Set Me Free

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Broken, Battered NEWS

The media plays a very important role in shaping the public opinion and observes the duty of keeping the masses informed of ‘the state of the nation’. Though onerous to the extent that libel suits are lodged and reporters are man-handled at will, still, the profession of reporting retains its fair share of respect in the public eye. The disturbing trend that is threatening to besmirch the long standing credentials of this respectable profession is the advent of the ‘BREAKING NEWS’ culture. With more and more ‘24 Hour News Channels’ germinating out of nowhere the audience is spoilt for choice. But on the flip side we notice a rising trend amongst all these channels to unnecessarily sensationalize the mundane.

Competition has made the producers so morbidly unmindful of their modicum of responsibility that we were catered to a running commentary of a gruesome crime a few days back. Out of the sizeable number of people that I have asked for reaction on it, all have felt repulsed at this outrageousness.

Also, people are being gradually inured to the false alarms of ‘breaking news’ by the callous choices of content that follows the flash on the screen. Caution is thrown to the wind as the rush for being the ‘fastest amongst the fast’ dictates false broadcasts which are refuted and withdrawn three times within a matter of a day with shameless ease. Gradually the sensibilities of the people are getting numbed and we find a telling lack of awareness and indifference creeping into us.

The curiosity of the perverted is also taken good care of by the ‘peeping Tom’- reporters who stop at nothing to get ‘an exclusive shot’ of the scandals involving starlets. Privacy is compromised naturally, as are limits of decency. I agree that one has to barter one’s privacy for his/her share of fame to rise the proverbial ‘ladder’. Still, a ‘no holds barred’ brand of journalism drastically pulls down the collective standards of morality of an entire society which is fearfully pernicious. As it stands, the MMS episodes have already done enough to expose the wrong facets of stardom and its attendant turpitude. I don’t think we need any more of that in a hurry.

We cannot forget that certain things have also changed for the better. We see more ‘sophisticated’ (read good looking and seemingly knowledgeable) people donning suits and contrasting ties reading news. We see a glut of experts on every possible field who are invited to the studio to provide us with hitherto unknown insights into the intricacies of adult suffrage and the game we happen to call ‘cricket’. We are left perplexed as the assembly of journalists report from the remotest corners of the country, interviewing visibly anxious passer bys of their obvious worries and needs. What’s more? All this is brought to us live. We get to know if the Great Mr. Khan got to congratulate the Greater Mr. Bachhan on his birthday and if sea water turned sweet is going to spark off communal tension. We sympathize with the reporter wading through knee deep water with a dilapidated umbrella, trying to drive into our insensitive, selfish minds the plight of the flooded poor in Mumbai. We sit in our couches with bated breath to follow every moment of the gripping advances that the army make to rescue an infant from a well; giving our daily dose of ‘saas-bahu’ sagas a rare miss for the sake of novelty. We also see war-time reporters struggle no less than any jawan on the war-front, just to capture few seconds of sound bytes to take the channel soaring up the TRP charts. We see the elaborate arrangements being made for a gangster’s daughter’s wedding and are informed of how cinematically immaculate his entry would be, considering the fact that the Interpol might be closing in on his heels on this momentous occasion. What we also get to see in our daily lives and never on the screen these days is ‘unpainted, un-engineered and unexaggerated reality’. And anybody hardly cares. Isn't it? And that is why I lament the sad demise of ‘real journalism’ in India.

The public inclination towards glamour cannot be denied but, that is only a lame excuse considering the plunging standards of journalism that the electronic media dishes out with impunity. The media comprises ‘The Fourth Establishment’ and its responsibility in maintaining a “vibrant democracy” cannot be overlooked at any expense. It is time that we woke up to our ‘real surroundings’ and pressing needs, rather than attending to the rhetoric being dished to us in the name of ‘news’. To each one of you, my friends, who feel something, move in any nook of your heart after laboring through this article of mine, I would only ask you to switch channels next time any 'polished' news anchor gives you that rehearsed frown while ‘holocaust’ unfolds, and enjoy the timeless episodes of Tom & Jerry on cartoon network.I am sure the latter would be a more rewarding experience to you all.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Legend of Ashes

Currently Ashes are in the air. English and the Aussies are clashing for the title but what is the history lying beneth the oldest test series in Test cricket? The Legend lying beneath the Ashes....

The Ashes is a Test cricket series, played between England and Australia - it is international cricket's oldest and most celebrated rivalry dating back to 1882. It is currently played approximately biennially, alternately in England and Australia. The Ashes are "held" by the country which last won a series and to "regain" them the other country must win more Test matches in a series than the country that "holds" them. If a series is "drawn" then the country holding the Ashes retains them. The last Ashes series was played in England in 2005 when England regained The Ashes after a gap of 16 years by winning the series 2-1. The next Ashes series is going on presently and the next series will be played in England in 2009.
The first Test match between England and Australia had been played in 1877, but the Ashes legend dates back only to their ninth Test match, played in 1882.
On the 1882 tour, the Australians played only one Test, at The Oval in London. It was a low-scoring game on a difficult pitch. Australia made only 63 runs in their first innings, and England, led by A N Hornby, took a 38-run lead with a total of 101. In the second innings, Australia made 122, leaving England to score only 85 runs to win. Australian bowler Fred Spofforth refused to give in, declaring, "This thing can be done." He devastated the English batting, taking the final four wickets while conceding only two runs, to leave England a mere seven runs short of victory in one of the closest and most nail-biting finishes in cricket history.

When England's last batsman went in the team needed only 10 runs to win, but the final batsman Ted Peate scored only 2 before being bowled by Boyle. The astonished crowd fell silent, not believing that England could possibly have lost by 7 runs. When what had happened had sunk in, the crowd cheered the Australians.
The defeat was widely recorded in the English press. In the 31st August edition of a magazine called "Cricket: A Weekly Record of The Game" there appeared a now obscure mock obituary to "English Supremacy in the Cricket Field which expired on the 29th day of August at the Oval". Two days later, September 2, 1882 a second mock obituary, written by Reginald Brooks, appeared in The Sporting Times. This notice read as follows:
"In Affectionate Remembrance of ENGLISH CRICKET, which died at the Oval on 29th AUGUST, 1882, Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances R.I.P.
N.B. — The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia."
The English media fastened on to this notice and dubbed the English tour to Australia of 1882-83 as the quest to regain The Ashes of English Cricket. A small terracotta urn was presented to the England captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women at some point during the 1882-83 tour. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, possibly a bail, ball or stump. The urn is not used as a trophy for the Ashes series, and whichever side "holds" the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the MCC Museum at Lord's because of its age and fragility. Since the 1998-99 Ashes series, a Waterford crystal trophy has been presented to the winners.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Vigil - On Duty. the inside story!

An on-duty policeman inside a picket/bunker chatting with his fellow personnel (not in action)
The service rifle tied up with a string – “inventive brain”
by Majid Pandit

Friday, June 19, 2009

Brilliance worth all the heartbreaks

Eleven supremely fit and ruthlessly efficient cricketers, on top of their game, had their dreams of a first-ever world title ended by one audacious man. That cricket is a team game is an oft repeated cliché but South Africa were eliminated from the World Twenty20 at Trent Bridge solely because of Shahid Afridi's intensity and all-round skill.
Pakistan were yet to win a game against significant opposition in the tournament because of a team performance. They lost to England and Sri Lanka, beat minnows Netherlands and Ireland, and relied on Umar Gul to rout New Zealand. Their players hadn't contributed collectively and so it was unlikely all 11 players would maximise potential against opponents as able as South Africa. To have a hope of playing at Lord's on Sunday, Pakistan needed individual brilliance from one of their matchwinners: probably Gul, possibly Younis Khan, or perhaps Misbah-ul-Haq.
Instead, it came from Afridi. Pakistan and Afridi supporters always hope that it will come from him. They roar him to the crease, brimming with optimism, hoping he will destroy the opposition with his recklessly cavalier approach. Thousands of fans celebrated his arrival at the crease at Trent Bridge after Pakistan had lost Shahzaib Hasan in the second over.
Did they know that Afridi's last half-century, in any format of the game, came 28 innings ago, against Zimbabwe at Multan in 2008? And the one before that was 19 innings earlier, against Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi in 2007? It didn't matter, for when it comes to Afridi, there's always reason to hope. He'll disappoint more often than not, but his successes are so spectacular that it's worth the heartbreaks.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Science vs Art in clash of cultures

I couldn't stop myself from dedicating a post for the ongoing T20 WC. What could be the best time to have a post than the mega semis? Now that the maze is set and all the four titans are defined, lets talk about the first clash. It's first a clash of ethos, of philosophies and even of time, more than a semi-final. Here is truly man against machine, the art of cricket against the science of it, cricket's future and

cricket's past. South Africa's progress to this point has been smooth, well-planned, calculated and inevitable, as if their players were born to do this. Pakistan have got here in shambles - losing games, winning some, treating it all as a bit of fun - and the players not so much born to do this are struggling to discover why they are doing it at all.
South Africa lack nowhere and nothing. If Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith are the efficient drones at the top, there is heart in the middle, with the ever-frail skills of Herschelle Gibbs and the creativity of AB de Villiers. Even Albie Morkel, in whom there are glimpses of Zulu, thankfully smiles more. They've always had pace, but now they even have spinners, who are not batsmen forced to bowl. Sure, they are a little one-dimensional (watching videos of Umar Gul's yorkers?), but they are spinners - South African and successful; how often have we said that in the past?
The whole machinery is intimidating, determined to iron out all kinks, the mission pre-programmed; with seven consecutive wins in this format, they have apparently also taken the inherent unpredictability of this format out of the equation. They are well-trained, well-oiled, and their psychologist talks about 120 contests and of processes over outcomes and how choking is not really an issue anymore. They win even warm-up matches and the dead games because every game counts. They are cricket's future.
Pakistan are the past. They are wholly dysfunctional, but just about getting along, though unsure where they are going. They don't control their extras, they don't run the singles hard and they field as if it were still the 60s. They are least bothered about erasing the flaws because any win will be in spite of them. They did hire a psychologist though, and you can only imagine what those sessions were like and how much they actually talked about sport and cricket. There are permanent mutterings of serious rifts. They may not bat, bowl or field well all the time, but sometimes, they do what can only be described as a 'Pakistan': that is, they bowl, bat or field spectacularly, briefly, to change the outcome of matches. You cannot plan or account for this as an opponent because Pakistan themselves don't plan or account for it.
It can come from any person, any discipline, but on evidence, it is likelier to come from the bowling. The batting needs Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq to really get their show going. A piece of fielding brilliance cannot be discounted, but generally both Pakistan and West Indies have happily disproved the dictum that in T20 cricket you have to be Jonty Rhodes to get anywhere. Heroes will likely be found among the Umar Guls, the spinners and maybe even Mohammad Aamer, who is a throwback to the late 80s and early 90s, when Pakistani fast bowlers were born ready to play international cricket.
The pressure on South Africa however, will be greater. They are expected to win this and anyway they will always have the whole 'chokers' tag to deal with until the day they actually lift a big trophy. It doesn't help that they look as good as they did during the 1999 World Cup, though they are easier on the eye. Pakistan, as Younis Khan said before leaving for England, won't much mind a semi-final spot. They may have had an easier ride to the semis than most but no country has had a rougher two years. Clearly they'd love to win it, but they have already achieved more than many thought and a loss wouldn't be the end of the world. But importantly, as the only side to make it to the last four in 2007 and 2009, they have underscored their significance in this brave new, T20 world, a world in which they absolutely cannot be ignored.