The quintessential conversation among middle aged Indians

I’ve recently moved to a new Unit in the office and so am interacting with a whole lot of people who are new to me. On the same note, I must also add that I am also new to them.

 

As I was easing into the new job, I had to chat online with a lady to get access to some applications. She gave me the access, I thanked her and then we had this chat…

 

She: Does your kid study in **** school?

Me: No

She: Oh, I thought I’ve seen you there

Me: No, actually, I’m single!

She: Is it, I am sorry

Me: Its ok.

 

Some two weeks back, we went out to a team lunch and one of the senior guys was catching up and this came up…..

 

He: Where are your kids studying?

Me: Oh, I am still single!

 

Then a couple of days back, there was another lady, who during a coffee break suddenly flaunted her kid’s pic to us. And right after she locked her phone….

She: What are your kids doing?

Me: Well, actually I’m single!

 

Now, these instances pretty much sum up the quintessential conversations among middle aged Indians when they meet for the first time. It basically is the presumptuous query about the number of kids that the other person has and what they do (as in where they study). That much we all know and have come across in life.

 

But worried me was the response I gave each time, that I am single. As if, the marital status of “single” has anything to do with the number of kids a person can have! That was the other clear indication to me that I am turning out to be one of those quintessential middle aged Indians! 

Steve Jobs, Apple and India

Let me clarify up front that this post has been written purely based on whatever limited knowledge I have about Steve Jobs and Apple. And believe me, that knowledge is indeed limited.
There wont be any statistical references anywhere, so if you see some numbers, it is basically a gut feel that I have.
This post is driven more by assumptions than by facts.
But the good news is that, I am willing to publish all comments that help me correct my views, if they are proven to be wrong.
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Unless you are KumbhaKarna or Rip Van Winkle or any other such character, you should know by now that Steve Jobs, may his soul rest in peace, is no longer alive. If you are indeed KK or RVW or aosc, you now know that SJ is no longer alive.

Indian Moon Mission - Chandrayaan

Lost in the midst of all the hoopla over the Economic Meltdown, “Hindu Terrorism”, Obama’s victory, Somali pirates, retirement of Indian Cricketers, Sri Lankan Tamil issue and my dear friend Nilu’s incessant courtship of his fiancee before his wedding on 20th November, is one of India’s greatest achievements in the realm of science – The Moon Mission or Chandrayaan.

I don’t want to go into the delightful statistics surrounding the success of this mission from India; one can find all that here. There was only one question lingering in my mind – WHY?

For a nation with a significant percentage of people living below the poverty line, I was really wondering about the need to spend more than Rs.375 Crore to launch a satellite to the moon. An interesting answer to that question is here.

As a resident of Chennai I fully understand how Electricity starved we are and clearly appreciate the fact that if Chennai were to get steady electricity, we need help from outside the earth. But what about the millions of people in India who are literally starved? There are so many who don’t even have access to potable drinking water? What about the countless farmers committing suicide across the country?

I feel that the funds used for the Moon Mission could have been used to fuel the next Green Revolution. It could have been used to develop indigenous Reverse Osmosis Plants to solve the water problem in many coastal cities. It can be used to build reservoir systems to regulate the availability of water and even generate power from these reservoirs. Or the funds could even be used towards mass production of medicines.

Maybe I don’t fully understand the significance of this scientific achievement. Pretty much like how I don’t really appreciate the Particle Collider experiment too.

Having said all that, I must still acknowledge the folks at ISRO (not that they are waiting for my approval) who have definitely done something that they can be proud of. And as all of them talked about, the day when they send an Indian to the moon is not really very far away.

Talking of the man on the moon, how can I not refresh the memory of my dear readers with this mega மொக்கை:

கே: சாதாரண மனிதனுக்கும் Neil Armstrong-க்கும் என்ன வித்யாசம்?
ப: சாதாரண மனிதன் ஒண்ணுக்கும் ரெண்டுக்கும் தான் போவான், ஆனா Neil Armstrong மூணுக்கே போயிருக்கான்!!!

Indian flag and anthem

My mother had her cataract surgery in the first week of August at Rajan Eye Care. One week later, we were asked to come there for a review.

The date happened to be a Friday. August 15th to be precise. So there was a small celebration organised by the clinic, which included the hoisting of our national flag.

There were 3-4 foreign - read Caucasian - folks going around the place and they were being aided by a couple of people from the clinic. It was clear that they were not patients and seemed to be some kinda high profile visitors. The chief doctor, then introduced this group of visitors as being eminent physicians and social activists from Australia who had come to India on some kind of study program. They had also participated in a couple of free eye camps.

After the round of introductions were completed, Dr.Rajan then asked one of these Australian folks to unfurl the Indian flag. He did that and then everyone sang the National Anthem in the most nonchalant manner possible. It was not that the people singing were the patients at the hospital. It was very much the doctors, para-medical staff, office attendants and people accompanying the patients who were witnessing this flag hoisting ceremony. Yet, the collective decibel recorded would have been lower than that of a ringing cycle bell. For crying out loud, the ghastly "naaka mooka" song comes out louder on mute!

I can understand a whole bunch of grown-up people not wanting to sing in public. But we are not in a singing competition right? And aren't we duty bound as citizens to sing it? Could it be only shyness that stopped people from singing it or was it a case of people not knowing the national anthem properly? If it was the latter then we are looking at a much larger problem.

Anyways, my bigger concern or question was about the hoisting of the flag. I was somehow not at all comfortable with an Australian unfurling the Indian flag and that too on our Independence day. Why did the chief doctor pass up the opportunity of hoisting it himself? Or why didn't he give the honor to someone in his employment? He could have even asked one of the old people who were there to hoist the flag. But, he approached the foreigner to do the honors. And was he actually doing something honorable by getting a foreigner to unfurl the flag?

I tried looking up the Internet for some official word on whether foreign nationals can hoist our flag. I didn't get a concrete yes or no; or at least I need a professional opinion from someone practising the law, like Neelu, to interpret it for me.

P.S.: Turns out that 2 weeks back, one of my namesakes in this wide world, had the "exact same" doubt and he has asked it here.

True patriotism

I read this article in the newspaper this morning and I was really astounded to see the lady take such a truly patriotic stand. Her husband is all set to be hanged and yet she has the courage to say this.

Maa tujhe salaam!

The hype over the new seven wonders

First of all, I find the very concept of "Seven Wonders" quite idiotic. Just common sense will make you question the basis on which the very concept came about.

And then there was this media frenzy and hype about having our Taj Mahal become a Seven Wonder. What the ?

What do you gain by making that tomb a Seven Wonder? Do you think that people don't know about that monument? Any travel brochure for India, has a picture of that. All international Government representatives who visit the country are paraded there. All international sports persons are taken there for the standard photo op.

So, do you think that all this non-stop propaganda was required?

And if you even think a little bit more, you will realise that this whole exercise is the brainchild of some private trust/organisation. And its not an org' that is very well recognised. If I had the money power, I would have set up a thingy myself, got some publicity seeking celebrities (are there any other kind) to endorse my group, then hire a good marketing firm and voila, I can have another set of seven wonders poll going on.

What irked me most was the insane number of emails that were being forwarded by "Gen-I" (Gen X, Y and Z are passe. Gen-I is for the iPod generation.) was quite simply mind-blowing. It amazes me that people who pass all kinds of aptitude tests involving so much of logic and maths, are unable to comprehend the simple fact that this whole initiative is stupid.

And ultimately, the only probable entity that could have given a stamp of approval for the whole event was UNESCO. And they have very clearly distanced themselves from this.

So, all that happened was countries - read third-world countries and border-line developed ones - that had easier access to SMS and Internet, voted en masse to the ones nominated from their country (obviously) and voila, you now have a new seven wonders list that excludes some REAL WONDERS.

If you want more details on the kind of money made by the mobile operators, the marketing groups and the organisation that started this vote campaign, please see the attached picture of an article in the Tamizh weekly KALKI.


Simple translation:
Number of SMSes polled = 1.2 Crores
Cost charged by mobile companies = Rs.3.00 per SMS (its a value service to send SMS to some special numbers)
Total = 3.6 Crore Ruppees.
The share:
Mobile companies = 75 %
Government = 15 %
The organisation conducting the survey = 10 %.

These are figures only in India. Just add all the thickly populated third-world countries and imagine the kind of money people must have made.

I hope someone somewhere does indeed wake-up and announce publicly, what a big sham this whole event is.

More details can be had in this article from today's The Hindu.

I saw a lady rise up from the middle of the road

An incident happened last week or the week before. I was driving my car and was on my way home.

Near Tambaram Railway station, you can always see lots of people crossing the road at various points. The point to be noted that for a good stretch, the GST has pretty big road dividers - regular concrete medians that are like 3 feet tall.

However a small portion of the road does not have this type of median. The police have placed the standard metal dividers in that stretch.

Naturally, people have a tendency to use the gaps between two such barricades and cross the road. But what I saw that day was really scary.

I was near this stretch and around 25-30 feet in front of me, I saw this apparition in the middle of the road. Upon keener observation, I realised that it was a lady. The interesting thing was, it looked like she was emerging from the tar road. Just when I neared her, I found this big gap between two of these barricades. Since it was at a lower height, she had actually crawled thru this gap.

For someone watching this spectacle towards the end of the show, it looked as if she she was rising up from the earth. But alas, she was only a human being (theoretically that is).

And I took a picture of the gap more than a week after I witnessed the above mentioned theatrics. Its a pity that I couldn't capture the event itself on camera.

Its time to say goodbye to Indian Cricket

At the outset, let me make it clear that I was an avid cricket fan till around the year 2000. That's the year I went to USA and got cut off from live cricket telecasts. That was also the year when my idol Kapil Dev was accused of match fixing.

To me that was the last straw. The whole match fixing allegations were making a sceptic out of me and when Kapil was accused, I basically lost it. I totally got away from cricket. Hated the players, the administrators and all the media folks who were trying to milk maximum coverage out of this scandal.

I practically gave up on cricket. The guys around me used to follow games on the internet. At odd hours too. Some of them were even planning to install dish antenna and subscribe to Indian channels. But I never did.

Even after I returned to India, my interest never reached the levels of say, 1999. I was probably indifferent to the whole thing. But being in the country, meant that one cant really escape the sport. It was telecast on most channels. Newspapers dedicated lots of newsprint to the most mundane of series. Ads were created with every Indian cricketer for many many products.

My interest did revive, but not I still didn't try to work my schedules around the matches. I caught up with the games only if I was done with other things in a day.

But this World Cup, somehow made me want to follow the games. But the debacle in the opening game itself - that was a shock reminder for me. It proved very clearly that this Indian team is a tiger on paper and not even a mouse in reality.

One thing though, that's always been the case with all Indian teams. So many of them have some of the best individual records. But none of these have actually translated into victories for the team.

We Indians are big suckers for romantic touches in sport. So we devote lot of time and space to all these batsmen who are best when:
1. The ball reaches them at an ideal speed of 120 Kph.
2. The ball does not move in any direction after pitching.
3. The ball does not raise above the knee level.

Being a great business house, the BCCI has ensured that we somehow get the worst possible teams to visit us. The Tendulkars and Gangulys maul these poor bowlers and the next day we hail them as the "World's greatest batsman" or "The Prince of Kolkatta". Probably, the only player worth his sobriquet is Dravid "The Wall".

All these guys have records worth killing for. But look at the BCCI's trophy cupboard. Its absolutely barren. Not the case with its coffers, but unfortunately that's where the BCCI's interests lie.

But its not that the BCCI is the only culprit. There are many others. I am not going to enter into any discussion about Dravid's captaincy or Chappell's coaching. Those are too technical for me and ultimately, I only feel its a matter of perception.

For me, the entire blame lies on the senior players in the team. Primarily Sachin. We have been deifying him for many many years now. Like I mentioned in an earlier posting, he is a spent force. Was a great player, no doubt, but less than a mere mortal these days.

Even in his heydays, I think you can easily count the number of critical matches where he has performed well. I am talking about matches like semi-finals or finals or elimination games. Invariably he IS A FAILURE. I don't care about how many gazillion runs you scored in your life. My father tells me that I once scored 705 runs against him, when I was only 7 years old, so am I better than him. If you cant perform when it matters, just shut the bleep up and pack your bags.

Next Sourav. Everyone went ballistic when he was dropped. The guy couldn't even score against Kenya for crying out loud. Once again, he was an exciting prospect, but not so in the last couple of years of his captaincy. He crossed the point of being aggressive and practically became arrogant. Its a fine line and he crossed it quite quickly.

He did make a good comeback. I don't deny that. I even admire his patience and guts and determination in wanting to come back and actually coming back. Its a different deal that his replacements were no better, but during the time he was away, he did have a few decent performances and so his re-selection was not an issue. But look at the insane number of balls he was facing to score his runs. Horrendous strike rate which definitely caused some concern to his team, but no one dare talk about it.

Lesser said about Viru the better. Not withstanding his 100 against Bermuda, he needs to be dropped. It was fun when he batted well, but he needs to spend some solid time at the nets.

Rahul - Has started showing some inconsistencies of late. But my money is still on him making a 50 than anyone else in this team.

Not gonna say much about the bowling, because I think that was one area where we performed decently. But, I must add that Harbajan is no longer the threat he used to be.

One thing that all the experts kept saying. The experiments by the coach and captain caused too much confusion. Say what? Did they ask Zaheer Khan to stop bowling and open the batting? Did they ask Yuvraj to open the bowling and operate at speeds in excess of 140 Kph?

No. The expectation was a slight modification to what they normally do. Pathan's batting was good. So they asked him to move up the order. He performed. If he "lost" his bowling, what do you mean by that? Did he stop bowling at the nets and did only batting? Then Sachin. He cant play at #4 is it? Isn't that where he plays while batting? But in one-dayers, he cant come there? Why? If the field is spread out, he cant hit 4s is it? Then why call him God?

If after years and years of playing cricket, you cannot make such subtle adjustments to your game, then get the bloody hell out.

Why don't these cricketers spend more time playing domestic tournaments? Why cant they play more county cricket? Just look at Zaheer and Sourav. Their game has surely improved after they played hours and hours of first class cricket.

But our Gods, would rather play only the Ranji finals and that too as captain. Otherwise, who cares about it. Unfortunately, even the others in the team emulate the "great one" in this aspect. They don't play for their state or zone until they are dropped from the Indian team. But two or three decent performances later, they get back in through the quota system and then that's it.

I don't want to write up anymore on this. All I want to say is that I feel very sorry for the average Indian Cricket fan who is now burning effigies. Its not his fault that he feels let down. The cricketers and to a very large extent, the electronic media, make the most trivial series sound like its the World Cup. They kick up the passions of the fans. They make Gods out of mere mortals. And when things are going fine, nobody objects to this deification. No cricketer has the guts to say that this is wrong. Nobody appeals to the fans to remain calm and not celebrate an ordinary victory over Kenya like you've won the championship. No sponsor requests the Indian fan to keep calm. No critic worth his salt says anything bad major chinks in the armor. Why don't all of you ask the average fan to remain steady. Why don't you tell him that "its only a game".

But a loss to a low team at a big stage like a World Cup, should be treated by the average fan "as part of the game"? Why should he? You have told him that Sachin is the world's greatest batsman. You've told him that on the Off side, there is God and then Sourav. You only said that The Wall is always there. You said the Nawab of Najafgarh will belt the bowlers all over the park. You said that Yuvi is the coolest dude. You said that Dhoni makes the 'anhoni' (impossible) a 'honi' (possible). You said so many other things and asked the average fan to believe you.

Why do you say the other things now?

The media, the critics, the experts - all of you are one sick bunch of bums who will talk where the money is. Just shut the bleep up and go home.

Its time the average Indian fan said goodbye to Indian Cricket. May it rest in peace.

Indians in space

This is a rather old topic, but something that has bothered me.

I was totally peeved at the attitude of the media, for the coverage they are/were giving to Kalpana Chawla and Sunitha Williams. Why do they keep harping that an Indian is in space.

THEY ARE NOT INDIANS. WHY DOESN'T ANYONE ACCEPT THAT THEY ARE AMERICANS?

Just because part of their name suggests a connection to India, doesn't qualify them to be Indians. At least in the case of Kalpana, she was only a naturalised citizen of USA since she married a citizen there. She was born here, studied here, went to USA for higher studies and then life took a turn for the better/worse.

Yet, the kind of media frenzy that was attached to her was shocking. I simply cannot accept the glorification of someone who has renounced the citizenship of my country for personal development. She may have had very noble intentions and you could appreciate her for successfully achieving her dream and goal. But as Indians, shouldn't we be offended that she actually stopped being an Indian to achieve what she wanted to? So why the bloody hell do we need to deify her? Why create awards and scholarships in her name? She was someone who didn't even visit India for the last 15 years or so of her life!!!

Did you know that she had already gone on a space mission in 97? Was there so much coverage then? No. She goes on an ill-fated mission (God bless her soul) and voila she is the darling of India. What rubbish...

Even worse, is the case of Sunitha Williams. She is an American by birth. Her father is a naturalised citizen who emigrated to USA from Gujarat in the early 50s/60s. I don't think that lady has ever visited India. But once again, for this space mission of hers, there's so much coverage and stories.. Yikes. It really scares me.

Agreed we Indians are bereft of role models in the realm of science, but does that mean that we glorify such people? Aren't we then giving out a message that if you want to be a successful Indian, stop being one?

To me, the one and only Indian in space till date is Rakesh Sharma. I wonder how many of today's kids actually know this. In fact, I will admit this myself. I forgot his first name. I remembered he was a Sharma. I even remembered the broadcast on Doordarshan when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him how India looked from there and he responded "Saaray jahaan saey achcha, Hindustan hamaaraa" (It may very well have been a scripted conversation, but yet it was quite moving). But I had to use the help of Google to get his first name. So, I wont be surprised if the kids these days refuse to accept that a TRUE INDIAN has actually gone to space much before any of these non-Indians.

Jai Hind.

Partial bulbs to my posts

2 weeks back, I had posted this article about the True Indian Sportsperson.
I said some good things about that lady and also bad things about the Indian cricket team.
Then the girl's medal is withdrawn on technical grounds.
And the Indian cricket team scores its first Test win in South Africa.

Though it wasnt really a foot in the mouth moment, I think this was quite close. In any case, I feel sad for Shanthi. I think its the fault of the Indian Olympics Association to have made her participate in Doha, knowing the history. I truly hope they do something that could help correct this imbalance in her and let her participate in future competitions without any hassle.

And the win in cricket, I like it a lot. It was a real team effort. And Sreesanth sure gave us a lot of moments to cheer and smile.

True Indian Sportsperson

Was having a chat with Neeluking on Sunday evening when he commented on numerous aunts and grammas commenting about cricket. His objections, quite rightfully so, were towards their attitude to comment on anything and everything that they perceived were against India. He was upset that an exquisite shot from Lara was condemned whereas, a french-cut from Dhoni was eulogised.

I agree totally with him. We as a country have always been obsessed with cricket. Probably its the only sport where we have at least a chance of being the best, at least on paper.

Lets face it. The Indian cricket team has always been a bunch of over-hyped occasional performers. There are some exceptions, but then they are just that - exceptions.

And in this day and age, with the media coverage being what it is, I simply cannot accept people's blind acceptance of one person by name Sachin Tendulkar.

He WAS one of India's finest batsmen. He WAS the world's greatest batsman for a year or max two. He HAS had some great innings in the PAST.

But very clearly he is a thing of the PAST. Has he had a decent series in the last 2-3 years? The supporters will immediately jump in to say that he scored a century after he returned from a major injury. I don't deny it. But after that? NOTHING.

If you compare his stats against, say even Ganguly, he doesn't appear any better. But while Ganguly lost out due to lack of a Godfather, that problem never came up for Mr.Tendulkar. He has so many Godfathers in the BCCI basically by virtue of being a Mumbaikar, that he might as well not play for 2 years (like he has been doing for the past few years) and he will still be revered.

Just imagine. If you paint the true picture of Sachin, people will start baying for his blood. Then what happens to all the crores and crores of money that Pepsi, Boost, MRF and many many more Corporates have paid him to endorse their products? To save their big investment, these people pay quacks like Sunil G, Ravi S, Harsha B and countless others to air their expert opinion in all forms of media.

For all his recent failures (and by recent, I mean to say 2-3 years; that's recent enough in terms of the number of years for which this third rock from the sun has been in existence) these experts have either of these two things to say: "He has been carrying a big injury" or the ubiquitous "Form is temporary, Class is permanent".

I will tell you what? Bring back all the people who played for India. Their form today will be quite bad, but their class is great.

But NO. We will continue to idolise ST. Reel off stats on how many centuries he has scored. The total number of runs he has hit. What his contribution to an Indian victory is. No sir. That we will never talk.

When the Indian Govt condemned the inappropriate usage of the Indian Flag and brought regulation, so many people raised a big hue and cry. Oh, Sachin will no longer be able to wear the flag on his helmet. What a true national, but still he cant display it. BS.

What do these idiots know about playing for the country? All this pride that they want to exhibit, its only because they have to mask the true reason why they play. Money. Fame. Not country's pride.

Against all this, I want to bring to your attention the below two links. These are from the Doha Asiad that's going on now. Please visit the site and read about what being a True Indian Sportsperson is all about.

You think we will talk about her after a year or so. No. She will fade away into oblivion. She doesn't play cricket. Nor is she photogenic. Unfortunately, those are bad things to have on your resume, if you are trying to make it big in Indian sports.
Link 1
Link 2

Who said India is a poor country???

All said and done, its a frigging plastic water bottle and someone's gonna pay almost 500 ruppees for it??????