The great cricket tamasha (Indian Premier League season 3) is at best a sleazy bollywood masala. There is action, tragedy, romance, drama....everything.
The sport is dead; long live the green buck irrigating the lush playing fields. Players are up for sale, and the IPL market is bustling with high-brow body shoppers. Hammer, not the willow, is the match-winner here.
This year, the IPL casino parlour got murkier with the franchisees boycotting Pakistan players. The Indian government and P. Chidambaram cried foul over reports that the decision was fuelled by the possible visa restrictions that might be imposed on the players. Pakistan was humiliated, and so were the players who took home the twenty-20 world cup trophy last year. A hurt Shahid Afridi said, “"The way I see it, the IPL and India have made fun of us and our country by treating us this way.”
The issue was dangerously edging towards a diplomatic row between the already volatile neighbours. An embittered Pakistan declared its players would not feature in the IPL next year.
A newspaper report said the franchisees were apprehensive to include Pakistani players as their presence might not go down well with the fading Mumbai tiger, Bal Thackeray, and the fresh Mumbai terror, Raj Thackeray, as many matches were to be played in the city!
The IPL boss, Lalit Modi, first messed up the show, then messed it up more by saying the doors were still open for Pakistan players, if players dropped out.
The act continued…In a sudden turn, the Deccan Chargers, one of the franchisees, invited Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq to represent them.
The Indian government, the IPL management and the franchisees, have all handled the issue with a high degree of immaturity. It is said money speaks, but does it speak this kind of nonsense?
The noted columnist, Peter Roebuck, has lauded the Australian cricketers for having given the IPL a miss, saying they have shown “great wisdom in not putting their hat for the IPL auction”. He said they have the Ashes in mind, and that is a promising sign.
The game lives on outside India.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Mothers in 'form'!
A standing ovation for the Maharashtra government to allow children to use their mother’s maiden names in school admission forms. This decision will come as a relief for single mothers, who could be divorcees, widows or adoptive single mothers. Single mothers in the country have to face this trauma of not getting identified by the school authorities, unlike their father, who finds space in these forms even in absentia. Motherhood is sacrosanct, a relationship that is often glorified in art forms like literature and films.
According to the Hindu custom, a son begins the rituals of his dead father, by saying, “My mother told me you are my father....” Motherhood is a secret. No one but the mother knows who the father is. Paternity tests can be held to prove the origin of the sperm. Motherhood needs no such tests. But our patriarchal system requires the father’s name, and not that of a mother, when society can never confirm who the father is, only assume!
A founding member of a leading Delhi-based school chain made an interesting observation last week during the school’s annual day function. He said that his school's criterion for granting admission to a child was the mother's education, not the father's. Further, the greatest prerequisite the school looked for in the child was his/her mother’s occupational status. His reason: It was the mother who helped the child with home assignments. Therefore, a homemaker’s child had a better chance of cruising through the admission process than her working counterpart. If the mother was a doctor, the school was not too keen to admit the ward because she would be on call all the time and it might not be possible for her to attend to her child’s educational requirements.
This was also the case with two other school chains which have branches all over the world. This sounds sexist, and opens a working versus stay-at-home mom debate. But that is a different discussion route, which I am not going to take at the moment.
It is interesting to note that it is mostly the mothers who attend the school’s parent-teacher meetings, probably because they help them with their school assignments. This is not to negate the role of fathers in bringing up a child.
Then why are they never given the space in the admission forms? It would do well for other states in the country to emulate the Maharashtra example and provide relief for such single mothers, who are struggling against all odds to find their own identity.
According to the Hindu custom, a son begins the rituals of his dead father, by saying, “My mother told me you are my father....” Motherhood is a secret. No one but the mother knows who the father is. Paternity tests can be held to prove the origin of the sperm. Motherhood needs no such tests. But our patriarchal system requires the father’s name, and not that of a mother, when society can never confirm who the father is, only assume!
A founding member of a leading Delhi-based school chain made an interesting observation last week during the school’s annual day function. He said that his school's criterion for granting admission to a child was the mother's education, not the father's. Further, the greatest prerequisite the school looked for in the child was his/her mother’s occupational status. His reason: It was the mother who helped the child with home assignments. Therefore, a homemaker’s child had a better chance of cruising through the admission process than her working counterpart. If the mother was a doctor, the school was not too keen to admit the ward because she would be on call all the time and it might not be possible for her to attend to her child’s educational requirements.
This was also the case with two other school chains which have branches all over the world. This sounds sexist, and opens a working versus stay-at-home mom debate. But that is a different discussion route, which I am not going to take at the moment.
It is interesting to note that it is mostly the mothers who attend the school’s parent-teacher meetings, probably because they help them with their school assignments. This is not to negate the role of fathers in bringing up a child.
Then why are they never given the space in the admission forms? It would do well for other states in the country to emulate the Maharashtra example and provide relief for such single mothers, who are struggling against all odds to find their own identity.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
stay-at-home mom syndrome
Twenty two days have gone past the time we entered the new decade. I have probably not been active enough to even prepare my new year resolution. I never subscribe to the “how time flies” statement. The reason is time does not really fly; it is the how I meaninglessly spent it. The shift to Pune from Chennai is complete. Eight months is a long time to shift gears and settle in the new pace any new city allows. I am now a stay-at-home mom due to variety of professional and personal reasons. The change comes with its share of pitfalls. There is restlessness coupled with helplessness. But when I notice the twinkle in my eight-year-old’s eyes as she sees me opening the door for her when she comes back from school, I feel strangely happy at being home. But there is also an element of anxiety regarding how I want to exploit my interests and tap my forte. What I see is a confused myself, sometimes an exaggerated “completely at a loss” situation.
Children are demanding, and they sometimes have strange ideas and needs. This is more so with the single child. Their most coveted demand is time. With working mothers, bonding time is always at a premium, which is not so with their stay-at-home counterparts. But children tend to demand more from their at-home mothers. Fair enough. These mothers, like me at the moment, will have the time to satiate their children’s appetite for time. But then it does not take these children long enough to realize that their at-home moms are always at their beck-and-call. And they do treat them as their personal fiefdom.
My daughter has strictly “instructed” me not to attend my cousin’s wedding in Bangalore because it coincides with her final exam date! She has the audacity to challenge my travel plan, and even veto it. Her reason: “Who will ask me questions before my exams?” Though her father has decided to pitch in as the stand-by mom for three days, she is not confident he would help her prepare well for her examinations. Do I read it as a compliment? I do not think so. Or does she feel her father might be too busy with work, and he might not concentrate too well? Wrong again. It is just a feeling of possessiveness that the single child has for the home mom. Taking for granted is probably too strong a word to attribute for children. But these children play around with the emotional control they have over their home moms.
Such moms also run the risk of taking flak from their children, on whom they have invested time and emotion. My daughter commented the other day that “amma anyway does not do anything, so she can do this for me”! Both my husband and I were too shocked to react. She actually feels I do nothing, so I’d better cater to her needs. This hurt me. Was I getting led into this situation where my daughter will have a complete emotional command over me, and then make myself vulnerable to her open declarations of my non-working status, which she interprets as “she does nothing”? That was a harsh slap on my face. I felt like a nobody.
They say nothing succeeds like success. Today’s children probably interpret the stay-at-home moms as unsuccessful and incompetent, and fit only for fulfilling their gastronomical demands. It is high time I woke up to this reality; and stop getting tempted to go for a postprandial snooze. My daughter may well interpret that as laziness personified.
Children are demanding, and they sometimes have strange ideas and needs. This is more so with the single child. Their most coveted demand is time. With working mothers, bonding time is always at a premium, which is not so with their stay-at-home counterparts. But children tend to demand more from their at-home mothers. Fair enough. These mothers, like me at the moment, will have the time to satiate their children’s appetite for time. But then it does not take these children long enough to realize that their at-home moms are always at their beck-and-call. And they do treat them as their personal fiefdom.
My daughter has strictly “instructed” me not to attend my cousin’s wedding in Bangalore because it coincides with her final exam date! She has the audacity to challenge my travel plan, and even veto it. Her reason: “Who will ask me questions before my exams?” Though her father has decided to pitch in as the stand-by mom for three days, she is not confident he would help her prepare well for her examinations. Do I read it as a compliment? I do not think so. Or does she feel her father might be too busy with work, and he might not concentrate too well? Wrong again. It is just a feeling of possessiveness that the single child has for the home mom. Taking for granted is probably too strong a word to attribute for children. But these children play around with the emotional control they have over their home moms.
Such moms also run the risk of taking flak from their children, on whom they have invested time and emotion. My daughter commented the other day that “amma anyway does not do anything, so she can do this for me”! Both my husband and I were too shocked to react. She actually feels I do nothing, so I’d better cater to her needs. This hurt me. Was I getting led into this situation where my daughter will have a complete emotional command over me, and then make myself vulnerable to her open declarations of my non-working status, which she interprets as “she does nothing”? That was a harsh slap on my face. I felt like a nobody.
They say nothing succeeds like success. Today’s children probably interpret the stay-at-home moms as unsuccessful and incompetent, and fit only for fulfilling their gastronomical demands. It is high time I woke up to this reality; and stop getting tempted to go for a postprandial snooze. My daughter may well interpret that as laziness personified.
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