ChinmayC Blog

The incredible Lord’s victory in the second Test that gave India 1-0 lead in the five-match Test Series against England notwithstanding, the much talked-about Indian batting depth has not delivered till the second day of the Fourth Test. It’s essentially the absolute failure of the middle order batsmen that let the great Indian fast bowling performances down, again and again. The non-performing and inconsistent batsmen are easily identified as the captain Virat Kohli himself who has managed to register just two fifties so far which were in the second innings of the third Test and on the first day of the fourth test, and giving him company in this discomfiture are Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. Ironically, the Indian bowlers are forced to bat well too to give India some kind of respectability, again and again.   In the first Test India lost a huge opportunity of winning after Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami devastated England for a mere 183 in t...

Mood changes or mood swings affect every living being of the world including animals and in some cases lifeless objects too. The latter assertion may surprise many, but there are numerous instances in this regard that will be taken up as we rather moodily move along. At the very start of this month, that is August 2021, I lost my mood to write anything and everything—that is to say my mood changed—and I don’t know why. There are, as everyone knows, numerous possible reasons for this: one may feel lazy and pass time in reading rather than writing that demands more application and concentration; one may feel depressed for no reason; one may be disturbed due to happenings that relate to other people or external factors; one may be ill or under particular medicines with side effects and in the case of illness there is a vicious circle of physical illness leading to mental illness and then both affecting one another as it goes on; hormone imbalances which are a bit serious causing mood swin...

It was cruelly insensitive on the part of the Government of India to declare in Parliament that there had been no COVID-19 deaths during the second wave due to lack of medical oxygen in the country, when not only the thousands of the affected families but also millions other anxious or someway related families just cannot erase the nightmarish images of people dying gasping for breath on hospital beds, in the hospital passages/corridors/lounges, on the outside courtyards or on the streets, in the parked cars, within the four walls of homes; hospitals sending SOS for oxygen, desperate doctors even breaking down; and round-the-clock media reports and most disturbing visuals.   The reason given by the government is even more ludicrously insensitive: that the states did not report the deaths due to the lack of medical oxygen. Well, most of the states, particularly the ones ruled by the same dispensations would hardly advertise their failure or the stark lack of preparedness. The gove...

Another golden chapter of Hindi cinema has drawn to a close. Dilip Kumar, the legendary hero of the classical era traversing over six glorious decades of providing top-class entertainment to millions of fans the world over, has passed away at a Mumbai hospital today morning. He was admitted in the ICU on 30 th  June due to a prolonged illness, and in fact, for the last more than a month he had been in and out of hospital with constant prayers from his loving wife Saira Banu, one of the most popular heroines of the classical era, family, friends and millions of fans for his recovery. However, finally the doyen of Hindi cinema bowed down to destiny and the will of God, calling it a day at the ripe age of 98, two years short of what could have been the most memorable occasions of Indian film industry.  Dilip Kumar has always been a tremendous fighter, both in his films and in his great variety of roles as well as in personal life fighting serious health issues for several years....

The largely preventable or at least controllable marauding second COVID-19 wave in India seems to be ebbing with around 39000 new infections in the last 24 hours and around 700 fatalities in the same period. However, the crisis is far from over with the spree of unlocking taking place all around the nation and the most feared third wave lurking somewhere in the corner. Most of the places except for educational institutions and cinema halls have been reopening in most of the states, with only containment zones still put under strict restrictions. The grim milestone of deaths at over 4 hundred thousand has also been reached with at least two hundred thousand extra fatalities suspected. Further, unlocking cannot be avoided indefinitely due the issue of livelihoods, and in light of the fact that the national positivity rate is now around 2.5% unlocking is technically justified. However, the state governments of India must display extreme caution and aggressive testing, tracing and containm...

If we can assume that people are already familiarized with the concept of lockdown as it has been more than a year since the national lockdown was imposed in India in March 2020, on the basis of this assumption we can go on to opine that the present version of the lockdown in Kolkata and the state of West Bengal has been a remix. Of course, the local media here has been terming this as only a ‘near-lockdown’, and we also know the kind of ‘mixed’ approaches adopted by various states of India to lockdown, but the experience here is unique and not related to most of the other states. We have decided to call it a remix, because under this process the old is often presented in a new getup to attract and excite the common people, and the state lockdown here has been a genuine remix with continuous tweaking to make it more and more user-friendly for the larger interests of the common people of West Bengal, particularly the state capital of Kolkata.   Yes, peoples’ interests. Nothing mov...

A stupendous election victory against the might of the national ruling party; Didi Mamata Bannerjee installed for the third term as Chief Minister of  West Bengal; and the immediate promise to take the fight against the COVID-19 virus in its deadly second wave head on. But, in the days that followed the state government had not shown any real intent to take on the promised fight, deciding only to augment a little the earlier state administration order that was announced a day prior to the counting of votes on 2 nd May 2021, to shut down restaurants, cinema halls, malls, gyms, sport complexes and so on, and to schedule the business hours of the general markets.   The order came the very day of the oath-taking ceremony, no doubt a very subdued affair due to the situation, of Mamata Bannerjee as the new Chief Minister; but, unfortunately, the new order yields precious little in terms of strict curbs or a most-preferred complete lockdown. The order follows largely the same format...