I was watching the presentation ceremony after India lost a humdinger of a match to Australia at Hyderabad. And I was wondering at Sachin’s ability to play a marathon innings so late in his career.

Why on earth does he do it – playing for hours together in the heat of Hyderabad, chasing an impossible target when most of his younger colleagues had already given up the case as a lost cause and choose to relax in the pavilion? More puzzling considering Tendulkar is arguably the richest player of the lot! And he has nothing left to prove; he is recognized as one of the greatest batsmen the world has ever produced. His place in history is assured. What motivates this man at this stage in his career?

Arun Lal asked this exact same question to Tendulkar – “What motivates you?”

Tendulkar’s reply was a cliche, but it made perfect sense in this context:

“It’s the passion of representing India in international cricket that keeps me motivated all the time. It’s always a dream to play for my country. I am absolutely honoured to do that for the last 20 years,” Tendulkar said.

This is what sets this man apart from his younger and less talented teammates. He takes his responsibility of playing for India very seriously.

Western press and media give extensive coverage to the utterances of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, particularly his denial of the Jewish massacres during World War II.

Ahmadi, on the other hand, has always focused on a different aspect of the same issue:

Iran is trying to improve its relationship with the West, as I understand it. It is clear that there was a Holocaust. Why would you say there was no Holocaust? Do you feel there should be no Jewish state—no Israel?

What I am saying is extremely clear. It is an academic approach to a crucial subject and also one based on humanitarian considerations. What I am saying here is that in past history many events have happened, and in World War II many crimes were committed. Over 60 million people were killed and even more were displaced. So we have several specific questions with regard to the events of World War II, and I believe we cannot find the answers to these questions through the propaganda that is promoted by the media. In the end, the questions need convincing answers. The first question that I have to try and understand is why in the midst of all that happened in World War II, the Holocaust is emphasized more than any other [event]?

Let’s say that Stalin’s crimes were equally great.

The second question is why do Western politicians focus on this issue so much? The third question is how does that event connect with issues that we see around us in the world today? Was this a historical event that happened in isolation without impacting the present conditions? The next question we should ask ourselves is if the event did take place, where did it happen, who were the perpetrators, what was the role of the Palestinian people? What crime have they committed to deserve what they have received as a result? Why exactly should the Palestinian people be victimized? Are you aware that over 5 million Palestinians have been displaced and have had refugee status? What role did they play in the Holocaust? Why is the Holocaust used as a pretext to occupy the land of other people? Why should the Palestinian people give their lives up for it? You are probably aware that there have been embargoes on the people of Gaza.

- The Iranian president on nuclear ambitions and Holocaust denials, Newsweek, Oct 5, 2009

All this is old hat. As early as Sep 2007, when Ahmadi spoke at Columbia University, he made the same point (with the same conditional around the Holocaust).

What I found new was a first person account by Norwegian-British children’s author Roald Dhal, of his experiences as a World War II pilot, in his autobiographical work Going Solo.

When fighting in Palestine, he is asked to check out a new secret airstrip. When he lands at that airstrip, he is welcomed by a tall bearded man who speaks with a strong German accent:

‘You seem surprised to find us here,’ the man said.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find anyone.’

‘We are everywhere,’ the man said. ‘We are all over the country.’

‘Forgive me,’ I said, ‘but I don’t understand. Who do you mean by we?’

‘Jewish refugees.’

I really didn’t know what he was talking about. I had been living in East Africa for the past two years and in those times the British colonies were parochial and isolated. The local newspaper, which was all we got to read, had not mentioned anything about Hitler’s persecution of the Jews in 1938 and 1939. Nor did I have the faintest idea that the greatest mass murder in the history of the world was actually taking place in Germany at that moment.

‘Is this your land?’ I asked him.

‘Not yet,’ he said.

‘You mean you are hoping to buy it?’

He looked at me in silence for a while. Then he said, ‘The land is at present owned by a Palestinian farmer but he has given us permission to live here. He has also allowed us some fields so that we can grow our own food.’

‘So where do you go from here?’ I asked him. ‘You and all your orphans?’

‘We don’t go anywhere,’ he said, smiling through his black beard. ‘We stay here.’

‘Then you will all become Palestinians,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps you are that already.’

He smiled again, presumably at the naivety of my questions.

‘No,’ the man said, ‘I do not think we will become Palestinians.’

‘Then what will you do?’

‘You are a young man who is flying aeroplanes,’ he said ‘and I do not expect you to understand our problems.’

‘What problems?’ I asked him…

‘You have a country to live in and it is called England,’ he said. ‘Therefore, you have no problems.’

‘No problems!’ I cried. ‘England is fighting for her life all by herself against virtually the whole of Europe! We’re even fighting the Vichy French and that’s why we’re in Palestine right now! Oh, we have problems all right!’ I was getting rather worked up. I resented the fact that this man sitting in his fig grove said that I had no problems when I was getting shot at every single day. ‘I’ve got problems myself,’ I said, ‘in just trying to stay alive.’

‘That’s a very small problem,’ the man said. ‘Ours is much bigger.’

…

I still have a very clear picture of the inside of that hut and of the bearded man with the bright fiery eyes who kept talking to me in riddles. ‘We need a homeland,’ the man was saying. ‘We need a country of our own. Even the Zulus have Zululand. But we have nothing.’

‘You mean the Jews have no country?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ he said. ‘It’s time we had one.’

‘But how in the world are you going to get yourselves a country?’ I asked him. ‘They are all occupied. Norway belongs to the Norwegians and Nicaragua belongs to the Nicaraguans. It’s the same all over.’

‘We shall see,’ the man said sipping his coffee…

‘You could have Germany,’ I said brightly. ‘When we have beaten Hitler then perhaps England would give you Germany.’

‘We don’t want Germany,’ the man said.

‘Then which country do you have in mind?’ I asked him, displaying more ignorance than ever.

‘If you want something badly enough,’ he said, ‘and if you need something badly enough, you can always get it.’ He stood up and slapped me on the back.

‘You have a lot to learn,’ he said, ‘But you are a good boy. You are fighting for freedom. So am I.’

- Going Solo, Roald Dhal

One of the most amazing pieces of disingenuous writing I have ever come across, and of course far superior to what Ahmadinejad is capable of!

A pen for Rs 11 lakh as tribute to Mahatma!

What is it with online photo printing services in India? I tried it twice with two different vendors and both of them messed things up.

I tried it first with G. K. Vale. I asked them to print a greeting card for me:

For one full week the order was not delivered. I chased their customer services guys (who were pretty hard to reach) and they had no clue as to what exactly was happening to my order (“we had power failure so they was a delay”, “we will ship this evening”, “we have already shipped it; you will be receiving it any moment today” etc).  Finally my wife had to walk into their store in Jayanagar and lodge a complaint (they knew her by sight since she was a frequent customer).

Finally it emerged that some wise guy in  their print shop decided this was a bad photo  - all black – and decided not print the order! The GM of their web sales division had to get involved to finally print it and send it to me! I barely had time to get the card out before New Year.

The day before, I tried ordering a calendar (composed from my photographs) from Canvera. Now, the Canvera office is barely 5 KM from my home. They tell me they have shipped the order yesterday. This morning the courier guy calls me for directions to my house. Now it is 7 PM and no delivery yet. Tomorrow is a public holiday so the earliest I can hope to get delivery is the day after. That is almost three days to cover a 5 KM distance! And of course I have no idea how the calendar will turn out!

In both cases, the order booking web site worked like a charm (well, almost like a charm. The Canvera web site truncates the shipping address). It is the fulfillment process that leaves a lot to be desired. Trouble is, on a web order they make you pay the full money in advance. I suspect this is one of the reasons why the fulfillment is lax – they have my money in their pocket already!

The idea of ordering photo products looks good on paper but in reality these chaps have just not got their act together. And probably never will (unless a biggie like Reliance gets into the act).

PS:

Canvera responded well to my email complaints and got the calendar delivered today (though it is a public holiday today). Canvera’s production quality is top class.

Tharoor is running up against the risks associated with social media.

• It is always “on record”.
• One cannot be stream of consciousness and diplomatic at the same time.
• If you really communicate with your constituents, sometime somewhere you will offend somebody.

In this case the “cattle class” remark was not pertinent. Most politicians treat their constituents like cattle anyway. It was the “holy cow” part that was impertinent.

You cannot take pot shots at your party chief in public and expect to continue in the same party for too long.

All said and done, it was a good line. Tharoor is a good writer and a great communicator.

I have recorded elsewhere of my travails with digital photography. Today I ran smack into one of the big limitations of digital sensors (as opposed to film).

Take a look at this photograph:

I exposed on the brown of the wind chime and see what my Nikon D80 did to the sky! I assure you it was a dull, cloudy, grey-white sky which was atmost two stops brighter than the brown chime. Nikon’s 10 mega-pixels CCD sensor simply does not have the dynamic range to handle this!

I never had such trouble with film.

I’m working in reverse chronological order here.

Here is a slide show of the Ascent of Everest series of posts. This was the material I used in a PMI Footprints talk at the PMI Bangalore chapter some months back. The series of posts were elaborations of these slides (in lieu of the narrative that should accompany these slides).