In India, Cricket is Religion and Also a Couple of Other Things

In India, Cricket is Religion and also a Few Other Things

I am going to develop a nascent idea in my mind about Indian cricket as manifestations of various human thoughts and endeavours.

Many have said that in India, cricket is a religion. I do not disagree with that take; yet, how it is a religion, how I draw a parallel between the two is likely to surprise you. Therefore, I will take that up at the end.

The thing that comes to my mind first is that Indian cricket is a circus. What? I am not taking about some of the acrobatic stuff players execute, but a lot more of breath taking turns, tumbles, falling forward or backward and so on. More acrobatic than what acrobats do. More like what the Joker in a circus could be called on to do in a moment’s notice; ride a tall mono cycle, maybe, or do the high wire act, like Charlie Chaplin does in one of his movies.

If I were to do an fMRI on the mind of a fielder in whose way a ball is descending from high up this side of Heaven, I would not be surprised to find him praying to his God. Cricket is outside of government control. So, who are players praying for? To tell the truth, for themselves. 

Every breath they take, every move they make, (song by The Police, duly altered), God is watching them, players seem to think. Even more importantly his pay check must be on the line. Yeah, that would occasion a prayer!

Cricket is superstition. Just watch the stands, particularly players’ families. Many would have their fingers crossed. This is superstition. Praying to God could also be a mild form of superstition, but one that is baked into the player’s mind is another. There are two rituals that are hard wired (more severe than “baked into”!) in their minds. If a boundary is hit (a four or a six), the two batsmen have to amble across to do a fist bump. This is superstition. Would any two batsmen avoid doing this? I bet they would not. Any takers? Superstition is the super controller. But, the next ball, one of the batsmen gets out! There goes the superstition! Check that. If only it were that easy to remove a superstition from one’s mindscape!

The other superstition is to never acknowledge that your partner in batting (only about a fewseconds ago) is walking back to the pavilion (dug out for today’s generation, though nothing has been dug out). It is the same thing about luck, only this time it is bad. 

Before going into religion, I would touch upon passion. Indian cricket fans are passionate, if nothing else. Their passion has no bounds, just as the religious have no limits to their passions. Long time ago, fans in Eden Gardens in Kolkata, started a fire as more tickets were sold than there were seats. Yes, not only passion but greed, of the institutional type also  has no limits when it comes to Indian cricket. Where passion is, would religion be far behind?

Now, I am getting ready to wind down. This is going to be along narrative, as much as half the length of this post. The first news about people dying in a stampede that I heard happened while pilgrims were waiting for the darshan of Lord Venkateswara in Tirumala (Tirumala Tirupati Devastanams). This was in the mid 1960s I think. Eighteen people died. The event made a mark on me, for the simple reason it could have been us, my parents, my brother and me.

In those days, the Tamil month of Margazhi (December-January) was considered inauspicious by Telugu people, and the crowds were manageable, like we getting a cottage for overnight stay with one darshan squeezed in late night, and five different darshans the next day, starting at about 3:30 AM (such an ungodly hour, but made godly enough by God Himself!). It is merely because of that, we escaped stampedes. We were the privileged, in the eyes of God!

Talking about stampedes, that which happened when people in Bengaluru let out their long let out a huge sigh of relief at the local IPL franchise winning, after seventeen long (short of two months per year) years, sometimes just falling short, nevertheless falling short. But, such disasters occasioned by release of pent up frustration or demand for celebration occurred at the recent Maha Kumbh Mela. God’s abode was short of space for the million strong crowd (He had not heard of Hilbert Hotel!); it could accommodate only those who died in the stampede, lucky enough to be received with open arms by God Himself. 

Do not accuse me of being callous, please. Look, governments cannot be responsible for foolish acts of masses of people. Haven’t you heard of the stampede in Mecca? I have. The so-called Hinduism and Islam appear to be Siamese Twins separated at birth. I have not heard of Jewish, Christian, Jain, Buddhist stampedes. Just the truth, as I know it.    

The above clinches the argument that in India cricket is religion, more than it is a circus and a basketful of superstitions. Religion is what compels you to do truly macabre stuff, only to lose your head.

 

Raghuram Ekamabarm

Aspirational Inspiration

Aspirational Inspiration

Come Sunday morning (June 29, 2025, IST) global media would find it easy to fill up space and time. They must be working on the superlatives to be used to describe the things that went on in excess in the Venetian wedding of Jeff Bezos and his partner.

If I remember correctly, Lakshmi Mittal may have started this trend for the wedding of his son or daughter, I do not recall, in Paris (?), France. That was in the spirit of the times, The Great Indian Wedding! Not to be outdone, Mr. Mukesh Ambani threw a grand celebration of the wedding of his daughter/son (I have difficulty remembering the sci of the super rich). That is another of The Great Indian Weddings! Mr. Adani is chomping at the bit, waiting for his chance. That did not come out well, as he is already married. I was taking about the wedding of his son/daughter. That would complete the Indian troika.

Suppose it is an Indian USD billionaire’s son, would the billionaire demand that the father of the bride foots the total bill? That would be so cheap. But, do not put it past the small group that comprises Indian USD billionaires! Even, say, a thousand among 1.4 billion is only 0.00007142%! Truly, less than a minuscule!   

Where India has reached, would the westerners like to be seen not to be reaching for? God forbid. I am not very sure of the chronology but my general thesis would stand. Perhaps it was the umpteenth wedding for the multi-billionaire, Fox Chairman Emeritus, Mr. Rupert Murdoch. I think the nuptials in Bel Air, California reached the truly rock bottom city/location for the wedding of a billionaire. Yet, it was a billionaire’s wedding, to be taken note of by the tabloids and also the broadsheets, not to speak of the sundry websites, seeking a few clicks.

Then, from California, we go to Venice. George Clooney was 53 when he tied the knot (I think westerners have resurrected an old Celtic tradition, merely to be seen as being competitive with the customs of Indians, tying the knot). It was a four day affair, couched in secrecy (the current US Defence Secretary was not in on it; he might have given it away through Signal)!

Mr. Elon Musk, though the world’s richest man does not stand on ceremonies. It is only ceremonies. He would rather spend his wealth on bringing up scores of his children. Though Mr. Richard Bronson is a billionaire, and other than splurging his wealth on Virgin Galactic, and perhaps buying some super yachts, has started planning for the weddings of his scions. He has a son and a daughter. Looking at Jeff Bezos, Mr. Bronson has already started planning for the wedding of his scions. And, it should be in Greenland, and President Donald J. Trump would be invited but not welcome!

I have mentioned a six pack (or more) of richest-o’-the richest and that should be enough for the post. The others, who are a rung or two below will now aspire to join the club.

That is, these richest-o’-the richest are the inspirational clans for the aspirational not-so-rich.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Whose Loss was it at Headingly?

 Whose Loss was it at Headingly?

BCCI head coach Mr. Gautam Gambhir really knows how to say things without meaning anything. In this vein, he said, “The best fielders drop catches.” He did not seem to have realized what he was conveying: The qualification to be a best fielder is to drop catches! Yes, I am deliberately twisting the meaning of what he said without meaning, and how I interpreted. But, that is how sharp one has to be while speaking not on behalf of oneself but justifying what happened due to the errors of others.

That was just the beginning of this post. “The lower order batting was a BIT [my emphasis]disappointing.” A bit disappointing? No, it was an appalling collapse. Would you blame the tail-enders? That is not merely useless but also nonsensical. Why would the team head coach not take the captain aside and whisper in his ears to ask the tail enders to stay at the crease for as long as possible? It appears to have been not the case. Or, the players did not listen to the captain. A matter of indiscipline? A report in ESPN said that the tail-enders fancied themselves as stalwart batsmen (I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing!).

The head coach was indulging in counterfactual rumination: “If we had made 600 in the first innings, we could have dominated.” What kind of a response is this to whatever might have been the question? Or, was it merely lazy musing by the head coach? Does not bode well for the next test match, at Birmingham. No matter how the toss turns out, the head coach and the captain have to draw a line in sand that cannot be crossed. 

This drawn this line shall be drawn, not in terms of runs or wickets, but in terms of errors, for example, in not leaving a ball that is truly wide to itself, thus gaining a ball and a run; there are, of course, times when a such balls have been dispatched to or over the boundary, then those runs shall be marked with an asterisk; a bowler not signalling to the keeper that the delivery is going to be a wide, on the off or on side, resulting in byes; learn from baseball and the elaborate signals employed by the head coach to the pitcher on the mound, or the batter. One can create many such instances to avoid errors.

Yes, cricket must learn from baseball. The score line used to read (I do not know what it does now), “Runs, Hits, Errors.” It is the last listing, “Errors” that has lessons for cricket. There are so many useless statistics on the screen in a telecast of a cricket match (in any format), it would not add too much burden to list the errors a cricketer (in batting, bowling and fielding) makes during an inning. I would admit to one additional requirement: each stadium must have a designated “scorer”, just as baseball does. A specialist but hired only for the duration of the match.

Yes, the above methodology is susceptible to corruption. Then, do what is being done through TV Referee/Third Umpire! Possibly reducing the bias.

Now back to the head coach and his further comments. The unctuous statement: “We lose together and win together.” He could have added, “As the head coach I cannot be shaking a rattle to encourage motor skills in the baby players!” When the team wins, the players who do contribute significantly get inches long mention in newspapers. OK, we can mention, briefly, the critical errors by any player in any of the three aspects of playing cricket−batting, bowling, fielding. Just balance.

The last item: “We take pride in winning each and every game for our country.” Ouch ...Tell the head coach that BCCI is a private organization and has nothing to do with the Government of India. The head coach seems to have been taken in by the “patriotic fervour” the crowd shows instead of requesting it not to wave the national flag, as their fervour is misplaced. They should be waving the flag of the BCCI, if it does have one! No, the pride in the cricket team’s win is NOT “for our country”.

The cricket establishment is complicit in attaching the National Flag of India to the cricket matches owned by BCCI. I will tell you what it looks like. Look below, the US President Donald J. Trump hugging the US Flag to show his patriotism.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Shout-out for the Stunt Community in Tamil Films

Shout-out for the Stunt Community in Tamil Films

A-list stars of Tamil cinema get a lot of mention in all and every media outlet, including the social, particularly when they meet with an accident on the movie sets. “Oh, Vijay Sir (or any of the other A-listers) had a fall in the sets, his ankle got twisted.” I can understand the newsworthiness of this incident. 

The star will be out of action for about a week and this reflects on the finances of the film. This is why and how even the state of the ankle or the back of a star gets blared on the front page. The star is a performer-cum-entertainer, and his health is a legitimate concern for the investors.

But any injury that befalls one particular category of movie performers never makes the inside pages of cine magazines (if they exist now) or any cine website. If you expected that they would be acknowledged in the films, be ready to be disappointed. They are rounded up by agents (the way my wife’s cousin tells me and I don’t believe), brought to the sets, do their tasks (on a bad day, get hurt) and go their way.

My argument is that without these performers, though they may be way too many, which by itself dilutes their contributions, Tamil movies cannot be made. Hence this post to acknowledge them, not by individual names but by the collective name I have given in the title−the Stunt Community.

I know nothing about movie making, but I do know that if stars like Vijay, Ajith et al suffer any injury (God forbid) while they were shooting for a film, there would be newsflashes galore. Here, I need to mention Mr. Kamal Haasan, whom I rate as a ham and I do wonder why and how became a cine icon (which he is, whether I acknowledge it or not). He is perhaps the only a leading actor who has played a stuntman, in the movie Pammal K. Sambandam. The best part is he is gored by a bull as he is shooting a scene.

There is no mention that the hero Pammal Kalyana Sambandam carried any insurance. Let us take that as the truth; stunt people are perhaps true daredevils! “It won’t happen to me!” As I watch Tamil movies (hobby in my retired life!), I give myself a pat on my back for identifying many stunt instances as teaching opportunities, and have used them as such many times. I explain that in sports competitions such as diving, gymnastics, the athlete makes herself compact to make herself rotate faster and make 2 ½ or 3 ½ rotations; one can witness the same trick in Tamil stunt scenes, the villain’s henchmen before receiving a “kick” from the hero, compacts himself (with his arms tucked in close to his body) and his body rotates many times before he lands with a thud.

When the hero jumps off a second or third floor of a multi-storeyed building and lands he would take a tumble and there is a scientific explanation for why they do it, to make the action look natural. This is a hero doing the work of a stuntman! So, my appreciation for the stunt community holds good!

When you look at how swimmers in competition (long distance like 1500 meters) create a trough as their shoulders move forward and how they take their breath in that trough, you can understand how mechanics plays a part. In the Hindi movie, Tarzan: The Wonder Car, one of the villains is towed in water by a boat, and one can see what I have described above. Of course, it was a stuntman standing in for that villain! Hence, my appreciation, (though for something in a Hindi movie)!

Yes, at least in some movies, the name of the Stunt Coordinator appears in the credits, but name of the stunt man or woman. The same with dance choreography. The focus is always and exclusively on the hero and heroine, not even on their friends (that could be for another post!). But, it is time we realized that making a movie needs the clockwork coordinatedactions of many, and stuntmen and stuntwomen are such groups of professionals.

This post is a shout-out to them.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Some Criticisms on a Print Medium - Frontline

Some Criticisms on Print Media 

There was a time, about three decades ago that I eagerly read the letters from the readers published in newspapers and magazines; in fact, every morning that space used to be one of the first ones I visited (perhaps after the first page headline items). I sought out the various and varying viewpoints of the public on the issues of the day. The Hindu and Frontline, not to speak of the readers themselves, did not disappoint me.

These days, the self same pages repel me. If you scanned the "Letters" page of Frontline dated June 30, 2025, you would find six letters (four on the conflict between India and Pakistan, one on the rights of forest dwelling people, and one on Gujarat politics), each referencing an article in the magazine dated June 15,2025. These letters, I suspect, carry not a single idea that is outside of what is said in the magazine’s earlier issue. 

I have scanned and attached the Letters" age of the Frontline of Jue 1, 2025. And, in it you would validation what I have written above.

The above is one of the two criticisms I am going to level at the magazine Frontline. I will take a long detour here to set the stage for this post. 

I live in Srirangam, a suburb of Trichy, in an apartment building, and I cannot afford to subscribe to the magazine. Hear me out, please. The hardcopy would not be delivered to my apartment in the second floor, but dumped in a metal basket kept near the lift in the ground floor. I have missed erhas two or three issues, in all probability stolen to be monetized through a kabadiwala! There is no watchman (the other tenants argue that as there are only sixteen apartments, we cannot afford one; I disagree, but am a lonely voice). I have subscribed to digital publications of both the newspaper and the magazine of The Hindu Group (THB). I do access them once in a while, but I don’t derive the pleasure I gain from flipping the pages, adding marginalia etc. that convey a sense of my prideful ownership. I scan interesting pages on a flat bed scanner and store them in .pdf on my computer hard drive. I could do something similar with the digital pages but it is not the same thing.

In Srirangam suburb I have located only one paper/magazine vendor who gets a copy of Frontline (a hole in the wall who gets me a hard copy, not every issue) and he calls me out during my evening walks if he has managed to procure a copy (I have newspaper The Hindu dropped at my door step, though only around 8:30 AM).

The magazine vendor missed the copy dated June 15, and so I did too! Now, I am back on track. Luckily for me, I got my hands on the June 30th issue and I have referred to the page “Letters” earlier.

None of these letters do anything more than what must have been printed in the dated magazine. Not an idea more. This can mean one of two things or both. Readers do not read between the lines, analyze the ideas deeply, and write something at least moderately different, not necessarily opposing. No sir, they would not do so as it may expose them to the powers that be and there could be mid-night knocks on the doors (I am being facetious here!), and who has the time to invest brainpower in these matters.

Secondly, the magazine might not want to be shown the gaps in its thinking and/or analysis, which could possibly bring it down from its high perch.

I now come to the second of my criticisms. It is truly below substandard! In one of the articles under the rubric Book Review, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar writes in A professional in full bloom and makes clear, in the fourth line and no later, that the author and he are on nickname proximity (in Hindi langotiya yaar!). 

How does that help what he has written? And, from this first mention, not once did the reviewer write the full name of the author! It is, twenty times, the langotiya yaar and not the name of the author. This, in my opinion, is a complete surrender of the chief editor of the magazine to the vanity of the politician, the reviewer. In what way does the nickname of the author (to his close friends of long ago) have more relevance to the topic than his given name? I can’t think of even one.

I would have criticized in the same manner whoever else has used the nickname that may times in an article, even the so-called Mahatma (the “so-called” is appended to the honorific only as I do not believe in atma, the soul). What exactly did the book reviewer think he was achieving stressing his long association on nickname basis with the author of the book? He was stoking his vanity! That should be a severe negative. What gets my goat is that even the magazine’s editor did not dare to correct this infirmity.

I had not much to add either of the two thoughts I have espoused here. Hence, I clubbed them and the magazine Frontline is the only connection. Please read the very tenuously connected two criticisms as two distinct pieces.

Raghuram Ekambaram

On Garib Rath Coaches Withdrawn from Services

PM Garib Rath Coaches Withdrawn from Services

I have had reliable second-hand experience on Garib Rath – my wife travelled from Chennai to Hazrat Nizamuddin station in New Delhi, which is like the appendix of a major junction, here the New Delhi Railway Station. This was at least a decade ago, not very long after the service was introduced.

I went to the station to receive her and the train did not arrive at the appointed time (accommodating the mandated one hour beyond the ETA). And, none behind the counters had even an idea that such a train is running, much less when the train would arrive. I waited another one hour before there was an announcement that it would be delayed by six hours. So that left me with four more hours of waiting. I unwillingly bore the expense−both time and money−of going home and coming back (that gave me a clear relaxing time of 2 hours!). 

Well, the train was further delayed by half hour, and finally it chugged in, puffing and panting. The particular passenger (my wife) had a horrific time, no food, awful toilet and many other severe infirmities in service. I tried pacifying her saying, “After all, it was ‘Garib Rath’, travelling by it you have identified yourself as one of the garibis and you have no right to complain!” My attempt at humour merely aggravated her. That was my only experience with Garib Rath, thus far, and per news reports, I won’t have any more opportunities.

The ICF-made coaches of Garib Rath have been withdrawn last year, I learned, and in their place the Link Hoffman Busch (LHB) coaches have been introduced. I have travelled by these coaches and the difference is like between day and night. But, the ICH-made coaches were not condemned. They were used in the so-called Special Trains Indian Railways (IR) runs to accommodate surging crowds on account of some religious event at a particular holy place. This is the kind of respect given to Indian Hindu pilgrims. Go figure, even as religious tourism is large enough to demand a separate heading in the accounting by the Finance Ministry, within the hospitality (services) sector!

As an engineer by training, I noticed that the wheels of LHB coaches have a larger diameter and the links between two coaches are very short, a worker may possibly able to squeeze through. When I tried to indicate these details and how these may improve her travel comfort to a sixteen year old when she was travelling to Mumbai from Delhi, she sort of dismissed the matter. This is the perfect example of scientific ill-temper! I have digressed.

Recently I read that the Railway Board has received complaints on the ICF-made coaches even from travellers on the Special Trains, such devotees looking a gift horse in its mouth. So, finally, these have been condemned. The next time when you travel by train, look for abandoned coaches in the shunting yards of major stations, like between Basin Bridge and Chennai Central, you know how they were used to transport cattle, as Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar so famously called out the economy class on flights as cattle class! We would never know why IR hadn’t auctioned off these for scrap.

Good for Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar when he travels by train−if he were ever to do, like for reaching some half-village half-town places in his constituency−by an upgraded cattle class coach!

Raghuram Ekambaram

Perpetual Motion Idol in the Spiritual Universe

 

Perpetual Motion Idol in the Spiritual Universe

I had to set aside what I learned in my science classes that there can never be a perpetual motion machine. I forgot to add an important qualifier in the opening sentence. The set of principles that lead to the conclusion is applicable only in the material world. But in a spiritual world−there are some who are working hard at the task of converting the material world to it−perpetual motion machine is possible, indeed it is a certainty.

You have to watch a particular spiritual (actually, you may call it seeking lost glory) TV program on a TV spiritual channel (I watch it non-religiously, per the house rules) to, first, recognize perpetual motion in the spiritual world, and second, believe what your eyes do not see.

There is this lady who hosts a show−she is in her eighties I understand, and she seems to stand the strain of non-stop talking quite well−who, for her followers, is the grandma that they may not have ever had. The role she plays is that of home-made apothecary of her days, and her mien and her language give the show its legitimizing ambience.

What do the above have to do with perpetual motion machines? Hold your horses! To make the set more dynamic, the producers of the show have introduced a statuette of Lord Ganesha swinging merrily in a toy swing on which he has been seated. Throughout the half hour show (less the time for commercials during which Lord Ganesha is invisible), the swing does not creak, just as Lord Ganesha does not care! Your eyes do not see the material stuff as immersed as you are in the spiritual world.

If you saw this show every day, you would be driven to the conclusion and would swear that a perpetual motion machine exists. Understand this phenomenon can exist only in the spiritual world.

“Beam me down, Scotty!” (from the spiritual world to the material; perpetual motion machine is boring to watch!). I want to watch Madonna in her Material Girl song video!

Raghuram Ekambaram  

    

Reforms – The Much Abused Word

 

Reforms – The Much Abused Word

Everybody and her cousin have used the word “reform”. In political speeches, it matters little what the politician is going to talk about, it has to be reformed; and I am here to lead the reformation though I am not Martin Luther King and I do not have a readymade list of 95 theses.

I read an interview of the Chief Minister of a state of India who only recently regained his seat (yes, there appears to be a sense of entitlement/ownership. So, he has the readymade anchor, if not the theses, for his reforms; a human anchor, his predecessor who was dethroned, not very recently but recently enough that memory of his efforts are fresh in the minds of the people.

When he resumed his rightful place on the throne, he was surprised by the challenges he was facing, his administrative inheritance from his predecessor. Never mind that he would have run his campaign on the selfsame deficiencies! The state’s brand name, so assiduously built-up by his earlier administration, was washed away. Hence, the necessary rebuilding/reform.

The next thing he says is very bold for a politician and I appreciate it, “...we need to recover slowly.” No politician admits to a need for time. Ask any bureaucrat and she would have heard the following phrase a million times from her politician boss: “I need it done yesterday!” Thanks CM, I say as I genuflect before him.

His predecessor had “pledged government properties for borrowing.” The tone is one of, “How could he have done this!” His predecessor halted nearly a hundred development schemes for which the Union Government (Central Government does not sound right) had set aside the money. Now, the current CM has to rejig the whole, schemes and monies, from the starting gate. But, he is a thoroughbred and I am sure he would get everything on track.

The funniest lines read, “My agenda is welfare, development, empowerment of people.” To which of the three items the word “people” applies, to welfare, and/or development, and/or empowerment? Whoever wrote down the interview (?), probably the Principal Secretary to the CM, an IAS officer, dropped the ball. Let him/her take the cue from a non-IAS Indian, the individual without any horns on his forehead, me: the rewrite, “...people’s welfare, and their development and empowerment.” The reader may comment.

The CM is creating, as he claims, the P4 mode [of development]: “public, private, people partnership.” The original P3 mode ran thus: “Public Private Partnership.” Public is people; Private is people; and the partnership is between the people, albeit of two different kinds – the moneyed and the others. Where is the need for the third item “people” that merely pads up the 3P to 4P without protecting anyone?

The CM has revived the old, yet “futuristic” projects. He is looking for new revenue models, and of course, consultants are waiting in line outside his office, each to pitch his own set of models−one for agriculture, one for export/import, one for port operations, one for hydrocarbon, one for minerals and so on. It may end up being mix-and-mismatch.

Every model, sure enough, is aimed at enhancing revenue. The critical question is whose revenue? I speak from experience. A top-notch consultancy firm was hired to enhance the profits for the company I was working for then. They came, asked questions, created spreadsheets, trained us in filling the dozen or so forms and showed impressive, indeed incredible profits for the company, on paper and in the future. The Sethji was impressed and the workers toiled under the additional burden. At the end of the financial year, the numbers were still in deep red, not even pink!

I can only hope that the CM would think twice before leaping into the arms of consultants.

The Union Government promoted Three Language Formula is not a threat to his state, indeed to any state, the CM says. “[L]anguage is not an issue at all.” Then, why the focus on one of the two official languages, Hindi, one is tempted to ask. Language not being an issue for the CM does not make it a non-issue for the others. He shall remember that he is a representative of his people.

“Hindi can be taught along English and mother tongue.” Neither Karnataka nor Tamil Nadu has prohibited anyone learning Hindi. They merely say, do not load onto the shoulders/backs of school students additional material.

People would learn whatever language they find necessary to unburden themselves in daily tasks. My brother lives in Hyderabad and he tries to pull along with smattering of Hindi and is successful only to the extent he finds necessary, and has refused to learn Telugu. He talks to the vegetable vendor in Hindi and I had to laugh when I heard him speak in that language! You may put a gun to his head and he would still refuse to learn Telugu, I guarantee.

Finally, the CM mentions that he would want many languages to be taught in colleges whereas the issue is school education! His diversionary tactic is too transparent. I hope his administration is not of this kind of diversionary transparency.

When something has to be reformed one has to understood why whatever that exists does so because it was beneficial. So, by reforms, one can enhance only the usefulness an idea. You cannot throw the idea into the trash bin without sifting through it. Isn’t it overreaching on my part to demand that politicians first sift, then sort and then discard before bringing in the new, reformed ideas? If yes, so be it.

Raghuram Ekambaram