10. I don’t know if I would be able to get to 10 things..
9. Contrary to what everyone seems to say, the level of bureaucratic corruption has reduced in my opinion. You might have your scams and your riggings, but the corruption that the common man had to endure is slowly, but steadily, reducing. For someone like me, interactions with the government (booking rail tickets, paying taxes, heck, even getting a passport approved) were areas where I would have to pay some “commission”. Yet, each of these things I have done during 2010, without so much as leaving my house, and more importantly without an “agent”. Corruption exists, and exists everywhere. But it exists in situations where one party is completely dependent on the other party for something. Call it RTI, call it e-governance, but the level of dependence that I, an average citizen, had on the welfare state has reduced in the last 10 years. Ergo corruption has reduced. Even for that matter, the scams that are coming to light, is a good thing. It means that someone is watching.
8. I think a lot of the problems in the world would just be solved if people would just not mistrust people. Don’t trust someone blindly, but don’t mistrust them either.
7. I think Cheteshwar Pujara should bat No. 3 in Cape Town. Rahul Dravid should go to No. 6. 14 years ago, Dravid moved to No. 3 on the tour to SA. Changed Indian cricket for the better. Time to do the same before Dravid is subject to a Ponting-like witch hunt. Pujara at 3, gets the freedom to settle in, knowing that his getting out doesn’t mean the tail is to follow. The blame for the collapse would not be on him. Here’s an interesting stat: Pujara scored just 29 runs in Durban, but batted out 175 minutes. Look closely, that’s probably more than what Kallis, Tendulkar and De Villiers did (maybe even put together). Put Pujara at 3, and let him have Sehwag and Tendulkar on either side with Dravid and Laxman to follow. Will make a major change to his style.
6. It’s been a while since I have done the Things I think I think feature. I should do this more often. But somewhere, I feel there is very little incentive to think. The more you think, the more everything looks like a façade. You are told what to think, and everything is catered to that. Everything is now a marketing gimmick. Everything is fed to you, and everything is the truth. But there is no avenue to question, to discuss, to dissent, to change your opinions in the face of new evidence..
Thinking is passé.
5. Indian cinema needs good comedy. The last good comedy I saw was Khosla ka Ghosla. All other “funny” movies are the cinematic equivalents of laughing loudest at your own jokes..
There I said it.
4. Come to think of it, but probably India on the whole needs a good comedy. A “Flop Show” for our generation.
3. I still feel like crap for not having started work on writing a book. Maybe next year. Fingers crossed. Maybe I should blog more in fiction. That should get me in shape. For all of 2010, I have only 25 (or so) posts. So probably I need to improve on that too.
2. Contrary to what might seem from the above points, I am still pretty optimistic about India. That’s the good thing about this place. There is a different vibrancy that you cannot help but feel that we’re on the verge of something special here.
My only worry is that no one will stop to think about it till it’s too late.
1. I’d like to wish anyone reading this a Very Happy New Year. Almost certainly not everything you plan at the start of the year will go as per plan.
But then this is not the time to think about it J
Have a fun filled 2011.
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