Death of cricket

The joke going around in newsrooms these days is: all crime reporters need to be transferred. To the sports desk, that is.

Funny, sure, but not very cool. And also scary. Don’t know about you, but I most deffy have lost interest in the game of cricket, and no, it has nothing to do with mid-life crisis. The World Cup is on right now, and I cannot believe I don’t want to be a part of it, the thought itself would have been unthinkable a few years ago, when I was madly crazy about the game… I used to report sick even when India played boring weaklings like Zimbabwe and Kenya. And again, the loss of interest has nothing to do with our humiliating exit from the World Cup. My loss of passion for the game has to do with just one thing: I no longer know what I see on the screen is reality, or, like a low brow reality TV show, a stage managed competition. I mean, if heavily paid stars like Hansie Cronje, Shane Warne, Azharuddin, Wasim Akram and Ajay Jadeja cannot be trusted, how can you ever tell what goes on on the field has anything to do with real sport at all? And if I want to see theatre, I will go and see real theatre, thank you very much.

And it’s the advent of the one-day format that’s taken the game to the dogs. Things weren’t so bad as long as the match was played over five days. Apart from odd incidents on the field (like Lillee and Miandad threatening to have a go at each other), the game was played with honesty and commitment. But ever since ‘chaddi’ cricket made its appearance, things have gone really ugly. Today, cricket is less about bat and ball colliding, and more about rabid sledging, racist slurs, billion-dollar bets, match fixing, doping and underworld connections. One bloke was even suspected of rape! And as if all this wasn’t bad enough, now we have an Agatha Christie inspired mysterious death during a World Cup; according to latest reports, Bob Woolmer was murdered in his hotel loo, either by pissed off bookies or angry fans or astoundingly enough, the Paki players themselves. I cringe to even imagine what lies ahead.

And sadly, all of this has taken the joy out of the game. How I wish I was around when the game was first invented, English burra sahibs in crisp whites enjoying a lazy noon outing with bat and ball, as wives and mistresses sipped high tea, graciously cheering from the lush green park. Ah, would kill to live those innocent days again.

Should Amrita be generous?

In a poll conducted on Mumbai Mirror, we asked women in the city if Saif Ali Khan came knocking on ex wife Amrita Singh’s door, should she forgive and forget and accept him back into her life. (The chap’s just broken off with girl friend Rosa.) And many women were of the opinion that the estranged wife must not accept her ‘unreliable’, ‘philandering’ pati, that such a ‘cheater’ cannot and must not be trusted. The responses reminded me of Mahesh Bhatt’s autobiographical film, ‘Arth’. The betrayed wife Pooja, played by Shabana Azmi, refuses to accept her cheating husband with that all-important question: “Would you have accepted me back into your life if I was in your place?”

Now, I realise this is a complex issue with no easy answers. Also, the question of children comes into play. In Saif’s case, the actor is known to be very close to his kids, so should not Amrita, for their sake, give her husband another chance? Clearly, this is a grey zone and it’s foolish to expect pat black and white solutions.
However, here’s my own uneducated view in this matter: When I look at people around me, I see rampant cheating. And this sort of cheating happens on the hide, where the man/woman strays clandestinely, and when the affair fizzles out (most of these diversions tend to be transient in any case), they simply resume lives as if nothing happened. The people I speak of don’t necessarily see this as an issue. They have no intentions of leaving home and hearth, but also don’t see it as a sin to ‘enjoy’ that what life has on offer… the zip and excitement that’s missing in their otherwise predictable lives. As a close friend once said, “That what is not told, can do no harm.” And in our changed, very liberal times, I see this tweaked ideology of relationships becoming increasingly inevitable. Today, couples find it hard to maintain the so-called sanctity and sacredness of marriage, they have learnt to live with the truth that diversions can AND will happen. Once we accept that changed reality, perhaps the concept of marriage will survive rather than die because of reasons of infidelity.

Coming back to Saif, what Amrita chooses to do will be decided by her own sensibility. However, we have to admit unlike the rest of the zillions of cheating partners, whatever Saif did, he at least did it openly… he wasn’t having fun on the hide, while pretending to be faithful. And ironic though this may sound, this makes him, in my judgment at least, an honest man who should be sympathised with, even respected, and not crucified.

We, the pissing

So the BMC in Mumbai has decided to fine or force people to clean up all the mess they spit out on the city streets, and you can’t possibly argue that’s not a sensible move. The whole city has turned into one huge kachra bin, as we pee, spit, throw stuff out without a care. If you dare to stare at the city roads, you’ll see more red than the potholes, and that’s saying a lot. The real problem however is this: how can you fine a billion dirty cads? We people are so used to treating anything outside our own homes as a garbage bin, the entire BMC force will have to be unleashed on the roads to nab the culprits, there are just so many of us litterers. And even that won’t be enough. And I will be entirely surprised if some of the BMC staffers themselves aren’t found to be guilty too. So then what’s the practical solution? None, actually. How on earth can you change something that’s embedded inside our DNA? We Indians simply lack the particular gene that monitors civic sense, we just don’t know how to respect our city and the environment. And worse, we lack basic courtesy for fellow citizens, and this shows up in our behaviour at public places. We break queues with impunity, we never say thanks when served, we clean our noses (and scratch our balls) for all to see, we don’t even bother to cough into the damn hanky. As for the kachra, I think ‘lack of enough dustbins’ is a pathetic excuse, even when the bins are in the vicinity, we carelessly chuck rubbish on the roads. So the BMC better not waste its time keeping an eye on us. Rather, it should worry about quicker clean up systems and mechanisms, so that the damn Mithi river can suck efficiently. We do, and will always litter. We are like that only, and perhaps even proud of it.

Power goes to his head.

I have been thrown out of interview meets before, so when Maharashtra Energy mantri Shri Valse Patil short-circuited our chat, I was not entirely, to use the right word, shocked. (To read the truncated interview which appeared in the Mumbai Mirror, click here.)

All the same, it’s a shame that these people don’t want to be answerable to the people, and it’s a bigger shame that the quote-starved, subservient media, especially a large section of the electronic media, allows these bullies to get away with it.

Consider this: till just five years ago, Maharashtra had so much power at its disposal, we used to sell it to other States, and a power cut in Bombay was simply unthinkable. And just a few years down the line, many suburbs of the city have massive cuts, and other towns like Nasik and Pune and Nagpur have gone to the dogs. And it’s too embarrassing to even discuss the situation in our villages, those poor sods have forgotten what a lit bulb looks like. And you don’t need a degree in electronic science to figure that it’s complete mismanagement and inefficiency of our mantris that has brought us to this situation, they haven’t done their jobs, and we have to all suffer now.

And what pisses me off the most, is that these leaders aren’t the ones who will get hit… while I was waiting at Valse’s office for two hours, the A/C in his massive cabin was left on so that when the boss arrived, he could chill inside a cool, cool room. And the man had the gall to later gloat he has lunch in the dining room with the fans turned off! If such blokes are sitting in on our destiny, no wonder we are all collectively screwed.

But while saab was lunching, his other ‘fans’ were on in flow flow… all the idiotic journos from the TV media, sitting around like obedient disciples, and who later (the mantri himself said to me) were bitching that I was being too harsh in the interview! To begin with, you slime balls have sold your souls, you aren’t doing what the public expects out of you… to put some pressure on a mantri who’s clearly unfit for the job… and are instead pissing on someone who is at least trying.

People say the media explosion in India is a good thing, I am not sure about this. Because the explosion has left in its wake, vast debris of rubbish who I would not even think of calling journalists.

Cool Britannia

I normally don’t review restaurants, but this one was just too irresistible. After many years I dropped by at the Britannia restaurant located at Ballard Estate in South Bombay (can’t call it Mumbai on this occasion, just doesn’t work.) And was delighted to find the legendary Parsi joint is pretty much as it was a decade ago.

The walls are, as always, chipping away, the unprofessionally applied migraine-green cheap distemper on certain sections makes you want to reach out for a pill. The awning announcing the restaurant badly needs to be trashed at the nearest scrap dealer. The Irani furniture hasn’t been replaced for three generations, and air conditioning is completely out of the question (I made the fatal error of asking the proprietor if he was planning on starting an A/C room… it’s never a good idea to rile a bawa, I assure you). There is still no washroom, you have to go to an adjoining building and plead for a key to be able to pee.

And I absolutely loved to find the place in such a mess. I have never enjoyed eating out as much as I did at the hurried working-lunch meet last week. Of course, the food was as groovy as ever (Berry Pulao, Bombay Duck, Sali Chicken and the burnt-just-right Caramel Custard… all to die for since 1923, when Britannia first opened shop for the exclusive patronage of Brit officers), but my elation had more to do with the crumbling ambience.

Let me explain.

The greatest strength of Britannia is that the place is run by a, let’s just say, ‘not-very-loaded’ Parsi family. And so they have no excess funds available to modernise things, even if they wanted to. This also means they can’t afford to hire professional managers and fancy chefs, they have to run the show all by themselves. Which is what makes the place so magical. Three generations, all three men, grand dad, dad and son, man this place on their own, and this guarantees a personal touch and consistency of food and service, and as usual, they don’t let you down. The dad, Boman Kohinoor, is as passionate about the place and the food as he has been since he migrated from Iran, but if there’s any hint he isn’t too excited about the future, it’s in his ecstatic response to a question on where his son was. “That rascal you see sitting at the cashier’s desk… that’s my son.” Right. Told you I love the ambience.

It’s heartening and comforting to see granddad and dad share a quiet meal in the corner of the restaurant (see pic). It’s reassuring to find decay and degeneration of furniture and fittings. And yes, it’s great to hear the air conditioning people aren’t visiting Britannia in a hurry. More than Berry Pulao (berries still come straight from Iran), this is why I adore this place. It’s stuck in time, and if you ever want to relive all that Bombay lost when it became Mumbai, then here it is.

Boman Kohinoor, always full of good-humoured anecdotes, drops by to share a problem: “You know, some American guests dropped by the other day. And were very annoyed when they ordered Bombay Duck and found it to be a fish. I told them to get lost!”

Way to go, Sir. Keep these Americans away, Especially the McDonald’s suits who would soon arrive to buy you out. There is no way will we let Britannia shut shop. There is no way will we let Bombay die.

Please don’t spend a paisa on modernisation. Please be as unkempt and messy as you are. We love you for it.

Swadesi hero

Dunno if you read my recent interview with SRK in the Mumbai Mirror, and if you didn’t, click here.
A few friends called in to say I didn’t needle the actor enough, that I should have put some more fire and steam into the questions. And they are right. I was far easier on SRK than I have been in the many interviews I have done in my rather infamous career.

There are two reasons that happened. One, I really do like the guy, especially his tremendous sense of humour. I also know SRK dances for money at Punjabi weddings, has a capitalist ideology running in his veins, and is driven by power and materialism. Nothing necessarily wrong with all of this, especially because he doesn’t pretend to be anything otherwise.

My own affection for the actor is rooted in one film he did, the film that affected me the most, the film that, to use a bad cliché, changed my life. And it was Ashutosh Gowarikar’s ‘Swades’, in which SRK played the role of an NRI, Mohan Bhargava. The down to earth sincerity of his acting, the realism with which the movie was directed, the inspirational message it delivered… struck me like a tornado, and am still to recover from it. I have watched ‘Swades’ innumerable number of times, and yet find myself weeping right through the film. Not just because of the story and the emotions pulsating within, but because ‘Swades’ reminds me of the failure and apathy of we, the urban, rich.

That we have done sweet f-all for our people in the villages, that we don’t give a damn about their problems, that we give a rat’s arse whether they live or die. (See how easily we have forgotten all about Priyanka Bhotmange.) To most of us that is a boring India that does not even exist. That we are happy so long as we get our fat paychecks and the malls and the pubs and the theatre and the dating. Swades was a gentle reminder of what this nation can become, if we city slickers take even a little interest in our rural areas. I cannot think of a single work of fiction that has affected me that deeply.

Yup, I know, Mohan Bhargava doesn’t exist, and the movie was just another role SRK played for money, I know all this. And yet, in those hours I spent with the actor, I could not differentiate between Bhargava and Khan. And there’s no way I can ever be nasty with the former, I am too much in love with him. And maybe it’s a journalistic failure on my part that I could not separate fact from fiction.

But I am not ashamed of myself. Only once in your entire life can cinema affect an individual holistically. And Swades did that to me. So I guess I am allowed one screw-up.

The tiger isn’t extinct

In the recently concluded municipal elections in Mumbai, the Shiv Sena/BJP romped home with a majority, to the great surprise of many, including the Sena cadres. That alliance has controlled the municipality in Bombay for many years, but has nothing to show for itself but failure and mismanagement. The city’s civic amenities suck, the drains don’t, filth lies all over the city uncollected, hawkers and land grabbers are mushrooming faster than Shilpa Shetty’s media coverage, there is zero planning for this decaying city’s future, and 26/7 was a kick arse reminder that heads need to roll in the BMC.

Simple logic would indicate the Sena would get ousted. But that didn’t happen. And that is not to say the rival Congress is any better, I have yet to see a more slothful and inefficient CM in Maharashtra than Shri Deshmukh. Still, one would have thought the slightly lesser of the two evils would benefit, but even that did not happen. Nor did the exit of Raj Thackeray, Bal Thackeray’s ridiculing of the Prez, and Hema Malini’s demand that UPites go back home, made a difference.

What did make a difference was we cool doods of Mumbai ignoring the elections as we always do, but more on that later.

I think what worked was the invocation of baseless fear in the minds of the Maharashtrian community, members of which vote the most. It was Bal Thackeray’s ultimate weapon, and he used it with astounding accuracy. Just a couple of days before the polls, the ageing tiger roared, “We will never let anyone separate Mumbai from Maharashtra!” Implied within the message, of course, was a threat that if the Sena failed to win, the State would lose Mumbai. Of course, the frightened voters got carried away, not even bothering to find out if there was such a talk going around in the first place. The truth, as you all would know, is that for the last three years no one’s even mentioned such a possibility, least of all Sena’s rivals. And the rest of us gave up on the separate Mumbai dream many moons ago. Not having any achievements to crow about, Thackeray fired his emotional Brahmastra, and it hit bull’s-eye.

I guess the easy conclusion is Indian voters are emotional suckers and fools who don’t do their homework, and our netas prey on this weakness. Sure, this is true. But it is also true that not very long ago, Dubya deceived half of America, a first world nation, into believing Iraq and Saddam was behind 9/11, and the idiotic voters bought into the lie. So I guess this is no unique Indian failing. This is a built-in flaw with democracy, and there’s very little we can do to correct it, unless we adopt General Musharraf’s way of life.

We could perhaps dilute this factor by making sure we, the educated and informed, go out there to vote, but that we will not do, as we have lost faith in the electoral process. And we have better things to do on a hol like partying, malling, chilling, etc. Also, the choice of candidates on display isn’t very exciting, so that’s another great excuse to keep away. And so the vicious cycle goes on.

And frankly, I am quite worried about the future. If I was a BMC officer, I would do even lesser work than I did before, convinced that Mumbaikars will die like rats on a 26/7, but will yet vote us back in. So why bother doing anything at all.

Which is why on our glorious Republic Day just gone by, all I did was drink to glory, dry day be damned. If I have to die like a trapped rodent on the muck-clogged streets one day, why not live it up today. Democracy, on the rocks please!