Let the Sport Grow

In India, many cricketers have become billion dollar babies but national team players of other sports like Hockey struggle for survival.

 Cricket has grown from a sport to a passion and from a passion to a religion in India. Cricketers have become billion dollar babies. The growth of cricket in India has indeed been inspirational. With proper management, fan following and the future scopes;cricket is good enough to become an industry where there is money and fame. This is the story of cricket in India, in brief ‘awesome’.

Now let’s talk about one another sport; the proud national sport of Indian State.  The glory brought by this sport to India is incomparable to any feat in any other sport. Even India’s favorite sport, Cricket would take years to reach that level. Winning 11 out of the 20 medals India has ever won in the Olympics, this sport has registered India’s name in the world of sport. But the story does not end here. It was the Moscow Olympics 1980 when Indian Hockey Team won a gold medal and this was the last time Indian Hockey won any big tournament. 1980s was the time when two sports were deciding two different fates for themselves; cricket grew with India winning the ’83 WC while hockey moved back.

This was the story of two sports with contrasting fortunes. Here is the question to be asked Why? Why the hockey team of world beaters could never stand back on its feet? We don’t ask that cricket must be banned in India to support the national sport; we ask what cricket did which hockey failed to do? Or is the reason that India is no more interested in hockey and its cricket that they want to cheer for? This excerpt from the newspaper The Times Of India published after India qualified for London Olympic answers the last question- about fans “What does hockey mean to India? Just ask those who danced into the night as their team beat a feeble French side 8-1 in the final at the Dhyanchand Stadium.  Remember the tears and the smiles on those ageing men that took hockey to the highest echelons and then painfully watched it die slowly in front of them. Remember how their faith was restored.”

The real problem Indian hockey is facing is poor administration and lack of support. While Cricket moved to a private governing body in the name of BCCI, Hockey still remains another government run committee getting minimal if not no attention. How can we leave sport administration to ministers, who most probably never played. Don’t we need professional and experienced players to run the sport, which they know? The difference is clearly visible, the BCCI is organizing domestic leagues to encourage young talent and let the cricketers make money on the otherhand the stubborn Indian Hockey Association is threatening player of banning them if they played in a league like the World Series Hockey.

 Even the players who come to play Hockey are playing because they want to play for their nation unlike cricket where money and fame waits for you. The treatment received by both Cricketers and the men with curved sticks is different. While a gradeA cricket player is contracted for Rs. 1 Cr.; a national level hockey player hardly makes 10- 15 Lakhs a year. Looking at the condition of hockey, even 15 Lakhs is hard to believe.  This is all a reflection of poor management.

Hockey is the pride of the nation.We don’t mean to defame or criticize Cricket, we only want to ask the people of a nation so passionate about sports; why is its national sport in danger of survival. We ask the youth to stand and cheer for the sport which has brought laurels after laurels for India. We ask the youth to stand in support for the boys of that Dhyanchand whom the world portrayed with as a man with four arms and four sticks. Only our support for the sport will force sponsors and managers to help this sport. Let the Dream Revive.

The Blurred Line between Faith and Blind Faith

 While one part of India is making strides in the field of Science and Technology other is struggling in the clutches of blind faith and superstitions in the name of Faith.

India is a multi-dimensional nation. Describing India’s one prospect or describing one section of India can’t define India. While one India is exploring every aspect of Science through experimentation and reasoning the other India, in this 21st Century, is still fighting from unexplained superstitions and blind faith. Through superstitions people are harming themselves and blind faith is mistakenly understood as faith.

Faith is just a belief that nothing is unachievable and it inspires individual to strive for the good. It’s a belief in one’s own self and a trust on the miracles of hard work which in turn is God. But blind faith is dealing with destiny which in the sense is insane. People do things which scientifically and logically are impossible and this is blind faith and superstition.

Many Babas and self-acclaimed incarnations of God have successfully exploited this and have made a business out of it which is the bigger problem. Many Babas have recently been in the news who have made hundreds of Crores out of this, an amount that all of their followers could never dream to have. People are blinded by blind faith that they are not able to demarcate between God’s magic and a devil’s trick. 

The main reason behind blind- faith is lack of education and scientific aptitude among people. This is not a problem of a nation or a community this problem has roots at the individual level. Samuel Smiles, a Scottish Author and Reformer said “Superstitions are based on ignorance and there is no place for superstitions but in the darkness. The best way to remove superstitions is to educate the people and give them light of reason.  A true knowledge of Nature and God will take the place of blind beliefs and false traditions and this only can /should be the death-knell of superstitions.”

Education remains as the only way to cure the society from this disease of blind faith. Any wo

rkshop, any awareness program will not help until and unless people ask ‘Why’?

Let the rays of faith inspire our thoughts; and not the darkness of blind-faith determine our actions.

Human Capital Flight- Brain Drain

Highly Skilled individuals from India are choosing foreign countries as an arena to showcase their talents. But how is it affecting India?

The dictionary meaning of Brain Drain says that Human Capital Flight or Brain Drain is the large scale emigration of a large number of individuals with technical skill or knowledge. Brain Drain along with being a problem itself is a reflection of all other problems prevalent in India. It can’t be said that Human Capital Flight is an obstacle to the development of India but certainly it has contributed to a slower pace of development. The problem of Brain Drain in India is not a new born but an age old problem of the 1990s or earlier. The biggest contributors for Brain Drain are believed to be better lifestyles in the host nation and better opportunities for progressing. While India has failed to provide the best opportunities for the most fertile minds host nations have lured them for their good. Brain Drain has not only deprived the nation of the better ideas and innovation it has had direct economic effects as well. Statistics reveal that the brain-drain of software engineers alone costs India $2 billion a year. The total amount lost from every field of human capital threatens to be enormous. In a recently released report from the Union HRD Ministry about fee structure in IIT s said that an average of 8 Lakh is spent on every student for a 4-year BE course against the meager 2 Lakh paid by the student. This means that for every student that studies in the IIT and moves abroad to work for MNCs there is a loss of 6 Lakh rupees.

Though Brain Drain is a serious enough problems it’s not all about bad. An interesting statement made in the period of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s rule said that it’s better to have brain drain then to have no brain in the drain. This meant that although through Brain Drain but its good those individuals are getting employed. Our visionary ex-president Sir A P J Abdul Kalam said that the 25 million Indians abroad going for wealth creation who have a strong connection to India is a gain for us. In a globalised market, people will come and go. Many foreigners will come here too. Experienced individuals working abroad when return back bring with themselves new ideas to work which is a big boon.

These benefits do not mean that brain drain does not need to be tackled. Work has been initiated in this field but there is still way to go. Government must generate the work environment and provide the infrastructure necessary to ripe the crop India has sown. It is also important for the individuals to remember what all the land has given him. We must remember that we are indebted by our land from the moment we take our first breath. We must pay back a small fraction by working in the nation and for the nation. A beautiful India is waiting…get up youth, it’s all yours.

Bachelor of Corruption

Formally, a person’s intellect was indicated with degrees such as BA, MA or PhD but in today’s India there are more corrupt than intellectuals. So, is it the time when we give degrees of corruption to the deserving ones?

Present day India has many people who have successfully passed their exams of corruption and believe me the toppers have performed fairly well. Putting a whooping amount of Lakhs of Crores on their examination paper of bribery and scams the toppers have broken all the records. As a token of appraisal the toppers were interviewed by the media, hand-shake by the police, and were offered a free visit   to the elite ‘Tihar Jail’ till their lawyer came with Migration Certificates oops I mean Bail Orders. If someone has performed such great feats it’s almost essential for us to give them recognition or a degree in a suitable Convocation Ceremony. Summing, there is no rating in our nation of who is how much corrupt; this degree will help us do that too.

Let’s start with school level, anyone who is caught in a scam of a Lakh Rupees or less, gets minimal media attention and a visit to the local jail, must be offered a degree of Intermediate. Around 45 Lakh students appeared in the 12^th Board exams this year, so the students with Intermediate of Corruption would be nearing that number.

Bachelor’s degree must be offered to someone with a corruption of 10 Lakh or less. Students completing their Graduation in Corruption would include Bachelor of Corrupt Sciences (equivalent to BSc), Bachelor of Commercial Corruption (B. Com) and Bachelor of Art of Corruption (BA).  Bachelor of Corrupt Sciences would include doctors involved in cut practices, men approving faulty designs for buildings etc. Bachelor of Commercial Corruption will be the one who tamper official records, increase the prices of products bought with govt. money to fill in their pockets etc. And Bachelor of Art of Corruption will be offered to all those who find new and innovative ways to cheat, ways which can’t fit in the rest of two.

The people with corruption amounting to 10 Cr. would be offered Master’s degree. These people would be the powerful people of the corrupt society viz. politicians.

The most elite would be the ones involved in scams above 10 Cr. Naturally there will be a few of such people and they will be offered the degree of Doctor of Corruption and Philosophy.

Corrupt people who fall ill just at the moment when the police come to take them to jail would be offered the degree of Bachelor of Corruption and Medicine (equivalent to MBBS) for knowing the skill to fall ill at the best time.

And the ‘greats’ who come out of jail even after their guilt is proved would be offered Bachelor of Corrupt Laws for their outstanding work to trick the court.

Fortunately and unfortunately common man will always be a failure in this field of education. A non-corrupt illiterate would always see his ‘seniors’ bag degree after degree while he suffers for two square meals. This is the India we live in.

Is Bollywood out of Ideas?

Hindi Cinema Industry in India has become a multi- billion dollar industry but is riding on the horse of sequels and remakes. Does this industry so self-doubt that putting a new idea on screen seems suicidal?   

It has been rightly said that India has two passions, cricket and cinema. May be due to this reason the Hindi Cinema Industry commonly known as Bollywood is becoming bigger day by day? But is it becoming better?

Bollywood is no longer a cheap affair. Hundreds of Crores of Rupees is put into every movie and making a new movie is a gamble of big bucks. The trend suggests that film makers are trying to find a formula to guarantee success. Naturally, if someone puts in a whopping 100 crore in a movie he would like to get the same amount back if not more. And finally they have found something that if does not guarantee but increases the probability of getting a blockbuster on charts. The idea is to present a remake or a sequel of an already successful movie to the people. Most of the hit movies of 2011 and 2012 viz. Bodyguard, Agneepath, Rowdy Rathode, Housefull 2, Jannat 2 etc. are either a remake of a Retro hit or a South Indian favoriteor a sequel of a movie that was a hit earlier. There are other things which are being used to make the movie big. For example; an eye catching, adrenaline kicking dance song has become a must in almost every movie even though it has nothing to do with the story; there is useless publicity through stage performances, stars visiting reality shows and even daily soaps. This certainly suggests that present day Bollywood is reluctant to take risks. Either the film-makers are out of ideas or they are too afraid to experiment.

What’s needed now is a bunch of movies that not only provide quality entertainment but make the people think too. Sequels and remakes might be earning a handsome amount but the film-makers must not wait till the audience to get bored.

Stop serving us old ‘Cocktail” in new bottle and contribute to sort out nation’s ‘chinta’ instead of doing ‘Chinta ta ta’. 

Chase Your Passion, Not Your Pension

In a youth focused blog it was almost mandatory for us to bring light to one of the most troubling challenges that the youth face in their lives–, which is choosing a career. Choosing a career is one of the decisions that not only determine our professional life but also the personal life we are going to live for the rest part of our life. There is a dilemma in the mind of youth of whether they choose a secured career with enough bank balance or the career of their dreams which sometimes may just ensure two square meals. Under parental pressure, expectation of society and many other forces youth choose the former and let their passions die.

"Chase your passion, not your pension", said by Denis Waitley, an American motivational speaker and writer is what the youth need to do. Many a time youth fear to step out of their comfort zone and hence they choose a career that seems the most favorable assuring a secured bank balance. This is mistakenly regarded as success in life. But in reality a man can never be a success if he is not in the pursuit of his dreams.

Men in the world have followed their passion and have failed but that has never made them repent for their choice of career because if you really like doing something, then you always know that you will be successful a day or other. Following your passion is not having an occasional hobby. No. Passion consumes you, and it's impossible to not talk or think about it. In a blog called, “The Art of Non-conformity” writer Gretchen Ruben says it gracefully “The problem with pursuing a job for the money is that in most cases, the big money comes only if you achieve a certain stature or goal. If you don't hit that target, you don't get the money – and you haven't much enjoyed the time you've spent in pursuit. If you follow a passion, you'll enjoy your life as you're working to achieve your goal, so if you don't hit it, you won't have spent all that time in vain.


A generous example of men who have pursued their passion is Mr. Chetan Bhagat – A best-selling author and a much loved youth icon. Mr. Bhagat being an IIT- D, IIM-A product, and employed in a bank in Singapore could have had all the worldly pleasures (looking at the handsome money the bank pays to its employees). But after working for 10 years at the bank, he risked it all and chose his passion to write and today the world knows him better than any investment banker working in Singapore. May be that's why he is our youth icon.

Denis Waitley while addressing a group of recently graduated youth said, “A job is something you do for money. But a career is something you do because you're inspired to do it. You want to do it, you love doing it, and you're excited when you do it. And you'd do it even if you were paid nothing beyond food and the basics. You'd do it because it's your life.”

Choose your passion as your career. The quest for happiness and prosperity by pursuing your passion is worth a shot. Imagine how life would be when you can‟t tell the difference between work and play

Dying Spirits- Into Youth Suicides

Youth, who are believed to be the future of the nation, are losing faith when a single moment went against them. We ask Why?

It’s the moment when a mother sees the dead body of her beloved son who couldn’t face the bare truth of life, it’s the moment when a father sees his dear daughter lose when things went against her, and it’s the moment where life dies.

The world lives on the principles where the fittest survives and is this reason why some youth who face one atrocity in life decide to end it? Is it that they feel that they are not fit for this highly competitive world? Why

 one failure makes youth take steps which not only affect them but many around them? Is the feeling so humiliating and intense that dying seems a better option than life?

Today, the youth of India form one of the most vulnerable and psychologically fragile groups, who on one hand are expected to be the leaders, the backbone of tomorrow’s India while on the other hand they form a browbeaten and baffled cluster. But the question here to be asked is whether the problem is in the individual or the system is responsible for youth losing faith in life. The answer is both. Lack of self-belief and a system where only winners are accepted has spurted the cases of youth suicides. If we clearly observe the problem of youth suicides there seems to be a common reason for youth suicides in India. There is a cluster of suicides when there is a season of results or admissions. Does this mean that we must stop taking examinations or admissions to premier institutes must be offered on first come first serve basis? NO, the problem is not with the examination or the admission procedure the problem is in the way our society thinks. Today in most of the houses of India parents decide what their child has to do rather than letting the child decide what he aspires to be. This imposed target starts to haunt the child, parents start overestimating the child, there is competition among friends and there is pressure from teachers, which indeed intensify the fear of failure and in the end the child collapses.

Suicide rates in India are alarming enough to attract the attention of the government. A report released by the Ministry of Health in 2006 says an average of five and a half thousand commit suicide every year. Official report says that student suicides increased by 26% in the five years from 2006 to 2010. These stats make it prerogative for the government to take concrete steps by incorporating changes in the education system, which already is initiated. Vice-chancellor of Ambedkar University, Delhi said “The examination system and the selection process for institutions of higher education weigh heavily on young people. The volume of students passing out of the school education system and vying for admission to tertiary education has dramatically increased over the years, with competition levels increasing too. At a time when higher education can result in social mobility, the stakes are very high. Today, there is a greater link between employability and higher education.” A change in the system may certainly increase the opportunity of students and hence may cause lesser suicides. But along with system, parents are also responsible for this serious problem to a considerable extent. Psychiatrist Dr. Sanjay Chugh said told Times of India, “An inadequate system, coupled with lack of proper social support, pushes students over the brink.” “If a child's parents do not add to the pressure that the education system puts on him, chances are his stress levels will never cross the threshold for suicide” he added.

Though the Government has come forward to protect the dying future; parents, teachers and the victims themselves must cooperate. Teachers and parents must find signs of depression in students and help the one who are the needful. Parents must limit their role to mentors and not masters in deciding the career of their child.

Parents must encourage their child to perform well in exam but should not highlight this as the deciding point between life and death.

Suicide attempters must think and rethink if it is the last way to solve the problem. They must understand that in the process of killing themselves they are killing various relationships such as a father, a mother, a sister, a brother and a friend. One must understand the value of life and believe in the miracles it can perform even after failure in some exam. Killing is not the solution.  

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