Ajith Nair

Was speaking to a colleague of mine from Thailand who plans to visit India. The biggest shocker that she heard about India, is that there are a lot among us who defecate in the open. The Govt, in its health plans and high morality statements always talk about providing toilets for this lot.I've seen some of these provided toilets and let me tell u, i'd rather let go in the open. On the other hand Sulabh International ( http://www.sulabhenvis.in/pages/database_detail.asp?id=45 ) has created amazing toilets which work at a nominal fee. The fee is towards maintaining the loo and paying basic labour charges for people who work there.This is a model that has worked, both for the toiletless and for people in transit. The failure if any has been to provide enough number of these. 60% of Mumbai lives in slums thats close to 10million inMumbai itself. The number across India will be humongous of course. The act of defecation in the open is noteworthy. Most people with any degree of self...

Was part of a TV show audience recently. Hosted by one of India's most popular media faces, the show was supposed to ask incisive questions of the people who mattered. The crowd settled in well, comprised mainly of upper middle class 'thinking' mumbai whose voices are the loudest when any crisis occurs, but whose actions are usually the feeblest. The preamble to the shoot saw frantic calls being made by participants to all and sundry informing them about an impending appearance on television. Your truly was gulity too, preferring the SMS route to self promotion. There were loud conversations about "the city's infrastructure sucks" "am meeting governor Krishna tomorrow" and the like. Citizens had come, vanity, credentials and creased trousers. The panel comprised a film director who had created a teeny bopperish movie, a script writer whose only link with Mumbai seemed that she had scripted a movie with the city's name in it, a lawyer who regularl...

10 Questions 1. What is the Mumbai spirit- does it live and die only in the media? 2. What does Mumbai returns to normal mean- 1000 bereaving families, tensof thousands shit scared, what is normal? 3. What can the Mumbaikar expect next- a lot more bombs on trains, or will the venue change? 4. When will we act, rather than react? 5. A spontaneous outpouring of aid from Mumbaikars, can it save lives? 6. Why does the so called spirit of Mumbai surface only when there's crisis/ calamity? 7. How long before mass exodus begins from Mumbai? 8. Do running trains mean a thrviving city? 9. Can I trust my neighbour or is he a terrorist? 10. Can I trust myself to not become one?

List A: John Mc Enroe, Diego Maradona, Brian Lara, Shane Warne, Zinedine Zidane, Gary Kasparov List B: Pete Sampras, Rahul Dravid, Vishwanathan Anand, Michael Schumacher, Sachin tendulkar Genius has two sides to it. And both are equally marvellous. There is the refined genius which follows rules, adheres to systems and is the ideal role model. Then there is the maverick who in some ways is unpredictable, bohemian and brash but is an eqully good master as his saner counterpart. The root cause of how a genius turns out is probably a function of genetics and social conditioning both. Disturbed childhoods, trumatic experiences and a host of other factors might move a conventional genius into being a maverick.

Football is a contact sport, its about body clashes, sweat dripping brawls and constant jostling. Today when our lives are increasingly getting individualised, contact of any kind, symbolic or physical is getting compartmentalised. Most of long for our own spaces, hate crowded public areas and will pay a premium for anything thats'exclusive'. In such times where does football fit into our psyche? In my opinion, it symbolises the modern spectator sport. It is the modern equivalent of the amphitheatres, which showcase human extremities for all of us to enjoy from a distance. There is the range of emotions, there is the struggle, the ecstasy and the disappointment. With evey match there's a modern day tragedy that gets enacted. what makes it even more spectator like is the whole physicality associated with it. It packs in all the physicality that we miss in our lives. By extension, it isn't difficult to believe why football and sexual exhibitionism are so closely interlink...

5th July 2006, 6.45am. It’s the fourth day of yet another Mumbai rain deluge. It’s not as bad as last year, but then nothing can match hell, right? I switch on CNN IBN, a news channel that has always been a responsible and mature reporter. What makes most viewers, including me, tune into it, is the credibility that Rajdeep Sardesai, the chief of the channel, brings to the table. I see a young rookie reporter screaming into his mike “It’s pouring out here, things are very bad, people have been inconvenienced…..” He’s speaking about Chembur, where I stay. Shaken, I peer out of the window to find futile attempts by passing clouds to create a downpour. All that they can manage currently is a drizzle. I double check the channel to see if I’ve heard the intrepid reporter right. My ears have always been sharp. I switch off the television and get ready to go to office. I still watch CNN IBN….for entertainment.

Rahul seems friendly, approachable, amiable and down to earth The kind of guy that girls could take home and dad wouldn't frown, if anything, he would be happy. The kind of guy you could sit with in a coffee shop on a rainy day and talk about movies, women, philosophy and adventure. He typefies what most of us in the urban middle class want to be- successful, happy, seen as hardworking, true to his self. More importantly, he is the one from amongst us who made it big. Rahul grafts, struggles, stays there forever, surviving. Some times he gives you the impression that he can bat just with his mind. He is brahmanesque, standing for simple living and high thinking. He gives u the impression that he is quite capable of attaining nirvana if he so desires. He also seems to be a follower of the scientific method. He reads, assimilates, discusses, debates and then takes decisions. As he said in a recent interview, he wouldn't mind being chief mentor at Infosys. Rahul can be studied for...

Barkha Dutt writes in the HT today about her issues with Sabarimla not letting women enter. She wants to change that ruling- simply because it concerns women and their rights. Will being allowed to enter Shabarimala make the status of women better? Where does one draw the line between cultural mores and modern thinking. What is the problem with Shabarimala being treated as an all male domain, for whatever reason? If we look into our culture and tradition, we encounter some obviously neanderthal practises like Sati. Then there are restrictive ones like temple entry which still in a lot of places is restricted by caste and gender . Wil quashing these have an impact on rooted mindsets in terms of caste and religion? Equality is well practised while preserving elements which are closely linked to culture and tradition. Why should only the woman fast on Karva Chauth, why not the man? Doesn't that sound absurd!