saddest reflection of reality. Not surprisingly did Sir Don Bradman once say, "If he did it once, I would warn him, if he dared to do it again, he would never walk into the field until I play" when asked for his opinion on the now - Australianized art of Sledging adn today we stand at a stage where a man proclaims that the sport can never be friendly.

"True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." - George Washington

It is indeed a fact that friendship is like wine, the older the better and what better than to chill out with friends for a day in the middle of nowhere and accelerate the aging of that elixir of life. It was late Saturday night or rather early Sunday morning, chuck it whatever u would call 3 a.m. in the Amir Ali halls that Nath and Aman came across that idea of going to Osiyan for the day and Nath screamed out my name and said let's go and it was decided we would find one more who could ride a bike and leave by 11 the next morning on two bikes and explore Osiyan. Aman disturbs my sleep the next morning at precisely 11.03 am by continuously banging on my door and says chalo Osiyan and turned out that there were more than 4 ppl going. then we set of, 8 people in an Innova + 2 bikes which made it 12, a treble of the initial contingent and there i started of on a fun journey with Mardia on the bike, initially very very apprehensive due to Mardia's inability to start the Pulsar, my comfort grew in tandem with his confidence and control of the bike, with him proclaiming us Roadies, we waited for the rest to catch up with us at the petrol bunk and I called Nayans after an agonizing wait and she proudly says Oh we saw u at the bunk we are near Sucheta Kripalani School and then we set off, we took a doubtful turn which luckily turned out to be right, found out that the Sucheta Kripalani School was a good 20 kms ahead of us and finally reached Osiyan....oh I forgot we also almost got killed by a lorry, Mardy trying to overtake the lorry and the lorry turned suddenly sans any indication, we survived and crossed the lorry when Mardia said, "m#(@&$(od, indicator nahi hai". Yeah we reached Osian and climbed the dune, a huge one, a mammoth one which made all of us decide - no more exercise for a week and we boy oh boy what fun we had on the dunes. Meher and Rukmani digging for treasure on top of the dunes :P, Arjun rolling down the dune and getting up coated with a fine layer of sand, lifting Deepa up and launching her into the sand, burying Meher and Deepa in the sand and ofcourse clicking pictures and me moving away so as to not disturb Arjun's thought process ;) I got it my son, was just playing along...and then we came back on another eventful journey with intelligent Mardia losing okok almost losing his way and we as in the Innova having to halt thrice to let mardia catch up with us, Mardia in the end turned out to be a safe and sexy driver and Nath taking the former only touching devilish speeds of 110 and ofcourse a fun filled lunch at 6pm in a nondescript Hotel baba ramdev with Kaju in every damn thing (Yuck!!!) and a trip full of pepsi, friendship and fun.......Thank You Guys, that was some unadulterated fun!!!

P.S: cant end this post without thanking His Imperial Majesty Aditya Milind Gupte for having kindly consented to give us his dearest possession and help us complete the trip - his bike.

“A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honours and remembers.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy on the event of dedication of a library to Robert Frost in 1963.

Its been 7 years since anybody let alone an Indian was honoured with the nation’s highest civilian honour – the Bharat Ratna. Is it an indication of the lack of the men of quality that we produce or is it a shameful reflection of our blatant failure to honour the men who have done us proud. Not that there has been a dearth of men who have served the nation and made it proud in the last few years. The last person to be bestowed with the honour was former President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and there has been this huge void after that. It would be highly unfair to say that Indians haven’t been performing at that level that is required to gain the recognition of the poitical big wigs of the nation who decide who is worthy of a Bharat Ratna. There were quite a few names that were thrown up in the run-up to this years Presidential Honours on the 26th of Jan and there were two names most prominent amongst the list, that of former Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee and Indian superstar Sachin Tendulkar. Why were the two of them denied the chance of being anointed with India’s highest civilian honour, is it because they didn’t match any set criteria, if so who sets the criteria…these are questions that ought to be answered by those policy framers of India who in the end sadly decide who is fit for national hours. A. B. Vajpayee was one of India’s most successful Prime Minister, under whose reign we almost managed to develop more than what we did under the Socialist and Fabianist Congress reigns of decades and Sachin Tendulkar, leaving aside all my love and affection for the man is a cricketer par excellence who needs to only answer himself and not any dumbass critic who is jobless and thus pokes a comment at the master. Atal was the man under whom India first touched heights of economic growth under whom we managed to push the wretched inflation below 5% and push our economic growth above 7%. Sachin is the man who has seen India through various critical moments in the lush green arena with his bat doing the talking slated in the 22 yard strip of dust. These two men APPARENTLY didn’t deserve the highest honour that the nation reserves for its citizens who have served the nation par excellence and better than the rest…..Reasons anyone???

P.S: This one is not for my friends who are aware of my love for Sachin and can do nothing but mock at my discussion of him deserving the honour, say whatever you want he is right up there and not you.

Srini

Ethical Fallacy

To lawschool i came and now i sit reading Ethics, or rather Aathics as the professor pronounces it . it is very well known that 2+2 is 4 but then people say that ask a lawyer and he could give it to u the way u want. A lawyer can give u 2+2 the way u want and yet u teach him Ethics, ethics to be applied in the profession, imagine after the 5 long years that I huff and puff and take a case where i wld have to defend a criminal who would have for sure killed the victim or defend a corporate client who would have been exposed and been an unfortunate part of that 1% of white collar crimes exposed, I would apply ETHICS, whatever Bentham, Mills, Kant and co. had thought and written years ago to apply in a simple case, the most basic ethical principle is that everything happens for the good, oh yeah the criminal who killed his foe did it for the good of the family of the deceased who might have as well lost their sole breadwinner and yeah the corporate client who swindled money from his office accounts did it for his good but did he do it for the good of the majority of the ppl in his office or the ones that would have benefitted........yes, the point is what is the point of studying ethics...............further what is the use of studying PROFESSIONAL ETHICS in the 10th semester, that twilight of the lawschool innings where almost everyone is placed and rarely would want to go to class......Its time to poke or rather superpoke those benign souls that govern the framing of this syllabus and wake them to reality, tech us something that we would use...not gobbledygooks like this!!

Srini