Ingenuity and Discretion

We are complex creatures. We make complex things. And thats good. To this day, I still marvel at how the first person discovered the solar system - I mean how could something like that occur to a human mind? And inventions like TV that brings live pictures from around the world are simply beyond my comprehension. Yeah, its electronics and signals now, but the ability to take these certain basic elements and intricately tie them up into things that are useful or entertaining.

Ingenuity is great, but only when accompanied by discretion. The former we have in abundance, and the latter is conspicuously absent. So we start making things complex. Innovate in areas where there is no need. What purpose does a lie serve? Yeah, it saves pain in the short run, but the truth will come back reinvigorated to bite all involved in the backside. So it goes without saying that a lie must be used on the rarest of occasions. Yet, it is often the truth that makes the rare appearance. And we have gone on to invent a variety of complex communication mechanisms that make it impossible to decipher the real message. Euphemisms, for example, though they are the most benign of the lot. The English language lends itself beautifully to create sentences that say something, but not mean it at all. We seem to say something, but are not saying anything at all, and even if we did, it would not have meant anything, but if we dont say that something which doesn't mean anything, we are assumed to be saying something else, which would mean something else altogether.

As an unfortunate consequence, we have reached the stage of not recognizing or processing truth. It ruffles our sensibilities and screws up our brains. Thats not the sad part. Because we are unable to digest it, we must not be fed the truth. Are the attacks in Australia racially motivated? Did the center meddle to keep Pak players out of IPL? Are we completely innocent when it comes to the terrorism situation in Kashmir? Should migration to Mumbai be limited? The acceptable response is that there is no right answer. It's more like we are incapable of handling the right answers.

Welcome to Pro Sports

So the Pak cricket players are left in the cold. They are outraged because they still live in the era, where playing for the country is a big deal, and the nation treats them as gods. All that was before cricket was played for money. Once it is pro sport, no one cares for sentiments and reputation. It is no longer a game, but a business.

Sure, even with cold logic, a couple of Pak players would have been really good additions, but clearly it wasnt worth the risk involved. First, the political risk that the likes of Shiv Sena and MNS will create hell should a Pak player have to play in Mumbai, let alone play for Mumbai. And then, Pak players are not renowned for their discipline. Afridi had a run in with the Chargers, and I read Md. Asif had trouble staying sober. But most importantly, what if, God forbid, we have a situation like a Kargil war or 26/11. No team would risk their reputation and be caught dead with a Pak player. The risks and complications were just too much.

So the natural, but incredibly naive, question is, why not state upfront that no Pak players for IPL? Well, the corporate world has its ways. The decision may be made, but the process should have all the trappings of fairness. One thing is for sure. No player or party will be spared this ruthlessness. Even in the last season, we saw team owners clearly outweigh the players in several decisions. And it is only fair.

Good and luck

It took a couple of days in Delhi for me to appreciate what is liberally referred to as winters in Mumbai. The cold chilled me to the bone, and it took superhuman effort to rouse myself out of the two razais in the morning. The fog was thick and the visibility limited but none of this affected by cabbie - he kept merrily cruising at 70kmph in arterial roads. Cruel but effective way to get someone forget the weather. And to think that the city will be baking in 40+ degree temperatures in the summer.

It is unfortunate that the human mind cannot appreciate the absolute. We are forever evaluating options relative to one another. Be it job, income, living conditions or even the weather. Reminds me of this great line from the movie, Lucky Number Slevin....

The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky. You are unlucky, so I may know that I am. Unfortunately the lucky never realizes they are lucky until it's too late. Take yourself for instance; yesterday you were better off than you are off today but it took today for you to realize it. But today has arrived and it's too late. You see? People are never happy with what they have. They want what they had, or what others have. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Waiting for Rann...

It is now proven that Rathore did commit the crime. Whether his conviction was severe enough is debatable, but it has caught media's imagination like never before, who have grasped this opportunity to project themselves as the only just and righteous institution in the country. They have promptly accused Rathore of torturing Ruchika's family, getting her expelled from school, and eventually forcing her to commit suicide. Should we have gone to war with Pak in the same decade, he would have been blamed for that as well.

That media overreacts is an acknowledged fact, but to so brazenly support one side and vilify the other is lunacy. Every development on the Ruchika case is accompanied by a grave photo of her to evoke maximum sympathy while Rathore is shown with a grin to convey his glee on getting away so easily on a crime for which he deserves to be hanged - if it were left to our media.

But then Rathore is at least a convict, but the media takes sides with the same gusto even against a victim. Sample these two ridiculously funny instances of media ethics in Mumbai Mirror (yeah, not the newspaper to search for ethics, but still...). I guess there is an unwritten rule to not disclose the names of rape victims or show their pics, and with good reason. First was the story of a woman in Kalyan who caught redhanded by her husband in their home, having a good time with a lover. To save her face, she cried rape, and the poor lover was arrested. The case came to trial, when she abruptly showed up to reveal the truth. Now, is there any confusion here as to identities of the criminal and the victim? The newspaper religiously blacked out lady's face and withheld her name, which was accompanied by the mug shot of her lover.

The second one is funnier. Two lovers go watch a movie and get cozy, I guess, in the theater. They even eat out at the restaurant after the movie, and then she remembers, oh he took advantage of me, and cries rape. The case goes on trial, and is thrown out. The story is reported, after faithfully changing the name of the woman, but the guy's name is as is.

The less said about their handling of serious matters the better. NDTV chose have a debate on US' decision to put nationals of 15 countries under additional checks. Some idiot at NDTV thought this was racial profiling and wasted no time in inviting a couple of experts to discuss the matter, one of which was Mani Shankar Aiyer. I dont care much for Mr. Aiyer, but I am totally with him when he started by saying that the move by the US is not racial profiling at all, and that NDTV should have done well to get a security expert who can comment on whether racial profiling is effective in averting terror strikes.

I cant wait for RGV's Rann. I hope he hits them really hard with this one. I lick my lips imaging scenes of media nincompoops protesting that the Rann shows them in bad light. Go RGV!

Deve Gowda's rant

The media is delighted a Deve Gowda's faux pas, and they are milking it for all its worth. And yes, I dont think it is any more than a faux pas. And no, our democracy has not stooped to new lows as the media would have us believe. If anything, it has risen higher on this day. And I mean this in all earnest.

For decades we have been faced with this glaring divide between haves and have nots, who seemingly live in different universes. And our politicians have been especially crucified for not being in touch with the "grass roots" and not doing enough for the "common man". Well, for once, a politician speaks the same tongue as the urchin on the street corner, and this is how we treat him. In fact, compared to what we hear on the streets, Gowda's rants sound polished. He still has a long way to go before he can claim to have connected with the lowest ranks of the nation.

If anything, I take offense to Yeddyrappa's retort that Gowda's choice of words reflects his culture. What does he mean? Sir, the entire nation speaks this language. Even the world - US politicians have been picked up using derogatory terms when they thought the mic was off. It is you who are out of touch and then you insult our culture? You owe our former PM an apology. Mr. Gowda may have stooped lower than any politician has, but in the process he elevated the office of the PM higher than our Manmohan can.

3 Idiots and FPS

For most of the first half, I thought the movie had nothing to do with the book with two guys embarking on a search for a lost friend. Even as the IIT scenes appeared, I felt this was just a nod to Five Point Someone, and the movie will soon take on a different course. The twist before intermission convinced me that the first half was masti and the second half will take a serious turn. That was not to be. It was more of the campus antics and juvenile gags. As the movie ended I walked out with the feeling that it was closer to the book than I thought. Apparently, Mr. Bhagat thought so too.

I had read the book a good 5 or so years back so I didn't remember it vividly. I could see that the film was not a shot-for-shot ripoff but I felt a strong sense of deja vu nevertheless. And since the controversy blew up so spectacularly, I couldnt resist re-reading the book. And since I obviously spent so much time on this, might as well blog my analysis.

Bhagat is absolutely right in claiming the story credit. I will simply outline it here and you can draw your own conclusions.

The book has three central characters who meet during ragging. One of them, Ryan, doesnt believe in the education system, the second, Alok, is from a lower middle-class household and must get a job to pull his family out of poverty - the family has a paralytic dad, mom, the sole bread earner, who hasnt bought a new saree in five years, and an elder sister waiting to get married but for the lack of funds to pay dowry. The third character, Hari, happens to be the narrator, and although no background is provided in the book, it is fair to assume he hails from a typical middle class family with no clear cut views on life and just followed the crowd to get into IIT.

All three of them are laggards with GPAs of 5.x. After the first semester, Alok is not happy with the effect of this friendship on his grades, and tags up with Venkat, the typical studious class topper. The association lasts for a year until a day when Alok must to go home to see his dad, but Venkat insists he rather complete a group assignment that was delegated to Alok and is due the next day. Ryan steps into help and the three get together again.

Hari falls in love with Neha, Prof Cherian's daughter. Prof Cherian (uses a bicycle) was an alum of the institute and had a GPA of 10 during his days, but chose the institute over lucrative overseas opportunities so he could give back to the society. Naturally the prof wanted his offspring to keep the tradition alive, but his son having failed to get in after three attempts commits suicide, a fact not revealed to the father. As GPA is how people are judged in IIT, to impress Prof Cherian and compensate for his poor form overall, Hari slogs his ass off and is determined to get an A in Cherian's course, but a series of unfortunate events results in a situation where he needs 47 out of 50 in the final exam for an A. Ryan suggests stealing the paper and Hari gets a duplicate key through Neha (without her knowledge though). They enter the office at night, and Ryan has taken out the question paper and is resealing the envelope when Alok decides to use the phone in the office to call home. An alert night employee manning the EPABX sees a call coming from a Prof's office, raises an alarm and three three are caught in the act. Consequently, all 3 are suspended for a semester, and since this happens to be the final year, they wont be able to graduate within 4 years. Unable to bear the consequences, Alok jumps from the roof and breaks 13 bones.

A sympathetic prof helps the 3 out so they can work on a research project based on Ryan's idea during their suspension, which is eventually counted for some credits, and they are able to somehow graduate on time. Owing to their poor grades, however, they cant hope for lucrative jobs. Hari and Alok manage to get jobs, and Ryan ends up assisting the prof in furthering the research.

Three Idiots and Rocket Singh

Rajkumar Hirani has carved a niche out of making light and entertaining movies with a social message. 3 idiots entertains – mostly – and has a message on our education system. But I found it too long with the second half meandering without purpose. The twist was of no consequence, the webcam-assisted medical scene totally irrelevant and the depiction of middle-class poverty puerile. They killed what might otherwise have become a classic along the lines of M’bhais. Since Aamir has a history of interfering with directors, I don’t know if he or Hirani was the culprit. In any case, the acting is first-rate, the comedy is funny, and the narrative is mostly engaging. Worth the movie ticket, but no more.

As much as 3 idiots is ruling the box office, there was another recent movie with a similar message. In Rocket Singh, the protagonist is unable to cope with the ways of the corporate world and decides to follow his heart, which expectedly is against the unsaid rules of the game. There was hardly a dull moment, and except for the poignant if over-the-top climax scene, every other line or shot brought a smile to my face. Its biggest achievement, in my view, is that the humor never looked cheap, this despite one of the main characters being a porn-addict! And “cheap” is what some of the gags in 3 idiots seemed to me. But at the box-office, where it matters, 3 idiots hit the bulls-eye (although RS did reasonably well in overseas markets).

Whereas Rocket Singh portrayed the grim reality of life, 3I invokes the supernatural power of “all iss well” to calm your nerves during bad times, continuing on the lines of jaadu ki jhappi and Gandhigiri. I liked Lage Raho for perfectly walking the tightrope of keeping things light but spreading a message, but 3I overextends to one side or the other. Some of the comedy – the ragging scene to demonstrate the conductive properties of salt water, patient on scooter – is purely to elicit laughs with no relevance to the story line whereas when its message time, you can safely switch off your mind for a few minutes. I guess this is to an extent a reflection of our reluctance to be frank. We like our messages sugarcoated – if the message is lost, there’s at least the sugar. It is probably this optimism that is well captured in the WSJ article, Indian Standard Time Warp.