Hayden's Remarks Is it IPL?

I have been comin back to the influence of IPL in each of the actions I see in the cricket field now. And with the recent comments of hayden in radio I again think oh IPL!.



My connection. Indians generally paid low money for Australians. They paid a lot for symmonds. Indicates pure marketing to me. I cannot think ponting is less important in Twenty 20 than Symmonds. But somehow symmonds gets paid much higher. May be it is pure logic. Will the player be available might have led them to it. But then why pay less for McGrath when he will be available.

It seems to be more like who will pull crowds in India. Today symmonds will pull the crowd for all his notoreity. So he is priced higher. If they could have gotten bhajji and symmonds to play together they would have done it for no cricketing reasons whatsoever.

Probably Hayden realised that he needs to be popular among Indians his new bosses. How does he get popular by bring up something that will turn their attention towards him. This is business. Indian cos wont rid of him rather pay him more to ensure he plays. Afterall isnt it great to see them serve the interests of the same people whom they faulted in the first place.

Slowly money is going to drive cricket world crazy towards India the same way success drove cricket world crazy towards Australia. Either you praise them and be friends or make it a point to take it across them to establish popularity. If Saurav/Smith are on one side of the equation with Australia, Laxman is on the other side. Yet all of them are popular for those very reasons.

Same way Lee tries to find his popularity by befriending and playing against the Indians while symmonds and hayden try to play with words and raise their notoreity. There is some strategic alignment going on and all the people in the world are showing their readiness to fall down.

The Invisible Brahmin

Well I might seem casteist. And Iam probably. I beleive in all the concepts enshrined in Hinduism, the Manu Nidhi including. I beleive some statements that led to untouchability are misinterpreted by the society but I beleive the brahmin is a supremely gifted child in god's creation.

We have seen in Tamil Nadu that many stalwarts in many disciplines are from the Upper Caste Brahmins. Bharathiyar the greatest poet, Kamal, Jayalalitha, Vaali, Cho, Dr.S.Radhakrishnan, Rajaji, Great dancers, musicians, CV Raman, Ramanujam, Chandrasekhar, kasturi Rangan , the family of Subramanya Iyer, TVS Group, Hindu it seems like brahmins influence in Art, Science, Economics, Literature, Politics, Industry are all to evident. I listed down names just so to ring some bells. Not that there arent people from other castes who havent contributed equally. The point Iam making here is the brahmin has been an all too important fabric of the Tamil Society as we know it. He has helped shape the thoughts of this people and there have been many visionaries, industrialists and stalwarts. The contribution of the brahmin to the society can never be ignored.

But some how in today's generation you see very little brahminical names. Is it that the contribution to the society has suddenly fallen down. Is is that the brahmins have suddenly become less gifted, less vibrant. Or is it that they have become less involved. I see a systematic reduction in the spheres of influence.

The reasons:
1. The rise of the dravidian movement. This has been based on strong ethos of anti brahminism and has systematically tried to reduce their involvement in the society. It is like the nazi fascism, well ofcourse this is based more on damn the superior race than the other way around. It is more like a fascist-communism. Based on a race, but seeking to systematically downgrade the ones in the upper echelons of the economic and social ladder.
2. The lack of jobs in the 80's. The lack of opportunities and the lack of jobs in India led to the brahmins probably becoming the first of the ones to be brain drained by abroad. Well it is funny I mention it while working in US myself, but in the mid 80's it was more the race to settle down in US or UK permanently than to earn some forex reserves.

Well with a loss of value in the society and the loss of opportunities the affluent and vibrant brahmin slowly migrated out and became less and less involved in TN to be of any significant influence either as a vote bank or in a social radar.

But these reasons have not completely damned the brahmin as much as what he/she himself has done. The brahmin has slowly accepted the transformation. He/she has become less prone to identify themself as a brahmin. While the brahmin has always had a thinking mind, has been vibrant thinkers to accept different ideologies, they have allowed their ideologies to erode.

We have slowly started hiding our beleifs, slowly started showing up ourselves as an all encompassing accomodative personalities than as an exclusive community. We have destroyed our own identities of the past. We have disowned our beleifs and practices. We have allowed a systematic erosion of our ego. We have migrated from colonies of brahmins to more accomodative housing structures, lest we start living in the samathuvapurams. Today most brahmins are afraid to carry on their symbols, afraid to show themselves up as one.

Slowly the society which respected the brahmin for both his integrity and his values have turned their backs on him and the respect has been lost. Once we lose respect for our culture we cannot expect anyone else to respect us. And this is what has happened in our society today.

While some people are smiling at their success in eroding our strengths, the society and the brahmins would do well to remember that the brahmin's contribution is vital in this society and the erosion of this community will only lead to further erosion of the tamil culture and its society.

Security or IPL?

After all talks of integrity spirit of cricket etc., recently Australian players are in the news again trying the maximum to avoid touring Pak. Normally it would make sense and with a opposition party leader assasinated so easily, anyone would be concerned about security. But in this case now it seems more like australian players wanting to participate in IPL by foregoing the Pakistan tour.

Somehow no one really mentions that. Neither Pak,nor CA, nor Austrlian players. It seems to be internally felt by everyone but not spelt out. Lalit Modi is all too powerful today. But I guess this franchising concept wouldnt really fly off in cricket atleast in India. We dont care about how our players perform if they do not play for India. Unless it is Sachin whose cricket we follow to even the smallest of first class torunaments, the rest are unimportant to the ardent Indian fan and the IPL might realise this as it flags off and that would probably be an end to people like Lalit Modi.

But by the time this IPL fails we will get to see a lot of people bending backwards changing allegiance, loss of faces, loss of integrity and some big loss of money. Some constant source of news for the newsmen and some fun for all involved.