I have the latest issue of the ‘Outlook’ magazine lying next to my bed and it asks a pertinent question on its year end cover – Was 2008 India’s ‘annus horibilis’? It’s a question that occurred to yours truly sometime around Diwali, when in a moment of somber reflection, memories of the previous ten months came flitting by. A year that even till then, had been a blood soaked one. A year that had seen multiple bomb blasts (worryingly most of them caused by home grown terrorists), had seen reverse terrorism by a section of the Hindu right, had witnessed brazen vandalization of churches and attacks on its faithful across Orissa and Karnataka, had given enough perceived reasons for the majority to doubt the minority, had seen politics plumb to newer depths with wads of notes being placed on Parliament’s table and had brought with it the final nail in the coffin of the once glorious and golden national sport of hockey.

At that moment of reflection, I quickly dismissed the thought. We had seen worse and we had overcome it. During my own cognitive lifetime, 1992, the spring of 2002 and the summer of 2000 had been much more depressing times on account of different reasons. But as Mumbai singed, struggled and wept my heart sank with it. Those four helpless days of end November, while not shaking my faith in the structures bestowed upon us by the founding fathers, made me question to a great extent our honesty and sincerity in preserving and improving them. We might be a nation of young people, with a fast growing economy and skilled population, with a mostly tolerant and cordial multi-cultural society but, and this is a significant but, if we are not honest towards our nation and our ideals we will be like a beautifully dressed ship standing in the middle of the ocean with no fuel to propel us towards safer shores; sitting still and vulnerable to plunder of every passing pirate.

So was 2008 India’s year of horror and will 2009 with its promise of continuing economic downturn, a divided polity, unending terror, troublesome and failed neighbors be year of horror raised to the power two?

No, says the ever erudite and balanced Ramachandra Guha in the middle of the ‘Outlook’ issue. No, if you lived through 1948 (the year of Gandhi’s death, Kashmir war and continuing displacement of partition in a new, uncertain nation) or through 1984 (the real annus horibilis if you ask me – Sikh terror, Operation Bluestar, Punjab under martial law, Indira Gandhi’ death, massive riots in Delhi and the Bhopal gas tragedy – a black year of death). With not much to be optimistic about as we turn gingerly into 2009, here’s to the one hope we can all carry – maybe 2009 will not be a 1984, maybe it will not even be a 2008; perhaps this nation will once again summon reserves of resolve that it did after the gloomy winters of 1984 and 1992. Despite the pessimism that surrounds us, yours truly is glad to be coming to you at the end of 2008 and not 1984.

There is no point to a year end post if I don’t subject you to a year end list, and you are perfectly excused if you want to put on your parachute and jump out of this web page now. Still I shall continue with my list, biased towards a natural Indian perspective, but still containing some global names and achievements. If you are still reading, then you may agree or disagree – either way you are perfectly entitled to add/ delete to or modify this list.

Event and person of the year: On a slightly cold early winter morning, change came to America. As Barack Obama accepted his victory in front of a packed Chicago park, the world watched, many with hope, some with uncertainty and some with disillusionment. No one backed him when in January he pitted himself against the might of the Clinton machine. Obama’s achievement was not that he won or for that matter that he won as a black man, but in the fact that he won by remaining honest to his beliefs and ideology. It is a fact which you realize after reading his brilliant book ‘The Audacity of Hope’. Throughout his campaign, Obama never shied away from confronting the tricky, thorny issues that define the fault lines of America today. When faced with embarrassing comments made by his black pastor about 9/11, Obama gave perhaps the best speech of his entire campaign. In an honest appraisal of America’s doubts he talked of how blacks still faced subtle economic and political resistance, of how the nation had still not pulled them out of their ghettos; but was balanced enough to point out that if his elderly grandmother felt uncomfortable when walking across two young black men on the street, then there had to be something wrong with the way they conducted themselves. He did not back down from questioning the commitment of young black fathers who abandon their kids and called for more responsibility to be taken by the community (you almost wish someone would cajole the Indian Muslim community the same way). Often accused of talking down to the blacks, Obama won neither because or despite his racial color. He won because he represented a fresh, honest and balanced face to America. There is much he stands to lose. Cynicism can quickly replace hope; events can quickly overwhelm individuals and Obama faces a Mt.Everest of problems on hand. The world watches as Obama sizes up the peak – the price of disillusionment will be high.

Worst call of the year: Political analysts might debate if John McCain’s presidency bid would have turned out differently had he not picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. One thing though, seems sure, McCain would have commanded a lot more respect and maybe even votes had the bimbo from Alaksa stayed as far away from his campaign as Anchorage is from New York. As the pitbull turned hockey mom slipped from one embarrassment to another, America found a reason to laugh amidst the economic gloom. The much proclaimed ‘Palin Effect’ did come, but in a direction reverse than that in which it was supposed to go. Now she wants to run for President in 2012. I can’t wait for the jokes to begin. Palin confirmed that age old adism – style without substance never sells.

Political coup of the year: No, this isn’t a military coup – it’s a coup that Manmohan Singh managed to pull off (with some help from another Singh) despite all the odds against him. When it seemed that the nuclear deal’s death was a ‘done deal’, Singh cocked a snook at the outdated Marxists, gave Prakash Karat a convenient goodbye and showed remarkable political acumen to bail his government out with considerable ease. Akshay Kumar acted in the movie but this year clearly there was another Singh who was King.

Gaffe of the year: I am spoilt for choice for this category. Not to be biased towards anyone’s propensity towards idiocity, it is fair that it should be shared by all the deserving. Simi Garewal for making us realize that our slums are mini-Pakistan, Narendra Modi for standing outside the battlefield of Oberoi Trident in Mumbai and showering his state’s crores on slain policemen, Sarah Palin (again!) for all her utterances, Oscar Fernandes for justifying the lynching of a corporate CEO and Mukhtar Naqvi of the BJP for making us look at the powdered and lipstick bearing faces of the women protesting against terror on our streets.

Worst business decision of the year: Granted that we are in difficult economic times, yet Jet Airways’ decision to sack around 1500 employees in one go secretly and without any notice period was nothing but an invitation to trouble. That the sacked employees, large enough in numbers to get organized and be noticed, went straight to the North Indian hating Raj Thackeray did not make matters any easy for Jet chairman Naresh Goyal. Overnight, he had a change of heart, realizing that the employees were like ‘family’ and he had responsibility towards them. This father won’t be shedding any extra kilos in the near future.

Villain of the year: But for Mumbai on 26/11, this award would have gone hands down to Raj Thackeray. The North Indian hater ‘marathi manoos’ caused much agony to his home city of Mumbai, made his goons bash up poor taxi drivers and railway exam students, tore away Mumbai’s remaining claims of cosmopolitanism and even managed to get the Marathi middle class to theoretically back his arguments. He was upstaged by his own city. Mumbai’s date with terror made Raj cower in fear in his home (his Sena all withdrew into their rat holes) and brought a new villain to our front pages – Ajmal Kasab might be a young gun toting brainwashed terrorist but he is symptomatic of our western neighbor that has no clue as to where it is going. Like Kasab, Pakistan is flailing its tentacles in all directions, firing mindlessly, hoping to catch anyone who comes in the line of fire. Yours truly has been calling it a failed state since the turn of the century. 2008 was the year when the world discovered this truth. As world opinion turned against it, Pakistan began the year with uncertainty (in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination), elected a civilian government, saw the exit of a discredited dictator and installation of a discredited politician as President, endured bomb blasts caused by its own monsters and ended the year short of being officially classified as a rogue state. Pakistan though lives in denial – it still believes that it can use its home grown militants to achieve ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan and bleed India with thousand cuts. The army remains unrepentant and unwilling to acknowledge its lack of control, the ISI is still a state within a state and Pakistan has now turned in to a whore state – throw some billions at them and you can make them agree to do what you want. Like a prostitute, Pakistan can give you fake pleasure but not sincerity of purpose.

Movie of the year: Without a second thought it has to be ‘The Dark Knight’. A movie that turned the concept of superhero comic flicks on its head. The beginnings of shades of reality began with the new Toby Maguire Spiderman movies, was carried on by Chris Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’ and finally came full circle with ‘The Dark Knight’. It was bleak, pessimistic, deep, and subtle with many layers of meaning and with surely one of the finest performances in a negative role in Hollywood history. How much did Heath Ledger’s premature death contribute to the movie’s success is a matter of speculation but Ledger is well on his way to a posthumous Oscar. The Knight acquires deeper significance in the environment of violence that we live in. In one of my favorite scenes from the movie, Batman’s butler Alfred narrates the tale of a Burmese thief of jewels who would hide in the jungles and steal valuables for pleasure. Alfred’s point being that some people are not after anything – they are in it for the sheer pleasure of anarchy they cause. When Batman asks as to how the Burmese thief was caught, Alfred nonchalantly replies that he wasn’t; the forest had to be burnt down. It illustrated the dilemmas that the protagonist of the movie and the world today face – whether the rules of civilization can be preserved in the fight against evil. The Joker calls upon people to spread anarchy, chaos, expect the unexpected and leave everything to random chance- see any resemblance with the mindless anarchy spread on our streets by gun wielding terrorists who want no money and no hostages? Like the Joker, they delight in seeing our disorder. The Dark Knight is perhaps then, a lot more relevant that what we might have thought it initially to be.

Failure of the year: The Australian cricket team. Ricky Ponting promised us new age cricket when he landed in India but instead oversaw the rise of a new age that promises to usher in an element of vulnerability in Australian cricket. After the disgrace of Sydney, Australia lost the off the field battle with the BCCI over the racism row and Ponting lost it on the field against a young gangly fast bowler from Delhi. Two consecutive lost tests at Perth, loss of their home one day series and a drubbing by an inspired Indian team – is it any wonder that Kevin Pietersen and England cant wait for the summer of 2009 to arrive and the Ashes to begin. The golden age of Aussie domination seems well and truly ‘over’.

Sporting moment of the year: In a year in which Indian cricket had much to cheer about and Indian hockey much to cry over, it is perhaps fitting that the list should recognize that one man who literally shot his nation to glory. Abhinav Bindra finally fulfilled his potential, shot a perfect round and in the terribly competitive world of shooting brought India its first individual Olympic gold. Whether this feat inspires more to emulate Bindra will depend upon whether Indian sports is governed by those who harbor love and affection for it. Indian sport can do with scheming Pawars and Dalmiyas but not with arrogant KPS Gills. Individually, MS Dhoni, Vishy Anand and Jeev Milkha Singh shined; Vijay Mallaya bought a sub standard team that gave a sub standard performance, both in F1 and IPL, Sachin Tendulkar exorcised ghosts of fourth innings failures, Virendra Sehwag found redemption, Saina Nehwal gained in stature and boxing promised current and future glory. But for the sheer weight of his achievement, Bindra upstaged them all. His victory was truly well its weight in gold.

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One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons is the one in which a daydreaming Calvin is suddenly woken up in his Geography class by his teacher Miss Wormwood. Oblivious to her question, Calvin gets a shock when Wormwood screams at him, “Calvin! Pay Attention! Now what state do you live in?!” A puzzled Calvin immediately responds with glee “Denial”, much to the exasperation of the hapless Miss Wormwood. Viewing and hearing the events and happenings of the last few days, you would think everyone around is living in a state of denial. Everyone, except the man on the road. For long, it was the average Joe traveling on a local bus or a suburban train who bore the brunt of our violent urban upheavals. Then came the turn of the middle class salaried professional and employees, shaken out of their assured world of housing EMIs, car loans and daily grind of work emails. Now it’s the elite; the swish set who even take a coffee break in a five star hotel; people you would find making a beeline in their expensive luxury cars to grab a table at the latest gourmet sensation at the swankiest of five star hotels. Across the spectrum, all the three sets of people are angry. Angry at those all around them who live in a state of denial.

Our political establishment is the obvious target and this time they have taken it in the full, smack in the middle of the face. And of course, they haven’t done themselves any favors by completely refusing to recognize the magnitude of the events that has struck the nation. Perhaps it is a different world that they inhabit, insulated from the grime, dust and above all insecurities of life outside of security cordon. You only had to hear Narendra Modi, RR Patil, the Kerala CM and Mukhtar Naqvi to realize how trivial our concerns are for them and how condescending they think they are being when hear what we have to say. What Naqvi and the Kerala CM expressed was nothing short of ridicule against those demanding some answers from them. Of course, theirs is a state of denial which refuses to believe that not every family in India wants a political spectacle made out of the martyrdom of its son and that in a democracy people, irrespective of the cost of their lipstick brand, have a right to peaceful protests that raise questions.
Modi and Patil along with Vilasrao Deshmukh live in a world where the concept of ‘sensibility’ does not exist. For Modi, it is essential to prove that he is the martial answer for the effete Hindu religion against a marauding Islam that threatens to swamp India. Hence, there he was, with absolutely no business to be standing at an encounter site in another state, holding forth on how the treasury of his prosperous Gujarat will be opened for an officer whom he believed to be anti-national and anti-Hindu a few days ago. My suggestion at that point of time was that Modi should have been made some use of and ushered into the Oberoi Trident by the NSG. His self proclaimed ‘chhappan ki chaathi’ (chest with a size of 56) could have been utilized as a safety shield by the battling commandos and we would all have found out how martially gifted our latest prime ministerial aspirant actually is. Patil and Deshmukh have of course done an admirable job of shepherding Mumbai from one disaster to another – each time they have been Neros watching the spectacle of a burning Rome; be it the floods (an annual occurrence now), train blasts, Raj Thackeray’s violence or the latest terror strike. Not once, has either one of them made an effort to connect with those they govern and offered either an understanding of emotional upheaval or showed grace in their response to the situation in hand. Instead, we have witnessed statements dismissing the attack as any other and the conducting of guided tourist tours for the CM’s friends. Taking your actor son along to a terror site may not be improper, but in a city singing with anger and despair, it smacks of a complete inability to comprehend the nature of the event and its impact on those affected by it.

The Indian state lives in its own world of denials – a world whether words can substitute action, where loyalty commands a greater price in the market than competence, where it is believed by those running the reins of the establishment that setting up committees rather than acting on implementation of their recommendations is enough to take care of a charged public opinion. The State it seems in complete denial about any need for reform, blind to the deficiencies and inadequacies of its intelligence apparatus. Faced with an angered electorate, the State is extending a long rope for itself – it needs to act and let me repeat again ‘it needs to ACT’ before that rope turns into a noose around its neck.

Like India, Pakistan too has put on the blinds. We may deny our need to reform but our neighbor denies the dilemmas of its existence. And now its military ‘establishment’ refuses to accept the presence of the monsters crawling under its bed, monsters that may lash out at a passer by with their extended claws but which would not hesitate a moment to turn inward and search for prey. Pakistan is a nation that faces a deep internal catharsis, it has a frontier that it cannot govern, it has a government that cannot take any hard decisions and it has an army that is adamant on the fact that it can sleep with the tiger at home and let it hunt abroad. Simply put, the army refuses to acknowledge the extent of the threat, stressing that it still has control, that it can talk and temper its terror machine. It’s an army that is yet to lose faith in its Frankenstein. By the time it does, there may not be a nation left for the soldiers to defend. And the price will be paid by the larger neighborhood where the brimming cup of instability will overflow.

But while nations on our eastern and western frontiers sink into a quagmire we must not fail on two counts. The country is disturbed and impatient and demanding action. And the state, to ensure its legitimacy must give them the same. While it’s essential to handle both Pakistan and Bangladesh with deft diplomacy, we must urgently raise the heights of our walls even if our options are limited with respect to use of force beyond them. Internal security has been crying for reform for decades and we have paid a heavy price for our bureaucratic ignorance. We must not, any longer. This author does not need to draft a ‘to do’ list for the incumbents in power. Numerous committees, appointed by different governments, have submitted relevant recommendations. Those measures deserve a better place than a babu’s dust filled closet. They must, literally, see the light of the day.

Let this be a warning to the Indian state. The citizens may not want a military invasion of Pakistan, but they do crave for a sense of security, and even more than that for a sense of action and a certain degree of sensitivity towards their losses. Any State that fails to meet these expectations stands to lose its citizens’ loyalty and faith – the first step in turning a man into an anarchist is to make him believe that he has no stake in the system and that the system does not exist for him. We must not allow such a path to appear.

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Hope and dreams are two much abused words. Overused, oversold and perhaps exaggerated on occasions. They have this intangible quality to them that makes the hard nosed realists amongst us to treat them with their opposite feeling – cynicism. Both hope and dreams carry with them a cruel companion named reality that does not always allow them to reach their intended junctions. But hope is a foundation for action and dreams a foundation for ambitions. They are the first tentative, hazy steps in a journey called realization.

Barack Obama reached one stage of that journey today as he became the first African American to claim the Presidency, an attainment that this author had certainly not thought possible for another two decades and many of his slightly more cynical friends, during their entire lifetimes. But Obama is now at the summit of political power – and he has been propelled there by the intangibles of hope, change and dreams that we often dismiss as being out of place characters in the political drama. Across the United States, Obama, a political greenhorn in terms of his Washington experience, has performed two actions that few politicians are able to achieve – transcend barriers of identity and make people believe that they have a stake. He is not a black President, for blacks could simply have not voted him into power. He has projected himself as the American president, consistently called for an end to the bitter divides between liberal and conservatives, white and black, Democrat and Republican. By acknowledging concerns on both sides of the debate he has brought a tone of moderation into his political language. He risked his credibility amongst blacks by calling for them for being more responsible as a community and as individuals, and also staked his white votes by reminding them that the animosity of racial discrimination still haunted the poorest of America’s communities. He has won by talking to the people and not at them. Credit it to his rhetoric, ideas or just youthful energy but he has made young Americans believe that they can change the way the nation is governed by casting their ballots. It’s no surprise that his win has come on the back of large voter turnout and that many first time voters went with him. Young men and women are more perceptive to the happenings around them, more aware of their surroundings and across the world more and more cynical about their political systems and the vested interests that govern them. Obama has made them believe in the political process and that is an achievement in itself.

But make no mistakes; this is not a rout as the Electoral College vote will tell you. Obama has won a 52-47 popular vote mandate, which still reflects a nation with two halfs at odds with each other. In his book ‘The Audacity of Hope’, Obama talks of how President Bush was emboldened and gung ho after a 51-49 victory over John Kerry in 2004 and how the White House had forgotten that there was a section of America that hadn’t voted for it. In his acceptance speech, Obama talked of being a President also for those whose support he had not won; of listening to his people, particularly when they disagreed with him. He would need to live up to his word, for in a Washington now set to be ruled by Democrats, a humble and gracious President would need to engage in dialogue to overcome the bipartisanship that he mentions as disturbing in his experiences. Obama, the author, critiques how ‘we paint our faces blue and red and cheer our side and boo the other; and if takes a cheap shot or a late hit to win the game then so be it, for it seems that winning is all that matters.’ An Obama presidency will need to avoid the same pitfalls.

It would not be wrong to say that in this moment America needed an Obama as president more than he needed the seat himself; simply because of the message it sends to the world. I am not a romantic and don’t think that America’s problems will be solved in his tenure but Obama’s election signals a shift of view point in America. It signals a break from old prejudices, from hidden biases of the ‘Bradley Effect’, from the Guns, God and Gays rhetoric of the neo-right. But more importantly it symbolizes an electorate willing to choose ability over identity – the very principle of foundation of the American nation. And as the demography of the United States increasingly yields more space to the non-whites, a new generation will hopefully not be entrapped by their limited visions and dare to look beyond.

But is Obama a socialist and an uncomfortable President for India? If he succumbs to the protectionist and non-proliferation lobbies of the Democrats, then maybe but so far he has demonstrated to be his own man. In his book Obama devotes a chapter to ‘Opportunity’ and opines on big government and globalization. He mentions how ‘the conservative revolution that Ronald Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan’s central insight – that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic with Democrats more concerned with slicing the economic pie than enlarging it – contained a good deal of truth.’
He further states that ‘America can’t compete with China and India simply by cutting costs and shrinking government - unless we are willing to tolerate a drastic decline in our living standards. Nor can America compete by simply erecting trade barriers and raising minimum wage - unless we are willing to confiscate all the computers of the world. We don’t have to choose between an oppressive, government run economy and a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism. Like those who came before us, we should be asking what mix of policies will lead to dynamic free market, widespread economic security, entrepreneurial innovation and upward mobility…. Let us begin with those investments that can make America more competitive in the global economy – in education, science, technology and energy independence.’

These to me are hardly the words of a socialist, much less a protectionist. Obama has displayed an understanding of Pakistan and its equation with India and Afghanistan. It will be up to South Block to appraise the latest US President of Indian concerns and apprehensions. The world’s largest democracy should be able to hold its own irrespective of any White House occupant. Will he be a friend of India? Given Obama’s respect for democracy, dialogue, tolerance and natural justice, I can stick my neck out and say a confident yes.

Barack Obama has talked about the need for a ‘deliberative democracy’, to understand ‘that we must talk and reach common understandings precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side; and yet at time we must act nonetheless, as if we are certain, protected from error only by providence.’

The world awaits Barack Obama…..Hope and Dreams wait in the shadows, packing their bags for a journey ahead.

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I was at the Ferozshah Kotla last Saturday as India tried their mighty best to let Michael Clarke and Australia to escape with a draw in the third test. The crowd, frustrated after the string of dropped catches, was pleading for a quick end to the Aussie innings and the only bowler on the field who seemed capable to them of doing that was Virendra Sehwag. But Anil Kumble was his usual stubborn self and in another display of perseverance kept bowling continuously from one end after tea. Amit Mishra was at the other end and seeing no sign of their beloved Sehwag the chanting for a change started in the stands. But it was a strange kind of chanting. It was more an entreaty, a pleading request to an elder brother to kindly pass the ball to his younger one. ‘Kumble bhai’, went the leader of the chant, ‘please yaar…samajh yaar, Viru ko de yaar please’. In my almost two decades of watching cricket, I have heard people comment in varied hues on different Indian cricketers. Most of them have been lauded on their successes and mercilessly beaten down on their failures. Even the great Sachin Tendulkar, while growing above the game for most Indian fans, has not been spared of accusations of batting selfishly for his hundreds and failing to perform in fourth innings of test matches. One man who has been spared of all accusations and critiques by the general public has been the quiet and hardworking Anil Kumble. Cricket journalists and ex players may have questioned his ability to spin the ball (stupidly in my opinion, when there was already a precedent of a fast and zipping leg spinner taking more than 200 test wickets in Chandrasekhar) but for the average Indian cricket fan on the street Anil Kumble has been a synonym for trust and reliance. Dravid may have lost his form, Ganguly may have been erratic, Sachin may have compromised belligerence for quiet run gathering but Kumble was still the same as he started out – economical, at the batsman and accurate. To understand the importance of Kumble you have to turn the clock back to mid and late 90s. Before Harbhajan burst on the scene and Indian cricket enjoyed a diversity of pace bowling riches, Kumble was both a stock and strike bowler for his captain. After the opposition’s opening batsmen had laid into Srinath and Prasad, both Azhar and Tendulkar would invariably turn to Kumble. On innumerable occasions, Kumble was the man Indian captains looked towards for blunting the impact of the likes of Jayasuriya, Aravinda De Silva, Saeed Anwar, Aamir Sohail and Adam Gilchrist. Coming on within the first 15 overs with field restrictions, Kumble relished the challenge and would immediately plug the flow of runs. While the other Indian bowlers would have economy rates of tending towards or in excess of 5 an over, Jumbo would walk away with a dignified number of 3 an over against his name. In many games his spell was the difference between a total of 280-290 and a chaseable 250 (remember this was mid to late 90s, before the 300 + chase became an achievable rather than an unlikely possibility).

If he lived with one albatross around his neck, it was that of not being able to take wickets on foreign shores. He responded in the only way he knew best – through hard work and perseverance of effort. Over the years he shortened his run up, raised his jump to exploit his height for bounce and added a crafty googly and a turning leg spinner to his repertoire. He buried the ‘non-performer at overseas tag’ with two sterling displays – the first in Australia in the winter of 2003 where he was the most successful Indian bowler (24 wickets from 3 tests at 29 runs apiece) and in Pakistan in the historic tour of 2004 (15 wickets from 3 tests at 25 apiece). And yet, despite his limitations, Kumble perhaps like his spinning counterpart Muralitharan remained a solo match winner for India for a long duration. His impeccable record at home underscores his importance again in a period when pace bowling had not yet started winning games for the country. He needed no certificates from the media boxes – there were ample batsmen to vouch for his trouble making abilities. None more so than Stephen Waugh, no less a persevering batsman himself. He credited Kumble with being at the bat all the time with each and every delivery. And every word of that appreciation was true. You only had to watch him bowl that first delivery to Hayden at the Kotla in the second innings to realize that Waugh wasn’t exaggerating. A fizzing leg spinner that was in line with the stumps and almost sneaked through to trap the batsman in front.

Anil Kumble retires like few Indian cricketers have in recent memory – with hardly any qualifications in his record and mutual respect and admiration from everyone around him. He retires an achiever all right but without any pretensions. He retires a team man to the core, his place safely reserved in history as the best to ever hold that red cherry in his hand with an India cap on.

I had planned on writing a farewell for Sourav Ganguly at the end of series after he had played his last test innings. Anil Kumble’s retirement now demands a packaged farewell for both. Not that Ganguly’s achievements are any less diminishing in Indian cricket. Statistics will tell you that he has been the most successful Indian captain. India’s results and style of cricket in the 21st century will tell you that he has undisputedly been the best Indian captain. You cannot even give Ganguly the gift of being ‘at the right place at the right time.’ If anything, he took over Indian cricket when it was at its lowest trough, post the match fixing saga. Sourav not only had to deliver results but also restore credibility, and the second task, as any incumbent politician will tell you can be quite a daunting one. Ganguly’s contribution lies not just in bringing a sense of ‘in your face’ confidence in the way India conducted themselves in the field (he staked his personal reputation on this by frequently getting into arguments with opposition captains and match referees) but also in the way he nurtured a talented crop of youngsters who shall take over the torch from his generation. Harbhajan would surely have been a Sikh migrant sitting in the US today had Sourav not insisted on his inclusion in 2001 and Yuvraj, Zaheer and Dhoni all made their debuts under him.

In the midst of all this appreciation of his captaincy, one almost forgets that Sourav was a tremendously talented one day batsmen. He formed the most successful opening pair with Tendulkar and brought the similar aggression to his batting by frequently hitting bowlers over infield to get India going. His test innings of Lord’s and Brisbane are frequently cited but he also dug deep and bailed India out of trouble during the series in South Africa in 2006 and England in the following year. To say that Sourav Ganguly reflected the ‘New India’ is to overstate a cliché, but he definitely changed the way India shaped up towards other teams in the cricketing world. His tenure marked Indian cricket matching its performance on the field with its clout in the money stakes. He took an India languishing near the bottom and left it sniffing the soil of the top. As he retires, Sourav may well thank Dravid and Laxman for that incredible day at the Eden Gardens in 2001 which changed the fortunes of his captaincy. Had India lost that game and the series with it, Sourav whose off field activities liaisons were being reported daily by the media would not have carried on at the helm much longer and Indian cricket would perhaps have not seen the rise which that ‘come from the dead’ victory over Australia propelled.

Shakespeare depicts King Henry V of England exhorting his soldiers at the Battle of Agincourt by stating that whosoever shed his blood in battle would be his brother that day and together their army would constitute a ‘Band of Brothers’. Sourav Ganguly created a merry band of his own, one that effectively changed the standing of his Indian team in the cricketing battlefields that they took to.

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The Pauper poetry below is in response to Tony Sebastian’s ‘Nash –ty poetry’ a couple of days back. I started by writing out a comment on his blog but then could not control my instincts and decided to put this stuff here. Sir Tony would not mind – free publicity never hurts :)

Young lad Tony wanted to explore
Perform some sin and make a roar
Sadly for him the times weren’t right
And his stock crashed before its flight

The lad decided to give up the carnal
And take to singing with the nasal
But alas that space was taken too
And young Tony could only sing in the loo

He then ventured to emulate Nash
Write some poetry and earn some cash
So he took on the veggie food
And left the conservatives in a fowl mood
Corrupting our religion and our kids, now they say
Throw him into the sambhar sea and show others the way!

Tony knew he may have bitten too much
And now pleaded as such
‘I only wanted to see some action
Alas my drivers suffer from too much traction
I thought I would indulge
And give myself a little bulge
Now I am swimming in spicy seas
Surrounded by potatoes and peas
I am now ready to wear a halter
But do not sacrifice me on this alter
Spare me the misery and get me out
And I promise never to raise a shout
Only allow me a little bite
Chicken during the day and sen-sex at night!’

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There is something about the vanishing of a large global corporation that makes everyone sit up and take notice. It’s akin to the sinking of the Titanic – something that is considered huge, grand, unassailable and unsinkable. Not just because of its own size but more so because of the quality of minds powering it. But Titanics are mostly victims of their own inflated self, and in their high, long term, grand vision of their crownests often ignore that creeping iceberg that lies beneath the surface and inflicts unmitigated damage to their shells. Step into New York today and you will see a Titanic at every corner, some already confined to the waves of history, some struggling to stay afloat and hunting desperately for lifeboats. And sadly, these behemoths are not just confined to the Wall Street alone. Bigger, larger and grander Titanics across the globe are hearing that creaking sound in their hulls – a sound of metal breaking and a potential flood waiting to crash in.

The crisis, as everyone from Delhi to Dallas, tells you is one of liquidity and confidence. Or well a lack of them. In very crude layman terms, its about people borrowing huge sums of money and being not able to repay them. In a bid to stave off their hungry lenders, as they run around to borrow more, they are summarily dismissed by other lenders who now have no confidence in their ability to generate earnings from the money sought. I would add one more word to the description in the line above. In effect, this is a crisis of credibility. Credibility of banks, brokers, traders, speculators, merchant bankers and their ilk. And this sadly is a strong indictment on those running these institutions. Those ‘quality minds’ who exit the hallowed lawns of the brightest B-schools and then enter the bull ring of our financial markets. The knife twists further into the flesh when one realizes that the Balance Sheets that went broke were of those for which the ‘best and the brightest’ from these schools chose to work for. (TT Ram Mohan has provided an insight into how the hollowness of the so called intellect of these firms and the people who inhabit them in the Economic times a couple of days ago)

Not that there haven’t been crises in the economies before. But this one has a marked difference on two principal counts. Earlier crises have been closely driven by the real economy; the brick and mortar or the tangible elements – due to sectors, companies & currencies with weak fundamentals which you could see and their inability to drive promised earnings leading to a crash of over invested money put in them. ‘Fundamentals’ is a much used word in all that we read today. Simply put, it effectively means that if you take a housing loan of Rs 60 lacs and if you possess a full time job paying you even Rs 6-7 lacs minimum in a year, your fundamentals are strong at the time of borrowing; simply because you possess the means to repay the money, albeit slowly. The current crisis though is that of the unseen or more so that of the un-understood and difficult to comprehend instruments. Even those well versed with the financial markets are finding it hard to pin point where the trouble lies in the opaque Balance Sheets of the collapsing institutions. And the final defaulting debt lying on such Balance Sheets is distanced from the real economy (in this case the house sold on the mortgage) by a significant web of complex, inter woven and hard to unravel securitized assets.

The second major difference is that of risk appetite and its assessment. Economies pass through routine cycles of booms and recessions on account of heavy investments driven by a hunger to risk big for bigger returns. What is unraveling now is a risk appetite among major investment banks and other institutions that had gone beyond the roof. Continuing with our previous example, it’s a bit like you possessing an uncertain job (or no job) and your bank stilling willing to lend those 60 lacs to you. In what economists call the ‘rational human mind’, such business with no assurance of repayment and no collateral (another asset that will cover your risk of default) or bad collaterals will simply be labeled with one word – preposterous. And yes, this is pretty much the kind of thing that was going on in the US. The ‘best of the best’ rode this bandwagon and put more money in the hands of those who did not have the means to repay it, in the hope that if the borrower defaulted the underlying house for which the loan was given would be sold at a premium and money would be recovered.

But of course, you can realize premium on the sale of one house but not when all the houses are out for sale because everyone lent money in the same reckless way as you did. The prices crash (supply exceeds demand) and you simply have nothing to cover your backside. This kind of dealing is not an illegal act but bad and greedy investment. And bad investments, as we all know, yield no returns.

Some major home truths have emerged from this crisis which should guide the response of those in the thick of the action now. First, no matter how free and competitive a market may be, you still need a strong statutory/ government regulator to bail out collapsing institutions that can have a domino effect and derail a lot more than just their immediate neighborhood. Second, bad assets WILL NOT create good earnings no matter how much ‘smart analyses’ may justify it. Third, no corporation is above board or unsinkable. The moment the fountain of money runs dry even the largest giant will find it difficult to stand tall. And fourth, its time for all the regulators to pull up their socks. One cannot prevent an investment from taking place in a bad market but tighter solvency norms and higher provisioning requirements (effectively asking institutions to park enough money for the ‘rainy days’) need to be looked at anew to barricade future such spectacular implosions.

And all the players need to ask some serious questions. The ‘smart guys’ in the banks need to reflect how such bad investments were allowed a free run. The regulators need to question their norms and whether corporate governance fulfilled its role in preventing such a rush towards manic opportunities that have resulted in a zero gum game. The auditors need to ask themselves how they missed seeing that the assets reflecting against the loans taken were nothing but pieces of papers. And investors like you and me can do well to pay attention to the dissenters like Nassim Nicholas Taleb who argue that all those experts hypothesing over the market movements daily on our televisions, perhaps simply don’t know what they are talking about.

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Since my school days, when I started to develop an opinion on the happenings around me, I have always been critical of any attempts made to insult the intelligence of young children. I guess being adults, the distance that age puts between us and the children, makes us adopt this know-all, condescending attitude. The sophisticated name of course is ‘generation gap’. But my argument is not so much against this inevitable differing of viewpoints between two sets of people who stand at different co-ordinates of the time graph. My problem is with ignoring how the world has changed since the time we were in childhood and thinking that our kids are not smart enough. Two recent incidents reminded me of this belief and prompt these words.

My 12 year old cousin Karan lives and studies in Canada. An ice hockey and baseball freak, he isn’t too far away from his Indian roots as well. With relatives around, he takes sadistic pleasure in subjecting us all to his smattering of Hindi and Punjabi, often mixing up his tenses, phrases and expressions (‘I touch your feet’ becomes for him ‘Mein aapke pair khaata hoon’). Of course, all his Hindi is purely picked up from the television serials that his grandmother watches and which he is forced to watch as well as he waits for the commercials to catch his sports action. You might pass him off as any other North American Indian kid with his brown skin, accent and possessing knowledge of Indian customs that marriages, gurudwara trips or diwali gatherings have afforded him. But he possesses two qualities that would mark any kid out - inquisitiveness and observance. Out on a drive in the city with his parents, me and my mother, he started off on his usual trip of speaking broken, illogical Hindi. It was all fine before he suddenly turned towards my mother and asked her, ‘Aap Hindu ho yaan Punjabi?’

His mother wasn’t exactly enthused with the question and quickly responded with a ‘Karan, you don’t ask such questions.’ She turned to me and explained how schools in Canada discourage students from asking about the religious identities of those around them. At first glance, you would perfectly understand this dilemma of a newly multicultural and multi religious society. A society in which public display of religion is not common and not stressed. A secular state that would want religion to be confined only in the homes and places of worship of those who follow it. A state which perhaps believes that asking a person’s religion and acknowledging its difference from your own in the first step in societal segregation.

I must admit that at first I felt a degree of understanding towards this approach; till of course Karan came up with his response,

‘No! I am asking because agar aap Hindu ho to why don’t you have a bindi here (pointing to my mother’s forehead) and red colour (now pointing at her hair above the forehead) like all other Hindu women’

For a moment, we were all silent in the car. Karan’s dad, not exactly sympathizing earlier with his mother’s admonishment, announced triumphantly
‘See! He has a logic for his question’ And indeed he did. None of us knew where this kid had picked up concepts of vermillion and bindis. And how he had come to know its significance for a Hindu woman. His probing of religious identity was not to place a mark of segregation or assert affirmation with those around him, but simply an attempt to obtain cultural understanding. And in that sense we were all wrong to assume that his mind, even in today’s religiously charged and to an extent divided world, would function only on one dimension – a dimension of creating and not breaking walls.
I wondered later whether that tiny episode had a lesson for all us. Is denial of identity and closing of mouths to discuss it another form of segregation? Are we creating walls or breaking them when we seek to create a society where school kids are ignorant of the diversity of the cultures that they inhabit? And as liberals are we correct in being so squeamish about discussing religion with our children? Is it so hard for us to educate them and then set them on the path of moderation and tolerance? Why are we allowing Osama bin Laden and not our school teachers to introduce our children to their religion?

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The second episode relates to a 14 year old boy Siddharth, the son of one of my mother’s old friends from office. I recently visited him and by chance my curiosity forced me to have a look at his school textbooks. I was sort of making impromptu comparisons on the extent of change in the NCERT textbooks from 11 years ago when I was in the same class in which Siddharth studies today. In the middle of my exploration I chanced to lay my hands on a colorful and deftly prepared paper folder which had his details written on the face of it with some skillful crayon work.
‘My holiday homework’, informed Siddharth. ‘I had to do two book reports’. Inside were two pages of a A4 size containing his ‘book report’. I read the first one. It was on ‘Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel. As I read those five hundred odd words that he had written. I was a little amazed at the quality of the language as well at the abrupt nature of the presentation of the report. Siddharth probably sensed it,
‘I copied it from the internet’. That explained it. Schoolboy level detailing mixed with book review level kind of passages. When I asked why, he responded laconically that ‘who had the time to write so much’ and that he had done his report in the last week of his vacations. Now I am someone who really isn’t enthused about people substituting originality with Google, but I carried on as Siddharth next placed in my hands his holiday homework list. It was a bunch of 4 pages photocopied and stapled together (just the way it used to happen in my time – it seems the idea of mass computer prints is yet to strike any one in our schools). The contents of that homework did not carry any surprises for me. The only addition in the quality of the work required from the students, in the space of a decade, has come in the form of a Disaster Management project mandated by the CBSE. The holiday homework had a section for each subject. The sciences & mathematics required students to answer a set of questions which were nothing but a revision of either what they had studied before leave or would study out after leave. The social sciences and grammar subjects too could not think beyond the realms of the textbooks. In fact I was shocked to see that the Hindi homework required students to write a letter inviting their friend over to their birthday party! I remember writing such a letter when I was in class 3 and that was a good 17 years ago! Of course, in the world of CBSE, our schools and Indian education they still believe that a kid writes and posts letters to all his friends asking them to attend his birthday celebrations. The concepts of telephone and emails are as far away as the third millennium.

In short there was nothing in that bunch of papers that could have challenged Siddharth’s imagination and creativity. Perhaps the only thing that he would have enjoyed doing was preparing the cover of his book review.

What is wrong with our teachers and our schools? Why can’t we leave textbooks and courses aside for a month and a half in the year and let our kids THINK? Is it so hard to ask them to chuck their books and prepare a 5-6 page project on something that they have interest in? (Siddharth has an active liking for cars. In a brief span of twenty minutes he had given me all the gyaan about the new models hitting the Indian market). Why can’t we allow our children to be creative for once and escape the drudgery of ‘Answer the following in your own words’? I am not proposing that every kid has a fountain of creativity bubbling inside him but then is it so hard to assume that when faced with acting around a topical interest not just kids but even elder men find hidden reserves of imagination and creativity? And is it so difficult for schools to see that a diversified range of interests in their students will automatically lead to an enhancement of knowledge sharing between the kids themselves? Why are we allowing the unimaginative to recklessly suppress the imagination of our kids?

But of course these are vain questions; because from what I saw with Siddharth I was certain of one fact. Dinosaurs can reappear on our planet but to expect changes in the manner in which we teach our kids is asking for a little too much. On this teacher’s day, sample this thought.

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People got a little riled with all my camera antics on the vacation. Most of the family that was around couldn't comprehend why i was so obsessed with my Canon powershot (AS710). In the 12 days that i stayed in Toronto, i clicked close to about 1100 photographs...staggering you might think....it took a cousin to put matters into perspective - 'he lives by the camera'...for some of those days, i actually did

below are some pics that did not make it to the facebook and web albums...random shots...some which were noticed, some which werent by those who saw them


The name of the park was 'Maddil Common'. It was nearby the house where i was putting up...and on a quiet Friday evening (yes it was about 6 when i went there) it was absolutely desolate....quiet, windy and desolate

I took a myriad pictures from the top of the CN tower...this one was perhaps the best...447m above the ground (apprx 114 storeys)...it captures the skyline, the shadow of the clouds, a city strechting itself limitlessly and half clear half filled sky...

Taken from the 22nd floor apartment balcony, it isnt the cleanest picture...the balcony railings intrude in a significant part of it...but dnt make a mistake, the light is not camera induced sepia but natural...there was a slight drizzle and a setting sun when i took this snap...and the interplay of water (notice the drops on the glass of the railing) and light was something that i could not get on any other evening...

A picture that can almost pass off for a painting...a view of the east bank of the ottawa river from the river cruise boat

A quiet patch of woods....on the river bank of the ottawa river...

This is how small some of the islands actually were on the 'thousand islands' cruise that happens in a small town called Gananoque on the shore of Lake Ontario


The serenity of the lake front at Gananoque was only matched by that of the town itself....

In the background is the Canadian parliament house....as seen from behind a fountain at the ottawa museum


And finally the national symbol...the maple leaf...just beginning to dry from the summer

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Well its an experience in itself to watch a ball game in a North American town...though the crowds are not as raucous as the ones in our IPL games, the level of involvement is still the same. The marked difference of course though is with respect to spectator comfort; getting in the stadium, finding your seat, having food and beverages...is all a comfortable experience....and so even though the home team lost, i didnt really mind cause, one i got a hang of baseball and two i had a good time clicking away...here are some of the better ones :)
P.S. Kudos to Abhinav Bindra...champions stuff!!


a neat sports pic....the bases were loaded and the cleveland indians scored a run of the hit that followed..

The Rogers centre with the game in progress...and the roof closed due to rain

a foul hit...notice the ball flying away at the back

a decent sports pic....the pitcher throws...the ball's mid air

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9th August: Coming to you somewhere from North America
Believe me when i say this, Gettting out of India aint easy...literally or metaphorically. They say outside that you cant take the India out of an Indian. Well, if your trying to catch a plane from the Indira Gandhi airport at New Delhi you can see a perfect demonstration of that state sponsored hospitality. No i did not miss my flight, in fact i reached the port a good two hours before the flight time. But on the way and till the time you actually board the plane, you heart wouldnt really be at rest. Thank god for we dont have asylum seekers running away from this nation...they would probably just collapse at the airport entrance.
So my airport misadventure began when i was a good 15 kms and 6 hours away from my flight time. As i left office that evening, the heavens decided it was the perfect time to open up and grace us with good weather. As yours truly had played weatherman in the morning and predicted that there wudnt be any rain (and thus consequently left his umbrella in the back of the car), he had to run half a kilometer in blinding rain. And voila, the moment i hit my car...yes yes the heavens stopped...so there was i, wet all over sitting in my car and driving like craxy back home..no wait, i wasnt going home..i was stopping at a sweet shop, cause sweets were needed at my destination for a wedding function. and i stopped at a grocery store to pick up 4 kgs (!) of rice cause you see, rice is still a lot cheaper in India despite all the inflation and all that nonsense spoken by Condi Rice and her President about Indians and the Chnese eating all the rice of the world up. So i dashed more and picked up the rice and the sweets, stacked them in the suitcase, saw myself being forcefed dinner by my neighbours (it was their grandson's birthday) and finally sat in the cab at 8.15 for a midnight flight just in time to see the heavens open again.

Now i wudnt have been cribbing here had i got to the airport all easy...but frankly fate chose that evening to make my tryst with every red light on the way to the airport (dont ask me the number, i gave up count after the 11th). It wudnt still have been bad if it hadnt been raining with vehicles crawling all along the floor. it would have all been forgivable if the cabbie hadnt committed that worst sin..despite my insistence, he took me from a construction site called Vasant Kunj instead of the slick and open Dhaula Kuan. Result - stuck for 45 mins trying to cross...ya you guessed it, a red light...i swear i cud have clubbed the cabbie right then and there, but i had an airport to go to and to be fair to him he picked up the pace and had me at the port within 15 minutes of crossing that light.
But that aint where the misery ends. Despite all the slickness inside the renovated airport, two things still make it unpleasant to leave India. Firstly, the approach roads are all jammed. Why we cant figure out a solution to that is beyond me...maybe we can have an underground car park where people get dropped...maybe wider roads..i dont know, but it kills when you see that it takes 20 mins to cross 800 mtrs and reach the point of drop from the main entrance.
And the second are the CISF people standing on the gates. Now i appreaciate the security concerns in the subcontinent, but does the guy have to read everything written on our passports and tickets? why dont they just match your name on the ticket and passport and let you in and let the check in guys from the airlines handle the rest? 15 mins to clear the line for the CISF check after you have taken the trolley. Which is all a shame, cause really once you are in, there really arent any pain points. Check in, immigration and security is smooth - it took me only 20 mins....and too at peak hour...
well i cud stop here but you wud accuse me of being anti-indian and enamoured by all the stuff that the goras put up. So let me speak of Paris, my stopover. The airport is huge and it takes 15mins just to go from one terminal to another. What helps are the multi-lingual directions and the courteous staff. Sadly, the coffee sucks. And yes even there, people dont queue up to board the aircraft, they have to be told to let the kids and the wheelchair passengers in first.

Courtesy was in short supply at Toronto. The security staff just at the exit of the aircraft cudnt believe i had come for a wedding; i then had to give my job credentials to her and explain what a Chartereted Account and Accenture meant. Heck, at Toronto even the immigration does not smile at you and for some reason they all wear police like uniforms. And for all their sophisitication, they took 45 minutes to get out baggage out - apparently because it was raining with the threat of lightening and all vehicular movement in the open was stopped!! And when the baggage came, many of the bags were wet!

The flights themselves i may not crib about much - guess there isnt much to when you watch two movies, an episode of friends and get to drink chardonnay and champagne...now only if they allowed to sneak some of those wine bottles out....

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‘People only do the right things till the time their spirit is broken’. So says Heath Ledger as he plays the maniacal, diabolical, chaotic but an enduring Joker in the latest edition of the Batman franchise. The Joker, of course, is taunting the Caped Crusader, trying to poke him into a realization that when the stakes on the table get personal every man gambles for himself. The question then to be asked on this humid morning is whether the Joker’s remarks find resonance in the environment around us. Have we all really sacrificed our morals on the altar of opportunity? Have we finally decided to put self – interest over the much abused ‘longer term larger good’? Look around you and maybe you will find examples galore. We have a government that is scraping every crumb of political opportunity to ensure its survival. We have an opposition that is making every effort to outdo the incumbents in this game. Political beliefs have been conveniently side stepped for the ‘larger goal’ of saving/ toppling the government (depending on which camp you are in). You could also argue that short term political convenience has once again replaced long held (or supposedly professed!) political beliefs. And in between all this back door dealing and stealing going on in the Lutyen’s zone, we wonder whether those who had tread the path of political probity have too decided to jump and swim in the shark infested waters of this mud pool.

Both Manmohan Singh and Prakash Karat are men of principle. Neither has won an election but neither has given room to political opportunism. Right or wrong, both have stood steadfast on an issue of conviction. And now as both face a test of validation for their stand, they are both playing the same, though slightly unfamiliar, game. Karat has gone ahead and tied up with a chief minister accused of wealth accumulation and corruption and is ready to vote with his thus far biggest enemies, the ubiquitous ‘communal’ forces, with the sole intention to topple the government. The PM and his party too are now going all out to seduce fence sitters, many of whom are facing criminal cases or are already in jail, with cabinet berths and other promises. The backdoor talk of crores being exchanged to switch loyalties remains just that till now, backdoor talk…but it remains.

I wonder what would be going through the PM’s mind as he enters Parliament today and tomorrow and crosses the portraits of those two great founders of modern India – Gandhi and Nehru. Both of whom enacted their philosophies in a different but perhaps an equally complicated era. Would the PM’s eyes contain the look of son who stares at the face of his moralistic, straight and honest father? The look of a son expected to bear the burden of probity, morals and uprightness. A son who knows he must sacrifice honor to save the family silver. A son who must make peace with short term compulsions and antagonize long held beliefs.

Perhaps, the joker is right. The instinct of self-preservation is too powerful too ignore. It can manifest in either actions or non-actions. Actions where compromises are made – a bribe paid, a short cut taken, a rule bent, a terrorist released – all to preserve the present but perhaps knowingly or unknowingly to damage the future as well. And then there are non-actions – a crime ignored, a statement denied, a witness hostile – all of which enhance our preservation at the cost of the world we live in.

But is the past as clean as the present supposes it to be? Weren’t Nehru and Patel both accused of sacrificing a united but weak India in the favor of partition and an India controlled by the Congress? Didn’t Indira Gandhi permanently damage the Indian polity by introducing the ‘make and break’ culture just to save her government? The only two men who perhaps stood to their ideals stubbornly (rightly/ wrongly) in contemporary Indian history were Gandhi and JP. Both walked their last days in solitude. One received a bullet, the other ignorance from those very people whom he propelled to office.

So are we finally in a time of short term opportunism? And as I had queried in a post sometime ago (and got rapped on the knuckles for making that suggestion) does our self interest today conflict with our morality and ideals? And is the only path leading to moral uprightness ending in the destination of loneliness? Is it too much to ask for someone to drink the poison of convenience? Is none of us capable of swallowing the poison and holding it in our necks? Or are we all too scared that it will escape into our stomachs and burn our innards? Is Batman right when he says that his city deserves a vigilante because he can get away with making choices which others can’t? Because he can be what self preservation stops us all from being? Are our only saviors now lonely isolated men or dark knights? Has Heath Ledger said something in death which we are all too scared to recognize in the living?


P.S. - On a lighter note, this is my 51st post. Didnt realise i had touched fifty. Bat raised, i stand on twenty2 yards and wait for the appluase. Drumrolls!! :P

P.P.S. - Woops! Jumped the gun..the count of 51 includes 5 drafts...the drumrolls will have to wait :(

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It’s been a bit of a strange summer in Delhi this time. The weather has been freaky; in all the memories that I can summon of the previous years, I can’t recall a time when there was a summer where the number of days on which the temperature breached the 40C mark could be counted on your fingertips. And I can hardly recall such wet months of May and June. The monsoon came early, the heat vanished and while I am not complaining on this strange turn of the climate towards a cooler trend, one cant help but wonder what is amiss. It’s been a strange political summer in Delhi too. The momentum of inflation that began in spring (coming on the back of the gradual rise in oil prices and the stock market crash of January) seems to have been the only thing that picked up some steam this summer. And now it threatens to scald those that are desperately trying to calm the fires down. It’s been a pain of a different kind and relief from it seems as distant as the winter currently, maybe even more.

But more critical political events have overshadowed all the heat generated by the rising prices. The government is now battling for survival after the Congress party, in an unusual and perhaps accidental show of spunk, thumbed its nose at the communists and called their bluff. It seems all the energies of the climatic heat have been manifested not from the sky but from the inhabitants below. Rarely did the UPA show such political frenzy in the last four years as they have shown over the course of the last three months. Whether by design, through the resistance of the Prime Minister or simply by the force of events, the Left parties now find themselves out of the ruling coalition and face to face with some hard political realities that they chose to ignore during the term of this government thus far, screened as their eyes were by a combination of power of veto without responsibility and outdated idealism befitting the political climate of the 1950s.
Since the day the government decided to go ahead with the safeguards agreement and approach the IAEA, the Left has been… well, sort of Left out. They have been lurching from one confused step to another, all the time tearing away the political fabric which they so diligently stitched for themselves as they sat out and observed the Manmohan Singh dispensation with a godly gaze. The commissars first asked the PM when the government would go to the IAEA so that they could withdraw support then. They then decided to wait till the PM arrived back from the G-8 summit so as not to cause him the embarrassment of the government being toppled while he was meeting the world leadership (small mercy after four years!!). Then when it was clear that the PM would announce a go-ahead on the deal after his meeting with Dubya Bush, a divided Left pre-poned the pulling of the trigger. Now as the government readies for a trust vote in Parliament where every MP is worth his bunch of crores (apologies but the going rate in the market was not available at the time of writing this piece), the commissars are pushing the Speaker of the house, who is one of their MPs, to put in his papers and vote against the government. Somnath Chatterjee, for his part is reluctant, not wanting to relinquish the post simply to spite the government. The politburo has forgotten that in case he goes, the Deputy Speaker would preside over the house and he is an NDA MP. So one additional vote against the deal gets offset by another. And now comes the latest gambit in the form of an understanding with Mayawati. And in doing so the Left leaders have compromised the one asset they had, compared to all their political peers – a spotless white image. Mayawati may or may not be more corrupt than Mulayam and Amar Singh with whom the Left was tangoing earlier but so brazen is her disregard for the process of law when it works against her that the idealistic politburo seems slightly incongruous standing next to her. And only now after four years in the government have the commissars woken up and realized that Madam Maya is being witch hunted down by the CBI.

And in between of all their confusion, they have been politically checkmated and routed by the ever opportunistic Amar Singh who has displayed far more political savvy than what Prakash Karat has possibly summoned all his life. And while the UPA finds new partners, the commissars are now head deep into the monsoon muck of Delhi’s political akhada – hunting for allies, negotiating with all and sundry, counting each and every MP, mouthing invective at the government and even going to the extent of saying that they are ready to join hands on an issue with the ‘communal’ BJP. Their starched white plain handloom house kurtas sullied by the recent efforts, the Left has abandoned the idealistic high ground and stepped down into the opportunistic playground of Indian politics where the likes of Lalu, Maya and Amar Singh rule. The Left has finally woken up to some hard political realities…pity it couldn’t do so when it was supporting the government.

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‘We the People’ had its second Aarushi episode last night in the aftermath of Dr.Talwar’s release. The theme was whether the media and police should now apologize to the Talwars. No, said Ashutosh from IBN 7 flatly (he is the guy with the white mop who heads their Hindi channel). More restrained but equally unapologetic was Punya Vajpayee from Aaj Tak (which on the day of the CBI’s press conference ran a story where a woman did a voice over for Aarushi and described to the viewers how ‘she’ was murdered.) At this defiance a bristling hot Harish Salve launched a tirade against the two comparing their coverage with Ekta Kapoor’s soaps. And between all the hungama , one of Aarushi’s aunts broke down and begged the media to take their cameras away from their home and let them grieve in peace. As I have pointed out in an earlier post, none of the three parties (the police, the media and us the viewers) are over board in this episode. We all have contributed to this circus; the police through their innuendos and leaks, the channels with their Sherlock Holmes meets Ekta Kapoor kind of coverage and we viewers who simply refused to believe that the parents slept through as their daughter was murdered and kept lapping each and every straw thrown at us.

So should the media apologize? In any other matter I would have been as adamant on a no as Ashutosh. But somehow in this case, some of the invisible lines of decency have been crossed. MMS clips were shown which were attributed (wrongly) to the slain girl, her Orkut profile and SMSes were flashed to the public, her telephone records shown on TV with one network even going to extent of redialing all the last made calls and asking pesky questions from the receivers. The thin line between reportage, investigative journalism and playing detective has been breached. Even worse some of the coverage has landed in the zone of sleaze and indecency which no matter what the justification is simply unacceptable.

The Times of India took the lead and carried an apology the day CBI announced that Dr.Talwar would be released. And compared to the vernacular channels (and I am sorry to sound so class biased but they really have plumbed the depths barring a couple) their coverage was an epitome of softness. My concern is that the more brazenness we see from the media the more it will wean away the public from them. My bet is that the public opinion is against them as far the Aarushi coverage goes. And tomorrow if another such case happens and another family is traumatized, the government might just let the Broadcast Bill genie out of the bag and the public might well just side with it.

Six months back as a citizen the idea of the bill itself was abhorrent and against the spirit of democracy for me. Six months later I might just well be willing to listen to the government’s view. Another Aarushi and I might just agree with the government. That is a scary thought. And all those political editors running our news networks must wake up to the possibility of such a shift taking place. They might get away in the case of Aarushi because it was the police that outran them in the race of indecency by maligning a dead girl without a shred of evidence, but sadly it seems, the media is showing all the enthusiasm and zealousness of an Olympic runner to win the race the next time an opportunity comes along.

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I once met a man who said he could erase time
go back in the past and remove those memories of mine
my pain and my sorrow
that never coming tomorrow
my days filled with delight
that vision without a sight
the darkness of despair
my loneliness in betrayal
that false dawn that i saw
the cliff that i had to claw
i want to forget those hours, those days, those years
can you fulfill this one wish of mine...
find me the man who said he could erase time....

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Field Marshal Sam 'Bahadur' Manekshaw
(1914 - 2008)
One of the greatest to ever don the Olive Greens

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Let it never be said that when the world was caught in the grip of a raging fuel crisis, our government sat on its haunches twiddling its thumbs waiting for Mother Nature to relieve itself….er… I mean relieve the agony…of the fuel prices of course!! To prove that we are responsible organization indulging in responsible journalism, today along with an exclusive interview on Page 1 with Rakhi Sawant’s new boyfriend, we bring to you the full details of the proceedings of a high powered meeting of the government, opposition, industry leaders and other prominent celebrities chaired by the Prime Minister to find a solution to the oil crisis. Our editor, Digdeep Sardesai, showing extra-ordinary courage and presence of mind, managed to sneak into this meeting by dressing as one of the canteen boys supplying tea and biscuits at this meeting. He was carrying a tape recorder with him (brought to you by Sony, our Page 1 sponsors for today!) and recorded the transcript of the meeting. (We have already decided to recommend Digdeep for a Padma Vibhushan for this amazing scoop.)

Note - Please excuse the slight interruptions and incoherence in the transcript below – Digdeep was directed at times out of the room to bring the beverages and because he drank some of them on the way (who can blame the poor soul in this hot and muggy weather?) he had to relieve himself and thus miss some portions of the meeting.

Meeting – Everyone is seated. Prime Minister Moneymohan Singh is sitting at the head of the round table with The Oracle sitting in a sphinx like silence next to him. All around the PM sit members from his government, the oppositions and other famous people. It is a gathering which will put King Henry’s (was it him only??) round table of knights to shame!!

Moneymohan Singh: Friends, Romans and …
The Oracle: (A groan of admonishment)
Moneymohan Singh: Sorry madamji, very sorry…Friends, Indians and…
Mycash Ambani: Yes, yes…Mumbai Indians…my team, very good team. We played very good cricket with very efficient turnarounds and accountable performance. But alas, those foreigners let my Indians down….
Moneymohan Singh: Oye hoye! O I do not mean those Indians!….I meant the citizens of India…
Aala Loo Yadav: Arre Moneymohan ji, this is not address to nation bhai. This is a meeting….arre why calling all other friends…arre we are also your friends na…all allies are friends, except these people sitting on the left…hehehe
C.Dumberam: Please, please! Lets not digress. We need to address this issue. Lets come to the main point. Globally oil prices have risen. Crude oil is now set to go to $150/ barrel. These opposition walas had it so good, in their time it was only $30/barrel. Now all our oil marketing companies are losing money because they are selling at old prices. If we don’t raise prices we shall run out of money to buy oil and then….
Mytake Ahluwalia: Then no more cars, scooters, buses and no more fuel…
C.Dumberam: For my annual trip to Davos!!
Prakash ‘Only sticks, No Carrots’: We shall not sign the nuclear deal with the imperialists Americans!!
Moneymohan Singh: Oho Carrot ji! You are mistaken, We are not discussing the nuclear deal! We are discussing a rise in oil price.
Aala Loo Yadav: Eh….who is this Davos bhai?? Anyway, Moneymohanji, if no buses then it s good for your party only na bhai…all these BRT buses and corridor problem come to end and Shiela Fixit ji winning elections easy…hehehe. Oh by the way, hum excuse chahta hoon…abhi aaya..
(Door closing and Aala Loo going out of room)
Moneymohan Singh: (sounding worried) Arre meeting has only begun and Aala Loo ji has already walked out in protest.
C.Dumberam: Not to worry sir, he has only gone for a Loo break.
Moneymohan Singh: Okay okay…coming back to the rise in oil price, we propose a rise in price of petrol and diesel and …
Prakash ‘Only sticks, No Carrots’: We shall not sign the nuclear deal with the imperialists Americans!!
Moneymohan Singh: No No Carrot ji!! You are mistaken again…we are not discussing the deal!
Pahalwaan Singh Yadav: Arre bhai, why all this noise about rising petrol prices? Who uses petrol here bhai? Arre bahi Summer Singhji, do you use petrol ji?
Summer Singh: (Flustered and embarrassed) No No Pahalwaan ji…we all use petrol only in our cars no...And all the bus wallas use only diesel.
Pahalwaan Singh Yadav: Petrol in my car?? Arre I never knew bhai… (Laughing) Payment hee nahin kiyaa kabhi…hehehe…Driver gets it filled and bill comes to sarkar…
Moneymohan Singh: Oho! Can we please discuss raising the prices??
Prakash ‘Only sticks, No Carrots’: We shall not sign the nuclear deal with the imperialists Americans!!
(Moneymohan Singh slams a hand on his forehead)
Pahalwaan Singh Yadav: Arre Moneymohan ji, why bother…let petrol run out…to all the car wallas your sarkar can gift one free cycle. The cycle drives the hand and the hand drives the cycle….Let people ride the Samajwaadi cycle and also stop all this pollution.
Summer Singh: Oho! What an idea!! This is toh like that only….
Petrol hua mehnga, car mat chalaana
Ghar se office tum, samajwaadi cycle par hee jaanaa!!

Wah Wah!! Wah Wah!! Aadab aarz hai!!

Moneymohan Singh has his head in his hands in desperation.

Mahamaya Bhenji: Oye honorable Summer and Pahalwan Singh!….why should people ride your bicycle?? Promoting your party symbol so blatantly! Shame on you! Oye if people have to travel pollution free then they should travel in my symbol- the elephant! Oye Honorable Moneymohan! I demand that you provide an elephant to every car owner and yes I want for 50% of elephants should be of lower caste…er... I mean they should be owned by lower castes!
C.Dumberam: Davos on elephants!! They would think I have landed out of a tropical jungle! And how would I climb that animal with my dhoti??
Alaa Loo re-enters the room.
Aala Loo Yadav: Arre kahe shorwa macha rahein hai? Raise the price bhai…let everybody travel by humra rail! Hum apna rail diesel ka place main steam engine se chalaunga!
Shared Power (Maharastrian Ally): Moneymohan ji, the solution is very simple. As President of the Board for Making Money from Cricket in India (BMMCI) I propose we have another IPL 20-20 tournament where all money collected from TV, sponsor and public shall be handed over to our oil companies. Arre such is the power of the BMMCI that the next seven generations of the oil companies will not need to make money! And the public will be so entertained!!
Aala Loo Yadav: Arre humra bitwa bhi kirkeet khelta hai Powerji…This time he will be the star. In the last IPL, he played for the…arre bhai kaa naam thaa uska team ka..yes..Delhi Devil May Care.
C.Dumberam: Delhi Daredevils!!
Aala Loo Yadav: Yes, yes that too…
Moneymohan Singh: (now thoroughly exasperated) Oho! Stop all this cricket-shiket nonsense…we have to discuss oil!!...lets get some views of the opposition parties…
Prakash ‘Only sticks, No Carrots’: We shall not sign the nuclear deal with the imperialists Americans!!
Moneymohan Singh: Oho Carrot ji! I meant the dejure opposition and not the defacto opposition. Settledji…what are your opinions?
Settled Bihari Bagpayee: (snoring) Zzzzzzz….
Moneymohan Singh: Settledji!!!
Settled Bihari Bagpayee: (waking with a start) Tel ke daam badhaana……………………………………………………..yeh achi baat nahin hai……..
Moneymohan Singh: Oho that doesn’t help one bit…Akashvaniji , what about you?
LK Akashvani: Moneymohanji! All the answers to your questions can be found in my autobiography released recently…’My Country, Your wife’…I have given a free copy to Madam Oracle (who turns her head coldly to the other side)….I urgently insist that the entire Union Cabinet read my book to find a solution. I remember, in the 1970s when the OPEC raised oil prices, our Janata sarkar combatted the price rise by raising duties, lowering taxes, raising prices, providing subsidies to the poor….
C.Dumberam: Arre wat all contradictory nonsense you are saying Akashvani ji!!
LK Akashvani: Arre arre listen me, listen me!
Aala Loo Yadav: Arre chup rahiye burbak…kuch jante nahin hain..want to be PM...huh!
Mytake Ahluwalia: Can we please agree to raise prices??
Prakash ‘Only sticks, No Carrots’: We shall not sign the nuclear deal with the imperialists Americans!!
Moneymohan Singh: Oho…rest assured Carrotji we shall not….Can somebody offer a way out…Our esteemed guests from the entertainment industry…what do you think sirs??
Dukh Sukh Khan: In my adopted city of Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk………Kolkata….
Bigger than everyone else B: Arre my dear Dukh Sukh, you are already stuttering like a car that has run out of petrol. Moneymohan ji, I am honoured that you have solicited my opinion. I am a small man, a humble farmer and a modest actor. Please do not raise any prices….Jaya has a lot of difficulty in managing the household expenses and Abhi-Ash have not been doing to well in their films lately….
Summer Singh: Arre wah bade bhaiya! Kya baat kahi!! Wah Wah! Wah Wah!
Moneymohan Singh: (about to collapse from weariness) I understand your compulsions Mr.B….Can anyone here please suggest a solution?? (Pleading now)
Aala Loo Yadav: Arre kahe na worry karte hain….drink tea and eat biskoot....i say make a committee, let them decide which price to raise and which not…and by the time the report comes...it shall be elections and the headache of Akashvani ji….he will find all solutions from that encyclopedia of his….hehehehe!!
Moneymohan Singh: And who do you propose should head this committee Aala Loo ji??!
Aala Loo Yadav: Arre that new boy has come na..ka naam hai uska….ummm…yes! Bullocks Osama!
Prakash ‘Only sticks, No Carrots’: We shall not sign the nuclear deal with the imperialists Americans!!
Transcript ends, Moneymohan faints….

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