Priyanka Chopra Wins 23rd Vodafone Pune International Marathon!

I was used to seeing a picture of the winner of a race- waving or showing victory sign- especially when it was splashed on the front page of a newspaper that was borne in one of the foremost regions of India when it comes to sports (Vijay Hazare to Veerdhaval Khade).

Therefore, looking at following picture in Marathi news daily Pudhari पुढारी, I concluded that Priyanka Chopra was the winner of 23rd Vodafone Pune International Marathon that was run on December 7, 2008.

After all in India, there is no limit to what cine-tv-stars, politicians in power and cricketers can achieve.

Reviewing Dietmar Rothermund's account of India for Spectator, WILLIAM LEITH says:

“…India’s media is heading for ad-backed celebrity hell faster, and more comprehensively, than ours (UK’s)…”



Pudhari December 8 2008

p.s. If you read Marathi, notice the sloppiness of the copy above Ms. Chopra. It does not even mention full names of the winners.

Why and when did we reach here?

Painless to the Criminal and Terrible to the Beholder?

Laxmibai Tilak’s लक्ष्मीबाई टिळक Smritichitre स्मृतिचित्रे (Memory-pictures) 1934 is one of the best books written in Marathi.

It opens with a devastating event for the family. In an act of John Company's terrorism, her mother’s father is hanged by the British after the revolt/war/mutiny of 1857. This drives her father crazy resulting into disastrous consequences for her family.

I wish I could get to read the story of Laxmibai’s grandfather. She says he enjoyed the trust of poor and was loved by the town’s (Jalalpur जलालपूर)
residents.

There is very little documentation of that period available, in easily accessible Marathi sources. The only exception is “Maza pravas” by Godse Bhataji माझा प्रवास, गोडसे भटजी.

GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT writes in his review of “THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 1781-1997” By Piers Brendon (NYT Books Update on November 23, 2008):

“…The growing realm in India was a corporate enterprise, literally so, run by “John Company,” as the East India Company was known, until what Indians no longer call the Indian Mutiny. This was put down with the most horrifying brutality by the British, raising not for the first time the question of who were the “savages” and who the civilized…”

I have always found darkest humour in following description of the event that took place much before 1857.

“Elphinstone did not hesitate to order the (Brahmin) ringleaders (of a plot to murder all the Europeans in Pune) to be blown from guns, observing that this method of execution ‘contains two valuable elements of capital punishment; it is painless to the criminal and terrible to the beholder’.” (Philip Mason. “Men Who Ruled India”)



'Due to staff cutbacks...'

The Spectator

I Smile because I have an Exclusive from this Land of the Dead

Nicholas Taleb:

"....journalism may be the greatest plague we face today- as the world becomes more and more complicated and our minds are trained for more and more simplification".

“To be competent, a journalist should view matters like a historian, and play down the value of information he is providing…Not only is it difficult for the journalist to think more like a historian, but it is, alas, the historian who is becoming more like the journalist.”

Gnani Sankaran: “…Flash "exclusive" — even if the reporter is sending in reports from outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, where at least 400 reporters are stationed. And for viewers gone blind while watching blood-curdling reportage, scream "exclusive" after every nine words…Why should Arnab and Rajdeep and Barkha keep harping every five minutes that this piece of information was exclusive to their channel, at the time of such a national crisis? Is this the time to promote the channel?…”

Michael Crichton:

“Jennifer had no interest in the past; she was one of the new generation that understood that gripping television was now, events happening now, a flow of images in a perpetual unending electronic present. Context by its very nature required something more than now, and her interest did not go beyond now. Nor, she thought, did anyone else's. The past was dead and gone. Who cared what you ate yesterday? What you did yesterday? What was immediate and compelling was now.

And television at its best was now.

So a good frame had nothing to do with the past. Fred Barker's damning list of prior incidents was actually a problem, because it drew attention to the fading, boring past. She'd have to find a way around it—give it a mention and go on.

What she was looking for was a way to shape the story so that it unfolded now, in a pattern that the viewer could follow. The best frames engaged the viewer by presenting the story as a conflict between good and bad, a morality story. Because the audience got that. If you framed a story that way, you got instant acceptance. You were speaking their language.

But because the story also had to unfold quickly, this morality tale had to hang from a series of hooks that did not need to be explained. Things the audience already knew to be true. They already knew big corporations were corrupt, their leaders greedy sexist pigs. You didn't have to prove that; you just had to mention it. They already knew that government bureaucracies were inept and lazy. You didn't have to prove that, either. And they already knew that products were cynically manufactured with no concern for consumer safety.

From such agreed-upon elements, she must construct her morality story.

A fast-moving morality story, happening now…”



Artist: Lee Lorenz The New Yorker December 8, 2008 Cartoon Caption Contest 172

My caption:

“I smile because I have an 'EXCLUSIVE' to report from this land of the dead”

Wall Street Journal recommends Tukaram, Sane-guruji, and Vinoba Bhave

Hemant Karkare: "A terrorist has no religion."

Mr. Nandan M. Nilekani says: "...Do you want to pursue a path which will bring us to a great future, or do we go down the path of more and more divisiveness. I mean all this Hindu Vs Christian, Hindu Vs Muslim, Bihari Vs Bombay. I call these the vertical divides (gestures), you know, this religion and caste. We should go beyond this and look at horizontal aspirations..." (Asian Age November 26, 2008)

Sounds good.

I wonder if his book has any 'ideas' on how to 'go beyond' because it is perhaps many times more difficult than creating a Fortune 500 company?

Mr. Nilekani also says:"...You know, leaving apart his (Narendra Modi's) Hindutva and all that triumphalism and Gujarat riots and all that..."

Leaving apart Gujarat riots and all that?!!! Read a related post here.

DANIEL HENNINGER says in WSJ: “…What really went missing through the subprime mortgage years were the three Rs: responsibility, restraint and remorse. They are the ballast that stabilizes two better-known Rs from the world of free markets: risk and reward.

Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down…”

Note WSJ is talking about responsibility, restraint and remorse.

"According to John Bird, founder of the Big Issue magazine: “In the 21st century, it’s no longer right or sexy to be a greedy bastard.”

His pithily expressed thesis is that the crisis in conventional business has given impetus to social enterprises, which combine the pursuit of profit with the quest to do good." (FT, Jonathan Guthrie, November 26 2008)

As I have said on this blog often: Shouldn’t we be teaching ‘responsibility and restraint’ and 'the pursuit of profit with the quest to do good' in our schools and colleges? Maybe they will help us tackle violence unleashed by the vertical divides created by religion, caste and language.

Maharashtra’s school education needs to incorporate Tukaram तुकाराम, Sane-guruji साने-गुरूजी and Vinoba Bhave विनोबा भावे a lot more. Our times need these guys more than ever.

Instead, I see more and more focus on examination oriented science and mathematics.

Some of India's thought-leaders don’t mind this because they need armies of these “technical” graduates to staff their organizations. They routinely complain about the “employability” factor but rarely about “wholesomeness” of education.

Teaching science as a fun thing also will never compensate abject lack of place for soft skills and moral values in our curricula.

“…But the ideal of science as lingering childhood has given way to one of timeless adolescence. Richard Feynman and James Watson are the poster boys for this kind of scientist, who bathes in the fountain of perpetual fun. The triumph of that cultural ideal coincided with the heightened recognition of a deeply serious role for science in affairs of state. The legend of Feynman originated during his time at Los Alamos, which he described as a delightful time of cracking safes and seducing girls in bars. Surely he was joking, and the blackness of the humor is made evident by juxtaposing his antics with disturbing images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Eniwetok, of tens of thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles poised to destroy life on Earth, and hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers laboring every workday to increase the power and precision of those weapons. The popular contemporary understanding that doing science is about fun has an aura of whimsical self-indulgence and offers comic relief and distraction from realities of this kind… “

(students of IIT's in 2007 were up against Dow Chemical. Good start. Now they should refuse to join any US or European or Indian defense contractors)

“…. We no longer expect scientists to display qualities of personal integrity beyond what we would demand of lawyers, businesspeople or store clerks. Their involvement with war and their willing subordination to the expectations of profit-driven industry seem to support this doctrine of equivalence, and the modern intermingling of academic research with entrepreneurship exemplifies the decline of an ideal of disinterested truth…”

(In India scientists enjoy far more credibility than lawyers, businesspeople or store clerks. I wonder why. Remnants of Brahmanism? For me, the most celebrated Indian scientist Dr A P J Abdul Kalam's personal integrity is no more or no less than any other President of India before him.)

“…Anyone who has witnessed capitalism from outside the economics textbooks knows that business life depends deeply on personal relationships of trust. The same is true of science, and Shapin has taught us as much as anyone about what this means in practice. Trust is rarely absolute, and in business and science as in most human affairs it is important also to develop a nuanced sense of when and how to withhold trust. For an outsider, it is difficult to know how seriously to take the scientists' avowals of intention to do good in the world. Even the most idealistic of biotech researchers are destined to become dependent on medical corporations to test their products and bring them to market. "Big Pharma" and its ilk have acquired, I think justly, a bad reputation, and any residual altruism on the part of the scientists will be the first victim of their involvement. They profess to be humanitarians, but if we measure that claim against the actual consequences of high-tech science-based medicine, our admiration must surely fade…”

“…In the same way, if we look beyond parables of geese and gold, we must doubt that basic science is the indispensable engine of technological change, the prime mover for economic prosperity. This is a legend, one that is repeated like a mantra by advocates of science in search of resources, but which is not well supported by historical and economic research. Universities and corporate labs alike must now justify their budgets by claiming economic payoff. In pursuit of research money, scientists have propagated dubious scientific claims, such as single-gene causation of all kinds of human traits and maladies. Those who found companies, not surprisingly, like to emphasize the symbiosis of good science and profit-making enterprise…”

(Theodore M. Porter’s review of The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation by Steven Shapin)

Artist: Rea Gardner The New Yorker 10 November 1945

I may have Escaped the Shells but was Destroyed by it

When Suredra Paul was brutally murdered by militants in Assam near Chabua on May 9 1990, my wife and I almost heard the gunshots of AK-47 because we lived only a few kilometers away from the scene.

Later we came to know that there was a weapon called AK-47 and that it was easily and cheaply available in Assam.

I still remember the eerie afternoon.

Many such afternoons have now come and gone.

In the wee hours of November 8, 1990, we left our homes on a gun-mounted military truck before being airlifted from Sookerting airfield of the RAW to dodge the bullets of Ulfa.

To paraphrase Erich Maria Remarque, I may have escaped the shells but was destroyed by the experience.

I loved Assam and was forced to flee from it. Only the deaths of my mother and aunt have pained me more.

It’s another November, 18 years later, all over again.


Artist: Gahan Wilson The New Yorker December 1 2008 Cartoon Caption Contest 171

My caption

"Wouldn’t it be your worst nightmare if these girls came to life, took the hacksaw behind you, pressed your head against the counter and sawed it off ? Now, you may begin to imagine what happened to the people of Mumbai on the night of November 26”

Maruti Suzuki Twice as Valuable as General Motors!

India , as Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden recently reminded, remains firmly a third-world country.

Looking at Pune’s creaking infrastructure, arguably at its lowest point in last many years, it’s a matter of time before it became even fourth-world. (It's so bad that even the current police commissioner has become frustrated very quickly after his arrival here: "No trace of 'transport culture' in 'culture city'.")

But hope lives. Things change. They do very rapidly. For instance, could any one have believed the following development even in year 2000?

Business Standard reported on November 13, 2008:

“The stock market value of Indian automobile makers Mahindra & Mahindra and Hero Honda has surpassed that of General Motors…Two other Indian companies, Maruti Suzuki and Bosch also had market cap more than GM.”

As on Tuesday Nov 11 2008, Maruti Suzuki’s market capitalization at INR 16,528 cr was almost twice that of General Motors at 8,565 cr.

I don’t like personal cars. I never liked them. Particularly the big ones. Ayn Rand should have written a novel- based on the idea of all private cars going on a strike- titled: "Detroit Shrugged".

Therefore, I was happy to read many arguments that were put forth in favour of not saving Detroit from bankruptcy.

Sample them:

"...On Sunday, President-elect Barack Obama asked, "What does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like?"

Well, it looks a lot like the automotive industry run by "foreign" car companies that insource jobs into the U.S..." (MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER, WSJ)

“…How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. It led to a situation whereby General Motors could make money only by selling big, gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s and trucks. Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers…” (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NYT)


“…But, before the cash starts flowing to Detroit, here are three reasons this bail-out is a bad idea.

First, it will reward failure. To read Mr Iacocca’s memoir is to realise that, while Detroit often pledges to change and periodically shows progress, one thing is unchanged in two decades. It is still overpromising and underdelivering against Japanese and South Korean rivals.

GM, Ford and Chrysler are better at talking their own book than making cars, which is a tough business. It is particularly hard when you are stuck with high structural costs, an inflated dealer network and regulations that provide you with incentives to make trucks and sports utility vehicles.

GM can point to some new cars, such as the Chevrolet Malibu, that are of high quality and that 14 of its 15 new vehicles between now and 2010 will be passenger cars or crossovers (lighter SUVs). But when Detroit says things will be different this time, why should we believe it?

Second, it will preserve chronic overcapacity. For years, the Detroit car companies have pumped up US sales to 16m or 17m units a year with financial incentives in order to keep their factories going. They made it so cheap to buy a new car that the average age of cars on the road has steadily fallen.

As a result, when recession looms, customers can stop buying cars because the ones they already have work fine. GM now expects annual US sales to fall to about 12m per year in 2009 and 2010, which amounts to financial catastrophe for Detroit.

The big three want tax breaks and subsidies to inflate US sales again, although the sustainable level is far lower than they have been pretending. “This industry needs to lose capacity. It is obsessed with vehicle renewal and accelerating the replacement cycle, which pushes up fixed costs,” says John Wormald of Autopolis, an industry consultancy.

Third, a Detroit bail-out will harm the US auto industry as a whole because it will benefit the least efficient companies, while the most efficient ones – Asian companies that build vehicles at non-unionised plants in southern states – will face subsidised competition…” (John Gapper, FT)

“….In the U.S., the auto industry is a particularly awful candidate for a bailout. For generations it has represented the epitome of arrogance toward customers and inattentiveness to major societal changes. For decades, Detroit ignored the challenge from Japan, even as Toyota and Honda made cars that were of much higher quality, more stylish and more economical. Since the 1980s, Detroit automakers have lived off the profits of their captive finance companies rather than the sales of autos themselves, acting more like banks than highly competitive manufacturers. At every adverse turn, U.S. auto chiefs ran to Washington for help—for the bailout of Chrysler in the 1970s, for trade protection against Japanese imports in the 1980s, for help in breaking into the Japanese market when Japanese consumers couldn't figure out why they should buy gas-guzzling cars with steering wheels that were, for them, on the wrong side of the road. Time and again, the U.S. auto companies lobbied against even modest environmental laws, as if they bore no responsibility for the air they pollute.

The demise of the Big Three would not be the end of the U.S. auto industry. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and others could fill the market. Most already make cars in the U.S., and if Detroit craters, they will move more production there, perhaps taking over some of the Big Three's facilities. Which raises another point. Of course, America would prefer to be a manufacturing superpower with its own brands. But it just may be that the future of auto production is in Asia. After all, it won't be that long before China and India join Japan and South Korea in having a world-class auto industry. Tata & Sons now owns Jaguar, and it has also produced the first viable auto costing under $3,000. In subsidizing Detroit, Washington may only be delaying its inevitable demise…” (Jeffrey E. Garten, Newsweek)

“…I understand that the argument "you saved X from bankruptcy, why won't you save GM from bankruptcy?" is very hard to deal with in a soundbite. And I believe the federal government has an obligation to autoworkers and retirees. But this obligation is not well-exercised by keeping GM out of bankruptcy…” (Brad DeLong)


Artist: Patrick Chappatte, International Herald Tribune

Running like Headless Chicken. For Five Years.

Where do I see chicken that has lost its head?

In one of the severest indictments of India’s UPA government, Business Standard said on November 19, 2008:

“…A review by the Planning Commission is reported to have found that barring rural telephony and housing, all other sectors chosen for focused attention under the Rs 1.76 lakh crore five-year (2005-09) rural infrastructure programme are lagging behind the set targets. Notably, the situation is particularly dismal in key areas of irrigation, rural roads and rural electrification, though it is below par also in the provision of safe drinking water. Sadly, in the first four years, only one-third of the target for rural connectivity and electrification, vital for inclusive growth, could be attained. Worse still, the progress was an abysmal 10 per cent in the case of electric supply to the below-poverty-line households. The achievement in critical areas of irrigation and potable water supply, too, was far from satisfactory, being 50 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively…

…The track record of many a critical programme under the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is equally dismaying. Provision of sanitation facilities to curb open defecation, deemed a national scourge, is a case in point. It is estimated that as many as 1,12,300 toilets need to be built every day if the MDG aim is to be attained by the set deadline of 2012. What really needs to be appreciated here is that the country is paying a heavy economic price for poor sanitation that causes diseases and consequent manday losses. Such losses are estimated at around Rs 1,200 crore, including 180 million mandays, a year. Little wonder that the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in its recent report on South Asia, has ranked India far below its neighbours like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in terms of sanitation. Notably, between 1990 and 2006, only around 20 per cent of additional people gained access to sanitation facilities in India, against 40 per cent in Pakistan, the UNICEF reported to the discredit of India.

Such a woeful profile of the fundamental facilities for the people is disgraceful. What makes the situation all the more disconcerting is that all these programmes, even if executed by the ministries concerned, are supposed to be monitored regularly by the Planning Commission and, more importantly, the Prime Minister's Office…”



Artist: P C Vey The New Yorker November 24, 2008 Cartoon Caption Contest 170

My caption:

“…For today’s presentation, I found no better symbol than headless chicken to sum up running around of India’s coalition government for last five years.”

Yes, I Heard Crocodile Bark in Our Bedroom

In July 2008, we have moved to a place that is only a few meters away from one wall of the historical Katraj Lake of Pune.

So far from the balcony of our house, we have managed to spot monkeys running on the wall and storks (?) trying to hunt fish.

But I was not prepared for this excitement:

On November 17, 2008, all newspapers in Pune reported spotting of a crocodile on the banks of Katraj Lake on November 16.

However the coverage left me disappointed. It talks only about fear and commotion among weekend revellers.

There is no sense of awe and curiosity let alone any thing on what poor crocodile must have felt surrounded by ruthless, noisy Homo sapiens. Do we want to experience crocks only on our TV screens?

There also was no mention that perhaps crocks will outlive us on the planet. They surely did “mighty” dinosaurs who once “ruled” the earth the way we do today.

Pune Authorities were sure that the animal would reappear on Nov 17 to sunbathe so that they could “deal” with it. But nature had the last laugh.

Whole of Monday it remained cloudy!

Following iconic cartoon is by legendary artist James Thurber.

Paul Johnson writes of him: “…When aged six, in 1901, his left eye was destroyed by a toy arrow shot by his brother. His mother, a Christian scientist, refused to let his condition be properly treated, and as a result ‘sympathetic ophthalmia’ developed in his right eye, and eventually led to virtual sightlessness. By the time I met him, in 1958 I think, he was effectively blind…”


Artist: James Thurber The New Yorker 30 January 1932

Can a Texan Cowboy Win Big in India?

Artist: Leo Cullum The New Yorker 17 November 2008 Cartoon Caption Contest 169


My caption:

“...What brings me to India? If an African can win big in USA, sure a Texan Cowboy can win in India. Isn’t India first country in the world to welcome and assimilate migrants from every corner of the planet? And don't forget popularity of a fellow Texan- George W. Bush-here.”

On a Clear Evening You can see Glory of MMU on the Moon

Look at the picture below.

Joy in the room is infectious. I too started smiling.

Every one looks so happy…Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and IT pros, commodity traders, investment bankers, Ivy League graduate students and teachers, scientists, doctors, retired actors of Hindi cinema…

They are not ordinary people. They are Marathi speaking Masters of the Universe (MMU). Naturally, they are based in center of the universe: US of A.

It wasn’t easy. But MMU did it. They won and now have projected their prize- All India Marathi Literary Meet अ भा म साहित्य संमेलन -on to the moon. India’s moon mission must have witnessed it from the close quarters.

Or are MMU catching reflection of their crowning glory that had already reached the moon via America's space missions?

Only Vasant Sarwate वसंत सरवटे knows.

Like every thing MMU have done to possess what they do in their personal lives, they pursued this matter until they laid their hands on the 'grand prize'.

Notice the lady, serene like Kausalya. She is reading out Rama’s story to her healthy and cute looking son named Ram.

Notice how Ram is trying to sit in Vajrasana. Notice his expensive pair of Nike. Do you know he speaks Marathi better than many back home? He knows his epics better than his Desi cousin! Do you know he recites Sanskrit Shlokas every second Saturday and fourth Sunday of a month? Do you know Kausalya writes a weekly column for a popular Marathi daily whose editor, by the way, will be attending the meet and staying with Ram's family?

Therefore, when he grows up, Ram is likely to protect the ‘Marathi' culture far more effectively than his poor, disease-prone cousins back home. That is the reason his father follows his religion more vigorously than he ever did in India, donates to “religious" organizations back home and supports self-styled stone-toting “culture protectors” of Maharashtra...



Artist: Vasant Sarwate Lalit Diwali वसंत सरवटे ललित दिवाळी 2008