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.