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Ganga…

A while ago, I stumbled upon Julian Crandall Hollick’s journey from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal along the river Ganga.

The 6 part audio series discusses various aspects from the nature, to human soiling to the Farakka dam’s drastic impact on the river’s course. Look for all the details at http://www.ibaradio.org/India/ganga/index.htm

I remember my visit to Haridwar 5 years ago and my own observation of how the river gets soiled day in and day out in the name of religion. I also remember my own observation of how the river Bagmati at Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu. I did not have the guts to place my hand in that water!

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Dravid rested…

Finally, Rahul Dravid is “rested” in One-day international Cricket for the second time in his life. It is only about 2-3 weeks ago that I had discussed with Nikhil Joshi, and we had concurred that if there is one person who can be sure of his place in the team, it is Rahul Dravid. But, the Indian think tank thinks otherwise. 5 successive failures have put him out of the team.

I still think he is the only one who should be sure of his place. 5 failures is not enough to drop him.

If this is really the case of him being “rested” because he asked for a time out, then I am fine with it. Being the gentleman that he is known to be, he might as well has asked for it!

Else, this is unfair!

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In Comparison…

Rediff has this post celebrating Tendulkar’s 400th One day international. The post presents one of the interesting ways that people use when they try to show that someone excels in comparison to another.

Here is what it says (edited a bit…):

When he turns out against the Australians in the fifth ODI, Tendulkar will become only the second player after Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya to reach the landmark. …. Tendulkar is the most prolific one-day batsman in the history of the game with 15,563 runs in his 399 ODIs to date.

He has a world record of 41 centuries in the LOI format at an average of 44.21. He has been also useful with the ball, taking 152 wickets at an average of 44.

In comparison, Jayasuriya has 12,178 runs in 401 ODIs at an average of 32.73 with 25 hundreds.

The article never talks of Jayasuriya’s utility with the ball; the fact that he has taken 307 wickets at an average of 36.31. In comparison, Tendulkar has (as you might have read earlier) taken 152 wickets at an average of 44.

I do not want to say that one is better than the other; however, Tendulkar’s feats do not require one to belittle someone else (especially in such a partial manner!)

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Moderation

I got a question, “What does it mean that my comment is awaiting moderation?” Well, due to the HUGE number of requests (in some cases orders) to determine caste from a certain last name, I decided to moderate the comments.

It was not just the request, but persistent follow-up after I deleted those comments.. in one case, I got a question that said something like, “why do you delete my comment? Is this something against a certain caste?”

Clearly, moderation is the more difficult way around to resolve the problem. The easier is to just delete those comments; however, by “moderation” I clearly indicate that I decide what comments are accepted on the blog. So, I will stick to this, at least for some time.

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Cricket and Visa

Peter Chingoka, chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, has been refused visa to enter the UK. It seems his ties with Robert Mugabe is one the reasons. However, he was given a visa last time. Here is what the article at cricinfo says:

In June, the British embassy in Harare recommended that Chingoka be refused a visa to attend the annual ICC get together in London as he was alleged to have close links with Robert Mugabe and the ruling Zanu-PF party. This block was endorsed by the FCO. However, Richard Caborn, at the time the sports minister, overruled the ban as he felt such a move might have jeopardised the appointment of ECB chief David Morgan as ICC president-elect.

Great! Now, visas are given so that the president of the cricket board can be elected. And, once he is elected …

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You Are Not My Friend…

With reference to my previous post on Orkut testimonials or maybe, the post on scrap vs emails, my non-social-network-friend, Nikhil Joshi sent me a link to the article, entitled “You Are Not My Friend” at time.com

It is worth a read; just small snippets out here:

You message me and comment about me and write on my walls and dedicate songs to me and invite me to join groups. More than once you have taken it upon yourself to poke me…. This is hard to say to a friend, but our relationship is starting to take up too much of my time… But really, these sites aren’t about connecting and reconnecting. They’re a platform for self-branding…

Go on! please read it!

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Bollywood stars are born in bunches…

Just noticed:

  • Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Jeetendra – all born in 1942
  • Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan – all born in 1965
  • Kajol, Karishma Kapoor, Preity Zinta, Hrithik Roshan – all born in 1974
  • Dilip Kumar (Dec ’22), Dev Anand (Sep ’23) and Raj Kapoor (Dec ’24) had a max gap of 2 years between them.

Interesting initial data… seems worthwhile to explore! 

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Shopping with Lord Ganesha

More and more Indians read that Rahul Dravid has resigned as a captain of the Indian cricket team. I stumbled upon this one at rediff saying that his father stands by his son’s decision.

Most interesting is the following statement:

Sharad, who had just returned after shopping with an idol of Lord Ganesh, told waiting reporters, “No comments.

Well, it is really nice to note that Dravid’s father goes shopping with an idol of Lord Ganesh. One would wonder why….

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Order of the Phoenix: Creative!!!

When Mira Nair declined the offer to direct the movie based on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by saying, “Harry Potter needs more technical creativity. I like to be creative with my cast… humans,” I thought she was mostly right. After seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OTP), I think she is mostly wrong. In fact, her sentence now looks like an acceptance that she is, probably, not technically creative!

In converting the largest Harry Potter books to a short 2 hour movie, David Yates picked up the appropriate characters – Dolores Jane Umbridge and Luna Lovegood – to show what creativity is all about. A huge section of the crowd (BTW, it was houseful) clapped at the destruction of Umbridge, indicating how well the “pink monster” has reached to the audience – both in character development and acting!

I only wish the end was a bit slower. The on-screen death of Sirius is a bit too fast, and it does not sink in that one of the most important characters is no more, because of the immediately ensuing battle between Dumbledore and You-Know-Who.

Overall, I think this is the best Harry Potter movie, yet! It has been a good summer for sequels, but this movie might do really better than the previous ones!

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Anglicized last names

Through a comment to my post on Concatenated Bengali Names, Dave asked

Can you explain the difference between Chatterjee and Chattopadyay? Is the former the anglicized version of the latter? Also, how is Satyajit Ray’s last name pronounced in Bengali? Is it Ray, Rai, or Roy?

Another person (Partha Chatterjee) responded through a follow up comment that Chatterjee is indeed an anglicized version of Chattopadhyay. What I did not know is that “Ray” is pronounced as “Roy” in Bengali. I always thought that it was “Rai.” Perhaps, it is just the same, again different spellings for what should be the same pronunciation.

Some anglicized Indian last names are minor variations of the spelling or the pronunciation. However, I could think of only the following cases, where the surname seems to be pretty different from the original one (the first three are very commonly known as anglicized versions):

  1. Chatterjee (Chattopadhyay)
  2. Bannerjee (Bandopadhyay)
  3. Mukherjee (Mukhopadhyay)
  4. Scindia (Shinde) (This does not look vastly different from the original, though)

I wonder if there are many more!