I never thought I would live to see this day...

The world economy is plainly in a poor state, but it could get a lot worse. This is a time to put dogma and politics to one side and concentrate on pragmatic answers. That means more government intervention and co-operation in the short term than taxpayers, politicians or indeed free-market newspapers would normally like.

This is from an editorial published by the Economist. Let me repeat, in case you missed. Not the Socialist Worker or the EPW, but the Economist. (this merits a spot on Ripley's believe it or not).

Wow! What next? Amit Varma giving link love to left-leaning economists? Oh wait. Damn!

You know something is not right with this world when the leftists start bothering about spending taxpayer dollars and the free-marketers clamour for government intervention. Heck, even the indomitable free-market Vaikuntha's dwarpals like Chanda, Prachanda, Bhadra, Subhadra, Jaya, Vijaya, Dhata and Vidhata are all silent while the evil governments of the world are looting their maid's money. To make matters worse. Nilu has declared,'Puke is passe.'

Depression looms I tell you. All these ominous signs portend so.

Do credits for Zohan include Eric Cartman or Awesom-O?

After watching the trailers for Zohan I was reminded of South Park's Awesom-O episode where Cartman, pretending to be a robot, comes up with over 2000 movie ideas featuring Adam Sandler. The premise of the movie You don't mess with the Zohan which has Adam Sandler playing a Mossad agent who fakes his own death in order to pursue his dream of becoming, of all things, a hairstylist in New York, sounds eerily similar to the ideas Cartman comes up for the movie studios:

Awesom-O: Um... okay. How about this: Adam Sandler is like, in love
with some girl, but then it turns out that the girl is actually a ...golden
retriever, or something.

Producer: We'll call it "Puppy Love"!

Awesom-O: Okay, how about this: Adam Sandler... inherits like, a
billion dollars, but first, he has to, like, become a ...boxer, or
something.

Producer: Punch-Drunk Billionaire!

Movie buffs, according to Time magazine, saw in Zohan inspirations from The Big Lebowski and Borat. Which clearly rules me out as a movie buff or redefines them as people with a very elastic imagination.

Vijay Tendulkar's Kanyadaan

I can't put into words the threat, visceral fear and a sense of dread I felt after reading Kanyadaan for the first time. It is my favourite play by Vijay Tendulkar. The theme is about an idealistic socialist who, having imbibed the values of equality in his daughter, is appalled by treatment meted out to her by her husband who is from a different caste. It shattered my idealistic notions about eradicating caste system through inter caste marriages. The play made me confront my liberal notions in a way that none of conservative opinion pieces written by thinkers ever could. I wrote the following comment on Aniruddha's blog where I have been a constant nuisance for the past couple of months.

Those of you have read this play and have a different take on it please feel free to comment on it. I would love to hear about your perspective on this issue.

Interestingly, my take from Kanyadan was different from yours. Of course, it exposes upper caste Maharashtrian hypocrisy. However, for me, the bigger take from the play was that it highlighted the complexities of solving sociological problems through a progressive framework.

The venture of 'engineering' a society and shaping its values so that a moral order compatible with the times can be established is every thinking person's dream. But attempting to accomplish that by disbanding or trying to alter an older cultural framework such as ban on marriage between different castes, does lead to loss of knowledge accumulated by that older culture, however corrupt it may have been, and also results in an indeterminable risk for the person who is a victim/guinea pig for such an experiment because of the exposure to an alien knowledge frame with no prior documentation and acculatarisation to the solution of the problems that such ventures may generate.

I thought the play illustrated this conundrum perfectly without ever taking sides. The upper caste family tried to solve/diffuse the problems through their historical knowledge frame about drinking and violent behaviour while the Dalit youth tried to approach issues in marriage through his learnt/observed behaviour or cultural framework from his impoverished childhood. Since both families had no recourse to a third knowledge framework to solve, mitigate, issues arising out of an inter-caste marriage, apart from a feel good, 'everyone is equal' kind of socialist framework of the father, which might sound great as rhetoric but never gives a concrete path to resolve the problems that crop up for the unfortunate guinea pig in such experiements.

The play, I thought, tried to highlight these complexities and I always am fascinated by Tendulkar's ability to go far beyond the typical Maharashtrian upper-caste acculturisation that he himself must have underwent and write stories so raw and visceral that one would have expected from someone like Namdeo Dhasal who probably has borne the violence that Tendulkar explores so unnervingly in his plays.

Gandhigiri, Puneri thaskyat

This news from Pune had me in splits.

After being under construction for several months, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has finally re-opened the concretised stretch between Karishma building and Karve statue for traffic on Thursday. Last month, activists and residents of the area protested in a unique manner by cutting a cake as the repair work on Karve Road entered its third year.

(Unfortunately the comment section of this blog is not working since the switch to the new blogger and any comment exchange can only happen through email for the time being. Sorry about the resulting lack of conversation)

If he did it...

Gaurav's post on Obama reminded me of an anecdote that my boss once shared with me. This seems to be eons away, now that I am into IT. However, at the time when I was mingling with reporters who were into congenital name dropping, it was no less than a scoop. In his post, Gaurav wrote about the infamous Clinton quote about his tryst with marijuana.

Remember when Bill Clinton was asked about smoking pot in college, he said he did, but did not inhale. Obama was asked the same question. he said he smoked pot... and also inhaled, because that is the whole point of pot.

Refreshing honesty at best, or impression of honesty at worst.

I am not a great fan of Obama as a presidential candidate. Despite that, I do admire his candor with respect to his substance 'abuse,' if it may be called so. I guess he is in a better position than McCain, who, in my opinion, has gambled way further by supporting Bush's decision of sending additional troops to Iraq. But, I digress.

I wanted to share something I know about Clinton and his 'smoked pot but did not inhale it' quote. I was working for United Press International (UPI) then (fall 2005) and our chief editor Martin Walker, former international editor for Guardian, told us that what Clinton said was absolutely true. Walker was Clinton's room mate at University college, Oxford and the pot incident happened in front of him. He told us that Clinton was allergic to smoke, as it induced him to cough violently. Clinton would go out of the room if anyone even smoked a cigarette. The pot incident was actually a dare. He said that it was sort of a ragging incident. Walker and a couple of his friends used to tease Clinton and call him a pussy 'cos he didn't smoke and dared him to try pot at a party. It was then that Clinton actually smoked pot. According to Walker he coughed violently and did not inhale it at all.

I haven't read Clinton's biography and don't know whether he mentions about this incident. I also know this sounds hard to believe given Clinton's propensity for lying, especially his lying under oath about sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. But Walker had no reason to be his PR agent, especially in front of a bunch of newbie reporters. He, in fact, told this anecdote in the tone of 'landga ala re ala' (the boy who cried wolf) story. He was talking to us in the context of Dan Rather's piece on 60 minutes about George Bush skipping the Draft and then recollected how a congenital liar like Clinton was actually caught on the wrong foot, not for his other nefarious deeds, but, unfortunately or fortunately, for something he was actually being truthful about.

I suppose I haven't got over the penchant for name dropping myself and hence the post. I seek solace in the fact that if name dropping was my motive, then talking about my interviews with Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty and Padmini Kolhapure would have garnered my blog more attention, ;)

Jaan jaye par shaan na jaye; modern day Nero-giri

Had anyone taken a MMS of Arun Patnaik - Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police's conduct after the Mumbai blasts, it would have been more iconic and symptomatic of police apathy than this accompanying photograph. During times of crisis, precisely when swift police action is of utmost importance, these guys are busy, protecting of all things, their own clothes from getting wet.

According to an CNN-IBN eyewitness account, Patnaik wouldn't get down from his official car and inspect the scene of the blasts, till a umbrella was provided to him. This wasn't the only insensitive thing this chap did in the day. Gaurav, who did an amazing job with his timeline, wrote that Patnaik was busy playing the blame game on Television immediately after the blasts.

On CNBC, Patnaik was quick to shirk off blame saying security in trains is the responsibility of Railway Police. This when the first priority should have been getting as much information, forensic as well as otherwise, possible from the crime scene.


I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this insane display of arrogance, insensitivity and vanity amidst such a major tragedy. The citizen journalist's eyewitness account on CNN-IBN spoke about how ordinary people who were themselves victims of the blasts were helping each other spontaneously and in contrast this JCP was warming his arse.

I would like to specially thank the Mahim Zone ACP Desai and his team. He was very active in the whole operation, although he is very aged but still actively got involved in the rescue operation.

I would also like to mention Arun Patnaik - Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police. He didn't get down from his official car, till a umbrella was provided to him.

Local boys from the area did a good service of maintaining the traffic. I waited till the bomb squad arrived, and then a police tape was put around the blast area.

This reminded me of two similar and equally disgusting instances of authority figures who were fiddling while cities burnt around them.

First, the person in the accompanying photograph, K Kumaraswamy - JCP Vadodara who during Gujarat floods in 2005 who should enter record books for ensuring that his pants didn't get wet in waist deep waters.

Second of course was Brownie. FEMA chief Michael Brown was busy discussing his wardrobe during the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina.

"My eyes must certainly be deceiving me. You look fabulous and I'm not talking the makeup," writes Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs to Brown on 7:10 a.m. local time on Aug. 29.

"I got it at Nordstroms," Brown writes back. "Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?" An hour later, Brown adds: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."

What are these people high on? Asli tidik bharte na hey asla vachlyavar... Shapath!

You are most welcome...

The title of course is in anticipation of expression of gratitude on your part. I found this clip of the ultra-hilarious Mahabharat scene from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron through Naveen's blog yesterday.


This easily ranks as one of my favourite movies for its satirical take on the 80s construction boom and the Antulay cement scam exposed by Indian Express under Arun Shourie and his batch of special correspondents (one of whom I know personally).

So without further ado just LYAO!

Tag!

I have been keeping away from the blogosphere for a while. Been a bit busy with a lot of stuff and am sure this is a temporary break. Gaurav has tagged me invoking my only name to fame, my long sentences. So here I am pandering to the expectations.

I am thinking about – naveen job laglelya roommate la aaj ratri New York City chya kuthlya club madhe kapayche. For non-marathi readers… I am thinking about which hip New York City club would be the best to extract a party from my roommate who just got a job.

I said – Even after not updating the blog for almost 2 months friends still visit your blog even tag you. So Chetan… pretty please with sugar on top, BLOG!

I want to – be in her arms.

I wish – I was as intelligent, prolific and well-read as Ashutosh, as witty as Gaurav, as insightful as Ravikiran, as funny as Greatbong, as sarcastic as Gawker, as focused and experienced as Naveen, as easy-going as Suyog, as full of conviction as Gautam, as principled as Patrix, as sincere and honest as Krishna, as literary as Dubious, as creative as Amit, as wise as Sir and as questioning as Sanket. I also wish my writing exuded warmth like Shruthi’s writing does, was as lucid as Dilip’s, was as simple and uncomplicated as Manasi’s writings, was as fair and straightforward as Neha’s, as exciting as Mridula’s travel posts, was as lawyerly as Red’s, as fiery as Vulturo’s and as sensitive as Vikrum’s.

I miss – Vaishali’s cheese onion uttappa and SPDP, Savera’s medu wada sambar (sambar main dubake), Manmeet’s Chhole Bhature, Bedekar and Shree’s Misal, Sujata’s Mastani, Athavale dairy near New English school Ramanbag’s kharwas and the khuskhushit hot batatawadas wadas at Prabha raswanti griha beside it, Beleshwar’s (on canal road near Prabhat road) bhel, strawberry colada of CCD, Marzorin’s sandwiches and Burger King’s chicken burger, Kayani’s shrewsberry, Chitale’s bakharwadi, sabudana wada near Shaniwarwada, Wadeshwar bhavan’s idlis and the sugarcane juice in front of it near Kelkar Museum, bread patties from Tilak on Tilak road near Behere classes, the kulfi faluda from Poona Colddrink house near Tilak Smarak Mandir, the malai topped lassi from Dilliwala dairy near market yard, Pav bhaji and dabeli from n number of places, and I never thought I would say this but I even miss the Chinese food at the University tapris. Nostalgia is not always depressing I suppose. ;)

I hear – the sound of ‘that which ceases to exist when it is uttered and which breaks no sooner than it is spoken.’ Hint: A song by Simon and Garfunkel.

I wonder – What is the motivation behind doing what he does and that too in such an obnoxious manner? Whether there is an underlying philosophy behind Nilu’s writings, or is it just random mischief and tomfoolery, whether his writings are an attempt to crystallise his master morality or is it just about increasing his page rank? Is it a case of ‘knows the cost of everything and value of nothing’ or is it precisely because he knows the value of everything that he affords himself the luxury of nitpicking about the costs?

I regret – that I don’t regret my habit of procrastination.

I am – therefore I think.

I dance – to no one’s tune; unfortunately that includes my own tune as well.

I sing –only during antakshari where others are least bothered about listening to your voice.

I cry – out aloud when I miss a simple shot in carom or on the pool table.

I am not always – discussing politics and current affairs.

I make with my hands – tasty batata wadas.

I write – in an illegible handwriting.

I confuse –condescension with a non-existent word condescendation. ;)

I need – friends who live on the edge, and are a little insane as much as I need warm sensible and rooted friends.

I should try – and be judgmental once in a while, look at the world in black and white, not to be philosophical about events concerning me personally.

I finish – not a single task I undertake. And therefore I wont tag anyone else and leave this tag unfinished.

P.S. : My blog is currently being inundated with spam and therefore the comments are on moderation. However rest assured that all vile comments will find their place in the sun.