Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
For more than two decades, Dsot dabbled with clusters at work and clusters at home – commuting, work, and home, not necessarily in that order. That grind has to end and for that to workout, Dsot needed to shed his taciturn cloak – the default mask which clung on to him from the womb of inheritance.
The day monsoon muddied the streets and vaulted eloquent greenery to the landscape, Dsot rewrote his callous indifference to the pious soul that always nurtured the remnants of life in him. I quit.
From the vacillating rhythm of the Metro, Dsot saw the crumbling megapolis passing by in an alarming pace. An element of comfort wove an aura around him, the nuisance value of speed notwithstanding.
Dsot despised the overwhelming pace of the megapolis, despite being sucked into the teeming vortex of its livelihood. There never was any choice.
In another half an hour, the Metro will throw open its doors, pushing Dsot into the swirling arms of hitherto unseen uncertainties. So Be It. Enough of fooling around. It sucks.
But for sure, there won’t be any wake up calls. No hurry berry from now on. Wah.
In the easing tempo of dusk, Dsot vowed not to get caught into the clichéd foolishness of plans. Plan A. Plan B. Rubbish. It doesn’t work that way.
For now, what works is the lingering ambivalence of the drink. And the drama played out in the chattering solitude of the ice cubes. 1,2. Bliss.
Without deciphering the fault lines that separate dreams from uneasy notions of slumber, Dsot would wake up to a burst of teeming activity, only to realise that the day that is to unfurl before him poses the herculean challenge of figuring out how to get rid of it.
This is barter system at its best. A sari in return for a chaddi in return for some thrashing.
So what is common to Sri Ram Sene and the Consortium of Pub-going Loose and Forward Women. There isn’t much difference to choose from except that Sene cronies exhibited scant respect for the laws of the land and spat at civil liberties and democratic rights.
Valentine's pick
It is very easy to stir up passions of mis-guided youth who feel left out by ‘Other India’s pub revelers. It ain’t any difficult to form an internet group, pose with candles and pledge solidarity with victims of various atrocities.
Such public expressions of solidarity seldom serve any purpose.
The likes of Sene and the confederation of self-proclaimed loose women are also bound by a common desire to be somehow catapulted to limelight with gimmicks – they want to be in the thick of spotlight.
These fringe groups have also stifled other voices with equal vehemence – Now it has to be either for or against the pink chaddi and the sari. There is no liberal space, no grey area — either you are with saffron right or pink left.
What the Sene bunch needs is outright thrashing of the similar kind witnessed in Mangalore pubs. Can some one shun the candles and pink chaddis to do that to Muthalik’s cronies?
Don’t bet on any loose confederation – they won’t dare go anywhere outside the kewl environs of the world wide web.
Shilpa Shetty with SRK & Gauri Khan
What lures Bollywood celebs to pick stakes in cricket? It is undoubtedly the same things for which they knocked the glam world – Money fame and the massive media hype and crowd attention.
Many of the big ticket Bollywood releases bombed, while lesser known filmmakers and cast stole the show and made decent money. Only in the last quarter did Ghajini raked in the money along with Rab Ne. Singh is King was the only cheer for the glitterati before that.
So it is only natural that Shilpa Shetty joins Juhi Chawla, Shah Rukh, Wadia clan and its pretty face to dabble in the IPL turf. Given the inaugural edition’s exploits, IPL is likely to be a sure-shot success.
But the Board of Control for Cricket in India got a deserved snub when Pak barred its players from IPL, though it may not impact the fortunes of the tourney much. The reason cited was geopolitical tensions, but the snub comes as a reaction to India’s decision to call off its Pak tour in the aftermath of Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan’s Sohail Tanvir who was the highest wicket taker (21) was a key performer for IPL’s inaugural edition champions Rajasthan Royals.
A Sindh court has also suspended a ban imposed on nearly 20 Pakistani players for their participation in India’s rebel cricket league, ICL, bankrolled by Subhash Chandra promoted Zee.
The players were kept away from Pak local cricket, apparently at the behest of the cash rich BCCI.
So what stops ICL and IPL from co-existing? Perhaps it is just a clash of giant egos.
The ICC, BCCI and ICL bosses are working behind the scenes to bring about a compromise formula, which could pave the way for such a possibility.
That could boost the fortunes of cricket further and perhaps the fading fortunes of the glitterati scrambling to get intothe cricket bandwagon.
Only worry seems to be a clash between IPL and general elections. Take a bet — More people would pay to watch cricket rather than get paid to add to the numbers in poll rallies.
 
   Update 1
 Â
This is the season of flavours. Of unexpected hits and weary misses that is.
It is nothing intriguing that the coachless-wonder christened Team India is struggling,  but it is surprising that it beat English conditions and a better cohesive unit to bag the Test series. It went back to the cocoon of injuries and ailments to gift the lead in ODIs to the Englishmen.
This is actually no mean fete.No one among the billion pundits of the game back home would have expected a better show from a battered side, other than those clamouring on juxtaposing national pride with a game which would have been long back made the national game.
Sad, that hockey still carries the burden of hope, after being swept away by the challenges thrown up by astroturf — the need to keep fit and to change the skillsets.Hockey’s waning clout and cricket’s emergence from the Mumbai’s cramped bylanes to international spotlight happened almost simultaneously.
India’s last major tournament win was the Moscow Olympics in 1980, five years after astroturf was rolled in to topple the skilled fortunes of players from the subcontinent. Indian cricketers poured champagne on the World Cup in 1983 and the media pyrotechnics associated with the euphoria unleashed a fiery rage which strangled all other sport in the bud and buried hockey alive in the years to come.
No tears were left to script a requiem for a hockey as a sport, since a rout from centre-stage wasn’t digestible to the self-proclaimed sports lovers.Benefit of doubt was always a cricketing term which never found a place in hockey parlance.
(Update 1)Â Â Â
But if you thought a celluloid-inspired revival of hockey is on the cards, good luck. But reel magic seldom translates to turf glory. It can ignite only the box office.  When martyrs were being readied after the world cup shocker, the ghosts of Kerry Packer returned in a desi avatar – the Essel group promoted Indian Cricket League. ICL is spot on in timing. How it unfolds is for time to tell.
But though the BCCI’s coffers as well as odds are stacked in favour of the established frailties of Indian cricket, ICL offers a scent of rebellious renaissance.   It is difficult for hockey to pass the test of Indian television viewers’ appeal, simply because it fails to ignite frenzy. No hockey-playing nations have witnessed frenzy associated with football or cricket.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India, or lack of it, erred in its knee-jerk responses and half-baked pay hikes as a counter measure to the ICL. It wasn’t leading, but following on. That gave ICL an initial lee-way. Converting that into goodwill, eyeballs, sponsorship rights and mass appeal is the job of marketing mavens. Worthy rebels always get a sympathetic and patient hearing.
That is why an emotional Hayanvi jat named Kapil Dev Ram Lal Nikhanj would easily beat the shrewd Sunil Manohar Gavaskar as the most popular cricketer in any poll. Popularity matters. Sharadraoji Pawar would not have to summon his zombie BCCI colleagues to Baramati to tell that tale.Â
premub@gmail.com
How we lost the turf warÂ
In the beginning there was All India Radio.
 In the late eighties, after Kapil’s Devils catapulted cricket to every household in pre-liberalisation India, the country was not familiar with crystal-clear televised images, a household feature now.  The Caribbean sounded like some godforsaken place in Mars, but aficionados who began to develop a fondness for cricket were putting to test their finetuning skills to spot the right band from which All India Radio was broadcasting the running commentary of the India-West Indies series. Some fortunate souls were lucky enough, after many attempts, to make a foray into AIR’s hitherto unheard of virtual sound waves from the lucid din of forbidden islands.  No attempts could be made to contact even the next door cricket buff to figure out where exactly to tune in that ragged structure which we affectionately now call a collector’s item – The humble radio. Landline usage was a luxury, mobile phones were yet to make an imprint in this vast nation and it was too dark to jump the small building wall with a bizarre query of that sort to the cricket fan in the making next door. Imaginary situations, though highly probable, did the rounds of the minds – Marshall and Holding unleashing the demon of their elegant pace on our hapless men… But pride would burst through when the little master intercepts the chain of thoughts with his helmet-less stride towards the mine-fields of pace – Bravo, here’s our Robinhood, who can mock at your sheer pace with the gumption of technique, the resoluteness of the lone warrior in a Calypso crowd.
By then dinner would be served, like an unwanted guest who had come to spoil a family party, the irritant of a life time.Â
 The noise of the radio would have to make way for the silence of the night – The whole world has ganged up against the little joys this English game has gifted to this small town connoisseur of cricket. At dawn, after overcoming the sleepless anxieties caused by the mutiny of Caribbean pace battery in the virgin landscape of a young mind, disappointment greets you. The local newspaper only has half the story about the battle between the ball and the bat, which is the case now as well. Only from the humble showpiece called radio would you get a sketchy two-line comment, probably a filler those days, on the drama unfolding in the Caribbean — The News, read by X, Y or Z. Yesterday’s drama would unfurl only in the next day’s broadsheet. It was still fun and the next day was eagerly awaited, though the tuning skills would be put to baptism by fire later in the day without fail. Cricket then was a lullaby played out in gentle minds with a willow. Now, it is a hyperlink in the debris of the world wide web, just a vision from the stump and a simulated caricature of a brand. A sad commentary that is.Â
premub@gmail.comÂ
Â
In the altar of idol worshipÂ
This is the story of a miss of a lifetime — missing the First Day First Show of the costliest Indian movie ever starring India’s biggest star. Sorry, it ain’t Big B we are talking about, but a certain Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, alias Rajni.
This is also the story of hitting Day 2 of Sivaji — The Boss, at Aurora in Matunga on Day 2. And the hype witnessed during the first day of Rajni’s last movie Chandramukhi. This is a story of adulation.
Hopefully, that roar, that joyous chaos, that festoons adorning the altar of hero worship will come back to life. Last time that magic happened in Tiruchy, a landlocked district on the banks of Cauvery — the flow of Tamil Nadu.
Chandramukhi was a “second-rate adaptation of a third party originalâ€. That is a Tamil movie inspired from a Kannada movie, Aapta Mitra, which, in turn, was remake of a gem of a Malayalam entertainer Manichitratazhu. But the original and its immediate off-shoot lacked a unique selling proposition, though both did fare well at the box-office.
So here we were, after a night-long drunken revelry that bursts into the day of reckoning — First Day First Show. Such celebrations are only associated with few festivals, leave alone film releases. Except in Tamil Nadu. And that too only when this ageless wonder named Sivaji Rao Gaekwad assumes the pseudonym Rajnikanth.
Welcome to the real box-office magic. Here we have a wand that converts euphoria to astronomical collection figures.
Cut to 2007, and Shivaji Rao’s real name and reel name converge in over 600 prints and in roughly 100-odd prints abroad — UK, US, Japan and this time, in Hong Kong too. No official figures dude, the veil of secrecy is dropped only on Day 1. Everything else is hearsay.
That’s why when leaked tapes of Sivaji did the rounds on the Net, AR Rahman was asked to tweak it — again a hearsay. Now, that secrecy is one aspect of the stylish aura that weaves magic on screen.
So, the faceless figurehead who mans the counter at Aurora in Matunga be pardoned for having a bland ticket. It would have been unpardonable if that were to happen in Albert or Satyam in Chennai. Or for that matter, anywhere in the vast tracts of land breathing the rustic fragrance of Tamil.
Nothing less than a glossy texture with the icon himself on it would do — It’s a celebration and not a slip of paper which assures an entry to a cinema. Don’t you dare fiddle with it!
Many crores later and after many intriguing plots and one liners were given a decent burial, The Boss assumed his stylish screen persona to assured applauses on Friday — that was the aforementioned missing USP.
But for this star-struck soul, it doesn’t matter if the rendezvous is only on Day 2. Awaiting the moment frozen in time, when the punch dialogue unleashes a riot of claps, itself is a celebration.
Mint is refreshing. A clarity of thought pervades the pages and the text, which media professionals dare to call “storiesâ€.
It hasn’t gone overboard on Day One, though it had a slew of reasons provided by Tatas, Corus and the apex bank. That’s a welcome relief from all the ‘exclusive’, painting-the-town-red sort of ‘interviews’ of Ratan Tata that almost all business dailies ran. Ratan Tata could have told them only one thing other than what he did at the media briefing – That he didn’t wink. Or, may be, it was easier to get sandwiches in the Taj than in Bombay House.
Mint stayed cool. Others went overboard. Fair enough.
But there is a cowboy economy out there when it comes to pink pals. Mint is not pink in its physical form, but it has space only in that smug of a rat race.
And the cowboy economy dictates that you flourish by killing the competitor, rather than leaping ahead.
That necessarily means something akin to buying all the copies and burying it under heaps of garbage. To be on the safer side, it could be burnt before burying, lest someone digs it out.
It is in jumping this hurdle that mint would find the competition tough, rather than in coming out with a smart product.
And one thing that it needs to do is to make available its copies to at least those who want it.
A flurry of SMSssssssssssss, an e-mail and a personal chat with the vendor did not bring it to the doorstep. It took an unscheduled long walk. Now, that is not how you sell your newspaper, whether you call it Berliner or Assamese or compact or Chinese. Or mint. Â
DNA. Jan 3.Â
Â
MUMBAI: From the trolley-clogged serpentine queues that led to purposeless check-in counters, New Delhi unfurled the New Year to its stranded guests.
Â
But first things first. The polite cabbie had decided to grab decision-making powers, foreseeing what the low-cost carrier had an hour past midnight of the new dawn smsed its hapless passenger: Nothing would take off in New Delhi, on Day One of 2007.
Â
Fog spread its tentacles to thwart road, rail and air travel, as if to allow midnight revellers time to shed holy hangovers. For revellers it is ok, for travelers it’s awkward.
Â
So why don’t you try and catch the next flight of the friendly neighbourhood budget-carrier to Amchi Mumbai?
Â
The faceless voice from some god-forsaken call centre informs you that the rest of the day’s flights are full, if at all they would dare to take-off from the clutches of fog.
Â
So the next early morning flight is the option thrust upon the frozen soul by the winter of disarray.
Â
But then there is no guarantee that the creepy F-word would claw back to its Himalayan habitats. Wisdom reigns. Â
Â
No thanks dude, another early morning flight is a strict no-no for another decade, at least in winter, all the more in Delhi.
Â
The brighter option is the next carrier, with or without frills – you name it and we have it.
Â
The ticket is surprisingly up for grabs, albeit a bit costlier, for the next hopefully sunny morning. Hoping against hope is a stellar trait of the Indian psyche.
Â
After the rude chaos of Delhi’s rugged nature and many serpentine confusing trolley-shaped queues later, we are a step nearer to redemption. At 9, the flight is on time and there is a semblance of visibility for the layman. Â
Â
Half an hour later, when the passengers are scheduled to board the aircraft, no sign of salvation but an announcement that the 9.30 Mumbai flight of another airline has been re-scheduled to 10.
Â
Even before there’s time to trade a guess about the obvious comes the prompt announcement: Sorry for another 45 minutes, but keep yourself happy with some quick bites from the counter. Thanks, but no thanks.
Â
The world here is divided into two, those who have checked in their baggage and have their boarding pass and those who have not. There the cacophony of loud voices threaten to gobble up the fragile but chaotic queues of the less fortunate. Airport and airline staff get a mouthful of abuse for free.
Â
Many diversions and cancellations later, when passengers clapped following an announcement which was hardly audible, it needed little wisdom to figure out that your aircraft is ready to carry you to promised land.
Â
Only that no one still thought they would have the eerie luxury of waiting in a motionless A320 for another two hours. The fog had eased, but there is a pile up of 15 more aircraft carrying people like you.
Â
Did someone say you will be charged for congestion in our crumbling airports? Would you mind reading about orders placed by our fledgling airlines to Airbus or Boeing.
Â
The better idea is to pay some hard-earned cash to buy peanuts and doze-off after fastening the seatbelts of our low-frilled flights. And may be dream about better facilities at airports during future bitter experiences lined up for you, as India flaunts its glittering aircraft appetite to hide its crumbling airport infrastructure and sorry state of airport management.
Â
There’s an irrational feeling that Brazilian steelmaker Companhia Siderurgica Nacional will triumph against Tatas in the bidding war for Corus.
That feeling stems not from logic or rationale or after studying the valuations, synergies etc. Nor are we talking about the funding pattern and the finances or stretched valuations for Corus.
Then why would Tatas fail to get Corus?
Simple, the Tatas have only steel in the name, while  CSN has both Iron and Steel. Siderurgica means iron and steel. Then it’s a company as Companhia indicates, where as there no such indication in the name plate of the reluctant Indian suitor, apart from the ‘Ltd’ tag. And above all there’s national pride etched in Nacional.
So for the Tatas, it is as good as taking their name literally—Tata bye bye is the corus being heard loudly in Bombay House. Any bets?Â
NB: Tatas trumped CSN. No one bet.
Â
Â
No one is waiting, but this is to inform the stray visitor, the faceless blogger or the unknown netizen that this space is to witness some activity in the days to come. Welcome to those who have nothing worthwhile to do, no horizons to conquer, no goals to work for and no energy worth boasting. Back to basics
No one is waiting, but this is to inform the stray visitor, the faceless blogger or the unknown netizen that this space is to witness some activity in the days to come. Welcome to those who have nothing worthwhile to do, no horizons to conquer, no goals to work for and no energy worth boasting.