Fait accompli

I close my eyes and wait.

The fait accompli of shame, neglect and fear washes over me.

Like a practiced ritual of acceptance.

The pain numbs. The numbing is welcome. Like plumbing for a leaky spirit.

Devoid of conscience and character.

Now, devoid of hope.

This hope, perhaps overdone in the context of gluttinous despair.

Feed the beast, eat the loved ones to bare bones.

Shriveled lives, shrinking from the light.

Dig deep. Not deep enough yet for a grave.

Dig deep for a man. Find belief. Find nothing?

It’s Christmas time there’s no need to be afraid…

Death of a hero

The death of a hero gives the blog life again.
Socrates would have liked that.
The 1982 World Cup, me aged 9, live games on Doordarshan like water in the desert… the concoction was right for a boy to choose his hero.
From my father I inherited Ali and Elvis. But this one was mine.
I’m not sure if it was his hair, his beard, his languid style, his one-step penalties, or no-look back-heels.
I am sure that it was his ability to smoke 40 cigarettes a day and still be one of the best footballers of all time.

Bzzzzzzzp...

As black holes go, the most crippling is the one where you realise you are now not worthy of any emotive indulgence.
Not worthy of happiness or joy, satisfaction or accomplishment, peace or anger.
Your emotional rights as an individual are sucked into oblivion by the black hole of self-recrimination.
Self-recrimination. That’s the toughest jury; Borne out of true self-inquest, devoid of distraction and sleight of heart, or mind.
Like black holes in space, we know they exist and what they do, but there is little fuss about the exact moment of contact with one.
Just a bzzzzzp.
Gone.

Yin, Yang, Yawn...

The yin-yang of human experience bemuses me.
A soldier is sent to war, then accused of excessive violence.
A jockey is allowed to race a horse, then restricted from using a whip.
This constant see-sawing of human nature to try and soothe consciences and justify pursuits that fall clearly in that ‘grey’ moral zone provide stop and think moments for (wo)mankind.
I have bemoaned on this blog that not enough people are stopping, thinking and then talking about it.
Maybe they are talking, but the amount of bullshit in cyberspace just drowns out any intelligent thought, reason or discussion.

Never ever...

I, have, for the most part forgotten how to write.
So, in a moment of self-acrimonious ball-busting I revisited some rules I made for myself, back in the day.
Some of them are gems:
1) Never ever start a copy with a quote, song or poem. Nobody needs to know how well-honed your cultural sensibilities are.
2) Never ever do a story on the phone; or worse, by email. The odd quote, the HQ statement, ok… but the story, get out and meet the people.
3) Never ever use clichés to dress up facts.
4) Never ever stop writing.

The Great Indian Sob Story

The Indian version of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ – Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) – has turned into a sob-story, against-all-odds, zero-to-hero cluster fuck.

Amitabh Bachchan, India’s answer to ‘God in Hollywood (Morgan Freeman)’ creates the perfect setting for farmers, rural teachers and lower middle-class workers to get their 30 minutes of fame – and Rs50 lakhs.

India is perfecting the art of doing a format to death.

I would love to see just one participant this season come from a rich family, well educated, with only one desire – to win to get richer, or just to blow the money up.

Bankruptcy lessons

The hardest thing about being bankrupt, well, one of the hardest, is being able to share in the joy of the progress and prosperity of those around you.
While being able to afford a doughnut will be your major challenge for the immediate future (read, next few years), your best buddy’s shiny new Lamborghini does not exactly set your heart aflame.
What it does do, is make you want to set yourself aflame. And the Lamborghini. And all the Lamborghinis in the world. And the world itself.
So bankruptcy teaches you detachment.
A forced lesson, but a survival one.

Talking smack

After sustained cocaine use – you get affected.

Mentally, your shit is just not the same.

I have experienced this. The wiring goes between thought process, articulation and rationale.

Apart from me, there is Specimen No 1: Charlie Sheen.

He did enough of drugs to kill two and a half men, goes the quip. But, hear him speak and you’ll see.

Then there is Specimen No 2. Maradona. He recently called Alex Ferguson a joke. See what I mean.

Then there is Kanye West.

Who would make Charlie, Diego and me sound sane. And he does not even do coke.

Heil, Germany!

Over two world wars, Germany attempted to conquer Europe – and pretty much did by the second one.
Now, Europe is at Germany’s mercy, begging to be conquered.
Such delicious irony playing out in Europe deserves at least a moment’s ‘ponderosity’.
Hitler would be proud of Germany today.
Proud that it holds the future of the world in its hands.
Germany is a country that learns the lessons of history well.
It shakes off the scourge of Third Reich but still ends up ruling Europe.
Do not kill to conquer, rather conquer with killer innovation, technology, engineering, quality and hardwork.
(Image courtesy: FT.com)

How young is too young to fight?

I am moved this morning by this video clip of boys under-10 cage fighting.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMESAwK9qRw
The outcry has been, generally, not in favour of the activity for such young men.
I’m not so sure.
Cage fighting needs discipline, fitness and courage – in doses that would set any man apart from the multitude.
Would you rather the boys watch TV or be training to fight?
The machoness in me without a doubt sees the training as better.
It’s the environment and cage that make it barbaric. To say the least.
At what age should a boy start to box, then?

With out, from with in

When you are angry and seething at the state of the world around you, you must at least have the moral equivalent of a soap box to stand on before you let loose.

If realization has struck you in the deep, dark recesses of a forlorn and miserable patch, it is perhaps best to breathe deeply and try to follow the Buddhist meditation technique of – not thinking.

What else can one do? You cannot begin to change the world yet except from within.

Too many from outside are inside, and too many from the inside are outside – St Augustine

Wait, and the shit will come to you

I normally do not indulge in schadenfreude.
Not even after Jon Stewart’s English stooge gave the word an orgasmic lift.
Not even with Suresh Kalmadi and Amar Singh in jail.
And sigh! Not even after I spent a fortune and travelled half way across the world to hear Metallica ‘live’ at the first Sonisphere festival.
Now, Metallica are coming to the UAE and India.
Which goes to show, if you wait long enough, shit will come to you.
So, I dug out an old post, post the concert back in ‘09.
http://ninety9words.blogspot.com/2009/08/devil-may-care-in-fact-he-most.html
Read it and if you can, go!

Bitches brew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDTMRUxNLMg

A day trip on youtube led me to look, and find, Bob Marley’s Redemption Song – one searches for what one needs.
Which, of course, led me to find a whole heavenly host of greats performing cover versions.
Which uncovered Sinead O’Connor, and then, Annie Lennox.
This is not so much about who did the best version (though Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is there with a crazy take), but a reminder of the time when female singers could rely simply on the power of their vocals and some crazy angst.
Creative force did not have room for cheap sex appeal.

Must, not, must, not...

Must not buy into the media-driven overload of information that 9/11 was a life-changing event. Except the USA's.
Must buy into the belief that what counts is lives of people who died. On that day. And since.
Must not let the din from the 9/11 anniversary drown out the muted cry of thousands of Somali children dying of hunger and thirst.
Must keep in the mind that vested interests are our primary information sources. And the interests are not often mine.
Must not take the moral high ground.
Must not take refuge in the low ground of moral ambiguity.

Sexy like hard work

Learning and scholarship and hard work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain.

Lee Kuan Yew, creator of modern Singapore and former PM, explaining why Asians succeed.

None of those words are sexy, none make for exciting copy or eye-ball grabbing headlines.

Yet, as the Asians move to take over the world, parents will have to weigh carefully drawing a balance between the un-cool truths of the past and the hip calling of the future.

How to propagate the grind without killing the innovation.

Or else, the inexorable cycle of life will bring us to ruin.

Babes got game

If a picture paints a thousand then a cartoon easily does 99.
This one from The Sun captures not only the idiosyncrasies that make Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United; but the simple facts that drive its fanatic legions.
I have often been accused of being a poser for supporting United. Of choosing the club because they were a media-driven creation.
I have been accused of much worse in my life – and guilty of quite a lot of it, but it’s the United taunt I always defend most ardently.
I should just let Smalling and Jones do the defending.

The Western bias

The extent to which the news wires are Western-biased is sometimes appalling.
Consider this story filed today by one of the world’s top agencies: Joey Vento, owner of a landmark south Philadelphia cheesesteak stand, who once told customers to order in English, has died.
How big was Vento? Big in the States, maybe.
I come from Pune and am wondering if the wires will carry a story on the founder of Joshi Wadawale, or the Vaishali owner, passing away – a long life to both if they are still alive.
Note to all journos: don’t be hard-wired to the agencies

Systemic change morally endemic

The simplicity of right and wrong.
That is at the heart of Anna Hazare’s movement.
And that is what makes the sophists – and by that I mean Nandan Nilekani and Arundhati ‘one-novel’ Roy - uncomfortable.
And that is also what endears the urban middle class to the movement.
Anna is the embodiement of our desire for moral salvation.
Mired in grey, the modern human’s insatiable appetite for materialism has been re-hued in plain black and white by Anna’s campaign.
And like life itself, we see that morality, unsexy as the word is, is what it all boils down to.

Hyperbole, Stupidity and Facebook

Hyperbole - the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.
“Shammi Kapoor is not the Elvis Presley of India, Elvis was the Shammi of America.” – Aamir Khan

Stupidity - a quality, state, act or idea that exhibits properties of being stupid (slow of mind). A congenital lack of capacity for reasoning.
"Nobody is to be blamed (India’s cricket performance in England).” - Krishnamachari Srikkanth

Facebook – outlet for urban India’s impotent rage given its inability to effect change; so to feel like it’s making a difference.
“Anything, everything by, of and about Anna Hazare.” - Svengali

Sophistication runs riot

Sophism was a movement in ancient Greece where an argument was obscured by big words and complicated concepts so as to hide the truth.
The movement gave us the word sophistication, which, over the years, has come to mean a good thing. A compliment.
Barack Obama is a sophisticated president.
The sophistication of modern life, however, was torched and looted by educated, middle-class and affluent rioters in London.
For just one moment, we were offered a window to the heart of modern humanity – the animal spirit laid bare.
Now, the argument is more earthy - parents teach your children well.

Cleverley done, United

I eagerly awaited the papers today to see what sports desks had done with the juiciest name for a headline to hit the Premier League for some time.
‘Tom debuts Cleverley’.
Or, at least: ‘Fergie Cleverley destroys City’.
Alas, the papers were restrained.
Perhaps they did not want to be too clever so early in the season, given it was only the Community Shield.
But, mark my words, headlines will come.
On some Quark page in a newsroom somewhere in England, ‘Cleverley’s dumb move’, is already written and waiting.
What the headline will be is up to Tom now.

A PR coup

When Time magazine b(r)ought in Fareed Zakaria – after a change in Newsweek ownership booted him out – Zak took his one-page commentary formula with him.
A measure of the influence he wields is that the very style responsible for Newsweek’s diminishing returns, was implemented, albeit in part, at Time.
Time now is also unabashedly pro-Obama.
The latest international edition drives the bargain for Obama in the debt deal debacle.
The real winner is Pimco and its CEO Mohamed El-Erian (pictured).
He is quoted twice within the space of three pages, in two separate articles.
Now that is a PR coup.

Reporting rape

In India I can walk into a police station and file a complaint against you for rape.
The police will then write a first information report (FIR).
When the crime reporter calls the police station for a story, the duty officer will tell him that there is a rape FIR.
The reporter will write the story naming you as the accused in a rape FIR.
Your life forever will be tainted.
That is the shoddy, despicable state of journalism that has pervaded the Indian press for years now.
And it will continue as long as the story means money,

Duck-ing Ganguly

What do you call an Indian playing a bouncer? A duck.
That is an original. Tell it, spread it, make it work.
So, it is with cricket that we are stuck for now.
Not players, but those who are entrusted with enhancing the television experience of watching a live cricket match.
Saurav Ganguly is the antithesis of three of the above – enhance, TV, experience.
As a former player he is supposed to give insight, anecdote, judgement and analysis. He offers none.
His is the classic commentary of platitudes.
He sounds as uptight as he looks on TV.
Lose him.

Off the pitch

It is better not to delve into India’s on-going cricket debacle in England.
Enter the commentators.
Harsha Bhogle is to commentating what an epidural is to a pregnant woman.
For the minimum of pain, you will eventually get maximum relief - which given India’s history in commentating means proper grammar, acceptable syntax and no misplaced ‘the’s’.
In India, often, if you speak English well, it is enough.
Bhogle, at best, is the classic after-dinner speaker.
Gentle on the ears, easy on the stomach.
At worst he is a like a hotel lobby painting – pleasant, but hardly anything worth remembering.

D-uh!

There are some things that are so painfully obvious that surely there is joy to be had from merely stating them. Let us indulge then:
1) This is the first time in 20 years that the Indian cricket team does not have a frontline, make-the-other-team quiver kind of spinner.
2) Freida Pinto is the cosmos’ perfect example of how being ‘at the right time, at the right place’ is all that matters…
3) … that and a good Hollywood agent.
4) Readers always get the press they deserve, not the one they want and never the one they need.

Uncle Sam's death (pronounced debt)

The tragedy of the US debt crisis is the US.
Echoes of falling empires – Egyptians, Romans, the Brits – not quite, they just went off for a cuppa.
Linkedin as we all are now, due to some mad cross-border fertilisation of people and money over the last century there will be some negative fallout globally if the US defaults.
The real measure of the state of affairs is the lack of brouhaha over the possible default.
Sure, there is some hemming and hawing, but by pre-economic crisis standards it’s hardly apocalyptic.
Overall, the world is ready. Pull the plug USA.

Time to go to Rehab

I don’t which was more depressing – watching India play football that was so below par against the UAE recently; or Amy Winehouse’s death, the news of which broke during the game.
There must be something fundamentally so wrong with Indian football to see the national team stuck in some kind of time warp – 1980s.
With explosion of football on a global scale, even an ordinary school kid will tell you how Barcelona play, or even Man Utd.
Apart from Sunil Chhetri the rest of the team looked worse than the country’s 147-odd world ranking.
Indian football needs rehab, Amy.

The Cross and the Switchblade

Who is more dangerous than a Muslim fanatic?
A Christian fanatic.
As the dust rises to reveal the debris in Oslo – and perhaps a closer peek at the soul of one of the world’s most modern, sophisticated and pacifist societies, Christians the world over will be hoping that this fanatic is an aberration for the ‘forgive-at-all costs’, largest religion in the world.
We had the Nazis, the Klu Klux and the Irish Troubles. But it’s not since the Crusades that the Sword and the Cross have been considered palatable in the same sentence – leave alone the room.

Gag the bastards!

“Nostalgia can drown a person into a well of sentimentality and exaggerate the significance of the past, well beyond its contextual import. Drawing sustenance from Gabriel Garcia Marques' lines that "life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it, in order to recount it..."

The intro to one of India’s top newspaper sports editor’s opening piece on the historic India-England Test series starting today.

I had many reasons to shoot myself this morning, but this pretentious, sophist, word-drivelling crap zoomed to the top.

Who the fuck cares if you read Marques or not!

It's time for a Cantona on the Murdoch scandal

Finally, one must take a stand
When Eric Cantona (if you don’t know him, allow for hyperbole, you don’t know anything) said boycott the banks in the wake of financial crisis, people just laughed.
I did not. He took a stand.
What stand now must Rupert Murdoch take?
Is it enough for a corporate king to just be humbled?
Is being humbled the same as being sorry?
More importantly, what stand must investors take?
Do you invest in a company with no moral fibre?
It is time for a Cantona moment.
And… week four: my inspiration for not shaving.

Inspiration, just the beard

I had a newspaper column stopped because it got too personal.
I was guilty as charged. But, what the hell do you expect a columnist to write?
As long as you write with wit, vigour and candour – make them laugh and think. At the same time.
So this one’s about me.
I have a huge beard now. And everytime I try to shave it someone inspires me to keep it.
Week one – Character from Delhi Belly
Week two – Character from Hangover 2
Week three – Ahmed Wali Karzai
Needless to say, the world watches with baited breadth for this week.

Like an exquisite cover drive

Nobody can write about cricket more eloquently than the English.
The Sunday Times opened its coverage of the India-England series with, among other things, a piece by Martin Johnson.
I can’t give you the link because it’s a Murdoch title – which means they charge for it online. (They need the money to pay hackers and cops).
Anyway here are two gems:
“Tendulkar running a legbye can produce a crowd reaction not unlike a Beatles concert.”
“And Ganguly was a fine bastman, but never quite came to terms with a game in which you had to do your own running.”

Bheja fry

Like a dystopian character from an Orwellian novel, Mumbai deals only in superlatives.
It’s a city that does not allow for subtlety or nuance, and prides its diseased, air-kissed, thick-as-hide skin.
Mumbai’s turning on itself in the wake of the recent bombings is only inevitable for a schizoid.
Please, no “we will survive”, “spirit of Mumbai” or “candle-light marches”, the cognoscenti screamed.
Like a wolf biting its own leg to free itself from the trap which offered meat, the city is now gnawing at its conscience to free itself from being shackled to its own cravings for everything Maximum.

India’s two-faced urban middle-class (some, not all)

India’s two-faced urban middle-class are finding it hard to stomach ‘Delhi Belly’.

It’s a coming of age film not just for the Indian film industry, but also for the Indian urbane viewership.

After sniggering at the song’n’dance routines of Bollywood and oohing and aahing about Hollywood, many cool dudes and dudus are now not comfy with seeing a mirror held to their own lives.

I’m not talking about the protests in Kolhapur by the guntha-becha-scorpio-khareeda brigade, or PILs by the older generation.

I’m talking about contemporaries of mine, who talk exactly like the film’s script, being uncomfy with the movie.

Heavy, heavy fuel

In an effort to kick-start my own book, I decided to read Jonathan Franzen for inspiration.
No, I had not read him before.
For the millions that have read Franzen outside the US, an equal number seem to have not.
Now, halfway through ‘Corrections’ I suspect this is because his themes are heavy - life and relationships. Mostly their decay.
However, I am mesmerized by his ability to turn a simple act like, say, eating a cookie, into a deep, evocative, word-busting event, without sounding poncy.
Like a skilled artisan, even the small weave in his huge tapestry is exquisite.

From the stands, Scholes still tackles for a booking

For Manchester United fans Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes were the last of the “clean” heroes.
No drugs, no affairs, no being a prick.
Then Giggs shamed us all.
Only Scholes remains.
On the pitch he played and off it he did not talk.
However, after being appointed Man Utd coach, he has spoken more than in his entire career.
His comments like his (in)famous tackles are likely to draw a booking.
But, in true Scholesy style, on the ball:
a) Arsenal are a joke
b) England does not win because players are more bothered about club than country

I told you so...

I am tempted to revive the ‘I told you so’ section of this blog. It used to exist before my hiatus when my impeccable skills of forecasting called many an event before it happened.
Now it is happening again.
Scroll down to the post of Saturday July 2 or 1, about Lionel Messi.
Now read this from news wire reports:
“Messi has failed to have any impact as the hosts have drawn dismally with Bolivia and then Colombia.
Argentina fans have long pondered why Messi just cannot produce his Barcelona form for his country.”
Yup, I told you so.

If only NDTV would learn

Bal Thackeray, on a recent TV interview to Times Now, slapped journalism in the face with a stinging criticism of how the “fourth pillar” existed no more.
The News of the World, a paper 168 years old, closes on Sunday, because of its involvement in a phone hacking scandal.
The British taught the Indians journalism. One lesson that did not get through seems to be accountability.
When your job is to hold others accountable, you must first hold yourself accountable. And one slip-up and you lose the moral high ground forever.
Ms Barkha Dutt and NDTV are you listening?

Fuck, yeah!

Delhi Belly has drawn a huge sigh of rapturous belief by the urban Indian yuppie populace.
Finally, a movie that speaks our language.
Western media gave it a lukewarm nod – appreciating the coming of age, but not impressed with the Guy Ritchie-impressario effort.
For me, the greatest achievement of the film is its ability to get the actors to say the word “fuck” without sounding pseudo, contrite or forced.
Do not underestimate the power of the word ‘fuck’… in films. It has made stars. Most noticeably, Pacino, De Niro and Sharon Stone.
So fuck, yeah… here come the Indians.

The brave new gay world

Back in the 1980s, yeah, a long time ago, to be gay was a big deal.
For man or woman, you were not yet socially compatible, for the most part.
Today, it is considered a rite of passage for females to have at least one lesbian sexual encounter.
Maybe it happened back then for guys and girls, but people just did not talk about it. Nowadays, passé.
For me the question has always been: What if one of my kids came to me and said, “Dad, I’m gay.”
To be honest, I hope they don’t.
But, I’ll be ready.

Smells like an Indian

Indian men in the Gulf have a problem with body odour. I’ve faced it, my friends have faced it and my friends’ friends have faced it.
The spicy food we eat and the extreme temperature here means we sweat more and the sweat stinks.
However, what’s bothering me is the ‘in the Gulf’ qualifier .
Do Indian men have a problem with body odour? Period.
Is body odour simply acceptable and part of the olfactory culture of India?
Has the perfume industry, with relentless drive, altered the way humans believe they should smell?
In the Gulf though, spray big time.

If I was an American...

If I was an American, I’d be a gun-toting, bible-thumping, Bourbon-swilling, pro-life, card-holding, Humvee-driving Republican.
I’d live in Texas and be best friends with Mel Gibson.
If I was an American I’d be white-collar on taxes and blue-collar on family.
I’d listen to Big and Rich and support the Green Bay Packers (so what if I live in Texas).
If I was an American, I’d be a dick-head that believed the rest of the world was just square, but mine was just perfectly round.
So, thank God I’m Indian, though I still like Big and Rich, and Mel Gibson.

Time for a good ramble

The spirit is broken, the body is weak, flailing in the face of self-inflicted agony.
All knowing is unknowed, all belief a sham.
Faced with self, the biggest demon of them all, I cannot beat the odds.
To dig deep within, is to climb Everest… to win an Ironman.
The lust of sensous satisfaction is overpowering, like a drug it wills you into the lowest common denominator of existence.
Sleep offers the only chance of escape.
The chance to dream, again.
To awaken is to be compressed into the gas chamber of reality.
Fumes of integrity suffocating. Killing. Dying.

Not won without the other

I have passed up the chance to see Lionel Messi play ‘live’ more than once, out of an over-zealous (at the time) sense of support for Manchester United.
I rue the missed opportunity now.
However, while my United support has matured, my suspicion that Barcelona makes Messi the kind of player he is, only deepens.
After the World Cup, and now watch in the Copa America (Argentina drew against Bolivia), one senses that without Xavi and Iniesta, he can be easily handled.
He is the manifestation of genius, but those two are the creators.
The Holy Trinity of Football.

GaGa over the folksy revival

Lady GaGa is driving us back into the arms of simple, clean, pure, fun-loving, heart-breaking music.
Folksy acts have always existed on the fringe for the last 20 years, with the occasional act bursting through. Dylan’s omnipresence has refused to let the indie spirit die.
But, how can one explain the recent fame of The Secret Sisters, Mumford & Sons and The Fleet Foxes.
These are more than just a shuffle option on the pod of techno-weary music lover.
These guys are mainstream. I can only point to the over-sophistication of today’s pop music as the reason.

So...

So, Charlie Sheen is no more news. And neither am I. Which means, he has probably cleaned up. As have I.
Which means, he can get back to acting. As can… no, I can get back to writing.
I’m just back from India – where the nation I once knew as a pimply 13-year old is now a blossoming 16-year old. Full of verve, vitality, passion, hormones and a conscience at crossroads.
I left it all behind. As I did my wife and kids. As I did my dreams and attachments. As I did my desires and weaknesses.
I’m back.

The difference between me and Charlie Sheen

The difference between me and Charlie Sheen is about $1.8 million – per episode.
Otherwise – the love for coke; the wife who is fed up but always stands by him when the shit hits the fan; I can’t deny that having porn stars babysit my kids hasn’t crossed my mind; and the teeth, all going.
An episode in my life costs maybe, $10k. Though, lately, I did one which cost $280k.
Folks tell me, maybe, I should mirror someone else. Like Jesus.
I tell them: Christ! You do Jesus, that way, when I do Charlie you can just forgive me.

From my town, alas…

If you grew up western-Indian-urban-Catholic it’s quite likely Indian classical only lapped at your musical shores.
Shakti and Zakir Hussain were as desi as it got for households where Cliff Richard and Elvis were the presiding soundtracks.
It was not till the age of 26, and not till my office moved to the Maharashtrian side of town in Pune that I was introduced to the likes of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (died today) and Gangubai Hangal.
My bucket list, posted a year ago, had: “attend Sawai Gandharva to hear Pt Bhimsen”.
‘Alas’ - truly captures the regret.

Slow hand, blind genius

In my dying posts of 2010, I listed the great music acts left for me to see perform ‘live’.
That list stayed with me over the next couple of days and I discovered that there were more than 10 great acts that were left for me to see.
Then, in what can only be a serendipitous stroke of good fortune, two of the stars on that list – Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder – were announced to play in my neck of the woods.
In my dark and cloudy life that is one hell of a silver lining.
Oh, happy days.

Sania - and the power of what could be

If my first post of the New Year is about Sania Mirza, it may well be that I have gotten over Barkha Dutt.
If the tennis world had a one-set tournament, Sania would win it.
She would be the World No 1 in the one-set category, because, that’s all she has in her – one set.
Against Justin Henin, no less, she reminded us of why news wires, no less, still find it worth dedicating an entire piece to her - a perennial first-round loser.
But, that one set was worth it. Just for the power of what could be.