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Monday, September 22, 2014

Magnificent Mary


'Magnificent Mary' ; Five times world Boxing Champion is hardly known in her country. Can it happen in any other country ? I heard of her only during the Summer Olympics in London, long after she became a world Champion while I can easily the number of runs Srikant scored in the 1983 World Cup. I feel ashamed.

Even after the Olympic medal, it requires a Bollywood film 'Mary Kom' to make her a household name today. While it is great that the champion , her sport and her home state Manipur, are better known today, through the movie, it is sad that it would be Priyanka Chopra's face that would be associated with the name 'Mary Kom' , at least among the general public.

Boxing probably is the most demanding sport. Any shortcoming in training or technique is severely punished, physically and emotionally right in the ring.

Mary Kom is in the wrong country, wrong sport, wrong gender, wrong Region and Wrong social class , to achieve any feat; well that is what is 'Against all odds...." .   I salute !

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Sunday, September 21, 2014

For God's Sake

       A book by an adman, alumnus of IIT and IIM; one more IIT guy excelling  in fields other than engineering.

      It is not about how God influences your life , but about how the idea of God affects business in India.

     Written in a lively , chatty, yet informative style, as a series of somewhat disconnected essays, it makes a nice office hours reading ! It is particularly good for random access reading, if I may call it so, jumping from chapter to chapter not in any particular order, switching gears as you go. A casual skimming over the table of contents  took me to  the chapter 'burkha ke peeche kya hai ?' ; the answer is not what I thought or what you are thinking nor 'dil' as in 'choli ke peechhe kya hai  'but 'designer-ware clothes'. It is a phenomenon that has led to hundreds  of garment factories in a country populated by millions of burkha clad women. 

     Then there are essays on divine arts, divine tourism, sacred music all contributing to the way Indians of all religious hues think, earn and live.

     If the western idea of secularism keeps  religions insulated from politics, business, education and just about everything, Indian idea of secularism is so inclusive that it demands some measure of every religion in every aspect of life !