Justice Ganguly - why did you play a reverse sweep on the last day in office ?????

We were all jumping with joy when Justice Ganguly cancelled all the 122 licenses issued by Raja. We felt he nailed the last nail in UPA government’s coffin. But the euphoria didn’t last long as my wicked friend walked in with a grumpy look on his face. He was livid because according to him Justice Ganguly bailed UPA government out of the 2G mess.

I was shocked but based on my previous experiences with him, wanted to know why. Here is his analysis.

The whole 2G scam and the adverse perceptions are completely based on the magic figure of the loss estimated by CAG at 1,76,000 Crores. A common man will only remember this number and will not bother about other technicalities. Left to itself, this number would have haunted Congress and the UPA till the next election in 2014.

By canceling the licenses and ordering a fresh issue within 4 months, Justice Ganguly gave an opportunity for Congress to auction these. Now, what happens ? Any corporate with its senses right will never venture into telecom sector and if somebody does, they will never bid a high amount. In all probability, the auctioned licenses will get not more than the fixed amount obtained before cancellation.

This will throw the estimated loss figure of 1,76,000 Crores out of the window. Congress will go to town singing the song that Kapil Sibal was right when he said there was Zero loss. This will take the wind out of the 2G scam for ever !!!!!

I was completely paralyzed by this analysis. Now I have a question for Justice Ganguly - You batted your entire career with a Straight bat but why did you play the reverse sweep off the last ball ??

Is Sachin a dreaded “ 6 letter word ” ?

We have lost another test by an innings and again everybody is giving his expert suggestions. Bishen Singh Bedi was lamenting as if his close relative or friend died at a very young age and Saurav suddenly started preaching about how to win on overseas pitches.  Kapil Dev completely forgot that he frustrated even small babies for 2 years to take 34 wickets (in 32 innings) to achieve the record of 434 wickets and talked about why young blood should replace Dravid and Laxman.

But, surprisingly everyone was silent on Sachin. They saw what none of us saw - fluent batting!!!!!! He is equally old and was worse than Dravid in the number of runs scored in Perth. If Dravid got bowled in both innings, he was LBW in both. How does that make him better ? Nobody is asking for his blood. 

Fortunately for selectors, ICC did what selectors could never do. Dhoni got one match ban.    Going forward, we should request ICC to ban all eleven players whenever there is a slip up. That way, we can play new teams very frequently.

Indian cricket team is like Indian politics now. Nobody wants to govern the country and nobody wants to captain the cricket team. 

The blame game was also quite interesting. Duncan Fletcher was done to death. I am wondering why we didn’t blame Gautam Gambhir’s wife ? After his marriage he has refused to spend more time on the pitch. Is this not fatal attraction ? I believe Sachin’s son was also there bowling to Indian batsmen and misleading them about the pace of the 22 yard playing surface.

In all this frustration, only one man is very happy. Our own Bajji. He must be thanking his stars for being not selected for this tour. 

As far as Sachin is concerned, whether he plays some more tests or not, for now he can kiss the “Bharat Ratna” award good bye.

Sehwag will make a great Statistics Teacher

The way Sehwag is batting in Australia, it is only a matter of time before he has to find some other profession to make a living. Since he already owns an international school, he has an opportunity to become a great teacher in Statistics.

One of the concepts the kids struggle to understand in Statistics is Mean, Median, Mode and Standard Deviation. It is always very difficult to give examples of how a Mean can be a big number when the Mode can represent a small number and how a standard deviation can be used to show poor level of consistency.

Sehwag has to just write down his scores in the last 5 years and every kid will become  a master in Statistics. Probably, it will be the only example in the world of mathematics where Mean can be as high as 50+ and Mode a guaranteed 0. Standard Deviation will probably go through the roof.

So, Sehwag has really got something to make a living. What will Kohli do ? I think teaching Piano may be a good option where “Fingers” can be used effectively. Since Ashwin may not make it big in Cricket, teaching Carrom is the next best option. Anyway, he is familiar with carrom ball - he just needs to change the balls to coins.

Laxman can become a groundsman as you may have noticed how he taps the pitch hundred times before every ball is bowled. He can also choose to be a priest as he is good at muttering lots of prayers when batting. 

Dravid can be a quality inspector in any wood cutting industry and can tell how a wood is cut just by hearing the sound. His ears are tuned to the sound after being bowled so many times in the last ten test matches.

So, when these cricketers retire or forced to retire, they do have an alternate profession. As far as Scahin is concerned, no comments. May be he will play a few more years following in the foot steps of Kapil Dev (who frustrated everybody to death) and probably my grandson or granddaughter will watch him scoring that hundredth century that we are all looking forward to.

Why this “Middle Finger di ?”

The Middle Finger is in the news recently although for all the wrong reasons. It is quite unfortunate that a part of God’s own creation is not given equal importance. All other fingers are used for various purposes and people don’t take offense to them.

Umpires sometimes give completely wrong decisions using the forefinger. Nobody objects to it even if it is used against our own Sachin. We have all used our little finger many times during our childhood to show desperate situations and our teachers have understood and respected it by allowing us to run to the toilet. Children have used their thumb effectively and we call them cute when they are caught sucking it. Another finger which is just next to our villain is the most respected and used for wearing the wedding ring. 

As you can see, all fingers have respect - although some more than the other - except our dear Middle Finger.  When people try to give respect to it by raising it, you are fined big time  - sometimes lakhs as Kohli found out recently.

Looks like Middle Finger can do nothing right on its own. Then why did god give this to us ? Every child is told right from day one not to use this but nobody tells why it is there in the first place if it is not to be used.

Probably the only explanation is that it is a very powerful weapon of mass destruction. If used even for a few seconds, it  will be known world wide. It also attracts the attention of everybody around the world. Everybody and his or her uncle knows what it stands for.

Only the brave can use it and it is not for weak hearted people. 

Now my respect for it has gone up multifold. Thanks Kohli and Ishant. You two have made the Middle Finger proud.

Has Cricket become the play ground of jokers like Mihir Bose and Boria Majumdar ?

Any school kid who is watching debates on TV channels about India’s loss in Australia will immediately run and burn all the cricket gears. I think the “supposed to be experts” on cricket are no better than investment experts on CNBC.

It is a complete comedy when the “so called cricketers” like Atul Wassan and Arun Lal join hands with the football shaped Boria Majumdar and a comedian called Mihir Bose to analyse Indian batting and question the honesty of cricketers.

Till a few days back the same set of guys were hailing the trio of Sachin, VVS Laxman and Dravid. Today, they want their replacements. Till recently Dhoni was Captain Cool - now he is called Captain Clueless.

After all, what has happened for us to jump around like monkeys ? We are losing to a good team like Australia just like good teams get beaten in India. If we can’t play pace, they can’t play spin. Each team is a tiger in its territory. Has any team beaten Sri Lanka in their backyard consistently ?

Now, suddenly we clamour for youth. With the type of analysis and character assassination these guys do, no young cricketer can make it big. We just don’t allow them to succeed. Before scoring centuries, both Hussey and Ponting were on the verge of losing their place. Clarke had failed a dozen times before coming good. But, we can’t tolerate Dravid failing in three innings. We want Sachin to score only centuries - Even sixties and seventies are called failures. Every test defeat is termed national shame. Even England had lost many test matches in a row before becoming the top test team in the world. 

Look at the cricketers who are giving expert advice. Arun Lal - 729 runs in 29 test innings and 122 runs in 13 ODIs & Atul Wassan - 10 wickets in 4 test matches and 11 wickets in 9 ODIs. Add to this, Boria Majumdar whose only qualification is that his face is as round as a cricket ball (although a little bigger with lesser shade of red) and Mihir Bose whose only claim to fame is that he is from London and lives closer to Lord’s cricket ground.

The only way forward is to ban these guys from commenting on cricket. It would be nice if Arnab Goswami sticks to his instigating tactics in political field only. Can’t we treat cricket as a sport and start enjoying without getting hyper.

Thank god, I am not a cricketer.

Are We Eternal Cribbers ??

According to my wicked friend, we Indians search for a reason to crib and be unhappy. For some unknown reason, we want all good things to happen to us always. I first dismissed his observation but when I thought over it I could see sense in what my friend was telling.

Let us look at cricket. Till a few years ago, we were very happy to win against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. We experienced ecstasy whenever we won against Pakisthan. Slowly we started becoming greedy and now we want to win every test match, every one day match, every T-20. We don’t seem to understand that other countries also have some ambition and they also put efforts to achieve their goals.

Take international relations. Till a few years back, we were still a developing country. Not long ago we had reached a stage where government was pledging gold to save the economy. But, now we want to rub shoulders with developed countries and get annoyed when US doesn’t treat us like an equal partner.

When it comes to military, we refuse to believe that China is far more advanced just because we got free only in 1947 from the British and there is lot to catch up. We always compare ourselves with China and start cribbing why we can’t be like them.

Sometimes, our sorrows extend to even good things that we have. We have the best democracy (it is another matter whether we deserve it) but we blame that also for all the corruption and sins in the society. We are sad that we are not Singapore.

What is that which makes us so unhappy ? I don’t know the answer. But, I certainly know what makes us temporarily very proud of ourselves - Sachin’s century.

Mera Bharat Mahan

Happy (??) New year

Good morning 2012. 

My wicked friend’s prediction for New Year -

Sachin will finally score his hundredth century and we will all forget Melbourne disaster. TV channels will code and decode his life - how he proved he was a genius right from childhood by holding his diaper like a cricket bat etc for at least one week.

By then, we would have seen a few more batting disasters from Indian team and we will start talking about VVS Laxman’s age, Virat Kohli’s extra curricular nocturnal activities, Shewag’s arrogance and  Gambhir’s bad luck post marriage and why Manoj Tiwari should replace somebody in the team.

Thankfully, by mid Feb, our focus will shift to  elections in Uttar Pradesh and “yuvraj” Rahul Gandhi will start getting eye balls. Every body and his or her grandmother will be on TV predicting election results of 5 states going to polls. Hopefully, Anna and team will be back on TV. I am missing Shazia Ilmi very badly already.

Petrol prices will go up again and economic slowdown will continue but Montek will continue to sing that we are on the right path. Mamta will continue to ruin the sleep of Congress leaders. Meanwhile, some more countries in Europe will run to Germany for help and soon the toughest question on KBC would be “what is Euro ?”

BJP and Congress will continue to disrupt parliament and we will continue to wonder why our politicians are not yet thrown to Arabian sea. It is now time for us to worry about the end of the world - remember 21st December 2012 !!!!. All the more reason for everybody in government to loot everything because anyway there will be nothing to loot after the ‘D’ day.

If we are lucky, we might get one more great bum shaking song from either Katrina or Kareena. Unfortunately, no famous actress (my wicked friend doesn’t believe Lara Dutta or Celina Jaitley as either famous or actress) is known to be pregnant yet and no celebrity birth

Now we know what to expect in the new year.  Happy New year.

Anna - will you end up as the Abhimanyu of today’s Mahabharata ?

My wicked friend who is an ardent follower of Anna, has started throwing up whenever he sees the three musketeers on TV - Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan. These  three characters have destroyed the old man Anna both physically and mentally. 

Poor Anna is not able to come out of their shackles and struggling. Now he will be forced to do something which will destroy all his reputation once and for all - Campaigning against Congress in assembly polls.

The argument of the three cronies which is parroted by other members of India Against Corruption is the most ridiculous argument ever heard in modern history. Every time they defend their action against Congress, they leave a huge trail of evidence to show that they are working for BJP. Nobody would have bothered about their views but unfortunately they are using Anna’s shoulders to fire their bullets. Here are a few of the contradictions.

They want the Lokpal at the centre but will not utter a word when the bill tries to include Lokayuktas in the state also. BJP doesn’t want this and the three cartoons don’t say a word.

They want Prime Minister under Lokpal but the best Lokayukta passed by BJP excludes the Chief Minister. The three are silent on this and have not uttered one word against this.

They want C and D category under Lokpal. But most Lokayuktas don’t have C and D categories. Again deafening silence.

In one breath, they say the problems of common man has to be solved but in another breath they want control over CBI. It is the Lokayuktas which handle your day to day problem and they don’t have anything to say against states which have no Lokayukta. Gujarat is a classic case of no Lokayukta. 

The ultimate insult to intelligence is when people like Kirron Kher and Anupam Kher start participating in debates. They are doing more harm to Anna than any good. They are strengthening the belief that Anna is working for BJP. The only saving grace is the pretty face of Shazia Ilmi. Atleast, she wears designer dresses for TV debates and is there on all channels with a smile.

Poor Anna is like Abhimanyu. He has got into a chakravyuh and but struggling to come out. Let us just pray that his fate will not be the same as that of Abhimanyu.

Not everybody’s brain is in the head

The feeling one goes through when parliament is in session is like a ‘bollywood movie’. You can smile, sob, laugh loudly and cry in a span of one hour. Anyway, parliament is not working beyond one hour these days.

One just can’t but admire the innovative ways that our politicians adopt to stall work. The latest reason is “Russia is banning Bhagwat Gita”. Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav was jumping up and down on this issue. What he doesn’t realize is that Lord Krishna would himself have banned it in India if he could take another ‘avatar’ today.

Jayalalitha has proved once and for all that you don’t need brain to be a Chief minister. For her, there is no difference between her slippers, sarees and nuclear plant. Everything is considered gifts and she can own and disown them whenever she wants.

The Leaders of BJP have also proved that brain is an unwanted organ of the body. First they boycott Chidambaram and don’t allow him to speak in Parliament. Then they move a privilege motion because he spoke outside parliament when the Parliament is in session !!!.

Less said about Congress leaders, the better. All that they have done in the last 2 years proves that brain was never used to run the country. Add to the above woes, Barka Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Arnab Goswami and  Rahul Kanwal - you have a plateful.

My wicked friend is praying that the satellites which beam the signal go dead for a few days so that we have some respite. Amen !

It is not easy to be an Indian

I was away from blogging for more than two months now. But, it appears very little has happened - Anna continues to threaten government with fasting everyday. Kiran Bedi and Co quickly clarify that “only Anna” will be fasting. Somebody gets slapped for inflation and Mohandas Pai continues to make a fool of himself on TV by trying to relate completely unrelated things - now we know why Narayana Murthy denied him Director’s post in Infosys.

Dhanush (Rajnikant’s son-in-law) has gifted us a “Kolaveri” word which can be used billion times in our everyday life. Veena Malik has tried to show whatever “assets” she has. Meanwhile, our “sardar” spinner is robbed of his passport also - I guess somebody is trying to make sure that he doesn’t go to Australia even if all our bowlers are injured. Yuvraj has managed a sympathy wave for himself. Pity, he is not contesting in any elections.

Sachin continues to make us wait. I guess he will not score his 100th century unless the government assures him of Bharat Ratna title. Vinod Kambli has given hope to millions of Ranji trophy cricketers that one day they can also comment on cricket in NEO cricket channel - level of cricket analysis is falling faster than Indian Rupee against dollar. 

Finally, Congress has given up on Indian Aviation industry. They have got rid of it by giving the ministry to Ajit Singh - what a bargain buy for congress !! Mamta Banerjee is now confused - one day she has to blame congress for fuel price hike, next day CPM for hospital fire, third day again congress for FDI and fourth day again CPM for “Hooch” tragedy. Imagine, if BJP was also a big party in Bengal what would have been her fate - Seven days in a week would not have been sufficient.

Finally, Montek Singh continues to blabber that economy is resilient and inflation will come under control soon. Now, you see why it is not easy to be an Indian. Thankfully, THE YEAR IS COMING TO AN END.

Merry Christmas and a very happy new year.

Anna, for heaven’s sake stop acting like a small kid

My wicked friend is the most disillusioned person today. He was in the fore front of Anna’s fast and was delighted after the fast ended with the promise of Lokpal bill in winter session of parliament.

However, last few weeks have been very cruel to him. He was miffed by the ‘childish’ logic of Arvind Kejriwal about campaigning against Congress in Hissar. He is equally sad that both Kiran Bedi and Kejriwal continue to abuse Congress ministers when they depend on them for passing the bill.

He just can’t understand the logic of Kejriwal. In one breath he says he wanted to put pressure on Congress and hence campaigning against them in Hissar and at the same time he doesn’t hesitate to abuse the same congress in every forum he gets. Common sense says you don’t abuse the person from whom you are expecting something to be done.

Anna again did another blunder. He went into “Maun Vrat”. Ideally he should have asked his famous trio of Kejriwal, Bedi and Prashanth Bhushan to do Maun Vrat for at least six months. So, the net result - foot in the mouth comments by the trio over and over again. All the good work done during the famous fast ruined in a few days.

My friend thinks Anna is equally jobless like me. Otherwise, why would he keep threatening like a small kid that he would go for another fast if Lokpal bill is not passed in the winter session ? Congress knows very well what happened during the last fast and there is no need to keep telling that there would be another fast. By repeating this every day, even the most ardent fans of Anna are getting very embarrassed.

For a change, Anna should talk about upcoming India -West Indies cricket series. Because when it comes to cricket, we can talk endlessly especially after our recent revenge victory over England.

Is Destiny another name for Foolishness

We have a habit of disguising our foolishness and blaming it on destiny. We have a house help who is sixty plus - we call her Mrs. B and she earns Rs. 4,000 a month (roughly USD 70 a month). She is not in the best of health and we make sure that she doesn’t do anything which tires her.

Her son earns a salary of approximately Rs. 12,000 and the family of 5 is run with an income of Rs. 16,000 per month. This obviously puts them in a low income category and gives them all the right to abuse our finance minister for not being able to manage inflation. She blames destiny for her present state. They don’t spend money for accommodation as she is staying in her own house which is built on a 1200 sq ft plot the market value of which today is Rs. 75 lakhs !!!!!.

During one of her ‘minister bashing morning” my wicked friend who visits us frequently couldn’t resist but point out to her that she can easily move into upper middle class if she wanted. Here is the solution offered by my friend to her. Sell the property for 72 lakhs and invest in State bank of India fixed deposit at interest rate of 9.75% per annum. This will get her a monthly interest of Rs. 60,000 and with her son’s salary of Rs. 12,000 she has now Rs. 72,000 per month. Even if she takes a 3 bedroom house on rent which costs Rs. 18,000 a month, her remaining money of more than 50,000 will allow her to lead a great life from TODAY. All this with 75 lakhs still in the bank !!!

But her answer puzzled us. She feels the property will be worth 1 crore in the next 3 to 4 years. She is willing to live in poverty today for a distant richness. I am sure when the property reaches 1 cr, she will wait for it to reach 1.5 cr.

This is not just the story of Mrs. B. This is how all of us live - We pass on family gold from grand mothers to mothers to grand daughter stashed in an antique Godrej Almirah, keep the ancestral property for generations and continue to work till we drop dead. The excuse - we are working for a golden tomorrow.  I hope all of us will be alive to see THAT golden tomorrow.

“Amma” Jayalalitha, you should be in the company of gods and goddesses

We the people of Karnataka are the privileged lot. First, our own elected leaders loot us, then our courts make us pay for the hospital expenses of the jailed politicians and now the supreme court nails us by telling us that we should give Z-category protection for Amma Jayalalitha to prove her “innocence” in the courts of Karnataka for her looting of Tamil Nadu.

Amma on her part, deserves to have a place with our gods and goddesses. She just doesn’t know how so many slippers, sarees, gold chains, silver wares and properties were in her name. She believes that it was a god’s miracle that they happened to be in her place when the raid took place and they actually do not belong to her.

To utter this nonsense, she spent crores of rupees on her helicopter ride from Chennai to Bangalore and our judges in Karnataka set up a separate ‘safe’ temporary court for her and spent a few more crores on her security.

Looks like it is more exciting to be corrupt. It is like being a villain in a hindi movie. He gets to enjoy with the heroine for most part of the film and the poor hero probably gets to have intimate moments only for the last few minutes.

No wonder, we have a phenomenal sense of humour - just that most of the times it is a poor joke on ourselves.

Once a fool is always a fool

Mr. Yeddyurappa (Yeddy for short) finally went behind bars for all the sins that he committed  in his short tenure as Chief Minister of Karnataka.

My wicked friend is extremely pained not because we were ruled by a corrupt man but by a man who is proving that he is an idiot of the biggest order.

The man left too many trails of his sin so that even a private complaint could nail him fair and square. He spent all his time as Chief Minister by fighting the Governor, his own party men and managed to isolate himself - allegedly to be in the constant company of a lady minister.

He had more faith in the combined powers of all the gods and goddesses of the three southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala than in his own ministers when it came to governing the state.

Now after being arrested, he is again proving that he is a fool. He doesn’t seem to understand the basics. Courts will give bail only if they are convinced that the accused can’t influence and intimidate witnesses if he is out in the open. 

In the last three days all his antics are captured by all TV channels and his powers are in full display. Now that he has shown he can make the present Chief Minister of Karnataka, the prison Minister and other cabinet ministers come all the way to meet him in the hospital and jail, he has proved beyond doubt that he is more dangerous outside jail. Literally he has screwed his own case. I think a failed seventh standard student would have advised him against this.

This blog is written just before his bail plea is heard in high court. Does he have a chance of getting the bail? The last time I checked, the judges of high court have a qualification which is more than seventh standard pass.

Are you arrested for corruption ? - Congrats, Government will pay for your treatment

We live in a country of comedy and circus. If you look at what happens in day to day life of ours, you can’t make up your mind whether to cry or laugh. Our life is just like the famous dialogue of villain Ajeet - “ Is ko liquid oxygen me daal do. Liquid ise jeene nahi dega, aur oxygen ise marne nahi dega” 

Do we feel happy that our corrupt netas are finally going behind bars ? The moment they are arrested, they will develop problems in all parts of their body - blood pressure, kidney failure, heart problem, back ache - name it ... they have it.

The court then allows then to be treated at OUR EXPENSE. So, we are damned if they are corrupt and damned more if they are arrested. 

Why the hell should the courts worry about the health of anybody who is denied bail ? If the courts are doing their job, the person who doesn’t get the bail deserves to suffer and that has to be the deterrent.

If we let a few corrupt guys suffer without medical treatment after going to jail, that itself will probably bring down corruption. In any case our investigating agencies will never prove  any case against any accused and they will certainly get away with it after a few months behind bars. If we can manage to bring in them the fear that during that stay behind bars they might die due to their bad health and lack of medical facilities, then we can expect corruption to come down faster.

Anna, don’t you think this is more powerful than “Right to Recall” . Let us call this  “Right to get rid of them for ever”. 

Pinky pinky ponky, don’t kick me like a donkey

It was really sad to see Mr. Prashant Bhushan being manhandled by a Sri Rama Sena gang member yesterday. It is really a miracle that Mr. Bhushan got away with mild injuries.

This is the same gang which indulged in violence a few years back in Mangalore against valentine day celebrations. They had then beaten up quite a few couples. To protest against their action, a group had organized to despatch large number of pink coloured chaddis (half -pants) to its its leader. 

Probably, the purpose of sending the “pink coloured” outfit was to tell them that their courage was no where near that of REAL MEN. Mythologically, Lord Sriram won his war against Ravana by leading a “vanara sena” (Sena of modern day monkeys). True to that spirit, this modern age Sriram Sena gang was till recently behaving like only monkeys. 

Only yesterday, they displayed characteristics of another animal by kicking Mr. Bhushan. Is it the pink chaddis which brought out this hidden animal -donkey within them ?

While we condemn this act, there is also a lesson for some of our activist / lawyer/ self appointed guardians of our society.  One should not get carried away by a few days of stardom -courtesy our gossip monging news staved TV channels and start giving “Gyan” on every subject. Mr. Bhushan should have kept himself to Anna movement. As it is he has to answer many uncomfortable questions in that area.

I guess Pink as a colour is lot more aggressive than other colours.

Pinky pinky ponky, don’t kick me like a donkey

It was really sad to see Mr. Prashant Bhushan being manhandled by a Sri Rama Sena gang member yesterday. It is really a miracle that Mr. Bhushan got away with mild injuries.

This is the same gang which indulged in violence a few years back in Mangalore against valentine day celebrations. They had then beaten up quite a few couples. To protest against their action, a group had organized to despatch large number of pink coloured chaddis (half -pants) to its its leader. 

Probably, the purpose of sending the “pink coloured” outfit was to tell them that their courage was no where near that of REAL MEN. Mythologically, Lord Sriram won his war against Ravana by leading a “vanara sena” (Sena of modern day monkeys). True to that spirit, this modern age Sriram Sena gang was till recently behaving like only monkeys. 

Only yesterday, they displayed characteristics of another animal by kicking Mr. Bhushan. Is it the pink chaddis which brought out this hidden animal -donkey within them ?

While we condemn this act, there is also a lesson for some of our activist / lawyer/ self appointed guardians of our society.  One should not get carried away by a few days of stardom -courtesy our gossip monging news staved TV channels and start giving “Gyan” on every subject. Mr. Bhushan should have kept himself to Anna movement. As it is he has to answer many uncomfortable questions in that area.

I guess Pink as a colour is lot more aggressive than other colours.

At least Bookie Majeed is proud of his connections with Bajji and Yuvi !!

We Indians always jump up and react to every sentence uttered by anybody under the sun when it comes to cricket. We just don’t want to hear anything adverse about our cricketers.  We have TV channels which mourned about  Majeed - Bajji - Yuvi connection more than the death of the great Ghazal Maestro Jagjit Singh.

The recent utterances that have caused distress to us are the ones by Afridi saying things not palatable to us after world cup defeat, Shoaib Akhtar boasting Sachin was scared of his fast bowling and now this Majeed boasting about his connections with Bajji and Yuvi.

In my view both Bajji and Yuvi should feel nice. The way both of them are playing (rather most of the time not playing) not even their relatives want the world to know about their nearness to these two. At least, here somebody is feeling proud that he knows both the unpredictable and flashy cricketers. 

I am sure Majeed must have said all this immediately after the world cup because after the England series even he would have felt foolish saying such a thing.

Why is that Bajji and Yuvi are getting agitated. They have not done anything worthwhile which can be doubted and can be attributed to their connection with Majeed. In fact they can actually pretend that they are capable of performing better but are not doing because of obligations to Majeed. At least that makes us fans feel a little better and we can still be under the illusion that we have a world class spinner and a great middle order left hander who is our answer to Sobers.

Dhoni must be wondering why the hell Majeed doesn’t know him. Now that most of Indian fans are trying to forget him, he would have preferred to have at least one fan although the friendship can be a little tainted. But like what happened to India in England all these black daags can be easily “whitewashed”. 

Airtel - are you watching ? Yuvi and Bajji are excellent choice for your advertisement with Majeed standing next to them and the two cricketers muttering “aisa har ek friend zaroori hota hai”.

Atithi Devo Bhava

Hi Ajmal Kasab, I am a stupid Indian staying in a big city. I am sure you don’t know me because I was not in any place where you shot dead so many people - not that you recognized any of those killed either.

You came to our country uninvited nearly 3 years back. But, without your own knowledge you entered a country which traditionally treats everyone as its guest. We are brought up like that - everybody who comes to our door step is a guest and we are not even supposed to call them “bloody guest”.

You are fortunate that our freedom fighter was Mahatma Gandhi who taught us how to get slapped the second time if at all we are slapped once. He has told us that we should treat everybody with compassion. Unlike Newton’s law, action and reaction in our country are NOT equal and NOT opposite.

You are a lucky b*****d because you are in a country where almost all our judges of all possible courts saw you killing people but still want to follow every single thread of law that exists in our law books to prove it. They are willing to speed track cases like 2G but when it comes to dealing with you, they have all the time in the world.

Our country is struggling to put Rs.32 per month into the pockets of most of our people to lift them above the poverty line, but is willing to spend millions on you to keep you fit. Probably the life that you are leading in our jails is far more luxurious than what you would have led in your own country.

You enjoy a security cover which is probably more than that of our Prime Minister. Why ? because we still feel you have something more to say which you have not said all these days.

We are not complaining about you anymore because we already did it by lighting many candles immediately after your dastardly act. Our TV channels have lost interest in you. Now they have other better jail mates of yours to talk about.

You are the luckiest criminal - To start with you can seek pardon from our President who will take at least ten years to make up her mind. Even after that, we have quite a few Chief Ministers who will plead to reduce your death sentence to life imprisonment.  

I have a request for you. As a guest, you need to reciprocate our generosity. Why don’t you commit suicide and make us feel happy ? Because, we don’t know how to get rid of our guests. I promise you at least I will observe your suicide day as “Kasab’s day” for the rest of my life.

Anna - Are you the new King Maker ?

I was amused when Digvijay Singh of Congress made an allegation that BJP had offered to make Anna the President of India and was waiting for somebody in BJP to laugh it off.

Surprisingly, Mr. Advani avoided this question today and created more confusion

for supporters of Anna who are already wondering why  Anna and his team are getting into mainstream politics when his stated agenda was to get Jan Lokpal bill passed. 

Everybody knows that Congress has to take the initiative of passing the Jan Lokpal bill (or some version of the bill) in the parliament. Anna could have achieved this easily by just threatening to campaign against it in the state assembly polls. By actually doing it in the by- election at Hissar, he is taking congress head on. Not only that, he is inviting aggressive comments from congress leaders which they had stopped long back. 

Why is Anna forcing Congress to attack him ?

My wicked friend thinks that Anna’s priorities have changed and he now wants to capitalize on his fame and become a King maker. Hence, he DOES NOT WANT the bill to be passed in the winter session. Strange, but if you see his analysis you can’t fault him.

Anna seems to have realized that 2 years in politics is too long - (next general election is only in 2014). If some version of Lokpal bill is passed now, Congress will take credit for that in the next Lok Sabha elections. After 2 years, it becomes difficult for Anna to tell the public that Congress had to be forced to pass the bill and the credit should actually come to him.

It is easier to defeat congress by not passing the Lokpal bill rather than by passing it now. Anna is hoping to annoy congress so much that it will delay the passing of the bill. Surprisingly, Anna, who used to take every decision after consulting the crowd at Ramlila Maidan during his famous fast, decided this attack on Congress on his own.

Many a great leaders have fallen into this trap before. History shows that most dictators of today were the most adorable leaders when they started off. Power is like drugs, alcohol and other vices - easier to keep away without trying even once but difficult if you taste it once. Even the great Mahatma enjoyed being a King maker.

I sincerely hope that my wicked friend is wrong and strangely my wicked friend - who is a great fan of Anna is also sincerely praying God that he be proved wrong this time.

Steve Jobs - Did you do justice to your life ?

Steve jobs left us. Everybody misses him. Nobody doubts about his achievements and we all call him an amazing man with amazing focus.

During this hour of sorrow nobody should ask any questions which will in anyway dilute Steve Job’s contribution to this world. But, as usual, my wicked friend is different. He has charted his own path and will always think differently.

According to him, Steve lived for others. The power of being famous was the driving force. He seemed to forget that he had a family to live for. Even after learning that he had a disease that could take him away from this world, he decided to pursue his work rather than spending time with his family.

Instead of sharing his life experiences with his kids himself, he left it to some one else to write his biography. Strange - he wanted his kids to understand him through the book than from him directly. Did he think that the wealth he had created would be sufficient for them to lead the rest of their life luxuriously and his absence from their life didn’t mean anything ?

He was no different from most of us. We do the same thing. Work our backside off without taking holidays, without spending quality time with our family, without seeing our daughters and sons grow up, without enjoying the trivial things of life like attending family get togethers - all of this to secure our future life. In this journey, quite a few of us have died before reaching half way to that “future”. During all our life, we wouldn’t have had the time to see a sunset or a moon rise.

Leads us to the multi million dollar question - how much is enough ?

There is no answer to this. We are all a victim of  “greed”. Any discussion on this will always be inconclusive - there are always reasons to earn more and more to secure that distant future for our family not realizing that the family is already drifting apart from us today and probably we may never see that future.

Do we ever get the courage to enjoy today without worrying excessively about tomorrow ?Do we ever have the sanity of living for ourselves than be in the rat race always ? Do we ever get to enjoy god’s creations with our loved ones ? 

God, please give me the strength to be like my friend.

Shabash Shahrukh

Rajnikanth’s films never fail to make money in box office. The worst Rajni film makes more money than most super hits of other heroes.

Rajni’s business plan is brilliant. He caters to most of 62 million Tamil Nadu population. His crowd normally sees his movies at least 3 times if the movie is a hit. Otherwise they see it at least once. This crowd doesn’t bother about movie reviews either on TV or in newspapers - any way who has the guts to rate a Rajni movie below 4 on a scale of 5 ?

Rajni’s contemporary is Kamal, but his movies are aimed mostly at thinking audience. This crowd looks at reviews before moving its backside to a movie hall. Hence, you have more flops of Kamal movies at the box office.

Of late, Salman has adopted Rajni’s business model in Hindi cinema. It seems to be working well for him. Aamir, is more like Kamal but a little lucky that his movies have not failed recently. But except for one or two his movies haven’t made big bucks either.

Shahrukh is in between. Although he makes money, he does only one or two movies a year. Since he spends big money, his risks are higher. He seems to have spent quite a bit on Ra-one. He had to have a fool proof plan to get back his massive investment.

It is impossible to change your “positioning” overnight. Hence, he has come out with this brilliant insurance policy. Instead of banking on the hindi audience, he has focussed on Tamil audience by roping in Rajni. Since Rajni doesn’t do many films in a year, his audience will be dying to see him on the screen even if it a non tamil movie.

Shahrukh will definitely make massive money in Ra-one irrespective of how it does in hindi belt.

Shabash Shahrukh

The greatest con job called “Wealth Management”

I was sitting with my “Wealth Manager” from one of the foreign banks (name with held for the fear of losing all my wealth) when my wicked friend dropped in for a cup of coffee.

He waited for me to finish my 45 minute discussion - who doesn’t want to spend some extra time with a fresh pretty face - wherein I was told why I should not remain invested in certain mutual funds and why it was great time for investment in gold. Since I was working on that day more from the heart rather than the little brains that I have, I ended up signing a few forms which was to result in investments in the recommendations of the pretty face.

Once the girl left, my wicked friend looked at me the way you look at just failed seventh standard student. I initially brushed it off as pure jealousy - because the pretty face had not given him her attention.

However, my joy of forty five minutes came crashing down once my friend started pointing out a few of his “common sense” observations which he had picked up during my conversation with the pretty face.

I realized I was advised by a just passed out MBA from a management school whose only objective was to make sure that the bank earned a fee for shifting my investment from one mutual fund scheme to another. In fifteen minutes I was conned twice - first time to move my funds from equity investment to gold and then from fixed income to equity investment ! I called up another friend who was also “serviced” by the same bank and got a shock of my life to hear that he was persuaded to move from “gold’ to fixed income by another pretty face just a few days back.

I now had to choose - do I stick to my promise that I had made to the pretty face or take my wicked friend’s advice. The downside of going with my friend is not seeing the fresh face again. 

Reluctantly I decided to love my wealth more.

Mr. Narayan Murthy, have you not heard of the story “Emperor’s Clothes” ?

The latest song that my friend is singing is a slight variant of “Papa don’t preach” and it sounds more like “Murthy don’t preach”.

I was not sure of the last word and couldn’t suppress my curiosity. Finally my friend confirmed that the last word that I heard was right.

Although Mr Murthy has achieved fame and recognition, he can’t wish away the fact that Infosys was mainly a body shopping entity. Infosys can hardly boast of a dozen “products” during all these years of its existence. All its revenues came from “services” and was achieved by hiring tons and tons of graduates from all institutes including the IITs

Now suddenly he seems to look at quality of students joining from IITs. The very business model of Infosys was based on hourly rates and by logic the company wanted employees who can be paid lower salaries so that the margins are still achieved in the dog eat dog IT industry. Obviously, you couldn’t have got brilliant minds with lower salaries despite Employee stock options.

Over the years, other companies perfected this art better and no wonder Infosys is today lagging. Now the company has realized that just body shopping will not help. But, you can’t overnight replace thousands of employees with brilliant ones. 

Rather than admitting this strategic mistake, Mr. Murthy has now started complaining about quality of IIT students. But he seems to ignore the fact that TCS and Wipro are doing just fine with the same set of IIT students.

Mr. Murthy, you need to be careful with your utterances. Chetan Bhagat might just become “that child” which called the emperor naked.

Anna, you are doing a blunder.........Don’t you have smart advisors ?

Today Anna has announced that he would request voters not to support Congress in the election to 5 states if Jan Lokpal bill is not passed.

As per my wicked friend this is going to be a massive mistake by Anna. What Anna has not realized is that this is exactly what Congress wants. 

For Congress this is great news. In reality, Congress is in power in only two states - Goa and Manipur. In both these states, they are just hanging in there and certainly will not come back to power. Goa is in the news for Mining scandal and Manipur is suffering from economic blockade for more than 60 days and people are struggling to get basic necessities.

Congress is non-existent in Uttar Pradesh - it has only 22 seats in an assembly size of 403. In Uttarakand, BJP is in power and will be struggling to save it. Again in Punjab, the pressure is on BJP and its NDA partner to retain the power.

Anna is planning to go to Uttar Pradesh first. This is going to be a disaster. Not only Congress has nothing to lose here, by asking voters not to vote for Congress, Anna will be indirectly supporting Mayawati or Mulayam Singh Yadav who are very definitions of corruption.

If by chance Congress gets more seats - which is very likely in UP, then it will seriously affect Anna’s effectiveness and Congress will start ignoring him. Either ways, it is a no-win situation for Anna.

Anna seems to be ignorant of the old school saying - A perceived strength is always more than the actual strength. He is actually getting into a tossing of coin situation where “heads” he loses and “tails” congress wins.

Birbals work only for Corporates

My wicked friend has put all his wealth at stake. He is willing to bet that no big corporate owner will go behind bar in 2G case. Here is a small caveat - CBI might arrest them and put them in Tihar for a few months but will NEVER be able to prove any of its allegations.

I asked my friend about his chances of winning the bet - was he so sure of CBI’s incompetence or the clout of Indian Corporates. He said neither but pure common sense.

Of course, his common sense is never common and he could see from my face that I was struggling to understand his “logic”.

According to him -if you look at the available statistics - persons who have excelled in the department of both Income Tax and CBI, after retirement, have always ended up with plum jobs with Indian Corporates. These individuals know the intelligence level of all their ex colleagues in their respective departments.

No corporate worth its salt will ever do any structuring without consulting these experts. They route their funds from different entities only after making sure that it can never be proved by both IT and CBI.

Add to the above our age old judicial system and stone aged company law. Now that gives you the play ground to do whatever you want and whenever you want. If Kasab can’t be given death penalty even after such an act of crime watched live by “probably all the judges in India”, then you can imagine the way our judicial system works.

He summed it up by comparing it to Akbar - Birbal story. Birbal made lot of wealth by making a fool out of Akbar but never ever was proved to be dis-loyal or corrupt. He actually died a natural death. 

I realized in today’s India we have too many Birbals in all corporates but very few with intelligence agencies. 

Are we just a country of billion plus bodies ?

India is like an ocean and the saying “water water every where but not a drop to drink” applies to our country also.

We have billion plus people but struggle to find a good Prime Minister. By the way, this struggle is on for many years. Forget, Prime Minister, we can’t find a good opposition leader.

The average age of our politicians is 60+ and we expect them to give direction to the “young generation” when they can’t keep their eyes open in the afternoon sessions of the parliament

We have an oxford and cambridge returned planning member who thinks an income of three fourth of a dollar per day is above poverty line. If his professors are still around, they might even consider withdrawing the degree certificate they gave him. 

We have ministers who hold sensitive portfolios but fight like school kids. Our foreign affairs minister has taken his job (discussions with Pakisthan) seriously only after he found out that his counterpart is a “beauty”.

A 72 year old “Anna” only can bring us together to fight against corruption but once he goes back to his village, we don’t know what to do. We still can’t find solutions which will allow us to resolve legal litigations in less than 15 years. 

Sachin at the age of 38 is still indispensable and Zaheer showed the country what his absence means. We haven’t found replacement for Dada, Dravid and Kumble till date and we still play football as a hobby rather than serious sport. Olympic medals are still a big dream

So, what are we ? A country of great potential or a country of just billion plus bodies.

Mr. Chidambaram and Pranabda, for God’s sake grow up

We all knew that we have elected and hence ruled by corrupt politicians. Now we are discovering another trait among this class - they actually have a mental age of 10 year olds.

Just look at the way the two senior ministers of congress silently fought over the last one week. One sulked like a baby, the other was cajoled by both Sonia and PM to extend the hand of friendship. Today, both of them like two good boys came out and told they are happy with each other.

In between you have other school kids like Salman Khurshid, Abhishek Singhvi etc saying that there was never any quarrel between the two big boys. 

How many days did we spend on bringing these two kids back to school ? That too when the world around us is becoming nastier - Chinese going to bed with Pakisthan more openly, Europe struggling to remain on the world economic map and locally a part of south India getting completely cut off from the rest of India in the name of “Telangana”.

What next ? Probably another school and another fight. Already, Mr. Advani who is deprived of even the “PM in waiting post” by RSS has lost interest in BJP’s fight against 2G. In the last one week he has probably not talked to himself. Now, watch out for BJP’s national executive meet. Sulking Advani and PM aspirant Narendra Modi will soon start their drama. Who will play the role of head master ? Gadkari or Rajnath Singh? Your guess is as good as mine.

Mera Bharat Mahan

If BJP is not careful, it might end up coming back to power at the centre and regret it.

My wicked friend is at work again. He feels that BJP is really treading on thin ice. They are getting into a dangerous area and might end up pushing UPA to call for mid-term election and might even end up winning it. I am taken aback by this view. I thought mid-term election is what BJP is looking for and why is it bad for them ?

Here is my friend’s analysis. Let us assume that there is mid-term election and BJP with its NDA allies comes back to power. The first problem they have is choosing a Prime Minister. Sine there is mutual hatred among Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar, we might end up having L.K.Advani as the Prime Minister. So, we start off with an older man than the previous one as PM of India - tribute to India’s young population !!!!

What are the issues that BJP led NDA has to handle ? First, they have to deal with Anna and his Jan Lokpal Bill. Close on its heels is the “Telengana” issue. The way Europe is crumbling and the Rupee taking a hit, even god can’t bring inflation down soon - how long will you subsidise the Petroleum sector? 

2G issue is already in the court and the way it is going, the case will fall flat on its face and the government of the day has to carry the can of public disgust. Bringing Black money back is another huge issue. It is easier to give sermons but it is another matter to convince the swiss guys to part with the information.

Add to all the above, increased threat from Pakistan which is getting support from China after it has decided to take US head on. If BJP still manages to come out of all this alive, Anna will come back with his demand for electoral reform bill. All this has to happen over the next 2 years. 

Remember, we still have not accounted for other possible problems like “alliance compulsions”, Amma Jayalalitha’s tantrums, internal fights in BJP etc. Looking at all this, my friend thinks it may be a good idea for BJP to allow UPA to tread the next 2 year path and then go for the kill. Till such time you have Arnab Goswami of TIMES NOW to keep us all entertained.

I had no choice but to think “aisa wicked friend bhi zaroori hai yaar”