Art of Writing

I made a Wordle of contents within my previous write ups in blog relating to writing.

It is an advanced filtering system; still it threw up the following links and they pertain to the following:- 
Articulation, 

Art of writing, 

Word, language and culture, 

The journey of words, 

The temptation of a blank page, 

How people skillfully cover up lack of knowledge in any subject  through a cocktail of terminologies, 

Then the demanding requirement of every language and the commands of puritans and publishers, some justified and others not so justifiable like 

Length of a sentence, 

Punctuation rules, 

Use of prepositions, 

Idioms, 

Dilemma of editors, 

Intentionally manipulative  usage of terms to appropriate certain credits and assign certain labels and so on.

Here are some links all of which may take a long time with many sub links within

My new blog http://wordenjoy.blogspot.in/

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/09/words-and-words-all-way.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/il-y-des-milliers-des-moyens-dameliorer_5.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/05/articulation.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/art-of-writing.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/art-of-content-writing.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/10/art-of-biography-writing.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/09/stories-design-and-development.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/05/wordslanguage-culture.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/blank-page-language-writing-and.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/09/success-and-happiness.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/01/cocktail-of-meta-terminologies.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/length-of-sentence-in-language.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2017/12/punctuation.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2017/02/politics-as-predominant-and-all.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/10/elaborate-explanation-of-brevity.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/05/editors-dilemma.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/07/terminological-aberrations-and.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/103216417/Reverse-Dictionary-of-Adjectives

Left bias

I wrote the following on 26th May in my tweet and they prove me right every day .

Population

Population is the most important primary issue in terms of all impacts-either positive or negative- it can have on all other parameters of socio-economic activities.

So, it is imperative that we all as stake holders in global resources must effect the necessary adjustments to ensure a life with less difficulty for all.

I resort to over generalized observations without saying whether population control is must or demographic profiling is necessary etc because most people tend to convert even concerns with good intensions into controversies.

These generalizations also have the advantage of allowing individuals to come out with multiple interpretations, plans, programs and solutions.

However, those involved in higher echelons of economic policy making must ensure to have the best possible and most accurate demographic data because the hidden but major factors that impact or inflict a blow on economy as well as policies of governance may be mostly issues related with lack of employment generation for academically qualified youth, pension and other expenses related with the old people and adequate nutrition for the ever increasing new born babies.

All these cannot be passed on as the responsibility of government instead every individual , every family , every organization must enact incentives and disincentives to reduce population growth and also for generating provisions within their groups, organizations , societies to create employment generating activities as well as effective and self sustaining senior citizens  care providing systems.

The line that separate population from being a boon to a bane is very thin and the impact is sudden like a Tsunami.

Effective management of population requires both micro and macro level adjustments and programs.

Why media’s selective vulgarism demeaning a nice emotion of ‘nationalism’?

Why media’s selective vulgarism demeaning a nice emotion of ‘nationalism’?

[This whole write up is my reaction to the article at the end of this post which appeared in TOI

1.  No one with a sane mind or any nation or any institution would advocate, admire and resort to war unless a specific situation warrants it.

2. Where is the same media when it secretes lot of fanatical anti- national script writers?

3. Being fanatical in anything is to be curtailed but that cannot be done selectively.

4. More so when it is a justifiable manifestation of emotional affinity to one’s parents, children, spouse, favorite person in any field, one’s nation, one’s love for a particular music, language or art etc.

5. At this rate these selective script writers will start describing a parent admiring the child’s actions as voyeurism.

 6. These media perverts would term a five year old boy returning home from school running and hugging his mother as Oedipus complex and girl of similar age doing that to her father as Electra complex because main stream media seem to pollute so much there is no perception at all, only perversions.

7. Why there is sudden spurt in main stream media’s frustrations and fetish for anti-national venom?

8. The terms one uses not only impacts the topic but reveals the ideological background of the writer and may end up tarnishing the image of the media house.

9. We the readers of reputed newspapers like TOI expect any virulent and valid ideological criticism or educative promotional material but not porn-notional venom, and that too against a very natural proud emotional manifestation called nationalism.

10. We the readers would like to know the definition of gratification and satisfaction in the context of porn and war with all the nuances well laid out for us to understand better.

11. Anyone who enjoys using similes and metaphors would be well advised to read Shakespeare or Kalidasa.

12. Being critical, controversial, provocative, disruptive trend setting and even gloating in a self appropriated illusionary world of intellectual insolence and all other similar self appropriations are all the prerogatives of people who get the platform of a media house.

13. But to misuse  that prerogative through puerile portrayal revealing a putrefied mindset mostly emanating from some petrified ideological impulse which has got pulverized in the field of civilized evolution [which benefits human beings at large of which pride of ancestry is a very positive inspiring emotion, though unfortunately lesser mortals get intimidated by that.]

14. Lack of sophistication in communications and lack of diplomacy in delivering a hidden agenda reveals the frustrations and desperation to restore some petrified ideology inside the sanctuaries of caged identity venerations.

15. To rephrase the wonderful quotation that adorns the top of that page ‘The ultimate weakness of vulgar and vituperative vocabulary is that it descends into the drain and lets all the hidden ideology, that one tries hard to market in the mall of main stream media manufactured opinions, also disappears from the atlas of matured peoples’ radar of observations and perceptions’.

16. Why the media masturbation with verbal diarrhoea tries its level best to spill its secretion on a very nice feeling called ‘nationalism’?

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/rise-of-war-porn-the-hyper-nationalism-being-unleashed-today-has-electoral-rather-than-strategic-considerations/

Tolerance requires ripping apart the ‘mask of aura’.

Tolerance requires ripping apart the ‘mask of aura’.

Inflated egos with ideological inhibitions hiding beneath the ‘mask of aura’ of terminologies like liberal, intellectual, rational etc end up damaging

the aura of those terms.

1. Anything that is not subjected to empirical evidence or backed by scientifically documented proof  or rationally  explained , cannot be expected to get universal approval much less any acceptance from people who like to logically analyze before accepting anything.

2. However, if blind belief is bad inherently, then, baseless comparisons with unconnected subjects, irrelevant tools of evaluation and applying meaningless extrapolations are as bad as blind belief.

3. A person may get into a trance or deep meditative realm merely by listening to a piece of music, a good piece of writing or a nice art or by seeing a stunning beautiful person or by watching a great display of skill in some sport or technique in some field.

4. For each one of the above category there are many for whom that particular realm may bring the maximum satisfaction or relief or recreation or peace of mind or happiness which may seem absolutely meaningless to others not tuned in that frequency to capture those specific vibrations.

5. For that reason alone neither music nor the persons who get carried away by music can be deemed as insane or useless or meaningless persons.

6. We can never deny or defy the importance of anything that exists or is being appreciated by some persons somewhere for the simple reason that they were part of an evolutionary process whose relevance in terms of importance may have reduced or disappeared.

7. However, we have always at our disposal the option to choose what we want or what we like.

8. Personally I have a very ambivalent attitude when it comes to any belief in anything and even within a belief I will chaff and choose only certain aspects or parts which I want or like and that too without any consistency because I observe the fact that everything undergoes some metamorphosis and is also involved in constant process of evolution.

9. As some aspects of science have openness and scope to give way for newer and better discoveries and inventions, any belief system too must be open to multiple interpretations and criticisms and this rule applies to anti-belief brigade too.

10. If some persons with inflated egos and deflated complexes and due to their own lack of interest or in depth knowledge in certain things or ideological inhibition or lack luster perspective but at the same to seek attention try to compensate that by appropriating and anointing themselves verbally with certain terminologies that have an aura around them [terminologies] like liberals, intellectuals, thinkers, rationalists, moralists, trend setters and so on. Then, they are guilty of damaging the very aura around those terms.

11. If everything has to be hammered by only certain specific methods to be anointed as acceptable then it is as narrow as the belief systems.

12. The problem per se is not with any belief, any science, any idea or ideology, any ism, any concept but it is the intense identity based stiff and fixed fanatical extremism which is ignorant of nature's manifestation through variety, not yet rendered smooth by some compromises, tolerance, social obligations, niceties normally required to cohabit with all other species and so on.

13. To claim that not believing in any belief is the greatest belief is also okay and fine but to insist that only such mortals are superior to the rest is arrogating a clan and gloating in an exclusive Club.

14. If too much of hammering is allowed to be carried out by such exclusive Club members then the world will be left with only a very few professions and activities and humanity will be wandering in an arena of vacuous inanity or inane vacuum.

15. Life in general and the planet and universes are almost immortal and our mortal frames and brains cannot grasp everything to equip us to pass grand universal pronouncements and judgments on anything.

16. I do not believe in many things but I cannot deride those who believe for whatever reason.

17.  We all have multiple options or choices we can avoid, disagree, debate, find fault, interpret the way we want, criticize but we cannot arrogate to suppress or oppress the other persons’ harmless and non-violent prerogatives to pursue or believe in whatever they want and this is real tolerance.

18. We all must learn not to extrapolate our ideological fixations on everything.

19. We must evaluate everything based on its inherent attributes and its own contextual relevance.

20. We must also learn to appreciate the harmless sensitivities of others and acquire humility to acknowledge that every human being have the right and freedom to pursue whatever they want without interfering, invading and harming others in any way.

21. All normal life is confined by space and time- both literal as well as the real mind space and time – and we cannot deny to any other person  that right unless that person causes harm to others.

Fallacies and History

There is a very bulky book titled People's chronology of world events which covers
a very vast area of human activity from many centuries B.C you would find that for
 many centuries one of the main activities of human beings has been waging war.
In addition to that I just finished this book: Title: "Historians' Fallacies"
subtitle: "Towards a Logic of Historical Thought"
author: David Hackett Fischer
c 1970 (pre-ISBN, but SBN is 06-090498-4), 338 pp., including a list of
fallacy names at the end. Large number of footnote citations all really excellent. 
Some of the most serious problems in human thinking involve the use of
fallacies (in short, a mistake in thinking) to understand and decide what
to do, how to live, and how to treat ones neighbors (whether you like them
or not). Another problem involves a deficiency in knowledge of history or
selective knowledge of history. This book will go a long way to correct
this problem. It even discusses many controversies from multiple
viewpoints. 
Logical fallacies are fewer than listed in this book, and the book makes
it known that there are many systems of logic. From page 263 (in my
edition, first page of Chapter ten) is this sentence: "...the canonical
logic of ancient China, the grammatical logic of ancient India [see, I'm
not biased against India/Indians like some Indians think], the syllogistic
logic of Aristotle, the dichotomous logic of Ramus, and the mathematical
logic of Russell and Whitehead are among the most familiar." 
You will be surprised. 
Page 337 is a list. Here are the main categories: 
Fallacies of Question-Framing (and ten sub-categories)
Fallacies of Factual Verification (and ten sub-categories)
Fallacies of Factual Significance (and eleven sub-categories)
Fallacies of Generalization (and twelve sub-categories)
Fallacies of Narration (and fourteen sub-categories)
Fallacies of Causation (and nine sub-categories)
Fallacies of Motivation (and eight sub-categories)
Fallacies of Composition (and nine sub-categories)
Fallacies of False Analogy (and seven sub-categories)
Fallacies of Semantical Distortion (and seven sub-categories)
Fallacies of Substantive Distraction (and sixteen sub-categories) 
113 total if my rusty arithmetic is right. 
All of you guys who think you "glow in the dark," have angel wings, and
saintly bright halo over your head should read this book and become
enlightened a little and humbled a lot. 
Then all of you guys who think that only the USA ever made wars on anyone,
and made bad wars, too, need to read some serious history about the wars
before the USA even existed and the other countries besides the USA
where large armies existed and existed long ago, and killed many many
people. Kshatriyas were warriors built into Hindu society, too, since
2000+ years ago so don't blame me but look in the mirror and open your eyes. 
Funny you guys don't talk about Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Imperial
China with another 3,000+ years of Emperor/Dynasty history (more wars,
many dozens, Ghengis Khan and Mongol Empire, the Empires of pre-Columbian
America/MesoAmerica [Aztecs, Mayas, Xtecs, Incas] who also carried out
organized warfare, and warfare in sub-Saharan Africa, etc.). 
In addition to this we have very wrong approaches, we use wrong parameters when
we evaluate events, issues, persons and things.
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2009/10/peace-and-non-violence-harmony-and.html
While exploring the facts we must desist getting distracted from the following major traps:-
1] Mutilating the facts,
2] Analyzing them with preconceived notions or prejudices,
3] Generalizing the particular and particularizing the general,
4] Approaching facts with unloving criticism or uncritical love,
5] Evaluating facts with our pet isms or philosophies,
6] Resorting to statistical justifications,
7] Unleashing unworkable utopia,
8] Mask them with logical fallacies,
9] Bury them in pleasant jargons, and
10] Give historical justifications.

Advice on advice

Some advice on advice

                          Some advice on advice

VAN ROY’S SECOND LAW:

“If you can distinguish between good advice and bad advice, then you don’t need advice”.

I have followed one great advice and that is not to follow any advice or any adviser.

It has a corollary in Fox Law: “To decide not to decide is a decision. To fail to decide is a failure”.

I do not want to lose the prerogative to experiment and experience life in my own way through my own stupidities.

However, at the same time when wisdom gained through previous experience by enlightened great souls is available ready made it would be unwise to overlook it or not use it as Isaac Newton says, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

But excessive blind following of the beaten tracks may not enable us to generate or create new avenues or worse still may not even make us see other healthy pastures around.

We need to strike a balance and cautiously choose to get influenced or be indifferent or ignore.

Both proliferation of advices as well as conscious avoidance of them emanate more or less from the same sources.

This ambivalent position viz à viz advices is more so in a society like our present time with excess of communication and nexus of newer horizons.

We are a society ever willing to choose and swing between adopting

anarchy for expediency but

binding belief for benefit;

compromising for convenience but

desisting out of sheer  unfulfilled deep rooted desires;

encouraging everyone else to be broad minded but

fending off faith disturbing findings;

generous in advices for others but

hypocritically hiding oneself  behind healthy public views and filthy private practices;

instigating others not to get insulated in ideologies but

jilt anything that disturbs one’s own ideological  insulation ;

kindle kindness in others but

leave even loved ones in lurch;

mock at lack of motivation but

negate any participation through nuanced excuses;

object to preaching by others but

preaching others constantly;

questioning the reasons and relevance for everything but

requiring unquestionable acceptance of one’s own reasons;

savoring scandals and sensational news about others with selective  amnesia but 
tacitly toe one’s own scandalous activities ;

unleash unloving criticism on others' ambitions but

vilely  venerate with uncritical love one’s own ambitions;

wantonly and wisely ignore one’s own grave mistakes but

x-ray into others’ minor short comings;

yoking others to share one’s burdens but

zapping them in good times.

Advices present themselves in black and white but with a grey area of uncertainty where we must not linger on too long.

Aiding to accept or Advancing ambivalence;

                                                         

Developing decision making or Deepening the dilemma;

Vital validation or Valueless verbal jargon;

Interference and intrusion or Instructive and interesting input;

Caring confidence booster enabling to choose or Carefree comment and criticism;

Educative, empowering and enlightening engagement or Empty expressions ensconced in hypocrisy and jealousy.

All these remind me of George Bernard Shaw’s famous observation:-

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself.

All progress depends upon the unreasonable man”.

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/01/advices.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/03/humaneness-over-tall-philosophy-and.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2017/03/social-engineering-roles-and-rules-of.html

Media masks

Sickening business with masks of assigning labels, biased belittling, counter culture cartels, divisive deliberations, hidden agendas, insulated ideologies, manipulating mass opinions, simmering selectivity, ideological overtones, political undercurrents , victim hood peddling….A to Z of your  sectarianism is getting exposed. We have a research team that is working on media bias and their declining popularity across the globe

 

Abundance of appropriations and assigning of labels;

Belittling based on biases;

Cocooning inside crafty cartels of counter culture;

Deliberating always to divide;

Expressions enforcing entrenched exchanges;

Filtering to find and flog favorite foes;

Getting inside a garb to get glamour of Grand standing;

Harboring hypocritically the hidden agendas;

Innuendos to instigate others and insulate ideological identity;

Judging everyone and everything as a judge all exponents;

Kindling every kind of animosity to keep your profession afloat;

Leveraging on lurking Left over loyalties;

Manipulating mass opinions as part of media mafia;

Neutralizing counter narratives neatly thorough

Overtones of

Politicized perverted patronizing and preachy presentations;

Questionable

Reviews and revelations all

Simmering with sleazy selectivity;

Tedious thought provocations to toe

Undercurrents of unashamed peddling of

Victim hood as a viable or valuable business

Wrecking wisdom of working on positive options and solutions;

X-raying endlessly to find faults and fractures to enhance the

Yield out of victim hood peddling business by

Zooming and zapping selectively many facets of humanity to suit your own identity.

Sex -what it is ? Is it a delight or dilemma ?

1. I would like to broach this subject, which is hidden away through hypocrisies, taboos and morality.

2. However, before I proceed further I would like to appreciate your boldness and openness to discuss such subject in our society.

3. I would like to make certain general observations as to why none of us are able to address this topic adequately at all without some sort of uneasiness or hypocrisy or bias or all of these and many more irrelevant inhibitions.

4. What are all the mistakes that all of us commit that ensure that status quo of puerile projections, putrefied perspectives and petrified perceptions on this topic.

5. Some taboos are tirelessly tugged in through traditions and reinforced with religious righteousness.

6. Such taboos move from innocent compliance to ignorant reverence to irrational veneration.

7. Then, they gradually and helplessly hang as pendulums of moral standards swinging between logically fallacies and illogical fantasies leading to phobias [morbid fears] and philias [obsessive likings].

8. Any society which refuses to come out of the cocoon of all its religiously sanctioned traditions and rituals- whatever be the aura of greatness around them or the good intentions and practical utility as well in some case at the time of their initial or original evolution - cannot deal with the constantly changing and metamorphosing natural evolutionary trends of life.

9. At least educated people must refrain from looking for ancient scriptural justifications either as references to vindicate or reject or explain issues, problems, ideas in the present context.

10. Before we proceed on any topic we need to take into account certain inevitable laws of nature which as facts of life need to be repeated like breath whenever we deal with any issue.

11. They may be briefly classified as:-

A] Variety is not only the spice of life but the very source and necessity of living;

B] Every aspect [physical, psychological, emotional, social, spiritual etc] of every life [I mean living creature] has multiple dimensions and each dimension may have a multitude of dynamics inherent as well as capable of influencing the surroundings and generating its own context, or impacted by external influences and changes in contexts or situation to adopt harmoniously with the evolutionary trends in all spheres;

C] Besides all these, they also operate with varying degrees of intensities at different times;

D] Most importantly irrespective of whether one can observe these, perceive these or accept these, all these are inter-related and inter-connected and often inter-dependent as well in ways which need not always be decipherable to the logical and intellectual perceptions and interpretations because human perceptions by themselves are inherently fallible in many aspects.

E] So, we must tread very carefully while evaluating or judging anyone or anything by avoiding these things. While exploring the facts we must desist getting distracted from the following major traps:-

Mutilating the facts,
Analyzing them with preconceived notions or prejudices,
Generalizing the particular and particularizing the general,
Approaching facts with unloving criticism or uncritical love,
Evaluating facts with our pet isms or philosophies,
Resorting to statistical justifications,

Unleashing unworkable utopia,
Mask them with logical fallacies,
Bury them in pleasant jargons, and
Give historical justifications.

F] We must most importantly desist from extrapolating any belief, doctrine, edict, ideology, ism etc while evaluating anything.

12. Having observed all these when we discuss sex  we must close the door , I mean figuratively, to all the things which have only secondary importance because only then we can have clarity about what is sex?

13. Primary it is a natural physical aspect of all living species. However, in human beings it has to take into consideration civilized and humane aspects as well as refinement to harmoniously co- exist as social creatures with certain reasonable self restraints.

14. The above statement may sound over simplistic or overbearingly sermonizing but in reality it is too complex and involves a whole gamut of feelings from mere satisfaction of uncontrolled lust to expression of very nice and sophisticated love.

15] It may probably bring into focus my favorite quote from William James, “In the end nothing less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything at all”.

16] These are all the complexities which render what has to be simple delight into a dilemma.

17] One need not fix its importance too simplistically like Henry Miller when he said, “Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant”.

18] Or one need not glorify it as some supra human feeling that needs a socially and religiously sanctified anointment with some paraphernalia.

19] First, most Indian parents need to be told that even in applied science subjects there is hardly any actual practical training. So, sex education definitely will not have practical experiments, it is just sex education and not sex training.

20] So, definitely the children, nowadays above 6 years-as the urge may surge at any time, must be slowly taught about various aspects of sex purely as a very important aspect of life.

21] Sex crept into the realm of morality very late in human history.

22] The following links will elaborate on various aspects referred to in the above write up. They are not mere words secreted as verbal diarrhea or opinions peddled to convince or to judge or justify anything as right or wrong but to enable one to take some balanced view of things with undiluted facts and reality.  

https://www.scribd.com/doc/97901860/Morality-is-Just-Contextual1

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2017/03/social-engineering-roles-and-rules-of.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/04/humans-analytics-algorithms-and-media.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/02/real-perception.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/11/context-and-contextual-priorities.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2017/02/inherent-meaningattributeslogicbeauty.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/05/life-unending-puzzle-lessons-of-life.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/intellectual-what-it-is-or-who-it-is.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2017/04/humiliation-hacking-and-dignity.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/12/new-year-with-new-realization-of-reality.html

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/02/valentines-day-and-all-about-love.html

Cricket the nostalgia that was

Cricket - the nostalgia that was ….
I was just given the above title and asked to write.
The beauty of the English language is that it is so tensile and pliable and its words and phrases derive different strengths and subtleties in different contexts that sometimes the carapace of connotations covers the real denotation far below.  
So, at times particular forms of the words –i.e. spelling- which seem to indicate even a specific tense in chronological time does not necessarily confine itself to that but goes on to convey a collective feeling.
Here the term ‘was’ does not indicate something that is no more there nor something that has lost its luster and life any less but it conveys the constant nostalgia that the followers of the game continue to have.
When anything causes nostalgia it indicates a very deep rooted relationship that has permeated one’s subconscious level and rests well ensconced there.
Nostalgic feeling as a revisit in memory or in imagination or in reality with a mix of both regional flavors and relationships [i.e. when we relate with interest and involvement] mostly refreshes the whole being.
The essence of nostalgia is when the recapitulation of feelings strikes the same resonance in our hearts as they did when we watched them.
The greatness of sports is that for every nation there is/are some sports which evoke this relationship spontaneously as a collective psychological manifestation with heights of crazy following that makes every person cutting across all differences to prioritize the sports page of a new paper that make us often wonder why have not the news papers made the popular sporting events of respective countries as the front page and as the main headlines.
Every nation or region gets glued to or has a fancy for particular sports and can go crazy forgetting everything else.

Sometimes, certain sporting events unite people without any inhibition and also almost take them to a state of meditative intensity and involvement which is both relaxing and refreshing for everyone.

The human beings in the subcontinent as a species has collectively not only accepted but also fell in love and excelled in certain things that the colonial rulers had brought along, chief among them are the English Language and the game of Cricket.

These things the human race in the subcontinent did so because it felt their necessity, utility, beauty , charm, certain rational justifications too based on some inherent psychological universal tendencies as well as specific characteristics:-

Universal tendencies emanating out of joy of competition deploying various skill sets and gambling every tactics to win and

The specific characteristics of Indian psyche for emphasis on individual improvisation over harmony [the manodharma in music] and tendency to use anarchy to its advantage- be it getting recommendation letter for school admission, driving past red light in signals, or opting for special queues in temples.

If we are able to see the connectivity the game of cricket fits into many of these categories.
 
Sir Neville Cardus puts it aptly, “The laws of cricket tell of the English love of compromise between a particular freedom and a general orderliness, or legality.”

He also famously calls it as a game of ‘glorious uncertainities’.

Uncertainty factors are too many; surprisingly including the ground size and it is perhaps one of its many surprise elements which make it more interesting.
We all need to live with certain universal facts like fortune is fluctuating; fluke is fickle in any walk of life; form is temporary; failures are inevitable.
Anything that has an in built provision beyond prescribed rules [either comprehensive or curtailing or confining] to allow scope for the extremes of aesthetic exuberance as well the liberty for errant emotions and evolutions, is much preferred, more adopted and most appreciated by the majority of human beings because such a thing allows the manifestations and expressions of myriads of human thoughts, aspirations, imaginations, emotions, feelings, psychological states and reactions.

The underlining factor is the recognition of boundless variety as an aspect of life and nature.

It becomes more exciting and interesting when more elements of uncertainties and unpredictable factors get in to feed to human instincts of suspense and /or surprise leading to multiple changing kaleidoscopic colorful patterns.  

This applies in almost all domains of life.

For example it was precisely for this reason that language scores over art and music as a medium of communication.

Though sometimes music appeals better and deeper to the soul but gets curtailed by the range of the voice/pitch or the permutation combinations of the sounds that the instrument can produce and art strikes an immediate and instinctive chord in human beings but gets curtailed by the size of the canvass and shades of paints.

When we discuss any game, for example football, tennis, basket ball ,hockey, baseball  no one can change the size of the playing arena nor can anyone change the number of coins in a chess board or a carom board, but when it comes to cricket there are grounds where the length of the field on square is under 60 ft and there are some where it is more than 85 ft, this coupled with many other variants like the pitch conditions, climatic conditions like windy , rainy and so on make the game of cricket in all its formats as glorious, as popular, as pliant, as appealing , as inclusive, as open to change and therefore as expanding as the English language itself.
Again to quotes Sir Neville Cardus, “We remember not the scores and the results in after years; it is the men who remain in our minds, in our imagination.”
When a sporting event touches the pulse of the nation through the hearts of its supporters no wonder that every other aspect of life is pushed to the background, so it is senseless to mourn that other sports do not get similar treatments or fan following. No logical or ideological extrapolation can make any sense here and in a way resorting to such extrapolation by itself is illogical as the love for the sport is driven by immense subjective and personal passion above anything else.

As no critic of English literature can afford to miss reading or quoting from Harold Bloom who sums up very briefly, "Literary criticism, as I attempt to practice it”, in The Anatomy of Influence, "is in the first place literary, that is to say, personal and passionate."


In matters of taste, trends, traditions let us not look of socialistic justifications nor even attempt to sully them with such ideologies nor try to rationalize human behavior. After victory of the favorite team the whole nation gets into a joyous riot mode.
 
      While most avid followers of the game for more than a decade, would be well aware of the history, mystery and the mighty legends of yore of the game.

  I would like to intentionally confine even the nostalgia to a period of maximum 50 years for two reasons one as the recapitulation of feelings must strike the same resonance in our hearts as when we watched them. Therefore, it would be difficult for people even in their 60s to connect fully with the great natural genius of Gary Sobers or Len Hutton and two due to space constraints.

  For want of space I am also confining to highlighting aspects of batting, probably the more difficult art of bowling deserves a separate column.

 And finally the in this column I would also like to highlight the exploits of one of the most complete batsman of the recent past.

 Fortunately the internet offers us accessibility to some great displays of batting, bowling and fielding of the remote past.

     Cricket unites all Indian more than anything else on earth including the concern for their own life.
     
      So, everyone gets involved with varying degrees of attention, time devoted and importance in some way or other.

     It is the biggest sports cum entertainment industry of the nation with a few lakh individuals participating      actively, benefiting and making their livelihood and a few million others passively, passionately and indirectly savoring it.

     Raw talent and genius prop up on the national scene but unless they are methodically groomed with certain bench marks and well set goals then in the long run all the raw talent will go unutilized or underutilized as it happens to many potential great players in Pakistan and Caribbean Islands. The West Indian teams of 70s faded along with retirement of its extraordinarily talented players due to lack methodical grooming, the Pakistan of early 90s vanished the same way, the Australian team of late 90s to 2000 went the same way, though they have bounced back every now and then, the Indian teams of last decade need not go the same way as Indians can and must bounce back like the Aussies.
     
      We need to hatch ability out of potentiality and make it deliver optimum utility through methodical training, encouragement and care.

While statistics  favors the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara; brilliance and brutal attacking and taking the game away from opposition favors the likes of Vivian Richards, Virendra Shewag; technical perfection favors the likes of Sunil  Gavaskar, Geoffrey Boycott ; dogged perseverance, solid defense and ability to stay on to save the game favors the likes Rahul Dravid, Steve Waugh; artistic wrist work favors the like of the great Gary Sobers, V.V.S. Lakshman; turning the game with multiple tricks in batting favors the likes of  Javid Miandad,
Michael Bevan; taking  aggression as the mode under any condition favors the likes of Adam Gilchrist, Clive
Lloyd; brutal power hitting favors the likes of Collis King, Gordon Greenidge ; deft flicks favors the likes of David Gower, Kallicharan;  making the bowling side clueless and forcing them to  adopt drastic measures favors the likes of the great Don Bradman;  flamboyance favors all-rounders who were also natural batsmen like
Kapil Dev, Ian Botham; new stroke introduction favors the likes of  the helicopter shot specialist Mahenra
Singh Dhoni, Scoop shot specialist Dilshan, upper cut Shewag; sheer elegance favors the likes of Rohan
Kanhai, Kallicharan ; On drive  specialization favors the likes of Greg Chappell, Mark Waugh, Dilip
Vengsarkar; off side shots favor the likes of Sourav Ganguli; hook shot specialization favors the likes of Roy Fredricks; pull shot favors the likes of  Ricky Ponting; square cut favors the likes of G.R. Vishwanath , David boon ; sweep shots favors the likes of  Alan Knot;  reverse sweep [being a new stroke] favors the likes of AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell ; walking down the wicket and attempting wild hits terrorizing the bowlers favors the likes of Krishnamachary Srikanth, Matthew Hayden and so on.
There is one batsman who has certain extraordinary brilliance that sets him apart and aloft from the rest? He retired a few years back.
Most
Athletic
Highly
Elegant
Lovely
Artist of cricket with his

Jumping Jabs,
Audacious lofted shots,
Yummy late cuts,
Adroit placements,
Whacking the loose balls coupled with
Alacritous
Running between the wickets,
Deft drives
Elegant flicks,
Nudges nicely sliced
Elegance personified batting bits farewell to test cricket.

In his retirement from test cricket we miss one of the greatest cricketers of all times, especially this  Most
Adroit
Hooker
Expert in
Last minute
Adjustments to


Judiciously
Approach even
Yorkers
And
Wisely flick
Around the legs to
Run them just beyond the
Diving  
Extensively stretched gloves of the wicket keeper and
Nonchalantly plays
Elegantly and most importantly naturally with both hands with the same power, flamboyance, flexibility etc

What is so special about his batting that he must be ranked as one of the greatest unique and rare genius of the art of batting   is his natural flexibility, firmness, finesse, flamboyance and a spontaneous ability to swiftly shift all these qualities from his right hand to left hand and vice versa along with quick reflex combined with a fluency to change naturally the required push and pull of his legs like the train engines, all the while balancing his body like a ballet dancer and keeping his head straight and with all this his ability to appropriately change gears, adopt to different formats, never getting struck on a single mode of playing, nor super imposing or overshadowing other batsmen to make the team to depend too much on him nor clamoring to emerge ever as the super hero of Srilankan cricket, nor attempting to show unwanted bravado even when on a song. There is always a serenity and touch of tender nicety about his batting befitting his name ‘ Mahela as mentioned in the link below [http://www.quickbabynames.com/meaning-of-Mahela.html]. Incidentally the word Mahela in Arabic I am given to understand through Google means tenderness and/or marrow. He represented the marrow of natural artistic batting.


He has been aptly very often compared to the Kelani river  of Srilanka in terms the multiple value and utility that he has provided to the Sri Lankan team , incidentally for those who may not know the kelani river  supplies major amount of the water used in many parts of Srilanka, used for other purposes like transportation, fishing, sewage disposal, sand mining , hydroelectricity etc
Sir Neville Cardus, “Like the British constitution, cricket was not made: it has 'grown'”
I would like to add that it continues to grow with greater glory, glamour, garnering interest in more regions of the globe, gearing up to the changing dynamics of spectator expectations and metamorphosing into multiple formats, giving more entertainment and generating better revenues.