Thinkers and doers

When I talk of thinkers, I am not talking of thinkers who think so abstractly or come out with ideas which at no point of time turn out to be of any tangible use to the society. Of course one can't dismiss such abstract thinkers also. They possibly take care of the emotional and spiritual well being of people. Say a philosophert like Sankara, a Ramanuja or a Madhwa or some of the western philopsophers also.

Have in mind people with ideas whose ideas either during their lifetime ( rarely the case ) or after their life time have made a significant change for the better to the society. As against these , you have doers who create things , not original but create things which are of great of value to society and they themselevs do things which benefit society .

As against these, take the case of doers, large Industrialist , who provide employment to hundreds of people, who are such great adminsitrators that they provide the right kind of environment to thinkers to thrive.

Such doers achieve fame and get recognised during their lifetime and possible experience the high which comes with fame and adulation .

While we rememember a Tansen or a Kalidasa or a Theyegaraya or a Birbal or a Bhaskara or an Aryabhatta or an Einstein or an Adam Smith or a Newton ,who contributed to the society cerebrally, we also talk in admiration an Akbar or a Harshsvardhana or a Maurya.

The thinkers necessarily need the right kind of set up to thrive. A society can never dismiss a doer as kind of an inferior being Vis a Vis a thinker.

Doers get a high during their lifetime. Thinkers , rarely do so. They work against all odds for somethings which apparemtly may not be useful or may not even hit upon something.

But the greatest irony is , during their lifetime, work done by doers appear to be more important and relevant , the impact of thinkers and innovators has a greater and far reaching impact on the society in most of the cases in the distant future. The original thinkers and innovators ideas can be replicated several times wheras doers who in most cases make use of resources , natural and tangible , there is a limitation. It could be limited.

Doers also create lasting instituions which benefit the society for years.

The debate could go on. But the point is, it is much more fashionable and apparent relevance to be a doer since the highs could be intoxicating . Thinkers rarely get adulation during their lifetime. Their highs are internalised highs.

Cosy club syndrome

Do we in India have true democracy ? True democracy is one where everyone gets equal opportunity. How they use the opportunity is dependent on them. In India, it does not require great intelligence to conclude that , opportunities are to people in power or people related to them and close to them . At one point of time, you had the license Raj, which by its very nature afforded opportunities to people who could work their way around by greasing and letting the approvers share part of the booty.

While the License Raj has been dismantled and one would think to some extent the system has been cured of its ills, there still is enormous clout with the Government. They own substantial properties, rights of natural materials etc. Acquiring rights to them has become a matter of cosy club syndrom. People known, related to the people in power are the ones who are extended the benefits.They help each other to make sure that the national resources are distrubuted amongst the group. Such a nice and cosy club.

Just see the allottment of Housing membership (Adarsh Society in Mumbai ) , which was supposed to have been for war widows. 40% of that has been given to Civilians and senior army officials. They are feigning ignorance.

You had the Telecom license grants. Given to people from whom you get a kickbak. All natural resources or things in short supply or priveleges, all distributed amongst the cosy club, a club which is functional due to relationships or grease.

Just see what is happening to A. Raja the telecom Raja. He is supposed to have made a hell a lot of money . Still no action, he continues to be in the ministry. No one touches him.

Disgusting. Common man is deprived of such resources. The kind of money available with the top few , all acquired by stealthy means could easily be significant enough to push up the per capital incomes of people in India. You can have Citizen welfare without resorting to Communism which has its own downsides.

As a friend commented , the more one see this non sense, the more one would start sympathising with Maoists , naxalites .

Kashmir confusion

First and foremost, I am no expert historian nor an expert political commentator nor a human activist. Now on with what I see ,read and think on Kashmir

The people of State is Jammu & Kashmir including Ladakh , I think have been in the news ( for may be close to 60 years ) for "azaadi "but the bone of contention is only Kashmir. Jammu with its majority Hindu population is quite okay as it is , that is , staying with India.

It is quite clear and obvious that Kashmiris want to be out of India. There is no denying that. I spent 2 months way back in 1987 , of course , I was on some work there and had not gone for review and study of Kashmir issue. It did not require a great mind or intellect to make out that the majority thought themselves as different from Hindustanis and thought that being part of India was an accident which had to be corrected. The divide and thinking clearly was on religious lines. I remember a recent article by TCA Srinivasaraghavan on claims of Kashmiriyat by the Kashmiris. He takes a dig at the vagueness of the whole concept and how Muslim Kashmiriyat is different from Hindu Kashmiriyat

Sporting events between and /or invloving India and Pakistan clearly used to bring out the difference. The office of Eveready Industries used to be more of Kashmiri Pandits and the workmen used to be more from the Kashmiri muslims. A Pakistan win or a India loss used to be celebrated by the workmen (Muslims) and an Indian victory used to be celebrated ( muted fashion) by the office folk ( Hindus )

People who talk of Kashmir being annexed to India being an accident have to just look at what all states were annexed to India. There was no India, it was just a whole maze of Princely states of various hue and colour and had gradually become part of the British Raj . From British Raj, it was transferred as property transfer to the Indian Raj. Some who where yet to part of British Raj were annexed by Sardar Patel quite brilliantly, that includes states like Hyderbad, Goa .etc etc.

All said and done, there was a common culture across the country with variations as we move down south from North of India. And again, right or wrong at some point we or our ertswhile rulers have been signatories to the annexation and we have all over a period of time bought in to the concept. We find safety and comfort in the larger country rather than being part of just smaller countries , like may be a Punjab, Tamilnadu, Bengal etc.

There have been several cases of people wanting to strike out on their own as seperate countries like Khalistan , even Tamilnadu for that matter several years back when the Dravida parties were claiming that the Tamils are culturally different and of course the whole of North east.

We are now part of one constituition and one nation which explicity talks of one nation , soverignty etc . Kashmir is no different from others. Just because, Kashmir is full of Muslims does not grant it a right to seperate out nor claim by a majority in that place give it the right to seperate out. Even now, you ask some of the states, they would want to secede and not want to be part of India. Punjab once though that they were subsidising the other parts of the country and were not able to enjoy the full fruits of their farm labour and productivity.

You encourage a Arundhati Roy , who shares platform with Geelani , a Kashmiri seperatist whose principles are based more on religious homgenity and nothing else, you will end up encouraging a whole lot of other elements. You will have too many fires to douse.

The seperatist voices in other states are a little less vocal these days, since the economy has started doing better.

For all these talks of , not encouraging seperatists, Congress has also miserably failed in kashmir. For all the so called priveleges , including a ban in buying of property in Kashmir by Non Kashmiris, Congress has not improved the lot of Kashmiris inspite of pouring money. Economy by all accounts is floundering. 60 years is a long time for Congress to do something. A simple hypothetical question, if Kashmir had been doing well and people had enjoyed better living, would there be clamour for seperating from India. A definite no. Who would want to part of Pakistan , a failed nation.

Arundhati Roy thinks she is some kind of Champion human rights activist who is always right ,putting her nose in to all kinds of things . One is not sure whether she has a good understading at all of all aspects of an issue. We atleast don't claim to know everthying.

Nobody , none of the human rights activist and in your face secularists like Arundhati Roy, Teesta Setalwad, almost the whole Congress clan ( for political reasons ) and so many so called intellectuals to whom public display of secularism is a ticket to being called an intellectual ,talks of the atrocities on Hindus in Kashmir. None of these human rights activist talk of the atrocities committed by the Maoist on general public, none of them talk of Muslim fundamentalism and bigotry. I am not for a moment defending Hindu bigotry. But lashing at Hindu fundamentalism appears easy in our country and you can get away easily.

People take offense atthe fact that some RSS leader had said that all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorist are Muslims. While that may be an exaggeration, one can say that 80-90% of the terrorists are Muslims and all for religious reasons.

Can't understand for the life of me, as to why there should be a seperate law for Muslims in the name of secularism. One can argue that in India there is a seperate law for Hindus. I am against that also

Forget India, take countries like France etc which have one law. Muslims demand a seperate priveleges there too. Meshing with the local culture and being compliant to local laws and assimilating with the local population is not something that the Muslims want to do. They wasnt to maintain a seperate entity even in places where they are settlors.

Tendulkar in ESPN Cricinfor All time World XI

The jury consisting of ex captains and some Cricket Historians etc have come out with the XI and an alternate XI

The First XI is

Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton , Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Adam Glichrist, Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall, Deniss Lillee, Shane Warne

Not much to argue . All of then have proved their worth over a long period , not just flavour of a few seasons.

This kind of team, there will always be a bias in favour of people that you see as against the ones you have just heard.In some cases it works the other way. What you have not seen sounds and seems better than what you have seen. In the instant case, it seems to be the former.

There will always be debates. People will argue Lara Vs Tendulkar etc. What , I think settles the issue in favour of Tendulkar is his longevity , greater professionalis, his versatility and success in all formats. Lara was also good in ODI , but not quite as successful. Apart from his stupendous record in Tests (49 Centuries ) and ODI s also (46 Centuries), just look at his record in World Cups. He may not have won a World Cup, but made Semis once and Finals once. Was man of the Cup twice, I think once in 1996 and again in 2003.

There was a time ,in 2005-06, when people were comparing him unfavourably with Dravid, especially in the Test arena. I recall , even someone like Srinath ( Test player) mentioned that Dravid was possibly a marginally a better test player. That was the time when Tendulkar was plagued by injuries and was having an extended lean period. He came back with a bang from Austrlai series in 2008 scoring 2 Hundreds and 2 Half centuries and was the Highest run getter from India in that series and has not looked back.

One has to concede that Dravid was and is a great player and has been unfortunate that he is playing in the same era as Tendulkar and that too in the same team, but by a substantila margin, it is Tendulkar. Unmatched versatility. Come to think of it, one always felt that how good he looks when he defends or attacks, his average should have been upwards of 60 and not 56.96 as is the case now. If one were to go by averages against Australia and others, most batsman have an average of atleast 15-20 runs plus against other teans as they have against Australia. By that token, , his should have been 75 against other teams, his average against Australi being 60. Unfortunately that is not the case. His average against SA and Pakistan are lesser than his average against oz.

It is the misfortune of great batsman that their worst is always compared with the best of others and judgements made. Their own high standards become a benchmark for them .

Magnified play of Pareto in Human development

Pareto principle expounded by that very perceptive Intalian economist Pareto, talks of how 80% of the value or anything for that matter is contributed by 20% in number and how 20% of the value is constituted by 80% in number. This finds almost universal application , be it in the output of people in organisations, may be traffic on roads in a city ,may be popultation distribution, income distribution so on and so forth.

In the matter of inventions/dicoveries and ideas the ratio could be even more skewed. It is quite possible that inventions/ideas and discoveries that have benefited mankind the most could have been originated by may be 0.001% of the population. Human beings have a tremendous ability to record, replicate and use such inventions/ideas and discoveries to their advantage.

Most of us, almost all of us are beneficiaries if largesse of a small percentage of the population. This being the case,that is almost all of us being benefiaries in almost equal measure of a very few people, it is quite ironical that the wealth distribution is not better distributed .

The economists call the these gaps in "delivery" . Tamil what they say, even when the god grants a boon, the priest does not grant.

Went to watch the Bangalore Test match after almost 30 years

After almost or in fact 30 years I think, went to watch the test match against Australia in Bangalore , the first two days Oct 9 & 10. Oct 9 was a saturday and there was a decent crowd. Heavy security with a lot of restrictions. No food to be carried, mobiles were allowed. Lot of confusion. There is a general cry to promote test matches. But the facilities at the ground did not quite measure up with those sentiments expressed in different quarters.There was heavy rush at the food counter, few guys selling chips etc inside the seating areas were charging exhorbitant rates. No water bottles also were allowed inside. The kind of money Board generates, they can make much better arrangements

Anyway the experience was good, overall experience on the first day it was not not quite to my expectations , but it got better the second day. On Oct 10 , the second day of the match, went after having lunch at home , possibly was better because of that.

First day Australia batted . Saw Ricky Ponting bat ( scored 70+ and played quite well) and the other Australians bat.

Another problem was , there was only one giant screen and that was located on the same side that we were sitting close to North stand. You miss something, you can't catch up later unless you come home and catch up the highlights.

It is a different experience , watching match live and in a stadium. Of course you need to get the right position. North stand was directly in line with the Pitch. You could see the movement to some extent. Of course part of the viewing pleasure goes , since the seats are located slightly away. This in a stadium which is supposed to be close to the pitch. Three dimension and full view of the ground all make up for what you lose on other aspects .

Last match , I had gone was in MA Chidambaram in 1980 , I think . Australia Vs India, im Hughes team against Gavasakar;s India. Recall Kapil scored a quick 80 plus. I had gone for two days , I think. Recall Border hitting a Century. I hope I am right. Doshi got 6 wickets, I think.

Second day of this Bangalore test, the high point was watching Sachin Tendulkar bat. He was 44 not out on Sunday ( came in at a critical juncture after Sehwag and Dravid had got out ) ,batted calmly and picked up a few boundaries picking the gap beautifully. On Monday( third day and I did not go) went on to score 191 and continued the next day and ended up with 214. Earlier , that is on second day, Sehwag after a few exciting strokes got our . Murali Vijay looked good, he went on to score a century the next day. Dravid was a bit of a disappointment on Day 2 . Got out chasing an outside the off stump delivery from Mitchell Johnson. Only saving grace of this was , got to watch Tendulkar bat for a little over an hour before end of day's play.

Good thing was , India went to win the match after some hiccups.