Let's have a CEO to run India...

I am very late with my posts on this subject of the Mumbai attacks. I was flabbergasted with the verbal diarrhea that followed and I am sure, it was the same for you too.

But, it was infectious and here I am posting just another.

What I really liked was the anti-government sentiments that followed the tragedy. People have now lost their patience. I had always wanted something different.

So, I am only surprised that, we, the common man, waited so long. The home minister, the chief minister, the defense minister, the prime minister, the finance minister, all have long lost their credibility for the simple fact that, they are incapable of protecting the lives of the people - let's forget their long-proved inability to protect our financial security. They haven’t been able to protect the most important thing - lives of the people.

I just want to suggest one idea. Instead of these aged and inefficient politicians, let's have a corporate method of ruling.

Let's have a CEO instead of prime minister. Let's have a chief financial officer instead of finance minister. Let's have a chairman of the board instead of the president. Let's have executive vice presidents ruling our states. Let the common man be the shareholder of the country. Let this corporate machinery be answerable to the common man in every manner.

Let's have boardroom battles, let's have deadlines, let's have commitments. Let's be clinical in the way our country is run.

Let's make the country profitable, not a carnage of inefficiency.

Let's get into the business as fast as we can. Let's try to save the remaining lives.

IPL: The Indian Picnic League?

Watching the recently launched Indian Premiere League, I felt it lacked something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then I realized that, it was that much-needed feeling of patriotism that was missing.

It is not that I have an aversion for this shortest version of the game. I had thoroughly enjoyed the recently-concluded T20 tournament, which India won. But, in the case of IPL, I feel that sense of supporting one nation is really missing. It is like you watching some domestic cricket series though star-participation and money differentiate IPL from any comparison.

But, what is there for the spectator in IPL?

OK, he can watch a big-hit game in two hours and sit mesmerized by those sixes and boundaries. But, what else?

Does, big stars and industrialists splurging on these teams and stars bring the spectator any kind of excitement?

No.

I live in Bangalore, but it never occurred to me that I should be supporting that team while watching the inaugural match of the tournament.

Would I feel like supporting Mumbai, just because Sachin is playing in the team? Would I root for the Chennai team, inspired by the presence of Dhoni in it? I am not sure, probably No.

I would call IPL as Indian Picnic League, it is like a picnic for the players and also the spectators. Just a time pass. It is and will always be handicapped by that true spirit of watching an international cricket game involving your country.

So, all these factors fail to bring in that excitement of supporting our nation in an international game. And, I think, the success of any sports depends on that sheer feeling of OUR COUNTRY.

I don’t know how many of us seriously followed the fortunes of the IPL rebel league Indian Cricket League, sponsored by Zee. Would IPL follow the sad example of ICL? Would the theory of ‘stars drive the game’ really hold its ground? Let’s wait and see.

And one word on our media coverage on IPL. The media is been firing all cylinders to hype up this series. The print space devoted reminds you of the kind of coverage Olympics get!

It is as if giving the same importance to Republic Day and a Shah Rukh Khan movie release!

“This borewell is so boring bhai”

I have lived for about seven years in Mumbai and now completed one year and three months in Bangalore. .

It was not difficult to adapt myself to Bangalore, though, at times, I found it extremely difficult to understand the city.

For example, people in Bangalore are extremely patient and tolerant. If they have some problem, they would wait till it gets resolved by itself.

On the other hand, a Mumbaikar would fight vehemently anything that upsets his daily life.

Last week, some private entity was drilling a borewell in my locality and our road looked like a pool of mud.

We had to find alternative routes to venture out, making life very difficult for those office-goers who fight with time on a daily basis.

Still people were so patiently tolerating the whole nonsense, something that took me by surprise. The borewell was built and whoever built it never did bother to clean up the mess they created.

If it was in Mumbai, the whole situation would have gone for a toss. The people would have never let the drilling machine career to leave the location without cleaning the dirt.

Now the whole dirt has turned dry and we are eating mud on a daily basis.

There are some more on both the cities, but in my next post.

Indifferent winter upsets Bangalore's cold-cream merchants

My Mumbai friends tell me the city is shivering presently and the temperature even hit the 4 degrees mark last week.

Sitting in an unusually hot Bangalore, which received a cold shoulder from the winter goddess this season, I start thinking about global warming.

The symptoms of utmost cold, like shivering, were alien to this city this year.

Still, some of my colleagues wear sweaters to office, and I admire their optimism.

They must be hoping against hope that the cold wave would hit them any time!

It was last winter that I migrated to Bangalore from Mumbai and I still remember my office cabby finding it difficult to navigate the cab in the thick fumes of snow at 1 am.

Also, last year, I helplessly watched my wife splurging on creams and allergy medicines. Dry skin, you know?

But this year, no such difficulties.

Bangalore is no more the techy's Ooty I guess.