Mind Blogging. Mind Boggling.

No spoiler review, referencing only blurb material and commonly known facts: Written by a Chinese born Canadian journalist Dan Wang, Breakneck journeys through diverse parts of China, ranging from the urban agglomoeration sprouting up in largely rural Chonging, to the historic enclaves of Shanghai. Its premise is of China being an 'engineering' economy, chasing goals of 'building' - be it breathtaking infrastructure or products across industries for customers across the world. The book mentions this as a great merit of the Chinese development story, but also as a stumbling block: through draconian policies such as 'One Child' or 'Zero Covid'. He contrasts it with USA, which he calls a Lawyerly economy, which makes things difficult to build because the builders have to watch out for lawsuits. At the same time, there is free press and significantly better protection for human rights. Clear evidence is in the corridors of power: many of the heads of state and their advisers are lawyers in USA and engineers in China. Xi , Hu Jintao and most Politburo members are engineers. The book is concise (250 odd pages) and fast paced. It's a whirlwind tour of ideas and places, set on the strong central premise outlined above. Which leads me to wonder- if US is lawyerly and China is Engineer-y, what is India? There are no obvious answers, for India got 'economic freedom' only in 1990, so it's not immediately clear which modern profession India is skewing towards because there's significantly less number of years as a modern capitalist economy. I'd say: an 'entertainment' economy. Film industry makesup a higher %-age of GDP than China and USA: in India it's some 0.5-0.7%-age, which is highest of all top 10 economies, 2x of USA and 3-4 x of China, and also higher than South Korea which as we know is a global entertainment hub (Source chat gpt) This is despite the fact that Indians don't pay for movies and music and piracy is rampant, without which this economy would be even bigger. Music is popular, ranging from Kishore Kumar to Arijit Singh. There are movie industries across every state of India. Being a liberal, pluralist and dizzyingly diverse society with a largely free media: there are innumberable stories to be told. There is also a hoary tradition of storytelling : Mahabharata and Ramayana. And now in 2026, we had: Dhurandhar!

Labels: Books

I am happy to report that I was part of the team winning the intra-PUMA tourney PSL T20 for the 3rd straight time. It was a fantastic team effort. Our bowling was the trump card, strong all through the 4 games , conceding at the most 149, and not having any weak link. Our batting backed it up well, and I played a good hand as opener with two unbeaten fifties and a twenty. I evolved through the 3 tournaments and within the4 games of the tournament. This played out the concept of 'Infinite game' as expounded by Robert Carse in his seminal book, 'Finite and Infinite Games', or the concept of stoicism as expounded in the Zen buddhism fable of the farmer's reaction to swinging fortunes (link). Robert Carse depicts life as antithesis of sport, since sport has a clear answer at the end of every 90 minutes of 40 overs. However, I will not take such affronts to sport lightly. My experience here shows that sport, too, is an infinite game. The first tournament in 2023 I was the strike opening bowler and played a critical part. I came 9 down in batting. Our best batter of the time, BB, told me to make better use of my batting next time. Thanks to my and other bowler's efforts, we defended a paltry total of 90 odd. However, my lethal bowling was also lethal to my shoulder, and I sustained a small tear in the supraspinatus, a muscle that's part of the rotator cuff. So in the second tournament in 2024, I became a 3-down batter. While I made some useful 30s in our run to the final, I was living dangerously. However The red Vicky tennis ball we play with, bounces a lot. I made my runs pressing on to the front foot, a mode of play from my leather ball playing days. Front foot play is not the easiest with the high bouncing Vicky ball: it often reaches the batter above waist level after pitching, and also due to how it bounces off the bat aerially, makes classic front foot shots such as drives, risky . My commeuppance was in the final : Facing a slow short ball on the body , I played a nothing shot : an attempted flick for a single. Edged squirmed to keeper- Golden duck. That slow short ball should have been deposited to midwicket for six. However, we won the final again thanks to our bowling, and this tale stuck in my mind. Come PSL 2026, I got myself promoted to opener. My trigger movement was to stay back. Over the course of the tournament, I hit 5 huge sixes on the pull shot, exactly to the ball that got me for the golden duck. All through the innings, I had a high control percentage for I was able to tame the high bouncing Vicky ball. The two times I was dismissed in the 4 games? Playing forcing front foot shots off full tosses- old habits haunting me: the ball pinged off the bat aerially, straight to close in fielders. However, I mostly stayed back, and ended as my team's highest run-getter. We ended each tournament winning, thus seemingly 'ending' the game. However, I had a different fate in each tourney: shoulder injury, wrong technique in batting, and improvement in batting control. Each game set the stage for the evolution: the Infinite game! Coming to the infinite in an even more finite scope: within the tournament. First game- we were chasing 80 odd against a weak bowling. I batter better than my wildest expectations, scoring an unbeated 55 in 29 balls. Next game, against a decent bowling attack, I got carried away: first ball 4, second ball out driven straight to cover. Third game, I displayed patience, albeit a bit too much. I played a somewhat slow 27 (24). Net contribution was better than the numbers indicate, for, being a left hander, I draw quite a few Wides by bowlers used to bowling to righties. Finally, I got the balance between attack and defense right in the final: making unbeaten 55 of 45 odd balls, in a chase of 125 odd. Thus, even upon reducing the scope of the canvas, one tournament instead of many tournaments, the concept still played out: the game was not over even after I was out!

Labels: Esprit de sports