ChinmayC Blog

This Team India is led by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, not by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. This Team India has 79 members, not 11. This Team India’s agenda is not just cricket, but more importantly economy, fight against global recession, fight against terrorism, development, poverty alleviation, external relations and a whole lot of priorities. This Team India will be involved too one day matches, monthly matches and yearly matches and would be aiming at coming out winners in the five year mega match. This Team India too has a rich mix of youth and experience plus quite a few all-rounders. Win for this Team India is vitally important for the country. Wish them all the luck. And, coincidentally cricket Team India has also left for England for the ICC T20 Championship. Wish them luck too!

What a match! What a beginning. Captain Kumble opens the bowling attack and bowls to Captain Gilly and gets him out in the third ball! Captain Kumble goes on to capture four wickets and the target was very manageable 144. And what an end! Down to the last ball. It's simple incredible cricket that makes IPL a success. Not the glamour, the glitz and the money. Deccan Chargers Hyderabad, No.8 in last IPL, becomes No.1. The glorious uncertainties of cricket. King Khan take heart. KKR can do it next. Who knows!

Tonight I supported the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL semi final against Chennai Super Kings and I won! RCB deserved to win for their resurgence and war veteran Anil Kumble's positive energy. Now it will be a repeat of the super final mentioned in my last post. It could very well be a repeat win for RCB and the Cup! More Cheers tomorrow! And why not?

Shah Rukh Khan’s KKR could do nothing good to itself, but it had dealt the death blow to RR . By beating Rajasthan Royals today Kolkata Knight Riders threw the winners of IPL-1 out of the tournament. In another extremely low scoring match CSK managed to beat Kings Eleven Punjab quite easily in the end and secured its semi final berth. Now the two more spots are still open. Tomorrow’s match between DD and MI is inconsequential as MI is already eliminated. But the other match between DC and RCB is like the super final. The winner goes to semifinal straightaway. The loser gets locked with Punjab in terms of points e.g. 14 each and the net run rate will decide the fourth berth. Punjab’s prospects are worse as it has the lowest net run rate. So then, the most probable semi final line up: DD, CSK, DC, RCB.

The so-called communists of India had it coming. Officially committed to the ideology of great Karl Marx the four left parties of India did not know what to do with the proletariat. They failed to understand the needs of a country in a global economy. Being a part of the ruling coalition they opposed every move taken in the interest of the country. They threatened to stall the Nuclear Deal without understanding the basics. Finally they left the government reducing it to a minority and risking its possible fall in troubled times. They wanted to form an alternative government and for that they aligned with even extreme right feudal masters and mistresses. Now they had it. Even in their traditional strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala the voters rejected them. The tally of seats of the four left parties fell nearly three fold compared to 2004. Now they have an existential problem and they want to analyze the reasons for rejection. Well, there seems to be nothing to analyze. If you canno...

I have been extremely busy last two months preparing for the two events planned in Assam by our organization Shrutinaad . For the first time ever there will be an All Assam Competition on Bauli Kavi Kamalananda Bhattacharyya’s evergreen melodies on June 02, 2009 at Sankardev Kalakshetra Auditorium, Guwahati from 9am onwards. The competition will be followed by a musical tribute to the great poet-composer and prize distribution at 5.30pm. June 02 is the Birth Anniversary of Kamalananda Bhattacharyya. Applications forms can be submitted till May 26. Trying to overcome the problem of good workers and lack of funds I had been running around personally to prepare posters, leaflets and mementos. I had also made a CD from my audio album on Kamalananda songs titled ‘My Grandfather’s Songs’ and made this CD available to prospective candidates in Assam for the competition. Event two will be a solemn concert of classical music titled ‘ Prashanti’ on May 28, 2009 at 5.30pm at the same venue. Thi...

Interesting things happen here. The people here are not abnormal, not sadistic either. They are only enthusiastic and focused on getting the big news for their headlines. Particularly on a dull day when nothing wants to happen. Not that, again, they want bad things to happen. So, when a story comes in about a terrible loss of property caused by something or the other the chief reporter goes through it and exclaims, 'Oh! This is good!' 'What do you mean 'good'?' 'No...no...I mean...well...this is another big loss suffered by our people and our country. But, we got our headline!' Then, sometimes visuals about a big fire are late to be uploaded or downloaded. And, at the last moment the clips come in the editor shouts, 'Aag laga do!'(Put the fire on!) So that the news does not go dry. You see, the people definitely do not mean what they say or do!

Shahrukh Khan, the superstar of Bollywood. A huge success. And he buys a cricket team. Performance in the first IPL was so and so. But IPL-2 is super duper flop. Kolkata Knight Riders have lost 7 of the 9 games played and is languishing at the bottom of the table. What went wrong? Well it was a leadership crisis. If you did not have faith in Saurav Ganguly you should have just dropped him or put him out of captaincy. But you tried to introduce the concept of multiple captains which meant you had no faith in anyone. Leader has to be one who can lead a team of 11 members and who can inspire them to perform above par. And you dared to criticize Gavaskar, the living legend of Indian cricket. A cricket team can be bought thanks to BCCI, but what is finally played in the field has to be and is cricket. That cricket you cannot buy and manipulate. Despite having terrific players KKR is crying hoarse for a leader. They are just not inspired. They are dropping simple catches regularly and are lo...

Thanks to Mumbai's poor voting, barely 40 per cent, few political leaders have demanded voting be made mandatory. Well, how do you enforce it? By getting the abstaining voters arrested or withdrawing basic facilities from them or making them pay more tax and money? Voters understand their rights and would always like to exercise provided they benefit from this. How their expectations are met? With more and more lousy promises? The terror trauma of 2008 will take time to get erased. This can only be done by politicians becoming accountable--offering concrete solutions rather than mere promises. We are not supporting abstaining voters; we are only trying to analyse this most serious trend for the largest democracy of the world. Trying to enforce democracy would be the joke of the millennium! Before making such demands so-called leaders should first introspect, introspect intensely.