The latest dope

My first brush with 'Sportstar' was way back in the December of 2000. In fact, I remember the edition precisely, for it was the much heralded millennium edition ushering us into a new century of sporting achievements. One particular story stood out. The blood-red eyes of Ben Johnson adorned the story detailing his triumph and subsequent downfall at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Johnson created a media frenzy by upsetting the great Carl Lewis at his patented 100m dash, only to be found guilty of banned substance abuse and stripped of his olympic glory. Lewis would go on to cement his place in the Hall of fame, and Johnson would go on to cement his in the doping Hall of shame.

In an era of ever tightening noose of the WADA around illegal and banned substance intake in competitive sport, be it Athletics, Tennis, or even Cricket, it is a matter of shame when a country crosses the line, figuratively, time and again. India's record at the dope altar has been murky at best, with a number of top athletes being tested positive for banned substances, especially after a coveted victory in a competition of repute. This is not to say that the athletic world is scotch clean when it comes to clandestine intake of foreign substance to give an artificial boost to their performance, but repeated dope offences should make the IOA take notice of the grim situation in the athletic nurseries of India. To quote a profound philosopher-"One fault wipes away all good done."

The latest in a long line of failed dope tests are two female athletes, both members of the victorious 4x400m relay team at the Commonwealth and Asian games. Only a year back, India was jubilant at the prospect of its track & field arm catching up with the shooters and boxers at international events. The double victory in back-to-back events had raised hopes for an elusive Olympic medal in track. With only a year to go for the 2012 London olympics, when teams start to polish that odd nook in their strategy and shave off those few milliseconds that separate the winners from the also-rans, India would have to start afresh. The blame lies on both the SAI and the athletes- SAI for the slip up in laying down stringent conditions on the athletes under its umbrella and constant monitoring of their physical well-being in the off-season, and the athletes for being nonchalant/ignorant about the intake of banned substances. Time and again, there has been clamor from athletes that they are injected with banned substances without their knowledge, and often a simple flu medication leads to a failed dope tests. Well, flu is not endemic to India, and if no other country boasts of athletes failing dope tests regularly, perhaps India should follow their lead and learn from their system, and then implement it here.

The appalling sports infrastructure notwithstanding, Indian athletes brave other odds while trying to make a career in sports. In a country where sports stars are exclusive to the game of Cricket (Saina and Vijender are proving to be worthy exceptions), athletes often brave familial pressure and lack of job prospects to make it big in the arena of track & field, the foremost competitive sport in the world. It is well known that our genealogy has blessed us with slightly inferior stamina and muscle mass compared to athletes from Africa or the west, and athletes start to learn the fine prints of their sport when others around the globe are already competing internationally. It is therefore the duty of the IOA to ensure that sports medicine be taught to our athletes right when they are being inducted into their sport. This will surely lower the number of failures, if not ameliorate it altogether.

The best soundtrack ever?

UP yours!

What is the product of a 6 hour drive on national highways laden with potholes, mixed with insensitive truck drivers and lack of street lamps? A grumpy author who is forced to contemplate on the mecca of Indian politics, and more importantly, the sorry state of affairs resulting from a desire to anglicize while the ground realities are quite de-anglicized. For example, it is well known that the monsoons arrive at this time of the year every time, yet the PWD will sit on their hands till the public comes out and raises a hue over the dug up roads or tardy water supply. I am just getting started.

Firstly, major props to the UP government for letting me know that is is doing all it can to further the cause of Sarvjana hitaye, sarvajana sukhaye. At least on paper (and giant hoarding the size of famished fields in big cities). While the maxim translates to "For the welfare and good of all", it is a mere facade to the real maxim when one reads between the lines. That crime was inbred in UP's bloodline was well established before the recent wave of rape, abduction, and killings started making national headlines. Though the government has been crying foul over the timing of the crime wave merely a year before the all important state assembly elections next year, the signs have been obvious for the last 10 years. As UP slipped from one form of ill-governance to the other under craftily sewn coalitions and a single party rule under the mask of an unified social experiment, the state moved from one form of shoddy bureaucracy to the other. The results are obvious.

It is telling that an English medium school still compounds a high premium on the masses of the hinterland. Education has gone down the drain while the number of colleges have sprouted up like fungi all over the state. UP boasts of a large number of engineering colleges, all private in nature of course since the central government still considers higher education in this country as a step child, with lack of basic infrastructure leaving the fate of the unfortunate students of these institutions hanging in balance. The obfuscation over the motives of the government couldn't have been any more obvious when, on one hand, farmers are being targeted in the name of development, and on the other, primary schools in villages also function as temporary resting places for baraats. A drive up the road would present generic pretty faces trying to figure out how to work a computer, inviting you to become a part of their confused fraternity. Of all the people in this world, a vegetable shop owner proudly presented his Eddie Guerrerro T-shirt (VIVA LA RAZZA). Indeed, the world has caught up with UP, but UP hasn't caught up with the world yet. Migration to the urban centers has resulted in an overwhelming majority of people residing in slums, while villages are getting deserted for the lack of workforce and improved irrigation facilities. MNREGA has clearly not benefited the large section of our workforce which is neither technically challenged nor educated enough to land a decent job. Other social schemes will amount to nothing unless government hiring speed up keeping pace with the expanding youth population.

Perhaps this is true for most states in our country. Educational levels are not where a country pushing for superpower status would hope them to be. Still, that smiling face on billboards and a T-shirt commemorating a great wrestler from Mexico gives me some hope. Hope that the desire of matching steps with the developed world would not remain an improbable dream for the residents of UP. That inward migration would be a reality somewhere down the line. Well, at least songs with English lyrics are becoming popular, and as many people want to watch Delhi Belly as those who raved to Dabangg. Huzzah!

Can somebody translate the spanish lyrics of this song for me?

In the business of Nature

It is official: Nature worship gets you in deep trouble, both pecuniary as well as emotional, and in worst cases, even death. Before you question my gloomy outlook towards the maintenance of Mother Earth, rest assured that I have completed my compulsory 'Environmental science' courses and therefore am a certified well-wisher of our habitat (ain't that right?). I of all people always believed that no harm can come out of protecting our environment, and planting a sapling is equivalent to Morrison's version of crack to nirvana. It is by chance, or by destiny, that the overwhelming evidence around us is coming into the fore at a time when the developed world still questions the assertions of IPCC's Nobel prize-winning endeavor. Does it really matter if the Himalayan glaciers melt in 2035 or 2080? The mere fact that they will be fading into the oblivion soon should have sent alarm bells ringing. But as with the human nature, having a free voice leads to multiple theories on any contentious issue, leading to a murky quagmire.

In a major development this week, a baba fasting for the protection of Ganga from the relentless illegal quarrying, affecting the biodiversity and ecology of the downstream, fasted to death, after 115 days! That the Ganga and the Yamuna nourish the agriculture belt of India is an ancient fact, which arises from a revered place for these rivers in Hindu mythology. Ganga was believed to have descended upon Earth through the enormous penance of King Bhagirath, who had to lay his brothers to peace which would have been possible through Ganga's sin-absolving quality. Well, we can pray to the deity all we want, even take a holy pilgrimage to Haridwar (doorway to God's kingdom), but Ganga is slowing being poisoned by the incessant illegal quarrying activity which is destroying the river bed, not to forget the cremation and offerings of human waste into the river flow in the hope of an end to the circle of life. It is just sad that despite numerous directives from the honorable courts and copious amounts of money that has been pumped into the cleansing and restoration of Ganga, the chances of saving it are slimming every passing day. And if you thought this is bad, have a look at the Yamuna when it traverses through the confines of Delhi. Nobody can blame you if you claim to have missed it, for it has been reduced a a black tarry stream full of toxic industrial waste. This is how India is paying back to the rivers it is indebted to for life.

The problems are not limited to India alone. Global warming skeptics, and there is a growing population of these, like to claim that this is not a new phenomenon and that it happens periodically in the earth's climate cycle, leading to different ages of natural conditions. Only problem being that the effects of rapid climate change have never been so potent or prominent. The shift in the arrival of different seasons is tangible, so is the increasing temperature at the various so-called 'cooler places' on Earth. Our glaciers are melting at a rapid pace, the Arctic is shrinking in size, and the Antarctic ice cap is disintegrating at a much faster pace than ever before. So some governments are actually taking it seriously and introducing measures like a Carbon tax on the citizens to offset the climate liabilities of the country. Well, it hasn't gone down well with earthlings, especially in Australia. Recent reports suggest that prime minister Julia Gillard is fast losing popularity and credibility for her efforts to tax her country for the fuel they burn and the greenhouse gases they emit. Now Julia Gillard has made some outrageous statements in the past, not least when the Indian students in Australia were facing violence arising out of racial and ethnic circumstances. But her popularity slumps when she tries to bring into effect a fundamental principle of introducing checks in the system to prevent misuse. Australia could have been a guiding light to the rest of the world, especially China which uses one-third of the Earth's energy resources and has been devouring it at a much faster rate in the past decade.

We make a big fuss about nature, vis-a-vis its role in our life and the sheer beauty gilded in its mysteries. The supermoon in March or the longest lunar eclipse of the decade 2 days ago would serve to remind us that tampering with nature and praising its beauty is a bigotry of the extreme kind. In India, nature worship has assumed a paramount role in all of our rituals. The havana is by design meant to clean the atmosphere by burning the microbes in the vicinity. Various festivals which have ties to worship of plants are to encourage their protection and nourishment. Nature has been our protector for long-it is our turn now to pay back or witness the devastation that will unfold once we reach the tipping point.

Technological conundrums

It has been close to a month now since I left one of the premier institutes of technological education in our country and shifted base back to my technologically-challenged hometown. Don't get me wrong, I love this little bustling half-city still undergoing a rapid metamorphosis. After all, considering that English-medium schools went from being a status symbol to being a norm in a short span of 10 years, Jhansi does pretty well on the rapid advancement scale in this liberalized country of ours. However, to pore deeper into this microcosm of a mixed society, you know, like the model tier-2/3 cities that our economists hail as the beacon of future growth, one needs to utilize a basic and inadvertent fact of science- Look closely if something is wrong, look closer if everything looks perfect.

Among other things that happened by the virtue of privatization and competitive bidding (at least in a majority of the cases), it can be rightly said that the telecom revolution of the late-nineties has been the sturdiest example of a simple idea made big. Hence, India now has more cellphones than color televisions and more telecom operators than that in the EU. In economics' jargon, this might be presented as the neo-liberal revolution. Back in my hometown, it stands for cheap call rates and unnecessary small talk. Back in the day, when the landline connection was given in batches and a STD subscription was considered stretching the household budget thin, people would line up at a neighborhood STD booth on a Sunday night in order to make that long-awaited phone call to a dear one. And due to the fact that those visits were more regular than the timing of Tendulkar's backfoot punch, the owner and the user formed a social bond that extended beyond that of a shopkeeper and a customer. It wasn't rare to see these phone booths being housed in ice cream parlors or general stores, so that while people waited for their turn to come, the children could lay waste to some candy or ice cream. This was until the government decided to de-monopolize the IT sector and bring in the private players, which spelt the doom for the state-run BSNL and the privately-owned STD shops.

With call rates plunging to historic lows, notwithstanding the totally unfunny ad campaign of DoComo advertising calls at 10p/min, one must wonder, and rightly so, how these companies are managing to remain in the black. The experts promptly reply that it is the total subscription and the value-added services that are the cash cows for telecom sector these days. I sincerely hope this is another of those 'good in a textbook, bad in the real world' cases, because the way my cable operator uses his cell phones or my dad uses his, the prospects of Raja's beneficiaries don't look very good. While Blackberries and smart phones are slowly becoming the norm in the urbane populace, the interiors still prefer the good old 'talk and turn off' ritual. And their favorite is the 'same network-free calls' scheme, which has saved many a relationships and connected families to each other 24x7. Hell, I hardly know of any friends back at college who use caller tunes or have call balance in excess of 50 bucks (much more if the person in question is hitched, but then the cellphone is hardly ever free for external consumption). Where is the profit coming from?

The answer is, there isn't much profit to go around. All major telecom firms have been reporting a steady decline in profits every passing fiscal. Compounded with new TRAi initiatives like mobile number portability, new entrants in the market are finding it harder to gain a foothold. So India went from having the least developed communications market, to one with the most potential, to one with stifling competition, to one with declining profits. If you believe in the circle of life, perhaps the days of STD booths will come again. Or maybe not! In the clamor of dropping call rates and fierce competition among the service providers, it is time to think of merging the call market with the information market throughout the country and not just in metros. A push at the central government's level, by promoting e-governance aggressively and subsidizing 3G services in the less profitable markets should lend credence to the amorphous market in the interiors. DTH failed to become the next big thing due to the higher penetration and affordability of local cable operators. Merging all information services in one and providing a bigger basket for consumers to choose from sounds like a decent idea on paper. The roll out will be another story for another day.

Happy birthday to a dear friend who just turned 25!

Arrested development

A dysfunctional family which happens to be something like this- A dad who cares little about his family and enjoys his time away from his responsibilities tending to daily chores; an elder son who bumbles around even when trying to be serious, and craves to create some magic of his own; a mother who enjoys the riches of the fast-depleting family fortune but shrugs responsibility for its consequences; a bumbling grandson whose throbbing pubescent hormones get the better of him; a dutiful son who has some sense of responsibility and tries to keep the family and its wealth from falling apart.

This is a rough narrative of the central characters of the hit Fox comedy Arrested development, which made critics sit up and take notice, garnering several awards in the process. Why would I want to talk about an innocuous, little-known show from the west in India? Because if you replace the dad with the President of India, the mother with you-know-who, the elder son with Dr. Manmohan Singh, and the grandson with Rahul baba, you have our own hit show being played out live to the public airwaves everyday. Sadly, there is no dutiful son who can come and rescue it from the rut, though Digvijay Singh more than makes up for the digging-a-deeper-grave part.

I was in Delhi for my visa interview when the travesty of June 4 occurred, and not surprisingly, the GOI made sure that the nation woke up to a Sunday of controversy and horror. A media-fest at the Ramlila ground at the behest of a Baba Ramdev was turned into a brazen attempt at the murder of democracy overnight. Since then, allegations and counter-allegations galore as the media churns out one byte after the other of the government or the opposition. In what has become fashionable in the tenure of UPA-II, shirking from responsibility and mudding the details has become commonplace. A similar scenario is shaping up now as the government tries to defend its midnight turn as Rambo necessary to prevent an escalation of a law and order situation, this when it claimed to have things in place and spared no effort in canvassing and convincing Ramdev to call off his proposed mass satyagraha. In words of a famous idiom, ungli tedi karni pad gayi.

A trite movement which rested on driving up a frenzy among his staunch supporters had turned Ramdev into a political figure. Clear signs of alignment with the right wing organizations were visible as he took stage and laid out his ludicrous conditions, which were, in all fairness, in good intention by a man who was only still grasping the reach of his celebrity. Perhaps it never dawned on the government's think-tank that a movement based on less than stellar credentials like Ramdev's would crash and burn on its own, unlike Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption, which had the backing of the educated class and proposed legislation in tow. Forcefully evicting thousands of hapless people in the middle of the night in Delhi's scorching summer only reaffirmed the notion that has long prevailed when it comes to Congress' image in the public- a party which tries hard to stay in the middle but gets nowhere. The hasty action has created more questions, drawn the ire of the NHRC and the Supreme court, recharged the civil society activists and the opposition, and worst, put a blot on India's tradition of allowing the liberty of peaceful protest and enshrining it as a fundamental right.

Perhaps it was a calculated gesture on the GOI's part. With 3 years left in its second term and no apparent threat looming over the stability of the government, it is relying on the fickle-minded public with a withdrawing attention span. The 2G scam has been turned into Kanimozhi's saga of martyrdom in the name of her family. The proposed Jan lokpal bill looks to be going nowhere. Operation 'Cover up' is already underway with regard to the CWG mess, as the Delhi government looks to bat it out with the central leadership having shown no signs of stern action against it. The scapegoat in each case, be it Kalmadi, Raja, Kanimozhi, or P.J. Thomas, is in the dock. The masters are thus more relaxed than normal. With the left still overcoming its nightmare of having been nearly swept out of national relevance for good, and the BJP squabbling over the next PM candidate, a strong challenge to the unruly central rule remains. This at a time when there are a number of factors to take the government to task- decline in GDP in the last quarter of 2010-2011, revision in the projected GDP for next year to the lower side, farmer agitations and land acquisition hurdles in Paradip, and a shortage of coal and natural gas slowing down India's energy production in the wake of ever-increasing demand. I am sure you can add to the list as well.

I am being reminded of our freedom struggle, when strong leaders of the stature of Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel took the helm and made sure the masses realize their responsibility. When Gandhi battled disenchantment in his idea of a united India with gusto. The democracy was showing positive signs of resuscitation with increasing voter participationin the recent assembly and local bodies elections, only to see the oxygen supply being cut short in the middle of the night.

PS: The lengthy stay in the capital city after 5 years showed me an entirely new side of Delhi, with improved road infrastructure and public transport standing out in particular. The CWG scam seems to have left an everlasting impact on the psyche of good 'ol dilli.

Cue up some Rahman

Dream factory v.2011

The juggernaut has rolled by yet again. Results of any nature are looked forward to in the same trepidation as Balaji looks forward to bowling a yorker or Seaman looks forward to guarding a Ronaldinho free kick. But nothing matches the sheer intensity and the nervousness that palls the hapless candidates when the sun finally dawns on the day the JEE results are to be declared. Of course, there is a minority which sees this day as the day of exoneration, when the very qualities that might have led to events of humiliation are turned inside out into a day of celebration. and redemption. I was never one for redemption, so I don't know about that.

All I can remember is that 5 years ago, on May 31, I was forced to visit an internet cafe by my mother at 9 AM, a good hour after the results were out. Call it reluctance or bravado, but all my results were declared on 3 consecutive Wednesdays that summer, and the 2nd one, the AIEEE, didn't bring good news at all. All it brought were images of opportunities lost and time wasted in long chats in the school parking lot that ended up going nowhere. Thankfully the JEE brought some respite and the day ended in one massive celebration (read: going to sleep with no worries about my future). Back then, JEE 2006 had thrown a curve ball at many a candidates due to the late announcement of a tweak in the examination pattern, compounded by the visions of Judgement day (not the sorts that can be miscalculated by a senile godman!) for all those who had been toiling for more than a year after their 12th. Come to think of it, even the number of goats going to the altar was humongous at 320,000. Still, it pales in comparison to the number of applicants for JEE 2011 and AIEEE 2011, which clock at 485,000 and 1,200,000 respectively. Yes, a million candidates now have their fate hanging on a single day of crunching. Wait for another 10 years and it will surpass the population of a large number of medium-sized countries.

How is it that for all documented proof of India's progress, a seat at an IIT (note to the responsible members of the media, IITs are not associated with the place they are seated, so stop calling IIT Bombay IIT Powai and IIT Madras IIT Chennai) or an NIT is still considered the 'be all-end all' of higher education. I will not describe the pains of a candidate preparing to study medicine in this country which has appalling medical facilities, because IIT has softened me to the extent that I cannot share their pain. Back to engineering (and Science)- while IITs have mushroomed all over the country, so have the coaching centres which promise the ultimate reward to any middle class parent who can shell out a hefty sum to these agents of prosperity. I truly believe, especially after gaining the treasured tag of 'been there, done that', that a large number of students in IITs are there only because they were made to believe that IITs are the gateway to a cushy job and a lifestyle akin to Ambanis and Birlas. I am not joking- there are people out there who believe that the minimum salary paid to a fresh graduate is at least in 7 figures, so beware if you know an over-interested neighbor. Even I was one of the believers till I entered my 3rd year, and even now, I can safely say that an IIT tag helps in more ways than one.

So how is it that so many hopes ride on a small number of institutions, which according to the umbrella ministry, don't even figure in the top-150 in the world in research. No matter how stupid the remarks of these honorable ministers are, the answer lies somewhere between complacent faculty and disinterested students. As somebody who has participated in a fare share of research projects in the last 2 years, you cannot force somebody to churn out scientific publications when he only came to this institution to earn a respectable living post graduation. And considering the less than flattering prospects faced by a researcher in India till the time he turns 30, you can hardly blame a student if he wants to make his life comfortable on a less tedious route. There's your answer Mr. Ramesh, and considering that you yourself went on a path of fame and wealth, that makes you a hypocrite for questioning those who are at least putting in some effort.

The facts remain firm. The lack of lucrative front line employment opportunities, coupled with the silos of government funded research institutions, exacerbates the acute shortage of options for any student in India. What we choose to do should remain our prerogative, and all dictum of 'serve your country' should only come from those who have traversed the path themselves. If anything, this shows that the government is willing to throw one of its premier educational institutes under the bus to grab some headlines (and possible divert attention from the larger issues of drift in governance).

PS: A cursory glance at this article brings back some good memories. Kids, a lot will change between now and the time you graduate, and I mean a lot!

"PhD to yaha bhi hoti hai!"

Translation: You are a duffer who wants to go to a foreign country for 5 years rather than taking up the MNC job so coveted by the masses in India.

It has been quite an eventful week, and believe me, I had no inkling of any of the events since I had barely been home for more than 3 weeks for the last 3 years. First, you pack up from IIT, college life ending in a matter of minutes and the feeling of having paid one's dues missing altogether. In true IITian fashion, all packing issues were resolved in the last hour before departure, and it is probably one habit which I shall be absolved of in the near future (almuni experiences warn me to the converse). After a much hallowed ride in the 1st class compartment of the Mumbai local with a dear friend and sifting through the multitude of platforms on CST, the realization dawned on me- College is over! Not so soon, echoed didi's rail vibhaag, and the summer special made my last Mumbai-Jhansi trip for a while a rather special journey, one to remember, by halting between Kalyan and Igatpuri for 2 hours! I would later learn that this was a pre-journey check, and more abrupt halts were peppered throughout the journey in a train lacking the basic facilities of waiters selling drinking water!

Ultimately, I came home, unpacked, and stripped down to minimum clothing in order to withstand the scorching North Indian summer. The monsoon may only be 2 weeks away, but those 2 weeks couldn't come sooner for a region which regularly makes headlines due to the spirited battle between the ruling BSP government and Rahul baba, as they blame all and sundry for the rot in Bundelkhand. Sadly you losers, what you are fighting about is my hometown. With the only development coming in the form of pukka roads and 16 hours of power supply since I was gone (perhaps broadband internet can be included here, but I am tempted not too), Jhansi is to Bundelkhandis what Miami was once to the Cubans. So what is the big fuss in the title of the post all about?

Turns out, my decision to enrich my brain some more (fancy term) and 'expand my horizons' came to naught in front of suspecting uncles and aunties, and even distant relatives. The queries are rather fundamental in nature- Beta, IIT main jaakar padh liya, naukri bhi lag gayi. Ab naukri karo, kitni padhai karoge? PhD to yahi se kar lena, 20-22 hajaar main ho jaati hai!

As you'd expect, all efforts to explain that this is not a 20-22k worth 'sit at home-pay a bribe-get a doctorate' PhD are useless when the well-wishers have your greater interest (read Marriage) in mind. Moreover, my trusty scooter that ferried me to many a last-minute school dashes and coaching trips has winded down considerably in horsepower. In a sign of overjoyed surprise, it did try and push upwards of the 50 kmph mark on a return trip, but sadly age has caught on to another long time friend. What else? How about the stray dogs on the street. What is so special about strays you may ask, for they are as much a sign that you are in India as stray cows (and pigs in MP). These strays are of the pedigree once the great Jesse Owens might have run against. They'll give you a nice 'run' for your money, and will escort you right to your doorstep for half a kilometer. And the easiest way to get a file noticed is to, as you have wrongly guessed, espouse a long relationship or acquaintance with the person in charge. Bribes are for novices!

With my internet finally working, I look forward to sharing more of my hometown tales with you. Beware, all posts are subject to more of such interesting incidents, like the one where we reached the cinema late and missed our first day show of Samundar ke lutere- Ek anokha rahasya.

Real catchy lyrics I must say!