Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Confused Encounters of the Worst Kind

Why is my country in such a state of confused mess these days? No, honestly! I’ve often been called confused and lost by more enlightened amongst my friends, but I pale in comparison to the venerable men and women who are in charge of running the mammoth (and the metaphor is for size, not extinct value) that is Indian democracy.

Let’s take a look at the events that have been making headlines in the past month.

Kaun Banega Rashtrapathi
(oh I love lame lines)

All segments in the political streets must be collectively berating the day they came up with the brilliant idea of pushing Kalam for the President. The man who showed the promise of being the poster boy for the secular happy family of Indian politics, turned out to the Prodigal son who never returned. He made himself shamelessly popular as the People’s President, won everyone’s heart (except for the politicians, who dragged him to The Big Bhavan in the first place) with his ready smile and wannabe curly locks. He poked his nose in their decisions, brought the much forgotten, and “eminently avoidable” (that’s what some news paper called it) issue of the Office of Profit debacle to the forefront, generally cared to be a little more than the proverbial “rubberstamp”, while forcing them to pull their acts together.

So when the talk can of re-election started, the political brotherhood forgot their differences and said a unanimous “Nought!”. That did in a common bee in their collective bonnets, but it posed the next problem—choosing the next candidate. Everybody who was somebody had his name being thrown in for the race—from The Big Bee Bachchan to Big Mentor Murthy. Bachchan mercifully saw the ridiculousness in the situation and refused even before they could offer. The county turned to Mr. Narayan Murthy to be Bharath’s First Bacha. But just as things were looking promising, he went and proclaimed in full media view that he found singing the national anthem embarrassing. (this of course is the classic example of media misquoting the innocent celebrity—what he actually said that they played the instrumental version of the anthem, instead of singing it in Infy in a ceremony that welcomed President Kalam because they “had a number of foreign delegates in the gathering, and it might have embarrassed them while we sing the anthem”. Of course this statement makes no sense whatsoever, so I guess the media’s twist at least made for juicy news watch).

Anyways, just about a week after the current Mr. President proclaimed that Mr. Murthy would make a wonderful Next Mr. President, the “corporate leader with a good heart and a golden vision” had his fall from grace, as the media gleefully pumped holes into his hitherto impeccable image. Suddenly he became the man who “shows his ignorance of India's caste struggle and its background” for his views on reservation, his views on Indian languages “lacked self-respect and pride” and “his corporate philosophy allowed no space for healthy cultural pride”. Having burnt their fingers once with a non-politician, the county’s elected rulers decided to play it safe—they could hardly go after a man who had such prideless views, when all we Indians collectively puff up our chest at the sound of the national anthem. So after some star struck followers of Murthy indignantly proclaimed that the whole “national anthem” issue was blown out of proportion, we just decided to put that chapter behind us, and move on.

It was then the mad race to choose the Next Indian Political Idol (to be sure, the President is really just expected to stay put and be worshipped as the democratic God). And all parties left no stoned unturned to look at all the ageing candidates who were in the trishakhu stage of pretty much not doing anything (okay, so if we agree to make you the President, will you please get off our face?) Karan Singh? AB Vajpayee? Bhairon Singh Shekhawat? Sushil Kumar Shinde? Or can we just quickly check if Pranab Mukherjee will like being the President better than being External Affaires Man? Or if Somnath Chatterjee got bored of being the Speaker? The Left considered name dropping to be beneath themselves so they came up with “job requirements” for the profile: the candidate should have “secular credentials, experience in public life and Parliament and one who could ensure balance between the judiciary, Parliament and the executive.” Just add water, and your President is now ready to be served!

The Presidential elections are less than a week away, and it seems it’s our very own Home Minister, who has agreed to be disposed off. It has been a tough battle folks. The super intelligent posh IT guy from Bangalore wanted His Mentor to be P, and Paaji from Patiyala and Munnu from Mumbai along with Amar Singh and Anil Ambani, wanted Bachchansaahab to be P, BJP wanted the VP to be P, Congress wanted EFM or HM to be P, Left wanted a miracle to be P, and my friendly neighbourhood doodhwala wanted his angreji speaking son-in-law to be P. If you have a candidate to be the first servant of India, don’t be disheartened, one week is seven days. As Udhay Chopra famously proclaimed in a very forgettable movie, “Saath din mein yeh duniya saath baar ghoom jati hai”, you never know.

The Indian Idol, Part 2, Meets The Great Indian Comedy Show

I’m referring, of course to the long drawn, nail biting, extra large bucket of butter popcorn demanding selection of the great Indian Scapegoat, a.k.a, The Indian Cricket Coach. The BCCI had decided that it had enough with the players getting so much attention for being Gods, and they feeling all left out like the 12th player. It also had enough with coaches who made presentation on their laptops on how BCCI sucked and decided that the next coach should be the epitome of cricketing brilliance, someone who can handle tantrums of players, and politics of selectors, and be the darling of the media, drop charmingly funny, and brilliantly lickass soundbites about how the boys tried real hard, and how it was just bad weather and lack of addidas shoes that lost the match, and how the BCCI was the best thing that happened to him. Of course he should be able to handle the occasional slap that came hurtling out of the bubbling blue billion.

After going around the world in little more than eighty days, the BCCI cracked the difficult task of finding Bharath ka Cricketing Dronacharya, who would make the Aussies cut their little finger and present him as Gurudakshina, so that his Indian Arjuns face no real competition. Ladies and Gentlemen, please make way fooooorrrrrr…Graham Ford. And in walks the suave and soft-spoken Ford to replace the nasty Chap.

But what do we hear now? Soft spoken Ford, turns sneaky little Ford, and delivers one tight slap right across the BCCI’s face, and says, he’s really happy with his cosy little job with the Kent, thank you very much. Ladies and Gentlemen, at this juncture, we pause for the shocked silence reaction…………………………………….

And the pandemonium breaks loose again! How will be the next? Ford said no. Embury said no. Ravi Shastri said no. Sunil Gavaskar said no. Er…can we just pretend to throw out Dada again, and then offer him a comeback as Coach? Or now that Sehwag is not playing, he can step in?

Our cricket team has been getting more than its due of flak after the dismal performance since the World Cup (the 1983 one I mean). Yeah so they didn’t do all that well in the World Cup (again), in fact they were quite bad, in fact they lost to Bangladesh (haawwwww!), but then they did beat Bangladesh in their own soil you know (serves them right too! I mean, that will teach them not to mess with the bestesht Westside clothed, Pepsi drinking, Sahara flying, Videocon watching, Nike sporting team in the whoooo-oo-ool world, ha!). Does not mean that they be treated like kids who were denied TV because they flunked in their high school exam! Good that bad bad BCCI got its due of tight slaps to. But question still remains, who will be the next slapgoat?

So there. The next person who calls me confused in life will get a sixer hit right on his/her face. Hrrrummmpph!

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Tag Thee Well

Gah! I have been tagged. That too by my well-meaning friend Tsu I no, I'm not going to pretend that I did not enjoy this, or try too hard to make it interesting. :P
Let's do this the old fashioned way of "ours is not to question why...."

Rules are (yeah there are rules and rulers and all that):

* Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* People who are tagged need to write posts in their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
* At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.


So here it is:

1. "Weird" is my most abused word. I use it at least 347 times a day, for everything from the way my boss acts to the colour of that-guy-on-street-with-a-disapproving-look's face when I stuck out my tongue at him for staring. "Weird" is the new "cute" for me...while other gals use "cute" to describe their puppy dog's wagging tail, and their boy friend's antics, I use "weird" with just same the passion. And yes, I have different shades and grades of "Weird". I know...that's weird :P

2. I firmly believe that UFOs are NOT cover-up for the air force's secret mission leaking out, somewhere in this world, there HAS to be a Hogwarts, and that someday machines WILL take over the world. And Oh, I HATE the idea of AI.

3. I can believe in absolutely contradictory things, and not be freaked out by it. Like I believe in love and I believe in arranged marriages, I hate wannabes, but I feel sorry for them. There are times when my mind neatly divides itself into teams and tangents, and then dashes of in different directions, leaving the rest of me to figure out which direction it (the rest of me, that is) should follow, or whether it should follow at all.

4. I often use words that I heard someplace, but I really don't understand the exact meaning of, and get away with it. For example, I do not really know what tangent is doing in that sentence in the previous point, but I bet the life of the ant-running-through-my-desk that it did not seem out of place for you...till you read this that is.

5. I can read Mills and Boon to wash off the aftermath of reading two Ayn Rands in a span of 6 months.

6. I can tell you the color of your dress when I was introduced to you first (that is if I care for you enough) but miserably fail to recall where I left my cell after I attending the call, just five minutes ago.

7. If someone sings a song that I don't like in front of me, or I hear it on the radio, then it gets stuck in my head, and can refuse to leave. I will keep playing in my head, I will unconsciously start humming that song, and then get pissed with myself when I realize what I am doing.(I could NOT get Paris Hilton's Stars are Blind out of my head for THREE days. And I did NOT enjoy it)

8. I feel connections with random story that I read, random movie/soap that I watch when I'm confused. Its like I'm looking for an answer, and then God just slaps it right in front of my nose, because it is that obvious, and I still refuse to see it.

9. I can lose COMPLETE sense of time when I'm doing something I love, I can get throughly lost in a place I don't know, because my sense of direction is PATHETIC. But, BUUT, I will always always find the way too. So don't ask me why you should take a left here and a right there...I can't tell you why, but I can tell you that you need to...just.

And oh they asked only for 8...my blogger page just refused to have anything more to do with weirdness. For those who still wanna know about my weirdo-meter, you just have to want for a couple of decades when my complete and unabridged version of my autobiography is out.

Oh, I'm supposed to spread the joy and pass this to 8 more souls. So here goes nothing:

1. Lash...because he would JUST refuse to take this up, or even consider the offer. He would scoff at the futility of this exercise, and how it is beneath his dignity to even consider this. AND now he might just take it up to prove me wrong. (sits back with an accomplished evil grin to see how he reacts ;))

2. Er...Mathew. Because I stole his tag. Or well I said I would. (If you have done this before, too bad, you'll just have to figure 8 more weird facts bout thyself :P)

3. Vodka, because she "found me" and "she needs to spend more time on blogosphere" :P

4. Goldenash...because I just got reminded of her RIGHT now for some inexplicable reason

5. The first person who reads this (every likely he/she is bored too)

6. Anyone born on the 26th of October ( just for the heck of it)

7. Anyone who likes listening to Stars are blind

8. Anyone who uses cute more than twice on a daily basis :P