Slumdog Millionaire revisited..

Today I had a long discussion about Slumdog millionaire with my friend Bedu who is studying in US .His views were different than what I expressed in my last post about Slumdog Millionaire “About the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires..”.

My initial reaction after watching the movie was that the movie did well in west because it allows them to claim that Indian is still a country of hungry and poor, denying us of all the progress we have made in the last decade , when Mr Bachhan came up with somewhat similar theory on his blog I was patting myself of thinking like him. All the euphoria was short lived as I found Bedu’s argument much more apt and logical explanation of why the movie is doing wonderful overseas. As per him the movie remind the people in west about what London was 200 years back, they wanted to improve and they did improved a lot and now a progressive nation.

People won’t go to watch a movie in recessionary times by paying 15-20 $/ticket just because it portray India in bad light , they are watching the movie as it shows them hope that even a slum dweller becoming a millionaire (Feel good factor ) and the story is quite engrossing full of twist and turns. They don’t want to see the poor condition of slum but how a person can struggle and rise even from difficult conditions. They are comparing it with the likes of Oliver Twist..

The whole discussion was indeed lot of learning.

When Umpires comes under pressure..

In last three matches Tendulkar has been wrongly given out LBW by umpires and even if  we look at the past , he has been the victim of poor judgment countless number of time.  Is it shear chance that he gets out so often due to umpiring mistakes or is there some other reason?

Some figures become larger than profession they are in, Sachin Tendulkar is one such  player who has been worshipped by cricket Fans all over the world , His genius with both Bat and Ball , breath stopping performances and humility makes him the worthy owner of the title  “GOD of Cricket‘. As all good things come with a cost, the popularity of Sachin also has some intangible cost associated with it. I believe Sachin’s importance in the game puts additional pressure on umpires which makes them give poor decisions against him.

 All the decisions for or against Sachin goes through loads of analysis and scrutiny which only adds to the burden of umpires who are as human as the one playing the game and likely to make mistakes.  

With or Without you ..

Government of Pakistan has barred their cricket players from participating in IPL 20-20 cricket tournament where Indian Inc buys contracts for almost all the major players of the world to play and earn like lords. The decision came as a knee jerk reaction to the Indian government's directive of cancelling the Indian cricket team tour to Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attacks. It  look rather a routine decision but can have lot of implications , some of them can be

Risk Management Strategy: -Since most of the terrorism in India is direct or indirect effort (supported by state or entrepreneurial venture) of Pakistanis, it may reduce the chances of Pakistani players caught in friendly fire and getting executed by their own men.

Forex Reserve:- Pakistani state treasury which is running on outside support from past few months won’t be helped by this opportunity of earning at least a million US $ in foreign currency. The money could have been used to buy some arms and ammunition for the Pakistani army.

Politician’s effort put to rest: - With no real issues left for politicians, many of them had been trying to use the popular anti Pakistani sentiment and were openly advocating of not to allow Pakistani players to play on Indian soil, now all such issues cannot be converted into vote Bank.

News channel/Print Media loss of news and revenue: - Should India allow Pakistani players to participate in IPL, many more useless discussions like this ,both on TV and newspaper won’t be possible anymore, it can lead to loss of revenue to the media companies both by advertisements and SMS polls.

On a serious note the major learning for the Pakistani government should be that the Cricket won’t die without Pakistani players and the show will just go on with or without them.