On Satyamev Jayate and our Sunday tear leader

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(The fact that we need an education from a Bollywood actor being paid an astronomical sum to understand our social woes is as much a commentary on the star as it is on ourselves). Finding a celebrity with a social orientation is as easy as finding a crowd disembarking from a local train in Mumbai. Bad boy Salman Khan, after non-chalantly driving over pavement dwellers in an inebriated condition and hunting down a black buck, runs a charitable entity called Being Human. These days celebrities exploit every available tool under the painstaking tutelage of their brand advisors for image enhancement. The impact can be exponential, humongous rise in dollar sum as endorsement fee and for advertising appearances. Everything is calculatedly commercial. ROI is staggeringly high. It is business. Bollywood actor Aamir Khan is uber media savvy, possessing just the right ersatz tear for every conceivable human anguish. On....

Outbreak nation

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(We Indians are in a perpetual state of 'outbreak' these days. Moderation has deserted us completely. It happens sometimes in the cycle of growth when a country smells that big opportunity it has long waited for but is not fully prepared for it when it comes knocking on the door. A churn follows. Everything is challenged. Chaos reigns supreme. Expectations soar. But it is important that in this period of trial and turbulence, cynicism does not overtake good common sense.) By a peculiar coincidence, the S&P rating outlook downgrade on India took place amidst a hostage crisis in Odisha. Left to Ruchir Sharma's (author of the just-launched Breakout Nations) rather impractical hypothesis, (Don't distribute the increasing pie till it gets bigger), India would be run over by Maoist armies and truly become a banana republic. Please don't run for office, Mr Sharma! Rating agencies, worldwide, fancy their....

46 minutes to friendship and understanding

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The biggest political lesson from cricket for both India and Pakistan is to meet more often with or without specific goals and agenda. It lowers intensity, temperature and expectations. The reason why the prime ministers of India and Pakistan don't watch hockey for that elusive breakthrough moment in their turbulent relationship is because hockey is just a fading nostalgic memory while cricket is the dominant impulse of people pulverised by its passionate undercurrents. We produce colorful characters, raw natural talent that has seen them become world champions. Also, we have the common denominator of match-fixing. Despite the tragic bloodshed during those tumultuous days of 1947, paradoxically enough, India and Pakistan are today bound by a common religion - cricket. Thus is the emotional bond associated with that quaint British legacy that an American once described as "baseball on valium". Amongst the many....

Ides of April

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The brouhaha over the SIT report (incidentally not a court verdict) on Gujarat riots exonerating Modi was on expected lines; hard-core supporters of the bearded Narendra Modi celebrated as if it was divine intervention for the beleaguered chief minister, like the heavenly benedictions of TIME. Prime Minister Modi, went the collective chorus. But that euphoria overlooked basic math and typically as it were, missed the woods for the trees. Let me explain. On the day of the great electoral verdict of March 6, 2012, when the earth miraculously stood standstill on its rotating axis, I asked Mr Arun Jaitley of the BJP on Headlines Today if the party had exhausted the political utility of its Ayodhya card, given its diminished seats in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. At that time, it was reasonably certain that Samajwadi Party was headed north by northwest in a carefree solo race like Forrest Gump.....

Toast for the JAM

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Just how do you write a farewell piece on a cricketer and a person who is indescribable? Decency, I think, is in human DNA. Either you have it or you don't. Some things can't be taught at even Lovely University or the Harvard Business School. So is modesty, that rare virtue that differentiates an insufferable loudmouth from a reticent distinguished achiever. At Rahul Dravid's press conference in Bengaluru on March 9, 2012, it was quite apparent that the man, famously christened The Wall, was an embodiment of both unassuming demeanour and fine gentlemanliness. He looked understandably emotionally stretched at the very beginning but as he finished reading his prepared text, it seemed that the albatross of retirement blues was finally off his back. Unlike corporate citizens or 24x7 professionals, sportsmen retire at the peak of human life expectancy cycle (mid-thirties usually, unless you are a golfer). We....

Hey Kingfisher: Stay 'grounded' to fly high

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One of my most embarrassing moments happened on Kingfisher Airlines. Comfortably ensconced in the Business Class after a long day, a charming lady in red, the smiling air-hostess, asked me with immaculate solicitude: "Can I clean your reading glasses, Sir?" I was too dumbfounded to react, not quite accustomed to such archaic debauch excesses, and almost in a robotic reflex complied with her dictates. Evidently, the King of Good Times meant serious business. I also remember my American colleague from an investment bank in New York gulping, guzzling beer in an up-market bar in the Avenue of the Americas Street. "Man", he said, with prodigious satisfaction: "I love Kingfisher". A decade later in India, harried, worried airline passengers seem to have a totally reverse, adverse experience with that once revered brand. Kingfisher, may still be the coveted cheery bubbly for a bar-fest, but in the cut-throat....

The lonely BJP candidate of UP

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The BJP has just one Muslim candidate among its 403 in Uttar Pradesh where there live 37 million Muslims. It is symptomatic of the party's parochial agenda and vote bank politics. I watched the BJP's spokesperson sporting the familiar self-righteous countenance indignantly trashing Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid's speech at Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh which has set the Ganges on fire. The Election Commission has been doing an outstanding job, so I will refrain from adding my three-bit of prudence on the EC's ire, excepting to say that other than usual electoral campaigning rhetoric that invariably occurs when addressing restless crowds, I did not see an orchestrated, deliberate attempt to undermine the constitutional authority of the EC albeit it may unintentionally have resulted in that consequence. It seemed like a spontaneous outburst amidst cacophonous wild energy of teeming crowds that made for magnetic sound byte. But anyway,....

The siege within

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I asked a few people in a small group who Ajmal Amir Kasab was. They looked at me in wonderment and surprise, even perceivable amusement as if saying: "Are you a crazy lunatic guy, or what.," I prodded them, deliberately provocative, feigning the status of an ignoramus. Sighing with egregious exasperation, one of them said: "The captured terrorist who brutally massacred innocent commuters at CST railway terminus and slaughtered our valiant cops on the horrendous night of 26/11 in Mumbai". I clapped in genuine appreciation-seriously. They thought I was sarcastically mocking them so the response was a mere mute silence. Then I asked them: "Who is Tukaram Omble?" This time they looked stunned, expressionless, but perceptibly challenged. They easily guessed he was a 26/11 victim or an unknown daring character but were visibly unsure of specific details . Some took wild shots in the dark while others were honest....

Understanding the real Mrs Gandhi

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I was all of ten years old when my father woke me up early on a chilly winter morning. Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi was going to be driving down Poona's ( Pune now) Ganesh Khind Road in an open car to the state guest-house Raj Bhavan during her visit to the pensioner's paradise . We excitedly hurried to get ready faster than we would to catch our school-bus, to ensure that we did not miss that precious moment. Just a few weeks before we had sat nervously huddled in dark rooms as ominous sirens wailed and every sound of a distant engine in the night sky appeared as that of an enemy aircraft on a fateful mission. But that was all over now in less than two weeks. India had decisively won the war against traditional adversary Pakistan. East Pakistan was truly liberated and we had at last scored....

Obama's Marathon Race

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Two world leaders of contrasting styles have been tirelessly hogging media spotlight over the last few weeks. First, US President Barack Obama was shown at various camera angles staring with perceptible amazement at a Latino butt of Jennifer Lopez-like proportions during a global summit . Even newscasters who were raising a massive brouhaha over the ungentlemanly sidelong and supposedly lusty glance of the popular Prez , seemed equally titillated. Or empathized with the purported ogle. Or at least they struggled to keep a straight face. The second distinguished head of state is of course, the now celebrated stud machine of international politics, songwriter and multi-tasking (??) Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi who has through his enviable libido completely altered traditional conservatism that plagued people holding high office, making former US President Bill Clinton appear like an old fashioned priest with just a mild case of testosterone overdose and Nicolas Sarkozy....