by Sharique on March 3, 2009
I know I was rude to call Pakistan a Najistan. It was my anger at the total collapse of the government and above all its ineptness at preventing such attacks. My post titled ‘Pakistan to Najistan, on this blog was made more subtle and I vowed never to write for that blog until and unless they change the title back. Well, they don’t care anyways, but it was important to me that I don’t back out from a stand I took after so many years of observing the developments in Pakistan from outside.
After today’s attack on Sri Lankan cricketers, I would once again reiterate my advocacy of calling Pakistan a Najistan. It’s not just a failed state, its a blot on the name of humanity and freedom.
–> Few fanatic morons walk into your territory and declare it as their own. Then the national government succeeds in getting a ‘ceasefire’ and flaunts its as a diplomatic success.
–> Its investigation into the Bombay attacks are a complete mockery of investigation.
–> The security of a national cricket team is breached by few rascals and then escape as if they came to get autographs. Weren’t the cricketers even provided with bullet proof buses for transportation?
–> Economy- Well…leave it
And you still want to call that country clean of all evils?
I won’t go far in comparing Pakistan with a country that was born at the same time. Bangladesh. Even though Bangladesh had its tryst with anarchy, its achievement in maintaing democracy and controlling the army is commendable (The recently army mutiny is an example). On the other hand, Pakistan is an absolute joke when it comes to democracy and i better not talk about its control of its army. Even though Bangladesh is economically behind Pakistan, majorly because of the geographical location of Bangladesh and partially due to unauthorized rule of Pakistan for 25 years.
by Sharique on July 29, 2008
The list has been prepared by the Foreign Policy. And it’s called The List: The World’s Worst Olympians!
The country’s athletic ineptitude is so profound that a parliamentarian called for two minutes of silence to “lament the demise of Indian sports” after the squad failed to win any medals in Barcelona in 1992.
by Sharique on November 11, 2007
The news channels were telecasting the footage again and again. The lips of Shahid Afridi and Gautam Gambhir were circled so that the able audience can read their lips. I really wonder can anything really be a ‘Gentleman only’ sports.
by Sharique on August 19, 2007
Chak De has highlights many important aspect of Indian sports which are responsible for the pathetic state of present day affairs-
1. Regionalism. Players are more conscious about their state rather than country. This has to do with lack of professionalism. Most of the players are not professionals because the pay is abysmally low and hence they play for state as a hobby. Regional feelings are bound to be dominant considering the fact that the imaginary boundaries of superiority/inferiority are deep rooted. Jharkhand is considered a land of forest where only adivasis exist. This superlative feeling is so profound that even the movie disparaged the girls from Jharkhand; why can’t the hero of the team be from Jharkhand? Why she is always from Chandigarh/Punjab or Haryana? I do appreciate the fact that Jharkhand is a backward state but then if this is the treatment meted out then who is going to encourage nationalistic feeling? Isn’t Jharkhand a part of India? Does only convent education guarantee quality? Does always beauty lead to success?
I felt utterly pained by the disparaging remarks of players and officials in the movie. I was watching the movie in Chandigarh so the cheer for Chandigarh hockey captain was expected. But why belittling the players from Jharkhand? Remember Bihar was once India’s richest state and its just a matter of time before it recaptures its position. But then is it important? Important thing is that India should progress. The impetus can come from Punjab or Tamil Nadu.
Government has to do more to inculcate the feeling of one nation. Regional disparities have to be eradicated. Let the political divisions be only be for administrative purposes. Let the processes be centralized so as to avoid regional shortcomings.
2. Emotions- It again has to do with professionalism. Do our players need malevolent administrative staff to stir the emotional urge to win? The urge to win and team spirit will come by being a professional. This is what differentiates Indian player from the others and this is something that will come after economic strength comes to the game.
3. Non-Tech savvy coaches- While the Australian coach was using technology to gauge the performance of rival team, our coach Sir, impeccably dressed, was just jumping up and down. This is something the younger generation can bring into every aspect of life. Sadly our elder generation has a phobia of computers.
4. Irresponsible officials- The babus running government offices are either too prejudiced or too lethargic to work…forget initiatives. They form the single biggest reason why Indian governance fails to cope up with its industrial progress. Of course the reasons lie within the department itself. Why should he/she work when there is no performance initiative? Why should he/she do overtime without any extra pay? Bas kat raha hai….
5. Hero to zero in milliseconds- Single performances make someone a hero overnight and a bad performance can demonize the same person in no time. We are just too emotional.
What else can you think?
by Sharique on June 14, 2007
Dear cricket fans,
We understand that the recent events have caused embarrassment to the nation and the fans in particular. We wish to apologize for that. Saying this we also would like to clarify few issues which we feel have been ignored by the media. We are not answerable to the media but just to clarify few allegations that are and have been levied against us, we are writing this mail.
First regarding the appointment of coaches; the mayhem and embarrassment was caused intentionally for our ulterior motives of wining the world cup 2011. Actually we intend to keep this confusion on till the world cup of 2011. As we have already informed you that we are wining the world cup, we wish the team to be projected as real heroes who won inspite of so much chaos. We would like to draw your attention to the coaches who are already, subtly, doing their jobs; Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh.
Venky, as we love to call him, has been a fierce bowler of his time and we mean it. Even though his records don’t show his real caliber, we trust him to be the best person for this job. He has all the weapons in his artillery to inspire and guide our bowlers. He is a born coach and this innate quality was augmented by his experience of getting hit by batsmen. He learned a lot during his tenure as opening bowler for India. We have great expectations from him and we are confident that our bowlers take good lessons from him.
Robby is another terrific fielder we had in our team. We have hired him as our fielding coach. We don’t think his achievements needs to be mentioned here as his skills were aptly represented on the field. We don’t have any batting coach because the likes of Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly don’t need coaching. These players are enough for the team to win and thus we don’t need to coach other players. The only this is that they should click in a match and trust us that one of them certainly would.
So you see we don’t need another coach. The appointment thing is a farce so as to fool the international observers. John Emburey and Graham Ford we were paid a hefty amount to be a part of this drama. Whatmore was the best suited candidate for this post but then we have lost our trust on Austalians. We had plans to buy the recently concluded 2007 world cup but then we had to back off because of fear of being tarnished at the hands of an Australian. These Australians are the biggest threat to cricket in present times. They don’t take money to throw matches and they are also invincible which puts us in a precarious situation, not just us but more importantly our neighbor across the border (they should thank the prayers of Tablighi Jamaat that Woolmer was not an Australian or else their team would have been sent to Mars to play with remaining living creatures there). Anyways time and tide wait for none and our tide of match fixing would one day rule the coasts of Australia. Which board has more money huh?
Then there are allegations on the board members that we are not suitable for this job as many of us have limited experience in cricket. These critics should realize that our hard work has turned this board into the richest in the world. Cricket is no more a game of gentlemen but now it’s a game of gentle ladies (Mandira Bedi. BTW she has really impressed us with her cricket knowledge..we might hire her as coach for the team in future) and shrewd politicians. It’s a game of money. We feel that committed cricketers could drain our money by investing in coaching youngsters and other grooming/mushrooming programmes. Cricket in India needs people like us who can work behind scenes and produce ground breaking results.
We hope this letter, which is certainly not an apology, would clarify all your doubts regarding the mayhem. Please support our Chutney sponsors by reciting chandu ke chacha ne chandu ki chachi to chandni chowk par chandi ke chammach se chanti chatai.
Ever yours,
The BCCI
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