trick or treat

Sad

2006-05-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

What does it say when, in a country of a billion people and almost a billion political views, the only mainstream politician(?) to come out openly and stridently against reservation is Navjot Singh Sidhu.

My 10 favourite sporting moments/stories of 2005

2005-12-31T04:45:00.000-08:00

As its fashionable to make year-end lists, i thought i'd jump in too...here are my 10 favourite sporting moments/stories of 2005:
10. Kim Clijsters' win at the U.S Open.
9. Yelena Isinbayeva crossing 5 m. in the women's pole vault.
8. Sania vs. Kuznetsova at Wimbledon....the emergence of a true indian sporting star(even though she lost that match)
7. The Chicago White Sox winning the World Series after 88 years.
6. Lance Armstrong on top of the podium of the Tour de France for a seventh and final time.
5. Tie between Warne's 600th wicket, Sachin's 35th century and Lara becoming the highest scorer in test cricket.
4.Robert Horry(Big-shot Bob) left open with seconds to go in game 5 of the NBA finals and doing what he has done his entire career- nailing the game-winning shot.
3.Liverpool coming fom 3-0 down to win the UCL final on penalties against Milan.
2.Tiger's unbelievable chip shot for birdie at the 16th hole in the final round of the Masters on his way to the title...best golf shot i've ever seen.
1. The 2005 Ashes....need i say more.

Happy New Year!

Something to think about

2005-12-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

In the age of POTA and the Patriot Act, Abu-Ghraib and secret wiretaps; something to think about:

'Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values. '
-Golda Meir in 'Munich'

Obssessed with corruption

2005-12-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

'sau mein ninyanve be-imaan,
mera bharat mahaan'

Our nation is obssessed with corruption. Our press is obssessed with exposing it wherever it exists, our politicians are obssessed with using it as their only weapon against their opponents and the public is obssessed with blaming all the nation's woes on it. All of this might have been a good thing if it was not for the fact that india is one of the most corrupt nations in the world and the whole nation getting riled up when a new scam is unearthed just reminds you how the liar is the loudest to defend his integrity and the coward his bravery. Operation Duryodhan has just uncovered that MPs are 'selling the nation' by taking money to ask questions in Parliament and the whole nation is 'shocked'. Anyone who is shocked by this 'revelation' is either extremely naive or putting up an act.Come on, in india today everyone has a price and we all know it.

My problem with this obssession is that it has become so pervasive that the real issues are forgotten. The Delhi blasts were not two days old when the Volcker story broke. The government did not respond to the worst terrorist attack in this country in over a decade and they were allowed to get away with it because of some names mentioned in some appendix of a report with no legal standing. Its ironic, isn't it, that the report has names of politicians from all over the world but it creates a storm only in new delhi. Parliament could do with a proper discussion on India's vote against Iran in the IAEA but the BJP won't allow Parliament to function. They should have attacked the government on the unconstitutional and malafide dissolution of the bihar assembly but they are so busy with volcker that buta singh is still the governor. AIDS is probably the biggest hurdle this nation faces in becoming a great power in the years to come but i doubt if most of the media realized when world aids day slipped by. They were probably planning the next sting operation-maybe ministers fixing government tenders.

Good Riddance

2005-11-22T22:52:00.000-08:00

How deliciously ironic and how fitting that the Lalu Prasad Yadav era and the Sourav Ganguly era ended on the same day. What a glorious day for india.

the wonder years

2005-11-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

"Growing up happens in a heartbeat.One day you are in diapers, the next day you are gone.
But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house -like a lot of houses; a yard like a lot of other yards on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is after all these years, i still look back....with wonder."
- The last words of 'The Wonder Years'

Today, got to see the final episode of the show again after many years.

Black Diwali

2005-11-11T07:38:00.000-08:00

I have been seething with rage for the last couple of weeks.Something inside me has snapped big-time.
I feel angry and vengeful,bitter and frustrated.But most of all, i feel shocked and betrayed. Shocked and betrayed by the nonchalance and callousness of my government and the apathy of my fellow citizens.

On 29th october,2005 ,62 people were killed in the heart of the nation's capital in the worst terrorist attack in this country since Black Friday(12/3/1993).Since then, i have been waiting.I have been waiting for my leaders to shout from the rooftops that the victims won't be forgotten nor will the perpetrators be forgiven. I have been waiting for the PM to tell our neighbours that either they are with us or against us. I have been waiting for the opposition to pressure the govt. to bring our enemies to justice or justice to our enemies. I have been waiting for stricter anti-terrorism laws to be implemented and the police to be given more powers. I have been waiting for a response; a response like 9/11 or 7/7, goddammit. And all i have got is silence.The political debate,the news cycle and regular people have all moved on; to things like the volcker report, the bihar elections and the cricket team's good form.The blasts seem to be a distant memory.

They say that Indians are able to get on with their lives after such tragedies far quicker than people in other countries.It is said that is a sign of our courage and resilience. That's bullshit. it is a sign of our helplessness and the fact that we are resigned to our fate.Our thoughts are not 'i hope it never happens again' but 'i hope i am not in the bus the next time one of them blows up'.And when our own attitude is like that what more can we expect from our elected representatives.truly, our reputation as a soft state is well earned.

reality to the rescue

2005-11-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

The spark for this post is an hour and a half spent on thursday night watching tv celebrities gyrating to remixed numbers on star one's new reality-celebrity dance show, Nach Baliye. i absolutely loved it. i loved the fact that i could recognize all the real-life couples, i loved malaika's green sari, i loved the fact that farhan akhtar just repeated what malaika said, i loved saroj khan's acid tongue and most of all i loved the (attempts at) dance. of course, the concept is borrowed but at least its made well which is true of most of the recent shows in its genre.
Interactive reality television has captured the imagination of the common viewer(as well as the critic) and threatens to change the face of indian television. just sample the following facts:
- a 36 year-old housewife in jabalpur ran up a one-month cellphone bill of one and a half lakh sending smses in support of qazi, the young boy from kashmir who had a habit of weeping in every episode of fame gurukul and ultimately won the title. she would start messaging at five in the morning and not stop. i read this as part of a story which talked about how people used qazi as a medium to show their solidarity with kashmiris. they felt it was their duty to make sure he won. he got 48 lakh smses in all.
- the debut album of indian idol winner abhijeet sawant is the highest selling indipop album of the year.
- kbc2 has received almost 90 lakh smses so far.
-the humble house painter from ludhiana, ravinder ravi (whom the judges on indian idol hated and the audience loved) now spends his time between painting and performing in stage shows.
-let me repeat, i could recognize ALL the couples on Nach Baliye.

All in all it means that this has been a great diwali for the producers, the channels, the cellphone operators,the sponsors, the participants and most of all for the viewer. She never had it so good.

P.S: Indian Idol second season starts on nov.21
Nach Baliye on star one ; tue-thu at 9

They've done it

2005-09-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

I write this with literally tears of joy in my eyes on one of the most memorable days of my life... England have just regained the Ashes....still can't believe it...oh, what a maddening and beatiful thing is this thing called Sport...Wow.

9/11

2005-09-12T03:48:00.000-07:00

And I looked and I beheld a pale horse and the name that sat on him was Death and, Hell followed with him.

It's hard to believe that its been a full four years since that fateful tuesday. The subsequent war on terror has been quite successful. Al-Qaeda is on the run, it is very desperate and therefore at its most dangerous. Its looking for soft targets and using the most deadliest weapon of all- the suicide attacker; created in the Middle East but now a global menace.Why would a person ever become a suicide bomber? I might grow to be a wise, old man and might someday be able to answer some of life's toughest questions but i don't think i'll ever be able to answer that question. Of course, i've heard all the rationalisations-of the bitterness and rage caused by oppression and exploitation, of the anger,of the helplessness but its never made sense to me. I'm sorry, but its simply unfathomable and very,very sad. That a human imagination can be so limited that it sees its own extinction as victory.

it always begins badly

2005-09-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

The first month is always the toughest.Like last year, it had tension,pressure,arguments,loads of late-night discussions,tons of work and worst of all, terrible coughs and colds.But now its over and normal service can be resumed.

Getting to other matters, the most important test match in a generation begins tomorrow at the Oval. It seems to me that God,Destiny and dare i say it, the better players are on England's side.

back to college

2005-08-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

well, i've finally got back to college after an almost three month vacation. normally, i'd be quite depressed about such a turn of events but the vacation that just passed was truly from HELL.
it started with a six-week industrial training at siemens-truly the most boring six weeks of my life. the training also entailed leaving the house at 6 in the morning and returning at 7 in the evening. almost as soon as the trainig got over my sister's wedding took place...in delhi. normally, you would think that weddings would be fun but from my experiences they are quite a pain. they are overly showy, very ritualistic, commercialised to such an extent that the owner of the horse used in the baarat demands 500 bucks as 'shagun' before he lets the groom get off the horse and is full of grumpy relatives who sit through all the ceremonies just to fulfil their social obligations and are pissed because they have to do so. anyway, after coming back to mumbai i had a couple of weeks to do absolutely nothing and then the rains started...and didn't stop.
the last week was spent almost exclusively at home and i returned to college(late) through a 20-hour bus ride(aaargh). for the first time in my life," thank god the vacation's over".

blame it on gurgaon

2005-07-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

What if i were to say that the situation in mumbai due to the floods would not have been so bad had it not been for the police beating of honda workers in gurgaon. Most of you would have a hearty laugh at my expense but i am not joking. it all has to do with that fascinating pillar of modern indian life-the 24 hour news channel. these channels, due to the nature of the medium, are over-the-top ,sensationalistic ,populist; their reporters are loud,stupid,amateurish and ask amazingly inane questions. Forgive me, i digress. lets get back to the central point of the post.
on monday evening(25/7) the police quelled an industrial protest in a brutal and cruel manner avenging the beating of cops by a mob of workers who started the violence. the whole incident was captured on tape and played over and over and over again by the afore-mentioned channels. and why not. the pictures were a great example of the power of images and shocked a nation. a figure of 700 injured was thrown about without any credibility and the channels went on an almost-evangelical crusade to expose the police and state administration as agents of the japanese mnc while sympathising with the poor workers(the guys who started it). their blatant partisanship stoked an already-raging fire leaving the situation in gurgaon and in parliament very volatile the next day. the entire morning of the 26th was spent covering gurgaon while a 1000 km away another tragedy was unfolding and the media was totally oblivious to it despite it being in the country's largest city. after battering the konkan coast for a few days the rains moved to mumbai. by 11 a.m. the kalyan-kasara and kalyan-karjat train lines were blocked basically stopping 75% of the passenger traffic in and out of the city and the key thane-belapur road was blocked. on a slow news day, this would have been major news but the editors in the newsroom were so focussed on gurgaon that they hardly paid attention. that was the big mistake-they simply failed to comprehend the story breaking in front of them and because the news channels were not reporting anything people assumed nothing was wrong. nobody went to pick up their kids from school, no one left office early, people were still flying into the city oblivious. by 1 p.m. most roads were choked; by 3p.m. the city was basically in lockdown. still, it was not till 4 that the channels really picked up the story. by then, it was too late. would everything have been fine if the coverage had started earlier. of course not but it would have been better. remember, 94 cm of rain doesn't fall in a couple of hours.

Well,its not raining in my neighbourhood

2005-07-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

most of mumbai might have gone underwater (with no help from global warming) but you wouldn't guess it in my locality. where i live(southern tip of the city), it hasn't rained for the last 7-8 hours, the roads never got flooded,traffic flowed as usual,the most efficient power supply(BEST) in the whole damn country didn't trip up even once,phones were working and i even managed to go and have a haircut. in short, i had no fun over the last two days. i have no fascinating stories to relate about my experiences on the day parts of mumbai received 94cm of rain(highest single day rain ever recorded in this country) but since i am a sucker for such stories myself(and i hope you are too) i will relate to you the adventures of my friend AA who returned home this evening after 36 hours .
AA leaves home on tuesday morning at 7a.m. to go to college in andheri(about 20 k.m from his house on altamount road),gets there without any hassles and when college gets over at 3 he thinks he can get back as easily.but the roads in andheri are now flooded and he has to wade through knee-deep water to get to andheri local station. on reaching there, he finds out that the locals have stopped and he can't get home. the cell networks are down, the power(Reliance Energy) has gone off in the whole area, nearby buildings are all flooded including those of his friends, food is hard to find and very expensive( a soggy banana for 20 bucks). with nowhere to go, he decides to spend the night at the only place with some lighting-the railway station where he can only sit on the ground packed like a sardine. after a sleepless night, he decides to return to his college where he finds tons of arbitrary people who spent the night in the classrooms.the canteen's been cleaned out...nothin to eat there and nothin to eat anywhere around. he now decides to go to the international airport hoping that there'll be some transport from there. after wading through now-waist deep water, he gets there to find out that there is no hope there...the W.E. highway is flooded till waist height with tons of cars stranded...its early afternoon...he's hungry and wet...when he makes the fateful decision...to walk(or is it wade) it home.he starts his journey...on the way he encounters a foreigner in a business suit who just abandons his jacket(immediately picked up by someone else)because its weighing him down...another one who'd even got rid of his shirt..and his trousers, he sees a bus but the driver tells him he's been sitting there for 25 hours, and a dead body with rotting skin hanging from a pole. near mahim,the water is head high so he has to clamber up on the top of a truck and travel on it. somewhere around 6p.m. he finally staggers into his house and after a long bath and a hot meal, he's telling his story to a very inquisitive friend. he's very pissed and very bitter but his friend instead of being sympathetic can't suppress a grin during most of the story. finally, the friend asks him
"did you have an umbrella". AA, unfortunately, doesn't find this very amusing.

Tour de Lance

2005-07-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

Last evening, Lance Armstrong retired from cycling after winning his seventh straight Tour de France. When a sportsperson retires, it is the appropriate time to talk about something called Legacy. Is Armstrong the greatest sportsman of our time-arguably; the most dominant-probably; the most inspirational-definitely. You would have had to have been in Rip van Winkle mode for the last 10 years not to have heard his story-he came back from cancer to win a cycle race seven times. But, that's not even half the story. He survived major brain surgery and intensive chemotherapy and less than three years after his diagnosis started a run that would see him go undefeated till his retirement in the toughest athletic challenge in the world today. In doing so, he not only changed the face of his sport but made a race, from a niche sport, popular only in Western Europe famous worldwide. Sure, he got Americans into it, but how many Asians or Africans or South Americans had heard of the Tour de France before he came along much less followed it. Armstrong made the Tour de France global. His critics (mostly french sportswriters), who have never really accepted him(because he's american), say that he isn't the greatest cyclist of all time, that eddie merx is; they don't really get it,do they? it is not really about whether merx would beat armstrong in a head-to-head, what makes a sportsman stand out is his impact on his sport in particular and society in general. Armstrong transcends cycling, he transcends sport itself. He has given hope and joy and inspiration to millions. If he is the Michael Jordan of cycling, he is also the Christopher Reeve of cancer. Forget sports, he is probably one of the greatest men living.period. Following him on his incredible journey has been one of the great priveleges of my lifetime.

Err...Pottermania

2005-07-18T11:40:00.000-07:00

I want to share with you the funniest thing i have ever read on the front page of a newspaper.

From the front page of the Sunday Times of India(Mumbai edition) dated july 17, 2005:

"By 6.35 am IST on Saturday morning, some intrepid-or Potter-crazed, depending on your point of view-senior editors of the TOI had already got their eager hands on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.Seconds later, they were frantically turning its 600-plus pages . By 6.45 am, the teleconferencing had begun. Hours later, a high-powered huddle was still taking place in our offices. The secret was out, we knew the identity of the major character who dies in the book. The big question- should we tell the world?"

Its very reassuring to know that the "world's largest English-language newspaper" has its journalistic priorities spot on.

P.S: Even though the Times ultimately didn't reveal the big "secret", another Times group paper, the Mumbai Mirror (such a flop that they distribute it free with the Times of India nowadays), no doubt after a high-powered meeting of its own, revealed the shocking identity in its Monday edition.

He Roars Again

2005-07-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

" Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

He's back.When he won the Masters in April it was a real scrap and he almost choked...twice.When he made a late charge on that extraordinary final day at the U.S Open
but then missed a couple of short putts to finish second, they said that in the old days his mere presence on the leaderboard would have intimidated his rivals into submission and this was now a more mortal version, that the old domination would never return. They obviously didn't count on four days at the Home of Golf...a course so tailor-made for his game that its scary.Forget for a moment that he's become only the third man to win 10 golf majors,forget that he's only the second man after nicklaus to win all four majors at least twice,forget that he's only 29(still young for a golfer)....forget all that. What was most impressive about the weekend at St. Andrews was that he won in a fashion that can only be described as Tigeresque. He grabbed the tournament by the scruff of the neck early on and didn't let go.His game was intimidating, his demeanour was intimidating,hell, even his soundbites were intimidating.He seems to getting back to the form of the summer of 2000 when he won the U.S. open by 15 shots(in the most dominating display ever in a golf tournament) and the British open by 8 at St. Andrews. In this form his only competition is with Lance Armstrong and Annika Sorenstam-to be the most dominant sportsperson of this generation.I've heard they've started taking bets on the margin of victory at the PGA championship in August. All i can say is put me up for seven shots.

Give TV a chance...

2005-07-17T04:35:00.000-07:00

satellite television came to india when i was around six years old and it changed my life. it became trusted friend and companion to a shy,introverted boy who was not much of a sportsman nor a voracious reader...it became almost like the fifth member of my family. to a large extent, television defined me...my interests, my beliefs, my influences. without television i might not have been a sports fan at all (like others in my family) leave alone a keen follower of sports like golf and baseball, my passion for international politics comes from having spent hours watching cnn but most of all, it spawned a great love for english television shows(due to the place i grew up in and the school that i went to i never really got into hindi television which might be just as well) which finally brings me to the point of this post.

A few days ago, the show Desperate Housewives premiered. It is the most hyped english show ever in india and justifiably so. it was charming and interesting and quite entertaining. i would however like to talk about something that happened the day before housewives premiered. another show premiered on the same channel with so little publicity that i found out about it merely a few hours before it aired (the exact same thing had happened when the West Wing premiered a few years back). The show's name is Arrested Development. It won the emmy award last year for best comedy. this is how Star World treats it. Unfortunately, this is the rule rather than the exception,which brings me to the two reasons why english television has failed to take off in india-lack of audience and attitude of the channels. unbelievably, the people who are supposed to make money from these shows are the ones who more often than not, ruin them. many would be surprised to know that a few years back Zee Cafe(then Zee English)
had the three best shows on television-the Sopranos, the West Wing and Six Feet Under. the reason you would be surprised would be that the channel never bothered to tell you about them. AXN axed the most influential show of our generation-Survivor because a bunch of unemployed "nature-lovers" objected to scenes of people eating bugs. Star World prefers advertising ninth reruns of a rather mediocre show (Friends) than telling us about shows like the Office.

However, worse than this is the attitude of the public.i am not talking about people who are not comfortable with english or anything like that. i am talking primarily about the urban youth...people who grew up speaking english, people like myself.When i ask many of my friends which shows they watch, half say they do not watch television, the rest say Friends full stop. When i ask them why, the same old reasons come up-no time,i prefer new movies or books or music,tv shows are stupid. at this, i stare at them with incredulity...do they not realize that the great artistic thrust of our time is not in movies(going through a dark age) or music(most people i know listen to bands from the 60s) or literature(harry potter is considered the great literary achievement of our time)...it is in television. i have seen both the Godfather and Goodfellas and find the Sopranos a better portrayal of the mob, the West Wing is the best political drama to come out of any medium in ages and though reality tv might be slightly voyeuristic and exploitative, it is truly on the cutting edge redefining the meaning of entertainment .okay,it is difficult to watch repeatedly week after week but the emotional payoff is also much greater...i can still recall the unmatched exhilaration after watching the finale of the first Survivor,the tears that came down my eyes when Kevin Arnold's wonder years ended,the sorrow and sympathy i felt for Tony Soprano when he killed his best friend, and the regret i still feel for having missed the final chapter in Mulder and Scully's unforgettable odyssey.when i look at others who missed out on these moments, i feel a bit sorry for them but i mostly hope that they will shake off their biases and give tv a chance