Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

Haven't seen this much rain fall in Bangalore on a contiguous basis. It started last night around nine and it continued the whole night! It was raining in the morning and still is! As a result the drive to work was the smoothest ever - no pesky two wheelers and because of the strike no autos and trucks on the road either. This should be the case everyday :-)

The office wears a deserted look, the car park is virtually empty enabling a wide variety of choices in slots to park the car in and of course everything looks nicely washed and fresh.

I wonder if its the north-east monsoon weighing in. The Met Department, as usual, is clueless :-D

Arvind Lavakare weighs in with his take on the recent Chappell - Ganguly face-off. He rightly makes the point that the three ex-captains in the review committee were quiet accomplices to the brushing under the carpet act of the committee. I used to respect all three - Gavaskar, Shastri and Venkatraghavan. They are all cowards in my eyes now.

The assholes at the review committee of the BCCI have chosen to whitewash the Chappell - Ganguly fight and have done Indian cricket a huge disfavour. I hold the idiots Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, S. Venkatraghavan, Jagmohan Dalmia, Mahendra and the-last-idiot-who's-name-escapes-me-now responsible for what happens to the Indian cricket team hearafter.

If Chappell has any sense of dignity or honour, he should resign immediately because Mahendra has called him a liar publicly. In this issue I think the biggest liars have been the review committee and Ganguly.

Ganguly should go on his own or be sacked.

Here is a brilliant and insightful statement from Sanjay Manjrekar and one I whole heartedly agree with in every respect - "Now on one side, there is that typical Indian way - not restricted to sports, mind you. Which is all about compromises, adjustments, emotions, respect, egos and lastly politics."

This is precisely why BCCI will do nothing in its review committee meeting besides mouth platitudes and force a compromise on everybody. In the process, doing Indian cricket immense harm. But hey, since when has that stopped the BCCI?

Off with his head!

The Prince of Calcutta must be made the billi of Kolkata!

He doesn't deserve to be in the team based on his current form (notwithstanding his recent painfully crafted century against minnows Zimbabwe) and I have always believed that his captaincy is poor. Constantly favouring Yuvraj over Kaif and Harbhajan over Kumble even when both his favourites are not in form is a poor reflection on his captaincy.

Saw Salaam Namaste over the weekend and enjoyed it a lot. Priety Zinta and Saif Ali have put in good performances, the storyline is decent and believable and there is no moralizing and bharatiya sabhyata crap. What more does one want?

Saif has all the nice, sharp and witty lines and Priety has her bubbly self. And it was a pleasure to watch Arshad Warsi, this man is a genuine talent!

Probably the first Hindi movie to be completely shot abroad and nicely done. The firangi characters blend in nicely. Even Javed Jaafri with that wierd accent was decently done.

Recommended.

Dharam Singh escaped being bashed up by irate residents of some locality he visited some time back. He had gone there to check on the damage caused to the "infrastructure" at that place by recent heavy rains. The residents blocked his path and almost beat him up and the police had to intervene to disperse the crowd. Too bad he escaped, he deserved being thrashed for failing to do anything about Bangalore's dismal infrastructure. On second thoughts, he wouldn't have felt a thing if a few blows had landed on him, having enough padding under that thick skin to shield him!

Once the US Congress starts its session after a vacation, the circus on the Indo-US nuclear deal will begin in right earnest.

All the so-called problems that the US may face in getting this deal through Congress and NSG member countries is for the US to manage. India has nothing to do with this. This deal is strictly based on a reciprocal basis. If the US does not deliver, there is zero obligation on India to deliver.

If this deal does not go through, what does India lose? The only thing I can think of is access to cheap LEU for the two BWRs at Tarapur (we can easily shut them down if fuel is not available - they don't generate all that much power) and access to cheap natural uranium for the PWHRs (we prospect, mine, mill and produce what we need but we don't have a lot of it and access to cheaper fuel would be good).

So the bottom line is that the US needs to deliver, how they do it is none of India's business. The message to the US should be "Pass all the laws you need, amend any that are needed, "manage NSG countries", do whatever it takes, else the deal if off and India does nothing".

There is zero question of India signing the NPT or the CTBT. Negotiations on FMCT will be DOA.

Close to Independance day we visited Shivansamudra. What struck me the most about Indians that day was that a huge majority of Indians

1. Completely lack civic sense whatsoever
2. Have total contempt for the rule of law

A place of lovely natural beauty with the two waterfalls Gaganchuki and Barachuki was spoilt by so much thrash all over the place. People didn't think twice about throwing leftovers all over the place! And despite the police trying to stop people from getting into overflowing parking lots, people just didn't care and happily trampled bushes, drove on the wrong side of the road completely making a mess out of the traffic situation.

But all of the above didn't stop us from enjoying the sheer natural beauty of the place. That's what I love about Karnataka, its stunning natural beauty. This state is truly blessed.

Now only if the people could be taught to enjoy that beauty without damaging it.