April 18, 2008
Soft bigotry of low expectations
Stephen Hadley is the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. By all accounts he’s an intelligent man who should know the difference between Nepal and Tibet. So why did he, while talking to Stephanopoulos last Sunday about whether Bush would attend the Olympic opening ceremony, say Nepal every single time he meant to say Tibet? [via Saja]
That’s seven times that he gets the basic geographic issue at hand completely wrong. Here are just a few examples from a transcript:
“The way to deal with the issue of Nepal is not by some — a statement that you’re not going to the opening ceremonies and say, therefore, I checked the Nepal box… What he’s doing on Nepal is what we think the international community ought to be doing, which is approaching the Chinese privately through diplomatic channels and sending a very firm message of concern for human rights, a concern for what’s happening in Nepal, urging the Chinese government to understand that it is in their interest to reach out to representatives of the Dalai Lama, and to show, while the whole world is watching China, that they are determined to treat their citizens with dignity and respect. There is an opportunity here.” [Link]
Meanwhile, Stephanopoulos, who showed himself so adept at playing gotcha politics on Wednesday night didn’t correct even Hadley once.
Yes, Hadley is clearly referring to Tibet in context, and the two countries are in the same region. But if the national security advisor was to confuse Saudi Arabia with Iran, that would be news worthy, wouldn’t it? How about China and North Korea?
However, when he confuses Nepal (an independent country emerging from a dictatorship by a Hindu ruler) with Tibet (a conquered country under a communist dictatorship), the NYT buries the mistake at the very end of their article, mentioning in passing that the White House has confirmed that Hadley “misspoke”.
ennis at 09:16 AM in News, Sports · 78 comment(s) · Direct link
February 12, 2008
The mini Hercules
As a person who appreciates his time at the gym (and advocates fitness in general), I knew I had to post this story as soon as I read it earlier today. Meet India’s Aditya ‘Romeo’ Dev, the world’s smallest bodybuilder:
Unlike many dwarfs, Romeo is well proportioned, with a head circumference of 15in and a chest measurement of 20in.
Romeo said: “I’ve been training as a bodybuilder for the last two years and by now I think I must be the strongest dwarf in the world.
“I have always been fit but since I started working out, I have become famous for my strength. [Link]
I doubt very much that he is the strongest dwarf in the world, but I do admire his ambition. What I appreciate most about “Romeo” is that he just does his thing with confidence. One big fear some people have about going to the gym is that they will look weak in front of the rest of the “big muscle-bound” guys. As you can see from the pictures, Dev isn’t even afraid to wear Calvin & Hobbes shorts while working out:
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Don’t stare without pinhole sunglasses |
Finally, the media will have something from India besides the Little Superstar to talk about. At least this guy is a certified pimp.
abhi at 10:43 PM in Health and Medicine, News, Profiles, Sports · 39 comment(s) · Direct link
January 25, 2008
IPL: Unofficial Team Naming Galata
You may have noticed that SM covered an upstart, professional cricket league’s launch last year. It was the brash, confident, cheerleader-laden counterpart to the then ephemeral IPL (which even then boasted an incredible array of current and former international players) Well, it’s finally time for the BCCI and ICC approved version to commence it’s own charge at the most amazingly cricket-mad market in the world.
First, the bare facts:
Vijay Mallya’s UB group (Bangalore, 111.6 million).India Cements (Chennai, 91 million)
GMR group (Delhi 84 million)
Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad, 107 million)
a consortium led by Emerging Media(Manoj Badale, Lachlan Murdoch and investors) (Jaipur, 67 million)
Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment (Kolkata, 75.09 million)
Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia(Bombay Dyeing), Karan Paul & Priya Paul(Apeejay Surendera Group) and Dabur’s Mohit Burman (Mohali, 76 million) and
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (Mumbai, 111.9 million)
All that we know, at present, are the owners and the likely competitors. What we don’t know is whether it will achieve the kind of balance between hometown talent and international stars to achieve lasting appeal—qualities that the ICL seemed to have exhibited.
I know the mutineer community loves a good name-off/caption-off, so I submit to you the task of naming these franchises. Foul or fair, Bucknor ornor Benson, this might be the beginning of a beautiful thing. I do fear greatly for the teams owned by entities as staid as “India Cement” and it is out of this very genuine concern that I submit the task of naming these franchises to the SM community.
I will offer a reward to the commenter who supplies my favorite team name: a choice of me wearing your favorite national side’s kit for a day, or a video of my best, back-of-the-hand, Muttiah Muralitharan impersonation.
(please note, literary beamers, bouncers, jatz cracker rockers and looping shies at the stumps are enthusiastically encouraged )
Nayagan at 05:09 PM in Sports · 34 comment(s) · Direct link
January 08, 2008
Cricket: Ponting tells on Singh, is now that annoying kid we all hate for being lame.
It was a dark and stormy night. That’s a lie. It was a mild and unseasonably warm night and I was almost asleep, lulled away by Heidi Klum’s and Niki Taylor’s voiceovers on Bravo.
Then, something insane happened; I received a reality-bending email. But first, some unnecessary prattle back story.
From age 0-3.5, I had a much-adored stuffed bear, like most children my age. Unlike most children, my bear was named Babu, which totally proves that kids born here in the early to mid seventies might as well have been popped out “back home”. Anyway, Babu was wonderful as a confidante, hugging partner and drool-catcher…until we moved to San Francisco. Somewhere between Southern California and Northern, Babu disappeared, never to be seen again.
Last night, dazed and confused by exhaustion, I checked my email one final time…and did a sleepy double-take. There, in my inbox…Babu. The only justification I can offer for thinking what comes next is, um, Benadryl. “My Babu reached out to me from beyond!”, I gasped, and he did so via GMail no less:
Hi Anna,
It’s the biggest story happening in Indian Cricket and you are not covering it….that’s not right :)
Feed your cricket hunger with the story. I’m not sure if you are aware of the suspension of an Indian cricket player over racial abuse. This has created a cricket war between India and Australia. and YOU should write about it.
It has high drama, fight for honor, millions of dollars at stake and the big Indian ego Vs Australian. Australian media is supporting India as well :)
Link, link, link and link.
Well, I didn’t wanna vote in News tab and wait….hehe.. :D
~Babu
Babu, after absorbing tears, snot and Lord knows what else, this is the least I can do.
All right people.
The cricket post I have received eleven requests for (not counting the above-pasted, impassioned plea from my bear) is up next.
India’s cricket team stayed in its hotel in protest Monday after one of its players was penalized for allegedly using a racial slur during a match against Australia.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India plans to challenge the “the unfair decision” by the International Cricket Council to suspend Harbhajan Singh for three matches because it said he made racist remarks to Australia’s only black player. The Indian board said it will “suspend its operation until the appeal is disposed of.” [IHT]
What the hell is going on, you might be asking. No? Well, I was asking…this is a lot of story for a blogger of little cricket brain. Apparently Indian cricket player Harbhajan Singh called Australian player Andrew Symonds a monkey. Symonds is black.
Admittedly, “monkey” would not qualify in the top hundred racist insults. Ian Botham used to revel in the nickname “Guy The Gorilla”. When all is said and done, we are all simian primates. But the word “monkey” had form, as everybody knew that Symonds had supposedly suffered such insults last year from Indian crowds. So case proven, the Indian spinner was guilty as charged. The Indian board should stop its posturing, accept what must be a galling reminder that it is the International Cricket Council that still runs the game, and get on with the tour.
Do not delude yourself, though, that in punishing Harbhajan cricket is punishing a sinner. It is punishing a victim. It is punishing a player who, it might be concluded, mentally disintegrated. Remember mental disintegration? It is Australia’s nauseatingly self-congratulatory phrase for sledging. And it worked. It worked so well that Harbhajan cracked and Australia have not stopped bleating about their shoddy little victory ever since. [Guardian]
Sledging is a cricket term for undermining players by talking a lot o’ tatti. Insult someone enough and they crack, not that I would know a damned thing about that.
Match referee Mike Proctor held a four-hour hearing at the Sydney Cricket Ground after Australia’s 122-run victory and ruled that the case against the India spinner was proved.
“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Harbhajan Singh directed that word at Andrew Symonds and also that he meant it to offend on the basis of Symonds’ race or ethnic origin,” Proctor said. [IHT]
Beyond a reasonable doubt, eh?
“Unfair allegation of racism against our Indian player is wholly unacceptable,” said board president Sharad Pawar, who is also a senior government minister, in a statement. “The game of cricket is paramount but so too is the honor of India’s cricket team and every Indian.” [IHT]
Warning: cricket neophyte about to type.
The second test match of the tour = drama. Captain Kumble (that’s fun to say!) called the Aussies out on being dirty bastards while his team rolled their eyes the fifth time the umpires made a stupid and unfair decision.
The most blatant was an appeal that would have put Symonds out after just 30 runs in the first innings.
Symonds has freely admitted he should have been out. He went on to score 162 runs not out and was later named man of the match. [IHT]
We’re not alone in our hot tub of displeasure:
Several Australian newspapers agreed Monday that India should have won the second test, and criticized the behavior of Australian players during the test. [IHT]
I think what is pissing so many people off is the double-standard which is so evident in this unfortunate situation, the hypocrisy.
The problem is that Australia’s dividing line is not a reliable division between the morally upstanding and the indefensible. Australia’s dividing line is repugnant, enabling the condemnation of the likes of Harbhajan whilst legitimising obnoxious behaviour that cricket should have had the bravery to root out a generation ago.
Racism cannot be countenanced. But it is a rum old world that bans a man for three Tests for calling someone a monkey, yet allows the sort of boorish behaviour that allows first slip to drone to a batsman that he is shagging his wife, or that convinces any fast bowler with half a brain that personal insults every time a batsman plays and misses are essential for any cricketer of spirit. As long as you are careful not to refer to the colour of his skin.
It needs to be remembered that Harbhajan’s assault did not come without provocation. Before he was abused as a monkey, Symonds had been indulging in a phrase or two out of the corner of his mouth. Australia and Harbhajan have been at each other for years. But Australia have been obsessed with “reverse racism” ever since Darren Lehmann, their batsman, became the first international player to be banned for the racial abuse of Sri Lankan players five years ago. They have been intent upon revenge and now they have gained it. [Guardian]
What I found interesting is how Harbhajan Singh’s outburst might have been overlooked (vs. becoming the subject of 5,000 blog posts and news articles) had Aussie captain Ponting not whined about it to the umpires, thus drawing attention to it. That’s classy.
Well, Ponting may have won this pathetic, wee, jeer-worthy (no! sledging-worthy) battle but after everything I’ve read online, he has lost far more, most notably respect and credibility because of it. Well-played. Idiot (note: must be pronounced the way Naseeruddin Shah did in Monsoon Wedding, kthx bai).
anna at 01:11 PM in Humor, Sports · 556 comment(s) · Direct link
December 23, 2007
Skeletons in the basement
The last two days I have been performing back-breaking, grueling, utterly soul crushing labor…in my own house (well, my parents house). Have you guys ever read a news article about some reclusive old guy who had a lifelong hoarding problem (a.k.a syllogomania) and when police finally entered the house they found a rotting, partially eaten corpse buried underneath a pile of junk that was formerly on one side of the only navigable lane through the house? Yes? Then now you know what my dad is like (known as “Yo Dad” to some who read SM). My dad left with my mom for India earlier this week so I flew home to help my brother clean out the house without any resistance. I wanted to solve this looming crisis before my dad made the local news in the “odd news” segment. Over the last two days we’ve been cleaning out stuff (mostly stored in the basement) that spans back 40 years! I won’t bore you with descriptions of 20-year-old used shower curtains or “Indian luggage bags” filled with spiders. I will take you straight to the good stuff. First, check out these two cricket bats. I remember they were purchased on a trip to India in 1982/3 in Ahmedabad (I was ~7). Notice anything shocking on one of them?
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Was I an angry militant batsman as a child? |
Can someone please explain this to me? Why would a child’s cricket bat say Hitler on it? I can understand why the one on the right has Sunil Gavaskar’s name…but Hitler?? As best as I can guess, the bat makers meant to spell “Hitter” but misspelled it as “Hitler.” Why did my parents even buy me this cricket bat? This could REALLY come back to tank my candidacy if I ever run for office. This is a closet skeleton right up there with GW Bush’s and Obama’s cocaine use.
Digging through more boxes, I found a pleasant surprise to offset the feeling of guilt that the cricket bat had left inside my soul. It was my mom’s British Colonial Passport!
It had a bunch of 1971 visa stamps in it so I guess this is the passport my mom had in hand when she first entered the United States. I’m glad this precious document avoided ending up in the local dump. What a thing to show my kids some day.
Finally, I came across the one thing that can make any grown man fall to his knees and weep in remembrance of better times long since gone. Deep inside one box in the darkest corner of my basement was my teddy bear. It doesn’t matter to me that he is cross-eyed and mangy. His name is Bearhug. I named him that because that is what it said on his shirt. The name has long since been wiped off the shirt because of years of excessive hugging, but I still remember. Maybe I’m not a perfect man. Maybe I have a lot of flaws. Maybe I have a shadowy past (as evidenced by the cricket bat). But at least Bearhug loves me…still.
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Whole again |
abhi at 03:26 PM in Humor, Musings, Sports · 123 comment(s) · Direct link
December 11, 2007
Ivy-league admissions racket
The NYT ran a story yesterday about how aspiring Ivy league parents are trying to get their children admitted as athletic recruits … in squash:
Squash pros and coaches say that in the last few years the sport has seen a sharp increase in participation by children and teenagers, some of whose parents seem to have one eye on the ball and the other on college applications. [Link]
Grey lady, please. This is so Opal Mehta meets the Spice Girls, that is, this is old news for subcontinental strivers. Here’s an article from the TOI from 5 years ago:
Do you know the easiest way to book a free seat in an American Ivy League college? No, you do not have to secure the highest marks in your GRE/GMAT examinations. Just being a good squash player, should suffice… over a dozen squash players from Mumbai have made it to the American Ivy League, purely on the strength of the racquet sport…Indians stand the best chance with squash, because, there is little competition in this sport. [Link]
Siddhartha Suchde is the top player at the top Ivy School (Harvard has won 13 out of the last 16 squash championships) where he squashes his opponents with gusto:
Siddharth Suchde ‘07 has played at number one in every Harvard men’s match since his sophomore year. Last season he went undefeated in all his regular-season matches and was named Ivy League Player of the Year…
“A turning point came when I was 16 and I got a call from the Indian Squash Federation asking me to play in the world junior championships,” he says. He trained hard and became captain of the Indian junior national team, which finished fifth at the tournament, the best result in India’s history. Suchde has remained on the Indian national team for the past five years. Last December he played at number three for the Indian senior national team at the world men’s team championships in Islamabad, Pakistan. (It meant missing three weeks of classes.) India finished eleventh in the tourney, one of its best performances ever. [Link]
If squash becomes an Olympic sport in 2016, we’d finally have a sport that either India or Pakistan would have a chance of medalling in! w00t!
ennis at 12:42 PM in News, Sports · 49 comment(s) · Direct link
November 30, 2007
Indian Cricket League
An upstart cricket league is launching in India today (thanks, Brij01), the Indian Cricket League. I know very little about cricket, but I know good marketing when I see it:
There are six teams: Kolkata Tigers, Mumbai Champs, Delhi Jets, Chandigarh Lions, Hyderabad Heroes, and Chennai Superstars. Each team has a number of players from the local city or region, two players from the national team, and a smattering of foreign players. They’re using the Twenty20 format, which means games will last just about three hours.
Speaking again as a cricket neophyte, I think it’s a great idea — the short games, regional flavor, and general non-stodginess might finally be enough to get someone like myself interested in cricket.
Of course, the quality of play has to be good for it to work. And they’ll have tough competition from another new league starting in April, the Indian Premier League (which is sponsored by the BCCI, and has many more star players than does the ICL). Do cricket fans think the ICL has a chance? Are you excited about this?
(Oh, and I forgot to mention: they have scantily-clad cheerleaders; more smart marketing, or a bit sleazy? Perhaps both at once…)
amardeep at 12:49 PM in Sports · 99 comment(s) · Direct link
October 25, 2007
Why won't desis go All-in?
The always interesting Freakonomics Blog, hosted on the New York Times website, asked its readers a very critical question Wednesday (one I’ve laid awake many a night thinking about as I carefully weighed my career options): Why aren’t there more Indian American Professional Poker Players?
Whenever I see a poker tournament on TV or wander through a casino, I am always struck by a particular absence: there seem to be very few Indian-Americans playing poker. Considering that there are so many Indians of poker age in this country who thrive in finance, computer science, engineering, and other fields that incorporate math, probability, risk, etc. — i.e., the kind of fields that produce a lot of amateur and pro poker players — why should this be so?
I guess there are two separate questions:
1. Am I right in my perception that Indians are underrepresented?
2. If so, why is that the case?… [Link]
The author of the post, Stephen J. Dubner, first asks three people, including two “notable” Indians, to break it down for the audience:
Rafe Furst, our poker-playing friend, truth-seeker, and all-around smart guy; Sudhir Venkatesh, our sociologist friend who isn’t a big gambler (as far as I know), but is an Indian immigrant and perceptive observer; and Shubhodeep Pal, an 18-year-old from Dehradun, India, now studying at Singapore Management University (and who just happened to recently send in an interesting question by e-mail, having nothing to do with the topic of gambling). [Link]
Unfortunately, both Venkatesh and Pal give the obvious-half-of-the-answer without digging below the immediate surface. Also, from Pal’s answer it is clear that he is thinking like an Indian (which he is) and not an Indian American, a critical difference to this particular query that I hope is not lost on Dubner or his readers. Here are their responses:
Venkatesh: Gambling generally refers to a strategy to gain material goods, and Hindu teachings generally say this is a failed strategy toward happiness — not necessarily a moral taboo, but rather a disincentive based on the folly that the material dimension provides such rewards in the psych realm. [Link]Pal: As far as I know, a majority of Indians are brought up on the following broad and vague dictum: smoking, drinking alcohol, and gambling are BAD. [Link]
Venkatesh makes the mistake of assuming all Indian Americans are Hindu and Pal believes that Indian Americans adhere to Indian social mores. My immigrant parents gambled at every dinner party I went to growing up (with real money). I believe that both of the above explanations are superficial and don’t adequately answer Dubner’s question.
Now I’ll place my bet.
First Dubner makes one critical error in his opening query:
Considering that there are so many Indians of poker age in this country who thrive in finance, computer science, engineering, and other fields that incorporate math, probability, risk, etc.
He is correct in everything that he says above EXCEPT that Indian Americans for the most part do not seek out RISK. In fact, the third comment left on his post, although left in jest, actually hits much closer to the truth:
It’s because we’re all stuck in the library at medical school, duh!
Whether you are Indian American or Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, part of the allure of poker is that you can get rich quick if you catch some luck to couple with your mad skillz. But success doesn’t come cheap. If you want to compete in the World Series of Poker for example, you have to breathe the game like a hyper-caffeinated Matt Damon in Rounders. Poker has to essentially become your career. As an Indian American would you rather gamble in Vegas or “gamble” by studying hard and applying to Med Schools, or those top law firms, or starting a successful blog? Statistics show that if you are Indian American, then placing bets on one of the latter choices (or at least the first two) has better odds and is more likely to bring you wealth and success (and groupies hopefully) than poker. Indian Americans, by in large, choose safe professions that are risk averse because these risk averse professions have paid off for their parents and their peers. How many Indian American friends does Dubner have that chose art, music, acting, etc. as a profession? All of those career choices represent “all-in” type moves that the largely 2nd-generation Indian American population (the ones most likely to follow professional poker) aren’t ready to yet accept. The 3rd-generation likely will, as they learn that it is ok to be something other than a doctor and still feel some self-worth.
I have occasionally seen some Indian poker players on ESPN (not sure if they were Indian American) so I know they do exist. They just don’t exist in large numbers yet. Once we have an Indian Johnny Chan to worship, things will change. He is part of the reason you see many more Asian American poker players. A greater number of Asian Americans have been around for a longer time (more time to assimilate) and have more idols like Chan to prove that sometimes going all-in without a safety net is ok in life.
Anyways, Dubner asked a question about/to Indian Americans. That means that eventually he is going to end up here on Sepia Mutiny to get the definitive answer to his Freakonomical question. Have at it folks, answer the man yourself if you think I am wrong. Even if I am, you don’t know my tells yet so you can’t call me on it.
abhi at 12:35 AM in Economics, Musings, Sports · 74 comment(s) · Direct link
September 24, 2007
The Caption Game: "Chak de India"-Edition
If it’s Monday, you must be as hung-over…err… depressed…tired as I am— but wait! It’s a brand new week and surely there will be much fighting/gnashing of teeth/troll-feeding to do in the days ahead. Isn’t that daunting? Well, fret not, my pets.
The best thing about Mondays at the Mutiny is being able to play The Caption Game, a nice, easy warm-up for the week. You may not be able to touch your toes, but you can injure your funny bone trying to outwit Dravidian Lurker, MoorNam, PingPong et al. (Rahul…I’m pouring out some Old Monk for you, son. You are the missed.)
This picture, which was thoughtfully submitted by Jeet a few days ago (thanks!), is just pleading for a different label— look at what it’s been saddled with:
Harbhajan Singh’s joy is apparent as he catches Kevin Pietersen, England v India, Group E, ICC World Twenty20, Durban, September 19, 2007. [link]
Oh, come now. You mutineers can do better than that! Especially since the boys in blue have made some of you verrrry happy, right? :)
Confused?
Irritated?
Think this silliness is something new for the mutiny? How wrong you are, my sleepy friends. Lo, previous editions of the captioning game will prove that this isn’t a one-time timesuck: Ikk, Dhoe, Tinn, Char, Panj, Chhay, Suth, Utt…
anna at 01:15 PM in Caption This, Humor, Sports · 97 comment(s) · Direct link
We wuz robbed!
In response to Abhi’s appeal from last year, there was a desi entrant in this year’s World Beard & Moustache Championships. Meet 30 year old Rundeep Singh, from the UK.
Can you believe Rundeep lost to Jack Passion (on the right) who took first place in the “natural beard” category? C’mon now - which is the better beard? What an outrageous call!
Heck, Rundeep Singh didn’t even place - this guy got second (for what is admittedly a very impressive beard) but this guy got third place. I dunno - neither the first nor third place winners seem as impressive to me as brother Rundeep.
What gives? Next time I want to see a desi who wins by more than a whisker 
.
ennis at 12:19 AM in Beauty, Humor, Sports · 20 comment(s) · Direct link
September 09, 2007
... finish last
I’ve known for a while that India does poorly in the Olympics, but I had never realized exactly how poorly:
The world’s second most populous nation … ranks dead last worldwide in the number of Olympic medals won per capita. Paraguay, Niger and Iraq have done better. [Link]
This statistic seems to only count countries that have won at least one medal, which leaves India better off than countries without medals, but that’s slim consolation.
Now it may be unfair to compare medals on a per capita basis since that pits India against countries much smaller in population size and Olympic winnings are hard to scale up. However, even if you look at the two largest countries in the world, China has won over 100 times as many medals as India in the past few decades:
Since 1984, when China rejoined the Olympic Games after decades of isolation, the Asian superpower has won 320 medals. India, its political and economic rival, has won three… [Link]And in a century of Olympics, India has won just 16 medals (fewer than that other nation of a billion, China, typically wins at a single [sic] Games) and only eight in the last 50 years. [Link]
But, you object, China has a communist-era olympic medal factory which even tries to breed athletes. Fair enough, but even amongst Commonwealth countries in general, India lags so far behind that the officials of the Commonwealth Games have scolded India for not doing enough to avoid embarrassment when it next hosts the games in 2010 [Link]. No matter how you cut it, India is at the bottom of sporting countries worldwide.
It is true that India does better in some sports than in others, but India’s best sports all require little physical exertion:
“India is doing very well in chess. And pretty well at cue sports like billiards and snooker. And for the past couple of years, Indian golfers have done very well on the Asian circuit…” [Link]
The fact is that the Indian government has (perhaps rightly) never invested in sports, and what they spend has a low ROI:
“There are a lot of other priorities, like education and electricity,” said Indian Olympic Association Secretary General Randhir Singh. India does funnel a respectable amount of money toward its sports federations… [but] India’s sports centers spend much of their budget on salaries for bureaucrats, while athletes complain about lack of money for track improvements, coaches and better running shoes. [Link]
And market incentives are entirely oriented towards producing cricket stars, so sports with few viewers languish:
But perhaps the biggest reason India can’t achieve Olympic fame is cricket… Over the years, it has become India’s only important sport. As a result, a huge share of corporate sponsorship money goes to the cricket stars, and every athletically minded kid dreams of being one of them. In India’s villages, few kids play soccer or run races. Instead they play cricket. [Link]
Outside of cricket, things are pretty much teh suck:
The painful truth is India is rubbish at pretty much every other game. It has no football team worthy of the name, ranking 142nd in the world, behind the Maldives (paradise-island nation, pop. 339,330). Its rugby squad lost 78-3 in a recent match in England, to Pershore (pleasant market town, pop. 7,304). [Link]
Culture also plays a role - Pakistan and Sri Lanka also do poorly in the Olympics and poor Bangladesh has yet to pick up a single medal. And again, without much of a market for domestic sports aside from cricket, parents have no incentive to push their children the way parents in America do:
“In India, parents do not encourage their children to play games. That’s a big handicap,” the Olympic Association’s Singh said. “But if there’s no money in sport, no parent wants his child to waste his time…” [Link]
Lastly, consider the graph at the bottom of the post which shows that Indian men are the most virginal in the world [via Manish]. In America every young man knows that scoring on the field will help him score off it. There’s a reason why most sports involve getting a ball in a net / goal past a tenacious defender and you don’t need to be Freud to see it.
But in India, where the average male loses his virginity at 19, incentives are different. Doing well at field hockey wont help you win the heart of fair maiden, but getting into engineering school might help you marry a cuter (less homely) girl when it comes time for your marriage to be deranged.
So here’s my question — Is there is a way to increase India’s medal booty, and should India even try?
After all, India is 10th in the world in world records, and has a very healthy sense of national self esteem:
the “2003 Global Attitudes survey found India was the most nationalistic place on earth, with 74% of respondents ‘completely agreeing’ that Indian culture is superior. “[cite].
India excels in plenty of areas, like patents filed, fastest 10 miles skipped, and number of men singing and dancing on screen while wearing fugly costumes. Should we even try to second-guess India’s priorities?
Related posts: American investing $120M to train Indians for Olympics, If not Torino, then where? and Desi athletes take the gold.
ennis at 06:19 PM in Sports · 355 comment(s) · Direct link
July 31, 2007
Battling Burkas
If womens boxing becomes an Olympic sport in 2012, the Afghan women’s boxing team is set to become the new feel good story, the Jamaican bobsled team if you will.
These women have a lot of heart, just to train, given restrictions on women even in post-Taliban Afghanistan:
The training is sponsored by a peace group who want to give women more self-respect, and reclaim boxing as a sport in a country scarred by conflict - making martial arts constructive and not destructive. They call it “fighting for peace”. Between training sessions the boxers sit down and discuss non-violent approaches to conflict resolution.
The NGO backing the project, Co-operation for Peace and Unity, is headed by Kanishka Nawabi. He says they are teaching women to be confident and regain self-respect in a male-dominated society. [Link]
Of course, there are some men who will be threatened for precisely that reason - they don’t women playing sports, especially not violent ones, and they definitely don’t want them to become to assertive. This is why it’s a subversive action. After all, this is what is happening to women in regular schools:
In the southern Afghan province of Helmand, the Taliban is waging war not only on foreign and Afghan troops, but on education. Of 224 schools that opened after the Taliban fell, at least 90 have been forced to close because of threats and attack — especially schools that teach girls. [Link]
and the girls from the Kabul Beauty School have been threatened with death for defaming the country (not because of their beautician work but because of the other things the book says about them).
Click on the image below to go to the video newsclip. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to embed it, but the video is fun, enlightening and short.
ennis at 11:37 PM in Sports · 53 comment(s) · Direct link
May 21, 2007
The Unsinkable Monty Brown
Like Tori and some rather old rodents (oh, like any of you are old enough to remember them), “I don’t like Mondays”. I thought you might feel similarly about today; if so, then perhaps you, too, will find this picture irresistibly smile-provoking. Marinate in the exuberance:
England’s Monty Panesar (R) celebrates with Ian Bell after dismissing the West Indies’ Corey Collymore during the fourth day of their first test cricket match at Lord’s in London May 20, 2007.
Now if you wanted to play our favorite caption game with this photograph, I don’t think anyone would object to such fun. And finally, to all the patient-with-a-novice, possibly-in-withdrawal cricket heads out in Sepia-land…I told you I was no fair-weather-padawan. :)
anna at 12:12 PM in Photos, Short, Sports · 36 comment(s) · Direct link
May 08, 2007
Cricket: Reebok Hearts Dravid and Dhoni
What, you thought I was a fair-weather cricket pupil? ;)
Mutineer Sandeep sent in this tip after having one of those, “Hey. What the-? Brown??” -moments in front of his television:
Saw this commercial while watching NBC primetime TV, and thought I recognized that typical Dravid earnestness saying “actually, it’s 229 million…”. was kind of surprised when I paused and found desi cricket ishtars Rahul Dravid and Mahendra Singh Dhoni part of reebok’s new ad campaign…
As for other notables in the ad:
Stevie Williams rides his skateboard. Cricket players MS Dhoni and Rahul Dravid run together. Soccer player Thierry Henry and actress Emmanuelle Chriqui are paired. Tennis player Nicole Vaidišová is on the cell phone. Football players DeAngelo Hall and Chad Johnson run together. Track athlete (heptathlon) Carolina Klüft runs in yellow. Basketball player Allen Iverson and football player Vince Young run together. Track athlete Aries Merritt runs across a skywalk. [splendAd]
Finally, something about Reebok to appreciate. :D
anna at 07:51 AM in Short, Sports, TV, Video · 46 comment(s) · Direct link
April 28, 2007
CRICKET: Today, We Are ALL SRI LANKAN
When I first agreed to delve in to the World Cup for the mutiny, I did so because I knew it was important to South Asia, our diaspora and several cute commenters here…but I had no idea how powerful the sport truly is, until now.
Apparently cricket can do what diplomacy, prayers and tears cannot (all quotes via Reuters, Thanks Karthik):
Cricket fever has gripped Sri Lanka after their team secured a place in the World Cup final, diverting attention — at least for the time being — from a worsening civil war.
Cricket-mad fans sat glued to their television sets until the early hours of Wednesday morning to watch Sri Lanka defeat New Zealand by 81 runs in Jamaica.
The success of the cricket team in the Caribbean has provided a welcome distraction from the worsening military conflict between the government and Tamil Tigers, which has left a 2002 ceasefire agreement in tatters.
The two-decade civil war, which has claimed around 68,000 lives, has intensified in the past year with almost daily battles, denting business confidence and contributing to spiralling inflation.
One higher power, many paths; one fervently-desired wish, many prayers:
Multi-faith religious ceremonies are being planned in the lead-up to Saturday’s big game to bless the team, and President Mahinda Rajapaksa will even fly to Barbados for the final.
Yo, this is serious:
The Excise Department has even delayed the start of an alcohol sales ban for Buddhist Wesak holidays by one day. It will now come into effect after the World Cup final.
I got my hopes up…
Even many Tamil Tigers, who control swathes of land in the north and east of the country and are fighting for independence, are watching.
“There are people in the controlled areas watching,” rebel military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said by telephone.
Then felt them sink, even though I’m not Sri Lankan, Tamil, or particularly conscious of this violent, on-going tragedy:
But he added: “Our activities will not change because of these matches. These matches are not going to make any difference.”
I hope he’s full of it. I stupidly and naively hope that cricket really will do for Sri Lanka what nothing else has been able to— give diverse communities a reason to stop killing each other, at least for a little while. As far as I know, it’s difficult to cheer effectively if you’re holding a gun. Yes, that was paneer-laden…but I’m serious. In 1996, Sri Lanka destroyed Australia to win the World Cup; I hope they do so tomorrow, too. If ever there were a country which deserved some cheer…
::
For an alternate take on the significance of Sri Lanka’s World Cup success, I’d recommend a post by kettikili over at Pass The Roti.
I, like Mandira Bedi, am not capable of this kind of commentary:
Likewise, today in Sri Lanka, cricket appreciation at its best is hailed as a force of national unity, a testament to the plural, multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious country we should aspire to be.
After all, our Murali is a Tamil, Sri Lankans, diasporic or not, are wont to say.
This is true. But is this enough? Can we simply rest on the laurels of the team? Sri Lankan cricket represents the ideal nation and its aspirations, not the realities of all its citizens. Sri Lankan cricket, in some sense, is what we hope to be. (I’m bracketing the gendering of that abstract model of citizenship– for now.)
But, as is all too evident now, cricket fanaticism at its worst serves as a distraction from the war, and a convenient way to suppress debate and dissent in favour of a superficial image of national unity.
The rest of the post is here.
anna at 08:16 AM in News, Sports · 252 comment(s) · Direct link
April 27, 2007
Come on Sirils!! (aka the CRICKET MEETUP)
Each player, of course, matters in every match. Jayasuriya is the most-capped one-day cricketer in history, a flamboyant opening batsman whose fearless stroke play can give an innings unstoppable momentum, and a useful spin-bowler as well. Vaas is the master of new-ball bowling who can destroy an opponent’s innings almost before they start. Murali is the unorthodox wizard of spin who bamboozles the most gifted, in-form batsmen.
Their importance on Saturday also rests on their presence in a match played 11 years ago: They are the three survivors of the team that beat Australia in the 1996 World Cup final in Lahore, Pakistan.Link
When: Tomorrow, 4/28, at 12:30
Where: Eight Mile Creek, NYC
Why: To watch SRI LANKA KICK ASS!!
The game starts around 9am EST, and a Sri Lankan crew will be there, holding it down, if you don’t want to miss a minute.
FYI: Eight Mile Creek is an expat Australian bar/restaurant, so we’re taking the meetup into enemy turf. Should be a screaming, cheering, hair-raising good time. Come ready to show your colors!
cicatrix at 02:09 PM in Meetups!, Sports · 42 comment(s) · Direct link
April 25, 2007
The View from Liberty Avenue
One of the great pleasures of following the Cricket World Cup this past month has been the chance to spend time with cricket fans and glimpse the global and diasporic affinities that simultaneously connect them and set them apart, in a metropolis like New York, from the mainstream culture of the city. Cricket is a niche sport even in immigrant-rich New York, since, after all, only a fraction of those immigrants come from cricket-playing countries. Yet the diversity of the cricket community, drawn as it is from all corners of the former British Empire, and the fact that all those places have a critical mass of expatriates or immigrants in New York, has produced in this World Cup season a kind of hyper-cosmopolitan sub-culture; one that, in its own way, illustrates the cross-hatching of differences and solidarities that makes life in the city complex and stimulating.
I’ve tried to capture some of that joyous complexity in a radio story that ran yesterday. The reporting (only a fraction of which made it into the piece, radio being like film a craft where most of your work ends up on the cutting room floor) led me to such arduous research environments as the Australian pub 8 Mile Creek, where expats of various nationalities were toasting the home side’s demolition of England with six-dollar bottles of Cooper’s Sparkling Ale. But it also gave me an introduction to the Indo-Caribbean community in Richmond Hill, Queens; and the revelation to my new-to-New-York eyes of the sheer size of that community, let alone its history and apparent present dynamism, will be the lasting memory of this World Cup in my personal experience.
Occasional commenter “Farouk Engineer,” who took the photos in this post and has U.K. ties, commented to me that he’d never found a New York neighborhood that reminded him so vividly of London — particularly certain parts of South London — as this one. Of course the ethnic makeup and the cultural signifiers on display along Liberty Avenue, the main drag, have everything to do with this. The 15 blocks or so in either direction from the end of the elevated train (the Lefferts Blvd terminus of the A train, for you NYC-ers) are replete with shops and services that reflect the double-diaspora lives of people whose ancestors were taken not so long ago as indentured laborers from (mainly) Bihar and eastern U.P. to Trinidad and Guyana, and who themselves have formed a large colony here. The Indo-Guyanese in particular, who began migrating to the U.S. in the 1960s when politics in Guyana (with a documented assist from the C.I.A.) became factionalized on racial lines, remain one of the city’s fastest growing groups. The Hindu temples, masjids, halal butchers, sweet shops, music stores offering huge selections of Bollywood alongside soca and chutney music, sari emporia, vegetable markets, and obligatory outpost of the Patel Bros grocery empire indicate not only the vitality of this community but also the strong connections it retains with the cultural memory of the Desh.
At the same time, Liberty Avenue is far, almost remote, and certainly many miles away from the stomping grounds of New York hipsters, machers, moneywallahs and mavens. Even “Farouk,” an inveterate urban explorer, hadn’t made it out there in a decade living here. Conversely, Indo-Caribbeans like Imran (named after Imran Khan, he told me) and Chris, two young Guyanese brothers in their 20s that I met on a rainy afternoon in the Kaieteur restaurant on Lefferts Blvd., told of a community that, whether due to the distance or underlying insularity or some combination of the two, sticks largely to itself. With generational comes attitudinal change, yes; Imran explained that he has Black friends, for instance, even if he knows he can’t bring them back to his parents’ house. But the overall social model at work here seems to be that of classic immigrant, nose to the grindstone accumulation, where “assimilation,” whatever that is, is more likely to occur not in Queens or even New York City, but rather in the suburbs where the next generation aspires to raise its kids. “We’ve got our whole lives mapped out,” Chris told me; he’s getting married soon to an Indo-Guyanese sister (“light skin, green eyes,” he pointed out proudly), they’re buying a Range Rover and they’ve pulled together funds for the down payment on a house in New Jersey.
That’s just a vignette, of course, one of many but each nothing more than a glimpse. I take from my first exposure to this particular component of the desi diaspora only impressions, ones that I hope to develop, complicate or dispel in the course of future projects and wandering. But chance encounters have their own merit and meaning, and these would not have happened were it not for the cricket, the common thread that gathered us in the bar, the roti shop, or for that matter the Ozzie pub back in Manhattan. Whether playing or watching, the essence of team sport is human connection, and between the running commentary that has taken place here (Anna’s happy novitiate, Vivek’s pleading for wickets, TajUK’s recommendation of C.L.R. James’ Beyond A Boundary stand out in my mind) and the IRL conversations I’ve had in the viewing spots of New York, this World Cup, for all its bizarre and problematic news developments, has been a season of plenty.
And another thing: GO SRI LANKA!!!
siddhartha at 02:15 PM in Identity, Issues, Sports · 72 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link
April 24, 2007
My yoga is unstoppable
When I was younger, I was always jealous of the other Asian kids. Why? Because they had kick-ass unarmed martial arts. A Chinese kid could say “Hey, don’t mess with me - I know Kung Fu like Bruce Lee!” What was I going to say in response - “Well, I know Ahimsa like Gandhi?”
And it wasn’t just the Chinese kids. If you were Korean, you could say you knew TaeKwanDo. If you were Japanese, obviously you could claim to know Karate. Sure, India does have martial arts like gatka, wrestling, and Kalaripayattu but nobody had heard of those and I couldn’t even pronounce “Kalaripayattu.”
In fact, the physical activity that India is most known for is Yoga. I like Yoga but it’s not very macho, and how on earth are you going to use it to defend yourself?
In fact, this amazingly paneer filled clip from Yoga vs. Kung Fu is the only time I’ve seen Yoga used in a movie to beat somebody up:
[Yes, it’s dubbed into French. IMHO, that just makes it all better.]
Of course, you could always try to sell Yoga as the perfect adjunct to a more bloodthirsty activity, like shooting guns:You shoot better when you realize that your soul is a leaf falling through time, and that work shouldn’t equal struggle. And yoga never aligns you with the universe better than when your forearm is still tingling from the buck and recoil of a .357 bullpup.
Someone needs to open a combination shooting range and yoga studio. I’m serious. Maybe I should do it. Hose off a few clips of Glaser safety slugs, then see how deep you can go into Warrior II. The murder rate would go down. No, wait — it would stay the same, but people would realize it’s all part of a bigger plan. [Link]
Maybe that’s the best way to make Yoga more effective as a tool for avenging the wrong done to your master - do Yoga softly, but carry a big Dandasana.
Update:
HMF has reminded me (how could I forget?) of Dhalsim from Street Fighter:
Dhalsim is the original long-range fighter of fighting games. Dhalsim’s intense training has given him the ability to contort and extend his limbs in ways that are physically impossible; he can project his arms and legs outward in order to deliver attacks that would be out of the range of normal limbs… Due to his reach advantage, Dhalsim has both very low offense and defense, making it vital for him to avoid sustaining too many blows from a strong fighter…
Dhalsim can project from his mouth a rapid, immobilizing projectile known as Yoga Fire, and a stationary spread known as the Yoga Flame; later games incorporate the anti-air version known as the Yoga Blast. According to the English language Street Fighter II manual, eating spicy Indian curry gave Dhalsim the ability to breathe fire, but this was rewritten to being a gift from Agni, the Indian god of fire. [Link]
All I can say is that, as with Spiderman, that fire is coming out of the wrong place, man.
ennis at 04:10 PM in Film, Humor, Sports · 30 comment(s) · Direct link
April 18, 2007
Wet below but Suni above
Monday was Patriot’s day, the date of the annual Boston Marathon. While the streets of Boston were wet, the most famous desi entrant was shielded from inclement weather in her special climate controlled gym. While some had to pound hard pavement, she ran the marathon many times higher than a kite, floating on air. And while it took her 4 hours and 24 minutes to cover the 26 miles, in that same time she circled the globe twice.
I refer here to Sunita Williams, of course, who unofficially ran the marathon with bib 14,000. Although she was spared Heartbreak Hill, her race wasn’t just a walk in the park. In order to complete the run she had to be harnessed in place (so she didn’t just float away) on top of the Space Station’s Treadmill Vibration Isolation System, which, believe it or not, served to keep the space station steady while she ran:
you know when you run on the ground or on a treadmill at the gym, you are stomping on the ground/treadmill pretty hard - right? Well, the ISS can’t really take that stomping around. We’ve got huge solar arrays, radiators, module attachment systems, etc., which will feel the load of that stomping… The engineers came up with a vibration isolation system for both the treadmill and the cycle. The treadmill rides on a gyro which spins up and takes the loads of the runner. [Link]
This apparently isn’t easy on her body:
“That harness gets hard on her back and her shoulders or her hips …. Her foot was going numb because the strap was on her hip so much…” [Link]
But honestly, the hardest part of this experience would seem to be the inability to bathe or shower afterwards:
… astronauts wash their hair with no-rinse shampoo, their bodies with cleanser-soaked gauzy fabric, and their hands with baby wipes. [Link]
Wow. And she’s not going to be able to shower until she returns to earth, at the end of summer at the earliest. I guess the good news is that they won’t be able to smell the atomized wasabi any more.
ennis at 11:25 PM in Science and Technology, Sports · 47 comment(s) · Direct link
April 14, 2007
...but carry a big stick
Evil Abhi: Oh no. Not another f*cking cricket post. Just kill me now.
Abhi: Come on, don’t be so mean. Some SM readers actually like cricket.
Evil Abhi: Why? Unless you trying to save your rainless Indian village from the British Empire, cricket sucks.
Abhi: Dude, you need to chill. You are insulting a game loved by millions as well as its fans.
Evil Abhi: All these cricket posts are ruining our prrrecioussss blog.
Abhi: Ok fine. I’ll just post an interesting picture then. I know you’re cool with pretty pictures.
Evil Abhi: Oohhh, look at the hobbittses.
Abhi: Dude, Sri Lanka just whooped new Zealand.
Evil Abhi: Hit it brown. Hit it.
abhi at 09:50 PM in Humor, Photos, Sports · 85 comment(s) · Direct link
April 08, 2007
Bangladesh Gets The Party Re-Started
I’d like to give massive props to my Bengali brothers for their epic smacking of South Africa yesterday. “When the Banglas bat well, they’re just briliant,” wrote the Guardian’s over-by-over commentator toward the end of Bangladesh’s innings, in which they scored 251 led by a fantastic 87 from 22-year-old Mohammad Ashraful, pictured here doing his thing. That set up South Africa with a sizeable target to chase in the afternoon, and instead they disgracefully folded, surrendering four wickets by the 20th over and two more in the 27th, and playing out the rest without spark nor art to a total of 184 all out.
The win not only confirms that Bangladesh are no longer by any standard “minnows” of the game — in case their win over India at the start of the cup and previous successes hadn’t already made that clear — but it also injects some new excitement into a competition that was first quieted by the early exit of two of the main contenders with the largest and most enthusiastic global support, India and Pakistan; then stunned and embarrassed by the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer (still unresolved officially, with no theory ruled out, including that of an accident); and then dulled by the tudding superiority of title holders Australia and the emergence right behind them of New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa, outclassing everyone else and hurtling toward the semi-finals.
No longer. Now with the eight-team round-robin Super Eights about halfway through, the remaining matches have regained excitement thanks to the Bangladesh victory, as South Africa no longer look inevitable semi-finalists, and three sides — England, Bangladesh, and host West Indies — are all very much back in the tournament. Which means that we are looking at several huge games coming up. Today, England go up against titanic Australia, a tall order but not out of the question; Tuesday, West Indies face South Africa with the winner taking a serious option on the semi-finals, and most of the world will be rooting for the hosts, who are due for a breakout performance; and Wednesday it’s England versus Bangladesh.
For today’s match England have won the toss and decided to bat first. The Guardian’s over-by-over is here. Just like their football live commentaries, it’s funny and worth checking out whether you understand the game or not. If you want to geek out with the technical details you’ll want to follow the Cricinfo OBO here, but in that case you probably know that already. If you’re at all curious about the game and eager to understand it with a little context, today is Sunday and a fine day to head to your local desi, Trini, Guyanese, Jamaican, English, Australian, or Kiwi pub, tavern, lounge, jerk shack or roti spot and check out the game on television. If you’re in New York chances are Eight Mile Creek is already packed with soon-to-be-inebriated Ozzies. But Brooklyn and Queens have numerous Caribbean and desi joints that are showing the matches. I’m sure that in any of the major US cities you can find a spot without too much sleuthing. Feel free to pass on tips in the comments!
siddhartha at 09:05 AM in Sports · 66 comment(s) · Direct link
April 04, 2007
Cricket: "GO BOPARA" indeed!
Well.
All I have to say is thanggod Shodan-san commented all off-topic in the wrong thread, because if he hadn’t, I would’ve never seen this delicious bit of Punjabi mancandy. MeOW. The second Sikh to play cricket for England after Monty??? That TOTALLY deserves a post. Well, that and I would like to stare at his picture some more; I’m sure other mutineers will too.
FYI- all of the below is from his wiki entry (because it’s Holy Wednesday and I’m late for church!):
Ravinder Singh (“Ravi”) Bopara (born 4 May 1985, Forest Gate, Newham, London) is an English cricketer who plays for Essex. Although originally a specialist batsman, he is now improving his medium-pace bowling and developing into an all-rounder. He is the second Sikh to play cricket for England, after Monty Panesar.
Bopara made his first-class debut for Essex in May 2002. In 2003 and 2004, he played several matches for England Under-19s, including in the Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2004.
In the 2005 season, he scored 880 first-class runs, including his first first-class century. He also hit 135 in a non-first-class match against the touring Australians, putting on 270 for the second wicket with Alastair Cook…
In January 2007 Kevin Pietersen sustained a rib injury in England’s first One-Day International against Australia, keeping him out of the remainder of the series. Bopara was called up as his replacement, and made his ODI debut on 2 February. Later that month, he was named in the England squad for the 2007 Cricket World Cup,[2] and he played his second ODI in England’s second match of that tournament.
More soon…if only so that there can be more pictures of cricket-playing yumminess. ;)
anna at 05:12 PM in Humor, Profiles, Sports · 55 comment(s) · Direct link
April 02, 2007
Cricket: India hearts Guyana
It’s not the timeliest bit o’ World Cup mutinousness (oy, I meant to have it up last Wednesday…sorry Anonymous Tipster), but once I realized that a) the cricket stadium I’m about to discuss had already been mentioned on SM almost two years ago, by one of our earliest readers and b) it dealt with Guyana, a part of the diaspora we don’t get a chance to cover all that often, I couldn’t resist blogging it, tardy though I may be. :)
Read all about India and Guyana’s construction-lovechild, via this article in the Malaysia Sun:
Inaugurated by Indian Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat during his official visit to Guyana in November last year, Guyana’s new international cricket stadium, which will hold as many as half a dozen matches in the Super Eight stage, has been billed as the stadium of friendship between India and Guyana.
India gave the Guyanese government a grant of $6 million and a concessional line of credit of $19 million for the purpose.
The new facility was built by Mumbai-based firm Shapoorji Pallonji.
It sounds impressive:
The new picturesque Guyana National Stadium is set on the east coast of the majestic Demerara river, which flows into the mighty Atlantic just a few miles away.
The new stadium seats over 10,720 spectators and accommodates another 4,280 on a grassy mound…The wide area around the stadium has seen hotels sprouting up which are expected to boost Guyana’s tourism industry.
Even numismatists get some love ;)
The Bank of Guyana has also issued a special gold coin to mark the opening of the new stadium.
anna at 09:04 AM in Short, Sports · 10 comment(s) · Direct link
March 26, 2007
Cricket: And now for "a Happier, Less Toxic Tournament"?
Day 16 of my miseducation in Cricket: for a hot minute, I do not love my India, not after our Red Snapper reports that crap like this was stated with a straight face:
Just heard a reporter on NDTV interviewing disappointed fans in Bombay say to the camera — ‘It’s been a World Cup of tragedies, none bigger than India crashing out of the tournament’[Link]
Yes, that’s totally worse than someone’s neck getting snapped under the shadiest of circumstances. An anonymous tipster left a link to a BBC article by Mukul Kesavan—who has a book about cricket coming out in India later this year— on our news tab. I found it illuminating; I know next to nothing about this sport which Evil Abhi loathes so. ;) Here’s a random assortment of what your favorite bimbette Bedi-impersonator learned and/or found fascinating at the Beeb:
For the television channels that bought rights to beam the tournament to these fans, Friday’s defeat was a financial disaster.
Since the Reliance World Cup hosted by India in 1987, South Asia’s cricketing nations have become more and more influential in the conduct and administration of the one-day game.
…India won the Cup in 1983, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have won it in 1992 and 1996 respectively.
Mainly, though, the balance of power in world cricket has shifted from England and Australia towards the sub-continent for commercial reasons: the dawning realisation that India owns the only mass audience there is for the game.
India and Pakistan had resumed cricket relations after a long chill in 1978, just as limited-overs cricket was starting to take off.
The compulsive need to confront the old enemy led to the creation of a cricket circus in the Gulf sheikhdom, Sharjah, where, on neutral ground, the sub-continent’s blood feuds were re-played as one-day tournaments for the benefit of increasingly feverish and volatile audiences.
The fusion of chauvinism and television had two bad consequences: an obsessive fan base that tended to become deranged by defeat and the rise of contemporary cricket’s stock villain, the corrupting bookie.
Yeesh, no wonder insanity like vandalism (Dhoni’s house?!), effigy-burning (UberMetroMallu…profiting from tragedy is a sin!) and murder are all part of this disturbing picture. I knew that India and Pakistan were fierce rivals (fiercer than UC Davis and Sac State, even! j/k) but I was too preoccupied with shiny objects to take that fact one step further, to see one-day cricket matches as proxy for…partition? Since I am very much from here, I didn’t connect passionate national loyalties with the sort of enmity which leads to war.
When I rabidly root against the Dallas Cowboys, it’s not because I hate the city they represent. Perhaps that’s a flawed analogy, since Dallas is part of the country I’m a citizen of, but even when I’m cheering an American team on as they face another nation, I have no latent hatred for whomever we are playing. It all leaves my eyes wide while reminding me of how insulated I am.
Cricket will buckle under the weight of the sullen, thin-skinned nationalism that Indian and Pakistani fans bring to the game and it can certainly do without the bookie-driven corruption that feeds off this perverse enthusiasm.
The elimination of India and Pakistan leaves the World Cup in the West Indies a happier, less toxic tournament; it might even give the fans of these countries the time to actually play some cricket.
Or they could use the break to switch their loyalties to a sport that doesn’t bring out the worst in them. Test cricket, anyone?
Test cricket it is, I guess?
anna at 12:15 PM in Issues, Sports · 84 comment(s) · Direct link
Don't Bother: You'll Never Get It
I’m still processing the bilious sortie by Shashi Tharoor, the Indian diplomat and author, outgoing undersecretary-general of the United Nations and failed candidate for the top job, in the opinion pages of last Friday’s New York Times. It’s the one where he announces that America and Americans are congenitally incapable of comprehending cricket, that the condition is incurable, and that after valiantly performing such educational mitzvahs as diagramming cricket play possibilities on bar napkins for baseball fans during breaks in World Series games, he has now given up; and hereby retreats to the world of connoisseurs who will gather, he tells us, to watch the final at the home of an expatriate where “of course there will be no Americans.”
Here’s his parting shot:
So here’s the message, America: don’t pay any attention to us, and we won’t pay any to you. If you wonder, over the coming weeks, why your Indian co-worker is stealing distracted glances at his computer screen every few minutes or why the South African in the next cubicle is taking frequent and furtive bathroom breaks during the working day, don’t even try to understand. You probably wouldn’t get it. You may as well learn to accept that there are some things too special for the rest of us to want to waste them on you.
Lovely! Elegant! Thoughtful! Um… diplomatic! Ever considered working for the United Nations?
Alright, so everyone has an off day. And sure, yeah, most people in the U.S. don’t get cricket. Not exactly a novel observation. So why not leave it at that? Instead Tharoor decides to actually argue the case, justifying his dismissal of this thing called “America” with an array of absurd statements. Americans, he says, “have about as much use for cricket as Lapps have for beachwear.” They follow baseball instead, which “is to cricket as simple addition is to calculus.” Tharoor has “even appealed to the Hemingway instinct that lurks in every American male by pointing out how cricket is so much more virile a sport.” All to no avail. But thanks to satellite television and the Internet, now “you can ignore America and enjoy your cricket.” After all: “Why try to sell Kiri Te Kanawa to people who prefer Anna Nicole Smith?”
But all of this is mere appetizer for the main dish, the Comparative Analysis of National Character. Take it away, maestro:
In any event, nothing about cricket seems suited to the American national character: its rich complexity, the infinite possibilities that could occur with each delivery of the ball, the dozen different ways of getting out, are all patterned for a society of endless forms and varieties, not of a homogenized McWorld. They are rather like Indian classical music, in which the basic laws are laid down but the performer then improvises gloriously, unshackled by anything so mundane as a written score.
Cricket is better suited to a country like India, where a majority of the population still consults astrologers and believes in the capricious influence of the planets — so they can well appreciate a sport in which, even more than in baseball, an ill-timed cloudburst, a badly prepared pitch, a lost toss of the coin at the start of a match or the sun in the eyes of a fielder can transform the outcome of a game. Even the possibility that five tense, hotly contested, occasionally meandering days of cricketing could still end in a draw seems derived from ancient Indian philosophy, which accepts profoundly that in life the journey is as important as the destination. Not exactly the American Dream.
All together now: MACACA, PLEASE!
Seriously: What on earth are you talking about? And what does it tell us about what you see when you think of America, and what you see when you think of India? And with all due respect, what kind of UN Secretary General could you have possibly made with a worldview at once so rigid and so fey?
It’s tempting to engage in a line-item refutation exercise, going through the brother’s points, trivial and serious, one by one. For instance, it’s not Lapps, you’re supposed to call them Sami now. Don’t they teach you anything at those urbane cocktail parties? Also: Ever heard of jazz? And best of all, did you read the letter in the New York Times where the writer schooled you on the more-than-12 ways to get an out in baseball?
But all that is noise. What really disappointed me about this article, now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, is the unthinking, crude cultural nationalism, the willingness to truck in stereotypes, the implied view that no matter how much globalization and immigrant entrepreneurship and diasporic arts and international travel and trade mix our populations and produce hybrid souls like the bulk of the readers of this site, National Character is pre-determined and will prevail. Way to validate our concerns, our dreams, our debates, our professional and political and personal choices!
Instead we get us versus them, a view of the world that is positively Bush-like in its reductionism and reliance on obsolete understandings of the nation-state. Not surprising in the end, I guess, from someone whose novel was called “The Great Indian Novel” (oh but you see, that was ironic) and whose forthcoming book is “The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone: India, The Emerging 21st Century Power.”
I’ll believe it when we beat Sri Lanka.
siddhartha at 11:00 AM in Identity, Politics, Sports · 118 comment(s) · Direct link
March 23, 2007
Cricket: Amar's Chitra Katha
Day 13 of my Cricket tuition: I’m feeling a bit woozy from all the head-spinning developments regarding certain tragic events of this World Cup. Surely there is no better moment to focus on sweeter aspects of the game, specifically how an essay penned by my erstwhile intern Amar Shah showed up on ESPN the other day. I felt nothing but consummate delight when I followed the link which was submitted repeatedly to the bunker’s hotline; there in baby blue, with his gorgeous wife too, the boy whom I had been surprisingly fond of, even before we had ever met.
It was 2002 and Amar Shah was a student from the University of Florida. I was in a windowless office at Preston Gates, near the White House. I began receiving persistent instant messages from someone with a memorable, if young-sounding screen name. Typical questions about what his internship would be like and how he should prepare gave way to actual conversation and fellowship. Who was this kid? That first day of our program, I remember that though I was excited about finally meeting all of my interns, I was extra-curious about the one who would later jump up in a hyperactive and spontaneous moment mid-orientation and show off how he already knew not just our names, but our AIM screen names, as well. And I thought he had just been chatting with me. ;)
That summer, I held his hand as he crushed on the unattainable: a girl so stunning, she looked as if she had stepped out of a Moghul miniature. I fretted over him while he bounced around the Hill; I kept him company when he was the last of my baby birds to fly away, that tear-drenched August day. It was fitting that Amar’s would be the final flight to leave DC; it was a small comfort that I had a few extra hours to spend with someone I had grown so attached to, someone who since then has always made me proud.
It turns out that in an odd, small way I am AKKA to the world, as my horoscope spookily predicted I would be way back in 1989, in Seventeen magazine’s deluxe astrology section which was published in honor of that now-ancient new year. I fuss over everyone, I worry about them, I boss them around, I pinch their ears…but most of all, I love and never forget them, nor do I pass up an opportunity to brag about them as if I were their PR rep, as if they were my own.
Amarshah, I always knew you’d be huge. I just didn’t think you’d convince such a dime to marry you and grace your side while you did it. ;)
Cricket’s Yogi Berra, Navjot Singh Sidhu, once warned, “Wickets are like wives — you never know which way they will turn.”
Perhaps that’s why my wife Tejal threatened to take off the Indian cricket jersey she had reluctantly worn when she saw the line in front of the NAZ8 Cineplex. I had woken her up at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday to venture to Lakewood, near the city of Artesia, which is known as the “Little India” of Southern California. We were set to watch the India versus Bangladesh ICC World Cup match on the big screen with a movie theater full of wicket-crazy cricket nuts. By all accounts there was no better place in America where a cricket fan could go to experience the visceral feel of a real match. Plus, it was free. But now, with the sun still yet to rise, and a cold chill in the air, my wife crossed her arms and nudged me in the chest.
“We look like posers,” she said. “We’re the only ones wearing these shirts.”
She let me know that my brilliant plan of wearing the sky blue, Sahara-endorsed jerseys that I brought back from India was a stupid idea. Though the crowd was mostly Indian-centric, everyone was clad in coats, jeans and five o’clock shadows. Tejal also pointed out that she was the only girl.
When one of the men in line saw us approaching like a pair of twin Smurfs, he blithely commented that Tendulkar and Dravid had arrived, referring to the last names of legendary star Sachin Tendulkar and captain Rahul Dravid.
Any article which references the smurfs is genius. Read the rest at ESPN. I’ll just sit here like a properly chuffed elder sister, gloating about how fabulous Amar is while you do. He’s a little bit of perfect, isn’t he? :)
anna at 12:31 AM in Musings, Sports · 196 comment(s) · Direct link
March 21, 2007
Cricket: Farewell, My Aloo
…wherein Whose God is it Anyways? inspires a second cricket post in a row!
The education of my cricket-ignorant kundi continues; I shall torment you with my progress, much like a toddler rushes back to a parent to exclaim, “I did it in the potty!” Like aforementioned kid, I, too would like a cookie and a pat on the head. Thanks, you’re the best.
So. WGiiA left a comment on my last World Cup post which piqued my kitten-like curiosity:
ok. just got very emotional seeing inzi get out and leave the field for the last time in an ODI. he deserved better circumstances under which to leave. [link]
I immediately assaulted consulted one of my cricket tutors, the one who kindly told me a bedtime story via speakerphone last night which starred Sachin Tendulkar— look, when one runs out of Ambien, one reaches for desperate alternatives— and expressively typed “?” in his GChat window. I didn’t expect to like or care about what I’d learn, but I wanted to find out more nonetheless, if only because I’m a sentimental wench and anyone’s last __ always makes me a bit verklempt.
I was told that the Pakistani captain was retiring and that because his team will not move to the next round, this would be his last opportunity to play cricket. At this, I became a typical sorority girl and murmured, “Aww—” but before I could tack more unnecessary “W”s on that cliched reaction, I learned even more. “Inzi” was a complex figure, the type who owns my attention; just as I was ready to dismiss him for being a PUNK at the Sahara Cup (you can’t assault a fan for calling you “Aloo!”), I learned that he also refused to back down from bullshit accusations leveled by racist umpires (yay for walking your team off the field…or…um…not coming back on the field after tea…whatever, the protesting is still hot).
Then, when I discovered that the klansman who inspired that dramatic gesture had been banned from hating on Asian teams, I was hooked. But. I’m still going to learn how to pronounce “O mote, sidha khara ho. Mota aloo, sara aloo!” or whatever it is he gets heckled with…like attracts like, and I’m a bit of a punk, too. :)
No wonder you all love cricket so much! This is fun! :D
::
Anyone know where I ganked the caption from, i.e. what song I pilfered in an attempt to be clever? I’ll give you a hint; I’ve seen the movie whose soundtrack it is a part of over 90 times. Wot? Not enough of a hint? Your bad. :D
anna at 07:03 PM in Food, Humor, Music, Sports · 102 comment(s) · Direct link
Cricket: There's Something Black in the Dal
What a World Cup. And I say that as a cricket neophyte.
Stunning upsets, out-of-control fans, stocks in effigy companies spiking…and murder?
Bob Woolmer, 58, is dead. They found the unconscious coach of Pakistan’s team in his hotel room this weekend and he died soon after that at a hospital. At first, I was told by my cricket tutors that it was probably a heart attack; after a bruising defeat, it seemed entirely plausible. Woolmer’s family seemed to agree, from various reports that I had read. But what really happened to him? Did he die of unnatural causes (Thanks WGiiA, Anon and Anil)?
Police are now treating Bob Woolmer’s death as suspicious, Mark Shields, the deputy commissioner of police, told a news conference in Jamaica. A full-scale investigation has been ordered.
…”Having met with the pathologists, our medical personnel and investigators, there is now sufficient information to continue a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Woolmer, which we are now treating as suspicious.”
However, unconfirmed reports suggested Woolmer might have been murdered because marks were found around his neck. [Link]
Hmmmm. I’ll keep you posted. Well, you’ll probably keep ME posted, but you know what I meant. The education of this dilettante cricket fan continues…and really, it doesn’t need to be THIS interesting.
anna at 06:30 AM in News, Short, Sports · 72 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link
March 19, 2007
A young life scarred by the love of cricket
Cricket mania in India has produced a new Indian superhero, ‘Sachin Tendulkar - the Master Blaster’:
India’s Sachin Tendulkar is set to appear as a superhero in a new range of comic books, animation and games. The cricketing legend has linked up with Virgin Comics and his character will wear body armour and wield a flaming cricket bat. [Link]
Ummmm …. guys? You’re not helping the rep of desi men any. He’s short, has a stiff bat on fire, and is associated with Virgin? Great … But wait, it gets even better:
… two years ago had a stage musical about him called Main Sachin Tendulkar [Link]
Just imagine little Rajiv, playing in an American sandbox with his Sachin Tendulkar action figure.
Joe: I’ve got a GI Joe! What’s that short geeky looking thing?
Rajiv: I’ve got a Sachin Tendulkar! He plays cricket!
Joe: GI Joe has a gun. See, he can shoot bad guys with it.
Rajiv: Sachin has a flaming cricket bat! And when I play, I sing songs from his musical. Isn’t he awesome?
Doesn’t Gotham Chopra know how many years of therapy poor Rajiv is going to have to pay for?
On the other hand, this I think is really cool. He’s flying 115 kites, strung together, with photos of the various members of the cricket team on each one. How could you get beat up in a sandbox for this?
