Made in Heaven

Media and sleazy magazines particularly have a party time when someone gets caught in a mess- double party if there is a remote connection to sex. I was on a vacation to my friends in Bangalore. I saw the daily newspaper lying on the sofa.
‘We use it as a substitute for porn’.
On the fear of a sting operation I refrain from naming the paper. But Bangloreans can take a guess on the paper that does a daily research on the actresses’ boob size.

A few weeks back the papers were on a rock and roll.
The Boy and The Girl had been married for just six days. The Couple was back from Kerala. The Boy’s friends managed to get an apartment for them. Six days and back to work!! Well, for an Indian professional it’s a nightmare to get married or to produce a baby. I know a few people who had to beg their managers to allow them to get married (read as permission for leave). And you better not have a baby if there are no retired parents to look after it.

Getting back to the story, The Girl’s parents dropped The Couple at their home to get the breakfast. They returned back to see two bodies bathed in blood. They vainly hoped that it was a break-in. To their horror the boy admitted to murder and attempted suicide.

Everyone got into speculative mood. From what I get from the sleazy magazines, The Girl was churning out triple of what The Boy was churning. So apparently she assumed the manager post in the family and started pissing off The Boy. Anyways in a fine moment The Boy lost his cool.
The marriage was one supposed to be made in heaven. He was quite active in the religious activities. She was a relative of the Bishop. The small Christian community was shocked. Studies were done and sermon delivered on the reason of failure of the Y-Generation marriages.

So where have we gone wrong?

Parents have to reconcile with the fact that their kids have their own set of values and principles. Why? Just do a mental calculation on the amount of time your kid spends with you. The bulk amount of time is spent in school, colleges, office, private rooms, computers, televisions or friends. You have no means to influence them. The funny thing is the lives of parents’ wouldn’t be a worthwhile piece to emulate.

The television and media has done enough to create a bunch of kids ‘liberal’ in their outlook. Adultery and infidelity are glorified. Corrupt politicians and businessmen are eulogized and so are our bollywood stars turning up with their skimpily clad girl friends.

So never make a choice for your child’s life partner. They may agree to your choice not bothering to pick up a fight. Leave them to their own mechanisms and in time they will come up with their mates.

Come to terms with the fact that your kid has more knowledge and exposure to sex (than you). Check out the number of girl kids who hit the beauty salon for waxing. Don’t tell me there is no sexual element involved. Or even check out the pre- teen girls with padded bra, the lewd SMSes exchanged daily, the number of boys who hit the gyms, spike their hair or get a tattoo. Even more the idiot box in your living room has enough ammo for a sexual high.

I had to wait till 15 to grasp the method of sex. There was no CDs available and no one was familiar with internet. The only option was video parlour. Since the entire neighborhood uses the same parlor, chances of getting caught were high.

Get a grip, human civilization is moving back into Jungle era where people explore various options of pleasure. The danger of sexual dissatisfaction is high. So open up your minds and allow your kid to have certain levels of freedom. Rather than being taught let him experience that sex/sexuality is not the most important thing to happen.

Have you come across Indian movies where the newly wedded soldier husband has to report for duty immediately after marriage because some war broke up. Well it’s not unrealistic any more. The Indian youths hit the office right after their marriage. Jokes apart, I have seen couples, wedded out of love, going for their (first) honeymoon years after the marriage. We are so insecure that we decide to settle down as soon as we wed. So we cannot go around with our wives in the public transport and here comes a car on credit. We will never know when the owner throws us out of his house and here comes an apartment. So let’s spend rest of our lives repaying the loan. Come on, life is too short for loan repayment.

And lastly, do not get married as soon as you are engaged. It’s really healthy to have a long courtship. Discuss all you have to at this time. Get to know each other as the palm of your hand. So that your first night will have no space for words but just for some hot action.

Hey, I am looking for an alternative career as a marriage counselor. Howzzat!!

T20

I am not much of a follower of the capsular form of cricket. But I rejoiced in the hours of midnight when England won the third edition of T20 World Cup.

England is the birth place of three major sporting events of the world. But due to sheer misfortune they haven’t been lucky to dominate in any.

Thankfully the victory in WC provided some kind of contradiction to their fortune in previous outings. Except in a very few countries, cricket is no longer a thriving sport. I believe England hasn’t been able to find an exceptionally talented player or match winner for the past 10 years.
The very few who promised, ended up as casuality. Steve Harmison was a man who promised a lot only to end up as a big failure. Flintoff would have been the match winner England needed for long. His infamous injuries cut off his career. There were many more than these two. It could have been due to the incompetent medical staff.

England’s struggle to find a wicket keeper was as famous as its World Cup victory. There hasn’t been anyone coming since Alec Stewart. When Monty took over as the main spinner for the England team, it highlighted the poverty in spin department. I still remember the sarcasm with which he was met with by Indian commentators. One couldn’t disagree with them. He was not even fit for a local game.

T20 format game is just in the phase of evolution. Everyone are on the path of learning and the rest of the world has learnt more than what India did.
T20 doesn’t require an exceptionally skilled player. It’s a brainless game and you just need a bunch of guys with great physique and die-hard attitude. May be you will need a captain with a bit of brains.

So there is no point in selecting semi-fit players based on their past performance. Players have to be selected only if they are fit- physically and mentally.
You need the raw strength and energy. T20 is not for the timid. Bowlers are the least respected and has to be punished invariably. No matter what, not a single ball should be allowed to pass through and has to be chased all the way to ropes. And we desperately need good divers.
No matter how big or small the team is battle lasts till the last over. So you need the hard attitude to change the momentum at the last minute.

And almost all the eleven players get a chance to bat. So what we need is some 8 batsmen who can bowl decently well. And a few bowlers who can haul the ball to 6.
When we have the only competitive T20 league in the world, why don’t we select players based on the performance in the league? Years ago I used to read Srikanth’s fiery column in ‘The Hindu’. He used to bash the selectors helter and skelter. He had the image of rebel from his playing days. Now I believe the only guy who needs to be sacked is Srikanth, who filled up the team with semi-fit, out-of-form favorites.

When it comes to sports, when will India learn?

Hero of our times....5

I have been thinking about writing this for a long time. In fact this person was the real inspiration behind the ‘hero’ series. The reason behind my hesitation was the lack of complete knowledge in the game of soccer.

I started following the English Premier League matches this season. Thanks to my good friends Vattu and VR, I started watching closely Arsenal matches. I may be found lacking in knowledge in technical aspects. So I will dwell in the resource management skills and approach of the person I consider as one of the best football manager of our times- Arsene Wenger.

For the ones who haven’t heard of EPL, it’s the most competitive, professional and marketed sporting league in the world. The managers will be highly pressurized to achieve their objectives. The football manager in EPL holds the toughest job in the world. He has to keep the players, the management and the fans happy at the same time.

Every team cannot afford the single objective of winning the league. The top 4-5 teams will be aiming for the league, the next 5 teams will be aiming to break into the top 4 and the last 5-6 teams will be on the look out to stay clear of relegation. (I just gave an idea in general it’s much more than that). I would also request you not to compare it with Indian Premier League. Watch the EPL for once to understand the magnitude.

As the oil rich Arab sheikhs and Russian oligarchs started looking out for costly toys, they found the English teams the best choice. The managers, fans and the management were too happy to sell off the teams to these rich playboys. The new owners happily paid astronomical sum to ensure that world’s best played in their team. So the manager’s job was made easy. He got the players he wanted. Unmindful of the piling debts, players were brought for huge sum to warm the benches. In the process many youth academies became defunct and the authorities had to change the rules for the sake of English soccer.

Arsenal was never owned by a single entity. It could be the only one among the top 6 to be run by a family. So when rest of the title contenders spends close to billions for building a team, Arsenal couldn’t afford to do that. When Wenger took over charger he started buying the unproven players for cheap money and thus started the unforgettable era in English Premier League- ‘The Invincibles’. They dominated the league with the magical, beautiful football. It was unimaginable to play football in the beautiful way in EPL. But Wenger’s Arsenal was uncompromising in its way. That was the Arsenal way of winning.

There started a cup winning and record breaking spree. But the toughest challenge was yet to come for Wenger. Arsenal had to move in to a bigger stadium. Without a rich financier this would have been suicidal. Any sensible man would have abandoned the ship. But Wenger was already on his way to prepare the Arsenal to face a new future.

The team from ‘Invincibles’ were sold off one by one. He started a huge youth policy. Talents were scouted from all over the world and they were developed in the Arsenal Academy and later given a chance to play the big game. This brought in more savings and groomed up a bunch of youths who went on to write history.

Imagine the struggles of a man to undo his own legacy. But then is legacy just the number of times we win in the field?

The youth policy has taken a lot of time to flourish and bear fruits. Wenger has been drawing flak for continuous 5 dry years. But no great manager would dream of doing it. Take any manager from top 4-5 and check out their stats on how many young players have come out of their Academy to play in the league. The record would be dismal.

I was privileged to see the Arsenal team maturing into an entity independent of any stars. While the other teams found it difficult to go on when one of their stars fell ill, Arsenal fought on with more than half the team on injury list.

But never have we seen Wenger deploying the negative tactics to win. The victory always happened the Arsenal way. Even the top managers feared to fail and deployed some of the most infamous techniques to win. The game against Barcelona showed the valiance with which the young players fought should be written in history books. But then history books have only the name of victors in it.

No player in Arsenal has been thrown off the team just because he had a bad game. As long as there is fire in his belly Wenger gave the players chance to achieve his potential. Yes, it has been at the cost of winning. But isn’t that what ‘team’ is all about? ‘Team’ is not about the number of victories but ‘team‘ stands for sticking together when going gets tough.

Bottom Line: I could have written miles and miles. But I choose to shorten this as most of the Indians would be unaware of the technicalities of the game called ‘football’. But I work in a corporate environment. I have never seen a person stubbornly sticking to the principles he believes in. And there is absolutely no one who stands up for his team mates. Wenger taught the world of thinking for the good on long term. Wenger taught the world the meaning of FAITH and VICTORY.

Thanks to VR and Vattu for the valuable inputs! When I post this, I am certain I haven’t done justice to the legacy of Wenger.

Hero of our times....4

I was quite surprised to see Pradeep again after a long time. The last time I saw him was on the screen. It was a small scene in a not-so-successful movie.

I was plainly happy to see him. We were both on the middle of our routine work-out. So we couldn’t talk much. But the few sentences he said made me really happy in meeting a man different from others.

Pradeep had been a movie enthusiast right from his college days. He was obsessed with making it to the screen. He had to sacrifice his studies a bit. He had done choreography for a song which went on to become a hit.

Rest of the story, Pradeep is going to narrate for you:

I come from a typical Syrian conservative Christian family. We watch movies rarely and have no relatives/friends in the industry.

The movie industry is a jungle. No matter how talented you are, unless you have the right people at the right places you are not going to make it. It’s a bad man’s world. The people with genuine talent would be too arrogant to approach. The untalented ones would have established themselves through the back door mean. Back door includes a wide variety of activities like pimping, pulling down people close to you and a little bit of bribing. The second category would be too crooked to approach.

Filmdom is not a honest man’s world. You will have to play a sycophant right from the top to bottom. If you are yet to establish yourself even the insignificant person can bring you down. Right from the story board to the editor’s desk to the first screening you will have to fight continually from being eliminated by the fittest. So your primary struggle is to get into the good books of everyone. Then there are people who discourage you, and persuade you to go back home.

It’s difficult to keep your value system intact in the fight. Compromising a bit in what you believe in can earn you rich rewards. But that’s the last thing I would want to do.

Thankfully, my wife understands my passion. In fact this was one condition I kept before marriage. I have to keep my job intact while I hunt for the chances. Besides I will have to monitor my physique.

Every time I see a silver lining on the horizon, I realize that it was just an imagination. But hopefully I will get a break through.

Guys, rarely do we see a person with a real ambition. Chasing dreams are not easy. That too when you have family obligations and the principles that you believe in to hold you back.

So let’s wish Pradeep the very best and pray that his opening will happen soon. I am looking forward to announce the happy news in my blog.

Voiceless

The showers had just ceased. The city felt slight relief from the severe afternoon heat. I set out for my evening jog. Although the traffic was heavy with people rushing home from work, there were no pedestrians on the sidewalk.

I was passing by a bus shelter. There was a dark figure lying under the shade, probably to escape from the rain. I dared to take a peek through the corner of my eye. ‘It’ had a long hair like a woman’s. I couldn’t make out the dress. It was a dirty rag thrown over the body. I couldn’t stand the smell. I rushed away and took a deep breath of fresh air.

We were in our college when we heard about the home for the destitute and made a visit. We were a group of youngsters and we made it a point to visit the place regularly. We helped in cooking and cleaning (even the toilets). Spending an afternoon with these mentally challenged people became a revelation for us. Frankly, many a times they exhibited more ‘innocent’ intelligence than a normal man. It was not that easy for us. Many of us took time to adjust to the way of life there. Everything from water to food wastes were precious and had to be conserved and recycled. But these were good lessons for comparatively well-off people.

The institute was run by a nun, who was ousted by the church for bearing a different vision from that of the church. But despite being ex-communicated she always wore a nun’s dress. She managed this institute of 40-60 inmates all by herself. She received very little donation. The only thing in abundance was these challenged people. The taxi-drivers and policemen dumped all the unwanted on the pavements to this place.

The left-over food from marriages was ‘donated’ to seek the divine blessings in exchange. She got very little physical help too. A few youngsters like us visited once in a while and helped out in cooking, bathing and cleaning. The nun was not getting any younger and suffered from various ailments. To be frank her mental health was also affected due to the continuous strain.

The inmates in better shape than others managed to help the nun. An old lady, very much weak in health, did the chores very silently. Then there was this lady good in slicing vegetables. But she had this problem of stealing unknowingly. She used to slice the vegetables and hide them. So the nun had to keep an eye on her. There was a young woman with a young son and baby daughter. They were abandoned by the father. She did no help in the household activities despite being in perfect physical condition. But the little boy and baby girl spread love all around.

I still remember the day. It was vacation time in college. The news in the front page caught my eye. The police had busted some racket somewhere. I love these spicy stories. But the feeling turned to horror when I came to know that police raided our destitute home. The story was that some political activists surrounded the place alleging that a sex mafia was working behind the scenes. Police raided the place and found a man and woman in suspicious circumstances. They also found an air-gun, condoms and a few sleazy magazines. All the inmates were thrown out and the nun arrested. To make the matters worse some of the deceased inmates were buried in the compound.

We were too ashamed that we had worked for such a group and were silent for some days. Then some secret inquiries were made. That was a time when the property prices were shooting up. The institute had a good amount of land surrounding it. The nun had leased out the space from someone and he wanted to evict them. This person played the dirty game and since he had the money anything would have been possible. The nun was too old and not in the best shape, physically or mentally, to watch out for the vultures.

We never know what happened to the nun or inmates. Many might have died, many may be still begging, a few would have moved out to similar places and a few woman would have turned to prostitution. What would have happened to those kids? Is the nun still in jail? No one bothered to enquire. Has the institution given way to some multi-storied apartment.

The next day also I found the same figure, but this time it was standing on my way. ‘It’ was half naked. I tried to bypass ‘it’ without looking. But still I involuntarily stole a peek. ‘It’ was flat chested and hence it had to be man. But still the hair was plaited like a girl’s. The smell made me retch. I ran away. But then I realized, it was not the smell but the conscious that hurted the most.

The Great Indian Circus

IPL 3 had all the ingredients of an Indian movie. It had heroes and villains on the field. Their lady loves cheered from the stand. They got hugs from top heroines if they won the match. Fate came dressed in the dark dress of an umpire. Then there were playmakers/ betters who pulled the strings sitting comfortably in their executive lounge. There was tears, joy, grief, shouts of victory and strange anti-climaxes. In short all the ingredients you ever needed for a masala entertainment.

Towards the end the IPL was transformed to a huge circus tent when a few stars made a clown out of themselves.

Lalit Modi:
He was arrogance re-incarnated. Nothing and no one dared to touch him. He was the keeper of dark secrets of the high and mighty. He wouldn’t think twice on rubbing off someone unimportant. But he knew how to keep the powerful happy.
If he had kept his motor mouth and greed in check, he would have been making his millions still through dubious means. Who would have mind as long as they had their share of cut?

Shashi Tharoor:
The savvy, US-educated, former UN diplomat Indian minister barged into a party uninvited and he was thrown out unceremoniously. That was what happened in his IPL adventure.
Except for the educated ‘Mallus’ no one gave a damn about the poor man’s qualification.
To me, either he is an innocent fool or a cunning politician cum businessman.
First of all he was unaware of the well known fact that the major stakeholder in his team didn’t have a credible source of income. But any intelligent man would do a small research on the people with whom he plans to do a business. Or was Shashi intelligent enough to ignore the well known facts.
Secondly the ‘best-seller’ author and ‘global citizen’ didn’t know the Indian laws on sweat equity. He didn’t know that the ‘sweat’ didn’t come free. His alleged beau, Sunanda, tried to manipulate the media with her teary outcries. But no one brought her ‘sweat’ story.
But Shashi, nevertheless, salvaged a small victory when the Congress branch in Kerala portrayed him as a fallen hero.

Shilpa Shetty:
The only movie I can remember of the former movie star is the famous song with Akshay and the sleazy number she did with her sister.
The jobless Shilpa, was doing cooking and cleaning for Raj Mundra when she read in a morning paper that she owns an IPL team. So this brought the former ‘Big brother’ winner back in front of the camera.
We had to bear her histrionics once again. But this time it was on the stands. She never how to act and she did her worst performance while cheering for her team. The weeping Shilpa was the snap of the season.
Nevertheless things were going good for her, when her savior Lalit was caught with pants down. She made brave attempts to save him with her idiotic remarks. But Shilpa hasn’t understood that the Indians consider her only as a B grade actress.
To make matters worse, BCCI stated that they haven’t found either Raj Kundra’s or Shilpa’s name in the owners list.

SRK:
SRK deserves ‘the artificial man on earth’ award. There is nothing original about him.
His wax statue in Madame Tassaud’s is more orginal than his waxed skin, stitched hair and toned body.
His movies are used as materials on ‘How not to act’ materials in big film schools. He must get a honorary doctorate than anyone else.
Apart from all these, the movies he does lacks originality, his awards are fixed and the statements have no sincerity.
His team KKR is an image of himself. They have the best support staff and players from all over the world. He himself markets the team as if it’s a movie. The team even has a designer jersey- first of its kind in the world. The top stars from Bollywood cheers his team.
Despite all these, KKR always ends up at the bottom season after season. SRK personally chalks out the strategies and choose the captains.
And now his team is one among the few suspected for financial irregularities. So much for a on-screen-patriot.

Now guys take your pick.