PRG's Thoughts

Somewhere in a hotel room in England, 11 Indian cricketers and a Zimbabwean coach gather around in a dark room. The mood is serious. Player 1: “I’ve called this meeting today in urgent circumstances. So far we have blamed our horrific performance on the BCCI and their planning. While they’re usually an easy target I think we may be passed the expiration date on this particular blame game.” Player 2: “Why? Just blame it on them. Always works and right now the media is supporting us.” Player 1: “Look, we’ve played two tests and two side games. The public realizes that we should have gotten used to the conditions by now. It just won’t fly. Plus we had this stupid number one ranking on our heads. Thank god that’s over.” Player 3: “Chill out, ya. Just blame it on injuries. Can’t argue with that.” Player 4: “Player 3, you’re a Moron, only ONE player is injured. You can’t count the two boys from Punjab. One hasn’t taken a wicket since before Chayageet aired on DD and the other is not even ...

A few days ago I woke up and as usual reached for the newspaper. There was the front page. Prime Minister Singh was talking about how corruption is impacting our country, there was an article about Adarsh, a piece about the 2G scam and finally a small snippet about the CWG. Exhausted at the thought of reading any of these stories I turned to the sports section only to read about the Pakistan players and match fixing and whether Eden gardens would be ready in time. I put the paper down. Its been one of the most tiring few months that I can remember. CWG, Adarsh, 2G and lord knows how many more. Most people probably assumed that there are scams like this going on but when you see it unveil itself and understand the magnitude of the scams it hits you hard. An estimated $38 billion was stolen from the country in the 2G scam. $38 billion. Sorry just had to type that twice. In terms of what happened with the CWG no one really knows the hidden truth, because once the games started the story c...

When the lead story in the Economic Times is about the IPL spat and not about the RBI's credit policy it is safe to say that things have become a little bit cuckoo. But that is what cricket does to us and the truth is, this entire fiasco has a lot more to with economics than with cricket. After waiting a few days to let things unravel. Here is my take on the latest controversy to hit the IPL. If you don't know what is happening in this saga then either you have been away on an island or haven't picked up a newspaper in the past week. This has been nothing short of chaos. I could have written on a number of things related to this mela, but I chose these three. Lets get right in to it. Bye Bye Shashi Tharoor This man didn't know what hit him. He took on the king and got clobbered. Here is my issue with him. Fine, he did what he did. But why is he still talking about how his conscience is clear and claiming innocence? I mean seriously, give me a break. His girlfriend was ...

With over a quarter of the games of this seasons IPL done, here is my update. Bowlers dominating, best players, new teams worth 1700 crore. Here are the top 5 things so far (in no particular order) 1) Who said it is a batsman's game? I mean we all know that this format is tailor made for the batsmen but what is interesting this year is that the teams that are topping the points table are the ones with good all round bowling attacks. Bangalore with Steyn, Kallis, Kumble, and Praveen Kumar. Mumbai with Malinga, Zaheer and Bhajji. Deccan with Vaas , Symonds (who has bowled well), and RP Singh. On the other side of the table you have Punjab who has Sreesanth (struggling and inconsistent) and Irfaan Pathan who is suffering from a major crisis of confidence. Sure, the top teams have batsmen that are in great nick, but if you have bowlers who can pick up good wickets or bowl some really tight overs at crucial points, then the entire unit becomes that much stronger. 2) New Teams - When La...

IPL is back baby!!! And I love it!! You know, test cricket is the best form of the game and one day cricket has its moments, but IPL T20 has a different charm altogether. Season 1, Rajasthan Royals are the cheapest team with a bunch of no names and they win it all. Season 2, the Deccan Chargers who were the worst team in season 1 come back to win it all. The best part about this tournament so far has been that no one knows who is going to win. Could the Knight Riders pull off a Deccan Chargers? Will the Mumbai Indians finally make it to the semis? Will Delhi play well through the season and then crash again before the big game? Will Gilly be Gilly again? Will Bangalore go as far this year? The frenzy has caught on so much that a buddy of mine who takes any opportunity he gets to "bitch out" T20 called me this morning to find out if I will be at the match tomorrow. You can't escape it, IPL is back baby!!! And I love it!! Here are 10 things I want to see this year (in no ...

I was going to write a blog on this, but it made me so sick that I just didn't bother. It speaks for itself. http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/indian-winter-olympic-team-team-india-fundraiser-vancouver-2010-2573673.html

Whew, major relief guys, my mother managed to get her residency for Maharashtra. You see, she was born in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) but she and my grandparents had moved to Mumbai ( then known as Bombay) when she was around eight years old. Since she is not Maharashtrian and wasn't born in the state either, we were afraid that some political party might just kick her out of the state. You see there are a couple of politicos out there that have lost the plot, so we wanted to make sure we didn't have to ship my mom back to Bengal. Luckily, she is safe. Sorry, I haven't blogged in a while, I have been swamped with my Marathi classes and I just haven't had the time. In fact, my next blog will be in Marathi. I apologize to you people who read my blog but don't understand Marathi. It is just too bad for you. I mean, the fact is that I have grown up in Mumbai and so there is no reason why I should blog in English. So be prepared for Marathi posts henceforth. Another...

I was told that I need to move beyond sports and politics, so here is my feeble attempt. I take on Bollywood in this one, India's other obsession. It is award show season people, both here and abroad. From now till March almost every week there will be some award show somewhere in the world. I love watching award shows. They are entertaining, fun and some of them even mean something. The Bollywood award shows are similar. They are entertaining, fun but mean absolutely nothing. Here is why. It starts with what we award our artists for. It is confusing as hell. In the recently completed annual Star Screen Awards there was an award called Best Actor (Male) which Mr. Amitabh Bachchan won for Paa . Sound familiar right? Most award shows have such a category. But then there was an award, Best Actor in Popular Category which Shahid Kapoor won for Kaminey. In popular category? What in Gods name does that even mean? Sorry Mr. Bachchan you won Best Actor but not popular best actor? Similarl...

Since this is the first year of my blog, I have never written a year end blog before. I figured why not join the rest of the world and make lists. So here are my awards for 2009... Politician of the Year- Rahul Gandhi I am still at odds on whether I like the man or not, but what can you say, he got it done this year. The Congress dominated the national elections and there is no doubt that Rahul Gandhi's tireless travels played a huge role in their clear cut win. Since the win he has not stopped being in the news either. His "hanging with the people" strategy is interesting and fresh. I still can't tell if it is genuine, political, strategic or actually something revolutionary in our country. Whatever it is, it caught my eye. Will be interesting to see if the current fall out in Andhra Pradesh hurts his party and more interesting to see if he continues to reach out to the people in 2010. Honorable Mention- Kapil Sibal (For the revolution he is starting in education. If...

Whew!!! That was some cyclone. The winds were blowing at 75 kmh, the rain was belting down, trees were uprooted and I think I even saw a small house fly off Oz style. Its a good thing we shut down schools and offices, and created a little panic. In today's Times of India front page article on the cyclone it is written in bold "heavy to very heavy rainfall has been predicted over the next 24 hours." Here is my suggestion, if you go out, take some sunblock. Now, I am all for the 'better safe than sorry' as far as weather is concerned, but how is our MET so off so consistently? And yes I know that a lot of people suffered terribly a few years ago during the Mumbai deluge, but it has created such a fear mentality that at the drop of a hat people panic and the MET department doesn't help. I guess their attitude is that we better issue a warning because if we don't we are going to be criticized. I wish better safe than sorry changed to more right than wrong I w...

Some stuff going on in the news. Saeed, T20, Federer, Xbox. Real random thoughts with no real focus... Lahore High Court lets Saeed Out . Can someone please explain to me why we are playing a warm up match with Pakistan today? Yes Yes I know it is not the players fault and all that nonsense. But we banned South Africa from cricket for 21 years for apartheid and 60 countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of the USSR's insurgence in to Afghanistan. The Olympics which is an event that comes every four year and a once in a lifetime chance for most athletes that participate was boycotted. Those countries took a stand. I think if we are taking a stand we should take a firm one. We should not even play them in the world cup if we have to. We should boycott the match in protest. If that effects our chances to win it then so be it. If we really want to get the message across we should take bold steps. That's just my view but I am sure you have plenty of opposing ones. Yuvra...

The Left is gone the Left is gone. My flu is still here but the Left is gone. And if I had to choose between tolerating a fever for a few more days or tolerating the Left for a few more years I would choose the former. Here are some initial thoughts on the results, the winners, losers and the lessons we learned. I would love some comments here, because I could be way off the mark in my assessments and would love to get your perspective. Here we go  Yay for Stability - As I mentioned in my last blog I was alright with either the UPA or NDA coming in to power, but was only concerned about the partners they would have to choose. The Congress' performance took that concern and flung it out of the window. We will now have a stable government. And with no Left holding a gun to their head every time they want to do anything progressive, the UPA will be able to govern freely and hopefully implement some economic policies that the Left would not let them. The Congress - Whether you like the...

Shouldn't there be a law that traitors are not allowed to run for public office? I certainly think so. We do have laws that criminals are not allowed to run, of course most criminals manage to find their way around that law, so I guess then why not traitors. Former Indian Cricket Captain Mohammed Azharuddin is going to be running on a Congress ticket from Moradabad . This is a man who had sold out India time and time again and he is running to be part of our Government. Not only is he running but he is also going to be traveling the country to ask for votes for his party. This is like Benedict Arnold running for President of the United States. Yes yes, I know, there are plenty of questionable characters already in the political world who have been involved in corruption, inciting violence and sometimes even alleged murders. Parties however see a guaranteed seat victory and so overlook these crimes and field these candidates who eventually do get elected. Let me be clear here (befor...