Wake up, India!!

This week’s edition of the magazine “The Week” is the independence day special and is based on a theme titled “Wake up, India!”
 
The edition has a series of articles on areas where India has failed miserably. The cover reads “Slick and surging India hides a painful truth: one half of the nation is grappling with child labour, starvation, manual scavenging…”
 
As we celebrate our independence, our 8% rate of growth of GDP, the Olympic gold, the arrival of the MNCs, the ‘Bangalored’ phenomena, the nuclear deal etc, it is also important to recognize the fact that a vast portion of the Indian population has not benefited from these developments. I am not taking away anything from all these achievements but it is important not to be either ignorant of our failures or worse still, disregard it and adopt an ostrich like attitude.
 
The series of essays on issues ranging from illiteracy, gender injustice, malnutrition, famine, lack of proper health care, untouchability and alienation of minorities make a very disturbing reading. For example it is very painful and shameful to read that people die for lack of food while Rs.58000 crore worth of agriculture products gets wasted annually. It is a shock to learn that manual scavenging still exist in India and untouchability is practised in its worst forms in most villages.
 
The lead article of the issue is by Dr.Prakash Amte, the winner of Ramon Magsaysay Award for this year. In this he stresses upon the need to harness the positive restlessness among the youth. Very often we find that we are dissatisfied with the state of affairs, want to do something badly, keep postponing and ultimately it gets lost in the hurry-burry of our individual lives. I am no different. But once in a while the questions come back to haunt us. Reading this special issue is one such experience for me.I urge you to have a look at the magazine if you get hold of a copy or the internet version of it.
 
I have now started thinking on what can I do. I am sure each one of us can do something even in a small way to make a change.  As Mahatma said, we should be the change we want to see. Let us on this independence day take some time and reflect on the change that we wish to see and how we would do our bit to make that happen.
 
Here is the link to article by Dr.Prakash Amte, http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentType=EDITORIAL&sectionName=COVER%20STORY&programId=1073755753&BV_ID=@@@&contentId=4362210
 
You can find links to all articles here : http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekSection.do?BV_ID=@@@&programId=1073755753

Jai Hind!

The ‘weakest’ Prime Minister and the ‘foreign’ lady!

The UPA Government has won the trust vote finally, as expected. And BJP played bad losers again as expected J The Left is finally out of the power equation at the Centre and now the Government has no one to blame. It better get started in pushing all the economic reforms that the Left had vetoed.  

I like these confidence/no-confidence motions. Though they have their own share of tamasha and hungama and sometimes push us into cynicism, they also reflect the democratic tradition of our country.  I have watched Vajpayee win and lose, watched a very bitter Deve Gowda resign and Inder Kumar Gujral win. I could not watch much of this confidence motion though but for the last few hours. This may well be the first time in history that a Prime Minister was not allowed to reply to a confidence/no-confidence motion. Dr. Manmohan Singh had to submit his reply in writing. A very sad state of affairs indeed and it shows how irresponsible the Opposition had been.

I wish to make two quick observations on this occasion and that indeed is the topic of my blog, the interesting story of a ‘weak’ Prime Minister and a ‘foreign’ lady.

 Dr. Manmohan Singh has been called the ‘weakest’ Prime Minister of independent India by almost all, vociferously by the Opposition and in hushed tones by some sections of his own party. Yet it was the same visionary man who identified that it is critical for India to achieve its energy security so that the economic reforms that he enunciated 18 years back bear its complete fruits and more importantly in an equitable manner to all of Indians. It took the same ‘weak’ man to negotiate a deal with the powerful country in the world and get most out of the deal. More notably, it took this ‘weakest’ Prime Minister of independent India to put his Government on the block to see this deal through. How many Prime Ministers in the past have stood by their conviction and put their Government at risk on a matter of foreign/domestic policy? Dr. Manmohan Singh changed India’s future (for better, we know now in hindsight) when he ushered in the economic reforms in 1991. He may well have secured the nation to achieve its potential growth to the fullest by backing this deal and see it through. We shall however have to wait for the future to acknowledge his contribution in hindsight.

Now to the ‘foreign’ lady. Dubbed as an Italian who do not much of India, Sonia Gandhi’s performance as the head of the country’s prominent political party is nothing but extraordinary. Except for her faux-pas when she claimed the support of the majority before her no-confidence motion against the Vajpayee Government, she has come up trumps in most of her political challenges. The way she galvanized a disarrayed Congress party before the last general elections, went to the masses, avoided the high-fi ‘India Shining’ type of campaign, toured extensively, campaigned in person, advanced an ‘aam aadmi’ agenda shows that she understands the pulse of India. It took this newcomer to Indian politics to realize that the Congress cannot form a Government on its own in the near future and have to depend on coalitions and learn to work with the regional parties. Her major coup was when she refused the post of Prime Ministership. Nothing prevented her constitutionally to become the Prime Minister and she had just led her party to become the single largest party in the Parliament, which meant she had the popular vote. Yet she decided not to become the Prime Minister. I do not see this an act of sacrifice or something of that sort, but certainly one should admit that it is one of the most effective strategic moves in recent political history. At one stroke, she silenced her critics, improved her stature among her own party and presented herself to the people as someone who is not behind power!!  I recently read an article that talked of how we Indians value ‘sacrifice’ or ‘giving up’ as an important value.  But, it took a ‘foreigner’ to understand this and leverage from this fact.

I also support the novel arrangement between Sonia and Dr.Singh that has also come into criticism. I think it is perfectly fine to have the leader of the ruling party advising the Government, in fact the Leader of Opposition should also be doing that! The Prime Minister’s office is the Executive and the UPA Chairperson has a Legislative function. By this novel arrangement, Sonia was left to handle the political issues of dealing with the coalition and Dr.Singh was left to handle the Prime Ministerial job.

The ‘weakest’ Prime Minister and the ‘foreign’ lady have yet again come up trumps. And as the gtalk tagline of one of my friends claim Singh is indeed King today!!

Sarkar raj - Relevant for the times

I watched Sarkar raj in theatre last week. I liked it very much and would rate it better than Sarkar. As far as the performances go, Ash looked awesome in her formal suits and played her part effectively, Abhishek displayed the intensity that few of his contemporaries could and Big B proved why he is Big B. The scenes where he talks to Abishek in the hospital and the climax sequence where he takes back control show how good an actor he is. Add to this his sheer charisma and screen presence, he brings the character Subash Nagre to life on screen. The music, photography and feel of the movie resembled Sarkar. The screenplay is tight and well executed. The movie has unexpected twists and even expected twists come in unexpected moments!

 

I was more impressed with the theme of the film. The movie revolves around a conspiracy to dislodge the Nagres from their seat of ‘power’ just like the one in the earlier version. But this time, we have an interesting backdrop to this conspiracy. The movie brings out the debates surrounding ‘developmental politics’ and the various tensions that globalization and privatization can bring about. Ant this is the reason I found the movie interesting and relevant. Shankar Nagre (Abishek) displays the brand of politics that I believe in and would like to see our politicians to adopt. He is convinced that industrial development is necessary for the long term well being of the people and goes village by village to convince the villagers to look for long term benefits and not be discouraged by temporary pain. How much I would love our policy makers to be like him and enter into a discussion with the affected parties, convince them and take them on board before they embark on big ticket developmental projects. The interaction between Ash and Abishek on the role of business in development and the way Abishek slowly wins over Ash’s mind is very educative and relevant to current days.  On the other hand we have Somji (the character that has striking similarity to Raj Thackerey) who raises the people against the power project for his own selfish political reasons by giving provocative and flowery speeches. The reviews of the movie do not fail to point out that the film is inspired by Enron project. I do not see it that way. By reducing it to Enron project, we overlook the larger debate that the movie can bring out namely the various interest groups that use such developmental projects to personal ends and hamper the betterment of standard of lives of ordinary people. We see it happening in real time, don’t we? Remember what’s happening in Singur on the Tata Nano project and how the political parties are trying hard to gain political mileage out of it ?

 

Sarkar raj is a movie that is a mark of times that we live in. The larger debate that the movie brings about is relevant. Moreover the performances of the cast and the execution by RGV is brilliant, which makes the movie a must watch.

A Prisoner of Birth

Jeffery Archer’s latest is a fiction book that I read after a long long time now. Basically got attracted due to the attention that it got in the press recently, courtesy Archer’s tour to India to promote his book. By the way I had a glimpse of him at Bangalore’s Landmark, but the crowd was too much and I neither had enough patience nor the adoration to wait and get a copy of the book signed. But I did buy a copy of his latest book “A Prisoner of Birth” and finished reading it in two days, partly because it was fast and partly because I have to finish it and move on to more important things..like..term papers!!

 

The book is not of the class of “The Fourth Estate” or “As the Crow flies”, by favorites of Archer. (I have not read “Kane and Abel” yet!!) The book is more like “Not a penny more, not a penny less” and his previous work “False Impressions”. As those of you who followed Archer’s tour and his interviews would have made out that this is a story of man whose life goes awry after being falsely convicted of murdering his best friend and how he takes his revenge on the culprits.

 

 Archer treads on areas that he is good at – London, courtrooms, prison J and legal issues - and so comes out successfully. The courtroom exchanges are very good. The protagonist, Danny Cartwright, of the novel is a car mechanic from London’s East End, one of those not so rich and posh area of London as I could make out from the book. The villains include the elite – a Queen’s counsel, an actor, an aristocrat and a successful partner at a leading law firm. Archer brings out the divide between the social strata through his depiction and dialogue and how the jury is convinced of the story of the four witnesses because of their background. And that is the basis of the title of the book, “A Prisoner of Birth”. One of the characters says in the book “Each of us suffer by being a prisoner of birth.” Cartwright is a gem of a character even though he is an uneducated car mechanic but no one believes his story because of his background whereas the false version of the four ‘elite’ witnesses is accepted.

 

Even many of us, me included, make the same mistake as the jury does, very often in life. We try to gauge our first impressions of a person from where he is from, who he is, the way he dresses, the way in which he talks, like the language etc.  and the social strata he belongs too. Sometimes we do it knowingly, but mostly we do it unconsciously because of the social conditioning. I am pretty sure that all of us would have had experiences where we had to change our initial opinion of some person (for better or worse) after interacting more with the person. These instances offer us an opportunity to learn and better ourselves.  

 

Though Archer is not preaching in his book (he knows too well not to do so), “A Prisoner of Birth” tries to indirectly point us this prejudice that many of us suffer from and that is the take-away for me from this book.

 

P.S: As for the book do read it if you like fiction, revenge and courtroom exchanges.

Fever Pitch - It’s easy to change for those you love

A couple of brand makeovers in the recent past had captured my attention - interestingly both them being that of banks. One was UTI Bank’s makeover as Axis bank, which used a series of ads featuring twins and the message that everything is the same except the name. The other, the subject matter of this blog, is the brand makeover of Canara Bank trying to shrug off its laidback PSU image into a modern banking one. The Canara Bank story was based on the message “It is easy to change for those you love. We are changing for you”.  I found the UTI ads cute because of the twins, but found it not great on message as I ended up thinking “Whats the use when thre is no change but the name?”. While the second set of ads on Canara Bank were powerful to get across the message that the bank is taking steps to change for you - the customer. These marketing analysis apart I really loved and believed in thier message - “It is easy to change for those you love”.

Isn’t it true? Isn’t it what life is all about? A movie that I saw yesterday, “Fever Pitch” made me thinking on these lines agin.

 

“Fever Pitch” is a romantic comedy featuring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon. Fallon who plays Ben Wrightman is a huge huge fan of the Boston Red Sox baseball team and that is an understatement. Having spent his childhood with a divorcee mother and Uncle Carl whose only interest was in baseball, the Red Sox and the Fenway Park (Red Sox’s home ground) are the friend, family and everything for Ben. Every season he watches every game at the Fenway Park courtesy the season tickets that his uncle had inherited to him. This big obsession of his has been a problem with his previous dates as well. Ben meets Lindsey (Drew Barrymore), an ambitious upcoming corporate executive and asks her out after the first meeting. Their first date turns out to be a cute little disaster! Lindsey is sick and puking by the time he arrives at her home. He helps her, make her rest, cleans up the mess and falls asleep on the sofa!! (Now, you can’t ask for a better first date than that to show your love to your lady, can you?) Lindsey starts liking Ben too, a different sort of guy than all the previous executive sort of guys she had dated before. Lindsey asks Ben to come over to her parent’s place for the Easter weekend when Ben tells her of his ‘problem’ regarding to his obsession with the Red Sox.  In fact, he asks her to come to the opening weekend with her breaking her traditional Easter vacation with her parents and she obliges. She starts learning about the game and accompanies him for the games. But she finds it difficult to manage her office as well where she is fighting to get the next promotion. Things get worse when Lindsey asks Ben to accompany her to Paris where she is going on an official trip, but for Ben he cannot miss his game. Upset with this and that her plans of letting Ben know of her pregnancy when in Paris not happening, Lindsey snaps with him and even aborts her child, having doubts on the relationship now. A couple of make-ups and break-ups later, the movie heads to the climax, when at last Ben decides to sell his season tickets to a friend of his in order to prove his love for Lindsey. The beautiful climax has Lindsey running all across the Fenway park in the middle of a baseball game and stopping Ben. “You love me enough to sell your tickets. I love you enough not to let you. What do you say we try to do all of it?” she says.

 

And that friends sum up the message used by Canara Bank as well. We all change for the people we care and we love..and we must. It is very easy to live our lives on our own terms without any regard for others but it makes a great and a fuller life if one can accommodate for the near and dear ones. I am not saying that one should not have any individual goals or that sort of thing, but it is important to respect those you love – be it your parents, friends, wife or kids - and make some adjustments in life. Ben decided to give up his lifelong obsession for his love, of course it is just a moive, but  we can sure make some small adjustments for the people we care. And it is these small adjustments that strengthens a relationship, brings it more joy and fulfillment and makes this life worthwhile.

 

P.S: Coming back to the movie, I liked the movie very much. Some of the dialogues are very good like these ones:

“Look if I keep these seats, all I think about every time I am here is what I gave up to be here” – Ben to his friends in the Fenway park who urge him not to sell his tickets.

 

“He fanned me with a magazine for four years when I was going through menopause. I can put up with this” – Lindsey’s mother to Lindsey, when Lindsey asks how she could put up with her father’s new hairdo

 

“You love the Sox..but have they ever loved you back” – A school boy to Ben

 

“Are you faking it, because we don’t have to really do it if you don’t want to “ – Ben to Lindsey when he sees her puking on him coming to her house for the first date.

 

So do watch the movie if you get hold of it. It is definitely worth your hour and a half.

 

And yes, it is official. I have become a fan of Drew Barrymore. She is really cute, pretty and beautiful. Will watch more movies of her now J

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking is the best medicine - Hippocrates!!

Check this article from the Sunday Magazine of ‘The Hindu’ dated 13th April 2008

 http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/04/13/stories/2008041350170600.htm

I have started walking regularly again..that means atleast once in two days..This is my Nth walking initiative..let me see how long it will last..this time around it should last longer i feel..after all Hippocrates himself has recommended walking as the best medicine!!

On a lighter note I was telling a friend of mine today that walking makes me feel good that i am doing atleast something useful in the day…with my day (and night) being spent purposelessly this is a feeling that i need to assuage my guilt..Maybe this will be the reason why this time the walking programme will last a little longer than usual

 

Amazing Anoushka!!

I stumbled upon this piece of gem in Youtube. Anoushka Shankar on the Sitar. I know Anoushka as the daughter of Pandit Ravishankar and that she has come out with few fusion albums. But this is the first time I am hearing her. She is awesome on the Sitar. She looks divine too. She looked like a Goddess Saraswathi only playing the Sitar with such effortless ease. I will certainly hear more of her in the future and would love to visit a live concert of hers.

Here is the link that made me an Anoushka fan,

a sort of emptiness

It is almost five in the evening. I am sitting in my room overlooking the insti playground. I spend the last two hours and some more in my balcony shuttling between watching the beautiful veiw of the playground and listening to Hariprasad Chaurasia and reading a paper on transaction cost economics Believe me, the view of the playground from my balcony is one of the best. It is the main reason that I chose this room.

The reddish tint of the playground, its vastness, the green trees dotting three-fourths of its boundaries (the remaining one-fourth is the hostel blocks), the blue sky, the tennis court in one corner, the huge overtank that towers at the horizon all make a great view indeed. I had enjoyed watching this sight for one year now in all its hues - the sun blazing down, the slight drizzle, the heavy downpour et al. But today I felt a strange feeling. I felt a sort of emptiness in me.

The playground today is uncharacteristically quiet. The kids from the nearby government school who are brought here by a bunch of energetic good hearted souls to give the kids a sense of fulfillment are not here. The kids who learn cycling with their fathers running behind them are not there. The futsal players are missing . The random motley of runners and joggers are missing too. The ground is uncharacteristically silent. There is a sense of emptiness, a sense of calmness about it today.

The sense of emptiness is starking as it seems to mirror my own state. The sun is playing hide and seek today with frequent soujourns behind the clouds. Again mirroing the state of my mind which nowadays oscillate between bouts of inspiration and frustration.

But somehow today along with the sense of emptiness, I also feel a sense of calmness. Maybe it is the sign of things to come.

Ramblings..

Tommorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today!

mentally rambling…

i am going to miss a lot of friends..they are leaving..of course they are not leaving forever..we will remain in touch..but i know its never going to be the same again….but it was never the same for quite some time now..but it was not within my control..and i hate being out of control..i wish i had a rewind button for life..i wish everything were the same asking..i keep asking ‘why?’ why did everthing happen the way it did..

they say whatever happens it is for good only..i keep telling myself to accept everything..keep telling myself “do not judge”…at the moment  i am struggling though….soon i will overcome this..for i know life will have something more challenging for me soon enough..thats the beauty of life….time and again it shows you that it is the journey that is supreme..