Of fixers and fixing…

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The cricket fixing scandals have shaken the world of sport. Righteous faced journalists, hyperventilating thwarted girl friends, holier than thou ex-cricketers and glum faced officials have all been seen 24x7 on multiple channels. However the undeniable fact is that fixing whether it be spot ,line ,match or series -- existed, is existing,  and will continue to exist—no matter what  steps are taken by the authorities.

Suraj Randiv bowled a deliberate no ball to deny Sehwag a century, apparently under instruction from Dilshan and maybe Sangakara. Teenager Md. Amir bowled a no ball under instruction from his skipper and senior colleagues. Both the no balls had no effect on the outcome of the game. Both of them did it for gain—one for psychological vindictive pleasure, the other probably for money—though there is no evidence it reached him. Look at the different fall outs. One is banned for an inconsequential match—the other is facing a loud howl for a lifetime ban. Cricketers take money to play like any other worker anywhere. If they do a little bonus on the side which does not affect the overall game—then what is the harm?? After all, everybody likes to make money on the side—don’t they? So if you cannot fix the fixers—then  accept them!!!

SURAJ RANDIV         MOHAMMED AMIR

Translate this into the commercial world.Look at the ‘facilitators’ and the ‘Commission’ fees. See the hangers on near all political personalities and government offices. Look at the sweat equities of millions of dollars before you sweat. Simpering ,tainted ex-ministers marry the anti-perspirant stake holder for which he ‘merely' picked up the telephone and had a chat in the IPL !!! Backdoor manoevuring was going on to legitimise auction fixing—and the players were the very same officials who sit on disciplinary committees. The  cricketer who allegedly made Rs. 220 crores is now a ruling party MP who speaks in  rallies exhorting youths to sacrifice their all for the country!!!! The man banned for 5 years now is an expert commentator from the studios, commentating on this current scandal for a hefty fee…Confirmed cocaine users are regularly seen on TV giving their comments with gusto. Bowlers with a clear illegal action gets the laws of the game changed to suit them, and goes on to create world records..

VEENA MALIK    MOHAMMAD ASIF

Which all goes to show that only the foolish get caught. The less powerful are paraded. The developed world cricketers say that it never happens in their country, though a couple were socked for giving information(sic), to bookies about weather conditions and quite a few were caught with their hands in the till!!! .These holier than thou countries used Vaseline, jelly beans etc with aplomb to swing the ball and were agitated when the Pakistanis did it better than them!!! This was however only ball fixing!!!

Cricket and all the other sports have become horribly tainted and we would forever be left contemplating that the great vagaries of cricket like a dropped catch or a No ball were fixed or not . Were the nail biting finishes contrived? Have all of us been taken for a ride again and again???

So how can we solve this? Simple, I would say. The cricketers are paid more than they are worth. Hitting a ball ensures jobs, fees, ads, film shoots,women, apart from match fees and contract fees-- in droves. Penalize them severely when they fail. Penalize them the amount that betting circles would give. That is all that is required. Too long have they taken advantage of the glorious uncertainties of the game. If Sachin scores a duck, he is penalized. If he scores a 50 or a hundred he gets more.If Yuvaraj drops a catch, penalize him. If Zaheer bowls a no ball, penalize him. You will then see the clear improvement in them. If they are getting paid handsomely for their achievements, then surely they should be penalized if they fail.That is what professionalism is all about.

If doctors, engineers, financial investors, etc can survive by these rules, so can cricketers.Sports Entertainment is not a an absolute necessity for living. These guys call themselves professional and calmly fail in game after game after game.There is no penalty except the prospect of getting dropped from the team.One good performance in 5—6 outings will ensure selection. Imagine if the surgeons had such a track record….One good operation in 3 cases??? If the anaesthetists failed in such a ratio?? If the bridges built by the engineers collapsed in such a ratio?? Disregard  the fact that a majority of  such professionals get a fraction of what the cricketers get. This type of performance would ensure that the surgeon will get no patients and will spend all his life in courts. Contrast this with how  the Indian cricketers behave after a loss.

This is the only way of stopping whatever-fixing making a mockery of our time , intelligence and our money!!!

Friends ,what do you say??

Independence Day and the Common House Sparrow

This Independence day, I suddenly recalled my childhood days.Waking up in the mornings to the chirping of the birds ,quickly getting ready, rushing to the rooftop to be one of the first to raise the National flag, and the singing of the National anthem,  with parents. cousins, aunts, uncles and the servants watching us with beaming indulgence. Invariably, we would turn to feed the birds, the common house sparrows and the crows, before diving into hot singaras and jilipis.

A familiar sight in our childhood

Today, as we descended to the lawn in front of our multistoryed building, there were a lot of pigeons and crows, but the house sparrow seems to have disappeared.

There has been a systematic decimation of this once-so-familiar bird all over the world.Europe and specially England have seen a significant reduction and a lot of theories have evolved as to why this happened.In India, the cities in the South and North have been particularly affected.

A disappearing sight.

Why and how did this happen?

The first reason was the changing nature of the buildings. There is no tiled roof, no hay covered bungalows. In an effort to utilize  every inch of the expensive land, covered crevices and corners have simply disappeared. Scattered grains from gunny bags are no longer available, as it is the age of sealed plastic bags. Old buildings with abundant gardens and bushes have disappeared.The sparrow simply does not have a place to breed.

Looking for a place to breed

Adding to this was the introduction of unleaded petrol. Methyl Nitrite was released all over, leading to the deaths of small insects which were the staple food of the sparrows.The increasing use of pesticides were another cause of the reduction in the number of small insects and worms.

Then came the mobile towers sprouting here and there. The introduction of 3G systems with higher radio frequency waves, played havoc with the sparrow’s breeding abilities and reduced their flying time. If the male bird sings less, mating cycles are grossly disturbed.Moreover eggs take more than a month to hatch (double the normal time) and some do not hatch at all.This has been scientifically proved by studies in Belgium.

Waking up to this problem, March 20 of each year has been named World Sparrow Day. The Postal department is bringing out a stamp on this disappearing chodai pakhi.

Meanwhile several pleas are being circulated that all ground and first floor residences lay out a shoe box filled with hay and a little water, so that this familiar remnant of our past can be resurrected.

One lady recalled that when she had a long illness and was confined to the house, her mother thoughtfully placed a wooden box on the window sill, and regularly sprinkled some grains there. It was the continuosly chirruping spunky sparrows which saw her through those difficult times.

Let us all come together in this difficult times for the Common House Sparrow.

Listen to this beautiful song by Simon and Garfunkel…..

Udaan—Flying Higher-some hiccups!!

Let there be no doubt about this. Udaan is a magnificent film. In fact it is perhaps the most important direction—finder of Hindi films for a long long time. With a spate of crisp stoytelling like Aamir, A Wednesday, Mumbai Meri Jaan, in recent times, our appetites were being whetted. Udaan shows how Hindi films are maturing.Directors are now writing and filming their stories—and they are not being pressurised to take stars, include dances, stage violent ‘Ackshun!!’, and incorporate unnecessary songs and unrealistic costumes.

There is a story here of a teenager growing up with an autocratic and mentally depraved father. The father’s Hitlerian approach and his conception of a mard smacks of mental deficiencies, and in an effort to bolster up the story, Ronit Roy is made larger than life, though stopping short of a caricature. Jamshedpur men, as we would believe from this film assault their wives and children, drink, and do not care for the Arts, even if they study in the best schools of India. And the one man who betrays some humanity from the older generation is the one who is impotent.

This tinkering with the script would have us believe that the best way of having a good time, is to sneakily take the family car, steal money from your father’s wallet, go to a bar, drink, deliberately get into fights, stick out your body from a car, wave your arms and curse repeatedly at the top of your voice. And a father will  consider his son as a Macho Mard only if they smoke, drink and have sex by the age of 17!!!!!!!

Is it mandatory for films (Three Idiots etc) to deliberately ignore the millions of hard working parents who sacrifice all their lives so that their children can have a better, financially assured life, and who do not curse, drink, smoke, marry repeatedly,and beat up their children. Flying (Udaan) requires training, knowledge and skill which a boy of 17 does not have.And persons who do badly at school. will NOT get into a decent college. Certainly not in premier Arts Courses of premier Colleges. So, there is a necessity for the children also to assume some responsibility and accountability to their parents.I cannot imagine a parent not visiting his son for e-i-g-h-t years!!!! Another cinematic licence to bolster up the need for Rohan(the protagonist) to break rules deliberately and get expelled.

However, these are aberrations in a film of sublime directorial touches—the recurring barbed wire in front of Ronit Roy’s(Rohan’s Father) house is a case in point. The daily ritualistic race to the house, and Rohan’s final winning run away from his father’s clutches.—is another. The failure of the car to start at one go is wisely used in the climax seen. Jamshedpur has never been portrayed so well.The mix of hard work, hard drinkers, hard disciplinarians, in a palpably small town setting is sometimes frighteningly accurate. The high point of the boy smashing his father’s old irritating car could have come better as an apex of a vertex of small frustrations piling up till something broke at the top. Again , one is left wondering, whether the director believes that smashing your father’s car is a valid option of protest—because there is a distinct possibility, after this film, of a number of teenagers  subjecting their parent's vehicles to the scrapheap.

Vikramaditya Motwane, the director and class friend of Abhisekh Bacchan(really!!!!) scores full marks in the casting department. Rohan( Rajat Barmeccha) is disarmingly innocent faced who switches from his rebel behaviour to a talented wannabee writer with consummate ease. When he is on the receiving end of his father’s ire—his demeanour brings lumps to the throats of the middle aged Moms in the audience. The child actor ( Aayan Boradia) who plays Arjun , Rohan’s stepbrother is one of the finest selections in Indian films with touches of  Shekhar Kapoor’s Masoom boy Jugal Hansraj. But the acting honours are taken away by Ronit Roy in a role of a lifetime. Undertoned voice, lurking danger in his eyes and demeanour, supremely fit at his age, restless, intense, one track mind, obsessed with male macho image, and yet in his own misguided way trying his best for his sons and yet feeling defeated by them in a competition to get attention from their mothers.Ronit treads the swaying wire between a caricature and a believable oversized ,larger than life character with aplomb. His brother’s role is enacted with  great skill by Ram Kumar who shows remarkable sensitivity and underplays to form a perfect foil to the hyper reacting Ronit.What a wonderful talent pool of actors are being wasted by Bollywood and their masala films with their terrible masala recipe….

The greatest achievement of the Director was that never, even once did he let the film drift. That is why, there  are no female actors except in absentia –no dances, no lipped songs, no distractions or deviations.

Music Director Amit Trivedi  did not create any memorable songs. Cinematographer Mahendra Shetty was competent and did capture the essence of Jamshedpur. However shots sometimes were ill lit and very stock shottish.The print at INOX Swabhumi Kolkata had as much as 6 black screens!!! If this is also in the best prints, then the Editor, Dipika Kalra has done a bad job.  These type of shoddy prints could have ruined this film. But it flies too high—albeit with a few hiccups—a magnificent lighthouse to millions of viewers and budding directors and scriptwriters.

Inscrutable smiles

What is common to The Sphinx, Mona Lisa, Buddha, and Manmohan Singh? This quiz question could stump a few, but the answer of all things, is the title above.

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Most people smile most of the time , which is a tribute to their goodness. Some smile incessantly, which makes them look silly and recognised as a permanent asker-for-favours person.

Some never smile at all—because they considered smiling as a letting down of the guard. But EVERYBODY gives the inscrutable smile at some time or other—when they smile but that smile has nothing to do with their inner feelings.

When do we give the inscrutable smiles? Mostly when you are not listening to what the other person is saying. Yet you are too polite to turn your face away. So you smile (some may say that is a vacuous smile) and think about more important things.

(see the central lady in black)

The other time is when you are in a crowd and hardly know anyone. Your smile can change instantly when someone recognises you and become a welcoming grin—or if not recognised, quickly change into a neutral expression. Most people in a crowd are actually in this mode and it is quite revealing to see the variety of these inscrutable smiles in these gatherings.

(See the lady in red behind the man in the bandana)

The inscrutable smile is very much in display in group photos of famous personalities among the background persons. Knowing fully well that the focus is on the star , others smile without interest but smile they do, otherwise they may fall into the bad books of the star.

(Note the lady in blue at the back)

Obviously the most inscrutable smiles come from actors when they are confronted by photographers at a social gathering.  In a photo shoot they do everything that the photographer requires, but in these “free-shoot” situations, they give these inscrutable smiles and nothing else (i.e. when they are not arguing with or hitting them).

The law enforcers like policemen smile like that when they cop you on a blank morning for something which you  have not done. the bank official gives that smile when you start arguing with them over their faulty services, and the doctor has to do so for most of his clinical patients, because he is not sure what news the XRay or blood count may give.

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The animals of course are past masters at these. See the picture below.

In brief, do perfect the inscrutable smile. It will stand you in good stead!!!!!!

The Issue of Disresponsibility

Many times we dither between taking responsibility for an action. If it is work that we have done directly and solely, then we have to take responsibility and face the consequences –beneficial or harmful. If we have not done the work properly, we are deemed to be irresponsible. We are not good enough to have taken up the job. We have failed to perform according to certain standards.

Being responsible is a terrific burden on a person. Superiors just love them. Many persons therefore try and avoid it by showing disinterest or nonavailability.

However there are certain areas in which we should have taken responsibility, but we did not—either due to passivity or laziness or because we did not feel like it. There are also certain areas, where we have no choice but to step in and take responsibility. For example, how can we avoid being a parent or a son or a daughter?? How can we stop being a doctor or an engineer or a Minister or an economist? Can we be a professional for 16 hours and unprofessional and nonprofessional (another debatable word) for 8 hours??

When we do not take responsibility and evade or avoid it, I propose the word “Disresponsible”. I also toyed with the word “Unresponsible”.

However, I immediately ran into a roadblock. Many dictionaries (Oxford and Cambridge et al) do not have these words. The Urban Dictionary however recognises one. Unresponsible is defined as :-

An entity which denies responsibility simply by the act of claiming they are not responsible, whereas from other logical reasonings they would take responsibility. Unresponsible is not responsible, but still should be.

Disresponsible isn't defined yet.

So what is disresponsible?

It is basically being disinterested in taking responsibility or in some cases disowning responsibility. It is a slinking away. Unresponsible  is a positive action of walking away from taking responsibility and not merely avoiding it.

You are walking down the road and see two people being killed by a group of murderers. You know that taking responsibility for intervention will be dangerous, time consuming and counterproductive. Besides it is the job of the authorities to enforce law and order. So you become disresponsible and walk away.

You see the neighbour’s teenaged son taking drugs, and do not tell his parents. You avoid responsibility for being a good social person because you are not sure what the reaction would be.

You see your best friend being corrupt and avoid informing any one. Your friend gives enough indication  of his irritation as you indirectly broach the topic. You do not want to break a friendship and yet you act disresponsibly as a friend.

You see your associate cheating his family by carrying out an illicit relationship. Do you inform his wife? You do not reason with him for he will simply deny it and accuse you of being nosy. You let things drift. You are acting disresponsibly.

If you look at the big scenario, then you are acting disresponsibly for a significant part of your life. Yet this disresponsible part is an integral part of  your life.

How can you ignore it in real life, and not put it in the language that we use? 

On Rental

Have you ever got a feeling, specially as you age that you are on rental?

Your life is of limited tenure, your professional skills may  change gradually, your relationships grow beyond and away from you, your thinking capabilities show diminished multitasking abilities, and you look at your journey having slipped over the midway line.

It makes sense that we are on rental. We cannot buy life forever, simply because there is no offer from the landlord. As we grow older, the value of life depreciates. Insurance premiums are raised, and many schemes are denied.  All employers seek those who are below 40. Air hostesses instinctively keep a hand outstretched to prevent a fall. Even on the roads, Kaku changes to Jethu and then onto Dadu. And the media reports with a horrendous glee of so many mishaps during the day. Life is getting cheaper.  Economists feel that rental is the way to go in the future. There is a wide variety of choices.

Your professional status is bought by the client. He determines your value and so your rent. This is true in the Private Sector. Government employees get fixed salaries. They are incapable of  getting higher rent. Their value is fixed by someone who does not know them and in accordance with some archaic directive.

See how cameras are being rented.Photographers need avenues of publication. So the freelancer tries to sell in the market and in a sense , the market or buyers rent him for a while.The professional sportsmen are also rented , even guys like Sachin Tendulkar. All the products he associates with, have in a way rented him and all the logos he exhibits are using him by paying a fee. The amateur exhibits wherever he can. He is trying to be rented for peer appreciation.

Apart from houses, cars, computers, furniture, DVDs and anything you can think of, even uteruses, human blood or parts of human bodies are available for rent. is there any relationship rental?

Do we rent our parents, at least on a timeshare basis? Or are we in a way, renting our children? Though there is a strong emotional level, is there a economic rental also? Or is this only timeshare rental?

Rental has its advantages. No one owns anyone. After a certain time when it suits one partner, they can walk out, leaving a window through which they may or may not come back. Rental rates are lower than outright purchases. It is better to think of relationships on rental basis. Then there will be less of heartaches and emotional baggage. There will be infinitely less recrimination and anger.

Life will be of small segments of rentals—for better or for worse!!!!!

Listen to this saucy, irreverent song from the film RENT!!!!

Take me for for what I am !!!!!!

ENNUI

 

This has been a bad week. One patient in which we had done a pleasing hip replacement, died suddenly of a massive myocardial infarction, a month after his discharge from hospital, and when he had started walking with vigour. Another patient who had Renal failure after surgery elsewhere,, and who had been successfully reoperated by us 2 years ago, and who was working at his profession, died after a fatal attack of pneumonia. Another patient developed a sudden complication which fortunately we rectified with difficulty.

The rains did come but ever so briefly. The weather remained sultry and humid. I missed important meetings. But above all was this terrible tiredness, which was like a winter smog, encompassing, surrounding me throughout  day and night making my movements sluggish and fatigued.

Sylvia Plath –the magnificent Talent

Facetiously, people blamed the weather. But this was deeper, affecting my desire to work and my enthusiasm was forced and artificial. I knew this was ennui.

Wikipedia had this to say.

The original French word Ennui, means general lack of interest, boredom or depression. It may also refer to oppressive boredom. It refers to a state of being rather than a passing mood as is generally the case with "boredom."

The solution was Home made Ilish Maacher Biryani!!!! washed down with gallons of cold water, lime and mango juice……Pluto made a beeline for the door and walking with him was cathartic, because he never lost his enthusiasm for strange new smells!!!

During this time, I ventured into poetry, the natural refuge for a Bengali—but I penned this one in English!!!!Again this ten minute sojourn was invigorating… though I would agree that the morbidity factor was overplayed…

ENNUI

We live our lives in drips and drabs,

Coffee cups and restless nights,

Doing what we did last year,

Facing the same old sights.

We wait for storms to rage and change,

Flower shells should bloom.

No lifting of  our smallest finger,

No effort to shatter gloom. 

Till one day we look and find,

Cobwebs in finger spaces,

The walk has changed to a crawl,

Dust lies in face crevices.

What stops us, I wonder still,

From shedding our outer skin,

And cleave the blue waters

Like a brazen shark fin.

Must we wait for the birds to come,

And the wind and mountain stream,

Summer skies to enroof us,

As we look at dreams.

Or should we change,and clang the Bell,

With vigour new and found,

Eyes bright and sparkling still,

Feet savouring the grassy ground.

Maybe still a galloping steed,

Will stomp upon the fields,

Warriors in shining glory shall,

Defy and will not yield.

Or will ennui win the day,

Arms lie static on the bed,

Air conditioned deaths for all,

Pictures waiting to fade.

Some day then you may find me,

A stretched out silent form,

Arms raised in rigor mortis,

Still welcoming violent storms.

Don’t waste time in grief or tears,

Write this epitaph somewhere friends,

He woke up late, but did his best,

He tried to change the trends.

 

It did not feel this long while writing it—but there it is—what ennui can do to you, if you let it get on top. It is always good to know the opposite of happiness…