Month: January 2021

Gabba Win and the the many Demons it exorcised!

This piece was written for the News site – The News Minute and was carried on 24th Jan, 2021 It can be read here:

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/india-s-historic-gabba-win-and-many-demons-it-exorcised-142077

It was September 22, 1986. If Chennai had four seasons, it’d have been a nice pleasant autumn day. But since Chennai has only one season, it was just another hot and humid day. It was the fifth and final day of the first test between India and Australia. The previous day ended with Australia still batting at 170 with the loss of five wickets. With a lead then of 347, one expected the Aussies to continue batting for a session or two to build a lead of over 400 before they contemplated a declaration. So, a dreary draw was the anticipated outcome of the match. A crowd of just 10,000, a modest turnout at Chepauk by any standards, showed up to watch the proceedings.

Things, however, changed as the fifth day’s play began. Allan Border, the Aussie captain, decided to add some spice to the proceedings by pressing an outcome, which in his mind was the only one – a win for Australia. Australia declared their innings at their overnight score of 170 for 5, setting a challenging target of 348 for India to win. The probability of an Indian win at that stage seemed a fantasy. But, when Srikkanth in his usual flamboyant style got off to a quick start and later Sunil Gavaskar and Mohinder Amarnath put up a solid partnership reaching 150 runs with the loss of just one wicket, hope started swelling. So did the crowds at Chepauk. Elsewhere, Indians started looking for excuses to settle in front of a television set to get a glimpse of the live action.

By the time the last 20 mandatory overs started, India was sailing comfortably with less than a run a ball required and seven wickets in hand. It appeared that the top order came with a resolve to win as desired by the Indian captain, Kapil Dev. With a solid knock of 90 from Gavaskar, a steady 51 from Amarnath and a stylish 42 from Azharuddin, things were going as per plan for India. And then all of a sudden, two quick wickets to the wily off-spinner Greg Matthews put India in a spot of bother. In walked Ravi Shastri, who was in an infallible zone in that period. With a mature head on his young shoulders, he was touted as the next big thing of Indian cricket. He sized up the situation and even as wickets were falling at the other end, kept his cool and batted sensibly as the situation demanded.

Cut to the last over, India needed just 4 runs to win. And Aussies just a wicket. Shastri by now was batting with Maninder Singh, who was the last man in for India. Matthews, who had a golden run in the innings so far, was pressed into action for the final over. With Shastri on strike, India was just one stroke away from an epic win. Shastri defended the first ball and scrambled to take two runs off the second ball. We were now just 2 runs away and Aussies a wicket away without giving a run, for a win.

Now, what Shastri did with the next ball would become a matter of intense debate for days, months and years together. He played a cricketing shot and took off for a single, thereby giving tailender Maninder the strike. That brought the scores at level. One run in the next 3 balls would have given India a historic win. A wicket off the next 3 balls would tie the match. And that’s what happened. Maninder successfully defended the fourth ball but in the next ball, got wrapped on his pads and umpire Vikram Raju lifted the dreaded finger to give him out. Even as Maninder stood his ground trying to indicate that it was bat and pad, it was all over. History was made as the match ended in a tie, only for the second time in cricketing test annals.

After the match, I remember the heated discussions in homes, offices, colleges, local trains, in the media and so on. The crux being: ‘Did Ravi Shastri do the right thing by taking that single? Instead, should he not have kept the strike and gone for the winning two runs?’ Shastri himself defended his move vehemently saying that by taking that single, he ensured India “did not lose”.

For the Aussies, the result came as a huge relief. After declaring with an intention to win, had they lost the match they’d have been roasted back home. A tie was an acceptable middle path. For the Indians, though the tie result was not a defeat in the technical sense, it was an opportunity to win that was lost. This tied test match, which we could have won, remained a demon that was not exorcised. Well, till last week.

Indians like me who belong to the Doordarshan generation have been used to attaching priority to ‘Not losing’ instead of ‘Winning’. And that is not without reason. Who can forget the agony we went through when we lost to West Indies by 38 runs chasing a paltry score of 120 at the Bridgetown Test in March 1997? Or for that matter, the collective depression the country went through after the narrow 16-run defeat to Pakistan at Chepauk in January 1999.

Even on the last day of the Gabba test, the resounding sentiment among a majority of Indians was, I guess, even if we draw the match we’ll still be able to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy. So, it was such a revelation to see the current generation of cricketers like Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill and Washington Sundar not being satisfied with a ‘Draw’ result and going for a win. And what a win it turned out to be.

And the win at Gabba came close on the heels of a well-fought draw in the previous test at Sydney, which in itself was not expected. For Ravi Shastri, who happens to be the coach for the Indian team, the win at Brisbane must have brought closure to the Chepauk test tie. By egging the team to be fearless and go for the win instead of settling for a draw and finally achieving the same in a test after being down and out, Shastri has managed to have the last laugh.

Much has been talked and written about the historic Indian win at the Gabba. Suffice it to say that this one win has managed to exorcise the demons of that ‘Tied Test Match’ of 1986 against the Aussies. Wait a minute. In one stroke, the Gabba win has managed to exorcise wholesale all those demons of the narrow misses of the Indian team thus far in test cricket. Period.

Nothing Private about this!

Ever since, WhatsApp informed all its users of its new update on the privacy terms with an option to accept or “else”, debates and discussions have been happening on whether to move out of WhatsApp or just agree and continue. Irony lost its privacy when all these discussions have been happening predominantly over WhatsApp itself!

In the meantime, rival platforms like Telegram and Signal have seen a huge traction in terms of new users. WhatsApp has been trying to put out the fire through full page ads in mainline newspapers insisting that the new changes are not of any material consequence. And finally, it took a call to put off the effective date for the new policy till at least May which was earlier the 8th of Feb. Hopefully the chatter on this issue will reduce in the coming days. For the rival platforms and media companies though, in these tough times, this has become a bountiful New Year present from the Facebook Corporation.

I personally have been trying to wrap my head around what’s the brouhaha about and what should I do. Privacy is indeed a major issue. But the moot question remains as to where do we draw the line on it. With the advent of technology first in the form of computers, internet, Networks, the Mobile phone and now Apps for anything and everything under the Sun, it is clear that life has become more convenient. At the same time, it is also clear that all these invade a lot into our privacy.

The last time when the issue of privacy entered the drawing room discussions in India was when the Government of India was pushing Aadhaar linking to bank accounts, mobile phones, IT returns and so on. The move was challenged in Supreme Court and post the verdict which sent mixed signals, we don’t see so much push on the Aadhaar front these days in terms of linking with anything and everything. Aadhaar has now been relegated to just being one of the requirements for identity proof.  This is unfortunate because, when Aadhaar was envisioned by Nandan Nilekani and his team, the scope was to use Aadhaar for delivery of many of the Government services. There was also a talk of a virtual Aadhaar Bank. All those big ideas lost their way now due to the battle which a few launched on the privacy front against Aadhaar.

I was then of the opinion that all those who use mobile phones, who are active on social media, who use tools like Google search and maps and so on should never complain about privacy. As part of their functioning, they anyway track the users. So the question of privacy doesn’t arise. The only way to protect one’s privacy is not to use them at all. Even the congressional questioning which took place in the US against Facebook, Google etc.… did not lead anywhere because, at the end of the day, as users we choose to use the tools and accept the conditions that define the usage of these tools. We all have the choice not to use them at the expense of convenience in life.

My position around the new changes in WhatsApp and the next steps, veers around the same points.  If you are a user of Google search, Maps, Mail and the works, anyway a lot of your activity is tracked and shared across platforms. And today, I came to know that our off Facebook activity say in other Apps are being shared with Facebook by the Apps for which we have signed up and accepted the terms of usage! It’s ironical that many who complain about the new update in WhatsApp continue to post “Check in” and “Check Out” status on Facebook!

I also realised that more than the issue of actual privacy, the inhibition towards WhatsApp’s new policy has come from “Big Corporate phobia”. I remember reading in Philip Kotler’s Bible on Marketing that large corporates and market leaders are always prone to becoming victims of negative public reactions frequently and so the Marketing team in such large companies should be equipped to pro-actively sense this and strategize accordingly. Had this privacy update notice come from a smaller player, the response would have been muted. But because it was from WhatsApp which is this humungous communication monster today that too owned by another monster called Facebook, the noise became louder.  And looks like the marketing team there hasn’t read Kotler!

I feel a bit lazy and hassled to ditch WhatsApp now and start using another messaging App say like Signal knowing very well that Signal could be acquired by Google or Facebook tomorrow. And what stops the rival Apps from changing their privacy policy tomorrow? And also even after moving to another App for some group activities, if I have to continue with WhatsApp for other groups, it is a pain to dabble in multiple platforms, not to mention of the erosion in the available memory space on the poor mobile phone.

WhatsApp has turned out to be one of the most convenient mode of instant communication today and has become ubiquitous. So ubiquitous that WhatsApp has become a verb. You don’t send a picture over WhatsApp but you just WhatsApp it! It is indeed convenient and it has been free all along. It has broken all kinds of class barriers. It will take a while to completely sign out of this presently. Not that it is not probable. (Remember Orkut?)

Back in 2014, when Facebook acquired WhatsApp for a staggering US$19bn, the first question that came up in our minds was, what all will Facebook do to monetise WhatsApp? What’s been happening of late with WhatsApp is part of the answer to that question. The launch of WhatsApp business accounts, WhatsApp Pay and probably a virtual WhatsApp Bank are all steps to add revenue streams to the company.

It appears that there are two options now. One, if I am so concerned about my privacy, I have to ditch my smart phone, become smart myself, stay away from social media and stop using all the convenient Apps. It’s like going back in time to another era altogether.

The second option is not to get so concerned about the privacy threats and continue to use technology but be conscious of what we do and what we share on Apps and platforms and hope and pray that all’s well that ends well. For now, I have chosen the 2nd option. What about you?

If you like this post, do share among your WhatsApp groups or any other platform you have taken to of late. Thank you.

Pic Courtesy: NBC News

Thank God It’s a New Year!

In all these years so far in my life, never have I seen such wholesome relief in people on the passing by of a year. Year 2020 has been one of a kind. Not that there have been bad years before. But in the past, a year would have been labelled annus horribilis probably due to a natural calamity, a sad event/s, an economic bad spell and so on. Also, it so happens that a year turns out to be worse for some regions/countries in the world and better for others. But 2020 turned out to be a disaster for almost most part of the year due to the Corona Virus which did not spare any part of the world. The same time last year, as people ushered in another New Year with the usual sense of happiness and glee, none saw it coming. By April, the world was scrambling to lock itself down to save itself from the raging pandemic. Even as I write this, the pandemic is not behind us fully.

Any New Year usually brings in a ray of hope. A hope for better things to come.  2021 I guess, has been mankind’s most anticipated milestone. And people have not just been looking forward to a ray of hope but a landscape of hope. One just wanted to leave behind the horrors of living through a pandemic year and lead a normal life.  By the end of 2020 if you had asked me to name the phrase I hated the most, it was ‘New Normal’.  It still is.

Coming to India specifically, the year 2020 indeed turned out to be bad. Yet, I would reckon that we as a country came out of it relatively unscathed.  Of course the economy took a humungous hit. Of course lives were lost. Of course the common man had to go through hardships. Of course senior citizens had a tough time coping up. Of course people lost jobs. Of course migrant labour had to migrate without a hope. Of course earnings of people took a beating. Yet, if one looks at the situation now, we should consider ourselves fortunate to have bent the curve decisively, got away with fewer deaths per million compared to many other countries and be in a position where life seems to be getting back to the “Old Normal”!

Leaving aside data and statistics, there are other reasons that made me say that as a country we came out relatively unscathed.  First our size. We are a population of 1.3 billion. Second, most of the cities and towns in our country have a very high population density. Also, much of the population does not have the luxury of space. Third, our general civic standards though improving by the day, still has a long way to go.  Fourth, our propensity to not follow rules and not be disciplined overpowers our propensity to follow rules and be disciplined. Fifth, our overarching credo of ‘Chalta hai’ has ingrained in us an attitude to take things lightly without getting overly concerned. And finally, the lack of adequate medical infrastructure in the country. All this doesn’t at all augur well for a country like ours to handle a pandemic like Covid. Add to this, the complexities of being a democracy and a federal democracy in that where, a central writ cannot run across the country! Throw in the fact that this is the first time that a Covid like pandemic of this scale has stuck India because of which we don’t have established SOPs or tribal knowledge to handle the situation. All these are recipes for nothing else but social tension and unmitigated economic disaster.

The reality as it panned out has not been so bad.  There has been no visible social tension in the country. The only tension we see these days is “Social media tension” between those who support Prime Minister Narendra Modi and those who oppose him. In fact, the not so privileged have shown tremendous resilience in dealing with the crisis. During the last few months, I have been in constant touch with a cross section of common people who touch our lives and who would have been the most affected due to the extended lockdowns. They have all taken the unfortunate fallout of the pandemic in their stride and have got back to their normal lives now. None of them blamed the government for what it did or what it didn’t do. They all politely refused any offer of support and claimed that they were managing fine. This picture is totally opposite to what one gets to read in columns of the commentariat where the Modi Government’s lock down is being pilloried for what it would have inflicted on the poor.

Further, as an economy we seem to be bouncing back quicker and better than expected. To quote economist and famed columnist Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar from one of his recent columns, he says, “First, India has proved far more resilient than expected after the terrible first quarter of Covid. Second, India has been resilient despite having among the smallest fiscal stimuli among major nations.” Again, we have managed without actually doling out cash support which was what was touted as the silver bullet for stimulating the economy by almost all the top economists except those who were advising the Government.  Looking back, unlike a country like US where people like to spend, Indians are conservative in nature and would like to save for the rainy day. So, in a pandemic situation, I feel that people would not have spent even if money was transferred to their accounts. Instead, it would have only been kept aside for savings, which in the final run would have been detrimental to the cause of stimulating the economy. In that sense, the approach of the Government in providing free food grains to the needy or loan support for small businesses etc. seems wiser steps for a country like India.

The New Year has been rung in India with the best possible news of the approval of the vaccine for Covid.  Based on the last few months trend, it is clear that the manufacturing and allied industries are on a re-bound. With the dip in numbers and the availability of vaccine, hopefully, the services sector like Travel, Hospitality, Tourism, Food & Dining and related verticals will also see a quick recovery after which, we can say that we are reaching a “Normal” state.

As we segue into a New Year, my wish has become more grounded and guarded. As one exults “Thank God It’s a New Year”, here’s wishing one and all a New Year 2021 which will be just Normal and that will turn out to be an Annus Mirabilis!