A Worldview from 80'E & 25'N

Harry Potter and Neo Skywalker

2009-06-16T16:11:00.024+05:30

Once upon a time, on a planet pretty much here..

There lives a gentleman called George Lucas. He wrote a very good story (on paper in long-hand), could not direct them very well, sort of invented CGI, and along with good friend Steven Spielberg (a more accomplished movie-maker), changed the face of Hollywood and global cinema as we know it.

For me (and maybe more of my ilk), used to the kind of cinema which the critics call kiddie stuff for grown-ups , studios call blockbusters, and we call thrilling fantasies, Star Wars is an engima. All the movies I have enjoyed since, ET, Superman, Spider Man, X-Men, definitely Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, can potentially be attributed to Lucas Inc. He is supposed to have sounded the death knell for Martin Scorsese and his Raging Bulls. At a time when in India, Amol Palekar and Nasseruddin Shah were winning Filmfare awards at the expense of ruling deity Amitabh Bachchan, Rocky trumped Taxi Driver for the Oscars.

From the movie and the path-breaking technology point of view, the closest cinematic phenomenon I have seen to Star Wars in our times is possibly Matrix, more of Gita (the self-discovery of Neo) to Lucas' Mahabharata (the space fights and the clan feuds were supposedly borrowed from oriental mythology). However, the merit of Lucas' story is proven by how badly the Wachowski brothers tripped with their sequels. Lucas himself was then making relatively ordinary prequels, but the way he had twisted his original stories to marry the good against the Dark side with father versus son, also kept pace with the box-office acceptance of the characters (the sibling relationship of Luke & Leia makes their kiss in Empire Strikes Back so incestuous).

For my generation, against the power of the force of the 70s, we had the Pottermania, a combination of the Chosen One in a fight against the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. Books are a far more evolved, and demanding form of popular art. I have hardly been a consistent reader, and my jobs have further eroded the little habits I had.

Harry Potter as a phenomena took off when I was still studying. I first noticed when a faculty member I held in some esteem mentioned that Rowling writes quite enchantingly (how apt). My initiation happened only through the movie, directed by Chris Columbus (his Home Alone with Macaulay Culkin was a huge childhood favourite), by when the best book of the series Prisoner of Azkaban had been released (ensuring Goblet of Fire was a pre-sellout), Pottermania had taken full effect, and JK Rowling possibly had the lucrative deal with Warner Bros in mind when finishing the remaining three books. With the successful release of the film, and to cater to the wider grown-up audience, the books kept getting darker. While in Chambers.. conveniently no one dies, Harry progressively starts losing one major character in increasing importance in every book since Goblet... (before the body-bags pile up in Deathly Hallows).

The Potter world, with its quidditch, transfiguration and magic, is made for the cinemas. The film series also takes a turn towards the eventual darker tone when the superb Azakaban was filmed as competently by Alfonso Cuaron (the child Emma Watson also turned in to a teenager and caught my imagination the first time). However, I was totally hooked only when David Yates' filmed the most voluminous Order of Phoenix so well. It introduced the 'prophecy' which fascinates me, of mutually assured destruction, of there being no winners in the battle between good and evil (dare say, the prophecy gets undue importance).

The release of the Order of Phoenix film coincided with the release of the final volume by Rowling, Deathly Hallows. And just like three decades ago, all rumours like Luke Skywalker betraying the Jedi cause and joining Darth Warder were laid to rest when Potter did not meet his end at the hands of the Dark Lord.

Though we had an early bird copy of the Deathly Hallows, I was strictly advised by competent authorities to read all the novels in sequential order. To be fair to Rowling, one could have picked up any novel from the middle and sort of followed the story. However, the excitement of figuring out a minor detail in the larger context (and admiring her imagination) would have been missing. Again to prove a point for books, one cannot say the same about the films. The film Half-Blood Prince will be impossible to follow to the rare uninitiated.

For me personally, Harry Potter is the latest addition to my quirky list of fascinating heroes: Arjun, Sherlock Holmes, Tintin, and James Bond. Rowling did not create high literature (thankfully, it was not Da Vinci Code either). What she did do was create a fascinating world, a world possibly not dissimilar to Frank Baum's in Wizard of Oz (another childhood favourite). To give it a dose of realism, the canvas she paints has an uncanny resemblance to our part of the world. Order.., with the lurking menace of Voldemort and the denial by the Minsitry, resembles India. Half-Blood Prince, with the Ministry out of control, is like Pakistan. And by the final ..Hallows,where the Ministry has fallen, the scenario is like Afghanistan.

Left to myself, the first Potter, or even the second one, was so usual that I would have never followed it up had I just read the books. However, Prisoner.. had me hooked. What sets Rowling's apart are the emotional high-points of her story. The basic theme is simple, 'to choose between what is easy, and what is right' (Dumbledore tells the students after Cedric's death; SRK used the same lines to his mother-in-law in DDLJ). While Potter's initial misfortunes sound like a Cinderella, when he finally visits his parents grave and the plaque at his cottage, you feel the pain of his uncontrolled tears. The stories rarely drag (except for some portions of the Quidditch World Cup, or the futile on-the-run camping in Deathly..). The saga does culminate in Harry's improbable triumph, with as much simplicity as Luke felt the Jedi force. But the real message is in the other famous line from the books, 'it is our choices that define us, not our abilities' (again Dumbledore in Chamber..).

The films have sort of measured up to the book, especially those directed by Cuaron and Yates. The later volumes meant lots of details needed to be skipped, or tinkered with, but overall added to the story. The romantic sagas were deftly handled (though must admit, in the latest ..Prince, Hermione's love comes across as a lot more one-sided, and Ginny's kiss a lot less spontaneous than in the books). If anything, the deaths of Black and Dumbledore do not really capture the loss for Harry as well. The book ..Prince ends on a despondent and hopeless note (as Baradwaj put it, how will Harry take on the real world experience of Voldemort). In the film, by doing away with the climatic duel, the futility and Harry's helplessness at Dumbledore's death is absent. I am sure in the final movie, some of the deaths (like Dolby's sacrifice which showcased Harry's unusual-ness as a wizard) would not even make it to the big screen.

The single biggest difference between Star Wars & Harry Potter films are the acting. In the former, apart from the then new Harrison Ford & well-established Alec Guniess, no actor managed to make his mark (Mark Hamill was particularly bad as Luke). However, Harry Potters have managed to get together an ensemble of fine British actors. Established names like Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter have taken on crucial though low screen-time roles. Alan Rickman as Snape has been the stand-out performer. In the latest, Oscar winner Jim Broadbent is superb as Slughorn.

What has been fascinating to watch is the child actors grow, all of them including Draco & Neville. The leads were initially recruited only for the first three films, as they would supposedly have grown too big for their respective parts. However, thankfully, the filming over a decade has allowed the child actors to grow in the role suitably.

For me personally, a huge flaw in Rowling's romantic pairing was Ron & Hermione. They just seem too unlikely. In the latest film, the suspicions on Harry & Hermione' are cast again, only because they seem more obvious. The brilliant acting of Emma's Hermione and Rupert's bumbling Ron further adds to the disbelief in their long-term chemistry.

The problem with starting off as child actors is that one is not sure what would one grow up in to (the cute Kevin Arnold or Winnie Cooper from Wonder Years never really made it). As Burberry proves, it is difficult to believe Emma Watson (the best actor and the most reluctant star of the three) as the careless Hermione of the books. Rupert Grint, with his comic timing, is perfect as the reluctant Ron. If nothing else, while Daniel Radcliffe is the right Harry Potter, his weeping appears too wooden.

Rowling created a fantastic world, better than Lucas. In a couple of years, Yates will end it again. However, just to give me another memories of a Doordarshan era gone by, JJ Abrams came up with his Star Trek, taking me back on an enterprise to 'where no man has gone before'. Sigh, for childhood nostalgia!

P.S. For better reviews of Star Wars & Harry Potter, please read http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/.

P.P.S. Even by my standards, this post has been unusually long. Because of a mix of personal and professional reasons, I do not think I will manage to cope up with this blog too long. I will like to thank all readers for their patience. I hope to re-surface, sometime, in some form or the other.

Slumdog Millionaire****

2009-01-26T18:55:00.005+05:30

It is very difficult to be objective about the phenomena called Slumdog Millionaire. The Golden Globes and then the Oscar nominations have easily made it our own Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon (no disrespect meant to Awara, Pather Panchali, Gandhi, Salaam Bombay, Lagaan and Monsoon Wedding). From my own worldview, the story of the underdog succeeding against insurmountable odds has already been told quite well by Nagesh Kukunoor in Iqbal, or even by Ashutosh Gowariker in Lagaan.

With its destiny-led story, happy convenient ending (with no thoughts on the after-effects) and a Bollywood style end-credit number (rather tame by our vigorous standards), Slumdog.. is a quintessential Indian film. What Danny Boyle (and Vikas Swarup actually) do to give it an international halo is getting the context of the Bombay slums right (just like Crouching.. had Oriental mystique about it)! Poor Amitabh Bachchan has been unnecessarily dragged into a 'poverty-porn' controversy by the marketeers posturing as journalists at The Time of India (similar to how late Nargis Dutt accused Satyajit Ray).

I am not going in to the authenticity of what is depicted (I felt the most squeamish when Salim was shown re-sealing a mineral water bottle, it questions an entire bottling and packaging industry). Critically, none of our ilk is in a position to actually confirm or deny what is shown in the movie. Moreover, as Hindi film buffs, if we start seeking reality in our cinema, we might as well stop watching anything made here. As I have believed, Tarantino and Karan Johar are in a strange way similar, it is just that they choose to give their wings of fancy in dramatically different directions.

Danny Boyle has been a celebrated British director for his cult-classic Trainspotting (have not seen it). In fact, before Slumdog.., the only flick I have seen is possibly his only conventional Hollywood drama (in the spirit of things, lets play a quiz: the movie stars Leonardo and the answer can be checked on imdb). Because of Danny's international sensibilities, and attempt to adapt the product to the local context, Slumdog.. pervades the best of all worlds, marrying the seamier side of Bombay shown by Ramu and Anurag Kahsyap, to the relatively rosier aspects of life as captured by Mani Rathnam (the obsession of Jamal with Latika is so Dil Se) & Karan Johar. If nothing else, Danny Boyle possibly resembles our most international director, Vishal Bharadwaj. Moreover, the cinematography used to capture the Bombay locales is superb (Anthony Dod Mantle aptly has got an Oscar nomination).

Performance wise, apart from Dev Patel (as the grown-up Jamal; taking nothing away from Dev, I wonder why they could not have cast an Indian actor for the same), no one gets sufficient screen-time to score an award nomination. Freida Pinto (Latika, the love interest) is in real life six years older to Dev, but looks good with him, and otherwise (in fact, the scar makes her even more attractive, and real). Shah Rukh Khan had refused the manipulative crooked quiz-master's role (he claims he thought the character in the book was modeled on a real Bollywood personality; I think because it would have been too much grist for the mill to see him villainizing Amitabh's avuncular friendly quizzing in KBC). Anil Kapoor took on the role quite well. He is especially superb on the last question, where he is distraught with Jamal's winning, but has to still congratulate him in a celebratory style. Irrfan Khan has nothing much to do.

However, the real show-stealer for me was Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, as the youngest Jamal (there are 3 of him in different stages of life). All the three youngest characters are played by actual slum-kids, hence the most authentic use of the real language. The dancing of the kids Jamal and Latika in the end-credits easily outperforms the entire grown up crew. It just goes on to show that in any walk of life, if India needs to actualise its potential, it is necessary to drag all this hidden talent on to the mainstream (Brazil & Argentina do this very well in football).

The single biggest contribution of Slumdog.. is to bring our biggest world-class entertainer, AR Rahman, on to the global stage. Illaiyaraja might be more classical, RD Burman might have been more evergreen popular, but the genius of Rahman has been to fuse it all together, and more. His first album, Roja, was radically different from anything anyone of us had ever heard, and he has never looked back since. He has probably given better numbers. If nothing else, his first collaboration with Gulzar, Dil Se, is easily my personal best score. Delhi 6 also sounds very promising (the other album he was working on along with Slumdog..). However, I am not sure the West would have ever been exposed to the explosion of varied musical instruments they got here. And it sure is catchy!

Slumdog.. is a celebration of life, of living, against all odds! Jamal is just after his girl. Instead of using guns like in a conventional flick, he uses brain-power, to impress, to succeed. Along the way, he gives us practical life lessons, on secularism, on morality (his elder brother's character easily was the most grey), on keeping the faith. It just goes on to reaffirm my belief that no education can compensate for actual worldly experience. Jai Ho!

Random Notes on a Demented Year

2009-01-04T13:54:00.007+05:30

2008 was a crazy year. My professional career hardly gave me any time to breathe, lots to learn & grow, and nothing much to show as the end-result. It also was a year where the entire world caught a housing-related chill, soon to become an endemic economic & financial flu. India was supposedly insulated, but honestly, tough and turbulent times lie ahead. It will take a thick skin to keep faith in the India story.

As I hardly had any time to write, I thought I will put in some words about things I thought about during the year, but never managed to deliberate upon.

The Year of Terror

I still do not know what was the final victim count of the Bihar floods (possible the worst tragedy of the year in terms of accounted/unaccounted casualties). However, there is no denying that 2008 belonged to the terrorists, from the amateurish (Mehrauli bomb-blasts in September) to the spine-chilling deadly (26/11). What this did was bring the 20-200 million-strong Indian middle class (dependent upon which study you want to go by) back in to the mainstream. Tehelka published a lovely article, primarily as an obituary for Rohinton Maloo, but very well articulating why the Indian middle-class cannot live in a vacuum independent of the Indian political & administrative-class.

The Pakistan Conundrum

What 26/11 also proved is however much we want to leave behind our Pakistan fixation, it catches up with us, directly or indirectly. The world does not know what to make out of this nuclear-armed fast-failing state. And in spite of the hullaboo, while our response has been fairly measured, Pakistan has simply been caught in a war hysteria. For those who might propogate a tougher Indian response, just check out the tragic happenings in Gaza.

Cinema

There was no stand-out Hindi film in the year. As I missed Welcome to Sajjanpur & Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, I thought Jodhaa Akbar was the best, followed by a personal quirk, Tahaan (superbly shot in Kashmir and directed as a fable by Santosh Sivan). I also thought Dostana was quite okay, proving that unlike his good friend Adi, KJo is at least finding new niches in the candy floss genre. Rock On got a lot of hype, but apart from some super music, and Farhan Akhtar proving himself to be the most complete entertainer (not necessarily the greatest actor, at least on current evidence) since that genius Kishore Kumar, I thought the movie was just about okay (definitely not another Dil Chahta Hai).

However, in English, The Dark Knight stood out bigtime, followed by the superb Kung Fu Panda (scoring over the other much celebrated animation film, Wall-E). Kung Fu Panda pretty much achieves the heights of animation - a quirky feel-good tale of the triumph of an underdog, superbly told. The one lesson I learnt for life, 'there are no secrets'.

Daniel Craig also came back with his second Bond outing, Quantum of Solace. As Vir Sanghvi put it, Craig is the only Bond after Connery who looks capable of murder (not to forget he is a superb actor to boot; he does capture the drabness of the book Bond best). However, the problem with Quantum.. was that it made James Bond in to an extension of Jason Bourne. The movie was a montage of superb action shots, interspersed with rare & few Bond moments (the escape from the elevator, the tribute to Goldfinger). However, Bond's continuous mourning for Vesper got grating after a while. Sadly, even the sex looked reluctant. Since he seems to have sort of exorcised his demons at the end, they might present Bond as a Tintin now.

Clash of the Titans

For the first time since 2001, when Lagaan and Asoka were apparently competing with each other for the nod to be the official nomination from India for the Oscars, the two big Khans of the Bombay film industry: Shah Rukh & Aamir, clashed at the box-office in December (totally unlike the other clash SRK had with the third big Khan, Salman). Aamir had upped the ante in the year with some uncharacteristic taunts, and our Hindi news channels had a field day. SRK, after his physical brawl, refused to bite the bait. My personal take is both wanted to have a good laugh at the rest of the world's expense, although Aamir just might be giving SRK a taste of his own often-biting humour.

The country's premier production house, Yashraj Films, had an exceptionally tough year. And Aditya Chopra took up the directorial reins after almost a decade to bail it out. While SRK did launch the Haule Haule song on his birthday, RNBDJ released with out any of his customary all pervasive media interactions (was it because of Bombay?). However, Aamir went on his usual PR over-drive (seen earlier in the year during the launch of his home production, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na). Moreover, from the promos, RNBDJ looked stale (with pedestrian music), while Ghajini looked cutting-edge (hummable AR Rahman numbers shot in exotic locales like Namibia). However, both Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Ghajini turned out to be damp squibs.

RNBDJ proved that there are not enough permutations left for telling a love story in Hindi cinema (although Jaane Tu.. did tell an old tale rather okay). The movie was possibly Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam meets Shrek. While the wafer-thin story was narrated in a rather convoluted manner, SRK as Surinder Sahni became the redeeming factor. He out-acted Aamir in Ghajini, and his introductory romatic flirtations and end-credit honeymoon are hilarious. And while Surinder's alter-ego Raj might come across as irritating, I thought it was a quirky take on SRK the star. I could not really get the dilemma Surinder was posing to his bride (maybe just to get his feet touched, the MCP). It might have been much more fun if Raj actually was a different person, but then we have had enough of love triangles too.

Ghajini was Aamir having fun; at the risk of being racist, Tamil style. The movie is an old-fashioned 80s style revenge potboiler, apparently with elements borrowed from Nolan's Memento. Aamir hams it up, and while his fake-identity romance with Asin was too unreal, they did have decent chemistry (their last meeting where she gives him money for his mother is possibly the best cinematic moment, with the super melody Kaise Mujhe). Aamir has performed well in that particular scene, but still did not reveal the truth of his identity. In fact, if Asin would have survived, she should have broken up just for his treachery.

Possibly to justify his subsequent transformation into a killing machine, Aamir is shown as a corporate hulk through out. However, the climax is ridiculous to say the least (Sunny Deol should sue for copyright infringement). The gruesome murder of Asin easily pales Ghajini's demise (a rather tame villain, whose goons believe in no revolvers). Moreover, the real interesting (and cutting-edge) bit would have come from Aamir's initial plotting of his revenge. He is not shown as having any accomplices, and how he remembers Ghajini (when it was just whispered in his ears before he lost his memory) is coveniently left to the imagination.

As Uncle Ben told Peter in Spider-Man, 'with great power comes great responsibility'.

Cricket: The Passing Over of the Titans

India had a good promising year in cricket. The momentous occassion was the retirement of Anil Kumble (who was terrible throughout). Ganguly also bid a timely farewell, when he was playing his best. Sachin Tendulkar answered a lot of the tough questions asked about his match-winning abilities by two superb centuries, one against Australia in the first VB Series final at Sydney, and another against England at the Chennai Test. He might not have the style of old, but the substance more than makes up. The redeeming factor was that Jeff Crowe still had the sense to award the Man of Match to Sehwag at Chennai.

While India have been continously challenging Australia since Calcutta in 2001, the real blow was given by South Africa. Remember, India somehow lost 2-1 to pretty much the same bowling attack last year, and also faltered against a debutant Mendis in Sri Lanka. India deserved to win 2-0 against the Aussies at home, but would have never got it if the Aussies had not decided to go after the target on the last day of Nagpur.

While India has become a terrific ODI team, we still need to win more (like against the Aussies in Delhi or England in Mohali) to be called the No.1 Test team. The key would be the promising Ishant Sharma to go the way of Dale Steyn rather than Irfan Pathan, and for Rahul Dravid to possily elongate his career at No.5 (swapping with VVS). If only we can replace the dead Ranji Trophy with an IPL format now!

Sports: Inspiration from Beijing

China truly established itself on the global stage by successfully holding the Beijing Olympics. Thankfully, Abhinav Bindra chose the venue of our global rival to win India's maiden individual gold medal. However, the real challenge for the billion-strong Indians' Olympic paradox would be transform the 3 medals of Beijing to 30 at London.

The other key moments were the crowning of the World Chess Champion of Vishwanathan Anand for the third time (in three different formats), and the qualification of the Indian football team for the 2011 Asia Cup.

Yes We Can

As a balm on the tough year gone by, and for the tougher times lying ahead, Barack Obama came in from nowhere as an 'agent for change'. A new-age digital leader, Obama could not put a foot wrong. He proved his magnanimity by appointing once bitter rival Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State, and unprecedentedly, retaining President Bush' appointee Robert Gates as the Secretary of Defense. To further justify his credentials as a global role-model, he unveiled a flat-pack abs when on vacation in Hawaii. His economic policies are still unproven, but somehow President-elect Obama inspires hope in a fast depressing world like noone else.

Happy New Year to All!

A Mighty State

2008-12-01T12:01:00.006+05:30

I saw Michael Winterbottom's 'A Mighty Heart' on Saturday, just a few hours after the Mumbai Siege had ended. An apt movie to see after the incident, more so at it depicts the capture and killing of the Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl quite authentically, and Angeline Jolie has captured the grit and agony of Mariane Pearl superbly. Maybe, it is also good for India's morale; it just showcases Pakistan on its way to be the failed state it has become.

The war in Mumbai (yes, unfortunately with the trained Fidayeen terrorists around, it is that only; that is why our ill-trained police or private security will never stand any chance) has ended, and I tried doing all my good concerned citizens bit. I went for a candle-lighting 40 kms from my place, wore black the next working day, observed a minutes silence when asked to, etc. etc. Now what?

The political class has responded. The Congress, fearing rout in the impending General Elections, finally sacked the Home Minister, Shivraj Patil. BJP's Advani, after a failed attempt to show solidarity, could not take time off from his campaigning for an all-party meet. And apparently a few more heads are expected to roll in Maharashtra and the Home Ministry.

I have always maintained that most of the terrorist related problems (Kashmir, North-East, Palestine) do not have military solutions. I agree the Punjab militancy was crushed in the 80s, but the tide possibly turned when the local population withdrew logistical and emotional support to the Khalistani militants. In fact, good economics usually is the best bet, when people are too bothered to make an honourable and successful living, rather than thinking of relatively more abstract concepts like political, religious or cultural rights.

The problem with the Al Qaeda and its war is that it has beaten my rudimentary theory hollow. The recruits are usually the well-educated (not some illiterate incapable of having their own minds), even second generation immigrants (in Britain during the 7/7 bombings) who should have had no exposure to the genuine prejudices faced by their parents. In fact, I am not even sure if I understand what Bin Laden wants, apart from proclaiming the USA, Israel and India as the public enemies number 1.

It is obvious we need to do something. The problem is all of us are angry, but do not really know how to take it out. We have blamed politicians, but we have to live with them in our democracy. Critically, there is no leader who actually inspires confidence. Mobilising troops on the International border (like we did during Operation Parakram after the Pariament attack in 2001) a second time round in a decade would look stupid, especially as we did not fire a single bullet last time round. Critically, I do not think the Pakistan Government actually controls anything anymore. All leaders, be it Musharraf or Benazir, faced assassination attempts, to different degrees of success.

Israel is considered the world's hardest state, which does not negotiate with terrorists at all. In fact, the very creation of Israel and subsequent military expansion is considered the ultimate in hard state tales. Obviously, the single-mindedness unity of a fractured polity (not too dissimilar to India) helps. The Munich Massacre (where the Mossad apparently hunted down all perpetrators) , the successful storming of the hijacked plane at Uganda (Operation Entebbe), and the supposed bombing and crippling of Iran's nuclear facilities further added to the aura. However, in the new century, a younger Israel is also realising that Palestine needs to have a different political solution. The withdrawals from Southern Lebanon, Gaza and West Bank, however flawed or incomplete, drove in the fact that the military, however efficient and hardline, cannot achieve results beyond a point.

India has supported the Palestine cause since the times of Nehru. In fact, it is one of the rare causes which had the support of the Congress and the Left. India never even established diplomatic relations with Israel. However, BJP, the party with a difference, always looked up to Israel. PV Narasimha Rao, often called the first BJP PM, finally opened embassies in 1992. Since then, much to the Left's discomfiture, India and Israel, unjust victims of Islamic terror, have grown closer.

However, for all its admiration and its 6-year rule at the Centre, the BJP (with Advani as Home Minsiter) did nothing remotely smart, or hardline. If India were Israel, we might have liberated PoK in 1948/71, or at least established a 5km. non-militarised buffer zone either side of the LoC. Critically, we would not have tested the nuclear bomb in 1998, a losing proposition. Without doubting the technology requirements of Dr. Kalam, it ensured we were faced with economic sanctions for half a decade, and lost our conventional military edge against Pakistan. Kargil was a failure, as we would have never lost so many brave soldiers, if we had just broken off the enemy supply chains. However, our mutual nuclear armaments ensured both India and Pakistan stayed put in their designated territories.

Most of my ilk also aspire India to be an Israel. However, as the Big Fight on yesterday's NDTV 24x7, we actually do not know how to go about it. Some want to destroy Pakistan, some want to ban politicians, some democracy.

I have just one take. I know we are a nation of billion plus, and hence possibly can afford to lose a lot more. You become a hard state only after you get soft with the inhabitansts inside. Our administrators - leaders or policemen - have a mentality to rule rather than serve. So a bit of collateral damage, or indifference to those who do not count, does not really make a difference.

We lost 150 lives during a religious stampede in Jodhpur a few months back. We lost 50 people during last year's Gujjar caste-led agitation. We also lost 180 people in the Mumbai terrorist attack. The key question to ask, as someone had put it so well to me, do we want a mighty India, or mighty Indians?

Nightmare near Dalal Street

2008-11-28T20:18:00.007+05:30

My blood is boiling. And I am sure I am not the only one amongst the billion dollar plus in this part of the planet.

Terrorism, as the Joker depicted so brilliantly a few months ago, is highly symbolic in nature. With no disrespect meant to the victims of the multiple terrorist attacks in India, we possibly lose more people to road accidents in Delhi. Yet it does not stop me from getting my car out to drive, or walk my way to the nearest mall in crazy traffic. Somehow, bomb blasts give us much greater jitters than drunken driving.

Terrorism, quite literally, is supposed to spread terror. 9/11 was such a watershed in global history because it showed a shadowy movement, the Al Qaeda, hitting at the very symbol of the global economic system, the World Trade Center at New York. More importantly, it gave a buffoon like George Bush Jr. his highest ratings, and maybe even a totally undeserving second term as the US President.

I first heard of the siege at Bombay in Guwahati (where apparently such search-and-siege operations are a regular phenomena). The tragedy is exactly 48 hours old as I write. At the risk of further insensitivity, I think humanity, or India, has seen worse. A few months back, a river changed it course by 120 kms, wrecking a populace so poor and backward that it is difficult to decide if it was better for them to get relieved of their miserable existence. The area happens to be in the neighbourhood of my geographical origin, and I was moved to donate. But alas, my day-to-day work-related travails caught up with me quickly to forget all about it.

We also have something called the Red Corridor, which apparently affects almost 40% of the Indian population, and where the writ of the Indian state has given way to the followers of Mao. Lest we forget, three years back in the same month of November, another neighbouring town of mine, Jehenabad, faced a breathtaking attack by almost 1000 Maoists who rescued more than 375 prison inmates.

Human beings, for all their ability to reason (intelligently), are possibly the only species on this planet who harm each other for something that cannot be strictly classified as essential survival. Some species of snakes are supposed to devour their eggs as soon as they hatch. I personally despise snakes, considering them to the lowliest and vilest creature. Yet, snakes exhibit this trait out of natural survival instincts.

The worst manifestation of this human trait, whatever the motive, are easily in the terrorist attacks against uninvolved bystanders. The Munich Massacre was poignant and dramatic enough for Spielberg to make a movie (giving Daniel Craig an action role before the more popular James Bond). Only recently, Vladimir Putin turned hardline after the terrible Beslan tragedy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis.

What is so different as to what has happened in Bombay, to make it a watershed in both my and my country's history? On a goddam honest note, the tragedy is right at my doorsteps. Kosi, Jehanabad, Beslan can be skipped, but I have been lucky enough to stay at both the Taj and the Trident. It could have been destiny, and I could have run into some madcap(s) inspired by Mr. Bin Laden and Prof. Saeed (the Amir of Lashkar-e-Toiba).

On a more philosophical note, the tragedy is straight out of a fantastic action movie, say a Die Hard. Alas, there was no John McClane this time round. The boys decided to target the India that is the flavour of Davos. Each gunshot was fatal, a slap across the face of every Indian. From a pure Corporate Communication point of view, the systematic targeting of American & British passport holders, and Israeli families, makes India appear like a farce.

It seems we will soon realise the complete ramifications of the ordeal. The two hotels (repeating the cliche, symbols of modern India and Bombay), the railway station, the hospital, the city is littered with dead bodies, belonging to NSG commandoes, finest police officers, brave hotel staff, foreigners, innocent bystanders, somebodies, nobodies, ALL. There have been bravehearts who did their bit admirably, helping people escape. There have been lucky ones, whom some mysterious force protected.

Critically, it once again showed that how our Armed forces are possibly our proudest institution. Lt. Col. Purohit not withstanding, India's success since Independence has been to have such a fine and apolitical Army. From a personal point of view, I cannot think of an institution that straddles the spectrum of the globalised contemporary world (Armymen are the ultimate in etiquette) with the real Bharat (the Army remains the only disaster management mechanism for many parts of India, whether it be a kid falling in a well, or a tsunami).

Where do we go from here? India aspires to be a hard state, but in reality is a bully. We are superb at holding on to territory (like Kashmir), or in controlling the poor. Yet, the real challenges elude us. It is one thing to look up to Israel, it is another thing to behave like them. After all, we are talking of a Jew race that resurrected an entire language Hebrew (something similar if we decide to suddenly start speaking in Sanskrit), has compulsorily military training for all its citizens, lives with daily terrorist attacks, and hunts down all its enemies (Munich again).

Pakistan (and originally the US in the 80s) have created a Frankenstein, which is out of control now. India needs to live with this reality, and re-strucuture its entire National security. accordingly. In fact, the Army cannot be expected to do the Police's job, like it has been doing in J&K and the North-East for so many years. If nothing else, senior Army commanders start stagnating at the top levels (Kargil after all was a tactical field victory but a strategic blunder). Maybe they can be better used if we have integrated security forces, allowing for senior level transfers.

I am not sure if individual leaders have the answer. LK Advani was the Home Minister when a plane was hijacked. Manmohan Singh gave the most insipid speech possible to the Bombay siege. Narendra Modi plays too much of politics, and happens to be a mass-murderer.

What we really need is an India 'not divided by narrow domestic walls'. Maybe, there is an Omen. The tragedy coincided with the passing away of VP Singh, under whose leadership the tone for today's divisive politics was set a couple of decades back. Amen!

When Insults Had Class

2008-09-14T19:17:00.005+05:30

Since I have not had the time, or the mind-space to put up anything up for more than fifty days, I am taking the easier way out. I am posting a humorous piece I got as a forward on the mail.

When Insults Had Class

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued....unlike now, where the art of the put-down and the come-back has been reduced to primarily questioning parentage and responding with descriptors of common bodily functions!

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, 'If you were my husband I'd give you poison,' and he said, 'If you were my wife, I'd gladly drink it.'

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.' 'That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.'

'He had delusions of adequacy.' - Walter Kerr

'He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.' - Winston Churchill

'A modest little person, with much to be modest about.' - Winston Churchill

'I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.' Clarence Darrow

'He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.' - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway); 'Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?' - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

'Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.' - Moses Hadas

'He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.' - Abraham Lincoln

'I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.' - Mark Twain

'He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.' - Oscar Wilde

'I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one.' - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill; 'Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one.' - Winston Churchill, in response.

'I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.' - Stephen Bishop

'He is a self-made man and worships his creator.' - John Bright

'I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.' - Irvin S. Cobb

'He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.' - Samuel Johnson

'He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.' - Paul Keating

'There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.' Jack E. Leonard

'He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.' - Robert Redford

'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.' - Thomas Brackett Reed

'In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.' - Charles, Count Talleyrand

'He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.' - Forrest Tucker

'Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?' - Mark Twain

'His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.' - Mae West

'Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.' - Oscar Wilde

'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts..for support rather than illumination.'- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

'He has Van Gogh's ear for music.' - Billy Wilder

'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.' - Groucho Marx

The Prisoner's Dilemma: A Fable

2008-07-23T11:20:00.006+05:30

courtesy University of Chicago

In the mid-1920's, the Nebraska State Police achieved what may still be their finest moment. After a 400-mile car chase over dirt roads and corn fields, they finally caught up with the notorious bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde. The two criminals were brought back to the police station in Omaha for further interrogation.

Bonnie and Clyde were questioned in separate rooms, and each was offered the same deal by the police. The deal went as follows (since both are the same, we need only describe the version presented to Bonnie):

``Bonnie, here's the offer that we are making to both you and Clyde. If you both hold out on us, and don't confess to bank robbery, then we admit that we don't have enough proof to convict you. However, we will be be able to jail you both for one year, for reckless driving and endangerment of corn. If you turn state's witness and help us convict Clyde (assuming he doesn't confess), then you will go free, and Clyde will get twenty years in prison. On the other hand, if you don't confess and Clyde does, then he will go free and you will get twenty years.''

``What happens if both Clyde and I confess?'' asked Bonnie.

``Then you both get five years,'' said the interrogator.

Bonnie, who had been a math major at Cal Tech before turning to crime, reasoned this way: ``Suppose Clyde intends to confess. Then if I don't confess, I'll get twenty years, but if I do confess, I'll only get five years. On the other hand, suppose Clyde intends to hold out on the cops. Then if I don't confess, I'll go to jail for a year, but if I do confess, I'll go free. So no matter what Clyde intends to do, I am better off confessing than holding out. So I'd better confess.''

Naturally, Clyde employed the very same reasoning. Both criminals confessed, and both went to jail for five years. The police, of course, were triumphant, since the criminals would have been free in a year had both remained silent.

The Prisoner's Dilemma has been a major part of Game Theory since the Second World War. Albert Tucker formalised the game in 1992, and it has been used as the key predictive theory for morality, ethics and consumer behaviour by modern economists. You can read a lot more elaborately at the attached link, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/.

For all in awe of Ledger's Joker, does it sound familiar?

The Dark Knight*****

2008-07-20T14:49:00.012+05:30

I have often wondered - why do I like watching films, or reading fiction? Does it have any functional importance? The simple answer - either to figure out what the world Is like, or what it Could be like. However, when the two streams merge to tell me that maybe this is what the world Should be like, it becomes magical. Isn't Mahabharata a believable human story of relationships and ambition, put together in a divine context?

Our ancient mythological heroes were easily the first superheroes invented by mankind. Much later, with the advent of the publishing industry and show business in the US, DC and Marvel invented a few more of the ilk. In the mid-70s, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg went a step further to create the new cinematic kiddie stuff for grown-ups. Inspired, Richard Donner and Mario Puzo brought Superman from the comic books to tinsel town in 1978. Tim Burton took the genre forward with his brooding Batman and Batman Returns. Joel Schumacher killed it with his horrendous Batman & Robin. Rakesh Roshan tried both the tricks in India, with his acceptable Koi Mil Gaya and clumsy Krrish.

At the turn of the century, Bryan Singer (of The Usual Suspects fame) is credited with reinventing the genre with X-Men. I personally got hooked only with Sam Raimi's take on the nerdy Spider-Man, especially the 2. A couple of years later, Martin Campbell dragged James Bond out of the grasp of technology in his Casino Royale. It was not very dissimilar to the comic books industry, when the funny and campy 60s and 70s had given way to graphic novels, like the ones written by Frank Miller.

Miller is known for his film-noir comic books, a balancing act of appealing to die-hard comic book fans, but in an adult story-telling format which attracts new mature audience. To much critical acclaim, his Sin City was adopted to the silver screen by Robert Rodriguez. In 1986, Miller also wrote and possibly reinvented Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

Miller's Batman inspired Christoper Nolan more than Burton. In the new century, Nolan decided to undo Schumacher's damage, and made Batman Begins. The entire premise - Bruce Wayne fighting his childhood demons, his creation of an indestructible motif, the usage of his resources and technology, and the dual identity, was not radically different from Gladiators. Batman and his foes fight in the realms of sci-fi; Spiderman's enemies are genetic aberrations like him.

Christian Bale makes a very good and believable Batman. Most importantly, his differentiation between the his two identities is possibly the only one in super-hero history where it is impossible to tell the difference. (Just remember the morons in Superman who could not decipher Clark Kent because of those big-framed spectacles).

The best casting in Batman Begins is Michael Caine as Alfred, Bruce Wayne's trusted butler and Batman's conscience-keeper. Caine makes a brilliant Alfred, combining just the right dose of humility, servility and fatherliness. Gary Oldman as then Lt. and later to be Commissioner Gordon is also an apt choice. Bruce's love Rachel Dawes was actually the most uni-dimensional character, and played even more so by Katie Holmes. Alfred is possibly a far more interesting conscience keeper than the lecturing Rachel.

If Batman Begins is my favourite 'super-hero' film, I can say The Dark Knight does away with the classification. As Daniel Craig had said, however much realism you can inject into Bond, he does live in a fantasy world of his own. The only thing comic-book about The Dark Knight is the masked & caped vigilante, and an equally theatrical adversary. You remove the fantasy, and the film is a real-world crime drama.

The Dark Knight is My kind of cinema. A visual spectacle - the scene where Lau is kidnapped in Hong Kong and the Joker captured in Gotham - are mind-blowing. Batman and Joker go for each other like Arjun and Karna, with no reason d'etre apart from possibly immense mutual respect, leading to a burning ambition to out-do each other. As the Joker tells Batman (in a stunning prison encounter where immense rage meets indomitable spirit), 'you complete me'.

The Dark Knight is better than The Departed, where the demarcation between good and evil disappeared. 'Can you avenge evil, and not become it?'. The Joker is not after money or power. He just wants to prove a point, obvious only to himself. First he wants to unmask Batman. When he realises that someone else can easily beat him to it, the challenge is gone. He successfully decides to bring down the other hero (a quirky take on Two-Face, who in the comics got his face disfigured when a mobster threw acid on him). Finally, the only challenge is to get Batman to break the only rule he has, of not Killing (neither does Spider Man, which makes Batman Begins and Spider-Man 3 interesting). 'Welcome to a world without rules'.

Batman's morals are questionable, when he continues to risk the lunatics' terrorists activities without giving in. When he tries to prop up Harvey Dent, he is contradicting his entire flesh-and-blood symbol premise in Batman Begins. The tale from the forest narrated by Alfred brings out the true Darkness. Both the adversaries adopt all the Al Qaeda tactics. While the Joker threatens human lives, Batman causes immense willful collateral damage (check out the scene where his motor-bike is first unveiled).

However, for all the supreme competence of Christian Bale, the film truly belongs to the late Heath Ledger, the Joker. I could not really decipher his drawl in Brokeback Mountain. However, if one believes in destiny, he was born to play the Joker, a fact further accentuated by his untimely death (some say that playing the Joker led him to suicide).

Substantially weaker than Batman, and with less technology and resources at his disposal, he stands up to him every time. The makeup is just an apt prop. The hiss in the voice, the serpentine use of the tongue, the unkempt mane, the gaze at his victims, the fluctuating tales, are devil incarnate. If Amitabh Bachchan has to figure out why Aamir found him loud in Black, he simply needs to go and see Ledger.

Jack Nicholson's comic portrayal of Joker was ranked 45th in the American Film Institute's list of greatest villains. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter was the best. I cannot say if Ledger overcomes Lecter. For me, there are portrayals, where the demarcation between the artist and the character merges. Al Pacino was Michael Corleone, Om Puri was blind in Sparsh, and Ledger was the Joker.

All of us take pride in our work, even if happens to be mindless blogging. I figured out another reason why I watch cinema. It tells me things. Ledger says that even a short life is worth while, if your professional performance matches the Joker.

Indicism

2008-06-22T16:14:00.010+05:30

I was introduced to Amitav Ghosh when I happened to pick up his Calcutta Chromosomes from a friend who hailed from Calcutta. In my impressionable college days, when I did the bulk of my reading (sort of am still passing on that dated habit for being well-read now), that was easily the most unputdownable read for me. Difficult one to decipher, the only novel to equal it in terms of thrills (though not necessarily quality) came almost a decade later, The DaVinci Code.

There was something about Ghosh. I had discovered my other favourites, Lapierre & Collins, whose dramatized accounts of history in Freedom at Midnight, Is Paris Burning and O Jerusalem had me totally enthralled.

I would like to thank my blogmate, Itinerant, who actually sold me on to Ghosh when he got me to read one of my favourite, The Shadow Lines. It was Ghosh' second novel, and won him the Sahitya Academy Award (no celebrated Booker nomination). The novel is an unnamed narrators' account of relationships that are doomed to remain in the shadows. Apparently, it is semi-autobiographical, and its depiction of ties of idol-worship, romance and sacrifice, gives it a melodramatically haunting though absolutely realistic touch. I re-read the novel again a couple of years earlier to discover if the liking was a sort of growing up fixation, and the bond only grew deeper. As it is put so well, 'need is not transitive, that one may need without oneself being needed'. The net takeout was an early Kundan Shah,

Ghosh does not really write eloquent prose, like say Rushdie. However, being an anthropologist (his In an Antique Land is almost a thesis, a boring one for me), he gives his novels a uniquely surreal historical-geographical perspective. As I heard him an interview, every novel has a background noise. He just gets it so much more Indic (around the Indian Ocean as he defines his sphere of operation) than the other Indian novelists. His novels are so much the rooted Lagaan than the vacuumed Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

I have read all his books, except his collection of essays The Imam and the Indian. However, I was terribly disappointed when in one his earlier non-fiction book, Countdown, in the zeal to establish his anti-nuclear posture, he got some political numbers wrong.

His new century novels are getting more exciting. He specialises in fictitious history, where he spins yarns around actual happenings in Indic geographies. The Glass Palace is an unprecedented sweeping (albeit at times over-ambitious) India-Burma saga. And just on the eve of the release of the first of his ambitious trilogy The Sea of Poppies, I finished his last The Hungry Tide (his first with Harper Collins, after being with Ravi Dayal, Khushwant Singh's son-in-law, forever).

The Hungry Tide passes my primary rule of success - it makes me want to visit the Sunderbans (or the Tide Country as he calls it). The depiction of the terrain, the cyclone and the dolphins do a superior job to Al Gore (on climate) and all the different reports on the 2004 Tsunami. More importantly, for a tale with only seven main characters, the empathy established with each is stunning. The novel also establishes for me why RK Narayan's Guide worked so well in its filmi format. As the back cover reads, "The Hungry Tide explore another and far more unknowable jungle: the human spirit. It is a novel that asks at every turn: what man can take the true measure of another?"

It is a pity that unlike their Hollywood counterparts, Indian film-makers do not really turn novels into films. Apparently, Suman Mukopadhyay has been working on The Hungry Tide movie for the last couple of years. Hopefully, that should allow us to produce more of our own Cold Mountain or even Gone with the Wind.

A full-time traveling corporate job makes blogging difficult. However, it makes reading fiction even more difficult (because of the gaps in reading, I lose track of the characters quite quickly). My immediate endeavour will be to review The Sea of Poppies in 2008 only. Till then, let me wait for Abhishek Bachchan and Rahul Bose to sign on the dotted lines for The Hungry Tide.

Death, or a new dawn?

2008-05-11T14:32:00.007+05:30

As we reach the halfway stage of the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League, the reactions have been mixed. In the world which I follow, Mukul Kesavan has hated the cricket, and Ramachandra Guha has shrilled against the cheer-leading. Ian Chappell does not really know what to make out of it. Harsha Bhogle accepts it as a change in tastes. And Peter Roebuck, continuing with his recent unintentional stance of siding with Indian public sensibilities, gives it a thumbs up.

I caught the first match, between Kolkata Knight Riders and Bangalore Royal challengers, slightly late. By then, Brendon McCullum, egged on by superstar Shahrukh Khan, had inflicted sufficient damage to kill the game. Yet, as I realised, the IPL could not have asked for a more rollicking start - an innings of unparalleled cricketing brilliance in any form of the game, with the visual spectacle provided by India's leading entertainer. The scantily clad (and rather old) cheerleaders from Washington Redskins paled in comparison. Doubting naysayers (like me) had eggs on their face when the tournament achieved television ratings better than almost any programming in the last couple of years.

Needless to specify, I am a connoisseur. The Border-Gavaskar trophy still remains the ultimate cricketing contest for me. Yet, I am all for the IPL. It is supposedly driven by money (what is the harm?), but the quality of cricket has been acceptably high. More importantly, the contest has been intense, and one cannot necessarily say the same about International cricket these days. Just remember a series which happened just before the IPL (and which no one actually wanted) - the Future Cup between India and South Africa. The results not withstanding, none of the matches had an element of needle in the contest.

Another reason I accept the IPL is that it shows the way forward for professionalising the game in India. The franchises have corporatised the cricketing world, and while Charu Sharma's sudden sacking showed this might not be the best thing to happen, it still is far more acceptable than retaining Sehwag in ODIs and dropping him in Tests.

In the amateur world of India's largest entertainment industry, it is high time a degree of professionalism was introduced. IPL has created jobs across strata - for players, coaches, administrators, and marketing & media professionals. After all, if an investment-driven Hollywood could continue supporting a Martin Scorcese, why cannot an IPL throw up a Gony or a Swapnil. Maybe Badrinath and Rohit Sharma should jump ahead of Yuvraj and Kaif for a Test berth.

IPL is easily one of the biggest corporate risk taken in India (and hats off to Subhash Chandra, who might be bleeding with ICL, but was the driving force behind the IPL). While TATA's acquisition of Corus was rooted in some real numbers, IPL set out to create a multi-billion dollar economy out of nowhere. To make it simpler, Bengal is possible the only market in India which had an exposure to this sort of club fervour (in football), yet the immense passion there could never be really exploited commercially.

The local support for the clubs still remains suspect. In fact, I do not like the fact that each club has such anglicised branding; the PHL with a Chennai Veeran and Sher-e-Jalandhar is far more rooted in Indian ethos. Besides, apart from say a KKR (where blind loyalty to Ganguly and SRK's stardom also help) or to an extent CSK, there is no real genuine city support in India. The other teams are either too abstract (Mumbai Indians anyone?), or the masses could not care a hoot as long as they see the batting action. Yet, the classical cricketing beliefs have been reaffirmed by this most bastardised version of the game.

Shane Warne, by making Rajasthan Royals the team to root for, proved that mobile telephony (SMS in particular) killed our generation's Ian Chappell and Imran Khan. Ganguly's travails with KKR establishes how he was so often bailed out by great individual performances. Sreesanth and Harbhajan proved themselves to be idiots beyond any nationalistic feelings. McGrath and Pollock establish how bowlers win you matches in all forms of the game. And Bangalore just shows how Rahul Dravid has totally lost it.

After last year's extremely successful ICC T20 World Cup, IPL again has jeopardised the future of ODIs. If the obvious motive is to keep Test cricket alive, I see the 8-hour and often meaningless ODI doing nothing for it. In fact, I do not mind watching 3 months of IPL, APL, SAPL, PPL, SLPL,WIPL and EPL, culminating in the Champions's League, as long as for the remaining 6 months, India plays competitive 5 Test matches series against Australia, England, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and hopefully a resurrected West Indies.

Why I prefer Obama to Hillary

2008-03-09T13:32:00.006+05:30

Today is International Women's Day, a phenomenon brought to India mainly by the smart marketing honchos at Unilever (when they associated Pond's with it) and their media agency, Fulcrum. On this pious occasssion, CNN-IBN had a special talk show hosted by Anubha Bhonsle, where apart from having an increasingly unbearably irritating Preity Zinta as a panelist (good job by the PR agency of Godfrey Phlips), they discussed some genuine women stories, like Bhanwar Devi.

Now apart from the professional necessity of being aware, I watch and read news mainly to push myself out of my comfort zone. For instance, when I saw Bhanwar Devi fighting a village's ostracisation for the last fifteen years (because she seeks justice against her upper-caste rapists) and raising her kids on 500 bucks ($12.5) a month, I got some perspective on my latest fad about how to afford the Skoda Fabia. Somehow, it gave a sense of my position on the wish-list queue.

But I am writing this not for the Women's Day, but because Senator Obama has managed to arrest the slide somewhat, and won Wyoming today. I usually am an inverted snob. And when I do not follow politics in India or South Asia, I definitely should not show any interest in the primaries of the Democrats, forget the US presidential elections. But it is difficult not to get swayed by the American commercial might, as to how their genuinely open democracy has taken to the genuinely democratic digital medium. After all, politics is ladened with dirty money and deeds everywhere, the Yankees somehow are that much so frank and casual about it.

The youtube elections have been captivating. And Obama is genuinely charismatic, may be as much as Hillary's husband. While both the Democratic candidates are actually not saying much (refer this brilliant piece, http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10766009), I prefer Obama.

My reason is simple. I think Hillary Clinton is a fake, a hypocrite. While her husband was going down on more women than there were on the Titanic (source: The Times of India), she was about to walk out on her marriage (similar to what Shanie's wife Simone did). But then she had her own political aspirations. She wanted to become a Senator, and then get back into the White House.

Hillary and Obama have ran a rather nasty personal campaign, and it is difficult to justify either. But what really got to me was when after agreeing to do so, Hillary refused to pose for the Vogue magazine. In an election fought on the new medium, it would have been an absolute first, for a presidential candidate to appear in a fashion magazine. But at the very last moment, Hillary Clinton thought doing this will be too elitist/glamorous/feminine. I anyway have strong thoughts about people reneging on commitments. Moreover, if these primaries are going pretty much as per vote-bank politics, Hillary Clinton basically rebuffed her core audience - the women (or the feminists).

The need to beautify oneself is universal, across genders. The choice of the individual is possibly how to go about it, and at what expense. So when an Aishwarya Rai takes two hours to adorn her makeup, her chubby hubby Abhishek also does need to groom a beard to disguise his double-chin. Moreover, her ex Salman has possibly given metro-sexuality a really bad name by taking his gait more seriously than her catwalk.

The American media does get into their leader's personal lives. For instance, in India, have we ever had our press trying to dig into who all did Vajpayee date, or MGR married? However, the good side of the American politics is then the President (or the leader) pretty much does the usual American things, like going for a jog in the morning and watching baseball games. Possibly, Hillary Clinton proved 'The Economist' right, that she actually does not have much of an agenda, even a feminist one.

P.S. And in all this hullabaloo, the Republicans have nominated John McCain who actually does have a serious agenda.

Jodhaa Akbar****

2008-02-16T15:52:00.004+05:30

Sometime towards the end of the 21st century, when cricket pitches around the world started getting uniformly boring, Ashutosh Gowariker had the most sudden turnaround. After debuting with the rather bizarre Pehla Nasha and then Baazi, all his three new century flicks - Lagaan, Swades, and now Jodhaa Akbar - box-office results notwithstanding, have been classics in their own rights. I will really struggle to pick my choice of the lot.

At the risk of being immodest and unrealistically ambitious, Gowariker possibly makes his films with the same motives as I write - self-indulgent, excessive, and (maybe) commerce-unfriendly. When you sit through the three-and-a-half hour length of all his recent movies, it is not difficult to lose patience. Hence the lyrical Swades becomes a documentary for many. Similarly, Jodhaa Akbar, in the garb of being a love story, is actually a almost authentic bio-pic of Akbar (the non-authentic bit come from Akbar's cinematic stunts with a raging elephant). In the movie, the Jodhaa romantic track has the same role which Santosh Sivan intended in Asoka, rather unsuccessfully.

In Asoka, the idea was to track the protagonist's transition from a ruthless ambitious king to the first Great Indian ruler through a romantic track. Kaurvaki lies in the realms of tribal myth, his depicted wife Devi was a historical figure. In Jodhaa Akbar, Govariker's uses roughly the same premise - the growth of a boy to the second Great, depicted via a political marital alliance with a Rajput princess, who then becomes his conscience. (To establish the historical coincidence further, Ashoka's grand-father Chandragupta Maurya married a Greek for similar political-military benefits). If Kaurvaki was a myth, then Jodhaa is historically controversial. But I will rather go with the existence of Jodhaa in Akbar's life than Anarkali in Salim's (which is fiction).

In tracking Akbar's growth, Gowariker delves into the vital sub-plots in the making of the Emperor - his illiteracy, his religious counsel, the punishment of a rogue half-brother, the Diwan-i-Khas, his secularism, his military conquests, even the Fatehpur Sikri architecture (where Hindu devotional songs spread across a Muslim fort). In fact, his turning against his mentor Bairam Khan is a fascinating human saga in its own rights, and is (thankfully) skimmed through. The only major phenomenon conspicuous by its absence is his establishment of a new religious order Din-i-Illahi (Divine Faith), of which the legendary Birbal was the only follower.

I obviously like Govariker's style of movie-making. His sets are big, because they need to be, not to be irritatingly loud like Devdas. He claims that he has used no Urdu word which he does not understand. My difficulties in grasping even that shows my total ignorance of Urdu. He can do with a more ruthless editor. The climax fight, inspired by Achilles and Hector, simply goes on. Yet, the same slow pace totally works in the brilliant old-fashioned number when J & A finally consummate their relationship (God knows after how many reels).

In terms of casting, I have somehow grown-up on a more portly J&A as depicted in Amar Chitra Katha and Mughal-e-Azam. In fact, A's parents-in-law in the movie (Kulbushan Kharbanda and Suhasini Mulay) fill the bill perfectly. To see a more svelte, gym-toned Hritik and Aishwarya in their place calls for a radical shift in the mindset. Performance wise, I think they have done a wonderful job. While I always trusted Hritik, Aishwarya Rai in the movie is an absolute revelation. She actually looks pretty (not plastic) as an Indian beauty, not the real-life giggling caricature (which we will surely get to witness in her promotional media-meets). Her famous chemistry with Hritik is brilliantly on display in their tantalizingly suggestive sword-fight.

I guess it is my frame of mind these days, but somehow the only aspect which does not really fully match up to Gowariker's last two movies is AR Rahman's music. I have always loved his Sufi tracks (here Khwaja), be it the passionate Satrangi Re from Dil Se, or the devotional Piya Haji Ali from Fiza. The Krishna bhajan is quite melodious, still not up to O Paalanhaare in Lagaan. The best track is Azeem-o-Shaan Shahenshah, picturised as a cross of influences between Mani Rathnam and Subhash Ghai.

Of the support cast, Ila Arun (crooked as the surrogate mother) and Poonam Sinha (graceful as the real mother) deserve a special mention. Kiiran Deohans' cinematography is world-class. In fact, the Panipat battle scene reminded me of Gladiator (another comparison which SRK wanted to achieve with Asoka).

In a nutshell, all the old-timers who grew up on the fascinating fictitious romance of Mughal-e-Azam need to go and check out Jodhaa Akbar, a more realistic if not better celluloid portrayal. The movie has not really been marketed that well, and I am not sure if the pace will appeal to all and sundry. Yet, if we have to nominate Indian films for the Oscars, Jodhaa Akbar is a more deserving bet than the ridiculously wishy-washy Eklavya.

Unhappy New Year

2008-01-07T11:51:00.000+05:30

India had a strange 2007 on the cricket field. To the ICC's dismay, we crashed out of the 2007 World Cup in the group-stage itself. To the Indians' rejoice and the ICC's worry (after penning a historic 8-year deal with ESPN), we won the T20 World Cup (the better organised tournament). We had a historic Test series victory in England, and a more artificially-created one against Pakistan (whoever trumped up the first home victory after 28 years statistic). But we started and ended the year on the same note, by losing out on subcontinental pitches at Cape Town and Melbourne to traditionally very tough-to-beat foes.

India went in to challenge Australia based on their awesome series four years back, backed up by a Fab Four line-up. (To put it in perspective, gauge Jaffer, Yuvi and Dhoni in the two Tests, and just figure out what will happen when these Four go). We again had a walking-injured/recuperating bowling line-up, who performed admirably in Melbourne. The biggest worry was the despicable batting collapse, especially in the second innings at Australia.

The New Year at Sydney started on the most promising note possible. However, soon India realised they are actually up against 11+2+1 (the 3rd umpire). As Ian Chappell put it, "Batsmen usually say to each other 'you take care of this bowler etc'. this match the Indians might have to say 'you take care of Bucknor, I will take care of Benson'." To say that the umpires had a horror is an under-statement. To say we were really really unlucky to be on the wrong end of eight of them, with two from Bucknor standing out, would be apt. To get a better picture, read

http://www.prempanicker.com/index.php?/site/sorry_ricky_you_dont_deserve_to_be_trusted/

Dickie Bird was a favourite with players as he won their confidence. Steve Bucknor rubs the (Indian) players the wrong way because of his arrogance, or maybe over-confidence in his own eyes. More than a decade back, a young Bucknor did not refer Jonty Rhodes' run-out in Johannesburg to the 3rd umpire, turning around a match in balance. Here, his failure to spot Symond's thick edge in the first innings (which according to Peter Roebuck, was heard by pals sitting in the hullabulloo on the boundary's edge), and then imagine one from Rahul Dravid in the second innings, has simply closed a wide open series. During India's last trip Down Under last series, Parthiv Patel's failure to stump Ponting apparently cost India the series. The result - Patel is displaying his wares for Gujarat. Wonder if Bucknor will also be now packed off to Jamaica!

Umpires make mistakes, and my perpective on technology is somewhat on the lines of http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/extracover/content/current/story/329204.html. Moreover, in the Symonds' innings, the third umpire, with all the access to technology, also goofed up. Charles Colvile on Sky TV was rightly perplexed, 'How can the third umpire not see that? He's not got anything to do other than watch TV'.

It might be a cliche, but bad decisions should even out in the end. Lest one forgets, Bucknor also saved India at Lords' by refusing to acknowledge a tight one against Sreesanth by Panesar. What hurts is the way it was almost conceived, by the Lord up there (Sachin was unlucky in his dismissal), and his two representatives on the cricket field.

After the infamous Sarwan-McGrath spat, Cricket Australia woke up to its representatives boorish on-field behaviour. More importantly, the Aussies lost that match. Here, when Bhajji openly claimed Ponting as his bunny, and to everyone's shock, went on to prove it (Dhoni missed a stumping), the Aussies turned on the heat by alleging racism. For a change, the umpires were caught unawares. Yet, as of now, Bhajji stands to miss the remainder of the series and beyond, all on the basis of his opponents' claim.

Kumble was extremely graceful in defeat, and effective in pointing out Clarke's refusal to walk after an edge to the slip (and then becoming the decision-maker for Mark Benson in the Ganguly catch). He himself got the raw deal, by getting stranded after a very courageous knock (made up for his first innings waft). India should have negotiated the 70 overs, and Jaffer deserves to be socked for giving the start he did.

Whatever Peter Roebuck might think (http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/dodgy -deeds-leave-sour-taste/2008/01/06/1199554486052.html), the cricket was of high quality. Ponting, the 'infant terrible' who was made to grow up by CA for his captaincy, showed that he is yet to achieve the softer skills necessary for a leader. The Man of Match Symonds played a knock for the ages, which lost meaning because of his granted escapes. Moreover, he refused to applaud Sachin's hundred.

Last year, Roger Federer played a classical final with Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon last year. Then, he cribbed about technology, which is never fool-proof primarily because of two reasons: i) television companies are driven by commerce, ii) if it goes wrong, what do you judge it against. Yet, simply because of his grace, Federer remains a very popular champion.

Harsha Bhogle has a valid point. Aussies (with the exception of Gilchrist) do not walk. Aussies (including Gilchrist) appeal for non-existent dismissals (Gilchrish actually got into a spat with McCullum I think over his refusal to walk). But when they take catches, they want to trust fielders.

I am sure that pre-series pact is off. And if there is a God, Kumble will come back with a 2-2 draw, with victories at Perth and Adelaide. But who said life is fair!

Taare Zameen Par

2007-12-28T10:39:00.000+05:30

During my grad-school education, when we were being taught all about branding, we had a module called the X-factor. Basically, each student had to point out a gap in the market, which could be turned into a marketing opportunity.

My X-factor was a more mundane point of booking railways tickets online (I guess I can take heart that I preceded IRCTC). However, a more enterprising classmate had a much more interesting insight on Indian advertising, an industry most of the batch was set to join in less than a year. His take was that the biggest brands in the country - Sai Baba, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikanth - were built without any assistance from advertising.

The cue set me thinking. Some of the most memorable brands - Harley Davidson, Starbucks - have been built without any major advertising. Some of the most succcessful Indian businesses - Hero Honda, LG - continue to support stinking advertising. And then we had the brand Aamir Khan, continously gaining strength.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Aamir Khan? I think of karmayoga, of taking one's job super seriously. He avoids industry interactions and the filmi press. But his razor-sharp mind shows up when he used the digital medium to build his credibility, http://www.lagaandvd.com/blog.php, and http://www.aamirkhan.com/blog.htm.

After a usual filmi-family start with a blockbuster, Aamir the star changed tack to Aamir the brand in the mid-90s, when he miffed Ramu during Rangeela, and himself got miffed by good friend and on-screen co-star Juhi Chawla. He lost out the Filmfare award to Shahrukh Khan for DDLJ, and denounced Bollywood awards forever. Moreover, he tried to professionalise Bollywood by concentrating on just one film at a time, and Ashutosh Govariker almost finished off his career with a dud called Baazi. As SRK put it so well, 'while he was working hard, Aamir was thinking hard'.

Back then, Aamir Khan used to bug me, especially with his pursuit of perfection and the end-results. He apparently took nine days to select his sailor's cap in Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin, a remake of It Happened One Night. Wonder what dimension that added to the Clark Gable character.

Moreover, all the baloney of doing one film a year evaporated when those movies turned out to be Ishq and Mela. (I must admit though, I was super-impressed by Sarfarosh, for which John Mathew Matthan waited six years for Aamir's go-ahead). Aamir questioned the fact that Amitabh did not use his immense stardom for better social good against him. But his own doing-good receded when his name was embroiled in romantic escapades of varying degree, and he never clarified them. Again, as SRK told Aamir's fans, 'get a role-model to look upto'.

However, Aamir Khan still had the respect of his peers. Shah Rukh called him the country's best actor before anyone else did. Om Puri held him in high esteem (while he considered SRK an entertainer). After all, he actually was what Naseeruddin Shah wanted to be, an actor with box-office clout.

When I started implementing all my branding lessons in my first job, Aamir came out with two brilliant movies, Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai. While Farhan Akhtar made a very impressive debut with DCH, it was Lagaan which was more of a Aamir swan-song. He produced a movie more than three hours long, backed a risky rejected screen-play about cricket, and supported a flop director. Lagaan turned out to be a milestone of Indian cinema, sending Aamir and Ashutosh to the Academy Awards ceremony, and for ever making an annual phenomenon of nominating films for the Oscars into a discussed news item.

Post Lagaan, Aamir took a four year long hiatus, to return with the disppointing Mangal Pandey. To further establish his method actor credentials, he started sporting radically different looks. I finally bought into the brand Aamir with Rang de Basanti, a brilliant movie, where all he had professed - intelligent cinema for mass-viewing - fitted in like a glove. He had refused to participate in the film's promotion without his co-stars, and more famously (or infamously if you agree to some criticis, whom I disagree with) supported Medha Patkar's activism (the controversy erupted as he endorsed Coke, who themselves were doing some hanky-panky with ground-water in Kerala). If the support lent was actually because of his convictions in the cause (again, I do not really comprehend the issue to share his conviction), then no one should be pointing fingers at him. To rebuff, he even did a CSR sort of commercial with Coke.

Taare Zameen Par is a perfect extension of Aamir the brand. A screenplay written by Amol Gupte over fourteen years, he was supposed to direct it also, while Aamir produced it. They shortlisted Darsheel Safary (who gets a mention before Aamir Khan in the opening credits) to play the protagonist. And then, not for the first time, Aamir had some creative differences with his director. As they thought Darsheel was brilliantly casted, and any delay would have lost the growing-up boy, Aamir, with Amol's approval, took up the directorial reins. After a career accused of ghost-directing his films, he finally was in the mantle.

TZP is again a predictable movie, about a boy suffering from dyslexia, how his environment does not really understand, how it takes a fellow-dyslexic to recognise, and bring the boy back to the mainstream. As Aamir himself pointed out, rather controversially, I think this movie is more real and sensitive in handling a handicap than Black (whose first half was a blatant ripoff of Helen Keller's story from The Miracle Worker). The jist - something I believe very strongly in, especially in the Indian middle-class context which breeds on insecurity - of giving each and every kid his space to grow and learn, was possibly last shown in Kundan Shah's classic Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. TZP also shows up Aditya Chopra's Mohabattein as a cliched romantic drama, masquerading as a take-off on Dead Poets' Society.

TZP is a very serious film, a story told sensitively. In fact, I struggled to smile even once during the film. It takes a long time to narrate the tale, but it drags only during the beginning of the second half, when Aamir discovers Darsheel's dyslexia, and informs his parents of the same (that bus-ride was only to build atmospehere and tug emotions). Most importantly, unlike some flicks by Mani Rathnam, Khalid Mohammad, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and Farhan Akhtar, Aamir is backed by solid research, showed off in his Solomon Islands example and the end-credit documentary. Very novel, I must say!

For a person with a total filmi background, the way Aamir (or was it Amol) gets the everyday middle-class thing right - the strict performance-oriented father, the confused doting mother, the fratenal bonding, the forged leave application, the child's demand for a gift from the returning-from-out-of-station father, the panging-for-mother kid withdrawing in his shell, the Hindi teacher who appreciated learning by rote rather than imagination, the art teacher attracting attention by throwing chalk at the errant student, the ability to laugh at all but oneself - is pure genius. On a discordant note, children do need discipline, otherwise all our famous boarding schools would not have produced all their alumni.

Aamir Khan, who makes a late entry just before intermission, has himself admitted that he would rather not act in his directorial efforts. Unlike RDB, here he looks his age, but still it a bit too good-looking to fit in seamlessly as a teacher. His performace also is marginally on the louder side, not like Amitabh's histrionics in Black, but more in terms of emotions. But maybe then, if Aamir was absent, just like My Brother Nikhil, I would have missed this movie also.

Darsheel deserves all the accolades and credit he gets. His dreaminess is best captured in the animation sequence, possibly a tribute by Aamir to Calvin and Hobbes. Tisca Chopra is apt as his mother, the scene where she discovers his brilliantly conceived flip-book leaves a lasting impression. Even better is Vipin Sharma as his cast-in-stone father. His embarrased failure to go and hug Darsheel, after getting a spiel from Aamir, is the most authentic scene of the movie for me. The music score complements the mood of the film, with the title track standing out.

TZP might not earn more money than OSO (apologies, but I somehow cannot help comparing the two stars). But again as was pointed out at my introductory lecture at my alma mater, the vision for all of us branding professionals was to 'change the world'. Somehow, I feel Aamir does a better job of doing that. Post TZP, I decided against scoring films, as 'every film is special' (or crap).

Hymn for the Unsung

2007-12-26T12:12:00.000+05:30

After a rather sleepless night brought about by the perpetual hope Indian cricket fans have
specialised in, I woke up at 6am India Standard Time, an hour late than I had intended to. A rather under-cooked India was set to take on Australia, in a keenly anticipated Test series. And as I heard on my grandfather's rather booming early morning news broadcast that the start was on expected lines - the Australian openers were racing away, I dozed off again.

I finally managed to leave the bed at 7 am, coinciding with the lunch break at the Test. The Aussies were 111/0, India had surprisingly picked two spinners and promptly lost the toss, the wicket had something for the seamers, and Zaheer and RP had bowled well without luck. The omens were auspicious, the Kookaburra ball is hated by seamers (the like of which India possesses) the world over, and it does not really swing in Australia, to keep our seamers fresh and interested as in England.

And then the magic commenced. I have always had mixed feelings about the Indian captain, Anil Kumble. He and Sachin have been the doyens of Indian cricket. In fact, with the 2007 retirement of Lara, Warne, McGrath and Inzy, they have become the sole senior citizens of world cricket. The 90s was the frustrating decade for us Indian fans. We creamed all at home, and got butchered abroad. Why Sachin became so popular was that he was an exception to the rule; the rule epitomised by Anil Kumble, whose bowling averages home and away were ridiculously wide.

At the turn of the century, with Ganguly and Wright building the New India, an injured Kumble was trumped by a young Harbhajan. It was a tricky situation, an injured Kumble with his injured shoulders in sling tutoring a rookie Bhajji, who went on to lead an Indian triumph over the rampant Aussies in a memorable series. Harbhajan became India's lead spinner of choice, as he was supposed to spin the ball even on the non-helpful tracks abroad.

This usurping of Kumble coincided with a loss of his famed accuracy, creating some average statistic in the ODI arena (an average of more than 40, although the economy stayed below 5). After a good game game against Holland, he sat out of the playing XI in India's march towards the 2003 World Cup final. In fact, when he was picked for the now legendary tour Down Under the following season, there were sufficient reasons to question his presence in the team, at Murali Kartik's expense. Kumble got into the playing XI only because Harbhajan irresponsbily injured himself.

Australia 2003-04 turned out to be the turning point for Anil Kumble, the spin bowler (as compared to the incoming medium-pacer he had been treated abroad for most of the 90s). His famed accuracy was replaced by a variety, of speed, of trajectory, and a well-disguised googly. For the first time in his illustrious career, Kumble was given the cushion of runs, by a fab five of batting. And he toiled over-after-over, to contribute to some major Indian performances in Australia, Pakistan, West Indies, and South Africa. As his stock went up, he was even recalled in ODIs, mainly for India's disastrous 2007 World Cup campaign.

Kumble recently beame the Test captain, mainly because the default candidate Rahul Dravid called it quits (rather surprisingly), and there were simply no alternatives. While I had suggested his name as soon as Dravid resigned (I did not want Sachin, or Sourav, to don the mantle again, as I feel a young brigade, led by Yuvraj should keep the entire ageing middle-order, prone to lapsing in to serious under-performance, on its toes; captaincy ensures guaranteed selection), I guess Dilip & Co do not really listen to me. In fact, cricinfo contributed with a timely interview of Kumble, in which he threw his hat in the ring. Duly so, the critics' choice, a young, relatively unproven-in-Test-arena but T20-&-ODI-captain Dhoni was made the Test deputy to Kumble, the only Indian player exclusively available for the longer form of the game (VVS is technically still an option in ODIs).

Anil Kumble's fan following has been the intellectual brigade, led by Ramachandra Guha and Harsha Bhogle, or mavericks like Bishan Singh Bedi (who took a liking to him only when Harbhajan took the primary slot). Kumble, being an engineer in a team of under-educated (Dravid's studious nature, very much like the Bollywood star Aamir Khan, is more cultivated), also led all the player negotiations with the BCCI. In fact, another big reason was that Kumble belonged to no camp. As he was not heavily endorsed, there were little chances of his being dictated by personal commercial interests.

Without an iota of doubt in my mind, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble have been the most selfless cricketers for India. Dravid has been India's Most Valuable Player, and in that process, he has donned the wicket-keeping gloves, and reluctantly opened in Tests (why cannot Sachin, or even Saurav, who sulk when not opening in ODIs, take the plunge in Tests). As pointed out so well by a colleague, Kumble's magnanimity can be seen by his training of Bhajji in 2001, a move which could have, and did cost him his own place in the team.

The saga of Kumble (and Dravid) is about determination. God makes Sachin and Warne; Dravid and Kumble have to compete on equal terms using their own wares. No one can forget Kumble's physical courage in bowling with a wired jaw, even scalping Lara. When his place in the Test team was questioned, he came back so strong that we now ask 'After Kumble, Who?' (definitely not Bhajji, Kartik has possibly missed out, and Piyush Chawla is still a long bet). When he was found unwanted in the ODI team (very much like VVS, because of his declining athleticism; their primary skills did not really compensate), he is the only player with the grace and the mind to retire from the game. When he was demoted in the batting order to the jack's position (coming after Pathan, Zaheer, and Bhajji), his ego was hurt. He worked hard to climb up the order, even becoming the sole Indian centurion in the victorious England tour. And I do not even know if one should mention his marriage to a divorcee, with a son.

In spite of all his heroics, I still had my reservations regarding Kumble, the spinner. He could not really get wickets during our England victory, especially at Oval when he needed to. Again, against Pakistan at home, we should have won at both Calcutta and Bangalore. Its not that Kumble is not good, or great, it is just that Warne and Murali are more all-rounded. Even amongst the historical Indian tweakers, from hearsay, I would rate Subhash Gupte and Erapalli Prasanna higher (immediately disputing him being the greatest Indian bowler, forget spinner).

And then today happened. As most of us were dreading, our weakened backup-less bowling looked like to be in for a mauling. Immediately as I started seeing the game after lunch, captain wonderful struck with a brilliant dummy sold to Phil Jacques, stranding him just outside the crease (the classical spinner's stumping is becoming so rare to watch these days). Zaheer did his own magic to castle Ponting, a weakness of playing across the line early in his innings, that requires supreme skill or a brilliant leg-cutter to exploit. And there was holding the Indian skipper. Hussey was fooled by a flighted slow googly, Symonds by a flipper, Gilchrist by the intelligent use of the crease, and Lee by the classical Kumble fast top-spinner. Abolsute top-drawer stuff!

Australia is easily the most well-rounded country to play cricket in, with different centres providing bounce, seam, swing and spin to varying measures. In 1999-00, when Steve Waugh's men blanked the two sub-continental giants India and Pakistan, Kumble got greater respect out of the Aussies than the then-champion Saqlain Mushtaq (though that respect was extremely relative). More importanly, today, Kumble was going 16 wickets short of 600 Test victims. Our tour followed Sri Lanka, who went in with a more balanced attack and statistically the greatest spinner in the history of the game, and were mauled. Ponting's men did not allow Murali to claim the nine wickets in Australia, that would have have taken him ahead of ex-teammate Warne.

As I post, at the end of the first day, on a perfect batting strip, Australia, chasing a 15th consecutive Test victory, have been reduced to 337/9. The match is still in balance, can go anyway. But I am amazed and awed that all this happened mainly because of a man who supposedly takes wickets only on doctored pitches. If he wanted to erase both his and India's rather poor overseas record, he could not have set a better platform. Now it is up to the celebrated batters to repay the debt. Let there be more resounding rejoinders to doubting citizens!

Power

2007-12-17T15:42:00.000+05:30

After a really long time, yesterday I had a nice lazy weekend at home. Zapping through television, I happen to chance upon Shakti, a box-office dud delivered by the evergreen superstar Amitabh Bachchan, in his only role with the Indian Marlon Brando, Dilip Kumar. While most of my generation (including me) preferred Amitabh's performance, the critics handed out the Filmfare Award for the Best Actor to Dilip Kumar (back then, Filmfare actually awarded acting rather than box-office performance).

Shakti is possibly the most under-rated film of Indian cinema history, directed by its most under-rated director Ramesh Sippy. Sippy 's Sholay, released in 1975, was his third directorial venture (after Andaz and Seeta aur Geeta). While the first two were also good movies in their own right, Sholay turned out to be a cult-classic, the Indian cinematic milestone possibly comparable to Gone with the Wind for Hollywood (which came a lot earlier in the life-cycle of the American film industry).

However, for Sippy, Sholay became a burden forever. His next, Shaan in 1980 was quite entertaining. Saagar (1986) was a superb movie with all the necessary Bollywood formula. Both me and Sippy (as admitted by him in a Filmfare interview) have still not managed to fathom its box-office failure. In fact, post Saagar, Sippy completely degenerated in cinema, only succeeding on television through Buniyaad.

In between Shaan and Saagar came Shakti (1982). Shakti is a relatively simple plot by Salim-Javed, revolving around three primary characters. The story about the tussle between a father (Dilip Kumar), a principled police officer, whose obstinate sticking to his morals and professional ethics first pushes away, and then destroys his only son (Amitabh). Caught in between her hubby's uprightness and the love for her son is the mother (Rakhi Gulzar, who for most of her career played Amitabh's love interest). These three are supported by a brilliant support cast, led by Smita Patil and Amrish Puri (of the distinct baritone that plays a crucial role in the movie's climax).

Shakti does not cater to the masses. In fact, as Sippy himself admitted, he realised that he was making a rather heavy movie, and thought of injecting an item-number (Amitabh could have easily lost his way further, from a singing to a dancing girl). Thankfully, he refrained. Unlike Sholay or Deewar (the two defining Amitabh movies), there were not even enough memorable dialogues.

The magic lies in the no-fuss acting, and the novel-like interplay of human personalities. I felt a strong empathy for each character. Dilip Kumar looks impractical when he gets stuck on the rightness of the law (after all, if the legal system is so right, then Gandhi was a scoundrel). Yet, his character is modeled on the Heroes of our epics. In Ramayana, Vibheeshana, in spite of his constant ridicule in colloquial Hindi, was awarded with a kingdom, because he made the right decision. On the other hand, Karna has been glorified (I have a theory that Amitabh's anti-hero is modeled on him), yet is an out-and-out villain in Vyasa's Mahabharata.

In Shakti, Amitabh (again as Vijay) is even more justified in choosing his career than Deewar. His father was offensive, and insufficiently communicative, at critical times. And Rakhi looks rightfully confused - she knows her husband is right, but cannot see Amitabh going to seeds.

Performancewise, there are some of the most awesome goosebumps raising moments. The scene where Amitabh consoles Dilip after his mother's death is possibly his best quite moment on screen. And the legendary climax has apparently inspired Michael Mann, with a strong resemblance to the showdown between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat.

The strongest indication of Shakti's brilliance is that since, for me at least, no movie has managed to better the two key aspects of the flick: the honest cop who loses it all for his principles (Shool, Gangajal; have not seen Ardh Satya so will refrain), and the father-son clash (Apharan, Gandhi My Father). In fact, the nation-defining story of Mohandas vs Harilal is a shadow of the clash between Ashwini and Vijay.

Shradhanjali

2007-11-27T12:01:00.000+05:30

For my generation (what do we call it, The Anti-Population-Planning Generation, possibly conceived during Sanjay Gandhi's coerced contraception during India's only flirtation with dictatorship), most of us have grown up on a person called Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Specifically talking about myself, I can link most of my life stories around him http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/03/i-am-ageing-someone-turn-clock-back.html.

For sometime now, I have been doubting his intent, especially in Test cricket. Ian Chappell had made a pertinent point as to why he should retire, http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/287961.html.

However, why we still believe, is best expressed by Rohit Brijnath below, a piece which has affected everyone I know (while most admire the prose, some actually shed tears, imagining the vaccuum when he actually retires).

Tendulkar still teaching lessons: An exceptional performer can recalculate his skills and alter himself

- by Rohit Brijnath

There is no weaseling out of this: I was wrong about Sachin Tendulkar. Earlier this year, his struggle painful to watch, I wondered: if he couldn't mirror the exalted standard of his past, then why play? It was a miscalculation of the rage that courses through the uncommon athlete's veins.

Even now, across continents, you can hear the hum of Tendulkar's desire. For just playing. For runs. For winning. He knows that the great athlete has to prove himself, constantly, that we're not interested in his yesterdays but only his todays.

I first met Tendulkar 20 years ago when he was 14 and have admired him since. Not because he scored runs with a ferocious beauty but because he possessed a powerful sense of duty and met acclaim with serenity. No sportsperson in 20 years has moved me like him except the elastic Michael Jordan, who was like a Michelangelo statue come to athletic life. But the batsman was ours, he was hope tugging at his box and our hearts. Jordan taught us that human flight was possible. Tendulkar is still teaching us.

Like some bonzai schoolmaster holding class, he taught us that don't judge a kid by his voice. He taught us to sit down and back in our drawing rooms because he was going to hang around the crease for a while. He taught us that champions find the necessary calm amidst the delirium. He taught us that playing for India was fun but also a responsibility. And he taught us he could make grown men cry, sometimes watches, sometimes bowlers.

He taught us that only the exceptional performer can recalculate his skills and alter himself. Haile Gebreselassie, unable to maintain the speed of the 10,000 metres, has morphed into a marathon champion. Tendulkar rearranged his repertoire, and while he was not the greatest
anymore, he taught us he could still find a way to be good.

But this year, I began to believe he was declining, and quickly, because he was unconvincing for long periods, wearing an unsurety that looked so foreign on him. The vincible hero. At 34, how do you stop time, and deterioration? But 20 years after first learning from Tendulkar, there
was one last lesson he had to teach. About concentration.

If first his getting beaten made me flinch, what made me keep watching was his refusal to flinch. The ball went by and he started again, like a student trying again to solve a problem. Every ball was a new ball to Tendulkar, a new life, a new start, it was like he had cleansed his memory of the previous delivery that hissed past his bat. It was like Jimmy Connors swearing the last point was unimportant, only the next one mattered.

What control of mind does it take to erase the immediate past, to not let doubt fester, to stay alert even as the bowler is exposing your hesitancy? The easy option would be to react, to swish harder. The hard choice was to just stay, to start afresh every ball with hope, to view temptation with priestly detachment. Tendulkar chose well. He taught us in this time that the first rule of sport is not to look good, it is to survive.

Tendulkar's body may have healed and allowed him a fuller expression of strokes, but it is his confidence in himself, confidence that was shaken and rattled surely but never extinguished, that carried him on. He still gets beaten some days, but he is also more fluent, too, astonishing no less in his ability to rack up scores of 99, 93, 8, 17, 99, 8, 55, 71, 94, 30, 0, 16, 43, 79, 47, 72, 21, 4, 99, 29, 97 in his last 21 one-day innings.

What does Tendulkar play for? Team, himself, pride, records? Maybe he plays because part of him is just a boy who finds himself when bat meets ball. Maybe he plays because of a boy agog in the stands. Maybe he has summoned this last reservoir of energy to show a kid, now old enough to understand, why, for 18 years, the world has made such a fuss about his father.

Om Shanti Om**

2007-11-14T16:01:00.000+05:30

Manoj Bajpai (wonder is he up to these days) had a very interesting take on his Barry John troupe-mate, Shahrukh Khan. After a decade-long intensive struggle, Manoj had won his guru Barry's plaudits when he hit bigtime with Satya. On the other hand, the much more famous pupil SRK who had given Barry the entire credit for his acting prowess, had been dismissed as a gymnast with very good management skills (how brutally apt). However, for Manoj, SRK remained the benchmark, as he happened to be a part of the junta's dreams and fantasies.

Farah Khan, in her second directorial venture, literally builds on these very celluloid dreams which Manoj envies. By virtue of her cinematic liaison with SRK, this gen-now jodi has been proclaimed the designated successor to Amitabh Bachchan & Manmohan Desai (thought Desai was slightly overrated, Farah has shown more promise, but maybe I am gen-now).

As masala cinema, OSO pales in comparison to Main Hoon Na. For pure new-age Bollywood style, it is inferior to Farhan Akhtar's Don (which was updated from the 70s to the new century, while OSO goes the other way round). In fact, what it actually does well is to show RGV how to pay tributes. What it does not do (by a distance) is surpass his Rangeela, as a movie about the movies.

OSO is Karz meets Mehbooba (or is it Kudrat?). It kicks off brilliantly, set thirty years ago, with the actual Karz with the actual Om Shanti Om song being shot very enthusiastically by the actual Ghai (to get a reference, Karz was released in 1980, so the 'now' in the film can only imply 2009 at the best; I nitpick because SRK claimed that he wanted to make the reincarnation settings authentic, by depicting change of generations). However, the 70s spirit of the movie actually expands to include all cinema Farah has witnessed and got impressed by, even Maine Pyaar Kiya (cutely done).

OSO is a SRK stardom venture through-and-through. A self-confessed hammer, he starts off playing a junior artiste Om, with starry dreams and a serious crush on the country's biggest female star. His takeoffs incorporate Mother India (Sunil Dutt saving Nargis on the sets), Rajnikanth (the South Indian spoof is funny, but does it border on racism, I cannot say), any romantic actor driving his lady love in a static car against a moving frame (as shown in the B&W oldies), and even the classical struggling youth with a doting mother who makes him his favourite kheer. Kiron Kher (who plays his in-the-same-profession mom) and his interaction are the best spoofs. The chemistry between the two is as electric as SRK shared with her hubby Anupam in DDLJ. The scene where Deepika talks to a speaking-in-mind but totally tongue-tied SRK (a joke repeated from Main Hoon Na, but still looks fresh), his expressions are absolutely brilliant (as Baradwaj puts it, he finds perfect use for his famous stammer and quivering lips). His drunken victory speech rehearsal - borrowed from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist - is quite exhilarating (playing a huge role during the second half of the movie, when he is reborn as the superstar OK).

A real-life very young Deepika Padukone (a case of child molestation as put by SRK on Times Now) looks suitably matched on screen opposite him. Hers is possibly the best packaged debut since Hritik Roshan. It remains to be seen whether she can emote as well as him (because of his looks and dancing skills, Hritik the actor is quite under-rated; Aamir Khan considers him the best mainstream Bollywood actor). Deepika pays her own tribute to the then diva and still ravishing Hema Malini, although she shows off a lot more cleavage than Hema ji ever did. In one of the song items, she also does a Helen/Aroona Irani types gypsy number, a miscalculation to my mind as possibly till Zeenat Aman broke the barrier in Qurbani in 1980, the actress-vamp dance numbers were seriously demarcated in Hindi cinema.

Shreyas Talpade as SRK's buddy has already displayed his tremendous mimicking skills in Dor. His joke on SRK's surname (Makhija vis-a-vis Kapoor) sets just the right tone. Also, unlike Kiron Kher who ages very shabbily, Shreyas manages the thirty year transtion smoothly. The villain Rampal is possibly modelled on the cool, suave KN Singh.

After a brilliant and tib-tickling first hour, OSO slows down considerably. At the end of the first half, the lovers die, never really united. The entire approach towards their death, SRK's dreamy reincarnation, his bimbettish stardom, his reacquisition of lost memories and relations, his coincidental discovery of Deepika's lookalike, and his consequent revenge plan on the villain Rampal range from expected to boring. Even for a movie based on rebirth and the supernatural, you expect slightly greater authenticity. The best bit is when to denote the reversal of stardoms, a giant poster of Deepika is replaced by the real SRK Tag Heur ad.

The weakest aspect of the film is the rather ordinary music (relative to Main Hoon Na's frothiness). Javed Akhtar's romanticism comes to the fore in his poetry likening SRK's heart to a kite, to float in Deepika's air-like-breath. The multi-starrer Om Shanti Om song is inspired from the more hummable John Johnny Janardan of Desai's Naseeb, and simply drags on (especially when characters like Amrita Arora and Dino Morea make an entry like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt). Dard-e-Disco, the popular 6-pack item number (a total waste as it all looks digital), is more memorable for the reel-movie for which it was shot (Apahij Pyaar, just check out the shot SRK gives for it). And the absolute shocker is the update of the legendary Ek Hasina Thi number. Possibly, the best musical composition is the theme tune which runs across all songs, but I am not sure who deserves credit for that - music directors Vishal Shekhar or background music composer Sandeep Chowta.

The good thing about SRK, Farah and their yuppie gang is that they have the rare ability to laugh on themselves. With no disrespect to their massive cinematic wisdom, all the intellectuals who write on www.passionforcinema.com can possibly learn to lighten up from them. Farah's OSO is as self-indulgent as Kashyap's No Smoking was, and I am okay with both (maybe will try and put a post on that). Both flicks ask you to suspend your belief. The difference lies in the content and the high-mindedness backing it - one is made for pure fun, one is made to try to think and understand.

In OSO, Farah Khan mocks everyone - Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Manoj Kumar, Shabana Azmi (herself making fun of her activism), Akshay Kumar (his Khiladi cameo is copied from a viral), Abhishek Bachchan, and even SRK (check out his movies nominations). To denote the dimwittedness of current times, OK proves his versatility by doing a disco item number (as he had already done a qawalli, in Main Hoon Na?), only to look good (hence the 6-packs) in a movie he had to 'act' in. To denote the insularity of the industry, Om succeeds only when he gets the right lineage (which rather goes against SRK's non-filmi originated stardom).

The most redeeming feature of the movie is that for all its Bollywood-style happy-ending formula, in the traditions of all our epics, it is primarily a tale of unrequited love. If only the middle had kept up with the beginning, and the very end, it would have definitely surpassed Karz.

Identity, and whereabouts

2007-10-26T11:42:00.000+05:30

I have been busy, criss-crossing this vast wonderful country of ours, soaking in the experience of meeting different people from different societies and walks of life, catching up on a few winks here & there. And as the juggernaut has just taken a short temporary break, I thought maybe put up my thoughts on a cussed topic where my morality has always been ambiguous.

I read Amitav Ghosh' The Shadow Lines at a very imprssionable age, just when I was about to achieve the legal maturity to vote. The tale is a fabulous depiction of identity, and the resulting actions which appear totally believable in this compelling book. I do my bit of stereotyping - chinks, Biharis - what not, but I can honestly claim that I do not have a single casteist bone within (casteism is possibly the worst form of institutionally-sanctioned racism in the world, usurping the place of South African apartheid in the new century). Moreover, the stereotyping is often used in the context of humour, as is obvious from the Scottish and Sardar jokes which abound.

The problem is, because of socio-cultural factors, this stereotyping and the humour is ingrained into us. Mind you, we are not the best people to enjoy a joke, especially when it is on us. If you put in the context of religion or region, the situation becomes explosive. For instance, in the blockbuster DDLJ, SRK (playing a casual-about-life-loverboy) tells his lady-love that he was taking a leak in the church (when he was actually praying for her). The joke was in him taking a leak, not as to where he was answering his call of nature. Yet, Yashraj had to remove the offence caused to Christians. I use the example because it typifies the unique Indian problem, where Catholics in India wanted The Da Vinci Code banned, not withstanding its undeserved mega-success in the Christian world.

Nitin (alias Jonathan Brady) was (I sadly use the past tense as he is currently still unemployed) my favourite RJ. He came up with absolutely stunningly apt and funny insights on our daily lives, something which radio as a mass-medium is tailored for. He also ran a great imitation of MTV Bakra on Red FM, called Band Bajaana. While Cyrus possibly has a more inane sense of humour, both he and Nitin were perfectly capable of causing offence to the victims of their jokes. Even our leading superstar, Shahrukh Khan was not spared by Amar Singh, when in jest, SRK saw darindgi (sadism) in Amar Singh ji's eyes.

I considered Nepal the most out-of-job country, when an entire bunch of folks rioted on the streets, just because Hritik Roshan was quoted in a definitely fictitious interview that he did not like them. I cannot fathom a good enough reason why Hritik would say that. However, what is even more bewildering is for a entire nation to believe him, and stop all work to protest the thoughts of a young star from a neighbouring country (would it make any difference to us if Orlando Bloom, or even Tom Cruise, does not like Indians).

Nitin's offence is serious. I do not know the exact joke he cracked (apparently something about if Gurkhas becomes Indian Idols, who will be the security guards; the same stereotype has been used in movies like Hrishikesh Mukherjee's cult classic Chupke Chupke to commercials like Naturefresh using Sharmila Tagore and Soha Ali Khan). However, the issue was damning enough for a star RJ to lose his job. And I am not sure if he can make a comeback as easily as Dean Jones did.

However, the second recent incident of identity-abuse involved Andrew Symonds, who was booed when he became the 'Man of the Series' in the Future Cup. As misinterpreted by the Aussies, it is not actually a case of classical racism, as I am unsure how many Indians are actually aware of his aboriginal roots (and here I include myself). The incident was simply the unique Indian syndrome of mocking anything that is unconventionally different. Symonds carries himself like a tribal warrior, and he suffered the same fate which white women (easy lays) or South-East Asian tourists (see Munnabhai MBBS) can possibly vouch for.

I struggle to maintain my ambiguity in such instances, at what point does a good joke turn into offensive slander. The gentlemen in Mumbai above definitely behaved stupidly. Nitin was simply cracking a drawing-room joke. But I guess Mukul Kesavan asks us to correct our prejudices best.

Here’s a hypothetical circumstance. Tiger Woods is playing golf at the US Open. He sinks a putt, there’s a pause and the commentator, thinking he’s in a commercial break, says to his colleague, with the microphones on, “The nigger’s holed another one.” How long do you think that commentator would last on prime time? How many golf correspondents and commentators would characterise his comment as a ‘bit stupid’?

A toast to a Bastard

2007-09-26T10:33:00.000+05:30

The skeptics have been proved wrong, and somehow my premonitions have come correct. Twenty20, a bastardized version of cricket invented in England to stem a terminal decline in the game (worsened by their national team's travails), and shunned by the powerhouse BCCI as the more established forms are virtually an entertainment monopoly in India, has really caught on. We won our first World Championship of Cricket in more than two decades, a feat which will possibly elude the fab five of Sachin, Anil, Sourav, Rahul, and VVS.

The inaugural ICC World Twenty20 was a raging success, accentuated by the complete flop-show, which the Aussies won under darkness five months back. The fact that the Aussies lost comprehensively to both the first-round failures from the ODI version, India and Pakistan, who went on to play the thrilling final, was divine justice. Ricky Ponting and Imran Khan, representing two different generations of leadership, still feel Twenty20 is a game of luck. But as the two fantastically close matches which India and Pakistan played showed, any form of the game, where the balance between bat and ball is maintained, is the most enchanting. In recent Test cricket, played mostly on dead tracks, teams that make first use of a batting wicket, can completely out-bat the opponent (a favourite Indian trick). If the wicket has something for the bowlers, not only will be out-batting difficult, but the opposition can come back anytime. And as Harsha Bhogle puts it, ultimately it is all about getting runs and taking wickets. Umar Gul showed that the best dot ball gets a batsman out

I consider myself a connoisseur, and still rate the Test victory against England as the pinnacle, over this World Cup triumph. The reason why Dhoni's rather than Dravid's victory got a gala motorcade (to compare, Ajit Wadekar had a similar victory parade in 1971 after India's maiden cricketing conquest of England, by an identical margin to Dravid's) is the change of generation - the frantic energy of a vibrant version of the game, played over only three hours, and capturing the imagination of the general public much more than Mandira ever managed.

Like Michael Atherton, I expect the biggest worry from T20 to be for ODIs. I strongly feel there are too many meaningless ODIs being played (not to say that if Australia visits India for 15 T20s, played over 10 days in 2011, I will be elated). Yet, T20 can play the role - of expanding the game, becoming an Olympic sport, competing with more entertainment-friendly sport like football (any surprise a Champion's League is planned around T20 now) - that ODIs were supposed to do, but over an 8-hour duration, never really could.

In a fast-paced contemporary life, more traditional and relaxed sports like Golf, Chess and Test cricket will always be an oddity. The trick is to balance art with commerce, with a form of entertainment that supports the real stuff. High-quality Test cricket is a must, all other forms - T20, first-class - should support it. To elaborate, Misbah got a six when he played straight. When he slog-swept a delivery he could have tackled in the same fashion, he lost the World Cup

The strongest counter-argument for T20 came when Daniel Vettori, a spin bowler whose supreme skill in the tournament showed how bowlers can dominate the game, hoped that the version does not establish itself. The strongest argument for came when my disappointed mother called me up to discuss India's below-par batting performance in the final. Within an hour-and-a-half, she sent me a congratulatory message.

Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag (hohohoho)

2007-09-05T12:00:00.000+05:30

RGV Ki Aag is a tribute left, right and center. After a fairly intelligent adaptation of Francis Ford Copolla's Godfather a couple of years back in Sarkar, Ramu has really decided to get into this adaptation and tributing bit seriously. He is making Sarkar 2, which is possibly a homage to Karan Johar (It is all about loving the Bachchan family). In fact, as a tribute to Sooraj Barjatya, the real-life wedding of Abhi-Aish has even impeded the shooting of the movie (poor Tanisha from the original has been shipped across to the Chopra clan for her own wedding).

Ramu underwent a lot of legal and copyright tribulations in make this unauthorised version of Sholay. To maintain the legalities, the names of all the characters have been modified. However, to retain the spirit, the key elements of the musical score have been copied/remixed.

The movie opens in Mumbai as a narration by Mohanlal (who plays a Malayalam-accented Inspector Narsimha, residing among regular Mumbai folks). Kaliganj basti replaces Ramgarh (which is just like playing Golf in your 100 sq.ft. drawing-room as the DLF course was shut). A dreaded gangster Babban (Amitabh Bachchan playing Gabbar as a tribute to his own hyper-active National Award winning performance in Black) wants to grab some land at Kaliganj (anyone who can throw light on what the issue was will be awarded a comment on the post). In the ensuing battle between Narsimha and Babban, Babban's younger brother, and his only soft spot in life, is killed (the angle is possibly a tribute to Satte pe Satta).

What follows is a blood-fest, where Narsimha's entire family - a patriarchial father, a brother (Chakravarthy of Satya fame), and his wife (Suchitra Krishnamoorthy, who in a decade-&-a-half blink-&-miss career, moves from playing the lead opposite the Bollywood superstar SRK, or rather Deepak Tijori in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, to the Malayalam thespian) - is wiped out on a Holi day. The only chilling reminder of the real Sholay in the movie is Narsimha discovering his family's slaughter.

In a tribute to Shimit Amin's Ab Tak Chappan (which debuted at the Factory, before Amin wisely moved on to the safer pastures of Yashraj for Chak De), Narsimha bumps off all the suspects. However, he is ultimately captured by Babban, who instead of chopping off the phaansi ka phanda haath (of the original Thakur), slices away his fingers (with the result that Narsimha cannot shave any more).

To avenge and protect, Narsimha hires the two goons Heeroo (Ajay Devgan playing Viru) and Raj (newcomer Prashant Raj playing Jai). It is actually difficult to demarcate between the two, compared to the contrast of the sparkling chemistry between Viru's boisterousness and Jai's sarcasm. Both are equally irritating. While Devgan proves why he is an over-rated actor, newcomer Prashant is relatively tolerable (not to say that he is much good, but I am happy as he could have been worse). The two warring parties first face off during Diwali, when just to prove their morbidness, the Narsimhas (whatever is left of them) and Kaliganj are actually celebrating the festival.

Nisha Kothari is Ghoongroo (Basanti), a character immortalised by a lady who still looks hotter than her two daughters combined (the chaddi-banian of Esha in Dhoom not withstanding). Nisha recently admitted she is dumb, and cannot act in serious films. While I have a personal fetish for dumb girls, Nisha cannot act, in any sort of platform which calls for any sort of acting. When she plays Didi to Ahmed (for some, the most legendary piece from Sholay was the forever-aged AK Hangal calling for Ahmed), when she shouts at Heeroo, when she does some military drills (Ramu's form of dancing inroduced by ex-muse Antara Mali in Road and Naach) in hot pants, you feel like telling Ramu - personal fantasies/fetishes are for personal consumption only.

Radha, the 'Lady with the Lamp' from the original (you squirm whenever the classic Bachchan mouth-organ track plays in Aag), actually turns into Florence Nightingale here. Devi (Sushmita Sen) runs her own clinic/dispensary. To refresh her Miss Universe victory, Sush speaks a lot more (with some heavy breathing), and behaves like a Diva.

In the Mehbooba remix, Urmila Matondkar pays a tribute to her own panting and sighing in Rangeela and Daud. The Bachchan father-&-son do their bit for the original daddy-son duo of Aghas, as Jalal featured in the original.

Thanks to Ramu, I have got my first 'ho' movie to review in quite a while now. (http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/04/cinema-humko-deewana-kar-gaye-hoho.html) I do not know if Ramu caricatured the entire movie and the classic moments intentionally. The original Gabbar dripped menace, Babban is more on the lines of Mogambo (and I think Amitabh has done another Boom here). The death scene of Jai was poignant, here you feel like laughing when Raj is shot dead (after Heeroo literally ditches him to get killed). And during the post-death get-together scene (when Veeru had discovered the lifelong mystery of losing the coin-toss), Heeru actually takes out time to go and happily hug his Ghungroo (who thankfully did not dance on broken glasses in her figure hugging tights).

Ramu had once said (during his Rangeela and Satya days when one could take him seriously) that he has learnt his entire film-making from Mackenna's Gold and Sholay. The former was made in to Hindi by Harish Shah as Zalzala. I somehow think Aag was misleading, it actually was Ram Gopal Varma Ka Zalzala, a rocking tribute to this 1988 classic.

P.S. My post is actually a tribute to Amit Bajaj who had asked for this review. I want to meet Ramu's friends who has asked for his Aag/Sholay, and just tell them, 'Hum Gandhi Nahin Hain', we are not Gandhi (sorry you will have to see the movie to get the context).

Chak De India****

2007-09-02T19:16:00.000+05:30

After a few false starts in Asoka, Swades and Paheli, Shahrukh Khan, the designated new-age box-office successor to Amitabh Bachchan, possibly found his own response to his nearest competitor, Aamir Khan's Lagaan and Rang de Basanti. In the new century, Aamir has really struck a golden balance between critical and commercial acclaim, and SRK has not really coped up (an absolute shame that his Swades failed the commercial test). He had a wonderful chance with Hirani's Munnabhai series (where he was originally supposed to play the title character), before his back gave away.

Apart from for SRK, Chak De was a movie under immense pressure to deliver for the producers, Yashraj. India's premier movie banner had just delivered a couple of box-office duds in Ta Ra Rum Pum and Jhoom Bharabar Jhoom (quite shocking that JBJ failed to even garner an initial). Aditya Chopra was terribly nervous, and he pulled of the first set of promos (my favourite song from the soundtrack, Hockey Doongi, where Coach SRK introduces the entire team, does not even feature in the movie), to replace it with a more conventional peppy number (the title song used in the key moments of the movie; must admit, impressive lines, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, is it the time to do or die).

At its very core, Chak De follows the path set by the other two successful sporting movies of recent times, Lagaan and Iqbal. An underdog (or a team of them) set about battling great odds to achieve an almost impossible task. While in the first two, the task was almost a matter of life (or-doom), in Chak De, the quest is more in the realms of sporting glory (however impossible it might be). The variation comes with the sport under question, where the national game, hockey, replaces the national passion, cricket. More importantly, the version chosen is the more unglamorous one played by women. (To get the context, the Indian Men's hockey team has never failed to participate in an Olympic Game, while the Women's team is aspiring for their maiden appearance at Beijing in 2008).

SRK plays Kabir Khan, a character loosely inspired from former India goalie, Mir Ranjan Negi. Negi was a part of the team that lost the Asian Games final in 1982 at New Delhi to Pakistan 7-1. Like Mohd. Azharuddin fourteen years later (when just after a heady victory against Pakistan in the quarter-finals, Azhar's team lost to Sri Lanka at Calcutta in the Wills World Cup), the blame for the loss was laid at Negi's doorstep.

Negi was accused of fixing the match (a charge which turned out to be actually true in Azhar's case, though more for his individual performances), and was branded a traitor (because he was a Muslim goalkeeper, though the Indian Captain Zafar Iqbal could have been similarly accused). (Read Negi's interview at http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1115018, to figure out how close to reality the movie was). Negi found his redemption when he helped the Men's team win Asian Games gold in 1998 (the match was won on penalty strokes, when Negi was the Goal-keeping coach) and the unheralded Women's team to the Commonwealth Games Gold in 2002.

In the movie, Coach Kabir Khan becomes the only volunteer for the Women's Hockey team (I could not fathom as to why does he choose this method of redemption over the Men's Hockey team). He gets on his job using a mix of Greg Chappell (challenging established stars) and Kapil Dev (play with heart). His entire approach is also coated in nationalistic colours, tackling the problem of provincial loyalties (which is an issue which possibly extends across sports in India).

The great part of Kabir Khan is that he does not really establish a personal rapport with his players (like say Naseer in Iqbal). He has a soft moment with the goalie Vidya (Malvade), even appointing her the Captain, but that is also more due to her level-headedness. He puts the established star Bindia in her place by benching her from practice, as she wanted to stick to her preferred forward slot. When she is destructive for the team in the opening match of the tournament, he benches her from the entire World Cup. However, when he needs her creativity and experience in the crucial semi-final against Korea, he goes back to her. There is no melodramatic explanation, and most importantly, it is never really shown that Bindia makes up with Kabir even after the Team's victory.

I always have a problem when sports movies show inspiration overtaking systems. It can be slightly misleading, but I guess there is no other way of depicting it in cinema. In their quest for the World Cup, apart from a marathon 10-km run in early mornings (in which the coach also participates), Kabir Khan is not shown doing much on the fitness front (a must in today's professional sports). He does give a stirring speech just before the final (possibly very similar to what Steve Gerrard would have said during the now legendary Champions' League half-time of 2005). However, his entire success is built primarily on sporting technicalities (and like in Lagaan, they are maintained quite well for hockey here), and lots of hard work (the team practices when the rivals party, shades of the Reliance Cup winning Aussie team of 1987).

Performancewise, I preferred SRK in Swades to Chak De (since that seems to be the most obvious comparison). Of the 16-member team, the Haryanvi Komal (who actually looks quite cute) and the hot-headed Punjabi Balbir get the most humorous lines. Shilpa Shukla as the egoistical Bindia is the most authentic portrayal. I also like the lasses who play the Telugu Reddy and the Jharkhandi Soi Moi. Most importantly, Negi (who coached all the models/actresses in hockey) has done a fantastic job, and like in Iqbal, the sport looks superbly authentic. The climax is suitably dramatic, but my favourite moment came just before that, when hockey technicality (of the goal keeper charging a sole striker) met female bonding, for the equalising goal (and a dramatic cinematic moment).

The real stars of the movie lie behind the screen, writer Jaideep Sahni (for a simple well-etched story) and director Shimit Amin (a superb followup to his impressive debut in Ab Tak Chappan). They both have done a great job of coupling realistic sports with impressive cinema. The Women's team shows the joi de vivre of a team of amateurs (and hence the girls who are initially benched for indiscipline are so keen to get back into practice). When they take on their Men counterpart in a hockey match (just to prove that they should be participating in the World Cup), you feel it is far-fetched. However, the sporty salutations of the Men after defeating them in a very close match, makes the entire scene superbly surreal.

At an overall level, the greatest success of the movie lies in the fact that it does for Sports in India what thousands of duffer-posts on Worldview can never hope to do. Our English news channel have been celebrating all big sporting successes with the soundtrack of the movie. And there have been quite a few since the movie came out - the Indian football team winning an international tournament after donkey's years (in an unbelievably charged atmosphere at New Delhi); the Men's hockey team pummeling a Sri Lankan team with 20 goals.

Last year, Rang De Basanti inspired a candlelight vigil at India Gate for Jessica Lal. Following Chak De, I keenly look forward to more reel-life imitating sporting successes for India.

Is it all about money, honey?

2007-08-23T13:34:00.000+05:30

Subhash Chandra is a man scorned. At the turn of the century, our own desi Rupert Murdoch, the new owner of the now-bankrupt British East India Company had lost out to the real Murdoch's Star network.

Ever since losing his media hegemony, Chandra has not really had a calling card. His entertainment empire encompasses the entire gamut (regional channels, publications, entertainment parks, music, sports, films), but did not really dominate any field. Most importantly, he faced a massive setback when in 2004, he lost a tender-bid to telecast BCCI cricket, apparently because the then-President Jagmohan Dalmiya had promised the rights to another partially Murdoch-owned entity, ESPN-Star. The cricketing telecast battles were fought in the courts, and when Dalmiya lost the BCCI elections the next year, there was bound to be hope for Chandra. However, to his disappointment, Nimbus pipped everyone with a ridiculously high bid. (To put Nimbus's 4-year bid at $600-odd-mn in perspective, the size of the Indian broadcast advertising industry is about $1.1-bn, and the distribution revenues for broadcasters about $220-mn).

Zee Sports quickly became a losing cause. And while tieing up with AIFF (football) and PGTI (golf) were really noble causes, from a commercial point of view, they were more of long-term investments rather than immediate break-even propositions. To undo the damage, Chandra borrowed from the books of another Aussie media mogul, the late Kerry Packer. He decided to launch a 6-city league, an idea first proposed by the current BCCI regime's marketing whizkid Lalit Modi. (In another ridiculous business plan, Modi had claimed that a 8-city league's telecast can be monetised to the tunes of more than $3bn).

Technically, the ICL should have excited me, as I have been arguing the case of a strong domestic competition for a long time (http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/05/two-interesting-links-for-cricket.html). Yet, I smelt a rat when Chandra's stated objective was to provide a talent-pool to BCCI, by getting some players to play Twenty20 cricket (a format designed to get crowds so that the real thing, Test cricket, can be kept alive). It is anybody's guess as to what it was all about.

The BCCI, a non-profit society which happens to be the world's richest cricketing board, is supposedly India's best-administered sporting body (you can simply imagine the fate of others). In light of ICL, the BCCI had two options in front of it. The first one was the path shown by an equally-chaotic but much-poorer West Indies Cricket Board, who went ahead and supported the American billionaire Allen Stanford's uncannily-similar venture. The second one was to treat the venture as a rebellion, a challenge to its hegemony over India's largest entertainment industry. (During Packer, the then incumbent powers, England and Australia, had reacted like this and dropped all their Packer-affiliated players from the national teams. However, the other main parties, West Indies and Pakistan went ahead and picked the Packer players for the 1979 World Cup). Needless to say, the new-age ruler BCCI took a leaf out of their predecessor's actions.

Life-ban threats were issued to any Indian player who dared to sign on (one administrator from Bengal was even barred from using the gym at Eden Gardens). As the obvious targets were old superstars (like Lara or Inzy), the joke became that it will be a pensioners' league. And to further display that in spite of projected antagonism, sub-continental fraternity goes deeper, the life-ban threats were extended to Pakistan and Sri Lanka through their respective cricketing boards. BCCI also ensured that the ICL would struggle to get any grounds to host their matches (before Lalu Prasad, the Railways Minister and a part of the same ruling coalition as Sharad Pawar, threw a possible spanner in the wheel by making available Railway grounds).

In the meantime, the ICL moved fast, by signing a host of big cricketing names in executive and coaching capacities. Kapil Dev was the lead challenger, while Tony Greig already had experience in doing a similar job for Packer. The big coup came early this week, when close to 50 recruits were paraded in front of the media. (However, the league still needs almost an equal number more to fully equip all the six teams with 15 players each).

From a domestic perspective, Bengal, Hyderabad and UP are possibly the worst sufferers (is it any coincidence that a UP cricketer recently committed suicide, arguably because of selectorial whims http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d3cec439-be46-4539-a4bd-0a1e13414670&&IsCricket=true&Headline=Broken+dream%3a+Promising+cricketer+kills+himself). While Punjab's Dinesh Mongia, who played for India less than six months back (mainly by virtue of his bowling performance in the County circuit), was the most visible recruit, the real career-risk was taken by youngsters like Yashpal Singh, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala and Alfred Absolem, who may have lost all their national-cap dreams (assuming that it is a dream for all professional cricketers).

Internationally, the biggest loser has to be Pakistan, who have lost Mohammad Yousuf (who broke Sir Viv Richards' thirty year old Test record in 2006) and Abdur Razzaq. And if Stephen Fleming (as it is rumoured) joins in, it will be interesting to see New Zealand's reaction.

The case does resemble Packer. However, more importantly, Packer's commercial venture left cricket in better shape. While colourful one-day cricket caught on to make Test cricket also more dynamic, the most important development was better pay for the cricketers (possibly attracting more kids to the game). (The rot in cricket set in when the Asian regimes caught on, and went for an over-kill of the ODI variety).

To indicate the change in times, Chandra's tool is an even more bastardised Twenty20 form. However, Kapil says it will subsequently move on to one-dayers, and more importantly, three-day (hopefully first-class matches). If it really goes that way, it just might lead to some tough and exciting domestic cricketing action (though to act as a dampener, a corking Mumbai-Bengal Ranji Trophy Final did not really attract crowds), producing more complete international products (like say Michael Hussey rather than Joginder Sharma). Moreover, the ICL (which is actually run by the Zee Sports team) claims that from next year, they will invite bids for telecast rights from external broadcasters too (so even Neo can bet).

If the BCCI genuinely wants the development of the game (as they should), they could have chosen to support ICL. For instance, if someone starts scalping Lara and Inzy regularly, I will rather take him to England next time round, than Ranadeb Bose (wonder what will happen if someone bright actually appears, will the Board relent?).

But for all their constitutional changes and the fee and prize-money hikes, the BCCI decided that the best way to fight the enemy is at its own game. Today's Economic Times says that BCCI is planning to launch a Professional Cricket League, headed by none other than Sunny Gavaskar. May the one with the deepest pocket and most political clout win!

Left Right Left

2007-08-22T11:40:00.000+05:30

I do not really understand the by now mostly-famous, partially-notorious 123 Agreement between India and the US. And as far as I gather, even the most hard-nosed journalists reporting in the Indian media do not have a full grasp over it ( at least most begin their stories with disclaimers). So it makes me definitely sure that a layman (and here I talk about an average middle-class bloke with some interest in world and national affairs) cannot make much sense out of it. What is more interesting is that in a small survey in today's Hindustan Times, still one out of five of these blokes were against the deal (see below).

What I can make out is that the USA, led by a tyrannical president who for some reasons ( a mix of personal and strategic) loves India, and has reversed decades of policy and nuclear antagonism against India, to accommodate her strategic interests in the field of nuclear energy. The most-respected Economist magazine has some serious reservations against this exemption, mainly because while we and the Yankees can pride ourselves on our responsible international behaviour, the case is an exception to beat all global proliferation efforts.

The problem at home is different. We have a relatively artificial ruling coalition (the UPA), whose sole reason for existence is supposedly to keep Hindu fundamentalist forces (the NDA, led by the BJP) out of the power. (It is a different fact that these fundamentalist forces strengthened in response to minority appeasement, a trend that possibly continues with the recent Tasleema Nasreen attack episode, http://satyabrat.blogspot.com/2007/08/for-gods-sake-she-is-writer-not.html).

The NDA, after taking India out of nuclear disguise (not such a smart move to my mind, because as Swaminathan Aiyer had put it then, it was uncertain whether the strategic benefits would sufficiently compensate for the sanction-economic losses). It is to NDA's credit that they not only managed to put the economy back on track (mainly because of favourable macro-economic conditions), but also put the relationship with the USA on an upward keel never seen before (doing away with years of antagonism that possibly kicked off under our founding leader, Nehru). The NDA also managed to get our missile scientist (and a middle-class hero) APJ Abdul Kalam elected as the President of India.

The Left parties opposed President Kalam only because he was supposedly the architect of India's nuclear bomb (and mind you, it is these very parties which had celebrated the Chinese nuclear explosion way back in the 60s). They put up their own dummy Presidential candidate who easily. And now it is these very parties, the great Nationalists guarding India's interests aginst the imperialist Americans,, who have thrown a spanner so bad in the Manmohan Singh-signed 123 Agreement that mid-term polls look like a matter of time. It is to Indian politics' shameful discredit that the BJP, led by their statesmen ex-PM Vajpayee, cannot compliment the Congress on finishing off their initiated project so efficiently. But this literal interpretation of the 'Opposition' is something we have come to live with in India.

My problem starts when all our bickering falls over into the international arena (what I call the country's corporate communication). I had posted similar thoughts on the same, http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2007/04/great-indian-democracy.html. India's Ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen has rejected all the current dissidents rather disgracefully. But the moot point is clear, I might disagree with India's nuclear explosion in 1998, but if given the chance, it does not mean I start embarrassing the State of India. Similarly, Mani Shanker Aiyer might disagree with the Kalmadi-led IOA's bid for the Asian Games (and he had some valid points against the bid), but it does not mean that the Commonwealth Games, scheduled for 2010 in New Delhi, get sabotaged.

There is a clear-cut difference between disagreement (in formulating policy), and loss of face (in fulfilling commitments). More often than not, decision-making and action-taking in everyday India is a function of myriad supplementary reasons (for instance, we might marry within the same caste simply to stay integrated into the society, not really for individual happiness). And this problem seriously gets accentuated when it comes to politics (remember the introduction-from-nowhere of the Mandal Commission report by VP Singh, just to counter the political threat posed by Tau Devi Lal). I get more perturbed when this extends in to the international (Corp Comm) arena.

India is considered a rising superpower (a claim which the latest report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector has seriously punctured). What makes it worse is this constant dilly-dallying on a signed agreement by the elected executive government. How would we have felt if Churchill had questioned Atlee's Indian Independence Act once he returned to power in 1950.

We might have been argumentative through out our history (source, Amartya Sen). The problems begin when the beneficiaries of all these 123 argument can only be Pakistan (whom the RSS loathes) and China (whom the Left loved).

Saath Saal Ke Jawaan

2007-08-17T10:26:00.000+05:30

India turned 60 a couple of days back, a youthful sixty as most do not forget pointing out. I love the comparison there with a Chyawanprash ad of my growing up days, 'saath saal ke boodhe ya saath saal ke jawaan' (60 years old, or 60 years young?). And I pay my own tribute to six factors (one for each decade) that is quintessential India.

Identity: A much abused term, but the number of layers each one of us have is mind-boggling. So in the path-breaking Deewar, Shashi Kapoor was a police inspector first, then a son, and finally a brother. Needless to say, he defeated his elder brother who took his fratricidal responsibilities more seriously than being the bad guy from underworld.
The other variations can be regional (Southie), communal (bhaiya), provincial (gujju), linguistic (French, even Bengali-speaking), religious, educational (IITian), professional (filmwallah), club (AISEC, Rotary), and what not. But the best was when an over-speeding driver in the middle of the night was arguing with a cop that he knows an ex-Delhi CM, who apparently was related to him on the lines of his mami's (aunt) elder brother-in-law's cousin. Made him connected, an identity to negate all else. (As a thumb-rule, each person in authority supports at least 40 others of kith, kin, and clan.)

Adjustment: There was a Lux underwear ad which captured it much better than any written word ever can. I consider the Chinese very versatile, who, while retaining their identity, go and gel into any country anywhere (wonder why almost all big cities worldwide have a Chinatown). Indians are different, we tend to absorb influences more easily, and then Indianise them. So we garnish our pastas with dhania, use washing-machines to make lassi, and eat an absolutely unique Ludhanwi brand of Chinese food.
The most interesting case is of the Manchurian, which the rest of the world identifies mainly as a region from China, or maybe with the Denzel Washington & Meryl Streep-starrer 'The Manchurian Candidate'. In India, a radically different item of the same name was invented by Nelson Wang, and it quickly became a rage at wedding parties (especially in Bihar), when any fried ball with some chicken/cabbage stuffing, dipped in a dark sauce, passed off as the 'piece de resistance' of the spread, the Chicken/Veg Manchurian.

Timeliness: Hindi is a unique language which has the same term for both yesterday and tomorrow. As one of my international colleagues pointed out, India is a great place for holiday, but for work? At the relatively lower-but-essential level, people say they will land up in an hour (to fix my notebook for instance) and then conveniently come just a day later. If you go for a party on time, you are supposed to be the idiot who followed the schedule. And the best comes to public works, the second Howrah Bridge (Vidyasagar Setu) got delayed by a small matter of twenty years only.

Armchair: In one's own head, it is difficult to find a person more intelligent than oneself. And it is almost impossible to find one who knows, or more importantly, does better. CNN-IBN got it dead right when they started off with 'Public ka Kaptan' on their cricketing show, when one is supposed to think for Rahul Dravid. After all, everybody can think for the Indian captain, even if most cannot play for their colony teams too.
Similarly, a Buddhdeb can pursue industrialization and liberalization with gusto at Bengal, but it becomes offensive the same is done at the centre for Prakash Karat. Or Vajpayee can seriously entertain the thoughts of invading Iraq with the USA, but when Manmohan signs a nuclear deal with the Yankees, it is selling off the country's interests. Horses-for-courses after all!

Technology: The leading IT nation of the world worships any industrial and information age technology. Even Mr. Amitabh Bachchan used to call the computer, 'computer ji'. While most put their cell-phones and TV remote-controls in plastic to guard it for the next generation, I have a friend who drives his two year old Wagon-R with the original packing on the seats still intact, to protect it from the terrible Indian dust.

Value-for-Money: The billionaire club might be expanding, but getting the best out a deal is an inherent virtue never to be forgotten. A decade back, a friend of mine used to buy Tommy Hilfiger (before its formal launch in the country), and his biggest worry was that how will people realise he has bought the genuine stuff, not the fake which abound in Janpath. A great example was shown in the film Chameli ki Shaadi, when an empty-pocketed Anil Kapoor had got caught in taking his girl-friend out to an expensive restaurant. So the poor fellow had to order tea and baingan ka bhaja (egg-plant) for themselves.

Here's looking forward to the Middle-Ages!

India N-Powered

2007-08-15T14:07:00.000+05:30

Did my hope (http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/revival.html) actually turn out true? Messrs. Dravid, Co. & Borde gifted us all a great Independence Day gift. India, a 75-year old cricketing nation, won its third overseas Test series in England. The last series win was 21 years ago, when the English team was in total disarray. This time it came against an English team which is officially the second best Test playing country in the world.

The disaster in the World Cup was horrific, but I will take this victory any day for those results (a few brand managers might disagree). Like most of my peers, I have grown up watching Sachin Tendulkar. The interest in the game was kept alive by that man, even at a time when we struggled to win anything outside India from 1986-2001 (except for a one-off in Colombo in 1993). And for all our mutual association, Sachin rated this win as the highest point of his career. So it has never really got bigger for us!

The turnaround for Indian cricket started when the little man decided that his captaincy dreams are turning nightmarish. Without me realising it, India was unfettering, and a 'New India' (a term coined by then-Wisden-now-cricinfo) was about to get reflected in the representative team of its only pan-national mass-sport. Sourav Ganguly and John Wright built a team almost from scratch, which successfully competed with the best. Ganguly could never really win any series, but under his guidance, India built up a very impressive Test record, especially with all the overseas victories (relative to both, her own history and the existing world standards). In fact, even in his only overseas series victory at Pakistan, Ganguly was the captain only in the decider, it was Dravid who led in the first two Tests. Most importantly, apart from the Natwest and the World Cup, India's ODI form remained patchy, with all - Australia, Zimbabwe, England, West Indies - challenging us on our home turfs.

The key to Ganguly's success was some divine batsmanship (the fab five, led by Sehwag & Dravid, VVS, and supported by Sachin & Sourav himself), who consistently out-scored teams to give their steady bowlers a winning platform. In fact, the bowling heroes kept changing - Bhajji against Aussies at home, Kumble & Bhajji at Headingley, Agarkar at Adelaide, Irfan & Balaji in Pakistan, and so on.

When Greg Chappell came in with all his innovative theories and different thinking-hats, there was a sense of expectation, that he will possibly take the team to the next level (it was definitely stagnating in the last year of Wright). His first action, of giving India's most successful skipper Ganguly the boot, should have been a forewarning. I still do not disagree to Ganguly's sacking as captain, but it should have been handled a lot better, and professionally.

The right candidate, the deputy in command, Rahul Dravid took over, and under him and Chappell, we had a season of stunning ODI chases, followed a season of unprecedented humiliation. What we forget is that somewhere in this limited-overs turmoil, we finally got the outside-subcontinent series victory in West Indies which had eluded Ganguly. And this at a time when Sehwag became inconsistent (a below-average series against England at home, a disaster in South Africa), Sachin and Laxan slipped a few notches, and an already struggling Ganguly was kept out of the team. Most crucially, Ganguly's replacements Yuvraj and Kaif did not do enough to establish that Dada's ouster was the right thing to do.

In the crucial deciding Test match in the Caribbean, Dravid was the difference between the two teams, which implied he was leading from the front. It is a different thing that we should have actually thrashed the Windies 3-0, or beaten them 2-0, not scraped out the 1-0 win. Even more astonishing was the first-ever Test victory in South Africa. It came totally against the run of play, from a till-then badly-battered-and-hammered team. It is an absolute shame that Dravid could not build on that to claim an even more commendable series victory in South Africa (would have been a higher achievement in my books than England).

What changed in England? The series was a closely fought one, not really exciting, but in the light of recent cricketing contests, I will take it any day. A full 5-Test series would have possibly whetted the appetite better, but one cannot be gluttonous. Most importantly, there were a few key factors, which possibly affected the final outcome:

The strange Indian pair of Jaffer-Karthik put on some opening stands, with the makeshift out-scoring the regular (Karthik was the highest scorer from India, and gave more confidence to Sunny Gavaskar than Jaffer). Historically, we have rarely had any success without a decent opening stand, even VVS played his Innings of 281 after the openers Das and Ramesh had put up a half-century partnership in about an hour. I thought dropping Sehwag was a case of confusing Test and ODI form, but the die is cast for the time-being.

For a change, except for the first day at Lord's, the Indian bowlers kept the pressure up. Kumble failed in key moments, Sreesanth who was supposed to be the leader of the pack had a below-par series, but Zaheer and RP were right up there. Zaheer rightfully was declared the Man of the Series, but RP got the absolutely crucial wickets, of Pietersen in both innings at Trent Bridge. RP also delivered the bowls of the series, in the second innings, to get rid of Collingwood at Lord's (the bouncer) and Prior at Trent Bridge (the in-dipper). The fact that Indian fielding, which even in the best of times was good at catching rather than stopping runs, had a below-par outing, showed how good the bowlers were, as they had to do it mainly by themselves.

To make it evenly-matched, there was no genuine batting star of the series from either side, except for Pietersen who was the best by a distance (which further highlights RP's winning contribution in the second Test). In fact, his two centuries are just the types which Sachin has been accused of not playing enough. Vaughan also was absolutely terrific in his century at Trent Bridge, and terribly unlucky to get out the way he did (flicking on to the leg stump). For India, Kumble remained the sole and surprising centurion (his acknowledgement at reaching his hundred was emotional, hilarious and quick-thinking). The best innings from an Indian came in the last innings at Oval, when Dravid was simply struggling to pierce the field in any manner whatsover, and Ganguly showed what counter-attacking batting can be like. In fact, the Indian skipper had the worst series. In his defence, one can say he got out to an iffy decision at a critical moment of the first Test, and an absolute peach in the third (when he got his only fifty of the series). I will also never forget the leg-side trap employed for Sachin at the Oval, and his absolute denial to hook and pull. He was apparently expecting the ploy, and just a day before in the nets, had a full session to practice a counter-attack. Of course, he decided against displaying any results of his practice, and while his 82 was another determined contribution, I would rather he take a leaf out of Ganguly's positivity in the second innings (remember, they both had started off so radically different in Ireland).

Most importantly, for a change, India was determined to cash on its luck. More often than not, the elements have always gone against us. Yet, my counter-argument is that whenever the opportunity has presented itself, we have let it pass. In 2002 at Kingston, with the series tied 1-1, we chose to bowl (just like at Trent Bridge). The difference was that then the openers Gayle and Hinds put on 111 for the first wicket, here we got them all out for 199. In the same Test, if India would have batted ten minutes more in the last innings, we would have saved the Test and the series, as a thunderstorm rolled in and it kept raining for the next three days. Similarly, at Durban, Boucher challenged India to bat out 50 overs on the final day, we decided to fold up in 40-odd. The best batsman that day was Dhoni, and he learnt to remember it when playing at Lord's. He was lucky to survive in the beginning, but he made his luck count to turn the corner for himself, and India in the series. A good omen for our 20:20 captain.

The victory is a great beginning to a mega season, where we host Pakistan, tour Australia and then host South Africa (somehow they do not count as much these days). We should have ideally gone for a 2-0 victory. I somehow think Oval would still have been a draw even if we had imposed the follow-on. It would just have communicated a more positive intent from India. After all, the biggest impact was created when the openers launched themselves into the English attack on the first day (with Jaffer getting out trying a Sehwag-style upper-cut). Almost all the batsmen (with the exception of Sachin who was grinding them down) batted at a 60+ strike rate in that innings.

Dravid continues to be the ideal captain for India (a winner of two-and-a-half overseas victory, better than his predecessor Ganguly one can say), but he has had two indifferent series in the last six months. Ganguly has definitely strengthened his batting claim, but Sachin and VVS have been patchy - at times fluent, at times really laboured. The contrast showed up in the second test, when India batted at 3.02 runs per over to set up the match, while England batted at 3.41 to save it.

The problem is that the entire middle-order is almost of the same age. We have thrown the youngest of the lot Sehwag out. Now if all these decide to retire at the same time, it will leave a gap impossible to fill. India will possibly benefit if a couple of them stay under pressure, even if its the great Sachin himself.

The true indicator of India's standing standard in the global cricketing order will come in Australia. After all, we all remember what they did to their closest challenger, England, last season.

A Tale of Two Nationalities

2007-07-31T14:34:00.000+05:30

Sunday, July-29 was a golden-lettered day. India, a country with the second (or is it the third?) largest Muslim population (and not a single Al-Qaeda member as US President George Bush put it), finally breathed a sigh of relief when its first global terrorism suspect, Dr. Haneef Mohammed, was proved innocent. The Australian police had kept him in unlawful custody, and subsequently canceled his visa, on what turned out to be rather flimsy charges of assistance in terrorism activities halfway around the globe in Glasgow, Scotland. If lending a SIM card to your cousins could create so much havoc, then I guess all of us can sometimes in our lives be in for a lot worse. I know very little about a lot of my personal and professional contacts - what lawful or unlawful activities they are up to, and how in a roundabout unknown way, I possibly might be helping them.

I am not here to protect or defend Dr. Haneef, I am sure there are bigger and better legal luminaries who are much more capable of deciding the merit of the case than I am. What I am more worried about is if the same would have happened in India, Dr. Haneef had absolutely no hope in hell. However much you would like to think of the Hindu-Buddhist Karma theory as a weak passive belief, the treatment of some innocent Poor (with a capital P) in this country's administrative-judicial system makes you thank your lucky stars that you were not born poor. Mohammad Afzal was privileged that he got embroiled in a case which the legendary Ram Jethmalani felt fit to fight. Otherwise, there are so many rotting their lives in the over-crowded, dingy prisons of this country, that it makes you numb, only to kill remorse.

I do not think the Indian diplomatic channels pursued the case sufficiently, at least not with as much brouhaha as Australia might have done if the same would have happened to their national in India. The real noise came from the Indian news media, and thank God they found a genuine cause to pursue. More interesting was the reaction of the Australian PM, John Howard. His police force had admitted their mistake (which again in an Indian case would have been impossible, they would have simply shot Dr. Haneef and planted a chit on him). Howard refused to oblige, in an arrogance which first-world diplomacy prides itself in. Moreover, it seems Dr. Haneef has surely lost his work visa and job at Queensland because of the controversy.

Australia is a country to admire, if for nothing else their tremendous sporting record (the highest per-capita Olympic medals won). They also have a population less than Delhi, so are extremely open to skilled immigration. Yet, I do not think one can just go and melt there, like say most do in Singapore, or people from Bihar and UP in Delhi (to the CM Sheila Dikshit's immense discomfort). In my view, the Aussies can be quite racist, at times their sporting prowess comes at the expense of some serious intellect, and they surely do not take defeat well. Any wonder as to between two ultra-competitive all-time greats, Ponting and Federer, the latter is liked so much more.

The one sport where the Aussies have struggled is the global sport, football. Even the world's most happening continent, Asia, has not really made a mark at the World stage in the game. Africa has thrown up talent (Drogba at Chelsea), or surprise packages (Cameroon). Asia's success is possibly restricted to the semi-final appearance of South Korea in 2002 (when they rode on some amazing physical fitness and home support to go so far), or to North Korea's upset of Italy three decades back.

To improve upon their footballing standing, Australia joined the AFC in 2005, and immediately qualified for their first World Cup appearance in 32 years. The famous Aussie grit came to the fore in an amazing come-from-behind victory over Asian rivals, Japan. Even in defeat to the eventual champions Italy, they were not disgraced and went off in a bloody controversial match.

In the AFC Asian Cup 2007, co-hosted by four South-East Asian countries - Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia - the Aussies came in as tournament favourites. However, the beautiful game is one which makes an ass of reputations. The Economist had famously stated, that with the ignoble exception of Musollini's Italy in the 1930s, no country has managed to manufacture footballing success. The contrast is possibly with a dope-ridden USSR and East Germany constantly out-doing everyone else at the Olympics. The FIFA World Cups have been largely dominated by the talented Brazilians, while England and Spain, with one of the best domestic league structures in the world, have struggled to make any sort of impact (as the Hindustan Times pointed out, 1966 is as much of a mill-stone around the neck for English football as 1983 is for Indian cricket).

In the Asian Cup, the Aussies were knocked out in the preliminary rounds. The hosts, especially Vietnam, had a couple of surprising results, but in the end parity was restored when the traditional powers Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia reached the semis. The jack-in-the-box was Iraq, a country struggling for survival, forget playing football. The team did not even train together. However, they knocked out Vietnam in the quarters, and then got over South Korea in penalties during the semis (avenging their neighbours and traditional foes Iran).

I did not catch the pulsating final against Saudi Arabia because Dravid's boys, and the Little Master, decided to push for a rare overseas victory and a 38th Test century at that very moment. Yet, I still managed to somehow catch the fag-end of the match, when the Iraqi captain Younis Mahmoud decided to score the decisive goal in the 71st minute. The Iraqis held on, to score a stunning and memorable maiden triumph in the regional tournament.

Sports is a strange theater, where as a fan, you put so much of your self at stake for something on which you have no control. I can imagine the support for athletes representing the national team, but why does McLaren, Liverpool, or Federer take so much of our time and energy. The passions run even higher in football, as the difference between the behaviour of the English cricket and football supporters indicates.

However, in terms of nationalistic pride and fervour, the Iraqi victory ranks right up there. George Bush decided to push an imperfect dictatorship into total chaos (is the world a safer place after the invasion?). My hearty congratulations to all those proud footballers, for bringing some joy and cheer to their much-suffering brethren. That is the power of sports I guess!

Inverting Life

2007-07-20T13:26:00.000+05:30

I got the below as a SMS, and found it quite funny .

A prospective couple, just before they are to cross the altar, are conversing.

He: Yes. At last, it was so hard to wait.
She: Do you want me to leave???
He: No! Don't ever think about it.
She: Do you love me?
He: Of course.
She: Have you ever cheated on me?
He: No!!! Why you even asking?
She: Will you kiss me?
He: Yes!!
She: Will you hit me?
He: No way! I'm not such a person.
She: Can I trust you?
He: Yes
She: Dear!

Once they got married, they had the same conversation, from bottom to top.

Managing Contradictions

2007-07-05T16:22:00.000+05:30

I have always found one particular story around the Bhagvad Gita very enchanting.

The Gita, which as our films have continously depicted in their courtroom oath-taking scenes, is THE holy Hindu book, in spite of the multiple alternatives available in the religion (unlike the Bible or the Koran which are the sole treatise of their respective faiths). In the Gita, the hero Arjuna, just before the biggest battle of his life, was overcome by a severe crisis of self-doubt, and then decided to take refuge in the argument of humanity (that his greed was overtaking familial love). To help him conquer his moh-led weakness (something which Arjun goes through a lot of times in the Mahabharat), Lord Krishna gave him a long discourse, the crux of which was to conquer your mind (dhyana), love and surrender all your actions to God (bhakti, nishkaam karma), and indulge in worldly activity, even if slightly flawed (it is an absolute shame that there is a tacit approval to the caste system, determined by birth, during this discourse). Broadly, the path was to become a more difficult Sankhyayogi (what Buddha became), or a more worldly Karmayogi (what Arjun, or in real life, Emperor Ashoka chose to be).

The interesting bit comes later in The Mahabharat, when the war has ended. Yudhisthira went through his own bouts of self-doubts (solved again by Krishna), and also took some lengthy piece of kingly advice from Bheeshma. Arjun, relaxing with Krishna, asked him to repeat the Gita, as he had forgotten it all. Now here is the hero, talking about a philosophy which was to influence the Gandhi-led Satyagraha for a non-violent Indian Independence movement (diametrically opposite to the call for just war that the Gita was supposed to be), and admittedly he does not remember it. Krishna, part amused part annoyed, told him he cannot repeat it as the planetary positions were not perfect like then, but instead narrated him a series of different tales, which are compiled in the Anu Gita (for all those literal interpreters of religious text, there cannot be a better example of openness and flexibility than this).

My take on the Gita, apart from the Karma perspective, has also been also towards the Yogi side. If you read Anant Pai's brilliant Amar Chitra Katha on the Gita, he depicts the Yogi brilliantly - a balanced person, not swinging between extremes (shades of Buddha's middle path?). Yoga literally means 'union with God', and we possibly need this divine union to manage the paradox life can be. For instance, I work for my company, to ensure organisational growth. But my personal growth (for the limited slots available at the top) can only happen if a colleague of mine does not do too well, or simply put, does not exceed my performance. It is something similar to VVS Laxman praying for Ganguly to fail so that he can get back into the team, and Ganguly hoping that Sachin fails so that the pressure passes on to him. Whatever happens, for Laxman to succeed, his team needs to suffer because of someone's failure.

This need for balance argument can be extended across. We need to develop economically, but not at the expense of the environment. We might turn vegetarians not to harm life, but still consume curd which is nothing but live culture.

Yoga shows me, or even Laxman the way. When given a chance, VVS has to simply go ahead and do his job to the best of his ability (his karma). But if he gets a lot of slow runs when the team is gunning for an early declaration, the spirit is wrong (yoga). It is the yoga which will ensure his and the worldly balance.

And as if to prove that my personal hypothesis on the need to find balance being the fundamental question of life is possibly right, Roger Martin has published an article in the June 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review, 'How successful leaders think'. I reproduce an extract (without any permission) below, figure out if it agrees to what Karma-yoga is all about.

In search of lessons to apply in our own careers, we often try to emulate what effective leaders do. Roger Martin says this focus is misplaced, because moves that work in one context may make little sense in another. A more productive, though more difficult, approach is to look at how such leaders think. After extensive interviews with more than 50 of them, the author discovered that most are integrative thinkers - that is, they can hold in their heads two opposing ideas at once and then come up with a new idea that contains element of each but is superior to both. Martin argues that this process of consideration and synthesis (rather than superior strategy or faultless execution) is the hallmark of exceptional businesses and the people who run them.

The Revival

2007-07-02T11:33:00.000+05:30

I am usually sceptical of 'turning of corners', more so when it happens to me, or Indian cricket teams. In my observation of sports, there have been very few seminal, life-changing single incidents (like say, Sachin opening for the first time against New Zealand). Yuvraj Singh laid the foundation for his finisher-credentials with his famous Natwest innings, but is still considered an under-achiever for his phenomenal talent (as his two match-winning innings against the Proteas displayed, the argument is not totally devoid of merit, with him getting regularly beaten on absolutely harmless angled deliveries).

The Indian cricket team had touched an absolute nadir with the World Cup, and as I had pointed out then, there were no easy solutions around. Greg Chappell had flirted with youth, and they had failed to deliver. So it made no sense to blame the proven oldies. Capping player endorsements was to pacify the masses, dropping (rather than resting) Sachin could have been the bombshell.

Yet, for all my caution, I somehow think the Future Cup victory (India's first genuine overseas one in almost four years) augurs very well for the crazy schedule ahead. Because of personal and principle reasons, I did not witness the series in full, only snatches here and there (because another needless ODI series only to cater to my television eyeballs should never have taken place). But I could sense the victory was carved out by the virtue of technique and temperament, in tough, challenging conditions.

Ajit Agarkar's dismissal of Jacques Kallis, one of the most technically proficient batsman in the world, just showed how bloody frustrating the Bombay speedster's career has been. He has never been fully dropped, or confirmed in the team, only because amongst all his looseners, he is capable of producing such perfect deliveries (if you read the coaching manuals, a perfect outswinger angles in, and then moves out late in the air, the type Ajit dished out).

Even more heartening was Sachin Tendulkar. I have come round to the fact that he will probably never leave Ponting's or Lara's Test legacy behind, all his records not withstanding. However, one never wants to witness him as a struggler. His 'Man of Series' award-winning Test centuries against Bangladesh were rather painstaking, but am not sure the same can be said about his 99. He has never batted so long for so less, but the fact that he battled difficult conditions and loss of partners puts this in perspective. More importantly, his selfless, suicidal second run at 98 wiped out my disappointment at his feelings when he was left stranded by Dravid on 194 against Pakistan. However, it was the second ODI which was vintage Sachin. He, along with all Indian batsmen except Dravid (and to a much lesser extent Laxman) had shown a distinct aversion towards any unconventional wicket. The fact that he chose to counter-attack on a difficult pitch was exciting enough. It still might be a false signal, but the way he protested the disallowing of the De Villiers catch (a galling error by my favourite umpire, Aleem Dar) reflected maybe the joy is coming back.

I believe in discipline, but even more so in inspiration. Our domestic structure is ill-suited to produce competitive international cricketers, the fact that we still get world-beaters is amazing enough. Similarly, Greg Chappell (and even the late Bob Woolmer) might be innovative thinkers, but possibly it is the more old-fashioned Dave Whatmore, John Wright and maybe Chandu Borde who inspire the oriental lion-hearts. The Future Cup victory might count for nothing, but now, I look forward to the nPower Test series with less despondency.

The Hero within

2007-06-20T15:59:00.000+05:30

As a very strict policy, I do not do Sponsored posts (and am not really popular or savvy enough to get too many of these requests). Hence, out of total altruistic motives, I recommend you to discover your own heroism, by answering a few absurd questions which take less than five minutes.

The link was referred to by a friend whose analysis I thought was perfectly apt. And as my own analysis was fairly complimentary, I liked it even more.

How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

My Hero:

Hello, Warrior!

You are courageous, straightforward, and charismatic. You're a born leader, but also not afraid to face danger on your own. Nothing stands between you and victory... nothing that lives to tell the tale, anyway. If anyone needs someone to charge into battle for oneself, call on you.

Your Profile:

You're tough, courageous, and up to your eyebrows in chutzpah. If you're still in school, your teachers probably talk a lot about your "potential." If you work, your boss calls you a "pro-active self-starter," whatever that means. You don't shy away from hard work, that's for sure. When it comes to leisure, you'd rather be out hiking or biking or snowboarding than sitting around watching TV or reading a book. You care about your health, and have strong opinions.

Above all, you're a man/woman of action and a born leader. You see obstacles as challenges and hardship as an opportunity to build your character (and your muscles). You're not afraid of conflict - in fact, you're not afraid of much of anything. You tend to dive into things headfirst and sort out the consequences later.

Your Mission:

You were put on this earth to lead others. They will follow you, because they are bowled over by your forceful personality, your charisma, and your willingness to do what they're afraid to do. You are the one who has to make things happen, because everyone else is too afraid of rocking the boat.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to Start Something. Something small, or something big. Start a club at your school. Propose a new project to your boss. Invent a new family tradition. Start a small business. Start something.

A Warning:

Try to remember: it's not all about you. Yes, people tend to do what you say, but don't abuse that power. Don't be a bully, even if you feel like the weaklings really deserve it. Have a Paladin teach you how to "make nice" when necessary. You have the potential to become a great leader, but only if you curb your tendency to be thoughtless, egocentric, and well, sometimes just plain rude.

And by the way, just because you don't understand something, that doesn't mean it's "stupid." Get a Wizard to figure things out for you instead of just giving up when your attention span runs out.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End**

2007-06-09T13:40:00.000+05:30

At the risk of repeating myself, trilogies are a nice number (ever heard of Quadrilogies, Pentalogies, and so on). The greatest of them all - Godfather - could not go beyond one. There have been others like Star Wars (the original but-as-we-realised-later-Sequel trilogy), which improved with every movie for a stunning climax (Return of the Jedis). And there have been Matrix, which degenerated in to utter nonsense by the end.

At the end of Spider-Man 3, I was hopeful they will not drag a great trilogy that has worked. I guess my fear was the fate which has befallen the Pirates series. I absolutely feasted on the first part, a movie right up my alley, reminding me so much of the first Rushdie I read, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Jack Sparrow was outstanding to get Johnny Depp an Academy Award nomination. And it launched the young Keira Knightley into global consciousness (sorry Gurinder Chadha, who cast her in Bend it like Beckham).

In spite of the relatively negative critical reviews of the second part, I quite enjoyed it, especially as it ended on a relatively exciting note (read my review http://agyanonline.blogspot.com/2006/08/cinema-pirates-of-caribbean-dead-mans.html). However, I definitely cannot say the same about the third part.

The Pirates movies have always been long, but at a Hindi-cinemaish runtime of 168 minutes, World's End really stretches you. Each and every character has a sub-plot of his own, which only reduces the screen-impact which Johnny Depp had in the first two parts. Mind you, he is still as hilarious as ever, especially when his multiple personalities talk to each other, and in his interactions with betrayer Keira. However, the lovely Pirates theme music has been really underused (a similar problem I had with the latest James Bond's Casino Royale too).

At World's End is supposed to tie up all the loose ends of the Pirates series. There is Jack Sparrow to be rescued back from the world's end, Elizabeth and Will to get together (alas, the good thing of the second part could not really have lasted), Davy Jones and his heart to be taken care of, Will's father Bootstrap to be rescued, and Beckett & Co. to be defeated (it is actually the East India Company, a nice tribute to our Mutiny celebrations). Moreover, the evil Capt. Barbossa is back, alive and kicking.

The two main elements introduced in the new movie are Calypso (the Sea-Goddess, and the lost betrayed love of Davy) and Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat in a ridiculously underwritten role). They all start off on the hunt for Jack quite stunningly, and after his rescue, the final fight ends in a brilliant climax in turbulent seas. Yet, in the meantime, apart from a very enchanting pirate-lord gathering, you witness none of the sparks of the first two installments. Elizabeth still looks as attractive, kisses more men, exchanges marital vows with Will in between a sword-fight, has a tragic sort of finish to her love story, yet looks done with the character.

Box-office returns not withstanding, my sincere request to Disney would be not to extend the franchise any further. I can live with more Spider-Mans, but Jack Sparrow, surely does not deserve the fate of Neo.

Literacy, and Learnings

2007-05-30T16:19:00.000+05:30

Rupa Purshottam (currently with the Future Group, previously with Goldman Sachs) and Sir Martin Sorrell have made BRIC, with a high degree of stress on the I and the C, trendy. India is supposed to have a huge demographic advantage, to fully leverage its new-century-phase of high economic growth. And thanks to the one-child norm, the competitor China is aging super-fast, giving a naturally old Europe, Russia and Japan a close run. Only the US is getting along, possibly by shifting to high-end economic activities and attracting the best brains globally. As the film Babel showed, the more mundane tasks can always be taken care of by cheap Latino (usually illegal) imports.

I have always suspected our demographic advantage. Firstly, India is growing in services, which can never uplift the downtrodden agriculturists into manufacturing-created types prosperity. Secondly, the so called youth advantage is being totally wasted if they are only busy doing nothing. Ever wondered why the two states with so many young - UP & Bihar - have so many applicants to the low-paying inefficient Government jobs (compteeshan as it is called).

Right from my own days (which is less than a decade old), I have had comprehensive doubts about our education system. I was lucky enough to have had premier education in a top school, but most of my learnings - social interaction skills, sports, swimming - has really happened after passing out. I went to a good college where I paid a annual fee which is equal to the cover-charge of most pubs these days. More importantly, in college, I got my training on the grihastha stage of life (managing a household), and an idea on what sort of people I want to have as friends.

After that, my mother was economically sound (and personally kind) enough to send me for my MBA, where I possibly started developing my current fantasies for writing (you know whom to blame now). I also learnt to present & communicate (just imagine how bad it might have been), and stood in an election ( to compensate in a miniscule manner for the lasting regret of never getting involved in college politics).

India currently languishes in the global literacy charts, and mind you a literate can simply sign his name. Wonder what will happen if we start studying education patterns. My problem is with the kind of education system we have. I recently interacted with some students trying to build their career, and I realised two things: a) my alma mater has totally lost focus in the sort of applicants they get, b) there is a plethora of engineers in the country, who get into careers on reasons even more unsound than my fantasies.

Amartya Sen is a humane economist, because he stresses a lot on Socio-Economic indicators. At a fundamental level, I agree, that one needs an education, simply to live. As I often hypothesise, Gavaskar managed his retirement much better than Kapil Dev possibly because his education gave him a better perspective on the larger picture. Also, any surprises that the two wonderful cricketing performers, who have managed their and their peers' interest the best, Srinath and Kumble, are both engineers.

However, an education system unrooted in real-life (at elementary levels), and with no academia-industry interaction (at advanced levels), has no hope in hell in turning out 21st century products. India is facing a severe talent crunch, with Mr. Manmohan Singh to take note, spiraling executive pays as companies want to retain good performers. We have an army of graduates and post-graduates ill-equipped for most jobs, and an army of illiterates with no hope of getting any. When it comes to professional interactions, I prefer people who have worked more, rather than studied more.

The esteemed Court has asked all public schools in Delhi, built upon subsidised land, to compulsorily take 15% poor students (including wards of their staffs). A very noble objective on paper, but in reality, with our inherent class and racial prejudices, it lays open a very impressionable mind subject to lasting peer-abuse, only because of his karmic economic background. Can you imagine the pressure when each kid in the class is expected to celebrate his birthday at McDonald's? Or just check up with all the reserved-quotas guy who have landed up in IITs, and whose tribe Arjun Singh wants to increase.

Shashi Tharoor really believes in the Indian affirmative action (reservations), and as he has seen more of the world and life than me, I am ready to grant it to him. Yet, I am not sure the economically-disadvantaged kids deserve to be ostracised so. I might be totally off-the-mark, and I really hope so. But somehow, with all due respect, whenever the judiciary gets in to the executive space, they do come up with strange solutions, like banning street food, or child labour, pushing a thriving functional populace in to uncertainty.

To my mind, schools running afternoon/evening classes, for a relatively similar strata of society, is a much smarter idea. On the face of it, it sounds another prejudiced opinion from a well-off, but I actually think it might create a more competent educated class. After all, Vinod Kambli (from powercentre Bombay) could never realise his talent. Harbhajan, Sehwag, Dhoni, from their relatively unglamorous places, seem to be doing much better.

Dubyaman

2007-05-25T11:00:00.000+05:30

I quite like the USA. To my mind, the American stress on individual freedom, meritocracy and market-led capitalism makes it a genuine 'land of opportunity' (however flawed it might be in reality). Besides, of all the historical superpowers, the USA has been relatively the most moralistic (though that just might be a function of the slightly more enlightened era we are living in).

Over the years, the biggest drawback for the average Yankee has been his complete lack of general awareness, and lack of any bother because of it. This is more perplexing for us Indians, who pride ourselves on our general knowledge. No one typifies the unawareness more than their divisive President, George 'Dubya' Bush, arguably the world's most powerful man.

George Bush Jnr. was a rowdy young man from a premier political family of America. After having all the fun in his youthful days, he claims to have had divine premonitions that he is the 'chosen one' (Rakeysh Mehra was not so off the mark in his debut flick Aks, where Manoj Bajpai uses similar reasoning from Gita to justify his crimes). To get a full flavour of the man, one needs to see Michale Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, especially the first half; part hilarious, part poignant, supremely biased. Even Jug Suraiya's Dubyaman strip in The Time of India was quite funny in the beginning, though has become slightly dragging now.

I got the below story as a forward, but I think it is a great caricature of Bush, a supreme dictator leading the world's strongest democracy.

Donald Rumsfeld briefed the President this morning. He told Bush that three Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq. To everyone's amazement, all of the colour ran from Bush's face, then he collapsed onto his desk, head in hands, visibly shaken, almost whimpering. Finally, he composed himself and asked Rumsfeld, "Just exactly how many is a brazillion?"

Spider-Man 3***

2007-05-04T21:18:00.000+05:30

In spite of Marvel's lack of interest in India, and DD's lousy attempts (catchy tune not withstanding) on Saturday afternoons, Sam Raimi made me into a Spidey-buff. Spider-Man 2 is arguably the best superhero movie of all time. For me, it is just a notch above Superman-II, and an even tinier notch below Batman Begins. In fact, even without the restrictive classification of the Superhero genre, Spider-Man 2 was a damn good flick in its own right.

The good thing about the superhero movies is the sheer predictability of it all, yet the intense thrill which you get by witnessing the same thing over again. In fact, even for classically good movies, the same formula works. Lagaan was a masterpiece, yet did anyone doubt that Aamir Khan will romp home successfully, especially after he had already done it with such spectacular results in Awwal Number. I guess that's why I consider the pre-senile Kundan Shah a genius, the sheer unpredictability and blackness of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na shining through, in spite of the strong empathy with the characters.

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series has had a very nice and logical buildup. The comic book franchise was the lead weapon with which Marvel fought its bitter rival DC (who had two heroes Superman and Batman to counter the Spidey). The first movie was a timeless under-dog tale - an average Joe getting lucky, and then trying to come to terms with his newly-found luck, all achieved through good acting performances, and even better technology. Raimi actually excelled in the second rendition, where both the hero and the villain fought their own inner demons in different manners (and to rather different ends). The fight of Spidey and Doc Ock in the New York tube is easily one of the most impressive set action-pieces ever filmed. What makes the technology of the scene so humanly identifiable is the finish of it, where Spiderman displays strength I never knew he had, grinding a running train to halt, and then collapsing right in front of his beneficiaries.

Raimi had solved most of Spiderman's dilemmas by the second part. So he chose two new tracks for the third part: the hinted at Harry's revenge for his father's death in the 2 climax, and the battle of the devil (not demon) within, going by the name of Venom. The problems with Spider-Man 3 lies with the third villain, Sandman, who is even retrofitted to be his Uncle Ben's real killer (disproven in the comics). We have already seen Peter struggling with his Uncle's avenging in the original, Venom doing the same is uncalled for. In fact, the 'black'ness is much better established with his treatment of perpetual sweetheart MJ.

In 2, MJ lies at the very heart of Peter's dilemma (something which sparked off a real trend in Hollywood, for everyone from Bruce Wayne to James Bond to explore the softer romantic side within). In 3, she gets over-bearing - her failures, her insecurities, her self-absorption. The scene where the dark Peter spites her at the bar she sings at is good, the buildup to that scene is a bit stretched.

The single biggest problem with Spider-Man 3 lies in its length (oh God, not again!). The first two movies were approximately two hours, the third one is that vital 20 mins extra. Possibly, without the Sandman angle, especially the emotional perspective, the movie would have been reduced to just the right duration. Even the best action pieces - right in the beginning (the Goblin chase and the out-of-control crane), or right at the end (the climax, where Spidey takes up the challenge of the two adversaries to stunning theatrical impact, though would have preferred if the US flag backdrop could have been avoided, after all he is a global hero now) - do not really need the Man of Sandman.

Casting Tobey Maguire as Spiderman was the coup of the century. Heroes are expected to look like Christopher Reeve and Christian Bale, not this pint-sized guy next door (whose role in the only other movie of his I have seen, The Cider House Rules, was made just for his persona). However, what Tobey has done is given the under-dog Peter an unbelievable believability. In 3, he is almost matched by the unlikely Topher Grace (as Venom), who was supposed to do Spidey's role if Tobey failed his audition, or had to later opt out of the series because of his back-problems.

Kirsten Dunst as MJ splits opinions. I am sort of ambivalent towards her, she is neither a stunner, nor so incompetent for me to hate her. She does irritate me at times, but I guess that might be effective acting too. James Franco as the New Goblin has to fill Willem Defoe's huge shoes, and he again does a good job as Harry. The super-talented Bryce Dallas Howard is sort of wasted as the blonde beauty, Gwen Stacy (his original love in the comics, who is murdered by Green Goblin). However, JK Simmons continues to be superb as Jameson.

The excess length of Spider-Man 3 at times hides the strong emotional content of the film, something which worked very well in 2. However, the interesting prediction will be the future of the series.

At the end of the third part, Spidey stands much stronger that Neo did in Matrix, and thank God for that! In the comics, there are enough villains to fight, but is there enough ammunition for a full-fledged movie. The studio, which at nearly 250Mn.$ has made the most expensive movie ever (over-taking King Kong), is tight-lipped.

My only plea will be, please do not show me Champions struggle. I prefer the McGrath way of farewell to Akram.

Great Indian

2007-05-02T15:41:00.000+05:30

Today happens to be Buddha Poornima, a special day when Gautam Buddha supposedly took birth as Siddharth, achieved enlightenement to become Buddha, and passed away into Nirvana (some coincidence eh). What makes this Buddha Poornima even more special is that today is 2500 years since his birth, a feat magnificent enough for the Lalu-led Indian Railways to run a special Buddhist circuit train.

Amartya Sen considers Gautam Buddha to be the Greatest Indian ever (though Buddha was technically born in Nepal, unlike Madhuri Dixit, I am sure Sen does not consider Nepal a part of India; just that Buddha's bulk of professional work was done here in India). In my mind, the only likely competition for Buddha comes in from Mahatma Gandhi, active in a more contemporary era, but who would have been truly made divine if he was born even a couple of centuries back. Vivekananda was an equal in terms of spiritual enlightenment, while Adi Shankaracharya possibly equalled his zest for spiritual reform.

Yet, as a package, Gautam Buddha remains unsurpassable. His first step towards divinehood emanated from some existential questions, sort of similar to what Arjun asks Krishna in Gita, and even what Peter Parker asks himself in Sam Raimi's Spiderman-II. The questions were basic, yet profound enough to change life, and lives. Apparently, at the age of 29, Siddharth left everything ( a character flaw, or virtue, which Buddha shares with his supposedly preceding avatar, Lord Krishna, who also sacrificed most familial ties and relationships for the global good). Siddharth visited Godmen, and undertook rituals, yet finally achieved enlightenment all by himself, at the age of 35, meditating under a Bodhi tree at Gaya for forty-nine days (Source: wikipedia).

Buddhism is the most logical and humane philosophy possible. For me, its fundamental tenets are balance, reason, compassion, and agnosticism. The beliefs are pessimistic, though true (of the world being a sad place). Yet the way-of-life remains extremely positive, of finding your own way, your own calling, and even your own beliefs (the Ian Chappell/Tony Roche school of coaching anyone?). In a fast codifying religious world hijacked by high-sounding priests, the masses simply took to this simple man preaching in the then common language, Pali.

Buddha was not trying to start off a new religion, just reform the existing one, or rather show a way-of-life. Hinduism responded in a very smart manner, by branding him as an avatar of Vishnu. However, the Buddhism religion really took off a couple of centuries later, when the most famous personality from Bihar ever, Ashoka, sent out his missionaries on the most successful cultural mission from India (possibly matched only by Raj Kapoor's Awara and Shri 420 a couple of milleniums later).

The Buddhist religion spread like wildfire, from Japan in far East to Sri Lanka in immediate South. And at most places, the religion went against the very tenets of what Gautam Buddha had preached. He was called a God, and there were massive gold statues built in his name. Yet, I find Buddhist leaders a lot more easy, a lot less stiff than most other religious leaders. Just compare the Dalai Lama to the Pope, one smiles and talks about homosexuality and teenage sex, the other preaches about abstinence instead of using condoms.

The Buddha and Yoga are easily India's most famous exports. We rarely manage to incorporate Krishna's high-brow sermons in the Gita, I guess it will be a much simpler idea to listen, think about and do what Gautam Buddha said. You know, they both said almost the same things!

Joie de vivre

2007-04-22T11:57:00.000+05:30

For cricket-followers like me, grown up watching television commentary and reading print analysis, there are certain set stereotypes of witnessing cricketers, in particular batsmen. So we have great batsmen (Sir Viv Richards), gritty batsmen (Javed Miandad), classical batsmen (Sunny Gavaskar), and then there are those whom we pay-to-watch. The part-graceful, part-disgraced, Mohd. Azharuddin is usually a hot favourite amongst my friends there.

At a fundamental level, we watch cricket (or any other sport) for entertainment. Hence, the guys who entertain us, or we will pay-to-watch, usually happen to be the favourites. Amongst batsmen, I have two clear choices, our own special VVS Laxman, and the legendary Brian Lara. Apart from the fact that both of them look so exquisite when batting, I can point quite a number of similarities - huge appetite for getting large scores, match-winning counter-attacking instinct in tough situations (especially against the Aussies), and divine handling of spin bowling. Any coincidence that these two have played the two best Test innings I have ever witnessed, at Calcutta and Barbados respectively, against a full Aussie attack, in near-impossible situations.

The Indian selection vagaries have ensured that the Laxman I knew has metamorphosed into a more flairless transplant. The crucial bit about Lara, was that in spite of losing the maximum number of Test matches in history, the art was never sacrificed at the altar of science. Hence the greatness, and joie de vivre!

For a person who grew up on Sachin Tendulkar in the 90s, Lara was an obvious candidate to follow. The first time I heard these two legends being compared was in 1994, by the then England coach Keith Fletcher, when Lara got his life-changing 375. Lara went on to establish his hegemony with a series of record-breaking scores. However, when they clashed the first time round in 1994, on the Indian soil, Sachin came out tops, and took a distinct lead over Lara for the next five years. In fact, we got the first hint of the 'moods of the genius' during that Indian tour only, when Lara struggled throughout. Yet, in the final Test at Mohali (which the Windies won to keep their clean slate in terms of Test series defeats, before succumbing to the Aussies at home later in the same season), Lara got a crucial 91. Yet, when he nicked one, the faintest of the faintest edges, on which noone bother to appeal, he walked.

Lara has been an enigma throughout. Accolades have been flowing in for him, calling him the Best Batsman of his Generation. I will possibly pump for Ponting there, but for some reason, I do not want to really like Ponting. I guess the comparison can be with Akram, a magician with the ball, but pipped to the 'best' post by a less adventurous McGrath.

Lara was a genius in the true sense of the term. I had just heard of great artists getting inspirations, Lara epitomised artistry. When he was not in form, he looked ugly, jumping into shots, feet and arms all over the place, getting hit and beaten. However, when the stars were in place, he was poetry in motion. The jumpy footwork appeared nimble, feets & arms collaborated to produce shots which you never thought existed (late cuts off fast bowlers, nataraj pull to length deliveries), and the deadliest swinging balls flashily driven anywhere into the off-side, as per wont.

Apart from the fact that Lara's game was so attractive (his exaggerated backlift always denoted that he is looking to play an attacking stroke, a delivery was stopped in defense only as a last resort, as if His Highness had decided to spare it), the exhilarating bit came from what he did with that style. I saw the legendary knock at Barbados throughout (in the middle of a crucial examination), the awesome fact was not what he did, but how he did it. Mind you, McGrath was at his very best, both with the ball and his mouth (he picked up 5 wickets), yet Lara kept attacking. In that crucial partnership with Ambrose, Warne operated with a field which had nine fielders on the boundary, yet Lara's placement was so precise that it continuously pierced them all, shielding the big Curtley from the wily Warne. This very treatment ensured that for the first and the last time in his career, then vice-captain Warney was dropped from the next deciding Test.

Brian Lara had a sporadic 90s, oscillating between peaks and troughs, brushes with establishment, openly coveting captaincy and hence not giving his full support to Walsh (his record under him is almost pedestrian), and apparently, flirting with bookies (The Cheat who Walks). When his captaincy was under pressure before that legendary Frank Worrell Trophy on 1999, he single-handedly ensured a draw. Yet, after a whitewash in South Africa the subsequent season, he resigned from the captaincy, stung by "moderate success and devastating failures".

In the new century, Lara threw caution-to-the-winds. As West Indian cricket touched new nadirs, and he fast sprinted towards his infamous Test-losing record, he found new masterpieces to carve. He was never consistent, yet rattled off huge tons and doubles. Against Murali in Sri Lanka, at home against the Proteas (just after being relieved of the captaincy again), reclaiming the highest Test score (and breaching the 400 barrier), simply kept the adrenaline pumping. For me, a quick 40, off 40 deliveries, which he got in the first innings against the Aussies at Antigua (the Test where the record 416 was chased down in the second innings), epitomised it all. That 40 was as exciting as anything I have ever seen on a cricket field (a close similie was Sachin's near-abouts, again against the Aussies, in the ICC Champions' Trophy at Nairobi in 2000). First Lara went eye-to-eye with his counterpart Steve Waugh fielding at covers (somehow, an eye-to-eye from under the helmet, glaring into tiny eyes, further narrowed and hidden under shades, looks extremely unevenly-matched), then taunted the then-quick Gillespie when he bowled a bouncer, and had the audacity to late-cut the next delivery, a perfectly pitched good-length ball.

The baffling element of his career was Lara's legacy as captain. Some of his decisions - inserting oppositions on perfectly good pitches (and with his bowling attacks), team-selection, enforcing follow-ons - ranged from strange to ridiculous. He was apparently a disruptive influence on the team, as Darren Ganga claimed, and players like Sarwan & Gayle seconded by under-performing massively when he got his usual big one. Yet, he gave up his second stint of captaincy only because the board dropped his fellow-players due to some endorsement conflicts. He decided to sink with his team-mates, even though they often refused to swim with him.

The end for Lara was swift and brutal. He had already decided to retire from ODI cricket after the World Cup, but wanted to continue patronising his favoured Test version (maybe a hint for Sachin there). However, Greenidge and Roberts had some other plans, and instead of risking the humiliation of getting dropped, he decided to go on his own terms.

Lara's farewell International game was at Barbados, the venue of his most famous Test innings. It was his announcement which ensured a dead match at the World Cup saw its largest turnout. And his end followed the same pattern as his career, done in by one of his own. As he asked the crowds at the finish, 'Did I entertain you?', there is one resounding Aye from this part of the world.

So long, Brian, and thanks for all the joy! Hope to see you in the Indian Cricket League.

The Sick-Man of Sports World

2007-04-15T14:00:00.000+05:30

Today was supposed to be the D-Day of the showpiece tournament of world cricket, when India would have taken on Pakistan in the 9th edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup, at the one-time Caribbean fortress of Barbados. Instead, we have Bangladesh taking on Ireland, for a Battle of the Minnows. I should be careful, Rahul Dravid had said that the World Cup can be won by any of the eight nations, he had conveniently forgotten all about the ninth (or is it the tenth?) country Bangladesh, who knocked out his team.

The so-called most open World Cup has easily turned out to be the worst one in history, much inferior to the 1996 Wills edition. The only reason we do not know all the semi-finalists yet is because Bangladesh caused another upset, of the then ICC-ranked world No.1 team South Africa. You cannot blame the ICC, they rank teams basis all the meaningless ODI games played around the world. And every country is fast discovering a niche, certain set of conditions, which suit them best. So for instance, South Africa and Sri Lanka have almost a 50-50 record in ODIs, because in their respective home conditions, both of them thrash each other. Teams now simply collapse if the pitch has any juice, any thing different, whatsoever. Australia stems the rot to some extent, India accentuates it to a much greater degree.

As Ian Chappell points out in his article below, cricket is in serious jeopardy, mainly because of an administration which is as money-hungry as Bernie Ecclestone, and as competent as KPS Gill.
http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/extracover/content/current/story/290371.html

Like most humans, I root for the underdog. I like upsets, and David slaying Goliath. The Irish team did almost that when they defeated Pakistan, but what I don't like is what happened next? It is a joy to see Johnston celebrate his dismissal of Gilchrist, but it looks good at the street level too (which is more like my level). Does that mean I should be playing the ICC Cricket World Cup Super Eights? The Irish team reminds me so much of Kenya; wonderfully talented, who conquered the then still-substantial West Indies a decade back, and reached the last edition's semi-final, yet are currently struggling to impose themselves on the game at a global level. I will be much happier to witness Kenya lift the Afro-Asian first-class tournament, not go on causing flash-in-the-pan upsets. Instead, the ICC (or the ACC) is organising the stupid Afro-Asian Cup in the heat of Chennai in June.

The key to sustained success in cricket can only be a strong and competitive feeder structure - first-class, club, junior, at whatever levels. India's Junior cricket, in spite of the fudged birth-certificates, has become relatively strong, and now is the chief supplier of talent and coaches to the senior team (any wonder why Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad have been preferred over all the other Ranji team coaches; in fact, Ranji stalwarts like Gagandeep Singh and Joginder Sharma will always be edged out by the Irfan Pathan of youth cricket). Imran also made the Under-19 his favourite haunt for scouting his Wasims and Waqars.

Australia's historical dominance of the game - except for a brief blip in mid-80s caused by three retirements and a rebellion, a chapter which they never forget and hence are always prepared for - has been mainly on the strength of their feeder system. A similar system in place was the reason South Africa walked back into International cricket as giants, not as minnows.

The first-class system in the sub-continent has always been weak, or non-existent. In spite of all the hype, we have been a relatively poor cricketing nation, hoping destiny and individual drive to throw up the Gavaskars, the Tendulkars, the Dravids and the Kumbles (whom we cherish more than our overseas statistics). Pakistan somehow has unearthed quality fast-bowlers, which have made them a lot more competitive in the crucial Test arena. And the Sri Lankan Sinhalese survive mainly because of their natural sporty, outdoorsy nature. Their Board is currently in the worst shape of all.

New Zealand have a record quite similar to India - world-beaters at home, relatively poor travelers, and individual talent to excite the senses (the key difference is fielding). In fact, if the Indian economy would have been of any lesser volume and size than it is, our standing in world cricket would have been very similar. The West Indies always survived through fabulous natural talent, honed on the beaches, and polished in the grind of the County circuit. Now with year-round cricket in place, the structural deficiencies and the economic backwardness of the Caribbean countries are coming to haunt them. For Zimbabwe, President Mugabe has sunk the nation, so there is not much hope for the Cricket Board with Patron Mugabe around.

Where does it leave my favourite game? In very unsafe hands, I fear. Indian money finances world cricket, and we all know that this money generates itself from an extremely unnatural, rather artificial, structure. The day the market decides to correct itself (if it is already not doing so), the game around the world will be in serious trouble.

Even more worrying is Australia's continued domination of the game. I actually do not think they are as good as their record suggests. For example, in the match against England, their captain Ricky Ponting himself admitted that they had decided not to give lip to Pietersen, as it helps him concentrate better. Yet, Ponting himself broke the dikat, totally unneccesarily as Pietersen was just settling in, without being threatening. For some this might denote aggression of intent, for me it denotes lack of discipline and self-restraint, worse as it happened unprovoked, hence a weakness to be exploited.

I can go on and on about the ills afflicting the game, about how only lawyers and scientist can now understand what constitutes throwing when bowling, how batsmen cannot raise an eyebrow when dismissed wrongly, while bowlers can get away with murder, and what not?

At the end of the day, cricket also happens to be a sport (or depending upon perspective, a very healthy entertainment option). Having the best system in place does not necessarily ensure success (ask the English or the Spanish, who have the best Football leagues), but it goes a long way in ensuring competitiveness. I am not sure if there was any correlation, but the A-League was launched in Australia in 2005, and the next year the Socceroos qualified for the Football World Cup after a gap of 32 years.

Currently, Cricket Australia, along with the ECB to some extent (the recent whitewash not withstanding), are the only boards working in the right direction to ensure the relevance of the game. If the rest do not catch up soon, we just might be back to the 19th century, witnessing the battle for the Ashes as the only top cricketing option.

The Great Indian Democracy

2007-04-08T15:03:00.000+05:30

Lord Meghnad Desai, once when comparing India to China, commented that India can only aspire to be a good democracy, never a great nation. There is a lot which is going wrong in China, but their sheer bloody-mindedness to ensure its 'peaceful rise' is absolutely commendable. As another scholar pointed out, the Chinese go ahead and act, making mistakes but rectifying them with suitable remedial action. Apparently in India, we will just not move ahead till everything is in perfect order, because our democratic political system does not allow any mistake to be pardoned.

As Amartya Sen says, Indians have always been argumentative; highly opinionated in my opinion. Yet, today, we, the supposed liberals, cannot simply argue on a lot of reasonable issues - reservations, minority rights and appeasement, adult content, homosexuality, and what not. But on the obvious things we need to act, the debate simply never ends - administrative reforms, judicial reforms, economic growth, poverty alleviation, infrastructure. Why should anyone have anything against the building of world-class airports is beyond me? Just stand in our immigration queue once, and you will figure out what Corporate Communication means.

Take caste-based reservations. The same were introduced by our Founding Fathers to correct the historic injustice meted out to the socially-ostracised backward castes. They were based on the 1931 Census, and were supposed to wither away in ten years time, a time-frame by when the wrong was expected to be corrected. However, as we all know very well, it has just dragged on, as it is a lot more convenient to get votes this way. No politician, however sane or intelligent (including our PM and FM) can publicly take a stand on Arjun Singh's joke on educational quotas (done apparently without his party's and madam's connivance, only to resurrect his political career). How can a India, supposed to take on China, try to impose caste-based reservations in the private sector.

The bending down to the mass-opinion, which by itself is going through a worrying dumbing down, is a phenomena replicated across sectors. In the 1970s and 80s, the parallel-cinema actors - Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar - used to sweep the Filmfare Awards, restricting the ruling deity Amitabh Bachchan to few select awards in his unchallenged reign at the top. I am not for or against it, but now it is much easier for the actors working in the biggest hits of the year, to walk away with the awards. Similarly, we talk about the absence of all-India hits, and multiplexes have actually promoted niche cinema. Yet, today's biggest mass-media phenomena happens to be Ekta Kapoor. Based on my extremely superficial knowledge of the contents of her productions, I can only say that whatever little craft, little art, I have witnessed in her serials is absolutely shocking. And the style is imitated across serials, across channels.

As the notorious Mr. Chappell pointed out before parting, we cannot stick band-aid on cancer (and we do love doing it). The Blue Billion was baying for blood. So to pacify the nation, the BCCI President and our Agriculture Minister, Mr. Sharad Pawar, and his elected cohorts, went ahead and decided that the players should not be models anymore. And what more, the masses, and even the classes interviewed on English News channels, loved it.

Next time when I fail to meet my sales target, or my cousin does badly in his Annual School sports meet, I will ensure that we all stop watching movies. Helluva distracting from our professions, these dumbed-down expensive-to-watch Hindi movies, and they cannot even win that bloody Oscar once.

Dreams, Visions and Fantasies

2007-04-07T15:09:00.000+05:30

Well, instead of April-3, it seems April-7 has turned out to be a milestone day for Indian cricket. So let me try and figure out what this change in path for BCCI and Indian cricket is all about. What's right, what's not, and what's intriguing.

The Pros (all in decreasing order of priority):

Paid selectors, to be appointed in a year's time, when the current honorary team's appointment expires. Gives us a year's time to arrive at the best system, especially in terms of the quantity of personnel, support staff, and the recruitment mechanism.
Specialist coaches (Robin Singh for fielding and Venkatesh Prasad for bowling), overseen by a Cricket Manager (Ravi Shastri). The personnel maybe for the Bangladesh trip only, but the system, as suggested by Rahul Dravid, and as implemented worldwide (England, Australia, South Africa, at time Pakistan), should stay. The prefect thing is the balance achieved, Singh and Prasad have worked in the system, so they even-out a more glamorous and outsider Shastri. And I like the term, Cricket Manager, because that what he is supposed to be (refer previous post).
Junior Cricket. One of the most successful systems in the world, needs to be built upon, and as suggested by the seven ex-captain committee, provided with better wickets, umpires, selectors and coaches.
Full-time Media Manager. India's largest entertainment industry was crying out for one for a long time.
NCA Consultant, again, refer to previous post as to why Chappell might be still relevant. And it will be safer if he 'Consults' on what kind of players to train, not 'Coach' them to become what he visualises them to be.
Dravid as Captain, I believe there is cricketing merit in that, but for now, will go with the There Is No Alternative factor.

The Cons:

Player Endorsements, limited to three, and no shoot fifteen days prior to a major tournament. I will refrain from commenting as I am somewhat part of the Media & Entertainment industry, but the Board's move can easily be legally challenged in a court of law as an unfair trade practice. In today's capitalised and globalised world, such moves can never work. If a player is losing cricketing focus because of endorsements, he is simply eroding his market-value. It will also be interesting to figure out what major tournaments mean, does the impending trip to Bangladesh qualify?
Scrapping of Contracts. Again, a move which goes against the way sports-persons are treated, globally. This gives an incentive to players to hide injuries. If you remember, it originated when the non-celebrity but stellar Anil Kumble lost out a lot of playing money because of his shoulder injury. And when we are talking about having a pool of cricketers to rotate amongst, who will want to sit out, if they lose money?
Politics? As Sanjay Manjrekar has pointed out, usually, the best invitees for reform meetings are not articulate outsiders, but insiders who have worked in the system. Maybe that's why, Dilip Vengsarkar, as the Chief Selector, is such an ideal combination, a successful international cricketer, who has been extensively involved in Mumbai selection and BCCI's TRD (Talent Resources Development). However, more critically, Sharad Pawar refused to invite Ajit Wadekar, an Indian Captain later than Pataudi and Borde, but more importantly, the Indian Manager for a large period in the 90s. The reason, Wadekar fought a cricketing election against him in Mumbai. It would have been genuinely professional if they invited Jagmohan Dalmiya to give his viewpoints on administration.

The Intrigues:

Performance-linked Bonus. A good move in theory, but the ratio needs to be better, not 3:1. Will we, the middle-class working professionals, accept such dicey payment terms in our cushy jobs?
Absence of BCCI's marketing brain. Wonder why the moolah-generator Lalit Modi was off to London, instead of being present at this crucial meet?

The Unfinished Job:

Domestic Cricket. The ex-captain committee suggested the obvious ones: better wickets, and the Ranji Trophy Elite group restricted to ten teams. However, in the long term, we need a more robust study, and figure out if Maharashtra and Gujarat need three representative teams. Ideally, de-link Ranji teams to political administration and cricketing history.
Paid Administrative Staff. We need a select core team insulated from politicking and regime changes (maybe like our notorious bureaucracy). This team can report to the Cricketing Committee (as suggested by ex-captains), who act as the Board of Directors for all the elected, honorary shareholders of the BCCI.

A Personal Fantasy:

A fixed annual Indian cricketing calendar:

Like Oz, we play five-six Test matches at home, ideally in Feb-Mar (when the wickets turn and it is hot), and with occasions like a Pongal Test match in Chennai thrown in.
Not more than ten ODIs - triangular or bilateral. And no meaningless matches like warm-ups against West Indies and Sri Lanka.
A competitive first-class domestic tournament, with top international stars turning up for their respective teams during the main matches.
Four year touring cycles against Pakistan and Australia (similar to the Ashes).

But then, when will we fulfill our FTP commitments? Here's wishing to a genuine start!

Chappell family vs the Indian family

2007-04-04T12:29:00.000+05:30

April 3, 2007, should have been a golden-letter day for me. Subhash Chandra gave fruit to a much bastardised version of a long-held dream of mine - a nine-to-eleven city-based cricketing leagues to produce our International cricketers. I do not like the names of the cricketers being withheld, nor the fact that they play the 20:20 version, but someone is at least thinking on those lines, even as a marketing gimmick.

The more important bit was that for the first time ever, my favourite cricketer, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, in the weakest moment of his golden career, decided to take someone head-on. The nonsense of the media leaks - from whoever, BCCI, Greg Chappell or Rajan Bala - had been going on too long. And the best part of Sachin's coup, our Indian Icon threw the Aussie legend out (whose fortune till a couple of days back, laid in the hands of honorary members of the BCCI). However, in another television interview the very next day, Sachin sort of disowned his ground-breaking press interview.

I belong to the Ian Chappell school of cricketing theory, which keeps things simple. Batsmen score quick runs, Bowlers take quick wickets, Fielders take smart catches and get run-outs, the Captain leads, and the Coach, well he Manages. Cricket is different from football, a game where the on-field captain has a limited role to play, and the Manager (or Coach, as per nomenclature) has an active role in strategy formulation and management. In cricket, a high-profile coach works only if the team is pathetic, or at a very low ebb. So Dave Whatmore turned around Sri Lanka, and to an extent Bangladesh. Bobby Simpson did a similar job with injury and rebellion-affected Australia. But as soon as a resourceful skipper (Mark Taylor, the best I have witnessed) took over, Simpson was put in his rightful place, of organising and managing net sessions. No wonder, he quit (or was sacked) within a year of Taylor taking over.

John Wright was the best coach I have seen. To confirm my faith, he was also appointed for the same duties with the Rest of the World team, in the ill-fated SuperSeries. If you read his wonderful book, Indian Summers, you will realise he was not radically different, or innovative. What mattered was the simplicity, and the right values, he brought to his job. The laptop remained a tool to assist, not a means to win game for him. After all, in the pioneer Woolmer's last cricketing moment (for both SA and Pakistan in the '99 and '07 World Cup respectively), his science could do much in the face of art (Shane Warne and a greentop respectively).

I was actually quite excited when Greg Chappell took over from John Wright. Wright had given us the base, Chappell, with his innovative theories, could have taken us to the next level. His mantra for excellence was to put the focus on the team rather than the individual. And he started off by successfully getting the man who brought him, Sourav Ganguly, sacked. The intention was right, the execution through media-leaks wrong, and his own reaction to it all, horrible (remember the injured middle finger in the Calcutta team bus).

Chappell & Dravid started emphasizing a process, which sounded rather similar to the Hindu philosophy of Karmayoga. However, in the last year, the lack of results and the resultant patience of the average fan surely indicated that in spite of the Sangh Parivar's best efforts, the spirit of Hindutva (and its holiest treatise) had not yet perpetuated amongst the masses.

There is no doubt Greg Chappell left Indian cricket in worse shape than he inherited it. In his playing days, he was a tough, no-nonsense, ruthless cricketer, as shown by the underarm incident (which his brother Ian criticised the most, and he himself regretted). The Indian team definitely needed a dose of the same qualities, more so when Ganguly-Wright had ensured that we were a lot more competitive. Yet, to prove that man-management skills are universal, and not necessarily cultural as a lot have tried to explain, he had a fairly ordinary record when coaching the state team of South Australia for six years (with a personal testimonial thrown in by Paul Wilson).

The worrying part was the leaks about the so-called groupism created in the team. Rahul Dravid has been a total team-man, and while his leadership skills might still be developing, this most admirable of cricketers can never be found lacking in supporting his team-mates (ask skipper Ganguly, or ex-deptuy Sehwag). However, I am not so sure of Sachin. For all his recent travails, he can rarely be criticised for interpersonal relationship issues. However, what does, and has got his goat in the past, is demotion from the Opening slot in ODIs, for whatever reasons. First time round, when enforced by selectors during his first captaincy stint, he vacated the throne within a month. Second time round, during one of India's successful one-day period in 2002, he got it back only during the World Cup, when a New-Zealand-pitches' affected Ganguly was forced to surrender it to him. Apparently, this time round, his supposed spat with Chappell happened only when he was forced to vacate the favourite slot.

I am not so unhappy that Chappell has resigned. His penchant for leaking his views and opinions to friends in media was creating havoc. A coach can never be so effective, that he gets away with such shocking man-management. End of day, it is the executing team and the players, not the strategising coach, who will win matches.

However, to ensure that his two years did not go entirely waste, it is critical to get his feedback, and not through a book published in six months time. Chappell might not have been the ideal coach, but he still remains a great thinker of the game, and one of its bluntest speaker. He failed not because of ill-meaning intentions, but because he wanted to run his team with an iron-fist, surrounded by like-minded individuals. (Is that not nepotism, supposedly prevalent in the Indian culture?).

Making Sachin the captain (as the individual players want), or getting him to retire (as Ian suggests), is for the short-term. Having a competitive BCCI-backed ICL running is for the long-term. We can then enjoy the Pontings thrown up.

Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki

2007-04-02T20:36:00.000+05:30

Cricket, Sports, Life, and the Country

2007-03-27T16:57:00.000+05:30

"Be what you would like to change in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi.

To a great extent, our response to crisis, to disappointments, to unfavourable turns in life, define our characters and characteristics. In the face of adversity, some get more determined, some lose courage, some suffer medically, and some behave lumpen. As for me, I over-think, try to work harder, and now in the last year, write profusely. Any surprises, that my most vehement articles sound most confused.

On a world-stage, sporting prowess at the multi-discipline Olympic Games has usually been the final indicator of a country's global pecking order. And to prove that in spite of being the flavour of Davos, India still has a long way to go, is our single-medal performances across all the Games since Atlanta in 1996 (when China is pushing the United States in medal tallies).

In per capita terms, Australia is the best sporting nation in the world. Any why not? When they lost the Ashes in 2005 after a gap of eighteen years, there was a crisis in Cricket Australia. (I visited Down Under that year, and can tell you the folks are not the best losers). Yet, their cricket-aficionado PM John Howard called the result 'good for cricket', Ricky Ponting (not such a great captain for me, but a wonderful bat, possibly the best I have ever seen) decided to make himself and his boys the best cricketers they could be, and in a nation of 200 million (about Delhi-&-NCR), cricket experienced the fastest growth in participation for any mainstream sport, to have more than half a million registered players. Any wonder, within fifteen months, they reclaimed the trophy, with the first whitewash in eighty-five years.

The typical response in India is slightly different. Why? I will let Mukul Kesavan explain with key excerpts from a brilliant article he wrote in the October 2006 issue of the Cricinfo magazine.

Indians leave sport behind on the road to grown-up-ness. As a result their devotion to cricket is a form of vicariousness. This is true to some degrees of all kinds of spectatorship, but in countries where sport is participatory, this vicariousness is moderated by a practical understanding of the game and its challenges, by the empathy created by the experience, even if that experience was gained at a much lower level of skill.

Not having played in years (or ever), the fan has no understanding of the contingencies that can turn a match, no first-hand experience of defeat. He has a happy ending in mind, and when that doesn't come to pass.......

This sense of entitlement is nursed and fed and watered by television reruns which either show matches that India won (a relatively frequent occurence in the new century only, under Sourav Ganguly), or excerpt great Indian innings from matches that India unaccountably lost. The most satisfactory cricket match ever played is not listed by Wisden because it was played in a country that ICC doesn't recognise: the colonial India confected by Aamir Khan in Lagaan.

I remember having a very similar, though much less eloquent, debate with my college room-mates. If India was a country teeming with achievers in their respective fields, it would have been fine to be entitled to a happy ending. Please do check out Amit Varma's apt rebuke at http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/indias-loss-to-sri-lanka/.

In today's Hindustan Times, Kadambari Murali says that top cricketers (who are the best paid sportspersons by a distance) earn less than their other relatively-equal glamorous counterparts, from India Inc. or Bollywood. And this when you possibly sacrifice your childhood, a normal family life, all for a possible working career where being active ten years can be considered successful. For a comparison, nature-&-destiny willing, I plan to professionally work for a longer time than my stay on Mother Earth so far.

Sports is said to build character, teach you about life, give you strength. The big marketers associate themselves with sports to associate with the right values, and connect with the right audience. It is unacceptable that Shining India remains acceptably competent in just one sport, where the hype is more for individual performances than team victories (ever wondered about Golf and Shooting?). Yet, I am not sure as to how many of the 300 mn. strong middle-class, who crib about the cricket team and the Olympic standings, will want their kids to play sports professionally. Maybe, it helps if the kid is good, and will get admission in a decent educational institute. But no-one will remember that before Nike advertised otherwise, the spirit of Olympics was all about participating.

I was never naturally blessed, except in chess and tennis to some extent. However, in a way somewhat similar to Mr. Kesavan, am trying to eke out some sort of living of professional sports. And I would be satisfied if in my lifetime, we actually manage to re-create the American sports scenario in the country. I am somehow sure the Chinese medals will follow!

Life-after-Death

2007-03-24T09:00:00.000+05:30

Four years ago, on March 23, 2003, India had reached the finals of the ICC World Cup. As a leading two-wheeler company's advertising campaign professed, we had a golden opportunity to do it again, Bees Saal Baad. Our captain, Sourav Ganguly, went in with the tried-and-tested team, when maybe, as a horses-for-courses measure, the then-declining leg-spinner could have been accommodated at the expense of a batsman. Ganguly won the toss, and rightfully played to his fast bowling strength and inserted the opposition. The lead bowler leaked fifteen runs in the first over, yet the Aussies scratched around and to my mind, rode their luck. However, the conditions eased out and the opposition captain (and soon to indisputably assume the mantle of the world's best batsman) played a stunning innings to set us a then considered impossible (surely not now) target. Our champion batsman of the tournament, and the decade before, Sachin Tendulkar, fell in the first over to the Aussie lead bowler, and we packed up within forty overs, to lose by 125 runs.

Exactly the same day four years later, there was an uncanny sense of deja vu. The match was a knock-out, but this time to avoid humiliation, not gain exhilaration. The current captain, Dravid, did decide to adopt a horses-for-courses policy, and again the champion leg-spinner (who refuses to decline, but says now will retire from ODIs) was dropped, because conventional theory says an offie (who has forgot to pick up wickets) is better against left-handers. He also took the right decision to bowl first, always a risk for me knowing what had happened then. Yet, enough happened in the first twenty overs to keep us on tenterhooks. On an average, batsmen were beaten twice an over. As Bob Simpson had once pointed out, that usually indicates the bowlers have been on the shorter side. And as Sangakarra showed by playing everything quite comfortably of the backfoot, maybe Simpson was right. In spite of the helpful conditions, the three vital wickets fell to a catch at third man (Jayasuriya), a blinder down the legside (Jayawardene), and a mishit to long-on (Sangakkara). The young turks of Sri Lanka rose to the challenge, the offie had another off-day (yet bowled his full spell), and we yielded a tricky but achievable score, 105 runs less than four years ago. However, the world's best batting lineup - prone to being the best only on shirtfronts - managed to collapse again. However, they managed to halve the losing degree by 56 runs. The captain, and his recently deposed deputy, were the only ones who kept us in the hunt till the 20th over.

Technically, India can still qualify for the Super Eights, if Bermuda manages to upset Bangladesh. Otherwise, all those who were looking forward to the sumptuous feast to be provided by the Indo-Pak game on Apr-15 at Barbados, please replace it with a Bangladesh-Ireland menu.
In some corner of my heart, as a cricket buff, I am actually happy that India did not qualify, because as Amit Varma puts it. The major stake-holders in the tournament - the television channels and major sponsors - risk losing millions, either in cash or kind, if India go out in the first round. They are not the number one team in the world by a mile. Not even number two. They are ranked sixth in the ICC team ratings and, while that might not always be the best indicator of a team's worth, they have not won a competition of note outside the subcontinent since 1985. Yet the fate of the World Cup rides on them. It's a disaster waiting to happen. (to read his full story, you can click on the link: http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/current/story/286676.html ).

However, I am no longer just a buff, but also a professional trying to make a career in the sports media industry. And the loss seriously affects business (as Varma points out). I am just imagining the plight of my ex-brethren at Mindshare, who will be trying to pull off all the Pepsi Hoo Ha ads from different channels. And what do I do with my Blue Billion T-shirt now?

We had it coming, in spite of the favourable reviews, this team just did not look like it. The 2003 team was almost the same, yet appeared a nice blend of youth and experience. Now, the same team looks like a mix of the aged and the wounded. We lost four years back, yet all of us were proud of the achievement of the team, how they managed to turn things around. Today, I am not upset with the defeats to our sub-continental neighbours, but with the total lack of a will.

Where does Indian cricket go from here? I have been crying hoarse about the first-class structure for a long time now. In fact, if a smaller 9-11 team league is far-fetched, just swapping the Elite and the Plate leagues can be a start. Have top ten (instead of fifteen) teams in the elite panel, at least it will become genuinely elite. Also, a few professionals, in the administration and selection, surely will not harm the glorious cricketing democratic process.

I am a great admirer of Rahul Dravid, yet certain elements of his captaincy are increasing baffling me. However, to my mind, he has not done enough wrongs to be sacked. My criteria for a captain is that he should be an automatic, relatively unquestioned selection in both the Test and the ODI teams (am not a great fan of separate Test and ODI captains). Going by this yardstick, he, Ganguly and Yuvraj are possibly the only ones who qualify for the same in the immediate future.

More importantly, Dravid is a player who has turned things around for himself. Who could have thought that in the new century, he will compete with the supremely gifted Lara and Ponting for the title of the world's best batsman. So if one goes by the theory of leaders being inspirational figures, our young cricketers surely need to look up to someone who has learnt to do it the hard way. Am putting the link to his post-match interview below, which again proves that he provides frank admissions and insights, not sound-bytes. http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/wc2007/content/current/story/287008.html

The biggest worry is again Sachin Tendulkar (seen bowled for the umpteenth time in his career, in another crunch-situation failure). Since he turned thirty after the last World Cup, he has been a pale shadow of the giant I grew up with. If the fast catching Ponting, the age-defying Lara, the booing by his home-crowd, and the increasingly questioning stakeholders do not inspire him, then wonder what will? He may still hold on to his position in the team, but should he? Hope I am completely wrong.

Virender Sehwag was a nice natural successor to Dravid, who could have taken up the mantle after the skipper retired in a couple of years. But his attitude and his fitness ensured that the smooth transition plan was disrupted. I think he has managed to resurrect his career to some extent, amd may actually turn out to be a smart captain. But that will need some watching.

Going back to Ganguly as captain will be a backward step, more so at a time when the Prince is enjoying his batting so much. Dada was possibly India's best captain ever, and can now easily play the role of a mentor to the younger guys. Yuvraj is another leader candidate, but somehow, I am not convinced of his captaincy skills. And we just have to remember Dhoni and Pathan, who would have been considered insiders a couple of seasons back.

Greg Chappell will most probably lose his position. And anyways, am not such a big fan of high-profile coaches (though did support him over the other candidates, because his theory do sound good). A coach has a relatively limited role to play in the schema of things, and John Wright got it totally right with his behind-the-scene inputs.

To reflect a Shining, Rising, Posied India, we definitely need an injection of youth in the cricketing team - the Karthiks, the Sreesanths, even the Uthappas (three failures not withstanding). And if the first-class structure is right, it will ensure that the Kaifs and the Rainas go back there not to rot, but to learn and return stronger. The old way has to make way for the new, and Bangladesh can be a good place to start. If SRT is dropped for the first time in his career, Indian cricket can only benefit if the Champion comes back as strong as his former-skipper and opening partner Sourav Ganguly did.

Minnows, Giant Killers, Spoilsports?

2007-03-18T10:22:00.000+05:30

So I have been proved wrong. India turned my anxiety expressed-in-jest to genuine concern, and convinced us that the Bangladeshi success against the Kiwis in the warm-up game was no fluke. And Ireland knocked out the other subcontinental giant, Pakistan, to enhance their reputation further after the Zimambwean tie.

But I still stick to my guns. I will request my readers to go through the link below (also published in the Hindustan Times), where Ian Chappell writes sense, as usual.

http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/content/current/story/285682.html

What has the ICC achieved with these giant-killing acts? Maybe, Sony Entertainment Television will now lose more money with deal re-negotiations (they are already in a cost-minimising mode), a regular backer of the game in the subcontinent Pepsico will have second thoughts, and the super-earning Indian international cricketing superstars will come down to the pedestrian levels of their other sporting counterparts.

Ireland might qualify for the Super Eights at Pakistan's expense, but do they have the infrastructure or the support systems to play meaningful Test cricket? Remember should be the ultimate aim. England also might lose to Canada today to get knocked out, but what will it do for the victors, who are playing with a 40-year old ex-West Indian international cricketer. Spreading the game eh?

India's case is more precarious. Frankly, if they win against Sri Lanka on Friday, and hope for favourable results in other Bermuda matches, then life carries on as usual. They take these points to the Super Eight, and the win against Bangladesh is consigned to history. But if they lose, or do not qualify? I think close to a billion dollars will go down the drain. Makes sense, a per capita of a dollar for a broken heart.

Global cricket is driven by the new liberalised, resurgent India Inc. But it is a bit of an artificial entity, as the commercial prowess is not exactly coorelated with the cricketing achievements. It is a frenzy driven by a one stunning tournament victory a quarter century back (the '83 World Cup), the presence of one world-beater (Tendulkar) for much of the last decade, and in the new century, the coming-of-age of a few geniuses in batting (in spite of the pathetic system to breed them). And this artificial market can easily collapse when the subsequent generation will struggle to meet the feats of their predecessors.

International cricket is a golden goose which is being killed by the administrators. There are just too many meaningless matches taking place, quantity at the expense of quality. And with the vagaries of global climate change (cannot think of any other reason), pitches are becoming uniformly easy, so that whenever India and Pakistan come across anything different, they simply shut shop.

It will be absolutely fantastic for the game if Bangladesh and Ireland qualify for the Super Eight, maybe joined by other minnows. But again I ask, what did Kenya's semi-final appearance in the last World Cup do to further their credentials in the cricketing circuit? Bangladesh is at least a Test-playing nation (undeservedly so), but will Ireland be one in this century? Hope so!

Commerce should not dictate the game, but it does. And it is only such results which can force the administrators to wake up and smell the coffee.

The Pinnacle of Cricket?

2007-03-02T12:37:00.000+05:30

I have always approached Cricket World Cups with mixed feelings. As a connoisseur, I am not exactly sure if the showpiece tournament of the game should be an ODI contest. And this when I am not sure ODIs have a sound future. They managed to revive Test cricket some forty years back, but themselves became so predictable that now we need to work on 20:20. A happy co-existence: pre-industrial Test cricket, played over five days with the possibility of no result, and the players getting a break for tea also; along with helter-skelter 20:20, possible to start and finish after office hours.
As Mukul Kesavan had once pointed out, cricket loses out by being organised on national lines. Hence, we can never possibly see Lara and Sachin play for the same team, say a Chelsea (am sure one will need a money-bag like Roman Abramovich to get these two stars together). The problem with this arrangement is that all showcaseable cricket becomes International, and increasingly meaningless as I have realised. Do we want to watch the challenger to Australia over the elongated Commonwealth Bank series? Or watch India beat Sri Lanka in an inconsequential series before the tournament? And playing this is hardly practice, two great World Cup victories in last century were by two cornered teams, Pakistan and Australia, led by two inspired men, Imran and Steve respectively.

A fellow blogger of mine gave lot of flak to Dravid for saying that the World Cup could be won by any of the eight teams, basically implying that it only Bangladesh, Kenya and Zimbabwe who have no chance. And for commerce's sake, I do hope Bangladesh does not upset India tomorrow. But Dravid is dead right, with Aussie's recent travails, it will all boil down to the team in form. Except for West Indies in the beginning and Australia now, no World Champion team has been the world's genuine best. India and Sri Lanka were good in some condition during their glory days, but world-beaters? India were thrashed by the West Indies in most matches before and after the World Cup. And Pakistan could not even qualify for the then B&H series finals in Australia, just a season after winning their title in the same country and conditions. I also don't think West Indies were such a bad ODI team as their record, of not reaching the semi-final in 1987 and 1992, showed.

But that is the joy of sport, the unpredictability. In football, it has always been a dark horse, a Cameroon in 1990 and South Korea in 2002 who have made the game enchanting and truly global. Yet, I cannot think of an undeserving winner of any FIFA World Cup in recent memory. The last one possibly stretches to 1982, when maybe Brazil or France could have been better than Italy, but that is also arguable.

The problem with the cricket World Cup is that the wrong form of game is possibly tested. And presence of minnows and politics does not help much. It will take one upset to remove the sheen from Super Eight. And in 2003 in South Africa, a combination of both factors ensured a sure-shot semi-final victory for India against Kenya.

Cricket as a game works more by concentration rather than expansion. I know it would have never gone beyond England and Austrlia if then minnows were not given the opportunity, but somewhere a balance needs to be found where all great records are not obilerated because someone decides to thrash an undeserving attack (or lineup). If Gary Kirsten (against UAE), rather than Saeed Anwar (against a much more competitive India), would have broken the great Viv's then highest ODI score record, , it would have been a catastrophe for me.

I will still get swayed by all the marketing unleashed, and will spend nights watching the game I love. But I will rather be the individual who awaits Sachin's last tour to England and Australia, not join the billion having heart-failures in his last World Cup.

Parzania***

2007-02-23T17:35:00.000+05:30

Parzania is an ideal follow up to Black Friday, capturing the next big communal tragedy to fall upon the next big metropolis (and state) of western India. While Black Friday was all about the planning which goes behind a tragedy, Parzania is about the victim's, usually innocent bystanders, sufferings. In fact, Black Friday risked stereotyping of Muslims so much, what with the surnames and the locales of the culprits, that Anurag Kashyap had to possibly show the Babri Masjid demolition to negate it. Here, director Rahul Dholakia creates a true-blue pitch against the Hindu fundamentalists, who completely took over during a mad fortnight in Gujarat.
Dholakia is a Bollywood director, and it shows, especially in the first half when he is establishing his characters. His last movie was Kehta Hai Dil Baar Baar, a comedy starring Jimy Shergill and Kim Sharma, which no one bothered to see. He made Parzania because he was close friends of the Modys, on whose real-life travails the movie is based. So one gets all the caricatures of a happy middle-class family- doting on each other, always in a good playful mood, and have no telephone at home?! The family is Parsi - neither Hindu, nor Muslim - but no one seems to know the difference, or care. They are trapped in the middle of a State-led-&-planned communal carnage, unleashing Hindu fundamentalist forces on Muslim-dominated localities.
Parzania is a very low-budget film, in which the lead actors (Naseerudin Shah and Sarika being the famous names) apparently acted for free. Rajdeep Sardesai's CNN-IBN is the Media Partner of the movie. And why not, Rajdeep was the most famous journalist who reported on the riots with all his professional (and rather correct) biases for NDTV. To reach out to a larger global audience, the movie is in English, and I somehow thought it made it very artificial, more so when the vulgar happenings (like the police investigation) have to be captured in Hindi. I do not know how much sub-titling costs, but it would have achieved the desired impact much more realistically.
The most imaginative thing about Parzania is its title - an imaginary ideal world which the boy-protagonist, Parzan - used to dream and talk about to his sister. There is an outsider's perspective, in the form of a cynical perpetually-drunk American student, trying to find meaning in his own life by doing a research-thesis on Gandhi. He begins off saying that the USA has a higher homicide rate than India (is it because of better case registrations?); by the end he has kicked off his drinking habit, as he is one of the family. There is also a Gandhian hosting him, and he is at a total loss to explain the going-ons in Gandhi's birthplace.
Parzania comments on religion, and how we use it? So while the Hindu mob organizes itself under Shri Rama's banner, the Muslims want to avenge the rioting. The Parsis belief of living in harmony with nature (and their surroundings) is continuously reinforced. In fact, when all seems lost, Naseer does the navroz (the stringent fast observed by Parsis), in the faint hope maybe that will re-unite him with his son. This is the strongest statement - ever wondered why all religions, especially in Asia, ask you to observe such strict fasting (and maybe cleansing) rituals.
Out of the cast, while Naseer is good as ever in his umpteenth Parsi portrayal, it is Sarika who surprises. Her anguish at losing her son, and even taking the Bajrang Dal's (or some similar sounding organization) help in locating him, is aptly believable. Corin Nemec as the American is rather predictable. The two kids, Parzan Dastur (playing Parzan) and Sheeba Chadha are the cutesy types, the way they are expected to be. The guy who plays the CM is very effective in his cameo, his dire warnings on television to the Godhra perpetrators have been dramatised sufficiently to convey genuine menace.
I thought Govind Nihalani's Dev captured the essence of the communal riots, and the madness much better, especially as it also covered a cop's dilemma. However, in spite of all the cliches, where you can easily predict what is going to happen next, Parzania does make an impact. In the end, the photograph of the real boy, Azhar Mody, who has been missing since the riots, is displayed. It is an absolute shame that we still cannot find him.

Black Friday****

2007-02-22T14:05:00.000+05:30

Black Friday has been directed by Anurag Kashyap, the writer of the stories of Ram Gopal Varma's underworld dramas, most famously the path-breaking Satya. However, for his movie, Kashyap relies on S Hussain Zaidi's critically-acclaimed book of the same name. The book is a reconstruction of the incidents leading to the Bombay blasts, and how it was subsequently unravelled. It is a blot on Indian democracy that while the book has been sold openly, the movie has been lying in the cans, as it supposedly would have affected our judges (like most others, this case still drags on). It was obviously assumed that the judicial fraternity cannot, or does not read.
To stay faithful to the book, Kashyap depicts his movie in chapters (as I have not read the book, I assume the chapters are real). He takes names - Pakistan, Dawood, Tiger Memon - and tries his best to be objective about every involved party's perspective - the police, the conspirators, the executioners, and the victims. And he does so unsequentially, a format which my favourite author Amitav Ghosh uses quite well.

Black Friday follows the docu-drama format, what JP Dutta's horribly wrong LOC Kargil aspired to be. Both movies use everyday slang liberally, and while Kashyap has beeped out the worst ones in his movie, JP Dutta retained them all, as if to titillate.

The leading character in the movie is Baadshah Khan, ideologically-driven executioner of the plot, who subsequently realises that the entire jehad was only to avenge the losses suffered by Tiger Memon during the preceding Bombay riots. His flight-&-plight - to Delhi, village Rampur, Jaipur, Calcutta - before getting caught and turning into an official witness, is absolutely brilliantly captured in a scene where a dog is being coached to catch-and-fetch a ball. There are other great scenes, like where the investigating officer Rakesh Maria quietly tucks into a banana from the absconding Memon family's refrigerator, all because he is hungry, and this is going to upset him even further during the interrogations (to put it into perspective though, we rarely keep bananas in refrigerators). The chase sequence of an accused through the bylanes of Bombay (I guess the subsequent Mumbai can be characterised by mobile phones, packaged drinking-water bottles and Aaj Tak instead of Newstrack) is both hilarious and eye-opening - when a person's life is under threat, he(/she) finds reservoirs of energy which cannot be challenged just by the call of duty. Even the mysterious Dawood gets an opportunity to humanise, as to how he was influenced by the ISI. I guess the only parties who can walk away aggrieved is the ISI, and the kar-sevaks who brought down Babri Masjid (and subsequently caused the riots).

Aditya Srivastava (who plays Baadshah Khan) delivers the most nuanced performance. Kay Kay (Rakesh Maira) and Pawan Malhotra (Tiger) are as dependable as ever. Vijay Maurya plays Dawood Ibrahim, and he has an absolutely striking resemblance to the man, at least the way we know Dawood from his 80s photographs taken at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. The other artists are also very apt in their roles, with the gang-coordinator in Jaipur standing out.

At a run time of close to two-and-a-half hours, the movie does tend to become laboured, especially in to the second half. Also, as it does not capture any one party's story, the audience can lose empathy at times. However, what works for the movie is a more universal format, and cinematic language. I might prefer our Rang De Basanti and Munnabhai, but Black Friday will have a better shot at the Oscars (I guess that's why Lagaan is such a brilliant effort). The music score by Indian Ocean is appropriately superb, especially the track Ruk Ja Re Bande played during the end-titles. The number pleads to 'stop the madness', and it took me on to my next haunt, Parzania.

Guru***

2007-02-07T12:13:00.000+05:30

Mani Ratnam's Guru is a bio-pic, masquerading as fictional cinema because Mukesh Ambani did not like the idea of Anil-campwallah Abhishek reprising his dad. The genre is relatively unexplored in Hindi cinema. Shahrukh, when he made Asoka, stated that the success of such a movie can be gauged best if the audience tries to know more about the protagonist after watching the film (though how many people actually tried to know more about the Emperor whose motifs adorn all Indian state emblem after watching SRK's movie is really suspect). And I agree, I read more about Illiad after watching Troy, the ordinariness of the movie not withstanding. And my above-average knowledge of Hindu mythologies can easily be attributed to Ramanand Sagar and BR Chopra.

Guru is Dhirubhai Ambani's story, tracing his rise and ending around the time Rajiv Gandhi lost power. Anyways, subsequently, Manmohan Singh opened up India to the world, and Reliance converted itself into a professionally managed business conglomerate, before another Mahabharat played out in the clan in the new century. Maybe, we will have a sequel from Ratnam with Karisma-Kareena playing the protagonists in the next chapter of the tale. This should antagonise the Bachchans sufficiently and make Mukesh happy.

The similarities between Gurukant Desai and Dhirubhai Ambani are immense. Both were sons of school teachers, travelled abroad to work in petroleum companies (to Turkey and Aden/Dubai respectively), started trading in clothes, had fall-outs with initial business-partners, built a cult of equity-investors, pulled strings to manage the 'licence raj' (the real-life then-PM was converted into a faceless Industries Minister), took shareholder meetings in stadiums, and suffered paralytic strokes when embroiled in legal wranglings. Even the logo of Shakti Industries has an uncanny resemblance to the Reliance logo. Most importantly, the tirade by Ramnath Goenka and S Gurumurthy (played by Mithun and Madhavan respectively) against Reliance is well-captured. Sadly, there is no Nusli Wadia to spice up things.

The two halves of Guru are contrasting. The first half moves at a quick pace, establishing all the characters quickly and firmly, and you stay engaged. The problems begin in the second half. The movie drags, and there is a totally unnecessary romantic track thrown in between Madhavan and a wasted Vidya Balan. While the songs are good, none of them were really required. Possibly the best way to use them was the Hairat-e-Aashiqi way, in the background. However, must admit, Ratnam has shot another number stunningly in Barso Re. He continues to make the most ordinary Indian locales look brilliant on screen. The climax of the movie is pedestrian, and totally ineffective. Abhishek tries to do Amitabh in Deewar, with Roshan Seth & Co. replacing the now legendary shivlinga, and the chasm shows.

Performance wise, like always, both Mithun and Madhavan are in fine form (Mithun da even looks like Goenka). Even the character artists are competent. Aishwarya is a thousandfold improvement over D:2, in fact, anything will be better than that. The most critical role is Abhishek Bachchan's, who does it with a fair bit of panache, especially as the young enthusiastic corporate-climber. He exaggerates quite a bit as the old man, but that is more of a casting issue. I cannot think of too many actors who can essay an entire lifetime as well as Kamal Haasan did in Nayakan, so the benchmark is unfair (remember Shahrukh in Veer-Zaara, looked more demented than old).

Thankfully, Abhishek and Aishwarya have some decent chemistry going. Ratnam usually showcases two kind of romances: the ultra-passionate ones (as Manisha Koirala was wooed in Bombay and Dil Se), or the more conventional circumstantial one (as in Roja). Here, he thankfully opts for the latter. To show his practicality and bloody-mindedness, Abhishek marries Ash for the dowry money. The scene where she gets to know this is vintage Ratnam!

Like in most Ratnam movies, what works for Guru is the realism, and this time he has backed it with more authentic research. One just cannot take sides with either of the warring parties, and that's something for Hindi cinema. What goes against is the superficiality of the second half, especially the climax which was a more complicated legal problem, not just a grand witness statement. I still prefer Mani Ratnam's other Hindi movies over Guru.