The Down Under tour

Like millions of fellow Indians I looked forward to our Indian cricket team's tour of Australia. I made myself to believe the media stories and articles that we have a real chance this time. Our aging mighty stalwarts will take the Australian bull by the horns and will tame the raucous beast. I was skeptical of the similar stories during the England tour; somehow my sixth sense told me that it will end badly in England. But in Down Under I expected it to be otherwise. And as it happened, history repeated itself and we ended up with many similarities between England series and this series in Down Under.

1. In both the series until the last day of the first test, it was more or less even. And afterwards it was a steep downhill for Indian team.
2. Sachin's hundred was expected with each innings he played and it never happened (poor Sachin, I want him to score that hundredth hundred badly mainly because it will give him some peace of mind for the rest of his life. And Sachin, do not ever think of retiring with out that hundred even if it means retiring at the age of 45. Alternately BCCI can invite Bangladesh for a test tour and we will send you as opener. The bottom line is that the rest of your/our life with out this hundred is not worth it.)
3. It’s a complete white wash in both the test series. And as I write this, our team is trying hard to not to reach the finals of the triangular one day tournament. The first of the finals is in Gabba and there is no way our team can win a game on the bouncy pitch there. So what's the point in trying to reach the finals itself?

A small note about the bowling in the series down under: After the end of the first test, Dhoni said that we need to find a way to get the tail out quickly. So in the second and subsequent tests our attentive bowlers have made a master plan, they bowled so cleverly that the tail does not even has to come to bat.

And what can I say about the batting? Each time I woke up at midnight (with an alarm and at the grave risk of waking up my 1 year old son, I live in CET time zone) only to watch that all the batsmen have decided that it is best to either sit in the pavilion or standing on the ground fielding. It seemed like too much work to concentrate, flex your muscles a little bit and hit the cricket ball. They all have come to down under for a nice vacation with wives and what a pity that all other Indians are thinking that they have come to win some cricket matches.

And now they write about rifts and the lack of unity among the Indian seniors. Probably it is the wives who started the fight first and then the players themselves. But in any case there is too much money involved, every one wants a piece of it and of course the big brother (called BCCI) will force them to patch up.

What next? In 1 month's time there is IPL 5 and afterwards a T20 world cup. Once the IPL is underway, every one will quickly forget this forgettable tour of down under. The next away series is only in 2013 and do I need to remind every one again that history repeats itself?

The mother of all evils

Perhaps I am overstating it. Or perhaps this is an understatement. And I dare to say that the mother of all evils in our Indian society is the comparison of oneself with others i.e. with friends, relatives, siblings, neighbors and anybody you can come across. It's best explained with the famous power cut example. They say in the land of never ending power cuts, when the power cut happens, the first thing you should do is to check in the neighbor's house. As long as your neighbor also has the power cut, it is OK and the sweltering, heat, mosquitoes and what not all becomes manageable. (And for the record the electricity people are mean guys. Some time they cut the power only for a full street leaving all the rest of the town blazing in glory. Then this brings out all other kinds of emotionsJ)

And the whole funny thing about this malaise in our Indian society is that there are no boundaries to this comparison thing. You compare about any thing and every thing under the sky. Perhaps it is not funny but stupid. I am sure it's common to hear some of the following statements in your daily life. 

• That neighbor's son is getting more marks in school than you.
• That lady has lot of jewellery and I have nothing.
• That neighbor has new iPhone 4S and owns a SUV.
• My maid servant is more "haraami" than yours.
• My favorite actor/actress/sports person is better than yours (come on guys, grow up).
• My in laws are more sadistic than yours.
• My son/daughter is school first and does not waste time in stupid games (really?)
• What is your rank in the school?( First question to any school going kid you came across)
• Whats your caste? (this could be asked in a number of different indirect ways, this is altogether a different beast and is out of scope of this post)

 

You might argue that it is not an Indian thing but the whole world is like this. Possibly it is true. And perhaps it is not a surprise in a world where your life's progress is measured by how quickly you make money, the ultra cool cell phone you have or the luxuries you lead in your daily life.

And there are also people who argue that this comparison leads you to aspire for better things in life and otherwise you are a dumb a** staying at the same place forever. To some extent its true that this comparison thing (when not overdone and applied in right amount at the right time) might have a little bit of positive effect on education. Also I can say that I really care whether my son is doing well at the school or not and this is usually measured by the comparison based ranking system or a GPA. But when my son grows up, I definitely do not care if he has the highest pay or the most expensive luxury car among his friends and school mates. All I care that he earns well enough for a good living.

Eventually you can see that I myself already accepted that I myself am part of this malaise and compare against the others (of course, I have Indian blood in my veinsJ). But I try to stay away from the comparisons of wealth, luxury items, pay checks etc. This some times might make me a "non progressive dumb a**" or a boring guest in social circles, but this also brings lot of peace to my day to day life. Is this way is the right solution to the mother of all evils? May be not. And do I preach all others to follow the same approach? Never, who in the world cares about my preaching anyways?