tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22548818545452742612024-03-13T14:38:30.633-07:00Obitersandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-39123391830471951892011-11-03T19:45:00.000-07:002011-11-03T19:51:02.897-07:00Un-Booked and Un-Hooked<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pcpou3qBv7g/TrNSPAxb4hI/AAAAAAAAAE4/_PdZIb0ZAVA/s1600/imagesCANI2P0H.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 152px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 152px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5670966773648450066" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pcpou3qBv7g/TrNSPAxb4hI/AAAAAAAAAE4/_PdZIb0ZAVA/s320/imagesCANI2P0H.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div align="justify">I deactivated a part of me yesterday, a part of me which had assiduously and covertly become an important piece of my Life Mosaic. I deactivated my Facebook profile for no better reason than because I felt like it. The obvious fact is that while suicide in the ‘real world’ may require the coming together of deliberation, courage, hopelessness, all on a level which is uncommon and rarely achieved, E-suicide requires nothing more than the germination of a thought and the pressing of a few keys. Therefore, much simpler and much less messy. Added to this, the thought that a part of you has now become internet-debris and will now be floating through cyber space eternally, is somehow a really attractive and gratifying one. It makes one believe that immortality is possible, at least in whatever distorted and warped way that these technologically-driven times may allow. The only downside with this, as I am now discovering, is that the fingers retain a tactile memory of an urge...to aimless type drivel and to pointless wander over the vast expanse of the mouse pad. To satisfy that urge to an extent, I have now returned to this orphan Blog of mine, which had been abandoned in pursuit of more immediate delights. So maybe, this E-suicide business has a positive ending after all!<br /></div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-4695562725383594672009-12-31T06:48:00.000-08:002009-12-31T07:36:01.646-08:002009<div align="justify"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/SzzDcVtgkmI/AAAAAAAAAEc/t33yf2gSfyU/s1600-h/Dali_girl+standing+at+window2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421422943079010914" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 227px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/SzzDcVtgkmI/AAAAAAAAAEc/t33yf2gSfyU/s320/Dali_girl+standing+at+window2.jpg" border="0" /></a> It has been a year, a little more actually, that I wrote anything on this blog. There have been moments of inspiration, of tepid insights, moments when thoughts have been there, waiting to be transcribed into e form. But those moments passed…with me having done nothing. Except procrastinate. And make the usual excuses of course…of too-much-work, too-little-time. But the truth is that I have found a strange reluctance to do anything non-essential this past year. It is the usual norm to indulge in indulgent year-end reviews, but my review of <em>my</em> past year can be summed up in a short sentence- ‘<em>Did not feel like doing it’</em>! No excuses for this, but the end result is that there has been a sophomoric kind of status quo maintained at the end of the year. Have not gone forward and nothing has happened to be termed a backward regress.<br /><br />A lack of ambition has been the defining characteristic of this year. Not ambitions in just the narrowly understood sense, of achievement, success, accomplishment, but in a broader sense of aspiration... the desire to even want to want something of value. I have aspired for nothing and, consequently, have attained nothing.<br /><br />Is this strange, this reluctance to seek, desire, crave? It possibly is. And it definitely will pass. The desire to ‘DO’ will undoubtedly be re-born this coming year. Till that time, I will luxuriate in this unbecoming calm. And turn my thoughts to the elegance of ‘<em>English August’</em>, to put my condition in perspective:<br /><br />“<em>I don’t want challenges or responsibility or anything, all I want is to be happy— . . . He wanted to say, look, I don’t want heaven, or any of the other ephemerals, the power or the glory, I just want this, this moment, this sunlight, the car in the garage, that music system in my room. These gross material things, I could make these last for ever. . . . I am not ambitious for ecstasy, you will ask me to think of the future, but the decade to come pales before this second, the span of my life is less important than its quality. I want to sit here in the mild sun and try and not think, try and escape the iniquity of the restlessness of my mind. Do you understand? Doesn’t anyone understand the absence of ambition, or the simplicity of it?” </em><br /><br />I understand !</div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-56201280965136284072008-12-08T06:37:00.000-08:002008-12-08T22:01:48.835-08:00An Eyeball for an Eyeball<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/ST4G4Aqq1NI/AAAAAAAAAD4/C_Yiozum9mQ/s1600-h/calnews.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277663372646208722" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 235px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/ST4G4Aqq1NI/AAAAAAAAAD4/C_Yiozum9mQ/s320/calnews.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify">One of the more incongruous and mildly amusing fallouts of the Mumbai events of 26/11 is the proxy war that the respective media of India and Pakistan have felt obliged to carry out on each other. A war of half-truths and ill-informed opinions, often bordering on uncivil discourse and seldom managing to rise above the level of nationalistic rabble rousing. Maybe I have got the blinders of patriotism tightly fastened on, but it seems to me that the media on this side is winning this particular exchange and it is doing so by simply not doing too much. God knows we have our own bunch of zealots on this side of the Wagha, but they don’t seem to find too much airtime. And that is possibly what is helping us appearing to win this particular war, at least by seeming to maintain relative sobriety and balance in comparison. Of course, this temperance and poise was not readily apparent during and immediately after the events in Mumbai, where for a brief period it appeared that anyone who was in Mumbai and who had a car to drive to the studio was on TV, articulating pop patriotism and inane chatter. Page 3 seemed to have transposed itself on the small screen and things got rather desperate when the otherwise lovely but hopelessly out of her depth Shoba De was expressing her views. They were amusing, if nothing else.<br /><br />The Pakistan media, or at least the portion that we have access to, seems to be doing a fine act of attacking the Indian side for being parochial, but in the process it is coming out looking second best. An accusation of parochialism carries within it the inherent risk of painting the accuser with the same broad stroke. And the quality of the discourse (again what we have access to) is bordering on the ludicrous. Case in point is this on some Pakistani TV channel [ <a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotklix.com%2F%3Fref%3Dcontent%2F152704&h=764bd9e982301d1a8bad9445408485e3">http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotklix.com%2F%3Fref%3Dcontent%2F152704&h=764bd9e982301d1a8bad9445408485e3</a> ]. </div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Having watched it, the line between a hate mongering mullah in Rawalpindi and an informed commentator on national TV gets slightly blurred. Except maybe that the commentator speaks in English and is slightly better looking, at least on the empirical evidence available.<br /><br />By putting up such characters on TV, the media, be it Pakistani or otherwise, does itself or those characters no favors. Noam Chomsky, the writer/ thinker/ philosopher, had described this best when he opined on the format of television talk shows where “if you repeat conventional thoughts, you require zero evidence, like when saying Osama Bin Laden is a bad guy, no evidence is required. However, if you say something that is true, although not a conventional truth, like the United States attacked South Vietnam, people are going to rightfully want evidence, and a whole lot of it as they should”. The format of the shows does not allow this type of evidence. He's continued that the media should let dissidents on more because the time restraint would stop them properly explaining their radical views and they “would sound like they were from Neptune”!<br /><br />So while Pakistan TV is happy entertaining oddball guests from distant planets, I think we are just happy to fall back on the mildly comical and desperately floundering opinions of the Shoba Des and Farookh Sheikhs. No one should have anything against a few chuckles now and then! </div><div align="justify"> </div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-8114435577098183312008-12-02T10:32:00.000-08:002008-12-05T18:37:25.873-08:00'Cry, My Beloved Country'<div align="justify"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/STWAEJ3FrcI/AAAAAAAAADw/EbtWYUyAGIg/s1600-h/Dali_visage+of+war.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275263347389214146" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 237px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/STWAEJ3FrcI/AAAAAAAAADw/EbtWYUyAGIg/s320/Dali_visage+of+war.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Ever since events in Mumbai have come to their bloody conclusion, a lot has been written, a lot has been said. A lot more will be left unwritten and a lot more will be left unsaid. On what happened and on what should happen. On the venality of politicians, on the bravery of soldiers and on how the 'people' should take charge. But I am weak and feel myself unable to draw up a suitable or even an acceptably adequate response. I feel puny in the face of audacious belief…held by 12 men who came in boats believing they could change something. I search for strong ideas, something suitably tangible and audibly concrete to capture and sufficiently explain. But I am unable to. Maybe it is because I see how much has changed...and how little really has. And like the enfeebled always do, I hide behind words. It is not my intention to add to the cacophony that has already passed, but, as I always do in times of need, I seek succor in the gentle grace of poetry. The following is an extract from a piece written by someone I once knew long back. The writer will have to remain unnamed:<br /><br /><em>‘The sun arises- a disk of startling light,<br />Comforting darkness flees in hasty flight.<br />And now exposed lies this barren land,<br />It waits in fear for the rapists’ hand.<br /><br />And soon enough starts the bloody rape,<br />By shadows unseen- no form, no shape.<br />A child killed there- another killed here,<br />The rape is on- I shed a tear.<br /><br />The bombs blast- the flow of blood,<br />A trickle, a murmur, now a roaring flood.<br />The man who was killed on this unnamed road,<br />Was he carrying belief or duty’s heavy load?’</em></div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-13445584821667730412008-04-11T19:18:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:31:38.157-08:00The light that never goes out...<div align="justify"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/SABC5e6zbVI/AAAAAAAAACo/BGS_R9t-RRg/s1600-h/Pekin+20082.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5188220326050491730" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/SABC5e6zbVI/AAAAAAAAACo/BGS_R9t-RRg/s320/Pekin+20082.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The Olympic fire is spreading around the world, in the form of the torch making its stuttering and eventful journey across the globe. China will be hoping that the 'fire' stays within the torch itself, whether lighted or extinguished, but it is proving to be a difficult genie to keep bottled up!<br /><br />Having its origins in ancient Greece and commemorating the theft of fire from the Greek god Zeus by Prometheus, the Olympic torch has always been couched with a certain symbolism and has been a tool to extending and projecting ideology. The Berlin Olympics in 1936 was perhaps the first attempt at such projection and Hitlers' always efficient propaganda machine used it effectively to try and add myth and mystique to the Nazi regime. So therefore, the current heart burn over the torch relay of the Beijing games was perhaps more expected than China winning a clutch of gold medals at those games!<br /><br />The Free Tibet Movement did not need genius strategists or a second invitation to see the potential of the torch. They have used it well as a beacon to guide and focus the worlds' attention on the plight of their country. The burning torch has achieved more in a few weeks than what others have achieved in the last forty years. And I conciously include His Holiness in this list, who I think could have achieved more if he finally decided not to persue a policy of redundant appeasement.<br /><br />Some contrived excitement has been recently generated in our country too, on account of the relay when the torch reaches here in a few days time. The focus has been on shameless headline grabbing, with the president of the Indian Olympic Committee, the Right Hon'ble Mr. Suresh Kalmadi (who I personally think should have resigned on moral grounds a very, very long time ago) grandly announcing that he has personally invited several young politicians, including Mr. Rahul Gandhi to run in the relay. Good for Mr. Kalmadi and my heart bleeds for Mr. Gandhi, because the bad little SPG will not let him run in the relay! And of course good for the TV channels, all of which analyzed this stunning development, with live inputs from Mr. Right Hon'ble himself, for a full half day!!<br /><br />What lay buried in all this noise was the news of a quite man who had decided to take a stand. Baichung Bhutia, captain of the Indian football team, deciding not to run in the relay, was I think one of the biggest acts of personal courage in Indian sports. By saying that he has a lot of Buddhist friends in Gangtok and that this was his small way of showing solidarity with them, he has possibly blurred the line that is necessary between politics and sports. But, and this is a very big 'but' in the context of the feudal structure that is Indian sports, it has shown the strength of heart inside that man. To go against the diktat and expected role laid down by Mr. Right Hon'ble and his self serving cronies is possibly not the wisest course of action in Indian sports. He may be victimized by the administration for this or he may be considered too insignificant to bother about. Either way, he has shown something that is sorely lacking in a lot of the more established superstars of Indian sports...he has shown a heart and, more importantly, the courage to follow it.<br /><br />The Tibetan issue suffers from the huge drawbacks that, firstly, there is no oil under its otherwise beautiful lands and, secondly, China is too damn big and too damn mulish to bother about small things like self- determination, sovereignty, world opinion or human rights. The result is that the world has chosen to forget the problem. If you cannot see it on CNN and if Mr. Bush does not lose sleep over it, then it does not exist. It is left to the little voices to do what they can. Baichung may not be the most articulate of men you will meet, but what is important is that he spoke when it was most required!</div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-26649148214543269582008-03-03T04:31:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:31:38.383-08:00Unsaid<div align="justify"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R8v4MfdcLSI/AAAAAAAAACI/Or8OQS55ScA/s1600-h/Green_jello.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173501490452245794" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R8v4MfdcLSI/AAAAAAAAACI/Or8OQS55ScA/s320/Green_jello.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Have lately been in this mood to extract and share. So in keeping with that feeling of bonhomie, a short piece written in 2001 by Dana Gioia- ‘Unsaid’. I have always found this to be a very interesting piece. Notwithstanding the fact that the poet, in his previous avatar, was a vice-president in General Food Corporation, USA, and was part of the team that invented the staple dessert of American cuisine- Jello !! If anything, this fact just lends hope and promise that something aesthetic, something stimulating, is yet possible in the midst of all this mundaness! </span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><em>"So much of what we live goes on inside–<br />The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches<br />Of unacknowledged love are no less real<br />For having passed unsaid. What we conceal Is always more than what we dare confide.<br />Think of the letters that we write our dead."<br /><br /></em></div></span></span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;"></span>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-51323693363087099612008-03-01T23:14:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:31:38.628-08:00Tropic of Capricon<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R8pVIvdcLQI/AAAAAAAAAB4/YbIHdA_NJOk/s1600-h/Dali_horseman.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173040730655698178" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R8pVIvdcLQI/AAAAAAAAAB4/YbIHdA_NJOk/s320/Dali_horseman.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">The post today is an extract from the opening lines of 'Tropic of Capricon' by Henry Miller. Am putting this up for no particular reason except that its one of my most favorite pieces of writing in the whole world and i re-discovered it in the morning today. And also there is the other reason, which is that i have not put up anything for some time now!</span><br /><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">"Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos. From the beginning it was never anything but chaos: It was a fluid which enveloped me, which I breathed in through the gills. In the substrata, where the moon shone steady and opaque, it was smooth and fecundating; above it was a jangle and a discord. In everything I quickly saw the opposite, the contradiction, and between the real and unreal the irony, the paradox. I was my own worst enemy. There was nothing I wished to do which I could just as well not do. Even as a child, when I lacked for nothing, I wanted to die: I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for. Everybody around me was a failure, or if not a failure, ridiculous. Especially the successful ones. The successful ones bored me to tears. I was sympathetic to a fault, but it was not sympathy that made me so. It was a purely negative quality, a weakness which blossomed at the mere sight of human misery. I never helped anyone expecting it would do any good; I helped because I was helpless to do otherwise. To want to change the condition of affairs seemed futile to me; nothing would be altered, I was convinced, except by a change of the heart, and who could change the hearts of men? Now and then a friend was converted: it was something to make me puke. I had no more need of God than He had of me, and if there were one, I often said to myself, I would meet Him calmly and spit in his face."</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;">As i said before, no particular reason for putting up this extract, but there are times when one does feel a certain emotion and looks for something relevant to relate it to. Henry Miller has seldom failed to provide that relevance for me! </span></p><br /><br /><p></p>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-11214784317533212332008-01-06T07:24:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:31:38.821-08:00Of Monkeys and Men<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R4IK8-WyQYI/AAAAAAAAABw/jiP3zLwrtyI/s1600-h/untitled7.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152692966312264066" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R4IK8-WyQYI/AAAAAAAAABw/jiP3zLwrtyI/s320/untitled7.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify">I had started writing this post yesterday soon after the match between India and Australia ended at Sydney. When I say 'match' I use the term very loosely to describe the fractious brawl that the contest had turned into towards the end and especially in the post match posturings. A 'match' pre-supposes certain essentials like 'right spirit', 'fairplay' and 'justice'. When these are missing, the contest does not remain a 'match' but becomes, as Peter Roebuck described it, a rotten contest that singularly fails to elevate the spirit.<br /><br />Getting back to my attempt to write this post yesterday, I had stopped doing so because i did not want my partisan angst to color my judgment and evaluation. But after the events of last night, with Mr Ricky Ponting projecting himself as the paragon of truth and virtue and Harbhajan getting banned for three matches, on the basis of dodgy evidence, the time has come to call a spade a spade and objectivity be damned in the process!<br /><br />That we lost the match is not the irksome part of the whole affair. There have been other losses, and even against lesser teams, which have hurt more. That the umpires were incompetent does not also suffice to explain the bad taste in the mouth. An ex-soccer referee, whom Bob Willis had described in 2005 itself as "past his sell-by date", could not have been expected to perform much better. But what did irk and what did contribute to the bad taste (and not just in Indian mouths) was the attitude displayed by the Australian team during and more importantly after the match.<br /><br />The Aussies, led by Mr Ricky Ponting and ably supported by other sentinels of fairness and integrity like Mr Michael Clarke and Mr. Michael Slater, have always maintained that there is a difference in circumstances when a batsman does or does not walk after clearly nicking the ball and when he is asked as to the legality or otherwise of a catch. The question is what is that difference? Are they really two different beasts? The Aussies themselves used the 'Repeat Offender' theory against Harbhajan in the hearing and what is good for the Goose should be good for the Kangaroo too!<br /><br />If a player has not displayed 'integrity' in one situation there should be an automatic presumption against that same player doing so in another situation, especially one in which the balance of the match hangs. Mr Michael Clarke, after dropping a catch off the same batsman just moments before, would hardly be expected to claim anything other than the catch was clean. And added to that his brazen attitude after being caught at slip, where the ball was about a foot of the ground, had not exactly painted him in glorious hues of integrity. Repeat offenders seldom are! Further, Mr. Ricky Ponting would have us believe that in his refusal to claim a catch off Rahul Dravid in the first innings of the match he has set an example and has shown how fairly he plays his cricket. But Mr. Ponting would do well to accept that fairness and integrity are creatures of circumstance. Anyone can be gracious when the match is in control and the batsman is one who is struggling, out of form and low on confidence as Dravid was. It is an entirely different matter when the outcome of the match is in doubt and you are jostling for any advantage by means fair or foul. It is then that character comes to the fore and it is here that you have been found wanting Mr. Ponting.<br /><br />Mr. Ponting claimed a catch which, leaving aside whether there was a nick or not, was not even completed and was grassed. This the whole world saw but when he was asked about it, Mr. Ponting had the unashamed gall to merely say that “If you're actually questioning my integrity in the game, then you shouldn't be standing there”!! Mr. Ponting, you have been asked a question and you will kindly answer the question directly and not make tangential comments. For a start, <em>you</em> must stand off the moral high ground before daring to tell others where <em>they</em> must or must not be standing! Cheats must not issue directions Mr. Ponting.<br /><br />And it is also high time that Mr. Adam Gilchrist stopped projecting himself as the ‘Conscience of Cricket Australia’. Walking, after nicking the ball, when the umpire will anyways give him out and when his team is anyways in a good position, is not the sign of the saint which he would like the world to believe it is. Saints, or at least anyone who has played the game, know the difference between the sound created by the ball hitting wood and the ball hitting fabric pads. To take a chance and appeal when the sound was produced by Dravids’ pads was an instinctive human reaction and Mr Gilchrist acted impulsively and humanly. To take this chance was further understandable considering all that had passed before in terms of quality of umpiring. But henceforth Mr. Gilchrist we do not want to hear anything from you about integrity or anything more about the piece of fiction, co-authored by you and Mr. Steve Waugh, called the <em>‘Spirit of Cricket’</em>. And obviously no images of saints need be painted in the future.<br /><br />The <em>pièce de résistance</em> of the entire sordid affair was reserved for the last with Harbhajan getting banned for three tests. The basis of this ‘conviction’ was the fact that he was allegedly a repeat offender with something similar having happened in India some time back. There could not have been any other basis for the finding against Harbhajan, the rest of the ‘evidence’ being purely circumstantial and uncorroborated and consisting primarily of Mr. Mike Procter having to believe one set of players over the other. If that be the case, where the foundational root for the finding was something which happened previously, the question needs to be asked that was the finding of the match referee restricted to what had happened on the field in Sydney or was it a case of meeting out punishment for something that had happened previously? To base a finding or to reach a conclusion on past behavior is to tread on unsafe waters because, if memory serves right, Mr Procter had previously in 1991 accused the Indians of ball tampering in Gwalior (<a href="http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2004/11/21/stories/2004112100660200.htm">http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2004/11/21/stories/2004112100660200.htm</a>) and was also involved when Virender Sehwag was banned for a match in 2002 in South Africa. To ask a person, who has always believed the Indians of being less than honest, to now decide on a similar issue, is a bit like asking a wolf to guard the sheep. Maybe it is unfair to state this about Mr. Procter, but that is the problem with going back into precedents- the line to stop cannot always be drawn. And to carry forward the animal analogies, nothing better could have been expected from a ‘Kangaroo Court’ where the issue is regarding a ‘Monkey’!!<br /><br />What stood out in this entire farce and what will stay in my memory is the image of a tired man, who has just given everything he had inside him to try and save the match, lost it for reasons beyond his control and still found it within him to display grace and dignity. The sight of Anil Kumble, when he was speaking after the match, left a lump in my throat. His heavy baritone and measured words could not conceal the hurt and frustration in his eyes. It was a moment where lesser men might have been forgiven for indulging in rabble rousing, but all Kumble had to offer by way of damning indictment was the line that “only one team was playing with the spirit of the game, that's all I can say”. We are proud of you Anil and we are proud of your boys. That is all <em>I</em> can say.<br /></div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-31659721533474195772007-12-26T22:04:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:31:38.874-08:00Missed Call<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R3Oqa-WyQVI/AAAAAAAAABc/kcyOjPnw89k/s1600-h/missedcall_02.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148646179406496082" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R3Oqa-WyQVI/AAAAAAAAABc/kcyOjPnw89k/s320/missedcall_02.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify">For today, a short note on impetuousness. I have seldom managed to be so, being a rehabilitating control freak, but the other day did manage to succumb to its spur-of-the-moment attraction, with very pleasing results.<br /><br />Had gone into the local <em>Planet M </em>to pick up Bruce Springsteen's <em>Magic </em>and was told that it had still not arrived. On my forlorn way out, glancing about, my attention was caught for some reason by the cover of a VCD- <em>'Missed Call'</em>- an Indie movie, featuring someone I had never heard of and directed by someone I had heard of even less. Not letting recallability get in the way, I picked it up and watched it yesterday on Boxing Day, with wonderful results. I could not think how better I could have spent Boxing Day, except of course if I was actually at the Melbourne Cricket Ground where India was playing Australia.<br /><br />The British food critic A.A. Gill had once said, somewhat disparagingly of his own kind, that "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem—they know how it is done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they are unable to do it themselves". So I will not attempt to review/ critique the film, except to say that it is one of those rare ones which, watched under the right circumstances and at the right time, have the power to alter some lives or at least to revise the content and direction of those lives. A few years back it might have altered mine too!<br /><br />So for the New Year, resolve to be impetuous- you never know when you might get a <em>Missed Call</em>!!</div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-40636142840630923972007-12-23T07:55:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:31:39.038-08:00The Art of Food<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R3CNN-WyQSI/AAAAAAAAABE/58laV_yTUn4/s1600-h/23122007252.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147769645300859170" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R3CNN-WyQSI/AAAAAAAAABE/58laV_yTUn4/s320/23122007252.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify">Yes, it's That Time Of The Year Again! And in this blessed holiday season, my friend Rupkamal has taken a major leap of faith! He has gone and done something which has been an unspoken fantasy of mine- he has opened a restaurant!! He is still holding on to his day job but, very bravely, he has also acknowledged that life also holds more than the 9 to 5 routine and that something needs to be done to reaffirm this fact! The name is '<em>Dimsum</em>' and it is located in Koramangala, B'lore. Rup claims that the momos are the best this side of the McMohan line and, even factoring in personal bias, it still remains an impressive claim.<br /><br />And part of my annual winter rituals is this other friend Biswaroop coming over to my house, spending a couple of days and cooking up a storm in the process! When Biswa is in the kitchen he can swing either of two ways- when he is good, he is a master chef and when he is not then, well, he is not a master chef! This time he decided to be good and the results were memorable!<br /><br />But more than the food itself, the process of cooking got me thinking about something. Looking at the spread of colors (Exhibit A- the snap with this post), it seemed to me that there is not too much difference between art and food, or not too much difference in the process of creation of the two. There is a line of thought <a href="http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/05/food_can_be_artistic_but_it_ca.html">http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/05/food_can_be_artistic_but_it_ca.html</a></div><div align="justify">which holds that food can be artistic, but it can never be ‘art’, but I hold differently. If lack of freedom of artistic expression, having to cook to order, is the only argument extended against assigning the status of art to cooking, then it is no argument at all. One only has to travel the length of the country to understand the glorious and diverse ways in which something as humble as the <em>chicken tikka masala</em> finds artistic expression!<br /><br />In fact it is my belief that food is in fact more of an art form than ‘art’ itself. Art caters either to the visual senses or the auditory senses. Only sometimes you get a combination of both that is worthy of being called art. Food on the other hand caters to almost all senses- the sense of taste, of touch, of smell and, in some glorious examples, even the sense of sight! And when the elements are balanced perfectly, when each sense is pampered just so, the product is nothing but the most exalted piece of art!<br /><br />For the moment, I need to find my way to <em>Dimsum</em> ! </div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-23621900419927044092007-12-16T00:18:00.000-08:002007-12-18T05:09:19.679-08:00"In my Opinion..."<div align="justify">Vinod Mehta wrote something in his column in the last issue of <em>Outlook</em> which I found quite interesting. What he was writing about was the essential boisterous nature of a democracy which is comparatively young and in which the realization of what all democracy entails is even younger in its constituents, the people who make up this democracy. Without his permission, I feel some of what he wrote bears reproduction: ‘A healthy and vibrant democracy of necessity is loud, messy, chaotic, confused, abusive and disputatious. Because we live in a free and open society, each citizen is entitled to his or her opinion and point of view. Quite often it seems there exist 1.1. billion opinions in the country, all vigorously articulated……I don’t wish to sound like a totalitarian aesthete, but frequently the decibel level of our democracy reaches ear shattering levels. Everything from road rage to Taslima Nasreen to Dilip Vengsarkar becomes “vital” and “critical”. ‘<br /><br />I could not agree more with Mr. Mehta. We have had a democracy for quite a while now, but the urgency and insistence on articulation of points of view, the desire to opine on something that we may be related to only obliquely at best, is something new. And the unfortunate problem is that more often that not this articulation is not always lucid or coherent. Or even fair. This brings up the question of what has changed recently to bring about this change? Have we, as a democracy matured? Has the democratic spirit finally woken up and is now demanding to be heard? The answer, I think, lies in something more prosaic - The birth of the Hydra Headed Media.<br /><br />It would be naïve and condescending to assume that when our democracy was younger, there were no points of view to be articulated or there were no opinions to be voiced. Possibly there were more, given that the pace of things somehow seemed to be slower, allowing more time for ideas to germinate. It is just that, often, the conduit to channelise the articulations seemed to be a lot more localized, the target audience restricted to the few gathered around that <em>paanwala</em> in Chandni Chowk, the patrons in that coffee house on Park Street, the regulars at the arrack joint in some southern state or, at worst, the people you had invited for dinner sitting at your table. For the more adroit there were Letters to the Editor, the efficacy of which was again limited. To reach a wider audience you had to be someone of ‘consequence’, something that not everyone could manage to be.<br /><br />The arrival of 24x7 news channels has changed all that. Along with other less notable feats, what these channels have achieved is Democratisation of Voices. Say something, anything on an issue that is even slightly topical, back it up with some more people saying the same thing, preferably in loud voices, and you are guaranteed airtime on at least one of the million and one news channels which have sprouted. Everyone now seems to have an opinion, because everyone now seems to be accorded importance. The fact that this importance is only created and assigned because of the necessity of generating TRPs is of course an inconvenient truth. And the fact that this artifical importance is fleeting and temporal, till the next set of voices are heard, is something that is chosen to be ignored- a bit like ersatz coffee if you please; the first sip is often the only drinkable one! Therefore, as a consequence, we have the unique and hitherto unknown privilege of watching grimacing faces on our TV screens postulating about how some line from a song in Madhuri Dixits’ new film has hurt their sentiments, about how the dancers in a song from <em>Bhool Bhulaiya</em> were disrespectful to something or the other- in short, endless cacophony <em>ad nauseam ad infinitum</em>.<br /><br />One of the most interesting news channels to watch is <em>India TV</em>, not because of the journalistic quality of its reporting but because of the lack thereof. Sundays are usually reserved for one main news item, which consists largely of about two minutes footage, a few photos of the people involved and a few quotes from assorted people. That they manage to sustain their entire Sunday programming on something so thin is extraordinary and praiseworthy. Today it was the Moon Das episode, about her ‘lover’ killing himself and some of her family in the process. The same two minutes footage formula was applied, with this nasal voice-over pointing out ‘facts’ and raising ‘questions’, all of which seemed to suggest that, as far as <em>India TV</em> was concerned, it was Moon Das herself who was to blame. Without getting into the veracity of it, the only issue to really consider is whether this is fair? Whether <em>India TV </em>has any business to pre judge an issue based on largely nothing? Until these questions are answered, and I am sure they will never be, we will just have to suffer these misbegotten products of our vibrant democracy, the necessary evils of our belief in Free Speech. </div><div align="justify"><br />And that is <em>my </em>opinion! </div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-22433775236852994022007-11-23T18:07:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:31:39.305-08:00Truth of War<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R0eYihk59bI/AAAAAAAAAAU/BIaj8OXtmGs/s1600-h/DSCN0663.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136241618935477682" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R0eYihk59bI/AAAAAAAAAAU/BIaj8OXtmGs/s320/DSCN0663.JPG" border="0" /></a> <div align="justify">Had also visited the War Memorial at Tawang, built after the war with China in 1962. It was as most war memorials are, somber, dignified and a little confused as to what exactly is its function...to serve as a memorial to the people who died in the war or, in the process, just simply remind one of the war that killed them. So you had the names of the twenty four thousand soldiers who died, as also black and white photos of the war itself and the aftermath.<br /><br />But unlike what most other memorials would do, it actually admitted that we lost the war. And, more graciously, it even had this plaque which listed out the reasons we had lost it. The causes were the expected ones- poor infrastructure, obsolete weaponry etc. But the last reason on the list was what caught the eye- 'The magnanimity of Pandit Nehru'! It took me a while to believe that this was actually written. Without getting into the veracity of it, whether it is actually right or wrong (it probably is), what was surprising was the candor and the bluntness displayed, things not usually associated with anything remotely governmental or official. This frankness was refreshing to say the least. Though i suspect that the people who put it there decided to take a chance, keeping in mind the remoteness of the location, assuming that no one important would ever visit it to take umbrage! Nonetheless, such forthrightness is to be treasured and maybe the Memorial can perform a dual memorial function- one for the war itself and one for honesty too! </div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-14451294137405065942007-11-22T06:36:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:31:39.603-08:00"Who goes there?"<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R0WYWxk59aI/AAAAAAAAAAM/RJHWidHk8Gg/s1600-h/DSCN0601.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5135678467118593442" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Dk3Hdh32Tek/R0WYWxk59aI/AAAAAAAAAAM/RJHWidHk8Gg/s320/DSCN0601.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify">I had visited Tawang by road sometime back. For those of you who slept through geography, it is in Arunachal Pradesh, formerly known as North Eastern Frontier Agency. It was an apt name that, with particular stress on the 'frontier' part. To indulge in a clique, the beauty that was spread all around was of the rugged kind. As befits a region that is as far east as you can get in this country. Serpentine roads, taking forever to take you anywhere, were common. As were aching joints and shaky insides. But what made the never ending car rides bearable was the panoramic vistas spread out all over the place. However, I was preoccupied with something else. I was busy looking at number plates!</div><br /><div></div><br /><div align="justify">When a vehicle overtook us, I would feel compelled to look at its number plate, when one passed us I would again feel the same obligatory need. Not to look at who might be inside that vehicle, or even bother about what vehicle was it, but just to look at the number plate and register the number there! Try as I might, I could not help but look! This is a character flaw that I have carried around with me for a long time now and I felt that I was doomed to a life of peering at muddy plates! Only after a point I realized I was not alone. The other male in the car, my friend next to me, confessed at one point to being driven by the same undeniable need. While the women in the car did what you are supposed to do on a drive, which is look at the scenery, the men looked at number plates. The reasons could be as arcane as the predicament itself. But I think it comes down to a basic need, maybe more in men than in women, to identify and categorize.<br /><br />We feel this need to neatly slot whoever we meet in life, strangers more than acquaintances, into categories and profiles. Somehow we feel more comfortable in having done this, as if we now know that person better and are therefore more confident of dealing with him. This process of profiling/slotting starts with something as basic as the name, which at least in this country, would give you an idea of ethnicity and origin. It may then go on to profession etc, thereby giving us some tangible lodestones with which to wrap the image of the person with in our minds. The fear of the unknown, and the evils inherent therein, is possibly what drives us to transfer people into the realm of concrete generalization so that we feel a little more secure. Looking at the number plates of the vehicles gives us an idea of where the vehicles are from, and therefore by extension, gives us an idea, albeit theoretical and vague, of where the occupants of the vehicle are from. We feel comfortable at some unfathomable level with having this knowledge. What we miss in the process, the sights and the sounds of the road, is of course something else altogether!<br /></div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-67206424277438205262007-10-07T05:32:00.000-07:002007-11-23T19:47:59.206-08:00Beginnings and Endings<div align="justify">My good friend, Leemondee, became a father yesterday. Proud father of something pink and small, which he claims will one day transmutate into his fishing partner! When he called me yesterday with the news, the brand new father's happiness could be clearly felt, even over the static of the phone line. And why should it not be so? Even if the true colour of the happiness that he must have been feeling could only be understood by those who have been there themselves. They say it changes something in people, this miracle of birth. They say it makes you grow up irreversibly. And that is what made me a little sad.<br /><br />To clarify, I could not have been more thrilled at my friend's happiness and i wish I was there, if for nothing else but simply for the pleasure of seeing him hyperventilate outside the labor room! But along with this happiness, there was also a certain sense of loss, a slight ache for something that has gone for ever.<br /><br />Fact is that with the birth of Leemondee's son, all of us, the few who spent school and college together, we have become men. Most of us have gotten married these last couple of years and the rest will do so in the next couple. But in spite of this, there was a sort of sub-conscious pretence at work in all of us, which would not allow anyone to leave Neverland or to let go of the illusion that we were still young and therefore, by extension, permitted to be wild. A reflection of this was the fact that inspite of straddling three continents, all would be aware if one had had a rough time the previous night! But now, all of that may have to change. The baby, his pink softness and his inevitable demands, will ensure that. We have become fathers and it is our sons now who will have the luxury of being young.<br /><br />I guess this is what they call the circle of life…round and round. Just wish the circle could have been a little bigger, with more time before the full loop is completed. Anyways, am off now. Got to go and buy a loud rattle!</div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-15791376025764446702007-09-27T08:02:00.000-07:002007-12-16T08:06:19.286-08:00God Speed<div align="justify">Staying with cricket, there is a bit of a storm brewing about Shoaib Malik’s comments at the post match award ceremony after “The Match’. He said something to the effect that he and his team are sorry and extend apologies to Muslims all over the world for losing the match! Even giving him the benefit of doubt (the language he was speaking in not being his own and therefore there being a gap between intent and expression), there still seemed to be something mildly incongruous about the statement. I am not a chest-thumping secularist (in fact am not a chest-thumping anything), but it just seemed to me that there is no room for such public exhibitions of xenophobic jingoism in the pluralistic world of today. Private ideologies are one thing, but a public space, especially one which is concerned with a world far removed from religion, should not be the stage to articulate such constricted thoughts.<br /><br />I think my friend Nikhil Mehra best summed it all in an e mail of his. Am reproducing the same below without his permission, but hey…its Mehra…the Understanding and Forgiving Soul!<br /><br />"Did anyone else feel that Shoaib Malik's apology to the entire Muslim world was utterly and defenselessly preposterous?? This isn't like some chapter of the South-Asian crusades where the Hindu kafir defeated the righteous Muslims. Plus I dont think Indian muslims need an apology from him. Man, I thought this was behind us now that Inzi - the man who reads half the Quran before he answers a sentence - has been ousted. I thought the whole point behind Malik's appointment was to strip the Pak squad of this God Squad image.<br /><br />He was naive. I dont think he's a fanatic but its reflective of the culture of the team where such a statement would be seen as normal. The blame for this pathetic Us against Them mentality that Shoaib has based on mere religion may also be rightly placed at the feet of the chimp that currently occupies the White House. He will never know the effect he has had.”<br /><br />Need I say more. Me thinks not!</div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-17175486700682575502007-09-26T07:25:00.000-07:002007-12-16T08:06:58.758-08:00Of Cups and Towns<div align="justify">The other big event these past few days was the victory of the men in blue over Pakistan in the finals of the 20:20 cup. A very real feeling had been brewing for some time, that the color blue had actually turned a slight faded shade in recent times. The sight of portly men, hopelessly chasing cricket balls over the fields of England, just served to strengthen that suspicion. The team was beginning to seem like the Jewels of the Nizam...resplendent in their individual values, but fit only for a museum!<br /><br />Fresh air was needed and what we got was a gale! A beautiful storm, full and confident, pulsating with the vibrancy of youth, running for large parts only on the impatience of a generation that has had nothing to call its own. Realms have already been written, and more will be, on how it was done, what it felt like and what this holds for the future. But leaving all this aside, I would like to talk about towns.<br /><br />The small towns of this country is where the future of the country lies. And this is not restricted to cricket alone. Maybe this is nowhere better reflected, nowhere better articulated, than in the persona of Dhoni. More than Dhoni the cricketer, perhaps it lies with Dhoni the ‘Idea’. The idea of a boy from the back of beyond, leading the country, head priest at the altar of its one true religion. The great masses love Dhoni for his cricket; that is a given. But more than that, I think they love what he represents. Nasser Hussain summed it beautifully a few months back- “they love him because they see a bit of themselves in him”. The desire to be relevant is conceivably one of the most primal desires in man and the person-from-nowhere would love nothing better than to be considered so, on a stage greater than what his circumstances may offer. The fact that Dhoni has achieved it is a cause for celebration for them, a beacon of fearless hope if you like.<br /><br />Mukul Kesavan calls this breed the ‘Mofussil Man’, one who is hungry and eager to be part of the tectonic changes which he perceives yet seldom understands. The great attraction of ‘<em>Bunty aur Babli</em>’ was again in the promise it held for the Mofussil Man, much as the great attraction of cricket lies in the hope of upward mobility and acknowledged significance it offers him.<br /><br />There is of course a risk in overanalyzing too much. So therefore, maybe I should simply relax, enjoy the ride and get the mofussil theories stored in the bag. Bring on the Aussies…the boys are hungry!!</div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254881854545274261.post-62857769585344034512007-09-25T08:37:00.000-07:002007-12-16T08:07:19.904-08:00First Posts and Last Songs<div align="justify">I thought that a good way to start this blog would be put in my two pence worth on something that has achieved almost mythical proportions in the hearts of the people of my home town Shillong. To call this an 'event' would be to trivialize it, but to call it a sort of 'social churning' (as some have suggested) would be attributing too much importance to what is or was merely an articulation of relevance by the people of Shillong.<br /><br />What is being referred to is of course Indian Idol 3 and the boy who almost won it- Amit Paul. To try and document the kind of support he enjoyed in Shillong, swinging from adulation to worship and bordering on hysteria, would be a redundant exercise on my part. The stories are too many and the space here is too small. Then to try and comprehend the sense of grief at his loss would again be impossible. How does one begin to understand why so many cried that night or how does one even begin to explain how grown adults of reason and logic felt a lump in their throats and a heaviness in their hearts? I will attempt none of this. My point is a little more obtuse.<br /><br />The reason I think that Amit deserved the adulation he received was not just because he was a good singer. There have and will be better ones. It is simply because he made Shillong smile for a while. He made a small town feel happy, the sort of happiness that comes from sharing a common bond, a common thread.<br /><br />There could be other familiar points of interface for this town, like cricket to name the most obvious example, but none which is so immediate or none which is so close to home. It was almost like the success of Amit had the opportunity of being a physical presence in the lives of people, something that could be grasped, touched, stroked, tasted and smelt. When a drama is enacted, the proximity of the actors to the audience often determines the connection that is set up between the two. In this case, as often happens in small towns, everyone seemed to ‘know’ Amit and therefore everyone rejoiced when he succeeded.<br /><br />His success lies not in reaching the last stage of the contest. His true success lies in making people forget the constants that define their largely uneventful lives and offering them a chance to feel part of something bigger, something happier. No one knows what is to become of him in the future. What we do know is what he did to our present for a while. For that, Thank You Amit!!</div>sandeephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07489024474508050756noreply@blogger.com0