Category Archives: opinions

Personal opinion about culture, movies, books.

Injured XI to Underdogs XI

No the name above is not a name of any country’s president.

What would one do if almost every ace player in the team is either injured, or is on leave, or unavailable? The show should still go on, they say. For instance, currently, in the Indian Cricket Team playing a series in Australia, the most experienced bowler is just 2 Test Matches old. The captain is a captain for time being. And about 60% of the team is a bunch of newbies at the highest level of Cricket.

I guess such situations do occur from time to time in sports, as well as in professional life. Often, it is Friday and you are about to shut shop when you get called to a meeting and asked to present something which you yourself aren’t sure about.

While there is always pressure to be the best, but we should give benefit of doubt to the people who still try and not give up. May be if they keep at it, they will succeed. And if they don’t, at least it would be a great lesson for the next time.

Test Cricket is like life

As spectators or lovers of the game, we don’t have any control over the outcome. More so when you are watching the game from a distance and your cheer can’t reach the players. The reverse is not true though. The outcome of the game can actually impact your day.

Test Cricket, however low attendance it might be having nowadays, is the closest sport to real-life as possible. There are no shortcuts in it. It is long, dull, scary, and entertaining if you know how to enjoy it. Sometimes it is just boring as nothing happens. But it takes a toll and toughness get tested thoroughly.

The concept of a Drawn match (be it Cricket, football, or even boxing) is amazing. Sometimes nobody wins or gets beaten. It just ends with nobody having the last laugh. It is sometimes about just survival. How more realistic can it be!

Photo by Craig Hughes on Unsplash

So I recently watched: Fargo

Wide-angle shots. A vast expanse of barren lands covered with snow. The crime just happened or about to happen. Great percussion music in the background building up the scene. Characters who indulge you in hyping up the scene with great acting. Tense situation. A bullet about to go off. And then all of sudden, out of nowhere, something totally unexpected shows up and changes the course of everything.

Ummm…
Continue reading “So I recently watched: Fargo”

Riches be crazy

Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world. A few days ago it was Jeff Bezos. A few years ago, it was Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet and so on. As one may notice, they all are still in the top 10 or so richest people in the world. And they have been there for a long time.

Elon Musk (as he is quite active on Twitter) showed amusement after the news broke about him dethroning Bezos. He commented that this was interesting. And within a few seconds, ‘Back to work’. Basically, unfazed.

It is only us, 99% of the population which discusses and shows amazement about who’s in the top 1%. Those who are actually being the richest have to keep working to stay on the top.

Nobody’s Perfect

To be without a king is better than having an arrogant king.

Kautilya

One of the most brilliant inventions of the human mind is Democracy. It gives satisfaction to people that their own representatives govern them back. At least in theory. In India, democracy is something we all cherish and be proud of. It took us an enormous amount of time for establishing Democracy and with a lot of sacrifices. We love the fact that about 800 million people get to decide the fate of our country for 5 years. 800 million is such a huge number that even managing them to cast their votes is as difficult as reaching Mars.

Democracy is like playing a biased sport. The rules of the biased sport are known in advance though. Sometimes the ideals of democracy go for a toss as well. The rules on which we based our biased sports, get bent. That ensues newsworthy scenes. Some countries have Black days, some have White days.

This happens because Democracy is not the equilibrium state. Chaos/high entropy/anarchy and the survival of the fittest is natural. Democracy is actually the opposite of natural. All the other ways of governing have overtime proved to be difficult or have failed. We all know that Democracy needs patience. It is certainly not ideal and all forms of Democracies have tradeoffs. There is no 1-way Democracy has worked. It evolves, twists and turns, and churns out a new form from time to time.

Only in a Democracy, a Tea Seller, or a Reality Show Star can become the head of the state. We can always vote them out too. Often, we take our Democracy to be granted. It is far from being perfect but the best of what we have. Cherish it!

Photo by Aditya Joshi on Unsplash

Not that highly but still a recommended reading:

FU News: Uber for protests launched

Finding Common Ground

It is a tricky thing to achieve when nobody is willing to budge. Right Wing and Left Wing Supporters lock horns all the time. Government and the Opposition are always at loggerheads. Countries sharing borders are always in an argument about which side owns that particular amount of land. Unless the land is ‘Bir Tawil’. Coke and Pepsi can never come to the same table in a restaurant. Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan can never join the same party. Covishield and Covaxin, despite have Co in their names, are finding it difficult to co-operate against Covid.

Continue reading “Finding Common Ground”