sententia volucris

If cricket is about character, why the ego?

2007-11-20T17:29:00.000-08:00

A howler of an unpiring decision brought to an end Sangakkara's classy innings against Australia. With him at the crease, Sri Lanka had a real chance of overhauling the mammoth target of 507 Australia had set them. I am sure Rudi Koertzen must not be very popular down in SL right now, but it is a difficult job. How can anyone, standing 20 metres away, make inch-perfect decisions all the time about whether a little ball - travelling at 100 mph, bouncing, swinging and seaming off the pitch - managed to graze the edge of a blurry bat travelling as fast? Add to that the noise levels in a stadium and the mental pressure and well, it seems a wonder umpires get as many decisions right as they do!

Which brings me to the long-festering question of using technology in cricket. There are basically two reasons given by detractors against the use of video replays for crucial decisions:
1. It is against the "tradition" of the game.
2. It will be too time-consuming due to stoppages in play.

The first is unscientific hogwash that I won't even waste my time with. As for the second, it is true that television replays for every close decision could obviously slow things down a lot. I have been of the view for some time that both the batting and fielding captains should be allowed a couple of appeals every day of a Test, requesting a video replay to confirm or overturn a decision. And this could include pitching in line decisions for LBWs, clean catch decisions, out on a no-ball decisions and anything else that can be reasonably judged better by video replays than the naked eye.

Tennis is a much faster-paced game that places a far greater premium on time between points/games. If they can implement a couple of challenges every set, I don't see any reason besides the ego of the officialdom for not implementing a similar system in cricket.

A wake-up call for cricket?

2007-09-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

I have always believed that international cricket, in its present state, is a highly sub-optimal game. Tactics are largely routine and slow to evolve. Many might disagree with me, but I also feel the game's deficiencies in capability and innovation are glorified behind the veneer of "tradition" and similar balderdash.

This is where I believe Twenty20 WC has been a wonderful fillip for the game. And I am not speaking just about the fact that the perception of achievable run-rates in one-day games will now set up camp in an entirely different ball-park. No, I speak about a whole new mindset that was previously missing from the game.

Of course, Twenty20 probably requires only a fraction of the character and skills that regular versions demand. However, I am glad that teams have been forced to think differently. It is the mental aspect of cricket that fascinates lovers of the game, so it has been refreshing to see each team trying to maximize its potential and for once, captains having to think on their feet.

It is good to see that cricketers whose opinion matters are already warming up to the challenge. Said Adam Gilchrist today: "I've been wrestling back and forwards with it ... I do think it's going to improve one-day cricket. I'm not sure it'll do much for Test cricket, but Test cricket's still a pretty good product .... I think it's very much a positive for the game."

Australia and South Africa have already shown the way forward in the one-day game with their brand of "brave cricket". However, there are three crucial aspects of the Twenty20 game that intrigue me :

A greater than ever demand for flexible skills.

The necessity of maintaining momentum.

It is crucial for the batsmen, bowlers and captains to make quick tactical decisions. And the penalty for letting the game drift along is as bad as making a wrong decision.

So given the above, it will be interesting to see if Twenty20 takes the one-day game in a direction akin to "total cricket", for both batsmen and bowlers. To quote the definition of a "total" sport : It consists of [players] being extremely tactically aware, allowing them to change positions at high speed—in its simplest terms, every player is comfortable in any other position. It also puts high technical and physical demands on the players.

I am aware that the above is not a very good analogy, since each cricketer brings his own special set of skills and qualities, more so than football. But that should not be an excuse for, say, an international bowler being unable to swing the ball both ways at will. Or a batsman being either a good judge of a single or a big-hitter, but not both.

Will we ever see such skilled cricketers who will make every four-ball that was played out as a dot count? Or play at such levels of efficiency that every misfield might threaten to cost a game? Achieve such fitness levels that games might turn around a slack piece of work in the outfield or a lazily run brace where three runs are on offer? I know it is humanly impossible to get there, but I would like to see the game at least start moving in that direction.

A kidney for a kidney

2007-03-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

Bob Woolmer, cricket coach of Pakistan, former coach of South Africa and Warwickshire, is no more. The tragedy occured on the night of Pakistan's shock exit from the World Cup and although the cause is unknown, the stress due to trying to coach an incorrigibly indisciplined mob is not unlikely.

For someone not from the Indian sub-continent, it is hard to imagine the fervor that cricket generates in the region. Billions of dollars and massive yajnas before every major tournament are par for the course. Greedy and soul-less media, cricket boards salivating at the prospects of frenzied sponsorship and a general lack of sporting heroes makes cricket-crazy zealots out of people who struggle to put bread on the table for their family.

There were newspaper reports of a man who wants to sell his kidney so that he can afford to see India play the World Cup in the Carribean. As my friend Vikas puts it, when you have people willing to sell their kidneys to watch the game, these same people would also be willing to maim a player for poor performance.

We all need to realize it's just a game. It is not worth burning down players' houses or angry mobs baying for the blood of non-performers. It is not endemic to just Pakistan - Indian fans are not any better off, nor is our team's history resplendent with professionalism. I just wish people had some perspective over what is important in life.

But let us take this moment to celebrate Bob Woolmer's passion for his coaching. He was a true pioneer, he gave the world its first taste of top-notch fielding in the form of the South African team of the nineties. With his famous laptop, he brought statistical analysis of individual players and teams to a sphere still dominated by a mindset that frustratingly refuses to adopt modern sporting standards. He transformed coaching from mere idealism to a science, where opponents need to be out-manoeuvred at every stage of the game using consummate knowledge of past trends and astute observation of the current situation.

He was a visionary, a professional to the core. We are left to lament the day he decided to take up the challenge of coaching Pakistan, but I hope his memory will lead Indian and Pakistani fans to incorporate some sense of realism in their spectatorship.

(Photograph source: Sydney Morning Herald)

Horatio Nelson redux

2007-02-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz turns a blind eye to Gen Gabi Ashkenazi's troop manoeuvres at Golan Heights. Only, Nelson's blindness won Copenhagen, Peretz's myopia got Qana.

Veep, the Hawk

2007-02-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

I always thought Cheney was an exceptional hawk, but is it the reality of the now that keeps reinforcing my perception of political figures? Here is a news article I was reading:

Cheney attacks China's aggression (Feb 24, 2007)

Dick Cheney condemned China's military build up and its recent shooting down of a satellite yesterday, branding Beijing's actions as "not consistent" with peaceful intentions. .... His comments in Sydney marked the toughest anti-China rhetoric used by the Bush administration since ....

Never mind the fact that it is China which has, for years, been trying to cajole an adamant USA to the space arms race negotiating table. But let us follow a link below the article for older news. We come to:

Cheney accuses Russia of bullying tactics (May 05, 2006)

Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, yesterday accused Russia of bullying its neighbours and backsliding on democracy in the most scathing attack on the Kremlin by a senior American official since ....

Ah, someone tell Cheney what Mexico and South America think of America's relationship with them. Anyway, we follow another link to an older news item:

We won't let Iran go nuclear, warns Cheney (Mar 08, 2006)

The Bush administration yesterday forced Russia to abandon a compromise proposal over Iran's nuclear programme as it stepped up the pressure on Teheran. In the most hawkish rhetoric from a senior US official in months ....

Of course, since the above article, much has changed in the world and the Iran situation. What has not changed, however, is the abrasive character of Dick Cheney as evinced by press coverage. This Veep is not an easy guy to "out-hawk".

The Oil for Blood Program

2007-02-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Oh, check this out. Now it is the Saudis who mastermind the crisis in Iraq using Bush as a pawn? I will rate the creativity of this article at par with Michael Moore, somewhere between those that say it's Iran and those suggesting Satan.

When will people realize that their leaders are perfectly capable of coming up with bloody wars entirely on their own? Maybe that's expecting too much, for rationale is easily sacrificed at the altar of patriotism, whether it be a neocon missive or a liberal blog. After all, these leaders do promise $2 per gallon gas for your SUV (plus or minus a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives, which no article in American press ever deems worth mention). All you have to do in return is vote to keep them in power and get busy looking for the evil powers that enchanted Bush and Cheney's impressionable, innocent hearts into plunging the nation into war. Saud is the flavor of the season, but I must admit my disappointment that the wily Chinese have been kept out of this for so long.

Well Shakespeare's Sister, there comes sunshine and here comes news: there is a world outside America and it is pretty uniformly certain who to blame for the bloodletting in Iraq. Take a guess.

India rising on the Western horizon

2007-02-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

I came across an article by Steve Herrmann on how Western news organizations, BBC in particular, fit into the Indian news scenario. As an Indian living abroad and a self-confessed news freak, I can vouch for the fact that BBC's reporting on Indian issues is head and shoulders above other foreign news agencies.

That said, I reckon more thought needs to go into BBC's journalism, especially when it comes to cultural sensitivities. For instance, all its articles on violence in Kashmir end with the perfunctory "Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in Hindu-dominated India". While it is true that Kashmir being a Muslim majority state is the primary reason Pakistan contends for the province or separatists demand independence, description of India as Hindu-dominated in this context is over-simplification at best and blatantly false propaganda at worst. India is a secular country, with deeply enshrined principles of religious freedom and tolerance in its constitution. From the point of view of India, Kashmir is a territorial dispute and not a religious one. It is like concluding any article on England's pitiable tour of Australia with "Sajid Mahmood is the only Muslim in a mostly Christian English cricket team" - while factually correct, it is not the reason England is being walloped.

I am not aware of any Indian news outlet which confuses these issues except trashy mouthpieces of right wing fundamentalist organizations like VHP or Bajrang Dal.

Again, any article on the economic growth of India invariably contains the clause "350 million Indians live on less than $1 a day". While it is true, I think the statement is inserted in BBC's articles for its shock value to Western audiences more than conveying anything about poverty in an Indian context. I bet that statement will be diluted beyond repair if it is added that one can buy three square meals a day in India for less than $1. My contention is not that those 350 million are well-to-do in any sense of the term, just that it is a useless statistic. There are so many other indices of India's economic disparity that are far more relevant, such as the 47% children under five who are malnourished or the 72% households without proper sanitation.

I understand that reporting on a foreign country, especially one as culturally mystifying as India, can be rather difficult. But one can't be the world's premier news agency and still give that excuse with a straight face.

When emotions transcend words ....

2007-01-25T23:21:00.000-08:00

There are songs that rock, songs that make you hum along and songs that make you cry. But every once in a while, along comes a song that touches your heart, softly, like an innocent child on the shores of a serene crystal lake. And leaves gentle ripples that belie comprehension more than all the waves of the sea.

I am a great believer in the power of words and usually they appeal more to me than visual and aural media. But right now, I am listening to Pokarekare Ana, a Maori folk song. The beauty of the song and the singer's voice lie in the fact that the poignance of love and separation is expressed so wonderfully in the song's strains as to make words almost superfluous. On reflection, I think it is for the better that I do not understand any Maori.

This particular version is sung by the extremely talented 20-year old New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra. Admittedly, I was already an admirer of her voice ever since I listened to Odessey last year, Never Saw Blue in particular. Having conquered the charts at a mere 17 years of age (her 2003 album, Pure, was the most successful debut album ever on the UK classical charts), there is no doubting where her star is headed.

Cleanliness begins at home

2007-01-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

South African cricketer Herschelle Gibbs was banned for two Tests for directing racist remarks towards sections of the crowd during a Pakistan-SA game. Jade Goody and Danielle Lloyd in UK's Celebrity Big Brother came under fire for racially stereotyping and harassing fellow housemate Shilpa Shetty, an Indian actress. Grey's Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington is under the scanner of rights groups and ABC's officials for anti-gay slurs on more than one occasion.

Gibbs is appealing the ban on account of the fact that the remarks were meant only for the ears of his teammates and inadvertently picked up by the on-field stump microphones. Danielle says she never realized asking Shilpa to "f*** off home" was discriminatory and Jade insists that her remarks were just frustration at Shilpa putting on the airs.

Anyone who has seen a soccer game in Europe will regard an average European as racist. Anyone who has seen a cricket game in India against Pakistan or West Indies will regard Indians as religious fanatics and racists. So why am I singling out the events in the first paragraph, when discrimination occurs in far more despicable forms with significantly worse outcomes all over the world, all the time?

It is because those incidents highlight the basis of the syndrome more than an entire stadium of Spanish soccer fans making monkey noises at Samuel Eto could. These are people in the media spotlight who would usually weigh each and every word they utter in public. Their defense is that their words were unintentionally discriminatory or meant only for private consumption. And that, for me, signifies the crux of the problem.

Schools might preach about equality, regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation. Florid preambles to constitutions might proclaim secularity and postulate laws that curb such behavior in public. But what about the racist inside all of us? What about the homophobic who resides in the hearts of most of us? What of the suspicion with which any overtly devout Muslim is regarded at an airport?

Isaiah Washington remarked, as part of his apology, that he was seeking help for "issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul". I think there are many of us besides Mr. Washington in need of some soul examination.

Of Pastel Amazons

2007-01-18T00:47:00.000-08:00

Often, as I watch a movie, I latch onto some small thematic element which can be an entire story in itself. The character of Aishwarya Rai in Guru, which I watched yesterday, was the one I found most interesting from a literary point of view. She realizes quite early on that her husband is not all sweat and honey, but sticks to him for good or worse. In doing so, she becomes the pillar of strength which oversees the rise of Guru and cushions his fall. For, more than anything else, Guru is the story of fall of man.

I doubt any movie buff can think of the fall of man and not think Godfather. The extent to which Ms Rai's character parallels that of Francesca de Sapio as Vito Corleone's wife is rather striking.

There are a number of illustrious women in the world of literature that Ms Rai's character can relate to in her determination to stand by her male counterpart in spite of his obvious flaws. For instance, in Gone With The Wind, Melanie knows that Ashley Wilkes loves Scarlett O'Hara, but also realizes that she has to be the one to support Ashley when his world goes into a spiral. And in doing so, she displays an amazing strength of character that shines through, even though she was primarily intended as a foil for Scarlett.

Queen Gertrude in Hamlet has traditionally been regarded as a weak character, with at most shades of past grace reflected in Hamlet's disgust for her hasty remarriage to Claudius. But as I watched another rendition of Hamlet in Cambridge, it struck me that her drinking the poisoned wine might be the ultimate act of devotion towards all her male affections. Just as Hamlet must feign madness to escape Claudius' wrath, she must feign compliance to deflect Hamlet's rashness. Torn between prince Hamlet's desire for avenging the murder of old King Hamlet and duty towards her new husband, she drinks the poison and thus, displays sympathy towards both her son and husband. Of course, in this interpretation, her sacrifice is in full awareness of the deficiencies of both men.

The willingness to sacrifice global good for the sake of a loved one is a positive trait in most depictions, however not always. A different treatment of similar sentiments can be found in Vanity Fair, where Amelie's devotion to George Osborne is lugubrious to the point of hypocrisy. But then, as W.M.Thackeray said, it is a "novel without a hero". It is, of course, open to debate whether Amelie suspected George's escapades with Becky, but most likely she did and her piety allowed such ideas to occur to her as mere illusory misgivings.

The "Theory" of Global Warming

2007-01-13T10:21:00.000-08:00

There's a reason Al Gore's documentary is called "An Inconvenient Truth".

Taking on the combined scientific wisdom of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences, as well as the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is the board of the Federal Way schools. According to the board, global warming, like evolution, is "just a theory". Yeah right, just like someone planted those dinosaur bones to mislead humanity, the sea levels are rising because too many penguins are farting in Antarctica.

The board's president thinks students should hear the perspective of global warming skeptics and then make up their minds. Aha, we have a new theory that explains unprecedented climate change in the last 50 years, you would think. Not quite, it is a parent whose email to the school prompted relegation of the documentary to the status of dangerous propaganda: "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

Huh? Voila! That explains all this planet heating up business - end times cometh and we are about to get roasted. By the way, the gentleman also believes the Earth is 14000 years old. Further, "condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore", says this father of seven.

There is plenty of room for everyone to play around in this issue. Believers in the Constitution tout up the legal side of the issue. A lawyer on the school board thinks that America being the leading light of free speech in the world, school boards should be opposed to any form of "indoctrination". Believers in the notion that USA is governed by Saint Bush, Bishop Cheney and High Priestess Rice also think the documentary is a slur on their Holy Land. Says the wife of the aforementioned parent, " .... if (the movie) is going to take the approach of 'bad America, bad America,' .... if you're going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don't think the video should be shown."

300 of the planet's 6570 million people live in America and account for about 100 of the 400 quadrillion BTU of energy consumption in the world. You do the math, in whatever Church-approved way your school taught you.

Of crooners and cricketers

2007-01-08T23:50:00.000-08:00

Brett Lee has brought out a music single, You're The One For Me, alongside Asha Bhosle, which quickly climbed to No. 4 on the Indian music charts. Yeah dude, they exist, but are only brought out in such golden years when at least five original songs are penned down. There was controversy as No. 5, which "Bretasha" climbed over to get to No. 4, was only original as far as video was concerned - featuring Rakhi Sawant in a nun's dress. The video was also roundly criticized and a PIL was filed in Jodhpur under Sections 11,12,16,4 of our glorious Constitution for leaving the piously spiritual Indian masses quite, ummmm, unsatiated. The previous chart, brought out in the year Hum Apke Hain Kaun was released, was entirely free of controversy because the movie had more songs than ever recorded in history, so originality was never in doubt.

From all accounts, Brett Lee is a quite talented guitarist, but the heat in India can do really funny things to English tummies and Aussie vocal chords. Maybe he mistakenly swallowed some water as he was crooning for practice in the shower? He claims to have written the song over just a half-hour break during Champions Trophy and well, it shows.

No offence, I personally can watch any cricketer do anything on the screen, which has increasingly come to mean selling lubes or licking jam or exchanging naughty text messages. Yeah, yeah, some weirdos like Ponting and Lara still bat for hours on TV - uncool relics of the olden days that they are - luckily, such specimens which distract us from the world of glitz and glamour are few and far between. But music lovers in India beware, the Brett-Asha duet plan to hit us with a full album after the World Cup. Run for cover while you can, or go get the remote and switch to MTV, depending on your inclination.

The Most Profound Man in America

2007-01-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

TIME magazine recently published a letter written home by a Marine serving in Iraq. I don't know if it is representative of the prevailing sentiment among US forces in Iraq, but the letter was poignant in its amazing perspicacity in the face of an overwhelming situation. Haditha, Abu Ghraib and the ilk notwithstanding, it does transfer most of the despicability of the American invasion squarely back where it belongs - to the George Bushes and Bill O'Reillys, safe in their plush homes thousand of miles away from the war.

A few striking excerpts from his list of superlatives in the letter:

Most Memorable Scene — In the middle of the night, on a dusty airfield, watching the better part of a battalion of Marines packed up and ready to go home after over six months in al-Anbar, the relief etched in their young faces even in the moonlight. Then watching these same Marines exchange glances with a similar number of grunts loaded down with gear file past — their replacements. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be said.

Biggest Outrage — Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest Offender: Bill O'Reilly.

Happiest Moment — Well, it wasn't in Iraq. There are no truly happy moments here. It was back in California when I was able to hold my family again while home on leave during July.

And my favorite one:

Most Profound Man in Iraq — an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."

Of course, 655000 such letters, one for each Iraqi killed as part of Bush's gory fantasy, will not make the US Marines or anyone with the blood of innocents on their hands a hero in my eyes. But whoever this soldier is, whenever he gets back from Iraq - given the sagacity of the current political establishment and their media cronies, he might very well be my nomination for the Most Profound Man in America.

Pipe and Slippers

2007-01-06T02:49:00.000-08:00

Well, that's it then. The greatest cricket team there ever has been is no more. Damien Martyn, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer have all retired from Test cricket. That is my favorite middle order technician, my favorite spin bowler, the best pace bowler seen in the last century and the most doughty opener a captain can hope for. All gone. The Waughs I did not miss all that much, they were already stars before I started watching cricket in 1992. But this bunch I feel like I grew up watching. Will watching the Australian team ever be the same again? What will happen when Tendulkar and Dravid retire?

Continuing on the theme of retirement, there is something my friend in Cambridge, Ankur, mentioned over dinner at his place and which I have often thought about since. Arranged marriages, more often than not, are an outcome of societal expectations. The same expectations lead to offspring before the couple actually get to know each other. Instead of trying to understand a complex, adult, stranger, with whom life is a compromise at every step, it is far easier for the couple to channel their love and unstinting devotion towards the newborn. It is as if they love their partner through the child. The years pass, when their progeny reaches adulthood, it is time to leave home. And poof, the by now retired couple suddenly find the bond that defined their relationship gone. Left alone with a stranger again, now too far down the road of life to add heavy words like compromise and light ones like a cuddle to their lexicon. With the care of children no longer a burden, it can be a vacation, instead it is pipe and slippers.

I wonder if there is any comparative study on the "togetherness" of retired couples who married for love versus out of societal compulsions, as reflected in their routine or leisure activities? Is an arranged marriage really worth it?

Eviler than Satan, holier than Jesus

2007-01-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

In an AP-AOL poll of 1004 American adults, George W Bush was voted the top villain of 2006 (25% of votes). A distant second was Osama bin Laden (8%), followed by Saddam (6%), Ahmedinejad (5%), Kim Jong Il (2%), Rumsfeld (2%) and Satan (1%). In the same poll, the top heroes of 2006 were, surprise, George W Bush (13%), American troops (6%) and Jesus (3%). Margin of error in the poll was 3%. Obviously, we live in polarized times!

So, what does the poll tell us about the political perceptions of the American people? Well, 27% of them seem to think straight, listing Bush and Rummy as top villains. Of course, I should attribute political acumen to anyone who listed the undeniably evil Osama as a villain, but I am convinced many of those 8% also listed Bush as their top hero.

The list of top heroes tells us two things. One, 19% of American people are either totally disconnected with reality or complete sadists to have mass murderers as their heroes. Two, for all the posturing as the beacon of democracy in the 21st century, America is a society as bereft of heroes as a country like India is.

Finally, at least 3% of these people need a serious evaluation of their mental sanity. These are the ones who listed Jesus the top hero of 2006. I am not counting the people who listed Satan as the top villain because I am sure those deranged 1% come from the same group as the 3% who thought Jesus did more for the world's good in 2006 than Bono or Bill Gates.

Unsung heroes: Lav Agarwal

2006-12-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

Between the Krishna and Godavari deltas in Andhra Pradesh, lies the largest shallow fresh water lake in the world: Kolleru. It was a favored destination for several species of migratory birds, until human greed intervened. Earlier in 2006, over half the lake was covered with illegal aquaculture in the form of fish ponds and paddy fields. There was no evidence of fresh water in the lake and the spot-billed pelican was last sighted around 1990.

In September 2005, district collector Lav Agarwal decided to do something to rein in the environmental damage. The issue was a complex one: tens of thousands of people depended on this illegal economy for their livelihood. The young IAS officer undertook the task of winning the villagers' trust - he ate, drank, slept, lived with them - all the while trying to convince them that the lake is being destroyed by their actions. Soon enough, the villagers were convinced and all the illegal fish tanks in the lake were removed. The displaced people were accommodated in various ways - some were provided comparable jobs, some with cattle or land for agriculture. A dairy was opened, traditional fishing is allowed in the lake and programs have been launched to develop tourism by tapping into the ecological diversity of the lake.

Not surprisingly, as any deed for the public good in India must, Lav Agarwal's initiative faced stiff resistance from politicians across party lines. MPs and MLAs from the Congress, BJP, CPI(M), TDP and a bunch of NGOs accused Lav Agarwal of trying to displace people and misrepresenting facts about the issue to the Supreme Court (the legal backing for the collector's conservation effort was derived from an apex court order in early 2006). Eradicating the illegal fish tanks obviously meant a severe dent in the pocket for these "elected representatives".

Is Lav Agarwal an ideal civil servant, or a villain as these politicians and corporators are trying to portray him? Whenever Lav Agarwal visits any of the villages, he is received with open arms. Who cares for these politicians when the people have passed their verdict? As has nature itself, for after seventeen long years, the pelicans are back.

NYTimes: Women in Science

2006-12-20T14:33:00.000-08:00

Notwithstanding its 74 Pulitzer prizes, in my opinion, the articles in NYTimes often rival Times of India in their lack of quality, purpose or judgment. Time and again, I think I will devote space on this blog to picking on some especially abysmal specimens of journalistic trash from NYTimes.

At the outset, I must make my position clear, that there is a definite need to encourage a far greater female presence in the higher strata of educational institutions. But this article on "Women in Science" is amazing in its superficiality and a perfect example of anonymous, anecdotal journalism. Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/science/19women.html .

Sample this as an example of barrier to entry for women in science - "But when it came time for questions, a female graduate student in the audience zeroed in on an issue that rarely arises with men: “What should I wear [for an interview]?” At her university, she said, “The men always come in jeans and the women come in a suit.” But she said she worried that dressing so formally might suggest that she was trying too hard."

First of all, the question does arise for men too, they just answer it more quickly! Now, replace the "interview" by "party" and nothing changes, as anyone who has waited for a girlfrined/wife/partner to get dressed for a party will tell you. Women do tend to think more about what to wear and about the effect their dresses have on others - nothing wrong with it - whether partying, jogging or interviewing. I personally have not heard of any faculty interviews that discriminatively went awry for a woman because she did not meet the sartorial standards of her interviewers.

Or consider this statement, which is the recurring theme in the article - “There is still that thing about even male and female faculty. They are going to judge you by different standards.” Well, what is "that thing"? If you want to write a three page article in the nation's leading newspaper, I suppose you need to list out your issues more specifically than "that thing".

Any decent university has programs tailored to encourage its women PhD candidates to take up faculty positions. Similarly, there is a conscious effort on the part of universities to interview and hire as many women candidates as possible. But what can be done if there are not enough women coming forward to fill these positions? Academics is a tough field, it demands long working hours, coffee-driven nights and constantly fighting for your views against equally intellectual competition. But academics is especially unforgiving for women becuase the typical period when you cement your place in academia (ages 25-35) coincides with the peak of the reproductive cycle. Any university's brochure will highlight for you their special provisions that accommodate these issues for women faculty/students, but of course nothing can make up for the loss of time during which they get overtaken by the competition. It is unfortunate, but not an outcome of male-driven xenophobia to prevent an invasion of their academic bastion by women.

As far as sciences are concerned, the article completely misses out on addressing the core issue - women participate less in science, at all levels. There are fewer female students taking up science and engineering in college compared to males, very few go on to grad school and a small fraction of those choose to pursue a career in science. Lawrence Summers got lambasted for stating the obvious need for a study into whether there are intrinsic biological differences that govern these career choices. If the answer is as emphatically "no" as the moral brigade who demanded his resignation seemed to suggest, then it should be validated by any controlled study. If it is "yes", then we must do something to create an environment where these biological differences can be overcome without undue hassles. In either case, we need to make science and math seem more attractive to our female counterparts from an early age. Maybe have special sessions for young women in school and college that highlight science (and academia, in general) as career choices.

The introspective exhibitionist

2006-12-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

So, here we go. After a few years worth of procrastination, I think I am ready to blog. It is a whole new experience for me and this first post is verily a revolt against my own notions. By nature, I usually keep to myself and prefer that I am not a topic of my own conversations (how paradoxical for me to say that!). However, I am also incorrigibly opinionated on almost any issue and need some outlet for my thoughts. Since all my friends are away for Christmas, perhaps blogging will help retain my sanity!

Who am I? What do I do? Well, if I happen to like blogging, you will know a few posts down the line. If I don't, probably it was not worth knowing anyway. So long, then ....