congrats Venki

It doesn’t happen everyday … an Indian for Nobel … not that there’s any dearth of talent (in fact we have it better), but there are several other factors … anyway, it’s awesome. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, currently in MRC lab in cambridge will be getting the 2009 Nobel in Chemistry ( alongwith Thomas A. Stitz and Ada Yonath ) for his works in the fields of biocrystallography. Although currently an US citizen, he’s originally from Chidambaram, TN. Trained as a theoretical phycisist, he later shifted to bio and did pioneering works related to structures of ribosomes and chromatin-related proteins.

Venki, we’re proud of you man. Carry on.

Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye !

From the get-up it seemed at first a comedy, with none other than Paresh Rawal in a triple role. But it turned out quite opposite. There was humor, but it’s dark humor. Guess it’s not ‘award material’, but its heart is certainly at the right place.  To me it looked like symbolism. Lucky is the protagonist who sees the world his own way. From childhood he faces petty commonplace people like whom we come across everyday, … some hostile, some as friend, some patronizing … but the common and repelling thing about everyone of them is all are driven by their own selfish motives and try to exploit Lucky’s curcumstances. They do not have heart, and Lucky faces them with quiet desperation. And this very desperation keeps him afloat throughout.

Acting’s okay. There couldn’t have been a better Lucky than Abhay Deol. As an actor he is far better than his histrionic father or  his two brash elder brothers. Needless to say, Paresh Rawal excels as usual. Other actors have been well cast, and none disappointed.

I don’t know why …

Ok, ok, i know all that cliche’ stuff like the youth should feel more strongly about the politics and all that things like ‘Raise your finger’ by John Abs and ‘Jaago re’ … i have nothing against them, in fact my rationale supports them … after all, you can’t run a country with such a proportion of young people in its population efficiently with selfish old haggards … we do need ourselves at the helm … but still, i don’t know why, i won’t vote this time. In fact i’ve not got any voter id at all … why i have my passport and PAN card so i don’t really need a voter id as an id proof … once got a form for that, but didn’t fill it up. Don’t know whether i’ll vote some day or not … my parents also never did it …

Funny situation … not that i worry about it too much or am having any ideological conflicts inside my mind. I just don’t care about it now.

Rotten egg #2

My second rotten egg jointly goes to -

1. P. Chidambaram, the Indian Finance Minister, for initially putting a brave face and saying large things when faced questions on what the gov is doing to combat the ongoing economic crisis, but at last throwing the towel in and looking all dejected a day before diwali when the Sensex plunged below 9000.

2. The Indian petroleum ministry. When oil prices at international level were skyrocketing they were quick to respond by raising prices of petroleum products in the country. But now, when the international prices are dipping to an all-time low, their voices can barely be heard.

Rotten Egg #1

Ahoy, the journey begins !

My first rotten egg goes to bollywood choreographer (sorry, i can’t call her a film-director) Farah Khan, for her comment about the nomination of Taare Zameen Par in the Oscars as the Indian entry. According to her, her (or rather Shahrukh Khan’s) Om Shanti Om was a better entry and she also guarantees it’d have been placed in the top 5 nominations at least. Yet, (for reasons best known to her and the memetic superstar SRK) they didn’t even send it for the initial selection!

A Six-pack Kartik …

Well, almost …

( proceed at your own risk, coz there are lots of Bengali words interspersed, and you’ve gotta understand them. )

The pujo schedule looked like this …

Saptami and ashtami – Bari,

Nabami – Mamar bari,

Dashami and Ekadoshi – Mashir bari.

I won’t call it my best pujo so far, as the actual reason for the mamar bari visit was the funeral of my mother’s jethima (although it turned sort of a reunion among us, the maternal and mashi-ternal siblings).

Um, you know, pujo is evolving. Before (and by that I mean even when I was in class 1 or 2) it was basically a matter of three days, dashami reserved for pronam and narkel-naru only. And now … the festivities and anticipations start from panchami itself, culminating in the bisorjon of the para idol in dwadashi! – yet another example of the famous (and ever-increasing) Bengali aalsemi (laziness).

Here are a couple of ‘curious’ snippets (of course opinions differ and everything is relative) that I came across this pujo, in the chronological order I experienced or heard about them …

1. Baahon dilemma … Nothing complicated, just plain common sense. Read it, and tell me if you’ve got a better alternative.

It’s about the pujo in our flat complex. It was held on the empty place behind the twin flats. Now the thing is that a couple of stray cats are used to get fed by some of the ground-floor people, hence they’ve turned quite pet-like, … and the Durga-idol that was brought was small in size, so you can guess the size of the baahon-s … the lion, peacock, owl and so on … not to forget about the rat though, which was more or less the size of a medium-size live rat. Naturally, you-know-what can always happen to the baahon-s in night when none is around except the two cats! So the organizers, our flat-ternal kaku-kakima-s decided to keep the baahon-s separate in the first-floor flat of one of them, bring them out in the pandal when it’s time to get worshipped, and back to the flat when done.

See? Can it get easier ??

1. The six-pack Kartik … without the ‘almost’ it would turn into a gross overstatement.

As a child I used to hero-worship the macho Kartik, although to my utter dismay they always used to make him more phulbabu-like and smaller than a macho image can suit. Compared to those days this one Kartik in a pandal near my mashir bari was of course a step in the right direction. He was bare-chested … well, almost (alas, again), if you don’t take into account his sparse net-like jacket (or whatever). Felt pretty glad to see the conscious effort behind giving him a muscular look, but alas the result turned out to be a bulky, overweight Kartik, evident from the fatty-looking upper arms and midriff (for obvious reasons, can’t use the jargon, i.e. ‘biceps’ and ‘ab’.).

You have every right to feel repulsed after reading the apathetic descriptions, but do keep aside a hats-off for them. At least they TRIED something new!

The cream

Now it feels cliche’ to even blog about this.

First you introduce out of nowhere an extended class of underprivileged social rungs, the OBCs. Fine, but what the hell is the need to give THEM the reservation in ( especially ) education. Why ?

The worst thing is that our political gurus do not want to compromise in this matter. At last the reservation is destined to kick off from this yr itself, but excluding the creamy layer, the comparatively better economically privileged ones among the OBCs, – as the Supreme Court ruled in its latest judgement. Reasonable, rationally sound. But … they won’t accept it even now. They want an unhindered, free ‘dadagiri’, nothing less would content them. And the circumstances suggest that they’ll get it, very sooner. After all, who’s the court. If the govt. says it won’t abide by the court’s order, what can the court do after all ??

This is not democracy, this is self-centered hypocrisy.

Boo reservation

The topic has died down now a bit, eh ?

Again, it’s a lot about generalizing at wrong place ( see Interpretation is everything ) . Hey govt, what you do is in general apply some relaxations to reserved categories candidates, in almost all places where you are directly involved. How do you know that all of them have intelligence below average ( speaking of  lowering qualification / pass  marks in exams, interviews etc. ), or all of them have less income, or, say at large, all of them are less privileged ? Especially, when our country has crossed 60 yrs of independence ? And that also overlooking the constitution, which says to continue with the policy for 50 yrs after it ( the constitution ) comes to effect. So it should have been done away with in 2000 ! then why not ? Okay, the condition of the reserved category people was BAD then, but is it so still ? If not, then why the policy ? And if yes, then what did YOU do in the last 50 yrs ??

And those who are benefiting, they are ashamed to concede their ‘reserved’ status, yet battle to earn the privileges. Even the well-to-do part among them not leaving out their own chances for ethical reasons. Gujjars are now fighting to be ST from SC! Huh.

The govt is not only not abolishing this practice, it is now encouraging it, even, I believe, pressurizing at some places to implement it. No prizes for guessing why. Actually that very reason prompted me for this post. I am is ISI, the only institute in the country outside the HRD or education ministry that can award its own independent degrees. Its entrance tests are one of the country’s toughest, and no fluke can get you through. Until last yr, our ‘reservation policy’ was only limited to paying travel expense of coming to the institute after selection in any course. It was well nigh okay, in an institute of such national importance. But suddenly, this yr it has stopped being an outlier, halving prospectus prices and bold-facing ‘due consideration will be given to SC/ST candidates’ in every ad. Even the institute website now displays an elaborate ‘reservation policy’! Shame. Why such change? Can’t at all eliminate chance that any pressure was not given.

Okay, excellence is the last word here. Even if someone un-deserving gets in, he CAN’T survive in ISI. I have that belief.

 

Actually, I am not against reservation. But that must be case-specific, person-specific, circumstance-specific, … not general. That’s the actual ‘the-govt-cares-for-you’ gesture. Policies must be flexible, if they are implemented for some good of the country.

Dig ‘em up !

The umpires could’ve awarded the match to Australia for Harbhajan’s ‘racist remarks’ on Symonds, … that would be better. Even better, why play matches, we give walkaways, and you win 4-0, you so-called world-beaters, you unsporting gits. Even if Brett Lee declares, “It all ( the controversial umpiring decisions ) evens up at the end”, anyone with little rationale, even the aussie players themselves, that it is NOT so at the end of the SCG test. Australia have virtually been awarded this match that they were going to lose within FOUR DAYS. True, even barring the umpiring ‘dadagiri’-s, Indian batting was spineless in the last innings, but then, they showed more spine than Australia on first 2 sessions of day 1. And how much unfair pressure can you tolerate? This aussie side is one of the weakest ever, yes, and would easily buckle in such a condition. This may sound outrageous and more of an outburst, but the fact is that barring India, the handful of teams in test cricket grossly overestimate them and get overawed, and …… sigh, get chewed. India also does surrender sometimes, but still, we are the only team they fear.

For us, playing is primary, winning is secondary, and for them it’s just the reverse. That’s why they get frustrated by a 50-something 8^th wkt stand of us, and start chirping away. As Harsha Bhogle rightly pointed out, they were no longer sure that they were gonna get a wicket. And, most importantly, their theme of this series is a severe panic, which started in the first test, when our ‘inexperienced’, ‘incapable-of-taking-20-wickets’, grossly underestimated bowling line-up shook them. They forgot that of late on away tours, the contribution of bowlers was more than the ‘best’ batting line-up. And, …… ah yes, umpires, … why they have surely been tapped, because even in MCG, Billy Bowden looked ‘dubious’ (to put it politely), and this Sydney test, well, it has been rigged, just like the CPM does in the polls of Bengal (btw, notice the nice and befitting analogy of ‘have-to-win-at-any-cost’ pack of potheads ) ! None of them except than Gilly is a gentleman, and ‘MoM’ (don’t know if he’s really been declared, but he certainly is the all-round ‘hero’ of this match ! ) Symonds gets a special mention among them.

Now, digs at the England team. England, just like their soccer counterparts, is a team that is much hyped, overrated and least delivering. Gavaskar’s right, their county cricket is of the standard of our plate group ranji matches.

And now, …… the ICC. The epitome of bias, especially against the sub-continental teams. Clearly a desperate offshoot of the dying, cliched colonial superiority complex.

Secular country, eh ?

She really could not bear any more. Taslima Nasreen had no other option but to do the ‘about-turn’ ( as the media is terming it ). The government’s attitude is shameless. The defence minister even reacts ‘ it’s good ‘ ! They why call India a secular country ? The gov is only hell-bent upon to solidify its ground for the next election, and for that they are ready to compromise to every extent. All this started because, …… before everyone, the west bengal gov compromised and banned Taslima’s ‘Dwikhondito’, which was creating such furore. That was shameless. Religion, whatever that may be, should never get priority over greater values, like artistic freedom. As long as it is not derogatory to the country, or does not violate common rationale, why stop it ?

And to those who are behind all this. Are your religious values so fragile that you have to be on your wits to detect any do-called ‘derogatory remarks’ and pounce upon it ?