Formula 1 - an Indian experience

So the other day someone told me that this year F1 is coming to India. He was very excited about it and apparently for him, F1 coming to India is the next best thing after the Indian youth's discovery of Anna Hazare. Don't be surprised if you see Formula One fans wearing Gandhi caps during race day proclaiming "I am Michael Schumacher" in English and Marathi, he told me.



What you see below is a work a fiction, how I imagine this event to pan out with a flavor of "it happens only in India" .... in a lighter vein.

Race day was spectacular, people from different strata of the society had come to witness history in the making. The rich and the influential used their contacts to get free passes in grand stands. Couple of film stars who happened to buy a team or two were accompanied with their coterie all dancing to the loud blaring tunes of Daler Mehndi and Akon. Alcohol-barons and kings of good times were cockily gleaming with their toothy sons and long-legged actresses. Life could not be better, except for the Rs 32 per day daily wage earners who were frantically trying to fill up the potholes on the racetrack, formed due to the late night unexpected rains. They didn't have the slightest clue of why this shapeless stretch of tar was more important to be fixed than the roads leading to municipal hospitals. But he had a job to do, to keep his head above the 'poverty line'.

The initial delay for a couple of hours was because the local minister was late. Apparently he was in his farmhouse in the previous night and couldn't make it for the inauguration on time due to the traffic jams. Culprit - few protestors had blocked roads demanding for a separate state or reservation for their sub-sub-class, I forgot which one. Finally, after a meager delay of 4 hours, the minister arrived with his convoy, made some speech on population control and eradicating poverty, declared the games open and got back to his cell phone calling some relationship manager in a Swiss bank.

There was some more delay because some cow had squatted in front of the Ferrari and wont budge till it made its mark on the track. Our friend, the Rs 32 earner was called back to clean the act. Finally, the race started with some skimpily clad women did some cheerleading and walked off the tracks waving their checkered flags.

As the race proceeded, most of the laps were uneventful, except a few stray instances. Somewhere between the 15th and 20th lap our minister fell asleep, but not many realized because his rhythmic snores were effortlessly enveloped in the loud buzz those heavy duty Bridgestones. Sometime between the 25th and 30th lap there was a rumor that government has increased petrol prices by Rs 5 effective this mid-night, and that let to some spectators queueing up in McLaren-Mercedes and Renault pit lanes to get their tanks filled. It took some effort to usher them out of there, and the race went on.

If McDonalds can serve tikka masala burger and Dominos can serve tandoori paneer pizza in India, then F1 cannot be left far behind. Pit lanes were dotted with a hawkers selling mini flags, or young boys selling pirated copies of Paulo Coehlo or Jeffery Archer's latest. There was a speedbreaker just before the stretch of tar leading to the grand stand with huge hoarding strategically placed so that the Manikchand, Royal Challenger soda and Paneeri sari ads can get maximum eyeballs.

As the race drew to an end, someone nudged our minister out of his slumber and prepared him for the final award distribution. The stage was prepared yet again, this time wide enough to accommodate some 20 odd guests, 3 MDs from sponsoring companies, 2 local MPs, 5 members of Indian Car Racing board (this also included 4 more MPs as board members), 3 commentators and few other family members of MPs or board members who just managed to squeeze themselves on the stage.

Soon the organizers ushered everyone out of the arena because this same venue was chosen for Anna's next fast. And thus ended the famous raceday, the first one in India to make way for yet another fight against corruption.

Defining 2000-2010 ....

Today marks the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, probably the most defining 10 years of my life that have shaped me into what I am today. 10 years that started with the end of student life, advanced with stepping into the corporate world, and ended with a beginning of understanding my place in this world. 10 years that seemed like a lifetime, but elapsed like a wink of an eye. A time that taught me the greatest lesson in life, that education never stops.

This phase has been dotted with my share of achievements and disappointments, self-realization and missed opportunities and above all, getting a step closer to understanding my strengths and weaknesses. I have realized that I am a complex personality, predictably unpredictable, sometimes to the extent that I get surprised by my own reactions to unexpected stimuli.

Another important lesson I learned about myself was that I cannot plan my life. I can indulge in wishful thinking, take risks and at times play safe, make choices; sometimes good, sometimes regrettable, but I cannot decide how the future will unfold.

In the material world, these 10 years gave us affordable laptops, mobile phones and blackberries, Facebook and twitters. These 10 years digitized us to the extent that sometimes I feel that it’s not air we are breathing but transmission waves. A time when iPods and fancy phones have become a natural extension of our body. A time when we judge a person not by the colour of his skin, neither the content of his character but purely by his Facebook profile! When Mahatma Gandhi became a limited edition of an expensive pen-maker. Ironic!

In the world of hatred these 10 years showed us the ugly head of terrorism and how it has changed the common man’s life. We cannot enter a temple without being scanned, we cannot sit in a train compartment without scanning our surroundings for a left-over bag. When dates such as 9/11, 26/11, 7/11 were marked with blood of our innocent brothers. Till now it was our sins and our prejudice that came between us and our God, now it is our fear in for form of metal detectors and security personnel.

But I am hopeful.

Hopeful that one day we will come out of this blanket of fear and hatred. One day terrorists will find peace and the common man will find God. One day we will try to understand our friends as a person and not as a profile.

I am hopeful that one day I will find what I am looking for.

3 X 2

Today I got myself relocated to our office in Bombay. Bombay being my home town and place of birth has always been my favorite city. In fact I have also limited my job options just to be able to live in Bombay. I live in Bombay as much as Bombay lives in me. For me, in the true sense it is a Maximum City.

But for the first time in my life, I got a rude culture shock from working in an office in Bombay. To begin with, I suddenly find myself displaced from the corner cubicle into the middle of a long row of 3 feet wide pigeon holes (PH). One may choose to call it "Quarter Cubicle" or "Shoe Rack" if not pigeon hole. If I stretch my hands then I will probably poke the next 2 guys in their ears, I had to refrain from any stretching exercises through out the day. I kept my cell phone on silent mode so that the hardworking pigeons do not get disturbed. That too didn’t help because my phone being on vibrator mode, when I got an incoming the four blokes around me seemed to tremble with the vibrator effect.

I switched on my desktop and tried moving the cursor, the mouse just won’t respond. I sucked in my stomach, squeezed myself under the desk, and groped behind the machine to make sure that the mouse wires were well connected. I think I even scared a lizard while I was feeling the behind of my machine. All wires seemed well connected so I again trudged my way back on my chair. The sudden relaxation of my solar plexus might have passed a gust of wind in the floor, if you know what I mean. After 15 more minutes of fiddling the guy on my right rudely asked me to stop screwing with his mouse (no pun intended). It was then I realized that my mouse was between the monitor and phone, on top of my file and right under my elbow.

Since it’s my first day, so the unused pigeon hole also has a conked off printer, some abandoned printouts and a phone with no cord (no, it’s not a cordless phone) to give me company. I am hoping that by Monday this mess will be cleaned up and the cubicle will appear bigger. The tray to keep my keyboard was hanging on just one screw, but thankfully the carpenter was available to fix it soon. Someone has locked the drawers and probably swallowed the keys or thrown them in sea out of spite. I will have to get duplicate keys done.

As I retrospect into my career, I can say that the one thing that definitely shrinking as I move ahead is the size of my cubicle. Sometimes I think that this is the corporate way of making sure that my ego is just big enough for the size of my cubicle.

Waka Waka FIFA

Football frenzy is almost over and will be long gone by the time anyone reads this post. WC '10 will probably be remembered for some weird reasons... an Octopus and a Parrot making predictions, Upsets and First time Finalists, Referee blunders and a promise by FIFA to consider the use of technology in forthcoming editions, just to name a few.

But this post is not about what happened in FIFA WC '10. This is an imagination of how the corporate world can be influenced by such mega-events.

Animated Coaches screaming their lungs out and making gestures that only they can understand can influence Project Managers and Team Leaders sitting in the big cubicles. Some poor techies are working their ass off to make a piece of code work and the PMs jumping around and yelling abuses. Unit test cycle fails and the next thing you see, some PM throwing monitors and keyboards on the ground cussing team members and yelling at the quality team (read: referees) for giving NCs.

Floating octopeds in Business Development teams immersing food packets in boxes marked "Fixed Price" / "Time & Material" OR "Onsite" / "Offshore".

Technical Consultants flipping from seats in fake injuries when their leave is not approved and they are asked to work extra hours on a Saturdays. Fall on the ground, roll a bit clutching the stomach or calf and if no one notices then sit back on the desktop resuming work.

Shakira couldn't "Waka Waka" for IT geeks but a little bit of jiggling before appraisals will not hurt those HR guys and supervisors.

There could be many more intersections between the corporate world and the world cup, care to contribute??

Getting inducted

I would like to see this post as more of a Time Capsule. And after several more posts and years later, I would like to revisit it to see if it still makes as much sense.

I am writing this with a view of sipping the first hot cup of coffee of the day and contemplating how the rest of the day would churn out to be. This is about my first few days on HSBC rolls.

The first thing that strikes heavily on the mind is that the organization makes every effort to make the inductee PROUD of being a part of the family. The position they give you, the facts about the bank they throw at you, the proud history, everything that brings in, as they call it, a Feel Good factor in you. I think it is very important to make the new family member proud of what he has gotten into.

I also felt that the team members are very friendly. They are not reluctant to walk across the cubicle and exchange a few pleasantries. The seems a conspicuous absence of distrust or politics. Some mates infact seemed a bit relieved to see me. (quite unlike some of my previous work places).

Being a back office / data centre of the worlds largest financial institution invites some extra precaution on the security front, which can sometimes be a bit irritating.

All in all, my first 72 hours seem to promise a good future and possibly the positivity that I always yearned. But a little voice inside me keeps telling me that at the end of the day, I am still working for someone else and not for myself. Whether the feel good factor in HSBC will suffocate this little voice or whether my anti-establishmend, free spirit will get the better of me .... only time will tell.

Weather you like it or not!

The India Meteorological Department (IMD), also referred to as the Met Office, is a Government of India organization that is responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasts, and detecting earthquakes.

Read again; WEATHER FORECASTS!

Now, am I the only one here or did you also pass a smirk as you read that term associated with our Met Office? After so many monsoons, I am sure that the average Indian is cynical enough to read “Indian Met Dept forecasts” as an oxymoron.

The way it works is that there is some middle-aged Amma working for the IMD who almost become an Air Hostess in IA or AI had it not been for her binocular eyewear or stinking coconut hairoil. She wakes up in the morning and sipping her hot cup of coffee wanders to the window. Outstretches her hand and leaves it there for a good 10 mins. If the hand’s wet, we will get non-stop rains for the next 3 days accompanied with thunder and lightning. Hand’s dry means no rains for Indian peninsula in this season, prepare for drought. If the long combed hair on back of her hand flutters then it’s breezy and if hair stands erect then it will snow in Chennai (even if its 40 degrees under shade and the shiver was only because her coffee went cold).

A friend told me that one of the bigger sources of forex for India was exporting satellite data to the western world. We export it because apparently we don’t need it! IF WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT, THEN WE DON'T NEED IT!

Bermuda has a better way of reading weather. And it does not have to be paid a salary!

Monsoon

So its common knowledge now that monsoon has hit Bombay. Yaay!

And how do we know? Flip through TV channels and if you see 26th July 2005 reruns / references or some half wet fake journalist wadding through toe-deep puddles, then be sure that its drizzling somewhere in Mumbai. I mean, why can't we let the ghost of 26th July rest? It was not politically motivated, nor a terrorist act sponsored by naughty neighbours. It happened once, may or may not happen again. But repeating it million times on TV whenever there's more than 5 drops of rainfall will not make it go away! ShIt happens! No one’s fault.

Shoe'd at sight .... Boot Naturally!

Hurling shoes at politicians is like a fashion trend now and is catching up like wild fire. I think that more than the Iraqi journalist, credit must go to Bush for its popularity and effectiveness. Every other day we read news about some footwear being hurled at a politician. What is interesting is that it gets immediate publicity and many times even the message gets conveyed loud and clear.

Considering the success of the shoe-throwing form of protest, I am prompted to use it in my organization during some open forum, particularly after my appraisals. But before putting it into practice, I would have to 'think through' this.

We need to consider the practical aspects and take necessary precautions of the action. To begin with, I don't want to risk a new shoe on my manager, knowing that he likes to take credit for all the publicity that comes his way, he might keep my shoe. It will be a little awkward to walk back home with just one shoe on my feet and the shame of exposing my tattered stinky socks.

The timing of the throw is also important, I cannot do that during his lunch hour, because having tasted his wife’s chapattis and I fear he might want to finish the rest of his curry with my shoe and hurl the chapatti back at me… that would hurt! It will also look weirder to wear a leather-like chapatti on my left shoe on my way back home (though I am sure it might be more durable).

The type of shoe is probably the most important factor. The large, heavy or with pointy corners are not preferred, we want to make our point and not make a dent (literally) on the boss’s forehead. It might be a tad embarrassing if some news headline reads “Caterpillar flattens boss’s nose, man-hunt on for employee with one shoe”

Another risk of starting the trend is that my subordinate, 6 inches taller and 20 kilos heavier, might want to demonstrate his aim at/on me. I know he is disgruntled after the appraisals as he keeps on snorting at me whenever I assign a new task to him.

Stealing one from the near-by temple during prayer time would be wiser, firstly, it will be difficult to trace the real owner, and more importantly, I will not be losing my hard earned shoe. With these thoughts in my mind, I took off to the Ganesh temple near my house to select the best fit shoe from those left outside by unassuming devotees. For the rest of the story watch aaj-tak or read TOI tomorrow.

Here’s to the crazy ones

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent.
They imagine.
They heal.
They explore.
They create.
They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Mumbai meri jaan .... but something is wrong somewhere ....

In Mumbai, normal life, it seems, is the time between two terror attacks on the city.

When the largest democracy in the world becomes one of the twenty most dangerous places to live in, then something is surely wrong.

When gun yielding young men are roaming free spraying bullets at innocent civilians for no reason at all then something is wrong.

When the politicians take this as an opportunity to gain some cheap publicity or sling mud on each other rather than debating on a solution to the problem then something is wrong.

When the deputy chief minister thinks that this is a small issue that could happen in every big city then something is wrong.

When the regional parties can use force against harmless 'outsiders' to protect the so-called local pride but cannot use any of this force to tackle the terrorists or help the injured then something is wrong.

When even after getting frustrated and sick to the stomuch about the on-going terror strikes on my motherland, all I do is sit and write a blog .... something is wrong

Vote for .....

Listing down some of the achievements of our esteemed politicians in recent times ....
-Driving Tata out from W. Bengal
-Creating a hue and cry about the N-Deal without knowing head or tails about it!
-Bribing MPs and accepting bribes for Trust motions in the Parliament. On top of that, bringing wads of currency notes in the session and creating a scene about it
-Killing converts and bragging about it
-Appealling to pardon convicted terrorists
-Claim that all police encounters in which Terrorists get killed are 'fake'.
-Support reservations and treat common man as vote bank.

The list goes on .... I dont remember any of these as the reason why I had voted for them.

Hollow-scope

If your horoscope says that you will not believe your horoscope then what should you do?

If you believe your horoscope as mentioned above, then your horoscope is incorrect because it said that you will not believe it. If you don't believe your horoscope then you proved it right and it means that you should have believed it!! But doing so will prove it wrong!!!

Makes sense??

Blame it on Indians

First the Americans thought that we (as in Indians and Chinese) are pushing the food prices up, now they claim that we are gas-guzzlers and inflating the oil prices too! This has prompted me to think about what their next allegation will be? Here is a list of what I think that Georgy can think of ...

1) Indians and Chinese are pushing the price of Hair Oil up!!
Reason - Most Americans are anyway bald!! The only race with hair to look after is Indian and Chinese. The entire population of Indians with a full head is 100 million times that of America.

2) Indians are pushing the price of Cricketers up!!
Reason - Obviously, Indian Premier League. And NBA tall boys cannot tell a bail from the ball.

3) Indians and Chinese are pushing the cost of Visa fees up!
Reason - Admittedly, that is fast becoming the best and the most reliable source of Income for America and Euro! Higher the demand, dearer the Visas.

4) Chinese are pushing the price of Olympic torch up!!
Reason - With the number of protests and attempts to extinguish it, Mr Oly Torch has really started acting very pricey!

5) Indians are pushing the price of clothing up!!
Reason - same as food, The huge Indian middle class wants to dress up now, the naked, hungry street kid has given way to a brand conscious urban legend.

6) Indians are pushing the cost of slapping up!!
Reason - who can forget the Rs 30 Million Bhajji slap that landed on Sreesanth?

7) Indians are pushing the cost of Television and cable up!!
Reason - With the overwhelming number of Reality shows, T20 Cricket, Saas-bahu soaps, contests, etc, one TV set per household is just not practical.


I am sure there are many more such accusations, and most of them sound silly, but so did the originals such as Indians pushing the food and oil prices up.

An Interview with Mr Oly Torch

Today we had the privilege to interview Mr Oly Torch from Greece who has always been in the limelight, but this time for all the wrong reasons. With protests in almost every continent it has visited and people clambering over one another to extinguish it, we have sneaked into the Vanity van where Mr Torch is taking a break from the unruly protestors outside.

Me: Hello Oly, Thank you for taking some time off your busy schedule to speak to us. How do you feel about the Anti-China protests and the way it has dragged you into the limelight for all the wrong reasons?

Mr Torch: Hell yeah, speaking of wrong reasons, the fact is that the protests are aimed at the wrong reasons and the media has goofed up again, none of these protestors are sorry for Tibet! They are all victims of cheap Chinese goods bought from K-marts and Walmarts of the world and now just got a reason to swear at China.

Me: What! But we always thought that these people are protesting against the inhumane Chinese treatment on the protesting Tibetans.

Mr Torch (peeping from his vanity van window): You see that bloke with a pot belly and the fat cow with a moustache next to him (that’s his wife)... like most of the protestors, he cannot even locate Tibet on the world map. He had bought a cheap Chinese slimming medicine for his wife couple of months back. She didn’t get any slimmer, but after the first week she had a moustache! Now he sneezes every time they kiss!

Me: Oh, that’s sad. And the world thinks that all this is for a Tibetan cause.

Mr Torch: Non-sense. Most of these 'protestors' are using Chinese goods from head to toe! Right from their clothes to the sneakers and cell phones to iPods and they are protesting against China. What an irony!

Me: Ok ok, lets not talk about the protests. Tell us about your job. It must be exhausting travelling across so many time zones and so many countries. What is the most difficult part of your job? It must be passing through extreme weather and staying lit.

Mr Torch: The armpits!

Me: Huh?

Mr Torch: Most of these 'athletes' don’t use any deodorant and they sweat like pigs! I can't bear the stench! And I am worried it might be harmful for my flame as well. What I hate the most is the fact that in all my photos there is an ugly armpit peeping from nowhere!

Me: Yuck! Anyway, are you looking forward to pass through India?

Mr Torch: Of course, I have heard that there I will be in the hands of film stars and rich cricketers. It will be a good photo-op for me; I am tired posing with unknown athletes of yesteryears.

Me: But how is that exciting?

Mr Torch: I am hopeful to end up in some Cola commercial or some Premium Cricket league where some other film stars can pay millions for me!

Me: Hmm, tell us Mr Torch, what is you biggest concern? Is it Global Warming? World Peace? Inflation?

Mr Torch: None of those. My biggest concern is that in the next Olympics I will be replaced by a cheap Chinese battery operated torch. :-(

At this point Mr Oly Torch got a bit emotional, got up and joined the protestors! Only this time no one knew what they were trying to extinguish, they only remembered that it had something to do with China and Tibet so someone went to the nearest Walmart and bought some Tibet flags and Hu effigies (all made in China) and burnt it and then started extinguishing it!

Just being 'horny'!

Today is No-honking day in Mumbai, I honked twice! Once when a car suddenly came out of a lane directly in front of my car and then on the highway when a biker was changing lanes without any signals and came dangerously close to my car!

I don't feel bad about it! I honk when I have to honk. It is an accepted form of communication on the roads.

In some of the countries I have visited, honking is close to swearing, to be used in the rarest of rare events. In USA and UK if you honk then you are either considered rude or someone made a gross mistake that could have turned fatal. The long beep is more of a 'What the F***'!

In Bermuda people honk when they see a familiar face in the opposite car. The short beep-beep more of a Hi!

In India honking is normal. It is not intentional but more of a reflex action. I admit that some people use the horn even when there is no need, sometimes just to intimate others, many times it's just a hormonal drive to look 'macho'. But most of the times it is needed. People crossing roads looking the other way, cars and bikes changing lanes without signals, taxis driving slowly just to get a fare. All these people deserve the horn! It's not to teach them a lesson or to make them aware, no one learns by one horn, it's just to postpone the accident to another no-honking day!

All said and done, from my side I resolve that I will try and avoid the horn unless it is absolutely necessary.

Not Cricket, it's Swear'icket now!

Some things about cricket should now be accepted as a norm, and sledging is one of them. No one should complain about being thrown a swear word at the highest level of the game. In fact a true cricketer should take it as a compliment if the opposition is targeting him with a volley of 'ungentlemanly' words, because that only means that the other team is so scared of his cricket that they are trying to score a win over him through psychological warfare. Look back in history and you will find that some of the best players of the game have been subjected to some of the most notorious sledging from the opposition.

It is true that Aussies are pioneers of on-field sledging and when other countries (read: Asian teams) give them anything back then that team is pulled up with ICC code of conduct charges. The art is not in swearing at another player, but the real art is in not getting caught. The wildest analogy I can draw here is the way players in football actually practice tripping over when the opposition has not even touched them in a tackle. Sledging is not just about words, its more about the body language and the sheer timing of the assault. Its about how you say it without getting caught or sounding offensive to the neutral ears. It cannot be a spur-of-the-moment outburst but a systematic cornering till the prey succumbs. There was a time when the think tank used to sit in the dressing room before the match and list down the technical weaknesses of players from the opposite team, prepare a game plan to get him out. That was a different kind of strategy. The new age thinking is to gather in the dressing room before the match and list down where it hurts (psychologically) the most to selected players of the opposition and prepare a sledge hammer plan around that. That's the new kind of strategy.

Soon cricket training will be deemed incomplete till the newbies have had a course on swearing. Soon an important trait to get selected in the national team would be how well you can swear and not get caught. Soon statistics will not merely read how many wickets you took or runs you have scored, but also how many opponents complained about you for abusing them.

Monkeys can't be gentlemen!

So now its proved, Indians are racists! We make monkey chants, we call opponents as monkeys, we tease them from the boundary lines. And if thats what the ICC code of conduct 3.3 terms as 'racism', then I don't mind being called a racist! If we wont like anyone calling us 'darkies' or 'coolies', then how can someone else accept being called a Monkey (so what if that guy is more apt to sit on a tree and throw bananas on people walking by than to play cricket).

What I cannot accept however is that how is it a crime to call someone a monkey, and perfectly normal if that same person swears at us when he is hit for a four or a six? They can call us b*****ds but we can't call them monkey? Where's the ICC code of conduct in such scenarios?

What I cannot accept is that the umpires make 8 wrong decisions against us and one wrong decision in our favor so much so that it influenced the result of the match. And yet we have to gleefully accept the result of the match because thats what 'sportsman spirit' calls for! Would the non-racist teams in the cricketing world have accepted this result with this kind of unfair umpiring?

What I cannot accept is that the Aussie captain getting agitated in the press conference when he is asked whether one of the decisions was correct. This is the same guy who himself made a loud appeal even when he grounded a catch! "Are you questioning my integrity" was how he snapped back at the reporter during the press conference. Mate, we are not questioning your integrity, we know you are shallow!

What I cannot accept is also the fact that Indian team, the captain, the management, the BCCI everyone is spineless. Just making lame comments in press conference after losing the match is no consolation. We want fighters in the team, like Pakistanis and Sri Lankans who did not tolerate injustice and fought hard against it. When Murali or Inzy were unfairly targetted, everyone was behind them. Those teams play to win! What are we playing for?

And most importantly, what I cannot accept is that this supposedly non-racist country had unfairly imprisoned and harassed an innocent doctor for allegedly having terror links, just because he is brown skin and a Muslim! Calling someone a monkey is racist, and labelling someone a terrorist just because he is brown and a muslim is acceptable! It will be interesting to see where this ends!

Ho Ho Ho!

One of the scariest sights now a days is our version of Santa Claus straying in the shopping malls in India during Christmas!

First of all, Santa is supposed to be likeable!! Children should scream and rush towards the fat man in the red suit to sit on his lap and ask for presents. Here, the scene is quite different. Children do scream, but that’s because they get sh*t scared looking at the ghastly figure who is stuffed to make a skinny guy look artificially fat and whose loose fitting white beard keeps sliding down giving way to his unshaven visage!

Secondly, they wont sit on his lap anymore ...why? Well, there are two reasons for that, one, because those little toddlers have pissed in their pants at the first glimpse of Mr Scary Claus and second, because his red suit STINKS!! Its not been washed since the past 7 seasons and has got stains all over it, and the Santa is boiling and sweating under the red woollen suit in the Bombay heat! No one wants a gift from a Smelly Santa! And what gifts are we talking about!! A silly balloon? a pencil? Stupid facemasks? Kids could buy more than that with their pocket money these days!

To make it worse, the organizers of the event insist on playing the latest film songs in full blast, thinking that this is some ritual to get the crowd into the 'party spirit'. They do succeed in rupturing few eardrums though! Jingle Bells has been replaced with some jing-bang item number from the latest movie.

To me, Christmas is about giving. (And no, I don't mean giving Headaches). More than giving gifts and exchanging wishes, I feel that the season is about giving 'hope'. It’s about giving education to an underprivileged child with a hope to see a more secure future. It’s about giving care to the patients with a hope of being accepted. It's about buying the Santa cap from the street vendor with the hope that someone will be able to buy food today.

It’s about giving time to your family whom you have been ignoring all year long when you were busy earning for yourself.

Reach out!

Cricket, this and that....

(a little bit of what everyone knows, after all in India, we have over a billion Cricket Experts)

Someone should tell the authorities that sledging cannot be taken out of the game. Its not something new and its certainly not a bad word (pun intended) any more. But at the same time, someone should tell the Indian cricketing youngsters that sledging without performance makes us barking dogs who seldom bite. A good abuse should always be followed by a spectacular delivery or a mind blowing shot (of course with the desired results).

Someone should tell the spectators that making monkey chants is more of an insult to the poor monkeys than to Andrew Symonds. Someday all the monkeys in the hills of Matheran are going to stage a mass protest if them come to know about this.

Someone should tell the seniors of the Indian team (the 'Trimurthy') that a great career is always remembered by the last performance of the player. That's why timing is everything in retirement. And that they also need to take a notice of how the young team really enjoys the game when they are not around.

Someone should tell the selection committee that if we have to lose matches anyway, then why not lose with all youngsters and budding cricketers in the team. Atleast they will learn something from the defeats. The great trio of Indian cricket is neither helping us win the matches nor helping us to accumulate the experience and learnings from the defeats.

And finally for us (the omnipresent devotees of the game of Cricket), that the Indian cricket team is very good in keeping the interest in the game alive. Every time the team hits rock bottom performance, someone pulls out a rabbit from nowhere and holds back the common man to the edge of his couch. I strongly believe that if our team won all the matches like the Aussies then we would not have as much interest in the game as we have now.

A few stray thoughts and observations to conclude the wet month of August …

That the new trend in the Indian judicial circles; celebrities commit crime, they get caught, convicted, get lot of media attention and then they get bail. Nice!! Justice served, people are happy, human rights activists are happy, TRP ratings of news channels rocket. Clearly a win-win situation for everyone... well almost everyone! The only loser was probably the dumb Chinkara who lost it's life in a stupid hunting game for nothing. Let us observe a moment's silence for that animal.

That now-a-days the only topic more talked about than Indian Cricket is the politics in Indian Cricket. ICL v/s BCCI or Subhash Chandra v/s Sharad Pawar. Whether one league monopolizes the cricket world or two clubs get into a catfight, the real issues in Indian cricket are still not answered… and will probably never be.

That Team India keeps getting humiliated on the cricket field series-after-series and yet the aging cricketers get all the money and attention, while the Indian football team won the Nehru Cup and no one cared. Except of course, Mr Priyaranjan Das Munshi whose post-win enthusiastic victory-dance was probably the only genuine expression I have ever seen on a politician.

That the Left Parties might realize but may never admit 5 years down the line that the nuclear deal was probably the best thing India did in the first decade of the 21st century.

That 15th August is important to different Indians for different reasons. But I think that it means the most to those street hawkers on the traffic signals who sell flags and make some money for the rainy day. The fact that we got our independence on this day is probably not as relevant as it used to be 50 years ago.

That Sholay can never be re-made. In fact any iconic movie should never be re-made. RGV has already prepared his defense by claiming that he didn’t try to re-make Sholay. It’s his ‘tribute’ to the movie. Yeah!! Right!!

And finally, I asked 15 school kids who our new President was. None had heard about Mrs Pratibha Patil. I asked those 15 kids who the coach of the Indian Women’s hockey team was; they replied without blinking about Mr Kabir Khan! Happy 60th Year of Independence! Chak-De India!!