South Asia Daily

KJo turns 40 and how?

A generic tuxedo and bow

Karan Johar, the preeminent confectioner of cloying convivialities and familial pieties often mistaken as movies, has turned 40. To celebrate that landmark he threw what is regarded as a benchmark bash on May 25 in that if you did not get invited your benchmark must be considered bashed.

Apparently the guests were told to show up in very formal and very chic clothes like real movie stars. Most of them were real movie stars. So many men showed up in tuxedos while women in evening gowns in Mumbai's sweltering heat probably struggling to keep their armpits dry. In the run-up to its famous monsoon season, Mumbai is unforgiving of any fabric other than cotton because cotton soaks up moisture and sags as if in deference to the weather.

Johar, who has a reputation for being a great host as well as a particularly generous producer, did not let the guests down going by the media reports. The party drew in who’s who of Hindi cinema, all smiling from ear to ear and dressed from shoulders to toes. Johar himself turned out in a tux with a Tom Ford bow tie. (How, you may ask, am I privy to all this information sitting in my basement? Well, there is that thing called broadband that streams television channels from around the world). There were some like Sanjay Dutt who defied the dress code and showed up in an impossibly comfortable white cotton pathani suit.

Just about now I am asking myself, why in the blue blazes am I writing about Karan Johar, aka KJo, and his birthday party? And that too with such familiarity? One obvious reason is that Karan Johar is a powerful keyword on the net and it draws traffic to an obscure blog like mine. Another reason is that Karan Johar is a powerful keyword on the net and it draws traffic to an obscure blog like mine. There is a third reason but you get the drift. I can guarantee that many more visitors would end up here because of KJo than the number that my post about Pakistan’s power woes brought in yesterday.

It is important for a blog like mine to mix it up in order to ensnare fickle readership by occasionally surrendering to powerful keywords such as KJo and all activities that they are involved in.

Irrespective of what I think of him, Karan Johar has embodied the quintessence of mainline Hindi cinema in the last 15 years, which incidentally is the number of years he has completed as a director and producer. I have nothing but respect for those who regularly create content unmindful of its quality and how it might be received. It may not sound like it but I do mean it as a genuine compliment. Those who consume content do not quite realize that creating it is quite demanding. Its quality comes into question only because it was created in the first place.

I say this as a purely factual statement shorn of any implied slight or smugness but I have seen only a total of 30 minutes of Johar’s two movies ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham’ and ‘Kal Ho Na Ho.*’ But those were enough for me to characterize them as cloying convivialities and familial pieties.Much more important than what I think of Johar’s movies, is the fact that he continues to make them with admirable commitment. From what I have heard of KJo on KJo, he has a healthy and self-deprecating humor about himself, which is always a plus for me.

He has also established himself and his movie production company Dharma as one of Hindi film industry’s most sought after names. All of that has to demand some measure of talent and a great deal of work. It is for that I applaud someone like Karan Johar. Watching his movies is another matter altogether. It is an acquired taste which I have happily failed to acquire.

* Written by him but directed by Nikhil Advani

A boring post about Pakistan’s power woes

Here is a statistical comparison you are unlikely to hear about Pakistan from the think tank types in Washington D.C. who come up with complex geostrategic formulations.

According to the data maintained by the state-run Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO), the shortfall in the country’s power generation has increased from 3500 megawatt (MW) on May 1, 2012, to 6,000 MW on May 23. What this means is that Pakistan produced nearly 36 percent less electricity than the 16,814MW it generates, which in turn means power outages reaching up to 20 hours a day.

During May, the worst day was May 8 when the shortfall reached 6700MW, which is nearly 40 percent of its total national generation. I chanced upon the story courtesy the IANS wire which quoted The News newspaper of Pakistan. A quick study of official figures published by PEPCO on its site tells the story of a nation that ought to scale down its geostrategic delusions and concentrate on basic needs.

As an aside, power outages are quaintly called “load shedding” in South Asia which makes it sound something positive as in losing weight. Come to think of it load shedding causes one to sweat more and hence lose weight.

When its major cities such as Lahore face up to 14 hours of “load shedding” and rural Pakistan up to 20 hours one has to conclude that it would serve the people of Pakistan much better if the government focused more on power generation than power assertion.

Here is an idea how Pakistan can justify its demand for a 20-fold increase in allowing every NATO truck to transit through its border with Afghanistan. It can say that the resources generated thus would be pumped into creating more electricity for its population. More electricity means greater comforts for its ordinary citizens. Greater comforts mean less angry people. Less angry people mean they are less angry generally about everything, including America. Problem solved.

My facetiousness aside, I think there is an obvious case to be made in favor creating enough electricity in Pakistan so that its economy can pick up pace and in turn create opportunities for education, health, clean water and entrepreneurship.

I am not for a moment suggesting that the power situation in India is any significantly better. Load shedding during the peak summer months from April to June is equally rampant in India. According to one estimate, some 300 million Indians have no access to electricity at all. That number is out of a total 1.4 billion people around the world without access to electricity. That means nearly two Pakistans inside India have no electricity. That is bound to be one angry lot.

It is not too far-fetched to extrapolate the growth of a profoundly disaffected populace from national failure to provide basic facilities such as electricity. Of course, a fully electrified and served Pakistan is also no guarantee against its inherent antipathies towards America. But I would venture that when the sun is baking Pakistani flatlands at 110 degree F. it might be helpful to have fans whirring and water flowing to keep the ordinary people relatively reassured about their lives.

‘I truly live my life only when I write’: Shireesh Kanekar

Writer, journalist and standup comic Shireesh Kanekar during one of his shows in the United States (Pic: MC)

Given a choice Shireesh Kanekar would describe himself as a writer first, a standup comic next and a journalist last. He has been all three for the better part of the last nearly four decades.

Writing is something that he revels in, comedy is something that he makes others revel in and journalism is something that he hopes no one revels in. With 38 books in Marathi, more than 3000 standup shows of his four distinctly different routines and a few thousand daily and weekly columns, Kanekar has been astonishingly prolific.

It is a measure of the 69-year-old writer’s success that he has become a genre of writing in Marathi known as the “Kanekar style” which many younger writers and columnists imitate and emulate, mostly without knowing it and always without acknowledging it. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but I also want to be paid for it,” is how he once described it to me.

Shireesh’s books are predominantly drawn from newspaper writings known for their incisive and humorous perspective on popular culture, including Hindi cinema, Hindi cinema music and cricket. His admirers believe that given his brilliant storytelling skills and captivating literary style he could have transitioned into a great novelist. He has, however, chosen to remain a satirist because that gives him the license to hold forth on anything and everything.

A list of Shireesh’s works can be found here but it has not been updated with his last five books.

A resident of Mumbai’s Shivaji Park neighborhood, Shireesh says although he has many friends, he has always preferred his own personal shell where he can do back and forth with himself. “I like to believe that I cover all sides of an argument myself and hence do not need a second opinion,” he says.

I have known Shireesh for over a quarter century and regard him as one of my closest friends who expects no explanation and to whom none is offered.

Here is a short interview with him, if only to introduce him to those who do not speak or read his language.  He gave up English journalism quite sometime ago because, “It is like pursuing a woman who plays so hard to get. Marathi, on the other hand, courts me.” Some day I will write a bigger piece about him.

Q: First explain what it takes to be so prolific. I think those who do not write for a living do not recognize how hard it is to produce so consistently.

A: I am grateful to you for showing keen interest in my writing world. There seems to be someone other than me to be impressed with my penmanship. We are in a micro-minority. I have entered into a secret pact with myself that I'll continue to write till I drop dead or am physically incapacitated because I realized some years back that I truly live my life only when I write. I am delirious. Nothing else matters. I do not show my writing to anybody before or after it is published. Arrogant as it may sound, nobody's opinion really matters to me. Everybody is welcome to react the way he or she wants but that does not mean that I should take a serious note of it. When Oscar Wilde was asked by his publisher to make certain changes in his manuscript, Wilde said, "How can I improve upon a masterpiece?"

Q: Does it frustrate you that since you write in a language that is not English it makes it economically unviable to survive on it?

A: Surviving on writing in a language other than English in India is nearly impossible. But I am proud to say that I did it for good number of years. I am to the best of my knowledge the highest paid Marathi columnist. It has taken years of sweat and toil to reach this position. The credit for my writing style, which majority of readers find young and fresh despite having written for 38 years without a break, goes to the Almighty.

Q: Your writing is almost entirely based on your rather unusual perspective, point of view, and assessment of life. At what point did you consciously know that that would be your genre of writing?

A: I don't think I have made any conscious efforts to write the way I do. That's me. My admirers fondly refer to my writings as 'Kanekar style.' I don't exactly know what it means. I write what comes naturally to me. No posing, no literary acrobatics. If the readers like my writings, I like to believe that they like me. It is a soothing feeling especially for someone who has lived a loveless life.

Q: How do you think critics treat your writing?

A: I don't think that critics have taken note of my writing and its impact on the readers. That, I believe, happens to most of the humorous writers all over the globe. P.G. Wodehouse is not mentioned in the same breath as Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Earnest Hemingway and many more.

Q: Do you feel that people tend to consider satirical or witty writing not literary enough?

A: Humor takes a back seat when it comes to literary classics. Humor is always regarded as an escape from the tragedies of life. Sad but true. But still I believe that I don't have the recognition that I deserve which is not to be confused with my following and popularity. I have authored 38 books so far. By itself, I concede, the number does not place me on a high pedestal.

Q: A lot of your books are compilations of your newspaper writings. Do you expand those writings for the book format or they are mostly as were?

A: While compiling articles to make a book I do not make any changes. One, I am too lazy for that. Two, I do not see scope for improvement.

Q: There is a general belief among your readers that there are several novels sitting in you. How come you have not chosen to write them?

A: I don't think that I am cut out for novels. The canvass is too big for my comfort. Once (the preeminent Marathi writer and satirist) Pu. La. Deshpande was asked why he did not try his hand at writing novels. He said: "How would I remember the name of a character which I wrote two hundred pages back?" There is more humor than fact in his reply. Each writer has his own field. A novelist is not a poet and a short story writer is not an essayist, unless he is supremely endowed.

Q: Would you find yourself more comfortable as a short story writer or as a regular novelist?

A: Yes, I secretly believe that I would make a successful short story writer. I have that stuff in me. But mentally I am not in a frame of mind where I can jump into a new field. Your health, physical and mental surroundings and many other factors take decisions on your behalf. At 69 one develops that laidback attitude.

Q: You also have a very successful career as a standup comic, more like an observational humorist. Is there an overlap between the writer and the comic?

A: My writing and my standup comedy are two separate things. Wit, which is a part of me whether I am writing, performing or talking in general, is bound to be a common factor. What is humor? It is a way of life, your perspective on things.

Q: How would you describe the state of Marathi popular literature? And how would you describe your position in that?

A: The popular literature today is not as popular as it used to be in yesteryears. The convent educated Marathi boys and girls don't read Marathi literature at all. Mostly those above fifty read. They constitute the major chunk of our readership .I am very well known. In fact, those who run Marathi Mandals in America have read me and hence know me. So I get shows. My standing in literature has helped me get shows. I am a writer first and everything else comes second.

‘Wait, O sugar candy, Our affair is on the roll now’

(The video quality is poor but the audio is fine)

Songs that embody the romantic absurdity of Hindi cinema must be in several thousands and it makes zero sense to choose just one as the quintessential representative of that genre. And precisely because it makes no sense, I am going to do it.

Prophets hear divine instruction in serene solitude. I hear these songs. It is not that different.

This particular one from the 1970 movie’ Sawan Bhadon’ (which are the months for the monsoon rains) was produced and directed by Mohan Sehgal. It introduced actors Rekha and Navin Nischol.

Nischol, a generally talented performer who did many forgettable roles, died last year, while Rekha went on to become one of the biggest names of Hindi cinema. She is often described with unintended hilarity by entertainment writers an “enigmatic diva.” Some have even called her the “Greta Garbo” of India. Neither means anything.

In an appointment that underscores her standing, Rekha was recently nominated to the Rajya Sabha or the upper house of Indian parliament.

The song was composed by Sonik Omi and written by Verma Malik. I am deliberately using the English subtitles embedded in the clip because they are are a source of so much mirth for me. I could not tell you with any certainty whether this is the officially sanctioned translation of the song but that would not have made any material difference to its intrinsic sentiment and phraseology.

It is my dream to have the subtitles performed by William Shatner and Angelina Jolie.

My random access memory picked this song from the obscure recesses of my brain early Wednesday morning. It is delightfully corny and panders to my lowbrow tastes and comprehension of the human experience.

Here is a lovelorn young man (Nischol) setting up a trap for his woman (Rekha) in a field. As soon as she walks into the lasso rope, he pulls it and she playfully obliges to be dragged by him. How is that for romantic absurdity?

Throughout the four minutes of the song, the two actors are thrown into what can only be described as hurtfully playful situations. At one point their legs get entangled. The basic premise of the song is that he wants her and says so with unrestrained ardor and she also wants him but rejects him with lovely contempt. That, by the way, is the method of most love songs.

I have translated only one line because it was missed out in the subtitles. My line refers to ‘Aya hai bada chhaila dildar rasiya’ (Oh, the flamboyant romantic is here). It is not my case that the original Hindi lines sound less corny but they at least fit the realm unlike the English translation which is pure comedy gold. It tickles me no end to hear the man reiterate throughout the song that “Our affair in on the roll now.”

My two most favorite lines are “Wait, O sugar candy, Our affair is on the roll now” and “O amateur hunter, your cunning won’t fool me.”

Another potentially great pickup line would be “Dil apna kisiko to dogi, Hum kya burey hein?” (You will fall in love with someone, Am I that unworthy?). I like the unfounded optimism of it as well as its low benchmarking.

So here it is ‘Sun sun sun o gulabi kali.’

Man:

Listen O’ beautiful bloom

Our affairs is on the roll now

Don’t stay away from me after stealing my heart

Woman:

Get lost

My lover indeed!

(Oh, the flamboyant romantic is here!)

Don’t dare come close

Man:

Hide me in your dreams

Spare time for me treating me as a dear one

I am your lover

Woman:

Yuck

Man:

You are my love

Woman:

Get lost

Man:

Don’t go away after capturing my heart

Wait, O sugar candy

Our affair is on the roll now

Woman:

You roam the streets wearing your heart on your sleeve

Like a Romeo

You sigh looking at girls bringing trouble for yourself

O amateur hunter, your cunning won’t fool me

Man:

I ask for your address on every street

Our affair in on the roll now

Man:

You will give your heart to someone, then why not me?

Woman:

I will give it to who I fancy, there are many around

Man:

This is my address

Woman:

Take to your heels, Don’t forget me after you leave

Man:

Where will you go, O maiden (he actually calls her virginal bud)

Our affair is on the roll now

 

The song ends with woman saying again:

(Oh, the flamboyant romantic is here)

Don’t dare come close

 

We can tell that she means precisely the opposite.

Monkeys and foreign currency reserves

Monkey by Mayank

The Indian economy has nothing serious to worry about because a) Its foreign currency reserves as of May 11, remain at a healthy $291.8 billion dollars, according to the Reserve Bank of India and b) Its simian reserves remain healthy enough for monkeys, both the rhesus and the langur, to have practically overrun the streets of Delhi, according to The New York Times.

Give me a moment or two as I establish a connection between a) and b). But before I do that a note for those who may not know it. Doing a quirky feature about the monkey menace in India’s capital is like the required rite of passage for all foreign correspondents. I am told the Indian government has the provision under which it can revoke a foreign correspondent’s visa if he or she does not write at least one monkey story during their posting in Delhi. Now that the Times’ new correspondent Gardiner Harris has successfully dealt with that rite of passage he can get on with the more serious reporting on cows jamming traffic.

Coming back to the growing concern about the falling rupee, foreign currency reserves and simian population, there is some precedent to this. It was exactly two decades ago that India was in the midst of its worst foreign currency reserves crisis. It was sometime in 1991-92 timeframe that India realized that it barely had enough dollars to pay for about two weeks of imports.

Among the measures put in place to shore up the reserves was the export of rhesus monkeys to the West for medical research. There was considerable controversy among animal rights and environmental groups about this decision. The former were worried about the cruelty that such research invariably entails and the latter about it upsetting the ecological balance.

Two decades hence, we know that the rhesus population is going strong and so are the country’s foreign currency reserves. That means the Indian economy is generally doing well. I don’t think any serious economics professor would have the courage to teach this theory. The point is if India ever confronts the kind of crisis it did back then, it can always start aggressively exporting the aggressive population of rhesus monkeys.

Some of you might know that monkeys are worshipped in India as representatives of the monkey god Hanuman. I remember some residents of Delhi rationalizing the export of rhesus monkeys in the early 1990s as Hanuman’s progenies doing the ultimate sacrifice to save India’s honor. In the Ramayan, it is Hanuman and an entire army of apes and monkeys that help save Ram’s kingdom against Ravan. So there, I proved it. Problem solved.

A note of caution: My tongue has remained firmly in my cheek while writing this post.

P.S.: After writing the post I got the following via an unimpeachable source:

Sneakiness and “model minority”

This illustration is supposed to show secrets being shared

Two cases at the extreme ends of the spectrum of crime throw a rather lurid light on the Indian American community, frequently hailed as a “model minority” for its generally impeccable conduct.

One involves Dharun Ravi, a barely 20-year-old Rutgers University student who webcammed his roommate’s gay encounter, and the other Rajat Gupta, a 63-year-old hugely successful businessman and banker accused of leaking insider information to a predatory trader.

The purpose of bringing together these two completely unconnected cases, other than the fact that their protagonists share their ethnicity as Indians, is to simply point out that they are both about a certain kind of sneakiness. Gupta’s trial has just begun in New York and until a verdict is delivered he is nothing more than an accused in an insider trading case. Ravi, of course, has been convicted and is facing a 30-day sentence and 300 hours of community service as well as a lifelong blot on his record.

Insider trading tends to be furtive and sneaky because it involves leaking privileged information with the purposes of making pecuniary gains using knowledge that others do not have.Gupta is accused of informing the trader Raj Rajaratnam about Warren Buffet’s decision to invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs within 60 seconds of the former having learned about it during an emergency call. The banker faces 14 counts of insider trading. Rajaratnam has already been sentenced to 11 years in prison and fined $92.8 million in the same case.

In both cases, the protagonists had no prior record and, in fact, were very much the kind of people who would be held up as examples of the “model minority”. Gupta’s attorneys are strenuously pointing out in court how stellar their client’s reputation has always been. Their basic contention seems to be that a man who led a life of great probity and worked for larger public good had no incentive to act in the manner he has been accused of by federal prosecutors. In short, they are denying that anything sneaky ever happened.

In Ravi’s case, there has been no denial that the sneaky did happen except that its motive was not hate or bias intimidation.

Purely objectively, irrespective of the verdicts the two cases do represent a wide variety of wrongdoing any “model minority” can fall prey to. From bias intimidation that Ravi was accused of to insider trading that Gupta faces, it is quite a range.

It is instructive that while the Gupta trial is going on, news comes of federal regulators wanting to investigate whether analysts at Morgan Stanley and elsewhere advised some of their preferred clients to go easy on the upcoming Facebook initial public offering (IPO) because they knew the company might not have strong second-quarter revenue. This falls within the realm of privileged information that cannot be shared selectively, something which may have happened. Morgan Stanley has denied this happened.

If privileged information was indeed shared, it is extraordinary that this continues to happen in the world of high finance even as a major trial for something similar is going on in that very city.

A full-blown snub or partial ticking-off?

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, left, with Pakistan’s President Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari (Official NATO photo)

One can debate whether it was a full-blown snub or just a partial ticking-off but Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari ought to have felt hot under his collar at the way he was treated by US President Barack Obama here in Chicago.

Short of asking him “Must you be here?” Obama did everything within the bounds of diplomatic decorum that Zardari should have interpreted as, “Must you be here?”

Since this is just a blog, and hence not governed by the severe journalistic standards I practice in my professional writing elsewhere, I am going to draw a deliberately exaggerated comparison to describe the way Zardari was treated. Bless the blogs for they let you be blessedly direct.

In the mid 1980s I happened to be on the set of a Hindi movie where the director was shooting a dinner scene. There was a lavish spread of food and beverages. Being a party situation, there was a large number of extras milling about with empty plates and glasses. As the camera was about to roll, the man in charge of coordinating the extras, who is often a retired extra himself, gave one last minute instruction, which was utterly shorn of nuance and therefore very effective: “Khana khaneka nahi. Sirf dekhne ka.” (Don’t eat the food. Just look at it).

Zardari’s plight at the just concluded NATO summit was not that different from the extras. Obama did not try to hide his displeasure as was evident in at least two distinct ways. One was that the US president did not meet Zardari one on one citing the shortness of time.

The other was during the session at the NATO summit for public thanks when Obama pointedly left out Pakistan from the list of countries helping the mission in Afghanistan.

"I want to welcome the presence of President Karzai, as well as officials from central Asia and Russia — nations that have an important perspective and that continue to provide critical transit for ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) supplies," Obama said.

To ensure that his displeasure with Pakistan and Zardari was fully registered by all concerned Obama even said that he did not want to “paper over the real challenges.” Obama also rubbed it in that he had a "very brief” exchange with Zardari, “as we were walking into the summit."

All this makes me wonder whether the whole purpose of inviting Zardari was to pointedly ignore him. I am not privy to what might have transpired between the two leaderships behind-the-scenes but it is clear that the US president was unusually bent on showing his displeasure. To be fair, Zardari was invited by the NATO leadership but that would be splitting hairs because nothing happens in the NATO without the US approving it first.

I find it baffling that the president of a strategically decisive state is extended a last minute invitation and when he accepts and attends he is all but asked to stand in a corner. In an interview with CNN, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai described the interaction between him, Obama and Zardari as "three-way photograph taking...just a photo opportunity." This “three-way photograph taking” had to be among the more awkward ménage à trois images in the history of diplomacy.

While I am on the subject let me repeat something I have been saying for a long time. Being afforded a personal meeting with the US president on the sidelines of a summit has become some sort of a defining benchmark for any head of state to judge his or her own importance.As a result, not being granted one becomes, by implication, a snub if you believe in this sort of non-sense. It is time to stop projecting such personal meetings as a gesture of near divine munificence. We all live in a world where everyone needs everyone else, some more so than the others but still let’s not make it into a measuring rod.

It is difficult to predict how Zardari’s less than amiable visit to Chicago would go down when he reaches home but it is safe to say that it will not make many particularly proud. On this side of the divide Obama could not be unaware of the potential risks of stepping on Zardari’s already sore toes.

Now transport fees threaten to upend US-Pakistan ties

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari (left) with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Chicago on Sunday (Pic: http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk)

The following comment appeared worldwide on the IANS wire.

By Mayank Chhaya

Chicago, May 21 (IANS) After all the assertions of their deep existential and strategic interests in Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan are squabbling over how much to charge for every truck carrying supplies across the latter's border.

Although the figures vary, there is a general media consensus that while Washington is offering no more than $250 a truck, Islamabad is reportedly asking for as high as $5000. The first day of the summit here of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries witnessed the sorry spectacle of the relations between two most crucial players in the future of Afghanistan being upended by transport charges.

The idea that one of the world's great strategic balancing acts can be complicated by something so trivial underscores the inherent failure of the way all concerned have handled it. Pakistan has broken off the crucial supply lines to Afghanistan since November last year when US airstrikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The decision to choke the supplies capped off nearly six months of profound embarrassment that Pakistan experienced after Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed by American special forces practically in Islamabad's backyard in May last year.

The NATO summit here, whose predominant focus has been in Afghanistan, was seen by many as an opportunity to mend US-Pakistan relations. As a gesture of that goodwill Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari was invited to attend along with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai practically at the last moment. The expectation within the Obama administration as well as the NATO leadership was that Pakistan would, at the very least, make the announcement that it would resume the supplies within days.

However, what was probably not factored in as something that could spoil the calculations for the NATO in general and the US in particular were truck transport charges, which can potentially accrue rich financial rewards for a cash-strapped Pakistan. Reopening the supply lines is very crucial for the overall effectiveness of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which also includes NATO members, comprising a total of 129,469 troops.
America has 90,000 troops on the ground, nearly ten times the second biggest contributor, Britain with 9,500. Fifty countries are part of the ISAF-NATO alliance present in Afghanistan, at least ten of whom have contributed less than 50 troops each.

Pakistan sees an opportunity to reclaim some of the prestige it lost in the aftermath of the Bin Laden killing by driving a hard bargain on the truck charges. It is a measure of how much nuts and bolts bilateral diplomacy can become that Pakistan has even pointed out the wear and tear the truck traffic could cause on its road infrastructure. It is an extraordinary example of roadside haggling over what both claim to be a matter of grave national security.

With Pakistan not obliging, the US and the partners have to route its supplies via a much longer and more expensive way using Baltic and Caspian ports going through Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus which costs them 21 times the Pakistan route, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It is not clear what Zardari stands to gain by accepting the invitation when there are perceptions that Pakistan has been isolated at the summit. As an apparent consequence of no commitment to resume supplies forthcoming from Pakistan, Zardari was studiedly deprived a one-on-one meeting with President Barack Obama. He had to be content meeting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It is somewhat akin to being called for a wedding but not asked to stay on for the dinner. That said, Islamabad could not have sat the summit out because Afghanistan has a direct economic, strategic and national security impact on it. Zardari had to be here once he was invited, even if it meant him shuffling his feet inside his hotel room.

It is possible that the second and last day of the summit on Monday might yet see some movement forward on the issue of supply lines but even if it is resolved it is bound leave a deep scar on the already fractious relationship between the two countries. Eventually, even the US and the allies might have to approach it from the standpoint which of the two options is cheaper even after paying Pakistan more than what it was being paid before the disruption. Keeping the Pakistan route open is also important as the US begins to gradually withdraw its troops and equipment later this year.

On a related note, although Karzai and Afghanistan are central to the issue, the impression at the summit was that he was a child bystander watching from the sidelines as the two adults slugged it out. However, as a less than subtle rebuke to Zardari, Obama did meet Karzai one on one. The difference in treatment of the two neighbors was also necessitated by the fact Afghanistan is already in the midst of what has been officially called 'Inteqal', the Dari and Pashtu for transition under which security is being increasingly led by Afghan forces.

According to a NATO backgrounder 75 percent of the Afghan population will soon live in areas whose security is overseen by Afghan-led security forces. Next year the whole country is expected to be under Inteqal.

For India, the NATO is important by implication in so much as it determines the future role of Pakistan in a region which is strategically decisive for South Asia.

--Indo-Asian News Service

No, I do not rip a heart or a coupon out when hungry

The boring inevitability of running into Americans who have some story to share about Hindi movies and their stars notwithstanding, I have to share this one I heard yesterday.

After picking up my media credentials for the NATO summit in Chicago, I took a media shuttle to the McCormick Place to check out the media center. (Too much media here, I know). As we waited for a few more journalists to board, John Aranza, the bus driver started chatting with me. For some inexplicable reason he had Steven Spielberg’s 1984 movie ‘Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom’ on his mind, particularly the scene where the great Indian actor Amrish Puri rips the heart out of a man.

John said he once drove a young Indian woman who said she was a niece of Puri’s. Incidentally, this particular media shuttle was actually a Chicago trolley of the kind that tourists can hop on and off of.

He then asked me rather gingerly if ripping the human heart out had any cultural significance or any basis in truth. I could tell that he did not for a second mean to imply that he thought it did but he just wanted to be sure. I responded in obvious jest saying, “India, in reality, is wilder than that. When people cannot find any other food, they do rip hearts out of fellow Indians in emergencies.”

Much uncomfortable mirth followed my humor, enough to make the security detail who was accompanying the bus laugh as well. So, so like that. This is about all the NATO summit reporting I will do here.

***

Speaking of Indians ripping hearts out when hungry, I have received this coupon offering from McDonald’s as part of their ethnic target marketing. I know this is not a particularly edifying segue, from a blood soaked heart to ‘Cherry Berry Chiller’, but I had to get it in. At least the scene is a chiller and so is the drink.

There are many presumptions in this offer. McDonald’s first presumes that I am human, then that I am from India, followed by that I speak Hinglish (Hindi and English mix), that I rip a coupon out when hungry and right behind it that I go to McDonald’s and order chillers. Unfortunately,most of their presumptions, except going to McDonald’s on my own with a coupon, are accurate.

“Pehle hi sip me Pyaar ka ehsaas’ (Love at first sip), the offer says in striking pink letters whose font I am not able to crack. It also says on the side, “Pesh hai cool, new Juicy drink….natural flavors ke saath. Isme hai blended ice ke saath cheery or raspberry ki natural sweetness.” (Presenting cool, new juicy drink..with natural flavors. It blends ice with the natural sweetness of cherry and raspberry.)

They figured that being a bargain-hunting cheapskate Indian American, which I am most assertively not (I would have no shame in admitting if I were), I would be happy to receive the coupon that saves me a full buck. Also, that I speak fractured English mixed with Hindi because I am from the stratum of society that is not just semi-literate but also hard up. (I am just messing with them. I am merely amused by this). Curiously, the coupon was sent from Church St. Station, New York.

P.S.: Just think about the sheer range of this post, from the NATO (serious) to Indiana Jones (silly) to Cherry Berry Chiller (stupid).

Migraine and gravitational waves

This is what an intense migraine attack feels like (Illustration: MC)

Migraine remains the only mistress who has pursued me with undiminished enthusiasm for over three decades. Like all mistresses, she needs no invitation. She just shows up and plants herself firmly inside my head. She arrived early yesterday morning and plans to spend the weekend with me.

Over the years I have run out of ways to describe migraine headaches in terms other than pain. Calling them a mistress was among the last metaphors I had left. I am using it up today. Like any great mistress, migraine has only rights and no responsibilities or social graces. Migraine neither needs explanation for its arrival nor permission to enter. She is proprietorial and has a great sense of entitlement. And she does not leave because you want her to but she does and when she does.

That said, I am beginning to think that migraine has extraterrestrial origin. It is not an earthly ailment. I am not even sure if it is an ailment. The paralyzing pain that results from its arrival seems more like the human brain’s way of coping with it rather than something intentional on migraine’s part. Think of migraine as some sort of gravitational waves emanating from a distant galaxy and randomly passing through our planetary system and millions of human heads like mine. If this sounds like an unstable mind talking, bear in mind that I am bobbing up and down in gravitational waves. At least I am offering a creative explanation for what is truly debilitating pain.

There is enough evidence to suggest that my migraines usually begin around 3 in the morning. That may help me determine whether that is the time when these waves are passing through our neighborhood. I could have checked with Albert Einstein who predicted gravitational waves but it’s a bit late for that.

After over three decades of suffering, I can tell you that there is absolutely no cure for migraines. Painkillers work less and less over the years. It helps to remember that migraines have to be utterly vanquished. Do not be content with minimizing the pain because migraines are capable of exploding into full-blown attacks even from a little remnant. So they have to be completely obliterated.

***

In this speculative condition, the only other subject I am fit to talk about today is the performance of the Facebook stock on day one. Hyper media types as well as day traders seem to have gone into overdrive wondering whether FB is overrated. A couple of points about that.

First, it was the first day of trading and for that it has done reasonably well just holding its ground, even if it meant the reports that it was artificially propped up by underwriters. The whole system of the stock markets worldwide survives on someone artificially propping it up for their own interest. So no surprise there.

From its base price of $38, it rose to a peak of $43 and then eventually settled at $38.23 at closing. Some are already declaring FB as a flop. My gut tells me that, although one may feel deceived by the hype, FB will probably trade well over an extended period.This is from someone who has never invested in stocks.

Another point to remember is that FB will be tied to a whole vast ecology of businesses because it is a platform for various things. What Mark Zuckerberg is basically selling is FB’s 900 million plus members and their ability to buy many things many times but not when stock brokers want them to. As the third most populous entity behind China and India, the Republic of Facebook ought to have some intrinsic economic value. Let’s find out if it is true and how much. It could not have been decided in the first 30 seconds of trading as some frenzied day traders and media pundits would have liked.