Ceasar's Wives, All!

The year 2010 is coming to its very end. It is that time of the year when one begins to wonder how this year has been with us. But how have these times been for us as a whole? How have our citizens fared - netizens, tweeple and the man on the street deprived of bandwidth - in our country and the world in which we live today? Have things changed? Or has nothing changed at all?

Amongst success stories for India, the successful hosting of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which finally ended as a spectacular show and the winning streak of our cricket team this year; and the much talked about aspirations for a permanent seat at the UNSC. [Much talked by ourselves, we are told by a certain Wikileaked cable]. The continued run in the economic growth measured by our GDP is another reason to be pleased with ourselves as a nation on the move. At a time when much of the world has been struggling with their economy, this feat means in effect that India is the most happening place (next only to China), where the action really is!

From the highs of the moon-landing last year when India planted its flag on the moon and the high-pitched crescendo of the cheering for our athletes’ record-breaking performance at the CWG, we also landed low on the revelations of financial irregularities, besides nepotism in postings reportedly committed by all those associated with the Organizing Committee of the CWG. If that was not enough, what followed were reports of the Adarsh Society scam, Land allotment scams in Karnataka and the mother of all scams, the 2-G scam, followed by revelation of lobbying for the ministerial position by corporate lobbyist Niira Radia through the tapes leaked to the Indian Press. [Pardon me if i have missed any scam]

The inclusion of Army officials and judges in scam tainted has achieved in some sense our wish to have “inclusive growth” in our country – we don’t leave out any one out of the party! Finally the Radia tapes also pointed to the possible involvement of journalists in engineering ministerial berths and currying corporate favoritism. These findings were followed through by various retired editors posting blogs about their experiences about how industrialists wooed media even in their times and bribes offered and paid news is not, after all, a new phenomenon. It has been proved beyond doubt that the very media - that character assassinates suspects without so much as a fair sound-byte in defence - indulges in wrongful practices themselves!

So what is new is that we have begun talking about it – and acknowledging that it exists. The rot can’t be hidden anymore - the stench tells us about it’s existence. Gandhiji’s Teen Bunder [Bunder - Hindi, for monkey] could well be Chaar Bunder with another holding his nose to avoid the stench emanating from all around!

hey,we employed another bunder!)

A Raja is not yet questioned inspite of losing 20+ days of business in the Parliament! Even our own Prime Minister is facing charges of inaction in the telecom scam, although the PM, like Ceasar’s wife, wishes to be above the law.

So much like all of us, no? Everyone seems to want to be, or already think they are, above the law.

Everyone bears the “holier-than-thou” approach, while erroneously believing in it. The media wouldn’t have to explain their role, but for the tweeple who incessantly demanded an explanation. We don’t like being frisked, being asked questions, asked to show our identity cards or PAN cards or any such document. Anywhere anytime! “You suspect me?”, we ask scornfully. In that sense, we are all aspiring to be Ceasar’s wife!


The year is drawing to a close with food prices rising unabated - onions bringing tears without even peeling them. Petrol prices, which were de-regulated only this year, have also risen quickly. Traders seem to be enjoying the freedom offered by pricing decontrol to their full advantage. Leaving us ordinary folks struggling to beat the inflation (which could be another scam, I guess) all our lives, without indulging in scams or swindling others in our society - unless of course, you are tempted to beat the inflation by acquiring the necessary skills by joining this institute – A C-School here.

We can certainly hope that the New Year 2011 will clear the prevailing stench and bring new aspirations of belonging to a cleaner society in the world around us.

After all, hope is all that remains!

Bloggers’ Post-Script – What according to you is the Indian Word of the Year 2010? Do write in the comments space with your suggestions and why you chose that word!

The Info-Leak-Age

One could be on cloud nine after being served with dollops of praise from just about anyone, but when the offering comes from none other than the President of the United States of America, it is certain to stir the common man from his dreary stance to spring up in joyful celebration! He said we are not an emerging nation but an already emerged nation! We are not “developing” but “developed” – in substance we had already arrived, just in case we happened to miss noticing the decorated, flashy gates of the elite club of nations who lead the world of the 21st Century for having gate-crashed into the lavish dinner table.

Suddenly we felt as though we had not only arrived, but also taken our rightful place at the G-20 or UNSC or any such elite gathering. Our upbeat mood was only natural – when was the last time that our country was praised so much for having done so much for shaping the world, for giving the world such gems like the Mahatma and so many heroes, for being the largest democracy in the world or for that matter for our diverse cultures and yet for being one voice the world was dying to listen to? Can’t remember, can we?

Come to think of it, let us do an exercise – try remembering a time in your own personal life and career that one would have been praised so much for all that one is or has done for your organization or for being a great person to have known or been associated with. Chances are, that you’ve heard these words of high praise at a send-off party while leaving your organization after a long-stint for better pastures or even at retirement. That is when you hear all the words you always wanted to hear when you’ve been working hard all the time – just for that appreciation and recognition –(although nobody seems to know)!

The only other instance when one may have experienced unconstrained showering of mighty praise has been when one is contemplating a large value purchase, either for oneself or for the organization one represents. Suddenly, marketing professionals will wax eloquent about your attributes and praise you to the heavens for all that you are – and even for all that you’d hoped to be; all the skills that you have and several that you hope you had possessed! Although it is really an occasion to introspect and work on these missing attributes, human nature being what it is, leads us to believe that there is nothing for me to do, but to accept the praise in all its glory and celebrate the moment.

President Obama had his wares to sell to boost his countrymen’s job prospects - and India would have been working on its shopping list for its nuclear energy program, other clean energy initiatives and several such developmental budgets to keep the pace of GDP growth going for the coming decades. Get the drift?
High praise, like the good old spirits, is indeed intoxicating. It gets to one’s head faster than truth, which takes a longer time to sink in. We had been in a celebratory mood, albeit only until the same news channels suddenly started doling out scam after scam, making one wonder where are we heading and whether we are really getting there at all? Will the Wikileaks comment citing Hillary Clinton to have dubbed India as being “a self- appointed front-runner for the UN Security Council seat” bring our feet firmly back on terra firma? Or will we just brush the Wikileaks information aside as an apocryphal account and continue to celebrate?

Talking about leaks, we are living in times, which future generations may call as the “Info-Leakage”. Classified documents leaking into public domain is being witnessed in India too. The Nira Radia tapes found their way into blogs and media websites and shocked the scale and spread of the malaise in our political and social fabric. The flip side of the Radia Tapes leak is a host of websites got busy transcribing the conversations. The involvement of media bigwigs in the corridors of powers is being hotly debated. Although those involved are defending themselves of the allegations - of going beyond their call of duty and engaging in power-broking activities alongwith lobbyists - by explaining that they were only stringing a potential news source or humoring them for future utility, it is to many a sighting of a tip of the iceberg that one cannot afford to simply brush aside.

The media has of late assumed a larger role, sitting in judgment and trying citizens for their misdeeds in extra-judicial court-rooms having high national visibility unlike the real judiciary. In that sense it was a rare treat to find political news editors, being big names in the industry on the other side of the table defending their actions and inactions and discussing the ethics of journalism. Satish Acharya, the well-known cartoonist has been kind enough to work on this creation, working on the idea provided by me, indicating the dangers of the newsrooms in our TV channels. Collaborative blogging, we may say. Thanks, Satish Acharya!


We are witnessing a High Level of RADIA-ACTIVITY in Newsrooms!

Festival Times in Mumbai

Times were when crackers were burst only during Diwali – not so today. Crackers are being burst at cricket match wins, political rallies, Ganapati visarjans and the neighbourhood plumber’s (and his uncle’s) wedding and the consequent naming ceremony of their offspring! The same goes with the consumption of sweets, which would be consumed only during festive times in the good old days – puranpolis during Holi, modaks during Ganesh Chaturthi and so on and so forth, whereas modern times have meant that these sweets are available all year long diluting the real joys of a festival!

So a Mumbaikar today looks forward to a Diwali for only the holidays one gets and not so much for the noisy and polluting celebrations or the sweetmeats. Or so it seems. The 2010 Diwali however was rather unusual for us Mumbaikars- we had the high-profile head of the most powerful nation in the world, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle visit us bang in the middle of the celebrations to add to the sparkle of our festivities! So we watched them dance with our schooling kids and talk to our young student in college, while the TV channels featured experts, politicians and editors, who debated ad-nauseum about what the US President would or would not say, should have or should not have said between those delightful glimpses of the charming couple’s graceful appearances beamed live into our living rooms.

All that 'expert talk' turned out to be phuskas (the crackers that fail to explode) compared to the real phatakas (the crackers that explode with a bang) that came from our young college students like Afsheen Irani and the likes who breathed fresh life into the debate by bringing to the table the real questions and even correctly judged the geo-political situation, unlike the misreadings by “experts” all day long! All one can say at the end of the visit was, we can hope for a brighter future with these kind of youngsters amongst us!

Just as Diwali, the Festival of Lights drew to a close, another Festival, the first of its kind in Mumbai was being announced in the Times of India – the Literature Live Festival! Having tasted success in Jaipur, the think tank headed by renowned Anil Dharker, the Festival Director got their plans moving by roping in the much-needed sponsors to initiate what will hopefully be a small beginning of a bigger event in times to come. Our country has seen many new writers in recent times. Indian writing has been making its mark on the globe – with more authors bagging the Booker Prize and such other international forms of recognition besides a global readership. It is about time to cash in on this emerging trend.

Having been able to attend some of these sessions at the NCPA at Mumbai, one found a unique possibility open up, when readers and aspiring writers could interact with Indian authors and some of the new publishers, who are also being drawn to the party of Indian writings like never before! Besides being treated to the thoughts and novel ideas (pun intended) behind the successful authors about their approach to writing, increasing trend of relating to mythological themes, travails and tribulations with publishing houses, one also found that writers still fighting shy to come out and talk openly about compensation issues.

When will writers be able to proudly tell the world that they are just writers, without being asked the inevitable next question, ‘but what do you do for a living’, I asked. A publisher promptly replied that there had been more successful writers amongst us than ever before and we could be getting there sometime soon! Until that happens, writers may have to look for day jobs to fend for themselves and their families, I guess.

The festival is certainly a good beginning! But what seems to be the need of the hour is a great amount of effort on the part of schools, colleges, NGOs, teachers- just about everyone to encourage people to put of their idiot box………

………………………………AND JUST READ A BOOK!

Blogger's Post-script:
1. The icing on the cake for me had been a chance meeting with my favourite humour columnist, the adorable and humble, Bachi Karkaria and have my pic taken with her!

A pic with Bachi Karkaria, the most humorous columnist with the Times of India.

2. Read more reports about the festival here:

Is Banning Books Justified?

Thank you Blogadda for picking this post for the Tangy Tuesday posts!

The Mumbai University recently got removed Rohinton Mistry’s book, "Such A Long Journey", from the syllabus upon facing pressure from the young cub, Aditya Thackeray of the Shiv Sena, who, sort of, made his debut with this roaring success in the political landscape in the city of Mumbai. Read about it here.

While all authors, bloggers, free-spirited readers of the modern world are up in arms against the banning of books and censorship in any form, I have some "hatke" views on this subject.

Before we get to the subject of banning books, let us examine why an author undertakes to write a book in the first place. An author would’ve been just another creature walking this planet had he no urge to tell all that is in his mind, waiting to be told, wanting to be said and itching to be devoured by hungry minds. It could be an amazing story of a person or the tale of a spirited struggle of the people of a certain era, that one encounters in life.

An author of a book may not have taken all the efforts to write, re-write, edit the matter to be narrated, if there hadn’t been such lovely creatures called ‘readers’. Lastly, the author wouldn’t have been able to get his created work to the voracious devourers of the printed word without the existence of the publishers, who don’t necessarily read the book, but certainly have all that it takes to judge whether people would shell out money to buy the book. So it is that from being just an idea in someone’s mind to the writing of a book that gets published and is available for sale at a swanky book store in the city is itself, such a long journey!

Hey, but the journey is not yet over, my dear friend! The book’s got to be launched, sold, reviewed by critics, marketed, publicised, talked about, debated, loved or hated - and does all this really mean your book sales will soar? Not really until finally, if you’re lucky enough, the book is BANNED! Yes, you read that right – banned! Or better still, burnt in public glare! How many authors can boast of writing books that have been banned? All they can really hope for is to be chosen to be awarded the coveted Booker Prize. Being banned or burnt is the ultimate success of a book!

If you don’t believe me, watch the sales figures of any book before and after a ban. The counter behaves like it’s been administered a generous dose of steroids. I just happened to ask for a copy of the latest Booker Prize winner, “The Finkler Question”, but was disappointed to find that they hadn’t even heard about it! Just a small mention somewhere in the innards of a newspaper doesn’t attract as much attention as a political rally where a book is burnt or torn with a host of TV Channels vying to get the best shot for their “breaking news” edition, does it?

You’ve certainly got it right, Dr Rajan Welukar – giving in to the demands of the goons was surely the best way you could have dealt with the situation you were facing. On one hand the agitated and offended cub has his say, and on the other the author finds more readers and laughs all the way on such a long journey to his bank! Don’t you worry about all these writers - who think they are great thinkers too – they will vent their anger, rant about losing their freedom of speech, appear on television debates, and tell the world about how the book bans are depriving the reader of a marvellous opportunity to enrich the mind. But let me tell you a secret – in their hearts they all pray and hope that some day their great works are banned and they would be the most sought after celebrities on every national TV channel and their book is flashed across as they hide their immense joy and feign to be the victim of some political vendetta. Why dont they respect your freedom - the freedom to ban books - or, more precisely, remove them from the syllabus, that is?

Dr. Welukar, you’ve done a good job – but, I would urge you to go that extra mile and change the way educational institutes function. Stop this age old practice of prescribing books for the syllabus. Students don’t like to read any book that is forced upon them, you see. Have you not seen how these youngsters doze off as soon as a prescribed text-book is opened? Don’t we see how they take immediately to books that are ‘forbidden’ instead? Let the Mumbai University bring about the much-needed change – go ahead and publish a list of banned and forbidden books instead! Make sure to include all those books that urge you to think, to change the wicked ways of this world, to make things happen in your lifetime. They challenge the way we are, they way we think and work – they ask us to change our ways! Well, some of us are sure to be offended by something or the other – they ought to be banned – each one of them. Go that extra mile, Dr. Welukar! There’s nothing better one can do to make people shut off the idiot box and settle down to read a book!

Foo(le)d by a Diet!

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Thanks, Blogadda, for picking my post for the Spicy Saturday posts!

Although, I am not exactly a health food fanatic, i have been taking some interest in health foods along with some of my acquaintances. I get my regular dose of information about what we ought to eat and what we ought to avoid via email forwards. Such emails, however, do not stop me from digging into my favourite Bengali sweets or fried foods. All these messages do, is to tell me that eating fresh fruits, dry fruits, raw vegetables would do us a great deal of good, unlike binge eating and gorging on fast foods like burgers, samosas or doughnuts – and – you guessed, it my favourite Bengali sweets!

Some years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a unique life-improvement corporate program conducted in-house by our company, in which an iota of “realisation” occurred – that God had arranged to produce fruits, vegetables for us to savour in its purest forms. I guess it must’ve been some primitive Stone Age man who invented fire and forced his wife to cook his meal for him! Calling us to shun processed foods, cooked foods and returning back to nature, Urging us to turn into “Vegans”, who eat only raw foods was just one aspect of the many beneficial aspects of life that this unique, useful and enlightening course offered – like pranayam and meditation.

Although one could completely agree with the thought process, it was quite a task to completely give up biscuits, cakes, sweets and more important the home-made meals cooked so lovingly at home! All that one achieved was to increase the proportion of fresh fruits and raw vegetables in our meals and observe a one-day-in-a-week vegan diet to “detoxify” ourselves. While rest of the week one merrily “toxified” to one’s heart’s content!

But looking around, we find many people around us becoming more conscious of their diet and seek to bring about some rewarding lifestyle changes to lead a better life. Take the plight of one such friend, who has largely switched to a fresh fruits diet. “We don’t get any green bananas these days”, he mentioned to me, “Only yellow bananas!”

“You mean the Velchi variety?” I asked.

“No – the yellow as in the ‘golden yellow’ variety. The ones which we initially thought to be some superior form evolved by the laws of evolution - and we even paid a premium for them! They turned out to be ripened using some chemical, perhaps calcium carbide, by scrupulous traders to make a fast buck. So I cannot eat bananas anymore!”

“Cant eat apples either – they apply wax and some toxic red colour to make them attractive”. Soon enough, we got several email forwards telling us how fruits are being pre-maturely ripened using toxic chemicals or waxed and coloured! These mails went around the world a dozen times…

So now the entire universe knows about these malpractices! But there haven’t been any reports of any crack downs on fruit vendors or wholesalers. On the contrary this recent TOI Study about Honey containing a number of antibiotics is another blow to those who may want to use Honey instead of Sugar to sweeten their lives! So what can we expect in future? Steroids in milk? (So our athletes can give an excuse of unknowing consuming some undisclosed ingredients when they test positive at dope tests?) Or maybe aphrodisiacs in eggs? Or better still, we may learn about some secret ingredient providing longevity found in our favourite brand of whisky?

Jokes apart, the question that comes to our mind is: Have the regulators, namely our Food and Drug Administration, lost the plot? Or have they lost their soul - and the very purpose of their existence? Even hard-nosed advocates of government deregulation would bend to their knees, begging them for better regulatory measures. After all it is a matter of our health – which is above everything else in life, isn’t it?!

No wonder we read about citizen activist groups exposing milk adulteration rackets, that dodge these regulators so easily! Apparently, the only way to go for those really concerned by these developments is to follow the footsteps of those, who have already being concerned about the pesticides used in growing vegetables, taken to rural lands to grow vegetables in their own farms and even offer “organic farm produce” to citizens willing to pay a premium for good old natural veggies. One such initiative from Vandana Shiva is NavaDanya.

For Heaven’s sake – let us get what we choose to have. Hey we call ourselves a democracy! Even if we really want to be toxified – let us choose our own toxins – and get us the very same toxins we ordered for – not any other!

The (Mis)Interpretation of Lucid Dreams

Before movie reviewers and armchair experts convince you that the recent Sci-fi action thriller, INCEPTION, is a story that most Indian viewers have found difficult to understand, let me assure you, that it is not so. It is amazing how youngsters are influenced by columnists and bloggers these days and wear the puzzled look like the latest cosmetic fad – coming out with a sulky face with question marks written all over implying they haven’t understood the plot! The truth is that there are as many versions of the story as viewers of this mind-boggling blockbuster.

For those who haven’t watched the movie – it is about how to steal business secrets by going off to sleep and entering competitor’s dreams to find what’s in his subconscious mind and what plans and fears reside there. Then there is a plot to plant an idea in his mind. An idea, we’re told is as potentially dangerous (or was it helpful?) as a virus, bacteria or superbug like NDM-1 or a New Delhi Minister.

Being privileged to mingle with government officials of the central, state and local municipal bodies, dealing with some of the scores of indirect taxes levied in our country, one found that prime-time activities in these offices included discussing how completely they understood the movie. After being offered free tickets by their assessee firms, they confirmed how completely they could understand and identify with the new professional heist who “steal dreams“, for a living!

“In totem” they said! Maybe they meant “in toto”.

Once back in my office, I began to wonder, what is it, that they would have liked about the movie? For one, it could be the profession of the protagonist, Dom Cobb, an “extractor of dreams”, may have had many similarities with theirs. To begin with, both enjoyed the perks of sleeping on their job! With a lucrative offer from warring business barons, Cobb designed joint-dreaming, sort of like team-work. Ditto in Government offices, one learnt.

Secondly, the more the team dreamt together, more were the chances of extraction - of real-life moolah, of course. So as not to provide spoilers, one would not elaborate how it worked with the on-screen characters, but let me tell you in real life – the longer one slept on an application of urgent requirement of the enterprise wanting to capture the universe with its aggressive business expansion plans, the better the prospects of “extraction”.

Thirdly, if one who has ever been assigned setting up manufacturing operations by getting government clearances, would have experienced sleepless nights and constant daymares, which are difficult to come out of - without a kick(back). All that these wonderful folks could not understand was the need to transgress into dreams?

Such sufferers of lack of sleep may find their way to mendicants handing out potions to induce slumber, very much like Cobb’s team in the movie. Having tried several pills, my professional friends with similar predicaments, recently invited me to deliver a lecture on such mundane subjects as coping with the professional hazards that one often found daunting to overcome in our trade. It was not long before one learnt that none of the participants really wanted to learn any new trick that one may have up one’s sleeve, but that my delivered lecture had all the qualities of the best sedative to put one to the deepest of sleeps possible under the given circumstances for the sleep-deprived brethren, whose projects are always “IN LIMBO” like the deepest dreams in the movie.

One also encountered a completely different view-point from friends, who felt that our local film industry, popularly known as Bollywood, would have done greater justice to the plot! One would have witnessed several romances, once one gets into someone else’s dreams, which could inevitably culminate in lavish marriage ceremonies breaking out into a mass hysterical song and dance sequence, in which one could wed partners of your choice, without really upsetting the reality carts in the real-life world. There is a distinct possibility of “projected characters”, usually in the form of ex-lovers, could fight over the bride at the ceremonial occasion in various joint dreams. The music rendered for the production could be a heist of a kind - although without really having to enter anyone’s dreams. Heists of different hues are, one would bet, debating the need to put one to sleep to enter their dreams, when the preferred modus operandi was to do it in broad daylight under the very eyes of the vigilante forces and concerned activists in public life over a cup of high tea.

Blogger’s Postscript: 1. Inspite of the attempt to convey the meaning of this post to all readers including those who haven’t watched the movie - INCEPTION, it may be a good idea to watch the movie and though, I cannot guarantee that you will understand the plot in the movie, but you will certainly appreciate this post a wee bit better.

2. Then there is this piece i read today in Bombay Times supplement of TOI by Nikhat Kazmi, which may contain spoilers.

The Meter Jam Campaign

I have always been wondering whether commuters can demonstrate their ire against errant auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers for refusing to ferry us to the destinations of our choice. Recently I promised a friend to visit him after my office hours to return a book I had borrowed from him. I was refused by no less than 15 autorickshaw drivers to ply to that destination. I called him up and expressed my regret. May be some other day, I assured him.

On another instance, I was with my wife wanting to return home from our shopping expedition, when the same happened. This time around a friendly Traffic cop asked us to get into the next rickshaw that arrived and told us we ought to tell them to take us wherever we want them to go and not ask them whether they would go! It worked. But I just wondered whether if not for his presence, whether our insistence would work? When I tried it out again – it didn’t! I had to get off huffing and puffing at the adamant guy.

When I received some email forwards providing the web-links to the Traffic Police sites where complaints of such nature (including higher fares etc) could be entered for them to take action against errant licensed auto-rickshaws and taxis.

Here are the links:
For Mumbai

For Thane Area

For Navi Mumbai Area

But frankly I did not try them out. Often I foun that these guys cruise past you at a quick pace making it difficult for you to note down their vehicle numbers! We need to hail them to a halt and get in and note down their number before leaving in future!

So one keeps wondering what can we harassed commuters do if the dadagiri-attitude of the licensed service providers continues unabated?

The recent initiative by Three advertising professionals Jaidev Rupani, Rachna Brar and Abhilash Krishnan, by launching the "Meter Jam" campaign on Wednesday is an answer to this question on every Mumbaikar’s mind.

Do read about the Meter Jam campaign in the links below:

Article in Hindustan Times

The Website of Meter Jam Campaign

Facebook Page

and Twitter Page

Do join the Meter Jam campaign – I am certain it is only the beginning – a good one at that – though there is lots to do - perhaps an extended and intensive campaign - to get what we deserve – a better life in Maximum City!