Don't Call it a comeback!

The best ever Yankees comebacks since 2006. I'd add Game 1 of the 98 world series which turned on 2 pitches to Tino. The first was ruled a ball, the next was a grand salami.

In search of meaning.

About Nothing

How many episodes can you name in the picture?

Victory

The government lost. The parents of the students from 'other' boards won. Justice prevailed. Viva Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice S C Dharmadhikari!

I can walk English, I can talk English etc

So said, Amitabh in Namak Halal way back in 1982. We've come a long way as a country since then, and more people are walking and talking English than ever before.

But with the spread of the language, satellite television, remix culture and perhaps bad teachers, the English language spoken in India is not the language the Brits left behind in 1947....a few examples of uniquely Indian English nuggets:

How many times has someone introduced themselves to you with the 'concept' of 'Myself Happy/ Lucky/Bubbly'?
What about when someone calls you, on the phone and says...'Amrit this side'.
Why do our restaurants/ pubs get pluralized? There is only one Olive, one Del Italia and one Trishna. Or rather, you can only visit one restaurant at a time no?
Why do people say he has/ hasn't reverted BACK?
What about 'I don't think SO, I can make it to your party'....
Anti social as i was taught, implies someone who's either a vandal or a someone who incites riots- not someone who wants to hang in a corner at a party solo.
In the Mumbai Times, which is the paper of the new and the modern India, and largely responsible for the dumbing down of our younger citizenry, somehow everyone is invariably 'grooving' along to the 'peppy tunes' played by DJ (fill in the blank). I take it the BT reporters have never ever been to a dull party.

AND THE ALL TIME CLASSIC:

What about 'Have you taken your meals?' (I never took them anywhere, I sat on the table and ate).

Le Roi est Mort. Vive Le Roi!

Michael Jackson is gone. I will admit that I am/ was never a big fan of his. This is due to the fact that I grew up in America when Thriller happened and as an 11 (going on 18)year old kid, it was simply uncool to be a fan of the same music as extra terrestrials, 5 year olds and geriatrics. However that's not to say I wasn't a fan of his music. Billie Jean, Don't Stop til you get Enough, I Just Can't Stop Loving You are songs I will never tire of.

But what must be said is that the guy fundamentally changed music, the music business and impacted culture at a worldwide level like nobody else did. And nobody else ever will. Tommy Motolla's quote -'he was the cornerstone of the music business' is absolutely bang on.

He took R&B and funk to the masses and made it pop. He paved the way for other Black (that was the term used in the 80s) singers and performers around the world. Nobody knew what to do with music videos in the early 80s. Only he had the vision to make pop music visual. Rightly so, MTV's ultimate honour for excellence in the field of music video is called the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.

Thanks for the music MJ. Thanks for my livelihood.

No matter what.

Blogging in Iran

Thanks be to the dude who uploaded it onto FlickR and to the guy who actually drew it.
No thanks to the Iranian government for making this possible.

The Mid-Education of Maharashtra

I am sometimes flabbergasted as to how these things (still) happen in our country. In question now is the Maharashtra state government's decision to implement the 90% reservation for 'State students'- i.e. SSC in Jr. colleges.

There are 2 issues here- whether the reservation is constitutional (which under Article 14, it isn't), and even if it is, whether it is right, or fair to announce this at the Nth hour, given the fact that the same stunt was tried last year.

This is clearly another one of those initiatives that stinks of the government playing the sons of the soil game. Why they decided to do it now? I guess because they couldn't do it earlier, especially post 26/11, because it wasn't a big enough issue to raise pre the LS elections. Which brings us to now. Which is quite simple.
If they don't do it now they'll have to wait for another year. (And all the files might get lost)

According to me, it's not just that. These crooks have clearly got a mapped out strategy. They clearly want the (SSC) public on their side, which is why it makes sense to have a debate in the court of public opinion. To engineer this, you need to make a newspaper editor salivate. Which means you do it at the start if the academic year vis a vis Diwali vacation/ Xmas vacation etc.

What zapped me more than anything else was a minister being quoted by saying that this reservation is actually in favour of Non SSC students. Because Non SSC students only make up 5% of the student base at a Class X level. By reserving only 90% for SSC students, there is in fact a 10% reservation for only 5% of the students.

Thanks dude. But no thanks. We (ICSE types) aren't easily fooled.

The 'reverse reservation' argument makes sense from a mathematical point of view. (I am relieved that these guys know how to use a calculator). But not from a geographical one. Most non SSC schools would be concentrated in the larger cities like Mumbai and Pune. So the 'reverse reservation' argument goes out the window. Secondly, there's a greater chance of a SSC candidate from Srirampur or Malegaon migrating to a Pune or Mumbai for his college education vis a vis the reverse. Which I suspect skews things further. Thirdly, I'm quite sure not all SSC students or 'SSC pass' apply to colleges...so it's in fact wrong to base the reservation on the number of SSC students. It should be based on applicants to Jr Colleges for Class XI.

So from all aspects this stinks and is wrong. If the government feels that its students are suffering; (strange that one hasn't heard any such statements/ PIL/ agitation or a movement from a body comprising of students or teachers or parents)then there are other ways to go about it. If they feel that 'students from other boards score higher marks', they in turn should be more generous with their own grading system. Fight fire with fire as they say.

Eventually, what it boils down to is that the SSC system needs a drastic upgrade. I haven't till date met an SSC grad who found 6 years studying the Glory of Shivaji worthwhile. Or the practical application of knowing how to differentiate between a simple from a compound sentence.

To quote Suhas Pednekar, principal of Ramnarain Ruia College, Matunga, "the government needs to improve the standard of education offered in the state so that SSC students can compete on an equal footing with other boards."

Hope it happens soon. Or else we are doomed to live in a state where we are looking for someone to 'remove our tickets' as we discuss the glory of Chhatrapati Shivaji(at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus).