At least someone's doing something about corruption

As a blogger, sometimes I find others' writing is inspiring; sometimes I find it so good that it freezes me. This piece by Girish Shahane is one such piece. How beautifully he blends an opinion piece with a movie review with current affairs!

I echo Girish's views on the whole Anna Hazare movement as well. Holding the government hostage based on a squeaky clean image and good intentions is just not on. Anna's call for a government strike and his latest move are just as bad as the government not allowing Anna the right to a peaceful protest. This is aside from the fact that the Lokpal bill itself isn't going to solve all our problems -- it may even exacerbate them.

We're a little desperate as a country and I can understand why. Corruption at the highest level is a malaise, but corruption at the lowest level is what we face in our daily lives. Here there still lies scope for introspection. We can avoid paying bribes because jobs get done quicker. We can do our best in our daily lives to avoid corruption. I have seen some of my compatriots who come to Europe, bending every rule in the book without compunction because it's easy to do so, even in an environment that doesn't call for it. Maybe we can start by ridding ourselves of these habits.

Do I know that Lokpal will definitely fail? No. It's possible that the sheer momentum of the anti-corruption voice may cause the Lokpal Bill to be successful to begin with, and with more amendments, lead us to a future with lesser corruption. The subject of corruption is a complex one with many variables, and I don't pretend to know all the answers. But a flawed idea isn't a good place to start, even if it comes with the best intentions.

The best context for me to say 'At least someone's doing something about it' is where the 'someone' refers to myself.

The world according to Shahid Afridi

Original heart pic courtesy: www.fallingpixel.com

Cricket Cup World Cup Cricket Cup World Cup

© Getty Images

It's an honour to watch this man lead our team with such dignity and poise.

© AFP

It's been a joy to watch this man bat and conduct himself the way he has for the past 21 years. I don't know if I will be able to watch cricket when he bows out.

© Associated Press

It's historic to have witnessed this. I can die happy now. 

What a World Cup it's been - India were favourites going into it and came out on top. I'd never have guessed that we could withstand so much pressure, but an Indian fan is never pessimistic (or even realistic) about these things. Thank you Indian cricket team for all the memories.

For those of you saying this isn't a 'World Cup', 17.5% of the world's population parties tonight (Credit: Friend on Facebook). If that isn't a World Cup, I don't know what is.

PS: If you don't know what the subject of this blog post is all about, you missed the song of the cup.

A farewell rhyme for 2010

Scams of epic proportions in India,
Silence and then much noise on matters Radia.
Apple ne humko iPad diya.
And that Kalmadi fellow, he made lakhs ya.

Arundathi put the sexy into secede,
We saw Ayodhya play it safe and proceed,
Then Obama graced us with his presence,
As Nithyananda seduced people with incense
And the Pope fought issues with nonsense.

We were left wondering,
As we confused causation with correlation,
Do we call the rich man 'king'?
Or is the richest man called Raja, by conflation.
Oh yeah, and we also had serious inflation.

Somehow we still completed the CWG,
And before that, the DLF IPL 3.
But in neither case was the follow-up very good,
Suresh and Shashi were not sufficiently screwed.
Manmohan Singh just nodded his head and stood.

Sachin's run machine was at its strongest ever,
And the world came down with World Cup fever,
There once was a dog called Spot,
And just for fixing it, poor Pakistan were caught.
Again Manmohan did nought.

The Indian blogosphere scales new heights,
As rameshsrivats puns and krishashok writes.
(Heck, the latter even has soundbytes.)
We can now make any topic trend,
And even break media silence in the end.

Assange's leaks made headlines everywhere,
For top secret documents and then for a condom tear.
If you're leaking, you might as well leak some runs,
And give Sachin half a ton of tons.

And so 2010 is done.
If only 2011 is half as much fun.
Because anyway in 2012, we're all done.
Happy MMXI everyone.

Radia silence

You will notice that there was considerable silence about the Barkha Dutt - Radia tapes controversy on this blog. That's because there's been a general silence on this blog.

That notwithstanding, Barkha Dutt made a big mistake she can't deny - she lied (either on the tapes or in her apology). So of course, it comes across that she was ready to mediate between the Congress and the DMK. And what is the best way to counter any kind of recorded evidence but to say, "I lied"?

At the same time, it does come across from NDTV's coverage (or the part that was in the debate anyway)that she was actually using the information to report news. So my take is that she, in all likelihood, WAS lying to Niira of many circles. (Radia, circles... - clever, huh?)

So now after Barkha's admission and general evidence that her role in cabinet selection was non-existent, the best Manu Joseph can come up with is, 'You didn't publish a story' and the eloquent, 'You're not answering the question!'

That is why children are told: "Don't tell lies." It generally creates all kinds of messes.

PS: Vir bad-teeth Sanghvi, on the other hand, should rename Counterpoint to Copy-Paste.

10 reasons why Commonwealth Games 2010 are like the Oktoberfest

1. Both events' names are misleading. Most of Oktoberfest falls in September; the Commonwealth games have already created an uncommon amount wealth for some organizers.
2. The Oktoberfest is known for the best types of wurst. The Commonwealth Games are known for the worst types of worsts (worst in meeting deadlines, worst planned to expenditure ratio etc).
3. Both events are best enjoyed / tolerated by consuming copious quantities of alcohol.
4. Athletes come from different parts of the world to participate in games at both events. Many of these games end with falling down.
5. The Commonwealth Games features a massive statue of its mascot Shera, a tiger who is nicknamed a lion. The Oktoberfest features a massive statue of Bavaria with a lion by her side. This lion, however, is not called a tiger. 
6. The theme song of the Games was recently remixed to make it more peppy. The songs at the Oktoberfest get more peppy depending on how many drinks you have mixed. 
7. In one event, participants are ready to sleep in sleeping bags on lawns. In the other event, they complain about everything possible.
8. The length of the Oktoberfest depends on which date the first Sunday of October falls. The completion percentage of the 2010 Commonwealth Games depends on which side of the bed Suresh Kalmadi wakes up.
9. The Oktoberfest is declared open when the mayor of Munich taps open the first filled keg of beer. The Games will be officially declared open after the last available resources have been tapped.
10. Locals regard the Oktoberfest beer as outrageously priced at 11.70 Euros a liter. Locals and internationals consider the toilet paper at the CWG outrageously priced at $80 a roll.

This post was first published on Yahoo Fit to Post here.

The Pressing Council of India

The following is a completely fictionalized account.


Once upon a time in the land of Indial, an exposé left many major media houses reeling. Letters were released showing how favourable opinion could be bought in exchange of an ‘official’ status costing a few crores. Many correlations were found between the intensity and the nature of newspaper reports and the awarding of contracts to a kinda-significant, large-ish gaming event of the time - the Uncommonwealth Games.

Left with no option (and being unable to tell correlation from causation), the media houses came together to save their profession and published a policy document, which is reproduced below:

Joint circular by the Pressing Council of Indial

Guiding Principles: Transparency, Honesty, Truth and a little Revenue through Service and Technology

Slogan: Don’t be very evil

In view of recent public outrage due to activities of leading newspapers like the Timers of Indial, Hindustani Timmies and the rest, we have decided to restructure some of our policies based on our guiding principles. We hope this will bring credibility back to the profession while keeping the gravitational pull on our money sacks undisturbed.

1. Transparency: Starting today, newspapers will be officially selling the official tag for events. Yes, now businesses and common people can have official papers for their tournaments, music shows, weddings and thread ceremonies.

In exchange, nice stuff will be written about the events and their officials (official officials?). This service comes in different packages of single article, editorial and all-out sucking up.

2. Honesty: To make it clearer to the undiscerning public, media companies who lose out on the 'official' race will now have to mention 'It sucks balls that we're not official' before writing anything negative about the event they lost out on. We feel that this is a step in the right direction for the world of advertorials and will also lead to a chuckle or two.

3. Truth and a little revenue: Advertisers will no longer be able to buy adspace in newspapers because there won't be any. In fact they will no longer be called advertisers, but ‘new editors’. The new-look newspaper will simply be filled with a large number of articles, as newspapers should be. If ‘editors’ write their opinion, are we not being truthful? We think so too. [Exception: Point 2 above].

Note: We have no intention of adding a ‘sponsored by…’ tag, as we believe we are well within the limits of our slogan without doing so.

4. Service: Since advertisements will no longer exist, even if companies are launching their products, they will have to come up with articles which will be reviewed and published for a small fee. Newspapers can even write some on behalf of the new editors. Please find enclosed with this document examples of articles. [1. Automobiles - 'Tartar Micro car saves the life of thousands'; 2. FMCG - 'Coldgates toothpaste proven to create uncontrollable pining in the opposite sex').

5. Technology: We will upgrade our website so that it no longer uses crappy text animation, MS Paint logos and frames (seriously, we still use frames). We promise.

As one of the pillars of democracy, it is our duty to pretend that we are responsible. Therefore we have spent time and money in issuing this circular. We are confident that these steps will help restore public opinion in our favour.

And if that doesn't work, we'll just have to use our influence to change it.

Oddly, something similar is starting up in the real word. Who’d have thunk?

On Yahoo FTP: Hollywood’s Spiritual Hopscotch

(The following post was first published on Yahoo! Fit To Post here.)

A message for Ms Julia Roberts on behalf of my fellow Indians: we are cautiously happy that you have embraced Hinduism. According to reports, your family goes to the temple together to “chant and pray and celebrate”. “I’m definitely a practicing Hindu”, you are reported to have said. We may be buying Ms Gilbert’s book and we will buy tickets to your movies, but please don’t expect us to buy your words.

Don’t get us wrong: under normal circumstances, we would have whole-heartedly believed you. We love to include and be included. This is not the most private of our weaknesses. All Indians felt included when Obama said, “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus…” at his inauguration speech. And not all Indians are Hindus. And Obama was talking about Americans. This trait also shows up when we refer to Indian-Americans as ‘Indians’ when they become famous. We laugh when Russell Peters makes fun of how we wash ourselves, and we grin and bear crappy movies like ‘Lady in the Water’. In American Idol, we wildly cheer for Sanjaya and Anoop, knowing fully well that they won’t get anywhere, except on shows like Survivor. And then we root for them there.

Despite this obvious weakness, the reason we’re not fooled by you is that you are announcing these beliefs at a time when your movie based on ‘Eat Pray Love’ is about to release. This kind of timing seems like, for lack of a better word, movie publicity. Besides, the Hindu identity cannot possibly co-exist with other facets of your personality. We have to work hard to preserve this identity in India where it withstands daily torture from radical, foreign concepts like ‘Friendship Day’, ‘Valentine’s Day’ and pub culture. It will crumble when trying to assimilate with a radical Hollywood star who appeared in a TV series called ‘Friends’, a movie called ‘Valentine’s Day’ and still probably frequents pubs.

Today you may be a Hindu, eat only Italian food and love only people from Bali, but we know that tomorrow if you are cast in ‘Shrek 5: After forever – Why are we doing this to ourselves?’, you will be convinced that ogres exist and fairy tales are the reality we choose to hide from by living our normal lives. (This, in turn, could be a sci-fi action movie with many super-slo-mo shots. Mr Nolan, I’m available to write the script.)

Here’s a suggestion though: if you want to take up Hinduism seriously, you will be subject to the strict standards of its most visible leader. Out of respect I will refer to this leader only as Rajan Zee, President of Universal Society of Hindu-ness (not the real organization name) or as he’s known in lazier circles – the PUSH. After Gisele Bundchen (umlaut omitted to protect privacy) evinced deep interest in Hinduism by saying that she enjoyed Hinduish things like yoga, meditation and sarees, she was offered advice by the leader [1]. You will also need to give a similar opportunity to the PUSH administration, who will ‘be glad to help in your spiritual exploration’, if your journey isn’t already over after reading Ms Gilbert’s book.

Once you become Janaki Rani, do not to expect star treatment in India. We have plenty of good female actors of our own, including the uncrowned queen of vegetarian Ham, Kareena Kapoor. According to the very objective opinion of her cousin and debutant director Sidharth Malhotra, she has surpassed you in a remake of one of your movies. That’s all right, she can copy your roles, but you will copy her religion. And when you do, there’s nothing to fear – if there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s being inclusive.

[1] See hyperlink for full story and real name of Mr Zed

Kalmadeceptions

The most honorable @krishashok has come out with another template for us mortals to fill in. Here were a couple of my entries for #kalmadeception.

#Kalmadeception 1

#Kalmadeception 2

Here's an excellent self-referential template that someone had made. [Thanks to unnamed guest for providing the link.]

Census-less-ness

Census-less-ness (n.): A peculiar kind of population survey that puts housewives, prostitutes and beggars in the same category.

(Cross-posted at Deepak's Let's snig-lets)

The touch of India

An ancient Indian saying goes: What thou shalt not take to heart, thou shalt take in your hand. And it's true. We have never shied away from the sense of touch. Around the world, millions of westerners are only now waking up to our ways.

The recent revolution, of course, is due to a fellow whose surname is Jobs. This man is making billions off a simple human need - the need to touch. It's what we Indians have always done. When we eat our food, we touch it. When Zakir Hussain plays his tabla, he touches it. When we want to show respect to our elders, we touch their feet. Even when we wash ourselves after our morning jobs (no pun intended), we clean by touch. The average Indian has no problems touching food, assorted body parts or percussion instruments.

However, the poor, deprived western world envies our ability to touch. After their capitalist companies forced them to buy toilet paper, spoons, forks, drum sticks and plectrums, their innate urge to touch now manifests itself in the latest technological breakthroughs.Jobs can't get enough touching
(Image credit: via @dhempe on Twitter)

They envy us in general, I think. When we were winning at hockey, they made the pitches turf. Now that our guys are killing at the spelling bees, they want to simplify spelling. The iPods, iPads, iTouches and iMats threaten to steal from us our touchy feely culture. (Aside, iNamitha is now on Twitter RT'ing intense stuff about people giving up drinking because of beggars. Now if that isn't touching, I don't know what is.)

But we are not to be outdone easily. Our march on touching shall not be stopped by a few phones and pads. Where they fail, we will make up. Our young men will continue to touch women as (in)appropriate. We will now regulate our touchiness to the extent that one of our major states is going to have a 'culture policy' that will define what is too touchy to be touched. Heck we'll even be a little contrarian in our greeting. If they shake hands, we will touching and say 'namaste'.

If you think I'm going a touch overboard, sample one of ToI's best headlines in recent times: Fans touch Big B, star touched by fans. You can't expect any better from an ordinary blogger like me.

As the ancient Indian saying goes, 'Dil pe mat le, haath pe le'. Stay in touch.

The straight, single Indian man and Bipasha Basu's boobage

I am a straight Indian man, lucky enough to have a great wife who loves me. But I know numerous other dudes who have recently been finding the going a little tough. They are constantly being maligned by the women of my country. So today I write a plea on their behalf.

Dear Indian woman, why do you snub us so? Is it because we don't make outlandish gestures such as this when we want to marry you? Anyone can organize a bunch of dancers, but if you asked that guy, he would agree that much more courage is required in getting his parents to talk to her parents. And let's face it, if you were that chick in the park, you would have said, "I need to ask my grandmother" instead of saying yes. Imagine the embarrassment you would have faced. Moreover, if it was close to Valentine's day, we would just be putting you in mortal danger with a bunch of sena / sene 's hovering in the area. We care more about your life than some stupid romantic gesture. We are practical like that.

Or do you snub us because we have small penises? (Note: here I can speak only of averages). But really now, it's not the size, it's how you use it (and it wasn't even us who came up with that line). And boy, do we USE it. After the Chinese, we have the most documented success with it. First we practice alone for years. Then when the time comes, we don't use it selfishly only to please the parties involved, but the results of our efforts please our uncles, aunts, distant cousins, passed on ancestors and parents - on both sides. That's got to count for something, right? And all this culture compliance in a matter of minutes. You'd be a fool to label these qualities as shortcomings. In the traditional sense of the word anyway.

If your complaint is about our moobs, let us explain. We make the sacrifice of cultivating those because we want you to experience pleasures from both sides of the fence. So many qualities in one partner that you never feel like you are missing something. We are the only men who actually give up our bodies for their women. Why mock us for something so benevolent?

So why do you snub us? Especially Indian women like Sania Mirza who goes off to marry a Pakistani cricketer when India has so many mooby ones of its own? And Bipasha Basu whose first topless appearance in an ad was for New York Lotto. Seriously, what's up with that? Why not for Gujarat tourism? What is wrong with honest, vegetarian, teetotaling businessmen? Or you could have lent your boobage to the campaign for 'God's own country'. The foreigners would have come flooding for Ayurvedic massages of all kinds. You could have helped your country. But no, you chose to reveal in an ad for the lottery of a city which already has a TV series that equates its name with the act of sex. Good job Bips. You're going to stand out like hay in a haystack.

Therefore dear women of India, I urge you to be a little more understanding. There are many eligible single Indian men out there, and not all of them are only interested in your fraandship. Seek and you shall find a wonderful man whose flaws you can look past. Our hope be with you.

(Proposal and NY Lotto ad links from Gautam John's Twitter feed which really has much more interesting stuff than this post suggests.)

A World T20 ditty

Anyone can bowl short to our batters,
A little bounce sees them in tatters.
It makes Gambhir looks very serious,
And Murali Vijay, he don't seem victorious.
The man beast can't play the hook or the pull,
The only beast he resembles is a lot of bull.
And all Mr Yuvi can do is push and prod,
That, and wobble his jiggly bod.
Heck, no wonder everyone's sobriquet isn't 'God'.

It's not for us - this pulling and cutting,
We're more comfortable with slogging and ducking.
But captain courageous did score a few runs,
And the other CSK boy Raina even got a ton.
All in all, it wasn't such a bad trip,
At least it the boys had a Caribbean dip.
Hey you know what the BCCI can now do,
After the money-counting is through?

Perhaps they can organize a party or two.

(Image Copyright AFP)

Good news, bad news

Recently, there's a forward that's been going around that has a British journalist waxing eloquent about India based on his experience in Tamil Nadu. Here is the scanned image that you've probably already felt warm inside about.

On the other hand, Anjali Philip pointed me to this piece through her Twitter feed. Here's a sample:

India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated.

It goes on to state what the author thinks about India's problems, and this guy has travelled the country a little more than ol' Shakespeare of the previous article. I'm not saying that either of these are perfect or accurate in every way, but why am I not surprised that no one's forwarding this article (or even reweeting the link)?

Our love for good news is only paralleled by our tendency to ignore the bad.

Drinking culture

'A drink a day may keep women's weight gain away' claims Hindustan Times.

I await a repartee from these guys now. What fun it will be!

Well-intentioned idiocy

After the tragedy at Carlton Towers earlier today, a friend said that the first few deaths due to jumping off the building happened because folks were trying to be heroic on the ground by holding out blankets and such. If that is true, isn't that the most infuriating thing you've ever heard?

Often, well-meaning folks are let off easy because, after all, they had 'good intentions'. It is easy to understand the desperation of the people trapped inside the building. Unfortunately, the people on the ground should have realised that they were playing with someone's life, good intentions didn't mean squat. Intentions don't bring people back from the grave. What happened at Carlton Towers is tragic, may the souls of those who passed away rest in peace. And may those who tried to be brave be punished appropriately so that they mix a little more intelligence with their bravery the next time.

Ode to to the well-intentioned, unintentional killers
I mean well, even if I have half a brain.
I mean well, even if my ideas are lame.
I mean well, even if I get it wrong sometimes.
I mean well, isn't that the least of all crimes?
I mean well, so whatever I do is justified.
I mean well, even if six people died.

India: Fight fire with ire

When it comes to fighting terrorism, India is a force to be reckoned with; armed with the most deadly anti-terror devices. No, I'm not talking about the fighter jets, defence expenditure increase or DRDO's latest technology; I'm talking warnings and directives.

We are the number one nation when it comes to issuing repeated warnings, with thousands issued in the last year alone. Let's face it - global warnings are our thing. We warn Pakistan after every terror strike, we warn Ajmal Kasab that we will hang him and sometimes we warn fishermen to not venture out into the sea during storms. These warnings also include terrifying details of how we are 'losing patience'. Hearing the hon'ble PM with his deadly baritone is enough to make the terrorists want to switch careers to charity. I hereby propose that we have a 'warning' ministry that issues warnings and a daily update on our patience levels with full gusto, so that nothing may go unwarned. Oh wait, we already have that.

The second weapon in the arsenal is issuing directives. For example, in Pune, there is a now terrorist-combating directive that is in place for the next 15 days. Two-wheeler riders are not allowed to wear scarves.  What's more is that, for women, this restriction is only in the Koregaon Park area -- they can wear scarves elsewhere in the city. Sure, this seems innocuous. But it's brilliant if you think about it. IF the terrorist is a dude, AND decides to take a joyride on a two-wheeler, AND is in the same area where he committed the crime, he MIGHT be snapped up by our security folks! My heart is overcome with feelings of safeness. I propose a Padmashree for the person who approved this brainwave. As a citizen of India, I really could not ask for anything more.

Be afraid, terrorists. Be very afraid.

(Image courtesy: http://vikrantshukla.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html)

Thoughts on the Pune blasts

For those thinking that the Senas' and culture police's antics are something to be ignored, think about this: most of the security on Feb 13th at Pune would have been diverted towards protecting citizens entering movie theaters and couples celebrating Valentine's day.

If this had been a series of blasts, most of our security forces would have been wasted around multiplexes and parks, instead of chasing perps. I don't know if this aggravated the situation yesterday, but it sure as hell wouldn't have helped.

Opportunity cost is a very real cost, and folks playing the fool with citizens' security should be put to task very early with a no-forgiveness policy, whatever their last names be. Ironically, the Shiv Sena claims that SRK was not being patriotic by supporting Pakistani cricket players. Guess who were the real traitors yesterday?

Who's the tiger-est of them all?

Match the columns (Types of tigers on the left; Qualities on the right)

The first two correct comments will receive an iPod. (As an image attachment in an email, but still). As always, wrong answers are the most entertaining.

(Images courtesy: mediaswirl.wordpress.com ; im.in.com ; animals.howstuffworks.com)

Dear diary (by Sania Mirza)

It had to happen. The engagement is off.

Sohrab insisted it would be called an i-Tablet. I said: something more feminine, like the iPill. Then he said that we were incompatible and never agreed on anything. I was always wrong. I wagered our engagement on the fact it would be a more feminine product. (I'm very playful like that. Except on court.)

He heard 'iPad', it was game, set and match for me. At least this one.There will be no re-Kindling of all this, though. That's for sure.

I must think now - better late than never. What kind of person should I look for? Someone who lets me play tennis? People ask me about tennis after marriage all the time.  In fact, sometimes they don't even ask me, but have a public quiz about it.

But why should it matter? Tennis ain't so grand. After all, I'm bigger than tennis. I just need to choose someone who gives me more space. Hey, that's right aren't we doing something about space in 2016? That's it. I'll choose the guy who goes in to space. I'll call him Spaceman! Ah, he will come and sweep off my feet and we will escape gravity together. Maybe the Times of India will call us Space-San and have more quizzes about us. Slideshows, even! The joy!

Anyway, I'm off now. Tomorrow I'll tell you more about those six games I won in the Australian Open. Not matches, silly. Games. See you later, I'm Scootying.