Happy Republic Day

On this day I remember something from the 2004 independence day when I was at bangalore. Our company was not having a flag hoisting ceremony. Because I didn't have anywhere to go for the republic day flag hoisting ceremony (I really like the feel of the moment ) I went to a ceremony organized by the "Maharashtra Mandal" in Bangalore. Some of my college friends were coming there as there was an alumni meet scheduled at the same place later and it was also a good opportunity to meet everyone.

The tricolour was hoisted, a few patriotic songs were sung and a few speeches delivered. It was like any other flag hoisiting ceremony. But there was one speech that etched my heart. It wasn't a speech in the real sense. A guy came forward and wanted to tell everyone what he thought while he was driving down that morning. What he said was something like this

When I was coming to the venue today morning, I saw some small kids on the streets waving the small tricolours and smiling. I saw a few more with the riding their bicycles proudly with the flag fluttering on their handles. And I thought to myself, I also did the same when I was a kid. But now I do not buy that small flag and stick it to my car or my bike? Nor do I see many of my generation doing so? Now we don't want to spend even that much of money. Why this change? Do you feel less patriotic for your country when you grow up?

We have a lot more things to worry when we grow up; earn money, pass exams, etc. Hence we utilize whatever day off we get to party hard and sleep long. But we have only 2 days in a year when we celebrate our Independence and our democracy. Can we not atleast make the time to salute the flag (maybe, only in our hearts) ?

But have you ever noticed that Indians who have stayed here for years or settled here behave strangely. They do not greet "desi" people around, but do greet non desis. I always wondered why they behaved like this. After all whats wrong in it. Smiling and greeting people is good.

Well, what happened recently with me might have an answer to this.

Ok..So we (I and my wife) meet this couple in one of the malls here. My wife says "Hi" while passing by and these guys start talking. So after the initial Hi, How r u, Where in India r u from? .. Ok ... yeah I have been to Pune ... nice city and all that stuff....our discussion comes to "What do you do here" mode. My wife says I am looking for Jobs and I tell him about mine. So we also ask them the same question and they just say they do "freelance". Whatever that is supposed to mean. After repeated attempts I was unsuccessful in getting anything out from them about what they do here for a living or even what field they are in. But fine...doesn't matter to me ... as if we were going to meet again!

But ... after a while we exchange phone numbers on their insistance(biggest mistake!!). The guy "Arun" says he would just like to meet us the next time they are around in our area. I didn't really think too much of it as I thought it is a rare possibility.

After a couple of days. this lady calls my wife and leaves a voice message, "Hi, I am Monica. We met the other day in mall. We are coming to your area in the next couple of days. So thought of meeting you guys. So let me know when is it suitable for you and Lets Take it from there". This is where I thought something is really fishy. Because I couldn't decipher what she wants to take it from where !! We decided not to call back. But then the next day a phone rings and the cell phone display shows "Private Number" and we have to answer. Again this lady .... so what happened .. lets meet stuff. We ask her whats she up to and is there something she wants to talk about. But she says she just wants to meet casually to make friends. And asks us the time. I somehow manage to ward off the meeting for a week, kind of hoping that they would get the message that we do not want to meet.

But as shameless as these people are, they kept calling and we kept saying, "No, we are busy". This happened almost 2 months ago. Finally I told this guy, that i am so busy that I can't think of meeting him and just give me a break. he took it literally and asked me when in future i would be free to meet him. I told him not until next year. (This happened in November). Come January and this guy calls again!!!! Bizarre .. He still didn't get the message or didn't want to.

Now again he wants to meet. His wife is again keeping voice messages like "Lets take it from there". And they are always calling from different numbers or "Private numbers".

Now my guess is as good as yours. These are Multu Level Marketing kind of guys. And I have had a tough time evading them. After this incident I have spoken to a lot of desis here and most of them have had such an experience, although not as bad.

I wonder if this is the reason why desis here do not want to say "Hi" to desis. And expectedly even I have become wary of exchanging a smile with someone at public places, especially desis.

Any ideas on how to get rid of these guys?

Scott Styris is avoiding it for more success in his batting. Does it really matter anyways? No, not Styris' batting, but footwork in modern day cricket. Styris decided to cut down on his footwork to allow him to be more balanced when striking the ball and it gave him instant success.

But for how long Scott?

Well, having good balance while hitting the ball is obviously good, no one will disagree, but isn't that what footwork is meant to provide? Balance while playing your shots? I mean footwork is not just about reaching to the pitch of the ball, otherwise no one would have played on the back foot. I think good footwork itself enables one to have a greater balance while playing shots.

Some might disagree sighting the most recent example of Sehwag. Now I am not going to say that Sehwag achieves that balance because of his good footwork, but he does it inspite of it only because he has exemplary hand-eye coordination. Ganguly had a divine touch in his early days owing to this very attribute.

Someone like Sehwag won't need footwork when he is young. But it will start to matter once that hand eye coordination starts to fade with age, like I am afraid has happened with Ganguly. Its more difficult for these type of batsmen to come out of a loss of form, which is inevitable over a period of time.

A Dravid or Tendulkar can work their way into form using their footwork like Sachin did in sydney to come out of a longish loss of form. Sachin could cope with his loss of hand eye coordination with aging only because he has a decent foorwork. Infact he is still coming to terms with it, but he certainly has the technique to cope with it.

I fear when ever Sehwag loses this touch with age, his career is going to go only downwards from that point on, much like Ganguly's. Sehwag still has a better all round batting capabilities, so probably he would have achieved more than what Ganguly has (atleast in Test Cricket), but it is improbable that he reaches the tier of a Tendulkar or Dravid.

Contrary to what Styris feels, most successful batsmen in world cricket have had decent footwork. If you look at the top three or four batsmen in this era - Sachin, Lara, Ponting and Dravid no one will disagree that they have good footwork and they do achieve good balance with it.

Gavaskar and Boycott will definitely agree :)