apocalypse today..a new dawn tomorrow

many of you must have heard of the new movie "apocalypto" from the highly controversial mel gibson. happened to read reviews of the movie, which in turn got me thinking about the original apocalypse movie - "apocalypse now" - a movie that is so intensely insightful about " human mind in love with hatred" that it disturbs you. if you have time to rent a good dvd, then don't miss this movie. what got mr,k interested was some of the things the characters in the movie say. reading it and re-reading it, it struck me that quite a few things hold good even for our lives. so here you go - with an absurdly cynical take on some quotes from the movie.

a) on moral ethics - on the ethics that we are taught at our schools, colleges, corporate world and how we figure out that ethics are only for good for boardroom talk - nothing more than that.

"We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "f***" on their airplanes because it's obscene!" - Col Kurtz

b) on the politikos of the world - well, nothing much left to say

"What do you call assassins who accuse assassins?" - Col Kurtz

c) on mavericks - well, for all those people who want to improve the system - don't bother improving it unless you have it in you to go the full circle.

"Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were goin' all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole freakin' program." - Capt Willard ( On Col.Kurtz, who finally gets his reward - death)

d) on those highly committed,successful and lowly paid people - some point of time, all of us can relate to this

"You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill." - Col, Kurtz

e) on most of the leaders of today - ( with due apologies to women )

"who is in charge", "In charge? I don't know, man. I'm just doing what I'm told - I'm just a working girl." - Willard

f) on mission, vision and purpose

"You are fighting for the biggest nothing in history." - Hubert

g) on endings - we humans, everyone of us loves a good ending. we pray, we yearn, we dream, we imagine, we so want to make it a happy ending only to realize that we even don't have the power to write the endings the way we wanted to.

"this is the way the world ends, this is the way sun sets, this is the way brightness dims, not with a bang but with a whimper" - T.S Elliott re-edited by Col.Kurtz further re-edited by Mr.K

but cynicism and darkness also ends only for the sun to shine again and one wakes up to a new tomorrow If.

"do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, if you are losing everything and you never breath a world about loss, if you can fill the unforgiving minute of self doubts with sixty seconds of "hold on", yours is the sun,the stars, the earth, the moon, the universe and everything in it and which will be more - you will be a man,my son" - Rudyard Kipling re-hashed by Col.Kurtz and re-framed by Mr.K

cricket india inc

since our multi millionaire cricketers came back from their Caribbean sojourn with more sun burn than they would have bargained for, there has been nothing left unsaid about the state of indian cricket. even our fellow blogger INF has written a post on his quit watching cricket plans. mr.k couldn't resist the urge to put his thoughts down. staying away from the usual "dissecting what went wrong at world cup" and "who is to blame", this post directs at a 10 point solution to eradicate the woes of cricket in our nation.

1. make the BCCI a corporate body much like american/european sports clubs and appoint a professionally paid CEO/General Manager who is accountable for the indian team's performance
2. have full time contracted selectors / scouts who have the job to select the best team possible all times barring injury
3. have a pool of 30 centrally contracted players - the contracts should be a) a flat amount plus incentive based bonuses based on performance b) provide all professional expenses for players for the contracted time including medical care c) provide clause for re-negotiation of the parameters during anytime of the contract d) retain partial image and branding rights of players
4. hire a "director of player development" whose responsibility is to run developmental teams and make players ready for the bigger stage
5. change the domestic cricket format to have not more than 10 teams at the highest level.
6. improve the facilities and pitches to international standards while retaining the indian feel. have developmental teams visit abroad to help them acclimatise with various conditions.
7. for the indian team, hire a head coach, specialist assistant coaches - fielding, batting, bowling, wicket keeping, a media manager and team manager
8. keep the fan happy - provide for the best stadium experience possible. for heavens sake get rid of no water, no rest rooms, no food, hot sun stadiums
9. get rid of the star system - probably the toughest thing to do in india as it exists everywhere
10. finally, the fans should learn to accept failure as part and parcel of the game and continue to support their team. indian cricket fans, learn from red sox nation.

talking of redsox, their end to years of misery and drought was engineered by a yale educated, young professional GM, who had the strength to do what it takes to "win at all costs".

ps: learn more about theo epstein at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Epstein