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.