Why O Why?

I truly am happy for AR Rahman, now that he has won some international acclaim with the Golden Globe award for his scores for the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I had full goosebumps when he remembered to mention Chennai for his success. But surely, this was a mediocre work by his own standards compared to some of the magic he had conjured in Roja, Rangeela, Indian, etc. That brings us to my first what IF of the day. What if Rahman had scored some of these pieces earlier for a movie produced by one of those powerhouses from California? We will never know....

Anyways, now the enitre Indian media is bound to trip over itself while running to be the first to interview all kinds of people from the ones going on suburban trains to big time corporate hunks on how they feel about this new honor bestowed upon an Indian. Breathless reports by Burkha Dutt would logically ensue while she 'fittingly' stands amidst the crowds of Mumbai and talk about how this has brought immense joy to the much maligned Mumbaikar. And Pratibha Patel has to congratulate Rahman which would be followed probably by Manmohan Singh hosting a luncheon with him. More madness...

All these reminds me of an interview in some TV channel with Kamal Hassan. Kamal was asked if he had ambitions to win an Oscar in his life. I paraphrase Kamal's reply: 'Why should Oscar be the ultimate award which Tamil or Indian cinema seek? Oscar awards are given by the American film industry to films made in America. Why cant we raise our cinemas to a level where it is recognized globally and appreciated. Then we can have great pride in receiving a National award or a state award for our efforts and still have the same satisfaction of getting an Oscar'.
Need I say more? These lines concisely state everything that I would want to say after the melee that is going to ensue in India.

On another note, Heath ledger has won the Best supporting award for his performance in The Dark Knight. Which brings me to the 2nd big IF of the day. What if he had survived that fateful day and made more movies, especially a sequel to the Dark Knight?

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I hate Detroit. Its always snowing here. And when it doesn't snow, it rains.

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The Evidence

India has submitted a dossier to Pakistan that includes evidence of Pakistani nationals' (or non-state actors as Zardari puts it) involvement in the 'latest episode' of terrorist attacks on Mumbai. I am yet to read the full text as it has content for about 69 pages, but I am sure it will have lots of interesting information which the (Indian) media would have deliberately not brought to its viewers' & readers' attention for the lack of sensationalism in it.

Meanwhile, the Indian Govt miserably failed to capitalize on a classic PR opportunity. Had the US Govt released any such dossier (Though it never needs to convince anybody on anything. If nations dont listen they are sanctimoniously invaded) it would have had a nice thesis-like topic that would say something like "Results of the Investigative probe on terrorist attacks on Mumbai abetted by Pakistan - A CIA report". This would probably preceded by a sheet that had multiple Government seals and symbols on it. Even our Captain Vijayakanth would have come up with this idea. I wonder if there were any such pages in the original document but which were edited from the release that was publicized.

Anyway, I am not going to comment on how probably the PMO ordered a local Thaluk office to type the dossier. I could not find any other explanation for the text to be printed on a semi transperent, low quality paper and subsequently given to Star or Student Xerox for a spiral binding.

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Satyam? Not exactly..

The last few days had Ramalinga Raju pull the veil before Satyam sending the entire market into chaos. It is a scam of unbelievable proportions. Especially in an industry touted to have brought unprecedented corporate governance to the Indian market. Now that Infosys has distanced itself from Satyam thereby quelling any hopes of a takeover or rumours of a combined operation with the other IT giants, Satyam is on the brink of total collapse (if it has not already).
Here is the full text of Raju's letter to the Board.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers were the auditors for Satyam and only God knows what they were auditing while earning those big bucks. Surely, this is going to be only the tip of the iceberg. Raju's claims of nobody knowing about this account imbalance seems too far-fetched because aChairman and MD would not be the only people who verify the balance sheets of such a huge organization. As start pouring in, this would surely turn into a huge mess as the concerned more people from Satyam and Pricewaterhouse to SEBI would be held accountable for allowing this to happen.

Raju has stated that it started with small accounting imbalances and over the years perpetuated into gargantuan proportions. Whether this was an act done with criminal negligence or with an intent to dupe the investors only time will tell. But one thing is for sure. The Indian IT industry will never be the same again.

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I was in Chennai in December and one of the days in the last week had the temperature drop to 18.4C (65 F) and was said to be the lowest in 10 years. Though nothing new, atleast I had the evil pleasure of saying this to everyone in US who enquired about my holidays.

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I was there!!

I was there! When India romped home on the backs of a dazzler from Sehwag and a classic knock from Sachin. I was determined to see a cricket match when I got the opportunity because the idiotic organizers believe
places like Rajkot, Ahmedabad (and even Delhi) have better grounds and cricket afficionados than Chennai since time immemorial. So the next time a match comes Chennai's way (without the possibility of being curtailed by rain) might be too far away. I waited my chance and let the first 2 days of the match go by. With India struggling on the 3rd day a draw or defeat seemed likely and the balance tilted to the latter at the end of Tea on Day 4. But then wham!! Before anyone (Dhoni included) even knew what happened, Sehwag grabbed the match by its collar and shook it till it swooned and fell into the clutches of India. Though he got out by the end of the day, a required target of 256 runs was a juicy prospect with still much of the Indian batting left to come (and the prospect of Sachin scoring yet again at probably his most favorite ground).

So I headed out to Chepauk in the morning. The MRTS was packed with people who alighted at Chepauk. The A stand offered a good view and by the time the match started it was packed. So was the notorious B stand. The stadium was about 40% full. Every single run was cheered. Even a defensive prod that killed the spinning ball was applauded. Dhoni was definitely not going overboard when he praised the Chennai crowd at the end of the game. There were all sorts of people sitting around me and I had a good time chatting with them all. What stunned me was their knowledge. There was this lady behind me who screamed at Pieterson to remove the gully and move him to the short midwicket because of the way Laxman plays. And this guy who came to the match yesterday, pointing out precisely the stands and rows where the ball landed from Sehwag's sixes. This is just an example. I expected to be surrounded by many people who just watch the game and cheer for boundaries but when I was pointed out the difference between Sachin's defensive stance and Yuvraj's prod, I had to admit that I had goosebumps.

The stage was set for Sachin and he did not dissapoint either, scoring the winning runs and bringing his 41st century with the same boundary. Needless to say, we all went ecstatic. This is the 2nd game I have seen at Chepauk. The 1st was an One day match against New Zealand which was washed out, but not before Sachin scored a 50. Cant think of a better way to spend 300 rupees in a day!

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The Frenetic Week that was

I had around hundred things in my mind that I wanted to ramble about following the Great Economic Depression followed by the even Greater Farcical Comedy enacted by the US Senate during its 'inquisition of the CEOs of the Big 3'. Immediately, this was followed by the Mumbai terrorist attacks. As usual the (International) media coverage of it, riled me as much as the terrorists did: the dogmatic refusals of foreign media to acknowledge these terror invoking 'gunmen' as terrorists and instead subtly referring to them as 'gunmen' and 'militants'. Some even speculated that these could be 'discontent muslims' from within India. Somewhere, some guy had the balls to suggest that these could be LTTE too. I forgot if his article was in CNN or NY Times. But, there you go. That is a gist of what I had in mind. Things that would have made a several paragraphs of verbal outpour condensed into one. Meanwhile, a friend of mine referred me to this article in NY Times. Maybe, the world is not doomed yet.

PS: And what is this entire 'War on Terror' thing. I am not from Oxford but nevertheless it does not make sense to me. Should it not be 'War on Terrorists'?(Even that is silly. Something like crusade against terrorists would befit. But I guess crusade is a word nobody wants to use) How can there be a war on terror? Terror is an emotion. Can there be a war on laughing or a war on crying? War can be waged against Comedians, against sadists but not on the emotions inflicted by these men on the people.
Oh anyways. Who cares. The media found something and likes it. Try grabbing the bone from the dog's mouth.

PS2: Why Indian media have to keep posing the question to everyone if this is India's 9/11? What does that mean? Are you trying to grab the attention of US by self declaring it as India's 9/11? "Hey Bush (or Obama). Look, look we got our own 9/11 now. We are also affected by terrorism. We are now automatic allies in your 'war against terror'. Please throw us some bones too" Why does it have to be 9/11? India has fought terrorism in days when people in US did not know to spell the word. So why wait for US to acknowledge that we are hit by terrorism. Why declare 'Terrorism is a global thing now. This murderous act in Mumbai shows no country is now free'. This is a statement that should have been said probably when Al Qaeda attacked US. Not when LeT attacked Mumbai. Because, it is not a surprisingly new phenomenon. In short, stop sucking to US everytime.

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Make hay while the sun shines..

"He wanted to rise, but on his own terms; he was not hungry enough to sell himself short. He is Obama in white clothes"

 - Peter Roebuck on Dhoni

When a person commits himself to writing atleast a column every week, I guess he has no choice but to scrape the bottom of the river and claim that the pebble he finds is a gold.

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Thanks to an entertainer

"We (Sachin & Sourav) got to know each other so well that I could predict what he would do on the next ball. 

That, for me was special' 

-Sachin

I will definitely miss the sight of these two batting together. It was truly a golden period.

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The Hype Masters

American media is chronically prone to sensationalizing everything right from McCain's morning coffee schedule. Every year, there would inevitably be a football game that would be declared as the Game of the century and I dont know how many games of the century we can have in a century.
Similarly, there is another claim that the undergoing election is historical and of unprecedented importance. I am sure it is easy to excite people about something that is happening or going to happen than something that happened 4 years back, but I strongly believe that the 'election of unprecedented importance' happened 4 years back and not the current one. Because it paved the way for another 4 years of Bush's presidency leading to invasion of Iraq, dumping of hundreds of billions of dollars in invasion (I refuse to call it War) and creating a conducive climate for the recession to occur. Had Bush not won, things would have different a long way and the economy would have been better off and the current election would not have gained such prominence (though the media would have found something to talk about it).

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