Duncan Fletcher :: Our Scapegoat or Mascot?

Dear Mr. Fletcher,

      We, the Indian Cricket fans are highly obsessed with our team’s glory. Gary Kirsten has left a huge hole to be replaced in our cricket team.  It is a big void, which can never be filled by anyone else. I hope that you know your responsibilities to fulfill the legacy.

     In order to be an efficient coach, you must understand the sentiments and emotional quotients of our players. When compared with other teams in international cricket, you can list a million differences for Team India. In this team, you have been given a bunch of players who may not speak the same language, may not celebrate the same festival, may not eat the same food, and may not wear the same wardrobes. But, they are bunch of guys who will overcome all these diversities for making our nation a proud one. Not all the bowlers will bowl like Zaheer, not all the fielders will field with gymnastic techniques like Raina, not all the batsmen will bat like the great Sachin. But, we don’t really have to. Because, we have got Zaheer, Raina and Sachin! They know the limitations and specialties of each other, which makes them invincible.

     Being a coach of England is about managing 14 people, who are part of a single ethnic race. On the other hand, being a coach of India is a whole different scenario. It is about managing 14 people who came from the ultimate mixture of more than 2000 ethnic races; it is about managing 35,595 newspapers circulating all over India; it is about managing 515 television channels who broadcast to every nook and corner of the nation and last but not the least, it is about managing 1.21 billion people who never want to experience a Indian defeat!

     Till you come to Indian soil, you might wonder the part played by cricket on other sectors of life. Cricket might be responsible for both the happiness and sadness of our nation. Here, cricket will be given prominence over a visit from US President. Cricket will be the topic of talk from village tea shops to business conferences at presidential suites.

     A defeat in a single match can cause a middle-class husband to fight with her wife, a television channel to broadcast a counter attack talk show, twitter to become #overloaded, a Duncan to attract scathing criticism and so on. Unlike Zimbabwe or England, you will be forced to lead a ‘digital life’ in India. Either 1 or 0. Either mountainous accolades or self sacrificial altar. Either coach or no coach.

     Being an Indian coach means, you have to read the runes always and you must be able to chase the rainbows almost every time. Under your training, if the team continues its winning streak, then the above mentioned media and people will appoint you as the mascot of Indian Cricket. On the contrary, if the team loses, then you will be the first and foremost scapegoat we will sacrifice!

     Whenever you confront an achievement or failure, tattoo the following bunch of words in your memory cells.

      In India, it goes like this. Air, water, food, shelter, cricket!

Best Wishes From,

A die-hard fan(atic) of Indian Cricket.

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Link Exchange :: God of Corrupt System

Today, I came across an article of title - 'God of Corrupt System'.
Since it is a tamil article, I apologize for all those other language readers. In this article, author has taken a unique stand on the issue of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. My intention is not to hurt the feelings of anybody. Nevertheless, it is a great article which deplores several possibilities, which were shadowed by the media at present. So, I have shared it here..
Happy Reading!
http://www.vinavu.com/2011/04/25/god-of-corrupt-system/

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Ko–Drawing parallels!

‘Ko’ has been portrayed by the media as the summer blockbuster of 2011. I’m not here to talk about the film cast or direction, but I chose to talk about the script. KV and Suba has come up with a racy script which is weaved with journalism and politics, both entwining and complementing each other. Now, let us consider the parallels we can draw from the film characters.

As far as the portrayal of the protagonist (Ashwin) is concerned, we can draw parallels with the famous Vandhiyadevan of ‘Ponniyin Selvan’. In both the stories, the protagonist lifts an ordinary person to the country’s  most prestigious ruling chair. Role of Ashwin is similar to the role of Indian Express editor played in the rise and fall of Dhirubhai Ambani.

Similarly, the character of the antagonist (Vasanthan Perumal) can be seen as a tuned version of Camerlengo of ‘Angels & Demons’. Both the characters choose anti-social methods to seed hope in the minds of people. When caught red-handed, they talk about the ‘Greater-good’ and confront their deeds as a noble one.

In fact, in both ‘Angels & Demons’ and in ‘Ko’, the protagonist decides to acquit the guilt of the antagonist for the ‘Greater-good’!

Story of young generation coming to politics can lead comparisons with ‘Ayudha Ezhuthu’ etc. Even, we can go on saying that KV’s last film ‘Ayan’ is inspired from the Di Caprio blockbusters – ‘Blood Diamond’ and ‘Catch me if you can’!

Character of Saro (Pia Bajpai) has been an exception from the above described comparisons. This character is sure enough to win well-deserved accolades to the scriptwriters (KV and Suba).

In spite of all these comparisons, the director stands out successful with this script. Even though we can draw infinite parallels with other sources, this script well-supported with the dialogues, cinematography and music  make the film to bask in the light of blockbuster success. One should appreciate the confidence, KV has shown on this script. The metamorphosis of KV from a photo-journalist –> cinematographer-> scriptwriter-> director has attained its completion.

Above discussed way of scripting a Tamil cinema may not be the right way to make a film. But it will change the mind set of the hoi polloi such that s/he will give more importance to the script rather than the star-cast.

As the climax of this film projects, a right-goal will always win morality over the right-way. In this perspective, we can say that KV Anand has achieved a great feat with this movie. Kudos to him!

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Cogent approach for Decision Making– Valluvan Way!

What is meant by decision making? What are the things to be given proper weightage before making a right decision? And what must be done mandate after making a right decision?
I have pointed out three Kurals (a small drop from an ocean of examples) in order to answer the above questions.

• Vital role of Planning:

Think, and then dare the deed! Who cry,
'Deed dared, we'll think,' disgraced shall be. [Kural - 467]

Hundreds of decades before the Kaizen is introduced, Valluvar has given the steps for making a right decision. A good manager must give foremost importance to planning. As the adage goes, a well-planned activity is always half-done. Starting point of planning is analysing the situation and the end point is prescribing the action to be performed on a step-by-step basis. In this Kural, Valluvar describes a person as disgraced, he who has undertaken action without proper ground planning.

• Ill-consequence of ‘Non-action’:

'Tis ruin if man do an unbefitting thing;
Fit things to leave undone will equal ruin bring. [Kural - 466]

Consider a person who has taken a wrong decision. Obviously, he will end up being guilty for his erroneous judgment. Now, consider another person who has taken the right decision after careful planning; but, he fails to put his ground-plan to action. Valluvar regards the latter as the guiltiest than the previous one. Famous management Guru Peter Drucker also stressed the same point in his books. ‘Greatness never lies with TAKING the right decision. In contrast, it always lies with DOING the right action based on those right decisions.’

• A blunder called ‘Delay after decisions’:

Resolve is counsel's end, If resolutions halt
In weak delays, still unfulfilled, 'tis grievous fault. [Kural – 671]

This is one of my favourites.
My suggestion is to make this Kural a legal act, make it compulsory to all the bureaucrats of our nation. If our politicians and the planning commission members are forced to act as per this Kural, then half of the underdevelopment in our country will be rooted up. People tend to put a lot of effort in the process of decision-making so that they eventually forget the main aim of decision-making, which is to perform the right action! You can take all the time in the world to make a decision. But once it is done, you must act. Any delays after that will depict fallacy in our integrity. No wonder about the integrity of our Government since, more than 72% of development plans are under pipeline for a long long time.

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To follow in the footsteps of Valluvan…

Thirukkural is THE best thought-book ever written in human history. It is not a statement. It is a time-tested fact.
If u haven’t read Bhagavat Gita or other spiritual books, nothing is lost; unless, you read the Arathupaal of Thirukkural. If u haven’t read Chanakya’s Artha Sasthram or the writings of Bismarck, nothing is lost; unless you read the Porutpaal of Thirukkural. If you haven’t read the techniques for maintaining good-relationship with your partner, nothing is lost; unless you read the Inbathupaal of Thirukkural. But, if you haven’t read Thirukkural, then everything is lost.
Hereafter, you will see quite a number of posts regarding this greatest book. For those who would like to read the book, they can surf through the following link.
http://kural.muthu.org/

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The Legend in the name of ‘MidaS Dhoni’

It has taken 156 players for the Indian ODI Cricket to produce a player like Mahendra Singh Dhoni. As everyone recognizes, he is a special player, one of a unique kind. The famous 1983 World Cup is considered cornerstone for the Cricket saga in India. Though we had several gems of cricket ,who are exemplary at their technical batting and bowling skills, it is not the exact thing we needed to explore our entire potential.

Most of the Indian victories of 1990s and early 2000s is the direct resultant of the ‘Individual performances’ from the all-time greats such as Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble etc. But, the need of the hour is a good player who is adept at decision making and leadership skills. Sourav Ganguly is the one who started the process of leadership transformation in Indian Cricket. World Cup, 2003 will speak volumes about the leadership qualities of Sourav. But, once Sourav lost his form, he left a huge hole to be filled in the team. Successors of Sourav has shown little improvements in the resource management. As a result, we lost our 2007 World Cup chase in the initial stages.

The emergence of Mahendra Singh Dhoni has made such a miraculous impact, which completed the missing piece for making the Indian Team victorious. The batting style of MS Dhoni has been under criticism for a long-time. Even, some of his decisions has been under scanner. But, always,  he overcame all the odds against him and proved his worth at every other occasion. One must not forget the fact that he is the first Indian Cricketer to be awarded the ‘ICC ODI Player of the year’. He has the record of holding the most dismissals in ODI. His score of 183* against Sri Lanka is the highest score by an individual in a 2nd innings. It is also the highest score by a Wicket-keeper batsman. But, it is the leadership acumen of MSD, which made him to the list of one of the legends of cricket which included Sachin, Lara, Ponting and Kallis. He might not be consistent with his batting efforts in the recent past, but he is still the best captain we ever had. With the advent of MSD era, India started winning matches due to the sheer advantage of right decisions in field setup and bowling changes. He is remarkably cool and is able to handle extreme pressure situations. The best scale to measure a captain’s ability is Pascals and Dhoni stoop up to the occasions with strong nerves almost every-time.

Well suited, Sachin and Sourav named him the best captain India has got so far.

There is no achievement left for him to be achieved in the Cricket World. Under his captaincy, India won the T20 World Cup 2007, became the No.1 Test playing nation, won the ICC ODI World Cup 2011. As a captain, he led the Chennai Super Kings to win the IPL and Champions League 2010. The way he lead the team members, the way he cultivated friendship inside the team, the way he accomplished huge feats without pressure, the way he made Sachin to cherish the moment when he hit 200*, the way he stepped aside from the players after winning the World Cup and finally the way he finished the 2011 World Cup final with his helicopter shot will be remembered forever after him.

MS Dhoni – The Man with the Midas touch!

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