It is every writer’s dream plot. Blood, mystery, murder, illicit relationships and the unsaid. Two dead bodies in one small house. No one having any clue as to what happened on the fateful night. A father in prison, an unconvinced mother and a set of bungling cops. And, as much of the public now believes, a killer at large. You could write these words on the back on a book jacket and expect the thriller to fly off the shelves. The only problem is that this is not a plot or a story. In the middle of this all, Arushi Talwar and her servant Hemraj (have we all forgotten him in this ‘Arushi murder case’?) are dead and no one including the police it seems, even after two weeks of the murder, has any clue as to who killed them.

It is a murder that has captured media space like no other, which has held us in a thrall and made couch detectives out of all us. We have all heard the police, some of us believed them, some didn’t. We have all had our theories; have had our explanations for the actions and the events of the dramatis personae as described to us by an ever ready media. We have speculated on the unsaid, pondered the said and gone over and over again with the sequence of events, Arushi’s mails and messages and her and the parents’ profiles as described by those who know them. And at the end of the day all of us are still where we were when the young girl’s body was first discovered on the morning of May 16th.

So why does the ‘Arushi murder case’ refuse to go away from our newspapers and television screens? And why are we engaged now in such a huge debate over the ethics of the way we all have conducted ourselves over the past two weeks? My guess is that a combination of factors have all come together to place the Talwar family in a centre of a media and police circus (and I hate to use this word but no better synonym comes to the mind straightway) that no other family has been subjected to in 24 hour news channel history. I wonder whether this case would have received so much attention had Hemraj’s body not been discovered on the roof of the Talwar residence the very next day after the police had announced him their prime suspect. Had Hemraj actually murdered the girl, robbed the house and ran away with the booty this case would have died a natural death…just like so many other cases of murders of senior citizens by their servants appear and vanish in a flash from our media networks. But the moment Hemraj’s body was discovered that morning, Arushi’ case was granted a boon of immortality. An immortality that would last perhaps till the time the court convicts a killer. And even then I wonder, many of us shall still keep speculating over the questions, the instances and the acts that would remain unanswered or unexplained.

As I said in the beginning it has all the ingredients of a potboiler ready to be served on instant television. A middle class family of professionals, a servant, a residence in a well off colony of a suburb and a young school going teenager who, as now appears from her private details being flashed in public, loved hanging around her friends and was the only child of her parents. This then is the perfect archetypical middle class urban Indian setting. A family, a servant, a girl next door. The sense of identity of a large section of the television and newspaper audiences with the Talwars is complete. Above that there is the compelling curiosity of an unsolved murder. But perhaps the biggest turn on of the entire saga is the role of the parents and till date none of us is convinced as to their actions and intentions of that fateful night. Some suspect the father; some question the total ignorance of the mother. Some of us were even surprised and shocked as to how calm the mother appeared on television channels when she finally spoke to the media. Could the parents have slept through a double murder in a small flat? Did the father actually kill the daughter because she knew of his illicit relationship as the police claim? Somewhere deep down all of us fear that Arushi’s murder might well be the first instance of cold blooded killing of a yuppie teenager by her educated and professional parents in urban India. And not all of us who harbor that suspicion believe that honor killing is the motive behind that. So there it is; you and I neither know the killer nor the motive. We are still on square one. And that is the most compelling factor drawing us voyeuristically towards this case everyday.

And what about the media? The bunch of people who have been painted as nosy intruding private Sherlocks on the one hand and skeptical journalists busting the police theories on the other. The media has fed our hunger, has been spurred on by the mysteries and inconsistencies of the entire episode and has splashed the Talwars all across the front and the city pages and the news bulletins. Infact the murder made it on the front page of the city magazine of one of Delhi’s leading dailies yesterday under the title of ‘Whodunit?’ a first perhaps for such city magazines. In a vigorous and lively debate on ‘We the People’ last night Barkha Dutt (playing the devil’s advocate as the anchor) and Deepak Chaurasia of Aaj Tak made a spirited defense for the role of the media in the entire case. Their basic lines of defense went as follows – a) The media’s job is to report and that is all it did, whether it was when the police first declared Hemraj the suspect or when they later trained their guns on Dr.Talwar. b) The media (at least Deepak’s channel as he claimed on the show) quizzed the police as to why a dead young girl’s character was being questioned when there was no concrete evidence to support their ‘objectionable but not compromising position’ theory. c) The media have covered the case in an unbiased manner and have focused on the servant as much on the girl and did not exercise the bias of access (portraying Dr.Talwar as guilty initially and immediately turning in his favor the moment his wife started granting television interviews).

To be fair to both Barkha and Deepak, no one is questioning their right to report the event or for that matter even to quote the policemen and pronounce the servant or Dr.Talwar as the prime accused if the police has announced them to be so. It is not the media’s primary job to discover bodies, clues and killers. They are there to report. But a concoction of police callousness, middle class anxiety and media overzealousness has lead to some distasteful consequences in this entire affair. Principally the objections towards the actions of the journalists’ tribe are based on the following counts.

One – A young girl’s life, her private messages, social networking profiles and emails have all been laid bare open in front of the entire nation. When the television channels had reached a conclusion that there was nothing incriminating in Arushi’s messages and mails to her father then was there a need to splash them across out television screens and newspapers? More than the journalists the blame for this crass treatment of a deceased young girl and her servant must lie on the police. Charges of sexual intimacy between the two victims, extra marital affairs of Dr.Talwar and innuendoes of wife swapping between the Talwars and the Durranis have been made on and off the record without a shred of evidence. The police have been hungry to come on camera, eager to tell the people that they know all when the reality is that even now they know hardly anything. And a hungry pack of journalists, camped outside the victim’s residence and the Noida police offices has lapped up every crumb thrown at it and flashed it before us without assessing its worth.

Two – No matter how smart you, me, Barkha or Deepak may be, at the end of the day we are NOT detectives. It is not our job to sit in our studios and couches and speculate on who was the murderer. The attempt by the vernacular media to play Sherlock, reenact the drama, claim secret sources and arouse viewer curiosity by tantalizing titles such as ‘Arushi ka kaatil kaun?’ have simply been attempts at shooting darts in the dark with a blindfold.

And finally there has been this entire matter of crime shows and news programs where reporters have posed as the victim, mouthed dialogues such as ‘Papa aapne mujhe kyon mara?’ (so the father is assumed guilty?) and ‘Main Arushi hoon…suniye meri daastaan’. The vernacular media as always has found it difficult to maintain a distinction between coverage of a murder and the dramatics of an Ekta Kapoor serial and have tended to be swayed towards the latter. A Hindi channel showed an explicit MMS claiming it to be of Arushi. Eventually it was not, but there has been no trace of apology coming from the channel top bosses.

In a case which keeps getting complicated by the day, the media has tied itself up in knots and shown both its halos and its warts. It has been the watchdog as well as the scoop hunting bloodhound. It’s an act inherently full of contradictions and hence I guess the discomfort of us all as we see this playing out in front of us. So who killed Arushi Talwar and Hemraj? Sitting on my computer I cannot find out. Maybe the CBI will answer that question for all us. As for the Noida police, there can be only one word to describe them – irresponsible. The sack was the least they deserved.

|

What you and I suspected (and perhaps believed) for long has now been confirmed by a court of law. Vikas Yadav and a brother of his have been convicted for the abduction and murder of Nitish Katara. And today’s verdict brings to an end the saga of three high profile murder cases each of which was uniquely different but each of which shared an intangible common thread. The shooting of Jessica Lall, the rape and murder of Priyadarshini Mattoo and the abduction and consequent murder of Nitish Katara – each a crime of a different nature committed by unrelated protagonists; yet each a crime which represented the catharsis of a rapidly changing urban India and which more importantly shook, tested and finally to a certain degree vindicated the faith of the urban middle class in the country’s judicial system. Each case involved a cold blooded crime, each had an accused with powerful police and political links and in each case the process of justice was tried to be subverted through every possible way. In two of them, the defense actually succeeded at the trial stage before the prosecution was redeemed by the Delhi High Court. It is to the credit of Neelam Katara and the prosecution lawyers that Nitish Katara’s case did not suffer the same fate in the trial court. In spite of a six year long trial, repeated witness absences and hostilities, the court managed to pass the only logical verdict possible in the litigation.

Do I seem biased? Had I made my mind even before the trial about the guilt of an accused man? Am I as guilty as the media of pre-judging a case and passing a verdict even before the trial has been completed? Perhaps I am. But consider the Nitish Katara episode – a young man in the prime of his life is murdered on the outskirts of Delhi. His head is split open by being bashed with a heavy object and his body set on fire to avoid identification. Eyewitnesses see him last being escorted out of a social function by two heavily built men. One of them is the goonda and criminal son of a goonda, muscleman and criminal Member of Parliament (all in that order of achievement). The father son due are the acknowledged bahubalis of a Delhi suburb and have a range of criminal cases pending against them. The son is considered the prime suspect by the police. The motive is established when the victim’s mother discloses the intimate letters and cards sent by the accused’s sister to the victim. There is photographic evidence of the two (batch mates from a MBA program) together and the sister post the murder is packed off to the UK for further studies. The big picture – Just because Vikas Yadav did not like Nitish Katara dating his sister, he abducted him along with a couple of like minded goons and killed him in cold blood. The still bigger picture – A Jessica Lall was bumped off by a Manu Sharma, the son of Congress MLA with powerful contacts in the administration and police, in the presence of a page three crowd just because she refused to serve him a drink as the bar at a private party was closing. A Priyadarshini Mattoo was stalked by a fellow law student (son of top ranking cop in Delhi Police) who finally decided to enter her house, rape her and go on to murder her brutally.

The bottom line – In urban India, you can shoot, rape, abduct and kill someone whom you do not like (Vikas Yadav) or whom you do like (Santosh Singh in the Mattoo case) or someone who just annoys you with a refusal (Manu Sharma) at the drop of a hat and then walk away as if nothing happened. You can care two hoots for the law and sit back and relax because your Daddy dearest has contacts in the police who will subvert the investigation for you, he has the money that will allow you to hire expensive defense lawyers who have sold their conscience and morality to money (Ram Jethmalani) and also arrange for your defense to buy out/ threaten prime witnesses who decide to depose against you. And voila! In no time are you back at home declared a free and wrongly condemned man.

Is it any surprise then for you to see where the sympathies of the media and the general public lay in each of these cases? You might argue that for the media it made a David vs. Goliath, the corruption of the lower judiciary, subversion of justice and such other kind of juicy stories. But what of the general public? We were not in it for the stories and we certainly did not wish convictions in each of these cases because we had something to sell. We identified and sympathized with the victims because deep down we realized that it affected us. That instead of Jessica Lall it could have been one of us at that party, that instead of Priyadarshini it could have happened to one of us in our Delhi University days and that instead of Nitish Katara we could find ourselves being butchered by a non-approving brother with his musclemen. In each of these instances, the victims were young middle class educated urban Indians trying to make a life for themselves in an honest way. And in each of these cases, they found themselves slain by those who thought they could get away with anything. Is it any surprise for you then why we sympathize with the Lalls, Mattoos and Kataras of this world?

For if the young and the educated have to seek a future in this country then its courts must guarantee them protection from the wolves like Vikas Yadav who roam our streets with impunity, who drive in their tinted glasses SUVs, run people over under their luxury cars, threaten those around them on the hollow strength of their musclemen and believe that money and power can protect them from anything. The Indian state needs to show these illegitimate sons of illegitimate and corrupt power their true place. And the only way to that is through indiscriminate policing and judicial enforcement of laws.

The natural process of law enforcement requires us to presume a man innocent till he is proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the only moral obligation that our courts cast upon us. We are not obliged to feel for them or extend any benefits of doubts to them. If they are found guilty at the end of a fair trial they deserve their dues. And you and I can argue whether they would have got away with their subversive and manipulative tactics in our courts had not their every move been scrutinized by an intrusive, aggressive, perhaps pre-determined but certainly a vigilant media. For once a witness turning hostile or forensic report being fudged gained more prominence than a female actor’s evening gown. For once this aggression made you and me believe that something fishy was going on and we all stood vindicated as the courts delivered their verdicts.
The wheels of justice turned, albeit slowly, but surely. And at the end of it I have only three words for the three convicts who thought their fathers could get them through anything – rot in hell. They may rest assured that Indian prisons would be much worse off than that.

|

In a pose that would do any politician proud. This is after the win...and the excitement was palpable. At one stage Delhi seemed in trouble, but Dinesh Karthick played an uncharacteristically aggressive knock to guide his team home. I am wearing the Daredevils jersey which i had bought just before the game for a thousand bucks (!). Worth the money, as the team won. And now they are in the semis, so i have another day to wear the jersey. :)

A delirious crowd after the Daredevils had completed the victory.....

Sachin Tendulkar is clean bowled and the crowd at Kotla erupts. Uptil then we a chant of 'Sachin! Sachin!' was rverberating all around me (and i was joining in as well). The moment his leg stump went for a toss, i instinctively found myself jumping out of my seat. Something that has never happened before in the 19 years of my watching Tendulkar play. Mr.Modi, you can count me amoungst those who have taken to city based loyalties.

The view from where i was seated. First innings, Jayasuriya has just started to open up his arms against the Delhi bowlers.

|

There is a certain sense of identification associated with a tragedy. It is popularly said that every American alive on that date remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard of the Japanese bombing of the Pearl Harbour and the assassination of President Kennedy. Tragedies, particularly the sudden, unforeseen, irregular and unexpected ones have a shaking up effect. One might think that natural disasters like cyclones and earthquakes occur so frequently that we have become numb to their havoc, but the fact is that it is not the extent and the magnitude of the damage but the complacency which it shatters that makes a tragic event leave a scar. Sometimes, for the unfortunate ones, on the body and almost permanently on the mind. Independent America never thought an enemy would reach its shores and bomb its naval base or smash its proudest towers into dust with such impunity. In those heady days of hope in the early 60s no one ever thought that a President so loved by his people would be so brutally killed on the street. When traders stepped into the Bombay Stock Exchange on a sunny morning in March of 1993, nothing unusual was expected. It was business as usual. Stock exchanges never had been targeted through an act of violence and on that spring morning too there was nothing to defy the belief. Nothing to indicate that the Sarojini Nagar market where one picked such nice bargains would ever be abandoned all alone with a bomb. No reason or historical fact to presume or believe that when people walked in for a laser show at the Lumbini park in Hyderabad, some of them would not be returning home.

We never believe that tragedy can strike – either at us or a few feet away from us or for that matter at those spots where we frequently dine, shop or eat or in that city in which unhindered movement we take for granted. And it is because we do not expect it to happen to us, to our places, to our town and to our city that when it actually does happen, it leaves us numb.

Tonight, another Indian city has had its first brush with terror. Jaipur has withstood seven bomb blasts one after the other. Each timed to perfection, placed meticulously and each kept to go off in places where ordinary people like you and me would go on ordinary days to perform ordinary activities thinking nothing extraordinary could ever happen. Well, tonight it did. 60 people are dead and more than a 150 are injured. And a vibrant, bustling and busy city has lost what it can never regain – innocence. More than 200 families spend this night in anxiety, pain, agony and despair. Men, women and children – all out on daily routines of life have been punished for just that – living. Not for committing murders or looting or demolishing mosques or temples but simply because they did that one simple thing that all of us strive to do – live our daily lives. To say that their death is a waste of human life is an understatement. The answer to the ‘Why’ behind their death is even more eluding and frightening. Why did men so upset and angry about what is happening with their religion in the bloody streets of the middle - east turn towards innocent people thousands of miles away to express that anger? Expect no simple answers.

My only brush with terror, if I may call it that, came when three serial bomb blasts shook Delhi in late October of 2005. It was a couple of days before Diwali and I was on my way home looking to a week long break when the radio broke the news. One of the blasts took place at a chaat stall in the Sarojini Nagar market. An innocuous eatery at a busy market, crowded with hungry Diwali shoppers. Everytime I now go to Chandni Chowk and stand near the Town Hall to eat the Dahi Bhallas, my heart invariably skips a beat of awareness. A busy eatery at the corner of a congested lane. Shoppers, customers, cyclists and rickshaw pullers all milling around. Electric wires hanging overhead and a footpath with hardly any space to walk in the normal course, let alone run in case of a need. A perfect setting I say to myself everytime I stand outside that lane to eat. A perfect setting I say to myself whenever I am at the railway stations. Crowded platforms, unmanned metal detectors that do not work, no screening of baggage and no CCTVs. One can walk into a train with a bag of explosives without even being touched or stopped.

In a country where the value of life is so cheap, such blasts as those borne by Jaipur will not blow the wax out of our ears. Unfortunately the death and the injuries of those 200 odd citizens will not force the Indian state to sit up and acknowledge that it does not have an anti-terror policy and that it needs to urgently draft one. That’s its Intelligence set up needs drastic streamlining and restructuring. That’s its police needs reforming and should be out patrolling our streets rather than being holed up in the VIP zones of our cities. We are a soft state not because we do not have the resolve to act against terror but because we are not able to instill a fear of law in them and play the game with as much single mindedness and brutality as they do.

And while the Indian state ‘reflects’ on another set of lives lost and damaged, you and I can only do what we do everyday. Get out on the street and live our lives. Walk the roads, travel the footpaths, shop at the markets, eat at the roadside eateries, and venture out on Diwalis at crowded and potentially unsafe markets. You and I must continue to live our lives even though on days such as today we may never be able to trace our steps back home, even though on days such as today events may not leave us with the bodily resources to walk back home, even though on days such as today we may be facing the prospects of funeral pyres. You and I must walk the roads, for the right to live is a right greater than any enshrined even in our Constitution. It’s a right granted by humanity. And you and I must not allow any person to browbeat us into mortgaging it away.

|

Ferozshah Kotla from the top tier stand under floodlights as Delhi take on Banglore

CP gets blocked as the cops watch...it would be another 15 mins in the sun before the road was cleared

Medicos are out on the streets chanting slogans against Arjun Singh....again

|

I begin by putting forward a simple question to you. Which Indian state in the recent past has witnessed that maximum political agitation over the most trivial, divisive and inconsequential issues? You would not have to be a ‘paanchvi paas’ to reach the correct answer. It is Maharashtra of course. Trace the course of Maharashtra politics over the last few years and you would traverse such glorious and nationally relevant milestones such as digging up of the pitch to protest Pakistan’s cricket tour, renaming Bombay into Mumbai, agitation over disenfranchising of Bal Thackeray for vituperative writings, Mee Mumbaikar campaign, a lot of song and dance (pun intended) over the dance bars and the girls who perform there, the whole anti-North Indian protests on the road and now this fresh political initiative to curb the skin displays of cheerleaders at the IPL games. For a nation that revels in trivializing its political debates, Maharashtra sets the benchmark. You could scarcely imagine, following the course of the above events, that this is a state whose capital was sunk under water for two days a couple of years back, that the security of the sate capital is constantly under threat, that its farmlands are dry and farmers eating pesticides to end their lives as crops routinely fail and that its status as the prime industrial state of the nation in the last decade has now been taken over by Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. As Maharashtra has decayed and declined, so have its opportunist politicians. In a game characterizing the most crass form of competitive reactionary politics, the parties involved have routinely stirred up the pot and tried to grab media space through non-issues.

Perhaps Maharashtra’s problem stems from the multi-polarity of its political landscape and that, unlike the cow belt states in the north, its political parties have seen their dedicated vote banks being shaken over the past few years. The Shiv Sena has been on the far right of the political space for four decades, yet has not been able to establish itself as the most dominant party of the state simply because of its reactionary agenda, propensity of violence and inability to offer a mainstream developmental platform. The one time when Uddhav Thackeray tried to adopt a more centrist position, he found himself being jostled out of the far right by an even more reactionary and narrow minded cousin Raj. As both the Thackeray cubs (or pussy cats as we may call them more deservingly), fight for the same space, each shall try to outdo the other by engaging in similar tactics of targeting outsiders, minorities and anyone else whom they can paint as a devil for all the problems of Maharashtra.

What surprises one in all this is that in the recent past, it has been the NCP and the Congress who have been at the forefront of pursuing mindless and irrelevant. The Home Minister RR Patil went after the bar dancers with a missionary zeal and it is the NCP itself that has now assumed the BJP and RSS’s mantle of guardians of the Indian culture and protested against the IPL cheerleaders. And while one may grudgingly grant the Home Minister the leverage of his ideological and cultural affiliations, it is clear that the NCP is clearly trying to expand its space and be a milder version of what the Shiv Sena used to be. The idea of course is clear, push the Sena into a further corner and marginalize it more as it grapples with dipping popularity, a revived Raj Thackeray and a new leader who can’t replace the old and aging patriarch. The Congress instead of the occupying the Centre space and adopting a conciliatory position has backtracked, observed without any action, not made an effort to focus attention on more burning topics of the state and dilly dallied and prevaricated in its response to everything. In all the Congress position has been to bury its head in the sand and wait till the storm passes or plead helplessness in the face of a hostile opposition and alliance partner.

The central issue is not whether cheerleaders in skimpy costumes are an offence to Indian sensibilities or whether cricket has been trivialized by having them around (basketball and American football wasn’t and T20 would also not be). NCP and Congress leaders frequently occupy front rows in Bollywood functions where actors in skimpier outfits perform on the stage and those who have performed on the screen are honored with awards. The moot point is whether the costumes of a few young women looking to make some money by doing a perfectly legitimate activity in public space is a matter worth debating in our assemblies and parliament when the nation grapples with a rising inflation, an impending slowdown in the economy and an agricultural slump. Are IPL cheerleaders more important for our politicians than these pressing concerns and if yes, then is there something wrong in the way we elect them or have we simply failed to get the message across to them that all that they need to do is govern and make our lives simpler and not pretend to govern and find helpless scapegoats to exercise their supposed moral assertions on?

A decade ago, in the context of its industrial development, it was said what Maharashtra is today India should aim to be tomorrow. Today, India would serve itself well to show Maharashtra the light.

**********************

So the IPL is up and running and whatever the critics may say (Mukul Kesavan wrote a scathing article lambasting the concept on Cricinfo last week), the tournament has been a hit. Attendances may not have been full (it was close to 85% in the first game at Mohali that I witnessed myself) but the television ratings have been high, despite Sony’s shoddy production values. Like DD in the past, Sony too does not believe in showing you the activity after the last ball of the over or the replay immediately after a wicket falls.

My only concern with the format thus far - the boundaries are pulled in a little too much turning even mishits into sixes and fours. IPL can avoid shortening the dimensions of the grounds simply to broaden the egos of the batsmen. The talented ones will clear the ropes anyways. My picks thus far – Warne (for the way he has lead an unfancied team), Ravindra Jadeja (for all that he brings to his team), McGrath (still as sharp), Dhoni (he ain’t no fluke as a captain), Rohit Sharma (for reaffirming his talent) and all the Aussies who have demonstrated that they do remain the ultimate professionals in the game. On current form and player strength Chennai, Delhi & Kolkata look set to reach the semis while Mohali/ Jaipur/ Deccan might battle for the last spot. Mumbai have been the biggest disappointment. Sachin’s injury and Bhajji’s slapping have made more news than their actual performances. At $110 mn they seem to be the most expensive failure of the tournament. After retail, another example of Reliance getting a business wrong? Chotte bhai Anil must be laughing away in some corner. Mukesh’s team won’t last this marathon for sure.

|

|

|

|

|

It is almost with a shaky set of hands that I commence to write these words. The very idea of reviewing Ayn Rand’s magnum opus ‘Atlas Shrugged’ (AS) is a bit daunting. Not just because of its scale (1084 pages in paperback and as Wikipedia informs me, at 6.45 lac words, one of the longest pieces of literature ever penned) but also because of the various spheres of human life it encompasses. From love to ethics to morality to religion to politics, Rand touches all and presents a unique (if somewhat utopian on occasions) point of view across. At twenty fours years of age and as someone who does not claim to have seen everything there is to see, think and judge upon in this world, I feel somewhat inadequate in forming a scholarly assessment on AS. But if there one thing that Rand would have hated her readers to have done, it was to blindly follow what she had written. And as John Galt says, the question is ‘to think or not to think’. To do justice to Rand would be to think and express an opinion. And so here it follows.

So what is the theme of the book? In two words – volitional consciousness. Two words that John Galt, the hero of the novel and Rand’s idea of the perfect man never fails to emphasize. Man’s existence on this planet says Rand is driven by the exercise of his choices, choices which are not forced upon him but which are followed and acted upon by a process of rational selection. If man’s ego was the ‘Fountainhead’ of humanity’s progress then it is the exercise of his mind that drives this progressive ego. Rational self-interest, according to Rand, must not be confused with selfishness. Yes, our choices must be driven primarily on the basis of what is good for us, but where Rand differs is in the dynamic of the choice that she defines. An objective choice is one which involves an equal trade off between the two parties involved in the decision. A sub-optimal choice which benefits or enriches one at the cost of another falls beyond the circumference of rationality and must be out rightly rejected. Trade, believes Rand, forms the basis or must form the basis of human actions. One must not gain at the expense of another (for that amounts to looting – the possession of someone’s asset by force - or amounts to mooching – beseeching someone to benefit another under a moral obligation while at the same time deriding the person who carries the weight of this obligation); a relationship must be formed as per Rand on the basis of an exchange. What one seeks the other must have in him or her to give.

Rand’s moral philosophy rests on three foundational pillars – pillars which form the backbone of this novel. These are the three primary principles of the Aristotle school of philosophy – existence, identity and consciousness. An object or a state exists; to deny existence is to deny identity and consequently reality. A is A, something that Galt never forgets to remind us. No matter how so ever you may wish A will not be B. And the moment it moves from being an A to being a B, it assumes a completely different identity altogether. It must not possess any remnants of A. It is now distinctly B. And thus to drive home the point of there being only two sides – things are either Black or White (Either/Or – another foundation of Aristotle’s philosophy). There are no greys, says Rand. And this fact of existence and identity drives towards the third pillar of consciousness. A man must be conscious to gain and understand the state of existence around him. And it is this consciousness, this awareness of reality that forces him to make his own choices. Consciousness being the faculty of perceiving what exists and thus making rational choices on the basis of living tangible factors of existence. It often reminds me of the famous quality I once read being attributed to a great statesman – the ability to see things as they are and not as you wish them to be.

It is a single quality that distinguishes Rand’s characters in the book. Rand divides them into two halves (Black and White….) – one set are the creators – people who create value, who bring innovation, who drive the commercial economy and sustenance of the society by the strength of their mind. Their innovations, efforts and drive generating greater benefits for those to whom they sell their products. These industrialists and scientists, as Rand shows them, are the torch bearers of rational self interest. Men and women who act because they want to act in that manner, because their mind makes them believe that it is only by acting in that manner that they are sustaining themselves. Thus, you have a Dagny Taggart (Rand’s heroine in the novel) and other industrialists like Hank Rearden and Ellis Wyatt who act in a certain manner only because it sustains their own self interest and those of their businesses. Rand’s point eventually boils down to this – innovations and inventions eventually move out of the hands of the thinkers to that of the industrialist who then applies them to mass production which through a domino effect creates value for the society as a whole. This forms the crux of Rand’s economic philosophy. AS could well serve as a manifesto for laizzez faire capitalism, standing in the blue corner up against the Communist manifesto in the red (pun intended). Thus the greatest private property is one’s mind and in the economic system envisaged by Rand, the state must carry out the responsibility to guard the sanctity of this one supreme asset.

Which is something the ‘People’s State’ in AS does not do. This is the second half of her characters – comprising the looters and moochers. People who deprive others of their innovations because they seek to reward the non-performing at the expense of those who perform, while very conveniently passing off this heist under the garb of ‘greater social need’. Moochers of course are the parasites – those who force others to believe that they are under a moral obligation to sustain them since those who are talented and successful must carry the burden of those who have not been able to acquire these attributes.

Both positions are those of extortion and throughout the novel are adopted by the ‘villains’ under the garb of moral obligation, towards society and towards the weak. Rand soundly rejects this point of view. She candidly outlines the decay that sets in when man’s actions are governed by the over arching umbrella of moral responsibility which is nothing but an attempt by the unproductive to live a life by robbing the productive of their means. The looters routinely use Communist postulates and arguments to undermine the men and women of ability. Principle among these arguments is the one against the making of profits and generation of money. (Franciso d’Anconia’s six page rebuttal of the argument that ‘Money is the root of all evil’ is one of the highlights of the book) Another argument is that of a rich and successful person’s moral obligation to support those who are not as well off. Hank Rearden’s family never fails to criticize him for running after money, for being materialistic but also feeds from his treasury for their sustenance. Rand does well to bring out to the hypocrisy of this situation as well as punching holes in theory of ‘Sanction of the Victim’. Rand displays how evil can exist only because good allows it to. It is only because the productive minds accept the moral guilt of being productive and accept the obligation of carrying the world on their shoulders that the looters and moochers thrive and become more powerful.

Rand also criticizes religion and mysticism (Galt’s speech has a few nasty things to say about India in this respect) believing that both these are forms of blind faith. The ‘mystics of the mind’ as Galt calls them force you to abandon your mind and consequently your ability to reason. The ‘mystics of the muscle’ are the looters, those who rob you of your productive efforts. Galt seeks out to destroy both by taking away the one weapon that these two forces possess – voluntary sanction of the victim. It is an approach that finds a small resonance with the Gandhian practice of Satyagraha. Rearden’s response of refusing to recognize the court that tries him but at the same time refusing to accept his guilt, not co-operating with the judicial process and holding steadfast to his views are reminiscent of Gandhi’s non-violence tactics. Tactics which rested on the single premise of the victim being morally stronger than the oppressor.

It is difficult not to agree with Rand’s thought process. Having espoused the concept of free choice and free minds, liberalism, rationality and broad mindedness, there is a lot that one finds common with what exists in the book. But AS suffers from two weaknesses. One is literary and the other a moral one. Rand’s characters, as pointed earlier, are purely black and white. They are neatly divided into two camps. Even if one passes that off as a necessity for her to show the divergence in the core beliefs of these two groups and distinctly draw out the features of objectivism, you cannot ignore the monologue that characterizes the book at certain places. Characters rarely converse without venturing into long speeches of philosophy. It almost seems that essays have been masqueraded as dialogues. At times you wonder whether it is humanly possible for someone to speak as long and use as heavy words, phrases and sentences as Rand’s characters do in the novel. AS is Rand’s magnum opus. But one can’t help thinking that the one thousand page novel could easily have been passed off a philosophy book condensed into three hundred odd pages. Rand would of course later in her writing career go on to do exactly that with her book ‘The Virtue of Selfishness’ as well as other titles. Her followers like Leonard Peikoff and Nathaniel Branden would also follow the same route and churn out pure philosophical essays rather than philosophy dressed works of fiction. But to be fair to Rand, all writing has a message and you can certainly doubt whether objectivism would have reached as many people had she not transformed them into novels like ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged’.

More than the literary it is a moral question that requires a critical appraisal of Rand’s work. While A is indisputably A, what are the attributes that make an A an A? And can these attributes also display a partial presence in B? Rand says contradictions do not exist – things are either black or white. It is this argument that I now propose to dispute. And I want to do so by taking a few examples.

The two great Indian epics – Ramayana and Mahabharata – deal with moral issues at a great depth. They outline the moral codes that must govern the societies. The Ramayana is the simpler epic – a straight fight between the good and the evil. But try and judge maryada purshottam Lord Ram by objectivist criteria and you might find some surprises. What makes Ram leave Ayodhya, refuse the throne that is his by right and follow an obligated father’s wishes to march on to the jungle. Is Ram being a mystic? Is he acting in his self-interest? Or is this another form of altruism, a state of living that Rand absolutely despises. And if Ram’s interest is assumed to be to up hold the promise of his father then is it not a sacrifice (another word derided by Rand) on his part? The giving up of a kingdom for a life in forest – a sacrifice driven by an immoral promise forced out of plain treachery by a scheming wife. And what makes maryada purshottam to abdicate his wife just because of a seed of her disloyalty planted in his mind by the actions of a washer man who also throws out his wife who has lived in another man’s residence? Why does Ram, the upholder of all the sacred Hindu moral values on one hand turn so parochial as to throw his wife out on the mere fact she spent days and nights in the house of another man? What makes a demi-god character who displays prudence and rationality throughout the epic to act in such a ‘contradictory’ manner?

The Mahabharata is all the more dense when it comes to the concept of morality. It is perhaps the most morally ambiguous epic in literature. Each character has that one fatal flaw that stops him short of perfection. Bhisma is the maryada purshottam of the Mahabharata, who upholds all the values of raj dharma but allows his choice of right and wrong to be compromised by his loyalty to the kingdom he serves. Karna similarly allows his sense of morality to be compromised by his friendship to Duryodhan. And what of the Pandavas? Are they all white? What makes the upholder of moral values, the dharamraj Yudhistra to succumb to the tentacles of gambling and lose everything he puts at stake? And what of Lord Krishna himself? He, who is the orchestrator of the Pandava victories, is the most morally ambiguous of all. Where is the morality in placing Shikhandi before Bhisma, forcing the old man to lay down weapons and then firing arrows at him at will? Is it any less immoral than the Kauravas ganging up on an armed but alone in battle Abhimanyu? Was it moral to speak a white lie to Drona and make him abdicate his weapons and then chop off his head while he was sitting in meditation? Was it moral on the part of Krishna to goad Bhim to strike on Duryodhan’s thighs even though the rules of mace fight forbid such a move?

Each of these ambiguities Krishna addresses through sermons at different places on the epic, the most important one being the Geeta itself. All is fair, he stresses, on the path of righteousness. Krishna’s actions are legitimate because the Pandavas have righteousness with them. And that is not because they are all white or do not possess any human flaws. They most certainly do; but unlike the Kauravas they are able to acquire a streak of humility to conquer their flaws. The Mahabharata is not a simple fight between the right and the wrong – but a fight between those who have been able to conquer their contradictions and those who continue to live by their faults.

And this is precisely what is missing from the characters in Rand’s book. They are too perfect and not real. In a certain sense, even artificial. They exist in a realm of perfect competition and empirical economics will tell you that those conditions do not exist in a real world. Let me put forward another example – India and the United States are democracies. Both run on a political system that recognizes an individual’s fundamental right to choose who governs him. Adult franchise is the ultimate political representation of volitional consciousness. And if both these nations consider democracy as the moral code of their political systems then why are they spreading non-democratic regimes all across the world? The US has installed tin pot dictators all across the globe just because a democratically elected government would not serve their interests. Closer home while we profess democracy and advocate its spread in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East, we are perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to the democratic demands in Burma where a popularly elected leader has been under house arrest for almost two decades now. Why? Because it serves our self interest to keep the Generals ruling that country happy so that in return they control the militant groups operating in the North East. How different are we then from the Americans (often called ‘Cynical Bastards’ for this hypocritical policy), who support autocrat and non-democratic regimes in many nations simply because it suits their economic self interest?

My question is two fold – is this rational self interest? Both nations act in their own benefit and offer a morally questionable trade off. And if yes, then does this mean that our self interest may conflict with our living code of morality? Why is it okay for our people to exercise their minds but not okay for those from other nations to do so? So what do we choose – our morality or our self-interest? But hang on; doesn’t following your self interest as per Rand lead you to a path of a moral life? Or I am missing the definition of morality? Isn’t adherence to a principle you stand by the ultimate test of your morality? And if yes, then does our pursuit of rational self interest as individuals and as nations mean that our morality crosses path with our interests rather than running parallel to it? Isn’t the Mahabharata an example that contradictions in human character do exist, just that many are able to conquer them? Is India’s engagement with Pakistan in a peace process a step towards compromise (another concept that objectivists love to hate) or a step towards co-existence? And if both represent a climb down, a give and take, a sub-optimal solution, agreeing to live with each other through certain adjustments, then what is the objectivist alternative to it? Bombing each other out of existence? Isn’t our stand of co-existence with our neighbor driven by our rational self-interest to exist and not be bombed to pieces? If yes, then isn’t our rational self interest driving us towards a possible compromise and life of co-existence?

Difficult questions? Welcome to a difficult world.

I suspect Rand’s robust philosophy like all schools of thought has had some difficulty standing up to the queries of a real world. In spite of that it needs to be studied, more deeply analyzed and respected. Simply because it stands as a solid defense for the fundamental human right of making a choice (something no can dispute and take away from Objectivism) and because it stands as a solid wall behind the liberal, rational and open minded process of living a life.


P.S. Rand, through Galt’s speech is quite critical of the ‘mystic’ India consisting of sadhus who sleep on a bed of nails, while she profusely praises the US as the first country that gave importance to the concept of the power of a man’s mind. Too bad, ‘The Argumentative Indian’ wasn’t out then. Indian philosophy dates back to eras when the US as a continent was not even discovered. And the United States itself took almost two centuries to make a decision as to what extent it wanted to recognize the power of the mind of its people. Slavery was abolished only after the civil war in 1860s (Britain has abolished it decades earlier), women allowed to vote only in the late nineteenth century (Good luck Hillary! a women president if she comes will come after 232 years of male presidents) and blacks were allowed to vote only in the 1960s (a full century after abolition of slavery). If I could fault Rand on one count, it would be this irrational and blind devotion to the United States. Not expected from an objectivist.

|

A squirrel that I found on the edge of one of the walls on my climb up on the Golconda fort.

A cannon placed at the entrance of the Golconda fort. I took the snap from right behind it, and even though it is more of a showpiece the cannon is still perfectly aimed at the gate for a strike at an approaching enemy

Hyderabad city in the background and the entrance and lower parts of the Golconda fort in the foreground as seen from the highest point of the fort.

|

The horizon on the east, as seen from the window of the aircraft. Early morning at 6am as the plane took off, this sight caught my eye and I captured it stealthily escaping the attention of flight attendants with my mobile phone.

|

Ok so here is an exercise in sheer self indulgence. I have copied this pice of tag from a friend's blog (note the word...copied) and filled my anwers in (to whom...i dunno); though i think the next time around, i wud first see the length of the tag before copying. All answers are mine btw...nakal main akal, anyone?



( ) smoked a cigarette (Never have, never will)
( ) crashed a friend's car (Nah, I am quite careful with other people’s belongings)
( ) stolen a car (Jeez…why?!)
( ) been in love (Maybe….maybe not)
( ) been dumped (u need to have relationship for that too happen)
( ) shoplifted (Nopes)
( ) been fired (came quite close though)
(X) been in a fist fight (yup..in school, when I was 6)
( ) snuck out of your parent's house (Nopes)
(X) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back (Over and Over again)
( ) gone on a blind date (Once)
( ) lied to a friend (I try not to)
( ) skipped school (Never)
(X) seen someone die (Cremated some...if that qualifies )
( ) had a crush on one of your Internet friends (Nah…didn’t find one worth enuf)
( ) been to Canada (Agreed I am a half sardar, but no)
( ) been to Mexico (What for?)
(X) been on a plane (Yes!!)
(X) eaten sushi (Yes…didn’t like it too much though)
( ) been skiing-snow or water (Sadly no )
( ) met someone from the Internet (Nopes)
( ) been at a concert (No)
(X) taken painkillers (Loadsa time)
( ) love someone or miss someone right now (Hmm…No)
(X) laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by (Quite often….believe me its enchanting)( ) made a snow angel (In Delhi?! Mate u need to look at the weather pages)
( ) had a tea party (Aunties do such things mate)
(X) flown a kite (Once...with dad, never really took to it though)
( ) built a sand castle (No :( though I v been to beaches galore)
(X) gone puddle jumping (yeah…another one of those simple pleasures of life)
( ) played dress up (No…my memory cant recall a thing like that)
(X) jumped into a pile of leaves (Yes, once at the Lodhi Gardens)
( ) gone sledding (Weather mate!!)
(X) cheated while playing a game (Ludo, trump cards, silent handballs in football, not walking when out in cricket…)
(X) been lonely (Felt lonely at times)
(X) fallen asleep at work/school (Amazingly only at work!)
( ) used a fake ID (Never needed to)
(X) watched the sun set (many times over….beautiful)
(X) felt an earthquake (Yes….the one that rocked Gujarat in 2001 )
( ) slept beneath the stars (Yes…summer nights during childhood in Chandigarh)
(X) been tickled (Infinite times…I am quite ticklish)
( ) been robbed (The Lord have mercy, No)
(X) been misunderstood (Over and over again; don’t misunderstand me, but it wasn’t my fault)( ) pet a reindeer/goat/kangaroo (wud love to pet a dog)
(X) won a contest (quite a few if debates and quizzes count)
(X) run a red light/stop sign (Sometimes…)
( ) been suspended from school (Mate accept it...i was a good kid)
( ) been in a car crash (Thankfully no)
( ) had braces (Again, thankfully no)
(X) felt like an outcast/third person (Felt an outsider on some occasions )
(X ) eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night (Yes Yes!!)(X) had déjà vu (Seems to happen too often for my comfort :( )
( ) danced in the moonlight (Haven’t found anyone to dance with)
(X) liked the way you looked (At times yes…at times no)
( ) witnessed a crime (Not really)
(X) questioned your heart (Do that every day)
( ) been obsessed with post-it notes (No, somehow I have got in the habit of using them)
( ) squished mud through your bare feet (Squished sand…not mud)
( ) been lost (Once in the trade fair when I was 9)
(X) been on the opposite side of the country (Kanyakumari, Nagaland, Gujarat, J&K…been to all corners)
( ) swam in the ocean (Cant swim for nuts)
( ) felt like dying (Hmm…have had depressing moments, but nothing quite so)
( ) cried yourself to sleep (Nopes)
(X) played cops and robbers (Ya…had four cousin brothers when I was growing up )
( ) recently colored with crayons (Shit I am so old!!)
(X) Sang karaoke (Yes, even with my miserable voice)
(X) paid for a meal with only coins (In school yes)
(X) done something you told yourself you wouldn't (Hmm… Yup, a few things)
(X) made prank phone calls (Only when I was 12)
(X ) laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose (Not nose, but out of the mouth like a fountain)
( ) caught a snowflake on your tongue (Sigh….)
( ) danced in the rain (Love getting wet in the rain…dance, no one was there to accompany)
( ) a letter to Santa Claus (Surprisingly, never)
( ) been kissed under the mistletoe (Gee…what a heartburn that question causes)
( ) watched the sun rise with someone you care about (I am a late and a lazy riser)
(X) blown bubbles (Rarely I guess, as a kid)
( ) made a bonfire on the beach (Nopes L)
( ) crashed a party (Na)
(X) gone roller skating (Did a bit as a kid)
(X) had a wish come true (Yes…a few times...the critical ones!!)
( ) jumped off a bridge (Would want to…bunjee jump only please)
( ) ate dog/cat food (why would I do that?? My mother feeds me, thank you very much)
( ) told a complete stranger you loved them (Told one I liked her…but she was a stranger only in half sense of that word)
(X) kissed a mirror (lets not get too much into it)
(X) sang in the shower (Yup…some people have a talent only for bathroom singing)
( ) had a dream that you married someone (nah)
( ) glued your hand to something (I am quite neat with all those things actually)
( ) kissed a fish (I only eat them…that too as pakodas)
( ) climbed a water tower (Im no tarzan… incarnated or otherwise.)
(X) screamed at the top of your lungs (Once when we were playing a group game…had a sore throat for the next few hours)
( X) done a one-handed cartwheel (tried, but stumbled)
( ) talked on the phone for more than 5 hours (2 at max)
(X) stayed up all night (Try studying for CA :))
( ) picked and ate an apple right off the tree (Nopes)
(X) climbed a tree (Ya I guess…when I was between the age of 10-12)
( ) had a tree house (Didn’t go that far)
( ) been too scared to watch a scary movie alone (Nopes…face it head on!)
(X) believe in ghosts (Too rational for that)
( ) have more than 30 pairs of shoes (Only 5)
( ) worn a really ugly outfit to school (They only allowed uniforms :( )
( ) gone streaking (Too shy for that)
(X) gone doorbell ditching (U mean ringing bells and running away…did it once on a hot summer afternoon, got the scolding of my life from my mother)
( ) been pushed into a pool/hot tub with all your clothes on (No one tried)
(X) told you're hot by a complete stranger (Yes but subtly)
( ) broken a bone (Once, the shoulder joint when I was 6)
(X) been easily amused (Ya…I have an easy SOH)
( ) caught a fish then ate it (Kabhi nahin)
( ) caught a butterfly (they are too beautiful to be caught)
( ) laughed so hard you cried (no…what a contradiction that would be)
( ) cried so hard you laughed (No…when I cry I only cry)
(X) cheated on a test (Just once…to no avial… It was the only test I ever flunked)
(X) forgotten someone's name (Many times over…you know they have a name for such a person….Oofle)
( ) French braided someone's hair (What’s that?)
( ) been threatened to be kicked out of your house or been kicked out of your house (Told ya mate, I was a good kid)
(X) loved someone so much you would gladly die for THEM (If you count mom, yes)
( ) cheated on someone (Don’t like the idea)
(X) talk to yourself when no-ones around (Yes…only when I was studyin)
( ) hate someone you once loved (Hate is too strong and dangerous an emotion to harbour )
( ) love someone you once hated (If I dislike someone, it tends to stay)

|

When the dust finally settles and a scorching Aussie summer (both literally and metaphorically) ends, the test match in Sydney might be remembered along with the acrimony it generated, also for the push it provided towards cricketing reform. For far too long, the administrators of this game have been spending their energies on matters that lie on the periphery of the cricket field. The BCCI might well have woken up to the ‘Bucknor Disaster in the making’ had they read through the list of umpires for the current series rather than spending all their energies in trying to sell the Indian Premier League. The ICC, of course, has now made a habit of waking up out of its rip van winklesque sleep only when the fire alarms start ringing in the kitchen. The elite panel is over-aged, over worked and in instances like Bucknor, clearly incompetent. But you wonder whether the ICC would much rather spend time debating the value of the media rights and the sponsorships clauses in the player’s contracts rather than concern themselves with the small matter of umpiring?

Perhaps then, the Sydney test will end up doing us all a big favor and remind the mandarins who run this game that ultimately cricket is played on a green oval ground with a twenty yard pitch in the centre and two competing teams of eleven each with two men in white shirts presiding over the proceedings. At the end of the day the only thing driving the billions of dollars of television revenues and media rights is what goes on there in the field between the two sides actually playing the game. And as long as matters that contribute more to the financial health of the balance sheets of the respective boards continue to enjoy more relevance than those related to the quality of game in the middle, fiascos such as Sydney and The Oval shall continue to occur.

As I write this, already the raging fire is sought to be controlled. The ICC, clearly wary after the Darrel Hair episode, where it stepped in too late and only compounded the mess, has shown a degree of flexibility which is refreshing. The standard typical response of ‘We do not interfere with who umpires whom’ has been replaced within a day (more so after a display of intent by the BCCI) with the removal of Steve Bucknor and the granting of permission for Harbhajan Singh to be picked till the time his appeal is disposed.

More importantly, the entire fiasco at the SCG has raised three important issues each of which now deserves a serious discussion in cricketing forums. The first is quite obvious – What can be done to improve the standard of umpiring and to what extent are we willing to go with the use of technology? The second is the issue of racism. Who judges what is racist or not and how do match referees sitting in the air conditioned comforts of the pavilions pronounce judgments on such problems. And the third being the matter of the spirit in which the game is now being played and whether players on the field can any longer trust each other?

So let’s address them one by one. The umpiring issue is perhaps the one that requires immediate redressal and also perhaps the one that will seriously test the flexibility and imagination of the cricket administrators. Can test matches between nine playing nations requiring round the year supervision be looked after by an elite panel of nine to eleven men? More so, when they often have to fly across continents, stand in varying conditions throughout the five days and face continuous scrutiny from television cameras? A few relevant suggestions have been floating around, the first of course being to expand the elite panel itself so that more rotation of duties takes place and umpires are not overworked. Another suggestion worth exploring was the one offered by Ian Chappell. As Chappell says, the concept of neutrality of the umpire is now an obsolete one, more so in the age of television where your biases can be cruelly exposed leading to Bucknor and Hair like consequences. So if neutrality is no longer the driving force behind umpire selections, then surely nothing should stop a good umpire from standing in a home test. A case in point is Simon Taufel of Australia, widely regarded as the best on the elite panel now. If Taufel is indeed the best (and I am sure no Indian player would have doubts as to his neutrality) and if he can umpire in one day internationals in Australia then why not in test games? Shouldn’t the best umpire on the elite panel be standing in the most high profile series of the year? The advantage of doing away with a redundant neutrality would be two fold – one, it will ensure merit remains the only criteria for appointment irrespective of nationality and secondly because it will allow an umpire to spend more time in his home country with his family, more umpires at the first class game may get encouraged to attempt to graduate to the tougher elite panel.

How far can technology be used is perhaps the most contentious point of all. Some advocate a radical usage, while some (like Ian Chappell again) prefer not to use any technology which is not a hundred percent foolproof and which also requires human intervention. The counter argument of course is that the umpires on the field are also not foolproof, and if they can be allowed their share of the errors then so should be technology. But in a game that thrives so much on the vagaries of skills, conditions and state of the playing surface, mechanizing the decision making in cricket completely would rob it of some of its charm and unpredictability. A three fold approach in contrast may be a more reasonable alternative. First, cricket administrators need to agree on what technological tools to use and which ones not. Something like a hot spot, which the broadcasters claim is cent per cent scientific and can be referred for leg befores and snicks must be used. Secondly, since television only caters to the viewing public and the newer tools are developed to enhance viewing experience rather than ease umpire decision making, it is imperative for the ICC to sit with the major broadcasters and consider what specific technological tools they need and how things like Hawkeye and the Snicko can be made more reliable for further use in umpiring space. The broadcaster by themselves have no incentive for such a move since they are not answerable for the verdict that hawkeye shows, but the ICC does have an reason simply because the umpire ruling the batsman out would have some questions to answer if the hawkeye goes against him. And finally, it would not be a bad idea to introduce tennis like appeals for questioning decisions that a team might feel are incorrect. Three decisions per innings (besides those that will anyway to go the third umpire) might be a way to start. The questions to be addressed then would be who decides to make an appeal (the batsman in the middle or the captain sitting in the dressing room?) and can a decision made by a third umpire (ala the Symonds stumping not given at the SCG) also be contested and if so, then who would adjudicate the same?

I wonder if people would have contrary views on racism. No matter how much sociologists here may dub us Indians as color conscious hypocrites, almost every cricket fan would agree that any racial abuse irrespective of the nationality and the tone of the skin of the abuser needs to be strongly punished. Cricket fields should not become like American streets of 1960s with words like ‘nigger’, ‘black’ and ‘bastards’ flying around. But the problem in the current case is perhaps, not the intent of the match referee to punish racism but the manner of doing so. And the sense of hurt in the Indian camp has been compounded by a feeling of having been cheated of a series saving draw by the connivance of incompetent umpiring and dishonest appealing by the opposition. In the absence of circumstantial evidence, the words of one side have been taken against those of another. Whether something was actually said or not (and both the Aussies and the Indians are certainly capable of losing it in the heat of the moment), there is nothing to corroborate it. It’s a verdict that I suspect will have quite a bit of difficulty standing up in a court of law.

Another consequence of the final day’s play at Sydney would surely be the burying of the idea of trusting a fielder’s word for a contentious catch. Australia are not the first team to display selective honesty and I would perhaps go to the extent of stating that very often in case of diving catch the player may not actually realize that he has rubbed the ball against the floor in the process of balancing himself . But then that is precisely what umpires are out there on the field for. If a batsman stands (and he has every right to), then the decision must be made by the men in the middle or the one sitting in front of the television. Selective honesty, as displayed by Michael Clarke, will ruin the credibility of the players. Equally unacceptable is the logic offered by Ricky Ponting, that with the bat in his hand he is entitled to stand his ground even if the nick goes to third slip but while fielding his word must me taken as final. It is a thought that the ‘straight and honest as a coal miner’ Australian captain might find difficult to accept but in the competitive sphere of international cricket perhaps honesty has taken a backseat and adjudication should solely be left to the umpires and not to the players.

So did the Aussies behave badly and does Ponting, as Peter Roebuck wrote, deserve to be sacked for leading a bunch of wild dogs? Roebuck might have been a bit harsh but I wonder whether any Australian team in the future or any cricket watcher for that matter can call the Indians as an excessive appealing side. The last test was so much about going after that record that the Aussies went for everything. One admires competitive cricket and perhaps one secretly also desires the Indian team to be as feisty and no holds barred as there opponents. But somewhere Ponting has lost that grace that Steve Waugh built around his team. Waugh made Australia, from a good side that he inherited from Mark Taylor, into a champion side that seemed unbeatable. And no one grudged him his success; his side played tough but never was called a bunch of wild dogs. In the worst player behavior episode of his captaincy (Mcgrath abusing Ramnaresh Sarwan in the West Indies), Waugh did not shy away from criticizing his team mate. In his autobiography he called Mcgrath’s behavior as a case of ‘brain burst’. Ponting might have the support of his team but he would do well to analyze why most cricket writers and the fans in the public are not with him on this one. I guess it is partly because the Aussie fans are not used to seeing their team run to the match referee every time something is said to them and partly because the repeated coverage of the dubious catches claimed. Perhaps, there is a cost that the Aussie cricket public does not want its team to pay for victory. And in this case it seems the cost is honor – of a team, of a captain and above all of a game.

|

After much delay and procrastination, I finally dragged myself to write this piece on our Core Analyst School (CAS) training in Kuala Lumpur. Perhaps there is a silver lining in this, for initially I had thought of capturing the moments of our course in episodic articles spread over its duration. Mercifully for all readers, I landed up in KL with an upset stomach that simply refused to digest anything it was fed for almost three days. And the accompanying cold and dripping nose made me drop the idea. As the course progressed, I barely found any energy at the end of the long and grueling days (more due to extended lounge bar and shopping sprees than any classroom sessions) to sit down and pen my thoughts.

In a sense, CAS essentially captures that one core value of Accenture – Integration. I doubt whether any multi national organization would have a training program which would bring people from two continents, put them together for about two weeks and make them interact, brainstorm and have discussions with each other. In my team, I had two analysts from Tokyo, one from Shanghai, one from Canberra and one from Melbourne. The story was repeated across all the entire fifteen teams formed for the course. A cross cultural diversity that certainly challenged me to communicate more effectively and be more coherent with a couple of team mates who at times were not so proficient in the use of the English language. And as the course progressed, I realized that even though some of us might have had misgivings as to the relevance of the contents of the course, just the chance to work in a diverse team and the opportunity to initiate participation and carry your team mates from different countries along was an experience in itself. Its relevance perhaps can hardly be questioned, for many of us might well find ourselves in projects tomorrow where we are working with people not from our country. The experience and learnings of CAS would certainly be called upon then.

Its always lightens a training when your faculty is out to have fun as well, and we were certainly lucky to have a set like that. The mood was always light, the ice breakers (charades, chicken dance, ‘All my neighbors’ and a host of crazy videos from You Tube) made a dull session turn into fun and the faculty members never shied away from shaking a leg, sharing a drink or simply letting their hair down in the networking events.

So what was there at KL outside the classroom? The nights were spent for many in the lounge bars and pubs of the city (many landed up late the mornings after, or simply landed clutching their heads and rubbing their eyes). There was of course the mandatory pilgrimage to the holy grail of Malaysia – The Petronas Twin Towers and the sight of them at night was absolutely amazing. Even more scintillating was the view from floor 65 where Accenture has its office. The highlight perhaps was bargain shopping at China Town, a street market where every brand you could only drool over and wish you pocket could afford one day, was available for one – thousandth of a price (alright, one hundredth, allow me some scope for exaggeration as well). From Gucci, Louis Vitton (suitcases and briefcases by that brand, can you imagine?), Prada and Guess; from T-shirts (all the football clubs you could recall) to shoes from all brands to DVDs and souvenirs and mementos – everything was available at a throwaway price if you could summon your bargaining skills. And we certainly did, to the point that one shopkeeper even shooed us out of his shop screaming ‘You Indians! You bargain too much!’

And when we were not shopping we were enjoying the other sights – KL has some of the best public transport systems you can imagine. The cute monorail, a metro running through the city, air conditioned buses and a high speed transit rail connecting the main city with the suburbs. And even though there were some rumblings of protests by a civil group in the main city, the discipline and neatness on the roads was admirable. Admirable also was the suburb of Putrajaya where we were put up, which now houses all the Malaysian government complexes. The tour of its imposing mosques, multiple bridges and wide pathways at night will remain my highlight of the trip. Also enthralling was the trip to the entertainment park at Genting, where a dozen of us braved our hearts, stepped on to the free fall ride and fell at a gravity defying pace from a height of about a hundred feet. One high which none of the drinks at the lounge bar of the hotel could match!

Alas, the time to say good-bye was equally difficult. It was amusing how many friendships were made in that small period of a fortnight and the rapid exchange of mail ids, msn addresses and telephone numbers clearly evidenced the same. Also an evidence of the closeness we shared a group was the video that we finally managed after much hiccups and the bunch of nostalgic mails that appeared after everyone joined work, with promises to stay in touch in the future. It’s a promise that will have its own test with the rigor of work and time, but I would have to honestly admit that the Core Analyst School from 19th to 30th of Nov at KL surely… blasted while it lasted.

|

Of all the businesses by far, consulting is the most bizzare
For, to the penetrating eye, there is no apparent reason why
With no more assets than a laptop and a pen, this group of personable men
Can sell to clients more than twice, the same ridiculous advice
Or find, in such a rich profusion, problems to fit their solutions.

The strategy that they pursue, to give advice instead of to do
Keeps their fingers on the pulses, without recourse to stomach ulcers,
and brings them monetary gain, with a modicum of pain
The wretched object of their quest, reduced to a state of cardiac arrest
is left alone to implement, the asinine report that they have sent
The masochistic clients invite them, until merciful reliever invokes the company reliever,
no one seems to know, the rate at which these consultants grow

The paradox is each adviser, if he makes the client wiser,
inadvertantly destroys, the basis of his future joys
So does anyone know, where latter day consultants go??

Reprinted with due regards and respect to the Ralph Windle of the Financial Times. And with due apologies to all consultants.

|

I am what I am. I wish I could quote this Reebok tag line and then sit back. But is it true? Am I really what I am, what I profess to be or is there is a different self behind the masquerade? Am I the competent professional or a bumbling, careless fool? Am I the liberal moderate or a shy conservationist? Am I religiously agnostic or just a plain religious hypocrite? Am I the eternal optimist or a hidden cynic? Am I the one with the solutions or simply a part of the problem? Am I the outspoken radical or a cowering and silent coward? Am I the sensitive family guardian or an ignorant relative?
Rolling along and finding new question marks…do I know what I am? ...

|

It is a little difficult for me to assess where I stand in this whole Sanjay Dutt affair. Ever since he has been consigned to six years of imprisonment by the unrelenting and strict P.D.Kode, opinions have been flying thick and fast as to the merits and demerits of the judgment. Most of us probably do not question the fact whether Dutt illegally possessed a firearm or not, but we do dispute and debate whether six years of incarceration is too harsh for keeping an AK-56 rifle on behalf of an underworld gangster.

Opinions have been broadly divided in four categories – the first who think that he deserves his years, simply because everyone linked with the gruesome blasts of March’93 need to be punished. The second type is the one which believes that being a celebrity he needs to be made an example of and hence punished harshly than others around him. Then there is a third and a contrary opinion which believes that he is being made an example of precisely because he is a celebrity and is an easy prey. And finally there is the fourth lot, his many ardent admirers who genuinely believe that he isn’t guilty.

You can easily discount the ‘punish him to set an example’ argument quite easily because it lacks the maturity that jurisprudence and legal interpretation demand. It was an argument used quite often in the case of that frequent law breaker Salman Khan, but it is one that is not strong enough to hold its ground. A person should be punished according to the measure and severity of his crime and not according to this social status, for status and wealth are precisely the attributes that courts are supposed to ignore. The same could also be used to counteract the opinion which paints Dutt as the scapegoat. There are others in this case who have probably been dealt with more harshly than him – Yakub and Rubina Memon being the prime examples. They were first of the Memon family to have surrendered and returned home believing they would be tried freely. And now, the former faces the gallows for being a conspirator and the latter goes to prison for life.

Which then leaves us with the two arguments debating the correctness of quantum of sentence and it is here that I have some element of sympathy for Dutt. Not because he is a celebrity or because he is the endearing Munna Bhai but simple because as this trial has worn on he has displayed that he truly is his father’s son. His moral compass finally came around to admitting that he did commit a wrong and that he stored a firearm in his house while not having a permit to do so. You could of course argue that there are thousands of people around the countryside and even in our cities who possess firearms without a license and go unpunished. But that is missing the point – an illegality is an illegality and non-punishment of one is no excuse for letting off another. But Dutt’s case is slightly different than many of the other high profile celebrity criminal cases in recent times. Despite all the media attention and hype around him, he has displayed a certain poise and maturity while appearing before the courts. Even till the end, as he tearfully admitted before Judge Kode, he acknowledges that he made a mistake but that he had no inkling of the larger bomb blasts conspiracy. His stand is so refreshingly honest when compared to the likes of Salman Khans and the Sanjeev Nandas, who somehow vanished from the wheels of their cars or through an inspiration from Houdini turned their cars into trucks. For that matter, Dutt has also come out in a much more straightforward fashion when compared to the open hypocrisy of the celebrity eyewitnesses of the Jessica Lal case or the verbally fluctuating Sunil Kulkarni of the BMW case. At a time when accused show scant respect or regard for the law, it is heartening to hear some one take a stand and acknowledge his guilt, albeit only partially against the charges pressed against him. And in this admission of his, is reflected the moral standing of his father, the last of the Gandhians in active politics. It’s almost like your little kid admitting that he lied or stole – you might still spank him or scold him, but you would know that he has learnt the larger lessons, those of abstaining from such misdeeds and of being honest to himself and those around him. And no matter how long a time he may spend behind bars, Sanjay Dutt came claim that at the end of this all, he has still managed in a way, to protect the honor and dignity of himself as well as that of his deceased father.

****

Jury is still out on who actually threw the jelly beans at Zaheer Khan at Trent Bridge but Michael Vaughn and Peter Moores would be well advised to keep the toffees back in the dressing room the next time they take the field. This incident reminds me of a famous anecdote once narrated by Ian Healy on television. Now the Aussies are universally acknowledged as the motor mouths on the cricket field but it doesn’t always pay. This was in the mid – 90s and Australia were playing Sri Lanka in Colombo. The Lankans were three down for not much and Asanka Gurusinha (no less a pugnacious character himself) was finding himself all at sea against Warne and Mcgrath. After another across the line play and miss, Healy chirped to Mark Taylor standing at first slip, ‘No harm in playing straight’. It was an inoffensive and innocuous remark which Gurusinha took so seriously that he went on score a big hundred by the end of the day. While walking off the field at the end of the day’s play with the Lankans firmly in commanded, Taylor chided Healy, ‘No harm in you keeping your mouth shut.’

No harm in keeping those jelly beans where they belong – in a big jar on the top shelf, way out of the reach of naughty kids.

|

Jeevan ke bikhre sire lekar, darpan ke toote tukde lekar
sookhe se ujadi fasal lekar, baadh mein behte ghar lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

rishton ki aadhi kadiyaan lekar, deewaron se chhoti seedhiyaaan lekar
aangan mein bikhre phool lekar, aandhi mein udti dhool lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

milne ke jhoote vaade lekar, band darwaze ki dastak lekar
greeshm mein julse patte lekar, sheeth mein jame iraade lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

woh kabhi na aayi chitthi lekar, woh lautne ke vaade lekar
paane pe chithki siaayee lekar, woh tooti hoyee kalam lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

woh udhari hoyee chunari lekar, sringar ki khaali maez lekar
woh haar ki muskan lekar, woh door ki ummedein lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

registaan ka sooraj lekar, prashant ka paani lekar
Jeevan ke bikhre sire lekar, darpan ke toote tukde lekar
kya karoon me tumhari samvedna lekar?

|