Sachin Tendulkar

Does it matter if Sachin Tendulkar scores "100" or not?

Not the least.

For me, Sachin Tendulkar is much more than the 1oo, the whole of India is supposedly waiting for. He is the true breed of Indians who took their craft to the best of the world and proved, he indeed is the best.

He belong to a generation of Indians, the confidence on whom, prompted the elders to liberate our economy. Though difficult at first, for the home grown Indians to cope with the world standards this change challenged the young of India with, the good among us did well in computers, accounting, Engineering, advertising and such. All of it is history as we all know.

The Australians were perhaps the best of the cricket ever had. They had all the best of the cricketing system, which spotted the young talents, provided them with sponsorhip and world class training facilities, exposed them through well organised local tournaments and moulded them to super competitive international cricketiers who could beat any team any where.

But in India we had nothing of that scale. That's why I love Sachin Tendulkar, he loved his craft, thanked god for giving him the gift and stayed true to his talents till the end working hard and training well to develop his skills, while being grateful to God always for the blessing.

Man, that's the true spirit of India.

Sachin Tendulkar, you will be our hero, whether you make that "100" or not. You will own our hearts till the day we die.

Rest

Mathew 11:29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest.

How does it feel to be old and abandoned?

Well, nothing much as long as we can earn our own bread. But what about the anxiety about tomorrow, whether one will have the health to take care of ones self?

Children are a blessing in old age. But with micro families these days, will we be hoping too much if we expect one of our children to stay back with us in these days.

Does having many children help in the old age, at least one of the children..

PS: The logo on the tuition class board actually belong to Robe di Kappa, the Italian designer brand. Symbolises the completion of man and woman in supporting each other. Sad to see the man in the photograph sitting alone and lost in thought, taken at Madras last month.

A day

...in building India.

Nurses

We often hear about nurses from Kerala being ill treated up at North India where they go for work. I've a great respect for that profession and for the boys and girls who take up that Angels profession as career from Kerala and elsewhere. Those of us who were born and brought up in Kerala and had gone "out" to work, might have come across this situation at some point or the other and we understand how miserable it feels to be made felt substandard. True, we do have a language problem with Hindi, as we have to pick these language from the scratch, and it take us a while to cope with the native speakers. That catching up time is often the Waterloo for most of us with insults hurled at us mercilessly everyday, especially when we are at a job where we have to meet a lot of people.

Perhaps, we can think of forming self-help groups with volunteers from different walks of life, assisting with some kind of language workshops to help those who need it. Various religious and social organization can make a very good platform for this.

Its awful to think of the state of mind of a superior who will tear off a uniform of an employee just to make a point like it happened in a famous hospital at Delhi. It will be easy to term such as racism, but we know better no matter where we are in India, if our skills are good enough, a Malayalee is a very well sought after resource. We all have a lot of experience to share in our "working away" life where we were appreciated and cherished for our attitude to work and sincerity to the employer.

My sympathies are with those unfortunate young nurses (both reported and unreported) who has to go through these severe emotional experience at work, please know, we are proud of your ambition and will to go far out to support your career and families, let us not be disheartened by these little things, let us always remember what we came out for and work hard for it, we know in our heart when we make our "grades" we will be more bright than anybody else or as bright as the best in our country.

My Country

Anna Hazare and his movement gave us hope, that there will be leaders who think above their political party belief, think in the way of our country like Gandhi and the other respected freedom fighters did.

So, when Sonu Gujjar and Shiv Kumar lead the protest at Maruti Suzuki's Maneswar plant when the company denied the formation of an independent Labor Union, we thought "aha! here is something, that could bring a change and a fresh wave of leadership - free from dynasty and political DNA's." But our hopes were gone with the wind, when the newspapers reported these "Knights of miserables" took nearly 40 lakh each and resigned from their jobs abandoning their colleagues and fellow protestors and the movement with its objectives.

Ofcourse there will be a story behind it. Someday it will all come out.

Meanwhile, let us continue to hope and wait for the days, when our leaders will start talking about, pension for all the working citizens - no matter they work for the government or not - health cover for all the citizens and respect for all individuals no matter what kind of work they do and how much they earn or what kind of house they live.

PS: The picture is that of some workers, cleaning themselves on the Trichur Railway Station platform after unloading cement from a wagon.

Events

The community events that keep the society together, poised on a common cause - generally with a positive lesson- Onam for us is such an event, a festival which celebrates the harvest and goodness of man.
Even in our small canal, the boat race has become a hit. Earlier, when Champakara boat race started years ago we had the big "Nehru Trophy" Boat race going in Vembanad Lake at Kochi. We never gave a second thought to this third league race, but things changed with the discontinuation of Nehru Trophy and the growth of Kochi as a metro. Even the minor leagues like this provides an opportunity for community entertainment and gatherings during the monsoon festival season.
The rains have been good this year, the harvest not "bad". For the workers who have come here from the North and North eastern States, our boat race was an astonishing experience.

Boat clubs are coming up in good numbers and are very serious in their practice, hopefully in the coming years, these events could be a national event.