Marriages arranged?

Arranged marriages – For me the word itself is strange. But more than 80 % of marriages are arranged in India.

I am sure that there many arranged marriages that are successful, but what about the ones that are not? For me the concept itself is a little strange – it is so similar to how a business deal is struck – both parties agree, cash settlements are made, property and net worth is assessed and the merger is completed.

For me, I have been told from the time I was a kid that arranged marriages are good and love marriages bad…The message in itself used to confuse me. Every Tamil film I saw and every TV show I watched was only about love and couples falling in love. I am sure you will agree that 80% of Indian movies are taken on the subject of young people falling in love. Yet there seems to be a mass disapproval when people actually do that in real life.

Are films escapist? Are the directors cashing in on the fact that the majority of their viewers’ marriages are going to be arranged and hence their films provide the escape route – love, romance & fantasy.

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India’s best performance at the Olympics? Pathetic!

India’s won only three medals in the Beijing Olympics 2008, but our media is painting the town red with celebrations that a new India has emerged in sports. Rubbish!

The only remarkable thing about the whole show was that India despite a population exceeding a billion with around half of them under the age of 25, managed to give its usual measly performance this time around and our media consoled itself by glorifying the few winners, who made it despite the odds against them. Poverty, lack of political will, malnutrition, poor infrastructure, lack of sponsorship (only cricket and horse racing seem to fare well monetarily), equipment, corruption, lack of organization, social immobility….the list is endless as to what’s wrong with India in the Olympics.

And take a look at the winners – Abhinav Bindra, 25 from Chandigarh, won a gold in the 10-meter air rifle competition, Vijender Kumar, 23, a bus driver’s son from a village about 80 miles from here, won a bronze in boxing and Sushil Kumar, 24, who learnt to wrestle in the dirt on the outskirts of Delhi, also won a bronze. All of them, unlike the other Olympic champions – did not train wearing Nike shoes, in AC gyms or in a place remotely resembling a Olympian launch pad.

But as fellow-blogger, god of 86 says, by Indian standards this has been an extremely productive Olympics.

According to several statistics, India is the country in the world with the lowest number of total Olympic medals per capita. Year after year large countries – Russia, US and China, dominate the Olympic Games medal ranks.

In 2000, India came last but second in the 82 countries that participated. This table shows the number of Olympic medals won per million inhabitants in the Sydney Olympic Games 2000.

75	Sri Lanka	0.05	1	19,238,575
76	Thailand	0.05	3	61,230,874
77	China	0.05	59	1,261,832,482
78	Indonesia	0.03	6	224,784,210
79	Colombia	0.03	1	39,685,655
80	Nigeria	0.02	3	123,337,822

81	Vietnam	0.01	1	78,773,873
82	India	0.00	1	1,014,003,817

Which is the most successful Olympic Nation ? Definitely not India.

Another informal statistics, shows India at bottom place

122	118	118		Vietnam	80	08	2	87375	6.528	0.04
123	117	117		Iraq	48	08	1	28993	10.452	0.03
124				Sudan	60	08	1	39379	9.178	0.03
125	119	119		India	48	08	15	1129866	10.452	0.01

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