Atherton's funny side

A hilarious article by Michael Atherton called Inside the tormented minds of the captains, has the following lines of classy Brit self-depracatory humour.

Atherton imagines Michael Vaughan saying:

Punter’s gonna bring on McGrath as soon as I come in tomorrow. He keeps banging on that I don’t like facing him. Who does he think I am? Atherton? I’ve got four hundreds in eight Tests against this lot.

Hahaha. Read the article. A real piece, it is.

Chess Tournament..

...in office.

Lessons learnt:

a) About two openings known will lead to problem. So for an 1.e4 King's pawn, I will accept a closed, standard Ruy Lopez. Yes, I once actually did read that opening. The same ol' horsey-horsey-bishop-pawn blam. I am OK against Ruy-Lopez. But what in the good lord's name is a 1. c4? So, the result? The poor guy, having played his first move, waits for fifteen minutes for my first move to come up. And then gives me slow death in about 40 moves.

b) Four years after last touching a chessboard, I still can butcher the XYZs and occationally beat the good guys. The very good ones though (of the 1.c4 variety, alas), will chew me to bits, unfortunately.

c) The end-game, ah, the end game. I still am rather decent, eh?

d) I cannot sustain concentration for more than 45 minutes to an hour. So the middle game is all screwed.

e) I still lose winning games. Bloody complacency.

(BTW, as that guy told me later on, 1.c4 is called the English opening. Humph! Those Brits, those rascals! )

Tokyo Cancelled

Strange surroundings. A flight gets cancelled, and the passengers are stranded at a rather nondescript and shabby airport in the middle of nowhere, a place described as "a back-corridor between two worlds". A few passengers are holed into nearby hotels and guest-houses.... and left behind to spend the night at the airport are 13 people. Huddled together, still in the mode for a crib or two, they decide on an innovative way to spend the night. They would tell stories, one story each, to the group. Everybody, true enough, must have a story to tell.

So there you are. An innovative concept, borrowing from the age-old method of story-telling to a crowd around a fire, and there you have 'Tokyo Cancelled', the book. Thirteen stories, from Lagos to Delhi, from Tokyo to New York, from Paris to unnamed, unknown lands, about a Japanese pinstripe turned entrepreneur who has a crazy love (a fetish infact) for a life-size doll, about Robert de Niro's illegitimate son and Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini's love-daughter, and about the exceptionally lucky Chinese ear-cleaner (which is one of my favourites), and an immortal in the middle of a smallpox outbreak (Ouch, that sounded like the back cover of the book itself ! ). Different, varied in texture and in size, tracking the most basic traits of man, the most basic virtues and the most basic flaws, some overtly fantastic to others which are much tacitly so, interesting reads they all are. One word of warning though. The stories being heavily philosophical ones in the garb of easy read, if one intends a quick scan, this is not the preferred choice. And easy read does not mean easy understanding (well, it often might not mean any understanding at all), so get yourself ready for the book before you pick it up.

Back to the book, a trend that one gets to notice in most of the stories is that of the protagonist being thrown in the midst of change that comes about in the surroundings. Some of these changes are pre-meditated, some sudden and astonishing, but all leave the protagonist grappling with the changed reality, and sometimes failing, but more often accepting the changed present as it is.

Among the stories, the one that touched me the most was the smallest one. About two-and-a-half pages, it tells the tale of this ageing couple and their two children. The anxieties and distaste for the father of their children's wanton, wild ways. And then a disaster. And then... life goes on. And one wouldn't complain and crib, but ensure that the same calamity does not befall the rest of the world.

Right after I had finished with Tokyo Cancelled, I had started of with the long delayed read of Haroun and the sea of stories. And reading Haroun, I would accept the reviews of Tokyo Cancelled's style. Dasgupta's style IS very similar to Rushdie's. Not quite the Rushdie of Midnight's Children (which I found confusing, meandering, a little self-obsessed yet creative and ... umm, intelligent. I have not been able to make up my mind as to whether intelligent is a good or a bad thing for a book), though. Tokyo Cancelled is possibly a little too intelligent for its own good.

For all Dasgupta's undoubted storytelling abilities, while reading the book, I did often have the feeling of walking into a glass wall. The stories are a little too intelligent, a little too fantastic to touch the common reader. At the risk of comparing, Midnight's Children did never give that feeling. Convoluted and weird, it yet did appeal to the heart. It did yet touch the heart. The philosophy in Tokyo Cancelled is distant, opaque and difficult... and indeed it is specifically that point which makes for a compelling second read. I know that Dasgupta would have wanted his reader to think, and thanks to him for that. But would he have really wanted his reader to think, and think some more, and not get it, and since she did not get it, proclaim the book as a masterpiece. C'mon now! That was the intention of the "Art" movement of the '80's in Hindi cinema. And that did not succeed, did it? And no movement, indeed no piece of art can really claim to have succeeded if it does not reach out to the people who are consumers of the art. And I could only wonder at what an amazing book this could have been had it been rid of the uber-fantasy lather. Especially because it is such a riveting read.

To all the jingoistic Indians like me

...And I have been (often with reason) accused of being a jingoistic nationalist, and never being able to see my country and its actions objectively, never being able to see my country as part of the lesser lights, even if lacunae and fallacies are staring me in the eye. I tend to maintain my viewpoint in front of most vociferous arguments, but then come reasons like this one here, and I am left with too many questions in my mind.

The BJP and Left Front have accused Manmohan Singh of making India a junior partner of the US. Is that so bad? I suspect, they mean India has become an American puppet, but that is absurd. For many decades, India was a junior beggar, living off foreign alms. To have moved from junior beggar to junior partner is progress.

Are we better off being lesser partners (and we are, in all honesty, fit to be only that economically. In fact, in most sectors). So do we have to make a choice here? To live with pride and be self-dependant; or swallow our pride a bit and become a lesser but nonetheless important partner in the progress of the world? And if we do make a choice, which way should we go?

What is the difference between junior beggars and junior partners? If the junior gives back some fraction of what he gets, in security or business terms, he is a partner. In NATO, European countries are junior partners, providing some security and business to the US. To a lesser extent
that is true of Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea.

Could someone come up with arguments in the contrary to that please? I would really, really like to believe in those arguments. I would sure as hell not like our country to be called a junior partner, but Swami says that is that the only way to progress!

In the 1950s and 1960s, India was saved from mass starvation only by record food aid from the US. So large were India's needs during the twin droughts of 1965-66 that the Paddock brothers wrote a famous book arguing that India was beyond saving and should be left to starve, diverting scarce food aid to countries capable of being saved. Fortunately, India dug itself out of that hole through the Green Revolution, financed by the US and World Bank.

I am losing it here. I am also a staunch believer in the maxim of survival of the fittest. Have never been too much of a fan of the Marxian "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" thought. And yet, and yet...

Some will argue that India contributed something in Nehru's days too. At the time colonies were becoming independent, and the US did not want them to think that Mao's democratic experiment was more successful than Nehru's democratic experiment. So, the argument goes, the US kept rescuing India to meet its own foreign policy aims. Maybe so. But when one country keeps rescuing the other, can it really be called partnership? It looks more like a supplicant-saviour relationship to me. The new relationship now developing looks much more like partnership.

And the only solid argument that I have been brewing in my head gets crash-landed. I do not want my country to be a puppet-democracy, and that being the only reason validating all aid given to us; I would like my country to be a partner in progress. A real, genuine partner in progress, and not just an example to show that big brother A and his policies are right and big brother B is wrong. I would rather my country is a lesser partner in progress, than a Hamid Karzai's democratic Afghanistan with happy, prosperous people. Beggers? No, not us. Never.

Give me a reason, somebody. Help me form an argument against that brutal hypothesis. Unfortunately, brutal does not make it wrong. Reasons, reasons someone!

From junior beggar to junior partner (SWAMINOMICS/SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR)

[ TOI: SUNDAY, AUGUST 07, 2005 09:38:15 PM ]

It's not an accusation...

Hear this out...

Shed of its oriental mystique and illicit implications, reverse swing, appropriately perhaps, has risen to grace rather than fallen from it. Dark art to legit science, villain to hero, vilified to lionised, Flintoff 2000 to Flintoff 2005, Bosie to googly.

Of course, 1992 and 2005 are not one and the same. There are still differences in what Wasim and Waqar did and what Flintoff and Jones do. For one, the Pakistani duo usually had the decency to wait at least 40-50 overs, and sometimes even 65-70, before they started. Young Jones starts reversing as early as the 15th over, which says something not only about his ability but also how hard the England team must work on the ball. (Exactly what it says, however, nobody except Mickey Stewart is certain.)

You are a proud Pakistani, Osman. And you have got to the gist of the story. Perfectly. Thanks for the article.

Another Aussie legspinner tops the polls

1. Benaud
2. Holding
3. Boycott
4. Gower
5. Mark Nicholas
6. Botham

... is very close to being perfect. I would have put Nasser up there though, but obviously I am biased. Would have put him in Boycott's place, who I believe has been totally influenced by the stupid Shastri/ Manjrekar/ Akram bunch, and all that is left of him is bombast and bluster. Not unlike Ian Chappell, a guy I greatly admired once. Bishop is rather good though. Healy is bland.

And if I have to name one guy for the future, Greg Blewett it would be. But then he flattered to deceive in his sporting career ( OK, kill me for the pun, he literally Blew-it). Please, please let him not do an encore...

There are these few things in life

which should be left just as they are, they are perfect that way.

- Sinful gyan

Talking of the urn...

OK let’s talk Ashes now. As Michael Atherton had mentioned earlier (and I had voiced similar concerns too), there comes a time when the upward rising curve for a team X’s performance (assuming X to be the second best team in the world, and …. and neecessarily a young, hungry squad), would intersect with that of the reigning champions, let's call them Y. And then Y would not remain the champions anymore, and be upstaged by X. And then the same loop would continue with the champions holding fort for a generation-and-a-half with a gradually downward sloping curve, unless something catastrophic happens to the reigning champions and somebody else comes in and takes their position. 1995 in West Indies was that intersection of the curves. A one-series old Glenn McGrath and a yet-to-be-termed-God Shane Warne, along with the relatively unproven Mark Waugh and his twin, till then a fringe player, upstaged an ageing, wearying West Indies. True, a catastrophe almost happened, with the South Africans, unseen, unknown, coming out of cricketing wilderness, much hungrier but with one Shane Warne less in their team than the Aussies, almost upstaged the champions at their peak.

It is normal, I maintain. With the arrival of one generation of greats comes the inevitable submergence of two subsequent generations of substantially good cricketers. The four great spinners of the ‘70’s ensured that Rajinder Goel and Padmakar Shivalkar never played test cricket. Anthony Grey and Sylvester Clarke, and Vanburn Holder and so many other WI quicks never could establish themselves in International cricket. It was only the untimely retirement of Colin Croft that allowed Malcolm Marshall to be the great Macho ... Macho who to me was the greatest fast bowler of his generation. Oh yes, better than Lillee. Definitely better than Lillee. And in hindsight, Amol Muzumdar never played test cricket either.

A corollary to the theory is that the newer players get dependent on the real big guns to shore them through. And this habit remains with them even after the old hands retire. An Ambrose and a Walsh are rare, who develop to take on the mantle of a team’s attack with the greats before them retiring. Examples? Lee could never develop control. Ditto McGill. Gillespie never could, and never did need to pitch in that half a foot fuller, such that he gets the batsmen to edge to the slips, and not just play and miss. Yuvraj and Kaif never instill confidence, and Damien Martyn will always be an under-achiever. So what does that make? With Waugh S. and Waugh M. retiring, and McGrath and Warne on the verge of the same, and the next generation not quite ready to pick up the mantle…. The aura of the invincible Aussies is definitely tarnished, even if by a tiny bit.

Corollary 2 to the earlier theory is that nobody will ever remember Viswanathan Anand apart from the few of us Indians and the die-hard chess fanatic, in 30 years’ time. Nobody would remember the South African eleven of the mid-to-late’90s, a team which was invariably better than both of the teams in focus today. Nobody remembers a certain Evelyn Ashford or a Steve Ovett. Neither a John Landy. Nobody remembers the second best.

So then, let’s go back to the same question. Is this it? Is this 1995 revisited? Is this the demise of the ruthless Aussie Juggernaut? I have a little bit of a doubt. England does not have a genuine killer bowler, who will just roll over the opposition. Did you get what I am talking about? I am talking about a Shane Warne. A Muttiah. Even a Harbhajan at his peak. Harmison, you said? But Harmison is too much of a maybe. There’s hardly any mystery in him. Flintoff is never a destroyer of good batting attacks, and will never be either. My money, if on anybody, is on Simon Jones. The ball he got Michael Clarke with in the last match was nothing short of miraculous. But Jones is a maybe too, and that’s mostly because of his fitness. Otherwise, the Brits work fine. They have a genuinely good opening partnership, and with all the Strauss-ing by the media, Trescothick is the man for me up there. He has a Boon-like, Gooch-like thing about him (ah, the same example again). The skipper is aggressive and forceful. And his batting will fall a bit with the burden of captaincy, but that’s ok for the team cause. The two young turks are a study in contrast, and that is just perfect. Flintoff at six is a bit of a question mark. I am not doubting his ability in any way. But sometime in his career, his form will desert him a bit. And then, he will be a very weak No. 6. Technically, he is poor. Thus, when form deserts him, he would IMHO never be able to graft and get runs. Geraint Jones is fun while batting and funny while keeping. But so was Jeffrey Dujon in his younger days. I think Jones G. should stay for a while more. A pre-requisite for a world-beater team is a keeper who is a good batsman. Hmm… and now to No. 8. And I wish Gareth Batty would start performing. I maintain, Ashley Giles is not test class, notwithstanding the Damien Martyn ball. He is a quick-fix, temporary solution, and he has done his bit for his country. A well done and godspeed are on the line for him. And, well, the bowlers are fine as of now. We will wait for Harmison and Jones S. to develop that mystery. So, are the Brits the aforementioned team X, then? Maybe. May not be. I think not..... but one never knows. I am not committing.

But……. But I am not predicting anything this time as for the results of the Ashes.

And you are right. Headingley and Old Trafford were astounding. And I can’t wait for more.

Family get-together

Momdadsis came down to Bangalore. Dad's got a few more teeth and a few less pounds, Mom remains more or less the same, and Sis has got twice as scary. Sample this...

Mom: Do you still cough when you clean your ear with an earbud?

I: (exasperated) Yes I do, Ma.

Sis: Oh that is ok, while on one side of the tympanic membrane of the ear the air pressure changes then the pressure that is maintained by the eustacian tube on the other side changes accordingly to balance it and obviously the eustacian tube is connected with the larynx yabbadabba blahblahblah mumbojumbo yakkity-yack....

Awright, awright now! And don't you come within ten miles of me in four years' time, when you actually become a doctor, kid.

And as for the Munnar trip, lovely photographs have been taken. And they will be duly FlickR-ed. So relax.

The Booker longlist

Movie to celebrate Maradona's 'Hand of God'

From Guardian unlimited

A biopic of the troubled football legend Diego Maradona is in the pipeline. To be directed by Marco Risi, it is to be called La Mano di Dio - The Hand of God - alluding to Maradona's infamous description of his questionable goal against England in the 1986 World Cup.

Should be awesome. Hope a subtitled version comes along to India.

Businessworld: How VMTs are taking over PLUs

The best thing for corporate India post liberalisation is the rapid rise of the
vernacular Medium Types and the demise of brown sahib People Like Us

Something that is very close to my heart. Had a small discussion with Ghoti Funda, one of my closest friends (who is the archetypal PLU btw) regarding this. Will definitely need to write on this. Rather, I will flashback to LMB and put in a few excerpts of our conversation..... today evening, I promise.

And this is to Ghoti Funda. You could guest blog on this topic.

(Edit: the continuum..

Don’t really feel like writing today, but write I will, as promised. So be content with tired writing, world. This will have to do.

Well, I was never called a vern in college (I did Tech, remember? Meritocracy, remember?). That happened only in my second school. Now I was studying in that school of the glitterati of Calcutta. And we had a curious composition of students in our class. All who had joined the school in class XI were huddled together in one class. It was great that they did so. There were a few of us who, never great friends, nonetheless imbibed strength from the victories and avoided the pitfalls of the others. Well, being a kind of anomalies, the few of us, from the smaller towns of West Bengal (Asansol, Durgapur, Siliguri) were like the mulattos, neither here nor there. Yes, very VMT in upbringing, but having never studied the VMT way, spoke a solid, bland, unspectacular but faultless version of the language. Oh and yeah, definitely wrote better than the average Joe. So the PLUs called us the verns. You see, no MTI. So, just keep to the vern.
We chose different ways to break out of the shackles (now I understand, rather self-imposed), but we all did, in one way or the other. We never compromised (but yeah, cribbed aplenty), and never became one of them, even though in later-on life, there were, and are chances aplenty. Oh yes, we were proud of who and what we were. Some have become more successful than the rest of us, but then, it is all in the journey, I would say. And it has been quite a wonderful little journey all this while.

And now going back to the conversation with Ghoti Funda, my best friend and the archetypal PLU, (on second thoughts, not quite. Both of his major scholastic degrees have come the meritocratic way), here are a few postulates and observations that came about.


Postulate 1. The ambition of a VMT is to rise beyond their lower-middle-class to middle-class background, and become an upper-middle-class PLU.

Fallacy: The gulf between the upper-middle-class and the lower-middle-class in India is such that for the lower middle class boy to dream of the upper middle class, is as good as them dreaming of the stars. And the ones who dream the same, do not dream to be a PLU, but dream of the stars. i.e. dream beyond the PLU.

Postulate 2. The VMT is always either left-of-left or right-of-right. It needs the PLU to draw the line, to be the right-of-left or the left-of-right, in other words, to bring in the balance.

Fallacy: None. Point taken.

Postulate 3. Thereby, the PLU is imperative. Some kind of a hygiene factor. The VMT will always take the uncalculated risk.

Fallacy:
a) Major breakthroughs do not come along with people toeing the line, but only by them taking the calculated risks. The PLu is strictly a good to have, never a hygiene factor.
b) Only the nothing-to-lose will take the uncalculated risk. The VMT has an intrinsic need of the safety net. Generally speaking, if they would fall, the hard ground awaits them. Thus, they often will take the pragmatic risk, where the risk of falling is the minimum.

end edit)

To win a test against the Aussies....

you need performances of a lifetime.

To win a series against them, you need miracles.

Eden Gardens on the fourth day was a miracle.

Ashes Test 2, was, well ...


a spectacular test match.

(The heart says England, but the mind, the damn mind...)

How does it feel?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it

Like a Rolling Stone/ Bob Dylan/ Highway 61 revisited/ 1965

Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone -the song that, according to Bruce Springsteen, "sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind" - was yesterday judged the most important of 100 music, movie and television moments that have changed the world.

There are these few songs which ARE. And any more words, by me or anybody else, are just noise.

Oh you are a blogger too?

This guy, part of our semi-regular boozing group (functional for the last six or seven months), I was surprised to come to know, keeps (or as he insists, used to keep) a really well written blog. Just check out this post.

And since I have not been blogging substantial for a while..

Here's a link (to my secondary blog) to an email chat about theatre, a month or two ago.