The latest issue of Outlook has this story about how business is the prime mover in politics and how business lobbies help win elections. It also listed the business lobbies siding with the Congress: Information Technology, Infrastructure, Liquor, and Higher Education. This is with specific reference to Karnataka, but I think it has a point of reference in other states too, IMHO. Excerpt:
“Elections 2008 in Karnataka are all about powerful business lobbies and the influence they wield over key political parties. They have apparently had their way in the distribution of tickets, and now, the manner in which campaigns are run and votes are sought. So whichever party or coalition comes to power after results are out on May 25, it will have to pander to the lobbies which have backed it.”
After Indian Premier League this is bad news. That the gentleman’s game has been taken over was bad news, but now even politics has been made a tool in the hands of the powerful businessman. I mean, the bad news is that business and money power is taking over another hallowed precinct while we can only stand and stare. What happened to sports has happened to politics and what happened between Vijay Mallya and Rahul Dravid can also happen in politics, i.e., the businessman can ask, “What happened to your promises to me?”
There’s a by-election in New Bombay, where I live. A policeman who comes for a walk with me in the mornings confesses that at the place where he was posted there were hardly seven per cent polling. Why? Because they knew who will win even before the election was held, so people stayed away. How? Because the man who was ultimately going to win had the support of the local business, and was himself a businessman.
Need I say more?
While I was carping here about Bush alleging that Indians were eating up all the world's food, this blog item in Boing Boing wove into vision. It says that the US wastes 27 per cent of food available for consumption.
"This NYT article on global food wastage is timely -- just as the food riots have begun to break out around the world -- and shocking. Makes me want to become a freegan.
"You’d never know it if you saw what was ending up in your landfill. As it turns out, Americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study — and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American.
Grocery stores discard products because of spoilage or minor cosmetic blemishes. Restaurants throw away what they don’t use. And consumers toss out everything from bananas that have turned brown to last week’s Chinese leftovers. In 1997, in one of the few studies of food waste, the Department of Agriculture estimated that two years before, 96.4 billion pounds of the 356 billion pounds of edible food in the United States was never eaten. Fresh produce, milk, grain products and sweeteners made up two-thirds of the waste."
To a question by Subhash K Jha "You seem to have become far more frank and forthright, far less diplomatic than you used to be."
Id est, after starting blogging on Bigadda.com the Bachchan patriarch has become more forthright, here comes the frank reply, which I guess comes straight from that shapely mouth and exquisite articulation:
"Maybe. But I think it comes from the knowledge that what you write or express has the ability to go across to the reader without dilution or moderation. The absence of the ‘middleman’ in this business, as an eminent colleague from your fraternity described the situation, helps in the purity of my output. This is not to challenge the purity of the middlemen or their intention, but it is sometimes more desirable to deal directly. I try to be as honest as I can in my out pouring and yes they may seem to you to be more frank and forthright and less diplomatic, but I wonder too at times whether that has been judicious of me. As I spoke in my last blog of DAY 28(i), words and expressions can get twisted and misinterpreted and can cause unwanted hurt or a misunderstanding. These are some of the misgivings that all in the public domain have to be careful about. A twisted or misinterpreted thought could create an avalanche of negativity, which in turn could fructify into harsh and ugly acts. I would hate for that to happen and whenever it has, I have not hesitated to tender an apology or to correct myself if I have done wrong. I am human and I will make mistakes."
To read more go to Amitabh Bachchan Blog here.
I love this guy, always have after having seen him in Anand, Namak Haram (I saw it yesterday, again), Zanjeer, Sholay, Coolie, Mili, Majboor, Dostana, etc. etc. His words are so genuine and he is so soft spokenly harsh with his critics. Must master that technique when I become faymbous and all that... if ever....
I met Peter in the ICU of Sterling Wockhardt Hospital, Vashi. He is feeling much better and we had a long chat. (Among the topics discussed were: his cooking style, food preferences, Anglican faith, work, biryanis, how Indian food over-uses spices [we like to dump our spice don't we?], the Mallu factor in hospitals, etc.) He seemed in the mood to talk and I didn't dissuade him. His humour and irony is as strong as ever and he seemed in good spirits. Luckily when the attack occurred a cardiologist was at home attending to his brother. So everything went off smoothly.
Seeing me in my Sunday best, he asked if I was coming straight from church. I said yes, and only then did I know how he had found out. He is as sharp as ever. He needs your prayers and I ask all his friends to pray for him. I was in hospital recently and it's through prayers of both people and mine that I recovered. Life seemed bleak, transitory and threatened lying back on the hospital bed, attended by inefficient nurses, but I was able to pull through because of the thing called prayer and faith, a tranqulity I found in the scriptures and in a novel (The Kite Runner), a medicine most people and doctors tend to ignore.
We (Vivin, Albert, Joan, self, Prakash, Manisha, Suniti, and a few other friends) are taking turns to keep vigil outside the ICU.
Peter needs your prayers and soon he will be transferred to the general ward. Anyway, if you feel you can help, you can contact him through his cell phone, which is being monitored by the people who would be attending to him at that particular time.
Reference this post of Pragya Thakur, moderator of Shakespeare and Company, I have posted the following piece about how sibling relationships grow cold and drift away into estrangement, coldness, and alienation. Do read and either comment here or on Shakespeare and Company.
A wonderful, thoughtful and delightful piece. So evocating that I thought of my relationships with my sisters and my brother who have drifted apart after our parents' death. The chasms have got so wide after this that I gave up whatever efforts I did earlier to phone, write and catch up. I remember, I was the one who was making all the effort and yet they were so unappreciative of it. I guess somethings will never change in sibling relationships. It's that way in all cultures. We grow up and we grow apart.
Sad isn't it? However, its with my childhood school friends that I have forged great friendships. As children we sat in the same classroom and as adults of fifty odd years of age, we still meet and remember those days. There is teasing, ribbing, remembering old teachers who passed away, but never any rivalry though we were rivals when we were small.
To each their own, is all I can say. With your brother the distance is coverable given that you were so fond of each other. Only the cobwebs need to be removed and a fresh new start made. But will we bother to do that? That's the big question.
उस ने कहा , मुझे एक महान प्रेमी हवाई अड्डे के लाउंज . मैं नहीं मन उड़ानों में देरी की जा रही है , क्योंकि मैं नहीं चाहता कि इस यात्रा आरंभ करने के लिए , काफी कम है , को समाप्त करने के लिए . आदर्श हवाई यात्रा मेरे लिए एक अंतहीन इंतजार हवाई अड्डे पर लाउंज , सुगमता से दूर ले , और ओह ! मैं पसंद नहीं करते और इस विचार से उतरने के घर या कहीं जा रहा है , समाप्त हो जाएगा कि परमानंद देखने के लिए कई प्रकार के लोग हैं , इसलिए कई तकनीकों पर काम है , इसलिए कई विशाल पक्षी लेने में उड़ान बंद , चिकनी docking , सहायक वाहनों का झोंका , वर्दीधारी सेवकों और stewardesses . ऐसा ही एक आकाशीय सौंदर्य में एक पंत और निष्कलंक लाल रंग के सूट है gallivanting वाचालता से नहीं बल्कि उसके साथ panty लाइनों को प्रदर्शित है . सभी कहते हैं के अनुभव करने के लिए एक हवाई अड्डे के लाउंज में , मैं कहना है कि हो सकता है के लिए यहाँ posterity .
Can you believe it? The above is the translation of the below paragraph into Hindi by translations.google.com. Guess there aren't some words in Hindi for the ones we write in English. But then why does Google translation do this, if they can't give an accurate translation? I dread to think what they are doing to my articles when they translate to other languages. French, German, Italian, Arabic, etc. etc. I might be their laughing stock by now.
For example I wrote: "I will miss you sweet Swiss knife."
And the Google translated thusly:
मैं अपने आप को मिस स्विस मीठी छुरी .
Several things here. The order of words is wrong, and what is "मिस" I wrote "miss." Isn't there an equivalent word in Hindi?
And what is "स्विस मीठी"? I wrote "sweet Swiss knife". Oh, I get it, late as usual. I know what मीठी छुरी means. You know it is an expression in Hindi for saying something sweet to the face and stabbing them in the back. Remember the song "मीती चुरी का हुआ अ लाल, चोर गंगा किनारेवाला"? Guess Google Translation has done it to me with this translation.
Oh God! When will nations and tongues understand each other. I think it's still the tower of Babel out there as far as translations on the net is considered.
The expression says it all. I am sitting forlornly in the entrance of the Netravati to Kerala. The landscape is beautiful, but that doesn't cheer me a bit!That said; I am a great lover of airport lounges. I don’t mind flights being delayed, as I don’t want the journey to begin, far less, to end. The ideal air journey for me is an unending wait at the airport lounge, a smooth take off, and oh! I don’t like landings and the thought of going home or anywhere else, that would be an end to the bliss of watching so many types of people, so many technologies at work, so many giant birds taking off in flight, the smooth docking, the flurry of ancillary vehicles, the uniformed attendants and stewardesses. One such celestial beauty in a pant and suit of spotless red is gallivanting rather pertly with her panty lines showing. All adds to the experience of an airport lounge, I might say here for posterity.
stations I have been through. At Panvel, on the way to Kerala, I cringe to find the three-tier air-conditioned coach crowded with children and passengers on reservation against cancellation (RAC), that a haze comes over my eyes. I am not even in RAC, I am in waiting list, and don’t have a right to be there. I cringe some more. My wife has excellent public relations, which comes handy in such situations. (She can remember [teacher, being she] names, faces, names of children, where they are studying, in which standard, etc. etc.) My public relations is non-existent, and I hardly know anyone in the compartment, though I am supposed to be a writer, poet and blogger. Fame has evaded me thus far. Grumble! Grumble!
Two families known to my wife are in the compartment and spring to her help and offer her seats with them. She accepts the offer of a friend from Belapur and adjustments are made. My son becomes friendly with the friend’s son, leaving me friendless, sitting at the door of the train in my Kakadu shorts (the memory of “Animal” of Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People” still lingers in the memory). Sometimes I stand at the space near the toilet and talk to another guy who, a member of the ultra-religious Pentecostal sect, actually confesses to me that he runs a used-car racket in Kerala. Some confession by a professed believer!
Oh, misery thy name is Indian Railways! The small compartment is humming with the talk of so many people, almost like a beehive: young, old, and the little monsters. One such monster, sitting beside me, terrorises his mother an
d even publicly beats her up, yet she doesn’t scold him. A man says, ‘In our days, we never used to stir in front of our parents.’ Is it a sign of the times? There are a few monsters down the aisle and the monsters are conspiring to take over and spread chaos on the train, but sleep mercifully confines a few to their berths. What a lucky escape!
A woman is talking Mack English in a persistently high-pitched tone. Her words are simple commands to her children like, “I told you so many times to wash your hands, no, you don’t listen only.” The odd thing is: the way it comes out, it seems forced and self-conscious in the extreme. Does she ever shut her mouth for a few minutes? As author Yann Martel once famously asked, “Do they have periods of silence in their lives, periods when they think, introspect, read, and write something? I don’t know. I guess we Indians have sacrificed the art conversation to the urgent need to make ourselves understood.
I had a few glorious days at my wife’s sister’s beautiful house in Keezhvaipur. The stillness of the morning, warmth of the afternoon, and the convectional rainfall in the evening lull me into a soporific feeling when I sprawl on the easy chair in the porch. The rain in the evening makes the thickly populated topography even greener than it was a day before. From where I am comfortably ensconced I can see teak, rubber, coconut palm, arecanut and jackfruit trees. (My online friend Chryselle tells me that Jackfruit is derived from the Malayalam word “Chakka”, which became “Jaca” in Portuguese and was again corrupted to Jackfruit in English.) These are the ones I can identify, there’s a forest-like profusion of trees around me. It is pleasantly cool, even cold in the night. Nights are full of the cheeping, droning sounds of frogs and crickets and morning come alive with the call of the Cuckoo.
Ah, in this paradise, truly god’s country, full of his heavenly munificence, there’s frustration, too. The causes cannot be elaborated in full here, or anywhere. Why is the Malalyali such a demon for drinks and addictions? Why has Kerala become a land of unfulfillment though it is fulfilled by nature? Every Malayali these days are into some kind of addition, no, multiple ones. At Aluva I see a man walk into a shop demanding to be served lemonade. His eyes are bloodshot, popping out like eggs, and below it are bags that can easily hold a pouch of tobacco, which he orders next. Obviously, he is trying to control last night’s excessive consumption of the local potion – arrack.
I have seen men become so disoriented that they consume in excess with a vengeance, as if drinking can exorcise the demons. And there are sad stories plenty for the migrant workers who have returned from the
The truth is Kerala has a big addiction problem that keeps the liquor, medical and local mafias in business. The mafia has its hands in everything. A ‘quotation’ racket is unearthed, the television at
At Aluva I spend a night in a roach-infested hotel, which boasts of an air-conditioner, which wheezes but doesn’t reduce the temperature a bit. There aren’t rooms to be had anywhere else. The next day I see the new Kerala at
At last my flight DN 819 to Mumbai is announced. I am now shutting my Word file on my Nokia E61i with some reluctance. My bird is ready and the journey back to the daily grind has begun.
(Pictures uploaded from my mobile phone using Shozhu's proprietary software.)
