All time United India-Pakistan Cricket IXTuesday, August 14, 2012We are going to celebrate our 66th Independence day. A day before, on 14th August, Pakistan, our twin sister got her's. I believe (If my GK is right) the need for a different Muslim state smelled like a silent demand almost from the 1930s or so,when many Muslims started to quit from the Congress party. And in the Lahore Conference, Jinnah made it Official. The British did try to make the Congress and the Muslim League be friends ( Which is now seen only in Kerala :P), but they failed. As a result, Mr. Radcliff was made to draw a line that divided India and Pakistan. But I still believe that Pakistan could be a sovereign Muslim state, but a part of confederated Indian Union.
Ah! That set aside. What #IfThereWasNoPartition (A topic that's trending on twitter)? How would have been our cricket team? Imagine the Javed Miandads and Kapil Devs playing together. Saeed Anwars and Sachin Tendulkars running between the wickets together. This made me think of an "All time United India-Pakistan Cricket (Test)IX". Believe me, this was really really tough. I made a list of 18 a short-listed from it. But my team is
Sunny Gavaskar was my father's generation's "little master"; he'd be opening the batting. You know who's his partner? The elegant and perseverant Saeed Anwar. Anwar's wristwork and Gavaskar's footwork are are just something unique for them. One down, comes Miandad, one of the most aggressive and positive batsmen. He would be the captain of this Eleven, over Kapil, just due to his sheer aggression. Then comes in the GOD- no explanation needed. Now, if in case, IN CASE, Anwar, Gavaskar, Mindad, Tendulkar- all of them fail, this man would fight rest of the battle- Dravid "The Wall". 4 down comes, Imran Khan- again needs no explanation - The greatest all-rounder in the world after Gary Sobers. Then comes the man who brought us the world cup for the first time - Kapil Dev. Now, Syed Kirmani was quite a tight call over Rashid Latif. Akram, Prasanna, Kumble - none needs explanation. Wasim Akram and Imran Khan opens the attack and Kapil Dev comes in 1st change followed by Prasanna and Kumble. If the team is set to play in Perth or Sabina Park, then I'd probably drop someone and play Waqar Younis. I really don't know who that someone would be. Now, #IfThereWasNoPartition then, probably this would have been one among all-time great Indian IX. Since it cannot be, lets at least dream of this team playing the great West Indian team of the sixties. Happy Independence day!! How to Improve Indian performance in Olympics?Monday, July 30, 2012 Just like anyone out here (London), the Olympic fever has caught me as well. To be honest it is this time that I followed most of the Olympic games understanding the rules of each game (I have loads of spare time now, please do get in touch if you want me to do any sound editing works for you- Not joking). I believe there are 26 Olympic Sports, in which India is participating for only 13. Yes, I really feel sad since there isn’t enough participation. Most of the rest of the games are just participatable games. I shall try giving some solutions for improving participation and improving the participation quality.
There are many other sports like Teakwondo, Triathlon, etc. I knowingly ignored them. I don’t even know how to pronounce them, then how do you expect me to give solutions for them. Doesn’t all the above mentioned points make sense? If not for any of them, bring back cricket, Yes it was an Olympic sport in 1900. Hope for it. Abolish Capital PunishmentMonday, July 23, 2012
Yesterday I happened to see a debate on Capital punishment on NDTV. Like at most times a debate on abolishing capital punishment would only get back to square one.
The main argument for capital punishment is and has been that the pain of punishment should be proportionate to that of crime.
Definitely we get back to the same question, has anyone got the right to take off the life of another person. Yes the pain of punishment should be proportionate, but life. I would repeat the common counter argument. Put him/her in a single cell for his life.
Counter argument is that punishment the culprit does not only serve as the redressal of the victim’s grievance. Both should be two different issues and in fact hat should be the message for society.
Abolishing capital punishment would increase murder.
That argument is believed to be wrong. Statistics show that it has been quite the reverse in the United States;
“A 1998 FBI report showed that in the south, the region where the death penalty was used most frequently, 292 law enforcement officers were killed in a ten-year period. Whereas, in the north-east, which had fewest executions, the figure was 80.”
Why do waste tax-payers money in keeping murderers alive?
I have heard many complaining that we spend a lot of money for protecting Kasab and Afsal and keeping them alive. Do you know how much the US, a country which has not abolished capital punishment spends on detention services? The US budget request for Detention services for 2013 is $1.6 billion. It is the same value India rupees that has been requested by Pranab Mukharjee for the development all Roads & Bridges across India. Budget, yes is a problem. But at most times all the expenditure is when the convit is being tried. After that he can be changed to high security prisons like the North Branch correction Institute in the United States. This documentary (Worlds toughest Prison :Link --> http://t.co/JKcQYFwF (Not viewable outside UK)) which I saw a few days ago on Channel 5 shows the security levels in the North Branch Prison.
The North Branch Prison has 7 layers of defence. The Cell, its confusing structure, CCTV, Guard Patrol and tower, Microwave sensor, Fence 1, Fence 2. It is IMPOSSIBLE to escape from there. It is also built based on a technology that it can even withstand a good level bomb blast. All notorious bad guys must be kept in such prisons for life without parole. Commercial prisons with advanced revenue model concept might work out to compensate for some the money sent (not from the notorious convicts). There might be other solutions as well
Okay, even if we continue with capital punishment, how barbaric is the method of hanging when most of the rest of the counties have moved on to other forms of death penalties. Most of the states in the United States and China now use Lethal injection as a method.
How is Lethal Injection done?
After all, just one question; A person who kills 50 people might not think of Humanness. But if even we dont, then whats the difference between them?
Sound Designers' DailyThursday, May 31, 2012
'Sound Designers' Daily' is compilation of news from various social media and it offers news, tips, stories from various sound designers and audio companies. It is compiled by Paperli
See and follow the the 'Sound Designer's' Daily See the Preview here: Long-Takes in CinemaMonday, May 21, 2012
We all have seen pretty long takes in many film. I happened to see Joe Wright's Atonement again yesterday night. I have storified a few tweets which I did this morning.
Players Mic'd during IPLFriday, May 18, 2012Starting... Match number 62 of the Indian Premier League – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians; Mumbai was chasing and AB De Villiers had been mic’d up; commentators were Tom Moody and Danny Morrison. Vinay Kumar ran in to bowl the 5th ball of his 1st over, the white ball hit the batsman’s pad down the leg side and AB caught it. Up went AB and the bowler with a big appeal. MI had just lost Tendulkar and Gibbs and being a Mumbai Indian supporter, I started quaking in my boots. But it was quite bizarre that the umpire called it a wide. I was relieved, but still quite tensed whether the Mumbai Indians would be able to score another 170 odd runs. ABD (who was mic’d up, jokingly): “I don’t want to get myself into trouble so I won’t say much. I knew it hit the pad”READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON SPORTSKEEDA Shekhar Gupta: News or Faking NewsThursday, April 5, 2012 Most at times I get to know about a piece of news from the 140 characters written by the people that I follow on twitter. By the time you follow down the time line for the tweets that came in in the last 3 hours, you would get to know what the specific news was and the reviews by the twitterati that followed it. But now days it difficult, not that it’s difficult to follow tweets, but it has become difficult to differentiate original and fake news. “Rakhi Sawant visits Parliament with advice for Pranab” “Karnataka MLA watches Porn in assembly”. Interestingly, these headlines were not written by Faking News or UnReal Times. Most at times it is just the headline that would be misleading, that makes you feel that that is fake news. To an extent even yesterday, it was the headline that made most of the people jump the gun. “The January night Raisina Hill was spooked: Two key Armyunits moved towards Delhi without notifying Govt” People consider the army as a sacred institution, so the way they have reacted is just natural but that doesn't mean that they need to leave their keyboards and pens and join the military; they will not. At the same time, it is not that the army is not to be criticised for anything. Yes, we should have the freedom and the journalists should have the courage and balls to criticise the functioning of any institution in Indian democracy based on strong and solid facts. In fact this time it was not just the headline, the whole story was written in such a style. It is well known that the relationship between the government and the army is at an all-time low. But the heading, the style of writing and defence by other publications and channels were showing out their interests in taking down the government. Shekhar Gupta while making his defence on various news channels yesterday night, was stressing on the point that he was just laying down the facts. Not pretty professional, since those were laid down on a velvet mat. In fact a few months back, after Sri. Subramaniam Swami’s article on the DNA, a friend of mine decided never to use that paper even to wipe his ass. I believe that Indian Express is at least printed on better quality paper.
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Nikhil Varma
Sound Design - Voice Over - Greater Kochi - Film Buff - Cricket - Travel - Not a strict ideologist. |