Wednesday 29 November 2023
HOW TO BE A DELIGHTFUL CONVERSATIONALIST
HOW TO BE A DELIGHTFUL CONVERSATIONALIST
To be an interesting conversationalist one must be well-read, well-informed about diverse issues that affect humanity and must have a perspective of one's own on the same. Creativity is at the heart of a lively conversation and a sense of humour to boot. Witticism enlivens discussion as does serious reflection dive deep into the inner recesses of a subject. The combination of gravity and levity spices up conversation and keeps it going without boring participants. The essence then is to equip oneself with a modicum of data on diverse topics to be able to hold one's own in conversation. Else it becomes frivolous chitchat or an exercise in one-sided talk and one-sided nodding or passive listening. That kills conversation and renders social interaction sterile. To top it all, however, one must also learn the art of speaking to the best of one's ability. Godspeed then unto a delightful discussion and spare us those boring dives into routine domestic talk.
Written by Sugata Bose
POINT TO PONDER
POINT TO PONDER
Free speech must be protected at any rate. Demographic change is altering even the literary landscape of the free world. Dark days of dastardly dominance are ahead unless the Enlightenment values as of free speech are protected where criticism of any ideology is welcome. If the questioning mind is circumscribed by irrational adherence to dogma and freedom of speech and expression is curtailed to prevent hurt of sentiment of sections of the populace, if scepticism about unproven holy truths is deemed blasphemous to be thereon punished by law or by outlaws, then civilisation is in crisis indeed.
Written by Sugata Bose
Tuesday 28 November 2023
COWARDICE, CONCEALMENT AND CONSEQUENTIAL CONSPIRACY
COWARDICE, CONCEALMENT, COWARDICE AND CONSEQUENTIAL CONSPIRACY
Even the greatest of men have not spoken the bare truth about brutal ideologies to suit convenience. Hence, I do not venerate them, for, to my mind, greatness ought not to compromise with untruth. Hiding truth so often harms more than blatant lying, for the former deceives wearing the garb of saintliness and humanity whereas the latter leaves itself open to detection of deceit and, hence, rejection. The former tranquilises us into submission to dastardly ideologies till defence is no more while the latter in its open proselytisation of untruth remains culpable to diagnosis of intent and, hence, ejection. Venerate truth, not messiahs of truth who spice it up with liberal doses of untruth to dish out delicacies.
Written by Sugata Bose
FACE THE BRUTE
FACE THE BRUTE
People like to hear nice things about the country. But the way to make the country nice is to frankly discuss the harsh realities that face us and to combat them head on. Living in one's mental comfort zone hardly improves things but leaving it to face the brute enhances future prospects for the nation. Let us not be cowardly nor wallow in the mire of an unrealistic self-satisfaction but let us exhibit that courage of conviction that does not shy away from truth but squares up to it to forge a brighter future for the country. This is the warrior valour, the fabled kshayriya spirit that must become core characterisic of the polity. Each one of us can and must contribute to the rise of our nation but each one of us must be sincere in facing up to truth---the raw truth that bares our polity in all its nakedness, in all its stark realities, in its weaknesses and strengths---and then act with vigour to build the edifice of this nation whose foundations have already been laid ages ago by our sages and seers of yore and reinforced in every age by countless men and women of learning and light and love. Onward then unto the structuring of the citadel! Charaiveti!
Written by Sugata Bose
Sunday 26 November 2023
MESSAGES GALORE ... 56
MESSAGES GALORE ... 56
1. Democracy is Constitutionally there but is yet to arrive in the public psyche. Worship of iconic personalities instead dominates discourse. And this is fuelled by market forces cashing in on a populace that feeds on myths and legends while rejecting reality. The base of such worship needs to vastly broaden in that case to let democracy grow in proportion. That is the only harmonious solution to this intractable problem that besets our emerging nation. The wider dissemination of education and its deepening consequences for the polity ought to weed away this age-old tendency of the people and set up democracy along Vedantic lines of individual self-expression rather than sycophantic following of a few performing personalities in certain select spheres. Social progress can never be achieved en masse if only select personalities are showered upon with accolades and encomium beyond reasonable proportions. The vast potential of the population lies waste in such unwholesome concentration of national energy on specific individuals to churn out money from the ocean that is the economic reservoir of the nation.
2. I find the word 'batter' so unmusical. The earlier word 'batsman' was so much better.
3. Is exploding population a sign of national progress or regress?
4. It takes long for an idea to set in but it does if you persist at it. The conservative mind is slow to absorb the hard realities of life and prefers old comfort zones of thinking irrespective of changing circumstances. But the force of reality eventually succeeds in bringing sense to people and a response follows in its wake. Sometimes it is too late in coming and the dangers that loomed large over the horizons but were not thwarted in time overcome existing civilisations and fashion barbaric new ones. Then darkness follows for ages. But if the right awareness quickens the right response in time, civilisation is saved despite large destruction and death. At such a crossroad are we situated now with conflicting civilisations threatening to rupture the social fabric in Europe and a bloody resolution of forces looms large. Will Europe survive or will it be Islamised inexorably overtime owing to inevitable demographic change?
5. Wish people read more and rode less on the idle waves of imagination that encapsulates reality in reels.
6. Men of significance are busy indulging in insignificant things while the planet goes to destruction.
7. Evil must not be rationalised and tolerated but must be done away with if its own agenda is to exterminate all else and alone survive.
8. Where is spirituality where there is cowardice in confronting evil that thwarts civilisational flow?
9. ঠাকুর তো বললেন লজ্জা, ঘৃণা, ভয় ত্যাগ করতে | কিন্তু ভয়েতে তো সব জড়সড় | কারোর তো হিম্মত দেখি না অধর্মের বিরুদ্ধে প্রতিবাদ করার |
10. Much of what goes on in the name of spirituality is pure materialism. Superstition persisting through ages is hardly spiritual.
11. Why don't the ones advertising products and services on YouTube improve their diction?
12. Be not frustrated in the short term. In the long term there will be fulfilment if you work sincerely.
13. Hard work pays. All else spend.
14. Truth is my God, none else, none else.
15. Love must go deeper than the body right unto the soul. Then alone is it love.
16. The tragedy of life is that it must end in death. And we are moving towards it with eyes wide open. Whither the third eye?
17. Thoughts are of little value today. Mindless hero-worship is all that counts. Personality and not principle dominates discourse.
18. Indian cricketers must so develop themselves in all phases of the game that they can literally dominate world cricket for decades.
19. Not Sachin but Murali in this age has been the God of cricket.
20. What a pity that Test cricket has poor attendance in India while T20 has crowds flocking!
21. Free speech is of paramount importance and must at any rate be preserved.
22. Why hasn't a batsman of the calibre of Graeme Pollock been born again? He was verily the best.
23. The best way to be spiritual is to reject religion, faith of any denomination, any indoctrinating kind.
24. Religious people are often more cruel than faithless men simply because they feel that they have a righteous right to censure others who seemingly offend them on any insignificant issue. Faith justifies that which reason would reject and makes violent where harmony would prevail in the absence of dogmatic assertion. Religion leads to blind egotism no less than atheistic absolutist political ideologies. The point underscored is that a righteous certitude about things and the usurped right to suppress or punish others ag variance with one's views springs from blind adherence to the unripe ego rather than genuine humane spirituality.
25. So long as ego lasts, embittered relations last. In humility reigns peace, in acceptance harmony, in understanding cessation of hostilities. There are exceptions to this general rule though, as in ignorance perpetuated through generational doctrinal transmission that has a segmented exclusive world-view which it mandates on all and sundry. But exceptions notwithstanding, humility creates peace in general.
26. We always justify ourselves for self-preservation.
27. Young girls are not breeding machines. They need to be educated for the fulfilment of life's greater goals. Women's liberation is paramount in today's world where the opportunities are plenty for their self-actualisation should patriarchy move away from hindering them in their path of progress. It is a pitiful sight to watch pregnant girls in their bare teens in theocratic societies that as yet persist in barbaric medieval times. Alas! when will women be free to determine their own destiny?
28. Negative bowling down the leg-side in Test cricket must be banned by instituting the no-ball rule as it is in limited overs cricket. Only the allowance of pitching the ball outside the leg-stump may be a little more in terms of measure. Batsmen who are full set and are on the verge of making a big score are today often prevented from doing so by such negative tactics and induced into indiscretion to force the pace somehow. This is unfair to both the batsmen and yo the spectators who are denied an exhibition of strokeplay that can in general pull in crowds. Test cricket dwindling in audience attraction today deserves a better deal and making negative bowling unlawful should be a step towards redressing it. A point for ICC to consider. By way of immediate illustration comes to mind how in a Chennai Test match the English left-arm spinner Ashley Giles under skipper Nasser Hussain's instruction bowled negative to frustrate Tendulkar and deny him a much deserved century. Tendulkar fell for 90 after being tied up through such abominable use of down the leg-side bowling for nearly an hour. Same was when Sangakkara in a Test match played in India tied down the rampaging Indian batsmen through adoption of the same tactic. The law ought to be amended and such bowling outlawed.
29. Do you realise that riches acquired are paid us by others, alternatively, collected by us using clever means and ploys which are deemed business? It is society's wealth held in custody which is no way ours barring a minuscule fraction of it. Do you really realise?
30. We are slaves to our nervous associations. We must break free of them. That is called spiritual conquest.
31. Warne is a great bowler but Murali is greater and doubtlessly so. His bowling action has been cleared by ICC after successful biomechanics test. Hence, he was never a thrower of the ball but his congenitally deformed hand gave all the illusion that he did so. Murali's Test record is far better than Warne's and there the matter rests as to who the greater bowler was.
31.
Whiskey, soda, wine,
My life is fine.
How about thine?
32.
Q. What work have you other than cricket?
A. I am batting for the great ball of life. And that's cricket.
33. "I love to take up a challenge. I never shy away from it. I love to play pace helmet-free and hook and pull, cut and drive that strikes fear into the hearts of the pacers. You have a ball that you hurl as a missile and I have a bat that can hurtle it over the boundary. You wage the war and I combat you on your stated terms. Now let us see who vanquishes whom?" --- Monologue imagined by the author (Sugata Bose) on behalf of the Master Blaster Viv Richards.
34. There is nothing called the past or the future, there and hereafter. It is all here and now. The moment extended is eternity, the present dilated is memory and imagination stretching the depths of time gone by or ages yet to unfold. This very existence is God, Soul, Atman, Brahman, everything. And love, that primeval attraction between components of an unbroken whole, weaves its magical web through it all.
35. Every now and then a saint comes along to lower the temperature of our feverish world. But they are unable to resist the cumulative might of our ignorance and, so, the tussle continues, the undulating game of life and death.
36. The first sip must be steaming hot. But he whose last sip is steaming hot as well has solved the secret of life. Unto him belongs eternal peace and the benediction beyond. The job is to keep the vitality going through a lifetime of trials and tribulations, the breath of life pulsating fine as layer after layer of coffee unfolds before the sipping lips.
37. The western nations are superior to us in almost every aspect save in deeper civilisational terms. They frequently fight to settle disputes, protracted violent wars that destroy weaker nations. The West is evidently still in the clutches of Darwinian evolution where the struggle through might for earthly survival and prosperity holds fort. We, on the contrary, have evolved ages ago to the humanistic fold where reason, understanding, compassion and peacefulness have striven to resolve issues in the spiritual light. Here the West remains immature owing to the youth of their emerging civilisation while ours has matured in the distillery of experience over millenia and in consequence stands spiritually superior. We have to activate our spirituality in surface life to overcome its incongruities whereas the West has to deepen its surface life in the hidden reserves of the Soul. Thus, complementary civilisations will in opposite advancement achieve a global synthesis which shall usher an age of peace and light. Humanity in essence is a whole and must in the end attain its spiritual wholeness. Let India show the way through self-amendment in every phase of her life and in holding the light aloft for it to shed its lustre on all the spiritually darkened nations of the world.
38. I'll overcome all odds and even out life. Am I not God? This is the spirit and this the application of the Vedanta from the pages of texts onto real life.
39. Self-help must not degenerate to arrogance as is the wont with some people. Mutual help is the basis of cooperative social life and self-help is but an effective component of it and no more. This element of self-segregation when it suits and utilisation of others' resources when needed is the bane of democracy and the seed of dictatorship. The gregarious culture of the human species at its present state of evolution deems it a sacrilege on paper but blissfully allows it in practice with all pseudo-rationalising propping it up. This is sectarian selfishness, narrow nationalism and mean individualism that is the cause of persisting pain to evolving humanity.
40. The current system of education scatters the mind. What is needed, though, is to gather the mind, bring it to a focus and keep it in the zone for sustained periods. This is the key to bringing about academic success.
41. Waydaanta is the way.
42.
They all have departed to the land of dreams.
I, forlorn, remain awake in this world,
Awaiting a further wakefulness.
Composed by Sugata Bose
43. Alas! when will you have time for me? When my days are done?
44. Curiosity in children often takes the blind lane.
45. The Hindu has transcended relativity and attained to the Absolute, and in so doing has crossed all limits of acceptance. He finds everything worship-worthy including evil which in its bare nakedness leads as well to the Absolute. Does it mean that the Hindu condones evil and practises it? No, certainly not. But he sees evil as a darker reflection of Truth, as Truth in its lower manifestation. Relativity itself shines in all its aspects as the fairer or the darker face of the Divine.
46.
সারাটা জীবন 'ভগবান', 'ভগবান' করে ভূতেরই পেছনে ছুটেছি |
চারিদিকে ভগবান, দৃশ্যমান জগত, অনাদৃত রইল পড়ে |
47. অযোধ্যায় রামলালার বিগ্রহ প্রতিষ্ঠা হতে চলেছে | লক্ষনীয়, ঠাকুর রামলালার সাধনাই করেছিলেন জটাধারীর কাছে মন্ত্র নিয়ে | রামলালাকে নিয়েই সবসময় থাকতেন | গঙ্গায় স্নান করতেন যখন, রামলালা ধাতূমূর্তি হতে জীবন্ত শিশুরূপ ধারণ করে তাঁর সাথে সাঁতার কাটত | জটাধারীর প্রাণাধিক প্রিয় রামলালা ঠাকুরের কাছেই থেকে যায় ও আজও দক্ষিণেশ্বরের মন্দিরে বিরাজমান |
আশ্চর্য সংযোগ বলে বোধ হল যে বাবরকৃত অযোধ্যার রামমন্দির ধ্বংস হওয়ার পর রামলালা নরবিগ্রহে অবতরিত রামকৃষ্ণরূপী রামচন্দ্রের কাছেই অবস্থান করেন | আজ সেই অবস্থানের পরিণতিস্বরূপ বুঝি অযোধ্যায় রামমন্দির স্বমহিমায় পুনঃপ্রতিষ্ঠিত হতে চলেছে | আগামী ২২ জানুয়ারী, ২০২৪, রামলালার প্রতিষ্ঠাদিবস |
রামবিগ্রহ যেখানে মুসলমানের হাতে লাঞ্ছিত, সেখানে রামচন্দ্র স্বয়ং পরম রামভক্ত ক্ষুদিরাম চট্যোপাধ্যায়ের ঘরে আবির্ভূত হলেন গধাধর রামকৃষ্ণরূপে ও নিজপ্রতিষ্ঠার ও সনাতন ধর্মের পুনঃপ্রতিষ্ঠা, অর্থাৎ, ধর্মসংস্থাপনের ব্যবস্থা করে গেলেন | সংযোগটি কি বোঝা গেল?
48.
মহাসমুদ্রে ঢেউ উঠছে নামছে |
এবারের ঢেউ নামলে আর উঠবে না |
এবার সমুদ্র হব ||
49. Serving is a science and serving is an art. When the two are combined well, it qualifies to be service, and service leads to God. Perfection in service and detachment to its fruits burn the seeds of desire and fill the heart with the light of realisation. Art, music, literature, science---these are verily the disciplines which combined with continent love and purified contemplation lead the aspirant unto the highest end of Self-realisation.
50. কি হবে কাউকে বলে খারাপ? কেউ ভাল, কেউ বেশী ভাল | বিচারটি অন্তরে থাকলেই হল যাতে সত্যের অপলাপ না ঘটে, মান না খর্ব হয় | এতেই সুস্থতা, এতেই শান্তি |
51. Multiculturalism will wipe out Europe's distinctive culture. With mass immigration of Muslims and their refusal to integrate, Europe will face a reverse colonisation with proliferating Muslim population outpopulating Europeans in their own homeland. This is a serious issue to which Europe is slowly awaking.
Western foreign policy and domestic shortage of workforce have much to do with Europe allowing mass immigration. Where all this leads is to be seen but, if not checked now, the clash of Europe with Islam will be bound to take a bloody turn where Europe will rescue herself only by wading through a deluge of blood. Hope she awakes before it is too late.
Question is, will Europe survive eventually the steady growth of indigenous Muslim population till the Christians---believing and cultural---have been outnumbered?
52.
খেলাশেষে সব যাব ঘরে,
কেউ আগে আর কেউ পরে ||
53. খাবার দাবার খেয়ে কি লোকে বাঁচে? লোকে বাঁচে ভালবাসায় |
54. A forgotten soul, I shall be forgotten soon as I drift into the Sea of Silence.
55. I have freed myself of all struggle. Now resign I unto Thee, O Mother. Thy Will be done!
56. বাবা-মাকে চিনতে চিনতে সারা জীবন চলে যায় | যত চৈতন্য, তত চেনা |
57. We can make beautiful art even in poverty. Prosperity need not be the precondition to the creation of beauty.
58. Poor is that soul which has forgotten its inherent grandeur and become dependent on a crude externality.
59. Introspection holds the key to spirituality.
60. The scholar needs to hold a neutrality of stance, an intellectual equanimity to be able to arrive at a wise appreciation of truth.
61. If God can be violent enough to send disbelievers to hell, it is easily understandable why the fanatically faithful resort to earthly violence in the name of the faith they espouse.
62. Routine brainwashing is the basis of this barbarous political ideology that masquerades as a religion. Fear and greed, lust and loathing form the fabric of this fanatical faith.
63. Sometimes I feel it were better if people signed off on a sweeter note than they quite so often do, for in an eventuality, should it unfortunately happen, such a leave taking would surely remain as a source of perennial blissfulness in saddened memory.
People aren't sensitive enough to understand these subtler elements that would make life infinitely sweeter. Who cares after all for all these in a world driven merely by business instincts?
64. The earth is warming, yet population is exploding. Whither are we headed?
65. জনসংখ্যার বৃদ্ধির সাথে সাথে শিক্ষার অবনমন বড় ভয়ঙ্কর পরিস্থিতি তৈরি করতে চলেছে | অবিলম্বে শিক্ষার মানোন্নয়ন ও সেই উন্নত শিক্ষার ব্যাপক প্রসার এর প্রতিষেধক বলে বিবেচনা করি |
66. দেশগঠনের প্রকৃষ্ট উপায় স্বামীজীর 'বাণী ও রচনা' পাঠ জনে জনে |
67. As yet in this civilised world of ours, might is right. When will real civilisation be?
68. The year ends. Let it end on a bright note of hope and harmony. But hope is one and reality another. May the twain meet!
69. বছরের শেষ দিন | সকলকে শুভেচ্ছা আগামী বছরের জন্য | সুস্থ থাকুন, আনন্দে থাকুন সকলে |
70. However utopian it may seem, business ought to be conducted with the motive of maximising service and not profit.
71. It is important to savour the moment for who knows what the future holds.
72. Worldly life must be subordinated to spiritual life. Too much of worldliness is not good. A balance between worldly life and spiritual life is necessary. And that should gradually be spontaneous through initial discriminate effort. Dispassion and practice are the dual aspects of this spiritual discipline.
73. Truth triumphs but who dares to speak it? All are cowering in fear and making compromised statements that conceal more than they reveal.
74. What is the point in trying to prove that your religion is superior and so trying to convert others to your fold? The moot point remains: Have you realised God?
75. Proselytising is not a good thing after all. It is an archaic feature, an expansionist attitude that is best done away with.
76. Spread the harmonic message of Sri Ramakrishna to usher in a golden age of peace and goodwill. But do not be naive about evil.
77. Unless rational standards radically rise across the face of the earth, religious bigotry will not cease.
78. মানুষের সচেতনতার ওপর নির্ভর করে ওজন | অতিরিক্ত না খেলে কি আর ওমনি ওমনি ওজন বাড়ে?
79. Men are the slaves of scriptures. God is free of them. Literature written by men has such a hold on the superstitious.
80. মানবসভ্যতার আজ সর্বোচ্চ ভরসা শ্রীরামকৃষ্ণ | তাঁর প্রদর্শিত পথেই সম্প্রীতি, সমন্বয়, শান্তি |
81. 496 years after the demolition of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in 1528 CE by the invading force of Babur, it is being reconstructed and is awaiting inauguration on 22 January, 2024. What a momentous day it is in the history of renascent India when heritage will be restored and historical injustice redressed!
82. Sri Ramakrishna had revealed himself to Narendranath Datta (later Swami Vivekananda) as Shree Ram and Shree Krishna at Kashipur Garden House days before his earthly disappearance. His epic words ring even today in the hearts of devotees, "He who was Ram, He who was Krishna, is now incarnated as Ramakrishna but not in your Vedantic sense."
83. It is difficult to get beyond childhood indoctrination which is why vast masses of men are in the grip of superstition and fear.
84. The family deity of Sri Ramakrishna was Raghuvir or Ramchandra. And Shree Ram incarnated himself as Sri Ramakrishna again in this age to defeat the demonic forces of the day and establish the Sanatan Dharma suited to the age.
85. Vilification of the Sanatan Dharma and the Hindus has become a pleasurable pastime with certain sections of people who are ill-disposed to our age-old national culture and heritage. Despicable! The renaissance of Hindu civilisation is on and in full swing. None can resist its onward movement. A great spiritual tidal wave is on the rise. Every demonic disposition will be swept away by the all-embracing current of divine love. Come ye all and plunge into the holy waters of this onrushng Ganga. Save yourselves by its saving grace. Jai Shree Ram! Jai Shree Krishna! Jai Sri Ramakrishna! Jai Swami Vivekananda!
86. Despite the tyranny of the times, God is awaking in the hearts of men. Such is the newest dispensation of the Divine. Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
87.
In season and out of season
Hitchens remains so full of reason
While roguish religiosity is so often treason.
88. The monarchy ironically is now the bulwark of British democracy as alien theological forces gain ground in Britain.
89. মাতৃভাষার থেকে মধুর আর কি আছে? বিদেশী ভাষায় ব্যুৎপত্তি ভাল কিন্তু তা মাতৃভাষার বিস্মরণের মূল্যে নয় |
90. If following Vivekananda does not awaken manliness, then following him has been in vain.
91. আর এক পক্ষকাল মাত্র বাকি রামমন্দির পুনঃস্থাপনের | সেই মাহেন্দ্রক্ষণের প্রতীক্ষায় অগণিত ভক্তগণ | [Dated 7 January, 2024. Ramlala image consecration scheduled on 22 January, 2024.]
92. The Aryan Invasion Theory is a European colonial construct which is wholly untrue and a fabrication to suit colonial purposes. Swami Vivekananda categorically rejected it.
93. A fortnight more and Ramlala will be formally installed at his birthplace once more in full glory. The resurrection of Sanatan civilisation is heartwarming. Jai Shree Ram!
94. Hindu civilisation is the hope of the world. Jai Shree Ram! Jai Shree Krishna! Jai Sri Ramakrishna!
95. ভারত জাগছে সনাতন সভ্যতার পুনরুত্থানের সাথে সাথে |
96. What a development India is having these days like never before! Rapid development of the economy in its diverse phases. The Sanatan spirit is on the rise. We are now truly proud to be Indians as the world looks upon us with increasing respect and growing reverence for our spiritual culture. Some roguish elements will ever be who will find fault with every advance that India makes but they must be ignored. The nation rejoices at the renaissance that is unfolding in India. Vande Mataram! Jai Shree Ram!
97. যাঁরা রামমন্দিরের পুনঃপ্রতিষ্ঠায় খুশী নন, তাঁদের সম্বন্ধে আর কি বলব? তাঁদের আচরণই স্বয়ংবাক |
Those who are unhappy with the reconstruction of the Ram Temple, what more must I say of them? Their attitude is eloquent enough.
98. We must develop our country internally and we can do it. We need not depend on foreign nations for achieving this objective.
99. After 496 years Ramlala will be reinstalled in full glory at his birthplace. Historical injustice to be redressed at last.
100. 72 hours from Swamiji's birthday. Let us all gear up to celebrate it in a befitting manner.
Saturday 25 November 2023
A DIFFERENT WORLD CUP WHERE WE ALL ARE PLAYERS
A DIFFERENT WORLD CUP WHERE WE ALL ARE PLAYERS
Instead of indulging in idle hero-worship of cricketing idols, fans should absorb their life lessons, especially their disciplined hard work, and put them into practice in their own lives. Then each one becomes a representative of the country, a force to reckon with, and a contributory factor in the national life which is the larger cricketing sport being played on the pitch of the world, nations competing with nations in the continuous World Cup whose league matches are in progress. In this game despite many injuries we have survived yet and ought to duly carry on. Upon us rests the responsibility that our country does not get knocked out of the tournament in its penultimate and ultimate phases. We are all donning the India cap and must honour it. Ours is to score heavily and contribute to the national output so that our time-tested nation may lift the World Cup whose fate over millenia is yet to be decided.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo: Sunil Gavaskar, courtesy, internet.
Friday 24 November 2023
DOWN MEMORY LANE ... 1
DOWN MEMORY LANE ... 1
I have seen Tiger Pataudi smash 17 runs (four boundaries) in one over of Vanburn Holder with a bandaged broken jaw. It was the third Test Match of 1974-75 between West Indies and India being played at the Eden Gardens. In the pre-lunch session around 11 'O clock Tiger was hit by a sharply rising delivery of Andy Roberts and retired hurt only to return at the fall of a wicket in the post-tea session. Clive Lloyd, the Wedt Indian skipper promptly put the ball in paceman Vanburn Holder's palm whereupon Pataudi unleashed an array of scintillating strokes to smash four consecutive boundaries. Eden Gardens erupted as the Indian skipper was all wrapped up in bandage round his jaw even as he taught the Windies pacemen a lesson in batsmanship. It was an unforgettable moment and I recall it clearly after 48 years, myself 13 years and 6 months old then. Just remember Pataudi played his cricket with one eye and with a broken jaw this day. After scoring a quick-fire 36 he got out but he had made his point as to who was the boss in that brief hour of memorable strokeplay. India went on to win the Test Match with Chandrasekhar beguiling the formidable West Indian batting lineup under the astute leadership of Tiger whose bold move to open attack on the fifth and final day of the Test Match with Chandra, a rather risky gamble with Kallicharan and Lloyd poised to take the game away at 163/3, paid off as Chandra removed both the batsmen fast to put India in the driver's seat. This was the only time I had witnessed Tiger Pataudi bat, and bat he did at his vintage best. A glorious memory of those golden days of Test Match cricket which I so miss now in these days of hype and hoopla and the associated crass commerce centring the gentleman's game.
Written by Sugata Bose
Wednesday 22 November 2023
YOUR CHOICE OF INDIA'S GREATEST EVER TEST MATCH BATSMAN---JUST ONE CHOICE
YOUR CHOICE OF INDIA'S GREATEST EVER TEST MATCH BATSMAN---JUST ONE CHOICE
Many names had been left out in my last list of great Test batsmen from where the numero uno was asked to be chosen, simply bevause there was space shortage in the coloured box for the post. Here comes the sequel to that post therefore by way of due extension of the list. Now happily make your choice please. Only one name must be chosen by you as the greatest Test batsman of all time who played for India.
C.K. Nayadu
C.S. Nayadu
Nawab Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi
Vijay Merchant
Mushtaq Ali
Lala Amarnath
Vinoo Mankad
Madhav Apte
Vijay Hazare
Pankaj Roy
Polly Umrigar
Vijay Manjrekar
Nari Contractor
Chandu Borde
Nawab Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi
Hanumant Singh
Abbas Ali Baig
Farokh Engineer
Dilip Sardesai
Salim Durrani
Ajit Wadekar
Gundappa Vishwanath
Mohinder Amarnath
Sunil Gavaskar
Brijesh Patel
Dilip Vengsarkar
Yashpal Sharma
Chetan Chauhan
Kapil Dev
Sandeep Patil
Ravi Shastri
Mohammad Azharuddin
Navjyot Singh Siddhu
Sanjay Manjrekar
Sachin Tendulkar
Vinod Kambli
Sourav Ganguly
Rahul Dravid
V.V.S. Laxman
Virender Sehwag
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Yuvraj Singh
Virat Kohli
Rohit Sharma
Cheteshwar Pujara
K.L. Rahul
Shubman Gill
The floor is yours now to select your greatest ever Indian Test Match batsman. Remember, only one choice.
My choice is Sunil Gavaskar. What is yours?
Photos: Internet
Tuesday 21 November 2023
INDIA RISING OR INDIA SINKING?
INDIA RISING OR INDIA SINKING?
We are not doing well as a nation. With an exploding population prospects are gloomy. There is no proper population policy in place. Growth in GDP is being nullified by burgeoning population. There will be civic unrest in the near future as medical facilities will be impossible to provide for such a large mass of people. The same goes for employment and quality education. Fissiparous forces will multiply as national integration will become the challenge of the times. With a degrading environment there will be further economic chaos.
The people are sleeping to these looming dangers as of now but soon they will wake up with a vengeance which shall precipitate problems worse. For all the hype and hoopla centring the leadership, those in power and those out of power, all the half-truths spread about rising India, it must be remembered that for a country that is growing at 18 million heads a year, it is inconceivable that it will remain socioeconomically stable over the next few decades.
We are not lacking in enemies that are watching with interest the slow slide of our vast country into possible anarchy, at least in some segments. There are forces within and without that sure are working for the subversion of our nation and its conversion into some other preferred form. But the worst enemy of our motherland are we ourselves that we choose not to act, that we prefer to sit in inertial mode waiting for better things to happen. The situation is alarming and has population spurt at its epicentre which we need to redress. If we do, we survive to see a better day. If we do not, I shudder to think what may befall us.
Written by Sugata Bose
Sunday 19 November 2023
COMMENTS GALORE ... 40
COMMENTS GALORE ... 40
Sugata Bose @Sanjib Das Gupta : To begin with it must be learning to critically think, organising one's mental faculties as best as one can, suppressing frothy emotions and expressing creative energy in its place, and above all, replacing tamas (sterile inaction) with rajas (fertile activity). Execution of accuracy in work and sustained pursuit of excellence in every phase of national life must be the sine qua non for scaling summits that now so often slip by. Overall, we must be more disciplined in mind and body, less greedy for gold as is our commercial wont these days, more responsible as individuals in terms of making positive contributions to the nation and giving more and demanding less from it if we are to ever emerge as the numero uno nation of the world.
Sugata Bose @Debashis Pathak We weren't disciplined then, we aren't disciplined now as a nation. Victories in 1983 and 2011 do not negate the point made in the post. Even if we had won yesterday, the point made would hold. Were we disciplined as a nation, we would have been making rapid progress in every sphere of national life in comparable terms with the developed nations of the first world which is simply not the case. Our exploding population, poor per capita GDP, proliferating criminalisation of politics, plummeting academic standards, careless ecological destruction are but some of the foremost pointers to the veracity of what I have said whose secondary effect is the frequently failed performance at the highest level in sports. Our Olympic performances are miserably poor relative to USA, China, Germany, France, Japan and a host of other smaller nations of the world. And yet you seek an explanation from me that ought to have been amply evident before the thinking mind.
Sugata Bose @Subhasish Papan Ghosh : This is called post-match, post-tournament analysis and it is very much in place.
Sugata Bose @Soumitra Ghosh Although it worked in the earlier matches, I always felt Rohit Sharma was putting his head to the scaffold too early to disrupt the line and lenghth of the opposition bowlers in the power play. His wicket was so precious and so often he sacrificed it in the 40s and 50s. This was a strategic blunder despite it having apparently been the success mantra in the earlier ten matches. Sharma should have throughout the tournament prized his wicket more and carried on at a relatively slower pace to pile up huge scores for himself and the team. There's room for thought there. One does not sacrifice one's most explosive and prolific batsman this way and expect to win the World Cup. It simply does not happen. Viv Richards made this mistake in the 1983 final (33 of 28 deliveries) to the dismay of the Windies.
Sugata Bose @Umesh Ambadi : Let the players relax now. Why should we? We as a nation must work more, laze less, think more, ease less.
Sugata Bose @Subrata Ganguly : No, even in victory I had pointed out flaws in thinking of the Indian team. Were we to win yesterday, the pertinent features of our national psyche which promote failure would have been as present as they are evident now in defeat to many. Other nations needs a structural overhauling of their cricketing systems but we need a comprehensive overhauling of our national psyche.
Sugata Bose @Rabindra Mukhopadhyay : Through individual effort creating small ripples which in turn overtime will raise large waves, eventually catching all in its magnetic influence and altering national culture for good.
Sugata Bose @Umesh Magotra : Good joke. Actually the post was made by me on my X account where there is space limitation. Hence. But you have a good sense of humour which I appreciate. Plus, let me for once stick with just the eleven and not add on any more.
P.S. On post-thought I have complied with your unstated request. Have a look now. Colin Bland---he fields, bats and bowls better than me. So, I prefer to remain selector and not drinks carrier for this dream team.
Sugata Bose @Debjit Banerjee : Depending on the definition of man and God. Second, we cannot know God beyond our own consciousness, superconscious, call it what you will. Conceptions are circumscribed by consciousness. Hence, a definitive problem.
Sugata Bose @Jeeva Raja : All religions imagine God, interpreting internal Reality as external God sitting up in the heavens.
Sugata Bose @Shubhankar Bhattacharya : The statement made in the post may sound atheistic to the undiscerning but is certainly not unspiritual from the Vedantic standpoint where the trinitarian unity of Absolute Existence-Consciousness-Bliss is kept in mind as the acme of spiritual reality which is the essence of the apparent man and is where terrestrial man and his imagined God both dissolve to reveal the real Being that is the nameless Brahman, Atman or simply 'Tat' (That). ['Aitad atmyamidam sarvam tat satyam sa Atma Tattvamasi Shvetaketu.']
Sugata Bose @Pahari Pothik : God you in essence are. If you can negate your existence even for a moment, God would cease to exist. But can you? You can't. Hence, your existence, absolute and timeless, dimensionless, uncaused and untrapped in relativity is God, the term being Abrahamic is a rather sorry description of the real state of things, so to say. Meanwhile, as long as you conceive of yourself through indescribable Maya as perceiving finite man, your idea of God persists with it if you are a theist. If you are an atheist, you still cannot reject Nature as the governing sovereign. If you are a sceptical natural philosopher or scientist, you still must admit evolutionary cause-effect scientific sequence as the determiner of life and natural law and quantum chance as the presiding officers-in-charge of cosmic affairs. The choice is entirely yours or is determined by your environment, upbringing, education, circumstance, cultural setting and genetic tendency, or, as the theist might put it as being determined by your sanskaras (mental tendencies) stemming from past births. It is an intractable question logically speaking but solvable by actual experience of your adored deity through rigorous pursuit of the requisite spiritual disciplines stationed on the stable foundation of absolute continence (brahmacharya). So, God exists in our imagination as God exists in reality, and Reality is God but not as we commonly conceive of it.
Sugata Bose @Ashutosh Bajpai : But imagination's imagination too, I mean, in calculus' second derivative terms.
Sugata Bose @CricBeat : None dares criticise Kohli for his slow-scoring in the final, now that he has scored 765 runs in the tournament. What about Rohit Sharma's strategic blunder throughout the tournament in giving irresponsible flashy starts to the innings, sacrificing his prized wicket in the process, a move that would inevitably backfire if Kohli and company once failed to capitalise on the headstart given by him in the poweplay? Rohit Sharma is our most explosive batsman with three ODI double centuries to his credit and yet he casually kept sacrificing his wicket in the forties for this queer course of reasoning that his self-immolation would ignite the pyre perennially for the opposition bowlers to dive in. Queer thinking and rightful response by the Aussies at the critical hour when the pyre consumed the Indian batsmen in their place.
Sugata Bose @Umesh Magotra : Thanks a lot, brother. You are my sole supporter. Else, I am bankrupt in my support base.
Sugata Bose @Partha Sanyal : Nostalgic memories, my friend. Those were the halcyon days.
Sugata Bose @Vinod Ekhellikar : One choice please. The word 'greatest' is in the superlative degree of comparison and cannot brook dual positioning.
Sugata Bose @Debanjan Banerjee : Couldn't fit so many in the attractive coloured box. Perhaps, you would have neglected the post were it to become black and white on account of so many inclusions. So, there lies the colourful predicament, you see. Reader attention-span is extremely short and observation fickle. But in principle I agree with you. Vishwanath, though, is there in the list. Meanwhile, do make the choice please.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [Ranveer Allahbadia] : India's population in 2020 was 137 crore and not 130 crore. Accuracy seems not a national attribute in any sphere.
Sugata Bose @Umesh Magotra : You are my sole supporter, my great inspiration to carry on. You are head and shoulders above my faithful followers and have qualified by now as head commentator. 🤣
Sugata Bose @YouTube [ThePrint] : Shekhar Gupta is a trifle frivolous, much too talkative and suffering from a degree of unseemly levity. Besides, his diction, pronunciation at that, is literally terrible.
Sugata Bose @Wake up to a new day with hope and vigour and with the resolve to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Golden girl, yours is the expanse ahead to traverse and triumph. Godspeed unto glorious success!
Sugata Bose @Umesh Magotra : You misunderstood my intent. The post means that Bengal no more seminally contributes to India's progress which it used yo do in the days of yore when Gopal Krishna Gokhale famously said, "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow." Bengal's cultural decline has severely handicapped India's progress to potential. She would have been far ahead today in every sphere had Bengal positively participated in national proceedings instead of playing the deliberate negative role that it has. These are cryptic posts open to misinterpretation. Hence, the post script provided here by way of response to your pertinent observation.
Sugata Bose @Umesh Magotra : Oh, you are too much! I love your sense of humour. And thanks for promoting me up the order from drinks-carrying twelfth man to pace-facing opening bat.
Sugata Bose @Cricket For India : Yes, for sure. Dhoni's exceptionally high IQ for a cricketer would have clinched us the Cup through right planning and adaptive adoption of strategy.
Sugata Bose @Subhrajyoti Bhowmick : Only it happens to be that this one bad day occurs much less for Australia in crucial matches.
Sugata Bose @Kishore Bhimani became terribly conscious about the time crunch at the end of the show and wished to rapidly wrap up the programme to the effect that he even denied Gavaskar the time and opportunity to answer a question thrown by one in the audience as to whether Sachin Tendulkar was overrated as a batsman in Test cricket as such. But the same Bhimani had no qualms about taking up the lion's share of the interview time by himself needlessly speaking as interviewer when he ought to have allowed the interviewee, Gavaskar, speak much much more. This was a distasteful attempt to steal the show by one who was supposed to merely ask questions and allow the interview to at ease answer them. Bhimani spoilt the show.
Sugata Bose @Umesh Magotra : There you go yet again with your inimitable humour. Bravo, what a talent you have for springing up original surprises! Strange that barring me none else seems to savour such subtle humour put in otherwise easy terms.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [Mirror Niw] : Viewers do not wish for clarification, dear newsreader. It is people like you who wish to cash in on every little incident by making mountain out of molehill.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [The Bharat Army] : Farokh Engineer talks stuff that is extraneous to the subject under discussion. Typical muddled superficial thinker, digressing needlessly from the core conversation.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [UnHerd] : How is liberalism rooted in Christianity when Christianity proclaims itself to be the only true faith through which salvation, redemption, call it what you will, is to be achieved? What is liberal about it, Ms. Ayan Hirsi Ali? Have you studied the Upanishads? Do so if you haven't and come to more illumined conclusions about the philosophical genesis of liberalism, the principle being embedded in the depth-consciousness of man.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [Freedom Speaks] : Progressive way to address regressive problems?
Sugata Bose @YouTube [Sadhguru] : Puerile assertions made by this supposed yogi masquerading as a true Guru. No match for Prof. Steven Pinker. Distracted digressing dialogues from his side. Pinker is streets ahead, leagues above in his assertions. Prof. Pinker is so clear in his thinking, so precise, logical and articulate that it was a terrible mismatch to pit him in discussion against one of lesser intellectual acumen.
Sugata Bose @Anu Lekha : None. Just resisting the slave mentality of our people that has affected us for millenia and thwarted progress along the lines of individual divine self-expression. This is truly feudal in psychological structure and hinders the democratic fulfillment of our people emerging from tyrannical times dating millenia.
Sugata Bose @Jitendra Abhyankar : True it is that Absolute Truth cannot exist within the universe, so to say, but it may be immanent in it. Absolute Truth is transcendental, beyond the confines of space-time-causality.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [N1 Media Consultancy Private Limited---Discussion on the book 'Fortune Turners: the Quartet that Spun India to Victory'] : Bowling average of Rajinder Goel is 17%. What is that, Madam Moderator?
Sachin Tendulkar neither played Rajinder Goel nor Bishan Singh Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar has not written what Madam Moderator you in your ignorance have blissfully bluttered out. Kindly do your homework well before interviewing such cricketing stalwarts as Rajinder Goel so that you do not suffer such obvious embarrassment on hindsight.
Select a moderator who is well versed in cricketing lore and in knowledge of the game as such. The one conducting the show seems to be innocent of cricketing knowledge and has spoilt the show completely. Such stalwarts are not everyday born or available for interview as Rajinder Goel and to let go of the opportunity fruitlessly by asking inconsequential questions is a great loss to posterity who will look up these videos to try to know of the halcyon days of our domestic cricket. Indeed a wasted opportunity. Alas!
Sugata Bose @Bratisankar Ghosh : Even if they are, worship is oftentimes sterile and it is better to pursue principle than personality, for the former frees one in its impersonal focus while the latter binds one with all its historical limitations and undue impositions. Principle leads to an infinite expanse of thought whereas personality generally binds its flock unto indiscriminate adulation at its best and fanatical frenzy at its worst. Democracy delivers its promise best along the impersonal line of pursuit of life-giving and truth-seeking principles.
Sugata Bose @Last Breadth : Extraneous unnecessarily disrespectful comment, quite reprehensible. Certainly Netaji would have disapproved of it vehemently. Alas, if this be devotion to the great hero, where will we hide our shame as sincere admirers of him? Surely, Netaji deserves a better deal from those who claim to be his followers and ardent devotees, and surely Netaji, for all his cultural refinement, would have deemed this sort of undue vilification of fellow citizens as a despicable degeneration of the polity and would have brought in heavy censure of the perpetrators.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [tehelkatv] : This 'Guru' (Jaggi Vasudev) speaks a host of gibberish, nonsensical seemingly sensible things, an elaborate verbal trap laid for the gullible to fall into with compliants not lacking to oblige. Such delicious deception is common where the flock follows the shepherd along the blind alleyways of unreason masquerading as reason and millions in the process thus drown in the sea of delusion. A sad day for spirituality where money, machination and mind-management of the masses become mainstream public discourse.
Javed Akhtar is hammering home his point. Jaggi totally stumped.
Sugata Bose @YouTube [Indian Brights' Society] : Why do anchors spoil the show at the end of a brilliant lecture by their needless superficial observations as final comment on the just concluded exposition?
Saturday 18 November 2023
ভাববার বিষয় ... ৩
ভাববার বিষয় ... ৩
প্রথমে দেখতাম ভেতরটা বাইরে | পরে দেখলাম বাইরেটা ভেতরে | শেষে কি তবে বাইরে ভেতর এক অখণ্ড সত্তারূপ বোধ হবে অহংরূপ মাত্রব্যবধান যাকে দ্বিধাবিভক্ত করে রেখেছে অনির্বচনীয় মায়ার দ্বারা? এক নির্দ্বন্দ্বসত্তা বহুল প্রতীত ? তাই কি ঠাকুর সচ্চিদানন্দ সাগরে মনরূপ লাঠির কথা বললেন ? বললেন গঙ্গায় আমিরূপ ঘটের কথা যার ভেতরে জল, বাইরে জল, মাত্র অহংরূপ প্রাচীরের ব্যবধান যা সরে গেলেই সব জলে জলময় একাকার, অধঃ ঊর্ধ্ব পরিপূর্ণ ? একি জল না অমৃত সাগর যার মাঝে মক্ষিকারূপ নরেনকে ঝাঁপ দিতে বললেন অমরত্বের সন্ধানে ? মনের আমি না আমার মন ? একের বহু না বহুর এক ? দৃষ্টি হতে সৃষ্টি না সৃষ্টি হতে দৃষ্টি ?
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
ON THE EVE (18 NOVEMBER, 2023)
ON THE EVE (18 NOVEMBER, 2023)
Hours to go before the final. How do you feel about the prospects? Do give your views about the chances of an Indian win. Can India make it?
1983, 2011, 2023?
Will Rohit Sharma score a whirldwind World Cup Final ton, a captain's innings that will career India to victory?
Will Kohli fire again and cement his place in history with a World Cup Final ton?
Will Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, K.L.Rahul and Surya Kumar Yadav attain maturity at the right moment to see India through?
What about the pace trio---Bumrah, Siraj, Shami? Will Shami's epic run continue?
And the spinning duo---Jadeja and Kuldeep? Can they mesmerise the Aussies into submission?
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo: Internet
Friday 17 November 2023
ALL-TIME TEST ELEVENS
ALL-TIME INDIA TEST XI
1. Vijay Merchant
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Virender Sehwag
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Vinoo Mankad**
6. Rahul Dravid*
7. Farokh Engineer [[[
8. Kapil Dev
9. Amar Singh
10. Ramakant Desai
11. Subhas Gupte
12th man: Eknath Solkar
ALL-TIME AUSTRALIA TEST XI
1. Victor Trumper
2. Mathew Hayden
3. Don Bradman**
4. Stan McCabe
5. Steve Smith
6. Adam Gilchrist [[[
7. Keith Miller
8. Ray Lindwall
9. Shane Warne*
10. Bill O'Reilly
11. Dennis Lillee
12th man: Richie Benaud
ALL-TIME ENGLAND TEST XI
1. Jack Hobbs
2. Len Hutton**
3. Walter Hammond*
4. Denis Compton
5. Ken Barrington
6. Leslie Ames [[[
7. Ian Botham
8. Hedley Verity
9. Harold Larwood
10. Fred Trueman
11. Sydney Francis Barnes
12th man: Kevin Peterson
ALL-TIME WEST INDIES XI
1. Frank Worrell**
2. Gordon Greenidge
3. Vivian Richards
4. George Headley
5. Brian Lara
6. Garfield Sobers*
7. Jeffrey Dujon [[[
8. Malcolm Marshall
9. Andy Roberts
10. Joel Garner
11. Lance Gibbs
12th man: Clive Lloyd
ALL-TIME SOUTH AFRICA XI
1. Barry Richards
2. Graeme Smith**
3. Graeme Pollock
4. Jacques Kallis
5. Dudley Nourse*
6. AB de Villiers
7. Denis Lindsay [[[
8. Shaun Pollock
9. Hugh Tayfield
10. Dayle Steyn
11. Allan Donald
12th man: Jonty Rhodes
ALL-TIME NEW ZEALAND XI
1. Glen Turner
2. Brendon McCullum [[[
3. Kane Williamson**
4. Martin Crowe*
5. Ross Taylor
6. Nathan Astle
7. Chris Cairns
8. Daniel Vettori
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Trent Boult
11. Shane Bond
12th man: Chris Harris
ALL-TIME PAKISTAN TEST XI
1. Hanif Mohammad
2. Saeed Anwar
3. Younis Khan
4. Javed Miandad*
5. Yousuf Youhana
6. Imran Khan**
7. Moin Khan [[[
8. Wasim Akram
9. Waqar Younis
10. Shoaib Akhtar
11. Abdul Qadir
12th man: Shoaib Malik
ALL-TIME SRI LANKA TEST XI
1. Sanath Jayasurya
2. Marvan Atapattu
3. Kumar Sangakkara [[[
4. Aravinda de Silva
5. Mahela Jayawardane*
6. Angelo Mathews
7. Arjuna Ranatunga**
8. Ravi Ratnayake
9. Chaminda Vaas
10. Lasith Malinga
11. Muttiah Muralidaran
12th man: Peter David Heyn
ALL-TIME TEST WORLD XI
1. Barry Richards (SA)
2. Sunil Gavaskar (Ind)
3. Don Bradman (Aus)**
4. Graeme Pollock (SA)
5. Vivian Richards (WI)
6. Garfield Sobers (WI)*
7. Adam Gilchrist (Aus) [[[
8. Malcolm Marshall (WI)
9. Shane Warne (Aus)
10. Dennis Lillee (Aus)
11. Muttiah Muralidaran (SL)
12th man: Jonty Rhodes (SA)
Teams selected by Sugata Bose
Thursday 16 November 2023
IN RESPONSE TO THE USUAL MISAPPREHENSION OF A POST OF MINE, A CRICKETING ONE IN THESE CONTENTIOUS TIMES, WHERE THE RESPONDENT ARROGANTLY INSINUATES MY IGNORANCE IN CRICKETING MATTERS
IN RESPONSE TO THE USUAL MISAPPREHENSION OF A POST OF MINE, A CRICKETING ONE IN THESE CONTENTIOUS TIMES, WHERE THE RESPONDENT ARROGANTLY INSINUATES MY IGNORANCE IN CRICKETING MATTERS
Not at all. A post has to be understood in perspective. Else, it is a futile discussion, an endless troll that is best left alone.
P.S. Fanfare is one, analysis another. The critic sees deeper into things than the surface sight of the enchanted follower allows him/her to see. The former, though, advances the cause of both the game and life. The fact that Australia has won five World Cups thus far as opposed to us having won two is because they have a brighter sporting culture where mass adulation is not all that is called 'cricket' but where serious study of the game, its history and the systems associated with the game are given prominence to. Most important is the fact that they do not decry rational original thinking, creative contributions and the fundamental critical approach to life which is the foundation of Western civilisation post the Enlightenment. Our slipshod thinking, hyper-adulation of heroes bordering on irrational worship and neglect of rational thinking make us susceptible to mere frothy emotion instead of depth-understanding of the game and adoption of consequential measures that would make us unfailingly the numero uno team time and time again as Australia historically has been. That we had put in place decades ago some positive institutions like the MRF PACE ACADEMY and the like have paid dividends decades hence whose harvest we are unthinkingly reaping now. That Virat Kohli has set in a new order of heightened physical fitness which was traditionally neglected by us has now begun to show in our much improved fielding and general performance. When this requirement was pointed out by critics decades ago, they were laughed at by their surface-critics that cricket was not football or athletics after all. So, was Bradman's diagnosis of Gavaskar's failures in 1981 down under as his having grown slightly overweight which made his movements at the crease slightly slower, thereby making him susceptible to the faster deliveries a trifle more which was costing him his wicket, neglected by the Little Master. These are debatable issues for sure but they are being cited to consolidate my case. So was Greg Chappell's breaking the immobile mass of Indian cricket criticised by all and sundry except such hawk-eye critics of the game as Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi who with some reservations as to Chappell's methods and means in an Indian setting of an entirely different sociocultural outlook welcomed his initiatives nonetheless and called them constructive for the future of Indian cricket. What Ganguly and Tendulkar did not heed, Dravid did, Dhoni did and now Kohli and company are following suit. Not all but the more intelligent and the diligent section are doing even today for it has now become cricketing culture among the players, not so with the fans, though. Greg Chappell brought about the collapse of the personalised system of cricket in India---albeit often by resorting to questionable means which were undesirable from the view-point of fostering team-spirit---and ushered in the golden age of Indian cricket along Australian lines which intent of the post in altered context is here being resented by followers such as you as well. May my countrymen be better rationalised! But will they, given the social propensity to irrational thinking?
Written by Sugata Bose
Wednesday 15 November 2023
A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE INDIAN AWAKENING CULMINATING IN FREEDOM
A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE INDIAN AWAKENING CULMINATING IN FREEDOM
Subhas Chandra Bose followed in the footsteps of the great revolutionary Rash Behari Bose to create conditions for the freedom of India. Earlier Gandhiji had transformed the elitist Congress movement for freedom into a mass movement which shook the foundations of the British Raj. And what was Gandhiji but the echo of Swamiji? Swamiji had breathed life into a dead nation. Gandhiji quickened it into life and action. But his methods were passive. What was needed was a militancy that would 'shake off the sterile curse' of the colonists, and this was provided by the Bose duo who organised mass militancy, that is, an armed struggle for freedom.
This militancy, however, was not initiated by the Bengal revolutionaries as such but was the legacy of the Revolt of 1857 when the native kings in conjunction with the revolting sepoys nearly overthrew the East India Company's reign in India. The revolt was brutally suppressed with over 100,000 casualties post-war by way of British retribution. But the scars were left behind and a simmering revolutionary movement was in the air with Maharashtra boiling as Phadke raised rebellion which was crushed and the hero sent into exile to die there in oblivion.
The air was rife with revolution to quell which the British set up the safety valve in the form of the Indian National Congress in 1885 where aggrieved Indians could voice their grievances against the Raj along constitutional means instead of taking recourse to violent attempts at overthrowing it.
But we are fast-forwarding events. Let us rewind then a bit. The East India Company had established its stranglehold first in the Bengal Presidency and it was but natural that Bengal, the cultural confluence of the East and the West, should provide India with her resistive powerhouse to free her of colonial consequence.
And so the resistance to colonial conquest came in the form of the Bengal Renaissance with the advent of Rammohan Roy in 1872. The first signs of the national awakening were evident as Roy strode like a colossus across the socioreligious firmament and ushered in the New Age which was the best fusion of the East and the West that he could conceive of and bring into fruition.
Thomas Babbington Macaulay had wished to culturally colonise India by instituting a system of British education which would create a race of Babus or clerks conversant with British modes and mores who would loyally serve their British masters and perpetuate their colonial hold on India. But this western education proved to be the enlightenment that colonised Indians were in need of to shake off the British rule. Ideas of the Enlightenment, of western democracy and human rights, and the emergence of European nation states stirred up the minds of the Indian intelligentsia into seeking greater freedom and autonomy of self-governance. This coupled with religious revival fostered nationalistic feelings among the educated and led to the first rumblings of what later metamorphosed into the freedom movement.
After Vasudev Balwant Phadke's brief aborted rebellion Maharashtra did awake to the call of another tiger, the redoubtable Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who spurred the Marathis into aggressive activity against the British Raj. When plague broke out in Maharashtra the British officers under command overdid their job of sanitisation of the local communities, violating the modesty of women folk in the process, which brought forth the ire of Tilak. His fiery articles in the Kesari and the Maratha ignited minds, foremost among which were those of the three Chapekar brothers who assassinated the dreaded officer Rand for which they were subsequently executed.
The fire of freedom ignited in Maharashtra soon spread to the Bengal Presidency where Aurobindo Ghosh carried the torch and ushered in the 'Agni Yug'. Swami Vivekananda's body lay prostrate at Belur Math on 4 July, 1902 and from the flames of his funeral pyre was lit the torch of freedom. Swamiji's revolutionary message implicit in his speeches and writings carried the day as the ignited youth of Bengal read into the seer's mind as to what was expected of them---nothing short of the resurrection of the motherland beginning with the political freedom of the country. And in plunged the fairest flowers of Bengal's youth to carrying out the Master's orders. Bagha Jatin and Hemchandra Ghosh had in person received orders to the effect, and now was the hour of action. Curzon's Partition of Bengal further fuelled the fire and secret societies like the Anushilan Samity and the Jugantar became rife with revolutionary activity.
In the North Swami Dayananda Saraswati had set alight the hearts and minds of the youth with his revolutionary socioreligious campaign and set afoot a movement for the spiritual and social revival of the Hindus. His clarion call 'Back to the Vedas' instilled pride into drooping souls and hearkened to the glorious days of India's antiquity. His educational and socioreligious programmes brought forth many an eminent leader of the future freedom movement, prominent among which were the fearless Lala Lajpat Rai and the Hindu activist Swami Shraddhanand. Bhai Parmanand and Lala Hardayal were two other prominent members of the Arya Samaj. The Arya Samaj captured the imagination of the masses in the Punjab and in effect consolidated them for India's future political movement. Likewise in Bengal sprang up the Brahmo Samaj and the Prarthana Samaj in Maharashtra, socioreligious movements which were the precursors to the great mass movement in the Gandhian era to follow. These were not specifically oriented towards the political emancipation of India but were religious reform movements that strengthened the polity, that nourished its adolescent years before it emerged into full-scale adult struggle for political independence under Gandhi in its non-violent phase and the revolutionaries in its armed phase, at first sporadic, then the full-blown assault of the INA.
Maharashtra was followed by Bengal in the wake of Swamiji's death and the arrival of Aurobindo in 1903 from Baroda to take charge of the extremist movement. Curzon's Partition of Bengal in 1905 further exacerbated things and secret societies Anushilan Samity and Jugantar struck terror in the hearts of the British by their daring acts of assassination of British high-ranked officials. The Swadeshi and the Boycott Movements coming as response to the Partition consolidated Bengali response to British imperialism and the Aurobindo-Barin-led armed revolutionary movement that culminated in the Alipore Bomb Case made Kolkata a hot-bed of anti-British activity forcing the Crown to shift colonial capital city from Kolkata to New Delhi in 1912. Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki's attempted assassination of Kingsford in Muzaffarpur followed by the discovery of the bomb-making factory at Manicktola resulted in the implication of Aurobindo Ghosh in anti-Crown conspiracy, and with his year-long incarceration in Alipore Jail in 1908-09 the tide of the revolutionary movement began to turn. Aurobindo in solitary confinement had spiritual realisations which convinced him that his career of the soul lay elsewhere and he quit politics to go into ascetic seclusion in Pondicherry where he served thenceforth the larger cause of the spiritual emancipation of humanity, its evolution from the mental phase to the supramental phase. Thus was Aurobindo lost to the freedom movement and the armed revolutionary movement which he had fathered fell into a lull but not for long.
Meanwhile, in 1907 the Congress had split at Surat amidst acrimonious circumstances into the Moderate faction and the Extremist faction with Aurobindo Ghosh and Tilak having led the charge of the latter.
The Punjab had become another hotbed of revolution with the US-based Ghadar Party with local operatives in the state sowing seeds of an impending insurrection in India. So was the India House in London rife with clandestine revolutionary activity. These two external agencies attempted to overthrow British rule in India during the Great War of 1914-18.
Now emerged the dangerous duo of Bagha Jatin and Rash Behari Bose who conducted the actual operation of armed insurrection. With German arms' assistance Bagha Jatin managed to stage a near-coup which through internal betrayal was aborted, although the revolutionary along with his comrades-in-arms redeemed himself at the Battle of Balasore in 1915. The shipment carrying German arms supply was intercepted by the British and a golden opportunity was lost to oust the colonists at a time when they were at their weakest.
Written by Sugata Bose
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