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Showing posts from September, 2010

Tiger Woods never signed up to teach moral science lessons

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know – Tiger Woods’ infidelities caused shareholders losses in the range of 5-12 billion. Now, picture this if you will- multi-trillionaire superstar is looking forward to an all night orgy. But instead of worrying about contacting herpes, impregnating willing women or being secretly taped, he has to worry how his sexcapades will affect the lives of shareholders. That’s cause enough to deflate all built up enthusiasm. Now, picture this. The president greets shareholders with the following message – ‘Ladies and Gentleman, I’m sorry to announce that our stock has crashed because Mr.X just couldn’t keep his pants on. Next year we’ll be a tad more careful and sign up a pigeon for our product.’ Finally, finally, after many painful months, a search result on Tiger Woods doesn’t reveal a litany of his purported infidelities, the porn star mistress, the friendly neighbourhood girl, and the places he managed to copulate in. Finally, we get to read about

More man, less god

Self-proclaimed sainthood and a nubile actress are strange bedfellows as a self anointed godman recently discovered. Faux pas like these give soothsayers cause to jump up and down in glee at the fall of another being who promises you nirvana, but gives you a grainy sex tape in return. In R.K Narayan’s seminal work ‘The Guide’, he tells of Raju, an ex-con who finds himself elevated to the ranks of a godman. As he unsuccessfully tries to wield himself from the role that has been thrust upon him, the deeper he sinks into it. Eventually, he is called upon to rescue a village from abject drought. The novel wisely leaves the ending unanswered but the film plays to the gallery and opens up the clouds, portraying Raju to be someone who had superior powers. But what is telling about Raju’s story is the ease with which the transformation from conman to godman occurs, while in the real world, it most often occurs the other way round. If anything, the bustling godman market has gotten even mor

We are the battle class

When Shashi Tharoor tweeted, he was the man of the hour. For if there is an art mastered by our elected representatives, it is the foot in the mouth syndrome. It has been a year since Mr. Tharoor tweeted his infamous cattle class tweet and got everybody's blood pressure soaring. But there is another class that we are all inadvertently a part of. Travelling on Indian roads, fighting the system and making sense of our country has caused us to become warriors’ of a different kind. We are the battle class. And our story deserves to be told. In my opinion, the home ministry has seriously underestimated an emerging threat to citizens in certain cities – the auto mafia. They, who charge by their imagination and not by the meter. Who will take you where they want to go and when they want to go. If your destination doesn’t coincide with theirs, the fault lies within. Choose a better direction. I strive daily to achieve the common sense IQ of our municipal corporation. Using cheap tar

The strange life of a bibliophile

Anton Chekov’s classic short story ‘The Bet’, speaks of a man who found life’s answers in books. An enterprising youth, he places a bet with a millionaire. The bet being the capability of one to survive solitary confinement for 15 years, with only books and music to keep him company. As the 15 years dwindle down, the millionaire who offered the money has fallen on bad times and is finding it hard to scrape the money. Finally, the man forsakes the 2 million dollars he was supposed to receive by escaping before the stipulated time. In a letter, he writes that he has experienced all he wanted to through the numerous books he has read. It is a strange world that bibliophiles inhabit. They buy more books than they can read. You know why? Because they are afraid they will finish them all. So every book read follows a mini buying spree to make up for the book read. If environmentalists have their way and there is a stay on publishing books, where do we run for cover? Through books, you