Good people !

Those who think that good people do not exist in this world surely don't know about Wikipedia, youtube and torrents :)

Reservation for backword classes and why I support the idea

This question is haunting me ever since Arjun Singh announced the increased reservation for the OBCs which took the percentage of the reserved position in all government institutions to 50% approx. I saw many debates regarding this and now I have some opinion on this.
There are two aspects of this issue. One is the about the idea or the concept of reservation itself. Should there be any reservation at all or should there be not? If the answer to this question is affirmative then the second question comes into picture that is how should it be implemented?
Initially I was against the very idea of reservation, especially during my 10th and 12th standards. But, now as I think of it, that opposition was because of me being denied an opportunity of studying in a good institute and not because I thought one can not and should not compromise on quality, which I claimed to be my basis for the opposition to this concept. Now I support the idea of reservation.
Let me explain. When I used to say that students should be given the admissions on basis of their marks only and not on basis of their cast, I was ignoring one big issue that we have here, that is the cast system. Say I have 90% marks and a person from a reserved category has 85%, I used to say that I should be given preference for admission.
But what I did not consider is how I got my 90% marks and how he got his marks. I think my upbringing played very important role in this. The culture at home matters a lot. My father is a doctorate in microbiology. My paternal grandfather is a lawyer and my maternal grandfather is a doctor. Now, compare this with the other guy whose forefathers, for centuries, did nothing but cleaning of roads and gutters. So it boils down to one question, Is the development of a human being because of his nature or his nurture?
By development because of nature I mean that a human being is what he is , in spite of his upbringing and the environment which he grows in has no effect on him whatsoever. I don't think so. I believe that what goes around does play an important role in an average person's development. So crude comparison of marks is not the fair way to judge merit.
Next part is about the implementation of this concept and how can undeserving people be left out of this benefit. I think that if a person thinks that he needs reservation, he is the one who needs it badly. There will be a time when people will think that they don't need reservation. And then only we can do away with it.

worst !

This post is going to be out and out negative. I am posting about three worst things in cricket

One:
Sri Lanka is the worst place to play cricket in.

I guess many people will agree with me on this. The reasons for this are two-fold. One, the weather is very unreliable there and our intelligent administrators schedule the matches there in the monsoons. (to add something more about the crazy scheduling, for current tri-series it goes like one match, 3 days gap, then India plays on two consecutive days and the final on Monday !!). But the most important reason which makes matches more mundane and devoid of any excitement is the pitches in Sri Lanka. You don't get worse pitches anywhere else in the world. They are slow, the ball does not come onto the bat at all and the bounce is very low. I am not saying that the pitches should be like the cement roads but there should be some excitement in the game. I don't remember any exciting games played in Sri Lanka.

Two:
Harbhajan Singh would be the worst captain India would have if ever he becomes one.


See this:

The guy does not command any respect. He is always the centre of controversies. In the infamous 'monkey gate' issue, BCCI may have saved him from punishment with the usual flexing of the 'Money Muscle', but I believe that Harbhajan did utter the racial abuse, and was stupid enough not to know the consequences of the same. And the 'Sreesanth slap' which takes away the cake, seemed like a scene taken from Ekta kapoor soaps or one of the reality shows that go around. In the same IPL , in a match against Chennai Hayden and Raina were going berserk. Harbhajan had 2 overs up his sleeves. But our hero (who was filling in for Sachin as captain) threw the ball to some youngster who had not played in any International match ever. Not wonder the new comer was smashed all over the park. What a boost for a youngster.

Three:
Arun Lal is the worst commentator any game has witnessed so far.

No explanation needed. All agree on this.

It's not that big deal !

Today I open every Indian news paper site and I see the news of Shahrukh Khan being detained at New Jersy airport allegedly because his name was Khan. We had a similar story some days ago when our former president Dr. Kalam was frisked before boarding a US bound flight by the concerned airlines officials. That time also the incidence was blown much out of proportion as it is being done this time. In fact there are some valuable lessons we can learn from these incedences.
I personally respect Dr. Kalam a lot. But I am not mad at airline people for frisking him despite the fact that he was once the President of India. It's part of the security process that they follow strictly and I don't see anything wrong with that. I guess that is why there have been no terror strikes in US post 9/11. These people value the lives of civilians over some age old ,utterly rubbish protocols. And I never read anywhere Dr. Kalam complaining about that. The process has to be consistent. Just because a person holds or held a high position or is a celebrity should not allow him to bypass the security system. If I am frisked and so are many others, everybody has to undergo the same process. And it's same principle these guys follow.
It's we, the Indian people, who have some kind of colonial hangover. We have all these classes of VIPs and VVIPs and what not. Why should there be any exception to the security process when the internal security is the most important issue that we have at our hand here. People are talking about giving the same treatment to people like Hillory Clinton , Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie etc etc as a revenge. It should have been done ages ago. Not as a revenge , but as a routine process which is aimed at improving the internal security. Its high time that we take terror attacks seriously and not just some news we read along with sports and business.

All time best

Well I know we can never compare cricketers across different eras but putting an all time best team is much too tempting an idea.
Here's my pick in the order of batting numbers.

1. Sunil Gavaskar
2. Barry Richards
3. Sir Donald Bradman (C)
4. Sir Vivian Richards
5. Sachin Tendulkar
6. Sir Garfield Sobers
7. Adam Gilchrist (wk)
8. Imran Khan
9. Shane Warne
10. Malcom Marshal
11. Glenn MaCgrath

12th man: Wasim Akram

Really???

of course these are not mine but i believe in them so...

Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our percepts. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we look for depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.

Movies minus story

Almost all of us love watching movies. All of us have opinions about them, like which movies are good , which are not, what should have been done and what should not in a movie. I have been thinking about what makes people like a particular movie. What is it that a movie which becomes a box office hit has that a flop movie does not?

There are many categories of films which become hit. There are those films of Karan Johar and Yash Chopra style which show the larger than life characters. People in those movies do not have the woes which an average man has like money woes and other everyday problems. They have big houses, fancy cars, many servants, in short, all that money can buy. Their problems are not centered around money. They have some emotional problems, problems with their relations, any relations including father-son, mother –son, brother-sisters, brother-brother, and of course the usual lover problems. I think these movies show the life which many people crave. The one where there are no petty (?) worries which a common man has every day. In a way these films are like fantasy films. Fantasy does not necessarily mean flying objects, magic wands and rings. Johar-Chopra genre is also a kind of fantasy.

Then there are those movies which kind of vents out the public feelings. There are some things which people want, they are passionate about, they are angry about. Films like Nayak, Chak de India, Kabul express and so on. The protagonist in these films do what people want to happen around them. It’s again like showing what people want in real life.

And, the Rajni-genre of the movies. They are like super heroes. Seemingly normal people doing things like super heroes. Many south Indian movies come under this.

I still believe that story is the most important part of any movie. But when we see many movies with almost the same kind of story (it’s really hard to say that a Karan Johar film has a story) getting stupendous response at box office , I doubt if a story is required for a movie. May be for years we have been seeing such movies that we don’t realize that these movies so not have any story.