Of Opinions and Judgments

As i was speaking to my friend the other day, i realised that what they said in the tyre adverts were right. - "The roads are filled with idiots". I also realised that Kaliyuga is one where the sinners would be hailed and the purer souls would suffer.

I increasingly find that though there is greater dissemination of information due to the great advancement in technology, they have definitely failed in intellectually empowering the people and as per my sample, the Indians.

What the technology has created is a place of venting out the mud in our hearts and the idiocity of our brain. I would say that the technology has dramatically failed on account of 2 reasons:

1. In a new twist to the age old adage, "When one door closes, the other opens", the more open information has become, the more closed our minds have become to accept or even acknowledge the opposite point of view. (As i read somewhere - "Read a lot, argue, discuss and explore new ideas a lot and that is the only way to knowledge")

2. As a general law of nature, we have lost the basic ability of reason, colloquially called the common sense.

How else do you explain that a terrorist is hailed as a freedom fighter while an organisation that had actually fought for freedom being branded as terrorists. 

I would love to quote a recent conversation in this regard. While having discussions with my friend, i was told -

"I wont vote for BJP. Modi has been responsible for killing 1000s of people."

I told him, a court of the land has acquitted him. ( it is alarming to note that people disrespect the judicial decisions and publicly say - "whatever the court may say, its decision is wrong" . That is a dangerous precedent but can be disussed over in another post)

He now got to his second argument - "BJP is associated with RSS and RSS fuels casteist hatred and is extremist"

I told him, that an OBC candidate has been elected the PM candidate and RSS has only welcomed it and in the idea of inclusive Bharat, it has never talked casteist separatism.

Now he told "RSS is a religious organisation and BJP is a political organisation. Why should it help a political party. Why is it interested in politics and wants to poke its nose there?"

And now I asked him -"Why shouldnt it back it? As a public of India, they are people too. They have their political preferences. When an individual like you can back a party, why not an organisation?"

Now I continued - "How do you know that RSS is an extremist organisation?". He told " I know it". I shot back - "From where did you get that info. Did you base it upon any reading?"

"No"

"Did u base it upon any News channel or news paper?"

"No"

Thankfully we got interrupted in the middle. Else, i am sure it would have been a funny situation there. 

See. thats where i am coming to. This is just an example. People hear things, they believe it to be true. People read content lacking credibility and believe it to be true. People half hear and half assume their sweet little brain's content and believe it to be true. That is the problem, neither are they well read nor even half read. Nobody thinks of 2 different sources of info before forming sensitive opinions. No first hand experience. No application of common sense. yet they BELIEVE. And that is where i say that technology has failed. "I am sorry technology. You cant challenge our basic right to be a willing idiot."

My friend couldnt quote any basis for his judgement and yet BELIVED his opinion without bothering to fact check.

(I was actually pained to see that my friend did not even bother to read up before forming an opinion on one of the most patriotic organisations while i see other friends  with similar amount of reading supporting extremist ones in other countries. You ask - Why is this statement relevant to this post? Its my blog and my anguish, so it is :-) )

I assume this is what had happened - "If you  are continuously fed with negative news about any person or organization  you will start believing in it. Eg. Narendra Modi is a mass-murderer or  All Muslims are terrorists, both of them have never been proved but whenever you hear "Narendra Modi" the first thing that comes to your mind  is "riots" and when you hear about any terror attack you are likely to  blame a Muslim terrorist organizations only." 

Those who doubt my  arguments are welcome to visit any RSS shakha in their area and have a  look at the social service they do irrespective of caste, creed,  religion of people living in those areas.

Those who haven't visited a shaka/don't know a swayamsewak/haven't seen their work shouldn't be allowed to hate RSS anyway.

Speaking about RSS, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh roughly translates into National Volunteers Organisation. A trained cadet ( swayam sewak) of RSS does not learn to hate any religion or class. He is taught the love for his nation and to stand for the nation until your last breath. 

Why you shouldn't hate RSS without knowing enough about them?

The communist, "seculars" and liberals are notorious for their ability to twist facts and suppress history which tells unpleasant stories which  are not politically helpful for them. The victim of this propaganda by  leftist historians and others, who we now call Seculars, was the  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu nationalist organization, which  is still the largest organization in India. 

These seculars abuse RSS, as a communal fascist organization. Seculars are of three types : Apolitical, Communists, Congress. The first category, apolitical is a non-existent one. They simply hide their politics. The communists, who are pretty becoming  irrelevant in the world, are the second category. If you go deep to communist history, we can see that it is full of blood. Be it from  Cheguvera, who murdered his own people, accusing them of treason, be it  Stalin, who also did the same to his own followers, because he doubted  them. Be it Mao or Lenin, whose economic policies lead to great famines  and caused millions to starve and die. The Congress party, India’s  largest political party, is no different. Be it the partition riots, Sikh riots, Hindu Muslim riots in Indira Gandhi time, the congress party  can be held in many ways responsible. These are the people who accuse  RSS of terrorism and fundamentalism."

Congress and Digvijay Singh in particular has always accused RSS of saffron terror which they were never ever able to prove despite all the government agencies working under them only. Also it would be wrong to blame the entire RSS for wrong-doings of its less than handful of fanatic members. I always admire them for their social services, RSS members run several affordable private schools, ekal vidyalayas (lot of them in Muslim majority Kashmir), hospitals etc.Latest addition is unconditional services in Maharashtra Drought. 

How many of you know that Registered Companies prefer RSS over typical NGOs for CSR projects because of their wide network and high success rates. (Communal?)

How many of you know Gandhi has said "“When I visited the RSS Camp, I was very much surprised by your discipline and absence of untouchablity.” and Mr. Ambedkar has said and i quote "This is the first time that I am visiting the camp of Sangh volunteers. I am happy to find absolute equality between Savarniyas (Upper cast) and Harijans (Lower cast) without any one being aware of such difference existing.”(Casteist organisation?)

Dr Zakir Hussain the former President of India once told in 1949 “The allegations against RSS of violence and hatred against Muslims are wholly false. Muslims should learn the lesson of mutual love, cooperation and organization from RSS. The way RSS cadres remain calm and at peace even while dealing with crisis is commendable. They never have any kind of hatred feeling for any human being and serve all."

For their self-less welfare work for 1963 war victims and army personnels, Prime Minister Pandit Nehru felicitated them personally and asked them to join the republic day parade along with army squad and appreciated their efforts to work for the upliftment of India; irrespective of caste, creed and race.

In 1967, Jahanara Imam, said “If RSS was as powerful as Congress then partition of India and Pakistan would not have happened, and innocent killings had been avoided”.

How many of you know that when no organisation came forward to support Sikh victims in 1984 riots conducted by Congress under leadership of Rajiv Gandhi, RSS was the only organisation to come forward and whole-heartedly support Sikh victims.

It is conceded by even their worst detractors that the RSS has been in the forefront of the non-official rescue and relief (operations). 

Some of the statements made by RSS guys are not worth appreciating[like Hindus should have 3 children] on the face of it but once you go deep you realize they have a rationale behind that which is quite appealing at its own level.

Lastly RSS doesn't believe in the philosophy of 'show off'  that is being practised now a days by fake NGOs and so called socialites. RSS has selflessly helped the Republic of India at various occasions but salute to these guys they have never boasted of it. 

So whatever we get to hear is only the 5% bad news and not the 95% awesome news

There would be always a small % of people who get passionate and be extreme in their views but that should not cast a shadow on the whole organisation. If your idiocy is most important to you, their passion is as important to them. You say your idiocy never hurt anyone? Their passion too never hurt anyone. How else do you explain that there were only 2 cases of blasts "alleging" a non Muslim Hand that was blamed squarely on the RSS and consider the fact that they have been in place for over 70 years. It proves that they have never been violent.  In case, somebody pops the question on Nathuram Godse, request you to read up Judge Thomas' views on the relationship between RSS and Mr. Godse.

P.S: Those who know me might ask a question on my wariness towards a religion and equate it to my sympathies for the Sangh. The problem with that religion is that its history, the past and its present is filled with blood, conquests and conversions. There is never peace in the country which has that religion as a majority except for Indonesia. That is because, the Indonesians accept their Hindu roots. Ok. I am not saying that Hindu roots has everything to do with it but by nature our religion is based on tolerance, hence even being passionately attached towards Hinduism never results in violence unlike in others. In case, you want to ask about Guj Riots, i feel no religion is tolerant enough to bear 59 of its members killed just because they were from that religion and the only way to vent the anger was the riots. Govt did its best, but couldnt help. As they say - "saadhu mirandaal ....."

P.P.S - I dont expect people reading this blog to sympathise with RSS and that is not the object of this blog. I never challenge the ability to choose. :-) 

Lessons on a stretch of Road

Today, while a casual stroll with a temple prasadam in my hand, i started to walk towards the corner of my street. The prasadam got empty and the 'Dhonnai' flew down unwittingly. I bend down to pick it.

Suddenly i see an alert street dog watching me very closely. Clearly its flight or fight hormone secretion had started.As i walked further slightly towards it, it was ready to bound out or bite me. I chose to ignore and walked past the dog. Unfortunately, it seemed that me and the dog had to walk in the same direction. I am afraid of dogs, for the simple reason that it doesnt give me a letter of intent before its animal instincts take over nor we have a communication medium to talk it over before the attack.

I shooed off the dog which retraced itself by a couple of steps and the moment i walked ahead, it started following. I kept looking back to avoid any confrontation with the creature while it was focussing its attention on how aggressive or non aggressive my body language was. After all, it is used to get stones thrown at and expects the same from me. I shoo it away and it waits or moves around 5 steps back and the moment i return my back, it starts following me to its destination. The moment i turn my back, i am ready to bound out or kick my attacker in case of any signs of danger.

That set me thinking. The whole of the stretch of the road, despite me having no animosity towards this animal and vice versa, both me and the dog had felt insecure and vulnerable. It was insecure since i was seemingly more powerful than it and is used to confrontation and attacks from humans. I was insecure since i felt that it being an animal, its primal instinct could take over any time and i for no fault of mine could be bitten and affected when my back was turned. Was there any hatred between us?? Nope. Neither had any grudge against each other :-). We both had no intention to hurt each other though we both feared getting hurt.. The insecurity lasted till we both crossed to our particular destinations. But one wrong signal and one of us would be carrying an injury.

Moral of the day:  The dog is a metaphor. Do I learn? No!

Of conspiracy theory and whatever'cide' it is!

I always used to think, the youth of the 1960s and 70s were the one who pulled Geographical India down to what we are today – unempathitic, morally bankrupt, divisive, greedy and corrupt. The recent student protest reminds me of another eerie similarity between them and the youth of 201x – Anti Hindi Protests vs Small kid dead protests – Both being unwise, imprudent and rash resulting in a damaged reputation  taking years to get repaired. Just while the ill-effects of the former started wearing down, there is another shame to our student’s Hall of Shame!

I have been pessimistic of India’s older populace and their contribution to national degradation in all fronts. I however had a slight dash of hope in the 40% population under 25 today. I thought them as their image was - Cleaner, innovative, with a contempt for ‘politics’ especially having seen the worse of Indian Political Tamasha.

How wrong was I? The recent protest against a particular nation showed encouraging signs at first. Students taking up the issue of genocide and forcing Central Govt to act upon it. Wow! I thought! Time moved on. One former party as usual made loud noises to centre to capture this votebank! The ruling party added pressure to the Indian Govt to act!! They were dismissed in contempt by the student leaders!! Wow ! I thought!! Time moved on ..The Indian Govt did their best to even back the UN resolution!!The protest was silent yet strong!! Wow ! I thought!! Time moved on .. No political leader was allowed to share stage with the Students!! Fantastic.. Till now!

Post the Resolution! The protest still continues for God knows what reason! On hindsight, on reverse engineering the path trodden, I understand that the reason is not exactly driven by concern on how our ethnicity lives across the sea!! Here’s why:

      1)      Today’s generation is known for being self contained. Most of us do not know even our neighbours professions!! We do not want disruption of our routine! This has been a change since the youth of the 1960s who were I assume through hearsay better at interpersonal interactions since the only way they interacted was that! If the sense of self isolation is growing rapidly, how can there be a real concern for people living across the Palk Strait!!

      2)      We live in a country where atrocities in broad daylight are being spectated upon rather than being acted upon. We love apathy! Don’t we? How many of us, on seeing somebody being beaten up / violently acted upon in broad daylight, take courage to act to deter the same?? If this is the case with people from our own country, how can we be empathic about someone living across the sea?

      3)     Hypothetically, if a town captured by M-ists and M-ists are killed to recapture the town, there will be collateral damage since war involves adrenalin. There may be a couple of human rights violations by overzealous individuals but hey, if you fight a war, you face the consequences!

If, the M-ists were replaced by people of some ethnicity, you would get a feeling of dislike which leads to violent crimes against them and that is because, we love to differentiate &discriminate! True not only for India! If someone sensible (Read: the ethnics) had opted for a political solution than all out war at some point of their long history, the process would have been much more peaceful and would have had a realistic solution  for the conflict!

Warring against your own country and threatening its sovereignty is a crime punishable by death in any country in the world! Supporting the war? Do you allow Gurkhas to claim Gorkhaland? What happened in Telangana separatist movement? I hear the Nagas are asking for a separate state!! Nobody in the country other than those involved are bothered.  If this is the case for your country, is it plausible that you react so strongly in case the issue is in another country?

     4)      China has protested for owning Arunachal, can you expect Indian Govt to heed to it? This despite fighting a war and losing it? [Loss of lives in either case]

Same for our other neighbour!  Use your 'fresh' brain people?

     5)      The reason I am able to zero in on is not empathy  but a distinct intent to evade exams and a misdirected ego to show student power! (13 players in not playing in one venue in IPL would make a difference ah? Po da! Lose-lose situation). All i guess is sane youth are not bothered on this agitation while the morally light may be deeply involved !

     6)      What worries me is not only the lack of brains or lack of skill to use it that plagues today’s youth! What worries me is that either of these show a political brain (ergo: selfish brain) behind it being fuelled by malafide intentions or hoping for the best – dumbness in understanding international relations! (Personal suspicion: Political leaders fuelling this or an aspiring politician fuelling this)

IT being a very close neighbour, we would do well not to let it be enslaved by the dragon economically and politically which is exactly what is being done due to the rash and unwise nature of protests being held!

Some selfish ‘leader’ would do well to stop this farce and get his monkey forces back to studies which has a realistic chance of creating a positive change! Oh… is it what he is escaping from?

Captaincy Trail - Gully Cricket

Captaincy in competitive cricket is all about making the right moves to win the match. Very few get that opportunity. However, gully cricket gives chance for most others. This ramble seeks to explore my mind and get some rationale as to how I approach my decisions in tennis ball cricket.

First of all, how is a 'Captain' chosen? Not definitely based on tactical finnesse .. Either the one who sets up the match or who knows most of the guys in the team.. If the team is familiar, the best player or the person with the best people skills..  I am sure I have one of the best people skills (on a cricket field), pride myself as having tactical nous similar to atleast George Bailey. I am a very good all round player on a cricket field.. I know I can make decisions that turn a game on our side (on a cricket field).. The (on a cricket field) phrase is to be read similar to the phrase 'Paatle.. Paatle' in Thillu Mullu (the movie). My people / social / soft skills are well known for its mediocrity otherwise. (It is said smarter the people are, the more difficult it is for them to get on socially!! Possibly that explains my social awkardness?!!) That, though is a subject for another day!!

But, how did I get to captain a side in a tennis ball match.Possibly as the one who knows most guys in the team!!?!?!?

The team composition is mostly decided with the known guys part of a team.. Smooth..

But.. But.. But.. In case, my team is a person or two short, I need to loan a guy from the opposition. That sure is going to make my life tougher because I need to give him a bat or a ball without knowing his skill and my vantage point in removing him in case he bats /  bowls detrimentally is greatly stunted. The reason for which is documented below.

In my aarvakolaru to start off with the post, I left out an important portion of the topic.. My philosophy of playing tennis ball cricket!!

Tennis ball cricket is played to enjoy and have a good time. Everybody wants to play because that makes them happy. They want to contribute. They want to either bat for around 10 balls or bowl a couple of overs. Winning has its importance.. But ask any guy who has not bowled or batted in the match on his team winning, the enthusiasm is not quite There. Win or lose, he wants to contribute.. My way of thought - Let them have that feeling of contribution. Let them feel included as a part of the group. The focus is on winning too.. Not only on winning..

There are some who overly try to contribute and make their team win that they dominate the bat and the ball. Winning is very important to them.. Agreed. But is it competitive cricket that you are playing? Nope.. And the common denominator to those guys who dominate, they are all mostly very very average players. Not those who change the game.. but think themselves as to they need to do the batting and bowling to make the team win.. Sad, isnt it?

I generally plan for / prefer two matches back to back. One for chances, one for winning feeling. What I have noted during the previous experiences is that batting at the top of the order gives the feeling of being important. (My personal choice - 3 overs of bowling)

In case I am left with a guy who I know will not contribute substantially to a match, I try to match up a guy to whom I wont be giving a bowl too, to bat at the top with a guy who can actually bat. This way, the not-so-good player has a better opportunity to get out early and give chances to others. In the first match, a normal batting order can be used while I hold myself back. Not that I blast the ball out of the park considering I am more of an accumulator than hitter, but I am sure I will be giving myself a bowl. Let others get the feeling of getting a decent bat. The guys who are sure to bowl will get to bat mostly at the end.

What follows will mostly be mostly a win in the first match. An issue arises with the fact that one or max two players may or may not get a contribution chance due to a higher focus on winning. They get to open the batting in the next match.. If they bat badly and get out, it is fine.. In case they waste balls and yet somehow manage not to get out, I leave it to fate. Believe me, giving a chance to mediocre players to open the batting Chasing 44 in 10 overs and getting stuck at 5/0 in 4 overs is not a pleasant place to be.  What do you do then when a guest has overstayed his welcome? Aditaled or in worst case run him out by bad calling!! (This is Chennai - we value sensible cricket than flashy tries.. If you dont play using your brain but only your bat, we do not prefer you playing cricket at all)

The next batting position will go to the guy who has not bowled and batted only for a couple of balls in the previous match...Match is sure as lost. Try to compensate by sending the big hitter next. But the winning the game is not the sole focus of the endeavour! Inclusion is!!

The other way round, in case I am not able to give a guy a bat, I try to ensure he gets atleast an over to roll his arm over to ensure he did something to get involved.

If I am unable to accomodate either the batting or bowling of a guy, give him a fielding position preferably near the batsman to cut singles. Atleast he feels involved in the game.


The worst feeling I got when I am playing under another person in a cricket field is that on the pretext of winning the match, I dont get a chance to contribute. I ensure that not happen to a guy who plays under me!


Another interesting aspect of tennis ball cricket that, most guys will keep asking to get a bat or a bowl!! The first thing is to instill a confidence that they would get their chance to contribute. This is one of the reasons that even at the cost of the team's victory, I do not try to dominate the proceedings by being all over the game. Once they are secure of their chance, the chance of getting them satisfied at the end of the day remains high. Even if they do not get a chance, by my abstinence to indulge myself I ensure that they do not feel left out of the group imagining the others getting more chances than them rather than on cricketing reasons.

That is a person, a group wants to play under. No one has a problem of being left out.

Tennis ball cricket is not all about winning or playing to indulge. All about inclusion and the feeling of doing what you like. Trying to Ensure that, and thereby every outing turns a good experience irrespective of victory or defeat..

(P.S: This is not a suya-puraanam of sorts but as mentioned earlier using myself as reference point. I have written this PS so that I feel good imagining that I am humble.. In our societal structure, humility is a quality that is more preferred than efficiency. Also, I have ensured I have just documented my thoughts without undue interference from my brain by following just my thoughts and not grammer.)