RajivBhardwaj.Com

Everybody knows about this by now. Sachin the ‘master blaster’ has created the history again. He has hit the one and only double century in ODI cricket.

His fans are going crazy. I am overhearing about this miracle everywhere.  People are amazed and bedazzled, they are playing the same records continuously  like “he has achieved the impossible”, “now nobody can even think of breaking his records”…..

But, they don’t even wait for a second to think about the records of Sunil Gavaskar,  Kapil Dev and other cricketers. Their records were also declared “unbeatable” by their fans. Everyday such records are being beaten to dust.

This is typical way of hero worshiping in India. I like to blame it on British. They behave the same way, but I am not sure who copied from whom. Once they see a little bit of talent in someone they start treating them as if nobody of their caliber has ever existed on earth. I will talk about it some other time.

Before declaring this achievement as gigantic we should think about the following points:

1.  How come Sachin’s 200 is “way” better than Sayeed Anwar’s 194 (against India unfortunately). There’s a difference of only 6 runs. Just because 200 looks better with two zeros  it doesn’t make the difference any bigger. This also means that it cannot be termed as “unbeatable” in any way.

I know that lazy record keepers of cricket, mention only 50s & 100s (maybe now 200s also) on the scorecard. It stems from the fact that we are using decimal numbering system. If we use a numbering system with base 9 instead of decimal number system then 162 will be represented by “200″ and both Sayeed Anwar & Sachin’s score will look similar. (maybe that’s too technical)

2.  Is Sachin a big scorer ?  How many double & triple centuries he has on his name in test cricket ?He is playing from such a long time but never got those big scores. Most purists still consider test cricket as the real cricket. So, is this double century more like a stroke of luck ?

3.  We can still understand the reactions from  the “common man”. But these so called leaders of the nation are also going with the wave.  Speaker of Lok sabha (Meira Kumar) has not only commented on this sports related achievement in the parliament session but have also said that its a matter of “national pride”.

So if Sachin’s 200 is a matter of national pride then when he goes out for a duck that will a matter of national shame. Tying up somebody’s cricket score with national pride is not only illogical but also irresponsible for the speaker ( I don’t like her any way).

In the conclusion I would like t say that Sachin is talented player & one of the best cricket players we have now.  But this particular achievement is not worth the hype.

Love is definitely not a heavenly phenomenon although writers (and movie directors) have glorified it a lot.
It’s a 2 phase phenomenon. It starts with physical attraction. With time, persons involved get used to each other, so they start to believe that it will be difficult to live without each other but if they get separated they soon discover that life is not going as bad as they thought it to be.
Sometimes its a case of “need-based” relationship. People due to their personalities and habits, need certain type of people to get thro’ life, they start calling this relationship- love.
In earlier times when medical-sciences were not advanced enough, people believed that normal thinking is done by brain but special feelings like love come from heart. But now we know that there is nothing in the heart except a blood-pump.
So in the end……love at max can only be a chemical imbalance.

Being an action movie fan, i was excited about this movie. But i didn’t get what i expected. Jackie chan style comedy-action was not there.I am a huge fan of Jackie Chan, but my Chinese friend Mr. Zhou beiyi has told me more than once that only Jet li is a real kung-fu player and national champion. But I think Jet li may be champion of kung-fu but Jackie Chan is champion of movies.
He understands the human nature very well. He plays second lead in his own movies. Giving chance to white people to play as hero. This way he involves his target audience in the movie and makes them feel as hero. (Although I don’t feel this is always good).Even in this movie a white guy is actual hero who frees the monkey king and kills the warlord.
He almost never played the role of kung-fu expert, in all his movies his opponent is shown to be better fighter (usually white). Normally action heroes beat dozens of villains nonchalantly, but not in case of Jackie Chan, he will run away on slight opportunity. His roles are more close to reality than other action heroes. I love Jackie Chan, but didn’t like the movie.

Commercialisation of sports (cricket actually) is the best thing that happened to sports in India lately.
From last century or so, sports all over the world had taken the shape of hidden war, a fight to show superiority over the competing nation. It created environment of intense emotions and hatred. For example during indo-pak cricket matches, atmosphere is nothing less than that of war.
Hidden motive behind matches of national teams seems to be display of power and superiority. In past, especially in countries ruled by dictators, big rewards were given to winning teams and loosing teams were punished severely.
In sports, pride of the nation is attached to the team of 10-12 players. If they win whole country will make them feel like kings and if they loose their dummies are burned and their homes are pelted with stones.
With commercialisation of cricket and formation of IPL, now players from all over the world play together in a team. Players from same country compete each other, thus no hatred for other nations will be there while fans will get ample amount of the game.
So we should not oppose IPL just because word commercial is attached with it. For the mankind commercialisation is better than war, without any doubt. Another good thing money can do – help us stop spreading hatred.