Mansi

I have always tried to understand why I need to be heard. It is a malaise that I am aware of but sometimes completely helpless against.
Example: blogging
When I began to blog I received comments, good and bad. The negative ones though stuck with me. I searched and scanned my blogs for negative feedback. From potshots at the usability on my site to language to length of posts, there were many.
Despite the brickbats, I still enjoyed blogging.

My last two posts however have received bouquets. First, a rant from a reader who hates Prannoy Roy and scared me with just how much. The second, a person who I think has always seen me as one step off the edge, telling me that this was my best yet.

I am tickled by it all. What can I say - thank you my dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, thank you!
LOL

I've recently had a growing list of things I want to blog about. Putting it down here for all of you to see, if not read about, will help ease my anxiety levels a little. So bear with me.
1. Rahul Gandhi's interview
2. Kal
3. Love stories and Indian cinema
4. ....

I can't even remember the list any more. Now that I have put them down, each of the topics are jumping up and down to be fulfilled. However I am going to stick with a single theme that might run in and around all of the above topics...and then perhaps I can come back to each when I have more time.

At work, I got to share a bit of Covey's '8th Habit' with the team at large. Deepan and I spent a whole day Saturday discussing my relationship with my parents. Be it the Newspaper or television, one cannot escape the Chappel vs Ganguly drama. And then, there's Rahul Gandhi's interview sticking out like Bart Simpson's butt (which seems to be the only thing left in that ridiculous excuse of a cartoon worth advertising about).
I've spent a good part of my teens and early twenties wondering if I have what it takes to be a leader. This particular behaviour is a result of being partially if not completely addicted to self-help/self-management books. Every book, every self-test, every comment and quotation got me asking the question again and again until I met my objective. I managed to answer the question in a firm No and thus cultivated a healthy reserve of self-pity that will probably last me a lifetime.
Reading Rahul Gandhi's interview, I immediately identified with his brand of self-pity too. After all it takes one self-pity hoarder to know another. We all do brandish it in our own ways and his 'informal' interview does bring out his own. While many took serious offense to his 'prime minister at 25' comment, I didn't. There is no surprice in absurdities anymore, why should this be any different?
Were we to accept that Rahul Gandhi will be our prime minister, the next question in our minds would be (borrowing from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's answer of Musharaf), can we do business with him?
Fact - Rahul Gandhi is all of 34 years when he gave the interview in Tehelka.
Fact - Rahul Gandhi did not become Prime Minister at 25.
Yet, Rahul baba gave the interview as a 25 year old. Rahul, like me (x years ago) is in a time warp. He has been the Prime Minister of India in his head. When he turned down the notion at 25, a part of his mind jumped up and grabbed it and in time it has grown into a life of it's own. This reminds me of my father's tumor in his brain that was being fed by the most intricate of blood vessels. Life only gives life. It does not understand good from bad. In time, tumors might threaten the very life of its source (the most absurd of absurdities) but it does happen. And so it did happen with Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul baba in his interview goes to all lengths to convince us of the path he wanted and ultimately took. Yet, all the learning, all the experience hasn't sunk in. He's still a 25 year old who wants to be crowned Prime Minister.
Were we to flip the mirrors away from Rahul baba and towards ourselves, perhaps we will see our own delusions regarding his Prime Ministership. Perhaps we have too encouraged the Prime Minister in him each time we see him.
Yet, we must return to our current Prime Minister's practical wisdom and ask the question, is this a man we can do business with?
My answer is no. Even were we both to drain the life supply of our Prime Ministerships, once the fog clears we will see a large deficient. Rahul Gandhi's interview brought out a lack of character. It was deja vu since we can see in Rahul baba, remnants of his father minus the leo charm. At 34, he seems as green as he might have been at 25. One could interpret it as a unique ability to retain one's 'child'. I think not. Rahul Gandhi is a child who has stopped growing. Burdened by baggage of his own choosing, he is ready now to use it to wallop our Indian world. His interview is a clear statement to Indians that he's ready to step out. This is no mature, intelligent, quiet man. This is a burdened soul who's batting with us, despite himself.
A lot like Ganguly too who recently is looking pretty good with his new hair cut and glasses. The only thing I have liked about Ganguly is his elegant 4s and 6s. I speak of it as in the past since it has been a matter of the past. Everything else is attributed to one attribute, and one attribute alone - LUCK. Cricket lovers who are not into statistics or quality or skill too much all understand what it means to have a captain's LUCK. How many times have I heard my uncles talk about having a captain with 'luck'.
In the recent war between Ganguly and Chappel, everybody's got their hands in the air, waving frantically, to be given the chance to speak of how Ganguly is one of our best captains ever. To most of us, entrenched in our work, mostly MNCs, globalization-induced, this means that Ganguly has the ability to deliver quality. To my uncles it just means luck. There is a huge growing section of youth who are working in MNCs and successful Indian companies who are imbibing a different culture. They look to the West and the East and are imbibing issues of quality and commitment. To them, success is measured as per their filtered glasses. To them, this hogwash about Ganguly being the best captain we've had means something completely different from what it actually is.
To them, I would say, please take those damn shades off.
The cricketing culture in this country is as pathetic and quality-less as any other facet of our lives. The politics, the betting, the leaks, the loops all point to a large malaise. To have Greg Chapell dispel of it in a seven page email is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg.
To all those who sympathize with Ganguly, I would say - Enough. We cannot be ruled by our emotional swings. We need to understand the complete absense of quality and transparency within the Cricketing world. We need to understand that our traditional maxims around 'Guru' is absolutely rubbished today. The irony of this term was wonderfully displayed in the movie Iqbal where Girish Karnad was 'Guruji'.
Where does Ganguly get off speaking to the media about his captaincy? How can we let the Board get away with leaking confidential reports?
On some channel, I heard of cricketeers speak of using the right channels, where in email was considered inappropriate. This is completely laughable. In this day and age if there is a faction amongst us who considers email informal...... really!!! And then there are those who have a problem with understanding Chapell's comments given only two months as coach. Well!!! Are we really all idiots to buy that one? In the case of Chapell, I think it's been a case of from the frying pan into the fire and please, don't blame him if he's trying to alarm the nation of the fire in our cricketing bellies.
Underneath the players and the coach lies the root of this disease, the blood vessel that feeds this monstrous cricketing culture that is Indian and that is the Board. From selections to elections, there is a far darker and sinister play going on. I am scared. Aren't you?

Will somebody ask Prannoy Roy to quit????

The NDTV 9'oclock news is turning me into a media-hating Medusa. With the case of electricity tarriffs, to collapsing buildings in Mumbai and then to the stint in Afghanistan, we do not need George Bush or his government's fear therapy. We have our own home grown democratic gremlin- NDTV to do the above and more.

Case 1 - Protests against electricity tariffs: NDTV's mirch formula: The Great Indian Middle Class is against privatization. I feel sorry for the chap who gets invited every evening - -each show, he seems to improve on his technique to cram in 'No Privatization without competition' in just as fewer seconds as possible without having an NDTV correspondent pounce on the word privatization.
Does Dr Roy even care about 'No privatization without competition'? All he wants to do is join the whipping line and add a few personal blows to what he patronizingly calls 'the Great Indian Middle Class'.

Case 2 - Collapsing buildings in Mumbai: NDTV's mirch formla: X number of people's lives in threat and the Mumbai government finally wakes up! If this isn't the grossest example of misinformation. While dilapidated buildings have been declared such for years and years, it is the residents within the buildings who refuse to budge. The fact that these buildings survived the rains is amazing. However, if they were to tomorrow begin to fall down like a pack of cards, I will be damned if I am asked as the Great Indian Middle Class to pay up for 'relief' efforts.

What has Mumbai afterall come down to? Torrential rains, flooding, gross mismanagement of disaster relief, falling buildings - - and amidst of it all, all the media channels are on 24 hour alerts to continue to display the Mumbai spirit - with the Janmashtami celebrations this past weekend ( where every year more than 60 Govindas are hospitalized and quite a few of them lose their lives) and the upcoming Ganesha celebrations. The next person who comes to me with sound bits on the 'Mumbai Spirit' is going to get smacked!

NDTV's 24X7 is fast losing it's share of eyeballs. Hindi channels, a new one is launched every week, are dominating news in the North. South Indian news channels ( Asianet - that is my absolute favorite) and other South Indian channels that also do News dominate the market in the South.
So where does NDTV's 24X7 go?

Me thinks the obvious logic (even if it isn't as obvious in NDTV's branding) is to go International. 24X7 can be the BBC World for Indians. Sadly, mere-copying of digital effects from the BBC will not suffice.

Case 3: Prime Minister's visit to Afghanistan - -
In every foreign stint, NDTV's broadcasts project a sense of impending fear and danger to their reporters. If anybody followed the Afghanistan story closely, the fear levels projected were akin to NDTV's recent stint interviewing key leaders of the LTTE in Sri Lanka. To me, it's quite hilarious that a channel gearing up to be India's premier International news channel, while on foreign assignments, displays the heart of Punjab's official state bird. The reporters have no grasp of international history. There is no sensitivity to ground sensibilities (and please don't tell me Barkha Dutt has a grip on Kashmiri sentiment!!!). Last night, Dr. Roy greeted his afghani foot soldier - Amitav, with relief oozing out every pore on his body. "Afghanistan is so dangerous - we're glad to have made contact with you, dear loyal NDTV reporter'. Forget the occasion - An Indian PM visits Afghanistan! No, NDTV is quite happy spreading the fear of Afghani soil. To my best judgement, I doubt Amitav strayed too far from the official Indian delegation's to-dos -- and yet, Dr. Roy felt it pertinent to ask if 'People in Afghanistan truly support democracy' - - HA HA HA - - Like Amitav would know.
And of course when faced with no answer, Amitav in true reporting fashion, replied with such zeal, you'd think the Afghanis were democratic by birth!

(Let's not forget how they sat and watched when Buddha was blown up)

Every time Dr. Roy comes to read the 9pm news - the device that scrolls the content always breaks down - or so it seems - for Dr. Roy is always faltering for words, expressions and when lost, he then injects his fast dilipidating personal sense -- The outcome is nothing short of goofy -- and this coming from our premier News channel (or so they would think )!

Somebody tell Dr. Roy to just up and quit! And bring on his disenchanted pupil - Rajdeep Sardesai -- I'll take his indignant panting for Dr. Roy's syrupy dialogue any day!