Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Cricket Fever….. ..



Just last month everyone was talking about the 20-20 series which got the lost fame to Indian cricket when we won the series and became the 1st world champions in the 20-20 series. Not so sure how many had their money on Indian team but I am sure it must have paid well for them J
There was lot of celebration and pomp when the victorious indian team arrived in India. My brother-in-law attended this function which was at wankhede stadium and while he was there, he had called us to tell that he is having a good time at that location. Just a few days later Australia came to India for the India-Australia series and till now we have lost 4 times and won 1 time with another one gone for a wash out. Well I am sure by the end of this series, many of us will forget the victory we had just days back.

But I always wonder how worth is it for us all to spend time watching this game, which has only paid the teams and the organisers a lot of money and most of the times just frustration to all the Indian team lovers. Rather this game has become a national event where everyone is allowed to comment on everything. But I think there should be conscious efforts by us to look at other sports as well and look at getting better at these games. It is not that we don’t have talent and they are not recognised, but it is about providing them with good infrastructure for practising & improving their performance to reach the international competing levels. The kind of money poured in for Cricket is maybe 100 or more times than any other games in India.

Hope we can look at developing other games too in our country apart from cricket since the chances of only 11 or about 20 players playing out of 1 billion population is something too little to think off for the budding sportsmen of the country.

Other sports in India need better marketing too & media (print & television) has a big role to play in this. I am sure there is no lack of talent but it is about grooming them properly and giving them chance to showcase their talent at least locally if not globally.

Poor Ending to a Lovely Program….

I, my family & few of my friends were a die hard fan of Zee Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. We use to be glued to our TV every Saturday and would love to listen to the young talents which had gone thru rigorous selection process to be left with last 3 finalists.

The final was to be on 13th Oct at 11 pm Singapore time. We all had planned for this finale and all of us were tired we were keen to see who was going to win and how it all would happen…. But it was going to be a drag and the most depressing final of all. All the time the Organisers had various ways of getting a new experience at each episode. But at the finale it was as if they did not put any effort in creating a grabd finale.. The program was very disconnected and uninteresting. There were too many ads in between and it was as if there was hardly anything left for them to show.

Worst thing of this program was when Himesh the Ugly, boasting & arrogant music director and singer started talking & praising everyone for no reason and at a wrong time. Ultimately when Aneek was announced as the winner, instead of letting the winners talk about how they felt, it was Himesh all the way opening his mouth. It was such a pain to hear him talk and not listen to the young talents expressing about their feelings on the victory and their journey.

My request to Zee Sa Re Ga Ma Pa producers for future shows will be to leave out Himesh out of the program. He is trying to get too much of footing for the wrong reasons. He is hardly spent much time in the Indian film industry but he is trying to act smarter than the legends in the industry like Asha Bhosle, Kishor Kumar, sonu Nigam.. and lot of other singers who have given better songs and music to us.. I guess the popularity and fame is getting to his head…. Watch out himesh .. time can run out for guys like you.. without.. you knowing it.. !!!