Ajith Nair

There' a lot of talk around about whether football's on its way to replace cricket in India. Early days yet i think,but some visibile signs are telling. All around you, teens and pre teens discuss EPL, Formula 1 a lot more. Sachin and Sehwag aren't part of daily talk. This might be a largely urban/ big city phenomenon, but satellite television, might be taking EPL and Alonso right into rural homes as well. Right now everyone's wathcing football, simply put because its interesting. Whether this grows into a regular, every weekend,following of EPL and other leagues is yet to be seen. I have my doubts. I'll stick to cricket.

I have two bank accounts and limited memory. Each of my banks treats me like a king, a king of memory. They expect me to remember my 8 digit Internet login, my seven digit alpha numeric password, my 4 digit phone banking pin, my complex transaction password….if I do, I’ll probably edge my own phone number out of my memory….well the torture doesn’t end there. In their effort to create security, banks also advise me to have different passwords and usernames for all accounts and to keep changing them. So by the time I’m actual done with learning RX9oI87A by rote, it's time to change it to to “ anything that you wish says the bank” as long as…..Its got letters and alphabet (no symbols yet! Matter of time I guess, before that happens), it's between 18 and 29 characters in length, it’s not your name or even half of it, it’s not your girlfriend’s name either. So one has to create crypts that unless written down in font size 40 somewhere might just remain locked in the bank server’s m...

Great to see the Master get back into prime form. Lashing CC saw quite a lashing from the MRF blade apparently. Its just a matter of time now before he gets into the run getting habit again. Can't wait for that to happen. Shashi Tharoor will make quite a different UN sec gen, if he makes it that is. Vis-a-vis kofi Annan who looks calm, composed and Buddha- esque, our man is stylish flamboyant articulate and suave. Will do wonders for the public image of the UN. Meanwhile,might be a coincidence, but all three African nations playing the world cup this year are neighbours.....any Freakonomics style explanation to this?

Mumbai was just voted the rudest city in the world. There is a semblance of truth or even more than it in there, though my hard core Mumbaikar heart refuses to accept that. Meanwhile, Readers Digest who did the survey, used measures like whether someone opened the door for you, did someone help u pick up fallen stuff and whether someone thanked u after u shopped as metrics. Lets spend time on why this approach is flawed. Being non courteous i.e not doing some of the above things is, to my mind, being apathetic or insensitive. Its certainly not being rude. Rudeness has a certain actively evil dimension to it, which probably cannot be captured by the above three acts. Courtesy's polar opposite might not be 'rude'. Second, thanking someone after they've shopped has never been a tradition in India. I never remember a shokeeper thanking me for anything, so either we're all born 'rude' or the metric is irrelevant. Third, the practise of holding the door for someon...

http://www.thehindu.com/2006/06/17/stories/2006061705171300.htm It's all round us in Mumbai and probably the other cities. The dredge of the society that does our menial work is a nuisance when it's not doing our menial work. We need them to make us feel better about ourselves and there is no way that we'll do anything to alleviate their status- lest them become us, or even better than us. Our 'well constructed' urban world is designed to marginalise the poor- Flovers which are taxed and which necessarily have dark underbellies where beggars thrive. Our buildings and societies have exotic names which 'transform' us into an escapist reality. Most of our modern societies have everything within so that we don't have to face the reality outside. Even if we do, its through the tinted glasses of cars which are super cooled. Every member of the 'them' set has to prove his identity everyday at the gate, he's issued a pass without which his identity i...

While I write this, Ivory Coast is walking in with a purpose- a goal down against a Dutch side that looks to be at peak performance. The football today has been a notch higher than what one has seen until now. I waked in into the compond and a notice caught my eye.It said that we're banning mongrels in the compound cos they are potential threats to everything. This just adds to my theory that we are getting increasingly intolerant of most things, yest it was about beggars today it's about dogs. Meanwhile in true Mumbai style where land is scarce and every resource is disputed, we have a garbage bin dispute. The neighbouring slums have a problem against us dumping garbage in 'their' bin.

Kerala is the most literate state in India.It also has the highest suicide rate. It has the most beautiful rainfall, it also has some very dry throats. It has a thousand mouths to shout slogans but a lot more hungry mouths to feed Today Thiruvananthapuram decided that it has had enough of beggars and begging. Overnight, begging has been banned. It'll be interesting to see how this gets implemented- knowing the Kerala police force, they'll be licking their lips at the possibility of polishing off some beggars. It'll be even more interesting to see how citizens react to this, if they do that is. All of us get embarassedwhen a beggar confronts us in public- our schools haven't taught us how to deal with poverty. Its always been shunned, been never talked about and ever so easily pooh- pooed. Beggars remind us of what can be, don't they? They remind us of our existential reality that at the end of the day we all are comrades in alms! Something tells me that this is just...

From the leisurely pace of the English greens where everything happened in slow motion to the rough dry and raucous atmosphere of Jamshedpur to the unknown pitches of Abu Dhabi or god knows where next, the game has traveled and will keep traveling. Thirty years ago the stiff upper lipped member of the MCC scoffed at pajama cricket today he proudly sits and dines with Flintoff and Pietersen at any public do. It’s not too difficult to imagine a system in the future where an online television viewer rating system will actually set the pace of a match. Which basically means that if the viewership drops then players could be instructed to slog or maybe sledge and create drama so that viewers would come back. Viewers may even determine through a live online poll who’ll bat next or rather who’ll play in the first place If viewers don’t really come back then the match will be called off mid way, so what if Dravid Jr was due for a maiden double hundred. Sponsors will pay on a currency basis and...

Mumbai- the projected Shanghai of tomorrow is easily held ransom by two or three forces- nature's fury compounded by lack of good drainage, a political party which threatens to mutate into many other avtaars and last but certainly not the least the BEST.The other Best that I know is a gentleman called George Best whose antics on the football field and simultaneously off it are still discussed in learned football circles. His ability to strike won his team many a match. The BESTs strike of course is a lost cause.Every year- before Diwali when bonuses are to be declared the big fat lady demands a big fat bonus. It's given, no questions asked. Just as the BESTconductor doesn't bat an eyelid before asking u to disembark if you don't have exact change, the BEST also doesn't think twice before calling STRIKE. So Monu who takes 86 to school or Mr Mehta who takes the AC bus to Nariman Point have to suffer. The worst hit are the ones who don't have an option but take bus...