Reverberation.

Curious Concoction

2010-11-21T12:46:00.003+05:30

There is a particularly telling sequence in the opening scenes of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part I. A poignant Hermione Granger in a striking alterity from her all-pervading genteelness is compelled by necessity, and wipes out the memories of her unassuming, innocuous Muggle parents to leave their side for good and join the forces against Lord Voldemort and his ilk. The scene is symbolic of the tenor of the film.

Unlike many of its happy-go-lucky, puerile prequels in the series, this installment has its sights set in a tangentially different direction. The coziness of the Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the thrilling Quidditch games, the buoyant times spent together are a rosy thing of the past. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), an adolescent barely bearding, along with his best friends Ronald Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) must now abandon the ease and confines of their long-cherished school for good and set out to hunt down Lord Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) intricate and highly perilous horcruxes, in an attempt to ridding the magical world of its greatest danger.

Much to the incomprehensible horror of the magical world at large, Lord Voldemort is back and at large once again. Back to being the unimaginably terrifying tyrant that gave him the much-feared appellation “He Who Must Not Be Named”. And back to abducting and ruthlessly killing those that incurred his displeasure, across dinner tables, feeding their corpses to his serpent. The Only One He Ever Feared, Albus Dumbledore, is dead too. But has left behind, for Harry, cryptic clues that would him lead to hunting down the horcruxes and destroying them.

It might seem too cantankerous a task and too much responsibility for three juveniles. There are instances in the story wherein they almost tear into each other in complete exasperation. This story also marks the emotional and sexual coming-of-age of our three protagonists. No longer the docile kids bickering over their favourite Quidditch teams, never-before-like myriad emotions run around thick and fast. And director David Yates does well to resist the temptation of over-doing them. Harry Potter flicks in the past have been marked by too much extravagance, quixotic depictions, and an insatiable urge to put style over substance. And that is exactly what this film isn’t.

I’ve never been a fan of the Harry Potter films myself. Not one of them ever got my jaw dropping. Primarily because they don’t translate into engaging cinema, inspite of the wonderful scripts that each of them is bestowed with. Deathly Hallows makes a pleasant digression there. It’s also probably because of the fact that the makers chose to split this 7^th version into two installments, and not compromise on any content from the book. This one, for instance, does appreciable justice to Rowling’s original. And that’s what you want to see as an ardent Potter-maniac. There are no empty attempts by the makers to camouflage the discrepancies in depiction from paper to screen, with awe-stimulating, overtly theatrical content of little value. This time, the makers have got their priorities right. Propelled by a tight screenplay and an intensely engaging narrative, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part I is much different from any of its prequels; not like a Potter film at all. And therein lies its biggest strength.

The film’s gilded along its way by some brilliant moments. Take for instance, that magnificent illustration of the Tale Of The Three Brothers. Or that wonderful moment in the tent when Harry and Hermione get waltzing together to tunes from a dilapidated radio set, amid much strife and dwindling hope. Or even that heart-wrenching moment when our trio is rescued from a precarious abduction, by Dobby – the diligent, amazingly loyal house elf. Moments like these hold the film together even when the pace slackens at times.

Of the cast, Helena Bonhem Carter and Ralph Fiennes deserve a special mention for their evil portrayals of Bellatrix Lestrange and Lord Voldemort respectively. It helps to have seasoned, reliable actors like Fiennes in your cast for roles of this nature. Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe show rare maturity in their rendering, seamlessly sifting through the emotional challenges of their characters. David Yates is splendid as the man at the helm of affairs, never for once betraying allegiance to Rowling’s script, or over-doing a wonderful tale for cinematic points.

The stories, doubtlessly, are outstanding. But when one sits down to watch them manifest on celluloid, the expectations are different. For me it’s about the feeling of having a thoroughly engaging experience, one that stands loyal to the author’s marvelous expressions and augments their value with the power that is cinema. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part I hits all the right notes on that front and is a winner through and through.

The Harry Potter films finally are what they deserve to be.

Rating : ****

Games With Common Wealth

2010-09-22T00:02:00.004+05:30

There are some things India can do well. Yes, really well. And we sure can afford to be ostentatious about them. Problem is, hosting an international sporting extravaganza like the CWG is not one of them.

I won’t give you the trouble of having to read through, in words which deserve to rival venom for viciousness, exactly how screwed up things really are. Let’s just say one thing – there’s something woefully wrong. A lot of things actually. And they cannot be fixed, divine disruption or benevolence.

So what brought about this state of hopeless desolation, a point beyond which even the loftiest of optimists are apprehensive to give hope and miracle a chance? Dereliction. Disregard. Sloth. Corruption. With less than a fortnight away for the firecrackers of the opening ceremony that’re supposed to set national prestige alight, everything appears to be terribly awry. From shoot-outs at foreign tourists kilometers away from the Village to consistent downpour hindering last-ditch efforts to salvaging infrastructure, the all-pervading issues with hygiene, and Mike Hooper’s explosive assessment of the status quo rubbing salt into profusely bleeding wounds, nothing can possibly be stinging the Prime Minister more than the inevitable disaster that beckons.

My disillusionment toward the games wouldn’t be this vociferous if the Organizing Committee would be making a half-earnest effort to acknowledge ground reality and get their asses moving. The excuses are as just ridiculous as the situation itself, if not couple of trifles more. When else would you hear of “varying standards of judging hygiene” or “The weather Gods aren’t being kind. We can’t do much”? Call the spade a spade, you sanctimonious condescenders. Or maybe it’s expecting too much to hope that they see sense in moving beyond the cheesy lines very listlessly doled out under the debonair lamps of national television studios. “World class facilities”, “Better than Beijing 2008”. Deliberate delusion dangerously alters the perception of existential elements. And the reality is often too much to handle when things come down to the wire.

This ‘national pride’ thing is pure balderdash. Apart from the media which prides itself on being the perpetual ombudsman and the Organizing Committee very occasionally, nobody cares about the games. The desperate hope that the people of this country would pledge allegiance to these games and honour the need to arouse national interest and craze even at this altar when imperfection stands impeccably embodied, is terribly misplaced. Fury is mounting exponentially in the hearts of India’s sporting aficionado. And with where the games stand currently, even the stray dogs of Delhi would think twice before choosing to loiter around anywhere near the Village.

India's official CWG mascot should actually be the disgusting amounts of debris left on the roads of Delhi, with a poster that should ideally read, "We had too much time for ensuring common wealth. The games missed out somehow". And someone please go tell a certain Mr. Kalmadi he ain’t in a soccer game. He hasn’t got extra time left. Mani Shankar Aiyar had a valid point, however caustic his outburst might’ve sounded. A third world country like ours, with enough economic issues and an astounding population whose basic requirements are barely met has no business signing up for something of this magnitude, and then successfully screwing up the money and the event completely and comprehensively. Why sign up for something that’s beyond you and make a practical joke of yourself for the world to LOL about?

And 7 years is supposed to be sufficient time to put things in place for a utopian show. London’s ready for 2012 as you read through this cascade of candor; with a good couple of years to go for show time. While we’re clinging desperately onto the whims and fancies of non-existent entities such as the “Rain Gods’ grace” to salvage something out of the event with a couple of weeks to go. The Gulf couldn’t have been wider. Let’s resign ourselves to one eventuality : We’re on the bus to hell. Kalmadi’s driving it. And what we’ll see unfold before our eyes would be tragic to say the least. We’re headed for a National Kalmadity.

As for me, I’ve been converted to a misanthropist. I’ll watch the cataclysmic catastrophe unfold on Times Now, sipping through my Sprite and hailing failure, the greatest equalizer. Mind you, I won’t be the only disgruntled soul in the country that once hoped for utopia. Bring down the house baby, that’s what this thing deserves. Universal convention shall hold good anyway : Nobody cares.

Death And All His Friends

2010-08-20T15:48:00.005+05:30

Through the doldrums of hapless desolation I perpetually wade,

In blissful oblivion of the farewell transcendence so long ago bade;

Each time my idyllic forms of magical realism go up in smoke,

It is on me that I’ve rendered myself tragically, incorrigibly broke.

Of delirium, of destiny, of hara-kiri and suicide,

To parlous and nerve-wracking idiosyncrasy, I inadvertently chide;

Nothing appears to matter, no entity perky or quirky attempts to stir the mind,

Oh, screw ‘em confinements too, they’re innately blind.

In the myopic myths of contentment I did wholly sink,

Why did I then fail to decipher The Malicious Wink?

“What the fuck am I doing?”— Why didn’t I ask?

Why in the glory of complacency did I splendidly bask?

The premonitions that washed me through to these shores are far from justifiable,

Occurs no ambivalence, no option to me that might just seem viable;

As doom presents heartily its diabolical autograph,

Scarcely do I discern I’m crafting a pitiable cenotaph.

In the wake of this tenebrous darkness I apprehensively deliberate,

Alternatives appear scant that would cease to debilitate;

Exist no catalysts to banish the catastrophic viruses of intransigence,

Insurmountable it feels to rake in the Elysian of excellence for scholarly remembrance.

Perhaps it is tetchy extravagance, perhaps too much for comprehension,

In attempting to craft a realistic simile I feel trepidation;

In my swindling depths lay the subsistent, quintessential key,

Alas, if only I hadn’t resolved to flee from it, deserting the cynosure-to-be.

O Sly Merchant Of Fortune, glory be thou name,

May the irreplaceable mirth of condescending victory you proudly claim;

From cataclysmic adversity to effulgent rectitude may fate seamlessly navigate,

New times of glorious opulence may she richly promulgate.

Blow the incredibly lustful, undulant desires I quixotically deem,

Reality scarcely is diligent in tailing every wistful dream;

Through the doldrums of hapless desolation I perpetually wade,

In blissful oblivion of the farewell transcendence so long ago bade ...

Dreams, Reality and Utopia

2010-07-21T19:42:00.002+05:30

The mind is omnipotent. The mind is the scene of the crime. The mind is the lodestar of existence. The mind governs. The mind is the labyrinth of creation, of transcendence. The mind is all that there can be.

Or so believes Christopher Nolan, the man who’s seemingly coming off an incredible brainstorm. We often find ourselves strewn with conflict over picking ‘better’ films over the rest. So how do you define ‘better’? If holistic brilliance makes your cut to the parameters of judgment, consider yourself a luftmensch if Inception isn’t on your planner for the weekend. Nolan’s Inception is a delicious melange of technical excellence, unparalleled imagination and sheer cinematic achievement. To confine its prowess to a genre would be doing it unpardonable disgrace. Inception is a film like none you have seen, or will ever see.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a specialist in ‘subconscious security’. An intense job that deals with infiltrating people’s minds and stealing thoughts which aren’t otherwise accessible. And Cobb is as good an expert as any you will find. Real challenge comes, of course, when he’s asked to do exactly the opposite of what the nature of his job deals with; when he’s summoned by Japanese businessman Saito (played by Ken Watanabe) and given the task of a lifetime – to plant an idea instead of stealing one. It’s a job that Cobb connects to on an emotional front too, as it would guarantee him access to return to his home in America and see his kids once more, besides the dropping of all pending charges against him in the case of his wife’s death. Braving all initial misgivings, Cobb signs up for the job, inducting into his coterie Arthur (his long time associate, played by Joseph Gordon Levitt), Eames (the forger within the dreams, played by Tom Hardy), Yusuf (the Chemist with an anesthesia for all situations, played by Dileep Rao) and prodigiously gifted young architect Ariadne (played by the gorgeous Ellen Page. Am I the only one musing over a similar Greek inspiration for the name?) Together, the team sets out to implant the required idea into the mind of their subject, billionaire businessman Robert Fischer – an idea that would bring about a paradigm shift in his business empire. It is a process that involves intricate psychological insight, pinpoint precision and an unparalleled outlook toward the convoluted nature and machinations of the human mind. Besides of course, the prospect of keeping away with rifles and automatics the antibody-equivalent security personnel of Fischer in his dream state. By the sheer nature of its plot, Inception makes itself impervious to spoilers. Knowing the ending is not all. It is unlikely that the ‘ending’ as such will bewilder you either. But it is the process of getting there that counts; that mesmerizes.

Let me bust a few myths about the film that are going around the web as swiftly as the countless encomiums. This Plot Is Not Rocket Science. Contrary to what you may have read about this film, the plot does not require your IQ card to read 180 to decipher the tale. Nolan assumes his viewers’ intelligence, and makes a very good film with that assumption. The tale ain’t undecipherable balderdash, it’s an ingeniously crafted masterpiece. And if initial box office readings are anything to go by, cine-goers across the world are at much ease with the assumption. The very fact that it’s managed, in India, to beat the moolah of the 3 Bollywood films that rolled out this week, is by itself an emphatic indicator of the response this film has unanimously generated. A lesson there for every Bollywood film maker : You don’t necessarily have to be mainstream to score big with the Indian audience.

Technically, Inception is a marvel. The screenplay oozes sheer aesthetic delectability, never for once getting superfluous or garish. Take for instance that breathtaking dream sequence where Paris folds on itself like paper, or those breathless rainy car-chases in the heart of their dream-envisioned-city, or even the incredibly snowy battlefields of the place where Fischer’s secret lies. Spellbinding. The screenplay is inventive, original, admirably imaginative and succinct, not for once betraying its promise of a roller coaster ride. Even at an unusual length of two-and-a-half-hours, the film maintains its pace and stays hooked to your mind. Hans Zimmer delivers an edgy background score yet again, though I did get the feeling it dominated the dialogues to a fair extent in a few crucial sequences. There ain’t much reliance on the cast in a plotline like this one, but Nolan’s ensemble put in a fairly good act, Ken Watanabe and Joseph Gordon Levitt leaving lasting impressions. As the perennially dazed, super-erudite protagonist, DiCaprio is top notch. It’s more or less a given now that DiCaprio simply cannot falter. Like in Shutter Island, he faces the deterrent of haunting memories and dreams of his late wife (played by Marion Cotillard, who I think by sheer virtue of her preternatural exquisiteness, should not be allowed to appear before camera) here too. DiCaprio does very well, infusing every frame with the desperate emotion that is required of the character. But the real hero of Inception is Christopher Nolan, the fugleman behind the marvel. 10 years in the making and an exceptional result on screen, this film is entirely Nolan’s genius in sparkling form. For Nolan, indeed, the mind is omnipotent.

The reason Inception works is primarily because of the success it achieves in not getting carried away by the technological repertoire it so abundantly possesses up its sleeve. Inception chooses not to awe, but to connect. And therein lies its greatest strength. At the core of the film’s plot is an emotional cornerstone that makes it more of a plausible endeavour than sheer hardcore abstract logistics. Unlike many other sci-fi films in the past which invariably lose their way and objective amid logistical detailing, Inception instead awes you with its ability to connect on an emotional front, despite its multi-layered script.

So here we finally have a film that strikes more than a cord with the average wolf-whistling, hooting, pop-corn-fun crazy cine-goer, gets usually stoic lips of staid critics to curl in palpable wonder, and set box office collections reeling under the reverberation of unprecedented utopia. That’s what you’d call, a blockbuster.

Rating : ***** (One Of A Kind)

Not Quite A Raw One

2010-06-23T22:11:00.002+05:30

The maniacal, impudent fugleman was at listless ease with himself. Raking in the elysian of a scrumptious, misty milieu and the tantalizing prospect of having his subject at his behest on an unnerving cliff-top, he cast his eerie gaze upon his prisoner. Wails of resentment and despair were instantly stifled by the loading of his automatic. Still reticent vocally, he pointed it straight at her. “I’d rather die on my own terms.” Impulse got to her. She’d taken the plunge ... Gravity did the rest.

Watching Raavan unfold before my eyes last evening I felt I was watching an enormously dexterous craftsman at work. A man who’d chosen a particular path, well aware of its glaring discrepancies, yet going ahead with it to treat us to something that not only stands out as unique, but also establishes a very fine trait of a man who’s grounded his identity on sheer creativity and the audacity of projecting his ideas boldly on screen, regardless of mainstream demands. Over and above all that has been said and written about Raavan all week, one must bear in mind that Mani Ratnam is a man who’s well aware of what he’s doing. This is how he intended this film to be, all subjective opinion apart. Whether or not we choose to look upon it as a retarded piece of gibberish or a genuine exhibit of out-of-the-box creativity is an entirely different issue altogether. Various films choose to try entertaining in different ways. Raavan chooses its, and does complete justice to its motive.

Set in rural Central India, the tale mirrors the kidnap saga of the wife (Ragini, played by Aishwarya Rai) of a Superintendent of Police (Dev, played by Vikram), by a brash tribal outlaw (Beera, Abhishek Bachchan). The film follows, in an unabashedly quixotic narrative, the hunt for Beera and the subsequent events that ensue (not handing it out on a platter). Inspired eponymously from the tyrannical conman of the Ramayan, the parallels between the screenplay and the epic are aplenty. True to the epic, Beera abducts Ragini in an attempt to seek vengeance for an act of unnecessary violence by Dev’s men on the occasion of his sister’s wedding (Yes, there is a reference to the nose too). The characterization of the leads though, is haplessly amateurish and that does very little to help connect with them emotionally. You don’t quite know what Beera’s doing slashing people’s arms at once and hopping around with indigenous kids minutes later. And all that you see of Dev is a well concealed sense of restlessness and a shoddy pair of Rayban shades. But Mani chooses to keep things that way. He simply doesn’t care. And all the film ends up being in the end is a fairytale-ish narrative; one that purely sprouts from a heart oozing desire than a mind craving for brilliance. This ain’t a film for you diligent custodians who’d scoff at a poorly scripted subplot. Yes, the talk is true. The film does deviate from the original tale, and with a purpose. Mani chooses to explore unchartered territory here, shedding light onto a particular aspect of the epic that stands as a talking point among staunch enthusiasts even to this date.

Frankly, to hate this film is very easy. You could very easily whine the lack of a solid script, a terribly clichéd screenplay, poor acting, mediocre dialogue, and accuse this of being a piece for the gallery. But here’s where the film soars: a deeply interesting style of narrative, an engaging premise, a distinctly hypnotic feel to every shot, mind-numbing art direction and cinematography, and an inspiring soundtrack from Rahman though a tad low-key for his standards. Santosh Sivan creates spellbinding magic with the cameras; every frame dripping aesthetic opulence. Sivan ensures you simply do not take your eyes off screen even when the narrative gets a bit languid. One can pick out a galore of glaring, unpardonable gaffes in the screenplay, which sometimes stupefies with its obsession to cliché or its abstinence from imparting a broader perspective of things. Sure Mani Ratnam had a purpose. He had meant it to be a sheer orgy of creative storytelling and breathtaking screenshots. And it does justice to whatever it set out to do.

Of the cast, Govinda does well, reasonably well, as Sanjeevani Kumar, aka Hanuman. Still very easily amongst the most natural, free and chirpy comedians in the industry. Aishwarya Rai has little substantial acting to do in her role of the normally-shrieking, occasionally-melancholic hostage. Vikram shines as Dev, the not-quite-Ram-equivalent who is fully willing to shun all sanity of conduct to garner his wife’s whereabouts. Despite the limitations in the script that chain his character, Vikram effortlessly puts in a commendable performance, one that he largely constructs with his sheer screen presence. The film’s biggest letdown in the cast, however, is our protagonist who eventually ends up a very badly garbled caricature. Abhishek Bachchan tries hard to be the psychopath pooh bah but falls miles short of creating a decent enough impression. Frankly, he’s much better off doing roles that do not require much acting.

Despite all its brazen conundrums, Raavan is a film I respect immensely. For it has an engaging idea to put forth, and does so in no-holds-barred fashion. This is why Mani Ratnam is in the A+ grade of directors this industry has. Everytime he takes to the reels, he gives us something new, innovative at the cinemas. Something that shall stay in our mind for long, by virtue of its willingness to stand out.

I don’t know about you, or those folks who snub films for a living. This one’s staying with me for long.

Rating: **** (Delectable!)

Underachieved Utopia

2010-05-31T21:52:00.003+05:30

Deveshchandra Singh lay mortally wounded in battle. Brazenly castigated and disdainfully hurled across the highway that now was a gory boulevard of brutality, Dev was an impoverished, crumpled, almost-lifeless mass. Barely a couple of minutes ago, his valour had found tremendous resonance in his foes, taking 13 of the opposite card down. The bullets found their mark, his audacity and equanimity buoying the drowning spirits of his beleaguered men. As fate would have it, he now lay anguished with the 9 bullets that had butchered his chivalry. The brave, calm eyes had now taken a scary bulging form, and the tone of sanguinity that had for long inspired in his fellow warriors hope and inspiration, was now reduced to a low whine of despair. What was to follow was a scary thought, even for him in the state he currently found himself in. Undulant forms of grisly corpses stricken across his bandwidth of vision engendered in him tremendous emotion. The despondent pair of eyes which now were moments away from a permanent retreat roved around the scene of carnage, his blurred vision leaping from one scarred carcass to another, some the very people he shared an evening with over tea at roadside stalls, many simply unfathomable masses that would be reduced to subjects of showy poignance in the next day’s papers, he thought. His fickle eyes eventually set themselves upon him. Ah, the wounds. They would stay. Unlike the grief across the country over the deadly massacre, they would stay…

Dev sauntered home late one evening, bringing along to his little house in Charanpur, Uttar Pradesh joy that had never graced the thresholds of the little place. In jubilation that the house had never seen or dreamt of, he broke the news that he had longed to for a fairly long time. Spoke what he’d been visualizing in his mind over and over again through the years, more so for the previous few weeks. He’d played out the proclamation several times spoonily fantasizing in bed, but the feeling of saying it to his beloved ones was something else. “It is with deep pride and honour that I must state to you, that I have done what I expected of myself years ago. Yes, I’ve earned my place in the Indian Police Services. I have found myself an employer that shall govern the course of my life. It shall give me utmost privilege to serve her in doing something that shall be regarded imperative for her harmonious existence. It is this land, this wonderful land that has always been so close to my heart that I will work for. The hour of reckoning has come, let the euphoria uncoil!” he said in pristine, Uttar Pradesh Hindi with a characteristic lilt.

Unnecessarily sententious and puerile though the statement might have sounded, it brought to Dev immense pride in saying it. Needless to say, it brought to the inhabitants of that village tremendous ecstasy too, something that was only seen last time their derelict MP faced the unceremonious yet wholly appropriate sack. The closely knit community that it was, every little moment of emotion exuded by its inhabitants found adequate resonance among the entire community. Anguish and retribution were written all over the village when they were denied adequate rights over their farm lands by the banished MP who had other ambitiously narcissistic ideas, fear gripped them all collectively and glued them firmly to their little homes in the wake of a terrible Naxal attack on the inhabitants of a nearby village, but there was nothing like the festivals they’d rejoiced in. Vibrant festoons and chirpy vibes characterized festival nights at Charanpur. Young women found peace in facilitating conventional decorations, children being children in the revelry of being around in such an atmosphere, young and old men thriving in the festivities and carousing like there was no tomorrow. Charanpur was a blithe place at the 21-year-old Homeric young man’s announcement which in itself was no less than a joyous festival. Never did they have a glorious history of churning out national servants. And now they had one of their very own bandeh in the khaki. It sure was a moment of glory and pride, even for the 90 year olds who were incapable of giving their beds a well deserved break, and taking a perpetual one themselves. Deveshchandra Singh was now a jawan. From the little, vivacious town of Charanpur.

Rambha Devi was Dev’s lovely maiden. An indigenous farmer’s daughter, she was pledged to Dev a couple of years ago, at the whopping price of Rs.10000 and a full 3 acres of fertile farm land. Sans all the materialistic blackmail, Dev actually adored his spouse. Unconditional love had made them partners-for-life, despite the clandestine shenanigans that took place behind their backs. Settling into the in-laws place never very seamless for the average Indian woman, they say. Rambha learnt it the hard way for a few months. Her only solace in the hostile house was her husband himself. And they grew closer, doling into each other anecdotes and feelings of joy, sorrow, grief, anguish, pain, hope. She was the best friend he had, and the joy that the effulgent news of his success instigated in her, knew no bounds.

The only disillusioning aspect, if any, of this ascendancy was the fact Dev was hired by a CRPF company based in Saharanpur, Bihar. Charanpur would now be a long-forgotten chapter in his life. It was all to be a new dawn, a new beginning, a new lease of life striving for a cause he had always deemed paramount. So it was a week after the sumptuous night that Dev had to bid goodbye (well, temporarily atleast) to his native town, his family, his best friend for life, and sprint across for a new chapter in his ambitious life. Marked predictably by tetchy homilies and moments of emotional candor, the day passed off swiftly leaving him at the end of it, at a district headquarters in Bihar. Like the 79 of his compatriots, Dev was shown his new quarters and told to be up and about, reporting at his designated location by 4:00 AM the next morning. I suspect it would be a little too rich to call his place of lodging ‘quarters’. Shoddy, shabby and incorrigibly unkempt, the newly crowned scavengers of order were hurled carelessly into places that did not befit the commitment and effort that had propelled them to their stature. “Always read about this situation, nothing surprising at all” Dev thought as he began setting his room right and getting his act together, with the aid of his equally complaisant room-mates.

Over the weeks, Dev grew to be a fine young jawan; responsible, gallant and possessed with tremendous leadership skill. Was always the one with the most appreciable alacrity during the drills. Over time and experience, Dev’s prowess in countering and fighting guerilla warfare accentuated to a transcendent level. He automatically became the man the team looked up to and revered. Brawn, however, was only one of many laudable facets Dev harnessed. He also collected the tag of being a very erudite craftsman, tactician. Altruistic in character coupled with his regimented ideology of holding discipline and commitment on paramount pedestals, Dev very seamlessly grew to be the ideal caricature of a jawan Bollywood often thrives in projecting on celluloid. In a stunningly short span of 8 months, Dev came to be anointed the Commandant of his Battalion.

Three years into his job, the challenges of maintaining law and order in East India were soon growing scarily cantankerous. Through the last couple of years, a simmering flame had galloped to a raging fire. Red Terror was the hullabaloo stricken across majority of the rural areas in East India. Commenced tentatively in the late-60s the movement was now in a never-before-like state. Almost periodically, disturbing news reached Dev every fortnight of innocent families getting beheaded, buses getting blown up, and the sporadically occurring incidents of major catastrophe. Only a couple of months ago, Naxals had launched a brash assault on a battalion in Dharampur, Orissa slaughtering 89 of his fellow CRPF men. The incident, for its sheer magnitude and enormity, was quick to become a national cynosure and a lot of debate was kicked off under the shimmering arc lamps of television studios as to how the country’s new-found menace must be put to rest. Much of it didn’t make great sense to Dev, who was of the firm belief and conviction that any act of violence against the state or its subjects for reasons petty or enormous, must be met adequately with force. As a man of considerable stature within the CRPF ranks, he echoed an unequivocal school of thought – ruthless acts of unjust violence call for stringent military action. However, there was a pang of miniscule sorrow somewhere at the back of his mind with regard to the plight of those taking to the guns against the state. He had himself hailed from a village that had been left lurking in the tenebrous abyss of poverty and neglect for a very long time. Yet, he mused, Charanpur was a happy community. Despite all the economic and developmental issues that had stymied the growth of his village, inhabitants had seen the wisdom of refraining from the gun and from those who’d offered them the guns. Dev identified with the morbid rebels as a pack of merciless hordes, who’d lost in them the sense and understanding of the value of a human life. The death toll of innocent civilians and army jawans over the last couple of years, stood at 349. A figure that would chuck out of the window all possible sympathy that the callous insurgents might have evoked.

On a lovely morning last month, with the Sun blazing down and warming them all up scrumptiously after a cup of tea, Dev’s little group was in for a little rude surprise with the bush-whacking guerilla army choosing the unfortunate moment for a greeting. In a long drawn out hour-long battle that followed, Dev lost 18 of his comrades, yet managed to survive himself after much luck and valour. The incidents were getting too many and too much to handle. Far from being an indigenous problem, the sporadic menace was now a properly permeated conundrum across the Eastern belt of the country. It was during one of these disturbing phases of increasing hostility that Dev took a week off to visit his beloved hometown Charanpur for the first time since his emotional tryst with destiny.

And what a feeling it was to be back home. A hero’s welcome greeted him back home, as Charanpur welcomed back with open arms its most successful, proud son amidst their ranks with great pomp and grandeur. Happiness and joy sparkled across the little village again as there was evident honour in having Dev at their warmth. Dev was glad too. Glad to be away (atleast for a while) from the dangers of his job, and treated himself blissfully to the riches of his village, the only place he could call home. The appreciably heartening affection he received from his people, the joy of reuniting with family after long, the ravishing cuisines he was treated to at home, gave Dev immense pleasure and a sense of privileged importance as to how important he was to his native people and how wonderful his home was to him. That night, he had the opportunity of a candid chat with his wife, a delectable prospect to him after months and years of listless strife and uncertainty. Oh, the predictable rambling had to be there. It was, in full measure too. Ranging from the milkman’s insincerity to the post office’s dereliction which ensured very little communication since the last time they’d seen each other, every insignificant issue of discussion was discussed listlessly in their cascade of candour! It was during this little rendezvous with his wife that Dev realized how much of a sacrifice he was undertaking. As he rolled around in bed in the apparent mirth of having his best friend back in his company, he came to terms with the enormity of the compromises he had undertaken by means of his job. Being away from home, from the beloved ones who shaped his life felt hard. He thought of the relatively luscious lives many of the other men in his age group led. A life that would have them in constant coherence with their world, their family. A life that wouldn’t be characterized by an apprehensive spouse, uncertain of whether or not she would ever get to have her spouse beside her again. A life that wouldn’t be epitomized disturbingly by fatal brushes with death every now and then. A life that wouldn’t hang precariously on the threshold of life and death. A life that could gloriously be called a life. A life that would consist of the riches, the contentment, the happiness and the celebration of living it the way it should. The life of a soldier is no longer regarded in the pretentious manner that it should, he thought to himself as he ran his palm through the lustrous hair of the woman in his bed. There was one side of him which regretted his decision to sign up for the onerous, perilous ride. But once he’d taken off breathlessly on the sprinting tiger, what choice had he got?

8:00 AM next morning found our protagonist at his heels again, reporting diligently for another day at work. The definition and quantification of the ‘work’ changes when we talk of a Commandant for a Battalion here. Back at Saharanpur, Dev ‘s jaded self, juxtaposed with tetchy thoughts of home, clawed its way back grittily to business as usual. A day of rigorous drills was preceded by some sharp talk to his men lambasting them for lax languor over the last few weeks, that’d been responsible for an exponentiating spate of civilian atrocities. Only last week, a four-year old and mother were found as hapless corpses one evening, eyewitnesses reporting ‘uniformed gunmen’, and news came thick and fast of another family shot down in Saharanpur one night. Days passed, weeks with increasingly vigilant surveillance and a relatively lesser grim picture. Lowering the guard was of course, never in the fray of reckoning when; for all you knew, a calm period might very well be the lull before a disparaging storm.

However, there was one special day that stood out in this memoir. A day that kicked off with very painstaking drills, followed by an extended, meticulously exercised session of training in various kinds of defenses to the guiles of guerilla warfare. His battalion chose to retreat in the pleasurable company of a wonderful afternoon, picking an ideal lunch spot in the open area that overlooked their camps. And what a feeling it was to stay unquivered, relaxed on the edges of a forest feeding away succulently and sharing laughs. Some days, even in the midst of underlying fear, just prop up from nowhere and render such deep contentment. This seemed just about an ideal day for these earnest jawans to unwind and rejuvenate themselves, as they sipped through their wafting chai at half-past five, at a roadside stall, and crackled away in delirious laughter at each other’s quixotic quips. It was then, when all looked serene and sober that all hell broke loose in a jiffy.

A series of gunshots shattered the serenity that graced the air around the place, as a well-armed, enormous group of warriors sprang into sight and emptied their magazines ruthlessly on the retreating battalion. Wails of misery filled the air as bullets razed into limbs, chests and faces of the discombobulated jawans. In moments, it was two-way death traffic with a few of our hapless victims mustering the equanimity to recover their chutzpah. Dev ordered his troops to hide, to scamper away behind masses of trees and bushes for a well directed retaliation. But that was a little too optimistic, as bullets sent warriors from both sides sent flying in the air and crashing away as lifeless corpses. There wasn’t the slightest of luxury with time or with the possibility of scuttling away denser into the woods, as the road was now a horrifying orgy of scarlet semi-solid matter.

Dev fought on valiantly taking down with him 13 of the gruesome insurgents. Locking his sight and his rifle on a 14^th, he fired, but missed and sent crashing down one of his own men. Atonement? Fate ensured no opportunity for that, as a stream of bullets made deep, piercing contact with his chivalrous mass. The rifle dropped aimlessly from his palms, as the numbed cadaver of Deveshchandra Singh, swerving momentarily, rammed face-on into the solid road that now stood unrecognizable by the ubiquitous change in texture. An unstoppable cascade of blood flowed from his crushed nose, as tears of agony and intolerably excruciating pain welled up in his bulging, stupefied eyes. Fully mindful of the reality that he was seconds away from perpetual rest, he thought of the country he had laid down his life for, and strived to serve. He thought of the many wailing kids, screeching wives and bickering males in his country, of why they should have any reason to be unhappy about. They aren’t doing my job, he thought. They do not live life with the apprehensive uncertainty of spontaneous death, and a perennial responsibility of being on guard, prepared for any sort of difficulty that might show up. A minor lapse in concentration and a deadly catastrophe invariably occurs. He regretted the diminishing value for the lives of soldier in the country he was so desperately serving. He thought of the presumed role of a soldier in contemporary times: a mere machine, a robotic entity meant to guard against unprecedented harm. And he thought of the perfunctory, callous manner in which the priceless lives of such audacious men would be reduced to a mere statistical figure. How different was the life of a jawan from the life of an ordinary civilian who might as well have been the subject of a bloody attack? For a fleeting moment, he wondered if he was just in being harsh to his men a few weeks ago for their languor. He wondered what his wife had to do with Naxalism to face the irrevocable grief of the news that would very soon be delivered to her...

And then, he thought no more.

A couple of hours later, outside the incredibly lavish quarters of the Home Ministry in the national capital halted a suave vehicle. Out emerged the man an impatient congregation awaited with bated breath, cameras clicking away incessantly for the man who was looked up to by the nation for guaranteed security and harmonious existence. Gazing at the cameras through his wide rimmed spectacles with a numbed straight face, he uttered with the debonair aura of an arrogant intellectual “The Home Ministry has received news this evening of a Maoist massacre on the outskirts of Saharanpur, Bihar. We’re told, and these are purely preliminary reports, that it was a guerilla assault. Our jawans were caught unarmed, and were attacked during retreat. We condemn such violence. As of now, the death toll stands at 72. You shall be informed if there is a further rise in the number.”

Author's Note: This, purely, is a work of fiction. Even the faintest resemblance to any character (living and dead) or incident may swiftly be dismissed as remarkable coincidence.

Languishing Languor

2010-05-22T02:47:00.004+05:30

The impoverished, hapless young man stranded incorrigibly amid a terribly demoralizing Mexican desert ran his palm through bland sand, the only thing in his clasp besides his apparent doom. Stoic lips transcended magnificently in a dismayed wail, the man stumbled upon his knees leaving behind him an automatically scrupulous, poignant portrait of decisive anguish and defeat.

Kites is one of the most thought-provoking products I’ve seen roll out from the industry of big, fat weddings and pompous songs-and-dances. The ride kicks off in an estranged Mexican desert, where our Homeric protagonist (he’s called J, how convenient, just ‘J’!) rolls out insensible of a goods train all haggered beyond reputation. Director Anurag Basu pauses, zooms in, familiarizes us with his terrible, savagery plight, and slips back tantalizingly to a lavishly lit Vegas casino. All this before we’re acquainted with J’s occupation of feigning marriages for a living. No kidding, our Casanova embarks listlessly on a cascade of spurious nuptial oaths, all for the want of a passport to his deeply involved customers, before he actually manages to naturally swoon down the daughter of the town’s Vito Corleone, whom he disdainfully dismisses upon abject ignorance of the wealth that dogged behind the footsteps of her infatuation. Over course of time, of course, the bonding is inevitable when the catalyst is materialistic pleasure. So we have our aimlessly meandering protagonist now a flamboyant Son-In-Law zooming away in aristocratic sedans and sipping up the most scrumptious wine in town. No, our man isn’t a content soul. Father-In-Law’s debonairly diabolical son (Tony) brings his fiancée along, whom our Bollywood hero J spots upon first sight as a former customer of his paper-polygamy. “Someone who actually made something happen in him”, we’re enlightened. So what’re we waiting for? After a sickeningly contrived rendezvous in the villa’s swimming pool and some seductive gazes, they’re a self-proclaimed couple now on the run, finding their due place in the American Media for judiciously robbing banks and evading the police implausibly in air balloons while a morbid Tony is all over the police and blasting up any witness for inability to provide the whereabouts he so desperately cannot do without. Our leads, meanwhile, find the luxury to cozily check into motels for comfortable retreat, barely mindful of the tremendous demon that longs to accost them…

The thing with Kites is, it yearns to exhibit itself as an epic love tale stained irreverently by blood and dishonor. It does not do what is essential to pull off a flick with such aspirations. Mediocre at best, the holistic assessment of this flick is one of disappointment. It would’ve been fair to expect from a director-writer of Anurag Basu’s prowess a flick worth wolf-whistling and raving about. This is not such a film. This flick is rather eerily Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai revisited. Too many similarities in storyline to dismiss as mere coincidence. However, Anurag Basu’s treatment of the unnervingly commonplace script is refreshingly experimentative (much unlike Rakesh Roshan’s. Much) Basu employs a non-linear narrative style to weave his tale across the 130 minutes; he seamlessly coasts away back-and-forth in time eruditely, compelling you to stay afloat and alive throughout the ordeal. Same sequences are told, and retold at different times from different perspectives, adding appreciable credibility to a quick-sinking boat. Even trash, when gilded suitably with aesthetically appealing entities, is consumable, tolerable. Anurag Basu manages to spruce up a clichéd, heavily contrived script with his adroit directorial stunts. Credit where it must go. Genuine credit to Mr.Basu. Special mention to the Cinematography team for engendering through sheer style, panache, elan a visually arresting environment. Be it in the suave suites of Las Vegas Casinos or forlorn deserts, the cinematography does not overdo and therein lies its greatest merit.

I shall remember very vividly the tenebrously etched snapshots and sequences through the film, all thanks to the sheer creativity of the cinematography and direction, and some very unsettling background music. The songs, though, sound typically Rajesh Roshan-ish, making you wonder if the album was actually a collection of his veteran hits through the decades. With 70% of the current version itself replete with English or Spanish, I doubt this flick will transcend beyond cosmopolitan multiplex crowds. Even if it does, it will for obvious aesthetic delectability.

And a lot of appraise for the obvious aesthetic delectability must be deservedly attributed to our leads, who share an automatically resonating chemistry. Language was never supposed to be an impediment to make love, it never is. Barbara Mori will enjoy this foray into The Grand Land Of Quixotic Cinema where she shall be hogged irresistibly for her mere screen presence. Must say, it is a ‘useful’ debut. Will surely earn her plenty more offers, for roles that are meant to communicate primarily (or atleast entertain audience) by the limited resources of the countenance. Hrithik Roshan makes a serious attempt at acting here. Problem is, he’s too predictable. Almost all through the film, he’s the same Hrithik Roshan you’ve seen in the Hide-And-Seek commercials. Stylish, peppy, elegant is Mr.Roshan, but gotta ask—can he do anything other than this? The trademarked Hrithik Roshan mumbling, grinning, jingling, haven’t we seen all that before in every other film of his? How is J, the character, different then? The Hrithik of the sword-fight in Jodhaa-Akbar is the J in Kites. But Hrithik has an undeniably alluring screen presence, a feeling which ensures naturally you don’t look away when he’s on screen. And mind you, the fake accent is highly arduous. Cannot tolerate it when an Indian face thinks it’s cool to speak it the American way.

Kites is an unobtrusive ostentation of irresistible éclat but is woefully short on solid content. It’s like the Biryani Ohri’s serves. Too much vegetable, too much spice, too much masala, little rice. Watch it if you have nothing else to do this summer.

Whatever language you want to interpret in, this film is a Kati Patang.

Rating:- **

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

2010-05-10T15:14:00.003+05:30

We’re at a time now when everything Mahendra Singh Dhoni did all week will be made to sound baffling. From skipping optional practice sessions (which are eponymously optional anyway) to reposing confidence in the skill of young Ravindra Jadeja, from surfing on the coastal waters of Barbados to sounding strained in the press conferences, everything he did will be questioned, debated, castigated, lambasted, decimated, flayed, annihilated, slaughtered, butchered and alternative deeds opportunistically suggested in a seamlessly convenient fashion. Invariably, every high-profile defeat of the Indian Cricket Team in evenly contested tight tournaments is followed instantaneously, incessantly by a cascade of rhetorical tomfoolery making the game of cricket and its various intricacies seem ridiculously simple enough for a normal couch potato to go livid and splutter a pantomime over the failure of the best 11 cricket players in a country of a billion. And we proclaim ourselves as ‘fans’. Going from dancing about on streets in immeasurable glee over a Tendulkar 200 to furiously setting alight effigies of the same XI folks in a matter of days, the gulf never is difficult to sail over. We lose the right to be called fans. Volatility ain’t a tenet of fanship. Here are a few straight reasons why a few other equally competent cricket teams got the better of us in a fairly competitive cricket tournament:

There are plenty of reasons that deserve to be picked as the first. But I’ll go with one that has found us wanting for more than a decade and a half—short pitched bowling. Curators in our country have for long been under the misdirected belief that dead wickets where batsmen can choose the spectator in the crowd for catching practice, is a so called ‘sportive wicket’. In addition to our glaringly apparent paucity of quality pace bowlers to acclimatize our rockstar-batsmen-on-dead-wickets to some vitriolic chin music in the nets is a further dent. Can’t blame the pacers actually; the kind of pitches we prepare in India, no budding cricketer will want to be a fast bowler. The endeavour would be associated with long hours of tenebrous toil and the mental preparation to accept getting bludgeoned out of shape, out of recognition, out of reputation. So long as batsmen bat big on staid wickets and win us games, we don’t acknowledge the pressing need to add significantly to our bowling repertoire. But to suggest we haven’t unearthed a solution for the short bowling muddle in 15 years reflects a little too much on the quality of strategic planning that has been going around in the team all this while. We see so many folks (besides the coach) dressed in the practice outfits, seated in dugouts and surfing through their laptops all the time. Really, what do they do? Would it have been so incomprehensible to unearth the plainly obvious strategy that the Aussies would go for the batsmen’s helmets from ball one with 3 quality bowlers who hurl at speeds which wouldn’t allow the willow to get a whiff of the leather? Is it rocket science that Chris Gayle cannot hit comfortably across the line and struggles with the subtle machinations of pace from the pacers? Loss after loss, and we continue to fail strategically. Strategic planning (assuming it exists), fundamental issue.

On a more pragmatic note, the track at Barbados which hosted us for a couple of disasters was hard, bouncy and had loads of moisture. I would be seriously interested to know from Dhoni how two fast bowlers would be ideal on a track of that nature. Humbly accepting Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the captain of the Indian Cricket Team has better cricketing acumen than you and I put together, I’m curious as to how fast bowlers in the 15 can be benched on tracks that were tailormade to launch their careers. Dhoni’s tactics worked perfectly in St. Lucia, a wicket on which the ball mated with the surface, then with the air resistance and then (provided it had some vigour left) with the willow. The Indian team was always meant to beat even the best teams on the St. Lucia’s and the Feroz Shah Kotla’s (Greame Smith will doubtlessly agree).

In bilateral series, we more often than not, emerge handsome victors. South Africa in 2010, almost-Sri Lanka in 2010 (in atrocious Bangladeshi conditions wherein all you had to do to win the match was to win the toss), Sri Lanka in 2009, New Zealand before that—we end up packing the series mid-way in the most emphatic manner. When travelling to a neutral venue, adapting to different environments, coping with the tremendous pressure of a virtual-knock-out format— is the challenge that awaits, we’ve disappointed. Same players playing all through the year. Virtually unchanged order of players in the teams on both sides from a recent bilateral obliteration and yet, we fall short at the big stage when it matters most. Watching them go about their business this week, and in the last 3 ICC events, I wondered if they’d been robbed of the authorization to play free, uninhibited cricket. If body language, approach, alacrity on field, spring in the general mood of players on field, batting run rate are anything at all to go by, the Indians were an afraid lot in Bridgetown, Barbados this week. Afraid of the fear of losing. Afraid of the heat they would inevitably have to try negotiating in the event of a glitch. Unable to back themselves to succeed. Isn’t it also a little too pitiable that a Murali Vijay has performed better for Chennai Super Kings than for the Indian Cricket Team, that a Yusuf Pathan has his way virtually 8/10 times he wears his purple franchise jersey, that Pragyan Ojha and Rohit Sharma have been unable to replicate their DC magic while playing for their country? I often flip through Star Cricket and wonder if the 2007 T20 bliss was a one-off, not in terms of the questioning players’ ability to reach the pinnacle again but in terms of the valour and spirit on display from an Indian cricket team, and with regard to serious doubts as to whether we will ever see an Indian team with such a mindset ever again.

And no, Sachin Tendulkar wouldn’t have helped greatly. Might’ve done a Tendulkar in both the games and taken us to the semis, so what? Would that have solved the impending need for revamp in cricketing infrastructure and mindset that we find ourselves grappling without? Yes, of course! The spoony Indian media would’ve feasted irresistibly on quixotic stories, replete with fantastic and glee-inspiring odes to the genius we’ve always had as a convenient fall back option to botch up all the blatant chinks in our armour. The bloke with the divine officinal willow who could make all minute facets of the game seem irrelevant. Sad truth is, we will remain a highly followed and cheered international cricket team in the post-Tendulkar era too. And as of today, I’m not sure we will repose confidence in the hope.

There exist plenty of evidently indelible stains on our cricketing fabric. No short-cut routes exist to bury the hatchet on this one. Must invest on making quality wickets, strategizing and training assiduously to detail. Nothing can be made to substitute the fundamental requirements for engineering a quality cricketing structure in this country. Not even Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

Signing off with regards and congratulations to Mahendra Singh Dhoni and army for an unanticipated remarkable ascent in world cricket in the last 6 months. Awaiting zealously a serious relook at fundamental requirements of a cricketing structure that carries a lot of expectation and promise.

Sameer Dharur,

Self-proclaimed Biggest Fan Of The Indian Cricket Team.

The Guiles Of Slam-Dunk

2010-04-30T11:49:00.000+05:30

By a predictable precedent, the T20 World Cup much like last year’s unfolds its knees and begins to jog with nobody clapping. In comparison to the IPL, every other cricket tournament is now being made to seem perfunctorily insignificant. Which brings me to a rather pertinent question: Is the IPL worth all the brouhaha? A hodgepodge of players from different nations clad in weirdo clothes, commentators reclining on cheerleaders’ laps and umpires droning ‘Taiyyaar Ho?’ before Ball One, millions of dollars hurled merely for playing 20-over games through a few weeks— has sadly reduced the viewer intensity that must exist (in a normal cricketing world) for a Country vs Country ICC tournament. The 2009 ICC World T20 AND the ICC Champions Trophy 2009 both had appalling Television Rating Points in comparison to a Chennai Super Kings versus Kings XI Punjab at Durban. Despite the conflict of opinion among players from other cricketing nations (West Indies, England et al) our cricketers firmly concur on a school of thought—playing for the country is paramount. Hope we viewers make that distinction too.

The moment a place like the Carribean is chosen for a major cricket tournament, you’d fall back on your chair with a pronounced sigh of satisfaction, assured of the ebullient response the tournament would receive and the rousing success it would invariably be. The 2007 ICC World Cup (the normal 50-over version) was, given the circumstances, a rude shock with regard to popularity and fan interest. a) The home team decided emphatically not to give their crowds enough to cheer about. b) India and Pakistan went evangelical towards their travel managers. c) The pricing of tickets for the stadia made the average West Indian cricket lovers feel they were scores of notches below the poverty line. Though the first couple of issues cannot have predetermined solutions, the third can be treated with an eraser used by sensible hands. Pity watching the 2007 WC sans the enchantingly spirited conventional Carribean flavor, instead having to scrutinize the renovations the stadia had undergone (yes, even the quality and color of the seats could be judged thanks to their lack of inhabitation).

Last June, majority perspective (or hope, as I’d like to believe) was vigorously toward an Indian triumph again. Once the tournament kick started with its warm-up games one began to realize how rhetorical those assessments were. This time around though, the tournament looks like it could land up in any of the top 8 nations’ Hall Of Fame (Glory To Thee, Cricket!) I’m looking at India, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies as serious contenders for the title. Sans the riches of Sachin Tendulkar (He’s currently India’s best T20 batsman. No kidding) and the belligerence of Virender Sehwag, India will not be low on resources in any stretch of imagination. We still house a terrific batting lineup, beyond apprehension the best among the competing teams. The bowling looks comfortingly sane with Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh coming off decent IPL seasons. The most important factor, however, that must be taken into consideration before any analysis is the conditions of the region. West Indies are traditionally known to throw up slow tracks, some with spongy bounce and some without bounce at all. The four teams aforementioned have the best resources for the conditions on hand. Contrary to age-old tradition, South African batsmen have particularly improved through this decade in the way they play spin bowling. Jacques Kallis, AB De Villiers, JP Duminy, Mark Boucher have defied customary practices of South African batsmen and have become very fine players of spin bowling through the years. And spin bowling shall be the way to go about things in the West Indies. If watching a spinner opening the bowling frustrated you during the IPL, better turn the TV set off for good. Wouldn’t be a surprise to me at all if 12 overs of the 20 see slow bowlers turning their arms over. Sri Lankan conditions are nearly the same as those in the Carribean and they have some pretty handy slower bowlers in their armory. And you simply cannot count out the Windies when they’re playing at home. Besides having just about the right players for the conditions, their style of playing the game (all passion, flair, style, enigma and energy) is perfectly in synchrony with T20 cricket. If there’s one format of the game you could expect optimistically the West Indies to come good, it is this one.

Oh, lest I forget, only the stupid would dismiss the Pakistanis. Folly may thou not commit of writing off Pakistan. They're fickle as a biased commentator. They may very well knock you off the driver’s seat anytime or may gladly get mowed down. An interesting story behind their remarkable turnaround last year was Shahid Afridi. He realized, quite astutely, that there wasn’t an impending need for him to clobber every ball from London to Nottingham, acknowledged that he might as well let the ball come to him and do the needful, recognized his previous foibles and made attempts to correcting them. And what we saw in last year’s T20 WC was a restrained Afridi (bizarre though it may sound) winning them the semis and the final. He’s a pretty useful bowler too, mind you. Finished as the highest wicket-taker in the inaugural ICC World T20 in the rainbow nation. Wonder if captaincy will help his contribution as a cricketer this time around.

Never mind the lack of hype this tournament will generate. As an ultimate connoisseur of the interactions between bat and ball, following this tournament will sure be pleasurable. Serve up the beer, the party’s coming!

Lessons From IPL III

2010-04-24T01:34:00.010+05:30

This wonderful baby created by some financial big-wigs, nurtured and nourished by all of us keeps growing in stature with every season and every forward step it chooses to take. Too much of a fairy tale thus far, it has enthralled us all and redefined cricket the way we knew it. All the more paramount then to put away dissipative forces, help bring about empowerments and keep propelling it in the right direction for global popularity and fan-fidelity. Here are a few lessons we learnt this season:

Unpredictability. This has been a continual trend across all the 3 seasons of the IPL thus far. Forget the IPL; this will always be a prominent factor in governing the outcomes of T20 games at large.

Controversy. The IPL and perpetual doses of controversy (some excessive) shall remain brothers-in-arms. That’s also got a lot to do with the IPL’s popularity quotient. Nothing much can be done to change that. Can only channelize attention onto the field nipping them all in the bud.

Need For Sanitization. Given the enormous amounts of Vitamin M that the IPL assimilates, generates and manages, sleazy shenanigans with regard to corruption aren’t particularly flummoxing. But the amount of muck the underbelly houses is a matter of deep concern (not that they put the average cricket fanatic off), and sanitization of the enterprise is a must for preserving the sanctity of the wonderful game that enthralls billions across the globe. Guess pooh-bahs need to respect the pretense of the game more.

Modi Must Be Cut To Size. This guy has family members as stake holders in franchises, breaches confidentiality clauses on Twitter, romances cheerleaders (fully inebriated) at post-match parties, runs prejudicial propaganda against people (and franchises, as we’ve realized) and has become an autocratic dictator, a law unto himself. Plenty of charges, allegations about him flying around the place every day, some irrefutable facts and some mere accusations. There must be checks and balances over the functioning of Lalit Modi, the man who made the IPL. He is the reason why we're going ga-ga about a Sachin Tendulkar taking on Mahendra Singh Dhoni every evening. He's the creator of this Billion Dollar Extravaganza. He can doubtlessly be deemed responsible for making this a super-successful money spinning, fan-appeasing enterprise. And one that has established supreme connect with cricketing fans across the globe, made even the dismissive cynics take to cricket (in countries which did not speak of cricket) and has added a whole new dimension to cricket fanship across the globe. He took up a task (irrespective of the roots of the fundamental idea, or its inevitability to happen), built it beautifully and administered the venture with great skill. Anybody accomplishing arduous administrative tasks is worthy of plaudits. This guy is no different. Nothing takes away from the fact that he has been responsible in a large manner for making the IPL a tremendous global brand. Let us not dismiss him as a rotten fruit. When it was fresh, people longed for it and thrived watching it fascinate. Only when it turns rotten, we're beginning to question if it was ever fresh at all. That is absolute hypocrisy. Nonetheless, nobody (player, administrator, whoever) can be made to seem to transcend the ethos of the game. Hence, having some forced control on the operations of Lalit Modi is now a must. Clip the wings, but do not shoot down the bird.

Tracks/Conditions Still A Factor. Now this is for the ultimate connoisseurs. In today’s era where smacking the white shining thing hurled at you perfunctorily out of 60000 people’s sight might be made to seem like a prerequisite for a young player to earn the license to play the game, subtle aspects of the game like humidity, freshness of the pitch, breeze directions et al are still a significant factor in the game. This year in particular, slow and low wickets (think Feroz Shah Kotla, Chepauk and DY Patil) have demonstrated to us (leaving clueless couch potatoes groping for excuses) that it takes a lot of skill to play this game, irrespective of the format concerned. It is pivotal to have the ability to acclimatize to any given conditions to triumph, and that shall be so for all forms of the game how many ever invented in future. (Hoping Navjot Singh Sidhu’s 5-over ‘underwear’ cricket is never reality!)

Big Names Do Not Guarantee Definite Triumphs. While money-spinning, frenzy-ringing names like Adam Gilchrist, Mathew Hayden, Yuvraj Singh, Sanath Jayasuriya flopped miserably this season, what has been established with considerable certainty over the three seasons is the fact that you need utility players in this format of the game—Blokes who can wield the willow with a decent strike rate, give you a few acceptable overs with the ball and save runs with their alacrity on the field. Kieron Pollard, Andrew Symonds and Suresh Raina this season have reaffirmed that notion.

Oldies As Proficient As Greenhorns. Look down the list of the most successful batsmen and bowlers this season and it might befuddle you when you discover some of the names. Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble are still good enough for this format. Yet, they did nothing crazy. Sachin Tendulkar played classical cricket shots (only three sixes all tournament), Jacques Kallis built the team’s innings around him, Sourav Ganguly was the good old belligerent himself at the top of the order, Anil Kumble was still flighting the ball masterfully and completely beating the batsmen for flight and turn, this tournament was in more ways than one a purist’s delight.

Security Concerns Tenable. The events of April 17^th in Bangalore sullied India’s image as a safe haven for international sports, screw the low intensity of the blasts. In all, 5-6 bombs planted in the vicinity of a cricket stadium of international stature and you know for once something’s fundamentally wrong with the security establishment. Thing with sporting events in India now: Every minor security concern raised by other nations will be genuine and cannot be dismissed as insignificant. Sad part is: no assurance from our side will dispel the fears. The IPL is damn lucky to have carried on in full pomp.

Crowd Support A Factor. Contrary to many naive refutations of crowd support being a factor in determining the outcomes of games, this year’s IPL has seen several games won with the aid of tremendous crowd backing, particularly the games won by the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Kolkata Knight Riders at their respective home grounds, from crunch situations. Home games make a huge difference after all (laud the Deccan Chargers for having fought their way to the semis without that luxury).

Venue Expansion A Great Prospect. Nagpur, Cuttack, Dharamshala and Ahmedabad have all been very hospitable to the IPL this season. Ebullient crowds, fantastic playing conditions have reposed the faith in the idea to move the league to new venues. Next year with the number of games increasing manifold, why not make each team play 7 home games instead of 9 and contemplate taking the league to unchartered venues like Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Gwalior, Vadodara, Srinagar (no kidding) and possibly even a Dhaka or a Colombo? Some food for thought there.

We’re a couple of games away from bidding adieu to our favourite evening entertainment. Might as well bid goodbye with an enchanting thought—this season has been the best yet.

Kochi Kochi Hota Hai

2010-04-16T02:30:00.006+05:30

Astute hitherto diplomat Shashi Tharoor has found himself haplessly embroiled in another murky imbroglio. ‘Cattle class’ was tongue-in-cheek. ‘Interlocutor’ was pathetically misinterpreted. ‘Visa’ tweet sparked off debate. ‘We must work on October 2^nd’ was sensible. But this one seems to have inhabited an entirely different pedestal. Like an electron in the ground state obtaining energy and jumping over to an excited state, Tharoor’s controversy quotient seems to gallop alarmingly each time he enters headlines. Can’t help but reconcile that it does not augur well at all for his reputation WITHIN THE CONGRESS PARTY, more than anywhere else. Last March, when he announced his decision to foray into Indian Politics, cynics within and outside the Congress party lined their ammunition up for a stream of vicious propaganda against the man who ‘came in a suit, couldn’t speak Malayalam, was a foreigner’. Yet, Tharoor surprised many, clinching his Thiruvananthapuram seat with consummate ease. Once the coronation, word was unanimous he’d be conferred MoS for MEA. He was (I hoped Cabinet Minister). Ever since, he’s been doing a great deal of work in his portfolio. Let’s not make any suppression about that. He has been on his sprinting shoes ever since he assumed his seat, flying around the world for significant assignments nearly 4-5 days a week. He’s done many a ‘firsts’. From establishing diplomatic relations with many an African nation after eras to being the first Indian to visit Haiti post disaster, he’s been a very proactive minister. So what if he tweets about them? Is he not granted the authority to stay in touch and keep his countrymen informed of what he’s doing 24*7 as their representative? Is he not obliged, like all of us are, to have an opinion on issues around the world? Not a second of his efficient activity is reported. Silly controversies are engineered around him and it's made to seem like the chaiwallah in Amberpet or the Taxi Driver in Bandra is agitated at Tharoor for having betrayed the principles of a saadhaaran Indian politician. He was brought up in a society that encouraged conflict of views, discussions and open debate where views wouldn’t be met with ‘Who is this Shashi Tharoor to change 60-year old tenets?’ or ‘Too much tweeting will lead to quitting’. Somewhere in the hazy clouds of Tharoor’s Indian political tryst, he’s lost the synchrony of being the conventional Indian politician to earn the appraisal of the majority. And I’m glad he hasn’t made himself a conceited caricature. We talk of having revolutionary Indian politicians who could embody pragmatism. Here we have one before us. And we’re too busy admonishing him for his openness. Here are a few reasons why Tharoor isn’t at fault in the latest conundrum he’s been hurled into:

Ø Shashi Tharoor was part of an exercise that helped bring an international cricket tournament to the state he represents and empower the region economically and culturally . What’s wrong?
Ø Too much being alleged about Tharoor while he happens to be a ‘close accomplice’ of a 5% stakeholder in the franchise. Why not round up all politicians associated with other ‘5% stakeholders’ of all other franchises and have them whipped by the media for 'abuse of power'?
Ø ‘Tharoor must resign’? Go take a walk.
Ø Rendezvous Sports Group (major stakeholders in the Kochi IPL franchise) APPROACHED Tharoor and not vice-versa. Tharoor mentored the deal. Therefore, to suggest Tharoor was money-hungry and dying to fill pocket with 75 crores is preposterous.
Ø To suggest Sunanda Pushkar is proxy (or whatever else is being insinuated) to Shashi Tharoor is unbecoming of any public figure.
Ø Major point of contention—phone call made by Modi to Tharoor seeking details of stakeholders. Tharoor allegedly asked Modi not to press for details (sure he meant something else). What’s the big deal? Did Modi go around Preity, Shilpa and Shah Rukh and strangle them for stakeholders’ info? Nope, he waltzed with them.
Ø What ON EARTH was Lalit Modi up to violating contentious confidentiality clauses of a contract on a platform as trivial as Twitter, knowing fully well the ramifications that might ensue?
Ø Modi, since a week after RSG buying the Kochi franchise was grappling with himself to unearth discrepancies in logistics to push Kochi off the bandwagon. Left with no other viable options, he approved the documents (as we now know, with greater disintegrating ideas in mind).
Ø Modi went on record to openly flay the Kochi franchise, reportedly going on to state he’d ensure it gets the worst deal next year.
Ø Modi’s Gujarati connect is a little too real to be dismissed as a coincidence. Given the well directed castigation of the Kochi franchise in full public domain, it is evident he is prejudiced economically or otherwise against the particular franchise. A shenanigan attempt to roping in an Ahmedabad franchise cannot be ruled out.
Ø The well directed decimation of Shashi Tharoor and very close affinity to the Bharatiya Janata Party is noteworthy. Remember the RCA elections wherein he received a pounding and cried foul against the incumbent Rajasthan CM Congressman Ashok Gehlot? Food for thought.
Ø Modi himself has a handful of relatives owning stakes in various franchises. A BCCI executive owns the Chennai franchise. Well?
Ø Here is a man who’s served in international diplomatic circles as a fine diplomat for years, and to accuse him of using Govt. money to buy a stake/ help wrest a business transaction by illegitimate means is inept, and motivated by reasons other than the man’s deeds or his reputation.

As I write this, Modi's getting ragged by the Income Tax department. Have things really got that pettily political? Is the Congress hitting back at Modi for what he’s done to Tharoor?

Who’s right, who’s wrong in this surreptitious shenanigan is of the least importance for the average ardent cricket fan. Officially, the limelight that very well deserves to be hogged by a few terrific young cricketers and a riveting cricket tournament has been hijacked by insatiable money-mongers longing to fill their deeply knit pockets with the sarkaari kaagaz or harness comradeship for mutual convenience and monetary crime. Either ways, we’re looking at the wrong side of the Indian Premier League.

All teams are in with a chance for a semifinal berth.

The Predicament Within

2010-04-08T02:04:00.007+05:30

6^th April, 2010 will go down in History as the day things changed with regard to Naxalism in India. Like a bunch of boorish school kids livid at being denied sports, a herd of savage death seeking mongers knocked the day lights out of the country’s endeavour to moving ‘swiftly and decisively’ toward a country that could concentrate its military might on external threats. Slaughtering to death 76 CRPF Jawans in never-before-seen brazen brutality, the Maoists had made a statement. That talks and truce go to hell. They shall wreak terror, ferry beleaguered guardians across the lava of dread, and show the country they’re better than giving press conferences with hidden faces or bragging the media with emails and phone calls for publicity. Talk about stamping authority, this was genocide. Absolute carnage. Hunting down the hunters and ripping them apart; Folks, we’re talking business here.

Too much has been written over the years romanticizing the Maoists as crusaders of equality, social justice and alleviating them to pedestals they never deserved to make their own. Gotta ask yourself, how accountable is the Government for the reckless bloodbath that’s been on for a couple of decades now? Can a simple issue like recognition of tribal communities’ rights on land and resources even be given a moment of thought at a time like this? Though the insurrection stems from communist uprising back in 1967, it was never until recently an issue of paramount importance for Governments in power. Sleep wasn’t lost over sweating for solutions to the predicament. Dantewade April 6th must be the gamechanger in India’s approach toward Naxalism. Acharya Vinoba Bhave was clairvoyant enough to foresee a communist backlash in his hay days (I'm sure even he didn't envisage a scenario like this one). We’re watching his words coated with the wisdom of a conscientious saint, translate into horrific scenes of savage slaughter. I don’t quite have the numbers to drive my point home, but I have had the gloom of watching several news stories in the last few months oozing tragedy with headlines ranging from ‘Maoists behead family in …. village’ to ‘Red terror wreaks havoc on polling day’. The trailers are sufficient to convey the mood of a tenebrous film.

Reading quixotic pieces on the Maoists’ endeavours to achieving social justice and giving governments a kick has been a disgusting exercise. Particularly when eminent literary icons of the country take to such stands, you question their credibility. Countless calls from the Governments for talks and truce have been answered with loaded magazines and uninhibited bloodbath. There is no glory in committing homicide to the people of a country you wish to live happily in, and which you’re fighting to make your respectable home. All issues pertaining to historic neglect, seizure of quintessential rights in the cause of the greater national interests, are issues that are more likely to find answers in cross table discussions than in cross fence shootouts. Watching the Maoists’ deeds in the last few years, one really wonders what their eventual goals are. No productive steps whatsoever; all attempts by Governments to get pragmatic and induce them into walking to the talking table have been met with the severity of deadly land mines and the hostility of persistent murders of innocent, hapless civilians. They’ve made the immaculate metamorphosis into despicable terrorists. There can exist no empathy for groups of this nature. The methodology of going about the business of fighting them is something that cannot be made a topic for evening debates on National Television. Ex-DGP's or Party Spokespersons really aren't the right men to be putting forth their thoughts on military strategies. Besides, articulation of military strategies is unwelcome also for the fact that it would be giving too much away. Offers of resignation from the men at the helm of affairs is inevitable. But it is not adversity that must unnerve. Courage is the conquest of fear, not the absence of fear. At a delicate cusp like this, there will be an overwhelming sense of diffidence and fear. But putting in papers is no proper way to quelling the fears. A catastrophe like this one must spur on the right moves and implementation of an efficient infrastructure to tackling the issue, be it in the form of Air Force or UAV's. It is only the best fuglemen who can take this call. And they must hold their own through this crisis.

Oh, take a cue from our southern island neighbours. Emulate Mahinda Rajapakse and wipe these nefarious harbingers of cataclysm off the face of this country. Frankly, we deserve better.

Or, fly the Inglourious Basterds over. We might as well do with a Bear Jew!

Truth and Lies

2010-03-18T22:06:00.007+05:30

In the endeavour of righteousness I inadvertently linger,

Seeking the cleansing of many a bewitched slinger;

Each time they let the detonator amid their fingers go up in smoke,

They know they’ve rendered themselves haplessly, deliberately broke.

Not today…

Of delirium, of destiny, of hara-kiri and suicide,

To parlous and intoxicating entities, they hopelessly chide;

They in taciturn response, “I really don’t mind!”

Oh, screw the suckers, they’re innately blind.

In the shallow myths of contentment they wholly sink,

Why do they fail to decipher The Malicious Wink?

“What the fuck am I doing?”— Why don’t they ask?

Why in the glory of obliteration do they splendidly bask?

Their delight, their scrumptious joy is far from justifiable,

Occur no goodness to them that might just seem viable;

As evil presents heartily its infectious autograph,

Scarcely do they discern they’re crafting a poor cenotaph.

To swagger, to glower, to maim, to drink,

Too many reasons to clairvoyantly blink;

“How do I give up? How do I refuse?”

Simply act, Monsieur, do not pointlessly muse.

In the light of this darkness I apprehensively foray,

I ardently wish I could do this every day;

Banish the catastrophic viruses of intransigence,

Rake in the Elysian of ethical charm for fond remembrance.

Perhaps it is extravagance, perhaps too much for comprehension,

In attempting to craft an apt simile I feel trepidation;

In the swindling depths of their character lies their quintessential key,

Alas, if only they hadn’t resolved to flee from it in glee.

O Valiant Reveler, glory be thou name,

May the irreplaceable mirth of moral victory you proudly claim;

In the happiest memories and loveliest entities may you find solace,

May you triumphantly render monstrous allurements toothless.

In the endeavour of righteousness I inadvertently linger,

Seeking the cleansing of many a bewitched slinger;

From cataclysmic evil to effulgent rectitude may they seamlessly navigate,

New times of glorious integrity may they plainly promulgate.

Today.

Befuddling Bonanza

2010-03-11T00:56:00.004+05:30

Anyone watched this year's Filmfare Awards? Yes, they extended late into the night; yes they were swarmed excessively with advertisements. But they were rollicking fun. Lessons for hosting are to be learnt from nowhere beyond Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin looked like graduation dropouts instructed to swallow some lines and vomit them with perfunctory pauses to elicit whatever kind of response from the crowds in the silence. Sheesh. The ceremony in itself was a letdown. No music and such insipid hosting from the leads. And wait, I haven't started off with the 'winners' yet.

The awards have already been dubbed furiously, for the first time with an overwhelming consensus among film critics and commentators worldwide, as among the worst in recent memory. I myself could not come to terms with the abominable quality after an hour and a half, and reverted to Physics and Chemistry. Watching the ceremony was harrowing, blasé and undeniably pointless after much persistence. Not to mention, the ceremony looked quite underfed on the glitz too. No adequate grandeur. The recession effect, maybe. This one too, rated R. Some respite, for viewers though, from Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron—unquestionably the two best-dressed and best-looking people of the night. And we thought the battle of the exes was confined to the business end!

If the terribly inefficient deeds of the hosts to sustain our imagination and interest weren't sufficient, the vehemently unacceptable bombshells dropped every 20-30 minutes did little to befriend me. Christoph Waltz kicked off the night with a charming little address on winning his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, while a visibly cheerful Tarantino gloated on. Mo'Nique was supposed to effortlessly take home Best Supporting Actress, she did. Same with the makers of Up, for Best Animated Film. Some awards in the technical categories, which are supposed to be beyond dispute, are questionable too. Like Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing for The Hurt Locker. Rubbish, there's hardly ANY noteworthy sound throughout the film, whereas other nominees like Avatar make optimum utilization of sound effects to add gild to the experience of the film. Inexplicable. Thankfully, the Academy wasn't confounded enough to deprive Avatar of Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction. Best Film Editing was among the very few categories anointed to worthy contendors. The Hurt Locker is a lesson in film editing. Best Original Song and Best Original Soundtrack winners are perfectly acceptable too. The screenplay categories this time are what you'd call unpardonable shockers. Up In The Air was the worthiest in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, while the Best Original Screenplay always belonged to Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. You cannot work out reasons for some events. Intelligence fails.

As for the acting honours, I haven't myself seen either of the performances. Of what I gather, both performances occupy a considerable chunk of the screen time. Reminds me eerily of Anthony Hopkins who ran home with the Best Actor Oscar in 1991 for his impersonation of Hannibal Lecter. Mind you, he was on screen only 17 minutes throughout the film. Will we have repetitions of such instances ever again? Or will actors require the whole film to make a considerable impression of their acting pedigree? Normally, in the recent past, actors who've won the top prizes at the Oscars are those whose characters in the film are almost the only ones. Almost like a biopic. Crazy Heart follows the life of the awry, alcoholic country singer—which automatically puts the protagonist in contention of the Oscar. Same applied to Sean Penn in Milk last year too. Personally, I'd have liked to see Jeremy Renner or George Clooney pocket the Best Actor Oscar—two actors perfecting roles which weren't why the respective films were made. Once the character is above the film, it ceases to be a respectable film. And the actor portraying the character has an automatic contention for the top acting billings.

As for the top two honours, I've got a lot to say. Kathryn Bigelow winning Best Director for The Hurt Locker certainly isn't undeserving. Jason Reitman was refreshingly original and heartwarming with his treatment of Up In The Air, Tarantino was Tarantino with Inglourious Basterds. But Cameron's directorial outing this time around is epic. Here is a man who's given a decade of his life for the film, created the technology he required just for the film, transcended all hitherto conventional methods of film making, waited another few years for the equipment of 3D screens in majority of the theatres across the world before releasing film. The film is entirely a function of his effort, not the writers, not the actors, but him—and him alone. Cameron carries the film singlehandedly and paints a portrait so extravagant and lavish that any viewer shall be rendered spellbound, dumbstruck and speechless. If an effort as cantankerous and overwhelming as this cannot win Best Director, then I cannot think what can. Cameron, with his efforts for this film, has sure inspired many film makers around the world to set out to be innovative and larger-than-life.

In a somewhat similar stereotype, The Hurt Locker winning Best Picture isn't entirely undeserving either. It is a brilliantly made film, one every critic shall feast upon. It has its overwhelmingly blatant demerits too. Thought subtly, it is racial, it is imperialistic in its stand on War and Iraq, and it is a dreary documentary. It'll rank in my book among the many over rated films of our times. Sometimes, it seems a tedious watch too. Up In The Air is very close to a perfect film, while Inglourious Basterds is a sensational parody on some of the disturbingly unforgettable times during World War II. But the film of the year, film of the decade for me is Avatar. Those who say it ain't got a tale: Folks, get real. It is a simple tale. Essentially a quixotic love story, with several pragmatic messages fitted into the blockbuster experience. How much of a story has The Hurt Locker got? Actually, THAT is what you'd call a film with little story. Only the stone hearted will remain unmoved by Avatar through its length. It is a film which not just renders you awestruck but invokes high emotions within you, and makes you feel like you never have throughout your life. Watch it twice, once to get the once-in-a-lifetime experience. Second time, to relive it. Why do we go to the movies? Fundamentally to enjoy ourselves and have a pleasurable time. Avatar more than satisfies the criterion. Lest we forget, it changed the way movies are made. It is a phenomenal cinematic achievement, and that alone establishes its unshakable credentials. When we say 'Best Picture' why can't it simply mean the film that thrilled us the most? Or why can't it imply the film that radically changed cinema? Or the film that outdid orthodox cinema and gave it a whole new dimension? Why shouldn't the 'experience' value too be one of the parameters for judging the 'Best Picture'? End of the day, Avatar is the greatest grosser of all time. The Hurt Locker is the least grosser ever to win a Best Picture Oscar. That tells a thing or two about unanimous public opinion. Period. On the day, however, the best Cameron could do for his cause was to feign rallying hard for his ex-wife who gorgeously strutted onto the dais in a ramp she'll remember for the rest of her life, to become a little trend-setter herself.

Fifty years down the line, I'll remember 22^nd December 2009—the day I watched the game-changer in contemporary cinema. And yeah, assuming it's worth it, I guess I'll also remember one of the Academy's greatest screw-ups in the following year.

Strutting On Red...

2010-03-07T21:33:00.008+05:30

Social Studies exam tomorrow morning. Geography sucks like nothing else.

More importantly, the 82^nd Academy Awards will roll magnificently tomorrow. Too much brouhaha about ‘em this time around. Justified. Some outstanding films this year alone. But the big tussle remains in the two most pretentious categories—Best Picture, Best Director. Here I compile a list of all those remarkable artists who deserve to walk away with the golden men (yes, they’re actually men, not ladies!). Not that the others don’t, but if I were a single-man jury, I’d wholeheartedly, with complete appreciation hand the following candidates the awards in the various categories concerned. However, I haven’t put up any such assessments for a few ‘Who-cares?’ categories. I value your time. Here we go:-

Best Visual Effects:-

Avatar, shall we say? Yeah, we’re agreed on that?!

Best Film Editing:-

The Hurt Locker is slickly edited. Among the nominated films, this one deserves it most.

Best Cinematography:-

Tough one. With the access to such superior technology these days, every film of stupendous magnitude is certain to advertise state-of-the-art cameras. Yet, Avatar.

Best Art Direction:-

Close call between Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. But I’d have to say, Avatar. Sometimes, you cannot bet against obvious eventualities.

Best Original Song:-

I See You from Avatar though it isn’t in the nominees!

Best Original Score:-

Up and Avatar boast of very moving soundtracks. But I’d stick my neck out for Avatar. With the challenges James Horner had to tackle given the demand of making every track synonymous to surreal worlds, must say he’s done pretty well.

Best Adapted Screenplay:-

Must go to Up In The Air. Very tight screenplay indeed. Never bores a second. Tough to recreate the magic of books onto celluloid. Jason Reitman deserves credit too.

Best Original Screenplay:-

Quentin Tarantino’s films are beyond uniqueness. They can, at best, be equated to the Tarantino genre of cinema. If there ever was originality, Tarantino embodies it. Inglourious Basterds, it shall be.

Best Supporting Actor:-

Sorry Matty. I’m sure you’d have done a Matt Damon in Invictus. This year belongs to Christoph Waltz for arguably one of THE best supporting actor performances in a very long time. Spruces up Inglourious Basterds whenever he’s on screen, whenever he’s not too. Marvellous.

Best Actor:-

I haven’t seen Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. Excluding his contention, the award must definitely go to Jeremy Renner as the casual, streetsmart EOD expert in The Hurt Locker. Renner slips in easily into the character’s clothes and makes watching him on screen pure joy. Sometimes, it’s sense to reward entertainment. And gee, Renner was Sgt. William James in every frame.

Best Director:-

Four of the five nominees COMPLETELY DESERVE this award. Why have an award for this category? Why not split the Oscar among Jason Reitman, Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow? The films these four folks have made this year will rank in the top 20 of the decade. Outstanding films, all of them in their own right. Cameron gave a decade of his life for Avatar alone, Tarantino told the world Inglourious Basterds will be a masterpiece before its release, Bigelow showed chivalry taking her crew to Jordan and shooting a war film, Reitman is charming with his refreshing treatment of Up In The Air. Such a close race for one award—Unfair. I’ll take the emotional quotient into consideration here. Kathryn Bigelow, not for reasons as naïve as being a ‘woman directing a war film…WOW!’ but genuinely brilliant direction. She gives the war sequences a new Avatar— the gravel rising, the ground shaking, the suspense she constructs all by herself around otherwise drab sequences—this is a landmark directorial outing.

Best Picture:-

Ten nominees? Overaction. 4 of them in genuine contention. Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air is a candidly heartwarming, charming take on a very pragmatic issue we’re faced with in current times (Rating—****). Meritorious. Fun too. Inglourious Basterds is a bloody good film. Mind numbingly creative, it is an unstoppable juggernaut of a pure genius (Rating— ****1/2). The Hurt Locker is a brilliant film too. But the problem I have with it is its pro-War outlook. American troops sniper-ing down locals while local Iraqi women and children look on haplessly in shock from their balconies, the ending sequence of the film—are all pretty contentious. Moreover, it is a film Americans can connect with better. A controversial issue too. I do not agree with the stand the film takes on the Iraq issue. However gratuitous the film might be toward real American soldiers battling in Iraq, its central theme and intentions do not emotionally and sensibly strike a chord with everybody, not with me either. Besides, the experience wasn’t really as edge-of-the-seat as promised. Also began to get boring after a while. Entertainment factor therefore, pretty low. Nonetheless, it is a well made film (Rating-- ***1/2). But if there’s one reason why every ‘What-do-you-think?-I-am-a-Hollywood-geek’ will remember 2009, it is for James Cameron’s larger than life magnum-opus. Contrary to wide spread critic belief, the film isn’t just an arts exhibition. It has a story; simply because the story isn’t as complex as a sci-fi flick like 2001 : A Space Odyssey or any other sci-fi film with an indecipherable plot, one cannot dismiss Avatar as a film devoid of a tale. The story is shallow, yes. The story has no twists and turns, yes. But it is a noble story with a meaningful message to its viewers. Contrary to The Hurt Locker, Avatar takes a pronounced anti-War as well as a Bio-friendly stand. The experience one has watching Avatar is nothing that can be felt ever again, it is out-of-the-world. And the ‘experience’ value must be a criterion for judgment too. That is why we go to the movies. To have a nice time, enjoy ourselves. Once in a lifetime, when a film like this comes by, it must get its credit for the unprecedented thresholds of conventional cinema it has transcended. Avatar, very emphatically.

The Academy has as much of a history of committing unpardonable goof-ups as it has of rewarding worthy candidates. I have a funny feeling we’re headed for the former tomorrow.

Lone Man Standing...

2010-02-14T23:01:00.008+05:30

Watching My Name Is Khan earlier today, I felt like I’d had a very poor version of my all time favourite Chocolate ice cream. The critics? Well, Liars…Liars…(that’s what our protagonist calls every I-gotta-theory-to-follow fundamentalist)

The film starts off in a pretty no-nonsense, I’m-finally-here-to-do-business-after-four-lousy-films-in-a-row fashion, lifting your spirits about the possibility of leaving the hall young and fresh. The Coke placed in your seat, special people strutting into the hall 20 minutes into the film, mobile phones beeping amid silence and weight—all do not seem to matter once Khan takes centrestage and goes about his business meticulously. The first 30 minutes would definitely leave you pleasantly surprised and in my case, I was already thinking of how wonderful this review here would look like.

My Name Is Khan is a diligent attempt by writer-director Karan Johar at foraying into, let’s call it, proper cinema. The plot essays the life of our wed leads (Shah Rukh Khan as the Asperger Syndrome victim Rizwan Khan and Kajol as Mandira Rathore) gone horribly wrong post 9/11, and the attempt of our protagonist Khan to mend ways by undertaking an over-the-top, unrealistic journey to fulfill his dream of reuniting with the love of his life. That’s it. Simple as that. During the course of Khan’s journey of course, Johar wishes to squeeze in several messages he intends to convey through the film. The predominant one, of course, being the one proclaiming all Muslims aren’t terrorists. Fine, point taken Khan, however, must speak these words to the President of America to get to reunite with wife Mandira. Another one being ‘there are only two kinds of folks in this place of ours here, good and bad’. Fine, point taken. Script’s all right. The screenplay, the manifestation of the script in the characteristic Johar fashion, however, is reminiscent of his previous works and it throws the film into a slump it never recovers from.

For instance, the sub plots infused into the script are hopelessly naïve, narrow-minded and avoidable. Take for example Khan putting his President expedition to a standstill and singlehandedly steering a village in Georgia ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, to safety while the whole of America does not get the idea. Or for that matter, the rather out-of-place sequence of him besieged by a Jihadi terrorist. Another problem I have with the film is the sweeping, loose way in which America is portrayed in its post 9/11 scenario, with every fair skinned guy smashing TV sets in stores owned by Muslims, ripping apart burqas, or even Mandira’s heavily reputed beauty store going bankrupt over night. The ‘personal tragedy’ that befalls upon Khan and Mandira too is extremely shallow, out of sync with sense. The film gets very preachy in the second half, its precept getting nauseating beyond a point. Oh, and the mundane Media hullabaloo in Hindi cinema. Hell, stereotypical. This could’ve only been a Hindi film, rather only a Karan Johar film.

Yet, despite all the disastrous shortcomings in screenplay, My Name Is Khan has got its heart in the right place. It is an earnest script, with sincere things to tell the world. Some might find it moving, inspirational and revolutionary. For me though, the execution was a dumb pantomime, expected to render viewers ‘Ah………………………..’ and put endless tissue paper to use. Might’ve worked for a few. Sorry, doesn’t work for me. Instead of paying a little respect to this thing called subtlety which is a very powerful tool in films aspiring to be effectively preachy, My Name Is Khan’s emotional melodrama shamelessly, unrestrainedly pounces upon you and pins you to the floor. That’s when you’d realize the guy’s missed the trick again. Noble intentions, but business gone woefully wrong.

The film, however, gets a bingo with its casting. Tanay Chedda is a wonderfully gifted young actor. His presence in the opening few moments of the film is deeply moving, thanks to an amazing portrayal of young Khan. The film also benefits from the inspired casting of veteran Zarina Wahab as Khan’s mother. Wahab aptly captures the sentiments and emotions of the average morally-preachy Indian mother. Yuvaan Makaar as little Sameer Khan (son of Rizwan and Mandira), Jimmy Shergill as Rizwan’s elder brother Zakir Khan, and the rest of the ensemble do a good enough job. Kajol as Mandira puts in a restrained, simmering performance. Natural as ever, Kajol encompasses her character with a sense of maturity that has experience written all over it.

Profiting enormously from the writers, Shah Rukh Khan is outstanding as the mumbling, reclusive, queer, autistic protagonist. We’ve never seen him act with this pedigree. Shunning the temptations of getting carried away by the nature of the character and reducing him to a cartoon, SRK delivers what is by far the best acting performance in a lead role in Hindi cinema for a very long time. Watch him in that sequence where he hides his countenance and gleams into his palms when Mandira proposes marriage, the homily he speaks at the Memorial meet in Georgia, the airport interrogation ordeal in the beginning of the film, or even the excellently executed voice-overs throughout the film. The character tugs hard at your heartstrings even long after you’ve left the hall. Now and then, SRK does pleasantly surprise. We felt so watching Darr, Swades and Chak De India. In almost all his other films, we’ve seen Shah Rukh Khan—the superstar on celluloid, not the flesh and blood of the character. Screw the film, I’m privileged to have watched this film for this act. This is astonishingly good acting, and labeling it anything lesser than that would be denying well deserved approbation for art of extraordinary pedigree.

You WANT to like a film of this nobility. You rue, however, about Johar's conventionally awry treatment of a promising script. Watch it definitely, for Shah Rukh Khan—the mindblowing actor.

Rating:- **1/2

Blue In The Air!

2010-02-02T22:35:00.006+05:30

Blue—always induces emotion, doesn’t it? You’re gaping at the sky pretty pointlessly, you experience serenity. You ballistically charge into a spotlessly clean swimming pool, there is thrill there. Watch a blue film alone at home (open eyed, mind you…no point otherwise) there is thrill (for some) there too. So what’s it with Blue that arouses some feeling in us or the other? What aayudham (yes, it’s time I paid some attention to ameliorating my Telugu) does it boast of hosting in its repertoire that breaks the mundanity of the emotionless you and gives you something worth cherishing?

While we take time figuring out that senseless bit of trivia, let me take you back to Jan 30^th, even if the memories of that Melbourne night make you feel like rendering your monitor unrecognizable right now. Once again, for the 19^th time in a row, Roger Federer played an exemplary Grand Slam. Even the staunchest of his detractors would have to submit to the consistency exhibited by the great man all these years. To even trivially dismiss the remarkable feat as a ‘routine event’ would be equivalent to robbing the achievement of a lot of pedigree. It’s customary of course to see him in the final of any and every Grand Slam but to win so many of them on such a consistent basis against such quality opponents obviously in the best run of their careers is the hallmark of an incomparable champion. A quarterfinal triumph against a red-hot Nikolay Davydenko looked impossible even in the eyes of analysts with acumen and enthusiasts with optimism. And it looked improbable for the scorers too for a set and a half! Roger Federer played the remainder of the match and, well, we know what transpired. Interesting also to note Federer called the AO final ‘one of the best performances in the recent past’. Was it really? I think so. Andy Murray, though this might’ve received contrary views, played a very good match for a second Grand Slam final facing the best player in the world at the other side of the net. Hitting the ball as sweetly as the delicacies of the vintage strawberry and milk back home, Andy did have a decent chance to upset Roger that night. Juan Martin Del Potro did it on a boisterous New York night. But the pressure on young Andy exponentiated to levels the Scot couldn’t take. The expectation of being the ‘First Brit in 150000 years to win a Grand Slam’( as articulated to catcalls by Federer!) besides having to counter Roger Federer in a Grand Slam final is a little too much to handle. Beyond a point, there is nothing to add about Roger Federer. What else can you possibly hail about him? It’s all done! A copy-paste of previous articles would do, if you happen to earn a living as a Sports Journo. The Australian Open, on the whole, was one of the most competitive Grand Slams we’ve seen in a very long time, the main reason for that being the number of pulsating five set thrillers we’ve had all tournament, seen particularly in the Men’s draw. What was disheartening to watch, however, was the quarterfinal match-up between Murray and Nadal, where the former made mincemeat of the latter in just a couple of sets following which the spectacularly agile Spaniard’s knees spelled doom yet again. He may be the fittest on the tour by a large margin, but with the number of tournaments he plays every year, his ‘fitness’ is adversely vitiated by fatigue. Either he’s a little too desperate to snatch away the Number One ranking from Roger or is just too enthralled by the prospect of playing and winning more matches and tournaments than anybody else in his league—either ways, his poor idea has backfired to tremendous effect. Last year’s French Open, Wimbledon, US Open and now this Australian Open setting a woefully wrong predicate for aspiring tennis stars across the world. As a result of his long drawn out calendars, he’s paid a heavy price in the last 12 months spiraling straight down South from being the World Number 1 to World Number 4, besides not even making the finals of the four Grand Slams. A fitness advisor then is desperately the need of the moment for an exceptionally gifted sportsman.

Moving on to the perennially interesting subject for everybody—male or female, young or old, gay or straight, capitalist or communist—Films. Well, the Academy Awards aren’t far away and the competition this time around for Best Picture is real competition. Avatar, The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds—are all exceptional films in their respective genres. I’d raise my beer to Avatar. For two simple reasons a) Pathbreaking dimensions the film introduced to the world of film making b) A never-before, once-in-a-lifetime experience it offers. Quite unanimously, it is ‘a definitive cinematic event of our generation’. When you get a rare film like this that throws up so much ‘revolutionary originality’ (the increasing need for introduction of innovative terms to describe wonder-transcending masterpieces has arrived) you’ve got to give it its due reward, for it will be an indubitable trend-setter for ages to come. You might argue you’ve seen better films than Avatar of late, but I bet my iPod you haven’t ever seen a film LIKE Avatar.

Yeah, speaking of my aqua-reminiscent iPod, forget that I’m betting on it! No, it’s way too much of a precious jewel to bet upon. It’s made its way royally into my life and my word, it is a wonder gizmo. When devices of such advanced, superlative quality place themselves in your ownership, it’s something else. Totally. The Nano shoots unbelievably high quality video, plays music in unparalleled audio quality, lets you watch movies in equally first-rate picture clarity, and the novicial Pedometer feature (contrary to nomenclature, it does not abuse the innocence of children) is a custodian of all your workout, fitness-crazy sessions. Okay, let me get this straight, I ain’t advertising here. I hope you understand that one in my kind of a position simply cannot resist showing off!

Right. Blue. What’s so strikingly special about it? (besides it being my favourite colour?!) Yeah, it’s the name of a flop movie, one of the worst last year. The sky is blue, water is supposed to be blue in colour too, with due respect to kindergarten text books. No, forget the analysis. It’s my favourite colour anyway. Reminds me eerily too about Nymphs and their well, let’s say, the latest allurements in my life. Yeah, let’s say goodbye on that(er…) extraordinarily heartwarming note!

P.S. The already useless author does not take responsibility for any ramifications-psychological, physiological or physical (I've learnt with time not to take possible nocturnal activity for granted) that this page, the post, the theme might stimulate in the minds of its gratifying readers. Therefore,

Good Day!

When The Kangaroo Curry Turned Explosive

2010-01-16T22:45:00.001+05:30

I remember my great grand-mom clairvoyantly instructing me not to venture out of the house despite the smaller and larger hands of the clock finding solace in 8 and 12 respectively. Even the fairly remote, scarcely equipped Telangana village of Dharur took to nocturnal autism.

Yes, nocturnal autism brings me to my focal issue for this post. Much has been made out of our Indians being attacked, besieged, stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, crucified, plagued, shattered, beleaguered, dilapidated, smashed (and every draconian adjective that fits the bill) down south in kangaroo land. So why are things that bad Down Under?

Our Indians, in most other countries, by virtue of their sheer chauvinism toward fellow Indians and the community, are inadvertent victims of autism, of pointless reticence. The lack of coalescence with native Aussie folks is a problem. It is a hereditary trait that is imbibed in us, a most unwarranted one. We must shun this I-will-be-with-my-Brethren-only feeling and make ourselves broad minded enough to the prospect of meeting and building relationships with all sorts of people.

The misplaced sense of animosity of the native Aussies toward foreign settlers is evident in the gory manifestation of these crimes. The dearth of hospitality towards guests of the land does not augur well for the reputation of the country. The economic tremors as a fallout of these episodes will be felt in Australia for long.

Yet, I do not believe the Government of Australia has too much of a role to play in all of this. What CAN a government possibly do if a horde of intellectually bereft, inebriated men decide to ambush and malign a brown coloured passerby? Beyond probably imposing diabolically stern impositions upon the perpetrators of these crimes, and issuing emotionally stirring advisories through TV channels and newspapers, there simply is nothing the administration can do to curb this malicious, streetside violence. Australia’s Immigration Minister, Chris Evans’ rather interesting observation about this kind of crime ‘happening all over the world’ is no cushion for a country with an alarmingly hostile environment, that requires swift remedy. But WHY would people simply want to attack for no reason an innocent community of foreign settlers? Why misplace the trust reposed in your land and respond to it with daggers and iron rods? WHAT could be the motivational factor to carry out these inhuman acts of mindless violence?

Mr. S.M. Krishna (the Foreign Minister who’s enjoyably hogged more limelight than many others to have taken the chair in the recent past) put up an intriguing suggestion on the table--Why choose Australia as the educational destination for a career option as trivial as hair dressing or computer animation? Should the Foreign Ministry’s advisory against travel to Australia, then be taken seriously? Definitely, some food for thought.

Given the current abominable state of affairs, it is sad to note the unhospitable approach of the Aussies toward their guests. Agreed, surreptitious murders and clandestine felonies find their place in every country. But the frequency at which Indians, deliberately or otherwise, are targeted in Australia is no coincidence. If the attacks, as claimed by the Melbourne Police, are indeed ‘opportunistic’ in nature and not racist, then why is it that the victims are only subjected to physical maladies and not usurpation of their belongings? VERY few of these attacks have preceded theft. The latest stain cast upon our brethren, involving a brazen assault on a Gurudwara hits the nail on the head—The Attacks Are Racist In Nature.

New Delhi, too, cannot do very much beyond just having conciliatory conversations. As a sovereign country of remarkable self esteem, Australia cannot be held by the scruff of its neck and be made to do things. The Foreign Ministry has done its bit. Mr. Krishna himself was in Melbourne last year to convey to Mr. Rudd the unacceptability of the deeds. The Indian Embassy in Australia too has been on its toes, responding instinctively to every bit of bad news coming in from the blood stained sidewalks of famous Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth or Tasmania.

Ironically, the predicament cannot find its solution in the Australian government either. It finds its origin in the minds of the cannibalistic, antagonistic blokes seeking to malign for racial glory. Barbaric acts of this kind are actually inadvertent indicators of how much we’ve travelled through the ages intellectually. Yet, we’re reminded once in a while in this kind of a fashion as to how misplaced a misplaced mind could be in our current times. We’re supposed to have moved on from the Spartans and Hitler. Even the faintest shadows of those times don’t make a pretty picture. The current one is detestable. Agreed again with the argument that the nation cannot be branded racist for the misdemeanours of a few. But that is the way it is. People do not feel secure go to Pakistan. Why? Are you certain the guy receiving you at the airport will pin bullets into your chest? Will your cab driver blow the car up? Surely not. It is just the reputation of the land, unfortunately the most pleasured inhabitat of undesirable men and women. Like Red Rot in Sugarcane, contamination of a modicum blemishes the whole.

But let us not enforce our presence in a land where we’d be welcomed with razor sharp metallic and firm wooden armoury. If brotherhood and humanity do not feature among the respected virtues of the community, then we have no business going there to make ourselves a living. There is no impending need to make ourselves hacked scapegoats for the world to see and learn from. I daresay we have better things to do.

The last time I saw an Australian, he gallantly resisted appropriation and homicide powering the victory of the righteous over the nasty. Wait, it was only a movie.

Transcendent Incarnation

2009-12-30T02:51:00.013+05:30

Ram your head against the wall until you begin to realize it hurts. Make tremendous contact with your toe against the leg of your bed, and wail until you’ve found an antiseptic—if you haven’t watched James Cameron’s sci-fi-decade-in-the-making adventure yet. But before that, read this page.

How do you feel when you come out (rather, force yourself out) of a hall that’s just shown you a Terminator, Spiderman, Batman, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter potboiler? Let’s face it. They’re all not brilliant films, but they stay with you for LONG by virtue of the laughs they give you, the awe they strike in you and your capitulation to the consequence of the experience. If you were thinking Avatar is another one of those movies, YOU.ARE.WRONG.

To dismiss Avatar (with a casual glance at the posters in your street) as a mere pay-for-the-‘special effects’-film could cause you danger. It is a blatant indicator of chronic myopia. If you belong to the category, screw yourself. If you don’t, you might consider reading on.

If you’ve been atleast remotely connected with whatever remotely similar to remote Hollywood, you’d have realized by now that Avatar was ‘the cinematic event waiting to happen’. Prior to its worldwide release on 18^th Dec 09, the world waited with bated breath in anxiety to welcome amid their cinema a revolution, while Mr. Cameron was gloating with pretty women to cameras at premieres across the world. Yes, he could smile before the first frame took shape on the silver screen. He had made a masterpiece. A jewel of such ineffable lustre, a gadget entangled with the chasms of reality and human imagination, a film of whose stupendous prowess and quality you probably will never again see as long as you are here with us.

In the film (I know this is gross impertinence, but this IS a ‘film’ review) set in 2154, the U.S. Navy is sent to a distant earthly body, Pandora, to extract from its depths a mineral of immense quintessential value. Unobtainium, it’s called. So all goes well, with a fairly large crew taking off to the distant natural satellite with elaborate arrangements put in place for this rather bizarre undertaking. Since humans cannot breathe on Pandora, they make their genetic counterparts—Avatars—which physiologically are of the native Na’vi clan. So our Homeric dudes shut themselves up in spherical tubes and the next thing they know, they in the form of their blue-bodied counterparts are flying terrifying dragons or hushing through the dense forests of the visually numbing Pandora. Our protagonist, Jake Sully, is a retired ex-Marine who’s lost his legs in the war but signs up for the mission to fill the boots of his brother, post the latter’s untimely death. Thanks to his pathetic omniscience of anything to do with the mission or its scientific nuances, he is assigned the rather comfortable role of having to coalesce with the native Na’vi civilization and gain their trust, in order to gain THEIR help for the humans’ commercial interests in the land. But, poignantly, it turns out the largest deposit of the mineral these folks are after happens to be resting under the sacrosanct Na’vi embodiment of divinity, not to mention the packed civilization around it. But mercenary by nature, Col. Miles Quaritch chooses dynamites and missiles over wisdom and conciliatory talks. The ‘sky people’ therefore begin to dump their inappropriate forms of tyranny upon the innocent Na’vi. Sully is moved. And he begins to question his own loyalties. Should he leap back and launch a few missiles savagely himself? Or should he inspirationally spearhead a mission to saving the Na’vi skin and blood?

Visually extravagant like never before, Avatar sets path breaking standards in cinematography. Watching it in glorious IMAX 3D will make you forget the rest of the world—during the film and even days after watching it. It’s been a week since I watched it and I can still write this. The thing with Avatar is, it is not merely a wow-those-scenes-were-just-awesome product. It is a brilliant FILM. It’s got a breathtaking story, stunning cinematography, terrific screenplay, inspired performances from the cast and crew—it’s James Cameron through and through. 2 hours and 40 minutes in the hall without a break. You’ll curse that. For being too short a time span for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Cameron blends panache with passion and puts forth one of cinema’s best ever attempts yet.

Of the cast, Matt Gerald and Dileep Rao as Lyne Wainfleet and Dr. Max Patel respectively go unnoticed. That’s because they’re perfect. Joel David Moore and Giovanni Ribisi as the astute biologist Norman Spellman and the shamless mining authority Parker Selfridge respectively add value to their characters. Michelle Rodriguez as the bold young Marine pilot Trudy Chacon leaves a lump in your throat with her act. Spellbinding. So does legendary actress Sigourney Weaver as the ingenious biologist Dr. Grace Augustin, the brain behind the entire Avatar idea. She sinks her teeth deep into the role with the flawless ease of a natural middle aged assiduous woman in curious anticipation of any biological ‘samples’. Boorish, tyrannical Colonel Miles Quaritch played by Steven Lang is one guy you would want to forget. That’s primarily because he portrays his antagonistic role to insane perfection. Little known Aussie Sam Worthington playing Jake Sully, appearing in almost every frame of the film, is sullen and nearly impassive. But eventually, it looks like it's all in proper place. The soul of this film, however, is the Na’vi princess Neytiri played sparklingly well and to great earnest by Zoe Saldana. She infuses a unique charm into this ugly-looking woman and gosh, she is unnervingly captivating. You cannot but force to accept the sheer magnetic power of Cameron, making his cast and crew gallop to thresholds they wouldn't even have imagined to exist. This is a high class effort from a high class director. Long live Cameron.

Avatar is the finest film of our times. We must bow to the caprices of destiny for having placed us in our era to get to witness and applaud films like these. Avatar makes you understand there is a lot more to cinema than you think there is. It sucks you into its realms and gives you a ride that will resurface and numb you in your fantasy, dreams and reality.

Rating:- 5/5

P.S. Shut the page now. Book your tickets for IMAX 3D. Good luck for getting one till February.

Copenhagen shaky. Future hazy.

2009-12-19T23:01:00.003+05:30

So it took an extended concluding session (apart from the 12 days of pronounced apathy) compelling Manmohan Singh and Barack Obama to put their entourages on hold for the departure, to come even close to an ‘agreement’ at the much-hyped Copenhagen summit this weekend. Yet, the ambitious dream of coming out of this strategic break with the substantial step of imposing legally binding emission cuts on the various countries of the world did not materialize. So we had 12 days of bizarre business, Heads of State being puerile enough to stage temporary, intimidatory ‘walk out’s from the conference table, countries forming groups and fortifying their intransigent stands and representatives still fuming as they exit the doors of Copenhagen having watched the world take its first big step (I know it’s too late to give it much importance, but it is a step after all) against the most cantankerous conundrum of our times.

Not every nation can get into the discussion room and expect to exit with all its grievances and demands met. In a scenario of these disastrous implications wherein concerted, selfless action is the prime requirement of our times to pull ourselves from the jaws of this enormous monster that’s threatening to bite us down into a despondent abyss, compromises must be made. And they must essentially be made by the nations in the best position to contribute more effectively to this global endeavour. Beyond all the nationalistic and economic interests of the various nations, beyond all the shenanigans or radically different greed for global supremacy, this is a grave global problem. I know global problems are best solved at the global platform. But its execution has to be led by the nations playing a prominent role in the cause. China handsomely sits atop the rather obnoxious list of nations with the highest amount of carbon emissions.

Contributing to 21.5% of the total global carbon emissions does give administrators to spend nights on issues like these. The USA hasn’t been too far either; at the 2^nd position, contributing to about 20% of the global emissions. India occupies the number 4 position in a list it probably wouldn’t have liked to be a part of. Yet, I do get the feeling India finds itself amid quite some Catch—22 at this cusp of history, where all summits even remotely pertinent to this issue are deemed world over by people like you and me as ‘opportunities’. The essential difference, contrary to what the emission figures might suggest, is that the USA is touchstone of our globe today. A global superpower besides a very influential economic fugleman, the USA is way ahead of these ginormously populated nations with respect to industrial development and ‘development’ on the whole. While an India or a China continues to stagger along the time lines of decades and centuries with fundamental problems arising due to overpopulation, the USA has gradually and predictably, outraced everybody else to this rather glistening pinnacle it has made its own.

While it may be touted as an expected errand of the developed nations to take the lead in cutting down carbon emissions since they wouldn’t be affected much anyway, it is also validly argued that this is actually the primary responsibility of developing nations like China and India, which are responsible for very high amounts of carbon emission with respect to contemporary times, to lead the way forward in this war against nature’s eventualities. Yet, these nations indignantly abnegate their responsibility for personal gains, for the realization of the glorious goals they’d set for themselves. It is a sympathetic scenario. On one hand, millions of young men and women are left stranded jobless on streets and meal-less in their own homes napped up in the tenebrous web of adversity, while on the other hand, there is increasing urgency for building a global consensus to counter and hopefully derail the deadly pursuit of the greatest global problem of our times that threatens to wipe out the elysian of life on our land. The BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries, the voice of the world’s developing nations on the planet have to swallow bitter pills of foresight and secede to the requirements of tomorrow. The most dejecting aspect of the outcome of this rendezvous of global think-tank for the existence of a tomorrow is the absence of legally binding emission cuts for various nations, principally because the U.S President’s noble views on this regard about the scope for nations to put on display their emission cuts are logically unlikely to compel economically clairvoyant nations towards such a compromise-demanding global endeavour.

The European Union’s imposing of legally binding emission cuts on its nations is a move nations across the world should take heart from. This whole idea of not adhering to the fundamental aspirations of this global summit, by going soft on the ‘stringent’ areas has sadly been a result of the non emergence of an effective consensus on the issue. The idea of developed nations, akin to the USA, doling out financial packages of $30bn every year as a means of compensation for this supreme sacrifice of the poorer nations and hoping for ambitious nations like India and China to shun and undo the basic, underlying agendas of ensuring the people of their land are part of a glorious period of prosperous pastures, seems too idealistic and simplistic an idea for the latter to accept. And to hope that we would somehow return to an economic scenario even vaguely kindred to prelapsarian methods, wherein carbon emissions would have nothing to do with the economic development of a region is out of question. Therefore, we must consign ourselves to the painful thought of this vicious cycle. In our past attempts of technological and scientific advancements, unprecedented development and economic progress—all intended for percapita prosperity, mankind has actually accentuated his woes, hindering the prospects of even the existence of a tomorrow. Ironical then that we talk about the quintessential requirements of non renewable sources of energy at a time when we should probably have been marveling our excellence in making the world around us the way it is today. Economic growth = Environmental degradation. Industrial and technological advancements = Environmental degradation. People’s prosperity = Environmental degradation. The harsher this reality seems, the greater is the need for some seriousness on the issue.

Irrespective of the prevailing economic conditions, irrespective of what countries have been aspiring to do for decades, irrespective of the intricacies involved in signing up for this damage control mode, the time has come for all nations of the world which can claim to be a constituent of the global fraternity to sign on the dotted line and pledge whatever best possible of them for the greater good. Emission cuts are the need of the day. A possible financial downturn in the long run is an inevitable eventuality, which shall not make the compromising nations its only victims and leave them alone to bite the dust. Reduction in the general standards of living and economic activity shall become a reality the whole world will begin to live with. Over centuries, we’ve seen worse changes in the global sphere. This one will only be a speck of insignificant grass at best in the immense fields of global advancements and compromises we’ve seen over ages. On a positive note though, I’d like to get up from my seat and reverently applaud the commitments of China and Brazil with promised emission cuts of 40-45% and 38-42% respectively. Copenhagen might’ve been the first step towards fixing the first hole on the surface of our depredated ship, if not anything of lesser magnitude. Yet, it is an effort that has materialized ‘the first step’ of this race against time. As the President of United States himself articulately puts it, it is ‘a new beginning of a new era of international action.’

Screw 2012. You don’t need esoteric, primordial scriptures to tell you the globe is in danger. Yet, esotery alone seems the antidote against this, if ever there was one.

Well done to our various Heads of States. You’ve just got us all off the mark.

Indian Education Is Better Than Foreign Education

2009-11-21T15:54:00.001+05:30

At the city finals of the Outlook National Debate, I…er…happened to finish among the top 14 among the 80 odd speakers who’d qualified for the city finals. Would’ve been jolly glad to have finished in the top 3 and gone on to the national finals. Nevertheless, it was probably the competition I enjoyed the most. The topic was ‘Do You Think Indian Education Is Better Than Foreign Education?’ and I spoke FOR the given topic. Here’s the transcript of my speech:-

Renowned Greek philosopher Aristotle once famously remarked, “Education is the index of one’s wisdom and should ideally be the accentuator of one’s intellectual ability.”

Revered members of the jury, ladies and gentlemen, my greetings to you.

I’ve often wondered how best to define education. I’d like to define education as the procurement of those preternatural skills which would enable a person to choose between what is right and what is not. Our Indian system of education since time immemorial has been sailing magnificently on the winds of hope, moral coherence and ethical values with the principal objective of making all of us good human beings as opposed to mere knowledge banks. As of today, ‘Indian Education’ is an immaculate mélange of our conventional ideals of education, blended with infrastructural and technological boom, catering to the demands of modernization. Over the decades, we’ve produced some very fine men and women. From Swami Vivekananda to Sir C V Raman, from Amartya Sen to Rajendra Pachauri, they’ve all been fine lodestars of our educational system.

I’ve never really been a fan of the Western Educational systems. Students there are bestowed with way too much unconditional liberty. They’re treated like empyreal emperors at a time when they should be ordered to shut their PlayStations and take a good look at their school books. There’s too much rationalism in there and very little humanism, which in a sense explains the reason for the rapid moral degradation among a significant number of students in the West. Look at the list of school related criminal attacks worldwide and you’d observe the US perched handsomely at the top. We read almost every week about teen shootouts, teen pregnancies and yet do not wish to speak about them in the open. ‘It’s taboo’. We, Indian students here, atleast under the fear of failure, the fear of humiliation, the fear of corporal punishment are compelled on to the right track as far as our pursuit of educational excellence is concerned. But the very fact that there exists no substantial force which can have similar influences on the students of the West is indeed quite a concern. Another factor working significantly against Western education is its exorbitant cost of education which almost puts it virtually out of reach for many middle class students world over.

I know there’s been criticism of our Indian Educational system too. I know there’ve been people cynical of our ‘harsh’ and ‘stern’ methodology of education. But if the drilling exercise is a necessity for intellectual growth, a boon for the nation’s ambitions of having an educated electoral roll, the antidote for illiteracy and ignorance, the quintessential need for individual prosperity, then why not tread that path fearlessly? After all, it is only under pressure that coal turns to diamond.

The dominant role of Indian Americans in the US economy is pretty noticeable as well. As of 2008, 4000 PIO professors and 84000 students made their way into US universities and Indian Silicon Valley entrepreneurs generate whopping revenue of $250 billion every year. Is it not ironical then that the well oiled products of our educational system are largely responsible for the economic boom of a ‘global superpower’? Who’s the Big Daddy now? Is this not tangible testimony of our profound educational prowess?

Above all the number crunching and intricate statistics, above all the heated cacophony of debates and discussions, just one phrase rings euphoria and triumph in my mind.

Vande Mataram. Nothing else.

Sach a tale...

2009-11-15T22:26:00.005+05:30

Beneath the impervious blue helmet, the uncouth curly hair, the impenetrable cranium, there exists an entity of ingenious wonder. Something that you, I and the rest of the world cannot even dream to fathom in the wildest of our imagination. The entity when in synchrony with the article the preternaturally limbs clutch can make the average exhausted homo sapien forget the TV but remember the channel.

I present before you some of the significant events that took place around the world in November 1989.

§ ("November 1989" – Cold War: East Germany Nov 7, 9; Bulgaria Nov 10; Czechoslovakia Nov 17, 20, 28)

§ November 2 – North Dakota and South Dakota celebrate their 100th Birthdays.

§ November 4 – Typhoon Gay devastates Thailand's Chumphon Province.

§ November 7 – Douglas Wilder wins the Virginia governor's race, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States.

§ November 7 – David Dinkins becomes the first African American mayor of New York City.

§ November 7 – Cold War: The Communist government of East Germany resigns, although SED leaderEgon Krenz remains head of state.

§ November 9 – Cold War: Günter Schabowski accidentally states in live broadcast press conference that new rules for traveling from East Germany to West Germany will be put in effect "immediately". East Germany opens checkpoints in theBerlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel freely to West Germany for the first time in decades (November 17 celebrates Germans began tearing the wall down).

§ November 10 – After 45 years of Communist rule in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov is replaced by Foreign Minister Petar Mladenov, who changes the party's name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

§ November 10 – Gaby Kennard becomes the first Australian woman to fly non-stop around the world.

§ November 10 – CKO (a Canadian national all-news radio network) suddenly terminates all broadcasting during the newscast at noon (Eastern time), due to financial losses (the station began broadcasting on July 1, 1977).

§ November 11 – Louie Espinoza inaugurated as WBO World Featherweight Champion.

§ November 12 – Brazil holds its first free presidential election since 1960. This marks the first time that all Ibero-American nations, exceptingCuba, have elected constitutional governments simultaneously.

§ November 15 – Sachin Tendulkar starts his international cricket career in Karachi. He got over for just 15 runs but over the next 20 years was regarded as the greatest batsman of all times.

Stop at the last piece of information. It is something that should adorn the touchstones of your mind. Stay rooted there for as long as you can live. Stay well adored in there for you to savour the richness of the deed…

In an era wherein an Andrew Symonds or an Andrew Flintoff can embrace irresponsibility, complacency and the lusts an international cricketer is supposed to be entitled to, in an era which ushers in the ‘I am above the team’ belief with even great servants of the game like Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni getting themselves a little too close to the thought, in an era which can make a 20-ball 40 make half a dozen advertisers line up at your personal secretary’s office the next morning, in an era which has seen the worst possible manifestation of the consequences of mishandling the luxury of fame and money, Sachin Tendulkar has been a lodestar to emulate—an ingullible jewel in India’s crown. Standing up and applauding him with all the force you can muster is a mere firefly when the approbation he deserves can imaginatively be equated with the brilliance of a spectacular Sun. To hear he still is a carrier of child-like enthusiasm to a training session or that he still moans in inconsolable agony after a game India loses with him scoring runs and breaking milestones, almost sounds improbable. To relate to it is impossible. This spirit of the great man is something that is way beyond what you and I have to say about it. His passion for wearing the Indian Tricolour and giving his 100% on the cricket field is of proportions you and I cannot even contemplate about.

I’ve had the absolute delight of following his career for a decade now. In an era of the game where tarnished cricketers are hogging limelight more than the coveted ones, he to this date enjoys the tag of never having indulged in any sort of activity that would have brought to his name any kind of disrepute. To this date, Sachin has maintained a blot free image. Something that we cannot even imagine to be possible. Being the fugleman of a generation of fiercely competitive cricketers, Sachin has carried himself with admirable dignity both with the cricket bat in hand as well as the microphone. I have not heard a pugnacious statement from His Majesty ever. Can you and I merely carrying out our monotonous errands ever even dream of getting close to that? Sachin hasn’t just been an outstanding cricketer. He has been a better human being.

His batting technique has changed over the years, almost like a lifeless machine shunning jaded outfits giving rise to fresher ones. Yet, there are certain arms in his glittering repertoire that shall bring smiles to people’s faces as long as their video clips exist. The straight drive past the bowler, the pull shot depositing the ball out of the ground off the 135-145 paced deliveries, the paddle sweep on ferociously turning wickets, the backfoot cover drive at the start of an innings against a shining new ball, the flick over the keeper’s head off a 150 paced bouncer—all make for very fine visual delight. To be called the coaching manual of modern day batting, to be told that the best lesson a young batting novice can have is watch Sachin bat at the nets even on a fine, sunny morning is indeed quite some distinction.

Yet, I have a pang of regret which exists despite the colossus of contemporary cricket having done deeds of unprecedented proportions. I wish Sachin continued being the destroyer he was. I guess, somewhere down the line, Sachin decided he was going to be the anchor of the batting line up irrespective of the proficiency of the rest of his fellow batsmen. That is probably an area wherein misconception and the fear of failure had their influence even on Sachin Tendulkar. I poignantly wish he continued the Viv Richards style of batting he had started off with. I wish he remained the batsmen most bowlers around the world would dread about in the middle of the night as opposed to being a batsman who managed to harness profound respect among his opponents. I wish he decimated attacks with as much aggression as was possible of him. I quite know for a fact that he had the ability to do so. He could probably have been a much better ‘destructor’ than a Sanath Jayasuriya or a Viv Richards had he chosen the road not taken. Somewhere in the midst of the ocean he had created around himself, Sach lost his way trying to be a moderate Sunil Gavaskar in pursuit of greater endeavours. I know it would’ve eaten partially into his records which are so innumerable now that even statisticians find it onerous to keep track of them. Atleast, we could’ve had a batsman on our TV sets doing what he could do best. Yes, the greatest could’ve been greater.

It is with a sense of remote regret then that I must label the Operation Desert Storm innings, the 175 at Hyderabad, the 80-odd in his first ever stint as an opener in ODI cricket and the 100 at Perth in 1992 as the best Sachin Sizzlers of all time. The fact that I was at the stadium, part of the historic night he bludgeoned the 175 gives me unparalleled privilege. It is a day that shall be etched in golden ink in my mind as long as I breathe.

Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest cricketer of all time. The finest ambassador the sport has ever seen and the finest talent you will ever get to see on a cricket field. As I pledge my veneration to the Creator for having ensured I was born in the era of Sachin Tendulkar, I cannot erase the miniscule thought at the back of my mind—Should he have continued to be himself?

2nd in Debate. Big deal...

2009-11-04T20:54:00.002+05:30

At the Debate thingy at the Montfort Literary and Cultural Competitions, my team comprising myself and my good old pal Kartik Andi finished er...agonizingly second. Anyways, the topic was 'Globalization and Privatization aid a nation's growth' and I spoke FOR the topic, while my partner spoke against it. Here's how it went:-

I’m reminded of those timeless bedtime fables my Granny used to recite to me long ago in which she often emphasized, “United We Stand; Divided We Fall”

When I think of a globalized economy, the very first thing that strikes my mind are trade economic channels weaved invisibly among nations of the world, binding them together as a closely knit unit and propelling them to incomprehendible levels of economic prosperity.

The Multi National Companies set up as a direct brainchild of Globalization, not just create countless sources of revenue to the cash rich economies setting them up but also generate numerous employment opportunities to millions around the world, thereby catering to their fundamental economic requirements.

It is only in a globalized economy that the underdeveloped nations have an access to superior knowledge, technology and financial aid from the developed nations, which would otherwise cease to exist in an economy shunning globalization.

Thanks to economic globalization, there exist trade relations among all the nations of the world…even bringing the bitterest of nations onto a common platform for cooperation and succeeding in a sense, to foster fellowship and harmony among them. Don’t you think there is an increasing need for this particularly in today’s times when terms like ‘terrorism’ and ‘nuclear proliferation’ have become the most dreaded buzzwords of today?

A nation in a globalized economy, totally cognizant of the fact that there exist umpteen economies on its doorstep longing to plunge on the goods they produce, would obviously produce goods of fine quality. Thereby, there would be a fiercely competitive race among economies of the world in an endeavour to produce goods of the highest quality. Well, think about the immediate beneficiaries of that race and you’ll understand the reason for my glee.

Trade channels opened up among economies will ensure a sustained rise in the values of currencies of the various economies thereby revealing the true colours of a nation’s economy. This will place them on only one straight road—to economic development.

International Financial Organizations set up as a result of Globalization, like the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (colloquially alluded to as the World Bank) safeguard the interests of the relatively weaker nations.

In times of an economic catastrophe (similar to the one we find ourselves in today), when global financing is struck by absolute paralysis, there exists greater scope for unearthing a solution in a globalized economy which brings countries to a common forum for discussion wherein strategies can be chalked out for efficient remedy. Global conundrums are best solved at the global level by means of joint action.

A globalized economy leads to sharing of knowledge and human resources, with the best armoury of every nation coming together to produce the very best for the world.

Think about it yourself. When the world today is increasingly becoming a global village, why should the economy remain behind?

If we want to see the world economy prosper, if we want to ensure that there do not exist hapless folk stranded jobless on streets, left destitute without home or meals, if we want to ensure that the novel economic aspirations of the billions of people in this world are met, we must jump on to the bandwagon of globalization.

Sometimes, the age old beliefs startlingly lead us to illuminating truths.

United We Stand. Divided We Fall.

4th in English Elocution.Big deal...

2009-10-31T08:31:00.004+05:30

At the Montfort Literary and Cultural Festival at Vijaywada this week, I...er...finished 4th in the English Elocution and 2nd in English Debate (I'll put up my script for that in a couple of days). Although I haven't been able to fathom the reason for the dismal result, I'd like to put on display my script for the final. The topic was 'Education For All:A Distant Dream In India' with 60 minutes to prepare. Look and judge for yourself:-

I know the location of the tea stall in the adjacent street. I know how many goals Cristiano Ronaldo scored for Manchester United last season. Therefore, am I educated?

I think not. I’d like to define education as the acquirement of those skills imparted by quality institutions which enable a person to earn a living. It was in the year 1962 at the Parliament Session at New Delhi that the policy of ‘Education For All’ first came into existence, with the ambitious objective of making every citizen of this country educated. Ever since then, it has featured prominently among the top goals of the nation. Even today, the Government allocates a whopping 7000 crores every year solely for the purpose of education, which in itself constitutes about 3.5% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

But is all this effort reflected in the literacy progress of India in the last few years? In 1981, the Literacy rate of the country stood at a paltry 41%, while in 1991 it rose steadily to about 52%. But it was in the year 2001 that our Literacy rate surged dramatically to an all time high of 65.38%. And what’s more, we’ve consistently managed to produce pioneers of the highest quality in every possible field you can think of. So what do we conclude then? All is well that ends well? India Shining?

Wait, before you commit yourself to that grave misconception, let me put before you a few plain facts. Even till today, there exist striking disparities in our educational system, almost giving it the image of an inconceivable paradox. Take the example of a state like Kerala, which flourishes on an excellent literacy rate of 90%. On the other hand, we have a state like Bihar with an abysmal literacy rate of 38%. Even today, only 35% of our women can read and write. But most shamefully, the term ‘caste’ has raised its murky head once again to govern the educational affairs of this country.

Hang on, let me not give you the impression as though the Governments have merely been folding their hands in hopelessness and doing nothing about all of this. The National Literacy Mission was set up in the year 1988 with a view to tackling these conundrums. The objective of Universal Primary Education was embraced by one and all and gained prominence. But most significantly, OBC reservations have been instituted in order to bestow educational opportunities to the people belonging to those castes which have endured oppression and hostility for ages. However, I see one vital ingredient missing from this ravishing cuisine. Perseverance, dedication and commitment are vital elements that will empower us in our pursuit of educational excellence. Wish that existed in today’s times.

I dream of an India shining. An India glistening in its glory. An India standing on its own feet and reverberating the 180 latitudes and 360 longitudes. However, as of now, standing here before you this afternoon, the best I can do is look longingly at the distant dream in hope and grunt to myself, “I miss you so much. It hurts.”

Computer Based Education:Boon or Bane?

2009-10-26T22:04:00.006+05:30

I’ve been busy. And so I’ve been away for long. I return in haste for some warm up before the big day. Here is one of the practice speeches I made for the Elocution competition at the Montfort Literary and Cultural Festival. Bear in mind before reading this page that we’re allotted only an hour’s time to prepare a speech on the given topic. The topic for this speech was ‘Computer Based Education’. I’d like to hear from you on what you think of it:-

I am reminded of the stirring adage that has ripped its way through the ages, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

Good day to you. I stand here before you trying to probe the role of the astute, miniscule microchip in man’s greatest endeavour. Don’t let the size fool you. Diminutive though it might seem, it has carved a niche for itself in today’s educational sphere. It has given an entirely new dimension to the educational spectrum. It has become a tool so powerful in the pursuit of educational excellence that it has sent educational administrators into a tizzy as to whether it would be worth replacing the ‘loads’ of books in our schoolbag with a mere 17 inch computer. I wouldn’t blame them for contemplating so either, for computers have helped produce software professionals, remarkable scholars and pioneers in every possible field of Science you can think of. The reason for this is deep rooted. A computer scores way above a text book as far as a student is concerned. It serves as a vast, boundless resource of knowledge unlike an ordinary text book, provides innovative, inventive and interactive education to inquisitive students to whom this would come as a whiff of fresh air, and most fundamentally, it is a ‘fun’ exercise. The principal emotion every child yearns to experience is fun. And when teaching can be done the ‘fun’ way, it is the finest possible form of education that can be imparted to a young student.

Nevertheless, like all revolutionary inventions and discoveries, this has a bad side to it as well. There do exist individuals around us who’ve taken ‘Computer Based Education’ way too seriously, even going to the extent of adopting a policy of self education with the aid of a computer almost nullifying the significance of a human teacher, which makes me seriously ask—Can a computer ever replace a teacher? Can the hand which meticulously makes a four-year-old put pen on paper ever pave way for a lifeless LCD screen? Can the warm words and wise lessons imparted passionately with love and care by a teacher towards a student, be replaced by a silicon disc? These are some of the questions that are in need of answers; answers which are effective enough to ensure that this wonderful tool we’ve engineered around us does not place us on the wrong track, but rather powers us on the right one—the pursuit to educational excellence.

It is my emphatic view that a teacher can never possibly be permanently replaced by a computer. Nor can a computer ever be permanently replaced by a teacher. Like the wafting pani poori on the streetside eatery and the wholesome meal at a proper restaurant, both elements must coexist to create a proper educational system. While computers can make us banks of massive knowledge, it is the human essence of the teachers alone which will succeed in ingraining ethical values into us. Teachers shall teach us to love, care, honour and respect. Teachers shall make us wise enough to distinguish between good and bad. We are in need today of fine individuals who aren’t merely cognizant of everything around the world but also good human beings. And for that to happen, the computer isn’t the solitary force required.

Don’t take me wrong. I’m not trying to suggest we can’t eliminate the 35% illiteracy rate which prevails in our country with the aid of the microchip.

We very well can, provided our ‘wisdom’ is in the right place.

Losses Before Wins b Bad Luck

2009-10-04T16:03:00.005+05:30

In an exam I had written a month ago, the ‘None Of The Above’ option among the multiple choice questions seemed woefully out of place. It might seem out of place in quite some scenarios actually, given it is the safest (‘sanest’, some might remark) route to evading effort.

But that option might be the most appropriate one to mark in the scenario we find ourselves in this week. Like some accursed, recurring disease, we have been dusted out of a major ICC event—yet again. Painfully, we’ve boarded the South African Airways flight to Mumbai failing to inflict a scratch on our adversaries.

For atleast half a year now, India and South Africa have been the best cricket teams in the world, by quite some distinction. Packed with all the ingredients of a versatile side equipped to tackle the most hostile of situations, India and South Africa were ticked off the bill as the clear frontrunners in this clash of the only few cricketing nations which can put bat on ball—they were viewed with hope as the sides which would make this Champions Trophy an absolute jackpot and ‘revive the interest’ in ODI cricket (though I’ve always believed ODI cricket was never put to the gun). Like in life and sport, we cannot always get what we want (like Harman Baweja can’t be asked to act and Raj Thackeray cannot be told to think) and so South Africa had to encounter the exceedingly embarrassing situation of going down pathetically at home, with a full strength squad on hand.

Not very differently, hitherto numero uno Team India were dealt with a solid punch even before taking field, with Sehwag, Yuvraj and Zaheer Khan (arguably among the MVPs of the team) shot by physical injuries. The reason I say ‘physical injuries’ is because it was very evident that the team at large was a subject of mental injury all through the campaign (Kirsten’s advice might have helped after all. Why didn’t someone take it seriously?!). Everybody was most interested in whinging about the players on the bench, far from producing inspiring performances from the blokes on field. Incidentally, Australia and New Zealand found themselves in a similar situation. But there is a lesson for Dhoni and Co. to learn from the men down under. While the Ryders, Mills, Orams, Clarkes might have been out of competition owing to physical maladies, the Tim Paines, Cameron Whites, Callum Fergusons, Shane Bonds, Grant Elliots rose to the occasion and played responsible cricket while we, invariably turn to the Sachin Tendulkars and Rahul Dravids each time we are in soup, praying they’d bail us out.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, hoards of irate men and women lost no opportunity, on celluloid or otherwise, to deflate the team completely, stripping it of all its honour, scarcely giving the world the impression that they were fans of the best cricket team in the world. Expectedly livid experts cashed in on the chance to feature in the day’s headlines, some even going to the extent of calling for radical changes to the team. Some foolishly volatile minds (present in plenty) also bellowing for the exit of the ‘senior’ pros of the team. Right now, the Indian Cricket Team is the second best in the world, not for what the forefathers of the current team members accomplished. We’d be sparing the Adrenal Medulla, reminding ourselves that the situation we find ourselves in was brought about only by one bad match. It is indeed disturbing that the best team in the world over the last many months cannot make the semifinals of a world tournament, owing to one bad game. Giving Ishant Sharma the new ball and playing five bowlers against quality teams shall heal all the grave conundrums (as we’re making them seem) in our bowling repertoire. It’s time we injected some sense into whatever does the rounds in the media.

Sometimes, only sometimes, the sanest and safest option works best.

The Kaminey called Harsha Bhogle and Roger Federer!

2009-09-23T14:11:00.003+05:30

Ah, what a shot that Dil-Scoop is! Couldn’t get my eyes off that YouTube video for hours!

But more ‘imp’ortantly, I return. (Cough)

I return after a rather interesting period of equally interesting activity. I’ve seen the Dil-Scoop being meted out irreverently to fast bowlers who put in all they have and bang the deck hard (must be real hard for them to take that), Roger Federer lose all his cool and even the US Open final, Sachin Tendulkar majestically glide India past Sri Lanka, Mayawati refute the Supreme Court’s ordinance to cut down her devilish expenditure on erecting her own golden statuettes, Shashi Tharoor mistake cattle for Indian Politicians (or DID he?!), and most significantly, watched my toughest week of the year pass by with no noteworthy hiccoughs. (Cough again)

I return after much has changed. The Social Studies exam seems much more of a nightmare than what it did a year ago, Chemistry has now begun asking me some tough questions, and I have thankfully slipped into seamless ease as far as handling my school exams are concerned. When you're fretting over the marks you've LOST rather than the marks you've GAINED, you know you're doing great. After a dismal 612 and 614 successively (which made my Social Studies teacher pluck out her spectacles and frown, "No, the Cabinet is not studying"...!), I finally have something to cheer about this vacation.

And then, Kaminey happened. I first learnt about this film some weeks ago in a daily tabloid and grew averse to it, by mere virtue of its title! I thought it’d be a film that would unanimously be given the 1/5 by ALL critics. Well, turns out I was wrong. I had the opportunity of watching it a couple of days ago and am still to recover from it. There have been few other films in the recent past which have made me stand up and applaud. Vishal Bharadwaj has underlined his stature befittingly as among THE best film directors in the country, and it’d be hard to take it off him after Maqbool, Omkara, The Blue Umbrella and now Kaminey. The story is so freakingly exceptional that I wouldn’t dare divulge any of it here. Looking at Shahid Kapoor in this film and most importantly at the way he acts, you’d wonder if this is the same old under-used ‘chocolate boy’ of the industry, for he puts in a terrific performance, one that will make me very disappointed if he doesn’t get his due approbation. Priyanka Chopra hasn’t any glittering attire nor has she much gloss or the good old urbane charm about her character. She fits in superbly as the uncouth character she is required to portray. Quite clearly, there is much behind the ostensible vanity.

I have been hooked, these last few days, to a sockdolager piece of literature from a very fine man. Out Of The Box by Harsha Bhogle is as good a sporting homily as any you can ever get. Replete with glee-inspiring metaphors and unnervingly pragmatic perspectives on the game, this book will almost make you realize how stupid you sometimes can get as a passionate cricket fan. I’ve taken a break from reading it (which was in itself a very tough call to make) to update this place. And yeah, some of you have very generously been enquiring about the health of my Super-Correspondent JG Silverstone. He is ill right now, still recovering after watching Roger Federer go down at Flushing Meadows. In fact, he was seated in the Press Box when Federer hit that long backhand and Del Potro fell to the floor. Ever since then, doctors say he has been in a state of mental trauma and add that they are finding it increasingly difficult to rid him of the disease. The hazards of journalism, indeed a risky job if you are that passionate about it!

But Roger Federer lost. Lost the United States Open. Lost after ruling over the Deco turf for half a decade. But thankfully, lost to a very fine young man. The match was an enticing one, although I felt it shouldn’t have been one in the first place, given Roger was up a set and a break and looked like he’d close it out comfortably in straight sets as he had imperiously against a hapless Andy Murray 12 months ago. Yet, the day belonged fully to Juan Martin Del Potro. Annihilating Rafael Nadal (no matter in what shape the latter was) in straight sets in an hour and a half and denying Roger Federer immediately the next day makes him worthy of winning 2 Grand Slams. I wasn’t too greatly intrigued by Roger’s loss for I quite knew, as he did, that this was one of THE best seasons of his life. Getting to the finals of all the 4 Grand Slams, triumphant in two of them, losing out on the others in grueling 5-set matches AND winning the French Open for the first time in his life—all these are achievements that few can boast of having accomplished. Yet, there was one aspect of September 15^th that intrigued me, the outburst. I know $1500 is peanuts to ‘Roger Federer’ but it probably did him far more harm than that. We ask too much of people sometimes. Sometimes, we say “Where the hell is the aggression?” when the guy decides to be well behaved and in control. But sometimes (like these), few of us are quick to jump the gun and burst out, “Who the f*** is he to have a row with the umpire? He’s supposed to be the role model for all folk hitting tennis balls across continents and oceans.” Well, before retorting, one must keep in mind that Roger Federer has been recognized unanimously as the Greatest Tennis Player of All Time for reasons that are beyond his sublime forehand winners and sharp volleys. Roger Federer is no mere tennis player—when people world over watch him, they gape, not just at the quality of the game, but at the quality of sportsmanship on offer. I cannot think of many other sportspersons of this era who have matched Roger in behavior and conduct on and off the court. Normally one who’d just frown and walk away with dignity at a ridiculous call, he quite clearly lost it. A frown replaced by “I don’t give a **** for what you’ve got to say” is quite some change. But since this is Roger Federer, we needn’t ring the alarm bell just yet. We’ve just got to treat it as a brake-failure in a BMW and continue admiring the prowess of the man he has been. Roger Federer.

Since Mr.Silverstone is currently unavailable for contact, I shall be jolly pleased if you could provide me with any contact details of Mr.Xenophilius Lovegood, editor of the popular magazine-The Quibbler. I could do with a Crumple Horned Snorcack this vacation!

Selavu Reddy Garu...

2009-09-07T22:50:00.002+05:30

I remember reading a couple of years ago a wonderful book in which the protagonist loses his Godfather and yet remains optimistic of his return to him as a ghost. Well…I wouldn’t mind ghosts meandering around the place, given the assurance this man would return. Even if he does, he certainly won’t again smile and charm his way into his exceedingly lavish office (if one might stick to the official nomenclature) or stride through grief-stricken folk with his extraordinarily munificent words of genuine concern and benignity.

Candidly stating, I didn’t know much about what he did each day nor did I take particular interest in his chores. I certainly wasn’t the guy who’d spare a thought for the Head of State each night before going to bed. But it was in May this year for the Assembly Elections that I had vociferously supported him. In my book, he’d go down as the best CM Andhra Pradesh has ever had. I know there’s NTR in that list and so is Naidu, but this man had no filmi allurements to him nor was he born in a silver spoon like his arch-rival. Sprouting arduously from the grass roots of Rayalaseema Andhra, this man grew up the hard way. Over due course of time though, his MBBS degree thankfully didn’t drive him to the path one would have expected. He entered a field that would’ve demanded his life (quite literally) and eventually he did succeed in fulfilling its requirements.

One facet of this guy’s personality was his striking simplicity. It’s as simple as it can get. Going down to the grass roots of the State, the regions grappling in abject adversities, being absolutely (and yet genuinely) considerate about their ground reality, fully coalescing among them, granting them the required amenities and ensuring they’ve got them in their palms—sounds simple, doesn’t it? Or rather…the man made it look ridiculously simple. In an era wherein politicians have forced people into believing the axiom that efficient governance is far from expectable, YSR will indeed be a success story for the ages. I know there would’ve been several Chief Ministers in several states of the country putting on paper the same kind of programmes (if not better ones) but YSR was the no-nonsense impresario. Right from the pregnant days of his tenure as Chief Minister…or rather…right from the days of his lobbying and canvassing for the 2004 Assembly elections—his firm target were the rural poor. The welfare schemes he has formulated and most significantly, IMPLEMENTED in their favour makes him quite literally the man of the Andhra masses. Right from the Indiramma Illu programmes to the free-power-supply ones, the authentic intention of effective public service was evident in the efficient implementation of these schemes. Besides, I thought the Rajiv Arogyasri public health welfare scheme was an absolute masterstroke. I was quite dazed we hadn’t this emergency health service facility ever before but the implementation of this scheme and its rousing success is a tribute to his commitment to his job, and to the cause of the well being of his fellow Andhrites.

A significant trait of Great Man was his absolute frankness with his subjects, and his boldness of governance. Characterized by trademark dynamism and unrelenting tenacity, this man will go down in the History books for the efficiency of his governance. Prior to September 2^nd 2009, he was very well in the league of the most successful CMs in the country, 3^rd only to Narendra Modi and Sheila Dikshit. Atleast, he was far from a reticent elitist or a radical hypocrite (Mayawati topping the latter category)

All that triumph apart, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy was a man of mesmerizing charm. Unarguably the most popular Chief Minister we’ve had, this man was quite the hearth-throb of the people of the State, be it among the oldies or the women, the kids or the men of the family—while the Head of State, he certainly was a man hard to detest (not if you’re Chandrababu Naidu though). Although I ain’t a great fan of the Assembly proceedings, I stumbled across a really interesting altercation between the two titans of the House. Naidu, who’s wasted NO opportunity EVER to heap flak on Great Man be it on his so called ‘charges’ of ‘corruption’ or even his perennially smiling face, complained boisterously about the erstwhile calm CM who seemed to be in his usual jolly good cheerful mood, quite unlike the former, to which Great Man curtly replied, “Navve Vaadu Yogi. Navvani Vaadu Rogi.” (To my dear friends who’ve stayed in Hyderabad for a decade and a half and still cannot decipher the language it means, “A man who laughs is a saint. A one who doesn’t is diseased.”) I only remember watching a couple of his press conferences (principally for my father who was present at them…yeah…I was hoping to catch a glimpse of him on air!) and in both those press conferences, I did get an indication of his abundantly existent sense of humour and comic timing. I also loved watching him on the English electronic media. His English was pretty all right actually…good enough to crack some good jokes atleast!

It is ironic then that the year that saw him rise to political pinnacles was the one that brought about his end. What is even more ironical is that he met the end of his life journey in his pursuit of making others’. The occurrence of phenomena of this type makes me seriously question the existence of that ‘divine power up there’ that is meant to do good to folk in this world. Here we had this Messiah who didn’t mind taking his chopper a couple of hours early, in utter desperation to get to his subjects and emancipate them of their local ‘samasyalu’ (as he had put it in his last ever interview), crushed hard against a hillock and rendered lifeless, sprawled face-on-floor in a dense forest with a couple of limbs flung yards away, all the work of the ‘Rain God’ of course…RUBBISH. Besides, my exclusive worldwide roaming special correspondent working assiduously for the progress of Reverberation, JG Silverstone (who was camping in the forests at that time…the very NAME of the forests stimulated utmost interest in him to visit the place) reported 48 hours later to me and said he had heard of an unprecedented thud-like sound some 100 miles away from his tent, but dismissed it as the sound of thunder.

You know what..? It might very well have been thunder…the thunder that stole its preternaturally humanitarian counterpart.

Dastaan-E-SRK-Newark-SRK

2009-08-27T19:10:00.013+05:30

Strutting zestfully past the suave passage ways of the Newark International Airport, THE brownie superstar glided fashionably through the blatantly unlike-Delhi crowd and marched through to the place he had to. Rummaging in his trouser pocket for his… (Well…nothing actually…it’s considered a fashion statement) and extracting his goggles in a manner that would have made Manish Malhotra blush, he sang to the White men, “The name’s Khan. KKKKK…Khan…” “Oh…is it really? Then step aside please.”

Nope...this isn’t the starting (or the ending) scene of some sleek Hollywood flick. Not from a Bollywood one either [I know it bears eerie resemblances to My Name Is Khan {which KJ might very well consider editing given the latest real life incidence which I’m sure is WAY better than what he’d have written (principally with the intention of exercising the lachrymal glands)}]

SRK, THE man, was made to look like Zarar Shah’s distant cousin, his Indian aide (not to be mistaken for its rhyming words) and possibly even made to look like ‘just another Brownie from South Asia’ (if you are oblivious as to who the gentlemen mentioned earlier in the sentence is, look for him in Pakistan’s golden pages). Well…reading that bit of news in the papers that morning, some interested folk (all atleast 5 years younger to me) came up to me that day in school (while I was diligently carrying out the responsibilities entrusted upon me by means of fashionable looking additions to my uniform) and asked me, “Bhaiyya…yeah Shah Rukh Khan kaun hai?”

Nah…I know that didn’t work..let me think of better ways to fill up this place.

Yeah…right…highly well placed sources close the Airport authorities tell Reverberation that the King wasn’t detained because of his surname. JG Silverstone, exclusive worldwide roaming special correspondent working assiduously for the progress of Reverberation has indeed brought us information that’ll help in increasing his wage. Whatever below is the whole and sole effort of Mr. Silverstone and I shall appreciate it if you acknowledge his invaluable contribution to the success of this organization (I’ve edited it of course…:P). Well, THE man was detained for multiple reasons that had nothing to do with his mane (Ah..sorry…I meant name) ;)

1) His luggage contained unusually excessive quantities of Tag Heuer and incidentally, the governor of Newark wears Tissot (even Sarah Palin does...). So……………..

2) He refused to give them Aishwarya Rai’s telephone number…( so why they confiscated his mobile phone is no longer an ambiguity)

3) They complained he bore eerie resemblances to a renowned on screen three-letter-named villainous character.

4) They said he was too good-looking to be an Asian commoner (and he was indeed getting into close physical touch with fellow males of the waiting lounge). In addition, a dumb, inebriated geek shouted loudly from the diagonally opposite corner of the hall that THE man vaguely resembled Oscar Wilde.

5) They said they saw him getting cozy with several ladies in the airport and suspected him to be Adam Stanford’s Asian agent.

6) A black guy from the Security force also made an interesting observation when he said, “I saw this bloke warmly shaking Modi-someone’s hand and that guy is a complete lothario. I saw this guy also seducing two women and pushing them off terraces…I can produce the video evidence if required.”

7) Dr. Sanjay Gupta (who happened to be flying to the White House to give the Dark Dude a detailed report of how hopelessly the country was doing against Swine Flu) didn’t help greatly either, adding that “This man has been THE smoking icon of India for as long as a couple of decades now. This man has been instrumental in bringing about acute pulmonary hazards to thousands of disease-free human beings across the world by making them believe it is ‘cool’ and ‘SRK-ish’ to blow tobacco into the air.”

8) He had evaded paying tax for the last 67 months and so, the call made to Rajeev Shukla was actually suicidal. The inane-looking, bulgy, white-clad schmuck offered the Security officials a fat cheque each (procuring them wouldn’t be difficult at all you see…he was a CORE member of the BCCI), who were only too pleased by the mutually beneficial pact. He also offered them a Scotch absolutely free of cost if they detained him for more than an hour-and-a-half.

9) Sources also confide in Reverberation that leading industrialist Mukesh Ambani had a hand in the entire episode. Although the precise reason for the malice might seem hazy yet, one could very well do dating back to April and May of 2008 and 2009. (He shook Nita Ambani’s hand and……………………….well, drop it...)

10) Also, the police of Newark seemed to have received an intelligence tip-off from an old bloke in Adelaide, who alleged a black-goggled, wrinkled, stuttering, stammering, swanky, ritzy man with a KKR jersey was the pioneer of treachery and illegitimate ouster.

And yeah…by the way, Reverberation can also afford to make a startling revelation to you. One of the unreasonably perverse Security officials had a face that would look similar to any good old bloke in the 3.28 million square kilometers of the world 7^th largest nation. Take a look for yourself…

But how THE man exonerated himself will be a tale that would fill many books. I await its Dastaan.

The Night's Not A Bad Time To Work!

2009-08-14T13:36:00.004+05:30

I had the (dis)pleasure of staying up late in the night a few days to conjure this essay for the next day’s All India Essay Writing Competition conducted by no less an organization than the United Nations itself. The topic was 'Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You' (well...I know it's a lame topic...that's what made me think of putting up an out-of-the-blue script...) Well, this is what I managed to come up with. Read and judge for yourself if I’ll go a long way in this race…

"The two pugnacious beasts tugged hard at each other with the air of extreme malevolence in their eyes. An oblivious onlooker would’ve been possessed by absolute perplexity at the scene, for there seemed to be no tangible reason for the deadly wrestle. And yet, they were entangled for a long time in a fierce grapple that seemed like it would last for eternity. The end seemed far and nearly impossible…

Residing two million kilometers away, I am Sameer Dharur, a miniscule constituent of this great planet. Over the course of my 15 years of existence, the world around me has taught me several things, few of which will play a pivotal role in propelling me to pinnacles of incomprehendible levels, while a few others will certainly go a long way in nourishing this habitat of ours. Besides the expatiated Value Education classes and the countless ‘seminars’ that I’ve had to attend on similar lines, the very experience of spending 15 years of absolute ‘humanness’ has taught me certain things of great value—things which can scarcely be acquired from titanic books. Education imparted by the greatest institution in the world…

As I sit down to pen this essay, several thoughts (some of which might seem entirely irrelevant to the context of things) cross my mind. Grisly images of scarlet haemoglobin spattered across debonair streets of great cities, wonderful memories of Roger Federer holding aloft his 15th Grand Slam title, crippling memories of the Indian Cricket Team crashing out of the T20 World Cup, joyous memories and images of my country soldiers returning triumphantly after conquering battles of great significance and pride, tear-stimulating memories of my losing competitions that meant the world to me, all make an untimely entry into my mind right now (I seriously doubt if it’s in the right place). But as I sit back and ponder over the bizarre phenomenon, I cannot but notice one common thing in all of them—passionate emotion. This is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools we are all armed with; tools that are so potent and capricious in nature that they can go a long way in ascertaining where we’re headed. Tools that can make or break one’s life…

Glancing at the newspaper this morning (with my cup of steaming Bournvita in hand), the headline read, “Pak Budge; Say They’re Committed To Bringing To Book 26/11 Culprits”. The chuckle that fizzled out was impromptu. No, I wasn’t indulging in my favourite pastime of using Pakistan as my punching bag, but the precise pretentiousness of the occasion dawned on me. Until a day before the meet was scheduled to take place, Opposition parties of the country were boisterous in their vociferous disapproval of the deed and believed Pakistan should be isolated and kept at bay. But the Prime Minister of the country thankfully had other ideas, was bold enough to renounce the agitations of the groups and went ahead with the pretentious meet. It did yield extremely positive results. The relationship that was a true embodiment of virulence was now mended, with similar resonance from the other end as well. The mere intention of going ahead and shaking hands with the volatile neighbor did everything.

I remember my History teacher elucidating one of the best chapters of our syllabus a few weeks ago. While it was the conciliatory intention of the Indian Prime Minister that fixed a relationship that was for decades one of extreme vitriol, it was that one malicious ill-will of Otto Von Bismarck that brought about one of the bloodiest wars in history. Both these scenarios have one thing in common—the eventual outcome of them was a function of the instigator’s endeavours. In other words, the bottom line of both the tales is perceptible and simple—‘You get what you give’.

The line might sound way too clichéd and one for the Moral Science text books. But the line is now a universally accepted axiom. I suspect you will find that the pragmatic manifestation of this philosophy in the modern times is a statement—that this is a universal axiom, a phenomenon that will be THE catalyst of human demeanour as long as the day breaks and the night falls. It is seen between two innocent kindergarten folk in the tussle for a pencil, in the soccer field between two passionate footballers, between two debonair diplomats under the lavish arc lamps of 5 star hotels. But it is a phenomenon that travels far beyond the realms of a kindergarten classroom or the length and breadth of a football field. It is the factor that ascertains the relationship between you and the rest of the society. It is a factor that will play a rather influential role in determining if you can enjoy days of harmony with people around you or if they will sink you into an abyss of intolerability. It is natural human tendency to give people what we get from them. It is natural human tendency to treat people with the same spoon as we have been treated with. It is natural human tendency to ‘pay back in the same coin’. It HAS become natural human tendency to embrace wholeheartedly the policy of ‘Tit For Tat’. I suspect it would be safe and pious to state that one would do himself a whole lot of good using this tool in the way that would bring to him the greatest contentment. All that is required is good will and the intention to be considerate to fellow men and women. All the malice that exists in the remotest corners of our heart might very well be packed and flung away from our conscience. That is vital to foster fellowship and harmony in this world. And that will be an asset of immeasurable value to us, for we’d be able to heal the world and make it a better place for you and for me and the entire human race (yeah…MJ did get something right after all…)

Like a guerdon flung from the thresholds of randomness, a seductive fruit caught the attention of the two ravaging beasts. The momentary pause was just the thunder before the storm. Maybe it was mere instinct. Maybe it was intentional tact. One of the two plunged onto it and gulped it down even before the other could contemplate going for it. It went for the profited instead and pinned it hard to the floor with fire in its eyes. Once again, the end seemed far and nearly impossible…

Destiny had done its job."

Wah...Duh!Duped or what?!

2009-08-09T21:43:00.004+05:30

The reason I’m back is to do a lot more than just filling up this place. I’ve been watching and following very closely a very thought provoking issue over the last week or so. I thought it’s time I took out time to spend some quality time and do this.

WADA--World Anti Doping Agency, technically speaking, ‘an independent foundation created through a collective initiative to promote, coordinate and monitor the fight against drugs in sport’ (which has been quite apparent actually over the last few days). However, I cannot but wonder if this thing is indeed going off the hook here. The much ranted about Anti Doping Code that stands un-inked on the urbane paper by the BCCI (lately speaking of course for I can think of scores of other organisations who followed a similar course of action) has indeed sparked off much of a debate in the sporting arena (one that has actually existed ever since the Code came into existence), and I can see no wrong in that happening. It DOES indeed contain certain clauses that can be fiercely debated against for hours. I have a serious problem with the ‘whereabouts’ clause in the Code that is supposedly meant to extract the precise whereabouts of all the athletes around the world 24 hours in advance so that they could gatecrash at any moment and at any place, be it while in the Swimming Pool or at the Countryside Bar, be it with the Physician during the annual checkup or with the kids on a delightful Sunday afternoon, and say, “Sir...we’re here to check if you had cocaine last night.”

International sportspersons who seldom do get to feel the aroma of a rest day and to whom their sport is their sole occupation, 365 X 24 X 7, do deserve far more respect than this. What they do in their scarce rest day is entirely a function of their privacy and that cannot be divulged and reported 24 hours in advance every day to people who suspect you had steroids last evening (which I believe is absurd..I mean…how could people predict where they would be and what they’d be doing each and every hour of the next day?). I hope in the middle of this, we do bear in mind that every athlete’s privacy deserves respect. It is entirely and wholly the discretion of the superstar to decide where he’d go and what he’d do to unwind in his free time and pesky agencies have no business whatsoever at the precise team to ‘monitor’ where the best athletes in the world are and what they’d be doing every hour of the day to barge in to conduct a ‘random’ dope test to some 1 out of a million. Do you really think it would be proper for ALL the sportspersons in the world to furnish the precise details as to their whereabouts (assuming optimistically that it is possible of course)? Would it not snowball into a possible security concern also bearing in mind that some of the most popular folk on Planet Earth's complete whereabout details are contained by an ‘agency’ that knows precisely where they’d be at any time of the day? Would it not burden the already worn out conscience of the most tired folk at a time when they should probably stay impervious to worries?

These are only some of the many significant questions that the Code and the Committee fails to answer. The intentions of the WADA are fully justified and their wholesome commitment to ridding world sport of the menace of doping is fully well acknowledged and understood. But that can be no genteel excuse for invading into the privacy of the best sportspersons in the world. I’m quite certain that all the sporting organizations across the world are with the WADA in their commitment to preventing any untoward indulgences of this kind. But the fact that a few prominent sporting organizations of the world have also flatly rejected the Code is a significant statement. The concerns of several athletes across the world are also quite noteworthy in this regard.

The reactions of a few sporting pooh bahs is remarkable. Rafael Nadal for instance said it was ‘a complete breach of one’s privacy’ and completely disapproved of it (although he did eventually sign on the dotted line bounded more by obligation I suspect). Roger Federer however fully approves of the Code and has something as zapping as his tennis to tell us to justify his stand, “The guy’s cheating and he’s smart, right?” Interestingly, ALL prominent Indian athletes have given a thumbs up to this contentious code, save for the Indian Cricket Team (for understandable reasons) and Somdev Devvarman (No…your eyes aren’t faulty).

It pains me to write about a few of the observations that I made over the last week from a few TV channels which improperly highlighted the fact about the BCCI ‘flexing its monetary muscle’ to get things done at their disposal…and the usual rubbish. The BCCI and the Indian players’ concerns are absolutely genuine. The international fraternity (and those glorious members of the World Media) will hopefully acknowledge the fact that cricket is far more than just a sport in our part of the globe. Quite naturally, the passion for the game here is paramount among players and enthusiasts alike. Indian cricketers (apart from their Pakistani counterparts) are probably in the list of the most vulnerable sportspersons around. I mean…we have houses and under construction sites belonging to players vandalized one day and puja-ed the next day. Besides, there does exist a constant cloud of ‘threat’ surrounding cricketers of the Sub Continent and their security should be one of utmost imperviousness. The displeasure of the Indian Cricket Team to comply with the rather preposterous, unsafe Code is fully understandable and I’m glad the BCCI has this time played wise in backing their players for all the right reasons. I was hopefully awaiting a productive result of the meeting between the BCCI and the ICC in view of this conundrum but as many had predicted, all we got to hear at the end of it was the usual dross of the ICC-BCCI being ‘fully determined’ to root out doping in cricket and well, nothing noteworthy beyond that. I dearly hope this standoff is solved before the specified deadline, for I do want to see my team play the 2010 Asiad and not signing on the dotted line would also result in cancellation of their involvement in the ICC’s Future Tours Programme, which we certainly can ill afford to do.

As of now though, this rule needs amendments. Amendments that can mend the split it has created in the sporting fraternity and earn approbation from Organizations and Players alike.

And it is a thought that calls for immediate action. Before things take a murky turn.

My 'Home'ly Ambition

2009-08-01T15:35:00.003+05:30

I’d like to have your complete attention while reading this page.

Thank you…I’m glad to learn that you folk still respect and value the ideals of a democracy. And yes, speaking of Democracy, what greater embodiment of this can exist than our very own beloved country? India stands tall today as one of the greatest democracies in the world (I know I’m getting clichéd…but read on…)

I am Sameer Dharur, a miniscule constituent of this great land—India, Bharat, Hindustan (Youngistan..?). This country has taught me several things, few of which will go a long way in propelling me to pinnacles of unimaginable proportions. In the words of the country’s most loved youth icon himself,”Agar Kisi Cheez Ko Dil Se Chaaho, Toh Poori Kaynaat Use Tum Se Milane Ki Koshish Mein Lag Jaati Hai.”

For over a decade now, I as a precocious, inquisitive bloke have been an ardent witness to the pinnacles and nadirs this country has sailed past. While the pinnacles brought to me puerile joy, the nadirs left on my mind an indelible stain, one that has actually gone as far as to influencing what I would be doing three decades from now. Even today, as I flip through the pages of my Daily or the elite English news channels and learn painful news of my fellow countrymen indulging wholly in repugnant riots, hapless folk not getting to reach home and taste their cup of Nescafe, it engenders in me a sense of sorrow and thankfully, retaliatory retribution as well. It was on one such morning…to be precise, the rather gloomy morning of the 27^th of November 2008 that I made a resolution to myself--a firm one. One that I promise to adhere to. I resolved to become the Home Minister of my country.

However, one fact has ever evaded my realm of comprehension. WHY DO WE PUT UP THIS FAÇADE OF SAFETY AND SECURITY WHEN IT IS A MERE DREAM IN A SOCIETY DOMINATED BY TRIBULATION? Let’s face it. WE ARE NOT A SAFE AND SECURE COUNTRY. Not with the Gateway of India quite literally an ‘open gateway’ for a dozen Pakistani parasites, not with pugnacious folk looking for ways and means (most oftenly in the pettiest of them) to indulge themselves wholly in mudslinging and gruesome conflicts of the most gadarene kind, not with the average Indian wife living in eternal uncertainty if ever her husband will ring the doorbell that evening and taste her kheer. Not with scarlet haemoglobin spattered across debonair streets of the great cities of this nation. Not with Dark Fridays and Shattering Saturdays happening every other month. Not with torpid response from those responsible each and every time from beneath the lavish arc lamps of television studios. Not with grisly reports, images and simmering obituaries and editorials usurping the cover pages and stories of monthly magazines…

We are in need…in need of a change. One that can restore our motherland to its former glory and retrieve its lost reverence in the global fraternity. One that can assure you, me and the 102.7 crore people that every square centimeter of the 3.28 million square kilometers we inhabit is safe from the threat of danger and genocide. A change for which I’m fully prepared to endure the worst that can be thrown at me in my pursuit to giving my nation its greatest gift. A change you and I can fully believe in.

Folks, I as the to-be Home Minister of India assure you that I will do all that is needed to realize that dream. (No…this doesn’t sound good)

We, as passionate patriots of our motherland, must assure ourselves that WE WILL DO ALL THAT IS REQUIRED to realize that dream and give ourselves yet another reason to proclaim proudly, “Mera Bharat Mahan.”

Thirty years from now, I wouldn’t be writing and delivering homilies to people about my dream. I will ensure that we would be living it.

OK...it's (Sw)Fine!

2009-07-27T19:11:00.003+05:30

All right. It’s finally here. After great commercial demand, I’ve finally decided that now is the time to do this. Read on…

I write this to tell you a story. One that is certain to rid you of all your mundanity and energize you to levels you hadn’t the pleasure of imagining before..but wait…am I forgetting something? Well…YES…Good Day To You! A very good day to you…in fact I write this good day to…

Hang on…is it a good day? It might be raining outside but I’d still like to call it a ‘bad day’. The reason I say that is because thousands of our fellow homosapiens are having to grapple hard in hospital wards for a rather funny reason (sadly they aren’t even in a position to listen to Tere Bina from Kal Kissne Dekha)

For over thousands of years, we have indulged ourselves in the hitherto gleeful deed of slaughtering herds of slimy looking lout-like creatures for delicious cuisines and delightful smiles over dining tables and living rooms. And today, those very ugly creatures have hit back hard in retribution and how…

This interesting phenomenon (if I might exercise that dignity) first took birth in the tiny, little exotic nation of Mexico which is incidentally known for its rather ravishing cuisines too. I daresay this taste would’ve been way too repugnant for them to swallow (well…yeah, it would’ve tasted like salt in coffee) But the very fact that this disease has voraciously permeated to 6 of the 7 continents of the world is in itself an astounding statement of this ‘very serious’ conundrum that is knocking on your door. The WHO (the who’s WHO of world health..) in utter nakedness declared this a ‘world pandemic’, which is the ‘official’ way of saying, “We’re fucked, for good.” Rome might not have been built in a day or the seas might not have formed in a fortnight, but Africa would certainly meet its terminal point in less than an hour if Fine Flu was added to their already overflowing plate of deadly diseases.

The symptoms of this disgusting disease are disgusting, yet exceedingly disgusting for they originate from disgusting living organisms with disgusting phenotypic and behavioral characteristics. Reading about them for the first time, you might very well get tempted to think they’re the symptoms of just any other normal ‘disease’ that gives you an excuse to bunk school for a day. Those good old fevers, coughs, colds, body aches, diarrheas of those other ‘routine’ diseases might ensure you get back to work in a couple of days to a scowling class teacher who’d be livid you missed ‘two precious days of school’. However, magically, the symptoms of Fine Flu would nail you to the bed (a hospital bed mind you, wherein the other delightful activities that are normally performed on beds cannot take place) for a couple of weeks and ensure you’re given a rousing reception back at school for managing to stay alive. Sadly though, %$@&@ innocent, hapless civilians across 5 oceans and 5 continents are having to put up with these grave difficulties. Thankfully though, the number in India isn’t much. In fact, the number stands at a meagre *&%#. Sources close to me reveal some exclusive information that political parties of pink flowers, red spades and yellow cycles intend to feast on this issue exposing the government’s action…oops…inaction to tackle the syndrome that has also badly plagued their own party workers. Thankfully though, inspite of Hyderabad being the city with the highest number of Fine Flu victims, our CM can breathe easy. His Delhi counterpart has overtaken him in the race for supremacy and has established Delhi’s reputation as ‘the capital’ of India in all possible connotations of the word.

I remember reading a news report last month which made me drop the glass of orange juice I was holding, which claimed the United States President himself had contracted the disease (in whom interesting symptoms like total darkness were observed instantaneously). The report was rebuffed almost as effectively as the effect of gravity on my glass and the US President managed to escape the flu in order to save others from it. But his country wasn’t that lucky. Folks, UNITED STATES STANDS TALL TODAY as the country with the highest number of Fine Flu victims. In fact, a survey conducted by The Official Fine Flu Tracking Network (which I’m not sure exists on Planet Earth) revealed an interesting statistic, according to which 189% of the total number of Fine Flu victims in the world had to spend more than 189 hours each in their respective quarantine wards. Therefore 189 X %$@&@ valuable hours that could very well have been used in uplifting the lower strata of the society, empowering women, bringing about economic and social equality, lynching corrupt politicians—all those precious hours have gone down the drain. Look, that’s what those unattractive sluts have done to us.

I hang my head in shame and disgust.

All I want to say is that They Don’t Really Care About Us.

We must take the sternest action on them no matter if they’re Black or White (gay or straight, young or old, tall or short, lean or fat, destitute or prostitute)

This disease has indeed accentuated into a Bad Thriller.

And it is for us to Beat It off the face of this planet,

In order to Heal The World And Make It A Better Place For You And For Me And The Entire Human Race.

(sobbing voraciously)

Goodbye MJ…you will be missed…

…and yeah, buzz off Fine Flu. You won’t.

Speaker of the Year..?Not really...

2009-07-23T20:38:00.008+05:30

Folks,

I break to you a news you may be aware of (I hope that is the case for I observe with delight that my popularity levels have shot up across schools in the twin cities in 24 hours!) Below is the transcript of my speech that saw me fall tantalizingly short of being crowned the Speaker of the Year. I finished agonizingly 2^nd owing to a rather remarkable performance by my good friend Anant Kaushik, a class XII student from the Chinmaya Vidyalaya. Decide for yourself if my script was good enough. Here it is...

[Tere Bina Tere Bina..Lagta Nahin Mera Jiya…Ab Tere Siva Chale Meri Saansein Naarein Na…]

Hang on…what am I doing? WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING? Ah..wait…I’m supposed to be dreaming…this is what can be called ‘dreaming of an entirely different kind’…and yeah, speaking of dreams, I had one last night; an exhilarating one, which came true. Reality of dreams isn’t impossible, you see. I dreamt last night that I would be walking up through this staircase, strutting ostentatiously onto this very august dais and enlightening you precocious folk on dreaming. Look for yourself…it’s come true..!

I remember watching an extraordinary film a few days ago, which taught me to dream…to dream big, for it is the dreams that achievements follow and not obnubilate mists of indecisiveness. Dreams are yardsticks and lodestars, without which pursuits of transcendence may very well be equated to long hard voyages in enormous seas without compasses and fuel.

If someone came up to me and yelled loudly for dozing off and dreaming, I’d be flummoxed at the utter delusion. A stern Mom tells her innocent child, “Will you keep dreaming all through your life or will you achieve something atleast?” If you live your dreams, you'll never have to wake up. It is natural for each and every one of us to adopt an outlook of vitriol and hostility towards this very effective, and yet ostensibly ‘shameful’ phenomenon of ‘dreams’…how I wish that changed...

A dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world. Dreams are the touchstones of our characters, unique and potent in nature; unique enough to zap the world when they know of it; potent enough to get you to pinnacles of incomprehendible levels.

All great men and women to have walked on Planet Earth got to where they did with the invaluable aid of discerned visions and relentless perseverance. The intuition for all the accomplishments of mankind has been a spark of imagination-a flicker that did as much as powerfully driving them to thresholds unseen and unheard of.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. It is imperative for each and every one of us here in this capacity crowd to bear in mind the reality that dreams are mere candles in a dark tunnel. All they do is illuminate the path to glory. The travel to the goal will not be easy. It will demand complete and perfect synchrony of discernment, resilience, grit, tact and perseverance. Getting there will probably make us realize the contribution of that invaluable spark of intuition…

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. Let us go beyond the ordinary. Let us renounce the shackles of reticence and restraint. Let us explore, dream, discover and conquer.

A great man once greatly said, “Dreams aren’t those that you get during sleep…dreams are those that ensure you don’t sleep.”

I wish earnestly that I could end by saying,”Reality is non-existent. Dreams are reality.”

Have a nice dream.

…and until then, I’ll get back to doing what I love doing the most…

[Tere Bina Tere Bina..Lagta Nahin Mera Jiya…Ab Tere Siva Chale Meri Saansein Naarein Na …]

MY PERSPECTIVE ON ALL OF IT:-

In my view, I spoke well (or as people are saying…’awesome’ly…). The moment I finished my thingy, I was singing merrily off the stage (which I had planned to do earlier…but emotions flowed with seamless spontaneity and made it seem entirely impromptu). I was certain that I had pocketed the most coveted award in my book and had become the best orator in the twin cities. A natural feeling of unparalleled ecstasy swept over me as I took with zest the first row seat that was meant for me gazing around at the capacity crowd, most of whom hadn’t stopped applauding. I wasn’t in high spirits for listening though…I half had the urge of doing a horribly hopeless ‘moonwalk’ out of sheer delirium, but thankfully enough, my conscience knew when to poke it’s nose in. But ‘the moonwalk’ of the day was the one that stole the thunder and pretty much all of my joy. It was a thunderstorm that blew away the air within me and rendered me lifeless, speechless and breathless. Whatever happened ensured I would end up yet again as the ‘challenger’ and the perpetual ‘champion in waiting’…I’ve had this agony for a longtime now—that of being a promising young talent who’s capable of great things. I’ve always been told after finishing second in countless competitions now, that I had performed ‘extraordinarily well’ on all of those occasions. I have had enough of this dross of being ‘extraordinary’ and not conquering the pinnacle of competition. I had hoped and half believed yesterday was the day the script of my life thus far would be rewritten for good. It wasn’t.

To Sir With Love Part II

2009-07-15T16:41:00.001+05:30

I don’t remember the last time I was deprived in this manner. My infatuation for Roger Federer stretches to such immeasurably long boundaries that I intended to update this place the minute after the final point of his arduous marathon on July the 5^th. I seriously am contemplating legal if not brutal action against the perpetrators of this rather heinous crime-my Internet Service Providers, for I have been without Internet for a week now (that’s one hell-of-a-lot for someone who eats, lives and breathes it). Anyway if you, by chance, are wondering who the Internet Service Providers are, then I suspect you will find it no surprise that it is the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited behind this week-gate scandal.

Anyway, nothing can possibly come close to diluting the pretense of the occasion (excuse me if I’m sounding outdated, I’m still living a week behind in time). To all those skeptical critics who reckoned he was no longer the champion he once was, to all those unfathomably pigheaded deplorers of the greatest man to have held the tennis racquet, to all those glorious men and women who followed tennis in the newspapers and vouched for someone else, to all those prudent folks who didn’t know much of tennis and yet allowed automatic admiration to flow for Roger, to all those neutral intermediaries who watched the game just for the love of it, and to all those exemplary devotees of the champion (I top the list), 5^th July was an answer, an answer that was writ dexterously by extraordinary finesse--an answer that would have put to rest the cacophony of heated discords in TV studios across the world. It was an answer that shunned the atmosphere of a debate and converted it seamlessly and peacefully into one of awe and deep respect. Family discussions and arguments over dinner would have paved way for blarney of the most earnest kind. It would have engineered a situation in places ranging from the living room to TV studios, of complete complaisance towards the reality this man had enforced upon lovers of the game across the 180 latitudes and longitudes. A champion is not one who merely conquers. A champion is one who makes people erupt in joy at his conquest. A famous line from Jodhaa-Akbar strikes my mind which would do a better job conveying what I intend to-“Raajye karne mein aur fateh karne mein kaafi farak hota hai.” (BTW…we’re doing Imperialism in Social Studies, which probably explains the intuition behind my sudden recollection of this phrase)

It had become a routine. Walking through those hallowed locker rooms of Centre Court for the biggest tennis match of the year was no longer an activity that curled the muscles of the great man, who walked through the same place (which he could now equate to his balcony given the frequency of his presence in the place) for 7 continuous Championships, 6 out of which he subjugated. But the impediment between himself and tennis immortality was fundamentally a collection of two entities, one of them being a veteran resurgent American, who was quite ostensibly enjoying a honeymoon. The other entity was one that I predicted would trouble my hero more-HISTORY. We’ve seen it on a few occasions in the past, wherein the magnitude of a particular occasion gets on to the nerves of even the ‘immortal’ and they ineffably capitulate. It happened to the Bradmans, the Tiger Woods’, the Valentino Rossis, the Tendulkars, the Maradonas, the Mohammad Alis, the McEnroes, but Roger Federer will probably admit with glee that he’s glad he isn’t a part of this group of legends!

What he will probably concede atleast now with some zest is that he can now incontrovertibly be labelled the ‘Greatest Of All Time’ for the simple reason being that he is now the man with the highest number of Grand Slam titles. Adding to that of course, is his great accomplishment a month ago-winning the French Open and attaining a Career Grand Slam. Needless to mention, his extraordinarily sportive and humble deportment on and off the court is another enormous factor that gives lesser reason for people to disagree in conferring to him this title. I wouldn’t want to believe there exist many who believe he isn’t worthy of it.

The match that brought to him the light of this honour was one of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching LIVE. I remember watching those good old fierce Borg-McEnroe encounters or those equally absorbing Sampras-Agassi battles. None of those however match up to the Federer-Nadal rivalry of our generation. They truly are close encounters of an entirely different kind. Inspite of Rafa watching the match from a hospital bed, there was this resurrected bloke who seemed as though he had awoken from years of torpid stupor, playing grass court tennis of the highest order. We all know he’s an unbeatable server and making that count on the big day very nearly took him to unparalleled glory. Andy Roddick thoroughly deserves sincere adulation for the valiance that is so very characteristic of the people of his land. He played extraordinary tennis from which he can surely take pride. I think it would be safe to say he put up one of the most keenly contested grand slam finals in modern tennis history. It was like one of those Federer-Nadal matches wherein every point seemed like a colossal battle. Every service game had the scope of getting broken at any capricious moment. Every rally ended with an out-of-the-blue winner. This tournament (the final in particular) would sure have given Andy a shot in the arm of making a comeback—an effective one.

But the 5^th of July 2009 will go down in history books as a great day, one which will be embedded in gold in the minds of millions of fervid tennis devotees.

It will be remembered as the day when a debonair, 27-year-old Swiss tasted a bizarre drink—the drink of immortality.

MJ-TN-RF-AM-UV

2009-06-27T11:50:00.003+05:30

It’s probably been my busiest week in a very long time. What with the numerous exams to attend in the evenings, the countless tests to prepare for the next day, loads of homework dumped unceremoniously on our backs..? Class X is far worse than I had imagined. It is only during these weekends that I have minimum time at least, to cater to the needs of this page, which gives me contentment in times of extreme helter-skelter.

This week is one that hasn’t been short of sensational happenings across oceans and continents. Michael Jackson’s untimely demise might have triggered off journalists across the globe to come up with subtle conspiracy theories, but it has plunged his ardent fans on planet Earth into deep melancholy. Whether he died of a drug overdose or a cardiac arrest or some 'foul play' is immaterial to us passionate devotees. The vase broke, whether it was a cat that pushed it or a rat. However, it is painful to observe that certain members of the world media are resorting to irrational aggrandizement of the situation in order to reap financial benefits. TIMES NOW for example is the only news channel in the whole wide world (BBC and CNN included of course) to insinuate these mysterious ‘foul play’ theories into the equation. The channel in question has had a history of blowing things out of proportion and it seems to be living up to its rather shameful reputation. I can quote to you several situations in the past wherein it has been singularly responsible for pervading false news among people, but it will probably take a book or two for me to complete doing so. I wouldn’t entertain a second thought before stating that it is probably the most irresponsible English news channel in the country. It does have a pool of talent, but its priorities seem to be concentrated elsewhere.

This year’s Wimbledon Championships will probably go down as one of the most boring ones in recent history. Roger Federer’s monopoly shows no signs of coming to an end very soon. He is sublime as he always is, robbing words from commentators’ mouths. I foresee a Federer victory in the final, and yeah…I’ve also noticed with surprise the hype that is being built up around Andy Murray. I vividly recall Vijay Amritraj stating after Murray’s first round match (in which he dropped a set and struggled to victory against some unseeded bloke) that, "Murray was at his B game today and yet, he played very good tennis. When he is at his A game, Roger will probably relent." After his second round match against another unseeded guy, the British media lost all their senses. An ordinary 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 win raked in unimaginable plaudits, ranging from ‘Murray in a hurry to win title’ to ‘Murray’s performance reminded me of John McEnroe’. I hope the latter didn’t check out those newspapers that morning. They would probably have mortified him to utmost shame. Nobody seems to be talking about Roger Federer this Wimbledon. Come to think of it, winning this slam would make him the undisputed GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), and yet for the last 4 years at the Championships, the media has been talking at great lengths about Andy Murray ‘creating history by becoming the first Britisher in 70-odd years to win the crown’. It’s time the British media got a grip on the ground realities. Andy Murray might be a talented player, but as he has realized over the last few years, he is nowhere in comparison to the Federers and the Nadals of the game. What about that ‘sore loser’ comment he made on Federer, eh? If the greatest player of all time can be equated to a sore loser, I cannot imagine what Andy Murray can be equated to. I’d love to see a Federer-Murray final at this year’s Championships, a simulacrum of last year’s US Open final wherein Roger annihilated Andy beyond expectation. If we get to see that final on July 5^th, I think there will be very little to predict about the outcome.

And yeah…I haven’t forgotten our beloved Team India. I’ve been following every move of theirs in the Carribean, although staying up till 3 in the morning isn’t a great idea, with school the next day. I did stay up till 12 for the first ODI though, the main attraction being Yuvraj’s blitzkrieg. Many people said over a couple of years ago that Yuvraj Singh will be the Brian Lara of the Indian Cricket Team. I must admit I had my initial misgivings about that but he certainly has been extraordinarily coherent in the shorter formats of the game over the last couple of years pocketing the Man of the Series trophy in almost all the ODI series played since. His knock on Friday was among his best ever. The principle talent this lad possesses is the ability to get the big shots at will. And when he hits them, they do clear the boundary on most occasions. A batsman of such supreme talent is an invaluable asset to the team. I don’t think Sachin Tendulkar will be greatly missed if Yuvraj continues to blossom the way he has in recent times.

But this week will stand out in my memory for the unprecedented demise of Michael Jackson, the man who will always be my hero…no matter if he was Black or White.

Hit Wicket!

2009-06-21T13:00:00.002+05:30

My father had asked me to drop the idea of watching matches that went late into the night, his primary concern being my attendance to school the next day. I predictably discarded the advice and reckoned I’d rather bunk school the next day if need be, than miss the Men who shouldered a billion hopes, in action. I’m sure you would’ve been told by your grandparents and parents alike that heeding their advice will often, if not always, fetch the best results. Alas, I had to accept that reality later.

In fact, I even had the zeal to send SMSes to my friends in the middle of the night, making them leap out of their stupor and get glued to their TV screens. I had to shoulder the blame for doing that, though!

Well, in hindsight, my deeds might seem inane, but I’m sure you’d agree that our heroes were the ‘hot favourites’ of the tournament, until they ran into an inspired group of pink-clad dudes, who pragmatically relished thwarting us. Looking at the itinerary of the Super Eight matches, you shouldn’t be blamed if you assumed India would beat the Windies and the English and most probably, even South Africa, and stroll into the last four with utmost ease. Even I had resigned myself to that theory. So had 9 Indian news channels and countless ‘experts’. I watched the game versus the West Indies, in an extremely disinterested manner, doing so just to ‘stand by the team’. But when we were 60-odd for 3 at the halfway mark, I knew trouble was brewing (that was when my mobile phone was most active). Fine…we lost, thanks to a comprehensive all round performance from an extraordinarily talented, underrated all rounder.

Thus, we found ourselves in yet another do-or-die situation in a major ICC tournament. I know that was the case in the previous edition of the tournament as well, and frankly, I didn’t expect them to get past that bridge either. The irony of the situation was remarkable. We had to beat the same two teams we had beaten in the previous edition of the tournament, back-to-back to push for a semifinal berth. The co-incidence didn’t help the team either. The Great Indian Media, which had indulged in many eye-brow raising acrobatics throughout the tournament, latched onto this wondrous phenomenon to rope in their astute ‘panelists’ to say, “Well, they beat them last time…there’s no reason why they can’t do it again. In fact, I’d be surprised if they don’t do it again.” The pressure was going to get to them anyway, as it did on countless paramount occasions in the past, in the 2007 50-over World Cup for example (I never imagined 5 years ago that I’d ever have to elucidate about a cricket World Cup, even in a passing reference!)

I, for one, believed we could hammer England even on a bad day. The ambiguity only lay on the result of the South African game. MSD tried way too many things in a must win game. Adhering to old clichés might very well have been the right way to have gone about the job. His ‘fearless’ moves might have come off in the last World Cup but at some point or the other, the cricketing brain is to be valued as well. Giving RP Singh only 3 overs even after he went for just 13 runs and scalped 2 wickets, dropping in-form Pragyan Ojha for the crunch game…and the decision that sealed the fate of the game, sending Ravindra Jadeja in at number four, were sadly decisions that transcended the realm of comprehension and sense. I am not ashamed to admit that I didn’t bother staying up for the dead rubber versus South Africa. I was certain we would lose it anyway. A glimmer of hope was provided by the deeds of Ravindra Jadeja’s fingers, but our batting chose to be consistently inconsistent, even in a worthless game.

Press Conferences after an annihilating defeat of this magnitude, particularly with the Indian Cricket Team as the unfortunate victim, are near-impossible to handle. The vitriolic ‘questions’ (you might assume I’m gratifying the media) would have given MSD a lot more trouble than even Mendis’ googlies. Poor Gary Kirsten however, succumbed, turning his vehicle at such a rapid velocity and with such radical torque that it stimulated snarls from viewers across the world. And…his word became the favourite of sports shows on ALL news channels (I watched all of them…and I assure you it did spark off quite some reaction). ‘F-A-T-I-G-U-E’ and the IPL were the latest excuses for the Great Indian Debacle number Umpteen. Mr. Kirsten, was however conveniently or inconveniently forgetting that almost ALL the players of the world, save for the Australians (who’d been knocked out in the first round…if you remember that) and the Pakistanis, had participated in the IPL with no such qualms at all. Some teams didn’t hide their praise for the billion dollar event, when they stated it was the best possible practice for the ICC World T20. If the astute southpaw was alluding to the amount of cricket India had been playing over the last 12-15 months, then he is probably oblivious of the fact that 3 other test playing, quality cricket nations had played more cricket than India in that time period. However, the remark from Kirsten flummoxes me. He has built up a reputation over the last few months as a no-nonsense coach and as one who spoke the gospel truth. But this view of his did seem inept even for a few former Indian players (Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly included).

As for those in the media who thought the Dhoni-Sehwag ‘rift’ (which was fictitious in the first place) was the reason for India’s non show, let’s not forget that Shoaib Akthar smashed Mohammad Asif’s thigh with a wooden cricket bat before the ICC World T20 2007 and Pakistan very nearly went on to lift the trophy!

To Sir With Love...

2009-06-08T14:53:00.006+05:30

He did it.

As the warmth of a tepid Paris Sunday morning wished him a good morning, he might as well have wished himself a good day. It was going to be the greatest day of his life. What was for years tantalizingly elusive was to be finally achieved. The pretentiousness of the occasion was enormous and tennis immortality was in sight. As the 13 time Grand Slam champion took the court on the overcast Sunday afternoon amid great expectation and anxiety for the most important match of his life, he produced the tennis of equivalent quality as the significance of the occasion. The first serves were spot on, the whipping forehands and the pinpoint accuracy of his shots displayed in the first few minutes the forte of a champion. Roger Federer’s moment of glory had arrived before him. The rest of the match seemed a rather curt formality, and Roger Federer at the end of 2 hours of near flawless tennis, was the greatest player of all time.

Actually, studying this French Open, it is hard not to notice certain queerness about Roger’s play in this tournament. His play seemed quite rusty for most of the tournament, pretty similar to his exploits at Roland Garros in the past, where he never really was on top of his game like he normally is on every other occasion. His 2nd round wrestle against a never-heard-of Jose Acasusuo, or an equally grappling win against local Frenchman Paul Henri Mathieu in the subsequent round might not have sent worrying jitters in the Federer camp. But the grueling five setter against Tommy Haas in the fourth round did indeed give Federer fans reason to fret. The remarkable turnaround of coming back from two sets down to winning the match however, displayed great skill that was worthy of acknowledgement. In the quarterfinal against Gael Monfils (who was tipped to defeat Federer…believe it or not!) Roger played the kind of tennis that defined his regal reign in the last five years. Taking the match in straight sets, his storming into the semifinals was a fitting reply to those skeptical detractors who still surprisingly ruled him out of contention for the title. Rafael Nadal’s unprecedented exit from his happiest-hunting-ground might have brought about sighs of relief to all the millions of Federer devotees across the world, but the task was still incomplete. He faced his toughest challenge of the tournament in his semifinal clash against Juan Martin Del Potro, to whom he hadn’t dropped a set in his whole career. However, the initial moments of the match told an entirely different tale. Del Potro looked dominant and determined and another great ‘knock out’ seemed to be in sight. But people who thought so seemed to ignore the fact that Roger Federer was on the other side of the net. An outstanding comeback from the champion saw him battle his way through to the final in another tough five setter.

The other champion, Roger’s greatest adversary over the last few years, Rafael Nadal had a tournament he would love to forget at the earliest. Who would have expected a fourth round knock out to some World No 24 while the World No 2 himself was far behind him, on the surface he could proudly call his own? Who would have thought the overwhelming favourite for the title (a tag he received for the first time) and four-time defending champion would get a sound thrashing in as early as the fourth round? I think the explanation for this debacle is a rather simple one that is being overlooked. Nadal has probably played the most tennis in the last 6-12 months, his wild goose chase for supremacy being the driving force for doing so. The repercussions of this however, are alarming to say the least. The 6 time Grand Slam champion’s participation in this month’s Wimbledon is reportedly under a cloud of doubt, with his very own uncle-coach saying he wasn’t too optimistic about the belligerent Spaniard’s participation in the tournament. Now that might be a crippling blow for the defending champion who might very well be staring down the barrel by the end of the year, with a resurgent Roger Federer who will play tennis for the rest of his life without an ounce of pressure.

Having followed Roger passionately for half a decade now, it is no difficult confession that yesterday was the biggest day of his career. He might now be on par with Pete Sampras at 14 Grand Slams and sharing the sobriquet of the ‘greatest ever’ with the debonair American legend. But we might see that change in as soon as a month, with the Wimbledon championships only a couple of weeks away. I see Roger Federer as the clear favourite for this year’s championships. I know he went down to Nadal in a historic final last year, I know he isn’t playing the best tennis of his life, but Roger’s outlook and attitude will take a radical turn for the better, now that he has accomplished the unachievable. Roger has been the emperor of grass for the last 6 years, making 5 of the last 6 Wimbledon trophies his own. His game, needless to say, is perfectly suited to the rapid fast grass courts of South West London. Besides, Rafael Nadal, the only man capable of halting Roger’s triumph, has suddenly run into darkness. His loss to Federer in straight sets on clay earlier this year adding to his shock fourth round exit from his paradise Roland Garros has made many experts turn the tide in Roger’s favour. The Wimbledon championship will be an enormous occasion too for Roger. Winning here would make him the player with the highest number of Grand Slam conquests and possibly dispel all clouds of doubt that still linger around his greatness.

What a finish that would be to an extraordinary tale…conquering the pinnacle of immortality at his favourite tournament…I see that happening on July the 5th. But this Roland Garros victory of 7th June 2009 will be one that he can describe to his grand children as the ‘greatest’ of his life…as one that propelled him to irrefutable distinction.

He did it.

Meandering Melancholy

2009-06-02T21:09:00.003+05:30

Here we are then…the joie de vivre of another scintillating vacation nearing its twilight. We enter the studious get-back-to-school month of June with a refreshingly tepid sun setting in, which carries with it a new dawn…a new beginning. This is the month I initially despise, for it brings to me the unpleasant reality of ending a 60 day-long honeymoon. And henceforth, I will have to return to the place where I am shrieked at sometimes, lauded overtly sometimes, hosting programmes with panache sometimes, subjected to the harsh side effects of being a member of the School Cabinet sometimes…yet I do not complain. This is the wonderful place that has sculpted me scrupulously to perfection. I did often get the sensation that I wholly belonged to the place, that I was responsible in some miniscule manner in orchestrating at times the proceeding around me.

Until last year, getting back to my domicile was the prospect I had longed for towards the end of each summer. The very feel of getting back to school and starting another academic year from scratch was encouraging to say the least, and its effervescent essence that filled the air around me, brought me bliss. One of the sole substrates in this wondrous reaction was my fervent penchant for reuniting with my friends and investing with them quality time.

I wouldn’t get as quixotic as to saying the essence has evaporated this year. But I’ll have to confess, I don’t feel the quintessence this time around. Maybe it’s too early to state indefatigably but there are factors that enervate my zest.

Owing to the fact that tag of ‘X Class’ is so paramount in the perceptions of School Principals, the fag end of the last academic year implied early commencement of Class X. Early conduction of IX class Annual Examinations…and that’s it…it’s almost as if the teachers of Class X expected us to read from their face-‘That’s it folks...your hostilities begin now…non study for a day will prove exorbitantly costly…’

One thing I can state indefatigably is that the much accentuated over-importance attributed to education in Class X is aggrandized in our schools. It is no delusion that this perception paves way for self destruction and the much-talked-of ‘pressure’. This is the one aspect of our educational system I can’t stop ruing about.

I couldn’t but notice a paradigm shift in the style of education and hospitality, in my short stint as a Class X student. The approach of the teaching faculty was a lot more ‘business-like’ and ‘no-nonsense’, strikingly contrary to the occasional perkiness that was a part of everyday lifestyle. There was sudden, almost unexplained hostility in the scheme of things. Normal aberrations were aggrandized to the threshold of severe admonishments. The mahaul of a normal school day that previously lit up the mood of otherwise torpid and lethargic students seemed to have paved way for something of an entirely different variant. To add salt to the burning wound, our school for the first time in its history implemented this policy of ‘shuffling’ students of various sections of a class. The policy, which brings about plenary regrouping of the students of various classes (irrespective of varying lingual preferences) predictably was given the thumbs down by tetchy students, who understandably were in no mood to part with their pals (with whom they had spent 11 years of amusement and joy). However, the policy did take pragmatic manifestation and the deed was done. Students of Class IX were shuffled arbitrarily into 4 different sections. The idea transcends my realm of comprehension and has thrown the emotional quotient of students into complete disarray. I couldn’t see any logic whatsoever in the move, save for the lone fact that all sections would be equally disciplined/undisciplined in conduct. At first, most of us reckoned it was just another threat from authorities in order to ensure sanity and regimentation in the behavior of students. Little did any of us expect it to take shape. However when it did, most of us were shattered…some beyond repair. When some of us (the members of the Cabinet) were summoned for our view on the idea, I did plainly state that it would have a catastrophic influence on the minds of almost all the students to whom existing surroundings and friends are of vital support. Not just me, even a few of my friends belonging to other sections with prominent portfolios in the Cabinet were averse to the idea and subscribed to the same view. However, the initial insurrections that were initiated by a few of us students were cowardly (that’s the best that could be mustered) and had zero tangible impact. However, we were assuaged later by ostensibly benevolent authorities who said it was for ‘the greater good’ that the step was being taken and that we’d be doing ourselves a whole lot of good acclimatizing to the change as swiftly as possible. Most of my fellow classmates are still of the view that this was an indomitable speed breaker of harmony and joy, although I personally have gotten over it.

All said and done, the endeavour of education is the catalyst of this wonderful exercise of school going, and that (thankfully) shall never die. Until last year, the morning of every school day meant sprightly and ebullient interactions with those memorable comrades who’ve infused joy in my life.

Wish those mornings would just stay.

99 cracks a ton

2009-05-28T13:30:00.003+05:30

26^th May was always going to be a Red letter day for a special reason (check my profile to know why). Normally, I go along with a couple of other pals of mine for celebrations of this kind. Hence, a few days prior to the D-Day, I had booked online the tickets for the film ‘99’. However, as though watching one film didn’t suffice, one of my friends compelled me into partnering him in an insane activity-that of watching an abysmal film (the second of the day) for reasons unfathomable. He called it his ‘birthday gift’ to me (I didn’t know how to reply). 99 is worth a review, but as far as the second film is concerned, the lesser said about it, the better. I’d rather say nothing about it. Here is a comprehensive panorama on 99 and why you should watch it at the earliest:-

As the first letters of the film’s caption roll out on screen, your ribs begin to tickle and you know you’re in for a roller coaster ride. The film revolves around the two protagonists, played by Cyrus Broacha and Kunal Khemmu. The antics and the activities they indulge in throughout the film, acting proxy to a betting pooh-bah pretty much constitutes the entire film. Zaramud (yes…that’s a name), played by Cyrus Broacha and Sachin, played by Kunal Khemmu (I suspect the reason for the name is because of the film’s cricket connection) are two men of Mumbai whose job is mobile SIM card forgery, and making loads of money from it. However, they are discovered by the police one day and in their attempt to escape, they commandeer a debonair Mercedez Benz which gets shattered in the chase. The owner of the suave vehicle, AGM (pretty long name…don’t remember it), a betting kingpin played superbly by Mahesh Manjrekar, summons the two and demands 30 lakh…then 40 lakh…and finally 50 lakh for compensation. However, a confession of monetary incapability from the two protagonists follows their eternal employment by AGM and thus are at his disposal. The two are chiefly involved in the activity of procuring money from losing betters, who invariably flee or find a way to escape the burden of paying the exorbitant sum in time. One such unfortunate casualty is Rahul (played by Boman Irani) who comes up with seemingly ingenious ‘theories’ about luck but none of them manifest into reality. Thus, our two heroes are sent to Delhi upon the mission of forcing the money out of Rahul. Their indulgences in Delhi, courtesy their boss’s credit card and the various conundrums they (and their clients) fall into makes up the rest of the film.

The betting in this film is unsurprisingly on the country’s most widely practiced religion-Cricket. Conscientiously, the director chooses the India-South Africa series of 2000 (which was in reality the victim of a match-fixing scandal) for the backdrop of the film, which makes the scenarios feel even more plausible and realistic. The characteristic atmospheres of betting and gambling are all encompassed neatly in the film. Rival betters having sardonic conversations over alcohol, one actually helping the other and in return getting a false advise, the ‘I’ll beat you one fine day’ lines, surreptitious shenanigans are all veritably put in place.

I couldn’t have thought of a better caption for the film-‘Part Fact. Part Fiction. Pure Fun’. It embodies immaculately the spirit of this film. A film of this kind can create the impression it has only if all the elements are perfectly put in place and 99 is just that kind of a film. The film is fast paced and seldom gives you a languid sensation. The humour in this film is of the highest order, for which the dialogue writers deserve a pat on their backs. The cinematography looks sleek and well packaged, and the screenplay is crisp and enormously captivating.

Of the cast, JC, a prominent better and the person who is closest to being called the ‘villain’, is played with exactly the traits required, by Vinod Khanna. He is contemptuous and a little sluggish in demeanour and plays the role to perfection. Boman Irani, playing the ever-indebted Rahul, slips in to the role well as he always does. He is convincingly natural and as in every film of his, is never larger than his character. Soha Ali Khan, as the hotel manager Pooja, has a very limited role that is confined to sporadic smiles. Kunal Khemmu, as Sachin, is effortlessly jocund and frivolous in deportment and I’m sure he’ll be glad atleast one of his films has clicked. Cyrus Broacha as ‘Zaramud’ (we don’t know what his precise name actually is) is expectedly top class in this kind of a role. Given that his role in the film is considerably kindred to his comedian attitude in real life too, he puts in a pretty good performance. Actually watching Cyrus in this role is almost entirely similar to watching him in his weekly show, ‘The Week That Wasn’t. ’ But the real star of this film is undoubtedly Mahesh Manjrekar playing the betting top dog AGM. He is innately boorish and is profoundly adroit in the execution of his role. It is easy to get carried away in this kind of a role but Mahesh plays it to precision. It’s hard to take your eyes off the screen when he is on it.

At the end of the day, 99 blasts a quick fire 100…in far less than 99 balls.

Verdict:-4/5 (Makes me write an entire blog post raving about it!)

P.S:-I shall be flabbergasted if this film doesn't emerge as one of the significant winners in next year's Filmfare Awards.

Maiming Mentor

2009-05-22T17:26:00.007+05:30

Mamata Banerjee...in a Trinamool Congress Rally...sorry...I can't afford to be irreverent on this...Mamata Banerjee at the KKR 'team meeting'(Perplexed?Read on...)

Brendon McCullum landing at the Wellington airport after taking a chartered flight from Kolkata to Wellington(read on...you'll know why)

Yet another day of excruciating torture for the pitiable members of the Kolkata Knight Riders...

A couple of weeks ago, my all-time favourite TV anchor Cyrus Broacha happened to slip in a cheeky comment when he said Mamata Banerjee should be made the coach of the Kolkata Knight Riders. I know that would send shudders among the local KKR players and yet, I can't but thrive in the idea…

•She would cut down the expenses of the team(radically) and change the colour of the team jersey to white and green(confused...?Check out the logo of the Trinamool Congress). ‘Simple lifestyle and slogging work’ would be her mantra. The official team caption though would be changed to ‘Lado Lado Lado Re’, reminiscent of a medieval war(the ad will feature a belligerent and unnecessarily pumped up Mamata Banerjee and a befuddled looking SRK in the background,who would sneak in after bribing the cameraman)...and yes...the name of the team would be changed to Bengali Bhoot Riders(or BBR in short)

•Apart from cutting down ‘lavish’ expenses of the team that are meant to provide luxury, she would also remorselessly demand exorbitant fees from SRK. Besides, a donation would also have to be coughed up by the Badshah which would go into the Trinamool Congress Fund. The precise amount would be decided by means of a quiz conducted to SRK by Derek O’ Brien(India’s best quizmaster and Trinamool Congress Leader) and the questions would all be regarding the exact details of KKR’s miserable losses in the last two years(the adjudicator of the quiz would be Mamata herself and she’d change the rules of the quiz at will depending on the progress)

•She would mistake RanaDEB Bose for BuddhaDEB Bhattacharjee(because of the remote similarities in the last three letters of the first name and the first and last letters of the second name) and chase him out of the camp, bellowing derogatory Bengali slang.

•The status quo is that she has a say in the formation of the Union Cabinet. She would, in that case, allocate two portfolios for two very special members of the team. Brendon McCullum would be made the Civil Aviation Minister and Sourav Ganguly the Railway Minister (the reason being closely linked to their batting styles). Ricky Ponting, however, will find the going tough in her company, for she will insist on every possible occasion that he should modify his ‘Angrezi’ in such a manner that it is understood by one and all (including herself of course, given her abysmal proficiency in the language)

•She would manually add a clause in the contract, which would compel all the players (foreign or Indian) to campaign for the party in every interview they give and wear practice T-shirts having the TMC logo and ‘MAMATA BANARJEE FOR PM’ written at the back. This predictably will incur a backlash from SRK who will insist that ‘Tag Heuer’, ‘Sprite’ and ‘Red Chillies Entertainment’ be inscribed at the back of the T-shirts, which is when Derek’s number will be dialed by Mamata’s secretary.

•She would buy (no…hijack) a cricket bat herself and use it as an influential tool during practice. Statements like ‘Physical imposition when required’ would also be an integral part of the contract. Kids like Ishant Sharma would be treated with particular harshness.

•Sourav Ganguly chatting with Rahul Dravid isn’t a dangerous sight, you would say. But this would make Mamata livid. She would make Sourav Ganguly field some blinders and make him sprint for 1000metres per miss(he would end up sprinting 48ooo metres by the end of the day). If you don’t get the reason behind the hostility, Mamata loathes Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kings XI Punjab…the reason being that their team colours are Red too…just like the CPI(M).

•The Fake IPL Player would be quizzed by Derek again (who would be given clear cut instructions about what the final result should be) regarding the comments left by fans for each of his blog posts. Any minor aberration would result in usurpation of the site and converting it into a TMC campaign website (which would be managed by the Fake IPL Player himself who would be locked in an airless room with only one bulb, so that he can record a similar video that he had earlier with only his shadow visible. Anonymity is top priority for Mamata). If he does well in the quiz, providing a fan in the room would be considered.

•As I have mentioned earlier, luxuries and fancies would become a long forgotten thought for the Knight Riders. However, outstanding performances will result in certain rewards like usage of the common 56 month old crushed iPod for 71 seconds. It would also include free walk in the corridor for 189 seconds.

•The IPL would lose players like David Hussey, Brad Hodge and Brendon McCullum who would take chartered flights (at SRK’s expense) and rush out of the country before Mamata’s farewell tirade. They would never return again, even if SRK would be made the coach.

Well, considering the performance of the Knight Riders this season under John Buchanan, she would definitely make a more ‘proactive’ coach…wouldn’t she?