My Country

The dare to dream..

Englad Tour

When West Indies were super power, we had tasted defeat like the one India has during the on-going England Tour. We are beaten and beaten badly in all the aspect of the game. Nasser Hussein the cricketer turned commentator and columnist has even gone to the extent of comparing some of our fielders to donkeys. Before taking that as an insult I was wondering, was our team that bad on the field?

Is it possible for bowlers like Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth to ever feel like India's top bowlers again, when they were hit around like practice bowlers while the British bowlers drew blood of Indian batsmen. Can they ever feel like men in-front of Zaheer Khan whose unfortunate injury took him out of the team and eventually made Indian attack look like some kid pack on the beach playing soft ball.

Even with all these, most of us back our team whole heartedly, yes they have been defeated, yes they have played badly, but its the same team who lifted our joy and spirit with their world conquering feats earlier. We should also not forget the fact that, we had a recent change of the Coach and the manager, Mr. Fletcher, what was his contribution to this mess? It seems, he has taken the team to an unbelievable low, far from anywhere near maintaining our level for which he was hired.

Yes, England will be touring India soon, hopefully let us see how their strategy of aiming at a batsman's rib cage and call it the spirit of the game work on our pitches.

I am sure the Indian team and cricket loving Indians will not forget the "Donkey" remark.

Passion

On request, took this picture of the handlebar which was welded in the middle and grinded to perfection. Amazing how driven are some in their passion.

Reclaiming coolness.

It is indeed a blessing, to have a mind which is a light to our feet. But we humans have to undergo the battle of everyday, where our emotions can be elevated or crushed.

What can save our mind from being really affected by such things for a long period there by coloring all our other priorities.

How can our mind recoup faster..:):):) Eventually that determines the success of our life. Reclaiming coolness.

For a change, I enjoyed the famous Burka Dutta (of 24x7) struggling with her questions when a far more learned mind of Kabil Sybil withered the storm of her probing questions on Lokpal Bill and Baba Ramdev. Burka Dutta is my favorite TV anchors who delights me with her sharpness and the trouble she put to learn the issue at hand. An inspiration, so was the IITian Kabil Sybil.

Turnaround

Perhaps the most effective means of measuring a country's economic development is checking out developments in the rural and semi urban areas. We all know, India is growing economically @9% consistently. Development of infrastructures like Highways connecting the nation politically and commercially is one example of India on the move. Here is a portrait of a Porotta Maker at Aroor, Cochin, who has found his bread in one of those successful make shift eateries that has sprang up along the high ways. He makes a decent living.

Yes, India is changing, obviously little slow to kick off the ball of growth compared to China, but we have started rolling and rolling well.

Logos Hope 2011

Logos Hope, the floating library, called on our Cochin port in May for twenty days, opening its library doors to everyone. A lot of social events were organized where crew members interacted with the locals, on board and on shore.

They say the ship could hold nearly 1000 guest at any time with additional 700 in Logos Lounge and theater put together. The ship can accommodate 500 crew members and guests in its 200 cabins.
The crew was friendly, of course, but I seriously doubt whether they had handled as big crowd as they had to in Cochin.
For the crew members and the crowd it was one wonderful experience. We got an opportunity to see people from different countries, Europe, America, South East Asia, Africa..For a local Cochin man it was a wonderful exposure!!
They were assisted by the local protestant churches in on shore arrangement. They did a beautiful job.
CISF officers did the security and they were cordial as ever. The only issue, I had was, they did not let me take the camera on-board, which unfortunately made me loose my chance of actually going inside. I did not had a place to keep the camera and the parking area was a few miles away.
The last Saturday before the departure, the crowd huge and the que was long. But the folks were well behaved and decent.
The local stalls had a good day of business, in fact twenty days of business. :):)

ICC WORLD CUP 2011

Back in 1983 I was in School at NSS, Tripunithura, when India won the world cup. We had to wait till the Sunday Newspaper arrived to know the result. The game was not that popular and TV was still a luxury. Then too, the final was on a Saturday. I still remember the sweet feeling of victory over the mighty West Indies. "Kapil's Devils" was truly awesome in bundling up the kings of the world cricket, especially when they were trying to retain the world cup for a third time. Roger Binny with his banana swings became the highest wicket taker and Krishnamachari Srikanth with his fearless innings in the final became our heroes, ofcourse Kapil Dev and Mohinder Amarnath was our pride when they came action framed in the pages of "Sportstar".

No matter how fiercely loyal we were to our team, we knew in our heart, we won 'cos we were lucky. But in 2011 after 28 years we won the World cup again, this time on the merit of our game. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian captain became the new hero, the man. Ofcourse, we cannot forget Sachin Tendulkar, the True Indian, who has given everything for Indian cricket, a joy for millions of us who have nothing else to feel happy about, except his batting. He help us in forgetting the worries of our life, with his strokes, his game.

Every body is talking about the BCCI, the selectors, for their vision, how they put the resource to build team India, the facilities and the way they built up national cricket feeling; Gary Kirsten, the exemplary coach and the support staff who made team India strong enough for the grind of a World Cup. But we should not forget Greg Chappel, the Australian who turned the wind for us by adding "dare" to our fresh young blood.

Like the commentators opined the Australian era of cricket dominance is over. What a dominance it was. No cricket lover can ever forget how well they played their game for over two decades, especially in the last decade after the West Indies ran dry on their talents. Three time world champions in a row, Australia the team that showed how to play cricket any where and win, I am lucky to live in that era and watched the way the likes of Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Mathew Hayden, Glen Mcgrath, Shane Warn mastered the game.

Now, we all have this beautiful feeling, India has arrived, our time has come. I kinda believe, we will defend our World Champion title successfully, next year.