Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Indians 'world's biggest readers'

Here is a article on the BBC - Indians are world's biggest readers

If you read the full article, there is one guy supporting the survey saying, Indians are extremely entrepreneurial and one doubting it by saying "he could not see Indians flocking to the bookstores". His argument is that Novels don’t sell by the thousands within India. Novels and self-help books are not news, they don’t get outdated within an hour. I think the choice of picture on the article should fuse any doubts along those lines, Indians read, simple; Not necessarily from the book shelves of big-name bookstores but from the used bookstores. I wonder why Venkateshwar Rao, supposedly a leading columnist never gave a thought to the thousands of such shops all across the country. I don’t think they make money exporting the books back to the US and UK :)

I know streets in Chennai where thousands of such books get sold everyday and those reading are not those worry about the rat race but the ones that go through the motions of 9-5 and read just to keep them informed and have some intelligent chatter over tea! Even if you take the rat race amongst Indians, these second-hand bookstores play a huge part in that they are a lot of self-made graduates who study via correspondence (Self-study, part-time courses made available by reputed Universities) using books sold from such bookstores.

Another interesting find is that Indians are 4th from bottom when it comes to watching TV! Amazing, considering the millions watching the mega serials on TV every night and the countless TV channels that we have! I am sure the people surveyed were not the right choice to make such a decision, and for sure is flawed, but still anything that shows India in a better light is welcome by me!

Monday, June 27, 2005

What if? - Always counter productive

When I play pool with my colleagues, there is this one guy who goes "Why, what happened?" whenever I miss something obvious or a shot easy to take. I would annoy me really because, it’s not reversible and even if I found out why; he is not going to allow me to re-take the shot, so why bother wondering why!

The same goes with this habit of wondering what if? At times of difficulty or disappointment we most often spend time imagining what would have been if we have changed some little thing, some little decision in our life. The only outcomes is that it makes you even more unhappy and makes you hate yourself/ or the other person who influenced your decision. The weaker ones are even worse; they won’t even accept responsibility for their decisions, but lay the blame at the feet of the person who influenced his/her decision. There is nothing more counter-productive than wondering what if?

When you take a wrong turn on the road, you don’t actually trace back and wonder why, you just look at where you want to be, and take actions on how to get there from where you are currently. Its quite a gift if we can maintain the same attitude with our decisions that we have to make daily in our lives. We should not wallow in disappointment over how we got to where we are but think about what we need to get where we want to be, as with so many things about self help lessons, EASIER SAID THAN DONE.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Anniyan - Bad movie, good cause.....

I watched the much hyped latest Tamil movie - Anniyan. Just because the director was due a movie, he seems to have taken his oft repeated ideas from his previous movies and conjured up a concoction that does not hide the lack of effort on his behalf. For a movie which took more than a 10 Million Singapore Dollars to complete, it’s definitely a disappointment. Half that money seems to have spent on a single song!

Even though I am angry with myself on spending so much on the movie, I am happy that in a small way the movie has asked the right questions to the Indian public. The question on corruption, small mistakes and acceptance need to be asked and needed such a grand stage as this. Hopefully it gets a few of us thinking. If 500 Million people steal 5 cents, then it’s a 5 Million dollar crime, people need to realize this. Another interesting point was regarding sports. For a country of our size domination in the sports arena should come easy, it’s the politics that’s stopping us. Take football for instance, the problem that countries like Thailand face is the physical edge, we don’t even lack that, so why is our team not even one-tenth as decent as the Thai’s – no one knows and no one cares……

It was slightly disappointing that the crux of the issue was criticized within the movie by the comedy actor Vivek; he did try to convince that problems within the society has be accepted, and one has to adapt himself to lead a normal life; that was a mistake in itself. Education has a much bigger role in India’s re-awakening. Re-awakening, because we were big before the British plundered us, and movies should play their part in it. Movies with such powerful social tones such as Anniyan if delivered the right way will get the common man thinking, if we combine this with the power of the students and the money from NRI’s, India will be back where it rightfully belongs.

As for the movie itself, the publicity blurb for the film says: 'He who comes from Hell is not afraid of Hot Ashes'. Well it’s partly true, the movie is definitely from hell and Shankar is not afraid to churn out crap even after ‘Boys’.

US GP: Farce? It could have been worse

Firstly, congrats to the King and his deputy for making the Tifosi and the rest of claret red fans happy with a Ferrari 1-2. It’s a shame that they did not have to fight for it, as with the Canadian GP, the rest of the pack did not fancy it. Slightly unhappy with Narain that he did not compete for the 3rd place on the podium, it was his opportunity to have grabbed some limelight; it would have been great to see the Indian Flag on the podium.

If you have read the post-race press conferences, you can see that the press tried hard to put all the blame on Ferrari not agreeing to the extra chicane. It was shameful because the chicane was not the problem; it was Michelin's tyre durability. The choice to go with Michelin was one that the racing teams took, under no-one else's influence. You can’t take a faulty pen to the exams and ask the examiner and the other students to postpone the exam. Just because Michelin provides the tyres for the majority of the teams, FIA or the Bridgestone runners cannot be blamed for a situation whose only cause is under performing Michelin tyres. The Michelin runners were doing well until now leaving Ferrari on the way-side, Ferrari did not ask for a rule change then, did it?

Only justified boohs were those from the stands, they paid good money to get into the track and covered huge distances to get there. To see six cars, out of which two belonged to a different class must have hurt. The Michelin runners have to be pay some penalty, because it was not a situation were the cars were not running but a question of not taking turn 13 at the maximum speed, it was a compromise but something within their hands. By taking thier cars out, they made a point, one which is not within their authority to make. As I mentioned, it could have been worse, in the sense that they could have "staged" their retirements, taking a car out every other lap.

Biggest disappointment of the weekend is Mr. Paul Stoddard, Minardi's owner. This B**t**d not only sent his cars out without lending his support to the Michelin runners most of whom supported his stupid case to re-use last year's car without following the 2005 standards, but also blamed his decision on Jordan's decision to race!!!! Cunning piece of shit, he took the points that were available and still wants to look good. Shameful behavior!

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

India - Economically on fast forward but socially?

Kindly read this article on Aids by Time before reading further. Are we paying the price for our super fast economic growth? Assuming that the numbers are flawed as suggested by the article, one of the following is true. Either the government has no time for social issues because it needs to fill its empty coffers or they don’t want to highlight the social problems fearing that it would falter our economic growth. As far I am concerned its the latter. I never read about the Child sex problems in Goa and Calcutta while I was in India, to date I still don’t know why we haven’t taken measures to use the database of such bastards that the developed nations maintain to ban them from entering our country.

My friend is the one who brought up this article. He asked "Why does the Indian Government not spend more on education and resources like condoms and free syringes?" As he is a Singaporean his assumptions that the Government should act on social issues and its initiatives reach people effectively, of which mostly succeed can be forgiven. As Indians we know that the same does not apply to our country and the size of the country and head count of its people makes doing the same a Himalayan Challenge. So if we wanted immediate action, it’s from the NGO's and few good people who take up social well-being as their sole agenda of life. But is education really the problem?

India of today is the best example of the Rich and Poor Divide. There are millions who are far educated make 50K a month living amongst the rest who make up the majority and don’t get to make that even within a year. Let’s take the educated, trendy, socially and economically aware lot - who is to say that they have not contributed to the current AIDS situation? If multiple sex partners is considered cool, it won’t help the cause will it? Among this crowd there are people who blame the society for their AIDs plight and want to spread it as an act of revenge, so there you go, counseling is more of a solution rather that mass education.

Next question was "Is it really so hard to speak to those who live in villages about sex?" Yes, its taboo, but the fact is that sex is something that the poor can find easily. Often its their only past time, women in the villages still don’t get to "put their foot down" and stand their ground, they are being married only for children and to take care of domestic duties. The concept of condoms will be frowned upon as children are considered to be "god’s gift", so anything that prevents that from happening is evil! You cant educate them by talking to them, as these people will only learn if it happens to them, even if the next door neighbour get AIDS, the person is most probably say the infected person must have angered the gods and would assume that the same thing wont happen to him/her.

Final Question, "What would it take to make such topics acceptable (apart from bollywood's and the media's increasing contribution)?" Bollywood's role is open to debate. Its no point that the Actors talk about it off screen, because that does not reach the masses. Its the stories and their roles on screen that influence the masses. Like the recent guideline to avoid smoking scenes in movies, stars should avoid stories that advocate wrong messages to the society. So what does it take? No constructive action can be expected from the masses, having said that, if something dramatic happens then they will heed. The closest successful example is Polio, even in the remote villages; they are aware of the disease and take vaccination. If you wonder why they are so receptive, because it does not take much from their part, just turn up and get vaccinated, so the only solution is to find a cure, something as simple as a vaccine.

CANADIAN GP: Ferrari back? Not a chance....

As much as I was happy to see two red suits on the podium on Sunday, everyone within the team and the Tifosi would unwillingly acknowledge that the two podium places were gifts from Renault rather than hard earned points. Although not that happy with the weekend, I would like to celebrate Renault's "DNF" status against both its cars. These are the first signs that the Championship is not a foregone conclusion so early into the season, at least the constructors is really wide open.

After looking promising over the initial races, Narain seems to have gone off the boil so soon, retirement over technical reasons are unfortunate but mistakes like his are not. Only note of consolation was that both Button and Alonso did the same thing, but the fact is that they are established drivers and there is no question mark over their immediate F1 future which is not the case for Narain. This reminds me of the Roy Keane-Ireland fiasco. Like Roy said, there is no point celebrating playing the World Cup, if those celebrations exceed its limits and you don’t work hard, you will be out after the first round! This applies to Narain, he has worked hard for where he is and it would be very disappointing to see lose all that within one year.

Kimi, my choice for Schumacher II, had another good race, McLaren seems to have sorted out their package and look to the best out there at the moment. I really wanted to see Kimi take on Montoya for the first position but the self proclaimed championship material dumbass decided that red lights apply only for commoners and justifiably sent packing back to the garage by the race steward. At the end of last season, I was really looking forward to 3 battles among teammates, Kimi vs Montoya, Trulli vs R.Schumacher, Webber Vs Hiedfeld - amazing none of the three have lived up to expectations......As for Barri, extraordinary third place, did his job well and suitably rewarded.

Finishing off with the King himself, I am worried about his aggressiveness again. It was very unlike Schumi to follow Kimi like he did on Sunday and he did not even try, was very disappointed. I hope it was the car or the tyre or his thin championship hopes were the reasons behind his decision to accept second place. I read another blog where it was suggested that Schumi should have retired when we was at the top, uneducated would my immediate response, I am sure that Schumi would consider this to be one of his interesting years and would be relishing the challenge. Quitting at the top is for people who have piggybacked their way to the top or were born at the top, not for people who have worked their way up because they know their way back up and will surely return.

Friday, June 03, 2005

European GP - Really sorry for Kimi

Nick Heidfeld - Slowly but steadily proving himself, McLaren overlooked him when he and the world expected the McLaren seat. But then they had a chance again last year and plumped for "Mr Good for nothing but talk" Montoya. The excuse for "Please look at me, I can talk" Montoya is that he is not race-fit and would take a few weeks more to prove that McLaren can conjure 2 good cars. It seems BMW wants to buy over Sauber and take Heidfeld over with them. With Massa doing well and making Villeneuve look like a truck driver, that would mean Karthikeyan has to strike off Sauber as potential suitors. Narain again lost out to Monteiro, and it was a racing maneuvre Monteiro took him out fair and square.

As for the King himself, he desperately needs some luck and he can only earn that by taking the pole. Bad luck struck in the form of Webber this time, but still did well to finish 5th and definitely my star of the race. Unfortunately there was none of his mid-race bursts that we have come to be accustomed to recently, so, 5th place was not bad and Barrichello gave the Tifosi something to shout about. Ferrari, importantly Bridgestone are definitely way off the race pace but its very impressive that there has been no public bitching so far. Its important that they stay united. Everyone seems to think that the King will bow out this year, but I personally am very sure that he will take all this on his chin and will be back and will go out being acknowledged as the best racing driver and team leader ever, not only by the Tifosi but every single soul that is passionate about F1.

Only other talking points were Webber's acceptance of blame for his mistake at the first corner, a true gentleman and unfortunately too nice to be in F1! Next time we hear "It was a racing incident", the person needs to be reminded of Webbers actions. BAR seemed to have partied for the past month and were way off in everything and Button did well to finish at all.

Finally the sight of Kimi walking back. I really felt for him, no matter how much he earns he would have gladly traded all his wealth for a promise from god that such a thing would never happen again! I remember this happening to his mentor Hakkinen once before but not sure during which GP or the year and I think it was a Ferrari that benefited, but again not sure whether it was Schumi or that "Montoya Snr" Eddie Irvine. We use the cliche 'So near, yet so far' so often that sometimes we forget the bloody sad significance of that, it really hurts and in my own context I have experienced it and it takes a lot to recover from that and it for sure is not easy. There is no comforting word in the dictionary that would have cooled Kimi. Kimi, the world is sincerely sorry.