Beyond the shame of Kotla and Eden Gardens.

Home to the Best team in Test Cricket, at least for now – thanks to the Brits who pulled off a spectacular win over the Proteas yesterday.

The world’s wealthiest cricket administration body, with speculations rife about it planning to relocate the ICC headquarters to Mumbai, to suit it’s to be anointed big boss!

Home of the biggest money spinner in the game so far – the IPL – whose riches even makes the once rested cricketers to pick up their craft and has perhaps ushered in an era of players choosing between turning ‘Pros’, over wearing the national colors.

Home to some of the most decorated athletes in the game – be it a Sachin, Sunny, Kapil, Kumble, Viru or an MSD.

Most important, the craziest of fans and an even bigger TV audience, whose market size and commercial implications can outbid any number of countries put together.

Think of the flip side.

Have you ever watched a match in any of our cricket stadiums recently? Compare the viewing experience in any of our stadia to that of a beautiful Capetown or a majestic MCG or the picturesque Queenstown or the pristine Lords. Agreed, the atmosphere is definitely electric in front of a packed Eden Gardens or the knowledgeable crowd of Chepauk or the equally remarkable Brabourne stadium in our country. But, they are poles apart in game experience.

In this modern era, where a sport is also offered as an entertainment, the experience that is offered to the fans, as an end consumer, is what matters the most. Take the case of a Boxing Day test match at MCG or the great American pastime in Fenway Park or the Yankee Stadium or a ball game at Madison Square Garden – there is much more to the game and it is the magical evening experience that you pay for!

Many of our cricket stadia are nothing but concrete jungles with barbed wires separating the viewing public from the playing eleven. Almost all the stadia – including the big ones like Chepauk and Eden Gardens lack basic amenities, like clean restrooms, hygienic food and emergency safety exits. Given the security climate we are in, you are left to the mercy of the pathetic hawkers, who sell water packets and few unhealthy savouries, amidst the din created by a maddening crowd. Leave alone the fact that, it is a nightmare to even think of finding your car and your way back home through the traffic maze post a cricket match.

Coming back to the facts. Why is it so difficult for the cricket administrators of this filthy rich franchise – whose books are blessed non-accessible for any accounting norms in this country – to provide these basic sporting facilities, if not be the pioneers in game innovation?

As consumers, aren’t we entitled for any of these? But, just like anything else in this country, who cares? As proclaimed by the IPL boss himself last year, a big chunk of the revenue comes from the TV advertisement slots and who cares much about the poor sloths who venture into our stadia to watch the games?

Reason, the so called cricket boards are manned by the same corrupt politicians who rule this country. Many of them are so inept to even to tell the difference between deliveries bowled around the wicket to over the wicket. Not that you need to be an exceptional athlete in your sport to administer the affiliate – a very successful Bernie Ecclestone or a David Stern merit this argument.

BCCI has grown from couple of millions of revenue a decade ago to close to 200+ million now. Where does all this money go and what interest the politicians might have on the game, other than the luscious greenback that shrouds the game. As we saw the day before, the DDCA meeting convened to discuss the pitch fiasco was nothing more than a fist fight we see in our parliament.

What puzzles me more is this? Leave alone the hapless cricket fans of this country, who could only vent out their anger by pulling down banners and destroying the chairs in the stadium, what happened to some of the most decorated cricketers of this country?

What makes them keep mum on this sorry state of affairs of their very own breadwinner? Other than the recent Sehwag spat against the Delhi selectors, an unsuccessful rebel league from Kapil Dev and few occasional utterances from Gavaskar, none of them seem to care much. Why is it so? Who is so Big – the game, the players or the administrators? Why is it not right to question your bosses?

Unfortunately, in a country of our size with such divergence of opinion and with no dearth of issues every day, our memory is so fickle and we learn to move on. Soon, it would be ‘What happened in Delhi?’ It is this amnesia that energizes our politicians.

Silly Nationalism

So, here is the story of another Indian (by birth) winning a world acclaim and the media and a section of the Indian masses trying to latch on to any iota of 'Indianess' that might exist in Venki Ramakrishnan, to be part of that hard-earned accomplishment of the noble prize winner. Are we in such a drought of an Indian exploit, which makes us cling on to any Indianess in individual achievers across the globe?

Other than the scientific fraternity, who has had the privilege to work with the professor, how many on earth would have really known this individual till the day he won this accolade? Even by the scientist’s own claim, he had visited India very few times in the last 3 decades and that is how much amount of Indianess left in him, after having relocated to the lands of opportunity in pursuit of his dream.

May be as an individual who knows the professor or who has been associated with him or his work in some way, I would celebrate his success. How can the country take credit and be part of the success?

As the scientist himself has said it many times, let us not judge accomplishments by mere awards, for there are hundreds of other scientists who toil under the limited infrastructure at our disposal in our country and who every day wrack their brains to fight the bureaucratic and political tangles within our scientific establishments.

Given that, let us celebrate the individual's Nobel on the merits of his accomplishment as a member of the scientific fraternity and not as an 'Indian'. May be India provided the genes or the few fortunate teachers sowed the seeds of wisdom on Venki Ramakrishnan in his early school days. But, we lost that and continue to lose that privilege with the brain drain of so many individuals who migrated to greener pastures – more rightly so.

For a nation of more than a billion, there is no dearth of silly controversies and I cannot but admire the scientist’s response on nationalistic jingoism - one of the Best I have read to reinforce simple common sense!

C'mon, cut the ...

You could not ask for a better juicy spice to add to the headlines on an Independence Day, other than to talk about your civil liberties and freedom being compromised over the incident of how our own SRK was detained and questioned upon his entry into the United States.

What is wrong?

The point is not about the paranoia that has gripped the US since the aftermath of 9/11 and just having a last name that is synonymous with a specific religion drives them to into this extra mode of caution. Perhaps, as it does on some cases, the xenophobia potentially could drive few people go over-board. That is a different issue, altogether.

The point is not that SRK was questioned for 2 hours; our concern was more that he was questioned just like any other normal citizens and treated un-fairly!

It is high time we get over this regal shame of giving this VIP treatment to individuals, even in areas that matter the most, like Security. If the US reserves the right of a harsh preferential treatment on the basis of a last name, so do we. We have an institutionalized preferential treatment based on societal standing that goes too soft on few people. This is going to cause us more damage than we could ever understand.

Seldom we, Indians, like to be frisked or even stopped at the gate by the duty bound security guards. At work places, I have seen the frown on the faces of people walking or driving past the security gate, when the security guard asks them to display their id cards.

Why? Because of the simple indifferent attitude that ‘Who is he to question or stop me?’ But, we do want the Best of protection and security and always look at it as the other people's responsibility. It’s not me; it’s him! Hello! The other fellow is just doing his job and how on earth is he going to know that Your Majesty is above the law - though none of us is not – and you should not be touched?

What puts me off at airports or the work place is not I being checked, but the lackadaisical way in which it is being done, under the guise of preferential treatment to the elite few. I have seen many instances at work places where, just to keep the visiting white skinned babu happy, our people taking the short cuts of skipping or rushing the mandatory security checks on the individual and his physical belongings like the laptop, which he carries.

Added to the SRK incident is the comedy of one of the minister’s comment – “we should do tit for tat”. Please do. Not doing that is the issue and don't spare anyone. There will be tons of people who would be more than happy to be strip-searched, if that can only give them the comfort feeling of being secure.

Who are we to decide who is an icon and who is not? In the absence of it, let us all be equally treated as law abiding citizens.

Treat no one as a ‘Global Icon’ and get over the colonial hangover of being sycophantic.

Swine Panic

Thanks to the 24×7 vigil and panic show orchestrated by the media, H1N1 is the talk of the town. The whole nation, at least in the metros, is running helter-skelter hunting for a place to take cover from this deadly virus.

Though the government – under the disguise of the feel-good statistics comparing the fatalities of ours to the developed nations – is taking credit for the job done or not done so far, god forbid, think for a moment the reality of our health infrastructure, if at all there is one, if this pandemic is to hit us with little more vigor. I was reminded of the movie Outbreak, where the administration decides to annihilate an entire town, while Dustin Hoffman goes is in hunt of the host. Unlike the Bird Flu, where millions of the poor birds were culled, we cannot cull the humans here when it is proven that the original carrier of this deadly virus, the swine is not the cause now!

For a nation of more than a billion, centers equipped to test this deadly virus is few little, and even there, it is the pitiful state of limited workforce working overtime. Think about their motivation levels! For a city of the size of Chennai, there are just two centers, which can test this virus, and not surprisingly one ran out of the testing kits within hours, on the first day. The government prescribed hospitals is places I pray to God, not visit in my lifetime, or wish even for my worst foes, given the sorry state in which they are.

It is a pitiable site to see patients who are already suffering the viral attack, standing in long beelines. Leave alone availability of proper testing kits, there is no one to offer the commonsensical shelter or a place to sit for those patients waiting in the line. Keeps me wonder what does our civic administration really do?

As we put forth our claim to be on the map of the developed nations and vie for our rightful place among the global leaders or a UNSC seat, it is these calamities that either put us in the right perspective or showcase our ability or inability to manage a catastrophe of this magnitude and scale.

Thank heavens; this epidemic has not spread its wings across our poor villages, which invariably happen to be the chosen one to bear the brunt of any unfortunate calamity, be it drought or floods.

Though it was heartening to know that 3 of our own testing centers are spearheading the global effort to create a vaccine for the H1N1, it might either be too late before the crisis worsens or the deadly virus might have mutated into a more potent form.

N95 was the most searched item in Google by the Indians and when I heard it first, I thought it was one of the recent Nokia mobile phone. This again is a product from one of the most innovative firms in the globe – 3M. Why isn’t there a simple testing kit available for our own citizens? Where are the Indian players and the private enterprise, other than the few pharmaceutical companies? Why don’t we have an Indian version of the mask or Purel to suit the wallets of the Indian consumers?

Are the Indian corporate giants like Reliance, Tata, Birlas, Bharti or L&T driven only by market based economics and focus on myopic business viability in their ventures? How many firms that art part of the Sensex or Nifty could contribute to this nation in a moment of crisis like this? That would be a huge moment of truth for the government to contemplate in their policy decisions, especially at a time when the sit on the table on talks to bailout the sick airlines.

Paying your taxes alone does not exempt you from national duties. It would be interesting to constitute an index based on contribution to nation building and the difference the business enterprises bring to human lives.

So far away ...

Couple of days back we marked the event of six months, since the horrific terror attacks in Mumbai and not surprisingly, the TV media paraded its darlings, Suhel Seth, Shobe De et al, to rant out their frustration against the fact that nothing really has changed on the ground since then. Yes, definitely so.

Caught between the claim to uphold our constitutional rights and our inept judicial system, we have a case that is still being waged against Kasab, when the evidence clearly shows beyond doubt, how he walked around the city spewing bullets. There was also the news on how one samajwadi party MP reportedly has put the brakes on the government from purchasing modern weapons for the Mumbai police. NSG hub in Mumbai and other metros is still far away from reality.

So, all the elite could do, similar to post 26/11, is to vent out their anger on prime-time television, which they are extremely good at. Leave alone the fact that, majority of the Mumbaikars preferred to give the elections a miss and the turnout was pathetic compared to the rest of the country.

That is how much the urban folks care about the polity of this nation and no wonder the Congress was able to sweep the Mumbai constituencies, even as the city is being dealt with one of the most insipid administration, either during the terror strike or the deluge that happens every monsoon.

Do the politicians really care about urban voices? Or, is it the other way around? Do we really care about ourselves, beyond the yells and shout.

Call it the very sorry state of our democracy, we are no way close to reforming the political main stream, which has gotten rot over years of mis-rule by netas of various parties and the dust and slime covering the pillars of our parliament would require a great deal of work to rescue it from the ruins of sheer negligence and corrupt policies of various governments over the years.

Majority of the electorate still do not watch these prime-time talk shows and for them, the few rupees thrown out by a Mulayam or an Azhagiri, or a promise from a Karunananidhi or a YSR, appeals more than even the fundamental bijili, sadak, paani. They are the preferred choice of electorate and the ones who still get to decide whom to send to the parliament, not the urban middle-class from the metros.

Not that the voters of the metros are cared less, but what is cared even more is to sustain and strengthen that ignorance of the huge section of our society, that is yet to reap the benefits of the economic boom, by dividing them on regional and caste lines.

Last election saw few interesting faces in the form of Mallika Sarabhai from Gandinagar, Capt. Gopinath from Bangalore, Meera Sanyal from Mumabi, throwing their strength in the political ring, which so far has been chastised as a show of the unruly, corrupt and irresponsible politicians of this country.

Not surprisingly, all of them failed miserably, except for the few shrewd alignments like Sashi Tharoor, who joined the fray as a Congress representative.

What could have really made a difference in the past six months is for the Mumbaikars to come out in one voice to vote. Given the nightmare they continue to endure in the city, in spite of being the largest taxpayers, they should have given a record turnout that stunned the politicians. That never happened.

It is one thing to sit outside and cry out loud. You cannot clean up a system, unless you are part of it. The more we distance ourselves from the mess, the more it gets rot. It is like the typical urban attitude, when we litter our roads with trash, thinking it is someone else’s responsibility to clean it up. No wonder our roads stink and so does our political system.

As debated on the prime-time television, we are still far, far away in leading a revolution to bring about a commonsensical change that we all dream about.

So far away from me. So far, I just can’t see!

End defunct tokenism.

It was the first match of the 1987 Reliance world cup between Australia and India and most of my fellow schoolmates were restless, having to miss that game. Some of the backbench bullies in my 11th standard class were already conniving and soon we had the guys walking out of the class and so did I - often at the end of the line. When the head master came out, the boys just would not budge in and finally he had to relent and the school closed for few days. Reason – what else, Sri Lankan Tamils. It is a different story that India lost that game in the last over, in spite of sixer siddhu’s heroics.

Late eighties, in government aided schools and colleges like mine, all we needed was a reason to get few days off and the Tamils issue used to be the noble savior to pull the shutters down. The schools and colleges would close down for few days, as the students would take to the streets protesting in support of the ethnic Tamils and against the atrocities of the Sinhalese.

For the timid few like me, at times, we would not even know the reason behind the strike till we come back home. Anyway, reason mattered less, if that gives you few additional days to play cricket or to get burnt in the sweltering heat, roaming around the streets of Madurai.

Years later, it is a sad state of affairs and for whatever reasons, the Sri Lankan issue has disappeared from the people's minds and Tamil Nadu is strangely quiet these days, over this issue. May be, people lost the heart to stand up for the LTTE after the gruesome assassination of Rajiv. But, the attention is very much required, given the human calamity that is staring at Sri Lanka right now.

The once savior of the Tamils, now with his mobility curtailed to a wheel chair, is busy shopping ministerial births for his kin. Just few months back, Kanimozhi resigned her Rajyasabha seat for the cause of the Tamils. If at all there were a reason to be a renegade, it would be more appropriate right now.

Amma and the usual suspects of the other fringe political parties, who thrived under the guise of the LTTE, have gone hiding and there is seldom any hue and cry over the death of the LTTE leader and his family. All the noises they made during the election time, appear to be a perfunctory effort or rather symbolic.

But, what worries me is this very absence of a concerted effort from the administration of either Tamil Nadu or the Centre over the ominous humanitarian catastrophe in Sri Lanka. The issue is not ideology anymore, it is more of humanitarian. According to UNHRC estimates, nearly 300,000 civilians are living in hellish conditions and the country is thoroughly ill equipped to handle a crisis of this magnitude.

Agreed, in some way the determined Sri Lankan Government helped us fight a common enemy and we diplomatically looked the other way when the Sri Lankan Government went on rampage against the LTTE and the Tamil civilians who were caught in the cross-fire.

But, the time to act is NOW. With the LTTE wiped out, why does the Government of India dither with its action plan to save the helpless people? This is the time for tokenism to be replaced with meaningful assistance, to assert our prowess as a regional leader and to show the way for the troubled neighbors.

If this new Government requires a main agenda item, it has to seriously work on the almost non-existent foreign policy priorities towards our neighbors. If you look around, from Pak to Nepal to Bangladesh to Burma to Sri Lanka, we are engulfed in deep trouble across the borders all along. This is going to leave a serious dent on our state of affairs and sooner we realize, the better.

Shame on Us!

Height of mediocrity and Shame on us!

What could be the first order of mandate for the prime minister and the congress’s high-profile leaders to burn their mid-night oil and sort out? Not the looming humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka where millions are living in squalid conditions, not the worsening economy and rising food prices, not the uncertain state of the millions of youth who would be passing out this year with no jobs given the sad state of the economy, but to settle a feud between members of a family with their insatiable thirst to gobble up power and the money that comes with that.

If there was in me, any part of my self that felt jubilated over the success of our democratic setup and the near overwhelming victory bestowed by the citizens of this nation to a single party, the incidents of the past few days between the Congress and the DMK, over the portfolio allocation has totally shattered that and I can’t but feel depressed over the sequence of events.

There goes a leader of a party in a wheel chair to New Delhi, who till recently was ailing in a hospital and who, one fine morning, given the political compulsions and to appease the Tamil sentiments, sprung a surprise and decided to go on a fast for the Tamils’ cause. This time, the reasoning is not the people of his state or the endangered Tamils’, but to shop around for a coterie of his family members and a bunch of corrupt and inept politicians, dictating terms on what he would like to be offered in the cabinet.

Lets look at the dubious players.

A surface transport minister, Balu, in whose term the golden quadrilateral took a backseat, who mysteriously disappeared during the truckers’ strike, his controversial sethu samudram project in shambles and who became popular when he openly acclaimed the way in which he influenced the petroleum ministry to get subsidized gas for a firm managed by his son.

The IT and Telecom Minister, A Raja, who shot into fame when he got this plum ministry over another family feud and who got popularity over supposedly making the country's exchequer lose millions of rupees by under-pricing the spectrum allocation.

A poet by name Kanimozhi, who was on the political sidelines till her mother got worried about her wealth and the growing stature of her brothers and whose administrative experience would be nothing more than organizing a cultural event by name, Chennayil Sangamam, along with an LTTE sympathizer.

And the most important of all, Kalaingar’s eldest of sons, whose true powers even the father himself had not discovered till recently and who ensured the party gets the seats in the southern Tamil Nadu, and for whom, anything less than a cabinet post would not go well among his fellow gang men. Forget the fact that, he just got acquitted over a criminal case and he has little education or administrative experience to run a ministry like Health, when the country’s health infrastructure is in shambles.

Sure, Mr. Kalaingar and his son have the onerous task at hand to ensure they get the return on investment for all the money that were wielded in open during the elections! He has a larger family, to feed their aspirations and ambitions so that they all leave in peace as he and his political career sets in the horizon.

But, if the mandate were for development and the unquestionable integrity of the person, Dr. Manmohan Singh, what would be a shame on the billions who gave this decisive verdict, would be the rapprochement that is being worked out, compromising dignity and basic administrative standards.

This vote is for the prime minister to break out of the shackles that were put on him during the last term, by people like a Kalaingar, a Shibu Soren or a Karat. It would only be prudent if the Prime Minister and the Congress realize the strength and come to reality of the decisive mandate given to them.

Else, the people of this country have clearly shown how they could go shopping for another alternative in a voice that is as decisive as this time.

Slumdog Part II

The scheme of operation for a prime-time TV channel appears quite straightforward these days. Put your muscle to fan up any issue or event, create a mass hysteria with non-stop nonsensical coverage of an event and then debate about the rationality of the public reaction to it.

Last night, one of the major TV Channel, debated the entire hoopla about how the creators of Slumdog Millionaire exploited the dark side of the Indian reality and had supposedly served it as 'poverty porn' for the western society.

Their claim is that the movie concurred with the majority of the western nations' perception of India as a land of snake charmers. Agreed, that is the sad reality of predominant western xenophobes, who, still a few years back, used to ask me if I had TVs and A/Cs in India. If we consider that opinion as disgraceful ignorance, so should any of the acclaim they shower upon us, like the Oscars or the BAFTAs.

We should be one of the shameful hypocrites in the world!

If Slumdog favored their opinion about the sad state of affairs of a Mumbai slum, that perception to most extent is also the reality. So, while we take pride and celebrate the accomplishments of a Resul Pookutty or ARR, we denigrate the medium that provided them that opportunity.
But, why do we fail to accept that sad reality? Because, we think, it is no one's business to showcase our miseries, while we hide behind the ugly reality of a supposedly shining India?

Contrary to our claims about India as an emerging power, we are (still) living with a vast majority of our society yet to benefit the fruits of the acclaimed economic growth. With lack of basic sanitation, more than 40% of our population still defecates in the open! We are toping the world hunger index and consistently bad in the corruption index. Whatever political reasons we attribute that to, how can we disassociate ourselves from our responsibility to fix that, for we are the ones electing our in-efficient administrators - if they are to be blamed for the grim reality.

Invariably, any success story in India would be a fight against odds, for life here is a winding road in every aspect, which would bring out specks of these ugly realities, be it our slums, corrupt politicians or irresponsible citizens - us.

Instead of pushing the skeletons under a shining carpet, let’s have the tenacity to face the reality – whoever portrays that- and only that can lead us to fix the maladies one day!