An alternative

Mohammad Yunus totally agrees with me that greed has undone us and governments are making a mistake by bailing out the very systems that encouraged greed.
Microfinance offers a conceptual solution - common welfare. Everybody needs to benefit, or else, greed will set in and we know how that worked out.
Yunus, says, “The people put in the money, the people lend to each other and we don’t tap the international financial system. Today, we have no shortage of money and 99.6 per cent payback rate.” And his Grameen Bank is talking about a turnover of a billion US.

I have to thank my family and friends

When I was 15, my sister toured Australia. I remember asking her to bring me a Spyrogyra album. Not Michael Jackson or whoever was the flavour at the time, but Spyrogyra. Twenty years later, I am on the threshold of watching Spyrogyra live.
I’m trying to remember where exactly along the way did my musical upbringing imbibe the likes of Spyrogyra, Chic Correa and Manhattan Transfer.
At the risk of coming across as culturally pretentious or musically precocious, or both, I think I was really lucky to be exposed to such music by a combination of family and friends.

Dynamov Chelski

It’s a measure of the nationalistic sentiment that drives the Russian psyche right now. That, and money.
Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea needed a coach, so he pulls strings to get Gus Hiddink, the national coach of Russia to come in. That too, only till the end of the season, for now.
Hiddink, all kudos to him, at the press meet says, “I did this because of the Russian connection. Anyone else had asked and I would have said no.”
Well, mate, it’s a fookin’ cloob in Loondun, with a fookin’ Blighty following, ‘innit?
Now the Russians own and coach it.

Typical Rahman

So, what do you think about our Mr Rahman? My mind travels back to Roja and the breakthrough sound he pioneered, changing the rules for the, until then, heavily formulaic Indian music industry.
He came across as truly funky, with his variating time signatures and staccato off beats, threading a lyrical needle through it all to hold it together.
And then, I felt for some time, he made a formula of it himself.
Even with Slumdog, the typical Rahman drum-line drives Jai Ho. To put my comments into perspective, a prophet must always suffer stricter scrutiny by his own.

Sunday columnists

Sunday reading is all about newspaper columnists, a breakfast with enough bacon to give you a heart-attack, coffee and a mid-morning siesta. Unfortunately, in the Gulf, Sunday is a working day. So most of the above happens on a Friday, except for the columnists. They only write on Sunday.
I believe they call it a blogroll.
Vir Sanghvi (food), Jeremy Clarkson (cars), Swaminathan Anklesaria (economics), Bachchi Karkaria (spin and puns) and Shobhaa De (for how not to write). Then out of the blue De does a Bachchi. Check it on http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&login=default&Enter=true&Skin=TOI&GZ=T
Even shitty writers can get it write, then.

Just go out and play

When I was a pre-teen, I’m pretty sure the only serious decision I presented my folks with was: can I go out to play or not?
Once I hit 12 or13, all hell may have broken loose, but that’s another story.
Today, I, as a parent, have to face myriad decisions regarding choices for my pre-teen daughter. She will be nine in June, but I’m already having to decide stuff like: Can she have a cellphone? Can she have an email account? Can she at least (her words) have a Facebook account? Whatever happened to going out and playing?

I love hockey

Is it just me, or is Indian hockey quietly going through a genuine renaissance? The Punjab Cup, which concluded recently, saw us hold our own against Germany and Holland, which until recently was unthinkable. When I was growing up, Zafar Iqbal was as big a star as Kapil Dev and Socrates (the footballer). And deservedly so. Now, the Indian team is touring Down Under and word is, hotter than a bush fire (no disrespect to the deceased in the recent blazes). I would be thrilled to see Indian hockey on par with cricket. It’s a better game for sure.

Grateful (they're not) Dead

It’s show time here in Dubai so forgive the incessant posts on music and bands and stuff. This is event season primarily because the summer is so prohibitively hot, and lasts for six to eight months at least, that organisers have to squeeze in as much as they can before April.
The latest to be added to the playlist here then is, believe it or not, Deep Purple. Yeah, even I thought they were all dead. It seems Ian Gillian and Ian Paice are still playing. That makes it worth going to see, especially since I’ve never seen Purple.

Sania sizzles

Sania Mirza gets a wild-card entry for the Dubai Open based purely on her popularity with the Indian expat community here. She always loses in the first round, but the stadium for that match is as packed as the men’s final. I try not to miss it either.
Apart from her sizzling forehand, she is sizzling, truly, truly hot in the flesh to watch.
It’s my ruling that Indian women are by far the sexiest when attired in shorts, short skirts and bikinis. I think it has to do with their under-exposure when using the above. Go Sania!

Mangalorean Catholics

I know 100 girls that look as good or better than Freida Pinto. This is not to take anything away from her acting or looks, it’s just that in the ‘Western’ Indian Catholic community of Maharashtra (my book will one day explain this social grouping in Booker-winning detail, inshallah), girls, generally, just have the Pinto look, or even better.
Freida is Mangalorean however, and that’s the difference within this social subset. The Mangalorean Catholics are the Jews of the Indian Catholic Community. Mainly for their herd-ish mentality and fiscal prudence. But as you can see, their women are beautiful.

A bad miss

Say what you like about Doordarshan in the age before cable TV conquered the Indian living room, they never missed the big events. Football world cup, champions league finals, Grammys and Oscars and the big boxing bouts. DD showed them all.
Now to watch any of the big events you may need a bouquet of networks and even then you may miss out. And so I missed this year’s Grammy night.
I will get a chance to make up for the miss by watching Coldplay live next month. Until then, I will have to make do with Fatboy Slim.

Bra burner scorches Dubai

Sometimes, you have to let other people say it. I haven’t read a lot of Germaine Greer, none of her books in fact.
However, this comment of her’s on Dubai, the marvel or hovel, depending on how you look at it, where I reside right now deserves to be shared. Not only because it’s written in the razor-sharp, extremely opinionated style of Greer. But, because it’s true. There are positives to Dubai, which Greer ignores. The fact is, if you have one ounce of heritage, cultural or non-material aesthetic in your blood, Dubai is not for you. Read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/09/dubai-architecture-greer

Of dingbats and knobs

Is it possible to be completely useless in one’s chosen sphere of expertise and be a wonderful person outside the office? Yes.
Is it possible to be brilliant at work, but a complete and total bum-hole outside the sphere of one’s chosen sphere of expertise? Yes.
Feel free to call in the firing squad to shoot me for stating what might be, the obvious. However, in the dynamic, crazy world of inter-personal relationships, the above makes it very difficult for me to deal with either kind of person. Why must a dingbat be nice and a knob a genius?

A true story

I went hunting as a child, was a sergeant in the National Cadet Corp in school and left home five times as a youth. However, as middle age beckons I find that the great outdoors are great as long as their outdoor and I’m in door.
So a recent office desert camp out found me accompanying some serious outdoorsmen to a mega hardware store. One turns to me and says, ‘This is the men’s version of a woman in the lingerie section’. I looked around – hammers, knives, tool-kits, axes, – ‘I prefer the women’s lingerie section’, I told him.

Comfort food

Indians will go on and on about dal (lentils) and rice being their comfort food. If you’re from the North the lentils will become rajma (beans) and if you go south, perhaps curds. This bemuses me. I grew up in a kitchen where to eat any of the above was a sacrifice. If at all, we ate the above only on Fridays, because it was a day of abstinence in the Catholic Church.
Comfort food for me is loin beef chops in a red curry, potato chops (beef mince and mashed potato merged in a patty) and a vegetable.

Better to be king at home, than king of the world

Maruti Suzuki posted record sales for January 2009. This is in the eye of the storm, mind you.
The West’s reportage of the recession is skewed towards China, because the West is screwed because of China and vice versa. One imported, one exported and both were rich.
India manufactured and sold at home, while it imported and exported. It has its own market first where its own banks are invested. As a result it has only imported the crisis to the extent to which it dealt with the world. And hardly exported any bad debts. Good on you, India

Better to be king at home, than king of the world

Maruti Suzuki posted record sales for January 2009. This is in the eye of the storm, mind you.
The West’s reportage of the recession is skewed towards China, because the West is screwed because of China and vice versa. One imported, one exported and both were rich.
India manufactured and sold at home, while it imported and exported. It has its own market first where its own banks are invested. As a result it has only imported the crisis to the extent to which it dealt with the world. And hardly exported any bad debts. Good on you, India

Truly awesome

I’ve waited a long time to let inspiration find its way into my being so that I can write something incisive or touching about Roger Federer’s epic loss to Rafael Nadal in the final of the Australian Open.
None is forthcoming. In fact, almost 24 hours later I find myself numb with the emotion of loss. As if I was playing Rafa.
I have boasted in these columns earlier how I have interviewed both, and even had dinner with Rafa. Federer is clearly my favourite. But, you can’t help but be awed by Rafa’s completeness of game. Truly awesome.