The Other Side

Times of India reports
"More than half the attacks reported for 2004 were in South Asia, which recorded 327 incidents that resulted in 502 deaths. The bulk of the incidents were reported in the divided Kashmir state claimed by both India and Pakistan. "

The Mumbai bomb blasts being the last one in this series of terror attacks being faced by India. The bomb blasts have resulted in wide criticism of the Governement,the intelligence agencies, comparison with Israel/US etc. Instead of reiterating those things, this post shall try to look at the problem from a different perspective.

As soon as a terrorist attack occurs, comparisons to Israel and USA are the first ones to pop up. Let us take a logical look at these two before reaching any conclusions

Israel -
Surrounded by hostile neighbours, a hawkish Governement ready to take retaliate immediately, unflinching US support but the biggest difference "The neighbours cannot strike back except with more terrorist actions". Hence, Israel is in a perpetual cycle of terrorist attacks and bloody retaliations.

US -
No hostile neighbours, unrivaled military and economic might, ability to spend billions on intelligence operations and continue against international opinion

A hypothetical scenario:
The public outcry after a terrorist attack on India made the Indian Government take action against the terrorist camps situated in PoK (which incidentally, the Indian Government claims to be Indian soil). Against all international opposition, the Indian Governement launches missile attacks and commando operations against the terrorist camps. However, the attacks lead to civilian casualities and public demonstrations against the Govt in PoK. The public anger was further fueled by religious leaders forcing the Governement into action. The result was an all-out conventional war between the neighbours.

I suppose no sane person would want this to happen. I have seen forums and blogs asking Government to take action. Let me ask, what kind of action are we looking for? The only possible action is trying to prevent such attacks from taking place through intelligence operations. Before, someone starts harping abt the failure of Indian intelligence operations, let me ask a question - How many of us seriously think that its next to impossible to place bombs in Mumbai's local trains or in Delhi's buses ? Considering the ease with which this can be achieved on a regular basis (and I dont suppose terrorists have any shortage of resources to carry out this), the following quote surmises the dilemma of an intelligence agent

"Our failures are known, our successes are not"
- Al Pacino, The Recruit

The summary of this being that instead of just blaming the Govt and intelligence agencies, we should take a look at the options available to them.

I am tempted to include the usual info on sports etc but that would spoil the spirit of this post. Maybe next time.

The Weekend of many firsts

"Bahut kuch life mein pehli baar hota hai Mamu"

So goes the quote from Munnabhai MBBS. Well, this weekend was my chance of experiencing quite a few things for the first time.

No weekend, just Saturday
As long as I can remember, Sat was a fun day. In school, it was a half day and in college, it was a holiday. How we used to wait up for that Fri nite in college!!. But working life has different set of rules. During training, we have scheduled tests on Sat. This week was SQL but next week could be tougher than ever, JAVA.

Missing Lunch
After 6 hectic days of working, finally one day of respite-Sun. Even on this day, the guy who comes over for cleaning our apartment didn't let me rest. The door bell rings at exactly 7:30 am. I pull the covers over myself trying to ignore it and hope that someone else wakes up and lets me sleep. But my friends are even lazier than me. Result: I sleep in the afternoon and miss up on lunch. Must be a long time since I didn't eat nething b4 5pm.

Mud incident
We all have seen videos of rash drivers, who love to run through holes filled with rainy water and spraying the people walking around. Well, this was my first time to run into one of them. Me & Sandy had gone out for lunch and a guy in a Maruti 800 sprays us both. I had to suppress my instinct to shout something as ppl here might not understand English/Hindi but they sure know insults in both these languages. Ironically, the same morning I had seen a Michelin video on how next-gen radials would result in reducing the amt of water sprayed by such drivers.

Spelling Bee
Everyone must have heard of the Annual National Spelling Bee contest in USA. Well, this was my first time to see its finals on ESPN. The kids were mind-boggling. Last yrs runners up was Samir Patel, an Indian who was the favourite this yr. Then there was a 12 yr old guy who was ranked 22 last yr and had added 30,000 words to his vocabulary since then. 30,000 words !!!. I wont learn so many words even in my lifetime. Indian challenge ended at 4th position and the last 3 were girls. Finally, it was down to last 2 and they had to spell one word each out the 25 words for the finalists. They managed to go till the last 8 words. Finally, one of them made a mistake (just one letter wrong in a word that I didn't know half abt) and the last one got lucky. She got "Kundalini"(one of the 2 words I knew that nite, the other one being izzat) and other a word of German origin. Luckily she was German and was crowned the spelling bee.
Its an amazing show. See if u can get ur hands on it.

Otherwise, we were surfing channel and we realized one fact
ETC - Himesh
M TV- Himesh
V TV - Himesh
Zoom - Himesh
Its Himesh all the way this year. But I still think, the best music should go to RDB.
Another win for Schumi. The lead is down to 17 pts.
Madrid being associated with abt 50 players. Plz start buying. The speculation is killing me. With the Serie A scandal, the gr8est transfer market in soccer history is open.

Merci Zizou! For Everything

The two opposites of Zidane's Career - The volley for Real Madrid in 2002 CL Finals and the red card in WC 2006 finals


Every world cup has moments which become imprinted on one's mind. In WC 2002, it was Batistuta crying on the ground after Argentina's first round exit. In WC 2006, it was Zidane's head butt. One moment of madness leaving a blemish on one of the gr8est careers in soccer.

Initially, I hated Zidane. As a life long Brazil fan, he denied us the Penta in 1998. But it also sparked an interest in Zizou. I followed him on & off when he played for Juventus and in Euro 2000 but in 2002, Zizou came to Real Madrid-the gr8est club on the planet. 2002 was an amazing year and to see Zizou in action was surreal. Soccer has seen many players who can dribble but no one like Zidane. He didn't dribble, he became one with the ball and the ball refuesd to leave his feet.

Then came WC 2002 and France were favourites with Zidane at his best. But his injury resulted in French exit in first round. Euro 2004 was again supposed to be his last tournament for the country and France were the favourites but couldn't get pass the Greeks.

WC 2006 and nobody gave French a chance. Brazil led by Ronaldinho were the favourites (again) but unfortunately they ran into France and Zidane showed that Ronaldinho is gr8 but Zidane is God. Finally, the WC finals and Zidane had a chance to do something that not even Maradona had achieved - Win 2 world cups. But maybe he decided to show in his last match that he was a human too, that he had emotions. If only he hadn't done what he did.

Still, Zidane remains at the top alongside Pele, Maradona, Di Stefano as the most beautiful players to play soccer. In the forword to El Diego - The Autobiography of Diego Maradona, the journalist says "Our generation weren't told that Maradona was the best. We saw him in action." We can say the same thing abt Zizou.