So, how's India Shining?

hey, hey, hey, my first post for the new year, hope all of you guys had a blast....and have gotten rid of the hangovers!! i snored my way into new year, which is a ritual..cant be changed.... :-)

now, where cricket is concerned, india was certainly shining yesterday, felt very happy for the debutant rohan gavaskar...must be so difficult for the guy, to make a niche for himself in the game, with the shadow of sunil gavaskar looming over him perpetually. it takes solid guts to get into the field where his dad earned the title 'little master'. there have been many instances where i thought the guy would make it into the playing eleven, only to be rejected in the end. sometimes, i felt the selectors shied away from him, coz they didnt want charges of bias leveled against them...nyways hope he does well.....and yes, i honestly feel like starting a forum to stop steve bucknor from refereeing India's matches!!!!

but the recent ads that are being aired on tv and splattered on print, look too much like a well orchestrated PR campaign, to ignite the patriotism in me... add to it the discussion forums, and the cartoons about the 'shining' and the 'feel good factor', and i see a lot of reasons why just some infrastructural and sector specific (read BPO, ITES, IT) booms dont actually make me feel that good... one simple example would be my state,no, not my personal state, hehe, but that of "god's own country"- Kerala.... a hartal every 3 days, extortion mafias mushrooming, no self respecting IT company (yes, there is an infy, but thats an exception to the rule) willing to invest, and that, in the state that has the second highest literacy, and indeces and statistics, that could give the west a run for their money.. the rest of the country still has its share of foreigners getting raped, dowry deaths (i recently saw a very gruesome report on, i think ndtv, where an iron rod was pushed into a 4 year old girl's genitals, while her mother was being tortured for more dowry), corrupt politicians who make the policy decisions for the country..so while i agree that india is gaining, i am not so sure of the shining bit!!

this article is worth a read, on this topic.a couple of links that you guys should have a look at, one is the delhi bloggers meet photographs, for which i should be thanking simon and w-bug, hell, i havent yet asked them if it is ok to post it, guys, if theres a problem just post a message. the other link, is a total whacko, have a look at it, its totally out of the box, trust me.which brings me to

manuscrypts trivia

i have come across a few einstein quotes, so am gonna post them in small doses

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books; a mysterious order it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. BUThe also says

"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. " :-)