Keep it up Mumbai

I was scared to go to Mumbai, almost a year after I last went there. That day was July 26th - when the famous cloudburst took place. That day I spent 17 hours in a taxi, without a drop of water to drink, nowhere to piss and nothing to eat. That was perhaps the most taxing day of my life, but I couldn't help but look at with awe and more than a bit of shame (cos I was gutless!) as millions of people waded in waist deep/chest deep water with dead snakes and buffalos for company to go home to their kids and ailing parents!

Mumbai's infrastructure was woefully exposed, nowhere more so than the airport, where I spent a further 12 hours sitting on a trolley - stinking like the dead buffalo I saw floating on water some hours back.

However, the airport today has undergone a reasonable transformation. The departure gates look swanky, an Internet cafe actually works, there is choice for food and coffee, and it does not look like a cattleshed anymore. So well done, whoever was responsible. I had read somewhere that no more work would be done on this because they had given out the modernization rights to an international consortium. Evidently not, and thank goodness for that.

Even the roads were much better than I last saw them - no traffic jams today - and I travelled from the airport to Colaba and back twice over. Mumbai seems to be slowly but surely getting its act together again - or did I compare today with perhaps Mumbai's WORST ever day last year?

The ideal coaching structure

Prem Panicker is terrific - he has clarity of thought that few possess. Read his post on Cricinfo - especially the bit about coaching. Copy - pasting that bit here - nice, simple and quite easy to implement, if anyone cared to. What we have instead is a hapazard coaching structure, good in a few states, terrible in most others, and no consistent structure to evaluate and rank prospects.

...a good starting point would be to implement and fine tune a pyramidal
coaching structure, with the schools, colleges, maidans and local leagues as the
broad base, and age-limit, district and state-level teams the stepping stones to
the top.

Today, systematic coaching begins only at age-level cricket, or later,
by which point you've learnt all the bad habits anyway, and you've left the
coach nothing to do but tinker. Against that, consider a system where there is
one national coach. Under him, and interacting with him on a regular basis, the
state coaches; under this second tier, the district coaches; under each district
coach, assistant coaches in charge of school, college and league-level cricket.

The benefit of such a system is in uniformity – since each tier works
in close cooperation with the one immediately above, players working their way
up the ranks won't find themselves spun around in circles, encountering new
methods at every step. The obvious add-on to that is continuity. The
direction of a national coaching academy cannot be a political favor handed out
in return for votes; surely it is ridiculous that the NCA has, since its
inception, had its chief changed after every BCCI election? The director needs
to be a paid professional, appointed for a specified duration, given a clear
brief, and the authority to carry it out; with that responsibility comes its
corollary, accountability.

The academy needs to be a year-round enterprise – a school that
functions for a fortnight or a month in a year is not likely to throw up
scholars of any quality in any discipline; cricket is no exception to that rule.
The national academy needs to plug in to the others dotting the countryside.
Coaching today has been turned into a cottage industry by former players, all
lobbying their respective state governments for land and facilities, setting up
their own little operations and doing their own thing irrespective. Which is
fine – but a national academy at the head of a loose confederacy of such private
enterprise could be the logical next step.

I have seen India's future

I saw it in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon. The infrastructure in "New" Delhi is good, and I can see visible signs of it getting even better. Flyovers actually get done, roads actually get widened, and street lights really work. The metro is apparently on par with the best in the world, and with reach and coverage improving, more and more people will start using it. The Delhi - Greater Noida Taj Expressway (6 lanes each way) is on par with anything I have seen anywhere in the world, and the AIIMS flyover better than any other flyover I have ever seen. Gurgaon office buildings and malls could really be in Hong Kong/London/Melbourne.

A Delhi veteran was telling me that the first major improvement in Delhi occured leading up to the Asian Games in 1982. The next wave is now, again leading up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Sport as economic driver - fantastic, just fantastic!

A true Kannada icon

True blue Kannada icons are hard to come by - and there was no one bigger than Dr. Rajkumar. After struggling for the past couple of years due to a weak knee and heart, the megastar passed away yesterday.

Critics have questioned his contribution to society, and have carped upon the fact that he could have done much more. My counter is this - how many people in this world have the power to provide 3 hours of joy multiple times over to 50 million (5 crore) people? Whatever anyone does is never enough, but to his credit, he has done more than most to bring some joy to people, and united a large population desperately looking for a leader. And while his superstar peers, MGR and NTR took the political route and did enough harm, Dr. Raj shunned politics when all he had to do to become Karnataka CM was say yes.

Generations have grown up watching his movies, and his talent and dedication is undisputed. I remember some of his movies, but I remember his songs that much more. He has been a part of my growing up. It is common knowledge that his sons have damaged the Kannada film industry, but Dr. Raj himself has never been tainted by any scandal, always dignified and humble. I am no rabid fan of his, but I felt bad yesterday. We may never see anyone like him again.

He meant something to all of us in Karnataka.

Salman > over 100 burnt to death

Meerut witnessed a tragedy yesterday which will certainly recur in India many times over. Utter disregard for health and safety norms, unbelievably lax security and zero value placed on human lives. If I had my way, the persons responsible would be peering into a gun squad right about now. It is the responsibility of the Government, local authorities and police to approve of any such congregation - and I am sure they have guidelines for safety. The issue is that these rules are flagrantly violated by paying a piddly sum of money to the people who matter.

The bitter irony of the whole incident is that the Fair was called "Brand India Fair" - Brand India will always go up in smoke, killing innocent Mr. and Mrs. Gupta and their two little kids, who just wanted to enjoy window shopping of unaffordable ACs, plasma TV sets and microwaves from multinational brands!

But this, like countless other incidents, will pass! Our media ( especially the TOI) has better things to focus on - like the jail sentence handed over to that serial culprit Salman Khan. Today's front page in the Times of India devoted bold typeface 100 font for that verdict, and a smaller section to the 50 plus killed in Meerut. Clearly shows where their priorities lie.

Shameful!

Traffic

Blore: Indiranagar - Home - 15 km - 1 hr 15 mins
I can probably walk/cycle back home and reach faster. But I'll probably be run down by a bus or auto! Aargh, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

State of Bangalore on CNN IBN

I got back to Bangalore today after a 6 month stay in the UK. Good ol' Blore hasn't changed much really, the heat was tolerable for April, and the traffic just the same. I was browsing the telly today, and got my first real glimpse of the new 24/7 channel CNN IBN. They are running a special on Bangalore, and today's program was a talk show in front of the Vidhana Soudha about the 'State of Bangalore', a poll sponsored by CNN-IBN-Deccan Herald-Radio City-Udayavani-Le Monde-Playboy (ok, I made the last three up!). Commendable initiative by a news channel wanting to do something different, or so I thought. Here are some observations:

- Rajdeep Sardesai conducted the program in his usual in-your-bloody-eye style. I was concerned for Ram Guha and Ramesh Ramanathan, who were in serious danger of having their eyes gouged out by Rajdeep's rapier-like hands. There are many who like his style, but I don't. His confrontational attitude, over-the-top bluster and talking down style pisses me off. Methinks he tends to become larger than the interviewee and the issue on hand. But hey, he is probably better than most others we see on TV in any case, so I just have to live with it.

- Rajdeep continuously mispronounced 'Bengaluru' (pronounced Bengal - uru) as "bungaluru'. It may not seem to be as big a crime, but when the topic of discussion was the renaming of Bangalore as Bengaluru, he had no excuse for this mispronounciation. Lack of homework, or didn't really bother!

- This was my first glimpse of Kumaraswamy speaking in English. It was apparent to everyone that he was struggling in the language, but instead of helping him out (he is not on the podium for his English, but his views on policy and future direction), Rajdeep barely got him to say anything coherent, cutting him abruptly, cracking jokes which HDK couldn't get, and basically wasting a perfectly good opportunity to get him to talk about the plans.

- The AC Nielson poll was quite shoddy, to say the least. Ram Guha said as much, and Rajdeep tried to cram so many questions into a 1 hr program that no one issue was highlighted and discussed even in cursory detail.

- Dr. Rajkumar was voted as the most important Bangalorean according to the poll, with Dravid coming in 2nd and Kumble 3rd. However, instead of calling someone from Dr. Raj's family, they honoured Kumble on stage, with no explanation offered as to why Dr. Raj was not being honoured. Nothing against Kumble, God knows he deserves it all, but why not call Dr. Raj's sons or associates, or do a video recording of an interview with the ailing actor himself?

My first viewing of CNN IBN was quite disappointing. I really did not see anything here that wasn't similar to that on NDTV already. The Bangalore initiative concept is laudable, but execution left a lot to be desired IMHO. But what do I know?