24 May 2009

IPL closing fiasco.

Miss South Africa IPL Bollywood? Well, that's a hard one to live up
to. The girl who just won is shaking to Akon's music. Akon is the
real article, but what the heck does Miss. Dune Kossatz from East
London really have to do with IPL or Bollywood? Absolutely nothing,
and she doesn't look like she will play any real part in any real
Mumbai movie either, because for heaven's sake, she is a white girl,
and very white if I may add.

Why does the IPL suffer from the insecure mindset? Who cares about
the cheerleaders and so called Bollywood celebrities at the end of the
day, when Gilly is tonking a 30 ball 80 or when Murali is weaving his
magic on the pitch? Who even cares about the thousands of people who
are already in the ground watching the match telling us how great the
IPL is and how great Modi is? Why did we have to make a TV event out
of IPL donating money to schools in South Africa? It isn't as if
there are no schools in India the IPL can donate money to, but that's
another matter all together.

We really got more than fatigued with the DLF maximums and
cheeseburger level marketing stunts that could get nothing but
"cheesy". Try putting together something Philips brilliant and
Vaseline dull at the same Timex time, Fevicol together! To add to the
endless list of senseless associations Modi can throw together in his
cart called the IPL, now we have a contest amongst women selected on
TV, from live audiences at cricket matches, ostensibly to work with
the biggest loser of them all, Shah Rukh Khan! Apart from a cheap
noise level generated amongst those curious about all things Indian,
what can this possibly do, for cricket or for the IPL in particular?

Oh, here comes Katrina Kaif, who herself cannot make up her mind
whether she is an Indian. What's with her totally fake accent, and
oh, God! Just when I thought I'd never hear this song again, here we
go with Jai Ho! What heartless organizer would make Katrina Kaif
shake to this overrated piece of crap? Those topless brown skinned
fools dancing around her look straight out of the wannabe actor failed
list. Oh, let's not forget the namaste at the end of it.

The real deal South African product on view is really good. The lamps
that lifted into the sky, the fire act, Akon himself, and the rest of
the hypnosis is not bad. Original to some extent, almost creative,
definitely not bad. The moment there is something Indian to fuse
with, they are thrown out of rhythm. How does that happen? Well, it
cannot get any better with A R Rahman's Jai Ho nonsense passing off as
something "Indian", can it?

The funniest part of the night was definitely the speech by the South
African president, Mr. Jacob Zuma. It was as if we finally had to
reduce this event to an ancient Doordarshan style underwhelmer just to
keep our feet on the ground. Zuma certainly ground us to death with
his boring speech when the spectacle was already unfolding in the
background. Pathetic, but funny. It was as if Modi had decided to
cruelly balance all his extravaganza with a little tempering of
people's enthusiasm!

I wonder if any speech by any head of state can hold its own against
the spectacular Phoenix Fire act the South Africans put up. What a
show! Phew! And the fireworks, indeed, the best part of any event,
but perhaps overdone for the IPL? If we can forgive Shah Rukh Khan's
overexposed presence at all loser events of the KKR and Shilpa Shetty
trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life when she can't
tell if her team lost or won, that is.

Another real article now, again South African - a genuine performer
again - Eddy Grant. You cannot miss quality when it is this obvious,
especially when it comes from a seasoned pro. But why do the
presenters always have to ask us if we are READY? Would the program
really wait for us if we weren't? Oh, never mind.

What we were definitely not ready for is the lousy television coverage
of the closing ceremony. It appears as if the same company covering
the cricket had been thrown an extra bit of work. A sports coverage
unit does not have what it takes to cover a stage event - they're two
different animals all together. What kind of clown but Modi to
oversee such a blunder and cover it with some more glitz? Covering
Sivamani during a Chennai Super Kings match is very different from
covering a full blown professional performer unleashing his full
bandwidth on the stage.

Now, after the "closing" ceremony, we come to the Highlights, and we
might even care to remember the trophy has not been presented! Heck,
we don't even know the man of the final! Basically, the IPL hasn't
yet been closed. But the ceremony is over. We haven't had the
winners celebrating, or the commiserations to the runners up. I
wonder who has been the most tortured by this cruel twist of event
design.

Basically, with Modi, anything goes. There are clowns like Samir
Kocchar calling the IPL trophy beautiful, while anybody with a
molecule of taste will puke at that terrible design. He can even be
forgiven for calling the closing ceremony an opening ceremony, but the
"beautiful IPL trophy"? Come on! The IPL is a monstrosity. It has
its best moments on the field, in the essence of the cricket being
played amongst some very good competitors, but the rest of it really
is like a Mumbai movie, loud and unnecessary, but always THERE,
hitting us in the face. Modi would have made the perfect "Bollywood"
producer.

23 May 2009

The Communist Debacle.

The CPI (M) is meeting to discuss its poll debacle.

Well, not bad for a discussion that is behind its time by about twenty
five years.

What a laugh that the Left sees itself as the saviour from all our
problems, the ills of our rotten, capitalist, selfish, greedy ways.
Nepal can be forgiven for their democratic innocence in voting the
Maoists to power and wondering why they haven't made any progress one
year later.

India, thankfully, has never taken communism seriously, although we
have our respect for socialism while implementing our own brand of
capitalism. The fact is, capitalism is closest to human nature.
After centuries of evolution, experimentation and enterprise, we
humans love to hoard, we take advantage of opportunity, and we want to
be powerful and wealthy. We also want to be benevolent and insanely
philanthropical when we want to. Capitalism allows all this.

Communism on the other hand tells us we should avoid being rich in
order to help the poor, avoid being strong in order to help the weak.
It appears we should also be advised to remain stupid so we can help
others who are more so. It is so inimical to the growth of the
individual that even the Soviet Union gave up on the idea.

But the fools in the Communist Party of India, just like the
Republican party in the USA, are looking inward in the wrong
direction! They still think they made some mistakes that cost them the
election! Much like a wife who looks within for a reason for her
husband leaving her, it never occurs to the victims of pure choice
that there really IS a choice out there, perhaps.

That's what democracy is all about. Choice. We have choices,
options, ideas, perspectives, and our own personal takes on all of
these. We do not choose communism because it is passe. The results
in Kerala and West Bengal should convince our Communist brothers and
sisters that they are stuck in a mindset that is not quite keeping up
with the rest of the country. To debate on what they did wrong is
about as useful as wondering what sin we committed for the tsunami to
hit us.

To make us choose communism would take a LOT out of us. We have to
stop believing in all the good that capitalism has brought upon us.
Communists have told us for a long time that capitalism breeds greed,
forgetting quite conveniently that communist countries have had some
of the biggest wealth hoarding leaders, provided for dictatorial,
oppressive regimes, and not produced ONE success story!

Prakash Karat doesn't inspire any confidence in me. His mates don't
do much for me either. They all sound so humdrum, out of touch with
today and really, really boring. Imagine having one of them for Prime
Minister. Not happening, Sir.

We don't live our lives worrying about the collective on such
philanthropic terms that we would avoid being rich in order to "help"
the poor. We don't think of what we can do for the whole nation,
until we are okay ourselves. And even then, what is wrong with
selfishness, what is wrong with taking care of ourselves before we
care about others? It is amazing how only apparently frustrated, "not
rich enough" kind of people are the ones that join the Communist
Party!

The poor in our country aren't poor because our rich stole from them.
There just hasn't been enough opportunity. The way to create
opportunity is not through freebies, but through enterprise, education
and encouragement of ideas. For any of this, we should nurture and
celebrate individual success, focus very clearly and unabashedly on
creating opportunity to become insanely wealthy.

Only in a climate of abundance can we really contribute to an
ecosystem capable of creating economic wel being and eventually create
a flourishing country. Communism is busy playing the politics of
prevention. I'm glad we've prevented them from showing up on the
national political landscape. Let's now leave them to analyze their
failures if that is what it takes to keep them out of the way. Here's
a hint - this is not a debacle at the polls, it is a debacle at the
idea level.

03 May 2009

Prickly political porcupines

This morning, the Hindu proclaimed - "Pro-LTTE group attacks Army
convoy near Coimbatore"! Apparently, some members of the Periyar
Dravida Kazhagam attacked a convoy of Indian Army trucks, ostensibly
since that convoy was carrying weapons to help the Sri Lankan Army in
its current engagement with the LTTE.

Tamil chauvinism is one thing, but attacking an army convoy returning
from a training exercise on the pretext of showing support for the
LTTE is downright stupid for a variety of reasons, especially since
this comes just before the elections. First of all, the LTTE is a
banned organization in India, and have carried out a terrorist attack
on Indian soil. Supporting the LTTE is nothing but abetting and
aiding terrorists, who are clearly inimical to the interests of India,
and some of these idiots of the Periyar Dravida Kazhagam have
rightfully been detained.

The mentality, however, is not going to disappear overnight. We are
becoming a nation deeply divided by two different thought processes.
One calls for an all encompassing unification and sees that as an
automatic and natural progression to a globally significant India, and
the other calls for a divisive, conservative, dangerously insular
India, where "interests" of every single figment of political ego has
a place and can potentially hold the rest of us to ransom.

In a second shocker, AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa, has said that if
her party joins the government in the upcoming post election period,
and if she has the numbers, she will send the Indian Army out to
"carve out" a separate Eelam in Sri Lanka.

We remember the Indian Army going to Sri Lanka as a peacekeeping force
to prevent exactly this agenda of the LTTE. What Indian government is
going to agree to send the same army out to fight on the "other" side
this time? I thought JJ was a woman with some intelligence, but she
wants to join the march of the morons, gaining strength as we come
towards elections.

The most reassuring factor for all of us, who still put our country
before our chauvinistic leanings, is the average Tamilian being
sufficiently selfish and smart enough to ignore all the problems of
Sri Lankan Tamils. They are quite sympathetic with the Sri Lankan
government for taking the steps to crush the last throes of the LTTE,
and really, are tired of this militant nonsense. No, they will tell
you, we don't bloody care if there is a separate Eelam or not!

Tamil people are well entrenched in every walk of life in India, and
they don't want Hindi imposed on them. Beyond that, they do watch
some Hindi cinema, and love MS Dhoni as the captain of their IPL team.
No chauvinism anywhere there. If Dhoni called for a hundred thousand
Tamil people to come out and shout so he can win the IPL for them,
they would! It does appear that MS Dhoni is more powerful than all
the clowns in the Tamilnadu political fray.

After the elections, none of these "passionate" political porcupines
will be anywhere above ground. The Sri Lankan Tamil population will
go into a process of rebuilding their lives in post LTTE Sri Lanka,
aided by their own government and facing their own problems. Not ONE
politician from India will give as much as a rat's posterior about
them. Indians will go back to where we are best at - our own selfish,
coccooned lives, and it we won't care a rat's posterior about who's
come to power.

Such is India.

America, we love you!

On NDTV last night, Modi, the Gujarat Chief Minister, was the subject
of debate. Quite a subject this man, since controversy seems to
follow him no matter what he does, or more famously, doesn't do.

Guilty or not, culpable or not, one of the most shocking points of
deliberation against the man was that he is a persona non grata in the
USA! Sure enough, there are enough and more people who are willing to
defend Modi against this line of attack, but it must be demeaning for
us as Indians to even have to bear mention of the fact that Washington
has an opinion about Modi.

Why is it that we need Washington's approval of any of our
politicians? It should humour us indeed that if G W Bush were to be
tried for the war crimes he is charged with, the International Court
of Justice would throw him in jail!

Why is it that our companies celebrate being listed on the New York
Stock Exchange as some sort of landmark badge of achievement? Why do
we celebrate our students coming out of Yale and Harvard business
schools? Quite obviously, the New York Stock Exchance, fuelled by the
way Wall Street plays the game, has driven the world economy down the
toilet.

Indian students coming out of Yale and Harvard admire the fools who
graduated before them, as if we should ignore the fact that these are
the fools who not only drove many of the leading Wall Street
speculation based growth engines, but also held positions in many
companies that threw all wisdom to the gutter and ruined the US
economy and dragged the rest of the world down with it - almost. Yet,
we admire the fools that are yet to come out of Yale and Harvard,
still considered the best among "business" schools in the world!

Does it ever occur to any of us that America has as much of a right to
go wrong as any third world country? Just because America has been
responsible for the invention of the aeroplane and the motor car and
thousands of other innovations doesn't mean they will get it right all
the time, does it? Why can't we Indians get the simple fact that
capitalism is in itself in an advanced state of experimentation and
abundant opportunity doesn't necessarily translate to abundant access?

We live in an acutely flawed world, with no perfect system that can
adequately address our innate selfish nature as humans, and the need
to take care of the collective in order to be socially stable. This
is the time to examine alternative thought processes, potentially
radical changes to the way we view our own world, and kick out dogmas.

So, why this obsession with the USA? Why is a country which was so
vehemently opposed to communism now using tax payer dollars to "bail
out" companies that have failed because of excessively liberal and
irresponsible capitalism? Think about this - three top executives of
the biggest three automobile companies in the USA flew to Washington
to beg for the bailout money. They flew in on three separate private
jets. The American taxpayer pays for this nonsense, of course!

Washington, particularly the White House, has been responsible for
some of the most irresponsible foreign policy decisions taken in the
history of mankind, recently leading to the loss of 600,000 Iraqi
lives, a huge spike in terrorist issues worldwide, and left us with a
polarized world that indeed Obama is apparently keen to diffuse
tensions in.

Over the years, if we can ignore the Cold War, the USA has been
meddling in the affairs of so many countries, it would be ridiculous
to even start counting the instances. The CIA has been overtly or
coverty involved in so many illegal operations to overthrow
non-Washington friendly governments, given completely illegal military
support to anti-government forces in many countriies, and continues to
fight the war on drugs outside, not doing anything worth mention about
curbing its enormous consumption of illegal drugs.

If we had an anti-US Indian government, which was willing to support
for instance, Iran's nuclear power program and North Korea's missile
program, and if we were a nation that absolutely believed in and acted
to maintain a balance against the USA, the USA would not have wasted
any time funding and arming all the naxalites, terrorists and anti
government bodies in our country. It is perfectly plausible that
without Sept 11th, the Lashkar e Toiba would have had the blessings of
the CIA.

Why then is America any kind of good example? It is becuase of
countries like ours, that worship white skin. White people told us
that they're electing their first black president to the highest
office and we bought it hook, line and sinker, not even bothering to
consider Obama has one white parent! America now tells us that we are
"Incapable of dealing with terrorism" and we could agree, but just to
put Obama in place, we should really tell them to shut up.

After all, how many countries can tell us we are incapable when they
have attacked the wrong country, didn't convict a single person for
the greatest act of terrorism the world has known, and have failed to
restrict the Al Qaeda or the Taliban, whose lines seem even more
blurred now? The outcome of every one of America's military moves is
getting to be monotonously nebulous, and victory and defeat all seem
rolled into one big mess. The world's lone superpower doesn't seem
all that super based on performance.

But, it's the image! The image of America as the driver of the
world's economy, as the leader country, that more than Americans, many
of us Indians seem to be finding difficult to live without clinging
to. The mental bankruptcy runs deeper than that. We are used to
living under kings, under the rule of colonial leaders, and we still
cannot get over the fact that we do not have to have any sort of #1.
We love to be slaves, as long as we can agree on whom to be a slave
to. That's as far as our democratic mindset goes.

01 May 2009

Voting Compulsory??!!

The fool's done it again! With each passing day, LK Advani seems bent
on lowering his standing a bit more.

In his latest conch call to the nation, after the dubious claims of
his monkey army being able to bring back money from Swiss Bank
accounts like they brought back Sita from Lanka, now this idiot wants
Compulsory Voting!

Helllllloooooo!!!!! Is this guy even awake? What kind of a joke is
he trying to pull on us?

Voting is a right, you idiot, and we "exercise" our rights. We do not
"obey" them. If we're ordered to do it, that wouldn't be a right, it
would be a compulsion, an enforcement, an order, a decree, or a
dictum. Voting is none of this, and should never be.

To say the least, this foolhardy idea would require a Constitutional
amendment, and a historically significant one, for this would be the
first time a democracy, where "rights" and "freedom" are trumpeted as
the holy grail, as the high moral ground for us all to tread on with
awe and respect, we would have to give up one of the most fundamental,
differentiating, empowering "rights" in order to obey an order. Good
bye, democracy!

It is such a deep, scathing insult on everything we stand for, on the
very basic idea of India, and an absolute attack on the very soul of
our collective, that we should be baying for this fool's blood.
Instead, guess what, as if to underline our apathy towards all things
Indian, this crack pot might actually become Prime Minister!

Imagine having a Prime Minister that doesn't even understand the
difference between a right and an order! Imagine having a clown who
cannot tell the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.
Imagine having to vote for a punk who is ready to strip away the very
right that gives his own life some sort of meaning!

Let's assume that voting does become compulsory.

Very well, so how is this going to be enforced? I don't show up at
any voting station on election day. I find myself in Madhya Pradesh,
or abroad, when I am supposed to vote in Bangalore. How is the
government going to bring me to my voting station? And how long is it
going to take before all Indian voters are rounded up and made to
vote? And how long is the counting going to last, if the enforcers
suddenly discovered five hundred people who didn't vote, spread over
fifteen districts? This is bound to be a lot of fun!

India by the way, is one of the strangest democracies in the world,
where physical presence at your own very voting centre is mandatory if
you want to cast your ballot. There are millions of Indian citizens
outside the country all the time, and during election time, all of
them stand disenfranchised, due to the absence of absentee ballots.
What the bloody hell difference should it make where I am on a given
day, to the simple act of casting my vote?

At any given point in time, there are atleast ten thousand of our
military personnel on UN duty somewhere away from India. More often
than not, they are busy trying to set up a democratic system in some
godforsaken country. None of them can cast their vote today because
of our own stupid system that prevents them from doing so. Most
Indian soldiers, including airmen and sailors, have very little chance
of voting because of the current system. Military personnel can vote
only during general elections, in their area of posting, only if they
are registered with the Election Commission to vote in that specific
area. What is the likelihood of this taking place?

I'd like to see the Indian government airlift ten thousand of our UN
troops out of Somalia, bring them all to their native polling booths
in India, ensure they cast their precious ballots and fly them back
before the next morning, so that some village doesn't get massacred.
Oops, not my idea.

The BJP, with its slogans of "India Shining" and the noise about the
IT revolution notwithstanding, have completely ignored the fact that
not having an absentee ballot system is a shame on our democracy, just
a little smaller than having to put up with voting becoming
compulsory! So, why can't the wrongs be fixed before we lose our
rights?

If we are ordered to do something as silly as vote, even when we may
be ignorant of our candidates, their stands on issues, hundreds of
parties with shady loyalties and shadier agendas, and a general
fatigue with the process of having their incompetence hammered on us
through slogans and campaigns and mudslinging and very immature
behaviour, we would be hard pressed to find sanity and make a choice
right in front of the ballot paper.

Enter form 49-O. It is a form you can fill in order to let the system
know that you are willing to take the pain to come to the polling
station, but do not find any candidate worthy of your vote. Guess
what? Most polling stations do not even have this form! It is a form
for "Voting Nobody" and yet making sure your vote isn't stolen. If
there are more 49-O forms filled out than the number of votes any
candidate has got, that candidate is out!

So, compel us, you idiot, and we will fill our 49-O forms en masse!

It is a tragedy that no political party will ever voluntarily tell you
about this dreaded form 49-O. Electronic voting machines do not even
have a button for that "No Vote to Any Candidate" option. If voting
was made available online, you bet this would be a popular option!

Back to the crux of the matter - compulsion. IF we agree to be
compelled, surely, we should be able to compel the government to
fulfill a few compulsions we can put on them. How about making it
compulsory for all courts in the country to maintain a zero backlog of
cases? How about making it compulsory for all trains to arrive on
time or money back to all passengers? How about making it compulsory
for all corporations to pick up garbage and not leave any street
dirty? How about making it compulsory for all politicians to give
deadlines and fulfill all election year promises or go to jail and
forfeit all rights to stand in any election in India?

Holy crap! All this amounts to actually doing some work! Why, it
even asks people to perform! My God, this might amount to an
expectation of excellence! I think most of our politicians wouldn't
mind a slipper on their face instead of having to live up to such
"compulsions"! Heck, it's even fashionable these days! See how well
it works without being compulsory?