The Dementor

"So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears." Lupin was telling the students about the new creature it was going to teach them face in Defense Against Dark Arts class. I was seeing the movie for the millionth time but still I got the goose bumps when harry first time comes in front of the Bogart. I thought to myself what we happen if the Bogart stands in front of me, what would I see? There could be lot of possibilities but deep down inside my mind the thing which I feared most started taking shape, first I tried to ignore it but slowly that image started getting clear in my mind. It was nothing living thing but still I feared it most. Because it was the Chair in Dental Clinic.

The chair was nothing like the ordinary chair. It had different limbs like that of the Octopus which remains silent till the prey comes in its vicinity and then attacks without any clue. The torch which focuses the bright light not only in your mouth but also on your eyes makes you nervous the moment you seat on the chair. The dentist manipulates the levers to make you comfortable but you become more and more anxious. The instruments placed on the chair platform shines as if laughing on you. Then comes the dentist with the mask on his face and gloves in his hands. You do't need to open your mouth intentionally. Even the routine check up feels like you are going under major surgery. But if you are going there to take out your tooth then in Harry Potter terminalogy, I would say, you are surrounded by bunch of dementors and you don't even have the wand. The dentist approaches you with the injection, and your panick attack starts. He sooths you for a long time telling that it will be almost painless and the injection enters your mouth. Now each second feels like the minute. For a very long time nothing happens, then you think may be he injected us and thats why he said, 'almost painless' and you relax, in the next moment you can feel the neurons sending signals all over your body and your brain screaming, 'What the f...'. The same procedure repeats one or two times and then slowly the anasthetia works. The worst part is still yet to come.

Now the dentist comes with some sophisticated version of Chisel and clutchers which you mostly see in the automobile repairy shops. He puts them inside the mouth as usual and then you started doubting on the Anasthetia dose. You curse the dentist sor waiting so long...may the anasthetia had wiped out. You feel the sweat flowing on your head. The dentist takes his position and all you could mumble is Riddikulus.....

The Rising Sun

The cold breeze was howling through the window, I saw the open slit of the window and struggled with myself to decide whether I should get up and close it or leave it as it was. Finally, the pain in my legs won the battle over my will power and for the 13th time, I got up from the bed and closed it. I was in the sleeper coach bus from Pune back to hometown. I cursed the window violently. I tried to lock it again but I knew that lock was not working properly. I felt so helpless, I knew the moment I slip back into the sheets, the window will open again and laugh like some moron whom you can not even see but feel the presence.I looked at my friend sleeping silently but he was also shivering a bit or either I imagined that. 'Is hallucination the side effect of hypothermia?', I thought to myself. It was so uncommon of me to think like that at 5am in the morning. But I decided not to sleep anymore. I stared outside the window. The moonlight was spread all over the farms and trees, still I could feel the darkness. Then the bus went over the bridge and I saw all the water still as mirror, but there was something more to that...the white fog was spread all over the water. I felt like every little thing was ceased. Suddenly I realised, the slit of window was open again and fumes of cold breeze started itching my bones and ceasing the blood flow. I practically cried, praying to get rid of the cold.

And then I saw the red tinge on the horizon, I saw the dark color falling back and the red color emerging as the gladiator who won the battle. Then I saw the faint yellow light and I felt exactly like the girl in the typical bollywood film, where the villain was trying to take the advantage of a lonely girl and suddenly the hero comes to rescue. I saw the fog dispappearing from the waters, I heard the chirping of birds and then I saw the Sun rising from the horizon dark red. It was one of the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I wondered why people alloted some tourism spots for Sunrise. I think wherever you are, the rising sun is the most beautiful and the positive thing to see. I personally think that Sunrises are more beautiful than Sunsets. They give you the feeling of the Phoenix rising from the ashes, triumph of good over evil. The moment I realized the sunrise, I started wondering when was the last time I saw the rising sun. I could not remember, may be few months ago or may be few years ago. Suddenly I felt guilty for the wonderful miracle of the nature I was missing, wasting my time. I felt how could we take so many things taken for granted in our life. I promised myself not to miss the sunrise again. A thought then touched my mind, wouldn't the feeling die, if I see the sunrise daily like some day to day chore? or am I overreacting in the cold winter day? Then from nowhere the water started flooding the bus coming from the open slit of the window, with the sharp pain in my head, I woke up. I checked my watch, it was 5 in the morning and the ice cold breeze was flowing down my face from the open slit......and for the first time I was sure that I will never want to want to miss the Rising Sun.

The OTHERS

'When you face a dilemma in your life just listen what your heart tells you. Do not bother to reason or doubt your decision later', my father always motivated me. We were siting on the heap of ice on a cold afternoon. Now you may think that this fella must be from some northen europen side or above Canada regions, because there are quite less places in the world which gives cold afternoon. I was on the southmost part of the Earth. I was on the Antartica. Don't misjudge my statements, I was not born here, but our family migrated here. Thats a long story. 'Antartica has the toughest atmosphere for living things to survive', I often heard my father telling his fellas. But frankly speaking, I never found any problems with the surroundings. You could see the white ice all upto the horizon and never bother to focus on the fact that eyesight was the most vulnerable part of your senses, there. We were always moving from one part of the shore to another. We had to leave near the shores because as far as we were concerned, 'fishes are the only dishes!!' even the harder part was the determination which one has to achieve to take a jump in the ice cold water. When your body first hits the water, the splashes of water are more like the fire trying to burn all your skin to reach your heart and tear it apart. But the good thing was all in my family were good swimmers. My mother used to tell me the stories when she and my father used to go to the depths of ocean to grab our food when I was a kid. Now I hunt for my own. My mother never like the word 'hunt'. She used to say that what we do is far more sophisticated than what real hunting was. There were many stories about the OTHERS. Some told that they were the creatures from the far lands, some doubted that they came from sky. But no one was sure about their existance except for 'Piago', the oldest member of our tribe. He told us the story of his first and only encounter with those creatures, far years ago. He was lost in the ocean while fishing and went in the exact oppposite directions of the shore, after swimming for nearly half an hour, he realized that he chose the wrong path. He turned around and started swimming back but suddenly what he saw made his whole body numb. He saw the black silhoutte of something underneath the water. It was coming near him. He tried really hard to resemble the shape of the thing with any known sea creatures but it was nothing like he have ever seen before. It approached him with fast speed. Somehow he managed to dodge it. He heard screeching sound even in the water. He swam with the every bit of his strength and after any hour of swimming he reached the shore. Till today I feel the sweat on my neck every time I hear the same story. Once I asked my father, 'Could there be life other than ours?' 'This world is more hostile than what we can imagine.' I could sense he did not want to talk about it. So that was it. Neither did I care, because after all, we believe what we see. But I never knew I will have to see what I never believed.
It was the dark days as, 'for 6 months the Sun was the guest, we managed without him for the rest' We were all moving down the shore to the warmer parts with more fishing opportunities. Suddenly I started hearing some strange voices and the earth started quivering. 'This must be the ice breaking from the island', my father said anxiously. But the sound started becoming louder and louder. Suddenly, we all realised that it was not the ice, the massive structure from the sky was coming near to the island. 'Others have come, run for your life', Piago shouted and started running away. Suddenly the panick rose into the tribe and everybody was horrorstruck. Everybody started running to the shore. 'Run and swim down to the other island.', my father cried to all the tribe members and jumped into the ocean. my mother and little brother followed him as did the rest of the tribe members. Suddenly I was the only one left of the shore. 'Why should I go? This is our land. Why should we run?', I thought to myself. I remembered my fathers words, 'This world is more hostile than we imagined', a wave of shock reached me. Suddenly I turned back to see the bird like structure from the sky landed on the island, and then for the first time I sa them, OTHERS. They came from within the huge structures with many things on their hands. There were many flashes of lights on hands and faces of many of them. They seemed to be from some other planets. They were scary but not hostile for sure. On one side, I saw all my tribe members and family running for their life and I saw the strange creatures standing on the island. I remembered my last talk with my father. He said, 'When you face dilemma in your life just listen what your heart tells you. Dont bother to reason or doubt your decisions later.' I started approaching towards the OTHERS. One of them saw me and cried with happyness. The other creature threw the dart from something towards me. Within the two seconds of the dart approaching me, I realized that I took wrong decision, but this time I was not going to doubt my decisions. After all life is all about uncertain and random possibilities. The dart struck me right into the neck and my visiblity started blurring. Before I felt unconscious, all I heard was hostile creature telling to the happy creature, 'Jimmy, At last we found Penguins on Antartica!!!!!'
[Writer got the inspiration from the movie HAPPY FEET.]

Mirror

Akshay was seeing him after two days but it seemed like months. He felt slighly overwhelmed. "Where did you went, bud?",Akshay asked him relentlessly. "I wanted to ask you so many things", Akshay hated his own helplessness. 'Why do I need him actually, is it like I am not able to take decisions for my own?', he thought to himself. "I am always there for you but you should have called me before", bud answered with a crocked smile. "I was busy with my college works you know and I am also not feeling well these days, all time headache following me.", Akshay started vomiting all the complications of his life in front of his friend. "You really think of me as some stress relieving associate of yours, don't you?", bud was in no mood to take matters seriously. "Yeah you are my best friend and you know that", Akshay defended his own side. "But we defer in most of our opinions", bud was not the one to give up easily. "Yes but what is the point of friendship without quarrels and disputes?", Akshay started developing some emotional background to win the argument. "Ok, leave it. tell me your problems and best remedies will be yours." "I had kind of observations about the people around me. They have started acting bit oddly. May be they feel like I am somehow hexed and give me looks. That day that Sunil gave me some strange looks like he was analyzing me. I asked him whats the matter? and you know he was so terrified by me when I pointed you towards him. Do you remember that incident?", Akshay spoke as if he had prepared this testimony long before and was eager to split it out. "Oh that thing, why do you mind such small things. We have so many other things to talk about", bud now looked quite irritated. "No, really I had a feeling like Mohit also doesn't like you", Akshay said slowly but he noticed temper rising on bud's face. "Screw that Mohit", Bud said it loudly. "Don't say that, he is my best friend", akshay argued. "Even before me?", Bud was the one using the emotional weapon now. "Definately not, you are my first best friend but he will be the second", Akshay smiled at him convincingly. "Where did you went last night?", Bud asked him trying to distract the flow of topics which they usually followed which in turn used to get converted into quite a lot like quarrel. "I told you that from past two weeks I have been the permanent residence of headaches, I went with mom to hospital." "What happened there?", bud asked alarmingly, a slight tinge of fear in his eyes. "Don't worry, they just gave me some medicines and that's it." "and that's it?" "Yah, I had a good chat with the Doctor, he was very friendly. He asked me about my college and friends." "Did you talk about me?", there was urgency in bud voice. "Yes I just told your name that's it.", Akshay continued, "but mom looked quite worried after we left hospital. Later she even talked with Mohit." "Why would she talk with Mohit?",bud was feeling quite offended by that fact. "May be about that scholarship document. I don't remember much of it. I was feeling very sleepy. And don't be so jealous she will also talk with you someday." Akshay reasurred him. "No, she won't. May be she doen't like me.", bud said nervously. "Why do you say so? You are my best friend, I like talking to you and see I still am not feeling the headache. Oh..by the way I had to take my pill. Wait a minute.", Akshay went in the kitchen to get a glass of water. When he came back in the room, he found it empty. 'where did bud went? He always goes without telling me. He is quite as strange as people think of me.', Akshay thought smilingly. Suddenly he started feeling the pain in his head exploding out of his skull. He went immediately and ate the pill. Slowly he started feeling dizzy. I sat on the bed and his eyes meet with the envelop kept on the top of the cupboard with a piece of paper dangling out of it. 'What is it?', he thought, 'Leave it, I will see it later.' He threw him into the darkness of sleep.
The envelop on the cupboard read, ' Hospital of Psychology and mental disorder' and on the paper it was written, 'The patient is suffering from the mental disorder called split personality. Intensive care recommended'.....

The bigger Picture

Sometimes you face many problem in life, you manage the situation somehow and when finally you settle them out some friend exclaims, "On the bigger picture, you did well." How are you then supposed to respond him? This bigger picture replicates the exact opposite of what happened then. We did engineering in which we enjoyed literally each and every day but now when we see back, what we think, On the bigger picture, we did nothing!! The problem with this bigger picture comes when we prioritize the incidences according to our perception. If you want to take out good from anything then it is more difficult than taking bad things out, thats why somewhere I have read that there are many words in the English language that describes sorrow, pain, depression and hopelessness than the feelings of being happy, ecstatic or hopeful.
The bigger picture is always different.....one last example for this bigger picture trick. When you go through this blog, you will find it quite ok but on the bigger picture its just rubbish talk...what do you say??

Faith

'How could he do this to me?', standing in front of the notice board, Ankit imagined his fraudulent friend lieing him earlier. 'I trusted him so bad, that I forgot even to doubt that he would ever take such a decision', he thought to himself. On the notice board, a notice regarding the failure of a student was pinned. It was two days ago when it all happened. The final exams were over and the annual submissions were being conducted. In the celebration of the end of exam, Ankit didn't prepared for the labs. On the day of exam rumours started galloping the hostel environment that the external examiner is very strict and always failed atleast one student in the final exam. Shivered by the thought of failure, Ankit remembered the only person he could ask for help without hesitance. When he entered Yogesh's room, all he could see is the mess all around and at the top of the pile of mess, a boy was sitting comfirtably reading or rather enjoying the book. 'How the hell are you reading for exam, today?', Ankit asked him bewildered. "Don't you know tomorrow is the toughest lab?", Yogesh asked calmly. "Yeah, I know it now. I am totally lost. Please help me to understand the programms."
The next day, both entered the exam hall together, satisfied by their last night work. The examiner distributed the sheets to students and the starting bell rang. Ankit opened the sheet confidently to start writing. But shell shocked was he when he read the title of the experiment. "How the hell could this happened? Why did I left the single experiment and got the same?", he murmured in disbelief. Frustrated by his own luck, his eyes started searching for the solution and as usual the only thing that came to his mind was Yogesh!! He found him sitting on the corner of the next table. Desperate to get rid of the problem, he signalled Yogesh, but poor were his efforts. The examiner was sitting there and could not be fooled. Exasparated, Ankit started thinking of the solution. When the examiner went outside to freshen up, Ankit stood up from his place and ran to Yogesh. "You got which experiment?", Ankit struggled with his breath. "The same as you", Yogesh replied calmly. "Just tell me whta to write?", Ankit begged helplessly. Suddenly he heard the voice of the footsteps of examiner coming close. Without thinking for a second, Yogesh took his answer-sheet and gave it to Ankit and took his. Ankit came back to the place in time. But the examiner sensed the movement in the room. Angrily he announced that no two programs should match or he will fail both of the students. Yogesh saw the fear in Ankit's eyes and returned him reassuring smile.
'He must have given me the wrong answers', Ankit thought to himself as he started going away from the notice board. 'Hey Ankit, did you know what happened with Yogesh?', a friend from the class came besides him tapping his shoulder. "No, what happened?", confused, Ankit asked. " He got failed in the last lab exam. He couldn't write the program, it was so simple. This will badly affect his annual score", the boy said and went away. Suddenly, Ankit felt everything around him slowing down. The picture was getting clear. After Yogesh gave Ankit his answer, he had no choice but not to write the correct program again otherwise it would have matched with the other one. So deliberately he wrote the wrong answer and got failed.
Ankit failed a guilt rising up in his throat. 'Why did he do this? How could he care so much about me? And here I am doubting the very act of his sacrifice. I was expecting so much from him, but would I ever do such thing to help him.' He knew the answer. A drop a tear came out of his eyelash, but he didn't wipe it because it was for the true sacrifice which he never deserved. Smiling he thought, 'And I was the one talking about the faith.....'
[Note: All the characters and situations are purely fictitious]

LIVEing Sonu

There are few moments of your life you never thought would be the most exciting one. I have heard most of Sonu Nigaam's songs on my music phone. They always struck a chord in my heart, every song triggers different emotions in your mind. For normal listners like me, we always visualises the video in which Shah Rukh or Salman romances with heroine. Later the imagination replaces Shah Rukh by yourself. (For some people, heroine may also get replaced!!) But we never think of the real voice who created the melody. Ok, we are quite deviating from the topic. I am not here to represent singer fraternity and injustice about their creditabilities kind of stuff. When I got to know that I would attend sonu's live concert, I was excited. But one can not experience that enthusiasm without previously attending something like that. Being novice, I didn't get the goose bumps, which I surely would get if now I get the chance to attend one.
One thing that is common among great people or rather performers is that they keep the audience awaiting. Being late due to traffic shoukd not happen with every performer. May be they have certain planning to psychologically manipulate the audience by hanging them desperately to wait for the performance. But after a long wait when he entered on stage, waiting period felt like seconds. Being a music lover, i tell you when you listen to your favourite singer live, it is litterally uncomparable with the recorded songs. I wrote so much of generalised statements. Let us be Sonu specific. even though it was my first concert, I am sure no one could inetract with audience so easily as he did. He entered on thestage with such a confidence that he knew he will rule the stage. He involved the audience in every song. I will keep taking about his non singing things, because commenting on his singing will surely insult him and I am big sinner already.
His versatility whether it be the song selection or genre is fantaastic. He modulates voice so easily that even high configured sound systems will sweat. At one point, he sang an english song immediately followed by opera song. At the moment I thought all we could do is to clap helplessly. the divinity of his voice gives us the traquility of mind even in the crowdy mob. Before sonu came, we heard the songs from another singer, we danced and enjoyed the songs. But when sonu started singing, we were busy flooding our ears with the melody.
Long LIVE Sonu Nigaam!!!

He

Today, I would like to introduce you to someone. He, ya...he does not have a name but he is there in each friends group. This specific He has got some characteristics. Once upon a time, His only world used to be His friends. But as the girl encroaches in His life He undergoes a massive metamorphism. The people He usually used to hang out with suddenly starts to annoy Him. Irritation starts surrounding Him. He starts moving away from the friends. This is as simple as the laws of common physics. If he is moving towards someone, then probably he must move away from someone. The small creature-some guilt muddles inside His heart. But He has more important things to focus on. So, he ignores the guilt as easily as he ignores his friends. His friends become very uncomfortable with His behavioural modifications.

One day as he joins the friends in the discussion, suddenly He feels out of the circle. He feels panic rising up in his head. He try to open his concerns to the girl. But she takes that whole thing as lightly as never before. Suddenly a thought occurs to him, thunderstrucked, he realises that He exchanged role with her. He have become a cry baby.

To overcome this feeling, He decides to spend some manly hours with His friends. But He overhears His friends talking about him, rather making fun of Him. Now He hates her and hates His friends. Then comes one of His beloved friends. He opens His heart to the friend and asks where did I go wrong? The friend draws the hyperbola on the paper and says "You are the focus. One branch is She and other is your Friends." Bewildered, he asks, "What am I suppose to do with this?". Friend replies calmly, "You need to bend it into the circle." He thinks and suddenly realises the meaning of the statement. His friend wanted Him to make the balance of both, giving each of them sufficient time. He praises his friend for the advice and thanks him for being his relationship guru. But the only thing that the friend wanted to say was to let him meet his girlfriend and have a chance with her...

( The writer has many such HEs in his friends group, but none of them had understood the real meaning of the advice yet.......)

Some day you wake up in the morning and nothing seems to be in the right order. You can not remember the immediate last day or the day before it. You shook your head in dismay but that just gives you the pain in the neck. Then you think of the place, where am I? But most likely you recognize that it is the same room where you get up everyday. You look at the clock, you are quite late. Its nearly noon. You sigh because yesterday you promised to win over the clock. Being loser, you go to the basin. You see a boy, unshaved, hairs all messed up. You hate the the guy as he hates you back. You wash your face. Slowly you start to remember things as if the pieces are falling in the puzzle and suddenly it completes. But that does not make you happy. You feel a burden deep inside your chest. You don't know the reason but you do not care either. You see the same flower from the window which fascinated you once. But now you just hate it because you are tired of seeing it daily. You can not do anything but to wait for new flower to blossom. You pity your helplessness. Suddenly a thought occupies your mind, what if no more flowers blossom? You shiver in fear. You blame yourself for not being attentive towards the growth of the tree.

The Sun moves from east to west. You try to diversify your thoughts by watching TV, reading books. But whenever you cross the window, the flower just appears as a thorn. The darkness spreads all over the place. You start the tubelight. But all you could see out of the window is the blackness. You try real hard to visualise the silhoutte of the flower in the dark but after some time your eyes starts etching. You leave the window. You move inside the sheets on the bed. Your thoughts keep moving from one place to another as yours eyes follows the blades of the fan on your head. Suddenly, you feel dizzy. You are not sure that it is because of your thoughts or the fan. The hands of the clock now moves slowly. You feel as if you are dragging the hands by your gaze. You feel exhausted. Slowly, you fall into sleep.

The room is full of sunlight. The clock on the wall hits the 12 and a neck moves inside the sheets....

Rajneeti

The film on Indian Politics, the bloody and cunning games for winning the power, the powerful and ballastic star cast and most importantly A Prakash Zha movie....all this is quite sufficient for the normal audience to walk down the theatre to watch Rajneeti. The Prakash Zha's earlier movies like Gangajal were really good pieces of work and so the expectations from the director was increased two folds as he was reappearing after quite a long gap.

But Rajneeti was not matching this burden of expectation. The weak point was the story especially in the second half of the movie where the murders were happening as frequently as the songs in typical old Govinda movies. The story line was significantly matching to the Mahabharata and Godfather. The resemblence of the characters to those in the Mahabharata was quite ok but as the story advanced, the writer was quite compulsive about the way in which story should advance. The resemblence of Suraj's (Ajay Devgn) car crashing down the road and then he begging Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) to let him go....Samar's dilemma and Brijmohan's (Nana Patekar) persuation were copied scene to scene from Mahabharata, though that was not necessary. This made the whole storyline predictable.

As far as acting is considered, Manoj Wajpayee was fabulous. He portrayed the exact image of Duryodhana, cunning and evil. And so was Ajay Devgn. Though we all know that Ajay is Prakash Zha's all time favourite, he really performed well the character of Karna. Nothing to say about Nana. The poor actors were Arjun, delivering quite overacting aggression. Katrina is looking too beautiful as usual, but if acting is considered, way to go buddy!!!!! Ranbir was ok but not that good as he was supposed to be, though his character is so leading in the story that his acting looks quite sufficient.

The background music, mora piya by Adesh Shrivastava were really good. But again, the dialogues were quite weird. Sometimes the dialogues consisted of very ancient hindi words like sangram, dheya showing the relation of the script with the epic whereas the next line in the dialogue would be something like com'n do it...

So, overall rajneeti is one time see but never again!!!!!

Remotely India's Idol

I remember the days five years back when the first season of Indian Idol was launched. It was before the avalanche of reality shows struck the television industry. Everybody was very excited and impressive to see the new format of talent hunt in which the people from normal background were directly thrown into the limelight of popularity. The high profile judges like Sonu Nigam and Anu Malik from the industry, along with Farah Khan (remotely related to singing) where given the job to search for the voice of the nation. Abhijeet Sawant was the winner. Even he deserved the victory and everybody especially the young generation was quite attached to Indian Idol seeing the fact that Indian Idol can provide them the platform to showcase their talent in better way and in faster means. Next year came with lots of reality singer hunts like fame gurukul and others. Suddenly, one day I came to know that a boy from Rajasthan became the second indian idol. I couldn't follow the second season of the show n the crowd of so many others.

The only thing that was popular later about Indian Idol was their auditions as it consists of good singers as well as the really bad one's. The advrtising people always portrayed the auditions keeping the bad singers on front as if it were the comedy show. Now as I write this post, the fifth season of Indian Idol is going on with two new legends in music industry along with the one and only Anu Malik. But as I followed the show, I realised that rather than singing many other aspects which can provide good TRP values were focused adamantly. The audition episodes mostly consists of the non singing fellas whose primary motive was to go in the audition and do something weird so that their footage will definately be aired. And what's wrong in their thinking? They were publicized quite regularly. On the contrary, the good singers who did serious singign in the auditions were not at all filmed because the advertising team knew that they possess low TRP values. Also, the Abhijeet Sawant, the first Indian Idol, was just co anchoring the show. What should the aspirants now think?eIs this what I havew to do after becoming an Indian Idol? Anchoring? I am not saying, like Abhijeet Sawant is bad singer or anything like that still it portrays different meanings.

The quality singers are absent on Indian Idol stage and they use different stratagies to uplift the TRP, for instant, the fake battles between the judges, Anu Malik being constantly one of the opponent. I just like to say that public is smart, stop fooling them by making such stunts. If you are showing the singer hunt, show us some serious singing. Otherwise the next Indian Idol will remotely be India's Idol.

Cricket Culture Changing Drastically

Three years ago, when IPL was just launched, as everybody said it was a perfect blend of entertainment and cricket, initially, it was proved to be quite right, but as 2nd and 3rd seasons came up, the feeling occupied my mind slowly and gradually that something is going really wrong.

Let the entertainment be the part of the show, not the heart. When I was watching the finale, this doubt of mine was confirmed as rock. There was less of cricket and more of advertising, cheerleading and other non-cricketory stuff, for instant, the cameramen were quite busy in searching the celebrity personnels present in the crowds. After each good or bad shot, the focus was to grab the reaction of the respective owner than the players themselves. At one point, it felt to me as if I am watching the match in breaks between advertisements. There was a streamline of thinking in which people opposed the whole concept of IPL as Owners buying the players, buying their talents making them like the puppets. I do not completely agree with this mindset, because in the goblisation and privatization we can not think in this way. But I really felt sorry for the players as their dresses are nothing but the advertising notice board. Everywhere there was a logo of this or that endorsements. One of my friends rehetorically said, "after so much crowding on the T-shirt, why have they kept the plants plain?", "Wait, you'll see that in the next IPL", I sighed.

What was the basic idea of introducing IPL? Wasn't that to enhance the cricketing skills of our players and keep them in good form? But the recent world cup super 8 match against australia didn't show any of that? BCCI really needs some self talk otherwise I guess this deterioration would acclerate in season 4.

Best luck team India