Once in a lifetime opportunity !

For the first time in my life, I was in the audience of an intenational cricket match where India actually WON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cricket Sixes
Hong Kong
October 23, 2005

Njoy the Pics :)


The ground


The cheerers


The claps


And the smiles

An obituary for my 26 years

I kept it at bay for an entire year, and then found me ensnared, yet again. My damn birthday.

This time I left town to escape. Ran away to Singapore last week. But even there it caught up with me, turning me 27 against all my prayers. Taking me unawares. Right there, on the luggage conveyor belt at Changi. Damn.

Oh yes - this is moping time. As I always mope on every occassion worth its salt. Anniversaries, festivals, anything regular... they all seem like performance appraisals - demanding to know - what I have to show, for the years gone by. Bossy creeps.

Sigh

26 gone by

I need retail therapy
:(((

You've come a long way, baby!

source: http://tobaccodocuments.org/pollay_ads/Virg03.11.html



Here's an ad that marked a change in the way things were marketed - when in it's campaign, Virginia Slims asked women to smoke for themselves, to celebrate their own success in climbing up the social ladder.

Of course, increasing one's lung cancer risk is not quite the way to mark the femiminist leap of the '60s. Nevertheless, it's better than choking up to please some thoughtful male with undoubtedly lecherous thoughts on a billboard. But that's a different story. And my thoughts today centre not around the smoking, but dieting.

Coz dieting too has come a long way. Goodbye cabbage soup. So long, starvation diets. Hello, Eating. And by eating I do not mean throw up after eating, but just good old eating, even hogging.

Atkins, South Beach diet, and now The Warrior are littering the landscape with glimmers of hope for meatloaf lovers. And Meatloaf lovers - 'I would do anything for love, but I won't do THAT'. THAT, with all its contempt for exercise. and all the love for skinniness.

I know, I know - all of these diets do not just recommend eating, but also exercise. and sternly too. Dr Atkins demands a work-out along with all those stakes, and stakes, and uhm, some more stakes. But I am not very sure as to how many of those who follow his mantra follow the whole of it. Do they run and weight-train as religiously as they stuff their mouth with, er, the stakes?

Now before anyone gets high-strung and leaves testimonials on this page with 'before' and 'after' snaps (not that I am stopping you guys), let me clarify, I am not trying to discredit these increasingly bizarre eating recommendations. In fact, I have been sufficiently enticed to try to try them out myself. After I witnessed a Discovery channel documentary that took up Dr Atkins work quite seriously (yes, I was jobless and there were hardly any other channels worth watching on TV) I did try out meat - meal after meal for two whole days. May sound a paltry achievement to you, these two days, but that's all my Indian, vegetable-centric palette could stomach.

Which brings me to why I am writing this column at all... any nutritionists looking for a new avenue in the semmingly over-congested dieting market? I would be glad to hear an eat-all-you-want version plan with curries and vegetables. And am sure some Mexican somewhere is looking for jalapeno and salsa laden meals. While an irishman or many are looking for Guinness-full menus. There are many more untrodden paths ahead. So Help!

When I was new to Hong Kong - jobless, lazy and wilting away in a shoebox-sized serviced apartment that's so typical to this city - I became a TV addict for the first time. I watched anything that moved: ranging from Hitler on History channel to Chinese horror film monsters on cable to even the live camera relay from the building's entrance. And I didn't sleep through anything.

The vegetative state lasted for two months, maybe more. I became quite a potato all over except for my remote-tapping hand. But the bigger feature I am stuck with is the attraction of reality shows. Barring 'Growing up Gotti', it all works for me. I've even grown to like Simon (s)cowl. really. And I think Rockstar INXS is un-missable.

Of course, I'm hardly alone in succumbing to this genre. Zee TV (the only Hindi channel I get in my building) has polished its Saregamapa singing competition to reflect more competitivness and more rudeness (by pitching 'guru' music directors against each other, half of them coming across as fairly abrasive and one of whom is further ruder).

Of course, can't help but compare the American shows to their Indian counterparts. And the first thing that comes to my mind is not the participant quality, nor production values - it's the culture!

While the American shows treat their contendors as adults - lambasting them or praising them as potential singers, the Indian judges treat them, and even address them, as if they were kids. Imagine Paula Abdul telling Bo Bice "you are like our son" or Simon tell Carrie Underwood "I am criticizing you, but take it in the spirit of our teaching heritage... we are just teachers trying to make you children better"! Nope I am not making these dialogues up - these are straight translations from the show.

The difference just amuses me: why do Indians have children, and Americans sons and daughters? What do you think?

Giant Squid - check it out

Hurrah! We have done it again! Gone deep into the ocean, tortured an animal in its own habitat, and come out triumphant with photographs. Normally we do it to things we are familiar with - you know, things that are good to eat or pretty to look at - but now we've managed the feat with something we hardly believed existed. Congratulations Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori. You have managed to make a giant squid cut off its own arms so that we could see hazy pictures of an animal that few people had imagined, and fewer still are concerned about.

"I think it's wonderful that we've finally got a picture of a living giant squid," said Richard Ellis, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History [as reported by National Geographic]. Oh yes, wonderful indeed. What a moving performance to see a living thing impaled on the hook. How thrilling to see it struggling to break free. And what a marvellous ending to see leave behind two of its tentacles - bleeding, cut off, and oh so helpful for our scientific deductions.

The find has already put light on the big question that has puzzled scientists for years, which is: are these creatures active or lazy? Yes, this is the big discovery that we have come up with - read this news report. As you will find out: "The efforts the squid went to untangle itself [from the baited fishing line] also shows they are capable of quite strong and rapid movement." Ah the enlightenment.

Now I have no quarrel with science, nor do I have a problem with the money spent on it. But I DO mind if we go about things in an avoidably inhuman way. You got to click snaps - feel free. But is it so necessary to send down a bait with hooks for that purpose? Especially when you DO have specimens of the dead variery that were washed up ashore? You want to eat meat - sure - but is it necessary to torture and kill whatever it is that you want to eat? And if pharma companies must test medicines on rats - all right - but for goodness sake can't they follow guidelines and use anasthesia?

Science is not a good enough reason to torture. Nothing is.

I want to be a scientist... again

and I guess Bill Bryson's latest book must be infecting quite a few others too with the same result.

'A short history of nearly everything' is different from most other history and science books in a very fundamental way - the passion shows - a passion that is not limited to just the theories and the logic, but also to the scientists, thinkers, philosophers, cheaters, braggers, and other varieties of people that have populated the subject. Bryson knows all those dead and alive comfortably on a first name basis, and revers all elements that build our universe with an overwhelming wonder. So if up till now you weren't exactly impressed by the atom, things are in for a mojor overhaul by the time he's done with you.

How Bryson managed to amass the knowledge that he has, in just a couple of years, is quite simply, baffling. He found out what the Earth weighs, and when it was figured out what it weighs, and how it was figured out incorrectly at first, and then correctly, and who were doing all this figuring out, and why. And then he does the same with the Earth's age. And then ditto for the galaxy. And then for the atom. And this, of course, is just the beginning of his obsessive inquisitivesness about the world.

Read Bryson for a fresh take on the world and its majesty. Or to enjoy his lilted writing style. Or the hilarious quotations sprinkled all over. There's a reason for everyone!

Boo Yahoo!

"To be doing business in China or anywhere else in the world we have to comply with local law."

And that's all that Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has to say on the subject of becoming an informant of the Chinese government. That his actions support human right violations, and led to a 10-year improsonment term for a journalist is not something he is much bothered about. So long as he is acting 'legally', he is not worried about being right or ethical. The blindfolding, after all, ought to serve him well in making riches from the Chinese market.

Which leads me to the rhetorical question that a letter to the editor in the South China Morning Post asked recently: would Yahoo have been as willing an informant on Jews in the Germany of 1930s has it existed then?

Well, if IBM didn't have a problem under those circumstances, I can wager Yahoo would have no qualms either. After all, as they seem to think, what are a million lives or so against millions of dollars?

Laws and Governments are NOT valid excuses for despicable actions. And if Yahoo does not have the guts to defy the Chinese government, or finds itself too feeble to take a moral stand, it should not be doing be doing business there in the first place.

Watery Vengeance

sourced from: www.doonesbury.com


The last twelve months have been a procession of mass murders. Beginning with the Tsunami that drowned out whole cities with lashing waves, waters have swept into region after region - China, Europe, India, and now, United States. They're pouring and flooding with an uncanny regularity, claiming more lives, more land, more pain.

Till now, each time they struck hard, what came out stronger was the spirit of the people who donated money, materials, manpower, support and anything else they thought would help. At least, that was the case till the latest blow came from Katrina.

The images from a submerged New Orleans show only despair and horror - there seems to be little to soften the blow: relief too slow to give hope, gangs too rampant to allow peace, police force too feeble to give strength. The apathy of those in positions of power, who can make a difference, is unbelievable - far from responding with compassion, they have failed even in their duty.

It's the Titanic all over again - each man for himself - unless of course, you happen to be a first class citizen, in which case you row out in a lifeboat or leave town in a car, while others wait for a backup plan that simply doesn't exist.

Welcome to the Government of Today, which has forgotten why it had the right to collect taxes. They are not paid for the rich to become richer. Nor for increasing the bottomlines of corporates. Not even for the GDP to get higher. Economy, important though it is, is simply a means to an ends called humanity. It is not a proxy for the people, but a support system. And if a nation cannot even try to improve its people's lot, it has no business pompoming its riches.

Had it made any effort in the Katrina catastrophe, we would not be reading of patients killed in hospitals for lack of evacuation plans, of women raped in a stadium as they waited for food and water for days, of Red Cross being requested to keep away from places where people were dying (It was too dangerous to go to, apparently, even though the storm was over). If the US adminitration's own conscience cannot move it to help out, let's hope that at least public outrage will.

Disneyland Hong Kong: Much Ado about not much to do

[with due apologies to Bob Dylan]

How many people must at one spot stand
before Disney finds there's a crowd?
And just how many rides and shows must it make
to get them involved and move out?

The answer, unfortunately, is still blowing in the wind and Disneyland is yet to hear any of it.


photograph credits: ME


Dunno how many visitors sunburnt themselves under the unexpected sun yesterday, but the number sure rivalled Bombay's Victoria Terminus rush hour, or for that matter, HK Central's lunch hour. The trains to the park were packed in the morn when we joined the throngs, and I would guess, right through the day too. But that's all right, and well-expected. At least there was the air-conditioning to save one's sanity.

The real assault to my senses began when the sun broke out as I entered the park - though I would blame the theme park's logistics, and not the climate, for the fiasco. Disney's done a fine job with its modelling - the Main Street's quaint, with all the air of a Hollowood set. And the different 'lands' (tomorrow, fantasy and adventure) aren't bad (nope, not great). But how could the architects forget that this is not Europe where people die for every glimpse of the sun but the sunny locale of Asia? There are no shaded paths to walk under, and at some attractions (such as the not-so-attractive Tarzan Treehouse) no shades as you queue up! In short, unless you carry your own umberella in the manner of sun-phobic women, it is not possible to avoid getting slowly roasted.

The problem gets worse, of course, when there're too many visitors around. To my mind, their number may have exceeded the theme park's reported capacity of 30K when I visited. The resultant long queues extended out not just from the major attractions, but even the 'fast-food' restaurants! Imagine waiting one hour for chips and burger, and you know why I'd had my fill of the place by just 4 pm (as did quite a few others judging by the number of people in my compartment during the ride back home in the evening), though the place was open till 10 at night.

To be fair, it wasn't entirely a nightmare. But the small windows of enjoyment at the colourful Broadway style Lion King musical or the fancy roller coaster in space were simply not worth the hassle. And half the time, it was clearly bad logistical planning that was the root of the problem. For instance, to visit Tarzan's abode, we had to take a 1 minute boat ride through a water body - which would not have been such a slow affair if they'd just built a bridge across. After all, why create a bottleneck for no reason? Then at the Lion King, we had to wait for 35 minutes in a packed enclosure, thankfully shaded but not air-conditioned, before we could enter the auditorium to be able to get any seating - and that's when I had a fast pass!

All in all, it was 200 bucks down the drain. Once the park officially opens on Sep 12, (I visited early thanks to the discounted passes distributed to Standard Chartered for the weekend) I don't see how Disney plans to avoid the overcrowding, the resultant chaos, and ultimately, the disappointment of its guests. There is simply not enough to keep people of HK interested for long, or induce people outside of HK to specially make a visit.

The experience reminded me of Appu Ghar (Delhi) when I was a kid - some 15/20 years ago: More of waiting, less of playing. That place clicked despite the problems because there was no other choice available in the city that time - but HK has an up and running Ocean Park. It seems to me that the moneyhole Euro-Disney will soon have a buddy to debt-up with.

Of cats, kittens, and other things that matter

The trouble with a kitten is
THAT
Eventually it becomes a
CAT

This is one of the very very very few Ogden Nash poems that I don't agree with.

Cats
after all
are no trouble at all

Indeed, as their perpetual yawning and stretching away from us shows, we are quite an irritating and avoidable bunch for them.

Still I've given his grievance much thought, I can come to only one conclusion about the problem he had with the feline: He can't digest the fact that the cat is way beyond him in efficiency and effect in its disdain for the world.

While Ogden sat for hours on end, or maybe days, to poke fun at yet another target - toying with Miranda who just turned thirty, or summarising away the baby who did little else than walcum the talcum - the cat surpassed his belittlement in just a few seconds with a most effortless yawn. Yep, and each every cat can do it. Plus, that ultimate achiever of too-boring-to-even-be-loathed directed itself not to just one element but towards everything on the universe (i.e. everythings beside itself and pieces of string).

Oh Cheer up Nash, cats do not have the capacity to make up whimsical rhymes as you did. (Of course, they do not need to, nor would they ever condescend to gift anyone a prose of their own!) And if they did, remember what Avis said - you're number 2, so you've gotta try harder...

Oh well, I wish you were still around and writing for us. My cats don't speak to me any more :X


p.s. some quote websites seem to have mutated Nash's rhyme to "The trouble with a kitten is that when it grows up, it's always a cat." I am sure what I have on my website is the correct version, having read it in one of his poetry books.

p.p.s. actually I don't have any pet cats at the moment. Damn apartment rules and regulations. But if I had, they would probably be ignoring me (which is not really a problem, because as we all know, chasing is the fun part :D)

Long Live India ! (but hopefully in an upgraded version)

It is a trifle late to post Independence Day musings, but newspapers are still flogging the topic (on websites at least) and I was reminded of a statement by my grandfather: wo waqt behtar tha. kam se kam jo maarta tha woh angrez tha, ab to apne hi log kaisa bartaav karte hain. Zyaada chot lagti hai. [translated - those times of the British were better. If the white man was hitting us, we knew he was an outsider who could not be expected to feel for us. But now it our own who exploit us - and it feels worse]

I've heard him say this just once, and it is the only time I have felt annoyed with him. I felt like arguing with him at his blasphemy - to say that pre-independence we were better off! The shame of it! To admit to the 'better' rule of people who tortured us, impoverished us, brutally killed us - those who left us to suffer bloody riots in a partition that they fuelled as well as they could!

The line goaded me for quite a few days, and I hotly answered back in my head many times over - though at some level I wondered if he knew better what he was talking about. After all, his knowledge wasn't a result of just movies and history books like mine.

I finally realised the true import of his words during my daily religious reading of the newspapers. Littered with every abominable exploitation that you can think of, they slapped me with the answer in every headline. Woman forced to march naked in her village. Rapist asked to marry his victim. Thousands of crores of welfare money eaten by Babus. Schools without teachers. Jails with innocents. Corruption. Corruption. and then some more corruption.

It wasn't my grandfather who was insulting freedom fighters - it is the powerful of today. And I grudgingly wonder - would the independence heroes still have made their efforts if they'd known that the crimes would still persist, only some of the victims would change?

Perhaps they would have still, in hope. And I guess, despite his statement, my grandpa will not be welcoming the Brtitish rule back, far from it! But I do wonder - where will India's next freedom revolution come from? The first one could not quite make it to its destination all the way, so how can it inspire the next? [It was not just to overthrow the British - it was a desire for a better India, without persecution, poverty and the ills of a heirachical society with an exploitative powerful class]

I'm sure many will suggest killing off all the politicians we have. It's a good start indeed, but not quite enough. Coz ironically, though we are quick to see how politicians are milking us to their advantage, we're quite blind to how we treat those below us in the earnings ladder.

Read this piece by Sainath, whom I've been lucky enough to be taught by a few years ago. I am not sure how many of you will agree with his words against slum demolitions that took place recently in Bombay, but I am hoping you will see how callously we think of decisions that affect those below us. It seems so black and white, that illegal occupation equals legitimate kicking out. But is it? Would you have thought it all right if the British, through their negligence, caused poverty, which then forced the poor to live in illegal slums in a city to find work, and then burnt down these slums overnight? That's not justice, that's nightmare, and we're the ones who're standing by and cheering.

For starters...

... let me begin with what I want to end up as. It would be a fitting introduction, coz I've spent a good part of my life-span conjuring it. or rather conjuring them. There are many versions, and many desires - not much different from Bollywood potboilers and tabloid headlines. For instance, I've killed some dictators, quite a few terrorists, and many many hearts. I've been an admired actress, a hypnotic singer, and a best-selling writer. I've even sported shiny skin and striking poise at sixty, without going through the rigours of a makeover reality show.

At this point, you must be thinking, as I often wonder myself, this cannot possibly all happen. In fact, not even one of these is going to take place. But then at times like this, I get inspiration from George Bush. If that man, whose voice and frowned-head-equals-compassion-face has the same effect on me as chalk screeching in soprano over blackboard, can win two elections in a row - boy, I can do anything.

So it is that I am still day-dreamimg. After all, staying alive has its trials: bad news, and what's worse, true bad news. What I'm counting on for relief is kicking back, in thoughts and in words.