AmreekanDesi

For the past few weeks the Hero Honda Hockey jingle has been playing non stop on radio stations. You would think India must be on the verge of winning the world cup. Ha!

dil mein dam bhar lo, fir dil ko hockey ko

Win the cup they didn’t, but to their credit the Indian hockey team managed their best performance in 16 years. By finishing 8th out of 12 participating teams. And managing one win in six matches.

To their credit they managed to defeat Pakistan. Never mind the fact that everybody else also beat up the Pakistani team who seem to have slipped to a new low in world hockey.

For some illogical reason, there was a lot of hype and expectation from the team, and we were actually expecting a decent finish. Alas that decent finish never happened, and India even lost the match for the 7th position to Argentina.

Indian hockey has seen it all now. The burden of past performance, the ignominy of not qualifying for the Beijing Olympics, the suspension of IHF last year, the recent strike over pay, infighting over captaincy right before the world cup, allegedly rigged practice matches against India B teams, a sad show at the world cup, and to top it all, a Prabhjot Singh dispatching a middle finger to upset fans.

A team on a high can afford to piss off some followers, but a mediocre team that loses most of its games can definitely not. We may have given our dil to hockey, but it wont take long to take it back. Not when the Indian Paisa League is in progress.

Maybe what we need is a Shahrukh Khan to coach the men’s team to a world title, like he did the women’s team.

*Long Sigh *

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Dear Danny Boyle,

We heard that you left India in a rush because you were ‘really, really tired‘. What happened? Did you happen to travel in a Mumbai local train?

We are sure it couldnt be related to the fact that your child stars wanted some more from you. All Azharuddin wanted was a car. And Rubina, an additional $48,000 for an apartment in Bandra. What’s so bad about it?

Its simple. You made a movie about India’s poverty and the movie ended up making some $300mn. These kids should have gotten money but you took them to Hollywood, Disneyland etc, and then told them to go to school. WTF! These kids are stars now. Stars dont go to school.

Why cant Rubina live in a house in Bandra West? The kid calls you Danny Uncle and you really want her to live in Vikhroli? Vikhroli?

Forbes, the magazine famous for compiling lists of the world’s best/most/biggest/richest people/organizations just gave us a new compilation.

The world’s most powerful people.

In compiling our first ranking of the World’s Most Powerful People, we wrestled with these questions–and many more–before deciding to define power by four dimensions. First, do they have influence over lots of other people? Do they control relatively large financial resources compared with their peers? Are they powerful in multiple spheres?

The top choice seems obvious enough. The man who won a Nobel peace prize without really achieving anything concrete; the man who captured the world’s imagination; the president of the United States (and the master of the universe). Barrack Obama. Following him are Chinese premier Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Four Indians feature on this distinguished list of 67 people, one per 100 million people on the planet. Which means that only 400 million Indians are represented. (The others are poor enough to not matter.)

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comes in at 36. Dalai Lama is 39.

Soft-spoken Sikh economist won landslide re-election victory despite sharp slowdown, poverty and non-Hindu faith. Credited with transforming India’s quasi-socialist economy into world’s second-fastest-growing. As finance minister (1991-1996), abolished cumbersome “Licence Raj” requirements and opened up India to foreign investors and outsourcing. From the “fences make good neighbors” file: “We all know the epicenter of terrorism in the world today is Pakistan.” Has nuclear arsenal at disposal. [link]

Mukesh Ambani is 44. Lakshmi Mittal is 55. Ratan Tata is 59. French president Sarkozy comes in at a  relatively lowly 56. Funnily enough, there is no Sonia Gandhi in the list. Dawood Ibrahim is. As is Osama bin Laden.

It’s very hard to quantify the power that people hold in contemporary world, but this list beats me. How is the president of Brazil more important than the president of France? How is the CEO of Walmart more powerful than these two heads of state? How is the CEO of TelMex more important than the CEO of Walmart? How are the Google founders more powerful than the Pope!?

Is this list a fascinating reflection of changing world dynamics where industrialists, politicians, and drug traffickers hold equal power over the masses? Or is it just a bad attempt at picking the world’s most important people?

That’s how it is done.

They pointed a finger at you, and you voluntarily went back to jail, leaving your aging mom to fend for herself. What superlative sacrifice!

This should serve a lesson to the media hounding you, and all those people who said that you should be given strict punishment for the murder you committed some ten years back.

What punishment? I say you should be released from jail immediately. You should be a chapter in law books that teaches people the values of integrity, honesty and self esteem.

Just came across the Google Doodle contest going on currently. As part of this competition, students in India from Standards 1 to 10 were invited to design a doodle for Google. The winning doodle will be displayed on the Google India homepage all day this Children’s day (14 November).

The theme for the competition is My India and through their designs these kids are supposed to tell us what India means to them. Over 4000 entries were submitted out of which the top 45 have been selected. Now it is open to the public to decide who is the best doodler.

Online voting is open from 21st of October 2009 to 31st of October 2009. Go cast your vote  for your favorite design.

There’s three categories: 1-3rd, 4-6th, and 7-10th standard. Teeny kids if you ask me, but the designs blew my mind. I am no artist  but damn, these kids are good.

Sample some of my favorites. This one is the creation of Vansh from 1st standard. (Yes, that’s some 5 years old!)

Jai Ho

My doodle depicts few of the endless contributions made by India to the world. India has never invaded any country in the past 10,00 years of history and taught the world non-violence and peace by Gandhiji. Aryabhatta invented zero. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine. 2600 years ago Sushrutha, father of surgery conducted complicated operations. Pythagorean Theorem was first explained by Budhayana. Chess, snakes and ladders, art of navigation, etc originated in India. I wish that someday with my contributions, I’ll be able to occupy a space in somebody’s doodle as a person who contributed for this lovely country.

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We are seeing some good news coming in from the sporting arena these days. Indian sport lives.

Indian Tennis has a new star. Somdev Devvarman has qualified for the US Open singles, coming through the tough qualifiers.  He hasn’t just qualified but won his first round match as well. Somdev happens to be the first Indian male player to qualify for the singles main draw of a Grand Slam event in seven years, which in itself portrays a sad state of affairs. But we will look at the brighter side for now.

In women’s singles, Sania Mirza has moved on to the second round herself. We just hope she is able to get over her injuries and regain her pristine form of 2007 where she even defeated the current world number one, Dinara Safina.

In Football, India today triumphed in the Nehru cup winning the final against Syria. Small consolation for a national team that ranks a lowly 156 in the world.

Beijing Olympic bronze medallist Vijender Singh has been ranked world no 2 in the 75 kg category in the boxing rankings announced by the International Boxing Association (AIBA). There are other Indian boxers in the top ranks including Manoj Kumar (2nd in 64kg), Thokchom Nanao Singh (5th in 48kg), Akhil Kumar (9th in 57kg)

Women’s boxing will be included in the London Olympics (2012), which is excellent news for India. In the last world championship held in China, India won 4 medals. Mary Kom is India’s great hope and winner of a record 4 gold medals ever since the world championship started in 2001.

In Badminton, Saina Nehwal has been doing India proud. The world number 6 won the Indonesian open earlier this year and reached the quarter finals at the world championship. Chetan Anand is also doing well in the men’s circuit, and is currently ranked 14 in the world.

Force India managed a podium finish at the Belgian GP, and the media is going berserk. The only thing Indian about the team is its owner, so not sure it should be hailed as the coming-of-age of Indian F1 racing yet.

Great work, all you outstanding sportspeople. Kudos to you for making it big despite a system that doesn’t really work very well at bringing out the best in you, unless you play cricket.

(Image courtesy: oneindia.in)

India went to the polls in phase three of the Great Indian Elections of 2009 this week.

Here’s a few pictures of proud voters happy to have contributed their bit towards upholding the esteemed traditions of the founding fathers of the country.

First up, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chawan with Mrs Chief Minister. Hail the proud deliverance of democracy.

(Image Courtesy – Amit Verma)

The Bachchan family was there. All of them - Mom, Dad, Son and Daughter in law. Look at the excitement, the joy, the proud expression of freedom.

Even handsome people voted.

(Image courtesy: TOI)

Nice work India!

Now we just need to figure out how to interpret the middle finger gesture. Was it the Indian populace saying ‘Up Yours!’ to the politicians, or the other way around? Maybe it  just was famous people’s way of making fun of everybody else? Who exactly is the joke on?

Like a wise man once said, It happens only in India.

Our favorite desi singer Anoop NoopDawg Desai is out of American Idol.

This week on the show it was down to the last seven contestants, out of which two were eliminated because last week the judges used their discretionary save to bring back Matt Giraud after America had voted him out.

The axe fell on Anoop and Lil Rounds, which sucks because he sure had it in him to go a few more rounds.

Here’s a video of his last performance.

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Take this.

A Mangalore court has ordered the police to file an FIR against union minister for women and child welfare Renuka Chowdhury for her reported remark that “Mangalore has been Talibanised” following the much talked about pub attack by the Sri Ram Sena monkeys.

As per the order the FIR is to be filed under the following sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC):

• 153 A – Promoting enmity between different groups
• 153B – Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration
• 505 – Statements conducive to public mischief

Readers may recall how we had lamented the rampant use of this term in association with this incident a few posts back.

All hope is not lost in our country yet. Long live judicial activism.

Now maybe some action against some of the more adventurous journalists who have nothing better to do than to sensationalize the smallest piece of news and pronounce judgement even before the law has taken its course?

So much has already been written about this incident that i decided against adding to the entropy of the Blogosphere. But i am feeling a little disturbed, and couldn’t help advancing the onset of carpal tunnel on my fingers.

What is going on with India, and Indians?

I am referring to the attack by Hindu Taliban militants on some hapless women at this pub in Mangalore. Shameful, despicable act by a bunch of losers who deserve a tight slap on their face. There is no way such acts are to be tolerated and condoned in a supposedly tolerant society such as ours.

What was equally surprising was the over-the-top headlines all over the place.

Taliban style in BJP’s Karnataka: moral cops assault girls in pub [link]

Pub attack ugly expression of Hindutva Talibanisation: CPI(M) [link]

India’s Taliban may hurt BJP [link]

One Indian minister described the incident Saturday in the southwest city of Mangalore as a bid by Hindu fundamentalists to “Talibanize” India; others suspect a political ploy. [link]

What bothers me is the word Taliban. The Taliban did some pretty gruesome stuff. They killed people in cold blood. They tried to destroy an entire nation. I pray to god that the day never comes when AK47 toting men start roaming the streets of India killing men and women for petty reasons such as an untrimmed beard.

We were quick to come up with the term ‘Hindu terrorism‘ while our external affairs minister and one of the most senior politicians in Congress, Pranab Mukherjee, has been busy proclaiming that the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ is incorrect. Is hypocrisy all that’s left of our great nation?

Is it fashionable to lambast any wrong related to Hinduism? (On this note, read this interesting analysis)

Is this a race to be more secular than the other news channel, or the other political party, with Hinduism becoming the punching bag of choice? Am i supposed to start feeling ashamed of my religion?

This for a religion in whose name no wars were fought, and no innocent lives were lost. Ever.

I have no issues with any religion. I personally don’t believe in any religious drama. I believe that the only purpose religion has served historically is to divide mankind.  I am not  supporting the acts of these people. I just wish to see crime being treated like crime, and not through the tinted pseudo-secular glasses that are so much in vogue these days.

The politicians are just using this incident to bring down the BJP in an election year, even when there is no evidence of a link. The media is busy spreading their usual sensationalism by using heavy terms to describe these attacks, and has been quick to label this incident as a wider phenomenon.

What happened to objectivity? Is that an impossible word in contemporary India?

These morons are no Taliban. For Ram’s sake, please let’s call a spade a spade. Not a cluster bomb.

Over the course of some three hundred odd years, the British gave a lot to India. They gave us the Railways, Post and Telegraph, Cricket, Tea, Movies. They gave us the English language, which was going to come in handy in the twenty first century to help India become the world’s back office. They gave us a united India, like this gentleman on the TV series ‘The Story of India’ confidently proclaimed. Apparently without the British there would have been no India to fret over.

Their greatest act of kindness was leaving us with a democratic form of government.

A form of government where votes are supreme. By hook or by crook. By manipulation or coercion. Whatever the means, the ends of power justify them. So much so that anybody can say anything, or do anything, and as long as that person has influence over a couple dozen voters, no harm can befall him. As a result, we have created demi-gods out of petty thugs who do not deserve to see the light of sun, for they should be locked away in dungeons, lest they eat into the fabric of the already sensitive society.

The game is to get a foot in, inspire the masses, become a public figure and eventually make a few crores of scandal money towards a retirement fund. Often this involves dividing the society by religion, language, region, city, height, weight, gender, shape of mustache and what have you. To their credit, its a very imaginative occupation.

Today we discuss one such great mind who has been busy ridding the world of all evil, and Mumbai of north Indians.

Raj Thackeray has been proudly running an anti-north India campaign in Maharashtra. The premise is that Uttar Pradesh  is a den of terrorism and Azamgarh is where all criminals come from, so all people from UP (and Bihar) are criminals, and are not Manhoos Manoos enough to reside in Maharashtra. That’s Mr Robin Hood for you. How very graceful, logical, and full of selfless love for his state.

If these people have their way, we would not be citizens of India, but just representatives of our state, region, religion, or caste, on a mission to establish supremacy over everyone else, through mostly violent means.

Is this the India that Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh, and Subhash Chandra Bose gave their lives for? These great men of varied methodologies  dreamt of a united, free India. Did they waste their lives so that criminals in the garb of politicians get to vomit all over the constitution?

Ending a long break, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray has resumed his virulent campaign against North Indians describing Uttar Pradesh as a ‘den of terrorism’ and accusing the state’s Chief Minister Mayawati and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad of doing caste politics.[link]

Caste politics? Regional politics? Is there any difference?

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Big day for America, and potentially, all mankind. America’s first black president got sworn to office today.

The still underway inauguration gala is a huge show, run at a cost of some $160 million, and witnessed by several million people live in Washington, besides many more viewers of the televised event.

Funnily enough, Obama’s presidency began with a fumble as he was being administered the oath by Justice John Roberts. Was it a rare show of nerves by the great man? Was it a last Bush-ism as the baton got passed over?

An interesting part of the Obama speech was the shoutout to Hindus, while mentioning some assorted religions. Interesting because apparently just about 0.4% (1 milion) of the american population is Hindu.

Obama’s love for hinduism goes deep.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has announced that a Hindu priest will be among the spiritual leaders who will participate in the national prayer service to be held on January 21, the day following the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.[link]

America is excited about this president. And for a reason.

Here’s hoping that the next four years will bring forth the change everybody is so eagerly expecting. Hopefully Obama will be able to make the world a better place to live in, like the Superman he is percieved to be.

The drama continues…

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said it was the “obligation” of the world community to ensure that perpetrators of the “horrible” crime are brought to justice

Singh said India will await the “outcome” of its message to the world before deciding on future course of action with regard to Pakistan. [link]

Holy freaking crap! This is a comedy show. They keep attacking us, and all we can do is run to mommy and ask her to help us out.

If the national security policy of the world’s biggest democracy comprises of requests to the world community to help, then why bother spending billions of dollars on  the defense budget? We could have used that money to get some food for the millions who don’t have enough!

Like manish points out, this is counter terrorism of a different kind.

In the midst of all the news surrounding the Mumbai blasts, one important event got sidelined. The death of  Vishwanath Pratap Singh, former prime minister of India.

Adopted by the Maharaja of Manda at the age of five, VP Singh went on to become the Chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. As CM he gave away land to the poor as part of Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan movement and led a ruthless campaign against bandits.

VP Singh had a checkered political career of a mere seven years on the national stage.

In 1984 Rajiv Gandhi appointed him his finance minister. During the Bofors scandal, he was about to disclose the names of middlemen which led to a fallout with the then ruling Gandhi. He was dismissed from the cabinet and resigned from the parliament.

In the 1989 elections, the BJP and the left combined against the Congress and VP Singh became Prime Minister of India.
He was there when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped, and exchanged for five of the most wanted terrorists India had managed to nab. His role lasted all of one year, before the BJP pulled the rug from under the government following the Babri masjid demolition and the ensuing events.

But these are not the reasons why he will be remembered forever.

The reason he will be hard to forget is that he was the person responsible for introducing reservation  in India by accepting the recommendations of the Mandal commission. This decision led to massive nationwide protests by students who suddenly were left with even worse education and career prospects, because a big chunk of the seats in colleges as well as government jobs was going to be reserved for the so called lower castes. The intent may have been noble, but this single action has since then grown into a much abused and misused institution that has only served to add to incompetence, mediocrity, and discontentment in India.

VP Singh was an important man. A man whose actions changed India forever.

Till a few years back, here’s how terrorists operated. They picked a target, decided whether they want to bomb or shoot, implement the plan and kill a bunch of people, and soon the world would get to know about it. There would be news for a few days and then people would move on.

With the advent of modern news channels, things have changed.

Now the terrorists’ job has become easier, thanks to 24 hour live coverage on TV. Now they need to begin their attack, and wait till media persons arrive. Then they start playing to the media.

Earlier their actions affected a few hundred, maybe a few thousand people, but now millions of people can watch in real time all the gruesome details, and the message is spread far and wide. As much as we appreciate information sharing, this is one arena where too much information is counter productive. Not only is the terror message delivered far and wide, and repeatedly, but they get assistance from television channels beaming live coverage of operations against them.

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