Societal SHAME and REMEDY!!

Recent peaceful outrage of youth on the streets of Delhi is not limited to the atrocious, inhuman act on a moving bus in normal traffic by some drunken evil men against a braveheart of a girl but a culmination of outgrown disgust n anger of such events over many many years.

Everyone has a perspective of similar inhuman atrocities, a perspective of this particular youth movement and also a perspective of the outcome of this movement.

In so many different perspectives out in the public, I want to understand most shared perspectives and make my own interpretation of them.

One perspective - Some politicians of our patriarchal society have put the blame on the women to not have taken any precautions (which includes staying safe at home after dark and not wearing any revealing clothing) to safeguard themselves from the evil predators knowing that such kind of thugs will be in a society despite any law or punishment and by blaming so the politicians have clearly exhibited either helplessness despite being lawmakers or sheer audacity much to anger of already protesting youth who are asking for such politicians to vacate their lawmaking positions because of their ineptness, incompetence and impotency in creating stringent laws and fast track courts to punish the predators and provide imminent justice.

Many in the society secretly concur with the perspective of the politicians in terms taking precautions and also in parallel concur with the anger of the youth in terms of the incompetence of the lawmakers to make stringent laws and have them implemented to punish the predators.

This is a classic case of PRECAUTION vs RECOURSE and PREVENTION vs REACTION!!

Another perspective - Most of the pro-feminist groups have put the blame on the misogynist men of our patriarchal society for having tried in ages to control and restrict the women power within the four walls of a home and having failed now with changing times were the women have managed to portray their strength in almost every sphere and realm of life and the feminists claim that those very threatened men are scared to fight the challenging women instead choosing to fight a proxy war in the name moral values & safety and that this very attitude takes draconian, demonic proportions in the minds of a inebriated men to become monstrous predators of women on the streets, homes, offices everywhere resulting in such inhuman crimes and therefore insisting on complete freedom for women from moral boundaries to wear anything including revealing clothing even to the extent of legitimizing SLUT WALK and also seeking tough laws to punish any sexual predator.

Many in the society may concur with the issues from the perspective of pro-feminists but stop right at disagreeing on the aspect of clothing and also that all men are not threatened by women and that most men welcome and encourage women to be independent

This a classic case of MEN vs WOMEN and ABSOLUTE FREEDOM vs MORAL BOUNDARIES!!

Another perspective - Just recently in SATYAMEVJAYATE, Aamir revealed the female infanticide issue and that astonishingly the India which is more westernized indulge in this crime than the Bharat which is less or not westernized. Just so similarly, RSS head made a statement that these kind of sexual assaults belong to the westernized India and not in ethnic Bharat which became very controversial.

It would be interesting to know the statistics of these crimes in historic India (pre-Mughal and pre-Britain invasions) when there was no influence of external powers in any aspect.

So another question is in public domain attributing these crimes to westernization and I suppose not so many people may agree with this position.

So a case of WESTERNIZATION vs LOCAL CULTURE!!

I agree and disagree with many points from the perspectives and may have already indicated my inclination by portraying it as the general concurrence and difference to these perspectives.

These different battles have all been in the debating society for many years now n will remain so for many more years hence.

I believe these perspectives have their own dose of subjectivity therefore their extremity and in their extremity they are not forging hands to fix the issue which is precisely the necessity rather they are debating to score and settle to win their respective war or battle.

I suppose if there is a moderation between these perspectives to meet common ground to objectively for all actors with different perspectives to forge hands in the society to state the necessary steps to both avoid such crimes as precaution and also punish the predators as a corrective reactive action which may be a deterrent.

I feel these are the objective steps needed to avoid such acts:
1. Inculcate values in kids both boys and girls at home and school to treat everyone equally
2. Train kids to develop reasonable physical fitness and mandatory self protection techniques
3. Policy to reduce alcohol consumption by taxing the liquor sales heavily
4. Moderation in individual alcohol consumption and individual fashion at public places
5. Be safe than dare attitude when in vulnerable surroundings
6. Preach and practice that 'BEAUTY IS INSIDE AND NOT OUTSIDE' to reduce carnal desires

Objective steps to punish predators to act as strong deterrent:
1. Law for maximum punishment of death penalty and chemical castration
2. Set maximum time (6 months) for both investigation and trial in all crimes not just this crime
3. Set up separate fast track courts for sexual assault cases at district level
4. Similar harsh punishment of life imprisonment for abuse of the law
5. Train Police to sensitively treat such cases by definitely recording the reported case and file FIR
6. Police who does not honor citizen right to file a complaint especially sexual assault complaints should be treated on par with the sexual assault criminal and be punished severely with Life Imprisonment
7. Trial should be based more on forensic evidence and character testimony
8. Enlist all sexual offenders and circulate to the neighborhood for awareness and preparedness

I may have been too diplomatic not to trash any of the perspective, precisely because it is not my intention and that in a good society it is always important to co-exist in harmony despite differences.

I am sure if it was not for such good societies that fostered the growth of humankind, our human race may have been extinct fighting against each other like any other extinct species.

Lets all hope and act to bring these crimes down to nil regardless of our differences!!

SACHIN 'GOD' TENDULKAR

A 16 year old young kid walked into the cricket ground to take guard and play his first test innings against arch rivals in their own den, little did we know that this young tiger would grow and attain HIMALAYAN stature in the hearts of billions of people.

I started seeing cricket from the Hero Cup in India but very vaguely remember any of it, my real interest in cricket started with the 1996 World Cup in India and thats when I fell in love with cricket for one man Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. There are many reasons why cricket attained so much popularity in India but I strongly believe only one man started making people hysteric with his performances and that is Sachin.

1998 is the peak year of his career when he had just given up his captaincy and his captaincy didnt bear the fruits as he had the worst players in the team (he was the highest wicket taker in the team for few series then)and none of the team members could raise the skill level to understand the genius. That year India won 6 tournaments and Sachin scored centuries in all finals. He scored 1900+ runs in that year and scored 9 centuries which most good batsmen havent scored in their lifetime. I went berserk watching the genius unwoven his masterclass in Sharjah and it was epitome of master batsmanship, the desert storm innings and I was so happy to watch the innings and at the same time not satisfied to see the team win after the GOD left the stage but GOD returned with even tougher resolute to win the finals with another great century.

In his 20 years of his cricketing life, the GOD had been burdened with the sole responsibility to win the matches for India during the league matches, important matches like qualifying for quarter finals, semi finals, and then again have to play well to win the finals. I am not surprised it is still the case. There have been small phases or instances when few others in the team put their hands up when the great man couldnt succeed and but no one has been able to consistantly be at their top to assist the great man in few innings when he really required some help from the other end to complete things successfully. When he performed he alone performed as the others I believe are a tad careless as they think the GOD will see the team through and he does see it through but a few times couldnt see it through. The rest of team members through out the late 90's and through this decade are convenient with the GOD in their side and the fans expect everything from GOD and nothing from others so the others didnt have to feel the pressure at all mostly.

Sachin is a symbol of hope for millions in India. In an era when our Indian economy was in doldrums and just when it started to get better, the people of India had only one person to relate to greatness and hope. In no other walk of life was there a person who was the greatest amongst the world and we had only Sachin and he was most easy and best choice. He was not only the hope in the cricket field but even outside. He showed us that we can be world class and be the best in the world. He taught us to hopeful and confident. There is so much more to the lives of millions because of his achievements than just the wins in cricket matches and that is the reason HE HIS GOD for GOD provides hope.

Sachin is the greatest cricketing icon the world has seen. Michael Jordan is Sachin of Basket ball, Michael Schumacher is Sachin of Formula One, Mohammed Ali is Sachin of Boxing, Pele n Maradona are Sachins of Football, Tiger Woods is Sachin of Golf, Lance Amstrong is Sachin of cycling, Roger Federer and Pete Sampras are Sachins of Tennis. He stands tall amongst the best men of all sports. No other sportsman has ever had to deal with the pressure of a billion hopes and if at all any of the above mentioned sporting greats had to bear the burden I doubt they could have done the same deeds they had done and thats the reason Sachin is of a completely different and higher class than these other sporting greats. So he can be undisputedly and conveniently classified as the greatest sporting icon of the world ever as he inspired billions with his performances.

LONG LIVE THE LEGEND...THE GOD...WORLD CUP IS THE ONLY MISSING PIECE...PLEASE GOD RESERVE YOUR BEST EVER TO WIN THE WORLD CUP 2011 FOR YOUR CRICKET MANIAC DEVOTEES...I WANT YOU TO SCORE A BIG HUNDRED AND LIFT THE WORLD CUP IN MUMBAI AND BE THE MAN OF FINALS AND THE MAN OF THE TOURNAMENT...IT CAN BE ONLY BEST POSSIBLE WAY TO SAY GOODBYE TO ONE DAY CRICKET(PLEASE CONTINUE TEST CRICKET)...HOPEFULLY BY THEN YOU WOULD HAVE COMPLETED 50 ODI CENTURIES!!!

WE LOVE YOU...WE ADORE YOU...WE PRAY FOR YOUR HEALTH...WE JUST LOVE YOU TOO MUCH!!!

World Terrorism

Terrorism...this has been bothering me for a while now...I could not understand how people could be so cold blooded to kill innocent people whom they have not seen them in their life and have no relation...Terrorism in the name of religion is totally unjustified...

Religion...what is religion..is religion not a guide to live peacefully in this world?? I believe religion is path or course of activities defined by a few so called scholarly knowledgeable and saintly people (supposedly have conversed with THE GOD) for leading a normal and peaceful life...so if someone is not interested in that course or path of life that person should be allowed to freely choose his own living path provided all his actions are lawful by the Law of the Land...people should be condemned and punished if and only if that person has committed unlawful activities...

I have done a small research myself...am not sure how true it is...but my understanding is that most empires atleast in the last 3000 years have been fought in the name of religion...people congregated or segregated in the name of their religion...Christ was crucified because he was against the religion in the then Roman Empire but his followers wanted to preach his teachings in his name and nutured a religion...when the number of people taking to Christianity started to grow few Emperors who were influenced by it enforced it in there times through law thereby making people of other religion insecure...

Prophet Mohammad did not believe in the religions in his time and he attained sainthood in his young age and he started preaching...but people from other religions in his time felt threatened of his growing influence and forced him to move out of the place he was born...this would have made him insecure but that did not stop from preaching...people who believed in his teachings became his followers and the Prophet did not choose the Christ way rather he made a army with his followers and attacked other religions who had threatened him before thereby nurturing and developing the seed of a new religion called Islam...and in the regions in their control Islam was enforced through law and people who followed other religions were insecure...

What I understood from History is that when Emporers needed laws to govern the obvious choice would be to take the teachings of a religion and it would be easy for them to govern when they have a single religion and therefore they believed that there would be peace n harmony in their empires...

But when empires grow capturing territories in wars...empires dont only capture territory but along with it the people who may not have been of the same faith or religion and therefore these people would be insecure, threatened of their existence and also would not be willing to change their way of life suddenly...

So through the ages of history empires have fought for territories and divided the world in the name of religion...and therefore there existed people who were insecure in all ages...few strong insecure people would have turned rebellious in all ages..

Not so long ago World Wars have been fought in this world...Hitler was against Jews..he was severe and inhuman...so all the world got to gether to defeat him...Jews wanted seperate land in the Land of Arabs and through the political manipulations created a state of Israel which has angered the Arabs and in general the Islamic world..angered more so because they felt the entire western world or the Christians were against Islam...there is still non stop fighting going for territory in the name of religion...so much so was the anger in the Islamic world that they formed OPEC and still yields great power through the commerce of the world crude...

I would have understood if they had only fought those people who had actually been against them...but few of those people became so inhuman that they started killing innocent people in the name of religion...

I definitely think the current world situation is because 1 former world super power Britian and the current super power USA...they divided people for their needs and left the world divided...

India is a different case...Pakistan was created only because of 2 totally shameless..egoistic and selfish individuals known as Jinnah and Jawaharlal Nehru...they both wanted to become Prime Ministers of Independant India and were not satisfied with anything less than the Prime Minister post...the father of our Nation forgot the needs of the country and served the purpose of the two self served poeple thereby creating two countries...I dont understand if the country was then divided in the name of religion and it should have atleast been done in utmost genuiness...Pakistan was created for Muslims but all Muslims were not asked to go Pakistan and u know wat happened in India during the division it was blood shed throughout...how on earth could Gandhi think that after so much bloodshed at home there would be long lasting peace between two communities with utmost animosity against each other....

Jammu and Kashmir was inducted into India but Pakistan also wanted the territory...but then the ruler of the J&K wanted to go with India with certain conditions thereby creating Article 360 r 370...since the majority of the population is Kashmir were Muslims they wanted to be part of Pakistan...Pakistan used this to their advantage and wanted to win the land through war but was defeated...India replied in helping Bangladesh form Independant country fighting against Pakistan majorly because it didn want to be threatened at two ends (but I dont know how much of it has been realised...there are terrorists from Bangladesh)....Pakistan was bruised even more...they planted the seed of hatred among the Muslims in Kashmir to fight against the Indian establishment and therefore started terrorism in Kashmir....again for territory but mostly because of Religion...

India is not a Hindu country officially and the only country in the world declared secular as one can see that the government has holidays declared for all days deemed important in the respective religions...there is no holiday for Diwali in US or in Pakistan but there is Holiday in India for Christmas and Holiday for Ramzan....Indians even though had to go through the bloodshed during partition have always shown restraint and tolerance to religion....India is the only country in the world truely secular by every word...

there would always be people in all religion who are intolerant and would therefore be dangerous for the society in general...these people would have been dangerous irrespective of their background...they only need a reason and religion is most easily available tool to create hatred...

am ending this blog...I am an Indian and a Hindu...sorry that I could not write down any instances from the last 3000 yrs for Hindu religion because I am unaware of it...

as a Hindu I bow my head in shame for some activities that has happened in India...the Babri Masjid...Gujarat riots...and the recent attacks on Christians...

similarly most moderate Muslims also would be feeling shameful because of the inhuman terrorist attacks right from serial Bombay blasts to the most recent ones...Godhra train carnage...

Christians should also be feeling ashamed of the killing of some babaji in Orissa and the immoral luring of innocent poor people into Christianity by bribing them with money....help should be provided without asking for anything in return only then it would be service...but help provided only when u ask something in return then it is plain business and not service....

I knw i have made some statements which could be controversial and could hurt a few people...to those people who feel offended i offer my heartfelt apologies...these are my views from the understanding of what i read..heard and seen things around...I could be seriously wrong....but am learning and am genuinely trying to understand why people are being divided in the name of religion so please dont be offended by any of the things that have been said here...

People who dont agree with the content of this blog please feel free to condemn the article in ur comments....and for those people who share the same views please feel free to comment on the blog..

one last word...RELIGION SHOULD NOT BE A HINDRANCE TO PEACE RATHER SHOULD NURTURE PEACE...but quite opposite is happening in all religions in some part of the world and that is hurting and angering people of all religions...

PEOPLE SHOULD SHOW RESTRAINT AND TOLERANCE TO ACCEPT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT FAITH AS LONG AS THEY ARE FOLLOWING THE LAW OF THE LAND..UNLAWFUL ACTIVITIES SHOULD BE CONDEMNED AND SHOULD BE PUNISHED BY THE LAW..VIOLENCE SHOULD NEVER BE AN OPTION!!

IPL MANIA

IPL brought the whole nation to frenzy if not most cricket loving nations. It had bolstered the TV channels TRP ratings, invented a new channel for marketing firms, created a heavenly avenue for world cricketers including Indian cricketers to earn gold playing for just a few matches and more importantly great entertainment format for the mad cricket loving nation challenging the great Indian movies n soaps….

WHY DID IPL HAPPEN….

The Indian cricket team and the BCCI were reeling under the pressure from immense public criticism and also the Parliament for the poorest of poor display of cricket by the Indian team in the Caribbean World Cup 2007. Cricket frenzy fans mobbed and pelted stones at Dhoni’s house, Dravid’s house and Zaheer’s food restaurant in Pune. There was hue and cry about the Indian performance and there was every reason for a normal average Indian cricket fan to be terribly upset and imagine the trauma a diehard cricket had gone through. It lead to a discussion in the Parliament by our honorable parliamentarians (atleast there were no walkouts this time around)….scene cut change….

The original Indian television Czar Subhash Chandra of Zee TV had a stunning idea and proposed Indian Cricket League with exorbitant prize money for the winners. ICL as told by Subhash Chandra was born out of love for cricket and for betterment of the sport in the Indian society. But the whole world knows the open secret that ICL was born because ZEE Sports could not win any bid for cricket matches telecast in India and abroad and ZEE Sports would have had nothing to do cricket telecast in this country where cricket is a religion. The all time greatest Indian all rounder Haryana Hurricane Kapil Dev didn’t lose an opportunity to support the project as he always been a rebel against BCCI during and after his playing days. Huge media hype supported the ICL, cricketers around the world gave it a thought, every average Indian cricket fan was inquisitive to know about the league, more than anyone the average Indian domestic player was happy not only to see a platform for the world to take notice of their talent but also the money involved in it as it would forever secure their life. Cricketing legends Brain Lara, Shane Warne, Inzamam Ul Haq, Chris Cairns and other good current players like Mohammed Yousuf embraced the league format even though Warne and Yousuf backtracked later. All this while BCCI was crying foul calling and branding ICL as a rebel league and took no time in not only banning the league but also muscling the ICC to do the same…..scene cut change….

ICC 20-20 World Cup in South Africa, a no expectation young team without the SRS (Sachin, Rahul, Saurav) under the new captaincy of Dhoni represented India in the world cup after a great win in the Test series in England and also a spirited performance in the one day matches where the seniors played a very big role. Every one believed for sure that the team would stand no chance in the new 20-20 format as team never played the format nor the BCCI was encouraging of the format and initially BCCI didn’t want send an Indian contingent for the event. Everybody knows history created by the Indian team winning the 20-20 World Cup emphatically and in the process destroying the original 20-20 inventors England, taming the South Africans in their own den, demolishing the mighty Aussies on their way to the finals and culminating by beating their arch rivals Pakistan twice once in the league stage and again in the finals. The nation went frenzy again; the TRP ratings for the matches hit the zenith for Star Sports and it made gold. The BCCI didn’t lose the ICC given opportunity and acted promptly by given the team a heroes welcome, with State governments fighting each other to share the glory by announcing rewards for the players belonging to their state and then the icing on the cake by announcing Indian Premiere League (IPL)….scene cut change….

IPL was born, business tycoons, liquor kingfishers, bollywood badshahs, tinsel town beauties, media barons everyone wanted their share of piece and associations with the IPL. Teams were bid for never heard prices peaking better than the Mt Everest. Bidding for players took place for astounding numbers with our Indian Captain taking the most of the glory. The critics wrote off the league as they believed cricket lovers would never equate these matches between cities to any international match and the critics had a reason with the very average success of the ICL even though ICL had only retired and mostly unknown players. But, IPL didn’t relent, the branding of each city team started taking off, the media extensively covered anything and everything associated with IPL, ads were out bringing irresistible curiosity among the cricket fans….scene cut change….

IPL CREATED HISTORY

The day had come, the format and the league was welcomed by every Indian cricket lover with both hands. Sony Max minted money selling their ads spots hotter than the hottest cakes. IPL brought new cricket lovers to embrace (mostly the fairer sex) cricket like never before, most of the husbands loved to see their wives give up their regular saas bahu serial soaps for the IPL. Bollywood and Indian cinema as a whole witnessed steep drop in their collections during the SUMMER which is supposed to be their most fruitful season of the whole year, movie releases were postponed to after the IPL finals.

Cricket played in IPL was of the highest order, even though not all teams played to their potential. It threw new challenges for players and brought the best out of the most unsought or unsung players and sprouted new heroes during the course of the league. The league revived many cricketing careers. Most of all, IPL matches kept the whole nation occupied by creating great cricketing rivalry between traditional Indian cities and made everyone happy.

The world witnessed and enjoyed the IPL extravaganza. IPL success helps ICC to take and market the sport in this format to other sporting nations thereby increasing the sport's presence world over.

Also, IPL helped BCCI to exercise its power and control over CRICKET completely world over even though not sabotaging the ICC directly....the English and the Aussies are fuming over the power generated by BCCI through IPL....

All said n done....IPL was the biggest bonanza for everyone...

In pure BOX OFFICE terms….we can only name this IPL as ALL TIME BIGGEST INDIAN BLOCKBUSTER….

English Theatre

I have never ever watched English plays. During my school n college, I had never heard any of my friends speak or discuss theatre as it was not anybody's interest even though Chennai had always been very active in English Theatre. I had this passion in me to be associated with acting, dancing etc. It had remained to be a dream and it eluded me for a long time. I didnt know anybody who was associated with Theatre r movies so naturally I didnt have the courage to take acting as a career and had to take a different career path in life. After MBA, getting placed in TCS made me very happy, but somewhere down inside there was still some hope.

One fine day, I was browsing about English Theatre and I came across a website which had all information about Theatre. I placed a query there and was more than happy to get a reply with the phone number. I spoke to the person who invited me for a workshop where I had to show some of my skills. I was appreciated but was told that I was just too raw. I attented few workshops and I was getting better and better, then came the very good news that I was selected for the play to be premiered on March 27th.

In the midst of all these happiness, I was getting too busy with work at office, given more responsibility and work. Naturally being in an IT company, staying up late in office is an untold norm and everybody is expecting you to stay long. But I had to attend the training workshops of the play most of the week. Never was a moment where I felt like giving up theatre because of the pressure at office, rather it made me more determined and I could manage my time better.

What do I say about the workshops, I got to meet so many different people from different walks of life making the whole experience wonderful. I understood one of the morals of life that "There is no one best way to do things". There were scenes during pratice which came out really well but the director was never happy rather was suggesting to try different things to discover unknown paths. The whole experience was fun.

And then the day arrived.....make up, dress rehearsal and for a moment I felt like I was breaking down with tension as I was told that the play we were staging was first of its kind. So to be part of something very inventive on stage for the first time made me feel great, at the same time more tensed. And then the moment arrived....my turn came....and it happened and happened like a dream......performing in front a decent crowd was a dream come true. I felt like a star for those moments when the crowd reacted with loud claps and laughter for most of my lines in the play. Everything went right about my performance, I was elated when my co-artists and the director praised my performace and more than all the reaction from the crowd made me go berserk inside. Flashed in all newspapers the next day, I became a kinda celebrity in my office when most of my project mates caught me on paper. I had kept it a secret in office but all in vain. The paper clipping was put on the notice board spread and the news spread like fire. Everybody walked upto me congratulating me. I was on cloud nine for few days after the play.

I thank everybody associated with the play. It has given me some of the most cherished moments in life. I love Theatre and would continue to be associated with it. I just want to discover myself in this journey.

India-Australia Series 2007-08

We have witnessed one of the most interesting phases of cricket if not most turbulent as well. The current series between India and Australia is more about clashes between personality rather than the cricketing skills and later became a clash between the cricketing boards and ICC. Even though excellent cricket has been played over past 8 weeks both by India and Australia, it had been completely marred by controversies.

IDEALLY SYDNEY TEST RESULT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANNULLED AND DECLARED VOID BECAUSE OF THE OBVIOUS ON-FIELD BLUNDERS CAUSED BY UMPIRING DECISIONS AND DISGRACEFUL APPEALING CLAIMING WRONG CATCHES.

But we understand this is not a perfect world and have to live with the result. If everthing would have been scripted the correct way (or fair way) interms of umpiring etc. India would have wrapped up the match on the 4th day winning the Sydney test convincingly. Needless to say that we could have performed better in the last hour of the match to have avoided the defeat even in these utmost turbulent conditions.

All this fuss is because of the use of "SLEDGING" in cricket. It is needless to say that sledging is a mind game deployed by the Australians to mentally upset and provoke the opposition by calling them names etc. But when they get the same dose of what they do, they are not ready accept it with sportsmanship. I dont understand how can the Australian cricketers (generally white colored cricketers) get away without any fine or reprimand for provoking opponents. The primary reason is because the ICC officials like the Match Referees and Match Umpires have always been biased towards the Australians (generally white colored cricketers), as result dont punish them for their rather ugly, disgusting, disgraceful behaviour on field and not because of the Australians' mastery of sledging as wrongly believed by many.

How can an Indian (Virender Shewag) can get banned for a match for appealing constantly but two Australians (Michael Clark & Andrew Symonds) can get away by wrongly appealing and claiming a catch. Indians would be termed racist (Harbhajan) for calling monkey and fined (Ishant) for gestures at opponents but Australians would not fined or reprimanded for provoking opponents (on 2 occasions Symonds), for using terms like bastards (Hogg), obnoxious little weed (Hayden)etc.

In the midst of all these contraversies we have had little to enjoy the quality of the cricket played not only marred by on-field activities but also off-field activities. How can a 38 yr old python like figure (Hayden) ask a 19 yr old ostrich like figure (Ishant) to join in a ring to fight out rather than fighting it on a cricket field. Does this really portray the insecurity that the Australians are feeling about losing their invincible title. I accept that there is a long way to go for any team to just dethrone the Australians from the NO:1 title, but still, I believe that in the recent past they have been threatened by only one team and that is INDIA.

India is not far away from gaining the NO:1 title with young legs trying to play competitive not only on cricketing terms but also in giving back the opposition its own medicine. The trouble with the Indian cricketers is that they get easily disturbed and distracted by the unrelenting media glare, instant fame and money. They need to have good head on shoulders to overcome the unwanted hype created by the media with a few match successes. Indian players have to prove their worth by succeeding over a longer peroid through meticulous training in cricketing skills, physical fitness and foremost of all is play with utmost pride and committment for the nation.

A billion hearts' skips their beat when we lose a match and a billion hearts rejoices when we win a match.

I am waiting for the current tri-series final with utmost enthusiam. I'm hoping that Indians give a tough fight and make Australians run, scramble for their money.

If INDIA manage to win the finals, it would be history created and mark of the new beginning of the SUPER POWER CRICKETING NATION