Two Passings

Noted journalist and literary critic Sham Lal passed away a couple of weeks ago. He was editor of Times of India from 1967 to 1978 (before our time). But he was best known for his book review column 'Life and Letters'. A collection of his reviews was published as A Hundred Encounters, a book that can be considered an introduction to 20th century Western thought and literature.

Coincidentally, one of the thinkers reviewed in A Hundred Encounters was Jean Baudrillard - who also passed away, this week. Baudrillard is commonly described as a post-modernist, but that term does not convey much useful information. Trained as a sociologist, he is famous for his theory of hyper-reality. Most people were first introduced to Baudrillard in the film Matrix, where his book 'Simulacra and Simulacrum' makes a brief appearance.

Peace Keepers

(My recent posts have been about death and destruction. For a change, here's a feel good story)

The UN peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon has, as usual, a contingent of Indian troops. And these men are teaching Yoga to the local kids, who are taking to it eagerly.

Keep it up guys! You make us proud, both on the battlefield and off it. Uncle Sam can learn a thing or two about winning hearts and minds from you.

Shia Vs Sunni

There's a lot of literature out there on the Shia-Sunni divide, attempting to explain why people who are supposed to be united - under one God, one prophet and one book - are busy killing each other. This is as good an article as any other.

The Horror Of Nithari

An IPS officer has written a moving article about the rot in our law and order system, of which the Nithari killings were only a symptom. May we never sleep the peace of ignorance.

Perspective

An Iraqi football player has lost his leg in a recent bomb blast.

An incident like this is more effective in reminding us of the horror of the situation, rather than a number like 6,55,000. Especially if you are a sports fan.

Aphorisms

Books
Living life is more important than reading books.
R L Stevenson: Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.

Philosophy
When real life hits you, philosophy goes out of the window. The question is no longer "What is the Truth?" The question is now "How should I live?" (Or "What should I do with my life?" or "What kind of life should I live?") Ethics becomes more important than metaphysics.
And we answer this question by living. Our life is our answer to this question. Gandhiji: My life is my message.

Truth (also Meaning/Purpose of Life)
The Truth is Here and Now. Whatever shit is happening to you right here, right now - that is your life. There is no Truth other than this, or beyond this.
The time to be happy is right now. If you are happy now, then you are happy. Otherwise you are not happy. That's it.

Life
Life is a journey, not a destination.
The journey is more important than the destination.
Kierkegaard: Life is not a problem to be solved; it is a mystery to be lived.
Kierkegaard: Life must be lived forwards; but it can only be understood backwards.

Life (contd)
'Shantaram': Live life fully.
The purpose of life is to live. To experience life fully. Good and bad, happiness and sorrow, victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, love and loneliness. If you know only happiness, then your knowledge is only 50%. Be a complete man.

Ethics
Be good. Do what you think is right, always.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
The ends do not justify the means. Evil can sometimes come out of good, but good can never come out of evil.
Gandhiji: Be the change you want to see.
Be humble.

Reader's Digest
1. Choose a job you love. (You must be passionate about your work. You must believe in what you do.)
2. Take risks. (When you look back on your life, you will not regret the things you did; you will regret the things you did not do. To risk nothing is to lose everything.)
2b. Make mistakes, and learn from them. Don't make the same mistake twice. Show me a man who has never made a mistake, and I will show you a man who has never tried anything.

Brothers In Arms

Let's take a break today from my blabbering. Just enjoy the lyrics of this beautiful song.

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arm

Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms.

Borat Cohen

Saw the Golden Globes ceremony (repeat telecast) yesterday night. For me, the highlight was Sacha Baron Cohen's outrageous acceptance speech. It was unlike any speech you'll hear at an awards ceremony. Most members of the audience were laughing uncontrollably; only one or two seemed put off by Cohen's toilet humour.

Now we have to see if Borat will be released in India, and if it is, just how much of it will get past the Great Indian Censors.

Team McLaren

Check out McLaren's drivers for 2007. Alonso looks cool in his new haircut, and Lewis Hamilton is the first black driver in F1.

I think McLaren's car troubles will continue this year. That leaves the field open for Kimi Raikkonen to claim his first Championship.

Alonso dumped a winning team for a struggling one because he was offered $40 million. So that's what he thinks the Driver's Championship is worth.

RIP, Beckham

We always knew David Beckham was more of a model than a footballer. Now the transformation is complete. You know a footballer doesn't care about the game any longer when he moves to the US. The asinine British media, instead of lamenting the fall of a once-fine player, are going ga-ga over how much money he will make now.

Spirituality

Recently I had an email discussion with a friend on spirituality. Today's post is a mail I sent to him.

The search for Truth is highly personal and subjective. Every man must follow his own path. For whatever it is worth, I'll put down my own beliefs/opinions here. So that you know where I stand.

First and foremost, I am not a spiritual person. What is spirituality? Indian philosophy teaches us that only the body dies at death. The soul does not die; it takes up another body. Thus we take birth and die repeatedly. Do I agree with this? I don't know. We cannot prove it, and we cannot disprove it either. But I am willing to grant this theory the benefit of doubt. Science has not yet been able to crack the mystery of consciousness.

Indian philosophy further says that this phenomenon of being born and dying repeatedly is a bad thing, because life is full of suffering and/or the world is unreal (maya). Hence the goal of life is to attain freedom (mukti/moksha) from the cycle of births and deaths (samsara). This is the cornerstone of Indian spirituality. (Even the so-called heterodox schools like Buddhism and Jainism hold this belief. The only exception was the Charvaka, which took an extremely materialist view - perhaps to compensate for the extreme spirituality of mainstream Indian philosophy) Anyway, this is where I disagree.

I don't agree that life is full of suffering. Suffering is a part of life, but that should not make us run away from it. Especially when we cannot be certain of a better alternative (more on this later). And I don't believe that the world is unreal. Here I have to state my assumptions, so that you know where I'm coming from.

I have decided to believe only what I can see with my two eyes, what agrees with my reasoning, and (this is most important) what makes sense in the light of my experience. I have decided to limit myself to what I can know for certain, instead of making theories about things I cannot know for sure. This kind of attitude means you'll have a very small set of beliefs, but so be it. Better a hut built on rock, than a palace built on sand.

So what are the consequences of having such an attitude? Let us consider some common questions.
1) Is there a God? I don't know. The existence of God cannot be proved; it cannot be disproved either. I choose to believe in God. Why? Because it makes life easier.
2) Is there a soul? As I said earlier, I am neutral on this.

Back to our discussion. Is this world real? I don't know, but I will live my life assuming it is, unless something happens that convinces me otherwise. Here is what I DO know for sure: we are born, we die, and in between, we are alive for some time. So the question before us is not 'What is the Ultimate Truth?' (which is irrelevant for our everyday life), but 'How should we live?'.

So I don't agree that the goal of life is to attain freedom from the cycle of births and deaths. At least, I am not going to live my life trying to ensure that I am not born again. Even if we are born again and again, what does it matter? For all practical purposes every life is our first life, since we have no memory of our previous lives.

Then what do I think is the purpose of life? Simple: the purpose of life is to live. Life consists of both good and bad, happiness and sorrow, victories and defeats. One should experience life in all its fullness, in all its variety. One should know what it means to be born as a human being and what it means to live as one, before he dies.

Am I losing anything by having such a worldly view of life? Maybe. But I choose to put my eggs in a basket I can see (however imperfect it is), instead of in a basket that I am not sure exists (however perfect it is). Once upon a time I was also spiritual and other-worldly. But when real life hit me, philosophy went out of the window.

Tying Up Loose Ends

I don't have anything new to write about today. I was just going through my old postings and saw that I have two corrections to make.

First is the one about Red/Blue states. Turns out my long thesis was unnecessary. I searched a little more and found a simpler and more direct explanation. All one has to do is look at the county-level (not state-level) electoral map. The picture is truly astounding - instead of Red or Blue states, what you have is a sea of Red and some Blue dots here and there! Those dots are, of course, the big cities of USA: New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc. The 'Blue' states happen to be Blue because their big city population outnumbers that of the rest of the state. The 'Red' states are states in which this does not happen. For more details (and a passionate argument for liberal/urban politics) click here.

The other is the one about the India-US nuclear deal. I said,"The N-deal is as good as dead" when the Dems won the House and the Senate. Well, time for me to eat my words. The N-deal was passed on the Hill (with overwhelming bi-partisan support) and signed by Prez Bush into law, thank you very much. This subject received a lot of coverage in the Indian media, especially the Indian Express. I somehow never took much interest in it; I don't know why. How important is this deal for us really? What it basically means is that we'll now have fuel for our reactors from the US (and other countries in the NSG). Fine. But what percentage of India's energy needs can be met by nuclear power? I don't have any numbers, but I don't think it will be much. Nuclear energy will be just one of the many sources we have to tap if we want to satisfy our growing hunger for power.

Man Of The Year

Time magazine has named its Person of the year for 2006. It's you. Yes, it's you, me and everybody else who's generating and consuming content on the Internet (I am including myself in the list by virtue of this blog, humble though the effort may be). The magazine argues that Web 2.0 is fundamentally changing our world in many ways, and that the common man is at the centre of this revolution.

Do I agree with this choice? I guess so. It is true that the Internet has grown and changed substantially over the last couple of years, affecting our lives in ways we take for granted. And the net is now truly democratic, putting power in the hands of the people - as against governments or corporates.

At the same time, I would argue that this is a convenient choice for the editors of Time. It suited their purpose to look at a 'trend' and name the person at the centre of this trend (in this case, you) as Person of the year. Why? Because if they had followed the usual, and expected, process of picking the man who had the most impact in the year (for better or worse) and who created the most news, then it would have been Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Don't agree? Tell me - which was the most happening part of the world this year? Which region was/is the most critical to the world (in key areas like energy and security)? West Asia, obviously. And which country dominated this region in 2006? Iran. Consider this:
1. Iraq's Shia-dominated government is supported by Iran. More importantly, Iran is also supporting the Shia insurgents, who (along with others) have brought the world's sole superpower to its knees.
2. Iran is supporting Hezbollah, who humbled the Israeli army (the most powerful one in the region) in the Lebanon war.
3. All efforts to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program have come to naught. Iran thumbed its nose at the US, the EU, the UN, the IAEA and got away with it. It might take them another 10-15 years, but they will get the bomb.
In sum, Iran is gradually emerging as the most powerful player in the region. It is also drawing a 'Shia crescent' (with Syria and Hezbollah) through the region, giving the jitters to not just Israel and US, but also the Arab/Sunni states.

And who was the man leading this 'rogue nation'? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. True, he is not the most powerful man in his country. That title belongs to the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. Some say Ahmadinejad is just a front for the mullahs who rule Iran. Perhaps. But nobody will deny that, to the world, he is the face of his country. He has been in world headlines all this year with antics like denying the Holocaust and writing a letter to Bush (asking all Americans to convert to Islam, of course).

Not sure how the Americans would have taken it if an enemy of the US had been named as Person of the year. So Time decided to play it safe. This is the not the first time they have done so. The most infamous example was in 2001 when they named Rudolph Giuliani, instead of Osama bin Laden. If ever there was a slam dunk for Man of the year, this was the year, and this was the man. But political correctness triumphed over intellectual honesty.

PS: Ahmadinejad is a civil engineer (with a PhD). I tell you, we engineers rock! ;-)

The New James Bond

Saw Casino Royale. Enjoyed it a lot. The media earlier focused too much on the new actor playing 007. Turns out that it wasn't only the actor that's new. Everything is different - the whole tone of the movie. It's more serious, more violent, darker and more intense. Suits me.

It was about time actually. The silliness of the older films (especially the Roger Moore ones) was becoming increasingly irrelevant. It was one thing to make fluffy spy movies during the Cold War (when the threat was distant) and quite another to continue with the same thing in this age of terrorism (when you can be blown up by a bomb anytime). This is the light in which the transformation should be seen, and not just in terms of box office appeal. (Most observers have only commented that the franchise had to become more contemporary, like the Jason Bourne movies - which have been more popular with the younger crowd)

The villain is a financier for terrorists across world. Tellingly, none of the terrorists shown are Muslims. So controversies are not created and box office collections are not affected. Africa is shown a couple of times. But I doubt if Africans are glad with this kind of exposure.

As for the man himself? Daniel Craig? How does he measure up? He's good. Fits the new version of Bond (actually it's the original version - the way Ian Fleming had created the character) like a glove. He's 38, though. Not sure how many Bond movies he has in him. But we'll enjoy it while it lasts...

What Took Them So Long?

Finally the US media are calling a spade a spade. NBC, New York Times and some other news organisations have decided to call the situation in Iraq what it is - a fucking civil war! Of course the White House has objected. What does it matter what we call it? 3000 Iraqis are dying every month.

This reminds me of the cyclone that hit Orissa in 1999. Over 10,000 people died, and our MPs were busy debating whether the situation should be declared a "national calamity" or not!

What Next?

What kind of change can we expect in the US's Iraq policy, after the mid-term polls and Rumsfeld's departure? George W Bush is still the President and the Commander-in-Chief for the next two years. So any change in the approach in Iraq is entirely in his hands. Will he be more flexible and open minded? Is he prepared to redefine "success in Iraq"?

There won't be any shortage of inputs. The new Defence Secretary was CIA Director under Bush Sr, so he should have some ideas. The Democrats are calling for a phased withdrawal/redeployment of troops over the next 18-24 months. Some of them are talking about "keeping troops in the region but not in Iraq", which seems a little bizarre to me. The Baker-Hamilton Committee might submit its report next month. That will be more comprehensive and coherent. But they seem to be pinning too much hope on some plan that involves Iraq's neighbours (including Iran and Syria).

Perhaps Dubya should ignore all this noise and just read Fareed Zakaria's article in Newsweek, which gives a realistic and sensible analysis of the situation - and a way out.

A Vote For Change

I missed the action on Wednesday as I was attending a friend's wedding in Mysore. I came home late in the evening and switched on the TV to see the news: Democrats had taken the House (as expected), and the Senate was in the balance. Next day brought more good news: the Senate was in the bag as well (surprise!), and Rumsfeld was gone (too little, too late). Of course from India's point of view, it wasn't good news. The nuclear deal is now as good as dead. The irony is that while Bush was bad for America and the world, he was good for India.

The woman of the moment is Nancy Pelosi. She may be a she-dragon, but even her critics admire the way she has led her party of "wimps" to an emphatic victory. And finally, after 230 years, America has a woman Speaker.

What An Asshole!

Check out this guy.

Ash Is Back

Aishwarya Rai is back today in 'Umrao Jaan', after a long hiatus. If you ignore 2004's 'Khakee' (in which she didn't have much screen time), her last big movie was 'Devdas' in 2002! Since then it's been a string of flops (Hum kisi se kam nahin, Dil ka rishta, Kuch na kaho, Kyun ho gaya na and Shabd), item numbers (23rd March 1931: Shaheed, Shakti: the power and Bunty aur Babli), art films (Chokher bali and Raincoat) and ill-advised overseas forays (Bride & prejudice and Mistress of spices).

The audience doesn't seem to mind. They still consider her Bollywood's #1 actress (check out India Today's bi-annual opinion polls if you don't believe me). I guess the rules are different for Ash. She is thin and has green eyes, you see. 'Umrao Jaan' also mark's Ash's return to India. Till now she's been busy trying to become an 'international' star - appearing in Cannes and on Oprah and David Letterman. Welcome home, Ash!

Ash has two more releases this year: 'Dhoom 2' and 'Guru'. How will these films fare? And how will they impact Ash's career? My predictions are:
Umrao Jaan - average
Dhoom 2 - big hit
Guru - average
Dhoom 2's success won't be due to Ash. In addition to riding on Dhoom 1's success, it has Hrithik and great locales. But still Ash, being Ash, will walk away with a significant part of the credit. As I said, the rules are different for her. What will be the impact of the movies' performance on her standing? It will further boost her #1 status. At worst she will remain #1 :-p

How long will Ash mania last? Perhaps another 2 years. Once she turns 35, she may no longer be hot property. That's why she's making hay while the sun shines. Get ready to see a lot of Ash in the next 2 years. Curiously she's playing a lot of historical characters: Mumtaz Mahal (The heart of India), Jodha Bai (Jodha-Akbar) and Jhansi Rani Lakshmibai (The rebel). It'll be a nice way to end her career, since she started it the same way: her first film was 'Iruvar' (1997), in which she played a character based on Puratchi Thazhaivi Dr J Jayalalithaa :-p

What's In A Name?

Ok, the unthinkable has happened. My beloved Bangalore has become Bengaluru. What next? Bendakaluru?!

After Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were renamed I thought we Kandus were the only sane people left in the country. Now even we have lost our heads :-(

I agree that Kannada must be supported and encouraged. But this is not the way to do it. The language of Pampa and Basavanna does need the protection of illiterate politicians and incompetent bureaucrats. Renaming cities will do nothing for the cause of Kannada.

Besides, the move is meaningless. The name of the city was already Bengaluru in namma cheluva Kannada. 'Bangalore' was merely the Anglicised pronounciation of the same. We could have continued to have the two names. Why should we impose our pronounciation on others? The Bongs were nuts to 'rename' Calcutta as Kolkata. Atleast Chennai is a different name from Madras. And I won't even talk about the Shiv Sena.

Kannadigas are the most broad minded, tolerant and cosmopolitan people in India. This kind of chauvinism and parochialism go against our ethos. This is nothing but a gimmick by politicians to divert attention from the real issues: infrastructure, education and healthcare. In what way will a name change improve the life of ordinary Kannadigas?

This whole mess started when the Dharam Singh government was looking for ideas to celebrate Karnataka's golden jubilee. Of all people, U R Ananthamurthy came up with this suggestion. The do-nothing Dharam was only too happy to accept it. His government fell before Nov 1, but the JDS-BJP regime that succeeded him went ahead with the asinine move.