India Vs Australia ODI Cricket Series: Rains Lead 2-0 !

If the 7-match One-Day-International cricket series between India and Australia in India is divided into two, then Australia has won the 3-match series 2-1 and in the on-going 4-match series rains lead by 2-0 with the 4^th ODI at Ranchi washed out by rains during India’s chase of Australia’s 295/8 and the fifth ODI at Cuttack today abandoned without a ball being bowled. For Team India it is all the more uphill, because already losing the first ‘series’ now it has to draw level with ‘rains’ to have a chance of beating Australia in the 4-match series and by doing so wining the BCCI-desired 7-match Series. The richest cricket Board of the world, BCCI, does possess a magic wand to get it’s ‘desires’ always sweetly translated into realities. And why not, it still has N Srinivasan as its diehard President despite all the ‘odds’. It has also maneuvered South Africa into sweet submission accepting the alms of a Two-Test and Three-ODI Series to be played in South Africa so that it can have its magnanimous wish of letting Sachin Tendulkar bow out of cricket in all Board-Glory.

After the first three one day internationals, the focus was Indian cricket for its traditionally inadequate bowling attack—more explicitly so in this series. The Indian pacers were in total disorder giving away runs in abandon and hardly able to penetrate. Ishant Sharma gave away 30 runs in a single over in that Mohali match that finally allowed Australia to snatch win from jaws of defeat. However, the magnanimous Board declared along with its chief ally MS Dhoni that one or two match performance cannot be a yardstick to throw out an experienced bowler. But then, in the Ranchi match Ishant and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar were in fact dropped with Mohammed Shami and Jaydev Unadkat as replacements. Of the two only Shami had an inspired spell capturing three wickets as Australia still managed to amass nearly 300 runs batting first. That brings us to one more point of focus for Indian cricket.

From inadequate bowling to indifferent fielding. Team India dropped as many as 7 catches in that Ranchi match much to the embarrassment of the captain at his home ground. If you have been willing to believe the spirited Indian cricket commentators all along then you already must have formed your opinion that the young Indian side has mustered a superb fielding expertise. The moot point that comes to our naive mind is where to put the lights on—bowling, fielding, batting to short-pitch deliveries, batting on green pitches, the cricket Board offers or only on the money-spinning entertainment show. Whatever, there is unanimous opinion that presently focus is on the Rains and Weather. With the fifth one day international at Cuttack abandoned today due to heavy rains over the week the remaining two matches at Nagpur and Bangalore respectively are only going to decide where finally shift the focus to. One more point if you are still with us, there are three days to go before the Nagpur match on 30^th October. Why nobody thought of a reserve day? Even in Ranchi it could have been provided for.  Well, ours not reason why, ours but to have our moneys worth.

Legendary Bollywood Playback Singer Manna Dey No More

Legendary Bollywood playback singer Prabodh Chandra Dey (1^st May 1919 − 24^th October 2013), known by his stage name Manna Dey, passed away in the early hours of Thursday in Bangalore. The veteran artiste had been suffering from old age related problems for a long time and today he breathed his last today at the ripe age of 94. Manna Dey had been a part of the classic trinity of legendary male playback singers of India—Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh and Manna Dey. Kishore Kumar and later Mahendra Kapoor were also around in that classical era. While Mahendra Kapoor more or less settled down as the best 'Rafi Voice’, riding on the first superstar of Bollywood wave, Rajesh Khanna, Kishore Kumar's popularity exploded and he became the No.1 playback singer from, to be exact, 1969 when movie Aradhana that launched Rajesh Khanna was released all over. Rafi died in 1980, Mukesh in 1976, Kishore Kumar in 1987 and Mahendra Kapoor in 2008. Of these five all-time greats Manna Dey becomes the last to leave us for his heavenly abode entertaining us for more than six decades. He stopped Hindi playback singing from the nineties due to what he termed as low standards of melody creation. However, he continued to sing for stage and other Indian language films. His few Assamese film songs are still popular numbers with the music lovers of Assam.

We grew up listening to Manna Dey numbers like the way with Rafi or Mukesh. But we always considered him to be a different singer, because he hardly sang for the dancing heroes. His songs were lilting melodies often with a strong classical base and his songs were crucial in most movies like Upkar--more prominently. He did sing fun songs and we still love them, but he was never a typical playback singer for us. In fact, music directors of Bollywood wanted him for their most difficult compositions knowing fully well that Manna Dey had the voice, the range, classical training and all. However, usually they preferred Rafi or Mukesh or Kishore or Talat Mahmood leaving Manna Dey as the most underutilized legendary singer of Bollywood. Such instances are hard to find in this film industry even now. What is important, his songs remain with as just 'his songs' and not in order of association with either the heroes or the movies as is the case usually. We often remember songs for the specific hit movies or the specific popular heroes the songs were sung for. We love Manna Dey songs as just Manna Dey songs. On this sad day this is our heart-felt tribute for the great artiste.He was a very simple and down-to-earth person as I had several opportunities of meeting him in Mumbai recording studios.

With more than 4000 songs to his credit his contribution to Indian music brought several awards and recognitions his way: Padma Bhushan in 2005, Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2007 and Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

As I try to list out some most remembered Manna Dey songs the movies do fill in. Poocho na kaisay maine raen bitayee… from movie MERI SOORAT TERI AANKHEN (1962), tu pyaar ka sagar hai.. from movie SEEMA (1955), Zindagi Kaisi Hai Paheli…from movie ANAND (1971). And, his music flows on…

India: Colossal Greed And The Tearful Onion!

It is said in almost every part of this world that too much greed is not good. An Assamese proverb says that when the lazy tiger kills its 100^th cow, its end is near. The nationwide greed of politicians and middlemen or rather dalalsfor the windfall out of the artificially-made-scarce onions has just become unprecedented, brazen and extremely unscrupulous. For nearly two months they have been making tonnes of bucks by selling a mass cooking item at a price more than 400 percent higher than normal. Same scenario prevails with only onion prices varying from 60 to 110 rupees per kg all over India. Few days back in Mumbai prices started to fall to 60-50 rupees per kg, but now rising again without any rhyme or reason to 70-90 rupees. With food inflation raging Diwali this time is going to be a dampened affair indeed.

This is what should ideally happen to the enemies of the masses. Common people including high middle classes have already drastically cut down their onion consumption. They are now used to having onions in small quantities like heavenly blessings and even while eating out in the restaurants they are used to the absence of the inevitable onion in the salad or going completely without special onion dishes. Like the distressed hoteliers who have no option but to cut out onion from the menu as they must provide food at affordable prices to their loyal customers the onion retailers all over the country are complaining of significantly reduced daily sales. Now as we have seen, consumers are getting used to very less onions daily or monthly and they are likely to stick to their habits to avoid similar scenario in future.

Therefore, when finally the greedy devils decide to lift the artificial scarcity and when onions are in full seasonal bloom even the back-to-normal prices will fail to entice the disillusioned consumers. The onion prices would keep crashing consequent upon reducing demands and abundant supply; daily sales would remain abysmally low; tonnes of onions would rot in the warehouses thanks to lack of buyers; and the losses suffered by the greedy devils would be limitless and permanently disabling. We the Consumers can really give it back to them! Enough of onion tears!