#wontgiveitback

I am not feeling well today and down with viral fever. After watching the team India's performance in the quarter finals. I am feeling good now and yes I had my visit to doctor as well. It really been the miraculous turn-a-round for the team who struggled to win a single match in Australia before World Cup began. The bowlers were at the receiving end and batters were also through a real bad form.

Everyone in the world knows our batsmen are best in the world. Its the bowling which was the concern. Even when the hightest wicket taker in 2014 was an Indian i.e. Mohammad Shami every one else was struggling around him. Bhuvaneshwar kumar was struggling to keep his fitness and take the wickets. There as big dark cloud on the ability of Ashwin to take wickets in the middle overs. Nothing was going right for team India.

There not so bad but not so good either performance down under casted some shadow on there ability to perform on the bouncy pitches and there's their performance in the Triangular series before world cup. No one was counting India for Semi's as format already made sure that they would be in the Quarters.

But and there's this BIG BUT. They have surprised us by entering in the Semi's without loosing a match. If anyone had told you that India will not loose a single match you might have laughed at him but Team Blue has done it. We are in semi finals and looking as a serious contenders.

Last world cup I wrote 5-6 blogs as I had lot of time and passion for it. Now it has gone bit down but not over yet so here i am. I had lots of bets with my friends in the office and its lot of fun to have them. If you had asked me at the start whether 'Will I bet my money on India?' my answer would have been in the negative but now everything has changed. Team India has show what can happen if you perform as a unit. Its that self belief and little bit of luck has made this team formidable.

I have always consider our bowling as good if not threatening. We don't have those fears and dangerous looking fast bowler who would intimidate the opponents but they are effective. Our batting is always been good but they have again reiterated that they are not just good but best in the world. To my surprise our fielding has come real good. They are stopping and catching almost everything. It think even Australia is now weary of team India, they have started their mind game. We need to focus for 2 matches and bring the cup back.

Best of luck Team India..#wewontgiveitback

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Mahalocha in Maharashtra

Its always been the dilemma for me whenever I started to write something. To be more precise I have always been extra conscious about writing the politics in my blogs. As the people we are we are very political, its the beauty of India where we always have something to say and politics is that forum. Even though we all don't actively take part in it but surely have the opinions.

The recent election in Maharashtra is been the biggest gabled played by every political parties. This was the first time where there were more than 5 political parties who were trying there luck. It was really fascinating to see the debates and ever changing scenarios in all the political parties. It was very touch and go election where no one opened there cards every one was waiting for the last minute.

At the last moment the two main groups Cong-NCP and SS-BJP got split. They had there own explanation but the confusion go over and every one had whole of Maharashtra state to win. There were on seat sharing, no exchange of the seats. The logic was simple "Just get 144".

souce: http://www.elections.in/maharashtra/

I am not going to go into all the politics that happened afterwards. Specially the add campaign by the BJP which I really thought was in very bad taste. "Where have you taken my Maharashtra" campaign got to far and was ridiculed on the social media. Everyone in Maharashtra knew where it is but Probably BJP got so blurred by the Gujarat model that they forgot where it is. I thought promotion Gujarat model was great in other states but Maharashtra has its own model and way ahead of other states. Gujarat has lot of catching up to do. There was lot of negativity there and probably it must have costed some seat or clear majority to BJP.

Finally SS mends its ways and came in the folds of BJP Government and what looked like a sensible move. As there supporters patience running thin, it was matter of time when time ran out for the call for sitting outside which by the way they did tried.

Now whats in store is the major question. After 15 years of Cong-NCP rule we have new government at the state same as the center. Everyone is hoping for better co-ordination between them and Fadanvis looks a practical person so its time we give this new government the much deserve time before starting criticizing them.

As far as I see, I don't think this government will last its full tenure as there is clear split between the two coalition parties at the vidhan bhavan in Mumbai. They are on collision course which is good news for the opposition, they know what it is. To be partners in the government and work against each others on the grounds. There is a clear cut Modi Wave which will benefit BJP in short term but in long run if they don't do what they have promised. This surge of BJP in India will be short lived.

We hope this goverment will serve in the best interest of the people in Maharashtra but with all these combination of the numbers and views controrary to each other it looks like a big locha...or rather..mahalocha...:)

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India restless...waiting for 'Achhe Din'

Its look like everything the PM Modi said in his spirited campaign in the 2014 General election come down to 10th of July. This is very important day for me specially but will be for everyone in India. This is probably the most anticipated and keenly watched Union Budget in recent times. This is not only watched by the Indian's but world as well.

As India is beco and also the one that has raised a lot of hopes. In fact, the maiden budget of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, due to be presented on July 10, can also determine the economic trends in the time to come.

After Modi-led BJP clinched absolute majority in the Lok Sabha post a highly charged pan-India campaign that helped identify local needs and aspirations, people are now looking forward to the first Union Budget of the new government with a lot of enthusiasm.

Narendra modi wore lots of hats in the past and is a vivid fan of the hats. The cap of the prime minister of India is going to be a difficult one. One which demands many things from him and I hope he will deliver on this. From the first few days it looks like he is a no non-sense person but what kind of legacy he will leave will only time will tell.

This blog was written quite a while back but had to complete it as he is the most controversial and talked about figure in India. I myself never been a big fan of Narendra Modi but then he is now the prime minister of india. In a democracy like india where no state is same in the same state there are people who would not understand the language. This diversity will be the key challenge for him to take the all kind of the people together and take the whole of india forward.

Whenever I saw MMS, I saw a helpless man but for the change we have now the different perspactive on the PM position. Lets hope he will bring the 'Achhe din' as he has promised to us all. I am an optimist and practical person. I see surely doing a great job if he stay away from hard-line communal line. He looks like doing lot of talking but India need progress and rightful place in the world. We always been the number 1 country in the world for major part of the history of the human civilizations.

As always I will end in positive note and hope that Achhe din will come and remain there for future.

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Masterchef England - Time to cook the Captain Cook

"Thank god that final the misery for Team India is over. Mahendrasingh Dhoni must be having an awkward feeling where he was on the moon for after World cup and IPL championship wins. He was immediately dragged on to the ground and into the dust. As Sixty per cent of his team back to the home country, he must be very eager to see his new home in Ranchi. In this blog there are references of the today which are happened in the past, but pardon me for that as this blog is in the making for last 1 month. I have almost finished it but did not publish it so…

It was really good for me to be busy this week as I did not get the chance to watch the TV. Like me there were not many so fortunate and had to watch it. It’s really been the heartbreak to all Team India fans as there team performed miserably on the field. This was really the shocker of the performance as Team India did not looked like number 1 ranked team in the world. Even though there were good performances, they were never consistent. Is this really the end of the domination or is there another story to it.

 I got the chance to watch it for full day and India has scored 300 score after 7-8 test matches. It’s good to see that with little bit of fight from the Wall and the tail, it reminded me the old Indian teams in the past. Whenever they visited the foreign soils, this is what India always performed there. I have seen great India collapsing in the past but somehow I or we forgot that. Once upon time India were called Tigers at home and hapless visitors, so now you know why that was."

You might have go confused about what was all that about. Have I gone mad? or Am I forecasting the results of the England tour? All of you are wrong, above there paragraphs are form the blog which I did not publish. That blog was about the India's cricket teams performance after last tour of England.

Captain cook under pressure

As everyone I had lots of hope with the team India last time, as it was the number 1 team in the world. Everything was going for team India as that time. Probably it was the twilight period for our greats but surely wasn't the end of it. They had some batteries reserved, we had exciting new talent in the bench but as per murphy's law 'Whatever needs to go wrong will go wrong'. Thats what happened all the players collectively got out of the form except 'The Wall'. Looked like everyone is getting injured with half of the team nursing injuries.

This England series going to be different this time as unlike previous series where our team looked exhausted, this team looks fresh and oozing to do better. Unlike last time Team England is not in form, there top order looks unsettled. There body language is down after disastrous Ashes series where they were literally manhandled by Michel Johnson. They look out of sort against spirited Lankans well led by brilliant Angelo mathews.

England tour was one of the toughest tours I have seen with 4 matches(Later on Australian tours were equally disastrous). After that India hardly won out side of the country in Test matches, our team had very close calls in SA and NZ in recent past but nothing to show on paper. Both series our new middle order showed some courage and fight but in the end could not deliver the desired results.

This time around we have the batting line up which is envious to say the list. Gautam Gambhir was a good selection in these inexperience bunch. His form is surely the problem in the past but he has the experience in those condition and will surely come good for the team. Virat, Vijay, Cheteshwar, Ajikya and Dhoni, will be handful to the English bowlers but again they need to prove the world and to themselves a point to two.

Even though we have brilliant batting line up, our bowling looks inexperienced. We have superb bowlers in Bhuvi and Shami but they lack in experience in the English weather and pitches. And there's ever unreliable Ishant Sharma, who is a real conundrum for selectors. I am hoping, he does badly in 1st test match and did not play for rest of the series. This way we can play extra spinner against the Poms which is obviously an Achilles heel for them.

If Team India does well in this tour, they will surely mark there arrival on the World stage. For that they need to perform and keep fit for the 2 month long Test series. If you ask me who will win the series. My answer will be the fittest team will win the series.

Lets hope our team keeps fit and win the series in England. This remind me of my old land lord who always use to tell me about Ajit Wadekar that 'He bearded the lion in his own Dane'. May be the new punch line would be 'Doni cooked cook in his own kitchen'.

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Inner Conflict

As usual I woke up late after watching the Quarter final between Netherlands and Cost Rica which by the way ended very very late. Barring that I had excellent rest today with lots of sleep which did not get because of my new found love for football. I will be lying if I say that I am a football fan but I do like to watch that sport. Its most exhausting sport one can play and I am definitely not the person to get involved. So watching it on the TV is the only option, I guess....

You might think that this blog is about the football which will be the second part of the World cup related to blog I wrote 4 years back. I really wanted to do that but world cup is almost over and now I am not interested as such so until and unless you fans..;) insist on it(which I know they are not..:D), till that time I am going to avoid the temptation

As I said I was awake late nights to watch the football matches even though I am not a vivid football fan, show my confusion about my likes and dislikes. This happens with everyone and I am surely not alone with this thought. 

In this the mind plays a very peculiar role where it plays both the sides of an argument. On one had it tells use one thing and in the next second it gives the extremely opposite views. I always wonder why thin happens and why our thought process is not linear, which surely make our life easy or maybe not. Let’s explore this thought…so shall we..:)

Inner conflict

Also the question arises with the Inner conflict is whether having Inner conflict is right thing? I have conflicting view on this and many of you will concur with me. With the This I think some people may call it mind games but there is no way to avoid it.

May be that's the reason why human history is full of conflict? Its the inner conflict in each of the us gave away to those violent actions. I think as humans whatever we say or pretend to be, we are by nature violent. One might argue that it’s not the first nature of the humans. My counter argument to that will be ‘The positive or negative energy coming out of our inner conflicts had to channels somewhere’.  With such humongous organ called brain we have to have those thought and eventually the actual conflict.

But is that everything bad out the inner conflict and has to end in a actual conflict, may be not. As we became more civilized and domesticated, we learn to leave it it. It not the day to day life, which we have the conflict with or because of which have those inner conflict in the first place.

It is becoming more confusing a paragraph by paragraph for me also so I can guess how confusing it would be for you but we all look for answer and this is my litter effort to seek one. My first effort question was ‘What is an inner conflict?’ and second was ‘Whether having inner conflict is really bad?’

As reader of mistakenly diverted user, do you really have the answer for this? If answer is affirmative then I surely would like to hear from you. Please do write the comments so that I can take this subject forward as I have one view that I am far from over.

This is the first blog I am writing after having my beautiful daughter and I have absolutely no inner conflict that whether she will love me or not…but there are things about which we have inner conflict and lets bring those in open….

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Divided We Stand....Better

Its always been difficult at the start but when your somehow start from the top its always easy at the bottom..

easy easy guys... ;)

I am talking about writing the blog.

Absence of the 5-6 months from this blog is the one of the biggest absence. I know some of you had spent some time while reading it, so it will be my pleasure to share some of my thoughts.

One of the News Channel occupied news was Telangana. Finally Indian Government agreed to give birth to its oldest child. It’s been quite a labor for the government but finally before the elections they delivered. It was well thought of strategy from the Government as they know that there’s nothing to show on their performance card. This also means that there will be more such calls for separate state and will be a big headache to the next government.

We all have very strong views about statehood. I don’t see any issue in that, as we all are the byproduct of the states created on the basis of language, culture etc. But there is a basis question we want to ask ourselves that ‘Do we really need new states?’. I am the one with the ‘Yes’ answer. I have mentioned in the one of my blogs, Divided we stand well rather than in unity.

Anywhere when there is such attempt, there always be different views. One with the move and another against it. In country as huge as India, we surely can afford few more states. It will also will help in reducing the gap between the government and people. Local state government can reach to the people and implement the state scheme quite effectively.

It would be live going to the India. Before arrival of British, where there were hundreds of princely states India. We never thought of why there were so many states at that time. It is because we are very complex and huge and diverse country where culture, cuisine and language changes after every 50-100 kms. That’s the model we need to go back, as our ancestors managed this country to become one of the richest and powerful country in world. I think that’s the way to manage big country will big differences.

If you have reached here, we have hardly discussed the Telangana. That is because; I think there’s a wrong discussion going on this country. We are asking wrong question about ‘Why to divide the states?’ but correct question will be ‘Why Not?’. We have always fared well when we were divided so why not try now. Let not stop getting divided, we have managed it for so long and we will surely can manage the in the future.

As I have said in the past blogs, Divided we stand. I have will add a word to the end of it and say.

Divided We Stand Better!!!

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Pakistan - India's future tense..Always

In days of petty crimes getting reported on the national news channel, all the news channels have given lot of space of these important developments. We all recently celebrated our independence day or can I say, we just enjoyed a Holiday. We have really lost the true meaning of Independence day celebrations where day used to start with seeing the parade on National Television. I was never the one who will wake up early and go to school for flag hoisting so watching TV parade was my start of Independence Day. Now days, it has now become just another holiday.

As you have gone through the naughty start of the previous blog, not for this as its going to be on a serious subject. We all are consumed by the news of the continuous ceasefire violations on the LOC. This continuous firing on the border reminds me of the days a decade back. When we used to hear the news of these firing on daily basis. We used to wonder if there was a silence even for one day.

After very long peace at the LOC, guns have again started to make the noise. Again the news are getting started with LOC violation update and soldiers injuries. MMS as always is silent, BJP as always making noises. But what has happened in last few days which have contributed to this situation. I mean it was hunky dory in Indo-Pak relationship but again the LOC has become a red hot issue. I know we all want to forget this not so happy news but do we have any other way. We can change anything but not our neighbor so we got to live with this.

India and Pakistan has logger head with each other in past decade but never been so many violation on the border. Credit has to be given to both the parties. I know Pakistan is busy on its western front due to war on terror but still they have resources to keep instigating us on the east of their border. Many of us wonder why there are fight us with even know that they would never beat us in the war.

Many of us might be thinking about the Kashmir being the core issue but I think it is not. Pakistani’s don’t gain much from it as they already have the strategically important piece of land with them. Much of it they have given to china so we have forget that part too. Their actions are mostly comes from the insecurities about themselves. We have to understand that Pakistan is as divided as we are here. Every state is fighting with each other for each other. Pakistan itself is fighting with itself so I think Kashmir is just the reason to hide their insecurities.

Real reason is the division of the Pakistan, they have real bad memories of it. They have experienced it twice so it’s quite hard for them to forget it. We had helped the creation of Bangladesh and thus gave the severe wounds to them. After that event they have swore to not to stop wounding us. Whatever we do after that, we are not going to pacify them but we surely can try to handle this in better way.

One way of handling Pakistan is by becoming stronger ourselves. We can always think about the problems they face and waiting for their breakup which is not happening anytime soon. As any other country Pakistan is a diverse country with normal people like us. We cannot have a confrontational approach with them.

We need to make them comfortable about our intentions, we have to have single strategy where we speak with them in one voice. Opposition party plays an important part while carving out the strategy of handling the Pakistan. Right now both the political parties are at war with each other over different conditions and the element in Pakistan surely making use of it. We need to have a different approach with Pakistan where we have to remove their insecurities and talk with them.

I used to blame everything to Pakistan as everybody else in India but then I started to follow the news in that country after 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. It came to my notice that Pakistan people in Pakistan are no different than us. They also have the same issue like us or worse these days so we have to look bit differently. It is not the country which attacked use 2-3 in past history.

As we and Pakistan both cannot afford the war and war has never yielded the peace. I think everyone has to accept that even though with great size and resources, we are a weak country. ‘Sare jahan se achha’ is for us, now we have to prove to others too. We have to be strong internally to handle the external threats.

At the end I will say just one thing that Pakistan is a very complex issue and I am no expert on it. We have to compromise more because of our stature and stop blaming Pakistan for everything happening bad here. We have to sort out our internal issues and have bit patience approach with Pakistan but till then, our future is going to be tense for sure.

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To Tweet or not to Tweet

Social media is all about making statements and if you  are in country like India, we have many rights. We can say anything but on right forum as right time. There are so called self proclaimed vigilanty who are always looking something to hold and make news of. They have one agenda and that is to be in news and be famous. Showing to people that they are fighting for them, which also pacify there ego’s.

The columnist tweeted after the Congress announced the decision to create a new Telangana state, "Maharashtra and Mumbai??? Why not? Mumbai has always fancied itself as an independent entity, anyway. This game has countless possibilities."

Just saw the news about the Shobha dey’s above statement about the statements of the Political parties in Mumbai who made statements against her statement on Twitter (shhhh…..). It’s confusing I know but If you ask me it is just confusion and nothing more but you know me. I am going to do the postmortem..My way.

Looks like this cycle is not going to stop and news channels going to get something to fill in the evening chat show discussion slot. It all started with the tweet from shoba Dey on Mumbai. She made this statement in the context of the Telangana Separation and defended it on Non-Marathi News channel’s which obviously not based here. So what’s wrong with Shobha’s tweet or Is there anything wrong at all?

My take is this is its not correct on giving statements on something, which is as complex and as sensitive as separating Mumbai. I am supporter of the smaller states. I think Vidharbha is going to be the next state to be created. I do support that, as I think they have been neglected by the politicians from western Maharashtra and it’s their time to get exploited by their own. There is definitely merit in breaking bigger states like Maharashtra but separate Mumbai is quite different than a state.

If you ask me, 99.99% mumbaikar’s are not even interested about  making separate or not. Everyone is in hurry to make ends meet, people are worried about the roads, water, corruption and traffic. Mumbaikars are really worried about these things and nothing else. Politicians has surely made some under the belly comments but shobha de also should have been little wise in making the comments.

Sometimes it looks like she has made these comments to come on the TV and has no real substance. She very well know the culture in the Mumbai and what those comments can do here.  At least it was all peace full and fire flared on the TV only. Everyone wants to make comments about everything, that doesn’t mean they should. For me there is always a right time and right forum for these things. She should try not to instigate and flare up the troubles for already harassed mumbaikars.

But this lady has not learned her lesson and again has instigated the fire so it would be interesting to see the reaction from political parties. I fear it not going to be parliamentary words in reply but hoping that this controversy will die down and these politicians will concentrate on the real issues.

In the end I might have this question but Shobha’s has already answered the dilemma about

To Tweet or Not To Tweet.

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Life of a Pie-Chucker

Its been a turbulent time for sportsperson as whole where we got the news of relegation of Wrestling from the Olympics, testimony of Lance Armstrong accepting the dope while winning the 7 consecutive Tour de France races. In recent weeks the fixing of football matches in EPL and Valentine days news of Blade runner's shooting of his girlfriend(by mistake or otherwise).

Looks like nothing is going on right for the sports, but still there are some news which are still inspirational to all of us particularly to Indians. After all, these sport persons are also human and go through same emotional journey as we do. Some falters on there way, some overcome great odds and come out to be a champion. Yuvi is that kind of sport-person who is my favorite cricketer and this is a small reminder of 'Life of Pie-Chucker'.

As Cricket been the most favorite sport in sub-continent we are very passionate about it and were in the World cup. As you(few of you) who followed my blog, got to know about my favorite cricketers, teams and few knowledgeable words.


As freakishly my predictions came true when I suggested 9 names for man of the tournament from each country. Yovi topped the list for that coveted title of Man of the tournament.

In 2011, he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor (stage-I) in his left lung and underwent chemotherapy treatment at the Cancer Research Institute in Boston, USA as well as Medicine Facilities in Indianapolis, Indiana.In March 2012, Yuvraj was discharged from hospital after completing the third and final cycle of chemotherapy and returned to India in April.


"To me he's a champion - - once a champion will always be a champion. I was really happy that he got the Man of the Series, Man of the tournament in the World Cup and then yes, he had health problems", said Tendulkar. 

In recent month we have seen some loss of form in Yuvi, but as knowledgeable cricket lovers we know that "Form is temporary and Class is permanent". So I know Yuvi surely will bounce back and will lead the India's batting department and many more victories.

Like me there were many who thought his drop from the Test team unjustified as many of our star batsmen were going to throgh lean patch and looked like Yuvi was made a scapegoat. I could be saying that because I am a Yuvi Fan but why not. He has given us so many memorable moments, there are more  

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar on Sunday, said "He feels axing Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan for the final Test against England was only part of the solution and that some others who also deserved to be replaced, survived. "
Future

As I see and many like me, see a once in a life-time talent in the yuvraj singh and hence always feels that he should be part of the any team. He greed and determination also helped to Yuvi to start his second innings in international cricket. After his successful battle with cancer, He also has set a great example for not just fellow sports persons but all those suffering from the disease. Also he is making his bit to help to those who are going through same ordeal. 

I hope he will again be the part of the Test team as he surely deserve the place in the team, as he is best left handed batsmen in India. Its my view and I could be partial but whats your view, Let me know in your comments below. I am also looking forward to his batting in this IPL, I am a Pune warrior supporter. Only thing which I will say at last is if any body can then it could be Yuvi so...

Yuvi you are the BEST....:)

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What is Happiness???

I don't indulge in philosophical subjects as I think myself too young to do that, but then when I see myself age wise ;) I am not young as I used to be. It’s true for everyone. As "They Say, Age is just a number so.....”

One more reason could be the reactions I get from my friends. Since at least I started to write this blog in 2008. It’s not that I haven't had dare to write with these kind of subject. The one subject which I am quite confused about in the past is 'what is happiness?', I am sure everyone is.  One more reason is as it touches us in every way of life and we always aspire to be happy...here is my small effort to analyze it...:).

For me happiness is just a frame of mind, of frames of mind or can we really define it. In this complex world it really difficult to define anything, let alone the happiness. The things we strive to achieve where we think that they will give us happiness eventually don’t come out to be true so what is that make us happy.

For me Peace of mind is the happiness, I am not saying this as I have written this blog by chance but it is true. If you can stop for a second and you can see yourself. It’s quite confusing, but not very difficult to understand with such huge brain of ours..:)

I have always learned that humans are social animal that means he likes to leave in a group, so the places where a human being can find company of the others like family, friends and colleagues etc, he feel happy.

But eventually in this hectic world, we forgot that we are humans and start looking for the happiness in different things, even though it’s in its basic nature that to be with others. That’s..it, it would be the easiest way to be happy...:)

I have read somewhere that "Happiness lays neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other."  To make above statement true, we need to have clear conscience, it altogether a different subject on how one can have clear conscience but one can look at a child whose conscience is always clear and it is always happy for small things... :)

I wanted to write more about it, but it’s an unending topic and would take lot of time, may be one more for the future. Lastly I will one thing, happiness means different to every individual hence it is very subjective. So just be happy for this festival of light and enjoy my future blogs…ha ha ha..


Wish you all a very happy and prosperous Diwali!!!!!!!

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Soaking rumours is Injurious to Health - Soak No More

We are country of misled people where anything can be spread like fire in a forest. Everything from the history to economics, every correct information is manipulated to the personal gains. The blind faith of the normal citizens has been used for gain, may it religious, political or personal. It’s always been the case throughout the human history, where they were misinformed and thus manipulate them.

It’s not that I am a conspiracy persona and don’t believe in everything but I like to cross check the information which I receive before storing that into my stubborn head for future use like, writing a blog..(ha ha). But jokes apart, I always blame it to our culture, which is admired by the world, but surely has its demerits. We are not been taught to cross check and always go to our culture. In our culture we are taught to listen to our elders or so called "Wise men". They can be anyone from political leaders to someone who is friend.

I have seen many a times where people are discussing on the topics which they remotely have any idea about. It’s not that if you don't know about any topic, you should not talk about it. But the fact is we tend to spread the misinformation unknowingly. What I want to point out is, we are a country of uneducated people plus we believe in others quite easily, this is a deadly cocktail for unrest or chaos.

I would not like to touch the history as it is full of Conspiracies and misinformation but still wants to believe in those stories. I would not rather touch it this time, may be something in the future. There are conspiracy stories which I do want to remind you.

The one which first comes to mind is of 'BLACK HOLE, END OF THE WORLD' stories, where news channels played that earth sucking video again and again. I repeatedly got the calls from home town where people were really frightened. They wanted to know about the truth about it, but even then, we have this notion of end of the world in our mythologies and we tend to believe it.

Another one I remember is about the Swine flu. At that time I was in Pune, the place where all the action began. Everyone was afraid of a simple sneeze and think of every other person has it. That time also media did not help, in fact helped to fill people with fear, many left Pune because of that. These news channels only tried to sensationalize the news of number of dead people like it’s a counter and nothing can be done. I thought instead of increasing there TRP’s, they could have focused on the issue at hand i.e. Swine Flu.

And the last but not the least is ‘Ganpanti Idol drinking Milk'. It was way back 15 years, when the news spread that Ganesha idol has started to drink milk, even I also ran too see what exactly happened. The Ganesha Idol was really drinking the milk or it looked like. It was our blind faith in the god and to prove that it exists, we were drinking the misinformation.

Latest one is about the rumours about the attacks against the North East (NE) people. I mean, what’s wrong with us, why can't we stop to spread this. Now the blame is on ‘Pakistan’ but my question to government is why it took so many days to find out. Actually our government has been in this mode, don't know for how many years? Every time they don't find any answer, they blame Pakistan. Can't we do anything to stop it? Does it really take 10-15 days and thousands of North-East people to flee the cities?

My question to them would be, what are they doing about it? They need to stop spreading the misinformation and need to resolve this problem as soon as possible. This has to stop somewhere; we need to start using the logic about these things. I also know that in this age of technology, it is going to be more difficult to stop this. Probably because of that we need to stop for a minute to gauge the every data coming towards us.

For me the misinformation is just the escape route to all the problems. The day we start questioning to the things, why they happen? How they happen? Our mind will see everything quite clear and things won’t happen the way they are happening currently.

It was one chapter from my Marathi book about 'Mahatma Jotirao Phule' which changed my perspective about seeing things in practical way. Try yourself, judge by your logic while considering the today's issues and problems. In my view Mahatma Phule was way ahead of his time, because his thinking is still applicable and will always be applicable for future as well. If we follow his way of thinking of gauging the information we won’t spread it in the first place. At least we won’t be laughing stock in the world where people still feeding milk to idols.. Guys come on. 

Rumors are spread by the people who want to believe in it. 'Soak No More'..

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Dhongi Baba pvt. ltd.

India is a land of spirituality, atleast it was when I heard last time. Spirituality is embedded in us by our parent and elders. Our religion also helps us in that regard, the religion means not only Hindu but also other faiths. We are tought to be respecting elders and our spiritual gurus but this has led to marketisation of spirituality.  

Its an curious question as "Why people run behind these baba's?". One reason I see is in our religion where the path of redemption is carved using help of a Guru. This guru helps us to get the moksha, the one thing which we all Indians(includes all religion) look to find. This is very important concept in life of once.

The guru-shishya tradition is the transmission of teachings from a guru (teacher, गुरू) to a 'śiṣya' (disciple, िशष्य). In this relationship, subtle and advanced knowledge is conveyed and received through the student's respect, commitment, devotion and obedience. The student eventually masters the knowledge that the guru embodies.

Now one will argue that whats the problem with this tradition. To be frank I absolutely no problem with this tradition but if someone is using it is for personal gain then it is not acceptable. Not from the people who are in troubled and tired of there hardships.

One more important thing, as long as I know gods reincarnated (Hindu belief) to be human to teach his or her values but these people declaring themselves as god is act of insanity. If someone is saying that he is god then it is the height of foolishness. These are quite strong words but the act of following them blindly is so childish that these words also pale in front of these acts.

After arguing so much the question arises, Do I believe in gurus? Answer to it is' YES'. For me there are two main gurus, the first guru is our parent and second are our teacher. In my previous blog on Ganeshotsav where even lord Ganesha has shown the importance of our parents. In everyday life, we meet people from them we learn lot of things they are also our guru's in that sense. But if you want to call real guru's then there are only parents and teachers(in my view).

Coincidentally the 'Gurupaurnima' happened few days back. My batch-mates had some gift planned for school where we enjoyed our childhood and also learned few things(:D). In reality we cannot payback what teachers has given us but that was the least we can do. What we can do is remember the teachings of our gurus and implement that in our real life to do some good for others.

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1949 Ambedkar cartoon controversy..not the last one

Babasaheb Ambedkar is one of the most fascinating figures in Indian politics. In layman's terms, if Gandhi is the father of the nation, Ambedkar is father of the Indian Constitution. Both have a legendary status which inspires extreme views. Any critique of them is seen as grave misconduct and evokes furor in the society. Similarly, a 1949 cartoon of Ambedkar and the Constitution in a NCERT textbook has prompted a protest in Parliament and an immediate withdrawal of the cartoon.

Two advisers to the NCERT resigned arguing that the cartoon as a text was not read within the entirety of the context. Two immaculate professionals were abandoned by the education minister in another knee-jerk display of populist politics. The event needs to be analyzed in detail.

First, as records go, neither Ambedkar nor Nehru had any objection to the cartoon. Why would they? They both were educated people and knew the idea about cartoon. They knew that they were politician and this caricature or representation the current situation was a normal thing.

The first objection to the cartoon is based on the assumption that what was good for 1949 may not be suitable for 2012. The argument is as follows. The Constitutional assembly as a ritual process is over. It is now a contract, even a sacrament. Second, Ambedkar is now an iconic figure and to treat an icon to the irreverence of a cartoon is to insult him.

He himself might have felt anger by the scenes of unconstitutional behavior of the people of a particular party who boasts to represent Ambedkar ideology. This is not what he had written or studied for so many years. The Bharat Ratna was always promoter of non violence so the current behavior is not acceptable or need to stop.

We all are proud of the constitution which we have and the man behind it. He was rightly awarded bharat ratna, but in a liberal society cartoon plays a critical role and should not be made such a life and death issue. We have seen what a cartoon row can do when the cartoon of Mohammad came to seen. At that time the issue was related to faith and which needs to be respected.

I am not arguing we can disrespect the people who has iconic status in India, but there is always right way to protest and vandalism is surely not one of them. This mentality of hooliganism is spreading and these political parties who has nothing to do with the upliftment of the dalit's making this as a political fodder.

I know this wont be the last cartoon controversy as we are becoming more and more intolerant society day by day. The extreme behaviors are on the prowl and going to make these matter worse. This blog is not about the cartoon in the books but the cartoons sitting in the parliment and in the society who are disturbing the peace.

There is no need to tell that the constitution has been the one thing which we cherish the most post independence but these cartoon (in the society) are destroying it which is the reason for concern.

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Child labour - A curse for society

Its not an unusual site to see children working in everyday places like small shops, tea stall or at the traffic signals. We even not bothered about to even notice or we never find it little odd that a child is working "as long as it is not our child". These children do all kind of stuff which are very hazardous to even grown men but we tend to overlook.

Till now the questions remains same! What is the fault of these children? They just got born into the poor families so they don't have right to learn and do something better in there life. Children are made for learning and playing for most of there child life. This is what most of my readers must have done and we surely do cherish that time. That is the best of time of our lives but these unfortunate children loose on this. Not just because they are working or forced to work there but because of our negligence of the society toward them.

If one has to know about the laws related to the child labor then surely can visit Child Labor site of the government. As we have laws for every issue and then again laws to implement these laws and again laws for laws. This is been the problem of India, we have laws but they are not properly implemented.

We have been tought in the schools and by parents so do something which we see wrong but over time as we get "MATURE" , we start to forget those teachings. I don't  think these laws are saying something new which our parents hasn't told us. We even taught to pardon the animals, show mercy to them but I get appalled when I see people letting this happen. It is surely against the law and against our culture.

Yesterday I heard about India getting rich and increased prosperity but I would like to one question. "Are we happy to be rich in a country which is build on the labor of children? Are we happy with getting services and goods made cheap by forced child labor?". I am sure that every sane person will answer with "NO" but just saying "NO" wont help this cause, but we need to act on it constructively.

Our children who should be the safest suffer from maximum risks at both inside the house and outside. But I want to ask why should a child suffer because of his parents’ fault? We have been taught by our parents and teachers to have a heart for poor and underprivileged but that's the exact point we tend to ignore. For me ignoring something like child labor is as good as encouraging it so we have to something about it otherwise we would be part of the society which is insensitive which nobody like to see.

Its not that we have to report the problem to the police or NGO but simply letting that person that what he or she is doing is not correct and against the law will surely surely help in long run. Our forefathers who fought against the slavery of the British, would have liked to see India without any type of slavery. This is not what they gave there life for so try to stop child labor and try to make some difference in these children lives.

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Don't blame Ashwin, He played really well!!!

Day before yesterday we saw scintillating form of REAL cricket. In a cricket crazy country, we are as always not happy with the draw test match. It was really mind boggling to see when two teams play nearly 350 Overs of cricket and still end up in tie. This happen in life also when we see something unexpected but why do we get so upset with the things which we cannot control.

Like the cricket match between India and West Indies, where two teams played the highest form of the cricket that is to offer. WI as expected had put a superb fight, as they were down and out in first two test matches. Even after lead of 100 runs in the first inning they gave up the match by collapsing in the next inning. India as usual played their best cricket in the second inning. Second match almost got ended in the first inning itself when WI collapsed in dramatic circumstances but they gave the fight in the next inning. But all that gone in vain as lead was too much to handle.

First two matches surely set the tone for third test in wankhede. We all were expecting the collapse from Carrebian cricketers, as they also did not had the services of India Harassing Shivanarayan Chanderpaul in their ranks. Contrary to the script they had put nearly 600 score on the pitch, which was seemed as dead pitch. India looked uninterested in the match result but in. Sachin did not disappointed them and almost wrote the perfect script by crossing 90 runs but rush of blood my maestro got him out.

After that Indians were on the way of WI Collapse, the just married man showed his newly wedded wife that she has married to an all-rounder and not to just an off spinner. R. Ashwin scored a surprising hundred and did not disappoint the crowd which gathered to see Sachin's Ton. He also avoided the embarrassing follow-on and gave respectability to India’s Total.

India bowlers who toiled very hard in the first inning showed that how menacing could be the 5th day pitch and wrapped the WI’s inning in 140+ score. This gave a real hope to the Indians that they could still get the clean sweep and they did state in that fashion. Everyone wanted Sachin’s batting to click but WI kept on coming with discipline line and length. India kept on loosing wickets in regular intervals and thus the hope of winning the match.

It did looked like India winning the match even after losing 8 wickets and 3 runs need of 6 balls but Aron threw few dots and Ashwin assured that India wont loose the match. The accuracy of Fidel Edwards played off and Match was tied on the last ball as Ashwin did not go for 2nd run which was never there.
On that evening even though India did not lose the match, the scenes on the ground and outside looked contrary to it. Everyone was blaming R. ashwin for the loss, but they forget about the top 7 batsmen in the Indian team. No one played the inning which was needed where Ashwin showed the courage to stick to the wicket and made sure that India do not end up on losing side.

This test match was surely will be remembered by the tie achieved on the last ball but for me it was the performance of the spinners which stood apart. After a long time, I saw the 2 spinners bowling in tandem and playing havoc in the other teams ranks. R. Ashwin truly deserved the man of the match. I am now assured that Harbhajan singh's days are over and I really want that way. I have been really frustrated by the Bhajji's third rated bowling and really want to not to see him.

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Chain se sona hai to channel change karo..

You will ask me "What type of title is this?"  but you will soon come to know why. The common belief that there is nothing like a good disaster to get viewers back. Natural calamities, terrorist attacks or wars push up viewership of news channels. That happened in 2008 when the growth of viewership was primarily spurred by the coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks and the political crisis in India over the Indo-US nuclear deal. In 2009 and 2010, for instance, there wasn't any major event that could shake the entire nation for days or weeks except for the IPL.

In the last few years, news channels have moved from a feature-led format to solely a breaking news format, which has minimized the stickiness on the channels (evident from the drop in time spent). A senior media observer says, "Viewers come in when news breaks and move out equally fast." The fierce competition amongst the news channels to get that extra share of revenue and get ahead in the race for GRPs has led to an increase of sensationalism. The line between news and entertainment channels is increasingly getting blurred.

I want to tell a real incidence where these 3rd grade channels have spread the miss information. It was last year when there was an incident where Fearing end of world by CERN experiment, girl commits suicide in, September 2008. That girl wasn't the only person who got terrified by these news, even my parent got terrified. They informed me that all the people in my home town are just shocked to watch the same news again and again. They were doing everything to increase there viewership and spread the mis-information. They will tell you something, even create a complete show on something but will never substantiate. The normal people who don't know much about language like Hindi, will not fully understand what is going on.

Same thing happened in where there was pandemic in India especially in Pune where I used to stay. There were continuous counts of casualty of the people because of Swine Flu infection, rather than providing the right information. This went on for many days, as this was first real pan India pandemic in recent time but to cash in on it was shameless act.

Smaller, non-network channels that have their own set of audiences and advertisers tend to get into 'masala news' in search of more eyeballs. But such sensationalism also puts off viewers. News today is available all through the day and because all channels exhibits sameness, audiences are not worried of missing out on any news occurrence. This has affected appointment viewing drastically.

They seem to be lacking in innovative news programmes, which could be of interest to a larger set of TV viewing people, rather than just their core TG.  Then, how are regional channels doing better?
First, the viewers who usually watched Hindi news moved to the regional news channels because of an affinity for their mother tongue. One reason could be the biased nature of Hindi news channel, as they look after getting the TRP in the Hindi Heartland and do not focus on the real issue.  Second could as there are many states in India where the primary language preference is not Hindi or English.

As the number of regional channels continues to grow, the shift from Hindi and English to regional is a natural phenomenon. Also, localisation of news is the biggest strength of regional news channels.
Local news channels has been the strength of southern media as they exploit the current condition but at least they are not doing propaganda work which Hindi media seems to be doing. As per the little research I have done in this regard, it is the south-based channels that have led the growth in the regional space. Currently, there are 16 Telugu news channels (24-hour) in Andhra Pradesh and more are expected to be launched soon.

The reason of the Hindi news channels can be traced back to the literacy rate in that reason as many people are uneducated, these silly news sells there. In fact sometimes I don’t call them the news channel as they tend to show comedy shows more than the actual news. As they
I think the issue plaguing all of our media and entertainment today is nothing else but a lack of content. News channels today do precious little other than bringing irrelevant news, highlighting trivial information, Bollywood gossip and poorly moderated debates into our living rooms. Its high time somebody pulled the plug on this charade and brought real, researched, thought-provoking and useful news, discussion’s and investigative stories to us- something which we left behind when DD used to be the only channel and news were restricted to only 20 minutes capsules in Hindi and English each. The 24x7 mode which news channels have adopted, as pointed aptly in the story above, does nothing other than allowing unnecessary information to be beamed right through to every household. It might bring you short term revenues through advertising, but penny wise is surely bound to be pound foolish.

In a such a vast country with wide variety of issues there is a real need of new news channels, where we will see the real India and there problem. Not those English news channels who are centered around cities, Hindi News channels showing Comedy shows and Local news channels owned by politicians. I will never advocate for any regulations on the News Content of the channels but if you see some of these Hindi news channels showing rubbish news, then I would surely like to change my mind. I am really a critic of Hindi news channel, not because they are from north but they are showing something which is watched in whole of India.

Lets hope there will be positive change in the content of these channels or there will a bill from the government soon. Not sure they will be able to pass, as we know how incompetent they are but there is real need of the right content to liberate people....

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I believe in Team India, Do you?

Thank god that final the misery for Team India is over. Mahendrasingh Dhoni must have had different feeling where he was on the moon for after World cup and IPL championship wins than today. He was immediately dragged on to the ground and into the dust. As Sixty per cent of his team back to the home country, he must be very eager to see his new home in Ranchi. In this blog there are references of the today which are happened in the past, but pardon me for that as this blog is in the making for last 1 month. I have almost finished it but did not publish it so…

Andrew Strauss and Mahendra Singh Dhoni

It was really good for me to be busy this week as I did not get the chance to watch the TV. Like me there were not many so fortunate and had to watch it. It’s really been the heartbreak to all Team India fans as there team performed miserably on the field. This was really the shocker of the performance as Team India did not looked like number 1 ranked team in the world. Even though there were good performances, they were never consistent. Is this really the end of the domination or is there another story to it.

I got the chance to watch it for full day and India has scored 300 score after 7-8 test matches. It’s good to see that with little bit of fight from the Wall and the tail, it reminded me the old Indian teams in the past. Whenever they visited the foreign soils, this is what India always performed there. I have seen great India collapsing in the past but somehow I or we forgot that. Once upon time India were called Tigers at home and hapless visitors, so now you know why that was.

English Press going GAGA..

English are on the moon with this performance, everyone new that India is not the number one Team in the Test cricket. Truly, they are not. They have earned that position with the good performance to the home. This was achieved with the dismal performances of the other team.  It was an open secret that India is going to struggle.

England winning test matches 4-0

I was really surprised to see the India Vs England advertisement on the TV directly challenging India. But that proved right and that only added fire to the always aggressive English Media. English team had so many bad memories against country that they ruled for so many years. They finally got the opportunity and they capitalized it. Once in their life time they have got the opportunity to be proud of their Cricket team as in the past there performances were really pathetic.

My view on this is that this is just a passing phase for English Team, they going through a purple path. It’s easy to be go to number 1 position but very difficult to stick to that position. India has learned that in a hard way and England’s time will soon come. At least India stayed there nearly 2 years. It is really a great feat if we see the Indian bowlers.

Past performance of team India in England

India always played well in England. In fact on last tour they beat English with some gritty performances by two left handers i.e. Zaheer and R. P. Singh. We actually got lucky last time when we some drawn first test match, of course with help of wrong Umpiring decision. It was 1-0 win for Indian’s but they knew how they achieved it.

Previous to that there were many good performances or I even can say that, most of our outside India wins were from England. All Indian batsmen scored tones of runs in English environment. I actually thought that our bowling was better than the English but fitness was only thing which separated two bowling sides. There were much fitter and quick than our bowlers.

Our record outside India

I have seen many worst performances of India pre Saurav ganguly captaincy. India used to lose matches to Zimbabwe that time. We had to fight it out for Test and One day with lesser ranked teams. It was infusion of some players like Sehwag, Gautam, Dhoni and Zaheer with that prime form of 5 Pandav’s cricket that propelled India to number one ranking.

Even though with the much improved performance on Team India, they record hasn’t improved outside. Wherever they have won the margin is only sing match i.e. 1-0. There hadn’t been a convincing win on the Team India’s CV. It’s true that they haven’t won convincingly and don’t have smashing record outside like Australia and South Africa has. Somewhere we forgot the old Indian performance and hence got this shock.

India with World cup 2011

Post world cup complacency

This could be related to world cup fatigue, as they have been playing relentless cricket for 5-6 months. Immediately after the world cup, they even did not get the time to soak up all the excitement. They played that 1.5 month of cricket continuously. If you have seen the actual team, most of the key players are outside the team due one or another injury.

We can give thousand reasons when we loose but Team real looked tired and uninterested in Cricket and on the other had, England team was rearing to go so this has to happen.

What are the positives?

Only positive I can make out from this is that we cannot fall below this. As this is been the worst performance in present generations mind. At least for the newer generation, I thought India didn’t played that bad but lower order Englishmen played well, especially Stuart Broad. This could be little redemption for Stuart Broad after getting depressing 6-sixes by Yuvi. One fact which I have learned from my experience and watching TV is “Make your own mistakes”. It’s sometimes good if we do it first time but it not possible every time.  On more thing that might have come out of it as we could see all the weaknesses in this Team India which will surely be helpful for building future Indian team.

At least our ODI teams played well, it’s just that they could not perform on crucial moments.  Otherwise most of the matches went to the last over of the match. As we are been the better run chaser, which we proved by winning world cup at too chasing. We could not bat once in the Twenty-twenty and ODI’s. They will surely play well in the future so this team is to watch for.

My Final view on this team

England ODI Win

India has vast reserves of players. The country line India who has 1 billion plus population it should not be hard. We have excellent one-day and T-20 Team but current Team India is not as bad as it has been made out by English Team. They have beaten Australia in Australia where not many teams can boast of that record. English team is really playing well in England but we need to watch their performance in India because ‘beating India in Indian Condition’ is the actual Test. If English Team can do that they I can accept them as number one Team.

We should not write of Team India as we have an able leader. This man has really changed the face and stature of Team India to a different level. India is now one of the most dangerous teams in the world and with Dhoni, this team will surely be one of the best team.

At least for this moment where Team India is down, we have to support our team. They have given us so much joy, now we have to tell them that ‘hey guy, we are with you’. This will surely make them feel better and boost their confidence. One should always remember that after all they arealso human beings, as we go through bad phases they also are in one. For me these bad phase come quiet often but that’s the different subject for the future.

I still see this team fighting hard and dominating in the future. Key to that will be fitness because neither we Indian are not physically fit nor we have culture of fitness. One more thing about the captaincy issue that we will be having an aggressive captain in form of Virat kohli, so that issue has been already got settled. I agree that I am seeing lot of positives from the team who just lost everything. I am an optimist and will like to be like that, I have seen this team performed lot better and surely will see that again 

so I believe in Team India, do you?

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गणपति बाप्पा मोर्या - आम्हा सर्वांना अक्कल दया

I have been bombarding you all with these blog but what can I do. There are so many things are happening in our lives and I have hundred opinions on each of them. Whether it is directly related to me or not, I will always have an opinion.

One thing which I haven’t mentioned in my previous blog is that I have got new Laptop, the DELL Inspiron. I am still waiting for my internet connection but this is really exciting that I am working on 3 blogs at same time. Not getting time to publish them could be the reason but it’s better than only watching TV.

LalBaugcha Raja

Today only I have seen one of the lavish and grand decoration made at home. This is the faith and dedication of the people in Lord Ganesha. We all celebrate this festival with lot of faith and eagerness but do we really know about Ganesha celebration from the past. We know about Ganeshostav that it has been started by Lokamanya Tilak but what used to happen before that.

Ganeshostav is one of the several festivals we celebrate in India. We are a chaotic society so these festivals to please our gods. How it’s been celebrated in this ancient land in the past but is this important to know it. May be not but when you learn to ask “Why?” question everywhere then one has to know so did I.  As usual I did some research in my spare time for my dear and loyal readers (ha ha ha). Following is the story about it and it’s really interesting.

Previous history of Ganeshostav

It is not known when and how Ganesh Chaturthi was first celebrated. But according to the historian Shri Rajwade, the earliest Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations can be traced back to the times of the reigns of dynasties as Satavahana, Rashtrakuta and Chalukya. Historical records reveal that Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations were initiated in Maharashtra by Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaja, the great Maratha ruler, to promote culture and nationalism. And it had continued ever since. There are also references in history to similar celebrations during Peshwa times. It is believed that Lord Ganapati was the family deity of the Peshwas. After the end of Peshwa rule, Ganesh Chaturthi remained a family affair in Maharashtra from the period of 1818 to 1892.

1857 was a landmark year for India and moreso in the context of Indian freedom. It was the year of Sepoy Mutiny, an armed rebellion against the ruling British Empire by the Indian soldiers. This was the first war that India waged to gain back her independence from her white rulers. Though unsuccessful, this battle marked the beginning of the Indian struggle for independence. Many orators, leaders and freedom fighters all over India teamed to put up a united resistance to the British domination. One of these eminent leaders was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, an Indian nationalist, social reformer and freedom fighter. Greatly esteemed by the Indian people, especially of Maharashtra, Tilak was commonly referred to as "Lokmanya" or "he who is regarded by the people". It was Tilak, who brought back the tradition of Ganesh Chaturthi and reshaped the annual Ganesh festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event.

Dagadusheth Halwai Ganapati (Pune)

 Lokamanya saw how Lord Ganesha was worshipped by the upper stratum as well as the rank and file of India. The visionary that he was, Tilak realized the cultural importance of this deity and popularised Ganesha Chaturthi as a National Festival "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. He knew that India couldn't fight her rulers until she solved the differences within her own. Hence, to unite all social classes Tilak chose Ganesha as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule because of his wide appeal as "the god for Everyman".

It was around 1893, during the nascent stages of Indian nationalism, that Tilak began to organize the Ganesh Utsav as a social and religious function. He was the first to put in large public images of Ganesha in pavilions and establish the tradition of their immersion on the tenth day. The festival facilitated community participation and involvement in the form of learned discourses, dance dramas, poetry recital, musical concerts, debates, etc. It served as a meeting place for common people of all castes and communities, at a time when all social and political gatherings were forbidden by the British Empire for fear of conspiracies to be hatched against them. An important festival during the Peshwa era, Ganesha Chaturthi acquired at this time a more organized form all over India largely due to Lokmanya's efforts.

Since then, Ganesh Chaturthi has been celebrated throughout Maharashtra as also in other states with great community enthusiasm and participation. With the independence of India in 1947, it was proclaimed to be a national festival.

My view about these festivals.

For me these festivals are part of our lives but the real motive of this festival has lost somewhere. There real intensions where to bring the people on one platform. As India been a spiritual society, there is a preference for religion so people come together easily. By coming together, they are supposed to share their views and discuss the real issue. 

Large crowd for Ganesha immersion

What we see in there festival is people gathering in large numbers to see the decorations. The real motive of these festival was never been that. It has really become the instrument of cheap entertainment. When the festival was started at that time, the population wasn't an issue but now days it has been a real concern. Millions of people visiting to particular pandals and for what to pray. There are these politicians who spend their money collected by unethical or corrupt means. We see more pictures of these modern gods than the real god. They have exploited this festival for their individual gains.

For these gatherings also Lord Ganesha has set a great lesson by "Encircling Mother and father as they are the manifest universe". This shows the importance of parents in once lives. This story also shows that we are not giving the importance to people which are real important. Instead of wasting our time visiting these pandals we should thank to our parent by taking their care.  If we are hurting our parents and seeking the blessing of Ganesha, then it’s of no use.

All above text is to remind us all that, we are not doing the things we are supposed to do. The real motives of these festivals have been lost. These seen we will again see in the नवरात्रि festivals but we are a lost society. We have stopped asking the really questions and doing things for just an entertainment. It’s really a shame that the great teaching of our Lord Ganesha have been forgotten by the very own people who queue up for his  दर्शन so.....

गणपति बाप्पा मोर्या - आम्हा सर्वांना अक्कल दया

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