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Cartoons designed for our newsletter “The fifth dimension” on the general elections in India.

Sufism is derived from the word “Suf” meaning wool. This relates to the dressing attire of the sufis, which is plain and simple. Sufism originated either in Iran or India or in a region there about, with an approach different from traditional Islam, with more focus on the inner world.

However, traditionalist don’t consider Sufism as part of Islam. It is true to an extent that Sufism, is not bound by any single religion.  It allows worship of Allah/God in whichever way one deems appropriate. It can even involve music, dance as a medium of worship, deemed inappropriate by traditional Islam. It has elements of other religions like Hinduism, etc.

Sufis are associated with one or the other sufi order, which has a master who come through a chain of masters in the lineage of Prophet Mohammad, through Ali. One of the best medium of promotion is through sufi music and qawwali. They begin with the praise of Allah, Mohammad, Ali and his family. Then with a praise for a sufi master. This is followed by ghazals which are either devotional or love songs.

Sufism promotes love for mankind through its music and there are various gharanas. A recent news item from Yahoo! News talks about the struggle to keep old gharanas alive. Further details are available on wikipedia.

Today, while making a call, this is what I received from my cell phone operator, atleast 25 times, before my call went through. The operator in question is Vodafone, Karnataka, (yes the one which leaves a dog behind you) Looks like in the present economic conditions, the dog is working overtime. And is going after more than one owners.

Now, even Hutch network in Karnataka was bad, and the impression is only that it has become worse after it changed to Vodafone. Airtel is only slightly better, here in Bangalore. For eg., it works well even in the interior elevators and lifts. Don’t know the reason, why I cannot see the level of QoS, that they keep claiming with their marketing and advertising campaigns.

I guess, if they spent half the money on building their network, of what they spent on marketing, we would have a better time. Some times its sheer frustation, when you want to make a quick call to inform some one. Since I have been using this number for over four years, I have learnt to adjust to its network’s shortcomings.

This makes me wonder where the number retention policy went. It was supposed to have been implemented by now in the metros and major cities, at least. I think the Mittals, the Sarins and the Birlas had some closed room dialogues and improved the economy of some minister.

Yet again, Dial C for Cricket (confusion as I like to call it) lived upto its reputation of making misguided discussions and trying to fit in reasons to conclude, as per convenience. This time they were in search of a hero and seperate him out from the rest of the team, honor him and undermine the efforts of the rest of the team.

Some how, architect of any win are always batsman, though in this match, it was also some great bowling by the Indian’s in the second innings. For England, out of 311 that they scored in the second innings, around 240 were contributed by a single partnership. When England had an opportunity to blow it away, they blew it up, and the credit has to go to our bowlers.

Now, Sachin’s innings was great by far, but I don’t know how would we have looked at it, say if he had not got a century and had Yuvraj (with the same effort that he put) bypassed his score. May be Yuvraj could have been declared the hero, rather than a sidekick that he was portrayed. Anyways, Sachin’s centuries are celebrated more than even double hundreds by other players. The problem is that we go too much into numbers and Sachin himself realises that very well. For Indians, Sachin is the heir apparent to Bradman and any further proofs (if there are still not enough of them), makes us go ga-ga. A little unfair to other players, though.

I hardly found an article even coming close to attributing the win to Sehwag for his out of the world innings. Sachin for me was the architect for India not loosing. With Sehwag’s innings, Sachin could make us win. Without it, Sachin would have still ensured that we didn’t loose.

I do feel for England, who didn’t deserve this, after playing good cricket. But if you look at it in a different light that should a team win because in two innings that it batted, there were only three partnerships? After having a great opening stand, you are all out for 35o?

On the other hand, India also won it fair and square and deserved it anyway. England would have definitely not deserved a draw, but either team winning was the ideal result.

Everyone needs hope to survive and most see hope in any kind of change. No wonder Barack Obama could hit the right chords in the hearts and minds of the American citizens. The Mumbai attacks not only claimed the lives of various Indian and foreign citizens, but also the posts of Home minister of India and the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharastra (The CMs post is hanging in balance).

While P. Chidambaram has been given the Home ministry, prime minister Manmohan Singh has taken up the finance portfolio. These were solely the reactions to the need of the people to see some action, see some change. It seldom matters whether the change is for good.

The India England test series is likely to go ahead on schedule, barring the change in venues. There was a scheduled pratice match in Baroda (Vadodara) which is likely to be shifted to a place near Kolkata – the place where the first test match also is likely to be shifted to. The Mumbai test venue has already been changed to Chennai.

The Live Earth concert also stands cancelled in the wake of Mumbai attacks. Ideally, they could have still gone ahead with it, without any entertainment performances (by Bon Jovi and AB) – as a token of respect for the victims. Also, that would have highlighted the spirit (don’t talk about this word in front of Barkha Dutt) of humanity.

Dial C for cricket on Neo Sports beats Extra Innings on Sony as the worst cricketing show on TV, by far. More so because of the format, its anchor and the callers. The aim of the show is to create controversies where there are none. Though Arun Lal talks sense, the whole show is worth a miss.

The problem starts with the anchor having no cricketing knowledge, or rather a cricketing brain. Next are the callers, who are from a very naive public and then the iteraction between the bozo anchor and the bozo or the hapless caller.

Yesterday, they made a huge hue and cry on Irfan’s selection. Well, media did play its role in fueling the controversy. Our media, like any other, will never become a responsible one. I have lost all hopes even from the likes of Times Now and NDTV.

Ideally, India would prefer an in form Irfan Pathan, because I think we are forgetting the fact that he was the man of the match in the T20 world cup final, that India won on a good bowling performance. So, he will definitely get more opportunities than any other player. Mind you, he has still batted well even while being dropped. The problem in recent times has only been his bowling, for the term bowling allrounder) If he were an offspiner, people would have promoted him to be a batting allrounder instead, even with the same batting capabilities.

By the way Sachin is back and Gambhir might have to give up his opening spot (which I feel is a bad idea).

It is really amazing to hear the commentary of Englishmen in the ongoing one day series between England and India. One can easily decipher the arrogance in their comments and the contradictions they make in what they say. The best example is from the second ODI. When Stuart Broad opened the bowling for England, the commentator didn’t mince words in expressing his displeasure at the move. He was of the opinion that either one of Flintoff or Harmison should open. However, when Broad picked up three wickets, he did a complete U-turn and said, “I told you this guy’s going to pick wickets for us”.

Yet another commentator described Yuvraj’s innings in the first match as Blitzkreig (all right), but termed Ravi Bopara’s innings (which basically involved slogs) as classy. Now, no doubt the innings was great under the circumstances, but classy?

It is fairly evident from the way they talk about the umpires’ decisions and about Indian dismissals (a gonner) versus English dismissal (unlucky). I prefer switching to the Hindi commentary, which is atleast amusing. Agreed, sometimes even Indian commentators can be erratic (Gavaskar, LS), but still they are much better even in their criticisms.

The series anyways is dead, with India now leading 3-0. You know actually Indians were praying for an England victory to bring it alive. 

If you are looking for an MBA from India, have an inclination for a full time course, but do not want to be out of job for long, you could definitely think about a one year full time MBA from a top B-school in India. Also, after certain years of experience, a two year course does not make real sense, unless you want to make a drastic career shift.

A fast track one year full time MBA is ideal for a person with more than 5 years of experience and one wanting to grow in his or her domain. Even after a one year course it is not entirely impossible to make a career shift, if one wishes to do so.

I am listing below some good one year MBA programmes currently available in India:

• Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (PGPM) – http://www.isb.edu (GMAT)
• S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (PGPM) – http://www.spjimr.org (CAT/XAT/GMAT)
• Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (PGPX) – http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/pgpx/pgpxone.htm (GMAT)
• Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (PGPEX, PGPEX-VLM) – http://www.iimcal.ac.in/pgpex/
• Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai (PGPM) – http://www.greatlakes.edu.in/ (GMAT)

As you see most of these schools accept GMAT scores. However, these scores are not the only criteria for admission as individual’s profile is vary important along with the need to develop a diversified batch. Will post more information.

Gautam Gambhir

The one player that is the most reliable today for India is not Virendra Sehwag, but his Delhi Daredevils mate Gautam Gambhir. Gautam Gambir has long proven his worth in the one-dayers as well as the twenty-20. He was not give a chance for long in the tests, with Wasim Jaffer being the favorite of the selectors despite repeated failures.

But, once he got the opportunity earlier this year in Sri Lanka, he has not looked back. Today, he proved again with this successive century why he is today the most consistent batsman for India in any form of the game of cricket.

I would really like him to continue his batting tomorrow and go on to make a double hundred. His double hundred would ensure a big first innings total for India, putting a lot more pressure on the already pressurized Austrailian outfit.

India has the best chance to wrap it up in this match itself. It should not let go of this golden opportunity to humiliate the best team in the world.

The last encounter between the two countries is remembered today for all the wrong reasons. What we did forget was that India, inspite of having the fab-four, did not display as much of a show with the bat as with the ball. The Perth test is the ideal example and could be the defining turn for Indian Test cricket.

All these years, India did traditionally better in test matches, compared to the one dayers. But now, the situation seems different. We are more confident of our one day (and T20) squad being victorious, compared to the test side. More so because both these sides feature quite different people, not to mention different captians. The captian of one team is unable to make it to the other team.

Anil Kumble always looked like a stop-gap captian after Rahul Dravid laid down the captaincy, but that stop-gap is now quite extended. On an individual front, Anil Kumble is not performing well. He is just not able to take wickets. He is included in the team, merely for the fact that he is the captain. This shows a bad sign. But, such a thing generally would happen when the person is irreplacable, which is not the case here.

We have a bunch of young and energetic cricketers, who have already proven their worth in the shorter versions of the game. They are now demanding a bigger role. Unfortunately, we will still wait for another big defeat to take some drastic steps.