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.

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.

Barack Obama wanted an introspection on whether Wall Street executives should have taken such massive ay-outs in 2008, a year which confirmed the start of what many call the worst recession in ‘living’ history.

Obama has a point. The much-hyped concept of investment banking was wiped off from glossy annals of history, larger-than-life banks collapsed without a trace, industrial growth plunged, and pink slips piled up across the globe.

So what where all these top honchos doing all the time. Weren’t they aware of the nature of crises which were to hit their inflated books and overrated performances?

True regulatory loopholes would have played a part. But that is no wanton excuse to take home the greenback in billions, after uttering the customary refrain of “hard times” to sack low and middle level employees, whom they hired without a alarming lack of vision, or without knowing what is in store in the days, months and year’s ahead.

The response as usual from some captains of free market was to ridicule intervention by state in matters of industry – like what happened in India when the man who ushered in reforms – Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — himself spoke of executive pay.

So if intervention is bad why is everyone from clobbered banks to companies desperately in need of a lifeline seeking government bailouts.

That is the answer which the tax payers are seeking from the Wall Street honchos.

Shilpa Shetty with SRK & Gauri Khan

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.

Vijeyender and Sushil with President Prathibha Patil

India’s highest civilian honours, doled out on Republic Day and many a time carrying the stamp of political patronage and  petty considerations rather than an aura of excellence, has caught in its vortex a former beauty queen-turned-actress and two sportspersons. — the former for her inclusion and the latter for exclusion from a list figuring more than 90 Padma awardees.

The actress in question is married to a politically connected family in which only her husband has been left out in the civilian honour list,now that she has also made it.  Her in-laws have already figured —  Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri for her angry old former superstar father in law and Padma Shri for his better half.

If  the actress in question is being elevated to the altar of highest civilian honours at this point of time, prima facie that could not be a case of merit.

If at all she were to be honoured, it should have been just after she won a world beauty contest. After that, it was her off-screen connections and cupid struck troubled co-stars who have propelled her to limelight, rather than her on screen exploits. 

That she was in the jury of the world’s most prestigious film fete remains as much a mystery as her inclusion in this list of  civilians who are being honoured by a  government about to face the stiff acid test of general elections in  three months time.

Perhaps the political clout that her in-laws wield in a dispensation propped up by  party close to her meant 

that only one of the family could be “conferred” the award. Otherwise, it seems, the lone exclusion from the first family of what is known as Bollywood – and an actors only one at that, would have also made it to the list.

So glamour, connections and cricket made it to the elite list of honour, but boxer Vijender Singh and wrestler Sushil Kumar, who did the nation proud by winning bronze medals in Beijing Olympics did not figure in the list.

What makes this omission a slight to Olympic athletes is that this is the first time an Indian contingent won three medals.

The country’s first individual gold medal winner, Abhinav Bindra, was awarded Padma Bhushan for his rifle shooting exploits, but that is no justification for the snub to the other medal winners. Vijeyender had bagged India’s first medal in boxing and Sushil’s is the second medal in that discipline.

Vijeyender and Sushil need not fret over the elusive civilian honour as they have stamped their class in the world’s biggest sporting event. 

Of course cricket is one sport where we churn out world class performers, but if this is the treatment meted out to our olympic heroes, there is little scope for us to hope against hope that we might produce champions in other sports.

No need to ask ASL pls, for age and sex are known and location is a backyard trivia on your network neighbourhood.
Catch ya soon.

 Mighty resolutions and uneasy hang overs ushered in 2008, the year of the rat as per the Chinese calendar. It is another matter that as per the Western calendar it starts its countdown only from February 7. The hard-working rat peruses its agenda with missionary zeal, it seems.

So what is up for grabs in the year that commemorates the rat. Four state polls in India and the rat race for the top post in the White House will dole out comic relief to television audiences in 2008.

The Indian cricket team got a battering Down Under, but seems to be riding on a wave of moral high-ground to bounce back from the Boxing Day debacle. At Perth, they are fighting back.The rat’s year will see a new US president. The race for the Democratic and Republican nominations is on with the former unleashing all the drama in the contest between a woman and a Black.

On Nov 4, America’s 200 million eligible voters can exercise the option to vote either of them, or a Republican candidate once again, to the White House. Either way, all elements of a humdinger soap are assured.Cheers for those chasing eyeballs – yours and mine.The idiot box then will have plush drama in the form of warring cricket leagues IPL and ICL. Do not faint thinking about the $1 billion pouring in to the swollen coffers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Its a win all situation. More people in India would watch IPL’s Bonzai format than Olympics across the Great Wall. 

Last heard, the willow is catching up in communist China, whether Hu and his fellow comrades like it or not. Hopefully, they may not crack the whip on the willow.Then the cute little demon that Ratan Tata unleashed may flood desi streets. While that would be a dream come true for the aam admi, the flip side is that it would definitely be a disaster vis-à-vis the country’s creaky infrastructure.Take a bet, there’s no solution for our infrastructure woes. It can only be built from scratch after it crumbles. Like Japan after World War II.

So the aam admi, whose ride with a  family of four precariously clinging  on to the freak mechanics of two wheels moved Ratan Tata and sowed the seeds of the People’s car, will have a not-so jolly-ride in alarming traffic.

At some point of time, if most of the cities would come to such a standstill that traffic would have to be cleared by airlifting people and automobiles, do not blame Ratan Tata.

If there are angry brawls on the streets, think that it is just a by-product of rage which is unassumingly human.Then there would be de facto bans similar to the ones Mumbai’s Virar local commuters are familiar. Some vehicles would not be allowed to ply through certain roads by mobs who take control when the administration fails to deliver. That is mobocracy.

The long-term off-shoot of this is that cities like Mumbai will crumble. Sad, we need disasters to build a performing nation.
Sure this year belongs to Rat and Ratan. Not Buddha’s elder comrade Jyoti Basu, not BJP’s waning deity Vajpayee, but it is  Ratan Tata who deserves Bharat Ratna for driving home the most valuable point about nation building to his hapless fellow countrymen. He is missionary zeal personified.

The green e-book

  

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)   

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. 
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How we lost the turf war 

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. 

 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. 
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