Tagged with Society …

Apr 05 2007
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Passing Thoughts

For god’s sake – no hierarchies in cricket!

In recent days, Indian newspapers and TV channels have been brimming of stories about Indian cricket team’s World Cup debacle. The Blue Billion got let down, “World Cup Ko-La” is selling, people cancelled their Caribbean crusades, broadcasters & advertisers lost money, no more late night TV (lot of power-saving; good for us), SMS/emails taking a dig at Team India and the list goes on and on. And of course, as usual, we all collectively as a nation set out to find out a few ‘bakras’ (scapegoats!) for our 1 week World Cup dream. Now that’s not a difficult task. We are really adept at it. The usual suspects – a foreign coach who has been in the news for not-so-right reasons, a captain (I don’t really know what to write about him) and finally we had this term “senior players”. We created a visible hierarchy in cricket. And this caught my attention.

There is this whole story about allegations that senior players in the team stifled the juniors, they mistreated them and someone said they even abused them. The senior players, of course, denied this outright. What is interesting is that how much we Indians love hierarchy. Hierarchy is perhaps as old as India. The caste system provided an overall classification of the society. Even today, we see hierarchies in offices (“yes sir”), government (“please sir”)…everywhere. I have seen deep-rooted hierarchy systems in companies which are the stalwarts of Indian business and are multi-nationals in their own right. 

Now, I see the same thing in cricket. I don’t understand why should there be even a mention of a hierarchy in a sport. All that matters is talent and execution. Why should there be someone in a team who is senior and someone who is junior. By doing something like this, we regress towards a system where seniority is determined by tenures and not performance. How can we classify people as “seniors” / “juniors” based on their length of careers? If that is logical, they should perform every time (especially when India needs them the most) because they are, well, seniors. What instead should matter is performance.

Using such terms by the coach, team members or the media is just fragmenting an already rattled team and hierarchies are not going to work. It is a team and should be looked at and managed as a team. Every one is same in terms of merit, that’s why they are a part of the team. Every one has potential, which can be deployed at an individual and collective level. Let’s hold our fanaticism for a while. Let’s give Team India breathing space and time and I am sure they will strike back.



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Feb 16 2007
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Passing Thoughts

Reality Cinema

Last night I caught myself thinking about watching “Black Friday”, a movie narrating the tragic events around the Bombay bomb blasts in March, 1993. I suddenly realized we have so few films on issues of national or regional or individual tragedy. We haven’t created movies around events which have had dramatic negative effects on the collective psyche of the society. These are issues which play a substantial role around how we see other people, other regions, other religions and other ethnic group. These issues shape opinions and give direction to our thoughts and actions. Think of events like the partition or the various wars that the country fought. Finally, “Parzania” came to the surface after about half a decade of the massacre in Gujarat.

What are we afraid of? Is it the pain of tearing apart old wounds? Or is it the fear of reopening the debate and controversy? Or is it plain aloofness – absolute refusal to participate in things that directly don’t affect some of us? Or is it escapism – creating an artificial sense of well-being

We have loads of movies around fantasies – Switzerland romance, village damsels, rich-girl-poor-guy-and-no-consent-from-family, Supercops, Superheroes and Rags to Riches – talk of it and we have it. But, we have run away from reality. Of course, the 60’s and 70’s did give us movies relevant to the realities of that time – middle-class struggle, politics, bureaucracy, unemployment and the like. But, suddenly we chose to snap the strings that bound reality to cinema.

I really feel that “Reality” cinema is a huge opportunity waiting to be tapped. It has the potential to move from posh multiplexes to second-tier cities. Given the low cost of production, it can be a money-spinner. But, above all, it will help people closer to reality and will shape the psyche in a better way.



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Nov 15 2006
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Passing Thoughts

Oh Kolkata!

Recently, I had a chance to visit Kolkata over a weekend. Having spent about 9 years in the city, I do love the city a lot. The roads and streets reminded me about the time I had spent traversing them as a student. The people looked distinctively familiar and the feeling was very warm. There was something that didn’t feel very familiar to the spirit of the city. I saw something that I was longing to see in the city for a long time, but was elusive – Change. Kolkata is evolving fast and it’s catching up really fast with its counterparts in other parts of the country. Here’s a short list of what struck me -

  • Gone are the days when eating out was a weekend business. Gone are the days when there were only two cuisines – Punjabi and Chinese. It appears that the people are eating out more often these days. And, there are restaurants of all kinds, Mexican, Italian, Continental, Moroccan, Greek et al.The weekends obviously see packed restaurants and people throng to the discotheques and lounges to shake a leg to the latest bollywood numbers. But, interestingly, I saw most Park Street restaurants packed even on a Monday! I had to wait for about 30 minutes to get into my favourite sizzler joint in the area!
  • It’s not only the neo-Bengalis who are going for eat-outs. We have a whole new breed of neo-Marwadis who are flocking to these places. This is encouraging popular restaurants from other cities to set up shop in Kolkata. Read This.
  • It looks like money is pouring in the city with consumerism on the rise. For instance, Tommy Hilfiger and Swarovski have higher sales in Kolkata than that in Bangalore.
  • IT is happening. There are well-paying jobs and swank offices. The Salt Lake electronic city is abuzz with techies from various parts of the country. I also heard that a large chunk of the IT workforce worked on a “bandh” day, which is simply incredible for a city like Kolkata.
  • The upcoming township of Rajarhat looks extremely promising. I could see construction work by developers like DLF and Unitech, among others. Given the cost of living in the city and the relatively lower real estate prices (compared to a monster called Bangalore), IT companies are setting up huge off-shore development centers in the area. To complement that, there are tones of housing projects to take care of the needs of the workforce.

Having stayed in the city for so long and seen almost no positive changes at all, I had almost given up on Kolkata. But, I have been proven wrong. The journey of change is slow, but it is surely underway. The world of opportunities is just opening up and it doesn’t look like a bus that you want to miss.



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Oct 03 2006
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Passing Thoughts

Bangalore – R.I.P.

After Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, it is Bangalore’s turn now. Sometime next month, the anglicized name ‘Bangalore’ will be replaced by its Kannada cousin “Bengaluru”. Sometimes I wonder what we achieve by changing the names of our cities. What do we really gain out of it? Does it really make a difference apart from satisfying the politicians’ hunger for populism and the urges of people who raise a hue & cry for everything that matters to nobody? Instead of a forward-looking constructive approach, which focuses on building our cities, we confine ourselves to mindless debates of nuisance value. Moreover, a change in names is a drain on public money. Changes would need to made in official stationary, office supplies, banners, websites and in so many other things. Instead, this money could have been used for more productive purposes.

Shakespeare famously remarked, “What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other word would smell as sweet.”

Bangalore, call it what you like, will remain the same. Life in the city will not change unless you do something about it more than changing its mere name. The same traffic woes. The same beautifully created potholes. The same narrow roads. Flyovers that take ages to complete. Digging up of foot-paths. Rash traffic. Auto-wallahs demanding obnoxious fares in the night. No party post 11:30pm. Uncontrolled office-space absorption. Sky-rocketing rents.

Life will go on as it is…

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Sep 04 2006
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Passing Thoughts

Utility Cooks

Indian mothers are a special group of people. They are dexterous, diligent and shoulder a variety of household responsibilities like managing the finances, getting the linen clean, cleaning the house, packing off kids to school, helping them with the homework and, most importantly, cooking. Household involvement of mothers of people in the age-group of, say 18-35, is very high because most of these mothers do not work or have a job. Not being the wage-earner, their role is limited to the household chores. I like to call this group of mothers as the Great Indian Mothers.

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Whenever I meet a Great Indian Mother, I realize a striking similarity – all these mothers can cook very well and cook a wide variety of dishes right from pav-bhaji to dosa, chole-bhature to naan-matar-paneer, savoury sweets to namkeens, golgappas to pizza and so on. The main responsibility of the mother being the household chores and, in particular, khana-peena, the mother tries to do a really good job of it, thus cultivating versatility in them. They don’t want the family to have a routine dose of carbohydrates and proteins, instead they go all-out to ensure that ghar ka khana is good fun. These thoughts and virtues are clearly an outcome of focus and responsibility.

The other day, while having dinner with a friend in a small dhaba (I have been eating outside for about 18 years now – an outcome of staying in hostels, paying guest etc.), I wondered if I stand any chance to enjoy ghar ka khana, once I get “settled down”. Going back to my earlier post, where I talked about how people would get busy in their work lives and have no time for marriage or kids, I felt that my chances were, at best, minimal. As we move towards a socio-economic setup, where more and more women enter the Indian workforce, I see the “versatile cook” heading towards a slow, but sure, extinction. As women start shouldering financial responsibilities and managing their careers, focus on the household would be divided. I do not intend to say that the underlying inclination to get involved in household work, in particular cooking, would decline. Women, by cultural programming, are attuned to take on these responsibilities, but they would be constrained to do so in the future. So the future mothers residing in urban India, who work and shoulder financial responsibilities, will turn into “Utility Cooks“. 

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They would know to cook only routine fare (chaawal-dal-roti et al) to feed the household. They would not have the time to develop versatility in cooking. Whenever the family feels a need to indulge in variety, they would go to eateries to savour gastronomical delights. There will be a complete division of labour, where the task of cooking delicacies will be largely outsourced to more specialized participants in the economy.

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