Kissa IPL ka

BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) is a powerful entity I am given to understand. It is made powerful by the money it earns when millions of cricket crazy men (women and children) turn on their television sets.

(So if the Aussies dare to nudge back another BCCI chief, hell would have no fury like the Indian board)

BCCI hit on another golden goose with the brilliant (still not sure) concept of Twenty-Twenty matches that had even not-interested ones like me hooked.

Rewind back to 2008...

Twenty-Twenty cricket turned out to be as much of a potboiler as a game.

Like following the antics of Big Boss inmates, one watched with curiosity if sparks flied between Ganguly and Ponting. The idea of national teams pitted against each other got messed up totally. I was glued at times not to the game but facial expressions and body languages of Dhoni, Harbhajan and Sehwag who sweated it out like warring family members in an Ekta Kapoor serial. Sreesanth and Harbhajan added chutzpah to the gentlemen’s game. For all his on-field bashing of Indian batsmen, one could not but fall for Shane Warne. My heart went all out to Adam Gilchrist as Deccan Chargers kept on losing.

Fast forward to 2009...

IPL has been shifted to South Africa. Its coincidence with general elections in India has heightened the security threat perception. Following the Mumbai attacks and SriLankan cricket team’s tryst with death in Pakistan, few would be willing to take chances. And why not?

If India’s past records are anything to go by, it is clear that security and intelligence agencies despite all their love for the nation, fail when it comes to detecting young men in jeans and t-shirts running across city roads with kilos of ammunition in their backpacks.

Mumbai attacks are nearly passe. Except Kasab and dangling proof at Pakistan, the Indian government has not delivered much in terms of answers, counter-action and preemption measures. Atleast that is what a laywoman like me thinks.

Two key improvisations were expected in the modus operandi of India’s security forces after they were caught unawares in Kargil and Mumbai. Training in high mountain counter-insurgency operations was realised to be essential for the Indian army after Kargil. (I recently read on a blog that terrorists/insurgents in Kashmir have better night vision gear that the Indian soldiers)

Mumbai attacks bared the need for better training and coordination among paramilitary forces responsible for internal security. (Did you read about the Kashmir police under cover cop who was arrested for supplying sim cards used by the gunmen in Mumbai? It was a blunder that blew off months of hard work by the Kashmir police to infiltrate a militant group)

Coming back to the IPL, many of my brethren and behens back home are losing sleep over why the event has been shifted out of the country. The issue almost snowballed into a political seesaw between the two bigwigs of Indian politics.

Though Lalit Modi may seem to be on a personal vendetta, his decision appears to be wise. If a single bullet is fired or a noise heard during any of the matches, foreign cricketers will pack off immediately. India will be branded as dangerous and cricket teams would tick off South Asia from their itineraries for a long time.

Could the BCCI afford this?

In India, terrorism and terrorists have become as ‘every-day’ as robberies, murders and kaccha-baniyan groups in smaller cities.

You may not die of cancer or be hit by a car but you might step on a listless tiffin box and be blown to so many pieces that your family may only manage to find your little finger to cremate.

Few years ago, on the day when a bomb exploded in the Sarojini Nagar market in New Delhi, I happened to have deferred my morning visit to the market and decided to go in the evening instead. I have had brushes with death but then I could see it coming and sparing me by millimetres and degrees. But being blown off in the middle of a sentence, a transaction or while gulping down a puchka?

If a country cannot handle two mega events simultaneously (I wonder how will they ever bid for the Olympics) it is good that IPL moves to foreign shores. It spares all of us some more anxiety, fear and grief.

Existential?

A friend forwarded this to poem to me. It is simple yet full of meaning…

GIRLS IN MY CIRCLE

When I was little,
I used to believe in the concept of one best friend,
And then I started to become a woman.
And then I found out that if you allow your heart to open up,
God would show you the best in many friends.
One friend is needed when you're going through things with your man.
Another friend is needed when you're going through things with your mom.
Another will sit beside you in the bleachers as you delight in your children
and their activities.
Another when you want to shop, share, heal, hurt, joke, or just be.
One friend will say, 'Let's cry together,'
Another , 'Let's fight together,'
Another , 'Let's walk away together.'
One friend will meet your spiritual need,
Another your shoe fetish,
Another your love for movies,
Another will be with you in your season of confusion,
Another will be your clarifier,
Another the wind beneath your wings.
But whatever their assignment in your life,
On whatever the occasion,
On whatever the day,
Or wherever you need them to meet you with their gym shoes on and hair
pulled back,
Or to hold you back from making a complete fool of yourself ..
Those are your best friends.
It may all be wrapped up in one woman, But for many, it's wrapped up in
several..
One from 7th grade,
One from high school,
Several from the college years,
a couple from old jobs,
On some days your mother,
On some days your neighbor,
On others, your sisters,
And on some days, your daughters.
So whether they've been your friend for 20 minutes or 20 years,
…God has placed (them) in your life…
To make a difference.
Thanks for being in my circle.

...It is comforting to know that one has many friends simply because the same person may not be a partner in all your crimes. Like a dress for every occasion and a different knife for each course of meal, a friend to indulge in every mood is needed.

A soulmate may not understand your sudden fetish for red nail polish. Your silver coloured shoes and blue mascara may perplex a friend who likes to talk about aesthetics and serious stuff. Another is a movie freak like you but balks at anything more cerebral than chicken soup for soul.

There are spiritual types you rush to when a tragedy (you know I am so fed up of life) strikes. One of your friends shares your love for Ghazals and Cohen but cannot groove at Govinda's songs. Aasha is good to go to Khana Khazana but Sasha is needed to unwind in Lan Kwai Fong. I go to A to share my feminist rant but callup B to drown my maid blues.

Someone I know once told me how she had lately become asocial but back home she had friends to go out for coffee, to shop, to talk…but then it depresses someone like me who has to try very hard to get talking and open up to other people.

When do you know Hong Kong has been hit by recession?

A randon observation-

• House rents have FALLEN down (but not crashed)
• The shopping mall in Times Square is empty (and deserted by HK standards) on weekends nowadays
• People are no longer queuing outside Louis Vouitton to window shop
• I call up my salon and get an appointment for the same day (surprise)
• Outlets like Wanko are offering 70 per cent discount almost two months after CNY ( quality of clothes though is bad)
• Pacific Coffee in IFC looks deserted during lunch
• Getting into the Metro at 8:15 am has become easier (debatable)
• A female colleague showed no interest in ‘only HKD 10,000’ hand bag (I made this up but women in HK are known for their thriftiness)
• A roundtrip from Hong Kong to India costs less than HKD 4,000/person (Jet airways is allowing an extra 10 kilo of luggage says a friend)
  

From the ladies community…

• Travel agents offer you packages at prices which stun u... too good to be true? Only time will tell!
• Less work in office & can leave at 6 pm
• People are interested in buying property to take advantage of the CRASHED real estate market!
• People visiting our firm to find ways on securing or safe guarding whats left than investing!
• Hiring is frozen, layoff big time and existing employees are overloaded with work
  Receptionists and secretaries are fired and 2 floors of office space are crammed into one
• Sometimes when my shop is not packed with ppl even on week ends (Rachna owns a Subway outlet in TST)
• Parents are defaulting big time paying the school fees and eventually having less children per class
• Can check and reply to emails, unlimited browsing on the net, chat with friends both online and over the phone and much more that too at WORK can u believe that... Business has almost come to a stand still
• Jan 2008: You call Dimpy (the lunchwala) at 10 am for a lunch to be delivered and he says, "boss if you need lunch, please call me before 9.30am." Jan 2009: Dimpy calls you at 10.30 am, saying "Sir, aaj lunch bhej doon ?"

If they look similar do they act similar?

I think Iftikhar Chaudhry bears a strong resemblance to Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and that makes me uneasy. I will have to dust away the cobwebs from my MA days to recollect how popular or unpopular Zia was before he came to power. Was he a hero before he turned into a villain?

The way Mr Chaudhry is going, chances are that he is Pakistan’s next leader and even dictator in making…(You want to hit me on the head and shoo me off from my line of argument? This is my space and I will doodle as I wish. So you stay put and listen to me day dreaming at work. When I should be thinking ships, my mind is wandering off to more action packed stuff).

…Asif Zardari is failing as a leader. If he intends to continue as a spineless state head, I think it is better that he goes. I wonder why did he not ever eavesdrop on Benazir’s satta ki baatein and learn some moves.

Atleast Musharraf was smarter. He pulled off a deal with the Americans and raked in money. Zardari accommodated the Talibans, compromised with Sharif, reinstated Chaudhry and he may have to run away from the country again (if he hasn’t already).

Looking at the state of affairs, political uncertainty is likely to persist in Pakistan for some time…

(And what did fellow cityman Sandeep Pandey have to say in his ruminations on his trip to Pakistan published by Tehelka -A solution on Kashmir has been worked out according to a former Pakistan government representative. If not for the events in Pakistan and now the general elections in India, Manmohan Singh would had visited Pakistan and made the announcement. HAHAHAHA)

…Talibans are ruling defacto in Afghanistan and NWFP, Kayani as expected has stepped into the fray, Chaudhry, the golden boy of democracy is back to Supreme Court and Mr Sharif has sunk his teeth deeper into the pie called premiership.

By the way, Sharif says he does not recall suicide bombers blowing off people in his governance. Ahem, I remember a long bloody painful phase called Kargil. I remember Captain Vikram Batra and I remember pondering-why do nations go to war (I could have had the answer later but I decided to go astray and bunk classes).

Talking about Pakistan and Mr Chaudhry takes me back to a post I wrote on the country’s correlation to my maid woes (Go read it).

After writing it, I have been thinking about how India stands in the middle of an unstable region-A coup of sorts in Bangladesh, an absconding head of the state in Pakistan, a war torn Sri Lanka, Nepal struggling to find foot post-monarchy, Maldives taking baby steps towards a democratic era and Bhutan calm but coming to terms with its new identity.

India is like a weary sentinel watching over this delicate geopolitical landscape (does this smack of big brother syndrome?)

Though it has not escaped any of its neigbours’ plagues, it stands with all the strapping of a steady state. I wonder what prevents the Indian army to aspire for power, what makes its democracy tick despite lumpens milking politics dry and what keeps tolerance alive despite its proneness to riot.

I will worry over the fevicol that keeps the country glued later. Till then I will try keeping a tab on Mr Chaudhry.

PS: Prime Minister Gilani has vowed to snip off Presidential powers and restore earlier priviliges to the Parliament.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123739962780174043.html?mod=article-outset-box

Et tu Varun?

Varun Gandhi is suddenly in news for his anti-Muslim rambunctiousness at a pre-election rally in Pilibhit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1w1GupAvnU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FKPFweGbRY

I expected him to do better than spewing communal vitriol for publicity.

If Behenji had spoken such, I would had pursed my lips in disgust and dismissed it as a menopausing woman’s cacophony. But she is smarter.

She is so smart that her foot soldiers are drawn from all over the bahujan samaj, her party sidekick happens to be an upper caste man who even shakes a leg on her birthdays and her party men kill government officers who refuse to send monetary gifts to her.

But this is a 29-year-old guy with a star-studded lineage, best of education (or not), lots of exposure and a book of poems to his credit. He is a face I would have expected Tehelka to feature in its political young Turks section.

Tch tch…

PS: I have lately grown sensitive to all that ‘minority’ denotes. I live in a country err... an autonomous city state where I am in minority despite a 30,000 plus Indian population.

I look different, my food is different, my beliefs are different, my accent is different and I smell different. The owner of one of the apartments we liked refused to rent it to us because of our nationality. I have heard of people who hold their noses when an Indian walks by.

I have noticed discreet exchange of glances when a beautiful girl in an Indian dress or an unstylish outfit by HK standards walks by. I have heard of pork eating people who can’t bear the heady smell of spices stewing in an Indian household.

Though such incidents are few, they trigger a sense of alienation.

This is my home away from home and I have put a bit of my soul into it. Though I live on the fringes of the society here, I am very much a part of it.

And what if I was to return to India some day only to be told by a wannabe zealot to go back because I no more confirm to Indianness?

Dog of the Year

Slumdog Millionaire has been true to its name. It has created winners out of dogs who would otherwise be remembered as '‘also barked’.

Freida Pinto and Dev Patel are all over.

Pinto has a blog covering her every dress, fashion faux pas and interview. Dev Patel is likely to crossover from British telecom to global cinema soon. I hope they do not make a Tintin with him in the lead next. I also pray that he does not become the new LBHC (London Born Hindi Confused) face of Bollywood.

The kids from Dharavi have a face, are sought out by ex parents and movie directors, have a bank balance and hopefully a promising future when they turn 18.

Interestingly, despite the best movie Oscar, SM did not rake in any awards in the acting category. But then SM is an example of what hype can achieve.

Does anyone remember that AR Rahman was the music director of Lagaan. The richness and the diversity in his music went unnoticed then. The movie was as rich in dog value as SM is. It was as Indian as SM is.

Lagaan lost but SM won. It won over heavyweights like Milk, Benjamin Button and Revolutionary road.

What made the movie click was its foreign producers and global publicity (Aamir Khan has been quick to realise what marketing can achieve since his Oscar days)

The movie also capitalised on the underdog flavour of this season- Obama has won despite his blackness and Michelle is the new diva at the White House, Mumbai persevered in the face of attacks and people worldwide are living on despite the downturn and layoffs. I think this is what made a regular Bollywood masala stewed to phoren tastes clinch the top awards this year.

What I wish the movie had achieved was that it brought down dogmas attached to Indianness. It made the white, browns and blacks of the world more accepting of turbaned men and salwar kurta clad mommies around the world.


PS: Many Indians have taken offence to the dirt, poverty and dog-eats-dog undertone of the movie. But why the anger?

It is true that the image of Jamal as a kid jumping into shit to meet Amitabh Bachhan will be added to the lore of snake men, elephants and rivers of milk.

But then do we not have a metropolitan called Mumbai interspersed by Dharavi, middle class slums and concrete slums where bomb blasts, terrorist attacks, floods and riots are as common as in any slum of the world.

Let us live with it.

Wanchai bargirls

Walking down to the station after work, I usually cross a couple of bars where young girls in make up and skimpy clothes sit at the doors looking expectantly and hungrily at any light complexioned male crossing by.

This is the brightest spot of my day away from home.

An interesting observation about these bars besides the unsexy women (I know I am mean but I realise that often what turns on a man looking for street thrills is only a willing female with a vagina) are the small square altars of worship, I see outside.

I have never had the chance to see what an average Hong Kong household looks like. But going by the pace of life and congested spaces, it is unlikely that a place of worship finds a corner in most homes. However, most of the bars between the MTR station and my workplace have an altar cut into the wall.

They are well cared for and generally adorned with fruit offerings and incense sticks. Seeing them next to the bars, adds another speck of grey to my salt and pepper hair.

It reminds me of a scene from Devdas. A handful of mud from a prostitute's house is well sought for sculpting Ma Durga's statue but the idea of a loose woman in one's house or nearby is sacrilege.

It also reminds me of a rickshaw ride I took years ago with a friend from old Delhi Railway station to CP. We crossed GT Road and it was in no way as glitzy as red light areas in Indian movies.

There were dirty corridors full of charas stupored men and prying women in garish makeup. Their eyes flitted around, sizing the potential of every man passing by.

I have often thought about that day and tried to imagine what it must be like to serve a truck driver or a rickshaw puller-bad breathed, smelly, in dirty clothes, swearing and with no heart for a woman's pain.

As I write, I also remember a you-tube video of a police raid at a hideout for minor girls being readied for flesh trade. It was a dark place and as the girls were shoved out, they looked like rats being pulled out of a hole.

What I remind myself when I walk past those girls in Wanchai is that I have my clothes on, I have a man, my parents, a pimple free face, a roof and endless possibilities ahead. Though I am about to turn 28, I am not worried that my fatness and wrinkles will reduce my chances to do good business.

Yet I crib, look glum and regret over what I missed and let go.

There is no limit to the way a human being can be tortured. And there is no end to the souls' perseverance.

It is not necessary that the choices we make our always our own. And chances are that the best efforts to see a silver lining may be too big a flight for heart and hope to make.

I look forward to the girls in red, in yellow, in black, all made up and putting their best selves forward to learn a lesson of courage, moving on, living for the moment and relishing what I have.