Apr

30

Laine, Gere, Chappell and India

April 30, 2007 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

Courts in India have now lifted the ban on the controversial book on India’s national hero Shivaji, authored by the american writer James Laine. Speaking to the press after the verdict, James Laine has mentioned that he is happy with the verdict, but doesn’t feel safe traveling to Maharashtra. Good for him.

Speaking to reporters after his kissing controversy, Richard Gere spoke about being bemused at the vicious reaction to a simple kiss, adding that he had naively misread the Indian custom.

India’s ex-Cricket-coach recently denied that he had told anyone about fearing for his life (at the hands of Indians, obviously) after Indian team’s initial round defeat during the 2007 world cup.

Three foreigners, all of them purportedly students of Indian culture, but totally surprised at the reactions they evoked by their actions. They should have known better (than be surprised). The person at the top of India’s politics already knows about that surprise factor. Gere, Laine, and Chappell are new to the game. They have traveled a little in India, talked to a few hundred Indians at best, and maybe read and listened to little bits of Indology. But even for scholars and academicians, India is a very, very complex country to understand.

For 15 years, I lived next door to two Christian missionaries, originally from France. Having come to India to study Hinduism, they immersed themselves in the scriptures, read and digested each and every available book on the topic, learnt to speak the local languages and dialects better than the natives, sang bhajans-kirtans and danced their hearts out at the local festivals. Our neighborhood not only respected these individuals, but practically revered them as saints. And I assure you, that they never said a negative word about Shivaji, never jumped on a neighborhood chick, and never ever had to fear for their lives. We knew all along that they were missionaries. We knew all along what their mission was. But we respected that. And they respected us for respecting that.

Laine, Gere and Chappell hardly have any understanding of the country they so love to patronise. Knowing a few elitists in this country does not equate to knowing the real India. India’s heritage and history are far too rich, far too complex, and far too old than the 200-year old countries where these guests of ours come from. I am not opening a debate as to whether their actions were right or wrong. I’m just saying they should have known better.

Apr

30

Sustaining India

April 30, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

sustain1.jpgSolar power is lighting up rural India, slowly but surely. The United Nations Environmental program for India has recently been credited with providing solar-powered lighting to 100,000 Indians in 18,000 homes, and won the prestigious Energy Globe World Sustainability award.

But that isn’t the only sustainability award for India this time. Bindesshwar Pathak’s Public toilet assistance for biogas plant - a sulabh sanitaiton solution has also been recognised.

In previous years, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) (for their peddle power projects), and Global Nirmithi Net (for their clean water campaign) have been recognised by the Energy Globe for their sustainability initiatives.

The growing awareness about sustainability is a welcome change, and environmental organizations as well as ecological activists are already noticing that. Sometime during the last few decades, India made the wrong move away from sustainability (we were actually one of the most sustainability-aware nations at one time), but now, there seems to be a turnaround, a ray of hope, which we all hope, will change things for the better.

Apr

29

While on the subject of Bollywood, I think it is important to see why the world outside cannot relate to Bollywood with real seriousness. If only they saw what we see. They probably don’t know that we don’t take Bollywood plots that seriously either. For us, it’s the ultimate anti-stress pill, the best serotonin-uptake inhibitor. Yeah, we don’t need no prozacs! We have Bollywood! So on this last Sunday of the month, here are 3 shots of the laughter medicine:-

The first one is from Chiranjivi film. See how this Indian hero manages to skid under the truck while riding a horse!

Bad guys shooting at the Indian hero? No problems. See how the bullet manages to actually ricochet off the hero’s manly chest and shoot the shooter himself.

And see how the yogic powers of the Indian hero can push an entire train

Apr

29

Banal and bromidic Bollywood

April 29, 2007 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

bro·mid·ic:
dull and tiresome but with pretensions of significance or originality

ba·nal:
Drearily commonplace and often predictable

Bollywood has been snubbed big time by the Cannes film festival juries. Not a single Indian film was selected for the main competition at Cannes festival which begins on May 16. Except a short film by a student of the Satyajit Ray Institute, a few other Indian movies will be screened but were not found worthy of the main competition.

After almost a century of filmmaking, Indian cinema seems to be losing the basic art of storytelling, and the qualitative feel of classics. You see films from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and even some 70s films. Granted, these movies weren’t as good technically as some of today’s movies are. but filmmaking is really about storytelling. Bollywood doesn’t want to let go of the boy-meets-girl formula, and there is only so much story you can tell there apart from the fact that a boy meets a girl. Bollywood will play on all the variations of that, so sometimes it is an old-man-meets-the-girl, or an Indian-boy-meets-a-Pakistani-girl, or the parents or the society dislike the boy-meeting-the-girl, or love triangles where boys-meet-a-girl or girls-meet-a-boy.

The problem with Bollywood is that Bollywood moviemakers have been living and operating in a closed box called Bollywood. They travel the seven seas seeking locations for their songs, and think that they are getting exposure to the rest of the world. They watch and literally copy-paste from Hollywood DVDs, thinking that the moviegoers are idiots and don’t know where the original ideas came from. Bollywood isn’t driven by passion about moviemaking as a storytelling form. It is greed and greed alone that motivates Bollywood. Not the devotion or the prurience for the cinematic art.

It takes decades of marinating in the art of cinema before one sees talents the likes of Kurosawa, Ray, Scorsese, Bertolucci, and Eastwood. Bollywoodians are no more than mere lilliputians when it comes to moviemaking. Barring a dozen or so exceptions, modern Indian cinema is nothing more than a third-rate copycat attempt of a much-better world cinema out there, and it is even a more distant shadow of the earlier Indian cinema which was classier, bolder, upright and dignified.

Apr

28

India may have become the largest manufacturer, supplier, distributor, and exporter of the date rape drug which is finding its way to the neighboring asian countries and beyond. Also troubling the authorities is the fact that 15,000 kilograms of the schedule H Indian drug are missing, or unaccounted for.

Out of the 3 major commonly known date rape drugs (gamma hydroxybutyric acid, flunitrazepam, and Ketamine), the concern is about Ketamine (aka cat valium, horse tranquiliser, super acid, purple, etc.), because the package can be disguised as coconut powder, or wheat flour.

The recent arrest of 251 youngsters in Pune (supposed to be Oxford of the East) was a frightful reminder that the date rape drugs are finding their ways to India’s major and smaller cities. But the place where the largest amounts of the date rape drugs get exported, is China.Yes, China - our major competitor for superpowerdom.

So, who know :-), India may finally have found an answer to curb China’s rising competition in manufacturing, and other industrial areas. Give China’s youth huge supplies of horse tranquilisers, let them have fun, and while they are at it, enjoy the fruits of the economic boom.

For those, who still don’t get why horse tranquilsers would be such a deal, here is a youtube video showing a poor guy on horse tranquilisers:

Apr

28

Richard Gere has now apologised for his behavior during the AIDS awareness campaign in New Delhi. Though both Shilpa Shetty and Gere himself seemed to be playing the fracas down initially, they clearly did not anticipate that the incidence would balloon and overshadow their real agenda of AIDS awareness. But now that Gere has apologised, the furor would be forgotten very quickly. Mr. Gere got to see an ugly side of this country, but now he will hopefully see the forgiving big hearts that India is traditionally so famous for.

Richard is now learning what Amitabh Bachchan knows for last 30-plus years. Even though he has literally ruled Bollywood since early 1970s, Amitabh Bachchan is still not shy in portraying a humble picture of himself. Just last week, his security guards manhandled some press people at his son Abhishek’s wedding, Before the incidence had a chance to spill over, Amitabh personally came to the door, joined his hands, and apologised to the press. He didn’t have to, but he did, because he understands the public. And even he himself sometimes doesn’t get it as happened with his recent movie where he romances a teenager 50 years younger.

And this isn’t the first time (nor will it be the last) Richard Gere has been misunderstood, either. During a recent Dalai Lama visit to the USA, an intruder cut through the ring of the bodyguards rushing towards the Dalai Lama. Not realising who had broken through the security, the bodyguards tackled the man, only to find out the next minute that it was Richard Gere. Everybody laughed it off, but it does tell of a joking, lighter, prankster side of this otherwise serious actor who is also a great humanitarian.

So Richard, just as you were joking, so were we all. And hopefully so was the Jaipur judge who put out that arrest warrant.

Apr

27

Pakistan bans burkha satire

April 27, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

The lawmakers in Pakistan have now banned a satirical play that took potshots at burkha. ‘Burqavaganza’, a supposedly humorous play featuring young people misusing the age-old practice to go out on secret dates, failed to bring smiles to the radical faction of the government. “…Burkha is part of our culture…we cannot allow anyone to ridicule our culture…”, said the Culture Minister Dr Ghazi Gulab Jamal.

The director of the play, Shahid Nadeem, has protested the ban, saying that all her group is trying to do is to bring awareness to the issue of a practice that is increasingly forced upon a group of people. But Razia Aziz of the Islamist opposition alliance didn’t agree, calling the play blasphemous.

Pakistan’s optimists will be ill-served to look at this as an isolated incidence. For, this surely must be taken as an ominous sign during this election year in Pakistan. It is more fertile ground than ever for the taliban enthusiasts and the extremists, Pakistan is. So it is not unexpected then, that, these groups have started honing their election tactics, and test-firing a radically extreme agenda.

Apr

27

A Jaipur court has come down hard and issued an arrest warrant against actors Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty for their innocuous momentary peck. Considering this judge’s angry demeanor so far, it is not that hard to guess the sort of punishments he may have in mind for Richard and Shilpa. Here are a few predictions as to what the judge may have in mind:

10. Richard is ordered to replace Aloknath as the Rudraksha selling salesman on Indian TV
9.  Shilpa os ordered sealed shut inside brick walls while Richard sings a song (as in bollywood classic Anarkali)
8.  Richard is ordered to disguise as Babubhai Katara’s companion and accompany Mr Katara on an international flight out of India
7.  Richard is ordered to kiss Janhavi Kapoor and spend 5 minutes with her.
6.  Shilpa is ordered to tie a rakhee to Richard and declare that he is her big brother
5.  Richard Gere and Bollywood’s serial kisser Imran Hashmi are ordered to battle it out to determine the king of kisses
4.  Richard and Shilpa are ordered to undergo popular cow-urine purification therapy
3.  To appease the Bajrang Dal, Richard and Shilpa are ordered to visit every Hanuman temple in New Delhi
2.  Richard and Shilpa are ordered to host TV’s Antakshari for one year
1.  Any one Indian (I nominate Lalooji) is allowed to hug and kiss and maul any Hollywood actress of his choice

Apr

27

Who wants to be a sextillionnaire?

April 27, 2007 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

It’s official. India is now a trillion dollar economy. For those of you who are math-challenged (like me), that number is 12 zeros after 1.

Here are some other fascinating facts about a trillion (1,000,000,000,000)

- The sunlight travels about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers) in a year
- Besides the sun, the next nearest star Proxima Centauri is about 25 trillion miles away
- USA, Japan, Germany, China, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Russia already have trillion dollar economies
- In basketball, the term one trillion is used when a player plays one minute without recording a shot, assist, point, rebound, foul, turnover or steal. (If this were a cricket term, India’s cricket team would have so many trillionnaires!)
- One trillion dollars (and some more) is what the USA has spent on the war in Iraq so far during last few years.
- One trllion dollars is what the scientists say it will cost to curb greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming

So who wants to be a trillionaire? Me? No way. My fantasies go far beyond a mere trillion. I think it will be much more fun to be a sextillionnaire (21 zeros after 1) or a sexdecillionnaire (51 zeros after 1), because then and only then, would one be able to attract a vigintillionnaire (61 zeros after 1).

Apr

26

Recently, several members of the Indian parliament (from various political parties) have been implicated in a scandal where these elected representatives, the diplomatic passport-holders, were trafficking people out to foreign countries by taking them along as spouses or children, and helping them clear the immigration check-points at India’s international airports.

So what have we learnt from this scandal?

10. Members of Indian parliament need a salary raise
9.  India’s make-up artists are some of the best on the planet
8.  India’s immigration inspectors need another visit to the eye-doctor
7.  India’s immigration inspectors have a face recognition deficit and need a visit to the neurologist
6.  India has a new strategy where MPs can make money and population can be reduced by trafficking people out
5.  Members of India’s parliament can cross party-lines if the need of the hour demands it
4.  India has a new policy to eject bad MPs by having them accompany deportable criminals
3.  Once Indians wear turbans, we must all look alike
2.  Now that we’ve started exporting mangoes to the USA, MPs may try to smuggle people disguised as mangoes
1.  Make-up artistry may be India’s next big economic engine and nations all over the planet will come to us to disguise and impersonate one another

Apr

26

Yeh dil mango more

April 26, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

The first batch of Indian mangoes leaves for its journey from Nashik to New York, today. A sign of the rising bilateral trade between the two countries, mango isn’t really new to the United States. But most Americans really aren’t saavy mango eaters, either. So along with the bagful of mangoes they buy at the groceries, the American families might also have to buy this contraption to cut the mangoes.

So, very soon, the delicious alphonso growing in the western belt of Maharashtra, will start growing on the fruitlovers in the US as well.

Apr

26

5 Indians are 07 Guggenheim fellows

April 26, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

Five Indian Americans have been honored with the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship award for 2007. Started in 1925, Guggenheim fellowships are awarded to those exceptional professionals who produce outstanding scholarly and creative work in Arts. Here are the Indian-Americans amongst this year’s list of winners:

1) Rudresh Mahanthappa
Composer, Brooklyn, New York
Music composition

2) Arjun M. Heimsath
Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College
Soil erosion and sustainability

3) Suketu Mehta
Writer, Cliffside Park, New Jersey
A nonfiction book on New York

4) Salil Vadhan
Gordon McKay Prof. of Computer Sci. and Applied Math, Harvard University
The complexity of zero-knowledge proofs

5) Sanjeev Khanna
Professor of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania
Cuts, flows, and network routing

The honor of being the first Indian American to win the Guggenheim fellowship, however, goes to late Gobind Behari Lal, a science writer. He was awarded the coveted fellowship in 1955, for his invaluable contribution to American journalism.

Apr

25

Real gems from India’s parliament - 1

April 25, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

A few days ago, I wrote about the fascinating cow-urine therapy which is part of India’s indigenous medicine system. Today, researching yet another topic, I found this incredible gem from a question-answer session in India’s parliament. Here is the entire question and answer text from this question asked by late Mahboob Zahedi, a member of parliament from West Bengal:

The member of parliament asks:

Will the Minister of Health and Family Welfare be pleased to state:-

(a) whether the Government is aware that several pest repellents, soaps and shampoos are made of Cow’s excretions in the country;

(b) if so, whether distilled cow’s urine, marketed as ‘Ark’ has a US patent and whether it enhances the effects of antibiotics ;and

(c) if so, the steps taken /being taken by the Government to promote the research of cow’s excretions?

The Minister (Panabaka Lakshmi) answers:

(a) to (c): Information is being collected and will be laid on the Table of the House

I don’t know if anyone follows up with the government on these answers, but I would be really interested in knowing if, in this particular case, the information and the evidence thereof was collected and laid on the table of India’s parliament house!

Apr

25

Casting the coach for a crown of thorns

April 25, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

It seems that the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) is yet not able to get its act together. It has now formed a 7-member committee to choose a new coach for Indian cricket.

Most competent and eligible candidates would normally jump at the opportunity of getting to coach one of the richest sports team in the world of sports. Very few former top-class cricketers seem to be throwing their hats in the ring, though. With a big fat paycheck in the offering, why aren’t the best cricketers in the game showing much interest in the job?

That, is because, the highest position in the high rolling game of Cricket has now become a very high stakes one. When someone is finally chosen to coach the team India, that winner will not be wearing a winner’s hat, but a crown of thorns.

Coaches can do a lot of things. They can inspire, rouse emotions, and bring up the best in their disciples. They can point out flaws, and show a better way. But for the current team India and the current corporate platform of the game, no coach can ever succeed in bringing out the best. These players who show quick footsteps modelling fashion on the runways get caught flatfooted when they stand between the wickets. These players who otherwise revel in public adulation and attention, cannot wait to hide faces and shrug their responsibility, when it is time to account for our defeats.

So, when they lose, they look for scapegoats. And this time, they are looking for yet another candidate to wear a crown of thorns. And when India loses again, they will whip that coach, draw his blood, and then crucify and execute him for their sins.

Apr

24

Reddy’s law

April 24, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

The state of Andhra Pradesh has moved close to enacting a law that will mandate pre-marital HIV testings. Speaking about the new project, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Reddy stressed the importance of protecting human rights of the innocent women victimized by grooms who hide the diagnosis.

This is not a new thought. Some states have thought of it before. Some countries have thought of it before. But such laws work in a very limited way without the focus on education and awareness of the real issues.

This mandatory law reminds me of my friend, who is a strict disciplinarian. He doesn’t believe in television, and so his home doesn’t have one. I always felt bad for his kids, thinking that they were missing out on all the entertainment. So whenever I visited his home, I carried extra candy or mithaai for his kids. During one visit however, as I started opening the gift basket for his kids, I saw the kids rushing out of the home. I asked my friend to stop them and ask them to enjoy the fruits before stepping out. “…They’re gone for the evening, now…”, he said with a shy smile, “…Our neighbor has a new big screen TV, my kids love to watch the evening soaps on his TV…”.

So as long as all the neighboring states do not have laws that mandate an AIDS test, will it matter that Andhra Pradesh has one? If you leave a loophople within the law, won’t people find it? If you anything CAN go wrong, WILL it not?

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