IPL in South Africa

Cricket, many say, is a religion in India and cricketing stars, gods. Even detractors of cricket agree that no nation is as crazy about cricket as India is. Now something unusual is visible. The biggest antithesis to the cricket-as-religion idea is the fact that the much-made-of IPL-II had to be shifted out of India, to South Africa.

Many a patriotic Indian has raised a voice against this 'cruel' move. There have been criticisms against half-filled stadiums and the lack of festivities in this IPL season unlike the earlier one.

Personally, I am cruel enough to derive vicarious pleasure from the fact that the IPL has lost its sheen and flavour and elections, for example, have overshadowed this perennial crowd-puller to such an extent that questions are being raised about the kind of gimmicks the BCCI has resorted to in order to improve TV ratings. Why did the cash-rich arrogant BCCI refuse ICC's offer of expertise on tackling match-fixing issues? What is the truth behind the Rajasthan-Kolkata match ending in a tie from nowhere and concluding with super-overs? This match, for example, had all trappings of a 'saas-bahu' serial or shall I say, top-rated reality shows, so well stage-managed.

I am glad the Indian Political League has paled the Indian Premier League this time and the former has turned out to contain all the 'masala' of a Bollywood blockbuster and has managed to sustain interest for so long. Only long after May 16, when election results will start appearing, does the latter IPL have any chance.

Mr.Lalit Modi has been reprimanded by a court for leaving India without taking its permission. Now who will reprimand him for taking the IPL out of India without the people's permission?

Elections in India

I had never been able to come to terms with the hypocrisy and drama of politics ever before this election season. Having studied at the Jawaharlal Nehru university, where politics seeps into every nook and cranny and anybody with half a discerning eye can see through the farce of how students with no deep knowledge of a particular party's ideology meander into it so casually and become its vehement proponents or how staunch supporters of parties go to any extent to malign the opponents and where, yet the profound principles of democracy are so zealously guarded across the political spectrum, I had become deeply cynical about the humdrum and hullabaloo of elections in India and its attached hypocrisies and brazen divorce from principles, and any talk of Indian politics or elections only brought wry smiles on my face signaling the sense of despair at the futility of it all.

However, the 2009 elections have helped me get over this cynicism and this is in no small measure ascribable to the extremely nosy and noisy media and the high sense of awareness that the Indian electorate has now displayed. This is shown right from the fact that 'leaders' have become wary of shoe-hurling media men or members of the audience, to the fact that the public (janta) has become king (janardhan) in the true sense now. Having taken the people so seriously during elections under full media glare this time, the vote-seeking politician can hardly hibernate after the elections. People, both urban and rural, have joined hands with the media to grill the 'neta' like never before. The rough and tumble of the rigmarole of elections have led to many a politician across the spectrum being caught on the wrong foot and being forced to retract from casual politically-wrong utterances.

Democracy has truly arrived in the world's largest democracy and this 2009 festival of democracy is greatest proof of this.

I truly regret being unable to vote this time!

This Week's Lessons

The Politics of Hatred

Recent news suggest more than one instance of people being made pawns in the game of politics where only the politician has something to gain and no one else. The pawns who take all this so seriously in the name of loyalty and sycophancy get affected in the process, often much more than they could have ever imagined. Much in the same way, at office or work, we see this happen in small proportions.

The politics of hate has much to do with the way we think- exclusive instead of inclusive. We spend far too much time in our island-selves and often forget that there are genuine people outside these islands - people who probably deserve much more applause than you do. Often, we become so self-centred in our existences that we forget the compulsions that others have.

Another thing that comes to the mind from this week's observation is the fact that often people discuss people more than they discuss ideas. This is such a pity because it is ideas that differentiate the buck from the muck. Let us try to discuss ideas more often and people less often.

Third, is the old communist idea that comes to mind. The all-knowing, all-pervasive, omnipotent state thinks it should take from each the most they can give and give to each the least they need to survive. Does this rule apply for all states? Is this the ideal for administrators all over? I wonder!

I hope to be able to write more often. It is truly cathartic!

Customer is King?

Supermarkets are like televisions…
When you see much variety and choice,
You get overwhelmed and think
Ah! Yes customer is king!
But scratch your head and see again
You only can buy what is sold
And much of what is sold, buy you won’t
Just as on TV, they show you a lot of trash
And in flipping channels for more, you imitate
Life’s story of seeking the beyond. And yet
When you stop to see, you can
Never see what you wanted to see – you merely
Choose from what they think you should see…
God bless you for thinking you are king!
The king in real is the one who owns
The channel that hoodwinks you into thinking
It shows all you wanted to see…
The king in real is he who owns
The shop that outwits you into thinking
It sells all you wanted to buy…
Hmm! Customer is king? Neat deception!
Deepesh Chandrasekharan

Insensitivity in Leaders

Two things that struck me in news recently are one that happened in the US and another that seems to happen in Bengal.
The US President, George W Bush, the World’s First Citizen (WFC), made a very ‘intelligent’ remark the other day about the prospering middle class in India and also in China eating more these days and as a result, contributing to the food crisis. The problem I have with that statement from the WFC is that it sounds very insensitive – as insensitive as Marie Antoinette’s remark during the French Revolution, that people who don’t have bread should eat cakes… What prompted WFC to make that remark were surely accusations that his biofuels policy was responsible for this crisis. In his enthusiasm to provide an alternative cause, he has banked on this brainwave of an argument which economists are not buying. Does WFC know where India and China appear on the globe? Does WFC care what living conditions prevail in these nations? Does WFC treat people in the two most populous nations as mere numbers in his statistics charts or does he care if they exist? Shame on WFC!
Secondly, I have seen a few reports on how terror reigns in Nandigram in West Bengal, that bastion of the Red salute party which likes to make much propaganda of their scruples and their firm faith in secularism. If the reports are to be believed, the Muslims in Nandigram are suffering as much as the Muslims did and do in Gujarat, the bastion of the Saffron salute party. I wonder if the two parties concerned have faith in Democracy and in the belief that voices should not be stifled. I wonder why the Press that misses no opportunity to assert its freedom, is relatively so quiet in this case! Lord Acton‘s prophecy, “Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely” comes to my mind.

Growing Up With Money

No one would doubt the importance of money in a country that boasts the highest Per Capita Income in the world and also a large population of migrant workers, here for attractive tax-free salaries. Yes, money does matter here!

Being a teacher in a responsible school (and not a literacy factory), I am aware of four and five year olds in the school being taken to a toy store on a set date with a set amount of money and being allowed to decide what to buy with that portion of their money. They are made aware of the sense of carrying money with them and spending it sensibly as part of curricular activity. Now, purists may question the sagacity of such methods of education, but learning to handle money is, to my mind, as it is the educationists behind the idea, an important life skill and the school (like all schools should) yearns to facilitate the picking up of all essential life skills at school. Children here, in Qatar, discuss money very early in life. Even discussions among ten year old children often hover around gadgets, automobiles or fashionable accessories that often pinch parents’ pockets anaesthetically.

Hence, while I think it a good thing that children talk and think about money responsibly, I also feel it is imperative for us to not lose sight of the flip side. And this flip side is the responsibility of our society, beginning with the child’s family and school.

First is the danger of money’s abundance going to the head. The tendency to splurge on oneself thoughtlessly and the gross unwillingness to part with even a little for others is a dangerous one. Children won’t learn much of value if parents think that giving them money unquestioned and unhindered is the best way to shower love on them. While parents who earmark a reasonable amount of money for their child every month or year are teaching them the value of looking up to money that they can spend sensibly, those who don’t rein in the amount given as cash to their kids are teaching their children to take money for granted. Needless to say, it is often these children, who have lost sight of the value of money that end up taking life for granted too. In the absence of meaningful goals in life, they grow up as parasites on their parents and feel no need to do well themselves in life. Children need to be taught that all money is hard-earned and is not to be spent irresponsibly.

But again, this should not lead to a Scrooge-like inability to share. One should take a leaf or two from the experiences of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and see how becoming rich and contributing to alleviation of suffering are not contradictory. One needn’t look too far to find children flaunting the latest I-Pods and mobiles at social gatherings and yet hesitating to contribute to the ‘Red Crescent’ or ‘Reach Out’ causes at school.

Even the omnipresent tendency to suspect everyone’s intentions is a fall-out of this inability to come to terms with richness. Children can’t believe acts of generosity that they encounter themselves and often ask the question, “What’s in it for me?” before they undertake tasks which are not overtly profitable. As adults, we are to blame for this. The talk that we have at home in the presence of our children centres on the need to accumulate money. The greed for money is picked up by children as a life-long value this way. In this context, one of the ironies of our society is the fact that exhorbitant cash rewards are offered to those who find missing pets and yet causes which need philanthropic deeds have few takers.

The menace of thinking solely about oneself has to be countered and one must begin with the child. Children need to be taught the value of prudence in spending without, at the same time, losing sight of the need to care and share. Even if they learn to treat people who “serve’ them, with respect, the first step is taken. The clichéd idea of money not being our master but our slave is surely not outdated or irrelevant.

A Man's World?

Let me begin with a confession. When on March 08 each year, the world (or a part of it) pays lip-service to women and their rights, I ponder on it too. But that’s not my confession- the confession follows.

I wonder with childish amazement at the words of wise people who say that it’s a man’s world.

I have faint memories of a man’s world, when in my childhood, my formidable father decided for everyone in the house, including my mother, then the epitome of composure, and no one dared to even think of the situation differently. It was silently understood that no one else was capable of decision-making.

Even at college, when I gave my heart away to the love of my life (my wife now), I didn’t see what lay in store for me, and raised my voice in public platforms supporting the feminist movement with firm conviction. My friends wouldn’t dare make politically-incorrect, male-chauvinistic utterances in my presence.

But today, I stand a sobered man. The two slices of life- work and home- that make up my sandwich existence today are ruled by formidable women. I am now fully resigned to the fact that men don’t deserve power, because they have no inkling how to handle it, and by definition, power and decision-making are words synonymous with women. If ever there is or was a situation otherwise, it is an aberration that has to be rectified. Straddled between a sharp, decisive wife at home and a formidable, firm boss at work (who is well, a lady too) I stand comfortably on firm ground, with the glow of satisfaction at the situation of not having to make decisions at all.

Not having to carry the onerous burden of having to decide, I have smugly settled down to the more crucial area of implementation, and have learnt all the nitty-gritty of this very important task. I must admit though, that my two bosses (at home and at work) have very graciously simplified the implementation process for me, by letting me know, each time a decision has been made by their esteemed selves, the step-by-step method of carrying out the task. I have been conditioned (without placing any blame on the ‘conditioners’) to never deviate from the laid out path. I merely need to walk down.

It has been an enriching learning experience. I have learnt the nuances of meaning that each rise of the eyebrow, each wry smile and each clearing of throat indicate. I have understood that my life’s mission is to replicate what has been instructed to me by my two bosses.

And added to my personal privilege, is the fact that my employer has accommodated my wife and me in a portion of a villa among three villas, otherwise wholly allotted to our lady colleagues. These villas are christened ‘ladies villas’ collectively. I carry the additional burden of guilt for being the lone intruder in an otherwise orderly part of the world. I really know that I live in a woman’s world today.

Nonetheless, a smile often slips out of my mouth, both when I think of my college days or see television footage of people fighting for women rights.

Happy Women’s Day!