New Co-ordinates

I have moved on to hosting my own blog using movable type.

Hence my virtual global co-ordinates are now

http://arzan.org

or

http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog

Please post there henceforth

Bowling for Democracy

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/opinion/01patterson.html?

THE NEW YORK TIMES - May 1, 2005

Bowling for Democracy
By ORLANDO PATTERSON and JASON KAUFMAN

Cambridge, Mass.
CRICKET, the quintessential English game, is nonetheless one of the most international of sports. It is a dominant game in more countries than any other sport except soccer, in lands as varied as Australia, India, Pakistan, South Africa and the Commonwealth Caribbean. But a glance at the global map of cricket poses a remarkable cultural puzzle.

Why, on the one hand, does the game flourish in lands like Pakistan and India, where a hard-fought series can transfix two nations and even lead to improved diplomatic relations? (Last month's series, in which Pakistan defeated India by 159 runs, concluded with a historic meeting between Pakistan's president and India's prime minister.) And why, on the other hand, is cricket not much played in other former British colonies like Canada - or, for that matter, in the United States, with its heritage and"special relationship" with Britain?

The puzzle only deepens when one considers that cricket was once popular in both Canada and the United States. It rivaled baseball for most of the 19th century, with as many stories in the sports pages of The New York Times until 1880. Indeed, the world's first international test match was played between Canada and the United States in 1844. So the puzzle is not so much why it was never adopted in North America, but why in the early 20th centuryit was subsequently rejected.

Many popular explanations are flawed. Climate has nothing to do with it; cricket emerged as a summer game, and is easily played in North America during mild weather. North American multiculturalism is hardly a factor, given the game's popularity in the multicultural societies of the Caribbean and South Africa. Ethnicity cannot be the answer: while the Scots, with their preference for curling, predominated among early Canadian immigrants, there was a far greater proportion of English in North America than in India or the Caribbean; meanwhile, the preponderance of the Irish in Australia did not prevent cricket from becoming that country's national pastime. Why is it, then, that hockey and baseball eventually trumped cricket in Canada andthe United States?

The most common argument is that cricket was too long and slow for fast-paced North America; formal test matches last for five days. This explanation at least has some merit - though not in the manner usuallyunderstood.

Cricket lost ground in North America because of the egalitarian ethos of its societies. Rich Americans and Canadians had constant anxiety about their elite status, which prompted them to seek ways to differentiate themselves from the masses. One of those ways was cricket, which was cordoned off as an elites-only pastime, a sport only for those wealthy enough to belong to expensive cricket clubs committed to Victorian ideals of sportsmanship. In late 19th-century Canada, according to one historian, "the game became associated more and more with an older and more old-fashioned Anglo-Saxonelite."

This elite appropriation played into the hands of baseball entrepreneurs who actively worked to diminish cricket's popularity. A. G. Spalding, described in the Baseball Hall of Fame as the "organizational genius of baseball's pioneer days," was typical. "I have de lared cricket is a genteel game," he mocked in "America's National Game," his 1911 best seller. "It is. Our British cricketer, having finished his day's labor at noon, may don his negligee shirt, his white trousers, his gorgeous hosiery and his canvas shoes, and sally forth to the field of sport, with his sweetheart on one arm and his cricket bat under the other, knowing that he may engage in his national pastime without soiling his linen or neglecting his lady." Baseball, in contrast, was sold as a rugged, fast-paced, masculine game, befitting a rugged, fast-paced economic power. Americans of all classes swallowed the chauvinistic line. It was also great business for Spalding. By inventing elaborate baseball gear and paraphernalia, he created a market for his new sporting-goods company.

In the remaining British colonies, however, the opposite happened. In these rigidly unequal societies the colonial elites and their native allies never had any anxieties about their status, and the British actively promoted the game - first to native elites, then to the masses.

In India, the wealthy Parsis first took up the game in emulation of their British masters. Soon, royalty throughout the subcontinent adopted it. English-style grammar schools were an important source of exposure to upwardly mobile native men. In the Caribbean, grammar schools made the imperial game a core feature of their education and made competition possible between different classes and ethnic groups without disrupting the social fabric. As C. L. R. James, the famed Trinidadian intellectual and cricket enthusiast, wrote in his memoir: "I haven't the slightest doubt that the clash of race, caste and class did not retard but stimulated West Indian cricket."

Both colonizer and colonized developed a stake in the popularization of the game. To the British colonists, the "imperial game" was the perfect vehicle for civilizing the colonial masses (as it had previously, they imagined, civilized generations of upwardly mobile British schoolboys). For elite members of the colonized, it was a way to curry favor. And for the masses, who quickly mastered the game, it was a symbolically powerful and clandestine form of political liberation as they soon learned to literallybeat the British and their native surrogates at their own game.

The game itself partly facilitated this process. Cricket requires no contact between players, and its strict and complex rules, dress code and officiating largely eliminate any risk of embarrassment in play with those of different ranks or castes. So did the careful allocation of positions; less glamorous roles like bowling and fielding were assigned to social inferiors while those of specialist batsmen and team captain were reservedfor elites.

Much the same was true of 19th-century Australia, at the time a highly stratified colony whose masses were descended from prisoners. Cricket helped antipodean elites cultivate their Englishness, but the size and isolation of
their European settlements limited the extent to which they could be truly exclusive. North American-style upper-class appropriation of the game was out of the question. Cricket became a powerful unifying force, and prowess
at the game, according to one cricket historian, was "the mark of an amateur gentleman" from any class.

As in the Caribbean, cricket was also a major element in the formation of Australian nationalism. The biennial matches with England solidified the link between colony and mother country even as it fostered Australian national pride when the Australians increasingly came to whip the British attheir imperial game.

WHAT broader lessons might the history of cricket have for the globalization of Western cultural practices? It shows that such practices can be promoted or discouraged from the top down; it is not necessarily a bottom-up process, as is commonly believed. Nor does such downward dissemination require the point of a gun. The passion for cricket in places like Pakistan and India also shows that a complex Western cultural practice can be adopted in its entirety by very different cultures, even when highly identified with its country of origin.

Might the same be true of other Western cultural practices, like democracy?

Orlando Patterson is a professor of sociology and Jason Kaufman is an associate professor of sociology at Harvard. Their paper on cricket appearsin the next issue of The American Sociological Review.

To all late sitters

This is a fwd....i should be the last person sending this out...but what theheck..read it.......!!!!

An interesting article on people, who stay back in the office after workinghours

It's half past 8 in the office but the lights are still on..PCs still running, coffee machines still buzzing..and whose at work..Most of them?? Take a closer look.. All or most specimens are 20-something male/female species of the human race..look closer..again all or most of them are bachelors..and why are they sitting late? Working hard? No way!! Any guesses?? lets ask one of them..Here's what she says.."Arey yaar, whatz here do after goin home..idhar to net hein, AC hein, phone hein, khaana hein, coffee hein.. to jam ke khaao, jam ke piyo(burps), jam se chatting/phone karo aur thak jaane par ghar jaao...aur boss bhi kush that I am workinglate...(burps) aur khaane ka paisa bhi bachtaa hein."

This is the scene in most companies and offices. Bachelors "time-passing" during late hours in the office just bcoz they say they've nothing else to do..Now what r the consequences.. read on..."working"(for the record only) late hours soon becomes part of the company culture. With bosses more than eager to provide support to those "working" late in the form of taxi vouchers, food vouchers and of course good feedback,(oh, he's a hardworker..goes home only to change..!!) they arent helping things too..To hell with bosses who dont understand the difference between "sitting" late
and "working" late!! Very soon, the managers start expecting all employees to put in extra working hours.

My dear Bachelor bhaais let me tell you, life changes when u get married and start having a family..office is no longer a prioroty, family is..and thats when the problem starts.bcoz u start having commitments at home too. For your boss, the earlier "hardworking" guy suddenly seems to become a "early leaver" even if u leave an hour after regular time..after doing the same amount of work, People leaving on time after doing their tasks for the day are labelled as work-shirkers..Girls who thankfully always leave on time are labelled as "not up to it". All the while, the bachelors pat their own backs and carry on "working" not realising that they r spoiling the work culture at their own place and never realise that they wuld have toregret at one point of time.

So bhaai log, what's the moral of the story.?? Very clear, LEAVE ON TIME!!

Never put in extra time unless really needed. Dont stay back un-necessarily and spoil your company work culture which will in turn cause inconvenience to you and your colleagues. There are hundred other things to do in the evening.. Learn music..Learn a foreign language..Try go-karting... Get a girl friend, take her around town. And for heaven's sake net cafe rates have dropped to an all-time low(plus, no fire-walls) and try cooking for a change. Take a tip from the Smirnoff ad: "Life's calling, where are you??"

Cool! 

.. 

. 

March 15, 2005 

PARSIS, MOST LOVABLE & PEACE LOVING PEOPLE

This article from Nitin Morani....on his blogger.

A few Words about Parsis, most lovable & peace-loving people

The first Parsis I knew were statues. There were scores of them, all over Bombay (now Mumbai), most of them wearing glasses: Dadabhoy Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Jamshedji Tata, Cowasjee Jehangir, Bomanji Petit, the Khada (standing) Parsi at Byculla Bridge.

Later, I met other Parsis, at the Central Bank, Cusrow Baug, Rustom Baug, Albless Baug, Cama Baug, Godrej Company (find me a Parsi house and I will show you a Godrej steel cupboard in it), Colaba Agiary, BombayHouse, piano recitals by Austrian pianists at the NCPA, Ripon Club.

Most of the Parsis I know are Bombay Parsis, the older ones born at Dr. Temulji's lying-in hospital for Parsi ladies, the younger ones delivered by Dr. Rusi Soonawala (Aapro Rusi). But there are also Delhi Parsis, Calcutta Parsis, Udwada Parsis, Toronto Parsis, one or two Mhow Parsis,Karachi Avaris, Minwallas, Sethna, etc.

They are spread all over the world.

Whoever says that the Parsis are a dying community does not know what they are talking about.

The Delhi Parsis are mainly Bombay Parsis now settled in Delhi, such as Soli Sorabjee and Fali Nariman. The Bombay Parsis themselves may be divided into further categories. There are Colaba Parsis, Tardeo Parsis and Dadar Parsi Colony Parsis. The Colaba Parsis work in advertising agencies, act in Hosi Vasunia's (now with The Indian Express Newspapers)plays and have relations in Toronto.

The Tardeo Parsis would like to be Colaba Parsis. The Dadar Parsi Colony Parsis are Dadar Parsi Colony Parsis. Their language is Gujarati, with a generous mixture of English or English with a generous mixture ofGujarati.

Some people say that they borrowed the language from the Gujaratis, others that the Gujaratis learnt it from them. I have not resolved thatpoint yet.

But the Parsis have certain Gujarati words that are exclusive to their language. Putting aside the abuse words, I refer you to 'faregaat'. It is what a Parsi does when he returns home after a hard day at the office. He has a wash (Godrej or Tata soap), removes his clothes, and gets into a 'sadra' and 'lengha' and settles down in the easy chair with his legs stretched along its extended arms, sipping phudina tea. That is being 'faregaat', changing into sadra - lengha and relaxing. Say the words slowly and gently extend it: 'fare-gaaat'. There are several other such words and phrases: kit-pit bandh ker, dahi na kar, doodh pau. Doodh pau is a somewhat goody-goody person, a bit of a sissy. I invite the members of the community to add to my collection. That takes care ofthe language, though most of them use English.

They are very fond of things English and particularly the English royalty, though that does not mean I am questioning their loyalty one bit. On that score they are unimpeachable. When I first visited London, a Parsi friend took me to see Buckingham Palace - from outside naturally, in those days they did not issue tickets to wander around the palace. We stood at the gates, he pointed at the palace, and said,"Aapri rani no mehel."

A lot of things are 'aapri' or 'aapro' or 'aapru'.

For instance:

Apro Zubin Mehta, kevoo majehnu conduct karech.
Aapro Sam Maneckshaw.
Aapro Nani (Palkhivala), bahuj intelligent and bholo che.
Aapri Bachi Karkaria, soo lakhech, soo lakhech.
Aapro Dorabjee of Dorabjee's of Pune
Aapra Oliaji of Duke's Hotel, Devka
Aapri Princess Street ni Parsi Dairy Farm, bilkul pani nahi doodh ma, bilkul nahi.
Aapro Cyrus Broacha, ketlo comic che.
Aapro Adu (the late and lamented Adi Marzban).
Aapro Rusy (Karanjia), ehni toe soo pen.
Aapru Taj te Taj, choro Oberoi.

Every Parsi takes a proprietary interest in the Taj, in Baliwalla & Homi, Bombay's opticians since time began, and Air India when JRD Tatawas the chairman.

Even Rajiv Gandhi was aapro from his father's side. Aapro Rajiv aaje hote toe he would have ,,,,, (add your thought here)

On Parsi New Year, one of the 3 or 4 New Years they have in a year, in the morning, a couple of Nankhatai Bands will come over from Pydhonie to Cusrow Baug and with a great flurry play Sare Jehan Se Acha and Colonel Boogie's March in front of whichever flat (apartment) pays them. There will be prayers at the two major fire-temples at Dhobi Talao and vermicelli, Sev-kheer, and sweet curd with rose petals, marghi na farchaand dhan dal and kolmi patia at home.

And there will be drinks, the Parsi pegs. A Parsi peg is the largest peg in the world!

You may measure it by your palm - it extends over 5 fingers. The Patiala peg is also 5 fingers, but in the Patiala peg the fingers are heldtogether, in the Parsi peg they are spread out.

Chalo, Saheb, salamati lev.

a Hole in the ground...seen from the sky !!

This is a picture of our site taken from the 86th floor of the empire state building. The hole in the ground is approximately 70 feet deep !!!! The hole is just about 1/3 rd of the site……it’s a big hole in the ground for now !!! but not for long….its happening !!!!

a Hole in the ground...seen from the up close !!