Shane Warne bids adieu

Its true after all. Its gonna happen. The conjecture turned out to be correct. In Sydney early next year, the greatest leg spinner that ever played this beautiful game is going to walk into the sunset, once and for all. At first, the news refuses to sink in. What? Shane Keith Warne? Retire? Why for all you know, he could have gone on and on for ages. Hell he survived major operations on his spinning finger and his bowling shoulder, he survived 1 year in the wilderness after being banned for consuming a diuretic, he survived the endless media glare on his topsy-turvy private life. For a man who achieved yet another peak at the age of 36 (40 wickets in the last Ashes), you can be forgiven for thinking that he wouldn't have let Father Time bother him too much.
Its not that there weren't other great bowlers in his time. There were great fast bowlers. Wasim Akram, Curtley Ambrose, Glenn McGrath, Waqar Younis, Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock. And then, there are his fellow spinners, Mutthiah Muralitharan and Anil Kumble. But its Warne who towers above them all. For Warne was much more than a classic leg-spin bowler. For 15 years, he showcased his art for the benefit of us all. And we watched spellbound.
But now the time has come to bid goodbye. Rise one. Rise all. Lets salute the second best cricketer that Australia has ever produced. There'll never be another approach to the crease as pregnant with possibilities. You'll never hear the fizz the ball made when it left his fingers. There'll never be a better Ball of the Century. (both right hander's as well as left handers's). Take a bow, Mike Gatting and Andrew Strauss. You helped create history. And take a bow, Shane Keith Warne. For there'll never be another like you. Never ever.

Dalit Protests

Picture an American in a Merc driving on the Eastern Express Highway in Mumbai. As the car approached Kurla, a mob emerges from nowhere and starts raining stones on his car. too shocked to react initally, the guy abandons the Merc and runs for dear life.
Welcome to 21st century India. Now you all know how much we love our rich cultural past. So much that we choose to lapse into it periodically and behave like deranged mediaeval thugs. What impression that Yankee must have got of India! You can get stoned to death on one of the busiest roads of the country's largest city in broad daylight, all for no fault of yours!!! And why, one may ask? Because a statue of a leader who died 50 years ago was desecrated in a city 1200 km from Mumbai. The entire city is brought to a standstill. Instead of fighting fire with fire, our Chief Minister (God what have we done to deserve him!) expresses anguish and bemoans the fact that "Kanpur ki sazaa Mumbai ko mili." And you bloody can't do anything but gnash your teeth in anger at the impetuosity of the rioters and the astonishingly brazen incompetence of the politician.
But wait a minute, what have we done to deserve such louts? Does the middle-class office clerk who slogs his ass out for a piffling Rs 7,500 and braves the horror some call the commute every day deserve it? Does the housewife who bargains for everything and anything while shopping so that she can save a penny for her family deserve it? Do I, and millions of students like me who have earned a degree through sweat and toil deserve it? Have we lived anonymous but honest, insignificant but upright lives to suffer at the hands of these goons?
Today in India, the situation is hopeless. The upper class doesn't care and doesnt bother and is too, well, upper to be affected by such dramas. The lower classes have become extremely politically empowered, especially after Mandal, and are now too important a vote bank for politicians to ignore. They shamelessly demonstrate their empowerment through such shenanigans every now and then. The middle class is caught in between with nowhere to go.