Ajith Nair

Hotel Taj : icon of whose India ? Gnani Sankaran- Tamil writer, Chennai. Watching at least four English news channels surfing from one another during the last 60 hours of terror strike made me feel a terror of another kind. The terror of assaulting one's mind and sensitivity with cameras, sound bites and non-stop blabbers. All these channels have been trying to manufacture my consent for a big lie called - Hotel Taj the icon of India. Whose India, Whose Icon ? It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from terrorists - the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. CST is the true icon of Mumbai. It is through this railway station hundreds of Indians from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamilnadu have poured into Mumbai over the years, transforming themselves into Mumbaikars and built the Mumbai of today along with the Marathis and Kolis But the channels would not recognise this

Before 26th Nov, the biggest congregations in Mumbai happened at Mumbai CST and Churchgate railway stations during peak hours. A million anonymous faces jostled with each other, garnered inches, all with the common purpose of getting that prize foothold in a suburban local. Strangers and even more strangers poured in and out of these stations like a giant assembly line. In between, strange circuits sparked conversations, cricket scores, what’s the time now, can you shift a bit, is this the Borivali Fast or the Andheri slow and so on. Such transactional pieces of conversation defined the crowded space that we all shared. Elsewhere, stock prices, prices of vegetables on the street, saale ****ve baaju hat na in traffic or a more paternal baap ka rasta hai kya. This is our lingo, defined by ourselves either as the ones who launched these or the ones who received these. This common code defined the language of transaction, transaction of every kind in Mumbai. Yes there were the show of emot

A daily dose of madness That rare moment to smile That breathless march of life Gasping once a while Life eludes me everyday I chase and cling to the rails Manage to hold my course somehow With wind against my sails Balance daily my burden Wife, home and kid And frustrated sometimes at work I wish I never did When the routine day ends and I wish I wouldn’t live again a terrorist shoots at me point blank Relieves me of my pain

We're in the third morning of the Mumbai attacks. Some things have emerged which will define the way history is written 1. Taj has become immortal to this country. Stories of how young Taj managers went out of their way, helped protect guests, sent sms to guests who were away at the time of attacks to not return and many such are pouring in. An indelible symbol has endured even further through its people 2. Mumbai civilians as usual are on the streets doing their bit. Chants of vande mataram are all over and people are serving the commandos tea, snacks etc. Not one to back off, am proud of my city and its people 3. The media has behaved and been sensible.They've obeyed orders to edit stories and pictures which might feed terrorist intelligence. Its said that it takes a tough event to make a child grow up, is this that event which has made the media mature? 4. The Mumbaikar resilience is weak. people stayed indoors and the feeling of helplessness and fear is high. On the upside,

Much has been said, written, blogged, messaged and shown about that remarkable man Barack Obama. A lot of us know more about him than say about our neighbours. There is a remarkable connect that he’s made from Fiji to Florida from Melbourne to Moscow. Everybody has a reason to like Barack Obama and there is almost a personal connect that each of us feels. Most politicians around the world would give an arm and a leg to achieve this kind of connects with their electorate. Yes We can might have worked in America, In Europe it was the alternative to Mr. Bush theory, In Africa it was the son of the soil reasons, in Indonesia he was seen like family, in the Arab world he was partly their own religion and so on. While the gene pool and demographics like African American played their role, I feel the connect with Obama had a deeper reason. The world that we live in has only got more fractured, more complex and more strife ridden. There are cross purposes to every action, there are unwarranted

Its sad news that high flying crew of India’s premier airline are now grounded. They had contracts which said that they could be sacked with immediate effect and that is what happened. While my sympathies rest with the employees, it is obvious that they hadn’t read the contract fully before signing. Even if they did, they never thought this would happen to them. None of us ever read our job contracts. The durability of our jobs is assumedly given and we simply sign on the dotted line. The only parts that we read are ones related to salary, role and title. The rest is legalese which is ignored, to one’s peril. The sad part is how this incident has created space for that goon called Raj Thackeray to enter the civilized industry space. Starting with railway applicants, cab drivers, graduating to MERU cabs and now to airlines, the devil is making his footprint felt. Jet employees, are now courting the devil to their advantage. So educated, stable minded, courteous youth who smiled and serv

MBA business primers speak about environmental factors as key in devising strategies. The reaction of businesses to their environment is now a point of intense scrutiny and debate. World over, businesses seem to be at the receiving end of global vicissitudes, some might argue they are the ones who caused it in the first place. Whether its contaminated milk in China, the Financial crisis in the West or what happened to the Nano in our country, businesses are being closely watched for what they do or what they don’t. In fact, a case in point is KV Kamath and the amount of PR activity that ICICI Bank has undertaken to assuage anxieties about whether it will go the Lehman way. An interesting trend is the amount of front page space newspapers provide for businesses and what they are doing. If one were to rewind ten years and do a simple comparison of no of business related headlines then compared to now, it’s a no brainer which way the numbers will show up. The case for business diplomacy,

Networked World 1. Best prices for products 2. Access to markets 3. Cross cultural information 4. Greater tolerance 5. Global communities 6. Opportunities to develop 7. Million applications on Facebook 8. Lost friends on Orkut 9. Concerted efforts on environment 10. Point of view on everything Networked World 1. Terror on everyone’s mind 2. Spam in everyone’s Inbox 3. AIDS for all 4. Climate changes that kill 5. Helplessness and despondency 6. Point of view on everything 7. Financial Crisis 8. Rupee is cheap 9. “We love you Bush” (huh!!!) 10. Osama has more power than Obama

As I write this, Karnal Singh, JCP, Delhi Police has had his second round of press conference, detailing the complex web of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen, time and again to an inattentive, misbehaved, mike thrusting media. The core perpetrators of most recent blasts have been the same people. A good number of them have been accounted for, the rest are at large. Meanwhile opinion among the public and experts are rife about root causes of terrorism. Many have talked about the marginalization of the minority, the ineffective policing of states and the failure of our intelligence network. Some analyses have been commendable and state the truth, with ample support. Others have been emotional diatribes, scathing but hollow. On the solution side, it’s been a repeat of the most popular POTA equivalent which enables arrest without evidence and trial. As someone said, it might only lead to Idgahs in jails and nothing else. As with most other areas, India’s ability to analyze far surpasses its solut

An unmarried woman stands firm in the path of an unmarried man finding his long cherished dream. That sounds sensational enough, come to think of it Singur can be described that way. Mamata, with her vitriolic vilification of the Tata Group is desperately trying to occupy the militant anti Capitalist space that the Left has left vacant, thanks to the Buddha effect. Land or not, she sure is trying to make this property her own and by the looks of it, is winning hands down. It took a lot of provocation for the well behaved Mr. Tata to come out and even make a statement that they ‘may move out of Bengal’. The battle is cultural, the militant, aggressive Bengali woman versus the stoic, cultured Parsi. At the risk of sounding controversial, Mamata’s fight against Nano is almost a feminist cry against a largely male bastion- the car, the CPI, the Tata Group (when was the last time that you saw a woman top exec in the Tata group) We have a ‘very married’ woman on the other side of the world,

Babu Lingo Concerned Department - an illusion that you chase endlessly (hardly find any concern for your concerns here) Sahe b- Anyone from Lower Divisional Clerk to Chief Secretary. Depends entire on who uses it.Saheb is usually found behind closed doors (the ones that split down the middle and swing both ways, kinda explains their behaviour too)or a pile of files Chai Paani - The vital connect between expectation and outcome plan this to be a series, updated off and on. Suggestions welcome!

Rewind to July 2006. Until 10th July, it was just another monsoon month in Mumbai. On the 11th day it became the day the nerve of the city, the suburban rail, actually burst and oozed blood. The natural disaster that monsoon had caused the previous year, came back as a man made one to create panic, fear and chaos all over again. Everyone had a prayer on their lips that day, some for the departed, many for the untraced and everyone for the future. The next day, Mumbai came back to work. The media called it the Spirit of Mumbai, only the true Mumbaikar could sense that look on everyone’s face that day. The local trains were packed as usual but each of them had a new passenger, terror. In Mumbai Meri Jaan, Nishikant Kamat, extracts that terror out of Mumbaikar’s hearts and places it on the screen. He visits homes, hearts and minds of all kinds and tells the story sitting in there. In a city where feelings are kept at home as people head out to work, the vulnerability of the average Mumbai

Part one Act I: Switzerland Boy meets girl Boy greets girl Boy dates girl boy drops girl Act 2 Mumbai The above four steps all over again. With a different girl.And different location of course Act 3 Sydney Boy meets girl Boy greets girl boy dates girl girl drops boy Part 2- Pessimistic What part 2? Part 2- Optimistic Act 1 Amritsar Boy is rueful Girl 1 is woeful Her hubby is nice unromantic but wise Boy plays cupid so wat if it looks stupid he restores their love forgiven and how! Act 2- Italy Boy is rueful Girl 2 is now a bitch he says sorry but she's got a hitch he has to play her waiter she couldn't put it straighter he's forgiven too easy and its happy days again they hug n smile and he's off on a plane Act 3- Sydney Girl 3 and Boy live happily ever after. Bah!!!

The innocuous transport of the aam aadmi has a tarnished image now. The mazdoor’s transport, a symbol of penury is now a weapon of terrorists. In fact its being exploited for its inherent characteristic, that of being Indian, hoi polloi and indistinguishable in any marketplace. The cyclist has always been a simple man, in films either the postman or a simpleton peon who carries the burden of a large family, struggling to do so. During the bad times, the cycle represents the vicious cycle that he is caught in, the good times the cycle represents wheels of progress. Mass produced and mass consumed, the cycle can even claim to be one of the biggest uniting symbols of the Indian mass, irrespective of culture and language. Even the names of the biggest cycle brands, Hero, Hercules, Atlas are quite a revelation about the burden that the cycle is meant to carry. Its earnestness is not lost to the aam aadmi, there is exponential relation of an ignition and acceleration. The equation is honest

Its deja vu and the frequency is now alarming. Serial bomb blasts are now more frequent than Indian test defeats and in both cases, more often than not there is a foreign hand. As I had written in May 2007 ,the govt and related pillars seem to have perfected the reaction to a blast scenario. Its both amusing and saddening. All this happens so perilously close, it could be you next or the time after that. What seemed so distant when blast reports used to come from Israel, Iraq, Kabul or even Kashmir is suddenly upon us, staring us in the eye. The perpetrators also seem to be increasingly like you and me. Laptops, emails, for all you know he travels with you everyday and plots your death too. He went to the same school or the same kind of school, chased the same dreams and ate at the same wada pav stall. You might have brushed past him at the crowded marketplace or asked him the way to a particular address. He might have been part of that cricket team that you fought with many years ago

A bad foot meant that I was immobile and locked in one position this Monday. After flipping innumerable boring channels, I chanced upon one where all the action was. Lok Sabha tv, i knew this one existed, or atleast deserved to exist, just to showcase the tomfoolery of our elected representatives.I missed the PM speak, but then haven't most people over the last four years :) An economist who stays quiet is a dangerous sign, even more so if he's also the PM. His adversary and the fat book autobiographer was much more vocal today. Though, unlike the Advani we know, he made two fundamental mistakes. One to say that Pandit Nehru never signed the NPT, how could he when he died in 1964 and the NPT came into existence around 1970.The next was to expose the opportunistic politics of his govt by claiming that the Congress is a destabiliser. Pranab da cashed in well on these two and in true Bengali mishti style, drove home these two hard hitting points during his speech. The opposition b

I was at the inaugural Gallup Behavior Economics Forum in Singapore this week. The forum brought together some great minds from within Gallup and outside and discussed the concepts of well being among other things. It was heartening to hear ministers and bureaucrats from Singapore talk about the way they have and they intend to, think about their city. The minster of defense mentioned four aspects that they have always focused on in creating the great city. Leadership scheme and how they can develop potential leaders in all spheres of life., the fact that there is anticipation of change and preparedness for it, the concept of reward for work and work for reward and the constant effort to create a state that is for everyone and offers opportunity for all. Come to think of it, these four will work well for organizations too. An ex bureaucrat mentioned a framework which explained the various levels at which governance operates and how cities should look to move continually on that path.

RGV thank god you’re back. After Satya and Company, the man had lost his way. He’s back now and Sarkar Raj is better than the prequel. It’s a gripper on screen, keeps you in the zone, living breathing and dying with the characters. The camera angles are unique, side shots, up close and personal, Abhishek’s beard, Ash’s lips, The Big Bs wrinkles. The shadows are omnipresent, the darkness being part of both the plot and the screen. In the background, the chants of Govinda don’t seem force fit, and the score blends tightly to fasten you to your seat even more. There is an abrupt reset to silent mode right from when you enter the theatre. Most dialogues are in expression and what’s unsaid is what is beautifully said. Speech is a luxury, scarce but scathing. The delivery is even better. There are no breathers on this treadmill; the run is slow poison, thank god for the interval. Ramu’s magic is best visible on Abhishek, Shankar fills the screen up making props and people pale. He plays the

There are some examples that I have seen recently that tell me that the journey towards a service oriented economy is not mere lip service. Let me start with what is or rather was the biggest point of pain in my life, the Internet connection, rather the lack of it most times. Like most white collar Indians, the predilection for anything multi national is a given. So I preferred Hathway over Tata Indicom, Satyam or even the sloth MTNL. Let me summarise my experience succinctly, Hathway delighted me on only one count, shutting up when I asked them to, over an inebriated, frustrated phone conversation. Repeated line drops, non collection of payment cheques (also implying no payment avenues except home collection of cheques), adhoc disconnections, adhoc disconnections (the former meaning purposive, the latter meaning vagaries of the connectivity). So I had a black cable emerging like an umbilical cord from my laptop but then the baby was long dead. With a heavy heart and an unjustly light

Looks like a dog strayed in the path of a Kingfisher airline . It’s interesting to note that dogs seem to have a way of getting through most security cordons. Follow street dogs around any fence and they will show you a breach that no one could anticipate. Dogs have been the most evolutionary creature of our times. They way they have adapted to rapid urbanization is telling of how this animal might be still around when humans as a race are long on, maybe that’s saying too much. Right since when Laika visited space to when Zanjeer sniffed out RDX, the celebration of canines has gone hand in hand with pelting them with stones. In urban centers, you’ll find dogs cluster smartly around where the sources of food are. This could be outside where an animal lover lives to the vicinity of garbage bins. You can also see visible efforts by dogs to mingle. So they’re curled up at bus stops, right there around marriage halls, frequently found at the heels of anyone carrying a food bag and probably

Ratan Tata will now drive Jaguar or even a land Rover. His servants servants will drive the Nano. Singur will produce the small car and London will deliver the big ones. Meanwhile, we also have some very rich Indians in the Forbes list and many more Indians buying yachts and islands. A crore is spelt easier than peanuts and doesn’t have too much value unless it has four or more digits in front of it. Personally, I know people who have invested a crore to buy matchbox houses at corners of Mumbai which don’t get much light, what an irony. Everybody wants their kid to have an IB education, a foreign degree and earn the highest salary. Money seems to have overcrowded our minds and our conversations. Off late, in Mumbai’s public transport, you can find ample examples of wannabe noveau riche conversations. Right from ESOP windfalls, to making a killing in the stock market (sometimes being killed by it too), the average Mumbaikar (probably Indian too) is looking at the cash tills all the time

Don’t look the RSS is changing,. Especially because it’s changing its trousers, to be precise the khaki no longer is mandatory. There are several, reasons that come immediately to mind when one thinks about the Sangh shorts. The first fiendish thought, and there are many more to come, is on the fact that the shorts revealed more than it concealed. True to the vociferous nature of many a RSS spokesperson, the khaki shorts was also flamboyant and expansive. The trouble is, such exposure doesn’t augur too well for a party that has repeatedly stood for adequate clothing as the true indicator of moral character and conversely has violently taken down many a skimpily clad poster and people. There are some other rather obvious connections with the khaki, the notorious one being that with the cops. Given that nowadays, everyone from ex cops (KPS Gill) to encounter specialists are getting the wrong end of the (hockey) stick, the RSS probably wants to distance itself from such peeves. Its worthw

The Mumbai IPL team is practicing on the eve of their first encounter at Wankhede. Standing by the side, Sachin is chewing on his nails. He awaits a crucial encounter. Enter Raj Thackeray, the local goon, and the bone of contention. He is demanding his pound of flesh and a couple of spots in the Mumbai side for the locals. For the first time, inspite of not being on 99, Sachin Tendulkar is tense. Raj comes straight to the point “Chaila (Marathi expression for what the hell!), I want sons of the soil in the team, not some foreign players. Sachin bhau, I respect you, but this is unfair. Aamcha Mumbai cha team, aani phakt ekas marathi manoos (Our Mumbai side and only one Marathi native!) Sachin tries to leave that argument alone, and raises his arms in helplessness. Mukeshbhai entered the stadium just then, two bodyguards and four petis with other lackeys. “Raj bhai kaise ho, suna hai aapko bhi cricket khelna hai?” “Dekho Mukeshbhai, aapke office mein hamare bahut saare ladke hain isliye

It is very comic to see movie theatre patrons struggle to keep the sanctity of the national anthem alive. For the uninitiated, all movie theatres in Mumbai, play the national anthem before any movie starts. Am not too sure if it happens with the sleazy Pyaasi Jawani kind of movie halls but I can vouch for the others (smart way of making a clean morality statement!) I can imagine why this whole national anthem rendition started. A self appointed upholder of India’s morals would have decided that our country gets corrupted in the movie theatres. So the national anthem was the anti dote that audiences would consume before they expose their senses to debauchery There are multiple spoilers to the national anthem. The one that comes to mind immediately is the fact that most audiences are not in their seats when the national anthem is being played, they’re still strolling in (blame it on traffic, obesity, bad signs in theatres and lack of civic sense). Some people find sadistic pleasure in cr

Curled up within In an unseasonal cold At the bus stop A petty mongrel old He sees winter clothes People wrapped snug Adjusting their shawls And ear plug Crowds never die At the tea stall And there’s only few Hearing the kulfi call No one ventures to kick him Or pelt stones Life is peaceful So what if there are no bones In a city of cold stares And crowds of strangers There’s someone loving the cold It’s the petty mongrel old

Didn’t take much to get him to do his swansong, did it? A few dropped chances, self appointed critics calling for his head and out walked the man who could have easily blazed victories for Australia for at least two more seasons. That act pretty much sums up a simple family man who loved to give the ball a resounding thump and had gloves that could grab passing thoughts, not to say the red cherry, with alacrity. In the team of seasoned street gangsters that he was part of, he had a cardinal like presence. Not one to claim a wrong dismissal and not one to let go off a right one. He embarrassed his rather greedy team mates on more than one occasion by not lending vociferous support to their dubious appeals for that all important wicket. He wore his conscience on his glove and however hard something thudded into it, the glove would remain unmoved. So when he did appeal, and was he loud, the umpires could trust him with the judgment and not just the appeal (a certain Mr Dravid might veheme

Both parts of the term SENSEX defy logic. There doesn’t seem to be too much sense in what’s happening at the market, neither is there too much pleasure as connoted by the latter half of the term. Some souls who’ve lost most earnings and their bearings are blaming the Bull installed outside the BSE. That’s quite a U turn for a country reveres its consort the cow and worships Nandi, the Bull, the animal that the Destroyer rides. Of course, off late Nandi-gram has been in the news for all the wrong reasons so when this Nandi sees red either in terms of the Communists in Bengal or the stock exchange crash we seem to have a problem, a big one at that. The bull run is something that I’ve never understood except the Jallikattu kind during Pongal in Tamilnadu, which the Supreme Court recently tried to put a ban on, in vain. During Jallikattu insane young men try to tame an inebraited bull usually causing much damage to men and property. Maybe the apex court should try putting a similar ban on

If you thought Ponting was Bhajji’s bunny, think again. Bhajji has competition from a lanky North Indian named Ishant Sharma. If David had the sling against Goliath, Ishant had the swing against Punter. In an hour of relentless interrogation, there were more questions asked than answers given. There were other legends of the bat standing at slips and watching as a rookie from their team undid a legendary opponent. The fielders were incidental, there were hardly any runs coming. Most of them were enjoying the undoing of the most competitive street fighter in modern day cricket. Ponting fumbling against spin is something that even the school kids of Tasmania would tell you about but this fresh script is a promising one. For a man who more often that not has a boundary as his first scoring shot and pulls fast bowlers for six over deep square as if that is where they were always meant to be, being undone by an Indian rookie is unfathomable. A six foot plus, wiry young lad with a bunch of