Watching World Cup Cricket with Granny!

Feb 22nd 1992- 

It was just the day after my 9th birthday and I was quite on cloud 9. I had devoured the contents of that week’s ‘The Sportsar’ World Cup Edition; I had a good birthday and that cute Gujrati girl in my class consented to sit next to me in our hindi class. Hormones seemed to have arrived earlir than expected and to say it in Ravi Shastri’s words, they were ‘alive and kicking’. Quite a charmed life it was! As Feb 21st gave way to the 22nd, the little suburb of Adayar in Chennai had more snores than the sounds of TV sets being on. I was sleeping in a small room next to my grandmother. It was 3 am. Quite the time, when Sachin Tendulkar and I were batting in our partnership for the ‘C Block’ team, tearing to shreds the bowling of the B block team. My little dream was not progressing much, due to the noise in my room. I hazily stared at the light source at the end of the bed, and the TV was on. My grandmother was fumbling with controlling the voice on the TV. My parents were asleep in the other room. The next 5 minutes were spent getting used to the bright light that invaded the privacy of my dreams of batting with Sachin. The immortal voice of the holy trio of Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry and Tony Grieg got me wide awake. My first cricket world cup had begun.

Tony Greig and Bill Lawry were shrieking at John Wright’s wicket off the bowling of Craig McDermott, as the Kiwis and the Aussies opened the 1992 World cup. My granny in Tony Greig’s shriek and words was “Alive and Kicking” listening to the match commentary, even though she understood little of their accents. She fervently got up at 3 am and followed the scores and kept giving her version of her analysis that usually differed from mine. She would say The Indian team should drop Shastri and Manjrekar, and try out Amre to bat, as they used to slowdown the innings. Her other gem used to be being David Shephard’s virtual soul mate, being superstitious when it came to nelson scores(111,222). She’d say if a team actually reached the nelson’s score, without bypassing it they would win. As a 9-year-old kid, her word was the bible for me though I never checked if her predictions on nelsons actually worked. She didn’t have much knowledge about the game, but many years of cricket on radio and newspaper reading had made her a fairly discerning grandma when it came to cricket. To come to think of it, she would have made a good fantasy cricket player, but back in the days, computers and televised cricket were rare to come by.

The World cup in 1992 with the Indian team in the Australasian continent was my first experience getting up with her and watching cricket matches. My parents never exuded so much interest for a live match. My parents preferred to watch cricket, as long it didn’t interfere with their household chores and sleep. They never took offense to me getting up early or sitting up late, watching cricket on the television, until I got caught for dozing off in school due to lesser sleep at home.They then asked me that pertinent question that every Tambrahm parent asks “Cricket a Soru Poda Pogarathu?” [Is cricket going to feed you?]. I’d happily say yes. Watching cricket for a profession looked far more interesting than clocking hours in a bank. My grandmother never quite understood the fuss behind me occaissonaly sleeping in class, and gladly allowed me my transgressions of waking up in the morning. When the world cup was around, a few marks lost in remembering where Cape Comorin was on India’s map, could be traded happily for watching Kapil Dev take a wicket or for Manoj Prabhakar getting one to swing in. Thanks to my granny’s passion, I decided to let the cricket mood set in. I started putting cricket pictures, neatly cut from the Sportstar magazine all over that room, with a huge poster of the fixtures. Thanks to that image, I always will know the 1992 World Cup grounds at the back of my hand from Pukekara Park to Albury to Ballarat to Mackay.

Quite a few moments from the 1992 World Cup come to my mind, when my granny and I watched the world cup in the first week. The standout moments in the first week were

▪   Disappointment we had when Javagal Srinath got out at Perth, giving India a 9 run loss in the opening game.

▪   The way Australia were mauled by South Africa at the SCG, and had lost 2 in 2 then.

▪   The way West Indies polished off Pakistan with a 10 wicket victory in a 220 chase.

Cricket was fun with my grandmother, with both of us seeming to enjoy the white ball, colour dress version of the game, a pleasant change from the ‘whites and leather red’ version that we were used to watching.

The match which we vividly remember were the last 10 overs of the India Australia game at the Gabba. My granny felt that India had a chance chasing 234 despite being robbed off 3 overs in a crazy rain rule. She was praying for Ravi Shastri to get out, after he trudged his way to a 60 ball 20 odd. Both of us remember having a collective gasp seeing Sanjay Manjrekar swat Merv Hughes to the midwicket boundary for a 6. Maybe her prediction was working, until Kiran More had his stumps shattered by Tom Moody and we lost the game due to a lazy Raju who forgot to run off the last ball. My grandmother never managed to forgive Raju whenever she used to see him on television in the subsequent matches. There was redemption in 3 days when the scene shifted from the Gabba to the SCG,when India took on Pakistan and beat them convincingly. Even though I had school, I came home just early enough to see Aamir Sohail, fall to Sachin’s gentle medium pacers. She and I would celebrate in our own way, resonating to the high pitched tone of Tony Greig,who also added character to the whole celebration. While there very few India moments to rejoice to except India beating Zimbabwe in a rain affected game, our love for the game kept us hooked on to the live telecast and the highlights. On reflection, that quite defined my world back then.

Back in the 94-96 season, I remember using my school’s( Bala Vidya Mandir-Adayar) PCO booth to figure a hack to get cricket scores. I was already reprimanded for bringing a radio set to school in 1993, during the India-England series. A reprimand was like the equivalent of a parking ticket and I could not dare to bring a transistor again to school. I still needed to find a hack to find the live scores in between classes Thanks to my grandmother, I found one. When I dialed a number from my school PCO without putting the coin in, it would ring and I would hear the person on the other end, but they would hear me only if I put in the coin. So I would tell my granny to recognize that if no one spoke on the phone from the other end for 10 seconds, it would most probably be me. She just had to tell the cricket score and tell me who’s batting. I had figured a hack, but the lady at the admissions office near the PCO figured out, I was upto some mischief in coming 4 times a day, daily to speak on the phone.[Google and Cricinfo were yet to happen]

My grandmother was hooked on too watching cricket till 1998 , when the tele-serial world invaded her “Cricket watching time”. My granny who would usually a Bangladesh vs Kenya game, with enthusiasm slowly grew out of the habit of watching cricket,and changed  her stance to “watching India matches only”. With time her eyesight, went on the Downhill and her earlier Glaucoma condition flared up again. My grandmother could then only make out that a ball was being bowled and hardly had any idea as to how the match would go on, and this reduced her interest levels and she would hit bed by a predefined 10 pm bedtime, which made me wonder, how her interest levels in watching cricket has ceased over time.

10-12 years back she could see only 10% from her eyes and when my grandfather passed away(2005), she couldn’t even see his dead self properly. It hurt me a lot when she told me that, when we were by our grandfather’s side. She became a little isolated in her thoughts. Cricket was hardly in her mind. My mother was still trying to see if something could be done to rectify and restore partial vision, so she consulted many eye specialists. A few doctors who said, that she would never see, in years to come, were proved wrong when a doctor in the Egmore Eye Hospital(Chennai) suggested an operation. With nothing to lose, we went ahead and did the operation. In less than two months, we saw that her vision improved dramatically and she was able to see with both the eyes and perfectly. It must have been a feeling of rebirth for her, getting her eyesight back. That was in September 2006 during the DLF cup in Malaysia, as shown in the  image. Its 9 years post that now. Her eyesight again has gone back to being bad, but her enthusiasm in cricket has not dulled one bit.

So while another world cup sprang in Australia and New Zealand this year, with  I made my granny my valentine on the 14th of February 2015, told her opinions beaming from twitter on the match, told her what the commentators are saying, and of course  waited to listen to her quips and pulse on what happened. Maybe I am reliving that  golden Australian summer of 1992, sitting in Chennai with my grandmother and my new 3D HD TV. When I hear Bryan Adams strumming “Summer of 69”, I’d look back at the summer of 2015 and possibly say “Those were the be
This entry is written in celebration of being #together, (via www.housing.com) my life”.

Tata Bolt Review By @Tweetologer #GetSetBolt

I had been to a couple of centres in Chennai, to understand where I could see the Tata Bolt. I went on the 25th of January to the Tata Bolt promotional showcase in S.P. Infinity in Chennai, after quickly checking with the twitter handle of Tata Motors. I was able to see the car first there at this centre, and took some photos of the car's interiors and exteriors I could not however use it for a test drive, so I had to wait till the republic day passed, as it was a long weekend in Chennai. I called up Tafe Reach in Chennai's outskirts in Pallikaranai, to get a car at 5:30 pm, post which I managed to review the vehicle, and also click a couple of videos. There are 2 parts to this review. I have done a review in text and images and another one showcasing the same items as part of a video review. 

Looking at recent history, we notice that in the era of Phones and Tablets, the Phablets have evolved. So a similar cross between a hatchback and sedan, called as the compact sedan is evolving as an important segment for Indians buying cars. Tata which came out with the zest, around the IPL last time, has come out with the Bolt, a little ahead of the cricket world cup. Tata seems to be focussed on developing smarter cars for the segment of the market that seems to be quite the cash cow for car manufacturers in India.

Why should you buy the Tata Bolt?

It’s a car for the smarter youth of today, where you drive in tandem with with your social world, keeping the safety intact.

Usually Tata’s smaller cars like the Vista are used a lot for commercial driving by taxi drivers, where the focus usually is on the back seats rather than for the front seats. That image has been steadily changing in the Zest and more visibly in the Bolt with quite a  beautiful front seat and digital display. It feels like the car I now own-Tata Manza, my own little cockpit, but actually its better than the Manza. I actually find it a little sporty given the finish. At least on first perceptions the finish looks premium on the outside and the inside.

The Engine called Revotron for the Petrol and Quadrajet for the Diesel, mimics our day to day lives with its Multi drive option. The earlier engine for the hatchbacks, in the Petrol variants used to be a Fiat engine.

Lets start with the resemblance it bears with something as easy to relate as our heart, and that’s what makes this interesting. Just like you have the heart pumping more blood while you are on a short but quick run, the engine here in the TATA bolt has a sports mode that just mimics a short burst of power. The surge in power you get once you use the sport mode is clearly visible.

The next feature is the econo mode, which is geared towards fuel efficiency on a long drive, where the engine mimics the movements of a marathon runner in pumping blood in a regular and synchronized manner. Finally the last mode of the multi drive feature, the city mode, which is a combination of a sprint and a marathon and has best of both the features to help you on your drive.

Also where the Revotron engine is beneficial is flat torque curve, which basically helps if you are a little lazy on shifting gears in your city drive, which by itself are great features to help the person driving as it gives more power to the person in front. Not to forget are the safety features such as the ABS and the Air Bags. The ABS or the Anti-Lock-Braking system, helps you release the brakes in a systematic fashion, helping the vehicle to not lose control when turning on sharp curves. This feature from a safety standpoint is what differentiates the modern day cars from cars that were bought a few years back. I myself have a Tata Manza Safire (2010) and a Hyundai Santro(2005), and very clearly see the difference the ABS makes to a safe drive. 

Things to keep in mind while trying out the drive.

• a)    Twist the steering- Show the Active return feature, where the steering returns to about 95% of the original position, post a turn. But hey, its suny outside, lets say its raining now, and I have switched on my vipers, here’s an interesting feature. When you reverse your vehicle, the vipers at the back also get activated during the rains, enabling you clearer vision of what’s happening behind.

• b)   Jadoo Ki Jhappi /Body Hugging Design- Remember this line from Munnabhai MBBS? That’s exactly what the seats tend to do you with its body hugging design to support the shoulders and back. Their shape basically symbolizes the broad shoulders of a Rugby outfit. While I don’t have them, maybe the Tata Bolt should do well to remind me that I should get to the gym!

• c)    Talk about reminders, the Connectnext Audio system can remind you of the right tempo for a song with its SPEED DEPENDENT VOLUME feature, based on how fast you are driving your car. Didn’t we always associate loud music with high speed. Quite an adrenaline kick right, and that’s a good feature because I don’t have to take my attention off the road or fiddle my hands around the steering to search for the volume control.

• d)   Connect-Next We aren’t done with the entertainment system yet, since the 5 inch LCD touch screen in the TATA Bolt here, helps you navigate your way around, but there comes a caveat. You need to have an android phone, and to download The ConnectNext app from the playstore and connect it to your car infotainment via a cable. Maybe there’s an easier way in having a Tab , Phablet or at worst a mobile, that can be fixed to your car glass, allowing you to navigate through maps. The good part however if that the app does not take data from the phone for driving directions as that is done by the GPS inside the touch unit. Note of caution on the expectations on the touch unit, is that it doesn't look to be made of capacitive touch, but more of resistive touch. While this can be a dampner, its far better than dealing with buttons in different parts of the dashboard. 

• e)    Feedback for Tata Motors-A quick feedback for folks at TATA. If you guys could make apps for the dashboard, it helps if consumers can use their existing tabs or devices in the slot or work with a tablet vendor to produce tabs for the car, which consumers can take out also and use as a normal tab.

 OTHER STANDARD FEATURES THAT LOOK GOOD

A)   Great spacing for the legs in the back seat. You are able to stretch your legs and sit comfortably. The vehicle easily seats 5 people on the car, without being cramped. In addition, your under thigh support and back feel very comfortable while in the car, with decent headroom.

B)   Front Cabin and Glovebox- Pretty good. Can house easily 4-5 beverage cans, and a couple of bottles if you need to keep. Very spacious.

C1)   Boot Space-210 litres, can be slightly enhanced if you can flip the backrests, if it’s a 2 person trip. Otherwise the bootspace is the only limiting factor in what reminds you that this a compact sedan and not a sedan itself. 



C2) Smart Vipers- How cool is it to have back wipers getting switched on when you are taking a reverse and having your front wipers out it in the rain? Very thoughtful feature addition.

D)   Design elements- The gearbox unit is very slick, and light and easy to operate.





I also quite liked the suspension, as it feel reassuring when you take the car on a spin. The design is pretty unlike its Japanese and Korean counterparts.

Black and Out headlamps strikes you first, as you examine the car on the outside, and as you go to the backside, there’s a huge chrome strip which reduces the bulk of the car. For a Premium hatchback, this stands out from its competitors.

This post is a part of the Get. Set. Bolt. activity at BlogAdda.

This is Tweetologer sitting and reviewing the car from the backseat- 

498A= The ticking time bomb in our midst

“The quality of a nation’s civilization can be largely measured by the methods it uses in the enforcement of criminal law”. – -The Supreme Court Of India, 1994.

The concept of democracy in India is as porous as India’s border, with respect to loopholes being present. There are fronts where democracy is strong and there are fronts where democracy is turned a blind eye. While India as a whole is deemed better than many countries for having an active exchange of opinion and freedom of speech, the loopholes sometimes make a mockery of what constitutes a democracy. One such is something that even the Supreme Court has taken cognizance of, on it, being a burgeoning problem in Indian society. Welcome to the farce that democracy is with respect to not having gender-neutral laws.

The new legal cocaine/ecstasy pill, which bypasses and leaves no strand of democracy is a law called 498a, which is called the Domestic Violence or Dowry Harassment law. It came by in 1983 to protect women from dowry harassment.  An aggrieved woman just needed to get to the nearby police station and file a 498a if she faced harassment, and her husband and his whole family would be arrested and by the police. So far so good as this meant power to the women in a country that was largely seeing a lot of crimes against the fairer sex.

The moot point was all a woman needed was just to complain and they did not need any proof at that instant. Slowly women realized that they could actually use this to their advantage to settle scores with their male counterparts, if there was any dispute. A new wave of legal terrorism and extortion followed until July 2014, when the Supreme Court passed an order to not have automatic arrests for the 498a unless an investigation was done. But an investigation can just be another reason for harassment, another step for money to exchange hands. 498a is still around and staring at you from the corner, even though a barrier has been put in place.

Here’s how this law was abused over time. When a husband disagrees or fights with a woman, the woman walks over to the nearby police station and files a 498a. Very few policemen actually enquire what’s the problem and are usually paid off by the woman or her family. The husband is then usually pulled out in front of society or office and dragged to the police station. Not only that, in some cases the whole set of distant relatives are pulled in too, including children. The husband is beaten and harassed in a police station and an FIR is filed against him and his family. His job sometimes is lost, his kid taken away by the mother, his parents subjected to mental and physical cruelty in the police station and in the society. By the time the man/husband gathers his composure and finds a lawyer, having suffered harassment in the jail does the damage mentally. The ones who makes it past this stage slowly find their feet, while some men succumb to suicide.

The ‘so called accused’ in these cases might have been on bail – but the injustice of pendency of trial for long periods is the uncertainty and the concomitant anxiety suffered by the under-trial. The under-trial is inhibited in making future plans for his life or executing present ones due to the uncertainty which pendency of trial brings. His confidence starts to erode and at the end of the trial, even if he is honorably acquitted, the scars of the long trial remain. He feels condemned despite the acquittal. Democracy never reaches the man, or it reaches very late when the damage has been done.

Now to add some salt to the wounds, the woman/wife has now gone on to file for divorce pressing huge compensation claims in the forms of alimony and maintenance. With the FIR on the man’s name, he has to pay huge sums of money to the lawyer and the police to get his name off the FIR. If doesn’t go to the FIR stage, the wife extorts her husband for money, otherwise she will create more trouble. In these false dowry harassment cases the husband is a sitting duck waiting to be extorted, for the crime of being a nice husband and a good father.

As any lawyer would tell you, husbands can only mitigate the extent of damage but cannot fight an equal battle legally with a woman. Due to India’s archaic laws women can never be aggressors or perpetrators of crime, but can only be victims, so women can never be brought to book in a mental/physical harassment case. Not only those, the police see each FIR as a means of milking money from the husband and the wife over time. It’s a standard formula for harassment legally possible as an option, and nothing but money can solve the problem.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She will have her revenge and your family will collectively bear the brunt of it. The 498A Wives have a soft corner for your mother and your sister (s). Prepare your mom and sister(s) for special treatment. They may very well see the inside of a prison”-  from http://www.498a.org

Lets look into some specific examples and stories to see how ineffective democracy is in a case like the one below with Rupesh Savant, Varshini Swaminathan and Nitish Shivrayan (*names have been changed to protect identities)

Rupesh was married to Varshini and they had a 2 year old baby boy.  While Varshini always showed traces of evil when she fought, Rupesh’s calm and patient nature somehow kept the marriage from falling apart. Rupesh was paying the EMI for a 3 BHK flat which was also in Varshini’s name. Once the flat was in her name, Varshini drove her in laws out, slapped her mother in law and then decided that in that state of being drunk on woman power it was okay in having a relationship with Nitish, her colleague. Varshini and Nitish used to have sex in the office lift, office basement, at Nitish’s place and even at Varshini’s place, with the 2 year kid kept in the other room, when Rupesh was away on work. Sometimes the kid would need to wait an extra hour at the day care because his mother was having an illicit relationship. When Rupesh discovered this one fine day, when he came earlier than expected, Varshini showed no sign of remorse or regret. She went over to the police station and filed a 498 a along with Nitish for company (acting as her brother). Rupesh and his family were jailed, despite showing proofs of the illicit affair that Varshini had. Varshini also got Rupesh sacked by filing a false FIR of dowry harassment and going to his office and crying. Rupesh is without a job, and the house he paid EMI’s for is now possessed by Varshini’s parents (who are also fighting a court case for misappropriation of funds from their former employer). Varshini and Nitish have settled in the USA working for an Indian company that supplies cheap software coolies to be rented by the hour. Rupesh is literally on the streets and with some help from friends stays at their places for a fortnight and keeps changing places as he has no home, and all his savings had been taken away from the joint account by Varshini, when Rupesh was remanded to police custody. Rupesh has been summoned many times in 2 different cities for false cases against him. Rupesh’s parents died on seeing him in mental agony. All of this because a false 498a was filed and the Indian laws make it comfortable for a woman to get away with crime which in this case is adultery). Rupesh has no sympathy, from his extended circle, as the world believes men must be brave and women cant commit crimes. The only way Rupesh can come out of this non-compoundable case is if he pays off the police and pays of his psycho wife for maintenance, and basically funds his wife’s next marriage, for a crime he has not even committed. Just another day in the life of the extortion racket, being played to the court’s galleries by the tri teams of evil women, corrupt police and greedy lawyers.

Rupesh’s story is one of the thousands of stories lost as it does not conform to the general script templates that news media has a daily orgy on. Rupesh’s minority story wont make it to ‘Satyameva Jayate’, nor will Arnab Goswami question Varshini that ‘The nation wants to know’. Rupesh doesn’t have money in his pockets as he has been out of a job for 6 months now. He has developed a fear psychosis and spends his day staring at his bail papers wondering what percentage of the ordeal still remains. His home, his child and his parents have vanished away because one woman decided to make a mockery of the law 498a. This is just one case. A law meant to protect our women, has armed the women with a nuclear weapon that is spoiling harmony. More than crimes against women, its crimes against humanity that needs to have a proper mechanism for justice. This article however, focuses on the part of democracy that’s a vacuum for crimes against men.

Whether its Rupesh, Peter or Farooq, thousands of such men are subject to crime by women. Like the ‘Farmer Suicides’, the ‘Husband Suicides’ too are on the rise. Every 9 minutes, a married man who is affected by the 498a, commits suicide in India. 64,000 married men commit suicides a year, double that of married women. Complete stats are provided here.

The government in order to appeal to a section of the female vote bank is mulling on a bill that gives an ‘aggrieved’ woman rights over the husband’s ancestral property also to make the extortion racket seem more evil. While we men and women rise up in unison, to fight the men who rape our sisters across the country, its time we raise up in arms to fight against these characterless women and the corrupt section of the police.

Democracy is almost naked and is dancing to the tunes of ‘Munni Badnam Hui’. You get to decide if you would like to disrobe democracy further or join the fight to cover it up. It’s never too late to dream about #betterdemocracy, is it?

The World is More Indian Than We Think!

What goes up, comes down, What goes around comes around! Newton formalised the law of Gravity, but something a little similar is the unwritten law of Karma, which basically says that wheels of fortune can come a full circle!  India actually had the distinction of being the world's largest economy hundreds of years back, as it accounted for almost a third of the world’s GDP.The goods produced in India had long been exported to far off destinations across the world.Therefore, the concept of globalisation is hardly new to India, but as we begin the story in the 1980’s and the 90’s, India’s contribution to the World GDP was less than a 1%, being completely isolated from world markets, completely in contrast to how India was perceived hundreds of years back.

The 80's and the 90's were quite the times for reserving your awe towards developed countries like the US,UK or Australia. Your cousins in the US spoke about having Mac computers at home, while you were were still hoping that your neighbourhood school got itself a computer. We Indians, were happy playing catch up, waiting for the cousins to come and haughtily narrate tales of the west. Hoping for India to be on par with the world, was still a dream that was never saw the light of the day. In 1991, as India's economy opened up, brands flocked to India, and soon we had the same brands that some of our cousins used to have in the west, right here in India. Things as simple as having a global chain like Pizza Hut or just having ACT II popcorn in your kitchen, meant a lot to your self esteem, eventually trickling down to a globalised world in the late 90's. The Foreign Direct Investment in India as a percentage of India's GDP was still low at 0.2% but the ascent towards a "Happy Days Are Here Again" sign had begun in the right earnest.

As a 10 year old kid, I was happy to be watching the highlights of  a Zimbabwe vs England World cup cricket game(1992), on the same day as the match happened. What a Zimbabwean fan or an English cricket fan, used to watch, now I could also watch. The rapid spread of news, fashion and thoughts through media was making me a globalised citizen, even before I knew it. Life could never be better. I felt included, as part of the world.  To add to it, a Bengali girl had been selected Miss Universe, and a Mangalore girl had been selected as Miss World, and a little more importantly for me, India had won the Wills Cricket Cup soon after, capping an excellent 1994. India had arrived for me! I went out striding a bit more confidently with my bicycle on the road, feeling a sense of accomplishment as I overtook cars with a perceived foreign connection(DCM Daewoo and Cielo). On my way home from school, I used to stop my cycle with a swagger, just to stylishly drink a Fountain Pepsi and be in time to watch Small Wonder on Star Plus. Those very products that was the awe of Indians, when their desi cousins use to come home in the 80's and 90's were now, available at our Kirana store or in our living room. We Indians were more than happy to be included as an invitee for western brands to consider India worthy, as we swept past the Y2K bug into the next century. 

My world view of globalisation, was then largely limited to just cricket and technology, and it just helped that India under Saurav, had begun to form their best team in years. When India beat other countries at Cricket, my confidence level seemed to surreptitiously suggest that I was increasingly seeing myself as a global citizen, on par with the world. As much I needed the scores of Mambalam Mosquitoues vs Jolly Rovers in Chennai, I also needed to know if Lancashire could beat Essex at Durham. My world had expanded through television, through retail and through the internet(Cricinfo).  My life was  getting intertwined with those of distant people and places around the world culturally. Western Culture seemed to have diffused to all parts of the world including India, through Television, internet, newspapers and magazines, and was amply getting reflected in art, sport and pursuits of leisure.


It also helped that most of my friends found migrated way to the US either through writing code, or cramming vocal books in a fortnight, that one could envision a career abroad more easily than people a couple of generations ago. So far so good, India's was expanding steadily and the global potpourri mix had a bit of Indian'ness seep in. Basically a global cocktail, with a drop of Indian Jaljeera. To me, it looked like the world around me had compressed and there was an intense thought around the consciousness of the world as a whole.India's Foreign Direct Investment as a percentage of the Indian GDP now stood a 150 basis points higher at 2%, but still well below growing economies like Brazil and China, who have a number of around 5% for FDI flow as a percentage of their respective GDP.

The next major tectonic shift that tilted scales in India's favour were a bunch of seemingly unconnected events that seemed to happen around the same time. Apple iPhone's launch, IRCTC, Prime Time Televsion, A liberalised FDI policy, IT revolution, Real Estate Boom, and India's burgeoning billion plus population. Well it may seem disconnected, but here's how we connect the dots with these events. 

a) Mobile and Tablets- Apple's iPhone launch, left a lot of people around the world developing the strong desire to own a touch based smart phone, but not having the money to own one. Google and Samsung worked on an affordable model in Android, and   a lot of people around the world could now buy smart phones, and what that meant was a globalised world existed in the pocket of every soul who had a smart phone. Also a new order was created in development of Apps. A team of 3 sitting in Bhatkal in Karnataka could now make an iOS app for children in Sierra Leone, or adults in Las Vegas. The world was truly at your finger tips, with the 'touch' devices revolution, that has snowballed into an avalanche over the following years. A lot of app purchases are done through credit card transactions virtually, and the next mega trend, shown below in point b, helped app purchases achieve scale.

b) IRCTC- Opening up Indian Railway's ticket inventory to the public over the internet, meant a lot of productivity for Indians who did not need to go to a physical centre or depend on a travel agent. What it also did on a large scale was set the ball rolling for a burgeoning yet-to-arrive online travel industry, the backbone of which depended on credit card being used virtually. India bonded with the world instantly, as one could purchase any service across the world with their credit card. 

c) Prime Time-The ICL in 2007, was an attempt at pitting city based leagues in a new T20 format, played at times when the family was together at home. The fact that it did not have the blessings of the relevant authorities, gave rise to the beast called IPL. Life was never same after the entry of the money spinner called IPL, which established India's financial muscle in cricket.This new time-christened as Prime Time Television, between 8 PM and 10 PM, got a lot of viewers, where television show formats were licenced from the West, like Kaun Banega Crorepati.

d) The Boom Years- The IT software services, which started providing low cost maintenance work for companies in the West, started getting more work, through the end of the 90's and started to peak around 2003-06, where a lot of hiring happened at the fresher level. This huge job demand, created a demand for real estate in cities where IT jobs were concentrated, which in turn resulted in a huge construction boom of malls, which were very similar to those of the west with all modern amenities. These were further boosted by the liberalised FDI policies in 2005, which further opened up the economies. The increased population further helped in giving audiences and demand for various services like television, services and real estate.

So the learning from these mega trends, is that when all these mega trends converge it leads to a huge revolution wiping businesses and paving way for the new. As Steve Jobs once said in his Stanford Commencement speech that death, could be life's biggest change agent, and a similar view is valid for convergence of individual mega trends.

India has done well to be part of a global village all along, where India has blended well into the global mix. Globalisation is like a wave, and one can grow together along with it, and also fall along with it. While India is dependent on globalisation to make it better, India has also evolved certain aspects that make India unique to the outside world. 
The red carpet welcome to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the USA recently, showed the importance of India in Obama's plans. India has shown a lot of leadership, and has a lot of potential in helping out our neighbouring countries to foster peace and economic development, keeping India as the fulcrum for trade. Moving to the field of technology, A lot of Western tech companies have people of Indian origin at the helm, and many Indians defining the culture of these companies(Sundar Pichai at Android, Satya Nadella at Microsoft etc).India scores high on culture, history,technology,wellness, cricket and cinema, and is slowly making the outside take note and take in a bit of Indian-ness in their daily life. 

a) Cinema-Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey doing the lungi dance in an Indian award function, or Hollywood movies with an Indian theme(Eat Pray Love/Slumdog Millionare), definitely opens up India to the world. While the attention is on India,  India need to keep honing their excellence at their craft, and work tirelessly. As they say in the movie '3 Idiots', success will follow excellence wherever it goes.

b) Wellness- In the cult classic best seller in the West,"The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari", the world looks at India as the mystic place, whose ancient habits and rituals have protected Indians from ages, helping them lead a happy and contented life. The world is flocking east, to understand the ways of life and the rituals that make India what it is. May it be the flocking of faith, which attracts the largest gathering of people in the world at the Maha Kumbha Mela, or burgeoning Yoga and Ayurveda treatments which are needed as an antidote for today's "Tune in and burn out" work culture.

c) Sport- India for the last couple of decades, have produced sportsmen, who have shined individually like Sachin Tendulkar, Jeev Milkha Singh, Mary Kom and Abhinav Bindra, putting India on the sporting map. While India's position is still a blinking light, compared to the athletic and sporting development in similar economies like Brazil and China, India's sporting revolution seems to be led by Cricket. The global cricket economy runs on India's audience, and after the success of a globalised tournament like the IPL, India has been looking for revolutionising other sports like hockey, football and tennis with similar initiatives. Sport is a great way for cultures to mingle, and for opportunities for creating Indianisation in Sport(which is already happening in cricket)

d) Tech- While India has been lapping up the benefits of a technology revolution, there are lot of efforts made by people of Indian origin who lead a lot of the tech firms in Silicon Valley. India is warming up to entrepreneurship in technology, opening up avenues for India to slowly become a global power. 

If you looked at each of these 4 pillars through which the world is becoming more Indianized, you would have realised that all India has done, is put the right foot forward. These are baby steps and needs all the support in growing big over the years. These 4 pillars are mega trends in their own right and right now, will wait to converge. That will be the true power when the world will get to be more Indianized than ever, relative to the world being a similar Global village.

While these are positive steps and helps India carve a niche for itself in the world, it needs to take a holistic look at how  technology can make its primary economic driver of agriculture better, and make technology access to the bottom of the pyramid possible. Primarily, India needs to identify what's unique with its culture, and follow that. There's a line in the sand we draw between Indians getting globalised and the world getting Indianized, and thats possible only if we Indians are awakened spiritually to know what's right for us, instead of accepting a template and being blindly globalised. Blind globalisation of trends can some times erode into a region's uniqueness. You just don't want the world to be a place where you by default have a McDonald's, a Star Bucks, a Hard Rock Cafe and a Hilton Hotel. While Globalisation is great, India needs to ask itself its acceptance of Globalisation is coming at some cost, which is eroding into its Indianization. There's a very thin line there that separates both of these, and recognising that thin line is what will determine how Indianized the World will get relative to India getting Globalised.

So to answer the question, while the  world is set to get more Indian than we think, if we look at it holistically India is still more Globalised than the world being Indianized. I've written more on the trends that helped India adjust to Globalisation, and what's taken us so far here.But hey, we are in the incipient stages of the next big Mega Trend- The World getting more Indianised, and hopefully by the unwritten law of Karma, India's heydays should complete a full circle in the immediate future.

This is written for Indiblogger and Lufthansa's contest. Do check their video below as Lufthansa tries to beat the perceived grayscale and integrates with India's vibrant customs and colours! #MoreIndianThanYouThink

Skore T20 League- Part 2

Now, Coming to the most interesting part, we review the games that are there as part of the SPL(Skore Pleasure League)

As with the 8 team IPL franchisee format, SPL has teams from various cities like the IPL. I chose to stick my fandom with the Chennai Team. No Dhoni or Mccullum here, but I don't mind imagining myself bludgeoning like Dhoni or Mccullum in the bed revelling either in a T20 shoot out, or a long innings.

Once I chose my team, it was now time to select the variant of the game, I wanted to play. I found it interesting and exciting that the team at SKORE carefully curated 8 variants of a simple quiz.

So, I started with "Read Between The Lines". A subject I never quite managed to understand with various women in my life, ranging from Mother, Sister and Wife.

It felt like I was playing in the IPL finals. Full of nerves, as I looked at each question, and tried guessing the answer.

The format was lovely and life like! You look at a woman's face and try and gauge her reaction. as they the devil lies in the details. I performed like I usually did with women. In IPL Parlance, I played like Dwayne Smith in the IPL final, terribly out of form and touch.

My scores showed! Maybe its time to test some of the other games! The first one was bad, as it usually is for Chennai in the IPL. Time to peak at the right moment and SKORE well!