Opinionate

This winter break, a new obsession overcame me - that of developing a trail-blazing Android app. Now, this was nothing new. Every vacation, I get captivated by a new idea - last break it was creating an app, before that it was composing a song, before that it was writing a novel, before that...Well, you get the picture. Right now, I'm dreaming of making a new social website; the Facebook of the Future, if you will. The thing about these ideas is that, more often than not, they fail to materialize; but when you do manage to implement some of them, the satisfaction is unparalleled. For example, the novel never happened (I'm still working over the nitty-gritty's, like the plot); but I did manage to write a song along with some of my school friends. Even though a year has passed after the song was completed, I make my classmates listen to the song as soon as I get the chance, and force them to say good things about it.  So, back to the app. The app was one of those fan...

So the dreaded day has come and gone. Tributes have been authored, paeans have been composed, tears have been shed. Legends have been queuing up to wax eloquent about his/her favorite Sachin Tendulkar memory. The man himself has delivered a heart-rending account of his '24 years between 22 yards'. Generally, most legends have an air of aloofness about them; they seem distant, almost haughty. However, with Tendulkar, there is no aura, no mystique. He, simply, is a part of our lives as much as cricket is a part of his. For twenty-four memorable years, he enriched the nation's lives; and I was there for eighteen of those. Unfortunately, I wasn't much of a cricket fan in my early years, and I missed what is claimed by many to be his finest years (although repeat telecasts have softened that blow somewhat). Yet, here is my attempt at an account of my tryst with Tendulkar: 2001: The initial impressions After completing 10,000 ODI runs It's funny how I...

The concept of a Sunday morning is largely unknown to me. Largely spent languishing on my cosy bed, I presumed that I would be the last person to talk about a productive Sunday morrow. Which goes to show, how very wrong presumptions can be... When I first received the offer to catch up on a tête-à-tête between Arnab Goswami and Arvind Kejriwal, my first response was an emphatic no. Not because I had scant knowledge about the entire event; not because I didn't quite fancy witnessing an intense trial by fire of an up and coming politician by an interviewer with a one-line brief, but because I valued my end-of-the-week siestas far too much to even consider going.  In the end, however, I agreed, for the sole reason that such opportunities do not come by everyday. Much to my pleasure,  my recalcitrance turned out to be unwarranted, as I attended three of the most insightful discussions that I have ever been a part of. Entering the Mehboob Studios for the Tim...

India!  The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of traditions, whose yesterday’s bear date with the modern antiquities for the rest of nations - the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the world combined. -Mark Twain, Following the Equator, 1897        ...

intolerance [in-tol-er-uhns] (n): a lack of willingness to tolerate Sorry. Just kidding. I guess we all know what the word means. Think about it, the recent spate of events have forced me to think that intolerance is an instinct instilled deep within the Indian psyche. It has been ages since I saw any one of us actually laugh at ourselves. We have become overtly sensitive to even the slightest hint of petty calumny. We, as a society, are firmly on our way to becoming self-conceited megalomaniacs. And this is not a sensationalized doomsday prediction. Let us review the recent news. Email banter on a politician lands you in jail. Check. A petty comment over a holy Sikh shrine becomes a topic of discussion for the Indian Embassy. Check. A harmless cartoon in a NCERT textbook leads to suggestions that cartoons be banned in all textbooks. Check. Seriously, where is our sense of humour? The cartoon that caused the uproar These events aren't isolated occurrences, b...

NEWS FLASH: Rahul Dravid retires from international cricket, leaves behind a legacy of runs and goodwill. Yes, it's true!  Rahul Sharad Dravid , one of the five enduring colonnades of Indian cricket, will  no longer adorn the whites again . While I was never his greatest fan,   I still was unable to digest the fact that come November, a new number 3 will be walking out for India. While some people may feel that this change was essential; and is the harbinger of a golden era for Indian cricket, I feel that this marks the beginning of the end of one. Sachin, Rahul, VVS, Sourav and Anil are veraciously irreplaceable. Rahul Dravid: 'I leave with sadness, but also with dignity' The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Rahul Dravid is the word 'pillar'. He embodies the pillar of a house in every sense of the word. While Sourav Ganguly was like Italian marble flooring, flashy and graceful at times, yet cold and intolerable at other; Sa...

It's that time of the year again....ADMISSIONS!!! However, this time its directly concerned to me, as I soon will be entering F.Y.J.C (hopefully).But like any other General-category S.S.C. student, I am shockingly outraged to see the advantages that the O.B.C.'s and S.T.'s and all the other wonderfully abbreviated castes enjoy. I got 95.82% in S.S.C, yet didn't get into my first-choice college in the first list; while a bloke with 80% gets in! This is not bitterness, as I may eventually get an admission there, but what about the poor blokes that got 92-93%? They may not even stand a chance! Besides, the chasm between the fees is also great. The Open-category guys have to pay 10 times what the others pay. This definitely enters my concept of injustice. Another topic that is indirectly connected to this demon called reservation is the inclusion of castes in Census 2011. The 15-20 year-olds of today don't actually care whether they are C.K.P's or Brahmins o...

It is a new era for civilization in India. As 2011 Census draws near, India the country marches forward on the path of progress. But this progress is still, to a large extent, uni-dimensional. It is largely seen in the metropolitian cities, this at a time when 72% resides in the villages. Politicians are facing a huge dilemma, as the economic influx is in the cities while  the vote-bank resides in the villages. The answer is casteism and reservation. While it is entirely desirable to provide privileges for the weaker sections of the society, it seems outrageous that the Government is providing the backward classes more opportunities to remain backward. It would be much better if there were reservations for the POOR people, especially in educational institutions. The Government has to stop extending its influence in the public sector, and gradually, its area of attention should only be Defence, Education, Health and Transport (and of course myriad public amenities like electricity...