Monday, April 06, 2009

Sachin has no class

I always wonder why should a player as flamboyant as Sachin, curbs all his natural instincts/talents just cause he wants to score more runs/want his team to win (rarely).
Questions which immediately comes to my mind are:
a. Is winning more important than being honest to the talent/skill ?
b. Is scoring more runs important than being honest to the talent/skill ?
c. Will Bradman/Richards also stifle all their strokes just for the heck of scoring safe runs ?
d. Why is he so scared of playing those glorious drives in the cover-point, straight ? And instead pockets those safe runs in third man and fine leg region. He really has to think he is Sachin and not Chanderpaul or Jimmy Adams or Justin Langer or Graham Thorpe.

There are folks who say Sachin is playing these drab innings because of:
a. The pressure factor - which does not give him too much liberty to play his natural innings :
Hmm.. I think it is important one does justice to his natural talent and be honest to himself, rather than claim that he is playing for "others".
b. It takes great courage to curb one's instincts:
Hmm.. this is equivalent to cheating oneself.

Why do you care - it is Sachin's own decision to play positively/negatively ?
Agreed, it shouldn't exactly bother me. Sachin has all the liberty to change his style/improvise whenever he wants and whenever he wishes. But, I think Sachin might never re-capture the imagination of many cricket-watchers, thanks to his negative instincts.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Chomsky - Monk

I find a similarity between Chomsky's thoughts and that of Jiddu(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti) or Osho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho). Jiddu and Osho were mostly professing Hindu/Zen school of philosophy, who emphasized the idea of 'self' and how "individualism" is the key to everyone's happiness and not obedience towards concepts like government/state/organization/religion etc.,

Chomsky's thoughts are similar to what these Eastern/Oriental philosophers who have professed i.e. realizing the power of 'self' and do not allow external factors to distract/prevent to pursue the task of understanding/realizing the "self".
In Chomsky-speak, external factors can be replaced with institutions/organizations/state/government/corporate/or any culture which takes itself too seriously.

I trust the bottom-line of Chomsky's school of thought is to 'free the individual' from 'groups' that will invariably enslave him/her.

As part of this effort, Chomsky uses "reason" or "rationality" with the foot soldier's of government/state/organization/corporate/religion. Chomsky's "reasoning or rationality" is not merely qualitative but also quantitative. Chomsky always amaze me with the way he supports his arguments with numbers/data/information from reputed sources. And whenever he supports his arguments with numbers/data/information, I find that the other person is spellbound, gets desperate and jumps out of the argument.

Because of Chomsky's strong opposition to concepts of State/Government, there's a strong likelihood that many among the common public will always associate 'Chomsky' to "anti-state" or "anti-government" or "anti-imperialism" or other upteen number of "anti-.." propaganda, instead of looking at "Chomsky" as the one who professed "individual freedom".