WOW

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/opinion/29mehta.html?ex=1385701200&en=51f7ed4932f50f37&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

What is wrong with Rang De Basanti, A Wednesday, Guru

I did not complete the Indian Idol series but I wanted to post on this for many days. There have been 3 movies which were hits and everyone around me appreciated that Hindi Movie industry is finally making "good movies". Although, I did not like Guru at all, I will touch on that later. But, Rang de and A Wednesday were indeed well made movies. So, is my title wrong? No, I basically do not agree with the message being sent out by these two movies. Rang de sends out a rather dumb message that if you kill the problem creator, you are great. So, I don't understand why India then needs law, courts, judiciary system if any one can decide what is wrong and if it's wrong, what penalty should be given to him or her. So, is it right that if I feel that someone is doing something wrong, I can kill him. Are we moving from democracy to Anarchy or something? "A Wednesday" sends out a similar message that we do not need to take the terrorists to courts and instead directly kill them and a common man decides who is terrorist and what punishment should he or she get. It is absolutely ridiculous. Currently, a very serious attack happened on Mumbai and I am pretty sure that there will be a strong emotion among Indians that this movie act is indeed correct. Instead what India needs is a robust intelligence network. Finally, I thought Guru was a lacklustre movie anyways and that we don't need a Mani Ratnam to direct such a movie. But, more so that he has tried to glorify the wrong acts of the protagonist and it basically shows that you can succeed by committing all bad deeds. I want more films like Yuva to come out which instills a positive vibe among us to do something good rather than the above mentioned movies.

PS: This post has borrowed some thoughts out of: www.sujaiblog.blogspot.com

Sports-Sachin Tendulkar

Did I forget about Dhyan Chand, Sunil Gavaskar, P.T. Usha et al or am I too biased. The answer is No! Sachin Tendulkar is the biggest sporting icon India has ever produced. For me, he is the Michael Jordan, Michael Schumacher of Cricket for whom you see the sport many times. Millions of Indians want to see him score a century every time he bats. The roar at the stadium when he steps in to the ground speaks for itself. If Michael Jordan played exceedingly well at both Carolina and later at Chicago, this guy scored well for Mumbai, Yorkshire, and for India. He has amassed 42 ODI centuries and 39 Test centuries for which he should be thanked by the Indians. He should be thanked by the people for everything he has done not only for India but for the sport in general. Last season, when Carolina went through the final four, the Tarheels went crazy over Tyler Hansbrough; but when they lost to Kansas in the semis, I found all the fans to be so nice to the team. Everywhere banners were placed thanking the team who put up such a wonderful performance. But in India, I find people criticizing Tendulkar saying he never plays when India needs him. This is a senseless argument to say the least because India has won 30 times in ODI when Tendulkar has scored a century and once there was no result. People don’t have the right to choose when India needs Tendulkar. We need him always, let’s make that clear. You can find a detailed explanation of the 11 times India lost when Tendulkar scored a century at http://www.niharsworld.com/2007/12/17/sachin-tendulkars-41-30-hundreds-are-for-winning-cause/
Another famous allegation is that he plays himself and not for the team. This comes up from the observation that often he slows down when he is in the 90s. But he has full right to do that. He scored 90 runs on his own. No other guy helped him. He knows how to accelerate after 100. So, don’t teach him how to bat at this stage! 2 stunning examples in favor of my argument would be:
· His innings at the deadly WACA in Perth in which he scored 119 which is still considered to be one of the best ever innings to have been played in Australia.
· His resilience after blood was gushing from his nose and scoring 57 on his debut Test which helped India draw the match against a wonderful Pakistani fast bowling attack comprising Imran Khan, Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram etc.
I don’t find anything wrong now in Government waiving the import duty on his Ferrari Car. It is a very small token for such a big sporting genius. Go watch this video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-7jL7o8kYs

Music- A R Rehman

Why I chose him ahead of so many legendary music directors like R.D Burman, Illayaraja, or singers like Kishore Kumar, Mohd. Rafi and others is primarily because according to me, he has been instrumental in taking the Indian Music to an international level. I have never heard before of any Indian music being directly incorporated into Hollywood movies, and in one case even the language was not changed. This guy has just been revelation to the Indian movie industry. He has found so many new talents and is still continuously on the hunt for more new singers which I guess Illayaraja missed out. I have started to like Rehman's albums now on par with Pink Floyd, and Metallica. I have always thought it is very difficult to come up with songs like Comfortably Numb or Nothing else Matters, but now I feel it is equally challenging to come up with brilliant tunes and to convert them into great hits album after album for over 15 years and that too primarily in two different languages. Although, they say that music has no language bounds but still I feel one must have a proper understanding of the kind of music a particular set of people would like and according to me this differs a whole lot in Hindi and Tamil and this guy leaves me spellbound in both Sivaji and Rang-de-Basanti. Hopefully he will come up with more great music and will venture out into different languages. I still feel numb when I listen to the Bombay tune whether it is in Bombay or it is in Lord of the War.

Indian Idols

When some % of people of the world are going crazy over the different home country versions of the idol shows (like the American Idol, Australian Idol, Indian Idol, etc.), I thought about really how many great Indians have changed my thinking. I am planning to write a series of blogs on such personalities possible by concentrating on each arena which I feel is important.
So, I begin the series by concentrating on Politics and related fields:

• Mahatma Gandhi

The choice is obvious and I dont think many will argue on the choice. It is just that so much has already written and known about this great personality that almost nothing new can be said. When I started writing this blog, I thought instead of a "OR guy" like me writing this article, wouldn't it be great if I can find an article written someone who also has stood out on similar principles as Gandhi. To my joy, I found an interesting article in Time written by Nelson Mandela. Here is the full article:

" India is Gandhi's country of birth; South Africa his country of adoption. He was both an Indian and a South African citizen. Both countries contributed to his intellectual and moral genius, and he shaped the liberatory movements in both colonial theaters.
He is the archetypal anticolonial revolutionary. His strategy of noncooperation, his assertion that we can be dominated only if we cooperate with our dominators, and his nonviolent resistance inspired anticolonial and antiracist movements internationally in our century.
Both Gandhi and I suffered colonial oppression, and both of us mobilized our respective peoples against governments that violated our freedoms.
The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonviolence was the official stance of all major African coalitions, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence.
Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We founded Unkhonto we Sizwe and added a military dimension to our struggle. Even then, we chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Militant action became part of the African agenda officially supported by the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) following my address to the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1962, in which I stated, "Force is the only language the imperialists can hear, and no country became free without some sort of violence."
Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. He conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. He said, "Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor ..."
Violence and nonviolence are not mutually exclusive; it is the predominance of the one or the other that labels a struggle.
Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 at the age of 23. Within a week he collided head on with racism. His immediate response was to flee the country that so degraded people of color, but then his inner resilience overpowered him with a sense of mission, and he stayed to redeem the dignity of the racially exploited, to pave the way for the liberation of the colonized the world over and to develop a blueprint for a new social order.
He left 21 years later, a near maha atma (great soul). There is no doubt in my mind that by the time he was violently removed from our world, he had transited into that state.
No Ordinary Leader — Divinely Inspired
He was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.

His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and a social struggle to realize the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality. He seeks this Truth, not in isolation, self-centeredly, but with the people. He said, "I want to find God, and because I want to find God, I have to find God along with other people. I don't believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be running to the Himalayas to find God in some cave there. But since I believe that nobody can find God alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them with me. Alone I can't come to Him."
He sacerises his revolution, balancing the religious and the secular.
Awakening
His awakening came on the hilly terrain of the so-called Bambata Rebellion, where as a passionate British patriot, he led his Indian stretcher-bearer corps to serve the Empire, but British brutality against the Zulus roused his soul against violence as nothing had done before. He determined, on that battlefield, to wrest himself of all material attachments and devote himself completely and totally to eliminating violence and serving humanity. The sight of wounded and whipped Zulus, mercilessly abandoned by their British persecutors, so appalled him that he turned full circle from his admiration for all things British to celebrating the indigenous and ethnic. He resuscitated the culture of the colonized and the fullness of Indian resistance against the British; he revived Indian handicrafts and made these into an economic weapon against the colonizer in his call for swadeshi — the use of one's own and the boycott of the oppressor's products, which deprive the people of their skills and their capital.
A great measure of world poverty today and African poverty in particular is due to the continuing dependence on foreign markets for manufactured goods, which undermines domestic production and dams up domestic skills, apart from piling up unmanageable foreign debts. Gandhi's insistence on self-sufficiency is a basic economic principle that, if followed today, could contribute significantly to alleviating Third World poverty and stimulating development.
Gandhi predated Frantz Fanon and the black-consciousness movements in South Africa and the U.S. by more than a half-century and inspired the resurgence of the indigenous intellect, spirit and industry.
Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality.
He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry. He preaches the gospel of leveling down, of emulating the kisan (peasant), not the zamindar (landlord), for "all can be kisans, but only a few zamindars."
He stepped down from his comfortable life to join the masses on their level to seek equality with them. "I can't hope to bring about economic equality... I have to reduce myself to the level of the poorest of the poor."
From his understanding of wealth and poverty came his understanding of labor and capital, which led him to the solution of trusteeship based on the belief that there is no private ownership of capital; it is given in trust for redistribution and equalization. Similarly, while recognizing differential aptitudes and talents, he holds that these are gifts from God to be used for the collective good.
He seeks an economic order, alternative to the capitalist and communist, and finds this in sarvodaya based on nonviolence (AHIMSA).
He rejects Darwin's survival of the fittest, Adam Smith's laissez-faire and Karl Marx's thesis of a natural antagonism between capital and labor, and focuses on the interdependence between the two.
He believes in the human capacity to change and wages Satyagraha against the oppressor, not to destroy him but to transform him, that he cease his oppression and join the oppressed in the pursuit of Truth.
We in South Africa brought about our new democracy relatively peacefully on the foundations of such thinking, regardless of whether we were directly influenced by Gandhi or not.

Gandhi remains today the only complete critique of advanced industrial society. Others have criticized its totalitarianism but not its productive apparatus. He is not against science and technology, but he places priority on the right to work and opposes mechanization to the extent that it usurps this right. Large-scale machinery, he holds, concentrates wealth in the hands of one man who tyrannizes the rest. He favors the small machine; he seeks to keep the individual in control of his tools, to maintain an interdependent love relation between the two, as a cricketer with his bat or Krishna with his flute. Above all, he seeks to liberate the individual from his alienation to the machine and restore morality to the productive process.
As we find ourselves in jobless economies, societies in which small minorities consume while the masses starve, we find ourselves forced to rethink the rationale of our current globalization and to ponder the Gandhian alternative.
At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in; when Marx was pitting worker against capitalist, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning, he was centralizing society in God and soul; at a time when the colonized had ceased to think and control, he dared to think and control; and when the ideologies of the colonized had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed."

Source: Time Magazine (Monday, January 3 2000): Accessed online on November 1 2007.

So here is my little input into it:

• Nobel peace prize was not awarded to anyone in 1948 since Mahatma Gandhi had expired and they told "No suitable living candidate". (Reference: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/gandhi/index.html)
• He was the runner up in Time "Person of the century", second only to Albert Einstein who in many ways idolized Gandhi's philosophy.

Another nice excerpt:

"Consciously or not, every oppressed people or group with a cause has practiced what Gandhi preached. Sixties kids like me were his disciples when we went South in the Freedom Summer to sit in for civil rights and when we paraded through the streets of America to stop the war in Vietnam. Our passionate commitment, nonviolent activism, willingness to accept punishment for civil disobedience were lessons he taught. Martin Luther King Jr. learned them; so did Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi, the unknown Chinese who defied the tanks in 1989 and the environmental marchers in Seattle a few weeks ago." - by JOHANNA MCGEARY

Source: Time Magazine (Monday, January 3 2000): Accessed online on November 1 2007.

Finally, a link to the "Think Different" campaign made by Apple:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULUGHJCCj4

INDIA: A Land of realities among hypes

This country has always amazed me with its differences existing atleast in a big city like Bombay. But, something more has stuck me of late. People in India hype things a lot when some unheard realities are much better to be talked about. Like, the ratio of number of people knowing that India is a contender in developing the fastest supercomputer to the number of people knowing that Abhishek and Aishwarya got married is very less. I understand that in every country, celebrities are given a demi-god status but in India, people fail to recognize celebrities and I remember an instance recently when a policeman in Bihar was warned since he had fined Dhoni for over speeding. We talk about policemen not doing their job, but when they do; we blame them for that. How can Dhoni become a celebrity? Really, what all has he done for the country? As noted in my last post, we hype a lot about our IT services companies without giving due importance to other sectors. We hype a part of India which is booming, completely forgetting the other part. We hype privatization forgetting the debacle of Centaur hotel sale. We hype our culture without understanding other's culture. We brag about our economic growth without knowing economics. I have heard from many of my friends that in India only illiterate people vote. They think getting a degree makes them literate. They often fail to understand the difference between literacy and education. Getting a coveted BTech degree from IIT or MBA degree from IIM doesnt make anyone literate. How many of such guys know which ward do they belong to in a municipal corporation. I haven't seen marking of any ward in any city except Bombay which I have been to. Why dont ever people protest against that? Why the so called very educated people stay away when the auto drivers haggle with them in Chennai? Why are we so illiterate about our rights and laws which we are taught about from our childhood and are very aware about the runs scored by Sachin Tendulkar in each form of cricket?
Next, moving on to movies, we hype movies made my Mani Ratnam, et al without even watching movies like Shwaas(Oscar entry), Dor(Excellent movie regarding women empowerment) etc. These movies don't entertain us because we want beautifully picturized songs or some fight scenes with brilliant camera techniques. We want something other than reality. We always want hype.
Cities: We hype some cities which have an airport size almost equal to my apartment complex here (really!) and label the national capital as "Female molester city" without recognizing the amount of development in terms of infrastructure Delhi has gone through. Go there to believe it.
Finally , how many so called educated Indians know that the best algorithm to determine whether a number is prime has been developed by a Professor and his students at IIT Kanpur?
Kudos to Indian media for keeping Indians in the darkness. NDTV, CNN-IBN and Aaj Tak: kindly go to HELL!!!!

Really nice read: mandatory as well!!!!

"I visited Jamshedpur over the weekend to see for myself an India that is fast disappearing despite all the wolf-cries of people like Narayanamurthy and his ilk. It is one thing to talk and quite another to do and I am delighted to tell you that Ratan Tata has kept alive the legacy of perhaps India's finest industrialist J.N. Tata. Something that some people doubted when Ratan took over the House of the Tatas but in hindsight, the best thing to have happened to the Tatas is unquestionably Ratan. I was amazed to see the extent of corporate philanthropy and this is no exaggeration.For the breed that talks about corporate social responsibility and talks about the role of corporate India, a visit to Jamshedpur is a must. Go there and see the amount of money they pump into keeping the town going; see the smiling faces of workers in a region known for industrial unrest; see the standard of living in a city that is almost isolated from the mess in the rest of the country.This is not meant to be a puff piece. I have nothing to do with Tata Steel, but I strongly believe the message of hope and the message of goodness that they are spreading is worth sharing. The fact that you do have companies in India which look at workers as human beings and who do not blow their software trumpet of having changed lives. In fact, I asked Mr Muthurman, the managing director, as to why he was so quiet about all they had done and all he could offer in return was a smile wrapped in humility, which said it all. They have done so much more since I last visited Jamshedpur, which was in 1992. The town has obviously got busier but the values thankfully haven't changed. The food is still as amazing as it always was and I gorged, as I would normally do. I visited the plant and the last time I did that was with Rusi Mody.
But the plant this time was gleaming and far from what it used to be.Greener and cleaner and a tribute to environment management. You could have been in the mountains. Such was the quality of air I inhaled! There was no belching smoke; no tired faces and so many more women workers, even on the shop floor. This is true gender equality and not the kind that is often espoused at seminars organised by angry activists. I met so many old friends. Most of them have aged but not grown old. There was a spring in the air which came from a certain calmness which has always been the hallmark of Jamshedpur and something I savoured for a full two days in between receiving messages of how boring and decrepit the Lacklustre Fashion Week was.Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata had created an edifice that is today a robust company and it is not about profits and about valuation. It is not about who becomes a millionaire and who doesn’t. It is about getting the job done with dignity and respect keeping the age-old values intact and this is what I learnt.I jokingly asked someone as to whether they ever thought of joining an Infosys or a Wipro and pat came the reply: "We are not interested in becoming crorepatis but in making others crorepatis."Which is exactly what the Tatas have done for years in and around Jamshedpur. Very few people know that Jamshedpur has been selected as a UN Global Compact City, edging out the other nominee from India, Bangalore.Selected because of the quality of life, because of the conditions of sanitation and roads and welfare. If this is not a tribute to industrial India, then what is? Today, India needs several Jamshedpurs but it also needs this Jamshedpur to be given its fair due, its recognition. I am tired of campus visits being publicised to the Infosys's and the Wipro's of the world. Modern India is being built in Jamshedpur as we speak.
An India built on the strength of core convictions and nothing was more apparent about that than the experiment with truth and reality that Tata Steel is conducting at Pipla.Forty-eight tribal girls (yes, tribal girls who these corrupt and evil politicians only talk about but do nothing for) are being educated through a residential program over nine months. I went to visit them and I spoke to them in a language that they have just learnt: Bengali. Eight weeks ago, they could only speak in Sainthali, their local dialect. But today, they are brimming with a confidence that will bring tears to your eyes. It did to mine.One of them has just been selected to represent Jharkand in the state archery competition. They have their own women’s football team and what’s more they are now fond of education. It is a passion and not a burden.This was possible because I guess people like Ratan Tata and Muthuraman haven’t sold their souls to some business management drivel, which tells us that we must only do business and nothing else. The fact that not one Tata executive has been touched by the Naxalites in that area talks about the social respect that the Tatas have earned.The Tatas do not need this piece to be praised and lauded. My intent is to share the larger picture that we so often miss in the haze of the slime and sleaze that politics imparts. My submission to those who use phrases such as "feel-good" and "India Shining" is first visit Jamshedpur to understand what it all means. See Tata Steel in action to know what companies can do if they wish to. And what corporate India needs to do. Murli Manohar Joshi would be better off seeing what Tata Steel has done by creating the Xavier Institute of Tribal Education rather than by proffering excuses for the imbroglio in the IIMs. This is where the Advanis and Vajpayees need to pay homage, not to all the Sai Babas and the hugging saints that they are so busy with.
India is changing in spite of them and they need to realise that.I couldn't have spent a more humane and wonderful weekend. Jamshedpur is an eye-opener and a role model, which should be made mandatory for replication. I saw corporate India actually participate in basic nation-building, for when these tribal girls go back to their villages, they will return with knowledge that will truly be life-altering. Corporate India can do it but most of the time is willing to shy away.For those corporate leaders who are happier winning awards and being interviewed on their choice of clothes, my advise is visit Tata Steel, spend some days at Jamshedpur and see a nation's transformation. That is true service and true nationalism.Tata Steel will celebrate 100 years of existence in 2007. It won't be just a milestone in this company's history. It will be a milestone, to my mind of corporate transparency and generosity in this country. It is indeed fitting that Ratan Tata today heads a group which has people who are committed to nation-building than just building influence and power.JRD must be smiling wherever he is. And so must Jamshedji Nusserwanji. These people today, have literally climbed every last blue mountain. And continue to do so with vigour and passion. Thank God for the Tatas!"

Source: Asianage