Who's fault is it anyway?

As 2015 comes to an end, it's resolution time. Time to reflect on events and matters of the year gone by. Time to introspect to avoid making the same mistakes!

For the common man, 2015 was the year of hope. 2015 was the year of rejuvenation and revival. After years of mis-governance by the Congress party & their political alliance, the UPA; after years of extremely high profile multi billion dollar scams making headlines; after years of letting our once comparable neighbour China go way past us in terms of economic growth and general development, we finally put our foot down in 2014 and voted for a fresh set of people to take us forward. Such was the level of anti-incumbency, the ever incumbent Congress party did not even bag enough seats to make the opposition's chair in the lower house! 

So then, 2015 was the first year of complete NDA rule. The first year of examining the NaMo government. 2015 was the year the Congress was desperate to show the people of India how much they cared about the country. Disruptions in parliament were in fashion. The reason could be anything! During the monsoon session, a certain Lalit Modi was extremely dear to Mr. Rahul Gandhi. A couple of months later in the Winter session - Well who the **** is Lalit Modi? At some time during the monsoon session, the Vyapam scam was in focus. From what I understood the scam was an extremely serious matter due to the killing of hundreds and we needed to act quickly to bring the faulters to justice. But was this not a priority for the Congressmen any more? So were they really interested in taking this country forward or was their sole motive only to hamper the work of the NDA?

When facing the media, the Congress always wanted development. They supported the GST bill. They wanted a debate. But in parliament, they always found a way to stall proceedings. It came down to me hearing a Samajwadi Party MP say recently on TV - "If the Congress continues to follow some of its leaders, it is end game for them". Not letting the NDA score political points was far more important for them compared to the country's development agenda. During the Bihar elections there was too much talk about intolerance in the media. Once the Maha Gathbandhan won, all the hullabaloo disappeared into thin air! So was this all a media created hype, a politically motivated hype, or a politically motivated & media created hype?

Looking at the current trend, the next session could have yet another fancy topic. Mr. Gandhi holds on to a headline, repeats the same for a few days and when the freshness of the matter is lost he moves to another. In Bangalore while interacting with students at a university recently he said, "The PM says clean your India, are you serious?". Yes sir, we are serious. The entire country is serious. At least for now we all should be. Haven't we all seen cleaner environments in almost every tourist country we have visited? Why then a country almost 70 years old still does not have enough toilets for its people, enough garbage dumping spots or clean railway tracks. Is it just a coincidence that the Congress ruled the country for the majority of the 70 years since independence? Or that Mr. Gandhi's family members ruled the country for close to 38 years? And still the joker asks us Why so serious?

Well for starters, the Swachh Bharat Cess is aimed at raising additional funds to effectively implement goals under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. This was taken up on mission mode and backed with an actionable plan to ensure that India built 12 crore toilets in rural and urban areas, and ensure that India became free from open air defecation by 2019. Are we only allowed to joke, Mr. Gandhi?

Congress supporters tell me that the BJP too disrupted parliament sessions when UPA was in power. I beg to differ. Have we forgotten 30th December 2013, when the parliamentarians were debating the Lokpal bill at the stroke of midnight. Rajya Sabha members stayed in the house till 3 AM giving speeches in parliament when the entire country was busy preparing for New Year parties. Yes they did it and it was a moment of pride that the Government and the Opposition were serious to that extent in passing a bill.

And so what if PM Mr. Modi goes on foreign trips all the time. These are not leisure trips which can be compared to ones made by our ex-president Smt. Pratibha Patil. Our PM travels the world, not only to get more countries into confidence to invest and do business in our country and boost the economy, but more importantly to get the support of the more developed countries in the world in matters of foreign affairs. It surely is extremely important to keep good relations with these countries when we have neighbours like Pakistan & China, and global threats like ISIS & Taliban. Getting India into the UN security council should be a top priority for us and it cannot be done without building better relations with existing member nations.

Company heads travel all the time to create an impression and keep good relations with customers. What's wrong if our PM is doing the same? Is it just a case of "This is a country and not a company?" So it is okay to let the PM's office be run like any other Sarkari office - headed by an apathetic boss and letting scams happen; but not okay for a PM to travel to multiple countries for the sake of some good.

Well if 2014 was the year which attracted the youth to matters of politics, 2015 has been the year of the youth showing hatred against the government on social media. Anti-government posts with unconfirmed facts are shared all the time ignoring the consequences. It is loop holes like these in the social media system which is exploited by anti-social elements across the border. A few years back a few baseless posts apparently put into circulation from outside the country led to locals attacking the natives of the North East India in Bangalore and leading to most of them fleeing back in fear. It is time we use social media as a tool to share the good around us and not to create bitterness amongst ourselves.

So then who's fault is it anyway? The politico's, the media's, or the mango people for this feeling of bitterness towards the end of the year? It's for us to decide. My words might seem pro-NDA but the truth is I only voted for a positive change, and I did not have too many options. So I am willing to give the government the five years it deserves to rate its performance. I hope these mistakes can be avoided going forward. I hope 2016 is what 2015 should have been! 

Where are the Mohan Bhargava's we were promised?

Bollywood fans are well aware of the smart Indian-born NASA Project Manager, who on a short holiday to India, drives his camper van to a remote village called Charanpur looking for someone, only to face complications and get stuck for a bit longer. During his few weeks in Charanpur, along with the regular falling-in-love affair, he is seen fighting a rigid Panchayat system run by leaders who lack basic foresight and finally shows them the power of education by generating electricity for the village by harnessing energy off water flowing down a hill. Last weekend happened to be my tryst with this dude, Mohan Bhargava, who after lighting his first bulb in Charanpur, hurries back to NASA, finishes his project and packs up to return back, wanting to make a difference to his Motherland. His Swades.

As a student, I was often told of a certain phenomenon by my teachers - the brain drain, which refers to the emigration of intelligent, well-educated individuals to someplace else for better pay or living conditions. I was also almost certainly promised then, that as we progress towards becoming a global super power, these individuals would return back one day, causing a reverse brain drain effect, wanting to be part of the great Indian growth story.

Sadly though this still looks a far fetched thought, as we still haven't been able to build a trust on our education system. With the utmost probability, the most ambitious of our students, who are also the most likely to create a difference, all want to pursue a higher technical education overseas. Although pretty heavy on the expenses, these Masters degrees serve as a perfect visa to that someplace else for the better pay or living conditions. The repayment of the hefty educational loans serves as a guarantee for at least 5 years or even more after which they feel a sense of belongingness to their new country. A few lucky ones are even picked up right after their Bachelor's degree by innovative companies like Facebook and relocated to wealthy developed countries like the USA. And why not, who would turn down these super lucrative offers which now seem to have crossed the 1 crore per annum mark! Yeah, these are 21 yr old kids we are talking about. That practically leaves no scope for these individuals wanting to return to their Motherland in the near future.

This brings us to a very important question - When will students from all over the World travel to India for an education? When will India be the hot and favored education destination? In the last few years countries like China, Korea and Singapore have done their absolute best in attracting young students from all over the World to their universities, but India has totally failed to create any kind of mark in this regard. Our Governments have time and again announced an increase in the number of IIT's & IIM's but have never looked at bringing back the best of Indian faculty in Foreign Universities to improve the quality of our education system.

So then, when will the best ink stop being Japanese, the best automobiles stop being German, construction technology stop being French, defense technology stop being Israeli, mobile phones stop being Chinese, airplanes stop being American, gadgets stop being Korean! Why couldn't an Infoscian develop an iPod? Or the Tata's design the A380? The list could go on and on and on without any answer whatsoever!

I really don't know who is to blame here. The Indian economy boasts of a strong and stable growth rate with a GDP that has recently overtaken the Japanese to 3rd spot at over $6 trillion. Are we then, still a poor country incapable of luring our people to return back?

No doubt Indians are innovating all over. But sadly India is not. There seems to be a complete lack of technical innovation in India. The country is facing the same issues faced by developing countries 50 or even 100 yrs earlier. Haven't we learnt any lessons at all to improve our living conditions? We build new cities without any mention of the metros. We build new suburbs without basic infrastructure like roads and railways. Our villages still lack basic necessities like electricity, schools and sanitation. Our roads still don't last more than a couple of years. Does it really take Rocket Science to build a road that lasts a couple of decades?

Our education system & living conditions seriously need improvement if we are to control this brain drain. Once the first few of our well-educated & well-traveled people, having seen the best of development across the world, take the initiative and return back truly wanting to make a difference, they could assist our lawmakers in bringing the best of technology into use right from the grass root level. For sure, the rest would follow. And Swades could be re-written a thousand times!

So then, where are these Mohan Bhargava's we were promised?

Come back guys, what is this wait for? Come back and light your bulb in your India!

My Spiritual Realization

One:

I had a brilliant holiday in Kolkata last month; the weather was perfect, the drinks were flowing freely and the awesome gang had met in big numbers yet again. I often got a chance to brag about my first blog, making a lot of my friends read it even though we were perpetually sloshed the whole time. I did get a lot of compliments though, and even had a mighty long conversation with my cricket crazy friend regarding Dravid and the blog. But soon it got even better. I was in Kolkata, and what else could have happened? Yep, I saw the Eden Gardens. I was awe-struck. I was seeing the most fantastic cricket stadium in India. One could say “The Mecca” of cricket is The Lords in London or The Kensington Oval in Barbados, but for us Indians (for whom a cricket match is neither a family picnic nor an event where retired gentlemen sip beer and clap,) it had to be this majestic structure in front of us we were insanely staring at. Mixed emotions hogged my mind. The earliest cricketing memory I had (of watching live television broadcast of cricket) was of the 1996 ODI World Cup, held in the sub-continent. Other than the legendary Indo-Pak match at Bangalore (well who can forget Jadeja’s clobbering of Waqar in the death and Venky’s fitting answer to Sohail's loserish batting aggression), I only remember one other match, one which has to qualify as the most horrible ODI I would have ever watched; the semi finals against Sri Lanka at this very ground. The match was a disaster and the humiliation suffered was going to hurt for a really really long time. I could have cried that night. In fact, I don’t remember, I might have shed a few tears on my pillow before I fell asleep. But I said mixed emotions; mixed because the other big memory I had of Eden Gardens was of a date 5 years later when undoubtedly the most fantastic turnarounds of test match cricket was witnessed. Now do I really need to mention more about that one? ;)

So there we were, staring at a stadium which probably meant more than the sacred-est of sacred places of India, speechless, at least me, because I had so many things running in my head at that moment. Though suffering from a highly delayed renovation schedule, which was well noticeable, the stadium looked a real master piece, giving me an impression that once completed, it would look like one of those fantastic English football stadiums. And a fortnight later, when the latest pictures of the renovated exteriors were out in the media, I realized I wasn’t wrong. It was a nice feeling, because once back in Bangalore I was now bragging to my fellow colleagues that I got a chance to see Eden Gardens (Not that it amused many people, but was a pretty nice feel good!).

Two:

Now, there was a different side to this feeling too. I couldn’t stop wondering why CAB was struggling to meet the renovation deadlines. I mean you would have put your money on them when you knew the CAB President was none other than Jagmohan Dalmiya, who has been ICC President during a World Cup (1999) and BCCI President during a World Cup (2003). And when the country was recovering from the humiliation suffered in the hands of the international media during the CWG 2010, you would expect a cash rich organization like BCCI to be a little more cautious. But that wasn’t to be the case. It was going to be like a reminder that whatever happens, whoever is the organizer, this was still India, chalta hai boss!

The writing was on the wall; the match whole of Kolkata was looking forward to, had to be shifted. The India-England tie of 27^th February was not going to be a part of Eden Gardens’ history anymore. It was going to be a treat for some other Indian city to host that match, and thanks to BCCI for considering that the Chinnaswamy Stadium had no high profile matches scheduled, the host was decided to be Bangalore! Awesome! 

Three:

So we got down to work and we meant business. This was the best thing to have happened to us Bangaloreans. With originally the India vs. Ireland match being the only match for the home fans here, this was a golden opportunity for us to be a serious part of WC 2011. The ticketing logistics took some time because of the rescheduling and it was announced that on 24th February 9000 tickets, meant for the public, would be sold at the stadium in 4 different counters at 8 am. A plan was made. Four of us, me, a senior colleague and two school time mates decided to reach the venue at 2-3 am and queue up for the tickets. We were determined to make it and weren't ready to back off. We had to get the tickets and be a part of this World Cup. So we reached the venue at 3 am. By now we were seven, including few friends of friends. The scene was quite magnificent. I had never seen Bangalore carry off so much craziness ever before. I was absolutely stunned; well actually terrified, mortified, petrified, stupefied by the scene. I had reached the stadium only to see more than 5000 fellow Bangaloreans already waiting to queue up. It was just 3 am! Thousands were sitting on MG Road, thousands were inside Cubbon Park and thousands were busy parking their vehicles. 

What was even crazier was that the crowd consisted of quite a number of girls, and I even spotted one family, a couple probably in their higher forties with their daughter. Not just that, as we interacted with a few standing around us, we realized that many in the crowd had actually come from other Indian cities to watch this match. A lad from UP didn't even know when the tickets were going to be issued. This one person from Orissa, who was in totally tattered clothes and wrapped in a shawl to beat the cold and had landed here in a train's general compartment told us that he was planning to buy the Rs. 1250 ticket! That was what we were there for! I realized the economic condition of the Indian cricket fan was not going to have any relation with which ticket he would be buying. He would have probably taken months to save for this ticket and the train journey, but he wasn't going to compromise. Hats off, I thought! 

Meanwhile, the cops would not allow a queue up and were constantly busy scaring the crowd, trying to get them to disperse. But soon I realized what this match really meant for the Indian cricket fan. Because within hours, I was seeing a good 10000+ crowd taking on the few cops who were guarding the stadium. We wanted to queue up for the tickets. We were not going to disperse. It was a war like situation. It reminded me of the scenes of the Egypt and Libyan uprising I had been watching on TV the past few days. The crowd was really massive now. The faint traffic that would otherwise have crossed Queens Road without any challenge was now part of a huge traffic jam. They had nowhere to go thanks to the crowd. A biker was also thrown to the ground for trying to shout his way through. 

In between all this, my office colleague and I tried our best to push our way through and reach as far as one could get. Our WWE skills were about to be tested here. I was even ready to give a few low blows to make my way ahead. We were fairly successful as we got to the queue up area once, but the police yet again lathi charged us away from there. In the process I saw my colleague fall down, actually trip on someone already on the ground and I was beginning to fear a stampede, when somehow he got back onto his feet. We made a second unsuccessful bid to reach the queue area but yet again the police came charging at all of us. This time around it was me struggling to stand up right. I was almost going to fall, when someone fell on my leg and my shoe was half out. I couldn't move that leg, if not I'd have lost my shoe so I had to stay unmoved. A cop was quick to notice that the people around me were not dispersing (thanks to my unmovable leg) and smack landed his lathi, right on my shoulders. For a few seconds I didn't feel anything but slowly and steadily the shoulder started to hurt. I feared this was the end of my struggle. People were constantly falling down, and that could prove really dangerous. We later witnessed some unfortunate scenes of stampede on TV and a few of the injured looked serious and were being taken to medical help on a stretcher. 

Well, this was the second time in two days crazy Indian Cricket fans had fought so hard for a few tickets. On 21st February an estimated ten million people tried logging into the official ticketing website which was selling 4000 tickets for the tournament finals. Again, absolutely crazy isn't it! 

Four:

The only other lathi moment in my life has to be during a test match I happened to see at the Bangalore stadium when I was probably in my 8th grade. It was one of the middle days of an Ind-Aus epic on a typical cloud covered gloomy Bangalore day, where the irritating drizzle kept adding to the over night rain only to delay the days start to the post lunch session. Our group was extremely energetic, especially me, as it was my first time inside a cricket stadium and the excitement was killing me! India were 7 wickets down the previous evening and once the action started the Aussie attack took not more than 15-20 minutes, if I remember right, to pack up India’s tail. The next innings started soon and it was our chance to bowl. We were in the gallery stand (which is probably the best place in a stadium if you want to experience the real cricket frenzy Indian crowd) near third man and Javagal Srinath was the fielder there. Though a local man the crowd wasn’t too amused; just a few of us were screaming his name as he walked to his position before every delivery. And then, a few over’s later, something incredible happened. Srinath was replaced by Tendulkar at third man. The crowd went berserk. It was a stampede situation. Thousands of us ran towards the boundary railings to be a part of history; to be standing in the same square furlong as ‘God’. The cops in the stand were absolutely clueless about controlling this crowd and so the lathicharge began! In the few seconds that followed we were blindly running upwards away from the boundary line. Jus when I felt I was safe enough to stop running and turn back to get another glimpse of him, I heard the sweet sound of timbre along with a pinching feeling of pain. Well, I was just hit by a cop! Another first experience I can say, though not totally a great one, but when combined with the innocence and excitement of a 14 year old cricket fan in India who has just seen Tendulkar for the very first time standing right in front of him, the pain could only disappear and every moment that followed for quite a while had to be filled with extreme awesomeness!

Five:

But the energy and excitement of a cricket fan in India actually gets better with age. I remember those days in college when cricket was in the air! You could literally smell it, feel it around you. First was the ODI WC 2007. Another disaster I must say though. Losing to Bangladesh in match one and then to Sri Lanka in match three, we were out of the tournament in less than a week. The good part? Well, Pakistan followed us. Actually that was the awesome part, because fans in India were actually thrilled by the fact that while we lost to a decent Bangladesh side, Pakistan had lost to an unknown Irish team. It was then announced that the first t20 WC would be held later that year. Tendulkar, Ganguly & Dravid pulled out of that. Dhoni was made the captain. Not everyone would have given the new young team any chance whatsoever but as the tournament got closer cricket was yet again in the air. I was staying in a 3 bedroom house, more famously ‘Srinivas House’, and popular because we had a TV. I picked up a contagious eye infection as the tournament started and some of my flat mates fled the house. But as the tournament progressed and a rejuvenated Indian team showed signs of fearless ruthless cricket the attendance of my friends at Srinivas House got a lot more regular. Soon, everyone had the infection, and every game we played was a crazy drunk house party. Some of the most entertaining cricket ever played in history was witnessed and this little two week phase became the absolute highlight of my 4 year stay in Manipal. It was one crazy turnaround for Indian cricket. About six months prior to this, the Indian team was knocked out of an ODI WC in the first round, and now a young team led by a new captain had knocked out some pretty serious teams and reached the finals. We were ready for the battle. The nine of us, all with the eye infection, painted our faces and wore India colors as we geared up to witness an epic India-Pakistan face off. The next three and a half hours were my craziest ever in history and as mallu took the all important catch, we had sealed a WC win after 24 long years. We were World Champions yet again. India was a party place. Not millions, but billions were celebrating. The heaviness in the hearts of every Indian cricket fan was gone. There was only going to be a feel good, a feel awesome I must say, and that too for a long long time!

I never before realized the real importance of the connection between these above mentioned stories, but if I were to connect the dots here and reach a conclusion, it would be a spiritual realization for me. 

"Cricket is my religion! Tendulkar is my God! India is my prayer!"

A dedicated agri-budget for India?

Budget session this year starts 21^st February 2011. Our Finance Minister will present the annual budget on the last working day of February (on 28^th) and after being passed by the house it would come into effect on 1^st April, the start of the Indian financial year. The Railway Minister will present the rail budget three days prior to the finance budget on 25^th February. Our food inflation has stubbornly stayed above the 15% mark for the majority of last year. The Supreme Court has branded the food storage system in India a partial failure and has urged the government to decentralize the same. The 10^th Cricket ODI World Cup starts in less than two weeks and the President of the ICC wants to make it the most memorable one ever.

Now, there is a certain connection here I would like to discuss. Being the world’s 11^th largest economy in terms of GDP, we have a solid annual economic survey, a finance budget and a railway budget. But with food inflation at its peak, with a population growing faster than the rate of production of rice and wheat, with a deteriorating irrigation system, with frequent monsoon failures and with increasing farmer debts and suicides it certainly looks like we need to have a separate annual agriculture budget, much like the dedicated rail budget, to cater to the vast problems in the agricultural sector. If the need for a separate rail budget was because we are the fourth largest rail network in the world and the Indian Railways is the biggest public sector organization (by workforce) in the world, then we sure need a dedicated agriculture budget as we rank second worldwide in terms of farm output and agriculture and allied sectors account for a sixth of our GDP and employ more than half of our total workforce. Despite a steady decline of its share in the GDP, it is still the largest economic sector of our country.

So then, why is a single cabinet minister heading the Ministry of Agriculture & the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution? And moreover, why is this person currently also the president of the ICC?

After the general elections in 2004, under the UPA, Mr. Sharad Pawar was made the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. In 2005 he became the president of the BCCI. In 2007, during the ICC presidential elections, neither David Morgan (then president of ECB) nor Mr. Pawar received a two-thirds majority and they struck a deal within themselves to share the seat. Mr. Pawar wanted the second half of the term as India would be hosting the WC in 2011. The ODI WC is a big international event and he has been pleading with the PM for almost a year now to reduce some of his burden. It was really surprising that the recent cabinet reshuffle did not relieve him of his domestic responsibilities being so busy with the preparation of the WC. What a pity that during such hard times a senior politician chose a sporting body & event over an important cabinet ministry (well, I should say ministries!) & moreover our PM still believes we don’t need a more dedicated minister for the job!

Do we really need to have a more able and dedicated person heading the Ministry of Agriculture? Is agriculture in India facing serious problems?

According to the World Bank, India's large agricultural subsidies are hampering productivity-enhancing investment. Overregulation of agriculture has increased costs, price risks and uncertainty. Government intervenes in labor, land, and credit markets. The allocation of water is inefficient and the irrigation infrastructure is deteriorating. Illiteracy, general socio-economic backwardness, slow progress in implementing land reforms and inadequate or inefficient finance and marketing services hamper farm produce.

The average size of land holdings is very small and is subject to fragmentation due to land ceiling acts, and in some cases, family disputes. Such small holdings are often over-manned, resulting in disguised unemployment and low productivity of labor. Adoption of modern agricultural practices and use of technology is inadequate or high-priced for small holdings.

Irrigation facilities are inadequate, as revealed by the fact that only half of the total land was irrigated in 2003–04, which result in farmers still being dependent on rainfall, specifically the Monsoon season. A good monsoon results in a robust growth for the economy as a whole, while a poor monsoon leads to a sluggish growth. Also, over pumping made possible by subsidized electric power is leading to an alarming drop in aquifer levels.

(Compiled from information on Wikipedia)

And why don’t we have a separate agri budget by now?

Finance Ministry officials have said that for the agricultural minister to present a separate agricultural budget in the parliament, we will have to go for a constitutional amendment. If in the last 60 years, there have been 94 amendments to the constitution, then why not a 95^th for a pretty serious issue? Agriculture is a priority sector and separating it from the general budget will help the government to focus on the sector effectively. For a start, the Karnataka state government has now promised to have a separate state agricultural budget for the FY 2011-12. It will be the first state in the country to have an exclusive budget for agriculture with a corpus fund of ` 5,000 crore per year. Well, the track record of the Karnataka govt. has been pretty poor in the current term, but I hope this works out and sets an example! 

2011 is going to be a tough year for UPA II. With the number of scams unearthing and the ever rising inflation, the onus is on them to deliver a good budget, which agriculture and industry have a lot of expectations from. With the opposition continuing to stall parliament due to the 2G scam, it needs to be seen how well the government has answered some of these questions and how well the budget will be debated in parliament in March. Inflation is at a peak and population BPL now stands at 37% while unemployment is at 9.4% and good solid reforms in agriculture and food storage & distribution can help reduce all these numbers. For a start, decentralization, privatization & foreign investment in these sectors will be a welcome move!

Angry young man!

If you score your 30th test ton (that's one more than the great don himself!) and it goes unnoticed, if you score your 12,000th test run (!!) and its not hyped up in the papers the next morning, if you have scored 10,000+ ODI runs but you don't feature in your country's ODI team (and even better,) if you don't feature in an ICC shortlist of 48 ODI players for picking the greatest ever ODI team, you cannot NOT be Rahul Dravid!

Harsha Bhogle rightly said...

"If Tendulkar's life is about enthusiasm, Dravid's is about determination. If Tendulkar is the child splashing color about with glee, Dravid is the scientist in a relentless search for progress. He might seem weighed down but that is his style and it is a style that has served him and his team handsomely for almost 15 years. Tendulkar might have been a Formula One driver or a striker in a goalmouth, Dravid would have been an Olympic shooter.

Twelve thousand runs is a colossal achievement. Very good players are respected for life for scoring half those. It is a reward for an unwavering work ethic, for a man who has never drifted from the path of perseverance and integrity, two rather unfashionable qualities in public life these days. By not recognizing the enormity of what Dravid has achieved, India has let itself down."

Tendulkar has always got the lion's share of credit and is always in the limelight. Rightly so, cause with his contribution to the game in the last three years, we can safely say he is the greatest ever batsman in modern day cricket. Twenty years of dominance and no shot in the book (or out of it) that he cannot perfectly play he would forever remain a benchmark for future cricketers to achieve. But when we are talking about contributions to results of bilateral test series, we can probably group him in level together with the Dravids and Laxmans. With cricket today only celebrating the IPL (or t20, or the shorter version) stars, we are just not doing justice to some of these great test players. VVS Laxman has however done himself heap loads of good with his mighty consistent dominance of Aussie bowling in the last decade which will always remain his trademark. But Dravid has just always missed out!

Without doubt the genius deserves to be given his credit, deserves more space in our print and electronic media, deserves an identity of his own and deserves a lot more celebration. Even though he lags Tendulkar by 10000+ international runs and whooping 53 international centuries, the long term contribution and impact created is certainly very much comparable. And not every generation has been gifted with a player like Dravid, his near-perfect technique, his determination to play for hours (and sometimes days!) continuously and his forever calmness to counter sledging. It is needless to mention the number of test matches drawn and won (esp. overseas) thanks to his mighty contribution with the bat. And with almost 200 catches in Test Cricket, Kumble, Bhajji and India owe him a great deal. And more importantly, by agreeing to keep wickets for quite a while when none of the keepers seemed to work for India he provided Ganguly's team room for an additional specialist, something which almost won them the 2003 WC. But sadly, rather than crediting him for this and for his contribution during the 1999 WC (viz. top run scorer) he will forever be remembered as the captain of the Indian team which fared the worst at a WC (2007).

I guess 'The Wall' never really demanded the spotlight, but to get overlooked by the cricketing fraternity is nothing but a shame for supporters, players, critics and us fans. Personally for me Dravid is a guide, a force and an inspiration! I will never forget the humble words after him scoring his 10,000th Test run ("I probably exceeded my own expectations in reaching 10,000. The image of Gavaskar raising his bat on scoring his 10,000th run in 1987 is still clear in my mind. I never thought I'd get this far when I began my test career in 1996."). To score 10,000 runs in both versions of the game after the heavy criticism (for his slow strike rate) he faced at the start of his career, he has since created abundant scope for inspiration.

His words at the post-match presentation after Indian crashed out of the 2007 WC in the first round ("If you were writing a fairytale, you wouldn't write it this way.") literally brought tears in my eyes. (I was at new DT and drunk, so please excuse!) I feared it would spoil his ODI career and so it did! He did not survive long after that. It also started a downfall in his test career. From being the fastest to reach 9000 runs he went on to become only the fourth fastest to 10,000 runs in test cricket (behind Lara, Tendulkar and Ponting).

Soon later during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2007-08, after the mighty controversial Sydney Test, India needed to deliver good and put on a good show. Dravid had had a quiet series till then. He had good starts which he could not create into big scores in both innings of the first test, and he had a very poor second test. But in the third one at the WACA, Perth (where CA, with amazing media hype, announced that they would launch Shaun Tait against the Indians), Dravid played a magnificent innings to score 93 and give India a solid start. It remained the highest score by a batsman in that test match (needless to say, India Won!) and personally is my most favorite Dravid test innings ever. Shaun Tait was wicket-less and had economies in excess of 4 (RPO) in both innings, and immediately announced his retirement from Test Cricket (Haha!!) :)

And later that year, during the first IPL, Dravid was heavily criticized with a few experts saying he would never click in the t20 version of the game. He then mentioned in a press conference that had he been in his early twenties, he'd crack the t20 version! He answered his critics with his bat, being the highest run scorer for RCB in that season (371 runs at an average of over 28 and a strike rate of almost 125! And the next highest Boucher with just 225 runs! Imagine!). I will never forget the one innings (for a lost cause) against RR, where he scored 75 of 36 balls (with 6 fours and 6 sixes!) and surely proved that he could adjust to the t20 style of play!

In 2010 he seems to be getting a little better with the runs, the Border-Gavaskar home trophy was a bad one for him, but after fighting it out against the Black Caps (being the second highest run scorer for India in the series) and with the innings of 191 (hasn't he always been known for such big innings!) he looks like he is getting back into the groove! I just hope he ends his international test career at a high.

As a mighty supporter of the Indian Test Team and Test Cricket itself, I can only hope India doesn't struggle too long finding a replacement for Dravid. For Test cricket to survive will always need players like him and if India are to show their strength as the Number 1 team in the world in the long term, we need a replacement soon and an efficient one, for Dravid is not too far away from his 38th birthday. Thanks to a career with minimal injuries and thanks to a 'Will-do-anything-for-Indian-Cricket' attitude in his 15 yr long career, he has probably been the most loyal and humble servant of Indian Cricket. If we find his replacement easily, Dravid will probably never get the due credit he deserves, and i fear only if we don't find that replacement, are we going to realize what he actually meant for Team India and why India was always going to be a strong opposition with him in there at that Number 3. Both ways, it is very unfortunate! I thus often find myself as the 'Angry young man', contending for the Nice guy who finished first, begging people to recognize his contribution before it gets too late! (We don't need a comparison with Tendulkar, cause Dravid himself says Tendulkar is an idol for him, I just need people to acknowledge his contribution to Indian Cricket.)

Hello people, hope you enjoyed reading my first ever blog, I am Sachin Kudva and as is obvious, a die-hard fan of my most admired idol, Rahul Dravid. Following him for all these years has taught me loads of lessons, every single of them guiding me to be a better person, or just be better at what I do, and that should be the reason he is my most admired idol! (And maybe also because his Kannada is very much like mine, even though both of us have forever been Bengaluru boys!) ;)

Cheers!!

(I'm glad my first ever web write-up is about Jammy, and would like to dedicate it to him! For all the entertainment provided with his bat in the last 15 years!)