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.

Kudos to news channels!

On that weird Wednesday, I was visiting my folks down Kannur in Kerala. I did not even bother to switch on television as my 3-months-old daughter was drawing all my attention.

So, obviously, I was unaware of all the human tragedy that had been unfolding in Mumbai on that night. Next day, I was staring at the newspaper headlines which screamed, "Mumbai attacked". I felt numb.

As I did not have a cable television connection, I was not able to catch the live events. The shock and awe those events created did not fully get conveyed to me until I reached back in Bangalore and methodically went through the archived news on websites, photos and some Youtube videos.

I received forwarded mails bashing news channels for telecasting the events live. The argument was, it would have helped terrorists to prepare counter strategies.

Let’s spare our news channels at least here, I feel, though I am not at all a fan of them. In any country, the same would have happened. I don't think terrorists were also watching those news channels for advance information while fighting Indian commandos in Taj!

Instead I admire those reporters for their guts. They were gutsy for a change. They risked their lives.

Cleaning Up, Big Time!

• Read all the good books and watch all the good movies.
• Travel all the interesting places.
• Click some good photos.
• Start a cookery blog, develop recipes
• First and foremost, break news, do good news stories on the professional .
• Then, progress in life by doing things which I have always wanted to do.
  

Insane it might sound, but I was just listing out certain important things I want to do in my life, apart from raising my family, offering them bread and shelter, and being good to my pals and countrymen.

So, why this sudden outburst? I don't know if it is the same with others, but in my case, I have been harassed by an evil friend called Mr. Laziness since a long time.

So I am now doing some major cleaning-up exercises. I am making my mind strong by writing this blog entry. I am going to take one step at a time.

So, one good early result is, my devoting time for world cinema. I have already watched some good ones. My colleague and friend Kugan is my key supplier of these movies!

So expect my briefs on those good movies I would be watching/already watched in the coming days....

That LOST FOREVER feeling…

I haven’t been updating this blog for quite some time because of the simple reason that I was not getting that drive to write. There was no dearth of topics, but nothing was coming straight from my heart.

In between I wrote an entry on a couple of movies I watched, but deleted them after about a month. I thought the entry I wrote did not make any logic.

However, today it is different. Anil Kumble has retired from international cricket. Now, how does it matter to me in such way it left me very sad and stunned? Why did his departure scenes on television leave me teary eyed? Why did I have this strange urge to sob uncontrollably?

This was something similar to what happened when I watched Abhinav Bindra winning India’s first individual Olympics gold.

Now I believe, we are deeply attached to certain elements around us, but we are never conscious of that fact until some change happens to that pattern.

On a normal day, in normal circumstances, seeing that person in action, or having a word with him, or sharing the work with him would all look very ordinary for us. He may be part of your family, a colleague, a politician you had been watching for years, a film star, or now here, a member of the Indian cricket team.

Now, suddenly, the awareness dawns that, you won’t be able to see that person the manner in which you had been watching him for years. That single thought itself is so powerful that, it would leave you numb. Then you slowly go back to all those years you had been watching/seeing him and you would feel sorry for having neglected the true value of being with that person, or watching that person.

All these years, you had been taking him for granted that, he would be there forever. And suddenly you releases, it is not the case and that hurts!

Only on the day Bindra won gold, I realized I am a patriotic in nature!

Now, in this case of Anil, I would be lying if I say I did not care for him as a cricket follower. To tell you the truth, Kumble and Venkatesh Prasad are the only two International cricketers whom I watched in action on the field. (I met Sehwag during an ad shoot, and Azhar and Manjrekar at a party).

So when I got the news that Kumble is hanging up his boots, obviously 1995-96 came to mind, when I watched him playing Ranji Trophy against Kerala in Thalasseri. I was in college and bunked classes to watch him. So, now this awareness that I admired Kumble has come to light when it is all over!

Another experience: On the day I became a father, someone told me the veteran Congressman K Karunakaran was no more. The news did hurt me so much and I even felt like, the news took away a portion of the joy the day gave me with the birth of my daughter. Now, why should I be so concerned to that extent? I am in no way personally related to Karunakaran. I am not even an ardent fan of him.

Then why? Now here, is that strange connectivity element comes into play. I had been watching him all these years and I realized on that day that, how difficult it would be to imagine Kerala politics without K Karunakaran! Later, I tried to confirm the development and, when the news turned out to be a hoax, you can imagine how relieved I was!

So, appreciating those people as if there is no tomorrow would definitely make a difference, I feel.


(pic courtesy: Cricinfo.com)

Some evil thoughts on today's journalism

The worst enemy of today’s journalism is neither governments nor an anti-governmental scenario. It is the journalists themselves, the way they operate.

I can’t remember the last time we had a real strong breaking news, whether it is politics, business, crime, science or sports.

Just a sample, latest from sports: How many of my creed knew that India still held a chance to win a bronze medal in wrestling, after Sushil Kumar got beaten in the first round? The media cried: Disappointing day for India in wrestling, Sushil defeated.

Then when he actually won a bronze medal through this system called repechage, I watched in amazement, how television news welcomed it. They did never show even a tinge of embarrassment for having ignored the medal possibility, and were gleefully explaining the technicalities of repechage instead.

What more can we expect from a machinery which calls every news an exclusive or breaking news? And what more can we expect from this world of journalism, owned, ruled and abused by corporates?

Speaking about Olympics, I felt the Indian media never did really bother to look at the potential medal hopes ahead of the Olympics and obviously, Abhinav Bindra was a surprise.

And look at the coverage received by the sleepy Haryana village called Bhiwani. Did anyone know there existed such a village? Don’t get me wrong here. Realization dawned overnight: this hamlet was called the Mecca of Indian boxing! Now we can have all kinds of documentaries shot around this village!

Instead, in those pre-Olympics days, the media went the clichéd way of celebrating the kinds of Sania Mirza and Anju Bobby George, who could not even give a match to their opponents (literally), leave alone the medal possibility.

So, our media is in a helpless position. They can’t unearth conspiracies that threaten the national security, they can’t foresee gigantic deals in Indian business, they can’t predict a politician’s next move.

They just talk about things that happened and then do some follow up to earn that daily bread and when the next issue happens, conveniently forgets the prior issue.

What happened to the Arushi murder case? Nobody seems interested now. The issues that followed swallowed it.

I think the only way to break this monotony called commoditized journalism is to do path-breaking stories – once in a while at least.

And shamefully I accept, I am no different. To a deadly extent, it is all about that thing called convenient, armchair, wire n wireless, googled journalism.

I am not talking about certain enthusiastic reporters who actually take the trouble of visiting the 'site' and cajole people to enact in front of the camera.

One day we will cherish all in our lifetime....

India wins its first solo olympics Gold in the 28 year old Olympics history. And I thought of grabbing the above image, as this day and this win would be etched in not just Indian sports history, but the history of India, forever and ever....To tell you the truth, tears rolled up in my eyes as Abhinav Bindra got on the podium to receive the gold medal and when the Indian national anthem followed.....Another important feature of the image, apart from the story, is the medal tally. India in third position.....can you believe that????

Worthless politicians being traded at a premium; Useless government given a lease of life

Last Friday, we had Bangalore making its dismal entry into the list of world’s terror cities, with Ahmedabad providing the moral support the very next day. More than the shock and awe that these blasts created, what struck me most was the disappointing attitude of our politicians and the government machineries concerned.

First, there were some glaring mistakes committed by the intelligence bureau. Terrorists have already warned you with a blast in Rajastan a couple of months back and the state is ruled by BJP. Rajastan was never in the terrorist list and a blast in the pink city would have put out intelligence agencies and the police on high alert and they should have anticipated blasts in the other BJP-ruling states as well.

It might sound an idea that is a little bit far-fetched. But, then why they are called Intelligence agencies? Where is the intelligence and where do they use it? How can the central agencies wash their hands off saying, they had warned the state governments? Where is the responsibility taken?

Then the Bangalore blast followed and that provided a clear pattern: The BJP-ruling states are under threat. Government took great security initiatives in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, but leaving out Ahmedabad proved to b a costly lapse and terror mocked right on the faces of our security and intelligence establishments with some more intensive blasts.

Clearly, they were caught napping and then the blame game began.

Secondly, our politicians continue to flow crocodile tears when they hear about a blast and they are least concerned for the safety of the common man. In all the news channels, they were eager to “strongly condemn the blasts”. But that is not surprising. In a country, where the politics has turned a big business with people’s representatives being bought over by green bucks, what else can you expect from the political mafia?

I would say, our politicians are, in fact, dangerous than these terrorists!