What is freedom?

For all of us who have lived in a free country for 60 years, we tend to not comprehend the meaning of freedom. It becomes apparent only when we see examples of events that indicate a suppressed populace. Here is what China did to make sure that the Chinese look supreme at the Olympics opening ceremony. The 7 year old girl pictured below was deemed too ugly for the song she sang and was replaced by a 9 year old pretty girl.
A certain German individual had tried equally hard many years ago to look perfect during the Olympics. Hopefully the rest of history does not repeat itself. Because if it does, India would end up being the equivalent of France. Better to get ready, because this event does provide a deep insight into what passes for Chinese "pride".

Ram Setu back on the map

The Ram Setu project seems set to come off the back burner as a reward to the DMK for doing the right thing and standing by the Congress during the no confidence motion. It is a huge step in the right direction; people are dealing in the welfare of the country rather than cold cash.

Plus the Ram Setu area can be turned into a religious attraction that can be travelled to by open sea.

This is something that needs to be done to convert Tamil Nadu into a coastal business area similar to Mumbai. The people in the southern parts of Tamil Nadu stand to benefit the most from this.

Manmohan Singh, prime minister

There is a high probability that the current government will lose it's vote of confidence. And they would probably not mind it either as it would prove that they care for India more than any of the other parties. This also raises questions about states that are dominated by regional political groups; they do not have an interest in national level activities or are totally out of focus with the real India.

Hopefully some of the former opposition parties will join the coalition in sufficient numbers. India does not need an election and does not need a Prime Minister other than Dr. Manmohan Singh right now. And yes, the nuclear agreement has to be signed in the interests of stability in the region.

Corrupt sons of soil all over the Indian soil!

In a very convoluted way, Raj Thackeray is asking son of the soils not to be corrupt. By requesting them to not issue fake certificates in Maharashta. Domicile and ration card authorities earn millions of rupees during the medical and engineering admission process in India. People are ready to pay tens of thousands to avoid lakhs of capitation rupees in many cases.

But the paradox is that sons of the soil fight over these low paying jobs just for the corruption money. A municipal school teacher teaching English is there to take her daily rest and relaxation. Asking them to shape up is not going to cut it. If you want honest officials, you have to open these jobs to a merit based admission process and provide good salaries. And stop stuffing these posts with sons and daughters of the soil that happen to know some politically connected person.

The one good(?) thing about these corrupt officials is that they do not care as to who is on the other side of the table; Maharashtrian or outsider. If you do not have the proper documentation to get the certificates, you have to pay up even if your last name happens to be Mumbaikar, Nagarkar, Tendulkar, Agarkar or Wadkar. Paisa nikal, phir baat kar! Soil does not matter to these officials, only cold cash does. That is where the sons of soils all over the country get their percentage. And this is how the leaders of political parties get their riches too. Corruption begins at the top and percolates to the bottom.

Pakistan finds a terror fighting formula!

Pakistan has just found the solution to world terrorism. Now that Afghanistan, with US help, wants to do what Pakistan has been doing in Kashmir for 40 years, Pakistan almost sounds like India. They are having an epiphany about territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Afghanistan has been Pakistan's thrash dump for a long time. They unleashed the Talibs aka Taliban on Afghanistan years ago using their local Pashtun population and were proud of the end results. They are now turning a blind eye towards them within their own borders. Unfortunately for them, American eyes are sharper. Of course, nothing much is going to come of it. All the noise making will stop after the American elections are over.

Divorce education?.....

It is indeed a tragedy that women in India that want to get out of a marriage think that suicide is an available option. The death of a Karnataka legislature member's wife is a case in point.

Maybe there were other forces involved too. But there should be no room for a woman that wants to separate from her spouse to go this route.

Duh...Allow foreign retiring citizens to be in India...

Here is a crazy rule being enforced in India; retiring foreigners are not allowed to settle in India. With the globalization of Indian commerce (and way of living, to some extent), this will be the case often. Plus these retirees end up spending their dollars and pounds in India and contribute to the local economy.

Maybe there can be restrictions, but there cannot be a ban. I am guessing that this does not apply to persons of Indian origin. Because soon there will be tons of British and US citizens retiring back to India(and doing social work). Either way, retirees should not be stopped this way; maybe a new visa type can be arranged to take care of this.

City based team angst...

With the heartbreaking Mumbai Indians loss to the Rajasthan Royals, Indian fans get to feel the angst that goes with a city based franchise. Unlike national teams that we support unconditionally(think Harbhajan), our relationship with a city based franchise is more complex as we get bombarded with more up to date information and get to experience them more up close and personal. Plus there are more direct viewing opportunities.

Now we know why Wankhede games have a different feel compared to the DY Patil games. Apparently 70% of the Wankhede tickets are sold inhouse, so it leads to a grumpy knowledgeable crowd, very much like a British crowd. DY Patil has not yet gathered such a crust, plus it is a bigger stadium. But the IPL finals will not have any such allocations, so a true fan can watch the game more easily. Ofcourse there is always a danger of a rabid crowd like the ones you see at Eden park. But that is probably more a sign of a dead city; Mumbai folks typically are more diverse and will not be subject to such combustions.

Mumbai Indians are not out of it yet. A loss by Chennai Superkings can still open the door for Mumbai. And with the semifinals and finals in Mumbai, they will be a very difficult opponent to beat.

As Shane Warne has indicated, having semifinals at a "neutral" venue is not a good idea, there is no advantage for the top seed. Infact, if the local team scrapes through to the semifinal, mentally they end up becoming the top seed due to the support that they will receive. The semifinals have to be held at the home team ground. The finals can be at a rotating prearranged venue as it allows for better planning and showing off of the climactic event of the league.

Cricket, terrorism connection?...

There has been another blast in India; this time in Rajasthan. This seems to happen every time India and Pakistan talk peace and commerce. Since there are a bunch of males across the border who make their money and obtain their wives via such attitudes and behaviors, this is not going to end soon. It is probably a good idea not to have any face to face meetings with Pakistan; the human costs of these useless meetings seems to be pretty high. If Pakistan keeps Kashmir as the top issue locally, there is no point doing any business with them. India can let them rot and fester in the stink of their own hatred.

This also indicates that India has a lot of sleeper cells that can be activated at will. There seems to be a disturbing tie in to cricket as well. When India wins important games, the target is usually Kashmir; the easiest target of all.

This time around, there was some hard bargaining with the cricket board of Pakistan, which is controlled by the military, regarding Shoaib Akhtar. The board was made to drop accusations before providing Shoaib with a chance to play. Plus Shoiab outed them when they asked for their cuts when he makes money in the IPL. This does not seem to have sat well with the military elite that typically use the corruption money to send their male sons to colleges in United States. So they seem to have gone after the IPL Commissioner's home state and the city that hosts the best team at the same time. This also shows you that terrorism and loss of human life has become a fun game for the masters. The Shoaib Akhtar drama played out over just a couple of weeks, so the terrorist cell activation and execution was real quick.

An unexploded bomb has been obtained; this means that the culprits will be found eventually.

Police recruiting fraud...

A police recruiting fraud has been exposed in Kolkata. This means that something similar is happening in police forces all across the country. Mumbai is one place where this may be happening. The going rates for getting into the police force are pretty high in Mumbai and future cops may be opting for dummies to ensure clearing the examination. The scope of under the table earnings are huge in big cities. Visit these cops' relatives houses in their native places and examine their spouse's assets to find the scope of the problem. Sources of income are typically brothels, gambling dens, illicit liquor and dance bars. Another huge source of income is allowing people to "go back home" or "stay home" after a complaint has been received by the police.

You complain, we wear pants

Looks like a pattern has been established now regarding cheerleader attire. Any state that complains about Cheerleader attire will now get Cheerleaders wearing pants for both the teams. Liberal cities will continue to get cheerleaders dressed in cheerleader attire. The moves of the Cheerleaders remains as crisp as ever, pants or no pants.

Thank God for the hawk eyes of politicians. The dignity of females have been preserved in the land that gives them the ultimate indignity in the form of dowry and female foeticide. If you politicians think that a woman is the embodiment of God, do something about dowry and selective abortions.

Crazy Sreesanth...Bye bye Harbhajan...

Here is an article by a Malayalee author as to why Sreesanth is not the most popular Keralite. The article also mentions previous interactions between Harbhajan and Sreesanth. The article's premise is now justified.

Sreesanth just does not know when to stop assing around. He has got some enormous loose screws in his head and his actions have caused an end to Harbhajan's international cricket career. Harbhajan is a loose screw himself, but like any hotheaded Punjabi, he goes mad when he is right, unlike Sreesanth, who goes nuts whenever he thinks he has an advantage, which is pretty much all the time.

He got the eight wicket in the 20-20 match against Mumbai, walked over to the other side of the crease and gave the close walk/talk to the player that got out. He did that a couple of times to Robin Uthappa too before that. After the end of the game, Harbhajan slapped him in the field. Even though it is Harbhajan whose career will be over now, it is Sreesanth who has had the last laugh(or cry) by making sure that everybody knew what Harbhajan did. His revenge against Harbhajan is now complete.

By crying and not retaliating, Sreesanth has preserved his own career for now. I am sure he was scared and emotionally hurt and it was not an act. Whatever it was, Harbhajan's career is done, given what happened in Australia. So we have a case of 20-20 causing damage to the Indian team. There is no better off spinner around in India at this point in time.

I also think that the owners will stop showing up to support their team with the same fervour going forward. Anybody who has support galli cricket and other local forms of cricket knows that supporting your team at close quarters is not a fun experience when you get the see the ugly and unsportsman conduct that usually happens.

Cheerleader morality...

Mumbai's morality police has had success with bar dancers before. Now they are training their eyes on the Cheerleaders in the IPL league. Yes, Cheerleading is an envelope pushing activity in India. Some of the cameramen even went one step further and got into camera angles unseen in the US, mostly because the cheerleader platforms are raised above the ground. Looks like nobody noticed this with the ICL league. Even more funny is the fact that film star politicians are raising the issue.

Looks like you can do these kind of things only in a film and not anything "live". If males can do bodybuilding, then surely females can do cheerleading, the ultimate female body and attitude showoff activity.

Only Chennai has an all Indian cheerleading team and they were absolutely miserable. One of the females considered just her presence to be good enough and would not even join in the dance routines!

Hopefully other parties will pick this up in other states and make sure that our "In-den-ness" is preserved.

The IPL 20 league..

The first IPL 20 match delivered what the newly formed league promised and the matches were similar in format to American football sports events that usually last around 3-4 hours. The software companies around the Bangalore area seem to have seized the opportunity by plying the company buses for their employees. A great idea that needs to be followed in other places. Watch out for punch drunk folks on the way back though; these won't be happy campers.

I did not feel bad about spending the money required to watch these games. Hopefully the format sticks and we will see a lot more of such events and tournaments going forward.

I did hope for Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, but the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders were pretty good themselves. And they have put in a lot of hard work. Knowing how India works, the biggest challenge for the Indian cheerleaders will be for them to get comfortable in their costumes in the face of future adversities, especially when the home team is losing and the beer is flowing. I do not envision them to ever match the athleticism of their American counterparts, thanks to the absence of intense activities for Indian women as a general rule. I did not see much of security in the first game; that will need to change, especially around the cheerleaders. Or maybe they are already doing that and I was too busy watching the cheerleaders.

Painful reminders to out of state residents...

Here is the speech by Rajnikant that was invoked recently by politicians in Maharashtra. Rajnikant is an icon in Tamil Nadu and a former resident of Bangalore and he has lot of friends in Bangalore. Rajnikant is essentially asking Congress politicians in Karnataka to speak the truth and not fan violence. Congress did have a victory though; they convinced Karunanidhi to keep quite for a while so that elections get over in Karnataka.


The common thing between the Karnataka violence and the anti north indian violence in Maharashtra is that these are essentially anti Indian activities. Karnataka politicians refuse to implement supreme court directives, Maharashtra politicians refuse to acknowledge the contributions of other ethnicities.

An interesting point bought out in the Tamil protests protests was the use of the slogan "हम सब भाई भाई' invoked frequently in feel good speeches. Obviously Kannadigas do not consider a Madrasi a भाई, even though the relations between them are very similar to that between Gujarat and Maharashtra minus the water. A maharashtrian definitely does not consider a भय्या भाई, and I am not sure what figure of speech that is. अगर भाई भाई नहीं हैं, तो भारत काहेका? Once you get out of your own home state, it is essentially a वनवास। You end up becoming मद्रासी, भय्या in a bad way, வட நாட்டான் (North Indian in bad way in Tamil Nadu), ಕೊಂಗಾ (Konga, which is Tamilian in a bad way in Karnataka), gulti and hundreds of other ethnic slurs।

आम्ही सगळे भाऊ भाऊ, तू कौन भाई बनने चला? चल वर्गणी निकाल!

Here is a link to a interesting article about Amitabh's mom. I guess that makes Amitabh half punjabi in addition to his UP roots. So maybe the punjabis should start attacking him now for not getting their share. And Aishwarya Rai is from Karnataka, so they can get in line too.