aditya kumar's weblog

I know, I know, I have been away for this little while and have not posted anything of substance for this one month now. Heck, my posting frequency has hit an all time low. But there are reasons. Till last week, I was in the middle of jobs. Now, I have a new job and that means I cannot (yet) blog at work(!). Well, I admit, I did blog at work, wrote rough drafts if I had free time but right now I am not able to do that. Then I had also gone traveling for a week.

Please bear with me while I try my best to balance things out and write something soon. Ciaos.

Eleven days ago, activist Anna Hazare, in the heart of India’s capital, started a fast unto death until the Government agreed to an anti-corruption bill that had been lying around for 42 years. Governments had come and gone without giving it a serious thought. The Jan Lokpal bill was what one could call the second automatic step a democracy like India was supposed to take after the Right to Information Act (RTI). That a 72 year old man had to stay empty stomach for 90 hours, in Delhi’s harsh sun to make it happen was a shame. The legislation should have been serious about it. The opposition should have taken note of it. As expected, the moment Hazare went on strike, Advani and the likes came out in support. Question: Why was this not taken up by the opposition in the parliament earlier? If BJP was serious about a bill of this stature and believed in the merits of it, why was this not taken up when NDA was in power? After all, a draft, open for discussion, existed then, too. But then it is a party based on an ideology that can be explained in a single, four letter word frowned upon by Computer Programmers: Null.

Now about Hazare but a bit of history first. Ambedkar, after India’s independence, had called upon the nation to reject Gandhian methods like Civil Disobedience and non-cooperation, simply because those methods do not have a place in a land ruled by a constitution. But here we had a bill that the politicians, combined across those in opposition and those in power, had a, sort of, silent consensus on not bringing it up even in a draft-form. And it is that unsaid pact that made Anna Hazare do what he did. Maybe Ambedkar would have approved of that? Now that Hazare’s 90 hour fast has accomplished what 42 years could not, let us allow the Constitution to take it from here.

The day when the agitation was at it’s peak, I had the good fortune of sitting at home and doing nothing except be on twitter all day. I saw “Anna Hazare” climb up and become a “Trend” in twitter. At it’s peak, there were about 60 tweets about Anna in 20 seconds. That is phenomenal. Then there was this email circulated with a phone number where you could give a missed call to, if you supported Anna Hazare’s fasting. I do not know what happened next. How and where did that call, a missed call at that, made a difference, I have absolutely no idea. But is this all what we ever wanted to do against corruption?

It is true that the citizens of this country have been subjected to corruption of the highest magnitude. In the long list of scams, the scandals can only be differentiated by the sheer amount of money involved. In that, let us not stay oblivious to the sins we have ourselves committed: Paying that little extra money for the electricity connection, that bribe for getting a gas connection, the monies we end up paying, at various traffic signals to various traffic cops, the thinking that a crime is not a crime until we are caught — Those lines only look good on T-Shirts. The moment we pay a bribe of Rs.200 to a traffic cop for a crime that attracts a fine of Rs.500, we lose the right to complain and be dismayed about the system and the corruption rampant in our Government. In that light, I ask you this — How many of those tweeters that day who made up for the “Anna Hazare” trend would not pay a bribe to the traffic cop? How many of those who swore by Anna Hazare that day would actually make a conscious attempt to follow the law of the Indian Union? Here’s the thing: Unless those who constitute what Nandan Nilekani calls the Demographic Dividend, those who are educated and literate, those who are driving the GDP of the nation to new heights, do their bit by educating themselves of their duty as citizens, I am afraid, posting status messages at Facebook, holding hands at Jantar Mantar and lighting candles at India Gate would be of no avail.

And accomplishing that, after being used to the petty crimes we all audaciously commit or have committed in the past, would not be an easy task or a stroll in the park. It would drive us way out of our comfort zone (as it rightly should) but until we do that, very less can be accomplished and guess what, we may be left out of this all, expecting people like Anna Hazare to fight for us.

Hidden inside a 72-year old man’s revolt is an attempt to wake up our conscience. Please don’t expect him to fight our battles, really. Start with yourself.

One of the things that I fail to understand, and I have asked myself this a few times, is that why is Goa shown in a light so different than what it really is, by the Bombay Film Industry? Before you jump to conclusions, let me say that I did not mean that the movies show Goa in a bad light, I said that they show what is not true at all, most of the times.

It seems people from Goa have been a victim of stereotyping, something that Bollywood does often. Goans are not the only ones which are generalised. The film industry time and again has given in to the temptations of generalisation. A Goan Catholic will be a drunkard, a sardar would eat chicken with a patiala peg everyday and would be ready to break into a bhangara jig at the slightest of excuse, a muslim man would speak impeccable urdu which would be so much different than Hindustani, which we commonly speak in India (sprinkled generously with English of course) and a Tamil Brahman (if you find one in a Hindi movie), would end every line with a “jee” and exclaim “aiyo!” after every couple of sentences.

So if the latest bollywood film claims that Women are cheaper than liquor in Goa, I would say that this is nothing much but an extension of Bollywood’s convenient stereotyping. Bollywood’s relation with Goa goes beyond stereotyping the typical Goan Roman Catholic to a drunkard. Hindi movies give Goa it’s rightful place as a holiday destination. But not all people go to a holiday to get drunk. Not all people go to Goa and get drunk. There are teetotallers in Goa (I am one, though I am not a Goan but hey I have home there). Bollywood takes it’s actors to Mauritius, shows bikini clad women and clear water on the shore, the lead actors get cosy in a song and that’s all packaged in a 15 minute sequence and sold as Goa. Whats more, the audience is naive enough to believe that Goan women are easy, roam around in bikinis while their men booze all day.

I honestly don’t see much in Basu’s dialogue. As I said, it is basically something they have tried to build up on an already existing platform that has been made by generalising Goa over the years. When they have repeatedly marked cheap liquor and drug peddling as Goan brands, could prostitution be too far behind? For them, it’s a complete package. The pity is, there is a section of naive audience out there, who’d believe it.

Bollywood’s breaking free of this convenient stereotyping would help, though.

Now that we know for sure how much A.Raja, our erstwhile not-so-honourable Union Cabinet Minister for Communications and Information Technology, got to take home as bribe off the 2G spectrum allocation, it is time for some number crunching. OK, well, so it alleged that Raja took home approx Rs.3000 Crore and this is only an approximation. With numbers of these magnitude, does it really matter?

During my teens, once me and my friend in Malaysia, we discussed prices of stuff in each other’s country. It got confusing, so we used the cost of a bottle of coke as a currency. You know, like, an hour of Internet would cost me 3 bottles of coke here. It was a horrible way of understanding economics but it gave me a good enough idea of things. It can be overwhelming, with all those numbers that give identity to scandals. To get an idea of the magnitude, we need already set benchmarks. It makes more sense to us when we see things relative to one another.

So here is something I worked on with my morning tea. It could be the most unimaginative post ever, coming from me, but I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves:

1. If I do not pay my tax, I take home a salary that would be 0.0001333% of what Raja got as bribe.

2. India’s Gross Domestic Product, as per 2010, was Rs. 64350000000000. Raja got 0.04662% of that as a bribe. Of course, my take home salary, I will reinstate, was 0.0001333% of Raja’s 0.04662%. I did not even bother compare my salary to India’s GDP.

3. Raja’s bribe is approximately 46.875% of the cost of Bangalore Metro Phase I. Going by proportion, assuming only half of Banaglore’s Metro Phase I is up and running, would Raja piggy-back us to where we want, to make up for the other half?

4. Raja’s bribe is almost 41.40% of what a single unit of a Su-30 MKI costs. In the time of War, can we depend on Raja to cause the amount of destruction 2.5 (OK, 2) Sukhoi 30s can cause to the enemy?

5. OK, I should not venture into the Tata connection to all this, but I can’t resist, so here goes: According to Forbes, Ratan Tata’s salary for 2010 was Rs.13,059,000.00. Impressed? It all looks minuscule, when you will hear that Ratan Tata would have to work 2297 years and 2 months (approx) to earn what Raja got as bribe (allegedly, approximately, blah, blah, do-we-care), going by his current salary.

6. You might (or not) know about Admiral Gorshkov. No, not the man (Sergey Gorshkov) but the Soviet Aircraft Carrier India is buying from Russia. They will rename it to Vikramaditya and soon it will be the pride of Indian Navy. Because our Raja is a rich man now, we can compare him to this deal too. Raja’s bribe is 28.98% of what we are paying for the ship.

7. Here’s one more and this might interest Mamta Didi: Indian Railways, one of the world’s largest employers, reported a net income of Rs. 951 crore for 2009-10. That was 31.7% of what Raja earned, allegedly of course, in the same time.

8. Here’s more and this should really make sense if the last 7 haven’t. The average salary of an IPL player (for a year) is Rs.172800000. With Rs.30000000000 in his wallet, our Raja can do wonders at IPL. He can have 173.6 IPL players on his payroll for a year! He could float what, 11 teams with 15 players each. We can’t call them Raja XI because they aren’t XI. According to Romans, we need to call them Raja’s CLXXIII. Or rather, if Raja has any business sense, he could float a parallel league – He could call it, well, RPL (No prizes for guessing what the initials stand for).

(thanks D, for the idea!)

I hope things are more clear. Meanwhile, keep in mind that these figures, Raja’s bribe to say the least of it, are approximate figures.

Two of my most frequently visited websites, timesofindia.com and cricinfo.com, both have started to annoy me. There are those full page advertisements that start cropping up a second or two after I have hit these URLs and just moments after they have teased me with their headlines. A few times, I have left timesofindia.com in rage, vowing to never come back again. Maybe there are better and more serious sources of news that I do not know of yet but invariably, I hit timesofindia.com (and rediff too!) for my first feeds of the day.

In the end I ask myself if these advertisements are worth it, anyway. I doubt if these are asked my the marketing heads of the products who choose to fill you screen with their advertisements on websites that have loyal readers like me. Because when I am out shopping, no matter how much adidas advertises on cricinfo, I will not buy their shoes because I saw that advertisement there. I might buy their shoes if they are priced less than most and because they are a good fit. As a consumer, that is all that goes into my mind. period.

Nor will I get an airtel connection because I see it all the time on timesofindia.com. Trust me, I am almost bored to death of their new tune and I just loathe their new logo. I think they would be much better off by doing something to stop my number being spammed by numerous advertisements DESPITE being in the national DND registry or they could invest a fraction of the advertisement money in hiring customer care executives who know how to be courteous and talk sense. If any mobile company offers me that, I’ll take it. I will never buy a mobile phone connection just because it takes 70% of the screen space on a website I am loyal to. Sorry.

Which brings me to the point I started with, what happens to cricinfo and toi websites without full screen advertisements. My response to an argument like that would have something to do with another two websites that I frequent very often (if not everyday): Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au) and NYT’s www.nytimes.com. Both respected publications and if you visit those websites you’ll see how much importance is given to advertisements vis-a-vis the news. For a respected publication, it’s website should be it’s extension and not a money making marketing strategy. Advertisements on websites of reputed media houses should be used to break-even the cost of hosting them and maintaining their online presence. Sadly, for cricinfo and timesofindia.com specifically, this seems to be a revenue thing at the cost of their loyal readers.

A few days ago, I had posted on this blog a link of an essay I wrote for the tehelka magazine. The online version had missed out on a paragraph which I thought, could not escape the chopping at the Editor’s desk but when I looked at the printed version, I was glad to find out that it was almost unabridged. Sure, publishing in a magazine of the stature of Tehelka was itself the best thing that ever happened to me but to make it’s way to the ink with minimal changes was very confidence boosting. Anyway, I am publishing the essay here now and I am glad and thankful for the good wishes I have got at facebook, email and everywhere else.

It was almost ten years ago on a starry night in Pune, a friend and I had enjoyed coffee at our usual joint and discussed the benchmarks to measure success in life. Though we differed on a set scale, our lowest common denominator seemed to be a position in life where we could “choose” to come to America. It was a one off thing, just two college grads ranting and dreaming while being conveniently oblivious to the harsh realities of life that lay ahead.

Then at the beginning of this year, a trip to America started to seem like a real possibility. I had long forgotten about that talk in Pune. Instead, the last few months, I had started to imagine, how would it be to see America for the first time, from a few thousand feet up in the air. I had replayed the whole sequence in my mind invariably with the same result because it seemed to center around gazing at the Statue of Liberty below, while the plane approached landing. I knew it was not possible for that to happen because there was a good chance I may not land at JFK afterall.

But I made it close, touching down at Newark. I do not know if my plane hovered above the Statue of Liberty because, despite my best efforts, when the moment came, I found myself seated at the aisle seat.

I had gone to America on a 6 month deputation, work was imperative. But I had other aims in mind too. In those 6 months, I aimed to build a perspective of the country that Hollywood could never help me with, that would be balanced in nature just as I wanted it to be: free from prejudice. There is much to learn from what could be said the most successful democracy of our times. I have always believed very strongly in what Bono has to say about America — “It’s like hey, look there’s the moon up there, let’s take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That’s the kind of America that I’m a fan of”. My fascination about the country was centered around this quote.

My first glimpse of America eventually turned out to be the view from the immigration queue. It was Newark bay as I would later realize and the tall red cranes of the port standing in sequence, almost guardian like, to the zipping cars on the highway below made a sight to behold.

Almost a month later, we made it to New York City, which was only an hour away by train. Entering through the suburbs of the city, it looked a lot like Mumbai (minus the slums) and just like Mumbai, it had it’s own distinct smell in the air. A few moments after I came out of The New York Penn station, I saw the Empire State building. I knew back in my mind that there’s a memory being formed right now which would stay vivid forever. I was in such awe of the place that later that misty evening, I spent two hours sitting on a bench below the Empire State, writing postcards to my friends and family back home. I went to Times Square, watched people, listened to U2’s “New York” and clicked pictures while sipping Starbucks.

In the months that followed I kept coming back to New York City, visited Central Park and took photos of Empire State Building in various shades, one of them when the building was bathed in Saffron, White and Green, on August 15th. The New Yorkers thought it had something to do with Ireland.

But my ultimate realisation and my “moment” happened a few months later, on a NYC boat ride that started at Seyport and took us from below the Brooklyn Bridge to the Statue of Liberty. There I was, staring at the monument that was the ultimate symbol of America in my mind, as the sun set over Manhattan. During that sunset, it dawned upon me for the first time, that I had subconsciously fulfilled a promise I had made to myself ten years ago on that night in Pune. By those standards, I had arrived somewhere in life. It was, all of a sudden, surreal. I closed my eyes and let it sink in.

A few months after that moment, I was in the plane headed back to India. As the plane approached take-off, I could see the New York Skyline under the evening Sun. I had cut short my trip owing to various reasons and had chosen, happily and unregretfully, returning back to my country over staying in America.

Could I have imagined this, that night in Pune? Maybe in our rush, my friend and I had discounted the possibility of a finale like this. How would the idea of “choosing” to leave America — at our own will, fare in our benchmarks? I didn’t know the answer and maybe at that moment I didn’t care but I kept my gaze at New York’s tallest building, a faint shade of grey with a hint of silver — far away, until I could.

…and a few words about this too. After a long time sticking to one of the best themes I had ever used, I have decided to give an image makeover to my blog. So, after a new theme and a new wordpress installation later, this is how it looks (RSS/Google reader subscribers should come and have a look at the website, please!).

As always, while choosing the theme, readability was on top of my priorities. Also, the header image is customizable — which means, as before, I will be using my own pictures for the header image (including the present one that you see right now, this was taken in the western ghats, from a train!).

Please let me know what you think of this!