A Fine Example of Clinical Reporting - ;-)

IF you still doubt what makes a tabloid different from a news paper, I got something for you. Another fine example on how TOI qualifies it self as the most widely read tabloid in india. They are still celebrating the unfortunate incident of the accidental civilian shooting in a big way. TOI have been quite busy with this for last three days. Somehow this time readers are not giving much attention to this. What ever be the case, after all its a tabloid's duty, to blow a tiny scoop out of all proportions to keep its regular readers hooked. Here you go.They got the pic of his goat too. May be another desperate attempt to stirr up a sympothetic wave towords the deceased. bad luck for TOI that the boy was not married yet, most probably he had no girl frieds too. Or else we would have already got glimpse on his probable family. Now lets wish TOI that the goat would do the trick. I am just wondering what the mighty TOI has got in its treasure to deliver us in the early new year morning? Picture of the first cigarette's butt which Mukarram smoked in his early teens?

Mukarram Incident: A Lesson to be learnt.

TOI came with colorful pictures of Mukarram's grief stricken family, who was shot dead by the sentry when he trespassed a protected army installation in the midnight. It was the house of the biggest Army Officer in the City, a Brigadier who had got tight cover of security.
You see the pictures of relatives and friends who are furious on army's mistake on shooting him. Pages of the newspaper are filled with, testimonials on him, his childhood pictures and graphical descriptions and time lines of the unfortunate accident.
On a neutral perspective, there is nothing much to fuss about here. A young drag racer who used public road (which is the first offence) to display his biking skills with dangerous stunts was confronted by the police (this is their duty). Instead of surrendering to the police and pay the fine, he tried to flee(Second Offence).Any kid in the world would know, not a single traffic offender will be hang to death if caught. Third mistake was the biggest, where he chose an army personnel's residence as his hideout. He scaled the fence, scaled even the house, and from the terrace made frantic calls from his mobile. Despite constant commands from the sentry to surrender he didn’t obey and in fact made plan to escape with the help of his relatives, by bringing in a vehicle close to the building so that he can jump into it and escape. Vehicle comes in, honks and he scales down and runs towards the fence. What do you want the sentry to do this time? An athletic young man would be extremely difficult to be handled in such an occasion and it’s highly important for the sentry to catch him as he did not know about the intentions of the boy and more importantly the intentions of his calls standing on the terrace. Naturally he was shot. Low light, Moving suspect, and you cannot blame the sentry to lose his aim and shot him above his waist. It’s not over yet. Wounded boy still managed to come out of the compound and was taken by his relatives to a hospital. At least these people had to make sure that he got proper medical attention. Instead of that, they too flee from the hospital after taking him there. We all know how much attention Indian hospitals give to a accident victim without any responsible people with him. This time, it was not a natural accident. He was shot. He succumbed to heavy bleeding some time after. Now who were more irresponsible? The sentry who shot him on the wrong place or his family who brought him up in a wrong way (who were boasting about getting him a bike when he turned fifteen which is illegal in India) and his most irresponsible relatives who rushed in to save him, with an offensive idea , after a busy midnight supper?
In this time of national security crisis, we cannot expect trespassers to critical places to be left freely without any harm. If his parents were informed about this issue, they had to inform the police about this and take their son out of the mess. That would have been a wise decision and their grievant mistake of breaking the law cost a young man's life. Instead of blaming the sentry who missed his leg when opened fire, in fact his kin have to be blamed for taking the wrong step in trying to fish him out of big mess in a messier way which he himself had created.

Media has to be little more responsible. Why this hue and cry that a trespasser who is an adult was shot dead? TOI and other newspaper and their visual versions will be really happy as they got sensational news to celebrate for couple of days.
No doubt, it was terribly an unfortunate incident. But let this be taken as a valuable lesson for the young brigade of law breakers for whom, Adrenalin speak more words than what their brain speak. And for all irresponsible parents, this is to be taken as a lesson, so that they would keep an eye on their teen offspring’s on their post night activities.

‘Shoo’ing away Mr.Prez , and the funny side of it.

Events, good or bad; Cartoonists and Animators have a unique way of responding to them. A better, stronger and creative way of reacting which would speak a cause, umpteen times more than an article or speech speaks. I did a small search and see what I have got.

Games – Flash Animators had a busy day following the attack.

This one looks like the most popular among forwards. Each one of us contributed with atleast couple of tries to take the toll to a mammoth numeric.
http://www.kroma.no/2008/bushgame/

And this one got a difference…

Here you play Mr.Prez, in his much applauded skill of dodging. Come on save him from those nasty dusty hurls….
http://blog.zanorg.com/index.php?perm=370

Nice Name….the Sock and Awe!

http://www.sockandawe.com/

Cartoons –Mild, Strong, Funny, Intelligent…..

A Pinch of History for Techies?

Jameel ,an employee of MICO, Bangalore was arrested and had to undergo a grueling session of interrogation before he was released after couple of days with a clean chit from the cops. They said he had nothing to do with terrorism. That means he, just like you, me and billions of others in the universe who just happened to be happy that, the honorable President of United States of America got a less hospitable treatment in Iraq. But Jameel was little louder than us in his celebrations to create tremors inside his post-mumbai-traumatized colleagues to such an extent that they did not think twice before dialing for police assistance.
You can rule this out as an accident and comfortably ignore the amount of mental torture and social isolation he probably went through with cops browsing through all his personal email communications, call records, ripping apart the last bit of privacy from his rather serene home and family.
Times of India, most read daily in Bangalore came out with a usual stunt next morning. They had few IT techies reacting to the incident in different ways.
Question was, “How do you suspect someone as a terrorist in your office?” or of similar meaning and the reply was kind of unanimous except one answer I remember. Most of them said, “We talk about America or its president at coffee time, but casually as we have nothing against America. Then why should someone be emotional and so happy on this incident? He has to be a terrorist.”
I have seen people of similar mentality in one of the office I worked. One person just reacted saying ‘Sadham is a criminal’ overhearing our conversation in the lift. I was sounding skeptical about the cold blooded execution of Sadham by American dummies. When I intimidated him asking what he knew about Sadham, he preferred to answer me with a stupid smile and walked away.
These groups of xenophiles are widely seen in Bangalore, wearing American flags on their attire, mimicking American accent when they talk, or being passionate about the Americanism and even praising their warfare with abundant respect to their political policies, culture. Sometime I felt that they see Harrison Ford in George Bush, and America for them is what they see in Hollywood movies whose president will be just in time to protect mother earth from an alien invasion.
Let that be this way as America is the Lord for IT, but I feel it’s better for the techies to include a pinch of history in their reading along with their ‘Mastering’ and ‘Complete Reference’ series of bread winning skill set. And this would possibly help in saving Jameel’s from being victimized for the expression of freedom.
I even have a shortcut for this tri colored Bush fans.
Why don’t they sit and watch ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ for a change?

Searching For Bobby Fischer

A Self confessed Chess Addict Bill Wall writes, “you are a chess addict, if your favorite movie is 'Searching for Bobby Fischer' or 'The Luzhin Defense'" and I guess he is right. And I also feel, You don’t need to be a chess addict like me, to love the movie 'Searching for Bobby Fischer' as it’s a very entertaining movie for everybody. Movie is about Josh Waitzkin, who was an US chess prodigy. Josh is inactive in chess circles now, and his last ELO was 2400+ with an IM grade. He was also a National champion in one form of martial Arts in the US. Those who own the software, Chess Master-10 ,can get a good idea of Josh where he gives video Analysis of own games in course of teaching the children the strategies of chess. He had come to Calicut, Kerala for world Junior championship and one of his games in that tourney (Josh Vs Suresh Kumar) is closely analyzed there in the program. This movie was released in 1993 and if you do torrents, it’s available in pirate bay in divx format. Fred Waitzkin (Josh’s Father) wrote the script, and in fact it was his book with the same title which was adapted for the movie.

Movie is about few things which a common man like you and me may not be aware of. It’s about the pleasure and pain to be someone exceptionally good in something. It’s about loving your kid and forgetting that he is a kid at times. It’s about chasing one's dream through your offspring and get yourself carried away.

In one Scene Josh's school teacher complains about his behavior at school to his parents saying "I know he may be good at the "chess thing. but..." and his father over-reacts to her like, "That’s not chess thing. It’s Chess. And he is far good in it than you or I can ever reach in anything". In fact he was comparing himself to Josh, reflecting his frustration in achieving nothing big in life even after putting efforts.
Josh loves to play blitz in the park just for his passion for the game with technically imperfect though strong passionate players. He loves to break hardcore rules of chess openings and would bring his queen at the earliest against all advices. But he is forced to leave this blitz sessions on the strict advice of Pandolfini, his coach. He is forced to train a lot and, slowly chess becomes more work than fun for him. Movie is a success as it’s beautifully portrays this painful transition, killing a player in the process of making him perfect.

Expectations are always burden and performance anxiety soon follows and you, me or everyone lose to it, and those face it easily, would make it big in life. Josh Waitzkin comes up when his people lose all hope on him, when his father reaches a level of maturity to accept it’s just a game, he comes up with winning the national title.

You see his friendly gesture, offering draw to the opponent though he knew he was clearly winning, proving it’s not win, lose or draw make a player, but passion for the game.

Searching for bobby fisher is remarkable not because of all these mentioned elements. It’s actually a search for Bobby fisher, the American genius, America’s cold and ruthless answer to the soviet domination in the game; the commies were the best with. The whole nation was searching for another Fischer and Josh was their answer, but without all ill famous ingredients of Fisher charisma, without his famous arrogance, killer spirit, hatred, josh was a soft and beautiful answer. No wonder he moved out of competitive chess and took up some other sports with the same passion.
Brilliant performances by all the actors including Ben Kingsley who played Bruce Pandolfini and Max Pomeranc who played Josh, cuter than cute with those wonderful innocent expressions. Joe Mantegna played a perfect ‘Fred Waitzkin’ with Joan Allen playing his wife to the best. 'Matrix 'fame lawrence Fishburn was also good playing Josh's friend from the park.Steven Zallion has done good job making it a very exciting directorial venture. One remarkable moment from the movie is the appearances of the 'Man who beat Tal’ in couple of times. Vasek Simek did a great effort, playing sad figure of Israel Zilber, a latvian champion Who beat World champion Tal but ended up as a blitz player who would take 5 dollars for a photograph or a game in the American park. But I guess it’s normal in US for masters to play blitz in the park, as I heard their National Champ and blitz great, Nakamura is a regular blitz man in the park.

A regular chess lover may get annoyed by the hyper melodramatic expressions of players on the board, for instance, the queening race in the King and pawn endgame where one player realize it at the last move that his opponent is going to queen with a check, as all national level players would easily resign in such positions at least couple of moves before it really happens. But this folly in the story would not be visible for those who are not so deep into the game.
Searching for bobby fisher is unavoidable for all chess freaks, with those thrilling blitz in the park, with those grueling moments for parents waiting outside the tournament halls, with that beautiful portrayal of fun and struggle in 64 squares of 'life'.