Ajith Nair

The Insurance industry has a lot to learn from Narendra ‘bhai’. He sells fear of death better than anyone does and this is one sauda where the Gujju doesn’t look at the bhav, he simple buys it. Sar kaatke jiyo, seems to be the triumphant line that 49% of Gujarat seems to be uttering and how. From Gandhigiri to Modigiri from Gandhinagar to Modinagar, from walking miles to make salt to using guile to shield assault, the state has seen it all. To be fair to the man, he’s ushered in development in a state that has always seen calamity, natural or man-made. Development is the sheep’s clothes that the wolf wears, and the polity loves this attire. Predictably, there is a confusing enigma of a quasi carnivore, with the rare slip through of carnal instincts but also the oft portrayal of the loh purush. There is an orgy of fear, caution, awe, respect, admiration and daresay love that gets evoked when the bearded brahmachari brews brouhaha. He’s larger than the party; the sangh blood in him has d

Flatters to deceive. It’s a bit like Sachin getting out to a full toss after a lovely start. The bad part: The second half could have been another movie. In fact, I wish it were. Hangs like an orphan, poor cousin to a hilarious first half. It’s like sending Chanderpaul out to bat after Lara’s scored a quick fire 60, what a let down. The facts will read a bit like a lousy blood report, but some things have to be said. The ending is a rip off from Karz and Madhumati, wife tells me so. The rip off isn’t all that spectacular and seems a bit like a designer cut gone horribly wrong. Deepika is mostly silent and that’s the highlight, cos she can’t do too much with her face than flaunt her lovely eyes and omnipresent dimple. This part sees the re-birth sequence, a deja ‘woo’ of Arjun Ram-pall into confessing his crime and a chandelier climax. There also is the endless party number where the entire film fraternity is on screen, most being ones who aren’t doing too much work nowadays. Shahrukh h

An FM channel which plays great Hindi classics was living up to its track record by playing melancholic Mukesh. The cab driver, instantly, switched to the latest Om Shanti Om number and let it stay. I tried to thinking about the last time I had heard a sad song in a new movie release, it was futile. Not that I am a Bollywood buff, but my First Day First Show friends struggled too. In fact, we struggled to name many recent tragedies, except ones like Himesh Reshammiya who are quite tragic, whether in movies or not. The age of melancholy and self pity is out. Looks like the age of celebration, fanfare, and ostentation is here to stay, not just in the movies. We seem to celebrate everything as if it were the last time we’d do it. T20 victory to kid’s birthday parties, Sensex booms to Shahrukh’s six pack. The event becomes irrelevant in the light of the celebration. Celebrity marriages are more about who’s attending, who’s performing, hardly about who’s wedding. The other day’s T20 match

A weekend is too short or long depending on whether you’re in office or not. A fortnight back, wife n I decided on a quick exile to the hilly confines of Yercaud (220 km from Bangalore). Hopes of simple living, high thinking led us to the TTDC resort (Tamilnadu Resort), more like last resort in retrospect. Our room supposedly a super deluxe cottage had heritage bathrooms and lots of fauna to boot. The ‘heritage bathroom’, we discovered, was heritage because it hadn’t been cleaned since Rajaraja Chola rode that way many a century ago. It was dimly lit; almost as if it wanted to go unnoticed, in shame. Hot water was confined to within the large sized geyser and didn’t quite manage to find its way out of the tap. Cold water was full of self doubt and made sporadic appearances, making bathing a dry and wet affair. The room had flowery curtains which made you wonder if someone in the vicinity had been relieved of their worn out clothes. Fauna included snails, spiders, grasshoppers and some

T20 is just like what we used to play every weekend as teenagers. 8 over matches, hard tennis ball, no care in the world and a 1000 window panes to knock over. Hardly any time to settle down; see the bowling and all those nice things mentioned in the coaching manuals. It was downright scything from the word go, some did it better with technique, others just did it. As evening approached 8 overs would come down to 6 and the attitude would become more scavengers like. Standing 4 ft outside the crease to a fast ball, attempting impossible singles, getting away with it, running off overthrows, mock running off every ball, fighting with umpires and crying hoarse on parched mouths shouting abuses at someone who bungled. At the end of the day, there would have been 6 ‘matches’ and a cool kitty of money if it had been our day. Otherwise there would be hell breaking loose, with accusations flying at a rate that would put Ferrari to shame. Dhoni and his boys, took this to a different level, so d

Ram didn’t remember too much about his village back in Maharashtra except for the face of his mother at sleep, the day that he’d decided to escape. The sparsely occupied room had stood mute while he packed a small rucksack of his torn shorts and shirts, two of them. As the sun rose, Ram was sitting atop a generous bullock cart which would take him to the nearest bus station 50 km away. 12 years passed, during which he had never written to his mother, he had never learnt how to. His only link back home was two hundred rupees that he sent her every month, without fail. The money might bring a smile to her face and tell her that all was well with her son. A Sunday evening when he had finished delivering all the courier letters, Ram stood next to the sea. He loved doing this, as among the thousands of people who thronged there Sunday evening, he was anonymous. He was not the son of the farmer who lost hope and committed suicide; he was not the brother of two sisters who had been married o

Choice is always welcome, especially if it involves something that’s remained a monopoly for 80 years . In fact, it’s quite surprising that this didn’t take place concomitant with the liberalization of the economy. We had newer cars, the congress lost power regularly, more variety of soap (both TV and bathing) but the same cricket board. The problem with the BCCI, for ever and recently has been that non- cricketers have been taking decisions on behalf of cricketers. So you have an agricultural minister who runs both Baramati and BCCI, the man who preceded him was a seasoned baniya. Cricket some might argue is serious business; my contention is that is its cricket first and business later. So do we have genuine choice now, I don’t think so. Subhash Chandra is a shrewd businessman, don’t know too much about how much he loves cricket. He’s roped in the man who brought tears to eyes in 1983 and tears to his own eyes in 2000. The Haryana Hurricane is now an emotional whirlwind with a financ

After Killings, Sense of Unity Surprises Newark

The Times carried a thought provoking article on which way the world could be headed. Our lives are increasingly governed by the principles of exclusion. Some of these examples readily come to mind 1. Our housing societies have multiple layers of security, not the smallest of insects could steal their way in. Have you ever noticed how any stranger who 'walks' into a society gets treated at the gate by the watchmen compared to say someone who drives in? 2. We have AC cars that shut the smells of the city out and tinted glasses that effectively color our view of dirty uncleaned streets and urchin 3. Even when we walk, we effectively use ear plugs of all kinds that dish out music to the ears... who wants to hear the traffic honk or the cacophony at the railway station 4. Ever noticed the ease with which people dismiss slums off when the make statements like these "I've just bought a flat, actually it's under construction. You know what, I got a steal cos there are sl

Bobilli Vijaykumar has a lot to write everyday, considering that he seems to be the only spors journalist that TOI has. In today's TOI he typefies the Indian attitude to wins After running through the article, you'd probably think that the title doesn't do justice to the content. The first half is a diatribe, the second half eulogy of sorts. For me this typefies how journalists today are shallow opinion makers who don't have the conviction to follow through and play the long hard innings. Learned cricket lovers will empathise with Dravid, Vaughan being the first. For a team labelled poor travelers, this move was conservative yes, cowardly, no. The same journalist would have pounded Dravid to pieces if we'd asked the Poms to follow on and lost. Remember, we don't have a great record batting last, do we?. So the phrase BVK uses " A few scared minds and a defensive approach" does not do justice to the kind of cricket that we played through this series. Za

Here's something from Yahoo on traffic cops in China wonder what is the red signal age for the Mama who stands grinding tambaku (tobacco) at Mumbai traffic signals and is a poster boy for making a quick buck? Maybe we do have the answer for his corrupt practices- bad salary, pathetic work conditions and a from what this article says short life span. Who wouldn't want to maximise returns? Would be interesting to see the link between the age of dead traffic cops and how corrupt they were. Two perspectives that could be examined 1. Did these guys know that they're short lived and hence they were most corrupt? 2. Or did the live a short life because they were so corrupt (the whole moral angle) We'll never get data on this one :)

A rainy day was a bad omen. I didn’t want to be standing wet and vulnerable in front of the Visa Officer at the US Consulate. In retrospect, the whole saga is funny and how. Arriving half an hour before my scheduled time, I thought I might be laughed at. Instead, what greeted me was a sombre looking line that threatened to make me back pedal at least half a kilometer. Parents and wards, husbands and wives and all genetic combinations possible had arrived with rain gear and mortal fear, hours in advance. Nobody spoke, just tentative glances, shuffling of feet and then tentative glances again, this time in the direction of the gates to the Consulate. Mumbaikars are an optimistic lot; else why would one of the gentlemen preceding me in queue not carry an umbrella, in spite of it having poured that morning. His feeble attempts at accommodating himself in the rear part of his neighbour’s umbrella ended with a feeble smile from him and a condescending stare from his counterpart. Interestingl

I won’t post anything new until 1. The English pick the Jelly Bean that they threw at Zaheer and throw it at themselves (they’ll gladly do this if it makes Zaka bowl lollypops at Oval) 2. Sachin gets a hundred (not with Taufel around am sure…kidding) 3. Sanjay Dutt gets slapped with TADA (if wishes were horses) 4. Pratibha Patil smiles (now that she’s finally got to Raisina Hill) 5. Himesh-bhai takes his cap off (and shows he’s human and bald after all) 6. Amitabh goes farming (better this than some of his latest commercials) 7. Pronoy Roy comes back to anchor the 9’O Clock news (enough of sending the kids) 8. Contestants stop crying in singing shows on TV (and start singing ) 9. I stop seeing Harry Potter books and young readers who increasingly resemble him 10. I can come up with filler ideas like these while my writing takes an un-sanctioned vacation

This one is one from the archives...but given that we love to hate this tiny neighbouring country that we created (esp after what they did to us in the World Cup), here's a piece from my mail archives on a rather unsavoury experience that I had on board the Bangla national airline (yes it does exist and yes it also flies) well for starters, i was booked on a biman- which for the uninitiated happens to be bangladesh's national airline.....now we know where half of their GDP goes, its in maintaining a fleet of two or maybe three aircraft.... well i entered dubai airport at 10pm for a 12.30 am flight.....hoping to have a real comfortable flight back home where i could catch at least thirty five winks if not forty.... after a detailed search on google and every other search engine possible, including some hostile Arabs, i discovered where the check-in line for Biman was....thank god....well i said it too early... it took me an hour and 45 minutes to get that piece of cardboard c

Kerala never fails to enchant, same case this time. This trip was special, and didn’t disappoint. A honeymoon in Kerala conjures up exciting images for most. Fed by scenes of coconut trees, boat races, backwaters, kathakali and karimeen, Incredible India is initiated in these popular iridescent images. For me, this trip was a homecoming of sorts. Born a Malayali, and a true one at heart, it was time to shed the Mumbaikar sheen and smell the land. We did four destinations and each sparkled in its own glory, juxtaposing different facets of the same Gods creation to exhibit different flavours of God’s own country. We saw a silent backwater holding its own against a roaring sea front at Poovar. We saw nature at peace with itself, disturbed only by humans at Kumarakom. We were closest to the heavens in Munnar, sometimes within touching distance. And at Cherai, we signed off an idyllic end to a trip of alifetime. As we touched down in Mumbai, a rather bumpy one in the state airline, it was a

Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid was bombed this afternoon. Sad. Except the blast, almost everything that happens around it seems so predictable. I’ll try and recreate some almost done to death sequences that happen post. 1. Local correspondent of local channel and national channel have ear piece dangling and mouth piece blabbering. “This city is under siege” is a commonly seen scroller on most un-creative news channels. The more creative ones make a story around it like “Is this the beginning of the end” (ha ha ha…).Incidentally that reporter will be stationed there for the next fortnight everyday pointing out to the spot where the blast occurred. 2. Expert Anti Terror Squad will be at the spot with terror trained Labradors sniffing and snorting. 3. PM will condemn attack. 4. CM will condemn attack 5. CM will announce compensation of 5 lakh for families of those dead, 3 lakh for those half dead (shouldn’t that be 2.5?), 1 lakh for those that lost limbs etc 6. Home minister will decide to ‘rus

My mom has a grouse that am not creative with picking gifts. All I can do is pick up Ganesha idols. What she can’t understand is... what do you do when ¾ th of most novelty stores nowadays have Ganesha in various forms and substance. Among all our Gods, Ganpati seems to be the one who has managed to find a relevant role in every generation. In the first quarter of this century, the tusker was used by Lokmanya Tilak to aggregate the masses around Mandals, which would also serve to foster unity and patriotic values. It seemed to work. Later on the mill workers of Mumbai used Ganesha as a show of strength and solidarity in the wake of capitalist pressures. Pandals spawned in every mill compound and the event became annualized. There also was much pomp and revelry around it. About 13 years ago, Ganesha shocked the hell out of everyone by drinking milk. Amul and Aarey did good business as the pot bellied God had his fill. This relaunched the age of miracles and was quite a paradox to the ag

I avoid Saturday evening outings like the scourge. More on reasons why later. This last weekend, I happened to be on the way to a good friend’s wedding. Saturday evening and Andheri West are a bit like mixing karela juice and soured milk, you always knew it was going to be bad and you were stupid in trying it in the first place. After 15 futile minutes of hailing rickshaws politely, a friend and I decided to do it the way it actually should have been always done. An uncivil forced entry into an empty Rick which refused to ply suddenly put us in the position of unprepared Priests subject to a confession. The man behind the wheel confessed that he wasn’t taking passengers cos he was rushing to an emergency. In Mumbai, emergency happens only when the bowels are over active or if there are bloody riots. Since the Sena was in power at the BMC and riots happened only when they were in opposition, I assumed it to be the former. A compromise was reached though. The man in distress would drop u

It was worth the 47 day wait. As barmy army, swami army and the mystery around Bob Woolmer’s demise faded into the background, one man rose, literally after the Ashes. It’s been a long time since one saw massacre on the cricket field. There’s been enough talk around it when the practitioners of the art, or the scythe if I may call it that, walked out to bat. But few delivered, and even if they did it was against minnows and bowlers who wouldn’t qualify to bowl at the Aussie nets mostly. One man waited, accumulating all his aggressive instincts only to unleash it at the biggest spectacle of all modern day cricket. He picked the big occasion, as had his skipper in the earlier edition, to create an indelible aura around himself. And how. As the big man Viv said, at one stage it looked like a benefit match. A word or two on the Lankan obituary. Making Hayden look like a spectator, Gilly sent the Lankans on a leather hunt of their lifetime. Starting off with Vaas, Gilly had the Lankans guar

I grew up in a Govt. colony in Mumbai. This meant that I had the luxury of a lot of things that were absent in the city outside campus. One of these was the footpath. Right since I was a toddler, I was instructed to keep to the footpath, lest I get in the path of a ‘speeding’ Fiat (that’s an oxymoron). That might sound funny, but the inherent message was clear, steer clear of the motorist. In a city where cars outnumber themselves everyday, it’s become a challenge to find a footpath. Most of you might have noticed this but its worth reiterating. 1. Footpaths do exist. Just that above them also exist a layer called hawkers. This layer is more permanent than pedestrian aspirations and difficult to remove. 2. Footpaths do exist. Just that above them frequently is a mosaic of human excreta, with some dog poo thrown in between. Nearby slums can’t do their bit on the highway can they and there’s nowhere else to go. 3. Footpaths do exist. Just that often the BMC or MTNL or MMRDA or such body

Arjuna (Rahul) looked at the Kauravas (BCCI members) standing in front of him on the battlefield and said “ Oh Krishna! how will I fight my own bosses ” Krishna (Chappell), his charioteer, assumed his Vishwarupa and exclaimed “ It is all about The Process Arjuna ” Saying this he removed his laptop and made a 10 min PowerPoint presentation on The Process. Bheema (Sachin), wielding his MRF mace and standing next to the chariot exclaimed “ Chaila Krishna ….I don’t like the animation …and moreover this doesn’t not have an exclusive section devoted to me ” Krishna looked at him benignly and said “ O great wielder of the MRF Mace willow…your days of being invincible are numbered…there stands between you and your destiny nothing but the hand of god ” Bheema, started biting his nail and staring away into the distance…he ignored his cell phone as a couple of sponsors tried contacting him Enter Yudishtira (Saurav), eldest of the lot, who looked at the PowerPoint presentation through his glasses.

As a child I harboured dreams about playing for India, I soon realized that playing for the building team was much easier and less pressured. All arguments about the perks of the job apart, I think it’s a tough life. Sad that it took a foreign coach’s death to nail that one home, for now at least. As a youngster when one hits the International cricket scene, the curtains in your bedroom are drawn wide open and a thousand cameras start following you like the Truman Show. Your privacy exists only when other cricketers or issues become more important, else its a day night game. Everything that you don’t do is also news, people would pay to have your shadow pass them by. You sign on big endorsements like Nike the smaller ones will keep queueing up... You’ll cut many ribbons and even lanes, no one will stop you. Every morning the papers will have you reading things that happened to you while you were sleeping, or while you were looking the other way. At award functions, you’ll sit next to p

muezzin calls for the aft prayer a solitary shirt hangs to dry an expectant crow peeps from the window a still life afternoon slowly goes by The summers not hot yet but its stillness is here to stay the stuble on my cheek feel full remains of a lazy sunday soon the sun will laze too and the shadows will dominate the dogs will remain idle and the cows will ruminate The muezzin will call again and the sun might relent by then a small breeze might twirl the solitary shirt a summer day shall pass by then

Ah the budget, gets blockbuster status even though the guy in the lead role has remained the same for the last four years…he wears a loin cloth that inspired India when wrapped around some other thinner legs half a century ago but now is a symbol of a conservative south….PC wears a Harvard accent on a Chidambaram surname. He wears a progressive veil on a Pandi bandwagon. After that rather controversial beginning (sorry that one didn’t end in the previous paragraph), let me begin. My biggest problem with the budget, well a big problem that I have with the budget, or let me just say…well should I just not say. What the hell!!!! It’s the jargon, men! (as my petite East Indian receptionist might tell you). What’s a fiscal deficit, is it what we generally call being kangaal. Imagine the street corner beggar go “Sir can you contribute to reducing my fiscal deficit” (A certain World Bank does hear that from us, maybe used to). Or for that matter what the hell is capital ACOUNT CONVERTIBILITY.

The BEST has introduced a SMART card. The first part is fiction, the second part is plastic. For 1200 bucks a month, the BEST lets you get onto any bus anywhere, any time. Now if they came up with movie tickets like that I know that there would be takers. Nonetheless, the economists of the BEST who also double up as conductors seem to have seen something that most consumers haven’t. Hence the only people who have bought the cards are these people and their kith and kin. At a more serious level, 1200 or even the 800 bucks a month option is simply a big loser to the other 12 rake mammoth that easily picks up 5000 people at a time and deposits them the other side of town in half the time. So what if you get badly crushed and start smelling like sardines….the BEST is not aroma-therapeutic either. And on bad days you could end up having two meals on the bus if not three, given traffic and more traffic. The card is hardly SMART. The conductor has a contraption which still needs to do a steth

Beggars are as much a part of Mumbai as the Gateway of India. Over the last 10 years of actively roaming around the city, the no of cars have increased and so have the no of beggars. What has also changed is the kind of beggars in the city. The first kind of beggar that I encountered was the simple woebegone face kinds who would sit by the roadside and keep uttering monosyllables the year round. There was no strategy of any kind in place, and the adage beggars can’t be choosers used to get played out. Most of them seemed fatalistic. As the economy evolved and liberalized, so did beggars. For one, I think even the beggar economy opened up. There were a lot many more beggars because there was a lot many more economic activity (and hence money to be handed out) and a lot many more people. The quality of begging also changed. Some beggars, in order to differentiate their pitch, started to exhibit their skills. So you had harmonium totting kids and adults causing disharmony in trains. Strat

Today is the 26th Jan. And it’s a Friday. Thank god for that, cos no Indian would ever have their long awaited, most cherished long weekend otherwise. Thank God that our revered leaders chose this date to turn republic else what if they’d chosen 25th? How many would have had to sacrifice a Casual Leave in the name of the nation in order to get a long weekend! Flag hoisting in residential complexes, done by the ones who are not away sun tanning on beaches ‘this’ long weekend, is usually a hilarious affair. There is a statutory notice, full of typo that goes up in the society notice board every January. It speaks about the glory of India, in two lines and then the schedule of ‘cultural’ programs in the next four. Flag hoisting will be at a convenient, 10am when all and sundry including the mongrel dog have had a late lazing morning wake up, farted in peace, yawned at will, consumed two cups of tea and browsed through two newspapers. The flag pole, is rusted, browned and orphaned until t

A movie whose time has come had to be made. Guru is the story of entrepreneurial success and the man who defined it for all of us. It legitimizes using any and every mean to get what one wants. This might not have been acceptable about fifteen years ago, when India was still third world and middle class values were still bordering on un-materialistic. Today when we’re fighting global battles in business and wanting to make money is a legitimate thing to say in class, this movie tries to play to a now popular sentiment by saying that here’s a man who did it first. And how. Alas it falls flat. For one the narrative is linear, it struggles to find enough ‘big’ episodes in the life of man who always thought big. Sometimes threatening to be a documentary, it makes desperate attempts at injecting commercial value. The songs are a glaring example. Except the main theme, all others stick out like bad share scrip. One senses that the crew knew what it wanted to say but didn’t quite manage to ar

I was privy to a decking up ceremony. Before you get ideas, it happened to be a truck. A goods carrier. I have never seen a new truck, a brand new one, not even in pictures. For me trucks have always been pesky, irritating occupiers of road space without whom travel would have been so much smoother. They are dirty, spew a lot of smoke, and are all noise and no speed and perpetually breakdown and cause traffic snarls. Finding a new truck was special. I’ve never stared long enough at the front face of a truck. You don’t want to see the face of most things you don’t like right. Truck posteriors with Horn Ok Please messages have inundated my vision, more by default cos one is usually tailing a truck that refuses to give right of way. Coming back to how the ‘new’ truck looked. At the forehead, was a salutation to a certain Goddess, written in bright saffron. Right below, the forehead, much like a human face, was a wide eyed windscreen which gives the driver a large view of the smaller piece

Recently newspapers have been full of people who’ve died while on flights. Condolences. Having experienced most domestic airlines and what’s offered along with, I’m not surprised. Some examples of the agents of death as one travels 1. Food on Indian Airlines 2. Airhostesses on Indian Airlines- if their looks don’t kill you their glares will 3. Delays on Air Deccan- I just about celebrated two birthdays waiting for one to take off 4.The ‘suraksha niyam’ routine on all airlines- especially that phrase “agar kisi karanvash vimaan ko paani mein utarna pade” (now that’s what you call watering down the worst) 5. The endless wait at conveyor belts to collect one’s luggage even as everyone else seems to be getting theirs faster. 6. Security check and what goes with it- stashing everything into an already overloaded hand baggage and the latest one at Lucknow was about getting the laptop screened separately, not under the guise of a leather cover. The next thing you know they might ask you to pe

I was in small town North India, Lucknow to be precise, today. This blog has nothing to do with Lucknow exclusively but since the stimulus happened there, I thought the city deserved a mention. I noticed how we seem to have various ways of using our Gods and Goddesses in our day to day lives. The stimulus in question was a wall tile with God’s picture on it. This tile, for the ignorant, was placed so that passers by refrain from painting the town ‘red’ with their paan and other products. So I passed a beaming Goddess Lakshmi, a meditating Lord Shiva and an ever enthusiastic Lord Ganesha all playing divine guards to cheap walls. It seemed to work, for I saw the walls around them spotlessly clean. The tiles were small ones, occupying just one tile space in huge walls. But they seemed to hold enough power to thwart any miscreant. The casualty of course was the atheist wall, which was multicolored and looked like a poor man’s Hussain. God appeared in a different avatar in a cheap rundown h