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.