Kill the bloody losers!

A billion of us drooled over the Oscars last year and didn't give a shit this time.

Slumdog Millionaire came and went.  It also dropped a few Oscars on Indians.  Resul Pookkutty and Rahman brought something to India that had been brought before, but with much more fanfare this time.  Nobody remembered that Bhanu Athaiya won the Oscar years earlier for her work in Gandhi.  The young media junkies ran amok with Rahman winning not one but two Oscars.

But that was all last year.  By the time the Oscars came around this year, Slumdog Millionaire was an official dud at the box office in India, did nothing to inspire anyone, and didn't even leave enough of a buzz for the same director's next film, "127 Hours" to stay longer than a week in the theatres here.

Nobody cared to watch it for Danny Boyle or for A R Rahman who scored for his English master once again.  Nobody even noticed the film came and went.

Moreover, what kind of moron would watch the Oscars when India is playing a match in the cricket world cup, especially on home turf?  The hype of last year to recruit one billion Indians to the Oscar show viewership was palpable.  The lack of it was curious this year.  Nobody wins against cricket in India.  And judging by yesterdays' game, nobody wins against India either!

But today, The Hindu reported that AR Rahman failed to win an Oscar.  http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/article1497148.ece    "Failed"? Yes, according to the Press Trust Of India, this is lost ground!  It is competition, it is "losing" and "winning", and it is another notch on the great Indian achievement pole when one of us brown skinned guys gets something from some white skinned judge.  The bloody Oscar is a target.  And Rahman missed it.

In fact, The PTI on The Hindu thinks Rahman returned "empty handed", just like Danny Boyle's movie "127 Hours", despite having a handful of nominations.  So that is what we are without actually winning - empty handed.  We're impoverished, useless.  This is bad, bad, bad.

While all this is going on, this whole Oscar business is such a ho-hum for India, that it has even less buzz than one of our lasses strutting her butt trying to win Miss World.  This is all in the "been there and done that" territory for new age India.  No longer that interesting.  But we recognize the "decline" if one of our dogs on any course doesn't come absolutely Number Fucking One!

Even though we were not watching the Oscar show, we had to check on our investment.  We've called Rahman the "Mozart of Madras", even though his Oscar winning song from Slumdog was composed for a Hindi movie and thrown out by the producer of that film!  As long as whitey is willing to clap, we are willing to encourage one of us to get more claps!  That's all we care about.  Our phallic feeling of "India rising".

We Indians are grooming all our children to get to thousands of targets.  We don't give a shit about them being artists, or statesmen and stateswomen, or even being human anymore.  We just want them to fucking win.  Or else they might return "empty handed" like all the other useless nominees.  Please fucking watch out for our monsters going on the rampage.

The cricket world cup is a much bigger prize than a stupid Oscar, and our boys on the cricket field win a whole lot more internationally than our clowns in cinema.  So, why would we even give a shit about anything except cricket?  Because there is so much shit to be WON!  Because there is so much to gloat over.  Not because we love the arts, or sport, or true human merit.  But because we want to trample over everything and fucking get shit. 

Now, do you get it?

- BSK.

Less Indian More Human.

This is in response to a message I received, pointing out a major problem with India: criminals in politics:

I have long since moved beyond the concepts of "nation state" and "country" in my heart, mind and spirit.  To me, we are a species on this planet, and that's it.  Every equation we have with every other member of this species in my view, therefore, should not be tainted by our perceptions of identity based on invisible or visible lines drawn to separate us into various collectives.  Even more fundamentally, I tend to question the need for a sense of ownership, entitlement, and belonging.  And when did any of us agree to belong to any of these collectives?

I do take note however, that some of these collectives have flourished while others have failed, and I recognize that this collective called "India" is an idea just like the others. Some of us may have an exaggerated sense of belonging with this idea, and some of us may not.  I, personally, look upon it as an accident that I am "Indian", and hence, for reasons I have no interest in fighting against, I accept that fact.  It should suffice that I am a human with a name to boot, and apparently fingerprints and DNA that can identify me incredibly well, but for some reason, I am loaded with all these other definitions.  Whatever.

We have been conditioned to imagine that it is somehow important that we care for this country, or any country.  I simply ask "why"?  I mean, what in the essence of a human being makes us care for one country more than say, another one?  Why this divide amongst us?  Why this unquestioning signing up to belong to just ONE country?  Why do we need borders and divisions that no other species seems to need, and then argue for "open" borders that augment more co-operation between countries?  That sounds crazy to me.

In fact, by agreeing mutely to this bizarre alienation, and the ensuing sense of competition, we have all but forgotten everything about confluence and coexistence, and now, we have a direct interest in other countries being less well off than ours!  How much in tune can this possibly be with the journey of the human soul and our most natural existence as humans within humanity?  We are out of tune, and the enemy is patriotism which really is another word for separatism.  To hell with all the other 194 countries, I will wave ONLY my flag!

The result is that on many occasions, we have under the influence of an imagined need to belong to some country, and even worse, under the heady umbrella of patriotism, sworn to be proud of even what should be questioned, condemned, punished and put to shame for millions of reasons.  The problem with these fractionalized collectives is that our standards of performance, excellence and indeed development are limited by the best that we can do "within" this collective.  However, our perceptions need not be.

I don't think it is natural for us to care about an artificial concept.  "Country" is most definitely an artificial concept, brought upon by fear, the need to control, and the need to intimidate and deceive.  The time for all this may soon pass.  There are things we care about instinctively as human beings, and we genuinely care about the welfare of our species, so that we may survive within it and help proliferate it.  We can be in love with anyone, and would rush to help another human in distress regardless of what nationality that person is.  That is the essential nature of being a human.  This essential nature deserves a canvas much much bigger in scope than what a nation possibly can provide.

So, what does this "nation" provide?  If something threatens our survival, we will naturally defend ourselves.  But for the nation, we have the armed forces.  But within this artificially imposed border called India, we have no natural, instinctive, honest response to the decay of this collective from any other perspective.  We do not have to feel ashamed of this.  In the true sense, we are all the more human for not caring up until the point where our survival may be threatened.

This is where I see the biggest dichotomy.  Some human beings, namely, our ancestors, "chose" to define what is now called "India".  But many of us that are Indians today did not choose to be Indians.  So, why would we automatically want to belong to this club and work for its well being?  From a culture that has been around for thousands of years, somewhere, perhaps in our infinite wisdom, we choose not to take this artificial collective so seriously!  We have God to protect us from all the ills of the "world", which in many cases are the ills of just this very country!  But why is it suddenly God's job, when we proudly proclaim on the Vidhana Soudha, that "Government Work is God's Work!"?  So, it must be God doing a really bad job!

Jokes apart, our crisis within this collective is right now, is not one of having too few people to do good - we have millions of them, but one of having next to nobody to question and strongly fight all that is wrong.  Because when it comes to fighting wrong, our survival might be in jeopardy.  Evil has a way of hitting back in unpleasant ways when threatened!  We believe nonsense like "Satyameva Jayate" even when truth doesn't win!  But believing in it completely absolves us of the responsibility of having to fight against evil.

We are bombarded with lies, day in and day out.  But we accept some of these lies, purely because it takes too much effort to yell back, "Hey, that's a bunch of sh**!".  Evolution is essentially a search for truth, and all the truth that I have so far found is that we, as Indians, are all running from it all the time, sometimes just to stay sane!  The greatness of any society as I see it, is the ability of its members to live closest to the truths that guide them.  To this end, I dare say, we in India collectively live the most unspiritual, cowardly, selfish lives, and we have every justification for doing so, no doubt.  How else could we ruin so much in a mere 63 years?

We have also been fed this nonsense that we are a great country, but if only we stopped to understand that a great country doesn't automatically translate to a great nation, we would not have all these murderers and rapists and crooks and other shenanigans in Parliament!  Above them all still stands a meticulously maintained engraving screaming "Satyameva Jayate" isn't there?  What could be a bigger insult to our collective?  And for those of us who care - what are we going to do about it?  Can we atleast now, in all honesty, agree to change that to "Jhootameva Jayate" or whatever stands for "Untruth alone triumphs"?

I don't fall for any of the jingoistic feel good nonsense that people spew out on a daily basis either.  Like - "We stand in solidarity with the victims of this terrorist attack!".  What exactly does that mean?  The next time, we will jump in the line of fire and take the bullets?  Why're we so afraid to really say what goes on in our minds, like "Thank God that wasn't me!"?  This "feel good" nonsense is actually up to "no good".  This is not grace under pressure, it is lying under pressure to say something good, even if it is not true.  Our patriotism and the need to belong to this imagined collective force us to ugly places like this.

By subscribing to this incomplete and flawed idea of Country, we may also have voluntarily surrendered to this escapist notion that we in India live in a "beautiful chaos" that miraculously survives as a country, ably aided by the power of God.  This is the romantic notion that is pushed upon us, and many of us, including the dubious "Bollywood" film industry help promote it.  We're actually proud of this.

And then, despite having a government working under the Indian flag, consisting mostly of crooks with nothing but looting and pillaging on their minds, look at the number of flag waving ads. shamelessly promoting something as stupid as motorcycle sales!  Dhak Dhak Go!  India Go!  Go where?  To #143 on the Human Development Index?  That's where we are, and there aren't 10,000 countries on that list either.

I do not have hope in this idea called India.  I have some optimism for some elements of what constitutes India, but that is miniscule.  The search for reasons, and the blame game only serves to exacerbate the pain of existing on this land mass defined by the boundaries we have in our mind for this "nation" and "notion" called India.

Each time we invest ourselves in this idea called India or just about any other "nation", we limit ourselves and we limit the power of our potential.

However, I think some of us can apply ourselves to the uplifting of humanity as a whole, and hopefully, no nation will be left out.

I personally simply don't have to be less human to be more Indian.

BSK

The Convenient Absence of Quality

Vinnaithandi Varuvaya, a film by Gautham Vasudev Menon, is being hailed as a work of "class" in The Hindu by an ostensibly reputed reviewer. Karan Johar's My Name is Khan received 5 out of 5 stars in the Times of India.

What stands out is that both are mediocre films but have been released in an ocean of trash, making the ordinary seem exaggeratedly noteworthy. Thankfully, some of us have reference points that are wider than the collection of movies infesting our A city theatres at this given time, we are exposed to better fare than the reviewers that reputed newspapers seem to be able to get these days, and we can continue to have our honest opinions about mediocrity that comes packed in glitz - from pictures to pizza, literature to music. We don't have to be fooled. But "we" are in the minority and getting smaller.

This is the age of the salesperson, the consummate professional who can lie through her teeth, in complete ignorance or in complete shamelessness, and make it sound like a million bucks. There is a whole generation of consumers out there who can't tell the difference, and even worse, don't want to make the effort to see the difference. All they know is trash. But they can tell glitzy trash from dull trash. The marketing machine is here to add glitz to anything we want to sell, so if you can afford the glitz, you can produce trash and absolutely hope to get away with it.

An extended vaccuum in quality can actually lower standards, push down expectations, and finally result in a worse quality of life. Reviewers can be bought by the dozen today, a few crores of money spent in bending opinions doesn't seem to be money badly spent. Every advantage is to be had commercially by dumbing us down, homogenizing our viewpoints, and reducing the average level of knowledge and questioning of what we see, hear and are willing to be sold. The number one sellable after sex is "Freedom"! As soon as we're ready to measure our freedom in what we can afford to buy, we are suckers by the million. And we're being had royally.

Look at the number of times AR Rahman has done something ostensibly "patriotic" and it is easy to see why some wise men have opined that patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels. Even a lousily rendered "Vande Mataram" cannot be questioned for quality, because it is about something that is supposedly above reproach - his patriotism! Holy cow, YOUR patriotism! It is just like our inability to tell a lousy singer in a temple to stop torturing our devotion with the snarling effort of religious hysteria. We don't have a smoking chance against the power of stupidity, noise, and overwhelming ignorance. Patriotism takes advantage of all of these. All reason can be drowned by anything patriotic, especially if it sounds like an iceberg humping a mountain full of tin boxes.

India is headed towards a quality oblivion, quite simply because we are becoming a culture of reducing effort. We want to strive less, ignore more and be blissfully happy. The traps are all here - we truly belong in our own illusion of a great country when we obey, and only when we obey the machine that tells us so. After all, when all of your friends tell you My Name is Khan is a great movie, isn't it just cool to go along? Maybe they are right! Of course, this line of thinking is easy when you know only as much as they do, and all of you collectively know very little anyway. Our mob mentality is geared perfectly for dumbing down. Win over a part of the mob, and the whole mob will be yours! This is how the British took over the whole country! In any case, we're proud to belong to the Indian mob waving the same flag that some other rather original people held aloft not that long ago.

Access to information has not translated to access to knowledge as far as India is concerned. Our youngsters live in a deluge of information, dished out by other youngsters working for mindless media outlets that man the stations sending out SMS messages, advertisements, promotions, and a whole host of hideous, tasteless, unchallenged overtures of nonsense, juvenile sexuality, and sheer lies. We are also sold this constant message that India is on the "march forward" and our young clowns need only hear that they are as good as any in the world! It is a turnout of gargantuan amounts of ignorance.

We have the USA to look up to, for any reference we need on the level of dumbing down we are happy to subscribe to. If something is good enough for the Americans, we're okay with reaching anywhere near that. Why else would Vinnaithandi Varuvaya have whites and blacks dancing together behind our hero? This is our director not wanting to be politically inferior to any American film maker, as if anybody would notice this fool's film in a world panorama! But still Gautham Menon wouldn't want to hurt Tarantino's feelings, would he?! This disease is so deep rooted, he wouldn't even know if it was pointed out to him.

Coming from the new age Indian upper middle class family is the bane of all originality - it is not encouraged at all. Parents who have "set up" their children for the future have no chance of producing any offspring that are capable of any truly original thought processes. Protection from all the insecurities of life can only lead to dead emotional intelligence. That is where most of our mediocre crap comes from. But then, that is where the reviewers of that crap come from as well - get a good school education, get a good college education, get a half decent hold of your English language presentation, and guess what!? YOU decide what everybody like you should be watching! The market is full of fools like you, so who can question your abject ignorance?! When we're adding forty million people to our middle class each year, and are being taken aim at as one of the most reliable "growth" markets, we are ripe for this sort of dumbing down.

We have enough arrogance to think this sheer game of numbers actually gives us a right to feel powerful in some way. We are, but we are not empowered. We're simply "available" to dumbing down and being sold stuff to. The easiest thing to sell to us is the absolute right to be lazy, in thought and action, or thought and inaction! Everything is justified since we have collectively registered some undeniable "progress" on some global scale. But how have we grown when we have managed to put agriculture out of whack as a self sustaining industry, but are happy that we can call Dominos Pizza any time of the week in any Indian city? Dominos isn't even the best pizza we can make for half the money we pay those monkeys, and the lunatics they hire to deliver their crap ride their bikes on the wrong side of the street! What investment would the franchise owner make in the quality of work they put in, as long as they can ring their numbers in. This is India for us. And we're proud of this?

It is HARD to build a quality country, so we're doing what we know very well - build a quantity country. It is all about quantity. From our population to the measure of accomplishment. 99% of the money we have made through software development for the computer industry is about slave labour - doing other people's grunge work. Our creative content industry is busy making copies of movies made by other film makers in other countries - and not high concept action films either, but family drama! This is supposed to be our strength, our family system and our values and what not., but we don't have one thing any more - sincerity! We don't have a quest for truth that is at the core of all art! We are liars and thieves and crooks in the world of art and we won't be coming out any time soon, especially in cinema.

The absence of quality is pronounced and upon us, but it is not going to go away anytime soon. No producer is going to bet his balls or his money on a film that asks us to be intelligent, sophisticated, or even remotely thoughtful. We all have no chance but to actively contribute to more dumbing down. After all, when stupidity is conveniently available to everyone and it can be sold and made money from, why shouldn't we celebrate the convenient absence of quality!?

Baa Baa Brown Sheep!

Baa Baa brown sheep
Have you lost your cool?
Yes Sir, Yes Sir, I'm a total fool.

Just a month ago, I had a job
Sitting at a computer, all day long
Like the rest of the mob
Fiddling around, getting along

All of a sudden, came this recession,
A lot of fear, 'n trepidation
I buried my head, as much as I could
But they spotted me 'n caught me real good

You're fired Mr. Brown,
That's what they said
We're sorry about the frown,
But there's no more bread!

I could keep my car and all my underwear
Beyond that, I was all threadbare
No more credit, no more loans
They just knew I was down to my bones

Baa Baa brown sheep
Have you lost your cool?
Yes Sir, Yes Sir, I could drown in a pool.

The Awards Racket

If Rahman is indeed the better music composer at this year's Oscar nominated films for this category, then I am very amused, and a little mad - because this Jai Ho bit is a terrible composition, with neither rhyme nor reason for being considered great. If his work in the rest of the film is indeed so wonderful, he hasn't done anything so remarkable for many an Indian film, where he possibly could have. That means the rascal has double standards - the lower one for Indian producers and the better one for the foreign producer who's likely to fetch him an award or two, and maybe more business from more lucrative foreign currency spending productions.

The "Award Whore" will create something just to win awards and notoriety through reasons other than the worthiness of the art. Rahman, if capable of actually going beyond the novelty factor to Oscar award judges (does anybody actually believe any of those white skinned coots can really understand Jai Ho?), is yet to prove himself, precisely because he has produced a lot of mediocre trash for over a decade, and covered himself with the brothel glitter that Hindi cinema oozes from its clogged marketing sewers. And now, he's produced utter trash that has won a coveted award! The joke is - the award is now belittled, not Rahman.

Now, why would Rahman show up on the Jay Leno show, performing the tail segment where student groups from obscure American towns perform as the titles roll over? That's the level at which he probably sees himself. I have no idea why he has to drag his "Indian"ness into everything. What was Indian about his show at the Oscars (and it doesn't have to be, but we're celebrating this as an Indian win, aren't we?) - the costumes were some weird designer nonsense, the dancing was somewhere between Chinese jungle and African desert, and the dancers did something like a Mumbai cinema routine? At the end of the day he performed a song that won't stay in our minds long enough to care about, (while SP Balasubramanyam shows up as a magnanimous judge, mentor and inspiration in a little known talent show that bleeds class for its quality of music and discussion that you can't switch away from - on Jaya TV).

We all know the kind of mediocrity that infests the FilmFare awards and the idiotic "shows" that Indian TV channels put on without any real substance - either in the show or in the art being appreciated and felicitated. The Oscars have fairly consistently stood for better cinema, and though capable of being swayed once in a while by political and liberal causes that cinema stories tend to be based on in order to win the Oscar, for most part, it is usually a decent showcase of talent. This year, though, has been a let down, like a few other.

True art needs no glittering awards functions, no television, no viewership ratings, and most definitely, no globalized, listless "format" to celebrate the goodness of such art. Cinema, unfortunately, is ripe for the picking when the intent is to promote product at all costs, and the innumerous film festivals around the globe make it imperative for a lot of films to put one or two awards on their promotional materials.

It is timely to consider the fact that the Oscars as a TV show has fallen way below needed viewership ratings and the show is willing to do anything to prop up the machinery. It wouldn't hurt to have a business decision leading to roping in a theoretical billion people to achieve the face lift. Considering the judges on the Nobel Prize committee are being investigated for improper relationships with potential and eventual winners of the coveted prize, one cannot be so naive as to dismiss the possibility of Rupert Murdoch "fixing" the Oscars, in much the way he "fixed" the coverage of the Iraq war with his Fox network.

After all, it was his own Star Movies that brought us the Oscar show in India. And what a neat coincidence that Star TV also promotes "Kaun Banega Crorepati" and was suffering to survive before Amitabh Bachchan stepped in and isn't exactly a flagship program now after he stepped out! Of course Murdoch's stake in Slumdog Millionaire is easy enough to follow the money with, and if TV ratings are an issue, what better way to prop it up than with a potential billion viewers - the same way India is a powerhouse in cricket?!

See how Russian and eastern European women are suddenly winning beauty pageants? India is already selling enough shampoo and beauty products, so... time to prop up other markets. There is virtually nothing separating Miss Venezuela from Miss Romania once the metronomic, sterilized standards are applied at the point of entry to these paegants. It isn't as if Ethiopia will send a little pygmy who only speaks her native language and Nepal will send a shepherd to these events.

What is definitely easy to see is that Slumdog Millionaire is probably a better film than most, and you can't really lie about who makes it to the top ten in any contest in cinema. It is subjective to some extent, but there is no way "Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na" will compete against "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". That's obvious, but once past that stage, there is enough wooing going on to affect the results. It's all about the award!

Are Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai as worthy of the Padma Shri as Kamal Haasan or Kapil Dev? I would squirm to be in this kind of company if I was Kamal Haasan or Kapil Dev. The falling standards are already too obvious to continue giving the same kind of respect to the award. But then, life is short. Who cares?

Awards are used to sell products - it doesn't matter who gives the awards and what standards are applied. If you get an award, you sell more. Period. The Sundance Film Festival was set up expressly to avoid the noise that big studios typically create and to encourage independent cinema. Slowly, that changed to become another whore of the studio system, where studio executives regularly showed up to buy rights. Now, the speciality of Sundance is completely lost and the truly special films that do not know how to pander to these studio executives have to look elsewhere to showcase their art appropriately.

The car industry dies for awards. But there are enough and more avenues to win awards from. Virtually every car in the world market has won an award or two somewhere in some segment, and although anybody can see cars have improved overall in the last ten years, there isn't anything special to separate one from the other qualitatively. So, if you want to spend the extra money on an "award winning" brand new car, (which nobody has driven for over two months), go ahead, make someone's day.

Booker prize winning "The White Tiger" by Adiga is by no stretch as good a book as Booker prize winning "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, but now they have arguably equal street credibility. The fact that the book has the award mentioned on the cover should tell us how our judgment is expected to get skewed. An award is no longer a token of appreciation, it is a mandatory marketing tool to apply for, like a badge! Once you have the badge, you are allowed entry into some pretty cool clubs!

We have a world where we are no longer allowed to use our own judgment, and we are happy to be told what is good, because we are too lazy to improve our own intellectual bandwidth, and we are actually allowed to say, "I don't have the time to inform myself" in a few different ways. The marketing machine has managed to club us down to this level of dumbness and it isn't about to stop.

There is a machine for producing goods, there is a machine for telling us what goods are good, and there is a machine telling us to listen to the other machines, and we get to be lazy as a return for making this system smooth and convenient. There is also a part of this system telling us how we can be "weird" and out of place if we don't subscribe to the majority view. There was a time when the majority view maintained that the earth was flat and the minority were burned at the stake!

It would be rather impolite and to some, even unpatriotic, to belittle A R Rahman's achievement, even though the Oscars are an American award and do not really stand for any global standard. But Rahman (introduced with great difficulty as Rakhmaan) talking about him making a choice between hate and love is a bunch of borrowed, C-grade, unoriginal, trite nonsense, like a schoolboy memorizing an essay and spitting it out a year later when all context has vanished. It isn't even cute, and it is plainly pitiful.

Rahman and Resul Pookkutty, the Oscar winning sound mixer, botched it all up when the time came to be professionals. In their speeches, both hung on to the "patriotic" and "Indian" elements as if India begged to be represented by these two clowns. Gosh, it must have been overwhelming for both of them just to be amongst so many white people and being appreciated! After all Rahman has stolen so much from foreign bands! Practically all of his "great" stuff is stolen, and if you disagree, you just haven't listened to enough music. What is worse is probably that these two fools imagine that all of us as Indians are dying to be rescued from our oppression!

So, for a guy who loves to bathe himself in the tricolour, why isn't his music very Indian? Because it is hard work being Indian! He doesn't have the mettle to be like an Ilayaraja. He just doesn't have what it takes to be great in a fully Indian context. He is a product of technology, gimmickry and the modern marketing machine. He is a very good sound engineer, an excellent arranger, and has a good ear for sounds, but he simply is no good as a composer.

Rahman would not be who he is if not for globalization and the dilution of classical art and music in the process. The world of art is not poorer for honouring him with a fairly high token of recognition for the new has to be acknowledged. The award, however, is a tad poorer for having come for a piece of work that is hardly in the top 80% of what he has produced so far!

The awards racket is a thriving one. It exists to support the marketing machine, and the marketing machine is capable of arm twisting its way upwards to get the results it wants. To believe it doesn't do this would be terribly naive. If Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV could actually present the Iraq war as a positive thing, reporting from exclusive "embedded" positions within the ranks of the US military on the battlefield, just to support Murdoch's conservative agenda, you can imagine what a piece of cake the Oscars must be. Rupert Murdoch is a slamdunk millionaire, and Rahman is just another ball going through the hoop.

This Jai Ho song, please give it a pass. It isn't even as catchy as any of the numbers from Rangeela, and hardly as fresh as the music from Roja. It is a dumb, flat, piece of crap. It is the kind of music Rahman has always "come up" with and he's disturbingly regular at producing crap. Let's not make this our national anthem, please.

So, what gives? Go figure! This is what it takes - spot the few people who don't fall for marketing hype. Make them your friends, and win their trust to tell you what is out there that is worthy of any consideration at all. The fact that they might draw a blank time after time doesn't mean that they are setting standards too high for everyone else. It means you aren't constantly disapointed. Now, you decide if "you're worth it".

And the Oscar goes to ... our heads?

At last it is official!

A R Rahman has won two Oscars! What a moment of joy!

Now, finally, there is every chance that we won't be inflicted with his overrated music as much as we have been. Has India been saved? I hope he gets abducted, seduced and entrapped by Hollywood studios and kept there for as long as he is alive.

So, a bunch of Indians got work on a British film. A foreign director came with a foreign script, and a foreign cameraman, shot something in India, and it made it to the Oscars - exactly like GANDHI. Great work cannot be slighted, so here is a hearty congratulations to the entire Slumdog Millionaire team! You are fantastic! For a little known film to climb so high is incredible and deserves more accolades than a film like Gandhi. So, let's all clap and cheer.

But let's not suddenly imagine that Indian cinema has come of age in some way. Completely the opposite, this is a left handed slap across the face of Mumbai cinema, which for the amount of money being spent there, hasn't produced one great film in a long, long time. The half decent films show up, but somewhere, in some way, Mumbai falls apart.

Now, on TV, it is being mentioned that India hasn't won an Oscar in 27 years! How many Indian films have we sent in to compete for the mainstream categories, in this period? NONE! Well, duh! More importantly, when did India start needing Oscars? We'd be more affected by Mumbai losing power for 27 minutes than not getting an Oscar for the next 27 years.

So, who the bloody hell cares? International acclaim! How can you not know the value of that? I can hear the screams already. So? Hitler was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" and Mahatma Gandhi was never nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee is under scrutiny for accepting favours from potential winners, and we should know by now that the Miss World and Miss Universe affairs are total shams for selling shampoo to new markets. So, will I be dancing on the roof with an Oscar or eight for Slumdog Millionaire? Hardly.

We Indians are great slaves. We have proved it time and again. We do good work under capable masters, but terrible when left to ourselves. Look at any country where Indians have done well and it is clear that the collective is controlled by somebody else and we Indians willingly function to the best of our abilities under those conditions. We will gladly slave for somebody else but won't do our best for ourselves!

Slumdog Millionaire is exactly that - Indian slaves working hard for a British master. A R Rahman is by no means India's best music composer, definitely a copycat, and is left miles behind in the originality race by someone like Ilayaraja. Ilayaraja thankfully, will perhaps never vie for an Oscar. But what is true is that his music from Annakkili sounds great more than thirty years later, while Rahman hasn't done any work yet that can truly be termed "timeless" and indeed quite a bit that can be called "crap" (Example: Karuthamma).

Indians who don't know a rat's fart from music will now actually believe Rahman is among the best of Indian music composers - because the white masters have spoken! What was Indian about Rahman's Jay Ho show at the Oscars? This is the kind of pandering that we Indians should feel insulted by. If someone of true genius had got this Oscar, I'd be worried that he might leave our shores and we get to enjoy less of him. For Rahman, I have nothing but hearty congratulations!

What I'm trying to understand is this - the whole of last year, I haven't seen very many Indian films worth the hundred rupees I paid to get in. This year hasn't started off very well either. Now I see a British producer and a British director come in with a script written by Simon Beaufoy (could this be a Tamil name?), albeit an adaptation of a book written by Vikas Swarup, make a film called Slumdog Millionaire, and it wins Oscars and we're celebrating this as an Indian win of some kind? Even the slumdog kid himself is "Indian" only in ethnicity! What is wrong with this picture?

Let's celebrate good cinema, and Slumdog Millionaire is definitely good cinema, but the part that Indian cinema played in the creative process that created this motion picture is not by any means big enough for us to take credit for as Indians.

The last "Indian" film I remember that was nominated for a mainstream Oscar was Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay, which also was set in the slums and in Mumbai. So, it behoves us to maintain our slums years exactly as they are till atleast 2036? Jai Ho Indian cinema! Who wants to be a millionaire when you can be a slumdog and be so happy!?

The Momentum of Stupidity

For eight long years, GW Bush ruined America, taking down with him several good things he inherited from Bill Clinton's presidency. For several years longer than that, India was hijacked by archaic notions, too much government control, protectionism and corruption. Corruption still exists, but impacts us a little less these days because the government has given up some of its control. In hindsight, India was down the wrong path up until the time we nearly became bankrupt and then Manmohan Singh came along with reforms that slowly brought us to the light.

In George W Bush's case, he had the support of most of the morons in his country who were willing to panic under the threat of terrorism - to the point where they continued to support the very government that had allowed Sept 11th, attacked the wrong country, did not find the perpetrators of the greatest act of terror on its soil, lied to its people about threats, gave no bid contracts in billions and essentially stole all semblance of order! In India's case, we simply had no experience with democracy and even less with self governance. We were too busy being pious and holy that we never realized for a long time that we needed a strong economy! It took a near catastrophe to wake us up and take up reforms.

In both cases, stupidity gained momentum, simply because there weren't enough minds applied against it. What is it about humans that allows stupidity when it is so obvious? Just fear of bucking the momentum? How does stupidity gain momentum in the first place? Panic? Collective ignorance? A pathological attraction to the 'wrong' choice in case the right choice looks too good to be true?

The financial crisis that started in Wall Street and is threatening to hit a lot of people around the world is no illusion. It is the unmasking of a bag of illusions. Americans thought for a long time that they could continue building their wealth on speculation rather than productivity, by just juggling money. Stupidity again, but nobody questioned it for a long time. Now, they are being forced to re-evaluate a lot of things. India has reacted with fear in the stock market, panicked at the marketplace and is still scared for no great reason. We should have known when we made our future plans based on an exaggerated expectation of continuous growth in the foreign currency dependent outsourcing business that there could be trouble. We didn't. Stupidity gathers momentum much faster and stronger than intelligence.

The CEOs of Indian companies in the IT and BPO sectors aren't leaders but Chief Emulation Officers, who seem to blindly replicate the models of the companies they aspire to be like. Well if Citibank was one of those companies, we should be seeing a one shot 50,000 strong layoff in India soon. News just came in that our marquee "Indian" CEO of Citigroup is likely to be fired. Sounds like a good plan to me if he allowed Citigroup's market value to drop 50% in three days.

If there is one thing to learn from becoming "global" it is that there are enough and more people in senior management circles unwilling to be individually chastised for being different and visionary, while very happy to be found collectively guilty of massive stupidity later. Why shouldn't these overpaid fools lose their jobs for failing to warn their companies of impending doom? If they are "helpless" why the heck do the companies need them in the first place? A duck would be equally helpless, and would even lay eggs at a fraction of the salary. Is anybody questioning the logic of hiring dummies with MBAs? Not with the helpless watching game called stupidity that is pervading corporate India right now.

Every downturn is supposed to bring opportunities with it. With the reduced demand in oil and lowered consumption, environmentalists should be really happy that there won't be so much carbon di oxide in the atmosphere for a while, but in reality they will be unhappy that cash crunches will hold back investment in newer technologies! Add to this lower oil prices and there is no incentive at all for anyone to complain about burning more oil. The next time oil goes up, it will be at the most inopportune time and then we will look back at the stupidity of not running away from oil when we could afford to, which is now, when we have extra money that we didn't spend on expensive oil! But we're so scared now that we're most likely to make mistakes. Humans don't take pressure all that well.

Last night came the news that the big automakers in the USA didn't get the handouts they wanted. It is kind of stupid to start with, like losers asking for medals, but when the BIG 3 are not likely to share profits with the taxpaying public, why the heck should taxpayers' dollars be used to bail them out for not being competitive enough? If Toyota and Honda can do well in the same market with the same pool of labour and skill, there is no reason for GM to be complaining. Of course this has to do with not knowing how to make a single good car, but just because the impact would be huge if GM, Chrysler and Ford went bankrupt, that doesn't mean taxpayers should bail them out. That is just thievery, and the thieves have been fended off for now. There are big auto ancillary manufacturers in India that supply the big three and many are OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). They're going to hurt, without a doubt. That's the thing about momentum - you cannot stop it unless you oppose it with an equal or greater force.

Indians are going to lose their jobs. No question about that. Quite simply because we are great at competing against each other here at home, but lousy when competing against the rest of the world. While it is unlikely that Eritrea will be making more steel than India in the next fifty years, it is highly likely that we find our economy has bloated because of IT dollars and a higher standard of living that we briefly subscribed to is suddenly going to be unsustainable. We don't have to look far - we don't sell software to end users, we write software for others who sell products and solutions. The "others" are mostly American and some European. These people aren't going to do anything new for a while, and we would have rolled in the momentum of their stupidity! They're owning up to their failed economic models, but we're yet to own up to our overdependence on the US dollar. More stupidity that is not being questioned right now, because of some dangerous remnants of optimism. After all, when we love the Americans so much, you bet we bought some of their delusionary talents too!

The Indian real estate industry is getting the wake up call right now, but is not responding to it. If you ask one developer why he isn't dropping prices, he will tell you nobody else is, so he is going to wait and watch! Momentum. Nobody escapes it, and very few want to escape it. Sheep falling off the cliff, and more to follow. About a billion. The only reason Indians won't get killed jumping off the cliff is because so many of us jumped before us that the valley has been filled! When we do see prices drop, we still won't see sales pick up because people will expect prices to drop some more! That will throw more panic into the industry, and builders won't be cashing in on cheaper cement and steel prices because their moneys are stuck in unsold properties. The biggest ones will see the opportunities and wait out the trough, but the bottom feeders will all look for other industries to play in. We haven't seen the worst panic yet, but the show is coming!

Somehow the Indian government, as if it is qualified to talk about this, is throwing out assurances, based on absolutely nothing, that India is not likely to see layoffs! This is beyond stupidity. It is delusion, which has had momentum a lot longer than stupidity.

Abhinav Bindra Ungrateful? Why not?

LOL! Almost exactly as if in response to my earlier post on Abhinav Bindra....

Abhinav Bindra accused of being ungrateful to the system!!!

After winning India's first individual gold in the Olympics, Abhinav Bindra apparently gave credit to his father for his success. He is supposed to have said that his victory was more in spite of the system than because of it. This comment has now infuriated Digvijay Singh, the president of the Shooting Federation of India who is now saying that shooters like Abhinav Bindra and Jaspal Rana were being ungrateful by saying things like this.

Abhinav Bindra has now responded by saying it is not true that he is ungrateful and that as soon as he won the Gold medal, he thanked everybody concerned and to comment further on this would be a waste of time!!!

We Indians love to harvest sour grapes, don't we? It isn't enough if a guy wins us an Olympic Gold. We need to squeeze every little bit out of every little association he has. I bet the neighbourhood banana seller has a stake in supplying Bindra with the potassium needed for his steady hands, and every bus driver in Delhi has a stake in this achievement by not killing him prematurely on the way to practice!

I wonder how we would react if a guy who came in at 54th place said he is really grateful to the "system", since he got a lot of encouragement and help and resources from the Shooting Federation of India, and without that kind of support he would only have managed the 66th place! If you're laughing, you agree with me. Thank you.

So, Abhinav Bindra thanked his Dad for providing him with all he ever needed. Fair enough, and quite nice of the young man, I should say. The Shooting Federation wants him to be grateful since they sent him abroad, apparently for training. So, what else is the Shooting Federation supposed to do - clean his underwear? Why do we have to torture Bindra after he has done his job?

What is it that we want from our sportspersons? Winners or just good guys who are always being grateful? Thankfully our cricketers are cocky enough to script their own lives and successful and smart enough to know what it takes. M S Dhoni always parties hard after a win, knowing fully well that the kids in his team need to let off steam and hang loose and bond more than anything else. They give their lives for him on the field and they can beat anyone. That is a fact. Cricket thrives because it respects individual brilliance.

Above and beyond the full import of having ungrateful sportspersons, it is the WINNERS that inspire greatness in others, not the nice guys. I personally feel that being a "good person" finds rather nebulous and overrated importance in our culture. We do not breed winners as much as we try to breed good people, and for most part, we seem to fail on both counts!

What is wrong with a cocky, arrogant and brash winner who can thrash everybody in the world, spit on his opponents with disdain and walk away like a king? I bet we'd enjoy it even more than the good guy who loses! No call to add any of these qualities to any of our winners in the making, but we don't win medals for being good guys, do we? Long live the ungrateful winners. The world has leaped forward in every field because of people who know what they want and go get it. I am grateful to them, and damn whoever they are not grateful to.

Facts are - the Shooting Federation never produced an Olympic Gold medalist before Abhinav Bindra and Abhinav Bindra chose to thank his Dad. I see no problem with the latter, but a huge hole in the former. It is time the "system" got its act together and looked forward instead of trying to piggyback on one success they may have played some part in.

Most impressively the young man added today that it is time to "Forget about him, and help the others"! Looking forward! That's why I love this kid!

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showsports.aspx?id=SPOEN20080065865

A Shout out to American women!

I have been following the American Democratic presidential candidate
nomination process closely and I predicted a long time ago (when I was
in Nepal last year) that Barack Obama would be the winner - putting
more into hope than into any intuitive process, but more than Obama
coming up ahead, I amnow glad Hillary is not going to be president.

Nothing do I have against a woman becoming president, but America
always seems to be picking women with a lot of male hormones for top
jobs. Be it Madeline Albright or Condi or Hillary, they are all women
who somehow want to walk in the corridors of male power, who want to
be in a playing field level with men, and hold no charm for me as
women in their own evolved selves.

On the other hand, I look at women who have held top jobs in India,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka and even Bangladesh, and I notice none of these
eastern women ever competed with their "woman" status and begged and
pleaded to "make history" as Hillary did. It was pathetic to watch
someone who at once proclaimed she would be ready on "day one" to be
"presidential" and yet, repeatedly played the "woman" card! Hello?
Does she want to be the president first or does she just want to be
the first woman president?

There was an article in Newsweek a year or so ago, that spared no
effort while mentioning that India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan
were all British colonies in the same breath as the one that informed
the reader that they have all had democratically elected women as
leaders. It of course forgot to mention that the Brits elected
Margaret Thatcher a long time after India elected Indira Gandhi and
way after Sri Lanka elected Bandaranaike!

Neither Thatcher nor Indira Gandhi ever played the "gender" card in
their politics. Bandaranaike never even came close to it. In fact,
these ladies seemed to care two hoots about it. They were all strong
willed, articulate and could hold their own on the stage of
leadership. Indira Gandhi was far sharper at criticism and by far the
more enigmatic of the lot, but in a country that is supposed to
suppress women culturally, Indira Gandhi simply did what she had to do
as a professional, and everybody quietly followed their leader.

Hillary owes a lot of her notoriety to her marriage to Bill Clinton
but more importantly, she stood to lose from it as much as she gained,
if not more. It isn't easy to measure up to Bill Clinton. Fair
enough. But she rode that distinctive Clinton advantage as much as
she could. Sure Bill Clinton would have done a lot for any other
Democratic candidate had Hillary not been in the fray, but where does
that leave Hillary as the capable strong woman?

Quite simply, she is no stateswoman (or statesman!). She is a shrill
and manipulative product of Washington politics who can gleam once in
a while like a shiny automobile from GM that doesn't have to show its
lousy gas mileage in the commercial. She manouvers more than she
manages, she presents more than she professes, and she certainly tries
to win more than she tries to convince. She played victim on so many
occasions during her campaign, I doubt if anybody would use their
sympathy to vote for someone who feels so victimized to a position of
immense implications.

Sadly, I doubt if Hillary ever truly felt victimized. I think she is
crooked enough to see that as an opportunity to mark up her appeal to
morons who would fall for that. I think she is enough of an
opportunist to take advantage of something like September 11th and
uncouth enough bring a great nation down to its lowest undignified
stance in the name of going to war, every bit as much as Bush. No
doubt she would be a better candidate than Dubya, but then, who
wouldn't?

Hillary would have done much better if she studied her support base a
little more carefully, even if she wanted to manipulate them as she is
capable of. Instead of mud slinging Obama, she could have simply
refused to play dirty, and stayed above it all - that would have
brought out the best in her voter base, and won her admirers from the
Obama camp. Hillary has never come out swinging against the lobby
culture. She must know, atleast in a cerebral kind of way, that the
new generation or two of voters are sick of all the things she has
been bred in! Why did she choose to give us all a taste of what we
already know and do not quite care about?

Where is that self made American woman politician? If Arianna
Huffington can have so much fun being who she is - a woman, an
immigrant, and with a hell of a funny accent, why is Washington so
full of men? There is no excuse except that American women haven't
wanted to be there as much as we would like to see.

It isn't as if no American woman has ever been head of state. Janet
Rosenberg who hailed from Chicago was prime minister and later
president of Guyana. >>Her political career started in 1950 and she
held many positions. In 1997 her husband, Dr. Cheddi Bharat Jagan,
died, and she was chosen to replace the Premier who succeeded Mr.
Jagan as President. Janet was chosen as her party's candidate in the
following Presidential elections, which she won. Afterwards she
re-appointed the former President to the post of Prime Minister after
being sworn in as President. She was born as Janet Rosenberg in
Chicago and mother of two children. (b. 1920-).<< class="nfakPe">Gandhi, the leader of the Congress Party in India, which is now in power, is of Italian origin. She married Rajiv Gandhi when he was a pilot for Air India. Later, after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, she
was quietly requested to assume party leadership and today she is
every bit Indian as anybody else. She is simply fondly referred to as
Soniaji.

I cannot believe there are so many countries in the third world that
have so easily ignored bias of gender, color and even national origin
while choosing their leaders. It is high time America got off its
high horse of presuming it is in some kind of position to advice the
rest of the world on freedom and civilized behaviour, while it can't
find one real woman to fill any post of real substance and example.

I cannot believe there are so many naive American men in positions of
tremendous power and influence. GW is a glaring example, which nobody
can deny, so we will leave him out as an exception. Look at the rest
of the stable and you will find a lot of asses, some mules, and a few
horses. Stallions, none at the moment. And this is an eight year
presidential term? All in the name of fighting against a bunch of
nincompoop terrorists?

My question is not - so the most powerful country in the world has a
bunch of idiot politicians. What's new in a democracy? My question
is - when the men have had such a long tradition of being in politics
and have trashed an illustrious past with the below mediocre present,
where are the American women to challenge their men and put them in
their right places?

There are any number of societies in the world where men are worthless
drunks and the women do all the work and manage everything. They
don't let their men boss over them, and don't take crap from anyone.
At the same time, they don't function like men. They are stalwarts of
dignity, and beautiful and feminine all the way. What is it that
American women seem to be so wary of?

I think American women are extremely beautiful beings, caught in the
stupid need to fight for their rights and be equal to American men.
Your men aren't such great examples, darlings! Why the hell would you
ever want to be equal to them!? Leave them to do their grunting macho
stuff, and simply take the quick path past them to tremendously
evolved planes. Leave it to them to catch up if they want to!

Seriously, if Hillary is the best you ladies can come up with, I'm
glad America is not ready for a woman president. I hope the roles
that you American women will choose to play in the century ahead will
have more to do with your own essential substance than having to play
within designs men put in place. America needs that, and the rest of
the world would love it.

Oh, by all means, vote for a woman, but please make sure she is woman enough.

Peace and love.

Mumbai Selling

The new ad. for "Khatron Ki Khiladi" on the new channel to come - Colors (notice the missing U?), warns that all the stunts are being performed under expert supervision in South Africa according to applicable regulations (Sounding very much like the Americans who love to write "This is not a toy" on plastic bags), and extends itself, huffing and puffing, to say "Viewers shouldn't try these stunts, especially children".

Now, either that means the stunts are really child's play and even children will want to try them, or our children would really listen to their parents yelling "Pinky! Leave the helicopter alone. You really shouldn't be following Akshay! No Chotu, you can't take the speedboat either!"

Are we hapless masses in India supposed to enjoy something being performed in South Africa with an American idea? How about talking in Polish with Korean subtitles, idiots? Oh, you want this to be a Hindi show? So, why isn't the show's name ever written in Hindi? Could it be because the people who can read Hindi would never watch this show? Or could it be you couldn't really come up with another name for "Fear Factor" that isn't equally dumb?

This is supposed to impress those of us who read in English, hear in Hindi, relate to American culture, and are willing to put up with South African regulations? Why not just show us the original show if we are this international in our taste?

It takes a bevy of beauties to go on some dangerous missions with Akshay Kumar? Fair enough. Television courting titillation is nothing new, but I would rather watch no TV at all than being forced to watch these unathletic acting career dropouts trying to hitch a ride to South Africa under some idea of "cool" invented last night. And these chicks telling us who they are - why? Who cares? To me, they all look the same, sound the same, and act the same. There is a serious business opportunity for a company that can invent and sell new types of giggles. And it can be called "Giggles for Dummies".

The show promises lizards and snakes licking these desirable nubiles - are we supposed to be scared of these creatures? We are still a nation where a large number of people are bitten by snakes on a regular basis, and yet, we do have any mortal fear of the creatures. We even have seven year old girls chasing away leopards with sticks and winning bravery awards from the President. Sweep all this under the carpet while watching another Whitey show ranking snakes for how deadly they are, and you are the perfect candidate to welcome the new White invasion of our culture, this time the mindsets.

Right on the heels of this one, we have BIG BOSS! A bunch of people in a house. So? The ads make this out to be some sort of macabre, extremely menacing proposition and we are supposed to be interested in who survives the rest of the loonybins in the house? Are we supposed to wait in trepidation to see where this next experiment in social engineering will take us? Or will we be spared the end of the season and have some actress cry foul and make news for herself while the show tops every toilet in viewerland?

What kind of Mumbai morons come up with these ideas to copy shows that are boring to start with? What kind of braindead, drugged out dopes are getting paid to come up with these ideas, and what kind of mediocrity marinated lunatic bosses okay these ideas?

We as Indians, have a long tradition of notions, as long as our history itself. These notions are complex and sophisticated, and we have never cared to explain or analyze any of these, because... we don't really care! It takes a lot to dumb us down, and while we might buy into a bit of dumbness once in a while, Mumbai trying to sell us the whole whale is out of the question.

Bottomline - we are not American, and none of the doped out foreign culture sucking assholes in Mumbai, from the uncreative bowels of their below mediocre television culture needs to tell us what we should like and what is cool. We're already cool and we don't really care about that either.

Which one of those dickheads is running Star TV in India? Somebody tell that knucklehead that we don't need to be told what is coming in the "Sizzling Summer" like the Asia Cup and Wimbledon, when it is pouring cats and dogs. Maybe these people are snorting dope all day long and don't even notice that summer is long gone for the 16 percent of the world's population that is keeping one of these sports alive!

That idiot on AXN who's been pronouncing Maruti as "Muhroodee" for ages - can someone other than the RSS tell this fool to get names right(especially those of Hindu Gods!), before letting his voice travel over the airwaves? I really wouldn't mind slitting the throat of the fool who approved this idiot's work, just for the incompetence it shows, or the indifference to Indian viewers who are being subjected to this nonsense.

It isn't as if a foreign culture has never made it to the shores of India. For thousand of years, we have been bombarded by things foreign. But this new phenomenon, of Indians telling other Indians how we must ape others, is new. And it is being fostered in Mumbai, squarely.

It neither begins nor ends with this arbid fiction film world called Bollywood (oh, what a coincidence it has taken to this name with love!). It spreads rather unceremoniously to news channels as well. The 11th of July bombings in Mumbai were shamelessly referred to as the "Seven Eleven" bombings, just so it rhymes with the white man's violent castration of sorts caused on "Nine eleven". When in India did we ever use the month before the day in mentioning a date?

I have heard we have monkeys in Hyderabad, who celebrate Halloween! Halloween, for heavens' sake! What does India have to do with Halloween? One can understand Valentine's day as an opportune moment to woo someone who has already fallen for that one, but Halloween!? I can only say to those who celebrate Halloween in India - to borrow from Mumbai cinema - that they really mustn't have drunk their mother's milk!

The number of advertisements in India, especially for high end clothing, that carry white faces - yet another disgusting low. Why ever should we wear something made here because a white man is ready to wear it? And the number of corporate websites that have pictures of very unproductive but cute looking white faces will give you an idea where India really doesn't want to let go of imperialism, even if we were not the imperialists to start with.

Just so we are not perceived as being racist in our blindness, look at how many avatars Abhishek Bachchan has taken up where he wears clothes like black rappers and moves his hands like he was a tattooed, just released from jail black man expressing himself on the streets of Chicago? I wonder if he would love to get sodomized in an all black jail in the USA, just so he can boast of having "been there, done that".

It isn't as if all copies are incapable of merit and success in our own context. Kaun Banega Crorepati is a much better show than its original, impersonal American version, but it was Big B that made the wonderful warm difference. Indian Idol is indeed a good opportunity for young talent to get picked up to good futures in the entertainment industry although I wonder how many people would recognize Prashant Tamang here than they would in Nepal!

The biggest question to ask is - why doesn't Mumbai copy the best of others' work? The master film makers today, in unabashed open view and in the greatest truth of the marketplace, are mostly white and from Hollywood. India has no Clint Eastwood, no Spielberg, no Terrence Malick, and no Scorsese. Mumbai doesn't have a Leonardo DiCaprio, and we most certainly don't have a Denzel Washington. (India has a Kamal Haasan, but he doesn't work in Mumbai)

The answer is - it's hard work being good. So, if you're not willing to work hard to create something original, and if you have no cultural roots to give you a sense of who you really are, if you are willing to take little crumbs of copied semi-original material and leave it to the marketing machine to make you, then you would do well in Mumbai. But if you are one of these, keep your shit to yourself and don't unleash it on the rest of us who can still tell the difference.

There are many actors and actor wannabes in Mumbai who can swear by the amazing actors Hollywood produces. Great actors come from great material. No screenwriters since the days of Salim-Javed have produced tight screenplays in commercial Mumbai. We will forgive the exceptions like Govind Nihalani for now. There simply is no respect for great writing, and indeed no demand for it. Some of the scripts that get approved for production have absolutely no potential to be "great" in any context, except maybe as recycled paper. All that Mumbai cares about now is "packaging" and as long as that sort of "packaging" has worked in the West, it is happy to ape, rape, and expect us to gape.

Deserving mention are the actress wannabes that show up in Mumbai, dressing and making themselves up like Western women, slimming themselves down, and throwing themselves about just like the women they watch on TV. The same mannerisms, the same attitudes, and the same level of fake confidence. All good, till they come to pronounce "sandvich" or having to understand the interviewer who asks a question longer than five words. Then, in one instance, all the glam falls away, and the villager is exposed. God bless them for their dreams, but what animal are they trying to ape? White western women, of course!

Salma Hayek doesn't hide her native English accent, and no European stars really worry about their identities while having to operate in a foreign language like English. So, what is wrong with us? A really deep inferiority complex? Just hating being Indian? Both? Pathetic.

And what's up with rampantly using the Indian flag and patriotic rubbish to sell products? Do you rascals really have to be that much of a sell out? Mind and body, heart and soul, your creativy is up the pole.

Anything to be proud of?

I am not proud of my country. I am not proud of being male, or tall, or any of the things I do not have any control over. Being an Indian is something I didn't choose, and in the event of having to belong to some country by default, I really didn't have any say. So, why even think about it? Besides, if I took up the luxury of being proud of my country, I would definitely like to think the obligation of hanging my head in shame comes with it when my country chooses to stand for something shameful.

Is there anything I am proud about? Probably not. I don't necessarily give any thought to the saying that pride can bring about one's downfall. I am just not bothered about being proud, that's all. It just isn't important to me to belong in any collective, and while there are sides I take in a sporting event, there aren't sides I wish to take at a level where my sense of belonging as a person comes under my own scrutiny.

Now, it is largely fashionable to be patriotic, just as it is largely fashionable to be idiotic. In a country of over a billion people, intelligent consensus is often impossible, and just looking at the diverse mix that India is, any sort of consensus is nothing short of a miracle. I would think we do fairly all right as a country in some respects, but there really is nothing in the collective effort of us all being Indians that I would necessarily be enthused by enough to be proud of.

The idea of a nation state is an essentially flawed one, and deserves to be questioned in its essence. The boundaries that define a nation are mostly geographic, and are drawn not by considerations of ideologies, and certainly not by asking its constituents if they like what they will eventually end up representing and belonging with. Most of us are just humans who happen to belong to some nationality and we should never have to carry the guilt, responsibility or pride that is imposed upon us. This isn't a choice we should have to make and a world without a nation state concept isn't a new concept either.

Being a nation, however, isn't without its advantages. It is hard for each of us to maintain defences strong enough to protect everything we would like to protect. So, we all pool in our resources, create the opportunity for people to serve in the army, navy or air force, and prop up enough equipment to deter, threaten, or unmotivate an enemy from attacking us. This is smart collective thinking, but again our sense of belonging under the flag of a "nation" is just brilliantly convenient for this purpose. It is perhaps just as well that fighting for the country is more likely to motivate our brave soldiers a bit better than fighting for a more nebulously defined collective, no matter how much more truthful.

How about the whole world getting together under ONE collective and ignoring all boundaries between us as humans - geographical, ideological, even spiritual? The more we share resources and the more we fight for some, we are being inevitably pushed towards this ideal, but more and more, our leaders are falling short of calling the bluff of the last few centuries and are buying even more strongly into new states and countries! Yes, we elected those leaders in many cases, but then again, that is not something I am proud of. Why is it that we still vote for people instead of voting for ideas? Shouldn't we be allowed to merely vote for - "spending money on education" against "spending money on the military" and forcing whoever is elected to simply obey what we have chosen?

Democracy - the least lousy system we humans have come up with in order to govern ourselves, is the most benign way of the weak keeping the strong down. In a system of natural selection, about a tenth of the population of the world today would have survived and would have the intelligence to live a good life without endangering any of the resources of this planet. But we somehow conspired to subscribe to a system that lets the unfit thrive because of compassionate considerations, however dishonest those may be. As a result, we have an overburdened planet, fools with the ability to slow down life for the really smart ones amongst us, and hence retarding the highest levels we can aspire for as a race.

My race! Again something I am not proud of. But I am reasonably happy to belong to the human race. It has potential. It has a remarkable ability to survive and improve, and build upon the improvements of others in the race. That is a huge plus. I definitely do not want to invent all the things I would love to have! For my fellow beings, I am willing to give myself. For another human being, I am willing to batter and bruise myself. I am willing to yell myself hoarse so something I have found may reach that one ear that might be able to use that information. But perhaps this is also something instinctive, something so primal that I have no control over? It doesn't matter. Somewhere, somehow, some human beings seem worth the trouble of caring for!