Sachin Tendulkar was recently issued a notice to appear in court. Activists have accused him of defacing the Indian flag by cutting a cake bearing the tricolors in public.
It’s bewildering that it would get any kind of buzz going, leave alone outrage. What about a flag cake is offensive? The cutting? It’s just cake! Cake meant to celebrate India, not denigrate it. And that was probably Tendulkar’s state of mind when he did what he did. He simply didn’t (and most wouldn’t) know the warped minds of these “patriots” enough to anticipate their reaction.
But you know what’s worse than the (over)reaction is the defense! The president of the Board of Control of Cricket in India played right in to the hands of the fanatics who went to court. He stated, “Tendulkar has spoken to me. He says that the function was organised by the India High Commission, and with so many people around, he did not realise the colour of the cake when he was suddenly asked to cut it.” Right!
There’s a fat blanket of smog hanging over rapidly industrializing India, absorbing sunlight that would otherwise filter on to the subcontinent. This is according to a study recently published in the New Scientist and it’s not surprising.
“It turns out that smog produced by US and Europe until about 1980 had resulted in similar dimming across the world. But when the West cleaned up its act in the 1980s and 1990s - just as India and China were starting to spew - clearer skies returned across much of the world.“
Clearly, it’s important for India to learn from the cycles that more developed parts of the world have gone through already.
But think of the blind acceptance of Western consumerism that we are seeing in India today. An ad for Zeiss opticals - now available in India - shows a girl in an office expressing condescension towards a coworker for wearing glasses with no brand name. The tagline is “Brand nahi to style/naam nahi” or something like it. Basically, it signals that without brands to show off with, a person can make no impact. How tasteless and how untrue!
India, beware. The unthinking brand of capitalism the West embraces just isn’t cutting it anymore and the sociopolitical state of America is good evidence. We don’t have to go stir crazy on brands in India to realize that rampant consumerism - just like the grey smog that now envelops us - is damaging. Indians need to be wary of the retail therapy trap.
(Of course brands - and the businesses they represent - need to start being more responsible with their messaging too but that’s a story from another day.)
A recent article by Francois Gautier captures well some of my sentiment. I’m not sure that spirituality is the answer to India’s problems. But sitting up and taking a look at the West more objectively is certainly in order.
“Today, there is a sense of deep satisfaction, of gloating even, in India. The economy is booming, there are more and more cars on the roads, shares are soaring, a plane is taking off every six seconds, hotels are full, shops do roaring business… But if one looks closer at what is happening here… India is veering blindly, without restraint, towards total globalisation and Westernisation… Yes, there are great values in the Western world: Freedom, democracy, equality (not always though), respect for the environment, less corruption. And India must, and has already borrowed from these qualities. But… it seems the Indian political and intellectual mind is pushing these qualities to an illogical extreme, as if it wants to prove to the West that ‘we are as democratic, as liberal, as free as you are’… India must achieve its liberalisation and industrialisation, by taking the best of the West, but preserving what is good, pure, wise in her own culture.”
Getting up to speed on the strike brought to mind dreary aspects of Los Angeles. So here’s a cheery word on one of my favorite restaurants in the city.
Granted I haven’t ever been to Thailand, but I have had a lot of Thai food, and I miss Patakan every day. No kidding! I used to eat (or take out from) there at least once a week and it was always the freakishly hot red curry (with chicken and a side of white rice). I also brought (or at least tried to bring) everyone I knew in LA there. Needless to say, the waitstaff adored me - they even began to make my curry spicier but I politely declined. It’s the best red curry in the world as is!
A couple of days ago, I tried to cook it like they do, and it was good, but not even close to Patakan. So if you are ever around those parts, have the slightest appetite for fiery food, AND empathize with the strikers (wink, wink), then fight all kinds of traffic to go!
PS: Echigo and Blue Hen are other Asian eateries in the area that could bring on a smile anytime. Between bites, that is. =)
“The picketers at Paramount and Disney may look to be a chorus line of wise-asses, but their struggle is a deadly serious test of whether any American workers retain the clout to strike a deal with the unchecked greed that is the modern American corporation.”
So says Harold Meyerson of The Washington Post about the ongoing Writer’s Guild strike in Hollywood. Well, BRAVO! The issue is this: if a DVD costs $19.99 in a store, writers currently get 4c. They are asking for 8c instead. And - if I understand it right - they want a small share of the pie on internet sales and reruns as well. Right now, they get zilch for online stuff and all the re(rerere)runs out there.
They’re really not asking for much at all. And yet, the studios will allow the strike to cost the industry upwards of 500 million bucks. It’s greed and power trips, but more importantly, unfairness and stupidity enough to make you sick. Please note that given the nature of the work, 48% of writers are unemployed at any given time. These folks need and deserve the money! Just to put it all in perspective, here is a quote from WGA president Patrick Verrone.
“If they gave us everything we had on the table right now… if they gave us everything we wanted… everything… which is typically what happens [after a strike]…. if they did that… if they gave us everything… on a company-by-company basis they would be giving all of us less than each of their CEOs makes in a year. And in some cases, a lot less.”
Apologies to cricket-watchers for this rather tardy post on Yuvraj’s six sixes from the first 20-20 games in September. I’ve sorely missed cricket in my time away. But over the years, I’d begun to forget exactly why. Well, here’s why! Think of 50 runs in 12 balls. 6 of them devilish 6s - all in one over, bowled sorrily by poor Flintoff of the English team.
Which brings me to the fact that I am (thankfully!) no flagwaver or closet patriot. I see that countries are just countries: people of one land divided and antagonized by artificial lines drawn by the power surges of history. Totally see it. But when watching a cricket match, there’s no doubting which team - and rather viscerally at that - I want to win.
Ah well, at least I know I’ll never be this dude. Right? Right!
I am excited about this book. I read excerpts from it at a bookstore today and did something I don’t usually - bought it without reading any reviews. The title brought to mind two classic books: The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin) and The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith). Intuition served me well; the book by Eric Beinhocker (2006) combines evolution with economics. I’m not sure if it will hold up to expectations (reviews are mixed - I have since looked!) but here are some of the reasons I picked it up.
The writing is compelling and nuanced
An entire chapter is devoted to how stark right-left politics will soon have to blur (phew!)
He seems to argue for the importance of corporate policies that favor many small risks over a few big ones and challenges the omnipotence of the “bottomline” in business (and I think I agree)
I want to know more about this term called “punctuated equilibrium” that evolutionists throw about freely
Axe is marketed as Lynx in Europe, so did Unilever rename Axe as Zatak in India? Apparently not. Turns out Zatak ads are simply “inspired” by the Axe creative. I’ve always found the Axe idea vaguely off-putting and imagine anyone who “buys” the spoofy campaign to to reek slightly of desperation if not BO. Even so, I’m not surprised that it won several awards for its creative and planners. I mean the concept is occassionally funny albeit in a boy’s club kinda way, and the Clicker idea was actually pretty catchy. But back to Zatak. I’ve got to say it stinks, if from nothing else, then from its utter lack of originality.
Millions are celebrating the Festival of Lights in India, Nepal, and Thailand this week. It is traditionally called Deepavali which - roughly translated - means the lighting of a row of lamps. It symbolizes the victory of enlightenment over ignorance and is meant to be an auspicious start to the Hindu new year.
People light up their homes with lamps and lanterns, light up the skies with firecrackers, create colorful rangolis like the one above, eat traditional sweets, visit friends and relatives, gamble on card games, and dress up in bright new clothes. Festivities extraordinaire! I’m not religous, but it’s uplifting that the festival I was named after be the one that marks my return to India. It’s been so many years, yet everything feels familiar. It is hot and crowded, yes, but the food, cricket, music (most Bollywood stuff excluded!), and warmth of the people make up for it.
Granted I haven’t had to start working (or drive by a slum) yet, but the only thing that’s been bothering me so far is the fact that there are still so many stray dogs on the streets. I worry constantly that they will get badly hurt by cars driving by and then be left to die alone and slowly, ugh. I so wish we would all be a bit more (well) enlightened in our attitude towards them…
But for now, I am loving it here. What has surprised me beyond belief is how “green” some of India now is. My parents and all their neighbors use solar energy and they compost - like it’s no big deal, which is very cool. I was concerned that moving back to India from the US would be tougher, and it might well become so in the days to come. Today, it truly feels like a homecoming. And on that note, here’s wishing everyone a very happy holiday!
Although typically anti all things “celebrity”, I rather enjoyed this exercise. Try it on and you’ll see why. Oh and watch me morph in to Drew Barrymore and back. Like I said… fun!
well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
i ache in the places where i used to play
i’m crazy for love but i’m not coming home
i’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song
i said to hank williams how lonely does it get
hank williams hasn’t answered yet
but i hear him coughing all night long
oh a hundred floors above me in the tower of song
This is how the ‘Tower of Song’ unfurls. I find myself listening to it often. In it, Leonard Cohen intertwines the ideas of aging humbly, acknowledging our jadedness, accepting our craziness (”you see you hear these funny voices in the tower of song“… great line tucked away towards the end), embracing our genius, of dwelling on lost or unrequited love, of how it all is, and how we deal with it.
His Jewish sensibility shines through as he creates this vivid picture of a man “born with the gift of a golden voice”, trapped in his lonely tower of song by the tracks, from where there seems to be no escape from confronting his reality. How he evokes feelings of depression and upliftment so concurrently is beyond me. I suspect his enviable gift of nuance and his unapologetic honesty have something do with it.
